Manny vs. The Mick

i just saw on sportscenter that manny is set to pass mickey mantle "sometime soon" on the all-time home run list, and according to the anchor manny's legacy will be tainted due to his suspension for PED use. ok, manny was suspended for PEDs. but what about mickey? he visited the notorious max jacobson, a.k.a dr. feelgood, many, many times during his career and jacobson would inject him with all kinds of stuff from amphetamines to...you guessed it...steroids!

and this isn't even the he said/she said steroid allegations that we see today. the mick was hopped up on goofballs during the legendary 1961 season. no one seems to care about this though...

Wilbon and Bob Ryan Got It Wrong On Pedro

first of all, pedro, welcome to the WFC phillies. glad to have you on board. i think i had forgotten how nasty your stuff was when you were with the red sox (thank you ESPN for the highlight package).

last night on PTI, wilbon and bob ryan had a debate in oddsmakers as to whether or not you would pitch in the playoffs. wilbon went 100% and ryan went 92%, but the backbone of their logic rested on the fact that the phillies would make the playoffs, not whether or not pedro would pitch in the playoffs.

there is a slight, but significant difference. of course, the phillies are going to make the playoffs (on a side note, they managed to get through the whole segment without mentioning that the phillies are the DEFENDING WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONS, yet at the same time blasting the NL east as weak and even offering that the florida marlins could catch the phils for the division), and pedro is currently on the team, but pedro pitching in the playoffs is no slam dunk. he hasn't pitched in the bigs in quite some time. we know we aren't going to get the pedro of old, but we could get the pedro of the not-so-distant past (i.e. his tenure with the mets). if we get the pedro of mets vintage, the phillies front office would have NO PROBLEM shutting him down, especially for the bargain price of $1 mil. the pedro signing is low-risk/high-reward. if he pitches adequately, it will be a great signing. if he sucks, the team will be no worse off for rolling the dice.

i respect wilbon and bob ryan a lot, but on this case, their analysis was dead wrong.

I'm Pretty Sure I Do Not Want This Thing Built

A Maryland company under contract to the Pentagon is working on a steam-powered robot that would fuel itself by gobbling up whatever organic material it can find — grass, wood, old furniture, even dead bodies.

Robotic Technology Inc.'s Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot — that's right, "EATR" — "can find, ingest, and extract energy from biomass in the environment (and other organically-based energy sources), as well as use conventional and alternative fuels (such as gasoline, heavy fuel, kerosene, diesel, propane, coal, cooking oil, and solar) when suitable," reads the company's Web site.

That "biomass" and "other organically-based energy sources" wouldn't necessarily be limited to plant material — animal and human corpses contain plenty of energy, and they'd be plentiful in a war zone.

and, no, that is not from the onion. it's from fox, so its close.

All-Star Game Thoughts

if all roy halladay needs is a helmet to come to the NL and play for the phillies, i will gladly purchase him one.

its weird to see a phillie (victorino) get a hit to advance a met (wright)

tim mccarver to joe buck: "we have been together for 14 years..." bromance, anyone?

i am enjoying the commentary on twitter much more than i am mccarver and buck. they are essentially doing what i am doing, but the people i follow, you know...have followers!

My War Against Pricing in the Digital Age

the digital age has ushered in a new era of consumer freedom. comparison shopping, lower overhead costs, and convenience have all lowered prices and increased competition for goods sold over the internet, as well as in traditional brick-and-mortar stores. some companies, however, still think that they can charge whatever they want for their goods and services because they think us, the consumer, are just a bunch of rubes. i present two examples:

• amazon.com. yesterday bill simmons tweeted about a book on sale at amazon. his recommendation, "Live from New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live, as Told By Its Stars, Writers, and Guests", was on sale for $4.64 (this price no longer seems to be available for the book, but my point is still the same) at amazon so i decided to go and check it out and see how much they were charging for the kindle version (i no longer purchase physical books). i remember purchasing "The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin" one day for $0.99, so i thought i would see if i could get the SNL book for a similar price, but you can imagine my shock and surprise when i saw the kindle price was $9.99!!!!! i thought to myself "you have to be kidding me...how is this possible, because, you know, the digital copy of the book, which costs $0.00 to keep on inventory should ALWAYS be less than the physical book". right? i mean, there is a cost with distributing kindle books because amazon had to invest in the network to deliver the books, but still, if there is a physical copy of the book on sale the kindle version should be priced competitively because that is the point of the kindle: books cost less (not taking into account the cost of purchasing the device itself, but once you have bought the kindle, that becomes a sunk cost and no longer factors into the cost of purchasing a book) on the kindle!!! HOW CAN THIS BE? does amazon think i am a moron? i think so...
• the next example is from the kind folks at AT&T. recently i was shopping for a new cell phone and cell plan (thanks to the fam, i am no longer responsible for my plan and i got the sweet new blackberry tour out of the deal) so i went to AT&T to see about getting myself an iphone and what the iphone plans cost. the iphone is like a kindle, once you get it, it becomes a sunk cost. $200 for the new iphone? sure. i can do that. but the plans...the plans... $40/month for unlimited data. fine. $30/month for 450 mins with rollover. ok. but SMS delivery is where AT&T goes off the deep end and shows their utter contempt for the consumer. AT&T has a 3 tiered texting plan: $5 for 200 texts, $15 for 1500 texts and $20 for unlimited. let that just sink in for a minute. here is where the problems start. $5 for 200 texts a month is a decent deal, but who only sends 200 texts a month from an iphone? too low. the next is 1500 texts. that is a lot of texts, so if you go with that plan, you should be safe from overage charges and if you think you will go over, an extra $5 for the unlimited isn't a bad idea either, but there is nothing in the middle! the jump from 200-1500 is quite significant. what about 500 texts? or 1000 texts? these seem like more reasonable texting plans. but thats not all. lets say you go with the 1500 text plan for $15/month. texting is a data transmission. a small data transmission at that. 140 characters. very, very, very small, and for $15/month you can send a total of 240,000 characters. but what about that $40/month data plan i have already signed up for? that is transmitting HUGE amounts of data, from email to maps to apps to whatever, so why do i have to pay this OTHER data charge on top of that? ok, so SMS gets transmitted over AT&T's cell netowrk and the data is transmitted over their 3G or any available wi-fi network, but still! come on AT&T! you can send instant messages over the data network, which when sent from a cell phone is essentially a text message. see the problem here? now that cell phones can transmit all kinds of things, there is really no difference between the various kinds of messaging you can engage in. my new blackberry does email, SMS, MMS (whatever that is...i think its multimedia messaging service for pics and vids and stuff), BBM (blackberry messenger), and various forms of IM (aol, yahoo messenger, google talk). they all get funneled into the same messaging center, and at times, it is rather confusing which message is which and what service it was delivered on. the point is this: with so many messaging options enabled on cell phones what does it really matter what format it was delivered in? and this is the insanity of companies like AT&T and verizon charging for separate SMS plans on smartphones: it is a double data charge and they think they can get away with it because they think we are too stupid to realize the difference.

so now you know. don't be a rube.

A New Constitution for California

since i have some time on my hands these days, i think i will set out to solve a HUGE problem: to rewrite the constitution for the state of california.

california is a messed up state, and like goldman sachs, is too big to fail. it is the 5th largest economy in the world, and while it might seem odd that i would take such a keen interest in the laws of a state that i have never lived in, there are some benefits to me for solving all of the state's problems. for starters, because california's economy is so large, the better off the state is, the easier it will become for me to find a job there (cough...zipcar...cough...call me!). actually, thats about it. i am motivated completely by self-interest.

just to give one example about how fucked up california's government is: i did a search to find the text of the state constitution. how is it that there is no place on the web that lists the constitution and all of its articles and amendments in one place? the best place is the state government link, but you have to click through each article independently.

que lastima!

Updated Thoughts on Halladay

where there is smoke, there is fire. this morning on sportscenter, buster olney said the phillies are the team with the best position to land halladay and all we would have to give up is a pitching prospect (drebek or even happ), jason donald (path to the majors blocked by the phillies stellar infield), and someone else (most likely). and this afternoon ruben amaro addressed the media over the position the team is in and danced around the subject of halladay, prospects, and pedro (i'll go on the record here with my thoughts on pedro coming to the phillies: bad move if they fail to land halladay and fall back on pedro. he is washed-up. dunzo. fin. however, this is where economics comes in - the phillies might balk at their payroll going much higher than the $13o million it is now and pedro is rumored to be asking $5 mil [which would be pro-rated]. i really, really, really hope that the economics of this don't doom halladay and that if halladay falls through, the team has a backup plan other than pedro martinez).