unclevlad

Boeing's CEO announced he will leave the company at the end of the year. The head of commercial planes stepped down immediately. NYT points out that finding replacements will not be simple. The potential talent pool isn't that large, given the specialized nature and sheer size of the company.

WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!! First MAJOR!!! buzzer beater, I think, of the year!! A&M's down 3 with 10 seconds left...flurry of shots all miss. Ball gets tied up with 1 second left...arrow to A&M. Pass, from underneath the basket...which is a tricky spot. Obviously has to be a 3, so the inbound pass goes out several feet past the 3 point line...it's low...caught...gather...rise...shoot....BINGO!!!! Tie ball game. Completed a 13-3 run in less than 2 minutes. Ah me....but chalk holds...again. Houston pulls it out in OT, after a strong challenge in the OT. So it's almost pure chalk. Only 2 real outliers...4 games are 1 vs. 4 or 1 vs. 5, 2 games are 2 vs. 3. Then it's 2 vs. 6, and 2 vs. 11...NC State. The only outlier there, the only real Cinderella. I suspect that this is the lowest seed number total in quite a while.

If that was your only major physiological reaction, count yourself fortunate.

BYU should've had a #5, but they don't play on Sunday...and 3 of the 5 seeds play the Friday-Sunday schedule. So they got dropped to the 6 seed. That's the common belief.

Same point was made with the NFL betting suspensions last year, but that's another genie that will never be pushed back into its bottle.

....and it always seemed like the DM threw the black puddings out, AFTER the mage had used his best attack spells.....UGH!!! Of course, practically every monster in that slimes group was *seriously* unpleasant, and best avoided if possible.

154 isn't particularly different from 162. It would help a bit; it'd cut 10 days off. Shift the start of the season forward, and at least avoid November should the WS go deep. (Game 7 is Nov. 2nd this year.) But I'd rather target opening day to April 10th, and WS game 7 October 20th or so...if not even a bit shorter. Lessee...6 division games (24), 4 games in-league (40). Interleague, maybe 3 games against 12 teams, with alternating home field, and 4 game series (home and home 2 game series) against 3 teams, based on geography/natural rivalry. Chicagos, New Yorks, LAs, KC/STL, etc. That's another 48. We're at 112 at this point...8 division and 6 in-league would add 28, so 140 games. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm..... But clearly, yeah, that's never gonna happen. My traveling to Alpha Centauri is more likely.

Sure. Those that did it, sacrificed themselves for the good of the rest of the colony. Honor them.

Oregon pushed Creighton...game went to double OT, but totally ran out of gas. They had 2nd half leads, but couldn't finish the deal. They had 2 players take 70% of the shots, and score 80% of the points...but as you can imagine, their tanks ran dry at the end. SEVERE depth problems. Not like Creighton was particularly good, they only got 7 points from their bench...in a double OT game. That wraps up a day and night that was...almost completely chalk, for once. The only higher seed to fall was Kansas, and that was a 4-5 game where the 4 was hurting. How dull............ Shattered brackets!!!!! I want shattered brackets!!!!!!

Hey, no dissing on the shrooms, man! Hmmmmmmmmmmm.......(goes to pantry, pulls out the dried shrooms) Realized I've got an extra heirloom tomato as I was getting the salad for tonight. OK...toss it into some eggs for a frittata...with mushrooms, yeah..... No dissing the shrooms. IQ of a package of Peeps. MUCH, MUCH lower.

The latest twist? It appears Mizuhara has been treading the Santos path.... From the Athletic: And it's probably snuck up on most of us, but...the real opening day, forget the Korea series...is Thursday. THIS Thursday. Still in March. But I believe they did this last year. IIRC, they built in more off-days during the season, to break up the grind to a degree, and hopefully to allow open dates to make up weather delays. Let's not get dive too deeply into the point that in MANY cities, they've just extended the Pretty Bad Weather (for baseball) period an extra week. Shorten the season??? C'est impossible!!!!

To be fair, it's none of our <bleep>ing business, either. Which you know, so please, don't take that personally. And not like that'll stop any of us.....oh, not about *speculating*. That's nothing. It's being nosy and wanting more facts. I think none of us...at most, a handful of us...understands the destructive invasiveness of being seriously, broadly famous...

Remember to dress.

WHOA....just flipping through, I looked at the '25 cap space. Right now, and barring an increase (which likely won't be as large)...the Saints are $71M over the cap for '25, *right now*. And usually that situation gets worse as the season progresses and injuries pile up.

I thought everyone had to get under the cap at the start of the new league year. I think there's some other dates where caps come into play...either beginning of camp or opening day...but I'm not sure about those. This will make your eyes glaze over. https://russellstreetreport.com/salarycap/nfl-salary-cap-faqs/

OK, had I picked a bracket, I would've picked the Zags...even if Kansas was at full strength. Much less depleted. But I didn't expect then to break out a Spo-CAN on em...... (Yes, I will steal from Ernie Johnson.)

I think it unlikely that the bookie would have direct contact with, and/or accounts naming, Ohtani. That's the only way he's gonna get off, as the operation's drawing federal attention, so it's much larger than just Ohtani. The translator...he's already becoming a tainted witness to try to implicate Ohtani. If he helps to get the bookie, then it's plausible to me he'll have his visa revoked, and barred re-entry for a period...but that may be it. Making illegal bets is only a misdemeanor offense in California...for an individual offense. The kicker, as the CBS article points out, is that the laws are designed to go after the bookies...because that's an organized crime activity. And of course, it may be that the translator could be charged with a whole, whole, WHOLE lot of individual charges....

........................................................................ Can someone help me pick my jaw up off the floor? I wanna smile, and I wanna cry, and........wow....

You're a week early with that, I'd think..........

https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/could-shohei-ohtani-face-punishment-for-interpreter-gambling-scandal-what-legal-expert-mlb-rules-say/ Yes, it's a 1 year minimum...but the potential criminal issues may be far more serious. None of us want to think Ohtani's involved in actual betting, but the law is such that even paying off his translator's debts can be prosecuted. My gut feeling is, so long as that's ALL it is? California won't prosecute, and MLB won't suspend.

Thank you for taking the time to explain that more fully. And to take it a step further...AP becomes brutal against Takes No Stun, because for the automaton, buying Hardened is expensive. 2 points of hardened, resistant defense is 11 points with TNS in play.

Well of course Putin's gonna blame Ukraine. The sun rose, right?

And the night ends with another one, as #12 Grand Canyon takes out #5 Saint Mary's. I don't treat a 10 over a 7, or a 9 over an 8, as upsets; they're too close to tossups regardless. But that makes the final tally 1 three seed, 1 four seed, 2 fives, and 3 sixes. And, yeah, if ya wanna argue the 11 over the 6 is getting to be too close to be a noteworthy upset...I wouldn't argue strongly against ya... And there was a bit of confusion...ESPN's perfect bracket tracker had 0 perfect brackets after the Wisconsin loss, but the leaderboard had 1 left. THAT one fell when Utah State won. So regardless...22 million brackets, and none survive the first round intact. That's despite only one really big upset...3 seed or higher. I'd kinda thought there might be 2. There were 20 brackets with one miss...but that'll drop considerably once everything's updated.

Excellent seque, Cyg....

But he goes best neat.