Cup of Coffee

March 15, 2012: Beware, Caesar

148 Comments

I actually got some good news the day before the Ides of March, as the director for The Apocrypha called and said things were very, very close; distribution is guaranteed and a five-year(!!!) deal has been okayed. A second group has stepped in to pay for it if the first can't. He thinks we'll be shooting in May. As always, I'm gonna say this won't happen, but we sure are close.

148 thoughts on “March 15, 2012: Beware, Caesar”

  3. This morning I went to activate my mlb.tv account for the 2012 season. Knowing I had to replace my card within the last 12 months I assumed, even if I had set up for my renewal to automatically debit my account, that it couldn't debit my new card (same bank). Turns out I was wrong. I even went to my mlb account and saw that it did have payment information saved from my previous card. So, here is my question, on National Ask A Question Day, who violated my privacy, my bank or mlb.com?

        1. i think everyone is automatically auto-renewed. i knew it would auto-renew from past experience, and we can't (and by we, i mean the wife) quite justify the fees for mlb.tv, so i knew i needed to call and cancel the auto-renew. turns out they'd charged us weeks ago, and it slipped through our budgeting without us noticing. so, when i canceled, they said, "okay, we went ahead and canceled, and you should be receiving the refund in x business days."

          had i not been an idiot, i totally could have slipped that one past the wife.

    2. Last year I forgot about my Gameday Audio auto-renew. I had also forgotten that I originally used my bank debit card to sign up a few years back. The charge last year was only $19.99, but it hit on a Thursday before payday when we had budgeted available funds down to pretty much the last dollar. So the auto-renew forced an overdraft, and Gameday Audio ended up costing me $50 instead of $20. After that I changed from the debit card to a credit card to avoid a repeat.

    3. Having just entirely rewritten the Harvest billing logic, I've learned that expired cards can still be charged. It's possible, though I think it varies by bank. So if the number didn't change, but just the expiration date, I think it's more possible. It wouldn't surprised me if the card was renewed card, even with a number change, it could still be charged successfully. I'm sure this "feature" expires at some point, but it varies by bank I would guess. Basically, we (well, our third-party processor) always try to charge the card on file. If it works, it works. If it don't, we flip the customer to delinquent.

  4. Just a reminder to members of the WGOM fantasy league, keepers are due by tomorrow. And rob, if you are out there, are we going to be able to move the draft to Sunday?

    3. I was hoping to be able to join up, but this week is too crazy for me to give this any attention. So I'm out. Sorry.

      1. Just the keeper selection is this week. The draft is still scheduled for next week, March 24, but may be moved to the 25th. I think being busy shouldn't stop you from participating if you want. I don't remember who auto-drafted last year, but a few did. After the first several rounds, there probably isn't much difference.

        1. In that case, does someone want to designate one of the open teams for me and pick a couple of keepers? And do a good job of it? I can take over after this week.

          1. I think it might be easier than that. Last year we had 19 teams and this year it's looking like much fewer, possibly under 14. I'm not sure what's been decided, but due to how keeper selection works*, it seems reasonable that those extra teams would be contracted and the new teams with no keepers can draft normally.

            * When designating a keeper, your forfeit a pick in the round that player was picked. This means that only players that were drafted and kept all year (trades are allowed) can be kept.

        2. I never like missing drafts because those are almost always, by far, the most fun part of any fantasy sport for me (other than maybe winning the football league every season).

            1. Especially with the added drama of whether spooky will draft ever single Yankee player available again.

  5. Another box checked: Today I complete my last session of provisional elder's training, one of the last remaining requirements for my ordination. Two boxes to go: I have to attend an ordinands' retreat with the bishop in May, and I have to be formally approved by a vote of all Dakotas Conference clergy at annual conference in June. Assuming everything goes well (and I have no reason to think it won't), I will then be ordained at annual conference on Friday, June 8 in Sioux Falls.

    3. Congrats and good luck with the remainder of the process. I hope the 'retreat' in there means 'time for relaxation'.

      1. I have no idea what goes on there. I just know I have to show up.

        The number of times I have to be out of the parish this spring annoys me. I had probationary elder's training this week. I have conference finance committtee meetings next week. I have to be gone in April for School of Ministry. In May it's the ordinands' retreat. In June it's annual conference.

        It's not that any of the things are bad things. It's just that I don't like being away from my people that much. It's sort of like the old joke: yes, they can get along without me, I just don't want them to know that.

  6. I'm in the corporate offices this week. Found out last night that this dude that works here has a brother.

    Okay, that's not a big deal, but his brother is a Michigan man. So far, this guy in our office has not called a time out, which is good because we don't have any left.

          1. I think you mean so you have trouble remembering last week.

            In the last few weeks, I've had a seemingly aggressive (it was probably more gradual than all that, but I just started noticing it) graying on the sides. My face is too young for this, dammit.

          1. They were terrific. As it turns out, the two greatest players on that team are also pretty smart guys, each having carved out successful post-NBA careers.

            1. Rose has definitely surprised me postcareer.

              The 30 for 30 on the Fab Five was great. The controversy over Rose's statements about Duke and Grant Hill were overblown and taken out of context. But I did love Hill's response.

            2. for a second there, I thought you were talking about Juwan Howard. But that dude is like Rasputin. It will take a lot to finally kill his NBA career.

              also, I loved this passage from his Repository bio, about the 1992 championship game:

              Howard was part of a rotation with Webber and Riley that guarded the National Player of the Year, Christian Laettner.[3] During Laettner's first six possessions against Howard, Laettner dribbled the basketball off his foot, missed a shot, threw a turnover, traveled, threw the ball away and hit the backboard with a shot.

          1. No wait, you read into it exactly correctly. Dude's brother made $178,000,000 playing in the NBA.

  7. The fight over UND's logo goes big time. Makes an appearance on NPR's Morning Edition. This could lead to all sorts of questions.

  8. Oh wait. Today is March 15th, which means I don't have my column done. It's been a hectic week, but I promise to deliver a column soon. Sorry.

  9. Question for the lawyer folks -

    What is the name of the contracts theory that says when party A interferes with party B's ability to perform the contract that party B is excused from so doing?

    1. Is the contract between parties A and B, or is the contract between party B and party C?

      If the latter, it's tortious interference.

          1. Hmm... I'm not entirely convinced that's it. The first two cases cited there appear to indicate that A is preventing A's performance, not B's performance.
            The third case looks good. I'm going to look into that a little more.

            The nearest I've gotten is "unclean hands," but that tends to excuse only equitable remedies.

            If you've got any other suggestions, I'd appreciate 'em!

          2. Ok, the more I look at it, I'm going to plead 3 theories in the alternative:
            1. Prevention doctrine
            2. Unclean hands
            3. Breach of Contract excusing performance.

            Thanks for your help Will. If you get a chance to discuss it with others today and come up with more, I'd appreciate it. You law students are in the right kind of place to be digging into these kinds of theory questions. I miss that stuff.

              1. Almost certainly.

                I deal with leases every day, so there are probably a couple of specific contract theories that I'd have an edge on, but generally speaking, yeah... It takes a lot of work form to dig up these theories (Also, we don't have a Restatement of Contracts in our office. That doesn't seem right.)

                Contracts was first semester 1L year for me. 9 years ago. I've gotten old.

    2. And after a morning of running around on this theory, we've decided to just go with "promissory estoppel" and a different approach.

  10. For some reason, I got an email in my box that appears to have been intended for the Boss. Here are its primary contents.

          2. They also used to have Jim Kaat do color, so the Twins at one point could claim to have the three modern-day pitchers with the most wins that weren't in the Hall of Fame do announcing for them.

    3. In 2010, the Twins had their five starters make 26 or more starts. I feel like that has been mostly overlooked. It's pretty uncommon for teams to get its top five pitchers that many starts. Last year only 102 pitchers made 26 or more starts--an average of 3.4 pitchers per team.

      In the modern game at least, a good team ought to have at least 6 or 7 decent options for the rotation. Maybe they'll get lucky and not need the depth, but that's the exception rather than the rule.

  15. The thing that blew my mind most about this video wasn't the double airball, but the fact McGrady is still in the league.

    httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQ9kJfRDeAk

    1. wow. and they traded away Gerald Wallace, who was either their best or second-best player.

      Also, Hasheem Thabeet sucks. It bears repeating.

  17. Last night I saw the Kent Hrbek commercial for the "fish tacos" at Taco Johns. The fish is actually a fish patty stuck in a tortilla? Not that I was ever interested in getting a fish taco at Taco Johns, but even if I had that thought deep down in my basal ganglia that thought was quickly snuffed out by that commercial. Oh Herbie's weight didn't help matters either.

    3. When the alledged victim admits she lied to police, its kind of hard to get a conviction. Not impossible, but still very difficult.

      1. Yeah, that really makes it tough for the jury. From what I hear, they had enough physical evidence to get a misdemeanor conviction without her testifying at all, but they decided to press for a felony charge that required her to testify. And since she had admitted to changing her story, having her on the stand muddled everything. Ugh. Victims lying to protect their abusers is incredibly depressing.

        1. Victims lying to protect their abusers is incredibly depressing.

          Yeah, this is pretty much the saddest thing.

  19. Marquette in the last 15 minutes has been more exciting than anything I saw in the tournament last year. I'm actually having fun watching them.

    Meanwhile, the best thing I've seen from BYU is probably the third cheerleader from the left.

      1. wow. Two different states that start with "Miss" from which racist commentary has arisen!

        1. Not to mention a certain state that starts with an "A" and ends with "Rizona".

          But I'm probably trodding on Forbidden Subject ground....

          1. What's scary is that I'm growing immune to it. White customers will occasionally just launch into a diatribe, clearly figuring that I as a white person obviously must think that...

            ...yep, forbidden.

      1. I wondered if I'd be left hanging there. I actually worried I used the wrong character, as my ST knowledge is all based on being in the room while other people watched it during first run.

      1. Everything about Syracuse's season disgusts me. It's clear they're the Penn State of basketball (I'm not necessarily talking about sexual assaults, although that has come up) in terms of running their stretch of the backwoods out east and being allowed to do whatever they want with no consequences.

        1. The Price Is Right is on in the afternoon? What sort of crazy place do you live?

  27. OMG - here is the action from the 10-run top of the first - Pirates (17) vs. Minn (6):

    1) A.P. doubles on a line drive to D. S.
    2) J. T. walks
    3) A.M. doubles on a line drive to T. P.
    4) G. J. called out on strikes
    5) C. M. singles on a line drive to W. R.
    C. M. caught stealing (J.M to Lad)
    6) Y. M. singles on a ground ball to D. S.
    7) M. H. singles on a line drive to T. P.
    8 ) J. H. singles on a line drive to D. S.
    9) E. F. hit by pitch
    10) A.P. singles to 1B
    (Sleestak replaces Doyle)
    11) J. T. hits a ground rule double to right
    12) A. M. walks
    13) G. J. singles on a line drive to D. S.
    14) C. M. doubles on a line drive to T. P.
    15) Y.N. flies out

    2. You forgot to mention the giant roar from the Twins fans when they finally got the third out of the inning.

  28. once again, FSN showing us that you can 'catch all the action all season long' by not showing the game tonight.

          1. that, and they pretty much gave it away with :00.7 at the end of the 2nd (i still have no idea how he missed that).

    1. I nailed the 12. WOOOOOOOO

      I nailed the 11, too, in my other league. I made that one single difference in the brackets to have two attempts at a million dollar bracket. Yes, really.

  30. from Jerry Zgoda:

    The NCAA tournament started Thursday, but Wolves center Nikola Pekovic didn't fill out no stinking bracket. "We don't have that," said Pekovic, who's from Montenegro. "Our universities are only about educating."

    2. Not really related, but whenever I read Pek!'s first name, I hear the guy from the throat lozenge commercial going, "NIIIII-co-LAAAA."

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