Reviews

Spiral

Ayumu Narumi is a loner, high-school freshman, living forever in the shadow of his older brother, who disappeared several years earlier leaving only the cryptic clue: “Blade Children”. Ayumu lives with his sister-in-law, a police detective who has never given up the hunt for her missing husband. Mysterious deaths start happening around Ayumu’s school, and they seem to involve the Blade Children.

Ayumu uses his top-notch reasoning abilities (of course, his brother was better) to solve these murders, but never seems to get closer to the Blade Children. But the Blade Children are coming after him.

Along the way Ayumu picks up his Dr. Watson, the nosy editor of the school paper, and together they do stuff. Ayumu, being the loner, not-friendly type, doesn’t really bother explaining anything to his Watson until the end of the show.

Ayumu is also a world-class pianist (of course, his brother was better) who has given up the piano because he just isn’t good enough. I don’t know if this will factor into the story later on or if it is just a point to show that Ayumu doesn’t believe in himself and as long as he doesn’t believe in himself he will always be a loser.

As a detective series, Spiral is of interest. They have some nifty locked-room type murders to solve and the first disk didn’t leave any blatant clues sitting around. And there was a fair amount of humor with the sister-in-law. I’m not sure what is going on with the Blade Children, at least they should keep Ayumu on his feet. It would be nice to find out why everyone who knows about the Blade Children wants to kill them. The ones that know always seems to die before they can tell Ayumu what it is all about.

Overall I will give this series a 7 out of 10.

Baseball

76.5


Daily notes on your players from rototimes.com 06.30 Kenny Rogers got into a tussle with a cameraman before yesterday’s game and was seen knocking the camera to the ground and kicking it. It’s possible he could face disciplinary action, according to the Star-Telegram …

Kenny’s negotiating skills are without equal, even with a broken hand. Give that man a contract.

On the down side, The ‘chuggers and The Rocky Ones are now tied for first place. The gradual, gentle erosion of the rocky team continues.

Baseball

80

Daily notes on your players from rototimes.com 06.27 Kenny Rogers broke a bone at the base of his right pinkie in his non-pitching hand when he hit a water cooler in frustration in his last start on June 17th, according to the AP. He will miss at least one start, and he could miss another turn as well since it would take 10-12 days for the broken bone to heal completely …

Poor Kenny, and here he is trying to negotiate a contract extension. I had him projected for two starts this week, now he has none. Boo-hoo?

I think his last start was on the 22nd, not the 17th. And if you look at his numbers for the 22nd you may see why he is so frustrated. He only gave up 1 run in 6-1/3 innings on the 17th, that doesn’t sound very frustrating. Just think Kenny, if you gave up this fruitless pursuit of pitching in the majors, you wouldn’t get so frustrated.

Baseball

Week 12 Numbers

The Budchuggers and the Rocky Ones are in a tight battle for first, with the All-Star break coming up in a couple of weeks. I’m up by two at the moment, but the ‘chuggers are closing in on a couple of catgories. I am going to make a move to replace Harvey who is now of 60 day DL and probably won’t be back this season (at least as far as I am concerned.)

Summary Totals for the Week in UBL
Self/League/Pts HR R RBI AVG SB W S K ERA WHIP
UBL Averages 9.5 40.1 37.6 0.284 5.0 3.1 1.3 37.2 4.61 1.38
Rocky Coloradans 16 45 45 0.285 7 3 1 41 5.96 1.71
Points 8 10 10 9 9 9 3 7 8 5
Reviews

GetBackers Redux

Earlier, I reviewed the first volume of The GetBackers. I just finished viewing the second disk and I am starting to find the series more intriguing. The five episodes on the disk covered two stories. The first was to get back a Stradivarius, and the second was to get back a Van Gogh. Along the way,a number of back story tid bits are dropped, a love interest is sparked, a rivalry is established, is another love interest sparked? and Himiko doesn’t try to directly kill Ban, like she did when they last met. Ginji and Ban each have pasts and the pasts look like they they will be significant stories in their own right.

So, I’m upgrading GetBackers to 7 out of ten (although I still think that use of juvenile animation to indicate particular moods is stupid).

Geek Stuff

Number with space

Summary Totals for the Week in UBL
Self/League/Pts HR R RBI AVG SB W S K ERA WHIP
UBL Averages 8.5 36.7 35.9 0.288 3.8 4.2 2.0 37.7 3.30 1.23
Rocky Coloradans 7 40 31 0.288 5 4 1 35 3.38 1.28
Points 8 10 9 9 9 9 3 6 9 5

I’m getting somewhere. I’ll continue to play with it.

Summary Totals for the Week in UBL
Self/League/Pts HR R RBI AVG SB W S K ERA WHIP
UBL Averages 8.5 36.7 35.9 0.288 3.8 4.2 2.0 37.7 3.30 1.23
Rocky Coloradans 7 40 31 0.288 5 4 1 35 3.38 1.28
Points 8 10 9 9 9 9 3 6 9 5

Ahh, looks like the frame and padding info have to go on the same line as the border info. Not sure why, I though it would read table attributes until it saw a”>”

Summary Totals for the Week in UBL
Self/League/Pts HR R RBI AVG SB W S K ERA WHIP
UBL Averages 8.5 36.7 35.9 0.288 3.8 4.2 2.0 37.7 3.30 1.23
Rocky Coloradans 7 40 31 0.288 5 4 1 35 3.38 1.28
Points 8 10 9 9 9 9 3 6 9 5

Reduced the padding and set the align to center. I think it looks good for now.

Geek Stuff

The Number Table

Summary Point totals for the week in UBL
Self/League/Pts HR R RBI AVG SB W S K ERA WHIP
UBL Averages 8.5 36.7 35.9 0.288 3.8 4.2 2.0 37.7 3.30 1.23
Rocky Coloradans 7 40 31 0.288 5 4 1 35 3.38 1.28
Points 8 10 9 9 9 9 3 6 9 5

I seem to have the table concept down. Now I need to work on spacing.

Geek Stuff

Tinkering with tables

Common Usenet Abbreviations
Abbreviation Long Form
AFAIK As Far As I Know
IMHO In My Humble Opinion
OTOH On The Other Hand

OK, I have set up a spreadsheet where the col A and Col C cells have the start and stop tags for the table elements. Then I can just C&P my data elements into column B and C&P the entire table into Word Press to get a nice tabulated look. Next I’ll see how it works with my weekly number summary.

golf

Parking

There is no parking for the U.S. Women’s Open at Cherry Hills Country Club. In addition parking on streets within the City of Cherry Hills Village is strictly prohibited and violators will be towed immediately.

I shall have to remember not to patronize any shops in Cherry Hills Village.

I am thinking of going to the Women’s Open tomorrow.

The Thoughts and Luminations of Jack Heneghan