The saga is at an end

Milton Bradley has torn his ACL and is out for the year. 244 Plate appearances and a cloud of dust.

So sad. Sadder still that I care.

No 1 of Consequence

Never tie your fantasy baseball hopes to an insane player

Read my post about Milton Bradley. Then read this. Then picture myself slamming my head into my desk saying "6 more plate appearances... YOU F-ING LUNATIC YOU COULDN'T WAIT SIX MORE PLATE APPEARANCES BEFORE YOU MELTED DOWN LIKE CHERNOBYL?"

No 1 of Consequence

Today's sign I am a major nerd

I have been in the same fantasy baseball league for over a decade. I won't go into details about how much more geeky my league is than others but take my word for it when I say, we go above and beyond. I actually flew to NJ last year for the draft.

"No 1, who cares? Why are you telling us this unimportant nonsense?"

Very good question.

Milton Bradley of the San Diego Padres needs 250 plate appearances in order to qualify for the league next year. As of this moment he has 240. I am currently monitoring the Padres - Rockies box score to check each time he comes up to bat.

"Why in the name of all that is good in this world would you do that?"

Another good question.

Milton Bradley has been injured about half a dozen times this season. This is the reason he has so few plate appearances. (500-600 is the norm for a baseball season) He is currently battling a strain to one of the oblique muscles on his side. The Padres are fighting for a playoff spot right now, so if they feel he can't play up to his normal level they may sit him down for the last 2 weeks of the season and play a healthy player instead.

I don't care about Milton Bradley. I don't care about the San Diego Padres. All I care about are these last ten plate appearances. Yes, I am the biggest geek in all the land

No 1 of Consequence

Civility

I just read this article by Joe Klein. It interestingly details how he was slightly misled by a politician only to be completely lambasted by left wing bloggers. The politician called to tell him the misleading statement was unintentional and apologized. He printed the apology and got crushed again by the writers carrying the banners of the left.

I am absolutely a left leaning guy. Some would say I lean so far left I am actually laying down. They might be right. :-) My point in this little foray back into the political is that the inability to argue points with civility is what prevents progress. If someone is hateful, spiteful and vindictive is drags down their entire cause.

I fall into it sometimes, as do most people. I freely admit that the mention of Ann Coulter causes me to lose all ability to reason. Overall though, I try and keep an open mind.

Raising the level of debate in this nation is important. We have to ask more of ourselves and our countrymen. We have to focus our eyes on what is important and definitely learn to separate the things that aren't from the national stage. Publicly eviscerating people for making minor errors doesn't help anything or anyone.

_____________________________

Some notes from the UK

- TV here sucks. It just out and out blows. I was stuck watching reruns of Bones last night and felt like it was almost a good show because I was that bored.

- I don't sleep well here. It is hard to be super productive when I am dog tired a lot of the time.

- My brother calls my international cell phone to talk about fantasy baseball. I love that.

- I found out that significant time in Geneva is going to be in my future. I am note sure how I feel about this. Of course it means I will probably hit platinum medallion status on Delta.

- I really like the guys I am working with here. This consulting bunch is fantastic. They are a LOT of fun to work with and while I don't enjoy being away from my family that much, it could be a whole lot worse than it is.

- The UK is so damned expensive I can't even begin to tell you. The US needs to get the dollar back under control and they need to do it very badly.

- I found yesterday I have a new boss... sort of, maybe two new bosses, it still hasn't fleshed out and I am not really thrilled about it.

- There is a 99% chance that I am going to start doing podcasts. I just need to figure out if I can record using my Skype headset and Polycom Communicator.

No 1 of Consequence

DBA's rock, the Jets do not & Politics A Go-Go

I love my job. I work for a growing company that is really on the verge of something special. However, as with all growing companies we are experiencing some growing pains, specifically with our website performance and our ASP application. We recently added a new database administrator to the staff and there were great promises made about what he could do for the company and how he would single-handedly improve the performance by reorganizing the data. You hear things like this and you nod along. You hear things like this and you roll your eyes. Promises have been made in the past, you see, and nothing has ever improved the situation. Usually we muddle through and fight onward. However, when I got in this morning, the promise had been delivered upon. My backside application is working with a fluidity that I have never seen and our front side, client facing application, is absolutely smoking fast. The new DBA has not come in yet, he probably is taking a comp day after working the whole weekend, but when he gets in he is getting a major high five from No1ofConsequence.

Onward to far less important things.

In other news, the Jets snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. This, of course, plays right into the duality of Jets fandom, yes, obviously you want them to win as many games as possible, but once they miss the playoffs and there is no hope of Super Bowl dreams being fulfilled, you kind of, and I say this gently, want them to lose every week so they get a good draft pick. I know, I know, I am a bad person for actually being happy that they blew the Dolphins game this weekend, so be it. Now, of course, you don’t want them to throw games, because that damages the integrity of the league, but when you have the opportunity to land a Reggie Bush, you want to get him.

This leads me to a knucklehead conversation my brother and I had while he was visiting me a couple of weeks ago. Millions of Americans participate in Fantasy Football. I haven’t really enjoyed it since Barry Sanders retired, but I am still in about three different leagues on Yahoo. You play head to head against other people in the league, with your players and their players accruing points. At the end of the season the best two teams play in the Fantasy Super Bowl for that league and the winner takes home the top prize, usually some cash. However, the two worst teams also play head to head that same final week and the winner is crowned the Toilet Bowl Champion. The loser usually wins some money also.(about the price it costs them to enter the league) How have we not instituted this in the real NFL? The two worst teams play the Sunday before the Super Bowl and the winner gets the top pick in the draft. Who would be against this? The players would get an extra pay day, the league would have something else to promote and the week before the Super Bowl would not be dark. Also in terms of sponsorship, American Standard, Kohler and any other bathroom fixture company would go crazy to sponsor an NFL sanctioned toilet bowl. It would be a bonanza, plus, you know Vegas would love it.

Politics - a go go

I am not going to write much about President Bush’s speech last night. I don’t like to dive into the political realm without having well researched data to support my contentions. I just don’t have that kind of time right now. I will ask this, has there ever been a less inspiring speaker in the history of the White House? You would think after 5-6 plus years (including campaigning) the guy would loosen up in front of a camera, but President Bush continues to be a complete stiff. There is a new parody on Jib Jab. If you haven’t checked out their stuff it is pretty clever, usually.

No1ofConsequence