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2012 Letters to Santa Show Announced


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No, 28 grand each! I'm not the historian here, but I think that's one more show than he's ever done before, and I'm also pretty sure it's the highest price per show ever.

Actually, 3 for 30K and one for 28K is what I heard while there.

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Actually, 3 for 30K and one for 28K is what I heard while there.

 

I believe it was 30K each when it was 3 and then it went to 28K each when it became 4, or at least that's how it came out on the webcast.

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For the record, the bidding eventually got up to 30k, but the Tweedys generously offered to do four shows for 28k apiece if all of the groups bidding at the later stages of the auction contributed that amount. This wasn't the first time they've done four shows — it's happened twice before, I believe — but I think it was the highest per-show price yet. At any rate, the amount of money raised over the years as a result of Susan and Jeff's generosity has been truly staggering and made such a difference for so many people. So they deserve all the credit they get — and then some. :thumbup

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what was the Albini portion like?

 

 

Sorry no one answered your question, Tim, but let me try now that I've had a decent night's sleep. I assume you mean Albini's interview with stats guru Nate Silver? This happened around 10 a.m. and it was another in the series of on-stage interviews he's done with in interesting folks over the years. I'm not that bright, so I couldn't report with a tremendous amount of accuracy what they talked about, but basically the first part of the interview dealt with Silver's initial success with baseball and developing the PECOTA model to predict player performance. PECOTA was named after Bill Pecota, a 1980s player who was basically a gold standard of mediocrity. Albini asked if there were any other players who Silver considered naming his system after and, being a Tigers fan growing up, he said there was one Tigers player whose name I'm absoutely blanking on now. So there was a lot of baseball geekery, obviously.

 

The second half of the interview focused on his more recent work with politics and the FiveThirtyEight blog. There was a bit of a digression by Albini into why he continues to refuse to pay for access to FiveThirtyEight — and content on the Times' Web site in general — and how easy it was to defeat the Times' pay wall. There was also some discussion of journalism in general as well as some of Silver's competitors and/or critics, and he was surprisingly frank about naming some folks he thought were raising points for discussions worth having and others who probably weren't. For example, I seem to remember him mentioning someone affiliated with the Washington Post who honestly thought "that Mitt Romney was the second coming" who he obviously thought was misguided but was at least coming from a true belief in what they were talking about.

 

Albini also read some questions to Silver that were solicited on the Electrical Audio message board as well as took some questions from the audience. There was also a very brief discussion of Silver's "Burrito Bracket" and Albini and Silver both mentioned their choices for Chicago's best burrito. Albini's was from some Costa Rican place that I can't recall right now, while Silver went for La Pasadita on Ashland — the one of the west side of Ashland, to be specific.

 

It's easy to understand why Albini is so fascinated by Silver. Aside from the discussions of baseball, politics and burritos, Silver also talked about his success playing online poker for part of the Aughts and some of his strategies therein. (I know next to nothing about poker, but apparently "you have to bluff.") And of course, Albini is sort of legendary in indie rock circles for his interest and participation in poker.

 

At the end of the interview, a personalized, autographed copy of Silver's book The Signal and the Noise was auctioned off — I believe it went to improviser Scott Goldstein — for around 300 bucks. Albini even offered to chip in 20 out of his own pocket to whoever bought the book. (Initially it was 20 to anyone other than Goldstein, but Steve ultimately threw in the 20 anyway. :yes )

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bbop- sweet link, i was kind of exhausted just reading, while making mental plans to attend and donate next year.

 

of course, including where Jeff would set up in MY living room, and who i'd invite, and waht the setli...........it's like a

lottery fantasy.

 

well documented, and for all the right reasons, too.

 

santa LIVES!

no

santa

strives

no

santa drives.

 

 

santa, humble and full of grace

santa

in our lives

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  • 5 months later...

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