Ten Random Early Week Thoughts

1. I took some time to clean the cobwebs out of my blogroll today when I added washingtonpost.com's D.C. Sports Bog (that's "bog" not "blog" ... but it is a blog) by Dan Steinberg – he was very eager to have his blog's name pushed in front of my robust readership of 16 visits a day and even offered a bribe, but my readers are loyal and no matter what anyone offers I refuse to tell my mom how to spend her Internet time... Cleaning my blogroll became an experiment in fan interest in the two competing local baseball teams. I did the Orioles first, and probably half of the O's blogs I had listed either died or hadn't been updated since April. I expected a similar result with the Nats because people just naturally lose interest in keeping up a blog, but almost all of the Nats blogs were still alive and running, and posting even after the Nats were done playing. I guess Nats fans haven't been sufficiently beaten down by losing the way O's fans have. (Side note: I thought everyone wanted Frank Robinson fired and thought he was a terrible manager, but now that F. Robby's gone every blogger is making weepy posts about it...)

2. After watching last night's Ravens vs. Broncos game, I really think it's time to give Jamal Lewis a game off. I don't know if he's still injured or what, but it's bad when every time a running back makes a big play you think, "Damn. About time," and then it turns out it wasn't the feature back. Musa Smith and Mike Anderson have both looked healthier, quicker, and more agile than Jamal Lewis all season. Let's see what they can do.

3. I told my brother before the Ravens game that I thought it was entirely possible that the Ravens would find themselves 4-4 despite starting 4-0. After losing to the Broncos they get Carolina at M&T on Sunday, then after a bye week it's on the road to New Orleans, then back home to face the Bengals. If they can even win one of those they'll be in decent shape at the halfway point, but if they lose all three they'll have a tough time bouncing back given their remaining schedule.

4. The Redskins should get healthy against Tennessee, so the gloom of this "Redskins suck, my life is over" attitude hovering over the nation's capital should be gone come Monday.

5. Tony Kornheiser is at his best on Monday Night Football when he's making fun of Joe Theismann. Other than that he rarely has anything of value to add, although that's impossible to know for sure because Theismann never shuts up.

6. Joe Theismann's was a good restaurant. It sucks that it closed.

7. A follow-up on my first Caps post of the year: Dan Steinberg did some investigative reporting for the D.C. Sports Bog on what happens to all the hats that fans throw on the rink after a hat trick. He also came up with a total for the opening night hat trick celebration: 99 hats. Although that was after some people had come by to "claim their hats" – their being used liberally. He also said he found as many Orioles hats (1) as Nationals hats, which is strange because I definitely saw about five times more curly W's than cartoon birds in the stands. What could that mean? Did the Nats fans not throw their hats? Are a higher percentage of Orioles fans than Nats fans willing to part with their hats because the O's have sucked longer? Did the Nats fans just come down and pick up their hats sooner? Is all this meaningless because the sample size is so small? Discuss.

8. If the Caps trade 5-2 wins and losses all year, they'll make the playoffs. And actually give up 13 less goals than they gave up last year. Ouch.

9. After three years of waiting by angsty 20-somethings like myself, Saosin finally released their first full-length CD, and I'm hooked. It's like Thrice, only good. (Really I'm not all that angsty... I bought the new Keane CD the same day.)

10. There's no local sports on tonight and it's Tuesday, so no football. But I'm here to help, so here's what I'll be watching tonight: At 7 p.m. the Flyers take on the Rangers at Madison Square Garden on Versus (formerly OLN) and I'll be cheering for both teams to lose, then at 8 (and by 8 they mean intros start at 8, so I'll actually have time to watch the whole hockey game that should end around 9:40) I'll switch to Fox for Tigers vs. Athletics in ALCS Game 1 so I can cry about how I wish the Orioles had any shot at all to get Barry Zito.