09 May 2009

My Streak

This week there was some talk of streaks in baseball. The Milwaukee Brewers have won their last 17 regular season games against the Pittsburgh Pirates. The record for one team defeating another is 23 back in 1969-1970 when the Baltimore Orioles beat upon the Kansas City Royals.

As of last night, I've been to 7 baseball games at Miller Park this year; 6 Brewers games and 1 Timber Rattlers minor league game. All 7 have been victories for the home team. While I don't exactly recall the timing of last season and which games I attended, I do remember that the Brewers won the last game I attended last season, so I've got at least an 8 game winning streak going at Miller Park right now. Baseball fans being what they are I'm sure there's a site somewhere that tracks fan records as well.

I wonder how I'm doing. Is 8 good? Barely average?

I shouldn't be this curious about it. It'll likely lead to far too much websearching. I've got enough to do, like getting ready to attend Wednesday's game.

08 May 2009

Picture Time

Spent some time today reading a 'conversation' online about taking photographs at theme parks. Felt like a bit of a jag while reading it. You see, I've only been to Disney and Universal the once and I only had my camera phone to take pictures with so there was no flash. As a result, I had no temptation to take pictures in the darker areas. I had friends that did. The conversation focused on how it was bad and impolite to take pictures in those areas with flashes. Doh.

On the up side, the conversation provided some detail on how to take decent pictures in the darker areas. We can blow off the mistakes we made as being dumb tourists and try to move forward. That said, I dunno how to adjust the camera I borrowed from my folks to do this sort of thing. I bummed it from them in part for the upgrade in quality (2mp to 5mp) but also for the flash quality. It brightens the Museum pictures I've been taking.

That said, I'm not thrilled with all the 'brightened' pictures I've been taking. I was warned about that and it turned out to be true. Many of them display detail but they don't look like what I see. The same was true of many of the pictures they took at Disney. You got pictures but they didn't look like what our eyes saw.

So now I need a camera I can adjust and fiddle with to some degree. I can practice at the Museum and use that later at the parks.

I might be better picture educated that Peter Parker. That would be cool.

07 May 2009

A Few Thoughts on Comics from this week

Marvel Adventures - The Avengers #35 - The ladies in the Avengers (Giant Girl, Storm, and Tigra) are away so the guy Avengers (Spider-Man, Luke Cage, Captain America, Wolverine, and Hawkeye in this issue) act like bachelors: eating silly, not cleaning up after themselves, and playing football indoors. Hawkeye has an awards ceremony to attend and decides he'll look like a loser without a date. With the gals gone, he signs up for an online dating company, lazily uploading his personal data from his Avengers Communicator. Unfortunately, he uploads the entire contents of his Communicator, including the data on his teammates and their headquarters. Oops. Soon the male Avengers are overrun by women, super-powered and not, looking for dates. They have to personally apply to have their information removed from the site, only to find that it's run by Batroc the Leaper, in a totally legitimate venture, and he loves the attention that having the Avengers on his site is getting. Can they talk him into fixing this?

I like the art in these books. The writing is good-naturedly silly, with some lines being laugh-out-loud funny ('Because I'm Captain America and I know when someone looks guilty.' 'These ideas are lame! We always blame the Hulk!'). There's no continuity to get hung up onto. They're light, fun stories, fun for kids and adults. I've gotten some of the Spider-Man and Fantastic Four issues in this line before and they were similarly enjoyable.

Tired of dark storylines? Tired of 'too many' comics? Been out of comics for awhile and keen to see characters you remember from the last time you read? Start with the Marvel Adventures line. This is good stuff.

06 May 2009

Creepy Moment

Was once again at the Milwaukee Public Museum today. I went with my folks for the Titanic exhibit (finally survived!) and we took in some more of the general establishment as well.

Once we got to the Third Planet exhibit, I scouted ahead in order to get some more footage of the T-Rex diorama at the heart of the exhibit. There were other people in there but I was alone in that I wasn't with any of them. I headed for the balcony to get an angle on the scene that I had in my head. On the left side of the diorama (as you face it), there's a landing in the stairwell up to the balcony. As I watched the lighting change, it occurred to me that this landing would be a good angle to shoot from as it would let me see behind the T-Rex better. I headed there.

It creeped me out to do so.

Suddenly upon reaching the area, I felt nervous. Part of it was that I suddenly felt a bit 'inside' the exhibit and that felt wrong. I think the rest was that I was now very close to the T-Rex's tail and that didn't seem right either. As the room cycled, the lightning crash as right by my head. That was a bit odd as well.

I hung in there, overriding my stupid nerves, and I think I got some nice footage. I found some details that I may not have seen in ages, if ever before. It was worth it.

I'm totally expecting to have that 'falling in the exhibit' dream I had after first seeing the exhibit when I was about twelve. I'm not really looking forward to that.

05 May 2009

Returning to Speed

Was without Internet for a day. It sucked.

Amongst wrestling fans, the term 'retirement' is generally considered worthless. It means a rest, not an ending. Storylines will revolve around 'retirement' matches and how the 'retired' wrestler will be returned to active duty later on in an acceptable manner. Non wrestling fans mock 'retirement' even more, often noting it as a reason that wrestling is stupid or 'fake'.

Of wrestlers that have 'retired', many fans will point to Terry Funk as the king of 'retiring'. He had matches that were referred to as 'retirement' matches in three different decades, dating back to about 1980. In Terry's defense, in his book he notes that he never claimed those matches were 'retirement' matches, promoters will say things, and he never 'retired', at least not that often. For the sake of the argument, we'll say he's retired three times, once in each of the last three decades.

When did Brett Favre become Terry Funk? I'm crying and retired, I'm unretired but only for a year, and now I might be done again but not. Even stranger, wrestlers tend to retire as good guys, with the crowd saluting their years of hard work, no matter what kind of character they may have playing during most of their career. Brett Favre has slowly been turning 'heel' in the past few years, taking care of number one in the most over-the-top crazy manner.

Really Brett? Really? If you want a flaming branding iron, just say so and we'll get you one. Just stay home dude before you get booed out of everywhere.

03 May 2009

Tired

Today was warmer. Got lots of sun. Am red but not as red as some people I was there with today.

I'm 6-0 at Miller Park so far this year. I still think they should give me a job as a 'good luck charm' fan. I dunno what it should pay but watching all that baseball would be interesting.