I am not going to go back and find the quotes - but...

I agree completely with a few people who point out that you seriously underestimate the antipathy in Red Sox nation for A-Rod.

I have been happily rooting for the Sox since the days of Jim Rice and Fred Lynn. I was elated, obviously, in 2004, when they won the series.

I was furious within a few months. Not because they lost Damon and Pedro to outrageous contracts, although I would have liked to have seen them approach those two with a little more "uuumpphh," but because of Orlando Cabrera. Cabrera came up HUGE in the 2004 playoffs, and we ditched him for ... I don't even want to get into it.

But it is very reminiscent of the Lowell situation. Lowell comes here (funny, I am in Orlando FL and writing "here" about Boston) and plays his heart out, is the obvious choice for team MVP, and a not completely idiotic choice for league MVP (although I will give that to A-Rod, no problem), and you replace him with someone that your fan base COMPLETELY FUCKING HATES? In what bizarro universe does this make sense? Speaking as a thirty year fan of the Red Sox, I would much rather take my chances on Mike Lowell for the next few years than A-Rod, who is statistically the greatest thing since Babe Ruth, and will, I am convinced, rejuvenate the god damn curse if Theo and Co are stupid enough to bring him to Fenway. It is not always all about numbers. Did you notice that we just won the world series?

There is such a thing as being too smart for your own good. The Red Sox poisoned their relationship with Nomar seeking to trade for A-Rod the first time around. Learn the god damn lesson already.

I will continue to root for the Red Sox regardless of what they do (well, if it has anything to do with Ted Williams' head I might think twice, but other than that ...), but it will be with absolutely no zeal if they sign that whiny twerp.

BRING BACK LOWELL!!!!

Someone mentioned Philip K. Dick, although I have to confess that I liked A Scanner Darkly or whatever the hell that was called.

I was just talking the other day with someone about how certain authors seem to constantly get short changed. Someone mentioned above "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" - which was, yes, a travesty of a mockery of a sham, but why stop there? Alan Moore has produced some of the most intelligent, creative, inventive literature of the last thirty years, and has had idiot after idiot chop and cut and edit movie after movie into shards of pig shit. From Hell, Swamp Thing, Constantine - one after another, people who have absolutely no sense of Moore's artistic integrity have completely butchered his concepts and vision.

The "best" movie, to date, based on Moore's work, is V For Vendetta, which was certainly good, but the story line in the graphic novel was fucking unbelieveably good, and the damage that was done to it, for no particular reason other than some asshat decided that people are stupid and need ideas shoved in their face with a sledgehammer rather than developed subtly and beautifully by a piece of art, is completely unforgiveable. Come on - everyone in England in a Guy Fawkes mask? We couldn't have figured out that the masked dead guy was an "everyman" figure without that?

For those unfamiliar with Moore's work - the only piece of the movie that is at all close to the original in terms of power and grace is the letter from Valerie - which is, not surprisingly, the only part that they kept, word for word, from the original graphic novel. The rest of the movie, when compared to the text, veers from not completely terrible to horrifyingly insipid. And mind you, I kind of liked the movie - but I have a huge crush on a certain Israeli born actress, so ....

I am sure there are plenty of other examples besides Dick and Moore of people whose ideas have been consistently mauled by the formulaic hacks that preside over main stream hollywood. These stick out to me though.