Cheech Tremendous

Professional turkey sperm-wrangler That's a new poster name if I've ever seen one.

Whether or not Gonzalez or de los Santos ever make anything of themselves does little to change the fact that they were perceived as elite pitching prospects one year ago. Those were top notch pieces available for a trade and Williams got a guy that flamed out early and hit the bench by September. I still stand by my assessment that Williams bought high and sold low on Swisher.

No, no, no. Kenny Williams got ass-raped by Billy Beane and Brian Cashman on this one. Williams gave up two very good prospects (Gonzalez, de los Santos) and one average to good prospect (Sweeney) for one crappy year of Swisher. Then he sold him at his lowest value for a utility guy and a non-prospect. These kind of deals are the exact reason why Williams does get shit. He bought high and sold low. Personally, I think Williams is a bit underrated. He did win a division championship this year and his wheeling, dealing style at least keeps them competitive in the short run. But this deal is just terrible from the Sox perspective. As for the Yanks, Swisher's a great pick-up, but I wonder what they expect out of him. His numbers were crappy last year, but he still drew walks and hit for power. Maybe it was a fluke drop, or maybe he's just the new Brad Wilkerson. It really shouldn't take them out of the market for Teixeira or Abreu. I just don't think you can go into a season with the idea that he'll start at first or in a corner. Too many question marks for that to be Plan A.

AL Cy Young goes to Cliff Lee of the Cleveland Indians. I'm fine with Lee winning; he really had the best season. K-Rod wasn't even the best reliever in the league, but everyone knew that saves record would get him some votes. I am shocked that Jon Lester didn't get any votes. By most metrics he was the third best pitcher in the AL.

Marlins traded Kevin Gregg to the Cubs for minor leaguer Jose Ceda http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3700730

I can get behind the cause for road teams wearing the city name across the uni, but let's not get crazy here. The Cardinals have the best uniforms in baseball. Don't go messing with something so perfect just to keep consistency.

Oh man, what a douche. I defend the guy a lot for being a great agent, but that's just a ridiculously stupid thing to say. I can't wait until he gets out on the market and realizes that no one will give Manny $25 million a year for four years. That's just insane.

You don't say.

I still rock the original skin. Bob's dream is for the board to magically revert to 2003.

This. Why the hell do people do that? The problem is that it sounds fine on my computer speakers so I never know until I actually listen to said songs on my iPod. You could find entire articles about this very phenomenon. What has happened is that music producers are turning up everything in the mix to max levels. Modern production doesn't really allow anything to breathe. It's been done to give the illusion of more bass and feel, with the intention of keeping the music from sounding "tinny" on crappy computer speakers or ipods. The end result is a loud mess that's very grating after a couple of minutes. It's a real problem, and it's one of the reasons that vinyl is starting to make a minor comeback among non-audiophiles.

I started that thread, and even I'd be inclined to agree with you. Personally, I think the Music folder is starving for good conversation and I'm willing to throw out any topic that might jump start some sort of discourse. But once the thread disintegrates into bemoaning the rankings with no actual discussion or coherent arguments, all hope is lost.

I think that I need to see the actual article before I comment too harshly. The press releases are vary vague on the concept of "singer." Supposedly using "rock-era singer" over "rock singer" justifies the choice of an R&B artist placing first. Nothing against Ms. Franklin, but I probably would have named ten or twenty people before I even thought of her. Bob Dylan is a great songwriter, but his singing talent falls just this side of awful. My personal inclination would be a vote for Robert Plant, but I'd also argue in favor of several of rock's more distinguishable voices (Bon Scott, Axl Rose) before I got to some of the names on this list.

http://www.reuters.com/articlePrint?articl...E4AA7BZ20081111 Discuss. I'll be back with thoughts later.

Let's just call a spade a spade. Campaign 2008 and B.O. Circle Jerk are just Current Event's version of CTDWAT. There would have to be some serious proactive moderation for that folder to yield anything different, and I'm not sure that's a cause worth taking on. The posters there would probably reject something different anyways.

I think I've made about two references to my dislike of that thread, but whatever. It was still awful.

Oooh, a drop shadow.

-Six BCS conferences, each with twelve teams and two divisions. -Division winners play in the Conference title game. Winner goes to playoffs. -Six spots taken by BCS conference winners, with one at-large BCS bid and one at-large non-BCS bid closing out the final two. Am I just crazy? This all seems so logical to me.

They never intended to open the roof. On the day that they announced Safeco as the venue, they indicated that the roof would be closed. The sides of that venue are always open though. So Mania XIX was a quasi-outdoor event.

A playoff system would basically require that every conference had a championship game. Oregon, sitting with two conference losses, would have an outside chance at getting to that game and playing their way into the playoffs. The chances would be slim, but fans of the team could at least hold on to a slight degree of hope. As it was, the Boise State loss ended their season. Without bothering to look at the intricacies of possible tie-breakers in the Big XII, I'd wager a bet that the TT/Ok. St. game would have still had a ton of importance in a playoff world. Wouldn't the winner of the game be in line to play for the conference title? I don't see how it would be any less crucial with a playoff spot on the line.

The flip side to that argument, of course, is that while one or two games a week gain extra importance with the BCS, the fifty other games on the schedule become entirely irrelevant. Unless you are a fan of the four or five teams that have a shot at the BCS title, you've had nothing to be interested in all season. I haven't even checked to see what Oregon, the local college team, has even done in the past few weeks because its entirely meaningless. A playoff would, you know, settle things on the actual field instead of on a computer or piece of paper. The regular season is not more important with the BCS in place. If anything, a playoff system would make regular season games and conference championships much more important because they'd actually start to mean something in terms of achieving a playoff spot. It'd also cultivate a system where teams are rewarded from improving over the course of a season, whereas the opposite is true now.

I'm appalled somebody's still watching him.

If I was separating Led Zeppelin songs into the categories of Great, Good and Average ("Hot Dog" is the only thing in their catalog that falls below average), I'd definitely drop "Dazed..." into the bottom rung. The bow playing is cool as a novelty, but I've already expressed that it's better used on "How Many More Times." Otherwise I've never been overly impressed. Then again, I've always enjoyed that bloated hard rock from the group's later days over the experimental psychedic blues of their early work. Probably why I'm the only guy in the world that likes Presence.

Campaign 2008 was still worse than the Benoit thread.

I love Led Zeppelin about as much as one guy possibly could, and even I'm not that into "Dazed and Confused." Couldn't we have gotten a better representative? Shit, "How Many More Times" is right there on that first album and superior in every way. Now that I think about it, II came out in 1969. "Whole Lotta Love" doesn't crack the top 128 songs of the '60s? Get right the fuck outta here.

I'm really disappointed that this thread isn't called "Design O' The Times."