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https://twitter.com/DarwinBondGraha/status/1339702481622683650?s=20

Mayor Libby Schaaf and Admin. Ed Reiskin sent an email to city staff today about the budget situation.

They say Oakland is facing fiscal insolvency if it doesn't make cuts this year. That means the city will not be able to pay its employees, pay bond debt, other bills. #OakMtg

^^the above is a tweet; it is not my tweet

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Not good for holders of California Muni bonds. Also, Trump might find a way to kick California on the way out the door. We practice socialism in this country, by red states that don't contribute much tax revenue to the Treasury and then getting subsidies from the Federal government. Namely Moscow Mitch's state. In contrast, California, NY, NJ and a cluster of blue states pay the bills.

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I didn't have a name picked out for Cleveland's baseball team the other day, but now I do: The Lake Effect

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I have a Reddit account with a username that's distinct from my WFC name.

Someone there replied to a comment I made (presumably without knowing it's me) with a familiar username.

I creeped through their history and it seems to corroborate their identity.

I... I think I found Rishi.

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Because I like to multi-task my social engagements, some of my high school friends came to my first CGBHH in San Francisco. One of them was HORRIFIED a year later when she saw Rishi on Tinder.

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Rando thoughts:

* I'm impressed by how adept you are at mixing social groups.

* I've seen a cousin, a middle/high school friend, and a Berkeley dorm floormate on the apps. No Rishi sightings yet.

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pqtm

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drowning in lemon drops and the endless phone numbers of the ladies he is allegedly wooing?

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"allegedly wooing"

you misspelled repulsing

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Still commenting about Friends and HIMYM, which seemed like a giveaway

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Cinnamon toast with sugar...

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This was big in my childhood, so much so that we had a dedicated cinnamon sugar shaker in the spice rack

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Um, I have one of those now.

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Hey I'm not knocking it, it's a delightful treat!

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We have one of those for my ten year old nephew.

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@do you mean the cereal?@

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No, just toast with butter sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar.

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And don't forget the English Breakfast Tea

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TOAST

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I really love the sofest, least nutritional white bread with a thin spread of butter and a thin spread of peanut butter. It reminds me of growing up in Hong Kong. (I didn't grow up in Hong Kong)

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I've been having it more often recently for breakfast. Toast the bread, put some peanut butter on it, pop it back in the toaster oven for a minute to soften/warm the peanut butter, and we're good to go.

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In the mornings since I have 6 AM calls, I usually get some plain yogurt with french vanilla granola and blueberries and then also have a small piece of toast where I put butter on 1 half and PB and jelly on the other half. Otherwise I'll be super hungry before lunch.

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Toasted sourdough toast with salted butter used to be my go to snack. The combo of attempting a low carb diet, not having a toaster oven in over a year and being too lazy to do it the oven has led this tasty snack to go by the wayside

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Do you have a normal toaster?

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Negative, we don’t really buy bread, so don’t have much use for one

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According to Yahoo News, Aretha Franklin has died.

Oh no, not again!

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/aretha-franklin-queen-soul-dies-040502931.html

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Pass.

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In case you wanted to look even sadder during 2020.

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"How can we make this mopey looking model look even more woebegone?"

"I have JUST the thing!"

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you know influencers will try to ask for one for free. Just slap gucci on the side and people will buy it. I wonder if internally they have a contest to make something so ridiculous and see if people will buy it just because it has Gucci on it. See the link for an example.

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Today in Covid

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Embroidery

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Elsewhere in college

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UCLA joins Stanford and Washington State in stating they will decline a bowl invite even if they are eligible and receive one. I had better never hear any complaining from now a quarter of the conference about the Pac-12's poor bowl tieins, not getting a better bowl bid, or a better tv kickoff slot.

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Com'on man, THIS year? I'm not sure I'd want Cal to accept a bowl bid if they were eligible.

Well, maybe the Rose Bowl, but THAT's it!

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Coach Peter Sirmons' nephew enters the transfer portal 👀

https://247sports.com/Article/Jacob-Sirmon-enters-transfer-portal-Washington-Huskies-football-157085800/

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Grant Gunnell at Arizona just did the same

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Also lost 2 starting WRs, a 3rd string o-lineman, and had 7 decommits. Their incoming QB Clay Millen is good, but they'll probably have to suffer under a bad QB for a year until Millen can come up to speed.

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Arizona sounds like it will be somewhere between a mess and a dumpster fire next year. I'd be excited that we get to play them next year, but we've had such awful luck against them recently...

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" somewhere between a mess and a dumpster fire" AKA Cal 2013

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we'll probably trip on the 3 yard line or get a toe out of bounds...

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Or the hail mary again...

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Meanwhile, 5 LSU recruits decommitted/flipped in December and three did not sign on early signing period yesterday due to cloud hanging over them from Title IX cover-up.

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QB Jake Garcia officially signs with Miami after previously decommitting from USC. No tears for the Trojans as they sign one of the naton's top QBs Jaxson Dart.

https://247sports.com/player/jake-garcia-46053996/

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Tears for TROJANS? You have to be kidding.

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Dec 17, 2020Liked by Ruey Yen, Berkelium97, SGBear

🎵Don't cry for us gol-den beaaaars

the truth is we never left you

from the old PCC

to glasses ref'ree

we kept our bagmen

still no Stanfurdium"

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Bravo!

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Oregon's Mario Cristobal gets a raise via extension through 2025 with an option for one more year. The raise vaults him from 11th to near the top tier of Pac-12 coaches.

https://twitter.com/JamesCrepea/status/1339448537457729538

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my brother had been hoping he'd go to Auburn, hopes dashed

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Oregon didn't want to self-destruct.

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I'm still not a huge believer in Cristobal, but he must be doing a lot right to get that kind of extension

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I assume it's from the recruiting

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He's putting together a 5* defense (on paper at least), but man they did not look the part this year

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yeah I watched them against Oregon State and the "better players on paper, WTF are the coaches doing" vibe was strong and familiar.

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Harbaugh at Michigan - hanging on by a thread.

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Harbaugh has been the biggest surprise in CFB over the past 5 years, at least to me. I truly thought he was going to succeed wildly at Michigan. Seems like so much has gone wrong.

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Yeah, now that you mention it, I assumed he'd be good there as well, but he sure hasn't been.

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OUR CRUMBLING DEMOCRACY

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GOP loses first court case in Georgia to suppress DEM vote in runoff.

https://www.democracydocket.com/cases/georgia-runoff-election-challenge-2/

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Trump administration: "Ha, Herd Immunity was never really something we considered"

[Politico, waving HHS emails from Trump's in-agency mouthpiece]: "Yeah, you were."

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/16/trump-appointee-demanded-herd-immunity-strategy-446408

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whats a couple hundred thousand dead bodies between friends?

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Herd immunity requires 90%+ affected, so we would have been looking at 5 million dead.

Also, people have been infected multiple times so it wouldn't have even worked.

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Apparently there's millions of doses of vaccine that are just sitting at Pfizer because the Trump Admin hasn't given instructions.

Good job everybody.

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CAL

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Go Bears!!!

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[Breaking] MBB: Cal picks up two non-conference games

https://calbears.com/news/2020/12/17/mens-basketball-cal-adds-two-home-games.aspx

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The personalized graphics for the new signees are 🔥🔥🔥

https://twitter.com/CalFootball/status/1339359062253654019

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I feel like our athletics department was behind the times for so long, so this kind of online engagement is great to see.

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Those are very cool.

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Summary of early signing period:

We got everyone. 19 signees, excluding Will Reed, who decommitted several days back to go to Princeton. IMO, Reed was the rawest of the OL recruits. Perhaps he was too intimidated to take his seventh year of Mandarin in an intro to Mandarin class at Cal with people who are native speakers pretending to not be.

Your top-tier players sometimes hold out past the early signing period to bask in the recruiting sunshine for a bit longer, so 4-star RB Byron Cardwell is considering Cal in his final 3. Cardwell is an all-purpose back, quicker than Brown Jr, faster than Moore, and sturdier than Dancy. We don't have a realistic chance with anyone else and everyone else should be a walk-on.

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They filtered out the native speakers by week 2 and moved them out.

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there will be a lot of transfers I suspect... Cal will go heavy in the transfer market is my guess...plus, next years scholarship cap is still hazy. Depending on who stays to take advantage of their extra year potentially means next years class could be as small as 12

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That walk-on Stredick is fast and ran for 500 yards in his high school playoff game

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Why only 19? Isn't 22-25 more the norm?

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Most schools are holding back a few if they either have an in on someone waiting for the 2nd period, or for transfer portal possibilities. There are going to be a LOT of transfers this year, given all that has happened, and the skewed returning roster situation due to the extra year of eligibility, and now relaxed rules regarding eligibility.

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Why only 19? Isn't 22-25 more the norm?

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Re: Toast, for all of my people who like to indulge in watching video games on youtube, there is a guy named Disguised Toast who is really good at what he does, always fooling his friends and the rest of the people he plays with.

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It's Among Us videos. Link for the lazy:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUT8RoNBTJvwW1iErP6-b-A

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