Philadelphia Phillies first baseman Ryan Howard, the 2005 National League Rookie of the Year, won this year’s Century 21 Home Run Derby during All-Star Game festivities at Pittsburgh’s PNC Park on Monday night.
He is the second Phillie to win the event in as many years, joining teammate and 2005 Derby champ Bobby Abreu.
Way to go, Ryan!
Who is Kyle MacDonald…and why am I congratulating him?
Well, Kyle is responsible for one of the most ambitious and entertaining projects thus far in Internet history. About a year ago, the Canadian came up with an idea to make a series of trades with the ultimate goal of trading for a house. The dream started with the most usual of items…one red paperclip. Hence, Kyle started a blog devoted to his quest at www.oneredpaperclip.com.
Kyle posted the picture of the one red paperclip on his Web site on July 12, 2005, and wound up trading it for a fish-shaped pen. The pen was traded for a door knob, which was exchanged for a camping stove. The stove was traded for a generator and the generator swapped for a Budweiser beer keg, which was exchanged for a snowmobile. The snowmobile was traded for trip to Yahk in remote British Columbia and swapped that for a supply truck, which was exchanged for a recording contract. The recording contract got Kyle and his girlfriend close to a house…it was traded for a year’s rent in a duplex located in Phoenix, Ariz.
And that’s when the project began to reach epic proportions. The year’s rent was exchanged for an afternoon with rocker Alice Cooper, who was brought into the project by the woman who lived in the other half of the Phoenix duplex. However, Kyle’s next trade raised eyebrows among many of those who followed his exploits…the afternoon with Alice Cooper was swapped for a KISS—as in the rock group—snow globe.
There was a reason for this trade. Earlier in the process, actor/writer/director Corbin Bernsen (of “L.A. Law” and “Major League” fame) had offered a speaking role in a movie he is making as a trade item. But Kyle never mentioned the offer on his site because he didn’t have anything Bernsen would really want in a trade…
…until he came across the KISS snow globe.
You see, Bernsen is a huge snow globe collector. How huge? Apparently, he owns more than 6,500 snow globes. And Kyle traded Bernsen the KISS snow globe for the movie role.
And on Wednesday—one year to the day that the red paperclip first appeared on his blog—Kyle will realize his dream of trading that one red paperclip for a house.
The city of Kipling, Saskatchewan, has offered Kyle a three-bedroom house in exchange for the movie role…sort of. The town is going to take advantage of the publicity surrounding the project and stage an open “American Idol”-style audtion for the movie role. In addition, the town is going to erect the world’s largest red paperclip to mark Kyle’s achievement.
So, congratulations, Kyle MacDonald. Well done!
AP Story: Blogger’s quest ends with keys to house
I have wanted to post a couple of times this past weekend, but just never got around to it. So here is a wrap-up of the weekend.
Tour de BK ’06 Ride #4
I rode another 21 miles on Saturday, averaging 15.5 miles per hour in what were really ideal cycling conditions…in the 80s with cloud cover and hardly any wind at all. That brings my total amount of miles logged this year to 74. I would like to reach the 200 mile mark before the summer is over.
Geek moment: “Doctor Who” season finale
The second season of “Doctor Who” wrapped up last Saturday with a brilliant finale that pitted the Doctor against longtime foes, the Cybermen and Daleks, and featured the last regular appearance in the series by companion Rose Tyler (Billie Piper). Here’s a clip of the first 9 1/2 minutes of “Doomsday.” The last 4 1/2 minutes or so are classic “Doctor Who,” with a standoff between the Cybermen and Daleks.
Kevin Barry continues to shine in Braves’ bullpen
Rider’s Kevin Barry pitched four more scoreless innings of relief for the Atlanta Braves on Friday night, allowing no hits while striking out five and walking one. Over the first three games of his major league career, Barry has yet to surrender a run while giving up two hits and two walks while striking out eight in nine innings of work since making his major league debut with three scoreless innings at Yankee Stadium on June 25. His efforts were noted in this Braves Report from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“Pirates” plunders box office, takes down Spidey
Despite reviews claiming—among other things—that it is a “Bermuda Triangle of bad,” “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” took in an estimated $132 million during its three-day opening weekend, shattering the previous three-day mark ($114.8 million) held by 2002’s “Spider-Man.” What is funny about this is that in the current season of “Entourage,” the fictional “Aquaman” movie took down Spidey’s box-office record. I had seen some people criticize that element of the storyline since it seemed rather outlandish. Well, guess what? If “Pirates” can do it in real life, then a fictional James Cameron-directed “Aquaman” can do it in a TV show.
What is even more interesting is that a third “Pirates” movie is expected by next Memorial Day weekend…just a few weeks after the spectacular-looking “Spider-Man 3” opens on May 4. The movie industry is going to be flying high next May.
I was going to head out to the Jersey Shore last night so I could stay at my parents’ place and go on a bike ride today. Well, I’m still heading out there today for a bike ride, but my plans last night were changed by a phone call from my friend Jimmy.
Jimmy has a pretty good job that every now and then gives him access to tickets in the second row of Citizens Bank Park…RIGHT behind home plate. Well, just before 5 p.m. yesterday, Jimmy calls and asks if I want to go sit in these Diamond Club seats to watch the Phillies play the Pirates…and post-game fireworks! Now, he has offered me chances to go before, but for one reason or another I could never make it. This time, though, I was all in.
The photo above was taken from my seat, which, by the way, is wider than the normal seats with padding and extra leg room. And there is also a cup holder and small tray between each pair of seats to hold the food and beverages you can get by placing orders with the servers that wait on you hand and foot. So Jimmy wound up giving me a very cool day-after birthday gift. Thanks, Jimmy.
Of course, he may have totally ruined any future trips to the ballpark for me. I mean, I can just see myself at a game up in the terrace level and waiting for somebody to bring me my food and drink before realizing, “Oh crap…I have to get it myself? What is up with that? And why is the field SOOOO far away? Ugh.”
It was amazing standing at my seat at a Major League Baseball game and actually hearing the “Star-Spangled Banner” come out of the singer’s mouth before hearing it echo through the ballpark’s public address system.
Granted, the Phillies lost 3-2, but what else is new? The good thing, though, was that the game was over in about 2 1/2 hours and the fireworks were over by 10:09 p.m., so at least it was an early night. By the way, the fireworks were great, as usual…except for the choice of music. What the heck does Kelly Clarkson have to do with either baseball or patriotism…or even good music?
(Sorry, Musar girls…just don’t get the whole K.C. thing.)
Anyway, here are more pics from the game…
I finally got around to writing lyrics and recording vocals for one of the two songs I wrote during Memorial Day weekend, when I was basically confined to my apartment thanks to car problems. Hence, the instrumental “Untitled 2006-05-27” has now become “What Would You Say?”
Enjoy!
What does “Nineteen Forever” mean?
Well, it’s a title of a kick-ass song from Joe Jackson’s underrated 1989 album, “Blaze of Glory.”
So why “Nineteen Forever?”
Well, it includes this lyric:
You better believe it – you know my dream’s still alive
You can love it or leave it
But I’m never gonna be 35
And, today, I turn 35.
That line of the song always stuck with me…like I was supposed to accomplish something by the time I reached 35. If so, I guess I have a year to do something meaningful…before I hit 36.
Just a quick update…rode another 21 miles Tuesday in 88 minutes so my average speed was around 14 miles per hour. Still not great, but it was good to log about 53 miles on the ol’ bike over the extended Fourth of July weekend.
I’m hoping that by the end of the summer, I will feel up to taking on the 36-mile round trip between my parents’ place in Toms River, N.J., and the Point Pleasant Beach side of the Manasquan Inlet. That route would look like this:
In case you haven’t heard, the state of New Jersey has effectively closed for business thanks to a political showdown over the state budget.
That means no lottery in New Jersey. Now, while the lottery’s revenue supposedly goes toward services for the elderly and higher education, it’s really not a big deal that there isn’t a lottery for the time being.
Then again…you have these New Jersey residents who are quoted in this article from The Times (of Trenton):
The hiatus of lottery sales has become an inconvenience to Trenton residents like Michael Dell, who have to leave the Garden State to buy tickets.
Standing yesterday outside of the Pennsylvania News and Tobacco shop in Morrisville, Pa., Dell said he couldn’t believe the state would allow the budget crisis to get this far.
“The state’s actions have taken a toll on our residents. It’s very inconvenient to have to go across the river just to get lottery tickets,” Dell said. “It takes time out time of your day that you don’t normally plan for.”
Here’s the thing, Mr. Dell…you don’t HAVE to go across the river just to get lottery tickets. You could simply NOT play during the hiatus.
Here’s another one…
Waiting in line to purchase a Powerball ticket, resident Joe Camarana said the absence of lottery ticket sales is annoying, but he doesn’t plan on letting government disputes prevent him from playing the lottery.
“They’d have to break my legs to keep me from buying these tickets,” Camarana said.
OK, that kind of language screams “gambling problem.”
Just wait until these people realize the casinos in Atlantic City are going to be closing at 8 a.m. Wednesday because they need state regulators to operate.
And don’t think they can just go to a race track and bet on the horses. The state’s race tracks were shut down, too.
Ever since the announcement a couple of years ago of a big-budget, live-action/CGI “Transformers” movie, I have been excited to see it finally come to the big screen. And with Steven Spielberg as executive producer, what could possibly go wrong? Right?
Well, Michael Bay was hired as director…that’s not a good sign.
Over the past few weeks, details about the vital Autobot character of Bumblebee have emerged. For the uninitiated, Bumblebee from the toy line, comic book, television show and the spectacular, animated “Transformers: The Movie” from 1986 always looked like a yellow VW bug in vehicle mode. However, from things I have read, VW apparently no longer wanted to be associated with a weapon of war—albeit a fictional one—and had declined to license a VW bug version of Bumblebee in recent years. This is probably the reason the movie will show Bumblebee with another vechicle mode…the upcoming version of the new Chevrolet Camaro.
Now, I guess they had to change the vehicle mode for Bumblebee, but I would still like to have seen him as a smaller car. A Cooper Mini, perhaps? But, no…Bumblebee is now a muscle car.
And here is a partially transformed Bumblebee…
But I can live with that, I guess. I just hope Optimus Prime isn’t changed from a tractor-trailer to a minivan.
Then, the “Transformers” teaser trailer was released a few days ago. And while I like the premise, it is filled with a bunch of inaccuracies. When you have so much wrong over the span of a 1 minute, 45 second teaser, it makes you wonder how much is going to be wrong with a full-length movie. Here is the “Transformers” teaser trailer from YouTube:
OK, here are the problems. First of all, the Beagle 2 probe that is mentioned in the teaser was a real-life, British-designed and constructed Mars lander that crashed on the planet’s surface. As far as I can glean from the materials I have read, it was not a rover like the American-made Spirt and Opportunity rovers that have been rolling along the Martian surface for years now. There was a “mole” component of Beagle 2 that was supposed to crawl along the Martian soil and grab samples from beneath the surface, but it wasn’t anything like a full-size rover depicted in the teaser.
Also, the “mission control” voices in the teaser are decidedly American, even though Americans had nothing to do with Beagle 2’s launch or mission. Again, this was a British program that launched from the Russian spaceport at Baikonur in Kazakhstan so the inclusion of American voices in the teaser just doesn’t make any sense.
And then there are the visuals that are supposed to appear like images from the Martian surface. The teaser producers didn’t even take the time to make the Beagle 2 footage look like it was taken on Mars. It looks they got some footage in a southwestern U.S. desert and quickly added the raw footage into the teaser.
So while I’m looking forward to seeing a live-action/CGI version of “Transformers” from a technical standpoint, I feel Michael Bay has missed the point again…all explosions, effects and action…and no story…and no logic…and no heart.
UPDATE – 7/4/06, 10:32 a.m.
Well, looking at some message boards led me to Michael Bay’s news blog, which says that none of the Beagle 2/Mars storyline will be in the movie. So that’s a good thing.
Went on a little ride of about 11 miles today to see a friend of mine. My right knee was killing me from yesterday’s 21-mile jaunt and I learned the hard way that most of the roads I took to get to my destination had pretty decent inclines on them…and any acceleration I picked up on the declines were short-lived thanks to inconveniently placed sharp turns or stop signs.
The ride there took me 20 minutes and the ride back took me 30, so my average speed was only 13.2 miles per hour, which is pretty pathetic for me normally, but I was riding rather leisurely so I guess that’s not too bad.
Brian Kelley 