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Monthly Archives: February 2018

Announcing the 2018 MillersTime Baseball Contests

28 Wednesday Feb 2018

Posted by Richard in Go Sox

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

2018 Baseball Contests, 2018 MillersTime Baseball Contests, baseball, MillersTime Baseball Contests, MLB

Yes.

And none too soon.

Which means it’s time for:

2018 MillersTime Baseball Contests

Contest #1:

Pick your favorite MLB team (or the team you know the best) and answer the following questions to prove whether you’re just a homer (“Someone who shows blind loyalty to a team or organization, typically ignoring any shortcomings or faults they have”) or whether you really know something about your team and can honestly evaluate its strengths and weaknesses. Please answer all three parts of the question.

  1. What will your team’s regular season 162 game record be in 2018?
  2. Will they make the playoffs, and if so, how far will they go?
  3. What will be the most important SINGLE factor (hitting, starting pitching, bullpen, an individual’s performance, the manager, injuries, etc.) in determining their season?

Prize: Two tickets to a regular season game with your favorite team (details to be negotiated with moi.)

Contest #2:

Which League will win the All Star Game in 2018?

Tie-Breakers: Name the first MLB player to hit 30 HRs and the first MLB pitcher to win 12 games.

Prize: Join me after the All Star break to see a Nats’ game in wonderful seats. If you don’t live in this area or can’t get here, we can work out seats to a game somewhere that you can attend.

Contest #3: True or False:

A. The new MLB rules (shorter commercial breaks and limit of six non pitching visits to the mound by manager, coach or other players) will NOT result in reducing the average game time to under three hours. (Average time in 2017 was 3:05.)

B. The New York Yankees WILL win the AL East in 2018.

C. The Washington Nationals WILL NOT win the NL East in 2018.

D. There will be no 20 game winning pitchers in either league in 2018. (There were none in 2017 and three in 2016.)

E. At least one pitcher in the regular 2018 MLB season will have an ERA under 2.0. (There were none in 2017 or 2016. One did it in 2015 and two in 2014.)

F. Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Judge together will hit at least 115 regular season HRs in 2018. (In 2017 they ‘combined’ for 111.)

G. At least one MLB batter will strike out 220 times or more in 2018 regular season play. (Aaron Judge struck out 208 times in 2017, and Chris Davis struck out 217 times in 2016.)

H. There will be at least 8 Triple Plays in the MLB this year. (Over the last 10 years the average has been 4.1 per year, and in each of the last two years there were 7 each year.)

I. At least three teams will win 100 games or more in 2018. (Three teams did so in 2017: Astros – 101, Indians – 102, Dodgers – 104).

J. One of Grand Papa’s (c’est moi) grandchildren will witness in person (at an MLB game) a grand slam, a triple play, a no hitter, an extra inning game, or Teddy win the President’s race at the Nats’ stadium.

Prize: Your choice of one of these books: The 20 Best Books Ever Written About Baseball.

Contest #4 :

Who will be the two teams in the World Series in 2018 and which team will win it all?

Tie-Breaker: Name the five teams in each league who will make the playoffs.

Prize: One ticket to the 2018 World Series.

Additional Details:

  1. All winners get the ‘one-of-a-kind,’ specially designed and updated MillersTime Baseball Winner T-Shirt in addition to the prizes outlined above.
  2. Enter as many or as few of the contests as you want.
  3. Be sure to answer all parts of each contest you do enter.
  4. If you get a friend (or a foe) to participate in these contests, and he/she wins and has mentioned your name in their submission, you will get a prize also.
  5. First time entrants who are runners up in any contest will get THE T-shirt.
  6. Any two-generation submissions (mother/daughter, grandfather/grandson, etc.) who are runners up will also get THE T-Shirt.
  7. Get your predictions in soon. In case of ties in any contest, the individual who submitted his/her prediction(s) first will be the winner.
  8. Submissions should be sent to me in an email – samesty84@gmail.com

Deadline for Submissions: Opening Day: March 29, 2:40 PM, EST

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“The White Darkness: A Journey Across Antarctica”

08 Thursday Feb 2018

Posted by Richard in Articles & Books of Interest

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

"Endurance: Shackelton's Incredible Voyage", "Killers of the Flower Moon", "The Devil and Sherlock Holmes", "The Lost City of Z", "The Worst Journey in the World", Alfred Lansing, Amundsen, Apsley Cherry-Garrard, David Grann, Scott, Shackelton, The New Yorker

If you’re a fan of David Grann (writer for The New Yorker and author of Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and Birth of the FBI; The Lost City of Z; and The Devil and Sherlock Holmes, among other writings by this journalist), go out and buy the current Anniversary Issue of The New Yorker (Feb 12 & 19, 2018, which is on the newsstands now).

Or, go to this link: The White Darkness: Alone in Antarctica, by David Grann, The New Yorker.

                                                  Photograph courtesy Shackleton Foundation

I don’t want to tell you too much about it other than it’s a long article about Henry Wosely, someone you may never have heard about (unless you follow current day explorers).

Think Shackelton, Scott, and Amundsen. And while Grann’s article doesn’t match Apsley Cherry-Garrard’s superb The Worst Journey in the World or Alfred Lansing’s wonderful Endurance: Shackelton’s Incredible Voyage, you won’t be sorry you spent the time on Grann’s article.

 

 

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New Zealand: Thru Ellen’s Lens

07 Wednesday Feb 2018

Posted by Richard in Escapes and Pleasures

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Abel Tasman National Park, Auckland Harbor, Blanket Bay, Cathedral Cove, Champagne Pool, Coromandel Peninsula, Dart River, Glenorchy, Jet Boat, Kahurangi National Park, NZ, Paridise, Rotorua, The Farewell Split, The Mangawhai Heads, Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Park, Wharajki Beach

Here are a dozen of Ellen’s photos from our recent trip to New Zealand.

If you want to see more, there’s a slide show too, which I highly recommend as they far surpass this presentation. See below for details.

Auckland Harbor

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January in New Zealand

07 Wednesday Feb 2018

Posted by Richard in Escapes and Pleasures

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Abel Tasman National Park, amats, Auckland, Bay of Islands, Blanket Bay, Boatshed Cafe, Cathedral Cove, Champagne Pool, Christchurch, Coromandel Peninsula, Dunedin, Farewll Split, Huka Lodge, Kahurangi National Park, Lake Taupo, Lenarch Castle, Nelson, New Zealand, Picton, Queenstown, Te Papa Tongarewa, Wai-0-Tapu, Walkato River, Wellington, Wharariki Beach, Whitebait Restaurant

In the last couple of years Ellen and I have taken to the idea of traveling to warm places in the months of January and February, largely to escape cold winter months and more recently to begin the new year away from the events that are hard to escape in the nation’s capital.

This year that took the form of a 17-day trip to New Zealand, a place that had long been on our list visit but had never been practical because of the time needed to explore such a far away place. It had long been recommended by a number of friends and our daughter Annie.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We roughly divided our time between the North and South Island, combining driving and flying. Before you to turn New Zealand: Thru Ellen’s Lens, here’s a brief overview of the trip (with some of my own iPhone photos), starting and ending in Auckland.

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Three New Films. One Is A Must See.

05 Monday Feb 2018

Posted by Richard in Escapes and Pleasures

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

" Daniel Day-Lewis, "A Fantastic Woman", "Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool", "Lady Macbeth", "Phantom Thread", "The Shape of Water", Academy Award Nominations, Best Foreign Film, Best Movies, Daniela Vega, DC Cinema Club, Doug Jones, Films, Franciso Reyes, Guillermo del Toro, Michael Shannon, Movies, Octavia Spence, Sally Hawkins, Vicky Krieps

Film reviews by Ellen Miller.

The Shape of Water – Ellen ***** (Richard Didn’t See it)

Wonderful. Engrossing. Clever. Satisfying.

Take a deep sigh, hold your breath, and submerge yourself into a theater playing this film. Just sink into the world created by the Mexican director Guillermo del Toro. This fantasy — which I had been putting off seeing because those sorts of movies are just not my thing — is thoroughly moving and enjoyable. It’s also very creative and clever with superb acting. It well-deserves its Best Picture (and 12 other Oscar nominations) for which it is nominated.

When summarized, the story seems odd and off-putting, but as it unfolds on the screen, it’s not: a young, mute lonely woman, Elisa (Sally Hawkins), is a building cleaner at a super secretive government laboratory when she discovers a captive Amazonian human-like sea creature that is being held for unknown, but presumably experimental purposes. She extends herself to it, and it responds to her. The time is 1962 and the Russians want to steal it from the US who has it locked in a top secret laboratory. She needs to save the creature from both of them. She has two friends who will help. One small warning: there are a few gruesome scenes, but they only add to the surrealism of the film. Don’t be turned off by the plot.

The film is filled with fascinating characters and wonderful acting, from Hawkins herself to Octavia Spence, Doug Jones, and Michael Shannon. The staging is so richly detailed you want to disappear into it. My advice is just to given into it and cheer for our heroine. Let the film wash over you. You won’t regret it.

(Sorry about the play on words but I couldn’t resist…)

A Fantastic Woman – Ellen **** Richard ****

What I love about the DC Cinema Club is that we see films we might not otherwise left to our own choosing. That’s definitely the case with A Fantastic Woman. What you see is not what you get in this film.

It is a very sympathetic and sometimes heart-wrenching portrayal of a trans woman and the struggles she faces to become the woman she is as well as how she moves forward after losing her lover. There are wonderful cinematic moments to illustrate her struggles and terrific acting throughout. Daniela Vega (Marina) has been nominated for an academy award for her performance and the film has been nominated in the Best Foreign Film Category.

Marina is a singer and a waitress in a coffee shop and she is in a relationship with Orlando (Francisco Reyes), a man two decades her senior. One evening he falls ill and dies and the drama begins, unfolding slowly with considerable melodrama. His family forbids her from attending his funeral. But she insists on paying tribute to her lover.

The film is a tender love story and a story about the struggle to be true to who you are. It is a tense, well-filmed and emotional drama. It’s worth a see.

Phantom Thread – Ellen **** Richard ****

Another non-mainstream film and even though nominated for a Best Picture Award, I recommend it somewhat cautiously.

But….

If you like/love looking at Daniel Day Lewis (count me in) it’s a must-see. If you like a story where two unlikable characters clash and the woman “wins” (my view), then this is the picture for you. If you love a film where the actions of the women characters are more manipulative than those of the men, go see this movie. (In this latter style, it reminded me of the 2017 film Lady Macbeth. See my review of that film).

But not a lot happens in this taut psychological drama. Lewis plays a perfection-obsessed famous London-based courtier — Reynolds Woodcock — in the 1950’s. His latest muse is Alma (well-played by Vicky Krieps), a former waitress in a country inn where he had dinner one evening. He dresses her gloriously (though the costuming was less inspiring than I expected). They marry, and his self-centered life is disrupted. When he appears to begin to tire of her, she sets about to prove just how much he needs her.

The film is lit throughout in undertones of beige, rose, and violet, which is very appealing and adds to the overall somber tone of the film and to the relationship between the two protagonists.

Although this film received six various Academy Award Nominations, I’d see this film for Daniel Day Lewis’ performance alone.

**          **          **          **          **          **          **

Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool was rated Excellent or Good by 90+ per cent of our Sunday Cinema Club. We both saw it, but didn’t have time to review it. We both would have rated it four stars.

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