So that time is coming up again quickly.  I know a lot of the local yokels are already planning on attending the LL/USSM event on Saturday.  But that shouldn't preclude some of y'all from also attending the annual non-official M's blog-o-sphere gathering at FanFest this year. Especially since I'm not going to make the LL/USSM event on Saturday, and I'd like to see some of y'all again and meet some of you who I've yet to meet in person.

Here's Pravda's link for information. It's the 24th and 25th from 10-4.  They don't have a list of the players who'll show up for the autograph hounding masses yet, and I'm still trying to figure out what my bro-in-law and I will do w/r/t that part of the event. I'm also wondering if I need to thank HowChuck again -- for hiring a good FO this time...

And what's a FanPost from PositivePaul without photos? 

(Last year's partial crew at the Q&A)

(Buhner says "YOU MUST COME TO FAN FEST!")

(I AM SILVA HEAR ME ROAR!)

(Red Was There. So should you have been.)

I know Gomez had dibs, but it's almost 10:30, and there's nothing yet.  And I saved the HTML code for my FanPost that got trumped yesterday...

Oh NOEZ! The price of the "12 Days of Christmas" list went up almost 11% this year.  It'll now cost a mere $86,609 to buy 9 ladies dancing, 8 maids a-milking, etc...  I'd bet that the price of gold and the price of gas (and the fact that airlines and UPS and a bunch of other places haven't taken away their fuel surcharges quite yet, in spite of the price of gas halving recently) had something to do with it...

Yesterday was my wife's birthday.  She wanted a Home Depot shopping spree.  Now I'm really wondering who wears the pants in the family.  Okay, so I got her a dozen roses, too.

I shot two eagles on Saturday.  Of course, this could mean many things, so I'll just post a link instead. 

My Powerbook G4 plug broke yesterday morning.  BAAAAH!  Must've been the yin to the yang of getting another copy of the awesome photo printer I use at home for free (it was broken, the gal who sold me the ink cartidges said, but I was able to fix it). So, if I can get the broken pin out, I can probably just get a new power supply.  But if not, I need to figure out what I can do to get a new laptop.  I don't really have the money for a newer one, so I may just have to scrounge together $3-400 to get another G4 Powerbook. 

So we talked about favorite Christmas songs.  Since Christmas Story turns 25 this year, let's talk about favorite Christmas movies.  Least-favorites, too.  I'm certain we've done this before, but what the hey.  We have new folks around since the last time we discussed them...

Claimed off waivers, according to Hickey's P-I Blog.

I can't for the life of me figure out why the M's would put Chen on waivers.  Injury concerns?  Granted he's not exactly a star in waiting, but I thought the M's could use the depth in the middle infield.

Maybe this guy made him expendable? 

Hmmm.  Seems odd.  Very odd.  Probably the injury concerns, would be my guess...

(oh, and if the photos aren't big enough - you can actually make them bigger by clicking on them.  I didn't quite have 75 words to say about Chen, apparently, so I probably should let y'all know that).

So sometime in the next 24-48 hours, we'll likely hear who the next M's GM will be.  A lot has been said about all candidates, but I'm curious who folks around here believe will be the next GM.  I have my opinion who I would like it to be, and a pretty good guess of who it will be.  It may or may not be the same person - I won't spoil things too much, but it wouldn't be too hard to find my opinion on both 'round here. 

Without further adieu, who do you think WILL be the next GM -- in the poll -- and who do you WANT to be the next GM.

And, no, I'm not putting an "I think you mean Thompson" answer on this poll.  It could be very well someone NOT on this list, who knows.  But for the sake of argument, I'm curious what people think from the names that are known...

Wow, so what? There's not one of these yet?  Maybe someone's busy writing one now, and it's a race to see how quickly we can get it posted. 

In case you wanted to go have the flesh-eating-fish pedicure, well, the state stepped in and said you can't. 

I'm still freaking out about moving next Thursday.  But when I get in the house, should I open a Cabernet Savignon or stick with the Cuvee that I'm dying to open?  I still drink beer, but both my wife and I prefer red wine nowadays...

Where's Librocrat these days?  Busy with politics stuff, I'm sure, but I figured at some point he'd come here and mention something about the apparent suicide of Choi Jin-sil.

Finally, I love this site:

This is the first time I've ever done one of these.

Watching the post-game show on FSN, and they've got Howard Lincoln talking about the GM search.  Here's a transcript, as best as I can keep up:

It's clearly the most important decision I've ever been involved with.

We've faced a lot of challenges in our 17 years with this ownership group: players strike 1994, falling tiles, building Safeco, cost overruns, but even convincing MLB this was a good ownership group -- we've been able to meet these challenges. I'm confident we'll be able to meet the challenge of picking the next GM.

...GMs all make a lot of decisions and you don't know if the decision is right or wrong at the time; you figure that out later.  We want someone as GM who most of the time decisions turn out right.

Brad Adam: When can this team realistically contend?

HL: Hard to say -- depends on views of new GM.  We want to get this turned around as quickly as we can, but We're going to ask new GM to prepare comprehensive plan for both short-term and long-term that gets us back to playoffs.

Full interview on Sunday at noon on FSN.

According to John Hickey of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (a local paper to the city of Seattle, in the state of Washington, in the western half of the United States of America), in his most recent blog post, Mariners relief pitcher Mark Lowe has been optioned to AAA Tacoma -- a minor-league baseball team called the "Rainiers" because of their proximity to one volcanic mountain, and probably taking their name from another former AAA baseball team, the Seattle Rainiers (who were, I believe, called that because the one owner of the team probably had something do do with Rainier beer, which isn't very good and never really was -- Oly was far, far better) -- to be replaced on the 25-man major league roster by one "Randy Messenger," formerly of the San Francisco Giants of the National League.

So, to summarize:

Lowe down,

Messenger up...

Of the desktop wallpaper variety...

Looked real sexy tonight on the mound.  90 pitches in 7 innings.  Two solo shots, when the ball was flying out of the park (did I count 5 HRs today????)

I'm sure Gomez will make mention of him in the minor-league wrapup, but he really looked good out there, even if he seemed frustrated to start the game.

Oh, and guess what uniform number he's wearing in T-Town (you can't tell in this photo, but I do have several other photos clearly showing it)?

None other than #52.

I wonder if the team gave that to him, or if he took the advice I left on his blog and called George Sherrill...

Speaking of his blog -- he didn't update it after his first start with Tacoma.  Or if he did, I didn't see it.

If this isn't 75 words, I'll choke someone.

At least so says this here article in the Seattle Times:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/mariners/2008054837_webusabaseball16.html

Some more famous baseball Olympians:

• Mark McGwire (I traded that 85 Topps card for Canseco rookie, long before the 70 HR season) 
• Tino Martinez
• John Jim Abbott
• R. A. Dickey
• Wlad Balentien
• Ryan Franklin
• Troy Glaus
• Jason Giambi
• Nomar Garciaparra
• Billy Koch
• Ryan Rowland-Smith
• Chris Snelling
• Paul Spoljaric
• Nick Markakis

And the list goes on and on and on.  Hopefully this is 75 words.  If not, then I shall draw forth more names from this here list...