Tag: coastal carolina

Rough Weekend in Grand Strand Baseball

This weekend we were visiting my father-in-law in Goldsboro NC and we ended up having to get a hotel in Kinston since Goldsboro was full up. As it happened, the Myrtle Beach Pelicans were playing Kinston so we decided to all go to the baseball game. It was fun and despite getting down 8-1 by the second inning, the Pelicans came back to lead it 9-8 in the top of the ninth. An error at first left it tied after nine, and it was getting late so we had to leave. The Pelicans ended up losing 10-9. Funnily enough, they were staying in the same hotel as us and I saw a few of them at the breakfast buffet on Sunday morning.

The same weekend, the Coastal Carolina Chanticleers dropped their two games in the Super Regional to North Carolina. These best of three formats are rough, because whoever loses the first game is in desperate straights no matter how you do it. It’s bittersweet with CCU. On the one hand, losing and ending the season is never anyones first choice. It is the best season in the team’s history though so it is hard to be too upset about that. Oh well, we’ll get them next year.

Congratulations Chanticleer Baseball

The Coastal Carolina Chanticleers baseball team is advancing to its first ever Super Regional berth. Today they beat Eastern Carolina University 24-11. Amazingly, they scored 13 runs in the 2nd inning between the first and second outs. Holy crap! Once again the season has gone by in a flash without me getting out to a game. Now I has a second chance at that. I hope I can make it to one of the Super Regional games. I said years ago if either Georgia Tech or the University of Louisiana Lafayette made it to Omaha, I’d buy a ticket and head there. We’ll see if I can get that deal on CCU.

Cyberpunk Rumblings

I’ve been thinking a lot about cyberpunk lately. No matter what its current fate in the literary fashion sweepstakes, I always had a great affinity for the genre and always will. No matter that its original young turks are now all too old and respectable to wield the crowbar with proper leverage. Sadly, the Ramones and the Sex Pistols are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It’s the fate of all punks to mellow or die, and they tend to do some of each.

William Gibson will be in my little town tomorrow accepting an honorary doctorate. It makes sense as he was born in this town. I’ve heard smatterings of outrage because apparently he speaks unkindly of Conway SC. He’ll be getting a “Doctor of Humane Letters” which leaves me wondering of they’ve actually read his books. His work has many wonderful virtues but humane is not at the top of the list. They may not have the option to give a “Doctor of Inhumane Letters.” I have Spook Country but haven’t read it yet. I’ve fallen off the Gibson pace in recent years but I still count him as equal influence with JG Ballard and William S. Burroughs in shattering my patterns of thinking and leading me somewhere new.

Bruce Sterling posted a link to a bit wondering if “cyberpunk is dead.” He has some analysis that I love and find applicable in our ongoing food fights as to whether “podcasting is dead” or “vlogging is dead.”

Just for the record, nothing can be “dead” when people have to anxiously declare it “dead.” Once it’s REALLY dead, nobody publicly frets about its deadness. Broadway theater’s been dying for about a century, “belle lettres” has been dying for, gosh, maybe 250 years now. You have to get used to that.

Right on, brother Brucie! Rather than getting pissed off, I’ll just treat the declarations of things I care about as “dead” as a sign of their vitality. From henceforth, such things will be considered self-contradictory just by existing. That was easy. Staples easy button easy, in fact.

Rudy Rucker is so far from a young turk that he’s retired now, which gives him more free time to post weird shit on his blog and blow my mind. He seems like a true case of someone with no off switch. I’m still subscribed to his audio feed and get whatever he chooses to post on it.

And just now I noticed something in common with all three of these guys: all grew up in the south and no longer live there. Gibson: South Carolina and Virgina and now in Vancouver BC. Sterling: Texas and now in Beograde. Rucker: Kentucky and now in California. If only the south made more people weird like these guys, we’d really have something!

One Out of Three Ain’t That Good

I had three teams I was rooting for in the field of 64 of the NCAA baseball tournament: Georgia Tech, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, and Coastal Carolina. All three teams made it to the finals of their respective regionals, but the latter two teams didn’t make it. Both were coming up from the losers bracket so that’s a tough row to hoe, having to win twice in a day to move on.

At least I have a team in the super-regionals. There were six South Carolina teams in the tournament, and only Clemson moved on. Ouch.