Points of interest

1. LibraryThing rocks. Check out the links to my library in the sidebar and go play.

2. The verdict is in: Lopez and Kearns for Bray and Majewski was a bad deal. Sorry. I understand the reasoning and am without bitterness, but the pitching was still bad after we got Bray and Majewski and the offense went downhill.

3. Hollywoodland is worth checking out when it comes to Netflix. Its pace is stately, and one never really feels all that much for the main character, Louis Simo, or his subject, George Reeves, other than pity. Part of my lukewarm reaction stems from the billing of this film as something of a mystery, on which front it disappoints. But the look of the movie is impressively rendered, and I actually liked Adrien Brody (a first).

4. Inside Man is an absolute waste. The premise is intriguing and the execution of the crime is original. But the story is uneven, underdeveloped and bloated with Jodie Foster's inexplicable presence. Her character has no place in this story except to serve as the token alphabitch going toe to toe with Denzel Washington's street-savvy detective and Colin Firth's coldly repressed bank robber. Willem Dafoe is abysmally relegated to a role in which you'd usually see someone like J.K. Simmons.

5. ESPN's fantasy system is lacking--thankfully. Newcastle won this past weekend, but lost Shay Given to an injury that physicians say looks like something he'd have gotten in a car wreck, not on the pitch. Yikes. As such, that left me with a hole on my fantasy EPL team. Fortunately, ESPN does not update their site frequently enough to keep me from swapping out Given at his full value for van der Sar.

6. The Dodgers' four consecutive home runs last night were amazing. I never thought to say this, but if the Dodgers make the playoffs this year, they are my team. I grew up despising them, thanks to the convoluted baseball geography that put Atlanta and Cincinnati in the NL West with Los Angeles and San Francisco while St. Louis and Chicago were in the NL East. Orel Hershiser ruined my 1988. But this year I think I'll have to adopt them.

Now playing: Aaron Copland, Rodeo Suite: III, Saturday Night; New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein
Now reading: Louisiana Breakdown
Now listening to: True History of the Kelly Gang
In the DVD player: Hang 'Em High