Today, at the day job, they moved our offices from the concourse (i.e., “basement”) to the 2nd floor and the presence of natural sunlight has made me giddy. Consumed as I am with thoughts of new beginnings, I’d like to remind all fans of crappy teams that every new season is a new beginning and has little, if any, connection to the last one. Likewise, any major shift in management or ownership severs any connection to the previous regime(s). Think of a season as sports reincarnation, just churning the cycles over and over until one breaks through and reaches Nirvana (i.e., “championship”). Patience, people…
- As much as I love dinosaurs and The Far Side, it’s hard for me to believe it took until this week to realize the cluster of spikes at the end of a Stegosaurus’s tail really is called a “thagomizer“.
- Back in the early days of dino-identification the thagomizer and the dorsal plates often got switched, among other oddities of early dino-theory.
- Optimus is riding a Dinobot (“Me called Grimlock!”) in this trailer for Transformers 4.
- There is just oodles of Cubs news on the web now that Spring Training has started, so I’m going to try to focus on a few topics. One will be the progress of Mike Olt, and it sounds like day one went well. If Olt becomes the player everyone thought he was two years ago and locks up third base for the Cubs, it has major implications for the future – because with dwindling positions available, someone young and valuable is going to become trade bait.
- I’m also keeping an eye for any signs of life from Brett Jackson and Josh Vitters. If either of these guys becomes a viable big league player it, again, has major implications for team depth and trade assets.
- Speaking of trade assets, it looks like the Cubs might have suiters for some members of a suddenly deep (if, probably, average) pitching staff.
- This list of tips for Japanese tourists visiting the U.S.A. for the first time is hilarious, but it also makes you realize that, as much as we assume people from other countries don’t like us, at least some of them have a higher opinion of American politeness than we probably deserve.
- Someone put together a map of the best selling music artists from each state. Except for one, which they inexplicably just labeled with the state name. The states that didn’t qualify are interesting as well.
- Probably because of a childhood of watching At the Movies and Roger Ebert I’ve always enjoyed reading reviews and this one really makes me want to watch Blackadder. I’ve always been peripherally aware of the series, but I didn’t realize the cast was so talented, and I never realized the show jumped time periods. Very interesting…oh, look, there’s a Hulu channel!
- Boy, there is not a lot to talk about with the Saints right now. Here is some speculation about free agent targets, just because I have nothing else to link to. Of course, the writer thinks David Hawthorne has been a bust and that Brian Orakpo has insane upside, so grab your salt shaker.
- Here’s a periodic table of weightless exercises. Those are exercises that don’t use weights, you don’t have to go into low earth orbit.
- I don’t advocate violence, but if you ever have to throw a punch in anger, throw it like an old-timey muscle man.
- Zen Pencils continues with Part Two of The Artist-Troll War.
- I’ve heard about the theory before, but someone took the time to chart Kurt Vonnegut’s Shapes of Stories.
- The Wizards landed a backup point guard and cancelled #Airwolf. Hopefully getting out of DC does young Jan some good and he gets his career
backon track. - In most jobs the ability to fix mistakes is considered a good, and important, one. If you’re the Wizards GM it’s just another sign of your incompetence. I hate it when journalists/bloggers rip a move in hindsight, but never mention that they, themselves, were pretty supportive of said move in the beginning.
- First this story is touching, because they give prosthetic legs to a dog. Then it’s ridiculous, because they make him wear crocs. Then it gets ludicrous, because blind pig.
- Here is the Song of the Week. We have reached Nirvana…
