Welcome to the official website of the Salton Sea Authority, a Joint Powers Authority (JPA) whose goal is the revitalization of the Salton Sea.

It occurred to me earlier today that Trolley Dodger rhymes with Jolly Roger. Armed with this useless bit of awesome information, I emailed my friends the news.

Tom wrote back:

Clearly this is going to lead to some really good limericks about pirate baseball.

Minutes later, I had composed the following:

There once was a pirate named Rick
Who could run round the bases quite quick
But he’d take too much pleasure
In looting your treasure
Prompting players to say, “What a dick!”

Tom replied:

There once was a Pirate named Chuck
Whose job it was, baseballs to pluck
He’d play as a Trolley Dodger
And fly the Jolly Roger
And baseball ladies he’d…duck.

Submissions are welcome in the forum. :) Yarrrr.

I came across a post on the super-named Global Nerdy earlier today that caught my eye: “Feeling Ignored by Sony and Microsoft? Nintendo Loves You!”. Joey deVilla writes about the strategy that Nintendo is using, not competing with Sony and Microsoft directly, but rather going after gamer markets that have long been ill-served. Yes, gamers are not all young men with more hardware than grooming habits.

Both the XBox 360 and the upcoming PlayStation 3 are aimed at the serious gamer — typically male, single and having plenty of time to spend an increasing number of hours “grinding” on games whose virtual worlds are expanding. […] Just Cause makes you a sort of Che Guevara character and offers 21 missions and 12,000 square kilometers of banana republic to explore, and still the reviews say the gameplay is “too short”. The game vendors’ message is clear: If you’re not hardcore, we’ve got nuthin’ for you.

Nintendo, on the other hand, is taking care of the other 95% of humanity by focusing on addictive but “casual” gaming experiences.

Rather than emphasizing features like new graphics engines and processor cores, Nintendo are focusing on simplified controls, games that appeal to women and casual gamers and non-game functions such as weather and other information channels.

And baseball sims, hopefully. ;) Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against the ginormous games — God knows I’ve spent a goodly portion of my life in various virtual settings like GTA: San Andreas.

But…

Given the price difference with Sony, and the evilness difference with Microsoft, I can’t imagine myself not going with Nintendo.

I wonder how other folks will look at it.

“adrienne and the beer taps.” by Lil’ El

Cool AP article on how smaller breweries compete for marketshare (brewshare?) by elaborate or eye-catching tap handles. Includes a section on handle history.

“Beer tap handles go artsy for marketing”

When Roy Wadding sits down at a bar, he makes sure to scan the draft selection before ordering a beer.

His eyes zip from one tap handle to the next, searching for something different, something he has never tried before.

“I see something new and I gravitate to it,” the 51-year-old Tampa., Fla., man said recently at a Winking Lizard Tavern in Columbus.

Such is the power of an eye-catching tap handle….