117 thoughts on “April 28, 2011: Red Chair”

  1. I don't know if this got finalized yesterday, but it wasn't Gardy (I knew he wasn't going to go there) or Joe Torre (just playing with Buffalo there), but we now know who has a pea-sized brain.

    1. The allegations are bad, but this client's attorney just exudes credibility.

    2. i said it yesterday, but i want to know more about how this situation came about. i still find it hard to believe that he just walked up to them and started screaming. i’m in no way condoning his actions, even if “provoked”, but we’re not getting the full story here.

    3. This is all just set up to get Leo Mazzone his old job back.
      (Why the heck did that guy ever take that job in Baltimore?)

  2. Today I have Hellickson going on my fantasy team, Friday Bruce Chen, and Sunday Luke Hochevar - three of the next 5 SP the Twins are facing

    1. I hope your fantasy pitchers end up with about a 30 ERA apiece for those three games. No offense, Mags.

        1. I would prefer SBG's suggestion, but I'll take bhiggum's. I'd much rather have the real Twins win than the Lew Ford All-Stars.

  3. Since it appears that we need a pickmeup, I'm looking forward to the debut of Rene "Iceman" Tosoni (see the vid AG posted).

        1. If it was the only time they've ever done it, it could be a cute joke. But I'm guessing since everyone there seemed to know what icing was and encouraged it, it's probably a part of their inner circle's culture and then it's just gross.

          Icing isn't a game, it's manipulation and humiliation. Beer pong is a game.

          1. Icing isn't a game, it's manipulation and humiliation

            So, I take it you aren't a fan of the TV series Survivor or Big Brother?
            By the way, I don't think "icing" is a game either. You're not peer pressuring me into drinking any of that crap.

            1. You're not peer pressuring me into drinking any of that crap.

              Exactly. A guy tried to "ice" me once at a party. This was the first I'd heard of it, so he had to explain it first. After he was done explaining how awesome it was, I just looked at him, took a sip of my beer, and walked away.

              Just because you and your douchey brahs want to play some retarded game doesn't mean I'm going to.

            2. I've never watched either, so I can't comment.

              When I was a contestant in SpookySurvivor, I practiced some manipulation, but I am guessing it was on a much smaller scale.

            3. I take it you're not a fan of Survivor? I'll give you Big Brother, but people who set out to purposefully humiliate others in Survivor don't win that game.

              1. I've watched some Survivor, it's better than most of the reality stuff that has followed. And you're right, there's not a lot of purposeful humiliation going on there, it's counter-productive.

              2. They don't win Spookymilk Survivor, either, as a few people have proven. Manipulation works in the game, but humiliation doesn't, and it makes everyone stop having fun.

                  1. Interesting (to me) note: the winners of the odd-numbered games have played virtuously, while the winners of the even-numbered games have engaged in at least some sort of manipulation, however marginal.

                    So, beware, WGOMers who are still left in the thing.

                    3. For instance, if FTLT and I had voted CH out the week he voted for himself, everyone would've been pissed, but would that have been manipulation?

            4. My brother occasionally regales me with stories of "icing" his "bros". I don't know whether to be appalled, or just feel old.

    2. Iceman (he's from Canada, too!) is starting the first game in LF, which he rarely played in Rochester. No Thome. Cuddyer in right, Kubel DHing, Hughes at second.

      1. So can I assume that everyone's level of confidence for game 1 is not especially high?

      2. What's up with Thome and Repko? I didn't hear anything but that the Twins didn't have anyone on the bench who could play besides Holm.

        2. Repko has a slight quad strain and Thome felt a twinge in his rib cage. He hoped to be ready for today. I imagine Gardy wasn't going to play him in both games, so gave him more time to play Game 2.

  4. I'm about to leave for the ballpark. I will be representing section 324 with the beautiful people in section 115 today.

  5. I hate the Harvard style of in-text citations. Give me footnotes or endnotes. In-text just makes reading and editing your work harder than it has to be.

    1. it's also APA style as well, and I agree with you wholeheartedly. I am so glad I just finished my last grad school research paper.

      1. You are both communists terrorists, and I won't let you win. Parenthetical citations with a reference list at the end are efficient. Footnotes suh-huck. "Ibid," "infra" and "supra"?? Really? Really? This is better how? Truncating the citation in subsequent footnotes/end notes helps the reader how?

        Footnotes/endnotes are for important-not-too-important asides, not for references.

        /flexing akademick muscles

        1. You'd argue that this:

          John Dillon, MP for neighboring Mayo East, immediately challenged Shortt (HC Deb. (1918) 190, col. 201) on this point, asking whether he would “introduce law into this country- that no member can address his constituents without a permit? Is that the democratic liberty for which we are all on to fight?” (HC 1918: 45).

          is superior to

          John Dillon, MP for neighboring Mayo East, immediately challenged Shortt on this point, asking whether he would “introduce law into this country- that no member can address his constituents without a permit? Is that the democratic liberty for which we are all on to fight?”1

          1HC Deb. (1918) 190, col. 20, p. 45

          For citing other books or articles, I can see "parenthetical citations with a reference list" (brianS, 2011) being not as cumbersome. But with Parliamentary sessions, it's not sufficient to just say (Parliament, 1918) because that doesn't tell anyone anything, so I have this convoluted style guide where somehow my citation comes in two parts.

          1. I kind of like the (brianS, 2011) citation style, and in physics it generally works out to do that, but the most common style is to have the references as endnotes. It seems to work for physics. I can see where maybe it wouldn't work as well for economics, say, where you've got different "schools" of researchers (saltwater vs. freshwater, for example) where you might immediately discount something because you know the source has some fundamental disagreement with you on how the world looks. Those sorts of divides seem to be less common in physics.

            1. I think what you are most likely to cite makes a difference as well. With physics and polisci, most articles seem to be your own results of experiments, surveys, etc. and citations to other articles and books. With history, we cite mostly primary sources found deep in the bowels of some archive somewhere, or governemental records, or personal letters, all of which require much more specific referencing. I don't know how often a physicist publishes new results, but I can't imagine it's too terribly frequently, so a name and year is sufficient to differentiate. In that case, a simple (ubes, 2011) isn't too intrusive.

          2. Actually, the problem in social sciences generally lies in multiple citations to the same article/book. MagUidhir's toy example of a footnoted reference strikes me as incomplete. I have no idea what "HC Deb" is. So I'd have to go searching through the prior footnotes to find the full citation. Or do you have a "works cited" list at the end? If I were citing, say, a discussion in the Congressional Record, my reference list would include full information to the document. If I were citing several articles by Joe Smith published in 2011, I would cite them as "Smith 2011a," "Smith 2011b," and so forth in the parentheticals, and similarly in the reference list.

            I actually am moving my shop in the direction of alphabetized, sequentially numbered references and then citing via the number in the text rather than parenthetical references as mentioned above.1,2

            1. brianS. 2011. Incredibly important LTE. [URL and stuff]
            2. ubelmensch. 2011. Also an incredibly important LTE. [URL and stuff]

            1. With the citation system under which I did my Masters thesis, that of the journal Irish Historical Studies, the first footnote to reference a work is a full citation, and subsequent ones are "Murphy, (Optional Year if necessary), p. 43" and then there's an alphabetized collection of all the full reference at the end of a paper. And "HC Deb" is House of Commons Debate. Really, in my second example above, you'd probably just go ahead and write "House of Commons" out, or use "Hansard", which is the official compiler & publisher of such documents on behalf of Parliament. I just cut/pasted what was already there, which I admit was lazy.

              HC Deb. (1918) 190, col. 20, p. 45 = House of Commons Debate, Parliamentary Session of 1918, 190th Volume, Column 20*, Page. 45. If you want to cite parenthetically, you're going to have to come up with abbreviated ways to do so, hence stuff like "HC Deb" Most anyone who would read such an article would probably know that already (and if I'd have included more context it would have been clear it was a Parliamentary session, which may have jogged your thinking). I'm sure each discipline has it's own abbreviations at times that can be jargon-y to outsiders. Moving to footnotes reduces the need to shorten references, which helps when you get ridiculously long citations like a part of the Parliamentary record.

              In theory, I'd like how clean the alphabetically numbered source list would make the body of the article. But how do you cite specific pages? Would it be like this?1 Or like this?2(p. 35) And until you got into the swing of it, it would seem hard to remember which number goes with source, but I'm sure by the end you'd have equated 4=Murphy 2009, 7=bS 2005.

              1p. 35
              *The column system helps to locate text within a large block of speech, much like a line number might be used in a play script

              1. using the superscripts to refer to a numbered reference list does run into problems when you want to cite specific pages or footnotes or whatever within the document. We try to include that extra information parenthetically or in-line prior to the superscript.

                I was unclear above. I knew that "HC" meant "House of Commons", and probably would have intuited out "Debates". But I was just trying to make the broader point about the complexities of having later references refer to earlier references in order to make sense. THAT is the practice that really drives me crazy, and impedes utility for readers.

                Conversely, any readily apparent and/or commonly used abbreviation style (e.g., "HC Deb.") that you would use in a footnote in conjunction with a works cited list at the end could easily be adapted to use with parenthetical references.

                I will add that including the full citation in the first footnote reference AND in a list of works cited is redundant. Why not dispense with the full citation in the first footnote and instead start with an abbreviated reference? Ick.

                1. the complexities of having later references refer to earlier references in order to make sense

                  I see now. That's not the case. Each and every reference is "HC Deb ________". No "Supras". We do use "ibid" if the next reference is the exact same and on the same page. If two consecutive identital references are on two different pages, it's the modified shorter reference for both.

          3. as for MagUidhir's specific example, I don't quite follow why he has two separate citations to the same document in the same sentence for the first example.

            But the general point on which we all agree is that citations and references should be done so as to add value to your work. A citation style that gets in the way of reading and understanding the argument or story is a bad citation style. A citation style that doesn't sufficiently inform the interested reader about the source of a fact or argument is a bad citation style.

            The trick lies in how to be informative yet unobtrusive. I happen to think that law reviews and legal opinions have a horrible style that often impedes reading and understanding the argument. Books that rely on a legal-like style and endnotes -- barf. I don't want to dig through pages and pages of notes to try to locate the full reference to "Smith, supra" or whatevah. That's just plain annoying.

            I admit that parenthetical references can get tedious. Not. Every. Word. Needs. To. Have. A. Citation.

            A reference in the body of a work should just be a reference. A note should provide value added beyond just a citation, and notes should be rare, legal scholarship be damned. If it's really that important, it should be part of the main text.

            1. I don't quite follow why he has two separate citations to the same document in the same sentence for the first example - At this point, I'm going with "Because they said so". I have no idea.

              The trick lies in how to be informative yet unobtrusive - This is pretty much what I was trying to get to above. Being able to be unobtrusive seems to be about inversely proportional to the length needed to properly inform the reader as to the sourced used. And the percentage of my citations are going to be pretty long.

            2. Judges like to know that you aren't just spewing your own BS, but rather are regurgitating some judge's BS.

        2. I have a bad habit of reading parenthetical references as parenthetical text.
          With footnotes/endnotes, I can just look up what references I want, or scan the list it to see if there are any lengthy discussions other than references. Word processors makes the numbering simple.

        3. I dislike footnotes. Sometimes you get so many footnotes on one page that a third of the page is just references, which is ugly. While reading articles myself, I tend to prefer the endnote style, especially if it's on-line (even better if it's hyper-linked!). Also, as MagUidhir said, some in-text citations are cumbersome. It's not always as simple as (Beau, 2008). Sometimes, it's (Beau & AMR, 2008) or (Beau, AMR, & brianS, 2008) with all subsequent mentions being (Beau, et. al, 2008). It's a pain in the neck to follow every rule precisely and as a reader it can ruin the flow, especially if the same paragraph has many citations.

    2. Inline and footnotes, whoo!

      .[FN 1] Despite this challenge, the Slaughters' reply brief, like their opening brief, contains no citations to the record.

      ¶ 4 Scouring the record for facts to support an appellant's position is the role of the appellant, not the appellate court. A reviewing court "`is not simply a depository in which the appealing party may dump the burden of argument and research.'" State v. Bishop, 753 P.2d 439, 450 (Utah 1988) (quoting Williamson v. Opsahl, 416 N.E.2d 783, 784 (Ill. App. Ct. 1981)). Consequently, "we may refuse, sua sponte, to consider inadequately briefed issues." State v. Lee, 2006 UT 5, ¶ 22, 128 P.3d 1179 (citing Utah R. App. P. 24(j)). We do so here.

      -Slaughter v. Anderson, 2011 UT App 49 (Omitting the long footnote)

      1. Whaaa...??

        Like I said above, everyone has their jargon and abbreviations that seem foreign to outsiders. It appears you lot have just taken that to the next level.

  6. Fellas, I'm out for the long weekend. The little brother is in Relays tomorrow, so I took the day off. I'll see y'all some time Sunday most likely.

    2. Jeter realized an emasculated A-Rod was someone worth giving another shot.

      I don't know if the author understands all the words he's using.

  10. tonigth starts the NFL Draft. A time where fans get angry at their favorite team for not drafting the guy Mel Kiper Jr had on his predictions

    2. In Todd McShay's mock draft he has the Bills picking this guy in the 7th round. From his bio:

      Overall Football Traits
      Production 2 2007: Redshirted. 2008: Suspended. 2009: (14/12) 58 tackles, 1 TFL, 1 FF, 1 FR, 6 PBU, 2 INT (1 return for TD). 2010: (12/8) 55 tackles, 2.5 TFL, 3 FFs, 3 FR, 2 PBU, 3 INT (1 return for TD). Career: 65 punt returns, 411 yards (6.3), 2 TD.
      Height-Weight-Speed 2 Possesses adequate-to-good combination of height, weight and speed.
      Durability 3 Appeared to be battling a leg injury during 2010 season. Missed second half of 2010 Independence Bowl with hip injury. Left the Vanderbilt game in 2009 with a back injury
      Intangibles 4 Suspended entire 2008 season while awaiting a pending legal issue (was eventually cleared of rape charges).
      1 = Exceptional 2 = Above average 3 = Average 4 = Below average 5 = Marginal

      Uhhhh, what do you have to do to get a 5 in the intangibles category?

      1. Oh, jeez.

        Um, not be cleared of the rape charges, I guess?

        I suppose in a sport where Michael Vick is completely forgiven because he's talented, it's understandable that nobody gets the lowest grade.

          1. serving your time does not earn you forgiveness. That latter is a completely separate act of charity or grace.

      2. I find mock drafts to generally be a waste of time, but I still read some of them. A 7 round mock draft? You aren't getting any of those picks after the first or second round right, why bother trying to slot a player to any team? Waste of time.

  11. Good News, hitman. Newton to Carolina. That means that the Buffalos won't get stuck with him. I'm predicting big flop.

  12. Hey, isn't there supposed to be a bunch of trades in the top 10 of the draft this year? Someone better get dealing here if that's going to be the case.

  14. As if being a dirtbag recruited by Nick Saban isn't enough, Julio Jones dresses like a moron.

  15. Please, some team needs to pick Gabbert before the Vikings are on the clock. PLEASE!

      1. Best case, some other team trades with the Vikes to take Gabbert. Worst case, the Vikes waste a first-rounder on a system QB.

          1. Well, they could still waste their first on a different system qb.

      1. FirstTime "hitman" LongTime
        April 28, 2011 at 8:09 pm · Reply

        Well, they could still waste their first on a different system qb.

  16. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

    Still the most incompetent organization in football. Way to hand Prince to the Lions

  18. I shouldn't really comment on the NFL draft, since I think I've only ever seen one of the first 12 picks play, but I'm highly skeptical that the 12th-best pick in the draft was the 4th quarterback taken in the draft.

    1. In fairness, and I hate to even appear to defend anything about the Vikings, but there's probably by far more positional need-based drafting in the NFL than in any other pro sport. They likely wanted any quarterback they could get. (They probably really did want Locker and were unprepared when he went to the Titans.)

      1. Even so, it seems like it would make more sense to trade down at that point and hope he drops lower. I also think sometimes teams shoot too high when they're looking for a QB. I think it's important to have a capable QB, but not important to have a fantastic QB.

  19. I'm thrilled with this Ponder pick. I would have been okay with a home run, but a strikeout is okay with me, too.

    2. Well, the important thing to remember is that Ponder won't fail because of his abilities, he'll fail because he's on the Vikings.

  20. I agree about trading down being a good idea. Maybe they tried, but weren't able to - if my theory is correct and they wanted particularly Locker or Gabbert, they may not have had time to put a good deal together.

    1. They just could have done what they usually do -- go over their allotment and get bypassed while they are making a deal.

    2. Wouldn't Ponder have been available in the second round? If so, that's the stupid part. Take the best player available in the first round and then take the quarterback you want in the second round. This totally smells of desperation. I'm not sure there are any great QBs in this draft (so of course four go in the first 12 rounds), so Ponder may be as good as any of the other three, but if he would have likely been available in the second round, (no other QBs taken in the first round), then it will be a bad pick no matter how good Ponder is because you essentially traded a first-round pick for a second-round pick.

    3. True enough, it's always easier to trade in theory than it is to trade in practice.

  21. Back to baseball for just a second. My kernel of optimism at the close of a dreadful series: I can't wait until the team gets healthy...this month will just seem like a bad dream.

    I don't mind the Ponder pick...but I don't really care either.

    2. The White Sox are still behind the Twins and the Tigers just got swept at home by the Mariners. They don't have the injury problems the Twins have, so I'm not too worried yet.

      1. Possibly. The other team that was gonna draft him had already traded up for Gabbert.

    1. Never should have shared that picture.

      (And hey, I have French Canadian lineage, not that west-coast-Canadia business.)

Comments are closed.