Oneidine 14, 27.

CONCEPT

COMMENTS:
- Spring is here! We can probably trace the beginning of what we'd call "spring" to the beginning of last week, which was around eight weeks from Groundhogs day. I don't fault Phil, though. He isn't given the opportunity to prognosticate a time-frame, and really, from February 1st, such predictions would be beyond the best meteorologists in the first place. Six weeks was definitely closer than "right away." Take that, Staten Island Chuck. I did denounce you soundly!
- Storms are brewing across the plains and the south. It's not quite clear if they're going to hit Chicago. Also, a cold front will be moving through on Thursday and Friday. But this time, a cold front means 40s and rain, not 20s and snow. Naturally, different people will have different feelings about that.
- Later this month, we'll have generous views of Jupiter and Saturn, assuming Chicagoans can get sufficiently far from the city (I barely espied Mercury last month, and I'm not even positive it was Mercury). For the next several weeks, we'll be better to content ourselves with Mars. There's also an eclipse which will be vaguely visible in the South this Friday. If only someone were to live in Atlanta...
- Now that I've covered the weather and the stars, it's time to move onto a real force of nature: baseball. The season opened yesterday while I was at work. And the only team that matters, the Detroit Tigers, shattered the other guys with Dmitri Young hitting three home runs over a 110% capacity crowd. Of course, it helps when the "other guys" are the Royals, but I'm not going to bitch. Elsewhere of note, the White Sox beat the Indians 1-0, in what must have been a truly exciting game (the one run was in inning seven, so I suppose that's some slight drama, the Cubs slaughtered Arizona, and Cincinatti beat the Red 7-6. If I'm going to be living in New York, I'd best start warming up to the Mets, since I'll never warm up to The Man.
- Yesterday I finished out the early Easter church blitz revisiting Holy Name for the Feast of the Annunciation. I got home at about seven, full of plans, but too tired to pull them off. I did, however, between three naps, manage to clean a good portion of my room and dig up most of my tax forms. It really, though, was nothing but preparation for today. If today goes well, I'll clean the kitchen, continue to clean my room, and maybe even squeak in some work in Chinatown before the scavhunt meeting tonight.
- These days are busy days.

COUNTRY OF THE DAY
Jersey (British Crown dependency).

WORD OF THE DAY
Shibboleth.

NEWS OF THE DAY
Detroit Free Press: Who needs hockey? City alive again with baseball. By Mitch Albom.

PICTURE OF THE DAY
Dmitri Young. The Detroit News.

QUESTION OF THE DAY
Which team will you be rooting for this year?