43 thoughts on “August 29, 2016: Coffee on a Stick”

  1. Mags -

    Is there an EPL table for this season yet? I know it's early, but... I've actually been following the standings more closely than ever? I still don't have the game watching part down, but I've enjoyed reading about the league and such.

    1. I'm finishing today. I was seeing if any stragglers would plead to be included, but none did.

  3. The Dodgers placed Puig on revocable waivers yesterday. I suspect he won't be in Los Angeles next year (or even Anaheim). The question is, where is he likely to wind up, and at what cost? If their farm wasn't a shambles I'd guess the White Sox would be a likely bidder.

    1. I wonder if anyone will claim him. I think the Dodgers would be fine to trade him but doubt they will dump him on the claimant. Money isn't an issue so I definitely could see a team trading for him and the Dodgers doing the paying this offseason.

      Meanwhile, Santana passed through on waivers. I'm not surprised, having argued that teams weren't that interested in him yet.

      1. If the Twins trade Santana now, I imagine they'd be almost certain to be asking for a high-minors arm in return. Of impending free agents without club options, the most attractive starter looks to be Andrew Cashner. I suppose there are a couple teams that might be willing to make that deal, but there can't be more than that.

        2. I didn't realize Santana's having such a good season until I looked at his stats in that article. With the rest of the rotation in shambles and so many question marks for next year, I think the Twins should just keep him at this point.

    2. I suspect he won't be in Los Angeles next year (or even Anaheim).

      Apparently WGOM's California contingent isn't taking the bait today.

    1. Sad news. I know he was in a lot of other good movies, but he'll always be Willy Wonka to me.

      2. That "You Get Nothing!" at the end of "Willy Wonka": I love that. Movie should have stopped there.
        "Oh, I'm Charlie Bucket and I'm a sad, pitiable case but I f'd around and screwed up too. I'm just lucky I could burp enough or I would have ended up like the rest of those loser kids. But I'm gonna be all sour grapes and plead sad eyes."
        "YOU GET NOTHING!"

        1. Really, Gene Wilder's Wonka is what makes the entire movie. The setup, with the kids finding the golden tickets and all that, goes on way too long and is kind of boring.

          1. "When I make my first entrance, I'd like to come out of the door carrying a cane and then walk toward the crowd with a limp. After the crowd sees Willy Wonka is a cripple, they all whisper to themselves and then they become deathly quiet. As I walk toward them, my cane sinks into one of the cobblestones I'm walking on and stands straight up, by itself; but I keep on walking, until I realize that I no longer have my cane. I start to fall forward, and just before I hit the ground, I do a beautiful forward somersault and bounce back up, to great applause."

            Asked why, Wilder explained: "Because from that time on, no one will know if I'm lying or telling the truth."

             
             
            Also, further notes from Wilder to the director Stuart on WW's costume.

            2. To match the shoes with the jacket is fey. To match the shoes with the hat is taste.

              that letter is something.

  5. Miguel Sano is at third base tonight for the first time since Aug. 18 and only the fourth time this month. His elbow is mostly pain-free, Molitor said, and he’s been working hard to improve his defense. “I don’t think he’s missed a day of work defensively, probably, in the last month,” Molitor said. “Even day games, when we haven’t [taken batting practice], he’s still gone out there and done some type of short-hop drill.”

    Nice to see we're getting something other than the "Sano is lazy" meme from the media & management.

    1. ehh, not so fast...

      I'm sure that many of you have seen the news reports of a "SETI signal" detected from the star HD 164595

      I was one of the many people who received the the email with the subject "Candidate SETI SIGNAL DETECTED by Russians from star HD 164595 by virtue of RATAN-600 radio telescope." Since the email did come from known SETI researchers, I looked over the presentation. I was unimpressed. In one out of 39 scans that passed over star showed a signal at about 4.5 times the mean noise power with a profile somewhat like the beam profile. Of course SETI@home has seen millions of potential signals with similar characteristics, but it takes more than that to make a good candidate. Multiple detections are a minimum criterion.

      Because the receivers used were making broad band measurements, there's really nothing about this "signal" that would distinguish it from a natural radio transient (stellar flare, active galactic nucleus, microlensing of a background source, etc.) There's also nothing that could distinguish it from a satellite passing through the telescope field of view. All in all, it's relatively uninteresting from a SETI standpoint.

      But, of course, it's been announced to the media. Reporters won't have the background to know it's not interesting. Because the media has it, and since this business runs on media, everyone will look at it. ATA is looking at it. I assume Breakthrough will look at it. Someone will look at it with Arecibo, and we'll be along for the ride. And I'll check the SETI@home database around that position. And we'll all find nothing. It's not our first time at this rodeo, so we know

            2. This is a complete aside, but one of my favorite, overwrought, though irreverent and seldom used reactions (I only pull it out when I really need to), is to say "WOW MOM!!" while interchanging three upward then downward facing digits (as Ws or Ms, respectively) on either sides of my wide open mouth.

              It's gotten me through some tough times.

              1. An old, bad joke in my extended family was to get the Letter "W" tattooed to each buttock and then do naked cartwheels to say the same thing.

              2. We used to flash the three-digit salute on each hand (either facing up or facing down) to tell the kids on the summer swim team to swim like a Wild Woman or like a Mad Man.

Comments are closed.