Major cuteness warning

On the count of three: Awwwwwwwwww. That's my niece.


This week's theme:
Songs you won't be able to get out of your head

Hehe... you have to click it or not, but there's no turning back. There's a fine line between brave and stupid. Are you willing to cross it?

Today's song that you won't be able to get out of your head.
(I was going to drop a hint in here, but click on the link and write it yourself)


Baseball bits:

Something I did on a lark is now a regular feature of the column. Then again, I used to do "And now a word from our sponsors" everyday...

How about that Chris Carpenter? I want to know if he's related to The Carpenters from the 1970s. Much was made of his drop in wins from 21 to 15, as if that actually meant that he was a bad pitcher. This means two things: regression to the mean still works and you still have to a be really good pitcher to win 15 games. This is why people should read Baseball Between the Numbers. If that baseball blog ever gets started, I'll have to contribute a few Sabermetric posts.

In other news: The Yankees are looking to pick up Gary Sheffield's $13 mil option and trade him somewhere. He'll fetch something on the open market. Also out of Gotham, it's our daily reminder that A-Rod's not going anywhere (wink, wink) Mike Timlin re-signs in Boston. And in managerial news, the Pizza Cutter's favorite manager, Bobby Valentine has been mentioned as a candidate for the Giants' job. Not only did he pull off the Groucho Marx disguise after being ejected incident, he also claims that he invented the wrap sandwhich. Multi-talented. He'd manage my team.

Rumors: Big names in their free agent year next year, Andruw Jones and Ichiro Suzuki. What will happen with them? The rumblings are already starting. Alfonso Soriano with the Mets? Jim Edmonds out of St. Louis? Craig Counsell to the Tigers?

Carlos Delgado is apparently playing games with the Mets. He's threatening to ask for a trade (which he has a contractual right to do) so that the Mets will guarantee his option for 2009.

And finally, quietly and thankfully, the players union and MLB reached a new five year agreement. Apparently they figured out that with a few billion dollars floating around the game each year, they ought to be able to come to some sort of agreement.


On to the news:

London is looking for a few good vampires
(All you goth kids reading this, here you go)

Another "naked burglar" story
(It's sad... so many people decide to go out and steal things while naked that the story is passe. What does that say about our species?)


Bright, shiny objects:

Funny game show answers
(Mostly from Family Feud)

SEX and NES
(From the dark side of the video game console)


Today's Random "Next Blog":

JD's thoughts
(World traveller, blogger, geocoacher?)


Today's strange anniversary:

October 25, 1939 -- William Saroyan's "Time of Your Life," premieres in NYC . This isn't really strange. It's just a really good play that my wife and I saw last year. The other option was the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. The problem is that the Russians don't celebrate the October Revolution until November.


Fun fact of the day:

The largest toy distributor in the world is McDonald’s.


And now a word from our sponsors:

Well, I did mention it.

Ikea encourages you to get organized.
(If not for you, for the others.)


And finally:

My wife stopped by my office hours today. I think I've mentioned I teach a couple classes at DePaul University. She's the only one allowed to sleep with the professor.