When the A's fans saw Tim Hudson and Mark Mulder traded away after the 2004 season, in the space of a week, the feeling was very dire. Two thirds of the "Big Three" had been decimated, forcing Oakland to see its best-known players leave for greener pastures elsewhere, following year after year of more of the same - with losses of Jason Giambi, Keith Foulke, Jason Isringhausen, Johnny Damon and others having already inflicted significant damage on the A's psyche. But in 2005, after a rocky start, the A's challenged their way to a second place finish in the AL West division, scoring 88 wins, largely on the back of what had been left behind - a pretty darn good pitching staff, consisting of the now veteran Barry Zito, Rich Harden, youngsters Dan Haren and Joe Blanton, and fifth starter Kirk Saarloos.

Even the competitive cities are giving the A's pitching staff its due. From the Seattle Times:

"The Oakland Athletics have a pitching staff the Mariners can only dream about, as deep in both starting and relieving as anyone except perhaps the Chicago White Sox, the defending World Series champions."

In the 2005 off season, the A's didn't see any significant losses. Octavio Dotel, Erubiel Durazo and Scott Hatteberg were replaced with Frank Thomas, Milton Bradley, and yet another pitcher - Esteban Loaiza. This gives the A's six credible starters, with Joe Kennedy in the bullpen in case disaster strikes, and Dan Meyer waiting in the wings in Triple-A Sacramento after a dismal 2005 campaign.

Now some are projecting Joe Blanton and Zito to each win 20 games, with any kind of run support, with Haren following closely behind. Though Rich Harden's health is somewhat in question, he and Loaiza will give the A's five starters capable of winning 15 to 20 games this year, backed by a bullpen including All Star Justin Duchscherer and Rookie of the Year Huston Street. With the A's offense set to pick up more of the load this year, the pitching staff doesn't show any signs of slowing down. They will throw some serious heat and keep the A's pushing toward the playoffs in 2006.

It's no secret that my musical tastes lean more toward electronic and techno music than mainstream top 40 nonsense or even what's deemed alternative these days on the radio. Unfortunately for me, that means the radio doesn't have any kind of solution if I'm looking to hear the latest songs from Underworld, DJ Tiesto, Blank and Jones, ATB or Dave Clarke.

iTunes is only now starting to archive the best of electronic music out there, making it available for download. In the last few months, I've managed to get early access to some incredible albums on iTunes, including "Far Away Trains Passing By" by Ulrich Schnauss, and "Shivers" by DJ Armin Van Buuren, to name a few. If you're not familiar, click on the links and visit iTunes to preview a few songs. I don't think you'll be disappointed. But it's honestly not enough. Whereas in years past, we used to have a few hours on the radio dial with Subsonic on Saturday nights with San Francisco-based Live 105, even that show has been canceled for more standard offerings.

"Our goal for 2006 is a more unified station," claimed the station's program director. A serious cop-out, abandoning those listeners, like myself, who had followed the show religiously for the better part of a decade.

But all is not lost. The Internet has opened new exposure to new artists. MusicMobs offers you the ability to match up artists to those you already like, while Last.FM chronicles your musical list and shows you other artists or people who share your interests. And some artists have opened up the vault to their music library so you can sample hour-long or more tracks and live sessions. The best of which who I have enjoyed is an artist named DJ Irish. I have nearly 2 and a half days worth of his remixes, from Hard Trance to Assorted Trance and live sets at clubs where he has performed. Best of all, it's free. He posts a new set, and e-mails those on his list to let you go get it.

You can find his sets here: DJ Irish and DJ Nyman Music Archive. I hope you'll enjoy it. For more insight into what I'm listening to, check the MusicMobs and Last.FM links above.

Another leap forward on the road to worldwide domination. I've implemented a new site feature, powered by Feedblitz, on the right side of the page, where you can subscribe to the blog by e-mail. Now, rather than visiting with regularity (which I'm not opposed to), you can enter your e-mail address on the right and hit subscribe. Then, you would receive new posts on a daily basis, when updates occur. As with any good service, you opt-in, and can unsubscribe at any time.

Being a Cal Bears fan is a lot like being a Chicago Cubs fan - it always seems like something is going to go wrong, even when things are starting to go right. During my four years at Cal, I expected our quarterback to fumble on the one-yard line in key games, I expected our star basketball player to get injured in the last minutes of a game in which he scored more than forty points, and somehow, they always came up short. And this issue extends to any games Cal plays on a national scale - or when facing USC the last two years.

Yet, somehow, I keep holding onto my faith. Today, with Cal basketball tied for first place in the Pac Ten with UCLA, and an NCAA tourney bid looking possible, they took on last-place Arizona State, at home, in what should have been an easy win. Yet we found them in trouble in first overtime.

With a chance to win by making two free throws, Cal missed the front-end and was lucky to make the second to force a second, fateful, overtime period. In that last five minutes, Cal foolishly shot an impossible three pointer when up by four, and gave ASU the chance to come roaring back. With the gap closed to two, ASU had the chance to tie or take the lead, and swished a three from behind the arc, putting the team up by one with seconds left. Cal had managed to shake defeat from the jaws of victory, missing their final attempts and seeing the Sun Devils walk away from Haas Pavilion with a well-deserved win. It was almost what I had expected to happen, but what I had hoped wouldn't. Very frustrating.