Taking pages from both Couture and Craig Barker, I give you my five word month-by-month recap of my 2003.

January - Newly Britainicized, return to snow.
February - BU wins yet another Beanpot.
March - War, not bacon, during Lent.
April - TRASHionals in Boston kicks ass.
May - Tummy trouble while closing Babson.
June - LA, Carolina, a new car.
July - Millionaire audition and wedding prep.
August - I turn 34, RAs return.
September - School opens, Sox cowboy up.
October - We do, kiss kiss, Ireland!
November - Knee stops bending, Millionaire taping.
December - Work sucks, but Happy Merry!

While I can't say that I'm surprised at any of the NFL head coach firings to date, I will say that I feel somewhat badly for Dick Jauron and Dave McGinnis. Not that either man is blameless for the lack of success that led to unemployment, but neither has sole culpability, either.

The problems with the Arizona Cardinals defy enumeration. There's also a history of poor play, which doesn't help matters. I don't know how much of their ongoing misery is due to McGinnis and how much comes from upstairs, but I do see a pattern with this team. They've not had a coach last five full seasons since Jim Hanifan, who was head coach from 1980 to 1985 - when the team was still in St. Louis.

It's not that they should just stick with coaches for the hell of it, but there's a pretty clear cycle of hiring and firing without any improvement in record. When that happens, it's time to look at what's been the constant during this run of futility - and that leads straight to the Bidwell family, owners and administrators of the team. A new stadium slated to open in 2006 is supposed to help with revenue, but it's not like they haven't opened their checkbooks before (hello Emmitt Smith and Dexter Jackson). Perhaps they'd have been better off keeping David Boston.

For Jauron, you'd have to think that trying to win with the likes of Jim Miller and Kordell Stewart would buy him some time. But when you only win 11 games in the two seasons following a 13-3 campaign, getting pink slipped isn't all that surprising. Oddly enough, the Bears will probably be pretty good thanks in part to Jauron playing a lot of younger guys. Grossman, Thomas, Booker, and Terrell combined have fewer years in the league than Chris Chandler.

I wouldn't feel so badly about this if it didn't mean more opportunities for teams to poach Romeo Crennel or Charlie Weis from the Pats.

As I set up housekeeping on my cell phone, I find that I'm not particularly pleased with the selection of ringtones. I can punch in my own (it's a pretty basic phone, so no polyphonic nonsense), but in what little web searching I've done it seems that everyone expects me to actually pay for ringtones. That ain't gonna happen.

So, if anyone can point me to a location where I could get free ringtones, or have ones that you'd be willing to share, by all means drop me a line.

Sarah is watching more of MTV's highly annoying Rich Girls, and from what I could tell from the six minutes I was exposed to it one of the twits was unable to make nachos, and in return got sent to a rich aunt and uncle's place in Seattle and was given a set of sapphire and diamond earrings. Maybe they should have given her a cook book instead?

Between this show, that Paris Hilton debacle, and Jessica Simpson's dumbfest, I really am starting to consider killing my TV. I don't think there's a jury in the country that would convict me.

I suppose I shouldn't complain, as I was allowed to watch the entire Pats game in relative peace (Sarah and her mom were out shopping for most of the first half, and even brought me lunch). That the game ended with a 31-0 score seems too perfect. It's omens like that that make me nervous.

While the day after Christmas isn't often a day for self-loathing (self-loathing having been used up during the previous week, either due to too much time in the mall or a mistletoe and eggnog-induced session of tonsil hockey with someone from the mailroom during an office holiday party), I do find that, on this Boxing Day, there's a small part of myself that hates me. Why?

I gave the green light for the wife to get me a cell phone for Christmas, and she went ahead and did it.

To some extent, my position on cell phones remains unchanged. They are a tool of evil, allowing rising self-importance levels and facilitating any number of roadway fatalities because a soccer mom piloting a Ford Excursion is discussing the latest offering from Starbucks with another soccer mom driving another Ford Excursion rather than doing something as passe as looking at the road.

There is also the secondary problem, that being one of over-availability. For that, at least, I have the comfort of the power button. I suppose if I only have the phone on when it seems most necessary, I can mitigate most of the dark power cell phones generate. But that strikes me as the same fallacy that one employs upon getting that first credit card that you swear is only going to be used for emergencies. The day comes where you're a little short of cash and you charge your textbooks. Next thing you know going to Cancun for spring break is a Defcon-1 emergency and you're maxed out.

Clearly, I have more thinking to do on this issue.

I'm writing from Maine, where my mother-in-law got a new computer for Christmas. Considering the old one was running Windows 95 and was probably running a 486 (at best; it may have even been a 386), things are going much quicker now.

Regarding the alternate holiday greeting, only Matt Boggie sent something along, and it was a good one. According to him, a co-worker developed the saying "Happy Merry," which manages to combine the usual adjectives and can be used in as sarcastic a fashion as needed (or even non-sarcastically, go figure).

So a Happy Merry to all!

Comments on a couple of stories I've seen in the last day or so.

1. You've all probably heard by now about the cow in Washington that had mad cow. While that concerns me, what concerns me more is that even after the cow tested positive, the "unaffected" bits of cow were allowed into processing. Most quotes I've read makes this practice seem perfectly normal. I can't say I share the sentiment. I may be over-reacting, but I'd like to think that when it comes to food safety a little over-reacting is OK.

I'm also of the understanding that a law that would have prevented meat from mad cows from going to processing was passed by the Senate but died in the House. I'm sure there are some holiday steaks going to honored representatives as we speak.

2. Ralph Nader isn't running for president, at least as a Green. This leaves the party with several options, the most notable of which is Peter Camejo, one of the 800 or so people who ran for governor in California during the recall. He finished fourth with three percent of the vote.

Related to this the Greens are trying to figure out if they should run a national campaign or a "safe state" race so as to not draw off votes from the Democractic candidate. I don't think that's going to be as much of a problem this time around, especially if Dean gets the nod. I think he'd appeal to the Green crowd a lot more than Al Gore. There's also some percentage of voters out there who were just sick and tired of the Clinton-Gore thing and voted Nader in, well, maybe not protest. Call it resignation, I suppose.

In any event, they should run a national campaign. If they're serious about being a viable third party option, what's the point in skipping states? Might as well continue to build a base.

I think I broke my blog. It seemed to get stuck on the publishing page, and now it's being problematic to load. Hopefully it'll clear up when I publish this.

Oh, something else that bugs me about the holiday season. Do you know anyone who, with just a pair of scissors and the right application of pressure and force, can cut wrapping paper so that it looks like it was cleaved with some sort of diamond-tipped instrument? Well, I'm not one of them. Seriously. Whenever I try to cut wrapping paper, it looks like a grade schooler went at things with safety scissors. I'm the person they were targeting when they invented gift bags. But I know the visceral thrill of tearing into paper on Christmas day, so still I wrap. But just Sarah's presents. She's done yeoman's work on the others.

I won't even get into the mystical art of wrapping, which I've not been able to master, either, though I'm hardly alone among my gender in that regard.

I've come to discover that one of the things I most dislike about the holiday season isn't specific to it, but is rather something I loathe year-round that gets exacerbated by the holidays.

Dawdlers.

Here's an example. This afternoon I was working my way from the Copley Place mall to the Prudential mall. The two are connected by a walkway above Huntington Avenue. The walkway is of medium (and usually plentiful) width, with the columns that support the walkway blocking off the middle every so often. This creates the usual left and right lanes, with some opportunities for passing in the middle.

Today I got blocked by a quartet of dawdlers who were strung out across 2/3 of the width of the walkway. Oncoming pedestrians made access to the middle impossible. I had to cut my stride way down (I tend to have an even longer stride in malls when I'm alone, as I tend to view shopping in such a fashion as something of a military exercise that must be completed post haste) and bide my time, growing more irritated with each passing second. Finally, I was able to break through a gap, hold up for a second behind another pair of dawdlers, and break clear.

Only to be held up at the doors into the Prudential mall by teen dawdlers. Blast! They were more easily circumvented, but still an added annoyance.

As it turns out, I made my way to the intended store, nosed around, picked something out, waited to pay for it, actually paid for it, put it in my backpack, and was leaving the store when the original foursome strolled by.

As you may have surmised, I'm not much of one for window shopping or people watching.

In other holiday news, the wife raised a good point today when she voiced a growing frustration with having to say "Happy Holidays" when talking to people of indeterminate holiday practice. Given that it's not always easy to ask what holiday is most appropriate, she's left with the most general blandishment, which gets old after the hundredth time saying it in a day (the perils of doing a lot of work over the phone).

So we tried to come up with something more appropriate, or at least more accurate. Sarah was good enough to fix my suggestion, "Felicitous Gift-Giving Occasion," improving it to "Joyous Gift-Giving Occasion." I have to admit that I liked using felicitous, given that it (a) sounds like something the Victorians ginned up, and (b) said correctly, there's a suggestion of mockery that can't be proven.

I'm trying to come up with something that better suggests the crass commerical aspect of the season, but am only making the thing longer. "Joyous Consumptionary Spending Period," for example, sounds like a holiday message penned by the Fed.

Anyway, suggestions along this line are more than welcome. I'll even post them on Christmas to give us all a little holiday cheer (assuming I can log on from Maine).

For a while, when I would sign up for things on-line or otherwise give personal information for something spamtastic, I would use an alias rather than my given name. I'd completely forgotten about it until this past weekend, when I started to get a slew of spam at my Hotmail account that used my alias. I wonder what list left in a dusty corner of some spammer saw the light of day?

In unrelated news, today was my first day off for the two weeks we're closed at Babson. Sarah doesn't get the early part of this week, so I got to do something I've not done in some time today: goof around in the apartment on my own. Now, it's not that I like to be rid of my spouse, but I don't get that much time to be on my own.

And, in true form, I used that time to little purpose, watching TV, reading, and playing Taipan, a game based on the novel of the same name where you try to make your pile trading various things (mostly opium, if you can afford it). I did do some laundry, and made a pretty decent chicken chili. I'm thinking I'll have to attempt a chowder next, probably corn. The dining hall here does an OK one, but you can't beat homemade.

Thanks to all who played along with the beards quiz a while back. Figure it's time to give the answers, though there was only one picture that seemed to give people trouble.

The answers:

a. Fidel Castro
b. Saddam Hussein
c. Johannes Brahms
d. Karl Marx

Many thanks to Scott Monty for suggesting Brahms.

There may be a bit of a controversy about the Marx picture. As Matt Boggie writes:

"C, I’m not sure of, and frankly, there’s no way anyone else but me would get D. I’m not quite sure how you got the photo, or how you might know him, but he’s obviously Mr. Clo, the retired band director from Gloversville High School, Gloversville, NY. He also played French horn in the Fulton/Montgomery County Concert Band. He once convinced a young trumpet student of his that he’d had a plastic lung installed in his stomach to allow him to sustain notes longer, which he inflated and deflated by raising and lowering the elbow of his right arm while playing."

I know things should be buzzing, what with Libya playing nicey-nice and Clay Aiken graduating from college, but I really don't have much to say on the major issues of the day (that being if you can accept that what the Yahoo news headlines are constitute the major issues of the day).

What is sticking in my craw a little bit is the issue of rental books at public libraries. I suppose it's a good way to raise money, but to me the idea of a public library is that I should have access to books without needing to pay for them (outside of whatever taxes I paid to get them on the shelves in the first place). And, really, do we need to create another barrier to getting people to read, even if it is relatively small?

Three football posts real quick while the Jets have the ball.

1. Congrats to the Fighting Blue Hens of Delaware on their 1-AA football title. As much as I'd have liked to see Colgate take the crown given their improbable run (considering the school does not give athletic scholarships), it's good to see an old Yankee Conference school take the title.

2. Congrats as well to the Johnnies of St. John's of Minnesota. They end a season that saw their coach, John Gagliardi, become the winningest coach in college football history by winning the division 3 title over Mount Union, who was riding a 55 game winning streak into the game. Maybe the no-contact practices and calling your coach by his first name will catch on elsewhere.

OK, maybe not.

3. If you've been watching the Pats-Jets game, you may have gotten to see Suzy Kolber interview Joe Namath on the sidelines. You know all that crap that William Shatner takes for talking like every word is its own sentence? Namath was actually doing that. He also said on no fewer than 3 occasions that he wanted to kiss Kolber. Thankfully, we didn't get to see if he succeeded.

When Joe Theisman said that Namath was a "happy guy," Paul Maguire concurred with a knowning "Oh yeah, he's happy." Surprisingly, no references to Christmas cheer.

I was chagrined to see that Mike Jarvis, aka "Baldy," has been let go as coach of the St. John's men's basketball team. But then I saw that the Red Storm had lost to Hofstra and Fairfield this season - both times at home. It didn't help that his recent rosters were festooned with reprobates. Well, OK, maybe not festooned, but he did have a couple of players who spent more time at municipal court than at the basketball court.

Anyway, the reason for the chagrin on my part is that Baldy was the coach at BU when I was first a student there, and he did a good job with a non-marquee program. Which is probably a good thing, as he might have to go back to that level.

If you're interested in baseball (and perhaps even if you're not), you've probably heard by now that the Manny for A-Rod deal is toast. Bud Selig used his tinhorn despot powers to put the kibosh on further negotiations, and the Sox management termed the talks "dead," which isn't encouraging.

So I've been trying to come up with alternate deals, and have come up with two off the cuff and not particularly well thought-out options:

1. Send Manny to the Orioles for prospects, use money to sign Vladi. I think Angleos is just crazy enough to buy into this, though we'd probably have to pay part of his salary. I'm also not sure what Vladi's target figure is, but he turned down $14 mil a year in Montreal.

2. Send Manny to the Devil Rays for their starting eight, keep Rocco Baldelli, and trade the rest as needed. I imagine this would also require trading off Johnny Damon, though I suppose they could platoon for a year.

In either case, we'd still have the Nomar question. Going back to an earlier post, this is taking on even greater shades of the Carlton Fisk debacle. I can see him moving on after a disgruntled '04 and us getting nothing for him. We'd then get to watch him spend another decade playing high-level baseball for someone else, wondering where it all went wrong.

And let's not even begin to consider Pedro and the other free agents at the end of '04.

Oh, I forgot a trailer.

The Butterfly Effect stars Ashton Kutcher as a guy who can manipulate time with his mind. I'll give you a sec to stop laughing at that image.

Said guy uses his power to try to bring back a girlfriend of his who'd died, but winds up screwing up someone else's life. So he goes back again, and you can see where this is going. Any resemblance to the sketch "Time and Punishment" from The Simpsons' "Treehouse of Horror V is probably incidental. At least it never rained doughnuts in the trailer.

Inasmuch as I was astounded by an Ashton Kutcher movie trailer that didn't immediately make me want to retch, I was more pleased with his appearance in a trailer for Cheaper By the Dozen that I saw while in the concessions line, wherein the family dog bites Kutcher's character in the genital area and refuses to let go. I know, it was a movie, but it made up at least partially for his year of over-exposure.

I am happy to report that The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King pays off much better than The Matrix Revolutions. Granted, it would have difficult for it not to. I was happy to see the hobbits get to kick some ass, but not so happy to see less of characters like Legolas and Gimli (though they made the most of their time on screen).

The logisitical geniuses who run the local theater had it playing at the same time in two theaters adjacent to each other. You can imagine what it was like getting in and getting out. I suppose it helps them in terms of concentrating the madness, but crowd control wasproblematic, and there was a great deal of congestion getting out. It was also the first time I've ever seen the cleaning crews clean up after a line of people waiting to get into the theater.

One person I went with also had the great fun of becoming line buddies with a very loud-talking guy who'd already seen the movie at a midnight showing and was planning to go back again on Friday. And, as line dynamics often indicate, we let our comrade take one for the team while we did what we could to avoid eye contact with loud-talking guy, lest we get drawn into it. The wingman isn't just for bars.

And, of course, there were many previews:

Spider-Man 2 had a pretty good trailer, nothing too out of the ordinary for the superhero/action genre. I'd either forgotten or not known that Alfred Molina is playing Dr. Octopus. I find that funny for some reason.

Walking Tall is a remake of the 1973 film starring Joe Don Baker as Buford T. Pusser, a Tennessee sheriff who's out to rid his town of corruption. Filling the role of Pusser is The Rock. I'm a little ashamed to say that I want to see this, but I like The Rock's action movie persona.

The Mask 2 - or Son of the Mask or Untitled Mask Project depending on where you get your titles - would be on the short list of Least Essential Sequel Ever. The trailer was bad - some dramatic intoning about Loki that turned into a baby doing some sort of acrobatic flip out of a walker to a standing, arms-outstretched "ta da!" sort of pose. I don't even think they mentioned a title, come to think of it, which bodes poorly. Oh, they've also apparently replaced Jim Carrey and Cameron Diaz with Jamie Kennedy and Traylor Howard (the girl in Two Guys, a Girl, and a Pizza Place).

All I can think is WHY?

The Chronicles of Riddick features Vin Diesel as the title character, who is apparently a central figure in some sort of sci-fi/fantasy clash that involves a character played by Dame Judi Dench. And if that isn't a sentence I never thought I would write, I don't know what is.

It's apparently a sequel to Pitch Black. Not having seen it, the odds of seeing the sequel are long. Very long.

I, Robot had a trailer that was done in the style of an advertisement, but said almost nothing about the movie. I suppose that's the point, but I never really care for trailers that do that sort of thing. I could go to the website, but I can't remember the URL, even though it was prominently placed in the trailer. Guess I'm not geeky enough.

Can I also note that there seemed to be twice as many ads before the movie as usual? While I assume it's because it was the opening night of one of the biggest movies of the year, I fear that it's a trend. The last thing we need is a half-hour of ads and trailers before the movie even starts.

Quick question for anyone out there who is/was watching Monday Night Football. When Lisa Guererro was interviewing Mark Duper on the sidelines, did she actually use the phrase "bitching and whining" in reference to current WRs and their desire for the ball? I was only paying half-attention, and the crowd noise presented further difficulties. Anyway, if anyone can confirm or deny, drop me a line.

Prompted by recent news, here's a little quiz for you all.

I wrote a bit of a weekend recap, but apparently the blog gods didn't want you to read it, as it was eaten during the publishing process (though, to be fair, I was also doing something else in another window and may have caused the problem myself). So rather than try to write it all again, I'll mention two things I did not mention at the time:

1. Commiserations to the Bruce, who in the span of the weekend saw his A's lose both their closer Keith Foulke to the Sox and their MVP shortstop Miguel Tejada to the Orioles, of all teams.

Having said that, keep an eye on the O's. They're also after Vladi Guerrero and Ivan Rodriguez. Not sure if they have the scratch to land them both, but even one of them would be a big boost.

2. I've now seen two (which may be both that have aired) episodes of the Celebrity Poker Showdown on Bravo. One features a table of Ben Affleck, Don Cheadle, Willie Garson, Emily Procter, and David Schwimmer; the other five cast members from The West Wing (Timothy Busfield, Alison Janney, Richard Schiff, Martin Sheen, and John Spencer). There's some fairly atrocious card playing, but some good as well. Kevin Pollak hosts, dressed like a generic Vegas hipster doofus doing an impression of Kevin Pollak. Poker pro Phil Gordon provides expert commentary.

If you've watched either the World Poker Tour or ESPN's coverage of the World Series of Poker, the Bravo show will be hard to get used to. It's a lot more chummy, you can hear the crowd a lot more, and there's much less lingo. But it's not particularly bad, just more like watching your weekly game, but with famous people.

The game featuring West Wing cast members is doubly incestuous, as the show is appearing on Bravo in reruns and Josh Malina, who plays Will Bailey on the show, is executive producing the poker series. This all puts the Sports Night episode "Shoe Money Tonight" into perspective; sadly, Felicity Huffman isn't playing in the tournament. But Scott Stapp from Creed is. The Lord goes all in!

My prediction of us being snow-free after yesterday proved a little premature. We did get rain, and there was significant melt, but there's still a lot of white. And now we're getting more snow on Sunday. At this point it'll be followed up by a mix on Monday, which should be lots of fun for the commute (even my commute, which is a 2 minute walk but all downhill; there's a good chance I'll slip and fall on my ass).

We had our divisional holiday party yesterday, which was festive. I was subcontracted out to write a sequel to last year's quiz, so I got to spend a good 15 minutes taunting co-workers who were looking for answers. I also managed to not get stiffed during the yankee swap, getting a Barnes and Noble gift card in return for an assortment of savory goodies presented in some sort of canoe looking thing. Today is the college holiday party, which will be moderately festive.

I'm not brimming with holiday spirit quite yet, and I think I had a little beaten out of me in the three seconds where I was exposed to Ebbie, the version of A Christmas Carol starring Susan Lucci in the Scrooge role. I also wound up passing on the Mr. Magoo version, as I wasn't in the mood for its musical interludes the night it was on.

After much foot-dragging, the recap of the Ireland trip is now available at left. It's OK; I hope the delay hasn't created expectations that the finished product won't meet. Though, really, was there much danger of that to begin with?

As some of you long-term readers may remember, today is my sister Cathy's birthday (for those of you who in the short- and medium-term, here's some background). She'd have been 36 today, which seems almost impossible given that I can't think of her as being anything but 20.

In any event, for today I'm asking readers to do one thing for me: if you have a sister, call her. If you have more than one, call all of them. Use the opportunity while you can, because it sucks when you want to make that call and can't.

I don't know how I feel about the possible Nomar trade. Inasmuch as A-Rod would provide greater scoring punch without giving up defense, Nomar is one of us. He's used to the crazy fans and cranky media. I'm getting a Carlton Fisk vibe, wherein a well-loved player gets sent packing for money reasons and spends the bulk of a hall of fame career elsewhere. We got lucky in that Fisk got jerked around even more by the ChiSox, greasing the skids for a return to Fenway (albeit as a retired player). I don't think we'll get the same thing with Nomar, if the war of words between John Henry and Nomar's agent, Arm Tellem, is anything to go by.

And while I'm loathe to back baseball owners, if the figures that have been bandied about are accurate, Tellem is stuck in 2000. The bubble has burst.

I also thought it was interesting that Al Gore endorsed Howard Dean, leaving former running mate Joe Leiberman out in the cold. I've not read much of this, but I wonder if Al's thinking back to his own campaign and how the more liberal Dems voted for Nader. The flip side, of course, is the possibility of losing more conservative Dems who don't want the guy who legalized gay marriage in the White House. This might be a case where the Democratic dads who voted for Reagan have Democratic sons who vote for Bush.

For those of you who remember The Station nightclub fire that happened in Rhode Island in February, you may be interested to learn that the owners of the club and Great White's tour manager were indicted today on 100 counts of involuntary manslaughter with criminal negligence and 100 counts of involuntary manslaughter in violation of a misdemeanor.

That's a lot of counts. Even if they only got 30 days per count, that'd be over 16 years of jail time.

Got back from a weekend in Chattanooga, Tennessee about an hour ago, and look at all the snow! Seriously, look at it; given the weather report for this week, it'll all be gone by Thursday at the latest.

I was in Chattanooga for TrashMasters, probably the top invitational trash tournament in the country (well, it and Michigan's Ann B. Davis are 1 and 1a). Quick recap: my team finished second after losing to the the team that won three times: once in prelims and twice in the playoffs. Had we beaten them at any one time, we'd have won the whole thing. Clearly, though, you lose three times to one team and it's meant to be.

Personally I started well, and was the tournament's leading scorer fairly deep into it (trading the spot on and off with Craig Barker, linked at left) until one of my teammates (Greg Sorenson, also linked at left) got back to his usual self and wrested the title away. Finished fourth overall, not bad, but I'd have preferred playing a little better in the playoffs and actually winning the thing.

Unrelated to the tournament, some observations:

* For all the weather hoopla, I had a mostly problem-free travel experience. We left Logan late on Friday morning due to poor visibility in Atlanta, but landed on time. We left Atlanta a little late today, and considering that Logan was closed until 1 pm that we left at all was surprising. We were a little late, but we had to wait for a plane to leave so we could take its gate.

* At the airport today I was subjected to Denver-Kansas City, even after it became a whitewash. I'd have appreciated a cut to the then-still close Pats game, which I heard most of the first half of on the drive to Atlanta.

* While Boston has the Big Dig, Chattanooga has the Little Dig, some sort of street improvement project that I suppose looks more daunting to navigate than it really is. I think we did have to make one detour, but nothing serious. At least not as serious as the parade that sent our dinner convoy on a bit of a roundabout way.

* Krystal, the southern knock-off of White Castle, is OK, but it is no White Castle.

* I also got to eat at Sonic, and had a combo I'd not recommend: the pancake on a stick (which has a sausage in the middle) and a watermelon Coke. The pancake on a stick actually wasn't that bad, but the watermelon Coke will remain a once in a lifetime experience.

* Finally, I rounded out a "places I've not eaten at" trifecta by lunching at Buffalo Wild Wings. Tasty.

* Going back to Friday, I spent a lot of time at the Atlanta airport waiting for various people, and got to learn that it has several shops, but no arcade. I suppose getting your money a quarter at a time is less efficient, but throw us a bone.

* We then decided that the airport probably had a lone '80s arcade game in a neglected corner of one of the more remote terminals. And it was probably this one.

* There was also a crazy man at the airport who missed his flight, had to rebook, and then decided not to get a hotel room because he'd already spent $150 on his new flight. He spent most of his time pushing around a Smart Carte with a couple of suit boxes on it talking to anyone who'd listen and asking people to read a screenplay he'd written. I imagine it involved a talking pie.

* While not part of the trip per se, anyone who can explain in a satisfactory manner how USC can be #1 in both polls and not playing Oklahoma or LSU should write me. The BCS people are talking about how we're getting two great bowl games out of this (Oklahoma-LSU and USC-Michigan), but I'd have to think Oklahoma-USC and LSU-Michigan would be pretty good, too.

* And while I don't know if it can happen, I'd like to see Delaware and Colgate make the 1-AA football final. Funny how they can decide the national title on the field.

* Anyone who saw the Al Sharpton episode of Saturday Night Live should write me with a review. The NBC affiliate we had showed a best of Steve Martin.

While I've been able to throw up the usual sort of pop culture nonsense that often populates my posts, it's actually been a pretty trying week.

Today, my aunt had a fairly serious operation. She's 78. "Fairly serious operation" and "78" is not a combination that instills confidence, especially as she'd been hospitalized not that long ago due to the problem that led to today's visit to the OR.

As it turns out, things went very well. We actually spent about an hour talking with her at the hospital. She was a little tired not surprisingly, but otherwise in good spirits. Of course, the Coen women seem to have a pretty sturdy constitution (I had two great aunts who lived well into their 80s, and my grandmother, while not a Coen by birth, lived to 92).

We're not completely out of the woods where my aunt is concerned - there are other health concerns that may prove equally problematic - but we're doing pretty well right now, which is nice.

The less enjoyable part of the week started Monday night, when it was discovered that one of our students took their own life at some point during the day. Sarah and I were actually heading off campus when police first started to respond, though at that point it wasn't clear that anything that serious was happening. It was when we returned and saw the collection of vehicles - including a couple of unmarked police cars and an ambulance that was eerily parked at a distance from the building in question - that we started to suspect something serious was afoot.

I've been lucky in my 12 years of RA/RD experience that I've never had to work on a suicide. I've known people who did, and I have to say that their experiences were pretty much borne out over the 72 hours following the first report. It was a less than optimal combination of the nightmarish, the surreal, and the depressing.

From a professional standpoint, it's clear to me now that you can have all of the crisis management and operating procedure you want, but it's still going to be a mess. This is especially true after hours, when you're trying to track down staff that's gone home or is out for dinner or what have you. I will say that I think we did a pretty good job of tracking people down and getting plans set into motion. I had the dubious honor of trying to console some residents who clearly needed someone with more of a counseling background. I think I did OK, but at the time it was painful. I honestly didn't feel like I was making a damn bit of difference.

As the night wore on I had a chance to do more informational stuff with our residents, which was better. I actually had information and could answer questions about what services were available and what the next day or so would bring on campus. I don't know that I told people much new information, but students did seem to appreciate the effort.

Things slowly got better as the week continued - there was a short remembrance service the next day, and a candlelight vigil last night that gave people a chance to talk and share memories and stories. The funeral was today, and a number of students were able to attend, which also helped.

I will say that one of the more unusual aspects of the entire thing was seeing the reaction of the student body. It really ran the gamut. There were a number of students who were deeply hurt - classmates, teammates, etc. - but there was also a not insignificant number of students who seemed to have little reaction. I suppose if you don't know the person the reaction isn't as strong, but there was in some cases even little reaction that it had happened at all. Everyone approaches this differently, so there may be more reaction later. Hard to say.

I'm pretty proud of the work our RA staff did this week, especially those folks who had a deeper reaction. I often wonder about the job they do, given that I don't get as much chance to see and talk to them as I would like (there being 22 of them, I don't always get a depth of interaction), but this week they definately stepped up.

Anyway, that's the sort of week it's been. It's getting better, and even the Yankees getting Javier Vasquez can't prevent that - for now. :P

Unbeknownst to many, New Hampshire is getting a minor league baseball team. As is often the case, the team held a contest to choose a name. One clearly stood out - the New Hampshire Primaries. It both reflects the state's historic role in presidential elections, it also had a cool logo.

So what happens when you let the people vote? The obvious choice comes in LAST.

The team will henceforth be known as the Granite State Fisher Cats. The fisher, for those of you who don't know, is a type of weasel (so in a way it appears they've still honored their political connection).

The other three names in contention were the Manchester Millers (which lost by less than 25 votes), the Granite State Mountain Men, and the New Hampshire Granite. I like the Millers (I wasn't aware that a lot of milling went on in Manchester, but I'm likely ignorant on the topic) and Granite (even though it's one of those non-plural nicknames), but Primaries was perfect. Maybe too perfect.

Just remember that this decision came from the state that we entrust with an early position in selecting our presidents (and as Chris Rosenberg pointed out, went for Pat Buchanan twice).

Reader Shawn De Veau notes that he was subjected to Bobb'e J. Thompson during NBC coverage of the Macy's Thanksgiving parade (shocking that NBC would use the parade to promote their shows!). His appearance included a number of athlete impersonations and thanking God for his success. Another reason I'm glad I don't really watch the parade.

In other TV news, we were (well, I was) channel surfing during 24's commercial breaks and found that Lingo has made some improvements to their set. This does not include the dim yet bubbly woman who is now apparently Chuck Woolery's co-host. She's basically Vanna White without the walking around and clapping. According to a press release I found on-line, her name is Stacey Hayes, and she is both co-host and on-air judge, telling Chuck when words aren't spelled right and so forth. She does have a fair bit of on-camera experience according to her bio at covergirlinternational.com, though I'm sure "eye candy" was high on the list of qualifications desired at hire for the co-host spot.

While I can verify that The Tracy Morgan Show isn't bad, I can't really say that it's good, either. For every funny moment there was another one that didn't quite work, and for every part of genuine acting there was a part where it felt like those late-in-the-show SNL skits where everyone's reading off cue cards (or are those the early skits now?).

In any event, the show is at least entertaining enough to ride out the season. The cast also has some semi-recognizable faces in Heavy D (appearing without his Boyz, playing an auto mechanic), Marc John Jefferies (former People PC spokeskid) as the older son, and Tamala Jones (whose been in a number of movies, including Head of State, The Brothers, and Booty Call) who plays Morgan's wife. (Oh, and let's not forget veteran actor John Witherspoon, who also plays a mechanic).

But the cast member you've probably heard most about is Bobb'e J. Thompson, who plays the younger son. Aiming to be this generation's Webster/Arnold Drummond, he at least doesn't have to play an orphan. As much as you may want to fight the idea of a savvy, smart-talking seven year old, you can't look away, either.

If nothing else, the show provides a half-hour respite from crap like The Simple Life, which I'm sure will do better in the ratings but will cause more neurological damage, too.

While the Frank Solich thing may not hit a nerve with folks, hopefully the issues surrounding Tommy Tuberville at Auburn will. In this case, the school's president and athletic director had a secret meeting with the head coach at Louisville about replacing Tuberville. Not only did the bulk of Auburn's trustees not know, but the Louisville president and AD weren't in the know, either.

Tuberville's had even less success at Auburn than Solich had at Nebraska, but it still doesn't excuse this cloak and dagger crap.

In related bowl news, TCU is passing on the GMAC Bowl due to exam dates (they prefer a couple of other CUSA-aligned bowls). Turns out the GMAC folks may look outside of CUSA for a team. Time to write them about UConn!

Tonight ended a rather lackluster 3 game ECAC string for the BU hockey team. They went 1-1-1 over Thanksgiving week, losing the annual tilt with Harvard (the first BU loss at Harvard in 21 years), tying Dartmouth by giving up a goal with 14 seconds left, and beating Yale (of small comfort given that Yale was 3-7 entering the game). Now begins the main part of our Hockey East slog, with brief interruptions for games against Niagara and Minnesota (who is having problems of their own, as they currently stand at 6-7-1) and the Beanpot. We get to start with a game at BC on Friday. Great.

Speaking of Catholics, at the end of Mass today the priest read a statement from all four Massachusetts bishops (Boston, Worcester, Spriingfield, and Fall River) regarding the recent SJC ruling regarding same-sex marriage. They termed the ruling a "national tragedy" and would at least like more time than the 180 days to figure this thing out. What they'd really like is a constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of a man and woman and no law permitting same-sex unions at all.

All of this was couched as for the "protection of marriage," which makes me wonder why the bishops never get together to decry how easy the state makes it for married couples to get divorced. Isn't divorce an even bigger threat to marriage? If divorce wasn't an option, you'd have to think that people would choose their mates a lot more closely (and probably not on national TV, an added bonus). You'd also have fewer legal problems as you'd not have to worry about child support, visitation, and all the other stuff that makes families suffer and lawyers rich.

Considering today's statement came at the start of Advent, perhaps they're saving the anti-divorce statement for the start of Lent.

So let's say you have a college football coach who, in six years, guides his team to a 58-19 record, with a 9-3 mark this year in what is probably the toughest conference in the country. How do reward such performance? You fire your head coach.

That's what Nebraska did to Frank Solich today, ending his run as the 'Huskers head coach effective immediately. The assistant coaches will apparently run the team for their bowl appearance (expected to be the Holiday Bowl).

Granted, it's not all been pretty in the land of corn. Nebraska didn't look particularly great in its losses, and you can argue that the team's been inconsistent under Solich, going from a national title run in 2001 to a 7-7 finish in 2002, the team's first non-winning season in over 40 years.

But it strikes me that the biggest problem Solich had, and the one he could never overcome, is that he's not Tom Osborne. Given that, it's probably a near miracle that he lasted six years.

The real question now is who will want to follow Solich? While the Nebraska AD claims that he never consulted boosters regarding Solich, other reports suggest otherwise. Even if the AD is telling the truth, the timing of the Solich firing wouldn't make me very comfortable in taking over. But there'll be someone out there who'll want the job, and good luck to them. Don't be surprised if whoever it is gets the hook after a 10-2 season.

In other college football news, Syracuse lost to Rutgers today, bringing their record to 5-6. Next week they get to face Notre Dame, who has the same record but has won three straight. Paul Pasqueloni should start getting his resume in order. Maybe he'll want to go out to Lincoln?

And in early bowl news, Kansas will play NC State in the Tangerine Bowl. Kansas is 6-6, with wins over UNLV, Wyoming, Iowa State, Baylor, and 1-AA Jacksonville State (the only team with a winning record in this bunch). They did beat Missouri, but then went 2-5 down the stretch. Anyone who can explain why this team is bowl worthy should drop me a line.

OK, shopping didn't turn out too badly. I got to nose around a Borders with Sarah's dad for most of the time, and only had limited exposure to the chaos at our local Target.

Quick correction while I'm here. The Fox Sports poker thing I was watching actually did have some name players, but they were gone by the end. I'll stick to the rest of my critique, though.

I fear that I'm going to be brought shopping this morning (and by shopping I mean pointless milling around punctuated by the occasional purchase of something). Given how much I enjoy that (as you probably picked up from my description), you can likely predict how much I'm looking forward to the post-Thanksgiving crowds on top of the pointless milling about.

I should just be happy no one tried to drag me to a 6 a.m. opening, I guess.

OK, that's better. I'd have returned to a state of relative coherence earlier, except that I went back for more pie. Serious tactical mistake.

In any event, things turned out well. Even though my brother's family couldn't make it, we still had food for 20, so it looks like leftover surprise for the next week. If you're in the neighborhood and feeling peckish, let me know.

We did our American duty and watched both NFL games, as unwatchable as they may have been (in case you missed it, Detroit topped Green Bay in an ugly contest, while Miami unvaunted the Dallas defense). For now we're watching a little bit of the centennial Egg Bowl (Mississippi-Mississippi St.), but that was looking routish. So we've been flipping a bit, mostly between the Bond marathon on Spike (currently on The Living Daylights, so we've taken Spike out of the rotation for now) and the Fox Sports no-limit poker tournament, which is horrible. Bad commentators, poor graphics, players I've never heard of, and even a dealer who seems a little unclear on how to deal hold 'em. I think Rupert's boys took a face-plant into the tailgate of the poker bandwagon.

(Speaking of which, while doing health and safety checks this week I ran into no less than a dozen rooms with some sort of poker setup.)

And if you're looking for a late-night Thanksgiving tradition, tune in to Letterman to see him try to guess what sort of pies his mom baked for the family dinner in Indiana. This annual event has even spawned its own prediction game among the Usenet Letterman fans, though I missed the deadline to enter this year. I'm going with pumpkin and apple, though this may be a year where Dorothy goes off the board and makes a non-pie. Crazy!

So. Full.

Happy Thanksgiving! Or, if you're reading from outside the US, happy Thursday!

We're hosting Thanksgiving this year, which would be much more of a concern if Sarah's parents weren't down and doing the bulk of the cooking. The only thing I'll really get to make is the green bean casserole, which isn't much to hang one's culinary hat on. But we always had it growing up, and what whitebread American family wouldn't serve it? OK, I'm sure plenty wouldn't. Cut me some slack.

In an announcement that should stun no one, the folks over at Fox admit they were greedy in going back to the well with this whole Joe Millionaire thing. It'd be nice to think there's a lesson learned in all this, but I doubt it.

For what it's worth I wound up watching a fair bit of this year's installment, and didn't think it was the crime against nature that some did. It wasn't great TV, either. But I do think that this couple seems more genuinely in love than the first pair, who seemed to hold on just long enough to get the maximum benefit out of their relationship.

I will also say that I am not fond of using subtitles when the person speaking is already speaking English, even if it is accented. All 12 women were fluent and spoke clearer than some native speakers I know.

Were I in charge, Kevin Harlan and Randy Cross would never work a Patriots game again. Harlan is apparently some sort of team jinx, as:

1. He mentioned at the outset that Brady hadn't been picked off in six games. He got picked twice today.

2. He mentioned that Adam Vinatieri had never missed a field goal in a domed stadium. He then promptly banked one off the upright.

3. He finally mentioned that the Texans had never blocked a field goal - just before doing so in the overtime.

Cross gets cut because, well, he sucks. He and Tim McCarver need to go on a three-hour cruise.

I finally said goodbye to my Mac Classic today.

Bought in 1991 just as it was becoming obsolete (or perhaps just after it did), I've dragged the thing around for a while until I could get things transfered from it to the current machine (a balky external drive was slowing things down, but I finally got it straightened out). It wasn't too bad, outside of having to load things one floppy at a time (and copy, at least on one end, at speeds that were state of the art in, say, 1988).

In any case, it's been interesting to go through some of the old stuff. I've found many of the top 10 lists I was required to compile during my turn as BUCB ombudsman, and they're all excellent proof as to the subjective, and often short-lived, nature of humor. A good three-quarters of the entries make no sense. You could argue they didn't at the time, either, but the gossamer nature of context puts all such argument to rest. Some of the entries are funny as stand-alone statements or because they reference people I still know, so there's at least that.

Playing some of the old games has been fun, too, though many of the old games are a little buggy. At some point nostalgia will give way to practicality and I'll toss the less reliable games, but for now I'm working through the best I can.

On the flip side of my very positive Millionaire experience are three things that suggest that the folks behind the show may want to ratchet up the publicity a bit:

1. I've run into a number of people who still think Regis is the host.
2. Even more people think that you still have to do the fastest finger.
3. Most can't place the time and channel on which it's shown (12:30, WCVB-5 for you in the Boston area).

I imagine problem 3 is the main contributor to the other two problems, especially as most folks are working or doing something other than watching TV at 12:30 in the afternoon. The UPN affiliate had it last year and aired it at 5:30, which worked out well.

We got back from New York yesterday from the Millionaire taping, and I won't have to go back. I got to tape relatively early (second of my group of nine, with two holdovers from the day before going first) and was done by 4 pm.

Of course, I can't say how I did. I will say that we at least broke even, which is a good thing given the various costs involved. Not surprisingly, perhaps, most of the contestants in my group were from New York or New Jersey, or had a connection in the area. We did have one guy who came in from Las Vegas.

Overall, it was a great group of people. I'd feared that we'd all be too nervous or competitive to talk much, but it worked out.

Which was a good thing, as "contestant isolation" meant not having anything to read, listen to, or otherwise occupy one's brain from the time we got there to the time we left. I'd half-thought about bringing a book but didn't.

The show staff was great, from the PAs who were with us in the green room all the way up to Meredith, who was very sweet and (for lack of a better word) genuine. We chatted a little bit during breaks (on how I was doing, where Sarah and I went on honeymoon, etc.). She's tinier than we expected, but TV does make things look bigger (good for the studio, which is small; bad for me, who is not).

After taping we went back to the hotel (the Lucerne at 79th and Amsterdam, nicely appointed and well-staffed) and walked over a couple blocks to Luzia's, a family-run Portuguese restaurant, for dinner. Should you find yourself near 81st and Amsterdam any time soon, you should eat there. I had what was to me an unusual dish of cod, eggs, potatoes, and olives which actually worked quite well.

After that we went back to the hotel, had a sangria-induced nap, and wound up visiting with Boggie and his wife Jenny, who spent the previous four hours at a premiere for Henry IV parts one and two. Leaving Jenny at home (work in the morning), the three of us visited some local hang-outs and wound up in Times Square at 2 am, where it was bright as day and almost as busy.

All in all, a fun trip. One of these days we'll have to go to New York just to sightsee.

Did I mention I was asked to dress "springy" for the Millionaire taping tomorrow?

Got a call last week from a member of the production staff asking me to do this, not surprising given that the show will air in June. The problem I ran into is that the shirts I was planning to wear/bring (needing to have a change of clothes) have logos on the pocket, which is a no-no. This required getting news shirts. And a new pair of pants. And shoes. And socks to go with the whole thing. Funny thing is one outfit is very much fall-like (tans and browns). I suppose they'll be happy as long as I'm not wearing a cable-knit sweater.

People keep asking if I'm nervous, and I don't think I am, really. What I have been doing is psyching myself out. I'll be reading something or watching TV or what have you and I'll either (a) think to myself that I have to remember what I just read/saw/heard just in case, or (b) I'll suddenly come up with a question based on what I'm reading/seeing/hearing and realize I don't know the answer. It's been a fun couple of weeks, to be sure. I suppose I will get nervous at some level when things actually start to happen (and admittedly I'm getting a little edge on just writing this).

I'm a little ticked right now. On the heels of my question regarding UConn and a Big East bowl bid comes an ESPN.com article that notes that Notre Dame, if they go 6-6, can get the Big East's last bid assuming that no other team wins seven games.

Miami, Virginia Tech, and Pittsburgh are all in, taking three of the five Big East berths. Of BC, Syracuse, and West Virginia, BC is most unlikely to hit 7 wins given their last game is against Virginia Tech. Syracuse has a tough drive to 7 as two of their remaining three games are against West Virginia and Notre Dame. The Mountaineers just have to beat Temple.

The NCAA rule specifically covers teams who play 12 games and win 6 and are in a conference that has agreements with bowls, and UConn would more than qualify there with their 9-3 mark and their Big East membership (which, unlike Notre Dame, will soon include football).

What it comes down to (assuming we ignore money, which of course will dictate the outcome) is whether or not the conference wants to promote an up and coming team that had a good season, or a traditional team that will never be a football member of the conference (and who had to stage a major turnaround just to get to 6-6). I'm a Notre Dame fan, but I can't root for a .500 Irish team to box out the Huskies.

Could the Big East give a bowl spot to UConn rather than, say, Boston College?

UConn finished their regular season on Saturday with a 51-17 drubbing of Wake Forest (remember the heady days of the season when the Deacs were in the top 25?). They end the season with a 9-3 mark, with two of the three losses being quite respectable: a 10 point loss to BC and a 7 point loss at NC State (the third loss was a drilling at the hands of Virginia Tech).

It may be more appropriate to offer UConn a MAC bowl bid, given that they went 4-0 against MAC foes. Regardless, it doesn't seem fair that UConn will get snubbed while a very dull 7-5 (or even worse, 6-6) team could get to go somewhere.

I suppose I should be more angry with the lack of options for independent teams (outside of Notre Dame) in general. Not only does UConn look like they may not get to take their 9-3 record out for a bowl game spin, Navy may very well finish at 8-4 and go nowhere (and Navy even has a win over then-25th ranked Air Force).

Personally, I'd rather see North Texas play either of those teams than whoever the best 6-5 team in CUSA is (the UAB-South Florida tilt seems key here). But that's probably just me and my East Coast Bias.

Suggesting that one good link change deserves another, I have added a link to ProjectExplorer under the "Other Stuff" category. Check it out!

According to the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles web site:

"You may change your name with no documentation as long as there is no attempt to defraud."

You do have to go to a full-service branch to get a new photo and signature capture. I suppose the awe-inspiring majesty of a full-service branch of the Registry is supposed to be enough to keep people from making fraudulent name changes.

It strikes me that this is the sort of thing that would have changed over the last couple of years. I also don't know if we want the front-line folks at the Registry trying to determine when someone's pulling a fast one. Nothing against them, but it seems like the sort of process that should require at least a marriage licence or something.

In a related customer service note, the people at Sovereign Bank tell us that name changes can be done by a teller. Which contradicts what a teller at the Kenmore Square branch said at the end of last week, which was generally "I don't know." Part of me thinks we just should have closed the account. Anyone out there have an account with Banknorth? Are they any good?

And a hearty welcome back to Allyson Harper-Nixon, the first person to actually come off the bench among those links riding pine. I hope it's not another 9 months between posts!

Oh, I forgot to mention one of the films previewed on Friday. Calendar Girls is about an English gardening club whose middle-aged female members make a calendar featuring pictures of themselves in various states of undress to make money for one of their husbands who has, from what I can tell, cancer. It's based on a true story and stars Helen Mirren and Julie Walter.

I should also note the absolute testosteronic trough of the weekend, when the wife took me to a craft fair at a local school. There were a few booths of interest for me (a couple food-related ones and a guy selling old maps), and we did manage to get a Christmas present for one of the kids in the family.

Football helped restore manliness from there on out, as did a hockey game (BU wins 6-1 over Merrimack). The christening we went to was pretty much a push as far as gender balance goes, but was a splendid afternoon.

Ending the week with the Pats game was nice, if but a little bizarre at times (please see the game ending play off of Ty Law's second pick as an example). It also stuns me what may be the team's biggest obstacle to going deep in the playoffs is their punter. I can't help but think that there are 4 or 5 guys out there who the Pats can bring in who can punt better than Ken Walter, who reportedly ranks 32nd in the league (the NFL.com page only gives the top 30 punters, and he's not among them).

Considering all the other positions he's played this season, perhaps Dan Klecko can take over.

As the Bruce correctly surmised a few days ago, Love, Actually is a movie specifically engineered for my wife, and we did go see it last night. It is actually pretty good, as far as ensemble romantic comedy goes.

It's not the sort of movie you can easily sum up, given that there are something like 8 or 9 different love stories. Suffice it to say that a variety of people, all of whom have vaguely interconnected lives, spend the five weeks before Christmas in some form of romantic flux. And while it's often sappy, it manages to not have everything turn out perfectly.

Given the size of the cast and the relative lack of a lead, it's hard to say if anyone did better or worse than anyone else. I did think Emma Thompson did a good job with a role that made her change direction very quickly at times. Kudos as well to Liam Neeson and Laura Linney. You'll also probably see more of Martina McCutcheon, a former player on EastEnders and British TV presenter making the move to movies.

I don't know if you have to run right out and see this, but it'll at least be a pleasant diversion.

On, and on the preview front...

Saw previews again for Something's Gotta Give and Stuck on You - the former is a rental at best, the latter depends on your stomach for the Farrelly brothers. We also got a preview of The Cat in the Hat, which may be great and may suck. Either way, it's likely going to make boatloads of cash.

Ben Stiller and Jennifer Aniston get together in Along Came Polly, which looks pretty formulaic. Jim Carrey gets his bad memories toasted in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which at least has an interesting title and supporting cast (Kate Winslet, Elijah Wood, Tom Wilkinson).

Kind of a thin group, really.

I'm having some sort of blog-related ennui, in that I want to write but am having trouble with the motivation and the information. I've not really written on anything coherent in some time, just dribs and drabs. Maybe I'm being seasonally affected.

Part of it too is that the things I most want to write about are kind of second-personal (a term I just made up about things involving another person that may or may not be my business to discuss in public without prior authorization). I can say it's not domestic - married life is still swell - but it's more that I had a chance to get back together with someone I'd not seen in a while who has had a less than stellar 2003.

Without getting into specifics, then, I will say I was impressed with this person's resilience, though I shouldn't have expected anything less. I don't think I could come out of the same circumstances nearly anywhere as strong or positive. It was also nice to see that, even after some years and life changes, there are people who are not only interested in renewing aquaintances, but can carry the relationship forward into the present day. Most of the time it's a "hey, nice to hear from you" email and resultant silence.

So a nice positive note for a week that's about to become very blustery.

Something I forgot to mention back from the weekend we were in Maine is that I saw what might be the least fraught idea in niche cable/sattelite programming: the NFL Network. They were getting a free preview, and if the finished product is anything like it the channel is going to be the pigskin equivalent of crystal meth.

Sadly, the schedules suggest it's going to be more like whatever drug is repetitive and boring (quaaludes?). The signature show NFL Total Access, airs at 8 pm, again at 11 pm, and is then repeated the next day at 2 am and then from 5 am to noon. Most of the other non prime-time programming is repeated from earlier in the broadcast week. Hopefully this will change as the network grows. At least it's not infomercials.

OK, I'll admit it. I thought Art Carney was dead.

I'll admit to not having a very good track record with these sorts of things, at least if my dead pool entries are anything to go by. Part of my problem was having two entries that split my total body count of five (Bob Hope, Warren Zevon, Leni Reifenstahl, and Katherine Hepburn on one entry, Strom Thurmond on the other). I also seem to have picked some pretty feisty octogenarians (Barbara Billingsley and Shelley Winters, for example).

And in an annoyance for this week, I don't get Veterans Day off. I don't know if very many people do, but I find it interesting that we get Memorial Day off but not Veterans Day. Wouldn't the powers that be rather we take time to honor veterans while they're alive? I know that days off most often translate into car dealers putting on loudly-advertised sales or malls opening at 5 am, but I can't help but feel the living veterans are getting the short end of the stick here, especially if they're also not getting the day off.

Notes from the weekend...

* For those of you who played in a TRASH regional, the first tossup and bonus of the first pack (assuming you played the packs in numerical order) were written by me. I just thought that was neat. Undoubtedly, some of you would have another adjective to use there.

* I really wish I'd gotten to see more of the college football carnage, though I did get to see about half of Bowden Bowl V while flipping back to Virginia Tech's loss at Pittsburgh. I really would have been interested in Oklahoma's 77-0 waxing of Texas A&M, if only to see how the Sooners managed not to score in the fourth quarter.

* Got to see a little bit of the lunar eclipse on Saturday night while waiting for a table at John Harvard's in Framingham. I'd forogtten about it, which seems to be the standard case whenever astro-phenomena are afoot.

* I managed to aggravate my knee problem on Friday, which led to some gimping around over the weekend. I did manage to spend large chunks of yesterday in bed with the heating pad and ice pack, and took some ibuprofen, all of which seems to have gotten me back to semi-normal.

* For this week's fantasy football game, I had three choices for 2 RB spots: Michael Pittman (TB), Anthony Thomas (CHI), and Moe Williams (MIN) (I'm sure those of you who participate in this sort of thing see what's coming). Pittman and Thomas were facing run defenses of similar rank, while Williams was facing a weaker defense but appeared that he'd be losing carries to the returning Michael Bennett. So I talked myself into starting Thomas and Pittman... and thus missed out on Williams' 2 TD catches and 171 total yards.

The good news is that I have about a 7 point lead going into tonight with Donovan McNabb. I have half a mind to bench him to preserve the win, though even in his depths he's not caused me to lose that many points.

* In good holiday news, we got a new Christmas tree this weekend, a 6.5 foot fakeroo (can't have real ones in the residence hall, fire codes) to replace a 3 foot fake that could open and close like an umbrella. In bad holiday news, we don't know where we can put it in the apartment where it won't be in the way.

* We got the stuff we bought at Waterford last week, and it came with a care manual. We thought this was unusual, until we got to the passage noting that the faceting and shaping of some pieces can, if left in direct sunlight, focus beams to the point where it'll scorch wood. That's good to know.

* As irritating as it is to go to Walter Brown and see the alma mater drop a 4-0 decision to UNH, it's exponentially more dispiriting when you realize that the last time BU scored on UNH's Mike Ayers was 17:19 into the third period of a BU win over UNH on JANUARY 23, 2003. The Terriers have not scored on Ayers in 254 minutes and 24 seconds of hockey. I'm not sure if there is a NCAA record for longest shutout streak by a goalie against any one specific team, but if there is Ayers must be getting close.

And in a move I should have made a long time ago, I've added Amanda Conaway to the links at left. A Terrier with the good sense not to get mixed up with either the RA or college bowl crowd while at BU as a student, Miss Amanda has nevertheless become stuck with us now. Thankfully, she's taken the energy that most of us put towards trivia and/or regulating and put it towards a fine appreciation of various distilled and fermented beverages. What were the rest of us thinking?

Proving that I'm not the only person thinking about this, the Blogalicious Lone Star State correspondent, Brian Hight, reports that:

* Troy State will be heading to the Sun Belt next year (in fact, the conference web site notes that they'll be a full member in 2005).
* Utah and New Mexico States have already been poached by the WAC (if I read the papers at all, I'd have noticed this happened a couple of weeks ago).
* Rumor has TCU ditching CUSA and joining up with Mountain West, thwarting a mini-Southwest Conference reunion.

Sticking with CUSA, it'll also likely be losing St. Louis and UNC-Charlotte to the Atlantic 10 (offer made for them to join the A10 today), and Army has already given notice that it's returning to independent status in football after 2004. Which makes things tough for CUSA, as it loses some of its basketball power and (if I can count) means only 11 football teams and thus no title game (not that it'd be a huge earner, I suppose, but it's the hot thing to have).

I really have nothing to say about The Reagans, other than regardless if its yanking was caused by a populist groundswell or some Right Wing Media Death Squad, we were probably saved from four hours of crap TV. Unless you subscribe to Showtime, in which case you'll be paying to watch it. Suckers.

I was among the many that ran right out today and saw The Matrix Revolutions, mostly because if I didn't see it with coworkers today I'd probably not see it in the theater. I'd heard a lot of chatter about highly negative reviews, and while I don't think the movie was as bad as all that (I liked it better than the middle film), I can't say I'm particularly satisfied. This is in part due to the ending (which I won't go into), and part a shift away from the characters who've taken us through the story (especially Morpheus) and towards large battle scenes.

We did see the movie on an IMAX screen, which was a nice upgrade. We didn't see a lot of wannabe Neos or Trinities (apparently the first showing attracted some, which I suppose makes sense given that only the most obsessed would go to the 2:30 showing), but there was a preponderance of dorks in long coats. We had a trio of guys working their Blackberry and Wi-Fi in line, undoubtedly talking to Matrix fans in Europe or something.

While the holiday season isn't bringing a ton of films that I want to see, I am looking forward to Master and Commander, the first film based on the Aubrey/Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian. I've only read the first book (there's something like 20), and I really should re-read it given that I didn't give it as much focus as I'd have liked the first time around.

I am very much not looking forward to the new Loony Tunes movie. Apparently, no one at Warner remembers Space Jam. I was looking forward somewhat to Timeline until I found out it stars Paul Walker. I'll probably just re-read the book.

As for period pieces,The Last Samurai? Doubtful. I have a feeling I'll see Girl with a Pearl Earring given that Sarah read the book and liked it. Sticking with books, but out of period, I think I'd also like to see The Statement, based on a book by Brian Moore (whose novels, all seemingly under 200 pages, suggest that there is a way to write successful fiction without using twice as many words). And, oh yeah, there's that last Lord of the Rings movie, too.

KNEE UPDATE Had my follow-up appointment with an orthopedist today, and he thinks I may have a small tear in my knee cartilage. Where my knee isn't locking or buckling at present, he thinks it'll be OK over time. I'm not supposed to baby it, but I think I'll keep up at least some ice/heat for a while given that it does still get sore.

FOOT IN MOUTH UPDATE You've probably heard about Howard Dean's comment about being the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks. Inasmuch as his phrasing stinks (couldn't he have just called them NASCAR voters?), he does have a point. You don't have to be James Carville to realize that not winning a state more southernly than Maryland is problematic. Even moreso is that, without a Southern candidate, you have to go back to JFK to find your most recent Democrat wins in some of the southern states (most had a brief flirtation with the Dems when Carter and Clinton were running).

I also don't think southern voters will warm to a Vermonter who signed a bill legalizing gay marriage. From what polling I could find in a brief Yahoo search suggests that Wes Clark and John Edwards are up front in South Carolina, Dean is reasonably close, but at least a third of voters are undecided. I suppose if Dean does well in Iowa and New Hampshire that may help. Not sure if John McCain is a good example here or not of how that might not work.

MARRIAGE UPDATE Yesterday marked the one month anniversary. No presents were exchanged, it was more of a "it's been a month?" sort of thing.

CONFERENCE UPDATE The Big East invited five schools to join starting in 2005 - Louisville, Cincinnati, South Florida, De Paul, and Marquette (the definition of "east" apparently not being an issue). This helps the basketball side, but doesn't help the football side much (Louisville is in and out of the top 25, Cincy and USF aren't within yelling distance, and the other two don't have teams).

CUSA will replace their defectors with Rice, Tulsa, SMU, Central Florida, and Marshall. This gives them a slight bump in football, as they'll now have enough teams to hold a title game. The MAC can hold steady, as they'll only drop to 12 teams (preserving their title game).

The real loser will be the WAC, who will drop to seven schools (one of which, Louisiana Tech, is geographically out of whack with the other schools in the conference). They could try to work a merger with the Sun Belt, though I wonder if they'll try to poach the likes of Utah State, Idaho, and New Mexico State and force Louisiana Tech out, making them an obvious choice for a Sun Belt now centered on Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Tennessee. As for the Sun Belt, then left with six teams? They could go after Troy State (a football independent), but after that... well, I may be the only person not employed by the conference or a member school thinking about that.

I have to vent regarding fantasy football for a second. It's week 9, I've started four different QBs.

Donovan McNabb started for several weeks, but only succeeded in getting Rush Limbaugh fired. Sadly, I didn't get any points for that.

After a few weeks of ineffectiveness I tried Kyle Boller, but was apparently a few weeks ahead of the curve. I dropped him and started Jake Delhomme, who wasn't much better.

I thought I had something trading for Rich Gannon, but his torn labrum relegated this to the "seemed like a good idea at the time" pile. I then let myself get caught up in my annual fantasy football cutsiness and started Marques Tuiasosopo, who then went out and injured his knee. Really, I should threaten the Raiders with picking up Rick Mirer this week. Then again, they may not care. Have they gotten Vince Evans out of cryostasis?

All of this is compounded by McNabb finally having a good week, scoring 10.34 points to Tui's -0.65. I have a 9 point lead going into tonight, and thus have to hope that Rod Smith and Adam Vinatieri have off nights. I am rooting for a 8-3 Pats win.

(I could also complain about Yahoo! marking Eric Barton as questionable and then having him score twice as many points as Joey Porter. I won't even go there with Anthony Thomas and his 2 TDs, as I probably wouldn't have played him even if he wasn't also marked questionable.)

We're back from a foray to Maine to visit Sarah's family. We did something this weekend that I'd never done before: seen a BU-Maine game at Alfond Arena. BU played pretty well... after the first period. Problem being that they played like crap in the first 20 minutes, giving up the two goals that stood for Maine's 2-1 win. Now, because you didn't ask for it, my ranking of the Hockey East arenas:

NR. Mullins Center, UMass-Amherst. Never been, the only Hockey East venue I've never been to. BU's lone trip to Amherst this season is on the same day as CBI regionals. Wait 'til 2004-05, I suppose.

8. J. Thom Lawler Arena (ne Volpe Sports Complex), Merrimack College. OK, they've renovated Volpe (which we called the Simplex, given that it was wooden bleachers and an ice surface), but they're not moving up until I get to go see the finished product.

7. Schneider Arena, Providence College. Completely drab, soulless building which has always been about a third-full when I've gone to games there. There's also been a lack of a crowd, though that seems to be improving (last night's game against UMass had about 2/3 capacity).

6. Matthews Arena, Northeastern University. Even though it was renovated within the last 10 years, it still looks like a dump. They also have some of the least comfortable seats in Hockey East. Though they at least have seat backs, unlike some of the people who'll be coming up. Crowd is usually pretty vocal, and they hate us, so that always ratchets things up. It's also fairly easy to get to as long as you're not driving.

5. Conte Forum, Boston College. The first of the new Hockey East arenas, it's also my least favorite. It has nothing to do with the team that plays there, but rather the relative crapitude of the building. Many of the seats do not have backs. There are windows that put light on the ice during day games (though you don't have many of those anymore). The audio is horrific. The traffic to get out of the place nightmarish (though taking the T is reasonably simple). Being new it does have amenities that older places do not have. But it's middle of the pack, no doubt.

4. Tsongas Arena, UMass-Lowell. It's a great building, but it's really not UML's (the AHL Lowell Lock Monsters are the major tenant). The building holds over 6000, and it's rare to have it even half full. So while it gets points for being new, it loses points for atmosphere. It may also be the seediest location for Hockey East home ice, though the neighborhood around Matthews can be tricky.

I was actually a much bigger fan of the Tully Forum, Lowell's home ice when I first started going to away games. A Depression-era building, it was dumpy but lively. Out in the middle of nowhere, you either had to subsist on concessions (which were pretty good and reasonably priced) or dare a walk up the road (no lights or sidewalks) to a Chinese restaurant in a colonial-era house. Apparently the Forum had a very colorful history back in Lowell's lower division days, as Dave Hendrickson recounts here.

3. Alfond Arena, University of Maine-Orono. A pretty high ranking for a building I've been to once, and is actually kind of dumpy, but the crowd was very into the game and not as rude to the visiting fan as I'd heard. The building is one of those 1960s tent-looking constructions where the roof is wood and some sort of crushed-mineral paneling that I always think has asbestos in it. There are many bench seats without backs, though they're so close together that backs would wipe out what little aisle space there is already. They could have the worst sound system in the league; even when it was silent it was a chore to hear what was being said.

Still, it was a fun place to see a game and I'd go back no problem.

2. Whittimore Center, University of New Hampshire. It's new, great sight lines, and the crowd is into the game, for the most part. The fans can be annoying (they're still getting used to being good, I think), and parking can be problematic (it always seems like we're parked a mile away). Still, it's a great facility.

Though I would be remiss if I didn't mention Snively Arena. Lively Snively was this wooden airplane hangar type building with wooden bleachers. The press were herded up on some sort of catwalk. Even so, I always enjoyed going up there for games. Concessions were cheap though limited access points meant missing game time. Still, fun atmosphere.

1. Walter Brown Arena, Boston University. Yes, I'm a homer. Sue me. Even though it's a concrete bunker with a corrugated metal roof that's low enough for pucks to hit, it's our concrete bunker with a corrugated metal roof that's low enough for pucks to hit. Besides, it's hard for me to speak ill of a rink I've overnighted in twice.

And as an added bonus, my five favorite non-Hockey East arenas.

5. Fleet Center, Boston MA. BU seems to do pretty well there, but it's too big and impersonal. And for all the Beanpots I've seen won there, the biggest moment I've spent there that was college hockey related didn't involve the Terriers at all - it was the 1998 final where Michigan beat BC.

4. Bright Center, Harvard University. We play Harvard every year just before Thanksgiving, which means I go to one game here every other year. It's not a bad building, but it's oddly shaped and has very low glass relative to the compact seating area. I do love all the team pictures and historical stuff, and I have great memories of walking over for the 1990 tilt with some fellow RAs.

3. Yost Arena, University of Michigan. Nice house, good crowd, but the hockey as Rocky Horror Picture Show vibe is off-putting. It would have helped if the one game I'd seen here actually been a game (I got to see the Wolverines pummel Western Michigan).

2. Gutterson Fieldhouse, University of Vermont. Unbelieveable crowd, especially when you consider that it was a healthy mix of students and locals. They may be all granola, but when it's game time, it's game time.

1. Boston Garden, Boston MA. 1991: I'm up in the balcony loge, which I swear is a section of seats bolted to the ceiling. We have to bend down to see the scoreboard. I'm with my friend Leo at the Hockey East title game. It's OT, and Shawn McEachern goes streaking up the right side. He fires. Game. Bedlam. Even in the bloodiest of nosebleeds, bedlam. I miss that building.

I got some very good news yesterday afternoon. I'm going to be on Millionaire!

My taping is on November 20, with an airdate of early to mid-June. If you're in the NYC area, I think I can get tickets if you'd like to attend. One side note is that if I don't get to the hot seat that day I'll have to come back on December 2, so it could be you'll get to attend a taping and not see me.

I have to admit this is all just a bit unreal. Sarah thought I was fairly subdued when I told her, and I probably was. Like the wedding, I don't think this is going to become real to me until the week beforehand.

For those of you who I may ask to serve as a phone-a-friend, note that the times you have to be available are pretty long. Something like 9-12 in the morning and 1-7:15 in the afternoon/evening. Even tougher, for the afternoon shift you can only be available by regular phone, not cell (not sure why, but I didn't think to ask).

Now if I can only get a million dollar question on the Chinese foo dog...

To use the local vernacular, I am wicked pissed at Dunkin' Donuts. They have apparently discontiued the cruller.

For those of you not familiar with the cruller, it is a braided doughnut, straight rather than round. Most often plain, but also often available in chocolate and marble (plain and chocolate braided together), crullers have been around for ages, but they seem to have a particular resonance with locals, myself included.

In the place of the cruller is the "stick," which I've not seen but the description in the article makes it sound like a doughnut loaf. Not surprisingly, much of the change is being blamed on how the dougnuts are made, and that you can't make crullers by machine.

As you'd note in the article, crullers were one of the four original types of doughnuts that Dunkin' Donuts offered. Thus, the company is moving even farther away from its roots as it tries to ape Starbucks and Krispy Kreme.

Now you may be wondering why this is bothering me so, given that I treated the arrival of Krispy Kreme with a "doughnuts are doughnuts" mentality. Well, there are three reasons.

1. I like crullers more than regular doughnuts. They're more substantial.

2. Faster isn't better. Thinking along the lines of James Dinan's recent post, my guess is that In-n-Out Burger is a little slower than McDonald's. Yet I don't think I have ever met anyone who's had both that prefers the latter to the former.

3. The idea that doughnut technology is somehow making the cruller obsolete is farcical. It strikes me as odd that the PhDs at Dunkin' Donuts Laboratories can't come up with a cruller-making machine. If you can make pretzels by machine, you should be able to do the same with crullers. And if it's an issue of the dough, why not just use the old dough for the crullers? Or are they using the same dough to make everything? Time to start checking the bagels.

I'm also annoyed as it's another jab at local foods. I'm sure most of you don't remember the Crown Pilot cracker fiasco. Long a staple of chowder-eaters, Nabisco announced in 1996 that it was going to do away with the cracker. This pissed off the wrong folks (many of them Mainers, who I've come to learn shouldn't be riled en masse, especially about something they consider traditional to Maine), and Nabisco relented.

I'm not sure that the same sort of groundswell will happen here. For their part, Dunkin' Donuts doesn't even recognize the change on its website. There's news of their fall doughnut flavors, the new coffee products they're rolling out, and plenty of rosy business news about parent company Allied Domecq Quick Service Restaurants (who also own Baskin-Robbins and Togo's). ADQSR is part of a British-based company, which might explain the whole mess. It's part of a long-term revenge strategy for the Revolutionary War. Damn limeys.

While you can lodge comments on line, I plan on penning an actual letter. Anyone who cares to do so as well should direct their missive to:

Dunkin' Donuts Customer Care
14 Pacella Park Drive
Randolph MA 02386

You can even call to complain (800-859-5339), though I tend to express myself better in writing. Though Sarah has warned me off of using phrases like "traitorious bastards" and "craven morons," which is probably for the best.

While I didn't know that the NRA had a blacklist (or as they term it, a fact sheet), I can't say that I'm surprised.

Some of the names on it are of little surprise (the ACLU, for example), but some of the other names were interesting.

From the world of sport, the Kansas City Chiefs and Royals, and the St. Louis Rams and Cardinals, are all on the list. In fact, there's fairly prominent KC/St. Louis representation for organizations who are supposed to be anti-gun. Must be the Missouri chapter of the NRA pulling its weight.

Based on the list of celebrities and media outlets, it appears that stalwart NRA supporters can't go to the movies or watch any of the three major networks. Fox is OK, which is no surprise. The WB, UPN, and PAX aren't listed, which makes me think that perhaps the only people watching those are NRA members.

The celebrity list is actually kind of entertaining, as for every Sean Connery, George Clooney, and Julia Roberts you get an Estelle Getty, a Michael E. Knight, and a Dweezil Zappa. This doesn't even mention the likes of Arlene Dahl, Nancy Lee Grahn, Grace-Lynne Ingle, Stephen Nichols, Peter Reckell, and others - that I've never heard of. Marla Maples is also listed as an actress, which I'm sure she's flattered by.

There are also a number of religious groups, including such radicals as the US Catholic Conference and those bomb-throwers at the United Methodist Church.

I suppose the stories about the list are just another part of the vast conspiracy against gun rights in America (I'm sure this website doesn't help). I'll go hole up with my AR-15 and Pauly Shore movies... he's still OK, isn't he?

I got to see the good and bad sides of Fox programming last night.

The bad, of course, is the new installment of Joe Millionaire. I will say that it is at least mildly entertaining bad, in many of the same ways that such shows are. Based on what little I have to compare on, I like the new guy more than Evan. Perhaps the most entertaining revelation last night is that saying Grace is not very common in Europe. Or at least among European gold-diggers, one of whom did a very lame impersonation of a televangelist (I guess they get the 700 Club in Sweden). I will say the look on the new guy's face after that was priceless. Interestingly, that woman is still among those in contention to marry a faux millionaire. Maybe he's saving her in hopes of crushing her, mentally. Though I think it would take much, much less to do so in her case.

On the good side is 24, which I missed last year. There are some changes, but having skipped a season didn't really set us back any. I won't go into details in case some of you taped it for future viewing, but I will say that I'm looking forward to the season (except for Elisha Cuthbert's hair, which is in a style I don't particularly care for).

We get a publication at work called RA Manager which is usually a pretty good monthly newsletter about issues of importance (or at least interest) to anyone who manages resident assistants.

This month's lead story, though, seems a little dated. Entitled "Living on the Straight Edge," it discusses the straight edge philosophy and the "hundreds of adolescents and twentysomethings" who've adopted the no alcohol/drugs/casual sex credo. The article goes on to note that "[s]ome of these young people may be coming to a campus near you - if they aren't already visible at your school."

This would all be well and good if this were, say, the issue of RA Manager from 20 years ago. Heck, there are probably RDs who got the issue who were or still are straight edge. Not that there isn't relevance for today's college students, but terming it like it's something new is kind of worrying. I'm expecting an article sometime next year about that new "rap" music and the spine-shattering danger of breakdancing.

Seems like a good time for bullet points.

* Why do I see paralells between the current presidential brouhaha at the alma mater (see Monty's blog for details) and the transfer of power in any given banana republic?

* I'm fairly non-plussed about the Grady Little firing, which when combined with all the big contacts expiring next season makes me think that '04 may be the year of the great Carmine Hose Meltdown. That or they're going to win 115 games and still not win the World Series. Which, I have to admit, would be kind of funny.

* The RD I share the office with here was at the Pats-Browns game this past Sunday, and lived to tell about it. Not that there was much to tell in a 9-3 game.

* My knee is about 85 percent. I can walk pretty much normally, but I have the occasional limping moment.

* I'm getting towards the end of Quicksilver, and it's not too bad if a bit slow (I suppose it's setting things up for future payout, which would be fine if I could move on to the next book now instead of having to wait for April).

* I love the Bruins. In four home games, they managed to beat the Red Wings, tie the Devils, but lose to both Carolina and the NY Rangers. Maybe they should just stay on the road (where they're 5-1-1 with wins over NJ, Colorado, and Dallas).

* It also bears mentioning that after two failed attempts to get BU hockey coach Jack Parker behind they Bruins' bench, the B's have one of his former players, Mike Sullivan, who graduated from BU THE YEAR BEFORE I DID. Things like this should stop bothering me, but they won't.

* I am involved in a pumpkin-carving contest this afternoon, which should be interesting given that I have very, very limited artistic skills. I'm told that there will be templates and such for facilitating the carving, but I'm still thinking there's going to be ugliness. On the positive side, perhaps we can roast the seeds, which I've always found tasty.

* The Ireland recap is going slowly, but will pick up now that I've resized the photos. The mistake I made was trying to resize all of them at one go, which made my computer well-nigh unusable for 3 hours yesterday. Thankfully two of those hours were taken up by lunch and a meeting.

* The Top 50 Competition Movies of All Time, as you can thus imagine, is going even slower. I'd meant to pick it up again by now, but I'm trying to get Ireland down while it's still somewhat fresh. Given that, if you have suggestions for the list feel free to email them along.

Considering I watched about 3 minutes of the World Series this year I won't crow too much publicly about the Marlins' win, though I've just noticed that three former Red Sox hurlers - Ugie, Carl Pavano, and Chad Fox - got rings with the Fishes. I knew that Ugie and Pavano were on the team, didn't know about Fox. I'd also note that it was nice to see Pudge Jr. get a ring.

Like Joe, I'm nonplussed that Jeffrey Loria gets to bask in the glory of a Series win given his history, and I kind of wish Zim had saved his field-charging to take Loria out at the knees. It's not like he has to worry about losing his job - that pretty much disappeared with Game 6's final out. Then again, given what McKeon did, maybe Zim will get the call to manage again when some team starts 8-21 next season.

The story of my weekend actually begins on Thursday, when my right knee started to give me trouble. Walking was precarious, stairs a new and unwelcome challenge. I took some ibuprofen, did the heat and ice thing, and hoped Friday would dawn with whatever the problem was in my rear-view. Of course, that wasn't to be.

So it was on Friday that I trundled over to Newton-Wellesley Hospital (my doctor being booked solid) and spent a lot of time sitting around. I got some x-rays taken, and eventually got to meet with a doctor in one of the pediatric rooms, where the only places to sit were in a regular-sized chair and a Snow White rocker that would have worked for any age up to four.

In any event, it turns out that I'd sprained my knee through some process that remains a mystery. I was given a knee immobilizer (which works fairly poorly as it's too small, though it does help keep things in place when I sleep), instructions to heat and ice much more frequently than I'd been doing, and a prescription for some big-ass Motrin tablets.

So I've spent the better part of the weekend in bed, missing a variety of engagements. I did get to watch quite a bit of football, most of it lackluster. The Tennessee-Alabama game was fairly entertaining, and the Northwestern upset of Wisconsin was notable, but most of the games didn't hold my interest.

Which is how I wound up watching a marathon of Jamie's Kitchen on Food Network. Jamie Oliver, better known for his series The Naked Chef, took on 15 young unemployed Londoners and had them go through a crash-course on becoming a chef so they could work at a new restaurant that he opened, called (appropriately) Fifteen. It actually turned out that there were only 13 at opening, as one got sacked for an incredible level of absenteeism, the other was suspended after blowing up at the head of the college where most of the instruction took place.

I'm not sure how this stacked up with NBC's The Restaurant, though there are some very similar themes (outside of training the unemployed to cook). I will say that there was probably more cursing in Jamie's Kitchen; there were some very long beeps.

As far as today goes, it was nice to see that Pats win, even if it was in a fairly ugly fashion. I am fairly dismayed at the Giants beating the Vikings in Minnesota, as I'd gone with the lads in purple in the Craig Barker cutthroat pick 'em. Seemed like a good idea at the time. At least I didn't choose this week to go with Seattle. I'm also fairly intrigued at the coming NFL Network, which has slightly re-kindled my interest in digital cable. Not that I trust the Comcast people as far as I could throw them (especially now, as I wouldn't get much drive off of my right leg), considering that the techs are probably still the same ones that were working for AT&T when they couldn't find my apartment in three chances.