139 Comments
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Meet this Medal of Honor winner. He's a Major Dick.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Bong

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Phillip K. Dick

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Protein shake

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I mix protein into smoothies for breakfast on days that I ride my bike. I've started riding regularly again, but it is way too cold in the morning to blend a bunch of frozen fruit together and put that frigid mass into my soon-to-be frigid mass.

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I have one once in awhile after doing some weight lifting.

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i usually have protein laden recovery drink after working out or any bike ride unless i get food right away. they say it is best just to eat real food, but i tend to not be in the mood to eat right away.

currently this is the one that i like the best in terms of taste and consistency. i usually mix it w/ oat milk or almond milk.

https://store.livefluid.com/products/fluid-recovery?variant=16527045189

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Ghost ship captain gets 9 year jail sentence for 36 counts of manslaughter. City of Oakland already paid out $32m settlement to families.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/founder-ghost-ship-warehouse-gets-nine-years-prison-blaze-killed-n1260103

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Papa John's former CEO claims he's been working over the last 20 months to get the N-word out of his vocabulary to prove he's not a racist.

https://twitter.com/Phil_Lewis_/status/1368983057479393284

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I bet he has cheat days where he lets loose for a few hours.

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this makes him seem even more of a awful person that he seemed to be previously.

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Peggy

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... is short for Margaret

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My maternal grandma was named Peggy and it wasn't short for anything, her parents just liked the way Peggy sounded. My step-grandma was named Margaret and went by Marge and then Ma when she became a grandma. My uncle is named Dick, which is short for Richard.

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which is the weirdest "short" for a name I've ever seen. Not sure how that came about. I'm sure I could google it.

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Yep. I just learned that one in the last couple years and was pretty confused.

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"Jack" for "John," which is not actually shorter or even all that similar, but everyone accepts it as a common nickname.

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Yes, and it drives me nuts when people just name their kid "Jack" or "Sam." NOOOOOOOO those are nicknames. You can't name your kid a nickname.

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I have a female friend who is Pat. Not Patricia. Or Patty. Just Pat.

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my former SIL named one of her kids William with the express intent of only calling him Liam.

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thats something that kids your kid punched in the face starting at about age 8

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Yeah, I had a friend who named their kid "Wes." Not "Wesley" or anything longer. Just "Wes."

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I had a friend named Wesson. Everyone called him Wes, though.

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Dick from Richard?

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Maybe a lot of Richards are Dicks?

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How about Betsy for Elizabeth?

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But that's just from Beth, which is hardly a big jump.

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Butte County

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Rodgers Land.

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Who or what do you like to follow (politics, sports, teams, anything else)?

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I think my whole YouTube subscription library is devoted to various channels focusing on car/motorcycle reviews and engineering. I enjoy having it on while doing the dishes or other chores around the house or when I'm feeding the baby.

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My YouTube subscriptions are: MCU nerd talk, cycling, snowboarding, cooking and eating. I also watch, but don't subscribe to a lot of first class airline experiences, concert vids, and travel, but oddly enough for places I have already been.

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Car ones are the only ones I subscribe to. Which ones do you watch? I have Car Wizard, VINwiki, Hoovie's Garage, Tavarish, Extreme Daily Drivers (tbb's friend from another blog doing a Miata), Randy Pobst, WatchJRGo. Oh and the Colbert and Seth Meyers shows. VINwiki has some great car stories.

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The car ones I'm subscribed to are RegularCarReviews, DougDemuro, Engineering Explained, and Carfection. I also watch The Smoking Tire on occasion.

I used to read Tavarish when he wrote for Jalopnik, and I've seen a few of his videos. I also read some of Randy Pobst's work whenever it appears in Motor Trend.

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The Engineering Explained guy does a great job. I do like his videos. I've seen some of Doug's videos as well.

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I'm a little embarrassed to admit it but I'm a fan of the stuff that Henry Catchpole does for Carfection. Doug DeMuro is just grating enough that I don't bother much with his videos.

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Heh, my wife doesn't comment much on the youtube stuff I watch but she always makes fun of Doug for being too excited and Henry for being too solemn and serious.

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Henry's quite middle class & unlike a lot of his peers has a degree (there's a cluster of UK car writers / youtube types who came up through Performance Car and Evo, he's one of them, but a lot of the others took to it straight out of HS)

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Movies I guess. In particular, I try to see all of the major Oscar nominees every year before the ceremony happens (meaning anything up for Picture, Director, acting awards, or writing, not necessarily everything in a technical category).

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Hmmmm... as a big fan of films in general, never quite understood why the Oscars cast such a glamour - so many of them are so pedestrian.

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They definitely are. But there's a lot of reporting and speculation around them, people doing Oscar pools to predict the winners, etc. I just enjoy being plugged in to that.

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Though honestly, when it comes to predictions it might be easier to predict without even seeing the movies. You should mostly just base those on whatever has won the most precursor awards (the Globes, critics' awards, the various guilds like SAG, etc.).

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Mainly sports (everything Cal, Warriors and casually other pro sports), podcasts hosted by various comedians, a handful of sailing couples/individuals on YouTube and Instagram

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I do some ancient coin collecting, mainly Roman and Byzantine. The prices on collectibles/alternative assets are exploding because of Covid-19, it is theorized.

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How does one protect against counterfeits?

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There are telltale signs of fakes which are pretty easy to spot. Also, most dealers and auction houses offer 100% guarantees of authenticity. Most have lifetime policies of return of funds if a coin is determined to be a fake. However, buying coins on Ebay, which some folks do, can be risky because of fakes peddled by sellers in the Balkans.

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pro cycling.

started watching Le Tour when we were at Cal in the early 90s. back then ESPN would have a 30 min recap show each day to cover the highlights.

as Lance started winning it brought a new level of awareness and interest but you still could not really watch live.

fast forward to today. you can get live streams of most mens races and an increasing number of womens ones.

most Euro races are happen from 700a-1100a ET, so it a great way to watch the race, get some work done. at work i usually just have my 2nd monitor streaming some race.

May, Jul and Sep are the best w/ the 3 grand tours in Italy France and Spain because of the drama of a 3 wk race.

on the other hand i have been increasingly fond of the Spring Classics season which involve a lot more dirt, mud and cobblestones in Belgium.

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I don't follow cycling closely enough to be familiar with many of the riders, but I do enjoy having it on in the background on weekend mornings when the Tour de France or Tour de California are airing (plus whatever other races happen to air). I particularly enjoy the scenery across the various stages.

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I quite often watch the Tour de France because that's usually the early stretch of my summer "me time," so there's nobody to complain if I'm drinking a bucket of coffee on a Saturday morning and watching the latest. I also think the NBC commentary team are very very good.

I ended up watching a few stages of La Vuelta last year and I was struck that they seemed to be much more "in the boonies" than le Tour, but it's also possible that was by design or just the days I happened to watch.

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a little of both.

the roads in France are impeccably maintained. they must have directives to keep the place looking like a postcard at all times.

in Italy and Spain the country roads definitely looks a bit more ragged. but in something of an effort to be distinct from the TdF they pick steeper climbs, more gravel sections, "wilder" scenery.

it used to be the case that all top riders would just go to the Tour and these other races were more unpredictable and exciting because of the 2nd tier nature of it.

but over time, both the Vuelta and the Giro have been able to attract more top riders, so it is perhaps little less exciting but almost the same level of competition as the Tour now.

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It's easy (for me) to forget that Spain (and Portugal for that matter) were very poor countries and the infrastructure was pretty shit until much more recently than other "developed" European countries.

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I was surprised when I first went to Lisbon because the condition of the city was more what I would have expected from Colombia.

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They didn't cash in on Brazil the way that the British did after Brazil became independent, then a whole lot of not much, and then basically spent themselves into the ground in the 60s and 70s with colonial wars of oppression until the Carnation Revolution. My impression is that a lot of their newer infrastructure was funded by the EU, but that's a guess. My running "joke" about leaving to live in Portugal is partly because they have the best value "golden visa to naturalization" process and partly because I think that moving to somewhere as regimented as the Netherlands would be too much of a shock after so many decades in the US 😂

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today's race, stage 3 time trial of the 6-day Paris-Nice stage race.

usually the first major stage race of the year for the main contenders to warm up ahead of the Giro in May.

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I love the TDF, I always watch it in its post show replay around 5 or 8pm PST since I'm always asleep in the morning. Teams like Ineos Sky among others have always been at the top and I'm intrigued for this years tour. Also Phil Liggett is one of the most criminally underrated commentators out there.

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Same. I love watching it and learning about the strategy and the attacks and the like. I don't totally understand it but it's great theater.

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It took me awhile but I've gotten to like Bob Roll too.

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hey everybody i hope you're all well

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/elizabeth-banks-to-direct-cocaine-bear-horror-comedy-for-phil-lord-chris-miller

Elizabeth Banks has found her next directorial project with a bear-centric thriller that has Phil Lord and Chris Miller set to produce.

Universal is behind Cocaine Bear that is based on an untitled spec written by Jimmy Warden that is inspired by true events that took place in Kentucky in 1985.

The true story, as reported in 1985 by the New York Times, was that a 175-pound black bear consumed the contents of a duffle bag filled with over 70 pounds of cocaine that was dropped from an airplane by a local drug smuggler, Andrew Thornton. The bear was later found dead of an apparent drug overdose.

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You're alive!

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he's active on IG.

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I don't have IG so I guess that's why I didn't know.

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Whoa, he's back!

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Lunch

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Pastrami on Rye, Swiss, tomato, lettuce.

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Bacon-wrapped pork tenderloin, smashed potatoes, roasted apples & red onions. (leftover)

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https://twitter.com/Botanygeek/status/1369339664503554055?s=20

@Botanygeek: Looking through my feed...

It’s so weird to me how British people, known for their almost pathological politeness in person, behave on twitter.

Malaysians, known for their *ehem* ‘directness’ in person are almost totally drama free online by comparison.

Culture is so weird.

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The Japanese are vaccine adverse, which I find odd.

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British people are absolutely savage in private though.

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That's a cute puppy.

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PUPPYYYYYYYY

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Bagels

i had to look back at yesterday's DBD to make sure it wasnt discussed already

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The Best Bagels Are in California (Sorry, New York)

West Coast bakers are driving a great bagel boom, producing some of the most delicious versions around and finding ways to expand during the pandemic.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/08/dining/best-bagels.html

anyone been to any of these?

here in NYC suburbs we have guy who runs a small baking operation. he hand rolls and hand delivers the bagels to our house.

pretty much the best thing you can get w/o driving to Montreal

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Montreal bagels are the best bagels.

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I haven't had these, though in my experience the great thing about New York is that you can wander into pretty much any bagel shop and expect to get good bagels. In California that's not so much the case, though I could believe that certain individual shops can be as good or better. For other things the opposite is true (Mexican or Chinese, for example).

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not specifically those mentioned in the article, but I've had Beauty's Bagels which are Montreal style. I mean, it's a bagel. It's not ever my first choice for breakfast foods, but I did like that it's wood fired. They have (had?) two locations; one on Telegraph at like 34th-ish and another downtown at like 17th and Webster.

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I like Beauty's, in part because they also have bialys. I've had Boichik's, but only the frozen ones from Berkeley Bowl, and they were fine. Pricey.

On my Twitter feed, it was mainly food writers talking about how they don't get to choose their headlines; the editors do.

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Asking for a friend ..

what do you do if you miss a day or two of DBD?

do you go back and just read what fun stuff you might have missed?

or just move on because every day is such an adventure?

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M...miss a day? Or.. TWO?

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well not because I'm avoiding you

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You go to the end of the line

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Move on. Even if I do come back to the site later in the day and see there's a few new comments, I won't bother because of how inefficient this website is with locating said comments

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I just move on. I also don't check on what may have happened after I log out for the day (usually late afternoon).

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Sometimes, yeah.

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I usually glance back in case there is something of significant interest.

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I usually try to scan the comments even though no one posts on them. I always have two DBDs open, the current day and the last day. Very rarely has a comment shown up on the last day's DBD. It would be nice if the platform could show up how many unread messages there were in the articles like CGB does.

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I just move on. I often stop reading between 5 - 6 pm eastern and rarely follow up with any late afternoon PST comments, to be honest.

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same. And if I miss a day I don't bother going through it.

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:(

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same

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Other college

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Recording by Valdosta HS coach and its booster president is going viral about SEC paying kids to play. It's under investigation and is dragging Alabama, Georgia, Nick Chubb, and some highs school players through the mud.

https://www.ajc.com/sports/georgia-bulldogs/uga-compliance-investigates-rush-propsts-allegations/JX35D7YS5BAQ7PWL2FBGYGXXGY/

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I've listened to the recording. I find it credible. And yet, I am pessimistic that the NCAA will do anything to damage their money-making royalty. Perhaps the last 4.5 years have made me a pessimist.

https://youtu.be/Xwhn2yBZpLg

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I would be surprised if:

1) there *wasn't* money changing hands

2) the head coaches were within 100 miles of that

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As someone who knows quite a few NBA players - I'm surprised when someone DOESN'T get paid. Although there have been known to be cases - even of really high end, NBA level players who didn't. They will definitely joke about this away from cameras and media.

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They’re gonna be looking for a new basketball coach in a few years too

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Both Kansas and UofA. Maybe Mark Fox will want to work on building up a program after severe penalties.

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Knowing Cal’s luck, Fox will get busted for paying Lars Thiemann to come to Berkeley.

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pqtm. At least Cal got their money's worth on Jelani Gardner.

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Did we though? (I rooted for Jelani a lot because I played against him in high school and he's from my area) and man he was a disappointment.

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Vassar has signed up to be a distribution site for vaccines generally, so my daughter is starting to feel optimistic that she might get one before the end of the school year.

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Committee finds no racist intent in Texas song

https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/31032032/committee-finds-no-racist-intent-texas-song

I went onto Burnt Orange Nation and saw some of the comments last week. Wow. And there were many alums that threatened to withhold donations. Including this one...

"It's time for you to put the foot down and make it perfectly clear that the heritage of Texas will not be lost," wrote a donor who graduated in 1986. Their name was redacted by UT-Austin. "It is sad that it is offending the blacks. As I said before the blacks are free and it's time for them to move on to another state where everything is in their favor."

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As a graduate of that particular institution I have thoughts although I will admit to not feeling that the song is a sword to fall on. When I first got there and heard it, I asked why they were playing "I've been working on the railroad". So I am not terribly invested although many of my fellow alumni live, breath and bleed the song and think of it as part of their identity. That said, everything I have read about the history of the song does not suggest any racist intent. A club sang it in 1903 while wearing blackface... if that is the extent of its "racism", I am ok with moving on and leaving it in place. What I do think is necessary though is additional discussion and awareness about the lack of inclusion for African American and other minority students at the school. It's a "white" place, although as the Latino population in the state has increased, the school has gotten browner. But the African American population remains at under 4% (the state is ~12%) with a heavily athletic slant at that. And I absolutely get the feelings of marginalization that some have expressed. So I am hopeful the smarter BMDs can slap down the dumber ones and use this as an opportunity for dialogue and improvement versus a dick measuring contest that makes us all look like racists.

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Cal had "The California Indian Song" (c. 1907) which mocked Stanfurd's Indian mascot (until 1972) through lyrics that were campy then but flagrantly un-PC now. I knew and sang this song for decades as part of perhaps a dozen Cal songs that knew growing up. New lyrics were penned in 2013 and the song was relaunched as "Gold and Blue". As far as I know, the alumni pushback on the re-write was exactly zero because doing what is right takes little effort and is the dumbest hill to die on.

https://levysheetmusic.mse.jhu.edu/collection/028/015

https://calspirit.berkeley.edu/multimedia/indiansong.mp3

New lyrics:

We're going to beat you Stanfurd,

We're going to beat you Blue!

We're going to use the battle axe

we took from you. Rah! Rah! Rah!

Down on The Farm we'll end them,

fighting with spirit true;

We're going show them winners

wear Gold and Blue!

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I think part of it is how few people on campus know the fight songs - and even then any beyond Sons of California, Fight for California and Big C.

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Yes. The extent of alumni (band, no one else knows or cares) push back is just not learning the new words.

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A LOT of people worked on the railroad once upon a time, around and shortly before the song was written. A LOT of people of all kinds. Context matters, and the reality of the time is not the same as currently, though the spirit of working hard all day has not lost significance.

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Our Crumbling Democracy

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Leftists have taken over the NV Democratic party, sweeping centrists out

https://theintercept.com/2021/03/08/nevada-democratic-party-dsa/

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Today in Covid-19

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California: If you volunteer at a vaccine site for four hours, you're immediately eligible to get a vaccine.

https://myturnvolunteer.ca.gov/s/landing

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Didn't TBB post that yesterday?

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yup, jlee'd

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It was a nice 70 degree day so I went out to read for awhile before the sun went down. I ran into a neighbor who lives in the same building but a different entrance. Turns our he, his wife, and their seven month old all got it, as did another guy who lives in the same entrance. All are doing well now but the word had not got around about folks in the building getting it. The neighbor has no idea where they caught it since with the baby they were not even going to the grocery store.

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@someone's having an affair@

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All U.S. states are now vaccinating teachers for Covid-19

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/03/08/world/covid-19-coronavirus

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Berkeley announced they will be opening up schools for instruction starting in April. All teachers have been vaccinated. Those who wish to stay at home and do online courses will be able to do so, but with a new teacher. The problem with in school instruction is that many family members will probably not have been vaccinated by then, so there is some chance of the virus spreading.

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The lady friend's son is a sophomore at BHS. It will be a hybrid model which isn't what you'd think it is. Basically all classes will still be online with the option to come to campus after online classes finish for things like "homework club," which is as lame as you think it is.

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Pro

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NFL free agency 2021: Dak Prescott, Cowboys agree to terms on contract extension with record $126M guaranteed

https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/nfl-free-agency-2021-dak-prescott-cowboys-agree-to-terms-on-contract-extension-with-record-126m-guaranteed/

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not a guy I wouldve given this contract too. Very Jerry

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Curry, Giannis and Dame put on a show

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Cal

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Go Bears!!!

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[WGolf] Bears at Julie Inkster Invitation end up tied for 3rd after the first day. However, they've had a rough second day and have fallen back to 7th out of 12 teams. Katherine Zhu tied for 10th after 2nd day. Cal doing fine on par 3s and 4s, but struggling on Par 5s.

https://calbears.com/news/2021/3/8/womens-golf-zhu-in-top-ten-at-juli-inkster-invitational.aspx

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Two days in a row now. Yesterday I saw a young woman with a long sleeve Cal tee on but she was too far away to even yell anything at. This morning a woman walking her dog had a Cal ball cap on. She said "all right ' in reply to my Go Bears.

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"all right"?

All right, baby?

Is it all right now?

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BOOOOO!

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but was she hot

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Go Bears!

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