In the next few days, I’ll be publishing my 2005 baseball predictions. So let’s revisit how I did in 2004:

The winner appears in blue, my pick appears in black if I got it wrong. The number that follows is where my pick actually placed in the race.

AL East: Yankees
AL Central: Twins
AL West: Angels, A’s (2)
AL Wild Card: Red Sox

NL East: Braves
NL Central: Cardinals, Astros (2, WC)
NL West: Dodgers, Giants (2)
NL Wild Card: Astros, Cardinals (won division)

World Series: Cardinals / Red Sox. Sox in 4, Cardinals / A’s, with the A’s winning in 6.

AL MVP: Vladimir Guerrero, Manny Ramirez (3)
NL MVP: Barry Bonds, Albert Pujols (3)

AL Cy Young: Johan Santana, Mike Mussina (no votes)
NL Cy Young: Roger Clemens, Wade Miller (no votes, but hey, he pitched behind the winner, huh?)

AL HR champ: Manny Ramirez, Alex Rodriguez (t-6)
NL HR champ: Adrian Beltre, Albert Pujols (t-2)

AL batting champ: Ichiro Suzuki, Garrett Anderson (not in top 40)
NL batting champ: Barry Bonds, Albert Pujols (5)

AL Rookie: Bobby Crosby, Joe Mauer (season ended quickly due to injury)
NL Rookie: Jason Bay, Kaz Matsui (6)

I think I did reasonably well. I underestimated Bonds, but Pujols was monster, and I will likely pick him to win everything under the sun for the NL again. I wasn’t too far off on the hitters and MVPs, and didn’t do as well with the Cy Youngs.

2005 predictions should come before Opening Day…

If all is to be believed, I will be receiving a free iPod from the freeipods.com people! Hot diggity damn, I have 20 gigs of music lovin headed my way! Plus, I’ve sold most of the BMG CDs that I bought, so I have actually turned a profit on that.

Malcom Gladwell’s Blink arrived today from another offer, so I’m pretty stoked to dive into that.

So, to recap: in August, I began trying to get a “free” iPod. I was one of Kate Spencer’s referrals. She managed to get her iPod in like September. It’s March now. And finally, I’m verified. Just a short 6-8 week waiting period now. So I could have this thing by 2009.

Michael Buffington, I thank you. I have long suspected a co-worker of being a robot, and so today, I put that co-worker to the test. This one was particularly adept at answering these questions, and managed to come up with a decent answer to questions 1-4, but at question 5, we did indeed engage in hand-to-hand combat. I am missing an eye, but I have exposed my co-worker as a robot once and for all.

I love the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon games, so naturally, any site that can combine that game will all of my favorite bands is A-OK with me. It’s a really good time to see the 15 steps between The Spinanes and The Flaming Lips, since it heads through Pigface and 1,000 Homo DJs. Check it out: BandToBand.com