It's Saturday. I was looking forward to getting some good rest and seeing the alarm clock stay off as I dozed through double digits after a tiring week at the office. It didn't happen - not because the alarm went off, or because the phone rang, or anything normal. It was of course, the dog. Molly, our 16 year old beagle, has a certain lifestyle she's used to. So when it gets past 6:30, she's sure it's time for breakfast, and surely, if I'm asleep, she'll wake me up and remind me that I messed up somehow.

So this morning, her incessant whining and poking with her paw jarred me awake. I fed her, and there wasn't any way that I could go back to bed. Not that it bothered her any. She had no problem using the stepstool next to the bed, and launching herself into my spot, which was warm enough for her to begin her after-breakfast nap. She has a routine, you know.

It's only two weeks (and a day) until Oakland A's FanFest, where in the darkest months of Winter, the most dedicated fans have a chance to mix and mingle with their favorite players wearing the green and gold. I've never gone, but I've held a spot for the A's in my personal psyche for the better part of two decades now, and we're fully committed.

At the end of last season, as the A's came tantalizingly close to reaching the playoffs again, I put down cash to get playoff tickets all the way through the World Series. They didn't make it. So I took that money and placed it toward season tickets, and now my wife and I have a pair of field level tickets to every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday game. Should be a blast as the A's are going to be a lot of fun to watch in 2006.

As a perk to being a brand-new season ticket holder, today we received four tickets to FanFest, and free parking to boot. I can't wait. It's time to Play Ball!

When I was young, I don't remember sitting around and reading a lot of comic books. Sure, I read the comics each day in the paper, and enjoyed Calvin and Hobbes or Far Side collections that belonged to my brother or my dad, but I simply didn't have stacks of the latest from Marvel and DC Comics - just wasn't interested.

Now older, I enjoy comics that spark intellectual creativity or thought. Doonesbury is good most days. FoxTrot is outstanding. But my two favorite comics are Tom Tomorrow's This Modern World and Darrin Bell's Candorville. Both are a little outside of the mainstream, but connect with me in some way. For Christmas, I got myself Tom's "Great Big World of Tomorrow", and enjoyed that a great deal. Yesterday, I received Candorville's "Thank God for Culture Clash", and read it all in one sitting. The stuff's great!

A special wrinkle in this note is that I've known Darrin since 1997, when we met in college at UC Berkeley. He contributed weekly comics and editorial cartoons to the school paper, where I worked, and every once in a while, we'd both be stuck in the same, boring Mass Communications course, where I would struggle to stay awake, and he'd be doodling caricatures of the professor in the margins - which was way more fun to watch. Darrin and I went our separate ways after school, but he's really done well for himself, and it's great to watch his progress. If you're not familiar with Candorville, and his other works, including Rudy Park, it's time for a new New Year's Resolution.

(This list excludes things like our corporate Intranet, My Yahoo!, Google, etc.)

1. Athletics Nation
2. Slashdot
3. Engadget
4. TV Tattle
5. MacRumors.com
6. Drunken Data
7. Daily Kos
8. This Modern World
9. Drudge Report
10. News.com