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The thing about this is...
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| Sunday was long, and a bit intense.
I didn't get to sleep very well Saturday night. I'm not exactly sure why. If I had to guess at why, it would be because I didn't eat much on Saturday and was therefore low blood-sugar-y. That does it to a lot of people. I also was a little disappointed that I didn't get to go hang out Saturday night, go out to the Hurricane or whatever, because it was already 11pm when I got home and I had Sunday School to teach. Other than this, Saturday was pretty good, including playing flag football with baseball bloggers and having my baseball team's meeting in Bellevue that night. By the way, I'm going to learn how to catch for next season. Perhaps I should say goodbye to my knees.
So I taught Sunday School, and I wasn't all that prepared. Okay, whatever, I thought. Turns out we had more Kindergarteners and preschoolers (6) than I think we've had any week I've been there so far (and I've been there for four weeks). Okay, whatever, I thought. Turns out that the service ran long. Oof, a little bit. I had a bit of a lesson plan with me because the church provides us with one, but I improvised off of it and added a little game to try to extend our time. We did okay. It could have gone better, but all things considered, it went okay and I'm happy to not have that responsibility for a couple weeks.
I had my first adult bowling tournament tonight. It was a doubles nine-pin no-tap tournament, with handicap, and I bowled with my mom. Entry was $60 and the both of us bowled pretty damn well. I had a decent chance at throwing three perfect games (to clarify, that's because if you knocked down 9 it counted as a strike, not because I bowled out of my gourd). My mom beat me one game 236-239, and all-in-all we finished in 4th place, collecting $90 ($30 profit, $15 for each of us).
Right now, my main goal is to stay awake. I have a 6:15 flight out of Seattle to head to New York City for a week to see Elsa and do various things like see Avenue Q and the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY (which is a 4-hour drive away) for a week. I'll be back Monday night next week, scheduled for 9pm.
In Other News
I have purchased three tickets to go see John Oliver at the Snoqualmie Casino on Saturday, November 14th, at 8pm. At the moment, the three tickets are spoken for, however if you want to go, tickets can be found for $20 (+service fees) on ticketmaster. I would be happy to give you a ride so long as you're not ridiculously out of the way.
I am in the act of purchasing two tickets to KISS on the following day (Sunday, Nov. 15) at 7:30pm. The second ticket has not yet been spoken for. Drop me a line if you're at all interested in going. I would rather have someone purchase the second ticket from me, but if you would be willing to go if you could go free, let me know and I may just give it to you if I can't sell it. | comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment   |
| Today was the last of eight consecutive days of work at The Alley. I expect to not show up there on Thursday unless I happen to go there by sheer force of habit... and please let that not happen because I work there again Friday, have a day off on Saturday, and bowl in a tournament on Sunday there, before getting out of town for New York.
It was also, as they say, "one of those days." I had a number of times tonight that I felt incompetent, unhappy, or otherwise dumb and I was kicking myself. It got to be so many times that I had to know just what all there was, so I wrote them down and came up with a dozen different times over the course of the night where I felt one of the above emotions.
( Here's some of the list. )
Somehow, and I don't know how or why, I ended up getting tipped a total of $19. I didn't even do anything special tonight... about the only thing I did was not blow up at customers despite some of them doing some really stupid things, but even then I asked a guy "What are you trying to do, break the machine?" as I walked by to fix it.
I was a bit curt tonight. It was not my best of nights, but thankfully I have a night off before the next one. | | comments: 3 comments or Leave a comment |
| A couple of my coworkers like to play "gotcha" on the customers, trying to catch them doing things wrong and then shutting them down. I'm not a big fan of this because I feel like it creates an adversarial relationship between me and my customer. I'm already taking their money; that's adversarial enough.
Of course, rules need to be enforced... if we were to allow everybody to bring in outside food and drink, then the liquor control board could easily shut down our bar operations. If people are not paying attention, they could bust the pinspotters, which is a big problem if we're actually busy that night.
Between that and some of my coworkers complaining about each other recently, work hasn't necessarily been sunshine and lollipops all the time in the last couple weeks. Tonight, it felt like it was going to be "one of those nights," since we had several people who were drunk and stupid (which are often synonyms, but not always) disrespecting us and not understanding our instructions because they were not all there.
Once league cleared out, though, and I got to run the show a bit more, I got to relax and my night got a lot better. Yeah, I kept my eye on one of the guys who acted a fool, but when he mooned his friends (with few others around), I laughed and talked to them, instead of getting pissed and kicking them out. They ended up being willing to pay more than necessary for their bowling bill.
Other notes from, but not about, work:
I was downstairs and saw a CD with a bunch of music from the 1998 Grammy Awards, including Shawn Colvin's "Sunny Came Home" (Record of the Year), Hanson's "MMMBop" (nominated for Best New Artist), Paula Cole (who won Best New Artist), and Jamiroquai's "Virtual Insanity" (Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal). I like a couple of these songs, but only half-heartedly. I'm starting to think that Elliott's comment that the 1990s had no style has more merit than I initially considered.
If I had someone else cut my hair for me, I think I would want to do something in the style of Robert Palmer. Maybe somewhere in-between him, Michael J. Fox (Back to the Future) and Michael J. Fox (Spin City). Would that be way off the mark? | | comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment |
| So remember that "cat magnet" PSA I posted a month-or-so ago? Well, instead of that tonight, I got a long Girls Gone Wild ad. I swear those things must be 90 seconds long.
This ad was a little strange because it was also promoting their "Top 50 best breasts ever."
That title leads me to several questions. First, I want to know* if they're talking about 25 women each with two breasts, or like one breast or the other of 50 women, or what. Secondly, what's their method here? I mean, Helen of Troy may have had a face that launched a thousand ships, but I'm going to go ahead and hazard a guess that the boobs probably launched a couple, too.
* - I don't actually want to know | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| I worked another Seattle Pacific University volleyball game on Saturday night. Since I got there more than an hour before gametime, I decided to have myself a short walk around most of their campus. It was nice, but not terrifically nice. It made me miss Willamette a lot, actually. It also made me miss the institution of college. What made me notice this, more than anything else, was the propensity of people I walked by to smile in acknowledgment and occasionally say "hi." That doesn't happen much regularly. Maybe I just need to go out and use the SMILE sign again. It's been a LONG time since I used that last.
I may get the chance to this week, though, at least in the first couple of days. One of my coworkers is taking something of a vacation this week, so I'm expecting to have Monday and Tuesday off entirely, going back to work each night Wednesday through Sunday. I'll probably post 42+ hours next week, all at the bowling alley.
On Wednesday this last week, one of the bowlers asked me if I wanted tickets to today's Seahawks game. I considered it for a bit... I'm generally a home-team fan of most any sport, I've not yet been to a Seahawks game at Qwest Field (though I graduated and had prom there in 2004), but it would cost me a bit of money. I decided to do it anyway.
I'm relatively glad I went. The Seahawks won by a score of 41-0 -- which is commonly referred to as a "blowout" to non-football-speaking readers out there -- and the guys near me were generally fun, but sitting where I was it just didn't seem as loud as I had thought it was supposed to. Maybe it was because it wasn't a particularly stressful or exciting game, but whatever.
One of the best parts of the game, actually, was not even part of the game. At halftime, there were a number of high school cheer and dance teams that came onto the field and did their thing with the amusingly named SeaGals. This was mostly ho-hum whatever, but there was this one girl in the southwest corner of the field who was just rocking out like no tomorrow. A lot of these people may have danced technically well, but this girl was bringing the energy like nobody else that I noticed on the field. For her efforts, she was kinda my hero for as long as I could tell which person she was.
I got home after some food and watched the end of the Twins/Yankees playoff series. I found myself being emotionally involved in a baseball game that I didn't really even have a rooting interest (except that the Yankees need to die), even more than I was emotionally involved in the football game that I had actually been to. I think what this means is that I'm really just a baseball fan, bred from a line of baseball fans, and I will continue to pass down whatever gene predisposes me to that to the next generation, should I ever have kids (which I expect to, just not now).
I think that's all. | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| | So you don't want to go see KISS, huh? How about going over to the eastside and seeing The Daily Show's John Oliver? | | comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment |
| Do my posts get eaten, so to speak, because I post them at the wee hours of the morning?
I'm thinking life would be more fun if I responded to one Craigslist post per week. Not necessarily to buy anything or throw my hat into the ring for some gig (like I have time for gigs. Hah.), but at least to comment.
For example, someone apparently is planning a wedding in the Seattle area and they want a string quartet to come play Journey. I might email them and tell them that, for the moment, they are my heroes for doing such a silly thing.
Another appears to want a nerdy and geeky game show host. I'm not sure I'm nerdy and/or geeky in all the ways that they seem to want, but I do relatively well with computers, I know my video games (especially early ones, which are more geeky than new ones), and I have decent overall pop-culture knowledge.
Fun times? | | comments: 7 comments or Leave a comment |
| There is, as much as I can figure, just one rule.
A person should treat all other people about as well as they reasonably can.
Always.
( Detail ) | | comments: Leave a comment |
| The formatting on this is going to end up weird, but I'm going to roll with it.
I JUST WROTE ONE OF THE SONGS I'VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT FOR YEARS. The letters above lines of lyrics are the chords.
Em G C
Traffic in Seattle, it'll bring you to your knees
People may be nice here, but when they merge they won't say "please"
You let them in, they can't make their mind, then you get stuck
Behind some guy who's letting his load hang out the back of his truck
(Chorus)
Em Am
So take this song and listen, let it be your guide
As I look at traffic in this town and swallow my civic pride.
Driving here's no picnic and it's gonna make you wail
Better hope your neighborhood is getting link light rail
Em G C
The Ship Canal Bridge is backed up when you're going south
Idling there will turn most anyone into a potty-mouth
Cursing, sitting, waiting, you'll get there eventually
The question is, when you arrive, will it still be this century?
Chorus
Em G C
Ninety-nine's a better option if you have the time to plan
But take this direction and you're putting your life in your hands
Because you know when the earthquake hits, you're gonna get fucked
If you happen to be stuck driving on the viaduct
Chorus
Em G C
If you're like Sammy Hagar and can't drive fifty-five
And the thought of going sixty makes you break out in hives
You'll find yourself right at home on a floating bridge
When your passenger waits and asks you "have we moved a smidge?"
Chorus, End | | comments: 6 comments or Leave a comment |
| Technology is making parts of pop culture anachronistic. For example: In the song "Build me up buttercup" by the Foundations, there is the line "I'll be home, I'll be beside the phone waiting for you." Really, there is no reason to be sitting by the phone in today's day and age. It might be more appropriate to suggest that the singer would be checking his phone every 20 seconds for a text message.
There needs to be a song about the Internet, or more specifically, about Wikipedia. (Upon further consideration, is Wikipedia really any more specific than the Internet itself?) The song needs to be titled "(disambiguation)".
If I had an amount of time to myself, I would consider posting an ad on Craigslist looking for people in Seattle who still might play Tecmo Super Bowl. It is perhaps the greatest football video game ever, and it is 8-bit. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| I'm planning on spending some time this offseason coming up with an algorithm that will make me more effective at selecting batters at MLB's Beat the Streak, so that I can take a shot at a $1.5M jackpot.
I break down my task into two parts, as you've probably read: The first task is to get up to bat and earn a Plate Appearance (PA). The other is to get a hit when you come up to bat (H), and ultimately to get a hit in a game (G).
In 2008, Ian Kinsler of the Texas Rangers led all of baseball in number of hits per game, recording 165 H in 121 G (1.364 H/G, 4.82 PA/G, 0.283 H/PA), but that doesn't tell the whole story. If we know H/PA, we automatically know not H/PA, because it is equal to 1 - H/PA.
If we take NotHits/PA to the power of PA/G, we'll know the probability of the batter NOT getting a hit in a game. For Kinsler, that's .717 to the 4.82 power, or .2012.
Of course, 1 - the answer we just got is equal to the probability of getting a hit in any particular game, or 0.7897.
In the same season, Boston's Dustin Pedroia collected 213 H in 726 PA over 157 G. He was second in baseball in H/G at 1.357, just 7 10,000ths lower than Kinsler. Not much, but still lower. However, following the same methods that I used to arrive at Kinsler's hit probability in a game, I come up with 0.7993 for Pedroia, which is actually 3 1,000ths greater than Kinsler.
I'm not entirely sure why this is possible, but here's the nearest reason I can come up with:
The units in the equation are different. It's like high school chemistry. In the first equation, I pretty simply multiplied H/PA by PA/G, canceling the PA from both sides and leaving just H/G. In the second equation, I'm taking H/PA and multiplying it by H/PA several times, so I end up with something like H-cubed over PA-cubed.
This is not a singular problem in the 2008 data; Albert Pujols does better than Jose Reyes, who checks in better at a .0002 probability advantage despite Reyes enjoying a .02 advantage in what is ostensibly H/G. There are others two, but I don't feel the need to enumerate them.
As of September 21, it's been happening this year too, although I've only found once in the top 16 batters by H/G.
Any math geniuses out there want to help me out? | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| I've been getting a number of emails from people who I went to grad school with last fall, asking me to connect to them via a social networking site called "Naymz."
I'm sorry, but if your company name has an unnecessary "Z" in it, it sounds dumb and I'm probably not taking part. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| Earlier today, Matt Alex posted an article on his facebook from the New York Times Magazine. The article (linked here) discusses middle schoolers who are coming to grips with their sexuality, some of the pressures that they face, and some of the tactics that they use to alleviate some of that pressure.
A couple of things strike me out of this article. First off, the Internet is still a very interesting phenomenon, and it surprises me that there aren't more studies about it. Oppressed groups have the ability to find people like them-- whether its because of an opinion or because of their identity-- and can share in their frustrations and expand their worldview. In terms of the article, it is now less psychologically damaging to a kid in middle school to come out than it was even five years ago, so long as s/he can use the Internet as a tool to connect with others. This is really cool, and ultimately it's going to be harder to be an oppressor in the age of the Internet, unless the oppressors can somehow manage the accessibility of the web or its content. While the former is certainly possible (think of the Internet blockers we saw in high school), the latter is, I think, unlikely (see also the use of Twitter after the Iran "Election").
Secondly, the article makes mention of many bisexual girls pretty much to the exclusion of bisexual boys. I'm not entirely sure what to make of this, because I feel that if gender and sexuality were wholly genetic traits, then I would expect we would see more bisexual males. If you buy the theory that our culture has much to do with our feelings towards our own sexuality and gender, then it might make sense if we take a few jumps.
Suppose that our culture sexualizes women almost to the exclusion of men. That is to say that women's roles in the media are frequently related to sex, whether by suggestion or the actual act, and men's roles are generally infrequently related to sex and attraction.
I would also like to suggest that we all-- female, male, and otherwise-- are subject to these messages in our media. Because of this, women are sexualized to girls and women every bit as much as it is to boys and men. The media we read and see wants us to be attracted to women, I think, regardless of our own sex. This may help produce more bisexual girls and women than boys and men.
This presents an interesting problem for the straight male. A straight male desires a woman, but if women are getting together, fewer women will be available to the straight male and we may begin seeing (unhappily) single straight males later into their lives. It makes me wonder if any particular kind of man will be the kind left single, and if so, what kind of man that will be. I get the sense that if men continue to disrespect women through either physical or emotional violence, those men who perpetrate those crimes will be less likely to procreate because the women they are with may turn to another woman or one of the other available men. However, it could just be that women will select against men who they think are slobs; whether that means by physical appearance or inability to hold down employment or otherwise handle their lives.
And then there's a third thought, which comes out of this second thought. I can't say with any conclusive proof, but it appears to me that bisexuality in women may also be correlated with polyamory. If many of our relationships start to have more than two parties, then culturally we are going to have to rethink the way we do relationships, and subsequently, we may again have to rethink what it means to have a marriage.
These are interesting times, people. | | comments: 9 comments or Leave a comment |
| Wednesday night is the busiest night of the week at West Seattle Bowl. I'm not sure how much I've written about this, but here's the short version:
I get there at 4pm, and basically start preparing for our main leagues that show up at 6:30. While they bowl, I take the envelopes that their monies are in, total them up, and make sure I've got the right amount. This takes me up until 8:30 or so, when I have to start getting ready for Quartermania. Quartermania is a special where each customer pays an $8 cover charge, then gets to bowl for $0.25 per game, gets to rent shoes for free, and becomes eligible for a $1 per pint domestic draft beer special. It's pretty popular.
We officially close at 1:00am, but I frequently allow a couple of customers to stay past that time as I clean up around them. Sometimes they tip me. In the meantime, I have to answer the phone when I'm around the desk, call back (and sometimes fix) pinsetter malfunctions, and deal pull tabs when necessary.
We had probably 120+ people come in tonight for Quartermania, and we had so many lanes still in operation at 1:00am that I extended closing time for another half an hour. I finally left work at 3:00am, got a bite to eat, and have poured myself a drink.
It would appear as though I'm going to make a little bit of overtime pay this week, since I'm scheduled for 40 hours and I had to work .7 hours beyond what was expected of me today. I'll probably leave early on Saturday since both Shawn and I will be on, but I doubt it'll be so early that I won't get 40 hours. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| So I've been complaining over the last several days of not being able to bowl to my standards, and then when it counts in league I shoot 205, 269, and 228 en route to a 702 series. I shoot 700 maybe once a year, so this is a pretty big deal.
Not only did I shoot 702 (which happens to be a pin higher than my mom's best series), I had thirty shots in a row where I either threw a strike or left one single pin. Had my single-pin leaves been strikes instead? I would have shot 821, which would have been far-and-away my best series ever. I got a little unlucky... one of my games was two unlucky shots away from perfect. That's ok, perfect will have to come another week. I don't need to make my average too high early in the season and screw myself down the road.
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The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson has a new title sequence. Huh. I actually rather like Craig Ferguson, but whatever.
I got nothing. Maybe I'll post something actually interesting in the future, since I seem to be getting back in the habit. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| As I've written about before here, I've been playing Major League Baseball's "Beat the Streak," a contest where if you successfully pick a batter who gets a hit in 57 consecutive days, you win $1.5 million.
I've been working on creating some kind of mathematical formula that would increase the probability of having my chosen batter get a hit. I have cut this down to two components: A batter must get hits frequently (duh), and a batter must have as many chances as possible to collect his hit.
As of this year, Ichiro is the most effective at getting hits, reaching base by a hit an average of 1.57 times per game (.334 hits per plate appearance [H/PA] , 4.69 plate appearances per game [PA/G] ). My goal is to somehow top this.
Unfortunately, this is going to be highly difficult; the best batter in this category in ALL of the 2008 season was Texas' Ian Kinsler, who got 1.36 hits per game (.283 H/PA, 4.82 PA/G. Ichiro had .284 and 4.62).
The man who owns the record for MLB's longest hitting streak, Joe DiMaggio, hit safely in 56 straight games in 1941. I was hoping to find out how well DiMaggio did in the games of his hitting streak (Wikipedia claims it was May 15, 1941 - July 17, 1941), but my usual resource, www.retrosheet.org, does not have data that detailed for that year. I may have to try to find some time to hang out with a microfiche for that, though. I do, however, have his season stats.
DiMaggio came up 4.47 times per game, hitting in .311 of his PA's, making it 1.39 Hits per game. Ichiro, this year, has had a better hits-per-game average than DiMaggio when he had a 56-game hitting streak. However, the difference is not statistically significant at the 10% level, and Ichiro's longest hitting streak this season is 27 games, which wasn't even the league's longest (which belongs to Ryan Zimmerman of the lowly Washington Nationals, who hit in 30 straight games from early April to the middle of May).
Okay, that's it for now. I'm working on some ideas there... hopefully I'll do some statistical tests with 2008 data and see if I can't come up with some kind of algorithm to make it happen. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| The Rocky Division Diablos season is unfortunately over. The team lost in the playoffs without me last night while I was working, and I didn't find out until this morning. I had a generally poor playoffs with the bat, singling once (and that was hardly legit), walking once, striking out twice over three games.
Defensively, I turned a double play (which I always love), but I didn't charge a ground ball which led to an umpire blowing a call and three runs scoring against us, tying our Tuesday night game and putting our playoff chances in peril. Luckily, we got away from it and won by one run.
All in all I had a good year, averaging a touch under .400, hitting a pair of doubles, being #5 in the league in On Base Percentage thanks to as many walks as I had hits (11) and several hit-by-pitches (5). On the defensive side, I had a hand in turning four double plays (not including my playoff DP). If you had said in March that I would play that effectively, I would have been surprised, yet I find myself dissatisfied.
In season highlights, I went 3-for-3 against the division-leading Blue Rocks, with a double and I think a hit-by-pitch. Turning two double plays on the defensive side including one where I was playing third base (which was unusual). We thumped 'em pretty hard that game.
I don't really know what else right now, except our post-season losses, and my somewhat poor playoff hitting performance makes me want to go take batting practice every day until February. Not that I'm going to get to, because I have to go to work like right now and I had some other things to take care of today, but I have a strong desire to get better. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| One of the strangely nice things (sometimes) about getting home at 2:30 or 3:00am is the PSAs.
I practically turned on the TV to this tonight:
| | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
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The thing about this is...
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