Things Smackie Thinks You Need to Know...

[vansmack]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say the first time I crowd surf is after a brownie or two and I sing Release.

By the way, Ace got a makeover:

[vansmack]

Only two books made the NY Times Top Ten and the Ecomonist Top Books of 2008, so I will be reading those this holiday season:

The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals.
By Jane Mayer.
Doubleday; 400 pages; $27.50 and £22.85

A comprehensive and compelling examination of how a handful of officials, working in extreme secrecy, even from their colleagues, prosecuted the war on terror, undermining America?s civil liberties.

And:

The World Is What It Is: The Authorised Biography of V.S. Naipaul.
By Patrick French.
Knopf; 576 pages; $30. Picador; £20

An elegant and insightful study of the Trinidad-born Nobel laureate who made his name as a novelist and chronicler of India and the Islamic world. A singular example of how good authorised biographies can, and should, be.


There were many more crossovers from the NY Times Notable 100 and the Economist's list for those interested.

[vansmack]

I'm feeling really badly about the Angels chances to re-sign Teixiera.  If Boston's offer is identical to Anaheim's, then he will head East.  I don't think the Orioles have the revenue to do the 8-year deal, even if he's willing to sign for less to head back home.

If I were Anaheim, I'd start working a Peavy-Adrian Gonzalez package deal from the AAA team in San Diego.

[Charlie Nakatestes, Japanese Golfer]

Why are baseball players so goddamn greedy? I'm making up these numbers, but is there really that big of a difference between the 140 million the O's would pay him and the 160 million the Sox would pay him? When you're talking that kind of money, it's like Monopoly money anyway.

That being said, who wouldn't prefer playing for the BoSox (or the Angels) over Baltimore?

I'm feeling really badly about the Angels chances to re-sign Teixiera.  If Boston's offer is identical to Anaheim's, then he will head East.  I don't think the Orioles have the revenue to do the 8-year deal, even if he's willing to sign for less to head back home.

If I were Anaheim, I'd start working a Peavy-Adrian Gonzalez package deal from the AAA team in San Diego.

[vansmack]

is there really that big of a difference between the 140 million the O's would pay him and the 160 million the Sox would pay him?

You're actually not making up those numbers.  The difference is 7 years vs 8 years at $20m per year (avg).  But there is a lot of pressure from the Unions to take both the longest and the biggest deal you can get so it trickles down to everybody else.  Combine that with agents that get a percentage of the contract, and there's a lot of pressure on the players to sign the biggest deal possible.

While I agree that numbers are ridiculous, it's not only the fault of the players.

[godsshoeshine]

what is that in £/week

[vansmack]

what is that in £/week

£250,000 a week, assuming they pay over 52 weeks and not just during the season.

[Venerable Bede]

is there really that big of a difference between the 140 million the O's would pay him and the 160 million the Sox would pay him?

You're actually not making up those numbers.  The difference is 7 years vs 8 years at $20m per year (avg).  But there is a lot of pressure from the Unions to take both the longest and the biggest deal you can get so it trickles down to everybody else.  Combine that with agents that get a percentage of the contract, and there's a lot of pressure on the players to sign the biggest deal possible.

While I agree that numbers are ridiculous, it's not only the fault of the players.

for example, the union wouldn't let arod re-negotiate a lower salary to play for the red sox. . .instead, the yankees were able to take on the salary, and arod was traded to the yankees.

[godsshoeshine]

what is that in £/week

£250,000 a week, assuming they pay over 52 weeks and not just during the season.

so hes roughly worth a world cup winning keeper

[vansmack]

so hes roughly worth a world cup winning keeper

No.  C Ronaldo only makes £120,000 a week.

[godsshoeshine]

oh you know im makin fun

[vansmack]

Last week Microsoft asked me to start working on Windows 7 for them, which I started to do this weekend.  It's a little ironic, because it means I'll be basically skipping Vista in my home setup all together, but I'm willing to do that.

I must say, I'm super impressed so far.  I agree with most of the benchmarks that I've seen.  Originally this author did Win7 vs Vista, but was prodded to add XP SP3 later.

It's not even the final product, but if this is any indication, MS is finally headed in the right direction with their OS.

Windows 7 is working a lot faster than even XP on my netbook, although I did have to VLite the install as the regualr installation of Win7 takes up 10GB and I wasn't willing to give up that much space with my smaller SSD.

[vansmack]

The newest version of Last.Fm scrobbler (version 1.5.2.38918) finally displays files streamed from my Home Server via iTunes, so after a 3 month hiatus, it's good to be back on last.fm.

[Jaguar]

The newest version of Last.Fm scrobbler (version 1.5.2.38918) finally displays files streamed from my Home Server via iTunes, so after a 3 month hiatus, it's good to be back on last.fm.

Except that CBS bought them out, are laying off about 25% of their London staff and as of today, they are trashing up their pages with gigantic ads. Won't be long now that Last.FM will be the corporate suckage that MySpace has become. Enjoy it while you can.

[vansmack]

Except that CBS bought them out, are laying off about 25% of their London staff and as of today, they are trashing up their pages with gigantic ads. Won't be long now that Last.FM will be the corporate suckage that MySpace has become. Enjoy it while you can.

If ads keep the service free, I'm totally fine with it.  If I had to pay for the service, then I'd probably stop using it.  The job losses suck though, but I suspect that's happening everywhere.