Regarding Epicurus’s claim that “real wealth is poverty adjusted to the law of Nature,” Seneca writes in Epistle 1.59 that such an idea “can never be repeated too often, since it can never be learned too well.”

Among the other things of this world in which one couldn’t reasonably immerse him- or herself too deeply, another of them is manifestly Kenley Jansen’s cut fastball — itself captured (once again) in GIF form here, doing to the Laws of Physics what the author only ever dreamed of doing to the girls on his high school’s volleyball team.

If there is one thing Toronto Blue Jays sluggers Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion hate, it’s ingrown hairs.

Reader Ben Rackow alerted the NotGraphs Just the Tip Line (via an email featuring a subject line the same as the title of this post, it should be noted) of these promotional videos — housed at Blue Jay Hunter’s tumblr — for IMD Laser Clinic in Toronto. In case you are at work and can’t watch the linked videos, the ads reveal the following:

• Joey Bats is “always on the run,” “always busy,” and doesn’t “have time to shave”, which is why he came to IMD Laser Clinic

• Bautista, voted “#1 All-Star in the world,” is the Blue Jays’ DH, despite playing only 17 games as DH from 2008-2012 (meanwhile, he played 108 games at 3B, 353 in RF, and even 42 games in LF in that same span)

• discomfort from laser hair-removal from one’s neck is minimal after the first day

• all the people at IMD Laser Clinic were very nice to Edwin Encarnación

• IMD Laser will not turn off the muzak while shooting low quality promo videos with Blue Jays sluggers, even when said muzak obscures what said sluggers are saying to the point of imparsibility

• the process of laser hair removal is totally grody

The grossness of laser hair removal approximated.

It was the summer of 2001: I was working my first real job after college, standing behind a bank teller line counting sacks of money from local businessmen. I worked the same hours every day and wore the same five collar shirts and ties, all I could afford at the time, while the businessmen brought in the same deposits every day. I would go home, watch my hometown Mariners trot out the same five starters week after week, and play Sammy Sosa High Heat 2001 (it was so real!) on franchise mode.

I remember two main things about that game, playing it throughout the summer. First, most franchise modes are unrealistic, because as you become good at the game you win far more often than any team should. High Heat was good in this respect – the pitcher/batter duel was done well – but after a slow April my Mariners were on pace to win more than a hundred games. But then, running parallel to my fictional success, so were the real Mariners.

The second thing I remember about the game was Ichiro, because he wasn’t in it. Ichiro hadn’t joined the Player’s Union by the time the game shipped, apparently, because he was absent from the team’s roster. Instead, tucked away in the AAA club was a guy named “David Taguchi”. His stats were terrible, and it’s hard to blame them, because nobody knew how this Ichiro was going to adjust to the majors. I edited his stats, perhaps being a little too kind, although it turned out that even I had underestimated him. I don’t remember what Ichiro hit in my game, but it wasn’t as good as what he did in real life that summer.

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Ryan Braun, Brewers (strained groin)

Wow, that sounds like it would hurt. I’m not entirely where the groin is, but anytime you strain anything, it has got to be painful. I think typical treatment for this condition is to see a doctor and let him take a look. He might need to use a periscope or something like that, because the groin might be inside the body. I’m not sure if it’s inside or outside, but it’s probably one of those two. It’s possible that if the strain is severe, Braun could find himself on the transplant list, but there is always a shortage of groin donors.

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The handsomist is no doubt aware that the fairer, substantially more impregnate-able sex loves nothing so much as the sight of a Gentleman at Work. As the succeeding action-news footage will prove, this is especially the case when the handsomist in question is one Johnny Damon, with beard of might and pecker of firebolt …

My only disappointment? Whatever the young lady has on her finger made me think, for a fugitive moment, that she was smoking a cigarette — a Virgina Slim, one assumes — in the stands. And only with a cigarette is the already beautiful and multitudinous elevated to the sublime.

And so I invite you, Lady of Claret Breeches, to watch me blog some time from atop my ordure. Would you not be similarly titillated, Lady of Claret Breeches?

(HT: The prepossessing Big Daddy V)

This Modify watch can be yours. This modifiable Tim Lincecum watch, with two differently colored straps, goes to the person that best modifies the image below. Please, keep it safe for work, or I might have my role at FanGraphs… modified.

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What follows isn’t the strangest thing you’ll ever see — especially if you ever see the avant-garde films of Maya Deren — but it’s likely to elicit a cartoonish double-take in even the most stoic of this site’s notably stoic readers.

You may recall that we recently presented the reader with every appearance of a meaningful and democratic vote on the nickname “Museum of Questionable Medical Devices.” It turns out that Barry Bonds, by a rather leisured margin, won the voting. Established practice would suggest that the nickname is now his. But, lo, the powers that be are as capricious as the nuts of lightning!

As such, it took but a simple peasant’s Internet comment to derail the process. Witness:

Egad, the lad has a point!

The nickname is “Museum of Questionable Medical Devices,” and Ted Williams, of course, had his coconut preserved in scientific pickle brine in the hopes that he would one day return to take back the streets. As such he seems an impossibly fine match for the nickname “Museum of Questionable Medical Devices.” On the other hand, the people — just look at them — have already spoken in their wee voices, and they want Barry Bonds. The best compromise at this point is a Final Vote Showdown Final. And that is what you shall find below …

Thank you for exercising the franchise.

Because exactly 360 people have retweeted this comedy missive from the Cleveland Indians official Twitter account, it’s very possible that the reader — who’s as savvy with the instruments of technology as he is with the procreative urge of the world — that the reader has already enjoyed this photo of three birthday cakes, representing the three birthdays lost to time by Cleveland right-hander Roberto Hernandez (né Fausto Carmona). Yet, I’ll repeat here what I’ve repeated many times before: if I can give just one person access to a comedy photo from the internet of three birthday cakes for the player formerly known as Fausto Carmona, my efforts willn’t have been in vain.

Matt Moore likes Mondays. Boy oh boy, he likes Mondays. Monday is the only day that starts with “M” and that’s the same letter that his names start with. He feels like he owns Monday, like every Monday is his birthday. On Mondays, he jumps out of bed bright and early and just wants to yell and shout and tell everyone that it is his favorite day of the week, Monday.

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