53 thoughts on “November 8, 2012: Beatdown”

  1. Fall and winter baseball reports will be a little delayed this morning, but they are coming.

      1. btw, spoons, you will appreciate the link to that pic:

        But for every tagline that lives on thanks to its greatness, there's one that is destined to be remembered for all the wrong reasons. Taglines can misfire for a number of reasons. Some are just plain lazy. Step right up 2010 Clash of the Titans with "Titans will clash". We'd kind of figured. Or 2002's Ghost Ship: "Sea Evil." To be fair, the tagline here is about as good as the film, which is awful. Others are just plain inaccurate. The prize here goes to the 1977 Italian horror film Suspiria, which went with: "The only thing more terrifying than the last 12 minutes of this film are the first 92." You know what's really terrifying? The film is only 98 minutes long. Presumably someone got fired for that one.

        1. Ooh, I love this stuff (duh).

          Taglines are fascinating to me in their alternating brilliance and idiocy. One that sticks with me is the one for Gremlins 2 - "Here they grow again." For me, that didn't even register as wordplay immediately - it just looked like an oddly-formed sentence. Once I realized what they were going for, I think I found it even stupider.

          The best ones become so great, that young folks know about them sometimes without even knowing where they came from. "In space, no one can hear you scream." Mmhm. Nailed it.

        2. I also love the 104-minute, 98-minute thing going on there.

          I can see how it happened fairly easily - either the current cut when the tagline was written was cut further, or the quote leaves out six minutes of credits, which is probably more likely. Still, all put together, it comes off poorly.

  4. I was exhausted last night: I'd stayed up watching election returns and then had to get up at 3:30 to take my dad to the airport. I was down the basement watching the Wolves on TV when I could no longer stay awake. I woke up at the end of the game with the Wolves comfortably ahead. This club, even without the Spanish unicorn and Mr. Love is a good, deep team. With those two guys, they should make some noise.

  5. The BBWAA decided to announce finalists for its awards:

    Rookie of the Year
    American League: Yoenis Cespedes, Yu Darvish, Mike Trout
    National League: Todd Frazier, Bryce Harper, Wade Miley

    Manager of the Year
    American League: Bob Melvin, Buck Showalter, Robin Ventura
    National League: Dusty Baker, Bruce Bochy, Davey Johnson

    Cy Young Award
    American League: David Price, Justin Verlander, Jered Weaver
    National League: R.A. Dickey, Gio Gonzalez, Clayton Kershaw

    MVP
    American League: Adrian Beltre, Miguel Cabrera, Robinson Cano, Josh Hamilton, Mike Trout
    National League: Ryan Braun, Chase Headley, Andrew McCutchen, Yadier Molina, Buster Posey

    2. Interesting.

      This year's NL leader for pitching fWAR would have finished fourth last year. This year's AL leader would have finished third last year.

          1. This slow start could be the best thing ever in terms of making the Dwight Howard trade blow up in the Lakers' face. As nauseating as the comparison may be, Kobe/Howard reminds me a lot of Jeter/A-Rod. Howard's a more productive player at this point in his career, but he seems to be a bit sensitive and off in his own world. He's going to come to Kobe's Lakers and tell Kobe how to vent his frustrations in the media? That's pretty rich.

              1. Sure, but usually when you start a new job, you don't call out the big baby when he has a lot more seniority than you.

                2. No, that's true. I just find it amusing that Dwight, who pouted and moped the last two years, thinks Kobe is complaining too much. It's just too rich.

  8. A production company I used to be tangentially involved with just put out a teaser trailer for a movie they just wrapped shooting. "Teaser" is about right. It's 36 seconds, half of which is the names of the production houses involved, and the rest of which are banal shots of the lead female set to pulse-pounding music that doesn't fit the scene. The last single second suggests what the film might be about, as another unseen character offers a single line of high school-level dialogue, but the trailer is laughably ineffective.

    I hate not having any current involvement with a prodco, but I'm not disappointed that this one's in my rear view mirror.

    1. speaking of trailers, I may or may not know people involved with this:
      httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51tQgkUlrjs

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

      httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpLBFiIWY-c

  9. Mrs. Runner and I enjoyed a nice lunch together while doing errands over the noon break, but we both looked at each other with a weird expression when we noticed Bing Crosby singing "Silent Night" overhead. Yes, Christmas music. 😛

    1. If I noticed Bing Crosby singing "Silent Night" overhead, I think I'd have more than just a weird expression.

    1. I wonder if Christensen got tired of covering the Twins? Come to think of it, I recall he has a young child, so by covering the Gophers, he won't be out of town as often.

      2. Phil Miller was a Twins writer at the PiPress until he was bought out in 2009. So its not like they are bringing in a newbie.

  11. Josh Willingham won a Silver Slugger award.
    the last Twins OFer to win a SS was Kirby Puckett in 1994

          1. And Anthony John won this year's for catchers?

            319/416/446, .376 wOBA, 140 wRC+, 5.0 fWAR: Baby J
            278/326/501, .351 wOBA, 118 wRC+, 3.4 fWAR: AJ

            Granted, Joe only played 74 games at catcher this year.

    2. Drunk Nate Silver sends you at Text at 2:00am thats says "It's 9:32am." And thats when you read it.<a

  13. Got flights and rental car booked for the January vacation trip for the Runner family to the Florida Keys. Thinking about picking a hotel in Key Largo. Any Citizens been to the Keys and have any advice?*

    * 🙁 no, no Ft. Myers/Spring Training again next year

    1. I've been once, about ten years ago (Key West) on a junket. Had an...interesting time. The seminar dates happened to coincide with the timing of a significant gay pride parade event.

      sorry, but I don't remember too much. We had a very nice dinner at some fancy old mansion, spent some time at the beach, etc. Lots of Hemingway to be found.

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