final off day of the first half. the first half ends sunday, at which point i'll be heading to lovely kansas city to watch the kansas city royals play the minnesota twins and to head to the negro leagues museum and that's it.

my traveling companion on this trip will be young steve, my little bro. as you probably know, my brother and i are the most similar of any of the rud siblings. here's a strange example why:

you'll recall, in an earlier entry this week, my discussing the purchasing of moneyball, the fascinating new baseball book. and you may recall that i purchased this book on amazon.com, using my amazon.com visa card that i obtained through junk e-mail. you may also recall that i plan to cancel the amazon.com visa card upon receiving the first bill. (word is that it shipped today. color me excited.)

well, being that my brother and i share similar interests, you may or may not be interested to know that he also purchased moneyball, although he did it a few weeks ago. being that we're in an internet age, it should probably not be completely surprising, then, that he purchased it on amazon.com. this happens. what is surprising, however, is that he purchased it on amazon.com using the amazon.com platinum visa card with the express purpose of using the amazon.com platinum visa card once, and only once, and only to exploit the offered discount on usage at amazon.com. how wild is that?