My Nemesis - Rainbow Road

I did it. Finally.

I conquered my demon.

Rainbow Road.

This race on Mario Kart Wii is the bane of my existence. It's guaranteed failure. It intimidates me.

I always lose.

Until tonight. Finally.

While Mario Kart is most fun with three others in the same room (and plenty of booze), it's also great to play on Nintendo's WiFi Connection against people around the world or friends who are associated with your Mii.

Mario Kart has been a bit of an addiction of late. It started at the bachelor party a few months ago, and was rekindled when Mike got his Wii last month and promptly threw down the gauntlet by finishing a number of cups and unlocking way more than I had at that point.

These days, each week I'm Karting about as much as I'm also hitting the gym or exercising, which is a good thing. The game play is excellent - easy to learn, fun to play, and hard to put down, all hallmarks of a classic game.

A couple nights ago, I was playing against Mike over the WFC, and was ashamed at my pathetic performance. We entered the night tied with 14 wins apiece, and he beat me eight races in a row. Ugh.

Tonight, I pulled off more wins than losses...AND finally won at Rainbow Road, the course in outer space with ample opportunities to fall off the track and turn into a fireball. A few times during each Rainbow Road race, my poor Baby Peach and her motorcycle would fall rapidly toward Earth. I just could not stay on the track. I always lost.

But not this time. I drove an excellent race, and won comfortably.

I can sleep well now.

Final Yanks-Sox Game Ever at Yankee Stadium

The main reason I came down to NY last night was for today's Yanks-Sox game at Yankee Stadium. After today's game, there are only 13 regular season games remaining at the current building that is named Yankee Stadium. It's a hallowed baseball field that has played host to so many memorable moments, and has welcomed generations of people.

I'm sure that my great grandparents attended games at Yankee Stadium. I know I have been there countless times since 1981, most of them with my father.

To put it in perspective to Red Sox Nation - imagine a brand new Fenway Park being built right next to the current one, and a stadium that has almost a century of history being torn down. That's what's happening in The Bronx right now. This is a picture of the new stadium's facade.

It's not that I am against the new stadium. I have been to many baseball stadiums, and the brand new ones are usually quite spectacular facilities with modern amenities. It's just that...I wanted one final visit to the stadium at which I learned to love baseball. The stadium of my childhood. Yankee Stadium.

I went onto StubHub a few weeks ago, and paid an embarrassing amount for two tier seats opposite the left-field foul pole, nine rows from the top of the stadium. Not-so-cheap cheap seats. Nonetheless, it was a no-brainer.

When I told my father to take the day off and this is what we were doing, he was ecstatic. I figured that it was a late Father's Day and birthday present. He saw it simply as a pleasant surprise. One last jaunt to the place where we had many father-son moments, and even better that the game was against the Red Sox.

Our seats were so high, that I was able to take this picture straight across from our seats. The view beyond right field at Fenway is a beautiful backdrop of Boston's skyline. The view beyond the center field at Yankee Stadium is of the lovely tenements of The Bronx.











The stairs were so steep, that I wondered how a beer vendor of his size was able to make repeated trips up and down the stairs, and I began worrying for his well-being.

My father - a man also of not-so-svelte size, decided that once he reached his seat, he was not going to be going up and down all game. In fact, once he sat down, he was there for the duration!










Our seats were so high, that we were also sitting above the top of the foul pole.

The game itself was an excellent pitcher's duel. Mike Mussina versus Jon Lester. Yankees bats were silent until the 7th inning, when Lester came out after about 120 pitches, and Okajima promptly gave up a game-tying two-run home run to Pinch Hitter Jason Giambi.

The stadium lit up, and it reminded me of being part of other exciting moments at Yankee Stadium. Those clutch hits, monster home runs, or key strikeouts.

The Yankees won the game in the bottom of the ninth, bases loaded, Papelbon on the mound, game-winning single from Giambi.

Ballgame over, Yankees Win, thaaaaa Yankees Win!

Cue Frank Sinatra and a stadium filled with people singing the standard exit song - win or lose - "New York, New York."

It's the "Dirty Water" of Yankee Stadium, always signaling: end of game, time to leave, sit in traffic, hopefully with a smile from a Yankees victory.

To be perfectly honest, I shed a little tear hearing that song and walking down the stairs toward the exit one final time. I said to my father that it's just weird that this will be the last time I heard this song in this building after a Yankees game.

We walked past some T-Shirt vendors on the way back to the car. While I can confidently proclaim Yankees street vendors to be MUCH less vulgar in their printed messages, I did spot these two that weren't exactly personally slanderous (Jeter Swallows, Jeter Sucks A-Rod, et al), but more slings at the entire team and city.

I did not purchase either shirt. I don't feel that degree of enmity toward the Red Sox.

Plus I do live in Boston. Wearing one of these around town would be kind of bizarre.

Awesome iPhone Apps - Scribble

There has been lots of hype around the new Apps available for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Deservedly so. Many of them are simply awesome.

There's the "how do they do that" of Shazam and Midomi, which can identify music by hearing the actual song (Shazam) or by listening to someone hum or sing part of the song (Midomi).

There's the "um....OK....weird, but sweet" app PhoneSaber, which turns the device into a light saber.

There's the "well of course we need THAT" app called More Cowbell, which shows the picture of a cowbell and allows the user to tap the picture of the cowbell on the screen to add, well, more cowbell where necessary.

Yesterday, I downloaded Scribble, which is a simple drawing app. You can pick from four colors and draw pictures with your finger.

Somehow, I managed to draw this as my first interaction with Scribble.

It appears to be a smiley face presiding over a blue male Christmas Tree with feet.

Jason Purchases an iPhone G3

I must admit that I am getting sucked into the cult of Apple.

On Friday, I intended to purchase an iPhone before work if the line at the local AT&T store wasn't too long. When I drove past , I saw a few people waiting outside, and decided that I needed to get to work and would deal with the iPhone later.

That decision became an efficient use of my time, as Apple had a rough Friday with their activation servers crashing.

But Saturday morning, I walked Rosie and then decided to take a shot at the Apple Store on Boylston St. I hadn't been there yet, and heard that the lines on Friday were three deep and around the block. I figured that worst case, I would drive by, see a huge crowd of people, and head out to Natick to pick up my slate tile before 1pm (and try the Apple Store at The Natick Collection).

Well, I passed the Apple store and saw maybe 30 people in a queue outside the front door. Didn't seem too bad, I thought. I turned left toward Newbury St. and happened upon a car pulling out from a metered spot.

Perfect timing!

I went to go feed the meter with eight quarters, and noticed that it was Out of Order. Even better! Technically, there's an hour limit on Out of Order meters, but I figured I would just park there and see what happens.

On to the line outside of the store.

I'm informed that there are no more 16 GB black iPhones in stock. No worries. A white one is what I wanted anyways. Either way, there was a good chance that the case I select for the phone would mask the phone's color.

I start doing some reconnaissance. I ask the guy in line ahead of me if there have been any time estimates from this point. He was thinking 90 minutes. It appears that the line outside of the store was a precursor to another line on the second floor.

It's now 10:15 am. Plenty of time to make it to Natick to pick up tile before the close.

11:05 am - we're welcomed inside of the store. Thankfully. The sun was high in the sky, and the reflection off the building's facade made for a toasty morning. The Apple Store employees were even passing out water and sunscreen(?!)



Up to the second floor, the land of iPhones. Everything on this floor is dedicated to iPhones.






There is are people standing in another queue around three sides of the square that surrounds the central glass spiral staircase. Once reaching the front of the line, Apple reps were greeting customers and pairing them with salespeople when they became available.

12:30 pm rolls around, and finally I'm at the head of the line. Just over two hours waiting, which wasn't awful to be honest. I had my ipod and camera with me. The store was air conditioned. And I was excited.

At this point, I also stopped caring about the possible parking ticket for leaving my car at an Out of Order meter for quite some time.

In the necessary people watching, I saw a glimpse of an Apple logo tattooed onto the back of an employee's neck. This cult has deep roots.

I'm helped by Matt, who turned out to be an intern at WFNX, referred to on-air at times as iMatt. Clever. He's with me for about 35 minutes, helping explain the different packages, accessories, MobileMe, and get me all set up and activated.

A couple times, iMatt asked me a few seemingly hokey questions like "are you excited about this?" and "do you want to unwrap it?" almost like the ceremony of purchasing an iPhone builds to the exciting climax of actually owning one, which to be perfectly honest it does.

I must say that the employees at the Apple Store deserve lots of credit for being professional and patient while they deal with legions of customers, packed stores, and tons of questions. Even though I waited for 2+ hours, I felt that I received great customer service.

So about three hours after I parked, I walked out of the store, iPhone in hand, passing the line of people who probably don't know that their three hour journeys were just beginning.

No parking ticket on the car. The awesome continues!!