Week 7 Number One Fantasy QB Kyle Boller?

There's something seriously wrong with Sports Illustrated's Week 7 Fantasy Football player projections: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/fantasy/football/nfl/player_projections/2011/07/quarterback.html

Your eyes don't deceive, they're ranking the Raiders' Kyle Boller #1 among Quarterbacks (even though it's looking like Carson Palmer will start) and calling for him to account for 1 passing and 4 rushing touchdowns. WTF SI? That's just irresponsible.

Snorkel Adventure with Brad Pitt

I'm Brad Pitt. Welcome to the inner monologue, where I work out anecdotes, phrases and sound bytes in masculine voice over, color-commentating on the large-living glamour parade that is my life in lyrical lusciousness and bon mots with an ineffable, world-weary cool.

Angie, me and the kids have just arrived in the Maldives for a fabulous beach vacation. All checked into our villa and Angie and the littles are tired so I've got the wonderful opportunity of an afternoon to myself for the first time in so long I can't recall.... I'm taking a toke and going for a fucking snorkel.

My FedEx package of t-shirts was at the reception just like my assistant said it would be and wadded up inside the bundle of t-shirts in several nested layers of mouthwash-filled ziploc bags is my ounce of escape -- the finest Sao Paulo North Slope trip weed money can buy, a ceramic chillum and a box of matches from the BOA on Sunset. Why reuse when I can resupply? I have the money and don't need the headaches of any kind of security BS even though I pretty much go where I want with minimal hassle. (Except Germany, where they even hassle Mick Jagger.)

But the herb's still the word when I'm defining relaxation and since Angie gets a little peevish with her malnourishment already making her tetchy and not digging on the stoned-dad routine, it's better to keep things separate. The FedEx package tails us at luxury hotels around the globe addressed to my unemployed man-of-means alter-ego Bobbi Gula. Anyone knows Bobbi, and this includes high-end hotel concierges, knows the drill. That's Brad Pitt's stuff traveling incognito.

Which is super rad on the most perfectly breezy, crystalline blue and green water tropical beach in the Maldives. This is what it's about. Palm trees. White sand. A couple of monster rips from the chillum and then I'm wrapping my kit in a beach towel and fussing with my neoprene booties so I can hit the reef with my brand new Mare scuba fins and snorkel mask from Italy.

I'm sporting some scruff, which is how I roll when I'm relaxing = not shaving. This can create problems with mask seal so, I've got some spiffy silicone gel I smear in my 'stache and that makes for a swell, watertight seal and keeps the puddles from obscuring my vision, which after all these years I'm proud to say is still 20/20.

The water is beautiful, 82 degrees and crystal clear, with the mid-afternoon sun sparking it just right so the light dances off the bottom like a macro-kaleidoscope and the colors are really popping like mad. The coral growth is spotty this close to shore, but I can see the rim of the lagoon a few hundred yards out where the big old Indian Ocean rolls in to meet the proper reef. There's water spraying into the air where the rollers smack the more ambitious coral heads and that's where the action is.

I start to kick out there over the shallows with big stretches of sand and patches of turtle grass and pass over a half-buried stingray, kind what killed the Crocodile Hunter by piercing him through the heart with it's stinger (gnarly), and a young barracuda whose reflective skin almost makes him invisible above the sand. He vanishes with a flick of his tail as I draw near.

Soon enough, I notice the bottom dropping away from 10 feet down to 25-30 or so. The bottom's still sandy, and I pull my head up out of the water to have a look around and reorient in the way air-breathers must. Apparently, I've reached the channel where boats entering the resort breach the barrier reef and cross the lagoon to the pier.

This is semi-dangerous territory for a relatively little snorkeler (though I'm still all beefcake), it'd be easy for a cruising boat captain with a little liquor in him to miss me bobbing in the waves moments before his hull, keel and prop grind up the world's most celebrated living actor to chum. Nonetheless, I have to brave it.

I check both directions and start kicking hard to cross the channel. This is the ocean-going equivalent of running up the stairs from the basement after flipping off the lights. You're 99% sure you're going to make it, but you hold your breath all the same, waiting for the strike of fangs on your ankle to signal impending doom.

Soon, I'm back over the shallows on the other side and kicking confidently for the barrier reef. The coral heads are more consistent, lush and thriving this side of the channel and in turn I'm noticing more and larger fish: a school of green parrotfish as big and wild as a herd of American buffalo; a moray eel thick and muscular like my thighs(!); a neon-orange clownfish family living in a vast, electric shag carpet of a sea anemone; a trip-a-delic peacock flounder and holy shit a giant fucking clam. It's the size of my suitcase with thick, olive-spotted lips and I take a breath and kick down to the bottom to get a better look. Captain Nemo's in my head, warning of pearl divers drowning with their legs caught in the bear-trap grip of the giant clam. I can't resist and reach out to test this animal's reflexes. I dart my hand in and out, nudging the slick, firm flesh inside. It jerks slowly and contracts about a foot in a matter of several seconds, expelling a jet of clam-water that strikes my mask and might have smelled were my nose not covered. No way a clam could catch a man with that slow a response, plus which the shell doesn't even fully close. Disappointed? No. Edified. I'll never try to undo a villain by giant clam. And our hero snorkels on.

Gems of the Web: Bestsnow.net

Tony Crocker's 'Bestsnow.net' is another all-substance, no-style labor of love that I am putting forth as an old school gem of the web. Written in simple, iframe-era HTML with no appreciation or ambition for the aesthetic of web 2.0 or the intriguing possibilities of data-visualization with something as palpably measurable and comparable as snowfall, Crocker has built a dogged and complete curation of North American ski resort snowfall data going back to the late 1990s (which, judging by the look, is the first and last time the site itself experienced any design work).

Clearly Tony and I have few things in common: a passion for skiing and fascination with weather and data. He's created a resource here that I would probably want to create myself if it didn't already exist. The painstaking data collection itself is one thing: accurate, organized and, I would suspect, mostly manually curated from a wild variety of sources as I don't think there's a lot of RSS of snowfall data going on. But there's also the analysis from a skier's point of view with a candid account of the what matters to the people seeking this kind of information: powder.

Assassin Bug

Ever since I was a small boy who chanced upon the terrifying spectacle of a pair of mating beetles on the sidewalk in Ann Arbor, Michigan, I've maintained a horror-fan's fascination with the insect world. So naturally, I was intrigued when I spotted this creeper lurking near the entrance of our house on the Eastern Shore. 

It's a buggy place out there for sure, particularly on a steamy midsummer night when the lights stay on inside and the windows become irresistible, luminous magnets for a teeming, insectoid phantasmagoria of unimaginable variety. Watch and you'll see everything from sub-tropical jumping spiders to fantastically woolly caterpillars to clambering katydids (which are apparently vicious predators). 

But none so far had topped this freaking stranger. Which is about as weird as that unidentified bastard I discovered in my shag carpet last year. So I was duly stoked at the opportunity for another cloud-sourcing experiment to uncover the nature of this little beastmaster. But for my own skills at internet searching, I quickly verified the identity of my discovery and thus spoiled the mystery while adding to my own trove of trivia.

Per the excellent website, InsectIdentification.org, (a gem of the web, no doubt) this is a 'wheel bug' of the assassin bug family of 'true bugs' of the order hemiptera and famous for the painful bite it inflicts with that absurdly large rostrum. Yikes!

Don't You Hate It When...

Cab drivers jam you for taking advantage of the credit card payment systems their cabs offer?

Traveling for work, as I did Thursday morning, requires exact documentation of my costs for reimbursement. Whenever possible, I like to pay with the company card to keep my cash in my pocket, create the electronic record and not blur the lines. I've been using Victory Cab for my scheduled cab travel around Philly, to the airport and 30th street station mostly, because their dispatch service is generally prompt and they take credit cards. And until Thursday morning I hadn't got much guff from Victory drivers for using plastic.

But when I asked to charge as we pulled up to 30th street, I got one of those exasperated groans, followed by an agro semi-statement of sorts: 'I only take cash.'

Um, let me count the signs saying I can use a credit card: credit card logo stickers in the windows, the taxi riders 'bill of rights' entitling me to plastic purchase, and the flipping credit card processing machine stuck to the plastic bullet shield separating me from the driver.

I'm going to have to insist, I told him and persisted with the credit card. He grumbled some more about not wanting to start his day with credit card. Which I understand.* But a) would you rather not have the business? And lastly, don't give my your grief since you (taxi driver) implicitly agree to the terms of compensation as a cab driver when you sign up for duty. You don't like how your employer processes credit card tips, that's not my problem, take it up with your asshole boss and spare me the awkwardness and guilt. I like my cash just as much as you do.

It's Going to Get Hot in Philly

Here's a look at the hourly forecast for today, July 22, 2011 provided by Weather.com:

Is it strange that I'm actually excited about this? See, thanks to the overwhelming humidity, the heat index accompanying today's heat is supposed to reach 115 degrees, which would be the hottest outside temperature I will ever have encountered.

As a young lad in Boise, Idaho I once experienced the mercury rise to 111 degrees, tying the all-time Boise record set in 1960. But that was a typical Great Basin dry heat, with humidity in the 10-15% range. It was toasty, for sure, but bearable and also relieved nightly by the crisp interlude of the high desert night.

Philly's humidity today will range from 55 - 69% and temperatures will peak around 101-102 around the 4 o'clock hour for an insane heat index of 115. There will be no relief with darkness either. I plan to be outside for some or all of this phenomenon to get the most savage taste of suffocating heat seen this side of Libya.

Watch Out When Porting Service From T-Mobile (Evil Bastards)!

On June 15th I signed on with AT&T and joined the iPhone revolution. I had been with T-Mobile for over 2 years so I was now month-to-month and figured there would be no issues with letting AT&T do the dirty work of ending my relationship with T-Mobile (which in the end isn't really ending the relationship, since AT&T is buying T-Mobile).

So I was surprised today to receive a 'final' bill from T-Mobile for $85.14, which was about what I had been paying for a full month to cover the vestigial 6 days in June before I canceled by account. In the bill I found the following line item Monthly Recurring Charges explaining my debt to T-Mobile:

Partial monthly charge for G1 UNLDATA 400MSGS from 6/09/11 to 6/14/11 $5.00
Partial monthly charge for G1 UNLDATA 400MSGS from 6/15/11 to 6/15/11 $19.99
Partial monthly charge for myFaves 600 from 6/09/11 to 6/14/11 $10.00
Partial monthly charge for myFaves 600 from 6/15/11 to 6/15/11 $39.99

In plain English, T-Mobile recognizes the 6-days pro-rata usage in the billing cycle up to termination but is charging me the full monthly usage anyway as an 'F you' to send me out the door. Cue outrage!

I called the Customer Service Number immediately and was stonewalled by a powerless(?) peon named Meredith with vague allusions to the dreaded 'Ts and Cs' (terms and conditions) to which she asserted I'd agreed and that seemingly bound me to this full charge for monthly services upon termination of my account if I didn't call them myself to inform them of my intent to leave. She was certainly powerful enough to handle me.

Here's a look at the language (relevant bit highlighted in blue) I could find in the Terms and Conditions:

Somehow between when I signed up with T-Mobile in 2008 to now, the Ts & Cs changed from what I had originally agreed to: You will remain responsible for all fees and charges for your Service and usage through termination (T-Mobile Ts & Cs, 2008). Was the world a better a place in 2008? Because this seems fair to me. It honors 'termination' as the point ending usage and debt for said usage and just generally makes sense in the universally fair, pay for what you use doctrine. Apparently between then and now all that changed was T-Mobile found an avaricious lawyer to comb their Ts & Cs for loose language that could be keeping them from squeezing every last penny from their customers victims.

While the new clause is patently unfair, it doesn't exactly seem ironclad. The 'may' seems pretty squishy and 'may' be the loophole I use to fight back here if I hear back as promised from Meredith's manager 'Shannon.' Whom Meredith was quick to point out  was equally powerless and couldn't override charges I'd agreed to in the Ts & Cs. Otherwise, in the pretty standard lawerly-way that corporate Ts & Cs screw consumers, I'm limited to arbitration rather than court to settle disputes with T-Mobile.

In the end, all of this is a long-winded, ventilating way to say that I'm probably getting fucked out of $60 by T-Mobile. Not the end of the world, but it still really pisses me off. Imagine how much bad profit T-Mobile is making through this little clause change in aggregate. And what a backhanded and cowardly way for lawyer-driven companies to squeeze the common man out of a few more bucks. It really is outrageous.

I have faith that awareness helps, if I keep shining lights where the Man doesn't want people looking maybe I can keep the next guy from losing his $60. Then, maybe I can count that $60 as good karma in the bank and hope that companies reverse course on cloaking themselves in legal protection from their customers and don't do what's wrong just because they can and it earns them a few bucks in the short term. Hopefully this costs T-Mobile more customers than just this guy.

Ayn Rand - Atlas Shrugged

“[W]hen you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing; when you see that money is flowing to those who deal not in goods, but in favors; when you see that men get rich more easily by graft than by work, and your laws no longer protect you against them, but protect them against you . . you may know that your society is doomed.”

Skunks Redux

Man, a while ago I complained about never seeing a living skunk and I think in the cosmic view of things that was the wrong move. Karma and whatnot, 3 months go by and Saturday night I'm driving home from dinner out on the Eastern Shore and notice a flash of white and black scuttling through the grass in my peripheral view. Could have been a kitty right? I didn't think about it again as I let the 3 dogs out and settled onto the couch for a viewing of True Grit.

Eddy lets the dogs back in 5 minutes later and Brownie, the adopted Australian Shepherd we found cowering under the boxwoods in the summer of 2005, rolls in smelling like jet fuel. Only at a distance was the smell remotely skunkish in the familiar way of whizzing by roadkill on the freeway. Up close, it takes on a different character and the only adjectives that came to mind were powerful - nuclear, chemical, burning in the nostrils. It is truly overwhelming in the intimate encounter -- enough to reset the inner narrative and induce short-term amnesia.

Brownie was acting frantic too. Imagine an animal whose primary means of navigation in the world is the sense of small and the scale of the sensation for her must be something else. The only human parallel I could imagine would be the daze brought on by a flash bang grenade. Brownie was out of it, eyes rolling in her head and desperate whining for relief.

Smart phone technology brought up the usual list of treatments, including tomato juice bath, vinegar, dish detergent, and hydrogen peroxide. Having no tomato juice, we whipped up a bath of the former and shooed the dog outside where a garden hose was also brought to bear.

Not wanting to ruin my clothes I stripped down to my undies and we held and washed the dog outside with several good scrubbings with the mixture, interspersed with rinsing blasts from the hose. It worked quite well except for what skunk scent Brownie had already brought into the house lingered through the night.

Though maybe it was more us acclimating to the odor, as those from paper mill or refinery towns. This morning, Monday, Jill called me from the office to report that the first young patient in whose mouth she put her hands this morning initially recoiled with a gasp, choking out the question what's that smell? And that after about a dozen good latherings with various skunk-scent solvents.

Gems of the Web: Fish of Lembeh Strait

Caledonian Devilfish, Lembeh Strait, Sulawese, Indonesia, Asia, Planet Earth

From time to time I'll stumble across absolute treasures on the Internet that aren't made in Silicon Valley and it's these increasingly rare moments that keep me rooting for this grand experiment.

To wit, the link below will take you to a marvelous photo gallery of the most exotic fish in the world presented in a decidedly homegrown website which itself is a wonder as the apparent passion project of a Swiss ex-pat living on the Indonesian island of *Sulawese. So glad we had the opportunity to connect, if only virtually.

Link: Underwater Photos from Lembeh Strait

Almost as much fun as the actual discoveries themselves is the path of curiosity that leads me to these day-making discoveries. In class this evening I met an Indonesian ex-pat who's studying in Philly. He told me that once he leaves Philly, he's going back to Jakarta to run a few product-lines of his parents' polymers business. Mind blowing stuff that alone and it got me thinking of Indonesia, and all the places there I'm curious about including Bali and the scuba diving possibilities of the world's largest archipelago. Soon enough I was Googling the scuba scene in Indonesia and found a refreshing, old-school un-commercialized corner of the Web (messy, awesome and weird like it was in the late '90s early '00s) made up of fan pages about 'muck diving' in Sulawese's Lembeh Strait.

*As upheld by the fish that live there, Sulawese is in fact the most exotic place I can imagine and officially goes in the file of ultimate adventure destinations along with Borneo, the Seychelles, Kamchatka, Tierra Del Fuego, Assam and the Okavango Delta.

Vegemite Sandwich in Philadelphia?

The 'Ex-Pat' is the first sandwich on the list at the new Wedge + Fig in Old City and at first I didn't get it. Ingredients: Quicke's cheddar, Marmite, Avocado, Watercress on a Sesame baguette.

What is marmite? I asked the girl behind the counter. She started to say something about salty yeast extract, and then stopped, said, it's an acquired taste, maybe you'd like a try? At this point the owner stepped out of the kitchen and drew the parallel between Australia's famous Vegemite, which is illegal in the United States, saying Marmite is the America-safe version of this concept, which is, literally, yeast extract only with government-mandated processing for sensitive American gastronomy.

Then an ice cream sample spoon was offered over the counter with a dab of thick, dark syrup on the tip. So this is Marmite? It was opaque, not quite tacky, about as viscous as molasses. The taste was bracingly salty but with a familiar organic tang to it. After processing, I compared it to distilled soy sauce, like the heroin to soy sauce's morphine.

True to stereotype, Australians are apparently, actually crazy about vegemite and as word has spread of the marmite sandwich at Wedge and Fig, the owner has reported Aussies making pilgrimage from around the Philly area to snag a sando with the flavors of home. Now the 'Ex-Pat' part was making sense.

And I was intrigued enough to order one. True to assurances from the staff, the marmite wasn't overwhelming and added delicious saltiness next to the smooth avocado. It was a delicious sandwich.

Most of all it's good to see Wedge + Fig stepping up the game in this promising space. The former tenant and concept-proving, Old City Cheese Shop was decidedly un-cheesy for a cheese shop and a little too laissez faire in terms of knowledge, service and overall business-savvy. The best recommendation I ever got out of the OCCS was 'cheddar.' The Wedge + Fig has outfitted the fridges with a properly exotic roster of cheeses and sent me home with an excellent sheeps-milk cheese called 'ewephoria' in addition to the sandwich that helped me finally understand the Men at Work.

Stickin' it to the Man (or his proxy, the Philadelphia Parking Authority)

A lot has happened since last we spoke, back at the end of May, which was literally the last time I felt free to do things that don't pay me or require a high degree of professionalism (like this blog), but the long and short of isthat I'm enrolled in the summer semester at Wharton which is a huge time suck featuring 7 hours of evening class, 2 nights a week plus more homework than you can shake a stick at. Fortunately it's over on June 30, but I didn't want that to let a whole month go buy without a peep.

Also, I'd like to prove I'm still out there setting out crafty, bloggish thought experiments to entertain the masses and have been cataloging them through various digital channels including Facebook mobile uploads, Twitter and emails to myself with notes about things I'd like to write later on. I maintain a list of 'Band Names' on a notepad application on my cellphone and have added a few this month, which I'll sample here:

Big Word Salad
The Nestorian Heresy
$mutKitten

So it's still very much on.

To wit, this post, which was motivated by my good friend Dr. W following the trend of moving to town from New York City and doing so in a big UHaul truck which he emptied and parked on the street in Old City last Monday night. Having helped him hump a bed, bookshelf and other heavy items up to his 4th floor apartment, I was clearly in a giving mood and kept on with some advice on the Philadelphia Parking Authority (PPA, stars of TLC Show 'Parking Wars'): that he'd better get the UHaul out of there lickety-split at 7am or he was in for a world of pain. No problem, he'd set his iPhone to wake himself up and return the UHaul.

715 I get an angry text that Dr. W has slept in a mere 10 minutes and by the time he arrived on the street, the PPA had already called a tow-truck to the scene who couldn't be dissuaded from collecting his rented UHaul the associated $250 release fee. Ouch. But we saw this coming.

On Tuesday night I was over at Penn where I park my car on the street and the PPA collects tolls for this privilege until 8pm at night. You can pay for up to 3 hours at a time, but it increments in 10 minute intervals from the time of your payment so it's often the case when I'm buying big chunks of time that I am forced to increment past the hour of 8pm because I have to stay until 9. Not this time. Claiming an ounce of Dr. W's pound of flesh, I won back $0.25 by paying for parking through 7:59pm rather than 8:09pm just to see if the PPA would be on the scene in the moments of my infraction. I know this sounds lame, but you have to fight the aggrieving forces of creeping bureaucracy in subtle ways or it will overwhelm you. And I'm happy to report that I didn't get a ticket. So take that PPA!

Inception Sound Effect Button!!

Push the button and prepare for incredible Sound Effects! Do it!

HBO GO = No go

Wow! That's not good. Amid a pretty big promotional push to get people to use what looks like a promising service in HBO Go, the site is apparently crashed. Having the juice to handle the traffic is 101 in website launches. This looks bush league and is pretty humiliating for HBO.

NFL Players All Over

Sports Illustrated has this nifty gallery of famous NFL players organizing their own workouts as the lockout prevents them from actually using NFL team facilities.

While I was disappointed not to see some pics of the Eagles in here, I do have a bit of local dish from Old City, where I've witnessed Eagles' 3rd-string QB Mike Kafka blasting his pecs (one armed bench press, no less) at the Sweat Fitness on 2nd street. I may have to stalk the gym now with my cellphone to sneak out any photographic evidence, but I'd also have to weigh that against the real threat of that making me creepy.

Healthy Choices

I try to make 'Healthy Choices' too. Which is why I was so glad to see that the Jade Garden in Dresher, PA, where I dined on Lunch Buffet today, has anticipated the need for 'Special Diet Sauce,' which they serve on the side. Not sure what's in special diet sauce, but I'd like to think it's a mix of Fen-Phen and MSG for good flavor. Pouring it on your Chinese Food then is like taking speed and not having to eat for the rest of the week while you ride the snake to a skinnier you. Ah, the trope of making fun of Chinese menus never fails to amuse.

One Offs: mustaches and scuba mask seal

Turns out mustaches make it difficult to get a watertight seal with a scuba mask. I've been snorkeling and diving a bit lately and kept noticing water pooling in the lower half of my mask. Without any introspection I chalked it up to flaws in the mask until an older, mustachioed gentleman on my last dive boat asked me if I wanted some silicon gel to help the mask make a seal around my mustache. He had a little jar of it, kind of like the old Carmex compacts of yore, and with a light application in the furry upper-lip area I was able to maintain both my mustache (technically part of my total facial hair package, or, beard, more commonly) and my watertight scuba mask seal.

Why is the Tower Theatre So Expensive?

Tickets to the Fleet Foxes' May 21 show at Upper Darby's Tower Theatre range in price from $96 to $331 when purchased directly from the venue on their website. I'm a casual fan of the Fleet Foxes and had some interest in going with my Special Lady, but not if I've got to shell out ~$200 for the experience at a minimum. This also leads one to wonder how many rabid Fleet Foxes fans out there are ready to plunk down $700 to treat themselves and a friend. Is this a glitch or do I just not know all the rich-ass mofos who love them some Fleet Foxes?

Another exciting show coming through the Tower Theatre is Eddie Vedder, whom I last saw in Philly during Pearl Jam's epic 4-night stand to rock out the Spectrum in 2009. This time it's just Eddie (presumably with a guitar, at least) and the Tower Theatre is selling tickets ranging from $126 in the nosebleed zone to an astronomical $868 for row BBB in the orchestra pit:

 

I mean, those are sweet seats and it is Eddie Vedder, but $900 for a ticket? $1800 if you want a friend to corroborate the experience? (Which you must if you're going that far to enjoy yourself.) I'm not buying it. So what's the deal Tower Theatre? How special an experience are you peddling? For $900 I'd want guaranteed access to a semi-serious friendship with Eddie Vedder.

Greening the William J. Green Federal Building

Last night around 10pm the special lady and I were walking up 7th street back from Washington Square to Old City when we noticed some conspicuous activity up the street. Squad cars had blocked off 7th between Market and Arch and an improbably tall crane, lit by intense spotlights was hoisting large bundles of something from the street up to the roof of the Willam J. Green Federal Building, which houses the local offices of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

Entering the immediate area on foot, we noticed a flatbed truck with a dozen or so bales of 'green roof media' which the crane was lifting one-by-one up to the roof of the building. A little Google-searching reveals this stuff is used to grow grass on building rooftops.

So, a couple of thoughts: 1) way to go on the FBI for greening a building. Not what I expected of a conversative Federal agency. Are they doing this elsewhere? 2) Is a sky-high crane really the best way to do this? I've heard crane rentals start around $10K/day, but it seems to me a few trips in the freight elevator could accomplish the same task. I'd like to see the cost-benefit analysis in energy savings making this a worthwhile endeavor, though in spirit I probably agree that it is no matter the installation costs.

Curated Content: Raul Ibanez Scared Hitless

-Raul Ibanez went 0-4 last night and is now 0 for his last 34 at bats. The Inquirer adds some context: "To put his woes in perspective, the record for most consecutive hitless at bats in the big leagues is 46 by Brooklyn Dodgers catcher Bill Bergen in 1909, according to baseball-reference.com." 1909. Ouch. Not that Ibanez is there yet, but he is pressing and it's looking bad. He even shaved the devilish beard he was sporting earlier in the season to stoke his mojo.