devo

- When I played through Shining Force II (which is still my favorite RPG ever) for the first time, I got stuck at a town and didn't know how to progress. The only clue I had was a tree in the center of the town which, when examined, was said to have a square-shaped section missing from the front bark. Now, I had assumed the solution was to stick in a Special Item I had called Wooden Panel in said excavation, but no matter where I tried the Use command, it didn't work. After going over the entire traversable map searching for another way to advance, I finally resorted to ordering a Strategy Guide through the 1-800 number provided in the game's manual. I can't even remember how I convinced my parents to use their credit card to let me do that. The guide takes weeks to get to my house, and in the meantime, I keep on fighting the one battle that I can get to spawn over and over, making my characters much stronger than they should be at that point in the game. Once it finally arrived, the guide proved itself to be nothing but a stack of Xerox paper bound together with binder rings. And guess what it told me to do to advance? You guessed it, place the Wooden Panel into the tree. I guess I wasn't in the exact right spot to do it, since it took me a few minutes to find the correct area, even with the manual telling me explicitly where to execute the command. Of course, I didn't look at the damn thing throughout the rest of the game, 'cause that was the only mildly difficult puzzle within it. Frustrating to say the very least.

Yeesh. This game really couldn't have started more poorly for the Reds; on six pitches, the first four Cardinal batters hit four doubles and score three runs. Edit: Well, they got a couple outs, but it's now 5-0 after a two-run Yadier Molina (Yadier Molina?!?) home run.

Never woulda thought that Hernandez would be moved before Soriano. Still, taking this deal into account, I'll be absolutely shocked if Alfonso's still a National at the end of the month.

I'm really pulling for the Reds to make the playoffs one way or another for a couple reasons. For one, they're my second favorite team, thanks mainly to the proximity of Cincinnati and partly because most of my friends are Reds fans. Also, I would absolutely love to see a couple of playoff games between the Mets and Reds at Great American Ballpark. I was lucky enough to see the Wild Card playoff in '99 between the two teams in person, and I imagine that the only thing that could top that is seeing one or two games of a full-blown series.

David Wright signed a six-year, fifty-five million dollar contract today. http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/wire?sectio...&id=2541627 Shrewd contract moves this week, if I do say so myself. The Mets look to have the second-best third-base/shortshop duo in the majors for years to come, and at a lower price than one might expect to boot.

If anyone's planning on pre-ordering Disgaea 2, you might wanna consider doing it through nisamerica.com. As a bonus, you'll receive a Best of Disgaea 2 Soundtrack in addition to the game's manual and a Prinny mouse cursor, both of which are immediately provided via ZIP files in an e-mail sent to you.

Three Democrats combined on the Top Ten lists. Guess I shouldn't be surprised.

Orlando Hernandez has balked twice in this inning, one of which brough the runner in from third. What's most frustrating about it is that so far he's having a darn good start otherwise.

It's great to see Nady having such a good day (three doubles already, and it's only the fifth inning). I really like the guy and was none too happy to see him leave the Mets. With any luck, he'll be able to cash in a little bit next year and start for a team that doesn't suck.

No, but eight or nine million wouldn't have been (or isn't, depending on whether some confirmation turns up) out of the question.

Did you hear that on the radio? I can't find it online anywhere. If this is true, it's great news. One of my main concerns about next year's team was Reyes' and Wright's contracts, as they already had about sixty-four million dollars tied up without either of them being signed.

This probably should have been posted right after he got on base for the fifth time today, but I've gotta say how pleased I've been with Lo Duca's offensive performance since the All-Star break. Traditionally, he's been one of the weakest second-half hitters in the game, but so far, his numbers since the All-Star break have actually been better than the ones he compiled before it (.364/.414/.477 and .302/.343/.409, respectively). Of course, he's hot right now and I still expect his performance to decline significantly as the second half of the season wears on, but regardless, it's been nice to see him hitting when a violent regression was expected. With liberal rest, I don't think a line of .300/.340/.400 is out of the question, which is much better than I expected from him at the beginning of the year.

When are people going to learn that it's like a hundred feet from left field to home plate in Fenway Park?

"I leave for five minutes and EvilCo is in shambles!" ------------------------------------- "They're running out of ALT!" "And their MPH knots are going down!" ------------------------------------- *guy comes out of nowhere and wallops Nick* "You didn't count on the assisstant janitor!" Regarding Village of the Giants, yeah, it's a pretty forgettable episode. Ron Howard's in it and there's way too many jokes (most of 'em pretty unfunny) made at his expense.

Dan Patrick was my favorite until the radio station carrying it here decided to extend the show of gigantic moron Chris Spielman, cancelling Patrick's show in the process. Now I don't listen to talk radio unless I'm in New York, where my tuner is permanently set to 660 WFAN, regardless of who's on.

"Are you making dinner?" "Are you offering?" "No, I'm saying make me dinner."

"Hey look, a lesbian...OF THE FUTURE!" "Food courts OF THE FUTURE!"

Yeesh. Guy looks like his diet over the past year consisted of nothing but coffee and crack cocaine.

Tejada's signed through 2009, and Thome's signed through 2008, with an option for '09.

I'm less than excited, now. This partial songlist is cringe-inducing. I think I'll just save up and buy Ouendan.

I'm delighted that John Maine had another terrific start today. It was needed after the disastrous outings from Glavine and Trachsel. Each one of these games turned out to be really good in surprising ways. The first two were hotly-contested slugfests, while today's featured as fine a pitcher's duel as you could hope to see. Fun series.

Liriano has a pretty good shot to win the AL Cy Young this year. Has there ever been an instance in which the winner of the Cy Young (or, for that matter, the MVP), didn't make the All-Star team in the year he won it?

Going by that, he shouldn't be getting paid at all.

I like that deal quite a bit, but it'd be nice to see confirmation somewhere. Looks like I'll be refreshing ESPN's MLB Wire page until I go to bed.

Trachsel's line on the evening... 4.2 IP, 10 H, 8 ER, 3 BB, 3 K, 3 HR I'm gonna go out on a limb and say this doesn't strengthen Minaya's position at the ol' trading block.