Audio
DISRUPT - True Creators (Werk Discs)
KUSH ARORA feat JUAKALI - Seed Haffi Grow (Kush Arora Productions)
PINCH feat JUAKALI - Trauma (Tectonic)
DUSK & BLACKDOWN feat TRIM - The Bit's (Keysound)
ARVE HENRIKSEN – Wind and Bow (Rune Grammofon)
LOST IN HILDURNESS – Casting (12 Tonar)
7 HERTZ - Oxwich Bay (Birdwar)
PLURAMON feat JUTTA KOETHER – Can’t Disappear (Karaoke Kalk)
SAMAMIDON - Wild Bill Jones (Bedroom Community)
JOHN FAIRHURST with NANCY ELIZABETH - Passing Time (Yesternow)
CLARO INTELECTO – Dependant (Modern Love)
OCTOBER - Homosapiens (Caravan)
A MADE UP SOUND - Sleepwalk (Subsolo)
SAWAKO - It's Not On Purpose (Anticipate)
GULTSKRA ARTIKLER - Krovinka Moya (Miasmah)
PETER WRIGHT - Punishment Drugs (Students Of Decay)
WONDER - Full Metal Jacket (Wonderland)
SARANTIS - Outlaw Dub (Subsonik)
PINCH - Lazarus (Tectonic)
STRANGER SON OF WB - Bidding For Kidneys (Marquis Cha Cha)
PETER BRODERICK - Another Glacier (Type)
This trade comes in from Nick in Ripon, California.
Giving: Ryan Howard, #102; Torii Hunter, #95; Jacque Jones, #48
Getting: Matt Cain, 2007 Bowman Chrome; Brett Myers, 2007 Topps Finest; Jimmy Rollins, 2007 Allen & Ginter
Nick offers a three-fer, and I've decided to go for it. Rollins is rockin' a mustache that makes him look like he means business. Also, the Bowman Chrome and Finest cards feel about as thick and as glossy as credit cards. I don't see the appeal of those two base sets.
Nick does, though. In his enclosed letter he writes, "Topps Finest is probably my favorite set this year, probably because it costs a fortune." Well, Nick, for my money, this Goudey set looks like it's hard to beat. Hope you enjoy these cards. And don't give Jacque Jones no guff--he's not in a very good mood.
The Great Goudey Trade-Away resumes!
This trade comes in from Samuel in Houston, Texas.
Giving: Derrek Lee, #35 (red back)
Getting: Terry Pendleton, 1985 Fleer
Samuel's getting a pretty great card of Derrek Lee, but let's cut to the chase: "[Terry] played in 65 consecutive games for Cards before insect bite on leg forced him from lineup..."
What, exactly, was Pendleton doing when he was attacked by Vincent D'Onofrio's character in Men in Black? Way to go, Long-Ago Fleer Copywriter, you've piqued my interest.
Stylized 3D illustration about brilliant failures in terms of business initiatives.
More at Sevensheaven.nl
Deerpark Heights, Queenstown, February 2005*.It is exactly one year since Cowboy and I landed in NZ, bleary-eyed and ignorant.We always said to each other that we would give the experiment at least a year before coming to any kind of decision about eventual duration. We knew there would be hard times; times we would want to pack up and ship back to the place where more people know our names.
As mentioned, the outward facing Reviews & Lists page has been subdivided into two pages: Reviews (for all of a member's reviews, most recent on top), and Top 10 Lists (with the attractive poster view).
The other changes are more subtle, I suppose. The multiple helpful votes has been turned off -- so each member can only vote once, same as with flags. We added an underline to the names of pages in the sidebar, to make it clearer to the folks who didn't recognize those things as clickable buttons. In the Friends/Faves Activity block, when it shows someone has written a review, the movie name still links to the movie display page, but the person's name links to their Reviews page, and thus you'll see their review prominently at the top. This will save you trying to find their new review from the pages of reviews on the movie page. Let's see... what else? I believe the fans and faves stuff will be more solid, and work better... please let me know. Oh yea - FANS now show up mixed into your outward facing Friends & Faves page. That's a little more fun. Anyway, enjoy these things. And the new Search. Lots of stuff to play with today. Keep in touch.
Yeah, I know. I haven't posted lately. But I have good reason: I've been busy. First, I moved out of my apartment. Second, I've been fleshing out the idea of 'ToppsWorld.' I've got it separated into five zones (like Disney World's 'lands' concept): HQ New York (or simply 'New York'); WizKidZone; Parallel Universe; Training Camp; and Duryealand. There would also be an open-air bus that would connect all four parts, the Bazooka Tram. Finally, the park would be rounded out by the on-premises hotel, Chez O Pee Chee.
Park Checklist for 'ToppsWorld'
HQ New York
The Haunted Vault
Brooklyn: Topps Museum & Hall of Fame
Garbage Pail Alley
Don't Get Dumped! (water ride, each car is shaped like a case of High-Series 1952 Topps)
Mr. Mantle's Wild Ride
A-Rod's Bullshit Home Run Sidewalk (500 squares of cement with a different number on each one)
Hero Parade (every day at 11am)
Heritage Cafe (restaurant)
The Warehouse (store)
Connects to other areas and Chez O Pee Chee via Bazooka Tram
WizKidZone
Push Pops Candy A-Go-Go
Dr. Shorin's Mixed-Up Wacky Package Fun House
HeroClix Something Or Other Ball Pit
Bowman Town (rides for small kids; Canadian-themed)
All Star Rookies (restaurant)
Topps of the Class (store)
Connects to other areas and Chez O Pee Chee via Bazooka Tram
Parallel Universe
Refractor Mountain
Sequentially-Numbered Experience
Escape From eTopps!
Chrome (restaurant)
Rip Party (store)
Connects to other areas and Chez O Pee Chee via Bazooka Tram
Training Camp
The Dotted Line (make your own card, sign a fake contract)
Topps Hero Village (batting cages, basketball hoop games, football pass exercises, other stuff)
Hey Mister! (get autographs from visiting sports stars and legends, live and in-person!)
Signatures (restaurant)
The Parking Lot (store)
Connects to other areas and Chez O Pee Chee via Bazooka Tram
Duryealand
Dream Street: 1) regular house filled to burst with cards, 2) Swap Meet: trade for special World of Topps cards, 3) Shorin's Candy Shop: olde timey candy shop sells reprint cards in 5 cent packs (also Duryealand restaurant), 4) Topps Factory
The Topps Factory Tour, hosted by animatronic Bazooka Joe (actually partially reprogrammed cast-off Chuck E. Cheese with blond wig, inexplicable eye patch and backwards hat)
Factory Store (largest store on premises)
Connects to other areas and Chez O Pee Chee via Bazooka Tram
Chez O Pee Chee Hotel & Convention Center
XFractor (nightclub on premises)
Mergers'N'Buyouts (store)
Greg Oden's Knee (restaurant/movie theater with lots of legroom)
You may laugh at the idea of 'ToppsWorld' (and it's okay – it's funny), but the more I thought about it this week, the more plausible it became. Especially with Eisner at the helm. Because for all the boom that the baseball card hobby has enjoyed this year, cards have yet to make the jump from 'hobby' to 'mainstream kitsch' (which is really where it should be).
On a related note, Topps has started selling t-shirts on its website. And while that's a fine start, are those same shirts available at stores like Urban Outfitters? Or even Wal-Mart? Cards may be what Topps think it sells, but of course any psychology student can tell you that what Topps sells is much larger than 2.5" x 3.5".
Just you wait and see: after a few years of smart marketing, a pipe dream like 'ToppsWorld' won't seem so far fetched.
Hi - it's Meghan again. You may have been wondering about how things are going with search. Well, last week we switched to a new engine on the back end. You can't see it, but it is improving results and it gives us the flexibility to make further improvements.
Over the next few days you'll see the first visible change on the site: auto-complete suggestions. As you type in the search box, you will see a list of movie titles that match what you type. Now you can find "Ratatouille" or "Koyaanisqatsi", even if you aren't sure how to spell it.
It will be live on Friday, and I'm curious to hear what you think. This change and some others we're working on were mentioned in the previous search post.
A prototype of the Seamour Sheep Illuminative Edition on the hand of his proud creator.
The Seamour Sheep Illuminative Edition is a soon to be released USB-powered lamp edition of the Seamour Sheep comic character.
Bringing the total number of confirmed killings to 10 in 2007, AFP reports that two men were arrested with a dead mountain gorilla infant which they were hoping to sell for $8000.
Rangers in Democratic Republic of Congo on Tuesday arrested two men with a dead mountain gorilla near Virunga National park amid fears over the fate of the endangered species, an official said.
The suspected traffickers were seized with the female infant gorilla around 10 kilometres (six miles) from the edge of the park, where renewed fighting has blocked rangers from tracking 72 gorillas, said Samantha Newport, spokeswoman for Wildlife Direct.
The abridged version: One of the administration staff appears to be permanently attached to her ipod, to the extent that it accompanies her to the kitchen while she makes cups of tea, and sits on the counter while she swivels about it, completing the task. It looks like a poltergeist playing swingball, writ large. Perhaps it isn't really an ipod, but a device which beams petty bureaucracies
Here's a question for you. I'd like more people to engage with these new features -- for instance, finding reviewers with movie tastes they like, and saving them. How do you suggest this spread?
Now before you say "send an email out to all netflix subscribers" or "put a little announcement of it on the netflix home page" let me reframe: let's say we did that. What would the announcement say? How do you describe what these things are, and how do you entice people to explore?
You all pretty much use these new features. How do you talk about them with your friends?
Four people in one office turning 50 get their portraits as a birthday present.
The world is a funny place. There's a story in today's New York Times about the proliferation of mashup videos on YouTube of Soulja Boy's song "Crank That." One of the specific examples that the reporter cites is a version composed of clips from Disney animated films. The reporter begs the question if the mashup is protected by parody (and therefore is not subject to a potential lawsuit from Disney), and goes on to mention Disney's fierce history of suing for copyright infringement.
So why bring this up? Because it's funny in two ways. First, it would be funny to be in a courtroom where a judge or jury is made to watch a mashup video of Tigger and Bambi singing hiphop, and second, Michael Eisner, that old Disney attack dog, is now at the helm of Topps, a company that proudly markets at least two different products based entirely on parody (the mainstay Wacky Packages and the newcomer 'Hollywood Zombies'). I wonder if the Topps board room will still display boxes of Wacky Packages on the credenza.
Yes, the fix is in: the Topps board approved the sale to Eisner, Tornante, and Madison Dearborn, and it's my guess that the Mothership came back around to him after they got a glimpse of what life with Upper Deck would be like (sometimes money isn't the only deciding factor). So what can/should we expect from the new, privatized Topps? I'm holding out for three things to happen:
1. Packs of cards going down in price
2. Public tours of the Topps factory
3. The Wonderful World of Topps: a themepark in Lower Manhattan featuring such rides as Refractor Mountain and Mr. Mantle's Wild Ride.
Like most people, I have a pretty large cache of photos in iPhoto. 7000 and counting. I need a way to organize them and the iPhoto keywords always left me feeling as if something was lacking.
Along comes Keyword Manager. This is tagging for iPhoto at its best. Slowly but surely I am making it through my old photo libraries adding tags for easier searching. The tags are hierarchical, meaning when I assign a picture a tag for me, it also inherits the tags of My Family, Family and People, allowing for later searching by different scopes, if you will.
Wildlife Extra.com reports on a VERY positive outlook for three Mauritius birds that featured in Last Chance To See, namely the Mauritius Kestrel, the Pink Pigeon and the Echo Parakeet. These numbers are looking very good, and have even resulted in the birds being downlisted by the IUCN from Critically Endangered to merely Endangered.
Mauritius Parakeet–a green parrot, males of which have a bright red bill - was once down to just 10 birds in the 1970s, but there are now some 320 birds living in the wild, and the IUCN has announced it has moved from Critically Endangered to Endangered. This good news for conservation adds to an increasing list of conservation success stories from the island of Mauritius, mostly due to the work of the Mauritius Wildlife Foundation and the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, who concentrate much of their conservation work there.
This is the third such downlisting to occur on Mauritius in recent years due to their efforts. In 2000, Pink Pigeon, down to just nine birds a decade earlier, was downlisted to Endangered and now numbers 400 birds. Likewise, Mauritius Kestrel, went from just four birds in 1974 and now numbers approximately 1,000 individuals.
Whew, finally got around to finishing this...
June 19, 2007
A lazy day walking around San Francisco following the Barbary Coast Trail. We did manage to get over the Haight-Ashbury (what do you mean there is a Gap in the Haight Ashbury!?). Drinks at the Tornado with some amazing sausages from next door. We're tired and head back to Jen & Howard's early to watch TV and pass out.
June 20, 2007
We spent the morning driving to the Tenaya Lodge, just south of Yosemite National Park. Nothing exciting to report. After dinner with the HFD teams from around the US and a meeting with our trail guides, we head to bed. Early.
June 21, 2007
3:00 AM — Yes, that's a wake up call. Oh hell its early. I have to meet the team in the lobby for a departure at 3:30 AM to head into the park. Its an hour long drive to the trail head. A few more hours of sleep would be quite welcome.
Steph's first view of Half Dome from the Panorama TrailWe're on the trailhead at dawn's first light. For this trip we're hiking up the Mist Trail past Vernal Falls and Nevada falls and then meeting the Half Dome trail for the remainder of the outbound leg. The Mist Trail is a steeper ascent than the John Muir Trail, but it shaves off more than a mile of hiking. The first major climb of the day is at Vernal Falls where we ascend a few hundred stone steps to the top of the falls. The trail is pretty steep and one of my teammates was having trouble on this first climb. I handed her a Hammer Gel (energy gel) which she promptly slurped down and kicked her butt back into gear for the rest of the day.
Climbing Nevada Falls
After Vernal Falls the trail continues along the river toward Nevada Falls. More. Stone. Steps. Yuck. The morning is uneventful as we reach the top of the falls, stop a short break at the restrooms and a bit to eat. So far, the views have beeb incredible. As the sun rises higher in the sky and the clouds burn off it turns into a really nice morning. For the next 2 miles or so the trail is on pretty level ground, but it has become quite sandy, making the hiking a little more challenging. We stop at the final "bathroom" of the hike outbound, its little more than some eco-friendly portapotties built in the woods. I'm feeling great and ready to tackle the rest of the hike up to Half Dome.
Or maybe not. 20 minutes more hiking and I'm sick. Wanting to puke on the side of the trail sick. After an extended rest out in the woods, a few hundred feet off the trail I get my shit together and start hiking again. Slowly. John, one of my teammates, and Sam, our guide, walk with me as I slowly get myself back together. I'm not sure why I'm having issues today, but its definitely not making this section of the hike pleasant. As we approach mid-day, the elevation increases and we become more exposed to the sun as the trees thin and we start to get a good view of Half Dome. Holy crap, I can't believe I am about to climb this thing.
Quarter Dome (forground)
Half Dome (background)
Note the people walking up the switchbacks on Quarter Dome
When people discuss hiking Half Dome there are really two things that stand out: The switchbacks up to the top of Quarter Dome and the cables up to the top of Half Dome. The cables were nerve wracking, this is before I even saw them up close. Switchbacks are just something to climb. But I've never seen switchbacks like these. Carved into the side of Quarter Dome, the switchbacks cling to the side of the rock, snaking up above most of the trees, covered in small pieces of granite that has come off Quarter Dome. These little pebbles are like ball bearings under foot. Be careful...
John, coming up the switchbacksI'm afraid of heights, but I usually manage to keep it under control. Not today. Just climbing the switchbacks, crowded with people in both directions, I was getting nervous. I kept thinking, "How in the hell am I going to manage to climb DOWN this stupid thing?!" Every time I looked back down the stairs toward my teammates I realized how quickly we were ascending. My heart was racing, a combination of altitude — I was at sea level ~24 hours ago and we're hiking at over 8000' MSL — and my own fears being tweaked. Hard. I don't think I'd have been so concerned if I knew and trusted everyone in my general vicinity. But all these strangers moving around me made me nervous... I couldn't wait to get to the top for a quick lunch break before tackling the final climb...
Finally! We get to the top of Quarter Dome, just below the cables and the peak of Half Dome. Hell yeah! Time for food, at least whatever I can force myself to eat. Nothing in the pack is looking good right now, so I stick to a protein shake — I mixed up the powder into a spare Nalgene bottle — and some trail mix. The whole team is here, ready to make the final climb, so we head over to the cables.
The Cables
The line is 100+ people deep to even approach the cables. On the cables there are probably 30 - 40 people climbing up the ~600' to the top of Half Dome. And its taking them each ~1 hour to make the climb, due to the traffic moving up and down. While I previously swore I was going to go it without any safety harness, my fears win out. I strap a harness around my waist to give me a little extra confidence... Of course, the harness is nothing more than some stout rope looped around my waist with a carabiner used to clip on to the cables as I go up the rock.
Unfortunately, the pictures don't really show the cables too well, so let me describe the scene. As you approach the base of the cables you'll see a pair of cables anchored to the granite with ~1 yard between them. Every 10 feet or so there is a pair of poles mounted perpendicular to the rock which supports the cables, holding them ~1 yard off the rock. Spanning between the gap horizontally between the poles is a 2X4 which provides solid footing as you reach each pole. The cable itself is approximately 1/2" in diameter made of twisted steel, much like what you'll see anchoring a telephone pole to the ground. This will hurt your hands if you don't have gloves, so most people climbing Half Dome bring gloves for the final ascent. (Honestly, even with gloves it was a painful experience). Generally people climb up in between the cables, ascending on the right and descending on the left, however, some people choose to climb on the outside of the cables which is reported to have better footing, due to the rock surface not being smoothed as much by people's boots.
Climbing the cables
I've been standing around for an hour or so watching people climb the cables ahead of me. My heart is racing. I've watched too many water bottles, cameras and all kinds of other crap fall from people's packs and bounce down hundreds of feet before falling out of sight and heading into the valley below. Holy shit.
I walk up to the cables and clip my carabiner on the cable. I'll do this another 50+ times each direction. Sam, one of our guides, is directly behind me, urging me on. Did I mention I really don't like heights? The fall off the face of Half Dome is quite a long way down and people have died doing this. In fact, someone died the weekend before. Why do people keep mentioning that?
We start walking up. I'm grabbing the cable with all of my might and trying to find good footing. Standing on the face of this rock, hanging on and trying not to slide downward is actually quite difficult when you may not move for minutes at a time. Especially with people descending the cable directly to my left, brushing past me, bumping backpacks and scaring the crap out of me each time. About 50 feet up the cables I quit. Well, I tried to. I turn back to Sam and tell her that there is no way I can do this. She tells me I can. Damn, if she can do this, so can I. Right? RIGHT? I "nut up" and keep heading up the cables. Every pole that I pass I need to stop and rest. My heart is racing, my adrenaline is pumping and I am starting to feel that we're at almost 9000' abouve sea level, making breathing more difficult than I'm used to. After almost an hour we have climbed the cables and walk on to the top of Half Dome. WOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOO!
On Top!I collapse on top of Half Dome, grab a drink and take a look around me. I don't want to talk to anyone. I just want to look at everything around me and put out of my mind the fact that in less than an hour I'm going to have to do it in reverse as I climb back down. Going up is optional. Going down is mandatory!
After lots of pictures we head down the cables and the switchbacks for the ~10 mile hike back to the trailhead. This par of the hike is uneventful, except for the searing pain in both of my big toes. Every step is painful for the last 4 of 5 miles, and I cannot wait to get back to the hotel. More than 12 hours after we began we return to the trailhead, hop on a bus and head back to Tenaya Lodge.
While I should be hungry, and I am certainly ready to drink to beers I picked up at Russian River a few days earlier, I find that my body refuses to allow me the pleasure of either. A few sips of beer. A few small bites of food. I can't put anything else in my body. Steph forces me to drink a protein shake — almost 20 miles of hiking and I've hardly eaten all day... this is not a good thing — and then we head to bed. Thankfully its over.
In retrospect, this was the dumbest thing I have ever done. Seriously crazy. Stupid. Possibly deadly, although not very likely. Exhausting. Painful.
I can't wait to do it again. When are we going back to Yosemite?
This trade comes in from Dave in Wilsonville, Oregon.
Giving: Nomar Garciaparra, #159 (red back)
Getting: Jesse Barfield, 'Best Outfield Arm', 1992 Upper Deck
Dave writes, "The card is supposed to commemorate Barfield as having the best outfield arm in the AL. Shouldn't it depict him actually using it?" Well put, Dave, but like all the other hare-brained photos the editors at Upper Deck chose to use, this one does get the point across. Look at Barfield holding those arms aloft! Standing there in the batter's box, acknowledging the crowd like a sideshow strongman.
Look! Even the Yankee coach is applauding him! (Yes, I realize that he's most likely not an egomaniac, and is instead instructing a runner on third to hold up.)
It was evening, the silence interrupted only by the occasional flick of pages turned by two readers, prone, side by side under a thick duvet. "There's a spider up there", the woman observed. The tone was calm, but it portended a mounting concern. "Maybe you should put it outside. There's no way I can reach it." The man stared at the woman in mild disbelief, such that she felt it was time to
Audio
Diplo - Diplo Rhythm - Big Dada
Flying Lotus - Vegas Collie - Warp
Skream - Sub Island - Soul Jazz
Winston Flames - In a Armagideon - Soul Jazz
Jeffrey Lewis - End Result - Rough Trade
Nancy Elizabeth - I'm Like the Paper - Leaf
Robert Wyatt - A Beautiful Peace - Domino
Trash All Stars - On the Bushside - Green Zone
Babilonci - Cini se da Imamo Hit - Green Zone
Public Enemy - Harder than you think - SlamJamz
shukar Collective - Oh, Girl... Eastblok Music
Jesse Zubot - Dementia - Drip Audio
Hotplate - A Father's Grip - World in Winter Recordings
Zico Chain - Where Would you Rather Be? - Hassle
Black Lips - Katrina - Vice
Heavy Trash - Pure Gold - Yep Roc
Vincent Black Lighting - Good Job, Proper Job - Eli Records
Big Joe Williams - Baby Please Don't Go - Viper
Basil Kirchin - Concept Suite feat. The Atonals "Secret Conversations between instruments" - Trunk
Homler Liebig Duo - Limbic - pfMentum
Francois Houle - Liege - Drip Audio
The Land of - Radiant - - http://thelandof.org
Thomas Mapfumo - Sweet Maria - Sheer Sound
ColombiaAfrica - The Mystic Orchestra - Riverboat
Tunng - Bullets - Full Time Hobby
Kate Rusby - Awkward Annie - Pure Records
Wailin' Jennies - Glory Bound - Red House
In the next release we're going to be pulling apart the (outward facing) Reviews & Lists page into two pages - a Reviews page, and a Lists page. There's no particularly new functionality at this point, but it will be much clearer (and I think more interesting looking) to have the Top 10 Lists exposed as artwork and not a list, particularly in this orientation. The Reviews page will pretty much be like the "More" reviews page today.
(Here are some early sketches)
I can imagine there will be comments here that we should have a toggle/option between list view and poster view; that's not an unreasonable request. But by now you all know our bias here at Netflix: logical simplicity trumps expanding control and preferences. While i'd never say never about a toggle (i can certainly see when one is preferable to another), it's lower on priorities right now. Anyway, a more likely improvement to the presentation would be a fixed logic, for instance, "show as posters for 24 or fewer, show as a list for 25+"). I'll keep you posted on what improvements to expect as time goes on.
There will be other features coming out also, but i'll talk about them individually, as appropriate, over the coming week. (By the way, the next page to quickly follow these is probably going to be a new one: the outward facing Profile page -- with a return of the "personal statement"). More on that later as well. Cheers.
This trade comes in from Adam in Madison, Alabama.
Giving: Bob Gibson, #212
Getting: Ken Griffey, Jr., 1995 Pinnacle
If you're like me, this trade works for two reasons. The first is that Gibson is a base card in Goudey, and one of a handful of retired greats. Though in my box I didn't receive too many retired players (Fisk, Gibson, Gwynn, Mattingly, Ryan), I'm assuming that there will be as many (if not more) baseball greats in this set as there were in the annoying Play Ball set from a few years back.
The second reason is that the bubble gum bubble on the Griffey card looks really fake. I mean, the airbrush artists were able to match Griffey's pantomimed angle, but the bubble is way too perfect, complete with patches of reflected light. It looks like an off-spring of Kirby from those Nintendo games is eating Griffey's face.
Sellotape is called "Scotch" here in France. This is another experiment to do Duck covers without the heavily inked outlines.
This trade comes in from Christopher in New Port Richey, Florida.
Giving: Hanley Ramirez, #46
Getting: Micah Owings, 2007 UD ROY Predictors
I used to love this kind of insert set, whether it was 'Crash the Game', 'Own the Game' or whatever else, these 'predictor' cards were like the lottery, or like fantasy baseball for little kids. It was great.
Something tells me that Owings ('Ow' is right in his name) is not going to be the National League Rookie of the Year. But as the New York State Lottery's tag line says: "Hey, You Never Know." Owings could still pull this one out. All he has to do is convince the Diamondbacks manager to start him six straight days, and then go on to throw six no-hitters and/or perfect games in a row. It could happen, right?
1 dishcloth1 scrubbing brush1 chrome wine-bottle stopper1 just-poached-to-perfection eggTwo items on the list were relatively easily fished out with fingers, fear, and the assurance that the macerating death-blades were completely and utterly switched off and there was no way a poltergeist would reach over and switch the system to the red danger pain setting while my hand was fiddling about in
Clearly there are few small irritating issues in the last release - in particular, this odd occasional missing Fave. Perhaps this is more than you want to know, but let me describe a tiny bit of the web architecture to you (and this is going to be a mix of oversimplification and overgeeky, that i hope will cancel out into a digestible whole):
the website you see is really a whole bunch of computers (servers) with identical code. When you log in to your account, you're logging into to one of these servers. The servers are themselves connected to a lot of different databases -- data about friends, account data, ratings data, list of movies... Sometimes when something is wonky on the site -- say the stars go away or your reviews disappear -- its a glitch in a database, but not the website in general. One component might have to get rebooted or something, and then it all looks fine again. Data isn't ever lost. But it LOOKS gone when you're online. Alternately, sometimes something goes weird with one of the servers. this is rare but does happen. How you experience this is that you might get a Netflix site error, but you retry, and everything is fine.
Anyway, the core functions -- adding movies to Queue, recommendations, shipping -- all that stuff is really robust. My new stuff in Community is very raw and, as you can tell by the speed with which you are seeing new features, is prone to have glitches. No fears: you're doing the right thing letting us know where the probs are. I hope it's not too irritating. This is largely why we aren't going to announce or promote these features right now. We have more to get right first, problems to tweak before millions of people are using it. So thank you for your patience and i'll let you know as we revise code to fix some of these things.
POST SCRIPT: Currently, there is a cap on the number of Faves or Fans that will be displayed -- 16 of each. You can have more, but only 16 show to you (there is no "more" page yet). To the outside, however, all of them are presented with no limit. Like i said, this is a work in progress. Add to this the fact that some folks are private, and it's been a little harder to debug this than usual. But we're on it now.
This trade comes in from Larry in Omaha, Nebraska.
Giving: Chad Cordero, #25
Getting: Sean Burroughs, 2004 Leaf
This UD Goudey set is chock full of cards of guys making goofy faces at the camera. Here, Cordero is positively elated that he knows the proper finger placement for holding a ball when pitching.
Also, I have to say that I'm enjoying receiving cards from sets I didn't collect. From the look of this Burroughs card, it doesn't look like I missed much. On the back of the Burroughs card, it calls him a 'prodigy'. This is back in 2004. Tell me, at what point does a player cease to have 'upside' and instead simply become 'mediocre'?
The Federal Government is facing a lawsuit for its failure to take action on global warming and address Canada's commitments under the Kyoto Protocol.
The lawsuit is a direct follow up to the Conservative government's failure to meet the demands of a private members bill passed by opposition parties this past February. That bill demanded that the minority Conservatives honour Canada's international climate change commitments and draft a plan outlining how they would do so.
But when the Conservatives unveiled their "Turning the Corner" plan for climate change, not only did they fail to meet the demands of that bill, they also demonstrated it in plain math - a move which may have swung the door wide open for this lawsuit to occur.
Conservatives, global warming deniers, and even some environmentally sympathetic Canadians, will be howling that there is no way we can meet those targets by 2012, the deadline of the Kyoto Protocol. They are probably even right. But getting Canada to meet Kyoto isn't necessarily the point of the lawsuit anymore than the point of the Conservatives' climate change plan was to actually address global warming.
The lawsuit is a pointed action directed at the federal government, regardless of what party comes into power next, to push them towards taking the most aggressive action possible against global warming. Kyoto may not be reachable, but this is no barrier to Canada developing a genuine plan to curb greenhouse gases. If the Conservatives present such a plan, you can be certain this lawsuit would disappear - even if that plan doesn't meet the strict Kyoto letter of the law.
The lawsuit was brought to Federal Court by Friends of the Earth Canada, Ecojustice Canada and private attorney Chris Paliare.
I really like the colors that are going on in the top image. I thought it just needed to be recorded. It was a fun night, beer, wine, sunflower seeds and a hole-lota laughing going on.
This trade comes in from Jim in Pleasanton, California.
Giving: Brad Lidge, #182 (red back)
Getting: Jerry Morales, 1974 Topps
Jim writes, "How many cards do you know that have three teams on them?" Jim, good question. I also like it that 'Jerry' is not Morales' real first name; it's Julio. Also, on the back it mentions that Morales enjoys horseback riding. So who is this guy, anyways? Some kind of medieval Bourne-for-hire?
There has been grumbling among you, my friends, about the apparent demotion of the link to this blog. To this, I will only add a few things.
1) It hasn't really been demoted. It is no longer on the subnav bar of the Community page -- BUT it is now in the bottom links on EVERY PAGE OF THE SITE. Some would consider this a widening of our reach.
2) The goal of Netflix is not to drive traffic to this blog. It is largely here to help you find movies you'll love. The blog link was a small distraction. For the many people who have a tenuous grip on the site navigation, it was confusing. Savvy folks will still find it, and unsavvy folks will not be lost by it.
3) Moving this link is not equal to not wanting people to participate in the blog. I quite enjoy the participation. It is important to me (and Netflix) that you have a voice and I like giving you the opportunity to inform me as our team works to refine elements of the site. Moving the link doesn't change this.
4) After just a few days of data, it looks like the visits to the blog are relatively unchanged after the move -- the increase in blog onramps seems to balance the decrease in "obviousness" due to the link placement. It's a net change of zero.
Of course, you could argue that we should have the link EVERYWHERE. Yes, that would certainly increase traffic to the blog. To be candid, keeping up with all your comments is pretty challenging, and it does, in fact, compete with my attention on actually implementing features. I'll keep reading and you should keep writing, but don't interpret my slightly diminished responsiveness for anything other than my working on the website.
In the next few days I'll give y'all a headsup on the next batch of changes soon to release.
This trade comes in from Ryan in Fairborn, Ohio.
Giving: Jhonny Peralta, #119
Getting: Mark Teixeira, 2006 SPx
I've heard of people misspelling their own names on the SAT, but when, in the course of human events, has anyone ever had their name misspelled on their birth certificate? I can''t think of anyone (besides Jhonny Peralta).
15 years of anti fascist action are celebrated on this cd, with tons of bands and a bonus dvd. Also features a Human Alert song, the 'jordaan'version of 'Fasjiste'. Hits the shops around october; support your local anti fascists!
A few random pix for the day....
I sure do look happy to be entering Wyoming...
Possibly a bad sign when
found in the building where you'll be spending the whole week...
A bad picture of my new ergonomic office
This trade comes in from Daniel in Provo, Utah.
Giving: Adam LaRoche, #152
Getting: Preston Wilson, 2000 Upper Deck
Daniel writes: "Enjoy this card of Preston Wilson in a reflective pose. He is probably pondering over the fact that he will never hit over .300."
Daniel, you could very well be right. Either that, or he's trying to figure out if the good times will last. It's funny how some players can seem to figure the system out, but only for a very short period of time. Some guys make that period last for a year or two (like Preston Wilson), while other guys can't last for even a whole year.
Probably the most famous contemporary flame-outs are one-hit wonders like Kevin Maas and Jerome Walton. But there are others. Take this year's Red Sox. At one point they had two or three guys in Hideki Okajima, Daisuke Matsuzaka and Dustin Pedroia, who were in serious contention for AL Rookie of the Year. Now we're just looking at Pedroia, as Okajima has hit a wall as of late and whenever I watch Matsuzaka pitch, he's always working with guys on base ("Taking the Gas-pipe," as my father calls it).
By the way, do you think it would be weird if you could also call your step-dad Uncle Mookie?
Well, after the intense posts of the past week, everything else just feels mundane. I've not seen 300+ comments before on a blogpost - is that normal? (And not just little snipes, but often well-considered essays!)
Alright. I'm VERY interested in your first and continued impressions of the FAVES functions and what is working/not working here. Today's release is a complex set of new elements and as much as i hate to say it, there are likely to be some edge cases that are buggy. Any help you can provide as to what might not be smooth yet would help us out (remember for bugs: OS and browser info).
It's rolling out now, and should be everyone's experience in about an hour.
This trade comes in from Pat in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Giving: Jeff Francoeur, #56 (red back)
Getting: John Wasdin, 1995 Topps
Pat writes: "One of my favorite things about baseball cards is looking back at 'future star' cards of players who turned out to be quite forgettable." I agree. There's nothing like coming upon Steve Searcy's 1989 Topps Future Star card and trying to figure out who he is. Or Mike Harkey. Or Pat Dodson, Todd Van Poppel, Jeff Juden, Earl Cunningham, Nigel Wilson, David Nied--stop me if I'm hitting nerves here. I mean, we all bought into these guys.
The only thing better, when it comes to rookie cards, is going back through old stacks and finding an overlooked star rookie. I have very clear memories of finding about six or seven of the 1986 Topps Cecil Fielder rookie during his breakout 1990 season. I also just pulled a few Torii Hunters and Derrek Lees from old stacks of 1994 Score (which, by the way, is a very clean, attractive set with a nice array of inserts. Unopened wax is also abundant and cheap, if you've got an itch for ripping old wax).
A couple fun things about Wasdin. The back of this card is just classic Topps: two photos on the back that are exactly the same. Good times. Also, although he's out of the game, he's in MLB: The Show 06, which I still play (I'm in season nine of my Red Sox franchise). And no matter how many runs I'm down, if the computer puts Wasdin in the game, I know I'll be able to tie the score or take the lead in one inning. I mean, he wasn't called Way Back Wasdin for nothing.
This trade comes in from David in Vero Beach, Florida.
Giving: Chipper Jones, #27
Getting: Ben Ogilvie, 1973 Topps
You know, the Red Sox have never been a bad team. Sure, they've had bad stretches, but you can't call them historically bad, like you can the Chicago Cubs or the various Seattle teams.
Let's look for a moment at the stretch between their World Series appearances in 1967 and 1975. They developed raw talent into league mainstays with Carlton Fisk, Dwight Evans, Cecil Cooper, Sparky Lyle, Bill Lee, and yes, Ben Ogilvie, and traded for other guys like Luis Tiant and Ray Culp and gave them room to flourish.
And while they didn't necessarily make all the right moves in terms of keeping all their good players, they had enough talent that when the front office made a change, there were guys to pick up the slack (Rice, Lynn, Hobson, Burleson, take your pick).
It was a weekend filled with games, moonshine,and football. I did find out a few things about myself. No matter how much you play when your other half is away, no matter if you have the King or the Ace, your heart is always thinking about the Queen......
This trade comes in from Tony in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Giving: Ichiro, #104
Getting: Honus Wagner, 1994 Ted Williams Card Company
I know I'm the one who decided to trade away all his Goudey cards, and so far I don't regret that decision, but tonight I'm a little jealous. Tony's getting a great card of one of my favorite players: Ichiro Suzuki.
Don't get me wrong, I'll take a Wagner in trade any day of the week. It's just that this Ichiro is one heck of a beautiful card. Give 'im a good home, Tony.
I've been dealing with tendonitis in my right arm on and off for 10+ years now, since I started programming full time and left my cushy grad school gig. ;-) I have tried to maintain some some of ergonomic office for the past 10+ years in order to prevent further aggravation of my right arm. And I happen to be working through a particularly bad bout right now with lots of visits to the chiropractor and ice. Lots of ice.
Long story short, I now have a pretty damn cool set up at home thanks to an acquaintance. I'm now sporting a whole lot of cool gear, including a chair, monitor arm and keyboard and mouse tray, from Humanscale. I'm looking forward to spending a lot of time in the updated home office!
This trade comes from Ricky in Bolingbrook, Illinois.
Giving: Greg Maddux, #44 (red back)
Getting: Jim Nettles, 1972 Topps
I know a lot of stuff's been written about the 1972 set; it's kind of a tired subject to find something new in the story. But here's something: besides the Electric Company front-of-card design and the ironically action-less In Action subset, it's the first set to feature a 'Traded' subset.
And these cards are hard to find, to boot. A few months ago I bought the Joe Morgan (that he had signed across the front in ballpoint pen) for a few dollars and just last weekend I bought the Frank Robinson at a show for $20. It's such a great subset that the $20 was one of the most expensive single cards I've ever purchased (what do you want from me; I'm not a big spender on single cards).
This is kinda funny: Jim is Graig's brother; Greg is Mike's brother. Also, says here Jim was hitting a mean .368 at instructional league level before breaking his wrist in 1970. Gotta love Topps for pointing out the good times and sealing the deal with the bad.
The pay was decent and undelayed, the publication of the book was not. I'm still waiting for it to appear in the bookstores. (The writer of the book is known for his substance-craving , which might explain it. Still it is frustrating as hell ).
Hence this little preview here.
The first time I went to Fiji, I was disappointed. We stayed on the Coral Coast near Sigatoka, in an establishment named The Hideaway, a hotel with the apparent function of providing Fijians with a place to hide brash Australians on hen or stag celebrations* from the general populace. Coming off the back of nine nights of travelling the South Island in a convoy of Nissan Bluebirds full to
Audio
A Hawk and a Hacksaw – Dudanotak – Leaf
Panda Bear – Im not good girl – Paw Tracks
Shedding – W – Hometapes hometapes
Tarkatak – Foerlinga – Gnesungswerk
Hotplate – Elephas – World in Winter
Elliott Sharp – Krkd/Slide – Kwanyin
Colleen – This place in time – Leaf
Scott Solter plays Pattern is Movement – In glasstone Hometapes
Flower-Corsano Duo – Wikd – Textile
Laurent Janneau – Soundscape China – Kwanyin Records
Zhuang, man plays guitar and sings 'small love' – Kink Gong
Huan Qing, Yan Jun and Lanzhou Noise association – Huan Qing
The Hot 8 Band - Sexual Healing - Truthoughts - cd
Sandy Nelson - Let there be Drums - EMI
Sefyu Yoannes - Mela Mela - Manteca
The Winks - Abalone - Drip Audio
Carsick - High Over Sand - Drip Audio
Inhabitants - Will We - Drip Audio
Amy Speace - Step out of the - Wildflower
Steve Adey - Everything in its Right Place - Grand Harmonium Records
Bearsuit - More Soul Than Wigan Casino - Fantastic Plastic Records
The Royal We - All the Rage - Geographic
Arp - Potentialities - Smalltown Supersound
This trade comes in from Kevin in Columbia, Maryland.
Giving: Lance Berkman, #72 (red back)
Getting: 2004 NL Postseason Highlights, 2005 Topps
2004 was a very good year, and though the World Series was rather anti-climactic for Red Sox fans (consider that neither Mientkewicz or Keith Foulke are with the team anymore), everyone was introduced to all of Larry Walker's rhymey-named family sitting in the stands in St. Louis, so that was worth it.
Also worth it is this card of Berkman. Not only does he look focused on the barrel of his bat, but his head and neck are gigantic. He kind of resembles Gimli the troll from Lord of the Rings. Seriously. Slap a beard on him and let him burrow into the Misty Mountains and you'll never see him again.
This trade comes in from Bob of Manchester Center, Vermont.
Giving: Scott Kazmir, #142 (red back)
Getting: Top Prospects 1B, 1992 Topps
Despite their randomness in pairing, Scott Kazmir and Ryan Klesko have something in common: first, their former teams gave them up for practically nothing, and second, they either played out the balance of their career (Klesko) or are playing currently (Kazmir) in relative obscurity. They are both also very, very good at what they do.
Just one other note about the Klesko card. I've always been intrigued by John Jaha. It's probably due to his uncommon last name, but I really bought into those rookies I would never have heard of if it weren't for baseball cards. Guys like Jaha, Matt Mieske, Chad Mottola, Midre Cummings. You can add Jermaine Allensworth to that list. Funny thing about Jermaine Allensworth...there was a skit on SNL about a hundred years ago with Tracey Morgan where Morgan kept repeating the words 'Jermaine Allensworth' until they had almost no meaning. It was a running joke that nobody got. I don't know why I remember that.