Michael Hopcroft

I was afraid something like this would happen once sports betting was normalized: Falcons wideout Calvin Reipley has been suspended for betting on NFL games. Still, there are several things missing. Did he place legal wagers at a licensed sports book? Were any of them on his own team to lose? How were the events uncovered. Now that all the major leagues have accepted sponsorships from legal sports books like that at Draft Kings, I wonder if they really have moral grounds to punish players, coahes, etc. for performing a legal activity in a legal way. Iy's like the NBA's stance about Cannabis: there are a lot of places where it is perfectly legal, and the stuff is apparently really good at pain control, so it is an open secret that a lot of NBA players are on it. Then why does the league even bother to note positive test, much less act punitively? Betting in these times is sort of like that. Illicit betting has always been a part of American sports, while legal bookmakers are a staple of European working-class culture. Now Americans outside Nevada can legally bet on football (and everything else) online or in their own state. Previously, they had to go to Nevada to do it legally. Super Bowl weekend was a huge attraction in Vegas in those times -- I don't know whether it still is now). If that is the case, than Ridley's sin was betting on football regardless of which team he bet in favor of. If he bet on his own team to lose, the suspension will only be the beginning of his problems. Strill, he weas on the Injurted List at the time, so he had no power to influence the outcome. So Ridley basically did what just about everybody does these days, and is being crucified for it because he plays in the NFL.

Calculate the amount of kinetic energy required to launch a baseball into geostationary orbit.

Ever since the days of old the Navy's ruled the waves. For years they've told the world that Britain's never shall be slaves. The Navy still remembers and you'll often hear them say What Nelson told Napoleon upon Trafalgar day. It serves you right, You shouldn't have joined, It jolly well serves you right. It serves you right, You shouldn't have joined, You might have been sitting tight You might have been in Civvy Street instead of in the fight But it serves you right, You shouldn't have joined, It jolly well serves you right And it's no use kicking up a row because your nobody's sweetheart now. You can weep and sigh and pipe your eye But still youre in the fight It serves you right, You shouldn't have joined, It jolly well serves you right. I wouldn't mind the Navy if the blinking ship were still It's all this bobbing up and down that makes me feel so ill. The seas alright for sharks and whales and things the like of that But I'd rather stick my Marlin's Pike in llkley Moor ba'tat But It serves me right, I shouldn't have joined, It jolly well serves me right It serves me right, I shouldn't have joined, I might have been sitting tight. When I was cleaning windows I would keep em nice and bright But now I'm polishing portholes, rubbing them up with all me might. And it's no use kicking up a row because I'm nobody's sweetheart now. One day up in the crows nest I was feeling bright and gay 'Til the captain shouted Dont come down, we've taken the ship away'. I used to be a chimney sweep in dear old Wigan town. I used to do the lady's down the street for half a crown But now I don't get nothing for the little jobs I do. I wish I was in Wigan sweeping Mrs. Jones's flue. But it serves me right, I shouldn't have joined, It jolly well serves me right It serves me right, I shouldn't have joined, I might have been sitting tight. I thought in every port I'd get a cuddle every night But all I've done is cuddle a gun and work up an appetite. And it's no use kicking up a row because I'm nobody's sweetheart now. There's a draft around my fore and aft my jumper's much too tight I've got barnacles on my binnacle and it ruddy well serves me right.

Q: I need to learn the secret of Galadriel's lingere! To do it, I need somethinglike...? A: Yes, Galadriel and I had sex. Several times, in fact.

Juat once. The first crew, including the engineer who built the thing, suffocated. What Navy there was in the Confederacy must have concluded it would be a suicide mission to try it again.

Is Jackson an athlete hoping to stick professionally, or is he just a hanger-on making a living off his brother's glory? And does Patrick realize what is going on?

To think this is the school of Eddie Robinson.

There are some very real stakes for Duke, though. They are trying to secure a 1 seed in the Tournament, and winning this game would almost cement their place. Losing it would send them don to at best a 3. The difference between a 1 seed and a 3 seed is pretty significant.

when you're riding a Stegosaur, traffic is not an issue. He's biug and tough enough to crush every car in his path, and slow enough that the humans will all be able to get out and run away before he smashes their cars. You won't get there any faster, but the commute will be a lot more fun.

There is a Doctor Who episode in the making. Yep, definite Doctor Who territory.

I can;t believe I used a reference to Fantasy Hero 4e in a post on the Old School Gamers Facebook group and did not properly attribute the system. I don't know if the term "Killing Attack" is trademarked by Hero, but maybe it should be. I bring this up because of the references to an OSR game in the video. Part of me is thinking this borders on plagiarism, or at the very least lack of imagination. But I must admit people enjoy it (to be fair, I do not own a copy of Basic Fantasy). By the way, how much BODY do you need to do to lop off a single eyestalk or a larger critter (lets assume roughly twice the size of a human)? And how would it be affected?

Q: I understand the Russian Generals are organizing a gaming group. What do they play? A: You have failed me for the penultimate time!

Q: A particularly successful Australopithicus Africanus baked the first pizza? Who knew? A: Hi Ho! Hi Ho! It's off to death we go!

On the college scene, Duke's legendary head coach Mike Krzyzewski is retiring and is on his farewell tour. This weekend is his final home game and his final regular season game against arch-rival North Carolina. The game itself will probably be anticlimactic; Duke has been significantly better than NC this year and dominated their game at Chapel Hill. But I will be watching, because it will be history unfolding before my eyes.

I'm relieved it was something that could be solved with a simple equipment swap. That happens to me all the time (or, at the very least, once every couple of years).

Q: What do we do to fix this machine that's translating everything we say into bad Russian? A: Is there in Beauty no Truth?

Hellp?

Heck, send them to Portland. A lot of folks here would love top-flight pro hockey, and we would have an instant I-5 rivalry with the Kraken. Te only problem is thath they would have to share the (yuk, Moda Center) Rose Garden (to me, it will always be the Rose Garden) with the Blazers. And with Paul Allen deceased and the ownership of the Blazers uncertain, it might be be hard finding an Oregon billionaire to pay the bills. Phil Knight is out (sadly or not depends on your opinion of sweatshops and child labor), because he does business with all 32 current NHL teams already. Being an actual franchise owner, even though he is officially retired, would hurt Nike a lot. As for Intel, nobody even knows who owns Intel, and owners require a degree of charisma starting out.

For a moment, I was thinking the World Cyberwar had begun in earnest, because that would foul up your Internet and everyone else's.

I am having a hard time with Netfliz' cartoon adaptation of the notoriously difficult video game Cuphead. Which seems incredibly bizarre and at the same time pretty familiar. I understood much of what was going on, not from playing the game (I didn't) but from a knowledge of the history of animation -- specifically the brilliantly flawed early soung cartoons of the Fleischer brothers (better animators than Disney, but terrible businessmen who were eventually at each others' throats). The legacy of these shorts (which originated the character of Betty Boop, and don't get me started on how controversial she was) were among the first American productions to regularly feature the great black musicians of the day. But they also had issues with racial caricatures (one short, built around Luois Armstrong's recording "I'll be Glad When You're Dead (You Rascal You)" was placed with a cartoon about fleeing a "primitive cannibal tribe", a common racist trope in those days. (There were also anti-Semitism issues in other shorts, because stereotypes about "greedy Jews" were still considered funny, although the Fleischers were Jewish immigrants themselves). That in itself made Cuphead the game controversial -- it used the Fleischers' stylings in art and music without really dealing with the racist times that generated them. And it is the disconnection with the times that bothers me about The Cuphead Show. Not so much the racial issues, which strangely do not bother me as much since I know the producers were in no way making that a focus. NO, what bothers me is that I'm unclear who their audience is. How many people starting out with Cuphead on Netflix know who Max and Dave Flesicher were? Or who Cab Calloway was? Although Calloway was one of the great cultural treasures of the 20th Century, we are now almost a quarter of the way through the 21st. So to have a major character modeled on him is one of many in-jokes that nobody outside a niche group of fans will get. There are also several snatches of Calloway-like music from the modern composer of the score, who could ape his style but not capture his genius. And while I am not at all into Satanic Panics... well, I don't think this will spoil anything. The chief antagonist of Cuphead and Mugman is the literal Devil, who is drawn black from head to toe and voiced like -- well, you'll have to hear it to believe it. (The actor is Luke Millington, and he everything he says comes out that way. I saw a clip of him recording that song, and he had a lot of fun!) So while I am the sort of person most likely to appreciate The Cuphead Show, I am not its intended audience. So is the problem with the show or with me?

Thankfully, the horse doesn't care.

I knew he had a contract out on Superman!

Don't S**** Cats! ASCAP

Make every currentcy on Earth, legal tender or otherwise, worthless through algorithm. Then wait until the rioting has died down to grab what remains. NT: Things you can buy with 100,000,000 Quatloos.

I don't know how mummies are a threat to PCs, given that the first thing you do when turning someone into a ma mummy is remove and destroy their brain. (Granted, the Egyptians had no idea what the brain did and thought that cognition was housed in the heart. But they still must have seen a reason everyone whose head they ever cut off died.)