chasfh

I was just going off my experience of receiving pleasant surprise and hearty thank yous when I tip directly in cash. I had assumed it was because they preferred it.

I did for certain Beatles discs when I was way way into them. Also spent for UK Parlaphones, as well as Magical Mystery Tour from West Germany, which was the only version that had the final three songs in stereo. Also got a Japanese bootleg where She’s a Woman and Yes It Is were in stereo. That’s what I spent hundreds of my extra bucks on. Now everyone can get all these versions for practically free. That’s OK.

This reminds me of when I was working in an office in maybe 2000 or so and my boss arranged for a summer afternoon outing for our department, and suggested we have a softball game. Knowing the department was mostly women and only a couple of us guys there played, I had visions of accidentally murdering one of my colleagues with a line drive. So out of the blue, I suggested that instead we play kickball, something I hadn’t played since grade school, and said this should be a lot safer and really fun. We played, it was a lot safer, and we had a blast. Within ten years, the kickball craze was sweeping the country. I take full credit for … ahem … kicking it off.

I’m sure you could tell the different between virgin and recycled vinyl on your rig than I ever could on whatever it was I was using.

Good thing Englert was available to get clobbered in yesterday’s game so we could have Brieske, Foley, and Lange available to help seal a 3-1 win today.

It’s supposed to be something like 100 degrees this Thursday and Friday. Sounds like a good time to go see Oppenheimer.

I remember hearing that Japanese and European pressings sounded better because they were pressed on “virgin vinyl”, whereas American pressings were on recycled vinyl. That was some 40 years ago, though. I have a pretty good ear but I can’t tell whether I actually heard the difference, or simply told myself I could. Remember half-speed masters? Same thing. Sound was probably related to the quality of your equipment than anything else.

That’s what we get when they turn over this function to private companies. They are accountable only to their shareholders.

Flip side tipping advice: if you can, tip in cash even if you use credit or debit card. Waitstaff love getting tips in cash because it’s money directly in their pocket tonight (assuming the House doesn’t skim it), not delayed; and it’s not automatically-reported income they have to claim on their tax return like a card tip would be, which saves them, what?, 25% or so?, of the tip if that’s the way they want to play it. Related mini-tip: if you tip in cash while paying by card, on the bill, in the tip box, instead of writing “0”, which just looks bad, write “cash” instead. I don’t know whether that flags anything with the House or IRS or whatever, but absent knowing that, it feels like writing “cash” is better than writing “0”.

Never undertip to make a point. Out with a friend, meal on him, and he was unhappy with the service, so he said he was going to tip them 10%. I said come on, you can’t do that, you have to give them at least 15% here. He said, no, he was going to teach them not to give bad service. (I didn’t think the service itself was so bad, but he was unhappy with it.) I said, well look, if you’re not gonna give them 15%, then just stiff ‘em. That’ll get your point across. He was taken aback some by that. He’s like, nah, I can’t stiff ‘em. I have to give them something. I said, well, if you’re gonna give them something, then give them at least 15%. He asks, why shouldn’t I tip them 10% if I want? Well, you can if you want, you’re the customer. But if you do that, then no one is happy. They’re unhappy and think you’re a **** for undertipping them, and you’re unhappy because you had to give them anything at all for service you didn’t like. Nobody wins there. So either give them 15%, or stiff ‘em. At least someone will be happy. He laughed at that. He thought I was being funny, although I was totally serious. So he tipped them 10% and we left. And he was unhappy at having to tip her at all, and I presume she thought we were both dicks because he undertipped them. So I got to lose by extension on this one as well. Next time I’m just going to leave the difference in cash when he’s not looking.

Doubtful since we weren’t in the market for long contracts on good players, and good players who have options weren’t in the market for us. Maybe it will be a little better for that kind of thing this winter.

Wouldn’t be happening if you were listening to the radio feed running a batter or two behind. 😉

Can’t be making much wasting time here.

Look lien the people in the room agree with that.

I’m still not voting Trump.

Both the MLB app and the Sirius radio feeds are well over a batter behind Gameday, which makes the combination unusually today. It would not shock me to learn that this is a tactical ploy to get people to subscribe to Peacock for the live more-up-to-date feed.

All of a sudden, looks like TORK! might end up hitting 25 or maybe even 30 bombs this year.

If it does get delayed they will wait until late evening, if they have to, to get the game in. Padres are not coming back.

Plus, once we make Englert walk the plank along with a suitcase with $50,000 in it, who we gonna replace him with?

He was always planning to sell no matter what. The only possible way he was going to buy to contend is if a bunch of these guys turned out to be All-Stars this year, after all.

Fulmer was replaced by Drew Smyly, and the cardinals have just brought in Drew VerHagen. It’s a Tiger Pitcher Party!

And indeed it was a short day for Michael Fulmer: 2.0 3 1 1 1 2. Not a terrible line.

Old friend of ours starting here on the north side: Here’s the first pitch of the game, on which he served up a bomb: The next two pitches were hit hard, too. Unless he can fix something minor the dugout, probably a short day for Mike

Also, that Rogers Hornsby was one of the original five players in the Hall. That’s what the second banana said in the Cubs-Cards Apple game. It took Hornsby five years to get not the Hall.

But .. but ... there is no coastal bias!