The Poscast’s 32nd Annual Holiday Draft

The podcast episode I look forward to the most every year that somehow always meets or exceeds those high expectations. This year they are drafting “Holiday Cheer”. I think you can listen if you aren’t a regular listener and definitely don’t have to be a baseball fan.

StarTalk – The Reason We Have 7 Days in a Week

Seems like this information should be pretty widely known and I’m sure I’ve heard most of it before but this is so excellent. The amount of interesting information packed into this video is incredible.

Howard Stern – Can Oz “The Mentalist” Pearlman Guess Howard’s Secret Word?

Stern clips can be difficult because they take things that take up to an hour on the show and edit them down to a few minutes. In this case I think they captured almost all of it. I still don’t know how I feel about mentalists as entertainment. It makes me just uncomfortable enough that I can enjoy for a bit but don’t think I’d make it through a live show.

10 wildest Jomboy lip readings of 2024, a breakdown

Jomboy has done a few end of year recaps but his lip readings are his specialty. This one not only has a great Phillies clip but the Flyers make a rare non-baseball appearance on the list. The embed didn’t work due to “language”, so click on through.

Pennies and Checks

Two stories that I found on Numlock News that have enough in common to stick together.

America Must Free Itself from the Tyranny of the Penny (September 3 Numlock News)
The idea of getting rid of the penny pops up in these types stories every once in a while. Thankfully this one has fun facts!

• Most minted pennies are made to eventually be change, then we get the pennies as change and never use them.
• There are 240 billion pennies somewhere, who knows where. Each person on average has $7.23 in pennies.
• If people actually used these pennies it would be a nightmare, that’s too many pennies for banks or the government to manage.
• $100 in pennies weights 55lbs.
• Pennies are minted in Philadelphia and Denver.
• In the 1970s, pennies were mostly copper. GE started putting holes in them and using them as washers in appliances since they were cheaper than buying washers. The Secret Service had to shut that down.

It’s never been more confusing to pay for something (September 12 Numlock News)
Not sure about the title here as I haven’t had an issue figuring out how to pay for something, but it certainly is an issue for places going cashless or no longer accepting checks. There is a lot in the story about how people tend to pay for things. You guessed it, they have some facts!

• In 2000, Americans averaged writing 60 checks per year, now it’s 9. -I guess that seems like a lot but do the checks my bank prints and mails for me count as checks I wrote?
• In October 2023 the average was 1.23 checks and 7.3 cash transactions for the month. -The math doesn’t quite add up for the year in the last fact, but close enough.
• 40% of people carry cash.

Watchin’ Guts

Jomboy isn’t just baseball videos. This is my new favorite series (it started last year but I started this summer). They just watch GUTS, drafting their player for the episode and rooting for them. There are all sorts of scoring rules to make it a competition throughout the season. Below is probably the first episode, I started with season 5 and season 7 just started. I always watched GUTS as a kid but the added commentary from the guys along with their bad luck and getting upset with these kids takes it to another level.

Link to the playlist with all the episodes.

Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? TV Show

Everyone watched this show, right? It was on PBS so even the didn’t have cable kids should have been onboard. I was also obsessed with the computer game and all its variations. This video covers the story of the game show but starts from the original games.

I had this one saved for a bit and then this week a new game was announced. This time you play as Carmen Sandiego. It looks like it is based on the newer Netflix show. The trailer shows that you are following clues and puzzles to catch thieves but Carmen is the world’s greatest thief. Is she capturing other thieves to stay on top. I’m a little confused by the plot here.

I couldn’t pick my tile between the two classic TV theme songs I was working from.

A Whole New Sound is a new Disney album of all pop-punk covers. Yes, please. I’ve listened to most of it now and New Found Glory is a standout, no surprise as they are cover experts. I’m not sure how many will actually stick in my library but still lots of fun.

A Whole New Sound Tracklist
1.     “Part of Your World” from The Little Mermaid by New Found Glory
2.     “Remember Me” from Coco by Mayday Parade
3.     “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” from The Lion King by Simple Plan
4.     “I2I” from A Goofy Movie by Magnolia Park
5.     “A Whole New World” from Aladdin by Yellowcard
6.     “Go the Distance” from Hercules by We The Kings
7.     “Surface Pressure” from Encanto by Plain White T’s
8.     “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” from Toy Story by Meet Me @ The Altar
9.     “You’ll Be in My Heart” from Tarzan by Boys Like Girls
10.    “Colors of the Wind” from Pocahontas by Tokio Hotel
11.    “Let It Go” from Frozen by LØLØ 
12.    “Friend Like Me” from Aladdin by Bowling For Soup

More Disney? Sure. I’ve had this one to share for a while. The shows how Disney was able to do special background effects, without green screens or CGI, in movies like Mary Poppins. And then just … stopped.

My most used page this week? Playoff Magic as the Phillies’ Magic Number continues on down to zero.

More sports …

Bigger sports merger? XFL and USFL or PPA Tour and Major League Pickleball

The PGA has a new logo and no one looked at it and thought it looked off?

A pitching matchup for the ages was replaced by a pitching matchup for the ages. This was in 2008.

I guess since football season started there is a lot of football this week. Don’t worry, I didn’t watch any games.

I remember watching Penn State games and telling the guys that some of the running backs were able to get through the line better because they’re had a smaller number. Turns out, I was right.

Someone did a Substack post (Oh look, Substack does embeds to other Substacks) about the history of lines on football fields. The checkerboard is ridiculous, how much chalk did they use on those lines? Did they play giant game of checkers after the game?

When is Dinner, by State Why is Pennsylvania so early? When do you usually have dinner? I am pretty early in the 5-5:30 range most nights.

NY Times Connections My whole family has been hooked on this. I don’t do Wordle, only MLB Pickle with Ahad.

Now a few Instagram shares for the week …