Is The Golfer's Name Chubbs?

83 days.

From ESPN...

BEAUFORT, S.C. -- Officials say an alligator bit off part of a golfer's arm as he leaned over to pick up his ball at a private South Carolina course.

The man, who is in his 70s, was retrieving his ball from a pond when the 10-foot alligator bit him at Ocean Creek Golf Course in Beaufort County. The gator pulled the golfer into the pond and ripped off his arm in the struggle. His golf partners were able to free him.

Wildlife workers killed the alligator and retrieved the arm in the hopes it might be reattached.

The man has not been identified. He was being treated at the Medical University of South Carolina, but officials there would not release any information about him.

A call to the golf course was not immediately returned.

The Coolest Thing You'll See All Day

NLDS Preview: Dodgers vs Cardinals

85 days.

Oh boy.

If you had asked me a few days ago - hell, a few weeks ago - which team I did not want to play in the playoffs, it would have been the Cardinals. It just seems wrong that you finish with the best record in the National League and that's your reward. But alas, that's the situation we're in.

If I'm Joe Torre, I give the Lou Brown Major League speech before game time.

"All right people, we got 10 minutes 'till game time, let's all gather 'round. I'm not much for giving inspirational addresses, but I'd just like to point out that every newspaper in the country has picked us to finish last. The local press seems to think that we'd save everyone the time and trouble if we just went out and shot ourselves. Me, I'm for wasting sportswriters' time. So I figured we ought to hang around for a while and see if we can give 'em all a nice big shitburger to eat!"

Amen, Lou. And I'll take a set of whitewalls.

The starting pitching disparity is obvious. The Cards have two pitchers who would be considered aces on most teams. The Dodgers... not so much... not yet at least. But the Dodgers managed to pull out of the season with the best starting rotation ERA in the league. Not too shabby.

The offense isn't as bad as it sounds. Sure, the Cards are sporting the best player in the game, Albert Pujols, and Matt Holliday - also known as "this year's Manny Ramirez" in their lineup... but if the Dodgers' lineup wakes up and plays like they did earlier in the year, they have a better 1-8, IMO.

The bullpen is an all Dodger advantage.

So, the gameplan should be obvious.

Work the counts as best as you can. Try to wear down those Cardinal starters and get into their bullpen early. At the same time, these guys aren't going to miss much so if you get the chance, you need to jump on it. Be aggressive... but be cautiously aggressive. That make sense?

They also need to go back to what brought them to the dance. Don't sit around waiting for a 3-run homer. This needs to be a good ol' fashioned National League small ball series for the Dodgers. Work for walks, steal bases, hit and runs... gotta move men station to station and drive them home. These guys are too good to get burned by big homeruns, IMO.

Don't discount the home field advantage. The Dodgers have played very well at home this year. That could always be the difference maker as well.

I know, I know - I sound very hopeful when by all appearances from the last few weeks of the season, there's no reason to.

But that season is over. The second season starts tonight.

Now, do they serve Shitburgers with extra cheese?

Internet Addictions

86 days.

One of the nutty things about the utter explosion of the Internet that has taken place over the past fifteen years or so (amazing it's only been that long) is Internet Addictions - and you know exactly what I'm talking about. The little time-wasters that at one point seem like harmless fun that soon enough eat hours and hours of your time.

See: Farmville.

Farmville has made me absolutely dread going on Facebook because I really don't give a damn if your watermelons are ready for harvest.

Or how about Twitter? 100 word statements on the world. That's what we've digressed to because that's all our attention span can hold at any given time. I'm sure there's quite the research paper to be written about the decline of blogs in favor of Facebook and Twitter. Something about, "The less I have to hear from you, the better."

But that's not what this is about. This is about my latest Internet Addiction.

Flickchart

At first glance, it seems harmless enough - just like they all do. You make an account and suddenly, there's two movie posters on the screen. Your job is to click on the movie that you like best. If you've seen neither, click that you've seen neither. The website then proceeds to use that clickage to determine your favorite movies ever. Simple stuff, right?

Tell that to the hours that have gone by the next time you look up and realize how much time you've spent clicking. Luckily, I've avoided doing this as a daily thing... for now. But the few times I've done it, it's very easy to get into a, "Oh, just a few more. I'll just wait til I get 100 rankings... okay, 200... holy crap, what time is it?"

As of this writing, I've rated 557 movies at a total of 2628 rankings.

And yes, the fact that I've seen at least 557 movies is quite another topic for discussion.

Regardless, I highly recommend stopping by Flickchart. You won't regret it... well, you will... but not at first!

Oh, and according to the machine (this is how Skynet starts), here is my current Top 20. It's got a few flaws but on the whole, it's difficult to argue with.

20. Clerks
19. Rocky
18. Casino
17. The Usual Suspects
16. Rain Man
15. Back To The Future
14. Gladiator
13. The Fugitive
12. The Silence Of The Lambs
11. Die Hard
10. The WIzard Of Oz
9. Jerry Maguire
8. Braveheart
7. Fight Club
6. Pulp Fiction
5. Jurassic Park
4. The Empire Strikes Back
3. The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers
2. The Shawshank Redemption
1. Star Wars

Like I said, hard to argue with most of that.

One Season Ends, The Next Begins

88 days.

And no, my title isn't about the end of summer - although it was quite a cool air about town today that made me think of the holidays.

I'm talkin' baseball.

The regular season ended today and with the possible exception of a fairly crappy last month or so, I don't think the Dodgers could have asked for a better regular season. Sure, it's always nice to have guys leading the league in certain categories or competing for various awards but the only award I'm interested in is 11 victories away.

The regular season ended poorly but the second season begins anew in a few days.

And everything starts fresh.

11 wins. The Dodgers ran off a streak to start the season that was something like that.

11 wins. That's all you need.

11 wins to a World Championship 21 years in the making.

11.

Yeah. Let's do this thing.

Oh, and go Sox. Tee hee.