NERDS AROUND TOWN
Nerds Around Town: Scandals in politics and college sports, plus pot pies
Jun 26, 2019, 5:54 am
ART BY JESUS RODRIGUEZ
Born with a comic book in one hand and a remote control in the other, Cory DLG is the talent of Conroe's very own Nerd Thug Radio and Sports. Check out the podcast replay of the FM radio show at www.nerdthugradio.com!
Hey Nerds!
Wednesday, by now your week is starting to take shape and you can visualize all of your successes, right?
GOOD DEED OF THE DAY
This Sunday at 10am, The Texas Brotherhood is asking you to come out and help them raise money for First Responders who have made the ultimate sacrifice and in doing so they promise "a little bike ridin', makin'music, makin' friends, cookin', rafflin', drankin' and eatin'" So that sounds like a fun thing to do. #NerdsUnite
An Amazing News Story
A Congressman representing California in The House of Representatives, Duncan Hunter is at the center of the messiest campaign finance fraud case in recent history. First him and his wife were accused of misusing campaign funds for personal, non-campaign uses like flying a pet bunny around (not an exaggeration) and to essentially finance their lives. News then broke that the wife turned state's evidence against Duncan Hunter and then he made the ultimate classy move of pointing out that she was the Campaign Manager so if something inappropriate did in fact happen (hard turn from "we're innocent") it would have been from her. Now it's come out he used campaign funds to carry on five separate affairs including buying ten beers at a concert, so now his wife is cooperating against him, his bunny takes flights cross country and he's vaped in committee meetings before. Can't wait for the next big twist in this crazy case.
MORE COLLEGE SPORTS CORRUPTION
So on Nerd Thug Sports, I regularly discuss how completely corrupt college sports has become. The people who say college sports is "pure competition" are completely delusional. There's nothing pure about a 7-6 Birmingham Dragons playing in the Mountain Dew Papa Johns Hawaii Bowl under a coach who gets paid $6 million dollars while the athletes are playing under year to year one sided agreements for scholarships and if you think there is then your definition of pure is kinda obscure. But don't worry, Oklahoma State is out to prove that there's nothing pure about college sports by hiring the big brother of the number 2 prospect in the country to be an assistant coach. This continues a trend that colleges recently have embraced where even peripherally appropriate hirings are OK including the father of Michael Porter Jr being hired by two separate colleges where eventually each of his kids played. There is no way these colleges can promise the funds being paid to the relative won't go to the player, and obviously there is no way the school cares. This is a blatant bribe to a family and would only be appropriate if the student agreed to not take a scholarship and not play sports for the school. Hiring a brother to a position he's never had before at the collegiate level is a fairly obvious move, isn't it?
HAVE YOU TRIED THIS?
KFC recently rolled out their very own 2 for $6 menu in an effort to position themselves against Burger King's 2 for $6? I'm not sure where they came from on this angle, but the other day I decided to go take advantage of it and compare the two. Now the Burger King 2 for $6 is one of my favorite deals in fast food because honestly I don't eat healthy so I try to just eat once a day, it's the deal I make with myself to limit my fat unhealthy caloric intake to human levels. Anyway the whopper is one of the bigger burgers in the market and the grilled chicken sandwich is delicious so it's a great deal to me, now on to KFC. The pot pie and the chicken strip sandwich are the ones I went with, the pot pie was awesome and the sandwich is a good value, overall it isn't as good as the Burger King 2 for $6 but man, that Pot Pie is awesome and I had forgotten that little fact. I'm getting hungry thinking about it right now.
NOT THAT YOU ASKED
So I'm a freelance writer, it's something that I think has come up here once or twice *AHEM I'M FOR HIRE AHEM* and so there are other things I do to try and keep putting cash in the bag, you know? One of them is selling shirts at Side Hustle T's an etsy store I set up. Etsy about a month ago sent me a message stating that in all of their research they've found "free shipping" to be an incentive customers really enjoy so they recommend I do it. Here's the thing, shipping costs differ around the country so I charge a flat fee and just roll with it, well Etsy saw that and recommended I raise my prices by that flat fee. How is that good for my customers? Free shipping means not paying for shipping, so if I raise my prices to cover shipping how is it free? It's just a hidden cost at that point, nothing free about it. My first question is, is this legal? Don't stores get busted for offering sales prices after they raise prices? Anyway, I raised my prices $3.50 and now there's free shipping, considering I was charging $5 for shipping, I feel like this is more fair than what Etsy was saying to do.
Feel free to check out my digital short story The Wilson House or buy a shirt from Side Hustle Ts where some proceeds help people struggling with cancer or listen to Nerd Thug Radio. Thoughts, complaints, events and comments can be sent to corydlg@gmail.com.
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How mounting mistakes make Astros setbacks harder to ignore
Jul 10, 2025, 3:10 pm
The late ex-catcher and longtime broadcaster Joe Garagiola wrote a book called “Baseball is a Funny Game.” He wasn’t kidding, whether he meant funny as amusing, peculiar, or both (he meant both). The Astros lived it this past week, following a very satisfying three-game slap down of a previously red-hot Dodgers team in Los Angeles by having a Cleveland Guardians squad that staggered into Houston on a 10-game losing streak sweep the Astros three straight. As I put it during one of our “Stone Cold ‘Stros” podcast episodes this week: baseball, like a word that rhymes with spit, happens. The Astros try to clean it up this weekend with a chance to kick dirt on the Texas Rangers’ presently extremely faint American League West hopes. While no fun to endure, the Astros getting swept is no big deal. They weren’t going the rest of the season without any more bumps in the road. Unless they falter badly and/or Seattle has a huge rest of the way, the Astros' 29-10 surge before the Cleveland series is the stretch that will most define them making the playoffs for the ninth year in a row. The Astros hadn’t lost a home series since early April. Their longest losing streak all season remains just three games. They have to beat the Rangers Friday night to keep it that way.
Erratic starting pitchers Lance McCullers and Jack Leiter match up in the series opener, then it’s a pair of humdinger matchups. Saturday Framber Valdez goes to battle opposite Jacob deGrom. Sunday Hunter Brown starts on four days rest for just the second time this season countering the Arlington team’s Nathan Eovaldi. Framber tries to bounce back from his worst showing in over two months. Brown tries to rebound from his worst start since July 6 of last year. deGrom is quite a story. There has been no more dominant starting pitcher in his generation. It’s just that deGrom almost makes McCullers’s injury history look not so bad. Jacob deGrom won National League Rookie of the Year in 2014. He won back-to-back NL Cy Young Awards in 2018 and 2019, then finished third in the short 2020 COVID season. In 2021 he was off to what if maintained would have been one of the greatest seasons ever. 15 starts with a 1.08 earned run average. 92 innings pitched, a comical total of just 40 hits allowed, with only 11 walks, and 146 strikeouts. Sicko stuff. Then his shoulder fell off. deGrom missed over a year, came back and made 11 starts in 2022. All of that as a New York Met. The Rangers then crossed their fingers and gave him a five-year 185-million dollar free agent contract. DeGrom lasted six starts in 2023 before needing his second Tommy John surgery. The Rangers of course went on to win the World Series without him. deGrom returned to throw 10 innings late last season and looked good. With everyone around the Rangers holding their breath, deGrom has not missed a start this season. While not striking out batters near his rate in the past, deGrom has been fabulous. He’ll take the mound against the Astros sporting a 9-2 record (for a losing team) and 2.29 ERA. deGrom's career ERA is 2.50. He is 37 years old.
Options dwindling
All you can ask of players is that they prepare well, be mentally focused, and play their best. There is only so much juice to be squeezed from lemons. Zack Short, Cooper Hummel, and Taylor Trammell each played every inning of the Guardians series. They are 30, 30, and 27 years old respectively. Short has the highest career big league batting average of the three. That average is .169. Hummel sits at .167, Trammell at .165. Short went zero for 11 with seven strikeouts. Hummel went one for eleven and struck out in his last six at bats. Trammell actually had a good series going three for eleven including a three-run homer and a double. Bigger picture, manager Joe Espada is filling out a lineup card with one hand tied behind his back.
Espada’s task got no easier with the latest seemingly Astros-nomically inept medical work. It is mind-blowingly ridiculous that Jake Meyers further damaged a calf muscle while taking the field Wednesday night, just three days after he left a game with that calf ailing him. Organizationally the Astros look like a clown show on this (pretty sure Kyle Tucker and Yordan Alvarez would co-sign). At least the All-Star break arriving after play Sunday will cover four days of Meyers’s absence, which is a good bet to extend beyond that, maybe well beyond that. That absence will be sorely felt. Beyond his elite patrol work in center field, Meyers’s offense this season made the leap from atrocious to well above average. About to come off the injured list, Chas McCormick gets one last chance to revive his Astros’ career. Decent prospect Jacob Melton is a center fielder who remains out injured. Kenedy Corona was called up this week when Christian Walker went on paternity leave. Corona also plays center field but is not a meaningful prospect. If Meyers is to miss months not weeks, general manager Dana Brown almost has to pursue an outfielder via trade.
For Astro-centric conversation, join Brandon Strange, Josh Jordan, and me for the Stone Cold ‘Stros podcast which drops each Monday afternoon, with an additional episode now on Thursday. Click here to catch!
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