Michael Baumann

Dr. No, and Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls

No it took 40 years but they literally scooped up all the bird shit

Well, kind of a grayish brown gold

All this comes from "Energy" by Richard Rhodes. Rhodes concludes that Peruvian guano turned horse manure from a profitable byproduct of the major mode of transit to a nuisance that had to be removed from cities at great expense. This laid the groundwork for the development of the electric streetcar

Less fun fact: It's likely that the blight that caused the Irish potato famine came to Europe on a ship carrying guano from Peru

Observers estimated that the deposits were a couple dozen feet thick at most, but in 1853 someone drilled down through the guano and, even after 10 years of cultivation, got 147 feet deep before he hit the actual ground.

From about 1840 to 1883 a few small islands off the coast of Peru became a major global exporter of fertilizer. They were uninhabited by humans but crowded with seabirds, who over time coated the islands with millions of tons of guano.

4,444 words on this race scheduled for 9 a.m. tomorrow at Wheelysports. Most of it not about butts

i was gonna defend this guy for the hell of it until I saw the actual wig

Here's what I wrote: "Of course it's the fuckin Italians"

I'll pass that along, I'm sure she'll be interested to hear other people shit on Chomsky

Riders go back to their team cars all the time for food/water/medical treatment/bike repairs, and while there are rules about getting a boost everyone takes liberties. The mechanic is allowed to steady her bike while he fixes it, but this level of grab-ass is...unusual

He kept his hand there for, like, a full minute.

still from the 2016 women's Olympic road race, as an Italian mechanic has his hand on Tatiana Guderzo's ass while fixing her bike

watching an old bike race

she's pretty rad

Anyway the past few days have been eventful around here, in light of certain revelations.

I told her just now I couldn't remember exactly what his theory was. She said: "It's pretty simple, let me tell you," and immediately started SHOUTING at me for three minutes and saying "bullshit" a lot. In 12 years of marriage she's never been as angry at me as she is at Noam Chomsky all the time

But because it's Chomsky, it stuck in places where he was influential and they've spent the past 50 years doing the academic equivalent of cleaning up an oil spill.

I've mentioned before that my wife is a linguist. She's got a decades-long vendetta against Noam Chomsky because, whatever else he's said about politics and communications theory, a while back he apparently made a bunch of shit up about linguistics that's been completely disproved

the next tier up from free was like $10 or $15 a year I think. I wouldn't have paid much more but for as much as I dick around on the app it's worth it

Found a new benefit of shelling out for the premium Flightradar24 app. Instead of being annoyed by low-altitude helicopter overflights of my house in general, I've developed a grudge against one specific helicopter that goes back and forth between Philadelphia and New York at 1,700 feet

Bryan De La Cruz Suffers From a Lack of Contact(s) What do the Braves want with one of the worst everyday players in the league?

re-upping my Bryan De La Cruz Needs Glasses take since the Phillies just signed him

If you can get him basically for free and pay him ~$6 million to be the backup at six positions and occasionally start against lefties, that's a pretty tidy piece of business imo

Braves Re-Sign Iglesias, Upgrade at Utility Infielder Congratulations to the Braves on getting meaningfully better, and congratulations to Astros owner Jim Crane on not having to write as big a check as he used to.

The Barves have done some transactions, and I'm here to write about them

I think it's funny that they pulled a move from The West Wing but that doesn't mean it was a bad idea

Vote or Die

Finding the Next Maikel Garcia and/or Geraldo Perdomo Backup infielders who can’t hit grow on trees. Shortstops (or shortstop-ish infielders) who can hit in the middle of the lineup go for $300 million on the open market.

I dug into two players I've been fascinated with, who both had monster breakout seasons in 2025, and tried to identify who's next. I don't know if I did that, but I think I understand better now than before why Bryson Stott makes me want to tear my hair out

I learned that later. The man is a chameleon

Also Martha Plimpton was born to say "smacked ass" and I'm so happy she was able to fulfill her telos

With most of them you can kinda tell even if it's good (Ruffalo too) but the guy who played Russo being British floored me. He was such a convincingly authentic Italo-Philadelphian douchebag. I went to high school with 30 of him.