vivalaultra

They should trade for Corey Patterson instead. He'll provide the spark to send the Cubbies to the postseason for sure!

The Wheeler/Wiggington trade makes the best sense if the Astros are either planning on trading Ensberg or Loretta or are planning on packaging Wiggy with a starter in a trade to a contending team. Or maybe the Astros think that they're still in it and just figured that a right-handed Mike Lamb was exactly what they needed. I like Wiggington and I think he'll be good for the 'Stros. And I'm also glad that it means that Ensberg will probably be gone and that neither Qualls nor Lidge will be dealt.

The Reds have acquired Jorge Cantu from the D-Rays. Early reports that they plan to convert him into a relief pitcher have not been verified.

I saw it earlier this afternoon. On top of all the funny sight gags and one-liners, I really enjoyed how touching the movie was. It actually made my girlfriend cry- . One of my favorite scenes was It also made me feel quite old when I looked around the theatre and noticed that I started watching 'The Simpsons' before a good 3/4 of the audience was born. Yeah, but seriously, it was one of the best movies I've seen this year. I went in expecting a decent waste of a couple of hours (as opposed to the show being a decent waste of a half-hour) and came away very pleased with the jokes, the plotline, and the wonderful animation.

Gee, and I thought the Ronnie Belliard signing was a bad idea...especially for a team that was supposed to be 'rebuilding'. They've already got their franchise player in Ryan Zimmerman. Build around him with young guys and don't sign a journeyman 2nd baseman and a glorified DH riding a hot streak.

Pavement: Slanted & Enchanted Wowee Zowee Terror Twilight Brighten the Corners Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain Silver Jews: American Water Bright Flight The Natural Bridge Starlite Walker Tanglewood Numbers Neither Pavement nor The Jews ever made a 'bad' album, actually. They're all Number 1 in my book.

Springsteen: Nebraska Born to Run Darkness on the Edge of Town The Wild, The Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle The River Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ The Ghost of Tom Joad The Rising Devils and Dust Tunnel of Love Human Touch Lucky Town Led Zepplin: Houses of the Holy II I IV Physical Graffiti III Presence In Thru the Out Door The Beatles: Revolver Abbey Road The White Album Rubber Soul Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band A Hard Day's Night Help! Beatles For Sale Magical Myster Tour Let It Be Please Please Me With the Beatles

Why was the Nats pitcher intentionally throwing at Howard and Utley anyway? Or did he just happen to get Utley in the hand and then get warned and then got tossed when he hit Howard? I'm glad I didn't trade Ryan Braun for Chase Utley on my fantasy team when I had the chance a couple days ago.

The Astros won 2 outta 3 from the Dodgers. Brad Lidge picked up his 5th save tonite. His ERA is under 2.00 and he's pitching like 2004 Lidge. They're 10 and 10 in July. The best I can hope for is a win each day so that I can proudly wear my Astros Spring Training cap about town.

Don't let that get you down. You could tell us about the time he threw up that 7.something ERA when he played for Houston. C'mon I know there's an Astros story somewhere... maybe he took care of Bagwell's cat or something. Oh, cheech, you minx. In all fairness, the year he threw up the 7 something ERA, he was hurt and only threw like 25 innings. The year before and the year after, he was really, really good. Uh...I know that in 2005, when Ensberg got picked to go to the All-Star game as a late substitution, his family and Linebrink's family were all scheduled to go to Lake Tahoe on vacation, but when Ensberg went to the ASG, it ended up with Linebrink and Ensberg's family hanging out in Tahoe. The nature of the relationship between Linebrink and Bagwell's cat is murky at best.

Edit: Nevermind. I hath been scooped.

So Arthur Weasly was gonna get axed? Hmmm... The encyclopedia sounds really neat.

Craig Biggio, on the day he annouced his retirement, just hit a grand slam to give the Astros a 7-3 lead over the Dodgers. I'm not ashamed to admit that I am crying like a little girl.

Only in his youth. And, honestly, how many of us didn't dabble in the ideas of racial purity and ethnic cleansing in youth?

I was listening to The Beatles' 'White Album' today for the first time in a long time while I was driving. I've decided that the 'I need a fix cuz I'm going down...' guitar line in 'Happiness is a Warm Gun' is one of the greatest music moments ever; it's comprable to the guitar part in Wilco's 'Via Chicago'. Also, 'I'm So Tired' is a really, really great song.

Good for Bidge. Newer fans and casual fans who might not have seen a lot of Craig might not know just how good Biggio had been for a significant portion of his career, but there was a time in the mid to late 90s that you could make a case for him being one of the top three players in the game. I might've cracked on him a little bit for being old and unproductive, but, if you look at his numbers for the last couple of seasons, even they are better than the numbers of a lot of guys who tried to hold on too long and contributed nothing. Biggio also mentioned that he wants to catch an inning on the Sept. 30th home game against the Braves just to bring everything full-circle. I imagine that in a couple years, Biggio will sign a similar contract to the ones that Nolan, Clemens, Bagwell, and Jimmy Wynn have signed, making him an assistant and advisor to the GM and occasional roving minor league coach. I hope that I'll be able to make it up to Cooperstown in five years to see Biggio (maybe Bagwell) inducted into the Hall of Fame.

My girlfriend and I brought her 8 year old brother to this one-off wrestling show at the gym of this community college about a year and a half ago. The first thing that went wrong was that, apparently, they hadn't factored in that there was a practice for the basketball team that was supposed to take place in the gym at the same time, so, instead of turning away the 15 or so fans that came for the wrestling, they just had the wrestling ring and all set up on one side of the gym and the basketball practice on the other end. Basketball players were running laps and squeaking their shoes on the floor and at least a couple times, stray balls would roll through the crowd. The concessions were flat Coca-Cola at $2 a cup and they had five or six bags of potato chips (like the big bags) and if you paid a dollar, they would put a handful of chips on the napkin for you. The 'main event' was Hacksaw Jim Duggan and some guy vs. The One Man Gang and some other guy. 'Hacksaw' didn't even come out with his 2x4 and we got nary a 'Hooooooo'!

I found all of these in thrift stores/junk shops over the past weekend. They Might Be Giants-"S/T" They Might Be Giants-"Flood" Pavement-"Westing (by musket and sextant)" Cody Chesnutt-"The Headphone Masterpiece" The Beach Boys-"Surf's Up" These I bought: The National-"The Boxer" The Roadside Graves- "No One Will Know Where You've Been" And these I downloaded because they weren't on my iPod for some reason: Daniel Johnston-"Hi, How Are You?" Daniel Johnston-"Songs of Pain"

One of my favorite players on my favorite team is out 4-6 weeks with a wrist injury. Jason '40 Homer Potential? Ha!' Lane has been recalled from AAA while Hunter Pence is on the DL. So, not only is my favorite team going to lose 100 games this season, but they won't even have the ROTY.

My favorite team isn't as bad as the Washington Nationals, but they're getting close! (I would have compared them to the D-Rays or the Royals, but the fact that the D-Rays and the Royals have several young players either in the majors or in the minors that will probably become future All-Stars disqualifies my team from being compared to them.)

I seem to remember Dobby being in GOF briefly, but I can't be sure. As far as what they cut out, if they cut out everything in metr0s post, that's gonna totally ruin a lot of the story and serve to piss off A LOT of people. There's no way they can cut out the stuff about Dumbledore's past, the wands, RAB, the wedding, the Tonks/Lupin baby. Really, I can't think of anything that they can cut out entirely. Some things, like the middle part of the book...some of that can be trimmed, but I definitely can't see how any of the stuff in the book could be cut out and still have the movie be an accurate portrayal of the book and the overall story. And the seventh movie should be the movie that most closely follows the book's plot.

They could always butcher it and make it 2 and a half hours for the casual fans that just go see the movies and don't care to read the books and then have like...an extended cut on DVD for superfans or something.

Hmmm...I wonder where they'd split it if they did it in two movies. Maybe after the Gringott's scene? That would set up for an action packed 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part Deux' with the whole movie being the Battle at Hogwarts and the epilogue. Then they could really do the whole final battle and the aftermath justice.

I wouldn't discount the Rangers or the Angels. Not that I think either of those teams can outbid Boston or New York either.