Talk about bad timing. The lady with the headset seemed so nice. Who knew that she was stealing your credit card info while they were filming?

EDS was probably going for the whole we work on improving your business as it grows theme. Too bad the commercial comes off as one company rushing an unfinished product to market and patching the thing after it’s been delivered. Was the scene with the workers parachuting out of the plane meant to symbolize how overworked programmers feel or was it meant to symbolize companies giving up and letting the public deal with a bad product?

This kid decides to go for a joyride inside a mall, apparently trying to harm himself or recreate a scene from Vice City.

EDIT: The teenager was apparently trying to kill his girlfriend who works in the mall and follow that by committing suicide. He missed the girlfriend and did not succeed in offing himself. Not only does he fail at life but he also fails at death.

If I ever get arrested, hopefully I won’t run into this cop.

It takes a particular breed of retard to attempt this stunt. Judging by how far away the camera guy is recording the whole thing from, this guy knew what was going to happen, minus the face burns. If you’re not convinced, look at the length of the stick he’s holding. This moron got what he deserved and gave us a good 20 seconds of fun in the process. His brain somehow managed to recall the whole stop, drop and roll routine.

We’ll only be looking at the deals signed by starting pitchers because I’m likely to stab my eye out if I start analyzing the deals signed by relievers or run-of-the mill infielders. Here’s a rundown of some major deals signed this offseason:

Miguel Batista: 3 years / 27 million (Mariners)

Batista has a career 68-79 record. He’s also the proud owner of a 4.46 career ERA. He’s played for seven different teams. He’s never stayed with one team longer than three years. He’ll be 38 when this deal is over and past history shows that he won’t even be with the Mariners when his contract expires. He made 4.75 million last year, posting an 11-8 record with a 4.58 ERA. He was rewarded for his great year with a 4.25 million dollar pay raise. Who knew that by allowing more than 4 runs a game and winning just more than half of your games you could almost double your salary?

Jason Marquis: 3 years / 21 million (Cubs)

Marquis is 28 years old, with a 56-52 career record and a 4.55 career ERA. He went 14-16 last year with a 6.08 ERA. Apparently the market dictates that if you manage to win less than half of your games and you give up more than six runs a game, you should be rewarded with a 2 million dollar increase. Basically, you’ll see a raise if you to lose more times than you win and if you give up a boatload of runs in the process. That sounds pretty reasonable by baseball standards.

Vincente Padilla: 3 years / 33.75 million (Rangers)

This 29 year old pitching sensation has a 66-61 record with a lifetime ERA of 4.06. He went 15-10 last year, after going 9-12 and 7-7 in 2004 and 2005. Before exploding in 2006 with 15 wins and 10 losses, his previous best had been a 14-11 record (3.28 ERA) back in 2002. Did I mention that the contract he just signed also has a club option, valued at 12 million, for 2010? Gotta keep up with inflation, I guess.

Gil Meche: 5 years / 55 million (Royals)

Gotta give the fans a reason to stop by the ballpark, other than the fountains in the outfield. With a 11-8 record and a 4.48 ERA, Gil Meche is that reason. He made 3.7 million in 2005 as a 10-8 starter. Who knew that winning 1 more game in 2006 would guarantee him a pay raise of more than 7 million dollars a year? He’s expected to anchor the Royals’ rotation and lead the team to a respectable 4th place finish (out of 5 teams) in the AL Central division.

Ted Lilly: 4 years / 40 million (Cubs)
The Cubs handed a 4 year deal at 10 million per to a 30 year old, career .500 pitcher. Lilly did show sings of improvement last season, going 15-13 (4.31 ERA) after having posted a 10-11 record with a 5.56 ERA in 2005. His increase in productivity had nothing to do with the Blue Jays acquiring Troy Glaus, Bengie Molina and BJ Ryan last season. The Cubs are paying Lilly and Marquis a combined 17 million next year to lose as many games as they’ll win. 17 million would be 3 million dollars higher than the Florida Marlins’ 2006 payroll. Why do I keep reading stories about the Cubs’ owners being cheap bastards? Speaking of management, Cubs GM Jim Hendry was recovering from an angioplasty when he signed Lilly. If that’s not telling, I don’t know what is.

So we’ve learned that the market for starting pitchers, hovering around the .500 mark with gaudy ERAs, rests somewhere between 7 and 11 million dollars a year. Baseball teams will apparently pay players at least seven million dollars a year to win as many games as they lose. God bless mediocrity! The news gets even better if you’re an unknown Japanese pitcher who’s never thrown against major league talent but has a great record against a majority of guys who wouldn’t cut it in the big leagues. If you’re that guy, not only will you be making 8.7 million dollars a year but some team will even pay your current team 51 million dollars for the chance to throw an insane amount of cash at you.

Doesn’t this system seem broken? I won’t even get into the differences between team payrolls. At least Major League Baseball is doing something to fix this, right? Something like signing a collective bargaining agreement extension through 2011 guaranteeing that things will only get better for players. How are teams going to pay for these shiny new acquisitions? Maybe by building brand spanking new stadiums with taxpayer money or jacking up ticket prices. All seems right in Seligland.

It seems as though some people are getting a little too excited while playing with their Nintendo Wiis. Sending a Wiimote crashing through your friend’s brand new LCD has to top the list of new ways to kill a friendship. There’s even a blog chronicling the various Wiinjuries. Nintendo is of course downplaying the whole thing and has even put up a page with brilliant safety precautions like Hold the Wii Remote firmly and do not let go. I hadn’t thought of that. Thankfully, an Austrian sex shop has come to the rescue of gamers everywhere with this new invention.

EDIT: This is actually the third time Boeing has lost a laptop. One of the company’s laptops containing information on only 3,600 people was stolen back in April. I guess that was just a test run for the big winter blowout.

Speaking of stolen laptops, this video’s pretty funny. Apparently the whole secret documents things was fake but the teacher did have his laptop stolen.

While climbing onto the roof of the store, he manages not to use the ladder he seems to have brought with him. He then decides to take a nosedive onto the “padding” he laid out. Hey, don’t you just love how he disappears for a second while trying to climb back out of the store, only to come crashing down once again? He’s sure earned his smoke after all the trouble he went through. Looks like he’ll have plenty of time to write a book on things you shouldn’t do when robbing a store.