Frink'ed up

This year's Halloween costume: Professor Frink.

Yes, I did cut my hair  really short on the sides and back of my head.

My wife put this together. It lights up.

Here's the inspiration for the prop.

World Series Wardrobe

As noted in this post I have adopted the Tigers as a team I root for, so for the recent World Series I had a clear preference. And to do my part, I tried to spur the team to victory in the following way.

Game 1: I wore a Tigers shirt. They lost.
Game 2: I didn't wear any Detroit gear. They lost.
Game 3: I wore a Halloween costume (as we were going to a party anyway). They lost.
Game 4: I wore a blue shirt in the Tigers color scheme but with no specific reference to the team. They lost.

I am coming to the alarming conclusion that my wardrobe had no effect on outcome of sporting events, particularly ones in which I am not participating or even attending.

This is most disturbing.

Propped in the mail

It's good that the proponents and opponents of the various ballot measures keep sending more stuff in the mail each day; I might have forgotten what the thing they sent yesterday said.

The coming World Series

Earlier this evening the Tigers finished off the Yankees in the ALCS, sweeping them in four straight. Over in the NL, the Cardinals lead the Giants in their series, and with a 3-1 advantage I doubt anyone would be too surprised if St. Louis advances there. The thing about all that which strikes me as interesting: Of all the teams that qualified for the baseball postseason this year, the Tigers and the Cardinals had the worst regular season records, each winning only 88 games while every other playoff team won at least 93.

Detroit qualified not by having one of the five best AL records but by being better than the rest of the AL Central; both of the wildcards as well as two teams that didn't even make the playoffs (the Rays and Angels) had more wins than the Tigers, but those teams all had the misfortune to be located closer to either coast instead of being more geographically in the middle of the country. Going by record alone, disregarding divisions, the Tigers weren't particularly close to the top five in the AL, but nonetheless they will be the league's representative in the World Series.

Debating the debate... in theory

I didn't watch the presidential debate last Wednesday night. I think watching the debates is akin to watching the Oscars; for those who are rooting for one to win they have a vested interest, but for the rest it's a long, mostly boring event where it's mostly worthwhile to have seen only to get the jokes people make on Twitter. The debates lack attractive celebrities in designer wardrobe, so it lacks that angle of appeal, even if one is indifferent about the outcome.

I already know who will get my vote next month, so it's not as though I need any convincing (and it's not like there's any question about which ticket will take the electoral college for the state where I live, even if I was undecided, but let's not digress to that), and I'm emotionally distanced from politics such that I don't need to see in its entirety how well or how poorly that person does; the reality is these days there's plenty of sources for getting the highlights and the gist in capsule form after the fact, without devoting 90 minutes to it.

Hold on. Why do I need to justify not watching the debate? People who did watch it should have to justify that.