More proof that I was completely cut off this weekend was that I didn't even know that Virginia Tech accepted their invite to the ACC on Friday. I learned of this while reading of Miami's jump to the conference, announced today.

I should care more about this given that I live in Big East country, but I really don't care all that much. I care more from the perspective of how this may change the BCS than from how the area teams will deal.

The BCS thing is interesting, in that if ESPN.com's Ivan Maisel is right, there's no real guidelines on membership in the BCS system. This suggests that the Big East could be the tick on the BCS hide, sucking money out of the deal while their inadequate teams get pounded in BCS games. I can't see the other conference members of the BCS going for this, so I'm sure they'll find a way to jettison the Big East.

I assume that'll happen because the only way the Big East gets to stay is if they can con Notre Dame into giving up its Big East in all but football status. Outside of a Papal bull, I don't see this happening. Other schools that may come in to the Big East aren't going to help where football is concerned - the only one that's been mentioned that actually has a viable football program is Louisville. And in their case, viability is a sometimes thing.

But the Big East is really going to need two schools to keep an 8 team league going, and they face having to do this in time for the 2004 season. UConn is supposed to join in 2005, but I suppose the league could try to get them in a year early. That'd mean some serious schedule work and serious mea culpas to the MAC, as UConn is playing four of their members that year. The Big East would also have to get Louisville shaken loose from C-USA by then, too. It's not going to be pretty.

Where the BCS is concerned, one idea I was mulling was making the last BCS member position a "float" between the Big East, C-USA, and Mountain West, with the game spot going to the highest ranked conference champ of the three. The team that gets the spot gets to be in the BCS administrative cabal for the year (more if they keep gaining the spot).

There's also talk about adding another bowl, though I'm not sure if the BCS folks want to water down the product that much. I'd assume they'd rather add another at-large bid to get another team from, say, the Big XII or Pac-10.

The other interesting part of this is that the ACC is stuck at 11 teams, one away from getting to hold a title game. Seeing dollar signs, they're going to try to get that changed, and may very well succeed. Should they not, expect more poaching. C-USA only has 11 teams as well, so they're ripe for plunder. The ACC could make their own play for Louisville, or perhaps go for a weaker sister to balance things out. East Carolina or South Florida would make the most sense here. The other possibility would be taking Central Florida from the MAC, where they are a very odd fit. In the case of the Florida schools this would be a very abrupt promotion, and probably unrealistic. East Carolina could probably make it work, as they've been nationally ranked before, have a reasonably sized stadium (43000, and from the looks of things they could expand pretty easily), and play a pretty decent non-conference schedule which gives them some prep (for 2003, West Virginia, UNC, and Miami).

Actually, Navy is still an independent. Maybe the ACC can go for them. (And to think I typed that with a straight face)

Or the ACC could try to get South Carolina to jump from the SEC. That'd be ugly, though I suppose the SEC could then, say, poach Southern Miss from C-USA. Or something like that. The mind boggles.

Gabe Kapler? On the Red Sox? Huh?!?!?!?

(Apparently, the Sox bought his contract late last week after Kapler got his unconditional release from the Colorado Rockies).

My first notice of this was today when he hit a laser into the Monster seats, his SECOND home run of the game. In his first two games with the Sox Kapler is 7 of 9, 2 HR, 7 RBI. They should trade him now, hopefully for some bullpen help.

I was in Maine this weekend, meaning that I missed both the Sox 14 run outburst in the first inning of Friday's game and their bullpen collapse during Saturday's game (Sarah's folks just moved and haven't gotten their dish hooked up yet, probably for the best with Saturday's result). The Sox are apparently moving Kim (BK, not Sunny) into the bullpen, which couldn't hurt. He couldn't to any worse than the current group... could he?

Pretty run of the mill weekend in Maine. We were supposed to go to a wedding that wound up not happening (don't worry, won't happen with me, because Sarah would hunt me down and kill me, and my family would give me up in a second). So we spent Saturday in Bangor, where I came to the realization that I don't think I've ever been there without making a visit to the Wal-Mart. I'm not sure what that means.

It was warm but thankfully less hot than when we went up on Friday. Same is true back here now, but the combination of the temperature change and location change was nice. At some point we'll have to have more like a week up there to do some of the touristy stuff that I've never done and that we never have time to do in a weekend.

With the upcoming July 4 holiday, I've discovered that I'm not really getting a day off. We're in our flex time here at Babson, meaning I get Fridays off in June and July. But we work longer hours (and get less time for lunch) Monday through Thursday. Rather than give us an actual day off for the impending Friday holiday, we just get to work our "regular" hours this Monday through Thursday. I know, poor me.

Oh, the one "highlight" of our drive back was in my finally winning money on a Maine State Lottery scratch ticket. It's become a custom that, either on the way up or way back, we stop at the rest area on 95 in Kennebunkport. At both there is a scratch ticket machine for suckers like us (the money theoretically goes towards education, so I look at it as a charitable donation). So if we've got a spare buck or two we'll take a shot. I have never won anything in all the trip we've done this. So today I tried to break the streak by waiting until I was back in the car to scratch the card. That was the key, apparently. My winnings? $1. Breaking even is better than nothing, I'm telling myself.

To talk about what I did yesterday, I have to go back to Tuesday night.

Sarah came home complaining that our car was at it again, making some sort of metallic dragging/grinding noise. So we went out and just in reversing out of the space, the noise commenced. Odder still, for something that sounded a lot like a dragging tailpipe, there was nothing dragging.

That did it. Time to get a new car.

As you may remember, our current ride is a 1999 Kia Sephia, a car that's won some sort of industry award as Shittiest Car Ever Produced on the Pacific Rim. We're at the point now where we've just about put as much money into the car in repairs as it's worth. We'd been mulling a purchase, but needed the prospect of even more repairs to get us moving.

After looking at a number of different cars, we settled on the Toyota Corolla. We'd read hardly a negative word on it, and it seemed to be in our price range. Helping in that respect was Mass Buying Power, a consortium that negotiates price breaks on items for its members (businesses, schools, etc.).

So we wound up going to the Toyota dealership in Wellesley and bought a Corolla, unexpectedly getting an '04 as the '03s were gone. It was all very simple, the only real oddity being how Toyota sets up their options packages. To get the side impact air bags and ABS we had to choose from a specific subset of models, for example. And you couldn't get those and a sunroof - at least not from the factory. The dealer could put the sunroof in. Not that we were looking for one.

In any case, we did all that and were told that, for what we wanted, it could take up to 4 weeks depending how quickly cars currently in transit get out here. Turns out, though, that the dealer found a car meeting our specs in the area. So somewhere in southern New England there's a silver Corolla that we'll be driving by early next week.

Oddly enough, that dragging sound was gone when we pulled out of our space here at Babson to go to the dealer. We assume that a rock or other construction debris (there's quite a bit going on both on and near campus) got lodged in something and was making that noise. In the end, then, the thing that forced our hand with the new car probably was never a problem to begin with.

And we wound up getting $1000 on the trade in, which is more than we expected based on Blue Book values for our crate.

With that done, we had the afternoon free. It being the first real summer day of the year (temps in the low 90s, and humid), there was talk of going to a beach or other spot, but Sarah wound up taking a nap. I started looking at wedding rings and some other wedding-related jewelry, and in mentioning this to Sarah upon her rising we decided to head over to the Jeweler's Exchange in Sudbury to look at wedding rings.

(You may remember that this is the same store I got her engagement ring)

It was actually a nice afternoon for a drive, and Sudbury is a good distance - not too close that you don't get the benefits of a drive, but close enough that on a hot day you don't wind up sweating yourself out.

We went in and started looking at the plain bands. I found my ring in about 12 seconds - very basic yellow gold, millgrain bands along the sides. Sarah looked at several bands, but wound up needing something that more complimented her engagement ring. Should have seen that coming. For as bad as it could have been, though, it wound up being OK. It's not like the whole thing is covered in diamonds.

Price was OK - probably not as much of a saving as they advertise, but a little better than what I'd seen retail elsewhere.

All in all, we did our part to get the economy going Wednesday. Not that we can do anything like that again until about 2015.

I'm on the new Blogger now, and going back to my post last week from the PowerBook I now think that I was accessing the new Blogger interface rather than getting strangeness based on the computer.

I am using the new interface now, and it's OK. I still don't have the buttons that allow you to bold, italicize, or make links. I can do that manually, but it's a hassle.

On the plus side, the new system apparently catches when you try to preview your post and the HTML is messed up - as it did when I forgot to close the link below.

In related computer news, the folks at whatsbetter.com have their new server up and running. It's very fast - go check it out!

So the Bay State's first Krispy Kreme opened in Medford today. About this I have only one thing to say.

I don't get it.

I've had Krispy Kremes. I've had them fresh. I've had the "Original Glazed" and a few other flavors besides.

Woo hoo.

Part of this comes, of course, from growing up in Dunkin' Donuts land and being very accustomed to their style of doughnuts. But then there's the other part, the major part for me, that unless $50 bills come shooting out when I bite into them, I'm not going to get all that excited about doughnuts. Feel free to take my space in line.

I will say, though, that I am dismayed at how Dunkin' Donuts caved in and started using the shirt boxes rather than the shoe boxes for their doughnuts. While not iconic to the level of, say, the Coke bottle, there's a certain identification that came from the squat rectangular box that is now gone.

The more important local news is that Mike Sullivan, former BU Icedog, is now the head coach of the Boston Bruins. This makes him the second BU hockey player to get a head coach's job for the coming season (the other being the Islanders' Steve Stirling). The main difference between the two men, for me at least, is that I've seen Sullivan play. He was a senior during the 1989-90 campaign where he captained a Frozen Four team (losing to Colegate in the semis) from what had been, in the two years that I'd been at BU previous, a train wreck. Stirling played at BU from 1968-70.

I suppose Theo Epstein's hiring as Red Sox GM softens the blow of having someone a year older than me land the Bruins job. I just hope that Sullivan gets to keep it for more than the 14 months or whatever the average life span of a Bruins head coach is now.

In related sports news, the ACC-Big East thing just gets odder. Will the ACC make offers to Virginia Tech and UConn? Will the Big East counter by taking on schools like Louisville, Xavier, and Marquette? What will the Florida Attorney General's office be able to accomplish in all of this? Shouldn't the leagues just merger to form one big 23 school super-conference? Or how about letting each school decide how badly they want to sell out their students to chase athletic success and form two conferences based on that?

My personal hope: we spend a couple years of sound and fury signifying nothing and everyone stands pat. Once again, only the lawyers will win. Ha ha!

It's Monday, I can't think of anything coherent, so you get mental chop suey - a little of everything.

* The campus center dining area has been doing theme lunches on Thursdays. Last week was "South of the Border" week, with a hot entree item of roasted chicken and garlic mashed potatoes. Apparently, the border we're south of is in fact the US-Canadian border. Today's hot entree item: burritos and tacos. Of course.

* Going back to Saturday and Scott's response, I suppose my lack of trust in the pharmas is more of a generalized distrust of big business in general, made more palpable by how critical the pharmas are to ensuring healthy living so for many people. I understand that the process of creating drugs isn't exactly cheap or quick (once, a long time ago on a planet far far away, I did study health law), but I do wonder about motives and such from time to time, though not in any organized way. I certainly don't lump them in with big tobacco, who's decades of shady dealings and lack of basic human understanding will hopefully lead to an eternity of fire and being poked with sticks for the appropriate people.

* I've now finally heard this "Bring Me to Life" song that some of the folks at left have mentioned repeatedly. It's a little over-wrought but not too bad. I am dismayed that they feel the need to "feature" someone, but am glad that it's not Ashanti. I'm not crazy about how there are 3 or 4 different vocalists during the chorus, too cluttered. After reading the lyrics I can see where some folks put a Christian spin on it, but I wonder if that's going to be the new musical trend - songs with what may or may not be oblique references to God. That may actually be a fun game to play with old songs. I can't suppose I can put a Trinitarian spin on "Baby Got Back," can I?

* The folks over at whatsbetter.com reached their target figure for getting a dedicated server, thanks to all who helped out. Now if you'd just be so kind to actually pay the money you pledged. Remember, "Elmo knows where you live."

* I would love to know what sort of record the Sox have against the Phillies in interleague play. I'd be surprised if the Carmine Hose have won even a quarter of the games they've played against them. Can't we play the Mets? Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease?

* The weather report that got me cranky last weekend has now completely fallen apart. After a lot of rain over the weekend, it is now sunny out. We may even have sunny days for most of the week! Maybe the UN finally got their weather machine fixed.

After reading about Julie's reactive airway and the new drug Xolair, which will help severe asthmatics by preventing an early step in the cascade of reactions that cause asthma (though at a $10k/yr price tag that may or may not get covered by all insurers), I had to reflect a little bit on my quarter century with asthma.

I have what I consider a fairly typical condition where asthma is concerned. It's triggered by the usual stressors (physical activity, extreme air temperatures, some allergens), causes a fair bit of wheezing, but rarely gets to the point where I couldn't ride out an attack (though there have been exceptions, such as the time I had a severe attack while walking in cold January air, forcing Shawn DeVeau to run and get my inhaler - thanks again, by the way).

I've often wondered why my asthma showed up when it did. You would think it'd be there all along, but I was pretty much unaffected until I was 8 or so. From that point on I've always been taking something to help me breathe.

This was a bit of a problem early on, given that the medications weren't all that effective. The first drug I was on that seemed to work reasonably well was Marax, though it tended to be of more use in reaction to an attack than in preventing them. I was on this for quite a while, to the chagrin of the first respiratory physician I saw, as it was well beyond being state of the art when I finally stopped taking it.

(Marax also contained ephedra, a banned substance for athletic competition. Rick DeMont lost an Olympic medal in 1972 because the USOC didn't make the connection when he listed it as a medication he took to control his asthma. Probably for the best that Massachusetts didn't do random urine testing during my football days).

From Marax I went on a pill and inhaler combo. As helpful as the pills were, the inhaler was the first medication that radically changed my life. Up to that point I still had to deal with attacks as they happened, which made me less interested in doing anything that would trigger one. With the inhaler, I could not only deal with attacks much faster, but could also take the medicine beforehand to head them off or make them less serious.

I thus entered a 10 or 15 year period where almost all of my asthma medications were administered by inhalers, as I wound up going off the pills and combined my fast-acting inhaler with inhaleable steroids. These worked much better than the systemic ones, delivering the steroids directly to the tissue that needed strengthening.

I have to admit to not being a very good inhaleable steroid user. Too easy to get off schedule, and more often than not they cost more than the simple co-pay that the fast-acting inhaler went for. I know, I shouldn't have put the money in front of my health, but as most of you probably know college is not a time where you have a lot of disposable income or the good sense to put what disposable income you do have towards something useful.

I lumbered along with the inhalers for some time, probably longer than I should have. It's easy to rely on them too much, ignoring management of the condition and focusing on just stopping attacks. I muddled through some medicine changes and a couple of doctor changes before the second life-changing prescription.

That came when my current doctor put me on Singulair, a once a day pill that's a leukotriene receptor antagonist, meaning that it blocks the receptors that the leukotrienes would normally bind to as a step in the development of an asthma attack (at least that's how I parse it from the physician's information, which is apparently written in Phrygian).

So while I don't understand the science behind it in anything more than a surface way, I do know that it keeps me from having attacks. I'm rarely even wheezy now, even when working out or doing things outside during allergy seasons that would previously have triggered things (Singulair is also used to combat hay fever).

I'm rarely one to gush about these sorts of things, and have some pretty deep suspicions about the pharmaceutical industry overall, but the change here is too dramatic to not go a little ga-ga over.

It does give me reason to pause, however, when thinking about the kid I was when all this started. What would have happened had Singulair been around back then? I was a pretty active and athletic kid; what if I was able to keep that up and develop like so many of today's elite athletes with asthma? There are a million things in a lifetime that have an impact on how you live your life, but I can't help but think that this particular "what if" would have resulted in me being a completely different person today.

Whether that's good or bad I don't know. Probably both.

The difference between the US and Canada: media coverage of American Idol focuses on how the kids are integrating into the Hollywood scene and what they're wearing, while media coverage of Canadian Idol takes a sociological and psychological look at the group mentality.

This post comes to you live from a PowerBook G4 using OSX and the Safari browser. It's pretty damn cool, even if there are some odd issues with using Blogger (for example, the interface comes up differently for different people, even though we all use Blogger to post).

The computer itself kicks ass except for the keyboard, which is too small. Then again, most keyboards are too small for my hands.

Anyway, it makes me want to upgrade my own set up. Considering I went 10 years with the Mac Classic, I should be able to go until 2009 or so before getting something new. Boy, would that suck.

So not even 24 hours after I gripe here about how we're likely screwing the planet up and mention climate change, I read that the White House has cut a bunch of stuff about that very topic out of an EPA report that's supposed to be released next week. Everyone who's surprised, stand on your head.

For whatever reason, I'm beginning to draw a connection to this topic and smoking. In both cases, you have people who hold a very consistent "need more study, not enough data" line. And in both cases, many of those people seem to have the backing of a large, monied, powerful industry. Am I over-stating things? Probably. But it's sticking in my head.

I'm sure Christine Todd Whitman is enjoying this, as the report is the last big thing that'll come out of EPA before she steps down. I'm assuming W will appoint the CEO of OmniPave to take her place.

In a completely unrelated note, if you're really bored, feel free to check out Mark Across America under the "other stuff" heading. You'll see the thrilling details of which US states I've been to. Well, the details aren't that thrilling. And, to be honest, it's not all that detailed. But hopefully it's an amusing diversion for you.

Proving that fortune can favor more than just the brave, the same afternoon I lament my book reviewing skills the Bruce provides a link to Amazon World, a blog that chronicles some of the more, uh, interesting book reviews from that site. I've linked to it at left in the "other stuff" category for your perusal.

"Content" note: if you've been clicking on the "other stuff" links you may have noticed that my Recent Reads aren't so recent anymore. It's not that I've stopped reading, but rather that I'm trying to develop some pages that give a fuller picture of my reading history. It's going OK, but with two problems:

1. I'm trying to be as comprehensive as possible with regards to what I've read, but the time between reading and writing makes it hard to give meaningful commentary. For example, I'm working on a page with all the John McPhee stuff I've read, but I realize now that it's been years since the actual reading. The good news, at least for McPhee, is that his stuff is short enough that I can re-read without taking too much time. That was not the case for Tom Clancy (it doesn't help that I'm beginning to share Sideshow Bob's view on Clancy's work).

2. I'm not all that happy with the commentary I'm giving. Not sure if it's just a lack of practice or an erosion of skills due to heavy doses of sarcasm, but it's not always flowing well.

In any event, I hope to have this thing up and going in the next couple of weeks.

So in our last good day for a while, the student affairs softball team took on a combined marketing/MBA team in our Babson summer softball league. It's a little different from the one I played in at BU, as there's no real rule regarding gender, no officiating so to speak, and we're playing on an actual softball field rather than a chunk of a larger turf field.

Student affairs was able to claim a 7-5 victory, even with yours truly on the mound (or, it being an actual softball field, in the circle). How I wound up pitching is somewhat of a mystery, but given that half of our team was located or recruited five minutes before we started I should be glad we were all playing the same sport (though one of our members was wearing golf spikes). Thankfully it's a no walk league, so my more hideous pitches didn't hurt too much (had this been the BU league that uses the mat to record balls and strikes, the score would have been something like 28-27).

It may even be too much to call this thing a league. There are 8 or 9 teams, but each team only plays twice. There's some mention of a title game, but I'm not sure how that's going to work out. I can easily see there being more than two undefeated teams.

One of the more deceptive things about playing on the field was the outfield fence. It's 200 feet at the lines and 210 to dead center. After having many balls hit that far in BU that went for long outs, it was hard to shut off that voice that was telling me to let it rip. As it turns out I went 1-3 with a RBI, a solid base knock. My two outs were ground balls each, pitches I shouldn't have swung at. Having not played since August 2001, I'm a little restless at the plate.

Perhaps it's a good thing I've not been playing, as even our lone game has caused my Achilles tendon problem to flare again. I think I may have actually goosed it a little bit last weekend, but that could he hindsight talking. I do have about a month until the next game, so plenty of time to get it back to form.

It's raining again. And no, I'm not talking about the Supertramp song. The rain we're getting here is much less metaphorical.

According to the weather.com forecast for my zip code, we can expect at least a 30 percent chance of precipitation from now until next Thursday. And seeing as it probably won't be snow (at least if the predicted temps hold out), we're talking rain. Unless hail counts as precipitation. Hadn't thought of that.

In any case, I continue to think that we've caused some fundamental change in the weather. I know that ranting about the weather is one of life's more futile gestures (not that it has kept me from doing so before), but considering how we went straight from record snowfalls to cool and damp with the very rare foray above 70 degrees, it's hard not to gripe.

For all I know, the earth is going through one of those epochal climate changes, and all the gasses we've put into the atmosphere have done nothing, but I can't help but feel this is all our fault. Perhaps I'm just letting the natural pessimism of the region get to me.

Well, the Ryan Rupe era in Boston took a real hit last night as the former Devil Ray gave up a three run homer that proved the difference in a 4-2 loss to the Chicago White Sox. At least he was smart enough to do this on the road.

My favorite news from yesterday: the EU has banned imports of prairie dogs from the US thanks to this monkey pox thing. And just what sort of market has been disrupted? According to an AP article:

"EU officials said about 1,000 prairie dogs are imported into the EU last year, mainly to the Netherlands where they are sold as pets or zoo attractions."

Zoo attractions I can see. But pets? If this is what legalized hash smoking gets you, I may be back on the War on Drugs bandwagon.

Going back to Friday for a sec, I actually had the chance to call my first "fraught" in the wild when Brandon Lyon took the hill for the save. Turned out it was called for naught, as he had a very quiet ninth. Now, had it been this guy, I think my fraught call would have stood.

Not a bad ball game last night in the inaugural meeting between the Sox and Astros, helped by it being a Sox win. Oddly, the crowd seemed more against Jeff Bagwell than Jimy Williams, as Bags got booed a bit while Jimy got pretty consistent cheers. Not sure what the crowd had against Bags; it's not like the trade was his idea. Neither got the sort of heckling that Trot Nixon did, based on his failure to drive anyone home the night previously when he was up with the bases loaded in the extra innings against the Cards.

The biggest boos, of course, came with the highlights of Clemens' milestone. I didn't boo, but I didn't clap, either. I'm actually more annoyed that the Cards don't seem to be giving the Bombers much of a fight.

It was a horrific night for baseball, a 90 minute rain delay (though there didn't seem to be any rain for about half of that time) that led into a night of temps in the low to mid 50s, wind in from right field, and swirling mist. It was like something out of April. Or October.

Last night was also the Boston debut of Ryan Rupe. You probably most remember Rupe from his Tampa days, where he plunked both Nomar and Shea Hillenbrand, and thus provoked Trot Nixon's bat to "slip" and make a fly-by of Rupe's head. Rupe was one of the first (if not the first) players acquired at the start of the Theo Epstein administration.

Speaking of which, the park is looking pretty different nowadays. It took me a while to realize that a lot of the wall behind the bleachers is now gone. I'm sure it provides a nice city view for the folks in the upper deck. One one side of the main scoreboard there is now an auxiliary board that transmits a whole host of information about both hitter and pitcher, from almost full hitting stats (no OPS) to a pitch count, speed and type of pitch, strike percentage, and even a history of pitcher versus catcher (if there is one). You can tell the roto-geeks are in charge.

The scoreboard is also gives player pictures and items of interest. They tend to be less interesting as the game goes on. The first couple of at bats you get good stuff, then it's things like the player's draft info. By the time you get to the fourth or fifth at bat, it's becomes statements such as "Likes fudge" or "Drives a pick-up truck."

Oh, the Sox now also have a pre-game that rivals the Myrtle Beach Pelicans for length. Not quite so many opening pitches (there were 4 or 5, and they were still "ceremonial" first pitches). No crab races, sorry to say. I also missed my first attendance quiz in quite some time. I think they were doing a "tickets sold" quiz, but that's just the conspiracy theorist in me talking.

Most of my baseball watching today was of the event that ESPN billed as "more ping, less bling," the College World Series. I don't really follow college baseball, but I enjoy watching the series. One of these days I'd like to go out to Omaha for it.

Ok, so you may have read or seen a story about a Babson student being investigated for allegedly creating a fake airline. His story is that he was trying to sell leftover seats on flights to Hawaii.

While I'm not supposed to say anything other than the student did go here last year and is currently not in summer classes, I would note that such a business would not be beyond Babson students. We've got a strong reputation for entrepraneurism for a reason.

I daresay this isn't how the school would most like to get publicity. So, as a service to the college, a short list of generally-positively seen alums:

Craig Benson, governor of New Hampshire
Arthur Blank, founder of Home Depot and owner of the Atlanta Falcons
Ernesto Bertarelli, skipper/owner of America's Cup holder Alinghi

(I said it was a short list. I'm sure there are others, I just don't have them off the top of my head.)

A whatsbetter.com update: they're up to $725. That's over $100 since I mentioned their predicament! I'd like to think I had something to do with it (or, I suppose more correctly, that you had something to do with it).

A happy confluence tomorrow, as I have my first summer Friday off and don't have to go on any sort of quiz related trip. I don't know what I'm going to do with all this extra, non-flying time. Well, I do know that I'm going to the Sox-Astros game tomorrow (weather permitting). I'm very happy to be there for Jimy Williams' homecoming. I wonder if he and Dan Duquette will get together for dinner while the 'Stros are in town?

The Astros are, for whatever reason, the first National League team I ever felt positive about. I think it had something to do with their ugly uniforms of the late 1970s and the double-whammy of Nolan Ryan and J. R. Richards. Can you imagine what that rotation would have been like if Richard didn't have his career cut short with circulatory problems?

Anyway, I was rooting pretty hard for Houston in 1986. I don't think it would have felt any better for all that to happen against them, though.

Then, of course, there's the whole Bagwell thing. I think the Sox would have screwed things up with him one way or another, and more than one person has argued that you can't judge the trade that sent him to Texas for Larry Andersen after the fact. Except that it was a pretty big screw job, and how can you ever rationalize that?

This is a lot more about the Astros than I thought I would write. Go figure.

Kudos to Allyson and Scott for passing along the information that Mr. Freeze (aka John Henry Williams) will be plying his "trade" for the Selma Cloverleafs of the Southeastern League of Professional Baseball. Sadly, I can't link you to the Cloverleafs website as it's down. I could link you to the SELPB web site, but it sucks too hard.