PhD comics

No fictional body of work has ever so accurately captured my day to day life as PhD comics. Case in point: yesterday's strip. With the exception of the last panel, I seriously have this conversation with people at least once a week. Case in point... jcbarret's blog.

Tigers 4, Brewers 0

So, Justin Verlander pitches a no-hitter last night and I didn't watch it because my housemate is not a baseball fan. The conversation went something like this as we flipped through channels.

Me: Baseball?
Him: Eh...
Me: It's Tigers-Brewers. I guess I don't care that much.

If only I had known! We wound up watching South Park episodes from onDemand instead, including the one in which the boys try in vain to throw every game in the playoffs so that they don't have to play boring baseball anymore, but can't manage to lose. How ironic.

On the plus side, Verlander is on my fantasy team.

Song of the Bells

There is a carillon tower a few blocks from my window that usually chimes on the hour and plays music at random other times. During the school year, it's pretty standard stuff -- mostly bell-ringing etudes that I don't recognize. But just now, I heard the strains of "Stairway to Heaven" coming out of the bells. It took me a minute to figure out that that's what it was, because I've never heard a carillon version of the song before, but it was definitely Zeppelin. They played the whole song too, from the slower first section right through the faster second section.

I know there's a one credit course to learn how to play the carillon... maybe I should take it, now that I know that I can potentially play rock anthems over the campus.

Red Sox 4, A's 5

An exciting game with a great finish... for the wrong team.

After dragging Breath to a game last night, this time it was Anand's turn to be taken to a game, and I think he got the better end of the deal. He even asked for the Red Sox game and actively cheered for them. I was so proud -- he doesn't even refer to it as the "hitting box" anymore and used the phrase "He got a piece of it," in reference to a foul ball without even realizing that that's a real phrase. He's learning!

As for the game... Big Papi, always a crowd favorite, started off the game with a home run in the top of the first. Unfortunately, the A's answered with two runs in the 2nd and a homerun in the 4th inning by Mark Ellis, who hit for the cycle tonight. Wily Mo Pena answered with homerun of his own in the 7th to bring it to 3-2 Oakland, but the A's gained an insurance run in the 8th on no hits, but two walks and a fielder's choice.

Going into the 9th and down by two, it was time for some more Big Papi magic, opening up the inning with a double and eventually scoring on a Jason Varitek pinch hit. Wily Mo played the hero's role again, batting around Coco Crisp who was pinch running for Varitek, to tie up the game and send it into extra innings.

In the top of the 10th with Dustin Pedroia on first, it looked briefly like we were going to get more Big Papi magic as he hit a deep fly ball to center. It caromed off the wall and was a certain double... but then Pedroia tried to score and was out at home, ending the half inning.

Anand seemed legitimately excited through the 10th and then the cold settled into the stadium. His cheers quickly turned from being pro-Red Sox to "Either let him hit a homerun or strike him out -- but make progress!" In the bottom of the 11th, Kyle Snyder finally acquiesced to his cries and gave up a walk off homerun to Eric Chavez that ended the game. Fearing the jeers of the Oakland fans, I stuffed my Red Sox hat into my bag as we ran off to catch the BART back to Berkeley.

Twins 2, A's 4

I made Breath go with me to the Twins/A's game in the Coliseum in Oakland. Unfortunately, the home team won, based on an error by Jason Bartlett in the third, which directly to three Oakland runs. With the bases loaded and two outs, Bobby Crosby hit a grounder to shortstop. Bartlett actually made a nice play to get to the ball and field it... and promptly threw it into the bullpen behind first base instead of getting the third out of the inning. All three runners on base managed to score and Crosby got to third. Luckily, Santana followed up by striking out Cust to end the inning so there was no more damage. But since the Twins couldn't get ever get the necessary clutch hit, those three runs made the difference in the ballgame.

Breath seemed to enjoy himself up until about the 7th, when he fell asleep for a half-inning. You can take a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. Tomorrow I'm dragging an even more stubborn horse to the A's/Red Sox game, before flying back to Michigan. (Did I not mention that a primary reason why I agreed to go on this road trip was the excellent timing of Oakland's baseball schedule?)

One thing I didn't mention about the Denver game, is that it was the final game in my scorebook... which means that I need to buy a new one. Unfortunately, while I'm surrounded by people who are native to the area, none of them are sports fans and so I'm stuck using the scorecard out of the program. And Oakland doesn't sell separate scorecards, so I'll have to buy another program tomorrow, probably identical to the one I bought today. Oh well.

Road Trip Pictures

Okay, to end the story of the road trip, we drove a lot on Thursday through Utah and Nevada. We stopped briefly at the Mormon temple, the Bonneville Salt Flats, and in Reno for dinner. But mostly we drove... all the way to Berkeley, where I got dropped off at Anand's and Amy continued on to Mountain View.

And now, finally, there are pictures... they're sorted by state, because that seemed as arbitrary as anything else.