Pardon me, reader -- but how would you like your very own 2007 Oakland Athletics' calendar, lovingly hand-crafted by one of the multitude of bloggers assembled here under the Catfish Stew brand name.

"I would not like such a calendar," some of you might reply. "Now hold still so that I can chuck these oranges at your head."

Which is not a very encouraging attitude, if you want my opinion, especially since such a calendar is available to you for the low, low cost of free for both your viewing and downloading pleasure. The calendar is an .ics file, so it will definitely work in iCal and most likely work in programs like Sunbird and Google Calendar.

The long backstory to how this calendar came to be is chronicled here, here and, most recently here under the auspices of the day job. The highlight reel version is that I got tired of sitting around waiting for someone else to whip up a calendar that I could keep alongside my work and personal schedules, so I decided to build one myself. And then, thanks entirely to people more clever than I, I commissioned the creation of a AppleScript that does in seconds what it used to take entire armies of men days to do. And, since I went through all this trouble, I usually update the calendar throughout the year with scores and game notes; this year, I'll probably add relevant Web links to write-ups on A's-themed blogs not unlike this one. So if you've got iCal and you're interested in keeping tabs on the fortunes of the A's in the coming season, it's a handy little calendar to have.

"Your idea of a calendar intrigues me," some of you might be saying. "However, I just come here for the fabulous pictures, interesting statistical tables and intriguing articles written people other than you. In short, my allegiance lies with another team. I don't suppose you've built a calendar for them."

No... but I can tell you how you can, again liberally cribbing from the day job.

1. Download this AppleScript.
2. Jump on over to Major League Baseball's Team by Team schedule page and click on the link for your favorite team.
3. Once your on the relevant team's schedule page, click on the Downloadable Schedule link in the left-hand pane and download the linked CSV file.
4. Open the resulting file in your favorite text editor (TextEdit will do quite nicely.)
5. Run the script.
6. Admire your handiwork.

"Well, that's fairly useful," a sizable percentage of you may have concluded. "But I use Windows, and your AppleScript download will not work on my machine. Any advice for me."

Sure.

1. Go buy a Mac.
2. Repeat steps 1 through 6 from above.

See? Simple.