Amazing!

My telepathic message ("first do no harm") got through to Theo Epstein.

In an odd twist...

.... I've been reading lots of "real news" to distract myself from the horror that is Manny Ramierez. I'm still allowing myself to check Boston.com way too frequently, but I forced myself to get through a long Newsweek feature on John Roberts. Normally I'd never pick up Newsweak, and I also have a strange aversion to reading about the Supreme Court, so this was quite a feat on my part.

I hate the fact that:

a) Manny is being a total jerk.
b) He makes $20 million annually and I don't.
c) He became a lot more likeable last year, especially due to his post-season slugging, which is burned permanently on my mind.
d)Due to b), the Sox won't get anything approaching fair value for him.
e)Trading him at this point is unlike dishing Nomar, which looked bad at first but turned out really well because it fills no obvious void (ie bullpen) and Manny is hitting well.

All it seems to do is get rid of one of their best players, and replace him with a few lesser lights, not to mention possibly having to toss in one or two of the Sox top prospects.

Can't Whitey Bulger just threaten Manny that he'll kill him if he doesn't get his ass in gear, get on the field every night, stop botching easy plays, and to take a leak before jogging out the to the field?

No Free Lunch?

My mom used to tell me that there was no such thing as free lunch. It only took me about 25 years, but I've started seeing what she means recently....I eat a fair amount of expensive lunches on other people's tabs (mostly defense contractors who are then probably charging the bill back to DOD, which then of course gets past back to me and all the other taxpayers) but I was just in a really good mood thinking it was hard to complain about a day where you get a nice white wine with lunch.

Then I thought of the craziness of billion dollar programs whose cost goes up by six times and started feeling guilty and annoyed about that wine and the lunch. And the dinners. Just when I thought I couldn't complain about something....

Timing is Everything...

I got into my car and pulled out of the Pentagon parking lot the other day after meeting with a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the first song on the radio was "What's so funny bout peace love and understanding?"

I kinda wish I heard it on the way in, because I would have bugged him about it, but even so, it was still pretty cool.

Attn: Beavis and Butthead

I passed a truck that appeared to be delivering bar furniture the other day, and some genius painted white over the trucks advertisement for "pool tables" so it said "poo tables" but what was even better was that "poo tables" was listed right next to "stools."

Give me money now!

Dan and Boski:
If each of you guys gave me $40,000, I could quit my job and do this full time. So quit freeloading and fork over the $40k! I'll give you till the end of this week.

I'm going to kill Rick Sutcliff....

.... if I hear him say another f-ing thing...

First it was that the Red Sox and Yankee rivalry started with the Sox beating them in the playoffs last year. I thought I was just hearing things, and then he had to follow it up and clarify it by saying that no rivalry existed before.


I was almost willing to let it go until he said that the addition of the Green Monster seats has "really made this place special."

Like it wasn't the most beautiful (or if you're a Cubs fan, second most beautiful) park in the league with an awesome atmosphere to boot?

I'll be watching you, Sutcliff!

The Rolling Stones Almost Ruined the All Star Game

... for me with that horrible commercial for Ameriquest. Lending a song to a stupid commercial is tolerable, but their performance in that thing ruined my night until I saw Terry Francona in the AL dugout doing his duty as manager of the WORLD SERIES CHAMPS. Suck on that NY!

Live 8

So now that the "Concert to End Poverty" is over, is, um, poverty done with?

Catalog Porn

So I was leafing through the Musician's Friend catalog yesterday, which basically is like porn for me that I can leave out in the open because I like looking at all the guitars but am really unlikely to buy anything in that catalog in the near term other than strings, and started getting irritated with the pictures of keyboards, tape recorders, and other assorted recording gear like headphones. Pages of headphones....

I finally put my finger on why I hate all the non-guitar features of the catalog, and it's something like this -- if you pick up Playboy, chances are, you want heterosexual porn. And if you started flipping pages, and all of a sudden came upon some gay stuff, you might not be thrilled (unless, of course, it was hot girl on girl action, but you see my point). I mean, gay sex is fine and all, but that's not what one buys Playboy for. And then if you started seeing some she-males or something, you would be further annoyed, which is kind of how I feel when the pics go from nice guitars to basses to keyboards to headphones.