45 thoughts on “December 30, 2014: Email Zero is a Myth”

  1. I'm cleaning out some things at work and came across this nice little Hank Aaron quote from 1966:

    I hit a little pop fly down the first-base line against the Phillies. [Bob] Uecker, Larry Jackson, and Harvey Kuenn all converged on it, and as I ran by, I screamed, "I got it!" I guess they figured it was one of them screaming, and all three of them backed off. It was one of my better singles.

    1. Didn't A-Rod do something like that once and get all kinds of grief for violating one of baseball's unwritten rules?

      1. Yes, but there was no video replay in the clubhouse back in Hank's day. I think a lot of the "unwritten rules" nowadays gets brought up because of that, talk radio and TV highlights.

        1. True, but the unwritten rules also depend on who you are sometimes. Hank Aaron could do that and not get criticized because he was Hank Aaron. A-Rod does it and gets all kinds of grief for it because he's A-Rod.

  2. As far as family drama goes, this is a minor complaint. But it does bother me a little that I am taking my son and nephew to the new Night at the Museum movie and my bro-in-law has decided to go to Unbroken. The nephew is his son.

    1. This is "Hey, while you have the kids at the theater, I'm just going off by myself to see a better flick?"
      Minor complaint approved.

        1. This is largely immaterial to the complaint.

          (Wasn't someone here saying that Unbroken is ending up not that good in large part because it can't capture just how incredible the guy [and book] was? Or did my little brother tell me that?)

          1. I wasn't responding to the complaint...I thought that was clear enough. I'm down with the complaint.

            I'm sure someone here or elsewhere is complaining about the movie not matching the book because it's an easy and lazy complaint, but I didn't get the numbers from sources who would care about comparing it to the book. A professional reviewer will typically stay out of that pointless battle.

    2. Next time, he takes both boys and you go to a movie of your choosing!

      This reminds me of my own circumstances over Christmas. When my sister-in-law's son was young, I spent many hours playing with him and looking after him so that she could relax and spend time with other family members. Now that I have young kids of my own, does she return the favor? No. Mind you, I enjoyed the time I spent with her son, it's just that I thought there would be some reciprocity there. At least the son, now age 11, is happy to play with the jalapeno.

      1. As the first to have kids in the family, we're very aware of this situation. My wife left me at home with the kids for a full weekend in the fall to dog-sit. (I'm allergic, can't have the dog at our house.)
        We'll be sitting for their new baby as soon as they're willing to part from him. But our youngest isn't yet 3yo, so we can't go at a drop of a hat.
        (That's what my wife's littlest sister is for!)

        1. Things are pretty even on my side. Things are weird on my wife's side. When we go to StL, the local sister drops her kids off at Grandma's (where we stay) and runs errands. The sister that lives a couple hours away, drops the kids off for the weekend then drives home. In other words, around half my vacation time every year is spent driving or babysitting. This causes no marital stress whatsoever.

      2. We were the first to have kids in my wife's family (among her siblings, obviously). Never got much babysitting out of her siblings, but the Boy has done more than his share with the younger cousins. The cousin boys see him as a punching bag.

        1. We are also the first and I see similar things happening with my wife's side. Its going to drive me insane, but at least it won't be for a few years. We live much too far away for any of my brother's to do anything like that, not that they would anyway.

    1. My favorite was how it started out by stealing one of it's own highly used tropes (don't look at that monster!), but then turned it into a dance number.

  3. Bumgarner wins AP Male Athlete of the Year after finishing 4th in his own league at his own position (Cy Young voting). Apparently, all that matters is the 7 games he played in, in October. That's like giving a football player the award for being great in three quarters of the Super Bowl.

    1. But in the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl he twice ran every play, scoring two touchdowns on long drives. Then on the third drive he returns a short punt to put the game away.

      1. Yes, there's an award for that called the Super Bowl MVP. Also, in baseball, there's this thing called the World Series MVP. It rewards people for doing spectacular things in the World Series. For the year in baseball, however, Bumgarner was considered only the fourth best at his position in his half of his sport and yet the AP considered Bumgarner the best male athlete in the world for the entire year. He also finished 11th for rWAR for pitchers. Clayton Kershaw was the Cy Young and MVP in the NL and didn't get it? Bumgarner received 0 MVP votes in the NL.

      1. And nobody is going to complain about the female AotY award going to a 13-year old girl pitcher?

    2. It wouldn't go to Superbowl MVP because of the way the season and postseason are split across calendar years for that sport.

  4. New theme! Almost identical to the last one but I re-did it as a child theme to make maintenance easier. Things should be nearly the same. The red-highlight color is different and won't be changing. The menu bar hovering below the admin bar might change; I would like to find a simpler way to make it stick instead of importing the entire JavaScript file.

    The banners are now pulled directly from the media library, so anyone can add new banners automatically. The banner title must start with "active WGOM banner" and it will be added to the rotation. I went through and changed a few, but many more need to be adjusted.

    Known issue: no ratings on the videos. I know what needs to be done and will get to it tonight.

    1. I realized a couple weeks ago that we must have reached the 1-year anniversary of the big remodel. I have no idea what a child theme is (so easy a child could do it?), but thank you for all the things you do behind the scenes here!

      1. Child themes. Short version is less work updating. Long version is it will be much easier to make my modifications public and allow people to contribute. The WGOM-specific changes are isolated now so it's easy to see.

        Another advantage is I looked through the theme features and made more of an effort to use what was available. Before I just hacked on what was needed, limiting the extensibility.

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