Lucy (Max, 9/19, WNB). Beautifully shot but Luc Besson's high concept film is not very good. Having a movie about omnipotent, godlike being means there is no suspense. Good stories need boundaries and conflict. I preferred Akira to this.
Finished S2 of Gilded Age…I feel so high brow just watching this show! I maintain my strong stance that if George Russell ran the Cal Athletic Department we’d be in great f-cking shape. Oooh, Oscar done gone and done it now, tho….
I’ve bogged down on Reacher…I have a real trouble watching films/series after I’ve read the book because I find much of the dialogue to be so cliche…especially Reacher.
And watched a horror flick on Netflix called The Ritual…not bad.
Agree about Gilded Age and that Russell could fix what ails the AD. I'm impressed by the show's historical accuracy. Love good historical fiction whether in literature or on film.
Casablanca (rented via Prime, 17/19 WB). Considering how old the film is. It holds up pretty well. The things that stood out was that it's interesting to know that Bogart was the Man at this point and his wooden, stoic, gruff approach was seen as sexy. He was also only about 30 months of from leaving his wife for 19 year old Lauren Bacall. It was also interesting to hear all the Atlantic accents, which were quite common in contemporary films as a sign of distinction but are almost extinct now.
I first saw Casablanca without commercial interruption at the Rialto on Gilman St. in 1980. Casablanca is a good film on the small screen but is intended for the big screen. The big screen makes it great. Previously, I had seen it on a NY TV station (WPIX). We now have it on DVD.
Agreed. In the immediate aftermath, I was of the thought that the officiating crew blew the call on the "successful" 2 point attempt, but am not certain now. Tackle eligible was a brilliant move, though. Not sure it was executed properly, though.
That was a bad situation, and terrible game management, even if it may not have been technically wrong by the official by the letter of the law. And a black eye the NFL, football, and sports officiating did not need.
As a veteran official in another sport, and a bit lower level, and an instructor, this will be a case study used for something we have stressed for years now, to not rush or allow your self to get confused about substitution, as much as there is pressure to hurry things. You MUST take the time necessary to listen and think critically about a substitution, check you card to make sure it is a legal sub, and not allow it if it isn't, NOTE it, and REPEAT it back slowly and clearly to make sure you have it right.
Otherwise when something blows up, and it will, the opponent/aggrieved is right to protest, and you have placed yourself (and everyone) in an indefensible position. And possibly incited a riot in the process. At that point, being technically in the right will not help.
We run into this routinely at all levels in a number of sports, and its entirely avoidable had the white hat (in this case) handled it better.
So in an apparently NOT uncommon move, they sent the 2 linemen to report just one was the guy to try and confuse Dallas, apparently, but they confused Brad Allen the ref, too. Allen announced #70 was eligible. Why they didn’t correct it, who knows. Gamesmanship!
Post away folks. I am at the airport waiting for my first flight. At the end of today, the plan is to be in Nicaragua for a week of hiking, yoga, and surfing.
(I saw a social media prompt I liked: instead of posting resolutions for the new year, put general ideas in the form of goofy "In / Out" clickbait posts)
RE: PTO. You're a piker by my standards. I have (checks leave balances) 347.5 vacation hours available today. That's more than 8.5 weeks. Not that I'm particularly proud of it. Mrs Slug is unhappy that I've let it pile up that high.
Even if by some miracle I don't have to burn down PTO from a federal shutdown, I have to make a concerted effort to get it under control this year because if I roll into 2025 with more than 2x my annual accrual, the company pays out 1 week of PTO, leaves one week in the bank, and cancels the rest.
Youch. There is a use-it-or-lose-it incentive for you, then. I'm sorry, but it's criminal in my book to force a use-it-or-lose-it scenario for vacation hours on employees. That's an earned benefit. There shouldn't be any cancellation of any hours. The company should be forced to pay it out if they won't allow you to roll hours over beyond a certain threshold.
Chalk it up to poor contract negotiations. I agree. I also think you should take the accrued sick leave balance with you to another job (could be in the form of a $ reimbursement to the new plan provider).
That's fine if the employee's supervisor will sit down with the employee and make an effort to schedule time off between two dates certain such that the employee actually has a choice of when s/he can take the time off. For instance, during this 20-week period you need to take at least 2 weeks of vacation, but no more than 4 weeks.
That might get some folks to move off the dime and schedule time away from work.
I used to have 320 max vacation hours, and essentially unlimited sick leave accumulation. Since I used a lot of FSL for my kids, I never accumulated much SL. But I knew people who had thousands of hours.
Our max accrual is 400 hours as of the start of the payroll year. If an employee doesn't get their accrued hours under 400 by the end of March, they're paid out for the overage as of January 1 based on their calculated hourly rate.
Are you FLSA exempt? Here at EBMWU the only folks who get anything approaching that much in the way of floating holidays are FLSA exempt employees. Some non-exempt staff get 1 floating holiday.
Nope not exempt (though my position probably should be). County tends to add Floating holiday time whenever they have to do something that people won't like (such as raise healthcare costs, etc).
I'm sorry to hear about your uncle, may his memory be a blessing.
The idea of a secondary market for plan tickets like Stubhub is kind of genius but it would probably just be an incentive for scalpers to load on tickets around thanksgiving and christmas and bowl games and whatnot
I don't know whether to be disappointed that Oregon didn't leave their starters in for the entire game, but I thought it was a nice touch that in the 4th quarter they substituted Nix and Irving on successive plays so that they could get cheered off by the Oregon fans, that's pretty common in soccer and I think it's a good thing to have in other sports.
I liked the way Oregon handled it (except the illegal procedure penalty that prolonged it). I do think there is value to recognition for significant contribution to the program that is ending, at least when possible.
Orange Bowl: FSU look like idiots for saying that they should have been in the playoffs - I know that this is mostly because 25% of the team sat out the bowl game but good lord what a thumping by Georgia https://www.espn.com/college-football/game?gameId=401551773
That would not surprise me one bit. A blowout UW win would, although I think the Huskies are better, the number of NFL draftees on the Michigan roster not withstanding.
The UW defense, by design, is built to keep plays in front of them, and knowing their offense will put points up. I saw the redesign in the UW spring game, when they were implementing it, but not yet worrying about disguising coverages yet. They cover up individual deficiencies well, but it isn't going to lead to blowout wins of reasonably competent teams, just wins.
When the Michigan defense put their minds to it, their blitzing (and also their zone defense) can be a problem. But Washington seem to specialize in "how did they do that" completions and generally pulling touchdowns out of their collection ass, I don't care to try and predict a result tbh.
I lean towards UW for a few reasons, one being Coach DeBoer is in my estimation just a better in game coach than Coach Harbaugh. And Pennix is a better QB by far, and with a better cast of receivers.
If the Huskies' RB is unable to go, or hobbled significantly, that could change things drastically, because Michigan can create havoc at any time, and if Washington in one dimensional, that's a problem.
But mainly, I'm impressed by how frequently the Huskies beat good teams in close games. It's not an accident. And Michigan has no where near the experience under the gun against tough competition. I expect a Harbaugh moment in a not good way at some point.
I detected that UW had lost its edge midway through the 4th quarter. Indeed, the Huskies hung on for dear life despite being up by 13 early in the 4th quarter.
Can't believe it got as close is it did to the end. Texas shouldn't have gotten the ball back with more than about 15 seconds on the clock. UW's last run up the middle not only cost them a clock stoppage, but also might have cost them their best RB. Still, great to see UW win it.
That rule that automatically stops the clock due to injury (and there is no way for the offense to get around it, like just take a time out or delay of game for a 30-second runoff) is really dumb. It basically encourages the defense to try to injure someone if they know they need to save more time.
Maybe just clear the injured player and restart the clock again! There's no good reason it has to stay stopped.
Texas managing to almost win a game, this time one in which Washington had dominated, was so on-brand for Texas. Glad the Huskies prevailed.
At the same time, 10 straight wins by 10 or fewer points is no accident. And 2 more than any one has accomplished in the poll era, dating to the 1930s. These Huskies can flat out play in pressure situations. I've seen it several times up close and personal, and you can't not be impressed.
I am in the weird position of strongly disliking Washington as a program historically, amplified by my brother and sister in law being Oregon alumni, but also finding this team to be fun to watch. It's going to be a very interesting matchup against Michigan
I take it as his finishing 2nd (and the dame for Odunze for the Bilentikoff) as first in class, and really winning, when they played too much on the Pac-12 non-network and Pac12loooooongafterdark. Same has happened before fairly recently.
my lukewarm take about this game is that Michigan seems to have 95% unimaginative coaching and then an occasional trick play like that's going to stop the rest being pretty basic, and Alabama doesn't seem to have an offensive scheme that works for the players that they have, who seem reasonably talented.
Competitive game, but not that great of a game, was my take. 2 programs somewhat used to just being better than the opposition that are not well versed in winning when its not almost automatic.
Alabama's center play was abysmal, but it wasn't the whole story. I really didn't like the last play call. I think everyone watching the game knew that some kind of QB run was coming.
Michigan rolled out its jumbo package more than once in this game. Absolutely classic Harbaugh from his Stanfurd coaching days. He probably used something similar at U of San Diego.
That putrid LSU defense literally won the Heisman Trophy for Jaden Daniels.
Michael Penix absolutely should have won it, but when you’re D is so bad that you’re in 60 minute score mode and have a bevy of NFL 1st round draft picks as WR’s/OL and no running backs, you can put up video game stats.
Since I have the privilege of writing the first DBD comment of the New Year I'll start off by welcoming everyone to 2024 the year of the successful Ott for Heisman campaign.
Cal Bears Sports Owners
Marshawn Lynch with his team, the Kraken.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mI0Ixoiqw8
There was a nice video of a drone flyover of the arena, that started with Marshawn. But that video seems to have been taken down.
OUR CRUMBLING DEMOCRACY
DBD AV CLUB
Lucy (Max, 9/19, WNB). Beautifully shot but Luc Besson's high concept film is not very good. Having a movie about omnipotent, godlike being means there is no suspense. Good stories need boundaries and conflict. I preferred Akira to this.
Watched a few things…
Finished S2 of Gilded Age…I feel so high brow just watching this show! I maintain my strong stance that if George Russell ran the Cal Athletic Department we’d be in great f-cking shape. Oooh, Oscar done gone and done it now, tho….
I’ve bogged down on Reacher…I have a real trouble watching films/series after I’ve read the book because I find much of the dialogue to be so cliche…especially Reacher.
And watched a horror flick on Netflix called The Ritual…not bad.
Agree about Gilded Age and that Russell could fix what ails the AD. I'm impressed by the show's historical accuracy. Love good historical fiction whether in literature or on film.
I'd be interested in a West Coast version of Gilded Age. Featuring the dastardly robber barons of northern California.
Casablanca (rented via Prime, 17/19 WB). Considering how old the film is. It holds up pretty well. The things that stood out was that it's interesting to know that Bogart was the Man at this point and his wooden, stoic, gruff approach was seen as sexy. He was also only about 30 months of from leaving his wife for 19 year old Lauren Bacall. It was also interesting to hear all the Atlantic accents, which were quite common in contemporary films as a sign of distinction but are almost extinct now.
I first saw Casablanca without commercial interruption at the Rialto on Gilman St. in 1980. Casablanca is a good film on the small screen but is intended for the big screen. The big screen makes it great. Previously, I had seen it on a NY TV station (WPIX). We now have it on DVD.
I just remembered—I first saw Casablanca at Bowles Hall!
Flim type movie projector on a glass bead screen, probably about 70 inches, so sort of a big screen.
Definitely one of the evergreen classics of American cinema. Barely shows its age.
PRO
Lots of controversy to end the DAL/DET game, with everyone looking like idiots…
despite his Aggieness, I kind of love Dan Campbell
Understandable. And the players love him.
But he’s kind of a dope. There’s aggressive (going for 2) and there’s dumb (STILL going for 2 from the 7).
Agreed. In the immediate aftermath, I was of the thought that the officiating crew blew the call on the "successful" 2 point attempt, but am not certain now. Tackle eligible was a brilliant move, though. Not sure it was executed properly, though.
That was a bad situation, and terrible game management, even if it may not have been technically wrong by the official by the letter of the law. And a black eye the NFL, football, and sports officiating did not need.
As a veteran official in another sport, and a bit lower level, and an instructor, this will be a case study used for something we have stressed for years now, to not rush or allow your self to get confused about substitution, as much as there is pressure to hurry things. You MUST take the time necessary to listen and think critically about a substitution, check you card to make sure it is a legal sub, and not allow it if it isn't, NOTE it, and REPEAT it back slowly and clearly to make sure you have it right.
Otherwise when something blows up, and it will, the opponent/aggrieved is right to protest, and you have placed yourself (and everyone) in an indefensible position. And possibly incited a riot in the process. At that point, being technically in the right will not help.
We run into this routinely at all levels in a number of sports, and its entirely avoidable had the white hat (in this case) handled it better.
So in an apparently NOT uncommon move, they sent the 2 linemen to report just one was the guy to try and confuse Dallas, apparently, but they confused Brad Allen the ref, too. Allen announced #70 was eligible. Why they didn’t correct it, who knows. Gamesmanship!
Post away folks. I am at the airport waiting for my first flight. At the end of today, the plan is to be in Nicaragua for a week of hiking, yoga, and surfing.
dont get murdered!
I’ve heard that Managua, Nicaragua is a wonderful town!
Perhaps I'm the only one who has heard of this song...
Have fun, we'll hold down the fort for you.
(in the style of Bugs Bunny) Bon Voyag-e!
Have a safe and fun trip!
Wrong with the picture
That's not even our uniform
Santa Clara ≠ SF
Not including the obvious, the whole thing is ugly.
What is this "Cal State" nonsense about?
EDIT: Yes, I am aware of this insult to our collective intelligence from 2019.
IN OR OUT
(I saw a social media prompt I liked: instead of posting resolutions for the new year, put general ideas in the form of goofy "In / Out" clickbait posts)
IN: Cal
OUT: FSU
IN: making a dent in my stack of books (hashtag tsundoku2024)
OUT: clothes that aren't in frequent rotation because "they're still good enough for yard work or cleaning the house"
IN: putting my Global Entry pass to use
OUT: letting my PTO accrue to ridiculous levels (currently at 6 works weeks)
but also
IN: saving PTO until it's clear that we're past federal shutdown threats
RE: PTO. You're a piker by my standards. I have (checks leave balances) 347.5 vacation hours available today. That's more than 8.5 weeks. Not that I'm particularly proud of it. Mrs Slug is unhappy that I've let it pile up that high.
Even if by some miracle I don't have to burn down PTO from a federal shutdown, I have to make a concerted effort to get it under control this year because if I roll into 2025 with more than 2x my annual accrual, the company pays out 1 week of PTO, leaves one week in the bank, and cancels the rest.
Youch. There is a use-it-or-lose-it incentive for you, then. I'm sorry, but it's criminal in my book to force a use-it-or-lose-it scenario for vacation hours on employees. That's an earned benefit. There shouldn't be any cancellation of any hours. The company should be forced to pay it out if they won't allow you to roll hours over beyond a certain threshold.
Chalk it up to poor contract negotiations. I agree. I also think you should take the accrued sick leave balance with you to another job (could be in the form of a $ reimbursement to the new plan provider).
Au contraire, they should force you to take it.
That's fine if the employee's supervisor will sit down with the employee and make an effort to schedule time off between two dates certain such that the employee actually has a choice of when s/he can take the time off. For instance, during this 20-week period you need to take at least 2 weeks of vacation, but no more than 4 weeks.
That might get some folks to move off the dime and schedule time away from work.
ouch. We simply have a max accrual (320 hrs). Though I do need to get my total down since I accrue almost a full day each two week pay period.
As I retiree, I miss having these discussions!
I used to have 320 max vacation hours, and essentially unlimited sick leave accumulation. Since I used a lot of FSL for my kids, I never accumulated much SL. But I knew people who had thousands of hours.
We have a Vac max which I keep banging into because work load and responsibility don't stop, and don't care.
Our max accrual is 400 hours as of the start of the payroll year. If an employee doesn't get their accrued hours under 400 by the end of March, they're paid out for the overage as of January 1 based on their calculated hourly rate.
we used to have a buyback program, but it was costing the county too much cash, and setting up a 'double pay' situation in some cases.
I feel ya. I'm at just shy of 8 weeks of vacation, and a full week of Floating Holiday.
Are you FLSA exempt? Here at EBMWU the only folks who get anything approaching that much in the way of floating holidays are FLSA exempt employees. Some non-exempt staff get 1 floating holiday.
Nope not exempt (though my position probably should be). County tends to add Floating holiday time whenever they have to do something that people won't like (such as raise healthcare costs, etc).
BOWL GAMES
UW vs Michigan
i have preemptively booked some plane tix from NYC > HOU as well as SEA > AUS for older one and her boyfriend.
turns out that
1 - my daughter is sick and tired from India travel and not really keen to go
2 - i might be flying to Sweden in the coming days for a funeral for an uncle who just passed away.
too bad one can resell plane tickets on StubHub .. i would have made $800/ea after watching the prices skyrocket after the game.
I'm sorry to hear about your uncle, may his memory be a blessing.
The idea of a secondary market for plan tickets like Stubhub is kind of genius but it would probably just be an incentive for scalpers to load on tickets around thanksgiving and christmas and bowl games and whatnot
Fiesta Bowl: sometimes the jokes just write themselves as Liberty score once and spend the rest of the game watching Oregon run it home wink wink https://www.espn.com/college-football/game?gameId=401551782
I'm all about watching Jerry Falwell University getting their asses kicked.
I don't know whether to be disappointed that Oregon didn't leave their starters in for the entire game, but I thought it was a nice touch that in the 4th quarter they substituted Nix and Irving on successive plays so that they could get cheered off by the Oregon fans, that's pretty common in soccer and I think it's a good thing to have in other sports.
I liked the way Oregon handled it (except the illegal procedure penalty that prolonged it). I do think there is value to recognition for significant contribution to the program that is ending, at least when possible.
Orange Bowl: FSU look like idiots for saying that they should have been in the playoffs - I know that this is mostly because 25% of the team sat out the bowl game but good lord what a thumping by Georgia https://www.espn.com/college-football/game?gameId=401551773
Cotton Bowl: Another slugfest, Ohio State failed to get more than a single field goal har har https://www.espn.com/college-football/game?gameId=401551768
Sugar Bowl: Looks closer than it was despite Washington keeping the ball away from Texas for pretty much the entire 3rd quarter, Penix was very impressive (per usual) https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/39225154/college-football-playoff-washington-michael-penix-jr-dominant-sugar-bowl
Washington fully deserved that win. I think they are going to thump Michigan
I think they are going to win by less than 10 points
That would not surprise me one bit. A blowout UW win would, although I think the Huskies are better, the number of NFL draftees on the Michigan roster not withstanding.
i hope so, but UW seems to have not much of a defense and if Michigan's d-line can get to Penix or at least disrupt him, it will close
The UW defense, by design, is built to keep plays in front of them, and knowing their offense will put points up. I saw the redesign in the UW spring game, when they were implementing it, but not yet worrying about disguising coverages yet. They cover up individual deficiencies well, but it isn't going to lead to blowout wins of reasonably competent teams, just wins.
When the Michigan defense put their minds to it, their blitzing (and also their zone defense) can be a problem. But Washington seem to specialize in "how did they do that" completions and generally pulling touchdowns out of their collection ass, I don't care to try and predict a result tbh.
I lean towards UW for a few reasons, one being Coach DeBoer is in my estimation just a better in game coach than Coach Harbaugh. And Pennix is a better QB by far, and with a better cast of receivers.
If the Huskies' RB is unable to go, or hobbled significantly, that could change things drastically, because Michigan can create havoc at any time, and if Washington in one dimensional, that's a problem.
But mainly, I'm impressed by how frequently the Huskies beat good teams in close games. It's not an accident. And Michigan has no where near the experience under the gun against tough competition. I expect a Harbaugh moment in a not good way at some point.
I detected that UW had lost its edge midway through the 4th quarter. Indeed, the Huskies hung on for dear life despite being up by 13 early in the 4th quarter.
Can't believe it got as close is it did to the end. Texas shouldn't have gotten the ball back with more than about 15 seconds on the clock. UW's last run up the middle not only cost them a clock stoppage, but also might have cost them their best RB. Still, great to see UW win it.
That rule that automatically stops the clock due to injury (and there is no way for the offense to get around it, like just take a time out or delay of game for a 30-second runoff) is really dumb. It basically encourages the defense to try to injure someone if they know they need to save more time.
Maybe just clear the injured player and restart the clock again! There's no good reason it has to stay stopped.
That's one timing rule that needs adjusting.
Texas managing to almost win a game, this time one in which Washington had dominated, was so on-brand for Texas. Glad the Huskies prevailed.
At the same time, 10 straight wins by 10 or fewer points is no accident. And 2 more than any one has accomplished in the poll era, dating to the 1930s. These Huskies can flat out play in pressure situations. I've seen it several times up close and personal, and you can't not be impressed.
I am in the weird position of strongly disliking Washington as a program historically, amplified by my brother and sister in law being Oregon alumni, but also finding this team to be fun to watch. It's going to be a very interesting matchup against Michigan
Penix should've won the Heisman. Full stop. That dude can throw a deep ball unlike anyone else in the country.
I take it as his finishing 2nd (and the dame for Odunze for the Bilentikoff) as first in class, and really winning, when they played too much on the Pac-12 non-network and Pac12loooooongafterdark. Same has happened before fairly recently.
Rose Bowl: Michigan hangs on in an absolute slugfest to win in OT, fittingly via a 4th down stop by the defense, who were immense https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/39225435/college-football-playoff-blake-corum-michigan-finds-offense-just
my lukewarm take about this game is that Michigan seems to have 95% unimaginative coaching and then an occasional trick play like that's going to stop the rest being pretty basic, and Alabama doesn't seem to have an offensive scheme that works for the players that they have, who seem reasonably talented.
This is the Harbaugh way: simple concepts, but you execute the hell out of them. Can't deny it's worked for him.
Competitive game, but not that great of a game, was my take. 2 programs somewhat used to just being better than the opposition that are not well versed in winning when its not almost automatic.
Alabama's center play was abysmal, but it wasn't the whole story. I really didn't like the last play call. I think everyone watching the game knew that some kind of QB run was coming.
Michigan rolled out its jumbo package more than once in this game. Absolutely classic Harbaugh from his Stanfurd coaching days. He probably used something similar at U of San Diego.
ReliaQuest Bowl: LSU narrowly defeats Wisconsin https://www.espn.com/college-football/game?gameId=401551778
That putrid LSU defense literally won the Heisman Trophy for Jaden Daniels.
Michael Penix absolutely should have won it, but when you’re D is so bad that you’re in 60 minute score mode and have a bevy of NFL 1st round draft picks as WR’s/OL and no running backs, you can put up video game stats.
Penix is the better QB.
Reads like it was a pretty good game; it just conflicted with other priorities.
didn't bother watching this one, just included it for relative completeness
CheezIt Citrus Bowl: Iowa gets absolutely thumped by Tennessee https://www.espn.com/college-football/game?gameId=401551780
Iowa is literally the WORST top-20 team in the history of the sport.
Pathetic.
I'd love for Cal to be a terrible top twenty team next season.
I think most Old Blues will be ecstatic if Cal is able to step up to being a terrible also receiving votes team.
Iowa came in dead last in FBS for offense and it wasn't even close. 239 yards per game
And yet they won 10 games, played for a conference championship, and played on New Years Day.
My nephews went to Iowa so I followed this a bit. Tennessee scored two defensive TDs. Iowa could have played on offense the whole game and still lost.
it's like performance art except for the fact that they weren't trying for performance art
which is what makes for great performance art.
it was intrinsic and instinctive, a type of folk art if you will
Since I have the privilege of writing the first DBD comment of the New Year I'll start off by welcoming everyone to 2024 the year of the successful Ott for Heisman campaign.
Happy New Year, Oski Disciple!
And the same to you, good sir!
We managed to make it!
Happy New Year OD
Thanks and happy new year to you!