Biting winds and below zero temperatures.

It doesn’t help that the two times the Pacers the one year that they had clearly the best team and should’ve won the title The Artest Fight happened.

It cost me seventeen dollars to drive through it, I felt cheated out of my money because on top of it almost boring me to death, the roads were in poor condition too!

Which is home to Cedar Point, only the most awesome amusement park that exists, and is home to such coasters as the Millennium Force and Top Thrill Dragster.

(Get your mind out of the gutter when looking at this one)

and shouldn’t a local traffic reporter know better?

Sunday night footabll last night

“Sooner or later, 69 will be in your face.” – Al Michaels

Winter meetings and I have too much to work on to sit around doing obsessive link refreshing every few minutes. I scarcely seem to mind though. Perhaps is that I don’t have as much of a feeling of impending disaster as I once did.

“Seattle Branyan, in preliminary stage of negotiations, STOP THINK, last year 251 BA, 431 AB, 149 SO (35%), lifetime 2431 AB, 946 SO, (42%). “But he hit 31 HR’s” so what !!!!!! He also had ONLY 76 RBI’s hitting in the 4 hole. Let some other team have him,the GM brought him along with him from Mil. let him go back. The Seattle Mariners aren’t like that, they will keep the SO king and lose again next year. What a shame !!!!!"

I am forever grateful that I found USSM and LL or I would probably still be toiling around on these threads.

Anyone else?

http://www.examiner.com/x-30793-Chicago-Online-Games-Examiner~y2009m12d5-Xbox-Live-Banning-Call-of-Duty-Modern-Warfare-2-Javelin-Exploit-Abusers

My wife and I just joined a bowling league, and we are apparently taking over a team that lost all its members, and we’ve been told we can keep the existing name or come up with our own name. The current name is Pin Pirates, which is somewhat lame. So I need ideas for a team name. The only two hard-and-fast rules are no obscenities and nothing political.

Any ideas?

Is it “data is” or data are" (eg “The data is skewed” or “The data are skewed”)

I always say “data are” but tend to get funny look

I decided to not listen to my hatred of large masses of people and go to the Holiday Ale Festival on Friday. While there were indeed eighty bajillion people there, I had a ton of good beers. In no particular order:

Hair Of The Dog JIM
Collaborator Sled Crasher
Block 15 Old St. Nick
Dogfish Head Chicory Stout
Golden Valley Tannen Bomb
Laughing Dog Chocolate Huckleberry Stout
McMenamins Elven Conspiracy (I never thought I’d love a McMenamins beer but this was really good stuff)
Bayern Face Plant

I had a few other tastes as well but those were the ones that stuck out.
Two disappointing beers:
Stone Bourbon-Barrel Aged Arrogant Bastard. Not bad, but Stone’s capable of so much better.
Widmer Cherry Aged Doppelbock. Tasted like a melted popsicle, and not in a good way.

Then after the festival, we went to the 5th Quadrant and had Lompoc’s seasonal Vanilla Stout, which is unbelievably good. Good beer makes me happy.

http://www.google.com/mobile/goggles/#landmark

So. Covering even minor league baseball has its perils. Inevitably you get fanboys of various players gunning for you. Devin had Jack Arroyo’s biggest fan gunning for him. Jack Arroyo hasn’t played affiliated ball since 2006. No one but the Mariners wanted him in the first place.

I have Joey Newby’s biggest fan gunning for me. Someone asked me about Newby a week ago, and my reply was “Shiny ERA, but he ran a 40/36 K/BB in 53.0 innings.”

Today, I get two comments from someone in my spam filter going by the name “Jay might be a moron”….

Hey Jay,
Do you know anything about Newby? Anything at all? Do you think that his ERA was an accident? Do you think he was just SQUEEKING BY, or was he the most solid relief pitcher at the higher levels the last half of the season? Yes, he walked a few guys, but doesn’t that mean you would have to work harder to keep that ERA lower? He was out of basball for 2 complete season after being let go by the A’s the day after injuring his arm and requiring Tommy John surgery. Spent those 2 years doing all his own rehab, working odd jobs to stay afloat and then finally gets a shot with the mariners and because he comes into spring training in TOP PHYSICAL CONDITION, he is suspected of using steroids and forced to sit out of spring training until the test results were returned. Only was allowed on the field with 8 days left in camp! So after 2 years of busting his ass, he gets to Arizona a month before minor league camp, wants to start throwing and be ready to go and instead is told by the mariners, "You look like you are on something, you’re the only 1 out of the 200 guys here that has to do this, so go back and sit in your hotel room for 3-4 weeks till we get the results back, no you can’t use our weight room, no you cannot throw here, just sit and wait"! So yes, his first 20 innings were a little shaky, but if you can’t look at the last half of his season and say, "WOW," he pulled it together and will only get better! You’re a fool!

but wait, it gets better!

And lastly………. If Newby were to walk a guy, strike one out, walk 1, strike one out, walk one, strike one out……….what’s that ratio and era come out to be? Isn’t it a 0.00 with a 1:1 K/BB ratio? Good math! Yes, he’s a single away from giving up 2 runs! But did he? NOPE!

And before I forget………how did the Mariners 1st Rounders do at the exact same level? I believe fields had a 6.5+ ERA and Aumont was unable to pitch the last month of the season because he broke his hand after one of his SOLID OUTTINGS! But again, you know best!

Not that I mentioned Aumont or Fields in comparison, but let’s throw up Newby’s cumulative numbers are a reference point:

April: 6.2 IP, 7 H, 3/3 K/BB (4.05/4.05 per nine)
May: 10.2 IP, 11 H, 7/8 K/BB (5.91/6.75 per nine)
June: 15.0 IP, 6 H (.130 BABIP), 15/12 (9.00/7.20 per nine)
July: 8.2 IP, 10 H, 8/6 K/B (8.31/6.23 per nine)
August: 10.0 IP, 10 H, 5/6 K/BB (4.50/5.40 per nine)

GOD! How could I not see Newby’s tremendous progress over the course of the season? Oh wait.
</ end rant>

May I assume that the next 3 quarters are more of the same?

who play COD MW:2

Lots of energy and enthusiasm. I’ve seen tons of live shows and they would probably rank up there in terms of fun level.

Oops.

National team goalkeepers can now commence bitching about the extra-ridiculous-swervy qualities of the official World Cup ball, like they do before every tournament.

I don’t have Windows, and am not particularly interested in dual-booting OS X and Windows; my wife needs to run IE so she can work from home but I have no other need for Windows in my life. I’ve tried Crossover, but it doesn’t seem to work without a bunch of java plugins – which I will get if necessary but I’d rather not if at all possible. Anybody have any luck with this or any other app that can get IE running on a Mac?

GO GO GO!

Mine’s Lisa.

Sorry about bailing on you in MW2 last night. GF came home and it was quicker and less painful to go.

waiting for someone to push him one way or the other

Soup Kitchen in my Pants (NSFW unless you have headphones)

http://www.joystickdivision.com/2009/12/random_excuses_for_sucking_at.php