No, seriously, at this point does anybody else get the impression that at this point, NBC is the woman who psychologically needs for some reason to keep going back to the bad boyfriend who mentally and physically abuses her, and the French Open is the guy in the wife-beater T-shirt with the mullet? Every year the French Open comes up with new tortures--hey, let's have two Spaniards in the final, or two Belgians, or no Americans past the third round, or Iva Majoli as the champion, or a string of champions as likable as Muster and Kafelnikov (non-tennis fans: think Albert Belle and Latrell Sprewell, but foreign), or two Spaniards in the final yet again, or the guy who'd never won a Grand Slam match before in the finals--and every year NBC comes back to take its ratings bitch-slapping like a pre-buff Tina Turner. When your Saturday opening voice-over touts the battle of the Walloons versus the Flemish, and your Sunday voice-over includes Bud Collins saying "What's the tall guy's name again?," chances are you're not drawing in a whole lot of casual fans.

In other news, I went to the Pirates game last night. Since the Red Sox are in town for the first time since the first World Series, it was Turn Back the Clock Night. The players wore 1903 uniforms, the scoreboard showed only an image of an old-fashioned hand-kept scoreboard, there were no replays or musical interludes, the PA announcer stood on the dugout with a (n amplified) megaphone, and there was no pierogi race. The promotion was not totally authentic, however: concessions saw no throwback to old-time pricing, and they let the black guys play. Jeff Reboulet even stole a base and scored the winning run, which was appropriate since he was the only guy on the field who was actually playing professional baseball in 1903.

Oh yes, and as part of the promotion, everyone was handed some literature on baseball in 1903 on the way into the park, with a full recap of the '03 Series and a lot of Did You Know type of information. I know this would have been timelier last week, but I noted that one of the people listed as born in 1903 was Bob Hope. Two of the others: George Orwell and Lou Gehrig. That put Mr. Hope's longevity into perspective for me real quick.

Finally, we fired two more people at work today, which meant one more day of walking on eggshells. At least my boss decided that I didn't need to go through the whole drama scene again, and told me to go home at 4 before the actual calls were made. There's nothing like a lot of firings to keep up employee morale, and I think I speak for everyone this Monday when I quietly whisper, "Who's next?" Of course, as long as we can hold out for seven more weeks, it won't be me...