no story? no problem

-Back in the day, a friend of mine and I made a fever-dream of a movie entitled "The Vaults Were Empty." The basic "premise" was that the narrator of a Masterpiece Theater-type show had simply run out of stories to tell. Sometimes I wonder if that was somehow prophetic on a global scale. Specifically when I read things like this. Seriously, a Marvin the Martian movie? About Christmas!?!? Wow.

-Speculation about VP picks is rampant, because there really isn't anything happening right now with the campaigns. Personally I don't think there is a home run pick for Obama. Clinton comes with a lot of baggage. Dodd, Bayh, Biden, Reed, Nunn may each have some upside, but none of them are particularly exciting, and they're all Senators. Sibelius and Kaine are at least Governors, but neither is very exciting either. None of those are BAD choices, I just don't see any of the possibilities as being a boon to the ticket.

-Now this is a story that I can't wait to watch unfold.

i feel the earth move...

I live in Los Angeles. We have earthquakes. Specifically, we had one this morning. Its the first one I've felt in a long time and certainly the biggest one I've felt since one that happened in the wee hours during my Freshman year in college.

The title of this post refers not only to the Carole King song, but to an excellent Northern Exposure episode.

I've got an itch to redesign the site. Now if only I had the technical skills and time necessary to do so.

As a regular reader of FJM and being married to a bit of a sinophile I find this bizarre, yet not totally surprising.

Following up on my "tourney time" post, I'm currently putting together a bracket to determine the Greatest Fictional President (TV & Film Division). That'll happen in August, which is already looking to be a busy month.

I'll leave you with pictures of Krysta and her cute friends...

quick links

This is the only baseball related link in this post, I promise. An interesting idea, but I'm not sure it will really work.

I, along with everybody else in the world, saw The Dark Knight this past weekend and absolutely loved it. There has been so much praise written for this movie already that I won't bother trying to add my own, but I had to mention it.

Have you seen the ads for True Blood yet? Color me excited.

People do awesome things with Legos.

tourney time

The NCAA Basketball Tournament has to be one of the most perfect sporting events ever devised. 64 teams have to win or go home. The format is about as close to flawless as any post season format is ever going to be.

That has lead to the format being appropriated for a plethora of other purposes. In recent weeks, I've stumbled across several. One was LA Magazine's "64 Greatest Things About Los Angeles" tournament that was left up to the internet voting public. They could have gotten it a lot more wrong, but with Amoeba Music winning I won't complain too much.

Several friends recently participated in a "Tournament of Nerds" which featured a poorly seeded bracket and was, by all accounts, a poorly run disaster. Which seems like a terrible waste of a perfectly good idea.

MSNBC is one of many media outlets to apply the concept to the choosing of a running mate for Obama or McCain. "Veepstakes"? That's seriously the best you guys can do?

This past offseason, Viva El Birdos even simluated a "Tournament of Champions", pitting the best Cardinals teams of all time against each other. That's quite an undertaking, especially considering that each matchup was a best-of-seven series. It doesn't look like it was ever finished, however.

Anyway, its a fun concept and maybe one I try with something around here sometime, should inspiration strike. In the meantime, consider what The Onion staffers might do with a Master's degree in composition.

fantasy finds

Our fantasy baseball league is now about 2/3 of the way through the regular season, and I must say I feel good about my team. I currently have a 10.5 game lead, and my team is winning the HR, SLG, IP, and WHIP categories with consistency.

I wanted to take a look at the "steals" of our fantasy draft. There were 23 rounds, so I decided to try and find the best pick of rounds 13 and later.

Round 13 - James Shields, San Diego Sliders
Shields has been solid, throwing 122 innings with 100K,, 3.83 ERA and 1.15 WHIP. That's a really impressive whip to carry over that many innings.

Round 14 - Geovany Soto, El Birdos
No question that I got a great deal on this guy, taken 8 rounds after Joe Mauer and Russell Martin, both of whom he's leading in SLG%, HR, and RBI.

Round 15 - Kevin Youklis, Sabrmetrosexuals
I did really well drafting Ankiel just one spot ahead of "the Greek God of Walks", but Youklis has put up a better line, with 15HR/63RBI/3E/.381OBP/.552SLG.

Round 16 - Chipper Jones, TNT
Wow. Jones has a 1.086 OPS so far, and was taken 5 rounds after I drafted Edwin Encarnacion. Oops.

Round 17 - Joakim Soria, Fiscal '09ers
Soria's been a rock at the back end of the Royals' bullpen, and with 25 saves and a .74 WHIP he's been a valuable fantasy contributor as well.

Round 18 - Rich Harden, Sabrmetrosexuals
Yeah but he's a Cub now, so whatever.

Round 19 - Ian Kinsler, Biscuit Bombers
OPS-ing .945 as a 2B, not a bad deal.

Round 20 - None.
Round 20 was mostly a disaster. Adrian Gonzalez was drafted, but he's backing up Albert Pujols on San Diego Sliders. So he hardly qualifies as a valuable contributor.

Round 21 - Jack Cust, Sabrmetrosexuals
This round was pretty bad too. Cust is OPS-ing .816 which isn't bad for such a late round pick, plus he's got 18 HR.

Round 22 - Kosuke Fukudome, Biscuit Bombers
F&!*#$* Cubs.

Round 23 - None.
There had already been 176 baseball players selected at this point. My last pick was Gil Meche, who provided some value early on but has since tanked.

cute

Our goddaughter Cady is at home now and us K's travelled over to the House of J's to visit her last night. I know, all babies are cute, but this one is especially cute. I'll attribute part of that to the fact that she's a very quiet baby. She cries, but only briefly and for an express purpose. She's truly the child of a journalism major: just telling the facts of the situation. She also has some adorable facial expressions, one of which has been dubbed the "Turtle face" of which Jessica does a spot-on impression.

I finished watching Stranger Than Fiction last night, and by the end I was convinced that Maggie Gyllenhaal should be in every movie. This movie was a surprisingly well-crafted, earnest, and sweet romantic comedy that I would highly recommend. It was directed by Marc Forster, who has a rather eclectic resume. Who watched this movie or Finding Neverland and said "this guy should direct a Bond movie"!?

The Mark Mulder Experiment (there's a band name for ya) came to an abrupt, and hopefully permanent, halt last night. Its sad to watch his career end, but we needed to find out what we had one way or another. Even more sad is watching the offense go to sleep in two games that we had chances to win.

I've got a busy weekend on tap, and I'm looking forward to it. Hope you all enjoy yours as well!

the godfather

That's me! Yesterday, in the wee hours of the morning, our good friends James and Jess gave birth to their first child, a beautiful baby girl. Cady Dial Richter was very nearly a 4th of July baby, but missed it by about half an hour. Krysta was there for the whole labor process, which took almost 48 hours. We're very excited to be godparents, and excited for James and Jess, who are just exactly the kind of people you want reproducing. And now I present the first of what is sure to be many, many pictures of our god-daughter.

winner!

Well that was a hard-fought win, and it seems to me a psychologically important one too. After taking a 4-0 lead and a 5-4 lead, watching both slip away, resulting in, at best, a split with the Mets headed into a huge series with the Cubs, even this resilient team might have begin to show cracks in their psyche. Thanks to Mr. Glaus' heroics, however, we can try to take 3 out of 4 tonight, heading into the big weekend with the ability to sweep our way into first place. Or be swept into a more daunting 5.5 games back.

James has a list of his picks for the All-Star teams up over at Sense From Center. Its a fine list, and I especially agree with Ludwick being deserving of an NL outfield spot. It won't happen, but what would an All-Star Game be without a few flagrant ommissions?

Non-baseball related writings are coming soon, I promise.

ridiculous

Well the Cardinals lost a tough one last night. Its sad when you take a 2-0 lead in the first inning and your pitcher fails to throw strikes that aren't right down the middle of the plate. Sigh.

Since they only lost 7-4, however, CNN might just call that a tie. That article from yesterday really baffles the mind. Obama has a lead outside the margin of error, and you call it a dead heat? Other people found this confusing as well, see here and here.

The latter of those two links has become a daily read for me. There's so much garbage written about the presidential horse race, and its "momentum" that it can be difficult to maintain a grip on the mathematical realities of the race. It made perfect sense when I read today that the author also writes for Baseball Prospectus.

And with that, the post comes full circle. Ta-da!