UConn James

It's the oaks --- which I've seen sometimes hang onto their leaves into March! --- that got the worst of it here WRT weight stress. As an aside, there've been NO acorns in our yard this year under five oaks (that mostly held up, thankfully). I hope that's just a seed production cycle/anomaly (we've had unusually high yield years recently) doesn't portend anything about it being a particularly rough winter. Some people are quick to dismiss that trees are able to forecast these things, but these are living organisms that we still learning about and which have such intricate workings. Anyway, the squirrels here do not look very happy. Lots of pine branches too b/c it's weaker wood and generally doesn't grow as large.

Power's still out, but the generator's still going. Lost phone/Internet for most of today, but that's mostly a convenience thing.... We brought the neighbor a pair of oil-filled radiators that we had at a campground close by (she was able to get a generator via her family). And I got a kiss.... from her dog. That's Crooks, Looters & Plunderers. Meh.... Just throw it in the Charles!

AJ, you wanna apply for the race some season? I think "Internet Message Board Acquaintances" might make an interesting dynamic for the show. Have they ever had a pair that's never met IRL?

We've been w/o power since Saturday afternoon. With low temps that dipped to 26* the other night, we are one of the lucky ones. We heat with a wood stove ordinarily, so that's no biggie (despite some repairs that have to be made on the cap but the mason said it'll be OK until he gets here). Also have an old generator banging around that had to be coaxed into working but as I type, it's firing away outside my window. We invited my neighbor over that night it dipped to 26, as she just has oil/electric but she toughed it out in bed with her dog and a pile of blankets. No pictures forthcoming, but I will say she could pass for Stana Katic's sister (it's a good general rule not to dip the pen in neighborly ink. If it goes bad, the consequences can get downright tragic.) So, we're getting by a lot better than others and I do count my blessings / am glad we're prepared. Gotta handle it with a good dose of grace. Mustn't grumble! They're saying it may be as long as another week until it gets to the residential areas, especially here at the end of the line.

In addition to campaign donations to a certain party, and if Chef's link proves true, done on the backs of other peoples' money....

I don't know about this, but I did see hints of a no-confidence vote / collapse of his coalition gov't. They'd just hire someone to fight their war for them. Lord knows they've been doing that since the dawn of democracy.

No stevestojan.

What gets me is that teams are still trying to get away with flouting the rules. You have to notice everything. You have to pay your drivers or you're screwed. That was an * move by "That '70s Show"-Mom, first b/c it almost cost them the race and second that they stiffed a dude doing his job. You've gotta play it fast, but you've gotta play it clean. (Even the twins last week were playing it honorably. They asked for their two free rides... and they received them.) The father on that team definitely is a Grade A stevestojanbox. I'm growing OK with a number of the teams that are left.

Crazy scary. There is such little margin available, and so injured players have additional pressure to get back on the field. The league wants to appear like they give a stevestojan about concussions? They really need to increase the roster size by 2 or 3 players... and more if they eventually plan on switching two of the preseason games to regular season. I just don't get why practice squad players can't dress for games.

It's just appalling to me how a penalty that can result in such HUGE swaths of yardage is not at least reviewable.

That "OWS is Orwell's 'Animal Farm' without the farm" gets more correct with each passing day.

Michael Moore won’t admit he is part of ‘the 1 percent’

This either elevates Ozzy to Survivor God or it blows up in his face in one of several possible ways. I don't really get why Ozzy would want to go to Redemption to knock out Christine when she's given her old Blue mates the evil eye (and a middle finger) during the challenges.... It doesn't seem too big a thing to assume she could be / could have been tucked into the Red fold. As was said, it all rests on when the merge happens. If team Blue (read: Brandon and Rick) actually bought that 'We've been twice blessed! Five minutes after we prayed to God Father ( ) to find the idol, it showed up out of the blue!!!' line of bull. By the looks of it, each team is going to be carrying an idol into the merge and probably looking to leverage it in team play. At least, at this point, that appears to be Blue's groupthink. Ozzy, if he reclaims his idol from Cochran and if the bluff of 'Cochran used the idol' works, might have more personal CYA goals in mind for it.... That's a new tack from what I've seen since I got back into the show. It's been an individual or a small alliance using it, and usually holding it 'til the last time they can use it. Robfather, iirc, didn't tell anyone and didn't even use the idol last year b/c he didn't need to. Aww shucks, Lana. Oh, you mean Jim from the show.... (Damn!)

No shame.... For him or the judge.

Just when there's the occasional pang of "Why do I have to be 30 minutes from everything?" a story comes along that makes me glad I live in the sticks....

Reports: WV leaving Big East for Big 12

Also to note, the disparity in $ usage for similar travel. What the hell was that with the taxi ride that cost US$150. Holy stevestojan! Did the dollar fall that much?!? The surfers made a horrible move going to what was apparently a school for directions. Chick takes the cluecard, and tells them she'll be right back old... then another girl shows up and says the first is teaching a class. Seriously, WTF? You don't do that even to people who aren't in a race. But 1) if you're in a race, you ask someone who drives around for a living. Dumb, and then went from 1st to 6th? The father and son really screwed themselves over switching buses. Rule 2) make damn sure you know the rules. The disparity of the travel timings ain't a problem for me.... Seeing those "X does not open until 8 a.m." signs has really gotta suck for people who've built up leads. More than one episode in a row with one of those lead-erasers is really unfair. I liked the twins personalities, but they made way too many mistakes where they were by far the last to finish challenges e.g. the telephone quote and setting up the umbrellas & chairs. They got such lucky breaks with the free cab rides. Attractive females have such a huge advantage in this show it's not even funny; if they ever got a pair that had a brain between them or any motor skills.... And, wow, like a quarter of the teams are gone and they're still in friggin' southeast Asia. I dunno. I just started watching the show last season, but it just seems like they've spent an undue amount of time in this region. Six weeks, four eliminations. Seven teams left and they are only just heading to the second continent.

The singer on many of the tracks, Lisa Gerrard, is amazing. And it's not any language, it's vocalizations. It's weird... just as I opened this thread, "Moving On" (the final scene music from LOST) came on my playlist. Giacchino is on another level, and doing it with a type of music that many have brushed aside. The LOST compositions were just epic, and along with the story, the emotion in the score really helped drive that show. On a personal note "Moving On" and the scene it recalls really does have the power to center me / "get my mind right" especially in the past several months with a few passings.

I don't know any of the specifics here, but for a father to fire a son, generally it has to rise above mere incompetence. If the thing was just that he sucked at sales, that usually means a move to middle management where he can't do much harm. And if it were alcohol or drugs, a stay in rehab / treatment would make more sense, given how it works in these families. Instead, he was outright fired and kicked into the street... which gets one thinking theft/embezzlement. Again, this is just reading the tea leaves / between the lines.

Actually, with the new CBA mandating that teams spend 99% of the salary cap --- read: taxable earnings --- on a cap that has increased by $10-15M per year recently, it's not like the state's tax revenue from the Bills revenues have been/will be stuck at a standstill. You'd be hard-pressed to name many businesses that have seen the kind of growth the NFL has produced in the past 20 years. This isn't to be taken to be a ringing endorsement by me for corporate welfare, but if they're going to do this kind of thing for Company X, they should be expected to do it for Company Y. 'Course, I would prefer that they just lower taxes on these businesses and then make them fund their own capital improvements, instead of having to filter the money through the sticky hands of govt, but hey....

"And then... the oral sex!" - MPATHG I hope it would be fully clothed because there've been some wardrobe malfunction/de-pantying moments in the LFL that would have someone up on charges if it were teenage girls....

I wouldn't say this kind of thing is unusual on the team in years past. Just may not have seen black and white. I do remember some postings here from people over the years who have seen the OL and/or QBs doing stuff together. To attribute the success on the field to bonding stuff like this, as is posted below the article-proper, is a little disingenuous. I'd venture to say that every NFL team has some version of this; people get together to eat outside of work and they shoot the stevestojan. It's a nice color piece/vignette.

Big East Headed To [Football-Only C-USA/Mountain-West Merger] Super Conference? Interesting rumor....

Karzai: Afghanistan to back Pakistan if wars with U.S. What exactly are we still fighting for there then? If he thinks he's buying any goodwill from any side, he's sorely fuggin' mistaken. The Islamics still hate him. And we've spent hundreds of billions and more importantly lost thousands of our soldiers so he could play president and now slap us in the face? Pull out and let them publicly behead Karzai in the Green Zone. Because, to borrow from crayonz, when your head is rolling down a flight of stairs, it's a little too late to realize who your best & true allies have been. You !@#$er!

No pickles??? WTF?!!?