You must find the Jade Monkey before the next full moon!

1) So I am now fully underway in my grad school, and the endevour has been fairly good so far. However, there have been a few hitches. For example, my micro teacher is very nice; however, her voice sounds like Margaret Cho's impersonation of her mother. Needless to say, it took roughly forty-five seconds before it felt like the Goddess Athena was stabbing her way out of the inside of my skull. However, she (the professor, not the goddess) was very nice and informative. So I have that going for me. Which is nice.

Also, it is fun to be able to occasionally look at some of my fellow grad students and scream at the top of my lungs, "NEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRDDDD!!!!"

2) I would feel better about sweeping the Devil Rays if the pitching could have, I don't know, kept their offense from scoring five runs a game. Well, Foulke is back, the Sox have another Manny (this time in pitching form!), and possibly one or two more young arms coming up.

3) You know, having seen a few more Wal Mart commercials than I would care to admit, I am always fascinated by their ability to find a pack of low-brow goobers who can barely formulate two-syllable words without blowing a blood vessal in their brains as their narrators. I mean, what demagraphic are they pandering to? Do they think that someone will watch that commercial, identify with the speech-impeded subjects, then suddenly say, "Hey ma! We gotta get to the Wallsy-Mart! They have great deals for our wedding stuff!"

4) I'm not trying to be insensitive about this, as I understand this is a huge story, but I was watching CNN this morning for more than an hour, and all they showed was stuff about the hurricane and the subsequent flooding. Sure, it's one of the biggest stories in years, and the ticker has all the other stuff, but for the love of crimminey, there is other news. I've given to the relief effort, and I've contributed to the Red Cross for years, and I think that the whole thing is tragic, but I would like to know what else is going on in the world. I mean, come on, there are only so many clips of people being saved and streets filled with water that you can see before you want to see something else in the world.

5) Seeing as how the Sox have won 19 of the last 20 games at Fenway, and I was at the one loss, I am wondering if my winning streak at games attended and their winning streak at home didn't cross each other's signals out and force them to lose. No worries, as I have seen my last game at Fenway until 2006.

6) I will be so happy when sportscenter finishes with that crappy 50 states in 50 days thing. Sure, it was a cool gimmick when George Thurgood did it, but if I ever have to hear that stupid song again, I'm going to freak out.