I’ve spent about fifteen minutes trying to tie something coherent today about the Twins/Timberwolves trade shenannigans, and I just can’t do it. Partly, I’m just angry about the Twins. They’ve had great pitching for years, and it seems that the organization is incapable of adding enough hitters to win a title. They handed Cuddyer the RF job just days before the 2003 playoffs, they counted on a very, very green Kubel in a key at bat against Mariano Rivera in 2004, last year’s key addition was Phil Nevin, and that’s in addition to such key offseason signings as Tony Batista, Juan Castro, Ruben Sierra, Ken Harvey, and Eric Munson; a group that I know you all remember for all their post-season heroics.

Next season will begin with a surplus of very good, young pitchers (Santana, Liriano, Bonser, Baker, Garza, Slowey, and Perkins). If Torii leaves, there will be openings for bats with power at CF, 3B, and DH/LF. How the Twins fill those holes will tell you how serious they are about winning a championship. That they didn’t fill any holes at all this year, and instead the only move was saving Billion-Dollar Carl a couple million at the trade deadline, tells you how hopeful you should be about this so-called “window” for the Twins to win a championship.

As for KG and the Wolves, this trade cements Lurch McHale’s reputation as a bad GM. He got 50 cents on the dollar for one of the top 25 NBA players ever, and seems to have made this deal as much because it was to his buddy Danny Ainge as anything. However, I’m happy for KG, I’m glad he’s going to get a legitimate shot on a championship team, and I’m glad that I can once again ignore the local NBA team completely.

I know there are more important world issues than sports; it’s just that I really enjoy watching the Twins, and it bothers me that I can’t shake the feeling that they’re completely happy with being the plucky little team that could do ok when, much like the Garnett-era Wolves, they could be so much more, with only a little bit better investment of resources… at least, that’s how it seems to me.

[Edit:] It would appear that Johan is similarly dissatisfied, which does not exactly bode well for the Twins in a couple years…

in the not-too-distant past, i listed to MPR every morning. was a member, even. and then this whole minor skirmish in the middle east happened, that that’s ALL they started to talk about. my feelings about said skirmish are as such that i cannot listen to updates about it anymore. i acknowledge that this is the equivalent of sticking my head in the sand; i am ok with this. sometimes you just need to look out for yourself (and your blood pressure).

however, i still listen to talk radio each morning on the drive in, and news snippets find their way into that– even on KFAN. here are some fun ones from today:

Read the rest of this entry »

You can fool some of the people all of the- …or was it all of the people some of the- …no, wait, I think it was fool me twice… don’t, don’t get fooled again. And in that spirit, click on the following link to learn how to successfully fool Americans.

Text of the most recent Shrub speech.

Yes, I know he misspelled OBL’s name. Nevertheless, I think the point the author is making is quite clear. The Iraq/Bin Laden/9-11 link has been debunked by nearly everyone… and yet it’s still obviously the core component of this speech. Which means that either people are still buying it, or the administration just doesn’t care. Either way… yikes.

As I had anticipated, my employer made good on their promise (or threat) to install new blocking software from the good folks at Websense.
Read the rest of this entry »

voice inside my head #1: oh. awesome. was anyone going to tell me that i spilled chili on my tie?

voice inside my head #2: listen, dipshit: you have an orange-ish red tie on. nobody noticed. even if they did, nobody cares.

voice inside my head #1: oh. right. good point.