MLB finance, an appeal to IE7 users, oatmeal

In honor of the (cold) sun shining and a forecast for the weekend with the temperature rising into the upper 50s, I'll try to change my train of thought today — no iPhone, no Michael Young, no snow:

Baseball peace: Who would have thought of all the major sports, baseball — the sport that seemed to go on strike out of habit every time the collective bargaining agreement came up — would be the one enjoying extended labor peace?

Sympathy for the millionaire: On the one hand, it's tough to feel bad for any baseball player in line to sign a contract worth at least $160 million — a fraction of that would set me and Mrs. America's Fish up for life. On the other hand, how the St. Louis Cardinals can lowball Albert Pujols and not pay him for what he is — the greatest hitter and player of his generation, probably the best first baseman in the history of the game and perhaps the best hitter of all-time — is mind-boggling. You don't ask Hall of Famers to take hometown discounts. You pay market value or you lose the player, that simple. If you can't accept the economics of baseball, don't own a major-league team. Losing Pujols in free agency would rank as one of the worst decisions in the history of the game, and that's assuming he goes somewhere other than Cubs. What if Mickey Mantle had finished his career with the Boston Red Sox or if Hank Aaron had broken the home run record with the New York Mets?

Classy: I always wondered what sort of person actually tried to hook up Craigslist. Now we know: Congressmen.

An appeal into the void: On the off chance that someone using IE7 finds this post, I ask you, please, stop using that awful, shitty, tortuous browser. While finishing a couple websites for clients whose customers and partners have an unusually high percentage of IE7 usage (which has otherwise dropped to 12 percent of all users), I had to buy an old laptop running Windows XP so I could see the sites as they do. Never thought anything could make me appreciate IE8 until I spent an afternoon using IE7. Those still using that browser apparently have no idea how poor an experience they are getting browsing the web. At least IE8 approaches web standards and runs roughly inline with Firefox (my preference), Chrome and Safari. If you absolutely must use a shitty browser, upgrade to the most recent version of that shitty browser and make life better for the rest of us.

Maybe I'm really 67: Don't know why I've been craving hot oatmeal the past couple days — maybe it's the single digit temps — but breakfast has consisted of oatmeal (not instant), bananas, cinnamon and honey. Must be either 30 years younger or 30 years older than I think I am.