Who cares about bases-ball anyway?

Slow moving bat and ball games are in the news a bit right now with the opening of the baseball season and the World Cup of cricket, (Played in-between floods in Bangladesh) so I'm inspired to talk about those right now.

There's something to be said about a non-clocked, non-contact sport of individual duels, where every player by rule gets an opportunity to play the hero, where the playing field can be quite variable, where there is relatively little controversial officiating. But holy hell... how can there be 160+ games in 180 days? Are they crazy? Sure the players may not be so taxed physically, but doesn't that diminish the games too much? I guess it's a feature of the sport coming into its own before powerful players unions. (Much like hockey with its enormous schedule)

Baseball is painfully slow, but part of that is a feature of the contemplative nature of the sport where players aren't rushed or timed. Still, they should be able to speed it up a little as it certainly lasts longer than it did in its classic era, so something changed. If it's so important to let the catcher and pitcher walk over and chat, and let the batter leave the box when he feels like it, then maybe they could just drop an inning instead. Unfortunately, given the extended innings and check downs required to prevent base stealing; exciting offense actually makes the game longer, whereas defense makes it shorter.

The Toronto Blue Jays played their opening home games today at the Skydome. The home opener drew a capacity crowd of 47,000+ and even the follow-up pulled in about 27,000. It hasn't been THAT long since the Masoleumdome drew that many people to a regular season sporting event, but if it held up it would be a good sign for the previously free falling Blue Jays. (They also seem to hit a lot of home runs, which probably helps them draw crowds)

They played twice in quick succession against a team, (The Minnesota Twins) notable mostly for nearly moving from their home because of stadium problems until the state government decided to buy them a new stadium paid for by the residents of the twin cities (Minneapolis and St. Paul) who were not as enthused about paying to keep them, but didn't get a say.

On the other hand, this was their former home:

I don't see what the problem is. The Jays played in snow when they debuted.

Baseball nostalgia in the US usually brings forth images of 1900-1960; an old-timey turn of the century countryside pastime when men who grew up on farms played the games and wore hats, (See The Natural) morphing into an urban post-war somewhat integrated sport.

While you may think its funny that baseball can be a nostalgic thing in Canada even though we've only had major league teams since 1976; it's not. I don't mean because our nostalgia lenses are colored by collector Coca-Cola cans from the first of two back-to-back World series, but rather that changing style have made the nineties and eighties seem very far away in the past indeed:

Check out that haircut. Don't see too many of those anymore.

But I was actually a bit surprised to find out in my reading that Baseball actually had a long and vibrant history in Canada even prior to Major League expansion here. Rounders/Cricket had morphed into a 5 base, 11 man Canadian baseball game here in the mid 19h century which lost favor to American style rules.

Baseball's Toronto Maple Leafs were founded in 1896 predating the other Maple Leafs by decades. (Also, look at that date --this is as old as our hockey and football teams) Canada only had minor league teams for the first century of baseball, playing against southern neighbors unlike our football teams who crossed the country playing each other and are probably better remembered for being a 'lesser' pro league than minor league teams without their own distinct Canadian heritage.

There were actually a lot of baseball stadiums around where I live. There was an old stadium on the Toronto Islands called Hanlan's Point Stadium, another one called Maple Leaf Stadium near where the Tip-Top building is located, (A baseball diamond and park remain there today) the old Exhibition Stadium which was shared with the Argonauts was where BMO field is now;

AKA Exhibit 1 on why multipurpose stadiums aren't so great.

Which brings us to the Skydome which still stands not too much further from where I live. I suppose it shouldn't be surprising that so many stadia were downtown in Toronto, or near exhibition grounds and tourist attractions... but I don't think this concentration would be the case in many other cities.

Because I like to feature terrible games; check out this attempt to replicate a famous moment in the 1988 World Series game one where a player nursing two injured legs bats the winning homerun. Seeing as how MLB doesn't like Youtube putting up clips of their copyrighted material, this was made using the 8-bit RBI game from Nintendo:

I think it may lose something in the translation.

Face Off

It has been awhile since I've had an opportunity to write.

Steve, Tom, and me all had fun, (I assume) at the old exhibition coliseum watching the Toronto Marlies lose a heartbreaker in a shootout to the Lake Erie Monsters after having outplayed the visitors for most of the game. It featured plenty of end to end excitement from the opening goal coming just a minute into the game to the very loud revenge hit that got a Marlie thrown out of the game in period three creating a 5 minute powerplay that the home team had to kill to advance to overtime.

Pictured: Ye olde retractable roofe.

I liked the arena both for its old school character, (the old facade can still be seen even in the exhibition halls of the Direct Energy centre as well as from the streets. As well, the small size of an arena as compared to a stadium's arena makes for better seats so long as they're not as pricey as those at the Air Canada Centre. However I think that the small seat size makes the standing room tickets probably a smarter move for anyone over 200lbs.

I remember remarking to Thomas about the music choices in the arena; that they leaned a big too aggressive considering the family orientation of the Marlies audience. (I mean; Rage Against the Machine?)

The AHL, (The minor league that the teams belong to) features a variety of more cartoon mascot favoring logos and team names; which Thomas and Stephen both liked. I appreciate them too, though I said I wouldn't rate them ahead of the NHLs... now that I think about it there is much to recommend them. Certainly there are odd NHL names like the Minnesota Wild, and their less generic than Florida Panthers. Some like the Oilers, don't really sound exciting but for the goodwill the name has built up over the years. So I guess names like Crunch can compare with Flames, names like Rivermen can compare to Canucks, and Monsters can compare to Thrashers. Though I bet if they weren't so youth focused they wouldn't have their mascots so prominent in their logos and would use something more venerable looking.

I didn't care for the Marlies' slogan:"Every Game is a try-out." That's not exactly engendering a real sense of importance to the team and its own record. It just reminds people that any successful Marlie will be replacing a struggling Maple Leaf.

The Marlies have featured weak attendance, (Though it didn't look too bad when we were there) since moving to Toronto from St. John's due to the owner's desire to keep their farm team nearby and for someone to use the coliseum that they possessed. I suspect that this team was valued more in St. John's where it was their pro-team and not just the team for the players who weren't good enough and the fans who weren't rich enough.

It's a shame though. The farm team the Toronto Marlboroughs, (Named for the duke, not the cigarettes) were a successful team in the city since 1903 before being moved to Hamilton. Actually, even the CHL teams in the city were made to move for attendance issues. It might just be that there's not really enough interest for multiple teams in a sport, or minor league teams in Toronto.

~~~

I like fixed income investing. But I don't like that the Royal Bank seems to be charging some pretty big commissions on them. Equity trades use a flat rate, (Like $20 per trade) but the bonds seem to have a pretty brutal hidden fee schedule.

One holding I have can be sold for only 85% of what I could buy it for today. No wonder it's always down with that built into my book value. Unfortunately since the actual fees are not laid out, I can't really tell what they work out to. (% or per unit) The yield indicated is what you get; but active investing is not really a possibility with that kind of a hit and it's not as good a deal as it should be.

RATS: Night of Terror

Credit: 7 Deadly Sinners Artpad

In the far future of a place where laws and civilization have no meaning, and people have three hour lunch breaks and there are no convenience stores, (Italy, I'm talking about Italy) a director named Bruno Mattei decides to make a monster movie about a horde of rats. Seeing as how he still has several cubic tonnes of sand and garbage left over from the set of Warriors of the Wasteland, this let's be generous and call it a 'feature' will be set in post apocalyptic realm. In a nuclear swept, but oddly livable surface gangs of humans roam around on motor vehicles having rejected both fashion sense and life with the other humans underground.

Seriously, look at them. Do they think these outfits are coming back?

This gang of rejects finds a bunker filled with advanced (for the eighties) technology, as well as clean water and food. Bodies too. They assume there must have been a fight, but no one's stayed around. Later it will become obvious that those who lived here were done in by rats of unusual intellect and defensiveness.

One moron called Video, or arcade, or video gamer; (I can't recall) finds a computer which he claims is in fact a video game. After attempting to play it and finding it as unresponsive a platform as the Jaguar CD, realizes that it is not in fact a game system. He then whines that he'll never get to see a real game.

This boggles my mind. This idiot is so infatuated with the concept of video games despite never seeing one in his life? So much so that upon discovering any electronic device he immediately assumes it is a video game? This guy couldn't even get the high score on a digital clock.

He couldn't even beat this.

Other gang members include the well bearded leader, a bald tattooed guy who acts like a Vulcan, a treacherous guy dressed like he's a member of Napoleon's army, a couple of girls, and some other goons. This gang is pathetic. They cry a lot and are way too tolerant of the guy who keeps trying to kill everyone else. I thought these were survivors, not a bunch of scared teenagers. What do they have guns for if they've never faced death before?

Stumbling around getting punked by rats, and falling to despair and rage, the besieged gang are picked off one by one as dramatically as possible when rats are dropped on you from off camera. Which actually does look really uncomfortable. What if one of the fake rats was real? Do you think you'd get a good reaction from the actors when something moves?

Napoleon betrays everybody a couple of times before getting offed, while the Vulcan provides a lot of deadpan exposition. They must have him on something to keep him from laughing when he delivers these lines. He reprises the exposition about how some people live on the surface and others below, (Thanks, we knew that from the opening already) and he tries to figure out the whole rat intelligence thing, but neither he nor anyone else seems to be able to get their head around the fact that rats may kill people. I'm not sure what the hang up is mind you; but they seem to think they're missing some part of the picture. They're not. Rats--->defending their turf---> killing you. Easy, really.

Logical even.

The group's leader doesn't want to leave with their vehicles ruined by rats, but he doesn't really have a plan to kill the rats either. He seems emblematic of the problems that this group has with indecisiveness. They should bring that up at the next group meeting.

Where motions from the floor are not actually rats.

The humans eventually come to accept that the rats are first killers, then intelligent, then assholes as well. (The rats seem to allow a truce, only to lead the humans to a lost companion who is now filled with rats) They find out that the computer they found before has on it a recording from one of the dead who describes coming from below the surface of the earth only to have their research station overrun with rats. Help is on the way, but will be much too late.

Fortunately the final survivors are saved just moments after giving up hope, (While being crybabies about it too) when from underground a horde of yellow hazmat garbed exterminators, (The aforementioned help --great timing eh?) appear to flush the rats out with poison gas. Boy, does that gas get around as well; they must have brought a whole lot of it. These people, silent and faceless as they are, are as frightening and probably more intimidating than a horde of vermin.

Please. Spray me directly in the face if you could.

After saving the survivors, the awful dialogue comes to the fore again as our two remaining surface dwellers try to make the case for brotherhood with the underworld dwellers...by playing on their sympathy towards the mentally retarded.

People do not talk to each other in situations like these as if they were giving a speech at the United Nations. I don't know if this is just a natural feature of this kind of camp classic, or just a consequence of translations making stilted dialogue inevitable. Certainly I've noted that Japanese shows can have dialogue that can be tone-inappropriate while grammatically correct like this. Imagine getting rescued from a burning building and telling the fireman, "Come, let us build a new better world from this wreckage." They'd probably think you're crazy.

But all this flowery dialogue helps the irony:

Turns out we're RATS yo!

I suppose this brings up a lot of questions about whether these guys are supposed to be humans who look like rats or rats that are humans, and how friggin' long this separation from these surface dwelling rubes was supposed to have been at this point. But it's a pretty cool ending so who cares.

When you think about it, the Rat people don't really mean any harm. (Not counting the accidental spraying of the humans with poison) They do understand what people say to them as they apparently speak English, and they helped out the survivors. Heck, they doubtlessly find smaller versions of themselves killing their brethren to be far more frightening than we do. Think if you were attacked by chittering little fleshy humans with large head to body ratios. That's be scary as crap.

Granted I suppose we didn't make the best impression on our hairy friends with the movie-ending screech of twist-ending-terror. Probably didn't help their self esteem any either.

I am the King!

See that little crown? That's what you get when you become King of not crapping your pants. My pants. You crap your pants, I don't crap mine.

Anyway...one day you may get a crown of your own. But I doubt it.

The program is being very rude. That being said, your reputation precedes you.

If I had a nickel for every....

I've been looking into the price for Nickel products per Dad's suggestion, and zeroed in on a few nickel orientated funds, companies and the price of nickel to make some observation. These include FNI, NIC, VALE, XSTRATA , IPATH DOW NICKEL, and JJN:NYSE ARCA.

A few things seem to be consistent. First, most of the tools available for stock analysis are for short term fluctuations. Bollanger bands, moving averages, etc. Most of which suggest that these nickel stocks and companies are in a sell position. (Or were prior to the gas going out of the market temporarily thanks to Gadhafi) Linear regression usually shows growth, but unsurprisingly it also shows all performing above those weighted averages. Which means that there's significant room to fall without really altering the grwoth trend.

Nickel has risen is price much faster than other commodities in the lateast boom, and although the substitute 'pig-nickel' isn't considered a major replacement, I wonder how much more the price can increase. It almost seems to be back to its pre-recession price.

Regarding the possible impact of cold fusion technology, I'd say its unclear. While I would expect any large announcement of a popular invention using a mineral to increase the interest in that mineral; I don't really know if it would significantly alter demand or that any long term rises wouldn't allow for increasing interest in superior substitutes.

I instinctually have trouble imaging that cold fusion possibilities are priced into nickel prices, but it isn't hard to imagine that much of the expected growth is. While I'm confident in the commodities 'super cycle' theory to lift commodities, and that a cold fusions use for the mineral would have to have positive benefits... I don't like commodities for their risk profile and I'm not so confident that even a cold fusion annoucement would result in nickel immediately being much more in demand.

I do not feel confident in buying into or predicting anything about this commodity today or in the future one way or the other even after assembling what information on price history that I could.

Superball

Its been awhile since the Superbowl, but I still had some thoughts about the big game from...what? Two Sundays ago?

Is anyone concerned that both Troy and Clay from the Steelers and Packers respectively are both the leaders of their defenses and have huge hair? Is that like a prerequisite for being a good linebacker now?

Hmmm... this post isn't quite homoerotic enough yet...

Now we're talking!

Now just imagine seeing video of these guys in slow motion with that same overblown grizzled narrator from the pregame videos.... let me tell ya, there's no such thing as an 'ineligible man' on Superbowl Sunday.

Unless there is. What was with that penalty? I thought the whole point of a kick-off was to run after the ball and stop the returner from running it back. Someone has to stay behind the scrimmage line? I would have understood an offside call, but they didn't claim that.

Pittsburg had in their previous victories had won only at home, and had only played one good half in either game along with one terrible half. Green Bay therefore, despite their lack of experience and similar strengths, kind of looked stronger to me. They had won three times in the playoffs on the road, and looked very good while doing it.

Still, I felt similar to the announcers when they started to suggest that Pittsburg was taking over the game. The Packers did seem to go a while without scoring in the middle...maybe that's not necessarily suggestive of anything, but part of the announcer's job is to create a narrative rather than try and hedge their bets. It makes things more interesting.

A funny note: Dad pointed out in the Steelers/Jets game how Ben Roethlesberger (?) seemed to be limping, and then immediately ran for a first down on the next play --and that it was probably a trick. Sure enough, it happened again in the Superbowl. After discovering a minor limp, Ben proceeded to run on the very next play, and the limp totally seemed to have vanished from there out.

It's fair to say that the big determining factor was that Pittsburg made some big mistakes by giving up the ball, and Green Bay both avoided that, and helped make sure that Pittsburg paid for those mistakes with interceptions/recoveries/ and scoring points.

So the Lombardi trophy now goes back to a small town in Wisconsin...a town roughly the same size as Sudbury, (I'm not joking) but with a huge national following. It goes to show how effective community ownership of a team can be, and how valuable methods of profit sharing can be in retaining small market teams.

However, if the sport were more gate revenue orientated, (Therefore more geographically dependent) it wouldn't be economical to maintain any number of small market teams even with profit sharing; which may be why the Saskatchewan Roughriders have only recently become incredibly profitable in the CFL in spite of their enduring popularity.

I dealt with my cold today by taking some tea bags to work with me and made some tea there. I like tea just fine, but for whatever reason I never get around to drinking any; until now. This is certainly a better idea than just cold water or buying hot drinks. I can't believe I didn't think of this before.

I had some Pepsi throwback today. That's the Pepsi with real sugar. Just as the Mexican Coke with real sugar kind of tasted like Pepsi, so too did this taste a lot like Pepsi. I guess that means that Pepsi usually uses more genuine sugar in their regular recipe.

Jeez. My neighbors stink. I guess they smoke a lot of Marijuana or something because I keep getting nasty odors in my apartment often when they open the door to theirs. It's only once a day at most that I'm smelling it, but I don't understand how those fumes it can be so acrid and travel so easily. I'd complain to the building, but I don't think they were interested the last time I phone a complaint in, and I don't know how they'd follow this up anyway.

I made Mac and Cheese today, and in order to clear out many of my perishable ingredients in the fridge, I am planning to make a lot of stuff in bulk; like pasta. I used the Williams Sonona recipe, (Actually having a recipe is 75% of the success) and added some turkey bacon, (Tastes like bacon-light) dill, (It works, but I should have used more, or not cooked it with the rest and left it fresh... its hard to notice for the other ingredients) and some tomatoes. (Which I can't really taste...but at least it added different nutrients and colour) I used cheddar and some of that dense parmesan like cheese, which in monetary terms was most of the meal. Much like my risotto, this dish's economic cost is almost entirely due to one ingredient. (Cheese is expensive)

I finally got ahold of the Rogers rep. They've got the perfect phone for me:

It is kind of heavy but as you can see it comes with a support strap and text messaging.