Trying to keep the TV off in the household so the huge, bad-tempered cat I harbor doesn't hear about the tiger rebellion, all these felines rising up and biting their owners. Not that I think it's such a bad thing, kind of the contrary. I've never bought the idea of animal telepathy, like the Hundred Monkeys theory, but it's an attractive thought. Like maybe the wild population of this planet has had just about ENOUGH.

The Cubs and the Sox are another matter. All baseball fans with poetry in their souls are hoping hard for a Cubs/Sox series. But the Cubs have to get past the Marlins and the Red Sox have to get past the -- gasp -- Yankees. Yes, I grew up in the Bronx, sitting with my dad in the one-step-above-the-bleacher seats at Yankee Stadium. I have a brother and two sisters but none of them gave a damn about baseball, about which I was obsessive until I was 11. My dad and I fought every chance we got, so my mother loved it that we'd go off to the ballpark together and come home four hours later having not exchanged a single unpleasant word. But all that aside, I'm pulling for the Sox.

And Ahnold? Oh, please.