"The Wrestler": One of the best films I've seen in a long, long time. There's a real truth to it that speaks to anyone who's ever grappled with a fall, however abrupt, from grace and greatness in any part of life. Some people move on, but others can do nothing but reach for the top, even until the very end.

So: Last month I wrote a piece of fairly obvious satire. The third item in this post, it was meant to elicit a few chuckles and head shakes. The Tribune isn't too far from selling newspaper subscriptions for the opportunity to buy Cubs tickets, I suppose.

But I asked too much of people, it seems. Tonight, curious about the readership of this neglected blog, I checked the site statistics and found that a good chunk of visitors this month arrived via this forum post at North Side Baseball, linking to, you guessed it, my satirical post. Now, NSBB is just about the last place you'd look for intelligent discussion of the Cubs, so I should have anticipated the reactions. But I was still shocked out of my seat.

Just go read the thread, please. Not only did every commenter accept a preposterous and uncredited story as fact, but several also decided they'd be willing to shell out for the aforementioned subscriptions. Either NSBB, in sum, is truly oblivious to satire, or there's a sizable number of members silently laughing -- no one was willing to take pity? -- behind the backs of the oblivious.

What a sad, sad place. You know, almost as depressing as this barely alive blog.