A few of my earliest photo galleries (the early 2005 games) have been screwed up by the fact that AOL recently shut down their Pictures and Hometown areas. That's where I had my pics uploaded in those very early days (for me anyway) of posting pics online. The good news is that I saved all those pics--I just need to upload them to Blogger and match them up with their captions. Then again, they were all video stills, and in this age of easily uploading videos, I may just post a bunch of video from those games. I have some good stuff that's just been sitting around for years. I think it would be cool to make some of those old photo galleries come to life. Like the Sox at the '05 Hall of Fame Game, and at the Cleveland and Philly parks from that same year.

I said I'd talk more about the devious Will Shortz and his NYTimes Xwords, and I haven't. But I've been doing the puzzle religiously these last few months since Chan got me that subscription to their online puzzle section. But they do have a blog of their own which is cool, except that you have to make sure to do that day's puzzle BEFORE reading it, since it gives stuff away. This Sunday's was really fun, though I did figure out the theme right away. (Spoilers coming up right now.) The first clue I looked at was "second biggest city in Rhode Island." It had five letters, but two of those squares had circles in them. After a few minutes, I realized that if it was "WARWICK" (using two letters in each circle), you'd have a WA and a WI. Okay, state abbreviations. I counted the circles in the puzzle. 28. I looked at the title of the puzzle: "Making History." Hmmm--inauguration coming up...could these be the states Obama won? Yes, they were. So I had the theme and took it from there. Wow, if you don't do these puzzles, these little stories must surrre be excitin'. But seriously, try the NYTimes puzzle, or at least the Sunday one. It's a really good exercise for your brain. And you need to exercise your brain just like you'd exercise any other part of your body. I'm serious. Don't let your brain atrophy. Write with the wrong hand if you must. Put that crap to work.

What else? SNL was pretty good tonight. Kristen Wiig continues to impress. She did the Penelope thing again tonight. Doogie Howser was the host, and he totally brought up DH, even playing the theme along with a steadily growing orchestra. He also brought up the Fred Savage SNL from '90, which I remember watching and taping at the time. Bill Hader did a funny song about how he likes the BCS--along with other things he likes, like picturing George Bush shirtless. That'll become a viral video, as sports fans definitely like to pretend they're funny.

Our mail lady wears a Yankee hat. I'm afraid she's gonna rip up my Red Sox tickets when she sees them. Kim says I'm paranoid--she hasn't been in "between" land very long, though. She'll learn. Not that it's 50-50 in Providence or anything, I mean, this is heaven compared to western CT, but you do see some interlocking arachnids here. It's also true what "they say" about this area in terms of its metal-tastic-ness. Jean skirts and denim jackets and feathered haircuts run wild, as do HMSs (heavy metal secretaries). We recently had a repairman here who had a jacket with that fur on the inside. But yet it feels so different than, say, New Milford, Connecticut, where I lived briefly. Mullets never left there, and accordingly, you feel like you're in redneck country. But Providence is a city, so it's almost like the metal people are just part of the modern world, like that guy in that Twilight Zone who goes over the ridge in 1847 and on the other side it's 1961. It's more "they walk among us" than "where am I?"