The Avenger

92" of snow over the last 3 weeks NW of Boston - it's been terrible - nowhere to put the stuff. The mound at the end of the driveway is more than 8' tall and 4-5 car lengths - I'm losing my driveway. The snow on the back deck is higher than the 4' railing. Walkway into work that is dutifully shoveled by the office complex is now a pathway with walls that are up to my shoulders (and I'm 6'2"). Very hard to drive because you can't see when you pull out of the driveway or come to an intersection. Wind was howling last night with gusts over 55mph - you can clear the snow but it comes right back. Wind chill was -27 this morning. No melting at all which is very rare for us - daytime highs this time of year usually go above freezing so when we have a bunch of snow it does melt, but not this year. I spent last weekend raking snow off the roof (several tons), but folks who haven't done that are rapidly approaching a time when the roof could fail - it's starting to happen all around. I think we'll have snow piles into June.

Strangely enough, when I hit the new Wegmans in Burlington, MA yesterday to do my shopping I did not see any of those.... I did, however, see a guy coming out proudly decked out in his Bills winter jacket, Bills winter hat and Bills gloves - gave him a big Go Bills cheer as he passed and he said "Wait until this day next year, it'll be our time" - love to see die hard Bills fans here in enemy territory....

Not only that, but as a trained physician, why would you want to attempt to give medical advice to a family that clearly disbelieves your training and advice in favor of junk they find on the Internet, stories from people who no nothing about causation and crazy conspiracy theories? If I brought my car to the mechanic and he told me it needed new breaks and I told him it didn't, it only needed a little oil to stop the squeaking because that's what I read on the Internet, I expect he'd tell me to get lost and find another mechanic.

I agree with birdog - it's a public health issue whereby you get vaccinated not only for yourself, but for the benefit of those in society who cannot and to protect those more vulnerable - to these people the flu can kill just as easily as polio or whopping cough but people don't know it because they've never seen anyone die from it. Influenza is actually one of the greatest killers of mankind throughout history, but we think of it as something that'll keep you out of work for a few days.

That's been my argument for years. My son was born with a very serious congenital heart defect - he essentially has half a heart. He has all of his shots and the entire family gets flu shots every year because any illness my son gets could be very serious or fatal to him. That same son has been barred from bringing any peanut product, including his beloved PB sandwich, to school because classmates have peanut allergies. I'm not happy about the peanut ban, but if our abstaining from peanuts helps your kid stay healthy it's what we do - we don't have a choice about it because peanuts are banned, but I'm OK with it given the benefit it serves for somebody else's kid. By the same token, why does my son not get the same respect? Somebody can elect to send their kid in who hasn't been vaccinated and potentially get my kid sick because they believe some new-age mumbo jumbo about "toxins" or so somebody who's sister's cousin's midwife has a kid on the spectrum and swears it was due to a vaccination they got - I don't get it. In my book, if you don't want to vaccinate your kid they should be in their own classes at school or be home schooled. I don't look at Mississippi as a model for many things, but as a state they have the highest school vaccination rate because the only kids allowed to attend that are unvaccinated have to have a medical reason (I get that not everybody can get vaccinated - that's why a 95% rate for herd immunity is so important). This topic gets me so fired up - anti-vaxxers think they live in a vacuum where their actions don't impact anyone else and they're dead wrong about that - it's a selfish point of view. We all have to do our part, whether that means leaving peanuts at home or getting our shots - if you don't like it, go start your own colony on some island somewhere.

This is one of those thing you just don't understand unless you've lived in WNY, and a reason I'm so proud to have grown up there - you can't really say enough about the people and how welcoming they are. I'm sad I don't live there anymore - the world is a better place when you're around good people.

When a Stranger Calls

Exactly. You touch a kid, the next thing you hear should be your nose breaking....

Gotta think that upstairs Ralph has a smile on his face after watching his fellow citizens of Detroit be so hospitable to his football team. Well done, Detroit - by all accounts your hospitality was great and we are grateful!

5? We're on year 14....

83 yard touchdown pass to Mike Williams - gotta love the 1,000,000:1 bet.....

I think the only hope us out of market fans have is the previous precedence for this with the Giants vs. Vikes game that got moved to Monday night and apparently aired on Sunday Ticket. I'm not sure how hard that was to do - how much arm twisting was required to get ESPN to allow it - hopefully it can be done again. Right now I don't think anyone at DTV knows, nor does anyone in the media. DTV reps and reporters know that Sunday Ticket is only for Sunday games - that's true, but whether some sort of special arrangement is made (like they did previously) doesn't appear to have been decided or announced - hopefully we get something official today.

I know that several times in the past games have moved due to extenuating circumstances (hurricane, roof collapse, etc.) - is this the first game to be moved where the only way to see it will be to live in the local broadcast area? It seems every other time a game was moved it was broadcast somehow - it'll be just my luck that I won't be able to see the game - so glad I paid hundreds of dollars so that DTV could pay the NFL $1.5 billion a season - the league really seems to care about people like me.

Yep - typical NFL - happy to take the money from fools like us that live out of market and pay through the nose to see our games and then don't give us any way to see the game when something like this happens. For f sake - they have their own tv network and won't show it so we get screwed...so pissed....So we get hours of "NFL Total Access" instead of the game - could they air anything with a more ironic name?

Why should the Jets get 2 home games against a divisional opponent? At least play it at a neutral site - I'll be pissed if this is played as another Jets home game.

That would suck if there was no way to get the game outside of local WNY and NYC markets...but I don't think Sunday Ticket ever has the rights to broadcast games outside of Sunday afternoons so I suppose it could happen....

Actually, Bacardi Rambo would be better, but still a damn cool football name - imagine all the Rambo jerseys you could sell

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I never understood the whole lip injection thing - it looks terrible. I looked like that once when one of my bees stung me.

I've seen them on just about every tour since '85 and have tickets to see them with Exodus and Suicidal Tendencies in November - should be a killer show.

Slayer, hands down. I'm a big classic thrash guy - never really got into the death metal/cookie monster vocal stuff - not real impressed with that. Give me Slayer, Anthrax. Megadeth, Exodus, Pantera, Testament, Overkill, Metallica, Kreator, COC any day, but even in that group Slayer reigns supreme.

I get mine every year on week 1 - then I always know when I got it. I have a son with a heart condition, so making sure nobody in my family gets sick is a big priority for us - we all get our flu shots every year and don't look back. The flu is terrible if you get it - it'll knock you on your butt for a week or more - "ain't nobody got time fo' that!"

Somewhere Bill Gramatica smiles knowing he's not the only one and not the most recent example....

Your daddy works in porno now that mommy's not around She used to love her heroin, but now she's underground

I got my white pants on...I got my white pants on.../JimmyFallon