recently the baseball playoffs have been going on. i suppose that logically this must mean that the baseball season is almost over. in reference to this time of passing, i must say, "good riddance! why's it taking so long?"

yes, these baseball playoffs have taken forever with no end in sight. usually i don't even notice these things, but this year, something possessed fox to start airing baseball games. fox happens to be the network i tend to watch most often, because of all the non-cable channels (we don't have cable at my new house) it has the most shows i want to watch. of late however fox has won a new award: the most shows i want to watch pre-empted.

one of the highlights of my evenings for the past few years has been back-to-back syndicated reruns of the simpsons. however since baseball playoffs began, the times when the simpsons have been on the air at all have been few & far between. tonight was like a miraculous reprieve, which must mean there's another game tomorrow. the simpsons wasn't even aired on sunday the past 2 weeks thanks to stupid baseball. it's bad enough that this idiot sport has interfered with syndicated reruns of one of my favorite shows, but when it creeps into the time when new episodes are supposed to air (or at least more recent reruns), things become more serious. we're talking treason: high crimes & misdemeanors.

i've never been one for sports. i just can't get into them, & if that means i'm not a "real man" then i'd rather be a designer imposter. it's silly. they're just games, & the only fun in games is playing them. i just can't get psyched about a game that not only am i not playing, but nobody i know is on the team either.

when i was in high school i went to a lot of my school's football & basketball games, but i didn't really go for the sports. i went as a socialization tool, because i had so few friends. it was a failed experiment, of course; i was too self-conscious, too introverted, too screwed-in-the-head to go socialize. i usually ended up sitting by myself somewhere, or sitting with a group of students but not really talking to any of them. at least there were girls to watch.

& when it comes to sports, honestly, baseball is one of the suckiest. there's so little action that it's like watching c-span during a vote. people walk around, & there's a board with numbers on it to tell you the progress. even football & basketball i can understand more than baseball. football has people running into each other & getting hurt. basketball has people running & jumping & showing off. but baseball has no showmanship.

i'd rather watch lacrosse, or tetherball, or track & field. the "world's strongest man" contest has baseball beat by a mile. that has huge appliance-size people pulling buses behind them or throwing logs the size of my house. what does baseball have? people trying to hit a little ball with a stick. once a half-hour there's a quick burst of activity, just long enough for you to blink & miss it.

i understand that baseball is an american sport, but what does that really say about americans? that we're too lazy to play a game that requires actual work? the only reason anyone watches it is because they've had plenty of beer. & in my opinion, beer is about the worst alcoholic beverage around.

anyway, i'll be quite relieved when this is all over. great american pasttime my ass. it's a great waste of time if you ask me.