And Counting, Berselius and myself answered some very important questions by an Indians blogger. The questions, as I’m sure you guessed, were about Kosuke Fukudome. So head over there and read what we have to say.
Continue reading “Obstructed View takes its discredited act on the road”
jherky.
Suburban Kid looked to be the winner entering the bottom of the 13th, but thanks to Reed Johnson, Darwin Barney, an intentional walk to Starlin Castro and a 3-run home run by Geovany Soto, jherky wins.
He, along with Megan, both predicted the Cubs would go 11-18 in the month of June. Megan predicted 95 runs scored and jherky predicted 116. The Cubs scored 108 so he was closest. We’re also going to give a shirt to Megan.
Contact me by scrolling over Site at the top of the page and then click on mb21 under Contact.
In early June we set up a contest where the winner would win an Obstructed View t-shirt. All you had to do was guess what the Cubs record in June was going to be. The tiebreakers were runs scored, runs allowed and the number of hits by Starlin Castro. With 5 games left in the month, I thought I’d post the predictions. I entered one, but can’t win. There were 22 people eliglble to win the shirt.
| Name | W | L | RS | RA | Castro Hits |
| Mercurial Outfielder* | 10 | 18 | 56 | 80 | 15 |
| Rice Cube | 8 | 21 | 85 | 142 | 39 |
| Arturs Weible | 10 | 19 | 90 | 120 | 35 |
| talkingtocactus | 13 | 16 | 87 | 123 | 31 |
| Megan | 11 | 18 | 95 | 150 | 32 |
| cwolf | 12 | 17 | 113 | 134 | 24 |
| dwag29 | 26 | 3 | 32 | 14 | 99 |
| Josh | 16 | 13 | 65 | 110 | 36 |
| Urk | 9 | 20 | 58 | 136 | 23 |
| koboldekobold | 7 | 22 | 64 | 159 | 36 |
| Suburban Kid | 10 | 19 | 104 | 142 | 27 |
| xoomwaffle | 12 | 17 | 110 | 145 | 26 |
| Mish | 9 | 20 | 105 | 141 | 28 |
| dylanj | 8 | 17 | 75 | 125 | 25 |
| Wrigley Mike | 8 | 21 | 78 | 287 | 614 |
| mb21** | 9 | 20 | 119 | 177 | 25 |
| Bubba Biscuit | 6 | 23 | 120 | 150 | 30 |
| jherky | 11 | 18 | 116 | 288 | 25 |
| ACT | 10 | 19 | 118 | 160 | 32 |
| WaLi | 12 | 17 | 123 | 171 | 30 |
| jtsunami | 9 | 20 | 117 | 157 | 34 |
| Down by Keith Law | 10 | 19 | 94 | 147 | 31 |
| melissa | 7 | 22 | 101 | 150 | 40 |
Being the dumbass that I am, I missed the scheduled doubleheader on Tuesday and counted only 28 games initially. Mercurial Outfielder entered his prediction prior to my correcting it so I’ll give him one win or loss after the month in whatever direction helps him out.
The Cubs are currenly 8-16 and they’ve sored 84, allowed 113 and Castro has 33 base hits. We can eliminate dwag, but he wasn’t really trying to win anyway. He must already have a shirt. A lot of people do. Josh is also eliminated as he picked 16-13 and so is melissa and Bubba Biscuit. If the Cubs win the next five, talkingtocactus wins.
If the Cubs lose every remaining game there would be a 3-way tie between Rice Cube, dylanj and Wrigley Mike. Rice Cube will be closest in the first tiebreaker so dylanj and Wrigley Mike are out.
If they win one more, there would be a 4-way tie. Urk is out because he can’t be closest in the first tiebreaker. If they go 1-4, jtsunami needs the Cubs to score 27 or more runs to win. If they scored exactly 27 more runs, it would go to the second tiebreaker.
If they win two more, it would be a 4-way tie. We can eliminate Mercurial Outfielder because his tiebreaker loses. If somebody else wants to run all the scenarios, go for it. I’m way too lazy.
The Breaking Bad OV shirt is no longer available. Cafe Press won’t allow it to be sold unfortunately.
UPDATE: There are 29 games in June. I can’t count. If you’ve left a prediction already, please update it. Thanks and sorry.
We’ve gotten dozens and dozens of emails, faxes, and letters thanking us for our Obstructed View shirts and other merchandise. Now you can get one for free. All you have to do is predict the Cubs record in June. They’re already 0-3 so you know that much. They have 25 games remaining and it’s a brutal 25 games.
You can choose one for yourself, but here are a few just to get you excited.
Use this thread for your predictions only. Use the previous thread for other comments. We’re lazy and that will just make it easier for us. We’ll leave this open until Monday. If two or more people have the same prediction, we’ll use tiebreakers. Whoever is closest to the tiebreakers wins.
Tiebreaker 1: Total Runs Scored
Tiebreaker 2: Total Runs Allowed
Tiebreaker 3: Number of base hits for Starlin Castro
Go ahead and enter your predictions in this thread (use the previous one for other comments).
When posting something to Unobstructed Views, you really only need to know a few things. Most of it is self-explantory. The buttons on the editor are helpful and if you scroll over one of them it will tell you what it does.
Linking: Highlight the text you want to turn into a link and then click on the link icon on the toolbar that has a green plus sign. It’s on the bottom row, third from the right. You’ll get a popup and then it’s pretty easy to figure out at that point. To unlink something, click on the broken link icon on the toolbar (to the right of the link icon).
Quoting: Highlight the text you want to quote and then under the Format dropdown (dropdown on the top right that says paragraph), click it and then select blockquote.
Tags: the article must be saved first to add tags. Once you publish the article you can access it by clicking on the Unobstructed Views menu item. From there you’ll see an Add Tags link below the article. Click on that and enter your tag. No reason to capitalize as it will do it automatically. To add multiple tags, separate each tag with a comma. For example, say you want to have tags for Cubs, Cubs lose and Cubs suck. You’d enter cubs, cubs lose, cubs suck
Spacing: Hitting return or enter on your keyboard creates a new paragraph so you only need to hit the button once.
Most of the icons on the editor you’ll never use. Scroll over any of them and you’ll know what each does. Currently the editor is too large and the sidebar overlaps it. That will be fixed eventually as we roll out an improved template in the near future.
IMPORTANT: Do not first type your post into Microsoft Word and then copy it into the editor. A whole bunch of code you didn’t intend to include will be copied over along with the text. It’s just a mess. If you like to write your post first and then copy into the editor, use a basic Text Editor. For Windows users, Notepad is fantastic for this. For Mac users, Text/Edit works just fine. There are other apps available. Just don’t use Microsoft Word. Oddly enough, you can copy/paste from Excel if you have a table in a spreadsheet that you want to publish. That works fine, but not from Word.
This blog has been active for exactly a month now and we’ve gotten hundreds of emails asking for us to provide user profiles. We’ve gotten dozens and dozens of emails asking that we provide a way for our readers to publish content to the blog. We hear about FanPosts and Diaries and we’ve responded. We listened.
Each registered user has a profile page. Your latest comments are included and you can add your twitter feed there as well. You can also write your own blog entry. We’ve set up Unobstructed Views to be something that is often called a community blog. If you talk about how great Obstructed View is, you may even get your article promoted to the front page. We’ll have an RSS feed on the sidebar that links to all new articles on Unobstructed Views. There’s a link the menu to it as well as a link taking you directly to the page where you can manager your blog articles. The Unobstructed Views menu item up top also has links to your profile.
We hope you can take some time to publish your own articles. Doing so is relatively simple. Scroll over Unobstructed Views on the menu, click on New Article Or Manager Your Articles. If you do the latter, click New Blog. It’s rather straightforward. When you are done with your article and want to publish it, change Publish to yes. You’ll need to select one of the two categories. Access should be set to Public. Enter a title for your article and then add your article to the editor. There are some icons to help with formatting.
There are several links below the editor (Image, Page break, More, Jcomments On and Jcomments Off). If you need to upload an image, go ahead. I don’t know why you’d want a page break. More creates a link to Read More. If your article is really long, this can be useful. Ignore the Jcomments buttons. Comments are enabled by default.
When you’re done with your article, change publish to yes and then click Save at the bottom. To view your article on the site, click Unobstructed Views on the menu. Then go to twitter, facebook and other social networking sites you frequent and let everyone know. You should also call your family and friends and have them tell 10 people each.
If there’s something you’d like to discuss, post something on it. If there’s a news item about the Cubs or MLB that we haven’t touched on, write something about it. Doesn’t have to be much. There’s no minimum character nonsense.
There’s also a new login for the site. Gone is the bar at the top of the screen and at the top of the sidebar is a new login module. Same username/password and you can now also login using twitter or facebook if you don’t want to register for the site.
Continue reading “Obstructed View Introduces Unobstructed Views”
You were probably dying in anticipation of the second part of our roundtable so we apologize for not posting it yesterday.
The four of us talked about what’s gone on so far this season on Tuesday night and you can’t even tell which of us wasn’t there.
Continue reading “OV Roundtable, Part 1”
This one Cubs beat reporter continues to say the Cubs have eaten $11.5 million when they released Carlos Silva. I’m assuming you have all figured out this beat reporter is Paul Sullivan because, who the hell else could it be? There’s a problem with what Sullivan is saying.
First, the Cubs were paid to take Silva from the Mariners. The Cubs were paying $8 million of Silva’s $11.5 million this season with the M’s picking up the rest. The Yankees have since picked him up meaning the Yankees will pay him about $390,000 this season. So the Cubs are on the hood for $7.6 million. That’s what the Cubs are paying Carlos Silva. The rest of the money is coming from two other teams. Simple enough, right?
Sullivan insists the Cubs have eaten all $11.5 million because, get this, they signed Marlon Byrd with some of the money they got from the Mariners. That’s right. To illustrate how iditiotc this is, let’s create a similar situation.
You have only $100 to your name. It’s been a rough year. With that $100 you decide you want to spend some of it in the Obstructed View Store. You’re going to spend $22 on this fabulous shirt.
You’re going to get your son something nice. His favorite color is blue and you see the excellent design by Adam and have to spend $15 on it. A happy son in such rough financial times can go a long way.
Throw in $5 in shipping and you’ve spent $42 of the $100 you had. Simple math means you have $58 remaining. Like most Americans, you’re going to spend it and worry about your financial crisis later, but you’re done with the fantastic Obstructed View merchandise. You spend the rest of the mony on a pair of shoes.
Two months after you get the shirts, your son decides green is his favorite color and wants that shirt out of sight. The good news is that at the same time as you’re discussing this with your son, your out of control dog is chewing up both shirts. Half of each shirt is gone and you decide against sewing them together to make one shirt. You throw them out. $42 down the drain. Obviously your dog goes without dinner because of his behavior. That’s a given. Your wife has left you and taken son and the dog with her. It’s not all bad, though. You still have your shoes and you’re loving them.
QUIZ
1. How much money did you receive little or no value from?
A. $22
B. $42
C. $100
2. Did anyone other than Paul Sullivan answer $42?
A. No
B. Nope
C. Nah
D. All of the above
I seriously cannot figure out how Paul Sullivan graduated from college. I don’t even know how he could get into college. How did he graduate middle school? This is simple math.
$11.5 million
-$3 million
-$0.4 million
You don’t add in some random player just to get it back to $11.5 million. The Cubs are paying Marlon Byrd $5.5 million this year. Yes, some of the money they saved they used to sign Byrd, but they didn’t throw Byrd away so you can’t possibly conclude the team threw $11.5 million away.
This is simple addition and subtraction. I know we’re using decimal points, which can really confuse children when they’re first learning math. Perhaps Sullivan is a child? Saying the Cubs threw $11.5 million away is the same as saying you threw $100 away using the above example. Nobody who has ever graduated high school would say that. Nobody!
I know we’ve been advertising the merchandise lately, but I did want to add that the money we do generate from it will help this site run. Adam, Jeff, Tim and I aren’t made of money and although the cost to maintain this site isn’t large and it’s definitely worth every penny of it, a little help is always nice. We know these aren’t the best economic times. We’re not as crazy as Tom Ricketts who asked the state for buckets of money they couldn’t afford. We’re not asking that from any of you. Buying a shirt or a pair of undies isn’t going to put you on our preferred reader’s list because we don’t have one. It won’t give you any special priveleges. You won’t see superior content that others don’t have access to. It’s just the same site, but if you do like some of the merchandise and have a few dollars to spend. we’ll likely put it toward running this site.
Every 1.8 seconds, a child in the Chicagoland metropolitan area makes a wish—and not just any wish. A wish to see the Chicago Cubs play on the hallowed ground of Wrigley Field. For the lucky ones, that wish is granted without a second thought. But not every child has two parents with six-figure salaries.
Some children have bigger problems than deciding between club box infield or dugout box. Some children’s parents have to pay doctor’s fees instead of box office convenience fees. Some children have no parents to misguidedly lead them into the bleachers. For most of these kids, the wish of seeing a game in Wrigley Field is a long shot at best. All they can realistically hope for is to catch a few innings on the radio in the orphanage or in a hospital room in between operations.
Here at Obstructed View, our sight line might be blocked by the Wrigley Field I-beams. Our vision might be obscured by our own palms that cover our faces in disgust. But we will never turn a blind eye to the dreams of children whose hearts are set on cheering on the Chicago National League Ball Club.
These kids might not have the greatest family backgrounds. They may not have the best health. They may not even have hope. But as long as they have $10 in discretionary income, they have a friend in Obstructed View.
Continue reading “Obstructed View Merchandise: A Dream Come True UPDATED”
