93 thoughts on “December 20, 2012: And it Keeps Getting Better”

  4. Decided to screw it and drive up to near-MN last night after work to avoid the Snowmageddon of 2012. As of right now, it looks like it would have been safe to stay in Madison. We'll see how the rest of the storm goes, but I'll be very annoyed if I missed out on a night of curling league to avoid the hyperbole.

        1. Just about/not quite.
          It's convenient for the Eastside Contingent...few though we may be. He'd initially suggested the LiftBridge taproom, but decided it didn't look very kid friendly.

        2. sean - right now it's just cheap & his family + me and mine. I didn't want to miss his only availability.
          hj - unless there's a last minute change of schedule (i.e., my wife adds something to the calendar), I'm in.

          1. anyone got a good suggestion for a place? algonad was talking SW minneapolis, which works fine for me (and he might still be able to show up too, right?). as i used to know the area well, my knowledge has dwindled in recent years.

            isn't there some brewpub on penn?

              1. Lowbrow is very good. Only place I can think of on Penn besides Broders is Cafe Maude, and I'm not much of a fan.

                1. i have no idea what i'm thinking of then. might not have even been penn.

                  anyway, lowbrow would be more than fine by me. i'll be staying at my dad's which is not too far at all from there.

                  1. Let's do Low Brow then. AMR and Algonad also indicated that they could do a later meet-up. I'm not sure what time that meant but what are people thinking timewise?

                    Also Strat you live close to Low Brow, any chance you can make it? I thought Meat was available too.

                    3. I should be able to come. I think my family might have made some dinner plans, but if we're meeting later, then I'll definitely make it.

    2. Alright, so official word came down that all curling leagues were cancelled tonight, so I feel better about my sudden decision to drive 4-1/2 hours last night.

  5. Congrats Spooks!

    Have you matured to where you can share a suitcase on a trip? (We haven't).

      1. Oh man, I envy you for that. My wife can't travel alone with just one suitcase. (I can go for days with simply a back-pack. I'm definitely not that asshole taking up all the overhead space.)

  8. I've been working on "Our Band Could Be Your Life" lately, so I've been listening to the relevant music along with it. I didn't realize the "Jackass" song was actually a Minutemen song. I guess I always assumed it was written for the show.

    2. Love to hear your reaction to the music you're listening to. After reading that book two bands I didn't have much music for and I checked out were Beat Happening and Mission of Burma. I still dig the Beat Happening but never really got into MoB.

      1. I've only heard one Mission of Burma album, it was one they put out fairly recently. I liked it but never really dug any further than that. I've never listened to Beat Happening, but I really probably should.

  9. LEN3 says Twins officially sign Pelfrey and then adds this:

    And the Twins might not be done adding pitchers. According to a source, they remain in the hunt for lefthander Joe Saunders - although adding him would round out what might be the greatest ground ball-inducing staff since the dead ball era.

    2. While they could perhaps induce many ground balls, I'd be hesitant to call the Twins rotation the "greatest" at anything at this juncture.

        1. Hmm. I'm not sure I can be letdown by Kevin Correia or Big Pelf. I don't expect either to be good. I suppose I'm let down by TR signing them in the first place, though. Greatest disparity between fanbase hope and reality?

    3. From PP:

      Ryan called the team's latest additions "a start."

      "We're still looking, as we should be," he said.

    4. LEN3 says Twins interested in Rich Harden's comeback. Probably a minor league deal with an invite to spring training.

  10. I wish I would have seen the eagle-child discussion in real time yesterday. It certainly would have fooled me...

    A few years ago my daughter, then about 3, was playing with a same-aged friend in the neighbor's backyard. I was sitting on our deck watching them and noticed a large bird wheeling in the sky. Bald eagle.

    It circled generally over the neighbor's yard for about 5 minutes, getting fairly low at times. We're not in a large city, and we're toward the edge, so it's not that odd to see an Eagle hunting nearby. It being low over our homes seemed strange, though. I swear it was sizing up my daughter.

      1. I look at Twitter as a stream. A bunch of it may flow by and I miss it, but I just jump in and enjoy from time to time. I don't look at it as something to read 100%. To help with this, I simply access Twitter from web browsers. Read from top down. The phone is particularly "nice" because their mobile web view is broken and actually doesn't really allow you to keep reading back and back. At some point it breaks and skips from 4 hours ago to something that got cached on your phone 3 weeks ago. A feature, not a bug!

        If you do read 100%, I'd recommend culling out the noise aggressively and just read back until you catch up. I think TweetBot or some of those would remember where you left off, but I don't know if they're still around given Twitter's stupid relationship with developers. I uninstalled them a while back to encourage _not_ reading 100%.

        I'm sure people use Lists, but I never felt like spending time organizing everyone I follow.

    2. 3rd year at UMD I was renting a room at a house on 5th St. a little down the hill from the campus. One winter night one of my house-mates and I were out tossing a nerf football back and forth on the street under the street-lights. A large raptor (I'm guessing some kind of owl) swooshed down during one of my passes and grabbed the ball in the air and tried to fly off with it. It dropped it eventually, but it must have thought we were tossing some kind of food back and forth. Or it was a defensive middle line-owl.

  13. got about 3 inches of snow on the overnight and had everything all nice and shoveled, but the 30 (40?) mph winds have drifted in the sidewalk. bah

  14. Got two small boxes of cards in today's mail. One was a hilarious "bipping" of Mark Guthrie/Chip Hale/Mike Dyer cards (plus a nice Mauer commemorative patch card) from an anonymous card blogger, and the other (full of many miscellaneous non-Twins auto and jersey cards!) was a contest win, I guess. Both out of the blue but very much appreciated. I love the holidays

  15. Here's another indication of the awfulness of my organization:
    Yesterday, we were told we couldn't help a co-worker's daughter with a very small case that fits within our priorities (no reason given, just not allowed to do it). Today, I got in trouble for previously having helped evaluate whether there was a case (so that we could present it for consideration to our management). So... organization that says not only "no, you can't help your family" but also "you are in trouble for asking to help family."

    1. Yesterday in team meeting, someone was asking about resources for a client who was struggling with some legal thing. Like five or six options were mentioned, then someone said. "If that doesn't work, there's always (your company)." There were a few snickers and some sighs, and then we moved on.

    2. Bahahahaha! I just found out that our staff was also prohibited from participating in the Wills for Heroes program! Wow. We are a shameful, shameful organization.

  16. juicy tidbit from Doogie

    Darren Wolfson ‏@DarrenWolfson
    I won't be surprised from correspondence today if Malcolm Lee is done for the year... and the #Twolves sign someone. Maybe Redd. Stay tuned.

            1. Everything about the Three 6 winning that Oscar is awesome. That they started calling themselves this is so damn good. It also gave us the eight brilliant episodes of Adventures in Hollyhood. Not to mention the song is outstanding. They couldn't have picked a better song to win!

              1. I didn't mean to phrase it as though they didn't deserve the Oscar. It was more "Oh, that's right, Michael Redd does have a gold medal/Three 6 Mafia does have an Oscar" aspect. They are they answers that only 10% of quiz takers get on Sporcle.

                1. Oh, for sure. I just find the whole thing amusing is all. I wonder how many voters were disappointed in that selection haha.

    2. ugh

      Joan Niesen ‏@JoanNiesen
      Timberwolves waiving Josh Howard. Actually tore his right ACL in New Orleans last Friday, not hyperextended as earlier reported.

      2. so, how does that work? I assume that Howard was on a (second? third?) ten-day contract? Injured on the job, so he gets an injury settlement? Or is there an ongoing medical liability and the waiver is just to clear a roster spot and prevent his contract from becoming guaranteed?

        1. Howard got a 1 yr/$1.2 mil deal when he signed
          I assume that money is guaranteed and the Wolves take a salary cap hit.

          1. so, the CBA FAQ sheds some light. Contracts can be partially/fully guaranteed in a variety of ways.

            62. Are contracts always guaranteed?

            There are only a few specific types of contracts that must be guaranteed. All other guarantees are a matter of individual negotiation between the player and team. In practice, the majority of NBA contracts (especially for established veterans) are fully guaranteed. Non-guaranteed salary is most often used for fringe players (either at the beginning or end of their careers) or for the later years of long-term contracts (often in conjunction with benchmarks that allow the salary to become fully guaranteed over time).

            Only a player's base salary can be guaranteed -- not bonuses or incentives. The percentage of base salary that is guaranteed cannot increase from one year to the next (e.g., if 50% of a player's salary is guaranteed one season, then no more than 50% can be guaranteed in any subsequent season of the contract).

            There are actually several types of guarantees: lack of skill, death, injury/illness, and mental disability. So, for example, a contract might be fully guaranteed for injury or illness, but not for mental disability. Lack of skill means the player can no longer play well enough to justify remaining on the team.

            Some salaries are only partially guaranteed, and the guaranteed amount can change on specified dates. For example, $2.4 million of Lamar Odom's $8.2 million salary for 2012-13 was protected for lack of skill. Since the Los Angeles Clippers did not put him on waivers on or before June 29, 2012, Odom's compensation protection increased to full, meaning his entire $8.2 million salary became guaranteed.

            The required guarantees are as follows:

            For sign-and-trade contracts (see question number 88), the first season must be protected for lack of skill.
            For rookie "scale" contracts (see question number 48), all seasons must be protected for lack of skill and injury/illness for at least 80% of the rookie scale amount.
            Qualifying offers to restricted free agents (see question number 88) must be protected for lack of skill and injury/illness.
            If an offer sheet to a restricted free agent is subject to the Gilbert Arenas provision (see question number 44), all seasons must be protected for lack of skill and injury/illness.

            In addition, on January 101 the base salary in all contracts becomes guaranteed for the remainder of that season (except for one case -- see question 65). A player must clear waivers by this date, so teams will waive players a couple days before in order to have them off their rosters before January 10. Also, if a player is waived prior to January 10 but is injured as a direct result of playing basketball with his team, then his salary is guaranteed until he is ready to play again or until the end of that season, whichever comes first.

            1 February 10 in 2011-12.

    1. I noticed that earlier today and just assugreyed that it had been there for awhile. I had no idea it was so new.

  18. The building where my wife works was evacuated today due to elevated carbon monoxide levels. I had to drive her to work this morning because of the storm, we only have one 4wd vehicle and that's the only way we were getting out of the neighborhood today. Anyway, I had to go pick her up and now I have the afternoon off myself. Thank you ancient boiler in the basement of the World Building!

    1. I remember the good old days when that was the tallest building in Omaha (and seeing that building and the three antennas knowing I was getting close to my grandparents'). Then the bank had to ruin things with a big skyscraper.

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