Virgin Territory

I'm posting this movie poster for a number of reasons. (Posting this poster? Yikes. That's fine bloggin'.) One, Steve Carell is just about the funniest person alive, and this photo cracks me up. Two, The 40-Year-Old Virgin is freaking hysterical. It helps to like lowbrow comedies (like this one that's on HBO and its various offshoots eight times a day), but Virgin is smart and sweet in addition to extremely vulgar (verbally). Lastly, for whatever insane reason, the version on the left at some point morphed into the incorrectly punctuated version on the right. And that's worth a bit of mocking. Oh, and check out this interview with Carell at the Onion.

Off to Wrigley tonight, and I also went Sunday, in part to see Ryne Sandberg's jersey-retirement ceremony. There are three other retired Cubs uniforms: Ron Santo, Billy Williams and Ernie Banks. As much as I have emotional ties to those guys, it's largely because of old film clips and books; I was 4 in 1969, and these three were all retired by the time I was 12. I have vague memories of seeing them play, but Sandberg is a guy who I watched and admired from Day 1 of his Cubs career. Whenever I play on a softball team where we get jerseys, I wear his number, 23. (It's for Jordan, too, of course, but still...) The point? I got a little misty at the ceremony, OK?

It's interesting going to games these days. The Cubs are all but mathematically eliminated from playoff contention (a rarity since 2002, if you can believe it for a team with such a sorry history), so there's really no tension, no pressure -- just meaningless games in the best park in the world. You want them to win, of course, you always do -- Sunday's game was a welcome rout -- but in the end, it's just about the pure experience of watching the game and taking in the atmosphere. As much as I hate that this team went in the tank, it's almost refreshing to go to the park right now. Ask me again next year, and I likely won't be as forgiving.