gdp's Comments

TML Mobsters : TML Thursday, 1/12

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 21:28:44 +0000

Plus, it's only $6m for 2012. The other $2.5m is a buyout for 2013. Still $8.5m total, but it's split up a bit, probably to allow them to fit in an outfield bat or Theriot.

TML Mobsters : TML Wednesday, 1/11

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 18:18:25 +0000

The Madson move is great on many fronts: they got a better pitcher for less of a commitment and at the very worst, the same yearly salary as Cordero would have wanted and since Cordero will sign elsewhere, they get a supplemental draft pick somewhere between their first round pick and the second round pick of the team that signs Cordero. Very good move by Walt even if it does end up causing them to not be able to get a left fielder, which I'm not entirely convinced it does. And I'm really surprised how the bullpen now triggers hope (if not downright confidence) in me. I would have thought it was a tall order to remove Chapman from the bullpen and still make it look better (on paper) than last year. Fellow mobster, now fellow Blog Red Machine blogger (that was the announcement I referenced a month or so ago), Bomber2Musketeer wrote up a post about the bullpen. Looks pretty good to me.

TML Mobsters : TML Wednesday, 1/11

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 18:15:40 +0000

The Madson move is great on many fronts: they got a better pitcher for less of a commitment and at the very worst, the same yearly salary as Cordero would have wanted and since Cordero will sign elsewhere, they get a supplemental draft pick somewhere between their first round pick and the second round pick of the team that signs Cordero. Very good move by Walt even if it does end up causing them to not be able to get a left fielder, which I'm not entirely convinced it does. And I'm really surprised how the bullpen now triggers hope (if not downright confidence) in me. I would have thought it was a tall order to remove Chapman from the bullpen and still make it look better (on paper) than last year. Fellow mobster, now fellow blogredmachine blogger (that was the announcement I referenced a month or so ago), Bomber2Musketeer wrote up a post about the bullpen. Looks pretty good to me. http://blogredmachine.com/2012/01/11/your-2012-ci...

TML Mobsters : TML Tuesday, 1/10

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 17:23:26 +0000

By the way, I wear and look good (well as good as a guy with this face can) in a fedora. The reason most people today don't look good in them is because they don't know how to wear them. Look at all the men listed as not wearing a fedora well and you'll see one thing in common: where's the tilt? The ability to pull the look off is all in the tilt. Guys today wear the fedora as an accessory like a woman wears a bracelet. If you tilt it, don't pull it too far down your brow, then it works. If you wear it like Big Ben, you look like a douche. If it's too far down your brow, you look like you're trying to play dress up as a pimp. People used to wear the hat every day, so that's why it looked good back then, because they knew how it should sit. Kids these days...

TML Mobsters : TML Tuesday, 1/10

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 17:14:10 +0000

There's not one single moment I remember about Larkin but his whole career was so much a part of my baseball life. I was 7 in 1986, just started falling in love with baseball, no idea where I could play, what each position did, how to field or hit or even throw. But Larkin was there, a fresh kid, just starting out. By the time I became a Jordan fanatic and lost interest in baseball in the mid-'90's, Larkin was there, established, steady. By the time I found my way back to baseball in the late '90's, Larkin was there to welcome me home. A lot of you know that my biological father left when I was young (ironically, at the aforementioned age of 7) and you take things that fill that void from wherever you can. Larkin never spoke to me, smiled at me, waved to me or gave me a high five, but he was there for so much of my life, through the good times and bad. That's what I remember most, just his presence. It may not seem like much, but it was a lot.

TML Mobsters : TML Monday, 1/9

Mon, 9 Jan 2012 17:08:47 +0000

February 19th. The 24th for everyone else. First spring training game is March 2nd or 3rd. Still an excruciatingly long wait!

TML Mobsters : TML Monday, 1/9

Mon, 9 Jan 2012 16:06:44 +0000

I really don't mean to disparage Bengals fans in any way, but that playoff game was the first bit of Bengals' football I've watched all year and I must say, I don't see what all the hype was about. They looked like every other inept Mike Brown run team I saw for a couple decades. To be honest, I didn't watch that closely and it was only every time I looked up that they were screwing something up, so there could have been a difference that I didn't see. Maybe they'll have a winning record next year as well and actually become relevant to me again and then I'll see the difference. Until then, my face still has a "meh" look on it. As for the Steelers-Broncos game, that was pretty hilarious. I'm still one of those who are apathetic to Tebow as a football player or a person, but I'm not impartial to the brunt of jokes he takes for being a devout Christian. So while I won't make him out to be the savior that some of his detractors paint his supporters as doing, I do enjoy seeing the apoplexy he engenders in so many "experts." If only one of them realizes they know exactly zilch, then he will have been a successful icon. As a football player? Like I said, I'm still apathetic, though him beating the Steelers is a way to earn some points.

TML Mobsters : TML Thursday, 12/5

Thu, 5 Jan 2012 20:15:22 +0000

And soon after I asked the question, John Fay tweets that the Reds are not interested.

TML Mobsters : TML Thursday, 12/5

Thu, 5 Jan 2012 20:01:04 +0000

Why do I have a feeling the Reds will look into Manny Ramirez for LF? Potential wise, he's the best option to fill the right handed, power hitting left fielder they need, you know, after the 50 game suspension gets served. But it would be really weird to see Manny being Manny down at GABP.

TML Mobsters : TML Thursday, 12/5

Thu, 5 Jan 2012 18:11:33 +0000

I think a lot of it has to do with the market that's available. There is no one for LF that even remotely fits what the Reds need and I'm guessing that Jocketty doesn't want to leave the cupboard completely bare as far as the farm system is concerned, so trading for a big bat is probably out of the question. Probably. But there are still closers on the market and they are generating little to no interest at the moment. I'm sure Jocketty recognizes the bigger deficiency on his team is the LF spot, but other than signing someone for depth, there is a good likelihood that nothing will be done for that position. If there was a LF bat available that actually filled the role they wanted (right handed, power bat), I'm sure that LF would be the primary concern, but as of now, Jocketty is deciding between solving the closer "problem," as he sees it, and replenishing outfield depth. I can see how between those two choices, closer wins out.

TML Mobsters : TML Wednesday, 1/4

Wed, 4 Jan 2012 19:41:02 +0000

I don't have a Roku, but I have WDTV Live and I've had the Logitech Revue, and while they are great and definitely where everything's heading, we kept our cable. There were and are shows that we still like to catch on first showing rather than after they put them on the site. Also, some of the biggest sites like Hulu and I think abc.com, they didn't allow the Revue to stream their episodes. But even if we had that, I don't think we were quite ready to cut the cable out entirely.

TML Mobsters : TML Wednesday, 1/4

Wed, 4 Jan 2012 19:30:56 +0000

But you'd have to believe that he didn't know the scenarios that would decide the playoff positioning, especially since they weren't in a "win and get in" scenario. He wasn't surprised that it happened; he just realized that the team he forced a trade from had made it when he didn't. I was all for him getting out of Mike Brown's hellhole, but don't be bitter that they succeeded where he failed. That's what makes it petty, small and bitter.

TML Mobsters : TML Wednesday, 1/4

Wed, 4 Jan 2012 19:28:05 +0000

Haha, CP, you're so involved with proving me a spin-meister that you fail to even admit the problem with your whole hypothesis: I was rooting for Palmer to get out of Cincy and I was rooting for him when he got traded to Oakland. Sad that you seem to want to try to ignore that fact, but hey, that's what I'm here for, to "spin" your head back on tightly and get you back to reality. And no, I didn't think it was that surprising at all. The Jets had already lost, something I'm sure Carson knew (unless Mike Brown can keep the score from being displayed in Oakland too) and he knew his team lost to the Chargers, both of which would put the Bengals in the playoffs regardless of what Denver did. I mean, unless your argument is that Carson is up for the leading role in the off-Broadway musical revival of "Clueless," something tells me you don't believe that he was genuinely surprised that the Bengals had backed in. Something tells me that as his unpaid agent, you're just saving face by saying he didn't mean what he said. And I didn't type my joke about you lacking reading comprehension with any bitterness or malice either. In fact, I did it with a smile. But nonetheless, it was still a tweak to your missing my point.

TML Mobsters : TML Wednesday, 1/4

Wed, 4 Jan 2012 18:44:56 +0000

Aw come on, SF, that sounds like an "I tried" gift.

TML Mobsters : TML Wednesday, 1/4

Wed, 4 Jan 2012 18:33:55 +0000

Sure thing! Thanks for visiting it and I'll hit you up in email.

TML Mobsters : TML Wednesday, 1/4

Wed, 4 Jan 2012 18:10:31 +0000

If you do need to do some "texting" while driving, one app that may help is "HeyTell." Both you and the person you're "texting" have to have the app, but what it allows you to do is turn your phone into a walkie talkie like the Nextel devices. Once the app is open (open it before you start driving), you press a large button on the screen and it will record what you say and then send that recording to whoever you're trying to text. After you open the app, you literally don't even have to look at the screen again. And the other person gets a notification, just like a text and when they click on the notification, it will play the recording you sent. It's a very good alternative if you have to contact someone while driving but can't call or text them.

TML Mobsters : TML Wednesday, 1/4

Wed, 4 Jan 2012 17:58:02 +0000

Those are awesome homemade gifts! Still love my homemade cornhole set and hillbilly windchime that my brother in law made my wife and I. Next year, either for Christmas or my son's birthday in August, I'm making him an American flag made out of mini baseballs and mini bats for his room. If I just bought one from him, maybe he'd see it as just "stuff." but I doubt it. But making it homemade (my first big project with my circular saw, also a Christmas gift), it's going to be even more special. And this year, I spent a month straight of probably 4+ hours almost every day programming my other brother in law an app for his phone that would allow him to track his payroll and personnel. Cost me nothing but time and effort. I loved giving that to him. He didn't see that as stuff even though I could have given him an Android market gift card and let him pick out an app that did mostly the same stuff.

TML Mobsters : TML Wednesday, 1/4

Wed, 4 Jan 2012 17:49:18 +0000

Lol, yeah, even if they're thought out, some times they still miss the mark.

TML Mobsters : TML Wednesday, 1/4

Wed, 4 Jan 2012 17:46:16 +0000

Yep, exactly the way we approach Christmas. And I don't mean to come down on gift cards or consumables either. I got my wife a gift card for a spa package once, but because I put thought into it, it was special. Hell, I made my own gift cards for back rubs and cleaning duties when we were too poor to buy each other birthday presents. And I think Doc said someone sent him some Christmas Ale they thought he'd like. That's a great gift. But if I'm buying someone a pack of Keystone or a gift card to TGIFridays because I feel like I have to get him something, then I'm probably doing Christmas wrong.

TML Mobsters : TML Wednesday, 1/4

Wed, 4 Jan 2012 17:39:35 +0000

Well, with your obvious inability to comprehend simply constructed sentences, I'm sure Barry would be so proud of you as well CP. Just don't ask him to draw you a map to aid you in your journey for my point. Geography is hard!

“Did Cincinnati get in?” Palmer asked, mindful that the Bengals – the team for which he played his first eight NFL seasons before refusing to report last summer, commencing a stare down that led to the October trade which sent him to Oakland – had lost a pivotal game to the Baltimore Ravens. Yes, he was told, the Bengals had backed into the AFC’s final wild-card spot. “Are you serious?” Palmer said. “At what, 9 and 7? And they play at Houston? Cincy will beat Houston, watch.”

It's the "are you serious?" comment that I think is petty and small. A simple "Good for them" would have sufficed. It'd be like finding out that something that was possible actually happened and being incredulous about it. Bitter taste? Open your mouth to insert soap, not your own foot.