181 Comments

Puzzles

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And another new one (to me, at least)

Movie clip-dle

Framed #18

🎥 🟥 🟥 🟥 🟥 🟥 🟩

https://framed.wtf

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I was introduced to this "~dle" game today. Has it been shared here yet?

https://semantle.novalis.org/

Here's the Share info...I managed to solve it!

"I solved Semantle #59 in 39 guesses. My first guess had a similarity of 12.96. My first word in the top 1000 was at guess #12. My penultimate guess had a similarity of 26.86 (264/1000). https://semantle.novalis.org/"

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DBD Auto Repair

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Mileage on my 2011 Accord dropped precipitously (12mpg in town!?). Tech thought the O2 sensor was bad, so we’ll see if that fixes it…

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wow that's bad. If your O2 sensor was bad you should be getting check engine light.

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At some point I need to rebuild the power steering pump on the TSX to fix the leak. I need to remove the serpentine belt in order to take the PSP off. Does anyone know if I need to move the car, it should be fine to start it and move it back and forth without any issues right? Obviously I won't have power steering, I won't be able to charge the battery, and the AC won't work, but it shuold be fine to have it running for 20 seconds at a time to move it back and forth.

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Used to do the brakes on my Miata. Many moons ago I rebuilt a VW bug engine with my fiance's Dad.

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I just got back from cleaning out my car from the local shop. Like I had mentioned before, my car sustained some damage from when I slid and tap a barrier on an icy highway. Progressive judged the repair to be more costly than my 15 year old Yaris. To be honest, I'm not sure if their estimate of its value at just over $6000 to be fair or not, but they also left me no options. The car, my first and so far only one, had a good run, but it also only had 93000+ miles.

My UC Berkeley Alumni plate holder broke apart, probably because that's also 15 years old, so that's not salvageable.

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6000 repair? That seems awfully high unless you had frame damage. I guess it depends on how hard you hit.

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The repair guy was saying something about the frame being damaged. I also felt like he thought he was doing me a favor by declaring it a total loss. I just went to him because he's only a mile away. The bulk of cars being serviced there are much nicer and newer (apparently a local Pittsburgh TV new personality that I do not recognize was also there to get his car worked on in one of my visit).

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Frame?!? Yaris has no frame.

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Well, it's done. I definitely feel a bit like I took my car to the shop to repair a serious scratch and it got declared DOA, but it is what it is.

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In the future you can ask for a second estimation of value and they'll send out an actual vehicle appraiser to see what the value of the car really is which improves the likelihood of repair. Most insurance side folks will just enter the info into their program and accept whatever number it spits out and if it's lower than the repair estimate your car is considered a total loss.

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I took No 3's car in for a tire leak repair and rotation and balance and they said the rear brakes need to be done imminently. I bought rotors and pads and I guess I'm going to be doing brakes the first time over the next couple of days so he can take the car for a week or two. Since the rear brakes are worse than the front ones, I may do those first and then do the front ones after he brings the car back.

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Mar 29, 2022·edited Mar 29, 2022

People look at me like I am crazy when I tell them I do my own brakes. I derive major satisfaction knowing that I've spent about 30% of what it would cost having a mechanic do it and with parts that are far better. I also replaced the upper and lower ball joints on my '14 Ram and easily saved $1200. It took me about 6 hours total.

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I did my own brakes (pads, rotors and drums) when we had a Scion and saved ~$600. YouTube made the the process pretty easy.

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I've youtubed at least 3 different videos on the Accord. Seems super easy. Seems like the hardest part will be taking out the screws holding the rotors in if they're rusted. When No 3 brought the car back yesterday we took the wheels off ( bought a new impact wrench which is pretty fun to use to remove the lugnuts), they don't look rusted so crossing my fingers they'll come out easily.

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Big O wanted 450 to do just the rear brakes, and they may or may not include the rotor (I'm guessing it does). I got all the parts for both wheels for 200 (not counting 225 for the impact wrench only, not battery and the misc tools like the tool to screw the rear brake piston back in).

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If it's rotors on all four pads you can do it in <30min per wheel as long as you have a frame jack. The difficulty comes in if you have drum brakes because of all the little annoying springs.

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COVID

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FDA authorizes second booster. CDC has to decide who will be recommended to get it. Someone I know already got a second booster. She explained how she got it but I'm still not clear why and I don't know her well enough to push (nor is it probably really my business but I'm curious).

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/03/29/fda-authorizes-second-booster-shot/

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i heard it was probably > 50. so i am the only one in my family to qualify ..

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signed up to get shot #4 on Thu .. hopefully there are little to no side effects since Fri looks like a nice day for a bike ride

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oh...maybe I need to check it out.

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Mar 29, 2022·edited Mar 29, 2022

@that shouldn't be a problem for you...@

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heh...lold

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Ukraine/Russia

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I have an army of Ukrainians and Russians pondering together how to fit an air handler in my attic. It's beautiful.

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Reports of another Russian general KIA. The leading cause of death amongst Russian elites and Putins inner circle are now Ukraine, windows and poison.

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The three members of the Ukrainian peace negotiators with Russia suffered injuries consistent with chemical weapon poisoning earlier this month. Gee, I wonder whose MO that is.

https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-war-roman-abramovich-and-ukrainian-peace-negotiators-suffered-symptoms-of-suspected-chemical-weapons-poisoning-after-talks-in-kyiv-12576989

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Some signs of a rapprochement? Some reasons for optimism as Russia starts to withdraw forces from the Kiyv area. Putin may seek to consolidate gains in the East and South of Ukraine, potentially dividing the country in a way similar to North and South Korea.

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"We are purposely withdrawing forces around Kyiv and Chernhiv because we are good people, not because we are retreating because of stretched logistics, lost combat effectiveness of all our northern battalions, and several days in a row of losing towns."

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In the future, what candies are going in your old lady/man candy bowl?

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Mar 29, 2022·edited Mar 29, 2022

Well, it won't be anything with chocolate as climate change will decimate the tropical regions where cacao is grown.

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Edibles.

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I have a cousin visiting from Ohio and he mentioned how weed is legal here now and he was expecting to see/smell people smoking it everywhere. I mentioned how most people don’t smoke weed anymore, they typically eat via an edible or drink it now.

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My wife has gotten me... hooked, shall you say... on CBD-infused and CBD/THC-infused sodas.

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Unfortunately, you can smell it way too much around DC.

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You smell weed smoke everywhere in Venice and in August in Santa Cruz you can randomly smell all the outdoor grows that are almost ready for harvest while driving around town with your windows down.

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Whatever bag of candy that is on sale at Costco.

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As Arnold said in the classic, gun buying scene in Terminator....ALL

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Mar 29, 2022·edited Mar 29, 2022

Werthers, of course. And Kraft caramels. And peanut M&Ms. Oh, and Andes mints.

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I forgot cherry lifesavers.

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Mmm Andes mints

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Jolly Ranchers

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Mine would be just Green Apple Jolly Ranchers.

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M&Ms, exposed and naked in the bowl

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We had some at my job in the early 2000s and the receptionist say one guy came up, put his finger in his ear to take care of an itch, and put that hand in the bowl to get M&Ms. We went to wrapped candy from that day forward.

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That's why I got a candy dispenser from Sharper Image. Didn't work perfectly, but at least it was a bit more sanitary.

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Butterscotch

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Love butterscotch!

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Butterscotch, and Reed's root beer hard candies.

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Lemon drops

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Toffees and peppermints.

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Lacrosse

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Played it in high school and was on the UCSC team for a couple months. It was a new sport for the Diablo Valley League my sophomore year of high school so pretty much anyone who had experience made it to varsity. I had played every summer at the Cal youth camps so I was able to make the team. IIRC the only Bay Area schools that had teams prior were Berkeley High, De La Salle and St. Ignatius and they proceeded to beat down every team until they played each other. When I played it was basically the only full contact sport that you could play that didn't have the time commitments of football which is why it appealed to me (also the Campolindo coaches were insufferable my freshman year when I was on the team).

The sport has interesting origins as a Native American game played instead of war in the Northeast, played on fields that were miles long and many times resulted in multiple deaths during the game.

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Lacrosse was a thing at a number of high schools in our part of NJ. Played almost exclusively by the boys who came from wealthy backgrounds. Because lacrosse was a spring sport, the guys who played came from the football and soccer teams.

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being a wealthy sport is what I always associated it with. Like it's a prep school sport.

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Definitely is on the east coast, it is (or was) much more varied on the west coast, however any sport with extra costs associated with equipment will inevitably create a barrier to entry, much like hockey. You can get a full set up, stick, helmet, pads and cleats for ~$200 (or could in the early 2000's)

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It gets a fair amount of publicity around here. Makes sense since most of the schools have regularly good programs.

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Is a city in Wisconsin on the border of Minnesota

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Mar 29, 2022Liked by SGBear

Technically it is La Crosse.

LaCroix sparkling water originated from La Crosse, Wisconsin. It’s name is a portmanteau of the “La” from the city La Crosse and the “Croix” from the river St. Croix.

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Is a sport we played in PE, but many have told me they never had it in their school.

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The PE version was pretty fun, but they used the sticks with full plastic heads and squishy balls (they used the same at the Cal youth camps)

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I think my middle school used real balls. The sticks had plastic heads. What are they supposed to be? Wood?

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Most are plastic, but the net portion is usually either nylon mesh or a combination of leather and nylon strings. The PE versions were an all plastic cage that looked like one of those fruit pickers

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Oh like the kiddy ones? Then I think we used real sticks. Are you talking about PE in elementary school? Mine was in middle school so that may be why.

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It was middle school and high school, I don't think lacrosse had been heavily adopted in CA when I was in elementary school. TBF the floor hockey equipment in high school PE was equally shitty.

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Checks out since I associate the sport with the northeast US and was created and played by the Native Americans throughout the northeast and Great Lakes region.

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Mar 29, 2022·edited Mar 29, 2022

Is a sport that is slowly growing in popularity but probably will never break into the main stream.

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It's gradually made inroads in the high schools in parts of the Northwest, to the point of materially impacting baseball and softball negatively. But its still non-existent in some communities.

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Is a sport that I think No 1 would have enjoyed.

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Since I lived grew up in Ca in the 70s and 80s I didn't know much about it. Had he been introduced to it early in life I think he would like it and do pretty well.

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Buick -. I don't see too many of these so I'm not sure how many were sold.

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Just a guess, but I think many were purchased by older people who typically don't drive as much. All three of the younger people that I knew that had Buicks were all inherited from grandparents and all started to have major issues around 100-130k miles. I do remember the interiors being nice though. They advertised heavily during Warriors games on NBC Sports last year.

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Is Buick still in business? You don't see any in California.

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Maybe? wiki tells me the Lacrosse was made until 2019.

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They are called Allure in Canada because Lacrosse is a slang term for a form of "self-love". https://www.autoblog.com/2009/09/04/gm-exercises-self-love-plans-to-re-name-canadas-buick-allure-l/

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They were no Park Avenue, that's for sure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-skQhu4aHZ4

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Or the Mercury Mistress

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1ti1l

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Ha! I never saw that.

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Irvine

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In terms of UC education rankings, where do you have UCI? I always consider it 4th.

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I have:

UCB

UCLA

UCD

UCSD

UCSB

UCI

UCR

UCM

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What about Santa Cruz?

I actually forgot about UCD in my rankings and would probably place them 4th after UCSD.

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I would say maybe UCSB/UCI ish? I don't think it's as low as UCR.

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I think it's on the rise, but probably still behind UCSD.

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If I had to rank the top 5:

UC

UCLA

UCSD

UCI

UCSB

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I applied to Berkeley and UCSD. Got rejected by UCSD but got accepted to Berkeley.

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I was rejected by UCLA and accepted by UC.

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Is UCSB above Davis? I've always thought it was more of a party school but honestly I don't know much about it. Other than I applied to both UCSB and Davis just incase.

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I think they were pretty much equal when I was applying in 03-04. Seemed that the kids that didn't get into UCLA went to SB or SD and those that didn't get into Cal went to Davis.

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I would agree with this take.

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The home of so many corporate centers and fancy strip malls with chain stores. Or at least that's been my experience.

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I think it's a very well planned city. There are so many wilderness too. Lots and lots of trails. But the restaurants and stores are all chains and not much diversity. Even the surface streets have 3 lanes and helps with traffic. Housing is expensive and boring cookie cutters. It's safe but I choose to live in a gated community.

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It's safe but I choose to live in a gated community.

Why?

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Lol, my same thoughts as well.

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Because it' even safer lol

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I would argue it makes you a target.

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It definitely was a target for high school kids driving around smoking weed in a cop free environment in Moraga...or so I heard.

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Maybe. It does add to the hassle for deliveries and Lyft/Uber pickups.

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Yep, this is what I think of when I hear Irvine. UCI is a very nice campus.

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I don't think I've ever visited UCI. Driven through Irvine city street many times but never gone to UCI. Probably not missing much?

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It is nice. The layout is very different than the rest of the UCs due it being a circular campus design, so it has an inner loop path and the center of the campus is a park.

I actually think UCSD is probably the most boring and poorly designed UC campus that I have visited.

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It's intentional! When UCSD was being designed in the 60s/70s, it was specifically made to be decentralized and without a proper quad as a way of preemptively curbing student activity and thus potential protests.

It was also originally planned to be near Balboa Park but was moved to keep students from mingling from the "urban population."

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I knew about the decentralized design as a way to curb student activity and protest due to what they saw at UC.

I didn’t know about the Balboa Park plan. I knew SDSU was supposed to go near Balboa Park. Hence University Avenue and University Heights neighborhoods existing despite no university nearby.

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Interesting

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UCSC definitely wasn't a convenient campus to transit, but the combination of a great bus system and beautiful walking paths more than made up for it. It was certainly the most isolated from the city and non-campus housing UC that I visited

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A city that I currently live in. Very safe but very boring

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Taco Bell HQ

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DBD AV Club

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Watched “Turn It Around: the Story of East Bay Punk” (https://eastbaypunk.com/) on Kanopy. Interesting history of 924 Gilman, Lookout Records, etc. but super long.

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Watched the first episode of S2 of Bridgerton, afterwards I told my wife that I would continue to watch it, but mock it relentlessly as well.

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I feel like the male lead's reactions are all open mouth, heavy breathing. Grief? Shock? Lust? Longing? All gaping fish.

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Neon and other noble gases

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I got my finger stuck in the trunk of a Dodge Neon as a kid and hated them ever since

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This totally sounds like a yelp review.

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One of my favorite lectures at Cal was a guest lecture in Chem 4A. I wish I remembered the guy's name. He talked about making compounds with noble gases. He said you can put Xe and F in a glass container and leave it out in the sun, and after a few hours you would get some XeF6, Xenon Hexafluoride. Amazing.

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Xenon .. is the noble gas that filled up the particle detector i worked on in grad school.

a fast moving cosmic ray going thru the Xenon might ionize some of it and a complex sequence of electrical signals would track the particle's trajectory as well as calculate the energy deposited by the particle ..

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Liquid xenon particle detector was what I worked on for a decade. We also use the Xe-136 isotope both as the source of the rare radioactive decay and the detector medium. In fact, our experiment was the first to measure the expected two-neutrino double beta decay of Xe-136 that I once (on a boring shift) went to Wikipedia (and in various languages) and change the status of Xe-136 from stable to "radioactive", citing our paper of course.

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ELSEWHERE IN COLLEGE

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Oh? A bit of oversight for the NCAA?

https://twitter.com/RossDellenger/status/1508821862196916226

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The ncaa and oversight go together about as well as trump administration and ethics.

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Three #1 seeds and a number #2 make the women's final four. Yawn. This has been the general pattern in women's bb. Need more upsets. There's an elite that's too far ahead of everyone else. I suppose you can say the same for college football.

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I officiated a few high school games of Hailey Van Lith, the Louisville star. She's the best player I've ever officiated (not counting a couple charity events featuring over the hill athletes from other sports). In high school, she was just as intense as she appears to be at Lousville. Very good player, very good person.

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Mar 29, 2022Liked by BentPawn

Where did she go to HS? I want them to lose as I always root against the entitled fanbase of UofL and UK.

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Mar 29, 2022·edited Mar 29, 2022Author

Cashmere, WA, a tiny agricultural town in the geographic middle of the state. If you've eaten an apple, it probably came from Cashmere or within 10 miles. The location did not hurt her, as she was recruited by all the heavyweights.

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I'm guessing with travel ball, you can play in the smallest city but if you're good enough and play for a travel ball team you'll get recruited.

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Yeah, she was on a travelling team with Kobe's daughter. Kobe himself made an appearance in the tiny town. His death hit the small white agri-town pretty hard.

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New apple that I love is the Sugarbee. Very Honeycrisp like. According to wiki it's a cross between Honeycrisp and something else. They're pricy though. 3.29/lb at Berkeley Bowl and 2.89 at Sprouts.

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Those are good, I agree. More consistent (and more available) than the new Cosmic Crisps.

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Unpopular opinion: having 64 women's teams is absurd.

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Do you think that would help? I feel like all the top seeds would still win and we wouldn’t have many upsets.

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Do they have many double digit seed upsets? I think I saw there were a couple this year, but it seems like the 1 and 2 seeds always blow out opponents. Like the one this year where SC (I think) led 44-4 at halftime or something like that.

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I do not believe they have many double digit upsets.

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The first 2 rounds are normally and usually played on the home floor of a top 4 seed, which makes pulling off an upset al the more difficult. There has been a lot of discussion about moving away from that model, but the problem is $s. Attendance for at least the home team's games is good. Attendance at neutral sites would be mostly miniscule, and the lost gate $s, and higher costs, makes it very problematical financially.

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It does appear that the gap is narrowing, and the balance is improving, but the top tier is still generally more than a little bit ahead.

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CJ Anderson joins Rice as its RB coach. Marques Tuiasosopo is the OC/QB Coach there.

https://twitter.com/ChrisVannini/status/1508454225621266440

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Was CJ briefly at Cal after retiring?

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Don't think so. He was the coach at Monte Vista last year.

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I actually just looked up. He was on the staff in 2020 and also spring of 2021 until July.

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yep, QC guy, then went to MV for a year

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Hmmm...more dough than coaching in high school.

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If his ultimate goal is to be a CFB HC, this is a step up in that direction.

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OUR CRUMBLING DEMOCRACY

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House advances bill to legalize weed. Seems doomed to fail in the Senate though.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/this-week-house-set-to-vote-on-marijuana-legalization-bill/ar-AAVzLbE

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Once they grasp the amount of tax dollars they could rake in I think the tide will change. Or when pharmaceutical companies get their massive marijuana farms up and running and fire up the lobby machine.

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There's a 7-hour 37-minute gap in Trump's phone logs during 1/6 insurrection despite having 18 phone calls documented.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-calls-seven-hour-gap-january-6/

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Destroying the tapes, a classic

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He was just taking a nap.

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Trump praises Putin for the 10th time since the war started.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/28/politics/trump-putin-ukraine-russia-smart/index.html

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Impeach Thomas? House Dems can go there, but most won’t.

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/29/clarence-thomas-congress-fallout-00021167

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They need to avoid distractions that will take up time that could be used to complete the 1/6 Committee's investigation and getting the DOJ to indict that orange fatass.

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PRO

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A's lose again in Cactus League action. Will anyone be watching this season?

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MLB will experiment with the bases, shortening the base paths by 13.5 inches - starting with the minor leagues in the second half of the season.

https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/minor-league-baseball-to-move-second-base-closer-to-home-plate-in-2022-as-part-of-rules-experiment-per-report/

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Stupid. I hate the changes to the layout of the field. Larger bases aren't as bad as moving 2nd base.

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I felt the same way you did until I saw the official diagram for base layout and now I am all in favor of moving second base because of my not-real-OCD.

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oh because of the asymmetry of the larger bases? Yeah I guess I didn't think of that.

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Because first and third are entirely within the diamond while second is slightly outside the diamond.

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Since they are already making the bases larger, I think this slight move of the second base is actually consistent with that move to make the distances between bases uniform. It just sounds more jarring than the larger bases.

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I don't think there will be a rush to head out to every HS/City/Youth/College ball park and dig up the base anchor for 2nd base and move it in.

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Also remember how sacred bases used to be that MLB reversed their plan to put "Spider-man 2" (the Tobey Maguire movie) on the bases?

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CAL

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Cal and UW the only Pac 12 schools to fail to get into a bowl game and see either of its basketball team make the NCAAs. Second year in a row for us. I think we'd had a pretty good streak of at least one of the three playing in the post season.

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Problem is this is a blip for UW, and probably a trend for Cal....Wilcox is the last hope for the 2022 academic year, and he's breaking in an entirely new offense, which is so not his strength as an HC....odds are this trend continues for another season for the Bears, tho crazier things have happened.

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It's a long way off but I'd put the women's bball team's chances of making next year's tourney at around 25%. For what it's worth, they look like a lock for the WNIT

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the OL is going to be brutally thin on experience

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So you're saying the opposing team should blitz all day long. And the DC takes out all the players if Cal gains another yard?

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Still don't know why teams didn't blitz Garbers all...day...long.

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GO Bears!!!

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