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I watched the Friends finale. That's it. Yay Ross and Rachel. Boo to every show ending with babies nowadays. Also boo all the dead baby on ER after Friends.

It says... no ads on bases!! No, no, no, no, no, no, no, a million times no. Major League Baseball and Columbia Pictures want to advertise the Spiderman 2 movie on all bases and on-deck circles for a weekend next month. The principles in the deal say, I swear to God, "it's for the kids." As if there wasn't a ridiculous amount of money tied up in pro sports. I understand that there are ads all over the field, and the sport is a business and needs to make money to pay the ridiculous salaries we demand go to the guys who can hit a ball with a stick more than three out of every 10 times (the owners are doing alright, too). But honestly, we should be able to draw a line, saying "it's important to us as human beings to not have every square inch of every part of our lives involved financially with big corporations." How long until you can shave a point off your mortgage by painting the (windowless, of course) side of your house with a bank logo? I personally think pro sports have gone past the point of decency by selling naming rights to parks and arenas. Philadelphia just replaced Veterans Stadium, named in honor of those who fought for America's freedom, with Citizen's Bank Ballpark. What does that tell the kids? No one thinks this is a good idea except for a few $elect interest$. Whose opinions will win out? Do I need to ask? UPDATE: Rob Neyer suggests boycott June 11-13 ("Spiderman 2 Weekend"). I'm down. More ESPN stuff here, and the Yankees try fighting evil instead of embodying it for once. UPDATE 2: Due, I can only assume, to the power of A Cry for Help's scathing reaction, MLB has decided they "do not want to detract from the fan's experience in any way." Good for you guy$.

Yesterday's ProJo had an article about the first building to go up in downtown Providence in a decade. To be built on the first dirt lot you see when entering downtown from Rt 95, the GTECH building will occupy an amazingly important spot in Capital Center, as both a gateway to the city and one of the buildings that will urbanistically define Waterplace Park. The article includes these two sketches, which are fine teasers, but we want more! I'd go to these Design Review Committee meetings if I wasn't 1,500 miles away, so I can't tell you more about the design. David Brussat's not happy, though. I share his disdain for anything modernist, so I'm a bit concerned. There will be, I think, three separate terraces at different levels, which is not something I'd like to see on a building in this urban setting. Terraces tend to mess with cornice lines and can give a building an uneven feel. The desired setbacks, to allow sidewalks up to three times wider than normal, seems like an excellent idea. At 11 stories, the extra width between building edge and the mall won't be a problem. I really like the parking garage bridge from Francis Street which marks the pedestrian entrance to Waterplace (you can see it in the first sketch). In the second sketch you can get a better idea of what the outside walls will look like. Note the lack of adornment on the windows, which I hate. That will mean the GTECH building will look more like One Citizens than the new Marriott. The Design committee "raved" about the design, so it looks like this building will get built close to as is. Em says she's heard this story before and won't believe it until they cut the ribbon. I'm getting to the point where you could put almost anything there and I'd be happy. This spot has been undeveloped for far too long. The original plan for Capital Center called for all the land to be filled in by now, and we're not even halfway there. We even lost the Gravity Games because of a plan to develop this site that ended up falling through (here's what we would have gotten had it been built). The guys at Art in Ruins have more, though they want something even more modern! NO! Here's a couple shots I took last September of the building site.

Before the thread gets too far down, I wanted to link some of the things mentioned in the comments. Matt recommends Music Plasma. Search for a band you know you like and it gives you a 3D representation of other bands that are similar, or inspired by, your band. It also shows, by size, how influential a given band is. Really neat idea, but a little skimpy on obscure and new bands. Mike says check out All Music Guide, which is pretty comprehensive, too. And Cotuit points out that the new version of iTunes Music Store has iMixes, letting you see what people you share musical taste with are listening to. I just downloaded the new Bad Religion album because it's not coming out until next month and I don't feel like waiting any more. Why did you tell me about this two months ago?! I have about $30 sitting in my iTunes account that I gladly would have spent on this album, but TOO MUCH WAITING!

Finally, the Red Sox manage to win one. We are not very used to 5 game losing streaks here in Red Sox Nation (well, lately). Thank you, David Ortiz, for keeping thoughts of suicide at bay. This should be our last 5 game losing streak of the year, so it's good that we got it out of the way. Unfortunately, as Garris pointed out, this was the case yesterday: I'm going to crack a Sam Adams and watch the Evildoers hopefully lower the warning level to HIGH. And Final-ly, I just took one (a final exam) and did pretty well, I think. Things are looking up in Bilville.

Has anyone been reading Doonesbury lately? A couple weeks ago I heard that lovable conservative curmudgeon B.D., fighting in Iraq, would be seriously injured in the storyline. This set many in the pro-war crowd off, talking about Garry Trudeau as a traitor and whatnot, the usual story. Every couple days I check the website to read the last few strips, and I can't understand what the hell people are complaining about. Go back to the start of the story arc (April 19) and read through. I honestly don't see an exploitative political agenda. I understand that Doonesbury has a liberal slant. It's a political cartoon. But with this story it really seems like people are projecting their own strong political views onto the author/comic strip. That's fine, we do that with most things, but when Bill O'Reilly (I know, I know) gets all indignant about Doonesbury (by "committed leftist" Trudeau) I just have to laugh. So maybe people have knowledge of where the story is going, and there is some sort of anti-war transformation of B.D. or something, but I haven't seen anything like that. More and more I just want to grab all the political junkies on the web and tell them to calm down!

KissyO leaves a comment: I feel like someone just called me by dialing the wrong number and said "who's this?!" Yo, you called me! Who are you!? The analogy falls apart, since I've got my URL on every virtual bathroom stall on the net, "for a good time...", etc., but still! Let's see, though, looks like Kissy is from the Lowell, MA area, and she reads Kos, so that's good politics with a high probability of not being a Yankee fan. Also familiar with the Providence Phoenix, excellent. But before I congratulate her (right?) on reading the category list or address her question, this reminds me how I've been meaning to put one of those "about me/this site" pages up here. Of course with my sparse design, the link would have to go at the bottom where no one would see it, along with the other junk down there that's not even formatted right. It also reminds me that I could probably get a lot more visitors if I participated elsewhere in the blogosphere, leaving comments and trackbacks and the such. Do I want more visitors, though? Which brings us neatly to Kissy's "why do you have a blog?" The short answer? "Uhhhhhh. I dunno." Click on "continue reading" for a longer answer... This is much more than probably requested, but I wrote this a while back about getting comments, but it's apropos for now. I like getting comments. One of the biggest rewards of doing this is making connections with people who I wouldn't otherwise encounter. But more than that, the original focus of this site was... well I don't know, but I know who the audience was: my friends. Being in New Orleans while everyone else was back home severely decreased the amount of time I could physically be with friends, so I wanted to make a place where we could all sort of talk and have discussions and share cool stuff, sort of an online get together that fit everyone's schedules. This was back before I had ever heard of "blogging." I didn't visit anyone else's sites, nor read the political blogs that I am addicted to now. The whole phenomenon was really just getting started (late 2001). So I wrote about myself mostly. The site was called just "bilherron.com" and I talked about school and missing Emily and sports. I let Erin post a bit, then TJ, then Em and Mike. Still no direction, really, but it didn't matter since it was just my friends reading. Then, I started getting a little more serious. George W. Bush started really pissing me off and I began talking about more than just myself. I took what had been a tongue in cheek reference to the inherent narcissism of my site —"bil.com - a cry for help" — and ran with it as the weblog name. I started getting a lot more hits from google (no idea why) and blogging in general exploded on the scene. People I didn't know were commenting, and I really liked that. That's around the time I think I subconsciously started writing for a wider audience. What I used to equate with sitting with friends and saying what was on my mind became something like what I would say to a group of strangers gathered around my soapbox. Then TJ emailed me and pointed out how different this site was compared to the old days. I think the consensus was that bil.com was not necessarily better or worse, just different. My friends didn't comment so much anymore. So actually, I've been sputtering along with A Cry for Help for a while, hoping it will eventually get to a point where it fits into some sort of niche. In conclusion, I just have a blog, I'm not sure why. And I'm certainly no one special. Yet.

Comments are pretty sparse around here lately, so I'll take them even if they have nothing to do with any posts. First, in this Sox post we have Jill, making her long awaited return to A Cry for Help (KissyO, you're next). We've missed you Jill, it's been a long time! So long, in fact, that most people reading today won't know or remember James, or the first bil.com internet fight, or even Illiterati, the second single from Up & Atom! (Actually, does anyone even remember Ultra Laser?) Back in the heady days of July 2002, while I was holed up in Ultra Laser's bachelor compound and A Cry for Help had even less direction than it does today, Ultra Laser had a phone conversation with a certain James Mack. It did not go well. However, creative juices began to flow, and after digging up a middle school-issue recorder, My Name is Lames... was born (click here for the mp3 ) (I'm sorry, Jill, if this dredges up bad memories. As a service to my readers I am compelled to revisit those crazy days. Also, it's sweeps month) Months later, in October, something new happened, though I have no recollection of what it was, and UL and I were inspired to create Illiterati, another song about James (with significantly better songwriting, but sadly no recorder). This broke the camel's back, and World War III began and a comment offensive was joined. It all sort of died down after that, but those few days were something special. Coincidentally, UL and I haven't recorded another song since. In retrospect, re: Jill's comment, it was all for naught. But, now that our Emo is back on the side of good, we can immaturely revel in schadenfreude and visit James's newly updated (and still eye-straining) DeadJournal!

Back in February when I would glance with longing at the schedule for the upcoming Red Sox season, I thought perhaps I might drive out to Arlington to see the Sox play the Rangers. As it turns out, I'm in absolutely no position to drive 11 hours each way with no company. This ended up being a good thing last night, as the Rangers made fans sit through a three and half hour rain delay before calling the game, the first 2 hours of which it wasn't even raining. I'd be pissed. But the weather looks good today, so let's play two (for the second time in three days!) Meanwhile, the NY MF Yankees have turned an eighth inning comeback last Tuesday into a five game win streak. As Em put in today's email: Why do the Yankees have to be on a winning streak while we are on a winning streak?! I mean thats best, but I want them to lose. They shouldn't be winning is what I'm saying!! And, not content to let us enjoy the amazing month the Boston nine has had, Pedro has decided to dialogue with us fans about how management has pissed him off to the point that he's out of here at the end of this year. Listen Pete, the Fenway faithful know that we have a serious problem with five major free agents at the end of this year. If you want to ease the gridlock there, fine. You're a great pitcher, but you're not a $20 million a year pitcher, and with guys like Trot and Varitek and Wakefield, not to mention the World Champion New England Patriots, we're not going to kill ourselves if there's no #45 on the mound next Opening Day. I love Pedro. I do. Seeing him pitch the last few years has been one of the biggest reasons I am the fan I am. The '99 season is something I'll tell my kids about when I bring them to Fenway for the first time (yeah, it will still be there). But I can say "it's been a good run" and let go. Just don't make it acrimonious. I'll root for you no matter where you end up (well, almost anywhere). Hell, I'm a Clemens fan again, now that he's with Houston (and, at 41 years old, the MLB's only 5-0 pitcher). If you continue this crap releasing statements about how bad John Henry and the ownership (who've done more for this franchise in two years than the previous owners did in two decades) are, then I'm going to have to be glad to see you go, especially if it means D-Lowe, Ortiz and 'Tek spend the next few years with B's on their caps. Take a cue from the New Manny.