Cup of Coffee

August 30, 2011: You Can Take It Down Now

131 Comments

There's a billboard here in LA from that group that warns of "the impending May 21st, 2011 apocalypse as proven in the Bible." It's time to stop paying to renew that billboard, guys.

131 thoughts on “August 30, 2011: You Can Take It Down Now”

  1. The Twins have lost .16418 games to .500 for every game that they've played so far this year, good for fifth worst all time, after the 1982, 1981, 1995, and 1999 teams. #racetothebottom

  2. Ric Bucher: "The Timberwolves are considered a team with significant potential despite finishing with a league-worst 17-65 record last season."

    I so want that to be true. I'm not sure I believe it yet, but I have to tell you that I'm a little tired of the beat downs.

      1. After bringing over Rubio, drafting Williams, firing Rambis and signing Adelman, David Kahn rests for an hour. Then he intervenes to resolve the NBA lockout by the end of the week. Lastly, he overhauls the Twins' training/medical staff as a favor to his Target Plaza neighbors.

      2. If the Wolves hire Adelman, he will bring a credibility to the franchise that walked out the door when KG went to Boston.

          1. That's not a credible source (i.e., a fan post, not from one of the main writers), but Zgoda says Adelman in Mankato today.

        2. If the Wolves hire Adelman, he will bring a credibility to the franchise that walked out the door when KG went to Boston.

          So, you think he's just been sand-bagging the last two years, waiting to spring this trap of hope?

          Echoing comments made by a number of columnists after Kahn made several controversial moves in the summer of 2010 ESPN writers Chad Ford and John Hollinger called his tenure "baffling" to them.

          [from his Repository bio]

  3. Stan Van Gundy: "Athletics and education should be separate. Colleges shouldn't be farm systems. It doesn't make any logical sense. But the schools don't want to be blatantly in the situation of being professional sports even though they already are professional sports. They just want to disguise it, so they hide behind education. But, really, all you want is enough of your athletes to graduate so it looks like that's what you care about. Anyone around sports knows it is all a bunch of bull [expletive]..."

  4. I took a load of furniture up to Mom & Dad's yesterday. By the time we got the truck loaded here, drove the 2.5 hrs up there, and got it unloaded, it was 11PM. So I slept up there until 4AM and then drove back to DSM. So I've already been up for 4 hours and driven 130 miles. Now to put in a full day at work, and finish moving afterwards. I'm so sleeping on Wednesday.

    1. Be careful. I know you're a lot younger than I am, but still, don't be afraid to stop and rest if you get tired. Play it safe.

      1. I stopped half way for about 10 minutes to stretch and wake up a bit. It definitely helped. I learned better after driving through NM at 4AM on my way to Phoenix once.

        1. Whenever I'm driving and feeling like sleep is coming on, I find a gas station, walk around for a couple minutes, and buy myself something to drink. Works well just to break the monotony.

        2. Sunflower seeds. This is what I have found to be effective in maintaining alertness over the course of long drives.

          1. anything crunchy and small. pretzel sticks. Sunflower seeds in the shell sounds like a really good one, since you have to pay some attention to separate seed from shell in your mouth, then spit the shells out.

          2. I used cigarettes (well, back when I smoked). If the nicotine failed to keep me awake, I wound up with a burning cigarette in my lap. Saved my dumb young butt a couple times until I finally got some sense.

            Somewhere I've got a picture of the butts of all cigarettes it took me to drive from Kuwait to Fallujah, all jammed into the amplifier on my truck's radio.

            1. certain occasions make me miss smoking. every now and then when i'm driving, i can hit a rough patch.

              1. I'm writing a newsletter for work, and even though I quit years ago, I would stomp on a puppy for a cigarette right about now.

  5. So, uhhh, we had a kid this morning.

    Frugaltrinket born August 30th, 2011 at 4:48 am weighing 6 lbs, 5 ounces.

    EDIT: mom, dad, and baby doing very well but very tired.

        1. Hah! I like the "book of faces" thing, especially with the "wee lass" thrown in for good measure.

    4. Congrats, brewmaster. Glad that everything went well.

      On an infinitely less important side note, I had the blonde ale last night. It punched me in the face with hoppy goodness.

      1. I had one as soon as I got home this afternoon. I also have a triple in the fridge that I have been saving for this occasion, although I am going back to the hospital later today and don't want to drink that prior to driving. Also hoping to make a barleywine this weekend in her honor.

    6. excellent news! very happy to hear it. as i had brought up previously with you and the missus, we can start arranging a dowry to bring together to mighty houses of joe and toy.

    7. cheaptoy, as of 6:30 this morning, has already promised frugaltrinket to the Calf. Be on watch, famished pete.

      1. Didn't Corn just have the Kernel? The Calf can marry FT, and Pete can marry the Kernel. Then, their children can marry and combine the fours houses.

      2. Yeah, I thought that was settled months ago. I think you only requested one keg, and so won the bidding war.

        1. bidding war? i'm sorry, you are paying for the honor. and now that you've besmirched mine, i suppose i'm going to have to rally the bannermen now...

      1. Indeed. WGOMers have been productive this year. Or last year I suppose.

        Congrats to the toy family! How long until the trinket starts brewing?

        1. This year, too! Although, it appears that the wife and I are staggered from the rest of the group by about a year...

    10. Congrats! I know it's cliche, but enjoy it because it goes really quickly. It seems like yesterday that GRZ was born, and now she's running and sleeping in her own bed...

          1. I was born in an hour and a half, which was the longest it ever took my mom to give birth.

            Skim, though...oh, Skim. The Milkmaid was in labor for 37 and a half hours, and then had to have a Cesarean anyway because Skim was stuck.

            1. GRZ took about 13 hours, but for an induced early labor (because of pre-eclampsia), it wasn't too bad. The bigger thing was that my wife couldn't get an epidural...

              1. The Milkmaid actually ended up getting a few, because it went so long that they wore off. She'd hoped not to do any, which I wasn't on board with, because watching her scream in pain like that would have been too much, though it wasn't difficult for me at all to see the doctors pull Skim out of my wife's open stomach.

    12. Nicely done, cheaps. My only advice is that you should indeed paint her face to look like King Diamond within the first couple of years. Only a handful of people will get it, but they'll think you're the greatest dad ever.

        1. Thanks. We're getting that sentiment from pretty much everyone, save a few jerky relatives. My wife picked the first name because she really liked it and the middle is my paternal grandmother, whom I was quite close to.

          1. My aunt and uncle abandoned an incredible name and opted for a dead-ass boring one for their daughter 18 years ago because for some strange reason, they gave their elderly parents the deciding vote. They still regret it a little.

            We went with the rare (in Sour Cream's case, extremely rare) but not weird names we wanted and have never had any regrets.

            1. We were somewhat constrained by jewish tradition, which expects the kid to be given a name with the first initial of a recently deceased relative (or so my wife claims).

              for kid number two (an "H" name) I was campaigning for "Haman" in the event of a boy. For some reason, I was denied.

              1. I fought for "Obadiah" if we had a boy, and that was The Milkmaid's only vetoed suggestion. Granted, I didn't fight very hard, since "Owen" has always been my boy name of choice, but I was going crazy coming up with new ideas when I had chillun on the way.

                If there's a "rule" for me, it's that on my dad's side, "Allen" is a middle name for one boy per generation (in mine, that's me). Although my dad is one of five children, two are women that have different names and weren't expected to carry on the tradition, one had three daughters but no sons, and one married a girl that turned out to be barren. That left my dad's two sons. I've had two girls and don't plan on more kids, and my brother, who previously seemed to be on the way to finally having a child, is going through a sudden and wrenching divorce.

                So, the "Allen" thing might die with me, and I've legitimately thought of having a kid solely to attempt to keep it going.

                  1. Heh, I posted my comment without seeing yours. Its me, you, and Crain on that middle name...

                3. I'm the fifth generation of the father's first name being the middle name of one of his sons. Got lucky with my dad, since he was the youngest of three sons, but the only one to have male children. Now it's all up to me.

                  1. This was the tradition in my family until my grandfather gave his full name to my dad. Pops gave it to me, making me "the Third." I won't be passing it on; I hadn't intended to anyway, but with Pops gone the pressure's (which might have entirely been in my mind, since we never talked about his future grandchildren) is off.

                  2. That's the way it is in our fam too, which is a bummer for me that my grandparents didn't know how to spell Michael.

                4. You can pretend I'm your son, since my middle name is Alan. That's close enough, right?

              2. I'm facing similar constraints, Doc. Mrs. Hayes in Greek Orthodox, so whatever name we pick has to correspond to their saints. (I took the name Vasilii/Vasilios since that's about as close as we could get with my actual name). The plan is to name our first boy after my cousin Teddy, who passed away a few years ago. Not sure what we'll do for a middle name. I'd either like to pas on my maternal grandfather's (Emil) or the name of the Polish church I was baptized in (Kazimierz).

            2. The first boy we have will likely be Zebulon Alexander, so we totally get the interesting and rare names.

          1. I went back and forth on whether I wanted to finish that one, but I'm glad I did in the end.

    16. I may do a special "Father Knows Best" post off of its usual schedule. It was a really amazing experience.

      1. I encourage it. You aren't gonna sleep much anyway for the next few weeks, so you've got time.

    19. Congratulations ct! I'm happy to see that the pre-9/11 birthday hopes were rewarded.

      As usual, I'm late to the party but happy to jump on this bandwagon:
      Kernel was born August 26th, 2011 at 10:47 am weighing 8 lbs, 6 ounces.

      My ladies are also doing very well. Last night was her first at home...had one of these and watched the local nine lose to the pale hose.

      As you can see, even she thinks that teh Twins suck...

      1. My opinion is that it was the eggplant sandwhich my wife had on Thursday, despite my warning her not to have it.

        But congrats on the kernel, she looks darling. (and so does that Summit. I may need to swing into the good liquor store on my way back to the hospital to see if they have any.)

        1. ...she looks darling.

          I was thinking the same thing about trinket...it must be in the genes. To add something to the earlier name conversation - "unique but not weird" was my wife's mantra throughout our name search; you (and the Mrs.) have pulled that off quite nicely!

          1. Its a very old name, enough so that no one uses it anymore but its not too old timey sounding, like Mabel or some such.

      3. I spent a good minute trying to think of a "Twins suck" comment before finally realizing you'd put one in there yourself. Oops.

        Mazel tov, CoC.

      4. Yay!

        BTW: My daughter refused that thing in your daughter's mouth. Never once used one of those.

        1. yeah, Pete's not really a fan of those, though every once in awhile it shuts him up calms him down.

      6. Congrats, CoC. Just one question. Why do you have a picture of Chuck Klosterman holding her on Facebook? 🙂

  6. Apropos of Hurricane Irene, I got this on my desktop this morning from a key news aggregator for Cali politics:

    ** The Rough & Tumble outage yesterday was the result of Hurricane Irene damage to the server farm that hosts the site in Trumbull, Connecticut. The storm damage in the area was widespread and severe. Homes were destroyed, several people died.

    The service provided by this company over the past five years has been excellent. We’ve decided to stand by these folks as they work to get beyond this. We feel that's what you would want us to do. Thanks for continued support and patience.

    1. And my immediate instinct was "Milkman," which I've typed over at Spookmilk Survivor once or twice, despite the fact that The Iceman Cometh is one of the plays I love most.

  9. Again, it's not Movie Day, but that's a long way off and I must get this out.

    From Mad Men, season two.

    Spoiler SelectShow

      1. Not to mention the art direction. The first time I saw Mad Men, I was flipping through channels and caught the pilot episode a few minutes after it started. I was absolutely convinced that it was a movie from the early Sixties until they got to the first commercial break.

          1. The team that did the credits isn't involved in the show in any other way, but their primary function is providing shows with credit sequences, as well as creating teaser trailers for video games. I just saw a cool mini-doc on them.

        2. My pal Jilly, a costume designer, is good friends with Janie Bryant, the CD from Mad Men. Jilly said Janie is the best in the biz. Hard to quibble over that. (I was rather astounded to find out that Ms Bryant was also responsible for the wardrobe on Deadwood--talk about night and day.)

          1. The best ones I've known have all been able to do any era and any style. I suppose that's what makes them the best.

            I have a possible 'in' to be a production assistant on that show. I have designs on walking in and saying "Hey, everyone, I've only seen the first two seasons, so let's not film any spoilers."

            1. What Jill found so impressive about the first season of Mad Men, is that the budget for wardrobe was so minuscule. It certainly doesn't show in the final product. Everybody looks like a million bucks.

              I'd never given much thought about that aspect of film until Jill started working in the field. She's got some great stories about the trade.

              1. My knowledge of an art director/costume designer's work primarily comes from theater, as in my major they made a point to educate us about what everyone was doing. I can't imagine a guy like me having the patience to do such a thing, but I certainly see how rewarding the final product is.

                It shocks me, too, to hear that the first season's budget was so low. I mean, first season budgets are always low, but theirs never looks it.

    2. I am jealous that you still have 2+ seasons to watch while I have nada. At least Breaking Bad is currently in new episodes.

      2. Agreed. Breaking Bad will do one more season after this one. I'm glad they decided to put an end point on the show so the writers can map out the rest of the story. Also, The Walking Dead starts up again in October, and while the first season didn't quite hit the same level as Mad Men and Breaking Bad, I was impressed enough to want more.

        1. Yeah, I'm ready for the Walking Dead to start up again. I want to know what happened to Merle, dammit.

        2. I like how, for lack of a better term, raw Walking Dead is. It feels exactly how I would imagine the zombie apocalypse to play out.

  11. really? ugh

    JoeCStrib
    Justin Morneau has been diagnosed with mild concussion symptoms. Headache developed Monday. #Twins had him take base-line tests.

      1. Way too early to say that, but definitely not good news. Best thing may be to make him a permanent DH.

    2. "It's better today than it was yesterday," Morneau said of the concussion symptoms. "It’s not even comparable to what it was [last year]. I think it’s more of a precaution-type thing, but it’s something we need to monitor. We’ll hopefully be good to go in a couple days. We’ll see the doctor again tomorrow and see what he says."

    3. It never ends:

      Alexi Casilla's hamstring issue flared up again Monday, when he began his rehab stint with Class A Fort Myers. He'll take a few days, see how it feels, and resume playing for the Fort Myers team if all goes well.

      1. It also never ends:

        Nick, STIFLE YOURSELF! You need to re-read all those articles, and keep in mind that those same jounalists praised Mauer for years. Mauer is a bust, a costly bust. He got that huge contract, doesn't play for mysterious maladies, and we fans who pay that salary deserve to be heard. By the way, Mauer's home is in Florida, right? He doesn't pay MN state taxes? Remember that the next time your kids' next school program is discontinued. Mauer is a jerk.

        Oy, the stribbers! the stribbers!

        1. I'm pretty sure Mauer pays income tax in Minnesota, along with every other MLBer that plays baseball in MN. Even at $23 million however, his taxes aren't going to make or break the state. But, these people are operating in a fact free universe.

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