Losfer Words (Big 'Orra)

The weather's getting nice, sunny and in the 80s, so naturally, I'm stricken with a nasty head cold and cough. Thanks to Lily, who's been dealing with it for about a week. To make matters worse, the AC in my office was shut off while they're doing roof work, so it was about 90 in there. I was really miserable yesterday as I sweated and hacked my way through the day, so today after I wrapped up a meeting and some work, I headed home at noon. I'm still hacking, but not as much as yesterday. Plus there's some fumes from the glue they're using on the roof that sent a few people near me home. Nice.

I haven't gotten much sleep the last few nights, either. Sunday night, I kept coughing and couldn't stop coughing until I slept on my side or stomach. But I have a chronically sore back, so sleeping that way the last two nights has me in some pain today (sucks getting old, man).

Another reason I'm beat today is I stayed up until 1 a.m. watching Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final, which went to triple OT before Pittsburgh beat Detroit to stave off elimination and take the series back to Steeltown. Despite the Penguins jumping out to a quick 2-0 lead, the Wings dominated much of the night and were a little over 30 seconds away from winning the Cup when Max Talbot banged home the tying goal. Then on to the OTs, where Pens goalie Marc-Andre Fleury was amazing, singlehandedly keeping Pittsburgh alive. Finally in the third OT, Petr Sykora scored the winner on a power play; the cool thing is in the second OT, Sykora told NBC commentator Pierre Maguire that he would score the winning goal. It was a great, gutsy game, but I'm sure glad it didn't go into a fourth OT period. Next game is tomorrow night; hopefully the Penguins can win and send it to a seventh game on Saturday.

Today is the big vote in Beverly on the override. I actually was out holding a "Yes" sign with Deb on Saturday. I've always been more of a sidelines guy, not an activist or a signholder, so it was strange for me. But I'd say about 90% of the reaction we got from the folks who drove by in the two hours I was out there was positive (this doesn't include the folks who just drove by and didn't react one way or another). We probably won't find out how the vote goes until late tonight, but it looks like it'll be a close one. [UPDATE: Well, I was dead wrong. The override failed by a wide margin, 63%-37%. In retrospect, I suppose I shouldn't have been shocked given the tough economic times, but I guess I got caught up in the positive vibes. Now we wait to find out where Hannah will go to school next year. She's pretty bummed about it, and Deb's devastated, but we'll deal with it. Just sucks, that's all.]

Great googily moogily:

• Good news for fantasy sports nerds like myself: The Supreme Court decided not to hear a case in which MLB claimed a fantasy baseball game owner needed a license to use players' names in its product. Since most of the leagues I'm in use free services, I'm glad at least one thing related to major league sports remains affordable.
• You always hear the jokes about a player being so bad he was traded for a bucket of balls or something, but recently a minor league player was traded for 10 bats. Hey, in the team's defense, they were really nice bats.
• It was funny to see former White House press secretary Scott McClennan, free of his Bushian overlords, come out with a book that slams Dubya and his administration's deceptive dealings with the media. McClennan, whose sweaty, doughy presence made for many an unintentionally funny press conference back in the day, is now being characterized as a nutjob by his former compatriots. But of course.