The Man in Blak

A big part of that came from the failure of the Saturn, though. Electronic Arts was one notable third-party developer that steered clear of the whole console, based upon the money that they lost developing their titles for Saturn. The early cancellation of production on the Saturn rubbed a lot of other third-party studios the wrong way as well.

Oh, now you've gone and done it. The PS2 completely buried it, but I think the Dreamcast still stands as Sega's best system. The launch lineup is still probably the best in console history (Soul Calibur, NFL2K, Sonic Adventure, Power Stone), and it introduced a ton of innovation that still stands in the marketplace. From a hardcore standpoint, it's also notable for being one of the first systems that you could hax0r, with emulator discs, copied games, etc. If the Saturn hadn't been such a complete clusterfuck, we'd probably be talking about the new Sega console for this gen. And Skies of Arcadia is a great game. Not a watershed moment in gaming or anything, but a solid RPG on a system that really didn't offer much for the genre.

Since the posting fee doesn't factor into the luxury tax -- which, in my opinion is as ridiculous a loophole as you'll ever see in baseball -- the Red Sox may have been able to stretch out their wallet a little more in this case.

Al, you think LaRoche completely supplants Betemit next season at 3B? As for J.D. Drew hitting free agency, that should be a big red flag as to how this year's market is going to play out. Drew instantly becomes the No. 2 outfielder on the market behind Soriano and could probably pull something like 3/40 (even with his injury history) in a market that looks set to have a substantial jump in contract dollar values. The bad news for the Dodgers is that he would represent a significant (and very plausible) upgrade for teams in their division, specifically the Padres and the Diamondbacks. I could also see Boston jumping in as a suitor, with Trot Nixon gone and Wily Mo Pena currently looking at everyday duty in right field.

I'd rather they ditch the awful "D-Backs" text on the front of the jersey and go with pinstripes and that new logo. As they are today, I think viva nailed it - these look like they were pulled straight out of the Wal-Mart.

Kouzmanoff is the big prospect in the deal and he'll presumably fill in their 3B slot. He's not great with the glove, but he can hit pretty well - the ZiPs projection for him is .286/.342/.465, which isn't too bad at all. I think it's a decent trade for both teams. Barfield is good, but he's got a ways to go in his development (it couldn't hurt him to take a walk, for example) and his presence on the roster gets Luna back to the super-utility role that he excelled at for a short time in St. Louis. Kouzmanoff is a young and cheap solution to the third base problem in San Diego and Barfield's departure opens the door for a Marcus Giles acquisition.

According to the San-Diego Union Tribune, the Padres have traded Josh Barfield to the Indians. http://www.signonsandiego.com/sports/padre...n9padtrade.html

I think the meme about the Yankees' cupboard being empty over the last few years is a bit of a myth, driven primarily by the failures of prospects that they've traded away over the last few years (Brandon Claussen comes to mind, but there are others). The Yankees have actually had success with recent callups; Robinson Cano is one of the best second basemen in the league after just a couple of years of experience, and Melky Cabrera made contributions this year as well.

The "original" version of "Whiskey in the Jar" that you're probably thinking of was recorded by Thin Lizzy back in the 70's. (It is an old Irish song, though.)

Kyle Orton had virtually nothing to do with that eight game win streak (or the Bears' success all year, for that matter). They went on an eight game tear last year against the softer part of their schedule because the defense was playing out of their minds; in six of the eight games, they held the opposition to under 10 points, with two road games against the Lions (13 points) and the Saints (17 points) being the exceptions. The Detroit game had Orton's best stats over the whole streak (230 yards, 1 TDs, no INTs), but he never came close to that for any of the other seven games.

Perhaps I've said too much.

Okay, here's a thought on an alternate playoff scenario. Same divisional structures and wild cards apply to guarantee that each league grants playoff spots to four teams. However, rather that forcing the wild card to play the top divisional team, seed the teams appropriately by regular season record (The 1 seed plays the 4, and the 2 seed plays the 3). Head-to-head record is used for a tiebreaker, if the seeds share the same record. Ties with more than two teams are a little tricky, but they can work in one of two ways: - If three teams tie for the 2nd best regular season record, the Wild Card automatically gets the 4 seed. - If three teams tie for the best regular season record and they're all division champions, the champion of the division with the Wild Card automatically gets the 1 seed. - If all four teams somehow, inexplicably, tie for the regular season record, the division with two tied teams break their "tie" with head to head, with the winner being the 1 seed and the loser being the 4 seed. The five games series length stays for the LDS format, but the higher seed in the matchup hosts all five games of the series. The LCS stays at seven games, but the higher seed gets an extra game of home field advantage, with a 2-2-3 series format. Once again, if the record is somehow the same (very improbable, at this point), head-to-head record breaks the tie. The World Series format remains the same, with 2-3-2 for a best of seven. The higher seeded team gets home field advantage (i.e. the NL's 1 seed would have the advantage over the AL's 2, 3, and 4 seeds). If the seeds meeting in the World Series are identical, ties are broken by record through the playoffs, then by regular season record. Last ditch tiebreaker for all scenarios is run differential (runs scored - runs allowed). If that is somehow the same, you might as well just flip a damn coin. Just to put this in perspective for recent playoffs, you'd have the following setup for the LDS for the last few years: 2006 LDS: Yankees host the A's Twins host the Tigers Mets host the Cardinals Padres host the Dodgers (won head-to-head, 13-5) 2005 LDS: White Sox host the Red Sox Angels host the Yankees (won head-to-head, 6-4) Cardinals host the Padres Braves host the Astros 2004 LDS: Yankees host the Twins (Twins lose head-to-head to Angels, 5-4) Red Sox host the Angels Cardinals host the Astros Braves host the Dodgers 2003 LDS: Yankees host the Twins A's host the Red Sox Braves host the Cubs Giants host the Marlins

Yeah, it's been five years, though it's hard to tell with Final Fantasy characters popping up in the Kingdom Hearts games, starring in their own movies, and moonlighting in really crappy cell phone originals. I actually liked the changes in FFXII when I played through the DQ8 demo. As charming as they are, random encounters are an anachronism in today's action-oriented gaming world - players want to see those enemies and be able to react in different ways, either by putting together an ambush or avoiding them entirely. The Gambits essentially create a mini-game of their own for more advanced players, as they try to program up a battle strategy that will take them through enemies in the most efficient way possible. The battle system could still probably do a more elegant job of implementing distance as a variable in the action - I'm not saying that they should allow you to insta-cartwheel out of the way of attacks, but you should be able to run away without having to worry about monsters taking free shots at you, MMORPG-style. Also, playing on Active mode is a little too frantic, especially with having to manage and coordinate your attacks within some of the awkward camera shots (some of the bosses are way too big for the coverage). But, despite all that, it's still an intriguing change away from simple turn-based models that the Final Fantasy series has kind of driven into the ground. With battles now taking place as a part of what looks to be a gigantic "outer" world, the game immediately feels much larger in scope. More importantly, though, there seems to be a major shift in tone. Though they still meet the series' quota of overly effeminate men and watered-down steampunk, the game seems to have shifted back to its thematic roots from the 16-bit days: there are wars between kingdom and empire, political maneuvering, and airships. From the opening cinema in the demo, where you see the armored knight walking in the sun with the airship flying alongside and a slow march-like string motive playing in the background, it's very evident that Square wants to put the "fantasy" back in Final Fantasy. I can't wait to play the full game.

Albert Keiper?

I think this would be a great rule if you didn't have to trust the NBA officials to enforce it. The worst officiating crews in sports, year after year after year. Watching this rule take shape in the playoffs will be an absolute riot, when the foul calls evolve from mere stupidity into sheer mind-warping insanity.

Three deserving winners out of nine - that's a pretty good year for the Gold Gloves, if you get down to it.

I'd say so, considering that he had gained about 2-3 mphs and some extra movement on those breaking pitches from his stint in Cleveland. I'm a little confused on the timing of the announcement - obviously, he either tested positive before the playoffs began or during the playoffs themselves. Wouldn't it make sense to hand down some punishment sooner? Or is this a case where the positive test came far too late?

Yeah, I forgot about the Buddy Ryan fight. Between that and Bud Adams threatening to disintegrate the team every year or so, that organization was really one big soap opera.

The early 90s Oilers are probably one of the best teams to never make a conference championship game, let alone a Super Bowl. They had a good, albeit pass-heavy, offense behind Warren Moon and they defended the run pretty well in those years. The problem is that they were very unbalanced - they never really committed to the run and, more importantly, teams tended to tear them up through the air (see the Frank Reich comeback game in the playoffs for a good example of that).

So, the message I get from the original "Hey, Mike" thread is: 1. Account theft is okay, as long as it happened a couple of months ago. 2. If you're a victim of account theft and you had a really inane password, then you deserved it. Is that the correct subtext?

I bet the ads on the top of the board pull in a ton of revenue, with all of the pageviews that this site draws.

The only purpose of this comment is to demean and cause fighting. If I were mod, it would have been deleted and you'd be warned. No, it's a simple suggestion to keep out of a thread that you have no chance of objectively participating in, since you're one of the offenders. And if we're going to talk about semantics, you trolled the thread earlier with your "trying to get me banned again" comment, even though I didn't mention you in my original post. Which the admins know already didn't take place. Point taken, but if you were intentionally flooding polls with responses, you're still wasting bandwidth, not to mention implicitly disrupting the discussion behind the poll. And I'm still waiting for the distinction to be made between a stolen account and a duplicate account. Then what's the statute of limitations? I'm looking for some input from the administration here. The "flame" has already been covered. I started the thread because I'd like an actual guideline as to what to expect from the administration going forward.

No, actually, I don't. And how exactly did I flame you?

That was my impression, yeah. Which leads me to believe that Leena is much more stung about those PMs being posted than she initially let on, but that's neither here nor there. Actually, I don't even care about Leena - it's the complete lack of regard for the community from Mike that I'd like to discuss.

Perhaps it's because your story about how the password was disseminated is incorrect.