Cask in Rockridge has A Midwinter's night Dram for 125 and Crown Liquor's in Montclair has it for 100. I'm heading there to get No 1 a bottle. Will need to figure out how to get it to him.
Replacing the head unit in that car is feasible, but finicky because it doesn't have that standard double DIN layout. It may be possible to swap its head unit with a 2019+ model that has Android Auto and CarPlay built in, but that may entail some software and/or wiring changes.
we eat mostly vegetarian at home. Vegans are like recently converted evangelical christians, they can not CAN NOT stop telling you about it and how saved they are. And after two years, when they eat a bacon cheeseburger you never hear about it again.
My older daughter and I are vaguely interested in reducing meat consumption but my wife is not and since 1) she does almost all the cooking and 2) my daughter and I are lazy, we’re obviously not making a lot of headway with it
i had a negative test after returning from my 2nd trip to NC. i also happened to be in the NC county w/ the least amount of coronavirus, and certainly less than we have here in New Rochelle, so i wasnt too worried.
on the other hand, i have a small surgical procedure in a few weeks and because NC is on the list of "bad" states i cant even get my pre-op appt stuff done until i have been home for 2 weeks
Took near 4 hours, but LA avoided elimination with a dominant 7-3 win over Atlanta that wasn't as close as the score suggests. And what was this business about Kenley Jantzen losing his edge? Struck out the side to end the game.
He threw well. 93 and 94 a couple of times. And he glared in the dugout after the 3rd K. If a pissed off Kenley gets him back on the horse then piss him off more. His cutter almost looked like the cutter of old.
Now just got to get Bellinger to stop K'ing on the high and inside FB. That's all I'd throw him.
Astros win 7-4 to even the series and set up a winner takes a trip to the WS final. Blue Rays continue to struggle at the plate. Houston has looked like the experienced team that's in their 4th straight Division Championship series. Tampa Bay looks like the newcomer that is still a year away.
The Pro swimming league ISL is starting its 2nd season this year. It's all going to be raced in a bubble in Budapest, Hungary. This is perhaps more important for the Cal alumni on these pro teams because a lot of other races were canceled due to the pandemic. CBS All Access has the coverage (I'm still debating whether I should get that, Star Trek Discovery season 3 also just premiered yesterday).
Correa with a walkoff CF HR wins it 4-3 for the Astros. Blue Rays not only lose a 1 run game, for just the 7th time this year, but they have lost 2 of the more winable games in the series, after taking a 3-0 lead, against a stretched pitching staff. 5 rookies pitched for Houston in a 4-3 post season elimination game win. Add that to the list of unprecedented things that have happened this year.
That was my thought as well. That said, the Blue Rays have a lot of arms that should be ready for the next 2 days. Postseason experience is easy to underestimate the importance of though, and Houston has an advantage overall there.
The Dodgers offense showed its might with a record-setting outburst to win Game 3. But the bats wilted with a chance to tie the series, providing a spotlight to illuminate every single flaw from October failures past.
A six-run sixth inning proved the Dodgers’ undoing in Game 4 of the NLCS, giving the Braves a 10-2 win and a 3-1 series lead, pushing the Dodgers to the brink of elimination.
Though trailing the series entering Thursday, any potential advantage the Dodgers had rested in facing a rookie pitcher starting Game 4 — the third straight rookie pitcher to start for the Braves — and a potential bullpen game in Game 5. But that rookie pitcher, Bryse Wilson, proved more than up to the task.
Yet another postseason in which Kershaw gets the hook after losing the lead. Our annual October tradition.
Though to be fair, this was hardly his worst postseason effort and he's clearly not 100% healthy. He did pretty well to get through 5 innings as he did. I guess you could argue that Roberts should have had a quicker hook on the third turn through the lineup, but given how the bullpen performed you can also argue that it didn't matter.
I see a lot of parallels between the Dodgers now and the Braves in the 90s. There were definitely a few games where Bobby Cox left Maddux/Glavine/Smoltz out for too long and got burned. Other than Smoltz, Glavine (even after being the 95 WS MVP) and Maddux also got unfairly criticized at times for not being as good in the playoffs. Conversely, there were also many cases of the bullpen failures that were the real culprits. It's the same old playoff baseball narratives.
By xFIP, Kershaw's regular season of 2.98 and postseason of 3.42 split is not as great. By the way, xFIP doesn't ever love Maddux and Glavine, because they pitch to contact. Glavine's postseason xFIP is an insanely high 5.80 (!) and Maddux is also significantly worse. Of course, since we are talking about what has happened rather than trying to predict who will do better in the future, ERA is a better stat than xFIP.
Sillier is the notion that Maddux and Glavine were bad in the postseason due to the 11-14 and 14-16 records...but this was also 20 years ago and the norm for the mainstream baseball media.
So I went through some of Maddux's postseason losses and I see a lot where he lost while giving up only 2 runs (that's on the offense) or when the Braves committed 2 errors behind him and let in a bunch of unearned runs (gotta blame the defense for that). The W-L records are definitely misleading.
With Kershaw, I think xFIP still thinks he does okay because in many of these games he gets a lot of strikeouts. The other thing, though, is that his home-run rate is way up in the playoffs (double his regular season rate), and that is usually what's killed him: the big inning. When things go bad the ball flies out of the park.
The Braves were so good they were able get through the regular season without putting enough supporting pieces that would have been the finishing touches in place.
Yeah, Braves got a great postseason debut from Bryse Wilson, even if you look at the batted ball profile, he got a bit lucky on several key ABs. Conversely, after Kershaw was pulled, the Braves got lucky on some seeing-eye balls to really build up the big lead. But that's just baseball. I'm very pleasantly surprised by the situation that the Braves are at going into game 5, particularly with who will be available for this bullpen game tonight (still no announced starter/opener).
By the way, reportedly the team was very loose before game 4. Marcell Ozuna and Pablo Sandoval were leading a clubhouse dance party. Maybe that's why Pablo Sandoval is undefeated in the postseason.
I do wonder if the Dodgers tighten up a little too much when a playoff series starts going sideways. You can visibly see the frustration on the players who have been through this before. Some of the teams they've lost to (like the Astros) don't seem to have this problem.
I'm wondering if offensively they're too analytical. In game 3 it looked like they were just seeing the ball and hitting it. In the other games they tried to run the pitch count up, which meant they were looking at balls down the middle early in the count. Of course in game 3 Wright was throwing them middle-middle vs the other starters that weren't.
The Astros, and the Padres and Braves for that matter, seem to swing early in the count at strikes. Maybe the Dodgers are trying to see pitches and that's causing them to end up hitting in pitchers counts.
Even though Kershaw only let up 1 run into the 6th I didn't think he was looking great. His control was off. He didn't have many 1st pitch strikes, which he usually is like 70%. His FB was slower than it had been all year. It had been sitting 92-93 and was at around 90-91. His slider didn't 'look like it had as sharp a break as he had most of the year. I think his back was still bothering him some.
But it doesn't matter when a rookie with very few innings shuts you down. Like Smoltz said, Wilson pitched out of his mind. All year he hadn't thrown like this and he rose to the occasion. Except for game 3, the Dodgers have been shutdown by the Braves starters.
Now the question is if the Dodgers can get it going against the Braves in a bullpen game today.
I just started to watch this new season of the The Amazing Race (filmed before COVID). There is an Indian-American brother/sister sibling team who are apparently both Cal alum (they both claim to be EECS majors). For whatever reason, their team color (which I don't think The Amazing Race necessarily enforces) is scarlet red (so they will show up wearing that color in the opening intro for every episode).
Sonny won 30-27 so SMU is off to its best start since 1983 when Eric Dickerson was playing. Actually played a bit of defense, picking off the Tulane QB in OT then kicking a game winning field goal.
Also 2 more games already postponed next week (and another game moved up to next week from the 31st) in the SEC, as well as a kickoff time change to patch up the tv schedule, to deal with the outbreak at Florida and related fallout. Yeah, a sellout crowd in Gainsville would be a great idea.
Who knew wearing a GO VEGAN shirt inspires the same kind of venom as a jaunt through the Black Hole whilst decked out head-to-toe in Denver Broncos gear...on Opening Day...on MNF! Man, people really do suck...
I predict (based on nothing but a hunch) we will develop lab grown meat in the next 7-8 years, and then an efficient way to do lab grown meat in the next 15. This is will be how most people get their meat in the 2040s.
I want to try one but not the burger king one. I've thought about getting one from The Counter the next time we go. If I don't get the Costco ones first.
The one sample I had in a store (pre-Covid obviously) was pretty good. I'm thinking about getting the Beyond Burger pack at Costco the next time I'm there. And it's on sale so bonus. 11.99 for a 6 pack.
Just ordered my new blue iPhone so I can finally get rid of this red monstrosity.
Ooh which one did you order?
12 pro.
That's good. I have a google pixel iv xl. Now of course they come out with pixel v just a few months later. Obsolescence.
Liquor
But, I barely know her.
Hell, you brought her
this would improve your chances I suspect
Cask in Rockridge has A Midwinter's night Dram for 125 and Crown Liquor's in Montclair has it for 100. I'm heading there to get No 1 a bottle. Will need to figure out how to get it to him.
Have the store ship it for you. It is very very difficult to ship booze legally from one individual to another across state lines.
oh really? I didn't know that. What if I just pack it up in a box and ship it?
So many rules. Here's a good rundown: https://www.foodandwine.com/cocktails-spirits/heres-exactly-how-you-can-ship-booze
damn...sounds like a pain in the ass. I guess I can't just box it up and send it, which was my plan.
even places can't ship to Philly. I may have to just hold onto it until he comes back.
or maybe I'll hold onto it until the next time he comes back.
nice. what's the occasion?
Don't know. He just wanted me to look for one.
FYI 60% off at JCrew today with the code WARMUP
RE: T-shirt: pqtm
Yes, unexpected.
Car audio
so i must admit i have never installed an aftermarket car stereo before and only have heard of the names like Sony, Blaupunkt, etc
looking to upgrade the head unit in our newly acquired 2016 Subaru WRX so that it supports CarPlay and Android Auto.
any thoughts or advice? i could just go the cheaper route w/ a dash mount for my phone and just use maps/audio that way.
Replacing the head unit in that car is feasible, but finicky because it doesn't have that standard double DIN layout. It may be possible to swap its head unit with a 2019+ model that has Android Auto and CarPlay built in, but that may entail some software and/or wiring changes.
Crutchfield is always a good place to check. They also provide wiring harnesses and I believe bezels if you need.
Veganism/vegetarianism
we eat mostly vegetarian at home. Vegans are like recently converted evangelical christians, they can not CAN NOT stop telling you about it and how saved they are. And after two years, when they eat a bacon cheeseburger you never hear about it again.
I may get booed for this, but I always thought vegetarians were like socialists, but vegans were like trotskyites.
We've been eating a lot more vegetarian meals in the past 2-3 years, and often when we do have meat, it's more of a flavoring than a main component.
To me Vegans are like evangelicals that prosthelytize being vegan.
My favorite vegans are the ones who can't stand the evangelical vegans.
Yes I agree.
My older daughter and I are vaguely interested in reducing meat consumption but my wife is not and since 1) she does almost all the cooking and 2) my daughter and I are lazy, we’re obviously not making a lot of headway with it
Today in la 'rona
i had a negative test after returning from my 2nd trip to NC. i also happened to be in the NC county w/ the least amount of coronavirus, and certainly less than we have here in New Rochelle, so i wasnt too worried.
on the other hand, i have a small surgical procedure in a few weeks and because NC is on the list of "bad" states i cant even get my pre-op appt stuff done until i have been home for 2 weeks
Today in our stumbling, bumbling, crumbling democracy
Anyone watch the town halls? I didn't bother.
Compelling baseball and football was on.
What football? The CFB game? I don’t believe they had a Thursday Night NFL game.
It was some FunBelt excitement
Coastal Carolina is a good team no one saw coming.
111 total points put on the board last night. Fun Belt indeed
I mean it was no MACtion but I enjoyed it anyway
Nope. not a word.
Atoms did. (Biden)
Kept an eye on Twitter per my nightly doom scrolling schedule
Too busy watching the Dodgers get trounced.
There were a number of Trump supporters questioning Biden, didn't watch the Trump broadcast.
Early results: Biden 12.7 million viewers, Trump 10.4 million...according to entertainment industry rag Variety
https://variety.com/2020/tv/news/donald-trump-joe-biden-town-halls-nbc-abc-ratings-1234807507/
Pros
Took near 4 hours, but LA avoided elimination with a dominant 7-3 win over Atlanta that wasn't as close as the score suggests. And what was this business about Kenley Jantzen losing his edge? Struck out the side to end the game.
He threw well. 93 and 94 a couple of times. And he glared in the dugout after the 3rd K. If a pissed off Kenley gets him back on the horse then piss him off more. His cutter almost looked like the cutter of old.
Now just got to get Bellinger to stop K'ing on the high and inside FB. That's all I'd throw him.
Astros win 7-4 to even the series and set up a winner takes a trip to the WS final. Blue Rays continue to struggle at the plate. Houston has looked like the experienced team that's in their 4th straight Division Championship series. Tampa Bay looks like the newcomer that is still a year away.
The Pro swimming league ISL is starting its 2nd season this year. It's all going to be raced in a bubble in Budapest, Hungary. This is perhaps more important for the Cal alumni on these pro teams because a lot of other races were canceled due to the pandemic. CBS All Access has the coverage (I'm still debating whether I should get that, Star Trek Discovery season 3 also just premiered yesterday).
Correa with a walkoff CF HR wins it 4-3 for the Astros. Blue Rays not only lose a 1 run game, for just the 7th time this year, but they have lost 2 of the more winable games in the series, after taking a 3-0 lead, against a stretched pitching staff. 5 rookies pitched for Houston in a 4-3 post season elimination game win. Add that to the list of unprecedented things that have happened this year.
I'd say the pressure on the Rays is increasing. If the Asstros win today then they will probably flip the script.
That was my thought as well. That said, the Blue Rays have a lot of arms that should be ready for the next 2 days. Postseason experience is easy to underestimate the importance of though, and Houston has an advantage overall there.
The Dodgers managed to check off every October failure in Game 4 of the NLCS
https://www.truebluela.com/2020/10/15/21518720/dodgers-failures-pick-your-poison-offense-bullpen-clayton-kershaw-dave-roberts
The Dodgers offense showed its might with a record-setting outburst to win Game 3. But the bats wilted with a chance to tie the series, providing a spotlight to illuminate every single flaw from October failures past.
A six-run sixth inning proved the Dodgers’ undoing in Game 4 of the NLCS, giving the Braves a 10-2 win and a 3-1 series lead, pushing the Dodgers to the brink of elimination.
Though trailing the series entering Thursday, any potential advantage the Dodgers had rested in facing a rookie pitcher starting Game 4 — the third straight rookie pitcher to start for the Braves — and a potential bullpen game in Game 5. But that rookie pitcher, Bryse Wilson, proved more than up to the task.
Ya hate to see it.
oh dear, no the doger's losing! the @horror@
I don’t think you do 😉
I've been waiting for the Scootie take on last night. 😉
Scootie forgot the @ @
Yet another postseason in which Kershaw gets the hook after losing the lead. Our annual October tradition.
Though to be fair, this was hardly his worst postseason effort and he's clearly not 100% healthy. He did pretty well to get through 5 innings as he did. I guess you could argue that Roberts should have had a quicker hook on the third turn through the lineup, but given how the bullpen performed you can also argue that it didn't matter.
I see a lot of parallels between the Dodgers now and the Braves in the 90s. There were definitely a few games where Bobby Cox left Maddux/Glavine/Smoltz out for too long and got burned. Other than Smoltz, Glavine (even after being the 95 WS MVP) and Maddux also got unfairly criticized at times for not being as good in the playoffs. Conversely, there were also many cases of the bullpen failures that were the real culprits. It's the same old playoff baseball narratives.
The knocks on Maddux in the postseason weren't fair. His regular season ERA was 3.16. Postseason ERA 3.27. Pretty close.
Glavine was actually slightly better: 3.54 regular season, 3.30 postseason.
Smoltz too (granted some of this is him as a reliever): 3.33 regular, 2.67 post.
Bigger problems for the Braves were bullpen issues and the bats going silent.
Kershaw, though, is notably worse in October. Regular season ERA: 2.43. Postseason: 4.31. The charge is valid with him.
By xFIP, Kershaw's regular season of 2.98 and postseason of 3.42 split is not as great. By the way, xFIP doesn't ever love Maddux and Glavine, because they pitch to contact. Glavine's postseason xFIP is an insanely high 5.80 (!) and Maddux is also significantly worse. Of course, since we are talking about what has happened rather than trying to predict who will do better in the future, ERA is a better stat than xFIP.
Sillier is the notion that Maddux and Glavine were bad in the postseason due to the 11-14 and 14-16 records...but this was also 20 years ago and the norm for the mainstream baseball media.
So I went through some of Maddux's postseason losses and I see a lot where he lost while giving up only 2 runs (that's on the offense) or when the Braves committed 2 errors behind him and let in a bunch of unearned runs (gotta blame the defense for that). The W-L records are definitely misleading.
With Kershaw, I think xFIP still thinks he does okay because in many of these games he gets a lot of strikeouts. The other thing, though, is that his home-run rate is way up in the playoffs (double his regular season rate), and that is usually what's killed him: the big inning. When things go bad the ball flies out of the park.
The Braves were so good they were able get through the regular season without putting enough supporting pieces that would have been the finishing touches in place.
Yeah, Braves got a great postseason debut from Bryse Wilson, even if you look at the batted ball profile, he got a bit lucky on several key ABs. Conversely, after Kershaw was pulled, the Braves got lucky on some seeing-eye balls to really build up the big lead. But that's just baseball. I'm very pleasantly surprised by the situation that the Braves are at going into game 5, particularly with who will be available for this bullpen game tonight (still no announced starter/opener).
By the way, reportedly the team was very loose before game 4. Marcell Ozuna and Pablo Sandoval were leading a clubhouse dance party. Maybe that's why Pablo Sandoval is undefeated in the postseason.
I do wonder if the Dodgers tighten up a little too much when a playoff series starts going sideways. You can visibly see the frustration on the players who have been through this before. Some of the teams they've lost to (like the Astros) don't seem to have this problem.
I'm wondering if offensively they're too analytical. In game 3 it looked like they were just seeing the ball and hitting it. In the other games they tried to run the pitch count up, which meant they were looking at balls down the middle early in the count. Of course in game 3 Wright was throwing them middle-middle vs the other starters that weren't.
The Astros, and the Padres and Braves for that matter, seem to swing early in the count at strikes. Maybe the Dodgers are trying to see pitches and that's causing them to end up hitting in pitchers counts.
Even though Kershaw only let up 1 run into the 6th I didn't think he was looking great. His control was off. He didn't have many 1st pitch strikes, which he usually is like 70%. His FB was slower than it had been all year. It had been sitting 92-93 and was at around 90-91. His slider didn't 'look like it had as sharp a break as he had most of the year. I think his back was still bothering him some.
But it doesn't matter when a rookie with very few innings shuts you down. Like Smoltz said, Wilson pitched out of his mind. All year he hadn't thrown like this and he rose to the occasion. Except for game 3, the Dodgers have been shutdown by the Braves starters.
Now the question is if the Dodgers can get it going against the Braves in a bullpen game today.
Cal
I just started to watch this new season of the The Amazing Race (filmed before COVID). There is an Indian-American brother/sister sibling team who are apparently both Cal alum (they both claim to be EECS majors). For whatever reason, their team color (which I don't think The Amazing Race necessarily enforces) is scarlet red (so they will show up wearing that color in the opening intro for every episode).
Go Bears.
Elsewhere in College
Sonny and SMU take on Tulane at 3PM Pacific today (ESPN).
Sonny won 30-27 so SMU is off to its best start since 1983 when Eric Dickerson was playing. Actually played a bit of defense, picking off the Tulane QB in OT then kicking a game winning field goal.
Most Overpaid and Underpaid coaches. Harbaugh tops the list with $46.1 million in compensation since 2015 resulting in exactly zero conference titles.
https://247sports.com/LongFormArticle/2020-college-football-10-most-overpaid-underpaid-coaches-153050627/
hard to argue with any of the entries on the "overpaid" list
Really hard to argue with the "underpaid" list.
The weekend's list of FBS games postponed due to Covid outbreaks has grown to 5 games.
Bump that up to 6; another cx necessary this afternoon.
Also 2 more games already postponed next week (and another game moved up to next week from the 31st) in the SEC, as well as a kickoff time change to patch up the tv schedule, to deal with the outbreak at Florida and related fallout. Yeah, a sellout crowd in Gainsville would be a great idea.
This is pretty surprising
Who knew wearing a GO VEGAN shirt inspires the same kind of venom as a jaunt through the Black Hole whilst decked out head-to-toe in Denver Broncos gear...on Opening Day...on MNF! Man, people really do suck...
GO VEGAN
VEGAN POLICE!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLpCZ8g5uK8
that scene is so funny.
Milk n' eggs, bitch.
my guess is that in our lifetime we will all end up vegan, or at least vegetarian.
I don't think so...
Bugs and worms may be the answer. They are environmentally friendly sources of protein.
We are going full Snowpiercer big bars for food and nutrition.
I predict (based on nothing but a hunch) we will develop lab grown meat in the next 7-8 years, and then an efficient way to do lab grown meat in the next 15. This is will be how most people get their meat in the 2040s.
Speaking of: https://2020.cmsymp.com/
Yeah, I don't think this problem can be solved until they develop something that actually tastes as good as chicken.
That’s tofu.
Soylent green
Peeeeepllllllllleeeeee.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQOteZ81pRs
d$ signal...
Beyond Meat.
I’m not sure that I’d substitute massively processed plants for meat tbh. But it probably has a place in reducing meat consumption
I did finally try a Beyond Burger and it was really good.
That seems to be a pretty consistent reaction
I want to try one but not the burger king one. I've thought about getting one from The Counter the next time we go. If I don't get the Costco ones first.
The one sample I had in a store (pre-Covid obviously) was pretty good. I'm thinking about getting the Beyond Burger pack at Costco the next time I'm there. And it's on sale so bonus. 11.99 for a 6 pack.