Another monsoon led to another long, dreary day at work. Ugh.
33 thoughts on “October 17, 2015: Rain”
Greetings from a rugby game in Eagan. I think I see Mags out there.
This is not a game I would play.
Yep, that was Andrew. He got a little beat up. Met the FW. He's gotten old on us! (So have I, big time.)
These LTEs give me much joy.
Thanks so much for coming, Stick. It was great to see you. Hope you had a good time.
For the record, SBG wasn't sure it was me because I had a wad of cotton up my nose due to a nose bleed (a metal stud to the nose'll do that to a guy. )
so, a friend of mine -- really, a good guy, if, umm, diametrically opposed to me on a number of political questions, shares a Hillary == Hitler meme today (comparing an alleged Hitler quote to an alleged Hillary quote).
I snopes it. Bogus, unsourced "quote" in Thomas Kuiper's book from 2006, but has been floating around on the Interwebs for years with no more evidence than he provides.
His response: don't come at me with snopes, brah. They're biased libtards.
I respond with "seriously?" and share the transcript from Wolf Blitzer's show (referenced in the snopes piece) where Kuiper cops to having inserted all sorts of "quotes" he attributes to Hillary despite having no evidence.
His response: CNN is one of Hillary's biggest donors. Can't trust 'em.
My response: Sure, Time-Warner, the parent of Turner Broadcasting, which owns CNN is high on her list of donor sources (per Open Secrets, which uses FEC data). But, umm, so is 21st Century Fox, the owner of Fox News.
I'm guessing he's gonna come back to me with crickets.
I haven't read this yet, but if point one isn't "remove country's taste buds", it won't work.
ha! actual point 1 is
#1. Create your own quasi-craft brands.
Finally had a chance to read it. It almost read like a snarky piece saying here are the five things they wanted to do, but lol, none of them worked so here is a desperate attempt to merge.
Yea, the big boys have been trying for years to build or buy "craft" or fake-craft brands.
This is a pretty standard strategy by very large producers: market segmentation. You proliferate somewhat different product lines to capture more and more of the audience and charge each what that market segment is willing to pay (rather than going for a larger audience for a single product, which necessitates a lower price, since you can't price-discriminate). And if you are big enough, you can also use this strategy to grab more shelf space in stores, squeezing out rivals.
See, e.g., Coca-Cola and Pepsi, each of which has promulgated a zillion versions of its flagship product, making life much harder for the RC Colas and Shastas of the world. The big macros did the same thing (Lite, Ice, Dry, yadda, yadda).
The fundamental problem the macros are facing is that the beer drinking population has declined in the U.S. (about 30 percent of the adult population in 1992 were primarily beer consumers; now it is about 27 percent). Beer consumption declines with age, as middle-aged drinkers shift from beer to wine and older Americans are less likely to drink alcohol at all.
So the macros have been squeezed from both ends -- by declining consumption, and by premium, local craft brewing taking away the high end of their market. Not much they can do about the former problem. The latter usually is addressed through acquisitions, because really big companies are often crappy at innovating. But scaling up craft brewing is pretty hard while maintaining both quality and customer loyalty. The big boys' best bet usually is investing in small producers rather than buying them outright.
To be fair, it does appear that investing is effectively what InBev has done with Goose Island, at lest so far.
yes, but it is hard to pull off. If the corporation pays a pretty penny for the acquisition, it pretty much needs to improve efficiency to make a profit off the deal. That often means screwing with the acquisition's production practices....
Oh indeed, I know that all too well. (about to go through our second acquisition in a year!) As far as I know, though, the beer still tastes the same, although I didn't drink a whole lot of it before and don't drink much of any of it now.
Point 4 about distribution is concerning. Without a means of distribution it's hard to sell your product. And laws about alcohol distribution are complicated and definitely geared toward the big boys.
agreed. The three-tiered system is an abomination.
I was looking for SBG's reaction to the North Dakota State-South Dakota game today.
USD played better than NDSU and deserved to win.
I'll assume that's true. To be honest, I wasn't expecting it to be much of a game and didn't follow it at all. I was stunned when I was told USD had won, and in fact thought at first that the person who told me was joking.
It is true.
It was great to see everyone who came out to the park this morning!
sean, if you ever wear a pedometer, I would love to know how much ground you cover while at a park with your son.
So much this.
We're free range parents.
BA came out with its all-rookie team and Sano is left off because BA has Lindor at SS and Correa at DH (and Kris Bryant at third) even though Correa did not have one single game as a DH. That's ridiculous. If you want to choose a team by position, then do it by the positions they actually play. If you want to just pick the nine best position players, then do that and don't bother worrying about position. Just don't start making up positions because there happen to be two great players at one position.
They also could have just had Sano at first base since he played 2 games there (which would be 2 more games than Correa had at DH) instead of Justin Bour, who Sano outhit in all three slash stats.
Sano had better on-base and slugging than Bryant even, so he could have been chosen there. Bryant just played most of the season so his counting stats are a lot better.
It's a faulty answer: it's just a redundancy. A double-redundancy would have a word three times.
Kindof like how football announcers falsely call many plays "double-reverses", which would then have the ball going back the original direction.
Still, I would have had the correct answer.
I was kind of hoping you'd have been more redundant in your pedantry,
I took the double to mean two redundancies, which is what you get if you write it out "The Los Angeles Angels". Translated it would be "The The Angels Angels."
My fellow southern Californians must like those. My favorite is The La Brea Tar Pits, since brea means tar.
And yet The The are English.
Kinda like the PIN number you use at your ATM machine for UMB Bank
Greetings from a rugby game in Eagan. I think I see Mags out there.
This is not a game I would play.
Yep, that was Andrew. He got a little beat up. Met the FW. He's gotten old on us! (So have I, big time.)
These LTEs give me much joy.
Thanks so much for coming, Stick. It was great to see you. Hope you had a good time.
For the record, SBG wasn't sure it was me because I had a wad of cotton up my nose due to a nose bleed (a metal stud to the nose'll do that to a guy. )
Big Beer’s 5-Point Plan to Crush the Craft Beer Revolution
I haven't read this yet, but if point one isn't "remove country's taste buds", it won't work.
ha! actual point 1 is
#1. Create your own quasi-craft brands.
Finally had a chance to read it. It almost read like a snarky piece saying here are the five things they wanted to do, but lol, none of them worked so here is a desperate attempt to merge.
Yea, the big boys have been trying for years to build or buy "craft" or fake-craft brands.
This is a pretty standard strategy by very large producers: market segmentation. You proliferate somewhat different product lines to capture more and more of the audience and charge each what that market segment is willing to pay (rather than going for a larger audience for a single product, which necessitates a lower price, since you can't price-discriminate). And if you are big enough, you can also use this strategy to grab more shelf space in stores, squeezing out rivals.
See, e.g., Coca-Cola and Pepsi, each of which has promulgated a zillion versions of its flagship product, making life much harder for the RC Colas and Shastas of the world. The big macros did the same thing (Lite, Ice, Dry, yadda, yadda).
The fundamental problem the macros are facing is that the beer drinking population has declined in the U.S. (about 30 percent of the adult population in 1992 were primarily beer consumers; now it is about 27 percent). Beer consumption declines with age, as middle-aged drinkers shift from beer to wine and older Americans are less likely to drink alcohol at all.
So the macros have been squeezed from both ends -- by declining consumption, and by premium, local craft brewing taking away the high end of their market. Not much they can do about the former problem. The latter usually is addressed through acquisitions, because really big companies are often crappy at innovating. But scaling up craft brewing is pretty hard while maintaining both quality and customer loyalty. The big boys' best bet usually is investing in small producers rather than buying them outright.
To be fair, it does appear that investing is effectively what InBev has done with Goose Island, at lest so far.
yes, but it is hard to pull off. If the corporation pays a pretty penny for the acquisition, it pretty much needs to improve efficiency to make a profit off the deal. That often means screwing with the acquisition's production practices....
Oh indeed, I know that all too well. (about to go through our second acquisition in a year!) As far as I know, though, the beer still tastes the same, although I didn't drink a whole lot of it before and don't drink much of any of it now.
Point 4 about distribution is concerning. Without a means of distribution it's hard to sell your product. And laws about alcohol distribution are complicated and definitely geared toward the big boys.
agreed. The three-tiered system is an abomination.
I was looking for SBG's reaction to the North Dakota State-South Dakota game today.
USD played better than NDSU and deserved to win.
I'll assume that's true. To be honest, I wasn't expecting it to be much of a game and didn't follow it at all. I was stunned when I was told USD had won, and in fact thought at first that the person who told me was joking.
It is true.
It was great to see everyone who came out to the park this morning!
sean, if you ever wear a pedometer, I would love to know how much ground you cover while at a park with your son.
So much this.
We're free range parents.
BA came out with its all-rookie team and Sano is left off because BA has Lindor at SS and Correa at DH (and Kris Bryant at third) even though Correa did not have one single game as a DH. That's ridiculous. If you want to choose a team by position, then do it by the positions they actually play. If you want to just pick the nine best position players, then do that and don't bother worrying about position. Just don't start making up positions because there happen to be two great players at one position.
They also could have just had Sano at first base since he played 2 games there (which would be 2 more games than Correa had at DH) instead of Justin Bour, who Sano outhit in all three slash stats.
Sano had better on-base and slugging than Bryant even, so he could have been chosen there. Bryant just played most of the season so his counting stats are a lot better.
I coulda been rich.
It's a faulty answer: it's just a redundancy. A double-redundancy would have a word three times.
Kindof like how football announcers falsely call many plays "double-reverses", which would then have the ball going back the original direction.
Still, I would have had the correct answer.
I was kind of hoping you'd have been more redundant in your pedantry,
I took the double to mean two redundancies, which is what you get if you write it out "The Los Angeles Angels". Translated it would be "The The Angels Angels."
My fellow southern Californians must like those. My favorite is The La Brea Tar Pits, since brea means tar.
And yet The The are English.
Kinda like the PIN number you use at your ATM machine for UMB Bank
to pay for your SAT test