Stairway to Kevin

"Honest John McCloskey also went 190-417 in his five seasons as a manager in the major leagues...."

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 00:02:29 -0600

“

Honest John McCloskey also went 190-417 in his five seasons as a manager in the major leagues. That’s a .313 winning percentage… the worst for any manager with at least 500 games. He lost 98, 101 and 105 in his three seasons (1906-08) managing the Cardinals, which is somewhat telling because the Cardinals have not lost 100 games in a season since.*

*This really is kind of incredible: The Cardinals have not lost 95 games in a seasons since 1913, and have not even lost 90 in a season since 1990. They don’t always win in St. Louis, but they never really lose — not much baseball suffering in St. Louis. The Kansas City Royals have had more 100-loss seasons this decade than the Cardinals have had since 1900.

”

- From this SI article

Arizona fans

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 23:02:50 -0600

Why in God’s name did you file on to the field so early? In the superstitious world of sports, your preemptive presumption of victory was the biggest jinx ever.

robantha: (via Amir Blumenfeld) Lin-Manuel Miranda performing...

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 14:38:09 -0600

robantha:

(via Amir Blumenfeld)

Lin-Manuel Miranda performing his Alexander Hamilton rap in front of President Obama.

I am consistently impressed by this man.
In all seriousness, if you don’t watch any other video today, watch this one.

Great music lists guys!

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 21:58:00 -0600

I kinda forgot I made that post, and then found a ton of posts when I came back. For the record, here’s my list of the top 10 artists of the decade:

10. LCD Soundsystem

9. The Strokes (just on the strength of “Is This It”)

8. Outkast

7. Arcade Fire

6. Spoon

5. Kanye West

4. Animal Collective

3. Jay-Z (The Blueprint AND The Black Album? Yes please)

2. Radiohead

1. White Stripes (I wanted to vote Jack White in general, but when tabulating votes, it made more sense to vote by band).

Looks like with the votes tabulated, White Stripes and Radiohead are the top two (Tristn, don’t spoil this for anyone else, we don’t run this feature until one of the last issues of the year).

Do you think she gets to call him Jacob?

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:57:49 -0600

Do you think she gets to call him Jacob?

breegoodrow: patrickmoberg: Internet Vices all of this is so...

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:43:54 -0600

breegoodrow:

patrickmoberg:

Internet Vices

all of this is so true haha

This is nothing short of brilliant

It's that time of year...

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 20:16:59 -0600

It’s time for the end of the year features. Except this time we’re also finishing a decade, so the countdown lists will be even greater in scope.

The Daily Cardinal has begun their Albums of the year nominations. I’m kinda interested in those, but I’m more interested in our other feature, the top 10 artists of the decade.

I’ve already made my picks, but I’m going to hold on to them until I’ve heard from all of you. For all you music tumblrs following me (and those of you consider yourselves musically inclined), what’s your top 10 pick?

thedavidmurray: Whatever U Want (G.O.O.D. Remix)Consequence ft....

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:22:22 -0600

thedavidmurray:

Whatever U Want (G.O.O.D. Remix)
Consequence ft. Kanye West, Common, Kid Cudi, Big Sean, John Legend

HOT FIRE

Good shit

rannybananny: (via balboa) Ugh. SO fucking true! Jurassic...

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 23:53:19 -0600

rannybananny:

(via balboa)

Ugh. SO fucking true!

Jurassic Bark… it gets me every time

menstrom: I’m #1! I’m #1! Damn you Menstrom! Fullonrapist...

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:15:49 -0600

menstrom:

I’m #1! I’m #1!

Damn you Menstrom! Fullonrapist Fullonrapist Fullonrapist

whatson: thedailywhat: Cannot Be Unseen of the Day: Screw...

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:55:17 -0600

whatson:

thedailywhat:

Cannot Be Unseen of the Day: Screw Hitler — if I ever get hold of a time machine I’m going back to 1986 and making damn sure this movie gets produced.

[via.]

GPOYW—Throwback edition This is a picture of me and a few...

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:48:00 -0600

GPOYW—Throwback edition

This is a picture of me and a few cohorts chillin’ in our high school parking lot. It was us just before we went on a harrowing adventure to Arlington, MA, where we coned the school librarian.

Now, for the uninformed, here are the facts:

1. All librarians are bitches

2. The librarians at LHS were even greater bitches. Whether it be the perpetually pregnant slutty one, the one who would yell at you from behind her desk, or the kind-of-nice-but-still-pretty-mean lady who checked out all your books and made you leave your various fruit juices (since they didn’t sell soda at LHS) on the counter before you went in.

3. The head librarian, known as Ms. Lum, was the biggest bitch of all. She once deleted an entire Spanish paper I had been doing because I didn’t know my login password and used a guest account. Despite the fact that she could see from her admin panel that all I had open was Microsoft Word, she gave me no warning and shut my machine off. When I went to complain, she solved the problem by yelling me my password loud enough for half the library to hear, and offered no apology for deleting my entire paper, which was due in about an hour to another unforgiving bitch of a teacher named Ms. Desloges.

4. Coning is the act of gathering a ton of traffic cones, and strategically placing them all over someone’s lawn, porch, or any other reachable place on their property (perhaps their roof if you’re feeling vindictive).

5. Coning became a huge fad senior year of high school, mostly due to the entire town’s gas pipelines being re-done at once after a house fucking exploded.

6. One of my enterprising friends found Ms. Lum’s home address, and proposed a journey into the slums of Arlington, MA to cone this bitch back to the stone age. (Or at least the CONE AGE, AMIRITE?!?!) (I’m not.)

Now, the story.

We met in the LHS parking lot, bringing with us as many cones, barrels, sawhorses and rolls of fencing as we could find. My van was used as the primary courier for all the materials, as the back of my van had no seats in it because I pulled landscaping duty at my house and used the bed of my van to haul mulch and woodchips from our recycling center back to my house.

My van (as I’ve clarified in earlier posts) was a piece of crap. One of its greatest flaws was its malfunctioning gas gauge, which showed that the car was empty 100% of the time. I used a triptometer to try to keep track of how long it had been since I’d filled up, but it was a delicate business, full of many close calls and pushes to the gas station.

That night, as we rolled into Arlington, the car felt a bit funny, but I shook it off as a byproduct of hauling close to 50 cones in the car. We hopped off of Route 2 and hit Arlington Heights, a Boston suburb full of ridiculously high hills.

As we rolled up the final street, my car completely lost the will to drive, and stopped briefly in the middle of a steep hill, before starting to roll backwards at nearly 40 mph. I pumped the brakes to no avail, before throwing on the E-brake and doing a slow release-catch of the brake as I backed into a random driveway.

At this point we were a bit deflated, but $60 of gas (plus the price of the canister) later, we were back on track thanks to a gas station about a quarter of a mile away.

We approached the house with all the caution and stealthiness of stampeding bull elephants, barely suppressing our audible giggles as we covered her house in cones. Suddenly, after placing about 20 or so, a door slammed. Frozen in our tracks, we pivoted on the spot, looking for the source.

“What the hell are you doing?” came a raspy voice, not from Ms. Lum’s house, but from her next-door neighbor.

“Um..” stuttered one of our posse (perhaps Brian Sewell) “We’re just…”

“I think you have the wrong house!” the neighbor said, standing angrily (and a bit confusedly) on the porch.

At that point, one of us finally summoned the power to move and yelled “Ditch!”, the universal coner’s code for “get the fuck outta here”. As we bolted the neighbor retreated back into the house, for what we weren’t entirely sure.

As we left, my friend Taky decided it was absolutely necessary to get some pictures of the house, and halted our fleeing caravan to snap a few shots. After a few flashes of his camera, I suddenly realized that the flashes were coming not only from his car, but from the neighbor’s house as well. The son of a bitch was taking pictures of our car! At that point we floored it, but not before the neighbor took a couple of nice photos of possibly the only rusted red 1995 Dodge Caravan with nothing but a tarp and cones in the back in the greater Boston area.

At home, we celebrated our victory with unease. Would Ms. Lum see the photos and attempt to use the administration to check our plates and numbers? A lot of us parked in the student lot in those days, and so it wasn’t out of the question. Instead, nothing became of it, leaving only this photo as an enduring memory of the lesser-known of three senior pranks levied against the bitches known as the LHS Librarians.

Bring back the HUH!

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 02:44:45 -0600

Bring back the HUH!:

Sorry, but this is kind of ridiculous. I like the ‘huh’ a lot too, but this article is basically the equivalent of those million Facebook groups that people make every time something small is changed about the site. It even has the requisite: “UPDATE: We have ____ members in just ____ hours! I bet if everyone invites their friends, we can make this huge!”

It’s less than a second of audio per video. I’m ambivalent about the guitar riff, but I’m sure it will grow on me in time. Like someone said in the comments, it sounds like the opening riff of the Foo Fighters’ “All My Life,” a song I greatly enjoy.

caseydonahue: My friend Johnny makes animations. This is one of...

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 02:15:47 -0600

caseydonahue:

My friend Johnny makes animations. This is one of them.

Johnny’s a good buddy of mine from high school. He’s been doing goofy, crazy stuff for as long as I’ve known him. The first time I went to his house, I learned how to play Guitar Hero, watched some cartoons with a bunch of chicks, and played with a parking meter he busted off of its pole and stowed in his basement.

not-ean: blaaargh: (via lfrodriguez) what song is this...

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 23:16:05 -0600

not-ean:

blaaargh:

(via lfrodriguez)

what song is this from?

You best be joking nigga. PARTY IN THE USAAAAAAAAAAAAA

OH DEAR LORD.

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:22:09 -0600

gaseousclay:

The Intervention commercial is on A&E.

IT. IS. THE. WORST.

Amazing Grace is probably one of my favorite American folk songs.

AND IT TOTALLY RUINS IT.

and I really don’t understand the appeal of intervention and now I hate that show even more.

Intervention is the funniest show on TV if you have the right mindset. The episode with the girl who gets high by huffing duster? Instant classic.

johnzanussi: mattedits: If you didn’t stay to the end of this...

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:20:21 -0600

johnzanussi:

mattedits:

If you didn’t stay to the end of this game you missed an amazing finish. Bill Belichick will not sleep easy tonight. I love it.

Such an excellent game!

Yes, it was an excellent game played strongly by both teams featu-WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU BILL BELICHICK?!?!?! WHAT THE FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-

jheath: yourbeloved: kevinslane: jheath: Facepalm, mom. Is...

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 16:22:00 -0600

jheath:

yourbeloved:

kevinslane:

jheath:

Facepalm, mom.

Is part of the joke that you were wrong about the 2nd correction? Because you were. ‘Than’ is correct in that situation.

Actually, I disagree. “Then” IS correct. “Then I need a better phone”. It’s like an if, then statement. If the phone isn’t correcting the improper vocab and grammar, THEN she needs to get a better phone. “Than” is used in comparing things. “Than” is used correctly in the last portion of the sentence, though.

Facepalm, Slane.

Aghh, I’m retarded. I thought you were talking about the “I thought it was smarter than me” part. I didn’t read that carefully at all. Hahaha wow.

*Facepalm*

jheath: Facepalm, mom. Is part of the joke that you were wrong...

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 16:10:35 -0600

jheath:

Facepalm, mom.

Is part of the joke that you were wrong about the 2nd correction? Because you were. ‘Than’ is correct in that situation.

thehoulywoodreporter: As a lifelong card-carrying member of...

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:30:13 -0600

thehoulywoodreporter:

As a lifelong card-carrying member of Team Zissou, I have to say Fantastic Mr. Fox is my new favorite Wes Anderson movie. What the cuss, you’re probably thinking. Well, cuss yeah! You’ll understand what I’m talking about after you see the movie. It’s my new favorite cuss word replacement, by the way, too. Thanks, Wes.

I know everyone acts like Wes Anderson is the second coming of Scorsese, and it’s true. Scorsese even said so himself. But the real reason why Fantastic Mr. Fox works on so many levels is it truly encompasses the magic of moviemaking. And that’s what movies are and should be all about. It works on so many levels from the sleight-of-hand of the stop-motion process, to the meticulous attention to detail in the tiniest of props and wardrobe pieces (taken from Anderson’s swatches, naturally) and of course, the wit, heart and cast Anderson employs time and time again. If Anderson ever influenced me to direct before, my faith in trying something new has been fully restored and further challenged.

With full access to Roald Dahl’s manuscripts and his English estate, Anderson more than brings Dahl’s imagination to life. He takes it to another level. He even recorded his actors playing in the fields of the English countryside, digging, giggling and interacting in the childlike way we long for but seldom revisit, which is great because when I was in second grade my two favorite things to do were to draw horses in a fictitious countryside with my best friend Anne and read Roald Dahl books, so he has created an environment I’ve always wanted to explore. And it works for adults and children alike. As Anderson told The New Yorker, “I wanted to make a children’s movie like some of the ones I grew up with. And that went with the idea of how you didn’t have to wear helmets when you ride bicycles. I never wore a helmet riding a bicycle, and, in a way, the movie is for children who don’t wear helmets when they ride bicycles.”

Fantastic Mr. Fox keeps you feeling as Royal as Gene Hackman and Ben Stiller’s sons were dangling from the side of a fire truck. And for escapism’s sake, how bad could that really be? I’ve never had a children’s movie make me feel this alive since I was a child.

But wait, I forgot to mention, it’s a heist movie! And don’t all men and boys love a good heist movie, or want to be in a heist? (Good Lord, I just referenced a Dane Cook joke. Please forgive me.) As far as Clooney heist movies are concerned, I dare to say this sinks his previous Ocean-ic exploits. And that’s coming not only from a Life Aquatic expert, but an overall film fanatic. Besides, who better to play a sly, cunning fox than Georgie Boy?

Fantastic Mr. Fox opens in select cities this weekend, and goes wide on Thanksgiving, for all to fête.