This year I watched some of the baseball playoffs again. It is strange. I can’t watch baseball during the regular season, but I usually don’t miss the playoffs. There are several reasons for this. 1. We don’t have cable TV, and there is very little baseball on the network TV. 2. The season is so long that individual games really don’t mean a lot. If you have 182 leaves on the tree, why bother going out into the yard to watch the 73rd leaf fall? (Not being able to make good analogies is like a car driving over a cliff. It is exciting for a while, but nobody gets the point.) 3. I really don’t have time for TV (which is the primary reason we don’t have cable).

But that all changes for the playoffs. Too bad the World Series was such a let down after the great ALCS.

One thing I got out of the playoffs that I did watch: I’m tired of the political ads. Since I don’t watch any other TV, I haven’t been seeing the advertisements. Now I’m back to the ad free world of no TV, and I am enjoying it.

Who are these undecided voters the candidates are trying to woo? The presidential campaign has been dragging on for what seems like forever, but in real life is only a year and a half (or ten dog years). If you don’t know who you are voting for by now, you haven’t been paying attention, and you probably shouldn’t vote.

My favorite Kerry ad is when they take strong statements he has made in the debates and speeches about how tough he will be on terrorism and they cut his statement right before he says “but….” To me it is a tacit admission that when he says “but….” he goes on to contradict the strong statement he just made. They edit the statements and play them back to back to try to fool the people who weren’t listening when Kerry made the original statement, and missed the implications of what came after the “but…”. Well, some of us were paying attention, and we don’t forget that easily.

It’s that “but….” that defines the difference on terrorism between Bush and Kerry. Kerry says a strong statement “but….” Bush says a strong statement “therefore….”

In the emergency backup dog world, the puppy is doing very well. She seems to fit right in to the family.

She hated her bath this afternoon. She cried the whole time, but didn’t get aggressive. She hated it, but submitted. And after it was all done, she didn’t hold a grudge. She treated us as if we hadn’t just committed puppy torture on her.

Funny, but if I forced something that unpleasant on a person, they would be angry with me for quite some time afterwards. But Tyme got over it immediately. I guess dogs aren’t people after all.

Everything isn’t roses and honey, however. She’s been with us for 24 hours and she still isn’t housebroken. Maybe she’s a slow learner. Well, there’s always tomorrow.

But the bottom line is, she has a sweet disposition, and she obviously loves the family. She has found her pack, and I think she plans to keep us. Now if she’ll just go outside.

I’ll close tonight’s random thoughts with a favorite lyric from Don Henley’s If Dirt Were Dollars.

I said, “Now baby, have you got no shame?”

She just looked at me uncomprehendingly

Like cows at a passing train

I’ve seen that look before. I saw it the time I told the librarian that I forgot to rewind the DVD I was returning to the library. She assured me that you don’t rewind DVDs.

I told, “I think you can, you just need special equipment.”

She just looked at me uncomprehendingly like cows at a passing train.

Some moments are priceless. Good night.