Era Vulgaris

Another weekend gone in an instant. Although it was raw and rainy most of the time, so good riddance to it. Things are looking up, however, because it's nice out right now and the rest of the week is only supposed to get better. My half marathon next Sunday could be pretty toasty, possibly in the 80s.

Our plans to go to the Sox-Braves game Friday were foiled by the weather. The game was rained out and rescheduled for Saturday night; the only problem was, we didn't have babysitting coverage for Saturday. We went out to dinner instead, which was fun. On Saturday, I started calling friends of mine to see if anyone wanted to sit in the rain with me. It took several hours, but my buddy Mike said he'd go. I've had worse weather experiences at the ballpark. It was a constant mist for the first six innings or so. Things opened up a little more in the seventh, so we headed down to the concourse to watch on TV. The Braves added a few more runs to make it 11-0, so we decided to bolt after the eighth. It ended up being a 14-0 whitewash, one of the few bad games the Sox have had lately.

It was more of the same Sunday as I headed out on an 11-mile run. It was misty until I was about 2.5 miles from home and then it turned into a steady drizzle. I was pretty soaked by the time I got home, but I was glad to get the run in.

Slice and dice:

• I watched some good playoff hockey this weekend, although that meant seeing my pick for the Cup, Buffalo, get bumped off by Ottawa in overtime Saturday. NBC had another "Heidi" moment (i.e., cutting away from a game for other programming) when at the end of regulation, it gave its affiliates the opportunity to drop the game and switch over to coverage of the Preakness horse race. The coverage moved over to Versus, which had been showing a strongman competition. Needless to say, the move pissed off a lot of hockey fans. If you had stepped away from your TV for a moment, you were probably pretty confused when all of a sudden, there was pre-race Preakness coverage on. I bet the horse racing rans were probably still mad from a few weekends ago when the Barbaro tribute was bumped because of hockey OT. The Senators prevailed when Daniel Alfredsson scored a nice goal with three defenders on him; he's probably the odds-on favorite for playoff MVP right now. Quite a change from last year, when he was burned by Buffalo forward Ryan Pominville on the series-ending goal. Yesterday, Anaheim was outplayed in every facet of the game, but still managed to walk away with an overtime win after a horrendous giveaway in front of the net led to a sweet Teemu Selanne goal. The Ducks are up 3-2.
• Well, now we know how Sly Stallone has stayed in such good shape as he continues making Rocky and Rambo movies into his 60s: He was fined for bringing human growth hormone into Australia.
• I enjoy watching the Letterman and Conan shows thanks to TiVo, because I can't stay up that late anymore. I usually fast-forward through a lot of stuff to check out monologues, guests and bands I like, but this scene of navel-gazing by Conan, Tom Selleck and John Stamos was downright hilarious.