Every year since I could remember, my family and I have always watched the Olympics. Since the 1980 games in Moscow, I can recall sitting in my family room and enjoying the competition of the worlds’ athletes every four years (until 1992, when they started staggering the Winter Games). I never miss out. My favorites are volleyball, basketball, baseball, softball, swimming, and for some reason, I always seem to catch the Equestrian. It never fails! This year, instead of happening upon it, I shall seek it out and get it over with. I have no idea what it is about the equestrian that just sucks me in.

I was in awe of the opening ceremonies last night from Beijing. The Chinese know how to put on a show, but as Julia and I were commenting on the torch-lighting ceremony, I said that I thought the best torch-light I’d ever seen was Barcelona ‘92. When they passed the torch fire to the archer and he had the one shot to hit the target.  At the time, I thought it was the best way ever to light that torch.

Paralympian Antonio Rebolle gets ready to send the torch's flame into the huge cauldron at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona.

Did anyone else fast-forward through the march of the athletes? Julia and I sat through a healthy chunk of the smaller nations, but once we got to Italy, and it was starting to get later and later into the night, we decided to time-shift on the ol’ TiVo and blow through the geographical trivia contest and slow it down during the more impressive nations (such as the UK, US, etc). I cheered for the Japanese national team early on in the march, and of course, the “Chinese Taipei” team waving their specially-designed, least-offensive Olympic flags instead of their own national flag (which China finds too offending to display). Here, I thought the Olympics were about setting aside differences and competing on a level playing field… but whatever. The reception of the team from the US was heartwarming. It makes me want to pull for Chicago in their bid for the 2016 games, and wish that the San Francisco bid for 2012 wasn’t such a spectacular failure. I think having the games in the Bay Area would’ve ruled big time, and I don’t care how much of a traffic jam it would’ve caused… I love the Olympics.

My question to my readers today is in two parts: 1) Are you watching the 2008 Games? 2) If so, what’s your most favorite event?

Current Mood: excited

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I typically root for two teams: San Francisco and Cleveland.

San Francisco is immediately obvious; I live in San Jose and proximity dictates that I throw my support behind the local team. Of course, I will also throw some fandom behind the A’s because sometimes when Giants baseball kills me, it’s nice to bite into the refreshing lime wedge of A’s baseball, which at times, can suck way less.

Why Cleveland? It all goes back to my father. My dad loves baseball, and he was the one who introduced me to the game when I was a kid. We would travel to the Stick to watch the Giants in San Francisco, but also we would hang out at Municipal Stadium almost every home game during the 1989-1992 seasons and got to know some of the minor leaguers when they would go to the bar after the game and drink with us. It was a lot of fun (and yes, even though I was like 11, as long as I didn’t sit at the bar, I was cool). But my dad’s first love was and is the Cleveland Indians.

Not because he used to live there or anything, but because when he was a little kid, he would catch the sports scores on the radio during the 50s. Every now and again, he told me that he heard a pitcher named Mike Garcia (aka The Big Bear). It was one of those things, I guess, when you hear someone with your own name being referred to on a broadcast medium like radio and eventually television. So, naturally, he would root for the pitcher who shared his name and the team he played for, which was the Cleveland Indians. Ever since, he would always keep tabs on the Tribe and of course, as his son, I tried to be as helpful as I possibly could in that area.

And that carries through even today. I may not follow the Tribe as die-hard as I do the Giants, but I still follow them. When I talk to my dad on that increasingly rare occasions these days, during the baseball season our conversation will turn back to the Tribe and how they’re doing. My dad doesn’t follow the game as avidly as he once did when I was growing up, but that bond that we built between us with the Giants and the Indians will always remain, no matter how old we get.

With the start of the 2008 MLB season this week, I’m ready to go back on the trail with my teams once more; ready to live and die with wins and losses. I’ve made many friends because of my love of the game, and maybe lost more than a few loves because of it, but I won’t apologize for being who I am and loving what I love.

Go Giants! Go Tribe!

Current Mood: bouncy & working

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So, since pitchers and catchers have already reported for spring training, it seems appropriate to talk about death, right?  Well, I think it is.  I was browsing the ol’ livejournal friends’ list and I stumbled upon a post in the Star Trek community that said for a chunk of change, you could be buried in a replica of the torpedo that Spock was at the end of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.  Being the Trekker that I am, I wandered over to the page to check out the design, and I happened to notice that they have other properties they do caskets and urns for.

Including Major League Baseball.

This means I could be cremated and kept in a Giants urn, people.  FOR ETERNITY.  Fuck, yeah.  Sign me up.  I’m worth eight hundred bucks in death, right?  I can’t take it with me anyway…

—————-
Now playing on iTunes: Southern All Stars - TSUNAMI

Current Mood: ecstatic

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So, Barry Bonds was indicted today.  And if you thought that was a metric fuckton of links, I only gave you five of the five thousand out there.  This was the story of the day on every major sports outlet, and I think the ten o’clock news led off with it tonight.
My reaction can be summed up in two words: Whoopty shit.

First of all, to the Bonds haters out there, shut the fuck up.  He was indicted.  Indicted don’t mean convicted.  And though you may want to declare victory now, I would really like to ask who that victory is for.  No, really.  I mean, I know everyone loves to hate Barry, but I’ve been a fan of his since he donned orange and black in 1993.  Sure, he was moody.  Sure, he was morose.  Sure, he treated the media like crap (rightfully).  And the media loved to pay him back by treating him like crap, and it was always understood that they were never going to be seen holding hands or taking long showers together.  And Pedro Gomez of ESPN always came off like a fucking asshole in every one of his reports, and I swear to god, there was no one on this planet I loved changing the channels on than that guy.

Second, even if Barry gets convicted, I’ll always remain a fan of his.  Not for his alleged felonies, but every time that guy came up to bat, it was a thrill to watch him swing away and launch a ball into the air.  That’s the part of Barry I’ll always appreciate.  And indictments and convictions won’t take away that from me, from the Giants, from his fans, and certainly not from history.

So keep on hating, fuckwits.  And by all means, get up on your high horse and take this golden opportunity to be self-righteous and indignant.  Never miss an opportunity to play social better and stare down your nose at others.

Because I’m sure you’re perfect in every way.

I know I am.

Current Mood: annoyed

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As I was saying in yesterday’s post, being sick really sucks.  I had like two days of being sick that I had to weather through all the aching and pain of coughing your lungs out as the phlegm tries to escape.  But, anyway… enough grossness.

Some good news came out of the long weekend.  I finished and won NaNoWriMo for the third year in a row.  But now I’m working on another story right now that has to do with the afterlife.  I’m not sure if I’ll finish it, because I have no idea where in the hell I’m going with the plot, but I have better idea of who the characters are and how they react to one another.  I can finally see them in my head, interacting with one another enough to start describing what’s happening.  It’s moving pretty quick; I wrote 2.5k in a day.  That’s pretty good considering I’m way the hell outside my genre, so it sort of feels like I’m back in to the storm-tossed sea of ideas without any ability to grab onto anything tightly enough to buoy myself.

In other news, Tap’s at the Arizona Fall League and I’m eager to read her reports on how it’s going down there.  I really kind of wanted to go to the AFL games, but you can’t really get time off in the first month of working at a new job.  Plus, I don’t think I could afford to be down there for more than maybe a day or two at the most before having to come back up and go back to work.  Actually, in thinking on it more, I would really much rather do spring training than the AFL, because I’ve been promising myself a spring training weekend for years, now.

I hope Monday’s busy enough to keep me engaged on working issues.  I hate it when it gets so slow I blog like six times in one day…

Current Mood: hungry

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I have awoken from the Autumn Dream.

Some short comments:

- akai SKY was awesome, and should have played last in the Battle of the Bands.
- Stage Crew ruled all.
- It’s too bad we never got the Internet to work.
- I may be too old to pull 22 hour days.
- My feet staged a coup on Sunday night and now there is a new regime in place. The political situation is unstable.
- Transformers was never so much fun.
- Road trips are much longer and more dangerous when you’re dead-ass tired and sitting behind the wheel.
- Earth!
- Arcee only has 512k of RAM.
- Three days of shuffling cards and dealing Texas Hold ‘em made my fingers hurt.
- High school drama is more fun when it doesn’t involve me.
- Baseball’s fun when you have people to share it with. Watching the Tribe (with help from the local insects) kill the Yankees in Cleveland was awesome.
- I really didn’t want to leave on Sunday.
- If only Ani-Magic could have been a four-day event instead of three…

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Because of the ESPN foobar earlier in the baseball season, they’ve given us a free prize-eligible fantasy football league this season. Any takers?

Comment here for an invite.

(crossposted to the No Stars League)

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As a reminder, today is the last day we’ll be accepting new teams in the keeper league for crap players. Please visit this post for more information. We have 9 teams so far and want to move to 12 overall. It’s ESPN Fantasy Baseball, which is the only free league that would let us do something like this.

If there’s three people out there who wouldn’t mind playing with Tap, B, Julia, Maggie, and myself, please sign up by asking for an invite. Thanks.

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1.) Where did you ring in 2006?
At ’s dad’s apartment.

2.) What was your status by Valentine’s Day?
Employed and Engaged.

3.) Were you in school (anytime this year)?
Briefly.

4.) How did you earn your keep?
I was the only operations engineer at a podunk communications firm that couldn’t figure out what they wanted from me. I got laid off from that job in April. Now, I’m working on a SOC team for Shopping.com.

5.) Did you have to go to the hospital?
Nope.

6.) Did you encounter the police?
Got pulled over and talked my way out of a ticket once this year.

7.) Where did you go on vacation?
Pac Bell Park for one night.

8.) What did you purchase that was over $500?
My new laptop, ’s laptop, and video iPods for the both of us.

9.) Did you know anybody who got married?
Yeah. My wife. She got married to me. Also: & . My cousin on my dad’s side.

10.) Do you know anybody who passed away?
Thankfully, no.

11.) Have you run into anybody you graduated high school with?
Everytime I go downstairs.

12.) Did you move anywhere?
I moved back into my old apartment in San Jose.

13.) What sporting events did you go to?
Baseball games at Pac Bell Park.

14.) What concerts did you go to?
Battle of the Bands at Ani-Magic 2006.

15.) Are you registered to vote?
Yes.

16.) If so, did you do your patriotic duty on Nov. 7?
Yes. D is for Victory.

17.) Where do you live now?
San Jose, CA.

18.) Describe your birthday.
Very little fanfare. Everyone online forgot it until I mentioned it. I got like maybe one call from my mom.

19.) What’s the one thing you thought you would never do but did in 2006?
Get married again.

20.) What is one thing you regretted this year?
I regret nothing. I live as few ever dare.

21.) What’s something you learned about yourself?
That I’m corny.

22.) Any new additions to your family?
My sister, Anna, had a baby.

23.) What was your best month?
December. Because I got to buy people presents again
24.) What from pop culture will you remember 2006 by?
Several: Leo died. Santos won. Danny loves Jordan. Jim kissed Pam. Karen smiled. Andy sung. Dwight lied.

25.) How would you rate this year with a scale from 1 (shitty) to 10 (excellent)?
9. I got a wife, I got a job, I got my show, I got my writing. The only thing that would make it a 10 is if I was debt-free and insanely rich.

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This is prompt #1 of 31 prompts this month for Holidailies.

Today’s prompt is: Introduce yourself and your website to Holidailies readers.  Here we go…

Hi, my name is Michael Garcia and this is my first time participating in Holidailies.  My website isn’t really all that much more than a Livejournal site where I normally read up on my friends and their goings-on, primarily sports-related and believe it or not, most them are female (I’m proud to say).  I recently got married, about eight months ago.  I work for a subsidiary of eBay called shopping.com.

My interests vary between writing to science-fiction to baseball to television and most everything in between.  I prefer not to pigeon-hole myself into one hobby or another; I like taking it all in and using what I can from them all.  I know this drives my wife crazy, because I will be embroiled in several different things at once and she has no idea how I’m able to do that.

But anyway, I look forward to contributing daily this month, as I’ve never kept a full month of posts up (even though I’ve tried before).

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