| 2007 Standings as of 9/30/07 AL EAST | W | L | PCT | GB |
| Boston | 96 | 66 | .593 | -- |
| NY Yankees | 94 | 68 | .580 | 2 |
| Toronto | 83 | 79 | .512 | 13 |
| Baltimore | 69 | 93 | .426 | 27 |
| Tampa Bay | 66 | 96 | .407 | 30 |
To my friend LB who never has to study again! And she studied so much this time she got the highest grade. (Plus, she is wicked smart!) Congrats! Woo hoo! We never had any doubt. Also congrats to her her husband who never has to go to a law school function again (now he just has to deal with lawyers all the time - but at least we can do it together ;) ). YEAH!
This weekend was the wedding of my dear friend, Harvey, to his new bride, Cate. it was a wonderful wedding. They, like Sean and I, had a monsoon the night before and the morning of the ceremony (good luck right?). Luckily, by the time the ceremony started, it had mostly cleared and no one got too wet. The flowers and decorations were elaborate and beautiful, all of the bridesmaids looked gorgeous and the groomsmen did just fine. The music was moving and heavenly and the bride and groom were immensely happy, as we all were for them. The food was great and there was lots of dancing. Even Sean danced! Plus, there were Secret Service guys there stealing cake (see below)! 
It was nice to see Harvey so happy and surrounded by his family and friends. It was also really fun to be at camp with our "group." We all hadn't been there together in a long time. I am so happy for you, Cate and Harvey, and wish you a lifetime of happiness.
I live in a world of football fans. All of my baseball fan friends live down in MA or RI. Granted, since one of my friends up here has gotten an HDTV, he has become a baseball convert (he wouldn't even watch it before), but when football starts, as far as he is concerned, baseball is over. This is extremely frustrating to me as a baseball fan. Every football fan's argument is that every football game counts because they are only played once a week, and because there are so many more baseball games, in the entire scheme of things, one doesn't matter that much. I would beg to differ. Let me use a proverbial baseball rule to prove it: As the length of time from each baseball game to the beginning of baseball playoffs decreases, the importance of each game increases. This is especially true when my beloved Red Sox are winning their division and our arch-rivals, the skanks are winning the wild card race. Another thing that is extremely frustrating is when you are married to a so-called football fan and he falls asleep watching a game in which neither team is his favorite, only to wake up when you have changed the channel back to NESN!
My friend Mike's last living grandparent passed away last week. Pa was a wonderful person. Even though I only met him once briefly, he was an extremely kind and gentle man. I have heard so many stories about him that I wish I had known him better. His family gave him a beautiful send-off. He will be missed by all.
Well, today Lucianno Pavarotti passed away. He was one of the best known opera singers of our time. I, myself, am not so familiar with opera, but I know who Pavarotti was. His life was full of accomplishments and controversy, but his contribution to this dying art was paramount. A lot of us used to know this terrible old woman (Miss Bette) who would travel the globe to see Pavarotti.
Personally, I will take "The Cowardly Lion" any day.
Last night during my break at Borders I read this review of the Deathly Hallows, written by Stephen King. Yeah, it was in Entertainment Weekly, but it was well written. I don't read much Stephen King so I forget he is a "tell-it-like-it-is" kind of guy when it comes to reviewing or writing essays. he gives high praise to Rowling for getting kids to read and to keep reading, and for writing a good, consistent story for more than 4000 pages (something he may know a little bit about considering the Dark Tower series is at least that long). Granted, he does have some misgivings about the series, but overall, gives it good marks. I think it is a good review (much better than the one in the NY Times which totally panned it, probably because of the reasons Mr. King states) and it made me want to read Robinson Cruso.
Today Phil Rizzuto passed away. He was a Yankee. This was not his fault. He was actually part of the reason the Yanks won all those pennants in the 40s and 50s and was finally voted into Cooperstown due to some persuasion by the Sox great Ted Williams. The article is quite nice and highlights a lot of Phil's attributes and accomplishments. Curiously enough, it does not mention the fact that one of the things he did as an announcer was call a play by play in the song "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" by Meatloaf.
The other night, I had a customer come into my second place of business and ask for Beethoven's "pas-tore-aly" symphony. Luckily, I knew what she was talking about and found a few recordings of B's 6th Symphony. There was one recording that also had the 8th symphony (which I am not familiar with), one recording that had a few other pieces on it with which I was not familiar and finally, one with the 8th and 9th symphony. "Oh, is that a good one?" She innocently asked. "Really? You've never heard of it?" I'm thinking to myself. I politely replied that it was the best choice since it was the same price as the others and I think it was the London Philharmonic. Does this make me a classical music snob? Hardly. If you click on the link to the Slate article, it agrees that if you are even vaguely familiar with western classical music, you have heard of the song "Ode the Joy." Some people! :) (maybe I am a classical music snob). Sorry!
Well, Barry Bonds hit his 756th home run to become the home run king over Hank Aaron. Woo hoo.
Aaron had held the record for 33 years with 755 home runs. In this age of steroids in baseball (an most other professional sports - don't get me started on cycling), it is difficult to know how to feel about this. On one hand, it is an amazing achievement to have been playing that long (this is Bonds 21st season) and hit that many home runs, along with the many other records he holds. On the other hand, there is the fact that he has used steroids. Even if he didn't know that's what he was using at the time, he still used them. This then brings up the question, what will happen in the Hall of Fame? Will his name go on the leader board with an asterisk? Will it go on at all? Will he ever get inducted into the Hall? Is using steroids as bad as betting on your own team?
I don't know what will happen. Unfortunately, because the testing is so sparse and anonymous in baseball, we may never know who has done/is still doing steroids, and how can we penalize one person without penalizing those who we don't know about? Most of all, whose fault is it? The player's union? The weasely commissioner? What needs to happen, is the rules need to change. Are the managers worried that people won't watch baseball if there isn't a home run in every inning? If we don't have pitchers that can strike out 10 batters in a game? We need to stop the cheating and stop it now. I know that players have been cheating ever since games were invented. However, in my idealistic (some might say naiive) belief that there is good in everyone I think that people actually do want to play fair. Until that day happens, I will try my best to instill fairness in every game that I play (yes, even pitch) and I will keep my belief that the rules are there for a reason.
I went to the gym yesterday for the first time in months! I didn't stay too long, just did some time on the elliptical machine as all the climber/swing machines (I don't really know what they are called) were taken and I try to avoid the treadmill at all costs. I'm even going to try to get back on Thursday. It's time for me to get my lazy ass back into shape.
Plus, I got to watch an awesome Red Sox Classic game from 2000 when Pedro had a one-hitter:
August 29, 2000
Pitching in Tampa Bay against the Devil Rays, Pedro hit Gerald Williams to lead off the game. Williams charged the mound, where he was quickly apprehended by first baseman Brian Daubach and the rest of the Red Sox. The Devil Rays thought the HBP was intentional, and kept throwing at Daubach and the Red Sox all night. The Rays ended up with five players, the manager, and two coaches all being ejected, while no one from the Red Sox was tossed. Through it all, Pedro pitched eight hitless innings, only to have the no-hitter broken up by John Flaherty in the ninth. He struck out 13 and finished with a one-hitter.
Not to read the last 100 pages of HP7 before I was supposed to go to sleep. I couldn't fall asleep for hours! I am still digesting it and wish I had re-read the first 6 before I started this one. Rowling did a good job reminding you of things you most likely had forgotten about, but I found myself wishing I had remembered every detail of the previous books. All in all, well done. And if there is another book, IMO, I can't imagine that it will be good at all.
This is freaking hilarious! It's about 5 minutes, but listen to the whole thing. It's worth it! Thanks Fibby!
The other day a bunch of us at work had our CPR/AED refresher class. There is some new material this year, such as don't waste time to check for a pulse or the correct placement of your hands when you are starting CPR and do 30 compressions and 2 breaths for actual CPR. Also, we were treated to this lovely video upon which me and one other co-worker couldn't even watch:
Happy 4th everyone! I hope you all have fun BBQs and rain-free fireworks.
I have been at work all day since I am taking Friday off and one of the perks of my job is that it is quite flexible when it comes to switching holidays. So along with a couple other people who did the same thing as me, I have been actually working a bit. But, I also brought in my computer so that I can finish uploading my CD collection. As some of you know, this is quite a daunting task for me as I have over 300 CDs. I am pretty sure this is the last book I have to do. Currently, I have 12.3 days worth of music. This is a pretty fun task for me actually because I am reminded of how much awesome (and not so awesome) music I have and I can actually listen to it. Today I have listened to a few Grateful Dead albums, a Heart Greatest Hits, and now I am on to "Dreamland" by Robert Plant. Good stuff. Now all I need is a new computer so I don't have the annoying dying fan sound in the background as I am listening to all my new found music!
Plus, the Red Sox won today! Yeah!
