From: "stlcardinals.com"
To: (ME)@hotmail.com
Subject: World Series Ticket Opportunity
Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2006 18:55:24 -0400 (EDT)

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STATS  |  SCHEDULE  |  NEWS  |  ROSTER  |  BALLPARK  |  FAN FORUM  |  COMMUNITY  |  FANTASY MOBILE  |  SHOP  |  TICKETS  |  MULTIMEDIA World Series Ticket Opportunity Dear Cardinals Fan, Great News! If the Cardinals are fortunate enough to play in the World Series, you've been selected for the opportunity to purchase tickets for a possible World Series game to be played at Busch Stadium in a 2nd chance drawing from the Cardinals World Series Ticket Opportunity. Tickets will be sold on Friday, October 20 from 9:00 a.m. CDT to 1:00 p.m. CDT or while supplies last and THESE TICKETS MUST BE PURCHASED ONLINE. If you choose not to purchase during this time period, your tickets will be forfeited. Ticket locations and game dates will be assigned on a first come basis. Please note that available ticket inventory will be limited to scattered single seats, obstructed view seats, and standing room tickets and are only available while supplies last. A ONE game, two ticket limit is set for this online sale and all sales are final. Since this is a first-come sale, you may experience a virtual waiting room after logging in and only standing room tickets or single tickets may be available. If only single tickets are available, you will be able to purchase two single tickets during your transaction. If you are purchasing two single tickets, you must purchase them in one transaction. Only single tickets will occur once all contiguous seats have been sold. Ticket purchases which exceed posted limits will be cancelled. Please click below and use the password: XXXXXX Your password will only be valid one time and will expire after you complete your purchase. The address information you enter during the ordering process MUST MATCH THE ADDRESS USED WHEN YOU REGISTERED. Orders with non-matching addresses will be cancelled. Thanks for participating. We look forward to seeing you at Busch Stadium! WATCH THE POSTSEASON ON FOX © 2006 MLB Advanced Media, L.P. All rights reserved. All Major League Baseball trademarks and service marks used herein are the property of the applicable MLB entity. All other marks used herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. Please review our privacy policy:http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/stl/help/stl_help_about_privacy.jsp. You received this service-related message by registering for a chance to purchase St. Louis Cardinals Division Series and League Championship Series tickets. E-mail is stlcardinals.com's primary communication for service-related communications and updates. Postal Address: stlcardinals.com, c/o MLB Advanced Media, L.P., 75 Ninth Avenue, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10011.

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I got this email at 4 PM today.  No World Series tickets for me. I want to cry. In fact, I think I'll do that right now.

I added my other myspace profile to my Top 8 in hopes that it will motivate me to keep the page updated. 

Don't laugh too hard when you see the minimal effort I've put into it.

EDIT: I removed it.  Now you have to look for it.

First of all, although I sort of watched The Academy Awards last night half-asleep on the couch in a cold-medicine induced haze, I don't really care a whole lot which movie won Best Picture, but I did happen to read an article on MSNBC written by someone who feels "Brokeback Mountain" got robbed.  Fair enough.  I already knew "Crash" was a heavy-handed, pedantic load of crap, a conclusion I reached while watching it closed-captioned at the gay bar I frequent.  I can't imagine sitting through it with the sound on.  It would have been nice if "Brokeback Mountain" had won, but it didn't.  Whatever, I'm over it.  But check out what Erik Lundegaard has to say about it:

"So why did it win? There are rumors that older Academy members shied away from even viewing "Brokeback Mountain" for the usual homophobic reasons. Lionsgate also pushed "Crash" on Academy voters; it handed out a record number of DVDs and advertised heavily. I don't know which explanation bothers me more. All I know is I feel sick. It feels like the '72 Olympic basketball finals, when the Russians cheated and won; it feels like the '85 World Series when a blown call in game six tilted the balance towards the Royals. It feels like the good guys wuz robbed." 

Take that, Royals!  Your victory was cheap, so much so that somebody not only referenced it in mainstream media 21 years later, but compared it to the Russians cheating at The Olympics.

So the other day, I was sitting on my couch watching VH-1's "100 Most Washed-Up Celebrity Assholes" or some other such guilty pleasure tripe when I heard what I thought were the opening notes of Kraftwerk's "Computer Love."  Cool!  I thought.  Somebody's covering Kraftwerk.  Then I listened for about 10 more seconds and I realized that somebody was not covering Krafwerk, they were blatantly ripping off Kraftwerk. And that somebody is Coldplay.  I hate you, Coldplay!  Why do you think you can totally steal a 25-year-old song and nobody will notice?  I am so sick of hearing people whose musical taste I respect gush about the musical genius of Coldplay. THEY SUCK!  And please stop knocking up Gwyneth Paltrow for Christ's sake. 

In case none of you has figured out what a big nerd I am, I have just spent the last two hours on Wikipedia reading about the video game crash of 1983 and the sordid tale behind what happened to the prizes that were supposed to be awarded to the winners of Atari's Swordquest contest promotion.  Did you know the winner of the Swordquest: Earthworld contest melted down his 18K gold medallion for $15,000 cash?  Did you know the final grand prize, The Sword of Ultimate Sorcery (a sword made of 18K gold and jewels crafted especially for Atari by the Franklin Mint), was never awarded and is now owned by Jack Tramiel, founder of Commodore who bought and dismantled Atari after it was acquired by Warner, who finally dumped it after they noticed nobody wanted an Atari anymore? Neither did I.  Yes, I realize fascination with and knowledge of these events 1. reveals my age 2. makes apparent that I'm a dork, but whatever.

You probably knew that the horrible gameplay and short development time of the E.T. Atari game pissed people off and earned it a place on many top 10 worst games ever lists, but did you know that the crappiness of the version of Pac-Man released for Atari 2600 is widely considered to be a major contributing factor the the video game crash of 1983?  Fascinating!  As a kid playing this game, I knew that it sucked and I'd rather go to my best friend's house and play Donkey Kong Jr. or Ladybug or Venture on her Colecovision, but little did I realize its true significance! BTW, that green skull from Venture that appeared when you stayed too long in a room used to scare the shit out of me.

What rekindled my interest in crappy 8-bit games?  I just downloaded an Atari 2600 emulator and I've been playing Swordquest: Earthworld and Swordquest: Fireworld.  I had never seen Swordquest: Waterworld (it's, like, the holy grail of Atari cartridges.  It was only released through the Atari Club and I will probably never see the actual cartridge ever in my life). I have an Atari 2600, but do you know what a bitch it is to find Swordquest cartridges?  You don't?  Well, clearly, you have better ways to spend your time than I.  If I ever find a C64 emulator and a copy of Impossible Mission, none of you will ever see me again until May or June. 

("The Talisman of Penultimate Truth," which no longer exists because it was melted down for cash.  The Fireworld Chalice still exists, and is owned by the contest winner .  All other prizes from this contest are presumed to be owned by Jack Tramiel.)

*EDIT* Stupid fucking Atari website won't let me link directly to their picture!  Assholes.  I'm not going to waste my flickr space, but here's the link:

http://www.atarihq.com/2678/swordqst.html