Sean is just some guy who lives in the Twin Cities. Updates to this blog are at random intervals.

17 December 2004 - I normally have very little, if anything, favorable to say about Christianity (or any religion, for that matter). But I am happy to hear about this. Especially since the story is out of Wisconsin. On the other hand, if some group of people initiate something incredibly retarded like this, another group, trying to stop it, shouldn't have to be complimented. We ought to be able to take it for granted that the vast majority of people can see sanity, and correct the situation. 16 December 2004 - Ways my life is different now that there is no professional hockey: 23 November 2004 - It's throwback weekend, as evidenced by NFL.com. But...but....where's Bucco Bruce? 11 November 2004 - No more political talk after this, not for awhile....my disgust at the stupidity of some of my fellow Americans hasn't faded, but I am getting pretty bored with the endless postmortems. But I did hear Sports Illustrated writer Frank Deford's take on one aspect of the election, one that I didn't think of until now, until I realized that he is perfectly right: This election...absolutely guarantees the result of a future game ---- or, anyway, the location of the 2012 Olympic Games. It will not be the American contender, New York City. The antipathy in the world toward Bush is so intense that whatever slim chance New York had evaporated with his re-election. The world that votes on the Olympics is not going to give them to any city in George Bush's bailiwick. You can bet your Social Security on that. And deservedly so. 10 November 2004 - (For those of you readers who happen to be my wife Cindy, I was obviously just kidding about the porn thing a couple of entries below. I'm not actually familiar with too many porn web sites.) That said, I am still sure that they are better than my work cafeteria's web site. They took away the nutritional information they used to include, which had become vital for me; all the menus are, for no reason, in PDF format instead of HTML so it has to take time to start Adobe Reader; even without the Reader the site is ten times slower than it used to be, and half the time doesn't work at all. At least on those other sites there is porn to look at. They had a perfectly good site before, and they changed it to something worse for no purpose at all. Asinine. 9 November 2004 - I have discovered custom teams! 8 November 2004 - From: Sandquist, Sean To: Servtech_Delivery Subject: lunch menu link? Does anyone happen to have a link to the cafeteria menus, one that actually works? They redesigned their site a couple weeks ago, and since then it's been terrible. It is literally the most poorly-designed web site that I have ever seen. Sean And then at the end I almost added something like: "And considering how many porn web pages I've been to, that's saying a lot," but I decided to leave that out. 3 November 2004 - What immediately comes to mind is my favorite chess quotation. [Everybody has a favorite chess quotation, right?] "Why must I lose to this IDIOT?!" - Latvian chess master Aron Nimzovitch, after a game William Saletan must know the quote too, and he has a good article on Slate.com that's worth reading. Slate.com posted Florida and Ohio exit polls all day Tuesday, thus making me believe for several hours that we were going to pull it out. Ohio's not over yet, and the provisional votes should be heavily Democratic, so Kerry should definitely not be conceding anything. But the margin he needs to overcome is so large that realistically he doesn't have much chance. That said, Kerry did carry Minnesota (Wisconsin too), and all the other Democrats that I voted for won. So I did my job. 12 October 2004 - Note to self: Even though you are diabetic, you should try to stop referring to a colleague's birthday treats as their "deathcookies". At least, out loud. The same rule applies to your friend's deathpasta lunch, your wife's Quarter PounderTM Extra Value Deathmeal, or your cousin's wedding deathcake. 8 October 2004 - Wisconsin has won the Outback Bowl, by shutting out Tennessee 17-0. At least, in my world. However, the 2005 season has not started well. I am 0-2 so far, and the losses weren't even Big Ten conference games. I lost to the Oregon State Beavers and the Western Michigan Broncos. Western Michigan! I'm probably going to start over. And the Badgers are not looking forward to my friend Kent coming over next weekend. He will certainly have the right to choose to play his alma mater, which, unfortunately for me, is Oklahoma. I wonder which is less interesting...having to hear about someone else's video game football league, or someone else's fantasy football league. It's probably a tie. 7 October 2004 - Cindy makes the best-tasting pork chops that I've ever had. A few days ago she made some for us. I was about to take a bite when I made an amazing discovery. The pork chop that she made me, through random slicing and grilling, ended up being almost exactly the same shape as the State of Illinois.   I ended up eating it anyway. I was hungry. 6 October 2004 - My workplace is compelling all of the employees to change their health insurance provider. They're doing their best to conceal it, but the bottom line is that the cost to employees is just about doubling, especially for those who have families. Needless to say, a lot of people are unhappy with this situation. In fact, because of the change, some people are going to have to find a different regular doctor for themselves and their families. Several people spend a lot of time complaining about it in our group meeting yesterday. Irony or tragedy? The people that were complaining the most are the ones that plan to vote for George W. Bush. 23 September 2004 - So, due to the fact that the fiancee of a guy I know accidentally bought the GameCube version of "NCAA Football 2005" instead of the XBox version, I got a copy of the game for a deep discount. I had never played it before. This game is great! Camp Randall Stadium--it's like you're practically there. You can even see the apartment building that Cindy lived in for a year. And the homefield advantage and the college pageantry that the game displays is really cool. I do see that the college plays are simpler and more straightforward than the Madden game, which is actually appealing to me. With "NCAA", I have time as the quarterback to do reads and throw to an open receiver. With "Madden" it seemed I was always throwing pretty much randomly. And of course the best advantage that NCAA Football has over Madden is, of course, it doesn't have Madden in it. It did take several games for me to get the hang of things, though. The first couple times I played, Northwestern and then Minnesota destroyed Wisconsin. Not realistic obviously, but my gameplay was mostly at fault. However, I discovered that there are a lot of 1-AA teams on there, and I'm glad to say that the Badgers were able to thoroughly pound the Jacksonville State Gamecocks. The rosters are based on actual student-athletes, and you can take the trouble to enter the names in if you choose to. And since there are so many colleges, there are a lot of students out there that are actually in the game. And I mean, if you were, you would pretty much just have to buy the game, wouldn't you? I can just imagine the thoughts of the Jacksonville State punter. "This is really cool! I'm in a video game!" And then, "Hey! Why do I suck?!" 22 September 2004 - Required reading: "55 reasons to vote for Bush and Republicans in 2004" 12 September 2004 - I just got pictures from our vacation that I ordered from Ofoto. They included a leaflet where they are trying to explain "Zoom & Trim". Since a 4 x 6" picture is not proportionally the same as a 5 x 7", or an 8 x 10", they are explaining why the borders of the same picture in all three sizes won't be exactly the same. "As you can see above, a 4 x 6" photo is thinner and more rectangular than the 8 x 10", which is more like a square." I understand what they're trying to get at, and it's thinner, yes, but it's not "more rectangular". A rectangle is four right-angles; just because two sides might not be as large proportionally to the shorter sides doesn't imply that it's "less rectangular". That's shapist. 8 September 2004 - This year my fantasy football team is named "Church of the SubGenius". No one will get it (well, almost no one), but I don't care. 17 August 2004 - Well, hell, with what you can find on the web nowadays, why did we even bother go? 9 August - MSP Airport, Northwest Airlines 10 August - Gatwick Airport, London Underground, Kingsway Hall Hotel, Covent Garden, Cleopatra's Needle, London Eye 11 August - Green Park, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square 12 August - Tower of London, Tower Bridge, St. Paul's Cathedral, Her Majesty's Theatre, Phantom of the Opera 13 August - Hampton Court Palace 14 August - Cutty Sark, Greenwich Park, Royal Observatory, Maritime Museum 15 August - British Museum, Hyde Park 16 August - Gatwick Airport, Northwest Airlines, MSP Airport 6 August 2004 - "To TiVo" is a common verb at our house, but now this story is looking for another...what do you call it when you deliberately stop watching a show by actively forbidding your TiVo to record it? The writer of the story did this to "Six Feet Under" when, apparently, the plots got too ridiculous. Whatever you want to call it, this ability to abruptly "fire" a show is a drastic departure from our previous, mostly passive relationship with the medium...."It's one thing to say, 'Ah, I don't watch "ER" anymore, but to un-TiVo is not to quit watching by attrition. It's an aggressive breakup." What shows have I personally "Un-TiVoed", or "De-TiVoed", or whatever? I think "Star Trek: Voyager" was the first one, and I've since done it to "Star Trek: Enterprise" more recently. ("Star Trek", as every Trekker knows, peaked with "Deep Space Nine" but then got worse in a hurry.) I recorded reruns of "Saturday Night Live" for quite awhile. I discovered that, by fast-forwarding past the bad skits, you could watch a 90 minute show in less than 20 minutes. Then it became less than 10 minutes. Once it became less than two minutes I cut bait. And I actually stopped watching "The Simpsons" when "Futurama" started, just because the latter was just so much better. But even though "Futurama" was canceled, a year or so ago, I still haven't gone back to "The Simpsons". And then there's the whole channel that's been un-Tivoed at our house: Fox News, of course. 22 July 2004 - The other day I was at a golf course and I noticed another golfer with a tank-top type T-shirt on, and under his shirt, on his back, he had a broad tattoo that read "ALANIS MORISSETTE". Now, I am probably the last person in the world who would ever get a tattoo, so I'm definitely the wrong guy to ask, but I can't help but wonder about the what the logic behind getting such a tattoo was. I'm sure the guy likes the singer, yes. But still, it was a pretty young guy, whom I imagine expects to live another forty or fifty more years. Ten or fifteen years from now when no one will remember who Alanis Morissette was, it might seem kind of weird. Putting myself in her shoes, I wonder how it must feel to have someone whom you don't know from Adam to have your name permanently written on him. I mean, I have nothing against Ms. Morissette, but, even if I were married to her, I wouldn't get her name tattooed on me... 20 July 2004 - Cindy and I are huge TiVo fanatics, as anyone who has one also is. We have two, actually. I got a 30-hour TiVo for free when I entered an essay contest, "Why TiVo should send me a free machine" in 150 words or less, and won. When Cindy moved in with me we bought her her own 20-hour machine from K-mart when all the stores were closing and they were deeply discounted. So we got our TiVos very cheaply, but that doesn't matter. If they cost thousands of dollars we still would've gotten them. And since normally the boxes only cost only $200 to $300, they're well worth every penny. (Do you not have one yet? If not, stop reading this and go buy one immediately. Now. I mean it. You won't regret it. Why are you still here?) Anyway, last weekend Cindy had the misfortune(?) to have her TiVo's hard drive die on her. We kind of knew it was coming when the playback on her machine began stuttering and stoppling. Days went by and it steadily grew worse and worse until finally, she got the Dreaded Green Screen of Death: "Your TiVo has experienced a severe error..." But since we had known it was coming, we had already ordered a replacement hard drive from Weaknees.com, a company that will supply replacement TiVo parts, including hard drives that come pre-installed with TiVo software. (You can actually install the TiVo software yourself, using a home computer, but we thought it would be a lot less hassle to just let Weaknees do it.) The new drive arrived yesterday, so, I swapped the bad hard drive with the new one yesterday, and now Cindy's TiVo is as good as new. Better than new, actually. You can cram a lot more information on a hard drive these days compared to when Cindy first got her TiVo, so while before she had a 20-hour TiVo, now she has a 145-hour TiVo. So now we have a TiVo and a SuperTiVo. 15 July 2004 - Probably my favorite player in the NFL (despite the fact that he was, incredibly, a Minnesota Viking) was running back Robert Smith. He's now a successful businessman. Described at the time as "the wisest man in the NFL", he often read chemistry texts while he was in the locker room. He's an Asimov fan. An MST3K fan (he was even in one episode). While he was at Ohio State, he actually took his sophomore season off to focus on academics. And he was smart enough to get out of the NFL at 28, after he had made some money but before the physical abuse of football took a permanent toll on his body. It's impossible not to like a guy like that. And now he's coming out with an autobiography. A quotation: "To have to spend all that time preparing to play a game [with the Vikings] really started to wear on me. It was like being caught in a remedial math class each week." Well, that's it. I'm buying this book for sure. 14 July 2004 - I am one of those people whom, when writing the numeral "7", puts a slash through the middle of it. I think that it's kind of a mathematician thing...people who have done a lot of math do it to make sure there's never any confusing a "7" with the greater-than symbol (">"). And, my dad is totally, utterly unable to handle this fact. I almost always score when we go golfing, and whenever one of us scores a 7 (which happens very, very often) he always says, "Is that an 'F'?" 12 July 2004 - After my last post, I was going through some of the board game reviews posted at Board Game Geek, and I came upon this one, that contains the following lines: "Arguably the worst game in the history of the world." "Strategy: 'The only winning move is not to play.'" "This is nihilism in board-game form." The article is somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but actually, I agree with it completely. You might even be able to guess what the particular game is before checking out the review. (It's not ticktacktoe, which is not, after all, an actual board game. And even ticktacktoe is useful in elementary computer science classes...) 10 July 2004 - Cindy and I are Board Game Geeks. I just logged into their web site and rated all of the games that we own. From memory, I think we have 34 board games, though there may be a few from a decade or two ago that we still have somewhere that I've forgotten about. Looking at the ratings that I gave them, I see that they neatly fall into two categories...the absolutely great ones, and the rest. And since right now I just happened to categorize ten of the games as "great", this seems like a good place for a Top Ten ListTM. In order, from best to tenth-best, these are games that I'd play anyone, anywhere, as much as I could, if I only had the time to: Puerto Rico Chess Scrabble The Settlers of Catan Illuminati Go Mah-Jongg Lord of the Rings - The Confrontation Lost Cities Diplomacy One caveat might involove Diplomacy...since the game takes at least twelve hours to play I guess I wouldn't necessarily want to play that one any time. Usually if I play once I've had enough for at least another year. If I can't include Diplomacy in my top ten then replace it with backgammon. 9 July 2004 - Star-Tribune headline: "Honda CRVs catching fire after oil changes, newspaper reports" WASHINGTON -- The Washington Post is reporting more than two dozen cases of late-model Honda CRV sport utility vehicles bursting into flames, shortly after their first oil changes... No injuries have been reported, and many of the vehicles -- from the 2003 and 2004 model years -- were destroyed. My first oil change is coming up. First diabetes, and now it seems my e-mail hasn't been working properly for at least a week (able to send but not receive), and now this... 30 June 2004 - I used to get tooth cavities a lot (perhaps I still will, but I suspect I'll get a lot less now that I'm drinking a lot less soda now, and diet, at that) and my hygienist asked me if I'd consider switching to an electric toothbrush. Well, I did, and it's great! My teeth actually feel stronger and cleaner, and my gums never bleed any more after brushing or flossing (they used to always). Not only does the electric probably do a better job of brushing, but the built-in timer makes sure that I brush for a solid two minutes every time (rather than trying to get away with a quick 30-second once-over). So, I'm guessing that over the long run my mouth will be in a lot better health from now on. On the other hand, I wonder if the long-term effects to one's brain of vibrating one's skull for four minutes every single day have ever been studied... 29 June 2004 - The fact that many political conservatives are scumbags is pretty much self-evident, but here's more authentication: this article from the St. Paul Pioneer Press, that describes people who have discovered lawns get a lot more dog poop than usual when they had a "Howard Dean" lawn sign. Or their cars that get bumped and scratched when they have a "No War on Iraq" bumper sticker. I thought I was the only one. When my car had a "Gore 2000" sticker on it last election, the side of my car got keyed in my workplace's parking lot. Meanwhile, I've never heard of any Republican getting their property vandalized because of their political opinions. Guess it's not hard to figure out which group gravitates to the low road. The article goes on and notes all the hysteria over Reagan's recent demise. (I got a smile out of The Onion's headline for that week: "Reagan's body dies".) When Democratic senator Paul Wellstone was killed in an airplane crash a couple of years ago, a moron co-worker of mine whined and whined about the "classless" Democrats and the fact that the televised memorial service was "nothing but a free political ad." But nary a peep when pretty much the world stopped turning and we got a week (a week!) of non-stop "How great was Reagan" coverage. 22 June 2004 - Happy anniversary to my parents. Their anniversary, as it happens, is exactly one week before ours. 21 June 2004 - I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes just over a month ago. I had noticed that I seemed to have some very mild symptoms of it, but since I was so young, and my symptoms were so minor, barely noticeable in fact, I figured I was just being a hypochondriac. Nevertheless I went to a doctor just to make sure, and unfortunately, my blood glucose level was in the 300s. Anything over 126 milligrams per deciliter after a fast is considered diabetic. This sucks, but I'm a lot better off knowing about it than not knowing and not doing anything about it. Fortunately, after a month, I'm doing much better now; my levels are now the same as a normal person. I'm hoping to get off the medication I'm taking by getting lots of exercise and changing my diet. At first I thought figuring out my new diet would be complex, but actually it's pretty easy: If it tastes good, don't eat it. If it tastes bad, you can have more. You're also supposed to have much smaller meals than you used to, but more of them, evenly spread them throughout the day. For example, my favorite part of the day is now 3:30 when I can have my mid-afternoon snack. All afternoon I look forward to 3:30. Two hours to 3:30. One hour to 3:30. Half-an-hour to 3:30. Yay, it's 3:30! Then I can have my snack, usually, an apple. (A small one.) This weekend I had to drive Cindy to a friend's house and we stopped at Arby's on the way because she hadn't had lunch. She gave me one of her French fries. I haven't had French fries in more than a month. Needless to say, it was the best French fry I've ever had. A few weeks ago a conversation among some friends of mine arose where somebody asked, if you had to request a "last meal", what would you ask for? I'm not sure what I would've said a couple months ago, but now, I know that whatever it would be, it would have lots and lots of sugar. And French fries. 15 June 2004 - Don't know if TwinCities.com will let just anybody look at this link (you might have to register, even though it's free), but now I'm famous. "I've seen a lot of courses that are more cared for," said Carriage Hills golfer Sean Sandquist of Little Canada, who regularly tees off there with co-workers. "I don't see them putting a lot of money into here, and in general that doesn't generate more money." I was griping about the fact that they'll probably be closing Carriage Hills, a golf course that I play a lot. It's not in very good shape, but that's because the current owner did not adequately invest in it, and as a result he now wants to close it because the course doesn't attract enough business. I also complained to the reporter for awhile about Country View Golf Course closing as well (see a couple months ago), but I see they left all that out. What bothers me the most, though, is what I said. Such bad grammar! Do I really talk like that? I should've said "better cared for", not "more". And I shouldn't have used "money" twice in the same sentence. Oh, well. 10 June 2004 - I recently found out that I am diabetic, so I can't eat the marshmallows. But this is cool... 7 May 2004 - It has suddenly occurred to me that I really should update that self-portrait of me to the left. I drew it years ago, but I wear contacts almost all the time now, so the eyeglasses are inaccurate. Also, I have a lot less hair now... 4 May 2004 - So I have a pencil on my desk, which I've had for at least three years now because it wasn't until last week that I actually found a pencil sharpener at the office to sharpen it. I almost always use pens now. [Is this universal? Cindy tells me that almost all of her students use pens to do their math problems. Using pens to do math! Unbelievable! How do you erase your mistakes?! This trend, I'm concerned, will inevitably lead to the Fall of the Republic.] Anyway, this pencil that I have has lettering on the side that reads "Because We Care." Nothing else, though. I have no idea where I got this pencil from; it was years ago. I don't know who cares, but at least somebody does. 29 April 2004 - Happy birthday to me! I'm 25 today. Now you know I'm a geek. As if you didn't already. 28 April 2004 - I know a few idiots who constantly whine about the huge "liberal" slant of public radio. I've never been able to understand this...I listen to public radio all the time and it always seems pretty well-balanced to me. In fact I'd probably prefer it to be a little more liberal...but it's not. Then I read this excellent, excellent article by the Milwaukee Journal's Gregory Stanford, and now I understand a little better. Basically, the labels "liberal" and "conservative" don't necessarily reflect what you think, but how you think. "Liberals tend to view the world with open minds; conservatives tend to view the world with closed minds. Liberals like to hear all sides of an issue; conservatives like to hear just their side of an issue. Liberals like discussions; conservatives like rants." It explains the conservative viewpoint perfectly. I'm glad I'm not one of them. 26 April 2004 - So I'm listening to the news on the radio a few days ago, and they're talking about the recent successful launch of a Soyuz capsule to the International Space Station. And I had to laugh about the way they worded it... Onboard the capsule, the newsreader says, is "a Russian cosmonaut, an American astronaut, and a Dutch space man." I see the problem the writer had...he kind of needed a third adjective there. You know, I've never understood why they've always differentiated between American astronauts with Russian astronauts by calling the latter "cosmonauts". Their word is going to be Russian anyway, so it has to be translated...why not just translate it to "astronauts"? And, "space man" sounds really dumb. 15 April 2004 - Yesterday Cindy and I decided to drive over to the North St. Paul Bar & Grill, one of my favorite restaurants. On our way there, we drove by Country View Par 3 Golf Course, one of my favorite golf courses. It's a very easy golf course, one that's great for a beginner to learn on (like Cindy). You can play nine holes very quickly there, if you want to get a quick game in, and it's also very close to our house. And we drove by, and none of the flags were on the greens, and the clubhouse had a sign that said "PERMANENTLY CLOSED". No! Probably they're going to subdivide it and put in houses. That might make financial sense for the owners, but it's a damn shame. I really liked playing there. The first nine holes were even lighted so you can play at night. There are other par 3 courses around, but none are as conveniently close, and now all the other courses will be that much more busy. I spent the entire rest of the drive complaining about all of this to Cindy, and then we got to North St. Paul Bar & Grill, and that was closed too! Now I'm really bummed. 10 April 2004 - I just read that, over the past 100 years, every single object in the Universe, except for this, has increased in mass by 50 millionths of a gram per kilogram. I eat up this kind of stuff. A few years ago I attended a lecture where the speaker informed us that, ever since 1983, it has become impossible to measure the speed of light. All you can do is measure how accurate your meterstick is. Same kind of thing. 8 April 2004 - Needless to say, I was just kidding in the entry below. I'd go against Jesus if I had to. Actually, we did get an SUV. But, just not a gas-guzzling one. 5 April 2004 - Well, most Christians I know, especially the fundamentalist ones, are also Republicans... And most Republicans don't believe in preserving the environment... So the answer must be: a gas-guzzling SUV. So that's the new vehicle we just got. We wouldn't want to go against Jesus. 23 March 2004 - So I'm trying to find the antonym of the word "optimum." Because that would be a good word to describe my method of buying gas for my car. I go by three gas stations every day on my way home from work. First one: "$1.59. Hmmm...that seems kind of high. The next one should be cheaper than $1.59." Second one: "$1.61. Oh, well, that's worse, I guess I'll go to the last one." Third one: "$1.72?! D'oh!" But I'm stuck with it. Like I said, the opposite of "optimum". What could it be? "Pessimum"? So, anyway I try the Merriam-Webster thesaurus site and look for antonyms; it can't find "optimum" but suggests to me a list of similar words, which consists of one item: "Abdomen." 19 March 2004 - I just re-checked the Wikipedia poker page (see 27 February below), and now, it's wrong! It was correct just last month. Since anyone can edit Wikipedia pages, I wonder if it was because of someone reading this page. If so, then damn you! Also, item #95 on the list of Things That Probably Bother Only Me: people who, when playing tennis, say the score is "Ad In" when it's actually "40-30". Yes, I do realize that they're operationally the same, but it's still not the same thing. And there is no other sport where anybody does this. If the Packers are beating the Vikings 14-10, is it conceivable that the referees would just say, "Aw, let's just call this four to nothing"? Never. It doesn't make any more sense to do this in tennis. Yet people do it all the time. I shouldn't complain--I play enough people whom, when serving, don't bother to call out the score at all. And then, four points later, no one has any idea what's going on. 8 March 2004 - Best web site ever?! That's the least offensive thing I could think of. I could have a lot of fun with this... 27 February 2004 - Here's item #88 on the list of Things That Probably Bother Only Me... I just got sent some rules of how to run a Texas Hold 'em poker tournament (because I may try to one of these days), and at the end, they listed the order of hands in poker. That data is probably unnecessary for people who want to be in a poker tournament, but nevertheless, what bugged me is that they listed a royal flush as higher than a straight flush. I hate that! A royal flush *is* a straight flush. They shouldn't need to be listed separately; it's redundant. A royal flush is just the highest possible straight flush. No one ever lists an ace-high flush higher than a regular flush, do they? It's the same thing...yet I see Royal Flush listed separately almost all the time. I'm a software engineer--it's trifles like these that make me think the way I think. I just checked Wikipedia, just to pick a site at random, see how that particular encyclopedia does it--and lo! They do it correctly! I feel better now. 22 February 2004 - So my Dodge Avenger's odometer rolled over to 100,000 miles this weekend. I was proud; I took pictures: To celebrate, my car promptly lost its left front wheel bolt cover somewhere on I-35E. For my car, such a gesture was quite appropriate. 2 February 2004 - Not that this weblog is intended to become a political soapbox, but, a friend of mine forwarded me a link to the editorial cartoons of Clay Bennett, and they're phenomenally good. I wish everyone in this country was smart enough to read them. Anyway, here's the link... 7 January 2004 - The simple, obvious solution to the Pete Rose Hall of Fame dilemma: Go ahead and allow him in the Hall of Fame. But not until after he's dead.