Enoch

Sausage party at Wals' place?

Well, the Buffalo Bills hope you're right. But look at the money-- 1 year at $6.5M. Sounds nice to you and me, but it's a noticeably below-market deal for a supposed top-10 WR. For example, it's less than the per year average that Laveranues Coles got from the Bengals a week ago, and nobody is confusing Coles with a gamebreaking #1 WR. T.O. accepted a short-term contract at a sub-elite salary level because the teams that aren't completely put off by his general jackassery and insubordination realize that his performance isn't what it used to be. He's a role-player, not a star anymore.

Heh. I just got back from a birthday party for my wife's cousin's son. (He's 6. We bought him some matchbox cars.) Sadly, I was the designated driver tonight-- my wife's cousin (and her husband, a nephrologist originally from Nicaragua) throws a nice party, with lots of interesting wines and whiskeys to sample. (For the adults, not the 6-year-olds.) And my own birthday (my, ulp, 30th) is on this coming Friday. I'm feeling pretty laid back about the first digit on the ol' odometer turning over, though. Getting hitched and buying a house last year already pretty much drove home the point that I'm not a kid anymore.

@ Gorgon's links: I enjoyed the first two. Gave the rest a verse and a chorus and didn't find them interesting enough to continue. Bird & Diz -- Hot House

Played a little World of Goo tonight. I beat it months ago, but it's fun to revisit some of the cleverer puzzles. Plus, I had forgotten how awesome the music was.

Now downloading. Up to 5% at about 770K/sec.

Much like the engineer's good/fast/cheap aphorism, with women, you can only ever get 2 of the following 3: Smart, Hot, Sane.

Statistical Analysis: Is T.O. Done?

That's very admirable of you Volo, but it means that you would make a terrible NFL GM. First, it ignores the fact that players don't all make the same salary: If a smart GM can replace a guy making $5M/season with a guy who isn't quite as good but only makes $500K/season, Mr $5M is out on the street. Second, it ignores the fact that time waits for no man. In a physical sport like football, all athletes lose effectiveness as they get deeper into their 30s. Sure, 35-year-old T.O. was more effective than 27-year-old Roy Williams in 2008, but what are the odds that the same is the case with 36-year-old T.O.? It's often a difficult choice to make, but it is nearly always better to cut ties with a player a year too early than it is a year too late. Third, it ignores the elements of performance that aren't immediately obvious in on-field performance. Does the player make the other guys around him better or worse? Does he lead by example, and does he help to teach the younger guys at his position? Is he supportive or destructive of the coach's authority and discipline? Does he willingly do the little things that don't accrue him stats or fan adoration, like blocking downfield on running plays or running convincing clearing routes to open up other receivers underneath? Fourth, it shows that you weren't watching Owens' performance particularly closely in 2008. He is clearly slipping-- opponents with decent personnel were often meaningfully limiting his effectiveness with just 1 CB, which is a major dropoff from when he was at his a couple seasons ago. And at his age, that decline is likely to be steep. Owens still has value as a starting WR for another season or two. But I'd take any of the 10 guys I listed above ahead of him for those years, as well as at least 5 other guys. And, if I'm staffing a team for the long haul, there are probably 50 WRs I'd take before a 35-year-old, me-first, camera-hound T.O.

10 better WRs: 1) Andre Johnson 2) Larry Fitzgerald 3) Randy Moss 4) Steve Smith 5) Roddy White 6) Reggie Wayne 7) Calvin Johnson Greg Jennings 9) Anquan Boldin 10) Marques Colston Owens was losing it last season, and it's not just because he spent some time with Brad Johnson at QB. His stats don't look terrible, but that's largely a result of aggregation-- yeah, he got 1052 yards, but that was on 140 passes (which he caught less than half of). Greg Jennings had the same number of passes, but produced 1291 yards. Steve Smith had 10 fewer passes, and produced 1424. Dallas may not be better on gameday without Owens, but they are more likely to avoid a late-season locker-room/press-conference explosion that dooms the team's morale and cohesion. It's a matter of risk tolerance.

Seconded.

Beyond the well documented off-the-field stuff, Owens wasn't commanding nearly as much double-coverage as he has in the past. He's 35, and starting to show it. Someone will be willing to pay him to play in '09. The question is whether anyone will be willing to pay him a salary above the level he will deign to accept. If Owens demands a longer-term deal or siginificant guaranteed money, he could end up spending the season at home. He makes sense to a team that is weak at WR and thinks that it's close to making a playoff run. The rest of the NFCE has already said "no thanks" in no uncertain terms, and other franchises and coaches who have dealt with him in the past like SF, MIA (Parcells/Sparano), and MIN (Childress was his OC in Philly) are almost certainly out. The Jets? Chicago? Baltimore? Edit: Scratch Baltimore-- I forgot that Harbaugh was the ST coach while Owens was in Philly.

That sounds like enough for me. I'm tempted to wait until there's a patch or two out there, but really, if it looks like I'm going to have a solid day of free time this weekend (and, so far, Sunday is looking clear), I'll probably download it. I tired of M2TW relatively quickly-- too many seiges that were rather tedious, repetitive, and that the auto-calc (which makes me feel a little dirty) was consistently better at than any human player could be. But even so, it certainly provided enough fun to be worth my time and expense.

Spiderman: Web of Shadows

I think it's more what happens when you wear latex bikini briefs that have to support the weight of a three-foot-long tail sticking out of your arse. Them things have got to be extraordinarily tight.

Yeah, my post probably came off more serious than intended. Mostly, I just wanted to relate my surprise and amusement at the salt fog. I grew up in a coastal area, and I've certainly swallowed and even inhaled enough seawater over the years to know that it's probably not fatal (and that was on the beaches of New Jersey!).

And here I went and moved out of the state where I hold my license. I mean, I could always go pro se, but thousands of people go through that station daily-- this is looking like a class action opportunity!

So, is inhaling rock salt bad for you? The powers that be running the space for busses around the DC Metro station in Bethesda have created a rather odd environment. As one comes up the escalator from the subway, to the left is a loop off of the road with stops, that accommodates 7 or 8 busses at a time, so that subway travelers may easily transfer to bus transportation. This area has a rather low roof over it, though, because it is directly under a plaza adjoining two high-rise buildings (one office, one hotel). It is open on boths ends to accomodate ventilation of all the bus exhaust, but when there isn't much wind, fumes do tend to build up. The area got 4-5 inches of snow on Monday, and it has been below freezing ever since, so they have salted the area heavily to prevent accidents. But the combination of lots of rock salt granules, limited ventilation, dry air with little wind, and lots of bus traffic coming in and out has created an interesting effect-- clouds of rock salt dust. Yesterday, on my way home, I walked up the subway escalator. It's a very long escalator (walking it while it is in operation, I have counted 90+ steps), so I was breathing a bit heavily when I reached the top. I quickly noticed that, whenever I inhaled through my mouth, I instantly detected a salty taste on my tongue. That's when I noticed the white fog that encircled the bus area. Is this some kind of environmental hazard?

Anyone else suspecting spam here? The original poster has 5 posts on these forums, and 2 of them are references to this game.

Didn't 4chan start as an anime-related site? There's really nowhere to go but up from there. Seriously, though, the WaPo had an interesting profile of the site's founder a week or three ago.

Isn't there an Animal Crossing game out for Wii? Seems like the sort of thing that the wee tykes would like. Edit: Actually, I just remembered where that thought (and the one I posted above) came from. Michael Abbott plays Animal Crossing with his daughter.

Isn't TV in general a Bad Thing for kids under 2? Edit: Not trying to lay the Parental Guilt Trip on you or anything. I just thought I remembered reading that somewhere.

Here I am at work on what should probably be a snow day, and every damn website I try to access that would help me actually, you know, work is apparently down. Westlaw freezes when I try to search or print anything, the DoJ's website isn't loading, and my boss is going to call me (he's teleworking due to the snow) in 2 hours to see how much progress I'm making. Infuriating!

Meh. I haven't played Bloodlines, but I avoided it specifically because I played both Arcanum and ToEE, and regretted purchasing both.

Oh, I did that quest rather late in the game, so I certainly had a high enough Small Guns skill (as well as Sneak and Science, which I've read are options, too). The options that involve helping train them in various skills just never came up. Maybe I wasn't talking to the right person or something.