unclevlad

I see no reason why you can't use Usable Simultaneously, you don't need (or want) to go the route of Transform. But it's not on the control cost, it's simply in the powers you build in the VPP. So if it's a single power that can be shared, then: VPP, pool size 50 Points, 50 Control Cost. Powers can be changed as a 1/2 phase action (+1/2 to the control cost.) If the VPP can *only* be used for Usable Simultaneously, that's worth a limitation to the control cost...but it'll become a required modifier on every power in the VPP. So you build the Blast, 5d6, Usable Simultaneously by 8. 50 points. This is gonna force both the pool size and control cost to be...pretty darn big. Want a sizable power? Big control cost, big pool size. Want more than 1 power...like an attack and a defense? Big pool size. An alternate approach is UBO rather than simultaneously, where Grantor can give the power to others. Same situation...there's a small limitation on the control cost because it's required for all powers in the VPP. Here, each minion gets a power...or two or three. But the control cost need not be as bad, as this UBO is only +1/4. It would mean the pool size might have to be really honkin' BIG, because each power would have to be accounted for separately. If you want the Head to have versatility, then a VPP mod of Must be UBO or US powers, which cannot include grantor...that would allow the Head to mix and match, but again...every power built in the VPP is required to take some form of those UOOs. The big question would be, how big a VPP limitation would any of these be? That's a fairly sizable limitation; as I've written it, any power which can be put into a VPP can be taken, but the Head can't use any of em on himself. The broad "must be UBO or US, not on grantor" should be worth at least -1/2. Anything that says it's limited to a specific form of US/UBO feels like a -1, but they've also got significant negative implications.

I really, really hope Fox News gets crucified in this trial. IMO this is a watershed event. The verdict should have a major impact on media practices moving forward.

We take threads in the strangest directions sometimes.... So tonight's game is Jags-Jets. Raise your hand if, at the start of the season, you expected this to be a game where the winner remains in contention for a playoff berth. Come on, raise em up high.

Earth sciences too. I remember, a LONG time ago, a discussion about 100,000 decanters of endless water and flooding the planet. Compute the amount of water it'd take to raise the sea level by one inch...it's HUGE. A DoEW on geyser puts out, IIRC, about 1.3 acre-feet, but on a global scale, that's irrelevant. The other thing...I remember a discussion with someone at work. We were talking baseball and salaries. He was going "yeah but turning down $5 MILLION DOLLARS...who can do that?" When the difference was between a $30M contract offer and a $35M offer. To me, as you note, the difference becomes negligible, because even the "low" offer is probably 5-8x more than my lifetime income, including retirement. There's an ENORMOUS difference between $0 and $1M; there's a much, much smaller difference between $1M and $2M. Back to football...is Matt Ryan done? Colts have benched him again. There's no reason to play him any more; the Colts aren't *technically* eliminated, but they need to win out, and have the Titans lose out, to win the division; as a WC, they need the Pats, and Jets to lose out. AND have the Raiders, Jags, Browns, and Steelers lose 2 of 3. Ties would tweak this a bit, but it's not worth considering. And Ryan was never more than a plausible transitional QB. Playoff clinching discussions... https://www.sbnation.com/2022/12/20/23515602/nfl-playoff-scenarios-week-16-eagles-cowboys-bills-chiefs The potential elimination scenarios at the bottom are even more amusing.

https://www.espn.com/soccer/brazil-bra/story/4836397/soccer-legend-pele-to-spend-christmas-in-hospital-after-cancer-worsens

Speaking of swag, it's not limited to bowl games. There's a unique invitational basketball event...UNC, Michigan, Florida, and Oklahoma. Men's AND women's teams. There's been a massive discrepancy between the two in many areas; in this event, everyone gets equal treatment. And the name of the thing is the Jumpman Invitational....yeah. Jordan Brand. So that treatment is apparently Very, Very Nice. Jay Bilas made a small comment during the Mich-UNC men's game, that all the teams were having a great time going through the team's lounges...and picking up swag. I can just imagine. Jordan. Nike. NICE swag...even if it's just shoes.

Execs very rarely go into politics, they lack the visibility. The head coaches are the ones who tend to do that. Sometimes. Others, tho...in many cases, people are hiring former stars. Matt Millen with Detroit. John Lynch with the Niners. Elway. It often fails, I think because these guys often fail as coaches...they don't have the analytical angle, to assess talent, or perhaps the communications skills to teach it. The full story is here: https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/35271981/sources-nfl-teams-spent-800m-fired-coaches-execs-last-5-years The thing is, fan capacity to absorb costs has yet to show a cap. Figure: $800M means $32M per team, on average. That's a good starting QB, or at least 2, maybe 3 front-line players. Top receivers, corners, and edge rushers are around $15M, I think; top backers and linemen (other than left tackle, which is premium) are closer to $10M. That shows how much it's costing. Or, look at it another way: that's about 15% of the salary cap, and it's just WHOOOSH!!! down the tubes. It's probably not that bad, as it's possible that $800M is total dead money...not annual. Matt Rhule's contract was 7 years, $60M total. 4 years left means roughly $35M in dead money...$8M a year. That's still the value of a *solid* contributing player. The problem, I think, is that coaches require FAT!!!!, long term (for coaching), guaranteed contracts...and extensions. There's the clear belief that without those, the good coaches won't sign on, or don't have the backing of the team. Some of this is also the inflation from the college coaching ranks, and the insane salaries most Power Five schools give.

Oh, it worked at Div I, for a very short period of time: Paul Westhead's Loyola Marymount. It wasn't all 3's, all the time, but it was run n' gun, play fast, play hard. But that team also had Bo Kimble and Hank Gathers. The problem at the pro level is, I think, the schedule. You can't keep that up over the VERY long NBA season. At the D1 level, the problem is that the other teams adjust to your pace and pressure. We had this down here. Under Neil McCarthy, the Aggies played a full-on pressing, switching defense. It worked in December and January...but come February and March? The Aggies lost a bit, the other teams were crisper and sharper, and that amoeba defense was less effective. Against all 3's, all the time, the first issue is rebounding. Those Scottie Pippen-esque, 6'7 wing players who can play against that speed on the perimeter...almost never play D3, they play D1, and if they can shoot, Power 5. (The Aggies got a bunch of em over the years that couldn't shoot very well.) Players like that can also hassle the 3 point line, and force a lower shooting percentage...all the while getting every rebound on both ends of the court.

Doesn't Need to Breathe is a common defense against many gases...those which have to be inhaled, anyway. Some can be absorbed through the skin. Being deaf means that a sonic Flash simply does no good. They couldn't hear anyway. Same with being blind. (See 6E1 226...a 2nd flash generally does nothing while the first flash is still in effect.) It is not, automatically, Flash Defense (Hearing). It becomes something of a tricky combo, because Flash Def (Sound) invites an AVAD, whereas Deafness would have to be NND. A +3/4 Advantage might be AVAD vs. Flash Def (Sound) OR NND (being deaf). If it's NND (defense is being deaf or FD: sound, it remains +1/2, because 1 point of FD: sound is orders of magnitude more common than deafness. Taking that a step further, I wouldn't buy being blind or deaf to be adequately common...not among characters or villains...to be sufficient on its own. Medusa's attack doesn't need NND, it can be defined as Transform with rather a lot of dice, and All or Nothing. (Let's skip there's no way to recover from it, as best I can recall. That's normal for the myth.) It can be deflected; the specific aspect of the Aegis was, it was a perfect reflector, so it had Reflection (gaze attacks). IIRC, you *could* use a normal shield to protect you from the gaze...but that was a passive defense. Come out from under its cover to attack? OOPSIE!!! Oh, and of course the snake hair could just bite you and well...bye-bye.

The pressure from the Tesla stockholders appears to be working. Musk announces he'll resign as Twitter CEO once he finds a successor. Now, mind, there's a honkin' big caveat to this. As noted in NYT: So we'll see what happens. Until the successor is named, IMO, skepticism remains warranted. And we'll have to see if he can do it fast enough to keep enough of the infrastructure intact, if that's possible.

I dunno if we can say that, just on these two having a spat. I mean, they're Bart Simpson and Bud Bundy, so it's rather hard to take them as representatives of the Republican Party. In other news...before the Dems lose control, the House Ways and Means committee voted to release 6 years' worth of Trump's tax returns.

Wow, talk about a game doing a 180 on a dime... San Jose State vs. Eastern Michigan in the legendary Famous Idaho Potato Bowl. SJSU is rolling at the start. Opening kickoff, drive for TD. Force a fumble, but can't capitalize, miss a FG. Force a punt, drive for 2nd TD. Then the roof caves in. On the TD, they try to kick the extra point, and it's blocked *and returned* by Eastern Michigan for 2 points. EMU takes the kickoff, drives for TD. SJSU is stopped on 4th and goal at the 1; EMU drives right back for a TD. Next 2 drives are SJSU interceptions...with drives for TD. From 13-0 and kicking an XP in the first 8 1/2 minutes, it switches around completely in the next 21 minutes. 30-13 EMU at half. EDIT: side note. SJSU is the program that had a player killed when he was hit by a bus while riding a scooter, of all things, late in the season.

That's not incendiary, it's accurate. Incendiary is "Taysom Hill is what Tim Tebow could've been if Tebow had more talent."

This would possibly be a valid limitation if you're playing in a Clone Wars-esque campaign, where robots might well be MORE common than humans. However, by and large, most opponents will be humans, and thus presumed to have souls. So IMO this isn't a valid NND defense in most cases, at least not as the only condition. By comparison, I group most teleporters, full desolid types, and those with XDM as "phase shifters." I often give them HA or Blast NNDs, often one that does BODY and one that doesn't. The defenses are having teleport, desolid, or XDM. Being able to phase means you resist phasing attacks. But also note the defenses are phrased as positive statements...having teleport, desolid or XDM. It's a bit too long to paste here, IMO, but go to 6E1, page 326. Under NND defenses, there are 2 applicable paragraphs. For inappropriate, "lack of" is expressly stated. So you can't use "lack of a soul" as a defense. OTOH, in the next paragraph, talking about a fantasy attack, it is legal to define the defense as "having a soul." The campaign premise is that demons and undead (the spell's intended target) *don't* have souls.

It's a rule that works in continuous-possession games, where there's ongoing ebb and flow of the ball/puck. So, soccer, lacrosse, hockey, you can penalize a man for a period of time. Hockey and lacrosse have these rules. Soccer doesn't; it might work, but the time frames would have to be different, since soccer has a much larger field. It simply takes longer to transition, or get set up. And passes are probably more readily disrupted. It probably wouldn't work in football or basketball; the style of the game is just not conducive to it. But I was specifically referring to overtime. Instead of 11 on 11, make it 9 on 9, or even 8 on 8.

And the Rams now join the...ignoble...group eliminated before Christmas. Hey, Mr. P! The league's giving you a present! The Broncos might WELL win their 2nd in a row, on Christmas Day no less, and on a nationally televised game. And since the Rams played tonight, they probably never considered flexing them to Saturday. That said.... https://www.si.com/nfl/rams/news/christmas-day-disaster-free-tickets-los-angeles-broncos-rams-empty-sofi

"BODY" in a context of spirits can also mean how resilient they are, before they're disrupted/destroyed. It need not translate to flesh and bone. Even if you have a fully desolid spirit, BODY can still measure this notion.

That was circumstances outside the control of the teams playing. Unless you're talking about the band's halftime shows. Yeah, sometimes those are...overwrought. Also, "dumbest" goes to the fake punt...Pats-Colts, 2015. Where 9...9!!!!...of the players lined up near the sideline. Where you've got the center and 1 guy under center to take the snap. Yeah, remember that one one? I call that the dumbest ever because it was believed to be a sensible, plausible play. Yesterday's disaster was unique, tho, IMO. No, it's certainly not the first time we've seen idiotic laterals that backfired...most of the time, just turning into a fumble. It was that second dying quail throw, and the result. It was the situation...TIE score. It was a DRAW play to simply run the clock out. It was a call that allowed stupidity to work. Ball was at the Pats' 45. 3 seconds left. No way you can get into FG position in 3 seconds. Pats call a draw...but why do ANYTHING? TAKE. A. KNEE. Raiders had no TOs. Instead, they run a play against a defense that's playing deep...they don't care about giving up 30 yards. When that happens, the back's brain melts down. I'll grant that running the draw had a SMALL!!!!!!! chance of going wrong, but it had no chance of scoring.

From NYT:

Ehhhh....that depends on your calendar of choice. My personal preference is to use the cross-quarter days...the start of spring is Imbolc, which is Feb. 1st or 2nd. Winter Solstice on Wednesday is Mid-Winter...note the "mid". Middle of. So it can't run all the way out through February. Valentine's Day was seasonally neutral at first, but the association of "love in bloom" is quite old now. As such, IMO, it's a spring holiday.

And of course the schedule……….coincidentally………has the Raiders and Steelers playing, in prime time no less IIRC. lessee…for the play…Sharing is Caring??? how about What Could Go Wrong??? for something simple, Seppoku…?? I know I’m fishing here.

https://time.com/6241995/elon-musk-twitter-burnout/

Combat Piloting requires thinking in 3 dimensions. Combat Driving doesn't. The control assemblies are also VERY different. A plane doesn't have a brake...and that brake supports maneuvers that you just can't do in a plane. Or a boat, for that matter. Evasive maneuvers with a fast-moving boat would seem to be rather difficult. Even in Combat Piloting, there's a major division where there's little/no crossover: rotary vs. fixed-wing. Any time I hear this discussed...flying a helicopter is much more difficult to learn. Without someone telling him what to do? One lesson won't give someone a 10- roll. It takes 40 hours, minimum, before you can take your test flight. Flying anything would, IMO, never have a default; I like the notion of "trained only." One lesson does not cut it. I wouldn't touch Combat Driving or Piloting in general. But how often does it ever get taken? Hey, if you're running an agents/espionage game, if you want to simply *give* Combat Driving for free, as part of training, I'd rather see that. Combat Pilot, OTOH, *tends* to be a specialist skill.

No, I think they only did that for a few years. This one tops the Pisarcik handoff fumble. It tops the butt fumble. It tops Leon Lett. IMO, it tops them all. So, yes, I totally agree, this one likely will be #1 for years to come.

You guys need to see it. Because he's underselling it. The only comparable plays that come to mind are from SVP's Bad Beats. This might make it, but perhaps not, as the game *should have* gone to OT. Belichick had to have lost his mind.