Sunday Night Scorecard

It's good to know that Boston doesn't need to rely on home runs to put runs on the board. But it's a unique game all the same.

Royals Elimination Watch

Here we are on April 20, having just finished a six-game losing streak. The Royals are now 4-11, the only AL Central team under .500 and six games back of Minnesota, with an elimination number of 142. At this rate, the Royals will be mathematically eliminated from the pennant race on August 10. Further updates to come.

EDIT: I inadvertently double-counted the already-played games; the actual expected elimination date is August 26. It's still before Labor Day.

Lyrics Quiz

Which of these is from a "real" song, and which from a "fake" (i.e., parody) song?

(A) "And the candle burned low as we talked of the future Underneath the ceiling"
(B) "For your thighs were the cushions Of my love"
(C) "Anyhow it's not just doorknobs That come off in your hand"
(D) "I believe in believing I'm deeply concerned"
(E) "For I've never loved in a cage Or talked to a friend or just waved"

No fair Googling! (And I must admit to finding it ironic that Blogger (owned by, well, we know who) thinks that Googling is misspelled.)

Sunday Night Scorecard

No Sunday Night Scorecard tonight, since the computerized scorer doesn't quite know how to handle an entire team all with the same number.

Royals' elimination watch

After 10 days of the major league baseball season, the 3-5 Royals are a mere two games back in the AL Central, with an elimination number of 155. At this rate, the Royals will be mathematically eliminated from the pennant race on September 28.

More updates as events warrant.

It's Tuesday!

Well, at least according to the Times, anyway. My applet says 2:39, but my time was recorded as 2:40! I wuz robbed! Of course, it's a moot point in several dozen senses of the word, so whatever.

Clicky for details

A theme! It's all right, I guess. THEAMAZINGRANDI didn't fit, hence out came the second-stringer AMAZINGKRESKIN. No really ugly fill, except maybe "INE" (Like Chopin's "Tristresse" etude) or "ABRA" (Magician's start); I liked "LOCKLET" for no very good reason, although the double-clue with 8D seemed unnecessarily annoying (especially when you don't actually have 8D filled in). I was wondering if that answer started life as "LOCKLEY", but on further consideration I think it's Robin of Locksley. And any puzzle with "TSHIRTS" in it is a good puzzle (he says, until Tim Parker uses it).

I listen to Joe Morgan so you don't have to

You should see a link over on the right to the Sunday Night Scorecard. Hopefully I'll be scoring along with all the ESPN Sunday night games. The scorecard comes from Christopher Swingley from Baseball Scorecard (I think), although the computerized bit was done by Chris Nandor (which I found somewhere on cpan.org).

Sun NYT

28:58. Never have I gotten a theme so early, to have it help me so little.

Let's try this spoiler thing again


(For a crossworder, I suck at anagrams.) It didn't help that there was no way to get the long theme entries without the short theme entries (except a lot of crossings + some guessing), and I went a long time without any of those theme entries. Looking back, "SECRETADMIRERS" was the only long entry I got after the short ones.

It's Byron, don'tcha know, so there were some clues-that-you're-not-going-to-get-'til-later-but-you-like-anyway, like "EIGHTH" for "Like Van Buren's presidency", "THRICE" for "How Peter denied Jesus" (on Easter!), "DOGIT" for "Loaf", "TBAR" for "Boarders board it", "AITCH" for "It starts here", "PASSFAIL" for "Course option" (I actually got that one right away, but still). And of course, there are answers that make no sense: "BGIRLS" for "Saloon habitues, slangily" (does anyone say that? really? I assume the B stands for bar), "DISARMER" for "Peacemaker" (it makes sense, but I don't like it. Waah!), "MONOSKI" for "Snowboard alternative" (ditto).

Things I screwed up: NAIROBI for ENTEBBE; CIELA for CIELO; RAISETHE for UNDERONE (raise the roof just seems more Byron's style than under one roof), RKO for MGM (so I don't know my movie history). And I didn't get ELEVEN until *way* after I finished the puzzle (and got onto Google).

Found Art

Go to Google Directions, start at Boston, and end in London.
(Hat tip: Eugene Volokh)

Hey ... What?

I think this is the first snowfall we've had in NN since I've moved here.

Back

Back from ACF Nats and the delightful city of Nashville. I thought with two rounds to go that my throat was going to split apart, but it got better. Obviously I slept in a bit this morning.