I know this gets written about every year, but not by me. Now it's my turn.
Baseball Writers' Association of America, for the love of all that is holy, please vote Rickey Henderson into the Baseball Hall of Fame unanimously.
Your continued insistence to not do this simple thing is just prolonging the agony.
You are not doing any justice to those greats who were previously served the indignity of being left off a handful of ballots. Instead, you are shouting an abrasive reminder of how pig headed and wrong you repeatedly are collectively. Shouting it right in a bullhorn. Reminding everyone that you didn't become ridiculous this year, you've been ridiculous for 70-some-odd years, and you have every intention of remaining ridiculous. Forever?
You may well be perpetuating a funny little rite within your fraternity. Like most fraternal in-jokes, it is not the least bit entertaining to anyone else. In fact, it is generally perceived as idiotic. And, in this case, your job isn't to entertain yourselves, but to serve the fan base of the sport. You are the keepers of a cherished institution. This "nobody gets every vote" position makes a mockery of your role. It's insulting. Seriously. Embarrassing. Stop it.
You guys have a pretty darn impressive track record with regard to whom you've voted in and whom you have left on the outside. It makes this tradition that much more glaringly stupid. There have been plenty of opportunities to shake off this black mark. You had two good chances last year in Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken. Rickey Henderson is arguably, close to inarguably, the greatest leadoff hitter in the history of the game. Please don't make one of your members write a long, awkward, humiliating explanation for leaving him off the ballot, shuffling his feet like a freshman with a new bowl cut, blathering something about snatch catches and hot dogging. I mean, this same guy voted for an alcoholic and a cocaine-addict just a couple of years ago.
Do the right thing, baseball writers. Vote in Rickey. All of you. Start a new tradition, steeped in old timey wisdom. And with less asshattery. Thank you.
...and have been wondering where I've been the last couple of years, you might want to try my actual blog at
Welcome to Week Four of the 2008 edition of The Hoser's NFL Picks, where we fell faster than AIG stock.
The Hoser stumbled to a 7-9 week against the spread and missed both the Lock of the Week and (of course) the Trifecta. Going 12-4 straight up is absolutely no consolation, especially considering our friend Jungle Dan picked up nearly $4,000 on the Pro Picks Pool by hitting 15 games.What’s his secret? Dan had a little late cash come his way and filled out the card on his way to the gas station. He did pick 75% home winners, but which game did he miss, you ask? The freaking Cleveland/Baltimore game. That proves he was almost choosing at random, especially considering he got Miami over New England.
Meanwhile, we here at Hoser Central were deeply saddened by the firing of Lions GM Matt Millen. We can only hope he lands another job – as we have about six months’ worth of material already in the can.
If you have knees and a heart, join The Hoser and his staff in saying a little prayer for Tampa Bay kicker Matt Bryant and his family, who lost their six-month-old son this week. You’re in our thoughts, folks.
Remember – these picks are just for fun. Using them to wager money is advisable as not forcing Al Davis to take his meds.
Denver (-9.5) at KANSAS CITY – O/U 46.5: If Atlanta scored 38 on the Chiefs, how many will the Broncos run up? Too bad we don’t know how to make the infinity sign on this keyboard. Broncos 37, Chiefs 17.
Cleveland (+3) at CINCINNATI – O/U 43.5: Rumour has it former Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Bill Cowher has bought a house in the Cleveland area just in case Romeo Crennel gets canned. Just in case? Bengals 22, Browns 17.
Houston (+7.5) at JACKSONVILLE – O/U 41.5: So, Texans QB Matt Schaub throws three picks and keeps his starting gig? Who’s the back-up there – Garo Yepremian? Jaguars 24, Texans 17.
Arizona (+1.5) at N.Y. JETS – O/U 45: Could someone point out to us in which Jets game New York has looked better than the Cardinals in any of their games? God help us, we might make the Cards the Lock again. Arizona 29, New York Jets 19.
San Francisco (+6) at NEW ORLEANS – O/U 48.5: It boggles the mind to think Detroit fired Mike Martz last year, but kept Matt Millen until this week. That’s from the minds that kept making SUVs when gas went over $2 a gallon. Saints 30, 49ers 27.
Atlanta (+7.5) at CAROLINA – O/U 39.5: We said last week hopefully the Falcons learned the magic rule with two stud RBs and one young QB – two runs for every pass. A quick look at the stats shows Atlanta threw 18 times and ran 36. Someone’s actually listening out there! Panthers 22, Falcons 16.
Minnesota (+3.5) at TENNESSEE – O/U 36.5: Gus Frerotte vs. Kerry Collins. This game is so 1990s, they should have Roxette play the halftime show. Titans 24, Vikings 20.
Green Bay (+1.5) at TAMPA BAY – O/U 42: We don’t want to say Bucs WR Ike Hilliard is old … but he remembers when John McCain actually made sense when he talked. Packers 23, Buccaneers 20.
Buffalo (-8) at ST. LOUIS – O/U 42: Trent Green. Really. Mother*&^*ing Trent Green. Bills 33, Rams 14.
San Diego (-7) at OAKLAND – O/U 45.5: During this constant babble about Raiders head coach Lane Kiffin possibly losing his job, has anyone else kept hearing the Japanese guy from Better Off Dead saying, “Young Lane Myer …” Chargers 27, Raiders 14.
Washington (+11) at DALLAS – O/U 46.5: The Cowboys are the best team in football, and even a fired-up Washington squad will do nothing to stop the D-Train. Still, a late touchdown brings the game in under the line. Cowboys 31, Racists 21.
Philadelphia (-3) at CHICAGO – O/U 40.5: Word has leaked on why the Eagles are playing so well. Head coach Andy Reid has threatened to make his team wear those godawful periwinkle and yellow throwback jerseys again if they don’t put out. Eagles 23, Bears 17.
Baltimore (+5.5) at PITTSBURGH – O/U 34.5: Poor Ben Roethlisberger. Jenna Jameson never took a pounding that long and hard. Steelers 20, Ravens 17.
Lock of the Week: Denver
Trifecta: Denver, Buffalo, Arizona
Over/Under Good Buys: Buffalo/St. Louis OVER
Week Three Results:
Straight Up: 12-4
Against The Spread: 7-9
Lock of the Week: 0-1
Trifecta: 0-1
Money Banked: $+150
Season Results:
Straight Up: 32-15
Against The Spread: 25-20-2
Lock of the Week: 1-2
Trifecta: 1-2
Money Count: $-570
The Hoser’s format: The format will stay as it has been for the past two seasons – each game is $100 ATS, with a $100 Trifecta and a $300 Lock of the Week for an even $2K per week. When the bye weeks begin, we’ll jump the Lock to $500 to keep the number even. We’ll use Danny Sheridan’s line in the USA Today each week.
How did this happen?
Donald Trump showed up outside Celtics practice to present Kevin Garnett with a birthday gift, a copy of Trump's newest book, entitled October Leaders. John Madden received only apologies from Trump who didn't know Madden would be there to chauffeur the guests via bus to KG's party. "Professor" Brendan Morrow got a paddle for discipling students. "Bucket" Billy Crystal, coach of an unspecified team, received a plaque and, most poignant of all, Pete Rose Jr. got a single, perfect red rose to commemorate fighting Mike Tyson to a draw one day earlier.
I'm thinking about registering with Megan's Law, just to keep kids out of our yard.
Given I'm not doing anything else with this address in cyberspace, I figured I'd use it as a way to guilt myself into writing about what I am recently obsessed with: information. It started with an issue of Warren Ellis' Planetary that broached the idea beneath the atoms and quarks was information, the actual building block of everything.
Then I moved from being a developer to being a developer and a team leader; this meant a portion of my time went from doing what I considered "work" to shifting information from one party to another, typically a project manager to a developer. It felt as though I'd become an old-school telephone operator, patching Klondike-5342 into the proper line. My initial reaction was revulsion because I had seen a number of other people using a similar process to hide from doing actual work.
Six months later, I couldn't tell you the difference between passing relevant information onto parties that need it and "work". We need packet sniffers watching the routing of information between people, intelligent agents (whether human or machine-based) that can watch the overwhelming streams of data we now generate and pick out the single notes that matter.
An aside: in the interests of simplicity, I am going to avoid questions of privacy and civil liberties as much as possible. I am a fierce believer in both, but I think the questions muddy the water. Furthermore, this kind of information sniffing is already going and will continue to evolve regardless of this discussion; better to get to the answers and then propose solutions.
I think information may be underneath everything. Even if it's not, this feels like a useful framework to investigate the world with. I've lost interest in video games in the past year as I started to see them as work. It's become hard to think about sitting down and executing a repetitive task as a vehicle for fun. I don't think this means video games are over or that I will never enjoy a game again, but it's changed how I look for games and I'm stuck to tell you what criteria I should use. The only game I've loved recently has been Wario Ware, and the whole concept of that is short, repetitive tasks. But there's no point to the tasks, and I think that's the difference.
The Information drives a lot of what we do. We live in a world that is a random system (if not random, the system and its various subsystems consist of enough inputs to make the system effectively random) and yet we are wired to try to impose order on the system. To try to see patterns, to try to fence things into grids (property maps, long/lats, GPS) in a system inherently opposed to this. I think much of the things we find entertaining are artificially ordered. Most works of fiction are satisfying in their sensibility: the protagonist has a problem with a clear cause, they take an approach to the problem and solve it or fail in an understandable way. Along the way (at least with a 3rd-person omniscient narrator), we assume we know everything that's happened to the protagonist even though few works of fiction are in real-time.
Put more succinctly: why the hell do I do the NYT crossword puzzle a couple of times a week? Ostensibly it sharpens my mental faculties, but I can't say that would keep me showing up for the kind of abuse Will Shortz provides.
There might have been a point to this post at one point, but I clearly lost it. The meta-point survived though, as I just need to get started. Hopefully with practice will come organization, thesis and, however unlikely, insight. I am not, fictional reader, here for you, I'm here for the Furies buzzing in my head.
Do you have a pet? What kind of pet do you own, and why did you choose it?
Submitted by Brendz.
We have two Boston Terriers, one which we got as a puppy and the other was an adoption. We selected the breed after much research mostly on how much we loved the look, but also because they have short hair and are very smart.
