182 thoughts on “April 26, 2012: The Red Sox are Stupid”

  1. I now expect the BoSox to use the momentun from this series to turn their season around and make the playoffs and probably win the WS.
    (Although I still expect the Rangers to lose the WS to some inferior NL ballclub, so I have competing expectations.)

      1. But! They Royals are on a winning streak! (One Game so far, but that's an improvement over the prior twelve.)

  3. I haven't updated in a while.
    AMR's million-dollar magic number: 146.
    Equal for Toronto making the playoffs and the rest of the east being shut out of the wild cards by the ALC & ALW.

    1. Texas's division magic number is already 138. With 143 games to play and Oakland in second place, I think that makes them more of a lock than the BoSox and Braves last Sept 20th.

  4. Baseball is a cruel mistress. My Son, a Junior, is on the Holy Angels JV baseball team. He's always been a catcher but due to lack of arm strength, got moved to outfield this year. He's been raking at the plate, but unfortunately has had trouble in the field (surprise!). Earlier in the week was the epitome. He went 3-4 and scored to tie the game in the top of the 7th. Trouble is he Delmon'd a ball in the bottom of the 7th and they lost the game. Since then he's been DHing (they allow that in High School Ball). He's already questioning whether or not he wants to go out for Baseball his senior year as he's probably not starter material. I tell you it's tough when you've played a sport practically all your life and your kind of staring at the end of line of playing in an organized manner.

    It might be a good father knows best segment but since a lot of citizens have smaller kids, it's an interesting process watching your kids go through organized sports. When they are younger, everyone gets to play but as they get older the stratification between the better players occurs more and more. Finally they have to decide whether or not its worth playing anymore. Sometimes it's easy, other times painful.

    1. free, this would be a most excellent FKB subject. MAKE IT HAPPEN!!!

      It was an adjustment for me, coming to grips with the fact that the Boy was not going to be the jock that I was, then learning that he'd found his own things (both athletically and musically) and figuring out how to support him without being over-bearing. and again with the Girl, who is more of a jock than her brother, but absolutely refuses to accept any advice from the old man. I'm not good at keeping my mouth shut.

    2. I remember this happening to me in baseball. Similarly, in the junior year of high school. Over the previous few springs and summers I had been playing less and less (which was fine with me, I could tell others were more talented), but still enjoying the game and my friends on the team. For school ball, the coach had announced that due to the low turnout there wouldn't be any cuts, only to turn around a week later and tell me I was cut in a meeting in his classroom during school hours. I was kind of pissed because it seemed engineered to make it look like I just quit the team (I was the only one "cut"), but eventually decided it wasn't the worst thing to shave off one extracurricular.

      Cut to four years later, my brother (who was always one of the stars of any sports team he ever joined) quit the team halfway through the season after an on-field argument with the same coach. Turns out the coach was an insufferable jerk who ruined my brother's enjoyment of baseball. I felt bad for my brother, but glad that I had avoided the whole situation.

      1. Insufferable jerk coaches are what convinced me to quit high school sports (football and basketball. I quit baseball after 9th grade and was glad I did when I overheard the coach of the frickin JV team telling the players he was ranking them all based on ability.) I hurt my ankle pretty good in football and noted that I was having far more fun standing around watching practice and games (not that I wasn't just standing around watching games anyway) than I did when I was able to participate. Combine that with jackass coaches and football was easy. Basketball was slightly different in that the coaches weren't insufferable pricks, but incompetent morons. I would get chewed out in practice for things that the good players were doing as well. The last straw was when I was told before the first game that I was the only one who wouldn't dress in favor of a known malcontent who was always either late for practice or not there entirely, and mouthed off a whole bunch when he was there. He quit before the first game, so I ended up dressing all season, but that episode sealed the deal and made it easy to quit. High school sports are teh suck, you ask me.

        1. I actually enjoyed most of the high school sports I participated in. Hockey was a blast, I was reasonably good it, and we had a team that had played together since age 10. I still miss being able to play at all here in Kansas. Cross country was a ton of fun (mostly due to the people on the team, I was terrible) and it helped that the coach realized pretty quickly that I wasn't varsity material, so he stuck me on the JV team and was nothing but encouraging during races and practices.

          It was just that one week of baseball tryouts that weren't tryouts that made me realize there are things I'm not good at, and its OK to move on to other pursuits. So free's comment immediately brought that to mind.

    3. I started playing fastpitch softball when I stopped getting PT in baseball. I was actually kind of happy to move on. Granted, I moved on in 8th grade and it might have been harder a little bit later on, but it was nice to play in a league where no one expected their kids to go pro.

      1. I also stopped playing after 8th grade. I had old player skills at age 12 and by age 14 I was done. But boy howdy my last year I led my team in OBP, so that's something. I don't remember, but I'm guessing my batting line was something like 220/450/310

        1. I was also 0-3 on stolen bases because my coach only accounted for game situation, not my Incaviglian speed

    4. One of the advantages of living in a huge suburb was that there was plenty of baseball to go around for a long time, so I got to play through Babe Ruth (sophomore year of high school? That seems right...). The downside was that there was no way I could make the high school team.

      I had been pretty awful during most of my little league career, but something clicked in my last couple seasons and I was actually getting much better right about the time I ran out of places to play. The same thing happened to my brother, but he decided to walk-on in college (Morris, so not hard to do), and kept with it to the point that now he's a coach for Blaine's freshman team (his first year... we'll see if he ever moves up in coaching).

      I kind of wish I would have tried something like that. I just switched to softball. Also, I haven't played since I moved here. Anyone want to start a team in Mankato?

      1. A couple of years ago, my son was the star of his Babe Ruth team and single handedly won a couple of games for the team, including an epic extra inning 2-run double in a very tight, exciting game. The team decided not to enter the state playoffs because my son would be gone for most of them on vacation. The teams in the state finals were two teams that they had beat (including that epic game). That was definitely the baseball high point for him (and his parents). That's why this is so painful, he couldn't sustain that level in high school.

        I hope he discovers softball sometime.

  5. So, my brother became a grandfather on tuesday. I, of course, was already a great uncle.

    1. Heh. My brother became a grandfather a couple months ago, but it never occurred to me that I had become a great uncle. Of course, Junior is 10, so I'm a ways away from being a grandparent, at least I hope I am.

    3. "I don't think we believe we're trying that hard." Ha! If they believed they were trying hard, would that make their level of effort better?

    4. The truly stupid part is a bunt would have not changed the outcome, assuming the inning continued in the same way. After the first out, the batter reached on catcher's interference to load the bases, so it didn't matter if the runners were at 2nd & 3rd or 1st & 2nd.

    5. Albert Pujols is obviously cut from the same pansy flowered cloth as Mauer and that must just drive ii crazy.

          1. maybe J.A. Adande. He has a much bigger platform than Top Jimmy, despite no longer being with the LA Times.

            1. It should be noted that while Pujols falls flat on his face, ii is hitting .292/.361/.354 (.715) with, count 'em, zero HRs.

              1. Lots of schadenfreude in StL over Pujols. Folks still like him, but not his Pinocchio "it's not about the money" line, so seeing him struggle doesn't bother them one bit.

    6. After reading that who he's calling out, I'm on Torii's side. If he's reading, I'd ask him to tell his manager to suck it.

      1. The funny part is, most Angels fans I know don't like Scioscia because he bunts too much.

  7. File under thank goodness: The buyers agreed to our terms, but asked for our washer dryer, fridge, and gas grill. Seeing that they've offered full asking price without asking for cash at signing we gladly accepted their offer. At 2pm our house will be under contract after being on the market for 3 and half days. Holy balls. Selling the house was one of our biggest worries leading into the move to New Orleans, and now that we've take care of it I'm extremely relieved.

    6. Congrats. But gas grill?? I don't know whether to be offended that they would take away your manhood, or offended that you had a gas grill to begin with.

      1. You'll recall that the drought brought a burn ban, which included charcoal grills, to my neck of the woods. The thought of turning on the oven in our house during the heatwave of the century made us ill. We opted for the lesser of two evils and purchased the gas grill.

        The best part of this deal is that we weren't planning on moving any of these items to NO.

      2. I used to hate gas grills too, but with the kids around and general business of life, it's huge for me. I do most of the cooking, and the gas grill means that during the summer I can actually manage to grill 4 or 5 nights a week. I'd love to get a great charcoal grill for the times when things are a little slower and relaxed, but for daily use, the gas grill is awesome.

        1. with a charcoal chimney, coals are ready in about 20 minutes. which is prep time for the food anyway -- and a gas grill needs to pre-heat too. I agree that it is a wee bit more work, but the margin is small. IMO, the payoff is large in terms of flavor.

          /evangelism

            1. Actually, this brings up something else for me... how you get the charcoal started makes a huge difference in flavor for me. If any lighter fluid is used I can absolutely taste it, and I hate it. You've gotta have a starter.

              Also, Strat, you wanna play werewolf?

          2. I don't disagree that the flavor payoff is huge. Like I said, I'd love a good charcol grill for when I've got more time. But with multiple children in the 2-and-under division even a little bit of extra work is prohibitive. If my choices are "grill or not grill" I'll take "grill." Gas allows me to take that choice more often.

            Also, a lot of the time I can do the food prep the night before, or some other time, so there's not necessarily the overlap there.

          3. I fill the chimney, stuff some paper under it and light. Then, I go in the house to do prep and set the timer to 12 minutes. After 12 minutes, I dump the hot coals into the kettle, put the lid on and go in to get the object d'grill. Easy as pie. Never run out of propane halfway through.

        2. I'm totally with you on this one, Phil.

          I got a gas grill on clearance a few years back, and I'm really happy with it. I know I wouldn't grill if I had charcoal because of the time/effort to get it going.

          My dad, on the other hand, decided he couldn't live without the smokey flavor and got a Traeger which is working well for him.

    8. Congrats! With all of the troubles I've heard of selling these days, it's great to hear it worked out so well.

      1. The truth is that we didn't have an actual showing. The folks came over and fell in love with our house, and we gladly sold it to them. When everything is finalized this will probably have been the easiest commission our realtor ever made.

        1. I'm sure you're pleased as punch to help your realtor pick up a quick commission.
          Our realtor in Virginia made a pretty easy commission on the sale of our home out there. It was on the market for maybe a month. The first people who saw it (day after listing) were the eventual buyers. They knew the market was down a bit so they waited to see how things progressed. We had a few other showings (2 or 3) but nothing serious. In the end, we happily took the first offer which was slightly below asking price but well above what we'd paid.
          Nowhere near as easy as your sale. But, when compared to when we had our house in StP on the market last summer (tons of showings and nearly every one resulting in a 2nd showing but only 1 bad offer), Virgina was a breeze.

        2. Our first house sale was similar, but not sanctified by a realtor. A friend of our then-backside neighbor told him that she was very interested in our house. We had just expanded the family with The Girl and needed more Lebensraum anyway. Win-win, as we made a decent "profit" off the house (i.e., sold it for more than we paid, but the rate of return was actually pretty meager) and neither of us had to cut a realtor in on the transaction.

    14. And it's done. The inspection is scheduled for monday, and then we proceed from there. Holy cats, we've sold a house.

    15. Cool beans, meat!

      I weigh in with the charcoal crowd. Slow down helps get rid of teh suck from work stress.

  9. .
    .
    Dear WGOM:
    While in Omaha, I got a text that my wife had dropped her wedding ring into her recliner. She was unable to find it, as was my daughter. When I returned home, I (literally) turned the thing over in search for it, to no avail. I'm about ready to set to the chair with utility knife and torch. As it is, it pretty much form-fits my wife's butt and needs to go to the curb anyway. What do you suggest to do to find the missing ring?
    Signed,
    Destructo the Impatient

      1. Would have to use x-ray instead, right? The metal in the recliner would do bad things. On the plus side, it might make the ring blast out, making it easier to find. Assuming it stays in one piece.

        1. True. If he has access to any hobbits, I hear they have a knack for finding rings, too. (Sorry for being a smart-ass, RR, I would probably just start destroying the chair. Not that destruction is really the best options.)

          2. i was trying to formulate a LOTR joke, but i couldn't quite get there. yours will have to do.

    2. Have you removed the liner from the bottom of the chair? If not, that'll give you the satisfaction of destruction without ruining the chair completely.

    4. I think the correct answer is to get her a new, improved ring.

      [I'm not really one to talk. I accidentally threw my first wedding band into the ocean in SD, throwing a football left-handed. The sucker just went flying into the surf. Luckily, the Mrs was there when it happened, so I didn't get in too much trouble. Had to get a replica made....]

      1. I once lost my ring while sledding at my brother's house in 18 inches of snow. My sister in law was nice enough to rent a metal detector after the snow melted and found the ring a few months later. She had told us she would do this, so we had not got a replacement.

    5. Mrs. A once lost her wedding ring for five years. We searched everywhere. We finally found it in a small paper bag in the trunk of a car we were about to sell. She'd decided to look through the car "one last time" to make sure we hadn't left anything in it, and there was her ring.

      1. in a marginally related story on several levels, back in `03, i had an old AOL email account that i was going to close (this is back when you needed a subscription, which my family was ending). i had started a hotmail account, moved over all my contacts, etc etc. the day it was set to close, i was in a café that had a computer for public use with free internet (didn’t have internet at home, and this was before wi-fi was ubiquitous). so, i thought i’d check my email one last time to make sure no one else had sent me anything important.

        (quick aside: i had met peckish jane about a year before. while i became nuts about her pretty quick, she had a boyfriend, then she didn’t, then they got back together, blah blah blah. we eventually went our separate ways, and the only connection left between us was an email address of mine that i had given her)

        i had one email. an email from jane, and from there our story began again. if i hadn’t checked that email account “one last time”, life would have been veeeeeery different.

    6. Maybe she thought it fell into the chair, but it really fell to the floor and rolled underneath something nearby. [redacted, AMR already said this DOH]

    7. A little late to this particular party, but Philosofette once lost a ring in a softball glove. She didn't realize it had come off in the glove until after the game... we had walked the mile to the park (with her putting the glove on and taking it off the whole time), so it was either somewhere along that mile, in the field where we warmed up, or on the diamond. We never did find it, despite looking for several hours.

      1. I lost mine twice. I take it off during showers, and a very young Skim got a hold of it twice. Once she put it in the vacuum cleaner's edge accessory and we didn't think to ask her where it was until we felt we'd looked everywhere. The next time, we immediately thought to ask her, but she couldn't remember. A few days later, I went to use the last two eggs and almost threw away the carton before realizing my ring was in one of the spots.

        1. you take yours off every(ish) day? it's a massive struggle to get mine off. it slips on no problem, but hell to take off. there's a metaphor in there somewhere...

          1. Mine is somewhere in between you and spoons. Its neither super hard no super easy to get off, but I don't really ever remove it. And, now that I read his story, I think I will just leave it on.

          2. Between the time I sized the ring and started wearing it, I got hefty for the only time in my life. So, it was a nice reprieve to let my finger breathe while I showered. Then, when I lost all the weight and got even smaller than I was before the sizing, getting my finger wet started to make it slip off.

            1. Yeah, if I wear my ring in the shower, I'm convinced it's going to fall off. Lots of chemists don't wear theirs into lab, but I just make sure to wear gloves to keep it from any contamination.

              1. When I walk over a grate, I ball my left hand into a fist as if, for the first time in my life, the ring's just going to slip off my hand for absolutely no reason.

                1. Glad to hear I'm not the only one.
                  I take it off while before sitting on the toilet. I keep thinking I'll drop it in the foul'd bowl.
                  One time, in putting it back on, I almost dropped it into the flushing bowl. I still take it off, now I just wait a few seconds to put it back on.

                  I assume that this is what the change pocket in jeans is for, right?

  10. Cole DeVries has six strikeouts through three innings today in the first game of a doubleheader for Rochester.

    2. DeVries went 6 innings, 8 Ks, 2 BBs, 1 HR, 6 groundouts and 2 flyouts. Wings trailing 2-1 in the 7th, but have 1st & 3rd and no outs.

    3. Wings playing Twins baseball. Ray Change got picked off third base after the batter missed on a safety squeeze bunt attempt. However, Mastroiani hit a two-out, two-strike triple over the head of Mark Teahen to tie the game. Going to extras now.

      2. Jason Michael hit a two-out, three-run HR (following a walk to Bryce Harper with a man in scoring position) in the top of the eighth. Joe Benson hit a two-out, two-run HR (his first) in the bottom of the inning, but that was it for the Wings in a 5-4 loss.

  11. The Nationals apparently take a different approach to building a pitching staff than the Twins do.

    Still, notes Rizzo, his collection of power arms is one sign of a franchise on the upswing. "We used to have sinker, pitch-to-contact guys," he says. "That's who you get when you're not elite."

    1. No, you get power arms when you're not elite because you have such a high draft position.

      1. Which the Twins will, soon enough! Right now, they're sitting at drafting second/third, and if the Royals can put together a three-game winning streak, they'll be on pace for the first pick of 2013!

      2. No, you get power arms when you're not elite because you have such a high draft position.

        I thought we'd retired the Prior joak?? 🙂

  12. So... random things I've been thinking about the Twins lately:

    1. Does Danny Valencia ever come up to the plate with fewer then two strikes on him? This guy needs some attention, right? He looks like he doesn't have a plan when he goes to the plate.
    2. Is it better to try to convert Liriano to the bullpen or do the minor-league remake assignment (like Howard Sinker suggested)
    3. Why in the world are people booing Mauer? Seriously. Is this a Souhan-induced phenomena? Why is Souhan negative on Mauer? Is it because Mauer got national media attention, and suddenly Jim was out of his league? What motivates that guy?
    4. Every time I've seen him this year, Casilla has looked fairly good at the plate.
    5. Doumit seems to always swing over the ball. This might be a player who could benefit from some instruction by contact hitters, right?

    I know some of these get discussed here and there, but I've really been thinking about them a lot lately, and figured I'd throw 'em out for responses.

    1. As an aside, I made you an author so feel free to post about random thoughts about the Twins.

    2. I think what the Twins decide to do on Liriano is dependent upon how they view him. If they view him as just a trade chip for July (which is my guess), I don't know how much work they'll put into him at AAA since who knows how much value he'd gain by pitching down there. I guess my preference at this point would to sit him down, and show that they want to help him succeed, and they want him to be a part of their plans going forward. If they do this, sending him down to get right at AAA for a few months would probably be the best thing. They could call him up for the stretch run towards their division crown then!

      Greinke / Liriano / Gibson / Hendriks / Blackburn rotation 2013!

      Also, I assume people boo Mauer because they think gaudy RBI & HR totals are what makes an elite player, and don't realize that Mauer is one without those. They're idiots and it's their loss if they don't enjoy watching one of the best hitters of his era in their laundry in his prime.

    3. My dad is really down on Mauer. Really down.

      In other news, he just figured out that Metta World Peace and Ron Artest are the same person.

      1. I think it's more Barreiro than Souhan. I don't understand how any group of fans can worship Carew and boo Mauer. It's beyond stupid.

        1. I unfortunately heard him for 10 minutes on my drive home on Tuesday night, complaining about how he thinks Mauer takes the first pitch to "show off" and make people think he's a really good hitter. Raaaaah.

          He takes the first pitch because he is a good hitter.

        2. This might be. I never ever listen to Barreiro.

          What motivates these guys to pick on Mauer? That's what I don't get... I just don't see any profit in it for them. Mauer is clearly a great player, has a reasonable chance at being a hall of famer, will almost certainly be a Twins' hall of famer/retired jersey kind of guy, etc. And let's face it, he's got a decent chance of being a professional manager if he ever decides to go that way. What's the upside to trying to keep him down?

          1. With Barreiro (I assume) it's schtick - drivetime radio controversy. It's the beat guys that drive me nuts. I get that the sports page isn't exactly the same as the rest of the paper, but wow. I wonder what he did to them.

            1. He's a home town boy, the greatest multi-sport athlete the city has probably ever known. He's unfailingly polite. Guys like that have to be knocked down a peg.

              What was Barreiro's whole schtick? "Baby Jesus." Hey guys, he's not that great. If you think he's all that it's because you value him as being one of us. So, he just picked, picked, picked at Joe. He was winning batting titles (as a catcher!), but it wasn't good enough. So, every day, just run the kid down, until all the listeners believe it.

              If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth.

              Top Jimmy is just an ass clown.

              1. Exactly. And he has 10 times the platform to do it that Souhan does. Barreiro was a big proponent of [retired joak, but seriously]. Eventually that became an indefensible position, so it became "he's not that good" which also became an indefensible position, so it became he's lazy/overpaid/double-plus-unclutchy, etc. And Joe finally had an off year... and it stuck.

                FWIW, I think that the Twins and Joe both needed to handle last year better. Maybe he thought he was bulletproof, I don't know... but doesn't he pay someone to help him with his image?

              2. He's a home town boy, the greatest multi-sport athlete the city has probably ever known.

                Dave Winfield raised his eyebrows at this.

                1. Was Winfield national player of the year in two sports and an all-state guard in a third?

                  1. No, he was only all-state in two sports in h.s. as far as I know, although he was drafted by four different pro leagues in three sports.

                    But you got me on the National POY thing to be sure.

          2. I've gotta believe that a lot of these guys are really just idiots who actually believe the nonsense they're spewing.

      2. solution: have Joe change his name. Added bonus: MLB could probably sell a ton of jerseys with his new name.

      3. I think the casual fan still loves Mauer. And I think the intelligent fan still loves Mauer. It's just this middle ground - like my dad too - who aren't casual enough or knowledgeable enough, and pick up snippets from sports opinion people.

        You know, given how bad the MN sports scene is right now, I'm tempted to believe it's all a self-fulfilling prophecy. Probably a hard theory to make workable, but I feel negativity just feeds on itself.

    4. As was noted recently, it's hard to change people's negative opinion of someone once it's established. I have noted, though, that this year the Twins themselves seem to be trying hard to promote Mauer again, rather than blaming him for their problems. I wonder if the return of Terry Ryan has anything to do with that.

      1. I don't know, but the Twins handling of the Mauer situation last year was worse than the team's performance on the field. They're reaping the "benefit" of that now. Pretty much any time he makes an out, he gets booed.

        It doesn't help that there is a large segment of the fan base that are idiots, but the Twins brought this on themselves.

        1. Yeah, seriously, they booted that. It kills me that their corrections got widely ignored by the local talking heads too. The actual reporters seem to understand that the team made mistakes, but the opinion guys are just ignoring the relevant facts.

          1. I still think there's a lot of local reporters who place some percentage of the blame on Mauer for not coming out and doing damage control himself. I'm of the opinion that he shouldn't have to come out and explain himself for being injured.

            1. Right. Because contradicting your team's position in the media is always a way to fix things.

                2. He rips joe, joe refuses to talk to him, and he can say that joe refuses him access. It's a perfect circle.

  14. Joe Senser should have sprung for a GPS.

    Also, do you think the prosecutor knows about some extra-marital dalliances?

    Russell also asked Senser about testifying Wednesday that his wife had not lied to him in their 22 years of marriage.

    "Not about having affairs with other men?" she asked.

    Senser testified that he'd never asked her about affairs.

    "Did you catch her in inapprorpriate [sic] relationships with other men?" she asked.

    "No."

    That seems to be an odd line of questioning, unless they have something on her.

    1. whether they have anything on her vis-a-vis affairs, what's the relevance? Why did the defense attorney not protest that question? This is a hit-and-run trial, not a divorce trial.

      1. The relevance, I think, is that Senser is saying that she's not a liar and if she told me that she didn't know she hit this guy, then I have no reason in the world not to believe her. If it turns out that she lied to him about extra-marital affairs, that kind of shoots a big hole in his testimony.

        2. To follow up on the Bossman, the relevance would be to impeach Joe Senser's testimony by showing a contradictory specific instance of prior conduct. Minn. R. Evid. 608(b).

          If the State can prove that he was lying about claiming to not know of any affairs, then it can cast doubt on all of his testimony.

          1. And it sounds like she just wanders off "unplanned". Gotta go pick up the kids? Sorry, I'm off doing something else. You go get them Joe.

            I think she's really, really guilty.* I think she knew she hit that dude. I think Joe is fighting to save everything he has and he has to lie for his wife to do it. It will be interesting to see if the jury can get to that result.

            *This is just my opinion. I am ignorant of most of the facts in this case.

            1. I've never understood how a person who has lived more than a week in the Twin Cities and is lost trying to reach Xcel ends up at Riverside going west.

              1. My wife gets lost all the time. All. The. Time. She once got lost driving to Winona*. Went down US 52 and blew right through Rochester. Had no idea where she was, had to call me and figure out how to get her back on the right road.

                *My wife grew up in Winona.

                I bought her a GPS against her wishes. Now, she never gets lost. So, I find it believable that she could get lost and ended up going the wrong way. What I don't find believable is that she just decides, on the spur of the moment to go wandering off. Not buying that.

                1. Lucy and Mrs. A could be sisters in that respect. The hardest thing for Mrs. A when we lived in North Sioux City was navigation. She never did learn her way around there. Now, we live in a place where, if you drive more than a mile in one direction, you're out of town. It makes getting around a lot easier for her.

                  1. The GPS has been a godsend. She would get lost, get upset, and Miss SBG would get frightened. Then, I would get a frantic phone call with a crying kid in the background.

                    My wife thought that she wouldn't be able to figure it out. I wrote down the addresses to several places around town and had her punch them in one at a time. Then, I told her to deliberately disobey the GPS and she saw how it recalculated. The last address was for a pizza place. We went out to eat. Once she realized that using it was easy, she gained a lot of confidence and now she loves it.

                    1. I need to try something like that with my wife. She managed to get lost with the GPS the last time she used one. That was one angry phone call she made to me.

            2. She's toast. There is just too much evidence that suggests she knew she hit a guy and then tried to cover it up.

        3. The way that Senser answered the question as "I never asked her about affairs" is very interesting. It's so precise and makes it so the prosecutor can't press further tells me the defense was prepared for this question, which hints that she did have an affair at some time. (for example He didn't answer What?! Of course not, she's never had an affair)

          1. Oh, I know. He was either prepared for that or he thought up a very good answer on the spot. Then again, I have never asked my wife about whether she's having an affair, either.

  16. Last night, Sheenie and I officially reached the "Just One More Episode of Battlestar Gallactica" level. Season 3 is fantastic!

    2. I just got to the point where season four had a hiatus between halves.

      I've been at the "just one more episode" point for a long time, but I've been decent at stringing them out so I'm not done too quickly.

  17. Heath Bell just threw 46 pitches in 2/3 of an inning to take the loss (and blown save). That's what 4 walks and a single will do for you.

    1. What a bizarre format to display the results. Obviously it's too difficult for us to comprehend written names, we have to see mugshots in order to figure out the votes. The sixth man page is a bit creepy that way.

      1. Did you notice the byline underneath the pick that was different than everyone else?

  21. there was a pretty good chance I was not going to watch a lot of the Twins game tonight if they had a game. Community is a Law and Order spoof, live episode of 30 Rock and new Parks and Rec.

    1. Tonight, my wife and I are lamenting the fact that we have children. We'll catch 'em on demand later, but we really wanted to watch tonight.

  22. At least while the Twins are sucking, the Tigers just got swept at home by the Mariners. Don't look now, but the White Sox are in first place, but only at 10-8.

        1. Inge has catching experience. So, we get infield depth, catcher depth, and grittiness not seen since Punto!!!!!!one!

  23. The Vikings have traded down!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! One spot!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! For three more late round picks that probably won't make the team!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    2. My theory is the Vikings traded down so they'd have more time and wouldn't go past the time limit for making their pick. Not that any organization would ever be so stupid as to do that, of course.

  24. Offensive Tackle! Awesome! Saved money on the slot! Got three more picks! This Vikings team is STEAMROLLING to the Super Bowl.

    2. Wait, the draft is tonight? Seriously? I had no idea. Being an NFL widower is awesome.

Comments are closed.