Throwin' some Honoré de Klein-Balzacs

Does the title for this post work? Too obscure? Yeah, probably. Of course, the fact that it has nothing to do with anything in the rest of the post is probably more problematic.

I'm still playing cricket. It's winter here. Clearly there's a disconnect between those two facts with, you know, cricket being played outdoors and all. Yet there I am, every fortnight (they use that word here), playing in a winter competition with my friends. But we've been fairly lucky with the weather, with most of the days being cool but generally nice. Then last weekend happened. Cold. Wind. Rain. But we played. From 10:30 to 4. Calling it "miserable" might be one of the largest understatements I've ever made. It's a start.

I'm just about over the Lakers' loss, so I think I can write about it without grinding my teeth down to dust. Although I'm not even sure what there is to say. So I'll just say that I was shocked by the amount of venom that people apparently hold for the Lakers and Kobe, most of which only seemed to come out after they were clearly out of the series. People at my freaking work were jumping on the Bandwagon of Hate.

It's been a few months in the works, but with his recent post on Tiger Woods, Joe Posnanski has officially taken the mantle as my favorite writer.* And I'd like to proclaim that he should take the same spot on your Mantle of Love, too. I will caution that if you're not a rabid fan of the Kansas City Royals (although who among us isn't??), you may want to take a pass on some of his posts. (Just a warning that he has some crazy, crazy man love for Brian Bannister.) And if you're not a baseball fan in general, well, then you can probably pass on a couple more posts as well. Not a fan of sports at all? First: how dare you. And second, yeah, you can probably pass on a couple more posts. But even if you aren't a fan of sports at all and just appreciate, you know, amazing writing, you'll still find plenty to love. Such as the brilliant post -- and that is absolutely no exaggeration; I mean that as strongly as possible -- on Tiger. Tiger Woods, y'all.

*Heck, I've already stolen his little asterisk device (he calls it a Pozterisk), which is ridiculously addicting.

The days right now, with the sun rising after 7 and setting before 5, are ridiculously short. It's insanely depressing. But with the winter solstice the other day, it's all uphill from here! Good stuff.