Okay not a huge comic book reader of Ellis's work but he is a comic book writer so I'll give him a chance. Plus I believe he gave away his first chapter and that really hooked me. The opening read is so wacky and crazy I just had to see where it went. Well where it went was the underbelly of American sexual deviance. Crazy all around, great characters, and frankly by the time it was all done you just have to shake your head and say, yikes and why! Not for everyone good wacky story.
I belive for the most part this is the first book I have ever read that wasn't originally written in English...my question then is what is lost? Don't think I will run out and learn Japanese but it does make you wonder what might get lost in translation. Interesting stories, what I thought was most interesting was that most of them made me feel a bit edgy. His style is very visual or at least the way he crafts his stories there is a very visual feel to them. I like two stories the most. The one about the piano tuner who runs into a woman who learned she has breast cancer and the piano tuner reaches out to his long lost sister to only learn that she does too. 
No movement on the trade front..
Pulled this screen shot off the new Forced Unleashed trailer. Thought it was a bit risque for the Lucas crowd. Guess they think that a little T&A will go a long way with the video game crowd...of course if they could just make a good game.
This first plot shows the number of pitches versus the total runs. The size of the circle indicates how often this number of pitches were thrown. The next plot shows the distribution which indicates that 12 and 13 pitches were thrown in an inning approximately 161 times or accounting for about 17% of the total innings pitched..
The final plot shows the rate at which runs are scored. So for instance 26 pitches in an inning occurred 17 times and a total of 32 runs were scored. Thus giving a rate of 1.88 runs scored when 26 pitches are thrown. If you plot this rate you get this...
A relatively nice curve that has a Rsquare of about 0.79 (if you throw out two of the outliers you get upwards of 0.86). If you take the equation and solve for 1 you get approximately 20.6 pitches.
So there you have it...it does appear has you throw more pitches in an inning the likely of runs being scored increases. Follow on questions would be 1) what would the major league curve look like accounting for every pitch? and 2) could you establish pitcher effectiveness based on this (i.e., Cook has thrown 2,134 pitches this year, divided by 20.6 would indicate he should have given up 104 runs but presently he is at 64 allowed also he has averaged 13.9 pitches an inning which would equate to a rate of 0.47 runs per inning, he's pitched 154 innings so that equates to about 72 runs...)
Baker has been an animal the last two weeks and U-ball too. These two have thrown the Roxs on their backs and said let's make a run. With 56 games to go (6 back), do the Roxs have enough time to catch the D-bags? Starting pitching has been good. The last two weeks have seen the offense go into overdrive and the relief corps has been shutting teams down. Lots of games against the teams ahead of us. Will there be time? My guess is that the trade deadline will come and go and the Roxs will stand pat. Maybe Atkins will be dealt for a pitcher? It would allow Stewart to take over third and Baker a permanent spot at first until of if Helton comes back. Taveras would be a good throw in too as I believe Spilborghs and Fowler could take over center. An exciting time in baseball!
Not quite the issue I was looking forward too. Very disjointed and not really a celebration issue at all. More of a lead in. Lots of pages but it really looked like it was done by two authors and two artists and Marvel just kind of threw it together. Kind of lame appearance by a robotic Magneto. Come on with a milestone issue like this make it a bang don't just bring out the same old! Only thing going for all of this is is that the next storyline looks good.
Dakota shot! Oh no can this be the end of our third rate superless power heroine? Will Daredevil save her or will she be secreted away and given a lease on life. Does she become the new Bullseye? I jest but sometimes I wish someone would just write outlandish stuff!
I love the backstory stuff but in 15 years will anyone be able to pick this book up and figure out what the heck is going on in these past couple of issues. I mean talking about a continuity headache. I wish Secret Invasion came out every 2 weeks. A 6 month event just ruins the other books.