"You've Gotta See the Baby!!"

***Update--Regarding the discussion of The Sopranos, here is an entry by Larry from ThisIsWhatWeDoNow, who is apparently in the Toasty Joe camp, showing some love to this past season of the show and to this past Sunday's "finale."

This past weekend brought us a lot of rain, some excruciating Mets games and, little bundles of joy. First, as announced here on NGBP last week, we welcomed the Skipper's son, Noah Scott (pictured here) to the world on May 31. In between comforting his wife through post-natal trauma and shilling for the newly released Jennifer Anniston-Vince Vaughn vehicle, The Break-Up (screenplay co-written by the Skipper's cousin and close, personal friend Jeremy Garelick), the Skipper brought young Noah home from the hospital to begin his journey through life under the unfortunate circumstances of being from New Jersey and (we presume) a Yankees fan. Nonetheless, he is a cute kid, and from everything I've seen, he has a large, loving family, so I have no doubt Noah will turn out okay. (Also special thanks for setting me up with a nice, easy quote for the title of this post).

Speaking of babies, I also had the pleasure of hosting some close friends of mine and their infant son at the Hamptons House this weekend. Thanks to the never-ending rain, I got to enjoy hours of fun inside the house, a significant portion of which involved me watching the new mommy strap on some bizarre apparatus and pump breast milk into plastic containers for future consumption by the young tyke. If I was already frightened about the prospect of someday becoming a father, then I am now positively terrified. Nonetheless, I am as optimistic for young Max's future as I am for Noah, except that as a future Mets fan, Max can look forward to a life of venting frustration on talk radio and Mets weblogs. Welcome to the fun!

In other weekend news, The Sopranos ended (or, more accurately, susp-ended) its season with a pretty good, if discomforting episode involving (another) mob boss ailing in a hospital bed, (more) infidelity and heroine addiction for Christopher and (for the first time ever) some responsibility and maturity from A.J. I'm sure the film buffs like my brother will say this episode was a masterpiece, but I have to say that I was really uncomfortable sitting there watching Christopher and Juliana Margolis nod off on the yam yam. What's even more tragic is that the couple's swan dive off the wagon and attendant downward spiral of smack usage was a chain reaction set off by one brief indulgence in Juliana's herbal cough remedy. In any case, with the onset of the Summer, we can say good bye to Tony and the boys from North Jersey and a hearty "Hello" to Vince, Drama, Turtle and the crew from Hollywood. I hear a trip to Vegas is on this Summer's agenda. Victory!!!

Finally, who needs crying babies to keep you up all night when the Mets are playing 6 straight night games on the West Coast? Last night, I watched 7 innings of Alay Soler's 1-run masterpiece. Yes, it was a thing of beauty, but I see a lot of Starbucks in my immediate future. Four days 'till the weekend, people!