unclevlad

Never cared for Djokovic much, so... i hope he doesn't. As for Rafa...amen! Can I get a Hallelujah from the congregation!! I never expected his career to extend as long as, say, Fed's. He's always been SO physical, so intense. The severely limited schedule he's been able to play the last few years really hasn't surprised me. I also agree, we're probably not going to see an era like this again, where 3 players... let's throw Murray in, his peak didn't last, but he *did* crack through...practically never lost except to each other, regardless of surface. Arguably, Djokiovic is the best ever all-court; Fed, grass; and it's almost impossible to argue that Rafa is the absolute King of Clay. No one today is anywhere near their consistency.

Not a fan of softball particularly but this is something that has to be mentioned... The Oklahoma women's softball team beat Tennessee 9-0, to advance to the bracket final. They need to beat the team that advances through the loser's bracket, and they have 2 shots at it if necessary, to make the championship series. They have now won..... 50 straight games. Yes. 50. They are an IMPOSSIBLE 58-1 this season. They entered the 8-team WCWS, where everyone's really good as -800 favorites to win it. That's about 90% to win it. Women's college softball does tend to run to favorites; 6 of the 8 top seeds made it to the WCWS. Stanford was #9...so that was a tossup, #8 vs. #9. The only real upset was the #2 seed not making it. Still...this is an amazing team performance.

Available in several stylish colors, too! But I think I prefer this variant... Yeah, the company that does these has quite a few variations on the theme...

Just seen...Rafa Nadal had arthroscopic surgery on his hip. Recovery time is expected to be about 5 months. He's going to try to play in '24, but...who knows. It may well be that he can take the court, but after a layoff this long, it seems almost impossible that he could contend for another title.

Sad but not very surprising news in horse racing... The count of dead horses at Churchill Downs has reached 12...and no one knows what the cause is. Thus, the track has decided this weekend's races will be the last for the season, and the rest of the schedule (through June) will be moved to a different facility.

Granted the chance of impeachment of those we're so pointedly not mentioning, is zero...still... Consider who is likely to take their place. Would you want to give a Herschel Walker a shot at a House seat, to offer up one example?

I'm much less worried about a Cylon takeover...but a Wargames scenario? THAT feels plausible in most ways, if we skip the "hacking into the most dangerous system on the planet" aspect. Or imagine drone bombers and a Dr. Strangelove scenario...*could* they be called back, or would they reject it? I won't disagree with the point that "AI" has a long ways to go to get past the "extrapolation from a limited set of directives working on an input body of information"...but the other problem is that AI functions in virtual space, where everything is an abstraction. It has no real-world context, which means it'll offer solutions that are basically horrific. Valuing life pretty much doesn't exist in virtual space. EDIT: reverting back to our usual themes... The Senate passed the debt ceiling bill this evening. 63-36, so quite a few Republicans had to vote for it, but I haven't looked past that info.... EDIT 2...ok, checking. 4 Dems voted no, 17 Reps voted yes. Also, a speech, and presumably signing ceremony, is booked for 7 PM Eastern tomorrow. I expect a move to boot McCarthy out as Speaker tomorrow...maybe not til Monday but my feeling is the Freedom Caucus will want to be more pointed, and move to boot McCarthy on the day the bill they hate gets signed.

I don't consider MTG to be intelligent at all; I see her as an opportunist, willing to hook onto anything that'll advance her status. That's why she's backing the new Speaker. I can't exactly blame the MAGA types for turning against her. It's no stretch whatsoever to assert that she never was loyal to their interests, and that she used them, nothing more. The irony is, this is no different from their Great Champion, His Imperial Orangeness. But that's what they can't see.

IMO this completely ignores the underlying reality. You can ignore psionics altogether. You can ignore unarmed combat altogether. They were peripheral to the core. The problem with Hero isn't at the periphery, it's central. Some of it is, IMO, intrinsic to trying to be a universal system. GURPS shares it; the newbie is overrun with the details. The toolkit approach, assembling from parts, will always have loopholes. There's a core, IMO almost insoluble conflict between narrative and definite. The source material has significant narrative aspects...points, schmoints. Green Lantern's power ring is a zero phase, zero time VPP...so what? That's POINTS, not power. But the game can't do that, or else creates a major imbalance. Pricing anything in the toolkit/piecemeal approach will ALWAYS have these issues; it's simply infeasible to have everything balance. There's implicit dynamic tension between "mechanics trumps SFX" versus "SFX is more important than mechanics." Even making such an issue of SFX, guarantees newbie confusion. For an introductory approach? I'll offer up stuff specifically for supers. --eliminate Drain, Transform, and Aid, and therefore Power Defense. --Cut WAY back on some of the complex modifiers, or the manipulative ones. Damage over Time. Charges can be useful, but keep it simple...ditch the continuing charges at least. Gestures and incantations is D&D, how often is it ever in play in supers? Fine, keep the general Restrainable limitation. --Do supers games really need a complex dimensional structure? What IS extra dimensional travel in this context? --I'd leave the rules for mental powers, I think...but treat them as non-core. They're very complex and potentially something to add after players and GM become accustomed to the system. --Eliminate Multiform and Duplication...? Or at least greatly simplify them. Sometimes it's not the power or the advantage, but the sheer open-ended use. Trigger fits here; so might Uncontrolled. There's a major, critical fallacy in the rules: not all game elements should be combined. Yeah, fine, they have the occasional disclaimer (Usable at Range can't be used with STR, say) but that just reinforces the notion that "anything not officially prohibited is allowed." That can be OK for people with the experience to review things and say No, but that precludes newbies. And the assertion that D&D is just as complex is debatable at best, and badly misleading in any event. Yeah, when you dig into the weeds, it's got its messes. Hero's complexity is Right There from moment 1. Those are two completely different things.

No big surprise: D'backs get a 2 run single with 2 outs in the bottom of the 9th to steal a walk-off from the Rockies. Surprise: That completes a 4 game sweep...first time in years. 4 game sweeps are just generally rare, in part because there aren't that many 4 game series. Big surprise: They're now tied for the NL West lead, with the Dodgers who are off today. That the Dodgers are, if not struggling, at least not blowing the rest of the league away, isn't that surprising given their turnover, but Arizona flirting with .600 again...that's like...no one saw THIS coming. HUGE!!! surprise: They're tied with the Dodgers for the best record in the NL. 34-23, on pace for ~ 97 wins. Preseason estimate: ~ 75. Granted, the truest aphorism in sports holds...you're never as good as you look when you're hot. Still, 57 games isn't a small sample.

"Root for the Cowboys or Die!!!!!" <long, long pause> "WELL????" "I'm thinking, I'm thinking!!!!" (with apologies to Jack Benny)

Heh...Queen Anne's Revenge was one on my list of amusing choices...but the historical version.

Actually, Margorie Taylor Greene voted FOR the bill. That one stood out to me. I don't have the rest of them memorized; I do remember several, that were No votes. And Boebert stood out too...for not voting.

This just in... The House passes the debt ceiling bill, EASILY. Because in the end, more Democrats voted for it, than Republicans. 71 Republicans voted against it. Haven't tried to dig up who voted against, but that should be available, if not already, then pretty soon. Makes me wonder how many Freedom Caucus members are throwing hissy fits. EDIT: WaPo has the roll call results, if you're interested.

Just because it doesn't come up...does that mean it was abandoned??? I don't think so.

I have that problem too. But they aren't my pets.

Procedural vote to begin debate on the debt ceiling bill passed, which is apparently the next step in the arcane process to get the bill passed. 29 Republicans voted against it. 52 Dems ultimately supported it. Apparently they were playing a waiting game to see how many would be needed to ensure it did pass this round. McCarthy has scheduled a final vote for this evening. Minority Leader Jeffries has said, he'd make sure to have enough Democrats to support it, so it would pass. My first conclusion is, this is making the Freedom Caucus look petty. Well, that's not the word I almost typed, but that's one Simon probably won't mind.......

I hope the flashback doesn't wake you up in the early AM with night sweats....

My at-home wear, as a Professional Leisure Specialist, swapped from cargo shorts to gym shorts...partly cuz, well, gym shorts are cheaper, and breathe better. That's summer...roughly May 1st to November 1st down here. If it's cooler, I stick mostly with sleep pants. Same idea; they're comfortable and cheap. I switched to Sketchers too, for the most part, some years ago. Partly cuz they're easier to find in WIDE sizes....I wear a 4E. And for just beating around town (at most)...slip ons are just convenient. I like monk straps too, but they've seemingly gone out of style. Not that many out there.

Mmm, Logan, this won't be a sigh of exasperation from the judge. Or the partners of the law firm. The lawyer's probably out of a job, or at least a greatly reduced position in the firm. Not sure what options the judge has for sanctions; from the sound of it, the git is seriously remorseful and hideously embarassed he messed up SOOO badly, so I don't see full disbarment. But hey, how many times have any of us cited totally BS Wikipedia info? What I'd like to know is how the HECK ChatGPT threw out false citations. It also tends to show me that it really isn't anything close to a true AI. EDIT: Couple things from the comments... 1. I rather like this one. "Been working as lawyer for 30 years, eh? Seems like it might be time to retire, go fishing, and step away from the courtroom." 2. LOTS of the comments were for disbarment. Another one pointed out that the client should be IRATE. The legal malpractice is pretty much sewn up. The issue would be how far it can be carried forward; the other associates are likely toast, but this may well carry up to the partners. And...well...if you're gonna sanction the whole firm...and the lawyer isn't a rooke......well...maybe disbarment is more in the picture than I thought.

Well, OK, but that's something you can do in a long-running series. In the limited time you've got in a movie, it can be introduced, but probably not really developed. Especially as this is an origin story, sounds like, so you've got 4 characters to do.

It's interesting...not something I'd thought much about, but watching almost any sports, you see Vuori getting pushed to both men and women. Sometimes Lululemon, too. But this was a bit of a surprise today: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/13/opinion/soft-hard-pants.html?unlocked_article_code=Zie0guICSsJ5A1zpTHmJjE0Eb9rCbB4tgCS0-l4D0dvtS3YP01x1RnfsdlSbTDQ7JZYNiXT5RRlvJvX4J9uQ1d1Qm4BdDN3da7Er1l0eqYpGb-J9-UcidJbcYulkh4tFZWl7UzXlkLSQC_D-6fnH318XE-jViDfLxKSiNeoavSaAlQ3GgdUfh5n0rIUhHQBZMIcqGd4Oz_GCb5pkOx3QHplxNyGRBsQLjQtaRzJqXcs3Rj3rDIQ3iAVilzgTK2HcK6RIoQM-L2OrPbrzT40sESicfdNi73g7cJnMyQQe_bIWHGUHiQ6VhLwh4yjAoUU4j8vcFZWQcVlF0g&smid=url-share Interesting, if this is becoming a thing...but I'm reading that it's somewhat connected to NOT having in-person meetings with someone other than your day-to-day colleagues. But...maybe not entirely. There was another story yesterday about dress sneakers...and a picture of a meeting between House leaders and Biden, with several of them wearing dress sneaks...in the Oval Office. It was also funny, because the Fashion Gurus were disgusted. But if it's showing up *there*...then there's a definite trend.

I feel the same, but when you're the patient, it's still hard to accede to amputating your arm despite the gangrene in the forearm.

I was.

There are some mildly crazy approaches to this, and plenty of opportunity for seriously mixed and bent metaphors as one intermixes real and fictional and sci fi...