mr. blackandwhite

My Wife took a picture of my Sausage last Friday and said it was ok to post it online...

So here you go..

We went to last Friday's game vs the MFY (which the Sox lost, 1-0, goddammit) and sat in the State Street Pavilion section of Fenway Park. This is the section for the people who have so much money, they can afford to sit and watch the games inside at a bar located behind the seats.. 

This section also has waitresses that come around and take your food order. 

Waitress (after handing me a menu (!!)): What can I get you?

Me: Uh.. what?

--awkwardly fumbles with menu--

Me (clearly out of my element): 'Um.. I'll have a bag of nuts and a beer?'

Waitress: What kind of beer?

Me (staring at the menu and wondering if I am actually at Fenway. I can see by the view that I am, but it all seems very surreal): 

Um... Do you have Sam Adams?

Waitress: Summer or Lager?

Me: .. uh .. 

And holy fuck look at this view! 

Amazing. 

If there was one down side to sitting there, it was the fact that people who are loaded, money-wise that is, don't make much noise. I did my part and made sure to heckle A-Rod as well as to loudly boo every muther-fucking yankee player that came up to bat, with the exception of Johnny Damon, who remains my Daughter's fav so I gave him a break. And I made sure to yell 'YANKEES SUCK' when Joba threw at Youk's head. Not that it did any good on that night.. My voice was hoarse for two days. 

We'll have our revenge.

GO SOX

Next year is here.

It's here. Patriots 2008. The new season gets started today with the opening of Patriots Training Camp. No more looking back, only looking forward. In two short weeks, the Pats will face the Ravens in their first pre-season game. It's hard to believe the first game is that close, but I am psyched for Patriots Football to be back, yes indeed.

I usually try to get down to at least one of the training camp sessions but I most likely will be unable to attend this year. The schedule does not look like it's going to work out in my favor and Bill Belichick will just have to get the team ready without me. I think he can handle it.

I was a bit concerned when I saw the Patriots' physically unable to perform (PUP) list this morning. There are a lot of guys on there! Are there that many players coming back from injuries or did these guys just forget how tough the Patriots training camp conditioning test is? There's no way for us to know, of course.. Either way, hopefully the PUP list will shorten significantly over the next few days.

Once piece of good news is that the Patriots reached a contract agreement with their last unsigned draftee, first round pick, Jerod Mayo, just before camp officially got started. This was great to hear. It's common knowledge that The Patriots defense is complex and the rookie linebacker cannot afford to miss any opportunities to begin soaking it in if he hopes to make an early impact on the coaches and the team.

Well that's about it for now. I have tomorrow off from work and I'll be going to the Sox / MFY game tomorrow night. I'm looking forward to seeing Josh Beckett pitch in person, and hopefully we will see the return of Big Papi to the Red Sox line-up along with several far-reaching dingers off of MFY pitcher Joba Joba Joba. Plus, frankly, I'm pretty burnt out and I need a little vacation. If I were toast you'd have to scrape the crispy black stuff off of me into the sink, that's how burnt I am. Yes, I need a vacation. A day off will be nice and of course a trip to Fenway is always welcome. I will rejoin the collective once again.

This will only be my second time attending a Sox / MFY game, a.k.a. THE RIVALRY (ooooo, ahhh) and it will be my first time seeing the MFY at Fenway. The other game in THE RIVALRY that I attended was in The Bronx back in 2003. That was fun and it was certainly a memorable experience. Tim Wakefield got the win and Roger Clemens got shelled by the Sox in that particular game. The Bleacher Creatures that surrounded me were not pleased. As a Sox fan in enemy territory on that day, I kept my enjoyment of the experience to myself, mostly. Heh.

Have a good one. I'll try to post more than once a month now that The Patriots are back in action :-)

In Belichick We Trust

A Fire in the Ska-ye

Enjoy this kickass mashup and don't blow your fingers off this weekend!

drop.io (rules): simple private sharing

Have a great 4th of July!

See ya!

(h/t Adam @ The Daily Sourcecode)

Random observation while waiting for the clock to strike 'beer'...

Inspired by this post at Cullen's site:

Did you ever notice that rock stars can become actors / actresses but actors / actresses cannot become rock stars?

I can think of a bunch of rock stars and musicians who have become fairly successful in movies and T.V. but I can only think of one actor / actress that has successfully jumped into music: Jack Black (Tenacious D). The only other person I can think of is John Schneider from the Dukes of Hazzard.

It seems to me that most of the time when an actor attempts to get into music, they are generally derided (think: Keanu Reeves / Dogstar) but when a musician becomes an actor it is looked at as cool.

What do you think?

I'm not exactly Mr. Pop-Culture so I'm sure there must be a few other examples of actors / actresses who have succesfully turned into musicians. Try and name me a few if you can..

Black Flag factor helps cancel out Red Sox frustration factor.

I was jamming to some Black Flag as I watched the Red Sox implode against the Tampa Bay Rays last night.

Fucking Greg Ginn man.. - genius -

Fucking Red Sox bullpen... - not -

As far as the mixture of playing along with songs from Black Flag's 'First Four Years' and 'Damaged' while the Sox faltered away a perfectly winnable game and got swept by the Rays (the best team in baseball... what??): cathartic

Jason Varitek: I was sending the good vibes your way all night man. I'll keep em coming and it will click eventually.

There was a shot of Dustin Pedroia at the end of the game, staring out at the field and looking generally pissed off. After seeing his two doubles, a triple and a homer completely wasted, I can understand why.

The Red Sox are now 3.5 games back of the first place Rays (cue the Twilight Zone theme).. not the end of the world at this point in the season, but I'll just keep my Sox cap in the 'rally' position for the next few days anyway and hope things return to normal soon.

Hopefully the Sox regroup and take their frustrations out on the MFY this weekend.

Make it so.

Black Flag:
Nervous Breakdown
Jealous Again
Six Pack

(drop.io)

Patriots Camp kicks in July 24

The news is out, all over town: Patriots Training Camp will begin on Thursday, July 24.

With the first pre-season game scheduled for August 7th, I knew Camp would be somewhere around those last two weeks in July. It's good to have the official date locked in so that I can try and plan to go down to at least one session.

In an example of my now obvious spoiled-ness, I was offered some tickets to a Patriots pre-season game and turned them down. In the past I would have jumped at any chance to get to a Patriots game, any game, pre-season or not, but now, well, I don't want to pay $$$$$$ to see a game that doesn't even count.

It's just not worth it to me to watch a quarter or so, if I'm lucky, of the starters and then sit and watch the scrubs come in for the rest of the game, a game that has absolutely no meaning. I'd rather save the money and watch the pre-season games at home in the comfort of my Man-Nook.

Of course, going and seeing the games live at The Razor is always fun, and it's not that I don't enjoy watching the pre-season games live and in person, but the big problem I have with pre-season games is that you pay regular-season ticket and parking prices.

Why should I pay the same price for a meaningless pre-season game, where the starters don't even play the full game, (and in some games, don't even play for more than one quarter,) that I do for a real regular season game?

If you ask me, pre-season tickets AND PARKING should be 1/2 price, but I am a cheap, penny-pinching bastard, so take that for what it's worth.

I recall Mike Vrabel commenting about the lack of crowd noise at The Razor due to the fact that 'real fans' are not in the stands anymore because they cannot afford to get to a Patriots game, and I think there is some truth to that, but I must also say, that the cost of 'real fans' getting to a game is a problem in every sport, at least when it comes to Boston teams.

Hmm. Somehow this post went from being a quickie about Pats Training Camp to a mild rant about the cost of ticket prices.. Well at least Patriots Training Camp is still free.. for the moment.

GO PATS

Car Songs

Semi-inspired by a recent post by Michele at A Big Victory, semi-inspired by the fact that it's the Summer Nationals this weekend in beautiful Worcester, MA and semi-inspired by the fact that I don't want to write about the Red Sox dropping another game to the A.L. East leading, Rays.. (They're still the Devil Rays to me.)

Mike Ness - I'm In Love With My Car
The Supersuckers - Hot Rod Rally
Reverend Horton Heat - Like A Rocket
Clutch - Passive Restraints
Fu Manchu - King of the Road

Bonus:
Dead Kennedys - Buzzbomb from Pasadena

Bake em up.

(drop.io)