Monthly Archives: May 2005

Baseball

Week 7

As we see from the Asterisk before Ken Harvey’s name, he went on DL. I have submitted a choice of several players to replace him. We’ll see whom I get.

Team report for Rocky Coloradans
Owned by Jack Heneghan

Hitters Team HR R RBI AVG SB

————————–
Javy Lopez Bal C1 FS-AS: 7 25 22 .273 0
WK: 0 3 1 .231 0
————————–
Josh Bard Cle C2 FS-AS: 1 2 6 .200 0
WK: 0 0 3 .222 0
————————–
Tino Martinez NYY 1B FS-AS: 12 27 30 .261 1
WK: 0 2 1 .071 0
————————–
Joe Crede CWS 3B FS-AS: 4 17 16 .243 0
WK: 1 2 1 .056 0
————————–
*Ken Harvey KC CI AS: 0 2 1 .148 0
WK: 0 1 0 .250 0
FS: 1 4 5 .222 0
————————–
Juan Uribe CWS 2B FS-AS: 4 16 20 .246 1
WK: 0 0 2 .095 0
————————–
Derek Jeter NYY SS FS-AS: 4 32 18 .306 7
WK: 0 2 0 .174 2
————————–
Julio Lugo TB MI FS-AS: 2 21 20 .274 12
WK: 1 5 3 .346 3
————————–
Manny Ramirez Bos OF1 FS-AS: 11 25 38 .242 1
WK: 1 1 4 .208 0
————————–
Gary Sheffield NYY OF2 FS-AS: 6 26 29 .315 6
WK: 0 1 0 .286 0
————————–
Aaron Rowand CWS OF3 FS-AS: 3 23 15 .269 6
WK: 0 4 2 .333 1
————————–
Torii Hunter Min OF4 FS-AS: 5 21 23 .231 12
WK: 1 2 3 .100 1
————————–
Shannon Stewart Min OF5 FS-AS: 5 28 20 .298 3
WK: 1 4 3 .400 0
————————–
Frank Catalanotto Tor DH FS-AS: 1 14 12 .281 0
WK: 0 0 2 .214 0

TOTALS 65 289 279 .2695 50
OFF PTS 10.0 10.0 10.0 7.0 9.0

————————–
Travis Lee TB CI AS: 0 10 9 .299 1

Pitchers Team W SV SO ERA WHIP
—————————-
Randy Johnson NYY P1 FS-AS: 4 0 55 3.94 1.125
WK: 0 0 5 5.40 1.800
—————————-
Bartolo Colon LAA P2 FS-AS: 5 0 42 2.67 1.154
WK: 1 0 3 1.12 1.000
—————————-
Kevin Millwood Cle P3 FS-AS: 1 0 45 3.31 1.307
WK: 0 0 5 1.50 1.333
—————————-
Kenny Rogers Tex P4 FS-AS: 5 0 23 1.73 1.235
WK: 1 0 1 3.38 1.500
—————————-
Kyle Lohse Min P5 FS-AS: 3 0 18 5.19 1.385
WK: 1 0 1 3.00 1.500
—————————-
Gil Meche Sea P6 FS-AS: 4 0 30 5.00 1.370
WK: 1 0 4 3.00 1.333
—————————-
Dustin Hermanson CWS P7 AS: 0 8 8 0.00 0.868
WK: 0 2 3 0.00 2.000
FS: 0 10 15 0.00 0.885
—————————-
Damaso Marte CWS P8 FS-AS: 2 2 21 2.16 1.620
WK: 0 0 5 3.37 1.125
—————————-
Gustavo Chacin Tor P9 FS-AS: 4 0 30 3.71 1.331
WK: 0 0 4 7.20 1.800

TOTALS 28 10 276 3.43 1.266
OFF PTS 9.0 3.0 8.0 8.0 7.0

—————————-
Justin Speier Tor P7 AS: 0 0 4 7.04 1.435

Baseball

81

Seems to be a freefall, but it’s only the hitters batting .213 for the week. We’ll see how things stack up in tomorrow’s recap.

Baseball

84

Now we start the silly season. The AL teams play a couple of series against NL teams, and vice-versa. I think it is stupid. Each league plays with different rules. And the games count in the standings.

I can see that the fans might appreciate local teams playing against each other for local or regional bragging rights, but the games shouldn’t count. Consider them exhibition games or something like that. But they do count, so I don’t have to worry about any pitchers starting against each other.

So they have:

NY Yankees vs.NY Mets
Philadelphia vs.Baltimore
Atlanta vs.Boston
Tampa Bay vs.Florida
Washington vs.Toronto
Chi White Sox vs.Chi Cubs
Cleveland vs.Cincinnati
Arizona vs.Detroit
St. Louis vs.Kansas City
Milwaukee vs.Minnesota
LA Angels vs.LA Dodgers
Oakland vs.San Francisco
San Diego vs.Seattle
Houston vs. Texas
Colorado vs.Pittsburgh

I guess Atlanta and Boston face off because the Braves started out in Boston before wandering west and then south. I notice that they have the Washington Nationals (ex-Montreal Expos) lining up against the Blue Jays. And Colorado and Pittsburgh get to avoid the travesty and play against each other. Maybe next year they will try Washington and Baltimore against each other?

So the pairings are: NYC, Mason-Dixon, Boston, Florida, Canada, Chicago, Ohio, AZvsMI???,I-70, North Woods, LA, Bay, S Pacific vs N Pacific, and Texas. Not sure about that Arizona/Detroit pairing, Sunbelt/Rustbelt maybe?

Geek Stuff

Security Fix

Security Fix

This one I consider scary. Being able to spoof Caller ID completely negates one of the primary security mechanisms that someone is where they say they are, and, to a lesser extent, that they are who they say they are.

If someone steals a new credit card out of my mailbox, they can activate it and go on a spending spree without me knowing anything about it until the first bill arrives. Even the credit card company may not realize there is a problem with the spending pattern.

Another reason to keep the credit limits on your cards low.

I wonder if the credit card company will treat the spending spree as theft? The confirmation came from you home phone number? Presumably the signature on the back of the card matched how whoever stole the card signed it.

How are they spoofing the caller ID? Caller ID (ANI) is generated by the local switch and is passed on through the phone network when a call is made. Presumably the spoofers are acting as a local switch and passing whatever ANI on to one of the main carriers, like the baby Bells or MCI. These carriers just pass the ANI field on without looking at it. I think the main carriers are going to have to start monitoring the ANI coming from outside their systems and drop it if it doesn’t conform to standards. An MCI switch in Colorado Springs wouldn’t pass an ANI from a local switch that didn’t have a 719 or cell-phone area code. And they shouldn’t accept ANI from known Spoofers.

The FCC may need to set up stricter rules on area code conformity. I thinkthat all area codes starting with “9” should be caller pays. All Area Codes starting with “8” should be callee pays. And since they got rid of the ‘”0″ and “1” restriction for second digit, all the residential/landline area codes should be moved to the lower range of numbers and the cell phone, IP and non-land-line area codes should start at 799 and work down. This would give some assurance to the network switches that the ANI they are routing is reasonably accurate. And more importantly that the recieving phone can trust the information provided by the network.

Bad things happen when trust is lost, or is it more appropriate to say that good things don’t happen when trust is lost?

Reviews

Miami Guns

Miami Guns, this is a fairly recent anime police story. The background, which didn’t seem to have any influence on the first few shows, is that humanity on earth was wiped out in some sort of catastrophe; some escaped into space and when they returned they found a few survivors on the surface. Humanity then restablished themselves on earth and rebuilt. Miami is the name of the primary city but it doesn’t seem to have any relationship to any Miami you may have heard of. As I said, none of this background seems relevant to the series.

The primary characters are Yao and Lu. Yao is the spoiled rich girl that thinks the world revolves around her and that police work is exciting work because you get to blow up buildings. (There aren’t many complaints about this because Yao has her father buy the building before it gets blown up.) Yao is one wild and crazy girl who never plans ahead. Lu is the calm, level-headed one. She is also the Police Chief’s daughter, which is probably why she naturally went into police work.

As a buddy show, Lu doesn’t react against Yao enough. Lu goes with the flow and in the end, after Yao creates a catastrophe, Lu gets them out safely. The only time this went the other way was when Yao and Lu first met (flashback) and Yao saved the day, and Lu. What makes the “Lethal Weapon” movies work is that Glover’s character has emotional responses to Gibson’s character’s antics. Glover’s character is just restrained by his background from totally clocking Gibson’s character.

The Police force is a private contracting outfit? but everyone seems to treat it as a public service organization. All the male officers seem to be trigger-happy lechers. The only non trigger-happy officer on the whole force seems to be Lu, and maybe her father.

So this show is basicly a shoot’em-up with a jiggle factor. The story lines seems to be old and retreaded. The characters are standard and predictable. The artwork, for the most part, is pretty good. They are using a certain effect where the angry character is drawn in a juvenile style (I’m sure there is a name for it. I have seen it in other shows occasionally) and they use it a lot. I don’t care for that effect.

The one redeeming feature on this disk is that in the extras is an explanation for some of the cultural background of the dialogue and situations. They even try to explain the puns. Each episode seems to be a pastiche of previous anime series, and you might not realize the signficance of a Tofu delivery boy named Takumi in episode 4 unless you are familiar with “Initial D“. Personally, driving animes never really thrilled me.

Recap/Synopsis:

    Episode 1: Bank Robber walks into bank with machine gun, all customers draw their own weapons, BR use explosive vest to take baby hostage, and escapes to upper floors of bank. Yao offers hostage swap, BR gets Yao to strip to bikini, keeps both hostages. Yao starts firefight with police below. Lu rescues BR and baby with tank, Yao accidently blows up the building but they all escape safely in tank.
    Episode 2: A recap of all the previous episodes (a joke) that shows how Yao and Lu first met and how Yao decided to join the force.

    Episode 3: Yao and Lu go under cover in a Girl’s School. Strange things are happpening.

    Episode 4: A deranged driver is running street racers off the road and leaving blocks of tofu at the scene. Yao retrofits a car with the latest car gear, then, Yao and Lu go after the culprit.

I give this a 6 out of 10, so far. I think there are 3 more disks in the series but I won’t push them to the top of my queue for a while.

Politics

Constitutional Activism

It occurs to me that most people who complain about ‘activist’ judges ignoring or bending the Constitution haven’t read the Constitution, don’t know what the Constitution (as amended) says, don’t have a basic understanding of the Constitution, and wouldn’t vote for it today, if it ever came up for a vote.

Baseball

84.5

Today looks like a slow travel day. Only 6 hitters have games today. One pitcher is scheduled to start. There are only three games scheduled in the AL tonight.

Reviews

Samurai Champloo

My two favorite Anime series of all time are: Cowboy Bebop and Rurouni Kenshin. Samurai Champloo manages to capture both of them quite nicely.

I’m not sure how to describe this show. It takes place in the mid-1700’s in Japan. The main protagonists are Mugen, Jin, and Foo. Mugen is a rather reckless swordsman who likes to test his skills against anyone with a sword. Jin is a more reserved samurai who doesn’t feel a need to prove himself. Fuu is a girl, looking for a samurai who smells like sunflowers. (I think that is Samurai Champloo).

Mugen and Jin first meet at Fuu’s restaurant. Mugen wants to face the governor’s highly skilled bodyguards, when Jin walks in and says he has already killed them. A fight commences, which ends when the restaurant burns down (caused by some of Mugen’s earlier activities.) Mugen and Jin are scheduled to be executed and Fuu gets their promise to help find her samurai, in exchange for her help to escape. They escape, wiping out the governor and his minions along the way. Fuu makes them delay their own duel until she finds her samurai. And the adventures begin.

The series is very humorous. Fuu keeps getting into awkward situations. Mugen and Jin keep rescuing her, unintentionally, since their personal problems always seem to involve the cause of Fuu’s problems.

The writers keep throwing current lingo and music into the show rather than trying to keep it all historical. It gives everything a slight edginess. The Rapping Samurai, with his home-boy back-up group, is going a bit over the top. In the opening they flashback 24 hours and you are looking at a modern-day-minus-one Tokyo street scene. Oops, jump back to feudal Japan.

There are 26 episodes in the series. I am on the second disk, up through Episode 8. I am enjoying the writing, the storyline, the production values, and the characters. I hope they can hold up throughout the series. And maybe, we’ll find out what the sunflowers are all about.

Maybe I should give some brief episode summaries to provide a flavor of the series.

    First two episodes involve meeting, escaping execution and its aftermath.
    Next two episodes: Mugen and Jin join opposite sides of a gang war, Fuu has to work off a debt (incurred by cheating) in a brothel.
    Fifth episode – to get travelling money, Fuu works as a model only to be captured and delivered to the Western sailing ships in the harbor, Jin plays chess and Mugen mugs muggers (who are also the ones that captured Fuu). I almost forgot, the ukiyo-e artist Fuu models for is credited with inspiring Van Gogh to paint sunflowers.
    Sixth Episode. – The group guides a gay Dutchman around Edo. He is so glad to find a place that doesn’t condemn his lifestyle. Unfortunately, Japanese don’t like foreigners.
    Seventh Episode- Fuu’s wallet, with everyone’s money in it, gets picked. She finds the pickpocket’s mother and takes pity on him while the cops and yakusa are after him for another pickpocket job. He dies. Fuu’s sad.
    Eighth Episode – A rapping Samurai, trying to make his reputation by killing the samurai with glasses (Jin), hits on Fuu. Jin has pawned his glasses for the the money and so isn’t easily picked out as a target (glasses are rare in 1700’s Japan). Samurai’s wife comes back to claim him after rolling Mugen and Jin following a night of drinking and empty promises.

8/10 for now.

Baseball

Afternoon baseball

I just happened to look in on the scores this afternoon and saw that Colon was pitching for the Angels, after 3 days rest, and had only given up 1 run in 8 innnings. Unfortunately, he was pitching against Westbrook who had given up 0 runs after 8 innings. So I was watching the ninth inning on Yahoo and Westbrook is pitching the top of the ninth and he gives up 2 earned runs before the side is retired. Now, I’m worried, will the Angels bring in Colon to get the complete game? If he’s tired, he could easily give up the winning runs. Or will the Angels bring in a reliever, meaning that Colon has the win in the reliever’s grasp. If the reliever fails Colon doesn’t get the win, but he won’t get the loss or any earned runs either. What will happen? The Reliever is in.

(Play-by-play for bottom half of the ninth.)

– B. Molina at designated hitter
– J. Paul catching
– S. Shields relieved B. Colon
– B. Broussard struck out swinging
– C. Blake grounded out to shortstop
– J. Gerut struck out looking

0 runs, 0 hits, 0 errors
LA Angels 2, Cleveland 1

Colon gets the win. Shields did a pretty good job relieving there, got the save. Unfortunately, the Dingleberries already have him.