wildyams

I'm gonna try to get back into a more bloggy kind of mood around here. The cobwebs are everywhere, but blogging will help me at least kill some time during the day, and lately there's been a lot to kill. Things at work are really up in the air and kinda all over the place, as they've been shuffling us all around a lot, and creating new positions and such. As a result I sometimes feel like a lot of things fall through the cracks and I get a lot of spare time, which I've been filling with just surfing the web. However, yesterday they sent out a company-wide email saying they're going to do a web usage audit of everyone because apparently there's far more internet surfing going on here than they'd like, so I'm now looking for ways to occupy my downtime during the day. Writing some entries here will definitely help to fill some of that time.

I'd like to tell anyone reading this that Gmail is the coolest thing ever when it comes to email. I've had Gmail for a while now, but only recently began to realize what all I could do with it. For the last 6+ years I had an email address here at this site as my main email address and I was using Thunderbird at home as my mail client, and generally I was very happy. The only problem was I couldn't use it at work, although I could still check my email online by going through the company that hosts my site to check it. Doing so was a very slow and somewhat annoying process, but if I really needed to check something I could. Because of this I generally just used my work email for most daytime communications, as I'm sure most people do. I got Gmail a long time ago mainly just because back then it was this cool new thing that promised much more online storage space than places like Yahoo or Hotmail did, even though I didn't use either of those services just because I was content using my work and home emails, and because I was content using my other emails I generally didn't use Gmail.

A couple months ago, however, I began to get annoyed that my emails were in two different locations, and that if someone sent me an email at work and I was out sick or off on vacation or something, I wouldn't see it till I went back to work. I decided the best solution was to just tell people to email me exclusively at my Gmail account and that would take care of it, and that's what I've been doing ever since. But then about two weeks ago I learned that I could use Gmail to handle emails from non gmail accounts, and set about making my wildyams email address work through Gmail as well, and it is fantastic. I can now send and receive emails from my wildyams account without having to use an email program, and I can now use that email address from any computer that has an internet connection. In addition, I discovered that someone made a program a few years ago that will import all my old emails that I have on Thunderbird (over 6 years' worth) into Gmail so that I can have all my emails located in the same place! It's a farily lengthy process to import all those emails and it went all night and didn't finish importing them till this morning, but it is really great to have that all set up.

Anyway, not the most exciting blog entry, but it did help me kill some time.

Been a while since my last entry, and since I've had a couple requests for a new one I figured I'd give my thoughts and review on The Dark Knight. Where to begin? I want to first say that the money this movie is making is unprecedented and I think this is the first movie to really have a legit shot at breaking Titanic's box office records. Other movies have had huge opening weekends before (although The Dark Knight just broke all those records), but the staying power of this movie has carried over beyond the weekend and into the week. Titanic was an incredible anomaly at the box office because it made its $600m domestically not based on a gigantic opening weekend (it only made $28m in its 1st weekend, as compared to the $158m that The Dark Knight just grossed), but rather because it just stayed around forever. Will The Dark Knight have that kind of staying power? No, absolutely not. Titanic was still making good money in theaters five months after it was released, back when DVDs were a brand new medium. Five months from now The Dark Knight will probably be on DVD in stores. It might last 2-3 months in theaters, but that's about it. And it'll be facing much stronger competition at the box office than Titanic did because it's out during the summer rather than late winter and early spring the way Titanic was. So it remains to be seen what kind of legs The Dark Knight will have, to see if it really has a shot at what Titanic did, but consider this: in 5 days The Dark Knight is already over a third of the way to Titanic's total, and by this time next week could be well over half of the way there.

Enough about the money its making though, lemme talk about what I thought of the movie itself. Back in 2005 I saw Batman Begins and wrote a review of it in which I basically said I loved its pragmatic approach to the comic superhero genre, and thought it worked so well as a "real world" approach to the character that it was almost disappointing once Bruce Wayne showed up in the Batman costume. I felt like in the same way that Tim Burton's Batman redefined comic book movies by using his flair for visuals to present a real comic book-like appearance to everything, Batman Begins redefined comic book movies by presenting everything in as "real" a way as possible, and you see that more and more in comic book movies nowadays.

The Dark Knight has taken this approach to a whole new level.

The new movie has entirely ditched any attempt to look cartoonish and visually is the antithesis of what Tim Burton set out to do with his Batman movies. I've heard some comparisons with The Dark Knight and Heat, and the comparisons definitely have some validity to them. I've always felt that Michael Mann's crime movies (Thief, Manhunter, Heat, Collateral and even Miami Vice) always tried to ground themselves in as much realism as possible, and in addition to usually showing the sheer technical precision that must mark any successful high-end heist and/or real detective work, his movies are usually almost entirely humorless. Batman Begins took steps in this direction, attempting to show how Batman could do the things he did as if he was a real person, and what technology, training and real mindset he'd need, but the movie was still a fun ride and had a definite sense of humor about itself. In The Dark Knight the "fun" aspect is definitely toned way, way down in favor of a very dark, serious approach to everything, and in my opinion it works beautifully. The movie is an honest to god serious crime movie that, much like the last movie, only "breaks character" a few times with some of Batman's less believable gadgetry.

One of the biggest (if not more subtle) visual shocks of this movie is the amount of it that takes place during the daytime. For me it really set the tone right off the bat as the whole opening scene takes place right in the middle of the day. There are, of course, many scenes at night as well, but how often do you see bright daylight scenes in a Batman movie? The daytime scenes give the city backdrop a much more "real" feel to it, much much moreso than there was in the last movie (which was already infinitely more real seeming than any previous depiction of Gotham in any of the other Batman movies).

The characters in The Dark Knight are incredible as well. Heath Ledger's Joker is everything that Jack Nicholson's Joker was not, in that he is scary (rather than funny) and he most importantly makes you feel that Batman actually is the underdog in the fight, which after the last movie I would have thought would be pretty impossible. Jack Nicholson's Joker was a hugely entertaining spectacle onscreen, but his character was mainly a thorn in Batman's side because he stole enough money to match Bruce Wayne's spending abilities by having his own gadgets to try to rival Batman's. In this movie, Heath Ledger's Joker has the upper hand because he's more committed to what he's doing than Batman is, much in the way that a real terrorist is. He's a maniacal person with sadistic goals who has no regard for anyone's life (especially his own), and it takes Batman a long time to even be able to wrap his head around how you deal with someone like that. As a result the Joker is always one step ahead of Batman and not the other way around.

For instance, in Tim Burton's Batman the Joker's evil plan was to use cash to lure Gotham's civilians to the streets so he could gas them with poison-filled parade balloons, but Batman was able to rather easily foil this plan by just showing up with his Batwing and flying off with the balloons. Even in Batman Begins Ra's Al Ghul's plan was to similarly gas the city using his own device, but Batman used the Batmobile to destroy it and save the day. In this movie there is no plan like that, and instead the Joker is more akin to John Doe from Se7en or Jigsaw from the Saw movies in that he simply sets up situations to challenge people's morals and in which his goal is just to create chaos through cleverly hidden and difficult to diffuse methods. In the end it is not Batman's gadgets or training which help him prevail over the Joker, but rather his commitment to his goal that does.

I need to see the movie again and I am planning on going at least once more while the movie is in theaters, although it may be the kind of movie I end up seeing a bunch more times in theaters, and that's not something I've done with a movie in a long, long time. The movie was quite long at two and a half hours, and it was really packed with many characters and storylines and I feel like it probably needs repeat viewings to be adequately digested. The movie has really stayed with me over the last couple days since I saw it, and it was very enjoyable to watch, which considering how high my hopes were for it to me says a lot about how good it is. I don't know if the movie is for everyone, but it is currently sitting as the #1 most highly rated movie of all time on IMDB (by a considerable margin), although I expect that to fall back somewhat the longer its out and the more people see it; and it did get a 95% on the Tomatometer, so it does seem to be overwhelmingly well received (especially in combination with the huge box office totals). If you haven't seen it, by all means check it out, although be sure you watch Batman Begins first, as this is a true sequel to that movie, and much of what went on in that movie plays into what happens in this movie.

The last 3 days have probably been the best weekend, sports-wise, that I've ever had. It started on Friday when the Minnesota Twins traded Johann Santana to the Mets. Why does this matter to me? Santana's the game's best pitcher, and it was rumored he would be traded to either the Yankees or the Red Sox. If he'd gone to the Sox it would have been good just cause it would have kept him away from the MFYs, but the Red Sox would have had to give up a lot and commit a lot of money to him, so it would have been risky. The best option was just that he would go to a team in the National League instead, and that's what happened. This means the Red Sox can go this year with the team that just won the World Series and it means the Yankees are still screwed with shitty pitching. So it's looking good for the Red Sox again.

The next great piece of news was that the Lakers traded Kwame Brown, Javaris Crittendon and some draft picks to the Memphis Grizzlies for Pau Gasol. This is a trade that is already legendary in its one-sidedness. The Lakers traded their backup center (who's renown for being disappointing and frequently injured) and their 3rd string point guard (who is a rookie and who hardly ever played) for a guy who is not only an All Star caliber player (who's only 27), but who also fills a huge hole for the Lakers at power forward and center. The Lakers were already one of the top 5 teams in the league this year, and now they added an All Star basically for nothing. Once the Lakers are fully healthy they should have one of the best teams of all time out there, and all their key players are young, so they should be contenders for years.

The final great thing that happened in sports this weekend was that the NY Giants just pulled off possibly the greatest Super Bowl upset in NFL history by beating the previously undefeated New England Patriots. Now I'm admittedly not much of a football fan, but my Dad is as big a Giants fan as he is a Red Sox fan, and he raised me watching Giants games. As I got older I kinda lost interest in football, and now mainly only watch when I go over to his place during the season to visit with him and eat dinner on Sundays. So I'm not gonna claim I'm like a superfan or anything, but on the occasions when I do watch football, I do root for the Giants. I don't have any other team I have any interest in. I have watched and rooted for the Giants in all four of their Super Bowl appearances, and remember them quite clearly. Watching tonight was special, because just like back in October, I was there with my Dad when the team he lives and dies with won a world championship.

The fact that the Red Sox, Giants and (possibly) Lakers could all win championships in the same year is incredible to me as a sports fan :)

I got in on the "cell phone craze" rather early. No, I wasn't one of the people who carried a huge, suitcase-sized cellphone around on a shoulder strap like The Dude, nor was I a guy with one of the "bricks" (the big grey cellphones the size of a brick), but I mean I was right on the crest of the wave that was the cell phone revolution which crashed upon society back in the late 90s or so. Really my journey with that type of connectivity began at some point in the mid-90s when I got a beeper along with my friends one summer and marveled at how great it was that my friends and I could locate each other with them when we were sitting around bored and trying to organize an afternoon of Frisbee golf.

However, I quickly abandoned the beeper once I started working at an electronics store in 1998 where I discovered not only could I get a Nokia 5100 series cellphone for dirt-cheap, but I could also get an employee plan so it would only cost me $20/month or so to use it (provided I didn't go wild with it). I quickly became enamored with it, it was the most fantastic thing I'd ever seen. I'd never even stopped to think how useful it would be to have a phone on me at all times, how easy it would be to get in touch with my friends, or to let them know I was downstairs in the car and was waiting for them, or if, god forbid, there was an accident I'd have the ability to reach out for help with little to no trouble. My friends could call me if they needed me, and all was well with the world. Anyone reading this knows exactly the feeling I'm talking about, because cellphones are so ubiquitous now that I don't know anyone who doesn't have one.

Things were different back then though, back when the people who had them were truly rare indeed. I found I frequently had to have conversations with people where I had to justify exactly why I felt I needed a cellphone. I found if I got a call in public, people would look at me with a puzzled and annoyed look on their face, just from hearing it ring. And lord help me if I answered it without rushing outside first to be away from everyone before doing so. Talking on a cellphone indoors around other people was absolutely inexcusable. While I'm sure what I just wrote probably sounds tinged with a sarcastic scoff by me about how people back then were too sensitive or something, the truth was I completely agreed with them. I was embarrassed if my phone rang just because I knew it was rude, and I never talked on it indoors in a store or restaurant or something because that was extremely rude. Now, of course, social norms pertaining to cellphones have changed so drastically that the person who throws the occasional annoyed glance at someone on a cellphone (even in a movie theater) is the rude one, and not the person who is actually using the phone.

None of these things bothered me about having a cellphone back then, and I didn't see enough cellphone usage from other people at the time for them to bother me that way either. One thing I did begin to realize over time, however, was I didn't like how the cellphone suddenly became viewed by others who knew I had one as a way to get a hold of me at any time. This in and of itself wouldn't have been so bad if not for the fact that it was accompanied by them all knowing if they called and I didn't answer then it was almost surely because I saw they were calling and sent it to voicemail, as I would inevitably get the "why didn't you answer my call" question later. I began to really hate that suddenly I was expected to be available at all hours of every day, and realized I couldn't use the "I was out of range for a while today" excuse too often and expect people to believe it, so I eventually had to move to the more dramatic step of actually, really just leaving my cellphone turned off in my car at all times. Then I would tell people I didn't carry my cellphone with me anymore, so if they wanted to reach me that was a bad place to call. Eventually I got tired of spending $20-$30/month just to have it sit in my car, virtually unused, so I canceled my service and gave the phone to a friend.

Naturally, as the cellphone revolution really took off, it became more and more incredulous to people that I didn't own a cellphone, telling me I didn't know what I missing out on, and how they don't know how they ever survived without one. This eventually segued into people just assuming the phone number I gave them was a cellphone number because it got to where nobody even had landlines anymore. Then people would inevitably tell me at some point "I tried to text message you but it didn't work for some reason" at which point I'd have to tell them I didn't own a cellphone.

Almost a year ago I finally got another cellphone, but this time it really was on my terms. I got a prepaid phone from TMobile with $100 worth of minutes which would last me for a year (and they will in fact, I'll even have some left over I'm sure). The reason the cellphone is on my terms is because a couple years ago I ditched my landline for a VOIP phone through Vonage, and one of the great things about Vonage is that I can have any incoming calls simultaneously ring up to six different numbers if I want it to. This means that I have it set so if someone calls me it rings my home, but it also rings my work and my cell phone all at the same time, and whichever phone I answer from is the one that gets the call. This also allows me to turn off my cellphone when I'm either at work or at home because I'm already near a phone which will ring at those locations, so I have no need to have my phone on. I only turn my cellphone on when I need to call someone else or when I know I'm going to be away from a phone and will be expecting a call of some importance. Finally my cellphone works for me and not for everyone else I know.

This crow kept landing on the window sill outside my office this morning so I took a shot of it with my camera phone. Exciting isn't it?

It's been a while since my last entry, but in that time there was Thanksgiving and then my birthday, both of which were nice. The day after my birthday I went out with my Dad and my stepmom and they treated me to a very nice dinner at the Pasadena Chop House and then we went to see No Country For Old Men, which I really enjoyed. It's one of those movies that really sticks with you after you see it and I'm hoping to see it again soon sometime.

Recently I bought a Slingbox through some online sale and I'm really rather enjoying it. If you don't know what a Slingbox is, it's a device you hook up to your TV (or cable box, or DVD player or Tivo), and that you then also hook up to your internet connection and it allows you to access those devices from anywhere that has a high-speed internet connection. The result is that I can watch my TV while I'm at work if I want, but it also allows me to bring up a window on one of my computers at home so I can have TV running there while I'm surfing the web. It's a somewhat frivolous piece of gadgetry, but it wasn't that expensive and there's no monthly fee or anything like that, so I'm enjoying the purchase a lot. I think I will get a lot of use for it during baseball season this year as I'm planning to get the MLB package so I can watch all the Red Sox games, and since they're an East Coast team most of their games start while I'm still at work. During this last year's pennant race and playoffs I really wished I could see a lot of those games as they were happening, and this year I'll be able to do just that.

Not much else to report right now. Happy Birthday to Koga and Wendy :)

PS - Happy Birthday Grover :)

After going 86 years without a championship the Red Sox now have won two in the last 4 years (this time breaking the dreaded Curse Of Relief Pitcher Curtis Leskanic). I went over to my Dad's place last night to watch Game 4 as the Red Sox completed the sweep over the Colorado Rockies. I don't have a whole lot to say other than it was great to be there with him this time when the Sox won it all (last time we talked on the phone immediately after it was over). The Red Sox are really threatening to become a dynasty having won 2 of the last 4 and with a ton of great, young talent. The other big news in baseball was that Alex Rodriguez decided to opt out of his contract with the MFYs which led to Yankee ownership basically telling him to get lost. As a Red Sox fan it's great to not only see another Sox Championship, but to also see the "Evil Empire" appear to be crumbling before our very eyes. Good times. Anyway, here's a funny picture of Jonathan Papelbon leaping in the air after recording the last strike of the year for baseball in 2007:

Last night the Red Sox completed another big comeback in the American League Championship Series by defeating the Cleveland Indians in Game 7 after falling behind in the series three games to one last week. While I was nervous after the Red Sox lost Games 2, 3 and 4, I did still have a fair amount of confidence that they had at least a decent shot of pulling it off for a few reasons. Josh Beckett pitched in Game 5 and it's getting to the point that whenever he pitches for the Red Sox it's almost a guaranteed win as none of the games he's pitched have really even been close and he is so consistently dominant that any mistake at all is really a surprise. So if the Sox could pull off another win behind Beckett in Game 5 then they would have recaptured Home Field Advantage with Curt Shilling pitching in Game 6. Shilling has the best winning percentage of any pitcher in MLB history in the postseason and is undefeated in elimination games so I liked the Red Sox's chances there, especially back in Fenway Park. If those two were both Red Sox wins then it would come down to a Game 7 in which the Red Sox could throw every pitcher out there if need be (Beckett included). So even down 3-1 I still had a lot of hope. Well it turns out I was right to have that hope and confidence because the Red Sox did in fact win the final three games by a combined margin of 30-5, sending the Indians off into the summer, and that's what I'd like to talk about.

See, back in 2004 when the Red Sox defeated the Yankees to advance to the World Series, it was doubly sweet not just for finally beating the MFYs but for doing it in such a historic fashion that forever will have them labeled as the biggest chokers in the history of sports. The Yankees were up three games to none after having just beaten the Red Sox 18-9 in Game 3 in Fenway and were poised to add yet another notch in their belt, so to speak, with an assumed sweep of the Red Sox, the team they always beat. But the Red Sox became the first team to come back from 0-3 in a series and even force a 7th game, and then in that Game 7, in Yankee Stadium no less, they blew out the Yankees and celebrated on their field. It was, bar none, the sweetest thing that Red Sox fans could have asked for because finally the Yankees and all their arrogant fans got to be on the other end of a humiliating loss that feels like a punch in the stomach.

But this time the victory is very much bittersweet because the Indians are most assuredly not the Yankees. In fact, the Indians are in many ways the antithesis of the Yankees. The Indians are really very much like what the Red Sox were back in 2003: a team that hasn't won anything in a long, long time. Now watching this series I certainly hated the Indians and didn't like hearing their first baseman, Ryan Garko, say that champagne would taste just as good in Boston as it would have in Cleveland (after the Red Sox won Game 5), and I don't have any sympathy for the Indian players who got to wake up today multi-millionaires and who probably only have any allegiance to the Indians as long as they're getting paid; but that's not really what this is about. Today, as good as I feel about the Red Sox making it back to the World Series for the second time in 4 years, I feel really horrible for Cleveland fans.

See, Cleveland sports fans arguably have had more heartache in the last 50 years than sports fans in any other city, and while Bostonians may have been long-suffering Red Sox fans for decade after decade at the very least they had the Celtics (16 World Championships) to root for for many years, and more recently had the New England Patriots dynasty to help them with their problems. Cleveland, on the other hand, hasn't had a championship of any kind since 1964 and has had its most famous sports moments come to be known for their infamy. Things like The Drive (in which the Broncos mounted a last minute comeback to defeat the Browns) or The Shot (in which Michael Jordan nailed a season-ending jumper over the Cavaliers) are what have defined Cleveland sports for the last few decades; and now after blowing a 3-1 series lead this week reporters have decided to add The Collapse to that list.

While I would never have considered myself a "long-suffering Red Sox fan", my Dad and my Grandfather most certainly were, and as someone who has seen that kind of heartbreak over and over and felt for those who had to endure it, I know how miserable that can be. So my heart really goes out to Indian fans. The only consolation I can give them is that Red Sox fans everywhere felt probably even more dejected following Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS, but look at how quickly fortunes can change.

Thankfully the Rockies haven't even been a franchise long enough for anyone to feel sorry for their fans if they lose in the World Series to the Red Sox :)

I haven't blogged much lately, but really other than going up to Oregon last weekend for my cousin Matt's wedding (which I should probably blog about at some point), there hasn't been a whole lot going on other than me just watching a lot of baseball. Last weekend the Red Sox opened the playoffs against the Angels and swept them in three games and as such have been off all week waiting for the next round to start, which it will today at 4 pm against the Cleveland Indians. Games 1 and 3 of the first round were pretty resounding Red Sox wins with Josh Beckett being absolutely unhittable in Game 1 while pitching a Game 1 shutout and with the Red Sox trouncing the Angels 9-1 in Game 3 to close them out behind 7 shutout innings from Curt Shilling.

Game 2, on the other hand, was very dramatic, and unfortunately I had to miss most of it because I was having a pre-wedding dinner with all my cousin's family and friends (which was great, btw). However, my Dad and I kept sneaking off here and there during the dinner to go check out the TV in the bar which had the game on, and luckily we were there in time to watch the whole bottom of the 9th inning, which was really the best part to see. The game was tied 3-3 and the Red Sox had already used closer Jonathan Papelbon for the last two innings, so they would probably have had to go to someone else if the game had continued into extra innings. The Angels didn't start the 9th inning with their closer in, but after Julio Lugo got a lead-off hit and was then moved to second on a sacrifice by Dustin Pedroia and a strikeout by Kevin Youkilis, the Angels brought their closer in to face David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez. The Angels ended up intentionally walking David Ortiz, which you can't really argue with because he's arguably the best clutch hitter in baseball in the last decade or two, but this gave them the unfortunate alternative of facing future Hall of Famer Manny Ramirez instead. They could have walked Manny to load the bases if they'd wanted, although that would have brought up Mike Lowell who led the Sox in RBIs this year, and with Lugo on 3rd it would have meant a wild pitch would have lost the game for the Angels, so they decided to take their chances with Manny.

Manny hit the second pitch of the at bat 447 feet over the Green Monster in left field for the walk-off game-winning 3-run home run. A couple interesting things about this: This was the first home run for Manny since he came back from being injured for about a month near the end of the year (he hit another one in Game 3 showing his power is definitely back). This was the first walk-off home run of Manny's career with the Red Sox (during which he's hit over 200 home runs). This was the third longest home run hit in Fenway Park this year by anyone. Here's a short video of the home run as seen by the fans in Fenway:

In other baseball news the hated Yankees lost in 4 games to the Cleveland Indians, despite the supreme confidence of all Yankee fans that they'd win that series and the fact that the Yankees spent three times as much on payroll as the Indians did this year. The Yankees once again had a phenomenal offense this year, but their pitching was awful all year and it really killed them against Cleveland, who sports two 19 game winners in CC Sabathia and Fausto Carmona. The Indians are going to be a very difficult opponent for the Red Sox because their pitching and relief pitching is so good (their closer is suspect though), and because they have a balanced offensive attack. The Red Sox have home field advantage and should be slightly favored though, so I'm hopeful that they'll be able to pull it out. They certainly seem to be peaking at the right time, although so do the Indians. Both of the National League teams shouldn't be nearly as good as the Red Sox or the Indians are, so whomever wins the ALCS should probably win it all.

I haven't made a Red Sox entry in probably about 3 years, and that's mainly because I'm a pretty poor baseball fan, even though the Sox are technically my team. However, for the first time in my life I've really started to elevate my interest in baseball in general, and by extension, the Red Sox. It's probably no surprise that this has happened to me over the course of this season in which the Red Sox have had the best record in baseball for a lot of the year, being that since I'm not a die hard fan I'm essentially a frontrunner. In any event, for the last month or two I've really been following the Red Sox closely, and during this season I actually did watch all the Sox games that were broadcast thanks to Tivo. I even went to a game against the Angels with my Dad back in early August (which the Red Sox lost horribly). Lately I've been reading everything I can find about the Sox, from message boards to blogs to sites like ESPN, and I've even been following the games that aren't on TV out here on ESPN"s GameCast. I'm even toying quite seriously with getting the MLB Extra Innings package on cable next year so I can see almost all the Red Sox games and really follow them next season.

Anyway, tonight was a real big night for the Red Sox and their fans as the Sox won the American League East pennant for the first time since 1995 (in 2004 when they won the World Series they were the wildcard team). The Yankees, or as they're known to the online Red Sox fanbase the "MFYs" (you figure it out), had won the previous 9 AL East pennants, due in large part to the fact that they have the highest payroll in sports, which they did again this year, topping out at over $200 million. Nevertheless, the Red Sox have put quite a team together this year and should be poised to make a serious run at another World Series win, but that's getting ahead of things.

Tonight the Red Sox defeated the Twins in Boston, and then tens of thousands of Red Sox fans stayed after the game at Fenway Park to watch the Yankees-Orioles game on the jumbotron in case the Yankees lost, which would give the Red Sox the pennant. Well, it was looking bleak with the Yankees up 9-6 in the bottom of the 9th when ace closer for the Yankees, Mariano Rivera, blew the save and allowed the Orioles to tie it at 9 apiece and send it into extra innings. In the bottom of the 10th the Yankees allowed a man on and intentionally walked two guys to load the bases which set up a suicide squeeze from Jay Payton to give the Red Sox the division crown. When this happened the Red Sox players, who had been watching all this in the clubhouse, came back onto the field to celebrate with the fans, and apparently just got hammered drunk. The Red Sox ace closer, Jonathan Papelbon, was by all accounts the real standout drunk, as he was running around the field without his pants on while wearing swimming goggles and an empty Bud Light case on his head. Below are a couple pictures, enjoy:

Good times for the Red Sox tonight :)