One of the nice things about living where I do is that I can step outside my front door, walk approximately a half-mile to the southwest, hang a sharp left, and I've got an excellent view of the Coliseum from across the San Leandro Bay. This view comes in particularly handy when the A's decide to shoot off some fireworks. So that's four nights of free entertainment for each of team's in-season Pyro-Spectaculars... at least until the A's perfect the Molecular Disruption Ray that only lets paying customers watch the fireworks. Really, it's the next logical step after you've tarped off the upper deck.

Anyhow, I spent the evening toggling back and forth between Cal's lid-lifter against Michigan State (Hooray, Bend-Don't-Break Defense for not breaking!) and the A's-Twins game (Hooray, walk-off errors!). And the second after Joe Nathan's ill-advised throw to third, I flipped back to the Cal game while my wife grabbed a sweater. We waited long enough for the Bears to salt away the victory, headed out the door and arrived to our prime vantage point just as they killed the lights at the Coliseum. Then, we got to watch stuff blow up.

Which is a nice way to spend a holiday weekend, really.

You really can't hear the stadium sound system from where we watch fireworks displays, so I can't say for certain if there was any announcement about the theme for this particular Pyro-spectacular. But judging by the severity and breath-taking nature of the explosions, my guess is that title of tonight's fireworks display was something along the lines of "What Happened to Our Season After the Harden and Blanton Trades: A Visual Representation."