How is it possible that I'm suffering from such severe baseball fever in the middle of November? This isn't supposed to happen. Maybe it's because there were so many positive and promising things about last season, and then it all ended so abruptly and embarrassingly. I feel like there's unfinished business. But yet, next year kind of appears to me like it could be a transition year - a gateway year to some special times to come. Are the Yankees allowed to have a down year in this day and age? What if they miss the playoffs because they don't mortgage their future to buy some short term fixes? I for one can handle that, if the moves they make or don't make seem to ring true to me... but I doubt that a lot of the so-called "fans" would. The one thing that makes me impatient is that I don't know how soon the end will come for guys like Rivera, Posada, Bernie, even Jeter... how many good years do they have left? They've been the constants in the run of amazing seasons the Yankees have had... I feel like they're family, and I want to see them get another shot at a special season that ends in a championship. Bernie may be done; if he's not, he doesn't have long with the Yankees. Posada is hard to predict... age catches up quickly with catchers. I think when he's gone, people will realize just how valuable he really was all that time. Jeter I hope still has many good years left - if 2006 was any indication, he sure does - but you just never know when a ballplayer enters his thirties. And Mariano... I don't even want to think about it. Not having him to close out games sometime down the road is a scary thought. When Jeter and Mo are finally gone, hopefully many years from now, I think it will take me a long time to adjust. But seeing how well our young guys have played... Robbie Cano fighting for the batting title in his second year (and looking better and better on defense), Chien-Ming Wang finishing second in the Cy Young voting, seeing Melky's improbable comeback to the big show and proving he belongs, and the spark he brought to the club... these things get me all fired up for what's to come. With some more great prospects waiting in the wings, and a bunch of other guys who no one expected much from coming up and contributing to the team last year, I really hope the Yankees front office has the intestinal fortitude to not make moves out of panic and short-sightedness. I want to give as many of these young guys a chance to come up and become the next generation of great Yankees, rather than being traded away for an aging superstar with maybe two or three good years left. Of course, there are some deals that are too good to pass up... I'm glad it's not me having to make these decisions and having to face the ludicrous expectations of the "win now" fans and sports media.


I watched The Royal Tenenbaums last night... I really like that flick. Wes Anderson has a style that really appeals to me... I love the quirkiness of his characters, the little worlds he creates for his films. And his use of music in his movies is outstanding. Anyway, I blabbed so much about baseball, I'm not going to write up a big movie review... just needed to rave for a line or two.

Shame on me for not knowing about this Spider-man 3 trailer until sue_tlc posted an entry with the link. I hate waiting! I wanna see Spidey 3 right now! Grrr... As always, it's hard to tell much from these things, but I think it's an interesting twist that they've apparently made Flint Marko (aka Sandman) the criminal who killed Ben Parker. That should certainly make things a lot more personal for poor Pete. And SWEETNESS! Harry's goin' Goblin on us, baby... that's my boy... the Goblin lives on!

So NaNoWriMo, I've changed course (which is actually what I've been planning since probably day five, but I've finally implemented it): I'm using the month to finish an old, half-completed draft I started over a year ago. So this makes word counts kind of irrelevant - I'm not going to win NaNo this year, and I don't mind in the least. But I am still trying to stay in the spirit of the month, and just bang out a rough draft without worrying too much about editing as I go. And I still have a very concrete goal to shoot for, which seems to help me. So I'm in the middle of Chapter Five, of Eight. That's more or less how I'll be tracking this thing as I go forward.

Oh, and I liked this Quiz - "Where Should Your Inner New Yorker Live?"

You Belong in Soho

Although you may not be a professional artist, you do dabble in one form of art or another. And you indie culture of all kinds - from little botiques to art house films.

Although I'm not really "indie culture of all kinds", I do like the general artsy feel of this answer, I think it fits me pretty well in theory, if not always in practice.


Peace.