i was thinking about this when i was in the bathroom just now, taking out my contacts. pedro martinez is hurt. there might be a chance he won't come back until september, if not sitting out the entire rest of the season. but i was thinking, is he really that important to the team? yeah, i know, blasphemy! i could get my red sox fan license revoked for saying something like that! but a pitcher only pitches every 5th game or so. at most if he's really good like pedro, the team (red sox) is guaranteed a win on the days that he pitches. but in recent games with pedro, it hasn't been so cut and dry. true, some of those games where he lost or had no decisions, it's not entirely his fault because the red sox defense might be lacking or offense not producing the tall jacks. i think the red sox would hurt more if manny was out, versus having pedro out. now if we can only get back players like nomar, everett, valentin, and varitek, then i really like our chances. i guess i subscribe to the theory that you win games with good hitting, not good pitching. maybe as a red sox fan, i've been spoiled by the pitching. pitching's not a concern because the red sox pitching has been pretty consistent (not the best, but good enough to win games). it's the occasional lack of offense that sort of makes me scratch my head.

so my friend andrew called me back tonight, asked if i wanted to help him out and get that cellphone plan. i regretfully told him no, and then asked him straight on, is this some sort of pyramid scheme? without hesitation he agreed with me, that it is a form of pyramid scheming, but the politically correct lingo is multi-level marketing and the keyword is home business. he said some people get defensive when the phrase pyramid scheme is brought up, but he has no qualms in freely admitting that it is such a scheme, but it's just a marketing method, and the one that he's associated with is pretty legit, with real financial backing and stocks and the company ceo interviewed in major business publications. he has to get 20 customers before he can start recruiting. so far he has 7 culled from various friends and family members. i still find it kind of suspicious, but if that's what he wants to do, i support him, i just can't give him any money. besides, isn't that a golden rule, money and friendship should never mix?

(upper left) i bought these rubber goldfishes from a store in harvard square. i wanted to set up an underwater landscape in my cube area, complete with fake sea grass cut from green felt and these goldfishes suspended from invisible strings anchored to blue sticky tacks. little did i know these goldfishes would be too heavy for the sticky tacks and after a few hours they'd rip off from from those adhesive blue globs, invisible string and all. i give up on my dream of creating an underwater fantascape and stuck these goldfishes with sticky tacks to my macintosh monitor. (upper right) this soft fortune kitty doll i purchased from newbury comics. it sits on top of my pc monitor. i'd love to tell you that i've been amassing vast fortunes since acquiring the auspicious kitty, but that's just not true. the fact that i bought this kitty doll for something like $8 is proof that i'm probably losing money. i never thought about it, but both the fortune kitty and the goldfishes are symbolic of luck and wealth, two things i have very little of. (lower left) this is an instant photo sara shapiro took of me with her polaroid i-zone camera. i have it hanging in my cube space because i'm a narcissist and enjoy periodically looking at photos of myself to buoy my inflated ego. (lower right) i bought this iron-on patch in a new york city chinatown martial arts shop one weekend trip ago. it has this sort of retro cool, cause really, nowadays, who would honestly brag that they're a member of the bruce lee kung fu team?