GA Russell

Chris, that's my laugh of the day!

Stamps DL Tom Johnson has signed with New Orleans. http://www.tsn.ca/cfl/story/?id=350176

My LS account now says: Your credit card will be charged within 1 business day.

Amazon's refund was credited to my account yesterday. Add to that $32.97 the $20 Amazon gift card from yesterday's LivingSocial deal, and I've got $52.97 to spend! It's burning a hole in my pocket, as my late mother used to say!

Re the Sansa clip+: Amazon offers a $4 discount on the devices described as "bulk packaging". Since the likelihood is high that I will throw away the box, I figured that it would be a good way to save money. But yesterday I noticed that the 2 gig (but not the others) is now listed as "refurbished". Makes me wonder.

FFA, there was a comment to the New York Times article that said that there would probably be a delay as their computers filtered out all of the people who ordered more than one using different credit cards. But that was speculation. When I went to bed last night, over 1,300,000 had been sold with seven hours to go. Maybe we should have a thread about how you spent the coupon!

1,259,929 sold so far.

The Mike Labinjo trade has been voided. Basically, he didn't pass his physical with the Als. http://www.tsn.ca/cfl/story/?id=350145

thedwork, it said that you would get an email tomorrow. I think that the email will include a link to the voucher.

Here in Raleigh, a number of FM stations are now mostly talk radio (in addition to the many AM stations). I get the impression that nowadays people aren't listening to music on the radio as much anymore. A month ago I saw former Sony exec Tommy Mottola say that music used to be a 50 billion dollar industry, and that it is now a 25 billion dollar industry. The way the RIAA goes after pirate uploaders, I get the impression that they think their problems are due to piracy. But if I am right that people aren't listening to music on the radio much anymore, then I would guess their biggest problem is that they are making records people just don't want to buy or listen to.

The league announced today its plans for the Ottawa expansion draft. They realize that the way they did it for the Renegades left the team too weak to attract enough people to pay the bills, so they are going to make the new team stronger. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/football/cfl-develops-expansion-plan-for-ottawa/article1875499/

They are now over a million sold. Whatever it cost them, I have to think that the publicity was worth it. Imagine how many first time customers like me they got. I suppose the first sale is always the hardest.

It's in the New York Times! http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/19/livingsocial-gets-attention-for-amazon-discount/?hp

Yesterday Amazon informed me that they would refund my money. However, they said that the refund would take up to ten business days. So now I'm going back to keeping my eye open for the next time the Sonny Rollins Prestige box is a bargain.

TTK, some years ago I got a promo without the booklet of his album Time's Mirror. Perhaps you are thinking of that one. I enjoy it. I don't know who did the arranging.

I am on the mailing list of LivingSocial Deals. Today's deal is a $20 Amazon coupon/credit for $10. So I bought one. The deal is for today only. If you would like them to send you the offer, PM me your email address, and I will try to forward it to them. This is the first time I have bought something from them, so I am a newbie regarding how this works. ***** Edit - OK, it looks like you don't have to give me your email address. I think you can just go here and sign up for it yourself. http://www.livingsocial.com HuffPo says that Amazon has invested $175 million in Living Social. http://www.huffingto...l_n_791486.html ***** PPS - Here's a Wired report on this deal: http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/01/living-social-amazon/

Don Kirshner died yesterday of heart failure. I can't say that I was a fan of much of his product, but there's no denying how popular his people were. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Kirshner

This is why I don't like playoffs. I've always disliked them most of all with baseball. I think the regular season should determine who the two best teams are, and then the championship game should be between the two best teams. With playoffs, the championship is awarded to the team that is hot at the end, on a winning streak, no matter how many teams were better over the course of the previous four months. When the Steelers won the Super Bowl a few years ago, weren't they the last-seeded team? That's kind of funny coming from such a CFL fan. Yes, I've come to terms with the fact that the two Canadian leagues (the CFL and the NHL) let almost everybody into the playoffs. What redeems the CFL situation to me is that the Eastern and Western Divisions are older than the league itself. I believe they (the IRFU and the WIFU) used to have playoffs before they began competing against each other. By the way, speaking of old age, the first year I collected Canadian league bubble gum cards (1959), the Eastern and Western teams didn't play each other until the Grey Cup game. I think that started in 1961. Don't look now, but the NHL is hardly a Canadien league anymore! JETman, I find the NHL to be hard to explain logically. The nation referred to in the phrase "National Hockey League" is Canada. Yet in recent decades the league headquarters has been in New York, and I think since about 1930 the majority of teams have been in the US. Normally, I would attribute everything to the lust for the almighty dollar, but so many of the teams have been losing so much money, that can't explain it all! By the way, here in Raleigh Time Warner has a special for two upcoming Hurricane games at half price. You would think that those two games would be against two teams nobody cares about, right? They're the Toronto Maple Leafs and the New York Rangers! It might be cheaper for Toronto and New York fans to fly to Raleigh and buy their tickets half price than to buy scalped tickets of their favorite teams at home!

Wally has told Paul McCallum that the Lions plan to use Sean Whyte next year as their kicker. McCallum isn't ready to retire, so Wally will have to decide whether to cut him or trade him or keep him around. McCallum was the team's nominee for Most Outstanding Player last year. http://www.tsn.ca/cfl/story/?id=349644 ***** Eskimos LB Mark Restelli has signed with Miami. http://www.tsn.ca/cfl/story/?id=349838

This is why I don't like playoffs. I've always disliked them most of all with baseball. I think the regular season should determine who the two best teams are, and then the championship game should be between the two best teams. With playoffs, the championship is awarded to the team that is hot at the end, on a winning streak, no matter how many teams were better over the course of the previous four months. When the Steelers won the Super Bowl a few years ago, weren't they the last-seeded team? That's kind of funny coming from such a CFL fan. Yes, I've come to terms with the fact that the two Canadian leagues (the CFL and the NHL) let almost everybody into the playoffs. What redeems the CFL situation to me is that the Eastern and Western Divisions are older than the league itself. I believe they (the IRFU and the WIFU) used to have playoffs before they began competing against each other. By the way, speaking of old age, the first year I collected Canadian league bubble gum cards (1959), the Eastern and Western teams didn't play each other until the Grey Cup game. I think that started in 1961.

Does that SD card work with the Sansa Clip+ player? That would be plenty of exta memory for me. I'll probably wait a while until the need arises before I buy more memory. six string, I have no personal experience with these items, but I got the link from Amazon's "Customers who bought this also bought that..."

I think that Mark Murphy was from Buffalo. Upstate New York for sure. Maybe he spent the night with his family.

I remember that also. Does anyone remember when it was class to score a touchdown and turn and give the ball to the ref?? or just lay the ball on the ground and trot back to your team?? Uhhh I guess that is old too...... Bruce, I noticed that in the Army-Navy game last month. Class.

Just for the record, I never said anything implying my age. That said, I was born in '58 and do remember 1967. Forgive me FFA, I thought you were my age!

I didn't realize that I should have defined my term when I used the word "playoffs". A championship game is not a playoff. Playoffs are when teams other than the two first place teams are added into the mix. I believe that this concept was created by Shaughnessey of the baseball International League, and they were called the Shaughnessey Playoffs. The idea was to keep more people interested in minor league baseball by increasing the number of teams that had a chance to win the championship (and thus sell more tickets as the season wound down). Ca. 1975 I attended the Soccer Bowl in Washington, which was the championship game of the NASL between the New York Cosmos and the Ft. Lauderdale Strikers. The game was a mismatch, and I was so angry I dashed off a letter to the commissioner. I received a response from one of his assistants explaining that the purpose of the playoffs is to ensure that the championship game is contested by two teams on a roll. The thinking was that they did not want a championship game to be contested by one team which was hot early but was on a losing streak at the end. Jim, I remember when the NFL disregarded ties when determining the standings. The standings were determined by the percentage considering only wins and losses. As I recall, in 1962 ( or maybe '63) the Steelers tied a lot of games, and if they had won the last game of the season, they would have played in the championship game. But they lost it.