Realm of the Wombat

3) Unreproducible results
2) Broken Keck clip
1) Biologists editing chemistry papers

So for those of you who were asking, no, I didn’t get scooped, and I also didn’t have to raise at anyone. Except for myself, because I didn’t realize the Keck clip was broken.

Thank you to all for your concern with this matter.

5) Unreproducible results
4) Coworker uses up reagent, doesn’t reorder
3) Glassware missing; nobody admits to borrowing
2) Broken Keck clip
1) Getting scooped

Can anyone guess which two happened to me this week?

Joe Morgan is the analyst for ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball. ESPN must consider him an expert to give him this job. His responsibilities include following baseball games and news and providing intelligent commentary. He does none of these things. Consider the following exchange from last Tuesday’s chat on ESPN.com:

Lee (NYC): Joe, thanks for taking my question. I am a Yankee fan but I have always been a huge Willie Randolph fan. I feel that Willie Randolph has nothing to do with the mess the Mets are in. Shouldn’t Omar Minaya take most of the blame? He put this team together.

Joe Morgan: He has to take his share of the blame for putting the team together, but the manager usually takes the blame first. If Willie is fired, the focus will go to the GM. If he stays, the focus will stay on him. But it would be that way in other cities too. The Mariners are way under .500, for instance, but no one is criticizing the GM, they’re looking at the manager.

I’m guessing that the average fan in Kansas City or Houston doesn’t know who the manager and GM of the Mariners are. But Joe Morgan, the top baseball analyst for ESPN, should know. He should also know that the Mariners’ GM, Bill Bavasi, was fired the day before this chat took place while the manager was not.

This is a diagram of the typical route of the CTA #174 bus from the University of Chicago to the Garfield Red Line station:

This is a diagram of the route we took last night:

The driver was clearly lost. My coworker JJ asked the driver what was happening. The driver said he missed a turn and was going to get back on course. He added that he had been driving the route all day, insinuating that JJ should sit down and mind his own business. A few minutes later, we were heading back toward campus. JJ again asked where the driver was going. He replied that he was going back to the university. My coworker then explained that he had just picked us up on campus. The driver changed his story and said that he was new to the route. Finally, he let JJ give him directions to the Red Line, and we made it there just in time to watch the train head off toward downtown.

Since I’m sure CTA doesn’t care, I will likely send this story to the IOC.

tie-5) Any of the 50 people who were standing on the trail with no intention of moving
4) The female who was rollerblading very slowly across the entire width of the trail while talking on her cell phone
3) The guy riding toward me on the far right edge on a very crowded trail and made no attempt to avoid a crash with me
2 & 1) The two guys walking toward me who were kicking a soccer ball back and forth across the trail

As I recently learned from Mental Floss, “arachibutyrophobia” is a word. According to dictionary.com it is:

noun
a fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of one’s mouth

Is this really a condition? Even if it is, does it need a specific word to describe it? This is a general problem: most phobias don’t deserve to have a term defined for them. I understand having words for the fear of heights or fear of spiders. Those are natural, evolutionary survival responses. But do we need a word for the fear of flutes (aulophobia)? Or the fear of sitting down (kathisophobia)? Defining terms for these conditions removes their irrationality. Someone who is afraid of flutes does not need validation; the person needs help, or at least the shaming that comes from saying the words, “I am afraid of flutes.”

Check out this list of phobias for hundreds of other words we don’t need. Except for scabiophobia. Let’s keep that one.

Earlier this week, I was riding the Brown Line downtown, when I noticed a cell phone laying on a seat across the train from me. We had just departed from Washington and Wells, which is the first stop in the loop, so there had just been an exodus of passengers. Just to be sure that the phone’s owner wasn’t still on the train, I waited a few more minutes before picking it up. When I got off the train at Library, I took the phone to the station’s CTA representative. Here’s an approximation of that conversation:

Me: Excuse me. I just found this phone on the train somebody must have dropped it.
CTA: Ok.
Me: Is there any kind of lost and found?
CTA: You can leave it with me, but they won’t know to look here.
Me: So what should I do with it?
CTA: [Inaudible, then walks away]
Me: Ok, thanks.

With that sound advice, I took the phone to work with me. I was planning to call someone from the address book, but it was pretty early in the morning, so instead I looked for a customer service number. After playing around with the device for a few minutes, I had AT&T customer service on the line. Here’s how that conversation went:

AT&T: Thanks for calling AT&T. What’s the phone number on the account that you’re calling about?
Me: Actually, I don’t know. I found this phone on the train this morning, and I’m trying to get it back to the owner.
AT&T: Oh! Well thanks for that! I’ll look up their home number and leave a message with them. Can you give me your name and number for them to contact you?
I give her the number and she puts me on hold for a minute.
AT&T: I left a message on her answering machine with your name and number. If you want, you can also drop the phone off in any AT&T store, and they will track the owner down and return the phone.
Me: If I don’t hear anything by tomorrow, that’s what I’ll do. Thanks!
AT&T: No, thank you for your help!

To make a longer story short, the phone was reunited with its owner the next morning, and there was much rejoicing. But not about CTA. I know it’s not their main obligation to deal with lost items, but this type of thing must happen every day. I know that if CTA helped me get my phone back, I’d tell everyone around that they’re doing a great job over there. Instead I’m telling you that CTA has no opinion on the matter. AT&T, on the other hand, could have told me to throw the thing away, and then they’d force this person to buy a new phone. Instead, they were very courteous to me, a person who is not even a customer of theirs, and they have mechanisms for customer satisfaction.

Let it be known that under no circumstances short of Notre Dame advancing to the final four, or beyond, should college basketball ever be brought up in conversation with me while the Mets are playing baseball.

Penalties range from a vitriolic glare for a first offense to stabbing with readily available broken glassware for flagrant offenders.

Oh, it should have been a beautiful start to the baseball season. I woke up just as the Athletics were giving back an early 2-0 lead over the Red Sox in Tokyo.

No matter, as the A’s came right back in the bottom of the 6th, with Bobby Crosby bouncing a single up the middle. Jack Hannahan, filling in for injured Eric Chavez, followed with a two-run home run into the right field seats, putting the A’s on top 4-3.

Keith Foulke, back with the A’s after a stint with Boston and then a season on the shelf with injuries, pitched a very nice 8th inning, setting down Kevin Youkilis, David Ortiz, and Manny Ramirez. This should have set Huston Street up for a manageable with the bottom of the Sox order coming up in the ninth. I figured I could shower and get on the train by 8:15.

Unfortunately, Brandon Moss, who wasn’t even supposed to be playing today, dashed those plans with a homer of his own, tying the game at 4-4. Street continued his melt down in the 10th, giving up two more runs, which should have been more than enough for the Red Sox to close out the A’s and their paltry offense.

But nay! In the bottom of the 10th, Daric Barton, after falling behind Sox closer Jonathan Papelbon 1-2, worked a walk. Jack Cust struck out, but then Emil Brown sent a line drive to the wall in right center. While Barton raced around from first and headed toward the plate, Brown was rounding first and coming into second. If the throw from the outfield went through to the plate, Brown could have considered trying for third. But he had to be sure that the throw was going to the plate. Instead, Brown assumed that the throw was to home and barely slowed rounding second. Kevin Youkilis cut the throw, and Brown was stranded between second and third, eventually tagged out in a run down.

“I want to throw up,” was Mel’s reaction. I was livid. Instead of having a runner on second, representing the tying run, with one out, the A’s had nobody on base with two down. It would have been a poor play by a little leaguer or chemistry softballer, but for a major leaguer to run into an out like that is unacceptable. Oakland preaches a philosophy throughout the organization of not giving up outs. I can only imagine the tantrum that Billy Beane had seeing that play. Of course, Bobby Crosby and Jack Hannahan followed this horrible baserunning by knocking a pair of singles, at least suggesting that the A’s could have tied the game if Brown would have held at second base. Kurt Suzuki grounded out to first, ending the new threat and the game.

I shouldn’t put too much emphasis on any single play, but after watching his baserunning and looking over his stats, I have a feeling Emil Brown is the new Terrence Long.

Be sure to check this site tomorrow for a post which either rejoices in the return of Rich Harden to the A’s starting rotation or laments his latest injury.

This is the low budget CTA holiday train:

The Chicago Transit Authority gets into the holiday spirit by running a special train decked out with fancy decorations, lights, and Santa Claus. I’ve never ridden it, but I did see it when it was pulling into the station at Garfield the other day. There was a family with two young kids that were very excited about it, and Santa called them over to say hi. Apparently the conversation went on too long, because when the family left Santa and tried to get on the train, it pulled away without letting them on. I guess the holiday spirit only goes so far.

I won this bag from Google in a raffle. I’m not sure how this affects my predictions about my pace of winning things (video games do not count), but it probably means nothing good will ever happen to me ever again.