For the last few days, I've been sick as a dog. Poor dog. As a result, my brain hasn't been my brain. Go droop.

Strange thoughts come to mind when minds come to thinking strangely. Palindrome-like sentences aren't sentences like palindromes.

So this weekend, I've been sick, my car was stolen, the A's bullpen lost three games in a row, and my brain is was has been will be having been possessed by ghosts from outer space. I've had better weekends.

Perhaps, this ghost is was having suggested to me, my car isn't having been stolen after all: it is just spontaneously has been leaped to a different quantum state where it is no longer will be visible in my local space-time continuum. Meanwhile, there's another universe where my car is still parked outside, my sinuses are clear, my brain is unburdened by poltergeists, the English language gets along fine with only two grammatical tenses, and Arthur Rhodes actually gets people out.

Or perhaps I could just use a nice orbitofrontal cortical lesion, so I would no longer regret eating that spicy chicken pilaf at IKEA on Friday, just before Jim Mecir hung a screwball and all hell starting breaking loose.

Tom Hicks might want one of those lesions, too, if he finds out that IKEA now has ARÖD on sale for just $23.99. A warning though, if this tempts you: you might run into an IKEA shopper buying this. If you do, you might want to go find one of these as protection.

One good thing happened this weekend. For a moment, in my alien state of mind, I came to understand the source of conflict between the sabermetrician and the traditionalist: the fact that 73% of the universe is dark energy. Only 27% of the universe is observable and measurable, and the rest stays hidden until it feels like messing with your calculations. I found this to a general truth: no matter how you slice the universe, you can only shed light on 27% of what's really going on. This means, basically, that the sabermetrician is 73% full of crap. Meanwhile, the traditionalist can't see where he's going, and falls into a black hole.

I'm going to the A's-White Sox game this afternoon: Mulder vs. Buehrle. These two Marks matched up three times last year. Time of games: 1:54, 1:49, and 1:53. That means there is a 73% chance the game will leap into an alternate universe where Mark Mulder is possessed by the spirit of Mike Moore, Miguel Olivo gets taken over by Carlton Fisk, and we'll be stuck out at the Coliseum until all the dark energy has been absorbed into the full moon of the midnight sky.