A new lounge to talk about old things or new things…or soccer, whatever floats your boat.
339 thoughts on “The Lounge where we say hello to 2015”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
A new lounge to talk about old things or new things…or soccer, whatever floats your boat.
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Frigid and muggy or as I like to call it…Fruggy.
I’ve have gone with “Fuggry” myself.
I think I can talk myself into Jack Del Rio. I prefer offensive coaches for HC but we could do worse. Now we just need around 35 new players oh and a coaching staff.
Not happy about Del Rio. Seems way too rah-rah coach stereotype. I’d rather see Sparano return.
For a second job I’d like to be the guy that tapes Jennifer Lopez into her dresses.
If that groundhog sees his shadow next month I say we deep fat fry the little jerk.
Is groundhog day is a weekly occurrence for Arkansas school cafeterias?
Here we call Groundhog Day…Tuesday.
Starting tomorrow I should have around 16 minutes of free time each day…I plan to take up sculpting.
The only thing I like about winter is being able to complain about it.
You and my wife should start a club.
I think Boston winters would kill me within hours. I’m not sure I could handle Kansas winters anymore to be honest. My Hawaiian wife thinks it’s neat though…we’ll see how many more winters that lasts.
I have a heavy overcoat that I bought a few years ago. It was a good bargin and I looked really good in it.
I have been able to wear it 3 times since then, and one of those was on a work trip out of state. So I can sort of understand the feeling that a cold winter would be neat.
That being said I wouldnt trade my mid winter t-shirt and hsorts for anything. (I didnt look THAT good in the coat.)
I’d be perfectly happy never having to wear a coat again.
Consult your urologist. It’s a very simple procedure.
So…you’re saying when I asked my podiatrist about it I was making a faux pas?
Not necessarily…
I don’t really follow college football, due to the fact that I went to KU, but I’m rooting for the Ducks tonight. No football team I’ve rooted for has won a championship since 1984 so you’re welcome Ducks fans.
If I could clone myself one of my clones would do nothing but read all the books I know I’m never going to get around to reading.
How do I know that I’m a complicated person? I don’t really like peanut butter or chocolate but I like chocolate peanut butter cups.
So this isnt a terrible surprise, but I found it funny.
I searched “Oakland A’s roster” on google. It gave me a helpful pop up graphic of all the players. only 17 of them were actuallhy in A’s caps and jerseys. Those included in a list that google appearantly cant get a proper uni for are:
Kaz
Fuld
O’Flaherty
and Parker (WTF?)
The reason I was looking-im sure there is an easy way to find it, but I cant and you all know this better…
Is Scribner finally out of options? I swear he first got called up in like 2005 and he is still the odd man out every year.
I’m not sure Scribner was ever an option.
He’s always been sort of tweener. Not as good a starter as Turkey, and not able to close like Nippers.
I like both turkey and nipples…wait, oh…Nippers. Yeah, I’m not sure they were ever an option.
You want my page.
Yes, Scribner is out of options.
Sogard still having an option left made me do a double take followed by a spit take. I hope he likes country music.
It’s not such a big deal for the single guys who might be moving back and forth from a shared place in an extended stay hotel in Pleasant Hill to the equivalent in Nashville. But I feel sorry for Kaycee Sogard and the other wives of players who could be going back and forth this year. I’m sure schlepping a toddler or a baby and a dog and all their accessories between Oakland and Sacramento was a bit of a pain in the ass, but it was doable. This year, I’d guess the families are going to choose to stay in one place or the other, or just stay in their off-season homes and let the dads be lonely.
I would guess that WAGs normally live in the same place no matter what and don’t move back and forth with players who keep shuttling up and down between the bigs and the minors.
Thanks, and go As.
That’s my guess too, except the Sogards might have considered him a well-established enough big leaguer to have bought or leased in the East Bay.
Yep. The Face of MLB shouldn’t be living in Sacto.
They had leased a place in Oakland last season, but moved out when it got burglarized during a road trip.
Oh yeah, I remember that. So AAA is probably a good move for them, crime rate-wise.
“schlepping”. that’s awesome.
OK, I’ve given the new sfgate a chance for that thing to happen where a new web design that hurts your eyes at first becomes totally normal and you start to see it’s merits. Not happening. It is a pile of poop now.
I haven’t been on that site in years. I’d like to think Bruce Jenkins is still there telling us how sports was better in 1967.
Still wondering why the Jews insist on soiling Christmas with their basketball.
Basically all the good columnists left the Chronicle and Jenkins is still there…because no one else wants him. One of the five worst sports writers of all time.
Inner Circle Hall of Shame?
A bottom ten list perhaps.
Ann Killion is good, fairly insightful and not preachy. She was just voted California sportswriter of the year.
i don’t know… i found their slideshow of the 10 most common yet marginally related stock-photo images used in modern newspapers to illustrate hastily researched and/or kneejerkly written 10-most lists in slideshows quite informative (even if they got 9 of the images wrong).
and another thing!
WTF with the links not working right 1/10th the time? i click on the bait about gas taxes and suddenly i’m reading about something else entirely, trying to remember what it was in the headline that drew me there, so i back out, remember, click again, and this time yes, gas taxes article appears.
They continue to give me less and less reason to go there and yeah, that one in particular drove me nuts when I bothered to visit.
so… what are everybody’s non-sfgate sources for bay area written news coverage?
i see the examiner has a site. is the reportage any good?
anywhere else?
I don’t look for it.
I find the Trib’s coverage of East Bay news to be better than the Chron. East Bay Express, and it’s blogs which do decent local link aggregating. Berkeleyside definitely for my town.
thanks.
ahem.
you guys have news i can read? (i can’t listen to news. doesn’t work for me.) i’m honestly asking, and quickly finding out that yes, you do, and maybe i should be embarrassed for not knowing this.
This thingy.
thanks!
So, Ted Cruz is going to oversee NASA now.
That seems… fucking moronic.
Thanks, and go As.
We are so FKed.
My new Senator, Tom Cotton, is like Ted Cruz but without the sexual charisma.
or the intelligence.
Not that Cruz has a 3-digit IQ, but in comparison…
Your salary comes from DoE, right? I think that means you are safe because nukes.
Most of my group’s funding (including half of me) comes from NASA, and we’re certainly looking to NASA for US involvement in LiteBIRD and/or COrE+ as well as maintaining the balloon program.
The nukes stuff is NNSA, and protesting Berkeley Lab getting involved in Stockpile Stewardship got me onto the ex-Director’s “do not fund” list.
Ted Cruz: Canadian.
You know what’s funny? Yeah, me neither.
For some reason, my wife gets the event emails from the Mill Valley Public Library. I think she likes them because she can get indignant about the stuff that is so fucking Marin. Today’s example, from the “Creative Writing Circle for Middle Schoolers“:
If you’re too busy to read about what is a chocolate meditation, I’ll just skip to the best part:
We’ll be ending the FKing brew day with a beer meditation.
let me know when the end is, I’ll show up then
sounds like a white chocolate problem.
asvd
Nice
What I get a bad grade if I willfully ate the chocolate unmindfully?
Sure you made the super bowl last year and won the division the last 4 years, what have you done for me lately?
Ponies going Raider on their coaching staff.
Somebody better tell Oregon that they need to actually tackle the OSU ballcarriers, they mostly won’t just fall down on their own.
This.
Also, real classy, Meyer.
What, to score the final TD? Oregon still had time outs so they couldn’t kneel down. And they did give Oregon a chance to stop them rather than kicking an easy field goal.
Oregon’s defense got pushed around the entire game. If Ohio State didn’t have the turnovers that would have been a total blowout.
Take the first kneel-down, then if Oregon calls a TO, cram it down there throats.
(I’m just pissed because we’ll now be subjected to a pile of Big-Ten BS until next fall when ESPN starts riding the SEC staff again.)
…and that’s the story of how I saved Tony Blair’s life after he swallowed a tennis ball. Okay, folks…have a good one.
things i thought i was going to miss about going to A’s games that are quickly finding replacement or substitution, sometimes favorably even:
getting dressed from head to toe as garishly as possible in green and gold, and worrying that a undetected red stitch means the angels win somewhere/somehow.getting dressed from head to toe as garishly as possible in green and gold to go DJ reggae records, with red accents acceptable, if not advisable, symbolizing the blood of the oppressed.
You forgot the black.
another thing replaced! building graphic pseudo-mathematical models to represent team-color relationships.
(red. (green. gold.) black.)
“venn diagram of jamaica colors vs reggae colors”
did somebody say red?
the red for the blood of angels, the green for the trees, the gold for the money and the black for the earth
“trees.”
30-5
Thirty and five
XXX & V
It’s sad to say this, but the 2014 A’s may have ruined my enjoyment of spectacular first half-seasons forever.
They taught me that you never know when the good times will end, so you better enjoy them while they last.
If I get MLB.tv, are the other California teams blacked out, or just the A’s and Giants?
‘cuz my gut feeling tells me that the National League is going to be fucking awesome this year, and I need to immerse myself in it. I’m talking playoff tie clusterfuck pennant race craziness, and I want in.
Pretty sure only SF & A’s games are blacked out in NorCal.
Pretty sure it’s just games that are locally televised, so A’s/Giants, plus the Fox saturday game.
Thanks, and go As.
Cool. I think I’m going to get it then.
I’m going to be working a lot of afternoons and evenings running a drop-in peer counseling office, so it would be great to have some baseball in the background.
frankly, i don’t see it.
http://blog.sfgate.com/stew/2015/01/14/lagunitas-drops-ipa-label-lawsuit-against-sierra-nevada/
This comment made me laugh:
Public opinion surveys are often major pieces of evidence in determining whether trademark infringement has occurred.
sarcasm font? or behind the scenes, little known fact font?
For real. One of the main ways a trademark owner has to prove infringement is to commission a survey showing that customers were confused as to whether the accused infringer’s product is associated with the trademark owner. It sounds ridiculous, but it’s true.
Makes sense to me. If the public doesn’t get confused, how can you really say there’s a problem?
Exactly. That’s what trademark law is all about. If consumers aren’t confused, for the most part trademark law doesn’t get involved.* And unfortunately, unless there are some really good documents like lots of emails from confused consumers to the wrong company or internal discussions saying “ha ha we sure are tricking those stupid consumers,” there’s often no way to prove confusion other than surveys. The bummer is that it turns into a battle of the surveys with all of them being scientifically tainted from the start by the mere fact of who’s paying for them.
*There are non-infringement theories like trademark dilution where confusion isn’t required, but that’s another story.
totally makes sense. just wasn’t sure if it was funny because it ultimately pointed to the truth, or funny because it was actually true.
The latter.
I’ve found it interesting for a while how Lagunitas’ branding is so centered around the name of a style of beer rather than the name of the brewery. It’s a really powerful position in that they, in some vague, probably non-enforceable sense, “own” the name of what has become the most popular style of craft beer. But it’s also kind of precarious and requires smart and delicate enforcement of their trademark. This suit was obviously a huge fail, but I can see why it happened.
Tell that to Kleenex.
Well, Kleenex is a classic “genericide” problem where a term the company invented for its product becomes the generic name for it over time. But Kleenex was a frivolous name for the product to begin with that only became generic (linguistically, although not yet legally) due to the brand’s dominant success in the market. They can still defend their mark because there is another generic term for it out there (“facial tissue”) and they have been aggressive enough in policing generic uses over the years.
IPA, however, was always a descriptive term for the pre-existing style of beer. Lagunitas couldn’t, and hasn’t, claimed trademark protection for the name, only for the label design. Which makes the choice to put “IPA” front and center in their marketing curious. It may be true that they “invented” IPA in the sense that they were the ones to first popularize it among modern beer drinkers, but it was inevitable that as they convinced drinkers to enjoy their product, competitors would start to eat away at their brand identity.
Indeed. Apparently at various times in our history Goodyears and Singers had the same problem.
I think given Lagunitas’ success you can’t criticize their design, and I can see how they found a firm that was happy to file the lawsuit. The only thing that surprises me is that they caved so quickly. Did they think people would react positively on twitter?
That’s a serious firm, too. Before filing, they really should have anticipated this kind of blowback and counseled the client accordingly. Clients be crazy sometimes though.
Was it this one?
They’re the only name I trust, other than Bob Loblaw.
If there’s one thing Twitter is known for, it’s level headed assessments of merit
Did they really “invent” it even in that limited sense?
Ballantine could make a strong claim to grand-parenting the current crop of American IPAs, with their 1930s version coming in at 7.4% ABV and 60 IBUs, aged in oak vats, and dry-hopped using a complex steam system to extract only the hop oils.
I have no idea. They may have only invented branding it.
Not to disagree with your main point, that their branding difficulties now are the results of their own decisions. But a slight quibble with:
They invented it in a slightly stronger sense than that. The pre-existing style of (British) IPAs was quite different. The real predecessors to Lagunitas IPA were Anchor Liberty and (ironically) Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, through their prominent use of cascade hops, but neither of those was branded as an IPA.
So from the perspective of that time, it was great branding. The bold simple IPA label fit nicely with the style of beer, and at that stage, getting strongly identified with the product was probably a good thing, like Kleenex or Coke. But it is a double edged sword, and now they are to some extent a victim of their own success. (Though one could also argue whether they are victims at all: they are still one of the bigger micros, with nationwide distribution now.)
i don’t know how copyright solves this, but part of the issue is that IPA, as a very narrow shape made by letters and letters that lend themselves to a tall font, and as something to put on a label that is narrow and tall, simply screams to be placed that way. aligns with the urge to liken the shape of the content to the shape of the container, and the marketing urge to have a readable product name at 20 feet. i’m saying, give 100 monkey designers 100 versions of photoshop for 100 years and a lot of them are going to keep coming up with this this this this this this.
A comment I saw elsewhere about this case was something like “Sorry, but you can’t trademark optimal kerning.”
knee deep brewing didn’t have that problem with their IP A.
or maybe they’re saving space for all the hyphens that are TK. they’ll probably get to it once their knee is done doing all that deep brewing.
Not just Knee Deep.
el capitan:
dawn
and
done.
(and don’t think i don’t hate it that “el” doesn’t rhyme.)
Whoo hoo!
well then
Thanks, and go As.
Right on. Escobar’s a homophobic scumfk anyway.
Totally off topic, but I saw a facebook message from you in my email and I really don’t log into facebook much. I don’t think I know the guy you were talking about.
No worries. It was mostly a joke, but if you did by chance know the guy, I figured it would be fun to tailor the song towards his tastes.
I know that Clippard is a one-year guy, but at least he has a good track record. And now I don’t have to root for Escobar.
But it sucks because SS
Clippard also has solid experience playing for a team that charges through the regular season and then flops in the Division Series.
Sounds like the A’s didn’t really want Escobar anyway
Sounds like no one wanted him but the Nats, who always seem to want whatever Billy is offering.
atlético madrid scores within 1 minute of the start of either half. are they running prepared plays?
(honest question. i have it in my ear, but i’m not really watching. don’t even know who kicked off either half.)
…
Happy Thursday and welcome to a birthday commemoration that is sure to booglarize your bottom. Of course it is Martin Luther King’s birthday… but unfortunately, in spite of his many achievements, the equality King never cut albums with Frank Zappa… at least none that we know of. So I’m afraid you’ll have to settle for today’s OTHER birthday boy, and what better way to celebrate what woulda been his 74th than with a heretical performance from 1974 and the infamous “Tragic Band” era? That’s right, we’re Safe As Milk today with a cross between Howlin’ Wolf and your leering, perverted uncle with the bathrobe… all aboard the crazy train for CAPTAIN BEEFHEART!!!
Yay!
Welcome to the weekend and the 56th birthday of the phenomenal Nigerian chanteuse Sade Adu, which we’re celebrating by blogging the living daylights out of an FM master capture from when she first blew up the world in the summer I graduated high school. Ahoy! and all aboard for that legendary concert venue in the Netherlands and a full Sade set from her debut tour in 1984!
The Lounge isn’t dead…it’s just resting.
It’s bleeding demised!
No, no, it moved. Just there.
Farm Burger on Gilman St has the best onion rings I have ever had.
Noted.
where’s gilman street? is that anywhere near the gilman shopping district?
Yes. The former Hammock District.
where’s the hammock district? is that anywhere near my bad touch area?
There’s a popular nightspot there … called Pyramid I think.
i wouldn’t know. i only go shopping during the day.
I’ve been toying around with the idea of a fantasy baseball league based on straight bbrefWAR. I’d imagine you’d draft your position player starters and designated IF and OF backups. You are assigned the WAR from your starters, with your backups backfilling to get each position to 700 (or whatever) PA. Not yet sure how to handle backups playing out of position (although in principle the positional adjustment accounts for this). Any shortfall gets 0 WAR. Similar deal for starters.
1. Would any of you be interested?
2. Haven’t really thought through the rules fully, so what’s missing or what would you change?
How would in-season trades/transactions work?
Set roster size, each player has to be designated to the primary or backup slot. An acquired player would have to be designated one of these slots, and WAR is assigned only for the dates in which that player was designated to the slot. Would that work? I’m really just brainstorming here, I think it’s a nice idea in principles but I haven’t thought through the details fully.
It looks simple and fun to me.
It seems like transactions could make the bookkeeping (which presumably someone would be doing manually) a pain. Maybe just allow waiver pickups in the case of a season-ending injury, or something like that. Do trades need to be allowed at all?
And I think ideally you would want 10-15 teams, so that the “backups” would mostly be full-time players, but there wasn’t a deep pool of decent players unclaimed.
Anyway, I would play.
True – maybe transactions are too complicated.
salb!
I’m alive, really.
I would be interested. Why bWAR over fWAR?
I hate using FIP for pitcher WAR.
It would be interesting to have a fantasy league based straight up on WPA as well. It would cause a lot of randomness, but could be quite interesting.
That would be fun.
Also, I think we should bring back the WPA, but that’s another discussion entirely.
1. Yes
2. If there’s a platform available, I think the standard set-your-starters-weekly format is better. I’ve done leagues where you assemble your players at the beginning and then craft your lineup later. Always feels gimmicky. I think I could probably dig up the rule sheet from that league if you’re interested (it was faux-sophisticated in that it was sort of kind of appromiating FIP and wOBA). Also, Keeper League!
I’m really looking to create something for absentee owners like me who don’t want to do a lot of post-draft jiggering. Or year-to-year commitment. But I’d love to see your rule sheet to get an idea of what you did.
that is my kind of “owner.” Now, If I can sneak magglio Ordonez in the second round…
I’ll try to dig it up. It’s value is going to be in thinking of a bunch of edge-case issues more than the core functions. It definitely satisfies the absentee-owner issue, as there was a draft (basically enough rounds to set starters) followed by a roster finalization (all undrafted players were “common” but you had to pick X of them for your bench before the season started, then no player adds in-season), a trading deadline (somewhat awkward because you already knew a bunch of the value you were exchanging, but the deadline was early in the season), and then end-of-season roster perfecting (you didn’t declare your lineup until year-end, so if a common guy went nuts you’d list them as your starter).
Rules sent.
And an example of a final (good, not great) roster.
I am very much an absentee owner, but I will say that setting weekly in baseball sucks. You need to have some sort of ability to adjust for guys going on/coming off the DL and also now the quirky interleague stuff. I was in a weekly league and the amount of times I was burned by Tuesday DL starts made me quit.
But regardless if it is a league with you villans count me in.
Daily (and maybe even weekly) roster moves don’t make sense here unless someone wants to track every player’s WAR on a daily basis – which besides being a giant pain in the ass, would also present some technical challenges, since 1) the published numbers don’t necessary have the resolution you would need for daily computations 2) re-computation of replacement level can change past results (e.g. sometimes sites don’t even publish the defense numbers until a month into the season).
Sal’s idea of having a back-up at each position and adding in his pro-rated numbers to fill in for your starter mostly takes care of the main problem with injuries. And I really like the idea of having a “set it and forget it” league, since I am already in a league for $$ to which I devote a lot of time.
Agreed on all of this, especially the back up idea.
Only somewhat related, if anyone is starting up any sort of league this year post if you have openings, pls.
I’m in too. I’d prefer to have some ability to adjust and tinker as far as roster and lineups go, depending on what’s feasible. Maybe monthly changes? Or a limited number of transactions for the season per team (5-10)? Seems silly to have situations where a team drafts a guy who goes on the 60-day DL or loses his job and the team isn’t allowed to replace him, and to have guys who come out of nowhere to end up as top 10 or 15 players just sitting on waivers all year.
True, getting partial defensive numbers is next to impossible.
1. Yes
2. “WAR is assigned only for the dates in which that player was designated to the slot” will not really work, as you cannot get partial values for WAR. Probably the best thing is draft and leave it, having your primary player accumulate the complete WAR he does and then go down the ladder with your backups until the sum of PA or IP is greater than what you set the threshold to be and then prorate the last backup so that the sum is exactly that threshold.
Lotta good pups this year. Obviously Maxwell is a favorite, but I’m also partial to Smudge, Maggie, Jamison, and Falcor!
if I’m wagering, I’m thinking Miss Martian might be the one to back. But watch out for Chicklet!
A DC journalist acquaintance of mine posted something on FB about how the State of the Union is basically the Super Bowl for political news junkies, in that there’s endless speculation about it for weeks, but the actual event is usually disappointing. Which made me think that Animal Planet should do the Puppy State of the Union.
Followed by a stilted and petty Kitten State of the Union shot in a weirdly silent room.
your offseason green/gold gear update. what’s hot. and where to get it!
DB shoes in the trader J’s parking lot has these pumas that are pretty nice, a good percentage off retail price, and i was this close to getting but for the name of the style.
the new sports basement in berkeley has, OMG, these (!!!) in white, with a strategically placed numeral 1 in green and gold that’s golden not gold that’s yellow. again, i was this close, but $40 is a bit much for that much not enough. pro tip: don’t try on the ones sized 32 because i already did and i wasn’t wearing undies.
some estate sale had a bunch of official and unofficial 1989 shirts, another with cartoons of everybody’s faces and one that might be the official team champions shirt plus some others, none of which i can find an example online to show you, that i bought on impulse, ¢25 each, though the way things have gone, and if i can get over that indulgence in paraphernalia the likes of which will bring you back to smoking even though you’ve successfully quit simply because you find a really cool cigarette case or a lighter that works in the wind, you can expect to see them on ebay pretty soon.
I definitely remember that “I survived game 3” shirt.
why do they always raise their hands like someone was offsides after a goal?
always appeal to 1st on a 2-strike checked swing. just in case.
that is a fantastic analogy.
Thanks, and go As.
Go Packers! I would say that I love them +7.5 points today, but, well, you know.
I, for one, love the idea of a team in green and
yellowgold ruining the season for a Seattle team.Damn, Aaron Rogers has looked exceptionally chillaxed this half.
This Seahawks offense…these are the guys that played the first 10 games for the Raiders, right?
Nah – not good enough.
What an epic FAIL.
Yeah, this one knocks the AL Wild Card Game into history’s dustbin.
(when the road team folds like that, it’s just a matter of time…)
Really, a remarkable sequence of fails. Crazy. Exciting game, though.
Speechless, I am.
That poor guy who couldn’t catch the kick.
Wat
There were like a half-dozen plays down the stretch, any one of which going Green Bay’s way would have sealed their victory, and Seattle got every single one. Preposterous win. I’m glad I don’t hate the Seahawks like many of you do, because this game will be relived to excruciating detail over the next two weeks.
…and engender references to the effing NYG game.
Not sure what to think of the AFC game. Moveable Object, Stoppable Force. Certainly my rooting interest is Fuck the Patriots. Sadly, they’ll probably get outplayed yet still manage to win (and cover -6.5). But mostly, Fuck the Patriots.
Also fuck you CBS for including the Snow Job play in your opening montage. I never root for a player to get hurt, but I’d be OK with Brady being disemboweled here today.
yes
Pneumonia would also work.
Someone forgot to tell all the kick returners not to try to catch the ball with your face.
Text from my Packers (Aaron Rodgers fanboy Cal alum) friend: “Don’t wanna talk about it.”
That was a brutal loss.
I would have thoroughly enjoyed a Rodgers vs. Luck Super Bowl.
The Patriots – Seahawks Super Bowl was my least desired outcome of the four choices
of the 256 choices, I think you mean.
I’m pretty sure that if I were a Packers fan, my house would be a funeral pyre right now.
And I’m not expecting much out of
BaltimoreIndianapolis in the late game.Not expecting much? You still might be disappointed.
Nice gif of a Packers fan.
I was drowning a head cold during the first game, so I spent most of the second game sawing logs. Upon reviving, it appears that was the correct allocation of energy.
This game is so bad that the Comcast CBS feed just crapped out.
Good first period for the Sabres.
Ugh.
The life of the Buffalo sports fan, distilled into seven words.
unreal. guess which one of the characters in this story was found dead in a bathtub, small caliber wound to side of head, the night before being due to declare in front of congress?
not really unreal. my dads friend was killed with a letterbomb here in the states ansd the perpetrator, supposedly known to the FBI, has never been extradited from a friendly country. that was in the 80s I think.
you’re right. quite real. but the NYT nailed it. “skulduggerous!”
Sometime in the next few weeks (if not sooner), it will be determined that the cause of death was suicide.
You’re wrong. It’ll be determined that the cause of death was “suicide.” Missing the air quotes by the Coroner. Fuckers always forget those. They need to stop getting these confirmations over the phone.
it was already being called suicide (though with possible external motivations) because the bathroom he was found in was locked from the inside. and the coroner’s report said the shot was akin to self-inflicted. the presidenta jumped on it (on facebook! * ) after a day of silence, and wrote a letter seemingly concerned, asking, what sorts of deep troubling issues would drive someone to kill themselves?
but this morning, the hand swipe results came out. no gunpowder residue on his hands.
though already there’s a… well, a .22 caliber gun isn’t likely to leave as much residue, so absence of proof isn’t proof of absence.
* there was a funny tweet from a woman. something like, she cuts my soaps once a week to come on TV with one of her boring lectures, but now that she needs to come out and calm the country, she sends facebook messages?
NYT’s roundup so far hints nicely at the president’s tone, and an op-ed calling for an international investigation + news this morning, that the locksmith who opened the service entrance from outside to let in nisman’s mother, who discovered the body, said it wasn’t really all that locked, and that there was a third possible entrance leading to a passage where they found recent footprints. call the serial podcast people if they need a topic for next season.
The one crappy thing about being in Israel right now for work is that I don’t get today off (it’s Monday over here)
Hey FSU, it sounds like your man McAdoo got the callup.
And had a good showing
Just a bit, yeah. Got a standing ovation for his efforts.
Yes, very excited, hoping to get a chance to see him in person during his 10-day gig. Assuming he plays well, what do you think the chances are for him to stick around longer?
I’d say there’s good chance he sticks if he plays/practices well. They had an extra roster spot and could use an extra big man. Even if he does get signed on for the rest of the season he’ll probably end up spending some more time in Santa Cruz just to get him minutes.
The article I read suggested he can have two 10-day deals before they have to make a decision. If he keeps up the near-1 ppm pace he’s an easy call to be Bogut insurance
On the long list of things Warriors management has done well this season, add calling McAdoo up just in time for a five-game homestand beginning with a team they could feel confident in blowing out. I imagine they have had that timing planned for him for a little while.
My guess is that they will end up signing him for the rest of the season, maybe after another 10-day, if only to avoid losing his rights to another team. If they cut him loose, someone else will grab him for sure given how well he played in the D-League and what he did yesterday.
Hooray!
Top 10 Athletics home run hitters, in the Beane era (1998-present):
1. 230 – IF
2. 154 – IF
3. 152 – IF
4. 97 – DH/”OF”
5. 86 – IF
6. 85 – DH/”OF”
7. 80 – IF/OF
8. 76 – IF/OF
9. 73 – OF
10. 66 – OF
Can you name them?
Guesses:
Giambi
Chavez
Tejada
Stairs
Ellis
Cust
Swisher
can’t think of another IF
Cespedes
Crisp
Updated #8
9/10 correct names, some ordering issues. Well done!
8 people right (missed Grieve and (duh) Moss), but only 2 in the right spot.
Soaker got 6 right, all in the right spot.
It’s reassuring to know I’ve pretty much forgotten Grieve. I thought Ellis had about 2 double-digit years, not 5. Cespedes and Moss I just didn’t think were around long enough. Hatteberg was a lousy guess, but Crosby, Long and Coco were reasonable tries for those bottom spots.
No cheating!
1. 230 – IF Chavvy
2. 154 – IF Miggy/(Giambi)
3. 152 – IF Giambi/(Miggy)
4. 97 – DH/â€OF†Cust
5. 86 – IF BoCro
6. 85 – DH/â€OF†Stairs
7. 80 – IF/OF Swish
boy, it starts getting tough here; the rest are pure guess and it seems like I’m forgetting somebody
8. 76 – IF huh…Hatty?
9. 73 – OF TLong
10. 66 – OF Coco
Not too bad!
Answers:
Chavez
Tejada
Giambi
Cust
Ellis
Stairs
Swisher
Moss
Grieve
Cespedes
Ignorance on display:
1. 230 – IF Giambi
2. 154 – IF Tejada
3. 152 – IF Chavez
4. 97 – DH/â€OF†Stairs?
5. 86 – IF Donaldson
6. 85 – DH/â€OF†Utterly stumped, can’t think of any candidates
7. 80 – IF/OF Moss
8. 76 – IF/OF Swisher
9. 73 – OF Cespedes?
10. 66 – OF Reddick?
1. Chavez
2. Tejada
3. Giambi
4. Cust
5. Ellis
6. Dye
7. Swisher
8. Moss
9. Stairs
10. Byrnes
7/10! I’m sort of amazed Dye didn’t make it (and was only with the A’s for 3.5 years).
Top 10 Athletics WAR, in the Beane era (1998-present):
1. 35 – IF Eric Chavez
2. 31 – SP Tim Hudson
3. 31 – SP Barry Zito
4. 27 – IF Mark Ellis
5. 25 – IF Jason Giambi
6. 22 – IF Miguel Tejada
7. 20 – SP Mark Mulder
8. 17 – IF Josh Donaldson
9. 15 – OF Coco Crisp
10. 13 – SP Rich Harden
Can you name them?
Chavez
Zito
Hudson
Ellis
Giambi
Tejada
Mulder
Donaldson?
Crisp
Haren
Edit: Well, that was better, and I kinda suck at memorizing WAR.
One letter off.
No way I would have put Ellis that high if I hadn’t just looked up his home run hitting in the context of the previous quiz. It’s interesting how Haren/Harden are very close in starts, number of innings and WAR, but Haren did it in 3 full seasons (34 starts in each) and Harden needed (various parts of) 7 seasons.
that was impressive
Agree
Dang, I was pretty happy with my guesses below, but Soaker kicked my ass.
1. Chavvy
2. Hudson
3. Zito
4. Giambi
5. Tejada
6. Ellis
7. Haren
8. Donaldson
9. Crisp
10. Blanton
Sorry guys, can never remember to do the spoil tag but I think enough time has passed anyway.
Rickey.
1. Chavez
2. Zito
3. Hudson
4. Tejada
5. Ellis
6. Giambi
7. Mulder
8. Donaldson
9. ?
10. Haren
5/10. I ain’t no Soaker.
Yeah, we can call it “The Racist and the Misogynist”
Thanks, and go As.
I haven’t listened to Le Flagship for months now, it not being baseball season at all. The other day, however, I idly flipped over to the station around 8:45 am due to hitting the wrong preset. I heard a total of two words from whatever chucklehead was hosting before I flipped away: “crotchless panties”.
by some coincidence, well, except that i purposefully have it on and haven’t turned it off in like 5 or 6 episodes straight, while i was reading this i just heard lorelei gilmore say “assless chaps.” i was aghast! …because surely lorelei knows this is redundant.
I blame Chris
“Assless Chaps” by Rice Paddy and the Redundants is my favorite nonexistent 80’s garage hit.
OMG! ICIP transverse wind instrument piccolo for rice paddy and the redundants!
So you’re the who beat me out for transverse wind instrument. The jerks felt it necessary that it come from a real “instrument” that it would be more “reliable” acting as if I’d suddenly run out of gas.
One of the morning show clowns declared today that the Gnats “don’t make bad deals” (Aaron Rowan, Barry Zito, Timmeh’s latest contract?) and that they won the WS because they were “mentally tougher” than the other guys (instead of just admitting that Bumgarner nearly single-handedly won three of the four games).
FK 95.7 The Lame.
and the wildcard game like le…..supposs….d…..fuck!
I tuned in twice last week and both times, within five minutes, heard a promo for the self-promotional Best of 95.7 event they held Sunday. The audio they chose to illustrate the station’s best featured one of the hosts pretending to masturbate (and not even very good pretending) while thinking about Erin Andrews.
Wow. That’s truly deplorable.
Well when you decide to focus your station on appealing to Giants fans, this is the kind of lowest common denominator stuff that results
flagshit station
Huh… I didn’t know that Tittle was a racist in addition to being a misogynist.
What’s everyone doing? Sleeping? Lame
Ugh, the publisher that was set to put out my wife’s debut novel next year announced totday that they are closing shop (it’s the US branch of a major Danish publishing house and they supposedly decided that they were sick of being a small fish in a big pond). She gets half of her advance and is free to sell the book elsewhere, but even if she finds another publisher quickly it could push the schedule back by a full year.
totally sucks.
BUY MORE (NON-COOKBOOK) BOOKS, PEOPLE! THE INDUSTRY’S DYING.
And buy ’em from bookstores, not Amazon.
I only buy cookbooks… the rest are for suckers… MOAR COOKBOOKS PLZ
i’m working on it!
good news everyone, i have a new pet peeve!
frickin’ tele-financial people who ask me to verify my address… and sit there waiting for me to tell it to them. verify means THEY tell ME the address and i simply say that’s right, or that’s not right. (especially if they call me, so i have no way of knowing if they’re some random tele-phisher off the street.) but noooooo. whoever writes these phone scripts has to use words they don’t fully understand, and then i end up getting into a verbal situation with my phone rep right off the bat.
That really stinks. It could be better in the long run, though, because even if they had stayed open long enough to put out her book they probably wouldn’t have done a good job marketing it.
They announced back in October that they were looking to sell the US division, so it has been a bit uncertain since then. But we were sort of assuming that some other publisher would pick them up.
She’s taking it pretty well overall. It sounds like her agent is gung-ho on resubmitting to other publishers, including some that seemed really close to offering the first time around. Plus it has now gone through a round of revision with an editor, and has that gold stamp of approval that someone else was willing to invest in it. Also, she’s been working on a couple of other books, one of which is basically ready to be shopped at the same time for a potential two book deal. Have to look on the bright side…
Dear Sir or Madam,
Would you read my book? It took me years to write – could you take a look?
It sounds like they are still putting out books that were scheduled for first half of 2015… but their offices are closing at the end of January. So the marketing for those books is going to reallllly suck.
Oh no, sorry to hear that. At least she gets half the advance? Hopefully it won’t take too long for someone else to pick it up
Are we really going to have to have to hear two weeks of blather about the air pressure in footballs? NBA, take me away.
I can ignore it because we are within a month. Time to start saying “29 more days…28 more days…”
I want to see an NBA team over inflate the balls. Wacky hijinx sure to ensue.
There’s gonna be two weeks of pre-Super Bowl blather regardless. In this case, it’s a Pick ‘Em game, so theoretically at least it could be a good one.
Except for the teams playing in it
I really don’t wish for much from Super Bowl. I’d be satisfied if Brady throws ten interceptions to be picked by each defensive player on the Seahawks not wearing 25, then have Garoppolo burn Sherman for 1000 yards, and then — after everybody chokes on their own dick — for the game to be declared a tie.
This seems wise and reasonable
Good to know the Fresno baseball folks are doing what they can to make sure I keep my streak of missing the annual Hot Stove dinner intact.
The 2 big guests they have lined up for 2015 are Harold Reynolds and Fresno’s own Rex Hudler. I think that might finally give me that stroke I’ve assumed I will have.
“Mr. Hudler. You were a compensation draft pick by the Yankees in exchange for Ron Blomberg, and from there your life has gone completely downhill into the toilet.”
“Do you have a question?”
“Nope. I pretty much summed it up.”
Lots of falling down walking back and forth from the dugout to home plate?
Don’t forget diving unsuccessfully for catchable balls in the outfield.
He doesn’t always get dirty on those. Sometimes he lands on top of the center fielder.
why. why would you say that. I am eating
Might as well market grit if you’re not going to have a good team.
RIP Skymall, and WTF.
Darn. One of my favorite things to do when bored on a plane is go page by page through Skymall and decide if I could get one thing on every page what I would get.
facebook status update from December:
Ed. Don’t you know that only white people ever fly.
I hadn’t looked at the A’s pythagorean record for last year until just now. 99 1st order wins, 98 third order wins — both best in baseball. All with the self-proclaimed BBiB. Utterly crazy.
I woke up today intending a post about another musical heavyweight gone from our midst too soon… I just didn’t expect it to be one of my all time heroes. If you’ve ever wondered where all these sequencers (and the Electronic music that makes use of them) came from, take a bloggy trip with us for a window into the world of the man who some folks think thought up the idea for them in the first place. He died suddenly Tuesday at 70, but Edgar Froese — the founder of Tangerine Dream — will live forever.
This week I’ve listened to more Dead-related stuff than I have in quite some time for obvious reasons. Particularly I listened to some of the Phil and Phriends stuff from the Warfield in April 1999 when Trey and Page were there for Phil’s return from the liver transplant. I think 4-16-99, the middle show of the three, is definitely worth a listen.
I think they f’d up; I wish they’d have got Branford and Ornette instead of Trey. Trey is a BS player and couldn’t hold Jerry’s medium gauge pick. At least they eschewed the hologram, Jesus Christ.
Honestly for me it’s basic: the original 16-track mix of Aoxomoxoa (still not on CD, an atrocity given the master was found 5 years ago now), the acoustic sets with the NRPS in the Spring of 1970 (love Harpur College Dick’s Picks), Fillmore East 9.19.70 Dark Star (as good as any half hour of improvisation ever accomplished by humans that I’ve heard or been a part of), and Spring 1977 when the drummers must’ve partaken of the Peruvian flake and started playing on the beat instead of so far behind it they were always playing a show from last Thursday anyway. The shit Jerry plays over those guys’ finally playing something a soloist could build something off of takes the cake for me. I wish David Gans would kick down Palladium NYC 5.3.77, which I heard him play on Sirius/XM one night driving around Berkeley with a Deadhead and was floored by. Terrapin Station in that was as funky as white people can get, that’s the ceiling of Caucasian funkability and those guys were breaking it that night. Jerry’s solo in that (and really in the whole two sets dude played on the radio) had my jaw pinned, and I’m usually pretty hard on him. As I’ve gotten older I have realized that a lot of his awful nights weren’t really his fault cuz the drummers play so flat and draggy 90% of the time that no soloist alive or dead (Grateful or otherwise) could make anything happen.
Clippard deal makes even more sense now.
Sigh. I guess we can’t have nice things. Might explain why he was having issues towards the end.
rotater cuff. old school
Doo and Kobe Bryant. It’s an epidemic.
I’m at Haas Pavilion, where Cal will surely not get annihilated by Arizona tonight. My kids’ chorus is singing the anthem!
First half impressions:
1. The leg room in the Haas bleachers would shame even an airline.
2. Cal’s offense is brutal. It hurts to watch.
3. But their D is surprisingly spirited!
4. Oski kinda looks like Nixon.
2.
CalSyracuse’s offense is brutal. It hurts to watch.Here, I fixed it for you
I look forward to enduring that pain tomorrow. Carolina’s been playing much better the last month.
Tar Heel victory! The Orange offense didn’t look so bad, really. They’re gonna be a tough out for someone come tournament time. Brutal schedule down the stretch though. Top half of the ACC is looking very strong.
You are talking ACC tournament here, right? With the schedule they have the end of the season record will make them an iffy NCAA tournament team.
The bench is really short, they only have 8 scholarship players on that team and with some five games against Top 10 teams in less than three weeks the regulars will be really worn out.
No, I meant the big dance. The top of the ACC is suddenly looking very strong…5 teams ranked in top 13…so teams like Cuse and NC St should have good cases for NCAA bids even with something like 17-12 records. And yes, Cuse’s remaining schedule is crazy brutal, but if they can win one or two and stay close in the rest of the five vs top 10 teams, that’s a strong resume.
Hopefully they’ll beat Duke twice!
Not anymore. Cuse is out of the play off picture now.
They picked a good year for that
I guess they decided they might as well fall on their sword this year and get it over with.
Rather than being an honest mea culpa from the ‘Cuse, it looks more like “we suck this year and have an awesome class coming next year, so FK it.”
Sure does
At a hotel watching a neck Hornby novel. I mean list show after list show on the MLB network.
sitting here post my start on true detective, pondering that question again (who is the heir to the sopranos -> the wire -> breaking bad -> ?? best thing currently on TV crown?) when i’m suddenly blinded by an entirely different realization, matthew mcconaughey (ok, maybe the distinction is that terrible mouthful of a name, but in a lot of other respects…) is the new harry dean stanton.
not many people got a code to live by anymore
That’s amazing. Emilio<->Woody doesn’t work so well, though.
definitely not.
I wouldn’t buy a Lincoln from any of them.
Best goddamn car on the lot
Though the better McConaughey analogy is probably Dennis Hopper (also in Cool Hand Luke)
hmm… dennis’ path is troubled. he was never going to be
james deanpaul newman, knew it, was only 90% there as an art photographer, pretended not to know that, but had a rolodex card for everybody in the biz so he kept landing just about any role he could lend nervous energy to. i mean, he couldn’t have said “alright” three times in a row without a tangent and a spazz.i bet you’re looking for an early storyline to hook you into what’s going to be a monumental, unique, and historic argentine season (what with 30 teams going in, including 10 from the former B division, into a 2-halves format that… actually i don’t have a grasp on it, so here.) i also don’t have a grasp on what team is hot after all the trades, but here goes my extracurricular prediction: vangioni of river plate is going go have 2 or 3 games where he’ll be wearing a target on his back.
you remember him as the guy who injured, possibly with the intention to take him out for a week or two, boca’s best weapon at the moment, martinez, in the first leg of that sudamericana last year.
yesterday in the first meeting between them, a summer friendly to warm up the bank accounts, vangioni took it upon himself to give pavón, boca’s 18-yr-old hope, a broken foot. so boca’s capt, gigliotti went to vangioni and told him, after they carted off pavón but before it was confirmed as a fracture, “the first one was ok, one of those things. but this second one is bad blood.” vangioni gave him the “keep walking” sign.
a while later, vangioni got a red card, for spiking none other than gigliotti.
related not related.
so riquelme retired yesterday. surprised this place hasn’t gone batshit over it with memories and outcries. so many highlights to enjoy. from his debut with boca when he earned an ovation from “the 12” twice, despite being the rookie kid (check out the pass at 2:50. he’s 18!! where did he get the gall?) to his signature gesture, the topo gigio (which was basically a fuck you to the president of the club, who’d been dicking him around over money and a transfer to barça) and on and on. just an unparalleled playmaker, team leader, and ball handler with an odd but really effective style.
but if we have to pick one that goes with his personality, let’s choose a modest one. like this, totally unique. totally riquelme. a blind nutmeg. for a pass. that he doesn’t even touch.
batgirl signal: I’m starting the search for adopting a rescue pup. Do you have any suggestions or insights into the process? I know about petfinder.com and the Milo foundation, but any thoughts would be appreciated!
Where do you live? Most all rescues and shelters list on petfinder, I think, but I find it super hard to dig through to find info. If you are in the East Bay, check out http://www.friendsofbacs.org. I’m on their board and we are trying to make it the one stop shop place to find the pets at the BACS (municipal) shelter rather than using the facebook site or petfinder.
Private non-profit shelters like Berkeley East Bay Humane, Arf, etc. aren’t open intake, so they go around and cherry pick the most adoptable dogs from open intake shelters. If you go municipal, they take whatever comes in, so you’re going to get a wide variety of ages and breeds, and if you’re in the market for a chihuahua or pit bull, I can HOOK. YOU. UP.
The nice thing about rescue is that the dog would most likely be in a foster home, and that home would have the best info about the dog and how they behave in a home environment. With a shelter, you would most certainly be giving a home to a dog in the most need, but you’re not going to get as true a picture since they will probably behave differently at home rather than in a loud, confining, kennel environment.
Any size/breed/age preference?
I’m in San Francisco, but I do have a car. I’m pretty flexible on these, but I’m generally looking for a small to medium sized dog (roughly in the 15-60 pounds range) that’s less than two years old. I don’t have a specific breed in mind, but probably not a high energy working or herding dog, just given the SF apartment scene and working schedule I have. I’ve never really found pit bulls, pugs, or chihuahuas particularly appealing either. I grew up around Tibetan terriers and Shih Tzus in my family.
It is difficult to dig through petfinder, but that’s where I’ve focused so far. We do have a cat in my apartment (not mine, but my roommate’s), so that’s going to steer me more towards dogs who have had some exposure to cats already.
In SF you have the SPCA (private) and SFACC (municipal.) Now that I know your general likes I’ll keep an eye out. If you do facebook, you might want to like the pages of some of the rescues and shelters that would be convenient for you. That is often the best way to get photos, bios, videos and other info about available dogs. Volunteers will comment under photos with more info.
Thanks! This is very helpful. I’ve begun compiling a list of breeds that appeal to me, so hopefully that will start making it easier to narrow down. One problem I’ve had with petfinder is that it there’s so many great possibilities, and trying to make judgments on what amounts to two photos and a short writeup seems impossible. That’s part of the reason I’m trying to get a better handle on different breeds right now
So update: I’ve been doing the research, and so far, I’ve found several breeds that appeal. Do you have any experience with any of these? Australian Terrier, Cairn Terrier, Canaan Dog, Skye Terrier, either type of Corgi, Cocker Spaniel, Springer Spaniel
Canaans are beautiful.
That is all I’ve got.
Thanks, and go As.
And you can yell CANAAAAAAAAAAAN! We he/she has an accident.
That they are. Haven’t seen too many around yet though
great dane!
Love them, hate the short lifespan :(
Thanks, and go As.
Mine is going to be turning ten in a month
Holy crap.
Thanks, and go As.
I know hes such a sweet heart.
I don’t have experience with any of those breeds, but many breeds have specific rescues just for that breed. So you could do a search for Bay Are Corgi Rescue, etc. and see what comes up. I forgot to mention Rocket Dog, which is a good SF rescue. For example: http://www.rocketdogrescue.org/dog/fuzzington/?status=for-adoption
I’ve been as busy as a bee lately, but I’ve been meaning to post this hilarious concert to honor a pivotal figure gone too soon. So today is the day to pay tribute to one of the founders of the seminal “culture-jammer” ensemble Negativland — his name was Ian Allen and he died 10 days ago at 56 — with a bloggy adventure back to 1989 and the tour for their ultimate masterpiece, itself one of the greatest musical hoaxes ever perpetrated on an unsuspecting (and terminally blood-lustful) mass media. GIVE UP!!!!! That’s right, it’s time for HELTER STUPID live in Massachusetts!!!
Today is the 70th anniversary on Earth for one of my ultimate, all-time musical heroes, and what better way to mark the momentous occasion than with a tribute concert from a tribute band dedicated exclusively to him? Blog along with us today as we pay homage to a man who’s been shaping the sounds of our scenery for our whole lifetimes. Communist, Soft Machinist, Matching Moleman, Hendrix pal, and the first rock star ever to kick off a solo career by falling out of a window and breaking his back… that’s right, it’s a Robert Wyatt Wednesday!
I keep getting told there are new posts in here, but there are no new posts in here. Until now.
A spammer for some reason keeps posting spam to this thread, which I duly mark as such rather than approving.
I get that it’s just a numbers game, but I love the idea of somome thinking “lets get that content into a 4 yr old FK post…we will make MILLIONS!!!”
RUSSKIES!!!
Thanks for resurrecting this flag so that I could notice that it is tagged with Will 2015 be the year of the Print Sandwich?