Good Day To Be A Bostonian(Game 33/Game 7)

The Boston Celtics are humiliating the Atlanta Hawks, beating them 99-65 in Game Seven of the first round in the NBA playoffs.

Meanwhile, at Fenway, Jon Lester is giving Boston another fine pitching performance, leading 4-0 against Scott Kazmir, who is a fine pitcher, making his 2008 debut.

So far, this weekend, I finished "American Brutus", a long, detailed account of Lincoln's assassination, "The Best Sportswriting of Pat Jordan", which was excellent, and "Ball Four", which I have probably read a dozen times. I couldn't find my copy, so I bought a new, updated one. I'm now working on "Hammerin' Hank, George Almighty and the Say Hey Kid".

Watching Kevin Garnett play basketball gives me the same safe, comforting feeling I used to get watching Larry Bird. Not that they play anything alike, only that, as a fan, you feel like "nothing can go wrong now, the Big Guy's here." Garnett plays with infectious, angry passion- defending actively and directing his mates with a confidence that must drive opponents nuts.

The Jazz are playing the Lakers on TV now. An assortment of strong players and personalities on both teams-Pau Gasol, Lamar Odom and Kobe Bryant for LA, and Andrei Kirilenko, Mehmet Okur, and Carlos Boozer for Utah.

Carlos Pena hits a solo home run to right to cut Boston's lead to 4-1 after 5 1/2.

I wish I had something profound to say, but I really don't.

There is a big company meeting on Thursday, and on Wednesday they want to have a meeting of all the people who aren't going to the big meeting so they can gather comments and such from the riffraff. Now, I am nothing if not riffraff, but I am not going to go. I know enough to know that they don't really want to know what I think, they want me to tell them that everything they do is just the wisest, smartest, coolest thing ever.

And I'm too old to lie like that.

That's one of the reasons why American business is so mind numbingly stupid. They preach openness and diversity, but what they really want is narrowness and greed. I've learned my lesson-ask too many questions and you start to get the feeling you'd be better off somewhere else.

As I keep saying on here, it is much, much easier to pretend that you care about customers than to actually do it.