Category: General

I did a bit of number crunching today on Barry Bonds because I couldn’t find the information anywhere:

After winning the MVP this year, his career MVP award share is now 8.39. He surpassed Stan Musial last year, the previous all-time leader in MVP award share with 6.97 (Ted Williams is 3rd with 6.43). Award share is calculated by taking the percentage of the maximum possible points that could be earned in MVP voting. This year, Bonds got a 0.95 award share earning 426 points out of a possible 448. Assuming his next few seasons don’t totally suck, its possible for him to get over 9.0 and if he were to win another MVP, he could in theory get over 10. (If he wins another MVP, he’d be the oldest player to ever win)

The other thing I did was calculate the odds of him getting to 755 home runs using the Bill James career projection system. He is currently 98 home runs away from breaking Hank Aarons all-time record. The system takes into consideration the last five years performance, with a greater weight towards the more recent seasons. It also projects the estimated length of a players career. The problem is it sort of breaks down when you are dealing with a guy who’s last three seasons have been amongst the greatest all-time…..and who is turning 40 next year.

Given the level Bonds is at now, absent a sudden and dramatic decline in performance, he could play to 2010 if he got a job playing as a DH in the American League. Pete Rose, Nolan Ryan, and Phil Niekro all played to their mid 40’s, and Bonds is probably in better shape than any of them. Hell, Rickey Henderson played last year.

All that aside, when you put in the numbers, you get that Bonds has a 76% chance of breaking Aarons record given where he is now. What’s funny is that a few years after he breaks it, Sammy Sosa might be on his tail. Sammy has the advantage of being a more pure home run hitter and the big advantage of being younger. Sammy is four years younger and 119 homers behind.

That 76% number contains no intangibles. Its just the Bill James formula. If anything, I think the intangibles benefit Bonds.

Thank goodness

He has now DOUBLED the total number of MVP’s won by the next closest players (Mike Schmidt, Yogi Berra, Roy Campanella, Stan Musial, and Mickey Mantle. I might be missing someone, I’m not sure.)

After this season, I’d say he’s definately in the top three all time with Williams and Ruth.

Tomorrow the extended version of The Two Towers comes out. The extended version of the Fellowship of the Ring was MUCH better than the theratical version, and I expect the same to be true for the Two Towers as well.

Sometime after Thanksgiving I’m going to have a back-to-back showing of both extended versions of both movies in glorious Garyvision. If you suck up to me enough, I might invite you over. (the home theater is the only power I have over people, so I might as well use it as much as I can)

My carpet anenome is gone. Poof. I’m amazed because its been through so much and I wouldn’t have thought that an upset stomach would have been the thing to do it in. I’ll need to find a substitute for my clownfish. Perferably, something not quite so mobile and prone to knock over rocks.

I’ve now lost 10 pounds on this diet. I really feel much better than I did before. I don’t know if its the blood sugar or the fact that I haven’t had any caffene in over a week. I have rediscovered the salad. The low carb diet isn’t all meat, eggs and cheese. Most veggies are fine, and salads in particular are great. I’m ashamed to say that the salads I have made in the last few days are the first salads I’ve ever prepared myself. Ever. Granted, its salad in a bag, but I’ll take victories where I can get them.

An excellent article on why our Intelligence agencies suck.

I would add, one other reason why Americans don’t learn foreign languages is that we just dont have to. English, like it or not, has become the lingua franca of the world….the irony of that statement is not lost on me. Its not necessairly because of cultural hegemony either, as the trend was underway well before the end of WWII . The EU (then the EC) picked English as their working language even before the UK joined. Likewise, the European Central bank uses english, even though the UK isn’t part of the Euro.

The only place in Europe I ever had difficulty finding english speakers was in Paris (go figure). I even had cab drivers in Taiwan know enough english to get the job done.

Switzerland recently mandated that all schools teach english as the primary second language (you used to be able to pick French, German, or Italian). It just makes good sense to learn english as a second language no matter what your primary language is.

English is spoken as a primary or working/official language by countries on every continent: US, Canada, Australia, UK, New Zealand, Ireland, Singapore, Guyana, Nigeria, Belize, Botswana, Pakistan, Bahamas, Jamaica, Kenya, South Africa, Zimbabwe, India, and the Philippines. There are more minor ones I’m sure.

I wonder if english has hit the tipping point where it has momentum beyond the US and the UK. Currently, if you have most any sort of international conference, its going to be in english, even if there are no english speaking countries in attendance. If a German, a dutchman and an Italian get together, they are going to speak english….and you’ll probably get a punchline too.

In conclusion, there’s a good reason why we don’t learn foreign languages. The time is better spent studying something else.

to update your site when all the old posts have expired.

I’ve actually written many updates, but for one reason or another, they never make it. I’ve even written updates as to why there are no updates. Rather than get into all of that, here’s whats new:

• I got a new tomato clownfish for my aquarium. I have a tomato clownfish that has been in my tank for a few years and I thought I’d try to get a mated pair. After about two weeks, they seem to have taken to each other. (Actually, the older, larger female stopped chasing off the smaller male) The problem is thier host anenome swllowed half of a muscle and it had a hard time expelling it. The anenome is now shriveled up, but I think it will pull through.
• Scott Kurtz was here last week. He left, got sick.
• I’ve moved to a low carb diet this week. The first 48 hours really sucked, I think because my body was removing sugar and caffene. I haven’t had a diet coke since Sunday morning. I had a terrible headache all Monday and flu like symptions. On the plus side, I feel fine now and have dropped eight pounds.
• I’ve ripped most of my classical music collection to MP3. Its more difficult to do than ripping normal CDs for several reasons: 1) More often than not, you aren’t going to have any information about the CD on CDDB. If there is something there, its probably wrong. 2) An “album” doesn’t have as much meaning in the world of classical music. There is a pretty strong division between those who write and those who perform. ‘Act Naturally’ by the Beatles would go in a Beatles directory, even though the song was written by Carl Perkins. Likewise, the ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’ version by Elton John would go in an Elton John directory, not a Beatles directory. But if Yo Yo Ma performs something by Brhams, where do you put it? You would probably put in it a composer directory. But then you have CDs which are just hodge podge collections from different composers….and sometimes, the feature of a disc is the conductor, not the soloist. 3) Many times, only part of a piece will be recorded. Perhaps an overture or finale. I’ve been organizing it by composer and by work, which often means splitting up the tracks on a CD.
• One thing I’ve always wondered about classical musics is why there is so much variation in the price of the CDs? The cheap one are really cheap. The expensive ones are very expensive. Most, but not all. of what you will find has had the copyright expire already. They should be cheaper across the board. Most expensive orchesteral works are recorded in one shot and don’t require weeks of studio time. They usually own the concert hall its performed in. Nadox CDs are $4.99, Deutche Gramaphone’s are sometimes over $20.