As an Iowa State fan, I know the game is never over until the clock reads zeroes, but … I can’t even.
This is how you erase a 12-point deficit in 35 seconds. https://t.co/l3eJ83wDDB #MarchMadness
— NCAA March Madness (@marchmadness) March 21, 2016
According to the Bill James formula for statistically safe leads, Northern Iowa blew a ~206.4% safe lead, which is beyond unprecedented.
— NC State K Crew (@NCStateKCrew) March 21, 2016
Not even an Iowa icon is immune from the Law of Shrinking Products. The week’s previous post referencing the trend was written around two weeks ago, but a tour of the Hy-Vee frozen section has merited a second entry along that line.
A month ago, Wells Dairy, headquartered in Le Mars, unveiled a new Blue Bunny ice cream logo and packaging. Both the Sioux City Journal and KTIV had stories. The ice cream containers are now transparent. But hidden in plain sight is a decline in how much you’re getting. Instead of 1.75 quarts it’s now labeled as 48 ounces, or 1.5 quarts. Some of the specialty ice cream is down to 46 ounces. The default supermarket size used to be a half-gallon — 13 years ago, because that’s when I mentioned the change starting to happen in an Iowa State Daily column.
To Blue Bunny’s credit, the change is acknowledged in a website FAQ and a response to irate Facebook commenters. Taking away eight ounces of ice cream should not be a tradeoff for transparent packaging, and yet, that’s pretty much what happened. Of course, the price isn’t dropping by a corresponding amount.
Wells Blue Bunny could be the last major-label ice cream manufacturer to drop from 1.75 to 1.5 quarts, so I wouldn’t be surprised if store brands followed suit in the next year or so. For what it’s worth (less than it used to be!), the Consumer Price Index does account for continually shrinking sizes of consumer goods.
Remember when this season’s Iowa State team was “Sweet 16 is the floor” instead of “Sweet 16 is the ceiling”? The bracket wags have, but they haven’t forgotten about the Cyclones’ other classic tournament flops.
“Just look at last season when Final Four favorite Iowa State bowed out in the first game,” says one at the Washington Post, who thinks ISU is the least likely of the three teams from Iowa to win their first game.
Noted Iowa State hater Pat Forde says ISU is a “pretender who will be bounced early” and lumped the Cyclones and Hawkeyes together in the Jeb Bush pool (not fair, because ISU isn’t nearly as effective at setting money on fire). Forde isn’t doing best case/worst case scenarios this year, but ISU’s worst is getting bounced in the first round again, Kansas beating Iowa in the Elite Eight on the way to a national championship, and Oklahoma, Michigan State, and North Carolina rounding out the Final Four. (Astute observers will spot a worst-than-worst-case scenario in there, in which case, see yesterday’s post.)
And then there’s Matt Norlander at CBS Sports, who has Iowa State vs. Iona (yes, that’s confusing, and yes, the selection committee loves playing pranks like this) as one of his five first-round games to watch, which can be good or bad. Norlander ranks ISU 11th out of the whole field with a shot to make the Elite Eight, but rounds out that rundown with:
63. Hampton: The Pirates have made the tournament for the second straight season — and they’re better than last year. Think back to 2001. No. 15 seed. Upset Iowa State. Hey, you never know.
Never, ever, ever able to live it down…
UPDATE: If ISU and Purdue ever played each other in football, would it create a singularity of stomach punches?
For the first time in decades at least, the full RAGBRAI route was not printed as a single map in The Des Moines Register. This year, the Iowa Life cover on the first Sunday of March was about… prom styles.
Instead, RAGBRAI.com released one map per day for the week and the Register printed that map each day. I am disappointed that a single full route map wasn’t put out, and surprised that the PDFs combined for 20 MB. Those files: Sun, Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, Sat. This drawn-out process is very similar to what happened this year to the OTHER traditional big March reveal, and for much the same reasons.
Looking at my compiled universal map and database of every RAGBRAI route and town visited, here are some notes about this somewhat rare excursion to southern Iowa.
No wonder today’s students can’t understand capitalization rules. Informal typing is one thing, but then there is this ridiculousness. First, this is how election results (in this case, Iowa’s) look on CNN’s website.
There isn’t a single capitalized letter to be seen, not even the candidates’ names. Is it a coding script thing? If so, the code needs to change to “capitalize first letter of any text string.” Is it a design thing? If so, there are designers who need to be beaten over the head with a textbook or two. (The AP Style Guide is too lightweight.)
Then there’s the Girl Scouts of America, which in a national rebranding in late 2012 put not only the names of the cookies in lowercase, but the organization’s logo itself. This typographical travesty has an identifiable culprit, “the New York office of Anthem Worldwide, the brand development division of Schawk Inc.”
Switching to lowercase letters is supposed to convey “friendliness” but this is extreme to the point of violating basic tenets of the English language. (lol like ppl care about those —Ed.) It’s incorrect to the point of distracting, at least to those with a semblance of education. The only positive thing I can say about intentional un-capitalization in anything that isn’t an Internet chat is that it’s not as bad as turning crimes against the written word into performance art.
The Girl Scouts provided another example of Morrison’s Law of Shrinking Products* in action, too. The previous package of Thin Mints contained “about 8” servings of 4 cookies apiece, and the current one contains exactly 8, shrinking the total from 34 to 32. (Of course, it often ends up as, “Serving size, 1 sleeve; servings per container, 2.” Or is that just me?)
“Area Dad Concerned He’s Running Out Of Family Photos To Digitize”
I assure you, this is not physically possible.
When the initial announcement was made about this month’s meeting regarding expansion of US 30 between Tama and IA 21, I noted the text left an opening for leaving existing 30 behind as a frontage road. The map (PDF) does not have “obliterate” on any part of existing 30, but it shows gravel driveways being laid on top of the road. This article from the Tama-Toledo newspapers about the March 3 meeting makes it clear the current road will be removed. Besides, Tama County wouldn’t want to be left with the bridges over Otter Creek and the old railroad grade.
The intersection with E66, where the 1937 alignment of 30 through the Bohemian Alps continues eastward while the Lincoln Highway goes to Chelsea, will be closed off. A new curve will be built so E66 intersects 30 a mile to the east.
Under the current five-year plan, right-of-way acquisition (every house and farmstead on the north side) will be in 2017, bridges and grading in 2018, paving of the whole thing in 2020, and obliteration of the existing road in 2021.
The calendar catches up with the weather in shifting from “Still Winter” to “Construction” on Monday. US 20 will be closed between Moville and Correctionville until Thanksgiving week. The existing lanes will be destroyed and new lanes built just to the north. This is a very tangible sign that there is progress being made on upgrading 20 to four lanes.
The detour calls back to history in a way, since traffic will be using the old (pre-1958) alignment of US 20 along with the new IA 31 on the west side of Correctionville.
September 30, 2014
The tiny village of Swan (2010 pop. 72) built a school in 1928. Swan is two miles into Marion County off IA 316.
