Cup of Coffee

July 26, 2021: On That Topic…

68 Comments

Best 2020 Olympic Sport (pick 6)

  • Athletics (15%, 7 Votes)
  • Aquatics (13%, 6 Votes)
  • Gymnastics (11%, 5 Votes)
  • Volleyball (9%, 4 Votes)
  • Archery (9%, 4 Votes)
  • Skateboarding (6%, 3 Votes)
  • Baseball (6%, 3 Votes)
  • Handball (4%, 2 Votes)
  • Fencing (4%, 2 Votes)
  • Weightlifting (4%, 2 Votes)
  • Cycling (4%, 2 Votes)
  • Rugby sevens (2%, 1 Votes)
  • Wrestling (2%, 1 Votes)
  • Sport climbing (2%, 1 Votes)
  • Shooting (2%, 1 Votes)
  • Boxing (2%, 1 Votes)
  • Football (2%, 1 Votes)
  • Basketball (2%, 1 Votes)
  • Badminton (0%, 0 Votes)
  • Triathlon (0%, 0 Votes)
  • Tennis (0%, 0 Votes)
  • Taekwondo (0%, 0 Votes)
  • Table tennis (0%, 0 Votes)
  • Surfing (0%, 0 Votes)
  • Golf (0%, 0 Votes)
  • Canoeing (0%, 0 Votes)
  • Equestrian (0%, 0 Votes)
  • Sailing (0%, 0 Votes)
  • Field hockey (0%, 0 Votes)
  • Rowing (0%, 0 Votes)
  • Modern pentathlon (0%, 0 Votes)
  • Karate (0%, 0 Votes)
  • Judo (0%, 0 Votes)

Total Voters: 11

Loading ... Loading ...

68 thoughts on “July 26, 2021: On That Topic…”

    1. I'm guessing swimming falls under aquatics and most track and field events fall under athletics.

      1. Correct. Too many subheadings to put them all in. If I separate, say, sprinting, then I have to separate rhythmic gymnastics, and I'm just not going to do that.

  2. Health update: I finished chemo in late June and have spent the last 4 weeks recovering from that. It took about 2 weeks for my energy levels to start increasing, and once that happened, everything felt better. The tumor has shrunk to the extent that I can't feel it anymore, so that seems like a good sign.

    I have surgery tomorrow and will have 4 weeks off to recover from that. (It's wild to me that a surgery that's being done in an outpatient setting is going to require that much time to recover. Of course, my only prior surgical experience is having my wisdom teeth taken out when I was 18.) I'm feeling very pleased to have my recovery during the Olympics, and I look forward to very soon being an expert on every single one of the goshdarn sports listed above.

    3. This was a heartening update; I’m glad you’re through chemo, and with the results that one hopes for given the unpleasantness of that journey.

      Good luck with surgery tomorrow, Pepper — may it advance all the difficult progress your treatment’s made this summer.

    6. I'm very glad to hear that things seem to be going well, and best of luck on the recovery!

    1. There's a reason that the summer Olympics are adding more and more sliding "sports", I guess. (Surfing, skateboarding, compare to most of the Winter Olympics).

      For me, the basic raison d'etre for the Olympics is track & field (err, "Athletics"), which largely is ignored by US media otherwise.

        1. If Florida can support NHL teams, I see no reason why curling cannot be a year-round sport. It merits a place in the Summer Olympics. That, or shuffleboard.

          also, if the IOC is concerned about declining viewership, they need to bring pickleball into the mix. That would grab the late Boomers.

            1. hear me out:

              Slow-pitch softball. It combines the best of HR Derby and beer drinking (is that redundant)?

              Or maybe reconfigure the Modern Pentathlon. The Post-Modern Pentathlon. Consider these events: slow-pitch HR Derby, bowling, darts, Pacman, changing a flat tire.

              2. I think they should add eggs to the Olympics. You know, downhill slalom, but with an egg in your pocket (if you break it, you lose).
                Think of speed-skating while holding a spoon with an egg in it. Pole-vaulting with a quail egg in your mouth. Put the shot, but don't break the egg...

                The audience would go wild when the egg-athlete's have to produce the unbroken egg at the end.

                Maybe I'd even watch 3-on-3 ladies-Bball if they had to deal with an egg tied onto their trainers. And maybe not...

          2. I don’t understand why racquetball or squash aren’t Olympics-worthy.

            Ultimate frisbee would probably be attractive to Gen-Xers & Millenials, but what I really would like to see is dodgeball.

            Or døds. Definitely døds.

              1. “Dodgeball is a sport of violence, exclusion and degradation. So, when you’re picking players in gym class, remember to pick the bigger, stronger kids for your team. That way, you can all gang up on the weaker ones, like Winston here.”

            2. A couple weekends ago me and some buds biked to the Olbrich beer garden and played some Mölkky and it just dawned on me that there aren't enough olympic sports involving throwing pieces of wood at other pieces of wood. So they should totally add Mölkky or Kubb or something.

  4. Got this in a LinkedIn invite;

    HYBRID LOCATION EVENT - THE GREAT RESIGNATION: HOW TO RETAIN YOUR TEAM IN 2021

    Have you heard of the "Great Resignation"? Sources cite somewhere between 30-50% of Americans have plans to quit their job in 2021. So, what can leaders do to engage, grow and retain members of their teams?

    Wow - even if their numbers are off by half, that is a huge deal. (And I'm one of them...)

    2. Senior leadership at my employer is spouting a bunch of intangible nonsense about “our residential campus” as a rationale for dragooning staff back into offices on campus. Never mind the glaring equity issue — faculty have no obligation to be on campus outside of their instructional & service assignments (and lab research, if that’s in their field). Never mind that the University has been simultaneously over-admitting students for years at a rate that is now requiring them to house newly admitted first year students in hotels because they lack dorm space. Never mind that after their first year, most students reside in off-campus private housing. Never mind that we have a “performance management & professional development” system that includes annual evaluations — of which we’ve had two since the beginning of the pandemic —that is designed to address any performance issues or barriers to development. Never mind that the majority of us have managed to perform our jobs at the same or higher levels of service as we did pre-pandemic, and are now hearing weasel-worded, unquantifiable assertions of missing je ne sais quoi as implicit criticisms of our work, our ingenuity, our sense of responsibility, our trustworthiness, and as a dismissal of our newly-realized improvements in quality of life, flexibility, and our human autonomy.

      1. Higher ed organizations seem very split to me. Either schools fully embrace remote everything, or they are completely resistant to changes to online teaching, learning, and administration.

        The most infuriating thing my school is doing for fall, is that academic counselors and librarians are not being allowed to work remotely at all. Despite the fact that students have clearly shown, both in surveys and in engagement during the pandemic, that they want online options for counseling appointments, and that the online tools made available by the library were used over the past year at much higher rates than in-person services were ever used before.

        To meet student needs, counselors and librarians will of course have plenty of online appointments available, but they will all be required to be on campus to do them. Even if someone is scheduled to be working online all day, they still need to commute to campus just to work online, even though the space limitations mean they will be sharing a workspace with others.

        So, more wasted time and environmental harm from commuting, increased chances of COVID exposure, less space, and worse working conditions, with no clear benefits to students to be found. So dumb.

        1. spent the weekend with my UCLA buddy. He was ranting about how the administration there has just now deep-sixxed their bespoke course content mgt system, which took years to get faculty up to speed on and to refine, in favor of immediate adoption of Blackboard (or some similar commercial deal). AND, now that he has invested heavily in recording lectures and making them available to students at their convenience (which students LOVE rather than having to go to lecture on the university's timetable), the admin is adamant about going back fully to in-person instruction this fall.

          I am predicting that Delta is going to throw that shit for a loop and UCLA will be back-peddling with vigor. LA already has started moving toward reimposing mask mandates. CalHR just sent out new guidance that will require departments to regularly TEST unvaxxed staff and require them to show proof in order to not mask up at work. Mandates (vax and mask) are almost certainly coming with a lot of private businesses across the country now that the NFL has made its move re: forfeits.

  6. according to the LCS owner here, Q: Yadi Molina is second for active walkoff HR by a catcher; who's first?

    Actual Spoiler SelectShow

  7. USA Sevens in 2nd place in the group 2-0-0 +7 point diff. South Africa (our match at 10:30 tonight) top the group at 2-0-0 +28

    Thoughts on the team

    Danny Barrett is still a damn tank
    Credit to Carlin Isles for three good cover tackles last night, though his form on all three left much to be desired.
    Opening of halves has been great, especially the first half against Ireland. Controlled, methodical, positive yardage right down for a score. Controlled the ball and the clock well.
    Closing out halves has been bad. 4 halves of rugby, 3 tries allowed inside the final minute. South Africa will eat that up.

    I haven't seen any matches but the two US ones, so I wont comment on anyone's medal chances just yet.

    1. If only the morning coverage on the Peacock did not cost a subscription fee...

      1. I have the rugby package for Peacock and my parents' cable sign in, so 7s hasn't been a problem to see thankfully. But I am annoyed with how partitioned NBC has made everything.

        1. I have a DirecTV login, but that's not even enough to get the Olympic coverage other than the tape delayed primetime stuff. Maybe I can VPN into Canada or something.

  8. I got tickets to see the Rolling Stones in October. After seeing Haggard, Petty, and Prince in their last Twin Cities performances, I'm testing my curse on Keith. If he dies soon after, I'll have to retire from concerts.

    1. Jazz Fest just announced an additional day for the Stones in October. The last time they added a day for the Stones Mick had heart surgery. This time I’m sure they’ll bring back covid lockdowns.

      1. I had tickets to the JazzFest show that didn't happen. I hands tickets to the US Bank show that was postponed. The rescheduled date... is when I'll be in Israel. I'm beginning to think I'll never see the Stones.

    2. Let me know your next old timer show so I can put more money in my dead pool.

        1. I'm not a fan of Nickelback as musicians, but they seem to be decent people.

          On the other hand...

    4. I really wanted to go, but even the nosebleeds (like literal last row) were $70 … I can’t justify

      1. That might be a good FMD topic -- what legacy acts would you still like to see and at what cost.

          1. True. Rolling Stones at a football stadium for last row $70 seats? No thank you. Rolling Stones at the Palace Theater for $150? Absolutely.

  9. I may have mentioned years ago that I had mangled the passenger side mirror on my (circa 2003) Camry. Well, on the drive back from San Jose yesterday (where my UCLA buddy and I attended a celebration of life for our in-common dissertation advisor), the mirror part of the side mirror actually fell off. So, I guess I finally have to do something about the thing.

    He is haranguing me that it's actually an easy repair, well within my limited mechanical skills. He's almost shamed me into buying the part.

    Oh, and while I'm at it, the inside passenger-side door lock button has (long-since) fallen into the door panel. So I guess I need to fix that shit too. Oy.

    I considered just driving the car into a lake and running away. But all the lakes are drying up out here, so I would get busted.

    1. I had one fall off of the ol’ ‘98 LeSabre.
      I stopped by a random body shop and they literally glued it on for free and sent me on my way.

    2. But all the lakes are drying up out here, so I would get busted.

      There’s always the ocean, Doc. Fancy a weekend jaunt over to Half Moon Bay?

      In my driving lifetime I’ve had three vehicles that rolled off the assembly line with only a driver-side mirror. I’m guessing that’s something of an anomaly for people my age.

    2. For the first time I can remember, there was a protest in my hometown this past weekend. They are protesting that their doctors are being asked to take the vaccine. This feels like a Twilight Zone episode. This can't be real.

      1. Fun fact: One of those doctors is also on the school board and threw a hissy fit about masks at one of the meetings.

      2. Why would you need a vaccine if you have an immune system? *

        *as seen on a t-shirt in the french quarter today.

  11. do any of the tech-savvy citizens have insight to share on springboard and similar "boot camp" programs? The girl is considering whether to enroll in one (springboard says "sure, we'll take you. $8k, please" or words to that effect).

    1. They're both useful and rife with scams. I don't have any experience to recommend or dissuade particular programs. Be careful and read a lot of reviews of the programs. I can comment on one: Lambda School and don't go anywhere near it.

Comments are closed.