Updated Books List

What's This Page All About?I read a lot. And I get caught up sometimes in obsessive little tasks, like for instance, keeping track of what I've read. So here it is, starting from about October 2005 forward.

Books marked with blue are ones I really enjoyed.

Those marked in orange are titles I didn't even finish, for one reason or another.

The rest...somewhere in between. Anyone with an eye towards statistics will notice the unreasonably high average rating I give these books. There's a reason for that - as noted, I stop reading books I don't like, and I don't give them a rating because I think it's wrong to rate a book you haven't finished. Therefore, it's hard for me to imagine reading a book all the way through and giving it a rating below, say, 5.0, since anything lower than average wouldn't hold my interest long enough to meet that standard. So, were I even geekier than I'll admit to here, I could probably create an adjusted rating by subtracting five from every book here. Therefore, The Tipping Point, a book I really liked, would get three stars out of five, whereas a book I loved, like Kafka On The Shore, would get 4.75 stars out of five. Hm. I might have to do that.Hm. I might have to do that.

Book Title	Author	Rating (out of 10.0)	Thoughts
The Brass Verdict	Michael Connelly	8.0	First, there's a nice twist in that his main character, Harry Bosch, is a secondary character instead of the narrator. Then, a very entertaining and compelling mystery with an additional twist at the end that promises more. Can't ask for that much more.
People Of The Book	Geraldine Brooks	9.0	A great, riveting novel about a Haggadah found in Sarajevo, and it's trace through history -- all told in a casual, modern fun story about the woman tasked with restoring it. I feared this might be dry but it was anything but. Makes me want to read more by this Pulitzer Price winning author.
A Wild Haruki Chase: Reading Murakami Around The World	The Japan Foundation (collected)	6.0	I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting, but this does contain some interesting articles about Haruki Murakami, a great collection of international book covers ... and some academic papers that I really had no interest in reading.
The New Kings of Nonfiction	Ira Glass (editor)	7.5	Largely really good previously published essays and articles by some of my favorite writers (Malcolm Gladwell, Chuck Klosterman, Michael Lewis). Small points off for a few misses plus one or two I realized I'd already read elsewhere.
Good People	Marcus Sakey	7.0	Sakey's least satisfying effort, it's still a good suspenseful novel and enjoyable.
The Elephant Vanishes	Haruki Murakami	6.5	A somewhat uneven collection of stories, including what evolved into the first chapter of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, it's enjoyable but obviously done prior to hitting his stride.
Travels In The Scriptorium	Paul Auster	5.5	A disappointment from one of my favorite authors, Auster is overly cute here and worse yet, not all that interesting. Next!
The God Delusion	Richard Dawkins	N/A	Did Not Finish -- as much as I wanted to like this, Dawkins is pretty boring and proud of himself and it's not a great read. Oddly, the only book I started but didn't finish in 2008.
Nixonland	Rick Perlstein	9.5	Absolutely fascinating account of American politics from 1964-1972 in particular, with Richard Nixon paving the way for the morass that things have largely become. Full review here.
At The City's Edge	Marcus Sakey	9.0	Fantastic second novel by Sakey, a mystery thriller set in Chicago. Sakey is right up there with Lehane, Pelecanos and Connelly in terms of being the best in this kind of novel.
The Crying of Lot 49	Thomas Pynchon	4.5	Probably worth reading, but well past it's prime and far too clever for its own good. But I'm glad to notch this one as being finally read.
The Nine	Jeffrey Toobin	8.0	Really interesting non-fiction account of the Supreme Court, notably the last thirty years or so. Well worth reading.
The Complete Persepolis	Marjane Satrapi	9.0	Brilliant graphic novel (now a film) about a young woman growing up in and out of Iran during the Islamic Revolution.
The Blade Itself	Marcus Sakey	9.0	Phenomenal. If you like gritty crime novels, Sakey immediately jumps into the landscape here. Just a shockingly good book that is impossible to put down.
The Ha-Ha	Dave King	7.5	An uneven but overall beautiful story about an adult male who lost the power of speech and writing in Vietnam, and how his life changes over a short period of time almost 30 years later.
Cooked: From the Streets to the Stove, from Cocaine to Foie Gras	Jeff Henderson	7.0	Certainly an interesting life (from crack dealer to gourmet chef) but that should be slightly more compelling than it was. And the foodie in me wanted more details about the cooking.
Rigged	Ben Mezrich	7.0	As always, Mezrich is very "readable" but this was my least favorite of his. But I want to go to Dubai.
In Defense of Food	Michael Pollan	7.5	Not nearly the level of "Omnivore's Dilmena" it is still very good and a sad account of what has happened to our food and the way we eat it.
The Design of Everyday Things	Donald A. Norman	9.0	Review
The Wisdom of Crowds	James Sureowicki	7.0	Reading it five years after it was written, its insights aren't as new to me as it would have been back then. But still, interesting tings to say about how we learn and operate.
Sputnik Sweetheart	Haruki Murakami	7.0	While enjoyable, it's probably my least favorite Murakami. It felt a bit sophomoric and undeveloped. Still very good, though.
Drama City	George Pelecanos	7.0	Straight ahead crime story - sad, honest truth about D.C. ("Drama City") from a great author.
Ugly Americans: The True Story of the Ivy League Cowboys Who Raided the Asian Markets for Millions	Ben Mezrich	8.0	Quite good account of Western bankers running rampant in Southeast Asia in the 1980s and 1990s. Mezrich is unbelievably readable.
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln	Doris Kearns Goodwin	9.0	Review
Jennifer Government	Max Barry	7.0	Not as good as Company, still a biting satire about our corporate culture.
Exile	Richard North Patterson	4.5	Review
The Year of Living Biblically	A.J. Jacobs	7.5	Not nearly as engaging as The Know It All, this memoir of Jacobs trying to live by the literal rules of the Bible is still quite entertaining.
Bridge of Sighs	Richard Russo	8.5	Outstanding - which seems to be par for the course for Russo. Woefully underrated author.
2008	2008	2008	2008
Perfect From Now On: How Indie Rock Saved My Life	John Sellers	8.0	A funny memoir detailing the author’s fascination with my own favorite genre of music.
Citizen Vince	Jess Walter	8.5	A very compelling account of a former gangster, set amidst the 1980 election.
The Echo Maker	Richard Powers	7.5	Review
Committed	Mark St. Amant	6.5	Silly but fun read of an obsessed fantasy football fan. Ahem.
A Spot of Bother	Mark Haddon	6.0	Disappointing follow-up to 'Curious Incident' but a decent story in and of itself.
Dork Whore	Iris Bahr	N/A	Did Not Finish
Hard Boiled Wonderland And The End Of The World	Haruki Murakami	8.5	Really good. Full review here.
Killing Pablo	Mark Bowden	7.0	Good, tight story of the hunt for Pablo Escobar.
The Yiddish Policemen's Union	Michael Chabon	5.5	A disappointment. Full Review
The Overlook	Michael Connelly	5.5	My least favorite Harry Bosch novel; unsurprised to read in the afterword that it originally was a serial of stories fo a magazine. Just felt that way in novel form.
Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bronx Is Burning	Jonathan Mahler	8.0	Wholly entertaining account of New York in the late 1970s.
Hard Revolution	George Pelecanos	6.0	A bit of a letdown, more of a look back and generally not as interesting as his other novels.
Soul Circus	George Pelecanos	7.0	Another good Pelecanos story.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows	J.K. Rowling	9.0	Suprisingly amazing. Didn't realize how attached I'd become to the series until the end of this totally satisfying, moving conclusion.
Hell To Pay	George Pelecanos	7.0	Solid, insightful crime novel by one of the writers of The Wire.
Suite Francaise	Irene Nemirovsky	8.5	Review
The Man of My Dreams	Curtis Sittenfeld	6.0	Review
The Draft: A Year Inside The NFL's Search for Talent	Pete Williams	6.5	It claims to be the NFL version of Moneyball It ain't, but it's not terrible.
The Road	Cormac McCarthy	9.5	Review
The Man Who Ate Everything	Jeffrey Steingarten	N/A	Did Not Finish
Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid On Earth	Christopher Ware	8.5	Review
The Ghost Map	Steven Johnson	7.5	Review
Then We Came To The End	Joshua Ferris	9.0	Excellent!
after the quake	Haruki Murakami	7.0	Review
Random Acts of Badness	Danny Bonaduce	5.5	Yeah, I read it. So what?
The Wishbones	Tom Perotta	7.5	Good, but clearly an early effort.
Y: The Last Man - Unmanned	Brian K. Vaughan	7.0
Chuck Klosterman IV	Chuck Klosterman	8.0
American Gods	Neil Gaiman	7.5
Company	Max Barry	8.0
The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History in Four Meals	Michael Pollan	9.0	Review
Talking Right	Geoffrey Nunberg	7.0
The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil	George Saunders	7.5
The Story of My Baldness	Marek Van Der Jagt	N/A	Did Not Finish
Two For The Road	Jane & Michael Stern	7.0
Wait Till Next Year	William Goldman & Mike Lupica	9.0	Review
Blood and Thunder (audio)	Hampton Sides	N/A	Did Not Finish
The Mind of Bill James	Scott Gray	6.5
Love Is a Mix Tape (audio)	Rob Sheffield	6.5	Review
The Nasty Bits	Anthony Bourdain	8.5	Review
The Ruins	Scott Smith	4.5	Review
Shanks for Nothing (audio)	Rick Reilly	7.0	Review
The Reach of a Chef	Michael Ruhlman	7.0
Special Topics in Calamity Physics	Marisha Pessl	8.5
The Keep	Jennifer Egan	8.5	Review
Candyfreak	Steve Almond	6.5
Hour Game (audio CD)	David Baldacci	6.0
The Collectors	David Baldacci	N/A	Did Not Finish
Housekeeping vs. The Dirt	Nick Hornby	7.5
Heat	Bill Buford	8.0
Wild Fire	Nelson DeMille	7.0
Echo Park	Michael Connelly	7.5
Julie and Julia	Julie Powell	7.0
Consider The Lobster: And Other Essays	David Foster Wallace	8.0
The Night Gardener	George Pelecanos	8.5
2007	2007	2007	2007
Candy Girl: A Year In The Life of an Unlikely Stripper	Diablo Cody	6.0
The Final Solution	Michael Chabon	6.0
Honeymoon With My Brother	Franz Wisner	7.0
Blue Latitudes	Tony Horowitz	7.5
The History of Love	Nicole Krauss	8.5
Dance, Dance, Dance	Haruki Murakami	8.0
Touching The Void	Joe Simpson	6.5
The Know It All	AJ Jacobs	8.0
The Blind Side	Michael Lewis	9.0	Review
Ender's Game	Orson Scott Card	6.5
Battle Royale	Koushon Takami	7.5	Review
John Adams	David McCullough	8.5	Review
Florence of Arabia	Christopher Buckley	6.0
No Way To Treat A First Lady	Christopher Buckley	7.0
Never Let Me Go	Kazuo Ishiguro	9.0	Review
Shadow Of The Wind	Carlos Ruiz Zafon	8.5	Review
The Tipping Point	Malcolm Gladwell	8.0
Everything Changes	Jonathan Tropper	7.0
The Book of Joe	Jonathan Tropper	8.5	Review
You Look Nice Today	Stanley Bing	6.5
Never Mind The Pollacks	Neal Pollack	8.0
A Ship Made of Paper	Scott Spencer	7.5
A Wild Sheep Chase	Haruki Murakami	7.0
A Year In Provence	Peter Mayle	7.5
Norwegian Wood	Haruki Murakami	8.0
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised	Joe Trippi	8.0
Conviction	Richard North Patterson	6.5
Chasing The Dime	Michael Connolly	7.0
The Girls of Summer	Jere Longman	N/A	Did Not Finish
The Truth (with jokes)	Al Franken	8.0
The Defining Moment: FDR's First Hundred Days	Jonathan Alter	8.0
Prep	Curtis Sittenfeld	7.5
blink: Think Without Thinking	Malcolm Gladwell	8.5
How To Make Love Like A Porn Star	Jenna Jameson	7.0
Freakonomics	Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner	8.5
Lucky: A Memoir	Alice Sebold	N/A	Did Not Finish
Twelve	Nick McDonell	7.0
The Year of Magical Thinking	Joan Didion	7.5
Fantasyland	Sam Walker	8.5
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle	Haruki Murakami	8.5	Review
The Lincoln Lawyer	Michael Connolly	7.0
House of Bush, House of Saud	Craig Unger	8.0
Lost Lake	Phillip Margolin	5.0
Fraud: Essays	David Rakoff	N/A	Did Not Finish
Freedomland	Richard Price	7.0
Three Junes	Julia Glass	8.5
Crashing The Gate	Markos Moulitsas Zuniga and Jerome Armstrong	7.0
The Dante Club	Matthew Pearl	8.0
The Fruit of Stone	Mark Spragg	8.0
Love Monkey	Kyle Smith	7.0
Lucky Girls	Nell Freudenberger	N/A	Did Not Finish
The Devil In The White City	Erik Larson	7.5
The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green	Josh Braff	6.5
What Was She Thinking? Notes on a Scandal	Zoe Heller	N/A	Did Not Finish
Kafka On The Shore	Haruki Murakami	9.5	Review
Who’s Your Caddy?	Rick Reilly	7.5
The Los Angeles Diaries	James Brown	7.5
I Have Chosen To Stay and Fight	Margaret Cho	5.0
Look At Me	Jennifer Egan	8.0
Dreams From My Father	Barack Obama	8.0	Review
The Best American Sports Writing 2005	Mike Lupica (editor)	7.0	Review
Live from New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live	Tom Shales and James Andrew Miller	6.0	Review
Triangle: The Fire That Changed America	David Von Drehle	5.0	Review
Fatherland	Robert Harris	7.0	Review
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close	Jonathan Safran Foer	9.0	Review
The Brooklyn Follies	Paul Auster	8.5	Review
Killing Yourself To Live	Chuck Klosterman	6.5	Review
The Patriots Club	Christopher Reich	5.5	Review
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell	Susana Clarke	8.5	Review
2006	2006	2006	2006
The Business	Iain Banks	5.5	Review
Blue Blood	Edward Conlon	7.0	Review
Little Children	Tom Perotta	9.0	Review
Spanking The Donkey	Matt Taibbi	7.0	Review
The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell	John Crawford	8.5	Review
October 2005	October 2005	October 2005	October 2005

Nigella Lawson

This one is really solely for my buddy Fear, who justifiably has a little thing going for Nigella Lawson. It's not truly "NSFW" but it pretends to be, so watch at your own risk.



Food porn!

NFL Week 16 Wrapup

Holy Christo, what a weekend in the NFL, capped off by that Packers-Bears game on MNF. I had a decent amount riding on it - my fantasy football Super Bowl (which I won), this weekly pool - which I didn't, and it turned out to be a hell of a game.



The Bears had to win in order to stay in the playoff hunt, and they looked terrible in the first half, but rallied in the second when it finally occured to them to use their best player, Matt Forte when it mattered. (Seriously, why did they wait that long?) Then, the Packers couldn't seal up a gimme win after Adrian Peterson committed a terrible penalty because the Bears blocked the field goal - insane. Both Peterson and QB Kyle Orton need to get a gift for Alex Brown, who blocked that kick.

There were many crazy games - the Patriots absolutely humiliating the Cardinals in New England (and Matt Leinart looking hilariously bad in relieving Kurt Warner) and the Raiders managing to beat the Texans, who had just recently beaten the Titans. That's a sequence you really have to be suprised by.



Of course, living here in the Bay Area, I didn't see any of the Raiders game (not that I really would have wanted to). Blacked out because Raider Nation once again failed to sell out their team (making them a terrible, terrible fan base even minus the violence). Just thought that worth mentioning.

My 49ers managed to win, despite looking embarassingly bad throughout the game. But, a win is a win, and Mike Singletary is doing a good enough job to warrant strong consideration for next year. Let's just hope he keeps his pants on.



The Chargers managed to keep themselves in the playoff hunt, which is insane, by beating the Bucs, who are a pretty inconsistent team themselves.

And the Giants-Panthers game was almost as exciting as the MNF game, with Carolina looking like they actually might be for real. DeAngelo Williams is probably the biggest suprise of the year.

In any case, congrats to Matty Rozen for securing the win this week, notching 11 for his team Touch Me Down There. Yes, that's his team name.

And the yearly totals are neck and neck. Michael Lang's sucker bet likely has the #1 slot sewn up, but stranger things have happened. And 2nd and 3rd place are literally up for grabs from at least seven teams, maybe more.

It's been a great regular NFL season, and I'd bet the playoffs are going to be just as fun! Congrats once again to Matty, and let's see how the season wraps up!

Attention Mike Shanahan: YOU ARE DOING SOMETHING WRONG.

At some point, folks are supposed to recognize trends, and if they are trends in bad directions, they should do something about it.

Right?

The already dinged-up backfield took two more hits as P.J. Pope (hamstring) and Selvin Young (neck) were added to the long list of injured tailbacks.

Broncos coach Mike Shanahan said both are expected to be placed on injured reserve. The team has lost seven tailbacks this season.

Seriously, there's bad luck, there's terrible luck, and then there's something else. Like blocking schemes, bad turf, or just some crazy awful mojo that results in SEVEN running backs being lost for the season. I find it funny, mainly because I could give a whit about the Broncos and learned long ago to avoid their RB for fantasy football, but this is really well beyond preposterous.

Ouch: The Truth Hurts

So, the Detroit Lions are 0-15, the first team to ever do that, and are teed up nicely to finish the job next week and go 0-16.

Which is bad.

Peter King of SI.com asks a pretty reasonable question:

Since Election Day 2007, Detroit is 1-22. How do you not fire everyone and start over?

Atop that list, of course, would be coach Rod Marinelli, who really has done an awful job. Granted, his ex-GM Matt Millen gave him some bad tools to work with, but clearly a good coach and GM can create turn-arounds in the NFL - see Atlanta, Miami, Tennessee and Baltimore for current examples. So, Marinelli sucks.

What I didn't know is that his defensive coordinator Joe Barry is also his son-in-law.

Which makes the following question in yesterday's post-game presser pretty damn funny:

Detroit News Rob Parker: "On a light note, do you wish your daughter would have married a better defensive coordinator?"

Marinelli is furious, refuses to accept an apology and it seems Parker could potentially get fired for this. But all that obfuscates one salient point - that's pretty damn funny.

It Couldn't Happen To A Nicer Guy

I think I've been fairly clear about how I feel about Senator Joe Lieberman but now it appears that the vast majority of Connecticut agrees with me:

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) may be facing his lowest approval ratings ever, according to a new Quinnipiac poll released Wednesday.

54 percent of Connecticut voters said they disapproved of the way Lieberman is handling his job, while 38 percent said they approved. The numbers are the lowest approval ratings Lieberman has faced since the poll started tracking his popularity.

"This is the highest disapproval rating in any Quinnipiac University poll in any state for a sitting U.S. senator–except for New Jersey's Robert Torricelli, just before he resigned in 2002," said Quinnipiac University Poll Director Douglas Schwartz.

Forty-two percent of those surveyed said Lieberman's support for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) during the presidential election made them think less favorably of him; 43 percent of voters said it made no difference. 30 percent of those who supported Lieberman in his 2006 general election said they would now vote for someone other than Lieberman if the election were held again today.

Not just the lowest of his career, but the lowest any Senator has ever had aside from one guy resigning due to disgrace.

Way to go, Joe!

That word you are looking for is "Ouch" or "Delgo"

I certainly hadn't heard of this, but apparently a record was set last weekend by the animated film "Delgo." It's not a record they can possibly be happy about:

The film secured a special place in cinema history over this week as the least-attended film ever to open on more than 2,000 screens.

The film took in $511,920 in 2,160 theaters in its opening weekend, according to Media by Numbers. That translated to an average of two patrons per showing, according to Yahoo! movie writer Jonathan Crow.

Thus, "Delgo" entered the Hollywood lexicon as shorthand for "animated stinker," joining the ranks of "Ishtar" and Ed Wood's "Plan 9 From Outer Space" as movie punch lines.

The flop heard 'round the multiplex can partly be blamed on limited advertising, B-list actors and characters reminiscent of the original Sea-Monkeys advertisements. Stilted animation doesn't help.

Bold font is mine - because I love that this writer (who saw the film) refers to folks like Freddie Prinze Jr., Jennifer Love Hewitt and Chris Kattan rightfully as B-List actors, and simply can't hide his anger of being forced to see it.



Here's a picture of JLH as a reward for reading this far down on a post about a movie you clearly never watched.

Anyway, DELGO!

There Are Very Few Words

Really ... I just can't even process this.

The father of 3-year-old Adolf Hitler Campbell, denied a birthday cake with the child's full name on it by one New Jersey supermarket, is asking for a little tolerance.

...


"There's a new president and he says it's time for a change; well, then it's time for a change," the 35-year-old continued. "They need to accept a name. A name's a name. The kid isn't going to grow up and do what (Hitler) did."

...

Karen Meleta, a spokeswoman for ShopRite, said the Campbells had similar requests denied at the same store the last two years and said Heath Campbell previously had asked for a swastika to be included in the decoration.

...

The Campbells' other two children also have unusual names: JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell turns 2 in a few months and Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell will be 1 in April.

Heath Campbell said he named his son after Adolf Hitler because he liked the name and because "no one else in the world would have that name." He sounded surprised by all the controversy the dispute had generated.

(All italics mine, by the way.)

So let's break this down a bit.

A guy who is a strident racist is asking for some tolerance. Process this for a moment.

He's supposedly suprised that this was controversial. If you are living in a world where you think it's odd that people might find that offensive, or that there isn't a pretty good reason that no one else has named their kid after Adolph Hitler, all I'm saying is you are living in a pretty sad little cloistered world.

I don't actually think even he thinks that President Obama would think that a name is a name and that this is at all the kind of change anyone but a lunatic can believe in.

They wanted a swastika on an three-year olds birthday cake.

Look, the beauty of this country is that idiots are allowed to be idiots, and he is allowed to be wrong about probably everything. But to do that to your kids? There are a lot of kids out there with unfortunate names, but this borders on abuse. These kids now have two roads -- grow up indoctrinated into a frame of mind that thinks it's cool that they have these names, or grow up clear-headed and therefore horrified and stigmatized because of their names.

Just not a great path to put your children on.

Good lord. I haven't officially called it, but I'm thinking we have a strong leader in the clubhouse for Douche Nozzle of 2008. Lovely people.

Yes, that's snow and yes, that's Berkeley.

Tilden Snow 014
Originally uploaded by EBRPD Public Affairs

Yes, that was snow I saw driving into Berkeley this morning (to go to the mechanic - another lame story) -- not something we see here too often. The hills looked white, as if they were covered with snow.

Yep. That was the case.

The Bay Area should get nature's version of a breather with a cloudy day Wednesday, but it's going to be downright cold - and the break from weather systems that have dusted local peaks with snow could be short-lived.

For now, "the brunt of it is over," National Weather Service forecaster Diana Henderson said today.

The brunt left a couple of inches of snow on Mount Diablo in Contra Costa County and sprinkled flakes as low as 1,000 feet early this morning. There was snow in Tilden Park and elsewhere in the Berkeley hills, on Mount Tamalpais and in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

A few weeks ago I was mocking a friend on the East Coast for how cold and lame their winter was, while I was in short sleeves.

Nature, she is a cruel mistress.

Thought For The Evening

I really wish I liked The Sarah Silverman Show more than I actually do.

On The Other Hand...

So, yesterday I spent a lot of time railing about how unnecessary it is for the Giants to sign a pitcher like C.C. Sabathia, who has sold his soul to the Devil Yankees.

I still stand by that. But conversely, I'm all over THIS like white on rice, like a cop on a donut, like a whatever-metaphor-you-like.

Randy Johnson is being wooed by both Bay Area teams. He seems to prefer the Giants.

"Randy's really interested," one of his agents, Barry Meister, said Thursday, the final day of the winter meetings. "We made a check list of everything that's important, and San Francisco checks off on every box. They're in the National League. They'll be competitive. They train in Arizona.

"San Francisco has a lot of appeal" ...

Now, I'm assuming that there's not a very high price tag here, and the article does say that he's expecting no more than a one-year deal. And that this will be what constitutes for an affordable deal, maybe no more than $10MM.

Loverly, as they say.

How can't you want The Big Unit in the middle or back end of your rotation?

Can I Exhale Yet?

If this proves out to be true, I'm a happy guy.

The Yankees jolted Major League Baseball on Wednesday as they neared completion of a record seven-year, $161 million deal with the ace left-hander C. C. Sabathia. They have also told A. J. Burnett that they would offer him a guaranteed five-year contract, perhaps for $16 million a season. As some teams scale back, fearing a sharp drop in revenue from sponsorships and ticket sales, the Yankees are the most aggressive shoppers at baseball’s winter meetings.

It's not that I'm happy for the Yankees, as I'm no fan of theirs. Throwing money at big name players is what that franchise is all about, and that's fine. (And there's no doubt they want to open the new ballpark with a bang.

I'm just happy the Giants didn't win here. Sure, it's a sign that all the talk that Sabathia wanted to play in the Bay Area (his hometown) and was willing to take a lot less turned out to either not be true, or he just never got a real competitive offer from Los Gigantos. That's fine - while the Giants have money to spend as well, they need to be throwing it at their OFFENSE, not their pitching staff.

While it's true that with Sabathia, the Giants would have one of, if not THE, best rotation in the NL and probably baseball in general. (It would move Barry Zito, a terrible signing in historical terms, to the #4 slot. Even with Zito's epic fails recently, that's a strong rotation.)

It would have been nice to see if they could get Mark Teixeira, but if its true that the Nationals just offered him $160 million, then they're out of that too (and rumor is he's not interested in playing here, so F him). I've heard some chatter about Paul Konerko, but the name I'd love to see - however unlikely - is Adam Dunn. Dunn has a crap reputation because he doesn't have a high batting average but he gets on base well above the league average and he flat out rakes. He's hit 40 or more HR for five seasons in a row. The Giants need a BASHER. He's still only 29 years old. (Which is sort of shocking.)

Is it going to happen? I don't think so - there's no whispers of it at all, so far as I can tell. In fact, I'm not sure there is a good fit right now out there, though I hope Sabean actually looks for some. But I'd rather not spend and make a trade if needs be.

(One example of why Sabean sucks so much? They talked about trading Sanchez to the Marlins for Jorge Cantu, though that doesn't seem to be happening. Why would the Marlins trade Cantu, who had a nice rebound year last season? Because they also have Dallas MacPherson who flat out tore up the minors. MacPherson was available for nickels and a bag of peanuts, and the Giants paid him no interest.

Brian Sabean is a horrible, horrible general manager.)

The Benefit of a Desk Job

This, of course, is PURELY HYPOTHETICAL, but I would imagine that if you worked all morning with your fly unzipped, having a desk job would limit the number of people who you embarrassed yourself in front of.

Yep, just throwing that out there.

Wordle

A cool little app that creates word clouds from your blog -- obviously weighting recent entries over older ones, it's still quite interesting:



Go play with it yourself.

Cause and Effect Problems

This story on Time is a prime example of reading results the way you want to, rather than necessarily incorporating many other factors.

The jist of it is that offal - that is, organ meats like heart, liver, stomach, etc. - is up 67% in five years in London. Fine. But the story is almost purposefully misleading:

Tough economic times have Britons eating their hearts out and swallowing their tongues. Not literally, of course. But offal, or "variety meats" as the food category is euphemistically called in the U.K., is experiencing a surge in popularity, with sales up 67% over the past five years.

Retail and food experts say that worry over the high cost of prime meat cuts and the economic downturn have more shoppers checking out supermarket offal offerings.

Why is that misleading? Check out this sentence, that is someaht buried in the top part of the story:

But the return to eating innards was underway even before this year's financial crisis, as celebrity chefs and restaurateurs have encouraged a return to cooking organs such as liver and kidneys, which once enjoyed a central place in British cooking.

If you, like me, watch any amount of Food TV - that is, the Guy Fieri network - or Top Chef or really any show about food around the world, you'd know that offal has been rebounding hugely not because of price but because of a variety of reasons, including that it's something new for many people, there's an ethical pleasure of knowing you are celebrating the entire animal and not discarding food because it's 'gross' and other reasons.

And, of course, a 67% increase over what was undoubtedly a very small number isn't necessarily impressive or important. Numbers like this are why people can say that statistics lie.

In any case, it's a crap story, and I'm not buying what they're selling.

Random Thought

What happens to my Bush Countdown Clock after January 20?

Just wondering. Excited to find out.

Keane - Spiralling

No, it's not Bill Keane (comic genius of The Family Circus) but rather the band Keane, with the first song off their album "Perfect Symmetry," which is clearly one of my favorite of 2008.



As they say, rock on.

Prop 8 - The Musical

Because heaven forbid that I'm not the 10000th person to share or post it. It's not quite as funny as I was led to believe, but the message is pitch perfect.

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

The Most Depressing Photo I've Seen All Day

This truly sucks. It's not just the preposterous orange "tan" here, it's that Kate Winslet looks way too skinny for her.



Winslet is Exhibit A in the "real women have curves" category. Apparently, she's decided to cede that to Christina Hendricks -- Joan from Mad Men:



Yeah, that's more like it.


UPDATED: Hm...it seems like I am not really making my point, which is that I LOVE Kate Winslet. But that photo above, she looks gaunt, disturbingly orange and a bit mannish. THIS is what I'm talking about when I'm talking about Winslet:





The defense rests.

Does Market Capitalization Even Matter?

How in the world is it possible for a company (General Motors) that the market has valued at less than $3 billion (which is shockingly low, historically) -- is asking for approximately a third of a $25 billion handout from the government?

I know these two things aren't equal, but if I'm paying 300% of the value of a company as a "loan," I'm basically buying the company and then some.

As they say, I'm just sayin.

Carsten Charles

I keep hearing rumors that the Giants are really serious about pursuing C.C. Sabathia, a high-priced free agent who only helps the Giants with their only strength, and does nothing to address their gaping weak excuse of an offense.

I've heard Sabathia would prefer to come back to his hometown and would take less money here than he would from the Yankees.

I don't care. This is a terrible, terrible idea, EVEN if he wins the Cy Young next year. (Cause ... we already have a Cy Young winner. Plus Matt Cain, plus Barry Zito, plus Jonathan Sanchez and Noah Lowry for that matter.)

I already want Brian Sabean fired. But if he does this, a public flogging may be required.