Griffey to the White Sox?

In 1998, this trade would have been something to behold. However, in 2008 I question the sense of this move.

Of course, it seems like the Griffey to the South Side rumors are an annual thing. However, this is the first time it has gone past rampant unfounded speculation to rampant somewhat founded speculation. It all could be nixed by Griffey, but we'll see.

The PHP corner: A substr conundrum

For all you rabid PHP developers out there, I'll occasionally be passing along some stuff I found out while working on various projects I am involved with (both inside and outside of work). Some of these revelations may seem trivial to you, but they are virtually epiphanies to me, and hope that somebody might find use of my ramblings.

Today is a short fact regarding the substr() function. Were you aware that as of version 5.2.3, putting a negative value for the position parameter that is longer than the length of the string will result in an empty string, instead of the whole string? I wasn't, and it certainly perplexed me.

Example:

$bar = 'Quo Vadimus is awesome';

$foo = substr( $bar, -54);

In an older version of PHP, $foo would output:

Quo Vadimus is awesome

In 5.2.3 and on, however, it outputs an empty string.

The More You Know...

Quick and Pointless Notice

I have some cool stuff I'll be posting throughout this week. For now, however, I'll leave you with a quick list of my opinions on three movies I saw the past two weekends.

Wall-E - Much, much more on this later, but my view at this time is that this movie should be seen by everybody. It quite possibly is my favorite Pixar movie.

Wanted - Insanely over the top, incredibly violent, and rather goofy. Still, it was pretty fun to watch.

Hancock - Not quite sure what kind of movie it wanted to be, but still a rather entertaining movie nonetheless.

UPDATE: By this week, I obviously meant the week of July 14. Yeah, that's the ticket. Anyway, some stuff might come, if I feel up to it. Last week just ran away from me.

Faretheewell, Sweet Prince

A new era dawns at Deadspin

As we are in no way nearly as funny as the commentariat over at Deadspin, we never took the opportunity to join the community. However, we have been a devoted lurker since early 2007, and we are sad to see Mr. Leitch go.

You have done East Central Illinois proud. Good luck at New York, and may you and Deadspin live long and prosper. May His Holy Horsiness St.Barbaro bless you.

Summer Movies: A Quick Ranking List

Next week I'll be writing a bit more about the first half of the summer movie season. For the sake of brevity, however, I will put up my list, from least favorite to most favorite, from May and June. Keep in mind that I have yet to see WALL-E and Wanted. Remember that this list is only my preference, and really doesn't take into account artistic or technical achievement (other than that which improves my enjoyment).

Positively Meh
8. The Happening
7. The Incredible Hulk
6. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

Enjoyable Missed Opportunities
5. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
4. Get Smart

Frenetic, Insane, and Awesome
3. Speed Racer

Excellent Movies
2. Kung-Fu Panda
1. Iron Man

EXXXTREEME BLOGGING TO DA MAXXX!!!!!1!

There is nothing I can really add to this picture that hasn't already been said better, whether here or here. Except that this apparently sums the feud between bloggers and old media journalists in the sports world.

If old media journalists were 120 years old, and loved the company of pigeons.

And bloggers were a Poochie-like nightmare.

Go ahead, bask in its awesome glory. As the guys at FJM said, this is the Guernica of our times.

(Also, be sure to check out Buzz Bissinger's insane ramblings about canceling free speech, one of the few journalists I know of who appears to believe the Alien and Sedition acts were a good thing.)

The West Wing: Favorite Clips

This isn't actually my favorite clip of Arnie Vinick. However, I can't find his quick piece of straight talk on ethanol in "King Corn", and this is about just as good. This works better as a clip as well, as the King Corn piece is rather short in comparison.

I honestly would have been happy with either Santos or Vinick winning at the end of the series. Alan Alda did an excellent job with this character, and its almost too bad that he wasn't in the show more. True, he was an idealized pro-choice version of John McCain (without the war record and S&L scandal). However, that isn't a reason to dislike the character. I was happy when he agreed to be Santos Secretary of State.

Up next will be a murderer's row of clips, from some of my favorite episodes.