The Man in Blak

And exactly what modern RPG games eschew this design convention? Have you even played Chrono Trigger? The game is renowned for its lack of grinding; speed runs have finished the game in less than four hours.

I've still got the "white noise" background pic around somewhere, if you're interested.

If you say so. I haven't heard anything from the rest of their catalogue, but 75% or more of Jamboree seems to go like: while (songlength < 2:00) { Drums.play("thump-a-whack-a-thump-a-whack-a"); Guitar.playSingleStringOfNotes(3); DudeThatSoundsLikeThatDudeFromCrashTestDummies.lyricize("teenage love, like maybe the Wonder Years"); Guitar.playSameSingleStringOfNotes(3); } I mean, there's "Indian Summer" and the car crash of a "song" that ends the album does manage to work somehow as a closing track, but so much of the rest of it comes in flat for me. The sensation reminds me of my general distaste for Pink Flag, but even I can objectively see the appeal behind that one. Jamboree, I dunno. Is there some kind of context behind the album that I'm completely oblivious to? Is there a better place to start with Beat Happening? I will concede, however, that Tapes 'n Tapes loses a lot of that "fun" on the second go round. "Like Drums" still has some zing to it, but the rest of the album just completely stalls out in flight after initial exposure.

Yeah, you can. In fact, you can actually hit the ball out of the entire park, if you really drive one down the lines.

He's saying that changing the URL used for accessing the forums - even on a redirect - can lead to users having their access to the site blocked by content-control software (such as Websense) at work/school/etc. I'm not familiar with Websense itself (my company has it's own proprietary nonsense), but I'm guessing that it's more likely for the site to be screened and attributed for offensive content off of a straight domain name, rather than the forums subdomain that we had before.

Probably an injury. There's no reason for a guy like that to suddenly lose his stuff otherwise. The Hardball Times recently posted an article dissecting some of Zambrano's mechanics that's worth reading, if you're concerned about his performance going forward.

If you can find it, I'd recommend The Book: Playing The Percentages in Baseball, which was written by a couple of statisticians that post over at Baseball Think Factory. It's a stats book, but it focuses more on the theory behind in-game strategy (such as lineup contruction, appropriate times to bunt, etc.), so it's a different flavor of analysis. http://www.insidethebook.com/

I appreciate the attempt at optimism, but I don't put much stock into this because: 1) those relievers are due for a bit of a BABIP correction (.260) 2) by the time those relievers come into the game, the other team has already amassed a four or five lead and they aren't quite as aggressive at the plate.

I'm not really a big fan, mainly because it seems like it goes on forever, it tends to cheapen the World Series, and many of the matchups, outside of the regional rivalries, fail to offer any more entertainment value than the regular everyday pairings. I think I'd have a little more interest in it if they used the league records during interleague play to determine home field advantage for the World Series (rather than the All-Star Game) but, ultimately, the concept does nothing for me.

For the Friday morning doldrums (so far): Maybe it's whiplash from the Sun Ra, but Jamboree is mostly shit, indie "twee" cred be damned. The Tapes 'n Tapes has been fun, though, for a first listen.

Do you have ESPNNews. You should try recording their broadcast, if possible. You could also listen to PTI in its entirety (including the Big Finish) from the podcasts available on ESPN's website: http://sports.espn.go.com/espnradio/podcast/index Not sure when they post the new episodes, though. I just know that they're there, along with Around The Horn and other various ESPN Radio shows.

You must have overlooked where I put "injury shortened season" next to that stat line. Obviously, he missed a large percentage of the games that year, but that doesn't mean that you completely toss it out - you evaluate what you have accordingly. And, even if you remove the 2003 season, the statistical trend of poor performance is still very evident; 2003, small sample size and all, only reinforces it. Also, I'd like to emphasize that the Falcons went 3-1 in those four games, not Michael Vick. Here's how much Vick contributed to the last four games of the 2003 season: Week 14 (CAR): 16/33, 179 pass yds, 1 INT (141 rush yds, 1 rush TD) Week 15 (IND): 6/19, 47 pass yds, 1 INT (30 rush yds) Week 16 (TAM): 8/15, 119 pass yds, 2 TD (39 rush yds) Week 17 (JAX): 12/22, 180 pass yds, 2 TD, 1 INT (29 rush yds) I could understand where you were coming from if Vick was dropping three or four TDs, completing 60% of his passes, and running for 100 every game, but there's one decent game in that series (Carolina) and very little else for the remainder of the season. Let's not get carried away here. And it's a point that speaks more to the mismanagement of the Falcons, in my opinion. Vick has only missed one game since 2003 and, in that one game, the Falcons came dangerously close to beating the Patriots with Matt Schaub chalking up almost 300 yards and three touchdown passes. That leaves the 2003 season as the main body of evidence for your argument, when the backup quarterbacks were Doug Johnson (-3.4 DPAR) and Kurt Kittner (-25.3 DPAR), both of whom were unbelievably bad. And it's not like that season was just a bad year for either of those guys: Kittner's 2003 season was his only year in the league and Johnson inspired so many potential free agent suitors with his play in 2003 that he accumulated a whopping total of 12 passing attempts over the next three seasons that followed. I won't contend that the Falcons make the playoffs in 2003 with a serviceable backup, but I'd be very willing to bet that they don't lose seven of the first eight games that season. Depending on how much weight you put into the various allegations that surrounded his relationship with Dan Reeves in 2003 (which included a notorious photo of Arthur Blank pushing Vick around in a wheelchair), you might believe that Michael Vick may have a hand in bringing that coaching change upon himself. And, given that Mora and Knapp coached the team to the NFC Championship in his first season, it's hard for me to accept that the Falcons somehow couldn't succeed under the "second regime", unless they just completely lost the locker room (where, once again, we encounter more allegations surrounding Vick's character and "quality" as a leader). Secondly, I find it curious that you would suggest that the offensive line has been greatly hampering Vick's performance. The quarterback that they're protecting in Atlanta isn't Drew Bledsoe - he's supposed to be one of the most athletic and mobile quarterbacks in the history of the sport. Isn't his skill for improvisation supposed to be one of his strengths?

He probably got warned for the "incredible morons" comment a few posts back, but this is still a stretch for "constant flaming and trolling". Ironically, a suspension probably would have been more appropriate, to let him (and everybody else) "cool down" from the Suns/Spurs series. That's just my two cents, though.

I don't actually post there, but I've lurked around the stats pages for a while now. There are still some adjustments to some of their statistics that I'd like to see but, overall, it's an excellent site for football analysis. I think that comparison makes a lot of sense, especially when you consider the expectations that surrounded both players early on in their career. I understand this argument to a certain extent, but the criticisms and complaints about Vick's reputation versus his actual performance have been out there for a while now. It's true that the first year or so of a new scheme can bring about a little bit of transition, but Vick has been a mediocre quarterback at best for three years running now, with (arguably) better talent around him than he had for his breakout season in 2002. The same poor fundamentals that existed early on his career are still readily apparent today. There's a new coach coming in and a new system to learn, but the more important factor in Vick's performance, in my opinion, is how the Falcons approach his performance. For Arthur Blank to say that Vick hasn't been coddled by the organization is laughable, as more and more people come out to attest to Vick's negligence of any sort of rules or accountability. This is true - as much as the fans may want to see him traded away, the reality behind the situation is that it isn't going to happen.

Technically, he's started for five years - he missed a good chunk of the 2003 season due to a pre-season injury. But, while we're looking at selective endpoints, how about this: the Atlanta Falcons have only made the playoffs once in the last four years and have completely missed the postseason over the last two years, when the NFC has been absolutely dreadful. In 2002, Vick was one of the most valuable players in the league, but he has taken a firm step down from that, especially as a passer. Football Outsiders has a stat called Defensive Points Above Replacement (DPAR) that is used to measure the effectiveness of a player, compared to other players at his position and adjusted for multiple factors, including the strength of defenses on the schedule. DPAR shows that, after putting up an great campaign in 2002, Vick has undergone a major regression as a passer: Vick's Passing DPAR 2002: 59.6 (10th in the NFL) 2003: -2.9 (33rd in the NFL - injury shortened season) 2004: -18.5 (37th in the NFL) 2005: 12.9 (26th in the NFL) 2006: -6.3 (37th in the NFL) His abilities as a rusher (which add about ~20-30 DPAR each year) have salvaged much of the value that he has lost as a passer, but the stats show that his performance is far away from his reputation. Vick really hasn't been a premier quarterback in the league for the last four years, which is a period of time where many fans have expected Vick to develop and improve as a player. Furthermore, Vick has had very little impact on the success that the Falcons have had in the playoffs - the two postseason wins that they've had under his tenure involved one of the worst playoff teams in recent memory (the 2004 St. Louis Rams) and a "career-defining win" over the Packers in Lambeau, where Vick had 181 total yards from scrimmage and Brett Favre failed to complete half of his attempts (20/42, 247 yards, 2 INTs). His last playoff game was a 27-10 squash from the Eagles, where he had 26 yards rushing and went 11/24 in pass attempts (1 INT). If you're willing to look beyond over half a dozen different off-the-field incidents, for whatever reason, that's fine, but I would at least consider the actual results of Vick's performance before saying that he's carried the Falcons to anything.

The old Ray Lewis argument. He was great on the field, so let's ignore his off-field stuff. Good times. Anyways, if you don't want to compare Vick to Brady and Favre, how about comparing him to Leonard Little. Little actually killed a woman while drunk driving, and the guy is still happily in the league. I'm not saying Little should be suspended for something that happened a few years ago, but it just shows that there seems to be a way higher standard for how Vick acts vs how some defensive end acts. For starters, Ray Lewis took a very substantial hit to his reputation for the murder charges that came up a few years ago, and there are more than enough people that still despise him today, despite the fact that he was not convicted of the charges. Secondly, Leonard Little would almost certainly be suspended for a very long time if his incident had occurred under Goodell's watch and I wouldn't say that it's been swept under the rug either - both the Tony LaRussa DUI and the Josh Hancock death were both subtexted with the point that "at least they weren't a Leonard Little incident". Most importantly, I'm not trying to excuse the behavior of these athletes but, rather, address the discussion that some fans feel like Michael Vick should be dealt away from the franchise, as a result of the constant off-the-field issues that have been alleged and reported. There were many lofty (and perhaps undeserved) expectations from fans and analysts alike for Michael Vick when he entered into the NFL. Ultimately, he has failed to meet these expectations and people are searching for an answer and, in their search, they're finding all of the various off-the-field incidents, in addition to other less admirable traits as well (allegations that he milked his injury in 2003, observations that he refused to study game film). This is not a "rolling stop" and to rationalize it as such is lunacy. This is a string of incidents, one after another after another over the last four years, all coming from a guy that's supposed to be one of the premier players in the league, a guy that has not only failed to reach his expectations, but has demonstrated - through his actions - a real lack of interest in trying to improve his game. I think Atlanta fans, bandwagoners or not, have a legitimate right to be pissed off.

The guy just gets overscrutinized to the point its ridiculous. When rape, gun charges and assault and other things get less news time than "Vick misses flight" then it is just ridiculous. I don't disagree that athletes, by and large, have too much scrutiny upon their various indiscretions, but the situation that surrounds Vick seems to indicate a possibility that there's a real fire beyond all of this "smoke" (i.e. the multiple incidents that Porter mentioned earlier). And when you isolate the most harmless of his offenses (flipping the fans off) and directly compare that to potential responses from fans for two white quarterbacks that have Super Bowl rings and no history of potential involvement in illegal activities, your argument for Vick comes off as being somewhat dishonest, in my opinion. Do you really think Vick's on-the-field performance has warranted any kind of leeway from fans for the multiple off-the-field incidents that have came up over his career? Then why bring it up?

Because his assault case is an upgrade? Uh, if you're talking about this, I think the charges were dropped a long time ago.

If you ask me, a more accurate descriptor for Halo would be "simplified knockoff", and that simplification is what makes it perfect for SNG multiplayer matchups. Tribes primarily catered to hardcore team gamers, but Halo managed to attract those fans on console as well as appeal to the (much larger, IMO) cross section of FPS fans that were looking for a quick deathmatch. Overrated as it may be, calling Halo a "low-rent" Tribes is comparable to calling Goldeneye a "low-rent" Doom, in my opinion, and is a disservice to the impact of the game on the console FPS scene.

I must have broken Yahoo by spot-starting Brett Tomko last night.

I'm probably as big a Beatles fan as you'll find on this board and I voted for the Replacements here.

Sizemore is six years younger, plays Gold Glove caliber defense at a crucial defensive position, and has speed on top of a great approach at the plate. I'd consider him to be a Top 3 entry in a list like this, in my opinion.

Well, it's definitely possible to integrate FlashChat with Invision (the board software we use): FlashChat Integrating FlashChat with IPB