77 thoughts on “March 9, 2015: Oh My”

        1. "Star Trek: The Enemy Within (#1.5)" (1966)
          Sulu: Temperature's starting to drop?
          Captain James T. Kirk: Yeah. At night it gets down to 120 degrees below zero.
          Sulu: That's nippy.
          ....
          Sulu: Can you give us a status report, Captain? Temperature's still dropping. Now 41 degrees below zero.
          Captain James T. Kirk: We've located the trouble. It shouldn't be much longer.
          Sulu: Do you think you might be able to find a long rope somewhere and lower us down a pot of hot coffee?
          Captain James T. Kirk: I'll see what we can do.
          Sulu: Rice wine will do if you're short on coffee.
          ....
          Sulu: I think we ought to give room service another call. That coffee's taking too long.

          It should be noted that this quote implies the use of Fahrenheit. Apparently, even in the future, the Metric system cannot win.

            1. 22.2 °Celsius was the temperature detected by initial scans made by the USS Grissom of Sector 1 on the Genesis Planet, indicating also that it was a forested region. (Star Trek III: The Search for Spock)

              So not quite another 70 years.

          1. -41F is about -41C.
            -120F is about -85C.
            -120C is about -180F.
            I don't think that there's any implied temperature scale unless there's something else not mentioned above.

  1. I'll wait for Movie Day to discuss it more fully, but I've started watching the new Tina Fey Netflix show The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and have been enjoying it muchly.

      1. It isn't 30 Rock-at-its-best brilliant, but it's better than 30 Rock-at-its-worst.

          1. I tried the first episode on Friday night but had to stop about 10 minutes in. I just was not in the mood I guess. I'll try again later.

            1. I felt like it picked up once they got the exposition out of the way. There turns out to be a lot to like about a lot of the characters, after cracking through most of the facades.

          2. I watched 3 episodes today. I chuckled occasionally. I'll probably watch it just because it's there.

  2. Got back from a work-week long trip to the Dells. I think it's the closest I'm going to come to most of y'all. Kids loved it, I loved the week off work, but man it's nice to be back home in our regular bed again.

    1. Sorry, I can't recall how old your kids are...disregard if none are in the toddler range.
      We have a four-day trip to the Dells planned for mid-to-late April. Kernel is 3.5 years old...any recommendations for things we should seek out?

      1. 11, 10, 6, 5 and 8 months. We stayed at Wilderness resort. Didn't venture outside of the resort. Did go to Buffalo Phils for lunch on the way out of town. They deliver food and drink via train.

        1. Didn't venture outside of the resort.

          With a toddler and infant,* I suspect this will be our experience as well. We'll be at the Great Wolf Lodge which looks to be a couple miles south of there and just across the parking lot from Phils. May have to check that out.

          *already 5-months tomorrow...wow that sailed by!

          1. Dining options in the Dells are...limited. If you are in town on a Wednesday night, though, there's a small place on Lake Delton called Port Vista that has steak and crab legs for two for like, $30-something. Its better in the summer when you can sit on the deck, but its still a 2-lb steak and 12 crab legs. I don't actually know if they do it this time of year, though.

            The Great Wolf Lodge has the advantage that the water park is for guest only, so it shouldn't be as busy. I just hope the kernel isn't as bad about water parks as the trinket.

            Overall, though, I hate the Dells. Course, that has a ton to do with disliking overly crowded enclosed areas.

            1. Re bad about water parks. I don't think so. We have a pool at home so she loves swimming. We also recruited her best friend's family to come with so we have diversions if she doesn't like or tires of the available recreational stuff.

              As for the dining, well, I'm not expecting much except that I'll be able to purchase New Glarus on tap; something I've never done before.

              1. In the Dells, it'll most likely just be Spotted Cow. I can't recall if there are any places that carry anything else.

                1. Within a short drive of Great Wolf are lots of places with Spotted Cow, a few with that & Moon Man and at least two with SC, MM, Cabin Fever and/or Road Slush. Whether or not those last two are still available in a month remains to be seen. Even so, have a Spotted Cow or Moon Man would be fine by me.

            2. The Dells is halfway between the Twin Cities and where my sister lives, so the family has gone there the last two summers. I agree with you about the dining options, cheaps. Vegetarian options in particular were none to impressive.

              For small children, I thought the Country Bumpkin Farm was a fun, low-key option, but unfortunately it looks like they don't open until Memorial Day.

              The jalapeno also enjoyed Circus World, though it is pricey. (Actually, it's cheaper in the spring and fall.)

              1. Where does your sister live? Because the Dells is halfway between me and the Twin Cities (I'm in Bloomington Normal IL)

      2. The International Crane Center (or whatever it's called) was a highlight for me when I was like 8.
        Also: Avoid the House on the Rock (not that close, but it came on the same trip) until your youngest is in her 20s.

      1. Following this thaw, I'm actually hoping for another freeze to make yard clean-up easier.
        /thinks about owning two dogs. sighs/

        1. Moving to an apartment is sparing me from the spring poop-thaw, although I suppose there was nothing stopping me from picking up poop during winter when I had a yard. I considered including under-snow poop in my disclosure document as a joke, but decided against it.

  3. Today is the first day in a week where my head has not been in a fog.
    I hope none of you catch whatever bug I had.

  4. How to win friends in the press.
    snippet:

    (Sadly, we couldn’t follow up because of the amateur-night antics by his aforementioned staff imbecile, whose name we avoid repeating in order to spare his family’s feelings. However, you may register your displeasure about Christopher Pickard’s adolescent behavior by calling him in the Capitol at 916-319-2076 or in the district at 760-929-7998. Plenty of free parking).

        1. Ah, well my standing policy of not visiting comment sections worked against me there. But still, I don't think "I asked a few friends" is sufficient for an article when the link I posted above is literally the first Google result for "because race car", not when you're trying to present an etymologoical/philological argument with any authority. It smacks of laziness.

          1. ...not when you're trying to present an etymologoical/philological argument with any authority. Because laziness.
            Fixed

        1. Since it's classified as Afro-Asiatic rather than Indo-European & Uralic, I'm guessing not.

          1. I never paid much attention, but I guess you're right.
            I'd assumed that since Farsi and Pashto are written with the same alphabet (pretty much) and share some words, that they were related to Arabic. I was wrong!
            Arabic is actually closer to Hebrew, Oromo, Amharic, and Aramaic than those two languages that use its alphabet.

            I guess Malay, Vietnamese, Maltese, and Basque all use the Latin alphabet but aren't related in any way to any European language.

            1. Basque (Euskara) is a language isolate, meaning it has no known linguistic relatives.

              Maltese, it turns out, is the only Semetic language that uses the Latin alphabet. I didn't know that till just now, but it is immediately one of my favorite tidbits.

  5. also, I learned this interesting factoid today:

    the manure from a dairy milking 200 cows produces as much nitrogen as is in the sewage from a community of 5,000-10,000 people

    Ruminate on that for a while.

    1. the average human produces ~1 ounce of fecal matter for every 12 lbs of body weight, per day, so a little under a pound for the average woman and a little over a pound for the average man.

      This has been your Half-baked Crap Minnit for today!

  6. Remember that classic 1984 ad for the Macintosh? Seems like the ad could be run again nowadays, except this time around the blindly-following masses have Apple logos on them.

    1. I suspect most of us don't use Apple products because we're seeking a cult-like experience.

        1. And Bill Gates became the philanthropist while Apple deletes songs not purchased through iTunes.

  7. Random box score: got to love the walk off walk, especially if it happened to a pitcher pinch hitting for another pitcher
    Aug 9 1989

  8. Ladies and Gentlemen,

    It appears as thought I will be gracing (most of) y'all's fine city starting in mid-May. The current plan involves driving to Iowa for the little brother's graduation/commissioning/bachelor party weekend on 5/16-17, drop off the majority of my stuff at the parents' (to be retrieved two or three weeks later), then come up to the lady's apartment for about two weeks. She's only got a studio, so we'll need to get a bit more space. We're looking at a new place for the both of us starting on June 1(ish).

    If anyone has tips and/or leads on apartments, we'd be grateful. We're looking for a 2br, or at least a 1br+den (just somewhere we can go read and have some space and maybe throw a spare bed in for company). She's currently in the St. Thomas/Macallester area, but we've also been eyeballing the Lake Harriet area too. We're not terribly picky. Any help would be great. Looking forward to a WGOM house warming.

    (Also, I'll need a job, so if you know of anyone who needs a dog-sitting Zamboni driver with a Masters and two publications in Irish History, I'm your man)

    Edit: Contact info would probably be helpful. I know most of y'all have my email, but just in case it's acmZEROZEROSIX{at}mail of google

    *Use numerals in place of spelled out numbers.

    1. I'm pretty sure you have my email, but if you don't let me know. Since we just went through this my best advice is to know what you'd want at least in building form (house, 4-plex, bigger building, etc) and to act fast when you find a place you like.

      We had a lot of requireds (we want a dog, preferred a small house, Washer Dryer) but we still missed out on three places by waiting a day to put in an application. We only got our place because we put in our application less than an hour after we saw the place. Buildings are much easier and we saw a couple nice ones near Lake Harriet if you want the info.

  9. Trey had 8 strikeouts in three innings while allowing just 2 runs in a 12-2 victory for the Newmark LL Diamondbacks over the Dodgers. Trey also singled and walked and scored two runs as the players somehow managed to make me look like I know what I'm doing as manager. We played four innings (90 min time limit). I would have left Trey in to throw his max 75 pitches (I think he would have completed the fourth before then anyways), but we have a 5-run rule and couldn't have lost anyways, so I let another kid pitch and had Trey on the bench.

  10. I was reading a longform piece about Calvin Griffith and stumbled upon this paragraph

    Over the past decade, all of the significant developments in baseball economics have made the rich richer and the poor poorer. The boom in television revenues has skewed income toward the already rich teams in major media markets, where advertisers are willing to pay dearly for commercial time; this year, according to a Broadcasting magazine survey, the New York Yankees expected to collect some $4 million for local broadcast contracts, while the Kansas City Royals, who beat the Yankees for the American League pennant in 1980, could hope for no more than $500,000

    ...

    Increasingly, it seems, the George Steinbrenners are setting the salary standards for the Calvin Griffiths. If these trends are not reversed, baseball will slowly devolve into a withered roster of regional superteams -- fans in Boston will find themselves cheering for, God forbid, the East Coast Yankees.

    This was written in 1981. Some issues have not changed in my lifetime.

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