I've never really been too offended by long Red Sox games. I wear it like a stinking badge, in fact. "We American Leaguers are up all night, while you NL fans are snug in bed nice and early, visions of double switches dancing, one base at a time, in your heads."

But tonight's game took an eternity! In fact, I'm writing this in the eighth inning, because this game just won't end. I feel like I was ready for bed in the fifth inning, only to see that it wasn't even 9:30 yet.

I swear, it's as if when this game started, Jose Contreras and Octavio Dotel were still in the league!

First there was a game in which we seemed dead, down 4-1 and going nowhere.

Then there was a game in which the White Sox imploded, and we took an insurmountable lead.

Then Buchholz was giving up meaningless home runs that weren't meaningless at all.

Then every guy in our bullpen came in the game.

Then Kim and I were playing netless badminton and it was still light out.

Then I made a Dennis Eckersley magnet and we played with Amazing Larry.

I swear, this all has happened since 7:10. Now I feel like Bard has left the game and re-entered it.

And now it's, well, STILL it's the eighth, and in fact, there are still no outs, but we do lead by five. I'm gonna go ahead and post this now and update because I can't take it anymore.

10:29: Finally we go bottom 8, 12-8 us.

10:37: Pap coming in for the save, still 12-8. Let's see if we can wrap it up in 3.5 hours. You know it feels long when this game is coming right after a Yankee series....

10:52: Win. 7 back. And stupid NESN shows the WC standings without showing the division standings. "Believe in Boston! -- But only to go so far!" Terrible job. But the key is, we finally ended and won this game. We've won 5 of our last 7.