T.D.

Happy Birthday! :party: But I gotta say your self-immolation avatar has been creeping me out...

Like Jerry will ever let THAT happen. Holmgren's retiring, and I don't think he'd want to put up with Jones's antics anyway. (I'm not that high on him as a coach, but what do I know?) Living in NY State and occasionally reading NYC tabloids, I'm very familiar with the "hire the biggest name out there" strategy. Cowher fits from that perspective, and Jones hired Parcells before, so I wouldn't rule Cowher out. But I'm not sure Cowher'd take the job, even if they threw piles of money at him: as an owner/boss Jones couldn't be a bigger contrast to the Rooney family...

I think Reid might keep his job if the Eagles beat Dallas next week. How about Zorn? I definitely think he should stay on, but there has been speculation (after JZ's recent self-critical comments) that (the unpredictable) Snyder could replace him.

He's a Scott Boras client, no? I thought that basically means signing for the most money. (In the financial world, that'd mean highest net present value of the contract under suitable assumptions; I'm not certain the sports world is always that sophisticated...[Added] OK, Boras probably is.)

Interesting article. I had always thought Orff was an out-and-out Nazi. Looks like the real story is somewhat more complex, but he still seems like a dirtbag.

Deng Xiaopeng Dan Shittu Raymond "Poupou" Poulidor

Wow, Tennessee just surprised by doing a number on the Steelers. Didn't see the game, but box score suggests that Titans played error-free ball and capitalized on turnovers.

Possibly. Giants are definitely fading and could make an early postseason exit, but Dallas will have to get their shit together and win at Philly next week just to get in the playoffs.

What do you think the Cowboys will do in the off-season? "Back up the truck" and make wholesale changes? I doubt they can, because such a prominent team, going into a new stadium, can't afford a rebuilding year. That seems to suggest coach firings. But I won't even try to predict Jones's strategy...

Charles Dodgson Jerry Dodgion Ion Tiriac

Mr Bean Coleman Hawkins Jim Beam Max Planck Bill Raftery Frank Sinatra

RIP. Never read his book (perhaps I should have!), but I recall Ellis, going back to the late '60s, as a big-Afro'd free spirit and even kind of a countercultural figure. He famously claimed to have been tripping when he threw his no-hitter. Despite his time with Texas, NYY and Oakland, I always thought of him as a Pirate.

Only if you insult Conn mercilessly. Although a certain consensus seems to have developed regarding Conn's er, dickhood , I get along with him well because we're both interested in chess. So no insults other than the allusion just made... But I won the playoff pool a couple of years ago (again without being in the regular season competition), so contestants might want revenge.

Will the playoff pool be open to people who didn't participate in the regular season pool?

I also learned to read very young, before starting school. I don't even remember how. My parents were both students, so I probably got the idea that reading was a good thing, and then likely urged them to help me with it. Long-term, this of course proved excellent, but it was rather unpleasant short-term, as my early years in elementary school became excruciatingly boring (many of my school memories from that time involve staring out the window).

I got nostalgic and rounded up a couple of Tunis books (The Kid From Tompkinsville and The Kid Comes Back) from interlibrary loan. They indeed hold up extremely well to adult re-reading. I also had persistent vague memories of some very good, though dark, baseball books featuring the New York Mammoths. It just came to me that they're the Mark Harris novels, including Bang the Drum Slowly! (With all the DeNiro film hoopla, and even having seen the film, I'm not sure I ever connected the story with the books I read as a child... ) I'll have to revisit those as well, as they're not kid-targeted and I doubt I could have grasped all the nuances when reading them in middle school. Off the sports subject, I also recall some H. Rider Haggard novels.

Jesper Skibby Henry Bibby Lewis "Scooter" Libby

For sure. And it's nothing new. Air-brushing was rampant for decades prior to the Photoshop era.

Yawn. Perhaps I'm missing something (admittedly, I'm a definite Cowboy non-fan if not outright hater), but doesn't this Dallas soap-opera shit go on every year? It's gotta be a combination of the owner (personnel decisions, showboating, talking crap to the press) and aggressive hometown media coverage. I'm sure Texas residents and Cowboy fans eat it up, but it gets tiresome for out-of-towners. Meanwhile, all the principals have issued the obligatory denial of club turmoil.

Tom Boerwinkle Boris Goudenov Roy "Wrong Way" Riegels

Barbie Benton Hugh Hefner Pudge Heffelfinger

Damn. I thought for a while that the "Classical Discussion" forum had become reasonable... If I wanted to read NYT stories, I would visit the paper's website.

There was a funny story on Yahoo! News today (I didn't read it, just the headline) to the effect that OJ could've gotten less time by copping a plea.

Rod "He Hate Me" Smart Don Adams James Clerk Maxwell

No, not familiar. I used to attend Miller Theater concerts all the time, but moved away from NYC area in 2001. Would definitely have gone to the Ligeti concert if I was around. BTW, did you see Fredrik Ullen play the Ligeti Etudes in NYC (Cooper Union) in 2001? I heard very good things (not just media reviews, but from attendees) about that concert, which I inexcusably missed...