Optimist Drinks. Are they any good? I could use a good dose of optimism. I could pair it with the chips and the round Hawaiian bread. If not, I could just stick to tequila, wine and the occasional beer and pretend to be optimistic.
We should come up with an new Optimist Cocktail that we all drink before football season.
I went through a period of buying all the crazy flavored chips in Asia. But it was an endless well that I couldn't get to the bottom of. Asian idea of what pizza and tacos should taste like chips. Curry chips. Invertebrate delights from the sea chips. But Japan crushed my will to go on because they all sorts of crazy there.
When Dave Chang had the tuna on pizza at savoy, I immediately wrote down Savoy as a place to go next time I'm in Tokyo - then sadly found out, it was something the chef did just for him and it isn't on the menu.
Reminder that you're all invited to go eat around Taiwan with me the first week of December (pending public health conditions improving; currently, Taiwan is trying out letting vaccinated visitors quarantine for only 7 days instead of the full 14)
Addiction Aquatic Development, and the sit-down areas are at the hot pot station and the grill station outside. I still love the stand-up sushi bar (thank you Terence!) but the grill station is a strong contender because you CAN sit, and also you don't have to grill your own food!
I guess, in potato chips, like most things in my life, I prefer the classics - I like non-flavored chips over the flavored ones, currently eating Kettle brand, but not claiming they're the best, but they are very good. Willing to try others.
Every year for Superb Owl watching, the wife gets Ruffles, and makes real onion dip, which is sinfully good.
Wavy Lay's, which, sadly, Berkeley Bowl does not carry (only bougie chips). I don't like when chips are too thick. I did just pick up a flavor of Kettle that I hadn't seen before--farmstand ranch. We'll see how they are!
It's a good ranch flavor that isn't overpowering like the Doritos Cool Ranch. I do like Doritos but the Kettle ones are really good in that it's more a subtle ranch flavor.
There are stages of eating Doritos Cool Ranch, ranging from curious/playful dabble to insatiable urge to repulsion and regret, with lingering effects that require at least some thorough hand washing.
Probably the Kettle Chip brand ones. They have some fantastic flavors including Korean BBQ and New York Cheddar. They seem to rotate flavors every so often because the other one that I loved was That Sweet Chili.
That's certainly possible - I just kind of assumed most people haven't been to Hawaii / gone often enough to develop strong opinions about their chips, and rolled on from there
Wife late yesterday afternoon booked us for a four day trip to the Big Island. Last night, she watched a youtube video review of the resort, and was thoroughly disappointed in the room amenities. By this morning, she cancelled the booking.
Maybe I'll get the rolls instead. I have a pasta recipe that No 2 loves that uses the Hawaiian rounds to make browned butter bread crumbs but since I can't find the rounds I buy the small rolls. Now I just need to get that, the Sweet Maui Onion Hawaiian chips, and some ham and cheese.
Homemade (or at least freshly made) tortilla chips are top-tier. One of the local supermarkets stocks some fantastic hatch chile kettle chips (I forgot which brand) that are excellent.
We have Cape Cod out here. No 2 loves their regular since it isn't super oily and heavy. They do make good kettle chips. I'm not sure there are any other flavors out here.
'Let's go Bowling', a decent ska band from Fresno that rode the early 90's ska wave. Saw them around campus a few times (Greek, Bowles Hall bash, another off campus party). They were the type of group to be the opening act for a bigger name coming through town.
Rancid is really the only thing Albany is known for musically... side note, my mother was briefly the accountant for Country Joe & the Fish during their heyday. They paid her in weed. She didn't stick around long cause their bookkeeping was... erratic
TIL: there is a Wikipedia page for bands from the East Bay. Some I knew and some that I had no idea were from the East Bay but now seems obvious why I - as a musical ignoramus - even heard of them.
At this point, I think the US government should be figuratively carpet-bombing the US with PSAs to try and educate people who remain unvaccinated. We're now getting to the hard, crusty outer-ring of people who don't want the vaccine for various reasons - from far left, to far right, the working poor, and poorly educated.
When faced with irrationality, you have to speak their language. My FIL was extremely anti-vax ("COVID may or may not kill you but the vaccine will definitely 100% without exception kill you.")
That all changed when his wife got a sore throat and his fear of the vaccine was replaced by fear of the disease.
In a completely unrelated note, I think the only way to defeat Qanon is to start promoting crazier and crazier conspiracy theories designed to get them to turn on each other.
The unrelated thing is kind of happening with different grifters drawing lines in the sand and attacking each other (the JFK Jr is coming back vs Joe Biden is a robot vs. Trump is still running the country from Mar-A-Lago - PLEASE SUBSCRIBE TO MY PATREON wars are happening all over the QAnon gathering places now)
I know the plural of anecdote isn't data, but I saw something on twitter that made me think: someone commenting about how they'd been working at a vaccination site and got rid of leftover doses by going into a Starbucks, asking who among the staff had not been vaccinated (all of them), and getting them shots. At this point, we should be doing "meals on wheels" vaccination, getting family doctors in the mix, you name it. I suspect there are a good number of people who were not or could not rearrange their days around getting vaccinated; let's meet the people where they are. And stop wasting doses by reserving them for people who refuse.
A couple years ago the Kennedy Center added some smaller buildings and outdoor space to its property. On the weekends it has a pop-up bar and you can sit out and have a drink and something to eat. I just saw that they are now open on Thursday evenings too. To celebrate the first Thursday, tonight you can go by and get a J&J vaccine and a beer on the house. Even though I'm fully vaxxed thinking about going for the free beer. Getting two vaccines makes the efficacy over 100%, right?
There's a lot to be said about "I'm not anti-vax, but I don't want to go out of my way to get it" - since that's my current attitude. Were china being overrun right now, I'd be in line, but right now it's mainly in control and Sinovac and SinoPharm are the only ones available. If I get it, I still can't easily travel, so I'm in no hurry.
Rumors are they are approving Pfizer/BioNTech by July, and if that means a possible travel bubble to HK or Taiwan or Singapore then sign me up.
Give each P5 champion an automatic bid in the playoff, give the highest-ranking G5 team an automatic bid, and give the two highest-ranking remaining teams the final two bids, and I might actually start to care about college football playoffs again.
Every conference champion, the remaining at large (so mostly the second place P5s). Gives you 16 teams, each conference must select it's winner by the weekend after thanksgiving, Three rounds in december. None of the bowls involved, so win or lost at this point you go...New Years Holiday off for bowls. Championship game the week end after new years.
I am not surprised by this. It does seem like the urgent need for an eviction moratorium has subsided as the economy is in such a different place than it was a year ago.
ICYMI: Dolphins drafted RB Gerrid Doaks. He's more of a short-yardage runner and the Fins have a lot of short/lighter running backs. This means that Patrick Laird has a good chance of being the odd man out.
There wasn’t much between the two sides — and that alone is credit to Chelsea — especially in the first 45 minutes, but Chelsea were able to come up big when it mattered the most.
At one end, Timo Werner made up for an infuriating offside that ruled out a great goal by being in the right place at the right time to nod into the empty net after Kai Havertz chipped (!) Courtois but hit the crossbar.
At the other end, Edouard Mendy came up big a couple times, when Karim Benzema threatened to do what he did in the first leg, and drag Madrid into the goals by his lonesome.
The second half was an exercise in extreme frustration, as Chelsea missed chance after chance after chance to take the tie beyond the visitors. Havertz hit the woodwork (again), Mount missed a great chance, and Courtois saved from Werner and Havertz, while Valverde made a crucial block on Kante. Then it was Pulisic’s turn to not quite make a couple promising positions to count.
And then, with just five minutes to go, the torture finally ended when Kante made another tremendous interception, Pulisic stayed calm, stranded Courtois, and picked out Mount for an easy finish to make sure of the result.
Chelsea saw out the remaining few minutes with little difficulty.
On Tuesday, the San Francisco Giants led the Colorado Rockies 6-2, and needed to record one lone out to secure a doubleheader sweep and a series victory.
You know what happened next. They gave up 6 runs without ever recording that out, and lost in true Coors Field fashion. And then they lost again on Wednesday, turning a series that was 99% of the way to being successful into a bit of a failure.
Wednesday’s loss was not as heartbreaking, because they were 17 outs away from victory when the fecal matter hit the fan, instead of just 1 out away. But the catalyst was the same: a 6-run inning by the Rockies in which Coors Field did the thing that Coors Field does best: it took a game where the pitcher — even a bad one — has an inherent advantage over a hitter — even a good one — and flipped it. For one inning you fully expected every Colorado hitter to get on base, and they almost all did. You temporarily forgot that it’s supposed to be the batter, not the pitcher who has a .240 success rate.
The Dodgers ended their hellish stretch of 14 games in 14 days with a new low. A 6-5 loss to the Cubs in 11 innings on Wednesday night at Wrigley Field completed the sweep, and featured most of the same storylines from the last few weeks.
The last time the Dodgers were swept in a series was April 8-11, 2019, a four-game set in St. Louis.
The last two weeks weren’t just gruesome because of the Dodgers’ 3-11 record in the beautiful disaster that was 14 games. That was terrible, but since the stretch of games began the club lost five players to the injured list — not counting the three brief COVID-19-related stints — including Dustin May needing Tommy John surgery. The losses, on and off the field, are taking a toll.
I also thought he won the game. Unfortunately the bullpen is beat up with injuries and ineffectiveness. Last year they seemed to be lucky with no major injuries. This year it's payback. May: TJS. Bellinger: ankle/leg issue with being accidentally spiked on a play at 1st. Kenbal out a few months. Graterol arm injury. Kelly shoulder. Starters can't hit the ball.
The Joc non-HR was similar to the Will Smith non-homer against the Nationals in 2019 NLDS. Off the bat I, and probably every other Dodgers fan, thought Smith's hit was gone. Somehow it was caught on the warning track.
TCU game. What are people doing for a place to stay? I haven't really looked yet and I assume/hope there's plenty of parking near the stadium since I may not be within walking distance.
So far I've just purchased my ticket there and have not decided on if I'm returning on Tues after the ballgame or maybe I'll go visit No 1 in Philly for the rest of the week.
When we were there for the Bowl Game I remember parking near, but not at the stadium. Like I had to walk across a part of campus for like 10 minutes before getting to the stadium.
Yeah, there's one. It going to be via Tailgateguys. The TCU policies are stricter on food (only partner vendors allowed), and they're moderate on drinks (allow BYOB, but not BYO bartender) because it competes with their drink vendor. I'm going to underwrite the first tent and then pre-sell it. I'm not as interested in getting this one as big as Ole Miss because they don't allow outside help. So it's going to be pretty plain vanilla - tent, coolers w/ ice, BBQ catering, BYO drinks, insurance for me. And if you've got your own dietary needs - you're on your own as I'm not catering for niche because it's too difficult to do at TCU. I'm holding off paying money because there's no point of giving them a free loan, but it'll get done. You have my word on it.
I got a one-person AirBnB that is about 1,200 feet from the stadium (Fri-Sun). If it's anything like the Ole Miss game, it's where I will go to pass out awaiting my DoorDash to show up and wake up to a blind panic to somebody pounding on the door and a ton of missed calls on my phone.
This is for the sober folks! https://twitter.com/robicellis/status/1390356713124114437?s=20
Optimist Drinks. Are they any good? I could use a good dose of optimism. I could pair it with the chips and the round Hawaiian bread. If not, I could just stick to tequila, wine and the occasional beer and pretend to be optimistic.
We should come up with an new Optimist Cocktail that we all drink before football season.
I was unable to access writeforcalifornia.com for about an hour this morning. But it seems to be back.
Likewise
Substack had an issue this morning, but it has since been identified and fixed.
Yeah, same.
I had a comment I added, the screen hung, I refreshed for a while until I was able to reconnect, and I lost the comment. I'll add it again below.
that pringles flavor seems like a bad joke idea.
I went through a period of buying all the crazy flavored chips in Asia. But it was an endless well that I couldn't get to the bottom of. Asian idea of what pizza and tacos should taste like chips. Curry chips. Invertebrate delights from the sea chips. But Japan crushed my will to go on because they all sorts of crazy there.
When Dave Chang had the tuna on pizza at savoy, I immediately wrote down Savoy as a place to go next time I'm in Tokyo - then sadly found out, it was something the chef did just for him and it isn't on the menu.
a friend brought me back some Lay's Deep Ridged Spicy Chicken Flavor chips from Taiwan once that were delightful
Reminder that you're all invited to go eat around Taiwan with me the first week of December (pending public health conditions improving; currently, Taiwan is trying out letting vaccinated visitors quarantine for only 7 days instead of the full 14)
Wife and I took my FIL to the big fish market (forget what it is called) and he got upset that there was nowhere to sit down and eat.
Addiction Aquatic Development, and the sit-down areas are at the hot pot station and the grill station outside. I still love the stand-up sushi bar (thank you Terence!) but the grill station is a strong contender because you CAN sit, and also you don't have to grill your own food!
Alas I suspect I will not be able to meet you this time.
We were at the stand up sushi bar, and wife and I (and BIL and MIL) loved it.
Quarantine? No thank you!
And that's why we've had so many deaths here
Pre-vaccine, sure
nice
Prawn chips are surprisingly good.
Forking Prawns
https://ih1.redbubble.net/image.1303168496.5573/fposter,small,wall_texture,product,750x1000.jpg
That ad campaign was quite good, all the A/C buses had Humans Only! ads on them.
yessss
I like making some whenever I make egg rolls.
Favorite potato chip?
Used to be Cape Cod (plain salted) but those have been overtaken by Lay's Kettle Chips, which are perfection.
Deep River Zesty Jalapeño chips. Spicy!
Taytos - Irish brand of basic potato chips that go great with casual whiskey drinking.
lots of fun flavors if you like that British style. i prefer just salt and vinegar or cheese and onion.
I guess, in potato chips, like most things in my life, I prefer the classics - I like non-flavored chips over the flavored ones, currently eating Kettle brand, but not claiming they're the best, but they are very good. Willing to try others.
Every year for Superb Owl watching, the wife gets Ruffles, and makes real onion dip, which is sinfully good.
Utz Crab chips
oh that's a strong contender
I like Route 11 chips from VA
Wavy Lay's, which, sadly, Berkeley Bowl does not carry (only bougie chips). I don't like when chips are too thick. I did just pick up a flavor of Kettle that I hadn't seen before--farmstand ranch. We'll see how they are!
It's a good ranch flavor that isn't overpowering like the Doritos Cool Ranch. I do like Doritos but the Kettle ones are really good in that it's more a subtle ranch flavor.
There are stages of eating Doritos Cool Ranch, ranging from curious/playful dabble to insatiable urge to repulsion and regret, with lingering effects that require at least some thorough hand washing.
hahaha
I can definitely binge eat some Cool Ranch. Much more in one sitting than I should.
Yes.
Zappos Voodoo flavor are pretty damn good....
o/
Probably the Kettle Chip brand ones. They have some fantastic flavors including Korean BBQ and New York Cheddar. They seem to rotate flavors every so often because the other one that I loved was That Sweet Chili.
I forgot about the Zapp's Voodoo chips.
It isn't even a contest, Hawaiin Brand potato chips are the best.
I assume that's a west coast thing
Or a Hawaiian thing, even!
That's certainly possible - I just kind of assumed most people haven't been to Hawaii / gone often enough to develop strong opinions about their chips, and rolled on from there
Sweet Maui Onion
Winner.
How about a sandwich made with the Round Hawaiian Bread with Sweet Maui Onion Hawaiian chips in it? That sounds good.
I haven't been able to find the round Hawaiian Bread in at least 6-8 months.
Target.
Ahh...didn't try there. Thanks.
I would definitely try this sandwich.
Wife late yesterday afternoon booked us for a four day trip to the Big Island. Last night, she watched a youtube video review of the resort, and was thoroughly disappointed in the room amenities. By this morning, she cancelled the booking.
Talk about a whirlwind of emotions.
Which resort?
I like the Big Island best overall.
that's a lot to process
oooh
Maybe I'll get the rolls instead. I have a pasta recipe that No 2 loves that uses the Hawaiian rounds to make browned butter bread crumbs but since I can't find the rounds I buy the small rolls. Now I just need to get that, the Sweet Maui Onion Hawaiian chips, and some ham and cheese.
Homemade (or at least freshly made) tortilla chips are top-tier. One of the local supermarkets stocks some fantastic hatch chile kettle chips (I forgot which brand) that are excellent.
Worst chips: salt and vinegar.
Salt & Vinegar chips are great, but only in brands that use a prudet amount of dried vinegar like "Kettle". Lay's S&V is bad.
Cape Cod makes the best salt and vinegar, not sure their availability outside the northeast. That's also my answer for favorite chip. Love the sting.
We have Cape Cod out here. No 2 loves their regular since it isn't super oily and heavy. They do make good kettle chips. I'm not sure there are any other flavors out here.
I remember liking the miss Vickie's chips version when I was in Canada for work many years ago.
Tie between Ruffles Cheddar & Sour Cream & Dirty Sour Cream & Onion.
A band that originated/based from a town near where you grew up.
WYLD STYLLYNS!!!!!!!!
Jack Harlow went the the HS that No 3 went to freshman year in Louisville before we moved back.
I lived in Atherton for a long time. A local band that came out of Menlo-Atherton high school was Fleetwood Mac (kind of before my time).
Third Eye Blind came out of Gunn
Knott's Berry Farm
I don't know of any bands from Fresno, but a quick search shows a possibly decent band from Brazil that is called Fresno.
I don't know of any bands from Fresno, but a quick search shows a possibly decent band from Brazil that is called Fresno.
'Let's go Bowling', a decent ska band from Fresno that rode the early 90's ska wave. Saw them around campus a few times (Greek, Bowles Hall bash, another off campus party). They were the type of group to be the opening act for a bigger name coming through town.
There's a new-ish band called Haunt from Fresno. They play old school thrash
FresYes!
Rancid is really the only thing Albany is known for musically... side note, my mother was briefly the accountant for Country Joe & the Fish during their heyday. They paid her in weed. She didn't stick around long cause their bookkeeping was... erratic
unlike today, you can't line item weed back then.
TIL: there is a Wikipedia page for bands from the East Bay. Some I knew and some that I had no idea were from the East Bay but now seems obvious why I - as a musical ignoramus - even heard of them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bands_from_the_San_Francisco_Bay_Area#East_Bay
List is invalid since it doesn't include Locale A.M.
Best band on that list: Fleshies.
Worst band on that list: Counting Crows
Lots of good bands, at least at points in their careers, I have one Fleshies CD
thanks to this, I have now started down a path to familiarize myself with Nardcore
TIL: what nardcore means. Also [insert joke about nards here].
Stunt flavor
Jagermeister.
Underdog victory
Starfleet vs the Borg
pqtm
Today in Covid
https://www.cityofberkeley.info/covax/
Drop-in vaccination site in West Berkeley tomorrow (5/7) and next Friday (5/14) at 2500 Eighth St (Bayer Parking Lot E) 9:30–12 and 12:45–2
There have been 13,300 or so confirmed cases in our county. That is about 6% of the population (of 220,000-ish).
Biden Administration plans to shift vaccines away from areas that request less than their allocation of vaccines to other states.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/04/politics/white-house-redistribute-vaccines/index.html
At this point, I think the US government should be figuratively carpet-bombing the US with PSAs to try and educate people who remain unvaccinated. We're now getting to the hard, crusty outer-ring of people who don't want the vaccine for various reasons - from far left, to far right, the working poor, and poorly educated.
When faced with irrationality, you have to speak their language. My FIL was extremely anti-vax ("COVID may or may not kill you but the vaccine will definitely 100% without exception kill you.")
That all changed when his wife got a sore throat and his fear of the vaccine was replaced by fear of the disease.
In a completely unrelated note, I think the only way to defeat Qanon is to start promoting crazier and crazier conspiracy theories designed to get them to turn on each other.
The unrelated thing is kind of happening with different grifters drawing lines in the sand and attacking each other (the JFK Jr is coming back vs Joe Biden is a robot vs. Trump is still running the country from Mar-A-Lago - PLEASE SUBSCRIBE TO MY PATREON wars are happening all over the QAnon gathering places now)
I know the plural of anecdote isn't data, but I saw something on twitter that made me think: someone commenting about how they'd been working at a vaccination site and got rid of leftover doses by going into a Starbucks, asking who among the staff had not been vaccinated (all of them), and getting them shots. At this point, we should be doing "meals on wheels" vaccination, getting family doctors in the mix, you name it. I suspect there are a good number of people who were not or could not rearrange their days around getting vaccinated; let's meet the people where they are. And stop wasting doses by reserving them for people who refuse.
A couple years ago the Kennedy Center added some smaller buildings and outdoor space to its property. On the weekends it has a pop-up bar and you can sit out and have a drink and something to eat. I just saw that they are now open on Thursday evenings too. To celebrate the first Thursday, tonight you can go by and get a J&J vaccine and a beer on the house. Even though I'm fully vaxxed thinking about going for the free beer. Getting two vaccines makes the efficacy over 100%, right?
There's a lot to be said about "I'm not anti-vax, but I don't want to go out of my way to get it" - since that's my current attitude. Were china being overrun right now, I'd be in line, but right now it's mainly in control and Sinovac and SinoPharm are the only ones available. If I get it, I still can't easily travel, so I'm in no hurry.
Rumors are they are approving Pfizer/BioNTech by July, and if that means a possible travel bubble to HK or Taiwan or Singapore then sign me up.
Yes, agree with this, and I think that's what we're changing to.
Elsewhere in college
Auburn coach Bryan Harsin supports Playoff expansion
https://247sports.com/Article/Auburn-football-coach-Bryan-Harsin-supports-CFP-expansion-SEC-165076923/
Give each P5 champion an automatic bid in the playoff, give the highest-ranking G5 team an automatic bid, and give the two highest-ranking remaining teams the final two bids, and I might actually start to care about college football playoffs again.
Every conference champion, the remaining at large (so mostly the second place P5s). Gives you 16 teams, each conference must select it's winner by the weekend after thanksgiving, Three rounds in december. None of the bowls involved, so win or lost at this point you go...New Years Holiday off for bowls. Championship game the week end after new years.
Our Crumbling Democracy
Twitter boots account mimicking Trump’s new blog
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/05/06/twitter-suspends-account-mimicking-trump-blog-485529
The federal ban on evictions not extended beyond the end of June
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/federal-judge-overturns-national-eviction-ban/ar-BB1go8qp
I am not surprised by this. It does seem like the urgent need for an eviction moratorium has subsided as the economy is in such a different place than it was a year ago.
PRO
I don't think it's noted anywhere else here, Happy 90th to Willie Mays.
ICYMI: Dolphins drafted RB Gerrid Doaks. He's more of a short-yardage runner and the Fins have a lot of short/lighter running backs. This means that Patrick Laird has a good chance of being the odd man out.
https://www.miamidolphins.com/team/players-roster/gerrid-doaks/
Pujols (Poo-holes) got DFAed.
https://theathletic.com/news/angels-designate-albert-pujols-for-assignment/zlO3kFYRBSO0
I think the White Sox might pick him up.
End of an era. A long, expensive, and not particularly productive era.
Had to add the pronunciation because the ex always giggled at his name.
Since the Pro Sports section of the DBD seems to be overrun by sadness today...
Chelsea 2-0 Real Madrid, Champions League: Post-match reaction, ratings
https://weaintgotnohistory.sbnation.com/2021/5/5/22421594/chelsea-2-0-real-madrid-champions-league-post-match-reaction-ratings
There wasn’t much between the two sides — and that alone is credit to Chelsea — especially in the first 45 minutes, but Chelsea were able to come up big when it mattered the most.
At one end, Timo Werner made up for an infuriating offside that ruled out a great goal by being in the right place at the right time to nod into the empty net after Kai Havertz chipped (!) Courtois but hit the crossbar.
At the other end, Edouard Mendy came up big a couple times, when Karim Benzema threatened to do what he did in the first leg, and drag Madrid into the goals by his lonesome.
The second half was an exercise in extreme frustration, as Chelsea missed chance after chance after chance to take the tie beyond the visitors. Havertz hit the woodwork (again), Mount missed a great chance, and Courtois saved from Werner and Havertz, while Valverde made a crucial block on Kante. Then it was Pulisic’s turn to not quite make a couple promising positions to count.
And then, with just five minutes to go, the torture finally ended when Kante made another tremendous interception, Pulisic stayed calm, stranded Courtois, and picked out Mount for an easy finish to make sure of the result.
Chelsea saw out the remaining few minutes with little difficulty.
WE’RE GOING TO THE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE FINAL!!!
Speaking of sadness, I hope PureSilence is ok
Once again the Giants were done in by a 6-run inning
https://www.mccoveychronicles.com/2021/5/5/22422064/san-francisco-giants-rockies-recap-logan-webb
On Tuesday, the San Francisco Giants led the Colorado Rockies 6-2, and needed to record one lone out to secure a doubleheader sweep and a series victory.
You know what happened next. They gave up 6 runs without ever recording that out, and lost in true Coors Field fashion. And then they lost again on Wednesday, turning a series that was 99% of the way to being successful into a bit of a failure.
Wednesday’s loss was not as heartbreaking, because they were 17 outs away from victory when the fecal matter hit the fan, instead of just 1 out away. But the catalyst was the same: a 6-run inning by the Rockies in which Coors Field did the thing that Coors Field does best: it took a game where the pitcher — even a bad one — has an inherent advantage over a hitter — even a good one — and flipped it. For one inning you fully expected every Colorado hitter to get on base, and they almost all did. You temporarily forgot that it’s supposed to be the batter, not the pitcher who has a .240 success rate.
Dodgers follow familiar script, get swept by Cubs to end disastrous road trip
https://www.truebluela.com/2021/5/5/22422093/dodgers-extra-inning-losses-cubs-sweep
The Dodgers ended their hellish stretch of 14 games in 14 days with a new low. A 6-5 loss to the Cubs in 11 innings on Wednesday night at Wrigley Field completed the sweep, and featured most of the same storylines from the last few weeks.
The last time the Dodgers were swept in a series was April 8-11, 2019, a four-game set in St. Louis.
The last two weeks weren’t just gruesome because of the Dodgers’ 3-11 record in the beautiful disaster that was 14 games. That was terrible, but since the stretch of games began the club lost five players to the injured list — not counting the three brief COVID-19-related stints — including Dustin May needing Tommy John surgery. The losses, on and off the field, are taking a toll.
I made it long enough to see Joc Pederson think he had won the game. After that half inning it was off to bed.
I also thought he won the game. Unfortunately the bullpen is beat up with injuries and ineffectiveness. Last year they seemed to be lucky with no major injuries. This year it's payback. May: TJS. Bellinger: ankle/leg issue with being accidentally spiked on a play at 1st. Kenbal out a few months. Graterol arm injury. Kelly shoulder. Starters can't hit the ball.
The Joc non-HR was similar to the Will Smith non-homer against the Nationals in 2019 NLDS. Off the bat I, and probably every other Dodgers fan, thought Smith's hit was gone. Somehow it was caught on the warning track.
Trevino blown save, A's lose 9-4 to O's.
CAL
TCU game. What are people doing for a place to stay? I haven't really looked yet and I assume/hope there's plenty of parking near the stadium since I may not be within walking distance.
So far I've just purchased my ticket there and have not decided on if I'm returning on Tues after the ballgame or maybe I'll go visit No 1 in Philly for the rest of the week.
When we were there for the Bowl Game I remember parking near, but not at the stadium. Like I had to walk across a part of campus for like 10 minutes before getting to the stadium.
Newellbany and I have an AirBNB a mile walk to TCU football stadium.
We arrive FRI afternoon, and are staying for Texas/Houston game Monday night, leaving Tuesday am.
We are in for another tailgate, as Oxford was epic....
Will there be a tailgate for TCU?
I think SGBear is looking into a CGB tailgate. Don't know if Cal Athletics is going to have one.
Yeah, there's one. It going to be via Tailgateguys. The TCU policies are stricter on food (only partner vendors allowed), and they're moderate on drinks (allow BYOB, but not BYO bartender) because it competes with their drink vendor. I'm going to underwrite the first tent and then pre-sell it. I'm not as interested in getting this one as big as Ole Miss because they don't allow outside help. So it's going to be pretty plain vanilla - tent, coolers w/ ice, BBQ catering, BYO drinks, insurance for me. And if you've got your own dietary needs - you're on your own as I'm not catering for niche because it's too difficult to do at TCU. I'm holding off paying money because there's no point of giving them a free loan, but it'll get done. You have my word on it.
Ok. Thanks for the update. Need anything?
I am happy to donate to the “Tailgate Fund” if there is one. Tailgateguys.com?
I got a one-person AirBnB that is about 1,200 feet from the stadium (Fri-Sun). If it's anything like the Ole Miss game, it's where I will go to pass out awaiting my DoorDash to show up and wake up to a blind panic to somebody pounding on the door and a ton of missed calls on my phone.
Go Bears!
Go Bears!!!