Dave The Dastardly

You mean they actually play? I thought the purpose was to watch the commercials.

I have that problem every now and then.

That's the second slowest national anthem I've ever heard.

You mean like goat barbecued in bourbon?

There's this woman that keeps calling my cell phone...

The ability to take a pee outside without the neighbors watching was a big factor in purchasing my 12 acre hobby farm. No more quick zipper accidents.

Relax guys, I removed the Yankee curse last night. I burned an old Yankee pennant that my son bought at a Twins-Yankee game back in 2003 when he was too young to know any better and a dead goat (you know how hard it is to find a dead goat?) in a backyard bonfire. With the smell of barbecued hairy goat meat in my nostrils, I poured what was left of a bottle of bourbon over the flames. I no longer have any eyebrows, a picnic table or a back wall on my house. I may no longer have a wife either. Damn Yankees!

I was productive once... but I never let it happen again.

Agree. Sometimes it is not the size of the victory, but only that you were victorious. As Brian mentioned, Rome wasn't built in Bulgaria. And it wasn't built in Minneapolis either, but I think this year the Twins may have laid a new foundation. I always celebrate when doing some laying. So should the Twins.

I take my whuppings like a man; I run to the nearest bar and cry in my beer... maybe beat up on a pygmy... though they're in short supply.

I'm probably the TD resident expert on Hills. I've been there twice. Both times at night. There wasn't much to see. Legend has it that a couple of Scandinavian settlers named the town. They were out wondering around the flat prairie for a couple of weeks looking for a place to settle when one of them spotted a rise on the horizon. "WTF is that?" Ole asked, pointing at the rise. Lars scratched his, uh, tender parts and answered "Hills?" Truth be told, Hills-Beaver Creek was the home of one of Minnesota's winningest (sp) high school basketball coaches, Hugo Goehle, selected for the the MN Coaches Hall of Fame back in the late 1980's. Hugo completely changed his offense and defense every half. So opposing coaches came in with a game plan for the first half and a prayer book for the second half. Besides being a master strategist, Hugo was a class act and a real gentleman. I've never been whupped by a nicer guy. Hard to find coaches like that anymore. By the way, it's a little known Wikipedia fact that Hills' racial breakdown includes .01% Pacific Islander. Somebody must have really hated the ocean.

I drove my 1946 hippie school bus across North Dakota back in 1970. Drove for hours on the interstate without seeing another vehicle. Or maybe it just seemed that way. Things were kind of hazy in the bus even though we had the windows open. Passed a cowboy sitting on his horse alongside the freeway. He shook his head in disbelief as we zoomed by at 45 mph. Guess he'd never seen a hippie bus with smoke rolling out the windows before. Or maybe he'd just never seen a bus, period. Got to Teddy Roosevelt National Park and the ground was smoking! Like blew us away, dudes! We expected to see North Dakotans running around sniffing the park fumes but I guess all fifty-five of 'em were in church or something. I always wondered why Teddy bailed out of New York and went ranching in North Dakota... I guess it was a natural high for him. We had no trouble finding our way back to Minnesota. If you stood on the bus roof you could see Fargo from the park's entrance. Which was good because there was no one around to ask directions from. We got half way back to Fargo and the cowboy was still sitting on his horse in the same spot. That's when we realized he was North Dakota's highway cop and he was running a speed trap.

To be honest, I don't drink Miller Lite. Just had to borrow that line from the old commercials. I was desperate. But not desperate enough to actually drink the stuff. Hewn from German and Irish stock I prefer Grain Belt Premium or Schell's Light for the days when I'm feeling Germanic and Jameson whiskey when I need a wee nip to ward off the chill of a fine soft day. By the way I have a friend named Miller. He's not lite. He's not my brother either.

I have a few chickens myself. Real ones. They run on pasture, don't get any hormones or antibiotics in their diet and are like Miller Lite; taste great! Also have about 6 acres of woods. I was working on a fallen tree trunk the other day with an adze. Damn pullet kept getting in my way. Stuck its head in where it didn't belong and I had to pullet out of my adze. Sort of like this comment...

Way back when my older kids (both girls) weren't even in kindergarten yet we had a tomcat that was one hunting SOB. We called him Killer Joe Puma. We lived on five acres on a wooded cul-de-sac and by the time Killer Joe was three years old there wasn't a squirrel, bird or chipmunk left alive on the place. The neighbors directly across the road from us had a German shepherd that liked to come across the road and bark and growl at us whenever I pulled into our driveway. Wasn't dangerous, just annoying. One sunny fall day me and the kids watched Killer Joe sunning himself on a stump in the front yard. The German shepherd didn't like that infringement on what he thought was his territory so he came trotting across the road barking and growling at Killer Joe. Who totally ignored him. So the dog came closer. Killer Joe decided it was a good time to clean his paws; probably bloody from a recent kill. The shepherd got really pissed, I guess he didn't like being ignored, and came charging into the yard, stopping a half dozen feet from Killer Joe, who was still busy catching some rays and cleaning his paws as if totally oblivious to the dog. The shepherd closed with two feet of Joe, still growling and barking like an attack dog. Killer Joe came flying off the stump, landed on the shepherd's face, sunk his teeth into one ear and the last we saw of the shepherd he was streaking for home, howling in pain, Killer Joe wrapped around his head. The German shepherd never crossed the road again. And Killer Joe Puma went back to patrolling his private hunting rounds without any further interruptions. Toughest damn cat we ever had.

I wonder what food truck Colon frequents. Or does he just eat the truck?

Anybody notice how game thread comments have decreased since the Garcia and Kintzler trades? Makes me wonder if ticket sales are down also. And if the recent rally is bringing back the prodigal fans. And that brings up another thought; do general managers consider the impact of trades on attendance? Is there like a formula for that?

Anybody know what the elderly Colon is drinking? Find out so I can buy a case.

Not so much in Minnesota though. That's why the Vikings left that rock behind in Kensington; they tangled with the local skraelings and took off for home. Didn't have the stone(s).

Other than Big Bang and excluding the Twins and the Vikes what's there to watch? Though Viking pre-season games are about as exciting as a Norwegian wake.

Let me push you over the edge.

I should've known better to ask that question on this site. If you look up "delusional" in the dictionary it says "another term for a MN Twins fan".

I had the same impression. Thought I read somewhere he'd played 1B a fair amount of time in the minors. Are we both delusional?

I learn a lot reading these game threads. And sometimes it has to do with baseball. To entertain while educating is one of the most successful methods of instruction. The best classroom teacher I ever knew summed it up for me this way; "Never let the little b@stards know they're being taught anything." TD excels in that regard.

I can't resist commenting on this because I've batted from both sides of the plate. I was the first of my family to go to college, despite my father's attempts to convince me I'd be better off getting a "steady job". I worked my way through college and never asked for a dime from my dad. He still had five kids at home to feed. So I skipped classes to paint houses and tended bar nights so I could afford to pay tuition. I always carried an overload and graduated in three years because I couldn't afford a 4th year. I made $7,200 my last year in college and took my first job (teacher and coach) for $6,900. A $300 cut in pay to use my college education and I started to realize my old man was maybe smarter than I thought. The key thing I learned though was that I couldn't do just one thing. I needed to use my hands as well as my mind or I grew bored and frustrated. So over the intervening years I've been a real estate broker, newspaper publisher, columnist, horse trainer, sheep farmer, electrician, framing carpenter, another stint at tending bar, another stint as a painting contractor, hobby magazine publisher, teacher/coach, high school principal and school superintendent. And I picked up two more college degrees in the process. So I know a lot of sh*t. Some of it useful. But one of the most important lessons I've learned over the years is we aren't locked in to doing just one thing. We're not easily categorized by our careers because we're all capable of doing other things. So never judge a book by its cover. Oh, and change is good.