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October 2, 2017: Definitive Word

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Rhubarb, ragweed and the cats remain outside shots to be the trigger to Sour Cream's allergic events. Whichever is the case, we're thankful that Miette isn't going into anaphylaxis or anything, and has kept high spirits and energy despite the puffy face and rash. We certainly hope it isn't a meat allergy, and Miette especially doesn't want it to be a cat allergy, but I think we're equipped to take this particular curveball from life, whatever the case.

120 thoughts on “October 2, 2017: Definitive Word”

    2. I had noted through FB that a friend of mine from Los Angeles and her husband were attending a three-day country music concert, and yes it turns out it was this one. She and friends they were with were uninjured, but very shaken up.

      1. Still waiting to hear back from a friend that was in Vegas. It's still early there so I'm not too worried yet.

        1. Horrible situation. I am not aware of anyone out there that I know. However, found out last week that one of my best friends in this area has a brother (and spouse) who are missing after Maria. They apparently had a boat that they would charter out of the US Virgin Islands. They took the boat out to see in advance to avoid damage and have not been heard from since. Tough couple of weeks for my buddy.

        2. Just talked to the neighbors, and his sister and her friends were there celebrating her birthday. They had just exited the venue when the first shots were fired so they're fine health wise but pretty shook.

      2. In Phoenix, one of the most popular weekend things to do is drive over to Las Vegas for whatever's going on. I don't know if anyone I know was there, but I'm going to be on edge for a while.

    3. Make no mistake: it will happen again and again and again. When we decided that some dude could walk into an elementary school and gun down more than 20 first graders and we would do absolutely fucking nothing about it, we cemented our future.

      2. Notwithstanding the ongoing (and ineffectual) discourse about access to firearms in America, I'm having trouble processing the reality of a world where mass-casualty events like bombings, shootings, vehicle attacks and the like are no longer limited to areas of active armed conflict.

        ...actually, I suppose if I was from any of those places I so casually describe as "areas of active armed conflict", the concept of the wholesale massacre of innocents wouldn't be hard to fathom.

      3. Agreed. We are farther away from doing something about it than ever before. We are an impotent government right now (and have been for a while). The great divide between the two prevalent tribes gets bigger and bigger. I know that many in the business world prefer it that way, so NOTHING gets done. I worry. I really do. The only solution I can see is a moderate 3rd party that breaks the stalemate. I don't have much hope for that happening, but it might be the only way shit gets done.

        1. A viable third party is impossible unless the voting system is fixed. Ranked choice is good, of which IRV is a dumb implementation, but I've always been a fan of approval voting. All of that is still held hostage by our media choices. You can't be an informed voted when you're addicted to a platform that pushes you away from the middle. Or when extremely well funded platforms simply lie to you. We have hard, systematic issues that need work before the obvious ones can be tackled.

          1. After Ross Perot, they made it even more difficult for a 3rd party to get in the debates. Without being included in the debates, it's tough to be taken seriously as a candidate.

      4. In the wake of the sandy hook shooting I knew that nothing meaningful would change about our national relationship with fire arms though i tamped down that feeling in the hopes something good could come from such awfulness.

        This is horrible on all levels. I'd hope that something like this would spark debate resulting in common sense regulation, but Im afraid that more fear will be the ultimate response to this tragedy.

      5. I wonder somewhat how we didn't end up here earlier. I doubt it would have been impossible to make this happen 10 years ago. (20? More?)

    4. The unusual October thunderstorm over the twin cities right now seems somehow entirely fitting.

  2. You should also check sun allergies. Runner daughter became allergic to the sun in her early teens and now has to limit her exposure or her face gets puffy and breaks out.

  3. The postseason has one game on ESPN all postseason. This is rather frustrating because as a non-cable subscriber, I planned on repeating what I did last year and use Sling to watch everything. It's all available on one package except for one channel, ESPN. So, sorry Twins, I'll may miss your entire postseason.

    1. Why has nobody figured out a way to "on-demand" circumstances like this? There must be lots of people who don't pay for cable (because antenna-bound or "cut-the-cord" types) who would pay for a postseason package to watch their team. Are the cable rights just that lucrative that exclusivity is worth it?

          1. There is a reasonable chance that my brother-in-law will have the game on his computer somehow, and I'll watch it that way.

    2. Playstation vue can be watched online and on devices or Roku and offers 1 week for free. Make this your one week and cancel before the end of the week. Just make sure whatever package you get includes ESPN (most if not all do). Various other online services offer the same type of preview and have ESPN.

    1. Was about to tell you it was me...but I would have been mistaking that for the football team I didn't know I signed up for...
      I feel respectable for battling my way to 4th this year. Held on to Cabrera till nearly the end, and my pitching keepers didn't quite come through like last year.

      1. I was doing everything I could to hang onto that 4th place, but the last three days of the season my batters completely fell apart. Duct tape and baling wire can't fix everything.

        1. Apparently, you've occupied the Doc LSD --> meat translation in my brain. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not.

    4. Congratulations, hj! It's been a battle for two months and it was even closer than it looks now. I got the wins I needed from my eight (!) starters, but my whip dipped at the last moment. Wanted to take the league on a win by Big Sexy. Oh, well.

      You deserved it. You had a much better lineup than the dl.

        1. That and Blake Snell who fired 13 Ks for Rookie Ball on the last day of the season, denying the dl the one point it needed for the title.

          Blake Snell.

            2. /shakes fist...

              Actually, I think it's cool that people are still involved. Fantasy baseball is a grind and it's a testament to this league that teams are still setting lineups.

  5. Possible laptop repair question, if anyone knows anything here... My "3, e, d, and c" keys are usually not working, except after I hit spacebar. Much of this last sentence was accomplished by typing a space and then deleting it before those letters. But sometimes they work too... very inconsistent. Anyone have thoughts? No obvious cause I can see.

    1. Your keyboard is broken.

      My guess is the spacebar shifts the keyboard so the contacts can be reached by those keys. Those keys are in a line so I'm guessing there's one wire that covers those four keys. Pressing the spacebar, or perhaps around it, affects it physically and so the keys work. Do they work consecutively?

      1. Sometimes, not always.

        Work computer, will probably just have to bring it in to ensure best fix...

    1. if only there were a young, Super Bowl-starting, above-average QB available on the free agent market....

    2. One of the 93x morning guys some years back shared a Sports Pickle headline about "Jay Cutler takes long drag of cigarette, reluctantly steps on field to start another season." I couldn't find that one, but they seem to generate a lot of Jay Cutler content. Amusing.

  7. A day shy of one year ago, CH opined,

    The Cubs won as many games as the Twins lost this season (and lost fewer games than the Twins won). Even accepting that they somehow underperformed their Pythag by 7 losses, I wonder if a return to .500 ball is two or more years away instead of next season.

    Turns out, nope. I do wonder about next year however. Will the team be able to build upon the massive improvement of this year? While finishing with 111 wins next year is unlikely, 85 is now the floor.

      1. This may mean nothing at all, but I keep thinking about it. In Molitor's first year, there were zero expectations for the Twins and they did surprisingly well. In Molitor's second year, there were expectations that they would contend and they fell on their faces. This year, there were zero expectations for the Twins and they again did surprisingly well. Next year, there will be expectations that they will contend. Again, that may mean nothing. I guess we'll see.

        1. This year included the loss of Phil Hughes, Trevor May, Glen Perkins, etc.; it would have been nice to compare this year (with a legit third/fourth starting pitcher) with 2015. All things considered, the addition of a legit starter or two can take this team further in 2018. Although it still ends up a crapshoot

    2. I am, of course, happy to have been wrong about this season. I do have the same wonder as you, sean. If the new front office was planning on a bit more incremental return to contention, they might need to revisit whatever roadmap they developed.

  9. Currently in Fair Haven VT, feelin' the Bern. Mrs Runner has ancestors buried here, including one who fought at Gettysburg. Beautiful countryside and a through back little town - we're loving it

  10. Turns out my daughter can't get an appointment to find out about this allergy until tomorrow. They could speed the plow if her life was in danger, but thankfully, it's not.

    Tomorrow, my mom is starting at a new job - her first in about ten years. She and my stepdad have no need for money; the boredom has finally just gotten to be too much.

    I've never been one to care about birthdays too much, but it amuses me that "Kelly Turns 40" is no better than third-from-the-top story for October 3rd in my immediate family.

    2. Let me know what it's like from that side. I'm still more than 2 weeks out from the same turn.

  11. Not only did the Twins make it to the Playoffs and the Brewers didn't, because the Brewers had a better record than the Twins the Twins get a better draft slot! win-win!

  12. Bartolo Colón with the Braves had an 8.14 ERA with a 5.09 FIP. The Twins decided to be buyers of Bartolo. He finished with an ERA of 5.18 with the Twins and a 5.31 FIP.

  13. I miss all the fireworks. A co-worker is in deep shizz after a customer complained that he went off about religion and politics for an hour while ostensibly making a simple dishwasher sale. This is something he does to us constantly, but it's news to us for him to do it to a customer.

    This would be dangerous ground regardless, but the guy is a flat-earth conspiracy theorist, believes only white men should be voting and has said to me on more than one occasion "I would put my decision-making above any woman in the world" (for reference, this is a 45-year-old part-time appliance salesmen who excommunicated (his word choice, not mine) his son because he "cost too much").

    The customer was, indeed, female.

    3. Good day to get fired as they found that one of our it guys was doing something illegal with our network. Though because my institution isnt good at communicating no one knows if he was mining our personal data or ???

    1. Reports now that he's died. Damn the Torpedoes was released when I was a freshman in high school and I loved that album. In recent years, I heard people making fun of him and I never understood that. He was awesome.

      1. I loved him as a kid ("Don't Come Around Here No More" and "Runnin' Down a Dream" in particular). I temporarily grew tired of him as a college roommate played him and nothing else, but it came back around and I ended up seeing him as the headliner of the ACL Music Festival in...2006?

        1. The Petty/Lucinda concert I saw back in the day is still one of the best I've seen. After he'd been playing for a bit, he'd play a song, and absolutely kill it. I'd think, "Hot damn, what a way to end the set." But then he'd play another. I'd think, "Hot damn, now that was a way to end a set." But then he'd play another. That went on for another hour or so.

          1. I couldn't be more appreciative of his set. He was demonstrably baked, and forgot stuff and said the same stuff on the mic between every song, but the performance was great. But it gets better: there was torrential downpour two songs into his set. The band waited it out for 90 minutes, and played their intended full set until 2 in the morning. I'm sure plenty of other bands would do the same, but I was there and they did it, so there you go. Glad I got the chance.

      2. Yeah, I've never really understood the hate either. I dig his tunes, and he definitely seems up there on the list of people that seems like it would be fun to hang with.

        1. Hell, even I enjoyed a lot of it. There's a bar on the river near where I live that often has a Tom Petty cover band playing on a barge stage. It was a very enjoyable way to spend a Saturday evening in the summer.

        2. I just remember thinking he was the biggest bad ass when I was a kid. When I heard about the hate I thought, damn. I'm old.

          1. He's another on my jinx list. I just saw him for the first time. That makes it Merle, Prince, and Petty I've seen a couple months before their deaths.

            If you have the time, I loved the Running Down a Dream documentary on Netflix.

      3. Only fun I've heard at his expense was this skit on SNL, which was pretty lighthearted.

        "Free Fallin'" always reminds me of Mrs. Runner and her home when we were dating, in Reseda -- Ventura Boulevard, "freeway running through the yard" (Ventura Highway -- the 110), "walkin' through The Valley"...although I don't consider myself a bad boy and I don't think I've broken her heart.

      4. Assuming he hasn't passed, his prognosis is grim. Taken off life support, it's only a matter of time. And now, to quote the man himself, the waiting is the hardest part. I ran hot and cold on Petty through the years before finally settling on the fact he was was a giant of the genre who left an incredible catalogue of tunes that I'm always happy to hear.

        PoorDick linked to this one over at Canis Hoopus today. After feeling numb all day about the insanity in Vegas, this performance reduced me to tears. What a lousy fuckin' day.

        1. I particularly enjoyed his role in the otherwise mediocre The Postman.

          "I know you. You're famous."

          "I was, once. Sorta."

    2. I think everyone of a certain age owned either Full Moon Fever or TP Greatest Hits. (or both!)

      My Top 5 fave Petty songs at the moment. this list always changes Maybe I should save it for Friday?
      1. A Woman in Love (Its Not Me)
      2. A Face in the Crowd
      3. You Got Lucky (
      4. Even the Losers
      5. You Wreck Me. I love driving down the highway and cranking the volume all the way up.

      2. I'd have a hard time getting my list in order. Saw him & the Heartbreakers twice: outdoor amphitheater show in VA Beach in '06*, and again (but indoors) at the X in 2010**. He and his boyos killed both shows, venue be damned.

        I always thought he was cool as fuck - good god, just take a look at the repository's list of associated acts. But even then, he didn't take himself too seriously, see The Postman - Postman (Costner): "I know you ... you're famous. Mayor (Petty): "I was once ... sorta."

        * SelectShow
        ** SelectShow

  15. Braves GM resigned today. Under investigation by MLB and if he resigned, guessing he broke some serious rules.

    1. Doesn't sound like he'll be missed:

              1. I haven't been checking that site at all lately. Thinking back on it, I guess that stupid redesign they did was a large part of the reason for that.

                1. I haven't regularly followed anything there for a couple of years, mostly out of personality fatigue. I do remember Calcaterra being pretty critical of the Barves when I read him, so I assumed there'd be a piece. There was, but good luck finding content over there.

  16. 'Bad news, but not the worst.' SelectShow

    3. Sorry, Stick.

      My FiL has been battling pancreatitis for weeks now. A coworker’s mother was just diagnosed with cancer. Things seem to be coming from all angles this past month. In the world and in our individual lives.

      Thoughts are with you. <3

    6. What these fellas said - I hope the sailing's as smooth as it can be for him and for you.

    8. Wishing him a speedy recovery into total remission. Don't know if you guys are the hugging kind, but make 'e mcount. They're good for both of you.

      You hang in there, too, Stick.

  18. According to fWAR, the 2017 Indians have the best pitching staff in the history of baseball. Even by ERA- they have the best in our lifetimes.

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