Haiku Wednesday

Cowboys

Symbols of Old West
Country's romantic figures
Give me hat and spurs

Greg Rucka - Whiteout: Melt

Follow up to the original Whiteout. Liked the first one...but wasn't all that enamored with this one. I think it is because the thought of having another murder on the ice just seemed a bit far fetched. The first go around...OK but to think it would happen again? Love the character (and by the way Kate Beckinsale ain't her...) and think expanding her beyond the ice would be interesting...maybe not so much in a comic but definitely a novel. Much like his Queen and Country series. Maybe they could both meet up for an assignment? Hmmm maybe not.

Rox Talk

Today I was just going to briefly mention that the purple cat, Andres Gallaraga did not receive the minimum of 5% of votes last week and will be removed from future consideration. I don't think we thought he would receive a whole lot of support and in some respects I think a player first loves to play the game, second would love Hall of Fame consideration, and finally is incredible lucky to make it into the Hall. Two out of three marks a great career, thanks for the memories. He was an outstanding player and a great Rox! To see how he fit with other nominees this website shows a great graphic. Next year might finally show some insight on the Coors Field effect and how future Rox might fare to the rest of the baseball world. Larry Walker will be on the ballot and I would think he definitely has a chance.

In other Rox news, Jerry Schemmel was announced as the next voice of the Rox. An exciting voice who will fit in well with the team. Can't wait to hear his home run call!

And finally the story of the day (or non-story perhaps) was the announcement from Mark McGwire that he knowingly took steroids during his career. From the storyline that will never die, we once again will hear from sport's world the impact of steroids on the game. From a fan's perspective what can one say? When Manny tested this year you had to shake your head because a policy was in place. Back in McGwire's time there was no policy...was it cheating? Every generation will have its baseball era. I will be saddled with the knowledge of my heroes probably being steroid users. It saddens me to think that a game would cause players to abuse their body just for the ego stroking but then again I don't have the opportunity to make millions of dollars. Given the temptation of setting up my family for generations to come perhaps justifying steroid use might become simpler. In time others will come out and history will be finally written on the era. Some questions will remain, records will be scorned, and a new generation will come along. I think we should respect McGwire's desire to set the record straight. Perhaps it will gain him some support, perhaps it will backfire on him. But he did have the courage to make things right. I will still remember the night he hit the line drive over left field to claim the record. It was a good time to be a baseball fan. Too bad it will always be tainted with steroids...

Douglas Coupland - Generation A

Coupland's 12th (English) novel is set in the not too distant future. The world no longer has bees and the basis of the novel is that five unrelated (or perhaps are related...) people suddenly get stung. As with all of Coupland's books his characters are unbelievable and memorable. Of any author alive today, Coupland is the absolute best (at least who I read) in developing characters that are "out there" and yet you feel as a reader that you know someone like that or you relate to their idiosyncrasies.

His book starts out with the usual bang and yet just as you start to get the characters and start feeling for the conclusion the book gets lost. To me once the 5 bee people join up, the action should really get going and yet the book gets stuck with these stories from each of the 5 individuals. The stories are fun but they don't do much to progress whatever it is that Coupland is trying to get across. Furthermore they bring in a scientist and he tells his story. In the end the story gets bogged down in saying our future is screwed because the industrial complex drive for profits will overlook biological disasters like the loss of bees. Too bad the ending didn't do a better job of getting this across.

And a little aside...in one of the stories an email is dropped by Coupland (SMcQ23667bot@hotmail.com). I emailed a quick email saying "Loved the book...bees rock" My response from Craig McQueen (read the book) was,

"Buzz buzz.
Bees.
Never forget."

There you have it...

Song Memory - Oxygene Part 2

A song I hadn't heard in a long long time. Growing up I made several pilgrimage to the Alabama Space and Rocket Center. Twice I went to Space Camp there and basically lived at the museum. Key highlight back then was to see one of the Shuttle IMAX films. Back in the 80s there were basically two movies...The Dream is Alive and Hail Columbia. I have probably seen each of these films like ten times. Awesome display of the IMAX technology especially the surround sound. The scene was always the same, quiet display of the space shuttle, a sound of bird going by, then a gentle rumble of the main engine start, followed by the kick in your pants start of the two solid rocket boosters. Your seat would tremble, your heart would be in your throat, and you felt like you were riding the fire to the stars. It was always an awesome experience. Anyway the reason the song matters is that when you would enter the IMAX theater they always had this song in the loop. Futuristic sounding (funny that the song was made in the late 70s) and instrumental, so whenever I hear the song it takes me back to 5th or 6th grade. Used to have the album on cassette then never brothered to upgrade to CD then decide to grab it off of iTunes. Great stuff!

Comic Splat (5)

New comic book feature...just a couple of lines to express my thoughts...a splat on the wall

Siege #1: Hard to believe that this all started back in Avengers Disassembled (7 years ago). Was it laid out or did it just happen...question I have is why did Bendis do House of M...how does it link into all of this. Can't wait to see Capt A

Cinderella #3: The Fables offshoot. Cinderella as a secret agent is fun.

Batman Confidential #40: Only reason I bought this was Sam Keith did the art...loved what he did for Wolverine way back in Marvel Comics Presents.

New Mutants #9: Thought this was a tie into Necrosha but it isn't. Not for sure why they were thrown into the crossover. It would seem to me that they are trying to rebuild the team to its original constituents...bottom line to me is that there are too many X-books!

Blackest Night - Wonder Woman #2: The only reason I got this series was the artist was a female. I was curious to see if a female artist would draw women in a typical male fashion...you know T & A. She does...

Haiku Wednesday

Dreams

Trust in your mind's eye
Project thoughts, be convincing
Believe it will be!

Starts with the first step
Live your days with confidence
Believe, see it bloom

Run Journal

Graphically that was my 2009 year of running. The vertical axis is minutes run in a week. I certainly aren't pounding the pavement but I did run 365 straight days that included at least 20 minutes of running. I average about 205 minutes a week so probably about 20 - 25 miles a week. Managed one half marathon but would have liked to run a 5K. Historically speaking I pretty much beat all my averages and for the most part run above my historical 90% upper limit. The real trick will be to keep it going in 2010...

Rox Talk

In the Anatomy of Every Start by Raphy on the baseball-reference blog he provides a table of data for every starter's pitch line. I hate tables so I graphed it. I did make one simplification so that I could graph it more easily. The simplification was that I performed a weighted average on the runs scored per third of an inning. In this way I got the graph below. The data shows the innings along the x-axis and the runs weighted average on the y-axis. Each circle then represents the number of starts. Of the 4,860 starts by MLB starters last year, 1,083 starters went exactly six innings! As you would expect the shorter the start the more runs on average were scored compared to the later innings. Interesting to see how average runs given up through 4 2/3 is pretty even and then nosedives to the 9th inning. My guess is this shows that when a pitcher has it, teams generally don't get to him and that when pitchers don't have it the early innings clearly show this. It is nice to see that 78% of the starts do last 5 innings or more. Also interesting to note that only 30% of the runs scored are done before the 5 inning.

As is my custom I look at the 2009 Rox starting pitching to see how they compared. The purple dots show the same information. Once again it is interesting to see the Rox data trend the same way after 6 innings. So in addition to the above information I also graphed innings pitched versus team winning percentage. Data suggests that for a team to have a 50/50 chance of winning it helps for the starter to go 6 innings. Purple data shows how the Rox compare.

And finally Raphy also supplied Game Score data. Once again I graphed it coming up with a win rate term which is simply wins divided by number of games. The graph has team win rate in blue and pitcher win rates in pink. Interesting to see that a Game Score of 50 will get the team to about a 50/50 chance of winning while a Game Score of 60 is required for the pitcher to get a 50/50 chance.

Lego Set 10188

Big lego, really BIG! Close to 4,000 pieces, it was a mammoth undertaking. The instruction manual was bound in a binder! Basically divided into 7 sub sections, the model took about a week to complete. The detail and the interconnectiveness that went into this model was amazing. Lots of little "gotchas". Truly an incredible design when finally all put together. The only real gripe is the big laser canon...it is very flimsy and always falls off! Don't know if Lego could ever top this model.

Left Over Pieces