digimills

Went to the Marlins/Phillies game last night. An exciting matchup that included an inside-the-park home run, a Marlin being a single away from hitting for the cycle and free 10-year anniversary flags! (Mine flew off my car antenna on the way home).

Great time was had by all, but when they showed the attendence as over 32,000, I had to take a second look. There were maybe half that many people at the game. Check out the photo above and keep in mind that baseball capacity for Dolphin Stadium is listed as between 36,331-47,000 (sources vary on this). Fairly sad for the 2nd game of the season, on a Saturday night.

Apparently every Saturday game is now ‘Super Saturday.’ This week included fireworks and a few American Idol runner-ups. However the best part of the night was seeing local sportscaster Jim Berry make an ass of himself on the jumbotrons.

Shame on you CNN. Or more appropriately, shame on you John Zarrella.

On March 8th, The Miami New Times ran a story on sex offenders being housed under one of the causeways that lead to Miami Beach (and my place!). Last night CNN’s ‘Paula Zahn Now’ show aired the exact same story by Zarrella, who lives near Miami. However, the only props given on the CNN article (it was a head story last night) are to a semi-related Miami Herald investigation from two years ago.

The Miami Herald first covered the story today.

I used to see homeless under I-95 as I’d drive 112 to work all the time. They’d occasionally get cleaned out of the area, but usually would come back the next week. I haven’t seen anyone there all year though. It’s a fairly visible location, especially compared with the area under the causeway where the sex offenders are staying.

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Was fortunate enough to attend the VIRAM 2007 party for Winter Music Conference last night.

First, I saw a Miami-Dade firefighter walking around. He stood next to me for a bit, I asked if it was safe to be in the building, he replied “yeah, I’m just here for fun.” He then lit up a smoke and puffed away. A few minutes later a uniformed police officer showed up on the other side of me carrying a bag with Jamaican colors on it. I figured he’d just confiscated something. However, he started pulling candy out of it, mostly gum, and handing it out to teeth-grinders in the viscinity. Then he breaks out a glow stick, shakes it into illumination and throws it into the crowd below us! I guess the party wasn’t exciting enough for him yet. Later a female officer in a t-shirt and badge around her neck comes up to the first officer and gives him a big hug. Time for an inventory on the evidence locker….

Yes, unfortunately it’s come to this…

“Randy Shannon has issued a straightforward warning to his University of Miami football players: Get caught carrying a firearm and your days as a Hurricane are over.

“You get caught with a firearm, you’re dismissed from the football team,” UM’s coach said Monday.”

link (via stuckonthepalmetto)

but I did enjoy some kickball yesterday. The World Adult Kickball Association has teams in many states and yesterday was the preseason game for the FL Fuego division at Jose Marti Park here in Miami. Regular season starts next week, but you can still sign up for a team.

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Author Bintell Powell was on The Howard Stern Show today discussing his new book Betrayed. It discusses the differences between light-skinned and dark-skinned African-Americans, Bintell says that it’s almost universal that lighter-skinned blacks discriminate and white America knows little about it. I’ve definitely heard these claims before and see it often here in South Florida with various hispanic groups, especially among lighter-skinned Cubans.

From the front of cnn.com today, Black America cool on Obama. Related? Somehow Obama trails Clinton by 15-20 points among black voters. Also puzzling, blacks are less likely to believe America is ready for a black president.

UPDATE 2/28/2007: Apparently a day makes a big difference, CNN now has on their front page “Black America starting to embrace Obama.” They cite a new poll which gives Obama a 44 to 33 percent lead over Clinton among black voters. Sounds like some shitty polling is going down.

UPDATE 3/1/2007:Another day, another article title: Does black America embrace Obama?

Tonight the Carnival Center in Miami hosted ‘Split Sides’ a dance performance featuring music from Sigur Ros (live) and Radiohead. At the start of the performance a die was rolled to see determine choreography, music, costumes, backdrops, and lighting. A total of 32 possible combinations. With only two choices for each category, I’m not sure why they didn’t just flip a coin. Maybe for the symbolism of ‘rolling the bones.’ Either way, a decent concept for changing up the show. In practice however one backdrop clearly seemed to be for Radiohead and the other for Sigur Ros. I also thought the black and white costumes would have went better with the backdrop displayed during Sigur Ros set instead of the colored costumes.

Here are some photos from the original 2003 version.

Click here for some photos from last night’s BarCamp Miami. Tim didn’t get a chance to do a Picture Marketing presentation, but maybe next time. And the free food and beer more than made up for that, thanks sponsors! Looking forward to the Refresh Miami meeting in late March.

Two women in my neighborhood feed strays every day and it’s resulted in at least 40 strays in a half-block radius. One of the women scoops hunks of food from a big prepared bowl onto tin foil held down by rocks and placed under cars. So she gets a crazy pass. Another woman drives up in her car and delivers food to a parking lot of cats and seems otherwise sane. She should be jailed.

Supporting these overgrown populations of cats leads to disease, nightly fights/deaths, cat shit everywhere, hundreds of birds dying every year and continues the cycle with further generations of cats that suffer from life on the crowded streets.

Internet research provided some good news, nearby Surfside has some laws on the books as do some other areas in the country. Seems like it’s a city by city ruling. Unfortunately plenty of idiots are fighting these laws.

This great youtube video is an edit of one-liners used by David Caruso in the opening of CSI Miami. It might be every episode. Almost all include Caruso slipping on his shades. Hearing the first second of The Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again” adds to the comedy.

link (via metrobloggingmiami)

Much more creative than a titty flash. And with waaay better music!

here’s the video

(thanks qweniden)

Considering they allow it for all regular season Dolphins game, something is odd here. Maybe it’s a ploy to keep the parking lot from filling up with people who don’t have tickets. Either way, it’s an easy way to piss off fans.

link (thanks alex)

Today my eyes were opened, there are other dotcoms in Miami. Usually I’m working with our team in California or agencies in New York or Chicago, so little attention is paid to the scene down here. I’m hoping refreshmiami and Barcamp Miami are the tip of the iceberg, but my gut is telling me otherwise. Either way I will definitely be attending some of these conferences.

Apparently Miami weed is so good, you can’t leave Florida without some!

“The plastic bottle had a secret compartment that, when opened, had a dark residue and a pungent odor of marijuana.”

Actually sounds like it may be hash. Otherwise, I’m not sure why he’d risk carrying an empty, but used, stash container through the airport.

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For those only familiar with the Grand Theft Auto video game, Liberty City is also a neighborhood in Miami.

I didn’t take my normal route to work yesterday and ended up driving past a homeless shantytown in Liberty City. I didn’t think much of the place until reading about it later that day in The Miami New Times blog. Apparently it’s been home to about 40 homeless people since Oct. 23, has a name-Umoja, or “unity” in Swahili, and commissioners recently backed away from bulldozing it.

I’m a little confused as to what exactly the ‘Take Back The Land’ sign means. Did one of the homeless once own it? Or is it a general statement of ‘Take it back from the man’.

I drove by again today and snapped some photos. Apparently there’s a potluck tonight. I wonder if they are going to fire up the big grill pictured to the left. I was surprised to see some white folks living in the shantytown, not a common site in Liberty City period.

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