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Today in Covid

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FDA issues full approval for latest Covid booster

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/11/covid-vaccines-fda-approves-new-shots-from-pfizer-moderna.html

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The vaccine isn't available yet and we still have to wait for the CDC to issue guidance as to whom gets the vaccine first

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What's for lunch?

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Fried rice/quinoa with steak, peas, and kimchi.

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No idea.

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I've got half a slow-cooked beef burrito along with some rice and beans waiting for me in the fridge

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Italian meatball sub. Italian sausage balls + Michaels of Brooklyn Home Style Gravy, + sweated green bell peppers and onions + parmesan cheese melted under the broiler all done Thornton-Mellon-style in a hollowed out breadloaf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCi91CU4AUk

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Post-mortem: I should have put the bread in the oven so that the bottom could get crunchy too. The hollowed-out bread ended up getting soggy with all the sauce. The sandwich started coming apart about halfway through and I ended up having to eat it over the sink so that the balls falling out didn't splash onto the plate and make my shirt all dirty. And the sandwich started degrading quickly, so time was not on my side. I am glad that my wife is out of town otherwise she surely would have seen me hunched over like a werewolf feverishly devouring its prey with both hands and a red mess all over my face. I'm not proud of that moment, but it was delicious.

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Togo's, probably a #16 (Italian sub).

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i miss Togo's. if you told me they were gone forever i would not have been surprised.

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We have one in Seaside, CA, here.

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PEACH

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This weekend a neighbor invited us to raid her peach tree because she had far too many, and now I have to figure out what to do with about 3 dozen peaches. I'll probably make a peach pie later in the week

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From Cheech & Chong's "Next Movie"... a decent call back joke where the first part is this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdKKdZgVSAw#t=108s

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Edie McClurg made a solid living off of playing essentially the same great character. She was 44 years old when this was shot.

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Sep 11, 2023Liked by Berkelium97

They come from a CAN.

They were put there by a MAN.

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I've had that song in my head on and off since picking all those peaches this weekend

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Guess the four states that grow the most peaches

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Gotta have Washington in the top 4 somewhere. Looks like CA, GA and NJ have 3 of them already locked up.

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Washington = cherries and apples.

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Florida?

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Texas gotta be in there...the area west of Austin used to be one massive peach grove after another. A lot of that has been changed to grapes but peach festivals are a thing around here

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Sep 11, 2023·edited Sep 11, 2023

New Jersey.

EDIT: Actually, New Jersey is a distant 7th in 2022 production by state as per statista.com.

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Yes. The Garden State is #4

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California is one of them

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Yup. California is by far the biggest grower of peaches - growing more than the rest of the US combined.

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I grew up surrounded by peach orchards in the Central Valley. At one time, in Modesto, there was the largest canning facility in the world, until a larger one was built in the, then, Soviet Union.

Damned Commies.

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Georgia and 3 neighboring states?

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Georgia is a distant #3

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South Carolina, one of Georgia’s neighbors?

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PRO

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Jets fan just gave a middle finger salute after WIlson is intercepted.

No tape delay?

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Buried the lede. Aaron Rodgers injured his ankle on his fourth snap. Out for rest of game and will be evaluated. Xrays negative.

https://sports.yahoo.com/less-than-5-minutes-into-jets-debut-aaron-rodgers-carted-off-with-injury-and-ruled-out-003244786.html

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I eat dinner late and he was out of the game before I even turned it on. I'm not a big NFL fan so no need to even watch the game now.

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...aaaand yet it turned out to be an interesting game with the Jets winning in OT.

Go figure.

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Rockfight.

Looked familiar.

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WTF?

Joe Buck on ESPN?

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I forgot, but Josh Allen is from Firebaugh, CA.

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Sep 11, 2023·edited Sep 11, 2023

Not to overreact but future HOF QB Jordan Love is going to join the Jets in about 12-15 years.

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Sep 11, 2023·edited Sep 11, 2023

NY Giants are BAD!

lose 40-0 to Dallas at home.

i was watching the first half until 26-0.

half the points were scored by special teams and defense

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one of the funny things the announcers said.

- at first they D was still quite focused and not celebrating too much

- by 26-0 they were making jokes like, "attention NYG, we do not advise throwing any more passes!!"

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49ers dominate the Steelers 30-7. At the 2-minute warning in the first half, the Steelers had 1 yard

https://www.espn.com/nfl/recap/_/gameId/401547405

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On Hard Knocks, Jets players were asked who they were going to play in the Super Bowl, this season, it was the 49'ers.

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Only one game, but they looked like the best team in the league.

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Great road start for the 49ers. I'm just fine with that.

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A legendary move by at a charity event

https://twitter.com/max_fosh/status/1700563913006326228

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It's been 22 years since 9/11/01

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Mark Bingham. Cal Rugby

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One of my partners in our investment firm had a meeting in WTC but got sick that morning and stayed home in Greenwich. His brother was a NYC cop involved in the rescue operation. He developed respiratory problems and became disabled. Also a guy I knew from the Peninsula worked for Morgan Stanley bundling mortgage backed securities.

He happened to be a quarter mile from the scene and ended up getting covered with ash from head to toe, but he made it. Also one of my former subordinates was on the plane that crashed in the PA field. Very sad.

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My youngest sister (C) likes to say that her first born son (E) saved his father (T).

E was born 9/9/2001. Instead of going to a meeting that was to happen at 9:00 AM in the North Tower, he was taking my sister and their first born son home when the first plane hit. Today is a day of reflection for everyone in our family as a consequence of those events. Serendipity takes a hand.

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I have never seen this photo before today

https://patrickwitty.substack.com/p/the-new-yorkers-on-911

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That is a fantastic photo. I also had never seen it until now

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I have yet to stop by the 9/11 memorial at the Pentagon. It's only a couple miles away and I go by a couple times a month on a run but have not stopped in.

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Has more of an effect on me than some other people around - my father had stopped working in the outside ring of the Pentagon a few months ago (Clinton). We knew a few who had been killed/injured in the attack.

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Also my nephew's 22nd birthday.

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Th... that's unfortunate timing.

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i was thinking about this over the weekend. NYC has had its ups and downs since then, but it remains a "global moment"

we had just moved to NYC area about a year before. we lived in Long Island and i worked in CT, so i was pretty far away that day. in fact, my old car had a tape deck, so i didnt even hear about the first building till i got to work.

we only new a couple people nearby, all survived.

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Sep 11, 2023·edited Sep 11, 2023Author

I worked in the securities industry as a buy-side stock trader then. I was on the way to the BofA Conference in San Francisco when there was breaking news on the radio. I will never forget the radio reporter who live-reported the sudden smoke plume at one tower and then the absolute horror in her voice as she reported that she could see light where the tower should be. "Oh my God... it's gone", she stammered.

I raced home and turned on the news to watch the second tower fall in real time. I lost a few counterparts that I spoke to every workday. One counterpart was based in Orange County, so he lived; but he heard all his colleagues who work on the top floor of one of the WTC towers die on the "Squawk Box". He quit the industry and I can not find any evidence of him online. I hope he is okay.

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😔

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CAL

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Fire Wilcox

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Sep 11, 2023·edited Sep 11, 2023

I concur.

Wilcox's extension runs through 2027. This means that attendance will play a part in any decision to fire him. I suggest that attendance becomes even more important as the payments from the ACC will not be as big as the Pac-12 payments Cal has received in years past and will receive this year.

A truly forward thinking solution, though, is not based largely upon attendance or ticket sales, but on adding the facilities and support needed to attract a head coach and staff capable of sustaining a perennial Top 25 program.

One potential problem with merely firing Wilcox is that the program infrastructure does not exist at Cal to sustain a perennial Top 25 program. This gets back to the question of why those facilities and support programs don't exist. Is it administrative indifference? Alumni indifference? Or something else?

Solve for the problem of attracting a coach who can build a Top 25 perennial program and the ability to attract a first cut head coach will solve for the other problems.

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Great questions.

IMHO- the problem is administrative schemed neglect/indifference calculated to perpetually dampen success in popular sports.

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I think we largely agree on the intent to dampen enthusiasm for popular (revenue) sports.

Note, though, that Cal has had success in non-revenue (Olympic) sports including crew, rugby, water polo, swimming and diving, softball, and soccer. These are the sports that the campus admin wants alums to remember when trumpeting success for it's student-athletes.

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Can't have the Olympic sports without paying the bills.

I am proud of our accomplishments in those sports, but...

They want us to be more like Cal Tech than UCLA.

I say "booo."

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I'm not certain that there's an understanding that football is the straw that stirs the drink or that FBS football has orders of magnitude greater revenue than FCS football.

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But replace him with who?

Or what?

How long before there's AI coaches?

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Look, unless some tech-billionaire Cal grad with an ax to grind with Wilcox steps up with buyout $ sooner, it’s really not feasible to expect him to go anywhere until after next season (Dec. ‘25). By then, the California bureaucratic mess should have led us to a new Chancellor and AD, and his buyout will at least be a little more manageable.

But Cal basically has a 5-6 year window here to get relevant in the revenue sports on a national scale or they WILL be left out in the next phase of realignment. And typical Wilcox seasons are not gonna get it done.

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But, honestly, who do we like as a replacement?

And, will the tech billionaire demand that we use his new AI HC? LOL

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Sunset Sailgate

Cal vs. UW game set at 7:30 pm - ESPN

Looks like I'll be alone at a bar at 1:30 am on Sunday with only 1 of the 100 screens turned to the Cal game

https://twitter.com/CalFootball/status/1701274668035088633

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The conference formerly known as PAC12...After Dark...again....and...again.

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On this day in 1993 in Memorial Stadium the Golden Bears defeated San Diego State, 45-25. It was the second of five straight wins to start the seasons. After a four-game losing streak the Bears would win their last four.

DBD celebrates 100 years of football in Strawberry Canyon with this daily feature appearing throughout the football season.

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You mean the game where Cal limited the preseason Heisman Trophy favorite, 2x All-American, and future NFL MVP and one of the greatest running backs to ever live - Marshall Faulk - to 64 yards?

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The very same.

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ELSEWHERE IN COLLEGE

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Sep 11, 2023·edited Sep 11, 2023Author

I love this type of video. A walk-on catches 5 balls for 177 yards and 3 TDs and wins a scholarship.

https://twitter.com/wvufootball/status/1700720328199098578

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#22 D3 team Susquehanna needed a field goal with two seconds left in the game to win 6-5

https://www.d3football.com/seasons/2023/contrib/20230909gmmx3i

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Eight of the Pac 12 teams are in the top 25. Previous high was 6.

https://twitter.com/pac12/status/1700982790689562920

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This week, Troy Taylor's Stanfurd plays against Sac State. This should be interesting. Also, I watched the first half of the USC/Furd game. What a dismantling. Also, USC had their first string in the entire first half even up by nearly 50.

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FCS-level Idaho smashed Nevada in Reno 33-6. Idaho is now ranked #12 in the FCS . Ashton Hayes had 6 carries for 12 yards as a backup. Keleki Latu had 2 cathes for 27 yards. Idaho is Cal's next opponent.

https://www.espn.com/college-football/recap/_/gameId/401532576

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Idaho averaged over 20 yards per reception.

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Cal's win over North Texas looks worse after week 2 as the Mean Green gave up 46 points and 251 rushing yards against a putrid FIU. FIU only scored 17 points against a mediocre LA Tech and barely beat FCS Maine 14-12. North Texas is now second to last in the country for giving up rushing yards - which is bad considering that three teams have played 3 games and North Texas has only played 2.

https://www.espn.com/college-football/matchup/_/gameId/401520189

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Mel Tucker would have been paid $95 million to NOT rub one out while on the phone with Brenda Tracy, the professional motivational speaker who goes around the country combatting sexual assault at athletic programs. He has reportedly been suspended without pay and is expected to be fired for cause once a Title IX investigation is finished. Tracy spoke to the Cal Bears in 2018.

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/sports/college/michigan-state-university/2023/09/10/report-michigan-state-football-coach-mel-tucker-accused-sexual-harassment-rape-survivor/70816308007/?

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What I'm having a hard time understanding is what made Tucker think that what he was doing was okay?

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I'm still having a hard time wrapping my head around the absolute depravity of this

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Like, these are literally the top answers to "Who is the worst person a college football coach should whack off to and which P5 school is likely most on-edge for future sexual assault because of its infamous track record?"

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A ROOM WITH A VIEW

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Turning the meaning around, a few decades ago, MIT had a mens room with a trough that was adjacent to a parking lot. When the large frosted window was open (likely in the summer since they had no air conditioning back then), people in the parking lot got a view of guys using the trough.

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I stayed at the Waterfront Hotel at Jack London Square after the game on Saturday and was given at corner room with the water view on the top floor (5rh). It was quite a view.

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The three side-by-side buddy urinals-with-a-view at the Felix Hotel in Hong Kong are still there

https://www.flickr.com/photos/46636456@N00/2378368014/

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Iceland has some of the nicest bathrooms. Many have glass walls so you can have a memorable view while taking a whiz. An especially memorable one is on Kirjufjara Beach, which is on the peninsula opposite the black beach at Reynisdrangar

https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/public-restroom-near-the-kirkjufjara-and-reynisfjara-black-sand-beach-gm1164368865-320037834

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OUR CRUMBLING DEMOCRACY

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Sep 11, 2023·edited Sep 11, 2023

Today we solemnly commemorate the events of September 11, 1973 when a CIA-backed military coup disposed Chile's democratically elected president, Salvador Allende. The coup put in place a military junta led by Augusto Pinochet which suspended all left wing political actives. The U.S. immediately recognized the repressive regime.

Never forget

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DBD AV CLUB

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View on Apple's iPhone announcement tomorrow?

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Are they announcing the switch to a new proprietary connector? /s

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maybe a new new proprietary connector??!!

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i guess i dont keep tabs on these things,. but arent these types of things fairly incremental by now?

also, i dont have an iPhone, so it is not something that affects me ...

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