The Man in Blak

Why are you so obsessed with Saturday Night Live? You do realize you're posting in the sports folder, right?

Probably due to over-compensating for Limbaugh's comment about McNabb a few years ago.

Right, and he ran up and stopped very awkwardly at the ball once he realized Romo had bobbled the snap. Also, Romo fumbled the ball trying to put it down on the ground, which is something I wouldn't think you'd see on a fake. If that's a fake run, then that's the most poorly designed fake run of all time. Also, it's a bit of a stretch to presume that Parcells stakes his playoff life on a fake FG run, especially when he can take the "guaranteed" three points and the lead with a minute left in the ballgame.

Are you kidding? The ESPN Hype Machine is already set to "New England" by default. And Patrick, if it was a fake run, then Gramatica didn't get the memo. His "block" on Jordan Babineaux was hilariously bad and, ultimately, it probably kept Romo from salvaging a first down on the scramble.

Ironically, they probably had Romo in there because he had all of the pre-season and early season experience as the place kick holder, while Bledsoe was still starting. If there was any "personal catcher" for the kicking on that team, it was probably Tony Romo.

And that's the ballgame. The post-game hatchet job from Terrell Owens should be fantastic.

And, unless Romo ends up winning this game with a bomb at the end, I would hope that this would end all of the endless babble from the talking heads about how this kid is one of the clutchiest clutchers that ever clutched in this history of sports.

Dallas still has all three timeouts left, so it's not a clincher yet. Though if they're going to let Alexander run like that, they might as well just start running back to the locker rooms right now.

The safety shows why its worth it to go for it on 4th and goal; you put a lot of pressure on the offense to succeed and, even if they do, they have to drive a long way for another score. Of course, I think you'd like to see the Seahawks do something other than a full drop-back pass on that 4th down, but the decision to go for it still seems like a positive expectation move, IMO.

Holy shit, the Cowboys are unbelievably bad at covering deep routes.

The comparisons are to the current Vick. And he's certainly declined since that 2002 season. Which brings up the "Vick really is awful vs. the same will happen with Young when defenses "figure him out"" stuff. How are those stats determined? I don't understand how a QB who throws for 8 less TD, a lower completion %, and a lower average yards per catch can be significantly BETTER than the other QB... The explanations for DPAR (and the base stat, PAR) can be found on the FootballOutsiders website. Glancing at the table that I pulled those stats from, it appears that Michael Vick compiled those stats against much more inferior defenses than Young faced and, thus, received a much more harsh defense adjustment to his original PAR score (Vick had a 3.7 PAR, while Young had a 3.3 PAR score). I'll grant that Vick's advantage on touchdowns is marginalized somewhat in the calculus - as I explained in the HoF discussions for Tiki Barber, I feel that FootballOutsiders undervalues the TD in their calculations - but the difference in DPAR between the two is significant enough that I'm not sure a "TD boost" to Vick's score would make a difference.

Maybe only Tim Purpura can find a way to tame Jake Peavy's anti-authoritarian tendencies. Perhaps he could give Jake a tractor.

The Archos players, particularly the 404 and the 604, look like their right up my alley as far as features go, but they're considerably less portable (the Zune is pretty bulky in itself and it's probably about as large of a player as I'd like) and the interface buttons on the right don't look very inviting. That being said, both of the models I mentioned earlier are very positively reviewed and they do have a lot more support for different file types. Let me do a little more research through Amazon and some other stores and see what accessories are available. As far as Zune sales go, it was in second place with something like a 9% market share (off of unit sales) after its launch; for those who thought it would push the iPod initially, it was probably a disappointment but, given Apple's absolute dominance in the field, I tend to think it didn't do too badly.

I realize that, in light of the original thread on this topic, the fact that Leena's account was apparently stolen is absolutely hilarious. (Still laughing, to tell you the truth.) But a spade is a spade, so I figure that my original post needs an addendum: 3. Account theft is okay, as long as a moderator is the perpetrator. Would Mike or anybody else from the administration like to give an explanation for this? Or should I just wait for Mole to close the thread, like last time?

With Johnson being as old as he is, can you really just pencil him in for 200 innings and be done with it? Arizona is accepting way too much risk in this deal, in my opinion, especially when you consider how much money they're taking on.

Vick - 52.6% completion rate, 20 TD, 13 INT Young - 51.5%, 12 TD, 13 INT. I hear most people saying that Vince is ahead of Vick already, and he "knows" how to play QB. They're wrong. And it's not even close. From FootballOutsiders, here's the DPAR (Defense-adjusted Points Above Replacement) stats for both of them: (Once again, having the tag turned on or some kind of table support in this forum would make it 1000% times easier to format these numbers in the post. Just a thought, mod guys.) PLAYER----TEAM----DPAR(pass)----DPAR(rush) V.Young....TEN.......7.7...........7.6 M.Vick.....ATL......-6.3..........32.4 Even though Young is in his first year in the league, he's already a better passer by these statistics. Not only that, Vick is actually below replacement for the position, from a passing standpoint. That being said, Vick is a more valuable player overall, as a result of his contributions on the ground; 1000 yards on the ground is no joke, and his success as a runner easily compensates for his failures as a passer, when compared to Young. I don't know if it's hypocrisy, as much as it is context - don't forget, Michael Vick was getting the same kind of hype (if not more) when he first came into the league as well. If Vince Young fails to develop over the next four seasons, the criticisms that Vick receives today may also likely apply to him. This I would agree with, though. Not only were Colston and Drew were better players at their respective positions, but Young isn't even the best rookie QB in his class. (Matt Leinart was a more valuable quarterback than Vince Young and Michael Vick this season.)

Great deal, value-wise, for Loretta, but they already resigned Bruntlett to play the same role, so it's not as useful of an addition as you'd think. Don't get me wrong - I'd much rather have Loretta - but they'd probably have been better served spending that money on an outfielder to spell Chris Burke in center field (or, by proxy, spell Biggio by moving Burke to second). I didn't watch Luis Matos last year, so I can't attest to how well he looked in the field, but he seems like he could be a decent fifth/sixth outfielder for a comparable (if not cheaper) price tag.

Paul Oakenfold (feat. Brittany Murphy) - "Faster Kill Pussycat" Sure, it's dance music. Dance music that sounds suspiciously close to "I Like The Way (You Move)", in fact. But, somehow, Brittany Murphy lays down a surprisingly compelling vocal on Oakenfold's standard club beat and makes it work. It's about as brainless as the genre can get, but there's something infectious about it that has kept it in my playlist for the last day or so.

Frankly, I thought all three of the "big entries" in the mp3/video player market (Zune, iPod, Creative's Zen Vision) had a fair number of flaws. The Zen Vision actually seemed like the most attractive package of in-player features, but Creative's software packages are almost always a complete joke and the scroll bar on the interface made for a very frustrating experience when I tried it out at Circuit City. The iPod obviously has the market cornered on accessories and probably has the best software package available, with iTunes. But I'm actually one of the few people around that's not that fond of the scroll wheel and the small screen (and limited file format) for videos was a bit of a drag. And that leaves the Zune, which is basically a repackage of the Toshiba Gigabeat S player that received very positive reviews when it first came out. The video screen is practically monstrous when you put it next to the iPod; there's no touch sensitivity on the interface, but I actually prefer that - I prefer clicking around a bit to "zeroing in" on songs I want to play. From what I could find on the internet, the consensus opinion was that the Gigabeat was a great piece of hardware that suffered from limitations on the software and a lack of firmware updates/support, both of which are two things that Microsoft should be able to improve upon (the latter, especially). There are definitely flaws with the Zune, but they can be corrected down the road. The Zune software, at present, is a bloated disaster of an application that will basically incapacitate your computer for 60+ seconds whenever you dare to plug in the Zune for a sync-up. However, a hack for using the Zune as a portable hard drive has already been discovered and, presumably, other solutions (as well as improvements to the Zune software itself) will come out. Firmware updates should hopefully address some of the bugs in the player, such as the standby issues that I detailed in my first post. The lack of a dock with the packaging is a bummer, but it's definitely not a deal breaker for me. Ultimately, the fact that I actually liked the user interface for the Zune is what sold it for me. And, despite a frustrating start to my experience, the player has actually held up well since I made my initial complaints (so far). If the firmware updates and software patches can address these issues and add some other features (podcast support has already been rumored, gapless playback seems feasible as well), then the Zune can really become a top-notch media player.

It would be curious to see if such a suit would hold up, since such a contention would be completely based on conjecture. I wasn't familiar with the OSHA/state mandates on testing after accidents, though, so I suppose it would truly depend on where you worked. As I stated earlier, there's no explicit policy for substance abuse outside of work in my company's code of business conduct and the only drug test I've ever had to take at this current job was when I was initially hired, three years ago. Of course, I work in an IT shop for a telecommunications company, so it's not like I'm operating heavy machinery or anything. And terminating somebody based upon mere suspicion could possibly earn an employer an lawsuit in return, for unjustified termination. That being said, advertising that you were using during your spare time to a superior would probably be sufficient grounds for "unprofessional conduct" and I'm sure that many managers wouldn't have any hesitation putting you on a performance improvement plan as a response. I would think that outright termination might be a stretch, though, even for at-will employees. As long as I wear long-sleeved shirts to work, they'll never see the scars.

Well, Castlevania Adventure was a laugher at the time it was launched, so that's kind of a backhanded compliment. I was lucky enough to have the Game Boy when it first hit the market and I played Tetris, Nemesis, and Super Mario Land religiously back in those days. As I said, Super Mario Land 2 was definitely a superior game (IMO, probably one of the greatest handheld games of all time), but I still always felt the original Super Mario Land was still one of the better games out there, even if it seemed a little bit "off" from the series' M.O. to that point. You can do far worse than rip off one of the most successful console games of all time (the original SMB) and, like I said, I felt there was just enough interesting additions that it made the game one of the better Game Boy titles. Not a five-star game by any means (and I can certainly see how it may not hold up well now, especially if you played SMB2 first), but still a pretty good game for its time.

Oops, thanks for the correction. Super Mario Land was the first game he worked on, but I forgot he played a role in the sequel and Wario Land as well. As for Super Mario Land, it may have been a bit of a warp back to the original Super Mario Bros, but I thought it had enough elements to distinguish itself (the shoot 'em up sections, for example). Though the sequel was definitely a superior game, the original was basically the only decent platformer on the handheld for a long time and, though it wasn't Tetris, it still had a hand in moving Game Boys like crazy as a launch title.

Wouldn't liability only enter the picture if a person was working while they were drunk/high? The company that I work for strictly outlaws working under the influence, as well as partaking during company activities (alcohol at a corporate sponsored event is an exception), but there's no verbiage pertaining to recreational use outside of work.

Super Mario Land was pretty damn good for its time, actually. Consider that it was a launch title for the Game Boy and that there was virtually no other handheld platformer that held a candle to it until the sequel came out. Plus, it was the only Mario game designed by Metroid Guy. I hear he was killed in a mob hit. Anya, take it away!

Well, the nomination was funny, at the very least.