Random Thoughts for the Day

- SWEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!!!!!

- The last three Sox games were arguably the three best games in franchise history.

- On ESPN Radio this morning, Peter Gammons was speculating whether the Red Sox fans would start a "1917" chant, similar to the "1918" chant they used to hear from Yankee fans. This led me to ask myself: Is this the sports equivalent of a cancer survivor heckling patients in the oncology ward?

- The only thing worse than having to suffer through three games of Chris Berman's amazing feat of announcing a baseball game with Johnny Damon's scrotum in his mouth was having to watch as the ESPN cameras panned the Fenway crowd as poor, poor Red Sox Nation had that look of "We haven't won in 11 months, woe is us!" horror on their collective faces. How soon we forget.

- Wait a second - actually, watching those shots of the Fenway crowd was surprisingly pleasing.

- On an unrelated note, if you ask me, nothing screams "I'm a complete and total asshole" quite like a colored dress shirt with a white collar and cuffs.

- Is there a creepier person on the fringe of celebrity than Joe Simpson, patriarch of the Jessica/Ashlee duo of overexposure? I believe this guy used to be a Baptist Minister, and now he wears his hair like a cast member of The Real World, dons an earring, and doesn't quite button his shirt all the way to the top. Not only that, but he is being cited in all the current rumors as one of the main reasons for Nick and Jessica's impending split. Am I the only one who is completely unsettled by his sheer scuzziness? What would Freud say about his strange, pseudo-sexual relationship with his daughters? Can someone please splice this guy's brain open, study it, and figure out how we can prevent future occurrences of Papa Joe?

- Speaking of Jessica Simpson, to me she is the epitome of the sheltered girl who fires off like a loose cannon once she gets a taste of the good life. She was a virgin when she married her husband, and three scant years later there are rumors of her love of whiskey, cocaine use, and sexual rendezvous with Johnny "Why Is This Guy A Movie Star Again?" Knoxville. If they can't make it work, there's no hope for any of us. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: We're doomed.

- I was watching a recent episode of the once-intriguing but now-excrutiating Alias yesterday. As they began working Jennifer Garner's pregnancy into the script, there is a scene where her character, Sidney, is speaking with her fiancee, Michael, about said pregnancy. Because he's got some secret to hide, he pulls the old, tired "How can we bring a child into this world?" cliche. I've never quite understood this. Don't we as humans, despite all of our issues and hang-ups, generally continue to evolve as a species? Isn't that what time, technology, innovation and education do for us? Would it be better to bring a child into the world during the Jim Crow Era? Or maybe in the 1620's, when single women were being burned alive by religious zealots who thought it was weird that they were single women? Or perhaps even during those lazy, hazy, crazy days of the Bubonic plague? The further back you go, the shittier things were in general, so there are no "Good Ol' Days". And yes, things are still pretty fucked up and aren't getting exponentially better in the near future. So maybe the writers of this show can craft something a little more plausible and have the guy say, "sorry, hon - a baby will just cramp my style." Keep it real.

- Did I mention that the White Sox won this evening?

- I final shoutout goes to acquitted ex-footballer O.J. Simpson, who Us Weekly happily reports spent the 10th anniversary of his acquittal signing autographs at a horror-themed comic book convention. Run, Juice, run!