unclevlad

https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/06/politics/trump-organization-fraud-trial-verdict/index.html This doesn't include Trump per se, but still, it continues to undermine his position among the Republican movers and shakers. He'll try to blow it off, it's New York, it's Democrats out to get him...but it's just continuing the narrative that he's a loser.

How much masa were you using? The recipe there was using 4 cups. It's a very good video IMO, but she was cooking in a very nicely equipped kitchen. BIG Insta-Pot and stand mixer both, and the stock pot she used for the double boiler setup was also rather large. They all kinda have to be, cuz that recipe probably serves, what, 6-8?

Good question. My feeling is, at least for the next couple years, it won't. Bowl gift packages are getting too close, IMO, to pay-to-play, and that's the line in the sand, I think. NIL can't be run by the school. Bowl gift packages aren't run by the school either but it's directly connected with being on the team. It feels like hairsplitting...but that's nothing new. Also note that quite often, it's...pretty trashy. Bowl-branded stuff? Ugh. OK, fine, it's "something to remember the experience by!!!" Not something you want. Last week, a watch auction finished up...for charity, with a tie-in to football. 3-4 of the watches were swag...and just awful. This is a list of the swag from each game last year: https://www.masslive.com/sports/2021/12/college-football-bowl-game-player-gifts-heres-the-swag-players-staff-get-for-each-bowl-game.html Many of these include a gift suite...I presume this is "open up a presentation room, fill it with a bunch of stuff, let the players pick". Hard to gauge. You can expect that the bigger games have better gift suites, of course. Other than that, commemorative football...? Ehhh. OTOH...nice noise-cancelling headphones can be good...but lots of players will have something like that. Me, I'd just prefer the Cheez-It Bowl's $400 Amazon gift cert.

SI's power rankings gave a shoutout to this video review of the Broncos and Wilson during the Carolina game. Worth your time. Note, the occasional obscenity or f-bomb does slide through from time to time so perhaps NSFW. But very interesting.

It's actually eerie that this was the cause. I put the basic, free Pandora on as I read late at night. That has occasional ads. For the last couple weeks, one of em was from Glaxo, the pharma company. About? RSV. First I'd actually ever heard about it. Then.......... Like I say, kinda eerie....

You're up in Rainland. It's understandable. Me? I haven't either...and the Hatch Valley is like 20 miles from me. This IS the land of chiles, and tamales are central to Christmas cooking. By the same token, tamales are apparently best prepared by a group, as much a family bonding moment as anything. So that rather leaves me out.....

Well. This turned into the prototypical NFL game of the current era. Team A crushes Team B for 55 minutes, then plays soft and CHOKES. All due respect to Tom, but come on, Saints. Some questionable playcalling, egregiously bad defensive tactics, and you squander a 13 point lead in the last 5 bloody minutes.

Well, if Kap isn't the answer, perhaps Mayfield is? Naaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I'll grant, someone's probably gonna sign him; it might even be the Niners cuz they are totally desperate, and all he'll cost is money. But if he can't cut it in Carolina, with their shockingly poor options, it's completely unreasonable to believe he can manage a playoff push. Niners are between a rock and a hard place overall, as they still don't know anything about Trey Lance. Jimmy G is going to be a free agent; it's very difficult to gauge the level of interest, given his injury history.

If we start from the fanaticism motivation per those comments from Rainey...then, true enough. Not even a feature, it was the goal. If someone dies as a result? Well, you can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs perhaps? If it's really based on that motivation then it's a sociopath hiding under a mask of quasi-religious fervor. Now, absolutely, I don't want to assume it was the case, so that's purely speculative.

If they catch the guy, and try him in local or state court...there's nooooo wayyyy the trial can be held in that area. NO chance of seating an unbiased jury. And as we've noted before, jackasses like this can't think about potential consequences. They lack the capability.

I'm reminded of the promo for the Macron interview on 60 Minutes. Q: "so you think attacking civilian infrastructure constitutes a war crime?" A: "yes." IF they can find the <insert 5 minute long expletive string here> whackjobs that did this...I honestly don't know what charges could be filed, but far as I'm concerned, a life sentence would be Just Fine. Hmm... https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title18/part1/chapter65&edition=prelim Go down to section 1366, which is energy facilities. Blackout of 40,000 people is significant to me. Also, there's a separate provision: if anyone died as a result of the power outage, the max sentence is life.

Take care of yourself in this time, sir. And those around you as you can.

Well, the charges aren't exactly typical...but skipping the bowl games is. And to a lesser extent, so is having players get suspended for being idiots...not to the level of felony charges...on the road, semi-bored, fancy setting. It's one of the two reasons why betting...at least outside the CFP games...on bowl games is IMO nothing more than a crapshoot. The other big reason is, who wants to be there, and who doesn't? UCLA is stuck with the Sun Bowl. El Paso...? Y'all ever been there? BLEAH! NOT on my list of 1000 Best Destination Vacations. The payout is actually better than I thought...$4.5M puts it 11th among the 'regular' bowls, which is still fairly good. But Washington got the Alamo Bowl, and Oregon got the Holiday Bowl. (USC and Utah were going to get the top 2 spots...Rose and Cotton.) And if we drop down to the mini-bowls...especially those well before Christmas (Bahamas, Cure, Frisco Idaho Potato)...one might also throw in issues with trying to get through finals, to remain eligible.

All right, the Colts are running out the clock... The Broncos score 35 points in the last 14 quarters, plus an OT period. The Cowboys score 33 in the 4th quarter.

Well...the Colts managed to implode in a most dramatic fashion, didn't they? Saw the 'Boys get it back to a 2 score game, figured, ok, that was probably it. Time to change the sheets and do some related stuff. When I look up, they've got 1 more TD in the bag. Look up again, and they've got another. 4 minutes for 3 TDs. I'm having a hard time figuring how the Colts have 4 wins.

Yeah, it went as expected, pretty much. TCU stayed 3, OSU rose to 4. USC dropped to 10 (!). EARLY!!! lines, Georgia -6.5 vs. OSU, Michigan -9.5 vs. TCU. And of course the Miss Congeniality bowl games start on the 16th this year. What I like is, many weekdays have late morning or afternoon games to put on, for background noise if nothing else. Oh, and somehow the NMSU Aggies got into a bowl game. They were 5-6 (the game Saturday against FCS Valpo didn't count for this), but they cancelled the one game because a San Jose State player was killed in a freaking scooter crash. That game couldn't be rescheduled. Plus: there weren't enough 6-6 teams to fill out the bowl roster. There's 131 teams...and 41 bowls counting the 2 CFP games. That's 82 out of 131, so it's not hard to understand that finding that much mediocrity...can be difficult. So the NCAA put them ahead of the 5-7 teams, and it turned out...they got one of the spots. One of the really mediocre spots, mind...Arizona Bowl, the day after Christmas. Arguably the least desirable slot in the entire schedule.

Dinner salad. Trimmed/cubed chicken thigh meat, tossed with a bit of olive oil and soy sauce, seasoned in this case with sweet paprika, Chinese 5 spice, granulated garlic, and a few drops of sesame oil. Sauted in a fry pan; a little additional soy added late, to help glaze the chicken. A good spring mix salad, a couple heirloom tomatoes, diced up. Throw the chicken on top, add dressing. More of a summer dish, but it's so little work that it's still a nice choice this time of year.

No clinches yet of any type, be it division title (Minnesota has clinched a tie, tho) or playoff berth. Commanders are first team out at 7-5-1, so a Philly clinches a playoff berth with a win or Washington loss. Houston and Chicago were the first 2 eliminated. Chicago did it artfully...blowing a 10 point lead only to get steamrolled after that. Houston is just...Houston. Denver and the Rams are probably next up but the plank's getting retracted on quite a few NFC teams. And of course, the only question with the Broncos is whether they set the record for scoring futility or not. A point...since giving the play calling to Klint Kubiak, the QB coach....scoring has gone DOWN. Mind, this might be due to several factors, like maybe defenses not fearing the Bronco wideouts at all. Force the dink and dunk, and the Broncos will consistently fail to convert 3rd downs.

Cincy-KC on the TV, wondering if there's gonna be another Mahomes magic trick... Chargers-Raiders, watching the gamecast, wondering if there's gonna be another Raider train wreck....and it's getting closer.... EDIT: and within moments of each other...NOPE, and NOPE. Cincy converts a long 3rd down to ice the game; Raiders force a stop on 4th and 9. 2:40 left, Chargers have timeouts and the 2 minute warning, but barring a Raideresque mistake, the Chargers will need to go 80-odd yards in less than 2 minutes, with no TOs.

NY and Washington can't move the ball in OT...4 punts, a last-ditch 58 yard FG that falls short as the clock expires. The interesting aspect is, this may well eliminate any chance of a 9-8 WC team. Giants are 7-4-1, Commanders 7-5-1. Even stranger? Washington has a bye...but then they play again, this time in Washington. Winner of that game gets a huge leg up, but Washington's problem is their other games...Browns is winnable, but 49ers and Cowboys. So Commanders pretty much have to win that, or they have little chance to pass the Giants. That narrows their playoff window to the last spot only.

New lows...and this season, that's hard to do, but they're pulling it off. Denver's now scoring less than 14 points/game. The most glaring factor: 3rd down conversions. They were 3rd worst...Houston and Carolina were slightly lower, but the gap to the next worst was 6%. Broncos were 28%, the Jets right above them were 34%. That went DOWN today; Broncos were 2 for 12. Looks like that drops them below 28%. Also, in scoring, Houston's 2nd worst...but they're scoring just under 2 points per game more.

Oh my... Being forced to root for the Broncos is now clearly shown to be unconstitutional, as cruel and unusual punishment. Choosing to root for them is equally proven to be a form of insanity that requires careful monitoring, in order to be certain the sufferer does not inflict physical harm on him or herself.

Then you are allowing me to circumvent a limitation easily. Darkness to Sound, 0 END, no range. 5 points. For that, I get a -1/4 limitation on arbitrarily large attack powers. It ties back to the point that Incantations is required to make the power activation obvious, per the first paragraph of the description. The rules are badly organized. Your reading is that the When clause is based solely on the "speak freely and clearly" and everything else is tied to that. That is not correct; it's one of them. If the clauses were written as bullet lists, a la --speak freely and clearly --doesn't work in a silence field --interrupted by damage it would be more apparent that they're unrelated to each other, as they all have separate reasons. So, are you saying spellcasters can only take Incantations if their spell is appealing to some Other Power? Recognize: that has nothing to do with the RAW mechanics of Incantations. That's a restriction YOU are adding as to when it *can be* taken. You're conflating story and mechanical elements. That's fine for your campaign, but DON'T assume that's part of the rules.

No. This is the error. Blocks, yes...but nowhere does it say overwhelms. "Impenetrable blackness" can simply mean all light is repulsed in the field. That doesn't overwhelm sight; it prevents the medium. Darkness vs. sound *could be* a cacophony, but it could also be simply a vacuum. No medium for sound to propagate. The text specifically says "some examples" so requiring this to be a blanket characterization is not supported. I'd also say that you're trying to compel a narrow interpretation, and one that works to achieve the effect, onto a Hero power...and that's anathema to Hero itself. Isn't "impossible to hear anything because it's so loud" part of the SFX? Abstract powers are SFX-agnostic, so sure, it could be because it's too loud, or it could be because all sound is denied. There is a Limitation, Incantations. It dictates that there are conditions that make it impossible to activate a power...such as being gagged, or being inside a Darkness (Sound) field. Incantations in RAW has 2 parts: 1. Power activation is normally invisible. It becomes obvious to hearing. (Just as Gestures becomes obvious to sight.) 2. It is a form of Conditional Power: "this power does not work when..." Making activation obvious is generally not worth a limitation. It simply doesn't come into play. Activating a power is an atomic action that can't be interrupted or disrupted...unless there is a separate time-based limitation, and that's got its own value. Yes, Incantations + Extra Time is a case where the limitations amplify each other, but Incantations does not imply Extra Time. It does also imply that Incantations is a poor choice for powers that would be Inobvious or Invisible...but again, that's an application question. Overall, this aspect is not worth a limitation in many cases. The major reason why Incantations is worth a limitation at all, is the conditional power. These establish the When conditions. What you're talking about is Why...but that can't remove conditions established by the When, it can only add new ones...and that becomes SFX-related, and tied to the specific power. Also, the rules give an indication of Why. The bold text sections comprise the core When clauses. They are *separate* clauses. The first is obvious but pretty rare...and won't happen in combat barring an odd effect. The second clause is such that you can't wrap yourself up in a silence field and thereby render the limitation moot. The limitation is worth something because the activation must be Obvious. If you strike that? You can't activate the power. The damage clause relates back to "freely and clearly". You take damage, you say OWWW...and that's not speaking your incantation clearly. There are 2 major cases: first, for Extra Time, and second, to handle the additional Limitation for a Constant power (Incants Throughout).

I'm also not sure that soccer fits the American mindset. Too many games spend too much time with, apparently, nothing happening. For example, in the game today, there were 13 shots that resulted in a save or goal. 13...for both teams combined. That doesn't count those that miss the net, which are often dramatic, but still, for 90+ minutes, that's glacial. Watching soccer is like watching an old no-shot-clock basketball game, or more recently, many University of Virginia games where they played the packed-line defense, and the final score was likely in the 50s. What's the #1 issue WRT baseball? Lack of action/pace of play. If baseball, as played these days, had to build itself from scratch, I think it'd have a really hard time. I did forget the Spanish-language broadcasts, but what's their overall level of market penetration? I'll also buy the point that the South American and European players aren't playing in their home base...but the sport still has market saturation via the local clubs, to maintain interest. There are fewer kids playing HS football. https://www.statista.com/statistics/267955/participation-in-us-high-school-football/ That's about 11% over the period. Questions arise, tho: a) how many of the kids who decided not to play, were never going to be good players? Spotty time on the field at most. Probably not even getting a letter...criteria vary, but one school district, for football, says 40% of plays from scrimmage. That's not spotty. b) how many moved to other sports? And actually...there's a surprising number of boys playing soccer. https://www.statista.com/statistics/267963/participation-in-us-high-school-soccer/ This is boys and girls combined. Boys apparently make up a bit more than half, so we're talking about half the number of boys playing soccer, as football. This begs the question: how many treat it like, say, college intramurals or club sports? It's great, it's fun, but it's not a path leading to a potential future. HS football, obviously...it is a path. Same with basketball. Soccer could absolutely be a path to a scholarship, and hey, even a half-time scholarship would be huge. The other point: football, basketball, and baseball have a deep, rich tradition, and the strong competitive nature. It's plausible to assume that coaching is at a higher level. Where's soccer coaching? That's not to say there aren't serious HS soccer programs...but I question, how many of them are there across the country?