Watchmen

This might be hard to see. Click on the image to see it larger. (http://www.pvponline.com/2009/03/02/ombudsmen/)

Watchmen, WBC and my Birthday

So I went to see "Watchmen" on Friday night. Aside from it being very long (which I am not complaining about, I think many movies are too short) I thought it was great. It stuck to the important parts of the book while hinting at some of the less important aspects without spending too much time on them. All in all I thought the film was great and did an excellent job of transposing words and images to film.

The best part of the movie may have been the trailers however. My summer movie lineup is extensive. Harry Potter, Wolverine, Terminator, 9, Star Trek, and now this one with Johnny Depp and Christian Bale. It is going to be an awesome summer at the movies.

Dad and I went to the WBC Saturday


Which was awesome and we had amazing seats.


I try to sit somewhere different at every game I go to. I think that it gives an awesome perspective on the game to see it from as many different angles as possible. The Rogers Centre is an awesome place to watch a game (although not Fenway) and we had a really good time.

I have stated before that I am a huge, huge fan of the WBC. I think that it is a great idea, and that this is the best time of year for it to be played. I have heard the arguments that it should be held in November and I disagree whole heartedly. I think that after the season would increase the possibility of fatigue induced injuries as well as more players bowing out.

Seeing the USA team bonding and high fiving each other after home runs or good plays, or Adam Dunn checking his pulse in the dugout in the 9th with the tying run on second, I can tell these guys care. It is really an awesome thing. Seeing David Wright and Jimmy Rollins hug after a win is a cool cool thing.

It was an awesome trip and an awesome game. I am an even bigger fan of the WBC now than I was on Friday. 42,000 fans on their feet cheering in the 9th inning of a game in March. Too cool.

and it's my birthday today.

Saturday Morning Watching

This is Hilarious.

Bait and Switch

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Rachel is Awesome here. Watch for the segment of the interview (8 Minutes in) where she asks "You made a profit at a cost to our health, why should we pay now to clean up the enviornment". She leaves him speechless.

Book 12

A MEMORY OF LIGHT to be Published in November 2009
Posted by Jason on March 2nd, 2009 in the A Memory of Light, Brandon Sanderson, Tor Books category

Tor Books, the US publisher of The Wheel of Time, is now suggesting that A MEMORY OF LIGHT, the 12th and final novel in the series, may be published in November of this year.

The publisher has published a “widget” that anybody can post on their website. This widget (seen here below) counts down to November.

www.createyourcountdown.com
No official word has come yet from Tor about a more specific release date, or even whether or not November is just when they hope the book will be ready by.

Brandon Sanderson, the up-and-coming fantasy author who has been selected to complete the novel, frequently blogs on his website about the progress that he is making. From what he has said so far, it seems unlikely that the entire novel would be ready in time for a November release.

The idea has been discussed several times that A MEMORY OF LIGHT may be broken up into two parts. Brandon has discussed this possibility in great depth both on his website and in a podcast interview he did with Dragonmount’s 4th Age Podcast team. Although the decision to divide the book into multiple parts has not been made (or at least not made public), if this were to happen, a November release date for the first installment would become much more possible.

It should be noted, however, that most novels require several months of lead time from the time they are “turned in” the authors to the time they show up in stores. With Robert Jordan’s previous WoT novels, Tor has always expedited that process and published them in about six weeks, which is an extraordinary speed. With that in mind, if Brandon has a deadline of late September to finish the entire novel, a November release date for A MEMORY OF LIGHT may still be possible.

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For those of you who have no idea what this means, it means a lot. It means I have a lot of reading to do this summer because I am somewhere in the middle of book 7.

You will notice the sweet countdown to November widget on the right hand side.

Twitter, Stalker, Grunter and Voweler

I think I am a tad bit tech savvy. I have my own website. It has a sweet sidebar with stuff from Amazon.com that I want you all to buy me for my birthday (which is in 6 days). I am just struggling to get into Twitter. I get facebook. I get myspace. We are part of the My generation. We have all become dependant on instant access, instant gratification, instant messages, instant relationships. We are now the fat people from Wall-e


I will be the first to admit that I am guilty of this mentality. I get frustrated when things take a long time in the mail. Never mind that I clicked a button on a machine and entered some numbers from a piece of plastic in my pocket and what I wanted is being dropped off at my door. I want my shit. I know how bad this is.

I suppose Twitter makes sense if you are someone who is important enough for people to care what you are doing.

For example, Matt Cerone is the writer of Metsblog.com and he is a fan of the mets who, through his website has been given the same access that journalists have. So it is interesting to read his twitter because it gives quick updates of what awesome things he is allowed to do that all mets fans would love to be doing without the filter of being an unbiased journalist.

But why the hell would I Twitter?

"Just woke up, making coffee really tired today"

"driving to work, I think my eyes should probably be on the road"

"sitting at my desk, just like yesterday"

that is boring even to me. If anything really important comes up, I will throw it up here, or on my Myspace, or my Facebook, or I will text you, or call you, or stop over and tell you. Is this seriously where we are at?

Terry to the WBC

Terry will be in attendance at the first game of Pool C for the World Baseball Classic Saturday in Toronto.

Some of you will remember that the last time I was in Rogers Centre I came away with a signed ball from A's Closer Huston Street (after throwing the ball at his head) if only I can be so lucky this time around with David Wright.

Our seats are about half way down the third base line between third and LF, prime autograph territory if we can get there early enough and prime foul ball territory which means Terry will be bringing his clove.

Two side bars:

7 days until my birthday.

This is my 401 post on this site. That's a lot.

Oh My God

I agree with Steve Phillips. What is the world coming to?

By Steve Phillips, ESPN

Managers and others have been complaining that the World Baseball Classic just makes spring training, which is already too long, unnecessarily longer. Some complain that it makes the season as a whole too long and say players are getting fatigued earlier. I don't accept that.

There have been a lot of players who have bailed on the tournament, some for understandable reasons. But I don't think the injury risks that would be involved with the WBC are any greater than they would be for any standard spring training schedule. If there was no WBC, the players would be throwing the same number of pitches and getting the same number of at-bats while getting themselves ready for the season. They could just as easily get hurt in a spring training game as they could in a World Baseball Classic game.

In fact, their risk for injury during spring training could actually be greater, because when players pull back a little bit, that is the time when they get hurt. As a general rule, players are not going to be operating at the same level of focus during a regular spring training game as they would during the WBC.

To people who say pitchers will be throwing much more intense pitches in the Classic than they would normally and who contend that this will tax pitchers' arms, I say it's a minimal difference and one that can be offset by players' getting themselves in shape a little bit earlier. The notion that players will be more fatigued by the end of the season doesn't ring true, either, because whether it's playing in the Classic or just going through spring training, they are going to be on the field for roughly the same amount of time.

Now, having been a general manager, I understand the fears of not wanting to put a multimillion-dollar player at risk of injury because it could potentially ruin your season before it's begun, but I just don't think those fears are legitimate in this particular case. Nobody can honestly say a WBC game would cause an injury any more than a spring training game would.

In fact, all of the issues we seem to have about the Classic don't seem to be much of an issue to the teams in Japan, Korea and Cuba. So I think we need to re-evaluate our concerns and complaints to see how legitimate they really are. I think the interest from fans and media is greater overseas, and that may have something to do with the general attitudes toward the tournament.

It also may have a little to do with the fact that it's "our game," and we don't feel we have to prove our superiority. But actually, maybe we do when you consider that Japan won the last WBC and Korea took the 2008 Olympic gold medal. I think it's time for the U.S. to restate its position in the baseball world by winning the WBC.

I'd like to see all the world's best players there. Japan sent its best players in the middle of their regular season to represent their country at the Olympics. I don't think Major League Baseball would ever even consider doing that.

I think the preseason is the best time of year for the WBC. To interrupt the regular season when it's not necessary doesn't make sense and the end of the season, when players are naturally run down, doesn't work, either. The players are at their freshest in the spring and you can always get them properly prepared for the competition when you know it's coming.

You can find points and counterpoints around almost every issue, but in the end, if we are serious about growing the game internationally and have a real sense of pride in our place in the baseball world, the teams and players should do everything they can to support the WBC.

Even if there were a minuscule risk of increased injury -- and I don't believe there is -- the global benefits that the game of baseball gains from the World Baseball Classic would far outweigh those risks.

World Baseball Classic

The 2009 World Baseball Classic starts later this week. Aside from the lingering fear that Jose Reyes will die, I am very excited about this. I love this event. I think that it brings energy and excitment to a time in the baseball season that is usually reserved for arguments over how many left-handed relievers the Mets will carry on their 25-man rosters.

I think that the fear over injuries is over played to a degree. Don't get me wrong, I am concerned that guys like K-Rod are going to be going all out to close games for Venezuela when they should be tossing meaningless innings in Port St. Lucie. I am chosing to enjoy the games and not worry about injuries, they are going to happen. At least one guy is going to blow out a major joint, but that guys major joint was most likely hanging by a thread and was due to blow anyways. (I am looking at you Luis Ayala).

Round 1 starts this weekend with the USA taking on Canada in Toronto Saturday at 2pm. The game can be caught on ESPN.

3/6/09

The weekend of my birhday is becoming the best weekend for new movies. Two years ago it was 300. This year, Watchmen.