yes, you may

Don't know why I put off my first post of the year for so long, so I'm writing this on my phone to get it over with.

Fact is, the future of feitclub.com is in doubt. Blogger has decided to end publishing via FTP, and since I use my own domain that's precisely how I put this blog together.

I want to continue writing and there are options on the table to migrate this project of mine to a new host or another publishing platform (Wordpress?), but nothing's going to be easy. It's fair to say I won't post much of anything here until I sort this out.

I'm trying to remain positive about this. I've wanted to overhaul the site for years as it's grown increasingly ugly by web standards. It was never pretty but it was, for a while, NOT hideous. Now it looks like less polished MySpace page. Ugh.

In the meantime, I'll continue to use Twitter and Facebook as usual. Notice that I've stopped the automated messages regarding feitclub.com. From now on, I'll just tweet about updates myself.

TTFN, I guess. Feit...out.

Labels: moblogging, site news

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Hey everybody, I just want to drop in here and say a few words before the year is up.

First off, the vacation is going great. I was nervous about the baby but it turns out he loves America and everyone in it. Strangers and family alike delight him, he is being spoiled with toys and clothes at every turn, and he is sleeping here like he never sleeps back home. Not necessarily at night, mind you, but a happy, well-rested baby is a hell of a lot easier to manage than a cranky, crying baby.

In professional writing news, Wired Game|Life has been posting best-of lists recently, several of which I got to vote for and contribute towards. While I recommend all of their fine work, readers looking specifically for my words should direct their attention to Top 5 PlayStation 3 Games of 2009, The 10 Best Videogames of 2009 and The 15 Most Influential Games of the Decade. I'm particularly proud of that last one because I got to write about two of my favorite games of the last ten years, both of which will be appearing in my love/hate 00s countdown.

Speaking of which, the countdown is on hold but not over. I haven't had much time to write on this trip, so I'll finish my thoughts about my favorite and most disappointing things of the past decade after it is complete.

In the meantime, enjoy this final day of the 00s. For those of you in Japan, the year is nearly finished, but here in the US we've got nearly an entire day to get through. Wherever you're at, have fun and I'll see you in 2010 (digitally speaking).

Labels: family, number one son, site news, travel, video games, Wired, writing

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By the time this post goes live, I'll be on my way to New York with my family in tow. Maybe Go will fall asleep on the plane and maybe he won't. Either way we will be spending the next two weeks in the United States.

I am, understandably, nervous about this trip. Even taking the airplanes out of the equation there's going to be a lot of traveling and I have no idea how Go will respond. Will he become jet lagged and sleep all day while keeping us up all night?

Ultimately it's up to me whether this trip is enjoyable or not. Go is going to do what he's going to do - it's out of my control. We're taking him to America so his grandparents and extended family can see him in person. It reminds me of last March when we took Mako's parents to New York. Their needs trumped ours, because they could not function without our assistance. Did I still enjoy myself? Hell yeah.

The key difference this time is that Mako's parents are, once provided with food and shelter, self-sufficient. We could bring them food and leave them in their hotel room for an evening. Go would not enjoy that.

So I don't know what to say. Am I excited? Of course? Am I nervous? Very much so. Am I scared? Nope. Worst case scenario, I go without sleep for two weeks while surrounded by friends and family. That beats spending another New Year's in Japan in front of the damned television, forced to watch an endless parade of celebrities sing and congratulate each other.

Also, I cannot predict my availability online. I'm bringing my netbook but I can't say how much time I'll be able/willing to sit in front of it. I hope to keep writing my list of my favorite and most disappointing things of the decade, as I'm only a third of the way finished.

So please forgive me if I miss out on Twitter or Facebook chatter. I'll see many of you in person soon. To everyone else, I'll catch you right here next year. FEIT...out

Labels: family, predicting the future, site news, travel

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I'm not normally a "count your chickens before they hatch" kind of guy, but I've got this idea that I want to let you know about it even before I really figure out how feasible it might be.

It has been brought to my attention that not only is 2009 coming to an end, but the entire decade of the 00s will soon be behind us. I've been reading the various lists over at The Onion AV Club and Insult Swordfighting and found myself thinking "I want in on that action" so I've quietly compiled two lists of my own. Unfortunately, I am not a professional critic so I do not have the requisite experience to truly lay down a gauntlet and declare something the "best" or "worst" of anything, let alone an entire decade.

Rather, I'm going to pick out and praise fifteen things that I absolutely loved and bemoan ten things that profoundly disappointed me over the last ten years. Actually, there's a lot more than twenty-five items on my lists because many of my entries will cover two or three different media creations that share a common theme (i.e. zombies). I didn't really do much research other than confirming that something I loved/loathed actually came out in the 00s as opposed to the 90s. Looking over my collection of favorites/blights I see a lot of movies, a fair number of television shows and video games, a few books and even a website. There's no music on my list, partly because I don't know how to write about music but mostly because I've all but abandoned listening to the radio or buying CDs so my tastes have stagnated.

I take some small comfort in the realization that I had a lot more things I wanted to herald than I wanted to bury, although that's also a reflection of my amateur status. As a consumer I tend to make pretty informed choices when it comes to media, so I steered clear some truly awful films/shows/games over the years. Professional critics don't have that luxury so while they got stuck watching Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever or playing Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing, I certainly didn't. Most of the "bad" stuff on my list were disturbing trends in entertainment or movies that just let me down personally. So while I'm sure there were much worse things unleashed on the public in the past ten years, I either didn't see/play/read it or I saw it coming.

Also, I'm not numbering or ranking these. I've tried to order them in a way that will make for an entertaining read so the items are broken up by medium. Otherwise there might be a whole week of video game posts which would leave a few readers cold. I suppose I've tried to save the "bigger" ones for last, but I stress that I'm not trying to come up with a "number one" anything. I just want to tell you about things I remember fondly...and things I wish I could forget.

Assuming I write and post all of these in a timely fashion (and that's a big if) this project should conclude just as 2009 wraps up. I hope you'll enjoy it and possibly sound off in the comments section. That's right, you can click the bottom of every post I make and write what you think about it, remember?

Anyone?

Bueller?

Labels: I hate the 00s, I love the 00s, site news, writing

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Just want to explain what's going on...or rather, what's NOT going on.

Of course Tokyo Game Show has ended and I am back home with the family and going to work as usual. Of course I want to write all about the trip and talk about the show as well as what it was like to see it from another angle.

Here's the catch: I'm not done working. I attended the show on all four days but on Sunday, I got off to a late start (I'll explain why) and rather than spend time at the convention center writing, I simply did my best to look around and then planned on writing about stuff later.

Here we are a few days later and I'm still piecing stuff together, so it would be inappropriate to take time out from my job to spin a tale for my blog about the trip. So if you folks will bear with while I complete my profession obligations, I will be sure to talk about what I did in Tokyo in a little bit.

In the meantime, I would remind you that all of the TGS coverage at Wired Game|Life is available right here and a list of my articles can be viewed right here. Again, the site will continue to update over the next few days as more stories are completed, but these links will still encompass TGS/my work. I hope you take a look at what we wrote, because those pieces represent how we predominantly spent our time in Tokyo.

Labels: site news, TGS, Tokyo, Wired

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I've got a meeting in Osaka this afternoon, so I don't have to go to school today. Lucky me...and by extension, lucky you because you get to read what I come up with during my day off.

Believe it or not, it was one year ago today that I started using Twitter. I'm not sure exactly how I got turned onto the mini-blogging service, although I suspect it had something to do with this charming video explaining how it works.Whatever it was that caught my eye about Twitter, I got hooked on it pretty quickly as you can see from my first sixteen posts. Once I learned how to upload photos and later integrate my tweets with my Facebook account, the feedback increased as did my compulsion to write. That's why I credit the fun of spitting out tiny morsels of my day with reigniting my interest in this blog, because after writing all those little stories I found myself eager to write longer ones again.

The results are clear: during my first year on the JET Programme (August 2007 - July 2008), I managed only twenty posts, but since I started using Twitter last summer I've written 155 posts and July's not over yet. I suppose I'll never reach the golden days of my Kansai Gaidai experience where I was writing long entries almost everyday, but with all the activity at home now I'll be elated if I maintain my current pace of two or three posts a week.

But Twitter has been rewarding in its own way because of all the random encounters it has given me. When I mentioned going to Cold Stone Creamery, the company's Twitter feed suddenly started "following" mine. All of those weird little Japan moments that I've mentioned has led me to meet (in a virtual sense) other foreigners in Japan and read about their experiences here. When I complimented Tropic Thunder I was followed by a "Sgt. Lincoln Osiris" who was tweeting in character. I even won a free Xbox game for participating in a MTV poll. The game turned out to be crazy hard and not for me, but the thrill of free stuff remained long after I lost interest in the prize.

The highlight of all this silliness came just the other day when I had a close encounter with a musician I greatly admire. When Robert Ashley (creator of the wonderful A Life Well Wasted) asked his followers for music suggestions, I recommended the now-defunct Cibo Matto as well as lead singer Miho Hatori who is still making music. Mr. Ashley didn't respond but Miho Hatori did, thanking me for recommending her music. The very idea that Miho Hatori read anything that I wrote was a thrill that I'm still riding high on.

So to all my friends out there, especially those of you who enjoy writing or use Facebook, I recommend giving Twitter a try. You never know where those 140 character messages will take you.

Labels: celebrities, site news, Twitter, writing

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For my 1000th blog post, I need to ask you readers a question: do I share too much?

I hope your answer is "no" because I don't feel that way at all, but I just recently ran into some Japanese Internet issues that forced me to think about what it is that I do, digitally speaking.

For starters, I picked this domain name in 2004 because it is a pun featuring my own last name. I subsequently went on to use feitclub as my username on a number of online forums and other websites (most of which are gathered on my contact page). It's a pretty thin veil of anonymity because I didn't really consider using my own name online to be a problem. Yet I can remember a lot of people being extremely nervous when they heard I was starting a blog and writing about myself on the Internet using my own name. They felt something about that was inherently dangerous and I couldn't understand why.

Flash forward to today and I live in a country where that attitude is widespread: Japan is afraid of the Internet. I had heard that before from What Japan Thinks but this article (and this recent non-controversy) really sum up the matter quite well. I had always assumed Japanese web pages sucked because they were designed with mobile phones in mind, but he argues that the real reason is a general distrust of the Internet as a medium. Fear of new technology isn't unheard of but sometimes I feel like Japan is almost trying to wait it out, as if the Internet is just going to go away someday.

This fear hit home not too long ago when Mako casually commanded me to never post a picture of our baby on the Internet. She said she had no objections to sending pictures to friends or family, but putting up a picture for everyone to see is apparently out of the question. When I asked why, all she could say was "It's my baby." I didn't argue because she is very pregnant right now and completely unstable, so she says a lot of things that don't make sense or at least contradict her own long-held opinions. At one point last month she said she never wanted to go to America again, but this weekend she couldn't stop talking about visiting Boston after seeing a TV special about the city (and its cuisine).

Even if she reverses herself or doesn't even remember making such a declaration, I am wondering if she is actually right. Between this blog, Twitter, and Facebook, I am producing a steady of stream of words and images featuring and starring me. My life is hardly an open book (there's plenty of stuff that cannot/should not be made public) but I offer the Internet a substantial look at my life. That's something I have chosen to do and I enjoy it. If nothing else, it's a fun exercise to keep myself writing and it serves as a record of what I'm up to should I ever need to recall what Mako and I ate on our first date. Mako is basically along for the ride, posing for silly pictures knowing full well they will end up on the Internet. However, it will be years before our son is old enough to grasp what the hell an Internet is. Is it right to simply decide that he is on board with all this?

Allow me to answer my own question, because I just realized I'm looking at this the wrong way: Yes, it is OK for me to make these decisions for my son because I am his father. It's going to be my job to decide a lot of things concerning my son for decades. These decisions will run the gamut from trivial (i.e. choosing when we take family vacations) to fundamental (disciplining him if he steals something), and that will include encouraging him to embrace certain cultural phenomena that I enjoy. There's nothing sinister or Orwellian about it; in fact, the reason I know the word "Orwellian" is because my father gave me Animal Farm to read when I was in second grade.

Indeed, there were a lot of interests my father tried to pass on to me when I was growing up. My father loved baseball when I was a kid, and so did I. I would hope my son will learn to love it too (He doesn't have to love the Yankees, of course, just so long as he doesn't choose the Red Sox). My father was fascinated by history, especially military history. He took us to Civil War battlefields as a family and played strategic war games with his friends. He loved skiing and sailing. I didn't embrace all of these things, but I know that being exposed to all of them had an affect on me. I'm sure all the traveling we did encouraged me to visit Japan when I did.

As for me, I am not scared of the Internet and I hope my son grows up accepting it as a part of his life. He doesn't need to write his own blog or anything, but I don't want him to feel like the Internet represents some kind of threat to his privacy. Of course, I am not a dictator. These kinds of decisions will be made by the two of us and if Mako holds her ground, you may not be seeing any pictures of our son on the Internet at all. She has just as much right to shape our child as I do, and in the big picture this isn't something worth fighting over. It's not like she'll be raising him as a Luddite. Whatever happens, I hope my son will at least come to view the Internet as something that can be both fun and useful. After all, no matter where he decides to live in the future, he will need to use it to keep in touch with half of his family. I don't want that to become a chore that he loathes.

Labels: family, Internet issues, Japan, marriage, pregnancy, site news

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Be advised: my buddy The Trout is presently making his way from Tokyo to Osaka. He will be here until next Tuesday (as in more than a week from now) and I suspect I will have little time for writing blog posts. So keep your eyes on my Twitter or my Facebook page to see what we're up to in the meantime. Catch you folks after that. FEIT...out.

seriously, that's it. Later.

Labels: friends, site news

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Five years of feitclub.com? It's true, it's true.

Yes, I made my very first blog post on April 1st, 2004, beginning my journey into the blogosphere. I knew my primary motivation at the time was to force myself to get back into the habit of writing, a task I have always struggled to perform. My failure to write papers and essays in a timely fashion drove my English and Social Studies/History teachers crazy and nearly failed me out of high school (and practically sunk my initial college aspirations). I simply couldn't get myself motivated enough to sit down and start writing when school demanded it, even though I was always OK with writing stories about myself. Eventually my disdain for writing drove me to leave school altogether, much to the chagrin of my parents.

Even as I scorned the usefulness of academic writing, I occasionally had flashes of productivity for my own needs. I kept a very thorough journal during my first visit to Japan in 2001, filling an entire notebook in only three weeks. I found the experience extremely satisfying even though hardly anyone read it. I wrote about myself for myself and it felt great. Three years later, I was nearing the end of my postal service career and on the verge of launching myself back into school, so I knew my life would undergo some major changes and I would have to start writing again. This knowledge, combined with the general "hipness" blogs were enjoying at the time, prompted me to start my own blog in the hopes that writing regularly about my life would help break down my resistance to writing on an assigned topic.

I've already admitted that my grander ideas for the site have completely failed, but aside from a dry spell than covered most of my initial year in the JET Programme, the blog has been a success for me. It didn't exactly make writing papers in school easy but it certainly trained me to sit in front of a keyboard for long stretches of time. Its greatest moments were unquestionably during my study abroad experience at Kansai Gaidai, serving as both a portal into my life for my family and friends back home as well as offering me a record of falling in love with Mako. Spending nearly every evening writing about my new environment as well as my new relationship forced me to really think about what was happening to me.

What does the future hold for this site? I would say my aspirations have changed even if my motivations remain the same. I still want to practice writing but the new goal is not academic but...dare I say it...professional. As insane as it sounds, I think my future is in writing despite all of the problems I've had with it over the years. I don't know whether that means trying to break into journalism or trying to write fiction, but I know that when I write, I feel like I am genuinely accomplishing something. Even though I haven't "improved" in any tangible sense (my readership and my productivity are a fraction of what they once were), my attitude has completely changed towards writing. It's no longer a burden or an obligation, but an opportunity.

Speaking of the future, the birth of my son is now a mere ten weeks away (give or take). I know that once the baby is here there will be a struggle on two fronts to maintain my interest in writing. One will be the simple issue of finding time to write while taking care of a brand new human being. The other is avoiding the perils of becoming a vacuous "baby blogger," where suddenly every single post is about my son and the issues that come with raising a child. I've seen so many others turn their blog space into banal accounts of diaper-changing, baby's-first-everything, and cutesy photos that it frightens me.

On that note, I feel the time is right to finally reveal the name I have chosen for my son. I know I resisted this but I can't stand sitting on my brilliant idea any longer: the baby's name will be...

5

Yes, 5. Not Five, but 5. With my son growing up in an international, bilingual household and having to juggle at least two different cultures as he matures, it is unfair to label him with a name that is rooted in only one language. By naming him 5, my son can adapt to any environment because numerals are universal. English speakers can call him "Five," Spanish speakers can call him "Cinqo," and Japanese people can call him any number of things because Japanese numbers are weird like that. But that's the point: with an entire globe of different words and ideas, my son cannot simply retreat into one familiar tongue and insist that strangers address him in one way. He will be forced to open his mind and learn new words with each new person he meets. At the same time, he will be free of the burden of correcting anyone on the pronunciation of his first name. His last name, sadly, is another story.

Why 5 instead of 7, 10, or 42? Well, I felt a single digit was important for brevity's sake (have you ever heard 99 in French? Interminable!) and of all the numbers from 0-9, 5 felt both masculine and manageable. It's a nice round number that's easy to count with. Plus, if he ever forgets his business card or a pen, he can simply open his hand and point to his fingers. 0 sounded cool, but it has some negative connotations and, let's face it, you can't count to 0 easily. 1 looks like I, 2 looks like V or "peace" on your fingers, 3 is too mockable (it looks like boobs or an ass), 4 reminded me of golf, 6 is too close to "sex," 7 is written in Europe with a line through the middle, 8 looks like "infinity," and 9 would cause too many problems in Germany.

No, 5 it is. I'm weighing potential middle names just so he can have another initial to work with (5F isn't quite right) but I'm not sure what other symbols I can use. It can't be another numeral because that would complicate his first name. People would see 5 0 Feit at start calling him "Fiddy" or worse, "Five-o." Perhaps we could use a kanji as a nod to his Asian heritage? How does 5 伍 F look to you? If you don't know what it means, you can look it up.

Labels: anniversary, family, fuzzy memories, predicting the future, site news, writing

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Spent the first two hours of work just staring at my laptop, trying to figure out what I wanted to write about. Consider that a warning: this will be unfocused.

I spend so much of my time listening to podcasts and watching little videos on the Internet that I keep coming back to the idea that I should be making some multimedia content for the site. Yes, I did some video blogs during my senior year of college, but that's not what I'm talking about now. Those were nothing but me sitting in my apartment in Albany, New York and talking to the camera about my day (or goofing off). Now I live in Japan. I could be showing you the sights or taking walks through the elementary schools where I work. Alternately, I could go with audio-only and record one of my lessons to give you an idea of what I'm actually teaching these kids.

Does anything of this sound interesting? Typing these ideas down makes me feel good but I just don't know how the results would look or sound. There's also the matter of equipment, more precisely the total lack thereof. Yes, I have a webcam that handles video chat well enough and a digital camera that can capture short videos, but nothing heavy-duty enough to actually record extended footage of my surroundings. With a forthcoming baby we've talked about investing in a dedicated video camera to record the little rascal's early years, but I wouldn't know where to begin with audio technology. Do they just make portable recorders that can then connect to a PC via USB? Or would I have to buy something that is storage-driven, like a Mini-Disc? They still use those over here so I imagine they're not too expensive.

There is another crucial factor holding me back here: I would have to do everything myself, both in front of and behind the lens/microphone. The podcasts I listen to are mostly team operations, typically relying on the interaction of friends/coworkers to actually, you know, be entertaining. A Life Well Wasted is a wonderful exception to that rule, but that program is produced by a journalist who has contacts, loads of potential interview subjects, and he can make his own music to bring it all together. I have none of that. I just want to try something new and offer you folks more than words on a screen.

Maybe a better idea is to hold off on the solo performances and save the fancy stuff for occasions when I have someone to work with. Not necessarily as an editor, because that would cost money, but someone to interact with on tape so that it's not just me sputtering sentence fragments and licking my lips. Certainly, Skype offers a few options for recording conversations between two (or more) remote parties, as heard on Alex's podcast or the new show Out of the Game.

So I put it to you, should I aspire to more than writing about myself and try talking about myself again? Any equipment/software suggestions are likewise welcome. Mike, I know you had a really slick looking HD camera last we met, how's that holding up?

Labels: site news

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Trying to get things in order around here, if only one small piece at a time.

I've done a little behind the scenes work on feitclub.com and yesterday I silently added two new pages to the site. One is the newly slim-lined Links page, which was woefully out of date for far too long. I mean, does anyone need me to tell them that the New York Times has a website? I thought about dropping the page entirely but I wanted to include some pointers to websites run by friends. At the very least I needed to return the favor to Alex over at DoFuss.

What's brand new and exciting for me is the Contact page. I've ditched the tiny mail link on the right and created a page detailing how to reach me and listing all of the websites that I'm frequenting these days. It hit me last summer that I've got all these little profiles and userpages floating around out there, and while all of them lead back here there was nothing here to connect back to all of them. With the new Contact page, now I've got a mini-map of these feitclub outposts. Maybe, just maybe, some of you will check them out and decide to sign up for Digg or 1UP or whatever.

In other, purely internal news, I've finally started adding labels to my posts. I have no idea how long it will take to label all my past posts (there are over NINE HUNDRED) but it's an easy way to give readers a tool for scanning my material. My poor Archive page is only so helpful regarding what topics I've been covering. If any of you are reading this site via RSS, going back and labeling my old posts may make old posts look new, but this cannot be helped. I hope you will excuse the mess as I try to make this place more user-friendly.

Labels: site news

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Cash...it's what pays for dinner.

The deadline for recontracting in the JET Programme recently passed last Friday. While I decided weeks ago that I should stay, it wasn't until this latest deadline that I would find out whether or not they concurred. Of course, having gone through all this last year and being much better at my job now as opposed to then, I should have been able to mellow out and not worry about my job, but when it comes to the approval of others logic simply escapes me.

It didn't help that the deadline came with no official word or slip of paper confirming or denying my request to recontract. I've gotten used to things being taken very slowly here in Hana Town, but I kind of hoped that a matter of this importance would be taken a bit more seriously. Looking back on it now, I suppose the totally lackadaisical attitude they have shown towards this process reflects the casualness with which they view my job. That's not a slight; I think this truly demonstrates how everyone at my Board of Education just assumes I'm here to stay, something that I hope I remember next year when I put myself through this anxiety all over again.

Oh, I guess I just jumped ahead there...yes, they have since verbally confirmed that they want me to stay another year. While I thought for a long time about whether or not it was a good thing that this job might never "end," it is certainly a good thing that it is not ending on someone else's terms nor will it end in the next six months.

In other monetary related news, I've added the first ever advertisement to feitclub.com. The banner on the right is for Play Asia, an online retailer I often use, particularly to import American editions of games I'd rather not play in Japanese or (more importantly) pay Japanese prices for. A great example is Street Fighter IV. Here in Japan it costs well over 8000 Yen (nearly $90 at present exchange rates) but I was able to buy a foreign edition on their site for 3000 Yen less.

Anyway, I use their service and it's good, so I figured why not promote it and possibly earn a dime or two in the process? It's a commission thing, not a page-view thing, so feel free to shop there if you want but there's no pressure to start clicking away for my sake. Kudos to Alex who told me about their affiliate program in the first place. You can do the same thing through his site, but only if you hate me...and Mako...and our baby.

Labels: Alex, JET, site news, video games

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I didn't realize my friend Joe had a website already. I have added it to links section. It's for his zine, Modern Arizona. I would say that meeting Joe was the only silver lining in my changing high schools senior year.

Labels: friends, site news

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Whoa, I made a banner! Photoshop rules!

I'm sure you're wondering why I've been updating so often. Is it my new commitment to put aside real-world tasks to maintain my blog? No, I've just had a lot more free time. One of the advantages (?) of having a shitty job where you don't feel like you're needed is, well, often you're not needed. So I had the luxury of watching an old baseball game on TV today, a game I actually attended and remember quite well.

Sunday, September 4th, 1993. Labor Day weekend. My life was in shambles. I had just flipped out and nearly flunked out of high school and I had been relegated to a "gifted handicapped" (my favorite oxymoron) program in another school district. To make matters that much more complicated, this was the start of my senior year, and that meant picking a college to go to. So I was leaving everyone I knew behind and I had no idea what was going to happen and I was about to make some huge decisions which I wasn't ready to make.

We (my mother, sister, and I) had purchased tickets for the game earlier that summer, but the weather that day was pretty ugly. Gray skies and drizzle made my mother question whether or not we should bother going. For those uninformed, the New York Yankees don't always win. In fact, at that time they were struggling just to keep pace with the defending World Champion Toronto Blue Jays. So Yankees' tickets were fairly inexpensive and easy to get, the complete opposite of what they are today. Thankfully, I insisted, as our seats were under the Loge level (third-base side, for those who care) and therefore we would not get wet. But there was a more important reason I wanted to go to the game: Jim Abbott was pitching that day.

To most of you the name Jim Abbott doesn't mean a thing. To me, he was a very big deal. I had become fascinated by Jim's story when he won 18 games with the Angels in 1991. I was thrilled when he came to Yankees in a trade and I remember clipping out a story on him from the New York Times on December 25, 1992. What was the big deal? Jim Abbott was born without a right hand yet he was a successful pitcher in the Major Leagues. How did he do it? He rested his glove on his stump, threw with his left hand and, continuing that motion, put his glove on his hand. I can't say exactly why I liked him so much. It's not like I'm missing a hand or anything. I guess I was just amazed that someone could overcome an obstacle like that.

The game ended up being a momentous one. The visiting Indians were a young team full of future All-Stars like Manny Ramirez, Jim Thome, and current Yankee Kenny Lofton. They made 2 errors on one play in the third that allowed the Yankees to score three runs, a score that ended up being more than enough. Aside from an occasional walk, Abbott shut the Indians down. None of them made it to second base, thanks to two double plays and some really exciting catches, especially one play Wade Boggs in the seventh. By then the whole crowd realized that a no-hitter was in the works so the response was huge. Mom wanted to leave late in the game but I convinced her we should stay. I was only 12 but I knew how rare a no-hitter is. We compromised by heading to the other side of the stadium where we parked without leaving the seating area so we could still see all the action. I remember after the final out everyone cheered and I don't know why but I got really excited and I hugged my mom right away. The final score was 4-0.

I think the whole day made me feel a little bit better about myself. Both teams would improve in the following years and the Yankees would end up kicking some serious ass in the World Series. I would not fare as well, nearly failing out of school again and laying an egg at college, but things are starting to look up now.

Whew...quite a lot to write. Aren't you glad I don't do this everyday?

Labels: baseball, fuzzy memories, site news, sports, Yankees

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Some font changes have been made; maybe you'll notice, maybe you won't. Also added a counter, because deep down I worry that I'm the only person visiting this site. After all, no one is leaving comments and no one is e-mailing me anymore. >_<

Labels: site news

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Since I know my public demands it, I have (supposedly) enabled the "comment" function. This means that (in theory) visitors can post their comments for everyone to read. Play nice!

Labels: awkward firsts, site news

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Well, this is a milestone day indeed. Not only has the counter just now passed 99 days, but I have discovered that feitclub.com is now the #1 result for "feitclub" or "Daniel Feit" on the Google!

"Dan Feit," on the other hand, goes to lots of weird German sites.

Labels: site news

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Two new links added:

[1] The Onion. If Ben Franklin had lived in modern times, his famous quote regarding the world's certainties would probably sound like this: "nothing can be said to be certain except death, taxes, and the hilarity of the Onion." Here's a highlight from this week's issue.

[2] NES Videos. This one is personal. Most young men my age grew up around the Nintendo Entertainment System or NES. I spent years in my basement playing these games, and while modern games don't "thrill" me anymore (more on that later), the classics will always be close to my heart. The site is a collection of "time attack" movies. These movies are extraordinary run-throughs of NES games, often in "record" time, using an emulator. Emulators allow players to record their movements while slowing down gameplay and undoing mistakes, creating a near-perfect "performance" of the game. I'm a huge fan of these movies, and I even made one myself.

EDIT (7/17/04): At this time my run is no longer there. I had made a time attack of ヒットラーの復活, known in the U.S. as Bionic Commando. It was bested by "Genisto," another regular player, and he did a damn fine job too. I will make another now that I'm on vacation, although I'll be playing a different game. I can't improve on his work.

Labels: site news, video games

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For those of you with feitclub.com e-mail addresses, you may now log in at http://www.feitclub.com/webmail or use the new link on the sidebar.
Don't have a feitclub.com e-mail address? Too bad, it's invitation only. Bandwidth doesn't grow on trees.

Labels: site news

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New Links Added. I will eventually make a separate page, or even pages, of links. But for now the really important ones are there.

Also added a sweet little contact link. No, it's not a routine "mailto" command, it's got style. Thanks to Leo Laporte for the tip.

Labels: awkward firsts, site news

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No, not The End of Feitclub. We've only just begun!

I have added a counter to the sidebar. It's counting down to...how shall I put this...the end. Of what I dare not say.

If anyone knows how to change the color of the digits, please let me know.

Labels: awkward firsts, mystery, site news

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OK, maybe I've moved this to the index file.

So anyone who types "feitclub.com" will see this instead of a bullshit "coming soon" page.

Let's also try making a link.

Labels: awkward firsts, site news

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Well, now I've got a title for each post. And maybe I've figured out how to get these things in the right directory.

Labels: awkward firsts, site news

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With this post, I dub Feitclub.com open.

And if this doesn't work, I totally suck.

Labels: awkward firsts, site news

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