28 thoughts on “April 19, 2014: Use a Pen, Sideshow Bob”

  1. Programming note: I'll be out of town and away from the intrawebs from Sunday afternoon until Wednesday night. The birthday posts should continue in my absence. If someone wants to pick up Minor Details while I'm gone, they are welcome to do so. Otherwise, we'll start getting caught up on stuff Thursday.

  2. Wild Playoff Watch:

    Tonight @ 8:30 Central, Game 2.

    The Wild have fallen behind 0-2 in 2 of their 6 playoff series in their history. Neither of those turned out well. So, I'm thinking Minnesota should try to win this one.

    1. Trying to win would certainly be a better strategy than trying lose like the other day.

  3. My wife took my car (which has a bike rack) to take her bike in to get adjusted. So I had her car, which I took to the club for a swim.

    Seeing that her car was precariously low on fuel (its usually that way), I took it to get some gas.

    I could not figure out how to open the gas lid. There is no flipper on the inside that I could see, and I tried pushing on the lid itself to see if it had some kind of spring device, to no avail.

    I called her cell phone, but she didn't answer. I also called her dealer, and he couldn't figure it out either. When we finally both got home, we figured it out. Any guesses?

    1. If I had to guess, I'd say either there was no latch mechanism so it was always open, or it was a button somewhere on the dash. Or in the trunk if I was going crazy.

      1. Also, the first time I ever encountered the spring latch was in a 2010 or so Malibu, so now I associate that with shitty rental fleet cars.

  4. Gardy gets it! re:Mauer's bunt

    “He’s a line-drive hitter anyway,” Gardenhire said. “That was good baseball. I don’t mind it a bit. I know Joe’s not a big home-run hitter anyway. He’s an on-base guy and an on-base percentage guy and a line-drive hitter. That’s another weapon that he can use. And if it’s leading off an inning to start a rally, that’s all good and fine. That’s what his job is: to get on base when he leads off.”

    1. It can also keep the third baseman honest the next time he is up, opening up the shortstop hole.

      1. I wonder how many bunt hits it will take for the defense to shift back to normal

  5. Sunderland beats Chelsea on the road. They have 21 of their 29 points, and 6 of their 7 wins, against teams currently in the top half of the table (11 on the road, 10 at home).

    The Cats managed to seriously damage the title hopes of both City and Chelsea in the span of 4 days while remaining bottom of the table. Kind of a ridiculous season.

    1. A 3-1 loss to Spurs, while not unexpected, damages Fulham's chances to stay up. Fulham have three matches left:

      v. Hull City (14th) [Lost 6-0 @ Hull]
      @ Stoke City (10th) [Won 1-0 @ home]
      v. Crystal Palace (11th) [Won 4-1 @ CP]

      They're currently 2 points behind Norwich, who are hosting Liverpool tomorrow, so theoretically the gap should stay at 2 points. Taking all six points from the two matches against Norwich may just be the thing that saves Fulham. Norwich has a terrible run-in: v. Liverpool, @ManU, @Chelsea, v. Arsenal.

      It's not (completely) insane to think/hope that over the next 3 games, Fulham can have a +3 point differential relative Norwich to leapfrog them. Before the Spurs game, Fulham beat Aston Villa (at the time 13th) and Norwich (at the time 17th). A draw and a win would be four points, replicating the previous results would be six points, and Norwich could very conceivably take 0/12 points over their last 4.

      At least this is what I tell myself.

      1. Norwich is in trouble. Liverpool/United/Chelsea/Arsenal to close out the season. The question is how many of Fulham/Cardiff/Sunderland pass them and whether any of those three can catch W. Brom.

        1. Crap, I didn't see Cardiff get a point today and went ahead of Fulham on GD. They have Sunderland, Newcastle, and Chelsea. We'll have to get at least one more point than then because there's no way to make up the goals.

  6. If you need a distraction from the Wild game behold this photo of Bortolo Colon "hitting."

    1. Sorry about the size. I guess there's a joke in there about that it's a small picture.

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