two straight days of shorts and t-shirts have left me spoiled. i'm pretty sure we'll get killed by rain in the next two days. but we hit 70's today, and i celebrated by walking to the office and then locking myself inside for about 8 hours.

it's that time of year, but i feel strangely accomplished at this point. sure, there are several things that need to get done by wednesday aftenroon (like, uh, record one or two or 14 radio spots), but the program is in order and my intern is competent enough that he can handle a fair amount of things. basically, the team shows up monday at about five. it's an all-new group, as we've got a new affiliate, so i'm looking forward to it but also not looking forward, in a way.

the main thing is that, but for editing, the program is done. i think i'll finalize it by the time the bus leaves thursday morning. if that happens, it's smooth sailing.

while i was doing laundry and dishes and inventory yesterday afternoon, i was listening to the american idiot record. it's ambitious, but i think it's pretty effective. by no means is it as good as a lot of my favorite records from last year, but it's certainly worthy of the praise heaped upon it, which is nice.

because i've got nothing else to write about, and because it seems appropriate, it's time for my major league baseball picks. sadly, there's no old guy radio for me to make them on, so i'll settle for here:

american league:
east: yankees - they've got reason to be playing with a bit of a chip on their proverbial shoulder, and the additions of pavano (realish deal) and unit certainly outweigh the fact that arod's a confirmed loser
central: twins - they've not really improved from last year (cuddyer for koskie is a wash) and they've still got a hole in their lineup (dh) and a question at short and, for that matter second, and their rotation's not particularly good after the 1-2 punch, but nobody in the division's taken a step forward. or, anyway, detroit hasn't taken enough of a step. (although bonderman will be an animal this year.)
west: i'd say that the angels have too much talent to not win. texas is my number two pick, but buck showalter is sort of like a lot of managers in that his system simply becomes annoying after a while.
wild card: boston. why not?

mvp: derek jeter. if he didn't suck for two months last year, his numbers would have been incredible.
cy young: unit.
rookie of the year: scott kazmir, who'll win about 14 games. let's pick tampa for the third spot in the al east this season. perhaps they'll crack .500.
manager of the year: when the angels win 104 games, it's got to be mike scoscia (sp?)

national league:
east: just for fun, i'll pick the mets. david wright will break out. the middle infield will be great. they've got great defense at first and at least in center and right. and pedro-glavine-leiter isn't all that bad at the top.
central: st. louis. it's tough to replace matheny-renteria-womack with molina-eckstein-grudzielanek, but people forget that renteria wasn't particularly good last year. they've got an ace now, provided mulder is healthy.
west: dodgers? nope. d-backs? nope. rockies? nope. (maybe? nope.) by default, it's peavy and otsuka and hoffman on the mound and loretta and greene (very good middle infield) and burroughs and nevin and klesko, i guess.
wild card: i can't see it being the cubs. not with burnitz playing a central role. not with prior dl'ed, not for an injury, but for 'precautionary' reasons. if not the cubs, it falls to one of the al east teams, florida or atlanta. i think atlanta is about as good as last year's club, so i'll go with them. i hope smoltz wins 20.

mvp: miguel cabrera
cy young: carlos zambrano
rookie: freddy guzman, san diego. dave roberts sucks, and this guy will steal 80 bases. (i saw him, going by the name pedro de los santos, and going by an age 26 months younger, in 2002. woof!)
manager: willie randolph.

series pick: yankees over braves. that's fun.