February 15, 2013

Link-O-Rama

• One of my favorite reality television shows, "Bar Rescue" on Spike, is back for another season and the episodes are available for free online. I'm joining forces with fellow Jon Taffer devotees Parker Hageman and Dana Wessel in an effort to get the show to do an episode in Minnesota. So far this is the extent of our campaign, so obviously we're open to ideas. Let's make it happen.

• If this ever happens to me at a bar I'm going on a rampage and hopefully we'll be recording the podcast at the time so everyone can hear me murdering people.

• Now that he's replaced Joe Christensen on the Twins beat Phil Miller launched his new blog on the Minneapolis Star Tribune's website.

Mike Berardino, who was formerly a longtime South Florida Sun Sentinel columnist, has been hired by the St. Paul Pioneer Press as their new Twins beat reporter.

• Sometimes it's tough to tell the difference between spring training reports from beat writers and erotic fan fiction intros.

• If you've ever doubted the genius of Michael Schur/Ken Tremendous, he just cast the always amazing Andre Braugher and AG.com favorite Chelsea Peretti for his next FOX show.

Francis J. Underwood, sabermetrician.

• In elementary school my class sold Kirby Puckett candy bars for some sort of fundraiser and my mom just bought a bunch of them from me and then let me eat them all, which explains a lot about my life and is also relevant to this shocking Deadspin investigation.

• I'll have more on this next week, but the Twins signed Rafael Perez to a minor-league deal.

• There is no age at which men are immune to the charms of Connie Britton. And if you're not going to read this whole thing then why even bother having the internet or a computer or eyes?

Francisco Liriano broke his arm at home, but it wasn't from falling in the bathroom. No, it was actually even weirder than that.

• On this week's "Gleeman and The Geek" episode "horseplay" and "natural stank" were discussed at length while a woman named April occasionally chimed in.

• On a related note, I'll marry any woman who wears this on our first date.

• In his new book Mike Piazza talks about taking karate lessons to prepare for revenge against Roger Clemens. This is how I imagine those lessons:

Mediocre movie, but that scene gets me every time.

• This is crazy and all, but to lose "only" $13 million on $1 billion worth of bets isn't too bad.

• My blog-mate Craig Calcaterra explained what going to the doctor for an annual checkup has to do with sabermetrics.

• On a related note, here's an example of the type of fan mail we receive at HardballTalk.

• Nearly a decade after beginning her memorable two-year run as Official Fantasy Girl of AG.com Elisha Cuthbert is Maxim magazine's pick for "television's most beautiful woman."

• I'm proud to have convinced Scott Olstad to put together a collection of his 10 favorite Otis Redding cover songs for The Current's website.

• If you're interested in the history of great music and the impact of technology on art the Dave Grohl-directed documentary "Sound City" is a must-watch. Can't recommend it enough.

"Searching for Sugar Man" is another documentary that's definitely worth watching. I won't give away much, but it's a fascinating story that got me thinking about how context is everything.

Trevor Bauer is the next Shaquille O'Neal.

• By far the worst e-mail I've ever gotten.

Alex Pappademas of Grantland went on tour with "Community" creator Dan Harmon and wrote an amazing article about it.

• I started watching ABC's cooking show "The Taste" because of Anthony Bourdain, but have kept watching it because of Nigella Lawson.

Lenny Dykstra's son and Tony Soprano's daughter are having a baby.

• This week "Gleeman and The Geek" passed 500,000 total downloads, so thanks to everyone for listening and for spreading the word about the podcast.

• Giants teammates Tim Lincecum and Hunter Pence are the cutest:

I miss the long hair, though.

Carl Pavano talked about rupturing his spleen while shoveling his driveway and it was gross and scary and crazy.

"What is a badass?"

• Hard to believe, but unless he's a liar this guy turned 52 years old this week.

• The good news is that I bought a red hat, changed my name to Max, and moved to New York.

• Rays reliever Joel Peralta suffered a sandwich-related injury.

• Bloggers seem contractually obligated to hate "Girls" and Lena Dunham, but I watched the first five episodes of Season 2 in one sitting this week and still liked it. I'm constantly confused by who the internet decides to collectively hate or love, but she seems pretty great to me.

• I already liked Nuggets forward Kenneth Faried a lot, but now he's one of my favorite athletes.

David Brauer's return to college hilariously involves having to take freshman comp.

Sh*tty "New Yorker" Cartoon Captions.

• If you saw Mavis Staples on the Grammys, please note that Bob Dylan wanted to marry her.

• My childhood, represented by 29 pictures from one evening that I remember watching.

Jon Marthaler, Brandon Broxey, Clarence Swamptown, and Randall's Stu have started a new podcast about Minnesota sports called "The Sportive" that everyone should check out.

• Some of this week's weird and random search engine queries that brought people here:

- "Chinese food weight gain 2012"
- "Aaron Gleeman fat"
- "Chelsea Peretti naked"
- "Tosoni toes"
- "Todd Glass baseball"
- "Nineties sex symbols"
- "Zoe Barnes wardrobe"
- "Zoe Barnes hair part"
- "Sid Hartman girlfriends"
- "Ricky Rubio's neck tattoo"

• Finally, in honor of Valentine's Day this week's AG.com-approved music video is "Wicked Games" by The Weeknd:

4 Comments »

  1. I HATE Girls. I have broad tastes in comedy. I like it all. And I tend to have low standards for my TV shows. I will give most shows a try. And so after the Emmys I decided to give “Girls” another shot. I watched the first 2 episodes. But it really isn’t an entertaining show. The characters are unlikable. So it better be funny. It isn’t. The humor is sparse. The Emporer’s New Clothes comes to mind with this show.

    Comment by Todd-garlogic — February 15, 2013 @ 8:41 am

  2. Not to mention, the show is set in the most multicultural city in the world but somehow only features white people. And she writes things like “You look like a Mexican teenager.”, like that’s a terrible thing.

    Comment by Jeff — February 16, 2013 @ 11:17 am

  3. I’ve been a server forever. Up charges for neat are certainly not the norm, but I’ve worked at places and have consumed drinks at countless more where there are up charges for ordering on the rocks and had people complain about this. The reason for that is not a charge for the ice itself. It is rather the same as that given (and immediately ignored by the author, apparently) by the manager in the article: a LARGER POUR associated with that call. Not twice as much for you 2 dollars. Not half again. But still: Larger. Probably 2 vs. 1.5 ounces (or 2.25 vs 1.75 or 2.5 vs 2). Something like that. Why? Probably because otherwise cheapasses (many of whom have money coming out of their ears) will complain about a standard shot being too small when there’s no mixer to fill out the glass. Kind of like Devin Leonard, Lifestyle Reporter for Bloomberg Business did about his pour.

    Did Leonard willfully ignore the part where he was told the bar had poured him a larger drink than it otherwise would have because it was called “neat”? Did he just disbelieve them, given his expert liquid-volume-measuring-eye? As to the fact that it’s not a standard up charge: who cares? If a particular establishment, as a matter of course, gives a bigger pour when a drink is order “on the rocks” or “neat” or with freaking olive juice and salt, what’s the complaint? That you wanted ONLY AND EXACTLY one standard shot – NO MORE! – at whatever the price for a standard shot is (which can vary a helluva lot from joint to joint – easily by the 2 dollars he’s disputing), and that the extra liquor and its associated charge is therefore totally unwanted and unwarranted? “I don’t want the other 1/2 ounce of this – I just wanted 1.5 ounces!” The extra charge is, by the way, in my experience ALWAYS less per additional quantum of booze than the initial charge. That’s right, cheap people: the “pour” upcharges are almost universally a GOOD DEAL.

    The author’s a booze ignoramus, idiotically (and insistently – he doubles down in the course of the article’s narrative) equating “straight up” with “neat”. Who the hell orders bourbon chilled with ice and strained into a martini glass? Actually, what professional drinker says “STRAIGHT up” at all? Something tells me this guy doesn’t have the experience calling drinks he’s implying he has (or at least has never bothered to consult somebody actually working the industry as to whether his assumptions are correct), especially since he’s clearly riding high on the currently uber-fashionable in monied asshat circles Bourbon Connoissieur Bandwagon. Only people who learned how to order how to order drinks from movies and television (i.e. most dill holes in bars on weekend nights or at happy hour after work) say “straight up”. There’s a reason the server asked for clarification. Professional drinkers say “neat” or “up” because “straight up” is what amateurs LOVE to say no matter what they actually want. They think “straight up” sounds cool, so they assume it means whatever they want. But for the record: If you order a liquor “straight up”, you just ordered it shaken/stirred with ice and strained into a stemmed glass. That’s what it means. Not “whatever, just no ice,” like Mr. Bloomberg wishes it did.

    SO before you rage, remember Gleeman: if there’s an upcharge for rocks, if there’s an upcharge for making it a martini, if there’s any kind of upcharge not clearly associated with the price of a mixer (i.e. red bull, fancy ginger beer, juices at better places that use decent juices, etc.), YOU’RE GETTING MORE BOOZE and it’s almost assuredly costing you less per drop that the original pour. So settle down.

    (Ah, but “it wasn’t much of a pour”. A dime for every jackass who thought his pour was too small because he doesn’t understand how fooled he’s been in the past by the optical illusions of thickly bottomed, particularly shaped glassware and I could… well, at least sponsor your podcast for a week. But all the beer money would be for you – Bonnes and his “feelings” about objectively verifiable baseball things get no beer from me.)

    Comment by toby — February 16, 2013 @ 3:25 pm

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