Prepare For Battle! (Grab a plunger.)

[1] My watch must have stopped, because June seems to have come awfully early this year...

[2] ...and on that note: Clearly, it's time to give that little lever on the great commode of life the ol' three-fingered downward wrist-flick and flush away the discolored, stinking mess that this season has become for the Chicago Underachievers and Bud-lighters Society. In fact, I think the time has arrived for Tribune Ink to officially kick off the much-anticipated "CUBS IN 2008!" marketing campaign. I mean really get it into blitzkrieg gear. Just think of all the permutations! Example: "Look on the bright side, Cubs fans, Kerry Wood can blow out his arm again this year and still have plenty of time to come back and..."

[3] I don't care if the word niche is more properly pronounced "neesh." You're an American, dammit. Stop being such a pretentious pinhead. Say "nitch" like everybody else.

[4] Oh, and another thing: It's "eastern" time, not "east-wren" time, putz.

[5] I love The Great Escape, but I can't watch it. Every time I do, I fall in man-love with Steve McQueen and get all hot and bothered to watch, like, all of his other movies. That feeling lasts until I actually see one. Then, of course, I remember: "Oh, that's right... The Great Escape is the only good Steve McQueen movie."

[6] There are hunters and there are killers. Take, for example, Teddy Roosevelt. Teddy's passion for hunting was fueled by an abiding love of nature and the outdoors. Roosevelt regarded hunting as a way to test his mettle against the natural world.

[7] Dick "Darth Sidious" Cheney, by contrast, is a killer. His passion for hunting, if you can call it that... I don't know about you, but I don't consider wandering twenty yards away from the car and flushing a farm-raised, clipped-winged, peanut-sized-brain bird --just because blowing it out of the air is way more fun that shooting it on the ground-- I don't consider that "hunting." I call it "target practice." But I, uh, ahem, I digress. Cheney's passion for "hunting" is fueled by an abiding love of guns and killing things, just for the hell of it.

[8] "...and today's starting pitcher for the Rockies: Hung-One Kim."

[9] First of all, it isn't that good a book. Secondly, I just don't have the time to devote to all the little games he's playing. So, could somebody please tell the dumb trucker just what the hell is going on on pages 60, 95, 138, 141, 192, 217 and 262? Please?

[10] *sigh* It might be time to start talking seriously about a new stadium deal for The Chicago National League Baseball Club-- yes, dammit, you heard me right. I don't like it any more than you do, but I see no other viable option. One of Bud "The Anti-Christ" Selig's many ridiculous proposals, still on the table, is to not only continue inter-league play --which itself is one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, right up there with Pestilence-- but to invert the leagues' rules while doing so! In other words, Arena League rules would be used in National League ballparks. Obviously, the man is insane. Everybody knows that there's a very good reason why the idea has never been tried before: It could easily tear a hole in the fabric of the cosmos. Now, ahem... while there are days when I feel that tearing a hole in the cosmos is actually a pretty good idea, I'm usually reasonable enough to suggest a more low-key way of doing it. Like global nuclear warfare, for instance. Anyway, for this reason alone, if not for any other, it may well be time to kiss Wrigley Field goodbye, before you have to stick your head between your legs and kiss your [donkey] goodbye instead.

[11] A word to the wise... If you have "daytime running lamps," or "automatic headlights" (which are essentially the same thing,) it doesn't necessarily mean that your taillights are automatic, too. And-um, you should probably know this, night rider: You look really stupid driving around with no taillights.

[12] Huey Lewis and the News are releasing a 'Greatest Hits' package. In other words, they are reissuing the album Sports as a boxed set.

[13] A.J. Pierzynski was fined two thousand dollars by the commissioner's office last week... for playing good, hard baseball. Clearly, (one can imagine the commissioner intoning,) there is no place for good, hard play in this day and age... The future of baseball is not to be found in good, hard play; it is to be found in one sophomoric gimmick after another.
In the words of Charles M. Schultz: ARRGH!! Bud Selig must go.