Cup of Coffee

October 17, 2017: Glass Half Full

38 Comments

NBA action starts tonight (T-pups tomorrow). I’m actually feeling good about this year, which is a great feeling for now before those high hopes inevitably get dashed upon the rocks.

38 thoughts on “October 17, 2017: Glass Half Full”

    1. That piece reveals exactly the kind of mind I want working for the Twins. More like this, please.

      Sidebar note to the STrib & PiPress: perhaps now would be a good time to consider whether all the dead, hollow wood on your sportswriting staffs might be cleared for new growth and new audiences. Keep Berardino, though.

  3. Last weekend Mrs. Hayes’ & my favorite streaming service, Grammofy, announced it will shut down next month. In the couple of days since we recieved the farewell email I’ve been thinking about why a subscription to a streaming media service is different than subscriptions to magazines or cable TV, and more like subscribing to utilities. Yesterday night (and early this morning) I finally wrote about why I think it sabotages the value of the content and undermines users.

    1. Interesting piece. No comments section there, though 🙂

      In the early 80's, my dad got a VCR and his first project was to tape every episode of M*A*S*H in case it ever went out of syndication. He couldn't have imagined it would ever be so easy to watch it whenever he wanted. And now that he can watch it whenever he wants, he doesn't.

      1. This is the only place I dare read the comments!

        Pops was an avid collector of VHS & DVD box sets. He incrementally acquired all the episodes of Gunsmoke on VHS when I was a kid, and he was a big fan of setting the VCR to tape episodes of old syndicated shows now playing on daytime TV while he was at work. Years later he shifted to getting the full set of DVDs for programs like Freaks & Geeks, The Andy Griffith Show, and The Johnny Cash Show. Occasionally I wonder if he would've divested from some of that stuff as streaming took off, or whether he would've held onto them the way he did the records I remember him spinning when I was really little. Even well after his purchasing & listening shifted to CDs, he still kept his vinyl.

        Incidentally, I bought the first four seasons of M*A*S*H on DVD at the PX in Fallujah. I’ve watched that entire show at least three times through, but those first four seasons resonate in a way the creators never could’ve anticipated.

        1. Interesting. Most people would say the show got better after Henry Blake left as it went more away from slapstick (and overt sexism) and more towards creating depth and drama with the characters. What resonated with you in those early years?

          1. I agree that the show got more serious and less obnoxiously salacious* after Henry’s departure. I think the quality of the writing stayed the same or improved slightly for a few years, but the shift in tone transformed the show from farce to cultural force.

            What resonated with me in those early seasons was the sardonic skewering of incompetent, jingoistic brass. (I wound up writing “Hawkeye” on the strap around my helmet). I was in Iraq under L. Paul Bremer’s “administration” and Ricardo Sánchez’ “leadership” during the same period as the Abu Graib torture scandal, and my CO would be best described as an “megalomaniacal Evangelical latter-day Crusader.” I was also in my early twenties in an all-male combat unit, so the kind of sexism portrayed in the show was a more amped-up yet familiar version of the casual sexism that was common in that environment at that time. Basically, I recognized it but thought little of it. I watched the show because it gave voice to what I couldn’t say on that deployment and showed characters with the kind of agency I could never dream of within the enlisted ranks.

            * Even at its worst, the TV version of M*A*S*H can’t hold a candle to the film that preceded it. That flick is absolutely unwatchable today.

    2. I really liked that. Thank you for sharing.

      I still collect CDs, even as I know that's sort of a silly thing to do, largely for the reasons you allude to in your entry.

      I also enjoy collecting MP3s (all of my CDs are ripped). Back in the day, I would peruse the MP3 blogs and sites like garageband and MP3.com and MySpace and that has left me with a collection of music from bands that don't exist anymore, and left no footprint on the internet. It feels like being the last speaker of a lost language.

      I do like streaming (particularly having a kid with a voracious musical appetite that my current library is ill-equipped at times to feed), but the impermanence of it (and not just the service, but the transient nature of my relationship with the music, itself) does put me off at times. Maybe I'm just overthinking it.

      1. Yeah, I need to own music, if only just in mp3 form.
        I don't buy as many CDs as I used to, even a few years ago (as fewer bands I'm interested in are touring, which is where I know they're getting the biggest share of what I pay).

        1. I've been buying CDs on Amazon. The CDs are cheaper than purchasing the mp3s and come with free downloads. They pay me to take the CD.

        1. I long rejected the vinyl movement because hipster, but after tamarind I understood the power of stopping every side to change the tunes. We had vinyl Friday as a way to slow the pace a bit, though now vinyl Friday is the uptempo pace for me.

          I own a handful of albums now, but rarely listen. I do enjoy purchasing albums from bands on your as I know it supports them and I get to own the thing.

      3. even as I know that's sort of a silly thing to do, largely for the reasons you allude to in your entry.

        Feels like we're swinging back to pre-recording times. For essentially all of human history, music was something you had to remember. That doesn't mean it's better, it's too bad that countless musicians are lost to history. But it sure is convenient for businesses to not have to worry about how to deal with the preservation part.

    3. GeoCities. Damn. I've been using the internet for more than 20 years now. I used to love Usenet newsgroups (alt.fans.baseball) back in the day. I actually started in my news producer days, using the station's computer and modem, a Gopher client and the Archie search engine to do research for news stories.

  4. NBA. Yes.

    I love baseball, but I pretty much only watch the Twins and over the last few years not even much of that. (Life is busy, especially in the summer.) But the NBA... I watch a lot of games and I try to follow as many teams in the league as I reasonably can. The league right now has so many marquee players that are just must watches for the junkies.

    The other night, I was watching a roundtable on NBA TV with several owners. I'm convinced that the owners of the GSW and CLE are the two most obnoxious owners in the league. Seriously. Steve Ballmer was on there and he came off, comparably, as being downright humble and likable. Cuban was ripping on both of those guys and he was absolutely right. Dan Gilbert comes off as an idiot. I mean, how does a guy get that much money and not have an ability to put coherently put thoughts together? They should publish the transcript of that show in Comic Sans. And Lacomb acts as if he was personally scoring the baskets. He doesn't believe in luck. Hoo boy. He got crazy lucky on Curry's bargain contract. Curry was a max player, a super-duper star playing on a league average contract. That's insanely lucky. He got incredibly lucky to have the cap go up so much in that one year when Durant was available. They have a super, super team and their GM has done a great job, but if the injury bug bites, they'll come back to earth. In other words, there's luck involved. Cuban absolutely tore into him for that b.s.

    Thank God these clowns aren't actually what makes the league what it is. Cheers to the players.

    1. I will say this: I'm prepared to like Carmelo Anthony. I've disliked this guy for the entirety of his career, but I'm thinking that he might find himself in OKC. So, I have an open mind there.

      1. So, what you're saying is that this is the year Melo pivots and truly becomes presidential a likable team player?

    2. I’m not usually someone who enjoys things for the cringe factor, but I think I’d probably get a kick out of watching an MLB owner round table. (I would be thrilled to watch a serious, wide-ranging MLB GM/PBO roundtable.)

      1. Besides these four were Jeanie Buss and the guy from Atlanta. Jeanie, of course, threw her dipshit brother over the ledge and she sounded rational. The dude from Atlanta was interesting, too. Cuban was Cuban and Ballmer was trying not to be a jackwagon. Lacomb and Gilbert were just a-holes.

    3. I mean, how does a guy get that much money and not have an ability to put coherently put thoughts together?

      Oh man, I am all over this topiWARNING! THIS POST HAS BEEN INTERRUPTED AS A FLAGRANT VIOLATION OF THE FORBIDDEN ZONE.

      1. Glen Taylor rigged printing equipment to increase efficiency (after he negotiated with his boss to pocket a portion of increased efficiency) and he was the first one to offer non-white wedding invitations.

        I haven't seen other examples of intelligence in his personal or professional life.

    4. It makes sense that owners would know little about sports since this isn't a business you can build from the ground up. You have to be rich in some other area before you can go and buy a team so owners would be experts in finances or in whatever area their business was, not sports. Really, only a former player that got rich as an athlete would be one I would expect to really know all that much. The best owners are the ones that find really good executives to run the team and then disappear until it is time to receive the championship trophy.

      1. Really, only a former player that got rich as an athlete would be one I would expect to really know all that much.

        Coincidentally, I see Cap’n Boss Jetes might cut the payroll of his new toy by as much as $50 million next year.

        1. Sounds like he's a sleeper agent for the Yankees--cut the payroll, sabotage the team, encourage good players to sign big deals with New York.

      2. It's not that they didn't know anything about sports. It was that they were so dickish. I've seen Ballmer speak at a conference about twenty years ago. Dude was unbelievably arrogant. But, compared to Lacomb and Gilbert, he seemed positively humble.

        1. Arrogance seems almost expected when you get to be super rich or are, for instance, in line to be the CEO of a huge mega-corporation. Not that it's desirable.

  5. Not sure how many CFR/FP devotees we have in the basement, but for those who are, this piece in the Gray Lady mag is perfectly terrifying.
    I'm not going to FZ this, because although it has numerous references to the "foreign policies" of our CIC and his administration, I have never believed that the efficacy of our foreign policy apparatus should be a political football. Have a debate about our national objectives and vital interests? Yup. Argue about what 'our' role in the world should be? Sure ... but not our basic ability to conduct that business in a competent, professional manner.
    Ugh.

    1. I'll save additional comments for after I have finished the article, but I hope to hell that this administration lets all the air out of the "run the government like a business" nonsense once and for all.

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