bjkrautk

Not going to comment on the specifics of the plan (since I'm too lazy to actually read through the thing, despite it being in a browser window on my home laptop for the past few days), but I did see an interesting story while reading the paper during lunch today, that I thought I would contribute. Mitchell International: Chicago's Third Airport (USA Today) (Bold text highlighted by me, for obvious reasons.) I have a lot of concerns about whether this rail upgrade will create a long-term cost savings for State/Federal taxpayers (the only measure that matters to me, as a Wisconsin taxpayer), but the possibility of speeding up the trip from the northern Chicago suburbs to Mitchell Airport seems like something that can work in conjunction with private industry. ...plus, it's all inter-modal-ly....which you lefties clearly love.

Foo Fighters haven't played an Super Bowl halftime. I'd add Paramore to your list (as they're slowly replacing the Killers as my favorite band), but I'm not sure they're quite big enough for the venue. I would also be shocked if Beyonce isn't at least under consideration for next year's SB at Cowboys stadium. And, of course, since the game will be on FOX in 2011, you have to factor in every American Idol finalist to have a successful recording career.

I think context, ultimately, is king when evaluating the statue. - If you're looking at Robin Yount, Hank Aaron, and Bud Selig while walking in the main gate....bad idea. - A Bud Selig monument / bust with some text about keeping baseball in Wisconsin - particularly near other displays of WI baseball history, makes some sense. - If Wendy shows up, physically holding Bud's shares in trust, then it's the worst idea in the history of mankind. - A Selig statue, behind the Brewers bench, holding a permanent shrug in commemmoration of the All-Star Game tie -- probably not under consideration. I don't think that the timing is particularly great while Selig is still Commissioner, but I don't hate the idea. EDIT: Yahoo!(AP) story says they're going with the bad idea:

I thought about criticizing the choice of the Who as the halftime act on Friday, before the game, but it felt like I was re-hashing old territory for me (and them, come to think about it). I tend to believe that U2 raised the bar for the halftime show as an experience....and the NFL is now too fearful of "wardrobe malfunctions" to do anything bold during their showpiece game. Snickers is the obvious 'best ad' for me, followed by the Doritos kid & VW / Tracy Morgan / Stevie Wonder ad. I am in the minority who appreciated the sheer randomness of Dorito Battle Armor. Without pushing the thread into the political forum....the Audi ad cut a bit too close for good satire.

Greg Grunberg : J.J. Abrams :: Bruce Campbell : Sam Raimi. (He may not have been well-known to you when the show started, but he had already been a regular on Alias for 3 years at that point. He's not on-screen for Abrams' Star Trek relaunch, but he does provide the voice for young Kirk's adoptive father at the beginning.)

I don't know that I like the idea of making the lesser schools play 3 games during the opening week to everyone else's two. I also don't like the notion that 16 seeds don't "earn" their way in to the tournament: their league has an automatic bid, and established their own procedure for determining who gets it. That's a moot point, since no 1 seed has ever lost a first-round game. The failure of any 16 seed to advance really makes it difficult to justify expanding past 64 teams.

The only way that I see this having real value is if the Madison stop is within walking distance of Camp Randall or the Kohl Center (and, by extension, the UW campus). Placing the Milwaukee stop(s) could be interesting as well. I'm skeptical about the whether the project is sustainable in the long-run, but I'm sure that the less convenient it is to get to-and-from local events, the less likely it is to be even revenue-neutral.

Edmonds seems like the outfield equivalent of Craig Counsell: the less often he has to play, the better your team is doing. He's played almost exclusively in CF his entire career; I just have to wonder if he'll be asked to make the occasional appearance in RF/LF(presuming he makes the team).

Whether you like him or not (and I'm a daily listener to his show), Belling's perspective is affected by his being a frequenter of many of the bars in the Milwaukee area, and having personal relationships with the bar owners. It's about $3.70 per game, plus the costs associated with running the shuttle. That's what, two beers? Is that marginal $4 going to stop some bars from running shuttles to and from the game? Not many....and any that do will serve the purpose of stablizing traffic in that area. ...and, as someone who hasn't ever taken one of these shuttles....do they really reduce drunken driving, or just scatter where they're starting from?

I'm guessing it's the same shade of red that they use for the stitches for the baseball in the Brewers (script) logo, and that you're reading too much into it.

http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/sports/brewers.html As someone who has picked up most of the bobbleheads from previous seasons, I'm not completely looking forward to getting another Hank Aaron, Robin Yount, and Cecil Cooper bobble. Also, given the high price, I'm not completely sure if I'd prefer buying tickets to get a C.C. bobblehead, or just renting one for a few months.

Hopefully he invests the money wisely; might I recommend a diversified portfolio of horseshoes, rabbits feet, and conditioning coaches?

Looks like another season in which Renee will be the compelling reason for me to keep watching. (Certainly not the BSG girl with the double-life....that CTU missed in yet another poorly-run background check. That side-story can end soon.)

Seems like a lot to be paying for the production that Gerut put up for the Brewers last year....but I suppose that's to be expected for a player who came in .040 below his career BABIP last season. That being said, Gerut is likely to be competing for the CF job (possibly RF), and is at worst the 4th outfielder. The worse that Hart and Gomez look, the better this deal may seem once the season starts.

That's what makes the whole matter interesting. Conan's contract with NBC specified that he would take over "The Tonight Show" in 2009. What it apparently doesn't do is specify a broadcast time for "The Tonight Show." (Letterman's contract with CBS does include a lock-in for his program.) Whether a time of day is necessary for a program that has run at 11:35 ET for decades....is a question of contract interpretation. A question with a lot riding on it: If a Court were to rule that NBC violated the terms of the contract in moving the Tonight Show to 12:05, then Conan would be entitled to upwards of $40 million in damages (from what I have read). If NBC is not in breach of the contract, and Conan leaves, the contract prevents him from competing (which is to say, moving to another network) for the next 3.5 years, in addition to any monetary damages written in to the deal. While I'd love to see the question put to a Judge, there's just too much money at stake for me to believe that a settlement won't be reached. (Not to mention, Conan's agency has enough clout to make things very difficult for NBC if things get worse.)

Yost, Kendall, and Podsednik: it's like they're assembling the Anti-Brewers. Now all they need is Wes Helms, and lure Cal Eldred out of retirement....

Same here...only substitute Lost and Castle for Modern Family, and my hate-yet-still-watch relationship with "24" with House on Fox (plus Family Guy). [sidenote: Glad to see that the early ratings on "Chuck" have been up from last season. It's my favorite show on TV.)

The real value of the 'World Series' between US and Japan would be an increased availability / interest in the rival league. Over time, the MLB fans of contending teams would have more and more interest in the top rivals across the Pacific. (Like NL & AL fans interest in the other teams pre-Interleague play, or to a lesser extent, American Soccer fans' interest in the Euro leagues.) Given that the same would hold true of Japanese baseball fans, I'm sure that MLB would gladly embrace any chance to drum up interest in games played by non-Japanese players as a way to expand its audience.

Has anyone started calling Arenas "Agent Double-O-Zero" yet? If not, I'm calling it! (For anyone who doesn't know, Arenas' jersey is #0, so he has taken to the nickname 'Agent Zero'.)

SPOILERS (As if that weren't obvious enough) I wouldn't be that concerned about the sexual aspect of the film; there is a sequence where the protagonist 'gets with' the Na'vi female lead, but my recollection is that it was "tastefully done" (which is to say, I don't remember much about it....so it couldn't have been that bad). The violence may be another story. I've mentioned the 'Dances with Wolves' parallels. While the 19th century American soldier had guns instead of the bow and arrow (I'm simplifying)....the Humans in this movie have flying fortress bombers, attack helicopters, and giant mech robots. The Na'vi still have bows and spears. Relocation of the natives is a major plot point; let's just say, when the U.S. did the same thing, they didn't call it the trail of smiles. Characters die, and some are tearfully mourned. Most of the people you meet over the course of the film....aren't around by the film's end. It's not a graphic, orgy-of-blood type film, but they lay it pretty thick thematically that a lot of 'good' people lose their lives. Not being a parent, I couldn't begin to guess whether or not it's right for someone that age. I tend to think that my parents would have taken me to see it at that age, and I turned out okay (despite any inferences to the contrary)....but it's probably in the realm of a judgment call.

Watched Avatar on opening weekend, so I've been thinking about this for a few days now. The technology and the experience of seeing Avatar (in 3d) are both better than the film itself. The movie's plot is essentially Dances With Wolves (I've heard others say 'Pocohantas') in space with blue-skinned aliens replacing Native Americans. At no point did I have any real doubt about how the movie would end, and the movie answered the last question I had (how they would get to that ending) somewhere around the 3/4 mark. That said, looking at commercials for the movie after-the-fact, I can't help but notice how....well....flat the detailed background images seem to be. When I saw the film as intended, there was a real depth of field, a stretching out of those background details that really brings something extra to the presentation: a sense of awe and of beauty. I'm not sure if the film crosses the "uncanny valley" based on the animation being in 3d, or the technology used in capturing the actors' performances, but it amazes me that the film is all CGI. Avatar ultimately succeeds as an experience, even as the movie itself has its share of flaws.

This is my problem with BABIP. Where a ball is hit to isn't a matter of pure 'luck,' so much as an excessive number of variables which seem random to the naked eye. The most obvious factor affecting BABIP is where the pitch crosses the plate; this is a factor that the pitcher has exclusive control over. In Parra's case, he leaves the fastball down the heart of the plate more often than most pitchers, so it makes logical sense that he gets cuffed around more with that pitch than the average pitcher. There are other factors as to how the pitch gets hit (whether the hitter is taking a pitch to work the count, the timing, recognition, & skill of the hitter, etc.), but if you throw bad pitches, you should expect to get hit around a bit more. If Parra is able to spot his fastball better, or pick up some movement on the pitch (a la Doug Davis' cutter), then his numbers should regress towards the mean. My opinion on the effectiveness of Petersen as Pitching Coach is going to be shaped considerably by how well Parra throws next year, for this very reason.

Price range / expectations would probably be a good place to start.

Kendall was always one of my favorite guys to watch as a Pirate; a catcher with the wheels (and OBP) to bat leadoff. He's not that guy anymore, and while I like what he did for the pitching staff, he just doesn't hit well enough anymore to justify the contract he was asking for from the Brewers. Best of luck to him in KC.

The thing that I'm interested in seeing in ME 2 - and it's more something that I'll witness through other people talking about their experiences - is just how dynamic the game really is to the choices the player makes. In the BioWare games I've played, the custom experience based on character decisions never live to the promise. Yes, there's an indicator in the menus showing whether you're a paragon or renegade, light jedi or dark jedi, etc....but the game still pushes you through essentially the same story elements regardless of how you play. If you're a goody-two-shoes or a d-bag to the people around you in Mass Effect, the events of the endgame don't change. (I haven't played DA yet, but my understanding is that the game's origin stories are separate, but that the game beyond the origins push you through substantially the same content. Feel free to enlighten me if that is not the case.) The promise of ME 2 is that the way you played ME 1 will be reflected in the playthrough of the sequel. Whether those differences will truly affect the playthrough (beyond the availablity of individual characters who may not have survived through the first game, and the words coming out of the character's mouth), is the challenge they have yet to fullfil. Until the game separates out the paths, and forces the character to make different kinds of decisions based on the path they have undertaken....the layers of 'choice' that BioWare presents will remain illusory. Also, you shouldn't give players the option to hook up with blue, alien chick if a character modeled after Yvonne Strahovski is going to be made available in the sequel.