Friday, August 29, 2008

APOLOGIES.

I honestly thought that I would have sufficient time to write while I was away, that I would be able to edit photos on the road. The only writing that was done was that which pertained to Mr. Springsteen, and my photographs are downloaded onto the laptop, where they sit, several days later. Things have been further complicated by the fact that when I got home on Wednesday, I fell asleep at 8pm sharp, and that last night I didn’t get home from work until 10pm.

This weekend, I promise. There will even be Mets content. I swear.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

NOW, *THAT’S* A VIDEO SCREEN.

Today is the last day of vacation. Regular updates will commence shortly. 

Sunday, August 24, 2008

TELEGRAM FROM ST. LOUIS

NIGHT LETTER
ST. LOUIS, MO 08-24-08

DEAR TONY LA RUSSA STOP
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN STARTED ST LOUIS CONCERT AT 8:47PM TONIGHT STOP
REPEAT EIGHT FORTY SEVEN STOP
THE TICKET SAYS 7:30 STOP
(YES I KNOW HE USUALLY GOES ON AT 8:15) STOP
BECAUSE CARDINALS GAME RAN LATE DUE TO RAIN DELAY STOP
RUMOR IS BRUCE WAS WAITING FOR YOU STOP
PLEASE TELL ME THAT ISN’T THE REASON STOP
I KNOW BRUCE ENDED UP PLAYING THREE HOURS AND 10 MINUTES ANYWAY STOP
BUT THAT’S BESIDES THE POINT STOP
WHAT TIME DOES THE BAR OPEN YOU SUCK STOP
I HOPE WHOEVER STOOD BEHIND YOU SANG LOUDLY AND OUT OF TUNE ALL NIGHT STOP
GO BREWERS STOP

**UPDATE: Debunked by La Russa himself, although I find it hysterical that it went all the way from E Street Nation to the mainstream media.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

RANDOM SEARCH QUERIES.

Yes, it’s time here at MetsGrrl to fall back on that tried-and-true content strategy of all lazy bloggers everywhere, a list of recent search queries. To be fair, I’ve never done this before (except the one time people without any sense of irony were looking for what was on Barry Zito’s iPod), and to be honest, TBF and I do this at home all the time for fun. But it’s a busy week, I’m not going to make it to the game tonight, and we’re getting ready to go to St. Louis and Kansas City on Thursday, so this is what you get for fresh content today.

what can’t you bring into shea stadium
can you bring wine into shea stadium
beer garden near shea stadium
where to stay when going to Shea stadium
things to do around shea stadium nyc
places to drink near shea stadium
bringing children shea stadium
balboa versus the earth slayer*

*Not to get all Pozterisk or anything, but this one is all my fault. I used the title of this obscure Springsteen song as a headline for a John Maine outing last year ago. It popped into my head as I was watching, because I was thinking of David and Goliath which seemed cliched, so I went for what I know. Everyone is searching for it now because that song was the song that Springsteen’s former manager wanted him to sing at the Super Bowl in the 70’s, right about the time he was on the covers of Time and Newsweek. Now that Bruce is actually appearing at the Super Bowl, it’s getting mentioned in a few articles. Since the song was never released and there are very few circulating live versions, people are out looking for it on the internet. If I had it, I’d probably have hosted it somewhere just to get the search queries off my site.

Monday, August 18, 2008

IRON CITY HOUSEROCKERS.

Pittsburgh worried me, just like the Nationals worried me. These are the games that the 2008 Mets would typically lose, the games against the less-than-stellar teams who suddenly decide to sit up and fight because they are playing the Mets. The Mets, of course, not expecting this attack, are ill prepared. And lose. Badly.

Except this time, it was the Mets who decided to sit up and fight. Against the Nationals. And the Pirates. Brian Schneider decides to be a studmuffin and hit TWO two-run homeruns (and that PNC Park HR was not cheap).

Thursday, August 14, 2008

HAVEN’T USED THIS IN A WHILE.

That’s more like it. Let’s win the games we can easily win and save our fight for when we need it.

It’s hard to think that there has now been a game where Mr. Brian Schneider is the official Boyfriend of the Game, but I think a 2-run HR qualifies.

FRIDAY NIGHT, MEZZANINE.

A little bit of an experiment:

Now you will understand the technical difficulties. Feeding 300 photos into iMovie and learning how to use iMovie and then encoding for the web took a little longer than I expected.

I’m hoping this is the kind of thing I’ll be really happy I bothered to document in five years.

I am considering buying a Flip for the last month.

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

BECAUSE WE HATE YOU.

Scott McCaughey, rock dude, super sideman and leader of The Baseball Project did a Q&A on ESPN today. Most of it sucks, frankly, because the majority of people asking questions were European R.E.M. fans who had no idea what this chat was about - just that it was happening - and asked a bunch of idiotic questions that had nothing to do with baseball. (In that way I guess it wasn’t much different than your average ESPN chat, just more international.)

The reason I post about this at all this here is because of THIS:

Steve R. (Brooklyn, NY): So who’s your favorite all time player, and your favorite current player? And could you see writing a song about either one?

SportsNation Scott McCaughey: (6:17 PM ET ) Willie Mays is my all-time fave probably, and he got a song on Volume One. Current player, I don’t know, I’m still probing and examining them. Aaron Heilmann maybe?

Go ahead. What would you call a song you wrote about Aaron Heilman? (The title of this post is the title of a Young Fresh Fellows album, so it’s already taken.)

I DON’T WANT TO GO HOME.

Here’s our current schedule for The Last Week Of Shea:

Monday, September 22 vs. CHC - Upper Deck 12 ($5!)
Tuesday, September 23 vs. CHC - Mezzanine 12
Wednesday, September 24 vs. CHC - Upper Deck 14 (again, $5!)
[Deliberately skipping Thursday.]
Friday, September 26 vs FLA - Mezzanine 12
Saturday, September 27 vs. FLA - Upper Deck 8
Sunday September 28 vs. FLA - still looking at options. People on StubHub are still smoking crack.

Are we the only ones this insane?

We were going to wait to buy the tickets for the Cubs series but, well, we couldn’t.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

ON TOP OF THE SKY.

It is unfortunate that the weekend I decide to do some photo-heavy posts is the one I run into technical difficulties, some of which I am still working through. The challenge with being a baseball blogger is that no one really cares about what you have to say about the game two days later. I could write the best piece in the world about a game three days ago and the attention span would be zero.

Saturday we got to the game early because I had some photos to take. Last year at some point, I toyed with getting the domain lastdaysofshea.com and doing a photo essay just of the stadium. Obviously that didn’t happen, but I’m trying as hard as I can to take as many photos as I can, even of what seems like the most insignificant things - as well as the significant ones. I am taking endless photos of Mr. Met. I am still trying to capture our favorite beer vendor and our favorite nut vendor. I still have to find a night when the Mets are on the road to go out there with a tripod and do my photos of the neon.