SB Nation User Blog: Faux

OTDOD - 11-12-8 Nothing Left to Talk About Edition

Faux — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 13:59:14 -0000

There looks to be a shortage of topics, since we appear to have burned through our weekly allotment of topics in yesterday's OTDOD.

We have to conserve topics for the rest of this week, so today's topics will be all about me and my trip. Any departure will get a stern (read: no) reprimand, which will be roundly ignored as you continue to talk about whatever the hell you want.

Topics for today include:

What is there to do in a rural Mississippi casino besides gamble, drink, and selling electronics to hicks?
Interesting things to do when you're on a plane for over 12 hours in the next week and a half.
What is there to do in LV (for little to no money) besides strip clubs, gambling, drinking, and selling electronics to rich snobs?
Does anyone want any pictures of anything in either of these places? Keep in mind, they have to be in running distance of the strip.
Is there an app for BB that will let me participate in LL comment threads? Opera mobile crashes at the long-ass cookie that SBN tries to give you, the BB browser is more than useless, and neither let me log in.

OTDOD 11-5-8 - I Don't Feel Like Working Today Edition

Faux — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 14:13:26 -0000

For your viewing pleasure, today's OTDOD will be broadcast in glistening technicolor.

I don't think we've had quite enough Rock Band Two discussion, so let's hear it. What's your favorite song? Insturment? How do you get it to download songs in the background like I've heard about?
I'd like to open the floor to questions. There has been pretty good business for this in the past couple days, so why not make it official? Got any problems or questions about your computer, cooking, or just about anything? Let LL solve it*.
I can't get to youtube videos here at work, so you'll just have to hum Ramblin' Rod's birthday theme (update: smile contest theme - thanks pdb) to yourself instead.
iku iku is "I'm coming" in Japanese. Discuss.

* YMMV

Raul + Ears + WFB are now Free Agents

Faux — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 03:14:02 -0000

Hello future draft picks and getting rid of the chaff. Raul Ibanez, WFB, and Cairo are all filed. Let's hope they go on to prosperous(that's not the word) happy(that's not it either) who the fuck cares careers somewhere else.

Excerpt from MLB.com story:

Raul Ibanez, one of the Mariners' most reliable run producers during the past four seasons, filed for free agency Thursday.

Longtime Mariners utility player Willie Bloomquist and veteran infielder Miguel Cairo were also among the 65 Major League players that filed on the first day of the filing window, which lasts until Nov. 13.

I think this might be the best news since we didn't hire a retread GM. Now let's see him not bring any of the three back in. It doesn't look so good from that standpoint:

When new general manager Jack Zduriencik was asked during his introductory press conference if he wanted to bring Ibanez back next season, the GM said he needed to talk to other baseball operations people in the organization before making a decision.

C'mon Zoidberg, time to bring in some new talent.

OTDOD - 9-23-08 - Uninspired poster edition

Faux — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 12:30:39 -0000

Today's offtop, now with less tags than the last.

Possible topics of discussion could or could not include:

We're outsourcing our plethora of school shootings to Finland. What's the conversion rate to euros?
I saw 50 Cent in the whitest part of a rich white suburb in NJ today, looking for a place to shoot a movie. Discuss possible implications on sell-outness, and the likelihood for a Method Man-like movie about golf and country clubs. Show your work.
It's the last week of Mariner baseball. Does this make you happy or sad? Are there any memories of this year you'd like to share with the class?
I still hate Carl Everett. He didn't even show up at the game I went to just to heckle him.
Which is better, Ghostbusting or Ghostriding?
Is LEGO batman really necessary?
How is BrianL's wrist injury going to effect his posting stats? Feel free to speculate on your LL fantasy team's chances w/o him at top form. I for one predict an uptick in his House% after the Dr visit.

via seattletimes.nwsource.com

Updated Title to fix misspellings.

OTDOD - 9-8-08 = -7 Edition

Faux — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 12:51:47 -0000

In a move that made ESPN board members everywhere stand up and do a little dance, it appears that Tom Brady is hurt. This means all of you looking for sports news on ESPN (hah) can bugger off and watch a continuous loop of the latest reel of either Brady hobbling out of a doctor's office or Farve's "amazing" 6 point "blowout" of the "resurgent" Dolphins (who might win 3 more games this year).

In real news -

Russia looks to ban South Park. Now we know what one of the themes of the next new show will be. Thanks for spoiling the surprise, Ruskis.
In a move that scares the crap out of idiots that barely understand the news everywhere, the CERN supercollidor is ramping up its' atom smashing abilities.
The US's newest export - diet crazes and fitness stupidity. I guess that makes sense after all the McDonalds and Burger Kings we sent over.
Watch out, AK. You might be next. Not that you have any use for condoms anyways.
Nashivillians, be very proud. You have the best men's restrooms in the US.

Your LL Mad Lib of the Day -

In your best Joe Morgan impression:

I just don't understand why the {Team1} would drop {Player1}. He's been a(n) {adj} {noun} to his team, and {verb} an astonishing {stat not made by basement dwellers}. When I played, {noun} like {Player1} were {verb}. However, I do like {Team2}'s pickup of {Player2}. He’s a(n) {adj} that will {verb} the {Team2} into the {noun}.

OTDOD - 9-4-08 Hit and Run Edition

Faux — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 11:59:20 -0000

Today will be a crazy day at work, but I said I would make today's post, so here it is. I'm boring and reliable in a way that only Matthew and Brian could imagine.

Today's main topic:
How the fuck in 5 angles in glistening pure HD can you botch an instant replay home run call that obviously bounced 8-10 feet left of the foul pole? Hank Steinbrenner must be very happy with his investment.

In other news:

An elephant makes a heartwarmingly Josh-Hamiltonian style journey. Surely someone will sign him in time for the 09 Home Run Derby.
Lair, liar, pants on fire. More importantly, how is that news?
Holy shit I hate geese. Every time I see one I am tempted to run it over repeatedly.
The gecko in my cube is still loose. It appears to like the fruit flies that have taken to the crushed raisins I have stashed in the bare corner of the cube. No word on whether it'll save me money on anything.
Those who have ever gone to the deep south will appreciate the brand new Waffle House museum opening in Atlanta, GA.
Alternate discussion topic - how you can get enough breakfast "food" to feed a family of 6 for under 10$.
Can anyone say 1TB Tivo HD (with 2 cablecard slots)? I know what I want for Christmas.

Have at it, people.

OTFUPOD - 082708

Faux — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 14:07:52 -0000

OK, let's give this a shot. If it turns out badly, it's NOLA's fault.

Topics for today could include:

Why American Football should never be talked about.
The soon to be upcoming 2012 London Olympics.
Starting a garden of acceptable ML relievers in your backyard.
Why art using XRays is awesome, (or not you snobs).
Why tags and over tagging bugs the inner OCD in me.
How best to get even with Netflix after finding out they don't offer The Outer Limits past Season 1 *or* Cannibal - The Musical.

UPDATE - And because I forgot about this before, I also have cheap rooms at the Bellagio to offer, because I'll be in town the week of and after Thanksgiving. Can anyone say LL meetup in LV? Who's up for it? Details below.

(Disclaimer: Rooms are cheap for the Bellagio, one of the ritziest hotels on the strip. Rooms may not be as cheap as the Motel 6 on the north strip. But you should all come anyways.)

Encyclopedia Lookout Landingica

Faux — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 16:26:05 -0000

Like most people here, after finding LL & USSM and spending a couple days learning about another view of the team I hadn't seen before, I kept coming back. It's no wonder why. We have here some of the most forward thinking baseball ideas, coupled with some of the more interesting people I've met online. The "Frat House" vs "Classroom" aspect of the M's blagoweb really holds true.

Yesterday, we saw an outsider come in, as happens often, and make some assumptions and use numbers that aren't exactly accurate. This made me realize how much I don't know, and gave me an opportunity to go back into the archives and bone up on all the things I've skimmed over in the past. This is that list, sorted by category.

If anyone has anything to add to this list, or has a problem with classification, please leave that in comments, and I'll update as requested.

Note - All links open in a new window.

The Basics -

If you haven't read these, do it now. Hell, read them over and over until you know all the concepts by heart. These are the simple concepts that are common wisdom here. Know these, and the rest gets a lot easier.

Dave Cameron's "Evaluating Pitcher Talent"
Dave's "Evaluating Defense"
Graham MacAree's "Probability vs. Certainty"
Graham's "The Cost of a Player"

Finally, these didn't really fit into a category, but I felt they were important nonetheless:

Jeff's "Where I Go"
Jeff's "Open Statistical Question Thread"
Graham & Matthew's "StatCorner.com"

By somewhat popular request.

Faux — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 16:12:22 -0000

I recently posted directions to viewing MLBTV on VLC in an (almost) empty gamethread. Today I saw a couple people asking about it while perusing past threads, so I figured I'd post it in a more conspicuous place.

via i241.photobucket.com

I can attest that it does work (that's my desktop pictured), although path I took was a little different (and more roundabout) from the ones on the thread below. I did follow the directions below for my laptop, and it comes to the same conclusion.

1 - You'll need Firefox (non-version specific), VLC, and you need to uninstall any Silverlight/Autobahn plugins, and especially Mosaic (uses Silverlight). I used the latest build of FF (3.0 full release).

2 - It's much easier to just have VLC installed before you install the add-on. I'm sure most people that read this already do, but it allows you just run the setup wizard directly from the install.

3 - Most likely, you will have to restart after all these steps complete. VLC doesn't like using the WMP8 codecs you install in step 11, and restarting forces the issue.

4 - You may have to play around with the add-on settings to get this to work correctly, depending on any prior configurations. On my GFs machine, it was follow-the-directions easy, on my LT it involved some random tweaks.

The simplest way to use this is to go to the link from the media guide as opposed to the main page. The main page MLBTV links take you to the 400k stream, and who wants that?

When the page loads up, it will then start VLC,and play your game in the VLC window. At this point, you can close the window behind, in the same way you would through WMP.

You can then repeat this step for as many games as you can fit down your pipe. 10@800k was easy for my oversubscribed business-class FIOS, and people should be able to fit 6@800k on an average cable line.

Two notes for full-screen secondary video output people (such as myself):

1 - Most video cards will use the video stream you first open as the full-screen clone, with no way to change it. On older video cards, you will need to close all video streams to reset the fullscreen stream. On newer cards (DX9.?, not sure exactly where the cutoff is), it will substitute the next one opened chronologically. This means plan out what streams you want to watch fullscreen ahead of time, and be prepared to start from scratch if a game you want to watch on your second screen comes on after you've already put up all your screens.

2 - If you're watching on a large (32" or above) TV, and have a decently fast computer, you will find much better quality by turning on deinterlacing and post-processing. Neither of these options make much of a difference when viewing on your PC, however.

Directions found on MLB.TV Forums here.

If anyone shows interest in it, I'll also get around to writing up how to record the streams through VLC. (Not so much a hint: Just get a Mac, and you can save the streams directly from the MLBTV window to .qt with the flip4mac wmv plugin.)

Feel free to leave any questions in the comments, and I'll answer when I get back to work from lunch.

A Story in Pictures

Faux — Thu, 22 May 2008 15:23:55 -0000

This 75 word limit makes my "Story in Pictures" a "Story in Pictures + 75 Words". Not nearly as cool, if you ask me.

"Fact":
Washburn, who is married with three children, grew up in Webster, Wisconsin and still lives there to this day. In 2002 he celebrated the first anniversary of the 9/11 attacks by allegedly hooking up with a 16-year old girl who worked at the concession stand at Angel Stadium. Washburn was investigated by local authorities in Orange County for this incident, which his wife did not enjoy. Television station KABC reported that the 16-year-old girl, whose vagina Washburn had invaded, called police from an Orange County hospital room on September 11, 2002 and made the allegation. The Orange County District Attorney's office declined to press charges, saying that it would be hard to make the case as it seemed that the girls' family had received a large influx of cash of late and made it clear they would be traveling and not available for a trial.

-Wikipedia , Jarrod Washburn entry dated 5/21/08

SB Nation User Blog: Faux

OTDOD - 11-12-8 Nothing Left to Talk About Edition

OTDOD 11-5-8 - I Don't Feel Like Working Today Edition

Raul + Ears + WFB are now Free Agents

OTDOD - 9-23-08 - Uninspired poster edition

OTDOD - 9-8-08 = -7 Edition

OTDOD - 9-4-08 Hit and Run Edition

OTFUPOD - 082708

Encyclopedia Lookout Landingica

Pitching -

Hitting -

Defense -

Teams, Wins, Stats, etc. -

Evaluating Individual Players -

By somewhat popular request.

A Story in Pictures