MJLiverock

I actually hate my Tivo HR10-250 and much prefer the newer DirecTV DVR's. Never had a missed recording in 2 years of running 2 of them (my lone remaining Tivo still occasionally misses a recording), faster interface, expandable hard drive, Picture in Graphic when veiwing guide or menus, on demand programming, 90 minute buffer vs. 30, the DLB work around is fine. I always turned off the Tivo suggestions which is about the only feature missing and it happens to be one I didn't use. It all comes down to preference but the new HD DVR's seem to work fine for most people and like others have said the Tivo one won't be available until 2H09 which translates to 1H10. As far as deals go you can play CSR roulette and see what you can get out of them. They keep offering to replace my remaining Tivo (MPEG2) receiver with a new one(MPEG4) for Free but I just haven't gotten around to switiching it out yet because the TV it is hooked to is not HD so it doesn't really matter and is only a spare bedroom DVR. I still have a SD DVR in the box in the basement I haven't hooked up yet either but they gave it to me for free when I moved this summer.

Regarding a team with full season of Gallardo - - We just had a better pitcher in Sabathia and that still didn't make the playoffs a slam dunk and with a realtively healthy Sheets to boot the team still needs a collapse by the Mets.

HBO usually orders a full season at a time (anywhere from 10-14 episodes for HBO) so you should at least expect that much unlike network TV where they may only order a couple episodes and cancel after just one or two showings.

Why would the Blue Jays or Rays want to trade young pitchers who are cheap and good for minor league prospects? Would you advocate trading Gallardo for AA position players?

LaPorta is still a minor leaguer who may or may not contribute or bust out. He may very well be another 3TO guy playing less than average defense in the outfield. Brantley (if he is the PTBNL) is a 1B, no LF, no CF? who has zero power, good OBP in low minors who also may or may not amount to much at the ML level. Sabathia has been stellar as a Brewer and energized the fan base and gave us hope of a playoff run. When he walks after the year is up the team will get 2 picks who may or may not be as good as LaPorta and Brantley, neither of whome were considered can't miss superstars when drafted in the middle of the first round and 7th round respectively. I have no problem with the risk the Brewers took in trading for Sabathia and going for it this year. I don't want to keep saying wait till next year or 5 years from now.

Nothing much, just says the move is unprecedented this late in the season. Brings up some other firings of playoff bound teams like Billy Martin of the Yankees in June, and says closest comparison is the firing of the Royals manager on August 31, 1981 a year after they were in the World Series and the team ended up making the playoffs in 81 as well.

NADA blue book values are notoriously high so making a 75% LTV based on the too high valuation of a used car is pushing the envelope for a bank. Banks have also tightened credit standards considerably since the default levels and past due payments for all loans are elevated. 2% of loans in WI are in default right now which is 2x last year's level and 3x the year before. The years of giving credit to anyone who walked in for any reason and for any amount are pretty much over for now. Believe it or not banks used to actually require 20% down on a new home and 40% down on a used car.

Weeks is hitting .300 with a .417 OBP in September so I don't think his hitting has been a big problem in September. Corey Hart on the other hand has been steadily disappearing since May. I don't want to see his sub .300 OBP in lead off. I don't know what Cameron has to do to make people see he is having a pretty good year, espescially for a CFer. He's been one of the few brightspots during the second half.

I was bored and had some time to kill and made the mistake of reading the Brewrs message board on ESPN. My head now hurts from reading some of the incoherent ramblings on there. One guy advocates playing Gwynn over Cameron from here out because he is such a better player, advocates batting Kendall third, Mike Lamb 4th, and Prince 7th.

According to Wikipedia the Red Sox own 80% of NESN and the Bruins own the other 20%. I just remember as a kid that NESN always carried the Red Sox games. Boy it is was nice having one of those big stainless steel dishes before everything became subscirption based or blacked out regionally. I was able to watch any baseball game or any NFL game live. I actually watched the NESN a lot and TSN a lot because it alway seemed like the Red Sox and Blue Jays played day games. I also became a Mets fan in the 80's because WOR out of New York carried all the Mets games (I loved Dr. K) with Ralph Kiner and Tim McCarver.

From a TV Week Article in March 2008; Earlier this year, Understanding & Solutions Ltd. published further research that showed while high-definition sets were in 34% of U.S. homes at the end of 2007, only 21% of those homes were receiving HD programming. Similarly, in western Europe, 20% of the homes have HD-ready screens, but only 2% are receiving HD programming. But in Japan, where consumer education is pervasive, the percentage of homes with HD screens is identical to the percentage of homes receiving HD broadcasts, and soon to reach 50% of the marketplace. -------------------------------------------- I would guess the percentage of home with HD capable TVs are approaching 40% given the price drops in the sets and more programming available compared to Dec. 2007. I know I hate watching sports in non HD (FSN WI in SD is terrible quality) it doesn't surprise me that not all Brewer games are in HD since being in a small market, with a smaller TV audience and budget put us at the end of the line. NESN (RedSox), and the Yankees just went all HD within the last couple years but at least we should be all HD next year. This year was a big improvement over the very limited number of games in HD last year.

If you have HD hooked up it is either via a single connection of HDMI cord or 3 component hookups. If you only have two wires hooked up it is most likely analog composite and therefore not HD. This link has some pics and descriptions of the different hook ups. http://www.ramelectronics.net/howto-av.ep

Playing 5-6 ball isn't a total collapse but it is scary when the team can't win a game verus a contender like the Mets, and can't win a series at home versus the likes of the Padres and Reds. These games don't bode well for the Phillies series but hopefully playing in that bandbox they call a stadium in Philly will spark the offense and not just be the final nail in the bullpen and offense coffin.

I guess I am not following you here. I was talking about some of those walks Fielder getting with a running in scoring position being because first base was open and a righty was on the hill and Hart not providing much protection and no other credible lefty threat in the lineup. Prince has 15 IBB's this year 4th most in the league. No way to tell how many pitch around give him nothing to hit ABs with 1st base open. I don't know where the Cameron IBB comment comes from.

How many of those are intentional because first base is open and a righty is on the hill? The way Hart has played for the last month I don't think teams have any fear of walking Prince with a righty and facing Hart. Early in the year Hart burned those teams that chose to walk Prince to face him but not lately. It also brings up the problem of Prince being the only LH bat in the order. Prince has faced a lot of LOOGY's in any leverage situation since the other team can burn their LOOGY with no fear of another LH bat in the lineup.

I aggregated the stats for the main offensive players for August and September to date and it appears the criticism of Prince is warranted. He and Hart have become out machines so any rally started by the top is quickly killed. Cameron has been amazing but likely leading off a lot of innings after Fielder and Hart make outs. Third base production has been non existent and Kendall hasn't been bad, gets on base but with no power. Too bad, his singles will leave him stranded since Weeks has lost all power in the short run. avg. obp slg Weeks 0.252 0.353 0.398 Hardy 0.280 0.347 0.530 Braun 0.298 0.365 0.538 Fielder 0.205 0.308 0.378 Hart 0.279 0.294 0.464 Cameron 0.321 0.393 0.661 Hall 0.208 0.296 0.319 Kendall 0.280 0.351 0.373 Counsell 0.246 0.354 0.323

Last year I had a 4 seat 9 pack for the regular season and was only allowed to buy 2 tickets for each round of the playoffs. This year we split the 4 tickets and now can buy 4 tickets total for the NLDS and NLCS. I am guessing you are going to be out of luck and only get 2 tickets.

On top of Gagne it was Riske and Stetter's inability to throw strikes, poor hitting with RISPs, defensive miscues, followed by more inability to throw strikes by Bush and just about the entire staff on Wednseday (50/50 balls/strikes isn't good). It all adds up to a lot of ifs and buts which makes it scary and frustrating. As Russ mentioned one would think that the streakiness would even out and one guy's bad streak would be offset by one guy's good streak but the Brewers seem to be a highly correlated team (if that is possibl) i.e. if one pitcher can't find the zone they all lose the ability to throw strikes. Weeks and Hardy get on, Braun, Fielder, Hart, etc. can't hit or vice versa. I just find it so frustrating in those games when pitchers can't throw strikes and seemingly every guy out of the pen follows suit by missing the zone by a foot like they all suddenly lost the ability to pitch. That seems like a mental issue. Hopefully Bush doesn't revert back to his early season form when he couldn't throw strikes and got rocked when he did. I know he built up a nice streak against the dregs of the league but he hasn't shown the ability to work well against the playoff caliber teams during his recent 2.5 months of decent pitching.

Bush has had good numbers for the last 2.5 months but those 7 wins and good numbers were helped by 2 wins against the Pirates( also had 8 strong innings in a ND vs. Pirates), 1 each against Washington, Colorado, and Cincinnati, Toronto and Atlanta. Not exactly playoff caliber teams. He did do well in a ND against the Dodgers but got thumped by Chicago, Arizona, and Houston

I thought I heard Trenni interview one of the ticket or sales guys during the pregame last night and he said the 20 pack and full season ticket holders had until Sept. 5th to get in their deposits before they opened up the requests to the 9 game holders. He mentioned that 80% of the 20 pack and full season ticket holders have requested playoff tickets. He also mentioed that the 5th is a hard cutoff for priority for the bigger package buyers so dont' expect preferential treatment after that date.

I guess that is my problem with calling it all luck. A coin flip has two outcomes, heads or tails, there really isn't a lot going on to influence which one will occur. A pitched baseball is affected by so many differing variables, many of which are a direct result of how the pitcher is actually peforming his job rather than just some sample variance of potential outcomes. The difference between one pitch and the next as well as differing hitters can be so different they aren't even part of the same sample let alone comparing a pitcher's ability to repeat perfect pitches.

I have disliked all Cubs players, including Sandberg, for 25 years so way too many to list but Zambrano, Theriot, Fukudome, and Ramirez top the list currently. Others, Eckstein - - "hey look at me I run to first on a walk, isn't that cute." Pujols - - hate the smug look on his face when he bats Dunn -- just not a big fan of lumbering oafs who k, BB, or HR Doug Davis - - his games take forever, nibbling nibbling, walking guys, walking around mound, ugh. (Claudio Vargas is right there as well) Barry Zito - - so over rated even before his recent collapse Oakland A's in general -- played in a weak 4 team division and couldn't win playoff series with the collection of over acheivers each year yet still had so much pimping of their teams. I'd rather follow the Marlins model of winning a WS and having some bad teams in between than hang around as a fringe playoff team and never win anything because the team refused to spend anything to push them over the top. They seem to embody the measure that wins/$'s means something in the standings or playoffs. Billy Bean - - thanks for trading Harden/Gaudin to the Cubs for a sack of magic beans. Gabe Gross - - basically turned against him by the overhyping he received on this board. Jeter - - guy could go 1 for 12 with 10 men LOB in a series and if the 1 hit scored the game winning run all you would hear is that he is a great hitter and hall of famer. Dustin Pedroia - - can't put my finger on it but he just bugs me. (case of jerk face?) Sheffield - - no explanation necessary. Larry Jones -- don't like the nickname, don't like the face, don't like the Braves.

I understand what you are trying to say Ender regarding the luck factor but I always have a hard time buying into the assumption that the pitcher throws the same number of meat balls, the same locations, same velocity, same movement, pitch after pitch, game after game, to completely chalk it up to luck. I know this came up with Capuano last year and it turned out something was wrong with him and his pitches weren't the same so I would say his performances weren't just bad luck but bad pitching due to a injured arm. I seem to remember that early in the season Dave Bush was topping out on his fastball in the mid 80's and people wondering if he was hurt or suffering from "dead arm". This is the stuff I can't just say well he has had a bit of bad luck. I think he was pitching different. He now has probably had some luck but has also strengthened his arm or done whatever it was that got some velocity back and improved his control. In April he logged 22.2 innings walking 12 and K'ing 16. The walks were very unBush like and I remember wondering why he suddenly couldn't throw strikes, he was obviously pitching different from his career norms. This is why I have a hard time "letting go" and just calling all poor performance bad luck. These guys aren't robots throwing the same pitches like a video game which is what relying totally on some of these stats requires one to believe. The error term in some of these regressions has to be huge because of the variability in each pitch. I think this is what Rluz is saying that over the huge number of instances you get a better idea of talent or skill versus luck. I just tend to think some performances are just bad or good and not lucky or unlucky. Sometimes a guy has a bad year because his finger hurts, or his mind is elsewhere, or whatever but a lot more than just luck impacts the results. Look at the Sheets game versus the Astros last week. Sheets supposedly has his good stuff but then grooves a meatball to Geoff Blum who hits a 3 run HR. Is it bad luck for Sheets or is it a bad pitch that occured because Sheets lost focus, just didn't get it right or whatever. Now say he does it 3 more times in a game and guys go back to back to back, similar to the Dodger game this year, is it bad luck or bad pitches or good hitters?

The age requirement does seem kind of arbitrary to me. Even if the they made it 16 because the governing body felt their young bodies weren't ready for the stress it hasn't done anything for the gymnasts. If you are going to be an Olympic gymnast at 16, you can bet that at age 12 these girls are still working just as hard as if they were going to compete at age 14. They still go to practice for hours a day, they just don't get to compete on the big stage just yet. They still risk injury, put in the long hours, abuse themselves, etc. almost all of these girls have been doing it since they were little kids. I think they should just get rid of the age requriement if they can't enforce it or don't want to try very hard because I don't think it really protects anyone.

Players know nothing of how they feel, managers are idiots for asking how a player feels and listening too him, trainers don't know anything. But a bungch of guys who get winded running to the fridge for a beer between pitches are the almighty expert on how tired, injured, or the mental state of every player the see on TV.