In honor of the happiest time of the year, they have made today, April 3, Armenian Appreciation Day. It’s noted on Geocities, so it’s got to be true. It’s no secret that I’m fiercely proud of my Armenian heritage, so much so that I sensed shenanigans when HJE went out the other day? Hmm, a site dedicated to re-employ an Armenian-American goes kaput just as the current Cubs manager fell to 0-2 and in panic shuffled his lineup. Sweet Lou felt the pressure of Skip Johnson breathing down his neck, but the campaign to get me back in the Cubs dugout went down. So, I placed a couple calls. One was to this profane guy called Bad Kermit. Turned out it was the wrong one. The second call was to the artist formerly known as “M R.” Amazingly, his crack legal defense team hadn’t shut down Hire Jim Essian! (I think his crack legal defense team was out at the Purple Hotel with the federal government’s star witness.)
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Thanks to the help of Domer.mq, there are a couple things I’m going to do to decrease the amount of bandwidth I’m using (which is probably causing a lot of our problems). The only switch which I’m sure will have you all throwing tantrums is a change in the Shoutbox. Currently, the Shoutbox is taking up space on the HJE server. That was normally fine, until last month, you guys went crazy:

Most active month March 2008 : 112,170 pages sent. 3,704,442 requests handled.

That’s a lot of traffic, caused primarily by the Shoutbox.

I’m going to switch over to Shoutmix, which will take up space on someone else’s server. That said, I’m not entirely sure I’ll still be able to have the brilliant “Hide the Shoutbox” feature implemented by Thrillho and Pre (thanks, guys). Can everyone just TRY to keep in mind that there might be people reading the site for the first time, and they might cast a sideways glance at the Shoutbox? It would be nice if they didn’t need therapy because of anything they read there.

Here’s a good rule of thumb. Ask yourself, “Is what I’m about to type totally creepy?” If the answer is, “Yes,” don’t type it.

The new Shoutbox should be up shortly.

Guys,

It’s with infinite sadness that I have to report that this is going to be my final regular post on HJE. As you know, HJE recently took on the funny and talented Mike D. and Tonker to help out around here, to post when I needed a breather, and to provide a bit of a different perspective on the Cubs (Mike D.’s encyclopedic knowledge of Cubs history and Tonker’s inclination to put “u”’s after all of his “o”’s being a big part of that).
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As you know, your local HJE idiots put together a panel of experts to form a Round Table of sorts to answer all eight of your preseason Cubs questions. Of course, the gang at HJE chipped in, too. Parts One, Two, and Three of the ensuing mayhem were published earlier this week. Part Four follows.
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As you know, your local HJE idiots put together a panel of experts to form a Round Table of sorts to answer all eight of your preseason Cubs questions. Of course, the gang at HJE chipped in, too. Parts One and Two of the ensuing mayhem were published earlier this week. Part Three follows.
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As you know, your local HJE idiots put together a panel of experts to form a Round Table of sorts to answer all eight of your preseason Cubs questions. Of course, the gang at HJE chipped in, too. For Part One of the ensuing mayhem, click here. Part Two follows.
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In addition to your local HJE idiots (Tonker and Mike D.), we are proud to be joined by the following esteemed individuals:–a gadfly, a stats-geek, a ringleader of Internet morans (misspelling intentional), an editor for ESPN the Magazine, a Cardinals fan (and NBA expert), the TV voice of the Cubs, and the only Cubs beat reporter who actually seems to enjoy his beat. I guess I’m emceeing the whole thing, meaning I get to see everyone’s answer and make snarky comments about them. Since I’m slow, the questions were asked two weeks ago, so some of the answers may seem dated. Just pretend you’re reading a round table from two weeks ago. Which you are.
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I am going to get a “real” post up later today, but I have a quick announcement. About a month ago, Mike D. came up with the excellent idea to have HJE host a Round Table. By way of participants, we asked a gadfly, a stats-geek, a ringleader of Internet morans (misspelling intentional), an editor for ESPN the Magazine (and former Chicago Sports Weekly guru), a Cardinals fan (and NBA expert), the TV voice of the Cubs, and the only Cubs beat reporter who actually seems to enjoy his beat.

That’s right. The Round Table roster (aside from me, Mike D., and Tonker) consists of Ivy Chat’s Chuck, Flotsam-Media’s EG, Desipio’s Andy Dolan, ESPN The Magazine’s Chris Sprow, Yahoo Sports’ Kelly Dwyer, WGN’s Len Kasper, and the Daily Herald’s Bruce Miles.

The questions went out. The answers came in. Tomorrow, we share them with you.

Oh, and for the disbelievers, these are all the REAL people. If we were making this up, we’d have used Lee Elia, John Campanera, Fred McGriff, and Marla Collins.

As much as I like the Disqus commenting system we’ve been using, it is annoying and confusing having two logins on this site. I have reverted to the integrated WordPress commenting system, which means you will only need to have one login if you want to preserve your identity (you can still comment anonymously). Unfortunately, that means deactivating the Disqus comments, meaning they won’t show up on the site. This is obviously not ideal, but those comments are not lost. They’re all still right here. New comments will obviously show up on the site. This link should be the correct RSS feed for any new comments (I think).

Sorry about the mess, but I think going forward this will be much easier.

On March 9, 2007, thanks to the suggestion of T.J. Brown, Hire Jim Essian! was born. We’re a year older, a year dumber, and a year more frustrated. Thanks to everyone who has been here since the beginning, and thanks to everyone who jumped on board along the way. Happy first birthday, HJE.