The boys are playing some good baseball right now. They certainly haven’t conceded the division but their fate is in Tampa’s hands for a Division title. Getting in to October play with 7 or more days off is a huge plus in allowing everyday guys to get as many/few at bats as they need to get rested. To allow injured players to rest, in Mike’s case, or get back and see how they feel, in JD’s case.

But for me, by far, the biggest and most important piece is allowing your 3-4 starters to do what they need to do to get ready. You don’t concede any games, and they won’t, but at the same time you know you are one of only 4 teams that has games on the schedule past Sunday, and you get your starters and your bullpen lined up to be completely fresh and rested, but not too rested, when game 1 comes around. Josh will be as fresh as he needs to be, Paps, Oki and the bullpen will be completely rested as well. It can’t be overstated how important it is for the bullpen as well simply because you will ride your relievers as hard as you have to, to win in October. Hell look at the ‘04 post season MVP stats Foulke put up. He pitched, and dominated, pretty much every night.

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This post by Mark Jacobs of Mythic is a riot!.

Having wondered what the messages that were popping up in game were, though we figured it out soon after, had us laughing quite a bit the last day or so.

Gold farming/selling has become a polarizing subject and from what I understand a nightmare for companies to police.

An MMO is so different in most cases because the in game currency is either central to a characters life and progression, or in rare cases a mere afterthought added for flavor.

It’s led to great discussions here at 38 and it seems to me that having another few years to watch how the space plays out, and watch how other companies address the problem will only help us in implementing at launch methods and devices to rid the worlds of these bottom feeders.

I absolutely believe you have to engage the player base in helping to police this aspect of the world but at the same time employ mechanics and tech that allow much of the work to be done without human intervention.

As a player PLEASE give me the ability to one click report them, and let me see action ASAP. WoW nailed their ‘report spam’ but is there really anything other than gold selling that qualifies as SPAM? I am disappointed that my ignore list can only be so long in WoW since players generally make it very easy to ignore (anyone that even mentioned Don Santos hit my ignore list awhile back) but I want more in depth tools to get players/companies reported/banned as well as more tools to allow for interaction between friends regardless of servers too.

Seems I’ve gotten a ton of correspondence regarding the nations current financial fiasco and where to ’stick the blame’. We may not be good at a ton of things but man can we assign blame like nobodies business.

I’m curious to see the reaction to this article and the implications that are clear both party wise, and more specifically candidate wise.

Sept. 22 (Bloomberg) — The financial crisis of the past year has provided a number of surprising twists and turns, and from Bear Stearns Cos. to American International Group Inc., ambiguity has been a big part of the story.

Why did Bear Stearns fail, and how does that relate to AIG? It all seems so complex.

But really, it isn’t. Enough cards on this table have been turned over that the story is now clear. The economic history books will describe this episode in simple and understandable terms: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac exploded, and many bystanders were injured in the blast, some fatally.

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I read a post earlier, and started, well not started but continued to wonder how people can be so misinformed about a man or a platform as the poster was, in my opinion of course. So I sent the post to Senator McCain and this was what I received from an advisor to the McCain campaign. This is published with that persons permission.

The blog post:

Hey Curt,

Save the republican agenda speak for your millionaire cronies you associate with. Most of us are in an economic crisis. Inflation and tight budgets are things that dont affect you but do the rest of us. I am a union member with paid healthcare but still struggling to support my wife and two kids and plan for my retirement. John McCain wants to tax me for the health benefits I receive and cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans at the same time. He spits in the face of the working middle class worker. And the thought of his running mate becoming president is frightening. Lets see if the bozos who put Bush in twice are actually dumb enough to vote for 4 more years of his policies. Republicans are sending this country to hell in a handbasket. Im not saying Obama is a flawless candidate by any means, but the thought of an out of touch OLD man who wants war scares me even more

And the response I got back….

Here are the answers:

1. McCain does not want to raise taxes on anyone. He thinks the Obama plan to raise capital gains taxes or any other while we are in a recession is a “dumb idea”. Direct quote. Last week after criticizing McCain for months for wanting to keep the Bush tax cuts in place, Obama reversed himself and said he would leave them in place if the country was in a recession. Apparently Obama doesn’t understand we are in one.

Senator Obama has voted to raise taxes 94 times in his short time in the

Senate.

Last week Obama said he wouldn’t raise taxes for anyone making less than 250k- who believes him? Why should we tax the small businesses and people who create jobs more than we tax this fellow?

On health care, only lucky guys like the writer get those great plans. The rest of America struggles. The McCain plan would end this unfairness and instead give every family a 5000 dollar tax Credit- cash in their pocket to buy a plan. This will make every consumer a price conscious shopper- if we don’t do that the price of health care will just continue to skyrocket. Inflation is at 2%- in healthcare it hasn’t been less than 8% per year for the past 5 years. It is not

sustainable.

Out of touch?

How about Obama saying the surge didn’t work and wouldn’t work?

How about Obama saying we should negotiate with our enemies directly?

Obama has never sponsored or passed one significant bipartisan piece of

legislation.

Not once has he stood up to his own party. Not once.

Mccain has on many occasions- campaign finance, immigration, corruption- boeing

scandal, earmarks, etc.

And needs to stop being used at all. Parent with children suffering from Downs Syndrome, Autism, Aspergers and many other afflictions will get the message here far better than parents with normal children.

I thought the message was fantastic. Hope it means something to someone and stops just one person from using the word.

Click here and watch it’s not that long.

This is what happens when a beautiful young lady tries to run downhill with her friends, in the dark, at a time when her legs are growing twice as fast as the rest of her!

Gabs!

Oh and one more thing. This year is Shonda’s final year hosting the Say it with Flowers luncheon.

Click here if you are interested in helping raise money for ALS patients and families.

Last year the event raised over $200,000 and our hope is to go out with a bang this year and raise even more. To those that have supported in the past thank you, you’ve helped change peoples lives.

To those that are helping again this year thanks as well.

And to Jen Ouimette, you’re the queen baby! Thanks for all you do for patients and families of ALS in the Medfield and Boston communities!

Anyone that knows Shonda and I knows what Lou Gehrig the name, and the legacy mean to us. So seeing any player mentioned in the same breath usually brings some anxiety now a days. But last night Derek Jeter passed Lou Gehrig for the all time career hits mark in Yankee stadium. I am not sure I can think of a player more befitting this honor. From day one the guy has competed hard and always played the game right, not an easy task in New York city.

I can think of no one I enjoyed competing in the biggest games against more than Derek. He never gave away an at bat and never played the game at anything less than his best. Stat heads and non-Yankee fans can rant and scream about ‘intangibles’ or range factor but I had the honor of seeing him live and watching his impact on his team, and mine, for close to 10 years, and it mattered. What a great way to see the closing of Yankee stadium go with this record making headlines.

Now on to the home team. People have continued to write off Tampa all the way through the beginning of September. “Experts” predicting the time and place they would ‘fall’ pretty much daily. Now some are caving with 8 or so game left and begrudgingly acknowledging the incredible job they did this year. That’s a very good team and one poised to be good for many years. You can only hope the fan base catches on before something happens and they cannot fund the club in a way to keep the young superstars they continually draft.

That being said I can think of no better situation (other than winning last night) for the Sox to be in than the one they are in right now. The ace, the best October pitcher alive today, is healthy, fresh and throwing the ever living piss out of the ball right now. Home field, especially for this team, is certainly something you’d like to end the season with, but having a Beckett makes that almost a moot point. True October aces eliminate home field advantage for the opponents. Back him up with Jon Lester and Daisuke and I like the chances. I don’t care who the first round opponent is, and that’s no disrespect what so ever for the other 3 teams qualifying, but if I had a game to win, a must win, and I need to hand the ball to one guy in the world, that guy wears #19 for the Sox.

We’ve just announced our latest partnership with Vivox Entertainment. You can find it here.

So much of what matters to the game play experience is done/screwed up at the earliest stages of concept and development. Things people take for granted or ‘assume’ are the standard so often get overlooked.

I’m playing Warhammer pretty much exclusively and there is a ton to like, but I was totally blown away yesterday by something as simple as the mail system.

One of the better ‘upgrades’ in WoW was the ability to mail out several items at once, and to be able to do so at will. I also enjoyed the mail ‘recognition’, acting like Outlook it would recognize a name you’d typed before and insert it into the ‘TO’ field.

I would imagine there was some trepidation early on to allow this due to dupe bugs and hacking, and maybe even spammers; but I used the WAR mail service yesterday and was blown away by the fact that I could only mail ONE item at a time, and also had to wait 20 full seconds between mails?????

There are things I envision as just standard everyday minimums in MMO’s now a days and the mail system is one. I should be able to in game mail, in game voice chat, and a ton of other things with literally one to two clicks of my mouse shouldn’t I?

On another topic, man they nailed RvR/PvP. I have gone from a casual disinterested observer to someone enjoying the hell out of the experience. Hats off again to Mark Jacobs (who’s blog is here anyone interested in insight from someone who’s just looked into the sharks mouth and lived, check it out.)

What an incredible few weeks it had to be on top of the years he has spent pouring his and his teams blood, sweat and tears into that IP.

The beauty of the Warhammer World has to be, in addition to the incredibly rich and lore fat world, the incredible legs it can potentially have. Hell you could argue that even with the cool races/classes in game the even cooler ones aren’t in! The Skaven, Ogres, Lizardmen are all non-existent as player races. Of those three the only one I’ve actually even seen in game is the Ogres.

That franchise has the potential to be fresh 5 years from now, and that’s a claim very few IP’s in this game space can make.

Congrats again to the folks at Mythic…..

I read this letter and it was impacting enough on me that I felt the need to post it here for people that want to read it, to be able to do so.

Curt, wanted to get this out there, I think you will like this letter if you have not seen it before. Thanks, and everyone should read this. I think it is very interesting point of view no matter what “type” of American you are…

Sean in Illinois.

(This letter was written by Charles Grennel and his comrades who are veterans of the Global War on Terror. Grennel is an Army Reservist who spent two years in Iraq and was a principal in putting together the first Iraq elections, January of 2005. It was written to Jill Edwards, a student at the University of Washington who did not want to honor Medal of Honor winner USMC Colonel Greg Boyington. Ms. Edwards and other students (and faculty) do not think those who serve in the U.S. armed services are good role models.)

To: Edwards, Jill (student, UW)

Subject: Sheep, Wolves and Sheepdogs

Miss Edwards,

I read of your “student activity” regarding the proposed memorial to Col.

Greg Boyington, USMC and a Medal of Honor winner. I suspect you will receive a bellyful of angry e-mails from conservative folks like me. You may be too young to appreciate fully the sacrifices of generations of servicemen and servicewomen on whose shoulders you and your fellow students stand. I forgive you for the untutored ways of youth and your naiveté. It may be that you are, simply, a sheep. There’s no dishonor in being a sheep - - as long as you know and accept what you are.

William J. Bennett, in a lecture to the United States Naval Academy November 24, 1997 said: “Most of the people in our society are sheep. They are kind, gentle, productive creatures who can only hurt one another by accident.”

We may well be in the most violent times in history, but violence is still remarkably rare. This is because most citizens are kind, decent people who are not capable of hurting each other, except by accident or under extreme provocation. They are sheep.

Then there are the wolves and the wolves feed on the sheep without mercy. Do you believe there are wolves out there who will feed on the flock without mercy? You better believe it. There are evil men in this world and they are capable of evil deeds. The moment you forget that or pretend it is not so, you become a sheep. There is no safety in denial.

Then there are sheepdogs and I’m a sheepdog. I live to protect the flock and confront the wolf. If you have no capacity for violence then you are a healthy productive citizen, a sheep. If you have a capacity for violence and no empathy for your fellow citizens, then you have defined an aggressive sociopath, a wolf. But what if you have a capacity for violence, and a deep love for your fellow citizens? What do you have then? A sheepdog, warrior, someone who is walking the unchartered path. Someone who can walk into the heart of darkness, into the universal human phobia, and walk out unscathed.

We know that the sheep live in denial; that is what makes them sheep. They do not want to believe that there is evil in the world. They can accept the fact that fires can happen, which is why they want fire extinguishers, fire sprinklers, fire alarms and fire exits throughout their kids’ schools. But many of them are outraged at the idea of putting an armed police officer in their kid’s school. Our children are thousands of times more likely to be killed or seriously injured by school violence than fire, but the sheep’s only response to the possibility of violence is denial. The idea of someone coming to kill or harm their child is just too hard, and so they chose the path of denial.

The sheep generally do not like the sheepdog. He looks a lot like the wolf.

He has fangs and the capacity for violence. The difference, though, is that the sheepdog must not, can not and will not ever harm the sheep. Any sheep dog who intentionally harms the lowliest little lamb will be punished and removed. The world cannot work any other way, at least not in a representative democracy or a republic such as ours. Still, the sheepdog disturbs the sheep. He is a constant reminder that there are wolves in the land. They would prefer that he didn’t tell them where to go, or give them traffic tickets, or stand at the ready in our airports, in camouflage fatigues, holding an M-16. The sheep would much rather have the sheepdog cash in his fangs, spray paint himself white, and go, “Baa.” Until the wolf shows up. Then the entire flock tries desperately to hide behind one lonely sheepdog.

The students, the victims, at Columbine High School were big, tough high school students, and under ordinary circumstances they would not have had the time of day for a police officer. They were not bad kids; they just had nothing to say to a cop. When the school was under attack, however, and SWAT teams were clearing the rooms and hallways, the officers had to physically peel those clinging, sobbing kids off of them.

This is how the little lambs feel about their sheepdog when the wolf is at the door. Look at what happened after September 11, 2001 when the wolf pounded hard on the door. Remember how America more than ever before, felt differently about their law enforcement officers and military personnel?

Understand that there is nothing morally superior about being a sheepdog; it is just what you choose to be. Also understand that a sheepdog is a funny critter. He is always sniffing around out on the perimeter, checking the breeze, barking at things that go bump in the night, and yearning for a righteous battle. That is, the young sheepdogs yearn for a righteous battle.

The old sheepdogs are a little older and wiser, but they move to the sound of the guns when needed, right along with the young ones.

Here is how the sheep and the sheepdog think differently. The sheep pretend the wolf will never come, but the sheepdog lives for that day. After the attacks on September 11, 2001, most of the sheep, that is, most citizens in America said, “Thank God I wasn’t on one of those planes.” The sheepdogs, the warriors, said, “Dear God, I wish I could have been on one of those planes. Maybe I could have made a difference.” You want to be able to make a difference. There is nothing morally superior about the sheepdog, the warrior, but he does have one real advantage. Only one. And that is that he is able to survive and thrive in an environment that destroys 98 percent of the population.

There was research conducted a few years ago with individuals convicted of violent crimes. These cons were in prison for serious, predatory crimes of

violence: assaults, murders and killing law enforcement officers. The vast majority said that they specifically targeted victims by body language:

slumped walk, passive behavior and lack of awareness. They chose their victims like big cats do in Africa, when they select one out of the herd that is least able to protect itself. Some people may be destined to be sheep and others might be genetically primed to be wolves or sheepdogs. But I believe that most people can choose which one they want to be, and I’m proud to say that more and more Americans are choosing to become sheepdogs.

Seven months after the attack on September 11, 2001, Todd Beamer was honored in his hometown of Cranbury, New Jersey. Todd, as you recall, was the man on Flight 93 over Pennsylvania who called on his cell phone to alert an operator from United Airlines about the hijacking. When they learned of the other three passenger planes that had been used as weapons, Todd and the other passengers confronted the terrorist hijackers. In one hour, a transformation occurred among the passengers - athletes, business people and parents — from sheep to sheepdogs and together they fought the wolves, ultimately saving an unknown number of lives on the ground.

“There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible evil of evil men.” - Edmund Burke. Here is the point I like to emphasize, especially to the thousands of police officers and soldiers I speak to each year. In nature the sheep, real sheep, are born as sheep. Sheepdogs are born that way, and so are wolves. They didn’t have a choice. But you are not a critter. As a human being, you can be whatever you want to be. It is a conscious, moral decision. If you want to be a sheep, then you can be a sheep and that is okay, but you must understand the price you pay. When the wolf comes, you and your loved ones are going to die if there is not a sheepdog there to protect you. If you want to be a wolf, you can be one, but the sheepdogs are going to hunt you down and you will never have rest, safety, trust or love. But if you want to be a sheepdog and walk the warrior’s path, then you must make a conscious and moral decision every day to dedicate, equip and prepare yourself to thrive in that toxic, corrosive moment when the wolves comes knocking at the door.

This business of being a sheep or a sheep dog is not a yes-no dichotomy. It is not an all-or-nothing, either-or choice. It is a matter of degrees, a continuum. On one end is an abject, head-in-the-sand-sheep and on the other end is the ultimate warrior. Few people exist completely on one end or the other. Most of us live somewhere in between.

Since 9-11 almost everyone in America took a step up that continuum, away from denial. The sheep took a few steps toward accepting and appreciating their warriors, and the warriors started taking their job more seriously. It is okay to be a sheep, but do not kick the sheep dog. Indeed, the sheep dog may just run a little harder, strive to protect a little better and be fully prepared to pay an ultimate price in battle and spirit with the sheep moving from “baa” to “thanks”.

We do not call for gifts or freedoms beyond our lot. We just need a small pat on the head, a smile and a thank you to fill the emotional tank which is drained protecting the sheep. And when our number is called by “The Almighty”, and day retreats into night, a small prayer before the heavens just may be in order to say thanks for letting you continue to be a sheep.

And be grateful for the thousands - -millions - - of American sheepdogs who permit you the freedom to express even bad ideas.

Sincerely,

Charles Grennel

Robert Jones, MSgt(ret), USAF

NK Sturgis, Pres N.GA Nam Knights

Remember the price of freedom is paid with blood…pray for our troops

So our youngest is now old enough to play sports. When I called him from my daughters game and said “Hey Pele! How was your game?”

I got this.

“Dad I’m stinking tired.”

It seems that there was much more excitement about the prospect of playing soccer than actually playing. The photo below was taken by Shonda and based on her description this photo is of Garrison trying to negotiate a rest break while the rest of the team ran around aimlessly kicking a ball to a goal, regardless of which goal it was.

Is it over yet?