Once every eighteen months . . .

. . . is not an acceptable posting schedule.  As with all things, I'll try to do better.

A few things by way of catching up, sorta.

1.  Bud Selig finally retires.  Thankfully the barf-inducing tributes to this "great" commissioner weren't too plentiful.  Lest we forget, here's a quick recap of the Great Mister Selig's notable accomplishments, in and out of office:

     Bud was one of the architects of collusion, whereby owners sought to circumvent the collective bargaining agreement and render free agency meaningless.  As usual, baseball lost in court, to the tune of many hundreds of millions of dollars.

     In 1998, Bud was in front of any camera that would have him, waving the pom poms for McGuire and Sosa.  Of course, once the game had fully recovered from the labor troubles of 1994 and the owners could be reasonably sure that their pockets would continue to be lined, Bud did an about face and became Bud Selig, Steroid Buster.

    Bud commissioned the Mitchell Report, which turned out to be little more than a platform for two lowlifes, one with the Yankees and one with the Mets.  Shocking, really, given Bud's antipathy for the Yankees and adoration of the Red Sox.  The Yankees' lowlife they dug up was discredited in a Federal courtroom, and the Mitchell Report is gathering dust somewhere, little more than an answer to a not very interesting trivia question.

   Bud decided that the All Star game had to mean something.  Says who?  Like all such games, it's an exhibition. 

   Bud has given us the World Baseball Classic, which is considered a big deal in every country except America.  Awesome!

   Bud has overseen the process by which Fox more or less is in charge of scheduling and by which the most important games of all are decided at 1 AM Eastern Time on a weeknight.

   In all these things, Bud was of course just doing the owners' bidding.  His successor will doubtless follow in those venal, subservient footsteps, so I don't expect much change.

  But Bud has retired.  Good riddance to bad rubbish.

2.  Writing.  It so sucks that the time, and sometimes the inspiration, just aren't there most of the time.  I have high hopes and lofty goals for the current Lenora X story I posted the beginnings of, Fifty Shades of Black and Blue.  Romantically, I'm looking at the story as a grand architectural project, always under construction.  Perhaps the completion of it is not as important as the process of construction.

3.  Hi, how are you?  I'm doing OK . . . work and My health continue to pose challenges from time to time, but I survive . . .

More soon.  Really.  I mean that.
 

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