Only a handful of people will—and should care—about this. Two nights ago, the NY Mets defeated the NY Yankees in the third game of the first interleague match-up between the cross-town rivals this year. They’re not really rivals in the truest sense of the personal rivalry. Because they play in different leagues until they make it to the World Series—by which time, they are in the same “major” league—the teams could care less how the other is doing during the course of the 162 game season.

The only rivalry is between the fans of the two teams, who like to boast about their own team, desecrate the other, and otherwise behave in the most unsportsmanlike way possible towards opposing players and fans. But for the artificially concocted inter-league series (2 sets of 3 games played in each others’ stadium) during the course of the season, fans would only be able to vent their cross-town anger on the airwaves (listen to local sports radio and you see how crazy these people get about something which they have no real, substantive part of).

So, instead, we get the demonstration such as what we saw Sunday night. Mets outfielder Jason Bay—formerly of the Yankee-fan-base-hated Boston Red Sox—homered twice against Yankee pitcher C.C. Sabathia. When he came up for his third at-bat, this time against Sergio Mitre (the burly Yankee left-hander was lifted an inning earlier), Bay was hit in the square of his back with a 75mph curveball. Now, baseball purists will argue that if you’re going to hit someone, you’re not going to do it with a breaking ball. You want to hit someone, like the good-ole days? You hit him with a purposeful fastball. I don’t buy that with this instance: recent pitchers know that all too well, and they’re generally too chicken to make it that obvious…I think recent pitchers are much smarter than that. Do I think it was purposeful? Absolutely. Just look at the circumstances.

But, what was most startling was the almost instant reaction by the white-jersey clad Yankee fan about 3 rows back on the left side of the frame above. Almost the instant after Bay is plunked, the fan stands up and emphatically claps, pointing his hands at Mitre. Nice. Really nice. How would you liked to be plunked by a ball thrown at 75mph.

In absolutely morbid curiosity—and in an attempt to stay awake in yet another of my late-night/all-nighters doing work at home—I followed the links in a Yahoo header to one of the sickest things I’ve ever seen. Advance to 1:14 in the video to get a slow-mo of what happened.

And finally…after seeing my Facebook feed light up with almost everyone confused about the ending of Lost, I leave you with this thought: For all those “still” Lost fans out there, I’m betting Col. Carter and Dr. Jackson would’ve figured it out in Season 1. But Flight 815 happened to be filled with such a group of emotionally unstable peeps…it took them 6 seasons to still not figure it out.

Hahahahaha…but, I’m serious! By the way, in this photo, doesn’t Elizabeth Mitchell look like she’s been photoshop-ed into the photo?

Angry Little Girl by Lela Lee

As my wife and daughter arrived at the park yesterday afternoon, they noticed a girl (about 5-7 yrs old) being scolded by her mom—apparently for doing something to her younger brother, who was crying.

After they settled in and started to play, the little girl came over to them and started stalking them, following Isabelle closely (as close as less than a foot) and mimicking everything she was doing. She did not do this playfully, but stared at Isabelle with vengeance the entire time—okay, maybe the little child doesn’t know “vengeance,” but she certainly knew how to look the part of “determined anger.”

The little girl’s mom was still tending to the brother the entire time; all the while, the little girl followed and mimicked Isabelle without a word, without a smile, without any joy (don’t most children her age seemingly yelp with joy when they play). No…this was not playing to this little angry menace.

This terrified our little daughter, who clung to mommy, saying “scared, scared…” I wonder if, at the next trip to this park, she would be looking for this girl, or perhaps be tentative in playing there? I wonder if the little angry girl knew what she was doing? At this age, judging from my own experience with how much our little one mimics us, you know her parents had everything to do with the little girl’s behavior—where could she possibly have learned this behavior from?

Talk about possessed by evil. Sad. And the mom was seemingly powerless to reign in—much less correct—this behavior.

With so many late- and all-nighters, it was with the utmost relief that we received our recent shipment of Peace Coffee beans. It is our favorite…[so far] the best whole beans we’ve found, which our trusty Capresso burr grinder coffee maker turns into a most delicious and hardened cup of morning joe.

I’ve learned that it is one thing to suffer yourself, but it is another thing to suffer from the pain of others.

For the last few years, I have endured an endless string of odd disappointments at work: from a manager who refused to do anything to facilitate her employees’ ability to do their work (was it managerial ineptitude or simply fear) to the ongoing coincidental replacements of key personnel in the team designated to build the new product I’m working on. All through it, I’ve put in some insane hours, and I have the mental and physical (premature aging) scars to show for it.

There were some people who I hoped would be stuck in the same exhausting situation—yes, those who noisily complained about the congratulatory endorsements I received every time there was a group review but who vociferously refused to do any more work than bare minimum: these 2 particular individuals consistently complained about not being recognized but also left at 4:30 each day (after starting to get ready to leave at 4:00), talked for 30-60 minutes at a time with various people they could distract during the day, never stepped up to assist in any projects and yet toxically shied away from all manner of taking on more work. Yes, these 2, I wouldn’t have minded if they went through the same torture.

And then there is a completely different story.

I wake up in the middle of the night and can’t go back to sleep because I know there is so much I haven’t finished and so much more I need to do.

A colleague from another department in our division said to me this week, almost on the verge of tears. For more than a year, she had been taking work home, working weeknights and weekends. But after a recent restructuring, her once massive workload tripled. “Have they set me up to fail here?” she asked me last week. There is another in her department that is going through the same thing.

While I’ve endured many late and sleepless nights toiling away on projects for the last 3-4 years, it is that much more difficult to stomach the plight of colleagues—who work really, really hard—going through the same turmoil. Something has to give. Something will. We are only human.

*                    *                    *

Sunshine, a haunting escape into the darkness of space to reach the sun in order to reignite the fiery ball of fire with a nuclear weapon the size of the island of Manhattan. What for most of the film is an eerie journey into the unknown—crew must fend of psychotic episodes after traveling for 7+ years towards the sun while dealing with the potential saboteur of the first mission’s mysterious disappearance—ends in a metaphysical wrestle between fundamentalism and science. I’m not a huge fan of Danny Boyle, he of Slumdog Millionaire and 28 Days Later (not to mention Trainspotting) fame, but I wished he had prepared us for that jump all along the film.

I watched this in Blu-Ray a week ago, and it left me feeling…haunted and empty and hollow, as if for the first time in a very long time, I considered the emptiness/loneliness of space, the vastness of the universe which God created and the infinitesimally small nature of our “humanity.”