Really. Remember all that complaining I've been doing about the weather? Well Thursday and Friday it was gorgeously sunny and approaching 80, warm enough that while driving home from work I wanted to turn on the air conditioner. What I get is a funny mechanical choking and a weird smell. The air conditioner is broken. Preliminary diagnosis says that the clutch is broken (I was not aware ac's had clutches, but then I could hardly find my hood release at the garage) and that ain't gonna be cheap. So now I would prefer for it to stay cool so I can avoid fixing it as long as possible, not only because I don't really have the money, but because I start at Columbia tomorrow and I don't have time to park my car at a garage for a major repair. And since I'm going to be at home in Tulsa for the majority of August, I'm starting to wonder if I can get away without fixing it until school starts again. After all, when I'm driving to work at 8 am, it isn't going to be that hot, and it isn't like I'm going into the city, I'll be up by the Hudson. During the hottest part of most days I'll be at work, the one place that's actually airconditioned. It's not like this is OK, after all. But like I said it is another incident proving my theory that God has a tremendous since of irony.

Cardinals Grade for the Week: C+
27-27, 3rd place in Central Div., 2.5 games back
The boys have been pretty average lately, so they get the average grade. The plus is a concession to some great individual perfomances, like Edgar Renteria and Albert Pujols's offense, and Matt Morris's two straight complete game shutouts. Of course, I've seen plenty of recent Cardinals teams start out average or worse and then go crazy post All-Star break, so as long as we stay above .500 and within striking distance of the division lead, we'll be fine. The good news is Isringhausen is throwing a rehab start this weekend and it may not be long before we get him back.