notes from the past few days:

i saw the tail end of the mtv awards on replay tonight. (by 'tail end,' i mean less than five minutes.) missy elliot thanked a whole bunch o' people, presumably because 'work it' rocked the awards, and then chris rock said 'and now to remember the last 20 years of the vma's, here's metallica.' so metallica played a four-song instrumental medley, ostensibly to honor the last 20 years. their songs: lenny kravitz - 'are you gonna go my way,' nirvana - 'smells like teen spirit,' the white stripes - 'seven nation army', and michael jackson - 'beat it.' i mean, really. on so many levels.

the cubs bullpen angers me. i'm quite happy that i've not been able to see the last few games. today, i asked 40-something ex-reliever gary lucas if he'd be interested in a job (asking on the cubs behalf - - he's a lefty, and only a few years older than jesse orosco), but he declined. cubs're fucked.

my sister is departing for sarah lawrence college about 2 hours from now. barbara walters went to sarah lawrence college. i hope my sister gets to interview j-lo.

i've really enjoyed watching andy roddick for a few years now. i've loved tim henman every late-june, early-july for the past seven or so years. it was real tough to watch them play on tuesday, but i taped it, and watched every point. roddick seems to have tuned down the foot-stomping, whiny kid routine, which is nice. and the crowd loves him. it's neat to watch, but i don't think the crowd'll ever love him like they love jimmy connors. didja watch connors about 1990, the year he used the neon yellow racket? that was outstanding.

did you know the trucker cap thing has reached critical mass? roddick had one. and so did james hetfield of metallica.