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Yesterday's DBD had something about Booz Allen owing the government big bucks for overcharges. The chairman of their board must be planning to make a down payment as the local news site I follow said he put his condo down the street from me for sale for just under $7 million.

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I’m just glad they omitted the overcharging for my time there

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He’ll get great views of the July 4th fireworks if nothing else

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I hadn't looked at the tour of the place. Pretty clear they're selling the view since there's more pictures of that than the interior of the condo.

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Obama administration sous-chef has died in a tragic accident. In other news, this terrible headline by a tabloid.

https://www.hellomagazine.com/celebrities/498467/obamas-personal-chef-tafari-campbell-seen-confidently-swimming-laps-after-tragically-drowning/

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Spirited Away

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My kids are in a heavy Studio Ghibli phase, have to say they are quite good (and super trippy)! I had never seen any of them before. The English language dubs on Max have a lot of A list voice actors. My fave is Totoro bc it has a simple/personal storyline but weaves in these bizarre fantastical elements as a way of visualizing the characters’ emotional journeys, is just really well done. The other ones are all good as well but are more focused on world building than a particular plot / character arc.

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Totoro is quite good, my fave.

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...Although there may be "better", aka, more serious ones, but Totoro is very easily enjoyable.

So not 100% sure it is the best one.

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Totoro is my favorite too. there are few things in the world better than the magical Cat Bus.

i am a little bummed that we are going to Japan in Aug and the Ghibli Park did not make the cut for the itinerary. mostly because the other family we are traveling with would not appreciate what they are spending their day doing even though they have kids aged 7, 10 and 13.

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PRO

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Bronny James stable, out of ICU following cardiac arrest

https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/38068148/bronny-james-stable-icu-following-cardiac-arrest

Bronny James, the eldest son of Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James, suffered a cardiac arrest Monday and is in stable condition.

"Yesterday while practicing Bronny James suffered a cardiac arrest," a James family spokesperson said in a statement. "Medical staff was able to treat Bronny and take him to the hospital. He is now in stable condition and no longer in ICU. We ask for respect and privacy for the James family and we will update media when there is more information.

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For a few seconds I was thinking practicing Jazz? Bronny not Boney.

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Yikes.

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Jul 25, 2023·edited Jul 25, 2023

Jaylen Brown locker room at Haas Pavilion has a nice ring to it.

Jaylen Brown, Celtics agree to record 5-year, $304M supermax extension

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/38067889/jaylen-brown-celtics-agree-record-5-year-304m-supermax-extension

Boston Celtics star Jaylen Brown has agreed to sign the richest deal in NBA history -- a five-year, $304 million supermax contract extension, his agent, Jason Glushon, told ESPN on Tuesday.

Brown and Glushon met with Celtics management and ownership Sunday evening in Boston, finalizing the remaining elements of the historic deal that keeps the two-time All-Star under contract through the 2028-29 season.

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Very much so!!!

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I don’t know, boss

https://www.mccoveychronicles.com/2023/7/24/23806348/mlb-final-giants-tigers-7-24-2023-recap-ross-stripling-wilmer-flores-tarik-skubal

The good will accrued from the San Francisco Giants five game winning streak to start this second half has been spent and officially overdrawn.

Desperate for the Pacific air, the sweater weather, and familiarly mutable microclimes, the team was forced to touch down in Michigan for one last sticky, inland day game against the Detroit Tigers. The 5-1 defeat was their season-high 6th consecutive loss and a cleat to the shin of the already hobbling Giants just trying to make it back home.

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LHP Tarik Skubal has been dealing for Detroit after returning from an extended absence due to a flexor tendon issue in his throwing arm. Save for 1 inning at KC in his last start where he missed a few on location that got hammered, he’s been dominant, even gaining 3 mph on his fastball since the IL stint.

Detroit has him on a strict pitch count, as this was the first time in 4 starts he eclipsed 64…but he absolutely dominated this absolutely anemic Giants lineup for 5…save for 2 extended Casey Schmitt AB’s that saw 19 pitches total before ending in K’s, Skubal maybe gets through 7…he was that filthy.

This Giants team is on life support, as the teams they are all battling with for the Wild Card all have far superior rosters.

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Mrs Slug and I are going to tonight's game with the A's in celebration of Double D's birthday. I fully expect the face planting to continue.

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They might win - you never know.

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Dodgers run out of bullets, 3-run 11th inning wins it for Jays

https://www.truebluela.com/2023/7/24/23805790/dodgers-phil-bickford-11th-inning-blue-jays

LOS ANGELES — The Dodgers didn’t have the high-powered offensive performance they showed on the road trip, and dropped a back-and-forth game to the Blue Jays 6-3 in 11 innings in series opener on Monday night at Dodger Stadium.

Toronto scored three runs in the top of the 11th inning off Phil Bickford, the Dodgers’ sixth reliever of the night. Daulton Varsho’s double plated two go-ahead runs, both of which were unearned due to the free runner to open the frame and third baseman Chris Taylor’s throwing error.

Bickford allowed two hits and two walks after Taylor’s error, the latter walk forcing in a run, all before recording an out.

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Classic example of Dave Roberts over-managing the pitching, taking out a pitcher that was still low on pitch count, and more importantly, pitching well, and putting in Bickford, who reverted to his inconsistent earlier in the season form. This after the Dodgers had the bases loaded with 1 out in the 8th after tieing it, and getting nothing out of that.

But a Dodger loss is to be accepted whenever you can get one, though the Giants lost 5-1 to Detroit, so nothing was gained by LA's downfall.

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Perhaps I am a grumpy middle-aged dude, but this seems like a bad idea

https://twitter.com/UNCanada/status/1683480839441489922

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I won't go quite as far as saying this is a bad idea. But I will note that there is no seeming point except to flaunt some sort of wealth or power.

Call me old-fashioned, but isn't hardwood good enough?

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I assume they've tested this, but it must get slippery even just with a small drop of moisture.

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Also seems like the visuals themselves would be a strange distraction to the players

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Philippines defeats host New Zealand in World Cup 1-0. First win for PH

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Buffalo Bills primary punt/kick returner out for season with an ACL injury. He was sitting on a stationary jet ski and then struck by another jet skier.

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/38062977/source-bills-rb-nyheim-hines-knee-expected-miss-season

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season ending injury on a jet ski: boring, predictable

season ending injury on a jet ski while completely stationary: innovative, engaging!

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It’s like dog bites man vs man bites dog

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hahaha

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Big BRETT JOHNSON on his scooter vibes ☹️

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Shaka - when the walls fell.

Shaka Hisplop faints on air. He is reportedly okay and recovering.

https://twitter.com/iamN7/status/1683298044270223363

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Darmok!!

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At Talagra

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A machine-learning translation by Peter Jansen was employed for English-to-Tamarian translation, assembling a Tamarian-English dictionary of utterances from the original episode and several follow-on novels, as well as an automatic translation system for this language pair.

https://aclanthology.org/2022.flp-1.5/

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Elly's gets trolled by the Brewers scoreboard operator after being robbed of a HR. Two innings later, he absolutely smashed a 456 foot homer.

https://www.mlb.com/news/elly-de-la-cruz-blasts-long-home-run-vs-brewers

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a seemingly never-ending task

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Food preparation, dishes, laundry. You don’t even really see the benefits of your labor the way you would with your weeding example. It’s just a complete black hole of time and energy. Every. Single. Day.

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Getting rent from ALL tenants....

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looking at you, atoms

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Ha! Atoms is great!

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Getting up my preseason hopes each season for Cal football.

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Weeding.

A neighbor on one side of my house doesn't care for his yard. That side of my yard constantly needs a lot of work to keep the weeds at bay.

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There’s always carcinogenic chemicals you can use.

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any cleaning / basic maintenance, really, but weeding feels especially unending

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CAL

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Go Bears!!!

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Is it football season yet??? 😭😭😭

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Week Zero matchup is in 31.5 days:

Navy @ Notre Dame (-21.5)

UTEP @ J'ville St (-1.5)

Umass @ NMSU (-10.5)

Ohio @ SDSU (-5.5)

Hawai'i @ Vandy (-18.5)

SJSU @ USC (-29.5)

FIU @ LA Tech (-10.5)

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Jul 25, 2023·edited Jul 25, 2023

Not a single watchable game there, save for maybe SDSU.

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Maybe ND game. New Navy coach. Of course SJSU SC first quarter.

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Gotta support a future Pac-12 brother.

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Are we really sure that’s gonna happen?

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Nope, but I feel like they're the most likely, unless Pac-12 wants to go back to Pac-10.

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Umass @ NMSU. Yeesh. 🚽

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Jerry Kill reupped his contract at NMSU which included a clause to pave the parking lot. Things are looking up for the Aggies.

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DBD AV CLUB

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Lioness, the new Taylor Sheridan spy vehicle on Paramount Plus starring Zoe Saldana, Layla de Oliviera, Nicole Kidman, Michael Kelly and Sheridan regular James Jordan. 2 episodes have aired, and while initially skeptical as to it’s plausibility, I certainly enjoyed what we’ve seen so far. Plus Saldana and de Oliviera are great.

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OUR CRUMBLING DEMOCRACY

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[Poll] Trump loses 7 points but still leads DeSantis by about 40 points. Support went to Ramaswamy

https://news.yahoo.com/ramaswamy-ticks-gop-primary-against-190116058.html

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Ramaswamy really is a dope. It's impressive seeing someone saying how America has been such a great land of opportunity for him, presumably he freed up his time for work by never taking a civics class.

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Jack Smith's office using Trump meeting where he praised the 2020 election security against him.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/24/politics/special-counsel-trump-oval-office-election-security-february-2020/index.html

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Ammon Bundy - that Idaho anti-government nut-job - who spread lies about a hospital lost his defamation lawsuit via default judgement because he never showed up. He was hit with a $52.5m judgement against him.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/ammon-bundy-must-pay-more-than-dollar50-million-for-defaming-st-lukes-meridian-hospital-over-baby-cyrus

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Hopefully they aggressively pursue collection of the judgement.

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him and his shitbag family want to be martyrs but maybe not to debt collectors, I guess we'll see

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ELSEWHERE IN COLLEGE

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Reminder: new rules for 2023 football is that the clock doesn't stop in final two minutes on first downs. Might need to practice three minute drills instead

https://garnetandcocky.com/2023/07/23/ncaa-football-rule-changes/

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I was so confused and read the article. First down does stop the clock in final two minutes of each half, but not during rest of the game.

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As a cardiac team we need as much time in the final 2 minutes as possible it would seem.

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Time for Tosh Lupoi to tell Aaron Tipoti to fake an injury again

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What's the point of that rule?

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The desire of TV networks to keep broadcasts under 3.5 hours and maximize their ad buys.

TV is ruining football. That is all.

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The 1975 Cal-U$C game was on national TV. It lasedt two hours and twenty-four minutes. A lot fewer commercial breaks and they were much shorter. That's what I call the good ole days.

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Which kinda begs the question - how many ads can you run in 1 hour? And what's your revenue on that 1 hour?

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it's not exactly improved the game for people actually in the stadium in any case

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Jul 25, 2023·edited Jul 25, 2023

Precisely. NCAA football continues its march towards becoming NFL Lite.

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💵

Less stoppage that they can't run advertising on and can get more games/ads in.

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Crap gets even deeper in Evanston

https://twitter.com/NicoleAuerbach/status/1683649582306148352?s=20

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Will they throw in the towel?

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I feel like there is a non zero chance of that, but not sure how the money the Ryan family committed to the stadium factors in

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