Blog Maintenance / MLB.TV

Well, I'm just popping in here today to give you a quickie post today.

I took the opportunity today to do a little "behind the scenes" work on my blog, and if you look at the sidebar you will notice a couple of things.

First off. I did that poll on whether or not I should create a Picture Fiction Archive, and the result spoke a clear language indeed. 18 people voted. 15 of those wanted the archives while 3 couldn't care less. No one said they didn't want an archive. So today I added the "archives" link to the sidebar under the PFC logo picture. All future PFC stories will be collected on that post (which for now hopefully appears below this one).

Second. I updated my blogroll, since that has fallen way behind. I've started reading so many new excellent blogs lately, and I've not taken the time to honor them by adding them to my blogroll. This has now been fixed, and you should now all be included there. If I missed you, let me know and I'll fix it ASAP!

Third little thing. I've been contemplating doing more "music" posts to share my excellent taste in music with you all (yes, I do consider myself lucky enough to have a very refined taste in music). But, while making many boring posts speaking of how freakin' great a particular artist, group or song is would be boring in itself, I came up with this little idea.

I added a "playlist" to the sidebar. You will find that there is only one song available today - and that is Savatage's "Morphine Child". What I aim to do here is add a new song every now and then, mention it in that days blog post, and if you want to you can take the opportunity to listen to the new song. The playlist will grow, but as I get (say) 30 songs or so on there, I will probably start taking the oldest one's out - unless I decide to repost them. Feel free to offer your opinions on the music I've chosen for you at any time.

I chose that song today because Savatage is one of my all-time favorite bands, and that song is one (of so many) of their best songs. Taken off their latest album, and quite possibly (sadly) their last album. It's a 10 minute masterpiece which during it's second half is absolutely mindblowing.

Give it an ear, will ya?

MLB.TV! Yes, I decided to pay for a yearly subscription to the MLB.TV today. Grapefruit league started the other day, and I saw that MLB.TV would show quite a few of these games. I couldn't live any longer without some baseball, so I decided to sign up right now and get the best of pre-season training.

Today, the Braves were playing the Dodgers and I was particularly looking forward to seeing Jair Jurrjens in action. He was slated to start the game, and is a young prospect that was acquired in the Edgar Renteria trade at the start of the off-season.

Jurrjens had a couple of good innings, although a little shaky in the middle of the first when he issued a walk and allowed the Dodgers a one run lead. I still think this guy can be something special. Buddy Carlyle got the win, and was very impressive in the two innings he pitched. He sure showed more than I expect from him, which is a good thing.

The offense was looking good. Chipper Jones and Mark Teixeira are going to be a lethal 3-4 punch in the middle of the order, and quite a few opposing teams are going to have some problems facing up to these two guys. Jeff Francour will likely bat behind them, and he looks like he will continue to improve his game... so the middle of the line-up is looking really good.

Only thing I wasn't too happy about - and judging anything from just one pre-season game is futile anyway - was Brandon Jones. Now, I have been of the opinion that he and Matt Diaz should platoon in left field, just like Diaz and Willie Harris did last season. But, after Brandon missed a routine fly ball, and didn't even seem to hustle after the ball after he dropped it, made me think he might benefit from at least beginning the season in Triple A ball.

Sadly, Andruw Jones was not included in the Dodgers line-up. I was kind of looking forward to seeing him play (even if it would have been in the wrong jersey).

Anyway... I've got plenty of good baseball ahead of me. Now I can barely wait for the regular season to begin.

The Braves really are going to win it this year!