Amazon has finally finished sending me packages from the order I mentioned here. They sent me four shipments overall, and I wound up extra copies of the Kinks book and Longyear's book on writing for free. This is the second time something like this has happened. Last year I got a duplicate of something I'd ordered as a gift. That was through one of their partners, though. Shrug...

The Red Sox have unceremoniously dumped Sean McDonough from their baseball broadcasts, which makes absolutely no sense to me. McDonough is one of the very best baseball announcers there is, and he's been doing the Sox for 17 years. He's also been tremendously loyal to the organization, turning down larger offers to go to other teams, most notably the Mets. It's a truly asinine move, much like when the Sox sent Jon Miller packing many years ago. Apparently McDonough was making much more than Don Orsillo (who is pretty much a clone of McDonough), and NESN isn't satisfied with all the dump truck loads of dough they're making by forcing the local cable systems to carry them as part of the basic cable package (don't get me started on that), so they're cutting salary, too. Pillocks.