When Gerard Cosloy invited me to write some stuff for his sports blog Can't Stop The Bleeding, it took me a while to get in the groove re: the 2005 World Champion White Sox in their '08 campaign. I guess being a fan of a first-place baseball team isn't enough to clear the cobwebs. Luckily, fear and loathing has since taken over. Once it sank in that the goddamn Cubs were all the way in it this year, I got to work. I can't even entertain the idea of staying on the bench for this.

Here then, for those so inclined, are this summer's screeds so far at CSTB.

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There Is No Sanctuary: Contreras Out For Season, Ozzie Questions Logan's Manhood

A Different Kind Of Tension: White Sox Pen Keeps It Interesting

Whip Ineffective Against Tigers, Mauling Results

14th Inning Stretch: CSTB Field Report

Samples Of Junior

Twins Call Up Liriano

Kenny Williams: An Enigma Wrapped In A Puzzle Concealed In A Desperate Need To Bench Paul Konerko

Bennigan's Shuts Its Doors, Cubs Fans Take It Out On Whoever They Can

Danks Messes With Texas, Konerko Returns To Abled List

The Surge Isn't Working: AL Central Heats Up

Will Chicago's Real A. Ramirez Please Stand Up?

Buehrle's Cutter Sweeps Away The Clutter: Sox Deliver Crosstown Payback

Imagine Chalmers Johnson wielding a Mexican Telecaster...

In the tradition of Suicide (the band, not the act) and Neurosis (the condition, not the band) fledgling vinyl label Unicut Records has released the debut 7" by my band Sirs. Referring to the label and the band separately is pretty stupid, since the label and the band are composed of the same two idiots. But anyone who knows me knows also that I never let a little stupid get in my way.

Unicut is in talks (really) with recording artists near and far toward assembling a release schedule through '09 - all on beautiful vinyl, and all to capitalize off of recent trends in the headlines. Finger on the pulse or what? Eh? Eh?

Something else that sounds like bullshit but isn't: these songs were recorded at Unicut HQ in Chicago's historic Deagan Building, where in 1921 the US musical instruments industry settled on a universal value of 440 Hz for the note "A". That worked out pretty well. So we've got that going for us, as Carl from Caddyshack might say.

See you on the road.

I became interested in balance when I learned what exactly happened in the world that gave me - of all the billions of the earth - the options I have. What happened was empire. Empire is my counterbalance.

I have spent my life in the interior of the world's most powerful empire. I am surrounded by proof of this in the form of an unending stream of immigrants, a parade in which my own ancestors marched during the 19th and 20th centuries.

If the imperial character of my home ended there, I might even be a fan of empire. Of course, it does not, and I am not.

This empire, as all before it, breeds its own demise in the form of rampant authoritarianism, official corruption and intellectual stagnation. My friends and I have always tried to stand in opposition to these things, to varying degrees of success.

Officer Bob is one such attempt. It's a black humor protest of the widening acceptance of senseless force and corrupt officialdom. It's a counterbalance and a spit into the abyss of history awaiting us.

What I'm trying to say is Officer Bob will never, ever appear on Oprah.

In which our constable explores the role of physical fitness in today's policing environment. Added bonus: watch for the "Ask A Pirate" t-shirt.

Flash nerds: Are you doing character anim with bitmaps and want to cut your SWF size in half? Check this out: this time around, The (Heather) Smith experimented with a new asset building technique. When she did the character builds, instead of bitmapped objects, she used mask vectors - that show the texture beneath. The aim was to reduce SWF size / load time by reducing the number of real assets in a rendering. The series' art direction as it stands is a good opportunity for this thanks to its use of paper cutouts with more or less consistent textures in the original designs.

As a method for reducing the size of the SWF, it was a big success. Both episodes come in at about one minute length but #2's SWF came it at 628K where #1 was 1.3MB.

Sure, the dev environment acted weird with all those masks on the stage, but weird behavior is to the Flash dev environment what bling and grills are to rap videos.

Big up yaself to to japnm for the quick audio post.

Luckily for all involved, I don't make porn.

Meet Officer Bob, the first in a series of titles forthcoming from Aught-Seven a cash bonfire satirical new media studio begun by myself and an enigmatic malcontent named Chris Kreb with pixel-wrangler par excellence Heather Smith.

Bob voice: yours truly (wrote it too) with art direction and animation by the lovely and talented Heather.

More titles are on their way, along with the requisite titters, chortles and yucks. Austinians: If you happen to spot Heather at SXSW Interactive this week, it's best to not ask questions: simply offer decongestants and beer. She might favor you with a sticker...

While it's a shame that veteran actress Suzanne Pleshette and SIRS can't share the planet, look at it this way: finally, another rock band!

SIRS greets the world with a poor attitude, demo recordings and a full international dance card. We're going to have an excellent reason to have a low audience.