Well, that was fun, huh? Sort of like performing your own sex change operation with a rusty meat cleaver, a sewing needle and some dental floss. Good times last night. Good times.

I woke up this morning, kicked the dog, gave the wife a good rodgering and then realized not only don’t I have a dog or a wife, but that I wasn’t even in my own house. So really, it wasn’t that bad of a morning.

But, the sun in shining, Kerry Wood is taking the mound tonight and, like every other fool on the planet, I’m optimistic.

If you’re a Cub, you have a chance to do one of two things.

1) You can use the ultimate Mulligan. How many people get a chance to do-over their worst day? That’s what the Cubs can do tonight. A win in game seven makes game six a quirky little memory. “Hey, remember how the Cubs tore our hearts out in game six, only to put it back in the next night as we all went nutty and celebrated the pennant?”

2) They can literally pile onto our suffering. If last night was a kick to the groin, a loss tonight, especially another come-from-ahead loss would be a full out sledgehammer to the temple. It’s up to them. We’ll be there watching. They’re like a six car pile up, you know there will be carnage and severed heads, but you can’t take your eyes off it.

This game will be compared all day to game five in 1984 and to game six in the 1986 World Series. That’s crap in both cases. In ’84, that was it. There was no tomorrow. Today is tomorrow. In the ’86 World Series the Red Sox had FIFTEEN different PITCHES that could have ended the game and won the World Series. FIFTEEN! I thought it was seven, until I re-read Sports Guy’s painful account. The Cubs were five outs away with nobody on and Mark Prior on the mound with a 3-0 lead. That hurt, no doubt, and it makes any lead tonight, even with Kerry Wood on the mound, completely unsafe and we’ll all be basket cases, but even sitting there, doing the GameCast, I never felt like “we’re going to win!” That feeling comes in the ninth, when you only need an out or two. Even though your brain tells your heart that no lead is safe, there comes a moment when you heart takes over. That moment was closing in, but it hadn’t come yet.

Once that moment comes, and the rug gets pulled out from underneath you, there’s no turning back. You’re nothing but scar tissue from then on out. I have a feeling that “we’re going to win” feeling will come tonight. Let’s hope we’re all in tact in the morning.

We sent Karry Ling to interview the guy from left field. Karry did his usual thoughtful hatchet job on him. I’m not going to delve too much into that. Karry says it all. But one thing, anybody who says that when you’re in the spot he was in, that there’s no time to do anything but react to the ball is a moron. I’m not saying the guy cost the Cubs the game, but I am saying there’s no way he should have reached in front of himself from the first row to try and catch a pop up. He knew Moises was there, everybody in stands was into every pitch.

More crap you’ll hear all day is that all of the pressure is on the Cubs now. What, the Marlins don’t want to go to the World Series? They don’t care?

Besides, the Marlins have a salad tossing lefty, Mark Redman pitching tonight. Crafty junkballers don’t fare well the second time around when they have to face the same lineup twice in a week. I just have a feeling that the Cubs will release 21 hours of pent up fury on Mr. Redman, and another 40,000 fans inside the stadium will make it feel like the walls are coming down.

But then, I’m the guy who promised you that yesterday would be the best day ever to be a Cubs fan, and instead, it became one of the all-time worst.

So it’s nice that the Cubs, and I, both get a Mulligan tonight.

Neither one of us is planning on wasting it.

Headphone guy had to be, as reported by Karry Ling, taken away for his own protection. He was then sodomized by the Cubs janitorial staff.

The Cubs players, were more forgiving of him than the fans were.

The Cubs weren’t thisclose last night, but they were thisclose to thisclose. There’s only one tomorrow left, and it’s tonight.

Dusty knows good food, and handsome goats when he sees them. Just who exactly has goats tied up in the back yard? Oh, this guy, probably:

Mike Downey wants to know where that freakin’ eight came from?

Rick Morrissey has lost his optimism. I lost mine for a little while last night, too, but after what Jimmy did for me, it’d take the Indiana National Guard to get me out of here! Wait, that was Hoosiers.

Only Tim Floyd can make Jerry Krause sympahtetic. Tim is sympahtetic without the sym.

If Chris Chandler is the answer, the question has to be, “How many fingers am I holding up? Chris! Chris! I think you’ve suffered another concussion. And we’re still on the bus to the stadium!”

Jayson Stark on the new, most famous, Cubs fan.

If you haven’t seen the tape of the red assed Nebraska Husker “holder” punching out the Mizzou fan after the game Saturday…you’re missing out. Impressive. Nice to see a football player punch out a scrawny little fan with a sucker punch, no less.

Long Duk Dong rides again, though, why, we’re not exactly sure.

Is that a golf club sticking out of your head, or are you just happy to see me?

Angelina Jolie had to leave a hotel because Colin Farrell kept dropping his pants. Sure, so he’s not her brother, but still she’s allowed to look, isn’t she?

Two cows is humorous.

Honestly, I think Ethan Hawke had an affair on Uma Thurman because he finally realized she’s not pretty.

America’s finest news source says Joe Lieberman’s newest strategy is that he’ll “gloss over the boring issues.” That’s just crazy enough to work. Too bad he’s not.