In a surprising move, Lycos (remember those guys?) is now offering a larger mail repository than Google's famed GMail. Instead of 2 Gigabytes, which GMail offers, LycosMail promises that users can save as many as 3 Gigabytes, effectively raising the bar again for e-mail storage. You may remember that when Google first announced GMail in April of 2004, Yahoo!, Hotmail and others limited users to a mere 50 Megabytes.

TechCrunch writes that Lycos has a number of strikes against it, not to mention the strength of Google's brand name, saying, "Whether Lycos can offer search and spam filtering as good as Gmail’s remains to be seen. It also stands at a disadvantage via Gmail’s integration with the rest of Google’s offerings."

As mentioned this morning, the tumult over Microsoft Windows Vista's delays continues. As Good Morning Silicon Valley writes, not even the bugs are stable yet. It's now rumored Vista won't show up until February.

Continuing on the Microsoft bent, it looks like the failed MSN brand will go away, in favor of the new moniker, Live. With MSN always running a distant second, third or worse, in basically every category, it's time to knife the baby.

Lest you think we've switched over to loving Redmond, don't be alarmed. There's plenty interesting going on in Cupertino as well. With WWDC rapidly approaching, the rumors are flying thick on just what Steve Jobs will pull from his sleeves. Think Secret says that the second generation of iWeb will simplify the use of external site data - outside of the typical .Mac services, and integration of Google's AdSense. Being a RapidWeaver user, we're not affected, but will still watch with curiosity. Additionally, a MacRumors source anticipates Xeon-powered XServes, New Mac Pro desktops, and a preview of the new operating system, Leopard, which will no doubt debut before the much-maligned Vista.

Listening to ''Seven Ways (Star Ways)'', by Paul Van Dyk (Play Count: 7)

In a critical latter-season series with the Angels in Anaheim, the A's extended their lead in the division to 1 1/2 games today, following the team's second one-run win in three days against their bitter rival, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Although the A's haven't exactly blown anybody away with their inconsistent offense, they are doing what is needed to win, and are winning with a frequency that has kept them in first place for the better part of the last few months.

Last week, I enjoyed one of the most A's-drenched weeks I've ever had, attending games on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, five games in a seven-day span. The A's won three of the five in that time, again just eking over the .500 mark.

With the team having a day game that started at 1 Pacific and 4 Eastern, it was all I could do to not stay attached to the Blackberry and follow the game pitch by pitch until our show floor activity was complete at 6. But somehow, we stayed focused, only to "see" the last inning and a half from the hotel room. With the calendar having recently turn to August, we're nearing the crunch time of the year, and the playoffs may await, should the team execute as we expect. But it's always that more sweet to accomplish it against a stiff rival like the Angels. The less seen of that team, the better.

Listening to ''Integral'', by Pet Shop Boys (Play Count: 8)

Microsoft is in an odd space right now, as mentioned previously. Nobody appears to have much confidence that the company's next generation OS, Vista, is going to ship in time for PC vendors to pre-package it before the end of the year, and some prominent bloggers, including Robert McLaw and Robert Scoble, are campaigning for the software giant to hold off on its release until all the kinks are worked out.

As Scoble writes, "This sucker is just not ready. Too many things are too slow and/or don’t work." But that's not stopping Microsoft from continuing to balloon - as the company announced recently it had expanded corporate headcount by an additional 10,000 in the last fiscal year, turning nearby streets into parking lots, according to Mini-Microsoft, who laments, "10,000 More Microsofties - What Do They Do?". You know that line about throwing good money after bad? I don't see that Microsoft can continue to throw people at the problem. After a while, they reach a point where they simply don't add value and contribute to the slowdowns...

Listening to ''I'm With Stupid'', by Pet Shop Boys (Play Count: 5)

I've sometimes joked that the reason I like baseball isn't for the sport - it's for the statistics. Nowadays, there are so many varieties and permutations of statistics that can break down every little detail of a player, a team, a ballpark or a manager - sometimes to the point of over-analysis. But that doesn't stop the mathematically-oriented of us from finding new ways to address a simple pleasure through absolute geekdom.

One great site to deliver sports statistics through a mainline drip is called Fangraphs, best represented by the charts which show the Win Expectancy (WinExp) of a team throughout a game. Know that feeling you get when you know your team's going to win, and the inevitable roller coaster downwards when they cough up the lead (see yesterday's game)? FanGraphs has a graph sure to match your anxiety level.

Take a look at yesterday's game with the A's against the Blue Jays. Once cruising along with an 80% chance of victory, the A's gave away the lead, and reversed the odds, against them, only to storm back with one Milton Bradley swing. The chart does justice that words cannot. Check out the rest of the site for more goodness.