BurritoBot could soon be a thing

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For his thesis project for NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program, Manriquez decided to build something that is both decidedly future-leaning and something that would open up a dialogue about the things he holds dear, namely fabrication technologies and food issues. Burritos, he decided, lend themselves perfectly to his purpose.

Now in prototype, the Burritobot is controlled via an iOS or Ruby-based smartphone app on which the user can customize his or her burrito by selecting which extrudable ingredients he or she wants and using sliders to specify the proper ratio. Then, atop a standardized tortilla, the machine goes to work, using extruders mounted on a moving carousel to deposit the desired ingredients.

– Clay Dillow, PopSci.com.

This Marko Manriquez guy seems all right:

The R.A. Dickey phenomenon

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Around 3:30 p.m. on June 1st — a few hours before Johan Santana threw the first no-hitter in Mets’ history — I stood on the warning track in foul ground at Citi Field, just toward the right-field side of the first base, milling about. I knew Carlos Beltran, in his first trip back to Flushing since his departure last July, would address the media at some point, and because the producer who usually keeps me in the loop on these things had that day off, I didn’t know when. So I took that and the lack of other pressing responsibilities as an excuse to stand near the Mets’ dugout and see what I could see.

There was Josh Thole, returning to the club after a stint on the disabled list for a concussion, assuring a couple of stray media that he felt great. There was Elvin Ramirez, visiting the stadium for the first time as a member of a Major League club, introducing himself to teammates, getting acclimated. There was Ruben Tejada, running and skipping and hopping on the outfield grass for Terry Collins and Ray Ramirez.

And there was Dickey.

At some point, R.A. Dickey and Mike Nickeas took to deep right field where Dickey long-tossed knuckleballs to the enthusiastic catcher. In front of a cadre of smiling coaches, Dickey’s throws fluttered and danced and darted and dove and cut and sliced, sometimes all on one toss. Some appeared to freeze in mid-air before plummeting — Wile E. Coyote off the cliff. Some looked like they somehow actually shot upwards in flight, as if propelled by some second force after Dickey’s fingertips.

From a distance, all except the reserved Dickey appeared delighted. It was delightful. Even knowing what I do about knuckleballs, I found myself subconsciously searching the air for strings, evidence of fraud. How could this possibly just be air currents? How could a baseball move that way? How could anything?

For a lifelong baseball fan like myself, the best thing among many great things about this job is the up-close appreciation it gives me of just how phenomenally good Major League Baseball players are at playing baseball. And now R.A. Dickey, the league’s only knuckleballer, is performing as its very best pitcher. Even his off-day workouts are something spectacular to watch.

This guy, Dickey, who endured sexual abuse as a child, who starred with his fastball in college despite his lack of an ulnar collateral ligament, who lost his first-round signing bonus but made a go of it anyway, who once considered suicide, who abandoned conventional pitching in 2005, who loves Star Wars and Hemingway and appreciates Havarti cheese, now leads the Majors in wins, ERA, strikeouts, WHIP, and complete games.

It’s a series of odd angles and seemingly impossible turns crazy enough to make his knuckleball look mundane. What’s happening now, every fifth day in 2012, is something special. Enjoy this.

Taco Bell Tuesday

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Happy Taco Bell Tuesday everyone!

An entertaining Reddit thread yesterday sparked some discussion around the Internet: What wine pairs best with a Crunchwrap Supreme?

I’m all for the coming of the Franchise Wars and the long-awaited elevation of Taco Bell to haute cuisine, obviously, but I’m ill-fit to weigh in on this one. I’m not a big drinker and when I do drink, I rarely drink wine. Sometimes I’ll partake to be social, and people will start talking about the earthy bouquet and such, but it always just sort of tastes like wine to me. Some wines go down smoother than others, I’ll amount, but outside of a few choice bourbons, I find most alcoholic beverages primarily a means to an end.

(For that matter: I have no taste for craft beer either. For some reason there’s a huge overlap between baseball-blogger types and craft-beer enthusiasts, enough so that people hear you blog about baseball and just sort of assume you’ve got all sorts of considered opinions about craft beer. I like the beers that taste the least like beer. And if I’m at a bar where I can’t readily identify any of the available beers, I’m lost. I usually point to something someone else is drinking that looks light and say, “I’ll have that one.”)

All that said, I suspect Taco Bell pairs best with a cold 40-ounce of Olde English 800, or at least it sure seemed to back in the days when I more regularly enjoyed malt liquor and late-night Taco Bell. And I don’t think my appreciation for Taco Bell then had much to do with the flavor combinations and the way the Olde E sat on the palate. That predated the existence of the Crunchwrap Supreme, though.

The good news is that if you are a wine drinker and do hope to sit down with a Crunchwrap Supreme and a well-paired glass, wine-guy Gary Vaynerchuk has you covered:

In more pressing news, Taco Bell is testing two new versions of the Doritos Locos Taco: the long-anticipated Cool Ranch and the heretofore unheard-of-by-me Flamas flavor. FoodBeast has tried them both.

The Flamas flavor is apparently a combination of hot chili and citrus, which would sound way better to me if I hadn’t recently sampled a bag of Chile-Limon Doritos Dynamita while in Phoenix. Dynamita apparently means traditional Doritos rolled up into a taquito shape, vaguely resembling dynamite*. Unfortunately, the flavor sucked. It tasted like nuclear fallout soaked in artificial lime flavor. I don’t know for sure that Flamas is the same, but since the combination sounds suspiciously similar, I will proceed with skepticism when the flavor comes to my local Taco Bell.

The Cool Ranch sounds a lot more intriguing. I don’t see how the flavor will overcome the saltiness and dryness issues that plagues the Nacho Cheese version of the Doritos Locos Tacos, but since everyone knows Cool Ranch Doritos are better than Nacho Cheese Doritos, it looks to be an upgrade over the original. Plus I suspect the flavor, tangy as it is, is less redundant with the seasoned beef stuff.

I’d also be down for checking out that Sweet and Spicy Thai Chili Doritos as a Doritos Locos Taco, for what it’s worth. Asian-inspired/Mexican-inspired fusion. Are you listening, Taco Bell? It’s me, Ted.

*- You may remember that the term “taco” is believed to come from Mexican mining communities, named after a form of dynamite.

Shane Victorino is a bastion of generosity

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Mets fans may hate Shane Victorino for a variety of decent reasons, but his annual charity fashion show not only raises lots of money for underserved youth but is also one of the most reliable sources for embarrassing photos of Cole Hamels. For example:

You know who’s impressed? Brian Schneider’s impressed:

Needless to say, the archive has been updated.

Via multiple Twitterers, including @meechone, @juliaquadrinoo, @happyhank24 and @crashburnalley.

 

Is Ike Davis back?

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Chris McShane at Amazin’ Avenue investigates.

Undoubtedly, this has been Davis’ most promising stretch of the season. This month, Davis is walking more, striking out less and enjoying a better batting average on balls in play than he did in his woeful April and May. But as I think I said on the podcast, since we’ve been burned by signs of life from Davis before, at this point it’ll take real, lasting life from Davis for me to be convinced he is all straightened out again. And a week and a half worth of good games — as promising as they’ve been — doesn’t seem enough to say that for sure.

But then again, two months doesn’t make for a very convincing sample either. Baseball be baseball.

They spinnin’!

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Your mini-golf question got me thinking: would you watch a PGA Tour event that took place on an ultra-complex mini-golf course?

– Dan, via email.

What? Yes. Definitely yes. And I never watch regular golf unless for some reason it’s the only palatable thing on TV or there’s some guy with a great beard or hilarious pants or something. Have you seen golf on TV? These guys are awesome at golf, no doubt, so it’s impressive. But it’s just golf guys hitting golf shots, all business-casual, and no matter how many times I say, “wow that guy hit one hell of a golf shot,” I’m always, in the back of my mind, wondering how that guy would fare with Randy Quaid in full hockey-goalie gear menacing him, Caddyshack 2 style.

So yeah, I’m all-in for a PGA Tour event on a full-scale, impeccably maintained mini golf course full of hilarious obstacles, and preferably one that includes human defenders. Because as gorgeous as elegantly manicured lawns with rolling hills and smartly placed sand traps and water hazards can be, nothing is so beautiful as a stark-raving-mad Randy Quaid dolling out wedgies on behalf of the proletariat. In fact, I’d even go so far as to say I’d travel to play said full-scale mini-golf course, taking my chances against the Peter Blunt system.

As for my mini-golf question from last week, this weekend I found a course that nearly met my requirements. Unfortunately, it’s not very close to New York.

Last I played Sunset Playland in Bennington, Vt., the course looked forlorn, with too-trodden artificial turf guiding balls into holes and cracking concrete under empty one-time water hazards. Last I saw the place, it appeared closed for good, a sad reminder of fun times spent there with my family in summers past.

But upon passing it while en route to breakfast at the spectacular Blue Benn diner with my wife Saturday morning, I spotted a freshly painted course with brand-new obstacles including a windmill on the old first hole that appeared apt to meet my stated desire for “one colorful moving object somewhere on the field of play.”

We returned later to find that, indeed, Sunset Playland offered everything I was looking for in an outdoor mini-golf course, save the (rather important) short ride from the city. And, perhaps amped up by the discovery, I started off playing as good mini golf as I can ever remember.

My wife is normally good for nine competitive holes of mini golf before she loses focus and fades on the back 9, but this time she struggled from the outset. The battle, from the outset, was between me and par for the course.

Now, I don’t know who determines the par on a mini-golf course, or even, really, why there always is one noted on the scorecard. I’m not aware of any USMGA. At many places — including Sunset Playland — the pars for many holes seem somewhat arbitrary, with plenty of par-2s more difficult than par-3s, and so on.

But as far as I’m concerned, once you’ve cemented a victory over everyone else in your party, every mini golfer should play to beat the course’s par. At an amateur level, this sport is about personal bests, after all. And I must admit now that I’ve never parred or beaten the par for a mini golf course in my life. Maybe you have and you’ll tell me about it in the comments section. I won’t be ashamed. My mini golf game normally hinges on the type of high-risk, high-reward play that often results in a couple of sixes on the scorecard and at least one frustrated on-course meltdown.

This time, I played conservatively from the outset and shot two-below on the front 9. Perhaps due to nerves, my game grew shakier on the back half of the course, and I bogeyed a couple to fall even. The 15th hole featured a barn obstacle with a tunnel only slightly larger than the golf ball in its base and an obvious wimps-way-out around the side. Sitting even with par and realizing this was my chance for mini-golf glory, I shot for the tunnel and nailed it. On 99 percent of mini-golf courses around the country, putting one cleanly into such a tunnel with the right amount of force means a hole-in-one or a gimme putt for 2 — which would have been good for a birdie. But here, apparently, the tunnel was a trap. The ball rolled straight out the backside into a rocky hazard, and it took me an extra stroke to play out of it. Plus one.

I was still within sight of parring the course come Sunset Playland’s 17th hole, which has flummoxed me since my youth. The Par-3 starts with a narrow, bending, steeply inclined track, the top of which features a hole that sends the ball down a tube and out onto the green below, like this:

Getting the ball to the top of the incline requires a strong putt, but a ball hit too hard that misses the hole on top might bounce off the rocky waterfall and roll all the way back down to where you’re standing. It needs a perfect touch, and one I apparently lack. I hit the ball way too hard, sending it skipping up the incline, where it hit against the back wall and bounced into the grassy area between the incline and the green.

Since the course’s final hole — the ball-collector hole — is a Par 1, I needed a miracle. Rather than taking the one-stroke penalty and providing myself some forgiving drop on the course, I opted to play through from the grass. This is definitely not safe or sanctioned mini-golf play, but par was on the line. So I chipped the ball back toward the green, successfully launching it over the concrete barrier and, in fact, right on line with the hole. But it bounced over the hole and off the course again, destroying my dreams of glory. After another failed chip, I took the drop, humbled.

The part of Randy Quaid, Saturday, was played by this cartoon cow:

It taunts me still.