While it's not at the Twilight Zone level of the Ron Zook or Frank Solich firings, I'm annoyed at Notre Dame's firing of Ty Willingham today.

Willingham becomes the first Notre Dame head coach to get fired before the end of his initial contract. I don't necessarily find that annoying, but it's irritating to think that lesser coaches (hello, Gerry Faust) got that consideration when they probably didn't deserve it.

More annoying is that Willingham spent three years installing a new offense, only to get canned just as he's starting to get all of the players recruited specifically for that offense into the starting lineup. Then again, the problem may be more defensive in nature (see the late losses to BC and Pitt and this past weekend's thumping by USC, which proves that I should watch the whole game as I didn't think it got that bad).

Most annoying - I don't think Willingham would have gotten the gate if Urban Meyer wasn't out there. Not that it's his fault; that lies squarely with the alumni, tout sheet writers, and other loudmouths who've been fueling the fire since September.

What it comes down to, I suppose, is that I'm irritated that Notre Dame is allowing itself to fall prey to the same inanities that bedevil other division 1A programs. I know they're not perfect, but the idea that Notre Dame approaches college football differently from other schools is in the ICU and fading. I suppose it was only a matter of time (and, of course, money).

Stealing a page from Craig, here’s my 24 hours of football (from over the last 4 days):

HIGH SCHOOL: While I didn’t see the game, it is my sad duty to report that the Manchester-Essex Regional High School Hornets fell to our hated rivals from Georgetown, thus tagging the Hornets with a 0-11 record for the season. I’m not sure if it’s the first winless season in school history, but I have to think it’s the first 11 loss season they’ve ever suffered. The team was very young, having graduated many of the players who led the team to the conference title last season. Better things have to be ahead for 2005.

COLLEGE: When did Craig James become the BCS’s bitch? It seems like every time I saw him talk he was spouting off on why the teams from outside of the BCS arrangement didn’t deserve to make it. He felt very strongly that BC deserved to make it over Utah or Boise State – this before BC got slapped around at home by Syracuse, keeping the Orangemen alive for a BCS berth at 6-5.

Nope, nothing wrong with the BCS at all.

I was rooting for Texas A&M against Texas, both because they’re my default Texas team and because it could get two non-BCS teams into the mix. I didn’t expect A&M to win, but I thought they played pretty well. I had the same reasons for rooting for Notre Dame over USC (ok, they’re not my default Texas team, but you get my drift), and they more or less went the same way as the Aggies.

Oddly enough, the BC-Syracuse game is probably the one I watched the most of, primarily because the result was so unlikely. I had resigned myself to seeing BC in the Fiesta, but should have taken my lesson from the Sox and kept the faith.

I felt badly about Louisville beating Cincinnati 70-7, as the Cardinals went the Bob Stoops route to trying to impress voters to hopefully make up ground in the polls. Because, really, it’s not going to work. Voters know that the Bearcats stink; you don’t get extra credit for pounding that sort of team (or shouldn’t). I suppose they may have had Texas lost.

And I’d like to call a quick truce with northern New England to give kudos to the UNH football team, who won their first 1-AA playoff game ever by handing Georgia Southern its first first round loss ever (and doing so in Statesboro, no less).

PRO: My viewing of the NFL today was impeded by the drive back from Maine and some playing of one of those vintage video game things that have the games loaded into the controller box (the wife got one for her birthday that includes Ms. Pac Man, Xevious, Galaga, and Pole Position – I’m not sure why Pole Position is included with a handset of Namco games, but I’m digging it).

I did see most of the Pats game, and the real story there was the field. It seems like every year at this time the pounding brought by the MLS and NFL make the field a quagmire when there’s rain.

And there was rain today. Boy howdy, was there rain (I think it was the rain the UNH got to play in last night).

The Revs have to find a new home. I happen to know a place where there’s a new turn field paid for by the WUSA. They’d need to put in some new seating, but it’s a nice Boston location in an area with a lot of students. You just have to make sure you don’t have any home games during finals, lest there be more riots.

Address all inquiries to Dr. Aram Chobanian, 2 Sherborn Street, Boston.

I did watch goodly portions of both Thanksgiving games, even that ugly Dallas-Chicago match up. I had picked Dallas as one of my teams in Craig’s cut-throat league, so it was the one time during the year that I lean for the Cowboys to score enough points to beat another team I don’t care about in a situation that will not lead to a playoff berth.

Then again, the way the NFC is going Dallas may still have a shot if they win out.

I also picked Miami in their tilt against the 49ers. I liked the way they played against Seattle the week previous, and figured I had to take them at some point. Why not now?

I’d considered taking both Miami and San Francisco as a strategic two points. Probably a good thing I didn’t, though at some point before the end of the season I’ll still have to take the Niners. Ugh.

I’d thought the Bengals-Browns game went to OT when I saw the score there, but then reminded myself that the NFL doesn’t use the NCAA tiebreak. It’s games like this that make fantasy geeks all tingly.

Now that Eli Manning is 0-2, are we ready for Warner’s second go ‘round? Will they try to get Kerry Collins back from Oakland? Do they have Vince Evans’ number in their Rolodex?

There’s also been an unusual amount of confusion by announcers today. Jim Nantz called Corey Dillon “Warrick Dunn” a couple of times, and Phil Simms had trouble keeping Chester Taylor and Travis Taylor separate. Mike Patrick also noted that it was still odd seeing Warren Sapp in any other uniform than Denver’s – I think the orange confused him.

Are condos evil?

Admittedly, this is kind of an unusual question, given that I know a few people who own condos and they all seem to have made out fine on the deal. But these people own condos in an urban context, where condos make a good option when put against the smallish stock of houses and the lack of return one gets from renting.

My question comes from my current suburban context, where there are plenty of houses and even a few places where one could build more. On some level, I'm thinking that the condo market, purposefully or otherwise, is propping up the high cost of houses by being the only affordable option that results in actual property ownership.

Now, if people didn't want condos you'd assume they wouldn't sell. But they seem to be (based on what I see being built), so I'm trying to sort out whether they're popular or people are just giving in. Like with the root canals, I may be talking through my hat and looking for a scam where none exists.

My concern here may be fueled by condo projects that went up in my home town when I was in high school and college, many of which struggled to find full occupancy. I suppose they're full now, but the years of seeing places with as few as four units only half full makes me skeptical.

In any event, thoughts on this are welcome. Happy Thanksgiving to all where a Happy Thanksgiving would apply!

I think the person who came up with the metaphor of herding cats for a difficult task was, at some point, a middle school gym teacher.

At least, that's my theory based on my experiences this week, where I was involved with trying to corral up to 60 7th and 8th graders. Thankfully, there are three teachers, and the weather's been nice enough that outdoor stuff is available.

I think that gym has been the hardest subject to sub for so far given that the students are (a) semi-anonymous, and (b) in a large room with several exits, some out of the locker rooms. It went OK, but it was much more touch and go than regular classroom assignments where the students have work and there's one door.

Anyway, here's one for the P.E. teachers.

So there's good news and bad news relative to my just-completed trip to the dentist.

The good news is that one of the fillings went off without a hitch. The bad news is that the other was worse than expected and a root canal, with a post, crown and all the trimmings, is in the offing. Can't say I'm thrilled at the prospect.

(And for all of you who are planning on posting saying that it's what I get for waiting so long to return to the dentist, Sarah's beaten you to it. So don't bother.)

While I am disliking both the likely pain and certain cost of the procedure, there's also a feeling that I'm pretty much throwing money down a hole. It seems like anyone who's had a root canal has pretty meagre results. I'm wondering if it wouldn't make more long-term sense to chuck the tooth and get an implant. Granted, this could be the inexperience with things dental talking.

I'll open the floor to discussion - do I have any options here, or do I just suck it up and get the root canal?

OK, I've really got nothing to say, but I'm trying to kill some time before going to the dentist to get some cavities drilled. I'm told that most of what's coming is minor, but given my continuing stance on the lack of progress in dental technology since the 15th century, I'm not looking forward to this.

Given what some of you've been through recently (hello, Greg), I have no right to be a baby about this. On the other hand, having a blog gives you a licence to whine, doesn't it?

I've not said anything about reality TV in a while (and I know you've missed it), but there is one particularly annoying thing that's become more obvious on The Apprentice. There's an increasing amount of post-taped boardroom dialog from Trump (and at least once from Carolyn), which stands out given that it sounds different. I don't know the technical terms to use here, but it just sounds remarkably different. Content-wise it sounds a little scripted, too, given Trump's usual off the cuff remarks. You'd think with the two-plus hours of boardroom they'd be able to get 10 good minutes, but apparently not.

Greetings from the computer in the lobby of the Hampton Inn in Voorhees, New Jersey! Sarah and I are here for a wedding, as fellow BUCBer Chris Rosenberg takes the plunge.

This is a very positive end to a week that saw me attend a funeral on Tuesday for a family friend and former co-worker of my mother. She had the same cancer as her husband, which was also the same sort of cancer as my mother. As you can imagine this has raised some warning signs regarding unusual environmental exposures (especially as we all live near the town Highway Department yard), though my mom and the friend's husband were both long-term smokers. Not sure if it's time to go all A Civil Action on people or not.

In a lot of ways, Tuesday marked the end of our neighborhood. The people I remember growing up are all pretty much dead (outside of one family that moved in next door when I was in late elementary/junior high). As much as I went to mourn this woman, I also went to mourn the end of where I grew up. I suppose this happens to everyone eventually, but I'd not really considered it until Tuesday.

This was also the first non-Catholic funeral I've ever attended (not counting graveside-only funerals), which suggests I'm a little closer to Mike Kellerman's Irish Catholic cocoon that I'd imagined previously. For those of you who don't get that reference, please peruse an episode guide for Homicide: Life on the Streets and don't expect me to say anything about wanting to plotz.

Anyway, more positive focus tomorrow for Chris and Ali. It should be a joyous time!

I am proud to announce that, like one of the Coreys (Haim, I think), I am now licensed to drive.

This may come as a surprise to some of you, assuming that most people of my age got their license years ago. I managed to avoid this through a curious mixture of disinterest and city living.

Unlike many of my fellow teens, I didn't care all that much about driving. I was fortunate enough to have older friends who had their licenses, so as I neared the usual age the lack of a license didn't weigh on me as much. So I didn't really do too much to get one (though I did eventually take driver's ed and take a lackluster go at the driving test).

Then there was the good decade or so that I was living in Boston, where having a car is often a disadvantage. I got an ID to take care of the various things that require one, but never really thought about driving.

This did make the time I lived at home a little dicey, not to mention my time out at Babson. There was only so much I could do on foot in either location.

As it is with so many things, it was the wife that got me moving towards actually obtaining my license. And as it is with many of those things, it's probably for the better.

Not that getting it was that easy. In Massachusetts you take the road test with a state trooper (they took over the Registry police force about 15 years ago), and they don't often pass you the first time around. In fact, the first time I took the test the trooper who rode with me didn't even get the stamp that they use to endorse the learner's permit until my test (bad luck for the 2 or 3 people who went before me). Not that it mattered; I was told that I needed more experience. This based on a test whose trickiest element was a three point turn.

The second test went well - until I hit the curb in front of the Registry at the end of the test. The third time proved to be the charm, ironic in that (a) I had a different trooper this time, and (b) I think I drove better during my two other tests.

I've not really taken the car out on my own too much, as I don't often go places without the wife and gas is too expensive to go joyriding. At some point I'll get out on the open road. I'll try to warn you before that happens.

After a couple days of processing, there's not much more I can add to what some of my fellow bloggers at left have said about the election.

But there was one interesting statement made by Tucker Carlson during the CNN coverage. He noted that after Goldwater lost, the GOP spent some time "in the woods" so to speak, writing and thinking about the party and conservatism, setting a base for the GOP success over the last 20 years or so.

I'm wondering if it isn't time for the Dems to do the same. Not that they need to cede the playing field, of course, but rather that it may be a good time to stop and really think about long-term focus and direction. Right now it's kind of a mess. While he was speaking in a different context, I think Danny Concannon had a point about Dems being bumfuzzled a bit.

Going back to suggestions made by Cooch and Boggie, if you really are concerned about where our government is taking us, just showing up to vote every two to four years may not be enough. I was heartened to read about a number of people my age (and younger) taking time to work at polls, which is a nice break from the string of retirees who usually inhabit polling places.

I would also like mention Dwight and Craig's burgeoning Mascot Party, of which I think I'd have to be a charter member given my Yahoo profile picture. Please note it is the only picture I've ever used.

Sticking with Dwight's comments for a second, I was also disappointed with the skating rink turned electoral map on NBC. Horribly underutilized. I mostly watched ABC and CNN. You'd think it was ABC's first time covering a Presidential election, given the overall lack of coordination. Peter Jennings also seemed to be having a lot of trouble with the touch screen that accessed maps and such. Good thing he's Canadian; his lack of touch screen prowess could have messed up a polling place big time.


CNN was as CNN does, though they were being very cautious with calling states. On the other end, the first call for New Hampshire that I heard came from a guy on our local NBC affiliate. I suppose he had less to lose than a national anchor.

While I can't speak for other locations, I can say that voting in ward 2, precincts 1 and 2 in Beverly, Massachusetts is going swimmingly. Having the flexibility to vote in the early afternoon, after lunch and before work lets out, is a real plus. No lines, no lawyers trying to disenfranchise me, and no chads.

Speaking of which, I'm not sure why more locations don't use optical machines. I imagine there's a technology investment to make, but the tech is pretty straightforward. Not to mention that if you've ever had to fill out a form, or went to kindergarten, you understand the single most important principle to voting this way: color in the lines. Even I, as someone who could never stay in the lines in my youth, can get the hang of these ballots.

There's really nothing I can say about the process here, too easy. The benefit of living in a state where the results were never in doubt, if you can call it that.

With election day looming, I'm picking up where I left off in 2002 and giving out my official Blogalicious endorsement. There's only one this time around, given that all the other races on my ballot are state or county. If you want my view on the Essex County sheriff's race, feel free to drop me a line.

Of course, the one race is pretty important. In the first post-9/11 Presidential election, you get the sense that the choice we make on Tuesday will shape America's long-term direction to a degree we haven't seen since Reagan was in office. Unlike 2000, there is a much more distinct difference between Bush and Gore. Not that those two were twins or anything, but the hot-button issue this time around - the whole terror and security thing - has made it much easier to see where these candidates diverge on all issues.

Even so, there's a great similarity to 2000 in that it seems like there's a healthy percentage of folks who aren't thrilled with Bush or Kerry. For every person who is voting for a candidate, you get the sense that there's someone else whose vote is against that person rather than for their opponent.

Or, to recognize another group, you have voters who feel like they have to vote for the major candidate that comes closest to their world view, even though their support is, well, uninspired. It's hard to get really excited by either Bush or Kerry. Which means we have to settle.

Well, I don't think you have to settle. You do have choices.

That is why for the 2004 Presidential election, Blogalicious endorses the third-party candidate of your choice.

For those of you to the left of center, that'd most likely be David Cobb of the Green Party or independent/Reform candidate Ralph Nader. For those of you on the right side of the aisle, Libertarian Michael Badnarik is probably a good choice, though social conservatives may find themselves opposed to some Libertarian positions. If Michael Peroutka of the Constitution Party is on your ballot, they may be more to your taste.

There are a number of smaller party candidates out there, especially of the Socialist variety. Check your state website to see your local ballot.

I know that a number of people get nervous voting for a third party candidate given the whole "vote for Nader is a vote for Bush" vibe from 2000. It's a legitimate concern. My personal belief is that neither major party is going to give us better candidates if we keep voting for the ones they currently give us. Of course, what we probably need is better people going into elective office, but that's another problem for another time.

Anyway, if you do have this concern, I have two suggestions:

1. Vote pair. For those of you living in states that are pretty much spoken for already, you can try to get someone who lives in a swing state and would vote third-party if they weren't in a swing state to swap votes. For example, a Massachusetts Kerry voter would vote for a given third party candidate while an Ohio Nader voter would vote for Kerry.

While vote pairing is best known in a left of center context, it's also set up for conservatives.

If you're interested in this, there is a link to a vote pairing website on Julie's blog.

2. Vote for all the third party candidates in the other races on your ballot. It doesn't send the same message, but it's something. I'd suggest even writing people in where you don't have a third choice, but given the possible ballot scrutiny after Tuesday, you may not want to put your ballot in jeopardy of getting bounced because you didn't use blue or black ink to write in your brother for county commissioner.

So that's it. I normally would urge you to vote early and often, but the way things are going that could be misconstrued. So vote your legally-allotted one time at the point in the day that makes the most sense for you.

As you may have heard, there's a new question facing all of us in Red Sox Nation.

Now what?

It's a valid question. Citizenship in RSN has generally been predicated (if not based) in the Sisyphean quest for a World Series title (rather than the eternal struggle against the Yankees, which will continue as long as both teams exist).

(Speaking of the Yankees, would it be OK to refer to them as the Tankees until they win another AL title?)

So now that the Sox have won a title, how does this change the fan base?

My argument is that, except in some smaller ways, it doesn't.

I don't mean to discount what's happened, or the euphoria that's settled over the region like a high pressure system. And I do think it'll have a positive effect on Sox fans. It'll certainly take one edge off of supporting the Old Towne Team, as detractors will have to find something else to pick on rather than 1918 and the Bambino.

(Speaking of curses, governor Mitt Romney participated in cutting down a sign on Storrow Drive yesterday that official reads "Reverse Curve" but has consistently been vandalized to read "Reverse Curse" and then "Reversed Curse". It's notable in that in climbing onto the cherry picker to help, he whacked his head on a crossbar and damn near fell off. Good thing for him he's not up for re-election until '06.)

Even with this easing of tension and the joy of a title, I don't think the core values of being a Sox fan are going to change. Expectations are going to be high, managers will continue to get ripped, and players will be cheered or booed as performance warrants (including hearing both in the same game).

Because while some things have changed, what's one Series win against a generationally-ingrained form of fandom? Or even go back before 1918, and look at the Royal Rooters. Vocal, passionate, and highly irritating, they lived and died with the Sox when the Sox were winning the Series every other year or so. If rabid support ran in Red Sox Nation in times of plenty, why will it stop now that we've found an oasis in the desert?

Consider that one of the sidebar stories, even during the Series itself, was the ultimate disposition of all the free agents on the Sox roster. We're so used to looking ahead to next year that we do so even when in the process of writing a dramatic chapter in the here and now.

Which leads me to think that being in Red Sox Nation is less about citizenship than it is about genetics. The qualities that make you part of the nation are hard-wired in your DNA. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you can enjoy the "rolling rally" that'll take over most of Suffolk County tomorrow.

OK, now I'll talk about the Sox.

(Don't take this as overconfidence; given that the Sox came back from a 3-0 defecit to get to the Series, I am well aware that Fate could very well conspire to have it done to them on the game's biggest stage.)

I have to admit to a fair amount of surprise at the 3-0 lead, especially given the offensive output in the first game. As much as having both Schilling and Pedro was supposed to work this way, it's rarely seemed like it was going to work out as hoped.

Then again, that's why Theo is the GM and I'm not.

I'm also still trying to divine something from the Sox making four errors in each of the first two games, and then getting its biggest defensive plays in game 3 from Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz. Granted, you can pin the Ortiz play on Jeff Suppan's bad base-running. You should also remember that Suppan started his career in Boston.

Also, I'm hoping last night was not the last time we see Pedro throwing for the Sox, but I'm not sure he and the team will come to an agreement. On some level I think Pedro still thinks of himself in terms of 5 to 7 years ago, while I think the team will hammer on his fragility and diminishing effectiveness after 100 pitches to squeeze him.

On a lighter note, would it have been too hard for Manny to win us all a taco in the first inning?

I can only say two things about the Fox coverage: they need to find a way to start the games before 8 pm Eastern and they need to bring Al Leiter back. I am pleased that Scooter hasn't come back, though I wish Tim McCarver would go look for him.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go barricade the door and put plywood over the windows. Just in case.

In an attempt to not discuss the 2-0 lead the Sox have in the World Series, a pointless observation about my dietary habits.

I think I like hummus now. I didn't before; past experiences led me to compare hummus to tile grout. Not sure if I'm eating a better-quality hummus now, or if my tastes have changed, but I'm eating it voluntarily.

Still not sure if I really like it. But I don't hate it.

This will probably not lead to a re-investigation into the gustatory properties of tofu. I've been down that road a few times, with poor results.

With the start of the World Series tonight, I've been thinking quite a bit about 1986.

And no, not about that play.

When the Series started that year, I was actually in New York. An open weekend in the football schedule allowed me to go to a debate tournament at the Bronx High School of Science. You'd think that a Sox fan in the Bronx that weekend would have gotten a lot of grief, but there's a certain percentage of Yankees fans who saw a Mets win as even worse than a Sox win. Being from Boston got some of my teammates free food at a deli, even.

I remember watching game 1 at the Carvel Inn, which was related to the Carvel ice cream folks of Cookie O'Puss and Fudgie the Whale fame. At least I hope they were connected, otherwise the gilded ice cream cone in the lobby would be hard to explain. This was also the first time I'd participated in getting pizza delivered (even now, I don't think you can get delivery in Manchester), and we got to needle the delivery guy by telling him the Sox were winning (the hotel being squarely in Mets territory).

We listened to game 2 on the way home from the tournament, which was problematic given all the chatter in the van. Pretending to be asleep helped for a while, but I came too close to actual sleep for this to work for the long-term.

Jump now to the dreaded sixth game at my friend Dean's house. Me, Dean, and two of his brothers are watching the game, and three of us are going nutty just where you'd expect us to go nutty. One of Dean's brothers - clearly more versed in the ways of the Sox - predicted that they'd screw up. You know the rest of the story.

Suffice it to say that I won't be watching any of this Series at Dean's house.

Looking back on the whole thing, I think I took the Series for granted in '86. The Celts were in the middle of their run with the Big Three, and the success of the Sox just seemed to follow along naturally. Even with the Pats' success now, I'm not making the same mistake this time around. It's safe to say that most of the region is following suit, though perhaps to an extent that would have been downright bizarre 18 years ago.

To that end, I will ask that if you're in the Boston area, and you don't actually have a ticket to one of the games, please STAY HOME. The last thing we need is more of the madness that followed the ALCS. I've bemoaned post-playoff violence before, and have liked to think that we weren't going in that direction. Clearly, though, we are, and that saddens me, even moreso when someone gets killed.

I'd like to think that the city will handle Series security similarly to the DNC, which seemed to go off pretty well (no one died, at least). I fear that the powers that be aren't up to the challenge, though. Don't be surprised if you see the National Guard around.

If anyone can convince me that brining Pedro into tonight's ALCS game 7 was a good idea, I'll eat my hat.

Don't get me wrong, I'm tickled to death that the Sox will be in the World Series. I just worry that a similarly boneheaded move will cost us later on.

Speaking of later on, tomorrow's NLCS game should be interesting. If things hold to form the Cards will win (rematching us from 1946 and 1967), but if the Astros take it... well, Clemens probably wouldn't pitch until they return to Houston. Bagwell would be back (as would, I think, Adam Everett), but that's not as big a story.

Not sure who I'm rooting for there.

Having just spent the last 3-plus days in Las Vegas, it's funny that the strangest thing I've seen since leaving on Friday was actually something I saw upon coming home and turning on the TV: A-Rod slapping the baseball out of Bronson Arroyo's glove.

Sin City, by comparison, was a den of normalcy. To wit, then, a short trip recap:

Friday we flew out, direct to LV on Song, Delta's attempt to be like Southwest and JetBlue. It's not a bad try for a legacy carrier, but it doesn't quite capture the mood of those other airlines. Certainly, I'd fly it again if the fares were right.

Got our car from Enterprise (more on the automotive front later), drove over to Circus Circus, where we were staying. Not a bad place, though it's on the top end of the strip away from some of the more notable establishments. It was a bit of a trial finding our way to reception and then to our room, but we got there eventually. After which we got some food, played a little, and went to bed.

Saturday we trekked out to the Hoover Dam. Before leaving, we noticed something about the car that wasn't showing the night before: a crack in the windshield. We figured we'd do our best with it and headed out.

If you've not been to Hoover Dam, and you're in the area, you should go. It's an impressive piece of engineering, especially when you consider when it was built. The "tour" was kind of duff, outside of getting to go down into one of the generating rooms (in the past you actually got to go outside at the base of the dam, they don't do that any more). But for the first time out, the tour is probably worth it.

We spent the afternoon in Boulder City, during which time we noticed our crack was growing. This necessitated a trip back to Enterprise to swap cars and work out insurance-related matters regarding the windshield (as it wasn't noted as cracked when we left the lot). We then got a a new car. I figured we'd get the Ford Focus. We got the Jeep Liberty. At the economy rate. And we were comped for the gas; we could return it dry at no charge.

Suffice it to say that if you're looking to rent a car the next time you're in Vegas, I would highly recommend Enterprise.

That night we went over to the Orleans Arena to see the Las Vegas Wranglers take on the Atlantic City Boardwalk Bullies in a preseason ECHL tilt. You could tell it was preseason as there were no names on the jersies and no programs available. The one roster sheet we could get informed us that former Merrimack College standout Rejean Stringer was playing for Vegas. We were later told that former BU player Jon Sabo may have been playing for AC. The game itself was about what you'd expect, and we saw more blood than your average Vegas heavyweight title bout.

Sunday we just kind of kicked around, drove through downtown Vegas, some general sightseeing. Ate that night at Cravings, the new buffet at the Mirage. It's kind of upscale, and the food was pretty good, but pricey for a buffet. Earlier in the day we ate at an In 'n Out Burger, which was fantastic.

Monday saw more aimless wandering, though we actually walked around Fremont Street and the downtown casino area. Went into Binion's, but didn't spend too much time anywhere. Monday night brought us to the purpose of our trip, a wedding vow renewal ceremony at the Bellagio (savvy Blogalicious readers can guess which linked person at left was one of the participants). I will say that if you want to get married in Vegas and want it to actually be classy, the Bellagio would be the way to go. Had dinner in one of the restaurants at Paris. A good time was had by all.

Tuesday we pretty much traveled all day, going from Vegas to Atlanta to Boston. It was about as much fun as it sounds. And for the third time in a row, we landed in Atlanta and had to wait for another plane to get out of our assigned gate. Whoever is in charge of that process needs to be fired.

Quick assessment: I'd go back to Vegas. Don't know if I'd go more than once a year (or even once every two), but I could see putting it in a regular rotation.

I have this habit when watching sports that I'll flip away if the team I'm rooting for gets behind by a significant amount. I go back and check, and if a comeback is being mounted I'll stay away even more so as to not upset the karma.

That being said, I watched very little of last night's ALCS game 1 after the fifth inning. I was happy to see the Sox battle back, as I was already thinking of the various media types who would have pronounced the Sox DOA if the final had been 8-0 or some such.

That also being said, Curt Schilling should be back in Boston NOW to get treatment on his ankle. Cortisone, massage, hyperbaric chamber, whatever.

In other news, remember that WTC commemorative coin that was supposedly minted with silver recovered from Ground Zero? Turns out it's pretty much a fraud; the coin is silver-plated rather than solid silver (though I suppose there was microscopic print in the ad noting that) and the origin of that silver is very much in question. The New York AG is working to block the further sale of the coins. Kind of nice when law and ethics actually are on the same side.

Just got back from a week in Orlando, vacationing with the in-laws. So what did I do this week?

Sunday Flew down, and can now recommend JetBlue to one and all. Gawked at hurricane damage on the way from the airport to the timeshare. Got a tour of Celebration, Disney's planned community, when we got lost. It looks like a movie set - bigger houses on small lots.

Monday Lazed around, didn't do anything of note.

Tuesday Went to EPCOT, which is probably my favorite Disney park (which isn't saying all that much, I'm not a park fan generally). Had my own small world moment by running into old friend Cindy Demopoulos outside of the Mexico part of the park. Thankfully, it was without thousands of singing dolls as backdrop.

Wednesday Played golf with my father in law, which suggests a certain level of charity on his part. Two holes were under construction, which meant that I got to play my ball out of bulldozer tracks a few times. I'm sure there's a rule for that occasion, but damned if I know what it is.

Thursday Nothing.

Friday Took a small shopping trip that turned into a long march when a modular home got stuck on the highway that was also under construction. Wish I'd brought the camera.

Saturday Went to Sea World. It was OK. Didn't run into anyone I knew.

Sunday Came home, got to sit in the exit row and have it be only Sarah and me for the three seats in the row. So I had leg and hip room, which is pretty much impossible on coach flights for me. Good times.

If you've never read Lord of the Flies, you can get a rough approximation of it by watching the women's team on The Apprentice.

Week one, a woman named Stacie had an odd moment with a Magic 8 Ball. It was an unfortunate capper for her budding reputation as a loose cannon, and gave the other women something to focus on. They not only met as a group to agree on getting her eliminated, they also built up the Magic 8 Ball thing into some sort of serious mental episode, a breathtaking leap of logic for a group which, as far as I can tell, has no psychological training. Even more interesting was that Trump bought it and fired Stacie, though he was likely just getting rid of a distraction.

Now, of course, with no one thing to focus on, the team is now busy going after itself. The boardroom selections this week were clearly personal, and at times the post-challenge dialog seemed lifted right off of a middle-school playground. The producers must be praying for a hair-pulling, slap-happy cat fight, and they just may get one from this group. Woe to anyone who has to work with them (or worse, be managed by them) in real life.

At this point, the only woman who looks like she could win is the one who went over to the men's side when they swapped a teammate before the first challenge.

Thinking about the show itself, am I the only person who would like to see more of the challenge itself? I get the sense that the footage of the competition is tailored to meet the results and subsuquent boardroom session, which doesn't help me get a good feel for the contestants or pick out other issues or problems that the producers didn't bother to show.

So if you're a teacher, and you leave your sub to show a video during the last block of the last day of the week, do your sub two favors:

1. Have a task associated with the movie - worksheet, notes, quiz, something. Otherwise there'll be little attention paid.

2. Choose a video with a faster pace that would require more attention. The one I got to show today - a National Geographic special on rain forests - had more focus on visual, with good-sized gaps where students felt free to add their own commentary. I actually asked one kid, "Are you going to make noise during every second of this movie?"

It probably sounds worse than it was, but a little more structure would have gone a long way.

Turns out we did have the debate on last night, though I can't say that I actually watched it. It was more on in the background more than anything else. Just from tone I got the sense that Kerry was doing a pretty good job, as W almost sounded whiny at times. Maybe next time I'll watch with the mute on and try to figure out the "winner" based on facial expressions and body language.

It is a state law in Massachusetts that if someone is waiting to use a crosswalk, an oncoming motorist must stop and allow the person to cross.

As you can imagine, it is likely the least observed law in Massachusetts (post-1900, at least). Consider that, today, when making the one major street crossing needed to get back from the train to the apartment, the car that finally stopped from me had New York plates.

I like to think they were from upstate.

Where law fails guile is often required, and I have developed a move that works if there's only one car to worry about (rather than a line of cars, where it works much less often). I make semi-eye contact with the driver, nod my head like I've been given a wave or other signal to cross, and then take a step or two. As the car continues to move I stop short and look back at the car. The driver, who has started to slow because it looks like I'm just going to cross, gets confused enough that he or she actually decides to let me cross.

The best part of this move is that its development was completely subconscious. I don't think I realized I actually had a regular move until this morning. When I had to use it against another uncooperative local driver.

In other news, I won't be watching the Presidential debate tonight, or any other night that there's a debate in 2004. They're second only to the conventions in terms of staging, and it's not like either guy will say anything to get me to watch or vote for them. Well, they could offer me a million bucks to call in and tell what color ties they're wearing. It's not like they couldn't afford it.

Two things to note how high school has changed.

1. About half of the female students wear some sort of flip-flop as their footwear of choice. Of course, I saw this in college, but I figured parents would intervene with high schoolers. Then again, if Newsweek had to have a cover article about getting parents to say no, I should be happy that these young women are wearing anything on their feet.

2. Both of the papers that Sarah gets from home had a front page story last week about a teacher exposed to mercury. Turned out that when he moved a cabinet he discovered a pan with what was called a dime-sized amount of the metal in it. I can remember handling more than that - without wearing gloves! - in my high school chemistry class. That may explain a few things, actually.

Considering that a friend of mine seemed to always have some length of magnesium wire (it burns really brightly!), I think the overall handling of materials in my high school wasn't so great. I'm sure you can't find any loose mercury of magnesium in the place, now. Probably for the best.

Good news today - we were able to get out and do some more genealogy without my body creating foreign objects.

We've started doing some work on my paternal grandmother's side of the family, as trying to farther back with the Coens would require access to records which are probably scattered around northwest Ireland. In the process, we discovered that, to some extent, I'm even more of a Mainer than Sarah.

Turns out that Nana's dad started out on Cranberry Isle, which is just to the east of Bar Harbor. Sarah lives 45 minutes to an hour west of there. I figure that gives me ancestral rights to call her a flatlander (a term not so lovingly applied to anyone who hails from parts of Maine closer to civilization than you).

So there's some Down Easter in me, which explains my fascination with Moxie and Crown Pilot crackers.

We got home from the library in time for me to see BC lose to Wake Forest - again. Welcome to the ACC. I did not get to see any of Notre Dame's win over Washington. I hope this means the Golden Domers have turned the corner for good, but caution still seems appropriate.

I also had quite the moment this evening when I ran into some former RA colleagues after eating out. We discovered that you can sum up a decade of life pretty quickly, a fact found mutually depressing. Not that it was the best time to get into deep conversation, I suppose.

Got to sub for the shop teacher the last couple of days, which was pretty good work. Worst part being that I had to show the same video to three different classes each day. There is now one episode each of Junkyard Mega-Wars and Mega Machines more or less permanently burned into my brain. If you ever need to know how to build a truck that can carry a vat of liquid without losing much, or want to hear about what might be the world's largest carrot harvester, drop me a line.

I also got to show another tape twice, but only once per day. So I'm less sick of hearing about Sky City, a proposed 3300 foot residential tower for Tokyo that would house 130,000 people. Let the dystopia begin!

But I shouldn't complain, it went pretty smoothly. I will note that the students were very adept at finding bits of wood and plastic to hit each other with, though once I confiscated a couple of pieces they tended to stop looking for replacements.

Next week I get to sub three days in an English class, but from talking to the teacher it sounds like I'll more be overseeing study hall. There will be some work assigned, but the teacher didn't seem to care what work they did as long as the assignments are completed on time. I suppose I'll get more reading done.

In Red Sox news, I was chagrined to read that the brain trust that runs MLB has banned Johnny Pesky from sitting in the dugout during games. Pesky himself seems OK with it - he spent half an hour talking to the apparatchik who sent him the letter - but from Pesky's comments it sounds like someone complained about his being there. I can understand that you don't want to give free passes for the dugout, but complaining about a guy like Pesky is a small, cheap thing to do.

It's good to know that the folks running the league are focusing on the important issues, like spare octogenarians in dugouts and pine tar that covers team logos. These are the issues that are tearing the league apart.

With the new TV season started, I've decided to change my approach towards reality shows. I'm limiting myself to one comment per week per show, tops. You may not even get that out of American Idol should it continue its trend of dullness. Maybe Ryan Seacrest's sunless tanners and hair lighteners will finally combine to make him the same shade of orangey-blond from head to toe. I'd write about that.

Anyway, America's Next Top Model started tonight on UPN. Too early to say much about it, other than they've bumped up the number of finalists to 14. That's a lot. It'll help fill out the season, but I blame The Apprentice and its large contestant base (or maybe just Mark Burnett - Survivor's got a big cast to start, too, don't they?). Regardless, it's been a pretty solid show for the genre, so take a look.

Speaking of The Apprentice, they've been trying to set up this guy named Raj as this year's Sam. Raj is a character, but he's so different from Sam that the comparison will never work (and to some extent I think they've discovered that, as they've moved on to trying to create this year's Omarosa). Anyway, in the first episode Raj shows up to the first task toting a cane, which Trump asks him about. I was praying he would respond with "You know the saying, Mr. Trump: everybody loves a cane" or that it was perfect cane weather.

Further evidence of Raj's dandyish mode of dress would be his collection of bow ties (with apologies to Monty) and that he appeared to be wearing spats in that first episode, too. Not while brandishing his walking stick, sadly.

A couple of weeks ago, I was walking past the Hotel Commonwealth in Kenmore Square and noticed a large, unfinished ground floor area of the hotel was being used as a wardrobing location for Fever Pitch.

While I know this is old ground for many of you, a quick digression.

Fever Pitch started out as a book by Nick Hornby, a recounting of his life-long fandom with the FA side Arsenal and how it impacted his life. It's a great read.

The book was made into a movie in 1997, with the lead ably played by Colin Firth. It's a nice little movie, a typically understated British film.

Now, of course, the Farrelly brothers have decided to remake it, putting the Red Sox in the place of Arsenal (not a bad choice if you're looking for an American team with obsessive fans, and both have red as a main color) and Jimmy Fallon in the place of Colin Firth (which is a real letdown, even if we're thinking in the Farrelly brothers comedy mode; it's not like they'd have cast Firth, but couldn't they have gotten someone a little closer to his level than Fallon?).

I bring this up today as Sarah and I were at the Sox game last night and was, along with the rest of the crowd, offered to stick around after the game to serve as extras for the filming of the movie's climactic scene. We were told what would happen, which seems stupid (though if you know the story it wasn't too surprising). More than a few people figured that now they didn't have to see the movie.

Jimmy Fallon had the mike at one point and got the crowd going with a "Yankees suck" comment, which was about the worst thing we'd heard all night, even sitting in the bleachers. We were sitting near entertaining drunks this time rather than obnoxious ones. They did get a little mouthy when they decided to taunt Larry Bigbie late in the game, but given that we couldn't really make out what they were yelling I don't think Bigbie was any wiser.

Got to do two things today that I hadn't before.

The first was sub in front of a regular class, as I got to fill in for a middle school foreign language teacher. This could have been dicey, given that it's been 20 years since my last French class and I've never taken Spanish. Given that I showed a video in three of the five classes, and there was in-class group work for another, the amount of damage I could have done was limited.

The first period did use a Jeopardy-style game to review several chapters. Having done this with various age groups, I would ask that anyone choosing to do this in the future:

a. Realize that a game-based review will naturally stir up competitive instincts. Have at least some detailed rules and maybe don't use gender-based teams. That just seems to make the competitive part of things worse.

b. Don't have the students make up the questions. Let's just say there was some widely divergent difficulties for questions worth the same amount of points. It'd also probably be a better review if the person making up the test created the questions, as they could then better reflect possible test questions.

c. Think twice about having students run the game. I understand the empowering aspects of this, but I found the students were more interested in getting their teams to win than actually reviewing material.

Continuing on the scandalous line, I also learned from another teacher that one of the regular subs from last year was dating a high school student in a neighboring town (she was 18, but still in school) and selling pharmaceuticals without a licence, if you get my drift. I could have Sub of the Year wrapped up already!

The other first was that I got to stand on Causeway Street in Boston in front of what used to be a McDonalds and enjoy the sunlight. For those of you familiar with the area, you know that that spot has been cloaked in darkness since sometime during Teddy Roosevelt's presidency. This section of the Green Line - from North Station to Lechemere - was the last section of elevated railway in the city.

Not that it'll be missed - in time. For now, I'm sure everyone who has to take a bus from North Station to complete the trip into north Cambridge wishes it were back.

Speaking of North Station, I appreciate the synergy and ease that one terminal for both Green and Orange Lines represents, but would it kill them to put in automatic token machines? Every time I've been through there, regardless of time, there's been a line to get tokens. I'm sure there's a perfectly bureaucratic reason for the lack of such machines.

Just as the George Harrison album promises, all things must pass.

I am now the proud owner of something that looks like a small peppercorn. Hopefully, it doesn't have any friends back at home.

Not surprisingly, I am feeling much better. Given how this one felt, I can only imagine what it's like having one that requires surgery. Let's hope that stays in the imagination. Ouch.

The next time I write here that I've been away due to a lack of things to write about, please find me and smack me in the mouth. Better yet, don't. Just wait. Something will take me down a peg. Yes, I managed to jinx myself.

Sarah and I had a pretty simple plan for the day - we were going to resume our genealogy work on my family. We were just about ready to head out the door when I started having some serious back pain and some pressure in an area where you'd prefer not to have any.

We decided to skip the research, and I took some ibuprofen and cozied up to a heating pad. This didn't help. The pain continued, and I started to have a nice combination of chills and sweats. When there wasn't any real change in my condition, Sarah made the executive decision to take me to the hospital.

So we got there, and I checked in with someone. I waited. I saw a nurse who took vitals and asked some questions. I waited. I then got to do the paperwork, and change all the info they had on me from my last visit, which was in high school. Then I waited. I got called, was given an exam room. And I waited.

Eventually, a doctor came by did some questions, etc., and from everything came to the conclusion that I had a kidney stone (for the record, Sarah came to the same conclusion consulting WebMD, though I wouldn't suggest doing that in lieu of actually seeing a doctor). They did a test and confirmed the doctor's thinking, and I got to have a CAT scan.

This was very interesting. I got to lie down on a platform which moved me through a doughnut-like ring that made up the bulk of the machine. I was told to hold my breath a couple of times while the machine took pictures. I noted the warning not to look at the laser the unit used for some purpose - and violated it repeatedly as for a fair amount of time the place where I could have seen the laser was in my line of sight.

For all that, the CAT was inconclusive. Pictures in the pelvis area weren't clear, so it could be hiding there, or it could be gone already. There's an easy way for me to discover this over the next day or two, but I'm not going to go there. If things aren't better by Monday I need to seek further medical attention.

I did get some pills for the pain, which help.

Oddly enough, while in the ER waiting room I ran into a friend of mine who's a former high school classmate. We got to talk a bit (his exam room was across from mine, and we both got to wait a bit), and it turns out that a former teacher at my old high school has recently released a book detailing her after-school work as a call girl. It should be noted that this teacher was not there during my tenure.

As far as that kind of sideline work, it beats painting houses, I suppose.

Sorry for the lack of posts, but there's been a lack of stuff to say. I've not been called to sub this week, so it's been pretty quiet.

One interesting thing from Sunday was that my church had its official welcoming Mass for parishoners from St. Alphonsus, a chuch out near the Beverly-Danvers line that was shut down. The main difference was at the start, when a procession of items from St. Alphonsus were carried in, such as their crucifix, a statue of the saint, and the church's records. There was also a little time for introductions, and as we've only been going to this church a short while (and usually don't go to the 11 AM Mass), most people thought we'd come over from the other church.

All in all, it went pretty smoothly. I don't think that's going to be the case everywhere. As I think of it, the closings are playing a little havoc with a friend's wedding. The bride's church in Gloucester is being closed, and their second choice was a chuch in Rockport - which is also being closed. Thankfully, they're leaving the building open for some sort of general worship space, and it looks like they'll be able to use it.

The last couple of years on this day I've done a rememberance thing using Sports Night, which in retrospect seems kind of odd. I mean, except for the establishing shots of New York City, the show could take place anywhere. There are plenty of other shows with more of a New York feel, so it's hard to say why I latched on to that one.

Anyway, I was thinking of doing something similar for Washington DC or Pennsylvania, but it didn't quite take. There's no show set in either location that I like that much, and listing my favorite shows set in those locations wound up being a pretty short list.

Instead, I am going to mention one of the more crass 9/11 things I've seen in recent days. There's been an ad on TV for a specially minted coin comemmorating the World Trade Center and the future building going on that site. The catch is that it's minted from silver recovered from Ground Zero.

The coin is minted by some outfit in the Northern Marianas Islands, not sure if it's governmental or not. Regardless, preying on the emotions surroundin 9/11, and using materials taken from what many consider sacred ground, really irritates me. The sad thing is they've waited long enough to make the coin seem almost dignified.

Couldn't they have just stuck to Liberty dollar reproductions?

So now that we've gotten the server issues solved, our dial-up at home is being cranky. I think it's more the BU modem pool than anything else, but regardless it's annoying. My sister in law just got DSL (she works from home), so I'll have to see how she does before taking the plunge.

So the reasonably big news is that I'm working again - sort of. I am substitute teaching at my old high school, making my first appearance in that role yesterday (this a scant week after applying). There were all sorts of deja vu moments, from the mostly familiar surroundings to the teachers who are still there when I was a student. They helped cover the moments when I had no idea what I was doing, which were legion.

I subbed for a resource room teacher, which is kind of like working a structured study hall (there's more that goes into it, of course, but from a sub's perspective it's the first way I'd describe it). Each teacher has one or two students per block that they work with to make sure assignments are being kept up with and to provide assistance if needed. One of the other teachers noted that the students work pretty independently, which was true to form (I also think they were more than willing to skirt things with a sub, which is hardly surprising).

I also got to take some class notes, sitting in on classes in science, history, and math. That was very odd, as I've gotten used to a greater amount of information presented in longer bursts. It was also a little disconcerting to have two of the teachers be younger than me, but that's one of those things that's just going to get worse.

Our school system regionalized with Essex (an even smaller town next to Manchester), and this year marks the first year that the towns have a combined middle school (previously Essex had their kids through 8th grade and then sent them to the high school). They've shoehorned the middle school into the old junior high wing, to which they've added on some "modular classrooms" (read: trailers). There are plans to build both new middle and high schools, but there are various issues holding things up (Manchester parents trying to minimize travel time to any possible school in Essex, and Essex residents trying to get beach rights in Manchester in return for such concessions).

The end result is that the school is pretty darn full, which makes traversing the hallways much more of a chore than in the past. And then there's lunch, which is more crowded and (I think) shorter than in my day. It was bedlam, really. Everyone really needs to suck it up and get some ground broken.

Anyway, as surreal as the day was at times, I am looking forward to going back tomorrow. Sarah thinks that I should venture into teaching full time, I'm still not sure. We'll see how it goes if I ever get in front of a live classroom.

As much as I enjoy using Blogger, the new navbar they let you use to have people search your blog content is really inelegant from an aesthetic perspective. From what I've seen, it just gets chunked on top of the page, covering the top part of the blog so you can't read what's under it. You think they'd work the code to have the bar fit in seamlessly on top and then start the blog. I imagine they'll fix that at some point, but until I see it fit in I'm not using it.

(Come to think of it, I've only seen it on Blogspot-hosted sites. Do you all get the choice to use it, or has it been thrust upon you?)

Blogging over the last week or so has been a little difficult, given that the site's been down. I kept up with it during the Olympics (though it may be of little interest now), but have taken most of this week off.

The problem, as I understand it, is that another site hosted on our server had a security issue, and the company in charge of things took the entire server down to check for problems and otherwise make sure it was secure to their satisfaction. Our original company got bought out, which from what I'm getting second-hand has been the start of our problems.

In any event, once you get to read this we'll he hosted elsewhere and will likely have a new domain name. That assumes the current jackasses actually allow us to get our files so we can transfer them over.

Not much new to report right now. Getting bored with home, especially as one of our neighbors in the next building over has a propensity for yelling. You've heard of indoor-outdoor carpet, she has indoor-outdoor voice. It is most often used when dealing with her son, who is like Dennis the Menace with a crew cut. He also has a little gang of friends, one of whom has a Razor scooter which sounds like it's about to lose a wheel. It's better now that school's back in session, but I hope they're going away for the long weekend.

(UPDATE: As you can see, I'm back. New host, new domain, which hopefully others will change their links to reflect in short order.)

I think I may have a problem - I find that I'm agreeing with Jimmy Roberts more often than not the last few days.

Take his Olympic Moment on the legacy of the Athens Games. His point - that the Games will mostly be remembered for going off smoothly when there was ample concern that they would not - has a solid ring of truth to it. When all was said and done, the Games went off better than expected.

I don't think they'll be seen as one of the classic Games, though. Solid for sure, but lacking that breakout character like Carl Lewis (or on the other end, Eddie "The Eagle" Edwards). Michael Phelps will continue to be pushed upon us for that role, but the immense hype that preceded the Games has, I think, worked against him. His medal total is still incredible, but after pushing the Spitz angle for so long, it makes his result seem something less than it was. That's unfortunate, but not unexpected give the way the US media works.

Speaking of which, NBC should get good marks for its area rug coverage. It's still not wall to wall, but it's a step in the right direction. The ADHD-influenced prime time coverage can go, certainly. Let's hope for Torino they give more consistent coverage of events rather than going from a heat in one event to a half of something else to a rotation of third event before going back to the first - but not before giving us some human interest.

And as much as TripleCast stands out as a joke, perhaps the time is coming where live event coverage with actual sports-oriented production could be provided on a PPV basis. Overkill, perhaps, but if you really like an event it'd be heaven.

In the tradition of James Dinan though, here are my five items for Making it Better: Olympic broadcasting.

1. Show the beach volleyball dancing girls. They were mentioned on-air and in other media, but we never got a chance to judge things on our own. I'm sure the Baron de Coubertin would be horrified, of course.

2. Make advertisers come up with at least 5 different spots. I'm pretty sick of Kristi Yamaguchi and Jonny Mosley pretending to diss their summer counterparts. I also now know that Bank of America processes 11 billion checks a year, and that to them it's about doing one check right and repeating that process 11 billion times.

3. See point number two regarding new fall season promotion. I will never watch an episode of Father of the Pride after seeing the same small rotation of promos for it (then again, I wasn't likely to tune in to begin with).

4. More long-form event coverage, especially in prime time, as I noted before. Let the drama of the events unfold rather than forcing it upon us.

5. A couple fewer US medal ceremonies, please. At one point I heard the Star Spangled Banner three times in something like 7 minutes. I'm not expecting that the coverage will become any less Americentric, but try to even it out at least.

There's a bit of a parallel between the US men's basketball team and the US 4 by 100 meter relay teams. Given the fairly late date for the US track and field qualifiers, you get the sense that the relays teams didn't have much time to run together. So while they didn't have to go through a couple dozen sprinters to get the team, they did try to do what hoops did - win gold without as much team preparation as they may have wanted.

There was a relay camp in Munich leading up to the Games, but clearly the exchanges could have used more work. Clearly, we don't have the same margin we used to in these relays.

While I've not been watching as much, I have also been noting the resurgence of the Red Sox, who are 16-4 in their last 20. They've cut their AL East defecit to 5.5 games, with six games against the Yankees (three here, three there) to come.

The Sox also have three games each against Texas, Oakland, and Anaheim left, which will start to clarify the wild card thing a bit (as will those three teams playing each other down the stretch).

It's good that I have something else to obsess about once the Olympics are over.

Oh yeah, the first major college football game is tomorrow, too. USC versus Virginia Tech. Good times.

Bad night to be Marion Jones, huh? Either falling short of a long jump medal or being involved in a dropped exchange in the 4 by 100 meter relay is bad enough. Both on the same nigh - ugh. You'd expect a reciept from BALCO to come to light just about now to finish her off.

But it's probably a bad night to be a US men's basketball team member, given that you now have to face Lithuania - who beat you earlier - to even get a medal. Regardless of how the bronze medal game turns out, you can be sure that the team members are going to be getting the business in arenas all across the NBA this season. Then again, given the number of players who passed on participating, there's precious few who can actually jaw with impunity.

I think I've seen all the sports but taekwondo now, so I'll have to seek that out. I've got a much greater appreciation for both modern pentathletes and equestrian competitors (human and equine) after watching some of both over the last couple of days. Freestyle dressage, however, may be the most unusual event I've seen during this entire Games. Picture, if you will, a horse prancing to a budget synthesized version of "Karma Chamelion" and you'll start to get my meaning.

And I say this after seeing both synchronized swimming and rhythmic gymnastics over the last couple of days.

Louis Johnson, one of the color commentators for track, now has Tom Hammond Repetitive Announcing Syndrome. At one point tonight he said the exact same thing about a sprinter that Hammond had said about 8 seconds beforehand. Our attention spans aren't getting that short, are they?

Can we let this gymnastics thing die? The competition has been over for days, yet NBC is compelled to continue beating the dead horse. I know Paul Hamm's been taking a beating over the last couple of days, but was the 15 minute puff piece at the end of tonight's prime-time broadcast necessary? It's not like the American public needs the propaganda to change its image of him.

Which makes me wonder what sort of fluffy bit we'll get about the men's 200 meter sweep, to make up for the crowd's temporary hijacking of the event. Maybe we'll just get some sort of smug words about Kenteris, a la Al Trautwig's catty remarks after the Korean gymnast involved in the all-around kerfuffle messed up his individual high bar routine (along the lines of "Paul Hamm never did that.")

Tom Hammond speculated that part of the problem last night was that at least on Greek newspaper implied that the US was behind the whole Kenteris thing. That conventiently ignores the past issues with him making drug tests and his rather spotty appearances on the world track stage since Sydney, but given the current world climate regarding America, you have to figure some greater percentage than normal of regular people are willing to believe nonsense.

Speaking of nonsense, I'm more irritated by the Bush Olympic ad now that his campaign said it's not going to pull it. If I made an ad, and the people who I'm touting voice strong opinion against it, why would you keep running it? You've gotten your publicity, now act like you actually care about the folks whose country you've invaded.

Say hello to Athena and Phevos. They are the mascots for the Athens Olympics, and they're... interesting. I suppose a design based on ancient dolls is OK. Better than that animated owl from Clash of the Titans.

But not much better. While some locals have come around to liking them, they've been derided as looking like condoms or the result of a nuclear accident. An anti-Olympic group took the names, and then bombed a couple of government offices for good measure.

Like most things that turn out this way, it was created by committee, as strong an argument against groupthing as you'd need. You can back that up with Izzy, of course, the computer-generated Atlanta mascot who was so reviled that you saw very little of the thing when the Games actually took place.

Other Games, like Lillehammer and Nagano, had almost no obvious mascot presence (though not surprising when your mascots are a pair of 14th century Norwegian children and a quartet of snow-loving owls).

Not surprisingly, the last Olympic mascot to really catch the public's attention - Cobi, the dog-like mascot of Barcelona - was drawn in a matter of seconds by a Spanish artist who was reportedly under the influence of something when he doodled the eventual mascot (which bodes well for 2010 in Vancouver).

My favorite mascots? Probably Waldi, the daschund used for Munich (solely because it was a daschund) and Hodori, the male of the pair of tigers who were mascots for Seoul (come to think of it, I don't know if the female tiger was that widely used - I've only seen mentions in print).

Anyway, look for Athena and Phevos merchandise at your local Big Lots or Building 19 or liquidation store of you choice soon!

Here's a fun game when Olympic coverage starts to drag - try to find an American athlete who is sporting a visible Nike logo who is not also wearing a yellow Live Strong bracelet. They're out there, but rare.

Unfortunate trend recently noticed: "Born in the USA" being played when an American wins a gold. Heard this tonight in both beach volleyball and track. I fear the first time an Asian competitor is bested and has to hear the line about going to kill the yellow man.

It's been NAFTA night on NBC, as they've given some more in-depth coverage to Canadian diver Alexandre Despatie and Mexican sprinter Ana Guevara. Neither won gold, the ingrates. Dick Ebersol is firing off angry telegrams to their embassies as we speak.

All the "drama" around the men's gymnastics event finals pretty much confirms that gymnastics generally is my least favorite of the summer Olympic sports. I'm glad it's over, except for some "gala" that's being foisted upon us in prime time.

Not helping is that it's given fresh reasons for South Koreans and Russians to dislike the US, not that they needed any.

Two notes from the lighter side:

1. An American in the rifle competition just needed to hit his target to win gold. He mistakenly aimed at the target of another competitor. No medal for him. This isn't the lighter side, though.

The real lighter side is that the American who took silver in the competition did take off his olive wreath during the national anthem - the Chinese national anthem. I don't think anyone expected him to be that respectful.

2. In an early heat of the women's 200 meter dash, a Jamaican sprinter started in lane seven but finished in lane eight. It being Greece, she was not penalized for changing lanes without signaling. Everyone does it.

(Seriously, she didn't get a penalty because the lane was open and switching to it didn't confer any benefit to her - in fact, it probably added a little length to her run.)

I wasn't all that surprised by Paula Radcliffe's failure to finish the women's marathon today. While her results have been stupendous, she's only run in London and Chicago, both flat courses in cool climes. With 100 degree heat and hills that make Boston look flat by comparison, it'd almost have been more surprising if she had won. Look for her in 2008, though, as course designers come in to play rather than history.

Very surprising was the American medal, as marathoning here hasn't been world class since, well, Joan Benoit took the first women's Olympic marathon 20 years ago.

Speaking of which, kudos to NBC for their piece on the women's marathon prior to the race, and for covering the event live. The taped piece was well done and had some good historical context. The coverage was OK, but they really should have trucked in a crew from Boston - we know how to cover marathons on TV.

In vaguely related news, being in Maine this weekend subjected us to more Presidential campaign ads than we get in Massachusetts, and we saw an Olympic-themed one that Bush is running, about the growing number of worldwide democracies and how Afghanistan and Iraq are here thanks to him. It was vaguely irritating, in the gratutitous use of sports for political means sort of way.

Besides, given that an Afghan soldier interviewed for yesterday's Olympic Moment said he would kill his sister if she paraded herself around like one of the Afghan female athletes, there's clearly more work to be done in some corners.

And, surprising, I give props to Jimmy Roberts and crew for today's Olympic Moment on Pyrros Dimas, the Albanian-born Greek weightlifter who went for and missed a fourth straight gold medal in his weight class. These are the sorts of things these spots should cover, not more repetitive crap about overhyped American athletes.

Jimmy Roberts finally ventured into somewhat unfamiliar territory tonight, bringing us up to speed on the women Olympians from Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan while making some larger points on the status of women, in the Olympics (where they didn't get to compete in 1896, in case you'd forgotten from the last time it was mentioned) and generally.

As inoccuous as the piece was, two points came to mind watching it.

1. I don't think any of the NBC family of networks deigned to show any of the competitions where any of these women competed. If it wasn't for this moment, the opening ceremony would have been the only time we saw them (if even then).

2. There are several female US Olympians - May and Walsh, Jenny Thompson, and Amanda Beard are notable - who whenever they are mentioned by a studio host come up over their shoulder in what appears to be a glamor shot. Inge de Bruijn of The Netherlands, by comparison, looks like they just dragged her in from the pool. So we've got nationalism and sexism, kind of the Reese's Cup of socially questionable behavior - "you've got sexism in my nationalism!" and so forth.

In unrelated news, either Tom Hammond has short term memory problems or he thinks we do. He's a little too fond of repetition. When noting the finalists in women's pole vault, he reminded us twice within 3 minutes that no Americans were going. He also likes to remind us about 100 meter dash silver medalist Lauryn Williams' parents (divorced, she's an 8th grade teacher in Detroit, he's devoted to his daughter, and needs dialysis every other day related to a long-term case of leukemia).

From a color commentary volume perspective, there's a tight medal battle going between Carol Lewis (track), Rowdy Gaines (swimming), and Cynthia Potter (diving). I mean, they all do a good job, but don't need to be turned up to 11 to do so.

Merlene Ottey: the pride of Slovenia?

We were just watching the preliminary heats of the women's 100 meter run, and were surprised to see Ottey, the grande dame of Jamaican track, representing a slightly different country.

The NBC commentators didn't give much of an explanation (way to go, knuckleheads). Turns out that she'd been getting some treatment and coaching in Slovenia in the late 1990s, and when the Jamaican team started to try to ease her out for younger runners (Ottey is 44), she opted to move on. She became a Slovenian citizen a couple of years ago. She says she plans to run for Slovenia in the 2006 European championships, which suggests a certain lack of depth in the Slovenian track program at the shorter distances.

In the heat we saw, Ottey was flanked by Jamaicans. They finished 1-2, with Ottey finishing third. They all advanced to the semis.

I'm sure they're partying in Ljubljana.

Going back to yesterday's archery, the men's final involved a 41-year old Japanese contestant who took bronze in Los Angeles. I have to think that 20 years between medals is some sort of record. He took silver.

The coverage gave me a much greater appreciation for archery. The target is 70 meters (roughly 230 feet) away from the participants, and the center ring has the diameter of an orange. Each guy got 12 arrows in an alternate shot format, which makes for good, dramatic coverage. Makes me wish I'd stuck with archery the one time I tried it out at Scout camp.

Oh, we can knock off fencing from the list of sports not seen, as I caught chunks of the men's team sabre final. A tough competition for the US, falling a point short of both making the gold medal match and winning bronze.

As a televised sport, fencing is a little difficult given that it's not always easy to see the touches. I still enjoyed it.

Kudos to Yahoo! for adding a check box so you can filter Olympic results out of their home page. Kudos as well to Allyson for pointing this out to me.

I can now check archery off my list of unseen sports. It's on right now!

Quick hits for now.

* Having seen a fair bit of water polo now, I think it's time that we stopped letting California hog the sport to itself. I've yet to see a game that's not been entertaining, which is saying something for Olympic team sports.

* Is it me, or would the US men's hoops team be better off playing Lebron James and Amare Stoudamire more and Stephon Marbury and Richard Jefferson less?

* Along those lines, I don't know if this is strictly legal, but Larry Brown should fine any player who takes a shot from more than 12 feet away from the basket. Fines are doubled if you take a three pointer. It's hard to tell which has been more atrocious, the long distance shooting or the quarter-hearted "defense" that's marked most US games.

* Speaking of deciding between atrocities, I'm trying to decide which has been the worst moment by an in-studio personality: Pat O'Brien's stupid, borderline insensitive interview with sabre bronze medalist Sada Jacobsen, or Mary Carillo trying to milk humor from a horse passport required for horses to prove they meet quarantine laws ("So you're here for pleasure? Then why the long face, fella?").

Jimmy Roberts gets the lifetime achievement award here for his gauzy "Olympic Moments" which more often than not give further pointless coverage to people and topics previously beaten to death.

* I'll agree with the general consensus that the cable-based coverage has been solid. I would like to see more replays, though.

Not much for an Olympic report today - I was out most of the day, visiting former coworkers at Babson and going to the Red Sox game (more on that in a second). So instead, here's a list of the sports I've not seen yet:

Archery, though there's some gold medal action tomorrow on one of the channels from what I just heard.

Baseball, which I'll need to see before it gets dropped. I caught like one out of Cuba-Japan (I think it was Japan), but I'm not counting it.

Canoeing, on which I really have nothing to say.

Fencing, as I don't count the highlights of the women's individual sabre from yesterday. That's on somewhere tomorrow, too.

Modern Pentathlon, assuming there's going to be any coverage of it anyway.

Synchronized Swimming, which can stay on the list for all I care. But I know I'll wind up seeing some of it.

Taekwondo, wrestling, triathlon, none of which have started yet.

Track and field, as I didn't stay up until 2 am to see the shot put from Olympus and wasn't home to see a rebroadcast.

To the Sox game. The carmine hose put up a workmanlike 6-4 win on the Blue Jays, a game that moved swiftly until Keith Foulke decided to make things interesting in the ninth. We were standing in anticipation of the final out as Foulke was giving up runs on bloopers, and I mentioned to Sarah that perhaps we should sit down, as he got his first two outs easily when we were seated. As if they could hear me, large sections of people behind the plate did just that. So we sat down, too. Foulke got a pop out, game over.

Tonight marked the first big league start for Earl Snyder, just called up for Pawtucket. He was 0 for 3 going into the 8th, and upon taking the batter's box he got a huge standing ovation, the crowd doing everything in its part to will him to his first big league hit. I've never seen something like this before, and it was great to be a part of it. Thankfully, he was up to the challenge, stroking a nice single to left.

Sadly, third base coach Dale Sveum tried a little too hard to get him his first RBI, as he sent Bill Mueller. Given that the ball was out only about midway, he was a good 10 to 15 feet from the plate when the ball got there. He was stupendously out. Somewhere, Wendell Kim smiled.

A couple of firsts to note from Athens today.

The United Arab Emirates got their first gold ever, as Ahmed Al Maktoum won the double trap shooting event. That'll show those punks from the Great Outdoors Games.

The silver went to a shooter from India, which makes me wonder what sort of odds I could have gotten for that 1-2 in any sport.

Women's individual sabre fencing, a new event, brought the US its first fencing medal in something like 100 years. It surprisingly did not go to the American who is the world ranked number one; she finished third. Instead, a 19 year old woman who made the Olympics when a Nigerian fencer dropped out took the top prize, winning over a fencer from China. What little they showed of it on NBC primetime was fun to see, even if it did take me a second to realize that when a fencer's helmet lights up it means they scored the point. I was taking a lazer tag approach and figured they were the one getting touched.

Fencing is one of Bravo's sports, so keep your eyes peeled there.

I also found the first sport that I don't care to watch - sailing. There are like 20 tiny boats out there, and it's less play by play than longish recap. I slogged through half an hour of sailing early this morning in the hopes of seeing some judo or something, but couldn't stay awake. If I never see another Finn class boat again it won't bother me.

One of the problems with seeing the Olympics mostly on tape is avoiding results spoilers. NBC has been smart enough to put a "Spoiler Alert" tag on the screen when there's an interview that may give something away (though I wonder why they bother with such interviews, as it kind of cuts their own throats if people learn a result and decide to watch something else).

I'm finding it hard to avoid spoilers with Yahoo! as my home page, as they've taken to putting all the big results into main headlines. I could pretty much tell you how swimming and gymnastics went as of about 4 pm.

Yahoo! doesn't owe NBC anything to prevent this, but I do wonder if they may alienate users. I expect spoilers on the ESPN web site given its sports focus, and on news sites as they're news providers. I can avoid those if I really want to be surprised. I don't have the same choice if I want to use Yahoo!, even if it wasn't my home page.

I don't think it's going to cause a serious problem, but I'd be curious to see if Yahoo! gets fewer hits during than normal as people learn to stay away if they don't want to see results ahead of time.

I have very little to add in actual sports news, other than I got to see several pairs choke in the last round of the men's synchronized diving, including the US men who were in second. They wound up out of the medals, handing the Greeks a fairly unexpected gold. Much more entertaining than Olympic tennis.

If you could get a cheap flight, and don't mind perhaps sleeping in a public park, there are clearly plenty of good seats still available at the Olympics.

With all the hulabaloo about the venues getting done, actual ticket sales didn't get a lot of attention until now, and the numbers are a little frightening - some said that only 25% of all tickets were sold going into the opening ceremonies.

The issue came up last night during the men's gymnastics, as the lower deck was sparsely populated. Al Trautwig made several comments related to this, mostly aimed at noting that the upper deck was full. Bob Costas also noted that locals had stepped up over the last 2-3 weeks and bought more tickets.

Reasons for the slow sales are myriad, from August being a big vacation month for Athenians to terror concerns keeping some from making the trip. I'd have to think too that demand is much more for medal-round events and not so much for prelims. That would explain the half-dozen or so completely empty bleacher sections at the rowing venue yesterday. It just doesn't make it look any better.

Not sure how dire an issue this is, as with all the infrastructure improvements I don't think Greece was ever looking to make money off the Games. It may linger as part of their history, though, which would be unfortunate. No one wants to be the Unattended Games.

In other news:

* The US lost to Puerto Rico in men's basketball, which is more of an "upset" than an upset. Most folks seemed to think the US was primed for a loss. Just not to Puerto Rico.

If you missed the game, the US more or less checked out until the fourth quarter, and managed to get the lead down to 9 before it got bumped back out to the teens, where it was more often than not (at least when the lead wasn't 20-plus).

Clearly, there's a need for a national team for basketball. I don't know how many times we're going to slap together a bunch of guys before this becomes obvious.

* Iraq's men's soccer team won its second game, blanking Costa Rica 2-0. They played another good game, a little less physical than the Portugal match. They're through to the quarterfinals, which is well beyond anything expected for them.

* Sports watched today: sailing, judo, boxing, table tennis, badminton, softball, soccer, beach volleyball, basketball, weightlifting, cycling, equestrian, and indoor volleyball. As you can imagine, very little of this was seen (or presented) all the way through. Not sure if that'd good or bad.

A few quick postscripts for today:

* Men's gymnastics may be this Olympics' pairs figure skating. Apparently, the main judge for the high bar told the US team a couple of days ago that part of the routines of two gymnasts would be judged at a different point level than in the past - such as at the last world championships. Not sure if any other competitors were hurt by this (NBC's not said anything), but it seems odd.

* Picking up on Cooch's question as to this Olympics' breakout event, Bob Costas put forth badminton.

* I was sick of Michael Phelps before the Games even started. You can imagine where I am with him now.

* Sport that seems less dubious now: synchronized diving. Didn't see much of it from Sydney (not like I sought it out), but after seeing it the last couple of days I've got a much higher opinion. The coverage has been pretty good here, one of the few times the commentators and the technology come together to clearly illustrate what happened. Tune into this when volleyball isn't on.

While there's a good 20 hours of coverage left today (OK, maybe not, but it feels like it with 5 networks in play), here's my somewhat stupid Olympic story of the day:

Volleyball is cool.

Watching a couple of indoor matches today (Germany's surprise win over Cuba and the US loss to China), I remembered how much I like the sport. I've never taken to the beach variety for some reason, and it's hard to see the indoor one outside of Olympics or NCAA tournaments (which always seem to air on weekday afternoons on ESPN).

My one real solid memory of the first Goodwill Games (outside of motoball, soccer played on some sort of moped/dirtbike/motorcycle) was the volleyball tournaments, as I got to watch the bulk of them when not pumping gas (a job I had for about a year, was more fun than you'd think, mostly because the owners trusted me enough to let me work alone).

Along the lines of Olympic objectification, I do wonder why the US women's volleyball team doesn't get more of the Jennie Finch treatment, what with the being in shape and the long legs and all. None of them have quite the Barbie quality that Finch does, I suppose. It also helps that (a) Finch is dating some major leaguer whose name I can't remember, and (b) softball is likely to win gold, while volleyball likely won't medal at all.

That being said, watch more volleyball.

Today's Olympic story is the opening ceremonies. A Reuters article I'm reading now notes the "worldwide television audience" that saw the ceremonies, which is funny given that NBC's not airing it until tonight. It's like I'm reading news from the future.

I am interested to see who the final torch bearer is, but I'm not going to peek. I was going along with the idea of Kostas Kenteris, who won the 200 meter race in Sydney, but his current imbroglio (missed a drug test) may bump him. The next logical choice was Katerina Thanou, who took silver in the 100 meters in Sydney, but she's got the same problem as Kenteris.

Both runners have some history with being tough to track down for drug tests, and they were involved in a motorcycle accident hours after they were supposed to be tested (they'd asked for an extension for the test, claiming that they needed to get personal effects). It's a strange run of events, to be sure.

Add on to this that two players on the Greek baseball team (American citizens who qualified to play for Greece) were dropped from the squad for drug test violations. Not the best start for the hosts.

Assuming Kenteris and Thanou are out as final torch bearer, I wonder if Spiridon Louis has a great-great-great grandchild who could do the honors.

Given the lack of other stuff to write about (life being more or less in stasis currently), I'm going to take the next couple weeks or so to give you my Olympic story of the day. We'll actually start with yesterday, given that Olympic soccer has already started.

Yesterday saw the US women start their tournament with a 3-0 win over host Greece. More of a story for me was the 8-0 pounding that Germany put on China. China is right up there with both Germany and the US, making this blowout pretty surprising.

Japan's win over Sweden was pretty surprising, too, but it looks like that may be the order of the day in Olympic soccer this time around.

Today, the obvious story is the Iraq's 4-2 win over Portugal in the first day of men's soccer. Iraq outplayed Portugal, though the latter team was also snakebit by a shot each off a goalpost and the crossbar. Iraq's been playing well in regional Asian tournaments, and obviously did well enough to qualify here, so as much a surprise as the result is, it's not like the Iraqis got here on sympathy.

The upset opening game loss is becoming a habit for the Portuguese (dropped the 2002 World Cup opener to the US, the Euro '04 opener to Greece, and now this).

Furthering the wackiness: Mali and Ghana tied Mexico and Italy, respectively, in their opening games. Then again, African success in Olympic men's soccer is becoming something of a tradition. Nigeria took gold in Atlanta, while Cameroon (who Mali beat to get to Athens) won it in Sydney.

Back from a weekend in the Detroit area, where I got to play some trash (after a strong undefeated start I took the collar three times to finish fourth) and see the Red Sox play the Tigers, marking the first Sox win I've seen outside of Fenway (it being only the second time I've seen them play outside of Fenway, though).

If yesterday's game had happened last year - where the pitching staff gives up a half-dozen dingers and yet the team still wins - we'd have seen it as another sign from Providence (not the one in Rhode Island) that the Sox were destined. This year, though, it's another reminder of the team's inconsistency.

Not much else to report, other than that the Airport station on the T's Blue Line is light years better than the old one, and that the T is run by idiots. When you can't access automated commuter rail schedule information because it's after office hours, you are run by idiots.

For anyone looking for some fantasy action on the Olympics, ESPN.com is running their challenge game. You pick five countries and get points based on the medals they win (3 points for gold, 2 for silver, 1 for bronze) times a multiplier based on the country's athletic prowess (for example, the US would have to win 25 gold medals to make up a single bronze by, say, Nauru).

If you're interested, I've set up a group:

Name: Baklava and Badminton
Password: opa

I am looking forward to NBC's wall to wall coverage, inasmuch as there will be ways to see things live and that don't necessarily involve Americans. I am looking less forward to their usual cornucopia of tape-delayed prime time coverage.

And we're back. As you may have noticed, the entire Gerbil family was incommunicado for a few days. Turns out that the servers that host us got caught up in some sort of power outage in south Florida and didn't get back on-line until today.

Not that I've had a great deal going on. The weekend was marked by a couple trips to the mall for odds and ends and taking in The Village, which was pretty good (though I kind of anticipated the ending, which I usually don't do with movies like this). On the preview front, saw one for The Aviator, with Leo DeCaprio playing a young Howard Hughes (sadly, Leo will not be playing the collecting-urine-in-jars Hughes). Also one for The Incredibles, a Pixar offering about a family of superheroes. Been to the movies enough that the rest of the previews were ones I'd seen before... I think. In the back of my head there was one other new one, but I've forgotten what it may have been.

Sunday night I had a continuation of a "you can't go home again" moment. When I was growing up, we (my mom and some subset of the kids) would go shopping in north Beverly quite a bit. Needless to say, it's quite different now. The supermarket moved over to where the regional discount chain store used to be, a Staples is moving in where the supermarket used to be, and the Papa Gino's, which I can't even count how many times I ate at or got pizza from, is closed. God help us if it becomes a Starbucks.