For his general commenting excellence — including a memorable tale of Pat Dye — Stu has been awarded the COW. If you have a problem with that, you probably hate America. As usual, the good sir has requested that the picture of Local Quipster at the Sonic drive-thru accompany his post. Stu?

The new Hold Steady record comes out tomorrow. I know it’s been available on iTunes for about a month now, but I’m one of those guys who likes a physical copy of an album, especially when it’s by a band I adore. (Before we go any further, yes, Michael, we know that Lifter Puller was better.) I remember being flat broke in college, but managing to scrape enough work study money and pocket change together to get Automatic for the People the day it came out. Less anciently, my oldest daughter’s first gymnastics competition was last fall. She was nervous, but she was Brad Radke compared to the Comely Missus Stu and I. When she finally had her first event and nailed the vault, I’m pretty sure my heart stopped.

That’s what I’m here to talk about today: anticipation. The feeling that something noteworthy is going to happen. It might be awesome. It might be awful. But either way, you have to wait your turn, son. And since this is supposed to be about sports, here’s what’s circled in red with a bunch of stars by it on my calendar:

Monday, September 8th: Vikings/Packers. Speaking of awesome/awful. The make-or-break year for the Childress-era Vikings. The who-knows-how-it-ends Favre saga. Jared Allen and Adrian Peterson. Ryan Grant and (maybe) Aaron Rodgers. Two teams that should be considered NFC frontrunners. The insane overkill on ESPN. The sick feeling in my stomach when we lose to the Packers. The sick feeling in Packers’ fans stomachs when their credit card gets turned down at the liquor store they lose to the Vikings. Let’s do this thing already.

Thursday, July 28th: Twins/White Sox. First night of a four-game series at the Dome. First place will undoubtedly be on the line. Twins got breakfast, lunch, dinner and breakfast handed to them the last time they met. They’ve also been the best team in baseball ever since. I can’t wait.

What’s on your calendar?

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