(Kudos to my friend Bill, who introduced me to the above phrase last night):

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At 7:25 p.m., the Blackberry vibrates. It’s a text message from my brother-in-law.

“Are you at the NATS game?” he asks. The Nationals are playing the Cardinals. He lives in St. Louis.

I respond in the affirmative and send him a picture:

“Do they suck as much as the STL commentators say?” he responds.

“2 wild pitches. 2 walks. Pujols HR in the 1ST INNING. THEY SUCK,” I retort.

Thus continues a text message exchange that goes casually back and forth over the next several hours, as the Nats tie the game, go ahead, blow the lead and eventually get crushed by playing some of the most sublimely awful baseball you can imagine (errors, walks, wild pitches,  outfielders with little range, even a run-scoring balk comes into play).

In the middle of all of this comes e-mail that NPR is about to report that Justice David Souter will retire. This leads to a frantic blizzard of back-and-forth  e-mails…and more text messaging from my brother-in-law…and more e-mails and texting.

Meanwhile, there was a baseball game going on. I hardly noticed. I was wearing business attire and sitting in the club seats and hammering away at my Blackberry and ignoring the baseball game. When did I become that person?