Sox Win East, Best Record

I'm pretty happy today about how the regular season wrapped up: the Sox won the AL East for the first time since '95, and also clinched the best record, which means they'll have home field advantage for the entire postseason, as long as they're in it. so Yay!

Here's Big Papi hitting a homer friday night in the clincher vs. Minnesota

Irene's Reading List for September

The Promise of Happiness by Justin Cartwright
Devils in the Sugar Shop by Timothy Schaffert
The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

Am I bothered?

Work has been a grind the last few days. My energy level is really lagging, but I have a hard time getting enough rest. I don't nap nor go to bed early. I get on average 7 hours of sleep a night, which isn't more than I wasn't pregnant. I've been scolded by my doctor more than once to get more rest. She's concerned that my blood pressure is alittle too high, but I try to explain to her that it's because I'm usually running late and rushing to my doctor appointments. She told me to get a blood pressure gauge to test my blood pressure until my next appointment. If it stays high, she's threatened me with bed rest. I can't imagine it'll be any fun except I get to hang out with Fred and I'll have time to actually go to the gym.

Countdown to the last 10 weeks of work begins

No, it's not JJ; this is just a 3-D ultrasound of what a baby looks like at 28 weeks.

Woohoo!! Now that I'm in my third trimester of pregnancy, I'm looking forward to the last day of work. I plan to work till Thanksgiving, which is less than 2 weeks before my delivery date of December 5. Work has been hectic for the last few months, and I have quite a few projects to wrap up before leaving. Let's hope the baby doesn't decide to come early or cause any trouble.

I still can't believe that Jim and I are a having a baby together. The last 3 months seems like an eternity, but I'm sure it'll pass quickly. We haven't even prepared the baby's room yet. We'll be sure to post our progress along with photos.

JJ's 3rd trimester & Sox playoff tickets

Irene and JJ (and me too I guess) officially entered their 3rd trimester last Wednesday. That's right--less than 3 months to go! It's starting to feel real now--we even bought a car seat and some onesies on Saturday. I'll post a picture of Irene in the near future if I can get her to let me.

Also - The Red Sox emailed me today about signing up for a chance to buy Fenway playoff tix here. I love the picture in the email--it really captures the Fenway experience in full: an overweight, drunk, bearded white guy in a red tshirt leaning/sweating over you for 3 and a half or 4 hours.
Good times!Speaking of baseball, very very funny Onion article here.
(Warning: Contains beaucoup f-bombs)

Scary!

I saw this on my Amazon homepage today &
it almost made me shriek from the horror if it:

Note: that's just a snapshot of the image.

If you must watch the video, here's the link

Excellent Analysis here

I wish I could take credit for writing this breakdown of the Mariners recent meltdown, but it's from the Seattlest.com blog:

The Mariners. WTF?

Well, that was spectacular. From the heady days of August 25th, when the M's were three up in the wild card and only one back in the division, had won two straight in Texas, when we were all excited about Blue-za-palooza or whatever the fuck it was...to now, after 11 losses in 12 games, when we're all pretty much in wait 'till next year mode.

You've all seen the boat sink, here are the numbers.

August 25th-September 5th

Team pitching:
100 2/3 IP, 138 H, 20 HR (!), 5.81 ERA. Opp BA .334, Opp SLG .550

Team batting:
400 AB, 41 R, 6 HR, 22 BB, 70 K, OBP .309. 3.4 runs per game.

For a little perspective, no team's had an ERA that bad since the 109-loss, 1996 Detroit Tigers, and no team's averaged so few runs per game since the 107-loss, 1988 Baltimore Orioles.

So, in the midst of a pennant race, the M's reverted to being an epochally bad hitting and pitching team. Nice!

Reporters asked John McLaren what has to change after yesterday's game.

"We'll see what we're made out of, how about that? We'll see who steps to the plate."

Who has to step up?

"We'll start with the manager and work our way through the whole team."

The M's clamber up onto the shores of Detroit tomorrow, where they'll throw Miguel Batista against Justin Verlander. The Yankees, meanwhile, fly to the friendly town of Kansas City, where Gil Meche stands between them and reducing their magic number to 20.

Nudity at the County Fair

Jim and I love VH1's Rock of Love featuring Bret Michaels of Poison. He's trying to find his soul mate among the models and strippers who are competing for his attention. And you thought VH1 was scraping the barrel when they were casting for Flavor of Love. We have no idea who Brett will pick but he definitely deserves Lacey since she's obviously the psycho in the house and he professes his connection with her every week while the rest of the house HATES her (with the exception of 1 girl).

Well, in more recent news, Bret's band, Poison, played the Douglas County Fair in Roseburg, Oregon. Apparently bare breasts were displayed on the video screen behind the band during their performance, and people are outraged by this. The fair organizers are demanding an apology. I love the following quote from one offended fan:

“Personally, I’m kind of shocked,” said Jo-Anne Tinkle, a Roseburg resident attending the concert with her 18 year-old son. “I conceived my boy Brett here at a Poison show in Kansas City back in ’89. I thought it would be kind of special to bring him with me tonight, like a family thing, but I didn’t expect this.” Son Brett (wonder who misspelled the name, the reporter or the mom) declined to comment.

Priceless! You can read the full article here. Warning: All quotes and/or names in the article may have been made up by the funny folks at seattlest.com, though the story itself seems to be true.

Eddie's rant after sox get swept by nyy (BOO!)

My buddy Eddie (who I've known since the 8th grade & now lives out here too) sent me this email this afternoon, after the sox got 2 hits (woo hoo!) and lost 5-0 to complete the 3 game sweep by the yanks (BOO!). In the past I've described him as the "Glass is always empty" type of sox fan - he makes me look like the eternal optimist, if you can imagine that


Subject: Hot Potato

If the M's take the wild card from the Yanks, which is doubtful, and ended up playing the Sox in the playoffs, would the Sox and M's be like the Cubs and Brewers and just keep stepping back saying, "we don't want it, you take it, no really, you take it!"? Can a playoff series end in a tie due to neither team wanting to win? Friggin' joke of a week for both M's and Sox.

Sox don't deserve division if they can't hit and M's don't deserve anything after their shellacking and losing 5 straight at this time of year.

Go Pats!

At least this gives me an excuse to run the BEST PHOTO EVER again

Airline Lounges

I came across this article, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118843392046712939.html?mod=googlenews_wsj, and thought of Jim when he had to kill hours between connecting flights going to and from the Final Four in Atlanta. After reading the article, I'm glad he flew Delta. It got the best reviews of the airline lounges.

What I Did This Summer

Here's a preview of what to come on The Office. Pretty funny stuff :)

email from Brooks Brothers

I received this today. Even though I have a few shirts from there,
I'm not sure that they really 'get' me:

Biggest Rat Leaves Bush's Sinking Ship

this says it better than I can:

South Park Kelly

So far my Hoya pal Kelly is the only one

who has sent me a South Park likeness. Here it is:I'm gonna go WAY out on a limb here & guess that
she based it on this photo from our last trip to Vegas:

We recommend the Las Vegas Gun Store if you're down there &
want to fire automatic weapons. 25 rounds for $25,
and it's WAY more fun than a hand of blackjack.

Look how much fun Irene is having:

Sorry, Ladies

Yao is off the market.
Here's the happy couple, measuring in at a combined 13' 8".
He's 7'6", she's 6'2" and also plays hoops, on the Chinese National team:

Irene's Reading List for August

Geek Love by Katherine Dunn

Irene's Reading List for April - July

The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean
Black Swan Green by David Mitchell
Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire
Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return by Marjane Satrapi
Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner
Beneath the Metropolis, The Secret Lives of Cities by Alex Marshall
A Year in the Merde by Stephen Clarke

Tommy Girl?

Kris sent me this pic this AM - she says it's the reincarnation of a
deceased former SNL star - guess which one:

But I think that's mean and would never say anything like that

Weaver Makes His Sad Face

Jeffy only went 4 innings in last night's 8-0 drubbing from the Angels. I am doing the unprecedented, and hereby revoking the Schrute buck he earned a few weeks back, leaving him with a grand total of zero Schrute bucks, a 2-10 record, and an ERA of 6.32 for the season.

I looked it up and he was 3-10, 6.29 (thru 16 starts--the same number he's had here) when the Angels gave up on him last year. So he was actually one win better & had a marginally lower ERA than he has this season--and they dropped him. When will Bavasi do the same? I'm guessing never, since that would require the Ms management to actually do something mid-season other than trade a guy like Mateo.

How can a team that thinks it's playoff ready have a 2-10 guy in its starting rotation? When will Bavasi be fired? These are the kinds of questions I'd like to know the answers to.

Lastly, here are the probables for the Sox-Ms series this weekend, according to the Boston Globe:

Friday, Aug. 3
Jon Lester (Red Sox) vs. Horacio Ramirez (Mariners)

Saturday, Aug. 4
Daisuke Matsuzaka (Red Sox) vs. Jarrod Washburn (Mariners)

Sunday, Aug. 5
Curt Schilling (Red Sox) vs. Miguel Batista (Mariners)

Looks good on paper but you'll get no predictions from me--I know how bad the Sox play in Seattle. They've lost their last 8 games at Safeco.

Creepy Cute Cat is Harbinger of Death!

Oscar (no relation to my sister Geegy's Oskar) is a cat who lives at an elder-care hospice (FKA Nursing home) in Providence and "seems to have an uncanny knack for predicting when nursing home patients are going to die"---CREEPY!

but look how cute he is: Read all about it here