As expected, Bush went to the extreme right wing in his nomination of Samuel Alito. Set up by conservative disapproval of the Miers nomination, Alito is about as conservative as he could have gone. It'll be interesting how they treat his hearings; in regards to Roberts, conservatives wanted no questions asked about controversial issues, whereas that's all they would have wanted in the questioning of Miers. Clearly they'll try to avoid this as he is shown he would overturn Roe vs. Wade. As Jesse puts it "He's pro-discrimination, anti-civil rights, and likely to side with big corporations over workers every time."

On another note, it's nice that Harry Reid took a stand against the White House and asked for justice and an explanation as to the situation with the CIA leak. Reid voiced the opinion of many people; "I think not only should the president appear before the American public and explain what is going on and take a few questions from the press, but certainly the vice president should do that." He also called out the president on his claim that anyone involved with the leak of Valerie Plame's name would be fired; "Everyone knows Karl Rove is involved," Reid said. "If the president is a man of his word, Rove should be history." It's nice for a Democrat to finally say something publicly about how the administration is full of crap with regards to the leak of Plame's name.

It's official today, the 29th of October...winter in Boston has begun:

NFL PICKS:

Cincinnati d. Green Bay
Dallas d. Arizona
Chicago d. Detroit
Tennessee d. Oakland
Jacksonville d. St Louis
NY Giants d. Washington
Carolina d. Minnesota
Cleveland d. Houston
Miami d. New Orleans
San Diego d. Kansas City
Denver d. Philadelphia
Tampa Bay d. San Francisco
New England d. Buffalo
Pittsburgh d. Baltimore

Season Record: 21-7

What's Really Been Grinding My Gears:

Tim McCarver: Does Fox really think he's a good analyst. He is completely useless to the broadcast; even Scooter is more valuable than McCarver.

Pumpkin Pie: It's just gross. I can't understand how people eat that crap; it was scraped from the inside from a big disgusting orange fruit. Just looking at it makes me sick.

Political Science lectures that are completely useless: After two poly-sci exams it's become clear that the questions come completely from our textbook chapters and not at all from lectures. Literally nothing he has ever said during a lecture has been useful on his exams. This does have a positive as our professor has the most annoying Boston accent ever and his voice becomes very high and squeaky when he says certain words (e.g. "constitutions"). It's not too hard to tone him out and do the crossword puzzle instead.

BU not getting any good concerts: We're in the middle of the city and have a brand new arena, yet BU hasn't gotten anyone to come for a show. I don't even need a huge headliner but at least get someone good to come to BU. It's pathetic a school of our size and location can't get acts to come.

Pre-made Halloween costumes: Sure when you buy a costume already made for you it might look a little better but it deserves a lot more respect when you make your own costume. You don't have to sew or slave over it, but at least make the effort to come up with your own costume.

Miers withdraws Supreme Court nomination

Although she probably would not have won the seat anyway, I'm disappointed Harriet Miers withdrew her nomination for the Supreme Court. From a liberal perspective, she's probably the most left wing candidate we could have hoped for. Bush will probably go with a well more conservative candidate for his next nomination. Even though she lacked any kind of qualification, Miers was central enough, politically, that Democrats may have voted her in based on the fact that if she didn't get the seat, the next nominee would certainly be far more right wing.

When the President states that "Harriet Miers' decision demonstrates her deep respect for this essential aspect of the constitutional separation of powers;" why didn't he understand this from the beginning, it was his decision to put her in that position...idiot. Ed Gillespie, later in the article, says "She, I think, rightly and in a principled manner came to the conclusion that there was about to be a conflict between her role as nominee and the principal she's espoused as White House counsel and counsel to the president." Is it just me or aren't these things that should have crossed the President's mind before he nominated her; these seem like pretty basic reasons for not nominating her. In conclusion, our President is an incompetent moron.

Cold, rainy weather is arguably the most miserable situation a person can be put through. It's been raining all day today with winds over 30 mph, which make it feel like 25 degrees outside. I would much rather be hit by a snow storm at this point instead of this nor’easter. The hot water is out in our building and one of the local walkways is closed off because tiles from out neighboring building flew off and could have easily killed someone. Looking out my window, a saw a girl literally get blown over by the wind. She was walking in a very hunched over way and was hit by a huge gust of wind and she actually fell over. There were also multiple umbrellas floating around after being ripped from peoples' hands. There are soaked clothes all over our place. This weather is just miserable...I hate it.

So it's another Monday, which means another intellectually stimulating column from the Campus Conservative. The column can be found here.

When she refers to Senator Schumer's quote that "[Democrats have] gotten much better at blocking some of the bad things the Republicans would do, but we know you can't be a party of long-term majorities unless you put forward the things you would do," she takes is as Schumer setting the plan to use whining behavior to win Congressional seats. First of all, complaining that the current administration has not done an appropriate job is hardly whining. I'll agree that the Democratic Party is hardly unified at the moment but attacking the conservative leaders of our country seems like a completely reasonable campaign tool. If I was a leader in the Democratic party, the first thing I would look to at the moment for ammunition would be the unsatisfactory job the Republican majority has done in improving our country in economics, defense, as well as in other departments.

When she tries to use polls as evidence for the struggle of Democrats in Congress, she pulls numbers off of multiple polls, which cannot be compared to one another. It's ridiculous for her to compare 52% approval of the party from a Gallup poll to 32% approval of the representatives from a Pew poll. Also, the 52% approval of the Democratic Party is the more important number as one representative's time in Congress is transient compared to the long lasting approval of the Democratic Party.

Her account of the Democrats and their lack of a strong platform are completely correct and this seems to be the biggest problem with the Democratic Party right now; there doesn't seem to be a united party behind one set of goals for the country. However, her point that "[she doesn't] think the American public is going to find it convincing when Democrats run on that platform [of getting rid of Bush] in 2006," is not correct. A lot of Americans believe that the first and nearest step in improving the status of the US is to take back the majority is the House and Senate. This is the first move in getting a Democrat back in office in 2008. Up until 2 months ago this "platform" would not have made much noise for the Democrats but with the past two months of negligence piled on years of inadequacy, many Americans are riled enough to go blue based solely on the anti-conservative view.

The most amusing point in the column comes in the last paragraph when she makes the claim that Democrats shouldn't see success "just because a small majority of voters are unhappy with Republicans at the moment." First of all, there's no such thing as a small majority, it's a complete oxymoron; a majority is a majority, it means more than half of the population, is "unhappy" with the Republican party. Also, "unhappy" isn't exactly the right word to get the point across; a better choice may have been "outraged," "infuriated," or "irate." The majority of people aren't slightly upset with the current administration, for the most part we think it is pathetic and whatever has to be done to take Congress and the White House back is doable.

Can the Ravens just forfeit the rest of their games and pick Matt Leinart in the draft. I can't put up with this shitty play anymore, it's just pathetic.

WEEKEND FOOTBALL PICKS
College Big Games:
Texas(2) d. Texas Tech(10)
Alabama(5) d. Tennessee(17)
Auburn(16) d. LSU(7)

NFL:
Baltimore d. Chicago
Kansas City d. Miami
Pittsburgh d. Cincinnati
Detroit d. Cleveland
St. Louis d. New Orleans
Green Bay d. Minnesota
Philadelphia d. San Diego
Washington d. San Francisco
Indianapolis d. Houston
Seattle d. Dallas
Oakland d. Buffalo
Denver d. NY Giants
Tennessee d. Arizona
Atlanta d. NY Jets

Leo Mazzone would be a huge pickup for the Orioles' coaching and pitching staffs. Mazzone has helped the Braves develop some of the best pitchers of this generation, which has been the key for them to win 14 straight division titles. As much as I like Ray Miller, Mazzone has been developing young talent for a winning organization for over a decade. Mazzone will hopefully be able to come in and get a quick grasp of the O's pitchers and be working with them throughout the off-season to make strides by the time the season rolls around. Specifically, I'm excited to see what he can do working with Erik Bedard and Daniel Cabrera.

It makes me even happier to know that the O's moved in on this deal only after the Yankees failed to bring him in. After Mel Stottlemyre's contract expired after the season, the Yanks immediately looked to get the best man in to replace him. They couldn't reach a deal, however, and that's when the O's began negotiating. Mazzone and Perlozzo grew up together in Maryland and have continued a strong friendship through today. Not that the O's are poised to make any kind of division title run, but it's a strong move to bring in one of the greatest assistants of all time.


Extra note: Maryland has finally started to play some good football this year but they're going to need an amazing effort tonight if they want to upset Virginia Tech. The Hokies have one of the top defenses in the nation so putting up points will be tough for the Terps. It would be nice for the Terps to make a strong showing on a nationally televised game tonight.

Roy Oswalt = Dominant.

In Oswalt's two NLCS games pitched, both wins, he threw 14 innings giving up just two runs on eight hits. Tonight's line:

Pitcher	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	PC-ST	ERA
R Oswalt (W, 2-0)	7.0	3	1	1	1	6	0	118-77	1.29

Thierry Henry finally returned yesterday and immediately showed why he is one of, if not the, most dangerous striker in international soccer right now. He had been sidelined for six weeks with a groin injury, suffered while representing his home country France for a World Cup qualifier, a time when Arsenal went only 2-2-1 in Premiership play. Henry didn't even start the game yesterday against Sparta Prague but was called off the bench when Jose Antonio Reyes went down with an injury. It took only six minutes after that for Henry to assert himself as the leader of this Arsenal squad by tying Ian Wright's club scoring record and giving the group an important early lead in a Champions League game. Already playing without Sol Campbell, Ashley Cole, Alexander Hleb and Freddie Ljungberg the Gunners needed some kind of spark on the road to get them going. That is what Henry provided, just as he normally does, and set the stage for a win that sets up the squad nicely to advance in the Champions League. A second half goal set him alone atop the of the club scoring list showing everyone who may have had a doubt that he is one of the greatest scorers in European soccer history.

Henry is clearly the captain of this team for good reason. Although not particularly vocal, his teammates look for him as the general on the field. There is a clear difference of play when he's not on the field. In his absence, the front line was usually manned with Jose Antonio Reyes and Robin Van Persie. Reyes, the 22 year old Spaniard, is now in his second full year as a starter for the Gunners and has exceptional talent but is not ready to step into a leadership position for one of the most prestigious clubs in England. Van Persie, also 22 but Dutch, started a handful of games last Premiership season and is probably a long term fixture for Arsenal but does not bring the type of poise and calming presence that Henry does day in and day out. Although they are a long way out of the Premiership race at this point, the Gunners seem ready to get it together for the rest of the season as they prepare to take on the rest of Europe for the Champions League title.

Albert Pujols = best hitter in baseball...period

Although the picture on the right of Brad Lidge is great, the perfect reaction was shown on the face of Andy Pettite who just admired and mouthed "Oh my God."

Sitting in Political Science lecture this morning I was reading my DFP as usual and I came across this article by "The Campus Conservative" Tara Stroll. Here's the URL: http://www.dailyfreepress.com/media/paper87/news/2005/10/17/Opinion/The-Campus.Conservative-1023121.shtml

This Op-Ed column has been pretty pathetic all year but today's piece was particularly terrible. First of all, all her of her columns give off the feeling that she's trying way too hard to be controversial; she forces the column instead of writing about something that's meaningful. Although BU does have a liberal majority, there is certainly a strong conservative presence and there is certainly a place for conservative views to be spread throughout our campus but this article, among her others, is a completely absurd account of the vote in Iraq and current terrorist positions.

She makes the claim that it is a great advancement in Iraqi democracy that a great number of Sunni's voted in the election. This display, however, was not due to the democratic process; Sunnis came out to vote because they had essentially been bribed into voting. The Kurdish-Shiite coalition reached an agreement with the Sunnis that the constitution being voted on would be only temporary and at a later date a committee of National Assembly members would re-evaluate the constitution and rewrite the constitution before a new referendum will take place. It's ironic that Ms. Stroll mentions this agreement in the next paragraph but fails to grasp the concept that if the Kurdish-Shiites not agreed to this, then the Sunnis would not have participated in the election. Her quote "This probably explains why Sunni voter turnout was higher than in the January elections. Even if some Sunnis were mobilized to vote against the constitution, it's still progress." That's absolutely ridiculous; if they were mobilized to vote than how is it any progress toward a democratic system. She is totally contradictory and hypocritical.

Her point that "One of the reasons for this is that the terrorists are realizing they're losing," is unjustified makes no sense whatsoever. I think you'd be hard pressed to find an al-Qaeda member who thinks he is "losing," although I'm not even sure in what context that word is being used. In the letter from Ayman al-Zawahiri to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi I would hardly say that the tone is that of "whining and complaining about how badly al-Qaeda is being defeated." Maybe thing have not gone completely as planned, but it's nonsensical to imply that al-Qaeda is weak and suffering.

Her last paragraph as a whole makes absolutely no sense. "Al-Zawahiri is basically saying that the majority of Iraqi citizens are not going to take kindly to their country being taken over by a bunch of non-Iraqi Muslim extremists;" I'm not sure I could make a more obvious statement if I tried. Does she think there's some kind of chance that Iraqi citizens will just let al-Qaeda come in and have their way? The next statement is just as obvious as the first; terrorists using violence and deception, I've never heard anything that preposterous. Finally, the fact that Al-Zawahiri admits that Iraqis want democracy and freedom is no indication that "terrorists can't win." The terrorist motive is not to "win" or "lose;" al-Qaeda will not stop until totally satisfied and with the current administration we're not doing a great job to stop them.

I'm sorry to have made you all read such trash because if you're like me you just lost intelligence in the few minutes it took to read the column.


Extra note: a close relative of mine, Richard Perez-Pena, has been working on an article for the NY Times for the past 16 months that finally came out today on the front page and then inside on a full two-page layout. Everyone should check it out: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/17/nyregion/nyregionspecial4/17clinic.html

Well I can't say I'm completely satisfied with the Ravens win today but, as Ravens fans have come to know well over past years, a win is a win. It's a stupid cliché term but it suits this team more so than arguably any other in professional sports. They ran the ball all day long, although Jamal Lewis doesn't seem to be playing at the level we're used to seeing him at. I don't know if it's his ankle injury or the fact that he didn't get the off-season training he needed; all I know is that he's not running at 100%. The defense finally stepped up and forced some turnovers and got to the quarterback, although dominating the Cleveland Browns is no great feat. Anthony once again did a fairly efficient job filling in for Kyle Boller; he completed almost 75% of his passes and was picked off only once on a deflected ball. I really like the way Derrick Mason has entered the role of the go to guy in the passing game. He runs great routes and has sure hands, a type of guy that hasn't existed in the Ravens' system for a number of years. Todd Heap played the type of game we've come to expect from our Pro Bowl tight end, 6 catches for 80 yards and a TD. Granted it was only a win over the Browns but hopefully it gave the team a little boost of confidence going into Chicago next week. That would be a huge win to pick up before going to Pittsburgh for MNF.

Extra note: There might be something wrong when committing 11 penalties is considered a vast improvement.

So it was a rainy miserable afternoon here is Boston and so it was decided that the afternoon would be dedicated to watching a pick-me-up movie. We decided on one of the classics of our generation: D2 The Mighty Ducks. D2 is clearly the best out of the trilogy of Mighty Ducks movies, this point cannot be argued as it is a scientific fact. As we were watching the movie though we were trying to figure out who the best players on the team were. Clearly Charlie gets the most notoriety on the team but he is definitely not one of the top skilled players. Banks is, in my opinion, the best player on the team; to make a baseball reference, he's the equivalent of a 5 tool player. He is solid in all facets of the game: skating, puck handling, passing, and scoring. He is the silent leader of the team, always coming up big plays when called upon. Under Banks, I would have to put Guy and Jesse as the next two best players. Neither of them gets any recognition for their play but consistently outperform the rest of the team. Jesse leads the flying-V, which is not a position Coach Bombay would just give away. It's a meaningful spot and Jesse earned it with solid play. Guy plays on the same line as Jesse and those two plus Charlie make up a very solid first line. Guy gets no publicity for his great play, although he does have a thing with Connie, which is nice for him. Coach Bombay also chooses Jesse and Guy to shoot first and second respectively in the shootout, a move showing Bombay's faith in them to start the shootout strongly. Quick note about the shootout: why would Bombay choose Dwayne to be in the shootout? Sure he's a good puck handler, but the shootout is all about finishing and Dwayne does not have the finishing skill of Connie or Russ, who were both overlooked as possible shooters at the end of the game. As far as defensemen go, Averman seems to do an above average job, bit it's boring to make a hockey movie about great defense so we don't see him in action very often. Fulton is an undervalued member of the team; he is a solid enforcer willing to do whatever is needed to be loyal to his teammates. In addition to being the enforcer, he's got a lethal slap shot which is a great weapon in junior hockey. Portman on the other hand isn't of great value to the team. It's ridiculous to waste two spots on the ice on enforcers when Fulton and Portman were both playing at the same time. Portman adds nothing to the team except his ability to make big hits, almost all of which are illegal yet he's not penalized. Connie seems to be one of the pieces holding the team together; she's not flashy and doesn't put up huge stats but she's consistent and rarely makes mistakes. Her only big mistake was her inability to get the puck out of the corner when Samuelson is bearing down upon her. Luckily Dwayne comes out to save her, which seems like a nice thing to do but he's moving in on Guy's territory, kind of a dick move. Dwayne's puck handling works to distract players on opposing teams at the junior level but once he moves up to higher levels of hockey, I don't see him having a very successful future. Opposing players will become more disciplined and he doesn't have any other great skills to fall back on. Luis and Kenny both have one tremendous skill that adds to the team dynamic but neither are particularly valuable members of the team because if opposing teams do any scouting whatsoever, they'd know exactly what to expect from those two the second they stepped onto the ice. Charlie is one of the two central characters in the movie, along with Bombay, but he is vastly overrated. Charlie is not a particularly skilled hockey player but he is the outspoken leader of the team. His leadership skills are the only thing keeping him around on the team. When he says he'd make a better coach than player he is completely right; as far as skills go he is not a very valuable member to the team. As far as the two goalies go, Goldberg got more playing time throughout, but this was only to enhance the entertainment value in the movie. Clearly Julie the Cat was a better goalie and Bombay makes a terrible mistake by keeping Goldberg in goal once she joins the team. Here's the lineup as I see it for the US team at the Junior Goodwill Games:
Goalie: Goldberg Julie
DLine1: Averman Dwayne
DLine2: Portman Luis
Line1: Jesse Guy Charlie
Line2: Banks (Russ) Connie Fulton/Kenny (depending on what style of player was needed)
*In the final game when Charlie gives up his spot...Banks moves up to the first line and Russ plays on the second line.

James and I were sitting in another Political Science discussion today, led by our TF Alex Whalen (aka TF Jazzy Jeff), talking about Bush's shortcomings in all of his political decisions, which is standard procedure in this particular class. Either there are no conservatives in our class or they're too embarrassed to say anything in defense of Bush, which is completely understandable right now.
The most frustrating part of this class is that there are some kids who stand out as people who think they are on a much higher intellectual level than the rest of us. One girl in particular represents this to James and I every week in class as someone who could be categorized as the "typical" BU student; not that there could be such a generalization at a school with 30,000 students. The best term I can come up with to describe this group of people would be "liberal elitists." She has liberal views for the most part but, because she is a college student at a fairly prestigious private university, thinks of herself as God's gift to the political theory. In a discussion last week about poverty and wealth she chimed in that "it [was] our responsibility [as college scholars] to make up for all the 'stupid' people of our generation." Another great moment came earlier today as we were talking about interest groups and if they truly represent the views of their members. Specifically we were discussing AARP and whether its members were interested in having their opinions conveyed to politicians or its members were using AARP in an apolitical way, mostly for discounts at commercial establishments around the country. This time she expressed her view by saying that people who don't have intellectual political ideas are also stupid and shouldn't participate in interest groups. It's interesting how many people at BU I come across who share in this ideology; a general liberal philosophy and an overriding belief that are superior to a majority or Americans, but with no real desire to help those beneath them in economic class. There are a lot of students here who need to be more open minded about people not spending $40,000 a year to develop superficial ideas as to how to improve the world.

WEEKEND FOOTBALL PICKS
College Big Games:
USC(1) d. Notre Dame(9)
Texas (2) d. Colorado (24)
Florida St (4) d. Virginia *sorry dad*
Michigan d. Penn State(8)
Florida(11) d. LSU(10)
Ohio State(15) d. Michigan State(16)
Minnesota(22) d. Wisconsin(23)

NFL:
RAVENS d. Cleveland *if the Ravens don't win this game I'm literally going to kill someone in a fit of intense rage...if they even commit half as many penalties this week as they did last week it will make me a believer in the theory that Brian Billick cannot lead and control this team*
Chicago d. Minnesota
NY Giants d. Dallas
Carolina d. Detroit
Cincinnati d. Tennessee
Kansas City d. Washington
Atlanta d. New Orleans
Pittsburgh d. Jacksonville *I really hate picking the Steelers but I don't see them losing at home to the Jags*
Tampa Bay d. Miami
NY Jets d. Buffalo
Denver d. New England
San Diego d. Oakland
Seattle d. Houston
Indianapolis d. St. Louis

Quick update going to back to the Oswalt post from yesterday:

He pitched 7 great innings, giving up just one earned run (a 6th inning HR to Albert Pujols...harder to avoid than most people would imagine) on five hits. He struck our six and walked three.

Buster Olney must have read my post because he also felt the need to write an article expressing the same view as I put out yesterday. It's well written and in depth so here it is:
Oswalt Overwhelms Cardinals 'with his stuff'

Earlier this week my friend Sam gave me a pass to see an advance screening of Domino tonight at the Loews at the Commons. Dano and I took a cab down there and walked into the theatre around 7:20 for the 7:30 screening. I knew from working at a radio station in high school that gave away these things all the time that they generally give away well more passes than seats available in the theatre. Still, I figured getting there a few minutes early we would be able to get in without a problem. Well I was just a little bit wrong...the theatre had been full since 6:45. We were pretty pissed off but we're both pretty passive so we didn't say anything to anyone about it. We didn't want to waste a 13 dollar cab ride down to the Commons so we decided to see a movie, even though we'd have to spend another $6.50, which, even though it's not considered that much these days, is a completely bullshit price to have to pay for a movie. It would have been unfair of me to ask Dano to see Two for the Money, which I only decided I wanted to see after I read the Sports Guy review. We agreed on Proof, which I hadn't really heard much about but seemed like it might be entertaining. Quick side note: as we're walking down the hallway to our theatre there's a vending machine for sodas charging $3.50. I didn't even think vending machines could take that much money at one time...and aren't vending machines supposed to be for cheap quick snack items and drinks. Fuck any vending machine where you have to put more than one dollar bill into the machine. Onto the movie:

(I might reveal some key details about the movie as I write this)
The basic premise of the movie is that Anthony Hopkins plays a genius mathematician who is father to Gwyneth Paltrow. He reaches his prime around 22 and then goes crazy as he gets older. There are a lot of flashbacks and honestly Dano and I looked at each other multiple times throughout the movie with the look that means "what the fuck is going on right now." I was confused throughout the whole movie as to what was actually going on, what was a flashback, and what was going on in real time but she was imagining. It kind of came together in the end; and Paltrow and Jake Gyllenhaal were both good but I came away not even knowing what to feel. There were so many unanswered questions and virtually no plot in this movie. When we got out I was thinking "when the writers of this movie were sitting around with the directors and producers...what the hell kind of message were they trying to get across with this movie?" I literally had no idea what the central plot or object of the movie was. Instead of being particularly moved with any sort of emotion, I left while in a state of high confusion.
Overall: C-

One extra side note about the movie experience: Dano and I are sitting five seats from one of the aisles in a relatively empty theatre. There are multiple rows with absolutely no one in them. As the movie is about to begin a group of five people walks in and sits down right next to me completing the row. In a theatre with as few people as this one was, that move was completely uncalled for. They could have had a row all to themselves but they decided to pick the one place they would have to sit next to someone. Of course within the first two minutes of them sitting there I had the awkward moment when the girl sitting next to me and I both try to use the armrest. I had clearly claimed the arm rest as the first person who sat down and then she tried to fucking steal it from me. You can add that to the list of my biggest pet peeves.

So I'm looking today at a preview of the NLCS game tonight and I've always really liked Roy Oswalt and considered him underrated, especially now with Roger Clemens on the same staff, but I never realized how good he really is. With his win in the ALDS against the Braves he got his 20th win on the season for a second straight year. And with Clemens' remarkable ERA of 1.87 this year, Oswalt's own outstanding ERA of 2.94 has gone unnoticed. Oswalt is not a particularly outspoken player; he just goes out every fifth day and gives his team a quality start. He threw for less than 6 innings only three times this season while he threw for at least 8 innings 10 times and tallied 4 complete games. He received a spot on the All-Star team for the first time this year, by way of the fan vote, hopefully signaling that baseball fans are starting to notice his outstanding achievements. Although he's paired on a staff with arguably the best pitcher of our generation, Roy Oswalt certainly deserves more notoriety for the success he's had over his first 5 years in the major leagues.

On the outside I'm extremely excited that both the Red Sox and Yankees got knocked out the ALDS, but on the inside I'm slightly disappointed because the playoffs have become a lot duller. The four teams left, White Sox, Angels, Cardinals, and Astros, are all such bland teams that they leave me with no real interest in rooting for or against any of the teams left. Granted the Angels and White Sox played a mildly exciting game last night it hardly compared to the tension and build up of the last two ALCS's. The White Sox, although they have proven all year they are a winning club, seem to lack the spark of a championship team. The Angels, with one of the most exciting players in the game Vlad Guerrero, haven't gotten the exposure here on the East coast for me to feel any connection to the players or team. As an Oriole fan my whole life, the National League has always been on the backburner in my following of baseball. I never seem to know the teams well enough to develop an allegiance to any of them. I have been a fan of Jeff Bagwell throughout his career as well as Craig Biggio so for those two to bring a championship to Houston as their careers are winding down would be pretty special. As far as the Cardinals go, all they do is win. It's no fancy formula...they play well in the three major facets of the game (pitching, hitting, and fielding). It's hard not to respect Albert Pujols who is just 25 and has played 4 of 5 full seasons with an OPS over 1.0 (with his 5th at 0.955).
While there are stories and players to follow through the rest of the postseason, it's hard to ignore the fact the Red Sox and Yankees are conspicuously absent from a time when, over the past two years, the made baseball the highlight of a sports fans fall. I'll certainly follow the rest of the playoffs as an avid baseball fan, but, as hard as it is for me to say, Bud Selig should know he's not the only one missing the Yankees and Red Sox from the October action.

On a side baseball note...I'm happy to see Sam Perlozzo get a chance to manage the O's from the beginning of the year in '06. He's been with the organization for a while now and his patience, it seems, has earned respect from a lot of people around Baltimore. On the other hand, getting rid of Jim Beattie was, in my opinion, not the right front office move to make. Beattie is the man with experience, not Mike Flanagan. Hopefully he has someone working close to him to turn the O's around so maybe, although not likely, I'll be talking about them still playing this time next year.

So this blog is a place for me to vent about some of the stuff I enjoy in the life and the stuff I really dislike. Here's a way for me to show you a little bit about myself...it's a concise list of my peeves. I wouldn't consider myself an angry person...these things just really grind my gears.

In no particular order:
-people who wear sunglasses on the T
-popped collars (this coming from a kid who wears a collared shirt every day of his life)
-"Red Sox Nation" and people who come from all over the country to college in Boston and start to root for the Red Sox
-football players who do dances after making meaningless tackles...while their their team is still down by 21 points
-people who wear hats of sports teams in "cute" or "trendy colors" instead of the official team colors
-hospital lights
-standard easy mac pakets not containing nearly enough mac and cheese to properly satisfy me late at night
-the Dominos people who put the Kickers sauces in the wrong places
-the BU dining halls being open til 7 on Friday and Saturday nights...it makes absolutely no sense
-Chris Brennan
-people who, during crowded walking times, ride their bikes on the sidewalks to comm ave instead of in the street
-when the dining hall runs out of turkey at the sandwich station
-people who drive the speed limit in the left lane of the freeway...at least 10 over or get the fuck out of the way
-people who don't wear athletic shorts and shoes to the gym
-any person who owns a Hummer H2
-record companies who expect us to pay over $15 for a CD
-people who consider those weird "sporty" Puma shoes acceptable to play sports or work out in
-people who wear hats to the gym
-freshmen who come sit in our room for hours at a time uninvited and don't say anything (Prescott)
-Peter Angelos thinking he knows shit about baseball when he's really just an ignorant rich lawyer
-Sidney Ponson
-playing the National Anthem before the beginning of sporting events
-playing "God Bless America" during the 7th inning stretch at baseball games

This is just a quick list of things that came to mind...but there'll be more to come.