Saturday, September 17, 2011

Other "X-Macs" Of Note

Tonight, the Dodgers face James McDonald, the former Dodger who was discarded in order to capture a thoroughly blissful month of Octavio Dotel last year. What, you don't remember Dotel's Dodger career, that of a 1-1 record and a 3.38 ERA across 19 golden games, a year in which we failed to reach the playoffs? Neither do I. Meanwhile, McDonald is 9-8 this year with woeful Pittsburgh, a 26 year old with a 95 ERA+ this year and a career ERA+ of 100 on the nose. Yeah, that was a great Colletti move.

James McDonald may never turn out to be the guy that his early scout reads said he might be. But let's be fair: against his peer set of entities named "___-Mac", that outcome should probably be expected:

T-Mac: Tracy McGrady. McGrady was a seven-time NBA all-star and was named by USA Today to be the high school player of the year before being drafted by the Toronto Raptors in 1997. Despite leading all active players in postseason points per game (28.5 ppg), McGrady never led his team out of the first round of the playoffs. He's a Detroit Piston now. Good luck with that. Oh, and he apparently has a barbed wire arm tattoo.

OMAC: Observational Metahuman Activity Construct. Jack Kirby invented these characters for the DC universe, which can access archives on almost every metahuman on file, and can simulate the powers of a variety of superheroes and supervillains in order to target its opponent's weaknesses. Whoop de frickin' doo. Greg Rucka made a valiant attempt to re-invent these characters as part of "Infinite Crisis," but really no one cares--not even the DC Universe, which relegated an OMAC to the sorry Batman and the Outsiders team in 2008.

B-Mac: Scientific-Atlanta Multiplexed Analogue Components. B-MAC uses teletext-style non-return-to-zero (NRZ) signaling with a capacity of 1.625 Mbit/s; so, obviously, the video and audio/data signals are therefore combined at baseband. But who wouldn't combine at baseband, really? What the heck else would you do at baseband if not combine, right? Australia advanced past this standard back in 2004, packed up its vegemite sandwiches, and never looked back.

Fare the well, J-Mac (just not Saturday night). The bar is low. You can do it.

10 comments:

Kyle Baker said...

The bar is low?

(gets on knees, orders beer)

Kyle Baker said...

Clan Baker will be there tonight to taunt Young Mc a second time. Field level, section 5, row O.

Kyle Baker said...

Where my dawns at?

Steve Sax said...

I'm sleepy

Jason said...

I'm drunk

Steve Sax said...

I'm still sleepy

Jason said...

And I'm slightly drunker

Josh S. said...

The X-Mac:

Ten patties, ten slices of cheese, eleven buns, special sauce, lettuce, pickles, and death.

Orel said...

Juan Uribe will have three.

Steve Sax said...

Juan Uribe is sleepy, drunk, fat, and injured.