The SEC will use instant replays to guide tough calls in league games this fall on "an experimental basis" after the NCAA recommended that all conferences give it a try following its success in the Big Ten (11) last year. Conferences have until June 1 to confirm whether they will implement and use instant replay this fall.

ESPN also updated their insanely early preseason Top 25 back in February, guessing how the rankings might look according to players lost and other changes made since January. I figured I'd say something about it now, since it's roughly the midway point between last season and next season.

As of April 1, 2005, my primary blog is ★my livejournal★. I still update this one occasionally, and I've left the archive and all non-blog pages untouched. I am converting this web site ... to ... something else. (I haven't quite decided what, yet, so don't ask.)

I also write about the Atlanta Braves at Tomahawk and about Georgia government and politics at Polstate, and I am leaving the other sections of this site alone, and even continuing to update the photos section when appropriate. All of these pages can be found in the links menu to the right.

My Livejournal is my new primary web home, and it has been for quite some time now. Some of what I post there will be unavailable to anyone not on my Livejournal "friends" list. To get on that list, just sign up for a (free) Livejournal account and let me know your user name (or add "ninjamonkeyspy" to your friends list).

Spring training is nearly over and the roster is nearly set. Opening day is next Tuesday, and a dozen or so familiar faces will be joined in the Braves dugout by quite a few newcomers. But how will that affect the Braves' run for another division title? Let's have a look.

Starting Pitching. The Braves lost Russ Ortiz, Jaret Wright, and Paul Byrd, all of whom were fairly successful under Leo Mazzone, but none of whom should be all that successful in the future. Wright has the best potential among the three, but he was a bit too volatile to hold. Tim Hudson outshines all three of them, and a healthy Horacio Ramirez and John Smoltz returning to the rotation will more than make up for the pitchers we lost. Even if Smoltz is only 75% as good as he used to be as a starter, that's still much better over the course of a season than we would get out of Paul Byrd! Verdict: The starting rotation has improved.

Relief Pitching. Alfonseca and Cruz were quite reliable -- I was even hoping Cruz was take over Smoltz's spot as the Braves' closer at one point -- and Capellan has enormous potential. I disagree with the Braves' decision to trade Capellan; I think he would have made a better closer than Dan Kolb. But I'm still hoping for good things from him. And rookies Adam Bernero and Buddy Hernandez could be pleasant surprises. Verdict: The relief pitching is slightly degraded.

Starting Lineup. The Braves replace JD Drew and the Marrero/Thomas platoon with Raul Mondesi and a Jordan/Langerhans platoon. But Andruw Jones has come back much stronger and healthier than last year, and Chipper Jones should return to much better form after an off year. LaRoche should be much improved in his sophomore season, and we should be able to expect close to the same performances from Furcal, Giles, and Estrada. Verdict: The starting lineup is slightly improved.

Bench. Eddie Perez, Julio Franco, and Wilson Betemit return. Nick Green and the second half of last year's left-field platoon are presumably replaced by Pete Orr and the second half of this year's left-field platoon. The talent may be there, but the performances of these players is sporadic at best. But let's look at the bright side: at least they're on the bench! Verdict: Improvement or degradation is negligible and as yet indistinguishable.

OVERALL. Change is constant, and in a 162-game schedule, surprises are guaranteed. Players will be injured and traded, minor leaguers will be called up, and newcomers will have an unpredictable impact. However, given what we do know about the players who have established themselves and what we can expect based on changes to last year's team, the Atlanta Braves still look like division champions to me. And no one can take that away from them until someone else clinches the NL East title. Verdict: I predict another successful season, good enough at least for a playoff berth and probably the Braves' 14th consecutive division title.

I haven't posted much lately. I haven't been keeping up with news, baseball, technology, or anything outside my little bubble of a personal life. I haven't been thinking too much outside the box either, and there isn't anything bubbling beneath the surface pressing to get out. But if something comes along, you'll know about it.

Also, I'm considering removing files from the images folder en masse, so if there's something in there you want, browse through it now before I weed out the old stuff!

This is bullshit. A handful of the Hall of Fame voters are refusing or will refuse to vote for Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds, and others because they supposedly "enhanced their performance", whatever that means. Guys have been hitting gyms, drinking protein shakes, taking cortizone shots, and playing dirty to enhance their performance since MLB was founded. The Baseball Hall of Fame is full of racists, philanderers, drug addicts, gamblers, and others of disreputable character -- and do you know why? Because it's a baseball hall of fame! Not a moral fiber hall of fame. Not a Christian-conservative-values hall of fame. A baseball hall of fame.

Babe Ruth did much worse things during his playing career than Mickey Mantle (alcoholic), Pete Rose (gambler), and Jose Canseco (substance abuser) combined. Granted, two of those men aren't in the hall of fame and may never be, but they all three should be based on their on-the-field performances.

A player's ability to play baseball has much less to do with one's entry into the baseball hall of fame than ever before. One's fame has nothing to do with it, despite the title: "Hall of Fame". What a sham! What kind of idiots don't allow the all-time hits leader or the two all-time single-season home run leaders in for stupid crap like gambling and use of performance enhancers?

Regardless of how players achieved their statistics, what matters is what they did on the field. As a fan of the game since I was old enough to comprehend it, this pains me, but the baseball hall of fame means almost nothing to me now.

I had typed up a huge post three days ago about all seven of the computers I had "owned" in my lifetime. I put owned in quotation marks because I didn't truly own any of them until this one; my laptop is the first computer I bought with my own money and have hoarded completely to myself as a personal plaything. It's the greatest toy ever! :)

Anyway, what you're getting now is a preview post. I haven't decided how I'm going to go about writing about all my old computers, but I think I'll just cover them one or two at a time, initially describing them how and why they were purchased, then discussing any upgrades, problems, or other interesting facts about them. You'll see, I guess.

The list (** laptops):

In case you're wondering, it's really easy to trace computers back to the dates I originally acquired them when I've been blogging for 5½ years. And we still have the invoices lying around for all the surviving computers, and I'm sure Dad's got archived receipts of the previous significant purchases.

Within our lifetimes, some form of socialism will have to win by default. (Okay, really, it already has. But I don't like admiting that yet.)

As populations grow and technologies are developed, there will be many more people requiring provisions, much better technology to do the work, and much less manual labor and man hours necessary to get the work done. That is, we'll have a larger labor supply working fewer aggregate hours, which can only mean one thing for the average working person -- that is, if we're going to keep prices consistent (or consistently rising) with the arbitrary monetary value we assign to everyday things: reduced hours, increased wages, and increased money supply.

Of course, that's more of an ideal scenario. What's more likely to happen in capitalist America, for better or for worse, is an attempt to conserve the status quo without making such socialistic adjustments, allowing the disparity between rich and poor to grow significantly. If we maintain our current 40-hour-workweek standard, unemployment will skyrocket because there will be far too few jobs for an exponentially growing population.

You want to talk endangered resources of finite supply? Think about how much better some of us are going to feel in 40 years when everything works out just fine for us, but how much worse off someone else will be because of that.

I hate the idea of the Welfare state, I really do. But sometimes I wonder how this world is supposed to survive in the long run without it. I mean, it gets harder and harder to educate the population and train the labor force in mass quantity, and as we get more and more specialized (that is, less and less talented) it's going to be much harder to avoid the need for some kind of socio-economic safety net.

(Also posted to my Livejournal. Leave comments here.)