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Saturday, July 19, 2008The Dark KnightI had never been more excited for a movie's opening than I was for The Dark Knight, the new Batman movie. I LOVED Batman Begins...and this new one looked even better. So Mikah and I went to an early morning showing today to check it out. I was crazy excited and really hoping it would live up to the massive hype it has received. It did. It overshot my expectations. I don't want to say too much about the movie except to say that you MUST go see it. Heath Ledger was unbelievably good. Seriously spectacular. Plus I have a decent sized crush on Christian Bale. Go see it. Now.   Subscribe to the DIA FeedLabels: Movies, The Dark Knight Sunday, July 13, 2008The SidelinerThere's a new very funny sports blog out on the intergoogle called The Sideliner. In the spirit of full disclosure, I have to mention that the author is my sister. But that doesn't change the fact that it is a very well written blog. So go check it out...you won't be disappointed! Subscribe to the DIA FeedLabels: DIA News Tuesday, July 8, 2008My Baseball ThoughtsI haven't written an actual post apart from my baseball stadium reviews (and still one more to come). I have been a bit busy with my book review website, Letters On Pages. Hopefully I can keep up with Digressions in Abundance too. I am sure my tens of fans have been pretty sad without these posts. So...here are my first half baseball thoughts:
Subscribe to the DIA FeedLabels: Adam Dunn, Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs, Cincinnati Reds, New York Yankees Thursday, June 19, 2008Ball Park Review: Angels Stadium (Anaheim, CA) The other night, Mikah, my sister and I went to Angels Stadium in Anaheim, CA. This is the home stadium of the stupidly named Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. This was the second stadium of the trip. As you can see from the first picture...they really like giant sized models of baseball items. You can read my other reviews of my Ball Park tour here. Parking/Access If you are not aware already, going anywhere in Los Angeles takes forever. We left my sisters apartment around 5pm. The game started at 7:05 and the trip out to Anaheim (assuming no traffic) is about 45 minutes. We arrived at our parking spot at about 6:45. We crawled down "The 5" pretty much the entire way. It was awful. However, once we arrived, we pulled right into a lot next to the stadium and paid $8. That's a good deal. Much better than San Francisco's $30 parking. Leaving the stadium was theoretically going to be much better, but they were doing work on the highway. Therefore our return trip took about 1.5 hours. Yeah!!!! Food Once again, I got 2 hot dogs ($3) and Mikah got 1 pretzel ($5). The hot dogs were 25% cheaper than San Fran but the pretzel was 33% more. Both tasted about the same. There weren't as many different places to get food here, but they had all the standards. View Here you can see the view from our seat. The stadium was pretty big, although not full. The view from my seat was of the highway and the Amtrak station...which is classy. They also have a neat rock water fall thing in center field.   Jumbotron They actually had two Jumbotrons here, which was nice. The main one was in right field, with a smaller one in left. This allows almost everyone to see one. Excellent idea. Neither was up to par with the San Francisco one...but I suspect I will not find one that is.  Misc The most obvious random thing about Angel Stadium is the presence of the Rally Monkey. For those who don't know, back in 2002 during a late season game, they showed a monkey with an Angels uniform on jumping up and down...calling it the Rally Monkey. It worked. So they did it again a few days later. It worked again. They continued to use it all the way to the World Series, which they eventually won. I assume all due to the Rally Monkey. Well...now the Rally Monkey is the most important thing at an Angels game. They have in between inning videos starring the rally monkey. In one, the monkey sang "Bohemian Rhapsody" with Queen. In the other, the monkey starred as the T-Rex in Jurassic Park. But unlike 2002...the monkey had no effect on this game. The team spirit wasn't all that high, certainly not as high as San Fran. A lot like a Reds game actually...except more people go to the games in Anaheim. This game was played pretty poorly by both teams, but especially the Angels. Their base running alone made me think I was watching a C-ball game. Or the Reds. It was really that atrocious. The Mets actually played a pretty good game until they had to go to their bullpen, who almost blew the 5 run lead they had. But that's what the Mets bullpen does, so I guess it was business as usual. In the end, the Mets won the game 9-6. Subscribe to the DIA FeedLabels: Ball Park Tour, Los Angeles, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim Sunday, June 15, 2008Ball Park Review: AT&T Park (San Francisco, CA) Last night we went to AT&T Park, which is where the San Francisco Giants play. The Giants were my second favorite team for a long time because Will Clark played over there. So I have a bit of a soft spot for them. You can read my other reviews of my Ball Park tour here. Parking/Access We were able to get to the park pretty easily, but we didn't look up places to park first. So we ended up following the herd and paying $30 to park. Which is totally outrageous. I am sure there were cheaper places to park a little further away from the stadium, but we didn't know where those were. Oops. Food I got two hot dogs ($4) and Mikah got two pretzels ($3.75) over the span of the game. That seems a bit expensive for the hot dogs, but the pretzels seem reasonable. There were a TON of different types of food you could get there, ranging from their famous Garlic Fries (which i opted out of, due to the desire to not get sick and the desire for Mikah to continue to talk to me for the rest of the night), Soup, Seafood, Pulled Pork, etc... They also had churro vendors, which looked good. View Here you can see the view from our seat. I don't think there is a bad seat in that place. Everything seemed to be directed at the field. A couple spots have no access to the Jumbrotron, but that is to be expected. Additionally to the view of the field, our seats on the third base side afforded us a fantastic view of the Bay (picture shown taken from a different angle, but I promise it's the same Bay).   JumboTron The Jumbotron is awesome. It is enormous and crystal clear. FAAAAAARRR better than the one in Cincinnati.  Misc The most significant other thing of note about the game is the fact that it is freezing there. I knew it got chilly, but the wind that whips off the water and through the stadium is terrible. It got so bad that we even filled out those credit card things to get free blankets (which are nice by the way!) Giants fans display their loyalty more that Reds fans do. There were very few people in the park that didn't have on a Giants or A's shirt/hat. Since the A's were "in town", the place was packed and had a lot of energy. I think there were more A's fans than Giants fans though. The game itself was pretty well played considering how bad both teams are. Both starting pitchers pitched very well, but the Giants lost 4-0. It was a fun time and I got to cross another stadium off the list. That said, the next time I come to a Giants game I hope it's in August and in the day time. Or anytime where I don't have to sign up for a credit card application to stay warm! Subscribe to the DIA FeedLabels: Ball Park Tour, San Francisco, San Francisco Giants Thursday, June 5, 2008NBA Finals - Game 1I am watching the end of game one of the NBA finals. It looks like the Celtics are going to win. I hate the Celtics. In fact, I hate all of Boston sports. Totally insufferable. For Example: tonight Paul Pierce twisted his knee. They CARRIED him off the court. They then put him in a WHEELCHAIR (accompanied by about 33 people) to the locker room. About 3 minutes later he came back out of the locker room and is now on the same level as Michael the Archangel. Reminded me more of Mateen "IT'S BROOOOOOKE" Cleaves than Willis Reed. (note: I don't blame Piece for this...apparently he wanted to walk off under his own power) I'm sure there will be stats to prove me otherwise, but I think there have been 254 fouls called on the Lakers, vs 3 against the Celtics. I hate Boston. Subscribe to the DIA FeedLabels: Boston Celtics, Los Angeles Lakers, NBA Monday, May 26, 2008Ball Park Review: Fifth Third Field (Dayton, OH)Next in the series of ball park tours: Mikah and I took a mini trip up to Dayton recently to watch the Dayton Dragons play. The Dragons are the Reds Class Single A team. I don't really follow Single A baseball much, but if the game we were at is any indication of how good the team is...then they are terrible. You can read my other reviews of my Ball Park tour here. Parking/Access Apart from some completely wrong directions we got from the hotel, access was easy. There were plenty of parking lots surrounding the stadium and we paid $6 to park. Food I got 2 hot dogs ($3.50) and Mikah got 1 pretzel ($3). The hot dogs tasted fine, though not as good as The Charleston River Dogs' hot dogs! As usual, the pretzel tasted like a pretzel. View Here you can see the view from the two different seats we sat in. We moved from the left field wall to behind home plate to get a different view.   JumboTron Their Jumbotron was nothing special and at times difficult to read. Misc As with any minor league game (especially the lower minor leagues) there is plenty of entertainment between every half inning. Which I suppose is good, but after a while I kind of just want to watch a baseball game. As I mentioned before, the Dragons were really bad. They lost that game 7-0. They had also lost the first game of the double header 11-3. It was good to get up to a Dragon's game considering they are only 45 minutes away from my house and they are a Reds team. Sometime soon we want to go see a Louisville Bats game as well. Subscribe to the DIA FeedLabels: Ball Park Tour, Cincinnati Reds, Dayton Dragons Thursday, May 1, 2008NBA PlayoffsI'm an NBA fan. There I said it. No. Wait...please don't go! Just give me a second. This year has been an awesome NBA season. Very exciting with a lot of cool stuff happening. And the playoffs have been fantastic. Living in Cincinnati, I don't really have a "team". I've been rooting for Cleveland, but only because Bron Bron is there (for now!). They are pretty terrible...but Bron is sweet. My new favorite team is the New Orleans Hornets. They have Chris Paul (CP3) who is AWESOMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. He is so fun to watch. I feel like he gets a triple double every night. Basically, he is Steve Nash x infinity good. That's pretty good. Anyway...I recommend you check out some New Orleans Hornets action during the playoffs. CP3 is too fun to miss! Subscribe to the DIA FeedLabels: Chris Paul, LeBron James, NBA Sunday, April 27, 2008Draft RecapYesterday and today was the NFL draft. There were some pretty "exciting" things that happened. None more exciting than the fact that I got to see Mel Kiper Jr. for the last time this year. Thank goodness!  A couple teams seemed to have really good drafts which will improve their team a lot. I think the Bengals had an OK draft. I am still upset they could make it happen to draft Sedrick Ellis. Now, maybe the Pats refused to trade with them or something like that. But I have to assume the Bengals just didn't get the job done. That said, they did get Keith Rivers...who I like...and who will probably start pretty quickly for the Bengals. I don't know who Jerome Simpson, their second round pick, is. Apparently he can jump high and went to Coastal Carolina. I think the Bengals only picked him to prove they don't need scouts. "See! We found this kid down at some random school in one of the Carolinas! Who cares that we could have picked him in the 5th round. Whatever!" So we'll see. Like I said before, they did fine. Now we just need to hope our "coaches" know how to make them better. Subscribe to the DIA FeedLabels: Cincinnati Bengals, Mel Kiper Jr., NFL Draft Wednesday, April 23, 2008"we're just not going to lose anymore""We're just not going to lose anymore." -Reds owner Bob Castellini 4/23/08, noon. "9-3" -Final Score 4/23/08, 10:00pm oops. Subscribe to the DIA FeedLabels: Cincinnati Reds
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