To me the defining moment of a Yankee world series game always came down to one moment, one moment of bottled up intensity that sent the crowd into a fever, it was excitement exemplified and it came at the bottom 8th inning…

—-

Enter Sandman hits on the PA, and the crowd rises to their feet as Metallica’s anthem begins to pump through their veins like the fuel injection of a car.

“Now pitching for the New York Yankees… number forty two Mariano Rivera.”

—-

It was Bob Sheppard’s voice.

Bob’s presence is the perfect contrast to Metallica’s it reminds the fans that this is class, this is prestige, this is the New York Yankees, the greatest sports franchise of all time.

Bob’s voice is that brand, it is the Yankees. Thank you for all the memories Bob, may you sleep soundly.

Of all the places I’ve spent my time. No place has as many fond memories for me as Yankee Stadium.

I shot this image almost exactly two years ago at the 2008 MLB All Star Home Run Derby. This would be the second to last game I would spend with her.

I only just now finally getting the chance to assemble it in Photoshop and Aperture. This is my tribute to the most important stadium in all of baseball and my one true home.

May she rest in piece.

I wandered around they duty free shops for a bit and decided to get a bite to eat at the Malaysian noodle place called Nööödles. I got the “beef balls and herbs soup” and a coke for what equated to around $7, not half bad. After that I stumbled onto the airport Starbucks which had a free open WiFi connection… Sweet! Only problem though? No way to charge my devices.. Kuala Lumpur is the only stop on my trip that doesn’t use the standard US two prong wall socket and I didn’t bring my adaptor kit with me. Luckily enough there was an electronics store right below where I was able to pick up one of those little adaptor switch boxes for around $10.

I did have a momentary nerd out moment in there however. They had TONS of Japanese video games for sale and all sorts of bizarre bootleg devices. This was the kind of stuff that 10 year old me dreamed of. I got really really excited at the idea of buying something to bring home and play… Then I remembered that this isn’t the days of old where you could get a cartridge adaptor for your NES and just play Japanese games, the whole industry has switched to optical media which simply won’t play without modding your systems, which thanks to the DMCA is illegal in the USA and with companies like Microsoft blocks you from getting online. Damn. Stupid regions. Stupid DMCA. Stupid Microsoft.

After I got over my heartbreak on this I went back to Starbucks, plugged in and I was off and running! (Note: the iPad’s battery would have no doubt made it fine through my flight to Tokyo, but I knew I was going to use it heavily in the next day so I wanted to start off with a fresh full charge.

I arrived at the Narita airport and wandered around a bit, taking a moment to use the bathroom, clean myself up and change into jeans. It’s 84 degrees here, a huge break compared to the sweltering heat and humidity of Thailand, I’m excited to be wearing jeans again.

I took a bus to the downtown Tokyo Train station which took about an hour but I figured would be a good starting point. From there I began to wander some more, I immediately was able to figure out which direction I was walking from the placement of the sun and when I noticed that I laughed out loud. The boy scouts would be proud. I’m extremely grateful for my iPhone right now as none of the streets are obviously labeled, that said I think I’d be doing okay as there are a lot of maps placed throughout the city which denote where you are. Navigation is all based on neighborhoods and landmarks, and it’s surprisingly clear for someone who doesn’t read a word of Japanese.

First thing on my agenda: find the Apple store. I accomplished this very quickly. Now I know you probably laughed at that and might have even muttered “nerd” but there is a method to my madness. Apple is very selective in the placement of their stores, they are usually in upscale, popular/trendy areas so they can immediately give you an idea of a good place to check out, on top of that they offer free wifi, accessible power outlets, clean bathrooms and friendly multi-lingual staff.

That choice paid off big time immediately I was able to find a guy who had moved here from Estonia who was able to give me a brief run-through of Tokyo basics. First thing he told me, enjoy the free WiFi because I won’t find much of it elsewhere. Not even Starbucks offers it apparently and McDonald’s does but only to Nintendo DS users… great. I also found out the post office here doesn’t sell stamps… weird. I’ve yet to mail out my postcards so that is priority #2.

Christine’s father was able to get me a great hotel rate for tonight so I’ll be staying at the Sheraton, this goes against my usual traveling rules, but I could use a clean bed and shower. Unfortunately I can’t check in until 2 so it I’ve got some time to kill.

I’ve heard a few suggestions / requests of things to do for tonight which I’m excited to start tackling as soon as I’ve put my bags down. I’m still open for more though so hit me up in the comments or on Twitter. More later!

There is WiFi and decent food in the terrace as well as a tourist information desk, it very much blurs the line between hotel and hostel. Everyone here is super friendly and I’m typing this while eating a delicious BLT breakfast (I got a little tired of chicken and rice).

Our room has cable tv so we settled in and relaxed for a bit and flipped through stations before settling on MTV Africa (an odd thing to broadcast since Thailand is not in Africa). I haven’t watched MTV in years, in fact I’ve been pretty actively boycotting it since around 1997, so whenever I do catch it for a while I’m always blown away by what I see. 8 videos in a row and 7 of them (including Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus) clearly used and overused auto-tune. I’m sickened, is there any musical talent required anymore? Geez. Anyway this frightened me worse when I realized I was watching MTV Africa, not MTV US, these pop stars and the ads for Jersey Shore are representing America to a lot of people and they look up to it, that is really scary.

After that we went to Chang house and hung out with Christine’s friend Earth. Awesome guy, we split a bottle of “Blend” whiskey (Distilled by Red Bull, cheap and not half bad, considering) and attempted to overcome language barriers and had a good laugh doing so. From there we went to another bar where Earth’s band was playing and found some French guys and Christine’s coworker Dan from the UK. We had a really good time talking about cultural differences and I wound up telling the one gentleman from Paris my trick to getting a Parisian to speak English, he had a really good laugh and admitted he had no doubt it would work.

From there we went to a nightclub where there was a Thai rock band playing. I was exhausted but it was a lot of fun. It seems a lot of Thai rock is set on a reggae beat so it’s very, very similar to the ska punk I grew up with on Long Island which is very strange but very comforting. Eventually the band busted into a Thai Punk cover of Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance which turned out to be surprisingly good.

Thai covers of American music are actually really huge over here in the touristy areas but they are quite amusing to those of us who natively speak English because most, not all, of the singers don’t understand the words to what they’re singing. The singers will butcher the lyrics but hit the notes, tones and timing near perfectly. It’s an amazing phenomenon and very entertaining nonetheless. From there it was time for bed, but as a whole the day turned out to be really enlightening and fun.

Today we’re catching a boat tour around the city and checking outcome old ruins, I can’t wait to take pictures and to share them with y’all. Cheers!

If Cory Doctorow is so against closed systems owned by big corporations with enormous budgets, why does Boing Boing use Flash for it’s ads and video?

He’ll criticize others for their use of proprietary tech meanwhile profiting from another?

My friends, submitted for your approval on this fine New Years Day is a pamphlet found in the attic of my parent’s house.

What you see is just part of a piece of 1950′s Cold War propaganda in the vein of such nonsense as “Duck and Cover,” This particular piece was produced by New York state in association with Time Inc.’s Life Magazine as a civil service and is bound by no copyright. A pamphlet like this one would have been distributed to help individuals prepare for “The Bomb” which at that point many felt was inevitable. Nevermind the fact that in an actual atomic blast these methods would do very little, if anything, to save one’s life. They both created and eased fear among the populous while fostering dependency and loyalty to the government.

To me it’s an amazing piece of American history both from a psychological and a design standpoint.  My grandfather was a chemist and member of the Nassau Country Civil Defense Commission and near as I can tell this was his, there may be more. If I come across anything else I’ll post it as well.

Enjoy.

A few weeks back I started a Podcast with my friends Brad and Ashley; it’s called Shotspan. The basic idea is that it is a podcast drinking game, we have a PDF of terms and we read weird news stories, if any of the stories match the terms we do a shot. We have a different guest each episode and it’s a lot of fun.

Episodes 1 and 2 are now online and have had a good reaction thus far. Do us a favor and check us out on iTunes and hit ‘Subscribe’. Just a warning though.. might not be safe for work.

Thanks!

A contest entry submitted by the fine folks of lowcarbcomedy.com to be in the DVD release of Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog.

Some of the less educated front runner fans will look at Torre and point the blame for the Yankees’ failures in recent years. But what they don’t remember is that in 12 years Joe brought us to the post season 12 times. Before Joe the Yankees hadn’t won the series since 1978 and even been there since 1982. The problem is in perception. Joe’s the best manager in the biz, I firmly believe this.

Joe Torre is not the problem with the Yankees. The Yankees are the problem with the Yankees.

I’m bitter right now about this but I feel in my gut this is the wrong move, though I’m glad it was ultimately Joe’s decision. My co-worker Frank said to me the other day that though he hates the Yankees, he loves Joe Torre. Joe really is the best and he’s an all around class act, Frank said it well: He deserves to work for an organization that really appreciates him.

I’m a Yankee fan for life, but today is a sad day and one where I really am at odds with the team I love so much.

Good luck Joe. Go win another ring.

Those words are from the chorus of a track entitled ‘Stop’ from Floridian rock group Against Me!’s latest release ‘New Wave.’ The album and this line are significant because it’s not just the group’s newest, it’s their first on a “major label.” A big step for a band who is known for being outspoken against the government, big corporations and the music industry. Although ‘New Wave’ has received praise from industry critics, the major label signing has caused Against Me! to be the target of an intense amount of scrutiny from the scene it arouse from and it’s one time “fans.”

Akiva Gottlieb of the Nation, in an excellently composed and structured piece, delves into the band’s recent struggles. However, the writer’s opinion of the group and it’s front-man, Tom Gabel, show through quite clearly. With lines like “If you can’t stop a war, you might as well make money, right?” peppered throughout, it steers far from objectivity. Even flirting with becoming an attack piece itself near the end, as if the writer herself were personally offended by the band’s actions. Although she took the time to interview Gabel himself and include quotes from him they are not without snide remarks about his recent arrest or criticism. She reinforces her ideas with a quote from another critic of the band’s actions, Mike Conklin of The L Magazine:

“when you say the same things over and over again, as loudly as [Gabel] did, into a microphone no less, to countless impressionable teenagers, you’ve effectively lost your right to just decide one day that you didn’t mean any of it.”

Against Me!’s position is that they are misunderstood and the whole ‘sellout’ movement against them is a ridiculous waste of time and a case of hugely missing the point of their music. They push on and ‘New Wave’ is as harsh as ever on the industry with songs like ‘Up the Cuts’ and it’s title track. However many ex-fans critics feel differently. Some have even gone as far as to book protest shows against them and others have published guides to subverting the band’s concerts. The justification is often lacking however, just coming down to this whiney chorus from the peanut gallery of ‘They signed to a major label! How can they be critical! Hypocrites! Sellouts!” Ms. Gottlieb’s article for instance hinges on one sentence that the writer uses to justify much of her perspective on the band:

“Maybe the band’s subsequent jump to Sire Records–itself a subsidiary of Warner Bros., and thus a part of Time-Warner, the world’s largest media conglomerate–doesn’t pack the same epochal punch as Bob Dylan going electric, but the results again seem to justify the decision.”

However, it would seem this crucial line is horribly factually inaccurate.

Yes, Sire is in fact a subsidiary of Warner Music Group, however despite the name, they are not a part of Time Warner. WMG was sold off by Time Warner in late 2003 to an independent group of investors and is now completely independently owned an operated. These days, despite it’s ‘major label’ status, WMG targets it’s business much differently than it had in it’s past. In recent years WMG has focused on signing a lot of the bigger independent punk bands to get into more niche markets with less focus on the mainstream. Groups like Rancid and Less Than Jake have found homes where they previously wouldn’t have been considered “commercially viable.” Warner these days has become, apparently, a welcoming home to bands who want major label distribution and production without having to sacrifice their creative vision and values.

I think this often goes unknown or misunderstood by a lot of Against Me!’s fans and I imagine it has factored greatly in a lot of band’s signing to WMG labels.

The whole thing goes back to the age old ‘What makes someone a sellout?’ argument that any of us might have written about in out high school journalism classes. Unfortunately as trivial as that argument is, it still doesn’t have a clear answer. Personally, I tend to believe that the claims against Against Me! remain mostly unfounded and short sighted. I feel like it’s one more case of closed minded people who claim to be open. An unfortunate side effect often bred in punk culture. People who claim a “counter culture” but ultimately have a problem with anyone making a living selling their art or want to disrupt something other than a local basement show.

While I see some values in the criticism I think it’s unwarranted in this case. Certainly there is a moral difference between signing to a very large independent label that only makes music and signing to a global conglomerate media or electronics company that makes bombs for the government.

So in Against Me!’s own words:

“All the punks still singing the same song.
Is there anyone thinking what I am?
Is there any other alternative?

Are you restless like me?”

Sadly, I think “the punks” are missing the point.