59 thoughts on “September 19, 2012: Countdown”

    1. And facebook allows you to change your language from "English" to "English(Pirate)". Pretty awesome.

  1. My twitter feed tells me that The Jesus and Mary Chain show was pretty bad. Audio problems, a band not invested in the performance, etc. Probably not a big surprise. AMR, I think your neighbor/friend's band did get some good reviews. Sounds like Matthew Sweet was the show to see last night.

    1. Bummed to hear that. My SiL's Boyfriend's band. I hope that soon enough I'll learn that it'll be my BiL's band, but he sure is taking his sweet time.

  2. In reading about the World Baseball Classic qualifiers, I learned that Israel's star pitcher is Shlomo Lipetz. That's fantastic.

    I wonder if these qualifying games can be found anywhere...? I've always been way into the Classic for whatever reason.

    1. I loved it too. We were in Phoenix for Spring Training in either '05 or '06, right after one of them, and we couldn't find Team USA hats to save our lives. We looked all over the place.

  3. Wow, I was just offered a job. Of course, it's because the position has changed pretty significantly from when I initially applied and interviewed. Now to mull it over and hash it out for a few days...

      1. Having just survived a natural disaster of mild proportions my opinion is that stocking up on beer is always a good idea.

  4. 4LTR is ranking every player in the NBA. The top 150 would be starter quality (30 teams X 5). The T-Wolves have eight players in the top 150. That means they have eight starter quality players. I don't think that's ever been true before.

    1. I'm curious to see where Pek ranks on their list. I was looking at the Eye on Basketball Top 100 and thought Pek was conspicuous by his absence.

    2. I'd like to see a list from...2003-04? You know, Garnett/Cassell/Spree. That was probably their best year on such a list for a long time.

      I'm pretty anxious for this season. I expect to be unable to resist more CoC's about it in the coming weeks.

      1. They didn't have 8 real starter quality players that year, it was more the fact that they had #1 and Cassell played out of his mind. Hell, two of their main starters probably weren't top 150 (Hassell and Ervin "Not Magic" Johnson). Otherwise it was Hoiberg, half a year of Wally, Kandi Man, Gary Trent, Darrick Martin, Mark Madsen, Oliver Miller. Beyond the big three the team wasn't all that deep. Really makes you appreciate how good KG was.

        1. Oh, I know. I'm just remarking on the fact that the closest we've been to having eight quality players wasn't all that close. KG is still probably my favorite MN athlete ever.

        2. Hollinger on the KG of today:

          Meanwhile, his defense is elite -- nobody defends the pick-and-roll better. Only four players had a better Synergy rating, and his regularized adjusted plus-minus was better than all but five players. He was 12th in the league in defensive rebound rate, although he rarely contests the offensive boards anymore, and in the playoffs his presence was especially palpable. Boston gave up a 25.1 points per 100 possessions more when he was off the court, according to basketballvalue.com.

          Even at this advanced age, he's still one of the very best defenders in the league. I have no doubt that at his peak, he was the best player in the world.

    3. The rankings so far:

      Spoiler SelectShow
        1. I can live with that. He made unheard-of strides last year, so I can understand the list-makers being hesitant to ride the wave before he proves himself for another year.

          I think he will, though. He wasn't getting lucky out there, he was dominating.

            1. Can you imagine how excited we would have been at the beginning of last year to know that he would be rated 105 going into this year?

      1. I enjoyed that one. It was interesting to get some insight into the Kahn/Adelman/Taylor relationship from the principals themselves. I wouldn't mind a similarly revealing article on the Twins braintrust and their plans.
        - thanks free.

    4. Today I was thinking about how I am going to probably going to watch a lot of Suns games this season just to see SCB and Wes in different jerseys.

    1. The audio is a couple seconds ahead of the video on Chelsea-Juventus. Even more annoying than the scoreline.

    2. Ugh, Chelsea's going to make me root for Juventus today. The latest in a line of grievances.

      "Good. I can feel your anger. I am defenseless. Take your weapon. Strike me down with all of your hatred, and your journey towards the dark side will be complete."

  5. LOL.

    Sports Illustrated lists the top 100 sports twitterers and provides commentary for each. Under Jim Irsay, they list the following:

    The NFL owner drops philosophical gems such as, "Rulers make bad lovers..better put your kingdom, up for sale....."

    Jim, how did you ever think that one up??

  6. First come, first served:

    As the 2012 regular season comes to an end and the race to the Postseason heats up, we would like to take a moment and thank you for being such a loyal MLB.TV fan. We are offering a free pass to today's games on MLB.TV Premium that you can share with one of your friends. Please feel free to give the gift of live baseball on MLB.TV Premium to a friend that you think might like it. Your friend can watch today's out-of-market games for FREE on his or her favorite device. See full list of supported devices.

    Simply send the unique access code link to your friend by forwarding this e-mail. Your friend will have up to 12 hours of access to MLB.TV Premium ending after the last out of tonight’s games. Please note that this link will only work for one friend. If you are not interested in this offer, do nothing and we will not contact you about it again.

  7. I'll probably repost this in today's cup of coffee, but...
    Behold the 2013 WBC caps!
    I should get a Czech Republic one for CER.
    Though I would never sport a hat of the People's Republic, I still gotta say that the China cap is sharp.
    Other than that, love Mexico (which isn't new) and Israel. Think the US and Cuba have the lamest caps of real baseball countries (not gonna hold GB, Thailand, or Germany against them at this point: fledgling programs.)

    Update: Now reposted in today's cup of coffee. Please no replies here.

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