Good. Went to the Cal women's gymnastics meet yesterday. That was fun. I generally go to a meet or two a year. Spent Saturday at home doing pretty close to nothing which was a refreshing change after a particularly busy week.
Mrs. Slug visited her mom this weekend, which means I had a few things to do around the house each day.
Everything was looking fine as I ate dinner last night and cleaned up the dishes. Then, I let the dishwater out of the kitchen sink, which promptly flooded the kitchen. This resulted in mopping the kitchen to get the water off the floor and a dash to The Despot to buy new connector washers for the drains. Several of the washers were old and brittle and a particularly critical washer had flat out failed, which probably resulted in the flood.
Pretty uneventful. Saw on the Bay Area Miata Owners page that a rotary engine club invited Miatas so I drove out to Fremont on Sat to check them out. That was pretty cool.
Played some basketball yesterday and didn't get hurt so, thumbs up!
Sunday was a day worth circling on the calendar for every Golden State Warriors fan. After five road games bookending the All-Star break, Jimmy Butler III was set to make his home debut for the Dubs, two-and-a-half weeks after the Warriors traded for him. They were facing the team directly ahead of them in the standings, the Dallas Mavericks, with Klay Thompson returning to the Chase Center. And a franchise legend, Andre Iguodala, was having his jersey retired.
BERKELEY – The No. 6 California women's gymnastics team showed out in its final dual meet of the season Sunday afternoon posting the highest score in ACC history to defeat Pitt 197.775-195.125.
With the win the Bears (12-2, 4-0) remain the only undefeated team in the ACC and will have a chance to clinch the regular season conference title outright with a win over Stanford on Friday.
BERKELEY – The California baseball team (4-3) dropped a 7-4 decision to Houston (4-2) in the rubber match of its series with the Cougars on Sunday afternoon at Stu Gordon Stadium. The series loss ended a string of four consecutive series victories dating back to the final three of the 2024 campaign.
IRVINE – A strong start powered by senior Ruby Swadling's first-half hat trick saw the No. 4 California women's water polo team come away with a 13-11 win over No. 11 UC San Diego on Sunday in the Barbara Kalbus Invitational fifth-place game.
The Golden Bears (10-1) did most of their damage early on, scoring five goals in the first quarter and taking a 9-5 lead into halftime. Swadling got Cal out to a 3-0 lead with a pair of 6-on-5 goals less than three minutes in.
CATHEDRAL CITY – The California softball team (10-4) earned a run-rule victory against Northwestern (6-8), 15-7, after five innings on Sunday at the Big League Dreams Complex in Cathedral City, Calif.
BLACKSBURG – The California women's basketball team was down three points with 13 seconds left and Ioanna Krimili hit a running jumper from deep but her toe was on the line. The Golden Bears got the ball back down three with 10 seconds left but were unable to hit the game-tying shot and came up just short losing 87-84 at Virginia Tech on Sunday afternoon. The Hokies (17-10, 8-8 ACC) snapped the Bears' (22-7, 10-6 ACC) three-game winning streak.
STANFORD (AP) – Maxime Raynaud scored 20 points and grabbed eight rebounds and Stanford held off California for a 66-61 victory on Saturday night.
Stanford led for most of the game and by as many as 17 points about midway through the second half before Cal rallied to tie the score at 61 with 42 seconds left when Andrej Stojakovic – in his return to Maples Pavilion – converted a 3-point play. Raynaud shot 3 of 4 from the free-throw line and Oziyah Sellers added two more to seal it.
GREENSBORO, N.C. – The No. 3 California men's swimming & diving team introduced itself to ACC country this week in Greensboro, N.C., letting the folks in the Eastern time zone know what was already common knowledge elsewhere – the Golden Bears swim fast no matter where the pool is located.
GREENSBORO, N.C. – The No. 6 California women's swimming & diving team wrapped up its first-ever ACC Championship on Saturday, getting a runner-up finish from graduate student Maya Geringer in the 1,650-yard freestyle and placing fourth in the team standings.
BERKELEY – California lacrosse returned to California Memorial Stadium on Saturday for its first-ever ACC game but fell to Louisville 10-9 in overtime.
Cal midfielder and team captain Kennedy Mason scored the first goal during the first three minutes of the game. Mason led the Bears with four goals.
MALIBU – The No. 9 California beach volleyball team split its final two matches of the Pepperdine Challenge Saturday afternoon sweeping the host Waves before falling to No. 10 Long Beach State 3-2.
The Golden Bears (3-1), who did not lose a single set yesterday, opened the final day of the tournament with their third-straight 5-0 sweep winning all but one set against Pepperdine. Sophomore Emma Donley and junior Portia Sherman dropped the opening set of their court-one match but bounced back to win the first tiebreaker of the year for Cal.
MALIBU – Despite singles wins from Jessica Alsola and Greta Greco Lucchina, the California women's tennis team lost to No. 25 Pepperdine 5-2 on Saturday at the Ralphs-Straus Tennis Center.
IRVINE – The No. 4 California women's water polo team came back from an early deficit to defeat No. 8 Long Beach State 14-11 after falling in a 12-11 thriller to No. 5 Hawaii in two games on Saturday at the Barbara Kalbus Invitational.
The Golden Bears are now 9-1 on the year, tied for their second-best start to a season over the last 12 years.
ANNAPOLIS, Md. – California rugby fell to Navy, 27-3, Saturday afternoon in Annapolis, Maryland. The Golden Bears shut out the Midshipmen in the first half, leading the contest 3-0 at the break, but Navy came back in the second period to eventually hand Cal its first loss of the 2024-25 campaign. The Bears will be disappointed to have worked their way to the Navy tryline on several occasions, only to finish the match without a try.
I have a friend and fellow alum who works Traveler’s Aid at National Airport . He was there Saturday afternoon and saw a bunch passing through with Cal gear on. He hollered out Go Bears and some of the guys came over to him. My friend said that had they won he would have made an announcement on the p.a.system but let it go since they lost.
Okay, I am answering my own question. I went back into the archives until 1996 and found that UBC has held Cal to 3 points, but no American university has held Cal to 3 or under. Life once held Cal to 6 points.
Covid has demoted all my button-down long-sleeved dress shirts to weddings/funerals/job interviews. If I'm wearing a polo shirt, it means that I am going to a fancy restaurant.
Musk/DOGE claims to be taking actions to cut expense & inefficiency and promptly takes actions to drastically raise costs and severely cut productivity. How on earth (or in space) did this guy become successful (by an measure) in business, and get rich? Seems like completely counterproductive decisions would have caught up with him before now.
Big risk-taking turns into massive financial returns and a defendable market position. That strong market position sustains the financial success DESPITE the poor management. The financial success then almost always becomes Dunning-Kruger effect. I have found that almost all people with some element of financial success have Dunning-Kruger bias and billionaires essentially are consumed by it. They need advisors who they trust before they get successful because once they get successful, they will take absolutely no advice from anybody outside the circle of trust.
Running private business is different from running the government. If Twitter goes down for a bit it's not that big a deal. If Medicaid goes down then it is.
Alternatively, the explanation is that he doesn't really care about the government and is crashing it in order to make it easier for his private businesses to do what they want. So basically, the same old Republican stuff.
I suspect the latter. Twitter going down is actually a pretty big deal, but that doesn't happen often. I expect he is NOT running his businesses the way he's running amok with the government. But that's not in public view.
That paints a picture of a very dishonest, and very devious, person. And very dangerous.
Trump & Trumpism I understand. That he's been able to pre-stage so many beholding enablers so soon I underestimated, though I knew it was going to be a big problem.
That he would be taken advantage of by so many powerful parties that are not beholding to him, or anyone, but see a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, is disturbing, as it in not headed in a sustainable direction. To think that the advantage gained in the short gain appears worth the inevitable problems that are and will result points out a real problem. Not one Trump created, though he has certainly capitalized on it.
"Twitter going down" was probably not the right parallel. More like if certain Twitter features get glitchy for a while you can easily ride that out. If certain government functions go on the fritz then people get really mad, and at some point you are accountable to the voters.
Texas and USC also announced they will not play a spring game, joining Nebraska and Florida State who have already done so. USC says it's an injury risk. Texas says its too much wear and tear. But I believe it's more like what Matt Rhule says - you don't give your second-string guys film to market themselves and leave the program.
Clinton Portis joins DeSean Jackson's coaching staff at Delaware State to become the running game coordinator/RB coach. Portis did not coach his son's football team, but has been a supporter of his kid's 7-on-7 team. Camdin Portis is a 4-star recruit committed to Miami.
YES/NO
TIL: In Bulgaria, shaking and nodding the head mean the opposite of nearly everywhere else in the world
https://www.peacecorps.gov/connect/blog/yes-or-no-depends-on-which-country-youre-in/
Mongo riding into Rock Ridge on a bull.
Who is your favorite "defense first" Cal basketball player of all time?
Al Grigsby. Just a space eater in the paint.
Eliza Pierre, a member of Cal's final four team, 4-time Pac-10/12 All-Defensive Team honoree, currently an assistant coach for the Bears.
He evolved into more than that, but Jorge Gutierrez.
He definitely evolved to be a scorer, good FT shooter, and Pac-12 POTY.
Every so often I'll watch the highlights from the UCLA game.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ko4_Z1EpnaQ
Dennis Gates
How was your weekend?
I moved furniture. I'm getting too old for this shit.
Good. Went to the Cal women's gymnastics meet yesterday. That was fun. I generally go to a meet or two a year. Spent Saturday at home doing pretty close to nothing which was a refreshing change after a particularly busy week.
How was yours?
Mrs. Slug visited her mom this weekend, which means I had a few things to do around the house each day.
Everything was looking fine as I ate dinner last night and cleaned up the dishes. Then, I let the dishwater out of the kitchen sink, which promptly flooded the kitchen. This resulted in mopping the kitchen to get the water off the floor and a dash to The Despot to buy new connector washers for the drains. Several of the washers were old and brittle and a particularly critical washer had flat out failed, which probably resulted in the flood.
Pretty uneventful. Saw on the Bay Area Miata Owners page that a rotary engine club invited Miatas so I drove out to Fremont on Sat to check them out. That was pretty cool.
Played some basketball yesterday and didn't get hurt so, thumbs up!
PRO
Steph Curry leads Warriors to blowout win over Mavericks in Andre Iguodal’s jersey retirement
https://www.goldenstateofmind.com/2025/2/23/24371356/warriors-mavericks-scores-recap-steph-curry-jimmy-butler-iii-andre-iguodala
Sunday was a day worth circling on the calendar for every Golden State Warriors fan. After five road games bookending the All-Star break, Jimmy Butler III was set to make his home debut for the Dubs, two-and-a-half weeks after the Warriors traded for him. They were facing the team directly ahead of them in the standings, the Dallas Mavericks, with Klay Thompson returning to the Chase Center. And a franchise legend, Andre Iguodala, was having his jersey retired.
CAL
[WGYM] No. 6 Cal Posts Highest Score In ACC History
https://calbears.com/news/2025/2/23/womens-gymnastics-no-6-cal-posts-highest-score-in-acc-history.aspx
BERKELEY – The No. 6 California women's gymnastics team showed out in its final dual meet of the season Sunday afternoon posting the highest score in ACC history to defeat Pitt 197.775-195.125.
With the win the Bears (12-2, 4-0) remain the only undefeated team in the ACC and will have a chance to clinch the regular season conference title outright with a win over Stanford on Friday.
Go Bears!!!
[BASE] Cal Drops Series Rubber Match To Houston, 7-4
https://calbears.com/news/2025/2/23/baseball-cal-drops-series-rubber-match-to-houston-7-4.aspx
BERKELEY – The California baseball team (4-3) dropped a 7-4 decision to Houston (4-2) in the rubber match of its series with the Cougars on Sunday afternoon at Stu Gordon Stadium. The series loss ended a string of four consecutive series victories dating back to the final three of the 2024 campaign.
[WPOLO] Cal Downs UCSD
https://calbears.com/news/2025/2/23/womens-water-polo-cal-downs-ucsd.aspx
IRVINE – A strong start powered by senior Ruby Swadling's first-half hat trick saw the No. 4 California women's water polo team come away with a 13-11 win over No. 11 UC San Diego on Sunday in the Barbara Kalbus Invitational fifth-place game.
The Golden Bears (10-1) did most of their damage early on, scoring five goals in the first quarter and taking a 9-5 lead into halftime. Swadling got Cal out to a 3-0 lead with a pair of 6-on-5 goals less than three minutes in.
[SB] Bears Run-Rule Northwestern In Mary Nutter Finale
https://calbears.com/news/2025/2/23/softball-bears-run-rules-northwestern-in-mary-nutter-finale.aspx
CATHEDRAL CITY – The California softball team (10-4) earned a run-rule victory against Northwestern (6-8), 15-7, after five innings on Sunday at the Big League Dreams Complex in Cathedral City, Calif.
[WBB] Cal Loses Heartbreaker At Virginia Tech
https://calbears.com/news/2025/2/23/womens-basketball-cal-loses-heartbreaker-at-virginia-tech.aspx
BLACKSBURG – The California women's basketball team was down three points with 13 seconds left and Ioanna Krimili hit a running jumper from deep but her toe was on the line. The Golden Bears got the ball back down three with 10 seconds left but were unable to hit the game-tying shot and came up just short losing 87-84 at Virginia Tech on Sunday afternoon. The Hokies (17-10, 8-8 ACC) snapped the Bears' (22-7, 10-6 ACC) three-game winning streak.
[MBB] Bears' Rally Falls Short At Stanford
https://calbears.com/news/2025/2/22/mens-basketball-bears-rally-falls-short-at-stanford.aspx
STANFORD (AP) – Maxime Raynaud scored 20 points and grabbed eight rebounds and Stanford held off California for a 66-61 victory on Saturday night.
Stanford led for most of the game and by as many as 17 points about midway through the second half before Cal rallied to tie the score at 61 with 42 seconds left when Andrej Stojakovic – in his return to Maples Pavilion – converted a 3-point play. Raynaud shot 3 of 4 from the free-throw line and Oziyah Sellers added two more to seal it.
[MSWIM] Mission ACComplished
https://calbears.com/news/2025/2/22/mens-swimming-diving-mission-accomplished.aspx
GREENSBORO, N.C. – The No. 3 California men's swimming & diving team introduced itself to ACC country this week in Greensboro, N.C., letting the folks in the Eastern time zone know what was already common knowledge elsewhere – the Golden Bears swim fast no matter where the pool is located.
[WSWIM] Bears Place Fourth At ACC Championship
https://calbears.com/news/2025/2/22/womens-swimming-diving-bears-place-fourth-at-acc-championship.aspx
GREENSBORO, N.C. – The No. 6 California women's swimming & diving team wrapped up its first-ever ACC Championship on Saturday, getting a runner-up finish from graduate student Maya Geringer in the 1,650-yard freestyle and placing fourth in the team standings.
[LAX] Cal Falls Short To Louisville, 10-9
https://calbears.com/news/2025/2/22/lacrosse-cal-falls-short-to-louisville-10-9.aspx
BERKELEY – California lacrosse returned to California Memorial Stadium on Saturday for its first-ever ACC game but fell to Louisville 10-9 in overtime.
Cal midfielder and team captain Kennedy Mason scored the first goal during the first three minutes of the game. Mason led the Bears with four goals.
[BVB] No. 9 Cal Splits Final Day Of Pepperdine Challenge
https://calbears.com/news/2025/2/22/beach-volleyball-no-9-cal-splits-final-day-of-pepperdine-challenge.aspx
MALIBU – The No. 9 California beach volleyball team split its final two matches of the Pepperdine Challenge Saturday afternoon sweeping the host Waves before falling to No. 10 Long Beach State 3-2.
The Golden Bears (3-1), who did not lose a single set yesterday, opened the final day of the tournament with their third-straight 5-0 sweep winning all but one set against Pepperdine. Sophomore Emma Donley and junior Portia Sherman dropped the opening set of their court-one match but bounced back to win the first tiebreaker of the year for Cal.
[WTEN] Cal Stifled At No. 25 Pepperdine
https://calbears.com/news/2025/2/22/womens-tennis-cal-loses-5-2-at-no-25-pepperdine.aspx
MALIBU – Despite singles wins from Jessica Alsola and Greta Greco Lucchina, the California women's tennis team lost to No. 25 Pepperdine 5-2 on Saturday at the Ralphs-Straus Tennis Center.
[WPOLO] Bears Split Day Two In Irvine
https://calbears.com/news/2025/2/22/womens-water-polo-bears-split-day-two-in-irvine.aspx
IRVINE – The No. 4 California women's water polo team came back from an early deficit to defeat No. 8 Long Beach State 14-11 after falling in a 12-11 thriller to No. 5 Hawaii in two games on Saturday at the Barbara Kalbus Invitational.
The Golden Bears are now 9-1 on the year, tied for their second-best start to a season over the last 12 years.
[RUGBY] Cal Drops Contest At Navy
https://calbears.com/news/2025/2/22/rugby-cal-drops-contest-at-navy.aspx
ANNAPOLIS, Md. – California rugby fell to Navy, 27-3, Saturday afternoon in Annapolis, Maryland. The Golden Bears shut out the Midshipmen in the first half, leading the contest 3-0 at the break, but Navy came back in the second period to eventually hand Cal its first loss of the 2024-25 campaign. The Bears will be disappointed to have worked their way to the Navy tryline on several occasions, only to finish the match without a try.
I have a friend and fellow alum who works Traveler’s Aid at National Airport . He was there Saturday afternoon and saw a bunch passing through with Cal gear on. He hollered out Go Bears and some of the guys came over to him. My friend said that had they won he would have made an announcement on the p.a.system but let it go since they lost.
I wonder when the last non-Canadian team to hold Cal Rugby to 3 or fewer points.
Okay, I am answering my own question. I went back into the archives until 1996 and found that UBC has held Cal to 3 points, but no American university has held Cal to 3 or under. Life once held Cal to 6 points.
The answer is 2016 when Cal fielded a frosh-sophs sevens team against UC Davis when the Bears lost 12-0
https://calbears.com/news/2016/10/23/rugby-frosh-sops-finish-5-1-on-ti.aspx
POLO
Covid has demoted all my button-down long-sleeved dress shirts to weddings/funerals/job interviews. If I'm wearing a polo shirt, it means that I am going to a fancy restaurant.
Teri
Water or equestrian sport?
Yes
POLITICS
Ex-KGB chief says "yeah, we recruited Trump in 1987. His code name is Krasnov."
https://www.kyivpost.com/post/47630
Politico does a long form article on Trump's 1987 trip to Moscow
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/19/trump-first-moscow-trip-215842/
Wow. But not surprising.
Pope still hospitalized with a little light kidney failure. He's fine, says the Vatican.
https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2025-02/pope-had-tenth-night-hospital-holy-see-press-office-health-updat.html
FATHER MULCAHY: last night I dreamed I was a cardinal at the Vatican and the Pope had a cold.
HAWKEYE: (chuckling) What does that mean, Sidney?
FREEDMAN: Freud said that dreams are often wishes.
Per Finnish parliament member, US threatens to pull troops out of Europe unless they accept Ukraine's surrender within 2.5 weeks
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-europe-troops-ukraine-peace-deal-2033823
US military is dismantling its base in Alexandroupolis because it was used to provide arms to Ukraine now that Trump has gone full pro-Putin
https://defence-blog.com/trump-shuts-down-us-base-in-greece/
It's official. The US sided with Russia in an UN vote
https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/24/politics/us-joins-russia-ukraine-un-vote
Kash Patel is going to need a strong deputy in order to run the FBI due to his inexperience and... oh FFS
https://bsky.app/profile/kylegriffin1.bsky.social/post/3liv7ypngfs2b
Maybe trump was mad at patel for opposing the musk email, and is threatening to replace him.
Musk/DOGE claims to be taking actions to cut expense & inefficiency and promptly takes actions to drastically raise costs and severely cut productivity. How on earth (or in space) did this guy become successful (by an measure) in business, and get rich? Seems like completely counterproductive decisions would have caught up with him before now.
Big risk-taking turns into massive financial returns and a defendable market position. That strong market position sustains the financial success DESPITE the poor management. The financial success then almost always becomes Dunning-Kruger effect. I have found that almost all people with some element of financial success have Dunning-Kruger bias and billionaires essentially are consumed by it. They need advisors who they trust before they get successful because once they get successful, they will take absolutely no advice from anybody outside the circle of trust.
Running private business is different from running the government. If Twitter goes down for a bit it's not that big a deal. If Medicaid goes down then it is.
Alternatively, the explanation is that he doesn't really care about the government and is crashing it in order to make it easier for his private businesses to do what they want. So basically, the same old Republican stuff.
I suspect the latter. Twitter going down is actually a pretty big deal, but that doesn't happen often. I expect he is NOT running his businesses the way he's running amok with the government. But that's not in public view.
That paints a picture of a very dishonest, and very devious, person. And very dangerous.
Trump & Trumpism I understand. That he's been able to pre-stage so many beholding enablers so soon I underestimated, though I knew it was going to be a big problem.
That he would be taken advantage of by so many powerful parties that are not beholding to him, or anyone, but see a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, is disturbing, as it in not headed in a sustainable direction. To think that the advantage gained in the short gain appears worth the inevitable problems that are and will result points out a real problem. Not one Trump created, though he has certainly capitalized on it.
"Twitter going down" was probably not the right parallel. More like if certain Twitter features get glitchy for a while you can easily ride that out. If certain government functions go on the fritz then people get really mad, and at some point you are accountable to the voters.
DBD AV CLUB
ELSEWHERE IN COLLEGE
These Army alt-uniform helmets from 2015 are 🔥🔥🔥
https://goarmywestpoint.com/news/2015/12/12/fb_1212154143
A-Rod wins $10k for a Bucknell student
https://bsky.app/profile/sickoscbb.bsky.social/post/3liuiv2nav22w
Texas and USC also announced they will not play a spring game, joining Nebraska and Florida State who have already done so. USC says it's an injury risk. Texas says its too much wear and tear. But I believe it's more like what Matt Rhule says - you don't give your second-string guys film to market themselves and leave the program.
sounds a little cynical and is probably right on the nose
2 things can be simultaneously true.
Clinton Portis joins DeSean Jackson's coaching staff at Delaware State to become the running game coordinator/RB coach. Portis did not coach his son's football team, but has been a supporter of his kid's 7-on-7 team. Camdin Portis is a 4-star recruit committed to Miami.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DGQ7J1RSY6s/?hl=en
Nebraska to pay Tennessee $1m to not play them two more times
https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/43952894/nebraska-nixes-tennessee-series-citing-stadium-renovations
[MBB] Arizona State's leading scorer dismissed from the team
https://apnews.com/article/arizona-state-bj-freeman-62d9ec03100e00580424efea76ae2834
Front page!!
We must be big time! (Unless something changed, I know it's a manual process).
It’s time once again for Oski Disciple’s Question of the Day.
When did garbage become landfill and who made the call?
Good one OD, Wish I could answer it.