Once upon a Sunday dreary . . .

1. Well, to start with, I made a good call last night. A. and I got home from Maine around 5:30 p.m., and because of Friday's rained-out school trip, I had two tickets for the second game of the Red Sox doubleheader. We were bone-tired, and the weather was not good, so I called evilnicola and she went with a friend. They lost, 12-0. But she said she had a good time. ;)

2. I have been doing a lot of popcorn reading lately:

• "Extreme Prejudice," by William W. Johnstone: Johnstone is the master of the tough, macho novels, either Westerns or post-apocalyptic. This one is modern-Amercian, drug tycoon agrees to sponsor terrorist acts in exchange for drugs from one of the Central Asia-stan countries. Crack task forces of former soldiers, secretly funded by lots of concerned rich people and maybe the government, comes onto the scene. Guess who wins? I love this stuff.



• The Summons, by John Grisham: This was a re-read that took me about a day. But then, almost anything Grisham wrote would be a re-read. Very thin in spots, but I did not remember it, so I plowed right through it. Kinda like eating Americanized Chinese food.

3. Currently reading "Old Man's War," by John Scalzi. I finally go around to picking it up. The sequel is in paperback, and the third book in the series is in hardcover. I also have "Senior Year," by Dan Shaughnessy, the great Boston Globe writer about his son's senior year of high school baseball at -- of all places -- Newton North.

4. Speaking of evilnicola, if you see her, ask her for her "two cents worth".

5. I am tired of people "demanding" things in the media. Can you say "entitlement?"

More to come.