Tabe

HEY! I knew who Tom Brady was back then!

Yeah, it's not MLB, it's short-season A but... Saw something last night I've never seen before - bottom of the 9th, 2 outs, man on 2nd for Spokane. Batter has 2 strikes. Pitch comes and he swings, ball gets by catcher, runner goes to 1B. Umpire, however, rules (correctly) that the ball hit the batter and thus is dead so he can't take 1B despite the ball not being caught. It's incredibly rare to see a guy get hit by a strike, even more rare to have it happen with 2 strikes on the guy, and some kind of 1 in a trillion chance of having it be the last out of a game.

Western Michigan University has a pair of home hockey games against North Dakota on 12/6 & 12/7. Tickets should be available on walk-up if desired. I'm sure there's plenty of junior hockey or minor league hockey between Philly and Indiana so you could catch a game.

Oh, I know you were just messin' around. With End of Watch, it wasn't even just "why are you filming yourself NOW?" but "HOW are you filming yourself?" like the scene where he hooks up with the girl.

Yeah, it's good. If you ignore the big holes in the gimmick of the guy filming his life, it's a really good movie. You're ragging on me for liking End of Watch, but you enjoyed jOBS. Okay. Tabe. Re-reading what I wrote, I realize it came across wrong. I *DID* like "End of Watch". You just have to ignore the holes in the gimmick. Man did I word that original post poorly

Yeah, it's good. If you ignore the big holes in the gimmick of the guy filming his life, it's a really good movie.

AJ Green, too.

The NCAA has two different sets of rules when it comes to players making money off their names. The first is that they can't be paid directly - like selling your autograph. The second is that the player has to take steps to prevent other people making money off his name. Examples of that would be letting the NCAA know if you see stuff on Ebay that shouldn't be or, in Manziel's case, not signing a huge pile of autographs for one person. In that case, Manziel would be expected to know that the autographs would be sold and by not preventing it, Johnny broke the rules. What likely happened is this: the NCAA probably doesn't quite have enough proof that Johnny sold his autograph. Manziel probably lied about it, denying he got paid at all and no paper trail for the NCAA to trap him. So Johnny would admit signing the big pile of autographs, claiming he did it for free to help out a friend or something. The NCAA would then bust him for the "failure to prevent" violation. This way, they get to slap him a bit, even if it's a completely meaningless penalty, and they also get to avoid having to enforce a rule nobody thinks should exist.

Basically every lefthanded pitcher balks on their pickoff move 95% of the time. The rule is that you have to stride toward the base you're throwing to and lefties don't do that. They're supposed to have an angle < 45 degrees with the rubber and their right leg but they cross that ALL the time. It's ridiculous. Like I said, I wouldn't have called that balk - 10th inning tie game means nothing to me - but I can see why it was.

It's still a little unclear. Latest theory is that he ate something that causes paralysis, which would explain why he didn't just walk out of the woods while starving. It's worth noting that the stuff at the end of the movie, where they show him reading the field guide with its ominous warnings, is BS. They made that stuff up - the guide in question has a very minimal warning at best.

Yeah, 11 HRs in 30 games and an .890 OPS. He hasn't had an .890 OPS since his first year with the Cubs 6 years ago.

The pitcher lifted his body - very slightly but still there - as he shook off the catcher. Any lifting/moving of the body that doesn't then continue into throwing a pitch is considered a balk. Essentially, they ruled that he started his pitching motion and then stopped it - which is a balk. I don't think this was a good call but it's technically correct.

Newly free this week - looks like a permanent change: Pinballistik - One of the first pinball games on PSN. No idea if it's any good or not. Don't have high hopes but I downloaded it and will give it a shot.

Another night, another Neftlix selection: Into the Wild - Christoper McCandless is a guy just graduated from college who feels trapped in his everyday life. So he gives away his life savings, cuts up all his credit cards, takes on a fake name and disappears. He wanders the country for 2 years, dipping down into Mexico for a bit, before heading up to Alaska to "live off the land" and find himself. He ends up taking up house in an abandoned school bus and leaving in Alaska for four months before dying under unclear circumstances. This is based on a true story and, other than his death*, is apparently very close to the real story. Directed by Sean Penn and starring Emile Hirsch, this is really good. There's a sadness to the movie as you know it doesn't end well and that this guy just abandoned his family without warning and without contacting them. Jon Krakauer wrote a book on the guy, tracking down a bunch of the people he met - the hippies who live in Slab City, the grain farmer who gave him a job, the old guy who wanted to adopt him, and more - and studying his writings and photos. I think a lot of us can relate to the romantic notion of just "dropping off the grid" and disappearing. This movie shows the not-so-romantic reality of that. I'd had this movie in my queue for a long time but decided to watch it when it came up in the news this week as another idiot decided to try and emulate this guy and died trying. I really enjoyed this one - 8/10. Look for Jena Malone and Kristen Stewart in small roles as well. * - the death theory presented in the movie has since been conclusively proven incorrect.

I read somewhere that NEXT year is DirecTV's last with NFL Sunday Ticket. Also, I think a lot of people doing the DirecTV/Madden thing don't realize that it's the mobile/PC version of the service and not something through their TV.

Yeah, I resisted smartphones for a long time. Now I'm a crackhead when it comes to mine. In other news, I rooted my Nook HD+, putting CM10.2 on there and have been running stock Android for a couple weeks. Generally very pleased with it other than Chrome being wonky. When using Chrome on message boards, it would hide/unhide the keyboard all on its own. Made responding to posts a bit of a challenge I downloaded Firefox instead and that took care of the problem. Had to download a plugin to get embedded Youtube videos to work again (they work natively in Chrome) but that took no time. Need to maybe find a sideload for Adblock Plus. Impressions of the Nook in general? I love it. It's fast, it's very light, and the screen? The screen is fantastic. High-def content looks amazing and photos on Facebook are spectacular. For the price I paid - basically free, LOL - it's worth every penny! Seriously though, even if I'd paid the $150 out of pocket, I'd still say it was worth it.

Well, that sure clears up why you're friends/following her on Facebook.

I had a nice long response all typed up about Trout and Cabrera but it got lost. Boo. Basically: Trout is awesome. Tabe thinks WAR overrates defense and baserunning. Tabe is shocked that Trout is actually a negative dWAR player this year. Cabrera is leading the league in 10 offensive categories this year, the kind of domination little-seen since Stan Musial was 1 HR from the Triple Crown AND leading in doubles, triples, and HRs in the same year.

Honestly, for me, the worst part of Miley's performance was her godawful hairdo. The rest? Just a teenager (even if she's 20) trying too hard and coming up with a mess that, in the realm of MTV stuff, isn't even all that "shocking". Really, though, Britney did the "rip off clothes to reveal nude colored outfit" a whole lot better years ago. As for where all the black people are on MTV, read the books on the history of MTV. Except for a short stretch where "Yo! MTV Raps!" was popular, MTV has pretty much disliked black artists not named Michael Jackson.

This is an unusual misstep for you, Ser Tabe. The small council will be monitoring your posts for awhile. Yeah, I know my opinion is against the grain on that movie. It's a pretentious movie that mocks those who are pretentious. It's an arrogant movie that mocks the arrogant. It's a movie that's in love with itself for being "edgy" and having black humor but isn't funny (the lame "dead gay son" funeral stuff, for example) and in the end just isn't that good.

Went to this one last night: Jobs - I know it's been trashed in a lot of reviews but I liked this a lot. Ashton Kutcher is really good as Jobs - they really nailed the look of pretty much every character in the movie other than Woz being a little iffy - and the movie itself is good. There's a LOT of material to cover - and that's even with the movie cutting itself off at 1997, ignoring the iPod/Pixar years - and so a few things get frustratingly little coverage, like Jobs' relationship with his daughter and how he met/married his wife. They do a good job of conveying that Jobs was an asshole but could have done even more in that area. All in all, while I really think this should have been a miniseries to allow for more room to breathe and greater depth, I liked the movie a lot as did my wife. I must say I'm eager to see how Aaron Sorkin's movie adaptation of the Isaacson bio turns out...

This used to be a major issue on ESPN.com. Then they switched to using Facebook for comments and it had two effects: 1) It cut the # of comments by about 90%; 2) It cut out 99% of the vile garbage

Another Netflix movie for me: Heathers - Yeah, this one just doesn't work for me. I saw it years ago and didn't like it, decided to give it another try. Nope. I get what they're going for, I just think they miss. 4/10.

Supposedly, it's actually from Lady Gaga's performance.

It's a Vita kind of week in the US on PS+: Free - Machinarium (Vita) - Was free on the PS3 a few weeks ago, still haven't played it yet myself but I've heard it's good. Discounts - Spelunky (Vita) - $12. I think this was free before but can't remember. - Draw Slasher (Vita) - $3. Another weird indy action game. - Lots of other discounts with the highlight probably being Journey for $3.75. I didn't like the game but everybody else did.