Ha ha ha. Just sharing some of the lovely useless info that comes into my spam folder everyday.

The last week or so has been stressful. The LC management is finally getting around to asking us “new” folks for our opinions. So I’ve been trying to collect all the good ideas I’ve had for the last 18 months and make them coherent. Tougher than I thought. But it’s coming along.

To make things worse, I ran my beloved Sidekick through a load cycle in the washing machine and it’s pretty much fucked. Though it still functions, albeit at about a 70% level. May be time for a Sidekick II!

To take a break from it all, this weekend I took a trip out to Berkeley Springs, West Virginia to take pictures of the autumn leaves which have turned all sorts of colors. Feel free to peruse the photo album for some fall flavor.

Anyway, back to work …. see ya ….

The Yankee fans were sufficiently evil. We did everything a self-respecting villain is supposed to do. Screaming “Who’s your daddy” at the top of their lungs when Pedro pitched. Having Bucky Dent throw out the first pitch in Game 7. Plastering Babe Ruth’s picture over every available wall at Yankee Stadium. Chucking baseballs out onto the field and harassing the umps until they lined the field with police in riot gear. Drawing the ire of every baseball fan in Boston and everywhere else outside New York. You know, all the routine stuff.

The Yankee players were sufficiently Goliath-like, at first. Winning 3 games, the last by an obscene margin. Crushing the spirit of Red Sox pitchers. Behind in Game 4, the Red Sox were running out of air. Only the greatest comeback in the history of sports could stop us.

A funny thing happened on the way to the World Series.

The games got longer. Curt Schilling started bleeding through his sock. Stephen King sat brooding in the stands, communing with Mother Abigail from underneath his Sox cap. Johnny Damon found his swing and started hitting grand slams. A change in venue … Boston, New York, wherever… same result. A Boston win. And another. And another.

And it all comes down to now. It’s Game 7, the bottom of the ninth. The Empire is all but dead. And Luke is standing over Darth, ready to lift the mask and reveal the feeble George Steinbrenner underneath, begging for mercy. But there will be none. Just the New York press, circling like vultures over his depleted soul.

God speed, Red Sox Nation. Now, can you reverse the curse once and for all?

I wonder if my dad stayed up to watch this. It’s 1:30AM, east coast time. With the Grim Reaper standing in wait over Fenway, Boston eked past the Yanks in the bottom of the 12th inning, prolonging their stay of execution for at least another day.

I think all of Boston is going to call in sick tomorrow. Can’t say I’d blame them. Surely Yawkey Way is alive with the sounds of the ghosts of the departed Sox faithful, cowboy-ing it up with the current crop of Red Sox Nation. Fair enough.

So this is how it should be. The Yankees and the Red Sox, fighting to the death. And you knew it wouldn’t be a mere one-sided blowout! After the Yanks went up 8-0 after shelling Mr. Schilling, my dad goes to bed, and the Red Sox, like the persistent zombies they are, score 7 runs to nearly even it up.

But puh-lease…..! Look up Frankenstein in the dictionary. He’s wearing a Yankee cap. We’re the coming-back-from-the-dead masters. 10-7, final. Yankees.

So if you can out-Frank the Yanks for seven long games, Red Sox Nation, then bully for you, you deserve it. All I know is some lucky National League squad (see: Marlins ‘03) is going to get a worn-out carcass of an AL club in the Series, and they may even beat them. But who will even care at that point? Oh wait … I might get to see the Sox fall over themselves in front of the Astros? OK, maybe I’ll care.

Relatively speaking, in my case. I’ll never be small. But 5 pounds of fat out the door, hopefully forever, is cause for a mild celebration on my part. In a previous post, I alluded to an “ambitious” weight loss plan. At my peak, I checked in at … drum roll please …. 322 pounds. In demographic terms, I’m off the charts. In dating terms, I’m just south of invisible. In D.C. terms, I’m code orange. And in health terms, my body is pretty f’ing rightfully pissed off at me and is making itself heard in previously unheard of ways. Ways not befitting a strapping young lad of 30.

My ultimate goal, one that I think is attainable, is to lose 100 pounds, roughly one third my body weight. So 322-100=222 and so that’s the “after” weight, more or less. Obviously this will not happen overnight. It could take months, years in fact. It’s OK. In my own head, I haven’t framed it as 100 pounds. I’ve framed it as, “if I can just get down to 300″ and then “If I can just get to 280″ etc… and as long as it takes to do it, that’s my timeframe. I’m not starving myself. I still eat less than healthy things. Still drink a soda now and then (more sparingly now). But I work out more. And I’m more conscious of what I eat. I make a small lifestyle change, and when I’m comfortable with it, I make another. And so on. Baby steps.

And so, today, as we speak, I weigh 317 pounds. Which is 5 pounds less than a month ago.

Life’s a marathon, not a sprint. Which is good, because I hate sprinting.

But anyway, for updates, watch this space. And I’ll be watching the space between myself and my trousers.