Nothing like watching the All-Star Game with a pen and a pad of paper in your hands. It’s actually kind of dangerous because when Tim McCarver says stupid things you are tempted to stick the pen in your neck.

(Note to self, buy more butterfly bandages.)

And so here it is, a running journal (diary, whatever) from last night’s All-Star Game in old-new Comiskey.

I was mainlining Mountain Dew Live Wire during the game, so this thing is all over the place. You’ve been warned.

I’m not really sure if I should be disturbed or not, but I’m attracted, geniuinely attracted to Jeanne Zelasko. I’m torn about this. Ever since she dumped that pile-of-hair-on-top-of-her-head hairdo she looks like a real woman. But is she actually attractive? I have no idea. I think I need to stop cutting my lithium in half.

Kevin Kennedy just said, “It’s a performance based game tonight.” I’m stunned. Am I watching a baseball game or sitting in every stockholder meeting ever? Shut up. Go reapply some spackle to that face of yours, Kevin.

Dontrell Willis is on my TV and he has his hat pulled over his ears. Not a good look. But you know what? Like Crash Davis once said, “You win 20 games in the show and you have fungus on your shoes, you’re colorful. Before that, you’re a slob.” Dontrell is colorful now.

Jeanne breaks us the news that former Dallas Cowboys honco Tex Schramm is dead. Uh…which Major League team did he own/play for/coach?

Now it’s time for the All-Star intros. I love these. They’re my favorite part. You know, I was at the game last year in Miller Park, and it’s cool, but it was tough to remember all of the mean things that Charlie and I said about the players last year. This year I have a pen!

Marcus Giles can’t play due to a concussion. The collision with Mark Prior apparently caused his teeth to buck out, too. Yikes. I have a feeling he always has concussion symptoms.

Kerry Wood has a new Sling Blade haircut. Not a good look.

Aaron Boone and his mullet are standing next to Wood. Kerry might as well break the news to Aaron that he’ll be a Cub before the All-Star break ends and that his dad’s getting fired on Wednesday.

How tall is Paul LoDuca? 5’2? 5’4? Yikes.

Randy Wolf, Geoff Jenkins and Brett Far-vuh-ruh are triplets. Just to clarify. Not a good thing.

Randy holds up his hand and has a message written-Gary Gaetti style-on it. I can’t make it out, but thanks to the wonders of TiVo I can go back and see that it’s a national hotline phone number for information on the hot girl in the NYC Subway that Randy met, didn’t get her number and went on every sports talk show in America to ask for our assistance in his stalking of her. Creepy.

Hey look, Rondell White! No kidding? Really? Rondell White?

Not only did the Sox fans boo Mark Prior and Kerry Wood (which, is fine by me, since we’re not looking for support on the south side), but they boo Jerry Manuel as he’s introduced as a coach. Ouch.

CC Sabathia is blocking out the sun! He’s huge. Jerry Angelo should get his phone number.

I think Eddie Guardado did my neighbor’s landscaping.

Keith Foulke has braces now. Yeah, but he still looks like has the IQ of a grapefruit. (Ditka-Manley I miss Da Coach.)

Barry Zito looks really relaxed. Almost like he doesn’t think he’ll have to pitch, or something. Hmm.

Bret Boone gets a nice ovation, mainly for ripping on the commissioner yesterday. If baseball were any more screwed up, nobody would believe it.

From the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, Lance Carter! Who? Did this guy win this spot in a Pepsi sweepstakes or something? Lance Carter? Are you kidding me? Why not Aaron Carter…actually, why not Jessica Simpson? Mmm. Jessica Simpson.

Wait a minute. Sox fans boo their own manager and the Cubs, but Gary Carter gets introduced and they don’t boo him? For shame.

Nice to see MLB made Gary wear an Expos jersey though. Muahahahahaha!

This is unacceptable. Neither Jim Edmonds or Albert Pujols get booed, but Barry Bonds does?

The Cardinals have four starters in this game and they’re not in first place. Nice managerial job there, Genius.

Dusty gets introduced and hugs everybody. That’s enough hugging. I thought Dusty invented the high five for chrissakes. Use it!

What a thrill for about 14 fans in attendance as Luis Aparicio is introduced as an honorary captain. He thinks he’s in Baltimore. What, Jerry Dybzinski wasn’t available?

Four words: Alex “White Shoes” Rodriguez.

We love to mock Albert Pujols’ age, but what’s the actual age on Hideki Matsui? If they made a movie out of his life right now and Pat Morita was cast to play him, Pat would have to undergo hours of makeup every day just to look old enough to play Matsui.

Troy Glaus is starting for the American League? I think I’m having a better year than he is.

For the fourth year in a row (at least) Jorge Posada screws up the pregame intros by dragging one of his kids onto the field with him. Two words: birth control. One more: babysitter.

And now we’re ready for the national anthem. Anastacia is here at Desipio World Headquarters with me on the couch and she assures me that in the last year she’s actually learned the words to the song. How nice.

First, we’re going to get a video update on Larry Doby’s condition. Apparently, he’s still dead.

Vanessa Carlton is going to sing the anthem, sorry Anastacia. Apparently, Vanessa couldn’t get her breasts through airport security so she didn’t bring them. Her strapless top is giving the old “ten pounds in a five pound sack” look. Not a good thing.

She did a great rendition of the anthem, but maybe the worst lip synching job, ever. How sad is it that she was accompanied by a woman with a violin, but they didn’t bother to pretend to mic the violin. Unless it’s the loudest in history, would 47,000 people have heard it?

Joe Buck said the words “he she it” all in a row. Now that it’s edgy Fox stuff! Oh, shut up.

Nice to see Tim McCarver’s hair is not as orange this year. However, his stylist leaves his sideburns white to give him a “distinguished” look, but some dye must have run down the left one because it’s got a little brown streak in it. Eww.

You know, I enjoy Phish Food Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. But really, I thought there’d be more acid in it.

The game starts with me in a quandry. I want to root against both Stevie “Jack Armstrong circa 1990” Loiaza, AND the three Cardinals who are leading off the game. I guess I’ll just root for career ending injuries instead.

McCarver quotes Dusty as saying that Edgar Renteria is the smartest player in the game. Other than Lenny Harris, of course.

Somebody forgot to remind Gene Clines he needs to coach first base. Oops.

Nobody had to remind Waving Wendell to coach third. See, it’s that kind of attention to detail that keeps Wendell in the game.

If Ichiro had thrown behind Jim Edmonds on his first inning single he’d have picked him off. That would have been my all-time favorite All-Star moment.

As Esteban Loiaza completes TWO scoreless innings, we are reminded that his deal with the Devil runs through July.

Oh my God! Did you see the commercial for the movie SWAT? It’s got three big stars in it! Samuel L. Jackson! Colin Ferrell! Willie Gault! Did you see who the TV news anchor is? It’s Willie Gault! Now I have to see this.

Gary Carter is sitting next to Barry Bonds just to get on TV. Some things never change, do they Gary?

Esteban Loiaza takes off his hat in the dugout and reveals that he does not have a forehead…or a five head, his bald patch goes from his forehead almost all the way back…it’s a seldom seen six-head!

Jason Schmidt (or Smit, as Dusty calls him) just hit Edgar Martinez in the head. McCarver dismisses it as a “glancing blow”. By definition, a glancing blow is a ball that hits somebody else in the head.

Edgar will continue his tribute to Sammy Sosa by having a toenail removed between innings and breaking a corked bat in his next at bat. See, I love old school guys like Edgar. They keep it real. Don’t they folks?

Roger Clemens is warming up in the bullpen, and how great would it be if he nailed Pujols or Edmonds in retaliation? Let’s start the first All-Star brawl!

Matt Suhey singles in his All-Star Game debut. Good to see old Suhey doing well. He’s got to be doing better than his former Super Bowl Bears teammate Jim McMahon who popped up in the celebrity softball game on Sunday and was openly mocked by Ian Ziering.

Don’t believe me?

Fox shows Bud Selig and he’s wearing a headset while watching the game from the front row. I’ll bet he’s listening to the audio version of “Moneyball.”

Barry Zito is in to pitch the third inning…oops, I guess that’s Roger Clemens.

Is anybody really that fired up to see Roger? I mean really. Did Bud really fulfill anybody’s fantasy by letting the world’s biggest gasbag have one last moment in the spotlight? Where’s a torn rotator cuff when you need one?

The Fox trivia question is who drove in the first run in All-Star history, 73 years ago.

The answer, of course, is Albert Pujols.

Joe Buck explains that Edgar Renteria was Clemens’ 4,000 strikeout victim and the next day posed for a picture with Roger in which he held up four fingers. If I was Roger’s 4,000 strikeout victim and he asked for me to pose for a picture with him, I’d give him one finger.

If he gets to 6,000 strikeouts, let’s hope his victim is El Pulpo, or there’ll be no chance for a photo.

It’s now the bottom of the third and Joe Buck is still fellating Clemens, even though Roger’s not in the game anymore.

Now they go to Kevin Kennedy (who’s face resembles vast stretches of the Dan Ryan Expressway) in the dugout with Roger. Kevin does a Chris Farley-esque, “Remember when I used to manage you in Boston? Yeah, that was awe-some!”

Tim McCarver explains that even though Roger can still pitch well, he wants to spend more time with his kids. Remember when Kennedy interviewed one of his sons during the Cubs-Yankees series and the kid stared blankly at him, drooled and said, “Go Yankees!” I sense a 2005 comeback for Roger.

McCarver says that the minute Roger retires he’ll be the hardest-throwing retiree in the world. I sense an Advil sponsored fastball challenge tour between Nolan Ryan and Roger coming up.

With a runner at second and one out, Carlos Delgado singles to left. Any normal left fielder would have thrown home and held the runner at third, but our left fielder is Albert Pujols and his bursitis is acting up so he can’t throw home. 1-0 Americans.

Kerry Wood is in to pitch the fourth and he’s throwing gas. After giving up a single to Garrett Anderson he makes three more Americans look silly. I love this.

Wait, I know he meant Ichiro, but given his fractured English, didn’t it sound like McCarver said that Kerry Wood and Matsui played in four All-Star Games together in Japan? I think Pujols and Matsui played in the Japanese league right after WWII.

Speaking of the Japanese leagues, Shigetosi Hasagawa is in to pitch to the Nationals and he just gave up a moon shot to Todd Helton. Sayonara, Shiggy. It’s 3-1 Nationals and Kerry Wood stands to be the winner.

Joe and Tim are explaining that Dusty is letting Barry decide how many times he wants to bat. Dusty also let him decide if he wanted to DH or play left. OK, so it’s cool if Dusty lets Barry do this, but if Sammy did it they’d have a special edition of Around the Horn to rip him. Sigh.

My favorite moment of the All-Star Game. With two on and two out in the top of the fifth, Eddie Guardado comes in from pruning the bushes in the bullpen to face Jim Edmonds. Dusty pinch hits Andruw Jones. How cool would it be to say, “Uh, Jim? Sit down. We’re going with somebody who can actually hit a lefty.” Muahahahahaha!

Andruw doubles down the line, making Dusty a genius. Some moronic member of the Ligue family leans over the railing and snatches the ball from Garrett Anderson for an automatic double. At first it looks like Rafael Furcal, who was on first, will have to go back to third, but home plate umpire Tim McClelland decides that Furcal would have scored, so he does score. Joe doesn’t agree. Tim does. I’m with Joe, just because I don’t want to agree with Tim, either.

Pujols makes it academic as he singles in Jones from second and it’s 5-1.

Fox flashes this stat and then Joe and Tim get distracted and never comment on it. But it’s amazing.

In 2000, Barry Bonds was 17th on the All-Time homer list. Less than four seasons later, he’s FOURTH! Better living through chemistry? Perhaps.

Budweiser has an where a guy suggests using a warning moat intead of a warning track. He imagines what it’d be like and a Cubs outfielder makes a diving catch, lands in the water in the moat. Surfaces with the ball and then is eaten by an alligator. Any chance we can get Lenny Harris to learn to play outfield?

Joe Buck tells us that Woody Williams brought 30 people to watch him get lit up at the All-Star Game. Thirty people? Wow, that’s one crowded trailer.

Tim and Joe haven’t mentioned (thankfully) the absence of Frank Thomas. But I want to ask Sox fans this question. Isn’t this Frank Thomas guy, the guy you think got so badly snubbed, the same guy who once asked out of the All-Star Game in Arlington, Texas, early, so that he could catch a plane home during the game? Snub this.

At 9:12 p.m., Fox showed Wanda Sykes sitting in the stands and they subtley promote her TV show on Fox. Only, it’s dark at the game, and sunny where Wanda’s sitting. I know the upper deck is high, but I think the Wanda footage is on tape from earlier in the game.

As a Desipio exclusive, we got Brewers first baseman Richie Sexson to wear a microphone so we could pick up one of those funny conversations between the runner and the first baseman. Ichiro’s on first, let’s check this out.

Ichiro: Greetings, tall American.
Richie Sexson: Hi. How’s it going?
Ichiro: Do you play in Major Leagues?
Richie Sexson: Kind of. I play in Milwaukee.
Ichiro: Ahh! You have big sausage!
Richie Sexson: Uhh…thanks?

Good stuff.

With two outs in the sixth, Mike Lowell doubles and Marlins GM Larry Beinfest turns to Cubs GM Jim Hendry and yells, “In your face!”

Fox decides to show us an inspirational profile of Lowell, who is a cancer survivor. They break out an interview from LAST YEAR! He’s wearing the weird gold batting jersey the NL guys had to wear in Milwaukee. This is the fastest moving All-Star Game ever, and Fox is out of new stuff in the sixth?

We see a commercial for what looks like a great western. It’s called Open Range and it’s got Robert Duvall, Kevin Coster and Annette Benning in it. It looks promising, until the final words of the commercial, “Directed by Kevin Costner.” Translated, that means, “running time four hours and 20 minutes.”

Rafael Furcal completes his All-Star Game performance by hitting Mark Prior in the NL dugout with a throw. E-6.

Garrett Anderson continues his home run derby by jacking one off of Woody Williams. Muahahahaha! It’s 5-3.

Fox’s attempt to “treat this like a real game” died in the fifth when Steve Lyons interviewed Todd Helton during the game in the dugout, but it was officially pronounced dead when he interviewed Tony LaRussa in the top of the seventh.

Amy Grant will sing “God Bless America” during the seventh inning stretch. She comes out in a half NL-half AL batting practice jersey and I’m really disturbed because I find her attractive, too. Jeanne Zelasko and Amy Grant? What’s happening to me? Anyway, upon closer inspection, Amy looks a little drugged. She may fall asleep at any moment. Plus, I wish the old-new Comiskey sound guy would turn the feedback up a little louder, you can almost hear the music.

Magglio Ordonez and his enormous head make an appearance and the crowd goes wild. They even start that wretched chant of theirs, but mercifully he pops up to first base to end it.

Tim McCarver barely finishes his thought that Billy Wagner throws the hardest fastball in the game when Jason Giambi obliterates one of those fastballs into center for to make it a 5-4 game. Oops.

In the top of the eighth, Brendan Donnelly comes in to pitch. His ERA is (not a misprint) 0.38 which is impressive. It’d be even more impressive if Fox didn’t follow it up with a stat that shows that it’s the lowest at the All-Star Break since 1989 when Bill Landrum’s ERA was 0.23. Bill Landrum? THE Bill Landrum? Not Tito or Ced?

Aaron Boone is now the fifth Boone to play in an All-Star Game joining Bret, Ray, Bob and Debby.

Eric Gagne comes in and he’s supposed to be intimidating, but he looks like Jack Osbourne.

Or Charlie Kerfeld.

If he’s got a Jetsons shirt on under that jersey I’m out of here.

Garrett Anderson continues his ownership of NL pitching and when Hank Blaylock hits a two run homer to give the Americans a 7-6 lead, I have a vision of an elevator in Chicago with the bloody corpse of Eric Gagne laying on the floor and HITTABLE written in blood on the wall.

Hey, that was a very good The Untouchables reference. Give me some credit.

Dusty stands in the dugout and wonders if his mere presence turns ace relievers into El Pulpo.

Keith Foulke comes in to save the day for the AL and when Rafael Furcal files to the wall in right it’s over. Home field advantage goes to the Amercian League, which will really hurt the Cubs World Series title chances (whatever).

Garrett Anderson wins the MVP award for the game and Jeanne Zelasko says, “What a great year for you just last year I was here giving you the World Series National Championship trophy.” Huh? Right here? In Comiskey? World Series National Championship? Oh, never mind. At least I’m not attracted to her any more.

Any more?

You mean, Mandy Moore!

That’s more like it.

And so another All-Star Game is over and really, what have we learned?

Sox fans don’t know who to boo.

Tim McCarver has his hair done by Earl Scheib.

Billy Wagner and Eric Gagne serve up a meatball once and a while like everybody else, and of course…this Kerry Wood kid. He’s good.

Now I return you to your work day, so you can read columns about how awful it is that Dontrelle Willis didn’t pitch.