San Franciso's SBC Park, formerly Pac Bell Park, is being renamed AT&T Park.

Is that about the stupidest sentence in baseball history? I am so proud our park is called Fenway Park. Say what you will about those three dudes who brought us a World Series title, but at least they never tried to change Fenway Park to American Axle & Manufacturing Holdings Incorporated Stadium.

The date should tell you what that line refers to.

What I want to know is, who are you people talking to all the time? I have some really good friends, but not once in my adult life have I been leaving work, on foot or by car, and thought, "It is imperative that I talk to someone right now. It can't even wait til I get home."

And that is why I still haven't bought a cell phone.

Maybe people by them and think, Well, I better get my money's worth and talk on this thing every single chance I get.

Or maybe, as George Carlin once said, people are afraid of their own thoughts. They can't just sit there thinking. There has to be a distraction--music pumped into their ears, or the voice of a friend, annoying all the people around them, too.

I'm down with music and communicating, but I'm also down with being by myself, and being able to walk to work without anybody being able to get a hold of me and without the temptation to get a hold of them, especially when it can wait. Like always.

Emergencies just don't happen enough to justify getting a cell phone for me. In fact, I've never been in an emergency. Besides, at this point, I can just assume that if I really, really need to make a call due to some dire emergency, there will be someone very close by with a phone I can use.

In the pun department, Chan and I were walking around downtown one night a few weeks ago, and a vehicle went by with a huge glass enclosure on it. It literally looked like a fish tank, maybe 10 feet long and six feet high, all lit up inside. With mimimal hesitation, I came out with "Glass houses gather no moss!" I thought it was a beautiful meshing of cheesy sayings. By the time I explained to Chan the meaning of each individual saying, as well as why they worked when put together in this case, though, well, it was a little anti-climactic.

In my mom's book news, they reviewed it on NPR's Fresh Air today. Listen to it here. That name again is Girls of Tender Age.

I watched the State of the Union address on Tuesday, for my weekly dose of comic relief. I don't know if Georgie is lying or just plain stupid. Actually, I do. He's both. Still confusing Iraq with 9/11. And much of this country is still brainwashed.

People are dying every day. Innocent people getting bombed by the U.S. U.S. soldiers getting blown up. All for no reason. Not like there'd be a reason anyway.

I saw a documentary called Why We Fight tonight. Definitely stuff I already knew, as far as the current war is concerned, but it's just good that people are coming out and telling the truth. The main theme of the movie is how Eisenhower warned of the "military industrial complex." And since he left office, this country has basically kept wars going the whole time, basically depending on them. The companies that produce military equipment are trying to make as much money as possible, so they keep making it better, and the government spends way too much on it, and will start a war to be able to use it, as they send our poor and uneducated off to die under the guise of "fighting for freedom."

Or, as Chan put it, "It was like Fahrenheit 9/11 without the jokes."

Did you know that the first 50 "smart bombs" the U.S. used in this war in Iraq failed to hit their target? Those weapons designed to minimize collateral damage caused it repeatedly. In the film, they talked to a doctor who showed the records of the casualties from the first wave of "shock and awe" attacks: Housewife, child, child, young girl... He said 90% killed were NOT soldiers.

And what is this war for, anyway? They had a dude on there who talked about how the government uses a technique to make civilians think that attacking someone is a justified retaliation, when it's really not. Or, in this case, it's Bush & friends telling the public that we're getting back at the people who attacked us by attacking someone totally different (who we originally supported, armed, and helped gain power), instead of the people who really did it (who, surprise, we also originally supported and armed).

What I can't believe is how so many people, in 2006, still either refuse to believe the truth or are just so stubborn to the point that even losing thousands of their own country's soldiers, not to mention thousands of innocent others, won't make them change their minds.

There's some other good stuff in the documentary. Like Eisenhower talking about how many people we could feed for the cost of one weapon. And John McCain's huge left cheek. Stuff like that. Check it out.

The weird thing about My Anything Journal is that I don't remember any of the stuff I described. I don't even know what my seven-year-old self is talking about half the time. But there is one thing I mentioned in there that I've never forgotten. In the current entry, you'll see this cryptic sentence: "In T-ball my friend and I play great in the infield but today is our last game and the manager is going to put us in the outfield."

My 7-year-old T-ball team, PSA (Police Supervisors' Association), had already clinched the championship, when we faced the lowly, and I belive winless, A.J. Carnall in the final game of the season. Note: Like with every job I've had, I started Little League the year after the "good old days" ended, where teams were actually named after Major League teams, instead of local businesses. (With jobs, it's always: "Oh, you should have been here last year. The boss would sleep through the whole shift, and you could come in late whenever you wanted. And they used to leave the safe unlocked, so you could just grab cash out of there if you ever needed some.")

So, my friend (we'll call him Bobby) and I played the two most important positions in all of T-ball: Pitcher (the majority of batted balls roll to a stop in the vicinity of the pitcher) and first base (on the occasion that there's a throw to first, you need someone there who can catch). For the last game, the coaches got together and decided the crappier players would get a chance at the important positions. Bobby and I would play outfield.

"Hit the field, guys," Mr. Plock said to Bobby and I. Despite knowing what he meant, as I'd been warned ahead of time of my one-time demotion, I came up with a little joke that only a seven-year-old could pull off: "The infield?" He laughed, and pointed me toward the vast expanse of Veteran's Park Elementary School's yard.

Despite our scrambled line-up, we whooped poor A.J. Carnall. When we came rushing in, yelling at our coaches "What was the score?" and "How much did we win by?",we were disappointed to hear Mr. Plock's answer. "Twenty-twenty! It was a tie."

Bullshit.

The Ridgefield Press confirmed it that week, but hinted who the true victor was, with this headline: "PSA 20, A.J. Carnall 20; Fun Tie."

I'll give you a tawpic: That game was neither fun nor a tie. Discuss.

I imagine some old man in an easy chair, who avidly followed the T-ball scores in the local paper, opening it up that week and saying, "Holy shit! Carnall put up twenty! On PSA!"

That would be my first and last championship in all my years playing organized baseball.

Jere went on to write this blog. Bobby (whose real name is Bobby) went on to relentlessly make fun of Jere for his lack of speaking in high school, and will one day feel the wrath of a thousand--eh, nah, he'll probably just go on to lead an extraordinarily average life in some suburb and breed more insecure children.

Check out this interview with Larry David. Chan gave me this link and said the thing is a full hour and a half. It can't not be good.

The Red Sox now have one of the Alex Gonzali. It'll be nice if he can play the D he's supposed to, and any hits will be a bonus. That theory worked with Cabby. We should be gold.

Jere's Red Sox ticket buying tip of the day: If at first you don't succeed, click the same thing you just clicked. Post success and/or failure stories in my comments.

Lucchino Not Satan

Sox To Field Full 9-Player Team, Not 7

2006 Season, Declared Dead By Internet Fans, To Go On As Record Number Of Actual Humans Buy Tickets, Despite High Prices

Media Lied To Public To Sell Papers, Everything Was Okay To Begin With


Oh, wait, this isn't just in, it's stuff I knew all along.

Here are some Red Sox blogs you may not know about:

Everybody's favorite commenter, and CT Sox fan, Peter, has started Peter On All.

Baseball Heavy has been blogging for a while, and has the same initials as me. Please note that this blog was discovered by Witch City Sox Girl. Maybe not "discovered," but she was the one who told me about it.

Also, what's with the "Cuckoo for Coco"-type headlines? It's not "cuckoo for Cocoa Krispies," it's "cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs." Krispies, a spin-off of Rice Krispies, is made by Kellogg's, while Puffs is made by General Mills, and features Sonny, the cuckoo bird mascot. "Cuckoo for Coco Crisp" would be like if we got a dude named Raisin Brantley, and people said "Raisin Brantley, he's grrrrrreat!" Terrible job.