i too have a no shoes home, therefore there are no less than 3 pairs of house slippers and 1 pair of house only flip flops lying around the house at all times.
I find it interesting that so many people tell me that taking off the shoes is an Asian thing. Which it might be, but none of my relatives, of which there are many, ever did this.
Interesting! It's definitely a thing among my relatives in Taiwan. You enter the house, take off your shoes, and put on slippers (I usually skip the last step).
I've heard that Canadians also take their shoes off when they enter the house.
I'm not Asian, or Canadian, but I'm virtually always barefoot around the house. When at others I tend to follow whatever the hosts do. The save money thing mostly applies too, probably to a fault.
The U.S. Secret Service said Monday that it would conduct drone flights in the D.C. region for the rest of the month.
In a statement, the Secret Service it would conduct the flights in coordination with the Federal Aviation Administration from May 17 to May 31.
“It is standard practice for the Secret Service to work in conjunction with the FAA and other federal, state and local partners to accomplish our protective mission,” the agency said in a statement.
No further information about the flights was immediately available.
in fact, one of my signature "moves" on Excel spreadsheets was to have a big bright yellow button that said "Go Bananas!" that would activate all the custom functions and calculations that you would necessarily want on "auto calc"
I started making banana bread during covid. No 2 loves them. I use this recipe. It does seem weird to use canola oil instead of butter. But it is good.
I dislike bananas too. I've recently been hearing about banana peel curry, which intrigued me for the "less waste" aspect, but then I was reminded that the bananas we're likely to get in the US all have a LOT of pesticide, so it's not a good idea to eat the peel. Also, Taiwan has a Banana Research Institute, and I was able to invite the director to give a talk for the class I taught, which was cool.
Yeah, I've heard custard apple. I'm not sure if it's the same fruit with multiple names, or related fruits, but you could also look for soursop or cherimoya.
I'm not a big fan either. But I do like them as part of a banana split and cut up in cold cereal. One of my brothers was a couple pounds under the minimum weight limit when he joined the Navy. They sent him home for a week with an instruction to eat lots of bananas.
Agree on the cereal. And I enjoy banana bread and banana cake. That being said, if someone removed them from the face of the earth I would not care and it would probably be years before I even noticed.
I like bananas - probably eat 2-3 per week. As an interesting aside when I was a freshman at Clark Kerr campus there was one guy who ate a single banana for every meal.
on the other hand i do appreciate the "super food" aspect to them. i will occasionally have one during a long bike ride at an organized event.
also, when i used to play basketball regularly i found that eating a banana before playing hard for 1-2 hours was the best thing for warding off cramps.
The Republican-dominated Maricopa County Board of Supervisors on Monday denounced an ongoing audit of the 2020 election vote as a “sham” and a “con,” calling on the GOP-led state Senate to end the controversial recount that has been championed by former president Donald Trump.
In a fiery public meeting and subsequent letter to state Senate President Karen Fann, the board members said the audit has been inept, promoted falsehoods and defamed the public servants who ran the fall election.
Calling the process a “spectacle that is harming all of us,” the five members of the board — including four Republicans — asked the state Senate to recognize that it is essential to call off the audit, which officials have said is only about one-quarter complete.
“It is time to make a choice to defend the Constitution and the Republic,” they wrote. “We stand united together to defend the Constitution and the Republic in our opposition to the Big Lie. We ask everyone to join us in standing for the truth,” they added, using a term that refers to the false claim that the election was stolen.
The Oakland A’s have a 25-17 record through mid-May, putting them first place in the AL West division and tying them for the MLB lead in wins. They also have a negative run differential, having been outscored by their opponents to the tune of eight runs.
It would seem like only one of those statements can be sustainable. Either they’ll keep winning games and their run differential will improve accordingly over time, or they’ll continue getting outscored and it won’t always keep working out this well and their record will drop. And since run differential tends to be considered a more predictive measure, it’s easy to see this as a red flag for the green-and-gold.
I would not call the San Francisco Giants season boring, but it has become a touch formulaic. You know the drill by now: the starting pitcher will be somewhere between good and dominant, either mowing down hitters or pulling a Houdini act to escape stressful innings. The offense will put runs on the board — not as many as you grew accustomed to in 2020, but certainly enough. And then the keys are handed to the bullpen, and that’s where the excitement comes in.
Think of each Giants game like a Sue Grafton novel. You know what’s going to happen for the first two-thirds. Read the first two-thirds of one book and you can start with the final third for any of the others. Watch the first six innings of any Giants game, and you can start with the seventh inning for any.
Of the Giants 16 losses, they’ve entered the seventh inning with a lead or a tie half of the time.
Walker Buehler pitched seven scoreless innings, and the Dodgers held on for a 3-1 win over the Diamondbacks in Monday night’s series opener at Dodger Stadium.
The only thing more wild than seeing Albert Pujols in a Dodgers uniform was seeing Walker Buehler, well, wild. Buehler entered the night with 47 strikeouts against only three walks, trailing only Gerrit Cole among qualified pitchers in strikeout-to-walk ratio. But he walked four Diamondbacks on Monday, including three in a row in the fourth inning.
It was the fourth time Buehler has ever walked three in one inning, with the previous three frames coming in the National League Division Series from 2018-20.
There are so many injuries that he was the best choice. With Seager out Muncy moved up to the 2 hole. MadBum started so Beaty sat (the cleanup on Sunday).
[Base] Cal loses regular-season finale 6-7 to Stanfurd in extra innings. Cal ties it in the top of the 8th. In the bottom of the 12th, Cal sends in their least used out of their 19 pitchers. The good news is that his ERA and WHIP went down. The bad news is that his ERA & WHIP used to be 81.00 and 9.00 before yesterday. Poor kid. That's gotta hurt.
There are still 6 more games to the season, but this was the last of 5 against Stanford. Cal went 2-3 against a Stanford team that will make the postseason.
College baseball is weird because one's RPI can really be skewed by some bad midweek losses like Cal had this year. The problem is due to the lack of depth in pitching. Cal's top few guys are as good as most potential NCAA tournament teams, but they don't have the depth beyond that. Then again, few teams have that...but you do see San Jose State using their ace on Cal midweek a few years ago, instead of saving him for the weekend.
Mike Neu has always been a train wreck when it comes to managing pitching. Depth, no depth, doesn't matter. He will mismanage the shit out his pitching.
By the way, Stanford had a 6-5 lead in T8 but our old pal Esquer brought in a guy with a 10+ ERA who promptly allowed the game to be tied before being removed.
No guy on base extra-inning nor the 3-batter minimum in college. Neu burned some of his available and typically weekend trusted arms on just a batter or two earlier in the Monday game to create the good matchups to extend the game.
That was an exciting finish...and then all the fans (of the sold-out but limited attendance) rushed the neutral field...and it's like there were no longer any COVID protocols (I guess the tournament was technically over at that point). I wasn't sure how I felt about that.
I remember being slightly disappointed that one of the two times that I went for work (collaboration meeting though one was a meeting followed by a conference) was just a week off from the Little 500 - the big cycling race.
SANTA CLARA ARE THE NATIONAL CHAMPIONS, taking down the ACC in the final four and winning in PK's 4-1, what a time to be alive I'm certainly celebrating hard.
What's an "immigrant mentality" that has been passed down to you?
Take your shoes off when you enter the house. Always save money.
My FIL chastised my wife and I for getting Perrier instead of regular water on the same day he got his Rolls Royce delivered.
I would chastise you as well!
Did you marry into Crazy Rich Asians?
yes this.
i too have a no shoes home, therefore there are no less than 3 pairs of house slippers and 1 pair of house only flip flops lying around the house at all times.
I go barefoot or socks when indoors.
hardwood floors do not agree with my bare feet.
I find it interesting that so many people tell me that taking off the shoes is an Asian thing. Which it might be, but none of my relatives, of which there are many, ever did this.
Interesting! It's definitely a thing among my relatives in Taiwan. You enter the house, take off your shoes, and put on slippers (I usually skip the last step).
I've heard that Canadians also take their shoes off when they enter the house.
Places where it's a thing that I've experienced: Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea
I'm not Asian, or Canadian, but I'm virtually always barefoot around the house. When at others I tend to follow whatever the hosts do. The save money thing mostly applies too, probably to a fault.
I also skip the slippers step.
Nada
Sigh
https://twitter.com/PreetBharara/status/1394320833192079360
For those who can't view - what's going on?
LAAUNCH SURVEY
Name a prominent Asian American that comes to mind:
"Don't Know" 42%
Jackie Chan 11%
Bruce Lee 9%
Was this an online survey, or a survey where the questioner accosts you on the streets and asks you "NAME A WOMAN."?
Given time to think about it, I would say Kamala Harris or Ted Lieu.
don't know. It's a screen shot from MSNBC. In little letters it says Source: Leading Asian Americans to Unite for Change.
I'm dubious of this survey.
Chula Vista PD pioneers drone first-responders
https://slate.com/technology/2021/05/chula-vista-police-drone-program.html
First Chula Vista, next the world.
The U.S. Secret Service said Monday that it would conduct drone flights in the D.C. region for the rest of the month.
In a statement, the Secret Service it would conduct the flights in coordination with the Federal Aviation Administration from May 17 to May 31.
“It is standard practice for the Secret Service to work in conjunction with the FAA and other federal, state and local partners to accomplish our protective mission,” the agency said in a statement.
No further information about the flights was immediately available.
Bananas
Bananas are not my favorite, but they're OK. I particularly like banana flavored things, and I'm a big fan of chocolate bananas.
fun fact - "banana-flavor" is based upon a different variety of banana that you can no longer purchase.
That's consistent with the fact that banana flavoring does not seem to taste like bananas.
Bananas? That Axios article from yesterday - completely bananas. (just reading it now)
that is one of my favorite expressions too.
in fact, one of my signature "moves" on Excel spreadsheets was to have a big bright yellow button that said "Go Bananas!" that would activate all the custom functions and calculations that you would necessarily want on "auto calc"
would NOT necessarily
eat them pretty regularly.
Like bananas. Good for pre-empting cramps on high exertion days.
I just avoid high exertion days altogether.
Same.
o/
I started making banana bread during covid. No 2 loves them. I use this recipe. It does seem weird to use canola oil instead of butter. But it is good.
https://iamafoodblog.com/flour-bakerys-banana-bread/
i can't stand bananas. i just tell people i am allergic so they stop harassing me about it
I dislike bananas too. I've recently been hearing about banana peel curry, which intrigued me for the "less waste" aspect, but then I was reminded that the bananas we're likely to get in the US all have a LOT of pesticide, so it's not a good idea to eat the peel. Also, Taiwan has a Banana Research Institute, and I was able to invite the director to give a talk for the class I taught, which was cool.
There a sweet apple custard fruit in Taiwan that my wife and I can't recall the name of ("custard apple?") and that we can't find in the States.
Yeah, I've heard custard apple. I'm not sure if it's the same fruit with multiple names, or related fruits, but you could also look for soursop or cherimoya.
I'm not a big fan either. But I do like them as part of a banana split and cut up in cold cereal. One of my brothers was a couple pounds under the minimum weight limit when he joined the Navy. They sent him home for a week with an instruction to eat lots of bananas.
Agree on the cereal. And I enjoy banana bread and banana cake. That being said, if someone removed them from the face of the earth I would not care and it would probably be years before I even noticed.
I have had one (1) banana in the last 30 years, which was plenty.
I like bananas - probably eat 2-3 per week. As an interesting aside when I was a freshman at Clark Kerr campus there was one guy who ate a single banana for every meal.
on the other hand i do appreciate the "super food" aspect to them. i will occasionally have one during a long bike ride at an organized event.
also, when i used to play basketball regularly i found that eating a banana before playing hard for 1-2 hours was the best thing for warding off cramps.
I do remember seeing a couple of video clips of soccer players running by the sidelines and grabbing a banana.
Today in Covid
Progress. For the second time since March 2020, no new coronavirus cases were reported in Arlington County over the past 24 hours.
No new cases in Berkeley for the past two days. No UC Berkeley cases, either.
https://www.berkeleyside.org/2020/03/14/covid-19-berkeley-by-the-numbers-plus-some-key-resources-to-help-you-stay-informed
nice!
OUR CRUMBLING DEMOCRACY
Qevin McCarthy opposes bipartisan January 6th commission.
https://apnews.com/article/mccarthy-republicans-insurrection-commission-e0ffe4990ad8f2634ca83b95a2c2c64c
The Republican-dominated Maricopa County Board of Supervisors on Monday denounced an ongoing audit of the 2020 election vote as a “sham” and a “con,” calling on the GOP-led state Senate to end the controversial recount that has been championed by former president Donald Trump.
In a fiery public meeting and subsequent letter to state Senate President Karen Fann, the board members said the audit has been inept, promoted falsehoods and defamed the public servants who ran the fall election.
Calling the process a “spectacle that is harming all of us,” the five members of the board — including four Republicans — asked the state Senate to recognize that it is essential to call off the audit, which officials have said is only about one-quarter complete.
“It is time to make a choice to defend the Constitution and the Republic,” they wrote. “We stand united together to defend the Constitution and the Republic in our opposition to the Big Lie. We ask everyone to join us in standing for the truth,” they added, using a term that refers to the false claim that the election was stolen.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/maricopa-county-2020-audit/2021/05/17/28292932-b74a-11eb-a6b1-81296da0339b_story.html
Starting to think that the fraudit was all a front to make Republican voter suppression attempts seem more sane in comparison.
Nah, they're just batshit crazy.
Hi, Jared Kushner
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/attorney-general-announces-task-force-combat-covid-19-fraud
PRO
Does the A’s negative run differential really matter this early?
https://www.athleticsnation.com/2021/5/17/22440822/oakland-as-run-differential-mlb-standings
The Oakland A’s have a 25-17 record through mid-May, putting them first place in the AL West division and tying them for the MLB lead in wins. They also have a negative run differential, having been outscored by their opponents to the tune of eight runs.
It would seem like only one of those statements can be sustainable. Either they’ll keep winning games and their run differential will improve accordingly over time, or they’ll continue getting outscored and it won’t always keep working out this well and their record will drop. And since run differential tends to be considered a more predictive measure, it’s easy to see this as a red flag for the green-and-gold.
Here are a few reasons not to worry about it.
Run differential means nada.
- Signed, a fan of a team that loses a lot of 1-run games and wins a few 10-run games.
It's an anomaly. Those first 6 games of the season were horrid and that's where they tallied up the run differential.
The upcoming series vs. The Cheaters (trash can) will be very telling.
Giants build a big enough lead to withstand any and all bullpen shenanigans
https://www.mccoveychronicles.com/2021/5/17/22441428/san-francisco-giants-reds-final-score-mike-yastrzemski-logan-webb
I would not call the San Francisco Giants season boring, but it has become a touch formulaic. You know the drill by now: the starting pitcher will be somewhere between good and dominant, either mowing down hitters or pulling a Houdini act to escape stressful innings. The offense will put runs on the board — not as many as you grew accustomed to in 2020, but certainly enough. And then the keys are handed to the bullpen, and that’s where the excitement comes in.
Think of each Giants game like a Sue Grafton novel. You know what’s going to happen for the first two-thirds. Read the first two-thirds of one book and you can start with the final third for any of the others. Watch the first six innings of any Giants game, and you can start with the seventh inning for any.
Of the Giants 16 losses, they’ve entered the seventh inning with a lead or a tie half of the time.
If their bullpen was lights out, they'd probably have 7-8 more wins and Gausman would lead the majors at 6-0...
Walker Buehler overcomes brief wildness to limit D-backs
https://www.truebluela.com/2021/5/17/22441437/walker-buehler-scoreless-walks-albert-pujols-debut-dodgers-recap
Walker Buehler pitched seven scoreless innings, and the Dodgers held on for a 3-1 win over the Diamondbacks in Monday night’s series opener at Dodger Stadium.
The only thing more wild than seeing Albert Pujols in a Dodgers uniform was seeing Walker Buehler, well, wild. Buehler entered the night with 47 strikeouts against only three walks, trailing only Gerrit Cole among qualified pitchers in strikeout-to-walk ratio. But he walked four Diamondbacks on Monday, including three in a row in the fourth inning.
It was the fourth time Buehler has ever walked three in one inning, with the previous three frames coming in the National League Division Series from 2018-20.
If their offense was lights out, they'd probably have 7-8 more wins and Bauer would lead the majors at 8-2...
I watched some of the game on MLB Network. It was interesting to see Pujols batting in the clean up spot.
There are so many injuries that he was the best choice. With Seager out Muncy moved up to the 2 hole. MadBum started so Beaty sat (the cleanup on Sunday).
CAL
Go Bears!
[Base] Cal loses regular-season finale 6-7 to Stanfurd in extra innings. Cal ties it in the top of the 8th. In the bottom of the 12th, Cal sends in their least used out of their 19 pitchers. The good news is that his ERA and WHIP went down. The bad news is that his ERA & WHIP used to be 81.00 and 9.00 before yesterday. Poor kid. That's gotta hurt.
There are still 6 more games to the season, but this was the last of 5 against Stanford. Cal went 2-3 against a Stanford team that will make the postseason.
Mike Neu is atrocious at managing the bullpen
College baseball is weird because one's RPI can really be skewed by some bad midweek losses like Cal had this year. The problem is due to the lack of depth in pitching. Cal's top few guys are as good as most potential NCAA tournament teams, but they don't have the depth beyond that. Then again, few teams have that...but you do see San Jose State using their ace on Cal midweek a few years ago, instead of saving him for the weekend.
Mike Neu has always been a train wreck when it comes to managing pitching. Depth, no depth, doesn't matter. He will mismanage the shit out his pitching.
By the way, Stanford had a 6-5 lead in T8 but our old pal Esquer brought in a guy with a 10+ ERA who promptly allowed the game to be tied before being removed.
I wonder if college will go to the softball extra innings rule (runner on 2nd). I assume they currently don't.
No guy on base extra-inning nor the 3-batter minimum in college. Neu burned some of his available and typically weekend trusted arms on just a batter or two earlier in the Monday game to create the good matchups to extend the game.
I hate that rule
I don't like it either
Other College
Stanford has reversed their decision to cut 11 sports https://www.sfchronicle.com/sports/annkillion/article/Stanford-will-not-cut-any-sports-programs-in-16185656.php
They probably remembered all the blood money they have in their coffers.
Pac-12 becomes latest Power Five conference to eliminate intraconference rule
https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/pac-12-becomes-latest-power-five-conference-to-eliminate-intraconference-rule/
Well, that means the Garbers vs. Garbers match-up isn't impossible
Unseeded Marshall defeats #3 Indiana in OT to win the 2021 College Cup. In other news, this happened in my home town.
https://apnews.com/article/indiana-soccer-sports-a260fc42835898028a9db6264fd1a7a9
That was an exciting finish...and then all the fans (of the sold-out but limited attendance) rushed the neutral field...and it's like there were no longer any COVID protocols (I guess the tournament was technically over at that point). I wasn't sure how I felt about that.
went to grad school at IU. i didnt realize until i got there tha soccer, cycling and opera were among the things it was really good at.
not what you would expect in the midwest, at least not what i expected ...
I remember being slightly disappointed that one of the two times that I went for work (collaboration meeting though one was a meeting followed by a conference) was just a week off from the Little 500 - the big cycling race.
Breaking Away was such a good movie.
I didn't see it until I was pretty old (over 30)...and I was kind of surprised that it was less of a sports movie but more of a coming-of-age movie
All-time classic, I think I showed to my son when he was too young to get a lot of the movie.
Hoosiers 2003-2007 back-to-back-to-back-to-back national championships in men's opera.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvFZjo5PgG0
<spoiler>damn you</spoiler>
SANTA CLARA ARE THE NATIONAL CHAMPIONS, taking down the ACC in the final four and winning in PK's 4-1, what a time to be alive I'm certainly celebrating hard.