Sigh

I wish I were at the midnight showing of Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Rings right now. Instead of working on a Powerpoint presentation for work. I missed a Royal Tennenbaums screening tonight, too. There is a world between unemployment or relative work unimportance and being a bigwig, and in that world, you can't go to see the midnight showing of Lord of the Rings on a work night. I am in that world. It's called middle managers with big presentations coming up very soon.
The Cubs signed Moises Alou, which is not as great a thing as it sounds, but definitely still a net positive. What's really great is that since the Astros didn't offer Alou arbitration, the Cubs don't have to surrender any draft picks. Baseball rules are complex and sometimes silly, but arbitration is very easy to understand, and in most cases teams are too conservative about offering arbitration to their players. Usually, it's because teams are scared of being stuck with that player for one year. But the Cubs made out well this year. They offered arbitration to Todd Van Poppel, David Weathers and Rondell White, all of whom signed elsewhere. That means the Cubs will receive seven draft picks in the first two rounds of the 2002 amateur draft for 3 essentially
mediocre to slightly above average old players. That's a good good move.
I can't wait for Christmas break. You know how sometimes you just really, really....of course you do. I need it.