April 09, 2008

STOP FEEDING THIS MAN'S INSATIABLE NARCISSISM

For the love of all that's good about the sports section (is there any?), stop wasting time and space on stories like this.

(The flip side might be that it's not his fault he answered a stupid question honestly. But some questions are so stupid that public figures leave us all a little bit worse off by bothering to give the obvious answer.)

Posted by Matt Bruce at 06:13 PM

April 08, 2008

Olympic Torch Apocrypha

According to this account, "authorities were forced to deliberately extinguish the flame for the first time ever as it passed through Paris."

(emphasis added)

My understanding is that the torch has gone out by accident many times. And if you ask me the whole ceremony is vastly overrated anyway, though you already knew how I felt about not only Olympiads in general but also (especially) Beijing 2008.

I'm heartened to see an entire world of people who feel about the same way I do about that regime and its behavior, though it's a little frightening how fervent the protest has become. (It's not as if mobs in Paris will somehow transform mainland China into a republic, any more than a local motorist could free Tibet.)

Posted by Matt Bruce at 04:55 PM

April 07, 2008

One of These Bands is 1000x as Good As the Other

Dear YouTube (and/or Universal Music Group),

The "Related Videos" on this page obviously are related; however, the "More From: universalmusicgroup" videos really don't belong in the same discussion.

blink-182 ?!

Posted by Matt Bruce at 01:22 PM

Team Entrance Music

It's small sample size but the Orioles are undefeated since switching from "Orioles Magic" as their take-the-field song to Saliva's "Click Click Boom."

The A's take-the-field music seems to be up to the starting pitcher: Joe Blanton, for example, gets the cheesiest country songs imaginable. (Mark Mulder always warmed up to "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger." That was Mulder's song, and only Mulder's, until he was traded and Barry Zito took it over; since Zito's departure the Daft Punk has lain fallow.)

Every few months I change my mind about what song I'd most want to warm up to as the home team starting pitcher. For awhile I was in a "Shaft" (extended instrumental intro) frame of mind, but now I just wonder if any team would actually be willing to do "YYZ." Oops, I actually mean "The Camera Eye." Getting my Moving Pictures tracks confused in my middle age.

Posted by Matt Bruce at 11:40 AM

Jake Peavy

I have no opinion yet about the suspicious dark smudges on Jake Peavy's hand, but I love to tears that both this thread and this thread became so obscene so quickly.

Posted by Matt Bruce at 11:34 AM

Sentence of the Day

"Instead of watching to prevent crime, motorized police patrol became a process of merely waiting to respond to crime."
(emphases in original)
--from Cop in the Hood, via Marginal Revolution

Many years ago Tulsa got a new police chief who touted a novel-sounding concept called "community policing": That is, put cops in the neighborhoods, on the streets, so that people who lived there got to know them etc. I never understood why such a seemingly obvious plan aroused such fervent opposition.

(The loudest critics gave me the impression that they'd just as soon jail 'em all and let God sort 'em out.)

Posted by Matt Bruce at 11:21 AM

The Erotics of Investing

Men who see sexually explicit images go on to take bigger risks.

If I ever ran an underground poker room, I'd show pornos to make sure the pots (thus the rake) were that much bigger.

Posted by Matt Bruce at 11:18 AM

April 06, 2008

So Good, They're Bad?

These players are not only on one of my "real" fantasy teams but also on my team in the Kimera Bartee Open (which rewards playing badly):

Kurt Suzuki (Scoresheet)
Asdrubal Cabrera (both a Scoresheet and a roto)
Adam Everett (Scoresheet)
Alfredo Amezaga (Scoresheet)
Dontrelle Willis (Scoresheet)
Ian Kennedy (roto)

Posted by Matt Bruce at 11:55 AM