This would be the time that I would normally invite one and all to join groups for various football-related games at ESPN.com., but taking a page from W I'm going to be a uniter, not a divider.

If you're interested in participating in either of ESPN.com's football pick 'em games, please join the Barker Gang (password Barker) at your earliest convenience. I don't believe Craig has a group for Gridiron Challenge, so I did make one:

Group: Gridiron Challenged
Password: Gridiron

I'm also trying to make one for their Eliminator game, but I'm getting some sort of error. Though this is also a good time to plug Craig's similar game, which he runs. If you're not participating, you should be. Go over to his blog and drop him a line to get on the mailing list.

While most folks will point to getting swept at home by the Y@nkees as the point in the 2006 Red Sox season when everything went to hell, I'd more point to the sweeps foisted upon us by the Royals and Mariners. The Sox are the only team to get swept by both clubs this season. Which is something, when you consider that both are in the bottom 5 of ESPN.com's current power rankings.

(It should also be noted that the Sox have a slim 9-8 edge over Tampa Bay, the other AL team in the bottom 5. They also swept the Nationals, who are in the bottom 5 as well. Most of these games took place in the first half of the season, for what it's worth.)

And then you have Ortiz going on the shelf until doctors can sort out his irregular heartbeat problems. Talk about a metaphor for the team at present.

Book Log 2006 #36: The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman

Between the hullabaloo about outsourcing jobs overseas and all the commercials focused at how a company is the one to choose to help you take advantage of the new global economy, it'd be hard not to have some exposure to this book's main idea: changes in technology and communications have "flattened" the world and made it easy - and often cheaper - to create and collaborate with individuals and companies regardless of their physical location.

Friedman sees this as a good thing, and spends most of the book pointing out how this flattening will benefit everyone, even if it does present an opportunity for those who would use the flattening for nefarious purposes. I think he may be a little too optimistic about how this will all work out, but his arguments are reasoned and give hope that it will all, indeed, work out.

Looks like I've been wrong on two accounts in the last week.

First, the impromptu law enforcement convention that was held on our street was apparently not drug-related at all. According to our local weekly's police log, the response was for a domestic dispute involving a knife. The amount of police response seemed a little excessive, but the next entry in the log - about 20 minutes later - was from a guy who was bleeding. Better safe than sorry, I suppose.

Should have seen this coming, given that all the previous police visits we've seen to the building have been domestic dispute-related. But expectations tend to climb when you see guys in vests and such.

My other boo-boo was denigrating the Little Leaguers from Portsmouth. Turns out they got thumped in their second game, but did well enough in their other games to get out of pool play. They did lose a US semifinal game in pretty convincing fashion, but weren't the pushovers I originally thought they were. Mea culpa.

Random sporting thoughts:

* I'm in agreement with Cooch that it's time to stick a fork in the '06 edition of the Red Sox. Funny that with all the ailiment that plagued the Y@nkees, it's the Sox who've had more trouble dealing with injuries. It'll be interesting to see how things go on the pitching front, given that Schilling, Wells, and Wakefield aren't getting any younger (though as a knuckler, Wake could likely pitch for another 5 years), and the pitchers who've been brought up don't seem to be quite ready yet.

I never thought I would long for a weekly appearance by Derek Lowe, but here we are. I'm looking forward to seeing him, Nomar, and Grady in the playoffs.

* It's Little League World Series time again, and I'm a little less into it given the lack of local representation (the New England entry is from Portsmouth, and if thier first game is any indication, their stay in Williamsport will be short). Thought I was interested to see that a kid dropping the f-bomb - and a coach's reaction of smacking the kid - is leading ESPN to put a 5 second delay on the broadcast. Which is kind of sad, because I have to think foul-mouthed 12 year olds would be a ratings draw. It worked for The Bad News Bears (the original, at least).

* I will admit to watching almost three quarters of the Pats exhibition game against the Cardinals, and I'm trying not to get overly positive. Even with their improvements, it was still the Cardinals. Or, for a large portion of the game, the Cardinals back-ups. I'm still sanguine about the Pats' fortunes at linebacker, though Junior Seau should help. I'm also wondering when the amity between Corey Dillon and Laurence Maroney will break down. I'm guessing around week six.

* If I'm setting weeks when things will happen, I'm also putting in week eight as the week where Matt Leinart replaces Kurt Warner as the starter in Arizona. I'm still undecided as to if the change will be due to performance or injury.

* Moving in an entirely different direction, I was buoyed somewhat by Phil Kessel's decision to leave Minnesota and sign with the Bruins, more for what it might do for the latter. There's two thirds of a very interesting, young line with Kessel and Patrice Bergeron.

That being said, college hockey has lost a lot of players to the NHL this off-season, which hopefully isn't presaging a trend.

* Going overseas, the Phonak cycling team is shutting its doors. They were going to be sold at the end of the season, but the new buyers pulled out, proving that any publicity is not good publicity. Put this with the trouble the Liberty Seguros team had finding new sponsorship (who were then repaid with the entire team getting dropped from the Tour de France), and you have to think that there's not going to be a lot of new money going into pro cycling until things get cleaned up. If ever.

So I was preparing to go down to the train station last night to pick up my wife when I heard the siren of a fire engine. That's not that unusual, as we live no more than a quarter-mile from a fire station.

The siren grew louder, and the truck pulled down my street. That's also not that unusual, as there's an apartment building right around the corner from us that gets a visit from the fire department at least twice a week.

What was unusual was when the truck stopped right by our building. What was very unusual was what I saw when I looked out the window: no fewer than a half-dozen police cars (marked and unmarked), and a variety of law enforcement personnel. Some were uniformed, some plainclothed, some carried portable battering rams, and one had some sort of rifle. There was at least one visible bulletproof vest.

All of these folks were out to visit an apartment in the building next door, which is clearly the sketchy building of the three on our part of the street. Not sure what the reason was for the visit, though I think the first conclusion - drugs - is likely correct.

I don't suspect we're going to get this sort of entertainment in the new neighborhood, though I can't say that saddens me.

Book Log 2006 #35: The Planets by Dava Sobel

Mixing astronomy with mythology, art, music, and history, this book gives a body-by-body account of the solar system, including not only the planets by also the sun and the Moon. It's not an unusual approach for Sobel - both Longitude and Galileo's Daughter take a more literary approach to scientific subjects - and it works pretty well here, though I would have appreciated a bit more heft.

Of course, future editions will be able to do that now that we have three new planets to contend with. As you've likely heard, a panel of the International Astronomers Union has added Ceres, Charon, and a tenth planet nicknamed Xena to the planetary rolls. They've apparently part of a new subclass of planets called plutons (Pluto, as you might guess from the name, is one as well). And, given the definition they've devised to determine if a body is a planet, the list may grow to over 100 planets. There are apparently 53 known bodies in the solar system that meet the panel's planetary definition.

I'm not sure I buy this, but not being an astronomer I may just be reacting to change (I also didn't like it when Pluto got cut, so more credence to that theory). But I think part of it, too, is that I dislike the idea that planets are just random hunks of rock. Planets, to me, are bodies of color - our blue planet, Mars as the red planet and the vibrant hues of Jupiter, and the cool blues and greens of Neptune and Uranus. I also don't like the idea of planets that are smaller than our Moon. Call me terracentric.

Book Log 2006 # 34: The Last Kingdom by Bernard Cornwell

Best known for a series of historical novels featuring British soldier Richard Sharpe, this is this first book in a trilogy focused on King Alfred the Great and how he saved England from conquest by the Danes.

Even so, Alfred barely shows up in the first book. The main character is a Northumbrian who spends his time bouncing between the Danish and English camps after his father is killed and he is captured by the Danes. Raised among them, he's stuck between camps, as he's not truly a Dane, and the English distrust him for his Danish ways.

It's solid historical fiction, and great reading for the commute - as long as your train ride doesn't end before a climactic battle.

Book Log 2006 #33: Moondust by Andrew Smith

What do you do to top walking on the moon? That is, in some respects, the thesis of Moondust, where the author interviews all of the living astronauts who have trod on the dusty lunar surface. Interspersed with his own memories of moon landings and reflections on the space program, Smith discovers that the trip was life-altering for all of the men. It's just that the alteration wasn't always for the best.

It's an interesting idea for a book, and the descriptions of the interviews are as telling as the actual discussion. From Neil Armstrong's reticence to Buzz Aldrin's borderline paranoia to Charlie Duke's New Age leanings, it's clear that this once in a lifetime experience was liberating for some, but is an albatross for others.

Anyone interested in space or recent history would enjoy this book quite a bit, and the book is well-written and engaging enough to keep readers with a passing interest in the subject around until the end.

So I turn the big 3-7 today. OK, 37 isn't really "the big" anything.

With the work anniversary yesterday and the birthday today, I started thinking about what other people had accomplished by their 37th birthday. So I decided to find out the Internet way: go on Wikipedia and check the first 10 people to come up when I click on the "random article" link.

We have:

Paul Riley, who I assume was acting by the time he was 37. From the picture, I'm assuming he found his greatest success later, which is kind of comforting.

Nathan Eldon Tanner, who got himself elected to Alberta's provincial legislature before a later career in the Mormon church.

Tancredo Neves was in the middle of his rise in Brazilian politics, getting elected to the state legislature in Minas Gerais.

I have no idea what Nuala Ahern was doing, but I assume she was protesting against something.

I also am not quite sure what Pete Stemkowski was doing, but I assume it was related to making the transition from hockey player to hockey radio guy.

Zafar Ali Khan had, by this time, moved to Lahore and took over the Zamindar, a newspaper started by his father. According to the linked bio, he became known as the "father of Urdu journalism." Granted, he wasn't that when he was 37, but it's a hard quote to pass up.

Grace Jones released Slave to the Rhythm and played May Day in A View to a Kill. Not a bad year for her.

By the time he hit 37, Robert Dudley had already been imprisoned in the Tower of London, made Master of the Horse, been Elizabeth I's lover, lost his first wife under suspicious circumstances, was suggested as a potential husband for Mary, Queen of Scots, and was named the first Earl of Leicester. Busy guy.

Alton Parker was in his last year as a judge in the Supreme Court of New York, from whence he would rise to head the state's Court of Appeals and be the Democratic nominee for President in 1904.

Finally, we have Ben Hebard Fuller, who was still near the start of his career in the Marines. He was stationed in Hawaii when he was 37, having already fought with distinction in the Phillipines and China.

So there you have it. I've not been made a judge or canoodled with a monarch, but I've also not been to prison or made to pretend I find Roger Moore sexy.

Book Log 2006 # 32: Fiasco: A History of Hollywood's Iconic Flops by James Robert Parish.

Parish picks 15 flops - from Cleopatra to Town & Country and gives a history of why each failed, often being doomed to failure at the start. Not surprisingly, a combination of ego and money figures prominently in each.

Which is kind of the problem with the book - the failiures get repetitious. Each has its own details, of course, but rampant ego is still rampant ego. And while there are details, the length of any given chapter isn't quite long enough to give the depth of detail - or some of the juicy tidbits that often give these failures added color - that would make each failure truly unique.

If you're interested in any of the films covered in the book, you're probably better off finding something written specifically about the film. If you're just looking for basics or an overview, this book would suffice

Updates galore!

House - we had our home inspection on Thursday, and it was pretty much what we expected. The vast majority of problems are related to age and lack of proper maintenance. So while there's a pretty significant list of repairs, none of them were unexpected.

We're hammering out the financial things at a reasonable clip, still on course for our closing.

Work - we're registering incoming students, getting ready to graduate a bunch of seniors, and working with a pretty large group who are still getting financing in line. Today marks my one-year anniversary at the job (the actual date is tomorrow, but I started on this Monday last year), and I'm finally getting used to the rhythms of the office's combined missions. And as busy as it will get, I'll still get home at a normal hour most nights, which was pretty much unheard of when I was working in residence life.

Not that I don't miss certain aspects of that work, but I like getting home and finding my wife is still awake, or that I can actually celebrate my nephews' birthdays with them, rather than by proxy.

Life - speaking of the wife, spent the weekend with the in-laws in Maine. Got a couple of presents, had a family cookout, and went to the annual yard sale of my father-in-law's American Legion post. Most of the items purchased there will be given away in November to a few unlucky trash players, though I am keeping this word game.

Ephemera - my fantasy football league's annual draft is coming up on Sunday, and I'm woefully underprepared. Which is pretty much the way it's been the last couple of years. I find myself putting less effort into fantasy sports in general now than in the past, not sure what that means. Were it only in my league I'd assume it comes from the added work in running the league. But it also includes all the free games at ESPN and Yahoo (mostly the former), so I don't think it's that.

I've also not wanted to be on the computer as much when I'm home, given the heat we've had and how it tends to linger in the front room. That's a partial lame excuse for not blogging as frequently as usual.

Not too much else going on. Trying to keep up with a few summer series, missed on recording Life on Mars from the start and now don't know if/when I'll start it.

Which reminds me, head on over to Mike Burger's blog and follow the link to the Alison LaPlaca Open, his annual TV dead pool. I'll be defending my "I can't pick the rating for the Super Bowl" streak of picking 10 shows that get cancelled but losing the tie-breaker.

You should also point yourself to Craig's blog for his sidekick tournament, and to the Bruce's blog for a link to a tournament seeking out the wussiest song ever.

We finally got back to bar trivia last night, and cruised to a pretty solid victory, even though I almost gave it away by doing the math wrong on the final question. Good thing Allyson asked me to check the math, otherwise I'd have hosed us.

Your questions:

In what movie does Madonna make her acting debut, playing the lead singer of a band? Vision Quest (Greg) - At least that's the answer that was accepted as correct. I checked IMDB, and A Certain Sacrifice is there, but there's no release date given. They list Vision Quest's US release date as February 15, 1985. So it still could be correct. Maybe.

For what country can you add two letters to the end of its capital's name and come up with the name of the country? Tunisia or Brasil (OTC and Greg) - OTC is right if we're only talking English, while Greg is correct if I'm taking other languages. I don't think the original question made a difference, but they were looking for Tunisia. OTC, if the question sounds familiar, it could be because it was a Final Jeopardy a week or two ago. At least that's where we remembered it from.

What actress, born in New York City in 1949, derived her unusual first name from The Great Gatsby? Sigourney Weaver (Greg) - we had no idea, and never came within yelling distance of Weaver. We wound up guessing Stockard Channing, whose name is unusual, but perhaps not as unusual as Sigourney. For those who care, it's the name of Jordan Baker's aunt.

Which of the Ivy League schools was founded the latest? Cornell (Mike B.) - Founded in 1865, it's the only Ivy League school founded in the 19th century. We were kicking around Brown for a while, but it's not even the second-youngest Ivy. Dartmouth beats it by four years.

What sport is played according to the Cartwright Rules? Baseball (Chris) - His comment pretty much tells you what you need to know here. I think this was the only sports question all night. Round seemed pretty geography-heavy, which seems to work out for us. There was even another question on New Zealand, a country which has come up the last four or five times we've played.

What brand of car is named for the daughter of Emil Jellinek? Mercedes (Paul) - According to Wikipedia (FWIW), Jellinek not only gave his daughter's name to the company, but he later appended it to his own last name, becoming Emil Jellinek-Mercedes. I wonder at what point his daughter went from being flattered to being a little scared?

What US state capital is named for a boundary marker used to mark off territory for two Native American tribes? Baton Rouge (Mike B.) - The boundary marker, which separated hunting areas for two different groups of the Houma nation, was apparently red thanks to the blood coming from the animal and fish heads that decorated the stick. Yum.

This was the final question of the night (seemingly much easier than the Sigourney Weaver question, given the relative number of teams that got each correct), and had I not been reminded to check my math, we'd have lost by four points. There was some call to bet the maximum, which I might have to heed next time just in case.

OK, more radio silence, but there's a good reason this time.

The wife and I are on the road to being home-owners.

We found the house accidentally - we went to look at a house, found out the listing was actually for a condo (the ad didn't mention that), and as we left we noticed a house across the street was for sale. We'd not seen anything about it in any listing, so we did a little checking. We found a listing, but it was pretty vague - one exterior picture, almost no description, and an asking price.

After mulling it for a while, we requested a showing. We figured that if it was bad - and the lack of information had us thinking in that direction - it was just a little time out of our evening (this was the house I mentioned a post or two ago).

I was still pretty dubious as we got to the house, but we were pleasantly surprised. The rooms were of good size, and had good ceiling height (more important to me, I suppose). There were three bedrooms that were actual rooms, not two OK rooms and one closet with a futon. There's bonus space in a back room and in a front porch.

Of course, it's not perfect. There's no parking, the yard is small, and there's a fair amount of updating required. But street parking is generally available, I don't like to mow that much, and most of the updating is work even I can do - taking down wallpaper and paneling, mostly.

We've got a ways to go on this, and there's any number of things that could pop up and cause problems, but if everything pans out we'll be closing in six weeks. Keep your fingers crossed, think happy thoughts, and pray to whatever god(s) you're tight with for us!

The wife and I are going to see a house tonight (our first foray past open houses, though if this house had ever had one we'd have just done that), which makes this an opportune time to comment on a recent Forbes article which named Essex County, Massachusetts - which is where we live - as the most overpriced region in the country. Go us!

The primary reason for this is the gap between real estate prices and income, which they see as a legacy of the dot-com boom, which they say fueled building (and tearing down and rebuilding), which elevated property values just in time for the bubble to burst. Incomes fell faster than prices, resulting in a lot of houses for sale and/or empty with no one to buy... at least at prices that would allow current owners to break even.

I will say that the house we're seeing tonight doesn't appear to have gotten any dot-com money thrown at it. At least based on the exterior, which is all we've seen of it.

Of course, buying a place and continuing to commute is getting more tenuous, as the commuter rail system is proving incapable of keeping up with demand - and the heat. Equipment shortages - engines in for repairs and coaches lacking air conditioning - were blamed for widespread delays out of North Station yesterday, including the transit version of hitting for the cycle - trains on all four lines delayed at the same time.

Even better was the announcement asking that riders waiting on the platforms return to the concourse "for safety." Only problem being that had they crammed into the concourse area (which is tiny), we'd likely have broken some sort of fire code.

Delays have become endemic, and the Globe reported today that the consortium that runs the commuter rail system is over quotas for both tardy trains and equipment out of service (in some cases at double the maximum allowed by their contract).

Given the increased need for public transportation in the face of the Big Dig problem - which is a whole 'nother topic - it's an incredibly poor time to appear - or actually be - incompetent. Especially when there's a fare increase afoot. Those should be fun public hearings.

Book Log 2006 # 31: Bad Twin by Gary Troup

Bad Twin is a mystery novel whose author died in the crash of Oceanic Airlines flight 815, as seen on the TV show Lost. For those playing along, the book has been published posthumously, and while it claims to be a work of fiction with no basis in reality, it does mention the Hanso Foundation (among other people and entities that exist in the Lost universe), which has put together a negative advertising campaign against the book.

So we have a fake foundation taking out real ads to trash a real book by a fake author that claims all of its contents are fake but makes several mentions of the fake foundation.

And that's all outside of the actual book, a pretty standard mystery where a downtrodden PI is hired to track down the missing son of an extremely wealthy industrialist. But in the course of his investigation, many of the people he's talked to wind up dead, and he fears that death might catch up to him before he can complete the task at hand.

As far as the writing goes, it's adequate. I don't think I'd have picked it up were there no tie-in with the TV show. As far as that tie-in goes, you have the mentions of Hanso et. al, and it definitely shares some themes. And those numbers keep showing up. But even with all that, I don't know that I actually got any sort of insight or clues towards where the show will go next season, which I assume is the motivation for many people in reading the book. Then again, given how slowly the show is developing story lines, stuff from the book may become pertinent later. I just hope it's before, say, season five.

Book Log 2006 # 30: Brandenberg Gate by Henry Porter

You don't get too many Cold War thrillers any more - what with the fall of the Soviet Union and all - but that doesn't mean the genre is dead. Witness this book, in which an East German professor has to re-establish contat with a woman who lives in the West - a woman he knows to be dead.

The professor, like so many East Germans, has ties to the Stasi, and they want him to meet the woman to see what she's offering. He's reluctant, but when the Stasi throw his brother in jail, he's off to meet the dead woman. But is he working for the Stasi to get information, or for the West as a double agent?

Things unfurl from there, and with the story taking place in the fall of 1989, you get to play the story of the knowledge of what happened in real life. The two play out really well, proving that there is room in the current day for a trip down espionage's memory lane.

If you're a fan of LeCarre or the like, this should be right up your alley.

Seeing Cooch's post reminded me that there's been an odd divergence in coverage of the tropical storm. Some news folks are pronouncing it "BER-ill," while others are going with "BURL." Unless we're talking about a singing snowman, I think the former pronunciation is better.

Not quite as momentous as "KA-tar" versus "GUT-er," but still.

It's not been easy to watch the Tour de France this year, what with so many major riders getting bounced and the lack of organization that made it look a little like the Pan-Mass Challenge at times. Throw in having to dedicate pretty much your entire night to watch the stage and even someone as normally addicted as me won't tune in.

Well, if you get the chance to watch tonight I'd suggest you do, as you'll apparently catch one of the great comebacks of the year, at least. You can read up on the details at any sports news outlet, but from following the stage on-line I think this one may need to be seen.

OK, which of these is oddest?

1. Jose Canseco pitches in the Golden Baseball League all-star game, gets one out gives up four runs.

2. Buck O'Neil - at 94 years of age - gets 2 at bats in the Northern League all-star game, and walks twice.

3. Garth Snow, backup goalie for the New York Islanders, retires - to become the team's GM.

Really, on any other day I'd be able to pick out the strangest of the three, but when they all come at once I lose perspective.