Fack Youk: iphone

Showing posts with label iphone. Show all posts

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Thursday Night News And Links

It's Thursday, and the Yankees once again have the night off. Former Yankees General Manager and Hall of Famer George M. Weiss has some suggestions to keep you occupied in the meantime.

The Red Sox play the Royals out in Kansas City tonight, which means they will be making a pretty late arrival to NYC tomorrow morning. The magic number is currently at 5 after a Sox win last night, but it could drop to 4 if they lose tonight. This means that the Yanks would have to take just two out of three to clinch the division at home against Boston. Something called Anthony Lerew would have to out pitch Clay Bucholz for that to happen, however.

The Twins and Angels are off, but Tigers are playing the Indians tonight and sending Justin Verlander to the hill. Detroit still holds a 2.5 game lead over Minnesota but those teams have 4 head to head games remaining against reach other, so anything could happen.

In college football, #4 Ole Miss (the highest ranking the school has had since Archie Manning played there) takes on South Carolina.

Peter Gammons has sure elicited some strong reaction after suggesting the MLB might want to "think" about adding one Wild Card team to each league. Craig Calcaterra thinks the system is fine the way it is. Kevin Kaduk concurs. Jason thinks it ain't broke neither. Joe from RAB would actually prefer the playoffs to be scaled down before they are expanded.

Joel Sherman is just about the only person I've heard agree with Gammons, citing the fact that it's nearly impossible for a team other than the Yankees and the Red Sox to make the postseason in the current format.

In related news, since the Blue Jays won't be contending any time soon, Joe from RAB suggests that the Jays trade Roy Halladay and get some value for him while they still can.

Fangraphs takes a look at A-Rod in the postseason since he's joined the Yankees and points out that over the same span, Derek Jeter hasn't been any great shakes either. An astute commenter points out that saying A-Rod "doesn't" hit well in the playoffs (like the post did) is much different that saying he "hasn't" which implies that he still could.

Speaking of FanGraphs, they released their iPhone app today. For $2.99, you get live WPA and most everything you'd expect to be available from the website. Yes, I've already downloaded it.

Jayson Stark ranks the playoff rotations.

Jon from Subway Squawkers wonders if the Yankees are a leading economic indicator.

Via Baseball Musings, Rays Index points out that before the Daily News crowns the Yankees' infield the best ever, they might want to take into consideration that the Rays' IF put up better numbers this year.

Jim Rice: Still an ass.

Our boy HowFresh calls out Plaxico Burress for the last meal he ate before he went to prison and shows him how it's done.

Terrible news for Giants fans.

And finally, this is pretty damn cool. (via Schiff on Google Reader)

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Straight Cash Homey!

Yes, someone actually took the time to create a custom Matt Nokes Yankees jersey tee. And then wore it in public.

Start Spreading The News

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Only Cody Ransom...

For those who don't have Google Reader (you should really set one up), this is what individual posts look like, regardless of what blog they come from. You can subscribe to all your favorite blogs, Google Alerts, newspaper topics (i.e. Star-Ledger Yankees) and so forth. It keeps them all in one place and lets you know how many unread items you have, keeps stats on your reading habits and allows you to save posts by starring them. It's probably not as many as some people, but it lets me read over 5,000 posts a month, a number which is probably higher than most everyone who doesn't have an RSS reader of some sort. It will change the way you read things on the internet forever, in a good way, especially since you can use it with an iPhone.

The program also has this function that pretty much no one uses by which you can indicate if you "liked" a post. This one happens to be from MLB Trade Rumors, a feed which has over 3,000 subscribers (we have 89 at last count, woot!) and it was the first post on that feed I can remember seeing that anyone has "liked".

I don't really know what it is about Cody Ransom that made him a Twitter cult legend and a Yankee blog favorite (or anti-favorite?). At the age of 33, he's obviously by no means a prospect and Maybe it was the four homers he hit in 43 at bats last year. More likely it was his ridiculous YouTube jumping video. Either way, Cody Ransom is one of those fringe players that hardcore fans find interesting for whatever reason but the casual observer might not recognize by number.

Something tells me this isn't the last we see of the utility man. If the Mets don't claim him off waivers, he'll be back around soon enough.

Friday, May 22, 2009

Time Turns Elastic

As Matt mentioned last night, the penultimate destination of my road trip was a stop in Baltimore to see Trey Anastiasio (the frontman of Phish), play with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. If you aren't familiar with Phish's music, you might think this would be an unlikely match. That's probably because you didn't know that all four members of Phish are classically trained musicians and that many of their longer songs are tightly composed and would be well suited to an orchestral backing.

I've seen symphony performances before at SPAC, but never at a concert hall specifically designed for acoustics. We lucked into some pretty good seats - first row of the lower balcony - which certainly enhanced the experience as well. Above the stage at the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall there were bowed wood panels, and on the ceiling there were giant half spheres with a slot down the middle that looked like flat head screws. The doors where you entered your section were closed and soundproof, each balcony was it's own little pod, the ledges of which were gently sloped and aimed (not surprisingly) right towards ear level. Each one of these design features were put in place solely for acoustical purposes, and last night, they were put to their full use.

There was a stringed band playing in the entry way across from a cocktail bar and the crowd was an interesting mix of dreadlocks and blazers, summer dresses and t-shirts. Trey walked on stage with conductor Marin Alsop, wearing a black suit and blue dress shirt, a pretty drastic departure from his normal stage attire, and was met with a rousing applause.

Standing in front of the orchestra and off to

Alsop's left, Trey then picked up his spruce-topped Languedoc, which was plugged in to a modestly-sized Fender amp, and delved into Divided Sky. The tone was clean and and carefully balanced with the mostly stringed arrangement. The crowd sat quietly through the roughly 10 minute version of the song but erupted with what I'm guessing was the loudest applause in the history of the venue when Alsop halted the strings. These being mostly Phish fans, the typical clapping was backed by plenty of "Wooohooo!!!"s and "Yeah, Trey!!!"s. It was a breathtaking moment, and one that made it impossible for me to suppress a smile.

Next came the mellow Brian and Robert (which I simulcasted via iPhone to Sampson), followed by the short, acoustic The Inlaw Josie Wales. Trey then took a moment to thank the crowd and said how honored he was to be able to do something like this.

The most emotional moment of the night came when he dedicated the next song to his eight year old nephew. Three weeks ago his mother, Trey's sister, Kristy Manning lost a long battle with cancer and they played a beautiful rendition of Water In The Sky in her honor. As I listened, I couldn't help but think back to the heartfelt post that Matt wrote earlier in the day and appreciate one of those times when life comes together - when for a short while it all seems to make sense. Last night was one of those fleeting moments.

The title song of the show was called Time Turns Elastic and was a 13 minute opus consisting of 9 shorter, interwoven songs that they played at the beginning of the second set. Next came what they call "Guyute" the orchestral composition of what is from Trey's album Seis De Mayo, and starts and ends with the intro from My Friend, My Friend. I recorded all 12 minutes of it on my phone, but haven't figured out how to get it off. The encore, If I Could, hadn't been played live in almost nine years.

Here is a link to the full setlist.

By the time I get back to New York this afternoon I will have logged over 2,000 miles on my Grandma's Mercury Sable and slept in 5 different states in 6 days. We ran into all sorts of pitfalls and obstacles and very little went according to plan, save for the show last night. I was lucky to have a traveling companion who in addition to being easy going, was a top notch iPhone navigator and text-retary who rolled with the punches at every juncture. We've been friends since Semester At Sea, so that last part came as no surprise. She's not a Phish fan, but I prepped her a little bit while we were sitting in traffic on the Baltimore-Washington Expressway and unless she was bullshitting me (unlikely), she came away almost as impressed and satisfied as I was.