I'm not hip to the maritime scene, but I'm Downtown this a.m. and this orange boat comes pulling into port. It's the Staten Island Ferry! Huh? WTF? Talk about overshooting your parking space. It's a pretty cool looking boat and clearly it's an icon. But I haven't a clue why one of them is here. I'm baffled.

Made it over to the Happy Dog last night. It's down on 58th and Detroit. It's kind of a neat place, decent crowd, and they play polkas. They had a band named Ethnic Jazz there. The polka itself is such a weird dance, because it's one of the few dances where women have no inhibitions about dancing with other women. When guys dance together, 99% of time, it's a goof, like the old cutting in joke we've seen a milion times. But when it comes to the polka, women are just flinging each other around like nobody's business. You never see two guys dancing the polka. It's so awkward, you don't even see two gay guys dancing it.

My polkaing, quite frankly, is abysmal. It consists of a lot of apologizing and traffic cop comments. Instead of counting in my head it's, "Sorry." "Didn't mean to kick you." "Wow, I ALMOST hit that lady." "Man, I JUST hit that lady." "That was close." "Look out." Not very enjoyable for all concerned.

The food at the Happy Dog was pretty good. Hummus was a bit runny, but if you stirred it up, it had a good flavor to it. Pita chips were excellent. The hot dogs were great. I had a chili and cheese one and during Tribe games, it's a buck off on the dogs. Pretty good beer selection and they have Old GrandDad. He sits at the bar every...no, I'm talking about the booze. Good times.

Meal of Links

I bought the TV today. And as they used to say in the old days: "It's a Sony!"

The BBC plans to air content available on the Internet concurrently with broadcast operations. Now that's a step forward.

Memo to Katrina: Do not hurt the Tabasco factory, That is all.

Exercise Yard

Somebody invented chessboxing. Win by checkmate or KO. Wouldn't you just angrily sweep the pieces off and jump over the board, flailing away at your opponent?

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25 Down: 1998 A.L. Manager of the Year (5 letters) Answer: Oates