The Alarmists are picked to click by City Pages! They are playing Saturday at the Summit Big Brew Concert at Harriet Island with Cake and Soul Asylum. They are also playing the Minnesota Music Awards Show at First Ave on Sunday night. That lineup includes Dessa and The God Damn Doo Wop Band.

Oops, I guess Dessa and Doomtree are in the main room and The Alarmists, The GDDWB, and Chris Koza are at the Entry.

This must be archived. Somebody burn this to disk and put the disk in a safe with a computer, a monitor and and a portable generator. That way if WW3 breaks out we can sit in a bunker eating canned peas and watch this and all will be well.

Sorry to intrude on the previous post, because Handsteam brought up some great points that I want to get into, but this was too good to wait. My home page is soccernet on espn. Here's what came up when I opened it today...

(There was a link here, but it's gone now.) The headline read "Sam Fingered In Bung."

The next headline read: "Bung Probe Begins"

For more info, read the comments. I should have saved some screenshots.

The new and improved Teeblahg is only 2 Short days away! Here is something to chew on. I was thinking in terms of Fantasy Football. Instead of making the inferences (I have two minutes left here at work) I will just post the quote and have you do the work in your melon.

by John Kenneth Galbraith Professor of Economics Emeritus at Harvard University:
"For some seventy years my working life has been concerned with economics, along with not infrequent departures to public and political service that had an economic aspect and one tour in journalism. During that time I have learned that to be right and useful, one must accept a continuing divergence between approved belief—what I have elsewhere called
conventional wisdom —and the reality. And in the end, not surprisingly, it is the reality that counts.

...it is my conclusion that reality is more obscured by social or habitual preference and personal or group pecuniary advantage in economics and politics than in any other subject.

More to be told is of the longer and larger departure from reality of approved and conditioned belief in the economic world. …out of the pecuniary and political pressures and fashions of the time, economics and larger economic and
political systems cultivate their own version of truth. This last has no necessary relation to reality. No one is especially at fault; what it is convenient to believe is greatly preferred. This is something of which all who have studied economics, all who are now students and all who have some interest in economic and political life should be aware. It is what serves, or is not adverse to, influential economic, political and social interest.

Most progenitors of what I here intend to identify as innocent fraud are not deliberately in its service. They are unaware of how their views are shaped, how they are had. No clear legal question is involved. Response comes not from violation of law but from personal and social belief. There is no serious sense of guilt; more likely, there is self-approval.”

Here's maybe the best myspace profile ever. Maybe. I get such a headache looking at anything on myspace that I havn't really been on it long enough to tell.

Things that have happened since my last post on here, July 22nd, 2006:

42 Twins games, their record in those games being 25-17.

3 Fantasy Football Drafts (I'm not going to get into it right now).

The starts of the European soccer and American College Football seasons.

The Minnesota State Fair, beginning and end of.

The average price of gas has went from $2.98 on July 23rd to $2.68 today- a 30 cent drop.

I still haven't rocked a chick, and officially lost that bet.

Anyway, I was playing a little Madden at MNRaul's place during our fantasy draft and then was playing again the other day when some questions popped into my head, mainly about the rating systems in these games. I guess what I'm trying to get at is that I'm about to start writing about video games. Sports video games. I realize this topic may not be all of your cup of tea, but for others it might be interesting. And before any of you say it, I realize that the rock a chick thing and the video game thing may be closely connected.

Anyway, all of you that have played sports video games know that they have player ratings, a 1-10, 20, 50, or 100 scale, that are coded into the game to make the player behave as he would in real life. Randy Moss is really fast, the Madden game rates him at a 99 speed or whatever it is this season. The ratings are determined by the game maker, maybe they hire scouts, maybe they do it themselves, it doesn't matter. What does matter to me is how skewed toward greatness they are.

Picture in your head the greatest running back of all time. It may be different for some of you, Payton, Sanders, Rick Fenney, whoever, but picture them in their prime, at their best. This would be the pinnacle of runningbacks in the NFL. As good as it gets. Now picture him rated on a scale of 1-100. He would probably be at least a 99 right? The best of all time-the benchmark. Now picture Edgerrin James. Hanging out in Arizona, running counters, blocking, whatever. He's had some really solid years, he's getting on in age, he's been banged up a little, etc. What would you rate him at? Let's say Barry Sanders in his prime is a 99. Madden 2007 puts Edgerrin James at a 96, which is one point better than consensus NFL stallion Larry Johnson, who, if you projected it out, would have rushed for an NFL record 2,400 yards over 16 games last season. There are 10 running backs in the NFL that are rated 90 or above. Is that true? Are there 10 running backs that good right now?

Now, I guess it's all a matter of what you're judging against. Are you rating players based on their overall ability compared to the rest of the current NFL, or historically against everyone that's played in the NFL? I'm guessing they do it based on the players' ability in relation to the current league's players. Therefore Edgerrin James, while probably not quite in Barry Sanders' league, is probably in Larry Johnson's, and above Ciatrick Fason's (76). I don't really have a problem with that, but it's the inclusion of some of the all-time greatest teams that throws the whole system all out of whack. I was looking at some of the ratings of some of the greatest players of all-time and they couldn't match up to some current average players of today. Jerry Rice for instance. In 1989 Rice had 82 catches for 1482 yards and 17 touchdowns, by all accounts a ridiculous season, especially considering this was just before the days of inflated catch totals brought upon by pass-happy offenses. Now, I wasn't able to look at Madden 07, but in the 06 version the 89 version of Jerry Rice measured in at a 96. That is one notch below Chad Johnson, Steve Smith, Randy Moss, Terrell Owens, Torry Holt and Marvin Harrison of this season. Most, if not all of those guys had great numbers or have had great seasons in the past, but are they better than Jerry Rice was?? Especially as compared to the rest of the league?? I mean, if all those guys are rated 97, none of them have really separated themselves from their peers, so should they be that high?

It's not just football that I see these problems. Soccer, baseball, hockey, golf, etc. All have ratings systems that are messed up. The way I see it, if you're rated above a 95, you're one of the top five best players ever at that position. For the very good players of the time, your Torry Holt's, your Chad Johnson's etc, they would be high 80's, low 90' s, going down to your mid-range players, where most would be in the 70's-60's, and the back-ups and Mike McMahon's rated in the 40's and 50's. Mike McMahon is rated a 78 this season. Wow. That seems high for a guy who sucked last season, and got cut this season. I have a lot more to say about this. David Bentley is not as good of a crosser of the ball as David Beckham is. You could ask pretty much anyone. Football Manager doesn't seem to think so. They're both rated 20 (out of 20). David Beckham is widely regarded as the greatest crosser of a soccer ball of all time. If any of you want to get into it I might put together a Power Point presentation or something.

DOWN WITH THE OVERRATING OF VIDEO GAME ATHLETES!!! DOWN I SAY!!