Hasn't McD's slowly phased out its clown, in light of the increased anti-clown feelings in America and that whole "creepy clowns are everything" panic?
All I’ll say is there is a McDonald’s themed Black Sabbath called Mac Sabbath that is…something…videos on YouTube that are great, particularly the WarPigs cover ‘More Ribs’.
Even though I don't comment often, I've always been grateful for this community. The past couple of days have made me even more grateful, for your sake, Craig. Hang in there. All the best to you, your family, and of course your son. We're thinking of you.
My wife bakes with a lot of almond flour. She started when she was on a low carb diet over a decade ago, and even though she long ago abandoned the diet itself, she kept the almond flour habit. It's pricey, but it's healthier than white flour, bakes better than whole wheat flour, has the aforementioned protein, and our friends with various gluten and wheat intolerances can enjoy it too. Plus it's kosher for Passover, meaning she can bake really good desserts instead of relying on cakes made from potato starch or matzah meal.
On the Mets Incompetence Scale, Omar Minaya is not even a little close to the top. And he drafted deGrom. Given how meh the Mets' drafts have been, that means a lot.
And let's hear it for...the Washington Commanders! Because the Washington Generals was taken? I get why "Commanders" - equal parts "it invokes military and civilian leadership in Washington, DC" and "all the good names were taken and we didn't want to pay for the right" - but I hear "Commander" and I think "a decent rank in the US Navy and Starfleet, but hardly the captain." With any luck, the team will earn its promotion to Captains soon. For now, well, Riker was a commander for a long time and he was pretty cool. (The team logo should be a silhouette of Riker's bearded face, clearly.)
Yes, but the decision to keep the maroon and yellow color scheme makes it far too easy for fans wearing their "potato" gear to blend in. And saves Snyder from having to do a whole lot of repainting...
those cars rolling out of the underground parking lot to distribute Commander and Chief swag looked like they were headed out on a mall security patrol. look at the colors and the "Commander" lettering, so help me -- mall cop vibe.
Commanders sounds kind of boring, but so did Nationals and now we don't give the Nats name a second though. However exciting or boring a name is to start, both feelings wear off quickly and you just take the name for granted after a year or so.
“Commanders” is the type of name you’d get if you programmed an AI to generate a team name that met certain parameters of being imposing, non-marginalizing, and marketable.
And what grossly sexist name will the cheerleaders get? Assuming that the team even has such a thing anymore, after the scandal involving that squad. (I would get rid of cheerleaders in the NFL altogether, and even if I am not happy with the Giants, I am always pleased they have never had any cheer squads.)
Commanders is a shitty, default name. There are way too many negative tweaks to it (Commies, Commandos, yadda yadda) and it's not even the top notch of the active-duty military. Also sounds vaguely Klannish which I'm sure will be pointed out when there's anything racial going on surrounding the team.
Carlo would get along fine with my 54-year-old Jewish mother if he’s already saying “janky.” Now he just needs to refuse cutting cable because it’d mean being unable to record her Bravo shows.*
*and yes, I’ve tried explaining there’s an app for everything and she can probably watch her shows on the app or through another type of app, but nope.
As much as I enjoyed the strategical aspect of pitchers hitting as a kid, I got to the point a few years ago — I think it was brought on by Bill’s labor-related posts at NBC — of thinking the universal DH, in theory, is good because it’s 15 more jobs. It potentially keeps someone like an Edwin Encarnacion or a Matt Holliday (this was around 2018ish) employed because NL teams who likely wouldn’t have signed them otherwise now have a reason to put them in the lineup. Which can be good! Until Father Time gets the best of them.
I have long since resigned myself to the universal DH, but for my entertainment experience I don’t need to see more scoring. And I’ll miss the next Chicks Dig the Longball commercial with tomorrow’s Glavine and Maddux.
I am 53. I cut the cord in 1999. I don't entirely get people who are my age having the same level of difficulty with tech as my nearly 80 year old mother. Who is actually using HBO Max and Prime Video now. And she barely needed any teaching.
She understands every app but she is, as mothers are, stubborn. Every time I think I’ve convinced her to finally just cut Xfinity, nope, she retreats. 🤣
Need a smile? I'm not great with tech but like so many of us, I get by -- I can even use the various remotes to get to Britbox on the gigantic TV the middle son set up. Wife is better at it all and a wiz w her cellphone.
Good friend at the dog park is a few years older and awful at ALL things tech, but she texts me this tech beauty one day that keeps us smiling EVERY time we bring it up:
"Hi, Billy, it's Joan. Please send me your phone number, I need to call you about something."
My father, who's never used a computer in his life, came downstairs one day and asked if we could visit this hardware store's website tomorrow. After asking why we had to wait until tomorrow, he said that it was 6 o'clock and the store closed at 5.
What convinced me, finally, to cut the cord was Xfinity dropping MSG network, meaning I was going to have to pay for a streaming service to watch the Rangers. So I cut Xfinity, and picked up two streaming services for less money, and have fewer blacked out games to cope with. It's harder to change channels, but somehow I cope.
I felt that when I had cable. All that money for things I wasn't watching, or in the case of Fox News stuff you would never watch. The money was and is a waste even before the stream.
I'm going to cancel my cable but keep the internet... I just haven't gotten around to finding time to call them and argue. Probably won't even get a streaming service right away, I don't watch much and I have no smart TV so I don't have the ability to send videos online to it or whatever.
This won't exactly fix this problem for you, but you ought to sign up with asktrim.com
They have my Verizon accounts and my credit card accounts and call periodically to try to get my bills lowered. If / when they succeed, they'll charge you 30 percent (or therabouts)
Just logged in and they estimate they've saved me $730 since I started. Sometimes I'll even get an email randomly saying, "we convinced Spectrum to give you $25 because you've been with them so long."
Last time Xfinity hiked their rates my wife went into the local office ready to turn in our cable box…not only did they knock a couple bucks off of what we •had• been paying, they saw that we were heavily using our internet connection (4 teens and all) and offered to come out and add another line for free. It pays to go to the local place.
Our cable has been out for maybe two hours in 20 years and as of now it’s the only easy way to watch the stupid Cubs.
Good to hear that Carlo had a good day, and I hope that he has many more. We've had one or two holidays cancelled because of our son's issues...he seems much better now. There is always hope.
I hope it's OK to say this: God loves you and Carlo very much.
Man, I have Crohn’s Disease. It is fairly well controlled with one of the fancy and expensive biologic medicines. But when it was not, and I’d have a flare up, I cannot imagine being able to perform at such a high level. Props to that guy.
By the time I got to go through the comments yesterday, I felt like this one would get lost, so (Dammit Simon, I thought I was going to beat you, but there you are...), I wanted to get this here early so that it gets read.
Both of my sons have special needs. My older son has autism, and he's very high functioning. I am grateful for this when I see him with his peers and the support he's been getting through the likes of Special Olympics, Best Buddies, etc. Long term: There's a place in the world for him and he'll probably always get some support, if not all the support he needs.
My younger son has severe anxiety, much like Carlo's but, for the grace of God/Thor/Flying Spaghetti Monster, hasn't been hospitalized. We have, however, had to battle insurance companies tooth and nail to get him on/off the medications his psychiatrists have wanted him on. Yesterday was actually a good day because we got a letter that the insurance company agreed to cover the medication he had recently switched to, one that was actually working.
What worries me, and I'm sure all the other parents, aunts, uncles, grandmas, grandpas, brothers, sisters, etc. who commented yesterday about their loved ones' crises, is that the world is NOT built for my younger son. Unlike his older brother, his place on the autism spectrum is not readily apparent. In fact, he's pretty damn adept at fooling people, which actually makes it worse because when he does act out, it's viewed as if it's malicious or "on purpose."
I just hope that when this is all over -- for Carlo and all other teenagers and young adults struggling right now -- that just smidgen of the understanding and compassion shown yesterday is out there in the "real world" for him.
A very good friend of mine participates in Special Olympics and the joy on his face when he even TALKS about the events, not to mention competing in them or winning, is fantastic. His softball team is going to Orlando this summer and his level of excitement is borderline indescribable. I'm glad your son is having a similarly positive experience.
Ross could say it went something like this, “hey Brian, welcome aboard, we don’t expect the team to be that great this year, so to make this easier for you we’ll give you an extra $100k to soften the blow after losses”.
Jeff Schultz, at The Athletic, interviewed Brian Snitker recently and posted the Q&A. Mostly good stuff. But I hated the reply about Ozuna. Paraphrasing Snit said ‘he went through the process so I don’t care about that stuff… people forgive and forget.’ Blech!
To be fair, I don't think the quote in context is *quite* that bad. I don't know the practice around here about cut & paste from paywalled cites so if this is bad form, I'm happy to delete.
Full relevant question and answer:
Q: It’s a far different situation [than the prior question about Freddie Freeman -- dlf] , but with Marcell Ozuna eligible to return after his suspension following domestic violence charges, would you have any hesitation in him playing on your team?
A: No. As far as I know right now, he’s going to be there. He went through the process, and he’s been cleared to play. That’s all I care about. He’s in the Dominican, and I pull up the box scores, and it looks like he’s doing good. There’s a lot of guys out there, and it’s amazing how people forget. There’s a lot of guys who’ve played against us who’ve probably been in worse situations than he was. It seems like people have a tendency to forget or forgive. But that remains to be seen, too, I guess.
My $0.02: don't ever start trying to say this one particular DV case is worse than that one when trying to justify playing someone. Ozuna vs. Osuna vs. Chapman vs. Bauer vs. ... just don't try to parse out why your guy isn't as bad as their guy.
My $0.03: the Ozuna situation isn't too simple though. Apparently, the law enforcement affidavit didn't match the body cam footage, his spouse herself has a history of DV charge(s), and the limited footage that was released could have been showing him holding her back from assaulting him. My very weak conclusion from the available evidence and my own inferences is that there is enough smoke that I wish that Ozuna was playing for some team other than the one I root for.
People do forget. Not all of us, but plenty. And some even forgive. I was reading recently about a comics writer who was accused of grooming and using a lot of women, and a group of his victims who are trying to get him to reform, but urging people not to "cancel" him. Their tone was idealistic but also felt like they really, really don't want to see him punished at all. That was shockingly close to forgiveness to me. So, yeah.
There was a point in time fairly soon after they started the amateur draft where there was a movement towards centralized scouting and some clubs were slashing their individual budgets. I want to say mid to late 70s but I’m going by memory here.
I suspect that like a lot of bureaucratic practices it just sticks around from inertia.
The MLB Scouting Bureau still exists. I remember reading in Dollar Sign on the Muscle that the Phillies scouts of the 1970s (the ones who built the World Series team) were among the best and were very old school about sharing information. They refused to be part of the scouting bureau because they hated sharing information. The word was that you could spot the Phillies scouts because they were the ones sitting by themselves away from the group.
Could be about standardization of the process or crosschecking. And making sure the not-yet-drafted players are being properly vetted. Or, because it's MLB, just wasting money on what's unnecessary and not managing what's important.
".... it’s the sort of place that New Yorkers pay like $3,700 a month to stay in and then convince themselves that it’s “spacious” and “minimalist.”"
As a real estate agent in NYC, I feel quite "seen" by this. I mean, it's true, and it's sad, and I wish it wasn't both of those things, but I legit am closing a deal today with a very nice rental client on... this: https://streeteasy.com/building/house39-225-east-39-street-new_york/03j (Sad cry emoji?)
The joke in New York is that you pay a ton of money to NOT be in your apartment most of the time, but the joke is obviously born out of deflection and rationalization. I initially got in it to help my friends avoid getting screwed by the system where trying to afford a decent place on salaries less than 6 figures is really hard - but man, it's a really crazy system, and 40x rent as a baseline to get in the door makes it almost impossible without parents or such as a guarantor. And don't get me started on co-ops and 20% down and board interviews. So insane.
Also, as someone who went through undiagnosed ADHD as a teen and serious PTSD (after losing both my parents pretty young), and whose aunt and uncle subsequently had a hell of a time dealing with all of my crap while also raising three of their own kids, I feel for Carlo - and you and Allison and Carlo's mom - greatly. I hope he truly appreciates the attention and care, and that things turn for the better soon for him. I didn't realize then how much it takes out of those caring for you to just get through some of the daily emotional and psychological drain that mental health issues create for both you and those around you, and I wish now that I'd been more appreciative of the love and patience they showed to me back when.
Ah, but these days I am in my apartment almost all the time. And with WFH likely to last, we will probably get more out of our tiny little apartments than ever. And also likely to want to leave our tiny little apartments more than ever.
The baseline most landlords ask for the tenant to show is an income of 40x the monthly gross rent. If you have a guarantor, they need to show 80x. It's insane.
I understand the reason why it's the case, but seeing the monthly rents in Manhattan break my living-in-the-middle-of-nowhere brain. My rent is more along the lines of the going rate for an apartment in Warsaw, Poland than NYC.
I mean, I do - I understand that it's a market based system and that the market determines the price - but It should be illegal to charge over $3000 a month for a studio apartment.
I live in Philly. My apartment is now incredibly inexpensive because I moved in just before the entire area gentrified and rent doubled and tripled. The landlords have done almost nothing to these places but they are now charging two or three times what they were charging in the late 90s and early 2000s. I don't know enough about the history of rising rents and mortgages but doubling and tripling the price every ten years seems pretty unsustainable to me.
Fellow resident of a nowhere-place here….it’s super flat and I love it here, when the crops are gone just south of town I can look miles, •miles• in almost any direction. I am reassured by the emptiness of the landscape.
One of my favorite places to visit is Loop/River North in Chicago; love the crowded, crazy vibe of the place.
George Harrison: "It's all up to what you value." (I think it was him.)
I have a house on L.I. and pay crazy taxes, reasonable mortgage.
When I was single (1M yrs ago) I had a large one-bedroom in Bensonhurst for about $400/mo. If I was on my own now and making bank, I'd grab that apt in a heartbeat!
There's an "international realtor" in my neighborhood who has photos and info on some of their properties on display in their window. For about $3.3 million, I could get a luxury co-op apartment in Manhattan.....or a chalet in France. With outbuildings, and some decent acreage....
This is going to sound crazy but I wonder if people have forgotten how valuable land is when you don't just leave it as grass. Plus, it's fun. My neighbors are confused but clover is great and the rabbits agree.
We rented a chalet (with an in-ground pool!) in Beaune, Fr, on the vineyards outside of town. Not expensive (with another couple) thru VRBO. The place must have sold b/c when we go to shop the website now it's been refurbished and the charm is gone. They remodeled and modernized so that the chalet's interior now looks like that apt in the link in NYC. All that is neither here nor there, but anyhoo ... it would be a tough choice for me (I love NYC, grew up, was FD there, and now live on L.I. and prior to pandemic was there all the time) but all that said -- the French countryside, I mean ...
I too am not happy about it. I know in my brain that watching pitchers hit is often dumb, but man, when you get one that just completely rakes it is so fun to watch. I also grew up on the NL which influences my opinion a great deal. When the Astros were forced into the AL my only complaint was the DH. I suppose I’ve gotten used to it, but something about baseball where all the players don’t hit feels less than complete to me.
54 year old Red Sox fan here and I just want the leagues to play by the same rules - kind of don't care which set of rules they choose to follow as long as it's consistent.
54 year old *not* Red Sox fan here ... I miss having a difference between the leagues. The AL with the umps wearing the outside balloon chest protector and the resulting high strike vs. the NL with the inside protector and the low strike. A real rivalry at the ASG. Very limited cross-league trading and no interleague games. Certainly no teams changing leagues.
The rules are arbitrary anyway, so I think this is a perfectly reasonable comment for you to make. I used to be pretty strongly opposed to the DH in the National League, but now I don't really care much one way or the other.
Yeah, that's a good point. And because it appears that the goal of every team is to get to the place where they can carry 17 pitchers and 8 position players on the roster, pinch hitters basically suck.
I used to enjoy trying to guess whether or not the manager would let the pitcher stay in the game in the 7th or 8th, but currently that ain't happening anyway.
Same here, bro. I feel like for me, part of it is the feeling of living somewhat vicariously through the pitcher hitting, like it's the closest thing we get to seeing a regular old joe getting a chance to face a Major League pitcher since pitchers aren't in the big leagues for their hitting ability.
To this day I still dream of going to a big game, enough things happening that my team somehow runs out of players, and in the bottom of the 9th with the game on the line, the manager points to me in the crowd to come down to the field and bat as there’s a drive into deep left field by Castellanos and that’ll be a home run. And so that’ll make it a 4-0 ballgame.
I grew up watching the NL and hate pitchers batting, because I could not see any extra strategy added that my mom couldn’t navigate and more importantly that I think MLB plate appearances have instructional/developmental value that the NL had been pissing away on pitchers.
Screen-shot and saved the coffee cake recipe. At least you didn’t link the recipe and say “I make it just like this but change like 90% of it” like you see on recipe website comments.
I don’t have anything that I can say that will help you with what is happening with your family, but I wanted to let you know I’m keeping you in my thoughts. I also want to let you know that another middle age dad was enjoying that EP yesterday. I put it on as I was working to put together my newborn son’s nursery. We’re hoping for the best for you.
Ours is a transactional relationship. I pay you to inform and entertain me five days a week. But your willingness to make your private life public takes that relationship so much further than its capitalistic core. My eyes were welling while reading your newsletter yesterday as I imagined how I would feel in that situation. 'Thoughts and prayers' can be a meaningless phrase and an excuse to do nothing. Sincerity is what makes those thoughts and prayers matter and your readers are expressing them as best as they can. Thanks for sharing your pain with us. We can't make Carlo better. All we can do is keep reading. Even when it makes me feel sick, I'll be along for the ride.
Hasn't McD's slowly phased out its clown, in light of the increased anti-clown feelings in America and that whole "creepy clowns are everything" panic?
All I’ll say is there is a McDonald’s themed Black Sabbath called Mac Sabbath that is…something…videos on YouTube that are great, particularly the WarPigs cover ‘More Ribs’.
Even though I don't comment often, I've always been grateful for this community. The past couple of days have made me even more grateful, for your sake, Craig. Hang in there. All the best to you, your family, and of course your son. We're thinking of you.
My wife bakes with a lot of almond flour. She started when she was on a low carb diet over a decade ago, and even though she long ago abandoned the diet itself, she kept the almond flour habit. It's pricey, but it's healthier than white flour, bakes better than whole wheat flour, has the aforementioned protein, and our friends with various gluten and wheat intolerances can enjoy it too. Plus it's kosher for Passover, meaning she can bake really good desserts instead of relying on cakes made from potato starch or matzah meal.
On the Mets Incompetence Scale, Omar Minaya is not even a little close to the top. And he drafted deGrom. Given how meh the Mets' drafts have been, that means a lot.
And let's hear it for...the Washington Commanders! Because the Washington Generals was taken? I get why "Commanders" - equal parts "it invokes military and civilian leadership in Washington, DC" and "all the good names were taken and we didn't want to pay for the right" - but I hear "Commander" and I think "a decent rank in the US Navy and Starfleet, but hardly the captain." With any luck, the team will earn its promotion to Captains soon. For now, well, Riker was a commander for a long time and he was pretty cool. (The team logo should be a silhouette of Riker's bearded face, clearly.)
Yes, but the decision to keep the maroon and yellow color scheme makes it far too easy for fans wearing their "potato" gear to blend in. And saves Snyder from having to do a whole lot of repainting...
those cars rolling out of the underground parking lot to distribute Commander and Chief swag looked like they were headed out on a mall security patrol. look at the colors and the "Commander" lettering, so help me -- mall cop vibe.
Commanders sounds kind of boring, but so did Nationals and now we don't give the Nats name a second though. However exciting or boring a name is to start, both feelings wear off quickly and you just take the name for granted after a year or so.
Will the nickname be the "Commies"?
“Commanders” is the type of name you’d get if you programmed an AI to generate a team name that met certain parameters of being imposing, non-marginalizing, and marketable.
Plus, they can now adopt "Hot Rod Lincoln" as the team song!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=868DSi85odQ
I just thought it was nice that they named themselves after Biden's dog.
My 1st reaction was “does this make the practice squad the ‘Lieutenant Commanders’?”
And what grossly sexist name will the cheerleaders get? Assuming that the team even has such a thing anymore, after the scandal involving that squad. (I would get rid of cheerleaders in the NFL altogether, and even if I am not happy with the Giants, I am always pleased they have never had any cheer squads.)
Their stats will be the Commander Data.....
Commanders is a shitty, default name. There are way too many negative tweaks to it (Commies, Commandos, yadda yadda) and it's not even the top notch of the active-duty military. Also sounds vaguely Klannish which I'm sure will be pointed out when there's anything racial going on surrounding the team.
Carlo would get along fine with my 54-year-old Jewish mother if he’s already saying “janky.” Now he just needs to refuse cutting cable because it’d mean being unable to record her Bravo shows.*
*and yes, I’ve tried explaining there’s an app for everything and she can probably watch her shows on the app or through another type of app, but nope.
As much as I enjoyed the strategical aspect of pitchers hitting as a kid, I got to the point a few years ago — I think it was brought on by Bill’s labor-related posts at NBC — of thinking the universal DH, in theory, is good because it’s 15 more jobs. It potentially keeps someone like an Edwin Encarnacion or a Matt Holliday (this was around 2018ish) employed because NL teams who likely wouldn’t have signed them otherwise now have a reason to put them in the lineup. Which can be good! Until Father Time gets the best of them.
I have long since resigned myself to the universal DH, but for my entertainment experience I don’t need to see more scoring. And I’ll miss the next Chicks Dig the Longball commercial with tomorrow’s Glavine and Maddux.
I am 53. I cut the cord in 1999. I don't entirely get people who are my age having the same level of difficulty with tech as my nearly 80 year old mother. Who is actually using HBO Max and Prime Video now. And she barely needed any teaching.
She understands every app but she is, as mothers are, stubborn. Every time I think I’ve convinced her to finally just cut Xfinity, nope, she retreats. 🤣
Need a smile? I'm not great with tech but like so many of us, I get by -- I can even use the various remotes to get to Britbox on the gigantic TV the middle son set up. Wife is better at it all and a wiz w her cellphone.
Good friend at the dog park is a few years older and awful at ALL things tech, but she texts me this tech beauty one day that keeps us smiling EVERY time we bring it up:
"Hi, Billy, it's Joan. Please send me your phone number, I need to call you about something."
My mother texted me a couple of weeks ago to ask for my email address. It hasn't changed since I bought my domain in 1998.
My father, who's never used a computer in his life, came downstairs one day and asked if we could visit this hardware store's website tomorrow. After asking why we had to wait until tomorrow, he said that it was 6 o'clock and the store closed at 5.
This is incredible
What convinced me, finally, to cut the cord was Xfinity dropping MSG network, meaning I was going to have to pay for a streaming service to watch the Rangers. So I cut Xfinity, and picked up two streaming services for less money, and have fewer blacked out games to cope with. It's harder to change channels, but somehow I cope.
I've given my parents my YouTubeTV login. It is cable. It just doesn't use the same inputs as cable.
They use the app on the iPad and their phones. But they won't cut the cord. So they keep paying $1000 a year for ... absolutely nothing.
I felt that when I had cable. All that money for things I wasn't watching, or in the case of Fox News stuff you would never watch. The money was and is a waste even before the stream.
I'm going to cancel my cable but keep the internet... I just haven't gotten around to finding time to call them and argue. Probably won't even get a streaming service right away, I don't watch much and I have no smart TV so I don't have the ability to send videos online to it or whatever.
I just HATE calling companies on the phone. Ugh.
This won't exactly fix this problem for you, but you ought to sign up with asktrim.com
They have my Verizon accounts and my credit card accounts and call periodically to try to get my bills lowered. If / when they succeed, they'll charge you 30 percent (or therabouts)
Just logged in and they estimate they've saved me $730 since I started. Sometimes I'll even get an email randomly saying, "we convinced Spectrum to give you $25 because you've been with them so long."
Last time Xfinity hiked their rates my wife went into the local office ready to turn in our cable box…not only did they knock a couple bucks off of what we •had• been paying, they saw that we were heavily using our internet connection (4 teens and all) and offered to come out and add another line for free. It pays to go to the local place.
Our cable has been out for maybe two hours in 20 years and as of now it’s the only easy way to watch the stupid Cubs.
Good to hear that Carlo had a good day, and I hope that he has many more. We've had one or two holidays cancelled because of our son's issues...he seems much better now. There is always hope.
I hope it's OK to say this: God loves you and Carlo very much.
Man, I have Crohn’s Disease. It is fairly well controlled with one of the fancy and expensive biologic medicines. But when it was not, and I’d have a flare up, I cannot imagine being able to perform at such a high level. Props to that guy.
Rooting for Carlo and all of you.
By the time I got to go through the comments yesterday, I felt like this one would get lost, so (Dammit Simon, I thought I was going to beat you, but there you are...), I wanted to get this here early so that it gets read.
Both of my sons have special needs. My older son has autism, and he's very high functioning. I am grateful for this when I see him with his peers and the support he's been getting through the likes of Special Olympics, Best Buddies, etc. Long term: There's a place in the world for him and he'll probably always get some support, if not all the support he needs.
My younger son has severe anxiety, much like Carlo's but, for the grace of God/Thor/Flying Spaghetti Monster, hasn't been hospitalized. We have, however, had to battle insurance companies tooth and nail to get him on/off the medications his psychiatrists have wanted him on. Yesterday was actually a good day because we got a letter that the insurance company agreed to cover the medication he had recently switched to, one that was actually working.
What worries me, and I'm sure all the other parents, aunts, uncles, grandmas, grandpas, brothers, sisters, etc. who commented yesterday about their loved ones' crises, is that the world is NOT built for my younger son. Unlike his older brother, his place on the autism spectrum is not readily apparent. In fact, he's pretty damn adept at fooling people, which actually makes it worse because when he does act out, it's viewed as if it's malicious or "on purpose."
I just hope that when this is all over -- for Carlo and all other teenagers and young adults struggling right now -- that just smidgen of the understanding and compassion shown yesterday is out there in the "real world" for him.
A very good friend of mine participates in Special Olympics and the joy on his face when he even TALKS about the events, not to mention competing in them or winning, is fantastic. His softball team is going to Orlando this summer and his level of excitement is borderline indescribable. I'm glad your son is having a similarly positive experience.
Silly editorial nitpick.
The hill 15 minutes north of the Braves new ballpark on which a Civil War battle was fought is Kennesaw Mountain. Two n’s.
The baseball commissioner whose father fought in that battle is Kenesaw Mountain Landis. One n. Apparently dad didn’t know where he was wounded.
They got him in the "n"?
Ross could say it went something like this, “hey Brian, welcome aboard, we don’t expect the team to be that great this year, so to make this easier for you we’ll give you an extra $100k to soften the blow after losses”.
Jeff Schultz, at The Athletic, interviewed Brian Snitker recently and posted the Q&A. Mostly good stuff. But I hated the reply about Ozuna. Paraphrasing Snit said ‘he went through the process so I don’t care about that stuff… people forgive and forget.’ Blech!
To be fair, I don't think the quote in context is *quite* that bad. I don't know the practice around here about cut & paste from paywalled cites so if this is bad form, I'm happy to delete.
Full relevant question and answer:
Q: It’s a far different situation [than the prior question about Freddie Freeman -- dlf] , but with Marcell Ozuna eligible to return after his suspension following domestic violence charges, would you have any hesitation in him playing on your team?
A: No. As far as I know right now, he’s going to be there. He went through the process, and he’s been cleared to play. That’s all I care about. He’s in the Dominican, and I pull up the box scores, and it looks like he’s doing good. There’s a lot of guys out there, and it’s amazing how people forget. There’s a lot of guys who’ve played against us who’ve probably been in worse situations than he was. It seems like people have a tendency to forget or forgive. But that remains to be seen, too, I guess.
https://theathletic.com/3108481/2022/02/02/schultz-brian-snitker-on-lockout-freddie-freeman-and-second-guessing-himself-on-rebroadcasts/
My $0.02: don't ever start trying to say this one particular DV case is worse than that one when trying to justify playing someone. Ozuna vs. Osuna vs. Chapman vs. Bauer vs. ... just don't try to parse out why your guy isn't as bad as their guy.
My $0.03: the Ozuna situation isn't too simple though. Apparently, the law enforcement affidavit didn't match the body cam footage, his spouse herself has a history of DV charge(s), and the limited footage that was released could have been showing him holding her back from assaulting him. My very weak conclusion from the available evidence and my own inferences is that there is enough smoke that I wish that Ozuna was playing for some team other than the one I root for.
People do forget. Not all of us, but plenty. And some even forgive. I was reading recently about a comics writer who was accused of grooming and using a lot of women, and a group of his victims who are trying to get him to reform, but urging people not to "cancel" him. Their tone was idealistic but also felt like they really, really don't want to see him punished at all. That was shockingly close to forgiveness to me. So, yeah.
MLB itself has scouting, aside from the teams scouting? Why?
There was a point in time fairly soon after they started the amateur draft where there was a movement towards centralized scouting and some clubs were slashing their individual budgets. I want to say mid to late 70s but I’m going by memory here.
I suspect that like a lot of bureaucratic practices it just sticks around from inertia.
The MLB Scouting Bureau still exists. I remember reading in Dollar Sign on the Muscle that the Phillies scouts of the 1970s (the ones who built the World Series team) were among the best and were very old school about sharing information. They refused to be part of the scouting bureau because they hated sharing information. The word was that you could spot the Phillies scouts because they were the ones sitting by themselves away from the group.
Could be about standardization of the process or crosschecking. And making sure the not-yet-drafted players are being properly vetted. Or, because it's MLB, just wasting money on what's unnecessary and not managing what's important.
".... it’s the sort of place that New Yorkers pay like $3,700 a month to stay in and then convince themselves that it’s “spacious” and “minimalist.”"
As a real estate agent in NYC, I feel quite "seen" by this. I mean, it's true, and it's sad, and I wish it wasn't both of those things, but I legit am closing a deal today with a very nice rental client on... this: https://streeteasy.com/building/house39-225-east-39-street-new_york/03j (Sad cry emoji?)
The joke in New York is that you pay a ton of money to NOT be in your apartment most of the time, but the joke is obviously born out of deflection and rationalization. I initially got in it to help my friends avoid getting screwed by the system where trying to afford a decent place on salaries less than 6 figures is really hard - but man, it's a really crazy system, and 40x rent as a baseline to get in the door makes it almost impossible without parents or such as a guarantor. And don't get me started on co-ops and 20% down and board interviews. So insane.
Also, as someone who went through undiagnosed ADHD as a teen and serious PTSD (after losing both my parents pretty young), and whose aunt and uncle subsequently had a hell of a time dealing with all of my crap while also raising three of their own kids, I feel for Carlo - and you and Allison and Carlo's mom - greatly. I hope he truly appreciates the attention and care, and that things turn for the better soon for him. I didn't realize then how much it takes out of those caring for you to just get through some of the daily emotional and psychological drain that mental health issues create for both you and those around you, and I wish now that I'd been more appreciative of the love and patience they showed to me back when.
Ah, but these days I am in my apartment almost all the time. And with WFH likely to last, we will probably get more out of our tiny little apartments than ever. And also likely to want to leave our tiny little apartments more than ever.
That is 5x more than my monthly mortgage on my 3100 sq/ft house with another 1100 unfinished in the basement.
Holy shit!
Im sorry did you say 40x rent?
The baseline most landlords ask for the tenant to show is an income of 40x the monthly gross rent. If you have a guarantor, they need to show 80x. It's insane.
Income is 40x monthly rent per year, so in this case $148K. They want to know that the rent is 30% or less of your monthly gross income.
I understand the reason why it's the case, but seeing the monthly rents in Manhattan break my living-in-the-middle-of-nowhere brain. My rent is more along the lines of the going rate for an apartment in Warsaw, Poland than NYC.
I don't understand it.
I mean, I do - I understand that it's a market based system and that the market determines the price - but It should be illegal to charge over $3000 a month for a studio apartment.
I live in Philly. My apartment is now incredibly inexpensive because I moved in just before the entire area gentrified and rent doubled and tripled. The landlords have done almost nothing to these places but they are now charging two or three times what they were charging in the late 90s and early 2000s. I don't know enough about the history of rising rents and mortgages but doubling and tripling the price every ten years seems pretty unsustainable to me.
Fellow resident of a nowhere-place here….it’s super flat and I love it here, when the crops are gone just south of town I can look miles, •miles• in almost any direction. I am reassured by the emptiness of the landscape.
One of my favorite places to visit is Loop/River North in Chicago; love the crowded, crazy vibe of the place.
To visit……
This is a really expensive dystopia
George Harrison: "It's all up to what you value." (I think it was him.)
I have a house on L.I. and pay crazy taxes, reasonable mortgage.
When I was single (1M yrs ago) I had a large one-bedroom in Bensonhurst for about $400/mo. If I was on my own now and making bank, I'd grab that apt in a heartbeat!
There's an "international realtor" in my neighborhood who has photos and info on some of their properties on display in their window. For about $3.3 million, I could get a luxury co-op apartment in Manhattan.....or a chalet in France. With outbuildings, and some decent acreage....
This is going to sound crazy but I wonder if people have forgotten how valuable land is when you don't just leave it as grass. Plus, it's fun. My neighbors are confused but clover is great and the rabbits agree.
We rented a chalet (with an in-ground pool!) in Beaune, Fr, on the vineyards outside of town. Not expensive (with another couple) thru VRBO. The place must have sold b/c when we go to shop the website now it's been refurbished and the charm is gone. They remodeled and modernized so that the chalet's interior now looks like that apt in the link in NYC. All that is neither here nor there, but anyhoo ... it would be a tough choice for me (I love NYC, grew up, was FD there, and now live on L.I. and prior to pandemic was there all the time) but all that said -- the French countryside, I mean ...
Not happy about the universal DH. No objective argument. It's just not the baseball I grew up watching.
Yes. Yes.
I did. And, yes, it did.
Enjoying entertainment options is subjective. Like what you like and don’t worry about justifying it.
I too am not happy about it. I know in my brain that watching pitchers hit is often dumb, but man, when you get one that just completely rakes it is so fun to watch. I also grew up on the NL which influences my opinion a great deal. When the Astros were forced into the AL my only complaint was the DH. I suppose I’ve gotten used to it, but something about baseball where all the players don’t hit feels less than complete to me.
Well as a 51 year old Red Sox fan the DH was the game I grew up with and I’m good with it being in both leagues.
54 year old Red Sox fan here and I just want the leagues to play by the same rules - kind of don't care which set of rules they choose to follow as long as it's consistent.
54 year old *not* Red Sox fan here ... I miss having a difference between the leagues. The AL with the umps wearing the outside balloon chest protector and the resulting high strike vs. the NL with the inside protector and the low strike. A real rivalry at the ASG. Very limited cross-league trading and no interleague games. Certainly no teams changing leagues.
The rules are arbitrary anyway, so I think this is a perfectly reasonable comment for you to make. I used to be pretty strongly opposed to the DH in the National League, but now I don't really care much one way or the other.
Yeah, that's a good point. And because it appears that the goal of every team is to get to the place where they can carry 17 pitchers and 8 position players on the roster, pinch hitters basically suck.
I used to enjoy trying to guess whether or not the manager would let the pitcher stay in the game in the 7th or 8th, but currently that ain't happening anyway.
Don't pitchers play SELF-defense??
Sorry to break it to you, but the current state of major league baseball is already not the baseball you grew up watching.
Unless maybe you’re in middle school
Same here, bro. I feel like for me, part of it is the feeling of living somewhat vicariously through the pitcher hitting, like it's the closest thing we get to seeing a regular old joe getting a chance to face a Major League pitcher since pitchers aren't in the big leagues for their hitting ability.
To this day I still dream of going to a big game, enough things happening that my team somehow runs out of players, and in the bottom of the 9th with the game on the line, the manager points to me in the crowd to come down to the field and bat as there’s a drive into deep left field by Castellanos and that’ll be a home run. And so that’ll make it a 4-0 ballgame.
I'm happy that the last pitcher to get a hit was Zack Greinke. I think he'll like that too.
I was disappointed that he didn't get to the 10 / 10 club. He finishes with 9 homers and 9 steals. Nice career totals for a pitcher. :-)
I grew up watching the NL and hate pitchers batting, because I could not see any extra strategy added that my mom couldn’t navigate and more importantly that I think MLB plate appearances have instructional/developmental value that the NL had been pissing away on pitchers.
I that was unfair to the league I liked.
Screen-shot and saved the coffee cake recipe. At least you didn’t link the recipe and say “I make it just like this but change like 90% of it” like you see on recipe website comments.
"And mine doesn't look and taste as promised by the recipe. One star!!!"
Check out the one star reviews for national parks.....
Also bad wifi.
If you haven't seen these they're amazing - posters based on those one-star reviews: https://mymodernmet.com/national-park-review-posters-amber-share/
The irony of clearcuts...they open up dramatic views in the high country.
Well, middle country. Not feasible to clearcut up where the trees are smaller, thankfully.
I don’t have anything that I can say that will help you with what is happening with your family, but I wanted to let you know I’m keeping you in my thoughts. I also want to let you know that another middle age dad was enjoying that EP yesterday. I put it on as I was working to put together my newborn son’s nursery. We’re hoping for the best for you.
Ours is a transactional relationship. I pay you to inform and entertain me five days a week. But your willingness to make your private life public takes that relationship so much further than its capitalistic core. My eyes were welling while reading your newsletter yesterday as I imagined how I would feel in that situation. 'Thoughts and prayers' can be a meaningless phrase and an excuse to do nothing. Sincerity is what makes those thoughts and prayers matter and your readers are expressing them as best as they can. Thanks for sharing your pain with us. We can't make Carlo better. All we can do is keep reading. Even when it makes me feel sick, I'll be along for the ride.