Despite its complete absence from these pages, I have noticed and even followed (casually) the current major league baseball season. Even more than last year, I have been singularly unexcited by baseball. There are several factors—my growing disaffection with baseball's broken economics, my distance from an actual major league team, weak baseball coverage in the local paper—but I think the biggest reason is simply that my wireless coverage at home does not reliably reach the TV room. Forced to choose between wasting away my evening in front of the TV or in front of my web browser, I choose web almost every time.

I am also quite aware that a certain baseball team still as a chance to make the playoffs for the first time since a certain ill-fated World Series appearance. I am not discussing this out of pure superstition. Let's just say I've been pleasantly surprised by this turn of events, and I'll say more on that subject when and if developments warrant.