Showing posts with label lists. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lists. Show all posts

Sunday, August 18, 2013

Super Terrific Anniversary Celebration!

I realized this morning that I have been maintaining this blog for roughly a year.  I remember this because I started around the time of the State Fair last year.  That is a captivating story on it's own, but there's a point to the story as well.  I looked at the date on my first post and found that my very first post was on 8/17/2012, or exactly one year and one day ago.  Cool, I forgot my own birthday.  However, anniversary celebrations are the most important component of a successful relationship; much more important than trust, dedication, and honesty.

Therefore, to celebrate a year of unsuccessful blogging, I present to you a look back at the five stupidest posts from that year and a fun, old picture or photoshop to accompany.  These photoshop/picture/blog post combos will likely have no relation to each other and probably will make little-to-no sense alone or together.

Onward!

5.  Fun with Stizzles

I had a trial version of Baseball Reference's play index and no idea what to do with it.  I decided to scour the index looking for fun records and stats.  And boy did I!  This is a great example of why any idiot can have a blog and fill it with "content."  Also, here's a picture of Bobby Bonilla ice cream, because I had a cousin who called him Bobby Banilla instead of Bobby Bonilla.


4.  Gardy-Hicks Speculation Sentral

Remember when Aaron Hicks and Ron Gardenhire had their public spat in the dugout?  Nope, neither do I.  But, at the time, it was a HUGE deal.  However, we could only really speculate on what was being said.  I presented six scenarios of my own, from my own ability to read lips and conjecture.  To accompany, here is a photoshop of Joe Mauer without sideburns.


3.  A Championship the Twins can win.

This was one of the ideas that lead me to create this blog.  I thought it would be funny if nine sets of Twins faced off against nine giants in a battle of literal baseball supremacy.  Instead, I wrote well over 2500 words about all the different teams' nicknames and what would happen if they faced off for a season.  It's long, but there are two or three solid jokes hidden in there.  For something shorter, here's a picture of Trevor Plouffe from Spring Training when he was battling a sore calf.


2.  Inside a Target Field Promotions Meeting:  A Screenplay

To date, this is still my only screenplay.  It came from my idea to create Joe Flower, a Joe Mauer-flower that you could give to your friends when they are feeling down.  Somehow, that lead to this crazy screenplay with five executives determining the giveaways for the coming season.  Lots of the players involved aren't on the team anymore, so that's fun!  To go with my only screenplay, I present to you my only web comic, from my very brief days (hour) as a cartoonist.


1.  A Career of Baseball Memories Remembered

Some ideas are simple:  Alfredo Griffin played for the Dodgers and Alf is in his name.  Ergo, photoshop Alf's head on some baseball cards and create a corny career retrospective.  It's easily the dumbest thing I've ever written and that says a lot if you have made it through this whole countdown or if you have somehow been reading this blog for the past year.  Regardless, it is poignant and that is I all I ever really wanted when I started writing about the Twins a year ago.  To celebrate the end of this self-adulating exercise, here are the Fox Sports Waynes dancing it up.  You can't celebrate this blog without Gary Wayne and his fabulous 1991 Score pitch face.


Thank you very much to anyone who has read this blog in the past year.  I have really enjoyed writing about the Twins and just about everything else that pops into my head in the middle of the night.  I have appreciated the kind comments and messages as well.  If I ever think that I might be done writing, someone says something far too kind and it makes me want to write more.  It's been a fun year, and I appreciate any and all support that I have received.

Oh, and a very special thanks to Byron Buxton, Miguel Sano, Andrew Albers, Delmon Young and Baseball Reference for being more popular than I am and bringing me tons of readers.

Monday, April 22, 2013

Gimmick Post - Winter Weather Blues

It seems that just about every Twins game is snowed or rained or winded out these days.  When is MLB going to wake up and start banning weather from their games?!?  If nothing else, the Twins should have no home games in April, just in case it snows.  Then, they should have no home games in May because of melting.  June would be out due to mosquitoes.  September is probably pushing it when it comes to snow again.  August can be quite sultry.

The obvious solution:  The Twins play all 81 home games in a row, immediately following the All-Star break.  At roughly 3 hours per game, they could fit four games in per day.   This means that in about 20 days, the Twins could get all their home games in, without the threat of snow, melt water, dangerous pests and sultry temperatures.  If MLB ever got their act together and enacted a plan like this, maybe we wouldn't have to sit through these random days without baseball!

Without baseball, I decided that it might be fun to cram as many gimmicky ideas as I can into one post. I love gimmicks.  Slideshows, top ten lists, poems, bullet lists, other lists.  Ok, maybe I just like lists.  I still think I am on to something here.  Just a bunch of gimmicks all put together.  All it needs is a catchy title, and everyone will be hooked. 

I shall call it:  Gimmick Post.  Fasten your safety belts, it is going to be a wild ride. 

Random Top 5 List

Here are the top 5 teams in the AL Central as of 4/22/2013:
  1. Royals
  2. Twins
  3. Tigers
  4. Indians
  5. White Sox
That's right, your Minnesota Twins are in second place.  My Minnesota Twins are also in second place.

Fun Stat

If Aaron Hicks walks another time in April (if the Twins ever play in April again, right?  lol), he will set a Twins' rookie record for most walks in April by a first year player.  He is currently tied with Jim Eisenreich, who added 23 hits that month.  Hicks currently has 3.

KWL Chart

A KWL chart is an organizational tool that many teachers use with students to help them with a new topic.  They can also be helpful with topics we want to explore further. 

K is what you know, W is what you want to know, and L is what you have learned.

Here is a KWL chart that I made, with Brian Dozier as the subject:


I didn't learn much, but I am happy to know that Dozier has a friend in Josh Willingham.

My answer to a hypothetical question posted on the Twins' Facebook page:

Question:  Why don't all you whiners take your precious retactable roof AND STICK IT WHERE THE SUN DON'T SHINE!

Answer:  I feel there should be a question mark after your exclamation mark, but I'm just being a punctuation perfectionist.  I'm not sure what a retactable roof is either.  The irony of this question is that a retractable roof would conceivably be placed in an area where the sun does shine, thus blocking it out.  In a sense, you are answering your own question.  If the roof was where the sun does not shine, then we wouldn't be able to enjoy the sun anyway, thus making the retractable roof quite useful and not inhibiting to a person who wants to enjoy a nice, sunny day of baseball.  That being said, your use of capital letters is very effective.    

Random Photoshop:

Joe Mauer gets a lot of attention for his sideburns.  What if he didn't have them?



Yeah, so maybe the sideburns work.

A Link to something stupid I wrote:

I transcribed my guttural reaction to Ben Revere's catch last week.  You can read it here

Random Paint Image:

Here is a picture I drew of Target Field, from these past few weeks.  I tweeted this out earlier, but no one follows me on Twitter, so here it is again:


A Link to something not stupid I wrote:

I wrote a screenplay a few weeks ago.  It is both not stupid and stupid.  I think it's satire.  I'm not really sure.  However, there are many puns.  I punned Justin Morneau, Vance Worley, Brandon Boggs, Trevor Plouffe and Anthony Slama.  No one is spared!  No one!  Here it is.

Parting Haiku

No Twins game today
The relentless winter weather is bearing down on us like an unstoppable force, berating us with constant barbs of snow and a biting wind that will chew all the way to our very soul
Soon it will be May

Perhaps that wasn't a Haiku.  If you prefer accurate poetry, you can sub this line where you see fit:  Winter weather will not leave.

I like my version better.