tracker7 | Entries tagged with baseball

After far, far too long, I got myself out to a baseball game Thursday evening. The Bats are not doing well this season (again), so I wasn't expecting much beyond just having a good night at the park. Low expectations paid off, I guess, because I had an absolute blast. Norfolk put up four runs pretty quickly - four solo homers in the first two innings; the Bats fought back, tying the game, but lost 5-6. Disappointing, a little, but the experience was good for the soul. Slugger Field is a great park, the small crowd was enthused, and the hot dogs were delicious. I gotta do this more often.

In other Louisville baseball news, the UofL Cardinals are going to the College World Series! They won the Super Regional this afternoon against Miami, getting hot when it mattered most. They ended the regular season badly and were knocked out of the ACC tournament in the first round. Swept the Regional, beating host and top-seed Vanderbilt, got the host slot for the Super, and went 2-1 over Miami.

Things aren't all sunshine and rainbows. Protests against ICE's bullshit out in LA have been declared "unrest" by that orange bastard and federalized National Guard troops were deployed early this morning. LAPD and LCSD declined to escort ICE operatives out of their raid in Paramount and that caused some drama - but, really, if LAPD is declining the opportunity to beat up on people, things are definitely off.

And at the moment, I'm watching the last few episodes of The Handmaid's Tale, so, yeah.

The Dodgers are the 2024 World Series champs! They won Game 5 last night, a banger of a come-from-behind win, final score of 7-6 after spending four innings down 0-5. I would have liked to have seen the win at Dodgers Stadium, but winning at the opponent's park is just fine.

The Trail game was not good. Had two players more interested in their Noo Yawk accents than pursuing the investigation that others were there for. It happens, I guess. Sometimes even Han Solo got boarded, sometimes even I run a bad game. On to Eclipse Phase in a couple of weeks.

Tried to vote around 9:30 this morning. Traffic around my first choice of sites was quite heavy, backed up a quarter-mile. I opted to run a couple of errands and try again elsewhere and had better luck. In and out in about 15 minutes. Poll workers said the site had been busy all day.

The site was the hotel convention space that used to host Conglomeration. I hadn't been in there since the last Conglom in '19. The mind's eye saw the registration table in the main hallway and the vendors' tables in the room where I cast my ballot. Sic transit.

Got the books. The Buick started acting up around Bardstown - lost power, as the dashboard helpfully let me know. Towed it back to Liberty and drove the Frontier back to Louisville early Tuesday. Swapped it out for the backup Impala Wednesday after work. Impala is behaving and will hopefully continue to do so.

The Dodgers are up two games to zero in the World Series. Freddy Freeman hit a walk-off grand slam in the tenth to win the first game. Game Two wasn't as dramatic, but Shohei Ohtani injured his shoulder trying to steal second and that's concerning. Ice Cube performed a version of "Today was a Good Day" to open the game, paying respect to Fernando Valenzeula at the mound.

Running a Trail of Cthulhu game at Slur tonight. Got three players so far, and that's enough to make things work. If people bail, no worries, I'll just go home and watch the evening NFL game.

Taking Halloween and November 1 off. Voting on Halloween, hopefully not for the last time. Going to Virginia on Friday to see folks and a museum and other stuff. I think this is the first vacation trip I've taken since late 2020 - conventions are working vacations, so I'm not counting them. I'm looking forward to the trip, and very much looking forward to not seeing clients and not being at work for those two days.

Sent out a couple of resumes last night. I've given the job the best shot I can, and it's just not working out for me. Time to move on. Again.

Got the Buick back yesterday. No cooling issues and with the hub replaced, it is so quiet at speed. I probably would still be using the Impala, but the shift cable started going out, so I rigged it well enough to get it to Liberty and dropped it off.

Had a couple of those moments during the round-trip yesterday when I thought Holy cow, I am driving through what's left of a hurricane. Helene has done a number southeast of here. Asheville is isolated, only reachable by air. NCDOT said to consider all roads in the western third of the state to be closed - I-40 washed out at the Tennessee-NC line. I don't know if this will directly affect my nebulous plans to go to Spencer in November, but I'm looking at a visit to Roanoke instead.

The Dodgers locked up the NL West again, and have home field advantage throughout the National League playoffs. Hopefully that'll mean more than it did last year, when the NLCS started and they just forgot how to play baseball. On the other end of the spectrum, the White Sox are finishing the season with 121 losses, maybe 122 depending on how today's season closer goes.

Gave Alien: Romulus another viewing. My complaints stand, but it's a much better movie than I gave it credit for on the first watch.

No-excuse early voting started today, and I exercised that right late this morning. I was darned close to going for a straight-ticket vote, but did cast my vote to re-elect our secretary of state. He's done a stellar job in the office, including promoting and expanding voting options, and he's pushed back against some of his party's excesses in the legislature. Those are good enough reasons to give him another term.

On the other hand, my vote for governor was about 75% for the incumbent and 25% against a useless AG whose campaign has been consistently dishonest and has relied heavily on the endorsement of Donald Trump and fucking fuck that sideways with a cactus. I'm hopeful that we'll be ride of Daniel Cameron come Tuesday evening.

I'm about as prepared as I can be for the little convention this weekend. Characters are printed and filed, as are the modules. I'd like to play something, too, and there are some good candidates. I'm looking forward to seeing some friends and getting some plans in place for 2024 events. Gods, I miss my friends.

The Rangers won the World Series last night. After 62 years and two World Series losses, I guess they were due. I didn't follow the Series closely this year, or baseball as a whole. Just a lull in my usual fervor for the sport. Football's got my interest for the next couple of months, then the long dead time of waiting for the next Opening Day.

I am enjoying Netflix's Cyberpunk: Edgerunners series to a surprising degree. The music, the characters, the attitude - it's hitting on all cylinders for me. My gods, there is just so much good stuff to watch now.

We only got a half-dozen or so sessions in, but our Cyberpunk Red game was going so well. I miss it. I want to spend time in Night City every now and then. I've seen postings for online games, but ... work schedule. Sigh. I've got to get into a better place.

Archon's coming up. Two weeks! I have to reprint some character sheets and make better versions of some handouts, but that side of prep is otherwise complete. I have no plans aside from hanging out with people I don't see enough and hitting up some panels here and there. I'm too old for abusing myself with tours of room parties, so that's out. Whatever. Except for the drive across the verdant desolation of southern Indiana and Illinois, it's going to be a good weekend.

The Dodgers are 99-44, won the division a couple of nights ago. Getting the season's hundredth win tonight would be nice, since that would start off a stand at San Francisco. There's a real chance of beating last season's 106-win mark.

Disney+ offered a month for $2, so, what the heck, I reupped for a couple of months. First thing I watched was Thor: Love & Thunder. My expectations were pretty low, and I really didn't enjoy it all that much. Tessa Thompson was great, and I liked Natalie Portman; the narration was unnecessary and distracting, just the director inserting further into the movie. Liked the soundtrack.

Now I'm watching Ms. Marvel. I only watched the first episode back in the early summer. Found it okay, but it didn't hook me enough to keep the subscription going. Second episode is much the same. It's good work, I mean; I guess superhero fatigue has hit.

Over on AppleTV+, I'm enjoying the heck out of For All Mankind and Tehran.

The front door lock stuck last night. Housemate spent several minutes standing out on the porch turning his key over and over again, expecting a different result somehow. I dove into locksmith YouTube this morning, found something relevant, and I think I managed to repair the lock! Let's see how things look in a couple of days.

The Dodgers are 95-43 this morning, comfortably leading the NL West. Best record in the Majors. Feels pretty good, with the acknowledgment that the postseason is very much its own thing. It would sure be good to see 'em win another World Series for Vin Scully.

NFL's regular season starts this afternoon. Still on the Ravens wagon, and I think I can catch part of their game before bedtime this afternoon. One more thing to dislike about the job - can't watch Sunday games. Or Thursday night games.

I had forgotten how very very naked and very very violent the first season of Altered Carbon is. It's darned enjoyable, though, and the first episode of the second season got things off to a good start.

MLB's owners and players came to an initial agreement today, so there's going to be a season after all. The well has been poisoned for me, though. I decided last week that I wouldn't renew my MLBtv subscription for the 2022 season; I have a very good NCAA baseball program and an adequate MiLB team here, so that's going to be my main courses of the game this time around.

After a Goodreads recommendation, I'm reading 36 Streets, by T. R. Napper. So far, a decent cyberpunk story set in a Hanoi dealing with climate collapse and Chinese occupation. So far, so good.

Job-hunting remains very nearly a job itself. I hate writing and rewriting and tuning resumes, and worse than those are the pointless cover letters or letters of interest or whatever they are. I'm not good at selling myself on paper, and it frustrates me trying to do it.

Weather heading our way tomorrow night. A few inches of snow, high winds.

Ryan B wanted some Armada time before Adepticon, so I put together a Rebel fleet for Friday night. I played reasonably well, had a good time with a fleet built around a MC75. I want to play that one more - it has a terrific set of firing arcs and hits hard when you get it into position. The escorting CR90s did good work, too; a pair of them worked over the opposing MC80 pretty well.

MLB can't get things together, so Opening Day is pushed back until whenever. NCAA and Minor League Baseball are moving forward, and I guess that's going to be my religious devotions this year. I'm not signing up for MLBtv this season - hoping that I'll be living somewhere else for most of the season, anyway.

I dropped Amazon Prime, too. I have enough to watch, more than enough, if I'm being honest.

I started watching Netflix's Cowboy Bebop. I never watched the anime - back when I could have, it would have meant watching with those kinds of fans, and, like I said when watching Evangelion via Netflix, even my self-loathing only goes so far. John Cho is terrific, and the rest of the cast enjoyable, but ... it's not very good otherwise.

Dad's selling the little plot in Logan County. He's going over there this week to close the deal, and then we can leave that place to the hearts and minds that live in those mountains, and those that serve or oppose them.

(Old Gods of Appalachia, y'all. If you're not listening to it, you're missing out.)

OGoA released a family meeting audio clip today, giving us a heads-up on the next season, some live shows, and the TTRPG. Details to come on the twelfth.

Houston roared back and won Game 5 last night. Games 6 and 7 are in Houston, and it is sure enough going to be a hostile environment for Atlanta.

Had a really good Friday evening at the game shop. Nine people there for X-Wing, the most we've had in a long time. I got in four matches, lots of chatting, just a good time.

Saturday, though. Wow. Couldn't get the energy to do anything. Barely left the couch. Didn't leave the house at all. Read, some PS4 time, got back into a Shadow of the Beanstalk project. Turned down a couple of invitations to go out, watched some movies.

Our GM's putting the MCC game on hiatus for a while, so that frees me up to put a 7th Sea one-shot together for a friend and her group. I haven't looked at the game for a long while, so let's see how this works out.

Atlanta is really giving it to Houston. They lead the World Series 3-1, and could win the whole thing tonight.

The Mariner had been making loud hole-in-the-exhaust noises for a while, and I kept telling myself to get it to a shop soon. Should have when I was in Liberty early last week, but didn't, and oh heck you know where this is going. Flex pipe let go just as I got onto I-64 Friday afternoon. Couldn't field-fix it, so called for a tow and got back to the house. Trailered him to Liberty Saturday afternoon, dropped him off at the shop Monday morning, and then Dad and I headed to West Virginia.

Lousy rainy drive, but worth making. We have a buyer for the plot. The deed has an assessed value, of course, Dad had a figure X in mind, the buyer offered 4/5 X and will have his attorney handle the details. Dad and I talked it over, and I think he's going to accept that offer. The buyer clearly wants it - he called Dad once on our drive back to Liberty after talking with his wife, and again Tuesday morning after talking with his attorney. Here's hoping!

Picked up the Mariner, he's quiet again, hooray!

LA lost to the Braves, 4 games to 2. Atlanta and Houston are tied 1-all, with the World Series going back to Atlanta for three games starting tomorrow night. Go Braves.

Made my first visit to a movie theater since the Before Times to see No Time to Die. Heck of a good movie, and I am really going to miss Daniel Craig's version of James Bond. Solid story, a callback to Dalton's Bond, and just good work all around.

Halloween's coming up this weekend! No plans, so I think I'll default to some good supernatural movies/TV and just enjoying the time.

LA beat the Cardinals in the Wild Card game, then the Giants in the NL Division Series. Things looked good, because Atlanta was a weaker team in the regular season. But, playoffs are very much their own thing, and tonight, the Braves are up two games to one.

As executor of a will, I now have an IRS employer number. Monday, I went back to Liberty to take care of some details on that front. Changed Mom's bank account to Estate of Mom, and moved the remaining money from her retirement account into Dad's. Dad and I talked about me moving back home for a while, and I'm giving it real thought. He can use some help, and gods know I'm not doing anything worthwhile up here. And there's an ongoing problem with my housemate's girlfriend that I am just fucking done with. There's something deeply, and I'm starting to believe dangerously, wrong with her, and I'm sick of being in the blast radius of her poison.

Dad, BTW, is on the road tonight. A short hop to South Carolina. I'm glad that he's working again; I'd rather it was under different circumstance, but life is what it is.

I think we have a buyer for the little plot of land that's caused outsized drama. If things sort themselves out, Dad and I will go over to Logan County sometime next week and close the deal, and then we will be done with that miserable place for good.

Last couple of days at the McJob were pretty dull. Two-person post, and a third person just means that we’re tripping over each other. So, it’s done.

The Cyberpunk Red one-shot is leading into a campaign, and I shouldn’t be surprised by this by now. I had a heck of a time GMing and, lord, it was good to be back in Night City again. One of my players was a complete newbie to tabletop RPGs, and there is just something fantastic about a brand new player - they don’t know what they can’t do! It’s terrific! We had a good after-session chat, told everyone about Streets of Fire, started throwing around ideas for the ongoing game. I’m thrilled!

I have spent a lot of time on the road. Came to Liberty early Monday morning. Dad and I took off for Franklin, Kentucky, around noon. Running errands before meeting the attorney on Tuesday. Drove Dad to the Lexington VA for his eye exam this afternoon. Tiring, but a good time.

Cardinals and their devil-magic at Dodger Stadium for the NL Wild Card game tonight. LA’s favored, but you cannot sleep on STL.

No NL West pennant, and it looks like the Dodgers will go up against the St. Louis Cardinals and their devil-magic in the wild card game.

Big economic news for the Commonwealth today. Ford is going to build new factories to produce batteries and electric vehicles, and the battery plant is going to be built a few miles down the road in Hardin County. It's going to employ about 5000 people, plus the construction work, highway and rail expansion, and the inevitable support and supply plants. This may be bigger than Governor Collins landing the Georgetown Toyota plant back in the 80s.

Archon's this coming weekend, and I was going to run some Trail of Cthulhu, but that isn't going to happen. So, I decided that I'd convert the con investigations into a short campaign, maybe for some of my locals. But losing Mom just knocked my interest in existential horror flat. Mom was always hopeful, and Mom was home. So, I'm going to run something that has a streak of hope, and I'm going home to Night City. Cyberpunk Red this weekend.

Going to Liberty next week, for the first time since the funeral. I'm the executor of both wills, and this is just going to be signing forms and the like.

To correct my previous post, two evening shifts out of six remaining. That's much better.

Goshdarn Free League Publishing announced a licensed Blade Runner RPG this morning. I'm fond of their Alien line, and boy-howdy do I love me some Blade Runner, so I'm excited for this. Accepting that I may never get a chance to run or play it, of course - it'll be a beauty of a book and some good reading.

It's very much a BR kind of day here. Steady rain, grey and cool. We had a gullywasher of a thunderstorm last night. Some street flooding, and I-65 North was shut down near campus because of a multi-vehicle accident. Lots of lightning to watch, all quite pretty from the comfort of bed.

I've started watching Neon Genesis Evangelion, thanks to Netflix. Never seen any of it before, mostly because seeing it when it first came to these shores, I would have had to watch it with, well, that kind of fan, and even then, I didn't have enough self-loathing in me for that. Anyway, it's good storytelling and that's enough for an hour or so every couple of days.

About ten games to go in the MLB season. Dodgers have a wild card slot locked up, and the NL West pennant is probably out of reach. Best division in the NL, probably in all of baseball.

Mom's doing okay, as well as can be expected, all that. She's home, strong enough to get up from bed or the couch or whatever. Steps aren't in her range just yet, so Dad's adding a small bathroom on to the lower bedroom.

Down to about 25 games left in the MLB season. The Dodgers are a game behind the Giants in the division, and the two teams are back-and-forth lately. I'd like another division pennant, of course; a wild card spot in the playoffs is acceptable.

I'm still tired, moreso than I'd like. Too much idleness. Not enough doing anything. Go to work, mark time, come home, and I just stall out. It's not good.

I've been reading David Simon's Homicide for about a week. It's an unflinching and incredible look at a major city's police department - Simon got himself named a "police intern" for the year he spent with Baltimore PD. It inspired a hell of a TV series, and a later Simon work gave us The Wire, and I can't ever say enough good things about that series. Highest recommendation.

Related, and sadly, the actor who played Omar Little in The Wire, Michael K. Williams, was found dead today. Williams was incredible in the role - a deeply complex and very very human criminal.

SpaceX's second Crew Dragon launch is pushed back to Friday morning, a little before 6AM. That's about the time I wake up, so I'll probably watch the rocket go up.

Friday's going to be a day. One of our Fort Knox guys (Michael Predny, future-Andy) is transferring to Aberdeen next month, so we're having a big Armada match as part of a send-off. Two teams, 1000 points per team, with a custom objective - the Rebel general and his command are attempting to escape to a new base, and the Empire is here to keep that from happening. My partner and I are fielding six Victory Star Destroyers between us, and I'm getting my Onager onto the table for the first time. That weird beast is going to, hopefully, use its ridiculous weapons range to herd the Rebels into the Victories' guns and missiles. This will probably
go four or five hours, and my brain will start leaking out of my ears by the time we're done. And it will be a blast.

My favorite X-Wing podcast is hanging it up. The Shuttle Tydirium made its last flight this week, after five years and 132 episodes. They've promoted my favorite style of play - casual, narrative games that don't adhere to the "standard" 400/6 setup. I got to play in one of their events at GenCon 2019, had an incredible time and came home with a terrific stack of loot. The only other X-Wing podcast I still listen to is Gold Squadron, and I've skipped over a lot of their episodes lately.

The Dodgers are the best team in the Majors, 18 games into the season. They're sitting at 14-4, off tonight, playing the surprisingly good Padres tomorrow night.

It is Opening Day. Things are still not what they were, or should be, but this is going to be a 162-game season and that's something. We already had our first weather postponement, and the league's COVID protocol forced another postponement. My Dodgers started their World Series defense with a 4-6 loss at Colorado. Nowhere to go but up!

Unfortunately, that applies to the MLB.tv app, at least on the PS4. Can't even log in. The fields for my e-mail and password are active, but the login button isn't. MLB's Twitter says they're aware (can't imagine they aren't) and are working on fixing the problem - one of several that I've seen reported around today. Hopefully it'll be fixed soon.

House- and dog-sitting this weekend. Looking forward to the (probable) peace down there, and going for walks with Kaiser; maybe a drive down to Lake Cumberland if it looks like we'll have time.

A few days ago, a 1300-foot container ship ran aground in the Suez Canal. As of this evening, it remains stuck, completely blocking the canal about 10 kilometers north of the canal's southern terminus. Something like 12 percent of international shipping goes through the Suez, so this incident is just wrecking global trade. There's a photo going around of an excavator on the bank of the canal digging away trying to free this monster vessel, showing just how unprepared a system is for this kind of disruption. The picture has been made into memes, of course, and most aren't worth the time to look for or at. One good joke, though, is since the ship is obstructing huge amounts of good and necessary things, it should be named McConnell instead of Ever Given.

There are lessons here on the fragility of things. One ship, and trade is wildly disrupted. Ships that were transiting the canal when Ever Given ran aground can't just back their way out or turn around, and shipping has started diverting around the Cape of Good Hope. This adds time and expenses, of course, and means denser shipping along Africa's east coast and that's causing concern about increased pirate actions in those waters. Shipping companies have contacted the US Navy's Fifth Fleet about providing protection.

Clearly, this points out the need for the resumption of letters of marque and reprisal, and that's the sort of thing that I should write a Spycraft mission or four around.

Probable tornado in Larue County Thursday night. We had a severe thunderstorm warning and tornado watch here that night, but nothing too exciting happened. Wind and rain hit about the time I went to bed, and those sounds just put me right to sleep.

MLB season starts in a few days. I'm probably going to sign back up for MLB.tv, since they've gone back to a civilized pricing structure.

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June 2025

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