mid-spring sports update

Lebron James is still a jerk (see my March 31 post), and now the jerk is in the NBA finals.  Yep, basketball is still going on, and I bet you didn't even know that, did you?  The final two teams are the Dallas Mavericks and the Miami Heat, and, even though I have no love for Dallas, I gotta be rooting against the Heat, Lebron's team.  And I kinda like the Mavs' point guard, Jason Kidd.

... and there, under everybody's radar (unless you live in Boston, Tampa or Vancouver), the hockey playoffs continue also.  We gotta go with Vancouver (if we watch any of the Stanley Cup games at all), or more specifically, against Boston (who knocked the Flyers out of the playoff) and against Tampa (one of those sunbelt cities that shouldn't even have a hockey team).  And with Vancouver in the finals, we get to hear "O Canada!"

You, of course, do know that baseball is going on.  It's spring, after all.  Here locally, Minnesota fans are upset that the Twins, who have won their division most of the past several years, are deep in last place and, in fact, possess the worst won-loss record in major league baseball.  The hometown hero, Joe Mauer, has been injured most of the season, and, well, nothing is going their way.  The new stadium still fills up, though.  My personal favorite team, the Philadelphia Phillies, is in first place in their division but maybe not as far in first place as they should be, considering that they have the most awesome pitching team in baseball.  The hitters are asleep, though.

That's it for now, sports fans.

favre to moss

It was a big sports-news day yesterday, so let's recap!

Football: The New England Patriots traded wide-receiver Randy Moss back to the Vikings, and this has caused tremendous excitement here in Minnesota (except, of course, for those few contrarians who can't stand Randy Moss). What quarterback Brett Favre has lacked this season is an excellent pass receiver to throw to, and, in my humble opinion at least, Moss is the best. Let's hope that they have perfect chemistry together and can make the rest of this season entertaining at least and maybe even of champion caliber!

Baseball (2 days in a row!): The excitement from the Moss trade helped to offset the Twins' disappointing loss in the first playoff game with the Yankees. Everybody here is thinking, Oh no, here we go again, probably not getting past the first round of the playoffs.

But, for me, a Phillies fan, it was also a good day because the Phillies not only won their first playoff game, but their pitcher Roy Halladay threw for a no-hitter. There has not been a no-hitter in a post-season game since 1956! An amazing accomplishment.

And I won't blog again about sports tomorrow unless some other spectacular thing happens. :-)

damn yankees

Today a lot of people here in downtown Minneapolis wore Minnesota Twins shirts to work. That's because, after work, a few blocks away, the baseball playoffs start. The Twins won their baseball division in impressive style. Reality, though, might hit them hard in the face now since the first (and maybe only) team they're meeting in the playoffs is their nemesis, the New York Yankees. In their last 18 meetings, Minnesota has won two games and the Yankees have won 16. Of course, everybody in the country other than Yankee fans hate the Yankees, so maybe all that hate flowing from around the U.S. will energize the Twins to victory.

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Then, if somehow they get past the Yankees, the Twins will face either Texas or Tampa, and the winner of that match-up will go to the World Series to face the National League champ, which of course I'm hoping will be the Phillies. Philadelphia starts their playoffs tonight against Cincinnati. It's a lot of good teams to get past, but a Phillies-Twins World Series would be great, wouldn't it?

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The Phillies were in the World Series last year, you know, but ended up losing to -- whoops, the Yankees. Damn!

*****

Football note: I'm so glad I kept my Randy Moss Vikings jersey!!

summer sports update (mostly)

Even though it's hard to think about football yet, mid-August in Minnesota this year, like last year, means wondering, "Hey, Is Brett Favre going to play for the Vikings this year or is he retired?" I think that most Vikings fans would care a lot less than they do, and in some ways it would be good to be done with these annual guessing games, except that the other Vikings quarterbacks suck. Most everybody is feeling over-Favred by the news media, here and across the world, and I'm thinking that this season won't be as much as fun as last season was, Favre or no Favre, but ya never know. I sorta hope he plays, even if he is a total media hog.

Meanwhile, on the other side of downtown, baseball continues, and the Twins are back in first place. They're three games ahead of the Chicago White Sox, and the White Sox arrive in town tomorrow for three games. The new Twins stadium is an enormous hit, and most games are near-sellouts. The stadium crowds are generating tremendously good energy for the city, at least as long as we have a winning team.

Out there on the East Coast, my other home team, the Philadelphia Phillies, have been doing better, are creeping up in the standings against Atlanta, and might yet make it to the baseball playoffs. Go, Phils!

*****

33 years ago today, Elvis died. I got a reminder email about that this morning from my cousin Beverly, who has been the ultimate Elvis fan since the very beginning. She's still in mourning.

(Brett and Elvis. Two good guys that came out of Mississippi, of all places.)

random thoughts while having a root canal

First of all, that nitrous oxide (laughing gas) is a wonderful invention.

And while a two-hour stint in the dentist's chair may have been the low point of the week, the week was balanced by good stuff too, as they all are.

You know, don't you?, that Jerry and I are buying a condo here in downtown Minneapolis? We did this temporary, in-between rental apartment in the Loring Park area, with all the amenities of downtown at our doorstep, and decided that we love living in this area (About ten blocks from my new office). So we bought a condo in the building next door. We close on the purchase later this month.

Of course, we have to have a bunch of updating and remodeling done before we move in there, then another move is on the horizon, maybe later in January. And we are getting along so well without all the massive amount of things we have in storage that we wonder if we even want it all back.. Except for my piano, of course, which I miss.

So we're going to be downtown boys permanently, or at least as permanent as anything can be with Jerry.

Other:

Heading to Paris on the 18th.

Going to see John Irving, my favorite author, Monday evening.

And baseball is over for another few months. November is too late for baseball anyway. The Phillies did us proud, though, even though they lost to the team that destroyed baseball as we knew it.

i'd rather be a hammer than a nail

OK, the intermission is done.. Let's all have our seats.

It's been four months of change -- home, business relationships, day-to-day life... But it's no time to whine about all that. It's time to celebrate choices and positive alternatives. And now heading back into a new normal, a revised but manageable routine. Sometimes ya gotta run a marathon before you get to take a nap.

The new strange normal: Sitting here watching the Phillies in an unusual role: defending World Champions in this year's baseball playoffs... So far so good... The Dodgers look pathetic.. Are the Yankees on the horizon?

Jerry and I are still sitting in this "temporary" apartment. We have been looking at houses to buy, condos to buy, townhouses to buy... Not too close to a decision -- or are we?... It's not about the home, it's about the lifestyle. We have options.

But at least the blog has limped back into existence. it will get better from here.

the Phillies do it!

The Phillies have won the 2008 World Series.

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When you're a fan of the Philadelphia professional sports teams, you wait a long time between chances to win the Big One. I think of my nephew Michael. He is an absolutely devoted Philadelphia sports fan, and, since he has been old enough to follow the teams, there has been a total drought of championships. He has had his heart broken many times during those years...

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So, I say to Michael, enjoy it!!! The Phillies did it!

like no other store in the world

I know better than to go to the Mall of America on a Saturday afternoon, but Jerry had me on a mission to find a shower-curtain rod a lot better than the cheapo one that we got at Target that keeps falling down and just broke a tile. I figured that Bloomingdale's must have some cool shower-curtain rods, so off I went to the MOA this afternoon.

As I was walking into Bloomingdale's from the parking ramp, I noticed their classy-looking sign that said "BLOOMINGDALE'S: Like No Other Store in the World"..... Hmmm, I thought. I wonder how much money somebody got for coming up with that slogan. I mean, isn't it totally meaningless? Isn't every store like no other store? Isn't even every Bloomingdale's like no other Bloomingdale's? That's what I should have been -- a slogan inventor, making big bucks for saying nothing. When you think about it, how many slogans mean anything at all? Consider this slogan, which might be the worst: "UPS: See What Brown Can Do For You"! I mean, really, does seeing what brown can do for you make you want to use UPS? Brown might easily be the least-inspiring color!

Anyway, I got to the bed-and-bath department in Bloomingdale's, and guess what. They have plenty of shower curtains but zero shower-curtain rods. I asked the saleslady what store might carry them, and she answered, "Well, certainly not Macy's. You might have to go to Bed Bath & Beyond."

Of course there is no Bed Bath & Beyond at MOA. The nearest one is several miles away down the interstate, and here I was already at the mall. So I wandered aimlessly and almost hopelessly through the MOA, through the mobs of people that all seem to be from out of town (A local would know to stay away on a Saturday). The highlight of my wandering was when I was walking past the Build-A-Bear store where my niece Ruthie used to work: I was wearing my Phillies cap, and another guy in a Phillies cap high-fived me!

Then, as luck would have it, I found a quality shower-curtain rod at one of the other anchor stores, Sears. Sears might not be like no other store in the world, but at least it was like no other store at the mall!

a home run

A reason to flip the channel from last night's final (thank God!) presidential debate: The Phillies were beating the Los Angeles Dodgers to win the National League pennant and head to the World Series. Let's go, Phils.... Philadelphia hasn't had championship team in so many years...

(wow, it's October 16th already and the World Series doesn't start til next week -- Was the Series always this late? Might be chilly baseball weather -- unless they end up playing in Tampa, that is.)

No TV tonight... I hate TV most of the time. And the work week was too busy.... So it's mellowing-out night tonight... Listening to Rachmaninoff, 2nd Piano Concerto. From there, maybe I'll get really wild and move on to the 3rd.

go, phillies!

It's a rainy day here. Not a great morning for the Twin Cities Marathon, but a good morning to write a blog entry. The problem is coming up with blog thoughts that aren't a further rant against Sarah Palin and her daddy, John McCain. Or there is the Wall Street bailout, which none of us begin to understand enough to even intelligently discuss. To try to escape from our dismal realities, I even rented four movies this week that I hadn't seen, and it's rare for us to ever rent a movie. How desperate must I have been to rent Napoleon Dynamite (which I liked, as it turned out... well, sort of)?

And how rare is it for me to feel sorry for average Republicans?.. I mean, let's face it, they aren't that crazy about John McCain anyway, and they are stuck with him as their candidate... He certainly isn't a good poster-boy for their pseudo- "family values"... Then he picks Sarah Palin as his ticket-mate, and even Republicans can see what a disastrous pick she is. They were scared to death of what she might say in her debate this past week with Joe Biden. She was awful, of course, but at least she didn't pass out or vomit, so they had to pretend that she won the debate! I mean, really! It was like these pretenders were having a fake orgasm!

One of the only good things about the Sarah Palin fiasco is watching the clips from her interview with Katie Couric. I kinda like Katie Couric, even though she is always last in the news ratings and her interviews are a bit "soft", and when was the last time she got all this attention? Then of course there is Tina Fey on Saturday Night Live doing her amazing, hilarious impersonations of Sarah. Oh, maybe this candidacy isn't so bad after all -- IF we can be absolutely sure that she won't win and that it's all just for laughs!

*****

The best part of the week: the Phillies beat the Milwaukee Brewers in the first round of the baseball playoffs.