T.D.

You've got a strong stomach. I quit watching TV altogether about a month and a half ago. Although I did watch the Super Bowl at someone else's house.

Agreed on the spring training thing. Sox training camp is the #1 potential market.

Funny stuff, but you'd have to really care a lot about the issue to wear one of the shirts around... Might get better response during the season, when people could wear 'em to games. But Roger could throw a spanner in the works by retiring.

Sorry, I can't agree with you. If an athlete has enough guts to throw away his career in the name of human rights, like Tommie Smith and John Carlos in Mexico 68, well...chapeau! I agree with you. For multimillionaire athletes, like NBA or Premier League players, sure, the option of not going is easy, and maybe preferable, as they avoid potential injury and loss of earning power. But athletes in non-professional sports (say, Greco-Roman wrestling for one) may have trained all their lives for this Olympics. Tough to tell them to bag it and try again in four years.

Back to chess, this just in from Moscow: You'll find both endomorphs and ectomorphs

Ah, the "selection bias," or as readers of Nassim Nicholas Taleb's two excellent books (Fooled by Randomness and The Black Swan) know it, "survivorship bias" issue... Actually, that logical fallacy is extremely widespread. So the Team Clemens braintrust could be sophists, or they could merely be dumbasses. At any rate, good catch by the Times, though astute readers would of course have laughed at the original argument.

TD, I don't have a problem with your suggestion, but I wonder why I should be the first to do this. We have three illustrious jazz critics posting regularly here... Good point; there are several lesser-known critics as well, and I don't recall seeing many (none actually come to mind right away, though I can't swear never to have seen any) disclaimers. Didn't mean to suggest anything to you. I'd throw in disclaimers, but used to work on Wall St. and am compulsive in that regard...

Just happen to have picked up Warne Marsh - Lee Konitz Quintet Live at the Club Montmartre, Vol. 2 (Storyville), and this album has short excerpts from two Bach Two-Part Inventions (fugues): Two-Part Invention No. 1 (BWV 772) (Allegro), and Two-Part Invention No. 13 (BWV 784) (Allegro Tranquillo). Just over a minute each, played by alto/tenor duo.

No offense intended, but the above part may come dangerously close to shilling in some people's opinions. I personally don't have a problem with it, but some might. In such situations, the most "scrupulously correct" course would be to disclose that you obtained the discs as free promos; that's what I'd do, but then again I don't receive promos...

Holy crap. Check this out. McNamee: I injected Roger's wife with HGH

Not into their jazz But ECM New Series is good classical

Whoa. Roger doesn't look good at all. Not just the suit, either. I barely recognized him. Doesn't look like he'll be pitching in '08...

CDs arrived today. [Added after listening] Pretty good haul! On the pleasant surprise front, Don Ewell just kills it on the Denver Concert album (I already had two Ewell CDs), and the Teddy Wilson Keystone Transcriptions disc is really good. The only disappointment: as much as I dig Duke Jordan's playing in a group, his One for the Library solo CD is rather lackluster.

Well, maybe some of us are tools...

FWIW, the most recent Daedalus Music catalog (see related Storyville thread) offers this box for $60. Which suggests that there are remaindered copies floating around.

Chewy now thinking ECM hasn't enough free jazz for his taste.

I actually knew about Upset beating the great Man o' War...signs of a misspent life, no doubt. The list is kinda heavy on NCAA hoops for my taste. On another pre-SB 42 upset list, I saw (the then 181-0!) Dan Gable's upset loss to Larry Owings in the 1970 NCAA wrestling finals. That should have made the ESPN top 10 IMO. But I suppose they figured one wrestling item was enough.

Just read (and deleted) the "Valentine sale" e-mail. No interest.

I'm kinda surprised at that, myself! That, combined with their quick playoff exit, maybe will light a fire under the Cowboys next season to not coast into the playoffs. It may help motivate the Pats too, though they've got plenty of other things to motivate themselves - 18-1, Spygate I & II now, etc. I really question the alleged motivational power of "bulletin board" quotes. Possibly it exists, to a limited extent, for super-brash quotes regarding the upcoming week's game, or for nasty ad hominem comments about individual players, but I doubt that Strahan's Cowboys statement will have any effect (or even be remembered) when the '08-'09 season starts.

Even worse in my case. The buggers knocked it down from the mid-20s to 5.

Yeah, Lupica is awful, but the Daily Ruse is a truly horrid paper, even by tabloid standards.

Well yeah, law of averages says you gotta lose at least once during the season. Better to lose one in the front 16 than later on, eh? I will say this, though - if there's any franchise in American professional sports that can eventually pull it off, it's the Patriots. I dunno...despite all the talent, and the brain trust, I have the feeling that the NEP "dynasty" has now jumped the shark. Needless to say, I could be completely wrong.

Only saw them a couple of times. Got a big kick out of it, having read lots about them in period American literature.

Chet Feretti Chet Baker Ma Baker Ma Barker Alvin Karpis Melvin Purvis, G-Man

I once had a problem with a Newbury eBay Store sale. Newbury processed the sale without the advertised discount, and I had trouble reaching the company by e-mail. Someone on this board posted their customer service phone number (sorry, I no longer have it). A phone call quickly cleared up the problem.