92 Comments

Yikes - Bryan Adams

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This is yet another example for which I couldn’t plausibly say “well I’m never buying one of his albums again!” - on the grounds that I wasn’t planning to anyway

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Mother's Day

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Class of 14 bought me chili vodka and made me a nice cocktail after we did yoga.

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After searching around for something that was available, discovered that Berkeley Social Club was able to deliver a nice Mother's Day brunch to our house, so had that ready for the wife after letting her sleep in. Then a drive out to visit her mother's gravesite in Colma.

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I'm a fan of BSC

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They definitely saved my procrastinating ass from blowing another holiday.

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family bike ride. sunny and nice 65 deg weather in CT.

ended w/ a picnic lunch overlooking the Long Is Sound.

was a nice day. mom was happy.

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Yesterday my daughter made chocolate donuts (baked) for brunch, and Japanese "cotton" cheesecake for dessert. So, so good.

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Lots of folks walking around in the Gormet Ghetto in Berkeley, more peeps than I've seen in weeks. Not all wearing masks, unfortunately. Traffic was back up to near normal levels, too.

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Prank: I knew someone who lived in Stern Hall, across the hill from Bowles. Sternies always left their trashcans in the hallway each night to be emptied. She and her not-boyfriend loaded all the trashcans into her station wagon and took them away. And, like that gnome, over the next many days, she took them to various locations and set them up, and took pictures, then posted those pictures at Stern. This was in the 1970s so no internet. She also set up a fake Stern official trash can replacement which consisted of cheap trash bags. Had a cute acronym. People used these too.

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Nobody into pranks?

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I am, but struggling to remember the details, oh wait, one I'm NOT proud of; in 8th grade a teacher made me go get a transformer (I think) on a day it was cold and snowy, and I kind of dragged it thru the snow and she got shocked when she plugged it in; not badly, but still.

5th grade broke into the "classroom" (a quonset hut) and stole a whole roll of tickets to the end-of-year carnival put on for all grades on the base; handed out bunches to my friends. That was a good day.

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Cal Golden Bears 2021 PAC 11 Champions!

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LOLOL [bracketed editorializing is mine]

"After that went national, we're pretty sure the rest of the Pac-12 was paying attention. And maybe now is ready to atone[!] for the jubilation that the league clearly felt a decade ago when a corrupt NCAA took the [also corrupt] Trojans down hard."

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Two things can be true at the same time: SC was “compliance challenged” in the latter Garrett and Carroll years, and the NCAA absolutely fucked SC over. And the conference was absolutely no help, which I think in part drove the selection of Haden, which is where the real (self inflicted) long term damage started

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I for one am so, so sorry in retrospect for the sense of glee I felt to see the Trojans receive some small measure of comeuppance after treating the one body with the ability to inflict pain upon them with unbridled arrogance and dismissiveness. I will direct my energies henceforth to the performance of restorative justice on this front.

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I meant, starting.... now!

Good tidings this day to you, dear friend 😃

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It’s a hollow gesture but welcome nevertheless

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I’m skeptical that SC will go independent but the combination of equal revenue sharing (which UCLA opposes for basketball) and poor results for that equal revenue has been an issue for some time. And that’s before you get to the true believers being pissed about the response to the Bush imbroglio.

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If USC wants to leave, then leave. I could give a shit at this point.

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I suspect that many other Pac12 alumni and fans feel the same way. I for one can’t imagine any way in which the current school administration would make this a priority or be able to succeed at it.

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It would be very hard to park the non-football programs in the Big West.

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Well, water polo could stay where it is. It would be a bummer for the track and field and baseball teams I guess.

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Get in line early for tix for those basketball games vs UC Irvine, Fullerton, and UCLB! (At least social distancing won't be an issue.)

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Today in La 'Rona

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My brother got tested because of the job he does, driver for a retirement home in NoVa, he was negative. Apparently, they are doing everything they can to keep La 'Rona out, no family visitors at all since early March.

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Unpleasant for the residents and their families but given what a shitshow we’ve had with old folks homes in Maryland it’s not the worst idea. My father took a spill at the weekend and was poo-pooing physical therapy until my mother pointed out that if he can’t stay upright the doctors will put him in a home, and asked how safe he felt with that at the moment

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Aaaargh! Always do the physical therapy, dumbass!

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Don’t tell me tell him! Actually he’s agreed to try and arrangements have been made

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This virus has highlighted a lot of long-standing problems, and especially with the current model of elder care/warehousing. It will be interesting down the road to see what, if anything, is done about it, or if it will again recede to out of site, out of mind status.

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I’d like to say that there will be improvements but there probably will not

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My aunt lives two miles from my parents in an active senior community which is also attached a assisted care facility. Luckily she's not very social - so she's literally been indoors in her apartment since January. They deliver 3 meals a day to her door and she gets on her iPad and talks to her grandkids weekly.

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So no net change for her then

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Unfortunately saw many Mother's Day gatherings in the neighborhood. You could get a sense that sometimes they were trying to social distance, sort of, sometimes, but just gave in. Expecting another spike in a week or two.

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Yesterday, the wife in the couple of my friends in Illinois with CV-19 came out of her 5 week coma. She posted on FB how grateful she was. I can't imagine what it was like to wake up, find out that your husband had a stroke, the world went into and is now trying to emerge from a lockdown, her kids had to pay the bills out of the kindness of a GoFund me while worrying if their parents would live. Now, both face long-term rehab - but at least they both look like they will survive.

My family makes a point of saying things we are grateful for during dinner. This family is frequently in our gratitudes.

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Wow that's great news. I can't imagine their daughters having to deal with it.

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Glad to hear the relatively good news.

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Our state had Phase 1 reopening on Friday. From my perspective, we're doomed to have a second wave. Lots more people out. Not enough masks or social distancing. Frankly, I think that we're doomed to have a second wave.

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The entire country is going to have a second wave.

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We are all de facto going to reopen because the feds are (deliberately) failing and most states, even the ones trying to maintain social distancing, have large populations who won’t go along with this. It’s going to be interesting to say the least.

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And states just do not have the budgets to keep lockdowns going for much longer (as it destroys their tax revenue and they can't print money like the feds).

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Not just the states. Public higher ed in this part of the country can just continue to roll up the debt for now, but if fall term doesn't happen, I guess they can just become satellite University of Phoenix mail drop sites.

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To say I was disappointed would imply surprise, but the site of heavily endowed private universities refusing to lower tuition and furloughing staff is unedifying to say the least

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That's why we need to pass the major state funding bill that McConnell is blocking

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He's not blocking it... yet.

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Fair enough. Has stated his firm opposition to and is threatening to block.

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Northern Virginia jurisdictions wrote to the governor to delay Phase 1 for us. But even with that, the forecast for the end of the week is 70s and low 80s and regardless of what phase we are in or not I expect people will be all over the place not wearing masks and distancing.

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Dook Sux

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Fuck Dook.

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I keep coming back to the fact that Duke is where Stephen Miller was (further?) radicalized by Richard Spencer.

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Former marketing agent claims Zion Williamson & family took $ to attend small elitist private college.

https://twitter.com/WALLACHLEGAL/status/1259534474049662982

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and this was after they asked Kansas for money as well before deciding on Dook.

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Not just Kansas, but Kurtis Townsend!

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RIP Jerry Stiller

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I remember stiller and meara on Ed Sullivan and Hollywood palace.

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Hopefully he can have SERENITY NOW!

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pqtm

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OUR CRUMBLING DEMOCRACY

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[CV19]: "A3"

[WH]: "Miss"

https://twitter.com/i/events/1258947560988790784

(Ivanka's PA)

[CV19]: "C2"

[WH]: "Miss"

(Pence's Press Secretary)

https://twitter.com/cnnbrk/status/1259621606613307392

In related news: https://twitter.com/RVAwonk/status/1258896878898421760

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@will be hilarious when Pence doesn't self-quarantine and ends up getting it from his press secretary.@

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I really, really, REALLY want Trump to catch it.

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I thought maybe he already did from the CPAC exposure- there was a stretch there when he was looking even worse than usual

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I mean eventually he has to if people around him get it.

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Amazing how all of a sudden they are looking at having people work from home and quarantine.

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PRO

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PLAY BALL! MLB reportedly agrees to launch season around July 4th weekends. Lots of changed rules this season including - no fans, DH for NL, bigger rosters, expanded playoffs.

https://apnews.com/6195fbe572aa83a0616053e9133a8551

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Pitcher's and batter's alignment slightly changed. Here is a mock-up of how it will look:

https://bit.ly/2Ak4XzD

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BOO the DH. Though I guess I understand it for this season. I think they'll try to add it to the NL for the next CBA. At least no roboumps.

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Heaven forbid the NL be drug into the latter part of the 20th century!

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hee hee

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If they're going to shove the DH down our throats, the least they could do is give us some robo umps. I'll take a robo ump every day over Angel Hernandez and Cowboy Joe West.

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I'd vote for neither.

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Call your own balls and strikes!

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How can I not find an obvious pickup basketball gif to reference???

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CAL

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UCLA seems to be focusing on Desiree Reed-Francois as their new Athletic Director. Ticks all the boxes: alumnae, POC, female, lawyer, technocrat. DRF is the current AD for UNLV. Criticism is that she signed up UNLV to massive coaching contracts.

This podcast from Las Vegas asked DRF if the stadium will be ready for Cal. She waffled, which doesn't instill confidence. Apparently, UNLV has a contract with the Raiders/Allegiant Stadium that Sam Boyd Stadium (the previous UNLV stadium) must close as a do-not-compete clause. The podcasters opined that they are not confident the stadium will be ready and that the more likely options are to a) play at Sam Boyd allowed through some unknown clause in the small print of the contract, b) play in an empty/unfinished stadium, c) play at Bishop Gorman HS, or d) give the home game back to Cal.

https://www.lvsportsnetwork.com/episode/has-desiree-reed-francois-set-unlv-up-for-success-or-failure/

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even if they play I can't imagine there will be fans. though maybe LV will since, you know, Vegas.

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No 1 said that he's heard the Ivies may postpone the fall semester to the spring and have spring during the summer. Kind of makes sense since there are students coming from all over the world and online teaching kind or sucks. If that's the case he may drive back after his lease ends in July. And if Vandy goes online No 2 will be here. So the one season where i may want to get 4 season tickets for FB is the season there won't be any fans. ugh.

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Zach Evans - a 5 star RB - enrolled at TCU. This means that Cal could potentially play against him over the next two season. He may be trouble for Cal as he is elite-level stud. Slippery and very quick.

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Cal Athletics: color piece on Meagan & Ernest Owusu welcoming triplets

https://calbears.com/news/2020/5/10/beach-volleyball-a-special-first-mothers-day.aspx

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At first I thought this was in reference to Alex Morgan who announced the birth of her daughter over the weekend.

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Go Bears. Near the turnaround of my run yesterday I saw a woman wearing a Cal sweatshirt and got an enthusiastic "yes" and a fist pump in reply to my greeting.

From a local news site: https://www.arlnow.com/2020/05/11/morning-notes-2395/#disqus_thread

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