153 Comments

Topic for tomorrow:

What time should the Pi Day Zoom be? My vaccination appointment is at 3:40 Pacific, so I should be free anytime after 5. You all pick, and I'll send out an email with the link. I have your email address if you've joined previous DBD Zooms. If you haven't, but would like to join this one, let me know.

Posting this today so someone who gets on the DBD earlier can mention it.

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I’d be interested to “meet” folks I’ve been reading about the last xx years ;-) Ebroadhurst@mac.com

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Yippee!

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A good bottle of wine for less than $15

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Malbec by Catena Fam Vineyards...not the Reserva

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What's the word? Thunderbird

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Throw a challenge at me, tell me where you live, and generally what you like!

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East Bay, fruity but deeper red that is good as an ingredient for beef Burgandy.

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I'd pick a Chilean Cab in the $10-15 range

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MD and hearty, deep, and/or woody reds.

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CHOPO JUMILLA MONASTRELL CABERNET, 2016

Total Wines, $15.99

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thought the challenge was under $15

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Oh you

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Much appreciated. I'll look for it.

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I live in the South Bay and I like deep reds.

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2015 Domaine Cabirau "Serge & Nicolas" Maury Sec (Previously $25)

$14.99 at K&L in Redwood City 94 pt RP

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Also, Maury Sec = Bordeaux sophistication at 1/3 the price.

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Oh, there are plenty, I guess it depends where you live, what the choices will be, also what style you prefer.

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What is the loudest game you have ever attended?

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Cal USC in Harmon - the second game after Lou was fired and Bozeman was appointed interim head coach. We beat Northridge handily before, but Cal USC went down to the wire and Jason just willed us to victory by digging 50/50 balls out of scrum piles.

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Giants-Dodgers at Candlestick in '97. The Brian Johnson Game.

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Cal v UCLA at the Coliseum arena in 1994 when UCLA would be #1 if they got the win. It was absolutely electric.

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I remember that game. Jason Kidd was playing for Cal. My sister went to UCLA and rubbed their greatness in every chance she got. Big Cal (unexpected) wins are happy moments for me.

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I was at this game. I remember sitting in my friend's parent's seats across from the Cal bench about 8 rows up. That was an electric game. Was that the game Monty Buckley went off against UCLA? I think so since I remember seeing him go off at the Coliseum up close and I didn't go to many games that year.

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That was indeed the game where Buck went off.

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Everyone else got most of my football ones. I might add Cal @ USC '04 at the Coliseum, though that was not as loud as UW, UO or UT.

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Kings-Lakers, Western Conf. Finals, Game 7 at Arco Arena.

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Tennessee '07? The '06-'07 slate had some LOUD games

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For non-Memorial games the loudest was the game at Neyland Stadium by a long shot. I've never heard a song sung so loudly and so poorly as Rocky Top in Neyland.

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Yeah that was pretty impressive. Maybe more so than Ohio State.

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Definitely louder, I think Neylands design being a steep double level, enclosed bowl lends to a louder environment than tOSU’s horseshoe shape

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Pretty sure Oregon '06 was a bit louder, being a night game. I think Tennessee was more packed however.

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Both were night games. Tennessee was in early September, though, so the sun stayed out longer.

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What? Tennessee was a day game for sure, it was still light when it ended.

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Highlight video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqRA9C8xeqA

Starts in daylight, ends at night.

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Actually here's the whole game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FePaN5bWls

Fast forward to the 4th quarter and it's clearly dark.

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It was definitely an evening game. It was in ABC's 5pm/8pm primetime spot.

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yeah undergrads that started between 03-10 didn't know what Cal football really was like.

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Fall 2010 students definitely had the true Cal experience: Tedford's first losing season in 2010, the outlier in an okay, bowl-bound season in 2011, the end of Tedford's tenure in 2012, and the 1-win fiasco in 2013. Those poor, poor souls...

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a few have been memorably loud.

- the sc and ucla home basketball games in Camanelli's first year (in Harmon, way over capacity).

- 88 (I think) big game (win one for the zipper)

- 91 vs UW

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I'd say Oregon '06, maybe

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'91 Cal vs UW. Probably not even close. Everyone stayed until the end when we had a chance to win it on the last play. I seem to remember some NYD bowl reps there and Ken got everyone to give them a shout out after the game.

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100% this one

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Agreed! The echo of Hey, Alumni…Go! off the press box was intense. Packed like sardines in the 80k+ attendance configuration? And then seeing smoke over the rim of candlestick the next day, with Madden talking folks thru what was happening.

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I'd almost bet that game had more than whatever the capacity was. It was so packed, especially in the student section. It seemed like we stood all game long, turned sideways so we could all fit.

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Exactly that! Old school FB and Harmon BB…hours of standing!

And I was a young alum, and there were lots of others jamming into student section. So it was overpacked.

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I wanna say the East Bay fire actually started that day, as the Oakland Hills were scorched the following and we were evacuated...

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Yeah I remember waking up the next morning and hearing the news reports and seeing the smoke. We were on MLK and Francisco so it wasn't going to impact us.

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Big Give

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i stopped giving to Cal about 6-7 years after some student basically called me a deadbeat for not donating on the spot when he called.

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Just gave to the Society of Linguistics UnderGraduate Students (SLUGS)!

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Just gave to the Library (Doe) and L&S Leadership Fund

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I have to admit that Carol Christ is actually very supportive of athletics - or at least pragmatic that she's in a very, very tough situation that she can't cut sports or else she'll lose more donations than she saves. This year seems different. Whereas before it seemed like they would shake alumni upside-down to see what falls out of their pocket and then balance their books with the athletics budget, she is now securing sports first. She's done her share, so I am going to donate more this year.

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I just donated to the football program.

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I have to admit that during the height of the Covid pandemic I was seriously worried about the revenue sports and our status as a Power 5 team. She directed the funds to the Athletic department to bail them out, though, which can be seen as a courageous move given the ho-hum support, if you can call it that, by other members of the Faculty.

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Family Ties

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Has its own channel on PlutoTV.

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Funny story about my roommate and Justine Bateman (Mallory)

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so what's the funny story?

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Never watched

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After I zoquo, I like to uushnu.

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that might have been the best episode ever.

there was another good one where he tried to scare a bunch of kids by being a "tax monster"

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I liked Courtney Cox as his GF better than Tracy Pollan.

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CC was the 2nd one right? she was great, funny, could stand out on her own (obviously)

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Yeah I think so.

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Fox

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A mediocre coach that should be replaced by an up and coming mid-major coach.

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I want to be sympathetic because he's tasked with an incredibly difficult rebuild and then had to do it through COVID. I would seem him as similar to a Dykes: he brings us back to mediocrity (hopefully more) and eventually replace with a strong up-an-coming coach who is willing to take a risk on a solid Cal team. The problem is nobody wants to do the rebuild part, especially with the team that Wyking left us -- so let Fox do it.

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He's been on-par with Wyking in terms of results and his recruiting has been worse, even if his process has been incrementally better. Even if I'm a process over results guy, your process needs to be streets ahead of Wyking, not just micrometers.

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Unlike football and the massive roster, not to mention needing a full year of redshirt for freshmen to get up to size and learn the playbook, basketball can be turned around a lot quicker. A team may also only have one year window to do anything special (see Cuonzo's team with Brown and Rabb).

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Yet the Covid year + last's night victory + financial realities will mean he won't get replaced. Thus, we wait a year hoping Dennis Gates doesn't get poached.

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Don't forget Theo Roberston is still in training on the Warriors staff! I really enjoy seeing him on the back line of coaches for the Dubs.

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I'm pretty sure he came back to MBB in some capacity...

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He did for one season IIRC and then was hired by either the Lakers or Warriors. He has done stints at both teams.

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Looks like he's just a fundraising rep for MBB

https://twitter.com/TheBigCSociety/status/1362488122576039937?s=20

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If I'm reading the details of his contract correctly, then it will ironically cost us more to fire him after next season than if we fire him now. Based on his contract, he'd get $3.84M if we fire him before April 1st, 2021. After April 1st it goes up to $4.725M.

The way his buyout works is he gets 100% of the remaining salary owed in the current contract year, 100% of the next year's salary, 75% of the next year (if applicable), and 50% for the next year (if applicable).

He's already been paid nearly 100% of his current contract year, so paying the remainder of this year is trivial. After that we'd owe 1.65M for next year, 75% of 1.725M in Year 4, and 50% of 1.8M in Year 5.

If we fire him April 1st, we'd pay him 1.65M for Year 3, all 100% of 1.725M for Year 4, and 75% of 1.8M for Year 5.

So keeping him until next year and firing him in 2022 costs us another $900k on top of the lost revenue from people who will continue to be completely disinterested in watching another 12th place finish in conference.

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Golden handcuffs for Cal, Golden parachute for Fox.

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Gates or Decuire or Pasternak. I’d be happy with any of these and might acknowledge men’s bball exists again if they were hired.

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yeah I know. He'll get a pass for this year.

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Last night's victory probably secured it, though I doubt Knowlton would have made a coaching change until after the 2021-2022 season,

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I wonder how next year will go. We lose the 2 grad transfers don't we? So we lose some 3 point shooting. I wonder who will enter the transfer portal.

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One of the grad transfers already said that he's coming back. To be brutally honest, this team could use more talent (and I would take a chance in the transfer portal) but that also requires Fox to be good at recruiting.

Assuming that Bradley and Kelly do come back and Celestine, Joel Brown, Bowser (who didn't play much at all this year after getting hurt) do improve, Cal will be better next year (also because the bar is low this yearr). But that is supposed to be the max of the current cycle of players. Instead of realistically dreaming about a second-weekend postseason run, I think we can only dream about an NIT run.

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Minor Irritations

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accidentally shaved off a rice size piece of skin on the under side of my thumb on the mandolin a few days ago. needless to say applying and reapplying hand sanitizer has been... not the best

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I avocado handed my right thumb.

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I like to use Liquid Skin for that kind of thing. Stings, but only a few seconds, and gives you a protective layer.

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Ouch! Mine seems trivial, right index finger nail is cracked, and it won't grow back un-cracked. Blargh.

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Strained right hand, starting to get better.

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I scraped the skin on the fingertips of my left middle and left ring fingers, so it's slightly painful to type. It's quite annoying.

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I have a small cut on the underside of my left index finger. Constant hand washing or hand sanitizer application makes for a brief, but semi-painful, sting.

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that would suck

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Adding insult to injury, my typo rate is up tenfold.

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Hopefully you’re not in a contract year?

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No, but I have to convince them I'll return to pre-injury form or else they may cut me...

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the independent(ish) pharmacy I've been using for at least 15 years has gone out of business, which I found out when I called in this morning to get a refill. They claim to have transferred the prescription to CVS, but CVS online has no record of it, and nobody (old pharmacy, CVS, doctor's office) is answering the phone. It's not like I can't solve this problem, but I will admit to resenting having to put in the effort.

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I feel your pain. I wish just ONCE the left hand would let the right hand know what's going on.

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it's quite possible the old pharmacy doesn't have my email address but they do have my street address, send a fucking postcard or something

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Unfortunately, when a business goes out of business, there's no incentive to make a clean transition, and less leverage to hold a non-entity responsible. What are you going to do? Pull their business license?

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nothing at all

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Our Crumbling Democracy

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Media fact-checks Boebert's claim that she started carrying guns after someone was murdered behind her stupid bar. Turns out, he died of a drug overdose

https://www.businessinsider.com/lauren-boebert-backs-gun-rights-false-story-2021-3

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probability that she was somehow involved in the procurement of the drugs?

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Very high.

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*golf clap* Well played, sir

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Mar 11, 2021Liked by SGBear

ISWYDT

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What's not a surprise is that she lies.

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Today in Covid-19

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I got my first vaccine shot yesterday. It was J&J so it turns out to be the only dose I need. I am not sick, but feeling a ton of fatigue this morning. Hope this is all there is to it.

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That's how you know it's working!

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Other College

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A friend of mine is a professor at a community college in New Hampshire, and her coworkers and students are definitely suffering because of decisions at the state level.

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Yes they did increase tuition, however they do offer need-based financial aid and raised how much need based aid they offer. I would imagine that anyone on need based aid won't pay too much more next year.

Although, I will say, No 2's family contribution this last semester did go up due to Covid. Hopefully it will go down since No 3 will be starting college and I think they take sibling tuitions into account when determining need based aid.

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our oldest is a year behind #3. she is looking into Canadian schools which are significantly cheaper even w/ intl student pricing.

the interesting thing at a place like McGill is that it is almost a 2x cost difference between a BA and either BS or engineering (22k vs 45k).

also, to be fair, it would cost about the same for our kids to go to a UC school and pay out of state tuition. you could argue that both going to Cal/UCLA and paying out of state was comparable value to going to an Ivy.

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The one thing I've noticed is if you're under a certain family income, it definitely is better to go to a school that offers full need based financial aid. Most of the elite private schools do this, like Furd, Princeton, Georgetown, Vandy (the ones that No 1 applied to). At the time No 1 applied about 8 years ago it was 100 or 125K for these 4 to have tuition fully covered. I think if it was under something like 60 or 70 K they covered 100% of tuition and room and board. In between the room and board was prorated.

For example, No 2 is under his mother and Vandy offered something like 68K of the 73K or so but Carnegie Mellon only offered about 36K of the 72K. So No 2 went to Vandy even though Carnegie Mellon probably would have been better for CS/Math.

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but the BBQ is better right?

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Kansas' AD fired over hiring of Les Miles despite known red flags.

"We apologise again for the fault in the subtitles. Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked have been sacked."

https://twitter.com/brett_mcmurphy/status/1369746634146521089?s=21

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"We apologise again for the fault in the subtitles. Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked have been sacked."

this is right about when llamas take over the intro credits, right?

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It is just amazing to me how people make these kinds of poor decisions, when the information to make a better decision is not hidden. This manner of poor behavior (from Miles), has become unwelcome at universities, when it gets into the public eye. Sure, hiring has risks, but it is easy to avoid some of them.

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Pro

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Kansas City Chiefs release offensive tackles Eric Fisher, Mitchell Schwartz

https://www.kmbc.com/article/kansas-city-chiefs-release-offensive-tackle-eric-fisher-mitchell-schwartz/35808745#

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Why Schwartz? A cost-cutting move?

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Fan speculation is that he will probably never completely recover from his back surgery, and never play again. Not sure if Fisher will either. They do think that Schwartz has a promising career in broadcasting.

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I think he's still young (32) to play more, but just might not be 100% until 2022. I would be very surprised if he just retires now...unless he lands some BBQ food show.

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Time for a plug: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITFhRSzEbe4

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I'm surprised that he ended up making a pizza...which reminded me of this video of Giorgio Tavecchio making lasagna https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5qbAeQ5V5A

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A's pound out 12 hits, beat Brewers 9-1.

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All Aboard! Next stop, POUNDTOWN!

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I pringle every time Dallas does this.

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Cal

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Annie the Sather Tower peregrine falcon laid a single egg yesterday.

https://twitter.com/CalFalconCam/status/1370061498735726592

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GO BEARS!

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Hammer Time

I don't know how much y'all have been keeping up with women's hammer throw. You may know of Camryn Rogers, the current senior who obliterated the previous Cal women's record of 214 feet by throwing 234.7. Rogers is training for the Olympics, representing Canada.

What you may not know is that there are some other throwers at Cal who all just threw 220 feet, 218.2, and 212.9 this month.

https://twitter.com/IanHodge7/status/1369573816964374528

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FYI, Rogers' shot at an NCAA Indoor weight title is coming up at 2:30pm PT on ESPN3. She won the 2019 NCAA Outdoor hammer throw, but this is her first indoor championship.

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Rogers had the best throw after the first round but was unable to improve upon her personal record. She ended up 4th in the country with a throw of 21.99m (72-1 3/4). My ESPN3 actually cut to commercials just before the winning throw.

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Oops, I just realized that there are actually 6 throws per contestant. ESPN3 cutting away to the end of heptathlon did not mean that hammer throw was over.

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[WSwim]: #2 Cal's main diver - Briana Thai - qualifies for NCAAs.

https://calbears.com/news/2021/3/10/womens-swimming-diving-briana-thai-qualifies-for-ncaas.aspx

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that's great news! If she scores anything decent at the NCAA's we probably win the Nat, again, running away from the field.

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Virginia is probably the pretty solid favorite this year. They don't have the history but have two great swimmers that also give them the best times in all of the relays. The ACC also didn't stop/restrict training last fall, I don't know if that makes any difference (like Cal has more room to improve or UVA might be gassed already).

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[WGym]: #6 Bears beat Huskies 197.225-196.525. Such a good team.

https://calbears.com/news/2021/3/10/womens-gymnastics-no-6-cal-dispatches-huskies.aspx

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[SB] Cal mercy-rules Santa Clara 21-4, climbs to 87-0 all-time vs. the Broncos

https://calbears.com/news/2021/3/10/softball-cal-at-santa-clara.aspx

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ouch, that's going to leave a mark.

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[MBB]: From the Front Page: Bears beat Stanfurd

https://writeforcalifornia.com/p/cal-bradley-end-stanfords-season

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Bradley's block was key and started out run. Betley's meaningless long three in the final seconds rubbed salt into Stanford's wounds.

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Also a joy when Bill Walton calls a Cal victory. Tonight's game against Colorado is 8:30 on ESPN. Let's run the table and get that automatic bid!

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Cal +14 tonight...I’ll take the Bears to keep it close v a Colorado team that is much less formidable closer to sea level. That Boulder altitude is such an advantage.

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