Tipping at the ballpark

This is a short post, because I’m busy at work and probably will be right up until Friday.

Apropos of an earlier discussion about Bud Selig’s tipping habits, here’s a commercial about George W. Bush’s tipping habits at the ballpark. They’re not so good.

Beer prices in themselves seem to more or less set the value of tips at Wrigley Field. When they end in $.50, the vendors seem to get more tips, if only because they are very good at the little “You’re not really going to ask me to pass your two quarters all the way down the row?” pantomime. I have to admit that when the quarters hit my hand on their way to their drunken owner, I’m frequently tempted to send them back the other way, just to see what would happen.

Big or small, short or tall, you will all have a ball on the baseball-related show

So, Levi, what are you doing after work tomorrow? If you’re planning on doing anything other than meeting me at O’Hare Terminal 3 baggage claim, most likely American Airlines carousel #6, perhaps you should change those plans. Bring your driver’s license.

Original comments…

Levi: Who’s Jim?

The game that wasn’t

Hanger-on Luke e-mailed earlier tonight to point out that the Red Sox were playing the White Sox at U.S. Cellular Field on Friday night, and wondered why we didn’t start the trip with this game. I think it’s a moot point now, because the game is sold out and I don’t particularly want to pay premium prices for a game, given all the other games we still have to buy tickets to (we’re planning on getting tickets at the gate for 6 of the 11 games, and I owe Levi money for the Cardinals game…although he owes me money for the other four games). Also, I’m told that Levi and Stacey are planning a farewell dinner, or something like that, at their place on Friday night.

But it’s a valid question. I think what happened is that I just didn’t see back in January, on the graph I made of when various teams were at home, that the White Sox were going to be home this weekend. So when I originally came up with this itinerary, as depicted in this post, I started with the Cardinals game on Sunday. Then, soon afterwards, I realized that it was stupid to start an itinerary on Sunday when, I assumed, I could easily add a minor-league game on Saturday. It turned out I could, so I didn’t have any reason to go back over the major league schedules. And then when I made my flight reservations, I added a day on either side of the trip itinerary, just in case of delays somewhere, and came up with arriving Chicago on Thursday and leaving Chicago on September 1st. Then I sat back, relaxed, and made hundreds of posts to this blog over the next five months. Honorary hanger-on Jason asked me about going to a minor-league game in the Chicago area on Friday night at one point, but I decided it would be too hard to make it out to a suburb in time for a game after people had gotten off work Friday evening. I don’t think I even checked the schedules for any of the local teams until just now (to save you the trouble, only the Joliet Jackhammers are at home Friday night).

I don’t know what my point is, except that I really need to get to bed now. (For those of you who have just stumbled across this blog, it’s not quite as bad as it looks, because the time stamps on the posts are in Central time, but I’m running on Pacific time right now.)

Lots of zing, lots to sing, everything’s gonna swing, so get ready, here I go

I’m almost all packed. This is because tomorrow I have to get a haircut, visit an ATM, and go to a They Might Be Giants concert, although probably not in that order. In fact, the less money I have at the concert, the less likely I am to buy a bunch of T-shirts. Come to think of it, I should probably show up at my job tomorrow also.

Hey, remember this post from way back in June? I’ve got all that stuff, and more, including a mini pencil sharpener that was mentioned here a few days ago, and my Kroger brand nail clippers (safely ensconced in the suitcase that will be checked, of course). The coins are neatly rolled up, and may confound the security at Bob Hope Airport. I’ve got Tigers and Brewers tickets now, too, and those will be kept very close to me at all times (i.e., they’re safely ensconced in the small carry-on bag). I even have a very important accessory I forgot about in that post: the USB cable to connect my digital camera to a computer. I’m hoping we can figure things out to put a few pictures up here as we go along.

I even got a working VCR since I wrote that post, and I have two videotapes, which include a baseball-related programming item and some game shows.

I’m not bringing a jacket, but I am bringing a sweatshirt, just in case. I hear it was only in the 20s in Toronto today! (That’s a bad Fahrenheit/Celsius joke.)

I think that’s it, unless someone can come up with something we haven’t thought of. Obviously, if we have forgotten something, it should be fairly easy to buy any number of items in Chicago, or in many of the cities we’ll be visiting.

Original comments…

Levi: You’re bringing a videotape of Tiger Town? Or is it Rookie of the Year?

thatbob: Ooh, I hope you have _The Life and Times of Pansy The Wuss-Wuss Fish Who Couldn’t Keep It Up_. Bob Costas narrates.