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Wednesday, September 22, 2004 |
It's Just Part Of The Show, Folks
Reminding myself that it's all just entertainment -- adirectional notes not necessarily related to baseball --
For Sale: Sentient, Insane, Homicidal Computer
The Cinerama 160 degree Fairchild-Curtis lens used to represent the HAL 9000 computer in the sci-fi classic, 2001: A Space Odyssey, is available for sale on eBay. Most of the other props used for the film have subsequently been destroyed; the current bid is $150,000. As a friend of mine remarked when I alerted her to this breaking story, "The first time my toaster oven tries to take over my house, I'm unplugging the damn thing!"The Infinite Cat Project
Okay, now this is silly. (An explanation of said silliness can be found here.)Jeeves Loses Weight
askjeeves.com, one of the Internet's many search engines and a contractor for the company I work for, changed their eponymous mascot, the butler Jeeves:
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| Before | After |
Not only has he lost weight, he's tan and got a nose job. Sadly, along with the site redesign, the answer to an easter egg question about Jeeves' recreational preferences was lost; the new answer has far less charm and is, in keeping with their new focus on profitability, basely commercial.
Notes On Richard's Pitching Roundup
I couldn't help but notice Richard's pitching preview; I had a couple comments which were too long for the comment section.- Colon will be the answer in 2005-2007 to Aaron Sele. Is there a rule that says the Angels have to have at least one expensive free-agent bust of a starting pitcher on their team? Richard thinks his strong finish means there's grounds for optimism, but a look at his career splits indicates he's frequently finished strong in September/October:
Year ERA ========== 1997 5.49 1998 8.47 1999 2.97 2000 1.94 2001 3.92 2002 4.97 2003 2.63
(Thanks to Retrosheet for data prior to 1999.) So he's been erratic throughout his career, and a strong finish -- or a weak finish -- doesn't mean a thing for his next season.
- Unloading Sele and moving Ortiz to the bullpen for the remainder of his tenure as an Angel (assuming they pick up his $5M option) means the Angels now have to pick up two starters in the offseason. Translation: combined with Arte's proclamation that payroll will go down next year, we can expect Ortiz to be back in the rotation next year, unless a better option shows up elsewhere.
- Percival's presumed exit from the club means Frankie is the team's closer. This means he's unavailable for higher-leverage outs earlier in the game, which isn't a good thing. At the right price, I'd like to see Percival return: $4M/2 years?
Alvarez Out
Wilson Alvarez, who replaced the ineffective Ishii in the rotation, tweaked his left hamstring. He will miss his next start, and the ineffective Ishii will replace him. No comment.DePodesta's Folly
While coming home from the Hollywood Bowl last night (the traffic getting there was ungodly terrible, the traffic leaving amazingly light), I turned on the Dodger Talk show to hear a caller Steve mention that some-scout-or-other had resigned because DePodesta had decided to trade for injury risk Brad Penny over his advice to the contrary. Well, what should we find in the Times today but reportage on the same issue:"There's probably a bad joke in here about getting documentation like CBS News before people say some of the things they've said, but it doesn't really bother me," said DePodesta, accompanying the team in San Diego. "I know my conversations, I know our thought process, I know what went on and I know what our plans were. If people want to speculate on what we were doing and why were doing it, I can't let that bother me."As I said earlier, this trade will be the one for which DePodesta gets pilloried. Ironically, it was exactly because he foresaw a starting rotation meltdown (which the team is undergoing) that he acquired Penny in the first place. You just can't please some people, I swear.Among the criticisms of DePodesta is that Penny — who last started Aug. 8 because of a nerve problem in his right biceps — did not undergo a physical before the trade.
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