As Seen On Texas Baseball Town!

A few days ago, friend Ben from Midnight Tease and his new Texas Baseball Town pointed out that my beloved Chicago Cubs had, of late, been making trades with his Texas Rangers, trades that have turned out fairly well for the Northsiders of late.  Understanding that he's somewhat biased about these deals as a Rangers fan, he asked if I'd be willing to look at them from the other side.  "Sure," I said, and he put it up at his place.  Longtime Pond readers know that I'm a huge baseball fan, but I don't often write about it here... that's not what the Pond is about, after all... but it felt good to stretch my wings on a topic I haven't run into the ground.  So here's the result of my turning my restrained, thoughtful style of writing towards baseball trades.  Oh, and go visit TBT, will ya?

Earlier today, I found myself at work when, from out of nowhere, our charming and delightful host here at the Wrigleyville South Baseball Blog popped up and asked if I'd like to write a little bit about the Arlington-Chicago pipeline.  After asking "who are you and how did you get in here?" and calling security, I stepped into my office and locked the door behind me.  After the weird person with the Rangers cap was escorted away by Virgil and Ron, I thought about his request and thought "eh, why not?"

It would be wrong to say that the Chicago Cubs and Texas Rangers have been trading partners over the past couple of years, because that would suggest that there has been equanimity between the two teams.  In truth, the Cubs have been stealing the Rangers blind the entire time.  For example, the Matt Garza deal.  Or, as it should really be called, "13 mediocre starts by Matt Garza for Mike Olt, CJ Edwards, Justin Grimm, and Neil Ramirez."

Edwards could grow up to be a #3 starter.  Grimm looked good until he hit Triple-A, at which point he discovered that baseball can be difficult, and the big leagues, at which point he discovered that perhaps selling cars isn't such a bad career after all.  Ramirez is probably what is termed "organizational depth," as in "you need 25 players on a team, and they can't all be Mike Trout." 

And then there's Mike Olt. 

Mike "I'll be starting for the Cubs this year" Olt.  In Wrigley Field.  When the trade first happened, the general consensus on sports-talk radio up here was that he was their third sacker for the rest of the decade at least.  Me, I was some small amount less excited; the Cubs seem to have an institutional inability to create third-basemen out of can't-miss minor leaguers (Kevin Orie, anyone?  How about Gary Scott?  Heck, even the best Cubs trade of all time involved a third baseman that failed at the position... turned out Ryne Sandberg was okay at second, though).  Despite this, I still thought Olt had a good chance to take over the hot corner at Sheffield and Addison.  Turns out the Cubs agreed with me and put him on the major league roster today.

Meanwhile, Matt Garza will be pitching for the Milwaukee Brewers in 2014.  Well, heck, that's okay, the Rangers still have that other Cubs pitcher you got a few years ago, Ryan Dempster, right?  Oh, wait.  Well, the Northsiders still have Kyle Hendricks and Christian Villanueva from that deal. Hendricks will be down in Triple-A to start the year, but it wouldn't have been a huge surprise if he had made the team out of Spring Training.  Villanueva, on the other hand, suddenly has his path to the big leagues blocked by... Mike Olt.  Whoopsie.  Okay, you say, but Geovany Soto will be our starting catcher again, and he was a Cubs player!  Yep, and as soon as his knee heals in twelve weeks, he'll be back to being Geo (Metro) Soto again.

It's been brought to my attention that the Rangers picked up ex-Cub Donnie Murphy off waivers today.  My first reaction to this bit of news: "who?"  My second reaction: "he was still on the Cubs?"  Murphy is a 31-year old... let's be charitable and call him a "journeyman"... third-baseman that hit 11 homers last season (while striking out 48 times and walking eight).  He'd hit 18 home runs in his previous six seasons combined.  There's no question that he's better than not having a player at third base at all, so you've got that going for you, Ranger fans!

Once upon a time, the Cubs used to steal the Pittsburgh Pirates blind regularly.  Now it looks like their attentions have turned to Arlington.  At times like this, it's best just not to answer the phone if the caller ID shows an area code of "312."  Trust me, you'll be better off.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 05:45 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 817 words, total size 5 kb.

Fantasy Baseball: I'm Doing It Wrong

Right, let's get this part out of the way: no matter how much I am about to moan and whine, I'm still probably the frontrunner in the league.  I know a few of the players expect me to run away with the thing, and I really should.  But I'll be damned if I didn't pee the draft right now the leg of my uniform.

As a reminder, this is an American League-only league.  Y'know, lots of big hulking power hitters, teeny-tiny ballparks, chicks dig the long ball, pitchers chuckin' and duckin', get out the rye bread and mustard, grandma, 'cause it's GRAND SALAMI TIME!  Station-to-station and wait for the two-run jack, Earl Weaver-style of baseball.

So why do I have a team full of players that make speed the focus of their offense?  Dear merciful heavens, it's like I've got... a National League team!  Which makes sense, of course, being a National League fan.  My entire roster has a permanent steal sign posted and notarized at all times.  Which is great, except it's really hard to steal home plate.

Well, if you don't have offense, I hear you saying, you must have  a pitching staff, right?

I have the only knuckleballer in the major leagues, a Mazda dealer, a guy who's never pitched in America before... and a guy who had his leg fall off.  I just might be doomed.

On the other hand, it's baseball, and how cool is that? 

Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:47 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 247 words, total size 2 kb.

Fantasy Baseball Draft Tomorrow...

...that must mean it's time for Wonderduck to get serious about getting ready for this.

This is, of course, the league that was set up with Ben from Texas Baseball Town, advertised here.  We ended up with seven players, which should make for just enough for a bunch of rookies (even if a few of us aren't quite rookies).  Goes without saying that I'm still the "old hand" at fantasy baseball in the league.

Which is why I haven't really worried a whole lot about studying and researching and stuff like that.  I wanna have FUN with this one!  I've got some cheatsheets, and that's all I need.  I'll update the results after the draft (3pm Central time on Saturday).

If I don't decide to take a nap instead, that is.  Baseball is back!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 08:51 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 138 words, total size 1 kb.

Awesomely Awesome Awesomeness

So dziban303 asked earlier if I "could clarify why the XF8U-3 looks so incredibly awesome."  That's something I can do.  If there's something I'm good at, it's being a judge of what's awesome.

So, being a judge of what's awesome comes naturally to me.   But when you ask Wonderduck why a jet fighter looks awesome, you're treading on dangerous ground because I can go on for quite a long time about such awesome things.  If you don't know of what dziban is referring, here is the XF8U-3 Super Crusader!

On first glance, one sorta has to wonder just what dizzyban is talking about.  It's a tubby Crusader, big deal, so what?  And isn't there some sort of unwritten rule that any jet fighter that flies for the French is automatically not awesome?  Ah, but this isn't a Crusader... it's the SUPER CRUSADER, duhn-duh-duhhhhhhhhhh!  See, someone decided that the original F8U, the "Last Gunfighter," wasn't awesome enough on it's own, what with a variable incidence wing and all that sorta good stuff, no.  They had to make it SUPER awesome!

See, what they did is build a whole new airplane, stick a bigger engine in it, and say "you're gonna be faster than your cousin."  And it was, by nearly .50mach.  In fact, it went so fast that it needed an extra set of fins underneath to keep it from going all whackadoodle.  But that wasn't awesome enough for the guys at Vought... nope nope! 

See, what they decided was that going Mach 2.38 wasn't GOOD ENOUGH!  So they made it possible to go all Kerbal on it by leaving space for a rocket motor to be jammed up its bippy!  Ladies and gentlemen, I submit to you that there is nothing that screams awesome more than having a rocket jammed up your bippy. 

The XF8U-3 was awesomely developed to become the chief fighter for the US Navy, where it went head-to-head against the F4 Phantom II.  As it turned out, it was even hotter than the Phantom, and it regularly out-dogfighted that worthy plane.  However, that's all it could do, air-to-air, where the Phantom could do air-to-ground, too.  As a result, the Phantom became a legend.  But all was not lost!  Three of the five XF8U-3s wound up going into service with NASA, since they could do things that almost no other fighters of the time could do... even without a rocket jammed up its bippy. 

And for quite some time, the NASA planes would go out and pick on the Navy Phantoms in mock dogfights... and always, always hand them their lunch.  Until the Navy pilots asked NASA to please stop.

Awesome.  That's the SUPER CRUSADER, in a nutshell.  THAT'S why it looks as awesome as it does: because it was built out of 100% Grade A USDA Choice Awesome! 

Posted by: Wonderduck at 09:16 PM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
Post contains 474 words, total size 3 kb.

So...

...hi.

UPDATE: Kinda topic-deprived at the moment.  Got anything you want clarified?

Posted by: Wonderduck at 08:17 PM | Comments (21) | Add Comment
Post contains 13 words, total size 1 kb.

Wow, That's Kinda...Um...

Remember that story I mentioned a few days ago, the one I couldn't get out of my head, the one that I knew I had to get written?

It sucks.

Oh, don't get me wrong, the concept is excellent, top notch, perfect for a short-story.  I've just discovered that I'm not entirely sure where to go with it.  It isn't flowing the way the last one did.  It's coming off really stiff, and while that's somewhat appropriate for one of the characters, I'm not managing to make it interesting at the same time.

Part of me wants to just bury it under a pile of kittylitter and leave it.  Another part wants me to keep plugging away on it.  Then there's the part that wants me to release what I've completed so far just to see how many of my readers go running for the hills, noses hld delicately betwixt thumb and forefinger.

We'll see.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 09:48 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 158 words, total size 1 kb.

In The Pipeline

I've been oddly silent the past few days.  To some of you, this would be a good thing: "thank Víðarr for small blessings," you say.  Others amongst you are probably thinking something along the lines of "Wonderduck's working on something that's taking a long time... there are many ways that can play out, and very few of them are good."  There might even be a couple of you that are wondering just where the hell the decoys are.

The truth of the matter is that I do have a couple of things in the works.  Of course, next Sunday is the first F1 race of the season, which means that we'll return to that routine beginning on Monday or Tuesday.  Then there's a piece of fiction that's stuck in my head begging to be written... when I realized that I'm thinking about it in the shower, it's a pretty good sign that I've got to get it written up.  Then there's installment #2 of the Eva 2.22 writeup that's gotta be done as well.

If this week goes the way I hope, at least two of those will be completed, maybe all three.  If it doesn't, well, the F1 stuff'll be done.

See you soon!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 08:17 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 208 words, total size 1 kb.

To The Mun IV: Let's Go With That

Despite all the best efforts of my Chief Designer, no progress had been made on rescuing Bill Kerman from the surface of the Mun.  Failed designs littered the landscape around the Space Center, often in tiny fragments.  The problem, it seemed, was providing a seat for our misplaced kerbalnaut... I just couldn't figure out a way to get to the Mun with room to spare for Bill.  The three-seat capsule was too big, and the various other passenger units were too heavy for my skillz.  It looked like Bill was going to be staying at MunBase I for a while... until I stumbled upon a picture in a book that solved the problem!

This is the Gloster Meteor F8 Dual-Cockpit "prone pilot" test plane.  In an attempt to allow pilots to endure higher G forces, the thought was that having the pilot lying down head first might do so.  As it turns out, it did, but advances in G suits made the arrangement moot.  Plus, the visibility to the rear was horrible, and ejecting added a whole series of problems.  But that didn't matter to me, the dual cockpit arrangement triggered something in my brain.  Away went the Chief Designer to the drafting table!

Take a Mk1 Cockpit from C7 Aerospace, attach it to a Mk2 Cockpit, and suddenly we've got a solution.  The mission is flown from the pointybit, Bill will ride in the back seat, and it will still stack on top of an evolution of the original Mun Launcher I... which we know works.  How hard can it be?  As it turns out, the design could have saved a bit of weight by using a Mk 1 Capsule from Kerlington Model Rockets and Paper Products, Inc., but two things prevented that.  First, aesthetics: the two bits we used are, stylistically, the same.  They just look better together.  Then, and perhaps more importantly, C7 Aerospace bought uniforms for the Space Center's kerball team.

more...

Posted by: Wonderduck at 09:35 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
Post contains 1681 words, total size 12 kb.

Argh, Feh, ETC

Two days is not long enough to recover from a long week.  I need another week off.

Look, here's how tired I've been: I have a new graphics card for Nori, a GTX 650 (this one, as a matter of fact), and I haven't been able to generate the energy to install it, even though it should kick all sorts of asterisk.

Yadda yadda work, yadda yadda tired, yadda yadda blah blah blah.  I know, I know, quitcherbitchin' Wonderduck.  Sorry.  I'm trying.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 10:14 PM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
Post contains 85 words, total size 1 kb.

Coming Soon To A Mun Near You...

It's Mun Rescuer Whatever Number We're Up To Now, and I'll be durned if it doesn't seem to be workin' pretty well so far.  Bill Kerman's been instructed to pack his stuff before his ride shows up.

Morale is still high.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 09:16 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 48 words, total size 1 kb.

Laughing Long And Hard

As you all know, I spent all of last semester (and the month of January) in a constant state of panic and fear.  Things like "laughter" and "fun" were very far from my vocabulary during that time, to say the least.  I spent many, many evenings in my office at the store until 8pm or 9pm, doing paperwork of one sort or another.  Now, calling my work area an "office" is something of a misnomer.  It's really a desk pushed into the corner of two cinderblock walls, server cabinet against the left end of it, and a cubical dividing wall next to the server to prevent people from just walking in and throwing things at me directly. 

That server cabinet is home to an old Dill PickelEdge 2900, multiple rack-mounted thingies, a battery backup that's weighs as much as some of the students at Duck U, about ten miles of cabling, and approximately three thousand, four hundred and fifty four cooling fans.  As the ambient temperature in the Bookstore is invariably a uniform 3454°F, those fans are running constantly.  Need I say that no two of them alike, so none of them ever sync up, sound wise?  Instead of a pleasing rumble akin to white noise, what I actually get from the server cabinet is something like what you'd hear if you shoved Justin Bieber into a woodchipper.

Other than applause, I mean.

If I'm back in my office for any length of time, I try to listen to music to drown it out.  Last time I looked, I've got something like 130 songs on my LG dumbphone (it makes calls, it sends and receives texts, it's got a potato for a camera, and it's a mp3 player... and that's it, essentially.  Oh, and it's my primary alarm clock, too), ranging from classical (well, orchestral) to rock to dance to electronica to I don't know what it is but I like it.  Except there's one tiny problem, and I mean that literally... to whit, the speaker on my phone is approximately 1/37th of an inch in diameter.  If you can imagine what it would sound like to have a mosquito singing blue-eyed soul, you've got an idea what my cellphone sounds like.  I've tried all the usual tricks: toilet paper tube over the speaker, dixiecup, plastic cup, sheet of paper suspended an inch over the speaker, none of it made a bit of difference.  Until, on a whim, I purchased a Xboom.  Plugged it in, dialed up something with a large range of sounds, and waited.  The result was too much for my fragile body to take, and I was shattered into my component atoms.  However, the Xboom was so awesome that it reconstituted me back into my original form.  Seriously, if you need a portable speaker system for your laptop or something like that, get a couple of these things.

So this afternoon, I'm back in my office, grooving to some music on the Xboom, when a friend from the staff of Duck U comes in.  I didn't turn the music off for a few seconds because I didn't see her come in, but this is what was playing at the time:

My friend, who we'll call Gertrude because that isn't her name, says "Eh, I don't like that singer."  Who, Hatsune Miku?  "Is that her name?  She's a horrible singer."  Um, you don't... I mean... "How good can she be," asked Gertrude, "she's clearly got autotune turned up to the max."

Well, you're not wrong, Gertrude.  "She just sounds fake."

After Gertrude left, I just laughed and laughed and laughed.  And then I went back to paperworking.

Life is still a mess, but at least I had that moment. 

Posted by: Wonderduck at 10:28 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
Post contains 625 words, total size 5 kb.

Flummoxed

Entirely, completely flummoxed at the moment. 

More when circumstances warrant.

UPDATE: Pixy fixed a comment problem, which is nice, but it wasn't the flummoxing problem.  I don't think that can't be fixed with a HTML editor.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 10:42 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 37 words, total size 1 kb.

Oh... THAT'S What That Is.

Have you ever missed something so badly that you didn't realize you were missing it?  "Why, no, Wonderduck," I hear you say placatingly, air pistol full of tranquilizer darts at the ready, "I've never felt that way before."

I'm a reader.  My apartment is full of books, only maybe a third of them in bookcases.  There are books or magazines in every room of Pond Central save the kitchen (I don't count cookbooks as "books" per se).  Reading for pleasure is one of those great luxuries that make living in an literate society such a wonderful experience.

And I haven't done it in well over a year.  Don't get me wrong, I've read stuff... mostly MilHist books, looking for that next germ of an idea for a post here.  Research on ridiculously esoteric topics that only a small handful of people might find interesting.  That's not fun, it's studying.  I do it because I want to learn, but it's different from what I'm talking about.

A week or so ago, I was going to leave a comment over at Brickmuppet's place, referencing my favorite science-fiction novel, Starship Troopers.  I needed a specific quote, and while I knew it was towards the end of the novel, I didn't remember exactly where... so I began to flip through.  In the process, I began to read, instead of skimming.  After finding the quote, I shut down my computer, took my well-worn copy of Heinlein's classic book to the Official Comfy Chair of Pond Central, and began to read from the beginning.

After I finished the book a few hours later, I realized I hadn't read any new science fiction (ie - a book I didn't already own) in a very very long time.  A quick run to Amazon gained me a few new books, and all I could do is wait for them to arrive.  Once they did, I began to devour them... and loved ever second of it.  A book accompanied me everywhere that wasn't the Duck U Bookstore (ironically enough).  I just finished my third new novel, and it's been so much fun!

I've been so busy, so depressed, so completely wrapped up in everything else, that I simply didn't realize I missed reading for the hell of it.  This from a person who used to have to read before he fell asleep at night.  It's a bloody bedamned shame, is what it is.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 12:27 AM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
Post contains 408 words, total size 3 kb.

Spudboys Has A Sad

Everybody had a first "favorite band."  The position of favorite band changes as ones musical tastes evolve... it's just the way of things.  Long before Joe Jackson or ABC, years before Bryan Ferry or the Gear Daddies, decades before the Foo Fighters or Nine Inch Nails or Caravan Palace or Daft Punk or Dire Straits or the Clash, there was the band that wore flowerpots on their heads.

DEVO was certainly my first favorite band.  They looked weird, they sounded weird, and they didn't give a crepe about not being cool... which, to a hyperintelligent duck trapped in a world he never made, was awfully great.  Time marched on, and I started to actually listen to DEVO's music, and realized it was deeper than it first appeared... and while they became something of a synthband, in the early days they were very guitar-centric.

Bob "Bob2" Casale had a lot to do with that, what with actually being able to play and all.  His style was hardly smooth... in fact, it's very nearly the definition of what punk guitar should be... but he could sound herky-jerky while still being technically skilled.  It's weird to call DEVO "punk", but it's hard to call Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! or Duty Now For The Future anything but.  After that, they became New Wave, synthpop, legendary, then simply themselves in a way that few other bands can ever claim.  Along the way, Bob2 wound up as a skilled engineer and music producer.

Bob Casale passed away today at the age of 61.  It seems very strange that members of my first favorite band are passing away.  It's a beautiful world we live in, I suppose, but it seems less so now.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 10:34 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 295 words, total size 2 kb.

The One Where Wonderduck Weeps Uncontrollably...

...but in a good way!  As you may remember, I went through a phase there where I was playing Kerbal Space Program pretty much constantly.  Rest assured that I still am, for I have yet to give up on rescuing Bill Kerman from (ahem) Mun Base I.  Anyway, I'm a member of the KSP subreddit over at Reddit.com, and let me tell you, they're totally insane over there... if there's a group that's coming up with more inventive ways to terminate flights to debris, I don't know about it!

However, every now and again, someone comes up with something truly beautiful.  If you've played the game, you know the KSP Theme... after all, it plays the moment the game boots up!  It's lovely, if you like snare drums, but I always thought it could be better.  How?  Now you're asking me for details that I can't provide... but it could be better!  Then someone proved me right:

The first time I heard this, I broke into tears at 0:21... or when Kerbol first comes into view in this video.  It had been a bad day, I was tired and pissy, and then... this.  It was glorious.

I wish there was some way to add it into the game... and there's every chance that if the folks at Squad like it, it'll end up there eventually.  They're kinda awesome like that.

I want some pancakes.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 10:59 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 240 words, total size 2 kb.

Unhealthiness Update

A week ago, I felt the first symptom (point-source pain in throat) of what became a full-blown cold.  The sore throat morphed into a dry, unproductive cough accompanied by a runny nose.  No, "runny nose" isn't descriptive enough.  Here's how much my nose was running: I shaved off my mustache.  I had to... the mess was incredible.  I took a regular-size roll of Charmin with me to work on Friday, in lieu of kleenex, and I had used it up by 3pm.  I was miserable.

Once work was finished, I came home and took a nap.  About an hour later, I woke up and most of the lower half of my face, my neck, and my pillowcase were soaked.  THAT's how bad it was.  Fortunately, somewhere around 2 in the morning, the steroids my doctor put me on kicked in and my nose dried up and the cough has gone mostly away.

I'm now really tired, though.  I fell asleep in my chair a couple of times this morning, took a four-hour nap this evening, and my brain is still logy enough that it's taken about 90 minutes to type this post (to be fair, half of that was looking for a good yootoob of a waterfall to accompany this post... and failing.  No, I don't need links to some in comments, thank you).

So on one hand, the sickiness seems to be dying off: yay!  On the other, I'm draggin' hard: not so yay.

Heck, I had intended to do Eva 2.22 pt II tonight.  Not so much, as it ended up.  Recovery is in sight, maybe, but I'm not quite there yet.  I suspect Sunday is going to be spent doing laundry, then sleeping a lot.

Could be worse.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 12:50 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 293 words, total size 2 kb.

To All Y'all Down South...

Just grab yourself some sweet tea and Chik-Fil-A and stay indoors, 'k?  Solid.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 08:20 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 18 words, total size 1 kb.

Oh. Huh. Go Figure.

Not that the pressure is off, at least for a few days, I find that I feel like crepe.  I dunno if I've caught an ick or what, or if my body is finally rebelling against the stress of the past six months, but I'm just totally wiped out.

Blogging will (allegedly) restart soon. 

Posted by: Wonderduck at 10:50 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 58 words, total size 1 kb.

Ever Wanted To Play Fantasy Baseball?

One would think this a rhetorical question: of course you've wanted to play fantasy baseball!  Something has been holding you back, however.  Perhaps it's been a lack of time... or not enough like-minded people in your life... or intimidated by the thought of getting into a league with a bunch of cutthroat bloodthirsty experts.  O r maybe, just maybe, you've wanted to be in the same league with everybody's favorite hyperintelligent duck with the ability to type and rate ballplayers!

Well then, bunkie, today's your lucky day!  About a week or so ago, longtime reader Ben from Midnight Tease and Texas Baseball Town sent me an e-mail asking me some questions about fantasy baseball.  As it turns out, he was looking to get a league going, but knew nothing of what the game was, and since he knew I had played for a while, who better to ask?  Who better indeed?  The timing couldn't be beat, since I had dropped out of the fantasy league I'd been in for 25 years the day before... I hadn't had much fun the previous three years, because of the cutthroat, bloodthirsty style of play that had taken over the league.

So after talking for a while, I eventually said something along the lines of "If you set up a league, I want in."  Playing with a bunch of fresh faces who haven't played before sounds like fun to me!  Ben's response was, for all intents and purposes, "Duh."  He was more polite about it, though.

So we've got four people right now, but we need more.  That's where YOU come in. 

It's set up to be as completely different from what I'm used to as possible!  The league'll be a snake draft, not an auction.  It'll be AL, not NL.  Standard 5 x 5 Roto rules.  Oh, and I'll be picking last in the first round.  So what have you got to lose?  It's free, and though Ben doesn't know this yet, if anybody finishes ahead of RotoDuck, they're going to win something from The Pond's prize closet!  We're looking for rookies or people who haven't played much... is that you?  C'mon down!  Got questions?  Ask here or at Ben's places!  Wanna sign up?  Drop a note in my comments or his!  Pitchers and Catchers report this week... baseball is in the air!  Here's your chance to have some fun!

It's Ben's league... we're all just playing in it!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 09:42 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
Post contains 412 words, total size 3 kb.

Now It Can (sorta) Be Told!

I'm sure many of my sharp-eyed readers have noticed a decrease in output, quality and change of tone here at The Pond of late.  Indeed, this would be true, and a quick look at the sidebar would indicate just exactly when this occurred: August 2013.  That was, in fact, when the problems began.



more...

Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:17 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
Post contains 669 words, total size 4 kb.