Was just thinking about the time when my friend Alan and I were little kids and he pretended to stab me with a toy knife. And my mom scolded him because his technique would hit the rib cage and she showed him the right location to pierce the heart.

I've sadly not yet had the privilege of visiting Japan, but I have to think that the Yakuza games dramatically overestimate how often you get into random brawls with themed sets of antagonists in Tokyo streets.

And what about the pitchers? Earlier today, @dszymborski.fangraphs.com revealed the ones who've gained and lost the most projected WAR since this time last year:

Which hitters have seen their ZiPS projections change the most over the past year? Yesterday, @dszymborski.fangraphs.com ran through the position player side of the 2026 Movers and Shakers:

why stop at doubles. there should be an event where they see how many guys you can stack before the sled falls over

Typical Yakuza 5 substory: You stumble upon a Santa Claus. He tells you there are Santa hunters out there. Kids swarm you demanding presents and you escape and run into the real Santa hunters. After beating up the Santa hunters, you give their weapons to the kids as their Christmas presents.

I really appreciate in Yakuza 5 how they set up this whole chapter in which you slowly put together a hunt for this Big Bad Bear and at the final moment, you settle the storyline by...getting into a fistfight with the bear.

Is it weird that after Verlander returning to the Tigers, I kinda want Scherzer to sign with the Diamondbacks to bring him full circle too?

Now, if loan places want to REALLY tempt me, don't pre-approve me for a car I don't need, offer me a pre-approved loan for a Bösendorfer piano that I've successfully denied myself out of practicality.

Yes, but, your warranty is about to expire.

You would think with all your data being sold to everyone, car loan places would figure out that a man with a paid off car with only 23,000 miles is really, really not the prime target for a new car loan.

I'm mildly disappointed that Blaze Alexander's parents named his brother Charles and not Freeze.

So much can go wrong, never forget:

I was today years old when I learned that if you get injured on a mountain, they can airlift you out dangling in midair, so I'm never going skiing again.

Sounded like whistles to me. Like from the crowd or something. It was nearly unwatchable with the sound up.

I do kinda wonder how many world class lugers are out there that go undiscovered because there are only like 100 people in world history who get the chance to see if they're good at luge.

On the luge, it's the high pitched whistling at the END when it's not a drone shot. The whooshing high pitched sound during the drone shots isn't as bad. But this one sounds like someone's just leaving the kettle on

Were the drone noises this bad during the last Summer Olympics? Because I can't imagine I wouldn't have complained about this.

Perhaps I'm losing my mind, but so many of these events seem to have background noises that are annoying as hell. The men's luge had this constant whistling sound while every drone shot of the womens' downhill had this horrible whining sound like a manatee being strangled by piano wire.

Every time I watch cross country skiing, I always wonder if they're thinking in their head somewhere "Why didn't I do the skiing where you only go downhill?"

"Two minutes, getting ass kicked!"

I always appreciated how in Blades of Steel for NES, there was no penalty for fighting, but there was a penalty for LOSING a fight.

A Google Street View glitch accidentally created the most kickass Honda CRV ever.

I finished the English localization of Trails Beyond the Horizon, and can report that it seems the translation team made a real effort to not directly describe the key historical figure Claude Epstein's research, which is very plot crucial, as "files."

I'm really happy to just have a normal winter forecast now.

It's hard to believe it's been nearly four years since CNN awkwardly interrupted live reporting of the invasion of Ukraine mid-sentence for the breaking news that you could get five boneless wings for $1 at Applebee's with the purchase of a burger.

Ever since the time I watched Luther with my mom, she's been casually using the phrase tickety-boo in conversation

A cat stole a half-pickle from me yesterday and ran off with it. I have not encountered the pickle since.

You know what's really awkward? Getting a very long, kind email for someone about what your work has meant to them, but realizing from a couple of the facts mentioned that they're actually confusing you with another nerdy stathead writer, and you're not actually the correct target of the praise.

Up on @fangraphs.com, I wrote about the Framber Valdez signing. blogs.fangraphs.com/framber-vald...

Sometimes I think my brain was simply defective at the factory, and some engineer instituted a backup system that kicks in after a half second as a kludge rather than fixing the underlying problems.

For about a half-second, my dumb brain seriously misread this headline and though Stark had to decide which of her kids she wanted to be rid of.

Actual people did things like trade Mickey Tettleton for Jeff Robinson. Imagine the laughter in social media if the A's traded Shea Langeliers this winter for Genesis Cabrera

Like, if we had 1995 GMs today, Adam Frazier and Miguel Andujar would have signed three or four year deals. Syd Thrift would have traded Samuel Basallo for Kyle Freeland or something.

I do have to admit that I kinda miss the days when baseball teams were run far less competently. We just don't get the constant flow of hilariously dumb moves that we used to. I'm not being facetious when I say the worst-run organizations today would be easily in the top ten 30 years ago.

I guess the silver lining on most things in the world being shitty is that there's way too much to be angry about before you get down to my and my small potatoes stuff. I really think this is the winter I've gotten the least expletive-filled direct messages sent to me in social media.

TFW you're live on the radio and while you're talking, a cat pushes a cup of buffalo sauce off the desk onto your lap and you spend the next four minutes feeling cold, pepper-based sauce where it should be not be

How many bad teams would need to Voltron up to defeat the Dodgers? Today's bit of nerdy mischief from me at @fangraphs.com blogs.fangraphs.com/lets-beat-th...

Hall of Fames can be really annoying. But I was a baseball fan long before anyone made the confusing decision to pay me for writing about baseball, and as a baeball fan, I really like there being something that is considered a high honor by players that they can get.

Oops yeah!

Just for fun, I reran the projections with Pittsburgh/A's each having A's offense and Pirates hitters and the united team averaged 89 wins, winning the AL West 26% of the time and the NL Central 31% of the time.

If you have a particular insight or story you want to tell about the increasing omnipresence of gambling (especially interested in how it’s affecting underage kids), get in touch. Email and signal in bio

There will be a significant bump for Eugenio Suarez in the FG updated projections sometime on Monday. He still had his SEA projections in the system, so the ZiPS WAR was automatically updated on the site to Cincy but still had his SEA projs. Profound park differences!

I want to use the handle Closed Timeline Slurves, but I haven't found a reason to yet.

*If* Arraez is going to work out, then using him at 2B and hoping he's -7 defensively instead of -15 there is probably the way to go. It'd *really* be nice if he weren't so good at making contact. He's unfortunately good at hitting the most garbagey pitches.

Sorry Accuweather, I'm not feeling TOO sympathetic.

Really it's more "anyone born from 1975 to 1979" probably. It's from the movie, The NeverEnding Story.