Just came back from a same-day trip to Boston and back, driving the visiting Gwen home and relocating her cat, Treat (named for actor Treat Williams) to her Boston residence. He’s always been her cat, and he’s been slapping around the other cats pretty good lately (he’s near as big as a Main Coon), getting a bit antisocial as he gets older. So we (in consultation with the vet) decided that relocation would be the best for all concerned. It’ll probably take him a few days to adjust to the new environment, but once he has we expect he’ll be much happier.
I didn’t hang around in Boston, though. If nothing else, I figured my car with the New York license plate might get keyed or worse by wandering Red Sox fans.
And hey…series tied up at 2. I think Yankees fans just hate to admit how evenly matched these teams are, and that any of the games could break either way.
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You might get away with the NY plates if there was some conspicuous example of your being a Mets fan, bumper stickers or an antenae ball or somesuch, somewhere on your car.
Or, they might not care, and key your car anyway. You probably did the right thing.
Just one question… would both the Cubbies and the Sox making the series in the same year constitute just one sign of the apocalypse or two?
I can attest to the size of the Main Coon. Growing up my family was adopted by a stray who had a one night stand with the prize winning Main Coon up the street (boy were his owners happy). Of the three kittens she had we kept the two boys Humphrey and Hector.
Humphrey was a short hair and pretty much convinced he was a dog, but he still had the royal markings on his head. Hecotr looked liked a main coon. Full, long coat, roayl markings and he got to be around twnety pounds before the end of his life. The cat had the biggest freaking paws and one of my sister’s friends was absolutely convinced that Hector and Humphrey ate children.
We never denied it.
As a Yankee fan, I’m not affraid to admit how evenly matched these two teams are. I think it is making for a very exciting series.
Now if Soriano and Giambi would just start hitting, I wouldn’t have to worry so much.
Peace!
I think Yankees fans just hate to admit how evenly matched these teams are, and that any of the games could break either way.
One of my friends down here in Tampa is a NY native, and if he’s the norm, then I have to say there’s clearly a lot more psychological problems than just denial going on with Yankees (and Giants) fans. The irony is that he considers Buccaneer fans to be impossible to deal with. Hey, if you can’t stand Buc fans, don’t move to Tampa! Sheesh. You don’t want to hear how he feels about Martinez; and when I start talking honestly about Clemens, watch out! Fortunately, both the Giants and Yankees lost, so I won’t have to deal with him until he’s released from wherever the Baker Act took him. Cats? Love ’em, allergic to ’em. Life is so wierd….
**Steve wrote:
Just one question… would both the Cubbies and the Sox making the series in the same year constitute just one sign of the apocalypse or two?**
I think that it would be the striking of midnight on the doomsday clock, hëll freezing over, and pigs flying from LA to Chicago.
And possibly the appearance of that ocean front property I bought in Arizona.
jeff
I don’t think you’d have a damage problem in Boston, Peter, just a parking one. As a Massachusetts resident, I prefer taking the T around Boston so to avoid the hefty parking fees and the side streets here six cars vie for the front of a house that can only allow two there.
As for the game, it was nice to see the lads go back to playing the game and not trying to fight. 🙂 Granted, me and my friends were making MST3K comments every time we’d see Pedro and Don Zimmer on the tv.
I just hope that today (Tuesday)’s game at 4 will lead to another win for the Sox, so that they’ll go back to Yankee Stadium with the lead, and possibly win this.
It was also cool to see Stephen King at the game.
its Maine Coon..like “hes the cat from a north state”, not “hes the cat with the mostest”.
I think Yankees fans just hate to admit how evenly matched these teams are, and that any of the games could break either way.
Of course not. I’ve had Yankee fans tell me that the World Series doesn’t even “count” if the Spankees aren’t in it. The idea of those cheating scumbags getting another title is enough to make me a diehard Red Sox fan or even a Cubbies fan.
Now if Soriano and Giambi would just start hitting, I wouldn’t have to worry so much.
Now if Nomar could only start hitting too. >sigh<
“If nothing else, I figured my car with the New York license plate might get keyed or worse by wandering Red Sox fans.”
You’re right to cautious. Fans can get psycho. I went to Michigan State and my car has been keyed when I’ve been in Ann Arbor, home to the Michigan Wolverines.
I used to have an alumni sticker but took it off b/c of that.
Old Ann Arbor joke; How is a Michigan State diploma better than a University of Michigan diploma? You can use the MSU diploma as a handicapped parking permit.
New joke; remember, my meme for a Cubs-Red Sox match-up is to call it the End-of-the-World Series (and if you saw that in the San Jose Mercury-News Saturday, yes, it was due to my emailing it to the writer). And the magic number for Armageddon stands at 3.
Wondering if the Sox are thinking about pitching Wakefield in Game 6.
Hats off to Tom for getting the Merc to print the EotWS reference: I did catch it, but figured it was independent.
And on the subject of Maine Coon cats, I have to agree that you need to keep an eye on antisocial tendencies. Our youngest cat is at least half Main Goon — he’s a big scary guy, or at least he thinks he is. Our older cats (both matronly females) are somewhat less than thrilled to have him around, but they’ve all developed an uneasy truce. Orpheus is the only cat I know who doesn’t care about being hit with a water gun and who’s broken a window with his forehead.
I have a picture of my wife holding him that I pass around my classes when a relevant story about him comes up. Something about the perspective makes him look even bigger than he is — he looks like a small wildcat or something. I still remember a senior two years ago looking at the picture and exclaiming quite loudly, “Holy Mother of God!” This was not a typical exclamation for her. 🙂
Hoping for a drastically reduced Armageddon number…
TWL
heh my godmother had a baby panther kind of cat amuseingly named kitten. now that cat was huge. took up more room in my bed than i did!
you’re right though, the cat should only take a couple of days to adjust. speshly if you keep him inside for a couple of days til you can stand him no longer in the house. first chance he’ll get he’ll bolt outside for a good few hours and then be back in time for dinner 😀 something i have to look forward to when i finally get off my ášš and move next year.
My dad, a hardcore Yankees fan, has already admitted that Boston and NY’s starting 8 are about as even as possible.
He figures that with Clemens retiring, Wells not having his option picked up, and the possibility that Pettite might leave for Texas- well, next year he thinks Boston has a clear run at the AL East flag.
I’m just hoping to see Prior, Wood, Zambrano and Clement dominate anybody who goes up against them for the next two weeks.
Batmansero’s comments aside… I hope Gwen keeps Treat inside. If he’s been having issues with the other cats– then the move will absolutely be for the best (especially if he is going to be the only cat in the apartment)!
I attended college at UNC Chapel Hill. One year we lost (came in second) in the NCAA Basketball Championship. The next year we won. Both years there were major disturbances/riots in this small little college town. The year we won, four guys totally demolished this kid’s brand new Porsche– beat it in and painted it “Carolina Blue”. They even twisted his car antenna into a pretzel shape.
I’ll never forget how he came running outside of a restaurant with his girlfriend freaking out and screaming, “Oh my God! My brand new Porsche!” (He was holding his face with both hands– just like M. Culkin in “Home Alone”.)
I just stood there, shaking my head thinking, “You think that was bad… You should’ve been here last year when we lost.”
Off topic, but a pretty nice review of Fallen Angel #4 is here:
http://www.411mania.com/comics/reviews/article.php?reviews_id=2029
Re: UNC-CH. Think you may have the placement wrong. ’81-’82 was when the team went second and first. I was still there in ’81, and as I recall, there wasn’t much of an aftermath since it was raining heavily. The story I heard about the ’82 aftermath was that you had to go at least 30 miles from Chapel Hill to find any beer still available for sale the next morning (I tend to think that’s exaggeration, as while I can quite believe Chapel Hill proper running out, I think draining all of 8 miles away Durham is a bit much).
In ’81, btw, I was working at Foundation Bookstore on the Saturday of the semi-final. Which was significant, since it was against ACC rival Virginia (with Ralph Sampson). Tuned in the radio with about 30 seconds to go and UNC up by enough points to guarantee victory. Locked up the store, put up a sign saying “Gone to watch the riot, back in 10 minutes” and went to the next street over, Franklin St, aka the main campus drag.
Suddenly, the doors burst open of every bar and restaurant and people poured out into the street, with the on-campus folk arriving a few minutes later. Generally peaceful, save that a few people probably did regret that they’d parked their cars right there as people were standing on them, some blue paint probably got on them, etc.
Baseball? YAWN. Hey Peter when are you going to comment on Rush Limbaugh.
Well, so much for my prediction the Sox would take 2 of 3 in Fenway. Definitely have to favor the Yankees going back home up 3-2 and the Sox having to make some interesting pitching decisions. I figure the options are:
Burkett – Pedro: On the theory that the Sox sensibly rested Pedro against the As rather than get him up early as they’d have to win both games. On the other hand, this’d lead to a significant amount of nervousness among Sox fans in Game 6.
Pedro – Wakefield: The man’s knuckler is on. I don’t think you can pitch him in Game 6 (although it wouldn’t shock me severely; he’s got a track record of being able to work on very little rest), otherwise I’d reverse this order and go with it for sure. Real downside is that not only has Pedro been babied all season in getting plenty of rest, but the track record of pitchers in general being brought out in the playoffs on short rest is lousy.
Everyone on the staff- Wakefield. Figure Pedro, Lowe, Burkett, and the newly safe bullpen can all manage for an inning or two without suffering from tiredness overmuch.
If Wakefield’s not pencilled in for a start, he’s almost sure to come out of the bullpen in relief, assuming Varitek thinks he can catch him (Miribelli’s caught all of Wakefield’s starts this season).
Now. I’m a huge Yankee fan, and I’m hoping the Yanks when Game 6 tomorrow night. However, with Petitte pitching game 6, how many Yankee fans are starting already to have flashbacks of game 6 in the 2001 WS? I hope he pulls it off, and we will all know by the 3rd inning if there will be a game 7.
Re: UNC-CH.
Tom, I’m glad you have peaceful remembrances of ’81 and were told some stories about a calm Franklin street in ’82. Not what I saw or experienced at all.
I never heard there was a beer shortage after the ’82 game but I can assure you that there was PLENTY of alcohol of all kinds available before the event.
The Porsche was trashed in front of the Four Corners restaurant and the entire main section of Franklin Street was dappled with a little bit more than “some” of that “blue paint” you referenced.
I still have the Levi Boot Cut jeans I wore that night… Covered in that same blue paint that was flying all over… Paint that came to be there simply because I was standing there on Franklin Street… As I never held a paint brush or damaged anything during the entire melee… And there was definitely a lot of bashing, drinking and painting going on.
While I know that 10 people will see the same car accident a minimum of 12 different ways… I’m going to have to respectfully disagree with your assessment of ’81 and stick to my recollection of ’82.
I’m still thinking that the major gathering on Franklin St. in ’81 had to be after the Saturday win over Virginia to get into the finals, rather than the loss against Indiana in the finals. I really do have a very strong memory of it raining heavily on the finals night, and that and the loss keeping there from being any large groups out.
Btw, insideman, do we know each other (having both been at UNC-CH at the same time; don’t recognize you by your nom du web board here)?