The Eric Wroolie Blog

Woes of a Padres Fan

June 12, 2012 by wroolie Leave a Comment

Every baseball season is the same.

Despite my frustration with the San Diego Padres at the end of each season (there have been a few—far few—exceptions), I eagerly await the start of the baseball season in April. It’s usually a new team. Usually a young, inexperienced, team. There is hope in the air.

I eagerly watch games all through April and May. By June, I watch fewer games. It’s difficult to watch west coast games from England, and the effort is usually wasted considering how often my Padres lose.

At the All Star break (in early July), I try to re-join—but it doesn’t last long.

I’ll watch a few games in September because there is some ridiculous goal like “not finishing in last place” that they can still achieve.

By the time the playoffs start, if the Padres are not in it (most of the time), I swear that next year that I won’t bother with baseball. I won’t plop down the money for the MLB.com season. It’s too difficult to be a Padres fan overseas—and it’s not like they deserve it. I’m through with baseball, I declare. Maybe I should learn how the hell cricket is played.

I’m a Padres fan. I’m not even a fan of mediocrity. I’m just a fan of bad.

Then the cycle starts again the next year.

The Padres have 21 wins and 41 losses so far this year. They are last in the NL West. At the moment, they are the worst team in baseball. It’s all pretty much on schedule.

Metro, Mountain Lion, and the Snowballing Economy

June 11, 2012 by wroolie Leave a Comment

I feel like I’m the only person in the world who does not like the look of Metro style apps from Windows Phone and Windows 8. I don’t like the simplistic large font with basic colours. I prefer something with more depth. But, the economic beast has to feed itself and we can’t keep the same stuff all the time, so we are moving to Metro.

Apple unveiled its Mountain Lion OS yesterday. I didn’t watch the keynote, but I did see a lot of people talking about it on Twitter. Apple fans were gushing all over the new OS—no criticisms. When you’re a fan, I guess, you can’t criticise. People on the other side—on the Windows side—are gushing over Windows 8 and Metro too.

There’s something very strange about the world we live in where the economy has to be growing or it is failing. If we are not selling, then we are stagnating. Of course, when we have all we need, there is no reason to buy. So, the economy needs Metro. But we don’t need Metro. They need to convince us that it is necessary.

I know it makes me sound old, but I think about the big TV we had when I was growing up. It wasn’t just a TV—it was a piece of furniture. It was huge with a rotary channel changer—but it was a big investment. We had it for at least 10 years that I can remember. If it broke, we could get it repaired.

Now, we needed to go for the flat screen TVs when they came out (they were far better than the old TV Set of the past). Then we needed digital tv. Then we needed to get rid of that piece of junk and get HD. Now, they need to push 3D. We already have a TV—but with that attitude this recession will go on forever.

Was it always this way? I know we never needed economic growth to be this strong before. Or is it exponential? Has it snowballed so much that there is no way we can keep it up. We need this recession. We need the economy to slow down so we can regulate our buying habits.

Because I don’t want Windows 8 with Metro.

Mr. Fad

March 30, 2012 by wroolie 1 Comment

I realised ages ago that I’m susceptible to following fads. If something new comes along that looks interesting, I’ll give it a go. Why I haven’t joined a cult yet, I have no idea.

A few years ago, I was gung-ho on vegetarianism. That lasted a few weeks.

I started going to the gym regularly. That lasted a few months.

I still meditate, but not as regularly as I did at the beginning.

When I read about node.js, I became a huge fan and learned all I could about it. But, that waned too. The bills are paid by Microsoft work.

My family are aware of my tendency for jump on bandwagons. So, when I say something like “I’m going on a low-carb diet” (my decision last night) because of something I’ve read, everyone rolls their eyes and puts up with me.

If you want to really annoy or embarrass me, just mention one of the things I haven’t followed through on.

For all my starts though, I’ve had some success. I’ve run marathons, started contracts in new technologies, and I still wake earlier than most people for self-development time. If something works, it works. If it doesn’t, I stop.

So, I’m silly in this way. I start new fads all the time. If I can keep from telling others about it, I will. But when I can’t get around my strange behaviour anymore (“I can’t eat that because I’m vegetarian now”), I’ll fess up.

I haven’t tried everything I’ve thought about. Like, for the longest time, I’ve wanted to try polyphasic sleeping, but it would disrupt family life too much. One day . . .

But, what is the alternative? What would I gain by being steadfast and set in my habits? Where would I be if I never experimented? When I adopt a language like “I’m going to try to . . . “ instead of “I’m going to . . . “, I have less likelihood of success, so there’s no sense in starting with a flimsy word like “try”.

So, when you hear me tell you I’m going to start a new habit, or become a new person, or whatever. Go ahead and roll your eyes. I understand. It may work out for me, or it may not. That’s for future me to decide. Present me just has to decide to try it.