Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Tonight's The Night

It's Time.

Way back in October 2004, I started writing the blog, not really knowing what to expect, and certainly not expecting that it would get to be as big (relatively speaking) as it is, nor would it have given me some of the opportunities it has.
I started for two simple reasons.

First, I wanted an outlet for my writing. My day job has me doing lots of godawful writing. Heretofores. Whereases. Convoluted clauses that wrap around themselves. It's not a particularly fun type of writing, and I wanted something that I'd enjoy more. Something a bit more conversational. I didn't want to be stuck writing that boring way for the rest of my life. I wanted an outlet.

Second, I didn't want to bore my girlfriend to tears. I didn't know a heck of a lot about the Expos. Writing about them would help me to learn, to help me discover the team. As I learn things, I want to share them. Rather than boring her with details about Brad Wilkerson and TJ Tucker, I wrote about them here.

But things change. I've done plenty of writing these last few years. Lord knows how many books I've essentially written. And finding new things to say is tough. (I'd say 'interesting' things, too, but that'd imply that half my posts were!)

It's time to move on.

Thanks to everyone for reading. Thanks for all the comments -- even the stupid ones! And a special thanks to the friends I've made along the way, something I certainly didn't expect when I put fingers to keyboard three-and-a-half years ago. But that's definitely been the most rewarding thing.

I'll still be at the game, eating my chili nachos. I'll still be reading and watching obsessively. I'll still be yelling at the wins, and yelling louder at the losses -- oh, the losses! Let's just hope that, in the future, those become increasingly less common!

Friday, May 02, 2008

Boz Fails Economics

For fark's sake, Boz. Get your head out of your ass!

First, when is this guy going to stop writing about the goddamn stadium? We get it. We've seen it. We've read the same farkin' column for the last fourteen weeks.

But here he is, swallowing the Stan Kasten Kool Aid. Kasten's at the funnel, pouring gallon after gallon of Purplesaurus Rex, while the tube is shoved so far down Boz' gullet that it almost comes out his backside.
The Nats have 3,100 seats (including 1,200 in suites) that average about $180 a game. The impact of such seats is enormous. For $180, a normal fan could buy five good seats: one each in the box seats, the club level, the mezzanine, the gallery and the terrace -- all the basic sections of Nationals Park.

When you see someone in a Presidential Seat -- like Treasury Secretary Henry J. Paulson last week, sitting with friends in an otherwise empty section -- remember that every such seat generates the same cash as five seats at RFK. That's one reason more than 10,000 upper deck tickets at Nationals Park are reasonably priced.

Oy.

Those seats aren't priced $300 so that the Nats can have a few sections of $5 seats. and the Nats don't have $5 seats because they have $300 seats.

It's supply and farkin demand!

If Kasten (mistakenly, as it turned out) didn't think he could get $300 for those seats, he wouldn't have charged it. And we'll see them readjust prices in the next year or two to better reflect the demand for seats. Although the team probably has some ultimate seat revenue goals in mind, they don't jigger around the prices to meet those, they jigger around the prices to get our fat asses in the seats.

Boz even has the answer earlier in his column:
"The Presidential and Diamond seats will get filled over time. Supply and demand will fix it. Maybe prices come down. Maybe we win and those are the hot seats," one Nats executive said. But it doesn't look good, does it? "Not now."

If the prices for the Prez' seats come down, by Boz' logic, the cheap seats will have to go up (substantially even). They wont -- at least for that reason. Kasten will charge what the market will give him. (Insert your own pocketing the revenues joke here)

Thursday, May 01, 2008

What A Happy Ending!

Nats Enquirer points to the good news! On his big day with his bobblehead (though with Pittsburgh in town, it could pass for a Jerome Bettis one), Dmitri has found the miracle cure for that aching back: a masseuse!

"I was stunned," Bowden said. "All of a sudden, he has instant relief. She found the spot.... and his hips went through it."

What a happy ending!

Now he's on to Viera to start swinging the bat, and if he's ever feeling back pain again, he knows he can pick up a copy of the city paper and peruse the ads in the back for his next miracle cure!