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Curled up on my couch, a cat on my lap, a dog at my feet, and a collection of graph paper and seed catalogs around me is about as close to the outside I want to get right now. December finally arrived with a dusting of snow, frozen streets and 25 degree weather. Not as frigid as it could be, but enough to make me thankful for a cup of warm tea.

I'm nesting into my dreaming phase of the garden year. On one pad of paper, I have a running list of major planting projects – some new fruit trees, A hops trellis, a new bed to build, the ripping out of an overgrown terrace so I can replace it with more perennial herbs.

A couple sheets of graph paper also lay nearby. On each I have carefully sketched out my yard and existing beds. On some I added those new projects to get a feel for their effects on the bed. Will the fruit trees shade any part of the veggie patch? Will the ducks be able to to pull the hops off the trellis? Some of these questions I can answer on paper, some only time and experience will determine.

Only a couple of seed catalogs have arrived, so I'm not yet ordering. Still, of the catalogs I do have they are already adorned with multiple post-it notes, fluttering from the top of the pages like so many Tibetan prayer flags. Each note is not just marking a place in the catalog, but also holds important details like how many of each plant I want, if it's a necessity or a dream, and whether I already have room for it or will need to make room for it.

My spring and summer garden probably won't look like my December dreams. These are just preliminary dreams. The summer garden evolves out of these dreams and usually becomes a reality much better than anything I imagined on a cold winter evening.

Olan Rogers and his cat, Starscream, like to argue profusely on the Internet. Starscream, naturally, usually wins. In this installment, titled "Cat Trust," watch a heated discussion over cocoa turn violent.

Diosamante HC-I’m not familiar with the work of Jean-Claude Gal, and after reading the introduction it was sad to learn of his passing as his artwork is truly beautiful. This collects the entirety of what he was able to finish for the Diosamante books as well some of his sketches and designs for unfinished chapters.  This is also the first time anything from this series has ever been translated into English, so it’s a pretty fantastic collection to finally have the chance to read. If you’re familiar with Alexandro Jodorowsky then you’ll know what to expect to some degree. For those unfamiliar, Jodorowsky loves to tell mythic fantasy stories that act as metaphysical explorations of spirituality, the connections between the mental and physical, and morality tales that feature extreme violence, sadism, and sexuality. It’s generally a bit messed up, but always amusing. It’s vexing that the overall story isn’t finished (although the final chapters are written out by Jodorowsky in prose and printed at the end), but we should consider ourselves lucky to have the opportunity to still view this artwork in a nicely designed and affordable package. A

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Scene of the Crime HC- It’s great that this is finally back in print as I think it’s been nearly a decade since the Vertigo version was available. The $24.99 price tag may seem sort of pricey for a thinner HC that was originally something like $14.99 when it was originally released, but one of the impressive things about this story is just how dense of a read it is. Plus it doesn’t hurt that it’s a little oversized as well so it can better match the Criminal and Incognito HCs.  What’s also nice is that they included the short story published in the Vertigo Winter’s Edge anthology, so it’s a comprehensive package. This was the first story of Brubaker’s that really brought his work to my attention and it has held up incredibly well over all this time. The thing this book has over his later works like Criminal is that it has a much more disturbing set-up and revelation to the crimes whereas Criminal still has more of a fictional noir feel to it. This is the sort of story you would expect to see on Law & Order: SVU, particularly one of the episodes where there is no chance of a positive outcome. If you love Brubaker’s work this is a must have, but if you also just like depressing crime stories then you’re in for a treat. Of depression. A depression treat. That sounded more enticing in my head. A

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Q.  Does SSI agree that the Royals were using 1955 evaluations methods to rationalize this trade?

A.  The analysis of this trade is way off the mark.  

Come on:  the Kansas City Royals traded a real nice prospect for a major league #1 starter.  And they traded three very replaceable prospects for Wade Davis, who is roughly compable to Hisashi Iwakuma or Charlie Furbush.  

When you've hit the point that you think it's Insane, or Feebleminded, or Nineteen Fifty Five, or whatever, to deal your best prospect for a great major league pitcher, your keister is being swallowed up by your spreadsheet.  When the Royals do this in reverse, everybody jumps on them for being the Yankees' and Red Sox' farm system.

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Q.  But this move doesn't push the Royals over the top.

A.  How do you know?

50% of the screaming that we hear is based on this false logic.  "The Royals don't have the right to try to win. If it had been the Tigers who made the trade, well, sure."  This of course was the basis of the anti-Bedard logic.

When you've got to resort to this argument to slag the trade -- "well, they're not the type of team that should do this" -- know that your basic hatred for the deal has a fatal flaw in it.  Because you just admitted that some teams should do this trade, and you therefore just admitted that the trade is roughly balanced.  Else, you wouldn't be saying "It's wrong because Kansas City can't win anyway."

By the way, Kansas City can win anyway.  The 2012 Baltimore Orioles didn't need Baseball Prospectus' pre-season signoff on their right to compete.

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Q.  How good IS James Shields, anyway?

A.  Last season he fanned 8.9 men per game, walked 2.2, and threw 52% groundballs.  We was a more effective pitcher than Justin Verlander, Clayton Kershaw, or R.A. Dickey.

Shields has 9.2 WAR the last two years, almost 24 WAR the last six years.

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Q.  How many innings does Shields throw?

A.  The lowest innings total for him, the last six years, is 203.  The last two years, it's been 250 and 230.

Over the last six years, Shields has the 13th-highest WAR total in both leagues, AL and NL, just a tick behind Jered Weaver.

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Q.  Six years of Myers for two years of Shields?

A.  "Two years of James Shields" misses the point.  Is that what the Mariners have, "two years of Felix Hernandez"?  

Shields is a Royal now, like Felix is a Mariner, and the Royals can start negotiating the extension if they so desire.  They get TV money too.  First thing out of Shields' mouth after the trade was, yeah baby, now I can extend my contract.

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Q.  OK, his peripherals are top-12 in baseball.  How is Shields' stuff?

A.  Right now, there are three power pitchers in the AL with these three strikeout pitches:  hot fastballs, wipeout changeups and wipeout overhand curves.  Those being Felix, Verlander and James Shields.  And Shields is a groundball pitcher.

How many guys are there in baseball like this?  Three power pitches, terrific every year, 220 IP every year, exactly 31 years old as you'd love your ace to be.  If Shields pitched in Boston or New York, they'd run him on ESPN every night and he'd be an icon.

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