Quincy

He can think of a million and a half reasons. The more sensible players understand that they're unlikely to have earned income that high again ever again. The less sensible players have crazy ass mansion mortgage payments to make. Not sure where Pudge stands, but at least several years ago the guy had a statue of himself at his home.

At least they broke their weird love affair with Brad Ausmus. They also get younger!

Nice! I really love their chocolate stout, especially on tap. Luckily I can have it that way (and all of their other brews) just a couple of blocks from where I live.

I didn't get the need for some of the violence either, especially during the fake assassination attempt. Strictly looking at some of the positives the costumes were good and it was interesting seeing so many panels recreated. Probably it was better not to confuse non-fans even more by changing how the cities are destroyed. Jeffrey Morgan as The Comedian was spot on! I too saw Jude Law in my head as Veidt - I guess we want that blue-eyed blonde look for the part. If the point was to make evil look like he might break out into "Take On Me" they succeeded. Oh, my legs were cramped so I left during the credits (I know, bad movie fan), but I recall a song by Massive Attack being used for a trailer but I don't remember it being used in the film itself. Did I just zone out or did it appear during the credits or not at all?

Wowee! I've strayed from the "save it for running low" strategy for a couple of years now so luckily I already have this one. Yup, great music and excellent sound quality.

How about Lee Morgan's last club date?

Ahhhhhh...fun at the old ballpark.

I love how the Dodgers are doing their best to hold firm. No other team can afford him here or in Japan. The remarks by the owner about how they won't bid against themselves are hilarious. I think this a battle of chicken they can win. One potential problem is if they do indeed sign him that he'll then not try hard because he's "only" getting $25 a year with whatever else he gets.

Yes indeed! A nice discovery for a Saturday morning. Adding it to Google Reader.

Wow!, thanks for that.

I believe they all do. Oppo is supposed to come out with a blu-ray sometime this spring and the hope is it will be nicely priced. I can understand if you don't want to wait that long though. Some people use a Sony Playstation as a blu-ray player. Just mentioning this in case you're secretly a video game addict.

As much as I enjoyed watching him grow up with the Mariners and am grateful for what he did for the team, he could be difficult to wholeheartedly like at times. He did some silly things in Cincinnati, such as insist that a certain announcer call his 600th (I think) home run. He's also had some grudges against various journalists. Perhaps with good reason, I don't know. Sad to say he's pretty much the highlight of the 2009 for the M's. I hope he can be happy & healthy. However it sounds like the poison locker room still exists at least after reading some quotes from Beltre. It mainly has to do with several players who don't care for how Ichiro is treated as being above the rest. The way things are looking we can continue our "my team is worse than yours debate" throughout 2009.

Trust me, I'm no fan of (as one friend calls him) Bug Salad, but I have heard him in a couple of interviews insist that he would never be in favor of a neutral site warm weather World Series. He gave examples of fans who have waited decades or their whole lives to see their team make it and how they deserve to see their team play in their home city. Like I said, I don't like the guy, but he sounded believable regarding that. As an aside, now that records seem to be so meaningless between steroids, segregation, live ball & dead ball, greenies, new parks, weird strike zones and whatnot, maybe they should knock the season down to 150whatever (whatever works nowadays in scheduling) so as to get the World Series in before Halloween. We're all going to chose what the season HR record is for ourselves anyway.

I've heard good things about Oppo from several different friends. I too ignore the surround sound. It can also give you SACD and DVD-A if you're into that. Unfortunately for me I bought a Cambridge Audio player for about $100 more than an Oppo. It's been having warranty work done on it for 2 months now (it was supposed to be 3 weeks to & fro to upstate NY.) Any day now they say. It's gotten a few great reviews so maybe I just got a lemon. As far as I know you'll have to buy Oppo online.

The jagged one on the plate looks like a geode! Glad you got inside, I don't think a child's plastic Braves batting helmet would have helped you in that storm.

"The minx must be stopped!" Ignatius emitted a little paradise gas.... If only 90% of bloggers used a yellow Big Chief notepad and then filed their writings under the bed instead of posting their thoughts online. Something to be said for the old ways. Glad to see Lucky Jim on there which I finally got around to a couple of years ago. It's what Jude the Obscure could have been.

Sorry to here this. As you two hit it off so quickly I'm sure he greatly enjoyed having someone who cared to share his stories with.

I think one that would be disappointing would be Pujols. As a big guy from the D.R. there have been suspicions, and he's probably at the moment the best "organic" player left. Although maybe since he plays for a team from the center of the country maybe people won't care.

Wha? Oh...man...I...am...I...slow. Next you're going to tell me N.J. Hackensack isn't a real name.

They're quasi-budget, maybe, I don't really know the terminology but I see them in bins locally where discs are sold 3 for some cheaper price. Perhaps it's just a local thing. I took a tour of other Legacy artists and found a lone Wilie Nelson greatest hits listed as well, but none of the label biggies in jazz or rock. Didn't see the Acuff or Marty Robbins Columbia/Legacy discs either that are typically cheaper than normal, though perhaps they had already used up their allotment. Edit- thanks for the heads up though and it's worth watching. Fingers crossed that they'll return.

Ah, that was it, your comment about the clip sent me to the review threads on the board which then sent me to Mosaic! So an assist for LK in the stat sheet even if you were actually on the bench. Also it goes without saying - sex sells! However I am remembering correctly this time as it's more recent that your mini-review of the Pacific Jazz Piano Trio Select provided the nudge to have me add that to the Bennie Green Select order during the January sale. Thanks to all who commented about the set as it is a "top tier" Select.

Meanwhile, back to trades & signings. Nice "inexpensive" pickup by the Angels. Bobby Abreu gets a 1 year $5 million dollar deal that can push it up to $6 mil. Very positive quotes from him too. “I thought by November, December, I was going to have a contract. I was looking for something multiyear, but the economic situation right now, everybody’s going through it, you know? So I do understand that.” As Vlad has RF he adds “I like to be in the field most of the time,” said Abreu, who expects to DH once in awhile but wants to play about 150 games in the outfield. “Moving me to left field will give me a lot of opportunities.” Wow, a player who can look past himself! (Okay, maybe he's positioning himself to push Matthews/Rivera to DH.) They now have 5 guys (at least) vying for 3 OF spots and DH, but given the age and injury history of Vlad, Torii, Matthews Jr. and Rivera if you can afford the depth do it. In the role of star Abreu could be problematic, but as a complementary player I think he adds a lot as he has a great eye and a bit of pop. His speed may decline but he managed 22 steals last year (though he was caught 11 times.) Also Adam Dunn signed a 2 year deal with Washington. Who knows, if Dukes, Zimmerman, Milledge and Kearns all play up to snuff they may win some games, though that starting staff looks sketchy. They sure look to have more going on then the Mariners though.

3 years the idea of owning the Lee/Christy set was laughable to me. But I got over my allergy of jazz singers and the Lee small group sessions in particular really make the set worth owning. I don't own an extremely expensive stereo system but it practically sounds like the group is in the room with you. The rest of the package isn't bad either. Somewhere on the board is a comment by Larry Kart about the Lee small group sessions that will give the extra push to get you to buy it. Congrats!

Most "bad" CD-Rs play just fine, the trouble can happen when you use EAC to extract them. I ran into this problem regarding some made in Taiwan TDKs that I bought in the late '90s. The same discs are now also a nicotine yellow color (for those smoker/ex-smokers out there.) I'll use the past tense as it's been some time since I've come across it, but it meant that EAC wanted 40 to 90 minutes to work on a disc to copy the material. And often it was taking all that time to make sure 3 seconds of applause was reproduced accurately. In this modern age though it's so rare I copy from a CD-R anyway. Possibly at Christmas, and now I'm more inclined to just give discs away as I have too much. I figure if I want the show again I can find it at the usual sites, possibly with upgraded sound. Or maybe contact an actual human for a copy, be it friends in real life or online. Rarities just aren't as rare as they used to be.

I'll second this too. As a longtime TY user (that sounds more interesting phonetically ) TYs don't have, or at least don't always have a deep blue bottom Like Alexander in the beginning (8 years ago) Sony was my favorite brand, but those were actually TYs with the Sony name on them. The same thing was going on back when Made in Japen Fujis were a trader's favorite. It's just easier to cut out the middleman brand stamper and buy TYs. I suspect soon these disc threads will be replaced by "what harddrive device is best..." (Edit - Actually there are already some of those.)