Scientific Breakthrough

This humble blog has the honour to introduce an entirely new unit of measure - the Jeffrey.

The Jeffrey is defined as the distance one is at any given time from a Jeffrey-Tambor-in-"And Justice For All"-style meltdown in which one shaves one's head and becomes a saffron-robed Hare Krishna, with one Jeffery being defined as the equilibrium position in the normal population, so that one is twice as far from that meltdown at two Jefferys.

It is great fun to place people into this system. Of course, each of us may be at a different place on this scale on any given day. But a list of the rating in Jeffreys of selected persons will appear (for a while at least) over there on the right side of this page. Feel free, by comment, to suggest others and their Jeffrey ratings or to take issue with the ratings given. Decisions of the judges are final, and manifestly right.

Oh, and by the way - the Jeffrey is copyright of this author, and may only be reproduced with reference to this page. Keep your mitts off, SI!

No, it is not cliched to blog about your cats. It's Blog Classic.

I have to take a small break from the politics of Canada's health care system (don't ask) to comment on another small outbreak here. I'm talking Desk Cats. I have a plague of 'em. It all started with this one, who lives on my desk. Why, one might ask, does a cat live on my desk? Well, this is our little Special Needs Kitty. Her meow sounds like something between a throaty goat and Silence of the Lambs. She once typed "67ukill" when left alone with my keyboard. We think she's secretly operating a telemarketing business and shuffling her money around various off-shore accounts. She launches Windows Media Player at every opportunity. She requires me to complete the same feeding routine in the same order every day in order to be able to eat. She is roundly thrashed by all other cats in the house. No wonder we called her Sybil. Actually, she was named for this Sybil instead.


Nevertheless, attracted by the bowl of cat food constantly on display, I have inherited a variety of other feline disasters. This one is famous for constantly walking across my keyboard. He once typed "loki", causing us to momentarily consider re-naming. However, he remains Otto.

This one is a cat version of Miss Piggy. She flirts outrageously, especially with men, but has a hair trigger and a wicked right hook. Here's a picture of her engaging in her favourite activity.

Finally, the Big Orange Man - aka Franktastic Wonkylegs. He's tall enough and demanding enough to stand on his hind legs and tap my shoulder while I'm working on the computer. Most of the time, though, he prefers to sleep. Needing a little stint in boxhab perhaps... Well, at least they don't spend hours on personal calls at the office....LAWL

Congrats to Nephew/Cousin Michael

OK, I couldn't wait for the official game report so I went here to see the 0-1 result for Ontario Power Generation.  While you'd always rather win, that's a great result against a team that was 10-0 with 58 goals for and 7 against!  You guys should be very proud!  As are the Red Boys, whose league clearly uses the same ISP...

One question for coach/guest blogger Darren.  Why are the scores so low in that league?  I'm really struck by the fact that OPG's average game score was a 2-1 win, while the Red Boys on average won their games 5-4 or maybe even 6-5 (we don't post as many stats for some reason).  Shorter games?  Better defence?  Or do they make you guys play on skates?

Vote for Tom Cheek

You should vote for long-time Blue Jay broadcaster Tom Cheek for the Ford Frick award.  You can do so here.  More info about Tom is available through that link or here.

This will be annoying in a couple of ways.  First, the Baseball Hall of Fame requires an insane amount of information to let you vote, so uncheck all the follow-up spam that you don't want.  Second, this is not a direct election but rather a pre-screen - the top candidates in the online voting are assured only of being in the group of ten that get final consideration by a 20-person committee, mostly made up of past winners.

The award is to recognize service by baseball broadcasters (it's not to actually put them "in the Hall of Fame" - though since they do get a display area of their own it's kind of a moot point).  However, it's hard to think of anyone more deserving and Tom's been a finalist four straight years now and should finally win.  Current broadcaster Mike Wilner has reasons why here.

Honey, let's order dinner tonight....

On the other hand though, fast food isn't all that healthy for you and the portions are getting so big....

Got a hoard of small change?

If so, you might want to check out this site. It's quite fascinating. (Note that the link is for Canadian coins, but the site covers coins of the United States too.)

** Disclaimer: I don't think it's legal to melt Her Majesty's coinage. Obtain competent legal advice before proceeding. **

Credit for the link to Francois Velde's page, which proves again that "economist" need not be a synonym for "boring". Another proof is here.

One comment only

And this will be it for this topic, I promise.

John McCain got the wrong Palin.

Baseball updates

Further updates to this post:

- no, they weren't for real;

- Burnett and Halladay (and almost all the other pitchers) continue to be great;

- the DPs continued to abate in the Cito Restoration: 127 after 136 games, a full-season rate of a mere 151;

- Roy Halladay as of today: 17-9, 2.69 ERA, average run support 4.37 runs/game
- Matt Cain as of today: 8-11, 3.69 ERA, average run support 3.26 runs/game.

Before the Big Game

On Saturday September 6th the U9 Boys North Bay Soccer Youth Soccer League will hold its final game. My team, Ontario Power Generation (and yes, we've got the power), will play the undefeated Kia of North Bay.

Our season was great...we ended the season in second place. While I have had many chances in front of the net, I have been only been able to score once. However, in the final game I am looking for a hat-trick.