qbert72's profile

qbert72
23
Name: Alexandre Simard
Location: Montréal
Gender: M
Member since: January 29, 2002
Last visit: May 22, 2023

qbert72 has posted 15 links and 722 comments to SportsFilter and 26 links and 568 comments to the Locker Room.

Sports Bio

Je suis un montréalais.

Two sports memories...

1

In 1981, baseball is on strike, and Montreal discovers soccer. Le Manic de Montréal is drawing huge crowds to the Stade Olympique. Yes, the same toilet bowl usually inhabited by a few thousands Expos fans (and I'm one of them).

I was nine, at that time, and attended a game against the Washington Diplomats with my father. I had never seen so many people at the same time. So many different people, too.

I can't tell you much about the game. In my recollection, everybody was standing during the whole game, and I couldn't see a thing. What I remember clearly is the "Guess the attendance" game on the jumbotron, and the Italian man beside me who was screaming in ecstasy for the highest number to win: "Cinquanté mille! Cinquanté mille!" And damn it, he won, and nearly died on the spot. We were more than 50 000.

2

Fast forward to 1996. We're in September, and the Expos are still in it, miraculously. It's as close to a full house as it can be: 25, 30 thousands at best. Bottom of the 8th, the score is tied, bases loaded, two outs. The best utility player in baseball that year comes to the plate: F.P. Santangelo.

The crowd is wild for the man without first names. F.P.! F.P.! Good at-bat, a few foul balls, closely fought. And then, F.P. is hit by a pitch. The crowd erupts in joy. Everybody is jumping around, the standing ovation lasts a few minutes. I kid you not. Standing ovation for being hit by a pitch. F.P. gives us the tip of the cap. We go home happy.


My teams? Expos, Canadiens. As a good Canadiens fan, I pride myself in knowing exactly what is wrong with the team, and on never supporting them unless they've won 3 or 4 in a row. As a good Expos fan, I will cheer to death any AAA guy wearing the nice logo. Go ahead, make my Zach Day, and I'll Rocky Biddle 'til the cows come home.

I miss the Forum, the tree-color cap and the powder-blue uniforms, though.

Recent Links

Favorites or Likes for comments?: Hey there old friends. I'm back lurking here. I'm even logged in, so I can see the (# new) thingy after the comments number. I don't have much to contribute, but 5 years of Facebooking have endeared to the simple "Like" action below each comment and I'm instinctly looking to click it when I read a comment that makes me chuckle. MetaFilter has a similar feature with their Favorites. Is this at all a possibility for SpoFi?

posted by qbert72 to feature requests at 12:06 AM on October 17, 2012 - 20 comments

"That,": Capitals coach Bruce Boudreau said, "was officially heartbreaking." Backstrom knocks in winning goal for wrong team.

posted by qbert72 to hockey at 07:53 PM on March 10, 2008 - 8 comments

World Series confidence pool final standings: The Red Sox put trox and tron7 over the top, ending my supremacy to my great dismay. apoch did a fine job securing the Costanza. Congratulations to everyone involved!

posted by qbert72 to fantasy at 05:29 PM on October 29, 2007 - 10 comments

World Series Confidence Pool!: Help me kick the tires on my new super-speedy server and show off your mad prediction skillz by entering a good old-fashioned confidence pool for this year's MLB post season. You have until 6:30PM on Wednesday to enter your picks. If you're not familiar with this type of pool, please read DrJohnEvans' primer.

posted by qbert72 to fantasy at 11:40 PM on October 01, 2007 - 29 comments

Fantasy Hockey anyone?: Yahoo! has opened registration for hockey leagues a couple of days ago. Who will start a SpoFi league? Not me, since I'm taking a break from fantasy sports this winter. But SpoFi still needs to see another edition of the battle royale between Weedy and grum (and new contenders) for fantasy hockey supremacy.

posted by qbert72 to fantasy at 09:10 AM on September 11, 2007 - 22 comments

Recent Comments

Favorites or Likes for comments?

You see, I'd +1 jerseygirl's comment. But now it's too late.

Folkways, I never called you boring. Don't know where you read that, sorry for the confustion. I was saying that comments limited to '+1' are not that interesting themselves.

posted by qbert72 at 03:24 PM on October 23, 2012

Favorites or Likes for comments?

So is writing a '+1' comment is the recommendation? I guess it works and it's not a new feature, which is good. But if the comment I'm +1'ing is farther up thread, I'd need to correctly identify it in my '+1' comment. And I'm lazy. Plus (ha!), these comments are not interesting for readers.

posted by qbert72 at 01:02 PM on October 20, 2012

Favorites or Likes for comments?

There doesn't need to be a running total of "likes".

Oh, interesting idea. Only the comment author could see or be notified of the "likes" their stuff gets.

I really like Facebook's Like feature, because it is simple and doesn't mean anything specific. I have never seen "My comment got more likes than yours!" used as an argument. But that's just, like, my opinion, man.

posted by qbert72 at 07:24 PM on October 17, 2012

The Worst At-Bat in MLB History?

Does a YouTube video of someone filming the at-bat on their TV do it you GIF haters?

posted by qbert72 at 07:19 PM on August 15, 2011

Spectators Lucky to Survive Le Mans Crash

The people behind the low wall aren't spectators per se. They're journalists, photographers and track marshalls. The actual paying spectators are behind the second, much higher, fence. The whole thing is still very scary, though.

posted by qbert72 at 11:49 AM on June 14, 2011

Fan Ejected From Yankee Stadium For Bathroom Break During 'God Bless America'

These words in the linked article scare me:

During the patriotic 7th inning stretch at Yankee Stadium, [snip] he tried to leave his seat during the traditional singing of God Bless America

The Ministry of Truth is cooking up new traditions.

posted by qbert72 at 12:25 AM on September 08, 2008

Welcome to the New Server

Yeah, but you don't want to run a query for every post

No, I don't. I forgot to say that I'm running my new comments query on top of the regular (non-logged-in) front page query, which should be fairly straightforward (apart from regular 'Oh, right, MySQL doesn't support this' drudgery).

Then the *new* markers are just 'joined' in code when outputting the page. You could even conceivably just parse the cached version of the page to add these markers, and forego the initial query.

I'm absolutely not certain I'm being clear here...

posted by qbert72 at 02:38 AM on August 29, 2008

Welcome to the New Server

rcade: I gotta figure out how Matt did it without crushing his database

yerfatma: I always wondered that too. If you figure it out, can you provide details? There's really nothing you can cache. I think the front page of Metafilter is static for non-logged-in users, which would relieve a lot of strain on the db.

I think you're right that the front page is cached for non-logged-in users. As for the new comments indicators, if I recall correctly, there was a cookie in previous SpoFi containing a datetime for the last visit. I'm assuming Matt used a single query such as

SELECT post_id, id FROM comments WHERE published_date > current_user.last_visit ORDER BY post_id ASC, id ASC

The result count of this query would yield the total of new comments. Then you only need a couple of loops in CF/PHP/whatever to get the first new comment and the number of new comments for each post. It's a single query on a single table, the least strain you can put on the db.

posted by qbert72 at 01:53 AM on August 27, 2008

Welcome to the New Server

OK, some comments:

* The "view older posts" link in the Locker Room brings you to older posts on the main site * There is no longer an archive by month or category that I can find * I miss the search engine

All of these are closely related to me wanting to reread the classic Red Dawn thread.

posted by qbert72 at 06:35 PM on August 26, 2008

So, by "March," you actually meant "April," right? Right?

OK, I'll fess up. I haven't sent mine yet. But I haven't received one either. So there.

posted by qbert72 at 01:32 AM on April 21, 2008

Danica Patrick Wins IndyCar Race in Japan

Drood, I think netbros' point is that there is a factual error in rcade's post.

posted by qbert72 at 01:14 AM on April 21, 2008

2008 NHL Playoffs Confidence Pool

All right, I've entered the SpoFi Collective based on our average picks, and the game results from the first two days of play. So we have a provisional leaderboard. Game on!

posted by qbert72 at 12:03 AM on April 11, 2008

2008 NHL Playoffs Confidence Pool

Hmmm, most likely, yes. I haven't had a look at this code in ages... It's not such a big issue, is it?

posted by qbert72 at 01:19 AM on April 10, 2008

2008 NHL Playoffs Confidence Pool

I'm in. Thanks for setting this up, YYM. Glad to see our little app still getting used!

posted by qbert72 at 10:50 PM on April 08, 2008

Bush Booed By Beltway Baseballers!

first pitch at the Montreal Expos home opener in their new stadium Aww, man, don't rub it in. It was snowing here this afternoon, and I wondered how an opener in our brand new outdoors downtown stadium would have felt like.

posted by qbert72 at 10:47 PM on March 31, 2008