Lowering the Bar on Awarding Stimulus Money

Let’s try to get money for a project to study how closing your eyes heps you sleep.  That isn’t much worse than the bold-faced portion of this recent AP report.  In fact, I’d say it entitles us to at least $200,000 in federal money.

Associated Press

1:14 PM EDT, May 6, 2009

 

 

Yale and the University of Connecticut are receiving $850,000 for research funding under the federal stimulus package.

Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro says the National Institute of Health is funding projects that focus on basic research to improve the quality of life and reduce the burdens of illness and disability.

Yale is getting funding for research on global health problems and a project to study how paying attention improves performance of difficult tasks.

The UConn Health Center will use the money for cancer research.

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Elevator Use Manifesto

I’ve had it with the abuse of elevators by the employees of the tenants of the office building in which I work (and I include all tenants, even those who work for the same company as I do).  Rather than sign up for a gun permit and then follow the next logical steps toward indiscriminately laying waste to everyone I see, I figured I’d vent a little here.  So, without wasting anymore time, I list here some rules for the people in my office building and, for that matter, anyone else who doesn’t understand the dos and don’ts of elevator usage:

1.  If a building has an elevator bank with more than 4 non-service elevators, fewer than 30 stories, and elevators that run at a reasonable speed, DO NOT hold elevators in the morning so that every last person employed on an hourly basis, running to make it to their jobs before they clock in “late,” can jam into one car.  There are at least 3 other elevators those last few people can use.  Those of us who have to endure your “politeness” and “courtesy” as you hold the door for the stragglers can barely contain their hatred of you and all you stand for.  It’s early, I need coffee, and I don’t want to spend more time than absolutely necessary staring straight ahead, trying not to inhale the fumes pouring from the mouth of the slob who decided that it was a good idea to have an everything bagel for breakfast because surely nobody will smell all that garlic.

2.  If your company uses more than one floor of a building but less than five, and if your company has alternate means of moving between those fewer than five floors, DO NOT use the elevator to travel between floors unless you have a medical condition or can plead age as an excuse.  If you’ve recently suffered a heart attack or had a knee replacement, then by all means, use the elevator however much you need it.  But if you’re just a fat, lazy, overnourished, mouth breather, then use the goddamn stairs.  Especially if there are other elevator passengers already in the elevator when you get in and take it ONE floor (ONE FLOOR!) down.  Maybe people wouldn’t be so repulsed by you if you got up off your ass, stopped playing solitaire on your computer all day, put down the phone, took only one smoking break a day rather than ten, and walked around a little.  Do you own a house?  Does it have more than one story?  Do you have an elevator to take you upstairs?  I don’t think so.  Pretend you’re at home and take the stairs, twat chops.

3.  When you get in an elevator, DO NOT act as if it’s the first elevator you’ve ever ridden.  Get in, don’t say anything, look straight ahead (unless someone has an unusual facial blemish or some other deformity that needs some serious staring at), and get off when it’s your floor.  If you have OCD, then go ahead and count ceiling tiles, I don’t care.  Just please act like you’ve been in an elevator before.

4.  When you get on an elevator and you’re in the middle of a conversation with co-workers, friends or whomever and there are other people on that elevator, DO NOT continue the conversation (unless, and in the highly unlikely event that, you happen to be discussing something extremely interesting and which the other people in the elevator could understand in medias res).  Shut up, wait until it’s your turn to get off, let the doors close behind you after you disembark, and then you can resume your exhaustive discussion of the weather.

That’s all I have for now.

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Mets-Phillies Translated to Strat-O-Matic

How last night’s Mets-Phillies game went down if it were a Strat-O-Matic game. I’m doing this off the top of my head, without even looking at a recap to refresh the painful memories of the game (not too painful though, since Santana goes tonight, which gives the Mets as good a chance as any at reclaiming the division lead and, more importantly, I’m used to this, and not just from the Mets, but also from the Jets, Knicks, and Rangers).

Pat Burrell, who sent Tatis to the track in left center, clearly missed a ballpark HR to end the 8th. And ballpark HRs at Citizen’s Bank Park have to be at least 1-15. Tough luck there, but I know the feeling.

Then a little later on Ryan Howard hits a flyball cf(X) to centerfield, and Beltran, a 1, rolls low enough to get the first F2 for centerfielders. Howard didn’t roll a ballpark HR because he hit the ball to center, and a ballpark HR would have gone to rightfield. I suppose Howard could also have rolled a flyball cf B off his or the pitcher’s card, and that’s probably what happened, but I thought Howard hit a homerun when the ball left his bat, so even though Beltran made it look easy, I say there was at least some degree of difficulty that made the chance a little less routine than the garden variety flyball(B).

Then we had a series of X chances to infielders, and both Delgado and Howard came up with clutch rolls on 1b(X) rolls on the pitchers’ cards. Jose Reyes’ play to end one of the extra innings, I think on a ball hit by Carlos Ruiz (third baseman Carlos Ruiz, that is), was probably a low roll on the 20-sided die and the 6-sided die roll required a quick check on the e-ratings just to make sure nothing bad happened.

The Phillies came through with pretty unclutch rolling against Aaron Heilman, whose pitcher’s card has to be terrible (but no less terrible than some of his cohorts in the Mets’ pen). Then, to make matters worse, the Phillies couldn’t even roll one of the dots on Heilman’s card after Heilman became tired. Tired, bad pitcher, yet the Phillies couldn’t even hit one of the dots on Heilman’s card.

Not sure if there is a strat analog to Werth scoring from first on Bruntlett’s double to right off Ayala. I suppose it could have been a DO3 off the X charts, but the problem was the relay throw from Easley (or maybe Schneider’s inability to pick the short hop on an accurate throw from Easley), not with Church’s play in the outfield. It couldn’t have been a catcher-blocking-the-plate roll, because that could have happened only if there was a split chance for Werth to score, and I’m not aware of any split chances for a runner scoring from first on a double. I suppose it was a DO3 off the X charts, but I’ll have to give it a little more thought.

I fell asleep before the 13th inning, which turned out to be the right choice.

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The Gospel According to Rance Mulliniks

A few things I took away from this interview with the gentlemanly Rance Mulliniks:
– I, too, would not put him in the same category as Jason Giambi and Frank Thomas;
– Turner Ward, enough said;
– Someone has to check the Mullniks v. Seaver stats to see if he actually never got a hit off Seaver (and this would be Seaver on the Chicago White Sox and probably Red Sox, not the New York Mets vintage)…. wait, I’ll do it: 0 for 16 with 7 Ks according to retrosheet.org;
– He’s had the ‘stache since he was 21;
– Lasik surgery, so no more glasses.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

In an attempt to figure out how to embed pictures, here is a nice collection of Rance’s baseball cards, which, if you look real hard, displays Rance in all his bespectacled glory:

And here’s a toast to one of the all time greats (which, for some reason I can’t explain, only plays once, unless I just don’t wait long enough for it to reload when I try to replay it):

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My New Favorite Sport

So I caught some of the trampoline competition over the weekend and didn’t think much of it. Then NBC had a camera on the ceiling, right above the trampoline, and that made it kind of interesting. And then I find this fantastic video. While the video is great, the audio is even better. She eats it!

Vodpod videos no longer available.

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How to Confuse Amazon.com’s Recommendations

I thought I had set up my account on amazon.com so that I’d at least receive recommendations for items somewhat related to the things I like, but then I went and started getting stuff for the pregnant wife and the sister who likes yoga and the toddler half-brother, and now all my hard work has gone to hell. Amazon thinks I’m a pregnant three-year old yogini, and I’m inclined to keep it thinking that way because it’s kind of funny.

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