Updates 'n' stuff

My mother's condition has improved over the last week. She is still having some discomfort, but is in relatively good spirits. We saw her doctor Friday. He removed her from the oxygen, and feels that the course of treatment that involves drying up her body's estrogen will keep this type of cancer under control. Thank you, everyone, for your concern, thoughts, and prayers.

The ballgame was excellent. Our seats were in Homer's Landing, an area just behind the center field fence where all-you-can-eat hot dogs, bratwurst, and nachos, along with beer, are included in the ticket price. I had hoped to meet up with Brother Holland, who decided to come over from Kansas City for the game at the last minute, but he was up in the nosebleed seats and we couldn't make connections. He said that he began wandering the ballpark early, since he'd never been to the new Busch Stadium before, and was stuck behind some obnoxious fans. The game was excellent. The Cardinals won 3-1. New acquisition Matt Holliday hit two home runs, and ace Chris Carpenter pitched the full nine innings in his usual efficient style.

*****

The information superhighway to Pole Hill is fully paved at long last. Having given up all hope that AT&T will ever offer broadband in this corner of redneck suburbia, we bit the bullet and signed up with Satan, er, Comcast. Expensive, but it's nice to finally have a 21st Century connection here. Followed that up by buying a nice Gateway rig with one terabyte of hard drive capacity. When I got home, my baby even had it all put together for me. Guys, if you find a gal who will put your computer together for you, that's a good sign that she's a keeper.

*****

Here's a meme I picked up from Kathleen. It's one of those Facebook things. If you haven't seen your bloggy friends lately, Facebook is probably the first place you should look.

Rules: Don't take too long to think about it. Sixteen books you've read that will always stick with you. First sixteen you can recall in no more than 16 minutes. Tag 16 friends, including me because I'm interested in seeing what books my friends choose.

I was actually able to do this in not much more than 16 minutes.

1. Ball Four, Jim Bouton
2. The Rape Of The APE, Allan Sherman
3. The Worldly Philosophers, Robert Heilbroner
4. Manufacturing Consent, Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman
5. The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
6. Democracy For The Few, Michael Parenti
7. Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain
8. Les Miserables, Victor Hugo
9. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky
10. The Civil War, Shelby Foote
11. The Call Of The Wild, Jack London
12. Rock From The Beginning, Nik Cohn
13. The Heart Of Rock And Soul, Dave Marsh
14. My Life, Bill Clinton
15. The Glory Of Their Times, Lawrence Ritter
16. The Holy Bible

Tagging people is so 2005. If you want to give this a shot, leave your list in the comment box, or post it to your blog and leave me a link.