Cup of Coffee

March 31, 2017: Quaint

34 Comments

I couldn't wait to move out of Blue Earth when I was young, but it really isn't all that bad. Main Street is fairly charming. It's certainly got more personality than the average suburb.

I'm still down here; my grandfather's funeral is Saturday morning. Then it's back home for Wrestlemania, and then the home opener, which I'll be attending (on the Budweiser deck, no less; the Milkmaid gets some comps through work).

34 thoughts on “March 31, 2017: Quaint”

  2. To amend the CoC, Target Field gave Target Corp. the wrong information. The tickets aren't for Monday, they're for Wednesday. It's irritating enough that this is no longer the opener, but now, I probably can't even go.

    Sigh

  3. Another downside to my grandfather's passing: I've had a front-row seat to the debilitating alcoholism of a family member one generation up from me. The person really can't even function, and has been publicly drunk to fall-down, pass-out degrees probably the last seven or so times I've seen them.

    My dad's generation of our family is very confrontation-averse, so nobody is doing anything. Outside of me, most of my generation is as well. It hadn't occurred to me until this visit, but if I don't say anything, I highly doubt anyone will. But if I do, everyone else will act like everything's okay so they don't have to be part of the situation.

    This sucks.

    1. Indeed. I think one reason that people avoid is that it often takes way more than one confrontation. It takes a lot of patience and a lot of love and a lot of uncomfortable conversations.

  4. From SB Nation, a great piece, comparing two nearly identical games between 1984 and 2014 and finding out why games take so damn long now. And, a lot of fun with Haray Caray quotes.

    1. The author boasts how obviously Pluto was a planet but conveniently ignores Ceres, and now Eris, Haumea, and Makemake, not being planets. Going by their definition, the Moon is also a planet but that's skipped too. Really, he's upset that Pluto was demoted, uses a different proposal and ignores the side effects of it.

      1. yeah, I really have no problem with a demoted Pluto. I'd rather school kids and textbooks not have to relearn the planets every few years, and deal with dwarf planet populations if they really want to

        1. I don't really care one way or another (nor does the planet Earth), but I enjoyed the author's rant.

        2. Plus, when Pluto was demoted, we had 11 planets to observe, not 9. The third rule may be dumb, but Pluto is wildly different from the current eight planets. My guess is the IAU will figure out how to reword the rule to keep is at eight. Or nine once Planet Nine is found.

          1. all the future dwarf planets are going to be in the Kuiper Belt or further, and their sizes will be in question for years; best to keep them second-class citizens and not worry about the details -- even "Planet" 9

    3. because it has not cleared its orbit

      Natch. Don't want to be around when this happens.

  6. speaking of NFL cash grabs.

    Money quote from my academic grandfather:

    “This is the worst deal for a city I have ever seen,” Roger Noll, an economist at Stanford University who has studied publicly-funded stadiums for two decades, said of the plan to increase the hotel room tax by 0.88 percent

    “It’s not just that its $750 million, but the underlying economic study that attempts to justify the subsidy is the weakest I’ve ever seen,” he said in reference to the official assessment released by the Southern Nevada Tourism Infrastructure Committee last week. The report assumes the stadium will draw more than 450,000 incremental tourists to the region, who will in turn purchase a substantial portion of tickets sold for events held at the 65,000 seat stadium, stay 3-4 days in the city, and spend as much as a typical convention-goer.

    “Selling one-third of the tickets to tourists might work if you’re playing the Rams, but if you’re playing Tampa, do you really expect 22,000 people to fly in from Tampa to go to the game?” he said. “If you pull out that component of the economic impact study, you’re left with basically a financial disaster. It does not come anywhere near to paying for itself,” he concluded. “From my perspective as an economist, the financial plan is just not serious.”

  7. Munich, day two:

    'MLB hats' SelectShow
    'Jerseys/shirseys' SelectShow

      1. Didn't count myself. (Also was wearing a Twins cap.) I wanted it we it before the Derby because I'm just making a quick visit to the Munich Residence in thirty minutes and then hopping in a train to Zurich during the game.

        I bumped into someone yesterday who was very, very into Kevin Miralles.

    1. To be fair, Welsh is just an practical joke that went too far.
      (It started out as an early Mercian lorem ipsum.)

  9. Looks like Molitor is set on batting Grossman as DH in the 9th spot in the order vs. a RH SP. That's only going to add fuel to the Free Park campaign.

    1. Might as well move to the NL if you're going to hit your DH 9th. I guess Grossman is the new TynyDH.

      1. I can kind of see the justification if you have a top to bottom decent lineup. He has a nice walk rate, so he could be on-base for the top of the order to drive in. That said, if he can do a .380 OBP again perhaps he should be near the top of the lineup.

        2. The DH's only job is to hit. If he's not one of your 5 best hitters (and thus deserving of hitting in the top 5 in the lineup), 99.999% of the time, you've done a poor job of filling the position.

  10. The Saint Louis Zoo was chosen as the top winner in the "Best Zoo" and "Top Free Attraction" categories of the 10Best Readers' Choice Awards contest sponsored by USA Today.

  11. I am checking out the WGOM for the first time on my new tablet. It's not really new. My wife wasn't using it, so she said that I could. It's a Galaxy Tab. It's a couple years old but bigger and faster than my cheapy 7 inch tablet.

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