Giants 3, Phillies 0

And play we did. Well, actually Saturday I didn't do much of anything for most of the day until I went to Borrone at night and met with Lucy. And I spent most of the day Sunday doing stuff on the computer, talking to Dad on the phone, and running errands. Oh, and I worked out, too, since I knew the gym would be closed today.

Last night, though, I went over to Bill's where he was throwing a "we're-not-going-to-Worldcon-or-Burning-Man" party for a bunch of fans in the area who, well, didn't go to Worldcon or Burning Man. Bill's wife Julie is at Worldcon. If you don't know what Burning Man is, well, uh, as far as I can tell it's really not my kind of thing.

Anyway, the party was pretty laid back: We had some food and watched The Iron Giant, one of the nominees for the best dramatic presentation Hugo Award. (Apparently Galaxy Quest won that Hugo, which is an acceptable choice, while Vernor Vinge's A Deepness in the Sky won best novel.)

Bill also bought two dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts from the store that just opened in Mountain View (right near another culinary icon, In-n-Out Burger). My understanding is that Krispy Kreme is an obsession with its fans, with hideously long lines to buy their doughnuts. That being the case, I'd expected the doughnut equivalent of a Cinnabon, which is my standard for the luxury version of bad-for-you pastries.

Well, it's not even close. The basic doughnut appears to be just, well, a doughnut with frosting on it. There's also a chocolate version, which is actually slightly hideous, as the chocolate is a bit too overwhelming to really work on the doughnut. But basically it's, well, just a doughnut. Dunkin' Doughnuts would be just as good. So, I don't think Krispy Kreme will be a regular stop for me.

And today I drove up to meet with David, and we took the train up to Pacific Bell Park where we meet CJ and watched the Giants play the Phillies.

A little background: The Giants had just finished sweeping the Cubs, and had won five games straight. They'd taken a 5-game lead over the Arizona Diamondbacks in the NL West, and had the best record in the National League by a few percentage points (as the saying goes). They've been having a terrific summer and are poised for the postseason. It's very unlikely that the Diamondbacks will catch them at this point.

Russ Ortiz - who won all six games he started in August, with a 1.12 ERA - started for the Giants, while Omar Daal - refugee from Arizona who was 3-16 - started for Philadelphia. The game was moderately tense because there wasn't much scoring: Rich Aurilia hit a solo home run for the Giants, and then Barry Bonds hit another - his 40th of the season - making it 2-0. And there the score stood while Ortiz and then Alan Embree worked out of jams in the 6th and 7th innings. Finally Bonds hit a second home run in the 8th inning, and closer Robb Nen came in in the 9th with a 3-0 lead.

It was a pretty routine game, but what made it exciting was how pumped up the fans were, cheering for their team, enjoying having a good team to root for, and enjoying watching them beat a pretty lousy team. Nen - who just signed a large, possibly unreasonably large, contract extension - struck out the first two batters, gave up a single, then induced the final batter to fly out. The speakers started playing a refrain from a song, "Who let the dogs out?" which was actually pretty amusing (but not as clever as the powerful blast of Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water" when Nen went to the mound to start the ninth). We had a good time, watching the Giants win 3-0.

I haven't generally talked as much with David as I have with CJ in the time I've known them. Possibly because it seems that I mainly see them when we're either all together, or when CJ and I are going to a ballgame (David isn't as big a fan as we are). We talked on the way to SF on the train, though, and also went to Borrone in the evening while CJ napped (or, I suspect, actually decided to read instead).

One thing we talked about were personality tests, like the ones I list on my bio page, and particularly the Enneagram tests. (I have a link that someone sent me to another page which I think critically analyzes personality tests, but I haven't yet set aside the time to read it.) I think David finds such tests interesting, but like me doesn't put a lot of stock in them, except maybe as a lens through which to view people in certain ways. It is by turns comforting or illuminating to look at people through lenses like that. We of course included some people we know in some of our yammering... what fun would it be otherwise?

We also talked a little bit about journals, since both CJ and I keep them, and since David is active on both CJ's forum and on Threeway Action. This ended up being something of a side issues, but it got me to thinking:

Forum: What do you look for in the journals you read?

David is in some ways a subtle person, which I think is hidden by the loud aspects of his personality. I admit that I don't really know what makes him tick. I kind of suspect he likes it that way.