185 Comments
author

The DBD knows that I'm passionate about -- of all things --mislabelled cooking oil. To add to that, don't buy avocado oil.

https://thecounter.org/avocado-oil-booming-mostly-rancid-fake-food-fraud/

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I'm selling a domain name I own for some amount $$$

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Name a "Bay Area" food

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Over the years whenever I'd visit back west I'd make a point to stop for a bowl of cioppino @ Tadich Grill in SF (as well as a couple Moscow Mules)

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You have peaked my curiosity; what is a "Moscow Mule" in this context?

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Ah, I see you have not watched "Better Call Saul" - you should, one of the absolute best shows on TV.

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just a cocktail.. vodka, ginger beer, and lime, on ice and served in a copper mug. I think it was of their specialties at Tadich. They had (have?) a big wrap around bar and we'd usually eat at the bar as well.

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The copper mug is the key....keeps it cool & fresh and adds a hint of flavor.

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Excellent call. Tadich is a Chitwood family favorite...used to love jetting out of work an hour early on a Friday to get some drinks at Harrington's, then a nice dinner at Tadich before the Muni ride to Pac Bell Park for 1st pitch...

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RIP: Granny Goose Chips, Hydrox Cookies, Wright's Pink Popcorn.

Mother's Circus Animal Cookies (and Taffy) were bought out of bankruptcy but are no longer made in Oakland and taste different.

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I looked at buying the Mother's Cookie factory some years ago.

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Fernet Branca. San Francisco alone drinks more than one-third of the US total.

https://www.thrillist.com/culture/why-san-francisco-drinks-more-fernet-than-anyone-in-america

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that is cool to know. i figured it was because of the fancy cocktail scene.

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thanks to my cousin Antoinette who was the original brand ambassador for SF

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I just bought a bottle today because I have never had it before. I just opened it. Your cousin Antoinette should be ashamed of herself. it tastes... uh... Different

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I just made a "Toronto" cocktail to cut the FB with rye. It's better, but I am getting drunk off of anise/tire/weeds-flavored cough syrup.

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Fernet is delicious. It’s like a grown up Jagermeister if you will.

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Fortune cookies

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author

Cheese zombie with sausage

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A fixture at Las Lomas too. Must have been a FAL thing? I was more of a straight cheese zombie fan. Was afraid of the sausage.

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I'm guessing Mt Diablo and Acalanes school districts.

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Say what? never heard of this... thing.

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We've brought them up a lot in past DBDs. They were a Campolindo cafeteria specialty, but I think Acalanes and Miramonte both served them as well.

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i actually am not sure how common it is.

it was this bread roll thing w/ melted cheese and sausage that was served out our HS cafeteria for breakfast

sort of a west coast equivalent of your bacon-egg-cheese on a roll that you get on east coast.

i guess it was called a zombie because the cheese would ooze out of it? not sure actually ..

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Yes!!!

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Mt Diablo United School District Cheese Zombie recipe (from FB but I'd rather not link it)

MDUSD ZOMBIE RECIPE

To make 2 ½ pounds of dough:

2 cups warm water

1½ - 2 Tablespoons yeast

6 cups bread flour

¼ cup sugar

1 - 1 ½ teaspoons salt (depending on taste)

¼ cup butter

Directions

Dissolve yeast in warm water. Add remaining ingredients and mix with dough hook about 10 minutes until the dough no longer sticks to the sides of the bowl. Dough should be soft and pliable. Let dough rest a few minutes then divide into 1-pound portions. Roll the portions into logs. Cut each log into 5 equal pieces.

Place your favorite filling on top of each dough slice, then pull dough up from the sides to cover filling. Pinch closed very carefully. Place zombies pinched side down on parchment paper or a greased cookie sheet pan (parchment works best). If desired, brush with egg wash. Let rise until almost doubled in size. Bake @350 degrees until brown on top, about 15 to 20 minutes.

Fillings: If traditional filling is desired use 1 ½ to 2 oz. of cheese (american) per zombie, however, you can use a variety of different fillings. For example: pepperoni, pizza sauce & cheese, ham & cheese, sausage, green chilies, ground beef, sloppy joes, scrambled eggs, vegetables, etc.

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these look a lot like Texas style Kolaches

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did you ever try making one or just get them from the place in Concord?

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I went to the place in Concord. I got a cheese and a sausage ones. It was really good.

I haven't tried this recipe. I don't think I could eat enough of it. I would have to probably cut this in 1/3.

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Wait, there's a place in Concord that actually serves them? Do tell.

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Dungeness crab.

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As Robin Williams once said.....She's got the crabs, dear, and I don't mean Dungeness....

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Garlic ice cream (a la the Gilroy Garlic Festival)

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Cioppino.

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One of my better recipes, tho it's rather labor intensive and time consuming.

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Mission burritos

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i love these and in fact the best ones are in the Bay.

but if someone had me describe what is unique about one, i would have a hard time coming up w/ a description that was not that different than what you get at Chipotle.

is there a classic definition? or some secret sauce that makes it great?

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Chipotle basically grabbed the Mission burrito concept and took it nationwide.

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Now I want to go to Farolito...I still need to try La Taqueria. Everytime we go the line is huge.

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La Taqueria is the Mecca of all burritos. Truly amazing. I was really sad when they closed their San Jose outpost several years ago. The chicken and carnitas are life-changing. The owner is awesome. The only complaint is that it's cash only.

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I've been to La Taqueria (after they won the 538 contest) and I think Farolito is my preference.

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I think we're just going to have to bite the bullet and wait in line. Wow..really want to have it now.

Haven't had lunch and am going to go for a run now. This is making me really want to bail and go to get a burrito...

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The Mission Burrito wiki page says that the Chipotle founder was inspired by Mission Burritos so that makes sense.

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there is another smaller chain Dos Toros in NYC that makes better-than-Chipotle Mission burritos.

luckily there is one a few blocks from work, as in the office i havent been to in 11 months.

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yeah for me Chipotle or Qdoba is a everyone else wants to go there so I'll go along. I'd rather look for more of a hole in the wall place.

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I didn't go to Qdoba or Chipotle very often, usually only when co-workers wanted to go. At Qdoba I would just get their grilled veges in a burrito with loads of other stuff. Didn't like their meat. Chipotle had better meat and their veges weren't as good so I'd get Carne Asada there.

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Mission burritos are choice of meat, rice and beans, cheese, condiments (sour cream, guac, salsa, etc) California burritos from San Diego are typically carne asada,, cheese, fries, condiments

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My brother has a strangely strong opposition to Mission burritos. I have to admit I'd never heard of these San Diego style burritos, but now I'm interested.

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Does he like Mexican food in general?

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very much so. I think he feels that "mission style" is an excuse to cover up fewer and lower quality ingredients with rice and toppings.

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I think that the "classic" Mission style burrito is just huge and has everything you could want in a burrito. It's a one-handed meal.

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When I was younger, I would most often get a burrito, now I tend to go for tacos

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That's why they are my favorite. Santa Cruz turns out to be a great city where you can literally go on a Mission Burrito tour. I went through phases of different spots being at the top of my list. Los Pericos is my current fave, but not far behind are Taqueria Santa Cruz, Taqueria Vallarta and La Cabana in no particular order. They are difficult to find in Los Angeles, but Taqueria Chihuahua in Venice does a great job if you get it "Norteno" style. Also a big determining factor for me is the salsa bar.

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I was also surprised when I moved out of Norcal and learned that not all burritos were Mission style. Not a big fan of the LA style with just meat, cilantro and onions (and sometimes rice).

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Yes, to me it seems like everything you would get in a meat platter you put in a burrito. beans, rice, salsa, meat, lettuce/cilantro/onions, etc.

I remember there was a place in Louisville that had great burritos that had an American version and Mexican versions for both burritos and tacos. The American version had lettuce and tomatoes. The right one had onions and cilantro.

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Platter should include sour cream and guac.

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Feb 4, 2021Liked by SGBear

"It's-It" What is it? "It's-It" What is it?

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You want it all, but you can't have it.

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It's, like literally, in my face....yet I can't seem to grab it....

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all this talk of Bay Area food reminds me how long it has been since i have been there and now i am hungry!

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author

Yep. Next time I'm in CA (it's been about 2.5 years now) I'm eating everything in sight.

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The Lumpia Company...

https://www.thelumpiacompany.com/

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holy shit I'm moving to Oakland. I'll die sooner but I will die happy

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Plenty of good season ticket packages are being offered by the A's so you can pay ownership money that they will not re-invest in the team!!

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How have I never heard of this place?!?!

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damn, I just want regular Lumpia not fru-fru ones.

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they dont ship out of state.

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Otis Spunkmeyer cookies.

before they became a national thing, we used to get fresh baked cookies in our HS cafeteria for 35 cents each.

we had an extra long 10 min passing period in the afternoon, so i would get two cookies and two mini cartons of milk all for less than $1.

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Mrs. Fields, founded by a grad of my high school...

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I love Mrs Fields cookies. I have the "Mrs Fields" recipe that has been around the internet. Funny thing, someone told me it was included as part of the Emacs Editor. At some point it was removed but I was able to find it on the internet.

The recipe is good and is pretty close to what I remember the cookies tasting like. Never realized that it included ground up oatmeal.

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One pair baby shoes. Never worn.

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Stuff for Sale

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A friend of my sisters down in San Diego bought my old Jeep this past Sunday for her HS aged daughter....we met in LA at Arcadia Town Park, near Santa Anita Race Track, where Jimmy C has made many sizable donations to the state of California over the past 25 years....nice to get something back, finally.

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I need to do some profit taking in the IRA account also.

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I've been wanting to sell my 72 Type II VW bus for a year or two, but my wife loves the car (even though she hates driving it) and refuses to let me get rid of it.

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2008 Honda Civic. 140K miles. AC doesn't work, back seat smells like dog.

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I should probably sell my car. Right now, it just lives at my parents' house, and when the pandemic ends (if), I'm not sure I'll have a safe place to park it near me.

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Emeryville is rough

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The previously-free on-street parking and public garage is now time-limited (and eventually metered), so there's going to be about one block left for free parking that everyone's going to try to use. It's also not right next to me, so I don't want to just leave my car there for a week at a time.

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time for judo lessons. or just buy a gun

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And use the gun to take Rob Hwang's parking space

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2007 Accord, 230K miles, one bad cylinder in engine (probably needs new engine). Otherwise, nice.

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2002 M5, 75K miles, everything important works, some annoying things don't. Body shop fucked up the paint job on the trunk grrrrrrrr.

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author

Now that I've gone from putting 15k miles on my car per year to 2-3k, I'm tempted to get something enjoyable like that where I don't have to worry about stacking miles on it. But since I drive so little now, I don't think it's worth it to replace my car for a while longer.

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One of my favorite Top Gear test drives was for the gen of M5, but my favorite M still has to be the mid-90s (E36?) M3, followed closely by the mid-80s M6. I also always loved the M coupe, such a unique look.

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what are the annoying things that don't work?

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The water tank for the for the window spray has a leak, (long time) the dot matrix display under the speedo & tach is burnt out, recently the right side of the driver's seat seems not right, navigation system never worked.

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My water tank for the window washer has been jacked up for years, the (excellent) shop has tried X times to fix it and can never quite get there. It's super irritating.

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those failed dot matrix displays are a pain the ass, my (long departed) Saab had similar problems.

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Feb 4, 2021Liked by SGBear

Well it's a Bimmer so we know the turn signals don't work...

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They work fine! I use them all the time! And actually it has a cool feature, they make a different sound if the light bulb for the turn signal is burnt out.

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All cars do that! My 1989 Honda Accord did that!

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Ohh...put the M5 engine in the Civic. Or buy a miata with a blown engine...

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My 1990 Miata lasted until 2007, racked up 205,000 miles before it threw a rod, it was "retired" at that point.

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I still want to do the K-Swap using my TSX engine. Probably need to find a tuner friendly Smog place. For example, I don't think I can do headers since only after CAT changes are allowed.

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two teenage girls, 13 and 16.

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dirt cheap

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I just sold about USD $2k worth of shoes on Stock-X. I have a couple more pairs that I'll need to bring back to the US and put in consignment stores because they're lightly worn and stock-x only accepts deadstock product.

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No 3 is looking for a pair of Griffey's. I think the ones he really wants is 1200 but another one he wants is like 300. I had gotten him a pair from the Nike outlet when he was 10 and has loved them ever since.

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my older daughter is big consumer on stock-x. she has all sorts of cool and vintage shoes.

her boyfriend got her a pair of Air Jordan's for Xmas i think

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Today in our topsy-turvy democracy

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author

MTG gets stripped of her House Committee assignments, but Dems set the precedence of weaponizing the House Majority. MTG back-peddled on some Q conspiracies. 11 Republicans voted to oust her.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/04/house-to-vote-on-dropping-marjorie-taylor-greene-from-committees.html

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It was 1 more Republican vote than voted to impeach. Small progress.

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A pretty lame attempt by her to walk back her prior actions/words.

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pedaled - like cycling, not peddled like selling

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New Secretary of Defense Purges Trump Appointees from the DOD.

Good riddance re: the Toadies

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-pentagon-boards-idUSKBN2A22OS

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Today in Covid-19

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author

Meanwhile, in Naples Florida, at MAGA-friendly grocery store...

https://twitter.com/SamBrockNBC/status/1357047400548950023

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I am concerned about what happens if / when the UK variant starts to spread in areas like that - I think folks have assumed they're going to be okay because they've adapted to life with a limited number of "super spreader" events.

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Underestimating every aspect of this has been the norm all along; I'm confident that's one trend that will continue.

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My mom got her first shot yesterday! 🥳

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How to Prepare for your Covid-19 vaccination.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/04/health/covid-vaccine-side-effects-wen-wellness/index.html

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Got my first dose of the Pfizer last Sat. Initially less of a deal than a flu shot, but Sunday I could feel it, though it wasn't enough to warrant taking any aspirin or restricting my activity in any way. Biggest effect was actually Monday morning, when getting up was tough (felt really tired), but that too past soon.

That's not been the case in all cases, as I know of a couple of cases of arms getting really sore, though again, not to the extent that it would suggest not getting it.

We'll see what happens in 2 1/2 weeks when I get the 2nd dose, assuming we don't run out; my county suspended giving 1st doses to anyone for all of this week because they didn't get enough to do more than the 2nd doses due, so I was fortunate to be in the last batch last week.

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I'll file that away for October

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Yep. I'm expecting to be doing at least another 6 months of isolation/work-from-home.

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I'm in 1C so it will be awhile.

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UCLA Health just emailed me saying they'll be issuing invites for all patients when available, but I don't anticipate receiving an invite for at least 4-6 months

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I could be in 1C if I worked the hypertension angle, but otherwise I'm in group 3.

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Other College

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author

Tyler JC signs QB recruit with a top 10 name

https://twitter.com/Generalbooty10/status/1356990708205387777

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Jake Spavital going the unconventional route. All transfers and zero high school recruits this recruiting cycle. Spavital is 5-19 over the last 2 seasons and has had a total of 6 HS recruits total.

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Texas State was in need of a massive infusion of talent. They showed significant progress last year with a number of very close losses and were competitive in most games

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I was reasonably impressed with then the couple times I saw them, and was a little surprised their record wasn't better.

Going all transfer is a pretty bold move, but a lot of places are going with more transfers than ever before. The disruption, or in some cases, complete lack of, a high school season has been cited by several coaches for slowing the development of a lot of hs players, as well as dampening evaluation, and the transfers are actually a much more well developed AND much more well known product to be building a program with.

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well, Texas got almost a full high school season in so plenty of game tape to peruse but Texas State is in a weird spot. They have the potential to be a big time football school but campus culture isn't particularly engaged and other similarly positioned schools (UTSA for example) have put more emphasis and resources into it. Texas State is better academically than you would think too, its no joke, so they cant take too many risks there. Spav sees an opportunity though and I expect they'll continue to improve over the next few seasons

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I have a friend down here that played WR for them, but he has never spoke highly of the school

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kind of a party school, nice campus, no sports identity, shitty town. LMFS just graduated from there

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Cal

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author

No cheating by looking it up.

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author

Who holds Cal's women's record for scoring in a single season?

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Kristine Anigwe?

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* Ding * winner!

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are we talking sports or non-athletic "scoring?"

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Who holds the freshman record for 3-point shooting percentage (min. 20 shots)?

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Billy Dreher? Amit Tamir? Oh, is it Bradley?

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* Ding * Winner.

It's Bradley. .472 in 2019

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Jordan Matthews?

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This is where I would go

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Ryan Anderson? Ryan Drew?

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Lamond? or Midgely or Duck?

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author

Midgely: #2 at .449

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And he made the biggest one of the year during the tourney.

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author

Who holds Cal's career record for assists?

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Keith Smith maybe?

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* Ding * WINNER!

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Such an underrated Bear. A model of understated success and consistency.

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again is this sports related or are we talking assists from wingmen/women?

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KJ?

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And I don't mean KJ Roberts.

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author

#4 all

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Kidd - wait, he only played two years, so no.

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#5

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Well he did average about 8 apg....was that enough to offset a 4 year starter?

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author

Who holds Cal's single-season record for blocked shots?

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Leon Powe?

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Brian Hendricks?

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sports or are we talking about cock blocking?

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Cock blocking has to be Tony G....with Kyle Boller and Chad Hansen in the running.

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pqtm

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Yogi?

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author

No, but he holds 3 of the top 10 seasons for blocks.

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Go Bears!

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author

Go bears.

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