Cub fans, meet Jacque Jones...... umm, I mean Marlon Byrd.

You have to hand it to Jim Hendry, he knows what he likes.  Former Texas Rangers.  Mediocre outfielders coming off of career years.  Guys with the initials MB.  Neifi Perez.

The Cubs have signed Marlon Byrd to be their center fielder for the next three years.  The deal is worth $15 million dollars and in typical Jim Hendry fashion it's back loaded so that the bulk of the money will be paid out in the later years.  Specifically, $3 million in 2010, $5.5 million in 2011 and $6.5 million in 2012.  This of course has the affect of helping squeeze Byrd into an already tight payroll and still gives Hendry the flexibility to add a pitcher or pitchers with his remaining budget.  Apparently he doesn't care about next year or the year after but that's another story.  Hey maybe Hendry will be able to talk Derek Lee into taking a $2.5 million dollar pay cut after his $13 million dollar a year contract runs out after the 2010 season so payroll won't have to go up!  /end sarcasm

Okay, let's get serious for a minute.  This isn't a terrible signing from a baseball standpoint.  Marlon Byrd is an average player if you look at his road stats.  In a normal year he's likely to put up an OPS of about .750 which is about league average.  His defense in center is also average, it fluctuates year to year like most players but in general his UZR is acceptable.  When he plays the corners he's defense is much better, going from average to very good.  The problem is that his bat doesn't play in a corner outfield spot where you'd normally expect a slugger or at least an above average hitter.  In center, if Byrd can just replicate his last three year road splits his bat will be fine though and since his defense is average he's not going to be hurting the Cubs.

What is going to hurt the Cubs is the contract, more specifically the length of the contract.  Three years for a 32 year old player in today's game (post-PED's) is stretching it.  Players don't start their decline at a set time but generally it comes on in their early to mid thirties.  By the time Byrd reaches the end of his contract he will have turned 35 and will quite likely have been regressing for at least a year.  By then he's probably going to be a fourth outfielder, and since he'll then be making $6.5 million dollars he'll be an extremely expensive fourth outfielder at that.  Those are very hard to trade without eating some of the contract.  Unless Jim Hendry knows something we don't about the future of the teams payroll then I'd imagine if he's having trouble fitting in a $3 million dollar contract into the 2010 payroll he's going to have trouble fitting in a similar contract in the 2012 payroll, and having overpaid, below average backups on the roster isn't going to make that easier.

So, is Jim Hendry really doing what's best for the team or is he just trying to save his job?  The new owners, the Ricketts, can't be to pleased about the Milton Bradley fiasco that they inherited and that dominated the headlines in the first few months of their ownership.  They also can't be very pleased about the team struggling against payroll limitations even though they were only an 83 win team the previous year and regressed in many important statistical categories.  Not all of that is Hendry's fault, bad years from Alfonso Soriano, Geovany Soto, Milton Bradley, Kevin Gregg as well as injuries to Carlos Zambrano and Aramis Ramirez helped limit the teams effectiveness.  It should be noted that Hendry traded for Gregg when there really wasn't anything to suggest that he was worth spending $4 million dollars on (he fell for the saves total, the most overrated stat in the game) and he handed out $30 million dollars to the volatile Bradley when it would have reasonably been predicted that the situation would end badly.  Oh, and the Cubs are still on the hook for five more years of that ridiculous contract he handed out to Soriano after the 2006 season.

Maybe Hendry is trying to save his job with a good 2010 season or maybe he just doesn't have a good idea of how to put together a roster anymore.  Before 2006 the Cubs always operated below what their revenue would seem to have dictated.  Hendry was forced to acquire players through trades and shrewd free agent pickups.  After a poor season in 2006 and with the team likely headed for sale the Tribune decided to open the checkbook and allowed Hendry to go on a spending spree like MLB has rarely seen outside of the Bronx.  He spent more than $300 million dollars that winter and he hasn't been the same since.  He seems to try to solve all the teams problems in the most expensive fashion now, through the free agent market.  There's not a more expensive way to acquire talent in baseball than that.  Hendry has only made one trade of real consequence since 2006, his trade for Rich Harden midway through the 2008 season (who he just let walk as a free agent himself without offering arbitration because of financial concerns). 

Teams can't live that way, can't acquire all their talent through free agency.  They have to be able to make trades to fill holes, deal from strengths, sign amateur talent and look for minor leaguers who are undervalued by their current organizations.  Essentially they have to be able to beg, borrow and steal every talent they can find for the least amount of resources.  Jim Hendry hasn't done that in awhile and the Cubs are paying the price for it, regressing in the standings and bumping up against financial limits.  Marlon Byrd is just the latest example, and the latest to take advantage of Hendry's free agent addiction.

Russia planning to save the world from giant asteroid.

Russia is considering a plan to build a spacecraft to deflect the asteroid Apophis from a possible collision with the Earth which could occur as early as 2029.  Hey, that sounds like a great and noble ideal doesn't it?  So why am I so bothered by it?

First of all, there's really almost no chance that Apophis is actually going to hit the Earth.  When it was originally found in 2004 scientist thought there was a 1-37 chance it might hit our little blue marble but now they say it's not likely to come within 18,000 miles of us.  Seems like it would be pretty harmless to practice on the asteroid then just in case we find one that is going to hit the Earth... unless something goes wrong.  What happens if they change the direction of the asteroid incorrectly and the chances of it hitting us goes back to 1-37?

And then there's this from Anatoly Perminov, the guy in charge of planning the mission.  He doesn't even remember when Apophis might hit but he's all onboard with the idea of spending hundreds of millions of dollars to save lives that aren't really in danger.

...snip
"Without mentioning NASA's conclusions, Perminov said that he heard from a scientist that Apophis is getting closer and may hit the planet. "I don't remember exactly, but it seems to me it could hit the Earth by 2032," Perminov said."

"People's lives are at stake. We should pay several hundred million dollars and build a system that would allow us to prevent a collision, rather than sit and wait for it to happen and kill hundreds of thousands of people," Perminov said."
...snip

Got that?  The head of the agency that might plan the mission heard from a scientist, doesn't really remember what he heard but he's still thinking about spending hundreds of millions of dollars anyway on a mission that's not going to save lives (according to NASA) and could go wrong and actually cause the catastrophe that it's designed to prevent (that isn't going to happen to begin with).  Whew, I feel safe now!

The mission wouldn't be without merit however.  The knowledge gained from such an adventure may very well prove beneficial in the future and given the margin of error even if things go wrong we're still not likely to be in danger.  It could well turn out that the various space agencies undertake the mission as a test and while they learn how to safely deflect an asteroid also learn how to work together even closer than they have on the International Space Station.  Nothing wrong with that.

It all seems like posturing though.  Why announce a project like this with so few facts and planning if it may not even happen?  Perhaps to gain a bit of cachet on the international scene?  Maybe to attract more high paying space tourists to the Russian space program?  I'm all for keeping giant rocks from hitting the Earth, I just hope the people planning it know what they're doing.

And Anatoly, dude, lose the hairpiece.  How can we trust a guy with such bad judgment in rugs?

Has Ghost Hunters Jumped the Shark?

Season five of SyFy's Ghost Hunters has come to an end and I think it's time to ask, has it finally jumped the shark?  For that matter can a pseudo-reality show even jump the shark?  I guess the answer to that depends on what your definition of jumping the shark is.

For me, I think it's pretty obvious to tell when a traditional show goes bad.  Original actors start to leave, characters start to become caricatures of themselves, plots go downhill or become non-existent and Ted McGinley joins the cast.  Oh, and usually characters start wearing funny outfits and costumes for cheap laughs.  Really, go back and look at how many shows end up dressing up otherwise serious actors in stupid outfits towards then end of the shows run and you'll likely be able to determine when the writers gave up and the show went downhill.

So can a supposed reality show jump the shark?  Ghost Hunters for instance?  We're not going to see Jason or Grant running around in bunny costumes and they don't technically have writers (though some things are obviously scripted).  For reality shows I think you have to go back and look at how far removed the show is from it's original premise.  Ghost Hunters used to focus a lot on private homes and private individuals with a few commercial venues thrown in.  They also had some fairly obvious scripted tension in the group, disputes among group members, lost equipment, financial issues and so on.  Now?  Not so much.  Most episodes in the last few seasons involve a haunted inn or historical site that undoubtedly has a gift shop just out of view of the cameras.  There isn't any tension in the group either, everyone gets along like long lost relatives at their first family reunion and there's never any logistical or financial concerns built into the show anymore.  Things just go along smoothly and everything works out in the end.  Maybe it really is just that they've worked out the bugs in the show and it's a well oiled machine or maybe they've sold out and don't have time for the petty conflicts that used to make up a portion of the content of the show.

Unfortunately I have to go with the latter answer in no small part because along with the more commercial venues that the Ghost Hunters are investigating now the number of "hauntings" they've found have gone up as well.  It's a little too convenient.  There doesn't seem to be any harm in going to a private individuals home and telling them they don't have ghosts but when you're at a place that needs to sell t-shirts to stay in business not finding evidence of a haunting might harm business.  Places that the Ghost Hunters team has been to and reported haunted have had business shoot up following the visit, it's hard to imagine that there isn't some tacit agreement that Jason and Grant will pronounce the place haunted in advance.  Perhaps there's no formal agreement or paper trail but after following the show for some time it's pretty easy to tell in advance of their investigation which places are going to be haunted and which aren't.

Which brings up another question, is any of their evidence real to begin with?  Obviously the answer is no since they've never actually been able to prove, you know, that ghosts even exist.  The day the Ghost Hunters are able to prove a haunting I'll be happy to give them the benefit of the doubt, until then every noise or shadow that they present as evidence of a ghost has to be taken with a grain of salt.  It seems to me that the correct position for anyone should be to be skeptical without ruling anything out, absence of evidence doesn't equal evidence of absence after all.  Without any scientific proof though (what the Ghost Hunters call scientific is laughably un-scientific) it seems silly to believe in nearly all the paranormal pseudo science on television and on the internet today.  So what Jason and Grant are actually doing is putting on an entertaining show about an interesting topic but with little to no serious content or evidence.

Add it all up and I think we've come to an answer, Ghost Hunters has jumped the shark.  They're far from what they originally set out to do, they've gotten away from their mission of supposing to help people, they've never actually proven anything and what ginned up evidence they do find now seems trite and unimaginative.  At least in the beginning they didn't find spirits everywhere they went and what they did find wasn't always tainted by the fact that someone was trying to make a profit off of their investigation. 

It's too bad really.  I liked Ghost Hunters in the beginning even though I was skeptical of what they were doing.  At least they seemed to be trying.  Now the episodes are easy to predict and the outcomes are largely predetermined.  I guess the only thing left is for Ted McGinley to join the team as an honorary investigator.

Cubs dump Bradley, get Silva dumped on them.

The Cubs finally traded Milton Bradley to the Seattle Mariners in exchange for Carlos Silva and $9 million dollars.  Given that Bradley was owed $21 million over the next two years and Silva is owed $24 during that time the net dollars coming to the Cubs is $6 million and apparently a larger portion of that money is coming in the 2010 season than 2011.  That gives the Cubs a little more financial flexibility to fill their remaining holes but not enough to go out and make a play for big name hitters like Jason Bay and Matt Holliday.  Jim Hendry freed up a few million bucks by dealing Aaron Heilman and Aaron Miles earlier this off season, add that to the net $6 million we're getting from Bradley along with the small amount that Hendry had to begin with ($2-4 million after signing Grabow?)  It would seem that the Cubs have a total of around $10 million dollars to spend, give or take a million (or two).

Word is that the Cubs want to get a center fielder, a relief pitcher and perhaps a starting pitcher if one becomes available at their price.  How are they going to be able to accomplish all this with only $10 million to spend?  First of all Hendry isn't going to be able to basically meet the players asking price like he's done in the past to get a player signed.  If he decides to go after Marlon Byrd it's going to need to be a true negotiation rather than just giving Byrd whatever he wants.

There would seem to be a few descent relievers left on the market but I'm not really enamored with any of them and I'd probably just rather see the team save that money and use one of the many young arms they have available to them.  Matt Capps would have been nice but since he's going to be a National I don't think the Cubs should prepare to spend that kind of money on any other reliever available.  Kiko Calero might be a nice bullpen arm and he won't be as expensive as Capps so he's an option if Hendry wants to spend on a free agent reliever.  Jose Valverde is available as well but the problem is that he wants way to much money for the Cubs to be able to squeeze him in.  He's asking for something like $8-10 million a year, that would devastate the Cubs remaining budget and preclude signing a new starter and center fielder.  Unless Valverde decides to take a one year deal at a much less salary with the thought of hitting the market again next year when there aren't so many closers available I don't see him becoming a Cub.  Besides, with Carlos Marmol already pegged as the Cubs closer would Valverde really want to be a setup man in what would essentially be another contract year?  Doesn't seem likely.

The Cub pursuit of another starting pitcher is a little perplexing to me.  Unless they go the trade route then I don't see much available that would drastically make the rotation better and not impact payroll a great deal.  Jon Garland, Joel Piniero..... no thanks.  Too much money, not enough results.  The Cubs already have multiple candidates to fill in at the back end of the rotation, even until Ted Lilly comes back from surgery that should sideline him until perhaps May or even into early June.  Even with Lilly's injury it wouldn't be out of the question for them to get 120 starts out of their front four of Zambrano, Dempster, Lilly and Wells.  Jeff Samardzjia, Sean Marshall and Tom Gorzelanny  are all capable fill-ins, at least Marshall and Gorzelanny and they'll also compete for the fifth spot.  Samardzjia may not be ready to hold a spot in a major league rotation yet but he's certainly a talented pitcher who is due, at some point, to make an impact in the majors.  Gorzelanny has already made an impact a few years back with the Pirates and might be a great find at the back end of the rotation for a team like the Cubs where he won't be asked to lead the staff.  Sean Marshall can handle pitching in the pen and the rotation though he's perhaps a bit overexposed as a starter.  Spot starting is okay though he should compete well with the others for Lilly's spot and the fifth spot.  I know you can never have too much pitching but in this case other priorities should seem to outweigh the need for another starter.  Besides, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that once upon a time Carlos Silva as at least a league average pitcher in the AL.  He's always been hittable but he's got great control, sounds to me like a bullpen arm, mop up guy, someone to pitch in blowouts until he proves that he's capable of taking on a more highly leveraged role in the pen or even in the roation.  He's certainly back of the rotation material but the Cubs hope to win so I doubt they'll just give him a spot.  At this point he's going to have to earn everything he gets.  The best case scenario I see for him is to pitch well in insignificant innings out of the bullpen and have him work his way up if his health and stuff permits.  He's also a candidate to be released so his career as a Cub could be one of partial redemption or simply quick ending.

If the choice for center field comes down to Marlon Byrd, Scott Podsednick or Rick Ankiel then I think the Cubs should look for the cheapest, shortest contract to sign.  That's probably going to be Podsednick, the least desirable of the bunch.  Ankiels has had trouble staying healthy but he does have some upside with the bat if you ignored his current downward trend line and he also plays descent defense, has an outstanding arm and bats left-handed.  If he's willing to sign a one year contracts with incentives built in to keep the base salary down and protect the team against his health then that's the route I'd go.  As for Byrd, he's going to be the most expensive but he's also been the most productive of the three the past few years.  The main issue with him is that he's played half of his ballgames in a hitters paradise in Arlington with the Rangers during that time.  His home and road splits indicate that he's nothing more than average on the road.  I hate to say it but Jim Hendry seems to not always pay attention to that kind of thing so it's not out of the realm of possibility of him paying Byrd like an .850 OPS guy instead of the .750 OPS guy that he really is.

So, if these were my decisions I'd try to bring back Reed Johnson at something between $2-3 million on a one year contract and try bringing in Ankiel for a similar price.  That could be a very productive platoon in center, good defensively and offensively while not breaking the bank.  It's possible that both could be brought in for the same price of Byrd alone.  That would leave about $4-6 million to spend.  Kiko Calero is probably going to sign somewhere for a couple million bucks on a one or two year deal.  I'd be happy to see the Cubs give him that, 2-years, $4 million total.  The Cubs would then have about $2-4 million left and instead of wasting it on a back of the rotation starter I think they should save it for the mid season trade deadline when their needs for the second half of the season are going to be more clearly defined and they'll have a better idea of what to spend it on.  I hope Jim Hendry is thinking like me.

One other note about this.  If Hendry ends up with $2-4 million left over to be used at the trade deadline that's great, but what happens if the Cubs are out of the playoff race by then?  Well, that money could be carried over to 2011 and the Cubs could also dump a few contract (Podsednick/Byrd/Ankiel/Johnson) as well as guys like Calero, Gorzelanny and Marshall.  Doing so would lower payroll and free up that money to be spent in 2011 to fix whatever went wrong in 2010.  Instead of going into 2011 with say, $6 million to add to payroll perhaps it could be in the range of $12-15 million on top of what other contracts are coming off the books.  Derek Lee is going into the last year of his contract and given his age it's hard to see him getting another deal worth $13 million a year, even if he is as productive in 2010 as he was in 2009.  If the front office starts doing things right from this point on the team could have a descent amount of cash on hand to make the 2011 team competitive.

Acting skill (or the lack thereof?) in the Star Trek Universe.

Okay, so I'll admit it, I'm a Star Trek fan.  No, not like that.  I don't speak Klingon, don't have any Star Trek dolls (action figures, yeah right) and I don't have a hideous red/blue/yellow jumpsuit with pips on the collar hiding in my wardrobe anywhere.  Like I said, I'm not that kind of a fan.

I remember watching the original series in syndication back in the 80's while I was in elementary school and later in jr. and sr. high.  Those episodes were fun to be sure but having not seen many other science fiction television before I didn't have much to base an opinion.  Star Trek: TOS (The Original Series) pretty much WAS my sci fi database.  When The Next Generation came out in the late 80's I wasn't a fan really, I remember watching it occasionally if it was on but I never made a habit of sitting down in front of the television just to see it.  Until about the last year or so I probably hadn't see more than 20-25 episodes of TNG and I couldn't have really cared less.

Waht started it for me was about 9 years ago when Star Trek Voyager was coming to the end of it's seven year run.  It was already in syndication and episodes of it came on at 10 or 11pm on weeknights.  For whatever reason I decided to watch it one day and I liked it well enough that I decided to watch again the following night.  In all it was nothing great but it held my attention at least long enough to get me to watch it again the following night which made it three nights in a row.  And then it happened.  That episode, the third that I'd watched was the Voyager episode "Relativity" which was basically a very involved time travel episode, at the time I thought it was much better done and conceived than anything like it I'd seen before, Star Trek or not.  After watching "Relativity" I didn't miss an episode for quite some time.  I ended up actually liking the series even before Jerri Ryan became a cast member, and a lot more after she did!  This led me to get the dvd's so that I could watch all the episodes in sequential order and it also caused me to do the same for the other series, all five in fact.

By now I've seen each series, start to finish, at least once.  I'm finding it hard to go back a re watch TOS simply because it's so far behind the times now and the episodes tend to deal with things like human nature and emotion more than say, being in space.  I'm sure that was necessary in the 60's due to the relative lack of knowledge compared to how things are today, but for me good sci fi needs to have little or nothing to do with human nature and emotions.  That's also the problem I have with TNG and for that matter Deep Space 9 (DS9) and Voyager though to a lesser degree.  Enterprise may well be the one Star Trek series that suffers the least from the Star Trek writers, producers and creators desire to explore humanity even though they did try to do so on a much more macro scale than the others.  With TOS it was Spock who provided the humanity fodder by not understanding human emotions.  On TNG it was Data and his near constant struggle to learn about humanity and try to achieve it for himself.  DS9 parlayed the Cardassian occupation of Bajor into character emotions for and against, though obviously mostly against.  On Voyager, for the first three seasons they lacked that seminal character, the one who didn't understand humanity and their complex emotional needs and responses.  I suppose the Nelix character may have originally been in mind for that role but perhaps since he was so annoying to begin with they didn't want to saddle him with yet another annoying trait.  And then along came Seven.  Seven of Nine, Tertiary adjunct of Unimatrix Zero One.  Seven was a human being who'd been abducted by the borg at a young age and thus knew very little of what real humans were all about, essentially being limited to some few memories of her mother and father.  Seven had to be taught all about humanity, and who better than Captain Janeway to lead the charge.  Sigh.

At any rate, all five of the major series are similar in the way they present humans and other species and the way they interact with each other.  Nearly every alien that's introduced is extremely one dimensional, shallow and derivative.   The Klingons are warriors who don't do anything passively, the Vulcans logical and near completely unemotional and everyone else (except humans) falls somewhere in between and not two places at once.  They're really all there to show different sides of humanity and how a singular attitude or point of view is bad for such emotional beings as ourselves.  If the Star Trek universe is anything like the real universe then it's going to be pretty easy for us to figure out the aliens we meet even if we never acquire esp or the ability to read minds.  If they look bad they probably are, if they look friendly they probably are but with an ulterior motive.  If they look gay then they're probably friendly good-guys.

I guess the main problem I have with the Star Trek universe is just my humanity and emotional self getting all twisted up and bent out of shape, because what I really don't like is all the bad actors.  Really.  I just watched the Star Trek Enterprise series again, start to finish, and I can tell you that very few of them are good enough actors to hold down a full time TV gig on a series not connect with Star Trek.  Jolene Blalock?  Let's face it, she's hot, that's how she got the job as the ships resident Vulcan.  Good thing she was playing a Vulcan by the way because if she did have to show any emotional range her limitations would have become even clearer.  Scott Bakula has been in the business for quite awhile going back to his days on Quantum Leap.  He's a fine enough actor for a Star Trek series but he's not a natural when it comes to things like.... saying words.  Really, whenever his character is supposed to say something important he immediately goes into "acting" mode, you know, like listening to your grandmothers voice mail greeting or watching the worlds worst high school drama team put on a play that's beyond their scope.  Conner Trinneer had his moments, both good and bad, and while I do think he got better as the series went on he simply isn't a great actor.  The worst of the bunch has to be Anthony Montgomery, the helmsman Travis.  EVERYTHING he says sounds like he's saying it in "acting" mode, nothing comes out of his mouth naturally.  To put it another way, if Jolene Blalock got her job because she is attractive then Montgomery must be the best looking guy on earth because he brought nothing whatsoever as far as acting ability.  Dominic Keating, John Billingsly and Linda Park all hold their own very well against the other cast members, as far as their ability goes all three are light years ahead of the rest of the cast members.  They're the only three I could really see surviving on talent in any other prime time series.

Bad acting isn't just a trait of Enterprise either.  In fact every Star Trek series have their own share of poor actors and actresses.  With Voyager it was Garret Wang, Robert Duncan McNeil and Ethan Phillips.  They were clearly outdone by castmates Robert Picardo, Tim Russ, Robert Beltran, Roxanne Dawson and even Kate Mulgrew.  Whether you like the Janeway character or not you have to admit that Mulgrew is at least a competent actress, although there are points where you wonder if she understand the scene she's in.  Those are few and far between though and she's generally solid in her role.

DS9 suffered from it's share of bad actors or at least from poor characters whom the actors couldn't do anything with .  Quark and the Ferengi are meant to symbolize greed and having that limitation put on them meant that Armin Shimmerman had very little to work with.  Cirroc Lofton's character Jack is poorly acted as well as the Odo character, played by Rene Auberjonois.  Good actors on DS9?  Well there aren't many, but Nana Visitor, Michael Dorn and Terry Ferrel all are at least adequate and create believable characters.

TNG, besides being the first real series to come along after TOS suffered from poor acting just like the rest.  To this day I don't know why Will Wheaton ever got his job, he's just bad.  Denise Crosby and Diane Muldaur don't act well enough to make their characters believable and while I hate to admit it, Marina Sirtis just isn't very good either.  Yep, the lovely and talented Deanna Troi isn't all that talented after all.  On the plus side for TNG they have perhaps more good actors than any of the other series working for them.  Patrick Steward, Brent Spiner and Jonathan Frakes all play their characters very well, Stewart especially, and all come off as believable.  Spiner had a particularly difficult task since his character was an android but he proved that an android can act more naturally as a human being than probably 50% of the other actors involved in Star Trek series.

And how about the Grandaddy of them all, TOS?  Well, I'd like to just say Leonard Nimoy is a good actor and leave it at that, but that's impossible.  I don't have enough time or strength to write about William Shattner and while beloved characters like Scotty, Sulu and Chekov are well liked they are not competently acted.  Nichelle Nichols and DeForrest Kelly (Uhura and Bones) both do well in their parts and are much better than they're counterparts yet they still aren't as good as Leonard Nimoy.  It's tough to imagine that series without him and his character, Spock.  Would we even be talking about Star Trek today if it weren't for Spock?

To sum up, it seems to me that the creators of the Star Trek universe like to hire unknown actors who don't cost a lot of money when they're casting a series.  That would seem to put the actors in a tough spot to me since it's very easy to get typecast on Star Trek.  Very few former cast members go on to bigger and better things afterwords.  A few like Scott Bakula and Tim Russ have had prominent roles but then they're both descent actors or at least have the cache in the industry to keep getting work.  No doubt all of the ST actors keep getting jobs but rarely are they high profile jobs.  Many have taken to directing which may be for the best since their talents in front of the camera aren't always obvious.  Roxanne Dawson, Robert Duncan McNeil and LeVar Burton have all directed episodes of Enterprise and Voyager and probably won't get much acting work unless they're asked to reprise their Star Trek roles in the future.  Maybe unknown actors for Star Trek is for the best, maybe it doesn't muddle the waters with actors who've had extensive work and success in the past.  Star Trek characters are unique in that way at least even if they aren't always well thought out or multidimensional.  At least you don't confuse them with characters from other shows you've seen and let your expectations get in the way.

Cubs options are dwindling this offseason.

by: pageian

If anything Carrie Muskat says can be believed the Cubs are now targeting Marlon Byrd as their choice for centerfield now that Mike Cameron is off the market.  Bad choice.  Didn't Jim Hendry learn anything last year after signing a former Texas Rangers outfielder with the initials MB who just came off a career year?

Cameron would have been a good option but Boston took him off the market on Monday, the same day they inked John Lackey to an $87.5 million dollar deal.  Byrd is fine defensively but he's no Cameron.  The main problem with him however are his home/road splits.  His home .OPS with the Rangers the last three years hasn't been any less than .130 higher than his road .OPS.  His career road .OPS is a pedestrian .716, not what the Cubs need in their outfield or lineup.  Frankly they'd be better of bringing Reed Johnson back for another year or just kissing and making up with Milton Bradley.  Seriously, are they going to find a better hitter at their price on the free agent market this winter than Bradley?  No, not at this point.  Jason Bay is to expensive and doesn't play defense well enough in left field to think he could survive in right field in Wrigley.  Matt Holliday might be able to handle right field but he's going to be even more expensive than Bay.  The Cubs are in a tight place here with fewer and fewer options available.  They should really consider keeping Fukudome in center, bringing back Reed Johnson and talking it out with Bradley.

There is some good news in the baseball world.  Scott Boras is doing it again, having only one bidder for Matt Holliday yet getting them to bid against themselves.  Fortunately for Cub fans, it's the Cardinals.  Let's hope he busts them to the point they have trouble eventually fitting Pujols and his coming massive raise into payroll.  They're not going to let Pujols go so they'll need to make concessions elsewhere if they want both Holliday and Pujols in the same lineup.  For once it's safe to root for Boras.

Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto

by: pageian

This should be required reading for anyone who considers themselves a conservative.  Maybe it should be required reading for anyone who doesn't consider themselves a conservative as well!

Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto

Sitcom Review: The Big Bang Theory

Sitcom Review:  The Big Bang Theory
by: pageian

"The Big Bang Theory" is an American sitcom that premiered in September 2007.  The show revolves around a group of young scientists living in Pasadena, California and working at Caltech.  The main characters are Leonard, played by Johnny Galecki, Sheldon, played by Jim Parsons, Penny, played by Kaley Cuoco, Howard, played by Simon Helberg and Raj, played by Kunal Nayyar.  Leonard is an experimental physicist, Sheldon is a theoretical physicist, Penny is a waitress at the Cheesecake Factory and is an aspiring actress, Howard, often referred to by his last name Wolowitz is an engineer who has done work for the space program.  Raj, also at times referred to by his last name, Koothrappali, is a particle astrophysicist.  It's generally accepted within the group that they're much smarter than most people and that Sheldon (at least in his own mind) is by far the smartest of the group.  The group also consider themselves to be nerds and are often hampered by their lack of social skills and inability to approach and attract women.  Raj for instance cannot speak if a woman is in the room unless he has been drinking alcohol, though one episode had him speaking to a beautiful woman (played by Summer Glau) when unbeknownst to him he had been drinking non-alcoholic beer.

The series starts with Penny moving into the apartment next door to Leonard and Sheldon.  Each of the four male cast members react differently to Penny.  Howard generally tries to impress her and hits on her relentlessly and gets no positive response at all.  Raj simply doesn't speak and often seems uncomfortable when Penny is in the room.  When he needs to make something know he whispers it in one of the other males ear.  Leonard is immediately attracted to Penny but has trouble making his feelings know due to nervousness and the feeling that Penny is too far out of his league.  Sheldon, unlike the others is mostly oblivious to how attractive Penny is and is more or less antagonized by the change in the group dynamic that Penny represents.  Along with his superior intelligence Sheldon also shows symptoms of OCD and has to abide by his own set schedule of events, seating arrangements and other activities down to the kind of cereal he eats on each day of the week.  Penny's presence within the group often upsets Sheldon's schedules or seating requirements and more and provides fodder for some of the most clever wordplay between the characters.

As the show progresses Leonard and Penny develop an on again, off again relationship until the third season when they officially become a couple.  The plots of many of the episodes revolve around Sheldon being put in uncomfortable social situations, Raj and Howard attempting unsuccessfully to attract women, Leonard and Penny getting acclimated to their relationship and occasionally plots will center on some experiment or project that the guys are working on at Caltech.  Relationships within the group are often dynamic and changing though generally everyone simply tries their best to tolerate Sheldon and his anti-social behavior.  Raj and Howard spend a lot of time together and tend to gather around Leonard when he isn't with Penny.  The relationship between Penny and Sheldon is particularly well done, often fluctuating between outright animosity and feigned friendship.  Sheldon sees Penny as somewhat uneducated but knowledgeable about mostly unimportant things such as entertainment and social protocol while Penny often gets upset at Sheldon's inability to change his habits and sometimes appears to feel sympathy for his near childlike social skills.

The writing and acting on the show are both superb.  Given the subject matter of the main casts work it would seem difficult to incorporate much physics, math or science into the dialogue but the writers do it well and the actors all pull it off near flawlessly.  Jim Parson in particular is excellent in his role as Sheldon not only as being extremely smart but also socially awkward and naive.  Helberg and Nayyar both play their parts brilliantly as nerds who wish they were cooler and often compete with one another over their accomplishments.  Galecki does an excellent job of playing Leonard as nervous about his tenuous relationship with Penny but also perhaps the most stable and socially acceptable of the group.

The writing for the show is clever and well thought out and as mentioned before it does a great job of incorporating subject matter into the plot without slowing the show down or boring the viewers.  The plots of the episodes, while not always terribly creative on their own are at the least fairly original and don't tend to fall back on tried and true sitcom stereotypes that have worked in the past that most shows tend to do.  In fact one of the main differences between "The Big Bang Theory" and other shows of its genre is that there is no clear imbecile in the group, such as a Woody Boyd from "Cheers" or Reece from "Malcolm in the Middle".  In fact it's usually the smartest of the characters, Sheldon, who is in the dark about what's going on around him due to his limited use of social skills.  The show does implement the sitcom stereotype of the resident "genius" such as Malcolm from "Malcolm in the Middle" and Erkle from "Family Matters" but in this case it's not just a plot device to be used at the convenience of the writers, it's actually the whole premise of the show and it's also done realistically and not taken to impossible heights.  The intelligence of the show is real since the characters jobs are based on real world jobs and real world science.

"The Big Bang Theory" is finishing up it's third season and the ratings have increased each season, topping out as the #17th highest ranked show during the third season at over 14 million viewers per episode.  This is a big improvement over the first and second seasons when the show ranked 59th and 42nd respectively.  With solid writing, excellent acting, great interpersonal dynamics between the characters and enough character development to make them seem plausible it's hard to see the show being taken off the air anytime soon.  As long as it can continue it's rise in the ratings without going stale (or jumping the shark for that matter) and can last for at least three or four more years it seems as if "The Big Bang Theory" can end up becoming one of the best sitcoms to come out in the last 30 or so years, ranking it with such comedies as "Cheers", "Friends" and "Seinfeld".  In fact the show that "The Big Bang Theory" may resemble most is "Fraiser" with the corollaries of more than one main cast members intelligence (Niles, Fraiser, Leonard, Sheldon, Raj and Howard), a normal person who gets upset at the temperamental nature of the intelligent characters (Marty, Roz and Penny), and a socially awkward character who falls in love with an attractive character who's out of their league (Niles/Daphne, Leonard/Penny).  "Fraiser" lasted eleven years, let's hope "The Big Bang Theory" has that kind of staying power as well.

Sitcom Review: George Lopez

Sitcom Review:  George Lopez
by: pageian

George Lopez was an American sitcom which ran for six seasons between March 2002 and May 2007.  The Show featured comedian George Lopez, an outspoken Mexican American comedian.  The show was losely based on Lopez's comedy similar to how other comedians shows were premised, such as Seinfeld and Everybody Loves Raymond.  The show revolves around George's family, his wife Angie, played by Constance Marie, his daughter Carmen, played by Masiela Lusha, his son Max, played by Luis Armand Garcia, his father-in-law Vic, played by Emiliano Díez, his mother Benny, played by Belita Moreno and his friend Ernie, played by Valente Rodriguez.  Another major set piece of the show revolves around George's job as manager of a factory that produces aircraft landing gear.

Major themes throughout the show are George's adversarial relationship and poor upbringing by his mother Benny, who is a heavy drinker and smoker and often goes out of her way to not show affection.  George also has a learning disability, dyslexia, that has been passed on to his son Max which makes it difficult for him to succeed in school and also causes problems for George at his job.  Other themes revolve around Carmen's behavior, boyfriends and private school, Angie's job as a cosmetics sales woman and later as a wedding planner and George's dimwitted friend Ernie being taken advantage of by women and his parents.  Multiple episodes are also devoted to Georges search for his biological father and later on his relationship with his fathers family.

There's nothing groundbreaking or earth shattering about the show.  Most of the episode plots have been done before, and perhaps better, by other sitcoms.  The show tries very hard to appeal to the sentiments of the working man by portraying George as a hard working person who's climbed his way up the corporate ladder to become manager.  The characters seem to always be afraid of losing their jobs, of the plant closing or moving, being bought and taken over by another, large company or having to take pay cuts so that the company can continue to operate without having to sacrifice any jobs.  It's a bit too much and often trite how the aircraft landing gear plant is run, it seemed like every season of the show had two or three episodes that revolved around at least one of the main characters job security or the plants ability to stay in business.  It's done in a manner derivative of '90's sitcoms like "Roseann" and "Grace Under Fire" which tended to focus on the adversity that the common working man goes through trying to stay afloat during hard times.  Those plot devices are hard to buy into at times when the economy is doing well which was the case for all three of the mentioned shows.  Job security and economic hardship would seem to be an easy script to fall back on and implies a lack of creativity from the writers.

You'll rarely find yourself laughing out loud at the jokes in the show.  Most of them are telegraphed well in advance so you know what's coming and aren't very well written to begin with.  Again, it's all been done before.  Most of the characters are over-acted, particularly Benny, Ernie and Vic.  Ernie is the dimwitted comic straight man who's not actually very funny, Benny is a mean spirited firebrand and Vic is a hotblooded Cuban heart surgeon.  All three characters can become particularly annoying if you watch the episodes one after another and see them acted so poorly and to such bad writing.  It all comes off rather amateurish with poorly developed characters and all-to-convenient plot devices.  While watching the show you can't help but think that had the show been better written and directed it could have been so much more than it was.

George Lopez lasted six years and that was perhaps a couple years too long.  The ratings dropped every year it was in production yet Lopez himself was surprised and upset when ABC finally pulled the plug in 2007.  To it's credit the show never seemed to "Jump the Shark", a termed used to indicate when a show starts an obvious decline and usually starts attempting unrealistic plots and episodes that don't work without the viewer having to suspend reality in order to buy into what's going on.  It's possible that the show didn't jump the shark simply because the characters were so one dimensional and poorly developed that the unrealistic and convenient plots and episodes where always there from the start. 

In all George Lopez is mildly entertaining if for no other reason than watching it to see how badly written and conceived the show is.  Don't expect many laughs and don't expect to be awed by the acting or writing.  It's pretty safe to go ahead and delete the episodes off of your DVR after you've watched them once without fear that you'll want to go back and watch any of them a second time.

Keith Law on the Braves and Rafael Soriano

by: pageian

Keith Law makes a good argument (subscription content) for offering type A free agents arbitration.  Here's the takeaway:

"The lesson here for clubs wavering on offering arbitration to a Type A free agent is that having the player accept against your wishes is not the end of the world. If the player is good and his market was hurt by the Type A designation, you should still be able to dump the salary, at the least, if not actually trade him for something of value. Atlanta's decision to offer might not look like the right one because Soriano accepted, but it was the right call, and I'd rather take the risk of having a good player accept than throw away the chance for two high draft picks the way Dodgers did by not offering a deal to Randy Wolf."

He could add the Chicago Cubs to the list for not offering arbitration to Rich Harden and missing out on a draft pick (Harden was a type B free agent so he would have netted the Cubs one pick).  Type B free agents don't cost the signing team a pick like type A's do so that wouldn't have depressed the market for Harden.  The worst case scenario would have been Harden accepting arbitration from the Cubs and then they not be able to trade him and his salary.  So, even in the worst case scenario they'd end up with a very talented pitcher on their staff who would have been earning roughly $7-9 million dollars.  I realize payroll is tight but you have to acquire talent every chance you get.  Letting good players like Harden go without any compensation is simply a waste.  Remember, the Cubs traded some marginally talented players to Oakland halfway through the 2008 season for him, guys like Sean Gallagher and Eric Patterson.  They may never pan out as good big league players but they basically bought the Cubs a little over a years worth of starts from Harden and now the Cubs have passed on a chance to recoup some of that value with a draft pick.

Large market teams like the Cubs shouldn't be in a position where they have to pass up offering arbitration to players like Harden for fear that they'll hamper payroll.  That's the reality though and Jim Hendry doesn't seem to be willing to take a chance, it seems he'd rather forfeit talent and play it "safe" by spending every penny he can on free agents rather than risking paying an extra million more than he want's to on an arbitration case.  Congrats to Frank Wren and the Braves for taking a chance by offering arbitration to Rafael Soriano and getting a useful piece back in Jesse Chavez.

Facebook Security

by: pageian

Here's a nice, short write up on Facebook Security and Privacy following the changes made to the service last week.  Makes you wonder how tough a job it would be to enhance and protect so much personal data when the site is growing exponentially and they're facing competition from the likes of Twitter and, to a much lesser degree, MySpace.  As always it's extremely important to have a good password protecting your account.  Make it as many digits as you can remember, use capital and lower case letters, numbers and characters (#$% etc..).  And if you're really paranoid change the password every month or so.  Change it on your e-mail account, computer login, online banking accounts and anywhere else that holds personal data that you don't want anyone else to get a hold of.

The Reds non-tender Johnny Gomes.

by: pageian

On Saturday, December 12th the Cincinnati Reds non-tendered outfielder Johnny Gomes, meaning there is a good chance he won't be back with the team in 2010.  Gomes is eligibile for arbitration and would have likely gotten a hefty raise from his 2009 major league salary of $700,000 plus $100,000 in incentives that he reached.  His 2010 salary will likely end up in the $3 million a year range.

Normally non-tendered players aren't all that interesting simply because the team that's letting them go knows the most about the player and have usually deemed him not worthy of the salary he's about to get by going to arbitration.  Gomes is a bit of a special case though because he will likely be worth what he's going to earn in 2010 if his performance in 2009 is any guide.  He finished the season with 20 home runs in only 314 at bats.  On the season he had a very good OPS of .879 and an OPS+ of 127.  Those are the numbers of a productive player, and the Reds can use all the productive players they can get.  They were expected by some to contend in 2009 after their pitching staff shined in 2008.  They had a lot of young talent either in the majors or on the way.  Things didn't work out that way though.  Some of the young pitchers got hurt while some of the veteran starters struggled.  The offense wasn't much help either, scoring only 36 more runs that the Pirates who finished last in the National League in runs scored.

At the trade deadline last summer General Manager Walt Jocketty traded erstwhile third baseman Edwin Encarnacion and two young power arms to the Toronto Blue Jays for aging, oft injured third baseman Scott Rollen.  The Jays picked up the remaining $4 million dollars of Rolens salary in 2009 but don't appear to be liable for any of the approximately $11 million he's owed in 2010.  Essentially the Reds traded three young, cost controlled players for the right to pay Rolen $11 million in 2010.  They may have marginally improved themselves at third base provided that Rolen can give them 120+ games in the coming year.  He's a better defender and a better hitter than Encarnacion but in most years he's not much more than a payroll liability due to his health.  It wouldn't be any surprise if the Reds get nearly nothing from Rolen and then let him walk via free agency or possibly retire.  For their $11 million dollar investment that also cost a younger third baseman with power and two power bullpen arms the Reds could end up getting essentially nothing in return.

When you look at that deal and the amount of money it's costing Cincinnati you come to realize why they couldn't afford to take a chance on Gomes.  They've maneuvered themselves into a spot where adding an additional $3 million dollars or so to payroll can't be done and it's cost them a productive hitter.  Add Gomes to the cost of acquiring Rolen and that trade starts looking even worse than before.

The Reds just don't seem to be a very well run franchise.  They don't seem to have a plan or direction that they're going in, no organizational philosophy a la Billy Beane in Oakland or Andrew Friedman in Tampa Bay.  The Reds appear to try to do things on the cheap, a quick fix here and a big name there.  $11 million for Rolen who's likely to spend a large chunk of time on the DL and doesn't have nearly the power he once had.  $12.5 million for a closer who, while he's good, is largely unnecessary  for a team with a limited budget and no realistic chance of contending.

Teams around the majors like the Kansas City Royals and Pittsburgh Pirates need to be taking notes and trying to grok what's going on in Cincinnati if they want to someday break away from their losing ways.  When Dusty Baker loses his job eventually, and here's guessing it's going to be sooner rather than later, if anyone else gives him a managing job we'll know whether they were paying attention or not.  Some people just never seem to get it.

Johnny Gomes had a .338 on-base percentage in 2009, not great but apparently it was too high for Baker who, as we know, doesn't like it when men get on base for fear that they're going to "clog up the bases".  Perhaps Gomes will hook on with a team that appreciates stats like OPS and they'll give him a shot to see if he's found a new level of production or if 2009 ends up being an out lier.

#5 Purdue 73, Alabma 65

by: pageian

Purdue won it's first road game on an opponents home court Saturday night by beating Alabama 73-65 in Tuscaloosa.  It was perhaps the second toughest game the Boilermakers have played this season after beating Tennessee on November 23rd in the Paradise Jam.  The only other major opponent the Boilers have played this year is Wake Forrest, whom they beat by eleven at Mackey Arena on December 1st.  They also have  #7 West Virginia scheduled for January 1st, three days after they open the Big Ten season with a game at Iowa.  WVU may end up being a tougher game than anyone in the Big Ten can provide and while the game will be played in Mackey it still should go a long way toward determining if the Boilers are for real or if they've just gotten fat off teams that aren't nearly as talented as they should be playing.

It would be nice if Purdue had scheduled a few more tough games this year before the Big Ten season starts, teams like Valparaiso, Ball State and South Dakota State won't do much to prepare them for Michigan, Michigan State and Ohio State.  Right now Purdue is tied for it's fourth-best start in school history with the 1992-93 and 1937-38 teams.  I'd gladly trade the chance of being undefeated for a couple more games that would be real tests for the team.  That would do more for their chances of advancing far into the NCAA tournament than a perfect record against a bunch of also rans.

Howard Zinn and public education.

by: pageian

Great post by Adam Baldwin at Big Hollywood regarding Howard Zinn and his attempt to indoctrinate students into his blame America first view of the world.  In Zinn's best selling book "A People's History of the United States" he states that:

"Objectivity is impossible, and it is also undesirable… because if you have any kind of a social aim… then it requires that you make your selection on the basis of what you think will advance causes of humanity.". 

Essentially Zinn is arguing for the old liberal mantra that it's better to look good than to feel good, that being politically correct is more important than actually being correct.  Zinn believes that you can change history to whatever you want it to be as long as your motives for doing so are to influence those studying your version of history towards socialism and socialist causes.

This is the crux of socialism to me, the facts don't really matter, it's what you want to believe and want to be real that is important.  If you want to believe in global warming or if it's important to you because of the social credibility it gives you with people who like to act like they care then you can ignore any inconvenient facts.  Facts such as the temperature hasn't gone up in over ten years, scientists have been routinely hiding and destroying any data that doesn't support their predetermined conclusions and that they've been lashing out at anyone who disagrees with them in an attempt to kill any discussion on the matter.  The facts, in this case, don't really matter to liberals because they think their goals supersede any need for intellectual honesty.  Liberal goals, by the way, always seem to revolve around some anti-capitalist agenda.  In a good liberals mind everything that's wrong with the world always comes back to capitalism even if the facts and real history show that capitalism has done more to raise the quality of life around the world many times over compared to socialism.  The fact that nearly every country that's tried socialism has failed miserably and lowered the standard of living while inviting miserable suffering and human rights abuses doesn't compute with a liberal.  They think they know better and if only they had the final say socialism would instantly work.

These are the types of things Howard Zinn is trying to bring to public education.  Socialism and history as he sees fit.  He ignores the many great things his own country has done and focuses on the things that he thinks are bad, distorts the truth and molds it into a reality that blames America and capitalists for everything that he perceives to be wrong.

Baseball winter meetings

by: pageian

Major League Baseballs winter meetings have come and gone with less activity than most fans had hoped for.  There were a few major signings and a bad contract or two handed out but overall most of the major story lines for this offseason failed to develop.  The Chicago Cubs, hamstrung by Milton Bradley's attitude and contract didn't make any significant moves because they're unable to take on any payroll until they know how much of Bradley's salary they'll have to pay.  None of the big three free agents, Matt Holliday, Jason Bay and John Lackey landed a contract and in fact the main contenders for their services have yet to be clearly defined.  The Mets are in on Bay along with the Mariners and the Red Sox.  The Mariners are also interested in Lackey and while there hasn't been much evidence to support the notion that the Yankees are in on him they can't be ruled out yet either.  The Cardinals have apparently made an initial offer to Holliday and it appears that it's the only one he's received so far.  No doubt Scott Boras is going to turn it down and with no other suitor in sight Holliday may not sign until most of the other significant free agents have found a home and the market for him becomes more clearly defined.

Hang in there, we've got a long way to go this offseason and with few teams being in a position to spend big things are likely to unfold slowly.  I wouldn't be surprised to see a few more blockbuster trades this winter like the one that brought Curtis Granderson to the Yankees.  Roy Halladay has yet to be moved and it may well take a three-team trade for players like Bradley and Pat Burrell to get traded.  It should make for a fun, if slow developing winter.