Friday Open Thread - Year of the Dragon Edition

1. Something simple and fried like sesame chicken.
2. Start off by ear-marking about $6MM for international signings. Pay about $1-2MM to a guy like Theriot as a utility IF. Try to lure Kuroda to KC for $9-10MM, if not him, then Oswalt or someone similar. Spend the remaining $3MM on minor league deals for another IF (like Kouzmanoff) another SP (like Francis) and another relief pitcher (like Lidge).
3. I dunno much about pop-culture…maybe, Lady Gaga.
4. To not try and become a professional golfer after college.

1. Char Siu

2. Need clarification…Glass is only willing to spend 20M this winter, or can the deals be long term?

3. Ryan Gosling, Dirk Nowitzki, Hermain Cain or Rick Perry.

4. Time to lean, time to clean.

1. I don’t know that I’ve ever really had authentic Chinese food, but my favorite Americanized-Chinese food is probably General Chang’s Chicken.

2. I put in an offer for Oswalt, probably one year with a player option for 2013 if he meets some playing time minimums. The rest of the $20M goes towards a Gordon extension, plus I sign whoever of Renteria, Cedeno, Izturis, or Theriot will agree to the cheapest deal. Maybe Francis, too, since he was apparently willing to take a minor league deal. Chen and Yuni would not have happened. Any leftovers go to international FA’s, a case of Sailor Jerry rum for my personal office bar, and a foosball table for the employee lounge.

3. I guess I don’t really get this award. What is entertaining will be very different to a lot of different people. Maybe it’s really the “Most Successful Entertainer” award? I think the most successful and most broadly appealing entertainer for 2011 has to be Tim Scott. Everyone else is just fighting for 2nd place. And if you’re not first, you’re last.

4. Can’t go wrong with the sage advice of Coach Finstock:

There are three rules that I live by: never get less than twelve hours sleep; never play cards with a guy who has the same first name as a city; and never get involved with a woman with a tattoo of a dagger on her body. Now you stick to that, and everything else is cream cheese.

1. What is your favorite Chinese dish?
I don’t eat true chinese food that much any more. It seems like I’m at either Thai places or more ‘asian fusion’ type restaurants more frequently. I’ll say the black bean sauce stir fry at blue koi. It’s tremendous.

2. Rewind yourself to the beginning of the off-season. I’m David Glass and I tell you I authorize you to spend $20 million this winter. What moves do you make?
I can only spend the money this winter? There’s not much out there I’d want. Use it to frontload an alex gordon extension with a signing bonus? I guess I’d sign Oswalt to a one year deal with the intention of flipping him at the deadline if we aren’t competitive. I’d really rather save the money for the future.

3. Entertainment Weekly says Daniel Radcliffe was Entertainer of the Year for 2011 which is pure bollocks. Who should it have been?
Probably Ryan Gosling. He had multiple good movies, and he also seemed to have his status/presence in hollywood escalate. I do have a bit of a man-crush though. Were both HP7 movies released in 2011? He did have that broadway musical too…so it’s not THAT horrible of a choice I guess.

4. What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever gotten?
Pick your battles.

1. I love a good Peking Duck. I also have a fondness for good ol’ General Tso’s.

2. I probably would have splurged on E-Jax, something around 4/48 if that’s possible. Maybe gotten a Ronny Cedeno for backup IF, then spent some money on Cuban FA like Cespedes and/or Gerardo Concepcion.

3. Seemed like a big year for Ryan Gosling. George Clooney maybe? Hugh Jackman seems big right now too.

4. Don’t ever let your kids sleep in bed with you.

1. Mongolian barbecue. Is that a dish? Maybe not, but that style of Chinese cuisine is phenomenal. Genghis Khan downtown. I highly recommend it.

2.
A. See if Oswalt will sign a one-year deal for $10-12m with a club option/buyout for 2013. Hope is to flip him by the deadline.
B. Sign Cedeno or Renteria or Theriot or Izturis to back up the infield.
C. Beef up the statistics and analysis department.
D. Bank what’s left for Intl. FAs/draft.
There’s probably more or different things I would do if I put more time into this. But alas, I didn’t.

3. Louis CK. Hands down.

4. “Life is like a box of chocolates: some of it’s good, some of it’s great, and sometimes it’s all cherry truffles and coconut bars. Deal with it.”

I have some nice pics a friend took of our family with a really nice camera. I would like to turn it into a nice big photograph we can hang in our living room and surprise my wife with it. How on earth do I turn digital pics into nice things I can hang on the wall?

1. San Zhi Er

2. Yunistension

3. I can’t speak for anyone else, but for me, it was definitely Tom Cruise.

4. Don’t worry about what people think. (my dad)

1. Szechuan Tea Smoked Duck
2. Yuni, Broxton, Minares, KOOZ
3. Jay Leno, like every year. Ever see the bit where he asks people questions but they are fucking stupid? My knee aches everytime that bit comes on, in anticipation of the severe and hearty slapping it knows is about to commence.
4. I recall being snarky with some co-workers about how unproductive a meeting we had just endured had been…..an older feller, much like Moustakas does for some of the less disciplined Royals, very tactfully and in a non-dickish way pointed out that anyone could be an asshole about a meeting being useless, the point was to grab what was useful, or figure out how to make it more productive next time around. Not earth shattering shit, but a nice twist on anyone can bitch, do something about it.

Owen Wilson’s double dragon has me in a trance

1. What is your favorite Chinese dish?

This depends a lot on the restaurant. The first dish that I grew enamored with and that got me into Chinese food on the whole was the Chicken Lo Mein at the Village Wok in Stadium Village in Minneapolis. Some restaurants do Lo Mein poorly though. I would say that more often than not, I either go with Moo Goo Gai Pan, General Tso’s Chicken, or Chicken Lo Mein, but I honestly look at the ingredients and make my decisions based on what I’m in the mood for.

2. Rewind yourself to the beginning of the off-season. I’m David Glass and I tell you I authorize you to spend $20 million this winter. What moves do you make?

On Fanfest. I certainly don’t sign Chen. I would forget about Yuni. I’d sign Oswalt to a 1/$10MM deal (with a mutual option of course) because it wouldn’t hurt anything and would make it look like I cared to the simpler fans while it wouldn’t really affect much difference. I’d sign Francis to a minor-league deal. I’d sign Cesar Izturis to a minor-league deal with the idea that he’d be the utility infielder assuming health. I’d sign Brad Lidge to the deal he just got hoping for a rebound.

3. Entertainment Weekly says Daniel Radcliffe was Entertainer of the Year for 2011 which is pure bollocks. Who should it have been?

Top 5 (in order):
1. Ryan Gosling
2. Jessica Chastain
3. Ryan Gosling’s abs
4. George Clooney
5. Ryan Gosling’s eyes

4. What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever gotten?

“Go fuck yourself.”

1. I despise anything deep fried and coated in sugary syrup. So no General’s for me. I usually just go with something stir fried over vegetables. The pepper chicken stir fry at Saigon 39 near KU Med is very good (though it’s technically not a Chinese restaurant).

2. Gordon extension, Ryan Theriot, Erik Bedard, Chris Capuano, Gerald Laird.

3. Adele

4. Intensity. Give 100%. 110% is impossible, only idiots recommend that.

- Marbotty

and there was a fairly large contingent of fans in one section, wearing what looked almost like robes. While they were clearly cheering on the home Timberwolves, they seemed to struggle with the concept of chanting “de-fense”, twice chanting it when Minnesota had the ball.

1) Crispy Orange Duck at Princess Garden on Wornall

2) Is this $20 million in acquiring NEW players, or does it include things like signing Alex? Assuming that it only includes new players: Sign a utility guy that has decent defense at all 3 positions, like Jamey Carrol or Nick Punto. Sign Edwin Jackson. Take a short term flyer on Javier Vazquez or at least talk to Roy Oswalt.

3) The aforementioned Ryan Gosling is a good choice. I would go for Emma Stone (I do enjoy a redhead)

4)When You have two choices, and don’t know which path to take, make one heads and one tails and flip a coin high in the air. By the time it comes down, your subconscious will let you know which one you wanted it to land on.

1. What is your favorite Chinese dish?

La Choy Chow Mein, either chicken or beef.

2. Rewind yourself to the beginning of the off-season. I’m David Glass and I tell you I authorize you to spend $20 million this winter. What moves do you make?

Gordon contract extension, bank the rest.

3. Entertainment Weekly says Daniel Radcliffe was Entertainer of the Year for 2011 which is pure bollocks. Who should it have been?

Lady Gaga. I don’t like to listen to her, but she’s a hell of an entertainer and relentless self-promoter. She does what she does well.

4. What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever gotten?

Eat your vegetables.

1. I loooooooooove Chinese food. The local place has jumbo crab rangoons that are great. I will have to say Hot n Sour soup becuz I get it every time.

2. What Gopherballs said times infinity.

3. Louis C. K.

4. I get most of my advice from psychological studies. Recently I have relearned how to study using the S3qr method and learning bits and pieces over time for max retention (lots of breaks). The basic advice is to play to what is humanly possible and not take advice that lies outside the realm of good judgment. Got a 4.0 last semester with very liitle pretest studying becuz I had learned along the way.