Peace to Dirt Dog. I'm Back like Deja Vu.

Last night I saw a preview screening of "Iron Man" with K-Dogg. The movie comes out this weekend so I can't claim great exclusivity like when we saw "Spider-Man 3" last year a few weeks before it came out. But I've always held Iron Man as one of my favorite comic book characters so I've been looking forward to the movie since it was just a rumor.

In the grand thrust of movies based on comic books coming to the screen, there are a select handful including the original X-Men movie, "Batman Begins" and "Spider-Man 2" which encompass the upper eschelon. Those are movies which are good enough to stand up on their own irregardless of genre in the same way "Star Wars" is more than just a sci-fi film.

The next level down from that is where "Iron Man" belongs. It's a good movie and I was thrilled as a comic books fan to see they stayed faithful to the character. Like the first "Spider-man" movie or the Thomas Jane "Punisher" film, it's really good for the genre and should do a good job satisfying both the fans of Iron Man and the general public who is properly meeting the character for the first time.

One thing which did stick out for me about the movie was the enemies in the movie were Taliban-esque warlords in Afghanistan. And for the first time since our Global War on Terrorism began, it didn't feel heavy-handed to have them be the enemy. Perhaps it's because it's the last year of GWB's presidency and perhaps it's because the "with us or against us" rhetoric has died down since Rumsfeld resigned.

I think a bigger part of it is the movie's self-awareness showing that it's not guys who live in caves and warm themselves around woodfires who are making the guns being fired at our military. In a way, it is both literally and metaphorically our own imperialism being fired back at us. That little extra is what distinguishes making an Iron Man movie from making a movie about a man in a flying metal suit.

FREE JASON KUBEL!!!

One of the great disadvantages to living so far from home is being a sports fan deep in enemy territory. You're out of synch with the people around you and that can be a lonely feeling. When your hometown team's rookie wide receiver or rookie running back runs like a goddamn gazelle with its ass on fire through the defense of the team representing your temporary home, you will hardly find a sympathetic ear for your cries of triumphant joy. You simply become That Guy, i.e. the out-of-towner who shatters the "my team is actually superior to yours despite the fact I only cheer for this team because of where I was raised." Noone wants to become That Guy.

Your love for that which has mattered to you since you were old enough to sit with your dad in front of the TV or pick up and read the sports page becomes a chaste love. Like a war widow, you follow the travails and victories of your chosen via dispatches and report. It is a quiet place where you live and it is a quiet fandom you follow. Until the day your beloved visits you in your far off temporary home. Then it's on like Donkey Kong.

Last summer I had a co-worker who bought season tickets in the upper deck at Comiskey. Since they're a family with small kids, they put more than a few of the tickets up for sale and I snatched up the Twins games. Not a few here and there. All of them. I saw a lot of live baseball last summer between the Twins-Sox games and on two occasions ending up with the company seats at Wrigley.

This summer that same co-worker is now pregnant and not a season-ticket holder, I decided it was well worth it to just splurge on a pair of good seats for one game and not need to force my baseball addiction upon those I love. I am also eyeing a trip up to Milwaukee in June for the Twins-Brewers games, especially now that I know the gals from Yeah Buddy! are planning to make the sojourn. But let me digress.

An evening trip to Comiskey Park in April requires a little bit of planning ahead. All White Sox night games begin at 7:11 (and, yes, it's for that reason). This means the sun is going down as you enter the park and most if not all of the game will be played under cover of night. Since it's an outdoor ballpark, you will need to wear your winter jacket and plan on bringing a blanket for your legs. I hope these are the nights all of the proponents of an outdoor stadium in Minneapolis decide to mosey on down behind the Target Center. The elements are cold and cutting this time of year which made the crowd thin and sparse in even the most relatively dense sections.

The main question I had attire-wise was whether I should wear my authentic Johan Santana jersey. It was going to be either underneath my workshirt (where it had been all day) providing me warmth or it would be out in the open drawing the ire of White Sox fans around me. I was already wearing a Twins jacket and I already almost died once this week and figured I'd push my luck. One of my first trips to Comiskey in 2006 involved another Twins-attired fan seeing my jersey and giving me daps and I wanted to feel that fanly comraderie again, briefly no longer stuck on an island. Susie got to the park a little after me and we settled in for the game.

The Twins came out of the gate like a shot. The White Sox starter John Danks looked shaky from ball one through four to Carlos Gomez. Gomez got picked off but Danks didn't settle down. Brendan Harris singled to right, Mauer singled to left, Morneau walked and Delmon Young singled in Harris. Then strode to the plate the once and future king of the franchises' potential, Jason Kubel. He only flew a sacrifice fly out to Nick Swisher in centerfield driving home Mauer. But, like the clockwork of baseball's inner narratives, the scene was set.

Let's fast forward through some solid pitching by Yeah Buddy!-endorsed Scott Baker and some equally shaky pitching by Danks to the top of the third inning. Harris singled to center, Mauer went monkey-see, monkey-do to left and Morneau also went to left to make it three in a row. Young struck out swinging and again the Twins needed Kubel to come through with men on base. A lot of sweat and perspiration is expended in baseball thinking about the top of the batting order which is probably justified since those batters hit most often in a game. Still it's the teams who can drive men in with their sixth through ninth hitters who really excell. There bestrode Kubel to break the levee and let loose the vaunted Big Inning. He only singled to right scoring Harris. But Danks was shaken and, after a bases-loaded walk of Craig Monroe, he was pulled for Nick Massett. Add on a Mike Lamb single scoring Morneau and a Carlos Gomez double scoring Monroe and Lamb and the Twins had batted around to a 7-0 lead.

When Susie and I were settling at the beginning of the game, some White Sox fans with beers in their hands sat down in front of us. Who knows if those were their actual seats but it was were they were going to sit. Not to say that all White Sox fans are like this but these guys lived up to the cliche. So when Nick Swisher hit a solo homer with two outs in the bottom of the inning, the most rowdy of them made sure to pop up out of his seat to give me a high five. Way to follow the game, Ramanujan. I made sure to share a running-"How many runs ARE still you behind?" tab with him as Paul Konerko and Joe Crede hit solo homeruns in each of the next two innings.

The top of the sixth began with Gomez grounding out to short. Harris doubled to center, Mauer advanced him to third on a fielder's choice, Morneau took his base on an intentional walk and Young watched a fourth ball on a 3-2 count to load the bases. Guess who came to the plate. It was our man, Jason Kubel. You can probably guess what happened next. I'd held out sending texts to my White Sox fan friend Dave during the early run-batting-in extravaganzas. This warranted a "Put it on the board. YES!"

The evening was getting late by now and I was starting to lose feeling in my toes. During the seventh inning stretch, Susie and I decided to bug out and take the long train-ride home. I gave some high fives to fellow Twins fans on the way out, Susie took a picture of me to represent Danks' performance and then I talked about the emerging greatness of Mr. Kubel with some fellow fans on the train. All told I don't know how the evening could've gone any better.

We Were Inverted At the Time

I wish I could find the clip from Wayne's World 2 where Del Preston is finishing a story as Wayne and Garth walk up and says, "... and that's why Keith Richards cannot be killed by conventional weaponry." Because that's exactly how I feel right now. Because early this morning just north of Milwaukee, Scott and I walked away from a car accident completely unscathed.

Susie is back in Minnesota for an extended weekend visiting her family and attending our friends' wedding. I couldn't afford the extra days off and I stayed behind in Illinois. I didn't want to spend the entire weekend in my apartment though. So with a little coaxing and the promise we could be back in Chicago before his 8:00 am shift Saturday (this) morning, Scott and I drove up to Green Bay after work yesterday. It was a good time and we saw a lot of people we hadn't seen in a long while. On the way home, I kicked the seat back and slept.

The next thing I remember was a lot of swearing, the car spinning and then flipping over onto its roof. I asked Scott what happened, he said he'd flipped the car and my classic response is just to say "Shit." He later told me that during the crash he'd thrown his arm across me because he didn't want me bouncing around the cabin. It's kind of sweet in a way. I undid my belt and, as I did, really hoped we were off to the side of the road or somewhere out of the way. My fear was to be exiting the vehicle as another vehicle struck ours. My door was stuck and thus I followed Scott out the driver-side door. Our car was on its top in the mud on the side of the road.

Scott took it pretty hard. I won't go into it too much because I don't want to embarrass him. But he was pretty shook up because there had been another person (me) in the car with him at the time of the accident. I had to remember to remind him since I was okay and he was okay the rest of it was just being inconvenienced. The truth is he was going to have to try harder in the future if he wanted to kill me.

After getting checked out by the ambulance and giving our deposition of what happened, the cops gave us a ride up to the Brueggers Bagels and we had some breakfast. Scott's parents came to get us and they gave us a ride home. An original version of the plan had me staying in Milwaukee while Scott drove on to work but that got cancelled. I just got into bed and took a nap. Sleep may be the cousin of death. But it's not the same thing.