As I read through my posts so far this season, I was struck by how it feels like so much more than three months have passed. Time fails to fly when you're at the bottom of the division, I guess. Man, we really have come a long way since Joe Randa and his “All I know is I'm gonna rake this year,” and that opening sweep of the Mets that had everyone barely daring to whisper “wire-to-wire,” haven't we?

Red Hot Mama was barely a week old when the her first fake news story, Freel, Wilson Still Sorry, came out on April 11 fast on the heels of that Freel DUI fiasco. It was a proud moment. (The fake news, not the DUI.)

Here's a great quote from my post on April 16: “Milton looked (sounded) great. I won't jinx things by suggesting that we might finally have a real-life starter that we can actually count on, but, well, I'll just stop.” I should have stopped before I typed that. Looks like it's all my fault. Damn me and my jinxing ways!

I continued along the fake news track on April 27 when I thought I was just being silly suggesting that Lopez would be a five-time All-Star in 2010. Shows what I know. Four more to go.

On May 2, I picked a fight with Bellyscratcher to start our first Smack Talk. Man, we were pretty weak back in those days, but to be fair, it was a total blowout. For the Reds. Remember? Until Graves and the ninth. That ugly, ugly ninth. And Graves' ugly, ugly behavior afterward.

That game prompted one of RHM's more popular stories explaining how it wasn't Graves' fault.

On May 14, Joel gave us this bit of genius over at Reds and Blues, opening himself up for countless references and links from Red Hot Mama.

After at least three crappy starts, Paul Wilson lost his arms in what would turn out to be a season-ending injury, and there went our opening day starter. Poor guy. Poor us. The Reds would go on to cause mass irritation by carrying too many pitchers, but really, even 13 pitchers weren't enough.

It was round-abouts May 20 when D'Angelo Jimenez was DFA'd in the Reds' first attempt to shake up this faltering team. Even then, I wasn't impressed, and neither were the Reds who won that day but dropped the rest of the series to the then-struggling Indians. The Indians!

On April 17, I had said that Graves had “nothing to worry about.” I made an about-face and got lucky on May 22 when I called the dismissal of Graves the day before it happened. Dr. Johnson said it was a “turn on.” Dr. J would later embarrass me horribly when he hit too close to the mark calling me on my baseball crushes, and then he would disappear. You still out there Doc? No one's posting boderline inappropriate stuff on my site these days.

A couple weeks later, we followed the great fun when, on June 2, Kearns and Dunn went on a wacky adventure through Denver, but my personal favorite story was on June 4 when Milton, Casey, and Randa threw down outside Coors stadium. June 7 was also very popular with its fake classifieds.

The middle of June saw Austin Kearns being sent to Louisville, where he remains still. A couple good things have come from it, though, such as a couple of intercepted letters, and my getting to see him play in Indy on July 4 and July 5.

Before the end of June, we would see the removal of Dave Miley and Don Gullet, right in the middle of a series with the Cardinals. The Reds took the series, but got back to their inefficient ways in short order, so it ended up looking like just the latest in several big-but-ultimately-ineffective moves that have defined the first half of this season.

There was good news, though, and more than just Tony Little and Geico. The Reds moved Dunn up in the order after I said they should on June 30. And then, just a week later, his congregation was in trouble for insect cruelty.

And that pretty much brings us up to the present moment. There were some good times to break up the monotony, and surely we're due some more in the second half. Just three more months to go? That's going to fly by.

Go Reds!

PS - Don't forget that Bellyscratcher and I will be smack talking the All-Star game. Could be a total disaster. You won't want to miss it!