Thursday tidings...

- Today's my group's rollout - the day when the partners sit around and talk about us to evaluate our performance for the year... in many ways it can be nerve wracking, because you never know what they're talking about... in other ways, it can be pretty relaxing... afterall, no partner around, means a lot of flexibility... =) I'm taking advantage by being up in our North York office...

- Booked my ticket to Vienna!! woohoo! i will never understand why the Firm would want to pay $2K more for a ticket just so they can stick with their travel provider, rather than buy straight on the internet... also soon will be booking my July trip with the gf too! woohoo!...

- Blue Jays are 8 games over .500 despite Josh Towers being 1-8 and no A.J. Burnett yet... that's pretty impressive. I'm not convinced that they will be that much better with Burnett, but I guess he would be an upgrade over Ty Taubenheim. Very impressed by these Jays, and they seem to be talked about all over the MLB world right now... so overall, good work J.P. so far... let's see how it plays out though... how long can Alex Rios keep this up?

- Best basketball trade rumour I've heard is the Raps trading down in the draft to Atlanta, receiving the #5 pick and ZaZa Pachulia. They then can draft Marcus Williams or Bargnani (if he's still there), or Rudy Gay or Brandon Roy or Tyrus Thomas. If they end up signing Jay Williams and bring over Roko Ukic, there might not be a need to draft a point guard. Basically, they get the #5 pick, which they thought they would get anyways, and turn that extra bonus of winning the lottery into ZaZa who can play center and is paid a very reasonable $4M a year. If you can turn this pick into Zaza AND Tyrus Thomas or Rudy Gay, I'd say that's a pretty good job. The Raps would have a solid front court for years with Zaza, Tyrus Thomas, Bosh, Charlie V, and Garbajossa. Add a vet like Jamal Magloire and they are set for the next five years or so...

Projected Lineup:
C - Pachulia, Garbajossa, Araujo
PF - Bosh, Thomas, Bonner
SF - Villaneuva, E. Williams
SG - MoPete, Graham, A. Williams
PG - J. Williams, Calderon, Ukic

- Fantasy baseball update: in 6th place (out of 14) right now, but the Bonds for Mussina deal is turning out to be a very BAD idea... my pitching is hurting right now, and so is Bonds, so Mussina would have been pretty darn useful right about now... I'm just waiting patiently for John Patterson and Mark Prior to get healthy... Hoping that Roy Halliday and Noah Lowry can carry me through, as they have been the last couple weeks. Otherwise I've been just using random pitchers to meet my 35 minimum innings pitched requirement, hoping that someone will eventually step up. I finally gave up on Oliver Perez, who gave up 9 runs yesterday in 2 innings against Colorado, and I'm close to being really fed up with Eric Bedard, who has completely sucked after starting the year 4-0. My batting lineup is still solid, surviving a few slumps, and should continue to be strong... I'm hoping to upgrade a few guys through trades, but nothing stellar has materialized just yet...

- Finally, happy belated to Ashish, who’s still on his honeymoon anyways… and happy birthday to Iris!