That's fantastic. [redacted] sort of looks like that actor who was in that Chicago cop show FOX was constantly promoting last winter.
FYI concerning the Royals/Twins 6/5 game, should have some details later on Wednesday.
Anyone else here ever cracked a rib? This is the most annoying injury I've ever had. I can't do any sort of exercise because I can't take any real deep breaths. I have to get up the nerve to sneeze, which is an odd thing to have to do.
I did, yes. The sneezing was unbearable.
Yeah, a few years ago a grad student decided it would be a good idea to get into a fist fight with a professor at a house party. I stepped in to break up the fight, and the grad student went down like a sack of potatoes taking me with him. There was a pretty tall stump / stool on the deck and the middle of my ribcage made pretty square contact with the edge of it. The next day I couldn't breath without pain. As the doc told me later in the week, "sorry, son, there ain't much I can do about that...".
Good luck with the recovery.
PunkRockPaint over at BaseballCardBlog created some Muppets cards based on existing cards, and after some pestering did a great job on a Lew Zealand card.
Phil Jackson must be related to Shirley MacLaine, because apparently they've both lived multiple lives. Sam Amick (who?) of SI:
Jackson -- he of the 11 championships and once-in-a-lifetime partnerships with Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant and even Shaquille O'Neal -- had gone in and out of 28 arenas this season without a formal goodbye from the counterparts he so routinely beat.
But He's from the Higher DAKOTA!! Anything is possible in the prairie! He makes basketball players read books and whatnot! By zeus his picture hangs in the hallowed hall of the North Dakota Sports Hall of Fame. While there get some fresh mini donuts and then cross the street for a buffalo burger from the Jamestown mall.
That is a hilarious butchery of the saying. We could have had some fun guessing who wrote it, my money would have been on a pti guy.
Sam Amick is former NBA beat writer for the Sacramento Bee. I thought he was a pretty decent reporter for them.
The only Amick I care about is Madchen. Sorry, Sam.
dido
Um make sure you have safe search on if you click that link.
Oops, sorry 'bout that. My google defaults to safe automatically at work, I didn't even realize it was not in safe when I put the link up.
Worst/Funniest line in reports of all of this:
He was lured by the chase for a 12th title, bundled neatly as four three-peats, but he knew it would be tough with a team worn down by three straight years of playing into mid-June.
You had better believe that that excuse is making the rounds. All the apologists have trotted it out.
The Celtics are a helluva lot older than the Lakers and have played nearly as many games over the past three years. They may go down in this Heat series, but they won't go down without a fight. The Lakers were absolutely terrible in this series and they punctuated it with ejections from THREE different players. Plus, did anyone else notice that Kobe Bryant took the second half off yesterday? On offense, he just spotted up on the three point line the whole second half like he was Steve Kerr or something. Meanwhile, the ball went to the other side of the floor on almost every possession.
Kobe's line in the second half: 0-5 FG, 2-2 FT, 1 Reb, 1 Assist, 1 TO. In an elimination game. And he played extensively in the fourth quarter.
This series definitely brought a lot of joy to my heart. Also, I watched that bit of Bynum thuggery this morning. No way that guy should be allowed to play in the first couple weeks of next season, or ever again, if I was commissioner. He's going to end someone's career some day pulling that crap.
It was absolutely sublime. The thuggery, the giving up, the late game choking, Kobe just absolutely disappearing yesterday... you can't draw it up any better. Plus, J.J. Barea just absolutely killed them. J.J. Barea. The Lakers couldn't guard him, so they cheap shotted him. Twice. J.J. Barea. Jason Terry isn't that open when he's in the gym by himself. And still Barea got to the rim whenever he wanted. Did I mention he's not even 6' tall, was undrafted, and he's pretty much just a scrub? The lay down was stupendous.
I didn't see the entire game, but did pick it up in the third quarter. It was entertaining watching Terry catch a pass on the perimeter, situate his feet just right, look around to try to figure out why no one was near him, scratch an itch on his calf, fix his socks, then nail the three. Now that's zen.
did you see the postgame interviews? Terry was talking, with Dirk next to him. Terry said something to the effect of "Well, Dirk won't want to hear this, but I didn't even see the rim on several of those shots."
Nowitzski almost fell off his chair laughing.
My wife decided, near the beginning of the fourth quarter, that me reading, watching tv, and surfing the net was too much simultaneous stimulation of my mind and took control of the tv.
Wives tend to be pretty good at keeping stimulation to a minimum.
*deer in headlights*
*pretends he saw nothing. Slowly walks away.*
Barea has averaged 20 min/g the last three seasons, missing a total of five games. Per 36 minutes this year, he averaged 16.6/3.4/6.8. He played 20-29 minutes in 34 games this year, 30+ in six more. Not. a. scrub. That is about as solid a backup PG as you will find in the league.
That said, he very well might have been the third PG on this team if Rodrigue Beaubois hadn't gotten hurt.
That's totally Kobe, the big baby. I remember when he was criticized for taking too many shots, so he had a line like that for an entire game. I'm really glad Kobe didn't get that sixth ring. I always liked the Lakers with Magic and then Shaq, but then Kobe ran off Shaq. I didn't like Kobe much before that, but I really disliked him after that. I would really love Shaq to get his fifth ring with the Celtics, and my favorite team is the Sixers, so I'm supposed to hate the Celtics.
Alright, some of my Drake friends and I are having some fun w/ this NYtimes correction about R.A. Dickey and I had to share it.
Warning, nerd alert: LoTR + Baseball
Dickey makes the same face while he's bunting as he does when he's pitching. I miss him.
He'd be the Ace!
Great now the bloom's off the rose for my LOTR/R.A. Dickey submission for this week's Spookymilk Survivor.
gardening mission mostly accomplished. The Mrs. planted many, many flowers. I planted basil, garlic chives, two jalapeno plants, two Super Sweet 100 (cherry) tomato plants, an okra plant and (at the request of The Girl) an acorn squash plant. Plus a row of green beans (Blue Lake, of course).
It was a weekend for yard work here as well. Mrs. Hayes gathered up all the brush in our back yard (our silver maple drops a lot), which amounted to two full station wagon loads. We raked the lawn and filled bags with leaves which I can take over to the yard waste plant later in the week. I mowed the front yard for the first time this year*, and Mrs. Hayes weeded the front garden and planted flowers in our window boxes.
*And likely only time. We have an arrangement where I handle all the snow removal duties while Mrs. Hayes mows the lawn, a task I grew to hate as a teenager with an acre-plus lawn at home and mowing responsibilities elsewhere around town.
I have total responsibility for the entire yard. I plant all flowers, garden plants, mow, weed, etc. As with everything else, I have some big projects to do in the yard, hopefully I can get them all done this year. Oh, and the deck needs to be stained. Again.
Ugh, I hate landscaping more than anything else in this world, but I love mowing. Not sure why that is, though.
Dido on both counts, but I know why. For some reason, almost every writing idea that I've brought to fruition came to me while mowing the lawn.
And almost every beer I've ever had after mowing has tasted great. I'm usually too tired for a beer after landscaping.
Oh, thank you very much for reminding me about the deck that I sanded but never stained in the fall. I have a paper cut -- would you like to pour some lemon juice on it?
I have to re-sand and get that thing stained soon.
Our back deck is approximately 400 sq. ft., and prior to last summer looked pretty rough. At some point somebody had painted it instead of staining it, so the paint was flaking off and just made it a general eyesore. As part of the conditions we set for moving in our landlord hired a buddy of mine to sand it and re-stain it last autumn, but this weekend will be the first opportunity we have to enjoy it with anyone.
And here's to hoping it doesn't rain that day. (only a 20% chance at this point, so looking good in my book.)
Yeah, there's no way we're getting 50-60 people inside my house.
I do most of the yardwork (and all of the snow removal), but the flowers are generally my wife's province. Last year, she was out of town for about 2 weeks after the flowers were delivered so I had to plant them...I'm colorblind and I had no idea what her plans were for each of the plants she'd selected. I get the sense that she'll be doing the planting this year. Women have an amazing way of telling you that your planter, window box and flower bed arrangements suck without actually saying "that looks like crap."
My roof was replaced last week Friday and the whole yard is still a mess...wish I was planting the flowers instead.
Sometimes I wish I had a lawn/garden/deck/garage to work on. Sometimes I'm very thankful I don't have to mess with any of that. Depends on my mood I guess and how much work I feel like doing.
Then he signed with Toronto and did the same thing.
Sure he won 21 games, but with a 4.04 ERA (102 ERA+) during the season and a 7.34 ERA during the postseason and being the pitcher of fault for Toronto's two losses.
“Whether I get that cookie at the end, I don’t know. I don’t know. But I can say this, I know one of the huge knocks is my high E.R.A. (3.90), and I’ve said it a hundred times, and I can’t say it any more simple: I never pitched to win an E.R.A. title. I pitched to win. And I did that, I won more than anybody else when I was there. I don’t know how to put it any other way. That should be all I have to say.
Over his 18 seasons, his teams provided him, on average, 4.9 runs/9 innings pitched (the runs scored while he was in the game). The Major League average was 4.3. His opponents hit 247/313/380 (MLB average was 260/326/390).
By comparison, Bert got 4.2 runs/9 innings pitched in run support, which was right on the MLB average for his career. Bert held opponents to a 248/301/367 slash line (258/324/383 was MLB average), while racking up 4,000+ more PAs (albeit more of those were pitchers, either before the DH or in the NL).
If only Blackburn had "pitched to win" instead of pitching to win the ERA title. He could've given up five runs tonight instead of one, but somehow he would've won the game.
I'll admit I don't pay that much attention to the PA tunes at the ballpark, but this may change (for the worse) if I'm assaulted by the musical pandering of Ke$ha.
After all the attention to the little things, they royally screw up one of the major things about the ballpark's atmosphere.
From the interview he linked to at the end:
We decided going into the 2011 season that we wanted to look at making our music person a little bit more of a personality, somebody that would be one of the cast of characters, if you will, in the ball park
Its a strange way to try to add 'personality' by hiring a guy who only plays sterile top-40 crap. Now, I'm not huge fan of the music that was played prior, but trying to keep things local is always something I'm in favor of and seems more interesting than Twayn's below-mentioned Ke$ha. (Who I have, thus far, managed to avoid ever hearing anything from ever.)
Ke$ha
who?
I wanted to say 'whoever that is', but last time I did, I think someone put up a picture of her.
I don't like this. I've spent the last 15 years of my life pretty well isolated from this garbage, so I really don't want to be assaulted with it at the ball park. I don't expect the ball park music to include stuff I listen to, but you can play things that are inoffensive and popular. Top 40 is almost always offensive to me.
So we met Dan, and we probably interviewed maybe 10-12 different candidates, and then came back to Dan for a variety of reasons. One, he knew music, as the assistant program director at the station; and second of all he was a huge Twins fan, he had attended 65 of the 81 baseball games held at Target Field last year. And one of the critical elements for the person playing the music is that they understand the game, so that they're not playing music at inopportune times - you know, in the middle of a pitch, the last thing you want to have happen is a song suddenly played while a 97-mile-an-hour fastball is coming at one of your players.
Or you know, you could find someone who has never been to a baseball game their whole life, tell them not to crank tunes when dudes are pitching, and be done with it.
I've got less than a week left in my program. Things are wrapping up nicely, at least they were until this morning. Two individuals broke some mildly expensive stuff in the shop last night due to carelessness and laziness. When my boss arrived he looked at the mess and freaked out. I know that I was just the person standing next to him when he saw what others did, but he chewed me out pretty severely. I've always had the personality that can handle being yelled at, even for things that I didn't do wrong, but this is another matter all together. Today I was supposed to begin printing my final edition at the shop, and the work was my boss's personal art. This was a huge honor for me. An honor that pissed off several people in the shop because they weren't chosen to be the printer of his edition. This was the icing on the cake for me. I had the approval of someone whom I deeply admire and respect. I had the opportunity to be a part of his creative process until two of my classmates effed it up royal. My boss packed up his stones and took the day off telling me on his way out that we'll work out a deal for a print in the future. What I don't think he understands is that while I love his artwork this wasn't about having one of his images in my portfolio, but this was one last chance to work together on a project before I have to migrate back to Tejas.
I'm so disappointed in my colleagues. Man, when it rains it pours.
that sucks. sorry to hear about this, and about before that they didn't pick up your team option. congratulations though on making it through what sounded like a very challenging program.
dido on the suckage, Tex. Chin up, man.
Meat, I definitely need to send you some brews, that'll help. It sounds like I should probably wait until you're back in Tejas though, eh? I'll hold on to one of those triples until you get back.
Totally, I just haven't gotten around to e-mails lately. We'll do a swap in the next couple of weeks.
*taps watch. Looks expectantly at cheaptoy. holds hands out to sides and mouths "whaa? whaaa?*
Are you gonna give me a wish list, dude?
Well, that Green Flash amber sounded pretty good. I was also reading about California Amber ales the other day, and thought a sample platter of those would be fun, as I haven't really explored those sorts of beers from out there much. Something like Ballast Point Calico, Alaskan Amber, or Firestone Walker Red Nectar. I don't think I can get any of those up here.
Angels with a ~90 percent chance of winning the AL West? Seriously? With a 2-game lead over both Oakland and Texas? Something's goofy there.
And the Indians with an 85% chance to win the Central? If that was remotely true, I should be able to get 5-to-1 odds on a bet that someone other than the Indians will win the Central, and I don't think you'll find anyone to take that bet.
It seems like they haven't done enough regression to the mean in terms of season-to-date performance. It's difficult to troubleshoot their issue since they don't give projected end-of-season standings as well.
That Angels number is flat-out nonsense. If they were two games up on Oakland and Texas with two weeks to play, their odds of winning the division might be less than 90% if they still had games with Oakland and Texas on their schedule.
Their weekly playoff volatilities are just silly for early May. In one week--one week in May--the Rays boosted their playoff chances by 30%? Yeah right.
some things they say are believable. Too bad they need a "supercomputer" to generate them.
Red Sox' starter Josh Beckett is forecasted to have a better game than Twins' starter Nick Blackburn.
So they pulled the numbers out of their Accuscore Simulation Supercomputer (ASS)?
+1 chortle,
"Forecasted" grates on my ear, but looking it up I see it's an acceptable alternative to "forecast."
I've said it before, 2 + 2 = 4, no matter whose fingers are pressing the calculator keys which supercomupter cellphone is crunching the numbers.
Yeah right. The Rays are no good and won't be again.
Al Central odds from betus:
Rot American League Central To Win Moneyline
221 Chicago White Sox +600
222 Cleveland Indians -155
223 Detroit Tigers +450
224 Kansas City Royals +800
225 Minnesota Twins +600
I would be totally comfortable making wagers on the White Sox, Tigers, and Twins before I took the -155 odds on Cleveland.
So I believe the implied winning percentages there are:
14% CWS
61% CLE
18% DET
11% KCR
14% MIN
Which adds up to more than 100%, so if you bet an equal amount of money on each, on an expected basis you would lose money. So the bookies have their bases covered, even if I think 61% might be a little high for the Indians. (Although it's a lot more realistic than Accuscore's 89%.)
If Accuscore really believed their lines, they'd be giving a +8000 line on the Twins winning the Central and a -809 line on the Indians winning the Central.
Halftime: Celtics 53, Heat 50. Big time game tonight.
Minor league day game: Beloit takes on Cedar Rapids at noon. The game can be heard here.
we still have a chance to tie this series with Boston...so we got that going for us
Are we being treated to Cowboy Joe behind the plate today? I hope so, I really, really hope so.
monday morning randomness: [redacted] and "hacksaw" jim duggan. that is all.
That's fantastic. [redacted] sort of looks like that actor who was in that Chicago cop show FOX was constantly promoting last winter.
FYI concerning the Royals/Twins 6/5 game, should have some details later on Wednesday.
Anyone else here ever cracked a rib? This is the most annoying injury I've ever had. I can't do any sort of exercise because I can't take any real deep breaths. I have to get up the nerve to sneeze, which is an odd thing to have to do.
I did, yes. The sneezing was unbearable.
Yeah, a few years ago a grad student decided it would be a good idea to get into a fist fight with a professor at a house party. I stepped in to break up the fight, and the grad student went down like a sack of potatoes taking me with him. There was a pretty tall stump / stool on the deck and the middle of my ribcage made pretty square contact with the edge of it. The next day I couldn't breath without pain. As the doc told me later in the week, "sorry, son, there ain't much I can do about that...".
Good luck with the recovery.
PunkRockPaint over at BaseballCardBlog created some Muppets cards based on existing cards, and after some pestering did a great job on a Lew Zealand card.
Phil Jackson must be related to Shirley MacLaine, because apparently they've both lived multiple lives. Sam Amick (who?) of SI:
But He's from the Higher DAKOTA!! Anything is possible in the prairie! He makes basketball players read books and whatnot! By zeus his picture hangs in the hallowed hall of the North Dakota Sports Hall of Fame. While there get some fresh mini donuts and then cross the street for a buffalo burger from the Jamestown mall.
That is a hilarious butchery of the saying. We could have had some fun guessing who wrote it, my money would have been on a pti guy.
Side note: this link makes me laugh. It may as well say "Canadian."
Sam Amick is former NBA beat writer for the Sacramento Bee. I thought he was a pretty decent reporter for them.
The only Amick I care about is Madchen. Sorry, Sam.
dido
Um make sure you have safe search on if you click that link.
Oops, sorry 'bout that. My google defaults to safe automatically at work, I didn't even realize it was not in safe when I put the link up.
Worst/Funniest line in reports of all of this:
From the Yahoo game recap.
Now that's some excuse making at its finest.
You had better believe that that excuse is making the rounds. All the apologists have trotted it out.
The Celtics are a helluva lot older than the Lakers and have played nearly as many games over the past three years. They may go down in this Heat series, but they won't go down without a fight. The Lakers were absolutely terrible in this series and they punctuated it with ejections from THREE different players. Plus, did anyone else notice that Kobe Bryant took the second half off yesterday? On offense, he just spotted up on the three point line the whole second half like he was Steve Kerr or something. Meanwhile, the ball went to the other side of the floor on almost every possession.
Kobe's line in the second half: 0-5 FG, 2-2 FT, 1 Reb, 1 Assist, 1 TO. In an elimination game. And he played extensively in the fourth quarter.
This series definitely brought a lot of joy to my heart. Also, I watched that bit of Bynum thuggery this morning. No way that guy should be allowed to play in the first couple weeks of next season, or ever again, if I was commissioner. He's going to end someone's career some day pulling that crap.
It was absolutely sublime. The thuggery, the giving up, the late game choking, Kobe just absolutely disappearing yesterday... you can't draw it up any better. Plus, J.J. Barea just absolutely killed them. J.J. Barea. The Lakers couldn't guard him, so they cheap shotted him. Twice. J.J. Barea. Jason Terry isn't that open when he's in the gym by himself. And still Barea got to the rim whenever he wanted. Did I mention he's not even 6' tall, was undrafted, and he's pretty much just a scrub? The lay down was stupendous.
I didn't see the entire game, but did pick it up in the third quarter. It was entertaining watching Terry catch a pass on the perimeter, situate his feet just right, look around to try to figure out why no one was near him, scratch an itch on his calf, fix his socks, then nail the three. Now that's zen.
did you see the postgame interviews? Terry was talking, with Dirk next to him. Terry said something to the effect of "Well, Dirk won't want to hear this, but I didn't even see the rim on several of those shots."
Nowitzski almost fell off his chair laughing.
My wife decided, near the beginning of the fourth quarter, that me reading, watching tv, and surfing the net was too much simultaneous stimulation of my mind and took control of the tv.
Wives tend to be pretty good at keeping stimulation to a minimum.
*deer in headlights*
*pretends he saw nothing. Slowly walks away.*
Barea has averaged 20 min/g the last three seasons, missing a total of five games. Per 36 minutes this year, he averaged 16.6/3.4/6.8. He played 20-29 minutes in 34 games this year, 30+ in six more. Not. a. scrub. That is about as solid a backup PG as you will find in the league.
That said, he very well might have been the third PG on this team if Rodrigue Beaubois hadn't gotten hurt.
Now, back to the delicious Lakers bashing.
http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/517013/nbalakersfan.gif
Related only by douchery but still a classic:
http://thebiglead.fantasysportsven.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/YANKEEDOUCHE1.gif
Is that Kevin Nealon?
That's totally Kobe, the big baby. I remember when he was criticized for taking too many shots, so he had a line like that for an entire game. I'm really glad Kobe didn't get that sixth ring. I always liked the Lakers with Magic and then Shaq, but then Kobe ran off Shaq. I didn't like Kobe much before that, but I really disliked him after that. I would really love Shaq to get his fifth ring with the Celtics, and my favorite team is the Sixers, so I'm supposed to hate the Celtics.
Alright, some of my Drake friends and I are having some fun w/ this NYtimes correction about R.A. Dickey and I had to share it.
Warning, nerd alert: LoTR + Baseball
Dickey makes the same face while he's bunting as he does when he's pitching. I miss him.
He'd be the Ace!
Great now the bloom's off the rose for my LOTR/R.A. Dickey submission for this week's Spookymilk Survivor.
gardening mission mostly accomplished. The Mrs. planted many, many flowers. I planted basil, garlic chives, two jalapeno plants, two Super Sweet 100 (cherry) tomato plants, an okra plant and (at the request of The Girl) an acorn squash plant. Plus a row of green beans (Blue Lake, of course).
It was a weekend for yard work here as well. Mrs. Hayes gathered up all the brush in our back yard (our silver maple drops a lot), which amounted to two full station wagon loads. We raked the lawn and filled bags with leaves which I can take over to the yard waste plant later in the week. I mowed the front yard for the first time this year*, and Mrs. Hayes weeded the front garden and planted flowers in our window boxes.
*And likely only time. We have an arrangement where I handle all the snow removal duties while Mrs. Hayes mows the lawn, a task I grew to hate as a teenager with an acre-plus lawn at home and mowing responsibilities elsewhere around town.
I have total responsibility for the entire yard. I plant all flowers, garden plants, mow, weed, etc. As with everything else, I have some big projects to do in the yard, hopefully I can get them all done this year. Oh, and the deck needs to be stained. Again.
Ugh, I hate landscaping more than anything else in this world, but I love mowing. Not sure why that is, though.
Dido on both counts, but I know why. For some reason, almost every writing idea that I've brought to fruition came to me while mowing the lawn.
And almost every beer I've ever had after mowing has tasted great. I'm usually too tired for a beer after landscaping.
Oh, thank you very much for reminding me about the deck that I sanded but never stained in the fall. I have a paper cut -- would you like to pour some lemon juice on it?
I have to re-sand and get that thing stained soon.
Our back deck is approximately 400 sq. ft., and prior to last summer looked pretty rough. At some point somebody had painted it instead of staining it, so the paint was flaking off and just made it a general eyesore. As part of the conditions we set for moving in our landlord hired a buddy of mine to sand it and re-stain it last autumn, but this weekend will be the first opportunity we have to enjoy it with anyone.
And here's to hoping it doesn't rain that day. (only a 20% chance at this point, so looking good in my book.)
Yeah, there's no way we're getting 50-60 people inside my house.
I do most of the yardwork (and all of the snow removal), but the flowers are generally my wife's province. Last year, she was out of town for about 2 weeks after the flowers were delivered so I had to plant them...I'm colorblind and I had no idea what her plans were for each of the plants she'd selected. I get the sense that she'll be doing the planting this year. Women have an amazing way of telling you that your planter, window box and flower bed arrangements suck without actually saying "that looks like crap."
My roof was replaced last week Friday and the whole yard is still a mess...wish I was planting the flowers instead.
Sometimes I wish I had a lawn/garden/deck/garage to work on. Sometimes I'm very thankful I don't have to mess with any of that. Depends on my mood I guess and how much work I feel like doing.
Jack Morris: not making me forget Rich Lederer's campaign for Bert.
Sure he won 21 games, but with a 4.04 ERA (102 ERA+) during the season and a 7.34 ERA during the postseason and being the pitcher of fault for Toronto's two losses.
Over his 18 seasons, his teams provided him, on average, 4.9 runs/9 innings pitched (the runs scored while he was in the game). The Major League average was 4.3. His opponents hit 247/313/380 (MLB average was 260/326/390).
By comparison, Bert got 4.2 runs/9 innings pitched in run support, which was right on the MLB average for his career. Bert held opponents to a 248/301/367 slash line (258/324/383 was MLB average), while racking up 4,000+ more PAs (albeit more of those were pitchers, either before the DH or in the NL).
If only Blackburn had "pitched to win" instead of pitching to win the ERA title. He could've given up five runs tonight instead of one, but somehow he would've won the game.
This blows.
I'll admit I don't pay that much attention to the PA tunes at the ballpark, but this may change (for the worse) if I'm assaulted by the musical pandering of Ke$ha.
After all the attention to the little things, they royally screw up one of the major things about the ballpark's atmosphere.
From the interview he linked to at the end:
Its a strange way to try to add 'personality' by hiring a guy who only plays sterile top-40 crap. Now, I'm not huge fan of the music that was played prior, but trying to keep things local is always something I'm in favor of and seems more interesting than Twayn's below-mentioned Ke$ha. (Who I have, thus far, managed to avoid ever hearing anything from ever.)
Ke$ha
who?
I wanted to say 'whoever that is', but last time I did, I think someone put up a picture of her.
hopefully we're protected this time around.
I don't like this. I've spent the last 15 years of my life pretty well isolated from this garbage, so I really don't want to be assaulted with it at the ball park. I don't expect the ball park music to include stuff I listen to, but you can play things that are inoffensive and popular. Top 40 is almost always offensive to me.
Or you know, you could find someone who has never been to a baseball game their whole life, tell them not to crank tunes when dudes are pitching, and be done with it.
I've got less than a week left in my program. Things are wrapping up nicely, at least they were until this morning. Two individuals broke some mildly expensive stuff in the shop last night due to carelessness and laziness. When my boss arrived he looked at the mess and freaked out. I know that I was just the person standing next to him when he saw what others did, but he chewed me out pretty severely. I've always had the personality that can handle being yelled at, even for things that I didn't do wrong, but this is another matter all together. Today I was supposed to begin printing my final edition at the shop, and the work was my boss's personal art. This was a huge honor for me. An honor that pissed off several people in the shop because they weren't chosen to be the printer of his edition. This was the icing on the cake for me. I had the approval of someone whom I deeply admire and respect. I had the opportunity to be a part of his creative process until two of my classmates effed it up royal. My boss packed up his stones and took the day off telling me on his way out that we'll work out a deal for a print in the future. What I don't think he understands is that while I love his artwork this wasn't about having one of his images in my portfolio, but this was one last chance to work together on a project before I have to migrate back to Tejas.
I'm so disappointed in my colleagues. Man, when it rains it pours.
that sucks. sorry to hear about this, and about before that they didn't pick up your team option. congratulations though on making it through what sounded like a very challenging program.
dido on the suckage, Tex. Chin up, man.
Meat, I definitely need to send you some brews, that'll help. It sounds like I should probably wait until you're back in Tejas though, eh? I'll hold on to one of those triples until you get back.
Totally, I just haven't gotten around to e-mails lately. We'll do a swap in the next couple of weeks.
*taps watch. Looks expectantly at cheaptoy. holds hands out to sides and mouths "whaa? whaaa?*
Are you gonna give me a wish list, dude?
Well, that Green Flash amber sounded pretty good. I was also reading about California Amber ales the other day, and thought a sample platter of those would be fun, as I haven't really explored those sorts of beers from out there much. Something like Ballast Point Calico, Alaskan Amber, or Firestone Walker Red Nectar. I don't think I can get any of those up here.
The Twins have less than 1 percent chance of winning the division. Fortunately, the White Sox have one-tenth of 1 percent chance of winning the division. I don't know. I think I would put some money down on the Twins at 100-to-1 odds, what do you think?
Angels with a ~90 percent chance of winning the AL West? Seriously? With a 2-game lead over both Oakland and Texas? Something's goofy there.
And the Indians with an 85% chance to win the Central? If that was remotely true, I should be able to get 5-to-1 odds on a bet that someone other than the Indians will win the Central, and I don't think you'll find anyone to take that bet.
It seems like they haven't done enough regression to the mean in terms of season-to-date performance. It's difficult to troubleshoot their issue since they don't give projected end-of-season standings as well.
That Angels number is flat-out nonsense. If they were two games up on Oakland and Texas with two weeks to play, their odds of winning the division might be less than 90% if they still had games with Oakland and Texas on their schedule.
Their weekly playoff volatilities are just silly for early May. In one week--one week in May--the Rays boosted their playoff chances by 30%? Yeah right.
some things they say are believable. Too bad they need a "supercomputer" to generate them.
Maybe they just need a real supercomputer.
So they pulled the numbers out of their Accuscore Simulation Supercomputer (ASS)?
+1 chortle,
"Forecasted" grates on my ear, but looking it up I see it's an acceptable alternative to "forecast."
I've said it before, 2 + 2 = 4, no matter
whose fingers are pressing the calculator keyswhichsupercomuptercellphone is crunching the numbers.Yeah right. The Rays are no good and won't be again.
Al Central odds from betus:
Rot American League Central To Win Moneyline
221 Chicago White Sox +600
222 Cleveland Indians -155
223 Detroit Tigers +450
224 Kansas City Royals +800
225 Minnesota Twins +600
I would be totally comfortable making wagers on the White Sox, Tigers, and Twins before I took the -155 odds on Cleveland.
So I believe the implied winning percentages there are:
14% CWS
61% CLE
18% DET
11% KCR
14% MIN
Which adds up to more than 100%, so if you bet an equal amount of money on each, on an expected basis you would lose money. So the bookies have their bases covered, even if I think 61% might be a little high for the Indians. (Although it's a lot more realistic than Accuscore's 89%.)
If Accuscore really believed their lines, they'd be giving a +8000 line on the Twins winning the Central and a -809 line on the Indians winning the Central.
Halftime: Celtics 53, Heat 50. Big time game tonight.