Has It Been That Long? Month Eighteen/Nineteen

Sort of a double meaning there. It's been over a month since I or anyone posted to this site, and it's been over a year and a half since I packed up from Nashville to New York.

I had one of those moments on Wednesday where I really, really loved being here. I went to Union Square and it was snowing, more than just a trickle, not nearly a blizzard, but a perfect fall. And I went and bought a couple of hot dogs and a Coke on the corner. I stood on a sidewalk with snow falling all around me, enjoying my hot dogs, and even the guy coming up hawking his independently-produced hip-hop album just outside the Virgin Megastore didn't bother me. I gave one of his songs a listen before telling him I wasn't prepared to buy his CD (but I almost did, I was feeling that good). And then I went to watch Juno, one of the best movies of the year. Ahh, just one of those days where you feel right and positive and even a smile crept on my face.

I hated the snow in Nashville because it meant slick roads and dumb drivers. Here, I have no car, and the roads are often salted down immediately anyway, so snow is just a nice sight. You can enjoy it like you did when you were a kid and you thought school might be cancelled.

So, I've been following some Nashville goings-on, as usual. Preds, Titans, and the baseball winter meetings. The last time it was there, it produced some crazy trades and contracts. This year, people seem to be adhering to the Moneyball philosophy of not overpaying for one guy, which is smart but also completely boring. I think we have the so-called two-edged sword with those kinds of things: boy is it fun when players are getting dealt in megadeals and the entire face of a sport is seemingly changed in a few days, but then there's a hangover because those deals are at best a wash in overall impact.

The Predators seem to be playing about the same, maybe a little worse, than last year, but the problem is that all the teams in their division improved and thus, this struggle is kind of hard to recover from when all the other teams are playing a little better.

And the Titans are this year's biggest weirdo team. Seems like Albert Haynesworth, of all people, is the MVP because without him they couldn't win. It'll be a bit on fun around here around December 23 when the Titans face the Jets for the second time in the two years I've been here, only this time I know who the Jets fans are and it could be a braggin' rights kind of game. Of course, it's likely to be one of those 16-13 games that no one deserves to win.

All is well. Until next time...