Katie Casey was baseball mad . . .

Had the fever and had it bad.
Just to root for the home town crew,
Ev'ry cent
Katie blew.
On a Saturday her young beau called to see if she'd like to go
To see a show, but Miss Kate said "No, I'll tell you what you can do:"

Take me out to the ball game,
Take me out with the crowd;
Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack,
I don't care if I never get back.
Let me root, root, root for the home team,
If they don't win, it's a shame.
For it's one, two, three strikes, you're out,
At the old ball game.

I'd just like to submit that a finer song has never been written.

Being sick sucks

That is all.

Ok, not entirely all. It sucks even worse when your son is with his grandparents and you can finally go out, but can't because you're sick.

Now, that is all.

Are you experienced?

A few years ago I had the opportunity to go to The Masters with my brother. Neither of us are what you would call golf aficionados. In fact, if not for SportsCenter, I wouldn't be able to tell you any golfer's name other than Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and David Duvall (and only Duvall because I have a friend with the same name.) I can think of a dozen people I know who would have appreciated the opportunity to go see one of the world's premiere golf tournaments, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to go, especially because passes to The Masters are so hard to come by and there's no telling if/when I'd ever get to go again. (I ended up going again the next year, but at the time had no idea I'd have that opportunity.)

After watching golf in person for eight hours or so, I realized a couple things. One, you probably shouldn't be allowed to watch golf in person if you don't know which hole you're watching. And two, golf is boring to watch in person. On television, you can skip from hole to hole and see what's going on all over the course. Unless you're Usain Bolt, you're not going to do that in person. In person, you pick a hole (or two if you get to the right spot to watch) and take everything in from there. Roars go up from the crowd across the course and you're left wondering what happened over there. Of course, were you to have been there, the excitement would have happened where you'd left from.

With the advent and proliferation of high definition television, watching golf from the comfy confines of your home is infinitely better than watching it from the course. Better views of the holes, more access to the course, more comfortable seating, cheaper beer, no port-a-potties and no traffic  make the idea of actually going to the course seem like a terrible idea. The same holds true for most events. Why fight the traffic, spend far too much on parking, pay for overpriced ballpark food, get sunburned/frostbitten (your weather may vary) and then fight the traffic to get home when you could just watch the game naked on your couch (your house rules may vary)?

I mention this because I recently spent 21 hours in a car over three days to go see U2 in concert. There's no rational reason to spend that long in a car for a three-hour concert, even if it is U2. I mean, I've got their music on my iPod and can listen to it whenever I want, so why spend $65 to see them. It's the same reason people put up with all the hassles of going to the Masters or any other sporting event they could just as easily watch on television - you do it for the experience, the "I was there" feeling that you get listening to your favorite band with 71,000 of your newest friends. That's something you can't get listening to music while walking your dog.

Amazingly, even though the Georgia Dome was essentially sold out, the band managed to somehow make it feel like a (somewhat) intimate setting thanks to a stage design that allowed them to face any direction in the dome. The 360 degree video board above the stage also helped create the illusion of closeness, even if you were watching a giant television to get a closer view of the action on stage.

Some highlights of the show for me included:
Being reminded just how good a song "Elevation" is.
"Beautiful Day" which may be the second best song U2 has ever written
"One" which is, undoubtedly, their best song
"Sunday Bloody Sunday" and "Pride (In the Name of Love)"

ESPN's Erik Kuselias, during their radio fundraiser to fight cancer, would regularly encourage his listeners to bid on the experiences more than the memorabilia they were auctioning off. For example, he thinks it would be better to spend a day with the Baseball Tonight crew before, during, and after a show than it would to get an autographed baseball from your favorite player. Sure, the ball would be cool and you could display it in your office or home, but Kuselias believes, and I agree, that the memories of an experience are worth more than any ball could be.

Now if I could just experience the Cubs winning the World Series, I could die in peace.

A little bit of this, a little bit of that

Today's thoughts are best enjoyed while listening to Michelle Branch

South of the Border is singlehandedly keeping the billboard industry alive in South Carolina.

Every time I go to Atlanta, I'm reminded how much I hate driving in Atlanta.

At some point, the kids on How I Met Your Mother have to get sick of listening to their dad's long-winded story and just go ask their mom, right?

The only thing better than tickets to a sold-out event is free tickets to a sold-out event.

I would not want to play poker with the guy on 'Lie to Me.'

The arrival of the baseball playoffs means I'm going to miss a lot of sleep over the next few weeks.

Jon Stewart is the only sane man left in an otherwise insane world.

U2 puts on a great concert (a blog about my experience at their Atlanta show coming soon.)

Baseball Playoff Picks (One day after they started):
Division Series:
Cardinals over Dodgers
Phillies over Rockies
Yankees over Twins
Angels over Red Sox

Championship Series:
Cardinals over Phillies
Yankees over Angels

World Series:
Yankees over Cardinals

Not as disgusting as I used to be

NBC's The Biggest Loser is back for its . . . let's say 26th edition and the fact that I know this makes me sad. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy for the people losing weight and generally making their lives better. I'm just not thrilled that it happens on my television each Tuesday.

You see, my wife works at a gym on a college campus. She's also a personal trainer and has designed and implemented her own Biggest Loser programs for students and faculty, so the allure of the show is too much for her to pass up. So for two hours each week, I get to watch people exercise. Actually, that's not entirely true, we get to watch people exercise for about an hour, spend a good 15 minutes doing various product placement advertisements within the show, and another 45 minutes watching people stand on an apparently broken scale. (What kind of digital scale fluctuates between losing 35 pounds and gaining 54 before settling on what actually happened?)

What it ultimately boils down to is that I'm far too much like the Seinfeld characters than I'd like to admit. If you recall, in the series finale, the four make fun of a fat guy getting robbed.

Jerry: Well, there goes the money for the lipo.

Elaine: See, the great thing about robbing a fat guy is it's an easy getaway. You know? They can't really chase ya!

George: He's actually doing him a favor. It's less money for him to buy food.

Yeah, that's me when I watch The Biggest Loser. I know I should feel bad, and I'd never actually say things like that in a group of people  (at least not a group of people I didn't know well), but when contestants on the show say things like "I left a large part of me at home," I can't help but think to myself "you know, if you left a large part of yourself at home, you wouldn't need to be on this show."

However, I do find myself watching for one reason . . . I want to be able to cheer for the woman who is going to be the hottest when they finally do lose the weight. (You can call me shallow, but I think we've pretty well established that fact in the paragraph above.) Were I a single guy, I'd definitely want to date someone who goes on that show because you know she'd be hot when she finished (well, maybe not as hot as Alison Sweeney, but still probably pretty hot.)

So for the next three months, I get to watch a bunch of overweight people slowly become less overweight, then (as John Kruk said on a NutriSystem commercial) less disgusting then they used to be, then . . . well, eventually they get to the attractive/hot stage.