So, the first two teams to go down in the postseason are the two AL East teams. Well, huh.
150 thoughts on “October 7, 2011: Yankees Suck”
On the inside, I'm all
WOOOOOO OOOOOOO! FRANK CHEW YANKEEEESSS! DIE THE DEATH OF ALDS LOSING! THE YANKEES, THE!!!
On the outside, I had them winning the pennant in my bracket.
The yanks losing really worked well for my bracket and my enjoyment. Unfortunately, I'm guessing that the Rays won't win the ALCS, so my bracket has bigger issues...
So far so good on my perfect postseason.
You're so going to get double points when the Diamondbacks win, though. They'd better, or my brackef is wreckef.
I'm with you. I'm in danger of not getting a single point in this contest. That ought to count for something, right?
I might miss every single series.
If the Diamondbacks and Cardinals win, a whole lot of guys will be...perfect.
Brewers and Cards for me, but same idea.
I have the Cards and and Brewers advancing. Sorry for those who picked those teams.
I'm hoping I do, since I'd rather see STL and ARI than PHI and MIL.
I already am 0fer the AL
Dido. Once the Brewers and Cards pull of their victories, my cunning plan will be complete.
Flawless victory defeat!
Me too. I just heard on freakonomics radio that humans are bad a predicting things, so I suppose this contest proves how human I am.
Something a wolf would say...
I am pretty excited for Sabathia to opt out this offseason.
This.
Also, when Girardi was going on and on about how much the loss hurt, my mother said from the other room, "Is that a Yankee doing all that moaning? A 66 year old woman who does not care one bit about these things is calling out Girardi for whining like a little baby. Good. Times.
To be fair to Girardi, the whining this postseason has already gone up to 11
I was certain that was a link to an onion article.
ESPN headline - A-Rod fails to get job done.
I'm pretty sure they had two headlines ready for last night. That one and "jeter the hero once again."
I see A-Rod already has started the 'this season was a "major failure"' meme for the Yankmes.
John Kruk on ESPN: I wouldn't give the Yankees an "F" for this season. Maybe a "C".
How generous of him. I think a 80 year title drought is in order - restructuring the bell curve and all that.
Tying this all back to the discussion of the Braves, below: if the Braves don't blow the 1996 series, things might have turned out very differently for MLB.
Why is ESPN still a thing if he's the best they can do?
Remember, it's obviously that the fans don't care:
It's worth remembering that their TV viewership was down this year, but those are some harrowing numbers.
Milt questions where you got those numbers.
me too, but just because I am curious. That is some cool data.
Agreed. It's an SB Nation image, but I don't know which site created it. I was thinking about getting the 2010 census data, but it doesn't seem to have been fully released yet. I looked at the 2000 data, but it is gigantic and would take me a long time to go through it.
It looks to me like the Rays need to relocate their franchise much closer to actual people.
Pretty fun little trivia question over at the SABR Twitter feed, since A-Rod made the final out in a playoff series for the second time: who are the only two players to do it three times?
I can add a clue here, I s'pose: both are old but both played in the MLB this season.
I would guess Carlos Beltran just because.
Nope.
I never would've gotten the first, I suppose with the right train of thought, the second could've been figured out.
Yeah, considering that he's a lifer for a team that made the playoffs a lot, that's the much easier one.
a team that made lost in the playoffs a lot
Well, right. They should have been a dynasty. Instead they're no more than a cool curiosity.
Playoff game or playoff series?
Twitter feed says "postseason elimination games," so we're definitely talking series here.
Ruth?
Nope. Both are recent.
That was the first name to come into my head, too.
Not too many series, though. But he did get caught stealing to end the 1926 World Series!
Yeah, the '26 series ender was the one I was thinking of.
He did ground out in the 9th inning of Game 8 in '21.
I love that there was a time when there could be a Game 8.
So do I, it just feels so gloriously old school. I get why they pared it down to seven, and I'm glad they did, but a best of 9 series just conjures up that turn of the century feel. You hear "Game nine of the world series" and ytou just know that guys with nicknames like "Dutch" and "Ol' Hatchet Hands" played in it.
That's the way it always was until Billy Beane wrote that book.
He only wrote the book because Phillip Seymour Hoffman was such a meanie.
Joe Mauer?
I said three, not twelve.
okay, so while we're at it, which ump blew the call on the last out in three different elimination games? /yes, snark
Miguel Cabrera and Josh Hamilton will have wildly different methods of celebration when one of those teams goes to the World Series.
On the subject of Hamilton, did anyone see this?
Josh Hamilton re: Guerrero, Napoli: "I think we're going to look at who we can get from the Angels next year." [Twitter]
This can't be real, but it is. This is what will happen when the Miami Marlins hit home runs.
Also, it bugs me that a recent two-time world champion is changing its name. It's bad enough Anaheim did it.
ZOMG!!!
The name change doesn't really bother me that much. After all, the team is in Miami and it's not the only team in the state like it was when it was founded.
That Marlin thing is ugly, though.
I get pointlessly protective of names (and occasionally logos) and recognize it's pointless even when doing it.
That thing, though? That's unequivocally horrifying, and hilarious.
I thought it was hilarious. The weird thing about it is: Who thought that was a good idea in the first place and why would you spend a bunch of money to make it? Seriously.
Also, I'm changing the name of "Werewolf" to "Fantabulous Weretraption".
Says the proprietor of the newly renamed "Casa de Leche".
Ay Dios Mio, you have a point.
That doesn't look like what the Marlins think it looks like. At least in the rendering it doesn't.
The bit about Bernie Brewer after a couple buttons of peyote made me laugh.
I'm always shocked, shocked(!), that they don't consult someone, anyone, with an education in aesthetic design when they make these decisions.
Okay, they consulted Red Grooms. My heart breaks. I'm now questioning my love of his work.
mebbe Red Grooms after a couple buttons of peyote?
Apparently, baseball isn't his muse?
The punchline to this and that awful logo is that the Marlins are owned by an art dealer.
Gaaaaahh. No accounting for taste.
It's what Bernie Brewer thinks he's sliding down after a couple buttons of peyote
If Carnival and Las Vegas had a baby, this would be the placenta.
Historically speaking, I think we are in a rather stable time for team names. The Marlins may be two-time WS winners, but they're also less than twenty years old. I mean, it's not like they changed their name from the Highlanders or the Americans to the Marlins. And most teams are named for the city they are in and not the state. If anything, they conform more to the standard now, as opposed to, say, the LAAA, who apparently needed two place names in their name.
The Angels have always struggled to capture a fan base against the Dodgers and their name changes reflect that.
Los Angeles Angels
California Angels
Anaheim Angels
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
What they really needed was for the Dodgers to suck. Wish granted.
Can they go back to just calling themselves Anaheim, then? That would be super.
The difference between Dodger and Angel hats, stickers, jerseys and whatever was ridiculous. You'd almost never know that LA had a second team nearby.
At least their not trying to be the Tampa Marlins of Miami.
Oh boy.
I'm listening to the score in chicago. Major meltdowns today.
Sun Times article called Don Cooper Judas. He called in and ripped Ozzie.
Kenny Williams went off on the Sun Times writer.
And they are already referring to Robin Ventura as Robin Del Negro.
Tonight I had the Magic Hat Wacko, which I expected to be gross. It wasn't even that. Put red food coloring in a cloudy adjunct, and that's pretty much it. At least it didn't make me notice I wasn't drinking anything.
Note to self: Magic Hat is sub-Shock-Toppish. Leave them alone.
Yeah, I saw that. A couple of commenters are saying "Blah blah, you're rich and should be happy" but they don't see where the real problem comes from. The cast isn't asking for money to appear out of thin air, they're asking for a cut of the ridiculous money the studio makes.
The cast has almost no leverage, let's just put it that way. The time to make such a bargain has long since passed.
Indeed. Probably best for the cast to move on to other things anyway, since they ran their course a long, long time ago.
It actually makes me feel old that there are kids who weren't alive when the Simpsons was good.
It's good now. Season 9 was terrible and there were a couple of other bad ones in the teens, but it's still better than 90% of TV's scripted comedy (there are fish in a barrel jokes here, but I'll restrain myself).
I haven't really watched it in a few years, so I'm basing its goodness level off of a few years ago. Probably not fair of me, I admit.
To a certain extent, I agree. I don't watch it regularly, and haven't in several years, but the "Simpsons suck" meme always felt out of place as long as shows like (fill in the blank with pretty much any popular sitcom short of Modern Family) are hugely popular.
Edit: I forgot to mention that whenever I do watch a new episode, I get a couple of laughs in, which is better than 90% of the shows on TV.
At least in my case, I tried to not say it sucked so much as its just not living up to that first decade. Of course, the bar set by those years is so incredibly high that it was probably impossible for it to be anything other than seemingly disappointing for its remaining years.
At least in my case, I tried to not say it sucked so much as its just not living up to that first decade.
Now that, I'll totally agree with.
I've noticed that almost anytime someone says "The Simpsons is no good anymore," they haven't seen it in ten years. Like any show that lasts a generation, it has ups and downs, though obviously, the best seasons were 3-8.
Maybe I should amend my statement to "weren't alive when the Simpsons were good".
It is pretty staggering to think the show's zenith was over 15 years ago, no matter how okay or blah everything since has been.
Didn't season 9 have the twin towers episode? That one was tremendous. I remember 9 being sort of the cut off between good and bad Simpsons though. I still watch it from time to time, but not religiously anymore.
There were a few good episodes that year, but I think the better ones were the holdovers from the previous season. It had the one where the carnies took over the Simpson house, and I remember just sitting there thinking, wow, this show is done.
I have the DVD of that season, not realizing the drop was so precipitous. It's definitely interesting to listen to the commentaries on episodes that are widely considered among the worst in the show's history. Sometimes the writers seem unaware, but every now and then they actually apologize for the way bad ones came together.
It's Jim Varney! How could it go wrong?
I quite liked Jim Varney as a voice actor...I was bummed that he ended up with that episode, although I haven't seen it in a while so I might be unduly harsh here.
Now you're on the trolley!
I'll take the crab juice!
I was very disappointed to find out that Khlav Kalash isn't really a thing.
I won't stoop to calling The Simpsons bad, but "not as good" isn't a problem for me. And I'll still watch it over most other TV
Yeah, we agree on every point.
I just want to point out that earlier this summer, I heard Top Jimmy call Jim Leyland a "fraud" because his teams usually fold down the stretch.
I know, I know, it's shooting fish in a barrel.
One more thing before I head off to get some work done today:
All of you that are celebrating the demise of the Yankees are simply selfish because having the Yankees win would have brought more joy to the world.
#anotherdeadhorse #couldnotresist
From a purely utilitarian standpoint, wouldn't the joy in the universe have been significantly greater if the Yankees had won yesterday? Should the Universe bother to favor a team with so few passionate fans? Should we?
Utilitarians care about disutility too. They are just summing gains and losses, weighting every individual equally. So, all we need is one person to be infinitely happy that the yankmes lost to at least make it a push.
Do utilitarians care more about mean utility than median utility?
IIRC, utilitarians care only about net aggregate utility, with the restriction that each individual's utility has equal weighting and (implicitly) scaling. A strict utilitarian social welfare function thus is a very special case in the universe of social welfare functions.
This may be true, but the comment that spawned this nonsense didn't take into account disutility.
I'm not tired of beating this horse yet. That was a ludicrous quote.
Especially since there are more people that hate the Yankees that are celebrating now than there are fans that would celebrate them winning. Just because ESPN celebrates them doesn't mean we have to.
This was my initial response as well. The Yankees are the most popular MLB team, but they're easily the most hated, too.
Meh, any poll that has the Astros as a more universally hated team than the Yankees is not asking the right kinds of questions.
Next thing you're going to tell me is that Kevin McHale isn't the best general manager in all of sport.
How much of that result is from self-loathing by Houston fans?
Actually, I think the results are not presented sensibly. Scores of "zero" are ones of indifference on [this] feeling thermometer. Mass indifference is most definitely NOT the same thing as "most hated". They need to separate the negatives from the positives from the indifferents.
And how much is just an objective statement of fact?
The Astros do suck.
This is the first time since 2006 that there hasn't been an AL East team in the ALCS. Only the 5th time since the strike.
Sean, many thanks for the HTML/CSS instruction yesterday. I saved the company about a hundred dollars by fixing it myself instead of having our vendor do it.
can your company make a contribution to the wgom.org in recognition? 🙂
on that subject, has there been any movement on the nonprofit concept?
There has been some movement in the community funding part.
that reminds me, i never did that thing you asked me to do...
Tom Verducci, among others, is suggesting that A-Rod is in decline. I would tend to agree with that: he's 36 years old. The guy playing next to him is in obvious decline and he's not much older than A-Rod. Verducci lays out the case.
The downward trend to his career path should give pause to the Yankees if they plan for counting on Rodriguez to be a 140-game force in the cleanup spot in 2012. Some trends to consider:
Okay, let's consider them.
Rodriguez hasn't played 140 games since 2007, when he turned 32.
Ooo, injury prone. Not a good sign. Yeah, that's. Not. Good.
His slugging percentage and OPS have declined four straight seasons.
Numbers in decline. Can't argue with that.
His line drive percentage has declined three straight years -- to a career low in 2011.
Further evidence to support the hypothesis.
Slow against good fastballs, he hit no home runs and slugged .355 off power pitchers this year.
Well, okay, that's not good. I gotta tell you though, that this one isn't as strong as the previous points. Could be true, but power pitchers throw breaking stuff, too. But, okay, it's generally supportive of the hypothesis.
He hit three home runs in his last 46 games, postseason included.
Veering into small sample size territory here. 46 games? Two months? Sure, he hit less than 20 home runs this year, but a nagging injury or a slump could account for this. Not really a trend as far as trends go.
He has not hit a home run in his past 61 postseason at-bats, batting .213 in that drought.
Okay, my SSS meter is in the red. 61 at bats? Is that the last two years? No, that stretches back into the middle of the 2009 World Series. A-Rod was a monster in the 2009 post season, so selecting the second half of that World Series, when he had a .973 OPS in the Series overall seems, um, what's the word I'm looking for? Arbitrary. I understand he went back to his last post season home run, but still. These at bats are strewn over three seasons.
He is the first player in history to end two straight postseasons with a strikeout.
The SSS meter exploded. Two at bats, a year apart, do not make a trend. Fial.
Et tu, Verducci? Ugh.
But he was doing so well!
Can somebody write an SSS article about why Jeter sucks now?
Jeter: no home runs in his last 107 post season at bats.
Area man can't stand Derek Jeter
by S. Milk
I thought of Derek Jeter once today, and thought of his worthless glove and declining bat while doing it.
Small enough sample?
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8LOLswfTkQ
Oh, this joak is killing me.
I so hoped you'd continue with that here (but that was awfully quick, wolfie).
I would have also accepted wolvisly quick. /xoxo
Stunning! Who could have imagined a player in decline at age 36 in the post-steroids era. Stop the presses!
Comparison time:
Player A: .277/.386/.498/.884
Player B: .307/.374/.465/.839
This doesn't take into account balls played into home runs.
is that the line for fly balls hit into LF while _elm_n was playing there?
An update on my wife's cousin who had the heart attack yesterday.
For those who haven't read the details, he was slumped over his desk, unresponsive and blue. A co-worker found him and administered CPR. He was rushed to the hospital in Winona, and then airlifted to LaCrosse. He survived the attack and was coherent today, but slightly confused.
It appears that he has had several heart attacks in the past, all untreated, as he does not have health insurance. I don't think his long term prognosis is very good given this and he's probably (read: definitely) going to be forced into bankruptcy, but he's still alive, thanks primarily to the assistance provided by his co-worker.
I would imagine he'll need some sort of surgery, but I don't know any of those details. He's about 53 years old and not an ounce overweight, but smoking is bad for you, kids.
Wow. Sorry to hear/happy to hear this, and best wishes to him. A great plug for learning CPR.
I got recertified at the Red Cross this last year at CPR (last time was >20 years ago.
Much more emphasis on high quality and rapid chest compressions. They also included defibrillation training - Lol - I called the guard desk at work after the training to see where the portable AEDS are located and they said - You can't use those - if needed call us and we'll do it.
Ah, I don't think you mentioned the smoking thing last night. Yeah, quitting was the hardest and smartest thing I ever did. I always stress to smokers that are afraid to quit that it actually starts being easy after about two weeks, as far as the physical goes. The psychological addiction can last up to...well, when it's gone, I'll tell you...but that can be fought successfully.
Sad to hear that. Bad news on the physical and financial front.
My wife's co-worker's husband had a heart attack a couple years ago. Even with okay health insurance, it was a financial blow that set them back for a long time. He had another one a couple of months ago.
I've been fighting the excruciating wait for the season four finale of Breaking Bad by reading up on useless trivia from the show.
During filming, the introduction of Wendy the prostitute was briefly interrupted when a non-actor attempted to pick up actress Julia Minesci, mistaking her for a prostitute.
Oops! Good thing there wasn't a camera crew around or anything! Seriously, that's an impressive lack of attention by the John here.
You mean most shows aren't filmed like Candid Camera?
No, but if they were, at least you could eliminate nonsense like the image of the cameras being reflected in actors' sunglasses and whatnot...
As an undergrad I was an art major. Frankly, few of my fellow art majors were talented enough to make a living at it, even after four (or more!) years of training. Sure they loved art, but in the immortal words of Tina Turner, "What's love got to do with it?" "Find what you love and never settle for less" is an excellent recipe for frustration and poverty. "Reconcile yourself to the limits of your talent and temperament and find the most satisfactory compromise between what you love to do and what you need to do feed your children" is rather less stirring, but it's much better advice.
...
For my part, I intend to be the dickens out of myself and chase my dreams like a starved coyote chases a vole because I'm so awesome there's practically no chance this won't turn out spectacularly well. Which is why I write blog posts for very small amounts of money in Iowa.
A granite boulder at the Stone Valley Quarry will be transported to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art 60 miles away over the course of nine nights, traveling through the crowded metropolis at six miles an hour.
On the inside, I'm all
WOOOOOO OOOOOOO! FRANK CHEW YANKEEEESSS! DIE THE DEATH OF ALDS LOSING! THE YANKEES, THE!!!
On the outside, I had them winning the pennant in my bracket.
The yanks losing really worked well for my bracket and my enjoyment. Unfortunately, I'm guessing that the Rays won't win the ALCS, so my bracket has bigger issues...
So far so good on my perfect postseason.
You're so going to get double points when the Diamondbacks win, though. They'd better, or my brackef is wreckef.
I'm with you. I'm in danger of not getting a single point in this contest. That ought to count for something, right?
I might miss every single series.
If the Diamondbacks and Cardinals win, a whole lot of guys will be...perfect.
Brewers and Cards for me, but same idea.
I have the Cards and and Brewers advancing. Sorry for those who picked those teams.
I'm hoping I do, since I'd rather see STL and ARI than PHI and MIL.
I already am 0fer the AL
Dido. Once the Brewers and Cards pull of their victories, my cunning plan will be complete.
Flawless
victorydefeat!Me too. I just heard on freakonomics radio that humans are bad a predicting things, so I suppose this contest proves how human I am.
Something a wolf would say...
I am pretty excited for Sabathia to opt out this offseason.
This.
Also, when Girardi was going on and on about how much the loss hurt, my mother said from the other room, "Is that a Yankee doing all that moaning? A 66 year old woman who does not care one bit about these things is calling out Girardi for whining like a little baby. Good. Times.
To be fair to Girardi, the whining this postseason has already gone up to 11
I was certain that was a link to an onion article.
ESPN headline - A-Rod fails to get job done.
I'm pretty sure they had two headlines ready for last night. That one and "jeter the hero once again."
I see A-Rod already has started the 'this season was a "major failure"' meme for the Yankmes.
John Kruk on ESPN: I wouldn't give the Yankees an "F" for this season. Maybe a "C".
How generous of him. I think a 80 year title drought is in order - restructuring the bell curve and all that.
Tying this all back to the discussion of the Braves, below: if the Braves don't blow the 1996 series, things might have turned out very differently for MLB.
Why is ESPN still a thing if he's the best they can do?
Remember, it's obviously that the fans don't care:
It's worth remembering that their TV viewership was down this year, but those are some harrowing numbers.
Milt questions where you got those numbers.
me too, but just because I am curious. That is some cool data.
Agreed. It's an SB Nation image, but I don't know which site created it. I was thinking about getting the 2010 census data, but it doesn't seem to have been fully released yet. I looked at the 2000 data, but it is gigantic and would take me a long time to go through it.
It looks to me like the Rays need to relocate their franchise much closer to actual people.
Pretty fun little trivia question over at the SABR Twitter feed, since A-Rod made the final out in a playoff series for the second time: who are the only two players to do it three times?
The answer's here.
I can add a clue here, I s'pose: both are old but both played in the MLB this season.
I would guess Carlos Beltran just because.
Nope.
I never would've gotten the first, I suppose with the right train of thought, the second could've been figured out.
Yeah, considering that he's a lifer for a team that made the playoffs a lot, that's the much easier one.
a team that
madelost in the playoffs a lotWell, right. They should have been a dynasty. Instead they're no more than a cool curiosity.
Playoff game or playoff series?
Twitter feed says "postseason elimination games," so we're definitely talking series here.
Ruth?
Nope. Both are recent.
That was the first name to come into my head, too.
Not too many series, though. But he did get caught stealing to end the 1926 World Series!
Yeah, the '26 series ender was the one I was thinking of.
He did ground out in the 9th inning of Game 8 in '21.
I love that there was a time when there could be a Game 8.
So do I, it just feels so gloriously old school. I get why they pared it down to seven, and I'm glad they did, but a best of 9 series just conjures up that turn of the century feel. You hear "Game nine of the world series" and ytou just know that guys with nicknames like "Dutch" and "Ol' Hatchet Hands" played in it.
That's the way it always was until Billy Beane wrote that book.
He only wrote the book because Phillip Seymour Hoffman was such a meanie.
Joe Mauer?
I said three, not twelve.
okay, so while we're at it, which ump blew the call on the last out in three different elimination games? /yes, snark
Miguel Cabrera and Josh Hamilton will have wildly different methods of celebration when one of those teams goes to the World Series.
On the subject of Hamilton, did anyone see this?
This can't be real, but it is. This is what will happen when the Miami Marlins hit home runs.
Also, it bugs me that a recent two-time world champion is changing its name. It's bad enough Anaheim did it.
ZOMG!!!
The name change doesn't really bother me that much. After all, the team is in Miami and it's not the only team in the state like it was when it was founded.
That Marlin thing is ugly, though.
I get pointlessly protective of names (and occasionally logos) and recognize it's pointless even when doing it.
That thing, though? That's unequivocally horrifying, and hilarious.
I thought it was hilarious. The weird thing about it is: Who thought that was a good idea in the first place and why would you spend a bunch of money to make it? Seriously.
Also, I'm changing the name of "Werewolf" to "Fantabulous Weretraption".
Says the proprietor of the newly renamed "Casa de Leche".
Ay Dios Mio, you have a point.
That doesn't look like what the Marlins think it looks like. At least in the rendering it doesn't.
The bit about Bernie Brewer after a couple buttons of peyote made me laugh.
I'm always shocked, shocked(!), that they don't consult someone, anyone, with an education in aesthetic design when they make these decisions.Okay, they consulted Red Grooms. My heart breaks. I'm now questioning my love of his work.
mebbe Red Grooms after a couple buttons of peyote?
Apparently, baseball isn't his muse?
The punchline to this and that awful logo is that the Marlins are owned by an art dealer.
Gaaaaahh. No accounting for taste.
Historically speaking, I think we are in a rather stable time for team names. The Marlins may be two-time WS winners, but they're also less than twenty years old. I mean, it's not like they changed their name from the Highlanders or the Americans to the Marlins. And most teams are named for the city they are in and not the state. If anything, they conform more to the standard now, as opposed to, say, the LAAA, who apparently needed two place names in their name.
The Angels have always struggled to capture a fan base against the Dodgers and their name changes reflect that.
Los Angeles Angels
California Angels
Anaheim Angels
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
What they really needed was for the Dodgers to suck. Wish granted.
Can they go back to just calling themselves Anaheim, then? That would be super.
The difference between Dodger and Angel hats, stickers, jerseys and whatever was ridiculous. You'd almost never know that LA had a second team nearby.
At least their not trying to be the Tampa Marlins of Miami.
Oh boy.
I'm listening to the score in chicago. Major meltdowns today.
Sun Times article called Don Cooper Judas. He called in and ripped Ozzie.
Kenny Williams went off on the Sun Times writer.
And they are already referring to Robin Ventura as Robin Del Negro.
I thought I would miss Ozzy but this is fun!
Robin Del Negro. That's awesome.
Because I love you all and want you to be happy (for me), I will point back to my comment from last night, linking to the beer list at SmithHouse.
Tonight I had the Magic Hat Wacko, which I expected to be gross. It wasn't even that. Put red food coloring in a cloudy adjunct, and that's pretty much it. At least it didn't make me notice I wasn't drinking anything.
Note to self: Magic Hat is sub-Shock-Toppish. Leave them alone.
looks like the simpsons might be winding down...
Yeah, I saw that. A couple of commenters are saying "Blah blah, you're rich and should be happy" but they don't see where the real problem comes from. The cast isn't asking for money to appear out of thin air, they're asking for a cut of the ridiculous money the studio makes.
The cast has almost no leverage, let's just put it that way. The time to make such a bargain has long since passed.
Indeed. Probably best for the cast to move on to other things anyway, since they ran their course a long, long time ago.
It actually makes me feel old that there are kids who weren't alive when the Simpsons was good.
It's good now. Season 9 was terrible and there were a couple of other bad ones in the teens, but it's still better than 90% of TV's scripted comedy (there are fish in a barrel jokes here, but I'll restrain myself).
I haven't really watched it in a few years, so I'm basing its goodness level off of a few years ago. Probably not fair of me, I admit.
To a certain extent, I agree. I don't watch it regularly, and haven't in several years, but the "Simpsons suck" meme always felt out of place as long as shows like (fill in the blank with pretty much any popular sitcom short of Modern Family) are hugely popular.
Edit: I forgot to mention that whenever I do watch a new episode, I get a couple of laughs in, which is better than 90% of the shows on TV.
At least in my case, I tried to not say it sucked so much as its just not living up to that first decade. Of course, the bar set by those years is so incredibly high that it was probably impossible for it to be anything other than seemingly disappointing for its remaining years.
Now that, I'll totally agree with.
I've noticed that almost anytime someone says "The Simpsons is no good anymore," they haven't seen it in ten years. Like any show that lasts a generation, it has ups and downs, though obviously, the best seasons were 3-8.
Maybe I should amend my statement to "weren't alive when the Simpsons were good".
It is pretty staggering to think the show's zenith was over 15 years ago, no matter how okay or blah everything since has been.
Didn't season 9 have the twin towers episode? That one was tremendous. I remember 9 being sort of the cut off between good and bad Simpsons though. I still watch it from time to time, but not religiously anymore.
There were a few good episodes that year, but I think the better ones were the holdovers from the previous season. It had the one where the carnies took over the Simpson house, and I remember just sitting there thinking, wow, this show is done.
I have the DVD of that season, not realizing the drop was so precipitous. It's definitely interesting to listen to the commentaries on episodes that are widely considered among the worst in the show's history. Sometimes the writers seem unaware, but every now and then they actually apologize for the way bad ones came together.
It's Jim Varney! How could it go wrong?
I quite liked Jim Varney as a voice actor...I was bummed that he ended up with that episode, although I haven't seen it in a while so I might be unduly harsh here.
Now you're on the trolley!
I'll take the crab juice!
I was very disappointed to find out that Khlav Kalash isn't really a thing.
I won't stoop to calling The Simpsons bad, but "not as good" isn't a problem for me. And I'll still watch it over most other TV
Yeah, we agree on every point.
I just want to point out that earlier this summer, I heard Top Jimmy call Jim Leyland a "fraud" because his teams usually fold down the stretch.
I know, I know, it's shooting fish in a barrel.
One more thing before I head off to get some work done today:
All of you that are celebrating the demise of the Yankees are simply selfish because having the Yankees win would have brought more joy to the world.
#anotherdeadhorse #couldnotresist
From a purely utilitarian standpoint, wouldn't the joy in the universe have been significantly greater if the Yankees had won yesterday? Should the Universe bother to favor a team with so few passionate fans? Should we?
Utilitarians care about disutility too. They are just summing gains and losses, weighting every individual equally. So, all we need is one person to be infinitely happy that the yankmes lost to at least make it a push.
Do utilitarians care more about mean utility than median utility?
IIRC, utilitarians care only about net aggregate utility, with the restriction that each individual's utility has equal weighting and (implicitly) scaling. A strict utilitarian social welfare function thus is a very special case in the universe of social welfare functions.
This may be true, but the comment that spawned this nonsense didn't take into account disutility.
I'm not tired of beating this horse yet. That was a ludicrous quote.
Especially since there are more people that hate the Yankees that are celebrating now than there are fans that would celebrate them winning. Just because ESPN celebrates them doesn't mean we have to.
This was my initial response as well. The Yankees are the most popular MLB team, but they're easily the most hated, too.
not they're not.
Meh, any poll that has the Astros as a more universally hated team than the Yankees is not asking the right kinds of questions.
Next thing you're going to tell me is that Kevin McHale isn't the best general manager in all of sport.
How much of that result is from self-loathing by Houston fans?
Actually, I think the results are not presented sensibly. Scores of "zero" are ones of indifference on [this] feeling thermometer. Mass indifference is most definitely NOT the same thing as "most hated". They need to separate the negatives from the positives from the indifferents.
And how much is just an objective statement of fact?
The Astros do suck.
This is the first time since 2006 that there hasn't been an AL East team in the ALCS. Only the 5th time since the strike.
Sean, many thanks for the HTML/CSS instruction yesterday. I saved the company about a hundred dollars by fixing it myself instead of having our vendor do it.
can your company make a contribution to the wgom.org in recognition? 🙂
on that subject, has there been any movement on the nonprofit concept?
There has been some movement in the community funding part.
that reminds me, i never did that thing you asked me to do...
Tom Verducci, among others, is suggesting that A-Rod is in decline. I would tend to agree with that: he's 36 years old. The guy playing next to him is in obvious decline and he's not much older than A-Rod. Verducci lays out the case.
Okay, let's consider them.
Ooo, injury prone. Not a good sign. Yeah, that's. Not. Good.
Numbers in decline. Can't argue with that.
Further evidence to support the hypothesis.
Well, okay, that's not good. I gotta tell you though, that this one isn't as strong as the previous points. Could be true, but power pitchers throw breaking stuff, too. But, okay, it's generally supportive of the hypothesis.
Veering into small sample size territory here. 46 games? Two months? Sure, he hit less than 20 home runs this year, but a nagging injury or a slump could account for this. Not really a trend as far as trends go.
Okay, my SSS meter is in the red. 61 at bats? Is that the last two years? No, that stretches back into the middle of the 2009 World Series. A-Rod was a monster in the 2009 post season, so selecting the second half of that World Series, when he had a .973 OPS in the Series overall seems, um, what's the word I'm looking for? Arbitrary. I understand he went back to his last post season home run, but still. These at bats are strewn over three seasons.
The SSS meter exploded. Two at bats, a year apart, do not make a trend. Fial.
Et tu, Verducci? Ugh.
But he was doing so well!
Can somebody write an SSS article about why Jeter sucks now?
Jeter: no home runs in his last 107 post season at bats.
Small enough sample?
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8LOLswfTkQ
Oh, this joak is killing me.
I so hoped you'd continue with that here (but that was awfully quick, wolfie).
I would have also accepted wolvisly quick. /xoxo
Stunning! Who could have imagined a player in decline at age 36 in the post-steroids era. Stop the presses!
Comparison time:
Player A: .277/.386/.498/.884
Player B: .307/.374/.465/.839
First two I thought of, and in the order I thought of them.
Player C: 286/359/314
Player D: .305/.370/.489
is that the line for fly balls hit into LF while _elm_n was playing there?
An update on my wife's cousin who had the heart attack yesterday.
For those who haven't read the details, he was slumped over his desk, unresponsive and blue. A co-worker found him and administered CPR. He was rushed to the hospital in Winona, and then airlifted to LaCrosse. He survived the attack and was coherent today, but slightly confused.
It appears that he has had several heart attacks in the past, all untreated, as he does not have health insurance. I don't think his long term prognosis is very good given this and he's probably (read: definitely) going to be forced into bankruptcy, but he's still alive, thanks primarily to the assistance provided by his co-worker.
I would imagine he'll need some sort of surgery, but I don't know any of those details. He's about 53 years old and not an ounce overweight, but smoking is bad for you, kids.
Wow. Sorry to hear/happy to hear this, and best wishes to him. A great plug for learning CPR.
I got recertified at the Red Cross this last year at CPR (last time was >20 years ago.
Much more emphasis on high quality and rapid chest compressions. They also included defibrillation training - Lol - I called the guard desk at work after the training to see where the portable AEDS are located and they said - You can't use those - if needed call us and we'll do it.
Ah, I don't think you mentioned the smoking thing last night. Yeah, quitting was the hardest and smartest thing I ever did. I always stress to smokers that are afraid to quit that it actually starts being easy after about two weeks, as far as the physical goes. The psychological addiction can last up to...well, when it's gone, I'll tell you...but that can be fought successfully.
Sad to hear that. Bad news on the physical and financial front.
My wife's co-worker's husband had a heart attack a couple years ago. Even with okay health insurance, it was a financial blow that set them back for a long time. He had another one a couple of months ago.
I've been fighting the excruciating wait for the season four finale of Breaking Bad by reading up on useless trivia from the show.
Oops! Good thing there wasn't a camera crew around or anything! Seriously, that's an impressive lack of attention by the John here.
You mean most shows aren't filmed like Candid Camera?
No, but if they were, at least you could eliminate nonsense like the image of the cameras being reflected in actors' sunglasses and whatnot...
Will Wilkinson responds to Steven Jobs (h/t to the Daily Dish):
so, in other words, it won't slow L.A. traffic at all.
ha!