Tomorrow night is the last vestige of a time when the community defined itself. Sure it's satanic, but I like to think of it more as evil acknowledgment than devil worship. But continuing our pastoral, oppressed heritage from an age of ignorance is not good enough for some. Some kids have to get …

It's hard to express oneself at certain times.  •  Except for brief moments it was, as portland said on the phone, like watching the Sox play a triple-A team. Bad Colorado managing lead to bringing in the infield unnecessarily, a lack of any innovative response like a bunt or two and a general …

Time to reflect on a great season and enjoy the fruits of your hard work. No, not the Red Sox...I'm talking about A-Rod. But not every one agrees:  •  “"It’s a shame," Hank Steinbrenner, who is now running the Yankees, said late Sunday night. "But we are all in agreement: myself, my dad, my …

Somewhere around the archives there is a discussion about...umm... let's call it "plogging" - the political blogs - in which I insisted that it is screamingly obvious that poltical bloggers are within the line of the parties. In Canada, at least, the conservatives apparently have admitted it …

Is dull so bad? I mean, the Rockies did get within one at a certain point in the game. And, if it is your team, can winning a championship really be dull? After all, I took a vacation day tomorrow on the hope of a sweep and the need to stay up with my TV pals, have a beer on a Sunday night, that …

Like I have time to post here when this is happening over at the beer blog.

We stayed up for the whole game. What the hell is the dea with the 8:25 pm starts? The game ended at 12:45 am. It's a work day for flibbertyjibberty's sake - though there is some question whether Friday is still a work day. After game one, I heard Joe Morgan on ESPN radio say that he didn't care …

...ho-hum...  •  Is it too early to think this feels like 2004? Not that the Sox wins in the end but they make it a little boring. In May I asked if this was the team of destiny. I was right. [Ed.: "...again..." you sigh.] And even purplists Colorado was doing it's bit by beating a bunch of …

Because, you know, we wouldn't want anyone to miss out on making an insane windfall profit or anything. Canada was built on a cornered marketplace and monopolies. Our current tidal wave of fantastic resource-based revenue continues that tradition. Why deny our anti-free-market heritage?

We've talked about it before but it appears that our rural overlords are now considering abolishing the Senate or at least making that the only option to reforming it. How would you vote if Mr. Segal, my Senator if such matters were more particularly regional, has his way?  •  “If a majority of …

Up way too early, the story that pops out to me is more of this stuff about being a citizen and the politics that goes along with it. Last year it was just about Conrad...again...and his need to undo his abandonment of his citizenship for the splendors that no doubt awaited him. Now, it appears …

Not that things are bad but if it weren't for the Red Sox I wouldn't have met the nice people from Albany attending a wedding at our hotel's bar on Saturday night. I wouldn't have been able to watch them checking the scores inning by inning as they dashed in, a little less stable from their free …

Good Oswego-based knowledge in the NYT this morning. Easlakia is more like Eas-scrapia these days.

I am not really helping things. But you know I have been driving into the US on a regular basis for years. Yet still I intend to shop.  •  “Canada's loonie has been at or above par with the American dollar for weeks, which has sparked outrage among shoppers frustrated by the fact goods still cost …

So by now I expect you all have given to the NCPR membership drive. I listen to the station in the car, at work and as my wake-up call. I own a banjo and a mandolin because of the show "String Fever" that plays bluegrass. What other station responds to requests for ska? You'd be more like me if …

Up half-way to the crack of noon with a very weird bug that is going around - all ache and weary, no sneezy - I was shocked to see that the per diem for John Manley is $1,200 and $1,400 a day, according to The Globe and Mail:  •  “Former deputy prime minister John Manley, who was appointed last …

I think things have gone so far in Federal Canadian politics that, as they say in Lunenburg County, the arse is out of it. The speech from the throne yesterday was on all appearances, if a little nutty, reasonably moderate...but that may well be bad. It may have been prepared to smoke out an …

I noticed I was somewhere less than bummed out and slightly to the right of bubbly the other day and I tried to think of all the things I have been doing or not been doing and I came to a very weird thought - I'd run out of salmon pills. So I look it up and...:  •  “The brain is remarkably fatty …

I am now seriously considering taking down the Paul Martin posters in the rec room:  •  “On the eve of Parliament's re-opening, former prime minister Jean Chrétien has driven a new wedge into the federal Liberal Party with his indictment of Paul Martin as having blood on his hands over the …

Being woken in the night by a kid, I found myself scanning the radio at 5:30 am to find out what happened in the baseball game and, being displeased woke up further and decided to see how the propagation was and caught Weekend Mornings on 1070 AM Moncton, NB. Better still, I got to hear Jonna …

Flipping around the channels last night after the Red Sox creamed the Indians, I saw an item on Syracuse channel 5 news that was fairly shocking: City workers were fired for living outside of City limits. Here is the story in the Post-Standard:  •  “Eight of the 12 Syracuse city workers who were …

I seem to recall brother Iain invented big ball when he was editor of his university newspaper. He didn't play it - no one did. Just invented the stats and kept the standings in the corner of the sports section. I could have done with big ball to get me through to the big game tonight, Boston …

Let me be the first to point out that, once again, my votes did not carry the day so I can assert the ability to spot a very bad stretch when I see one. And, just so I can also be among the first to point it out, between the massive win in Newfoundland yesterday for an anti-Harper Tory and today's …

First let me say well done Danny. Any Tory who is anti-Tory is my kind of Tory. Maybe he tries for NL independence next.  •  And it is now clear that I am voting for MMP because no one else is. Most people I know who are intelligent and well-informed are not, through the pure badness of the MMP …

A late night at work saw me driving for home at around eleven with 660 AM WFAN and the callers bringing out the Long knives for the Yankees. Who was to blame? Torre? A-Rod? Wang? Even Posada was a target. Apparently one person is not likely waiting around to find out:  •  “A clubhouse attendant …

Was the first round of the MLB playoffs boring? With one game avoiding a four series sweep across the board, hard to argue otherwise. Frankly, I don't care much about Arizona v. Colorado in the NL championships either. But The Sox and Cleveland starting Friday night could be amazing. Both teams …

Big Al's and Chaps, Baltimore  •  Highlight of the last bit of 2007 (and have you realized that we are 3/4s though the first decade of the 21st century?) is going to be a trip to Baltimore. I got invited last Christmas to write a chapter of a book called Beer and Philosophy and now we are invited …

This being the season of mellow fruitfulness, it really should be better advertised. Except for college kids and leaf colour nerds, autumn is too often portrayed as the end of something rather than a thing in itself. Like New Brunswick, it's too often thought transitional - something to get …

What a game. And what an interview:  •  “...I haven't been right all year round. But I guess, you know, when you don't feel good and you still get hits, that's when you know you are a bad man.”  •  And the Yankees lost, too. It's all good.

So I took today off and a few more days between now and the end of the year. That means zippo to you but I seem to have won the weather lotto so there.  •  I think the whole Harper fluffball this week about the Speech from the Throne is another small embarrassment for us all leading to lack of …

While the top story in my last 24 hours has to be Beckett finishing his  •  complete game by setting aside the Angels like a librarian shelving a book  •  [Ed.: Yes! My own sports analogy!] in time for the Bionic Woman's second  •  episode to start, it was really the realization that BW2 [Ed.: Yes …

It is a grand thing when your fantasies and solid factual reality coincide so that your predictions for the playoffs can be as good as mine are:  •  “American League  •  1) Angels vs. Red Sox (Sox in 7)  •  2) Yankees (yeecht!!!) vs. Indians (Cleveland in six)  •  3) Red Sox vs. Indians (Red Sox …

I likely won't vote for the man and the characteristics that are pointed out in this Toronto Star article may be exactly the sort of thing that loses him votes on certain sectors of the right but this is the sort of thing that I used to not be surprised to read in an article about a conservative …

Why don'tcha talk about what you talked about yesterday? The Padres and Rockies went late, you know. Not that I stayed up but you have to stay in there until at least extra innings start. You know. Hoffman sucks. Padres lose. Glavin sucks. Mets lose. Hoffman and Glavin will be in the Hall of Fame …

This year's provincial election confirms again that Ontarianada continues to define the nation but still is shy of itself. The issues here are the issues of the land but no one is really talking about them. The laws created here will be copied, the wealth will support schools and hospitals …

Sad news:  •  “The Mets’ listless 8-1 loss to the Florida Marlins yesterday, coupled with the Philadelphia Phillies’ 6-1 victory against the Washington Nationals about five minutes later, eliminated them from postseason contention and saddled them with one of the biggest collapses in baseball …