Deep Thought

Since when do Coke and Pepsi need like 38 different cola flavors? Most of them are just nasty, and it's gotta be expensive to develop/market/distribute them. Does anybody actually drink diet black cherry vanilla coke as their standard, or even on occasion?

The only rationale I can think if is that they are just trying to get shelf space...if a section of your local Sprawl-Mart has rat feces flavored slightly lower cal double caffeine pepsi, then even if nobody drinks it, they figure at least the space won't be taken by a coke product.

Now that is progress!

Quote of the Day

"A gold mine is a hole in the ground with a liar on top,"

Mark Twain

Quote of the Day

From NYTimes.com: "It is unfortunate that we are in civil war," said Mr. [Ayed] Allawi, who served as prime minister after the American invasion and now leads a 25-seat secular alliance of representatives in Iraq's 275-seat National Assembly. "We are losing each day, as an average, 50 to 60 people through the country, if not more."

"If this is not civil war," he said, "then God knows what civil war is."

One more on the WBC, and then I promise to stop...

so i just want to state...despite the us losing last night, i want to take back all the reservation i had about the wbc...sure there were problems and they will make some changes for next time, but i believe that 50 yrs from now, the start of the wbc will be viewed as one of the most important events in the history of the game, and Bud Selig deserves an enormous amount of credit for ignoring the whiners and complainers and pushing it through
I guess the only other issue that needs a touch of attention is the possibility that the tournament may lose a bit of respectability due to (perceived) bias towards the United States. I have seen 3 examples of this in the press, but there may be others...First, some people say that the US was in the "easy" bracket. I don't believe this is true. The 3rd place team in the US bracket, Canada, was stronger than 2 of the other 3rd place teams (Taiwan and Italy) and I'd take them in a 7 game series against the Netherlands or Panama also. Plus, both logistically and for fan interest, it made sense to set up the first round by geographical region...hence you end up with a US/Canada/Mexico bracket. Second and third are the 2 badly blown calls, one each in the Japan and Mexico games, the former likely changing the outcome of the game. I haven't seen the replay of the call from the Mexico game, but I hear it was a horrible miss. However, and those of you who know me know i love a good anti-Selig conspiracy theory, I have a real tough time thinking that the fix was in here. I don't even know it was in the best interests of the sport to have the US in the finals; the carribean/asian exposure that these results will have should be a great thing for the sport.

Looking fwd to 2009...

On My Recent Absence and the WBC

As per the brillant words of Thomas Quealy, this blog has recently went downhill. My apologies. After completing jury duty (more on this below), I spent a weekend in D.C. where Poff got legally married, and a week trading the Asian open. But this is no excuse...

Instead of describing what jury duty is like, I'd just like to run over the schedule. I show up on a Wednesday morning, 8:30. We all got their 60 minutes early because they wanted to be sure everybody was there on time so that the overview portion would not have to be repeated, which was a futile exercise and they repeated it anyway. Then, they sit you in a hot, smelly room for a number of hours, the monotony being broken only by them calling out a list of names for a jury pool (anywhere from 1 to 4 times per day, i got called once during the time i was there but the case settled while we were walking to the courtroom) and an exhorbitantly long lunch break (2 hrs bid). And then we repeated it the next day. People who find the jury process frustrating could solve that problem by recognizing a simple assumption on which the entire system is basd. In the view of the State of New York, it is preferrable to waste an hour of time for 500 jurors than to have a judge/attorney/defendant spend one more minute of the day doing their job than necessary. This is the irish system that allows us to fraternize with 500 of our fellow residents of New York County, and dispense (of) justice.

So I am watching the World Baseball Classic with Tony and Thomas (Meredith was there too) on the 50 incher (it is not being shown in HD, which sucks). United States vs. Japan; kind of like World War II, but with some blown calls by the not-yet-ready-for-primetime umps. I think those of us who are real baseball fans are appreciative of having so much of the game on TV this early in the year; personally I lament that it will all disappear on Thursday, despite the debauchery which is sure to ensue from having the tourney start on St. Patrick's Day eve. As you would have guessed, I have made several insightful comments on the play of the game to those fortunate enough to have watched it with me, but the best was likely noting that the Japanese team is being managed by Sadaharu Oh, the US team by...Buck Martinez. Not a lot of majesty in that selection...I can't believe he was really USA Baseball's first choice.