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Cloudy outside… let’s just get this plane off the ground please.

Cheez-It selection at the corner bodega. Like 15 varieties:

For the finale of the Midwest baseball tour, we took the Metra into town to catch the Cubs game. It was a pretty sweet game — view from the bleachers was great, there was a free t-shirt giveaway, Chris showed up straight from his law firm in his full suit with jacket, and the Cubbies won in a 1-0 shutout.

Before the game, had some Chicago-style hot dogs which were fantastic. After the game, missed the last train home, so we stayed downtown and had Wow Bao for breakfast.

Chicago is a pretty sweet town — I’m sure I’ll be back often. Hot dogs and pizza will never be the same.

Saturday morning, I flew into Chicago where my friend Eric picked me up from the airport. That kicked off a long weekend of driving for him, as that day we made a stop at his house in St. Charles, drove up to Milwaukee, then made it back down to downtown Chicago before midnight.

In Milwaukee, we went on a tour of the Miller brewery then bought some more beers and a pizza to tailgate in the parking lot outside the stadium. We didn’t realize it was a 6pm start time (damn central time – who starts baseball games at 6?), so we were out there for a while. By the time we made it to the stadium, it was already the 6th inning! The stadium was real cool though, and we did get to see some good late-inning baseball.

We then went to Chicago where we met up with Chris, who coincidentally had also moved into town. His view from his apartment is amazing – you can see Grant Park, that big fountain over there, and Lake Michigan into the horizon.

On Sunday, there was a day game for the White Sox, so after wandering around town for a bit in the morning — we came across Sears (Willis) Tower by accident — we made sure to get to the game before it started. Another good game — I totally predicted a home run with the whole “Dunn’s batting .178; he’s overdue for a homer here” routine.

Went back to Eric’s house and we watched some NBA finals (sorry Lebron) and ordered a Chicago-style stuffed pizza. It was ridiculously awesome, but I could barely put away a whole slice after also eating some of the best buffalo wings I ever had too. Going to have to put up some props on Yelp.

Today we’ll head back into town to catch a Cubs game. Can’t wait to get me a Chicago-style dog.

Made the annual winter pilgrimage to the west coast… this time I decided to catch the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells.

My rental car with the mountains of Southern California in the background:

Practice courts at Indian Wells… more mountains:

The view from our seats, Nadal vs. Del Potro semi-final:

And what’s a trip to CA without going to In-N-Out? My first visit to a walk-in location:

During my trip to Hong Kong last year, I’ve learned to appreciate three things that have made my stay more enjoyable: HSBC, 7-Eleven and McDonalds.

First, on any overseas trip, you need a stable money system. I’ve relied on cash and even traveler’s checks before, but in HK, my HSBC Advance account is gold. Back home, the closest HSBC branch is 50 miles away — in HK, an HSBC ATM can always be found in busier parts of the city.

On the flight over here, I met a writer that was also traveling on vacation. He was wondering whether to exchange currency at the JFK airport or the HKG airport. JFK offered $6 HKD per USD plus fees, while at HKG, they exchanged $7 HKD per USD. Unfortunately, the guy exchanged notes at JFK. Meanwhile, my HSBC ATM transactions exchange at $7.75.

The 7-Eleven is another HK institution that I’ve learned to rely on. Other than your typical drinks and snacks that we’re accustomed to in the States, at 7-Eleven you can also purchase PCCW SIM cards (for your GSM phone) and wifi cards (for any wifi device), and re-up your Octopus card, which is your debit-card-like transit pass in HK. The PCCW cards are useful to stay connected in HK and even keep in touch with folks back home, at very affordable rates.

And finally, McDonalds. You’d think that going to a McDonald’s in HK would be a shame, to go all the way around the world to eat off the dollar menu. But actually, McDonald’s are like oases in the desert. A place for cheap replenishment and of course, bathrooms. McDonald’s in HK are your best bet for a clean bathroom in the city.

And it seems like McDonald’s in HK has enough local flavors to make it interesting — when we were there, the shrimp burger was the new thing. And hitting up the McDonald’s on the way back to the hotel from LKF was a pretty good way to sober up before riding home on the ding-ding.

I started using Last.fm a few months ago and I’m wondering why I never came across it earlier. In the past, I’ve used pandora.com to discover new music and foosic.org (now defunct) to track my music tastes.

Here’s my current music set-up: On any computer, I use foobar2000 as my music player. It’s a simple yet powerful music player with features like easy mass-filename editing and replaygain support. In my car, I have a bunch of USB flash drives with various MP3s, and then I listen to XM (mostly Alt Nation) whenever I get bored of what I have and want to discover new stuff. Before XM charged extra for internet listening, I also used that on my computer at work as well, but mostly for POTUS political talk rather than music. As far as portable players go, I have my cell phone, but I don’t really have any music on there. I have a little Sansa MP3 player that takes AAA batteries (easy to replace/recharge) and is perfect for my occasional cross-country or international flights. I’m also big into live music, and last year I’ve seen bands like Keane, Weezer, Franz Ferdinand, No Doubt, The Bravery, Jet, Paramore, and Oasis (got to see them before Noel left). Next week, I’m going to catch Phoenix in DC.

In all this, Last.fm finds a perfect niche in my set-up that adds another dimension to my music world, without becoming an extra burden. Last.fm is integrated with basically all my music-listening on my computer and on my phone, with little input on my end. Here’s how it works:

Through foobar2000, I’ve installed a scrobbler plugin that sends information on every song I play to my last.fm account online. All the songs that I play on my computer then gets populated into my Last.fm library. If I don’t have my MP3s with me and I go online and listen to my last.fm library, it will only play songs that I’ve played on my computer before. No more skipping through obscure songs that pandora.com thinks I will like. Basically, every song is a pandora-style thumbs-up.

On my phone, I use a program called mobbler. With mobbler, I can access my online last.fm library and play all my favorite songs. Mobbler seems to replicate a lot of the last.fm features that are available on its web site. The other day, I was playing around with the features and I was able to add the Phoenix concert next week to my list of “events” and even look up information about it, such as automatically opening up Google Maps to show the venue location.

Meanwhile, from my activity on the computer and on my phone, Last.fm is tracking my music tastes and compiling my own personal “Billboard Top 100” of my favorite artists and songs. Naturally, recently I’ve been all into Phoenix, since they are the best band in the world. Whenever I check the last.fm web site, I’m also able to check out any recommendations that last.fm came up for me, and it seems that they are more accurate to my tastes than pandora.

About the only thing missing from my music set-up now is last.fm scrobbling from my car’s XM and MP3 music….

Growing up, my mom would get us Schmidt’s brand Blue Ribbon bread, even though it was a little pricey and we couldn’t spend too much on groceries. So I grew up eating the good stuff. The other month I bought some of the cheap stuff — some store brand bread for about a dollar on sale. I didn’t realize how bad it was, and it sat on the counter for weeks.

I started shopping at Harris Teeter a couple of years ago when they opened up a couple of stores in Howard County, and they have this brand of bread called Nature’s Own. Apparently Nature’s Own is a southern thing and their distribution only reaches as far north as Maryland and a little part of Pennsylvania. And good thing too, since this bread is the greatest thing since, well, sliced bread.

I keep making up excuses to eat the bread, and peanut butter keeps disappearing from our pantry. And when there’s a sale on Nature’s Own at the store, it’s like there’s a blizzard coming in, the way I stockpile on bread.

(Picture taken Feb 2010, before Snowmageddon) Can you spot the last loaf of Nature’s Own Honey Wheat?:

I was browsing a book store in HK and came across the chinese version of “Traffic”, a book a friend gave me a while ago (though I still haven’t finished it yet). Reminded me of the “30 Rock” moment when Jack gave Liz the chinese version of her “Dealbreakers” book. Not sure how the “Traffic” book applies to the way people drive/travel in China/HK, though. I bet a few things must be lost in translation.

We went to Times Square in Causeway Bay for some dim sum this morning. The square is a pretty cool place, within a few minute walk from our hotel. Apparently it’s a popular place for holiday celebrations too, so we may venture out there for christmas or new year’s. Bonus: there’s a Nokia store there too.