...And The Red Sox Lose

Okay, I knew it was pretty unlikely that we'd win the World Series this year. After all, at the least we'd have to get through the Yankees, who were a thoroughly dominant team this year. And the National League is likely to send one of three truly excellent teams to the World Series - the Astros, Braves or Padres (pretty much in that order).

But who'd have guessed we'd lose to the Indians in the first round?

The Indians are not a great team. They have some truly awesome bats, but they have some players who have come down to their usual average levels (David Justice and Sandy Alomar, for instance). And their pitching staff is erratic at best; not one of their starters is truly reliable. And yet, they took down the Sox in four games.

This postseason has not featured great hitting; pitching has dominated, as many games have been of the 2-0 and 3-1 variety. The Sox and Indians each had one high-scoring game, but that was about it. And this wasn't a Sox weakness; our hitting has its holes, and our pitching has its holes, but each was pretty solid. I'd expected our pitching would get us through the first round all by itself, and then facing the Yankees would be a true test of whether we had the depth to go on. Alas, it was not to be so.

I am not as glum as I'd thought I might be. I knew it would be tough, that the Sox are not yet a great team, although we're heading that way. And the games were generally broadcast during the day, when I was at work, so I did not get to really see them. So I am not agonizing over this, and in a sense it will almost be a relief to be rooting for teams I have no true alleigance to (Houston and Cleveland; I like the Indians, even if they did beat us). It's less stressful that way.

But it is disappointing.

Meanwhile, the Cubs went down to the Braves in three games. I was also pulling for the Cubs, although I think they were probably the weakest of all eight playoff teams.

I stopped by American TV and Electronics, which was having their periodic sale at which they sell to the public at the prices their employees enjoy regularly. I wanted to investigate getting some auxiliary speakers for my stereo to put in my bedroom, but I didn't see any I liked. I'd forgotten that American is kind of spotty in some areas, like computer equipment and speakers. I have bought video equipment and my car stereo there, though. And also my TV.

I also wanted to check out PDAs, but it seems they don't carry them. So I looked briefly at their home theater cabinets (some of which were nice, but were in a traditional design, whereas I prefer contemporary) and ended up not buying anything. Oh, well. There's no rush. I can try Best Buy later on.

While I was downtown my work pager went off. I have to carry a support pager for my application roughly one week every two months. It's not usually a big deal, since it rarely goes off. In this case, it was a technical support person overseeing a customer's upgrade of our software calling with a problem they were having. I tried using the calling card to phone the customer, but the phone in the coffee shop would not accept the calling card. This is (I think) because all the pay phones on State Street have been rigged so you can dial a number, but touch tone doesn't work after that. Supposedly it's supposed to keep drug dealers from being able to check their answering machines remotely. Lame, huh? What idiot thinks up this stuff?

So I called the tech person back, she described the problem to me, and I suggested a fix. She said that the last time this happened it took another tech person several hours to solve, so she was doubtful my quick fix would work. I said to have them give it a try, and I'd walk home and could tackle it from there, if necessary (or even go into the office).

So I get home, and there's a message on my machine - the fix worked! And everyone was really happy with me. So that was nice, but obviously somewhat annoying, too. At least I didn't have to spend three hours trying to debug this problem.

I also had a message from my friend John in California. I called him, got his machine, he called me back, and we talked for an hour or so. We commiserated over the fact that we each have basically nothing to do on a Saturday night (I think this annoys him more than it does me), and made plans to see each other when he's in town over Thanksgiving (he grew up here in Madison). That should be fun! He also invited me out for Christmas, but I'm planning to go east and visit my folks then. Much as I'd like to see him. Maybe I'll take another trip next year.

But the heart of the book, of course, are the characters. Miles has a problem with authority, in that he is basically smarter than almost everyone else around him, and tends to take charge because he can bluff and command more naturally than many of his superiors. Which of course drives them to distraction (and sometimes into the brig). Miles' cleverness sometimes gets him in trouble, and sometimes gets other people killed. Miles faces his own doom not entirely bravely, working through all the possible nasty things his captors could to do him. Miles forces himself to focus not just on what he's doing, but why he's doing it (which obviously can leave him open to a "do the ends justify the means?" dilemma). The book is clearly Miles' book, and none of the other characters really come close to equalling his degree of definition. Having read a later novel in the series, Memory, I suspect that this will change.

Despite its plotting flaws, The Vor Game is always entertaining in its prose and (especially) dialogue, and Bujold always does a fine job of keeping things down-to-earth when they're starting to spiral out of control.

Now I need to read Joe Haldeman's Forever Peace for our book discussion on Thursday. Whew!

Michael Rawdon (Contact)