Root for the home team!

I read an interesting piece which examines the idea of "the home team" - something that I've often wondered about. When watching professional sports, isn't it ridiculous to associate oneself with a team, just because the franchise is geographically close to your home? To take the analysis further, isn't the idea of a local team even more meaningless when you can be sure that virtually none of the players actually originated from the city that the team represents?

This may be especially true in baseball, where it seems as if the great American pastime has become dominated by expatriates from the Dominican Republic and Japan. But hey, I fully embrace and welcome this irony - it is the red-blooded American tradition to invent something, and then let others do much better at that thing.

Sports is funny - nothing about it makes sense when analyzed. Why should we cheer on the accomplishments of other people, especially when the "accomplishment" is throwing a ball through a net, or carrying a ball past an arbitrary line, and the people we cheer are often little more than steroid-riddled neanderthals? But we do, or at least I do; and sometimes the bad performance of your favorite team can ruin your day a little - another concept which is really ridiculous when you think about it.

Witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational comic site

I finally finished writing the various Python and bash scripts that act as the gum and duct tape for this site, so now I plan to settle into a regular weekly update schedule. Look for a new comic every Monday morning, starting next week.

This week has been very busy, fun, and rife with addiction, due in part to the following:

• The second season of Lost just came out on DVD, so Julia and I have been doing some marathon video renting and TV watching. This series is so addictive it boggles the mind.

• We recently joined our first fantasy football league, which I found to be more enjoyable than anything involving statistics and AOL has a right to be.

• The Cubs season is drawing to a close, and they are going out in style, doing what they do best: losing, losing, and losing some more. Yet I love 'em and can't stop following these guys. I figure all this abuse just makes me stronger. As George Will wrote, "Chicago Cubs fans are ninety percent scar tissue."

• Julia and I spent a great weekend in Georgia, visiting friends in Atlanta, and then running a 5K in Athens. I'll have to post the pictures I took when Kristian, Ed, and I walked around at Dragoncon in Atlanta. How often do you get to hang out with Orcs, superheroes, and Klingons all in the same day?