UngsungBlog: A (Fantasy) Sports Blog

- So I’m sitting here, having returned from my trip to the post office, with a Slurpee in hand (Coca-Cola, of course). I’m down to the last six ounces or so, and I realized that the Law of Diminishing Returns really applies to Slurpees!

(Tangent: The Law of Diminishing Returns, as it applies to food or drinks, probably applies to anything. There are some foodstuffs, though, that the Law REALLY applies to.)

I was craving one so badly this morning, that the first few ounces rivaled that of a chilled MexiCoke! Then I started downing the Slurpee like crazy, and that’s when I hit a wall; the Slurpee was only OK at that point. Now, with only a few ounces to go, I feel sick. I’m probably just going to toss what I have left.

Ugh…damn Law of Diminishing Returns. Of course, this won’t stop me from craving a Slurpee a couple days from now, and repeating the process over again.

(BTW, I don’t need any Econ majors to tell me that I’m misapplying the Law. Go away.)

- Thanks to a BargainShare member, I found yet another FW Cash Back/eBates/BigCrumbs-type site: DealKing.com.

(Let me know if you are interested in signing up for any of those sites, if you don’t already have an account, so I can refer you :)).

Anyway, there is an awesome deal on AT&T prepaid phones via DealKing. They have a (refurbed) Sony Ericsson J220a phone for $9.99, which includes $10 of airtime (10c/min with a $1/day access fee, or 25c/min). Also, mobile to mobile minutes are FREE; whether or not that incurs the $1/day access fee, for those of you that picked that plan, I’m not sure. The best part of the deal is that DealKing pays you $20 upon activating the phone! Best of all, you can do this twice, and possibly earn $40 cash back from DealKing, and have two phones! Activation is waived, and there is no obligation to remain a customer after the $10 in airtime is used up.

eBay value on the phone is about $10, but I’m probably going to give these phones away to my siblings to leave in their car, for the sole purpose of using it to dial 911 if the need arises.

- The baseball trade deadline came and went a couple days ago, and here are my quick thoughts on some of the trades that went through:

• Mark Teixeira and Octavio Dotel go to Atlanta, for a number of prospects (including touted prospect Jarrod Saltalamacchia to Texas). Great deal to Atlanta, even considering the short-term costs. Of course, this probably spells the end of Andruw Jones’ stay in Atlanta; I don’t see how the team could afford him next year. Dotel’s a nice bullpen arm, though an injury risk, and I think Atlanta really needed a starter. Then again, the market on starters was very thin (as you’ll see later), so I think Atlanta did well to help themselves at the deadline. It didn’t hurt that Teixeira hit a homer in his first game as a Brave. It would not surprise me if Atlanta topped the Mets and Phillies to win the NL East. Texas did well, getting five prospects, and the Royals had to trade Dotel; they weren’t going to offer him an extension upwards of $6 million/yr.
• The Dodgers swapped Wilson Betemit, who’s been reduced to a platoon 3B/power hitter off the bench, for Yankees’ reliever Scott Proctor. No, it doesn’t bother me that Betemit hit a homer today against the ChiSox; the Dodgers had enough guys hitting in the low .200s, and I’m glad they got rid of one. Scott Proctor’s a nice arm, one that the Dodgers’ bullpen really needed, but he’s been overworked badly in recent years (135 appearances in this season and last combined). However, pitching in a pitcher’s park in the National League, and being option #3 (behind Saito and Broxton) can’t hurt. I’d expect him to fill in for Broxton or Saito on occasion as well. Good move by the Dodgers; I’d rather have Proctor than Dotel. The best thing about this deal is that we didn’t have to give up any of our key prospects to make the deal happen. Had we traded for Teixeira, for instance, we would probably have had to give up James Loney, Andre Either, and a pitcher. Interesting move by the Yankees, though; they need all the bullpen help they could get, so they traded away one of their reliable arms? I get that Joba Chamberlain is major league ready, but do you really want to depend on the kid in a pennant chase, in the Bronx?

There are a couple more deals I want to get to, and I’ll go over those another time.

Happy blogging!

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