It's been about five days, but what can I say? The weather around here has been too damn nice lately. Had a busy weekend. On Friday, my softball team promptly lost our big game, ending our playoff chances. Not that we would have gone far anyway, but it would have been nice. Still, we came back on Saturday and swept a doubleheader to finish 11-15. We need to get a few good female players next year.

Managed to get 17 miles in over the weekend, although not in one day. Five on Saturday and 12 on Sunday. I didn't have time to do more for a long run because we went to a christening of a friend's baby boy. Actually, I sat in the car and read the Globe sports page because Hannah was fast asleep; that was fine by me. Deb said just like the last christening we attended at that church, the priest passed the collection plate around twice. Then it was back to the house where there were kids everywhere. Fortunately, Steve and Tammy have a huge yard and a sweet playground set, so we kept Hannah busy.

Lately I've been listening to Sloan's new album, Action Pact, a lot. It's excellent, chock full of riff rockers and catchy mid-tempo pop; not so much of the wussy stuff they had on the last album. Although I would have liked some of drummer Andrew Scott's off-kilter psychedelic tunes, which serve as a nice counterpoint to their power pop standards. But he stuck to just playing drums this time because he and his wife just had a kid. I'll cut the dude some slack. I can relate. I picked up the disc while in Toronto and it's a good thing I did, because they haven't secured U.S. distribution yet. Too bad. It's way better than the crap that gets played on MTV like Good Charlotte; I loved Chris Rock's line after their performance on the VMAs a few weeks back: "Good Charlotte? More like Mediocre Green Day."

Doug Gilmour retired today after 20 years in the NHL. He was an ornery little bastard not much bigger than me, but in his prime 10 years ago, he was arguably the best player pound for pound in the league. I got to see his last game, which was his first back in a Leafs uniform last year; he played about five minutes before a freak collision demolished his knee. Well done, Killer. I still wear my Gilmour Leafs jersey with pride.