Cup of Coffee

September 21, 2012: Surprises

64 Comments

My mom was at my house yesterday when I got home to celebrate Skim's birthday and hang out for a few days. Kudos to the Milkmaid, who's generally the worst secret-keeper alive.

64 thoughts on “September 21, 2012: Surprises”

  1. LoisLane is getting better at keeping secrets, but she's still known for saying, "I've got a surprise for you!" thereby ruining half of the surprise days in advance.

  3. Last night we held the first of what we are trying to promote as a monthly event called the Men of East Harriet (meh). East Harriet is the neighborhood where I live in Minneapolis. We thought since the ladies always got together in their book clubs and wine parties, the guys should be able to as well. It was a great success and we already have an October date set.

    14 of us showed up and the idea was to bring a six pack of beer to share and something to grill/eat. What I found fascinating is that every single one of us brought at least a 6er and all 14 brought some sort of "craft" beer. No Buds, Millers, Leinies, etc. In fact no imported beer either. Now of course we are all City-livin, white, educated, middle class men with ages between 35-50 so I get that's probably the craft beer sweet spot, but if I was a big brewer and saw the beer selection at that party knowing it came from 14 different dudes, I would be scared about the future of my business.

    2. This weekend my buddy is bringing over the Belgian Brown Ale we (read: he) made a couple of months ago. I'm looking forward to trying it out. Good beer = good.

      I am glad that MN is starting to develop a real beer culture. It has always felt like we were the uptight (no Sunday sales, early bar times) neighbor to Wisconsin, which is a shame.

        1. The funny thing about that is that it's the liquor stores that don't want Sunday sales in Minnesota. Because we don't sell in grocery stores there are lots of mom & pop liquor stores still and I guess they don't want to work on Sunday.

          Weird.

          2. It is a stupid law. No one would force them to stay open on Sunday.

            I still don't understand why it is legal for me to drink in a bar on Sunday but I can't buy a beer to bring home.

  4. My cousin just posted that she has an available ticket to Surlyfest. I'd expect it to go quickly...

  6. I'm in the sea of of unwashed humanity at the DMV in Metairie. Of all the cluster eff'ed dmvs I've been to (wny, Abq, west Texas) this one takes the cake.

    1. Sheenie and I had to get our marriage license in Metairie. Hole eee eeffing eff was that an experience.

      1. yeah, that about sums up my experience. Some random dude came in and started handing out a photocopied menu telling folks that they were giving a supper to raise money to get his sister out of the can. Classic.

  7. Today is a good day (other than possibly having to use my ak). I just got my e-ticket to return to Ireland. I'll be there for just over a month, and will have some time to travel a bit. Yeah, dispite the DMV, today is a good day.

    1. Not astral projections or anything, but I did get to see the Endeavor (on board a 747, with an escort) buzzing the Cali capitol a few minutes ago. Pretty cool. Sorry, no pics. I didn't have my phone ready.

      someone else's pic:

    2. also, that link of Twayn's is nothing if not the bloody freakin' eye of Sauron. I say we don't go poking that galaxy with a stick or nuthin'.

    2. I wonder if they will make this into a more straightforward rule in the future--you're not eligible to be the statistical champ in any category in the same season that you serve a PED suspension. It would at least partially stand to reason, since it's not like he started using PEDs the day he was caught.

      1. so, are they gonna make the Gigantes forfeit all the games he played in?

        I get the desire to not "reward" a player for getting caught using PEDs, but either he qualified for the batting title or he didn't. In other words, I agree with Calcaterra here.

  10. For the group's consideration:

    Batting fWAR:
    21.4 -- Twins
    12.9 -- Orioles

    Pitching fWAR:
    5.1 -- Twins
    14.4 -- Orioles

    Fielding fWAR:
    2.8 -- Twins
    -5.2 -- Orioles

    Total fWAR:
    29.3 -- Twins
    22.1 -- Orioles

    This is not to suggest that the Twins have somehow been slighted by luck, but rather that the Orioles are having a rather incomprehensible season. Even the '08 Twins, a team which I maintain had plenty of good luck, did a lot more on paper than the Orioles have done.

    1. They are 85-64. They have scored 653 runs and given up 663 runs. Their pythag win-loss according to B-R? 73-76.

      A 12 win difference is crazy. I wonder what the record difference is.

      1. One thing I don't like about the pythag is that starting pitchers have a big effect on the runs against. If your 5th starter has an ERA of 10 instead of 6, he still will only lose once per week. A little like the 1987 Twins.

        2. I think the reason pythag tends to work so well in general is that situations like that tend to be the exception rather than the rule.

          Really, the fact that starting pitchers can have such a big impact on the game makes just about all team winning metrics a bit fuzzy. Each team is more like a collection of 5-8 different teams rather than a single, well-defined team. That's probably a big reason why you don't see teams with an 80% or 20% winning percentage.

          1. Each team is more like a collection of 5-8 different teams rather than a single, well-defined team.

            That's a very interesting way of looking at it that I'd never really considered before. Hmm.

      2. Looking back through the last few years, here are some standouts:

        10 -- '09 Mariners
        12 -- '08 Angels
        11 -- '07 Diamondbacks
        11 -- '05 Diamondbacks
        12 -- '04 Yankees
        10 -- '97 Giants
        12 -- '84 Mets

        Those are all of the +10 or more differentials going back to 1980. It seems noteworthy that--barring some '12 O's regression, we'll have 6 of these outliers in the last 10 years and just 2 of those outliers in the 20 before it. Having just glanced at the standings for the last 30 years, pythag record seems to be a worse fit to the actual record from '01 to present than it was from '80 to '00.

          1. Probably more likely specialized bullpens. A team falls behind and they throw their long relievers out there and get hammered. Give them a tie or a lead and they bring in LOOGY's and ROOGY's, setup men and closers to dominate for a few innings. I believe the O's have one of the better bullpens and have won a really high percentage of one-run games and extra-inning games.

  12. Yeah. Called the potential employer. They're still in the decision-making process. I feel like it was good to express my continued interest in the position, though I don't think it'll make a difference one way or another. At least this time I spoke to someone a little more involved in the process and she was able to make me feel like I haven't been entirely forgotten about (not that that means anything as far as the outcome goes).

  13. My wife had an interview with Target today. It's just a cashier job, but she got an offer on the spot and took her drug test at the clinic before she left. Can you say employee discount? Yeah, baby!

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