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Saturday, September 25, 2004

Yom Kippur Is Over

Yom Kippur is now over.
Over the past 24 hour, I spent about seven of those hours in synagogue; the remainder was spent sleeping. I did watch the dramatic conclusion of today’s Giants-Dodgers game. I saw my man “Happy Pedro” (Pedro Feliz) hit the grand slam to win the game. In 2002, Pedro signed my glove in Spring Training. I knew it would bring him good luck—eventually.
The lasting memories of the holiday include:

A lot of time thinking about my sister. I have not seen her in more than two years and have not spoken to her in months. She and her husband are estranged and the situation is ugly (from what I gather from my niece)
A lot of time thinking about Yom Kippur 1992. I sat in synagogue staring at a picture of an infant waiting for us to pick her up. The Arizona caseworker was dragging her heels, mostly because she did not like me. I kid you not. She asked me some personal questions (which I will not go into) and when she didn’t believe my answers, she did everything she could to slow down our process. However, the logjam broke right after Yom Kippur; she told us the holiday made her feel guilty she had not concluded our paperwork. A few months later, we had our baby in our hands.
I thought a lot about my family and work and the year ahead. The year ahead includes our daughter’s Bat Mitzvah—that will be interesting.
I also thought about a special prayer “Aton Atokef” and how it related to the horrors of 911.

A few sidebar notes: there was a man in synagogue who looked like Crusty the Clown. A woman in front of me was a dead ringer for my mother in law. And, lastly, this bozo behind me (the grandfather of one of my daughter’s friends) kept boinking me in the head with his prayer book (actually the loose pages inside the book were boinking me).

I am beat and my feet hurt. There was a lot of standing. I feel refreshed, but tired. I look forward to a happy and healthy (and successful) year ahead.

Friday, September 24, 2004

What We're Doing For Turkey Day

No bird, but lots of Ben & Jerry's "Festivus" ice cream.

Yahoo! News - Give Thanks: "Seinfeld" Returns

Over Hyped?

ESPN's "Baseball Tonight" insered a big promo for "Hustle" in the middle of giving the highlights from a key Wild card game. Isn't that outside the lines?


Yahoo! Mail - allen_weiner@yahoo.com

For My (Former) Brother In Law

Yahoo! News - 'Lost' Episode of 'Honeymooners' Found

Day of Atonement Approaches

Strange day ahead: I have to pack and ship my work laptop to my company as part of an upgrade; I will get my new one next Tuesday. As a precaution, I have grabbed all my important files and put them on an external hard drive.

Tonight marks Kol Nidre, the start of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Not sure if Shawn Green will be part of the holiest day of the year or if he’ll be playing first base for the Dodgers. Since he’s playing in San Francisco, I could recommend some houses of worship for him to attend. So far, he has not asked.

Thursday, September 23, 2004

Setting The Record Straight

There has been discussion around my house on this. I claimed Oprah and/or her company did not pay for the cars (as I previously posted). Now we know my assertion is correct.

Oprah's car giveaway not totally 'free'

The Godfather & Mr. Peepers

NAMES AND FACES: Ashes of Brando and a friend are scattered

Not What It Appears

The buyers of these newsstands will turn them into
"media foraging centers" where people can go to download movies, music, news, etc... Wait and see!

Yahoo! News - NYC Plans to Get Rid of Old Newsstands

Wednesday, September 22, 2004

I Am Doing My Part

Yahoo! News - Americans Eating More Cheese Than Ever

Not Exactly On The Peace Train

Yahoo! News - Singer Cat Stevens Denied U.S. Entry, Flight Diverted

Great Seinfeld Line

In a Seinfled episode called "The Pilot," (where George and Jerry create a new show for NBC) Jerry comments about the number of buxom waitresses at the coffee shop:

JERRY: I haven't seen four women like this together outside of a Russ Meyer film.

Yahoo! News - Pioneer Adult Filmmaker Russ Meyer Dies

Tuesday, September 21, 2004

Tough Call? It Wasn't a Touch Call for Sandy Koufax

The Reporter - Giants

Editorial Note

As of my previous posting, I am changing my headline style to the more appropriate caps and lower case as per AP style. Previously, I used all caps in my headlines.

I hear the voice of my first editor--a wonderful man named Ray Conageski (who played college football at USF on the team for which Pete Rozelle was student manager)--telling me to fix those headlines.


Best & Worst of Monday TV

In just a few hours of TV watching last night, I saw the best and worst that the Tube has to offer.

Best—“Kumars at No. 42” on BBC America (recorded on my PVR). Hilarious. I can’t understand a lot of what they’re saying, and I have to look up some of the British slang, but what I do understand I find clever and original. Sadly, there are no Region One (U.S.) DVDs.

Worst—“Listen Up!” the new show based on the life of Tony Kornheiser. Jason Alexander is harnessed with the stigma of forever being ‘George.” As Tony would have said on his old radio program—“this show stinks!”

For Us, More Than One Is Too Many

In the desert, we have scorpions. They are nasty little buggers.

Yahoo! News - Woman Endures 32 Days With Scorpions

Monday, September 20, 2004

Wonder Why They Have No Concession Lines?

AP Wire | 08/28/2004 | Food poisoning forces minor league baseball game's postponement

A Trip To Nowhere

Well, I have had some unusual business travel experiences: Once, I arrived at the airport in Singapore a day early for my flight back to the U.S. Another time, I was supposed to arrive in San Antonio for a speech, but because of bad weather, I never got there and just flew around Texas all night, eventually landing back in San Francisco (where I started) at 4 am.

I have had delays, missed connections, flight bumps, oversold situations, weather diversions and so on… Today, I had a first.

A few minutes before boarding my plane to Seattle, my colleague in Seattle who was bringing me to town call me on my cell and informed me that our big meeting was cancelled. Well, I took my ticket (which had been upgraded to First Class) and went to the counter where they got my suitcase off the plane. Next, to the ticket counter, where they wrote my ticket number on the boarding pass so I could use the fare toward a future Alaska Airlines flight. Walking to get my suitcase, I called the hotel to cancel my reservation, but they informed me I was passed the deadline. I was then passed to a customer service rep who then called the hotel to see if they’d waive the fee. A few minutes later, a call back to say I was granted the exception.

Sidebar: I use a great car service here in Phoenix—Airport Limousine. For the first time in years, we had our signals crossed and he had the wrong pick-up info. That necessitated me driving to the airport, which turned out to be a blessing as my car was right by the terminal allowing me to get home easily.

Searching For Wayne

One of the reasons I started my blog was to learn more about the innerworkings of search engines. The sitemeter link allows me to track the path through which surfers come to this site. Oddly, the No. 1 most searched word/words is/are Wayne Cody, the late KIRO-TV sportscaster in Seattle. I am hardly a great expert on Wayne, but I did know him and did write about him when I was a TV columnist in Seattle.

With that in mind, today, I leave for a quick trip to Seattle. I opted to fly Alaska Airlines as it flies non-stop as opposed to United, which flies through SFO. That gives me an extra chance at delays. I am a MVP on Alaska, so that should secure me an extra bag of peanuts.

Sunday, September 19, 2004

Sports Typo



I love finding typos in the newspaper, especially in The Arizona Republic.

Check this one out: In yesterday’s sports section, they have the wrong teams in the NL Central. Instead, they listed in the teams in the AL East. Wonder if anyone else caught this.

Mr. IT

There are reasons why I don’t run an IT shop.

Yesterday, we were without Internet service in our home nearly the entire day. The light on my cable modem was out and I tried resetting the little bugger and even calling our Internet Service Provider. Nada.

Before going to bed, my wife noticed one of the power outlets in the bathroom was not working. Duh. This has happened before. When the bathroom circuit clicks off, it does something to the router at the other end of the house. I never thought to look.

Needless to say, one resetting of a circuit later, we’re back online.

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