My favorite picture over the last few days from icanhascheezburger.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Sunday, March 30, 2008
The Ringer
After my tennis match Saturday night, I was bursting to recount my thrilling victory to someone. But since I live alone now, I couldn't just burst into the apartment and tell Rebecca what happened. I would actually have to make an effort to contact somebody. On my way home I thought of all the different people I could call, but by the time I got home, it seemed like too much effort. Recounting a tennis match to my wife right after it happens, while I'm still high on adrenaline, seems appropriate-- calling someone just to tell them about it seems pathetic.
But blogging about it? Probably somewhere in between...
They brought in a ringer to play me. My scheduled opponent for the league didn't show, so the tennis center had one of the kids who works at the main desk play as a sub. He just graduated high school last year, and was taking this year to "work on [his] tennis game." I assume he was a tennis star in high school, because his coach told him he could play at the collegiate level.
I just started playing tennis two years ago. At 34 years old.
When we first started warming up, I knew I was in trouble. His shots were way too hard for me to handle. I suspected that he was not an appropriate sub for this league, but I didn't know anything about him. When we started playing, though, I managed to hang with him. He was inconsistent-- hitting beautiful winners and then terrible unforced errors. I thought maybe he was doing the latter on purpose, just to keep the match close and interesting.
His serves were amazing, but he double-faulted a lot, which kept me in the match. I managed to squeak out the first set, 6-4. But then in the second set, he calmed down and blew through me, 6-1. Here we go, I thought, he's getting serious now.
But then a curious thing happened. I won my first service game in the third set. During his ensuing service game, I hit three amazing returns in a row to break him. The winning point in this game was my most amazing shot of the evening: I lunged to get my racket on his amazing serve, and the ball make a perfect arc over his head to fall in the opposite corner of the back court. After this shot, he bowed to me, Wayne's World-style, to indicate that he was not worthy.
He told me that most of the guys he played in high school couldn't return his serves, and here I was doing it regularly. That led to a slew of double faults on his part, including the match point, giving me a 6-4, 1-6, 6-3 victory. I was shocked, but elated. When we shook hands, I told him I was lucky to win, and he said, "No, you earned it." He might have been sandbagging, but I don't care. (And usually, when ringers sandbag, they only do it to keep it close before winning.) It was a thrilling victory for this old man. I had no business beating someone as good as him.
Talking to him after the match, I mentioned that maybe he wasn't used to playing someone with so little power as me. I was just trying to get my racket on his shots and blocking all of them back to him. They would dribble over the net and he would mis-hit them. He admitted that in high school, it was all about power. If he's used to hard shots coming at him, it probably messed up his timing to have my weak-ass shots dropping all over the court.
Whatever the reason, it still felt good to beat the ringer.
But blogging about it? Probably somewhere in between...
They brought in a ringer to play me. My scheduled opponent for the league didn't show, so the tennis center had one of the kids who works at the main desk play as a sub. He just graduated high school last year, and was taking this year to "work on [his] tennis game." I assume he was a tennis star in high school, because his coach told him he could play at the collegiate level.
I just started playing tennis two years ago. At 34 years old.
When we first started warming up, I knew I was in trouble. His shots were way too hard for me to handle. I suspected that he was not an appropriate sub for this league, but I didn't know anything about him. When we started playing, though, I managed to hang with him. He was inconsistent-- hitting beautiful winners and then terrible unforced errors. I thought maybe he was doing the latter on purpose, just to keep the match close and interesting.
His serves were amazing, but he double-faulted a lot, which kept me in the match. I managed to squeak out the first set, 6-4. But then in the second set, he calmed down and blew through me, 6-1. Here we go, I thought, he's getting serious now.
But then a curious thing happened. I won my first service game in the third set. During his ensuing service game, I hit three amazing returns in a row to break him. The winning point in this game was my most amazing shot of the evening: I lunged to get my racket on his amazing serve, and the ball make a perfect arc over his head to fall in the opposite corner of the back court. After this shot, he bowed to me, Wayne's World-style, to indicate that he was not worthy.
He told me that most of the guys he played in high school couldn't return his serves, and here I was doing it regularly. That led to a slew of double faults on his part, including the match point, giving me a 6-4, 1-6, 6-3 victory. I was shocked, but elated. When we shook hands, I told him I was lucky to win, and he said, "No, you earned it." He might have been sandbagging, but I don't care. (And usually, when ringers sandbag, they only do it to keep it close before winning.) It was a thrilling victory for this old man. I had no business beating someone as good as him.
Talking to him after the match, I mentioned that maybe he wasn't used to playing someone with so little power as me. I was just trying to get my racket on his shots and blocking all of them back to him. They would dribble over the net and he would mis-hit them. He admitted that in high school, it was all about power. If he's used to hard shots coming at him, it probably messed up his timing to have my weak-ass shots dropping all over the court.
Whatever the reason, it still felt good to beat the ringer.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Viral Marketing Smack-Down
A few months ago our library got an email that started out thusly:I would just like to let you know that I have found several of the resources listed on [your library website] quite useful, and I would like to thank you for the effort and time invested so far; thanks!He goes on to modestly suggest that, although he's found the links listed on our library website very useful, he would like "to contribute something to further improve the resource for other visitors." Wow, that's so very kind of him! What does he have in mind?
He's found a mortgage loan calculator "which features over one hundred (by the looks of it) finance-related calculators. It's a resource I use myself quite often." Hmm. So it seems this guy has stumbled upon a site that he thinks ("by the looks of it") will improve our page, and although he already uses it "quite often", he just wants everyone to take advantage of this great find. He thinks it would be a "pretty good addition" to our web links page. What do I think?
I think he's a spammer trying to get his own website linked from our library page, so I delete his message and go about my day.
But true to his spammer temperament, a few weeks later he follows up with this quick message: "I'm sure that you are busy, and I do appreciate your time, but I just wondered if you ever received my feedback and suggestion?"
Whether or not his mortgage calculator would be a worthwhile link, how stupid does he think I am that I would mistake his sales pitch for a legitimate suggestion from one of our users to improve our page? It's the insincerity of his presentation that bugs me. It's insulting.
So I respond with the following:
We welcome suggestions from our [College Name] community regarding all of our library resources. It's not clear from your message whether you are a student, faculty, staff, or community resident of [College Name]. How would you suggest that the website you're recommending supports the curricular needs of our students or faculty?I had to bite my tongue and not write, "Do you even know where our college is located?"
He never answered that message, but he did send the same "suggestion" and follow-up to my boss.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Parsing URLs
I was trying to think of what to call this new blog. I wanted something that contrasted with my other blog, Timbecca, which had been a combination of mine and my wife's names (Tim + Rebecca = timbecca.) The most obvious choice was Tim Alone, since that most accurately describes the state of this blog while keeping the lyric rhythm of "timbecca," or something like that.
I know the new title sounds whiny and pathetic, but I feel I've earned the right to be a little whiny and pathetic since Rebecca moved out last week, leaving me, as the blog says, alone. (This aloneness is not to imply that I'm completely alone in this world, but simply alone in the home that Rebecca and I shared. I have enjoyed the support of my large family and friends over the past few weeks, and I feel very fortunate for that.)
But enough sentimentality. The interesting thing about this was that once I decided on the title of this blog, I had to decide what the URL (the web address) would be. Timbecca had been easy enough: http://timbecca.blogspot.com. Apparently, there are no other Tim + Rebecca couples out there who combined their names like us and had website domain names that we had to fight over. But Tim, by itself, is much more common, and of course http://tim.blogspot.com was already taken. (Taken, I might add, by someone who hogged the domain name and then posted exactly one entry three years ago.)
So I moved on. My next idea was to put Tim Alone in the URL, http://timalone.blogspot.com. When blogger told me that address was already taken, I was floored. You mean there's another lonely Tim out there who chose the same pathetic blog name as me? What are the odds? So I had to check out this guy's site.
It turns out it's not Tim Alone, but Timal One. Timal One is a German who started a blog and posted exactly one test message three and a half years ago. This illustrates the perils of trying to parse out URLs. Tim Alone might be Timal One, or Ti Malone, or Tima Lone, or Timalo Ne.
This reminds me of the amusing email addresses I've known in my life. Many universities will use your first initial + last name as a formula for your email address. My first German instructor in college was named Sam Lutman. His address: slutman. Another woman I know was named Sara Avery: savery. [Names have been altered slightly to protect the innocent.] I hope I never meet any poor bastards named Steve Hithead, Adam Swipe, or Robert Apist.
I know the new title sounds whiny and pathetic, but I feel I've earned the right to be a little whiny and pathetic since Rebecca moved out last week, leaving me, as the blog says, alone. (This aloneness is not to imply that I'm completely alone in this world, but simply alone in the home that Rebecca and I shared. I have enjoyed the support of my large family and friends over the past few weeks, and I feel very fortunate for that.)
But enough sentimentality. The interesting thing about this was that once I decided on the title of this blog, I had to decide what the URL (the web address) would be. Timbecca had been easy enough: http://timbecca.blogspot.com. Apparently, there are no other Tim + Rebecca couples out there who combined their names like us and had website domain names that we had to fight over. But Tim, by itself, is much more common, and of course http://tim.blogspot.com was already taken. (Taken, I might add, by someone who hogged the domain name and then posted exactly one entry three years ago.)
So I moved on. My next idea was to put Tim Alone in the URL, http://timalone.blogspot.com. When blogger told me that address was already taken, I was floored. You mean there's another lonely Tim out there who chose the same pathetic blog name as me? What are the odds? So I had to check out this guy's site.
It turns out it's not Tim Alone, but Timal One. Timal One is a German who started a blog and posted exactly one test message three and a half years ago. This illustrates the perils of trying to parse out URLs. Tim Alone might be Timal One, or Ti Malone, or Tima Lone, or Timalo Ne.
This reminds me of the amusing email addresses I've known in my life. Many universities will use your first initial + last name as a formula for your email address. My first German instructor in college was named Sam Lutman. His address: slutman. Another woman I know was named Sara Avery: savery. [Names have been altered slightly to protect the innocent.] I hope I never meet any poor bastards named Steve Hithead, Adam Swipe, or Robert Apist.
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