Two weeks' vacation, and I'm in Vegas at one point, winning 10 free spins in the Elephant Graveyard, almost as good as it gets on the one-cent slots at the Monte Carlo, raking in $26.24 to double my 401(k) at the paper.
Happy days are here again, all right, and I get an e-mail learning the chumps have found someone to adopt the Clippers' team dog, the Knicks agreeing to take on Tim Thomas. Bow wow, indeed.
Another e-mail follows from a reader who passes along a newspaper story regarding utility broadcaster F.P. Santangelo, who has been fired from a Sacramento radio station.
They say these things happen in threes, so I sit there for hours and hours waiting for news on Gary Matthews Jr.
LET'S SEE, with $26.24 in my pocket I need only an additional $63.76 to buy a ticket, get a scented towel and watch a Dodgers exhibition game in Arizona and maybe catch the late-inning heroics of Pablo Ozuna.
Ninety dollars a ticket sounds like a lot until you break it down. It's really only nine Anthony Davis autographs, or $410 less than what the Dodgers charged 250 fans each the other night to take batting practice at Dodger Stadium and pose for pictures with Russell Martin and Andre Ethier.
"The chance to step into the cage for many of these fans is a dream come true," says the Dentist, the Dodgers' PR guy.
I tell him I can put him into a batting cage with a roll of quarters, but he says the $500 fee also includes "baseball cuisine."
I take it the Dodger Dogs are not left over from the last playoff game. But maybe someone can let me know for sure after attending the next session on Dec. 13 with Matt Kemp -- if not too embarrassed to admit they spent $500 to be there.
The McCourts deserve credit in these tough times figuring yet another way to get into the pockets of fans, but I wondered where the money might be going.
"This was not a charity fundraiser," the Dentist says, which is probably his way of saying the Screaming Meanie is due for another shopping spree.
I GO away and Plaschke immediately makes the case again not to bring back Manny Ramirez, while suggesting the Dodgers trade for Jake Peavy, Adrian Beltre and "count on the kids."
Sounds like I'm not the only one in need of some time off.
Plaschke quotes some joker named Ned Colletti, as if this guy Colletti is some kind of baseball expert.
"Our six or seven young players are still the key to this club," Colletti says.
