The blog formerly about a daily dose of mostly Minnesota sports rants and raves with a sprinkling of general sports commentary and a pinch of jaded-malaise regarding the world around us

March 31, 2011

Joe Nathan


LRTS is doing the math to figure out how many she still has not received. Bonus perk.

March 30, 2011

Carl Pavano

He did not return it in the plastic protective sleeve. I guess pobody's nerfect.

March 28, 2011

An ad only a Minnesotan could love

Not sure what you think of this (click here); I find it on the provincial side akin to the "We like it here!" sign that use to be over the tunnel in the Dome. We're the 13th market in the country which ain't much but deserves a little more than Joe Mauer being the most exciting thing about the spot. It may play in Warroad but not at FTLOSBW HQ.

March 25, 2011

Reminder: This Is Not A Sports Blog

Not that I have anything recent to complain in the world of athletics. Nope. Not me. Can't think of anything.

Anyway, it's late on a Friday and I might have a couple drinks in me, but it's become apparent to me (and I wanted to share, because that's what friends are for) that Robin Pecknold is a fucking genius, and the finally emerged proper inheritor of the great tradition of Bob Dylan and Paul Simon as Great American Songwriter. All these annointings of good wordsmiths and writers as the new keeper of the flame over the last 25 years have been wishful thinking, just trying to fill a void for the sake of filling it - "these giants left footprints and we have to name a successor now" thinking. Steve Earle, Townes Van Zandt, Leonard Cohen, David Bowie, Sufjan Stevens, Lucinda Williams, Ryan Adams, Jeff Tweedy, Sam Beam, Conor Oberst. For BG and me, Gary Louris. Every year it seems we name some other artist as the heir apparent.

Well, to me, Pecknold is the One. Those others are great, and they've put together some amazing stuff. But, to wit:

http://soundcloud.com/subpop/fleet-foxes-helplessness-blues

My god. It makes a spirit soar. Starts out slightly hokey lyrically, but ends up transcendent. How can a human listen to that and not feel uplifted? What a voice. It takes one to another place. The world and all the bullshit and trials and stress just fall away when you turn it on and turn it up. You can't help but sing along. It's like "American Tune" or "The Boxer" with a slightly less cynical and world-weary feel.

I note that the aforementioned Dylan and Simon both started as straight up folksters. There must be something to that.

I still listen to first Fleet Foxes LP start to finish at least once a month. It makes the world a better place.

Bonuses:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-KWC_G-nDI&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfED3hU86TU&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtGnfHEAv_4&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2pYW3wOSd4&feature=related

Notice the guitar work in addition to the voice.

My bold prediction: in 20 years, this is the guy everyone calls the genius.

March 23, 2011

2011 Minnesota Twins - Lineup Glimpse

Here it is, thoughts? Emotions? Boners?

1. Denard Span, CF
2. Tsuyoshi Nishioka, 2B
3. Joe Mauer, C
4. Justin Morneau, 1B
5. Delmon Young, LF
6. Jason Kubel, DH
7. Michael Cuddyer, RF
8. Danny Valencia, 3B
9. Alexi Casilla, SS

Cuddy at 7 feels about right. We've discussed him enough already. When does Thome take over every day DH from Kubel? Oh, and please remove the part of any comments that start with "Well, there are a lot of 'ifs' in that line up: 'if Denard Span can get back to form,' 'if Nishi can hit MLB pitching' . . . " No using the obvious as a means to hedge. Rube Nation on sports talk radio suggesting this is the "best lineup ever for Gardy."

March 22, 2011

2010 Vikings Prediction Revisited

Found the below notecard in my desk the other day, it was from a phone call with DTK where I noted a prediction from November 29, 2010 and reads: "DTK predicts that the 4 and 7 Vikings would finish 9 and 7 and make the playoffs" (I have blurred out real names)

At the time of the statement, the Vikings had just beaten the Redskins which DTK apparently thought was "the lighting in a bottle" this squad had been waiting to capture. The very next game, the Purple went on to pound the Bills. Exciting, right? Well, also remember that Brett Favre got hurt on the first series which finally ended his career. This was followed by the Dome roof collapsing the next week (a loss to the Giants on a Monday night in Detroit) followed by a loss to the Bears on Monday night at TCF. Bright spot: The 5 and 9 Vikes took the Eagles behind the woodshed on a Tuesday night to move to 6 and 9 only to ultimately fail at Detroit to finish 6 and 10. Great work, Nostradameus.

March 21, 2011

Big Ten to add Hockey

I think I know where most of us stand on this...but I look forward to MCA's take, in particular. The Strib article claims that the WCHA will have an "interlocking" schedule with the Big Ten, since the Big Ten schools will still need a lot of games to fill out a schedule. Apparently, the final domino was Penn State committing to add a D-1 hockey program.

Overall, kind of a bummer to see the Gophers leave the WCHA, but it sounds like they'll still play North Dakota, UMD, St. Cloud and others on a regular basis.

March 16, 2011

Cuddy

March 14, 2011

Neshek and Butera


The first two cards came back. 19 more to go. My daughter was pretty excited. Hoping we get some more back . Just in case Neshek and Butera follow FTLOSBW, thank you sirs.

Minnesota's Presidential Hopefuls

File these under WTF:

TPaw
- I now know what Michael Bay is doing, TPaw commercials.

MBach
- She defines why I hate people.

March 9, 2011

We Don't Need Rehab. This Time We've Got It Under Control

Ok. Im officially getting excited for baseball. Yes, I know I'm chasing the dragon here. Yes, I know the twins will push me closer to suicide when they don't show up for the fourteenth consecutive series against the yankees. But like any addict or beaten wife, I think the best thing to do is take another hit. Yep, this highs going to be the one that doesn't have a crash because the twins hit us because they love us. Morneau is back. The shiek looks great. And we've got our own ichiro 2.0. That's worth it just too hear minnesotans talk about how much they like the new chinese guy.

I've been thinking of some questions to mask my concerns and hide my pain:

Who's going to have a better year? The shiek or the dunce?

Who will get more mvp votes? Mauer or morneau?

Who will be the first to 15 wins? Liriano or pavano?

Who will hit 20 dongs first? Thome or Dyoung?

Who will steal more bases? Casilla or ichiro?

Who will be the first to make an inappropriate and insensitive asian joke and have to apologize?

March 4, 2011

I wish I could be more like them


There has been a lack of chatter on here lately, so I am going to sell my self respect and try and get something going. Think back about 18 years ago and picture a younger RTS in a dorm room watching Beavis and Butthead. I don't remember much from those days, but I do remember an episode where the two of them are sitting on the coach watching a Beastie Boys' video. Beavis said "Beastie Boys are cool." To which Butthead replied "Yeah, I wish we could be more like them." In the spirit of Butthead's insight, here is a list of movie characters that I wished I could have been more like when I was 10-18 years old.

#5 Louden Swain, Vision Quest. Louden Swain had a goal to cut enough weight to wrestle Shute, the best wrestler in the state. Along the way he nails some older chick. One, I was not getting any at the time and two I ranged from sucking at wrestling to being completely average. I was alright in the wrestling room, but I was a nut job in the head before a match. I have the balls now, that I lacked then. To this day I am much better dealing with an ambush, than a tricky situation that I know is coming down the pipe. My captain freshman year attempted a vision quest. He could have been a state champ at a higher weight but he cut down to wrestle Willy Short from Simley, hands down the best kid in the state. Willy kicked his ass in the state final.

#4 John Bender, The Breakfast Club. The rebel who landed in detention and did not care. I was not rebellious enough to land in detention for behavior nor did I care enough to shoot myself over a failed elephant lamp. John Bender was a poor man's version of characters normally played by Matt Dillon. If we ever post brush with fame stories on here I have a great one that involves Judd Nelson.

#3 Mad Max Rockatansky, The Road Warrior. He killed guys on motorcycles with mohawks in a post apocalyptic Outback. Do I really need to say more?

#2 Matt Dillon characters, take your pick The Outsiders, Rumble Fish, My Bodyguard or the 3 way with Denise Richards and Neve Campbell (when people thought she was hot and overlooked her gigantic head) in Wild Things. In most movies he was the troubled teen from the wrong side of 35W that I so longed to be while hanging out with the Woodhill crowd.

#1 Snake Plissken, Escape From New York. He was like Mad Max without the anti-semitic views. Really both are just rip offs of the man with no name western hero, but that still does not take away from how totally awesome they were. I really can't describe why he was so cool other than he kicked ass and took names. Interesting fact about the movie, it was filmed in a burned out part of East St. Louis. In essence East St. Louis looks like a futuristic abandoned city that has been turned into a prison. As Clark Griswald said "Roll 'em up."

March 3, 2011

Win Twins




Pat Neshek is awesome. Through his blog he encourages people to mail him stuff to autograph. I decided to take him up on his offer. In fact, I decided to expand upon this and came up with the Great Twins Experiment of 2011 for my daughter and I to do. We are going to mail out the entire 2010 Topps Twins set and see what we get back. There are 21 players in all, 18 current Twins and 3 former Twins (Punto is on the Cardinals, I missed that one).


I mailed out cards like this in 6th and 7th grade. Some of the cards came back with autographs, some came back with schedules and stickers and some never came back at all. I never really believed the autographs were real since there is no way to verify the authenticity of them. My friend Chris M. (Hopkins grad) swore they were real. I am not going into this expecting to get a authentic signed Twins set. I am doing this just as a project to do with my daughter. Hopefully, we get some back. At least we will know one is real, Mr. Pat Neshek.


The list in no particular order: Orlando Cabrera (Indians), Neshek, Alex Burnett, Glen Perkins, J.J. Hardy (O's), Pavano, Liriano, Morneau, Slowey, Young, Casilla, Cuddy, Nathan, Anthony Swarzak, Span, Baker, Mauer, Blackburn, Drew Butera, Punto (Cards) and Kubel.


Here is the letter used for current Twins minus Neshek:


Dear Mr. Kubel,

I am a Twins fan living in Atlanta. My daughter and I are sending out a whole set of Twins’ cards to all the players and waiting to see what we get back. We would appreciate it if you would take the time to sign the enclosed card and mail it back in the enclosed self addressed stamped envelope. Thank you in advance. Good luck this year. Win Twins!

Regards,


Little RTS and RTS ( I use our real names in the letter)