I took R. to a birthday party for a couple of her friends yesterday. Her friends are twins, so Mom and Dad get two parties for the price of one. I turns out that the aunt of these kids is a girl I went to high school with. She's married to the twins mother's brother.

We weren't particularly close in high school, so it took me a few minutes to puzzle out who she was. At first I thought it was someone I worked with at a previous employer - the two of them look remarkably alike, but I finally figured it out. She recognized me pretty much right away, though. Either she has a better memory than I do or I'm just more memorable. Maybe it's the big nose.

It was a very strange feeling seeing this person that I literally hadn't even thought about for 20 years. It was doubly strange seeing her in a setting where I wouldn't have expected to see anyone I know outside of the parents of some of R.'s classmates. Most remarkable is the fact that she's related to my daughter's friends. What are the odds of that?

The "Bill Bowl" in Foxboro last night turned into a nice win for the Patriots. Barring a huge, Red Soxian collapse the Pats should be a shoo-in for the playoffs. After all the hype about the meeting between Parcells and Belichick, it turned out simply that the team that made fewer mistakes won the game. The Cowboys had 3 turnovers to the Pats one, and New England had fewer penalties at critical times.

Let me put it this way. If Belichick was coaching Dallas and Parcels was coaching the Pats, would Dallas have won the game? I don't think so. The Pats had better talent, so they won. End of story.

Alex Rodriguez won the AL MVP today. It was kind of an odd MVP race, as there was no real obvious candidate from any of the contending teams. Nomar probably would have had a shot if he hadn't had such a cummy September. I think David Ortiz lost points because he didn't play much at the beginning of the year and he was mostly a DH. While you could argue how "valuable" A-Rod was to a last place team, I don't think you'd get much argument that he's the best player in the American League, so I don't really have a problem with him winning it.

The thing that annoys me is that A-Rod gets a $500,000 bonus for winning the award. If you're paid $25 million a year, shouldn't you be expected to win the MVP, or at least finish in the top five, pretty much every year?