The O’s game last night was a lot of fun. J and M, the kind folks who scored us the tickets, were cool enough to handle driving duties, which meant all we had to do was show up. Being with the two of them is kind of like hanging out with a 20-year-old vaudeville act. They are constantly on, and constantly riffing off of each other, which makes keeping up with them a challenge.

The game was good, if not totally uninteresting—excellent defensive baseball and stellar pitching, up until the point Toronto was able to get a man on third and a decent sacrifice bunt to bring him home. Then Baltimore went through two relief pitchers and made a valiant attempt to even up the score, with no results.

Clearly, the best part about seeing baseball live is the experience. We had excellent seats up the first-base line, directly in foul ball territory (and were not disappointed: three near-misses, the closest of which was caught by a woman sitting directly behind Jen) and facing Sammy Sosa, who was about 100ft. away. As we sat down, we were treated to the sight of a young fan vomiting all over the seat in front of him, watched intently by his parents, who did nothing to direct the splash away from the folks in front of them. Later, they bought him nachos and soda. I’ll have to remember this excellent strategy when we have children.

Back in the day at Camden Yards, there used to be a vendor who sold Italian Ice with this peculiar (but memorable) sales chant:

“Oyyycy Oyyyce…

Lemon Chill.”

He would sort of march up the stairs with two cups held out in front of him, yelling his sales chant in a hoarse voice that cut through the chatter, stomping his feet in time with the syllables.

“Oyyycy Oyyyce”

*stamp* *stamp*

“Lemon Chill.”

*stamp* *stamp*

He’s not there anymore, but we were treated to Clancy, the Bud Light Man, who just cut through all the bullshit and yelled, “Hey, BUD LIGHT HERE. CLANCY has your BUD LIGHT HERE.” Dude worked hard for the money, and we bought a round of beers from him, which incidentally are now served in brown plastic bottles that look like glass but don’t hurt when they bounce off your forehead. Then we had the hot chocolate man come down and tempt us with his wares: “Howwwt KEW-keww, gityer hoowwt kew-keww here.” (This is a Baltimore accent, the one that morphs Maryland into Merlin, ambulance into AM-be-lamps and police into PO-leece.) Strangely, the kew-keww is served in waxed paper cups, which seems to promote heat-related injury and lawsuits—ironic, considering the team owner built his empire on asbestos litigation fees.

It wasn’t as cold as we feared it might be, either, which was a relief. I packed gloves, a hat and a scarf, thinking the temperature would drop precipitously, but didn’t need to bother worrying. The guy in the purple wifebeater on line for beer in front of me made me feel stupid for wearing a coat, but he did have 200 lbs. and four beers on me at that point.

We wrapped the evening up with a cocktail at Matthew’s down the street, said our thank-you’s and crashed out. Hopefully, there will be more tickets in our future!

One of the many perks of being married to a print designer are the gifts from print reps that bloom in springtime. Every April, the salespeople start sniffing around for that beginning-of-calendar-year business and waving tickets around like party favors. I’ve often thought that 3/4 of the attendance at Camden Yards was due to Baltimore and D.C. printing shops wooing customers, because it seems like everybody around me in the stands is in a suit, on a cellphone, or buying an Italian Ice for the boss. Not that I’m complaining, however, because the only way to enjoy baseball (besides when it’s on an AM tube radio) is in person, with a stadium dog in your hand and a beer on its way over from the vendor in the aisle. Now, I can’t remember the last time I was able to see a game downtown—tickets have been hard to come by the past couple of years—but it looks like tonight we break the slump to see dem O’s play Toronto. Unfortunately, it’s supposed to be about 50°, so we need to dress warm and shiver out the cold. But I don’t care!

Watching (by accident) a special on PBS about the decision to drop the atomic bomb, featuring footage of a big shiny silver plane I stood next to yesterday.

Sitting in traffic this morning for an hour, watching a black van come hurtling past me in the breakdown lane, and thinking evil thoughts about the driver until I noticed the flashing lights in the rear windows and that peculiar stance that unmarked police vehicles have. Half an hour later, I passed this same van, still in the breakdown lane, as two heavily armed (!?!) U.S. marshals attempted to fix a

flat tire.

Sitting at my desk, working, and turning to see Penn, the Incarcerated One, sitting next to Teller, (who was just visiting) and quietly licking the top of his head. My heart sort of dropped a few feet. A few minutes later, they were rolling around the floor, locked in battle, pulling tufts of hair from one another.

Finding a client’s archived site on my main hard drive, in the wrong folder, and being able to restore their entire live site after hosting difficulties. (The same thing happened to me last year.)