This is the year, the year the Red Sox break the curse, defeat the Yankees, win the World Series.

In Pedro we trust.

Derek Powazek writes about how the two Gulf Wars have bookended our generation.

These gulf wars are the bookends of my generation. From seventeen to twenty-nine, from high school to a salary, from home to away, from the last glimpse of childhood to the first glimmers of middle age.

I miss the certainty I had during the first gulf war. I miss being a teenager and knowing, really knowing, that this was wrong. I miss having all the answers.

Syracuse has made it!

Nothing matches the joy of watching your team destroy another on a 55″ TV (Thanks, McGilvrays!).

On to New Orleans…

Spotted on JD Lasica’s site:

You know the world’s gone mad when the best rapper is a white guy, the best golfer is a black guy, the tallest guy in the NBA is Chinese, the Swiss hold the America’s Cup, France is accusing the USA of arrogance and the Germans don’t want to go to war.

Former Bruins coach, and current Hockey Night in Canada studio host, Don Cherry went on an extended pro-American rant (real audio feed) during the “Coach’s Corner” intermission feature. The Canadian Broadcasting Company is not amused.

Boston.com Travel is hosting cluetrainer David Weinberger’s Italy travel blog.

Syracuse beat Auburn last night to join the elite eight.

Oklahoma on Sunday will be a tough one, but even if we don’t win, it’s fun to still have a dog in the fight.

Slate on Dante’s current popularity, and the relevance to our world of a poem written hundreds of years ago.

Once again, there is an ironic counterpoint between the 13 th century and the 21 st . Dante could imagine vivid bodily tortures because he believed completely in the soul; our world inflicts those tortures because it doesn’t believe in the soul at all.

If you’re looking for a good translation, I’m a fan of Ciardi’s.

My other favorite random Dante moment is the reference in my favorite Bob Dylan song, Tangled Up in Blue:

She lit a burner on the stove and offered me a pipe
“I thought you’d never say hello,” she said
“You look like the silent type.”
Then she opened up a book of poems
And handed it to me
Written by an Italian poet
From the thirteenth century.
And every one of them words rang true
And glowed like burnin’ coal
Pourin’ off of every page
Like it was written in my soul

This is a nifty tool which analyzes a webpage’s download profile. This site does pretty well — the magic of having almost no graphics — with a download time (via WebWord)

Here’s one for all you folks in Arlington: Re-elect Dan Dunn as your Town Meeting Member.

Songstress extraordinaire Jess Tardy will be at Johnny D’s Tuesday night. If you are in or around Davis, you should stop by.

I had an obvious spam get through my Apple mail.app spam filter this morning. Because this is pretty rare–I get many spams, but the spam filter is trained well enough to catch most of them–I decided to investigate.

First, I turned off the AirPort to thwart any spying server calls. Upon opening, the mail contained only a broken (because of no Internet connection) graphic. I viewed source on the mail to see what it was doing; turns out it was written in Base64, so the entire contents of the email were gibberish. By having nothing the spam filter could key off, the mail got through to my inbox.

Tricky, tricky, tricky. I’m so tired of the ever-escalating spam arms race. Who are the idiots who actually buy anything from these people?

On the left-hand rail, you will find a new search box, which triggers a Google search of this site. I apparently express my Patriots love quite often.

Butler sends Pitino packing! Woo hoo, long live Butler pride!

I was just walking down Broadway, in Kendall Square across from the Cambridge Center Marriott, when I saw a hawk swoop down and land on a pigeon. The hawk just stood on the pigeon digging in with its talons for a while; when I left, it was starting to go at the carcass with its beak.

I’ve seen vultures before, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen a hawk up close.

The Orangemen take on Oklahoma State at 2:30.

Bob Ryan takes potshots at Syracuse fans while praising Jim Boeheim for being able to build a dynasty in, of all places, Syracuse.

When someone finally sits down to write the definitive history of college basketball, he or she will have to confront one of the most puzzling mysteries the sport has ever known. Simply put, Jim Boeheim was able to construct a legitimate college basketball dynasty in … Syracuse ?

Syracuse. Have you ever been to Syracuse? Gloomy doesn’t begin to describe it. Each winter, people in Buffalo go around saying, ”Well, at least we don’t live in Syracuse .” I think I once read that no major American city gets less sunlight on an annual basis than Syracuse. So how has Boeheim managed to attract quality players from as far as California, when the reality is they’ll be spending the next four years of their life in, gulp, Syracuse ?

Ryan’s just jealous because Syracuse types dominate the media landscape, especially in sports.

This morning’s Times writes about how news sites are performing under the war-related traffic strain.

ComScore Media Metrix, which measures Web traffic patterns, reported that on Thursday, the most recent day for which complete figures were available, worldwide traffic to major news media sites was up 70 percent over an average day during the previous four weeks. On Thursday, for instance, average daily traffic worldwide increased 200 percent for CNN.com, 218 percent for Foxnews.com and 207 percent for CBSnews.com, ComScore Media Metrix said.

The sites I’ve been checking to keep informed, Boston.com, NYTimes.com, and CNN.com, all seem to be holding up well.

I just saw my first Segway, as it cruised down Harvard Street. I guess they are now officially out in the wild.

I’ve been reading Boston Common every day for the past few weeks. Adam Gaffin compiles a series of relevant postings from Boston-area bloggers. It’s an interesting cross-section of opinions from local folks.

Here is their list of Boston blogs sorted alphabetically. Here’s another list of Boston blogs, sorted by most recently updated.

Tivo was kind enough to tape Once More With Feeling for me last night.

I hadn’t seen it since it originally aired in November, 2001. It holds up very well; OMWF still qualifies as one of the finest hours of television I have ever seen.