MLB 2010, Part One

Before the start of each season, I like to look back at my projections and see how I did. In 2007, I had a pretty damn good year, picking 17 of the 30 teams within 5 games of their actual record, and finishing an average of only 6 games off for all teams. 2008? Not so much. It was a much worse season. So how did I do in 2009? In between, of course:

# Gms Off.....2007.....2008.....2009
0..................3...........2............3
1-5...............14..........6...........9
6-10.............7...........10.........9
11-15...........5............6...........5
16+..............1............6...........4
Avg Off........6.10.......9.93......8.07

On the positive end of the spectrum, I perfectly nailed my predictions for Boston (95 wins), Milwaukee (80) and Philadelphia (93). On the negative end, I completely blew predictions for Kansas City (81 wins projected, they actually won 65), Detroit (65-86), Cleveland (87-65) and the New York Mets (94-70). While I can fall back on the old injury excuse with the Mets, I did a very poor job of reading the AL Central last year. In fact, the AL Central has proven to be my most challenging division:

Avg # Games Off, 2007-2009
AL East...6.53
NL Cent...7.13
AL West...7.67
NL West...8.33
NL East...8.73
AL Cent...9.80

My AL Central predictions have been more than a game worse than any other division. What makes that figure even worse is the fact that 2 of my 8 perfect predictions were the Royals in 2007 and 2008.

But individually, the team I have had the least luck predicting is the Seattle Mariners. It is the only team with which I have been off by 16 or more games more than once in the past three seasons.

I am currently working on my 2010 predictions, and will try to have them up before the season starts. As an aside, I was going to work on a post about my fantasy draft last week, but I am flying home for my long-standing fantasy league this weekend, and I need to get my season predictions in order as well, so that post will have to be moved to the back-burner.

The Oscar's

My wife and I went over to a friend's house Sunday night to watch the 82nd Academy Awards. It was the first time we had planned an evening around watching the Oscar's, or any other awards show for that matter. I guess that means we're getting old. As is custom with these sorts of things, we all filled out ballots to see how many of the categories we could predict correctly. But I'll get to that later. Here are some notes I took down during the telecast:

- I felt particularly prepared for this Oscar telecast. Not only had we seen all 10 movies nominated for Best Picture (see my brief thoughts on them here), but we had seen many of the other movies that were nominated for Academy Awards, including Julie & Julia, Coraline (which we actually watched just a couple of hours before leaving for my friends house), Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince, Star Trek & Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. But there were still a few we missed that I was putting in my mental queue throughout the night: The Messenger, Crazy Heart, In The Loop, A Single Man, The Secret of the Kells and The Princess & The Frog.

- Speaking of those last two animated movies, I want to see them chiefly to see how it is possible that those two movies were nominated over Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, which I thought was phenomenal. The other real big snub to me was Sam Rockwell being left off Best Actor in favor of Morgan Freeman. I didn't see Invictus, but by all accounts it was a) not a good movie and b) Freeman's role wasn't a dominant one. Certainly, it had to have been less dominant than Rockwell's in Moon.

- Carey Mulligan: shoulder-length brown hair > short blond hair, but she's still a stunner either way. And in a bit of an upset, she was at least as attractive, if not more, than Zoe Saldana. Although I think a lot of that had to due with Saldana's dress, which was sort of strange.

- When I first saw Neil Patrick Harris come out on stage, I was thinking, 'Really? Him again?' But he actually did a marvelous job.

- I didn't get the Meryl Streep Hitler memorabilia joke, but I'd like to. Someone help me out with that.

- I thought it was funny how they made deliberate attempts to keep young people invested in the show, both with the jokes in the opening comedy routine from Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin, and then later with the horror montage and by having Taylor Lautner present an award. The funnies Lautner moment though was when they showed him during the touching John Hughes tribute, and he had that "Who the hell is John Hughes?" look on his face. Ah, youth.

- I loved the fact that the guys from Up were wearing the grape soda pins. It's the little things like that that keep Pixar on top year after year.

- I still don't understand why Joe Montana is endorsing Skechers.

- For all the talk of shortening the program, the night was an epic fail from ABC in terms of keeping it in the allotted time. 57 minutes into the telecast only four awards had been handed out. At that point, they rattled off a number of the less popular awards, but it really shouldn't have taken 57 minutes to do four awards. And while steps like adding a backstage cam for extra thank yous and eliminating the best original song performances were a nice idea, they seemed to make up for it with the extra musical number by NPH, the interpretative dance, the extra opening joke time for Martin & Baldwin (I can't call it a monologue because there was two of them. What do you call that?), the Paranormal Activity skit and the horror montage. Some of that was fun to watch, particularly the opening bits, but, I mean don't they have rehearsals for these things? It's unfathomable to me that you could run 32 minutes over by accident. And while maybe that wouldn't have been a big deal a few years back, we now live in the DVR world. At my friend's house, we had to stop watching on two separate occasions in order to go live and tape the next program so that we didn't miss anything that was happening. Not only was that annoying but we also messed up and had one of the awards spoiled for us. Thanks, ABC.

- I can't tell what delighted me more, that women interrupting during the Music From Prudence acceptance speech, or the fact that "Kanye'd" is now part of our lexicon. I think the latter, mainly because I feel bad for the director after reading a little about why that happened, but I still like saying "Kanye'd."

- Charlize Theron could have easily played the "huge b*tch" role in Deuce Bigalow. She's just so tall. And the massive bulls eyes on her boobies weren't helping the matter. (And yes, in case you're wondering, I did just work in a Deuce Bigalow reference into my Oscar post. Boo yah!)

- My friend was very impressed with Demi Moore's outfit until they panned to her feet, and she decried Moore's "stripper shoes." I felt like that had to be mentioned.

- Can we stop pretending that Kristen Stewart is attractive? Because she's definitely not.

- There is a little known rule that whenever dancers are present at an awards show Jennifer Lopez has to be there to either present them or be shown in the crowd during their performance.

- I thought it was interesting that they had Gerard Butler and Bradley Cooper present the award for Best Visual Effects. The Academy knew they had to find a way to keep women invested during the geeky Best Visual Effects award, and they scored big time with that presenting duo. Both my wife and our friend (who's a girl) thoroughly approved. As did I (wink)!

- It was kind of cool that they had people related to the director or lead actor in some way presenting the clips for Best Picture. Right up until they had Jason Bateman present for Up In The Air. Then it was no longer clever, since he was actually in that movie. They couldn't find Jennifer Garner, Ellen Page, Michael Cera, Katie Holmes, J.K. Simmons, Aaron Eckhart or one of Jason Reitman's other previous stars do that clip? Or someone tangential to Clooney, like Brad Pitt or Matt Damon? That just seemed weird that they would go to all that trouble with the other nine movies, and then not with Up In The Air.

- The funniest line of the night outside of the opening comedy routine had to be when Juan Jose Campanella, the director of El Secreto de Sus Ojos quipped, "I'm just glad they didn't consider Na'vi a foreign language."

- Julianne Moore is underrated. Morgan Freeman looked drunk.

- What a ride for Gabourey Sidibe, nominated for Best Actress in her first-ever role, and at the Oscar's she was introduced by Oprah Winfrey, who also was nominated for an Oscar in her first-ever role (though it was for Best Supporting Actress).

- The Best Speech of the night came down to three people - Mo'Nique, Michael Giacchino (who won for Best Original Score in Up) and Sandra Bullock. It was almost a tie between the latter two, and only because they chose different directions with their speech. Both were very touching, but for different reasons. Bullock went the traditional route, thanking those close to her, including her mom. Meanwhile, Giacchino's message to young people that they pursue their dreams no matter what anyone says was very uplifting as well. But Bullock's speech also had lesbian jokes, so she wins.

- You knew that Kathryn Bigelow had won Best Director the moment Barbara Streisand's name was announced. There was literally no other reason for her to be there. She hasn't appeared in a movie since Meet The Fockers in 2004.

- I think that I have a hard time getting worked up over the incredibly political decisions that the Academy makes these days. They're pretty predictable. On the one hand, you have a movie that literally made a billion dollars, and has already been so influential that at least two movies that were slated to be released less than six months after it were converted to 3D in post-production (Alice in Wonderland and Clash of the Titans). Avatar is literally a movie that may wind up saving the movie business and boosting television sales as well. On the other hand, you have a movie that does a very nice job of attacking the war on Iraq and how terrifying it is to be a soldier in today's military, and to boot the movie was directed by a woman. The Hurt Locker was going to get picked ten times out of ten. The sad thing is that this is exactly what the Academy claimed they were trying to avoid when they bumped to ten Best Picture nominees. All I know is that in 30 years - hell, in 15 years - no one is going to remember 2009 as the year of The Hurt Locker, they will remember it as the year of Avatar. And all other things being equal, that should count for something. In years where there isn't a standout either critically or at the box office, all bets are off. But that's not what we had here. But is it worth getting worked up over? No, not really.

- Finally, let's take a look at my predictions. There are 24 categories in all, and I correctly picked the winner in 13 of the 24 categories. But five of them are not dedicated to American, full-length theatrical releases - Best Foreign Film, Best Documentary Feature, Best Documentary (short subject), Best Short Film (Animated) and Best Short Film (Live Action). There were two others categories where I hadn't seen any of the nominated films - Best Costume Design and Best Original Song. And while I certainly offered a prediction on those seven categories (I even nailed Best Documentary Feature, as I had heard of The Cove), it was in the other 17 that I felt qualified to offer an opinion. And I correctly predicted 12 of these 17. On my Twitter feed, I correctly nailed six of the seven biggies before the telecast - Picture, Director, Actress, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress and Animated feature. The only one I missed was Best Actor, and perhaps my opinion would be different had I seen Crazy Heart. In the other 10 categories, I suppose you'll have to take my word for it, but I nailed six. However, my strategy with these 10 categories was fairly simple - vote for Avatar. I voted for Avatar in six of these 10 categories. In fact, three of the four that I predicted incorrectly were categories in which I voted for Avatar, but in which The Hurt Locker took home the statue. In the fourth, Best Original Screenplay, I had voted for Inglorious Basterds. Nevertheless, I feel pretty good about my showing, not a bad job by me. I'll try to do better next year.

Best Picture 2009

Last night, the Mrs. and myself took in Precious. Today, we took in A Serious Man, The Hurt Locker and An Education. With these four movies, we have seen all 10 Best Picture nominees for 2009. As promised, here is my ranking of them, in order of enjoyment:

1. Avatar
2. Up
3. Up In The Air
4. Inglorious Basterds
5. An Education
6t. District 9
6t. Precious
8. A Serious Man
9. The Hurt Locker
10. The Blind Side

For the record, my wife's top three were Up, Inglorious Basterds and An Education.

I suppose the surprise here is that my enjoyment of The Hurt Locker doesn't seem to match up with critics. To me, the movie could have been much shorter. To me, the lessons we learned in the end, that Sanborn wanted a child and that James just wanted to keep diffusing bombs, could have been dropped on us much sooner, and we would have enjoyed the movie just the same. And the third main character, Eldridge, is the same character the entire movie. We never learn anything about him other than that he doesn't want to die, which is such an unique character in a military movie. I can't imagine how they thought that up! Also, for a movie where the objectives are to diffuse bombs, I wasn't really on the edge of my seat for any of it. James may have appeared psychotic to his two subordinates, but he also always seemed to know what he was doing. When he tells the superior officer that he had successfully diffused 873 bombs, it seemed that from that point on there was little to no danger of him dying. Odds are if you were going to die from a bomb going off, it would have happened before the 873rd time. Crazy, I know. In any case, it's a good movie, but I didn't enjoy it as much as the others.

This weekend we also took in Precious. On the surface, Precious and District 9 are incredibly different movies, but for me they share a couple of similarities. Like District 9, Precious is likely a movie that will continually be on the cusp of my favorite 100 movies of all-time. Like District 9, it will likely always be on the outside of that list due to it's lack of rewatchability. Precious was a thoroughly moving piece of cinema, and I think that people that focus on the fact that pictures move or that the dream sequences weren't believable - side note, duh, that's why they're called "dreams" - are missing the point. The movie's central strength was its heart, and no amount of camera tricks or flashiness should be able to confuse that point.

A cautionary tale where things turn out mostly all right in the end, An Education struck just the right chord. As a viewer, you are initially hesitant of David, but as time goes by he becomes more and more convincing, and when he asks Jenny to marry him, you think to yourself, 'Well, this is it. He's going to do right by her now.' And when he still turns out to be a bad guy, it's a bit of a punch in the stomach. The blow is dulled only by the fact that she is so young and that she still has her future in front of her if he she wants to fight for it. I initially had this one ranked seventh, but the more I think about it the more I like it. It moved briskly, and it was a rare romantic movie that you wouldn't call a "chick flick."

A Serious Man was in the Coen Brothers signature to be sure. And while it was slow in parts, that agonizing for Larry is what makes the film great. You have to simmer and stew along with him as he slowly loses his mind, house and family, and I think many of us can relate to feeling more decisive in our dreams or in our imagination than we are in real life. In the end though, I can't shake the feeling that Larry was a little too helpless. I mean, no one can be a door mat like that at home and be an almost-tenured professor at the same time, right? I don't know, maybe they can. In any case, I think I'll enjoy A Serious Man more upon repeated viewings, and I feel like The Hurt Locker and The Blind Side will annoy me more on repeated viewings, so that's why I ranked A Serious Man where I did.

Now, please don't mistake my preferences for what I think will happen tomorrow. It seems as though there are only two movies with a chance of winning - Avatar and The Hurt Locker - and as much as I enjoyed Avatar, I really don't see it winning Best Picture. Which leaves The Hurt Locker. It certainly wouldn't be the worst Best Picture winner ever, but I don't think it would get my vote if I voted for such things. In the end though, the real winner is the Academy. I can say without a doubt that I would not have bothered to see all ten of these movies if they weren't nominated, and I think that probably is true, if not more true, for a lot of people. The question then becomes, will diluting the prestige of being a Best Picture nominee be balanced by the potential for greater box office receipts be worth it? I don't think it's a question that can be answered this year, but it's certainly something to ponder.

Winter Hibernation

So I completely slipped on my plan to blog my thoughts on the most influential hip-hop songs in race relations. I had planned on doing it this weekend, but I got up early yesterday to go to a basketball tournament, and then today was sports madness with BU-Vermont hockey, USA-Canada hockey and Nuggets-Lakers. So it didn't happen. Maybe next year? But over the past couple of weeks, I've been reemerging from my winter music hibernation. I copped Wale's "Attention Deficit," Clipse's "'Til The Casket Drops" and Method Man & Redman's "Blackout! 2," three discs that I had put off buying for quite some time. I also picked up a bunch of singles, and downloaded Tapemaster Inc's "This Is Hip-Hop 10" off of datpiff. And then in this month's Playboy there was an eMusic free 25 songs offer that I just couldn't turn down. I used it to grab a bunch of older songs that we can play for the baby. And since I can never buy/download any music without compiling them into a mix cd or two. Here's the playlists. Feel free to turn it into your own mix!

Winter Hibernation, Disc 1:
1. Wale: World Tour f/ Jazmine Sullivan
2. Janelle Monae: Tightrope f/ Big Boi
3. Juelz Santana: Swimming in Money
4. Clipse: Counseling f/ Nicole Hurst
5. Nas & Damian Marley: As We Enter
6. Freeway: Battlefield
7. Lloyd Banks: Beamer, Benz or Bentley f/ Juelz Santana
8. Wale: Pretty Girls f/ Gucci Mane & Weensey
9. DJ Kay Slay: Self Destruction f/ Sheek Louch, Bun B, Papoose, Busta Rhymes, Uncle Murda & Jay Rock
10. Styles P: Try Sleepin' With A Broken Heart
11. Michael Jackson: Rock With You (Q-Tip Remix)
12. Method Man & Redman: Hey Zulu
13. Clipse: Footsteps
14. Mariah Carey: Up Out My Face f/ Nicki Minaj
15. Wale: Beautiful Bliss f/ Melanie Fiona & J. Cole
16. Rihanna: Hard f/ Jeezy
17. Kid Capri: Turn It Out
18. Young Money: BedRock f/ Lloyd
19. Clipse: Freedom
20. Method Man & Redman: Four Minutes To Lockdown f/ Raekwon & Ghostface Killah
21. Snoop Dogg: I Wanna Rock Remix f/ Busta Rhymes & Styles P

Had to toss in Rihanna and Young Money into this even though I got them awhile ago. That Michael Jackson cut is woefully out of place, but since Q-Tip remixed it, it had to be included. I wasn't aware Kid Capri was still alive, so that was a nice surprise. Also, I didn't know what would happen first, a good Nas "concept" project with another artist, or a good Juelz Santana song. This mix has both. Historic! Also, I'm in love with Tightrope (Pitchfork would be proud of me) and the "Self Destruction" cut is a nice change of pace, especially for the artists involved.

Disc 2:
1. Van Morrison: Brown Eyed Girl
2. Teena Marie: Square Biz
3. Yarbrough & Peoples: Don't Stop The Music
4. Go West: King Of Wishful Thinking
5. SWV: I'm So Into You
6. The Spinners: I'll Be Around
7. The Isley Brothers: Caravan of Love
8. Chaka Khan: Through The Fire
9. TLC: Baby-Baby-Baby
10. The Delfonics: La La Means I Love You
11. The Isley Brothers: That Lady
12. SWV: Weak
13. TLC: What About Your Friends
14. Harold Melvin & The Bluenotes: If You Don't Know Me By Now
15. The Isley Brothers: Between The Sheets
16. Herbie Hancock: Chameleon

Yup, I'm all over the place on this second one. From jazz, to classic rock, to 70's soul, to 80's cheesy rock, to 90's R&B. My baby is going to know it all, just like his big poppa!

The Celtics' Most Important Game of the Year?

Don't look now, but the Toronto Raptors are only four and a half games behind the Celtics. Here are the conference standings 2-5 as of this morning:

Team.........GB
Orlando.....5
Boston.......6.5
Atlanta......7
Toronto.....11

Toronto has only 26 games on their schedule left to overtake the C's, so they still have a ways to go. But it is imperative that the C's avoid being overtaken. If Toronto were to move ahead of the C's, they would inevitably slide to fourth or fifth place in the East. And the other team waiting for them in the four-vs.-five first round match-up will also inevitably be Orlando or Atlanta (their race is much too close to call at this point). And that's horrible news for Celtics fans. This season, the Celtics have outscored all non-Atlanta and Orlando opponents by an average of 5.83 points. But in their eight games with Atlanta and Orlando, the C's were outscored by 4.88 points, almost the complete inverse. And with the C's ever-slowing pace of game, the problem could only exacerbate itself (unless Nate Robinson really is the savior).

Add all that up, and the most important game of the season may just be the C's last game with Toronto - April 7 in the province of Ontario. Lord knows that on April 7 most of the TV sets in New England will be turned to the early-season showdown with the Bronx Bombers, but the C's may just be fighting for a chance to not be broomed out of the playoffs early elsewhere on the dial.

Blogging Super Bowl XLIV: Fourth Quarter

6:59 - So, Peyton Manning hasn't played poorly or anything, but his last TD pass was 31 minutes of game time ago.

7:01 - There's just been a lot of un-Manning-like throws in this one, and that deep ball was example numero uno.

7:03 - After Wayne had just one catch for five yards in the first three quarters, Manning threw to hinm on three straight plays, including the fourth-and-two.

7:04 - And the Austin Collie for Super Bowl MVP campaign takes another hit with the two play combo of an "oof" of a screen pass, and then Vilma beating him in coverage 30 yards downfield. Not a good sequence for Collie.

7:05 - That missed field goal was the momentum shift the Saints needed. I have to think the Colts should have gone for it again.

7:07 - That was a good effort by Pop Secret and Emerald Nuts, and while I'm interested to see if they made some sort of crossover product, the ad just wasn't funny enough.

7:09 - I'm glad they explained that Stover replay. That was a bit confusing. In other news, Brees is officially having a better game than Manning. I didn't expect that at all.

7:14 - The Saints made that look way too easy.

7:15 - The Saints should challenge it. He was down (and in) with possession before it was knocked out.

7:17 - And they did. Good call by the Saints. Lance Moore needs to be rewarded for that inhuman effort, and it's a good TD the second the ball breaks the plane.

7:18 - YES! Although I'd love to know how the line judge blew that call. It was pretty obvious.

7:22 - This has been the perfect storm - the ads were better in the first half, and the game has been better in the second half. Also, it's been more than 40 minutes of game time since Manning threw a TD pass. When was the last time that happened, even across two games?

7:23 - Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh. So close.

7:25 - These defenses have to be pretty tired at this point. There's been a lot more YAC in the fourht quarter.

7:26 - Austin Collie misses another pass, and then in true Colts style, gets up and asks for the flag. Typical.

7:27 - What the hell is the Green Car Journal? Whatever it is, it's not nearly half as cool as Charles Barkley. But why waste Lamar Odom there? Taco Bell should have come up with some sort of candy item for him to pump!

7:28 - Phil Simms - "I would keep the extra guys in coverage." Saints blitz six, and they get the pick six. Sorry Peyton. WHO DAT!!!! Geaux Saints!!! That is how you jump a route.

7:33 - Just as an aside, the Doritos Warrior was awesome, the Bud Light Book Club was awesome, but the E-Trade baby is no longer cute. Time to move on E-Trade.

7:34 - Best text of the night from a friend - "Brady just got his first non-Gisele related woody since 2006."

7:35 - The contrasting styles really came into play tonight. Colts didn't go for it on fourth down and suffered with their missed goal, whereas the Saints have taken just about every chance possible. The Saints played to win, and the Colts played to not lose.

7:37 - I'm still flummoxed by this Joe Montana endorsement by Skechers. First, he doesn't appear in the ad, but his quote and his voice does, which is strange to start. Second, he has no reason to try and get in shape since he's never been fat. Third, I seriously doubt Joe Montana fans are Skechers' target market. That ad is the height of "how can we pretend to make our ad special for the Super Bowl?" Just a half-@$$ed attempt.

7:41 - Wow, that was pretty blatant offensive PI. But I'm still surprised it got called.

7:43 - Reggie Wayne developed a case of alligator arms at the worst possible time. Geaux Saints! I've rarely been so happy for a team that wasn't my own to win.

7:45 - Aside from the Saints, the big winners in this game are Tom Brady and Joe Montana (his strange Skechers ad aside), because now it's hard to put Manning in their group now.

7:47 - I agree with the Twitter-verse - Sean Payton is the real Super Bowl MVP. But also Brees. Brees will win.

7:48 - Well, it was fun to give this a whirl. If you actually read this, and I doubt any of you did, I hope you enjoyed yourself! I know I did.

Blogging Super Bowl XLIV: Third Quarter

6:20 - So Bill Simmons is having a so-so prop bet game overall. Manning didn't throw a second quarter TD., but Garcon won him the jersey number prop bet. But Austin Collie has only one catch.

6:22 - Onside kick!!!!!!! And the Saints get it, after one of the most unorganized pile-ups ever. Wow. Just wow. We've got a game now. Hank Baskett blew it! Kendra's gonna be pissed!

6:24 - Just an aside - nice of CBS to come back from the break with "Run This Town," a completely relevant song, which as my wife said, would have been perfect for the halftime show. Shows that The Who wasn't CBS' idea.

6:25 - Freeney still getting taped on the sideline. That's another huge win for the Saints' onside kick decision. The Colts were unprepared.

6:26 - That's the perfect way to come out. Those are the Saints we love. Foot on the gas pedal. Balls to the wall. Great individual effort by Pierre Thomas.

6:28 - I love Megan Fox. There, I said it.

6:30 - Megan Fox, Tracy Morgan, Stevie Wonder, and screaming chickens...all ruined by Doogie Howser. Ugh.

6:32 - Still laughing at the ladder sequence in the Megan Fox ad. "You got me?" "Ya."

6:33 - Nice work by Addai. Could he be in line for Super Bowl MVP if the Colts win?

6:35 - That was an "I'm Peyton 'F***ing' Manning" throw.

6:38 - If Addai wasn't in line for Super Bowl MVP before, he certainly is now.

6:41 - Punk-@$$ Colts didn't have the brass to onside kick.

6:45 - Wow, just throw it away Drew.

6:48 - Nice analysis on the deep routes there by Simms. Call me crazy, but I don't think Aikman picks up on that.

6:49 - Nice kick by Hartley there, but I was really hoping for the fake field goal. I mean, Payton has pulled just about every other trick out of his hat, why not the fake field goal?

6:51 - Hartley looks pretty upset for a dude that just made three tough field goals.

6:53 - I can't decide if I love or hate that Kia commercial. But I think, overall, the ads were a lot funnier in the first half. However, the Google ad was awesome. As future parents, I liked the how to put together a crib at the end. My solution? Pay the people you buy it from, which we just did earlier today! $50 for delievery and assembly, or hours of frustration followed by years of angst because you're not sure you put it together and just know that today is the day it falls apart with your baby inside? Yeah, tough call. Bring on the fourth quarter.