With Zito having walked away from the green and gold to throw for a minor league squad across the bay, we check in with the rest of the team to see how they resolve to make 2007 a success...


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Also: Take the Poll: What do you as a fan resolve to do?

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Often, it's the quiet utilities you use every day that speed your workflow. Without the bells and whistles of expensive commercial software packages, and lacking hoopla, they simply are there to help your Mac work better. Apple's Preview application, which comes bundled with Mac OS X and every Macintosh sold, is one of those applications I've found myself using more and more for a variety of tasks - rendering other apps, including Adobe Acrobat and PhotoShop, unnecessary.

That's the idea behind my most recent contribution to The Apple Blog, titled In Praise of Preview. Per agreement with them, I will not be cross-posting the piece, but instead, have provided a link. Enjoy.

Cross-posted at Sactown Royalty...

Last night, the Kings' 14-game win streak against the LA Clippers came to an end.

While I could simply point to the fact the Clippers had a higher FG% (49.3% to 42.1%), a higher 3PFG% (40% to 20%) and a higher FTM% (86.7% to 78.8%) as factors leading to the Kings' inevitable loss, and jaunt back to my earlier comments that the team which has fewer field goal attempts (tonight it was the Clippers' 73  to the Kings' 76) is actually winning a higher percentage of Kings games (17 wins to 9 losses so far, trust me), tonight's deep data dive looks at the Kings' seeming inability to shut down their opponents in the third quarter. It's a very disturbing trend - one we've all noticed, and the stats actually back it up.

Last night, the Clippers beat the Kings by 9 points, but they actually outscored Sacramento by a full 10 points in the third quarter alone, after a fairly even first half. It was the 7th time this season where the Kings were outscored by 10 or more in the 3rd quarter, more than all other quarters combined.

When the Kings are outscored in the 3rd quarter, they lose big. On the season, the team has been outscored 750 to 692 in the 3rd quarter, for a 58 point deficit. In contrast, the Kings have in aggregate outscored opponents by 39 in the 2nd quarter and 22 in the 4th quarter, and are running a deficit of 15 points in the opening period.

For a team who on the season is fairly well matched on offense and defense, both scoring and giving up 99.9 points a contest, the third quarter meltdowns are alarming. On only one occasion, on December 10th, against the hapless Atlanta Hawks, did the Kings outscore their opponent by 10 or more points in the 3rd quarter.

In the 7 games where the Kings were outscored by more than 10 points in the 3rd quarter, the team lost 5 times, and won twice (at Utah on 12/14 and at Denver on 12/22). In all 5 of those losses, including tonight, the 3rd quarter provided the margin of victory.

Something is wrong with the team's halftime speeches or buffet. If team isn't coming out of the locker room ready to play, they're toast. A five game swing could obviously make the difference between a last-place squad and one challenging for the playoffs. Think about it. These third quarter collapses have occurred in more than one of every four games. We know the drill. Do the coaches and players know this is a problem?

As always, feel free to poke and prod the stats to your heart's content. You can find the fully updated Kings 2006 Stat Database, with new features, including the quarterly breakdown, here: (Download Now)

For as much noise as I may make about trying to stay on top of the world of gadgetry, we've definitely fallen behind when it comes to keeping our home near the state of the art in electronics and entertainment. As I wrote a few weeks ago, I finally sprung for a low-end 42-inch Plasma wide-screen TV. While that's still in shipping hell, in San Francisco, and isn't expected until next Thursday, we've started making purchases to bring the house up to speed.

Last week, in a quick visit to Best Buy, I made a long-needed move, to upgrade our DVD player. Long in the tooth, the DVD player would often stop in the middle of shows, and we would have to mark the scene at which it stuck, so we could start over again, after ejecting the disk, looking for scratches, and blowing on the player or disc (or wiping on our shirt). I'd had enough. So we got two new ones - one slim Sony DVD player for the living room, and a DVD/VCR combo for the bedroom, so Kristine can watch titles from school that still only come in VHS.

With those out of the way, our to-do shopping list still includes a few potential items:

* Upgrading our TiVo Series 1 by adding a Series 3 (and paying by month)
* Adding a serious flat-screen to the living room
* Replacing our spotty wireless. Our Airport base station is dying a slow death.
* Adding a DVD case to hold our single films and sets

On the priority list, I'd love to get rid of this massive monolith of an entertainment center we have dominating our living room, and replacing it with something lower profile. Kristine wants me to get it sold via Craigs List and having someone pick it up, but I think that's a rough sell. If that happens, we can then post the new TV on the wall, with a TiVo 3 hookup, and get things off to a big start.

Then, I can start thinking about upgrading our laptops to Intel Macs. That would be round two. Can't wait to dust off the credit cards.