Running the World

'Twas a restful weekend. I managed to get close to 8 hours of sleep each night, which is rare for me. Yesterday, I got out and ran a decent 15-miler. I'm feeling pretty good with two weeks to go until race day. Now the biggest suspense is what the weather is going to be like on Marathon Monday. As we know from past years, it really could be anything from cold to rainy to warm to brutally hot. You just don't know. All you can do is hope for the best (which would be cloudy and temps in the mid-40s).

Speaking of hoping for the best, we've got tickets for the Sox-Rays game on Wednesday night, which right now will be the second game of the season. But since tomorrow's home opener could be rained out, I wonder our game could be the home opener after all. Depends on when they decide to play the postponed game. Right now, it looks like it's going to be pretty chilly Wednesday night, which is expected for April. We'll bundle up.

As for my team, the Jays, I don't have high hopes for this season. Last year's AL-best pitching staff has been decimated by free agency and injuries, and the offense is no great shakes since GM JP Ricciardi did absolutely nothing in the offseason to bring in help for the squad. Hopefully the team's best hitters, Vernon Wells and Alex Rios, can stay healthy and put together big years, and young phenom Travis Snyder can live up to his potential. After Roy Halladay, there are a lot of question marks on the pitching staff.

My planned podcast chat with my buddy Eric didn't materialize today because he was called in to work to cover the very story we were going to discuss: The death of newspapers, or specifically, the threat that the NY Times will fold the Boston Globe. The Globe today ran a strange page 1 story about how it would be missed, while rival paper the Herald got a lot of inside scoop from staffers about their anger toward ownership. Seems like the owners expect the unions to concede a bunch of stuff, but who knows? The paper's losing a ton of money, so it could just go digital. Which would be a shame, really. I'm hoping to having Mr. Convey come over tomorrow instead.

We took the kids to the Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary this afternoon for a hike with some friends of ours. It was the first time I'd been there in the near-20 years I've lived in this area and it was really nice. We had birds eating birdseed out of our hands, which was cool.

Fight fire with fire:

• Congrats to Metallica, Jeff Beck and Run DMC for their inductions into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this weekend. I stumbled across the coverage of it last night on Fuse and TiVoed the ceremony, but unfortunately it ran over and the recording ended before James Hetfield or Lars Ulrich made their acceptance speeches or the band could perform a few songs with old bassist Jason Newsted alongside current bass dude Robert Trujillo. So far, Fuse isn't replaying it, which is annoying, but I'm sure clips will show up on YouTube. All that said, I still think the honors are kind of arbitrary, since there are so many worthy artists that aren't in, like the Stooges.
• Ah, Kim Jong Il is up to his old tricks again. That guy thinks he's King Missile or something.
• Okay, now I'm convinced that the economy is coming back: Fast & Furious, the fourth in the endlessly stupid series of drag racing movies, raked in $72 million at the box office this weekend. Really? People must have some tax refund cash burning in a hole in their pockets or something.