22 thoughts on “September 15, 2021: Get Out The Vote”

  1. I'm officially ready for Kaprizov to sign a contract with the Wild.

    That won't change anything, but I've gone from "not worried at all" to "I'd feel better if this was over"

    1. I got to meet Nick Bjugstad last night, he was throwing out the first pitch for Wild Night so I let his family come down to the dugout box section where they bring people out for pregame on-field activities and ceremonies so they could hang out with him for 15 minutes or so.

  2. I've been so preoccupied with the fascinating AL wild card race that I didn't even notice the creeping horror of the St. Louis Cardinals nabbing the second NL spot.

    Unacceptable. There are five teams in the mix for that spot, and the Cardinals are both the worst AND the least entertaining.

    1. Happ with the Twins: -1.9 rWAR.
      Happ with the Cardinals: +0.2 rWAR.
      His ERA is almost three runs better with the Cardinals.

        1. Gant with the Cardinals: +0.8 rWAR.
          Gant with the Twins: -0.1 rWAR.
          His ERA his 1.3 runs higher, though his Twins' FIP now matches his Cardinals' ERA. His Cardinal's FIP almost matches his Twins' ERA.

  3. If your company has a spare $300 million lying around that it needs to burn for no good reason, then sure. Why not have a recall.

  4. Cats, a Memoir.

    Our two new boys, Lenny and Ralphie are adjusting to life outside of a cage. They are loving it! Both cats are pretty picky in the litter box (yay!) and do quite a bit of cleaning. Just keep the boxes cleaned regularly and we are gonna be fine there. (Our Theo does NOT clean up after himself there. Ugh.)

    When we engage them, they are quite frisky and curious. When we stop engaging, they sit quietly. Just really well behaved. After a decade and a half of fighting (thanks, Ellie), the cats are peacefully co-existing. We introduced Theo briefly. Old Theo was unfazed, as we expected and quite curious. Lenny was curious at first and then ran away. Both Lenny and Ralphie were arching their backs and showed some fear. They saw Theo for only a couple of minutes. Some more time later today.

    Both cats really took to the scratching post. I'm hoping that that remains their #1 scratching target. I think the big thing is that they are completely comfortable with each other, as you would expect being blood brothers from the same litter. They have unbelievably soft fur.

    For the record, I'm against the acquisition of these two cats, but since we have them, I will admit that the cuteness factor is through the roof. My daughter is totally in love with them and she's not had a lot of great things happen in the last 18 months, so I'm not going to say anything more about my objections.

    1. Adding more things to love to your life is generally a good decision, Stick. We've had Louie for almost three months now so he'll be going on half a year old soon. Really frisky as a kitten, he spends most of his time now eating, sleeping, and growing. I think he's tripled in size since we've had him. He's also turning out to be a really playful, sweet boy who loves attention and has a pretty wide fearless streak. He's fascinated with the bathroom and insists on coming in with us so he can play in the tub and sink. He has no fear of the dog and thinks her tail is a toy. One night he jumped from the couch right onto the dog's back so he could grab her tail. He plays ball, too. I'll roll the dog's racquetball around the floor and he chases it, pounces on it and tries to kill it. Louie and Gemma are good friends now, they wrestle together and eat together and sometimes they sleep together. Louie also has extremely soft fur, almost like Angora. He's definitely part of the family now and I hope he's with us for a good long time.

      1. No feline is ever going to replace Jags as #1 in my heart, but little Lenny is making an early play for #2. He's absolutely adorable. And little Ralphie could be #3 overall eventually.

        1. And that's okay. Our first cat as a couple was Dodger, named after a juvenile delinquent character in Jon Hassler's Grand Opening. It was the perfect name. He was a barn cat, a grey shorthair tabby, wild and unruly, unused to and disinclined toward the litter box, mischievous, sometimes pitiful, relentless in the face of challenge, and pretty much fearless. But he was also devoted to us and so loving. He became best friends with out neighbor's old, blind terrier and would spend hours hanging out with him. He climbed into another neighbor's car and went to work with him one day. Got himself locked in other people's garages a few times. Same deal, he was a one-and-only.

          1. Our first, Skinner, was hell on wheels. She hated pretty much everyone except me and the Mrs, and the Mrs was only a notch above "tolerated." I cried when I had to put her down (Skinner, not the Mrs.) after our son was born.

      2. I could watch cats wrestling for hours. Dax and Fizz are pretty much right on schedule for it at about 10:00 every day. I could do without the sitting on my keyboard while I'm trying to work thing though.

    2. Our dear Pepper unfortunately went through something very, very similar to your situation with Jags recently. We miss her so, so much, she was a feisty little manx-ish cat.

      I'm currently being outvoted 3-1 on looking at new cats, but my wife is being respectful of my dissension. Although as more time passes I will surely be getting more pressure to add another furball to our family. How do you think we ended up with two dogs...

      1. I did not read that as cat Pepper the first time.

        Our two cats are 10 and 11 so I should have another half decade with each of them. The oldest I found as a stray before moving out of my parents so he's been with me the entire "adult" life essentially.

    3. We got Blue Kitty when we were in grad school in Beefalo. So, so long ago. That cat was the beeeeeeeeest. She played fetch, had to have all her teeth out in Albuquerque (and lived a great, long life), would climb under the covers when Dr. Chop said "Nappy nappy time", and was there through everything good and bad that happened for 16 years. Putting her down was way more emotional than I expected considering how bad her health had gotten. Enter Bacon the Cat. Dame Frances Bacon The Cat if you're nasty.

      I didn't want another animal in the house. I really, really resisted replacing Blue Kitty because she was the best. I fought Dr. Chop using the logic that allowing another living being into our house would just advance our age by 16 years and result in the same grief. Enter Bacon the Cat. This beast is a whole 'nother thing. She routinely jumps 6 feet into the air to kill her toy on a string. She's totally into the small size red tomato pin cushion (srsly, there are probably 16-20 of those lost in the house somewhere), and thinks her tail is something to be eaten. She's ridiculously soft and totally into being around us but not into any kind of affection. Picking her up results in squirming escalating into growling and then clawing out your eyes. Yet, her jaw is short so she has a snaggel tooth that she loves to floss by autopetting herself on our outstretched hand.

      Blue Kitty she ain't, but I can't imagine a better, more entertaining pet companion through the pandemic.

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