So we have to relish and debate the outcomes of the smaller pickings that we do get, from the Beard Awards to the 50 Most Popular restaurants in the annual Zagat Survey, a list that packs all the nail-biting suspense of a "Blues Clues" episode, what with Gramercy Tavern and Union Square Cafe perpetually on top.
With every passing year Intel seizes ever more computational territory for its general purpose microprocessors, leaving smaller pickings for the little guys who make math coprocessors, disk controllers and the like.
The shrill retreats she patrols are so small and the pickings in some of them so poor that by stepping lively and avoiding tedious conversations with her customers, she is able to visit each of them a dozen times in the course of a night.
Last year, slim pickings among small-caps aside, my best recommendation was Sybron Dental Specialties (28), marking a rebound from 2002, when it was one of my worst picks.
Because many money managers are just as likely to pick a small- or mid-cap stock as a large one, the appropriate benchmark for judging their stock-picking abilities is one that gives equal weight to each stock.
Shandon Anderson is expected to start in Sprewell's place at small forward, and after him, the pickings are slim.
But to the exasperation of this region's shepherds, who for generations have scaled these hills with the seasons, the species' success has been due in no small part to the ample, easy pickings.
In later years, convinced that the division of workers into small craft unions made them easy pickings for the giant railroad corporations, Debs founded the American Railway Union, leading it in the dramatic Pullman Strike of 1894.
The storm may be a death knell for apple-picking season at Hager Brothers' small orchard in Shelburne Falls, Mass.
