Austin and Baseball and MT

11/02/09: I never got around to talking about Austin, probably because Magic didn't go as planned. It's really a pretty fantastic place. 60, 000 UT kids and a million bars (all with the rock venue thing going on) and no chain anything. Actually pretty confused about how the economy functions. There is like one bar for every two people and besides yogurt bars and vintage toy stores, there doesn't seem to be much business besides a million alt. country groups (but every bar is full!!!). Anyway, the girls wear pretty dresses and the boys ride pretty bikes so i could probably get by there long term if i had to which is a strange feeling.

Baseball is in a sad state currently but something pretty amazing happened earlier in the series that seemed pretty blogable. Through some kind of cell phone number changing debacle I spent game one at home playing magic online until the 8th inning. Cliff Lee had it wrapped up so i hopped on the bike to get down to South Philly for after parties. Riding through the city while the game was still happening was awesome. There weren't any cars on the roads and as I went through each neighborhood the socio-economic and cultural diversity really got a chance to come through. In fishtown you can actually watch the game because people's doors are open, with a shirtless guy smoking in the doorway with four generations inside huddled around a tv. The runs we scored in the 9th happened as i was passing the bars in NoLibs and ditsy transplant girls from NJ where doing that girl scream thing. Lots of Yankee fans in the richest parts of the city, especially chestnut and walnut. In those projects just north of Washington you could tell they were fans too because they had Daily News fliers on their doors and stuff like that but it was super dark and super quiet. Not sure why but it was creepy. Maybe they don't watch at home? And then ultimately I ended up at the Pope where probably half the people didn't even know sports happened that night and the other half are dudes who wouldn't admit how much they like sports. Not sure I learned any actual lessons or takeaways or whatever but it was refreshing to realize that you can always like learn more about home.

In other news making TIME is still the worst, open bar is code for can't get a drink, and half hour bathroom lines should probably be unconstitutional. Those giant sea creature balloon animals where rad, but besides that shame on you for making me feel like I am bad at partying all of a sudden when clearly I have a few good years left. At least I got in for free which was nice. One of these years I might even have an okay costume.