Via friend RU, a blog about...well, really hideous cakes.

Yes, we still have to wait almost 169 days and 3 hours until he's sworn in. That aside, today is Barack Obama's birthday.

The four-park sprint (and seeing some really great—and really patient—friends along the way) has ended. I'm off in a few minutes to restock my fridge and, at 4pm on the nose, to pick up Parker.

Sweeping Milwaukee into Lake Michigan?

Does anyone, any longer, doubt the Cubs are the real thing this year?

My four-game sprint through part of the 30-Park Geas ended last night, with another home-team loss. Here's what that looked like at 9:40 (yes, the game was that short):

Apparently, I'm anathema to home teams. I've just attended another home-team loss, this time the Phillies beating the Nationals 2-1.

I will say, however, that when it's 2-1 at the top of the 8th, it looks really bad for the park to empty out. Yes, the 8th: guys, one run in the 9th is not unheard of. Sheesh. With fans like that, it's hard to feel sympathy.

Photos tomorrow morning (probably).

Quick update: The Cubs are 7-0 over the Brewers in the top of the 9th at this writing, which more than makes up for watching a lackluster loss in 32°C sultriness.

All right. I'm caught up now. Herewith, Yankee Stadium, where they lost last night against the last-place Orioles:

Since I went to the Philadelphia game two nights ago, a lot has happened—most of it in the last few hours:

• Republican Alaska U.S. Senator Ted "Series of Tubes" Stevens got himself indicted for, among other things, allegedly accepting over $400,000 in bribes (that is, undisclosed "gifts") from constituents;
• Bennigans filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection;
• The Cubs beat Milwaukee thus re-establishing their lead in the standings, which had slipped to a dead tie, to two games; and
• Scientists discovered a rookie New York cop who had never heard of YouTube.

So, I am aware of all these things, but the only purpose of this post is to put up photos from Philadelphia. First, city hall (which is becoming a trend in these posts):

Ooh, wow. I'll have photos of my once-and-only trip to Yankee Stadium once I get to DC, but man! In Chicago, we call that "playing like Cubs." To add injury to insult, I couldn't find a slice anywhere in the East 50s after the game.

Waah, waah, waah.

OK, all my computer issues have gotten sorted. I've arrived in New York, ready to continue the 30-Park Geas, in a hotel that has adequate WiFi and air conditioning. I am, however, two days behind in my reporting.

Saturday was Baltimore, starting with Historic Charles Street:

I've largely solved Yesterday's frustration (more of a PEBCAK issue than anything else, wouldn't you know?) so now I have a new one: the touchpad on my laptop isn't working. It's probably a driver issue, but still, it makes navigating—doing anything, really—that much more difficult.

Anyway. On to New York for my first-and-only Yankees game.

Forgot to mention: Philadelphia beat Altanta 12-10 yesterday. As soon as I get my technical problems fixed I'll have photos of the massive thunderstorm that caused a two-hour rain delay. And after a nail-biting day when the Cubs and Milwaukee were tied for first place, the Cubs won and Milwaukee lost, putting us a full game up once again.

Windows is designed to be secure (don't laugh). One security measure is to lock users out after a certain number of failed login attempts. Vista, however, tries lots more times to login than you might think. So, even if you mis-type your password once or twice, Vista might think the KGB is trying to break into your laptop and lock you out.

I know this because, 36 hours into a 7-day trip, I appear to be locked out of my laptop.

Now, I can unlock my laptop in seconds by logging in while connected physically my network. Only problem, my network is 1100 km away and I won't reconnect to it for a few days.

So, great, at least my laptop is secure from someone who knows my UID and password. Of course, if someone ripped the hard drive out and connected it to another machine, he could read the unencrypted parts without any problem. Since I would like to keep the laptop intact, and it's the encrypted parts that I kind of need right now, it's inconvenient, to say the least.

When I calm down and I don't want to beat the Windows Vista team lead over the head repeatedly with my laptop, I'll explain why this "security" only matters if you aren't actually a malicious hacker, and why if you are a malicious hacker it's irrelevant. In other words, what I'm going through at this exact moment is much like the people lining up for crosses in Monty Python's Life of Brian: it'll only hurt if you're honest.

Baltimore did not prevail against Los Angeles last night, which, being typical, explains the two-thirds of seats at Camden Yards without people in them. I've pushed on to Philadelphia where the game starting in two hours may coincide with thunderstorms, also forecast to start in two hours, even now forming ranks just east of Harrisburg like the Bears' defensive line. As a practical result of this, I will not be taking my 20D to the game, so I won't have the same quality of photos from Citizens Bank Park as I got from Camden Yards.

As promised yesterday, I'll have photos from Baltimore and Philadelphia tonight. I have now firmly decided that WiFi access at a hotel is not only required, but stands as an adequate proxy for a great many things.

Just a few quick hits before I dig my umbrella and baseball tickets out: first, the Northeast Corridor rail service rivals anything Europe has to offer. It's fast, frequent, clean, efficient, inexpensive, and mostly on-time. I love walking 10 minutes, hopping a train, and getting off two states away in a little more than an hour.

Second, I appreciate what Camden Yards did for baseball: it brought back what was good about the jewel-box parks (like Wrigley) and improved on the model. Contrasting that with the K (1974) or (ugh) Shea (1962) simply isn't fair.