62 thoughts on “December 23, 2013: Clippers Suck”

  1. It is currently -17 in beautiful downtown Gettysburg, with a high of -5 predicted. I'm quite sure that won't set a record or anything, but it is my considered opinion that it is definitely cold enough for me.

  2. Ricky Rubio is just killing the Wolves right now. He has to score. Zero points in that scoring orgy last night?

  3. Happy Festivus Everyone:

    Airing of Grievances:

    1. Top Jimmy you may have backed off the poultry jokes but your "analysis" is typically hackneyed, predictable, and wrong. Plus you have a thin skin. Please go away.

    2. Aaron Gleeman, your baseball analysis is usually top notch, but your ongoing discussions of brunch, drinking, and going out is boring and juvenile. My son's twitter feed is more mature than yours and he's a freshmen in college.

    3. Minnesota professional sports teams. Ugh (Lynx excepted).

    4. To the producer's of the Superman movie that came out this summer. What were you thinking? Superman doesn't have to be a science fiction story poorly done. There's plenty in the Superman canon to produce dozens of great, action-filled movies.

    5. Cancer you suck!

    1. 1. Birdfeeder-raiding squirrels

      2. People who boo Joe Mauer.

      3. Baseball card prospectors driving up the cost of Twins cards*. A pox on you!

      4. Government shutdowns due to a few well-meaning politicians

      5. No more Icebreakers at the UP Cafeteria.

      I think five is enough.

      *now that the Twins actually have hot prospects. That's some catch, that Catch-22.

      1. 1. Statfreak-ian Wolves fans of late. (seriously, I mentioned it the other day, but canishoopus is damn near unreadable these days. Inmates-asylum and all that.)
        2. Infant reflux.
        3. Changing a serpentine belt when its 5º outside and finding a stripped out tensioner bolt.
        4. Football culture.
        5. Dishonest people who get in over their heads when hiring a nanny, then blame everything on her and try to smear her name.

    2. Grievances from the last year:
      1. Miscarriage with some additional (but now eliminated) complications.
      BIG GAP
      2. The gritty Boston Red Sox.
      3. Any episode of The Bridge once FX decided it needed to have a serial killer tied to Marco Ruiz instead of an actual sociological look at crime in Juarez.
      4. Sheenie's friends who made me see the new Die Hard movie.
      5. Heidi's. I realized it closed, but I still want a special going-away "you suck" to the most pretentious, overpriced restaurant in the Twin Cities where you had the pleasure of paying $50+/person for a meal that left you starving.
      6. Family Court. I haven't even gone there yet, but I know it's going to suck.

      Festivus miracles:
      1. They finally fixed the light at Lyndale and 58th.
      2. Tilia and The Lynn are both consistently amazing.
      3. GW basketball has returned.
      4. No MS flare-ups(!)

        1. Yes, I saw. Sheenie and I are there at least once a month, and discussed snagging that.

            1. I won't go there out of spite. Cafe Twenty-Eight was my favorite restaurant before the landlord refused to extend its lease.

        2. I hadn't (to people on this site beyond Philo). Thanks. It happened extremely quickly and the complications have been more frustrating than the actual miscarriage.

      5. 'Bridge Spoiler' SelectShow

    3. 1. Crohn's disease.
      2. Paying for 18 months of COBRA insurance that costs more than our mortgage each month.
      3. Hospital bills not covered by insurance.
      4. Whoever convinced my sister to not file for a divorce from her abusive husband because pregnant & Catholic.
      5. The education system that's turning my students from thinkers into grade-obsessed standardized test takers.
      6. Leaving grad school. It wasn't supposed to end like this.
      7. The NSA, the President, Congress, and 95% of the media.
      8. My state's governor, his prospective challenger, and the legislature. Go away.
      GAP
      7. The 2013 Minnesota Twins - uffda.
      8. The Minnesota Twins' front office - if you keep relying on stats from the 1920s, I'm going to start referring to your roster construction as "artisanal."
      9. The NFL. Your sun is (hopefully) setting.
      10. Ford straight-six rear main seals that weren't designed to last more than 45 years. I miss driving my truck.

      1. 8. The Minnesota Twins' front office - if you keep relying on stats from the 1920s, I'm going to start referring to your roster construction as "artisanal."

        ftfy. And agreed.

    4. 1. Co-"workers" who are so addicted to their cell phones that they fail to notice you are in dire need of immediate, and sometime medical, assistance. Eff rg3.

      2. Threats of layoffs and firing of tenure track employees.

      3. Loosing friends way before their time.

      4. Trying to help friends who resist change.

      5. My softball team is full of well intentioned lovable losers. We haven't won a game in 2 seasons.

      6. Living in a town with no care for baseball. Also know as living in saints city, aka who dat nation.

      The miracles include having a job that pays well, asks little, and is so stable that I can probably bank on retiring there (also a grievance, but who's counting), and that we're both happy living in the same city (for the first time in 3 years). Lots of good things happened this year, which is also a good thing.

  4. Minnesota has lost its past 10 games that were decided by fewer than five points, including seven this season.

    If this was a winning streak under such circumstances, we would be waiting for the inevitable reversal of fortune.

    1. I believe the team is 1-8 in games with a point margin of +/- 3 points with 30 seconds or less in the game. They've played a very hard schedule to this point and I think they'll get hot at some point, but I worry how they'll hang with teams in the playoffs, if they even make it...

    1. I'd seen this referenced last night and I finally got a chance to see what its all about. Now that I have, I'm in.

    2. I don't know what I think of that. It seems like you have a good chance of a very bad team staying very bad for a very long time. Even with all the lottery picks the Wolves have had the past ten years, they still are just a borderline playoff team. I know that is partially due to the imbalance in the conference this year but can you imagine if they had only had top 10 picks half the time for the past 10 years?!

      On the other hand, I hate a team having an incentive to lose games so I'd probably be for the change.

      1. Yeah, Im not in favor is this particular proposal, but I am in favor of trying to curb tanking and thought this was interesting.

        I dont have any solutions, but I dislike the current lottery system (maybe my dislike comes from the Wolves seemingly being screwed every year except the year where its a weak draft class).

      2. It would make it a lot easier for college players to decide when to enter the draft.
        Which could keep screwed-over teams getting screwed-over repeatedly.

        1. I keep hearing this as the main argument against, but I feel like people are drastically underestimating the power of money. Add in the significant risk of injury and/or a bad year and I don't think it'll be very widespread.

          1. Given the way free agents already flock away from certain cities and towards certain other ones, I think NBA money doesn't work the same way that, say, MLB money works. I don't know anything about max offers and caps and the like, but... we're already seeing the effects, and I'm sure this will be an issue. I'm also pretty concerned with the idea that all drafts aren't created equal, and with the idea that if your team is awful, and then has a late-round and mid-round pick... ugh. You're gonna lose fans for a loooong time. This seems like it's going to keep the rich getting richer.

            1. But we're talking about 19 year old kids making a decision to either get millions now or maybe get millions next year. It doesn't have anything to do with how much, because they'll get the same amount as a #1 pick from Utah as they will from OKC and I can't see too many kids that age passing up the instant gratification if they are top 5 projected pick.

              As to the other points, the first year of it would almost certainly still be the lottery system to establish the wheel, so the top picks that year are still going to go to the crappy teams. The thing keeping also-rans in the NBA from becoming good is incompetence, not market. Or is Oklahoma City, Indiana, San Antonio, etc. suddenly a desireable place for athletes? It shouldn't take multiple lottery selections to become good unless you're stupid enough to trade down and take Shabazz Muhammed.

  6. Festivus airing of grievances:

    1. My bum shoulder. I have never had a shoulder problem until I went ice skating and broke my wrist. The left shoulder has been bothering me ever since. Probably rotator cuff, but it has improved, so I've been avoiding doctor.
    2. My back hasn't twinged me for at least a decade. Until this morning.
    3. My mother invited everyone home for Christmas. Except my family.
    4. My mother called this morning and said that since my brother wasn't going to stay over night, we were now invited. (Ugh.)
    5. In house clients that never seem to figure out that you should talk to the lawyer before you do something. Hello, I'm sitting right here! It's easier for me to help you avoid problems than it is to clean up messes!
    6. #playyousissies
    7. Ninety-five losses is the new normal.
    8. Miguel Sano's eventual Tommy John surgery.
    9. Ricky Rubio's inability to throw it in the ocean from the beach.
    10. The decision by our state government to green light a new stadium for the Wilfs.

    Festivus Miracles
    1. My daughter's ongoing development and overall fantasticness.
    2. The WGOM.
    3. Good health.
    4. A high overall level of happiness.
    5. A hailstorm that resulted in us getting new windows courtesy of our insurance company when we were seriously contemplating replacing them anyway.
    6. NDSU football (notwithstanding the problems with football and college athletics).
    7. The New York Knicks just completely disintegrating.
    8. The Yankees suck and appear to be continuing the sucking.
    9. Winning a $5000 cruise when 250,000 tickets were sold.
    10. Another year of life.

    1. I'm amused how you complain about various ailments above yet are thankful for good health. I'm more or less in the same boat, and I totally understand what you are saying. I too am thankful for good health.

    2. Probably rotator cuff, but it has improved, so I've been avoiding doctor.

      Isn't this what we've been complaining about around here for the past three or four years?

      1. Not me but others. Some days I have pretty good range of movement without pain. Other days raising my arm above my head sends me over the edge for about a minute.

  8. Cant send Colabello to Korea? Just send Mastroianni to Roch!

    Dustin Morse ‏@Twins_morsecode
    OFFICIAL: @Twins sign Mike Pelfrey & Kurt Suzuki. Darin Mastroianni outrighted to AAA. #MNTwins roster now at 40.

    1. Obviously was the right decision since Maestro made it through waivers. I doubt the IL MVP would have even with his age and independent league beginnings.

  9. We have sandbakkels!!

    I parlayed to Runner daughter some of my experience watching mom make them in the past, and they had pretty good thickness, plus none of them cracked when removed from the shells! Looking forward to tossing a dollop of ice cream in one tonight for dessert.

    1. My wife has decided that in our family they will be Sandbakken because they're not exactly the same. (No forms, rotation of nut bases, etc.)
      But she made some yesterday and they're almost all gone. I'll go have one now.

  10. I'll chip in with my grievances. Then is it JeffA we have to wrestle?
    1. Football, now that I've broken my bonds 100%, you can go die.
    2. (Related) What does it take for us to back out of the amethyst monolith? When I said "Go Vikings!", I figured the "and never come back!" was understood.
    3. New products. Because without them, we could have had the smoothest renewal season yet, but as it was all my hard prep work still resulted in as crazy a season as ever, and if we've sold anything new, it's trivial.

    4. Touches Political Hot Button SelectShow

    5. Twitter and facebook and whatever will surely join them soon. I wish I had an assistant that could help me pull kernels out of the chaff. Follow this person because want to know about their new releases, articles published, perhaps some good jokes or one-liners, not retweets from anyone who ever mentioned them or football or cable news travesty of the day where I have to google just to know what's going on. (Not a player or even a coach, but on "Duck Dynasty", good to know, I guess. At least my assumption that "Phil" was never used as a given boys' name in the 80's or 90's is still accurate.) Free's complaint about Gleeman applies.
    6. Kelly, for not indulging my excesses further. (I realize you have a life, but there's so much more whining I could have sent your way with just a few more "Keep telling yourself that"s.)

    Festivus Miracles
    1. The ease with which I dropped TV from my life, and the lack of desire I have to get it back.

    2. I'm pretty confident that everyone here could beat me in wrestling, including Sheenie and Pepper.

    1. Sorry, socal. That was stunning. Second week in a row my team took the lead at the end of the Monday night game. Crazy.

      1. You're not sorry. I'm more mad at my Eagles receiver who got all of 3 points when his team got 54. What's up with that? I'd probably be more mad at Bowman if I was actually at home keeping track instead of out looking at Christmas lights with the family. Congratulations, though.

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