I recently finished Brave New World, a book that I'd picked up once or twice in high school but never read. I can safely say that I didn't miss much. The world A.F. seemed much too much like a caricature, and I don't think the ending could have been more heavy-handed.

And while it doesn't strike me as a book commonly assigned in high school, it did make me wonder what books that are commonly read in high school that I missed. For example, two books that everyone in my high school seemed to read other than the classes I was in were The Red Pony and The Yearling. I'm told by the wife I didn't miss anything with the former, the merest thought of which sends her into paroxysms of disgust.

In any event, I'm giving you all the chance to shape my reading list.

Simply comment with the name of the best book you were assigned to read in high school. By "book" I include books, plays, and poetry (collections, epic, and otherwise), and by "assigned" I mean either what you think it means or a book you chose but got credit for reading (my sophomore year we got to choose books, but had to run them by our teacher first).

To help narrow things down, these were among the works I read in high school:

The Odyssey, The Iliad, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, Pride and Prejudice, Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, Babbitt, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Crime and Punishment, A Tale of Two Cities, The Old Man and the Sea, The Chosen, The Sound and the Fury, Treasure Island, The Scarlet Letter, Catcher in the Rye, The Sun Also Rises, Dandelion Wine.

Since then, I've read The Great Gatsby, some other Sinclair Lewis stuff, and a whole raftload of Greek drama and other classical bits.

So, based on that, recommend away!

If you thought you heard a lot of screaming, or felt a disturbance in the Force last night at, oh, sometime between 10 and 10:30 pm EDT, you can probably trace it back to the Red Sox losing 7-4 to the Devil Rays, a result that sent the Sox from leading the AL East to out of the playoffs (if the season ended yesterday).

I thankfully avoid most sports media (Cooch notwithstanding), so the Red Sox Nation suicide watch that must surely be going on does so without me. Given how the team has played this season, what disappointment I'd feel if they didn't make the playoffs is tempered by the season-long display of inconsistency. It's not like you couldn't see this coming.

Besides, it's all working out as MLB planned, what with the three game series against the Yankees to end things. It could turn out that we'll win the AL East after all and somehow banish the Yankees from the playoffs.

Not that I'm expecting it. But it could happen.

The Patriots, on the other hand, are a cause for concern. They did not look good last week, and have to play Pittsburgh, San Diego, and Atlanta over the next few weeks. Most of these games take place on the road, to make matters worse. It would not be surprising if this team is sporting a 2-4 record at some point. It would also not be surprising if they then finished the season 12-4 or 11-5 and get into the playoffs.

The current offensive coordinator by committee will take its fair share of heat should the losing come to pass, but given how the defense let Jake Delhomme connect on a number of what can only be called eephus passes, you have to look over there as well. Mostly at the defensive backs, who are awful young. Super Bowl or no, they're still learning, and while you'd expect them to make more mistakes in big games, the idea that they'd play back to the mean over a number of games makes sense.

Only a month or so before I can start kvetching about the Bruins and Terriers. Things go right for the Sox, I can complain about all four in one post. That should drive off even the most persistent reader.

A return to bar trivia tonight, as Everybody Loves a Cane made a slight improvement on the last time out with a second place finish. As with last time, here's a sampling of the questions we didn't do so well with:

In the summer of 1941, what country became the first to use frogmen to fight an opponent? Italy (OTC) - Italian frogmen apparently took on the British, who were our guess after we summarily dismissed the French as a little on the nose. This was the first question of the night, which made for an inauspicious start.

What nationality has produced the greatest number of Nobel Prize winners? - USA - One of us said Britain, one said Germany, and I said the USA. So we played 3 Answer Monte by writing an answer each on an answer slip and had the fourth person pick. Unlike the popular hustle, where you win the first time to get sucked in, we did not find the lady, so to speak.

Rome and what four other European capital cities are spelled with just four letters? Riga [Latvia], Bern [Switzerland], Oslo [Norway], Kiev [Ukraine] (OTC) - we got the first three, as I had a brain fart and thought Minsk was the capital of Ukraine (it actually being the capital of Belarus). I threw out a guess of Baku, which is the capital of Azerbaijan. For what it's worth, they are in the European qualifying group for the World Cup. Had I only been able to make that argument last night.

What city in the Po River valley is known as Italy's food capital? Bologna (Ted) - we went with Parma, given the ham and the cheese (it's also the home to Parmalat, they of the frightening shelf-stable milk). Not sure if it's really in the Po valley, though. It's in the neighborhood, but none of the maps I've seen make it clear to me if it's in the valley or up in the hills.

Not sure if Bologna deserves this given what its self-named luncheon meat has become, but I suppose it's not their fault.

What US state has had its capital move the most - 12 times? Texas (Greg) - we were leading going into this question, which was the good news. The bad news is that we had no clue about this question. We did mention Texas, but then again we named about 20 of the states. We settled on New York and Georgia, flipped a coin, and guessed New York. We bet the minimum, thus only losing one point, but were passed by a team that got the question right and finished in second place.

As for the capital moving, Texas apparently had several temporary capitals when it became indepdendent. Which makes me wonder about the construction of the question, as I can't remember it verbatim. Not sure if they worded it such that it would allow for moves when Texas wasn't a US state.

We're recently returned from Hilton Head (well, we got in very early this morning, but you get my idea), and for you, a recap.

Saturday we drove to Hilton Head, which isn't as bad as it sounds given that there were seven available drivers between two cars. We spent the early part of the trip getting info about Hurricane Ophelia (which was then looking like it was going to hit somewhere in South Carolina), shifting later to baseball (the dreaded Y@nkees, given where we were going through).

We tried to stop for the night in Petersberg, Virginia, which proved problematic as NASCAR was up in Richmond. Rather than pay $159 for a Residence Inn or $90 for the shabbiest looking Days Inn I've ever seen, we continued down to Emporia, Virginia, where we found somewhere whose price to shadiness ratio was better.

Sunday we completed our drive, though not without getting lost a bit thanks to a missing street sign. We stayed at a timeshare that's part of the Port Royal Plantation, one of several former plantations that now serves as a resort, most often for golf. The timeshare is crammed into a lot on the plantation property, and is probably the least inspiring place we've stayed on one of these family vacations.

We noticed early on that navigating Hilton Head would be difficult, given that all the signs for businesses are at street level, of moderate size, and mutely colored. If you're into forest green, shades of brown, and gray, Hilton Head is the place for you. Also, most places are off the street, so you more often than not see where you need to go when you are right on top of it. Thankfully, the main roadway gives you ample opportunities for turning around.

Didn't do much upon arrival, just settled in.

Monday continued the settling, at least for me, as most of the group went shopping or played golf. I considered the latter, though it was for the best that I begged off - turns out the course had water on pretty much every hole, and I'd likely have lost a good dozen balls if I'd gone out.

Had dinner at the Hofbrauhaus, which I chose for the novelty if nothing else. Food was pretty good if a little pricey (another theme of Hilton Head), and sadly we were too early for the live music.

Tuesday was our day trip to Savannah, a city of considerable beauty and charm... located downwind from a paper mill.

We took a trolley tour around the city, which wasn't particularly edifying. It's really a city that calls for a good walking tour, especially if you have an interest in architecture or like to tour houses. The most instructive thing we did was go through the Savannah museum at the tourist info center and see their short movie, which suggested that James Oglethorpe learned the value of diversity - just well after his actual death.

Returning to Hilton Head, we went miniature golfing for some reason.

Wednesday started with a kayak tour in what the locals call a creek that is actually an inlet. We got to see dolphins (which I missed, lagging behind), oyster beds, heron, and various other fauna. It was a good way to spend part of the morning, and I never even felt like I was going to flip (the kayaks being smartly weighted to make capsizing nearly impossible).

In the afternoon I finally got out on the golf course, which I was going to recap Couture-style but can't get the table to display here properly. Suffice it to say that I was many, many shots over par. Even so, I did manage three legitimate par opportunities, none of which I converted (worst being a par 3 that turned into a 6). I can drive pretty well, have no feel for my irons or wedges, and apparently need obstacles to putt with any accuracy.

Thursday saw a lazy morning lead to a trip to Harbor Town and the Hilton Head lighthouse. Harbor Town is located in the Sea Pines Plantation, which costs $5 a car to drive into (a fact not noted in either of our guide books, underscoring the uselessness of both publications).

The lighthouse was underwhelming; rather than being built for the usual lighthouse purpose, it was constructed in 1969 to attract pleasure craft into the harbor and its shops. Those shops are priced for people who can afford to spend time cruising in pleasure craft, looking for marketing-constructed lighthouses to entice them.

This was easily the worst tourist-related outing we had all week.

Friday was even lazier than Thursday, as the heat continued to climb (into the high 90s). I passed on both shopping and the driving range, and didn't do much of anything except hit the library to check my email and such (not a bad library, but a little under-air conditioned for my taste). We had a dinner of trademark-dodging at the Pasta Garden and the Marble Slab Creamery (though the websites suggest that Marble Slab predates Coldstone).

Saturday we drove home in one shot, which I wasn't crazy about but the sister-in-law and her boyfriend had to get back as they had Sox tickets for today (which isn't exactly working out for them, as the A's are currently leading 12-3).

The drive home was about as interesting as the drive down. The Carolinas are incredibly boring, with only the South of the Border billboards to break things up in their inane and vaguely racist way. Virginia isn't much better, but you do go through Richmond and skirt Washington DC.

Maryland reminds me that I have to apologize to Delaware. While their $7 in tolls is a lot for the 25 miles or so you drive on a round-trip drive along I-95, Maryland whacks you for $5 when driving northwards. At least when you get robbed of $6 on the George Washington Bridge, you get to actually cross the bridge and feel like you've paid for its upkeep and the view of the city. The Maryland toll just feels like you're lining the pocket of various elected officials.

New York's stretch of I-95 is the worst of the lot, from the congestion to the absolutely screwed up roadworks that have been going on for at least a decade between the Cross-Bronx Expressway and the New York Thruway toll. Complain all you want about the Big Dig, it's at least made obvious progress. The roadworks in New York just look like they've been moving lanes around on a whim.

Anyway, we got back very early this morning, and are happy to be back, work tomorrow notwithstanding. I don't forsee us going back to Hilton Head any time soon.

I've been away for this long, and all you're getting is talk about football? I'd be pissed, too. Sorry, Greg.

* As happy as I was that the Pats won their opener, I hope they're not going to look that sluggish all season, especially during this opening part of the schedule. Too early to panic, but I would like to see them get Dillon more running room.

* I got killed in both of my cut-throat games on the opening weekend, as I went with Denver and St. Louis, figuring that playing Miami and San Francisco would be the shortest routes to wins. Whoops. Even worse is that St. Louis was my pick in ESPN.com's eliminator game, meaning that I managed to get knocked out even earlier than last season, when I took Green Bay in week 2.

* I did manage to win my first FFL game of the season, which means I've already gotten 25% of my win total from last year. I managed to overcome my application of strategery that resulted in Curtis Martin starting over Deuce McAlister, which was pretty lucky.

* On the college front, it would make some sort of sense in the season where I've put Notre Dame on personal probation that they'd open the season 2-0 and crack the top 10. I think that's too high too quickly, and their game against Michigan State has classic let-down potential. A week too late for Craig, though.

* Though I suppose Craig was somewhat pleased to see Ohio State lose at home to Texas. In the back of my head a USC-Texas tilt for the national title seems pretty likely, though the Big XII title game is usually ripe for an upset (as Texas should know, given their upset of Nebraska back in the day).

* I was mildly irritated that that team from Newton moved up in the rankings after beating BYU and Army. Not the most challenging start, really, though probably a smart one given that they get to jump right in with Florida State as the welcoming committee to the ACC.

* Can someone at Temple finally give in to reality and drop their program to 1-AA? Please?

I really don't have much to say, but figure it's been a while so I should at least check in.

The long weekend was a little shorter for me, as I had to work on Sunday given that upperclasspeople were coming back. Turns out those that did didn't want to rush their student service needs, so it was pretty quiet and I got out early. So I can't complain all that much.

Saturday was full of domestic minutae (oil change, shopping for odds and ends), while Labor Day was actually pretty labor intensive (cleaning prior to having houseguests). Did get the chance to go to New Hampshire to visit family for a while, which was nice. It was a beautiful weekend, which I sadly didn't get to enjoy as much as I'd like.

Undoubtedly, it'll snow next week.

I've been trying to follow the aftermath of Katrina, and have come up with two conclusions regarding the death and destruction:

1. It's everyone's fault.
2. It's no one's fault.

I mean, when you have a Category 4 storm hit levees that are meant to withstand up to Category 3 storms, all of the planning in the world may not help you.

And while I'm leery to wade into the rush to judgement, I do think that having a FEMA director with qualifications somewhat more in line with emergency management than being an executive in the International Arabian Horse Association would be a good idea.

So for all my inability to name all the Whig presidents or figure out the length of a regulation bowling alley, I did get some news this week regarding my ability to answer questions: my MTEL results.

Communication and Literacy Skills

Reading Subtest

Miniumum Passing Score: 70
My Score: 97

Writing Subtest

Minimum Passing Score: 70
My Score: 97

Health Education Subject Test

Minimum Passing Score: 70
My Score: 100

While I liked the twin 97s, I did feel like I'd done well on that test. The 100 on the health test, though, that surprised me. I know the tests are scaled, but I didn't figure on that.

Interrestingly, when each test was broken down into specific areas, the area where I did the least well was on study skills. Which seems appropriate, given that mine deviate pretty broadly from what everyone is told to do. But they work for me, and I suppose these results underscore that.

This all leads to the "now what?" question, which is a good one. I do appear to be qualified for an initial licence (which requires passing the tests and having a BA), but I'm not sure what I'd do with it, especially as I've just started something that, so far, I like. Something to think about.

So while not as vaunted as the Big Quiz Thing that Boggie keeps mentioning, I have been playing in a pub trivia game at the Elephant & Castle with the wife, some former Babsonians, and assorted others. Last night was my third time playing, and we collected our second third-place finish (sandwiching our one win, which qualified us for a Tournament of Champions come October).

In the spirit of having something to write that calls for your comments, and in the way of telling the story of the night, here are some selected questions from the evening. Take your best guess in the comments, with plaudits going to the first one to get it right. Looking up the answers, of course, isn't really in the spirit of things. I'll never know, but you run the risk of whatever post-mortal punishment you think might exist (unless you think it's none, in which case we'll all talk at your wake about how we thought you cheated at trivia).

As questions get answered I'll share in how they were significant for the evening.

Anyway, the questions:

* The Star of India is the largest example of what kind of gemstone? Sapphire (OTC) - This was the first question of the night, which we missed. The wife, we discovered later, knew this. Had she attended, we'd have finished second. So we're blaming everything on her for not being there.

* In 1918, 97 people died in the deadliest rapid transit accident in history. In what US city did this occur? New York City (OTC) - We had a very short list for this question including NYC, Boston, Philly, and Chicago. We discounted Boston as I'd have known about it if it were here, and Philly for no real reason. I then engaged in some song clue analysis (the song played after the question is often a clue), and theorized that the line "Well the Illinois Central/ and the Southern Central Freight" from the Doobie Brothers "Long Train Running" suggested Chicago. We went with it, and were wrong, losing 5 points.

I generally over-analyze one song per game. Too bad this time it was on a round-ending bonus question.

* Name the four US Presidents from the Whig party. William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore (Paul) - This question ended the first round, and we only got Taylor and Fillmore. We said Martin Van Buren (which in retrospect I should have caught as wrong) and Franklin Pierce, forgetting about Tippicanoe and Tyler Too.

The interesting wrinkle here is that Tyler got booted from the Whigs not long after taking office, so he spent most of his Presidency as a Democrat (which I guess doesn't even make the question technically wrong; from what I first read I thought he was a Democrat elected on a Whig ticket). Paul's conviction that John Quincy Adams was a Whig does have some merit - he was elected to the US House as a Whig after his run as a Democrat-Republican President.

* In the movie The Shining, what baseball player's signature is on the Louisville Slugger Wendy Torrance uses on her husband Jack? Carl Yazstremski (Paul) - We got halfway there, figuring it for a Red Sox player given King's fandom. Rather than go contemporary, we went classic and said Ted Williams. Had we thought about it for another 30 seconds... we'd probably have still said Teddy Ballgame.

The wife knew this one, too. More room to blame her, then.

* What is the only state without a national park? Delaware (Shawn) - Apparently, Caesar Romney's house doesn't qualify.

This was the final question of the night, where you could bet up to 20 points (and risk losing half if you're wrong). I knew this (from writing a question and from being a national parks geek), so we bet the max. But so did the team we were tied with at the time, requiring a tie-breaker question!

* How long is a regulation bowling alley? 62 feet - Our tiebreaker question, which we were a little stunned to get given that we didn't expect all that many correct answers to the final question (there were at least two others, as the team we tied and the winner both got the question right).

We started off with 60 feet, based on a TV commentator saying something about "60 feet to victory." I thought my teammate said baseball at one point, so I thought there was some confusion. This led to us thinking if I could lie down 10 times on a bowling alley (being 6' 3"), and I didn't think so.

If nothing else, this confirms that I can't judge distances worth a damn.

So we went with 40, which in retrospect is clearly too short. The other team in the tiebreak went with 75 feet. So instead of getting a $25 gift certificate that'd have covered a large chunk of our tab, we got free Sam Adams Black Lager beer (we could have also gotten hats, but passed as we'd gotten hats a couple of weeks before). I wound up drinking two of them, and to be honest I'm not a huge fan. It's OK, better than the typical mass-brewed lager but nothing that would turn me away from ales... which now makes me wish the trivia game was sponsored by Harpoon.

I suppose that's what we get for ignoring the first rule of trivia games - trust your first answer. Then again, we did that a couple of other times in the game and got burned. So maybe the first rule is that there are no rules. Except that seems a little anarchic for something as geektacular as bar trivia. So maybe we just have to learn how to use The Force.

I've been having kind of a running battle with headaches, most notably a couple of weeks ago when they were of the pulsing, head-in-a-vice variety. After getting checked out today, it looks like a double whammy of sinus problems and glasses which are too strong. The former I'd suspected; the latter I hardly expected. The headaches were worse when I wore my glasses, but I'd worn them steadily for some time without real problems.

So after a quick course of medication and new lenses, I should be OK. Keep your fingers crossed.

If anyone out there has an ESPN.com Fantasy Football draft coming up, be prepared for a very problematic Java draft applet. Of course, it could just be us freeloaders who get it. I suppose they'd figure it's what we get for not padding Disney's coffers.

While I've not read the whole thing, there is an article in today's Boston Globe that posits that it would have been better for the Sox to lose the World Series last year. The thesis seems to be that any team can win a World Series (Cubs notwithstanding), but losing them, especially in dramatic fashion, is much harder.

Clearly the author is missing the point that you play the games in the hopes of winning the championship. If you want heart-wrenching endings, go to the opera.

As a cycling fan (probably more a Tour de France fan - I follow some of the other major races, but nowhere near as closely), the latest allegations regarding Lance Armstrong and doping give me room to pause.

But only a little.

In case you've missed it, here's the skinny - the French sports newspaper L'Equipe ran an article earlier this week claiming that urine samples belonging to Armstrong - backup samples taken in 1999 - tested positive for EPO, a banned substance. They did not test positive back then because there was no test for EPO, and they only tested positive now because the lab that had them was using these old samples to perfect current tests.

These samples are anonymous, but the paper managed to link them to Armstrong through some paperwork that connected him with the sample numbers. It's not enough to sanction Armstrong - he'd need positive results from tests on primary samples, which are long gone - but it was proof enough for the paper.

These are probably the most serious allegations of the many levelled at Armstrong regarding doping. Lance, of course, continues to deny that he ever doped and thinks that there's some sort of conspiracy out to get him.

As much as this sounds like he's asking to get fitted for a tinfoil hat, he may have a point.

Consider that the parent company for the newspaper also owns the company that runs the Tour. Which means that when the tour director accepted the story as proving Armstrong's doping, he wasn't just stating opinion. He was toeing the company line.

Consider also that Armstrong has admitted using EPO - not while competing, but while fighting cancer. He's more or less said that EPO kept him alive during treatment. The more cynical might figure that Lance, seeing the benefits of EPO, didn't quite abandon it once he was all better.

Perhaps the biggest thing to consider is that a Frenchman hasn't won the Tour since 1985. Americans have won fully half of the Tours in that span. Riders from Denmark and Ireland (!) have won the Tour in the time since Bernard Hinault took the top step of the podium in 1985.

(Speaking of the podium, a Frenchman hasn't been present on one since 1997.)

This year was an even bigger famine for the French, as they won only one stage - the one on Bastille Day, when the French riders ride a little harder and the other riders let them (as long as it doesn't upset the leaders). If Bastille Day was in, say, October, the French may not have even taken a stage win.

(And, just in case you were wondering, the French were also shut out in the sprint, climbing, and young rider competitions, which were won by guys from Norway, Denmark, and the Ukraine.)

A generation of building futility in a race you pretty much invented will make people mad. They'll look for someone to take it out on.

Enter Lance Armstrong.

I suppose it all boils down to what you think deserves more consideration - the piles of circumstantial evidence tying Armstrong to doping, or the rabid machinations of the press (French and others) who have been gunning for Armstrong since his first Tour win. I can't say I fully trust Armstrong, but I have very little faith in the restraint and ethics of Europe's sports journalists. So I'm sticking with Armstrong - for now.

I've learned something important today. According to Pat Robertson, "take him out" does not mean assassination. It can also include many less lethal options. I assume a trip for ice cream would be included if taken literally, but probably wasn't where Robertson was going with this.

Had I the skill level, an alt history novel about President Robertson's term in office could be very entertaining.

Some good news coming out of the BARC meetings today, at least if you're from New England and have a stake in such things: the New London sub base and the Portsmouth Naval Yard aren't going to close. There is at least one reader who's worked at both and can perhaps provide some personal observations. All I can say is that Maine can use all the jobs it can get, and keeping Portsmouth open will help.

***

A technology-related question: would I be better off getting Tivo or going with the DVR offered by Comcast?

Now that I'm back among the fully employed, we've decided to put some of our new gains into some sort of DVR system. I mess up the VCR thing enough between missed endings and tape-overs that it seems like a good thing to do.

Tivo would cost $13 a month and whatever we pay to buy the box. Comcast's DVR is $10 a month and is combined with our cable box. I've been comparing the services and can't come up with too many differences, though I think the ability to skip commercials is one of them. Not sure if that's a big deal or not; I'm used to fast forwarding through ads when using the VCR.

I'm tending towards the Comcast box just so I don't have to worry about having to buy new boxes in the future, but if you've got something to say here, please do.

***

Not sure why I'm separating things with the asterisks. Do you like it?

***

Still plenty of time to vote about what state I should dislike. Knowing some of you as I do and your love of hatin', I can't imagine why the vote totals are so low. Unless you're hatin' on the poll, which I can respect.

An update from the wife: she does not hate football. She hates the volume of football she's subjected to, which I'd alluded to yesterday.

Which is kind of funny, given that the "volume" of football I watch has actually gone down in the last 10 years. It's just that there's more football now at times you'd not expect it (like Arena games in April and college games on Tuesday nights).

So I guess it's kind of a break-even thing.

***

The Bruce's recent swipe at three states gets my support, at least in two cases. Well, one and a half, really.

I can't talk full smack about New Hampshire, as I do have family there (though in a place where a surveyor's hiccup could have landed them in Massachusetts). And I do like most of the state from an aesthetic standpoint. I'll agree with the Bruce about the Hampton tolls (even worse, the state is getting rid of the toll tokens that you used to be able to get by the roll for half-price), and that their libertarian ethos may be undermined somewhat by having state liquor stores.

Though I suppose if it's a choice between getting people drunk or payroll taxes, New Hampshireites will take the former.

I do, of course, have complete and utter disdain for the UNH men's hockey program (and the women, too, I suppose, now that BU's made the jump to varsity).

Florida gets my full-on approval as a state to dislike. And if you idiots send Scarborough to the Senate, I will personally come down there and start kicking ass. I suppose winding up with Senator-elect Katherine Harris might motivate the same reaction, but it'd be less surprising given that you rewarded her performance in 2000 by making her a US Representative.

The only thing that primary race needs is for David Duke to file papers.

It doesn't help the state that they have weather that I can tolerate for about two months of the year.

Homer Simpson called Florida "America's wang" for a reason, folks.

I've never been to Oregon, so no comment there. I know at least one reader lived there for a while and perhaps will comment on it. After mulling things a bit, my short list of a third state to hate includes:

* Delaware, for supporting its tax-free status by making you pay $39.50 to drive their 4 miles of I-95.

* New York, just because. Though that might be a little on the nose (or perhaps redundant) for a Red Sox fan.

* Indiana, for being the Alabama of the midwest.

* North Dakota, for its idiotic quest to rename itself because north=cold. People were fooled by the name Greenland - in the 12th century. You can call yourself what you like, and it won't change the fact that you probably have the greatest temperature extremes of any state in the continental US. Though I'm sure there's nothing that takes the edge off of a 98 degree day like the thought of the coming -25 degree days.

So, with all this in mind, go vote.

Sticking with today's sports theme (but leaving football), Chris Bourque signed with the Washington Capitals yesterday. Some of you will know him as the son of Bruins great Ray Bourque and burgeoning star of the Boston University hockey team, who left school after this past season to play in the major juniors, only to wind up with the AHL's Portland Pirates.

I know hitting the books wasn't his thing, but he may wish he'd sucked it up a bit more given the prospects for the Caps this year. Heck, a season in Hershey would be an improvement; at least they've got all that chocolate.

Sticking with football, I've set up a couple of ESPN.com groups for the college game:

College Pick 'Em
Group: Pickin' and Grinnin'
Password: touchdown

Thursday Night College Football Challenge
Group: Touchdown Touchback
Password: touchdown

An important fact about tonight's Pats-Saints exhibition: the wife will be attending.

I will not.

A guy at her office had tickets he couldn't use, and offered them up to the first takers. So, she and some of her work buddies got together and claimed them. Leaving none for spouses, friends, or other such people.

Thanks.

I know, it's pre-season, why should I care, except for three reasons:

1. The wife doesn't like football. Although she's now amended her stance to disliking my habit of watching football. So it's not the Pats, but the other NFL, NCAA, AFL, and CFL games.

I don't buy that for a minute.

2. The only Pats game I've been to was a dismal affair which I think I've mentioned here before: a loss to the Seahawks in a cold drizzle in the upholstered toilet that was (at the time) Sullivan Stadium.

3. I've not been to Gillette Stadium. That's really what I'm most irritated about. Though perhaps I can talk the wife into going to the US-Panama World Cup qualifier on October 12. It may wind up being irrelevant (a win against Mexico next month gets us in), but if not it could be the clincher, which would be cool.

So I just got around to changing my voice mail, and I ran into an unusual problem with the internal greeting, which is just my name.

It was too short.

The messaging system, disapproving of the economy of my name, subbed in my regular greeting, which is much longer. I finally got my name in, but had to say it very slowly. It sounds like I'm talking to a three year old.

Looking at this week, I will have made dinner at home exactly once.

Sunday: Subway
Monday: The Continental
Tuesday: The Elephant & Castle, a mock-British pub in the Financial District. They serve what I'd call "modern English" cuisine (minus the New Wave hair). I had a dish where roast beef and onions were stuffed in a Yorkshire pudding. Yum. I was there for pub trivia, where my team finished third. We got Sam Adams hats. Woo.
Wednesday: I had to cook. Boo. Turned out fine, considering.
Thursday: Picco on Tremont in the South End. The name is short for Pizza and Ice Cream Company, which sums up their menu pretty well. There are a few non-pizza items, but just a few. No appetizers, either, which was odd. Got their "Alsacian Variation" pizza, a combo of sour cream, bacon, caramelized onions, and gruyere cheese. It was quite tasty. Dessert was gingerbread with whipped cream and fruit topped with a scoop of cinnamon ice cream, which was fantastic.
Friday: The Barking Crab, down on the waterfront. You may remember this as the place that got shut down a few years ago when they managed to have some of their sewer pipes drain into their shellfish tanks. They seem to have corrected the problem and persevered, but just the same I'm glad the fish is already filleted. Had the fish and chips, which was fine.
Saturday: Had plans to go out with family to celebrate a run of birthdays, but they fell through. But we're still fired up to eat out, so we're going on our own. We may continue to eat our way around Route 1 (another reason for our stop at The Continental), but perhaps we'll stay closer to home. Good thing we ate at the Barking Crab yesterday; too damn hot today to eat somewhere that's not air conditioned.

Along these lines, I got free lunch all week as a welcome to Wentworth and as an opportunity to get together with folks from my office and the admissions office, which is in the same division. This was four days of the limited menu at the dining hall (they're renovating) and Friday at Qdoba. Now how did I get suckered into making my own breakfasts?

Seeing Craig's football look-ahead (and Greg's non-football one), I thought of something:

Wentworth: no football
Babson: no football
BU: no football (now)
New England School of Law : no football (or any varsity athletics, it being a grad/professional school)

I have to go all the way back to high school (or the last academic year, depending on how you want to look at it) to find an institution whose football season I could handicap.

Considering the Hornets of Manchester-Essex went 0-11 last year, looking ahead may not be that compelling.

Going back to a couple of days ago, I managed to walk into the wrong cubicle again today. Thankfully, its occupant wasn't there. This time.

Following up the last post (where I should note that my disdain comes from the lame attempt to come up with a sequel to buying the world a Coke, not from any problem with Coca-Cola Zero, which I've never had - unless it's just repackaged C2), I find it entertaining that one of the ads clearly show the Philadelphia skyline. When I think of cities with people who've learned how to chill, Philly's not exactly in my top 10.

I mean, they had a mayor bomb his own consitutents once. Not that any of them were exactly beacons of civic involvement, but still.

It may explain why the people in the ad are on some random rooftop. Were they loose in the streets, loyal citizens would be compelled to bind and gag them and throw them in the Schuykill.

I would like to state for the record that if anyone hands me a Coca-Cola Zero and tries to teach me to chill, I will commit some unspecified act upon their person. Probably not a welcome one, either.

Had my first entertainingly embarrasing moment today, when I walked into another person's cubicle thinking it was mine. To be fair, they're in the same part of the office and are similarly situated in their respective cluster of cubicles. But I still felt like a dope.

Now if that's the biggest problem I have this week...

So busy!

Before the weekend was tying up loose ends before starting the new job. This was domianted by a media rating project involving foreign-language articles which took a lot of time, given that (a) most of the special characters were stripped, requiring some work to replace with the letter minus its accent, and (b) we used a translator program that gave "gisted" translations, meaning more literal and less idiomatic. So it was a lot of the European equivalent of Engrish.

The weekend brought us up to Maine, which was pretty restful until Sunday morning, when I went with the wife and the sister in law for a hike in the Camden Hills State Park. We did something between 3 and 4 miles on rocky, tree root-infested trails. I also got to give a quick course in reading terrain maps which boiled down to "close lines=steep climbing."

Even with the leg-shattering climbs, we weren't all that sore afterwards. Perhaps more hiking in the future, though perhaps on gentler, clearer trails.

Today was my first day at the new job, which went pretty well. The commute was pretty smooth, though if we are going to stay in our current weather pattern I may risk taking the Green Line given that I'd spend less time walking through humidity. As for actual job stuff, it was the usual first day experience where you get a ton of information and hope a quarter of it sticks. We're about two week away from the biggest graduation ceremony (due to co-op requirements, though there is a smaller May ceremony), so I'm getting in at just the right time to see how things work in practice. Even better, my first graduation is in February, which is the smallest of the three (it doesn't even get its own ceremony).

Everything else is good so far - like the work environment, and the people are great.

After work, the wife and I had a birthday dinner at The Continental on Route 1. For those of you planning your SNL joke for the comments, don't, because this place is pretty much what you'd get if you transmogrified Christopher Walken in an ascot into a restaurant. The whole place feels like it's from 1973, from the decor to the very traditional menu. That being said, we both enjoyed our meals and the prices extremely reasonable. We've paid more for less at chain restaurants. I don't know if we'd go there regularly, but I could see it being in the rotation. Especially if we're with the in-laws.

Not too much else to report. Sad to see Peter Jennings go (we were an ABC household), but perhaps not unexpected with the lung cancer and all. Think happy thoughts for the Discovery crew, and hope that that thermal blanket thing isn't too serious. Really, it may be time we either build some new, less problematic Shuttles or bring back more traditional rocket-based systems. It doesn't do you much good to have a re-useable space plane if you have to keep grounding them or spend half the mission making repairs.

Time for a variation on the "fun with iTunes" meme that was kicking around for a while. For the following 20 musical artists, you must name the one song I have of theirs in my iTunes. Some of these should be pretty easy, others less so. Put your guesses in the comments, and I'll make notations as the songs are correctly identified.

Time's up, here's the lineup:

1. 10CC - "The Things We Do For Love" (Greg). Heard it at lunch one day at Babson and it got stuck in my head until I got my own copy.

2. Aaron Neville - "These Arms of Mine," which I seem to have gotten from the Dirty Dancing soundtrack. No worries; I do not have a copy of "She's Like the Wind."

3. America - "Sister Golden Hair" (Matt).

4. Annie Lennox - "Why" (Greg). It's an unplugged version, not sure if it's "official" MTV Unplugged or not.

5. Badfinger - "No Matter What" (JQ). I also got mine thanks to the Outside Providence soundtrack.

6. Bill Withers - "Lean On Me" (Greg).

7. Buckner & Garcia - "Pac Man Fever" (Scott). Though I was more of an Asteroids fan, really.

8. Carbon Leaf - "Life Less Ordinary" (Craig).

9. The Cure - "Close to You," from Craig's tournament.

10. The Dave Brubeck Quartet - "Take Five" (Scott).

11. Dixie Chicks - "I Can Love You Better." Like I said, the wife put this one on.

12. Englebert Humperdink - "Lesbian Seagull" (JQ).

13. Frank Sinatra - "Somewhere Beyond the Sea."

14. General Public - "Tenderness" (Greg).

15. Jewel - "You Were Meant For Me" (James). Off of the Live on Letterman CD, credited as Jewel with Flea. With that pairing, I had to keep it.

16. Living Colour - "Cult of Personality" (Matt).

17. Michael Jackson - "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" (Greg). Ironic, don't you think?

18. Rufus Wainwright - "April Fools" (Greg).

19. The Scorpions - "Rock You Like a Hurricane" (JQ). Ja!

20. Strawberry Alarm Clock - "Incence and Peppermint" (Matt). Not sure why I have this or where it came from. I suppose it's my music for freaking out squares, given that I have no Billy Joel.

Enjoy!

Our long national nightmare - OK, my long personal nightmare - is finally over.

I am once again employed in a full-time capacity.

Starting Monday, I'll be an assistant registrar at the Wentworth Institute of Technology, a tech/engineering/design school in Boston next door to Northeastern. The main focus of the job is all things graduation, though I'll have other duties as well, of course.

It was a long wait - a very long wait - but I think it'll be worth it. Though I may sing a different tune once I've gotten into commuting again. Thankfully, it's a pretty easy trip on public transportation, with options of taking the Green or Orange lines on the T, which is better than being beholden to the Green line.

I should give special thanks here to the wife, whose patience and support during the non-working bordered on the superhuman at times.

Interesting note: I'll be starting at Wentworth on the same day as I did at Babson: August 8. That's also my birthday, which makes this all the more... interesting? Unusual? Notable only to me? Do with it what you will.

For all the time I lived in Boston, there are any number of things I never did or saw that I probably should have. Today, I got to rectify one of them by taking a day trip out to the Boston Harbor islands.

We boarded the first ferry out and were dropped at Georges Island, which is kind of the hub for all of the activity on the islands. The sister-in-law arrived a little later on a ferry from Quincy. At that point we decided to wait for the guided tour of Fort Warren, which is the island's dominant feature.

The only problem is that the scheduled tour never seemed to have happened. There was a ranger at the info booth at the given time, but he disappeared and, as far as we could tell, never inquired as to whether or not anyone was waiting for the tour. The woman at the information booth was pretty clueless about the tours, which suggests that maybe they want to coordinate these things better.

(Perhaps this isn't surprising, as the islands are a national park, but administered by some other body. This just begs for little problems like this.)

In any event, we took the self-guided walking tour. It was OK, though there was little attempt made to guide you from place to place. We were able to muddle through, but I'd have liked clearer directions.

The fort itself has elements going back to the War of 1812 (and there was a previous fort from the Revolution), and it was interesting to get to see it up close and personal. At times it was a little too up close and personal, as there were an abundance of open nooks to explore without much by way of lighting or even ground to walk on. Which is more of a problem now than it was back in the day.

After taking the once-around we decided to take the inter-island ferry to a neighboring island to have lunch. We took the boat over to Lovells Island, or as it will be known from this point on Mosquito Island (or the Island of the Damned, for the campers stuck out there). Within 4 minnutes of disembarking we were swarmed by the winged bloodsuckers, forcing a retreat back to the dock. We spent the rest of the hour there, and then took the inter-island ferry back to Georges (with other visitors who had similar insect experiences).

Once back on Georges we hung out under a tree, had some slush from the snack bar (located in a building that used to test mines), perused a monument erected by the Boston chapter of the Daughters of Confederate Veterans (that there is a Boston chapter was more surprising than the news that Confederate POWs were housed at the fort), and then left. I'd have liked to have seen some of the other islands, but that'll be for a later time.

And for all the city folk who flock to the beaches, the islands are a pretty good alternative. The ferry ride is $10, and while there aren't any sandy beaches, there is plenty of space for sunbathing and the like (I assume you can swim; whether or not you want to is an open question). The snack bar does offer fast foodish options, though it's pretty easy to bring your own (you just have to carry your trash off with you).

I'd happily go back. I just have to remember to pack bug spray with the sunblock.

The oddest encounter of the day, though, happened on the drive home when, traversing the narrow streets of Lynn, we had to get around a guy on a unicycle dribbling a basketball and wearing headphones. Had the camera only been available.

I got an email from NHL.com today asking to fill out a survey regarding the return of the league. At the end of it they had a link to share with friends.

As I consider you all my friends, if you'd like to sound off about the NHL, or just like filling out surveys, click here.

The NHL released the 2005-06 schedule yesterday (or was it Tuesday?). Anyway:

Good: "rivalry" scheduling. While I hope this isn't taken to the extremes of baseball (19 games against a divisional opponent is too many, especially if it's the Devil Rays), it should help to revive interest that was diluted when teams spent more time playing everyone. Speaking of dilution, though:

Bad: there are still 82 games in the regular season. This number needs to go down, though the league's worrisome financial status makes it impractical. Hopefully, they'll get some TV money and be able to pare back to something in the high 60s.

Speaking of TV, I'd read yesterday that OLN might wind up with NHL games, apparently at the behest of the network's owner, Comcast. That would be interesting.

Good: there is a break in February so players can compete in the Olympics. After missing the most recent Worlds, I look forward to this tournament.

Bad: the new NHL logo color scheme. I sincerely doubt that anyone will become more interested in the league now that the NHL shield is black and silver instead of black and orange. But I do think it'll further irritate long-time fans who still pine for the days of the named conferences and divisons. Like me.

So on my post last week about the dentist, I should have said "next week" rather than "next month," as I was back in the chair today to tackle a couple of cavities, the identical cousins to the ones on the other side of my lower jaw.

Thankfully, there's a good chance I won't need a root canal for the tooth with the deeper cavity. Still a possibility, but at least it wasn't like the last time when we jumped right to root canal. We'll keep our fingers crossed.

I did something yesterday that, even up to a couple of months ago, I was very unsure about trying.

I took the two tests I'd need to pass to get a teacher's licence in Massachusetts.

My very long day of standardized testing started with me needing to be at Lynn English High School by 7:45 am. This wasn't so bad, though I was a little irritated to learn that Beverly High School about three minutes from where we live, was also a testing site (on the other hand, someone I know from Manchester-Essex who I ran into at Lynn Enligh has a classmate who lives in Danvers but had to go into Arlington to take her test). As it was I got in, found the room I needed and my numbered seat.

The morning test was on "communications and literacy," basically a reading and writing test to make sure that prospective teachers have a reasonable command of the English language. The reading part wasn't too bad; 30 multiple choice reading comprehension questions and something like 6 to 8 vocab questions where I had to define given words (mine included homogeneous and deviate).

The writing section was much different that I expected from the practice tests I took. There were 44 multiple choice questions, 30 of which were based on five six-sentence paragraphs. For each sentence, I had to tell if it had a spelling error, capitalization error, punctuation error, or no error. A couple were on the subtle side, but others mentioning "breckfast" and Susan B. Anthony going to "cast a Ballot" made up for things. The other 14 were more focused on the grammar and mechanics of a few short readings.

After that, I had to define three grammatical terms and rewrite three sentences to make them more grammatically correct. I thought there would be more of these, but I'm not complaining. I was a little nervous about the grammar definitions, as it's been a good 20 years since my last serious study of grammar. Thankfully, I had to define exclamatory sentence, imperative sentence, and adverb.

After this were two open-response writing questions. One basically asked you to re-write a selection to demonstrate its main points, a practice which kind of confuses me given that the selection was pretty well-organized to begin with. For the persuasive essay, I surprised myself by writing in favor of a nationwide 55 mile per hour speed limit. I think I found it easier to write from that perspective given that I grew up during the days where 55 was pretty much the rule. I certainly don't drive in favor of such a speed limit.

I had about an hour and 15 minutes for lunch. There's a pizza place across from the school, but I feared it would be crowded with test takers. When I was at the car behind the school, I saw a sign for a sub shop beyond the playing fields. So I walked on over. It was closed. I then walked down to a supermarket, thinking they may have prepared sandwiches. They didn't. So I walked back across the playing fields, around the school, to the pizza place I feared would be packed. I was the only person there.

They don't take debit cards.

They did point me towards a convenience store up the street, where I got money. I went back, finally got some food, and ate lunch under a tree (the pizza place not having any tables, oddly). I had about a half-hour left, so I tried to get in a little last-minute studying.

Which seems like a good point to mention that the afternoon test was a subject test for health education. When I decided to take this test, I spent a little time trying to sort out what to take. I figured I had several options from the listed subjects:

* political science, which made sense given that I'd majored in it. However, I've never seen a school here looking for a poli sci teacher.
* history, given the classics degree and general interest in history. There were even test materials that would allow me to coach myself up prior to the test. But I figured that was a reach, so I passed.
* library, given that I'm a dork and like libraries. But I have little experience and no education in library science, so it seemed like a bad idea, career-wise.
* speech, based on my debate career. Then I thought about my success as a debater and speechie. Pass.
* health, based on having a MPH. Seemed like the best option at the time.

The question of how to study was a hard one, given that there aren't any test prep books and the published test objectives are very general. So I wound up borrowing a health textbook from a teacher at Manchester and outlined it.

In any case, the health test was interesting. I'd expected more questions about "factual" information (in fact, I feared questions asking details about what foods contain what vitamins and the like). The questions tended to be more situational, and there was a definite focus on the problem-solving sorts of things that seem to be the new focus of health education (or at least new to me, compared to my last health ed class in 1985). I then had to write a couple of essays, one about things that cause cardiovascular disease and ways to prevent the illness, the other asking me to discuss the information you'd find on nutrition labels on food products, how a consumer can use that information to their advantage, and three special cases or circumstances where reading the labels would help (I went with someone trying to lose weight, people with allergies or sensitivities, and religious/ethical dietary restrictions).

So how'd it go? With the communications and literacy test, I can't help but think about the line FX uses in promos for King of the Hill.

You're failing English? Bobby, you speak English.

I'll be very unhappy if I don't pass.

With health, I think I did pretty well, but it was more of a crap shoot.

I'll know August 26. By which point I could already have a job and this all is more or less moot. We'll see.

So the NHL is now officially back, as the owners and players have all agreed to the new CBA. I got to catch the tail end of the press conference on this, and much of the talk was around rules changes. Many of these will feel familiar to fans of the college game (no red-line offsides and the introduction of no-touch icing), while others are directed at the net (changes in standards for goalie equipment and changing the location of the nets).

One rule change, however, stands out as polarizing: shootouts to determine a winner after OT.

I've mentioned the one glorious year of the Hockey East shootout in the past, and if you didn't catch it then I should point out now that my wistfulness wasn't exactly genuine. Not that the shootout didn't have entertainment value, given its relationship to the most exciting play in sports (the penalty shot), but as a method to determine a game winner it's not optimal. But I do understand that in order to attract more fans it helps to actually have a winner and loser for each game. Because, apparently, the average American can't handle the concept of a tie.

Though if it means an end to four-column standings, I'm back on board.

There was also some talk about the NHL working out their schedule in 2006 and 2010 to allow players to compete in the Olympics. NHL commish Gary Bettman kind of put it in the players' lap when asked about it, saying they had to sign off on some stuff to make it a reality. While hockey is one of the few team sports at the Winter Olympics, I'd hope that what happened to baseball at the last IOC meeting serves as a bit of an object lesson.

After the news conference was a league-wide draft lottery to hand out positions for next week's entry draft, done because (a) there was already an entry draft where teams were ranked according to their 2003-04 finish, and (b) most teams have very few players under contract, so team quality may really change over the next few weeks.

Anywho, the draft lottery show was great TV - if you ever wondered what it would sound like to hear Bettman count backwards from 30 to 3 (and then up from 1 to 2). The actual draw was held in a "secured location" (was Dick Cheney there?), and Bettman read the positions from envelopes. Each team had one, two, or three balls in the drum according to a poorly-explained system involving considerations of recent team history with the playoffs and, well, other stuff. Four teams had the maximum number of balls, and one of them - Pittsburgh - landed the top pick, which they'll use on phenom Sidney Crosby.

Most screwed were the Florida Panthers, the only non-playoff team from 2003-04 to land a pick in the bottom 10. They'll select 29th. Out of 30.

Hope that free agency thing works out for them.

And, like a good fantasy draft, the picks will snake; Tampa Bay has the last pick of round one, and follows it with the first pick of round two. No word yet on whether or not it's a keeper league or if teams will accumulate fractional points.

Anyway, NHL hockey is back October 5th. Please watch. They can use the exposure.

A little life and style asterisk-style for you all:

* After an initial taste-testing, I am undecided as to the potability of the latest flavor (so new that it's not even on the web site) from Polar Beverages, a local producer of sodas, mixers, and such: pomegranate dry. The wife found it too sweet (even for being "dry" and the diet version to boot), while I was finding the intensity of the flavor differing from mouthful to mouthful. All in all I'd try it again, but I wouldn't invest in a 2 liter.

* Both the lo-cal and NBC news had stories tonight on the popularity and new status of flip-flops, given their appearance on the feet of several Northwestern women's lacross players during their recent visit to the White House. What's surprising to me is that this is considered a recent fashion trend given that it's been commmon on campus for years. I suppose working in higher ed gives me an inside perspective on this. I can remember being surprised at the prevalence of flip flops in, say, 2002.

I don't really blame the players, though I'd think even an average level of maturity for a college athlete would suggest that if you're going to see the President of the US, you probably shouldn't wear footwear that also works in the locker room. I do wonder what the coaches were doing when they should have given the players a once-over for appropriate attire, but they could be so used to flip flops that it didn't register.

Even so, if W invites me down for photos and finger sandwiches, I'll be sure to wear shoes. I'll even wear socks with them.

* In the space of a week, the Red Sox seem to have turned over about half of their active roster. I tuned into today just in time to see Tony Graffanino register his first hit and RBI for the team, at which time I registered that Graffanino was actually on the team. I also didn't know that we'd had to trade someone to get Adam Hydzu back. I assumed he was in Pawtucket waiting for Kevin Youkilis to get sent back down. Again. Which he was when Graffanino came on board.

I feel badly for Youkilis, who can't seem to catch on in Boston. Expectations may have been raised by his mention in Moneyball, where his ability to get on base made him a prime target of Billy Beane, who couldn't pry him away from the Sox for love or money. I now wonder if it would have been better for the Greek God of Walks if he went to Oakland.

(I know, this is sports rather than life and style, but work with me.)

* Speaking of life and style, the Boston Globe has now come up with something it calls "Sidekick" (tagged with the line "Your Guide to a Better Day") which combines the comics, crossword, TV listings, horoscopes, and things to do into a small tabloid-format pull-out section. I'd think this was in response to the Metro Boston, a "newspaper" that packages AP wire stories in small bits so that it can give you "24 hours in 20 minutes," except that the Globe now owns 49 percent of that publication.

Meaning that the Globe would be competing against itself.

I am actually fairly sad over the state of Boston newspapers. The Globe hasn't been the same since the New York Times folks bought them out, the Herald is trying to be the local, more sedate cousin to the New York Daily News, and then there's the Metro, which could be subtitled "The Newspaper for Illiterates." I used to read a paper every day. Now, I rarely even bother to check any of them out on-line.

I suppose that saves me money.

Eight months and three days after first being told that it was a likelihood, my root canal experience finally ended today when I got my permanent crown. It was kind of anticlimactic, as I spent all of 35 minutes in the chair while the new crown was adjusted to match my bite.

Not that I don't appreciate the smoothness of things. Early in the visit the dentist noted that in case the crown slipped (it being slick from saliva and such) I should endeavor not to swallow it. That idea hadn't occurred to me prior to that; I couldn't get it out of my head for several minutes afterward.

So while I can look back on this process and relax, there is an ugly reality on the horizon: I may begin the whole process again next month when I go to get a couple of fillings on the other side of my lower jaw. Oddly enough, the likely candidate tooth is the same one (on the other side) as the first. I'd chalk it up to nature's love of symmetry if it weren't for all the sugar and lack of regular check-ups.

Let me take this opportunity to add to Craig and the Bruce's endorsement for The Road From Bristol, a tournament to find the most annoying ESPN personality. Needless to say, there is no shortage of deserving entrants.

In other news, I am currently reading The $1 League, which I imagine is the definitive history of the USFL (as it may be the only one; if there are others, please let me know). I was hoping the book would be like Loose Balls, Terry Pluto's fantastic history of the ABA, but it's not. It mostly follows ownership issues, which isn't surprising as the author was the USFL's director of communications. It's not too bad, but I have to think the best stories were in the locker room rather than the boardroom.

Two other books that I've read and would recommend:

The Ballad of the Whiskey Robber by Julian Rubinstein, the story of a minor-league hockey goalie who becomes a folk hero in post-communist Hungary when he takes to robbing banks while drunk.

Ponzi's Scheme by Mitchell Zuckoff. A very well-done account of both the history of the swindle and Ponzi's life. I hadn't realized just how much money he'd made (enough to buy a bank and take a stab at legitimacy), or how he managed to engineer his own downfall.

While I think we've heard this before, the NHL may finally be back. The league and the NHLPA have hammered out an agreement that, if ratified by the players, will put the teams back on the ice.

I should care more about this than I actually do, but college hockey has pretty well eroded my interest in the NHL. Even so, I ranked it fairly high on ESPN.com's poll where you had to rank 16 "sports" (more like a combo of sports and leagues). The NHL was doing pretty well, fourth out of 16, though I'm sure there's some sort of self-selection bias at work.

Unrelated to hockey, I'm a little surprised that after 2 and a half years of retooling, the Space Shuttle folks didn't notice that Discovery's fuel gauge didn't work. If they'd only subcontracted work out to Mr. Goodwrench.

In less serious news, the IOC voted today to drop baseball and softball as sports for the 2012 Games in London. They then managed to not add any sports to replace them; from a list of five possible sports they selected two for a vote (squash and karate), neither of which gained the two-thirds support needed to add a sport. Rugby, golf and "roller sports" (not sure what all was included there) were passed over without a vote.

All the balloting was done in secret (though the AP apparently came up with vote totals for the squash and karate votes), which was pretty controversial. The given rationale was to prevent embarrasment for the international sport federations if their given sport failed to gain many votes. Other people suggested it allowed for a lack of accountability. It seems kind of fishy to me, but there isn't much involving the IOC that doesn't.

The loss of baseball isn't all that surprising. The lack of MLB talent and the spectre of another drug-tainted sport sealed the deal. The softball result was more surprising, though from what US national team players have said it was a combination of anti-Americanism and the personal view of IOC head Jacques Rogge.

As for the proposed new sports, I'm pretty meh about squash, but thought karate had a chance given that martial arts are some of the newer sports (judo was added in 1964, taekwondo in 1988). I was very non-plussed about golf (for the same reason as tennis - it's not that big a deal compared to the major tournaments) and "roller sports", but thought rugby would be a nice addition. Sports Illustrated had an article in the last month or so which pointed out how rugby (seven a side for this purpose) would be easy to run and not add many athletes.

(Personally, I'd like to bring back pankration, but that looks unlikely.)

Which is kind of the root problem here - the Summer Games have gotten too big, and the IOC would like to find a way to hack them down a bit. One thing that would really help (and may be in the offing, I think) is more of an event-by-event approval process rather than by sport. For example, if you wanted to get rid of, I don't know, synchronized swimming, under current rules you'd have to vote out all of swimming. Which, of course, isn't going to happen.

Interestingly, you can apparently add events to existing sports without such drama (which explains how synchro got into the woodpile in the first place). There's already talk about that for 2012, most notably expanding the women's soccer tournament by two teams. Which, as a trade-off for softball, seems like a net loss.

I still think it'd be better if some of the weather-neutral sports were moved to the winter. I know, the Winter Games traditionally only have events that involve ice or snow. But not only would moving some of these sports help with logistics, you could also get more face time for sports lost in the summer shuffle. Not sure which ones I'd move, but my short list includes weightlifting, table tennis, and volleyball (there's a dearth of team sports in the winter).

At least the IOC gave the 2012 games to London. They did one thing I liked this week, which is kind of a miracle.

Thing that I learned yesterday that makes me unsettled: post-9/11, the US has spent $18 billion to secure air travel. On public transportation, we've spent $250 million.

In the course of her daily commute, my wife rides a commuter train twice, a bus, and the subway. I'd like to think that, on some level, there is more than the occasional video camera and a MBTA official handing out leaflets reminding passengers to report things that look funny standing between her and a repeat of Madrid and London.

Public transportation is an incredibly soft target, and doesn't appear to be getting any harder. So much for "never forgetting."

On this day where we say Happy Birthday, America, the wife and I returned home from an event that was a slice of today's America: an Indian wedding in south Jersey.

I won't go too deeply into the details, other than to say it was an incredible time, I got to see the wife in a sari, and I learned that there is a particular spice/herb/flavoring used in some of the food that I just cannot tolerate. I find roughly 98 percent of Indian food delicious; the 2 percent that uses this specific item I can't even swallow.

The day before the wedding we got to go to the Phillies-Braves game at Citizens Bank Park. Good game, nice park, though I think I like PNC better. Sorry, Chris.

We did manage to avoid all of the Live 8-related nonsense. Unlike Cooch, I saw significantly less of the new shows than of the original. I'll leave it to the reader to determine if that's a good thing or not (though I think I know Greg's answer).

The worst part of the trip was, unsurprisingly, the beginning, as traffic from NYC to central Jersey was not good at all. Coming back today was a breeze, a definite argument for getting on the road early. We got back here in plenty of time to rest, watch The Crossing on the History Channel (Jeff Bridges Daniels as Washington? Surprisingly entertaining), and even figure out where to go to see fireworks.

Hope you all had as fun of a Fourth weekend as I did!

Had the chance to watch a goodly portion of today's Williams-Sharapova semi at Wimbeldon. It may have been the loudest tennis match I've ever watched. At one point an official requested quiet from the crowd, which made the NBC commentators chuckle given that neither woman would likely hear the chatter over their own grunting.

Somewhere, Melanie Hutsell weeps.

I don't watch as much tennis now as I used to, and I think it's related to something Sports Illustrated noted recently: the death of the serve-and-volley player. With all the baseline play, matches take on a certain Pong-like quality. And really, Pong isn't much of a game for spectating.

I know there are a couple of tennis fans among the (semi)-regular readership here. Thoughts from them are welcome, even if it is just to tell me I'm talking out of my blowhole.

Unrelated to tennis, I was amused by recent news that a guy in California wants the town of Weare, New Hampshire to seize Supreme Court Justice David Souter's farm house so the man can turn it into an inn - the Lost Liberty Inn. The inn will also reportedly feature the Just Desserts Cafe and an informational display on the loss of freedom in America. Just in case you didn't get the point from the name of the inn.

Sadly, I don't think Weare is close enough to anything to make the project enough of an economic gain to warrant the seizure. The town isn't all that close to the major ski areas or lakes to bring in the outdoor crowd. I suppose it's reasonably close to Concord, which might bring in folks who have business in the capital but want to avoid the hustle and bustle.

Entering the town into Citysearch brings back the closest attraction as Santa's Land USA. Which is in Putney, Vermont. Almost 40 miles away. The other two attractions that came back are located in Amesbury and Concord, Massachusetts.

Something tells me that the Weare Chamber of Commerce hasn't quite caught up with the Internet.

In any case, this officially makes Souter the Zeppo of the Supreme Court.

As odd as the saga of Robert Kraft's Super Bowl ring is (my theory: Putin pocketed it thinking it was a bribe), leave it to the folks in northern New England to raise the bar.

A Maine man was arrested in New Hampshire yesterday for peeping at women while they were going the bathroom. What makes this odd is the man's vantage point - inside the toilet. It was apparently some sort of latrine-like fixture big enough for him to hunker down in (rather than going the Moaning Myrtle route, which would have made it hard for the authorities to apply handcuffs).

Now if we could just have gotten Vermont into the story...

An article on Yahoo noted that we are in the midst of the greatest movie box office slump in history (so to speak), as we've now gone something like 17 or 18 weekends in a row where ticket sales failed to better those of the same weekend of the previous year. While theories abound as to why this is happening, I do have a theory.

IT COSTS TOO DAMN MUCH TO SEE MOVIES IN THE THEATER.

Or, perhaps more accurately:

IT COSTS TOO DAMN MUCH TO SEE THE MOVIES WE'RE BEING OFFERED IN THE THEATER.

Why, for example, am I going to shell out $10 to see something like Bewitched in the theater when I can bide my time and see it for less than half of that (or less than a quarter if you consider I'd be seeing it with the wife) in the comfort of my own home. I can even use Netflix or on demand services to make the viewing experience that much more convenient.

(That being said, Bewitched still made over $20 million this weekend.)

I'm more likely to see "event" movies in the theater, but even then I've learned from past experience that they are likely going to disappoint me, so I'm only going to see a select few of them.

And let's not even get into the gougetastic world of movie concessions. I now pay more for popcorn and a soda than I did to get a movie ticket not all that long ago. That's not helping to being me into the theater.

I don't know if the only answer is lower prices, but I tend to think that'd be a good start.

So when the mercury starts climbing towards triple digits (the car thermometer hit 99 at one point today), what do you do to keep cool?

You go pick strawberries.

We made an impromptu stop at Russell Orchards in Ipswich while taking a drive to nowhere. I'd not been there in roughly 30 years and one owner ago, going back to a kindergarten or first grade field trip of scant memory. I didn't even know they did strawberries there, though as you can tell from the website they grow quite a variety of produce. I don't think they did back in the day.

In any case, the wife has fond strawberry picking memories (as opposed to the forced labor of blueberry raking), so we decided to stop in. It was a bit warm for the walk out to the fields (for some reason we bypassed the tractor ride out), but we did get a couple of nice quarts. Much better than the agribusiness-developed berries, and you get the chance for some pre-sale sampling.

Not that I did that. No siree.

In any event, if you're ever in the neighborhood it's worth a stop. Though you may want to wait for cooler temps.

Two things I like:

Sunshowers Got caught in one yesterday, and it was pretty cool. At an earlier point, though, it was more of a sundownpour. I would not have liked that.

The March of the Penguins A new film from Warner Independent and National Geographic that follows the mating cycle of the emperor penguins. Given what they go through, it's hard to believe they've not been wiped out yet. I know if humans had to walk for a week to get to the mating area, go for four months without food, and spend winter huddled together outside while holding their future young between their legs and on top of their feet, the earth would belong to the dolphins.

Morgan Freeman narrates, which didn't hurt, either.

Two things I don't like:

Jimmy Buffett He's here for his annual run of shows, and every radio station that'd even possibly play his stuff was crapping themselves about it. I don't mind the occasional encounter with "Cheeseburger in Paradise" or "Margaritaville," but the whole Parrothead thing is a little befuddling. If that lifestyle is so appealing, move to the Keys already.

"Hollaback Girl" After running across this song at least a dozen times between here and Maine last weekend (I stopped counting at 12), this becomes the first song since high school that I've officially considered overplayed. No mean feat given how little I listen to the radio.

The other problem, of course, is that the song is awful. But it's also awful popular; looks like I'm playing the iPod in the car for now.

Cavalcade of Questionable Decisions

Brought to you by Bad Idea Jeans: "I didn't use protection, but I figure, 'Hey, when am I getting back to Haiti?'"

I'll Never Use the Guest Bathrooms Again

An artist has attempted to make a wry statement on Italian politics and prime minister Silvio Berlusconi by making a bar of soap out of fat removed from the PM during a liposuction procedure in Switzerland.

According to the artist, Gianni Motti:

Berlusconi had face lifting and liposuction operations in a clinic in Lugano, where I have good connections that provided me with some of the fat. It was jelly-like and it stunk horribly, like butter gone off or old chip pan oil.

I came up with the idea because soap is made of pig fat, and I thought how much more appropriate it would be if people washed their hands using a piece of Berlusconi.

Those of you who've always dreamed of attending to personal hygeine using materials made from leaders of G8 nations can obtain the Berlusconi Bar for roughly $17,000.

(Special thanks to Laura DeVeau for the heads up.)

Bad sense of direction? Let's send him camping!

Brennan Hawkins, an 11 year-old who is described by his parents as having a bad sense of direction, was located five days after wandering off at a Boy Scout camp in Utah. He apparently got lost while walking down a dirt road. I suppose he was confused not having the middle yellow line to follow.

Seriously, I'm glad he's OK, but when he does attend his first Boy Scout meeting let's get him some basic hiking training before he actually does meander into a snowmelt-engorged waterway.

I hope no one watches Question Time on CSPAN-2

Senator Joe Biden of Delaware is talking about making a run at the Presidency in 2008. While his 30 year Senate tenure and position as ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations committee are selling points, his failed 1988 run, which ended when he was caught using quotes from British politician Neil Kinnock without attributing them, will likely come up again at some point.

He's given himself to the end of the year to decide. He also has to decide if he'll run for re-election to the Senate, which may save the Dems the grief of calling him out on plagarizing from a Laborite who couldn't unseat Margaret Thatcher. He at least could have stolen from a winner.

One channel and nothing on

If you tuned in to NBC tonight to watch Katie Couric interview the "runaway bride," grab a fondue fork and jam the pointy part into your left eyeball. Then remove it, and jam it into your right eyeball. Twice.

If you followed that up by watching the Hilton mere's new show, well, I can't say too much as I was asked to tape it for future viewing. You may pity or mock me as you wish.

But they at least get all the animal testicles they can eat

The Writer's Guild of America wants to get writers and other staffers from unscripted TV into unionized contracts, saying that work on those shows requires longer hours and results in less pay and no benefits for those who toil to bring us such fare as Average Joe: The Joes Strike Back and the aforementioned Hilton production (which wouldn't be the first time a Hilton business venture made money off of exploiting non-union labor, I'd have to think).

The guild called used the term "telecommunications sweatshop" to describe working conditions on unscripted programming. One can only hope that, like call centers, these shows get outsourced to India or somewhere similarly distant. Look for Aishwarya Rai to star in Dancing With the Stars 2: Revenge of the Frug.

I suppose it'd be a good thing to make it more known that reality programming is actually highly structured and not, as I like to refer to the genre, unscripted. On the other hand, it may be the impetus for the networks to show even more cheaply made footage, like security camera tapes or PAX originals.

So much for going Hollywood

Winn Dixie, the supermarket chain whose name graced a recent movie featuring, among others, Dave Matthews (something for the haters to latch on to), announced that iwas closing over 300 stores and giving the pink slip to 22,000 workers in a post-bankruptcy re-organization.

Even though they filed for bankruptcy protection in February, they managed to land at number 182 on the 2005 Fortune 500 list. A kid with a well-sited lemonade stand could apparently crack the top 100.

We can only hope that the Piggly Wiggly is safe, to forestall a good haunting by Jessica Tandy.

Oh, and we can have swimming in the East River

In an attempt to revive its flagging Olympic bid, New York City announced that they'd replace plans for a Manhattan-based Olympic stadium with a Queens-based venue that would eventually replace Shea Stadium. Assuming they can get any concrete from the new Yankee Stadium project.

If this does come to pass, can you imagine what John Rocker will say about the 7 train?

All bidding cities pitched to African IOC delegates looking for support. Paris officials noted that they should get support given "long-standing relations between France and Africa." Which included owning most of west Africa, a bloody colonial war in Algeria, and a popular rightist political party that would like to deport anyone who currently lives in France who is more cafe au lait in skin tone than peche.

London reps noted that they'd use temporary venues that could be donated to African countries after the Games, while Madrid supporters noted an Olympics there would be the closest held to that continent ever. Even though for it being so close, they might as well be on Neptune. Moscow, at least, didn't try to fashion some rationale for African support like "You like our guns" or "We thought enough of you to use you as proxies during the Cold War." For that alone they'd get my vote.

Up to Maine this weekend, not much to report from it. Had a bit of a family cookout last night, which allowed me to sample a fine locally-produced beverage or two.

We did stop to eat at the Friendly's in Augusta, and got to see a very strange selection of restaurant art. There were a variety of New England scenes - beaches, lighthouses, harbors, etc. - and in each there was a Friendly's product trying to look like it belongs there. I've never seen a Happy Ending Sundae walking along the brick townhouses of Beacon Hill, but I now know what that might look like.

Got to end the day checking out my sister in law's new apartment, which was fine except for the round trip on the Southeast Expressway. I hate that road. I would rather run my left arm through a wood chipper than drive that regularly. Makes it a good thing that I don't live on the South Shore. We also stopped for dinner at Polcari's, a local institution for Italian food that has a location on Route 1. It was OK, the glacial service being its biggest downfall. I can only imagine how slow it would have been if it were busy.

Be careful what you wish for: after complaining about the heat being in the 90s to start the week, we are likely not heading out of the 50s today. Expect snow for the weekend, then a month of three-digit temps and crippling drought. Frogs to follow for the last week of July.

More irritating, though, is the teacher who tells their students that the work they'll be assigned when the sub is in won't be collected. You might as well give them a free pass to do whatever they want. On the plus side, the impending finals period did give many of these kids something to do, even if it wasn't the assignment I had for them.

Can someone get me the section of the California penal code that calls for not guilty charges in cases involving famous people? It's a little flabbergasting that between OJ, Robert Blake and Jacko there's not a single conviction on any charge, felony or misdemeanor.

I suppose Winona Ryder's case suggests a lack of application if your transgression is actually captured on video.

Not that I was expecting Jacko to do time, but I thought he'd get hit with one of the misdemeanor charges.

I've also been struck with some of the juror comments, which suggest that juror nullifaction is now a self-starting process. I heard more about the alleged victim's mother than I did about evidence.

For reasons I still can't explain I watched the verdict come down on CNN. Wolf Blitzer tried to instill some fake meaning into Jacko's arrival at the courthouse by getting everyone to shut up and listen to the reaction of the arrival. All we got was some guy repeatedly yelling, "M! J! IN! NO! CENT!"

I can smell the Peabody Award from here.

Wolf didn't help himself by accidentally identifying LaToya as Janet. Should we be concerned that LaToya apparently had her nose re-done to look like Michael's? And that it looks a little, uh, snout-like on her?

I had recent posts by Cooch and Craig collide today, as I got to experience our instant summer in several sweltering classrooms at the lyric bandbox that is my high school alma mater today.

(To be honest, the school is much less like the lyric bandbox of Fenway than the upholstered toilet that was Foxboro Stadium. Both were built on the cheap and in a hurry, and had resultant issues in their decades of operations. Sadly, people still have to face the issues at my high school.)

Given all the jerking around going on about building a new high school, I think a conclave to settle the matter, taking place in the room where I got to spend sixth and seventh periods, would wind up with a result within 24 hours.

I'd subbed for this teacher before, and can say without hesitation that the students seem more happy about this teacher's absence than any other that I've subbed for. There is one other teacher who is close, and not surprisingly they share several students. I leave what this says about the teachers - and the students - as an exercise for the reader.

And when I was done in the sauna, I got to the car and noticed that it had changed from its silvery-gray color to more of a yellow-green. The trees I'd parked under are apparently dropping pollen now. Given the wife's reaction to tree pollen earlier in the year, I then got to hose the car off in the heat, which worked out OK when the wind was right.

We also gave in to the heat and bought an air conditioner, which is working pretty well. The bedroom is nicely cooled, and while it's a small one it does help keep the temps down a bit in the rest of the apartment. I'm actually comfortable in the front room, which in heat like this is unusual. Two cheers for cheap small appliances!

A couple of personal shout-outs:

* Welcome back to Scott Monty, on his first post in over three months. Even if it is more of his reactionary claptrap. :)

* Congrats to the Michigan softball team for bringing the NCAA title to the Eastern time zone. I got to see a few games in the WCWS (including about half of last night's title game), and was highly entertained. Considering that college softball is pulling ratings similar to NHL regular season games on ESPN, I expect to see more of the former, even if we eventually get the latter back.

An added shout-out here to Burger and all the other Michiganders whose strong (rabid?) interest in the WCWS got me watching.

Proving once again that there is no limit to the things I'll talk about without actually being right, it appears that the New York City bid to host the 2012 Summer Olympics is dead. My prediction that they'd win dies with it.

Technically the bid is still alive, but the odds that NYC will win are nil given that plans for an Olympic stadium on the west side of Manhattan have fallen through. This also impacts the New York Jets, who were going to be regular tenants. Not that I care about them so much.

I imagine that New Yorkers are both saddened and elated at this result; they don't get to be even more of the world's focus, but they also get to avoid the seven year disruption that would come from hosting.

Articles about the process suggest that it's down to London and Paris. I suppose I'm rooting for London given the technical feasibility of going and staying with Sarah's relatives, though if I couldn't get to Salt Lake, what are the odds that I'm getting across the Atlantic, even with seven years to plan. Now if the Crowleys are still in Vancouver in 2010...

There's something that sits oddly between GM's "employee discount" sales offer and their announcement of major layoffs. I'm not sure if it has something to do with the company making more individuals who can enjoy the discount without having to get a check every week, or the strange feeling that, as someone who can now get this discount, GM may have some control over firing me.

Either way, I can't imagine the proximity of both announcements is something the PR types are thrilled with.

Got to spend the weekend in Chicago helping out at the NAQT High School National Championship Tournament, which was a good mix of quizbowl excitement and seeing friends. Most notable tournament moment was watching the eventual champs put up 885 points in a playoff game. For those of you who don't play, top teams will generally score in the 300 to 400 point range. So 885 is pretty mind-bending, especially in a playoff against another top team.

Quick recap, outside of tournament stuff:

Friday saw me fly ATA to Midway. It was the first time I'd flown ATA since a Florida-bound charter a good decade to 15 years ago. It's a little less sketchy now, and given the code-share agreement I do get a distinct cousin to Southwest vibe.

I'd flown into Midway under the impression that the tournament site was nearby. Turns out it was actually near O'Hare. Thus ends the lesson on actually reading information before making flight plans. I thus got to ride the CTA from one airport to the other. It's a pretty easy ride (one well-marked line change), but a long one (in the 75 to 90 minute range). On the plus side, I got to see a lot of the city (the trip takes you from the south into the Loop and then up to the northwest) and knocked out a goodly chunk of Dark Tide, a very interesting volume on the Boston Molasses Flood.

Mostly did tournament stuff Friday night, but did cap it with a trip to Superdawg, which you should build into your itinerary if you visit Chicago.

Saturday was pretty much all tournament during the day. Night entertainment was taking in the second game of the Calder Cup finals, pitting the Chicago Wolves against the Philadelphia Phantoms. For what is currently the highest level of professional hockey in this country, the game was awful. Philly won in the second OT, but we'd left after the first. My personal game highlight was seeing former BU player Freddy Meyer plying his trade with the Phantoms. He did not have a game to remember, picking up four penalties, including a cheap shot at a Chicago player as they were going off ice and a closing the hand on the puck.

The game was followed by another trip to Superdawg.

Sunday had the playoff portion of the tournament, which I only worked for the first three rounds. I spent a lot of time hanging out, talking a bit, reading, and catching the end of the French Open men's singles. Nadal is primed for stardom, but he has to lose the Capri pants.

Mid-afternoon saw me back to the CTA and back out to Midway. The flight back to Boston was delayed an hour or so due to weather. Once in Boston we were delayed on the taxiway when an idiot decided to get up and use the bathroom just after landing. When repeated requests from the flight crew for people to remain seated with belts fastened didn't register, something happened that hadn't happened to me since the third grade.

The pilot pulled the plane over to the side of the road.

OK, not literally, but the pilot did stop and explain that we were cleared to dock but couldn't if everyone wasn't seated. And as there was a guy in the can, we were going to sit tight until he decided to join the rest of us in the main cabin. That finally did the trick. Idiot.

So while this was my longest trip to Chicago to date, I still have only seen most of the city in passing. I really need to stop making this a "one of these days" sort of thing.