'Tis the Season...

The elevator at the hospital seems to be getting into the Halloween spirit.

* When you attempt to call the elevator, it will occasionally simply not open, even though you can see it sitting (doing nothing) on your floor.

* Sometimes it simply won't open its doors... this goes on for 4-5 minutes sometimes. It'll be at a floor - any floor - with its doors shut, just waiting.

* Occasionally, it will send you in the opposite direction you requested, change its mind without opening the doors, and then send you where you wanted to go in the first place.

* Creepiest of all, on rare occasions, it will simply open its doors as you begin to walk up to it, even though no one (including you) had called it.

This morning, I got on the elevator and tried to go down one floor. The elevator decided that instead of doing that, it was going to send me to the top floor, not open its doors for five minutes, then send me to the floor I had actually requested. I was about to call engineering (or, failing that, a priest) to see what I had to do to appease the infernal beast and make it let me out. I didn't even care which floor.

 

Maybe I'll take the stairs from now on.

BrainDump 10/13/2009

* Here in Alexandria, we were treated to a snowstorm on Friday. I like winter a lot more than most folks do, but it's fall right now. Besides, I need to get the deck stained and the patio pavers laid. The fact that the snow started getting heavy right as Joe Nathan was serving up A-Rod's back-breaking home run could only be a foul coincidence, right?

So yeah, I'm thinking I probably should have done those two things sometime this summer, instead of all that sweet golfing action I was enjoying.

* Single-season wins record holder and all around dapper fellow Old Hoss Radbourn has a twitter account. It's good to see that he's not letting his 1897 death get in the way of being hilarious and insightful in an old-fashioned way.

Highlight: This #Posada feller is awful. If my battery mate made so many errors, I'd be forced to challenge him to a duel.

* I've been listening to a lot of the song 'Surf Solar' by Fuck Buttons of late. It's over ten minutes of droney goodness with an almost robotic sounding digitally altered female voice. If that made it sound boring or strange, trust me, it's not. Ten minutes almost doesn't seem long enough. Check out the drastically shortened clipped version (which weighs in at a pansy 3 minutes 41 seconds) - where else - at imeem.

Note: I link to imeem because you can find most everything there. For a lot of the songs, you need to sign up for a free account. Do it. It's worth it.

* Finally, I will literally never get sick of watching the Ibanez Fielding GIFs. Never. I've been staring at the screen laughing for the last ten minutes, and I've already seen these no fewer than 20 times.

Ron Darling Needs Physics Lessons

The Twins were predictably eliminated in painful fashion on Sunday. They got the lead for the third straight game, only to follow the script straight through to the part which called for A-Rod to bludgeon our pitching staff into submission.

Rather than complain about the Twins losing in the playoffs (I had them pegged for 75 wins and for most of the season, it looked like I was right), I'll make fun of the announcing staff.

During the early innings of last night's game, Ron Darling made the comment that ground balls hit on the Metrodome turf "gain speed" as they approach the infielders. Even if that didn't violate the laws of physics, such a field would be ridiculously dangerous. Imagine - bunt hits gaining momentum until, by the time they reach the outfield, they are hurtling at devastating speeds. Fielders daring not bounce their throws on the turf, lest they decapitate the intended recipient of their throws. Maybe he meant that the turf slows the ball down less than grass? Mmm.... no, I'm quite certain he meant it this way.

Of course, I'm being more than a little pedantic, but the team of Ron Darling and Chip Caray (particularly the latter) are quite possibly the worst announcers to listen to. I'm including Hall of Shamers like McCarver & Buck (Joe, of course, not his dearly departed father) in this ascertation. They get facts wrong, they (especially Caray) act as homers for all things Yankee, and worst of all, they bring absolutely nothing to the table. They're certainly not informative, they're just sort of... there (and the way Caray refers to just about every bloop hit as being 'fisted' is creepy to me).

Sour grapes notwithstanding, that was a pretty disgusting end to a season that defied expectations. You can't beat the Yankees by leaving 17 men on base in one game, or by blundering your way out of at least 2 runs by simply not paying any attention on the basepaths, or by hitting a grand total of zero home runs after putting up decent power numbers all year - and guess what......we didn't.

Ah well..... we'll always have last Tuesday's game.

Note: This gets the "Joe Buck Sucks" tag, because boy howdy does he ever.

Ouch.... ouch ouch ouch

Note the position of the umpire as he calls the clearly fair ball foul.

Great game by Blackburn. Too bad that it all has to wind down in the shittiest way possible.

On a sidenote, I overheard Ron Darling saying after the team's MVP Justin Morneau went down with an injury, it was guys like Michael Cuddyer, Jason Kubel... and Delmon Young that pulled the Twins into contention.

Joe Mauer, meanwhile, selfishly hit .354/.471/.487 - to be clear, that means he was getting on base almost as often as he was getting out over the critical playoff drive. What Cuddy did was great, but he and Kubel aren't getting RBIs if Mauer isn't setting the table for them. To act as if the soon-to-be AL MVP had less to do with the Twins eventual division title than DELMON YOUNG, is cockflickery, my friends.

Also, in what universe do people still think the MVP of the 2009 Twins is Justin Morneau??

What a complete disappointment... let's pick up at least one from this very beatable team, shall we, gentlemen??

First to Eleven Wins

Ladies and Gentlemen, your Minnesota Twins...

It all makes a lot more sense in retrospect. I mean, we have one of the best closers in the game (who at one point had a streak of 20+ games pitched without a single run given up) - of course it all came down to a situation where our mop up guy had to get out of a bases loaded, one out jam.

We had five guys who had OPS+ numbers above 120 (which is quite good), so of course in the critical inning, it all came down to Carlos Gomez getting a hit, Delmon Young getting a walk, and Alexi Casilla (who was sporting a tasty .259 SLUGGING percentage) driving in the winning run. It's the Twins... you just kind of go with it. So when Brian Duensing makes his 10th major league start later today against C.C. Sabathia, it doesn't concern me (okay... maybe a little), it's just part of the show.

Going into the season, I thought the Twins were about a .500 team. Up until September, it looked like a was right. The way I figure it, last night was one of the most exciting games I've ever watched (post-1991, of course). I gave up on the idea of my team making the playoffs no fewer than three times, so now that they've made it, the whole thing feels like free baseball. The fact that we were 0-7 against the Yankees during the regular season doesn't bother me, in fact, I'm anxious for us to have another crack at them.

Realistically, the Twins will probably lose the series - probably in four games or under. That would be disappointing, of course, but this season has already given Twins fans a lot more than we could have ever expected. Baseball is kind of awesome that way.

That being said, I hope the Twins sweep the Yankees, and since the playoffs are a complete crap shoot, why can't they?