162 Comments

DC Trojan with a new home away from home (but nearby).

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/03/15/usc-dc-campus-dupont-circle/

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Aww near UCDC

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only a block or two away from the Vox Media offices in DC .. not that i have any reason to go there anymore.

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well situated for expanding political bribery and influence peddling beyond the greater Los Angeles region, I suppose

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Job opening: 2 sailors to do a Colombia to US route.

https://www.kktv.com/2023/03/14/authorities-87-million-cocaine-2-bodies-found-illegal-submarine/

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Hmm...didn't Cruzin just go to South America to go "sailing"?

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Hey now! It was only in the La Paz (Baja) area!

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Nice! I’m flying out to La Paz next Wednesday for a family trip and to get away from this PNW type rain weather we have been experiencing here in SoCal.

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In addition to the amazing sailing, beautiful islands and stunning marine life (whales, dolphins, jumping mobula rays, frigate birds, etc ) La Paz was fantastic and I really want to spend more time there. It felt so much more authentic than Cabo and was way more affordable. The main down side is that there are no direct flights from LA, you either fly into Cabo and drive 2.5 hrs, connect in Guadalajara or drive to SD and fly direct from TJ. Looking forward to checking out Todos Santos for a wedding in May, thus completing the south Baja trifecta of vacation destinations.

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I have been to La Paz and Cabo, I prefer Cabo in my 20’s and 30’s without kids. Now that I have two kids and am 41 I prefer La Paz. I still have been to Todos Santos but my wife and I want to go down there for a couples only weekend without the kids. Being in SD, we use Border X crossing and fly out of TJ for both Cabo and La Paz.

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That's what a spearfishing buddy of mine does too. He does two and three day trips to La Paz a couple times per year. Apparently the flights are significantly cheaper since it is a domestic flight

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Define "woke." Wrong answers only.

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The Allied Powers were woke as hell.

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Waving or displaying a TRUMP flag is "woke". Watching Fox news is "woke". Open carry is "woke". Burning books is "woke". Banning drag shows is "woke". Hugging Kyle Rittenhouse is "woke". Being white is not only okay, it is "woke".

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em is "woke".

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A successful funeral

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Anything vaguely liberal. One of my Mom's longtime friends started calling her "a Coastal Elite" recently after years of consuming Fox News and the numskull Tucker Carlson.

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stupid liberal person. or is that the right answer??!!

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The past participle of "wake"

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A very defined thing that gets issued on every membership card to every radical left Antifa member. Ask anyone.

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short name for apartheid coca cola from South Africa

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Having a wanton disregard for the well-being of wombats.

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Atmospheric river

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Mar 15, 2023·edited Mar 15, 2023

goddamn, California is getting drenched. I was rolling my eyes about online reactionaries complaining about dams being opened a bit like "oh whatever you care about fish more than people" and then chuckling at the wave of replies along the lines of "the reservoir is full you idiot this is to prevent overflow"

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These folks should read the Emerald Mile to get a sense of the balancing act of water managers this time of year, trying to hold enough water for all in a temperate climate while ensuring enough capacity to control incoming snowmelt.

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Not only are the reservoirs full but most rivers and streams are also full or flowing on their own right now so the fish should mostly be fine with or without those releases.

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we never have to worry about drought againnnnnnn

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Maybe but I can see the authorities talking about "Fuel Growth" because of the moisture, getting us back into those red-flag fire alerts....Aaargh

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It's either way too dry and we have extreme fire risk or it is way to wet, we get too much growth and have extreme fire risk. I think the latter is more sustainable.

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Yep, I have already read articles about that concern.

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SNOWPACK

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going to Tahoe (hopefully) tomorrow. Apparently all the snow (with recent rain) is causing flooding and collapsing roofs. Or at least heavy snow sliding off roofs and burying folks.

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Nice. I'm heading up probably Sat Mar 25th, ski 26th 27th and back either 27th or 28th. Reminds me I need to schedule my son's ski lesson.

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I'm thinking about a day trip to Palisades - I'm glued to the operations twitter right now.

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I'm encouraged having looked at the Tahoe Donner webcam. Nothing about icy roads or dangerous buildings, of course, but looks noice up there!

sunny tomorrow (driving). then sun/cloudy Fri+Sat (skiing). then snow Sunday (driving home...hopefully beating the need for chains!). then four more days of snow

https://portal.hdontap.com/s/embed/?stream=DSLTOP&ratio=16:9

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Backup schools

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UCSC

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Berkeley.

I applied to Cal, was rejected. Upon rejection, you could re-apply for Spring admission (this was late 80's, not sure if this is still a thing). I did. Was accepted. Worked out perfectly, was able to work full time for 6 months before going off to college.

When I got here, I ran into so many other out-of-staters like me who got in via Spring. I figure they filled in all their last-second openings with non-residents who will pay the out-of-state fees for a year and a half at minimum.

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I applied to 2 schools, got into Cal, was rejected from Cal State Northridge. Go figure.

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i got into Cal, Texas, Colorado and UW and got rejected by Sonoma State so... yeah

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That is a weird outcome. Worked out!

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Cal was really my only goal, but also applied to UCSC, Oregon, and UNC. Didn't get into UNC. Not sure which between Oregon and UCSC I would have landed if not Cal.

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My backup school was Cal. My first choice was UC Santa Cruz.

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Sorbonne, Oxford, Cambridge and Laney College.

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Back in the late 90s it was already super hard to get into Berkeley, and I didn't. So I wound up at a backup, UC Santa Cruz (do not regret it).

Why am I still a Cal fan? Because my dad took me to games growing up, and UCSC has no football team.

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I'm a Cal fan because my maternal grandparents (he was a prof at Cal) took me to games at Cal Memorial when I was a first grader. That started my Cal fandom.

UC Santa Cruz was my first choice because it was smaller and not too far from Berkeley. Cal would have been my backup.

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Although they have no football team, one was in the plans when the school opened. There are stadium blueprints for the West Field area and everything. It was apparently a deal with the city as an attempt to get the local population to support the school. However when it was proposed to students, they protested and kept the team from ever forming.

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Cal was always my first choice.

I also applied and got into:

UC Irvine

UCSD

UCLA

UC Riverside

Being from San Diego, if I didn’t get into Cal I probably would have picked UCLA because I wanted a school with D1 sports and I really don’t like the architecture, design and structure of UCSD.

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It would've been UCLA, but my safety school when I was applying was the very difficult to get in Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh because my dad was one of 2 alumni interviewers for Southern California.

Luckily I got into Cal, UCLA and the other 3 UCs I applied to, so I didn't have to suffer through Pittsburgh winters.

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Speaking of, guess who eats at the Carnegie deli?

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no one since 2016?

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Bowser from Sha Na Na & Arthur Fonzarelli

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Oregon.

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I was planning to go to UCSD but got rejected so went to the only school I got accepted to, Cal.

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UCSB and Santa Clara. Probably the former just based on $$$$

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Other UCs. Can't remember exactly which ones I got into. I was deferred admission into Mechanical Engineering. If I didn't get into Cal I probably would've gone to UCLA.

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i thought you wanted to go to Davis since it was one of the few that had aeronautical engineering at the time. that was on my short list of UC schools i was interested in.

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Perhaps. Luckily I didn't end up doing aero. And Cal didn't have aero so I applied to ME since air is a fluid.

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strangely none.

since we lived close enough to Cal, i was in some HS program that allowed me to take classes at Cal during my senior year. i got out of taking afternoon classes in HS, and came to Berkeley 2-3 days week my entire senior year.

so i didnt even have to apply to get in, in the normal way. i just had to continue paying registration fees on time.

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So you got into the party through the back door and just never left.

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it was such a good party! why leave??

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UC Riverside.

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Mar 15, 2023Liked by SGBear

somewhat ironically, USC and UC Santa Cruz.

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UCSC was my first choice and I thought I was guaranteed admittance. I had a friend the year above me get in with a 3.0 and ~1100 SAT so I figured I was a shoe-in at 3.4 and 1290. It just so happened that my year was the first year of huge budget cuts and admission was slashed. I didn't initially get in, appealed and was prepared to go to either SDSU or Chico St. Thankfully my appeal was approved and in late summer people were getting letters from UCSC saying "sooooo actually you did get in, our bad". As a result we had a smaller class and the highest rated class ever admitted to the school.

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Safety

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the entertaining way to get 2 points

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Mar 15, 2023Liked by SGBear

oh sure be like that

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dance

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Were they a one hit wonder? I don't remember any other songs from them. Best one hit wonder song? Come On Eileen.

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A one-hit-wonder I've become weirdly obsessed with is 4 Non Blondes - "What's Up." The lead vocals are pretty incredible.

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Fastball: The Way

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Pop Goes the World was a top 20 song in 1987

https://youtu.be/3zUUtf7gOe8

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Oh, I forgot about that song.

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🎶You can dance, you can dance. Everybody look at your pants…🎶

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We can dance if we want to...

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Today in our crumbling democracy

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DeSantis punitively revokes the Miami Hyatt's liquor license because they had a drag show where minors were present

https://www.businessinsider.com/desantis-admin-revokes-hyatt-miami-alcohol-license-after-drag-show-2023-3

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I guess quite a few South Beach places will be losing their liquor license as well.

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What happened to parental rights and responsibilities?

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Mississippi signs into law a new bill that gives the freedom to buy any car (except electric) and promote the automotive industry (except electric).

https://apnews.com/article/tesla-electric-car-sales-restrictions-0478ec0e0859b627a38511e2a4082a99

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The bill was "introduced by Republican Rep. Trey Lamar of Senatobia". Is that a newly discovered planet?

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but Republicans are all for free enterprise. Or so they say.

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Fox news:

Old & busted: the radical left woke coming for your gas stoves

New fear of the day: the radical left woke want to break your washing machines

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-washing-machine-rule-would-make-americans-dirtier-stinkier-raise-prices-manufacturers

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Fiduciary responsibility means a) the requirement to put your client's financial well-being ahead of your own or b) go full-blown church lady?

https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2023/03/14/utah-treasurer-marlo-oaks-tells/

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TN 79 year old Lt. Governor - who is a champion for anti-LGBTQ rights - has been caught liking transgender women's pictures and interacting with a gay 20 year old gay man on the 'gram & Facebook.

https://www.wkrn.com/news/tennessee-politics/tn-lt-gov-official-instagram-account-repeatedly-comments-on-nearly-naked-photos-of-20-year-old-gay-man/

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People don't realize their likes and follow lists are public? Make a finsta!

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Arkansas votes 60-19 to put a monument on state Capitol grounds to commemorate the aborted fetus since Roe v Wade. I am sure it will be tasteful.

https://apnews.com/article/abortion-huckabee-sanders-arkansas-monument-95c89e397c78319f747cab7fd96936ae

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Can’t wait to see how the Satanic Temple will respond.

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[To Trump's lawyer] "Do you know about this thing that proves that your client lied about knowing about hush money paid to Stormy Daniels"

[Trump lawyers, doing something completely normal since his client is obviously innocent. :s]

https://twitter.com/TheBeatWithAri/status/1635810682921680897

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Mar 15, 2023·edited Mar 15, 2023Author

Nebraska state senator Machaela Cavanaugh (D-6) is so angry at GOP attempts to prosecute LGBTQ community, she filibusters everything - including the bills she supports. Twist would approve.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/machaela-cavanaugh-filibuster-nebraska-trans-bill/

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MN state Sen. Drazkowski (R-Mazeppa) has never met a poor person, so therefore they don't exist - which means that they don't need government programs to help them. https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1635738910562156554

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the last few days I have been having a hard time keeping up with all the bonkers behavior if I'm honest, but the state house in Oklahoma refusing to ban corporal punishment in schools for developmentally disabled children was an eye opener

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Facebook (OK, Meta) lays off 10,000 staffers.

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DBD AV Club

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Watched Top Gun Maverick and loved it, even with all the campy action tropes and poor first half acting. To balance out the war propaganda we followed it up with All Quiet on the Western Front, which was very good, but oh man was that a brutal watch.

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I've been so confused, because I thought All Quiet on the Western Front was old, but kept seeing ads for it recently.

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The book was published in 1929. The author was a German veteran. A movie based on the book was released in 1930 to wide acclaim. I have not read the book nor seen the 1930 movie release.

I did try to watch the 2022 movie version on Sunday. I was so overwhelmed with the imagery of violence and death that I could not continue past the first few minutes. Maybe it's a part of having lived as long as I have that I quit shortly after the scene shifted to the uniform repair sweatshop.

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Kind of agree. Getting into my 50's I don't tolerate the violence like I used to. Can't stand watching saving private Ryan for example, anymore.

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Mar 15, 2023·edited Mar 15, 2023

I forget when I watched Saving Private Ryan, but it didn't feel nearly as bad as what I watched of All Quiet on the Western Front. Both movies had opening scenes that were remarkably violent, but the latter movie feels more viscerally and disturbingly violent.

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It's probably best you didn't continue. Let me summarize the rest for you:

fucking grim

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I find it remarkable that I didn't have the same feeling about 1917 which was released only about three years earlier.

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100% grim and brutal the whole way through. But beautifully shot and acted

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I liked it, even if the general war is hell theme is so beaten into the ground by now. I really liked the music - the same tune was used over and over, but played with different instruments to be either foreboding, joyful, etc. Neat trick, I thought. And the lead actor guy was great

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Ted Lasso Season 3, Episode 1 - West Ham picked top 4!?

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I really liked the first episode a lot.

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F-YOU NATE

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Really interesting episode of Mando - departure from the Mando and Grogu storyline and spending a ton of time on Coruscant.

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I haven't watched any of Mando S3 but I'm certainly eager to spend time on Coruscant!

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Latest episode of Dear Edward was my least favorite of the bunch, but still a quality show.

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we are deeply in arrears. For some reason we didn't watch the season finale of The Last of Us on Sunday, then the missus has been holding out on the Mandalorian because she wants the 18 year old to join a family watch but she's been busy, and the 20 year old has asked that we not watch the first episode of season three of Ted Lasso because she's currently at her boyfriend's family's beach house in North Carolina and wants to have a family viewing when she gets home tomorrow.

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Start Daisy Jones & the Six instead on Amazon Prime. It's like a fake Fleetwood Mac drama with some excellent singing from star Riley Keough.

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I was have going back and forth on whether I want to watch this. Thanks for recommendation, I will give it a viewing this weekend.

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The first two episodes are the slowest.

A couple of caveats - it's pretty corny and the wigs are bad.

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NCAA Tournament

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Mar 15, 2023·edited Mar 15, 2023

The best tourney pool I ever played was years ago at a former job that was a spread pool. Everybody pitched in $20 and randomly selected four teams from a hat. The trick was your team had to beat the spread to move on. For instance, let’s say round one has Ucla playing Directional St and the spread is Ucla -25, and Ucla wins but only by 19. The loser loses Directional St, but bc they beat the spread, they steal Ucla from the other other. Tons of fun, tons of chaos.

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I'll probably just end up banging out a bracket to be used in the W4C and another one.

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Unfortunately, kinda meh. Newellbany does a pool that I feel obligated to do, but more than ever I could totally miss it this year.

Incidentally, I was watching a little of the first 4 yesterday, and found myself getting pissed off all over again at Knowlton over Pitt. Pitt hit the skids at the same time Cal did during the Wyking era, so I’ve always kept an eye on both them and Vandy, as both were dogschitt along with Cal. Cal went deeper into the abyss, while Stackhouse built Vandy up to the Bubble. Meanwhile, Capel got Pitt into the Tournament, despite MISSING 3 STARTERS!!! Are you f-ing kidding me? NO excuses…Capel went out and won. Meanwhile, Fox is clinging to injuries as an excuse.

F-Off Knowlton.

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Join the W4C bracket challenge and maybe just maybe win a $150 Fanatics gift card

https://writeforcalifornia.com/p/join-the-write-for-california-ncaa

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They've got a pretty sweet retro Cal Jaylen Brown jersey on Fanatics you can win and wear to remind all your friends that Cal had a mens basketball program once.

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I still haven't bought anything yet with my CFB win. Don't like the Jaylen Brown jersey.

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Congrats on the CFB win!

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what did you win? is that from the football pick thing?

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yup. The CFB games from the fall. I got a $150 fanatics gift card. Unfortunately there are no good Cal jerseys. There is a cool throwback Jordan jersey which I was looking at. Or a Dodgers jersey.

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Elsewhere in college

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Georgia's Jalen Carter has a terrible PRO Day. He was the presumptive #3 pick, but his stock may fall

https://mobile.twitter.com/PeteThamel/status/1636070805908979713?t=fe4S9pEgUZW2tla15pFN2Q&s=19

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my older one at UW finished finals yesterday and decided to come home for a week, a little unexpectedly. so that will be nice

they were going to go hiking, climbing, camping but it is cold and snowy and the trip leader sort of bailed on the trip.

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Pros

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Ja gets an 8 games suspension. So the 6 he's already missed and then 2 more.

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/35865890/sources-ja-morant-meets-adam-silver-awaits-league-findings

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I went to the Canes vs. Jets game last night that the home team won 5-3. It featured two beautiful shots, including this perfect wrister to the upper corner by Brady Skjei: https://twitter.com/Canes/status/1635794546217869312

and this gorgeous wrap-around

https://twitter.com/JayGold85/status/1635798155114545153

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Milwaukee vs Phoenix

watched the first 3 quarters as Phx fell behind early and used up all their energy in tying it up. went to sleep before 4th Q.

from what i read, they had a better shot of winning than the previous game vs W's but the Bucks played well.

overall, both teams are very good. would not be surprised if Bucks win it all this year.

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Check out how the Kahnawake race went in Montreal.

https://twitter.com/KCrane23/status/1635369763227463706

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Manchester City won a Champions League game against Leipzig 7-0 last night, and Erling Haaland scored 5, that's FIVE, of the seven goals before being substituted in the 63rd minute. That's genuinely bonkers. He broke the Man City season scoring record that was nearly 100 years old, and there's still the better part of 2 months of league play plus FA Cup and Champions League to go. Even if this is the only season he has like this (unlikely), it's genuinely amazing.

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Cal

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Bad news. Rumor has it that women's bb's leading scorer, Jayda Curry, is entering the transfer portal. Would be a blow to the team. She shattered the conference record for most consecutive games hitting a three.

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hopefully she'll transfer to the men's team

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She's immediately the best shooter on the squad.

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Mar 15, 2023·edited Mar 15, 2023

Unfortunate but you can hardly blame her. She’s WNBA bound, so showcasing herself on a bigger stage is probably a higher priority than a Cal degree right now.

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Is she?

Look, I love love love Jayda. But she's 5'5", can be guarded, and is absolutely a one-side of the floor player. We're going to lose talent . .. but might this improve our team defense, which is really our biggest weakness? (I say yes)

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That and she plays for a terrible team and coach

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I absolutely defer to both of you when it comes to this...I just assumed that a player of her caliber would have the option of a professional career.

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I think the WNBA is one of the toughest leagues in the world to make - 12 teams, 12 players each. Only 144 players - compared to 450 NBA players.

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I read somewhere that Sam Jackson V runs a self-reported 4.3 40

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Little known fact that I run a self-reported 4.8 40.

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Same. We should totally race some time.

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He definitely has the potential to be electric with the ball in his hands.

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Mar 15, 2023·edited Mar 15, 2023

I don't remember the name but there was an Arizona QB who was completely electric. Then they tried to turn him into a pocket passer, he got injured and was never the same. Just let Sam do his thing. EDIT: Kahlil Tate I just remembered.

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Khalil Tate

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I get the first comment of the day! We've got the Axe!!!

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And we'll keep it this year for sure!

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