Another day of infantile self-absorbtion.

Steve:
Check it out. This dude used both PECOTA and Bill James projections for 2007 for the Red Sox and came up with 964 runs scored and 710 for a 105-57 record!

 

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Mike:
Ah, projections. [Sigh] Kind of like how the Administration projects that a 21,000 troop "surge" will secure Bagdad and, finally, all will be hunky-dorey in Iraq?

 

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Mike:
Projections aren't worth the papah their written on.

 

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Steve:
What the frig's up with you, sour puss? Have you been hanging around with that guy Paddy24 or something?

 

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Mike:
Nah, I'm just in a wicked lousy mood.

 

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Steve:
Well, cheer yourself the fuck up. And if you've got any latent anger and frustration, just direct toward it Peyton Manning in anticipation of Sunday's AFC Championship game.

 

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Mike:
C'mon, didn't you hear the news? "The NFL reeks with the stench of corporate tyranny, patriarchy, racism, superficiality, greed, competitiveness, and materialism."

 

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Steve:
I bet that guy is a Chargers fan. Heh.

 

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Mike:
No kidding. But, hey, don't mention that Daily Kos anti-football screed to Doug. He already thinks the Left is made up of nad-less sycophants and America hatahs. No need to give him more ammo.

 

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Comments

[mikeya2k1]

hey hb nice of you to give paddy the shout out he seemes so suicidal

[Harwich Rich]

Bread and circuses...and Ditka.

[mikeya2k1]

"Check it out. This dude used both PECOTA and Bill James projections for 2007 for the Red Sox and came up with 964 runs scored and 710 for a 105-57 record!" this is interesting stuff i wonder where the spanks are with the same projections. i know i could look it up but that would be like watchin american idol... a total waste of time.

[louclinton]

Holy shit.

That guy is deeeeeeep into it.

lc

[dabdiputs]

that chahgahs link is brokey.

[IkeG]

Poor paddy's weary of the railway...

Damn projections, I hate them. The '07 Sox sure as heck aren't winning 105. Playoffs would be just fine.

[h.b.]

The Chargers link is working for me OK. Anyone else having probs?

I know there've been a lot of web outtages past few days, so that could be causing issues.

[Natalie]

Not working for me, either, hb. Says "you are not authorized to view this page."

mikey, your comment about wasting your time arrested me. How does one define "wasted time?" Does time always have to be in the pursuit of some higher noble cause not to be wasted (and if so, what are the limits of this, how noble is noble)? Is doing something you enjoy (eg. watching sports, competing athletically for a prize, consuming material goods, watching people debase themselves on AI, making predictions about upcoming sports season- pick your poison) wasted? Just idle thoughts on this cold Thursday.

And, I don't know about you, but some of my best times have included one, some or all of corporate tyranny, patriarchy, superficiality, greed, competitiveness, and materialism.

[Ryan with a capital "R"]

"The NFL reeks with the stench of corporate tyranny, patriarchy, racism, superficiality, greed, competitiveness, and materialism."

Wait a minute. Corporate tyranny, patriarchy, and racism, are all things I think most reasonable would not be in favor of. Greed and materialism aren't the best traits, but they usually end up as more of a personal values issue than anything else. Superficiality? I can't even understand what this means in terms of football or sports in general. Judging a player by his stats? Is that wrong? Or should we be juding him by his heart?

But competitiveness? WHAT?! Grouping competitiveness in with racism? And what a charge to lay against a professional sports league! It's competitive! OH NO! The NFL has clearly forsaken its founding principles!

[yazbread]

Great comment by Steve Rosenbloom on ESPN this morning. Called Brady 'The Manchurian Quarterback' (hopefully controlled by Angela Landsbury rather than Meryl Streep).

[h.b.]

Try this link for the SD image:
http://dbsoxblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_dbsoxblog_archive.html#116905266711817085

Funny how some people see competitiveness as a bad thing.

Remember that episode of King of the Hill where Bobby joined youth soccer? That dealt with that issue, i.e, how the soccer program didn't have winner/losers etc because it was bad for self-esteem.

Although mikeya2k1 above doesn't like American Idol, I really enjoy watching the early rounds for a related reason to the whole self-esteem/competition angle. So many of the participants who try out are just terrible, but they've gone through much of their lives with people mistakenly encouraging them rather than telling them the truth.

When these folks get to AI, especially when faced with Simon, it's a real dose of reality.

I'm not saying, of course, that encouragement, even a bit of false encouragement, is always a bad thing.

But there comes a point when you have to be honest.

And it's not a bad thing that we all aren't equal. Yes, we should all be treated fairly under the law etc etc but some people are smarter than others, some people are better athletes than others, some people are better singers than others and so on.

[Kaz]

The link that seems broken is a link to an image on blogger.com (which checks your redirect info...so you have to view it from its own website only...no outside linking...sorta).

The way to get around this is to just click within your address bar and hit enter if it says "403 Forbidden". It'll check the last page you tried (the exact same page) and let you see it because you're coming from a blogger.com page (ironically the one it wasn't going to let you see for punishment from coming from afar on the web)...also, congrats, you just "hacked", technically.

h.b., you're probably seeing it because it's in your cache now (after having seen it via blogger.com the first time you stumbled on it in someone's blog)...so I'm guessing you never got the 403 Forbidden.

If you're just wondering what it is, it's a photoshop of LdT's head in a baby carriage with a tear added.

[Kaz]

Wow, h.b., way to jack my webserver prowess by linking the blog seconds before I tell everyone how to get around redirect-checking, lol...

:P

[vermonter]

Right on, h.b.! People have mistaken giving everyone a trophy for self-esteem. We do not come to think highly of ourselves because a trophy is handed to us every time we show up for something. Self-esteem comes from having goals, working hard, and achieving something. Telling everyone how great they are no matter how good or bad they really are at something is dishonest and disingenuine. As someone who works with kids, this is a very important distinction. we grow when we come to accept who we are...good and bad. I enjoy youth hockey for that very reason, it still has some of the '70's attitude that I grew up with and that has an honesty to it that allows people to develop with an accurate sense of strengths and weaknesses.

Go Pats!

[louclinton]

//"Called Brady 'The Manchurian Quarterback' (hopefully controlled by Angela Landsbury rather than Meryl Streep)."//

It's Lisa.

We are on to you Lisa. Drop your pants, er, hands, and step back.

[mikeya2k1]

my definition of waste of time in this case would be: i can watch idol, search yanks potential for wins this season or do something more substancial like oh i dont know .... masterbate to internet porn. i love the chubby chicks sights best but thats just me and as for the first round of the idol show i just cant believe that its not a set up with paid aspiring actors wannabes maybe. just like the gong show or jerry springer and shows like that. maybe im wrong but its hard for me to believe that someone with singing talent as bad as ...well mine would subject themselves to that to get not 15 mins but 7 minutes of fame

[mikeya2k1]

of course if i could masterbate to internet porn on idol i could get about three minutes of fame. not cause im quick on the draw so to speak but because im the best i ever had.

[h.b.]

There might be a few ringers in there, and no doubt, they, Fox/AI encourage the really worst of the worst and focus on that during the early stages, but it's pretty legit IMO.

What I have as a basis of that belief is the time I spent in academia where it was pretty frequent that you'd encounter students who'd turn in absolute crap, I mean total fucking wipe your ass crap, and then break into tears and/or fits of rage when you gave them an F.

Often I'd hear, "But I tried really, really hard" as if, you know, trying alone is enough.

You see this exact same thing in AI auditions.

People more than ever have really no sense of their own shortcomings.

[Harwich Rich]

but can they sing and chew gum at the same time ?

[Harwich Rich]

I'll bet Lisa can :)

[Natalie]

Exactly, hb, and that is what makes Paula so objectionable. She knows as well as Simon that most of these delusional kids don't have a snowball's chance in hell of being asked to sing karaoke at the local dive bar, let alone become the next Idol (for whatever reason: no pipes, 100 extra pounds, disturbing lack of social skills). But she is apparently the "nice" one while Simon is "mean." What's more mean, encouraging someone to continue to make a fool of him/herself or telling that person they are acting like a fool?

I blame Montessori Schools for this idea that competition is evil. :) I think its far more evil not to prepare kids for a social Darwinist world that is basically 100% competitive in every aspect (college, job, consumerism, love, child-raising)....

[Jack]

as for the first round of the idol show i just cant believe that its not a set up with paid aspiring actors wannabes maybe.

I don't know about them being ringers per se, but I do know a few people who have tried out for AI and I can tell you that there are several rounds of auditions before you ever get in to see Simon, Randy and Paula. None of my friends were good (or bad) enough to make it past the initial screening.

[h.b.]

Thanks for that info, Jack.

That makes sense, as they get a lot of play out of the truly awful folks.

So if you're just "average" neither really good or bad, your not as interesting and don't make that first pre-cut cut.

The funny thing is, those that are truly awful but don't know they are awful and think they're great, get really set up by this method. They make that first cut and it totally supports their delusions of grandeur.

[Kaz]

The talent curve that tries out for that show is pretty bell-shaped. The early auditions weed out the middle 4 standard deviations leaving the top 4.55% and bottom 4.55% to entertain us while Randy bellows semi-urban garble, Paula slips another two sheets into the wind, and Simon hems-and-haws about how America must be full of useless acid garglers.

We're treated to pretty much the entire bottom 5% and maybe 1% of the top singers (and not the top 1% either...just the ones who gave enough story to be interesting...totally skewing the later votes because of first impressions).

What I find the most detestable is how they ask the truly bad to sing the same song so they put together the oh-so-witty montages of "look how bad this town sucked" (although they never show these extended audition sections during their individual audition footage...because then it'd be so obvious how cruel they're being to the truely delusional). There's a line between "you are not any good...give up singing" and "hold on a sec...sing some more for us to laugh at...ok, one more song...ha ha, great...btw, you suck, goodbye". They prey on the people unable to self-evaluate BEFORE pointing out the obvious and that's a bit sick.

BTW, when is the next episode on?

Oh and for when the season finally gets past auditions: http://www.dialidol.com will tell you who will win the night of the voting...for all your wagering needs...

[Kaz]

Damnit...damnit...damnit...sigh. h.b., you've just got my number today...

[Sox Fan in VA]

Cripes, what a miserable poster at the Daily Kos. Whatever's left out of Tomlinson's Kleenex box ought to be sent to him, and fast.

To gently correct Steve, the guy is probably a New York Cosmos fan.

[Jason O.]

All b.s. aside, Paula is still hot enough that I'd take vicodin (+2 glasses of wine) with her and get silly, if you know what I mean.

[COD]

I've got a friend that plays in a local unsigned rock band and he was telling me that their search for a new lead singer was exactly like watching American Idol. They auditioned dozens of people who absolutely could not sing, yet were convinced they were perfect for his band.

And there isn't even any promise of TV time with him. Maybe a drunk college girl who likes singers...but that must enough I guess!