T.D.

Many thanks, dudes! I've rarely posted in the last year-plus, but still lurk. Appreciate the thought.

There's been talk of the Pats using their cache of draft picks to trade for Vincent Jackson of the Chargers. I doubt it's anything more than tabloid/talk radio babble, but the rumor's out there...

Nah...Mangini's good at motivating teams late in the season (esp. garbage time when the club's already been eliminated). For instance, they were 1-11 last year, but won the last 4 games (!) to finish at 5-11. A classic "Mangenius" finish (I harken back to his Jet days). I figure the Browns are a lock to win at least four games this year.

Now there's a report that the Vuelta runner-up tested positive.

Check out this interesting book review: http://www.chessvibes.com/reviews/review-the-kgb-plays-chess/ Chessvibes has become my favorite chess news source.

Fer sure.

Yeah, I saw the "hands around" in the early AFP item, but nowhere since. Still, it's about the funniest story I can recall. I initially did a double-take, fearing some kind of belated April Fool hoax.

Ditto, a couple of weeks back.

Recently saw this for the first time (via Netflix) and thought it was excellent. It motivated me to read the book (hadn't read any McCarthy since All the Pretty Horses), which was even better (IMO). I'd put the film in the upper tier of Coen bros. work, and will read more McCarthy, who previously hadn't impressed me so much.

+1

Happy Birthday! Chess babe and Patriot cheerleaders for your enjoyment...

Excellent news (even though I'm one of those concerned with pianos and tuning). Will definitely buy it.

In other WR news, Michael Crabtree finally signed with the 49ers, ending his bizarre holdout saga.

After taking Bengwads to OT, I think the Browns are starting to improve somewhat and have a good chance of escaping the bottom 3. The Rams look unspeakably bad, and Bucs also seem horrible. After surprising me with a victory, the Rai-Duhs seem to be regressing to their standard abysmal form, and may make a run at the bottom 3.

I stopped watching TV a couple of years ago, and watched Letterman very rarely prior to that, but I'm shocked that this is surprising so many people. Gee, a show-biz celeb was having sex with a subordinate!...How unusual. I saw in today's newspaper that ex-intern Stephanie ("Monty") was named as one of the sex partners. Another stunner! Going back ten (?) or so years, I always assumed Letterman was boinking her. Her frequent air time was otherwise inexplicable. Either I'm highly cynical or a lot of Letterman viewers are bizarrely naive. I figure the latter.

Thanks. I read the chesscafe site every week ("regular" features updated every Tues. at 10PM ET), and had seen it. Re. current chess events: in his first tournament (Nanjing, CHN) since disclosing that he is trained by Garry Kimovich, Magnus Carlsen leads at the halfway point with 4.5/5. No other player has won even a single game. Re. recent chess events: the K-K nostalgia match was a dud, as Karpov was in atrocious form and got pummelled by the aforementioned Garry K.

Lions win!!! Browns (sorry, SS1), Bucs and Chiefs are pitiful.

The Pats are likely to sign a backup QB soon (don't think they'll go with just Brady and Hoyer), but I'm not sure Garcia's a fit there. Conn probably knows more... Congrats to the undrafted ex-MSU Spartan on making the club, though.

I loved Pulp Fiction, but am overall not a huge QT fan. Didn't even bother to see Kill Bill (seemed too violent, and an insider view of a genre I know or care nothing about). I did see IB today, and it was excellent, better than I expected. The Euro cast really killed it, especially Waltz/Landa, who oughta get nominated for an Oscar IMO. Quite a few female viewers, but it was a college student crowd, so can't draw any big demographic conclusions.

Plaxico Burress cops plea, to do two years (maybe 20 months with good behavior, but I wouldn't bet on that)...

This just in: New K-K match scheduled Garry Kimovich and Anatoly Evgenievich are going to tee it up again!

I just got e-mail from J&R claiming "All Jazz CDs on Sale." Haven't investigated, but may be worth a look. [Disclaimer: I have no relationship with J&R Music World, but occasionally buy from them. I live in NY State and get hit with sales tax on online orders, making them marginally less attractive.]

Just ordered Curtis Fuller and Hampton Hawes With French Horns from Newbury Comics. They've had some attractive items on sale of late.

Not to be legalistic, but you'd have to refer to the wording of the original suspension (which was agreed to by all parties). I assume it specifies only that he's suspended for 50 major league games without pay (I've read they're docking his salary by a pro-rated amount).The "without pay" part discourages Manny from playing in any more rehab games than absolutely necessary to get back in baseball shape, due to the risk of injury in playing meaningless games gratis.

"Pitching, defense and three-run homers"! thats what I was getting at. Some of those Oriole teams were badass. One of my earliest baseball memories is the 1966 World Series mega-upset sweep of the Dodgers. Frank and Brooks Robinson, Boog Powell, Jim Palmer, Dave McNally,... (Just in case anyone didn't recognize it, my above quote is a famous one from Earl Weaver re. the secret of winning.) The Os of the Weaver era had a lot of excellent defensive players: Paul Blair, B. Robinson, Mark Belanger, Bobby Grich,...