Rebuilding Speedy - Episode 4 - Coming Back Different...

Final construction and OS install notes:

( When last we left our hero... )

Now I just have to reinstall all the apps. Which has already gone somewhat awry, which is why this post showed up last night unfinished. Stoopid LJHook default settings.

My Subconscious Is a Strange Place...

I had the oddest dream last night. I was at Home Depot setting it up for a bare-knuckle fight between a good guy and a murderer. I cleaned out the two main aisles, then informed the participants that they were on their own if they went into any of the other aisles as there were big piles of lumber everywhere. All the while I was lecturing to the assembled crowd about how it was going to be just like the end of some movie (I was picturing the fight in The Quiet Man, but one of the participants in what I was picturing was Dean Martin's character from Rio Bravo) and insisting that whatever movie it was had stolen the sequence from Heaven's Gate (a movie I've never even seen). Anyway, the participants started before I was ready, and I was yelling at them to wait, and then I woke up and it was the middle of the night.

The moral of the story is never have a mini-Mounds bar and a can of vanilla Coke an hour before going to bed.

Ad Copy

I was browsing through this month's issue of Computer Gaming World when I chanced upon an ad featuring a picture of an Iowa class battleship being attacked by Japanese planes. Being a naval battles buff, I read the accompanying text, quoted here verbatim:

"Send your enemies to the bottom..
..in a game like you've never seen"

The story of "Navy Field" was based on the WWII which is considered to be one of the most unforgettable and largest wars of the 20th century. As you can tell by the title, "Navy Field" is the story of naval battles during WWII. In "Navy Field", players can take command of historical ships such as the Yamato and Musashi, US New Jersey, US Missouri, U.K. Princess of Wales, and the German Bismarck. As well as providing these historically well known ships and images, "Navy Field" also allows the opportunity for players to experience such vivid moments of WWII naval battles in individual battles with up to 128 simultaneous players. If you wish to be a hero; join "Navy Field" today!

Really makes me want to give them my credit card number, I tell ya. This is why you should always hire a local ad agency when you're trying to sell your product in another country. It would also help to get your facts correct. It's USS New Jersey and Missouri, and while HMS Prince of Wales may be referred to as "she," she wasn't named after Lady Diana.

Gray Skies...

It was overcast most of the day, but in the sixties. Long about mid-afternoon the sun poked through, so I took a ride, about eight miles. Now my legs are sore, and I'm tired.

The Dodger GM situation seems to be going nowhere fast. Early favorite Pat Gillick opted for the Phillies. The Dodgers then received permission to talk to John Hart of the Texas Rangers, who is either interested or not depending upon what day it is. As Steve Dilbeck noted in the LA Daily News:

Normally this should be one of the most desired jobs in baseball and all professional sports. Experienced GMs on other teams should be leaking word of their desire to relocate to Chavez Ravine, should be lining up along Elysian Park Avenue.

Instead they flee like the Dodgers carry the bird flu. Are the beautiful high school girl ducking down the hall when she fears a nerd is about to invite her to the prom.

How far have the Dodgers fallen on the sporting landscape when California native and USC grad Pat Gillick would rather take the GM job in Philadelphia than in Los Angeles?

The two other major candidates are Theo Epstein and Kim Ng. Theo is, of course, the former Red Sox GM, whose abandonment of his position has aroused great hue and cry amongst Red Sox Nation. I've even heard people who really ought to know better (and have at least some grasp of perspective) refer to it as a betrayal, likening Theo to the prodigal son. @@. Pitiless Theo has told Frank McCourt that he'll get back to him.

So far Ng is the only person who's been interviewed. She's been assistant GM in LA for four years, and is reportedly a contract and waiver rules expert. Before that she was Brian Cashman's assistant GM with the Yankees. Cashman and DePo both recommend her highly. If hired she'd be the first woman, and first Asian-American GM of a major league baseball team. That'd be cool, but I suspect the odds for that happening would be sufficient to get the Heart of Gold from here to Andromeda.

Then there's Orel Hershiser. Will he be manager, GM, something else? Most scenarios have him as GM in waiting, assisting whoever does get the job. That would work fine with Hart (who Orel assisted for a year in Texas), and probably Theo, but would be terribly awkward for Ng. Meanwhile, life goes on. Somebody in the front office was smart enough to re-sign Jose Cruz, Jr., who had a pretty good stretch with the Dodgers after coming over from a not so good stint with the Sox.

Edited to add: Wow, as I went to bed we got hit with a pretty substantial thunder storm. In November!