Red Sox and the deathly innings

When we started watching Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 tonight, to get ready to see Part 2 this week, the Red Sox at Tampa Bay were in the sixth inning. The movie is two-and-a-half hours long, it’s over, and the game is in the 13th inning, still scoreless! Now they’re going to a 14th inning??

And now, inning 15! I don’t know when NESN stopped carrying the game, but they’re showing infomercials now. WEEI radio is hanging in, so maybe I will too, but it’s 1:15 AM! Fortunately, I’m taking tomorrow — I mean today — off from work.

Finally! Pedroia delivers in inning 16. Red Sox 1. But it’s not over yet, and it’s a quarter to 2!

Whew! It’s over. One nothing, Red Sox.

Kate Klim makes her ex explain

The audience at Kate Klim’s show at Club Passim last night was quite a varied mix of ages and couples. Kate has a very sweet, bright and attractive stage presence, and when we saw her in Bridgewater back in May, she told some funny boyfriend stories. Kate didn’t do that last night, but a year ago she posted this cute video where she pressures an old boyfriend to talk about her.

http://youtu.be/uutgbnoTCLY

From matchsticks to margueritas

I love BBC Radio 2’s Sunday programme lineup, because it’s all over the place musically and the hosts are sincerely enthusiastic about their respective genres of interest. Today, Paul O’Grady, who’s all over the place all by himself, played an 80’s UK hit called Marguerita Time. I didn’t recognize the tune…

… but the name of the band, Status Quo, I knew from a psychedelic 60’s favourite, Pictures of Matchstick Men.

http://youtu.be/_kG-mU7wgW4

With fifteen years between the two songs, I wondered if it could be the same band, and the answer is yes, albeit with some personnel changes along the way.

Debtor nation

What had been a routine matter — raising the federal government’s debt limit to make payments on money already owed — has been turned into a high stakes political showdown, and I think that’s good. But the thing is, the outcome of the polarized negotiations is not in doubt. It’s an absolute certainty that the debt limit will be raised before, or in, the eleventh hour, then Congress will take August off and Obama will go to Martha’s Vineyard. The only question is how much the Republicans will be forced to step back from their position. To get perspective on how we got to where we are, watch this Frontline documentary from early in Obama’s Presidency.

Watch the full episode. See more FRONTLINE.