ThatKidInTheCorner

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April 28, 2007

Donovan McNabb's Mom Is So Totally Going To Be Pissed

Allow me to be among the first to overreact to the Eagles' first selection in today's NFL draft

So this is what I get for feeling fat and happy about the Eagles' decision to trade down out of the first round of the NFL Draft.

They took a what? A quarterback? With their first pick? At #36? The third QB taken in the entire draft? Seriously?

I did not see this coming. Yikes. I thought the Birds would go DB (safety or corner) or DE (since they have mostly stiffs at that position right now). Instead, that take a QB, a position at which they already have three (3) veterans.

WIP is already going nuts. G-Cobb is horrified. Sal Paolantonio called in and completely spazzed. Even Eagles Live! on the Birds' site was screwy; Dave Spadaro was "shocked" by the move. And suddenly, controversy in re: the Eagles and, more specifically, Donovan McNabb has returned! (At least it'll let the Phils fly under the radar for the next couple weeks.) Kolb did his part, by saying he "absolutely" thinks he's the "quarterback of the future."

Ugh.

The implications of this decision are troubling in a couple dimensions:

1. As if the pressure to come back from a serious knee injury isn't enough (and it was going to be brutal all freakin summer), now Donovan is going to have to deal with this crap at his minicamp press conferences? He's a sensitive emotional flower! This is going to hurt his delicate little feelings! Andy, what are you doing?!?!?! We thought you shipped Garcia just to make sure that Donovan (and Donovan's mom) would feel treasured and loved -- now this! I don't believe you when you say "This has nothing to do with Donovan McNabb, let me make that clear." How can it not? It has everything to do with McNabb and your evaluation of his future value. Which means....

2. The spreadsheets must have horrible things ot say about Donovan's knee! As in, the valuation of McNabb -- when mapped to QBs who sufer that kind of knee injury at age 30 when they have a history of injuries -- must have gone down! If it's true, it's true, but it wasn't my understanding. That is, I didn't expect that this was the case -- I figured 5 was good for at least four more years. A second-round pick at QB (with Feeley signed and on the roster through 2010) means that McNabb might not ever pull a John Elway (that is, win near the end of his career). The Eagles have officially hedged on McNabb. And the assumption is that this can't be an accident. You can't use this pick on a guy you don't expect to start for you within three years. So either the Eagles are stupid and irrational (not the case), or McNabb's days are numbered.

And here I thought I'd be crowing about some big-hitting safety or speedy corner!

Sigh.

Go Birds.

Posted by thatkid at 6:54 PM | Comments (0)

April Is My NAFTA Month

And other explanations in re: my extended silence on the electric internets; it has been a while

So when I posted something here on ThatKid, I had just returned from a trip to Tokyo which included an unexpected mission to the emergency room due to -- in my unscientific determination -- my consumption of an evil poison cookie.

(In case you were concerned about my health, the good news is that nothing remotely like the crazy reaction I had in Tokyo has resurfaced since I returned. I'm a bit more prepared these days (in that I now possess fancy allergy medicine AND an Epi-Pen that I can plunge into my heart...errr, leg...if it happens again), but we still haven't solved the mystery of the Evil Poison Cookie. That is, I went to the allergist and they tested me for a ton of stuff (including mashing up the cookie sample I brought with me and sticking it in my forearm) and I came up negative across the board. So yeah -- the Tokyo thing remains a mystery.)

Still, I've heard from at least two of my seven loyal readers that they're kind of surprised that I haven't posted in a while. That is, where the hell have I been? The answer is: lots of different places, up and down the landmass we all like to call "North America." Details on those missions and some other bits and pieces from the past month (with plenty of photos):

A strict fish-taco-and-beer diet: went on my first vacation-vacation in a while earlier this month to Sayulita, Mexico. By vacation-vacation I mean a mission that was actually restful and didn't involve lots of hotel changes, train rides, and staying-up-too-lates. Sayulita is a small town about half an hour north of Puerto Vallarta. We rented a house for the week (mercifully, Sayulita does not feature any resorts) and just chilled. Typical days included sipping coffee under the palapa (the big straw tent/ roof thingie on our house), ambling down to the beach for swimming and reading, wandering to "town" (really just a walk down the beach) for fish-taco-and-beer lunches, and, um, more ambling/ wandering/ eating fish tacos. Generally speaking, the location was lovely and made for many lovely pictures:

(If you can't link through to the photos, send me an e-mail and I'll get you set up as one of my friends on Flickr.)

Speaking Of Flickr: whilst I haven't been writing all that frequently on ThatKid, I've been taking more photos than ever, thanks to my handy-dandy new camera. The new camera is an absolute difference-maker for me, and I've been pretty aggressive about using it over the past couple months. If you're the sort of person who might look at my blog, then you're probably the sort of person who'll enjoy my photos on Flickr. I'm pretty careful about the public vs. private thing, though, so you'll need to make friends with me on Flickr is you want complete access (as noted, just send me a mail). As for my photos, keep an eye on the feed for my photostream here. Plenty of photo sets, plenty of tags, plenty of stuff to see. Check it out.

New camera, other applications: my new camera also does a pretty good job of taking videos, which I admittedly haven't done much of quite yet. Still, I did get this little sequence from the beach in Sayulita (my first-ever contribution to GooTube!):

(I was going to post some videos from last weekend, but decided against it pending approval of the participants; not everyone is as excited about videos of people shouting "KILL!" during drinking games as I sometimes am.)

The other half of the NAFTA mission: headed up to Whistler last weekend for my second consecutive April ski trip in BC. And by "ski trip" I mean "trip where I ski for at least three hours in between lots of eating and drinking with 24 of my closest friends." Good times were had by all, both on the slopes and in Whistler village. Though I've already posted on the merits of last year's trip, I'll take a moment to confirm that (a) Whistler is a great place and (b) even if you're not doing tons of skiing, you'll still have a quality time.

Oh right, Lisa, a MAGICAL animal: it's also worth noting that said trip to Whistler involved a LOT of bacon consumption. We're talking on the order of 10 pounds. I'm not kidding. Also, I didn't realize that they sell bacon by the kilo in Canadia (that's 2.2 lbs if you're scoring at home). For the record, the bacon-wrapped asparagus was a highlight:

The less we say about the Sonics at this point the better: I'm long overdue for a Sonics Season Summary post, but let me briefly express my disgust with the way they completely limped to the finish line ahead of their "we're getting the hell out of town" announcements, a move whose candidate locations now include (!!!!) Las Vegas. Also, they fired Rick Sund and Bob Hill. You can't really argue with that (though Ray-Ray was polite about it). I wonder which retreads will take their place?

The plan moving forward for ThatKid: yeah, I don't really have one. I should be able to post a bit more frequently in the next couple weeks, but I'm also thinking of shaking things up (ideas include a site that would be Eagles specific). Speaking of the Eagles, I love trading down for more picks at 26; all the guys they probably wanted at DB and S were likely off the board, and I can't argue with more players -- especially since there isn't that big a difference between 26 and 36.

It's good to be back.

Posted by thatkid at 3:03 PM | Comments (0)

April 2, 2007

When In Tokyo, Beware The Evil Poison Cookie!

Who knew individually wrapped snacks could be so perilous?

While it had been five years since I'd last visited Japan (layovers at Narita -- overnight or otherwise -- don't quite count), it's remarkable how familiar it felt to return to Tokyo. All the essential elements were still there: the tauntingly long journey from Narita into town, the plastic food in the restaurant windows, and the heavily regimented traffic crossings (photos below). All is generally quite well in the land of the rising sun.

The main intersection at Shibuya station in its "Don't Walk" state (wait for it)...

And go!

And certainly, there were some good times to be had as well, despite a pretty agressive schedule of meetings. We managed the obligatory trip(s) to Roppongi, a shopping mission in Shibuya (during which I picked up the new Fountains of Wayne record -- it was at the front of the store; they must be huge there? -- and Twigy), and even a midafternoon sojourn to check out the cherry blossom trees (for which this is apparently the primo week).

And, of course, I took my first trip to the Japanese emergency room.

So the end of the story is that everything is totally chill. I'm fine, made it back safely, all is better. No need for concern.

The middle of the story is that I had a pretty wild allergic reaction that landed me in the hospital. We were sitting down to our first post-lunch meeting and I gnoshed a cookie from the box on the the conference room table. Sure, I had just eaten, but there's always room for a cookie.

Like most Japanese confections, it was delicious.

About three minutes later, I started sneezing. And sneezing. And sneezing. To the point that I had to get up and leave the meeting. I went into the bathroom and sneezed some more. I tried to walk around to get myself to stop sneezing, but nothing. Then I went back to the bathroom and noticed that my eyes were extremely swollen. Also, I was starting to get a little short of breath. Uh oh. This wasn't good.

I ran into a coworker in the hallway who confirmed that I "looked pretty bad" and suggested that I head down to the medical office (yes, my company has a medical office on site). The medic woman in the office as well as the guy on our team who's a doctor (yes, there's an MD that I work with -- he's even a dermatologist) both confirmed that I needed a hospital, and fast. Apparently eveything would have been cool if I wasn't having problems breathing. Breathing problems are a prime indicator of anaphylactic shock, and that means you need a hospital. Within minutes, I was en route to said hospital with a guy from our team and a woman from the Japan office who'd be doing the translating.

The hospital itself was nothing special -- a little smaller-scale than I expected -- and the service was quick and useful. Sure, I was feeling lightheaded and was struggling to breathe, but at least we were there. My doctor was a jolly, rotund little fellow who sized me up pretty quickly and apologized -- through an increasingly overmatched translator whose knowledge of English didn't account for complex medical terminology -- that he wouldn't be able to run a full series of tests to determine the source of the reaction. Right. Got it. Now please fix me so the whole breathing thing gets a little easier.

The plan was to give me an IV with some kind of steroid and some pain reliever/ tranquilizer. The showed me to a little bed (I was definitely a little long for this thing) and I got comfortable. The nurse showed up a couple minutes later with the IV bag and an extremely limited English vocabulary. She held up the IV needle and said, very definitively, "Pain." "Yes," I replied, "pain." Then I pointed at my arm and nodded encouragingly. Convinced that we were on the same page and that I had been appropriately appraised of the risks of the imminent treatment, she stuck my arm and the happiness started flowing.

Forty-five minutes later (the last fifteen of which included a lovely nap), I was feeling about a thousand percent better. Another quick chat with the doctor to go over the particulars of my treatment (he had given me "extra" medicine because I was "bigger than Japanese people") and recovery (take the pills he was prescribing and don't drink alcohol, though that last bit didn't translate very well), and we were on our way to the pharmacy across the street to get my medicinal parting gifts. Said part of the mission was pretty underwhelming -- I just nodded politely as the specific restictions on the medicines were explained. Hope they don't kill me!

I have to say, in a country where I once paid $110 for a pitcher of margaritas, I felt pretty excited to get out of the hospital and pharmacy for about US$80. I got an IV bag, a cure to my anaphylactic shock, and some pills? I'll take it!

I was back in the office the next morning, safe and sound, and feeling good as new. I had never reacted like that to anything before, so I must be allergic to some kind of nut or oil they only use in Japan? I dunno. I guess I need to find an allergist this week. Add it to the task list.

The irony in this whole thing is, of course, that it happened in Tokyo, and not, say, China or Vietnam, significantly less neurotically clean places where I ate God knows what and had zero access to medical care. Or even, say, on a street in Berlin at 3 am after a long day of, um, watching soccer. Nope. It happened in Tokyo, the most hermetically immaculate major city on the planet, and it was an individually wrapped cookie -- and not some street food or even scary Fugu fish -- that got me.

Yes yes, very ironic.

And now, because it couldn't be helped, one more little bit of food porn from the trip.

Sayonara, evil poison cookie!

Posted by thatkid at 12:25 AM | Comments (0)