unclevlad

In a relatively pleasant surprise, considering...12 jurors have been selected for the Trump case. There's still a need for some alternates, and 2 prospective jurors were removed after having passed initially, so it's not a lock. I was worried this could take a LOT longer.

But it's also pretty easy to strip out the roleplaying material...for starters, toss out Disadvantages. Then, ditch many of the perks and talents.

The unfortunate news...both Jimmy Butler and Zion Williamson suffered injuries in their games and are out for tomorrow, and at least some time longer. The "dude, how could you be so stupid" news...Jontay Porter has been banned for life from the NBA, for betting on basketball...including games in which he played...and sharing insider info. The most egregious: he faked an injury *to his team* so he wouldn't play...and the Under prop bets involving him would be sure to hit. Banning for life is pretty much a no brainer with that nugget. The "how could you be so stupid"...he made about $22,000 from the bets...but he had a 2-way contract (NBA, G League) that paid at least $400K...and much more if he could stick in the NBA. One angle here is the insider info...from NBA.com: Ya gotta wonder...WHY? The *generous* interpretation would be "I didn't realize!!!" but that's shot to heck by him placing prop bets then sitting out so they'd be sure to hit. Oh, BTW, the bets were flagged and NOT paid out. That makes this FAR more egregious than, say, Pete Rose's violations. It's on par with the point shaving scandals in college basketball. The kid's never going to be reinstated, and this will be a black flag for any potential employer.

One of the aspects of these videos that I love is both the opportunities realized...the guy who started the braziers or the stiffer mix for the Blizzard...and the opportunities *missed*...like Oreo thinking the add-ins weren't going to pan out. BTW, if you didn't know...the difference between ice cream and frozen custard is that the latter has egg yolks included. Of course, to confuse the issue...French vanilla ice cream has egg yolks. Typical vanilla ice cream is white; French vanilla is pale yellow...from the egg yolk. The yolks add fat and help create a smoother texture...and as a source of fat, they're MUCH cheaper than using larger proportions of heavy cream. Mind...really serious, decadent ice cream has MUCH more fat overall than the usual store-bought junk. Alton Brown dropped his favorite, WAY back in the day on Good Eats...and oh my, it's RICH. And expensive. https://altonbrown.com/recipes/homemade-chocolate-ice-cream/ Note, there's NO milk per se. 3 cups half and half, and 1 cup heavy cream. AND 8 egg yolks. Done right...which is tricky, as you have to cook the mix slowly or the yolks can curdle...this is incredibly smooth, and coats your tongue big time.

Because you didn't want to spend a half hour gathering up that many team logos.

Cripes. So much petty, procedural BS. Elsewhere, the Senate dismisses the impeachment charges brought up by the House against Homeland Security secretary Mayorkas, on the grounds that they don't rise to the level of a high crime or misdemeanor, when he's following the policy laid out by the president. The votes and rhetoric are precisely as expected...well, OK, Murakowski voted "present" on one of the 2 motions to dismiss. And nearer to home, the Arizona House rejected a move to repeal the abortion ban which the state Supreme Court ruled recently was valid. This is despite only a small majority and the urging of prominent Republicans to do so. (16-14 in the state Senate, 31-28 in the state House.) It's clear that those folks are concerned about the backlash that's been seen in other states...it's plausible that the Republicans will lose both. The governor's not up. And if the backlash is bad enough, particularly combined with the clown show in the US House...*maybe* they lose a US House seat? I have no clue if the Republican districts are actually competitive or not. Heck, who knows, this could be the push to give Biden the win.

I know I'm probably in the minority, but I *loathed* John Sterling. His homer calls in particular were contrived, unnatural, and ridiculous. The rest of his game call wasn't very good either.

Warriors look old, tired, slow, and generally out of sync. Kings had stretches of making too many mistakes, but they got it together, the Warriors lost any cohesion they might've had...and starting committing lots of reach fouls. Klay Thompson going 0 for 10 didn't help. VERY limited contribution from the starters to help Steph generally. Close game at halftime...Warriors drew within 1 in the 3rd but a 9-0 run was the harbinger. From, IIRC, 61-60, Kings crush the Warriors 57-34 the rest of the way, and it wasn't really that close. Will the Warriors get blown up now? That remains to be seen, but it's quite possible. The West has too many teams that are very young and very good. This current lineup wont be competitive. Pelicans-Kings. Interesting, VERY unpredictable matchup, as both teams are young and highly mistake-prone. A major factor is likely Zion's issue. As Stan Van Gundy said, "leg soreness" does not come CLOSE to describing whatever took him off the court with 3 minutes left. Not in a tie game in the playoffs. Pelicans apparently have won the last 5 between the 2 teams, but I'm also concerned that they have ALL the pressure on them, after the late-season fade.

There certainly is plenty of blame to be distributed.

Is this death tribble in disguise?

Plausible, but can we blame the script for his constant pouting? That said, I think ALL the Star Wars movies get far less criticism than they deserve, because we so WANT to like it that we overlook the many faults. Who doesn't want a lightsaber and a starfighter??? Who doesn't want to be super-cool Han? Vader's WAY more cool as the Mysterious Villain than he is as the Fallen Savior.

Mmm....Pelicans fall down badly at the end of the season. Lakers beat them again...which is their 6th straight loss on their home court. These losses to the Lakers have been bad...the Sunday loss dropped them into the play-in tournament rather than the full 1st round. This one forces them into a win or go home, single game Friday. Zion left the court after hitting the tying bucket with 3 minutes left. Sure, that hurt...but they also blew some plays, and they had a hard time dealing with the Lakers' size all game. There was a bad turnover on a fast break; then Anthony Davis snagged an offensive rebound after the defense forced LeBron into a tough shot. That was at least 4 points right there...and the Lakers only won by 4. And now we get the KINGS!!! in the playoffs again. What is the world coming to???? I'm sick and tired of Draymond, tho, so I'll root for the Kings.

YOU do the math...in advance, then present the final. 8 hits is a LOT. And there is near-zero risk of ever getting stunned. 12d6 becomes No Real Threat with this much defense. Better would be about 15 DEF and 4 dice negation. Also, look at the points. If this is 12 resistant and 2 normal...leave those baseline 2...that's 18 points. 20 points for the 6 dice of negation. That's 38 points...each, for PD and ED. That's a major fraction of the total. The 8-12 REC...is that enough to deal with their END costs? 8 hits to take down is *too many* IMO. As Grail notes, combat risks being a SLOG. Remember, it's not 8 attacks...it's 8 hits. If the bad guys have 11- to hit, that's 12-13 attacks. 2+ turns at a 6 SPD...3+ turns at a 4 SPD. Oh, but that also means some post-12 RECs. And a 6 SPD very likely means a higher REC...which means it'll take even more hits. As a middle of the road baseline...14 or 15 DEF, mostly resistant, and 4 dice of negation, feels like average risk. It's FAR!!! more than most book characters I've seen. There's risk of some BODY...but not getting wiped out by a single high BODY KA roll. The character can get stunned occasionally. The character better pay attention to the situation...even a 2 on 1 against him can whittle him down. This, to me, covers my goals as a GM...the PCs should win, but mostly, they should feel like they're being challenged. TOUGH characters like Ben Grimm...you go higher. The brick's there, in part, to DRAW attacks to him...so he has to last a longer time. The martial artist and the energy projector focus more on not getting stunned, and a bit less on the number of hits they can take...because generally, they don't get hit very often. OK...so, keep that base defense, 15 DEF, 4 negation, say...I'm a bit more worried about the high-damage side, and about the killing attacks. Raise the CON a couple points, drop the total STUN by 10...can take 4 average hits barely, 3 that run a little over average...? That should be pretty close. Grail: I agree with what you said, but it's making the problem even MORE compllicated...by a considerable amount. Even thinking about it in the manner I'm advocating...is hard to grasp until you use it for a while, or have a degree in math and years of considering questions along these lines.

You *could* get that many moviegoers...but that requires repeat viewings. People willing to see the film 2, 3, 5, 10 times. That's much harder when the ticket's $10 each time...and when you have to carve out a 3 hour chunk of time, rather than 2 hours or so. And the model now where there's SUCH a strong push to move it to the affiliated streaming service that it can't remain in theaters even if there's still decent box office sales after the 3rd weekend. I'm not at all sure that anyone *but* Disney comes close to having a sufficient package to make this work, tho. There aren't that many franchises that can prop up a streaming service that much, on its own. Disney has 2 that can do a pretty good job...Marvel and Star Wars...and their own library gives 3 pretty good legs on which they can stand. And even they're making lots of cuts. I largely agree with the point that Hollywood overuses their "stars"...I disagree to a point that it won't sell a film on its own. Short term...it definitely can. If the rest is crummy, tho, it'll fade very quickly. And using no-names? Hayden Christiansen. Nuff said.

"...crackpot in the growing pool of cringe politicians." I'll put that up with the "half partisan, half courtesan" line about the House Republicans for Line of the Month.

Yeah, there's many of the media outlets who use strongly misleading language like that, and I rate most of those as a rung better than Fox News...but only 1 rung. At the same time the Raw Story article was posted, I got an alert from NYT about their story on this. They mentioned the same thing...in factual language, mind...that the judge was not going to tolerate jury intimidation. They *also* pointed out that the judge chastised Trump's lawyer for some of his attempts to challenge for cause...that didn't come close to rising to the standard for a disqualification for cause. From the email: But Raw Story would rather toss out sensationalist comparisons...which IMO do more harm than good, as they support the tone that Fox News and its ilk want to promote.

If we're talking a complete reconsideration, that opens up...well, everything related to damage. For example...eliminate killing attacks altogether? Make "killing" a +1/4 advantage on attacks, much like AP? Should normal defense be applied to the STUN of a killing attack? Should Resistant and AP be so sharply separate, since they overlap in function? That's not rare, that's something you'd see once or twice in a gaming lifetime. It's 1 in 46,656. Anything that's about, oh...1% or less? It's irrelevant to system design. You're almost never getting stunned; that has to be 19, ergo 33 on the 6d6. That's about 0.2%...1 in 500. And you're only taking 7 STUN, so HOW many strikes to STUN? LOTS...which also means it becomes much more likely recoveries will kick in. Plus, a 15 REC...nothing exceptional...is covering the damage from 2 strikes. That's a lot. Note that this might well work for an elemental type...instead of using the Automaton "Takes no Stun" rules which are even MORE expensive, you build the defenses like this. You mostly have to beat the thing until it falls apart. It can also be OK for a PC where, from time to time, larger threats have to be fought...even 1 on 1 sometimes. So it's 14 dice. The 'average serious villain' is 12...the 'serious threat villain' might be more. But yeah, you're getting the basic idea. It's very tunable. Because you aren't doing the math. 14 DEF, 4 DCs negation? With an 18 CON, you're stunned when 8d6 > 32...33+. That's 18% of the time. That's FAR from OK in my book. You're trying to eyeball it, but it's a bell curve...not a flat one. It's the same thing as on the stock 3d6 rolls? +1 taking you from 3 to 4...almost useless. From a 15 to a 16? Largely a waste. From 9 to 10, 10 to 11, or 11 to 12...BIG difference, about 12% each. So you're taking 14 DEF and 6 DCs? Then your overall defenses are too high for many GMs because you're not taking any STUN very often. It's not enough to simply focus on one aspect of the defensive issue.

I don't mind MCU Thor having a stress breakdown, personally, especially given the magnitude of the issues. That can only be thrown at us so much, tho...much of that should be handled off-screen. The mistake wasn't so much doing it...as leaving the broken character front and center. I never liked BRB. For me, it wiped out suspension of disbelief. Oh, gee, Thor's having problems...POOF!!! Problem fixed...via BRB. Say...what? Granted, comics always strained suspension, and ultimately threw it out the window altogether some time ago...but that doesn't make it a good thing. The Thor Family ties into the absurd interconnected multiverse BS where suspension of disbelief is simply not even a concept. EVERYTHING in interconnected multiverse is like "it's all a dream, nothing is real." So for me? Utter failure. Because that concept becomes safe. It's corporate cowardice. It's why SO many movies are remakes/rehashes like the latest Godzilla vs. Kong or Planet of the Apes. Or at the big cineplex...Shrek 2, First Omen, Ghostbusters Frozen Empire, and Kung Fu Panda 4. In TV, you've got the NCIS, CSI, and Law & Order franchises with HOW many series? Or the 3 Chicagos...Fire, PD, Med...and Fox has their various Rescues. Some of it is, there aren't that many unexplored concepts. Redo an existing concept...odds are you'll have (unflattering) comparisons to existing, popular ones. Comics are the direct descendants of the penny dreadfuls. They're 5 minute diversions...one-time disposables. There have been exceptions...but not many, and probably fewer in the 21st century. This also ties into discarding suspension of disbelief because it doesn't matter much with a disposable story. I get it. Trying to sell a new concept is HARD, and it's much more likely to fail. Sturgeon's Law...90% of everything is crap. That makes the market much less likely to explore...but more willing to at least *try*, when it's connected to something they already like.

STUN-only PD/ED could make sense, but it's not in the rules. As usual, the devil's in the details. Change resistant to +1/4...where? Nonresistant is effectively -1/2 for DR. Resistant is +1/2 for PD and ED, and Resistant Protection is 3/2...effectively +1/2. The only time it's 1/4 is the limitation on DN...so it's the aberration in my book. In terms of 'limits'...that's up to each campaign. For 12d6? 14 DEF and 6 dice of negation would be high *in my book*. I use much more of a 'real life' basis...that bad guys may be trying to KILL the good guys. Get one of em down, they may not stop. There's a risk of BODY, sure...but practically no STUN. Note that my charts are on 4 dice of negation...not 6. Remember, 2 dice of negation eliminates 7 STUN. My baseline for total defense is...don't get stunned very often. No more than 10% of the time, because you're a sitting duck until you recover from being stunned...and others *will* take advantage. There's only so far you can take that, given finite resources. That's why I look at the distribution curves. My process: 1. How much BODY do I want to stop? This needs to be 100% resistant, because killing attacks are the threat, not normal attacks. (Your campaign can be different, and if so, vary this. Unless KAs are just not gonna be used, tho...even if they're toned down, where perhaps in a 12 DC game, KAs are capped at 3d6? That's still 10 BODY on average, and 13 is still fairly frequent.) 2. What's my CON? One of the targets is that "no more than 10% risk of being stunned"...and that's tied to CON. I'm stunned if RolledSTUN > (BODYDef + CON). In the negation case, RolledSTUN is using the smaller dice pool. For 12d6 attacks...14 BODYDef, 20 CON would be 34. Is 3 dice negation enough? Heck no...I know that at a glance. 9d6, mean is 31.5, so 35+ is barely above average. I can use AnyDice to confirm...yeah, it's 28%. FAR!!!! too high. How about 4 dice negation? 8d6...mean's 28...maybe. 35+...9% of the time. 36+ drops down to 6%. Perhaps I go with that 1 extra point of BODY defense...or a 21 CON. One last check...5 dice? 7d6, mean is 24.5...max is 42. Needs 35? That's averaging 5 per die...that's WILDLY unlikely on 7 dice. Let's crosscheck...AnyDice says? 1.2%. Probably overkill. 3. A secondary check is, how many strikes can you take before being knocked out...ignoring recoveries, at least initially. Let's say we like the 15 BODYDef with our 20 CON, and 4 dice of negation...slightly on the cautious side. 15 DEF against 8d6 means 13 STUN getting through on average. How many of those you can take depends on how high you buy up your STUN...which is cheap. I like resilient characters...so...probably 4 shots, I'd still be standing. OTOH, 5 dice negation with the 14 BODYDef? On average, only 10's getting through, and I can probably take a 5th hit. It might be OK. But we probably need to examine how often our guy's gonna *get* hit. 4. The # of strikes issue is why Damage Reduction is a bit worse. Yeah, you won't get stunned, but you take 14 STUN from the average now, not 13. The bigger hassle is the interfering nature between DEF and DR. 2 points of DEF only eliminates 1 point of STUN, after the DR. (I assume 50%.) It calls for a different build...a bit lower CON is clear. I think of DR with characters who won't get hit as much...projector types who can use range to their advantage, mobile types that are simply harder to target en masse, high base DCV, that sort of thing. The bigger problem with DR is simply the very high base cost.

I'd be amazed if the owners don't approve unanimously. The Coyotes have been a cash sink, from the league's perspective, particularly in the last 2 years, playing in that ridiculous (for the NHL) arena.

There's a story in The Athletic today about the draft, and the draft process. Great line: Big points: This is something I fully believe: The latter part of the article discusses why the draft process is derailed so much...and bad picks made. The comments are amusing, too.

DC doesn't have the anti-protest law.

Youch...the Patriot Day game in Boston just finished. High Heat comes on...I'm not a Mad Dog fan, so it's time to turn the TV off. But man...his opening comments are on the bad teams. "The White Sox are not a professional baseball club." My, my.... OK, it's Russo, and his normal runs to the hyperbolic. But 2-13 is 2-13...and if there's a stat even uglier than the Rockies' pitching stats, it's the White Sox's runs scored. 34 runs in 15 games.

The sooner LeBron is gone from the playoffs, the happier I'll be. Play-in...the West plays Tues, the East Fri, and the 2nd round for both are on Friday. The West are both pure pick'em...Pels -1, Warriors -1.5. East has more of a spread...Philly, with Embiid back, is -4, and Bulls are -3. What's interesting to me is, if Philly wins, they play #2 Knicks. Define parity? #2 would have all of 3 more wins than #7.

Understand something here. The AAU being discussed is the Association of American Universities. They were booted for several factors. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/governance/executive-leadership/2023/08/15/cast-out-12-years-ago-nebraska-seeks-return-aau The Big Ten's frequently tried to sell itself as a conference of premier schools, and this would be part of it. If push comes to shove...it probably won't...I suspect the AAU membership rule would be dropped, if they *really* wanted a particular university. The story right below that is also interesting. It discusses the next round of realignment...with the collapse of the ACC. I'll argue...they might skip this. If FSU and Clemson show they're really ready to bolt, then...forget it, let's just form the Super League and flip the bird at the NCAA. Why bother with the intermediate step? (Well, OK, there may well be reasons. It's possible there'd be a few years of 3 real conferences and a horde of munchkins, but I see no way it'd remain any longer than it'd take to work out the TV deals.