I'm feeling a little under the weather today. I think I could be getting sick again. If so, it would be the second time this month I have acquired some sort of illness. Not to mention the fact that I never totally got rid of the last one. I think may days as a smoker could be numbered. It could be allergies, it could be this warm / cold, dry / wet weather we've been having, or it could be something entirely different. But I know the smoking can't be any help.

- these thoughts flowed through Jeff's fingers @ 10:33 PM

Kerry Wood could lead the Chicago Cubs to victory against the Atlanta Braves tonight. It would be their first playoff win on the road since game three of the 1945 World Series. After Wood struck out the last batter in the seventh inning, the camera did a cut-away to his wife in the stands. Now I'm certainly not one to criticize women's fashions but Kerry's wife was wearing a brown business suit. Does that seem a little odd to anyone else? Your husband is the starting pitcher in his first ever playoff game and you're dressed to go to a stockbrokers meeting. Come on Mrs. Wood, loosen up a bit. Show some support for your hubby. It's ok, you can were a Cubs jersey,.... or a ball cap,..... or at least some blue.

- these thoughts flowed through Jeff's fingers @ 10:25 PM

I think cops should give out tickets for stupidity. Like when someone is speeding at least 15 MPH over the limit, through a red light at a major intersection a full 2.5 seconds after it has changed colors, in the middle of rush hour traffic, in the pouring rain, right in front of a cop car. And then when they are getting pulled over by the cop, they proceed to pull over on that same road (you know, the major 4 lane thoroughfare with no shoulder), but instead of turning into one of the many parking lots or side streets located along this road, they decide to stop on the street. Thus forcing the hundreds of cars waiting behind them to get on the highway (the on-ramp to which is about 200 Ft. in front of them) to merge and move around. And in addition, successfully blocking up the intersection where the light is that they just ran, contributing to more pissed off drivers and the potential for a real accident to occur. It's not so much the running the light on a major street, or the speeding in the rain that bothers me. Hell, I'm sure I've done something similar in my life behind the wheel. But come on, pulling over like that on the side of the road when there's a parking lot 20 Ft. in front of you should be an automatic $300 dollar stupidity ticket. That's above and beyond all the other traffic violations.

And yes, sadly, I did actually witness this today. I'm not usually one to complain about traffic, accidents happen, but then again so do stupid people.

- these thoughts flowed through Jeff's fingers @ 9:46 PM

Apparently, my commenting system is down for the day but it should be back up and running this evening according to the e-mail I got.

- these thoughts flowed through Jeff's fingers @ 4:56 PM

Ready?

The first official theatrical trailer for what could be the baddest-ass movie of all time (The Lord of the Rings : The Return of the King) is now in theaters as well as available for download from the internet. "Excuse me, Mr. Jackson, there's someone name Oscar holding on the phone for you!"

- these thoughts flowed through Jeff's fingers @ 7:19 PM

Well, the Redbirds season is officially over now. I promise I won't post another lengthy essay on why we screwed up or what I think we should do in the offseason. Instead I'll just say it was a good year, although somewhat disappointing. On a positive note, here are my top 10 memories / good things that happened to the Cardinals this season.

1. Albert Pujols: He's a god. For most of the season he was in contention to hit .400 or go for the triple crown. He did tie the record for most home runs by a player in their first three years and he edged out Todd Helton (by .0002) to win the NL batting title. Can't wait to see what he can do next year.

2. Edgar Renteria: He's getting better every year, and this year may have proven him the best all around shortstop in the NL. Finished the year with a .975 fielding percentage and only 16 errors (which is low for a shortstop that played 160 games). Also ended up with the 4th best Batting average in the NL with .330 and became the first Cards shortstop to hit 100 RBI's in a season. Just missed the 200 hit mark with 194.

3. Kerry Robinson's walk off homerun in the bottom of the 9th at home to beat the Cubs.

4. Jim Edmonds multiple defensive plays in center field. How many home runs did he steal away from hitters this year? How many runners did he gun down at home plate? How many body sacrificing diving catches did he make? I think I lost count after June.

5. Mike Matheny: Posted a flawless season behind the plate. A 1.000 fielding percentage. No, errors all year in 140 games. Pretty amazing huh? Not to mention one of his best years ever with the bat in his hands.

6. Bo Hart: Man what can you say. A+ for effort for Bo. I nicknamed him "The Spark". Made some amazing defensive plays this year as well as coming out for his first 20 games swinging a bat of fire. This guy gives 120% everyday. Maybe the kid can teach some of our veterans to do the same.

7. The Cardinals Bench Players: Cairo, Perez, Taguchi, Hart, Marrero, Robinson, and Palmeiro. Clutch hitting, solid defense, speed, and power. A well balanced arsenal at Tony's disposal. Expect to see Perez starting next year if we trade Drew or Edmonds.

8. Our Fans: Best in the world. I'm still impressed every time I go to a game.

9. Cards Defense in general: Are we shooting for 5 gold gloves this year?

10. Looking ahead to 2004. With some good offseason moves, we will be a World Series caliber team again.

- these thoughts flowed through Jeff's fingers @ 12:56 PM

Today I did a little Egosurfing by "Googling" my own name to see what would come up. I was hoping that my brand new little blog here would have somehow made it into the Google search databases already. I did get quite a few results for my particular name, but mostly information pertaining to other more well known Jeff Nunn's. And although my blog didn't show up yet in that particular search query, I did find a few links that had to do with me. Apparently, someone has stumbled upon some of my old college term papers and is now making a profit off them by hawking them to lazy students across the country. Here (fourth paper down on the page titled "George Berkley: His View of God) is a portion of a mid term paper that I wrote for my Philosophy of Religion class my junior year, and here (seventh paper down the page titled "Television: A positive or negative impact on children) is another I wrote my freshmen year for my Intro to Media Communications class. The latter even includes my e-mail address (I suppose it was stolen from the header of my paper since I used to include my e-mail address on everything I turned in at college) for anyone who wants to thank me for helping them get such good grades. I don't know exactly how this situation came to be, but my best guess is that some enterprising young teachers assistant was making top dollar by copying these babies and scanning them or retyping them in order to sell to "emergency term paper" sites. So to say the least, not exactly what I expected to find when I "Googled" myself.

- these thoughts flowed through Jeff's fingers @ 1:10 AM

I got to see my first hockey game of the season last night as the St. Louis Blues battled the Nashville Predators at the Savvis Center. A damn fine game it was too. And even though it was a preseason game, the atmosphere was just like any regular season game thanks to the surprisingly large crowd near about 75% capacity. Not bad for preseason vs. Nashville. The boys in blue played without top players such as Tkachuk, Mayers, Boguniecki, Pronger, and Jackman. We still won 4-1. As soon as I sat down, which was at about 5 minutes into the first period, got to see MacInnis blast a sweet slapshot past Thomas Vokoun. A good way to start my hockey watching season. Especially since we moved down to 9 rows behind the goal in the second period.

I was also impressed by a bunch of our rookies. One player to watch out for is Mike Danton formerly with the N.J. Devils. Since we traded Tyson Nash in the offseason, we needed to find someone to fill that energy/scrapper/pest role and hot damn have we found one. He started what ended up being about a 3 min. fight against someone quite larger than him and seemed to come out the victor. I'm anxious to see what this season holds for us. But I think we're off to a good start.

- these thoughts flowed through Jeff's fingers @ 8:56 PM

I'm at Karyn's house.... Her family has a Macintosh...... I want to post...... but everything is so different....will post tomorrow..... lata kids.

- these thoughts flowed through Jeff's fingers @ 1:08 AM

Slowly but surely this blog template is starting to take shape. For those of you who have been with me since day one, ahem, I mean yesterday, you'll notice that I have added the first and most basic features so far. Like a link to my email address by clicking my name in the footer of each post. I've also modified the footer so it's something a bit more creative than "Posted by". You may also notice the hit counter at the bottom of the page as well. It's not quite where I really want it right now, but eventually a lot of things on this page are going to move around. Such as the margins...... I moved those in a bit too. I think I may actually be getting the hang of HTML already. I screwed around with the color codes a bit too, but until I figure out a good color scheme that works, I'll stick with the template's colors. And I guess my greatest achievement so far was adding the comment feature. Something almost every blogger I have read has, but still not bad for my second day.

*Side note: I think it's hillarious that the spell check function in the editor wants to keep correcting the words "blog" and "blogger".

- these thoughts flowed through Jeff's fingers @ 1:12 AM

As of this moment the Chicago Cubs lead the Cincinnati Reds 4-2 in the bottom of the sixth inning. If the Cubs hold the lead for 9 more outs they will mathematically eliminate the St. Louis Cardinals from the playoffs. One of the worst parts about this is the fact that not only were we finally starting to look sharp again as a team, but the Cards don't even play today. So they will just have to sit there and watch this happen.

This will be the first time since 2000 that the Cards have failed to make the playoffs (thanks to Bryan S. for the correction), if my memory serves me correctly. Oddly enough, many of the fans in Cardinal Nation as well as analysts across the country believed that this was the best team St. Louis had assembled in at least a decade and probably since the 1982 team that won it all. Unfortunately, lack of consistent pitching, injures at almost every position (including bench players), and an apparent lack of motivation seems to be what did us in this year. But you have to admit we do have a phenomenal team. Four gold gloves in the field with a serious possibly for five or six this year, three players with over thirty homers (ok not quite, Rolen needs 2 more), two of the top Batting Averages in the league (Pujols and Renteria), three players with over 100 RBI's, and a slew of other stats that I won't take the time to mention. But alas, we just couldn't pull it all together all at the same time.

So what do we do? In my humble opinion (which happens to be shared by most true Cards fans) we start with pitching. Morris & Woody are certainly gonna be your 1 -2 punch next year. Maybe even keep Hitchcock as a #4 or #5 starter and possibly Kiko Calero if he heals well as your #4 or #5 starter or as a good long middle reliever. Tomko, with his improved ERA at the end of the season, and Danny Haren will certainly be worth keeping around as a setup guys. In the pen, Izzy, Eldred, Kline (only cause he's a lefty) and Dejean stay and that's it. All other pitchers go (unless they are making the league minimum).

Then, as much as I love him, you trade or release my boy Fernando Vina to free up salary. With the surprise appearance of Bo Hart and the quality of Miguel Cairo's time at second base, we should be fine there. Then, the tough decision , Drew or Edmonds. They both make a boatload of cash (with Edmonds making a bit more) and we have enough good outfielders to fill practically every outfield position in the NL Central. So it comes down to a few key things; age, leadership, injuries, and simply the quality of their play. While I know that someday J.D. Drew is going to be a superstar, you can't rely on that right now. Edmonds is one of the best defensive CF's we've ever had and he can hit like a mo-fo when his heart is in it (plus I just got an Edmonds jersey this year). So I say drop Drew. More salary available and if a trade could be made along with Vina or a good bench player, we could probably get a top 15 starting pitcher. I would like to get rid of Tino although I know he tries his hardest, but he just isn't doing what he should be. However, I think he may have a no trade clause for the rest of his contract, which runs out at the end of next year.

So I think that's about all we can do. We are a team made for winning, and made to win soon. So let's do it soon. Here's to a great season full of some awesome memories boys. I went to more games (15 I think) this year than I ever have and had a great time at each one. There's nothing better in sports than Cardinal's baseball during a St. Louis summer. Good luck next season guys, we'll see you in April. I'll watch these last three games content for now.

But until then............ Let's go BLUES!!!!

Update: As I finish this post the Reds are up 8-6 on the Cubs in the bottom of the 8th. Three more outs and we stay alive for another day.

- these thoughts flowed through Jeff's fingers @ 8:54 PM

Think we're any good at darts at the Majestic guys? Watch this video and then start practicing!! Then watch it again and cry.

- these thoughts flowed through Jeff's fingers @ 1:40 AM

As most everyone who will ever read this blog already knows, I tend to be sort of music crazy. It is a huge part of my life and I will probably write about it pretty frequently. So let this be the first of my music related posts......

Dave Matthews, as of yesterday, released his first solo album. I've heard mixed reviews about it so far, but the general consensus seems to be that it, well,.... sounds like Dave Matthews. Take that for what you will I suppose. One critic stated that without "The" as a prefix & "Band" as a suffix, Dave Matthews pretty much blows. On the other hand another reviewer commented that with or without the band he is still a great songwriter. I guess I'll just have to pick it up on my way home from work and see for myself.

- these thoughts flowed through Jeff's fingers @ 4:34 PM

Ok, so here it is, the much anticipated and long awaited web log by yours truly. I'm sure the look of this thing is going to change about a hundred times over the course of the next few weeks, but at least for now it's up and running. I most likely won't be posting all that much until I have this bad boy looking the way I want it too with all the features that I would like as well. But I'll see what I can do.

- these thoughts flowed through Jeff's fingers @ 1:06 PM

The test begins........ now........

- these thoughts flowed through Jeff's fingers @ 12:21 PM