Okay, it's the weekend, so you can watch episode 1 of my new show, Randomonium. Embed at will, thanks.

Here's what happened on Friday night:

We go down 2-0 in the first two innings on some bloops and deflected balls and crap, and it looked like a night where nothing goes right and we get blown out. But of course, things can change and they did.

A solo dong puts it back to 2-1 in the 3rd. Then in the 4th, we hit three homers in a row to knock out their starter. The inning continues and I remember it getting to 7-2 and thinking we've got it. Win. Then Papi beats out a DP ball, and another run scores. 8 to effing 2.

So then I was doing something else for a little bit, I come back to the game and it's 8-4, and Beckett's just starting to pitch in the 5th. Again I leave the TV but this time I could hear it, and I heard a home run. Then more noise. 8-6 very quickly, as Beckett clearly didn't have it.

Then Kim and I went to look for shooting stars. Got back in the car and Texas got 2nd and 3rd. I knew from Joe's cues that we must have added to the lead while we were out of the car. It was true, we were up 9-6 now, and they score on a sac fly to make it 9-7. But with two outs...

A liner to right. Looks at first like it's gonna get down, but it hangs up for Drew, and he makes the....NO. It hits off his glove. Easy catch, he misses it. Even though Josh sang the browns tonight, and even though Drew hit two dongs, this was the key moment in the game. Would have ended the 7th inning with us up 2. Instead, it's a on-run game. (And, of COURSE, in this bullshit world where any ball hit by the home team, if not an out, it a hit, they actually don't give Drew an error. He went over, stuck his glove up, it HITS HIS GLOVE, but he misses it. From now on, I'm the official scorer, and that's an error.

In the 8th, Bard gets the first two outs, then a double. Then Vlad hits a grounder up the middle. Lowrie gets to it but doesn't plant and throw--does the off-balance, off the wrong foot throw, and it's way off line, and the Old Man actually gets an infield single. Oh, and the guy comes all the way around from second to tie the goddamn game.

Stays tied until bottom 11, Wake comes in, throws one pitch, dong. We lose.

Update 1:47 am: Yanks finally lose after two long delays. And they leave the tying run at third in the ninth. So I can sleep a little easier.

The Tin Man attacks!

And if you missed episode one of my new TV show that's not on TV, click here.

Sox at Texas, 8:05.

This morning I woke up to see that the Yanks had come back from a huge deficit. This afternoon I flipped on the Sox game on yahoo sports just in time to see us blow the game. And just now, to wrap it up, I got home from Shaun of the Dead, having purposely forgotten about--and not gotten my hopes up about--the Yanks-Royals game. Flipped it on Gameday, and saw the Royals were down 4-3, bottom 9, two outs...but they were rallying and had just scored 2! Man on second! And the guy gets an "in play, no out"! Game's gotta be tied! But...no, single where the guy doesn't score. So I turn on MLBN and sure enough they're showing the ending. So I get to see one batter...and he strikes out to end the game. So morning, noon, and night, I thought good would happen, but bad won out. Baseball gods, you're a bunch of pricks. Stop it.

We should be 3.5 out of first right now. Instead we're 5.5. Last night the Rangers blow a huge lead to the Yanks, and just now we blew a 3-run lead in the bottom of the ninth. And the whole world is different. This is why baseball's the best sport, but also the one that most makes you want to KILL YOURSELF.

I feel like Deputy Gerard right now--I want this whole thing to be over because I could use the rest.

Buchholz, fine. A lot of runs scored. Win. I still feel like we can win like every game because of our great starting pitching. Starters make bullpen look great, in turn makes offense look great. But then I remember Lackey. If that guy can be what he's supposed to, we're gold. He's shown a little of it lately. The goal for Aug and Sept and Oct: no losing.

When the Red Sox have a 5-ish game lead going into an early August series against the Yankees, what does everyone (meaning the media and those they've brainwashed) say? "Here come the Yankees!" and "The choke is on!", along with various "rear view mirror"-related illustrations. This will happen even in years in which we've won the damn division or even the World Series the previous season.

But what did we hear going into this past weekend, when it was the Yanks who had the lead? "The Yanks are looking to put Boston away" and other "foot on throat" themes.

Can't say I didn't know that would happen...

Gotta gain ground these next two days, because we head to Texas for the weekend. The Yanks have to face Cliff Lee tonight. Us @ TOR, 7:07.

Hey. I have a new TV show. It's an Internet TV show, called Randomonium. I've been working on this for a while, and finally Episode 1 is on the proverbial air! You're the first to see it as I haven't even sent out the mass notification to all my friends. If you like it, tell your pals, and go ahead and re-post this episode wherever. Feel free to "subscribe" to my channel, too. Enjoy:

Turned out to be a good win. I left the room when we had that early lead, came back ten minutes later and it was tied. Was about to go all John Quinn on Dice there. But then we won, and also I saw that commercial Dice is on and I was like, Awwww, Dice Kayyyy...

So we keep pace with Tamper, and the Yanks are still playing in Tejas.

Got a nice surprise in the mail today. Remember how I went to the 600th consecutive sell-out at Fenway? That day I was hoping for one of the commem. balls, like I got at the 500th. Or 456th. Or both? Anyway, they had the players throw them out to the crowd that day, we weren't given one as we left like in the past. Well, today, I got my 600 ball. I'm wondering if they just sent one to everybody who bought tickets by phone or 'net that day....

The Red Sox are actually making use of the little "promotion" icon on their schedule now. No, we're not entering the Yank-ified world of keychain and shoehorn gimmick-giveaways. But it looks like they're doing a few new things and actually telling us about them on the sked instead of just in press releases.

For most games you'll only see something about "Wally's World," which is a little thing they do for kids now on Yawkey Way. But there are some other things, too, like they're actually letting kids run the bases after one game, and letting old people get in early for another ("Silver Sox" day). And I could be wrong but I think as each game approaches, you can check that day on the sked and it'll show you who will be in Autograph Alley that night. (I think I suggested this on a survey!) We can see if that's true when the team comes home. Also, remember they said that once per month or homestand or something they would have a thing where players will pose for pics with fans? That is also shown in the little white promotion icon. Pretty much. I don't think it says which player, though.

So go check it out or something.

Red Sox at Canada, 7:07 p.m.

Game updates below.

Saturday in New York, walked by Pat O'Brien's on the UES. As you know, they've been a Sox bar for a while, even with a big sign on the front window saying the games are on TV there. Well, now they've gone as far as painting the Sox logo in the window. Which is awesome, except...they're using, you guessed it, the old version of the logo:

As you can see, they're only in the outlining stage. Click the pic and look closely and you'll see the BOSTON is in the old bold font. There's still time to correct the mistake!

3:03 pm: We're up 2-0 in the third, Hughes has thrown a lot of pitches...

3:31: We still lead 2-0 in the 5th. Funny how Remy was saying how he walked "quite a distance" on Saturday in NYC--6-7 blocks. I just finishing mapping out my walk in NYC the same day: 16.3 miles!

4:02: Lester lost his no-hitter in the 5th, but we still lead 2-0 in mid 6th.

4:24: Left 2nd and 3rd in the 7th. Those 2 extra runs woulda been nice. 2-0 at the stretch. Lester still goin' strong.

4:34: Since I wrote those last words, Lester has given up: single, double, HBP to load bases, but got a K, and now Bard comes in....

4:40: Bard strikes out Cheater and Dick Bitcher! We get out of the loaded, no-out jelly. 8th coming up...2-0 us.

4:55: Bard puts one in Teixeira's wheelhouse and he goes deep. 2-1. A-Rod single now, still no out, bottom 8.

5:08: Yanks have 2 on, 2 out in the 8th, Papelbon coming in. 2-1 us.

5:11: One pitch and they're done in the 8th! 2-1 us going to the 9th.

5:32: Up 2-1, Pap gets the first guy out in bottom 9.

5:42: Pap Ks that whore Teixeira with the tying run on second to end it, and we beat those fuckers 2-1.

Chan and I were eating brunchfast Sunday morning, and who walks past us on the sidewalk, strolling down York Avenue in a red dress, but Amalie Benjamin. So that was pretty cool, but we had an even more interesting celeb-sight the day before.

We were walking up Lafayette Street, in the middle of Summer Streets, which is when they close off a long stretch of roads in Manhattan to cars, so you can walk or bike right on them.

This was part of our "length of Manhattan" walk, so I was stopping to take pics. Which meant Chan would sometimes just walk ahead of me and then I'd catch up after I got my shot. At one point, I was taking a picture of a billboard with a giant bottle on it, trying to get a biker in the foreground going past it. I got my shot, and ran to catch up with Chan.

Several minutes later, Chan says to me, "I saw Naomi Watts on her bike." Uh...Chan? You saw a celeb and you've just been keeping it to yourself? Classic Chan. After prying a little more, I got out of him that what he'd really seen was her husband, and some blond hair which he assumed belonged to Watts. I'm asking him who the hubby is, and he's saying what sounds like "D.F. Something." After asking which movies this guy has been in, I'm still stumped--until Chan says, "Did you go to that Shakespeare thing that time?" Knowing he meant Shakespeare in the Park a few years ago,* I said yes, and he said, "This guy was MacBeth." That's when I knew he meant Liev Schreiber.

Okay, now the next question: Chan, do you think there's any chance I took their picture without knowing it? He gave an adamant NO. But all I knew was that I was shooting, and they went by. So there was a chance, I thought.

However, the only shots I was getting at that moment were facing toward the side of the street at the billboard. Unless Naomi Watts was flying past me at the exact moment I was shooting the sign, I'd have no record of Chan's supposed sighting of her or Schreiber.

Got home Sunday afternoon, and took a look at my shots. And I saw this:

Holy shit! There she is! At least it looked a hell of a lot like her--so I did a news search for her, and this came up, featuring the below pic, showing Naomi, with kid, and same exact outfit:

So it's definitely her. Talk about teamwork: Chan sees Schreiber, assumes the blonde with him is his wife, Watts, tells me (very late), I remember where I was when they went by, check my pics from that spot, and see Watts. So a celebrity goes by me, I photograph her without knowing it's her, am told she went by me, and it turns out she's in the pic. That counts!


* I read the post I linked from '06 AFTER I wrote this one. Funny that in that post, like this one, I used a fake dual-meal combo word, and also used the term "classic Chan" in both.

Cano is such a nonchalant dick. I love that in the All-Star Game, the whole world saw it in action on an early ground ball that he botched with his nonch. routine.

Tonight, he did that thing where you just stand and watch the first pitch go by. I wondered if it would piss Beckett off. Well, Josh hit him the next time, but not because he was throwing at him, but because the pitch curved toward Cano's knee, and the asshole was doing his stand-there number and made no attempt to move--or even watch the ball. Yet the ump gives him first. And I couldn't hear the announcers since I was yelling at the screen, but I did catch Orel Sax say that he "couldn't get out of the way." He could have if he'd tried! Pitch should have been called a ball, not a HBP. Textbook "no attempt to move."

And as I've said before, Pedroia does this too, on 3-0. He's gonna get hit one day and not have time to brace for it. Unlike with Cano, I hope he doesn't get hurt.

Anyway, Beckett outpitched tonight by...that old Redskins kicker I think. We lose. Day game tomorrow, and I'll get to see it because it's a holiday in my state! And my state only!