120 thoughts on “November 22, 2013: Winter Warmers”

  1. Early yesterday morning, I got an email from one of my clients (i.e. one of our engineers) informing me that the wife of one of our directors had died on Wednesday. I worked with this guy for 12 years. Apparently, he was on a day trip to one of our facilities and he came home to find her passed away. She was 52.

    Hug your loved ones.

          3. CH - That's what I was thinking too. In 1993, when I talked to my parents about their memory/experience of this day, it was one of the first times I really glimpsed American history in the context of the larger world.

      3. I believe this is actually the doodle for tomorrow, which is the actual 50th anniversary of Doctor Who. I don't get it today when I go to google, anyway.

                1. Or Australia for that matter. I toured Australia with a brass ensemble when I was in college and a girl "missed" her birthday when we crossed the International Dateline. I also had my birthday on the trip and I think another member did as well. I think we ended up having a party for all of us.

                  1. My brother had his 6th birthday in Australia. I tried to convince him that even though the calendar said the 28th there, it was still the 27th back in the States, so he wasn't 6 yet. Unfortunately, he was too young to get the concept. I'd love for that to happen to him now, we'd really get a good argument out of it.

  4. I see that Brian Sabean just signed 36-year-old LOOGY Javier Lopez to a 3-year, $13 million contract. Really? Parents, shove that ball in your toddler's left hand and strap his right arm down!

    as good as Lopez has been the last 4 seasons in SF, he's only been worth a cumulative 3.5 rWAR in that time. But I guess that $3.3 million/rWAR isn't a bad deal, since his outs tend to be relatively high-leverage ones?

    1. My junior high art teacher was a lovely man and a very skilled illustrator. He could freehand draw impressively straight lines with his right hand, which suffered a permanent tremble when he held a pen or pencil because his parents and teachers forced him to become right-handed. I always wondered what he might have become had he been allowed to use his natural hand.

      1. my parents made futile attempts to get me to switch to my right hand. I have crappy penmanship to this day.

      2. Handedness is so strange. Both my parents write left handed, but only my mom does anything else that way. I do everything right handed with the exception of shooting pool. I'm also left eye dominant, so its almost like something got wired funny in there. Strange.

        1. My brother is left-handed, but right-eye dominant. My dad figured it out when he was trying to teach him to shoot a rifle left-handed and my brother kept kinking his neck way over to try and get his right eye down far enough to line up the sights.

          1. I can do a few things left handed, and at one time my left-handed writing wasn't much more terrible than my right-handed. I think I might be left-eye dominant, at least from my pool and archery experience.

            There's a test that is supposed to tell which hand you favor. I don't know how factual it is. You are supposed to interlace your fingers however feels natural and see which thumb is on top. My hands feel "right" when my left hand is on top.

            I think for people of a certain age, growing up playing PC games with a mouse and WASD controls will help develop your left hand for righties.

            1. I just tried it and my left thumb was on top, yet my left hand is basically useless for almost everything.

            2. I never thought about my handedness, NBB's "trick" for determining eye dominance may be the one they taught me on the firing range:
              1. Hold both hands straight out, palms outward like you're gesturing for someone to "stop."
              2. Make a diamond with your thumbs and index fingers.
              3. Pick a target about 20 yards away and hold it in sight with both eyes.
              4. Place the target within the space formed by the fingers-thumbs triangle.
              5. Gradually draw the triangular space towards your face, keeping the target within the space.
              6. Whichever eye maintains the target (triangle is framing this eye) is your dominant eye.

              1. That is the trick I learned as well, also at the gun range.

                For the thumbs, I don't believe it. I used to default to right thumb over left. I didn't like the feel of it, so I forced myself to adapt to left over right.

                1. Mine goes left over right. Not sure this means anything, but I also cross my arms with the left over right.

                  1. As a followup, I heard the thumb thing from my mom and her mom. I make no claims to the validity of the diagnosis resulting from the test. It could just as easily be a load of crap as it could be true.

                    My thumbs are left on top, arms are right on top. I need to try the eye-triangle thing tomorrow when it's light out and I can find something 20 yds away.

                    1. Another way you can do it that you don't need 20 yards. Pick out something across the room (a light switch is good), hold out your arm straight and block your sight of the object (with both eyes open) with your thumb,like you're giving it a thumbs-up. Close one eye, then the other.

                      With the dominant eye open, you won't be able to see the object 'cause your thumb will be in line with the object. With your non-dominant eye open, you'll be looking right past your thumb.

          2. After my dad died, I got it into my head to get back into duck-hunting. We had done that when I was young and I had enjoyed it.

            So I bought a gun (Remington Wingmaster 870, a great pump shotgun), and started going to the Forest Lake gun-club to learn how to shoot.

            I signed up for lesson(s) with Otis. (there was only 1 lesson)

            Otis (with a trick) quickly learned what was my dominant eye (left), and that I shooted right.

            So, Otis placed a piece of scotch tape over my left lens, the idea being to force me to use my right.

            Me: Pull!

            Bang.

            Otis: You missed that!

            Me: Pull!

            Bang.

            Otis: You missed that!

            No advice on what I was doing right or wrong, ahead of the clay pigeon or behind it, Otis was history.

            Otis - you missed that.

        2. I'm left handed, but right eye dominant. I do everything left handed except golfing (though I putt left handed), I have a left-handed baseball swing, but there's a massive hitch in my left handed golf swing that I was never able to eradicate, so after golfing lefty for four years, I switched to righty.

    2. OGZ is a lefty. We'll have to see what the market is for fastpitch softball by the time she grows up...

          1. You can tell her handedness by 21 months!? Kernel is 27 months and doesn't appear to use one hand exclusively in her, ahem, compositions.

            1. yep. She always defaults to her left hand to stick the crayon in her mouth...

              Seriously, though, if we place a fork directly in front of her, she always grabs it with her left. If a fork or crayon is on her right side, she'll grab it with the right hand and transfer it to the left before using it. She'll also throw balls primarily with her left hand. It runs in my family, too, so it's not particularly surprising.

              1. I'll have to pay closer attention...and get some duct tape ready if it appears the right hand is getting too much favor.

            2. Heh, yeah, I still can't figure out what the trinket will be. Sometimes she throws with her left, sometimes her right, but she seems to favor the right hand when the walls need some crayon work.

      2. My whole family does everything right-handed except Trey, who does most things right-handed except swing a bat (or a golf club on the Wii). In Little League, he batted left, threw right and wore No. 7. I think that's a pretty good recipe for success. He did pitch, but it was right-handed.

    3. Taking the average of his last three years, 2.6 rWAR, that's 0.866.. wins a year. Assume $5 million/win and that's $4.33 million a year. $13 million over three years gets you.... $4.33 million a year.

        2. I'm amused that it lined up so perfectly. It's as if Sabean looked up last year's dollars per win on FanGraphs ($5 million/win) and averaged Lopez's last three years since that's the time frame projections use.

    4. Strapping the right arm down might be tricky for balance. If you only buy them a fielding glove for a lefty, that would probably be sufficient.

      1. If you focus exclusively on pitching, that would be pretty good. However, if they're going to be a position player, that would prevent them from playing anything other than outfield or first base, at least in high school and above.

  5. So the wife and I are thinking about picking upgrading our wii now that the PS4 and Xbox One are out (driving down the PS3 and 360 prices down). I remember that there has often been conversations regarding both systems at times, so I'm wondering what people's likes and dislikes are about each.

    1. I'd think coming into the generation late the PS3 would be the better way to go. Sony has been a bit better about supporting their consoles after new system launches than Microsoft, plus you can do all the streaming media stuff without a membership. Netflix, et al. is locked behind Xbox Live Gold on the 360.

      1. That's true about the Netflix, but he does already have the Wii so if he wanted to keep that connected, he could still run it off of there. (presuming he uses Netflix). That's what I do, anyway, although yeah, the "you can't use these services you already pay for unless you pay us" thing is stupid. I bet if Microsoft would change that policy for the 360, they could possible still make some money off of the thing by people like me and rpz who refuse to buy the latest and greatest (and expensive) right away.

        I have a 360, and I have been happy I got it over the PS3 if only for the controller. The lack of a good baseball game is a letdown, though.

        1. I loved my 360 but was a bit bummed by the lack of exclusive stuff later in its life. Mind you this is partially because I bought a new PC so I can play those games on my PC with a 360 controller. The Wii point about Netflix is a good one, though. I forgot about that.

          I wish I was good at refusing to buy the latest and greatest. There's a handful of games I want on the Xbox One and I know I'll cave and buy one before the spring. And I know I'll have a PS4 before The Show 14 comes out. I know I shouldn't but I will.

          1. Well, you suckers early adopters are who they are going after at this point.

            I will get one of the three (WiiU can go in there) eventually, but I need to wait until that price comes down and I know which one will have the best exclusives. Of course, I'm not concerned about a lack of exclusives later in their life because i wait until I can get a used copy of games for no more than $15. I'll probably end up with an Xbox again, to be honest. I've gotten them each time and I just love that controller so much because it fits in my hand like it was actually designed with a human hand in mind.

            1. I think it says a lot when a sucker like myself won't jump in at launch. I won't this time. Mind you, I've been burned consecutively by the 3DS, Vita, and Wii U launches. They're all in good shape now (and I'm about to duck out of work, pick up Mario 3D World, eat some dinner, and then play videogames all night), but had I waited I would've done much better for myself.

              I haven't got to use a PS4 controller yet but it looks so much better than the DualShock 3 which I hated intensely. I used the new Xbox controller last weekend in Winnipeg and I liked it a lot. It has a functional d-pad, holy shit.

            2. If you're wondering which will have the best exclusives, let me spoil that for you: PlayStation has had the best exclusives in every generation and I doubt that will change now, as no companies seem to be jumping ship.

              I did get a PS4 immediately, but I've been saving for it for a while (it was fairly easy; I really don't spend money on anything else).

              The controller is easily the most comfortable I've ever used. I didn't love the DualShock 3 either, but this one is awesome.

        2. What resolution does the Wii use for Netflix? I assumed it's the same crappy 480i/p that it uses for games. If so, then a Roku or related device makes way more sense for that sort of thing. Or a PS3, but the Roku is smaller and way quieter and more efficient.

          1. That's a good point, the Wii is not HD. For me, I don't particularly care enough about the resolution to buy anything else at the moment, but I can understand how some people would prefer to have something better.

            1. We have a connected blueray player that does super HD Netflix streaming so that's not a huge issue. Thanks for your input guys!

  6. Wah:

    Carmelo Anthony isn't getting the "superstar" calls from referees, New York Knicks coach Mike Woodson says.

    This just in: he's not a superstar.

      2. It worked in the house league I was in as a kid. Semifinals, facing the #1 undefeated team, up 3 with 10 seconds left. The league's star jacked up a 3 with 2 seconds left and I was about five feet from him. The ref (who was personal friends with that team's coach) called me for a foul.

        He made the first two free throws. Missed the third.

  8. The good news for today is that the biopsy results have come back negative, so I've got that going for me. Prosate thingy and all. That's the only thing I really don't enjoy about getting older, your body just doesn't want to keep up.

  11. Fist bumps for better health?

    The article also has a few nice bits about athletes:

    The mid-air hip bump is also popular in Major League Baseball, especially when a player is crossing the plate after a home run, but poses logistical challenges in many workplaces.

  12. The wife called - apparently, there is a chicken running around the backyard. We live in NE Minneapolis...

      1. We had some turkeys come visit us on campus a few years ago. Apparently people were sending requests to the facilities team to try to get rid of them. An email was sent out kindly asking us to stop requesting that the turkeys be removed because there was nothing that could be done.

      2. I haven't. I work out in Fridley near the rice creek bike path and there are a ton of wild turkeys around there though.

      3. Bootsy, I may have actually seen those turkeys. There was a rafter of them on the 35W median between the Johnson and Broadway bridges yesterday morning!

        We also have bunch in my neighborhood/yard, but it's to be expected there.

        1. I have seen them at least 5 times in the past year or two, always on Johnson between the Parkway and 26th. Big, surly looking things. Once, a half a dozen of them were walking right down the center stripe in the road--backing up traffic for blocks. The other times on the sidewalk, the funniest being when one stopped to peer into the used bookstore window and his/her two mates stopped walking long enough to look agitated before finally ambling over to see what the straggler was gawking at. I was bummed I didn't have my phone at the time so as to shoot some footage.

    2. There is someone who lives around the corner from me who raises chickens. When we first moved in, we thought we kept hearing a rooster around sunrise but it took a month or so to confirm. There's also a bunch of turkeys that I see big the Creek. A few weeks ago when all the apples were ripe on the tree in our backyard, I would see four or five

      'Spoiler' SelectShow

      raccoons hungrily chowing down - each bigger than our dog.

      2. I've seen a couple of wild turkeys running around the neighborhood. One was roosted in a tree, which startled me for I am but a simple city dweller.

        1. Years ago, I was out deer hunting in SE Minnesota and had a flock of turkeys launch out of a tree as I snuck by. Unbelievably noisy- I was sure the tree was falling over on me.

    3. I'm sure yickit remembers, but one time a deer broke through a plate glass door on campus and then couldn't find its way out of the building. It was also having trouble getting traction on the very slick floor. I think that was my freshman year, because we discussed the forces involved in a deer breaking glass in physics class.

    4. We have a pair of barred owls living in a big tree on our block, and a red-tailed hawk living somewhere nearby. I suspect birds of prey living in other parts of the city have dined on the occasional urban free-range chicken.

  13. I'm doing some temp work clearing out an old filing room. Honest to god names I've found on files so far:

    Jack Daniels
    Richard Nixon
    Jimmy Carter
    Cedric Daniels

      1. 24 career HRs. 5 against the Twins (5 against the Rangers too), 3 at Target Field. Thats what I remember.

  15. .
    .
    Important Announcement
    new Twins player autographed baseball card acquisition

    Miguel Sano*

    * *fistpump* YES! Have some "found" money from selling a card that I had won a few months back; if only Buxton's cards weren't ungodly high right now...

    1. That's only the second grossest thing I've heard of being fermented by yeast from the human body...

      1. That reminds me of Patton Oswalt's "Miracle of Childbirth" bit from Werewolves and Lollipops:

        We're science: we're all about coulda, not shoulda

    1. I believe what someone said about Brandon Roy last year (here or over at Canis Hoopus) might fit- some people just aren't meant to have knees.

        1. Well, I remembered the quote, even if I totally mis-attributed who might have said it and who it was about. .333 is great for a batting average!

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