NERDS AROUND TOWN
Nerds Around Town: Nerd Holiday shopping guide, piracy and libraries
Nov 27, 2019, 7:15 am
ART BY JESUS RODRIGUEZ
Born with a comic book in one hand and a remote control in the other, Cory DLG is the talent of Conroe's very own Nerd Thug Radio and Sports. Check out the podcast replay of the FM radio show at www.nerdthugradio.com!
GOOD DEED OF THE DAY
For the next two weeks I'm going to be pointing to the charity called "Let's Bring 'Em Home." They buy plane tickets for active duty enlisted guys and fly them home for the holidays. On December 13th, Nerd Thug Radio and The Adventure Begins will be teaming up and holding the Nerd Thug Takeover to benefit this wonderful organization. Starting at 6pm, proceeds from sales will be going to this 501c registered charity and will be helping to try and bring some enlisted people home for the holidays so they can see their families.
GREAT NERD GIFTS
So I hate that this is a thing but it's a real thing so it bears doing. This week has also become Christmas shopping kick off weekend, with all kinds of crazy Black Friday deals and a lot of people buy most of their gifts during this weekend so I suppose I owe it to the nerds around town to make some suggestions for people. So here are my five nerd gifts suggestions: 5. Watchmen Deluxe Edition 4. We're not always grim and gritty, maybe a little light hearted Superman and Batman statue 3. Black Science Premiere Hardcover, it's not just superheroes anymore 2. Bloodshot Deluxe Edition, in anticipation of this movie coming out next year and 1. Either "DCeased" or "Batman Who Laughs" they're both equally worthy of the top spot.
PIRATING COMICS
The hot topic of pirating broke out this week on Comic's twitter as the creator of Image comic "Crowded" got irritated when he saw roughly 90k reads of his 10 issue book but he as a starving artist is worried about his book being cancelled. I remember being a kid who illegally swapped music files when that stuff first came out and Lars of Metallica fame came out and went after Napster for stealing from artists. At the time, as a kid not understanding how stuff works I thought he was such a chump for that. Now as a creator who pays his own bills, I recognize the courage and the strength he had to come out and say, "if you're a fan of my music, then you need to buy it." The reality is that paying creatives for their work is the right thing to do. My grandmother passed away early this year and she had asked specific people to speak at her funeral service and after the fact there were conversations amongst the family members that they were surprised some of them took money for coming to speak. I know there are specifics that make this hard to explain well, and it wasn't that my family didn't want her to have a nice service, there was just surprise about the business of it. What wound up coming out of the conversation though is that this is their living, this is how they pay their bills and are able to continue their good works, by asking for and receiving money for their work. IF you like something, pay for it, I'm not saying pay everything for it, I make comics and I literally let people pay me personally whatever they want for a PDF of my comic. I'm not expecting to get rich doing this, but I have to receive value for my work or I can't keep doing it, the same is true for everyone else in this industry.
LIBRARIES BAD?
During the conversation about piracy, a village idiot from the "wise minds" of the Comicsgate community suggested Libraries and piracy are the same thing. This is vastly incorrect and an idiots take on a big idea. Yes libraries only may buy one copy of your work and then let tons of other people read it at no added benefit directly to you. But first of all, they bought A COPY, secondly libraries are the poor person's option to enrich their lives through the arts. You don't get mad that people use libraries, you get thrilled. Reading is the backbone of all modern societies through all of human history that mattered. Passing knowledge freely from person to person in a way that is respectful to the process is exactly what we should want everyone around the world to be doing. We certainly don't get mad at libraries loaning books out for free, that is just stupid. Also from a capitalism standpoint, if you sell your books to the estimated 100k libraries across America, you made a lot more sales than the estimated 2k comic shops across America, just a math thought.
NOT THAT YOU ASKED
Work is progressing on issue #2 of Another Day at the Office and I'm super excited but the real question is, what's the best way to market it? How exactly should I handle the release of issue #2? These are the big things I'm pondering this holiday.
Feel free to check out my brand-new comic book Another Day at the Office or buy a shirt from Side Hustle Ts where some proceeds help people struggling with cancer or listen to Nerd Thug Radio. Thoughts, complaints, events and comments can be sent to corydlg@gmail.com.
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How Astros advanced metrics tell puzzling story about Houston's start
Apr 17, 2025, 5:21 pm
Major League Baseball’s regular season is 162 games long. You can think of 18 games as the first inning of the season, 18 times nine equaling 162. While the Astros 8-10 record is not good, it’s far from disastrous. Think of it as them being behind 1-0 after the first inning. It is pretty remarkable that they have yet to win consecutive games. Even during last year’s 7-19 stink bomb of a start the Astros twice managed to win two in a row.
The Astros’ offensive woes are plentiful. Oddly enough as impotent as they’ve been, the Astros have yet to be shutout. But in half their games they have scored exactly one or two runs. Basically, most of them stink thus far. Exemptions go to Jose Altuve and Isaac Paredes, but it’s not like either of them has been outstanding. It’s still early enough that one big series can dramatically alter the numbers, but the Astros badly need Yordan Alvarez to pick up his production. Yordan enters the weekend batting just .224 with a .695 OPS and just four extra base hits. Yainer rhymes with minor. As in minor leagues, where Diaz belongs at his current level of performance. That is not saying Diaz should be sent down, just that any random AAA catcher called up couldn’t have done much worse to this point. Diaz isn’t hitting Altuve’s weight, a woeful .130 with seven hits in 57 at bats. Diaz simply remains too undisciplined at the plate swinging at too many balls. He’s drawn three walks. And now to Christian Walker, who thus far has delivered return on investment for his three year 60 million dollar contract about as strong as the stock market’s performance in Tariff Time. Walker’s .154 batting average and .482 OPS are very Astro Jose Abreu-like. Walker’s23 strikeouts in 65 at bats jump off the page. He has often looked befuddled in the batter's box. Walker is definitely pressing and frustrated, wanting to perform better for his new team. Jeremy Pena goes into the weekend batting .215 and has one hit in 13 at bats with runners in scoring position. Brendan Rodgers, Jake Meyers, and Chas McCormick all have weak stat lines, with little reason to expect quality offensive output from any of them. Cam Smith is at .200 with a yucky .591 OPS but he’s obviously a young stud work in progress thrown into the deep end of the pool.
All batting orders are top-heavy, the Astros’ on paper more so than many. As I set forth on one of our Stone Cold ‘Stros podcasts this week, the first inning should be a team’s best offensive inning. It’s the only frame in which a team gets to dictate who comes up from the start with the batters lined up just as the manager slots them. Add to that, the first inning is a good time to get to a starting pitcher before he settles in. The Astros have scored a pitiful three first inning runs in 18 games, and in two of the games they pushed one across in the first, it turned out to be the only Astro run of the game. Improvement needs to come internally from the big league roster. It’s not as if the Astros have a meaningful prospect at AAA Sugar Land who looks ready to help. Entering play Thursday the Space Cowboys’ team average was .186. Second base hopeful Brice Matthews is nowhere close, batting .180 and striking out left and right. Outfielder Jacob Melton opened three for 17 following the back injury-delayed start to his season.
As exasperating and boring as the offense has been for so many, grading needs to occur on a curve. So, while the Astros’ team batting average is a joke at .216, know that at close of business Wednesday the entire American League was batting just .232. The American League West-leading Texas Rangers scored eight fewer runs over their first 18 games than did the Astros, though that is skewed by the Astros’ one 14-run outburst against the Angels.
Familiar faces return
This weekend the Astros play host to the San Diego Padres at Daikin Park. The Friars are off to a fabulous start at 15-4. The Padres being here creates a mini reunion as both Martin Maldonado and Yuli Gurriel are on their roster. In a telling fact, Maldonado would have the third-highest batting average on the Astros if on the team with his current numbers. Maldonado is hitting .250 with seven hits in 28 at bats. The last season he finished above .200 was 2020. The only season in his career Maldonado topped .234 was his rookie season with a .266 mark in 2012.
Gurriel was last good in 2021 when he won the American League batting title at .319. He fell off a cliff from there, though perked up to have a fine postseason in the Astros’ 2022 run to World Series title number two. “La Pina” is batting .115 with just three hits in 26 at bats. Gurriel may be released soon, and approaching his 41st birthday June 9, that would probably be the end of the line. Short-timer Astro Jason Heyward is also on the Padres, and batting .190.
For Astro-centric conversation, join Brandon Strange, Josh Jordan, and me for the Stone Cold ‘Stros podcast which drops each Monday afternoon, with an additional episode now on Thursday. Click here to catch!
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