The World Series starts tonight.  I didn’t watch any of the NLCS, which was over before it started anyway.  I did watch game five of the Astros/Yankees series and was seriously depressed when New York won to keep the series alive at three games to two.  I didn’t watch game six, but I did listen to most of it on the radio via the MLB iOS app.  I heard from the third inning on.  I heard Houston blow the effin’ lead in the top of the ninth when the Yankees came back from a 4-2 hole to tie the game.  I also heard the bottom of the ninth when the Astros won the game on a walk off home run by Jose Altuve.  It was glorious.  Yankee-soul-crushingly glorious.  Mr Altuve should never have to pay for a drink in Boston again.  Bless him.

So I suppose I should make a prediction for the World Series.  The Washington Nationals against the Houston Astros.  I’m picking Houston for two reasons.  One, I owe them for kicking the ever loving shit out of the damn Yankees.  Good on you, boys.  Two, because I am just an American League kinda guy.  I don’t have anything against the Nationals besides the fact that they stole a team from Boston.

Did you know that?  When the Montreal Expos franchise was falling apart there was talk of moving them to Boston.  Not necessarily as a new team, but possibly just having Montreal play some of their home games in Boston.  I was hoping that would happen.  Really, I was hoping they would pack up and move the whole works here, but I would have been pleased to even just have some National League games in town.  Instead, they ended up moving the team to Washington.  Oh well.

Other than that, I don’t have anything against the Nats.  I still feel like Houston is a National League team, but I guess I’m getting used to them being in the American League now.  Not 100%, but enough.  A little part of me still thinks of the Milwaukee Brewers as an AL team even though it’s been 1,000 years since they switched to the NL.  What can you do.

So I want to see the Astros win it this year.  Will I be watching tonight’s game?  Well, probably not… there is a Bruins/Maple Leafs rematch tonight and I want some payback for the overtime loss the other night.

Go Bruins.

Episode IX is just a couple of months away.  I never thought I would live to see the day that the Star Wars story came to an end.

This gave me chills and I’m not ashamed to admit that my eyes got a tiny bit watery.  I am a little annoyed at how skilled these Lucasfilm people are at manipulating my emotions.

I can’t wait.

I think I found my wordpress storage problem.  Without actually replacing them from the posts they were on (which means there will be holes in posts from the last few months) I deleted a few videos from my media storage.  My percentage used dropped from 97% to 64%.

Problem solved.

Last night’s band practice went all right.  We got a little goofy and dug up a few songs we haven’t played in a year or two, including Godzilla which Mike and I basically forced the other guys to play.  Sorry about that.

I have been feeling the return of an old friend lately, and yesterday it was an issue.  Going back all the way to about 1989 I have had occasional problems with pain and cramping in my left hand while I’m playing.  It usually starts with me squeezing the neck a little too hard and once it starts it becomes a pretty serious obstacle before it goes away.

When I first joined El Pez Lagarto it was a regular problem.  Pretty much every rehearsal would start out okay, but by the end of the second or third song I’d be hurting.  Playing around the 2nd fret seemed to make it worse, but sometimes first position would hurt as well.  I did some research and found some stretching exercises that help a little.  Over the years it has become less of a problem, but every once in a while it comes a-roaring back and makes it hard to play.

Last week it was bad.  Yesterday it was worse.  Oh good.  I powered through, as always, but the first 30-40 minutes was rough.  The last 30 minutes or so was rough too but for different reasons.

Sometimes you just run out of gas.  Sometimes you aren’t practicing enough (he said while looking in the mirror) and your stamina isn’t where it should be, and you over do it on a couple of solos and next thing you know your fingers just don’t do what your ears tell them to do.  That was me last night.  I tried to shred through this one AC-DC song and by the time it was over, I was toast.  Again, I powered through, but we were all laughing at my toastedness by the end of the night.  Especially through our hijacked Godzilla.

We are a month away from a gig.  I need to get myself into playing shape.  It’s a short gig, only one set, but that’s no excuse for laziness.  I have to get myself up to snuff.

Even through all the pain and suffering though, last night was pretty fun.