Apparently the new American culinary masterpiece is a pipin’ hot boil of Easy Mac. Even though 70 percent of people surveyed in this Washington Post article rated themselves above average cooks, only 38 percent of them we’re able to score above average on a simple cooking skills test. Don’t be too surprised, but companies like General Mills and Betty Crocker have seen this coming for years. They’ve slowly been weaning us off terms like saute and roux in favor of more idiot-proof directions. Hell, the article even relates a story where General Mills got an email asking if Mango’s could substitute for an egg. Well, we here at McCrappy have always strived to make a difference in the world, so here’s a gift for our reader base:

Ramen step by step guide, with pictures…Including “what not to do” pictures

On the other hand if your interested in great recipes and ideas, check out Simply Recipes for general cooking advice (which ran a link to the Washington Post article), or Mahanandi an amazing Indian cooking blog.

Well, I don’t think I need to put much of an intro or write anything witty about this site. I think it speaks for itself.Stuff On My Cat

Thanks to the department of Computer Science folks at NYU we are one step closer to living in the Minority Report.  This link will take you to a demo of some recent multi-touch demos that they have put together.  The difference is that the Minority report used gesture recognition and the NYU folks are using touch interfaces.  The advantage being that touch displays are a much more practical first step and have already proven themselves useful for many applications today.  This stuff is really compelling, and it is easy to imagine how this could be used to improve daily interaction with a computer.    If the video game industry gets a hold of this technology we may never see Cheeko again.  

In an effort to take my mind off of work for a bit, I stumbled upon this pretty sweet site that sells cool magnets and whatnots. They also have this awesome liquid that reacts to magnetic fields. Check out the Fun with Ferrofluid site. It’s only 25 bucks for a small bottle and would be fun to play around with for a bit. I think once payday comes maybe I’ll consider it.

Wow, it has got to be great to find a new algorithm to process X-ray diffraction microscopy data. You become well known in all the research circles, you probably even have your choice of any of the graduate CS girls. But then to find out its also an amazing way to solve any suduko puzzles? Wow, conventional fame has its boundaries, and I think this might just smash right on through to super fame.

So I told Rob and Gabe I’d post this here because, well, I’m too lazy to find someplace else to post it, and I know a fair number of the people from last years league read this.  After much consulting with Gabe and Rob (instead of working this afternoon) we have a first shot at our setup.  We’ve changed a few things based off of last year.  So here goes:

170 games for position players

1375 innings for pitchers

3 day vote on trades (we hope to set up some rules governing trades and people will be expected to vote to enforce them, more on this later)

2 day waiver period

OK now to the important stuff, the points.  Hitting points are much the same as last year, with a few changes to take into account feedback.  Gone are the points for At Bats.  I instead gave just 1 point for a game appearance.  I figure if your guy gets into a game and does nothing at least you get a point.  This should balance out the disparity in on base percentage, as walks don’t count as at bats.  I also took the “walk is as good as a single” suggestion most people made.  Since RBI’s are tracked, in essence a walk does = a single.  So to make that work I gave .5 pts for a hit and .5 points for a single.  1pt for a walk.  To scale that out, I gave .75 for a double, 1 for a triple and 1.25 for a HR (those are on top of the .5 for the hit in each case).  Again I used the stolen vs caught stealing ratio, that seemed to work well last year.  Every steal over 50% will be 1 pt.  You lose half a point for striking out and half a point for grounding into a double play (things not encouraged).  For fielding I gave .25 for assists and -1 for an error.  An infielder with 400 assists and 15 errors will be about 40 points which seems reasonable.  (gold glove SS from last year was 454 A with 15 E)  Obviously this hits outfielders a little harder, but thats the same for all outfielders, if you have one making assists to offset errors its still to your benefit.

Ok pitching, this is were I made some more significant changes and where feedback might be good.  I tried to go for more parity between starters and closers, but still give a slight edge to starters.  This way you can put either in your 3 general pitching slots and not be at a positive or negative, but to encourage people to have a 5 man starting rotation.  1 general point per apperance.  .5 per inning pitched, which gives a minor advantage to starters.  wins are 4, losses are -2, saves are 3.  Again slight advantage to starter because they will have fewer wins and more losses than a reliever most likely.  I cut back drastically on complete game and shutout points.  There were just way more of them last season than I expected.  So now its 2pts for a CG and 5 for a shutout.  Still very good points, but not enough where one pitcher with a few shutouts will change things hugely.  -.2 for an earned run, that means any ERA over 5 will be a liability.  This is up from last year, just because I figured more positive numbers is probably better for pitching versus hitting.  Went again with the K/walk ratio.  +.5 for a K, -.5 for a walk.  You want pitchers with a good ratio.  Not that there’s a ton, but I added 1pt for a hold.  This is mainly for those people who end up with a part time closer, or due to injry or what not end up with a starter who moves to the pen.  This will allow some extra points out of middle relief, though obviously it still makes them of less value than starters and closers.

So yeah, now that thats said, anyone who wants in, drop me a mail.  I know Gabe, Rob and my brother are all in again.  Can’t remember who else was in last year exactly.  I know Rusty, others….?  shoot me mail, make suggestions.  I have a couple of weeks that I can update this if need be before draft time.

Found this one over at Bostonist.com, a good waste of time for all of you hard workers.  Go to Google and type in the word “Unfortunately” followed by your name.  More often than not it will come back with some funny results.  Unfortunately Corey:

Unfortunately Corey had to retire from competitive beer wahooing after throwing his back out while wahooing a keg in the 2nd week of the Fall season

Unfortunately, Corey only does exciting stuff for about 15 minutes of the day.

She’s promptly disciplined for her bad behavior by taskmaster Corey – unfortunately, she loves it!

Unfortunately, Corey passed away in June of 2005 in an auto racing accident.

Unfortunately, Corey sounds like eleven dozen other young male singers in that same genre. His songs don’t show me any depth or life experience

Unfortunately, Corey is the smartest, coolest, and by far the most handsome McCrappy contributor.

Though its not breaking news, its always good to prove we can out-smart all those furry things running around this planet. On that note, Chris Glass provides a great way to outsmart mice without doing much damage to your house or the furry thing. Here’s the link. It’s not technologically breathtaking, but even if your not a tree hugger you can admit that traditional mousetraps are about as sanitary as shooting the mouse with your sawed-off. By the way, if your going to start shooting your sawed-off indoors, give me a call I’d love to bare witness to something that dumb. I’ll bring the whiskey…