Sports Roundup

Alright, so it was a pretty eventful weekend for St. Louis/Missouri sports, at least for me. The obvious component of that is that the Cardinals won the World Series, defeating the Tigers four games to one on Friday evening. Needless to say, the town has gone bonkers. This is probably the most rabid baseball fan base of any place I have lived, so when the Cardinals win it is a big deal. Conversely, when the lose it is also a big deal, so exorcising the demons of two years ago is feeling very good for many people. And, for those of you why wonder how the Cardinals, who barely finished the season over .500 and barely got into the playoffs, could actually win it all, you must consider that this is essentially the same team from the past few years. The big difference is that rather than having a good stretch run and having everyone get injured right at the end of the season, and thus not having them for the playoffs, everyone got injured 1/2 to 2/3 of the way through the season this year. The result was that we had a lousy end to the season, but everyone got healthy for the post season, and thus the entire team was available for the post season for the first time in a number of years. So, yes, good times.

Then on Saturday I drove out to Columbia to attend the Mizzou/Oklahoma football game, which was essentially a travesty. The tigers did not play well, and frankly deserved to lose. I was at the game with a bunch of coworkers, and we decided to leave the game right before half-time and start the tailgating early, which frankly was more fun that staying to watch the game would have been. I also got to see my friend Angela, which was cool.

Lastly, I just got off the phone with my account rep. and I have purchased a limited season package for the Blues this year. It was a close-drawn thing, but they are actually winning games this year and I just couldn't restrain myself anymore. The package included the night when they will retire Brett Hull's number, and I couldn't really miss that evening.

New Comic Reviews

New comic reviews are up at my website.

Someone Actually Reads this Thing

Yesterday I recieved in the mail a thank you letter from a staff person at the Civil War Preservation Trust, a battlefield preservation group I belong to. The letter thanked me for my recent contribution. The odd/cool thing, though, was the hand-written note on the lower right side that referred to me as "Midwestern Wanderer." I have never actually written an email to CWPT, nor have I ever written about the CWPT on this blog before, but somehow this fellow found out that I was the blogger using that moniker. Crazy, man. Yet more evidence that when you put yourself out on the Internet pretty much anybody can find you.

Phule's Company

Phule's Company by Robert Asprin, 1990, Ace Books

I picked up this book on the cheap at a local book fair. I am somewhat familiar with the author's previous work through the Thieves' World series he helped edit, but that was it. I figured that this book would be a good way to sample some of his other work. In the end, I must admit that I was underwhelmed. There just wasn't really anything here to capture my interest. There were some interesting characters, but they weren't actually doing anything interesting, and because of that I found it very hard to finish the book, as I simply always had something better to do.

The basic plot is that our protagonist, Willard Phule, is put in charge of a bunch of washouts on a backwater world. He whips the unit into shape, gains face in a contest with an army unit, and fends off an alien "invasion." The invasion and battle with the army unit take up 40 pages, though, so we have a good 190 pages of Phule's interaction with the members of his unit. I found this very boring, and it was almost like the author was secretly writing a management book about getting the best out of your people by focusing on their strenghts. There wasn't any real action, there wasn't any adventure, it was just funny little stories about these quirky people in the unit. Very much not my thing. Other stories in the series are supposed to include more action, but I doubt I will be giving them a try anytime soon.

Livin' Large

So I haven't really written anything in a week. I would claim that I have been too busy to write, but that would be a lie. The truth is, I have been on vacation and have been not spending much time on the Internet at all. Some time was spent working on my deck, and I also have gotten around to finishing off a book I should have finished reading months ago. I also took the opportunity to go to the Jars of Clay show last night, which was good, though the drums were miced so high you couldn't understand what Dan was singing if you didn't already know the songs. The highlight of the show, however, was one of the opening acts, Matt Wertz. It has been a long time since I have seen someone have that much fun putting on a show. I got the sneaking suspicion that he has that much fun all the time, which is so totally not fair.

In other news, I have ordered a new pair of eyeglass today. My current pair is now 2 1/2 years old, and my eyes have continued to deteriorate, so it was time to upgrade my prescription. When I got my last pair of glasses, I was on Davis Vision for insurance, and my glasses were awesomely inexpensive. $135 for glass with UV treatment, scratch resistant coating, and Transitions tinting? Oh, yeah. Now I am on Eye Med, and let's just say that it is costing me noticeably more to get basically the same lenses. Like, over $100 more. Thanks, PwC HR cost cutters! Thanks a lot!