Because so many people here were worried that they weren't able to effectively ignore me, I'd just like to point out that I'm back online with a new platform.

Blog: http://soxmachine.com/soxmachine/
RSS feed: http://soxmachine.com/soxmachine/feed
Details about the new platform: http://soxmachine.com/soxmachine/2009/07/30/pardon-my-dust/

I won't be able to back-fill it for quite some time, and I'm still working on figuring out the rest of Wordpress MU's tricks, but that's the new permanent address.  Until it ain't.

Thanks for all your concern, sincere or sarcastic.

It's been more than a week since the last one, so I guess I'll be the one to man up.

Since it's December and there aren't any albums coming out that I'm particularly interested in the last few weeks of the year, I've been trying to figure out what my favorite albums were from 2008.

The list as I see it right now.

1. Hold Steady -- Stay Positive
2. Okkervil River -- The Stand-Ins
3. Eli "Paperboy" Reed -- Roll With You
4. Death Cab for Cutie -- Narrow Stairs
5. Raconteurs -- Consolers of the Lonely
6. Spiraling -- Time Travel Made Easy
7. New Pornographers -- Challengers
8. Brad Mehldau Trio -- Live
9. Flogging Molly -- Float
10. Old '97s -- Blame It On Gravity

And yeah, the Fleet Foxes aren't on it.  Suck it.

if BRICKHEAD OZZIE ever wants to manage a big-league team again,  hes going tohave to change things.

1. he has to GET BACK TO THE MAJORS and raise his career batting average to .280 AT LEAST.  WITH PATIENCE AND POWER.  AND A PONY. BERNIE MAC DID IT, atlhough he wasnt a BRICKHEAD.
2. he must ADD AT LEAST FIVE WINS TO THE TOTALS OF EACH OF THE TEAMS OF THE WHITE SOX OF THE 1980S.
2. he must start WHITE PEOPLE AT EIGHT OF NINE POSITIONS. and BRIAN ANDERSON MUST PLAY TWO OF THEM. at LEAST.
B. he must publicly denounce the mustash he wore in the 80s  A   M  E R I C A N S D O N T W E A R T H A T K I N D O F M U S T A S H.
1. he must LEARN TO SPEAK ENGLISH, and NOT WITH THAT R E-D-ICULOUS ACCENT. reinsdorf -- make him take classes to he speaks with the diction and tone of GREGORY PECK. BASEBALL MANAGERS ARE THE PARAGON OF ORATION AND I DONT SEE WHY BRICKHEAD OZZIE SHOULD BEANY DIFFERENT.
A. ozzie should get his CITIZENSHIP.  a greencard ISN'T ENOUGH.

until he does thiese things, the closest he should get to the dugout is when rolling out the tarp.

I'm looking for tickets to the Monday makeup game for the Twins series -- figured I'd see something cheaper on Stubhub or eBay since it's a night game turned into a day game, but there's nothing so far.

Considering I go to one or two games at the Cell a year, I'm not well versed in the secondary ticket market on these type of occasions.  Should I expect to pay face value, or should I wait?

Hopefully the Cheat won't consider this spam, as I'm pretty much C&Ping the same thing from my site. I'm just trying to provide a service, is all.

At any rate, if all goes well, I will be catching the Charlotte Knights in action three out of the next four days.  The plan is to drive to Syracuse this evening, and then hit Saturday and Sunday's games in Pawtucket as well.

As usual, I'll be taking plenty of photos and video, but this time I'm thinking to ask ahead.  If you have anybody you'd like to see in action, or would like photos or video to put to names, let me know.  Feel free to demand whatever, and I'll try to accommodate everybody as much as I can, within reason.

Unfortunately, the double-doubleheaders against Rochester earlier this week have screwed up the rotation.  From what I can tell, it's either Lance Broadway or Charlie Haeger starting tomorrow.  If the five-man rotation holds, it'll be Heath Phillips on Saturday and Gavin Floyd on Sunday.

UPDATE: Here we go:

Richar: Here's a scouting report with videos, and here's a list of all photos I took of him. There are also additional videos on this page.

Wassermann: Videos here and here. Here's a list of photos; I used a half-dozen photos to put together his delivery.

Anderson: Videos here and here. Numerous photos are in the gallery.

Floyd: Scouting report w/ video. I combined a bunch of clips for a highlight reel of his best pitches.

Robbins: Video here, and two photos.

If anybody here misses writing game recaps from when Cheat was away, have I got a business opportunity for you!

I'm going to need a recap for today's (Saturday) game for my my State of the Sox blog, since I'll be out of town.  SOTS is part of my Sox Machine site, used to serve as a game recap library.  

However you want to write it is up to you, but the types of recaps that were churned out in Cheat's absence here would do just fine.  

Play-by-play isn't crucial -- it's more for evaluating pitching performances, charting trends, and pointing out things that go beyond the box score.  For example, I use SOTS for when I need to look up how many games Pods has screwed up in left field, or when somebody broke up a double play to keep a rally going, or when somebody blew an at-bat by popping up a 3-0 pitch.  That sort of thing.  

If anybody feels up to it, you can leave it here or email it to me.  Thanks in advance.