Saturday, June 27, 2009

True North, Day Two

Today was a baseball day. The day started with breakfast, and then a lazy walk around the Rogers Centre, just checking out the nice-looking apartment and condo high-rises that surround this part of the city. I think everyone who lives near the lack has more money than they know what to do with. Well, either that or they are in debt up to their eyeballs, there is that possibility.

Before the ballgame, I went to the official team store and spent a lot of money. Well, I actually only spent a little bit of my own money on a Blue Jays t-shirt. However, I used two American Express gift cheques I got from my boss to get a Blue Jays hat and a replica jersey. I even got the jersey customized with "Thorne" ('cuz that's my name) and "35," as today is my 35th birthday. Yes, happy birthday to ME!

Well, it would have been if the Blues Jays had cooperated. However, they, in their infinite wisdom, decided to send some young punk just up from the minor to pitch, and he got beat like a drum. The Phillies hit two home runs in the first inning. That just doesn't bode well, does it? By the end of the day, the game ended in a 10-0 drubbing that we will never speak of again. Seriously, the Jays couldn't do anything right. So frustrating.

After the game, I chilled in my hotel room for an hour or so, and then I headed next door to the CN Tower. This is supposed to be the tallest "free standing structure" in the world. Please do not ask me the difference between a "free standing structure" and a regular building, because I have no idea. Anyway, it is really tall. The upper observation deck, called the Sky Pod, is about 1.5 kilometres up, and you can see forever from up there. Seriously, I could see the U.S. on the far side of Lake Ontario, over a hundred miles away. Craziness. The clear sky helped a lot with that. The only other time I've been up in an observation tower was about four years ago in Seattle when I was in the Space Needle, when it was cloudy and hazy. Yeah, that didn't work so good. I'm not sure if it was worth $24 bucks, but it was kind of neat.

After that, I got an interesting call from HSBC, the bank that issued the Mastercard I use. They said that Mastercard had contacted them and informed them of some kind of potential fraud involving my account, and to cancel that account immediately and issue me a new card with a new account number. The nice lady in India who talked to me (I mean, where else would she be from? She works phone support.) informed me that HSBC had no actual information on the situation, they were just given a dictate by Mastercard. I didn't realize that Mastercard was god and could do whatever they wanted without explanation. I think it might be time to get myself a Visa card, because I'm pretty sure that being in a foreign country with no active credit card is going to pose some problems. Yeah, this trip could end up being a lot more adventuresome than I had anticipated. Thanks, Mastercard! Now go die or something.

After that was an attempt at a healthy dinner (a salad with spinach, oranges, almonds, and what I think were onions of some sort, and something else I couldn't recognize), and now it's time to rest up for tomorrow, when I go to the Hall.

P.S. Mr. Brad Mills, enjoy your trip right back to triple-A Las Vegas, and I hope somebody ruins your birthday, too. I mean, I've only waited 25 years to actually go to a Blue Jays game in Toronto, so it isnt like this game was important to me or anything. Hey, maybe Mastercard will do it! Lord knows they have the power...

3 comments:

Christopher said...

Ugh...10-0? That's just not right.
Sorry your pilgrimage was so anticlimactic. Then again, it's the journey that counts, right?

Aaron W. Thorne said...

Keep telling yourself that, and maybe eventually you'll even believe it.

Magister said...

But he DID strike out 7. That had to have been a highlight. :-)