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J. Papelbon: 4 innings, 2 hits, 0 runs, 0 walks, 2 Ks, 0.00 ERA. Nice little series for the kid.

The Red Sox were flawed, they made the playoffs anyway, and they didn't do well. Next year ought to be pretty good. It is not necessary to bring back Damon; he'll be 33 and may well have peaked over the last four years. Thanks for the title, Johnny!

The question for the off-season: who's the ace? Schilling isn't coming back as his old self, Clement isn't an ace, and so on. Not a lot of great pitching on the free agent market. Burnett? I don't think so. Morris or Mulder? Hm. Or maybe they'll finally make the Manny trade.

But I like having a lot of strong pitching coming up from the minors, and I'm not too worried about the rest of the team. Next year ought to be good.

[Population: One] <A HREF="http://popone.innocence.com/ar

Oh, Ann Coulter.

It's a great column. I mean, you get the usual "liberals are the devil" stuff which of course only coincidentally resembles the rhetoric of extremists who really would like to see liberals dead. You don't get an Ann Coulter column without that; they don't have anything without glossy intellectual hatred in it.

But you also get the pit bull going after Bush, a fine spectacle indeed. It's worth it for that aspect alone. Don't stop! There's more.

"I know conservatives have been trained to hate people who went to elite universities, and generally that's a good rule of thumb. But not when it comes to the Supreme Court. ... Being on the Supreme Court isn't like winning a 'Best Employee of the Month' award. It's a real job."

There you have it. You shouldn't hate people who go to elite universities when they're doing real jobs. Mind you, I just elided two and a half paragraphs to produce the quote, but nobody's perfect.

[Population: One] <A HREF="http://popone.innocence.com/ar

The Boston Fantastic Film Festival schedule is out. It's what you might call slightly heavy on the horror; they're also showing The Muppet Movie. Intriguing contrast -- since they showed Five Children and It last year, I'm assuming there's a tradition of having a children's movie.

Hm. Thursday night looks good, with Creep and the inevitable Miike. Friday, likewise, for Marebito and R-Point. More the latter. I could miss Friday night without shedding too many tears.

Saturday has nothing I'm dying to see but Dark Hours, although I quite wanna see that. Reeker? Maybe. And then Sunday... I keep going back and forth on Three: Extremes. I was chatting about it with my sweetie, and the truth is, I just don't dig Chan-wook Park that much. I dunno. If Miike expands his segment (Fruit Park expanded his), I'd see that.

It's a pity we're not getting more non-horror this year, but it hasn't been a great year for that. Night Watch would be nice, as would some Hong Kong action, but the BFFF hasn't ever been oriented towards Asian action flicks so I can't fault them there. And this is a nice festival all in all.