The Indians have an off day today. At this point in the season they were supposed to be rolling along. This reminds me of 2005 all over again. They're digging themselves a hole and then they'll make a mad dash to get out of it, only to falter at the end. Whenever they have high expectations they seem to collapse under the weight of them.

But, you might say, they're only a couple of games out of first. That's true, but they're playing like poop. Inconsistent poop at that.

The only reason they're within striking distance still is because of how poorly the Tigers have played. I don't expect that to continue all year. The only way the Indians will make the playoffs this year is to win their division. Fortunately for them, no AL Central team seems to want to start to run away with it. It's only a matter of time before that happens though.

So the Cavs wrapped up their series with the Wiz. It wasn't even close in the clincher.

More interestingly though is the Hawks - Celtics game that's got 8.7 seconds left in the 4th quarter at this point. The Hawks, amazingly enough, are up by 2 on the team that won the most games of any team in the NBA this year. Should the Hawks push to a game 7, it's good new for the Cavs. Given a game 7 in this series, the Cavs will have a few extra days of rest that are critical at this point in the season.

Let's see what happens.

Bibby misses 1 of 2 foul shots, so now the Hawks are up by 3. What the freak? Raging Rajon Rondo just basically dribbled out the clock. Good move. He had 10 seconds and the only thing he could do was put up a 25 footer. Nice

Second straight inning for the Indians with the bases loaded and one out.

Let's see what happens here. Two strike outs in the bottom of the ninth was last inning. Now, Franklin Gutierrez is up.

I predict a weak blooper or a double play. A little pessimistic I suppose.

We'll see as I report "live."

Strike 1.

Swing and a miss, strike 2.

Weak sissy swing. Of course.

Sit down.

Here comes Asdrubal Cabrera.

Yippee! Their first hit of the home stand with runners in scoring position.

Indians win it. Hallelujah.



Now as you know we were in Tampa last weekend, but I never posted any pictures. I've got a few choice ones... I'll post more from the carnival later.

Here's a panorama from our seats. If you click on it, it's much bigger. That's what she said.








Here's me and Ted Williams (yes, they have the Ted Williams museum in Tampa, where they happen to love their Red Sox.) You may have noticed that Ted just got done fishing...

It looks like the only fix for our garage roof is to tear it off and replace it. The roofer today said that it's too bad too, because the shingles themselves are in great shape. The problem is that the previous handy man home owner installed them himself and did it incorrectly. He placed the nail holes right in the seams of the shingles, so any rain or snow now can leak into the garage. We really noticed the problem about a month ago when we had 18 inches of snow and it backed up into the inside of the garage.

What's that thing that I say? It's always something...

We got our new over the range microwave hood vent installed tonight. It fought us every step of the way. I'm glad that it's in and all done though. It's one less thing that we need to do. Hooray for that!

Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to Tampa we go.

Since none of you are interested, here's an update on the house projects:

Backyard re-grading \ landscaping : not done
Leaking garage roof : not fixed
Update on status of enclosing front drainage ditch : non-existant
New microwave \ hood vent installed : false
Installation of lattice work on Lakewood deck : negatory
Attachment of Lakewood deck to house : no thank you
Creation of hand rails going down Lakewood steps : you need what now?

It would generally be great if contractors could be bothered to call back people that desire to give them money.

The weekend is coming up, so once again that means that we're traveling. We're going to Florida for the weekend. We may be able to go to the Rays game tomorrow night, but we're not certain yet.

Yesterday I had the joy of trying to install a new over the range microwave \ hood vent. Talk about a pain in the butt! Our old microwaves installation bracket doesn't fit the new microwave, so now we need to drill new holes in the wall in order to put up the new bracket, alter a support brace with new holes, and hope that the new bracket is able to actually hold the microwave (which is in doubt at this point.) They conveniently spaced the holes that are supposed to be put into studs at 29 inches. Well who the heck has studs spaced 29 inches apart? What the crap were they thinking? That means that instead of 4 holes in the studs, we'll have 2 and the other 2 will be in drywall. Great.

What do energy analysts actually get paid to analyze? Just mere weeks ago many "analysts" predicted that the price of gas would spike at $3.60 in the peak summer driving season. Well, it's already freaking $3.60 here and last I checked, it's not
close to summer. At the current pace, it could very well be $4.50 per gallon by July.

Like it or not, irrationally high oil prices are here to stay.

On that note, I want to direct you to some of my sentiments from way back in 2005...

I don't care how irrational the freaking market is, gas just cannot go up 20 cents every week from now until eternity.

Someone robbed a grocery store in Omaha. We'd better raise oil prices by $19. You never know if he stole the local oil refinery from that grocery store.

A meteor hit Mars. Oh no! I must raise oil another $12. The Martians may start immigrating to Earth and drive up our demand for oil.

It was 77 degrees in Cleveland today. No! Say it ain't so! Oil is too cheap. I demand you raise it by $52 / barrel. Think of the children! Won't somebody please think of the children?!?!

There was weather somewhere on Earth. Oh sweet Lord almighty! Weather!?!?! The demand will go crazy with this so called weather. Breaking news: Oil prices surge $4000 per barrel on news of impending weather!

Taken from a CNNMoney.com article...

Among the nightmares lurking around the corner for the already battered housing and credit markets would be a meltdown at mortgage financing giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Although few are predicting an imminent need for a bailout just yet, credit rating agency Standard & Poor's recently placed an estimated price tag on this worst case scenario -- $420 billion to $1.1 trillion of taxpayer's money.

This dwarfs how much it cost to help banks during the savings and loan crisis of the late 1980's and early 1990's. That cost taxpayers about $250 billion in today's dollars.

We don't NEED to cover the banks. If they made lousy gambles, let them fail. If the banks were forced between bankruptcy and renegotiating mortgages to ensure ongoing payments they'd start to negotiate with homeowners in good faith and the market would work everything out. Insulating banks from the downside risk of their own bad judgments just makes the pain deeper and more prolonged.

That's not to say that homeowners aren't to blame also, because they clearly are. They got into houses that were way outside of their price range. What's one of my favorite sayings? If you don't have it, don't spend it. It's pretty simple really. See the following overheard conversation:


Poor: I want to buy a house but I have no money. What can I do?

Idiot Bank: You can still buy the house of your dreams. No money down. We have this new cool loan called Interest Only. That means you pay as little as possible. Isn't that awesome?

Poor: Wow? Really? That sounds to good to be true, but then again, you know what they say... If it sounds to good to be true... then it must be awesome!

Idiot Bank: It is awesome! We'll get you into this $800,000 house with no money down and you'll only pay $9/month. Even a broke ass like you can afford that!

Poor: Wow! My mom said that I'd never get anywhere working at McDonald's. Boy was she wrong. I've got a new car and a new house. I'm rich bitch!

Idiot Bank: We're rich too, bitch!

--- 6 months later ---

Poor: I'm so poor! You're taking away my dream, man! It's my right to be in this house! You lied to me and stole my dream! Think of the children! Won't someone bail me out?

Idiot Bank: We're so broke! I don't want to be responsible for all my stupid loans. Won't someone bail me out?


It'd be nice if people and institutions were actually held responsible for their actions. We supposedly have a free market. That means we should let the market work! Let people get foreclosed. House prices will drop back to sane levels. Banks won't lend tons of money to people who have no ability to re-pay. It'd be great. Sure, I'd get screwed because I just bought my house right before the crash, but that's just too bad. I signed the paper and I'm responsible for paying it back. No one is going to come and bail me out.

It's enough to make me want to start smacking people upside the head in hopes that they get some common sense.

Imagine if Boozer were still in a Cavs uniform...

We're headed to West Virginia tomorrow morning. We'll be visiting Lindsay's sister at Marshall this weekend.

I got my car back today after getting the brakes done. So far, so good. Now I just need to take it in to get the iPod connector fixed. About 2 weeks ago the left channel just cut completely out. It's rather annoying. Also, when I click the auto up button for the driver side window it goes up and then when it reaches the top it goes back down about 6 inches. That's annoying too. Stupid pain in the butt car.