Went over to House of Blues in Orlando to hang with the Nightmare of You, Alkaline Trio, and Saves the Day guys Saturday. It was an experience. Such great guys. Meant to go with them down to Fort Lauderdale today, but I don't think I'm up for it. Not sure I can handle back-to-back nights.

Weird thing about the show last night... this girl that I randomly picked out of the line at the Kevin Devine/Brian Bonz show last week to be my date/plus one was also at the Nightmare of You show last night. And she found her way into the green room with us for most of the night. Weird/random/interesting.

With the recent steroid trouble Manny Ramirez has found himself in, the discussion of "how do we judge the players from this era?" has fired up once again. I'll repeat the same thing I've always said: Vote the best guys of this era into the Hall of Fame, just like voters did with players who played during segregation. Make sure fans at the Hall are aware of the context in which these players played, and let them make their own assumptions of any player's worth. Truth is, there's not tangible evidence that steroids actually boost a ballplayer's ability to hit, catch, or pitch a baseball. I do think there's plenty of proof that excluding an entire group of quality players (blacks) for the first fifty years of the game's modern existence, however, inflates final statistics. Manny did 'roids. A-Rod did 'roids. Big deal. Those were choices they made, they got caught, now they have to live with whatever repercussions emerge.

Final note... I had the pleasure of seeing and hanging out with Brian Bonz last week while he was in town with Kevin Devine. Such a good kid and a great talent. He's got a record coming out over the summer and he'll be on my Nightmare of You tour in June-July. Check him out @ www.myspace.com/brianbonz.

Cheers.