I have had a remarkable history of never getting called in for jury duty, held intact through last night but now I have to check in again in a few minutes to see if I go in this afternoon. So I figured I would jinx myself by creating this new grill.
Been reading a lot lately. If any of you NRAFs have a yen for a taste of Berkeley, check out this locally set novel. It’s not new, but interesting. And if you’re into short stories, check out these stories by George Saunders. Fair warning – if you want to listen to the talk (interesting, if you like hearing about the writing process) the beginning is definitely NSFW.
Berkeley is apparently getting more weed.
Grill away.
And…I’m off the hook for another year. One of these times I actually want to get called in.
Sounds like Berkeley planning staff might have to do some field research.
My wife really enjoyed 10th of December. I’ve been meaning to get around to it myself. I’m currently reading the new Kazuo Ishiguro, which I like quite a bit.
Hunh, that seems surprising and like it could be fun to read.
I’m about 2/3 of the way through. I hadn’t read any Ishiguro until reading Never Let Me Go last year, and I *loved* that one.
Remains of the Day is also really good. Really made me reflect on the parallels between Japanese and English feudalism, especially with respect to ritual and loyalty.
Yep, it’s definitely on my to-read list. Bonus for The Buried Giant is that I went to see Ishiguro talk on campus and got my book signed!
I love Ishiguro, Remains of the Day is great, and The Unconsoled is one of my ten favorite novels, but I couldn’t get into this one.
suanders is at another level.
hmm. better: he’s at every level. the word level. the sentence level. […] the psychological. the cultural.
well, except for the novel level. (unless i missed it, which is possible.)
he’s like the goddamned amy hempel of not-only-short-short stories!!
where did i hear amy hempel named recently? it was like a credit to a movie or something. this is going to bug me.
and i’m seriously getting sidetracked here.
also, she’s hot.
i agree.
well, she’s no joan didion.
shut up and wait till heidi julavitz hits 60.
what am i supposed to do till then??
6 or 7 episodes in and i think i am still watching the unshakable kimmy schmidt almost entirely because of carol kane.
still can’t think of it. the dangers of power-watching netflix at night / power-hearing podcasts by day.
tenuously related:
“life is too short to spend it listenign to ads.”
i prolly shoulda ital’d the not instead of the only.
meaning, some writers are really good at one level or another. he’s the best at every level. chain reaction of culture-penetrating meaning explosions.
Back in the time of which I am speaking, due to our Coördinators had mandated us, we had all seen that educational video of “It’s Yours to Do With What You Like!†in which teens like ourselfs speak on the healthy benefits of getting off by oneself and doing what one feels like in terms of self-touching, which what we learned from that video was, there is nothing wrong with self-touching, because love is a mystery but the mechanics of love need not be, so go off alone, see what is up, with you and your relation to your own gonads, and the main thing is, just have fun, feeling no shame!
RIGHT!??
I have never been on an actual jury. In fact I have only once even had to go into the court for possible jury service (where I was struck by the plaintiff’s attorney when i expressed the opinion that many chiropractors are quacks and/or leeches). So something like 19/20 times my service has ended with a recorded phone voice telling me not to bother coming in.
Yeah, ms. s always gets on me for never even getting called in for void dire, while she’s had to go in several times and served on a jury once. I would actually like to go through it some day (I know, careful what you wish for).
I’ve had to go into the courthouse probably 4 or 5 times over the years. At least two of those into a courtroom. Once into the jury box for voir dire. Never on a jury.
It sounds like ms. s is on Alameda County’s hot list. The last few years I lived in Oakland I reliably received a jury summons every 13th month. It’s been about 15 years since I advanced past the waiting room though. One summons in six years in Nevada, where the sheriff sends out notices in May advising the recipient that they’re in the county jury pool for the following July 1-June 30, so if I don’t get that notice in the next few weeks I’ll know I’m clear until July 2016.
In my time in CA, I was called into court once but got out of it because I had to leave for college in a couple days. In Illinois, I spent one day waiting around at the courthouse and then was dismissed without ever seeing lawyers, plus one or two telephone dismissals. What I find fairly surprising is that I’ve been in Massachusetts for five years now and haven’t seen even a hint of a jury summons.
Only time I’ve had to go in, I was selected for a large group of jurors that would be whittled down for a landlord/tenant dispute of some kind. Apparently they expected it to take at least two months to deal with, and the reason our pool was so large was because most of us wouldn’t be able to serve on a trial that long. That was the case with me.
I’ve only had to go in three times. Once I was simply dismissed after a couple hours. Once I was dismissed because I couldn’t sit on a multi-month trial (I was in college home for the holidays). The third time I sat on a 3-day trial for the stupidest thing possible: assault without battery (or, you know, evidence).
Prosecutors actually bring those cases? That’s dumb.
depends
This one was dumb unless it was a non-first-strike thing.
Well if I was assaulted with Depends I would want someone to go to jail.
Not only was I on a jury in Iowa, but I got elected foreman. The case was a whiplash suit that should’ve been settled out-of-court – in fact, had either party actually showed the accident site (it was described, but no map shown) I probably would’ve pushed for exoneration of the defendant.
In Iowa, you are on duty for three months, and being called once does not clear you from being called again during your term. About a week before the whiplash case I was also called in for this horror. I had a final exam on the first day of selection, so I didn’t show up until the next day. I later found out that the Iowa State Patrol had gone over to the Physics department while I was sitting in the court room waiting to see if they wanted to interview me – jury selection was being done in the judge’s chambers rather than in open court.
never had the pleasure. never in the box for voir dire. twice in courtroom
I got on a jury the first time I was called, in Saint Paul. I was about 22 and looking down my nose at the largely middle-aged and older working-class people and retirees on the jury, assuming they were going to fall for the appeals to sentiment coming from the attorneys on both sides. I got my comeuppance when the gray-haired forewoman said at the beginning of deliberations, “Well, now, I don’t know about the rest of you but I thought that nice young man from the district attorney’s office didn’t really have his evidence together. And that other young man was just trying to make us feel sorry for the defendant’s mom. So what I’m thinking is we should order in some coffee and stay back here until lunchtime so the nice young man from the DA’s office doesn’t feel too bad, and then come back with a not-guilty, what do you all say?” And that’s what we did.
Since then I’ve been called several times, but never served again. Somehow I only get as far as voir dire on the occasions that I’ve been too busy at work to serve — once I actually had to endorse jury nullification (not in so many words, of course, because then the judge would know I was faking it) before they let me off. And the times that I’ve had a job that would pay me for a few weeks off for jury duty are the times I get the no-need-to-report message.
nice story
EM is a fantastic story teller, I just want to pull up a chair and beg for more.
Hey, no need to beg, it beats working! It’s really vivid in my memory for some reason, down to the old-school elevators in the Ramsey County Courthouse which at that time were still operated by civil servants sitting on a little fold-out seat. The courtrooms were on one of the top floors and the elevators were the kind that left your stomach somewhere around the halfway point.
The charge was death by criminal negligence. If they’d given us the option of DUI and reckless driving we’d have found the guy guilty, because his blood alcohol was so high it was a wonder he could even distinguish his car keys from his fingers. He and his brother had gone out drinking one Saturday night, bar-hopping on the sleaziest major artery of Saint Paul. On the way home, they’d rolled their pickup truck and the brother who was the passenger was thrown out and killed. But it was the week before Christmas, it was snowing, and there was ice on the road. There weren’t any witnesses to the actual crash, but another driver had seen a semi in the lane next to the pickup a few minutes earlier. There were some ambiguous tire tracks that one expert thought might have been a semi swerving in front of the pickup, and another thought not. The Highway Patrol had tracked down the trucker, but he refused to answer questions, and he was Canadian so they couldn’t subpoena him. So, a plausible alternate theory in which the accident could have been unavoidable even if the driver was sober.
I hadn’t seen a real or televised trial before, in those pre-OJ and Law and Order days, so I was impressed that the prosecutors had to be prepared to establish all of the facts of the case. They had a guy from the surveyor’s office who was going to testify that the location of the crash was in Ramsey County and thus in the court’s jurisdiction — the defense attorney got up and said “We stipulate that the crash happened in the county”. Then they had the medical examiner who was going to establish that the dead brother was in fact dead. The defense said that was okay, they’d stipulate to that too.
The prosecutors called all the bartenders and waitresses from the various drinking establishments the brother had visited – all straight out of Central Casting. The defense spent a lot of time establishing that the brothers had spent the afternoon before the drinking spree handing out Christmas presents at a home for crippled children (I had a hard time keeping a straight face at that), and they put the elderly mother of the two louts on the stand, who was understandably not anxious to lose her second son to prison after the first one had died. But as the forewoman said, that was not evidence.
It’s the modern era – now the Internet tells you you don’t have to bother coming in
Speak for yourself. Ex-Mrs Aces is having to call this week.
If you’ve got an hour free and are near Berkeley on Thursday afternoon, this conversation should be stimulating.
Wow, Patriots.
Thanks, and go As.
I would like to express sympathy to them and their fans, especially for losing their starting QB for four games.
But I can’t.
Kind of freaking out about this Warriors game. Not gonna lie.
Warriors haven’t lost three in a row all year, they won’t start tonight. Also (insert obligatory hint of NBA conspiracy re TV ratings here).
Meh… refs seem to be leaning the other way to me. And I say that as someone with lots of experience spouting uninformed opinions.
Warriors are getting fouls called against Allen on the perimeter that were nowhere to be seen in Games 2-3. Huge effect on reining in the Memphis D. Steve Kerr is definitely OK with the sum of the calls at halftime, Draymond’s 3 notwithstanding.
They also figured out how to punish the Grizz for playing Allen. Leave him wide open and let Bogut play centerfield.
True. I think a good case could be made that this series has been guided largely by the foul calls. Memphis fans howling tonight could have been the roaracle crowd transferred from games 1& 2, when it seemed like the home team never got a call.
road solar? A start?
15 year payback?
Are those supposed to be two different links?
no. just lazy
does anyone else have clients demand to have a meeting with opposing counsel to set things right straight?
?
That’s the very definition of civil litigation (or, at minimum, mediation).
well, defendants meeting with the DA seems like a very very bad idea
Does that not happen all the time? Has Law & Order been lying to me for decades?
GM, there is no Hudson University.
Of course not. They shut that place down because all the students were either dead or convicted murderers.
Or too busy to talk to homicide detectives because {heavy sigh} “I really have to get to class.”
“Ed, man, if I could just talk to the DA eye to eye, man to man, he’d know there’s no possible way I could be the guy who murdered that busload of child prodigies!”
Does anyone else have maintenance men tell you that you lost parts to your dishwasher and are lying about it and thats why it doesnt work?
Does anyone else have colleagues who schedule you to give two different talks in two different cities 1000 miles apart at exactly the same time?
Ted talks are received in many different cities across the globe.
Have them hire an actor to portray you in the less interesting city. But dont let them hire like Gérard Depardieu or something..
Same local time, short speech and a Concorde. All. The. Time.
Who do you think I am,
Phil CollinsBed?i don’t even know how you guys can tell what’s exactly the same time in an accelerating universe.
Good point, even special relativity renders the classical notion of simultaneity meaningless. However spacelike is still a well-defined concept.
give two different talks in two different cities at the
time, makes much more sense.
Cosmological principle (homogenous and isotropic universe) gives a pretty good sense of time, since particles in different parts of the universe should all have similar histories. It’s just that we’re still struggling to understand why this is the case.
Venditte
That was great. I had no idea that Venditte is only ambidextrous at throwing a baseball, and nothing else. Weird. Also this:
Yeah, thank’s for linking that.
The thing about more Canadian ballplayers being left-handed because hockey is cool.
right?
Your other right.
h23n also, yeah?
Damn, Giancarlo Stanton:
http://streamable.com/jgp4
Holy…
Hardest hit baseballs in the world.
Imnot a huge fan of liking other team, especially for a limited time. But with that man, and with T-Black pitching for them, I may have to adopt Miami for a few months.
Stephen GOAT
blatter, afraid of the FBI.
love the title of the more links section at the bottom of that. and i couldn’t help getting caught up in the scornado.
especially the scenes of that german FIFA doco that just came out. knowing a touch of deutsch helps, but the original voices are in english so you get the gist.
Stuff from all three A’s and Mariners games here, but the last one has the best in-game action. The other two have a lot more general stadium shots, especially the first one since I spent most of my time there in the upper deck.
” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen>
and yet, it won’t get goal of the year.
Hey y’all I had a nice 90 minute conversation with a certain radio announcer today, and he wanted me to pass along that he’s not yet deceased and working his ass off (his words) to get back into that booth ASAP for you :)
Yay!
There is a Minor Leaguer called Greg Nappo. Doesn’t say if he is a singer/songwriter in his free time.
I don’y know if the “Common People” song by PULP was ever popular in the US. It was around here, as pretty much the rest of the Britpop in the nineties. Well, turns out that the woman portrayed in the song is the wife of the Greek Master of Coin, Yanis Varoufakis.
” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen>
It got a fair amount of airplay in the US. The lyrics always seemed too specific to not be based in reality, but pretty scathing.
I said pretend you’ve got no money. She just laughed and said “Oh, you’re so funny…my husband can print as much as he wants.”
No he can’t. Greece is on the euro, not it’s own currency.
Oh yeah…
I have a Joe Jackson/William Shatner cover on my playlist.
Wild:
http://itsaboutthemoney.net/archives/2015/05/13/the-only-ever-split-level-outfield-texass-clark-field/
For hunch bettors, the very first song which came up on my random shuffle after seeing the Preakness field was Steely Dan’s Bodhisattva. He’s at 20-1 in the Morning Line.
steely dan –> naked lunch –> william burroughs –> ilse von klapper –> FIRING LINE IT IS!!
Steely Dan -> Wayne Shorter -> Sonny Sharrock -> Pharaoh Sanders -> American Pharoah it is
Out of qualified hitters in MLB, there are only 11 who have at least as many BB as K. Josh Reddick is one of them (14 BB, 12 K). #ycpb
Lawrie is more than making up for it.
Christ, what an asshole.
Standing O
I love those
he mean raphael’s school of athens, but he ain’t know it.
That’s the Cadillac of art history references.
An article about bathroom graffiti in Minneapolis reminded me how little of it I see in the Bay Area. Maybe it’s a gender thing or maybe it’s just too retro a platform for these techie precincts? Or maybe it’s the Twin Cities that are the outlier in having quite a lot of it. The only example I remember seeing here in the last decade is the stall in one of the Coliseum bleacher restrooms that has “The YANKEES SUCK!!!” scrawled across the door….and even that may have been painted over in the off-season.
Must be a gender thing because I see it everywhere.
How else would you pronounce Szczur?
“throatwobbler mangrove.”
Nice one.
its only spelled that way
no. it’s spelled raymond luxury ya-ch-t.
Sh as in shadow, ch as in choke, oor as in poor.
So it starts with a sound like the Russian consonant Щ, then, as in borscht? Shchore?
Pretty much
Throatwobbler Mangrove with the hilarious extra inning walkoff single, assisted by the Ministry of Silly Walks.
The attacks on civil liberties in the third world countries are getting out of hand.
My god the meat lobby makes me want to punch a wall.
you don’t mess with big meat
Howard Lymon is my hero.
TFW the ex proudly makes a FB post to show she is an anti-vaxer.
“happy she’s an ex”?
ptbnl bait
well.
2nd leg of the river/boca libertadoers. boca totally frustrated by its own play — it can’t get out of the back. river is smothering them, using the 1-0 global and the threat of away goals today to its advantage. the fans feel it too, the frustration. so when river is coming back after the half, someone blows a pepper-spray bomb in their tunnel. guys covered with pepper on their faces. the game’s about to be suspended if not forfeited. come watch the very best of argentine fútbol on fox deportes, everybody!
Deadspin has had three horrible Argentine soccer stories in the last five hours. Ugly stuff.
the worst. i’m totally embarrassed by everything: my country my people my team….
river’s players *just* left the field 2 hours 15 mins later, because: the inflatable tunnel deflated, asshole boca fans kept throwing things at them whenever they approached the sideline, the 1200 cops (seriously, that’s how many the local team has to hire for an event like this, though of course, they’re just a bunch of 18-yr-old kids with barely enough training to use their walkie talkies) didn’t do anything neither immediately nor as things went on, boca’s players didn’t walk them out in solidarity.
finally boca’s coach walked out to the circle and led them out when finally the cops made a tunnel using their shields, but people in the stands still threw crap anyway. while singing about how river is shit scared (gosh, such experts in shit scared might have recognized that who was really scared were the boca fans who thought they were 45 minutes away from elimination and didn’t let boca prove itself or lose with some dignity).
meanwhile some mid-higher up in boca got interviewed and pretended nothing was happening at all. “apparently some of river’s players suffered some injuries, though we’re not sure what they’re from…” IT’S ON FUCKING LIVE TV WHAT IT’S FROM.
youtube link live, not sure how long it lasts.
GAAAAAAHHH.
it’s looking like: no continuation and the game will go to river. no fans at games, in addition to possibly having them played at a neutral stadium for an amount of time TBD (2017’s been named). and a ban on boca participating in int’l games for a year. decision will be made tomorrow after boca submits its paperwork to CONMEBOL.
i’m not gah’ing the likely decision. i’m gah’ing that some jerk(s) have fucking messed so much up. like, let’s say there was 1% chance that tevez’ interest in coming to boca in june was real… zero that right out now.
slap on the wrist-ish?
river gets the game and is through to quarters.
$200K fine for boca. (none for river, which would have been because the president of the club went onto the pitch before the game was suspended, and that’s illegal.)
boca is allowed to participate in future int’l games with only one hitch. the next 4 conmebol local games will be without any fans, and the next 4 away games will be with local fans only.
i have mixed feelings. i don’t think it’s enough to backhandedly punish the jerks who did this. i was almost hoping for really strong sanctions to make the people turn against the barras (hoolingans). like, no int’l games plus no home games for a year (the barras live on home games), plus maybe something else. but i was also sort of hoping that with really harsh punishment, there’d be a continuation of the game in question and that somehow boca pulled it off and continued the libertadores, ’cause you know how much i had my heart set on this year’s tournament.
i’m not sure if the AFA is going to do any local-level punishing.
—
in case articles in english have note elucidated further: the sleeve itself was not cut through or punctured enough to throw anything into the tunnel. apparently the guy who’s in that pic messing around with the back of the sleeve did not throw the pepper spray. he was holding a flare against the material, which caused smoke, even through the double wall of the sleeve.
but somebody else did throw pepper spray (or a home-made concoction of chili peppers, cayenne powder, and an acid to ferment it) from the front opening of the tunnel. they have the nickname of this guy, and they’re calling him a third-line barra (or foot soldier). it seems to me it was a coordinated effort, and that there’d be orders from somewhere higher in the barra. i mean, it’s like the mafia. you don’t go do something like that on your own volition because you can get in trouble from your own capos.
kinda got a handle on this finally.
the war between di zeo and mauro martin as heads of “the 12” barra, which started when DZ got sent to jail and MM took over for his old boss, or rather, when DZ got out of jail and wanted to get control back from MM (which MM famously famously gave the you’re gonna die sign from across the stands), was coming to an end. DZ regained his official club membership (lost when he couldn’t pay club dues while in jail) and was to be allowed to sit in the stands again as of a couple of weeks ago, and MM and DZ were co-leading the 12, and a sort of pact was made between the barra and the club where the barra promised there would be less trouble.
barras are the narco-fan mafias that follow each club. they are members of the club, because anybody in the public can become a member by paying dues, and they usually live in the neighborhood of the club, but apart from that they are only interested in the soccer as far as their business is concerned. from the ground up, they control parking around the stadium (you pay a guy to watch your car otherwise you come back from the game and there’s no car), amenities inside and around (namely choripanes), schwag sales on the streets (like those BART bridge vendors, but big scale), ticket scalping (they buy up all tickets early and resell), not to mention drugs on the streets and at games. but that’ just the start. barras, as blocs, have inroads with unions, therefore politics within the club and at large. that is, they control candidacies in club presidencies and in general elections (it’s not a total coincidence the former boca president is current buenos aires city governor). and with such power to place the suits, they also demand a cut of everything, including player transfers, which they can influence. it adds up to pretty big business, at an unverified amount of $50K/month income for each of the few heads at the tops of these pyramids. so everybody wants to be capo.
anyway, DZ went to jail, MM took over, DZ came back, there was internal tension and fighting, DZ regained club membership, worked things over with MM, just in time for boca’s presidential elections coming this year when… somebody else wants to take over. and that’s what this was. a show of “i can FK everything up at will” power by a third internal faction in the barra, which undermines the accord that the 12 had made with the club to keep the semblance of peace as long as the club didn’t meddle too much in the 12’s business. apparently, this 3rd faction got pissed at the 12 when the 12 cut them out of the re-sale business and gave that turf to another faction.
the questions remaining are whether the 12 knew beforehand what was about to happen (because nothing goes on in the stands that they don’t know about). and whether boca’s stadium security did anything (either to stop or aid the 3rd faction), as the head of security (former federal police head, who retired because, well… suddenly he had a lot of money and let’s leave it at that, right?) is friends with both DZ and MM, and was seen at the mall with both of them when boca traveled to zamora during group stages of the libertadores, and yet, the 3rd party faction got on the field to throw the pepper into the tunnel from the front of it. but he’s not going to say anything because if DZ and MM are somehow connected, they both lose their club memberships and it all starts up again.
the facts in this 15-minute vid are plain wrong several times (the first sentence claims river plate and quilmes are argentina’s fiercest rivals…) but the gist and atmosphere are indicative.
if you speak spanish, this hourlong iberian doco expands better (though you still have to watch out for unreliable narrators).
i want to teach y’all spanish just so you can watch this TED talk by the guy who wrote the book on barra brava violence.
“re-teach”
I forgot like 90% of the spanish i knew =\
Thanks, and go As.
makes sense. cussing takes about 10%.
Good stuff. But teach people Argentinian ;)
even then, i’d have to go regional and teach porteño to understand sha shegó la shuvia (ya llegó la lluvia).
sho shoraba is one of my favorites
Also, you can survive without tomatoes?
noodles with butter. that might be the only dish we have without tomatoes. not even the traditional gnocchi for the 29th of the month goes without tuco de tomate.
FIFA thinks it’s a slap on the wrist. they are threatening to take away the 5th CONMEBOL berth to the next world cup (the playoff berth it shares with, i think, asia). rumor is the UEFA will get that spot because apparently it’s not fair russia is automatically in and only 13 other teams get to qualify. (give it to asia or africa, goddammit.)
I’ll admit to not really following this closely, but screwing Colombia or Ecuador or whoever out of a World Cup because of a failure by the AFA seems unfair.
truedat
except that it’s not the AFA.
failure by CONMEBOL. this was a libertadores game, the investigation and sanctions were entirely within that governing body. FIFA’s saying the punishment they decided on in uruguay on saturday wasn’t strong enough.
the AFA didn’t have jurisdiction, and hasn’t had any dealings other than allowing the problem of barras to persist and grow over decades.
even moreso, then
i’m not saying allowed like they sat back and watched with interest. i’m saying they are impotent to change anything due to the multifaceted corruption, even within it. they’re not even at the top of the corrupted bodies chain. the national gov’t is probably that, if we look at cristina’s populistic propaganda invention, the public TV channel “futbol para todos.”
she took TV rights away from the AFA’s choice on who to sell them to, made a free TV channel where all games are shown, interspersed with commercials about how chocolate rations have increased to 20 grams, hurray!, didn’t pay the money they promised the AFA, that money never trickled back down to clubs and players like it used to, and there’s a money/power vacuum there. but what can the AFA do about that?
if you want to say it’s argentine culture’s fault overall that colombia or ecuador don’t make it to russia, that’s one thing. but i don’t know you can blame a middleman alone.
still, once it got above that, at the CONMEBOL level, and CONMEBOL didn’t do enough, that seems like a better stopping point.
though, i guess you can use my own can’t-blame-a-middleman when talking about the giant pyramid of corruption that blatter sits atop…
my point was, screwing colombia or ecuador because of the actions of some drug dealers is not only unfair, it really shows the widespread implications of what seems like small neighborhood crap so very far away.
Chocolate rations? Seriously?
not seriously.
“It appeared that there had even been demonstrations to thank Big Brother for raising the chocolate ration to twenty grammes a week. And only yesterday, he reflected, it had been announced that the ration was to be reduced to twenty grammes a week. Was it possible that they could swallow that, after only twenty-four hours? Yes, they swallowed it. Parsons swallowed it easily, with the stupidity of an animal. The eyeless creature at the other table swallowed it fanatically, passionately, with a furious desire to track down, denounce, and vaporize anyone who should suggest that last week the ration had been thirty grammes. Syme, too — in some more complex way, involving doublethink, Syme swallowed it. Was he, then, alone in the possession of a memory?
The fabulous statistics continued to pour out of the telescreen. As compared with last year there was more food, more clothes, more houses, more furniture, more cooking-pots, more fuel, more ships, more helicopters, more books, more babies — more of everything except disease, crime, and insanity. Year by year and minute by minute, everybody and everything was whizzing rapidly upwards.”
BTW, if one of those stories was about the player who died this morning, that resulted from a complete accident during a game. fighting for a ball near the sideline with an opponent, he ended up bonking his head against a cement barrier nearby, falling immediately unconscious and suffering skull fractures. it was not violence-related. the AFA suspended all games this weekend at all levels (that game had been at a lower level) in a show of respect. so at least there was that.
following up:
river lost the home leg against cruzeiro last night, 1–0. the jokes in the afiches (so called from when they were actually posters that would get pasted around the city after a game) is that river can only win series via bureaucratic intervention.
the other argentine team still in the libertadores also lost their first leg. not that i care. it’s racing, and i actively dislike them. i have no idea who to root for this year. even the 2 brazilian teams remaining are smaller clubs, so i have no connection. but as long as river or racing don’t pull it off, i’m fine.
meanwhile, boca named the 17 people involved in the ugliness, all club members, and is demanding them to pay 70 million pesos (~$7.8M) for losses caused by their actions. good luck with that!
at least boca still leads the local tournament and without having to split squads for libertadores, they can focus on it.
sergio berni, secretary of security for the country, is intimating that maybe the gov’t needs to step into the AFA. (not that the gov’t hasn’t already, when it used the threat of holding back money from futbol para todos to get people named into the board of the AFA). the AFA fired back with a passive-agressive open letter saying that “somebody” is trying to bring back the dictatorship of the 70s.
unrelated, a few of the kids from both boca and river are now in new zealand for the sub-20 world cup, which starts at the end of the month. they lost to tahiti 3–1. ouch.
I understand what they’re aiming for with these, but…no. Just no.
And:
There is this sick part of me that wants to like these and is trying to like them.
I think what makes me comfortable in my hatred is that they even managed to screw up the Pittsburgh hats. Those should have been an automatic-do it like the 79 version and you’re done.
And they’re not even true pillbox hats!
By the time last year’s grew on me I missed out on the size I wanted. Not even going to bother with these.
The A’s colorful road hat looks much better than the white one in the tweet above this one. I like it. Probably not enough to get one, but still, not bad at all. Matches the high socks too.
I think I’ve figured out what I don’t particularly like about them:
They’re trying to apply the pillbox style to a modern hat, when I think they should go all the way and actually make these pillbox hats to match the style of the old Reds mascot in the ASG logo.
stripes too wide
You and James have it. It’s not the type of hat the design is made for. And even if it was it would look better with thinner stripes.
And of course it needs Stargell Stars for anything good you do.
I propose this hat instead:
That has to be the funkiest moment in baseball history right there.
If only he had a velvet jacket on and a feather coming out of the hat.
Now refuted as being worn in the ASG.
Well, then.
A tale of two shortstops.
Maybe he would be better at second base. At least there he would have a shorter throw to make after he kicks the ball.
Or he could kick them to first base directly
About Bret Boone:
http://athletics.scout.com/story/1546641-oakland-a-s-front-office-q-a-bret-boone?s=304
It’s obviously a sad day that had to come sometime, so if you don’t already know it is my sad duty to inform you of the passing of the legendary B.B. King. I don’t know what else to say other than to offer a token of his inestimable legacy, in the form of two performances from 1971 — one at the old Fillmore in NYC and the other a rare half-hour from French TV — which I hope you’ll enjoy and share in remembrance of this most mightiest of musicians.
Hey, Coliseum concession mavens: Do they still sell those grilled cheese sandwiches on the fat Texas toast bread, at the burger stand behind Sec 133-ish? Those are the faves of Segundo Upgrade.
Yes (at least as of last homestand)
Yay, thank you!
Mmmm. Food.
I like putting mayo, pickles, and tomato on my grilled cheese. Is it still grilled cheese?
Yes.
Our governor signed a law yesterday allowing Nevada DOT to post 80 mph speed limits. This was another try at raising it to 85 but everybody finally agreed on 80. So that will probably be posted on most of I-80 across Nevada sometime in the near future.
Also under this law, what you can get away with/won’t be pulled over for: If the posted limit is 70, 75 or 80 and you’re doing no more than 5 mph over, the maximum fine is $25 and no moving violation is reported. Likewise if the limit is 60 or 65 and you’re doing no more than 10 mph over.
@Soaker: I love Nevada’s civilized approach to highway traffic. My favorite cop interaction of all time happened on Highway 95, heading north on a Sunday morning having just left a weekend demonstration at the Test Site. Driving maybe 70 mph in a then 55 mph zone, open beers in the truck cab. Cop pulls us over and says he has no choice but to write us up per direction from his superiors. Goes back to his cruiser, then returns and hands me a ticket for wasting energy. $5 fine. Asks us not to throw our empties out the window as we finish them and wishes us a safe ride home.
This is like OPD’s finest who drove up to us on Opening Night at the post-game tailgate around 11:30 pm.
Officer: Excuse me, folks. I’m SUPPOSED to tell you that you’re SUPPOSED to be packing up now.
Us: Oh, okay.
Officer: So, now I’ve told you that you’re SUPPOSED to be packing up now. Thanks, have a good night. (rolls up window, drives out of lot without looking back)
Simple things like that can go so far in making a community feel better about the force. They should do more of it. Especially in that way. It’s one thing to say it like they are doing you a favor, but so much better when they imply what they are having to do it silly, but they have to do it.
:/
sounds nice. but not sure how verbally undermining the law they’re serving and demonstrating arbitrary favoritism in the small scale reflects true regard for the law they, too, need to follow and lack of prejudice in the large.
but i’m also having a day of wishing for hardline and transparency when it comes to the prepotent ruining shit for everyone.
nice
Of course, it’s terrible policy. Higher speed limits = more fatalities and lower MPG. That said, the second part at least codifies the idea that you’ll never get pulled over for speeding just a little.
Lower MPG yes, more noise, as well, but are you sure about the first one? I seem to recall a study a Germany that didn’t support that, but I could be remembering wrong
I thought it’s generally been proven that higher speed limits do not lead to more wrecks and deaths.
I thought that was the Cato argument, but not right. Quick googling this morning got me here: http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/715218 (but no idea if that’s a better source.
That link isn’t letting me see it without a login of some kind.
This is in part opinion, but does have some other references linked to:
http://www.autoblog.com/2013/09/04/higher-speed-limit-safer/
I think the key point here is that 85th percentile mention, the speed at which “most” people drive regardless. Whatever a speed limit is, safety has more to do with how many people are driving at similar speeds to others, road conditions, weather, and the condition the driver’s in.
Here’s another reference, going back to 1999:
http://www.motorists.org/press/safe-to-raise-freeway-speed-limits
One more:
http://www.motorists.org/speed-limits/faq
Not sure motorists.org is a reasonable cite. Per their website “The organization was founded in 1982 to combat the 55-MPH National Maximum Speed Limit. We were successful in that effort and later expanded to other important driving issues.”
Here’s a copy of the study I linked that shouldn’t be paywalled. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2724439/
I also find it interesting that people generally accept that the lower speed limit saved fuel but then deny it saved lives on the theory that it didn’t change driver behavior. Those would seem to be conflicting views.
You have a point about the motorists.org site, but I think combating the 55-MPH limit was a reasonable thing to do.
The study you link to is an interesting one in that it only charts deaths. While they did find an increase, I’m not sure how that’s balanced out by other studies that seemed to show an overall decrease regardless of a higher speed limit or not, and other studies (granted, in specific areas) that showed fewer accidents.
The fact the NBCI study does not track accidents themselves is, at least in part, a flaw to me. I think it’s generally accepted the chance of death is higher if you’re in an accident at a higher speed, but the NBCI study doesn’t appear to account for drivers moving at similar speeds no matter what they are.
And, whatever the speed limit, if the majority of drivers are going 70 and one or two are going 80+, that’s dangerous. Same thing if most people are going 80 and one or two are going 90+.
I would also find the type of road to be important. On an interstate with either a divided highway or a wide median such as what you’ll find along I-5, it should be much safer compared to two-way traffic on the same section of road. If anything, I’d have a lower limit in the two-way traffic situations – which may already be the case in many areas.
I’m not quite sure what the perfect solution is overall, apart from each state being mindful of what the majority of their drivers’ speeds tend to be and making a reasonable limit to coincide with that.
First the scoreboards, now the television schedule. The pace of the A’s transition to the 21st century is accelerating.
Must have gotten shitty ratings for that non-televised game.
Too bad the team is shit.
I don’t get this though…it sounds like a radio/TV simulcast and there’s no mention of Ken.
A Dog’s Breakfast presented by Black Bear Diner with Cotroneo, Kuiper, and Fosse is more like it.
Someone at the sports TV forum comments that the language of the PR indicates that CSN isn’t producing its own telecast of the “Baseball Breakfast” games. They’re probably buying a video feed from the other team’s RSN and matching it up to the radio broadcast. It means you get extra shots of fans dressed in the other team’s gear but whatever. I still find the inclusion of Kuiper on the radio team at the seemingly deliberate exclusion of Ken quite odd.
I find it disturbing. Like they don’t think he’s coming back this season.
He’s been one of the best pitchers in the upper minors this year
WTF Timmy?
I’m impressed with his ability to avoid either a balk or a wild pitch.
Yep. Very. But I feel like someone needs to have something pop up in front of him to scare him.
Apparently it’s contagious: https://pbs.twimg.com/tweet_video/CFFYs14UsAILVK0.mp4
Just fucking amazing
Preakness picks:
American Pharoah is going to win, but there’s no value to be had betting that straight up. Most likely the top three will be the same as in Kentucky, AP and Dortmund and Firing Line in some order, but that too lacks the punch you want from a Trifecta payout. So I’m going with a Trifecta wheel with American Pharoah on top over most of the rest of the field, and hope that one or more of the longer odds ponies hit the board. I like Bodhisattva for reasons previously stated, and Divining Rod as new shooters who could cash in. Also enough sharp people like Danzig Moon that I can’t toss him out. I am excluding Mr. Z (who has raced way too much lately) and Tale of Verve (badly outclassed in this field).
$5 Trifecta: 1/2,4,6,7,8/2,4,6,7,8 for $100.
and $10 Win on 6 Bodhisattva because the universe wants me to.
If Primera makes a pick I’ll also bet that and post here.
there’s a lot of music there. i’m assuming divining rod is that guy that used to be in faces.
i’d bet a perfecta with mr z and moon based on this cartoon alone.
I’m gonna sweeten the action with a $2 Daily Double with ALL in the 12th race, hoping to catch a longshot win, on top of American Pharoah in the 13th. $28.
Also thunderstorms are approaching. A wet track is believed to also help AP who has won before in the slop.
Primera is putting $10 on Dortmund to Win.
Pouring down crazy buckets of rain, about 5 minutes until race time. A lot of fancy suits dresses and hats are in trouble. Should be a great spectacle.
I suck. Nice that we’ll have another Triple Crown shot at Belmont in three weeks.
Well Tale of Verve was badly outclassed by American Pharoah.
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!
Lily has decided she can too grind the beans, boil the water, and make a large French Press of fresh coffee unassisted; the proof was brought to us in bed this morning.
So, that’s why one has children
the CBF invents new stat advançao for soccer: VdM, or “valor de marketing.”
Bryce Harper currently leads the Majors not only in WAR, but also in both OBP and SLG. In addition, there is no qualified player at any level of affiliated baseball who has either OBP or SLG higher than Harper has in the Majors. In further addition, should the Nationals decide to send him down to AAA to work on his swing mechanics, he would be the 11th youngest player in the International League.
I really do feel bad for him that he has been so overshadowed by Trout. What are the odds of being a once-in-a-lifetime baseball prodigy at the same time someone else is a prodigier.
Mays/Mantle probably qualifies, except that Mantle didn’t get overshadowed because Yankees.
that’s a leoncavallo’s la boheme competing with puccini’s so he’s better-remembered for pagliacci question, bro.
I’m happy that he has pushed Dee Gordon out of the #1 spot. That .467 BABIP is driving me nuts.
So it’s one thing to diss Farhan Zaidi as a GM on the “he never played the game” grounds, but this Marlins situation of moving the never-played-the-game GM down into the dugout and clubhouse to manage is quite another. I bet that guy is going to have a very tough time getting any respect from the players or baseball-lifer coaches. That could get ugly as the season goes on.
On the other hand, it could prove that to be a good manager, you don’t need to be an ex-player.
Of course, it would also take the right situation to be in. I don’t think this one is it.
Even moving a did-play-the-game GM like, say, Billy Beane, to the dugout sounds like a pretty bad idea. It would be entertaining though.
Good, but I wonder, if you have a bone that’s been weakened by having holes drilled in it for surgery to the point that it fractures under the stress of throwing a pitch 14 months after the surgery, what would be the basis for thinking the same thing won’t happen again?
same reason I think today is the day marcus se6mie6n is going to figure out how to catch a groundball
Cool that will take care of half his errors. When do you think he’ll learn to throw accurately?
So basically “Sprinkles!” Sure they offer no real value to the dessert, but they’re sure fun to think about!
Also, Jarrod may not be able to appreciate the distinction between “We don’t think you need another Tommy John” and “We don’t think another Tommy John is going to help you”. But I’m glad he has a positive attitude.
He should really start considering his quality of life. You don’t want to not be able to bend your arm by the time you’re 35.
Quite possibly Mr Brisbee’s finest writing.
That talentless hack.
An excellent article, lacking only the conclusion he clearly had come to but is afraid to confess, that Fuck the Giants.
A running subtext to most of his thinkier pieces seems to be an unspoken embarrassment at rooting for the Giants over the A’s.
His defense of Giants fans was certainly halfhearted. “Yes, a lot of them are bandwagon fans, but, um, at least they haven’t jumped off the bandwagon yet?”
he must not have been to a game in august sept 2013
Relevant
The fan pulling on that fresh-off-the-back shirt shows an impressive level of dedication.
Is Grant from Mill Valley?
makes me think of Sakes Alive.
Also, I know the girl in the most San Francisco photo ever taken. She was an engineering student at MIT who helped us pack crates for Antarctica one year.
that young woman in the kill a hipster video was in a workshop i taught once, and now i’m working on a book that she wrote the foreword for. it’s all small scale, but it’s funny how every time i turn a corner there’s her name.
I think that Delores Park is a safer place for her than Boston.
even knowing she is a real person who may be nice, I am on line shopping for a gun
The map he shows of where his “dad bought into when he was a grocery clerk” is Burlingame.
As I posted that comment, I realized that it probably applies to most towns in the bay area.
Because they think it’s a 3 run HR.
That was my thought too. That’s not actually a *good* thing. That’s an “I have no idea what’s going on, but something happened, it’s exciting… I think!” thing.
Excellent
skimmed it. liked what i read.
i’ve been wondering what could happen if one of the majors (like when they rumor that google is going into the sears building) comes to the east side.
lew will look like a genius for sticking it out in oakland
http://www.insidebayarea.com/business/ci_28322105/how-google-turned-alameda-into-mad-science-laboratory
i don’t understand how a forefoot strike makes my heel soles hurt the next day.
HIS HELMET STAYED ON!
Turn and watch the ball after you hit it…slow up before you get to the bag…just like they coach you
Reaching safely just meant he had to run the bases even more.
He ended up making it to third, and then gave up 6 runs in the next inning.
You can’t blame him for trying so hard to avoid that.
Make sure to get out of the way to make it as easy as possible for the first baseman.
I really wish vine would go away.
Thanks, and go As.