Starbucks announced earlier this morning it is eliminating plastic straws from its locations, phasing out all said products by 2020.
Straws?
I’ve got news. If you’re drinking coffee out of a straw you’ve got bigger problems than any environmental damage wrought by bits of plastic.
Proof that one should never give up on anything, especially baseball games with mediocre teams.
Witness last night’s contest between the Washington Nationals and Miami Marlins, a game which the visiting Marlins led 9-0 early on, won by the home team 14-12 several hours later.
The Nats, actually, had every chance to blow this game. After said 9-0 hole and my hometown team’s two touchdowns to go up 14-9, Nats relievers did give up three runs in the top of the eighth to make the game 14-12. Sometimes unhittable closer Sean Doolittle gave up two hits in the top of the ninth to bring the go-ahead run to the plate, but was able to strike out Derek Dietrich to end the game.
Nothin’ to it.
I’m back!
And just in time to celebrate one of my favorite days of the year. The day that everyone does what I would do every day of the year: hot dogs, baseball, music, fireworks, and all things American.
Yeah, that’s my kind of day.
Leaving today on a little vacation to a place where the Internet is spotty at best. Expect no posts until July 3, during which time you might peruse our archives.
Quick reminder, on July 4 I will be presenting my annual public reading of the Declaration of Independence in Sterling Park, details here.
See ya!
One of the benefits of having an unusual work schedule is that one might find himself free at 2:00 in the afternoon on a Monday to watch a futbol match from several time zones away. I’m still reeling from England’s stoppage-time victory over Tunisia in Monday’s World Cup action, an event whose thrilling conclusion was topped only by the fact that it took place while most Americans were at work.
Oh, Americans and their work, work, work.
Group action begins at 8:00 a.m. Eastern time today with Portugal vs. Morocco. The Spaniards take the pitch at 2:00 today for those of you sneaking out early.
I won’t tell.
Gotta hand it to the folks at Fox. The two biggest sporting events on Earth yesterday and they had ’em both. World Cup soccer and the U.S Open (that would be golf) and both of them were exciting to the end. Literally the beginning to the end, as that beautiful time difference between here and Russia has given us soccer (elsewhere they call it futbol) every day from eight in the morning. Hacking around Shinnecock Hills takes about eight hours too, so we were covered on sports right up until dinnertime.
Then baseball starts. On ESPN. You know that old channel. And baseball… you know that one? It’s like golf but they throw it at you from 60 feet away.
It’s what Americans used to do before soccer showed up.
Sunday, of course, is Father’s Day. That admittedly silly holiday that falls so close to my birthday it feels to me like a seamless 10-day celebration of self. No complaints.
Every day I become more and more aware of the fact that I am becoming my own dad. This used to scare me, but I’m now completely comfortable with it.
On a recent trip to my hometown of Binghamton, New York, seeing some friends I hadn’t seen in a while, I came to an even more startling (or perhaps not so startling) discovery…
We are all becoming our dads.
Yup. Every guy I know in 2018 is basically the picture I have of his dad in 1989.
And I’m fine with it.
‘Round these parts today is the last day of school before summer vacation.
Summer vacation. Ha! What a silly, 20th-century notion.
Summer camp starts tomorrow, and as I’ve noted before, what with cellphones, travel sports teams, and organized “play dates,” there’s really not much to summer vacation any more. Remember when you’d go three months without seeing people from school? Nobody under 27 does.
Well, here’s to the next phase anyway, and maybe to unplugging a bit on our phones.
I think there’s an app for that.
Still riding high off the Capitals’ Stanley Cup-winning victory last Thursday I give, as a gift to anyone who cares, the 319th episode of Politics After Dark. Why do I announce this one? It’s the first in nearly seven years.
For those of you who perhaps do not know the backstory, I hosted a weekly program on public access television in Binghamton, New York, from 2004-2011. The name of the show was Politics After Dark, and there were actually two separate stints, Version 1.0 and Version 2.0. In all I aired 318 episodes during those years, and in December 2011 vowed never to do another.
Well…
Not on public access but available to all via the magic of YouTube (I was doing YouTube before there was a YouTube), I give you Politics After Dark Version 3.0.
This is Episode #319: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFCgdC0wCYE.
Forty-four years in the making. And now it is here. The Washington Capitals are Stanley Cup champions.
It’s Mardi Gras, the Fourth of July, and New Year’s Eve all rolled into one in D.C. right now and I’m happy to be a part of it. Yeah, I’ve only lived here since 2011, but I did watch playoff heartbreak for six years in a row before this one. The “almost” Capitals of the Ovechkin/Rock the Red era are “almost” no more. Cross them off the list of greatest teams never to win a championship. This one can’t be taken away.
As a personal aside, I should mention that yesterday was also my birthday. Number 36 if you’re keeping track. Pretty good birthday present, eh? Interesting that it was June 7, 2011, that my then-hometown hockey team, the Binghamton Senators, won the Calder Cup on the road in Houston. It was Binghamton’s first championship after 30-plus years of hockey struggles.
June 7 is just my lucky day for hockey I suppose.
You know I’ve never put on a pair of ice skates in my life?
Maybe Birthday 37.