quarter23cd

As expected, Detroit is treating the BJs like a chew-toy. Its amazing to watch a team suddenly turn it on like that in the playoffs. The Wings really didn't look all that invincible down the stretch of the regular season, but they are simply steamrolling now. Welcome to the playoffs, Columbus. Next time try to get a better first round draw.

They probably can. But, really, what did you expect--the Expos aren't going to magically stop being the Expos when you take them out of Canada. That franchise will take some time to build, particularly because they don't really have any sort of history of winning. The O's are still a proud franchise with a deep-rooted fanbase. Yeah, the fans are disgruntled as hell and have been staying away from the park in droves out of protest in recent years (nobody wants to line Angelos' pockets anymore)--but (I can vouch for this) they are still out there following along with every excruciating loss

Agreed.

Wow, interesting take on it. Yeah, the '90s lineup was good, but kind of went to hell towards the end. The '00s version has really been something of a revelation to me. They have gotten continually better over the years and a lot of that I directly attribute to Derek. IMO, he has been the primary reason to see this band for years now. I think Warren is a heck of player, too, but anymore with him I feel like he is out to play "guitar duel" on every song and that gets a little old, sometimes. I still have yet to hear him play with the Dead, but I really don't see how his style fits the Gar

I wonder how well Levon's voice holds up on tour. I heard him opening for Phil Lesh last summer and he sounded ok, but more recently Levon sat in for 3 or 4 songs with the Allman Brothers during their residency in NYC in March and Levon's voice was in rough shape and sounded very weak. Maybe he had a cold?

Good luck to the BJs tonight in their first-ever playoff game.

I'm noticing a trend here for the O's. Win 2, get slammed in the final game. I guess it could be worse. The bright side is that they have won 3 consecutive series. I'm in no position to be greedy, but would it kill 'em to finish out a sweep once in a while?

Well, I'll stop after the comet hits...

Man, that stuff will take years off the universe's life. Cholesterol and stuff. [quote name='Crow Daddy Magnus

I'd love to make a bold prediction here about my hometown BJs, but I have a feeling they might be suffering from we're-just-happy-to-be-here syndrome. My gut tells me to be prepared for Detroit to pull the brooms out, but it would be cool to see them take a couple games.

Or find a new obsession. I am becoming increasingly addicted to Derek's band. Although I have mixed feelings about the new record. It is a very coherent record and has some amazing playing and is certainly their most "accessible" (ie, conventional rock-band stuff, no 10 minute raga stuff) work. It should increase their following on the summer festival circuit, but I do hope they don't move too far away from the jazzy/instrumental stuff. The more I listen to the record, I miss that.

I would think so. That is quite a roster of guests. For the record, as for sales of individual shows goes, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that the one with Kid Rock singing "Soulshine" is not going to be their top seller.

You know, I never made that connection before. Thanks.

'Tis quite easy to do, if one were so inclined. I'm curious how much better these recordings they are selling would sound vs., say, somebody who recorded the stream. It was pretty high-quality sound.

Alright, yeah, it is fifteen 3 hour shows, so, ummm, lets see.......divide by pi....carry the 1.....aw, hell, I won't do the math. Its probably a fair price, but it feels kind of ridiculous. Nice that they are selling individual shows, though. I was following along with the streaming video for the first 5 or 6 shows before I burned out on it. I've moved on to listening to lots and lots of Derek's band. Just picked up his new record the other day and it is fantastic.

I am feeling good about the general direction the Orioles are finally going (probably won't see significant results for another year or two) but I am a bit concerned about the team's new Be The Starting Pitcher on Your Birthday! promotion.

Rumor is there is a box set in the works, and there is definitely plenty of great material for it. I don't think the Instant Live thing applies to the Beacon shows. I have looked for shows I have attended in the past and never saw them available, but their summer shed tours are usually available. I'm sure copies of these shows will be swirling around. Anyone with a moogis.com account and the software to capture the stream (and way more time/energy to put into it than I have) can put these out in no time. I am (ah hem) not condoning this behavior, but I think it would be amazing to have

If you believe the bloggers, it would appear that if a Dickey-reunion were going to happen, they just missed the prime opportunity. Oh well. Such is life. From the Hidden Track blog:

Wow, there is a name I have not heard in a long time! My roommate had one of their records in college and I can remember the album cover but I can't remember any of the songs or if I liked it. Does that help?

I'm starting to believe. If I were talking about any other team I'd say they were a lock for the playoffs, but I'm talking about the mighty BJ's here. Just finally making the playoffs would do wonders for hockey in this town... Go Jackets!!!

I like these townhall things. At least now he knows what Americans' top priority is.

I have to admit that I rarely do that and never gave it a whole lot of thought until reading one of those Yahoo headlines recently about "Confessions of a hotel housekeeper" about how they were particularly lax in their room cleaning of the guests that don't tip. But, yeah, like was mentioned, it is a situation where there is little or no face-to-face interaction between the guest and the housekeeping staff, so if you have no idea who you are leaving a tip for maybe there is less inclination to do so. I have noticed more hotels are putting little cards in the rooms with the name of the per

I'm usually a pretty generous tipper, although have always marveled at what a bizarre practice it is--at least in the sense of figuring out what jobs should be tipped for and what should not. As mentioned earlier, it is so built into the culture--particularly in food-service--that workers are paid low wages because tips are expected. But, hey, I have been underpaid at plenty of desk jobs and nobody ever came up to me and said "Hey, buddy, that was a nice line of code you just wrote. Here's a $20 for ya." But that would be pretty sweet...

I agree about that. I did hear parts of that record and his playing was clearly pretty awful. But I haven't been following what he has been up to since then. I know he passes through town here once or twice a year with his Great Southern band, but I've never made it out to see him. I'd love to hear a great comeback story, but I have no idea... His getting tossed from the band was a shocker to me only in that I wasn't sure how the band could carry on under the ABB name minus Dickey. It has helped that Derek has the uncanny ability to channel Duane's ghost, but I've been listening to a lo

This is the first guest-appearance through this whole thing that made me cringe. Yeah, I went through a Blues Traveler period in the early-90s, but at some point I hit my threshold of how many of his harmonica solos I can take and even now I can't take no more. Anybody else holding out a tiny shred of hope that the final night of the Beacon run will feature a reconciliation with Dickey? It would be a neat way to cap off an epic run. Seems far-fetched. I have no idea about Dickey's current status and I can't imagine that his relationship with the band has been very good for the past se