The Man in Blak

Fuck that noise. How the hell do you wipe out the whole board in Hexxagon?

Hoff's Place.

It's a pseudo-documentary that furthers virtually every possible negative stereotype of pen-and-paper RPG gamers. It's also quite possibly the funniest damn thing I've ever seen on the internet. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=75...q=fear+of+girls

Actually, upon second look, the original deal looks like a terrible transaction for the Nationals. They downgrade at both positions, lose a guy that strikes out a batter an inning in the pen, and they only receive cash compensation for it?

Well, there's a group of people out there that consider emulation to be piracy and they aren't going to want anything to do with MAME. Plus, having the compilation on your home console allows you to play it with actual game controllers and with friends as well. (Of course, you could rig up an elaborate MAME setup with SuperJoyBox adapters for your favorite console controllers and/or a cabinet set-up, but we're talking about appealing to the casual gamer here.)

If there was an option to play Texas Hold 'Em with other members on the board, that would be pretty cool.

That deal actually doesn't look half bad, until you realize that the Red Sox are getting Milledge and Nady for Matt Clement and Alex Cora, which is pretty silly. Frankly, the Mets should just go direct to the Nationals and offer Milledge and Nady for Vidro and Hernandez straight-up.

Once again, from the article: Their timing is lame, but they have a credible argument, especially given that they've actually trademarked the slogan twice before.

He actually made a one post cameo at the Invision SNKT board. Basically, his post was "how's it goin" and every post that followed it was something like "OMG MAWRCS OUT". Probably scared the guy from the internet for good. All we need is Jon Richardson to come back and post an unintelligible, drunken diatribe and the TSM nostalgia magical mystery tour will be complete.

What's the big deal? After sunday, this won't be an issue anymore. RTFA. This isn't a new issue - A&M has asked Seattle to cease and desist all use of the "12th man" moniker twice now:

He's also hit 81 home runs, which is more home runs than each of those players accumulated in their career, I believe. Ideas about his defense vary, but they all seem to portray him as an average-at-worst defender. He's not one of the top-tier shortstops, but he could still have a little bit of value as the No. 9 hitter on a Boston lineup that really isn't short for offense. At the very worst, he's a cheap stopgap that buys time for Dustin Pedroia's development. As for the Marlins, who's their new starting shortstop?

Yeah, probably. Especially since Reno 911 is a television show. And Ozwald was funnier as the Kenny Rogers Assassin.

In that same article, though, it mentions that Jerry Narron (the current manager of the Reds) did know about the hand injury: "Wouldn't let us X-ray it"? Though Dunn's desire to play is admirable, it was Narron's responsibility to shut him down, for the good of Dunn's career as well as the good of the franchise. It's hard to say whether this admission undermines Narron as a manager or not, since there are probably cases like this throughout the league, but it still doesn't speak well of his judgment.

If I'm reading this quote right, does that mean that the game actually encourages two-handed tapping, Eddie Van Halen-style? If that's the case, then I'm so picking this up. This sounds too good to be true.

The closing of the Ford plant in a nearby suburb could conceivably bury the entire town. There's not really any other opportunities available in industrial employment for the residents in the area. The city's going to try to fight it but, from what I've heard, their plant may be one of the first to go. Widespread corporate mismanagement strikes again. And I just bought a 2005 Ford a couple of weeks ago.

Played a little bit of MMX4 over the last couple of nights and I've been impressed. I have no idea about what the right order of beating the bosses was, but I beat Frost Walrus, gave up trying to be Flame Dragoon, and then went and beat Jet Stingray. Finally, I figured out that you can take the robot mech suit into the battle with Flame Dragoon, which is a nice little quirk in the stage design.

Maybe they can take turns? Kind of like kids waiting to go down the only slide in the playground, except that the slide dips you straight onto a busy highway.

I agree with you that a bat at third base is a more rare commodity than at the hot corner, but that doesn't diminish what Crisp brings to the table. A .345 OBP may not lead the league or be in the top 20, but it's above average for the league (bb-ref has the league average OBP at .323) and I would imagine that it's right around the mean for corner outfielders as well. Barring an unlikely collapse, Crisp should provide Boston with average production offensively and defensively at a crucial position in the field, which actually makes him an above average player on the whole. Gutierrez is probably a year away, at best. His 2004 stint in Akron was decent, but not spectacular (.302/.372/.466, but little else), and he turned in a disappointing second tour in 2005 (.261/.322/.423) before being rushed up to the majors last year. Other than those on-base numbers in 2004, he hasn't really shown a lot in his minor league performance record to suggest that he'll be a strong outfielder even when he makes it to the big time. Promoting Garko would certainly put another exceptional young bat on the roster, but sliding Broussard, a below-average defensive first basemen, to a more difficult position on the defensive spectrum doesn't strike me as a good idea. Garko may actually make for a more compelling move to the corner outfield, but changing positions at this stage of his career could be risky. In either case, we're talking about question marks in the outfield which, as I said before, doesn't necessarily make for a position of "strength." That's kind of a circular argument. But I think it's pretty straightforward. The Braves couldn't move Chipper Jones off the hot corner, and the Red Sox were loaded there as well. Maybe I'm just insane, but my argument seems fairly straightforward to me. Marte was probably one of the three most desired prospects in the league before this offseason. Statisticians have projected Marte to be a monster at the plate, some even projecting him at 35-40 home runs a year within the next two years. As you've mentioned before, finding a bat of his potential caliber at third base is very rare. So, with his status as a prospect at its absolute fever pitch, why was he dealt twice in the same offseason? Wouldn't Marte be the guy you want to hold onto? Being dealt twice this offseason doesn't change Marte's performance in the minor leagues, but it does put his potential in a slightly different context. The Braves and the Red Sox are two of the sharper organizations in the league, so I'm willing to be open to the possibility that there's something that the Braves and the Red Sox saw in Marte that didn't quite add up. Both of those teams don't have an abundance of guys killing the ball at a young age like Marte...so what compelled them to deal him? Is he damaged goods? Is there something in his major league stint that they observed that they thought would stunt his future development? These trades don't make Marte a failure before he's even out of the gate, but they do strengthen the possibility that Marte will not be the contributor that so many writers think he will be, as a result of injury, regression, or complete collapse. And I don't feel that we can ignore that possibility when evaluating this deal.

It's not a position of depth, though. After Michaels, Sizemore, and Casey Blake, who do they have? Jason Dubois? Juan Gonzalez? Sizemore is a star in the making, but he doesn't redeem the rest of the outfield, with Blake looking to decline even more, and Michaels being unproven over the course of a whole season. Whether Sizemore or Crisp is the cornerstone centerfield isn't really relevant to my argument. It's a one-to-one switch for Jason Michaels and, though Michaels has an impressive on-base percentage, he doesn't have a lot of power or speed to contribute to the team and there's a good chance that his hitting prowess will take a hit when he goes to Cleveland, either by virtue of park factors or a little bit of decline. Like I said, we might have already seen the best that Michaels has to offer - Crisp still has room and time to improve. Even though his range was somewhat squandered in left field for the Indians, he still had value as a corner outfielder. As for Marte, like I said, if he produces, then this trade takes a great turn for the Indians. But wouldn't you think the Red Sox and the Braves - two teams with strong philosophies on the sabermetric and scouting wavelengths respectively would have kept a "sure-fire" prospect like Marte? Why did they have dangle him for middle-tier shortstops like Renteria and Lugo, when all signs point to this guy lighting up the scoreboard in the majors right now? It just doesn't seem right to me and, while that's not the most scientific conclusion to come to, I haven't seen Marte have enough success in the major leagues to dissuade me from it.

One other factor in this: the Steelers are an old NFL team with a lot of history and playoff appearances in their time. The media is going to focus on them as much as possible, since they're the most recognizable team from the two by a longshot. The media is dumb.

It's called conversation. You had a pretty brash statement there, saying that the Seahawks were boring, so it's only natural that somebody was going to ask you why you felt that way.

Thanks for the correction - Crisp will be playing in his age-26 season this year.

Well, the good news for Parker is that they'll be playing on turf, which is more conducive to his speed and quick cuts. That's not to say that he'll be successful - I'd actually argue that he's probably worn down from his first full year as a tailback - but he could certainly have a better game than the last two efforts he's turned in for these playoffs.

I got my MMX Collection from Gamefly over the weekend. Right now, the word is "underwhelmed" - they couldn't even be bothered to put any flash into the title sequence or the game selection screen? Talk about bare bones. Outside of the lack of service, the games are a little iffy for me, but I haven't played them enough to really get a good impression. Right now, I know that MMX and MMX2 are good (which I knew anyway, since they were the only ones that I had played) and that the anime openings for the other games that I played were really, really bad. I don't think I can really say "THE ZERO NIGHTMARE" with a straight face.