Todd, Travis and I embarked on our biennial journey to PNC Park for a Pirates game last month. It's always fun to dig into our collective 80's baseball memory during the car ride, no matter how many inaccuracies we find later on baseball-reference.com.

Once again the guys were kind enough to settle on a Pirates/Braves tilt and this year the Braves actually pulled out a W for me. Chuck James took a no-no into the 6th and Scott Thorman highlighted the offensive attack with a shot over that short-porch in right. Chipper Jones led the team in signatures as he began an untimely stint on the DL.

The Bucs first of many mistakes was benching Ronny Paulino on Ronny Paulino bobblehead night. Their 2nd mistake was rolling out the Ace of Diamonds to make what would be his second-to-last start of the season (career?). Base-running mistakes, fielding errors and the general hilarity of Jason Bay navigating left ensued.

I slapped some of my photos from the game behind the artwork of the 1985 Topps baseball card design because, well, I can get bored. Interestingly enough, when researching the dimensions of baseball cards, I discovered a shout-out to York, PA on Wikipedia's baseball cards entry... something about York Caramel producing cards in 1927. Point #1: Not a bad year to have a Yankees team set, eh? Point #2: York... it's a baseball town!

Labels: baseball, research, road-trips

"I don't know what the hell is going on," Shakir says. "It's crazy."

Following my week-long search for some basic NBA-wear, I must admit that the same sentiment crossed my mind.

What had me puzzled? The white tee, and it's prevalence at the various athletic apparel shops I visited, most notoriously the Foot Locker at the West Manchester Mall. Picture the entire center section of the Foot Locker store covered by 4 gigantic shelving units holding nothing but plain tee shirts, half of which were plain white tee shirts! And their sales-zebras still had the nerve to dress up like refs. You sell white tees... Line Judges are in no way symbolic of me sleeping!

"If you can go to the store and buy five shirts for $25, that's your whole week," explains Myorr Janha.

My eyes and ears have told me that the white tee has become a staple of hip-hop culture. I respect the trend as a spirited take-back mission and figure it was born of inner-city economics. Rather than sweat name-brand, higher-priced merchandise, why not make what many kids in poor areas were relegated to wearing the style? Then if you can pinch enough, go name-brand on the sneakers since you can wear those everyday. It's a sound strategy without a doubt.

But the irony in all of this is that the Foot Lockers and Finish Lines were the stores peddling the then trendy officially licensed league/player merchandise and sneaker brand duds. I guess the take-back is in full-effect. And I'm out a Spurs shirt.


I thought I'd get Googley and see what the tangled web had to say about this white tee shirt trend. The article quoted throughout this post, "XXXXXXXL", provided at-length coverage. (Pun intended!) It's really a pretty interesting and entertaining write-up. They hint at my theory behind the trend, as well as others including:

"There's the idea of not only living large, but living extra-large, and wearing a long shirt that goes down to your knees is a bold statement. You'll get noticed."

"...they mimic and glorify a violent prison culture, where beltless cons stash contraband in the folds of one-size-fits-all uniforms."

"The culture of the customer is so everyone will look the same," says Stuart Silberman, vice president of marketing at Changes, a nine-store chain of urban menswear stores based in Baltimore that has been stocking tall tees since 2002. "If the cops are looking for a suspect, he's invariably wearing a long white T-shirt with long shorts. So they can't be identified. That was the real reason it all started."

The last of which is refuted by my favorite quote of the article:

"In my neighborhood, we all wear the same stuff, so me, I had to change my dress code up," ... "I wear different things from everybody else, so now when [the cops] run up on me, they don't get confused."

Finally an explanation as to why Burlington Coat Factory thought they could sell a Fat Lever college jersey. And at the same time an explanation as to why I can no longer find a Fat Lever college jersey at Burlington Coat Factory.

Labels: rants, research

Intrigued by Rich B's semi-experiment, I finally completed some gas-mileage tracking:

Test     Speeds    Mi.   Gal.    MPG*
------   --------  ---   -----   ----
Tank 1   Normal**  325   15.24   21.3
Tank 2   < 65 mpg  355   16.22   21.8

I drove a whole 2 1/2 weeks without exceeding 65 mph and saved a whopping .5 mpg! I was also very conscious of my AC/Windows situation as well. I guess this means that you've got to drop below 60 or less to really start to see an improvement. Or maybe only worry about it if you're in the midst of extended highway driving.

* My car's estimated MPG is 19 city/ 27 hwy
** Normal driving includes occasional speeds between 75 and 80

P.S. Good to see the old PRE tags still work.

Labels: gas, research

As I was taking the dog out this evening, I saw a falling star shoot through the sky. I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've ever seen this. So I cracked open World Book, Mac OS X Edition and found...

Meteor is a bright streak of light that appears briefly in the sky. Observers often call meteors shooting stars or falling stars because they look like stars falling from the sky. People sometimes call the brightest meteors fireballs. A meteor appears when a particle or chunk of metallic or stony matter called a meteoroid enters the earth's atmosphere from outer space. Air friction heats the meteoroid so that it glows and creates a shining trail of gases and melted meteoroid particles. The gases include vaporized meteoroid material and atmospheric gases that heat up when the meteoroid passes through the atmosphere. Most meteors glow for about a second.

Sounds right. It faded after falling for about a second.

By the way, iTunes Music Store produced the following search results:

• 38 songs titled Falling Star
• 53 songs titled Shooting Star
• 9 songs titled Meteor

Labels: research

$40.80. I can't believe it. I mean, I drive a Ford Focus. But before making a purchase at Gung Ho Bikes, I should at least make some comparisons to be sure this really is as alarming as it seems. How much would 12.75 gallons of other frequently consumed liquids cost?

12.75 gallons of soda machine soda = $68.22
12.75 gallons of Sweet Baby Ray's Barbecue Sauce = $114.75

Gas isn't so bad I guess. But why are the prices so high? I checked How Stuff Works to get the complete scoop on gas...

First off:

• Americans drive more than 14,000 round trips to the sun per year in automobiles, light trucks and SUVs.
• In the United States, something like 178 million gallons of gasoline is consumed every day.
• The world oil supply acts like an asymptotic value, which is just a mathematical term for a value that gets closer and closer to another value, but never actually gets there.

Where our money goes:

• The biggest portion of the cost of gas - about 45 percent - goes to the crude-oil suppliers.
• The refining of crude oil makes up about 13 percent of the price of gasoline.
• Distribution and marketing account for about 13 percent of the price of gasoline.
• Taxes, including federal and local, account for about 31 percent of the total price of gas in the United States.
• In order to stay in business, service stations have to add on a few more cents to make a profit.

Why the prices fluctuate:

• Taxes are probably the biggest factor in the different prices around the country.
• Competition among local gas stations can drive prices down.
• Distance from the oil refineries can also affect prices - stations closer to the Gulf of Mexico, where many oil refineries are located, have lower gas prices due to lower transportation costs.
• Military conflicts in parts of the world with lots of oil supplies can make it difficult for oil companies to drill and ship crude oil.
• Hurricanes have damaged offshore drilling platforms, coastal refineries and shipping ports that receive oil tankers.
• If a tanker itself is lost or damaged, or leaks its oil into the ocean, that will put a dent in the market as well.

Importing Oil:

• Crude oil inventories have the single biggest effect on gas prices, and the United States depends heavily on foreign oil supplies.
• In December 2003, the United States imported approximately 300 million barrels of oil.
• The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is a consortium of 11 countries: Algeria, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Venezuela.
• These 11 nations are responsible for 40 percent of the world's oil production and hold two-thirds of the world's oil reserves.
• When OPEC wants to raise the price of crude oil, it simply reduces production.
• In April 2001, OPEC decided to reduce its collective production by one million barrels per day.

Domestic Supplies:

• The United States is the world's second largest producer of oil.
• In 2003, the United States produced about 5.7 million barrels of crude oil each day.
• The biggest production region is around the Gulf of Mexico.

I think that just about covers it. It sounds like the prices should drop, but they never really drop back to where they were before a big spike, so the prices will continue to be higher than what seems reasonable. So what can we try? Hybrids or diesel engine cars? Car-pooling to work? Seeing how many hands are in the pie, its unrealistic to imagine an alternative fuel source being introduced to the mainstream anytime soon. I guess I'll grin and bear it - and be glad my Focus doesn't run on cans of Dr. Pepper or Sweet Baby Ray's Barbecue Sauce.

Labels: gas, research