Standing Pat & A Wild Win

So, the trade deadline came and went, and...

...nothng happened.

While I wasn't surprised, I'm a little disappointed that the Twins didn't try a little harder for one of the infielders that hey had been rumored to be in taks for. Adrian Beltre would have been a huge pickup, and one more strong shutdown reliever would have been nice to get (though trades for relievers often turn out poorly). If Alexi Casilla is truly done for the season (and I sincerely hope he isn't), we'll be trotting a lineup with at least 3 of the following players every game: Nick Punto, Brian Buscher, Brendan Harris, Mike Lamb, or Adam Everett.

* Buscher's really playing well, but he's really a replacement level player, and he needs to be platooned against lefties.

* Punto's redeemed himself after his abysmal 2007 season, but even the most optimistic fan has to realize that his stats will level off to some extent (my bet is that it'll happen faster, now that he'll be batting second with Casilla out).

* Harris is an okay hitter (I stress okay), but he's an anchor in the field. With him playing shortstop for the foreseeable future, Twins fans can get ready to hear "just missed the double play" a lot.

* Lamb has been a tremendous disappointment, both in the field and at bat. He's wayunder replacement value, and is looking like he's losing motivation rapidly.

* Everett was touted as an mazing defenseman, but injuries, an awful record at the plate, and even some extremely shaky defense had him almost DFA'd (until Casilla's injury). Who knows how much time he'll get to play.

Casilla's injury hurts the Twins drastically. If a trade for an infilder was important before, it became crucial once Casilla made that ill-fated headfirst slide into second. The Twins stood pat, and while I still think they can make some waves, and possibly win the division, any lineup that has to feature 3 of the aforementioned group is on shaky feet.

Gardy has to fill out just such a lineup card pretty much every game for the rest of the year if Casilla's injury is as bad as advertised.


On to brighter news. Thursday's game against the Sox was a joy to watch. Scott Baker had an abnormally rough outing, but still struck out 8 in 6 innings and kept the Twins close. Morneau hit a 3-run homer to bring us within one, setting the stage for one of the wildest innings I've seen in some tme.

Denard Span led off the 7th inning, and during a bunt attempt, he pulled his bat back (as replays showed) very much in time to avoid commiting to the pitch, which ended up hitting him. As he trotted down the line, suddenly the home plate umpire called him back, saying that he had gone too far. A horribly missed call, which Gardenhire immeadiately came out to argue. Gardy was ejected almost instantly, which sent him into a fury. After giving up on the umpire, he vented some frustration by dropkicking his cap. Unfortunately, doing this prompted the already agitated home crowd to start throwing their caps onto the field (a poor choice... those things are expensive), and when they ran out of caps, they started throwing whatever else they could get their hands on. Ozzie Guillen (rightfully) got his players off the field, and (bizzarely) got into a shouting match with a couple fans above the visiting dugout. The dome announcer threatened that if everyone didn't stop, the Twins would have to forfeit, but eventually, order was restored. Span came back to bat and ended up coaxing a great walk, then took second on a wild pitch, and scored the tying run on a hard ground ball which Orlando Cabrera wasn't quite able to snag. Jason Kubel tacked on a 3-run homer later in the inning. The Sox got a couple back in the 8th, but the Twins picked up 3 more in the bottom of that inning, securing a win.

Overall, it was a hard fought game against our biggest rival (a game which happened to bring us to 1/2 game back of said rival in the central division standings). It was the type of game that reminds a person why baseball is sch a great game...

Not Cuil, Man...

It seems there's a new search engine in town. Cuil¹  is made by a few of the folks who brought you Google. I like Google, it does what I need it to do without giving me too much garbage or sponsored nonsense. Cuil would have had to impress me quite a bit to make me think about looking elsewhere for my web-searching needs, anyway, but I figured I'd give it a shot (new and cool things, and whatnot).

I started trying to get to the site when I heard that it had publicly launched on Monday. I had planned on writing up a quick 'first impressions' blog about it that evening (by which time I would have hopefully had a taste of what Cuil was capable of). As it turns out, if I would have written that post, it would have been empty. I tried 10-15 times to access the site that day, succeeding in getting to the main page twice, and succeeding in searching for anything zero times. I tried my name once, figured that might be a bit obscure, then tried 'Descent', both times it slowed to beyond crawling, then eventually just spit up a blank page.

I've been trying the site off and on all week, both from home and work, with no success. Most of the time, I can't get the main page to come up, and when I can, searching hasn't worked for me. Not once. Sometimes, it will bring up something resembling a search results page, but it will invariably be empty.

So, in the end, here's what I do know about Cuil.

* It has a very pretty front page.

* It has a very lofty opinion of itself (noting that it's index is 3 times larger than any of its competitors - which may or may not be true)

* When it does work, it's slow & kind of buggy (I'm not the only one who has noted this)

* It requires exact spelling when it does work.(that alone means I'll be using Google)

Eventually, I figure that I'll be able to use Cuil to its full potential, but even then, it looks as if that full potential might be mostly smoke and mirrors compared to the 'Google-killer' status that was bestowed upon it. It's not a Google-killer... not even a little bit. It's a heavily overhyped, underwhelming search engine that pretty much exemplifies the dot-com era of the late-90's.

 

Footnote:

¹ - The Gaelic word the search engine's name is based off is pronounced 'que-ill', not quite 'cool', like other websites are saying, making the pun in today's title a little more unforgivable.

I Fix Things: Windows Defender Corrupt - 0x80070006

Windows Vista has actually managed to work pretty well for me thus far. With one or two exceptions, I'd say it's pretty solid, and in my experience with it, I haven't found it deserving of the "buggy mess" label a lot of folks seem to have pinned on it.

One thing I can't figure out, however, is why they decided to integrate Windows Defender into the operating system. Don't get me wrong, Defender is decent software (if a bit unremarkable, I use it more for detection that actual removal, since I haven't seen it remove all that many things that Spybot, Adaware, or HiJackThis weren't able to root out), but streamlining it into the system has the disastrous side effect of making it:

a) Impossible to remove, should you not want to use it
b) Extremely difficult to troubleshoot or repair, should there ever be a problem with it

I recently had to use System Restore, due to a poorly created MSI file I decided to test on my machine. Once the process had completed, Windows Defender has broken itself. Upon system startup, I would receive an error message reading "Application failed to initialize: 0x80070006. The Handle is invalid". Most of the methods of troubleshooting Defender that I've seen on the Internet require the user to be able to open Defender in the first place. The program files are all there, it seems as though Defender should work, but there's no 'Windows Defender' service listed under Windows services, and there's no way to open the program.

Luckily, after doing some research (and calling Microsoft, but that was an exercise in futility), I've found the answer to my problem.

The problem lies in corrupted registry settings for the program. If you have a similar problem to mine (Defender in Vista seemingly installed, but getting a "can't initialize" error), try the following (originally posted here by cdninja)

Step 1: Back up Registry ==================

1. Click Start, type "regedit" (without quotation marks) in the search bar and press Enter.

2. In the Registry Editor, click File menu, and click Export.

3. In the Save In list, select the folder where you want to save the backup. 4. In the File Name box, and type a name for your backup file, such as "Options" or "Backup".

5. Click Save.

Step 2: Create and Run the Registry File ==================

1. Click Start, type "notepad C:\register.reg" (without quotation marks) in the Search bar, and then click OK. Choose Yes when you are prompted to create a new file.

2. Copy the following texts between the star marks and then paste them into the opened Notepad window:

************************BEGIN**************************

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\WinDefend]
"DisplayName"="@%ProgramFiles%\\Windows Defender\\MsMpRes.dll,-103"
"ErrorControl"=dword:00000001
"Group"="COM Infrastructure"
"ImagePath"=hex(2):25,00,53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,52,00,6f,00,6f,00,\
74,00,25,00,5c,00,53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,33,00,32,00,5c,00,73,\
00,76,00,63,00,68,00,6f,00,73,00,74,00,2e,00,65,00,78,00,65,00,20,00,2d,00,\
6b,00,20,00,73,00,65,00,63,00,73,00,76,00,63,00,73,00,00,00
"Start"=dword:00000002
"Type"=dword:00000020
"Description"="@%ProgramFiles%\\Windows Defender\\MsMpRes.dll,-3068"
"DependOnService"=hex(7):52,00,70,00,63,00,53,00,73,00,00,00,00,00
"ObjectName"="LocalSystem"
"ServiceSidType"=dword:00000001
"RequiredPrivileges"=hex(7):53,00,65,00,49,00,6d,00,70,00,65,00,72,00,73,00,6f,\
00,6e,00,61,00,74,00,65,00,50,00,72,00,69,00,76,00,69,00,6c,00,65,00,67,00,\
65,00,00,00,53,00,65,00,42,00,61,00,63,00,6b,00,75,00,70,00,50,00,72,00,69,\
00,76,00,69,00,6c,00,65,00,67,00,65,00,00,00,53,00,65,00,52,00,65,00,73,00,\
74,00,6f,00,72,00,65,00,50,00,72,00,69,00,76,00,69,00,6c,00,65,00,67,00,65,\
00,00,00,53,00,65,00,44,00,65,00,62,00,75,00,67,00,50,00,72,00,69,00,76,00,\
69,00,6c,00,65,00,67,00,65,00,00,00,53,00,65,00,43,00,68,00,61,00,6e,00,67,\
00,65,00,4e,00,6f,00,74,00,69,00,66,00,79,00,50,00,72,00,69,00,76,00,69,00,\
6c,00,65,00,67,00,65,00,00,00,53,00,65,00,53,00,65,00,63,00,75,00,72,00,69,\
00,74,00,79,00,50,00,72,00,69,00,76,00,69,00,6c,00,65,00,67,00,65,00,00,00,\
00,00
"FailureActions"=hex:80,51,01,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,03,00,00,00,14,00,00,\
00,01,00,00,00,60,ea,00,00,01,00,00,00,60,ea,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\WinDefend\Parameters]
"ServiceDllUnloadOnStop"=dword:00000001
"ServiceDll"=hex(2):25,00,50,00,72,00,6f,00,67,00,72,00,61,00,6d,00,46,00,69,\
00,6c,00,65,00,73,00,25,00,5c,00,57,00,69,00,6e,00,64,00,6f,00,77,00,73,00,\
20,00,44,00,65,00,66,00,65,00,6e,00,64,00,65,00,72,00,5c,00,6d,00,70,00,73,\
00,76,00,63,00,2e,00,64,00,6c,00,6c,00,00,00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\WinDefend\Security]
"Security"=hex:01,00,14,80,04,01,00,00,10,01,00,00,14,00,00,00,30,00,00,00,02,\
00,1c,00,01,00,00,00,02,80,14,00,ff,01,0f,00,01,01,00,00,00,00,00,01,00,00,\
00,00,02,00,d4,00,07,00,00,00,00,00,28,00,ff,01,0f,00,01,06,00,00,00,00,00,\
05,50,00,00,00,b5,89,fb,38,19,84,c2,cb,5c,6c,23,6d,57,00,77,6e,c0,02,64,87,\
00,0b,28,00,00,00,00,10,01,06,00,00,00,00,00,05,50,00,00,00,b5,89,fb,38,19,\
84,c2,cb,5c,6c,23,6d,57,00,77,6e,c0,02,64,87,00,00,14,00,fd,01,02,00,01,01,\
00,00,00,00,00,05,12,00,00,00,00,00,18,00,ff,01,0f,00,01,02,00,00,00,00,00,\
05,20,00,00,00,20,02,00,00,00,00,14,00,9d,01,02,00,01,01,00,00,00,00,00,05,\
04,00,00,00,00,00,14,00,8d,01,02,00,01,01,00,00,00,00,00,05,06,00,00,00,00,\
00,28,00,15,00,00,00,01,06,00,00,00,00,00,05,50,00,00,00,49,59,9d,77,91,56,\
e5,55,dc,f4,e2,0e,a7,8b,eb,ca,7b,42,13,56,01,01,00,00,00,00,00,05,12,00,00,\
00,01,01,00,00,00,00,00,05,12,00,00,00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\WinDefend\Enum]
"0"="Root\\LEGACY_WINDEFEND\\0000"
"Count"=dword:00000001
"NextInstance"=dword:00000001

*************************END***************************

3. After you paste the above commands, please close the Notepad window. Choose Yes when you are prompted to save the file.

4. Save the file as a REG file of any type (defenderfix.reg was what I called the file, but any name will do, just make sure the file is a REG file, and not a TXT file)

5. next double click on the new file.

6. When you receive a message box asking "Are you sure you want to add the information in the REG file to the registry", choose "Yes"

7. You will receive another message box saying "Information in the REG file has been successfully entered into the registry", please click "OK" to confirm.

8. Restart the computer.

 

The process worked for me. Let me know if it works for you.

Old Music Video: Broken Social Scene - Almost Crimes

I find that with YouTube and the vast majority of music videos that have been created at my fingertips, I find myself watching Broken Social Scene's "Almost Crimes" music video a ridiculous number of times.

The song (off their fantastic 2002 release You Forgot It In People) is one of the more straight-forward rock songs that the band has created, and has a fantastic interplay between singers Kevin Drew and Leslie Feist (more recently, of '1234' fame). The video keys in on this, with nothing but silhouettes rocking out for the duration of the video.

Most BSS videos are great to watch (and all of Feist's videos are marves of timing and choreography), but this one just rocks out and is so insanely fun to watch that it merits special note.

Wow... Really?? I Mean, Really??

Twins general manager Bill Smith, on Livan Hernandez, who improved to 10-6 with a 5.29 earned-run average with Saturday's victory over Texas: "I'll take the (10) wins. Who do you want, a guy who's 10-15 with a 2.80 ERA or a guy who's 16-8 with a 7.00 ERA? I'll take the 16-8."

Source

 

Oh no Bill, not cool... I guess the saying goes 'I'd rather be lucky than good', but as a GM wouldn't you rather draft good, seeing as how it's a little bit more repeatable?

Let's put it this way. If I were to pitch in the major leagues, I'd understandably have a complete inability to get anyone out. I'd give up 96 runs in the first inning, and I'd only start people out when their arms were literally too tired to swing the bat. However, for the sake of this hypothesis, let's also say that my younger brother is toeing the rubber against me. He give up his 342 runs and then he starts walking people. The result is a thrilling 956-872 game, and I end up winning.

Now let's say that the very next day this happens. Scott Baker goes out and gives up 2 hits, one of which happens to be an unlucky home run. He loses because of his offense's innate disability to score runs behind him (this is actually the THIRD time he's lost 1-0 in this not-at-all-hypothetical-all-too-real world).

Who pitched a better game??

Exactly. Wins are overrated. A pitcher can pitch the game of his life, but unless the strikes out every single hitter, he's not in complete control of the outcome - and even then he still has to get some hitting behind him. Seeing how no one has ever done that, (not even Ron Necciai, though that one game was one of the greatest feats anyone has ever accomplished in sports), there has not been a single instance where a pitcher has won a game all by himself. A win is supposed to be a nice indicator of which pitcher pitched better on a given day, but it's a horribly flawed stat. I fear for the Twins, who seemingly have a GM who doesn't grasp that concept at all.

 

Coincidentally, Livan earns his own tag with this post. I'm kind of shocked he didn't already have one. His name has also been added to my computer's dictionary. Truly we live in harrowing times.