Bear with me people…I’m an engineer, not an artist.

• Well I’ll start out with the big news.  This is sort of a “Good News, Sad News” situation.  The good news is we get a great reliever in Kevin Gregg, but we have to give up an excellent prospect (and 99 mph fastball) in Jose Ceda.  The Sad news is that this almost assures that Kerry Wood will not be returning to the Cubbies this year.  I can’t really blame Jim Hendry on this one though.  Kerry would undoubtedly command a hefty salary now that he’s shown he can withstand the rigors of a season as closer, and he did give us a bit of a home-town discount last year.  So, Kerry, I wish you the best with wherever you land…I just hope it isn’t in the NL Central.
• The Cubs were unable to come to terms with Ryan Dempster before their exclusive negotiating rights ended this week.  Therefore, we’re now bidding on him against the rest of the field, which undoubtedly will drive up his price.  This was the expected outcome earlier in the offseason, but recent news had suggested that Hendry might be able to get Demp under contract…I guess they were wrong.
• Big Z was able to snag his second Silver Slugger this year with his .337 BA, 4 HRs, & 14 RBIs.  Zambrano also managed a 13-start hitting streak, which also included a streak of 8 straight starts with an RBI.  The first of which hasn’t happened since ‘24, and the latter was a MLB first.  Good Job Z, we’ll see you in Spring Training.
• Apparently the Cubs have Papelbon on their roster…No, not THAT Papelbon, but it is still a good story nonetheless.
• Sweet Lou won the NL Manager of the Year award.  Contrary to what most people think, these postseason awards are voted on the day after the season ends.  The MLB is just stupid for releasing them weeks after the World Series ends rather than during the middle of the playoffs on an off day or something intelligent.
• Geo snagged the NL Rookie of the Year award by near unanimous decision.  And by nearly unanimous, I mean everyone voted for him except some homer jackass that voted for Joey Votto.  Perhaps they were confused since no one in Ohio can pronounce his name other than “G-O-VAN-EE”.
• The Jake Peavy sweepstakes appears to be in mass hysteria at this point, but Lou appears not to be too concerned with acquiring the stud from the Padres this offseason.  People are pretty uncertain about how the Peavy trade may go down at this point, but many are surmising that John Moores, the Padres owner, is in a hurry due to his impending divorce.

Well folks, that is all I have at this juncture in the offseason.  We’ll see where things go from here.  Stay Classy San Diego…

Pacman recently announced that he wanted to only be called Adam from now on.  Clearly an attempt to make people look away from his sordid past activities.  Unfortunately, Pacman, one first must give respect in order to earn it.  This guy was banned from the NFL for an entire year for his antics, and then is reinstated after giving certain guarantees that he will behave…and makes it all the way through week 5 of the season until he is in the news again.

The part that really irks me the most is that he’s not even that good!  He actually has the same amount of body guards appointed by the Cowboys (4) as career interceptions!  A guy in a similar situation, but with a much higher level of talent, Tank Johnson, was dropped by his team at the time (my beloved Chicago Bears) promptly after they used him in one last hoorah against the Colts in Super Bowl XLI.  However, one would never expect Cowboys owner, Jerry Jones, to get rid of a player for something as “insignificant” as breaking the law…5 or 6 times!  Who did Tank end up getting picked up by a few months later?  Why of course, the Cowboys!  And instead of keeping his head down and out of the news, he decided to back up his boy.

The really sad thing is that we all pay their salaries.  People have the nerve to get upset when people who manage multi-billion dollar corporations are paid $10-20 million, but see nothing wrong with a guy getting paid around the same amount to play a game 16 games a year…we Americans have our priorities a bit out of whack methinks.  Whenever you watch a professional sporting event on TV, attend a game in person, buy a jersey, etc. you are basically handing your money over to people like this.  Of course, there are a number of upstanding citizens; however, these people will never feel the true brunt of their actions until be stand behind their frustration and actually act.  But, if you’re going to act…please put some effort and intelligence into it (i.e., don’t do this).

For those that would like to delve deeper, The Register has a good synopsis of the post-goof story. I also have to give props to Computerworld for their story.

This mishap really shines the light on the potential impacts of misinformation, and how they are magnified greater than ever due to the internet. My mother sent me a link the other day to an article discussing the potential for legislation that will severely limit the freedoms those in South Korea have come to expect on the internet. Lee Myung-bak, the president of South Korea, is sensitive to this issue in light of the recent unfounded claims about imported U.S. beef being of the worst quality, suciptible to Mad Cow Disease, and that South Koreans are somehow genetically predisposed to aquire said disease! These stories ultimately led to the near ouster of Lee Myung-bak after he approved the reimportation of U.S. beef earlier this year.

A little side-note: Korean beef is horrible. It’s funny that they’re scared of our beef, because the quality of U.S. beef is 1000 times better (personal opinion) than Korean and/or Australian beef, which is what they also import a lot of. In the grocery stores there, the same cut of beef would be 2 or 3 times more expensive if it was Korean rather than Australian (U.S. beef was banned when I was in Korea).

So remember, don’t believe everything you read…well, unless it’s coming from me.

I wake up at 6am to the sound of two alarm clocks (I really don’t like getting up in the morning). The one next to my bed is an iHome tuned to The X, a decent alternative rock station in the ‘burgh. The other is one of those good old black hotel alarm clocks, which plays the most annoying sound ever conceived by man.

After I come out of the shower and do my hair, I hit the space bar on my computer to turn iTunes onto whatever I was listening to the night before. I take a swig of whatever juice is in the fridge, turn off the tunes, and hop into my car. I have a 6-disc mp3 CD changer, and I always have about 50% of my music collection hiding in a container in the back seat.

As soon as I get to work, I put my 160GB iPod into it’s dock, plug in my stereo headphones, and listen to music whilst I work the day away. A coworker often comes up to me and taps me on the shoulder to say, “Jay, how is the control tower treatin’ you this morning?” I just smirk and politely turn off the tunes and have a nice chat.

My evenings home consist of a large percentage of time involved with iTunes and tweaking my collection (Right now, I’m listening to music of the 1970’s…549 songs as of tonight). I now have gone through all 7500+ songs and ensure that the name of the song, Artist name, Album name, album art, and original year of release are accurate and updated. I also have everything rated on the not-so-good 5-star scale. My next hurdle is to fill in all the genre section in order to make some killer playlists…I haven’t tried it yet, but Billy Joe sent me an email about Tune Up, a pretty cool looking program

I also like movies a lot (don’t worry, I won’t go into detail about that). Anyway, this evening, I caught the movie Almost Famous on one of my over-priced movie channels. It is the best of both worlds; its a movie, but it is immersed in the world of…music! Well, that got me to thinking about what makes a great movie, and more specifically, great movies dealing with music. Therefore, I decided to throw together a list of my top 5 music-themed movies (in no particular order):

• Almost Famous
• High Fidelity
• The Blues Brothers
• Empire Records
• This is Spinal Tap

Honorable Mention goes to O Brother, Where Art Thou?, School of Rock and Reign Over Me, which isn’t exactly fitting with this category, but it is more musically related than some other movies. Then, we have all those great films with killer soundtracks. Such as: Trainspotting, Hackers, Breakin’ (don’t laugh), Footloose, Dazed and Confused, Ocean’s Eleven, anything by John Hughes or Wes Anderson, etc.

I think Almost Famous hits home for me because when I was younger, I always wanted to be a journalist (as you can tell by my posts, I made a good decision by going into the sciences). I really would love nothing more than to go back in time and be a teenager during the mid-1960s through the early 1970’s. To experience the origins of Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin, The Who, Cream, The Rolling Stones, The Doors, some later Ray Charles, Jimi Hendrix, Creedence Clearwater Revival, David Bowie, Pink Floyd, Queen, any so many more…would just be unbelievable.

Today, I can say I love these acts because I’ve been able to sort through their entire collection in one sitting and pick out what I like. However, to experience it chronologically, it is so much different. Would I have liked all these artists from their first albums without knowing the great songs that might come later? Not everyone burst onto the scene with top-notch albums like Led Zeppelin’s self-titled debut or Jimi’s, “Are You Experienced“.

So, I guess what this seemingly never-ending post is just supposed to say, I really liked the movie, and could relate to the character of William Miller easily. Most people would discredit my above list for not including the Beatles…but that is precisely why they aren’t on there. This movie wasn’t about some giant act (although they were mentioned a great deal throughout the movie); on the contrary, it was about an up and coming band, and how they were struggling to come into their own. William wasn’t just along for the ride, he was actually a part of music history!

Note: I LOATHE Moulin Rouge, so I don’t want to read any comments containing those words…no reason why, because I don’t need one.

On a slightly tangent note: If you’re willing to read a book and not be outrageously biased of the author before you read it, I suggest checking out Treason, by Ann Coulter. Ann is a hilarious author, and outrageously conservative. She also happens to back up her claims with hundreds of citations. Treason deals with the story of Senator Joe McCarthy, who as she claims, is a tragically misunderstood man.

• Did you ever wonder what happened to Napoleon’s penis after he died? Or say the ear bones of Beethoven? Well, I didn’t either, but now I know.
• Apparently piezoelectronics are becoming more and more common-place, based on the fact that there are now multiple dance clubs utilizing them to generate electricity.
• I honestly don’t have anything pithy to say about this “water-powered” clock (it’s really the minerals providing the juice). I just really want one; and if you’d like to buy it for me, you’re more than welcome to.
• Miley Cyrus is an idiot. She and her publicists get all freaked out when there are potentially sexual looking pictures of her on the internet, and she combats this with saying she wants to do a “younger” Sex in the City?
• I think this doctor just has a good sense of humor.
• I knew it! There had to be some reason that those Girl Scout cookies are so damned good…
• Finally, San Francisco is doing something I can get behind. And obviously, I’m not the only one.
• Well, San Francisco, it was nice while it lasted.
• This is just amazing. I mean, Andy Dick eats at Buffalo Wild Wings too!
• This is nice to see since it always seems like we deport single mothers with 3 kids who are upstanding citizens rather than criminals. Case in point.
• Yeah, I know, it sucks when the government is in charge of money…but I’m sure this is like a once in a while thing.
• AHHHHHHH!
• I knew Selma would come back for me.
• Ok, honestly, this really pisses me off. People go on and on about not being dependent on foreign money/oil/etc., and then what happens, they fold like a lawn chair at the first sign of trouble. Especially when you’re talking about Hugo Chavez.
• Lastly, I want to make you all ponder something really important. This is probably 100% true, and it is something we should all try and combat. Just because you can find stuff easily on the internet doesn’t mean it is the only way or the right way. It simply means it was the easy way.

Stay Classy San Diego