Dead Blog Walking?

Is it time to kill my second blog? Maybe. Now I do facebook, and a little twitter. Tough mostly facebook. More people see my posts there than ever looked at this thingy.

But facebook has its shortcomings. The blog could fill another nitch.

If only I had anything to say.

My end of year subject will be music. Send me your best record of the year nominations. If anyone still looks at this thing.

Beat Beat Beat on the Dodgers

Boswell urges on Cubs partisans, invoking the same team of destiny that we who bleed blue have invoked many times over the past 24 hours:

In Game 3 of the 2004 ALCS, the Red Sox were battered to the ground in their own ballpark by the Yankees, 19-8, humiliated by their own ineptness and consigned to the netherworld by every fan they thought had loved them.

They were alone. They had only each other, a band of Idiots. Then they won and won -- eight victories in a row, building each day on their sense of pregnant destiny, until they had swept a superb 105-win Cardinals team in the Series as if St. Louis wasn't even allowed to present a lineup card.

That's where the Cubs are now.

Of course, Boswell points out that the Scrubs are almost surely doomed. He's no dummy. But just the same, he sees the magic that could be:

Now the Cubs need to sacrifice a goat, slap a few pundits and wake their fans, who at this moment stand at the edge of the cliff, pondering the familiar view.

If the North Siders want to win the Series this year, not just reach one for the first time since '45, then lose with dignity to the better league, they need something special. They need a magic cloak, a powerful mojo, an event of their own creation that makes them feel calm, invincible and chosen. They need to beat, beat, beat on the Dodgers.

Go, Cubs, Go

Trib columnist Rick Morrissey, looking for some doom facing the 97-win Cubs, picks on the classic Steve Goodman Cubs anthem, "Go, Cubs, Go." I hate to say it, but he's right--it is a dreadful song. Nonetheless, to kick off the playoffs, here's a 2008 slide show to Goodman's song:



But truth be told, Goodman's best Cubs song is not "Go, Cubs, Go," but "A Dying Cubs Fan's Last Request":

NJ Apple Picking

...and to Emily

[i can't view this video on the glacial internet connection I am using so if it is really bad, I apologize]

100 Years is Plenty

Nice column about the Cubs in today's Post; here's a snippet

There is nothing quite like the North Side of Chicago in a pennant race, with all those day games in the crisp autumn sunshine, the way God intended, and the stately old stadium in the middle of a stately old neighborhood, with fans filling every seat in both the stadium itself and the surrounding rooftops, and with Ron Santo up in the radio booth, living and dying on every pitch.

John McSame

John McCain is quoted in the Washington Post (from an appearance on Russert's show) on whether he differs from President Bush. This quote reminds me of the incredibly effective ad Ann Richards ran against Clayton Williams, in which she destroyed him merely by quoting his own words to the voters. John McSame in his own words (OK, from 2005, but so be it):

The fact is that I have agreed with President Bush far more than I have disagreed. And on the transcendent issues, the most important issues of our day, I've been totally in agreement and support of President Bush. . . . My support for President Bush has been active and very impassioned on issues that are important to the American people. And I'm particularly talking about the war on terror, the war in Iraq, national security, national defense, support of men and women in the military, fiscal discipline, a number of other issues. So I strongly disagree with any assertion that I've been more at odds with the president of the United States than I have been in agreement with him.