Even more, she said she is the last of her friends around her age who is not a grandmother. And that they are so happy to include her into their club. They’re apparently being sincere too and not acting in a “ha ha, your barely scraped through high school kid now working a low wage retail job is royally f-u-c-k-e-d just like our kids are” kind of way.

I don’t even know what to think about all this, but there’s certainly an entirely different mindset regarding parenthood and grandparenthood depending on which side of the tracks you’re on, that’s for sure.

The one thing I’ve noticed already this year is that the parents now all sit around thumbing their Blackberrys or iPhones or Blackjacks or whatever the entire time practice is going on. This leads me to make the determination that I am probably the last person in my zip code to not have a smart phone. And also probably the last one to actually pay attention to practice.

What the hell does a jobless house frau need with a smart phone anyway?

Monday - The Dark Knight, lunch and video games at Dave and Buster’s. Cha-ching.

Tuesday - Body Worlds 2, lunch and video games at ESPN Zone (home of the six-fucking-dollar chocolate milkshake). Cha-ching!

Wednesday - Visit to Ravens training camp. Admission to that was free, but the Ravens Rookies membership and bottles of water sure as shit weren’t. Also, lunch at Westminster, MD’s white trash feed bag emporium Cactus Willie’s. Cha-ching cha-ching!

Thursday - Break day. Doctor’s visit for annual check-ups and the other kid’s dental appointment. $30 worth of co-pays and $50 for a 3 year-old’s “happy air” at the dentist. Cha-ching cha-ching cha-ching!

Friday - Tapped out. Went fishing in the morning because we only had to pay for worms (too lazy to dig up our own). Then lunch. Ching! Pee-wee football practice starts in the evening (on a Friday for some reason) and my summer comes to an end.

Total damages for the week: A fuck of a lot more than camp would have cost.

In regards to the Ravens training camp, it was kind of creepy. You had a section that was designated for player autographs after practice ended. The crowd for it was probably 4-5 deep for 50 yards. All of the little kids were in the back and the average age of the autograph seekers in front of them was at least early 30s. What the hell. What 30 year old not named Pittman should care about David Pittman’s autograph? At least my kid is a Ravens Rookie, and they get their own area to get autographs without having to compete with 40 year old maniacs with Ravens logos tattooed on their forearms. But then the biggest star signing that day, linebacker Bart Scott, blew off the kids to sign only for the adults. Jerk. And he’ll probably bitch about his signature showing up on ebay too.

Also, I find that at 38 years old wearing a football jersey is pretty retarded. No one over 20 can pull off the look without being in the game. So I didn’t know what to make of this guy (heavily iPhoto’d because it came out so dark using the camera in my phone):

He is well into his 50s and couldn’t spend the money fast enough to wear the jersey of a 21 year-old guy who just got drafted and will likely only see mop-up duty at quarterback in the near future. Retard.

However, they’ve changed things from section 272 over and made that whole seating level an All You Can Eat area for an extra $15 per ticket. And the guy at the window said there was nothing available in 272 anyway.

I contemplated it for a minute and asked my kid how hungry he was. He said he was pretty hungry, so I said screw it and bought two seats in section 278. We got up there, got our hand stamped for the All You Can Eat deal and proceeded to get our grub on.

First, let me say that when the game started and we were in our seats, sections 272, 274 and 276 were virtually empty. In those three sections there were only about 10 people sitting in them. Yet I was told there was nothing available. WTF. Could they all be season tickets not being used? Doubtful.

Anyway, when you go to the AYCE porch or balcony or whatever they call it you get all the hot dogs, nachos, peanuts, popcorn, ice cream sandwiches and soda you can eat or drink. They have alcohol stands set up right next to the AYCE area to buy your beers and such, but if you want pizza or pretzels or cotton candy or anything you need to go for a walk to find it.

I figured that everything would be puny and toddler sized, but I have to hand it to the Orioles. Everything they give you is full sized. The hot dogs are the quarter pound size even. The sodas are the ones you pay $4 for. So if you get a dog and a couple drinks you’ve pretty much gotten your money’s worth out of the extra cost of the ticket.

Of course, the object is not to just get your money’s worth, but to get sick. I swear I never thought I could eat so much, but value is a good motivator. Here’s my approximate tally:

3 hot dogs
5 diet cokes
2 nachos
2 bags of peanuts
1 box of popcorn

And my kid’s:

1 hot dog
4 sprites
4 nachos
1 bag of peanuts
1/2 box of popcorn
1 ice cream sandwich

Maybe it was more because it felt like we were eating and drinking a lot more than the tally indicates. Every half inning one of us was going up to reload on something.

By the time the AYCE benefit ended after the 7th inning I was so ready to stop eating it wasn’t even funny. And the next morning my stomach was singing all kinds of gurgly songs. But it was a lot of fun to partake of it all, and the O’s do a nice job of keeping everything well stocked to the very end (I can’t imagine how many bags of cheese they went through for the nachos because every time I went to get some one of the machines was about out but would be refilled right away). Also, while sections 272, 274 and 276 were empty and my section was only maybe half full, sections 280-288 were packed. People take advantage of the AYCE business. It’s a good scam for the team.

The LF club AYCE ticket is not something I can do more than once a year or so, if that, for obvious reasons (I’m still waiting for my cholesterol to even out after those dogs and nacho cheese and my blood pressure to drop from all the salt), but it’s a pretty good idea, a pretty good value (all things considered); I didn’t pay a dime for anything at the stadium beyond the ticket price, and allows for a pretty good time.

Heck, I think the Orioles even won the game. And we got to see fireworks after the game ended. It was a win/win/win night all around.

Anyway, I’m a big Batman guy and they were showing The Dark Knight at 12:01, 12:02, 12:03, 12:04, 12:05, 12:06 and 12:30 this morning for die hards to see it as soon as they could. I gave it a thought, but decided nah. Being one of the first to see The Matrix sequel wasn’t a big enough deal to repeat the feat for Batman.

So instead I went to the first showing this morning, which was at 9:00am. I figured that made me a dork but not the special kind of dork who goes to see a movie as soon as they can at midnight on the day that it opens.

I got down to the movieteria and saw a line forming. It was about 8:30. I got in line where I guess I was tenth or so. Within moments that line was a good 100 people long. I turned around and took a look at those behind me and all I could think of was how dorktacular everyone looked.

And then it struck me that if everyone I saw in line was dorkalicious and I was standing in line with them, what does that make me? D’Oh.

Oh, well. The movie was good at least. My main quibble is that while Christian Bale’s Bruce Wayne voice was perfectly fine his Batman voice kind of got on my nerves.

Heath Ledger was great as the Joker. He didn’t die at the end of the movie so hopefully they’ll bring him back in another sequel. He was a recurring villian in the Olde Tyme Batmans, after all.

In the last 10 years or so, too many athletes have either performed too remarkably at the upper echelons of their olympic sports (Marion Jones, Justin Gatlin) or have gotten markedly better after they turned 40 (Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens) to be termed just genetic freaks (at this point I’m willing to give Michael Phelps the benefit of the doubt but I even wonder about him). Genetics don’t kick in further with age after you’ve already proven yourself as a world class athlete to make you legendary. They just don’t.

I’m not even saying steroids or HGH or anything is bad. I mean, it’s banned from athletics and some of it’s illegal, but I don’t really care what people do to give themselves a competitive athletic edge. Just don’t treat the public like dumbfucks and use the diet and exercise line as the only reason for your success. In fact, Torres claims her success is due to nutritional supplements and “resistance stretching.” Slate has an article that calls bullshit on all that and openly wonders WTF is going on with her, even though she’s volunteered for more stringent drug testing than most athletes.

Sadly, the state of affairs in sports today pretty much force us all to wonder WTF is going on when athletes perform near miraculously the way Dara Torres did at the olympic trials. Anyone who doesn’t have a kernel of doubt in his or her head about Torres is either naive or purposely blind.

And that’s one (more) reason why sports figures are not heroes. In most cases they’re even more flawed than we are.

Why that stuck with me I don’t know, but what I do know is what I’ve deemed the coolest innovation of the internet age: online pizza ordering.

I used to HATE calling in an order for pizza. First I’d have to ask what the specials were, then I’d have to ask again because the kid on the phone either zipped through or mumbled them. Then I’d have to remember everything he said and think on the fly what I wanted, if anything, while on the phone. Then I’d have to get my order repeated back to me, make sure I was getting the right special and that the price was what I was expecting and then hope I got it all right after I hung up. It was very nerve wracking.

Now I just go online, check out the specials, take my time figuring out what I want, put things in an online shopping cart, ensure the specials and pricing is correct, click a button to pay and wait a little while to either go pick up my order or have it delivered. I’ve probably ordered this way a dozen or so times over the last couple years and never has my order been screwed up by me (or them, thankfully). It could not possibly be any easier.

So thank you, pizza pushers of the world, for embracing technology and letting me order my pizza from you my way and with me taking my time. You are real men of genius.

The agent’s argument is that not only is Barry Bonds a highly productive hitter and a reasonably able outfielder, but he comes cheap by offering to play for the major league minimum. He also happens to be the most prolific home run hitter of all time. What he doesn’t mention is that Bonds is 44 years old, is as big of a cock to the people not on his payroll as he is to those who are, is facing federal perjury charges that he’ll be going to trial on next spring, has the specter of steroids hovering over his head like a black cloud, and will have an army of reporters descend upon whichever team he would sign to play for.

I am not a Bonds fan, and the last team I’d want to see him on at this point is my team. The Orioles already went down this road by bringing Sammy Sosa in and it didn’t work out all that well. But I’m willing to admit that while I don’t think collusion is at the heart of Bonds’ inability to find work, it could appear that way. I just believe that the teams that could use him to win looked at the pros and cons and found the cons outweighed the pros of emplying him and the teams that could use him for the novelty decided they didn’t want to bring the Barry Bonds circus to town in exchange for a few more butts in the seats.

Then there’s this quote near the end of the article:

“I feel bad for Barry. I think he’s deserving of better. He gave his heart and soul to this game, and I think he deserves to go out on his own terms. And obviously that’s not what’s happening.”

This is bullshit. Barry Bonds was extremely well compensated for his services over his career and pretty much treated everyone in and around the game like they were dog shit. Until he plays for a major league baseball team that he owns he definitely does not “deserve” to go out on his own terms. He got everything he was promised by the game. Bonds is nothing more now than an aged professional with declining productivity and a lot of baggage who isn’t worth the hassle for employers in his chosen profession. It might be tough but that’s the reality Barry Bonds has to deal with, just like every other employee does when he gets too old and too expensive (both literally and figuratively) to keep around any longer.