I should be more, I don't know, upset, sad, dismayed, something about the Red Sox getting swept out of the playoffs. But when I think about it, 95 wins seems like the absolute maximum for this year's edition of the team.

You should go to Cooch's page and read his story about the end of the season (too lazy to put up the link, but it's on the Bruce's page, too). I really don't have to add anything else, other than to say I should start preparing now for all the new names.

I suppose I now have the "we got beat by the best" impetus to root for the White Sox, and I'm marginally interested in having back to back seasons where long-cursed teams finally win the big one. I could also support a Houston win, but they're a bit too trendy for my taste.

Unrelated to anything baseball, had a pretty entertaining day today. Started out by going to the Topsfield Fair, which bills itself as the country's oldest agricultural fair. We did see the New England's largest pumpkin, and some summer squash arranged and painted to look like KISS (had I only brought the camera), but we really went to see the dogs. There was an agility session, followed by a border collie demo, followed by the state police K9 unit (note that, to the best of my knowlede, no dogs participated in more than one session).

The agility was interesting, clearly not what you see during the Great Outdoor Games and such. Many of the dogs were beginners, and showed it. They'd clear the first obstacle, kind of half-complete the second, stop, scratch, sniff some interesting patch of ground, do another obstacle in reverse, etc. Still fun to watch, and we got to see several types of dogs try agility, not just the Jack Russells and border collie/ Aussie sheepdog types. This ran on both sides of the spectrum, as there were some bigger dogs (labs, retrievers, even a Tervuren that was the size of a small horse) and smaller ones (corgis and a Scottie dog).

We did see some other displays, got to pet a goat, and ate the usual fair fare. The rain cut things a little short (we never did see the K9 unit), but it was a good time.

Tonight we did something a little less bucolic and went back in to Agganis Arena (after being their last night for the hockey team's 4-0 exhibition win over the University of Toronto) to see the David Gray show. If you're a fan, I would recommend getting tickets. He puts on a solid show, nice mix of new stuff and old, and gives you your money's worth. Doesn't chat much with the audience, which was interesting but not particularly problematic.

I don't have Craig's gift (or note-taking materials) for putting together a set list, but I can give you the first five songs:

1. "Nos Da Cariad" (Life in Slow Motion)
2. "Please Forgive Me" (White Ladder)
3. "The One I Love" (Life in Slow Motion - if you've heard a new song by him on the radio lately, it was probably this one.)
4. "Lately" (Life In Slow Motion)
5. "Slow Motion" (do you need me to tell you?)

I can't place the sixth song, but he did follow it up with "Sail Away" and "This Year's Love" (both White Ladder). Then followed mostly stuff from the new album. He did a 4 or 5 song encore, ending with "Babylon." Sadly for the wife (and for me, as I also like it), he did not do "Say Hello, Wave Goodbye," perhaps not surprising as it's 9 minutes long and thus hard to work into the set. I'd have liked him to play a longer set and end with an encore of this and "Babylon," but what do I know?