55 thoughts on “August 3, 2016: Let’s Get Together”

  1. As I'm sure has been obvious, I've been upset by recent events in my community. Last night my block took part in Night to Unite, and it was nice to share a meal with neighbors. Members of the city government, a police officer, and a group of fire fighters all came by. (Advantage of living in a small community--everyone from the city comes to the block parties!) A reporter from a small, local newspaper ate with us, and she was interested in how people were responding to Philando Castile's death.

    The police officer who came by was a really young white guy, and there was a nice moment when he got excited to have a slice of the tres leches cake that a Tibetan neighbor had brought from a Mexican bakery. Multiculturalism is delicious!

    1. We need more of this down here in the People's Republic. Glad it's happening up there in your community.

  2. Well, into Day Two of the creeping crud; while I had a great time helping out with arts camp last week, one of the rugrats got me, and now I'm fighting through a summer cold. The price we pay, I guess.

  3. Finally had a chance to stop by Up-Down in Uptown yesterday afternoon. It is probably a good thing it isn't a convenient trip, I would spend a lot of money drinking good beer and playing arcade games.

    I was excited to see a few favorites that aren't as common as games like Donkey Kong or Centipede - APB, Tapper, and Paperboy. They have a nice pinball selection as well, but man I'm terrible at pinball.

    My wife is probably going to get annoyed at all of the Craigslist posts for multicades and pinball tables that I'll inevitably be sending over the next few weeks.

      2. We had that one in the game room at my college and I hadn't seen the movie yet. When I finally saw the movie, I realized I knew at least half the lines in it from the pinball game.

      3. I wish they opened for lunch at least once during the week. I was lucky to have a slow day yesterday and got there right at the 3p open so I could play for an hour or so before driving home, but I could have spent another couple hours there for sure.

        1. I've played a ton of both. I prefer Addams Family, but whatever. They're the top two. There's a sweet Jurassic Park game, and a Super Mario Bros. game that I only played once but seemed pretty swank.

          2. Trust me, I'm not trying to say anything bad about Addam's Family. I've probably played more of that over the years. Got to play it a few weeks ago... so nice.

            Funny we've known each other ten years, and I had no idea of your pinball interests. Always fun to discover things like that.

            1. Theatre of Magic is #1 on most of the lists you'll find, but despite being a lifelong pinball devotee I never once saw the damn thing.

              1. They used to have one at the Clearwater Travel Plaza. My friend and I were on our way down to the Cities years ago, and stopped there to rest. And then got sucked into playing ToM for like two hours. I always stopped there on my trips to and from the Cities when they had it, and out of habit now it's where I usually stop.

        2. Aladdin's Ladder at the Hilltop in Hubbard. Best pinball game as its what we had...

  4. Minnesota has lost an irreplaceable voice: Anishinaabe poet & storyteller Jim Northrup/Chibenashi died on Monday. His kidney cancer was likely caused by exposure to Agent Orange during his time in Vietnam. You can hear him read a poem about the sugarbush in Ojibwe here and listen to a recent MPR interview with him here.

  5. I may have one ticket to the Chelsea-Milan match tonight. They were $75 with fees but willing to take less. Upper deck center.

    Let me know if interested. Will have confirmation by Noon I think. Spooks?

    1. Probably, yeah. I was looking at tickets and trying to determine who else I know might want to go already. I'll talk to the Milkmaid and figure this out.

  6. The Twins are now at a 100 OPS+. I really don't know what they're going to do when Plouffe comes off the DL. Sending Polanco down would have been the obvious choice except he's got an OPS of .951. Wouldn't surprise me if Buxton went on the DL.

    1. We know the majority of HRs are of the solo variety, but lately Kepler seems to prefer the 2-run version. Nothing Earth-shattering, just thought it was worth noting

    2. The Wired article brings up an interesting point that is relevant to so-called "evidence-based" medicine in general--to really study a lot of these things correctly, you have to accept lower ethical guidelines than we currently have. And I don't know that you can ever overcome the problem of actually verifying how well people have carried out their flossing protocol. In a drug trial, you might be able to blood test to ensure that patients have actually taken their medicine (then again, you might not), but for flossing, you would need to have them do something like have them submit videos of them flossing their teeth daily for years.

      I think it's also why nutrition guidelines from studies tend to be all over the place, because people are notoriously bad at accurately journaling the food they are eating, or sticking to a diet for a long time. And to really know if diet A vs. diet B led to better health outcomes over the long term, you'd need to randomize the study and have participants adhere to the guidelines for decades. And then you're still left with selection bias from whether or not participants volunteered to be in the study.

      That's not to say that there' s no way these problems could ever be overcome, but just that as it currently stands, I think there are big limitations in how well we can study a lot of health-related topics.

      1. but for flossing, you would need to have them do something like have them submit videos of them flossing their teeth daily for years.

        and, of course, that kind of monitoring would have all kinds of effects on behavior.

        Epidemiology suh-hucks, but it's often the best we've got, since these kinds of prospective studies are really hard.

    3. More specific to flossing, my FIL, a retired dentist, so nothing to gain either way on the topic, has told me he would rather have someone floss twice a day and brush once than brush twice and floss once.

      But that only goes to show that (at least some) dentists genuinely believe that flossing works. It seems logical that it would be beneficial, but it's also possible that other factors are more important than flossing, which makes it hard to measure its impact. So maybe flossing is the clutchiness of dental care?

      3. About two years ago I finally started getting regular six month cleanings. I want flossing at all before the first one. I started flossing every morning after that first visit, and the second time in the hygienist noted a significant improvement in the appearance of my gums and a whole lot less bleeding. So, from a purely anecdotal, small sample size of one, I'm willing to pay no attention to any research on the subject and just trust that it works.

        Plus, floss is dirt cheap anyway, so no harm, no foul either way.

          1. I've tried those but I didn't much care for them. I prefer using plain old floss, personally.

              1. I did, apparently, inherit pretty fantastic teeth genes. I had braces, but have never had so much as a cavity otherwise.

  8. On June 24, the Twins traded Oswaldo Arcia to the Rays. At that point, the team had an OPS of .708 and a record of 23-50. Since then, the Twins are 19-14 and have a team OPS of .824.

    1. Arcia with a batting line of .214/.289/.369 with the Twins this year while with the Rays is at .259/.328/.444. Below replacement level with the Twins and now at replacement level with the Rays.

          1. I figured you did, I was mostly trying to make a joke. Come to think of it, it would have been a lot funnier if I'd used, like, Wilson Ramos instead.

  9. Just noticed this debut for Abad.:

    Fernando Abad relieved David Price in the eighth inning with two runners on a 4-2 lead and promptly served up a three-run homer to Robinson Cano as the Mariners rallied for a 5-4 victory.

    Welcome to the Red Sox!

    3. Interesting note on Pat Light from the Rochester paper:

      The Red Sox wouldn't let him throw the splitter when he was a starter for them. He said the organization was worried about the possible adverse effects the pitch has on the elbow. Once he moved to the bullpen he said he was allowed to throw it again.

  10. seen on bookface: "MTV just turned 35 years old.... Help celebrate 15 years of music!

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