170 Comments

Stand up bicycles

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Because the internet gods see all, googling this on my laptop has resulted in ElliptiGo ads in my FB feed on my phone

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I tried one where you peddle on like a stepper machine. It's like a shitty bike, except less maneuverable, efficient, and cool. Hooray for the experience, but I'm never doing that again.

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Haven't tried, but would probably enjoy it more than actual running.

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What is that?

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I have a Bionic Runner. Liked it, but the company went under. Tried Elliptigo, but the good models are a bit expensive.

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Kamado/ceramic smokers

Smoking enthusiasts, what are your thoughts/recommendations on these? I've had a fairly basic smoker for the past eight years and its electric heating element died for the second time (I replaced the original about two years ago). Rather than replace it, I'm planning to upgrade to something completely analog (no electric elements to fail) and charcoal-based. Kamado grills are appealing because they're simple and they can sustain consistent heat even in the dead of winter, but they're pretty expensive. I want to make sure I know what I'm doing before I plop down that kind of money.

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I am a traditional offset smoker kind of guy but then, I have plenty of space to stash that beast. At some point, I suspect I will get a ceramic one but I have no experience as of yet

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HSB has a BGE. I have another friend (shocking I know) that has the Kamado and loves it. He added a temperature probe and fan controller by a microcontroller that allows it to keep the temp. I guess the only drawback of these may be the amount of space for meat. They seem to have a smaller surface area than the others.

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Scotland

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If it's not Scottish it's CRAP

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Aug 27, 2020Liked by SGBear

To address SGBear’s request for any suggestions re: visiting Scotland beyond Edinburgh:

There's no particular "best of" approach to visiting Scotland IMO. Once you get out of Edinburgh, you could...

spend some time around Stirling - decent castle (former home of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, a regiment in which a good few of my forebears served). There's also the Wallace monument and Bannockburn. You could pivot north-ish from there and start to head into the Highlands, doing things like being underwhelmed by the home of Rob Roy McGregor while waiting for more impressive scenery.

Or you could go and spend a couple of days in Glasgow, less posh but more lively than Edinburgh, and then head up the coast to Mallaig or Oban, and then over to Skye. Thrill children by stopping at the head of Loch Shiel to see the viaduct for the train to Hogwarts! Etc.

Or you could go from Edinburgh to Inverness and then head back south - for example, my wife's cousin took the train to Inverness, and then picked up a car and drove south-west-ish along the old fort roads from Loch Ness toward Fort William, and then either pivot to the coast or to Glencoe and enjoy the bleakness of Rannoch Moor (one of the loveliest places when the sun is out, but when it's not... the scene from Skyfall when Bond first arrives in Scotland was shot near there so that will give you an idea).

Or you could base yourself near Edinburgh and go into Fife (on the north side of the Firth of Forth) - there are lots of very pretty fishing villages, or you could go inland to little towns like Falkirk, which has the most bougie local "castle" - highlights include a 17th century tennis court, to give you some idea. I'm very fond of East Lothian - my family has spent lots of time over the decades either on vacation or living in North Berwick, which is a small town at the end of a commuter spur off the main line south of Edinburgh... although it's gone from being a cute-fishing-village-turned-Edwardian-holiday-town to another upper middle class outpost for professionals willing to take the commute to Edinburgh.

I had intended to at least take a spin through the Borders had we made it to Scotland this past April. Dumfries and Galloway looks like what people _think_ the highlands look like, and you can work your way towards various outposts of Hadrian's wall if you want to risk crossing over into England...

Other than that... walking the west Highland way is one method of spending some time outside, and there's no shortage of companies that will take your stuff from place to place along the way. Or you could look for Munros that aren't too far from a decent sized town to get some highland "mountain" climbing in, but you have to be ready for the fact that the weather can go to shit in an instant year round. All manner of tourists start walking up Ben Nevis in flip-flops in July only to get 3/4 of the way up and caught in a sleet storm with 40 mph wind gusts. The weather isn't extreme like in the US, but getting fogged in on an unfamiliar trail can be strangely disorienting.

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Speaking of Scotland, I finished a bottle of 15 year Old Pulteney the other day, and that is a fine, fine Scotch. It's sorta weird that the single malts are kinda reasonable, but Japanese whiskey and aged Bourbons are bonkers these days.

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You're a mensch.

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As Scots traditionally say, better to be a mensch than a schmendrick

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"We were so poor when I was growing up, we only had one _______"

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trip back to Hong Kong every year.

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"lefty set-up guy"

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One TV with 13 channels.

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bed. My mom slept on the couch

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motorcycle, as family transport for the 4 of us (yay, India)

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I got to ride on the tank! My brother was between my mum and dad.

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What kind was it?

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Yamaha RX-100

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Fingers cross for a Honda Hero

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Very good chance it was.

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Fingers crossed for an Enfield

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Fingers crossed for a KTM 1200 Super Adventure

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Nintendo

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Rembrandt etching

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boat.

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I initially wrote boat, but then remembered that we had a speedboat and a sailboat and could really only come up with "cleaning lady" as a correct answer and thought that might bring on the guillotine, but here I am confessing. I'll be over here with my cake.

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We made a coconut cake for my grandfather's 89th birthday over the weekend (family visited from a distance to celebrate).

Because yesterday was his actual birthday and we'd already eaten the previous cake, we made another vanilla roll cake with Oreo buttercream frosting

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Perhaps if I ask nicely I can have a slice

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Ha!

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Elsewhere in college

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I did not see this coming AT ALL

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They had been doing pretty well so it was probably inevitable that some people would catch it

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NC State to on-campus students: GTFO

https://abc11.com/nc-coronavirus-state-ncsu-housing/6389950/

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heh...they didn't learn from 30 miles away?? oh I misread your title. I thought it was saying to get the students on campus the GTFO was a comment for administration not the administration to the students.

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What is your favorite ice cream topping?

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If I'm eating particularly luxurious ice cream, I prefer to focus on the ice cream and not add toppings. If it's more run-of-the-mill ice cream, I enjoy vanilla or toasted almond ice cream topped with hot fudge and slivered almonds.

I also tend not to like things that you have to chew to be mixed into my ice cream. I don't want to bite ice cream, so having nuts mixed into the ice cream isn't my jam. BUT, speaking of jam, I love love love Jeni's Sweet Cream Biscuits and Peach Jam ice cream.

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Aug 27, 2020Liked by SGBear

Pie

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I hadn't really been much of a whipped cream person, but the gf is, and I gotta say, I'm getting converted.

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Aug 27, 2020Liked by Ruey Yen, SGBear

Kinky

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lol that interpretation didn't even remotely occur to me when I wrote it, because I was thinking about ice cream. But that's definitely my fault 😄

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Magic Shell

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Googling has just informed me that I can make this with coconut oil and melted chocolate and my waistline will never be the same.

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Fentons or Palo Alto Creamery, peanuts or almond with hot fudge and whipped cream.

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If I have to, fudge, but I prefer my ice cream unadulterated. Or between two cookies for a change of pace.

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Diddy Reise by UCLA is over-hyped, but if there's no line, mmmm, cookies & ice cream.

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It's also 3x more expensive now than when I was in high school (oh, that's like 20 years ago now)...with the ice cream sandwich at (the still very affordable price) $3.

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I haven't been there in years, but I like Diddy Riese, too :)

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Yes. Ice cream, not toppings with ice cream.

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Have you ever been to Cream? They're an ice cream sandwich place. They offer something like 5 different types of cookies and various ice creams. And I think you can get them rolled in a topping as well.

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I haven't but there's one in the Mission that I am always meaning to try. There's another place like that in North Beach called The Baked Bear. And the Meatball Shop in NYC (for which I am a True Evangelist) offers the same for dessert. You can even have one cookie on top and a different flavor on the bottom.

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oh I didn't think about different cookies. That's an idea I'll try if I go back.

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Fresh cherries. Or caramel.

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Luxardo cherries are a spectacular non-fresh option (opposed to the radioactive-red cheapo variety of maraschino)

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I think maraschino cherries are fucking gross

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Good

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Hot Caramel

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Yes

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Aug 27, 2020Liked by Ruey Yen

More ice cream

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This is a good reply and I second it

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Ditto

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Hot fudge

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Also good

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No topping. Just naked ice cream.

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What is a "struggle meal" that you still really enjoy?

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Butter + noodles.

Bacon + Peanut Butter sandwiches

Instant Ramen

(I'm lucky enough to have never really struggled though. Even in college, if I ran out of money, I could have called home)

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Toasted lunch meat sandwich

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Heh, I used to eat that as a teenager - wave the salami slices above the toaster while the bread was toasting.

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day old rice microwaved with some cheddar cheese and butter.

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Tortilla with butter, Mac n cheese, hamburger helper (through college, wife won’t allow me to make it anymore), cheap hot dogs.

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Italian Wedding canned soup

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kraft mac n cheese with cut up supermarket ham.

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I should've stipulated Kraft specifically in mine.

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Flour tortilla + square of American cheese + cheapo hot sauce. 9 seconds in the microwave without a plate. Eat over kitchen sink.

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This (tortilla with a slice of cheese and microwaved with slightly more stuff add to it) was how they made "burrito" at the Cal on-campus lunch kiosk by engineering. I was not a fan despite having eaten there a few times out of convenience.

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It's also the Golden Bear Burrito served on Sproul, and infamously the only thing you could get there on the meal plan without supplementing extra $$$.

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Ramen. Or Mac and Cheese with ground up Hot Italian Sausage mixed in.

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I still love mac and cheese but I do try to add stuff to elevate it a little. And no Kraft for me, thanks.

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If I'm eating crappy Mac and Cheese that's what i go with. Otherwise I'd make my own with multiple cheeses.

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I definitely prefer Annie's (four cheese version is best), and you can still add cheese to it.

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Maybe I'll give it a try.

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Ramen with egg drop, hot sesame oil and siracha sauce, good for a quick lunch

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A basic grilled cheese sandwich. In fact, I just had one for lunch yesterday.

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Ooh...sourdough (not the square white bread type but the real one with a hard crust) and american grilled cheese, cooked low and slow on the pan.

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What’s a struggle meal?

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Exactly.

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We all knew that I’d be up against the wall come the revolution

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Santa Monica

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Home of Stephen Miller. We must burn it to the ground.

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This is where I once saw a stand-up bicycle

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What is that?

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It's like a fusion of an elliptical and a bicycle.

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Me no like, that looks absurd. Not built for speed.

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The Bionic Runner was specifically made to enable running-like training with less stress on the joints. They didn’t try to compete speed wise with regular bikes. Elliptigo tries to be all things, which doesn’t work. But they do have their fans.

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to be fair, lots of shitty things have fans

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Speed or no speed, that seems like the worst of both worlds. How can we take the experience of bicycling, and the experience of running, and combine them to make them both shittier?

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And very expensive

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Everclear:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MW6E_TNgCsY

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Played it because I've never heard an Everclear song - guess what, the next song was Low by Cracker - which according to CVB manager was the band "selling out" and now I see what he was talking about (he used to live in my building many years ago).

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It's still a good song though; I always liked the "Hey, don't you wanna go down like some disgraced cosmonaut" line

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Eh...

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Yeah, watch the world die

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One of my all-time most favorite songs

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The beach is nice if you ride your bike to it, otherwise I'm pretty meh on the whole city.

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One of the webcams I check out at explore.org is of Santa Monica beach. This time of year, sunset there is about the time I'm getting ready for bed here so some nights I'll check it out on the way to bed.

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Bicycle

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I want to get new wheels for mine, but being unemployed and stuck in China - it seems like a poor time to buy a new set of $1000 wheels. But I spend time on the shopping app anyways.

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preferably single track with lots of drop and lots of fun features...

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I am still upset at my brother for not locking mine up properly after he used it. The lock and the front wheel were all that remained.

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My pre-quarantine Saturday morning routine was to ride my bicycle to the library, pick up a couple of books on hold, continue to the beach, read a book there, and drop it off at the library on my way back home. Need to get a back-basket for my new bike to be able to do this again (once the library is open again).

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He owes you a bike!

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I haven't used mine in a while, gonna lube up the chain and take it for a spin when the air clears up a bit.

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man...first whip cream and now lube...

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@gotta keep things fresh@

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We tried to buy bikes for about a month before finally finding the right size/price online (after watching it go available/unavailable like 12 times). Then the smoke started and we haven't been able to ride. Grrrrr.

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Bicycle and motorcycle shops have been making bank in the last few months.

FET I blew out the rear tire on my bike a few weeks ago. I was having trouble finding a replacement, so I ordered one from a shop in Iowa. They shipped it via two-day shipping on August 12th and it's still not here. So thanks to the run on bike parts and Trump's sabotage of the USPS, I'm probably never getting that tire. Fortunately, I told the shop about the issue after a week and they overnighted another tire to me for free.

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Earlier there was a shortage of bicycle inventory since they were all stuck here in China for factories not being open + lack of flights. My friends in Zurich bought the last two hybrid bikes at their $1000 USD price range.

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I was trying to get some minor electrical work done at the motorcycle shop up the street a month or so ago, and they were so busy they said they were only doing like, oil changes and basic maintenance so they could get to as many bikes as possible, so they said I should go to the dealer instead.

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I am struck that nobody seems to be restocking. I had this idea that if I can’t move somewhere more social democratic and euro then I could at least bike more... and in the meantime it’s become more clear that I’d probably end up having to drive somewhere to bike without getting run over and I’m just not prepared to do that.

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Heh, I used to always drive to the base of the hills, and then bike up and down them, but its been a while.

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Today in CV19

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Politico does a deep dive into Pence running the Corona virus task force:

tl;dr he's not as bad as you might suspect, but still was unequal to task.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/26/mike-pence-coronavirus-response-401862

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I'm OK for now. A two year old in one of the neighborhood families I've gotten to know was exposed to another kid who has the virus. The two year old and his parents got their tests back and they're all negative.

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Wow...Vandy just instituted mandatory weekly testing for all undergrads.

I did hear that there don't seem to be any security making sure only residents can get in to dorms. I have a feeling they're just preventing a non-resident from being able to swipe in and open a door. It's probably more a thing where someone will snitch and then people get in trouble.

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OUR CRUMBLING DEMOCRACY

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My buddy in the secret service says that policy is that they drive and meet their ward at the end to protect VIPs from Covid. They drive up to 20 hours/day. For longer trips, he also flies with the cars in the unheated cargo hold and needs arctic clothes. Also, Trump doesn't allow them to go to the bathroom wherever he goes. They have to drive off and, for example, piss at a grocery store bathroom.

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Hmmm... interesting. I received an email from my company citing that they will *not* implement Trump's deferred payroll tax withholding because of a lack of guidance from the US Treasury as to who/what/how. This is supposed to start 9/1/20.

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Yeah my companies HR department is currently looking into this but I imagine they will come to the same conclusion.

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That's good. For any company that does, the employees would be remiss not to put that money in a savings account so they can hand it over next year when it's going to be due. It's one of the dumbest ideas I have ever heard of.

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I suspect that they will not be the only ones.

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PRO

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GBBR - Kershaw Day

7-inning doubleheader going on right now. Kershaw settling down after a rough couple of innings.

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He threw 6 shutout innings, 4 hits, no walks. How rough could those innings have been?

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Baseball Savant's StatTrack info said that Kershaw allowed 6 hard hit ball. https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/gamefeed?game_pk=631017&game_date=2020-8-27

Out of 4 hard-hit balls with xBA (batting average from velocity and launch angle) greater that 0.800, he got 3 outs and 1 single.

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I didn't get to watch the game, but all that makes sense, thanks guys. If only he had that kinda good fortune in the playoffs!

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heh..or a bullpen that didn't allow like all but one inherited runner to score.

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GBBR. Doubleheader sweep. Outscored the Giants 9-0 on the day.

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at least 3 very hard hit balls, of which 2 required great plays. Yaz lead off with a single, then the 2nd batter (I think), crushed it to triples alley. Bellinger ran 100+ feet at top speed and just got it. Longoria, I think, got a single. 3rd out was a line drive in the gap and Pollack made a diving catch. 2nd Inning there was I think a leadoff double that he erased. After that he was pretty locked in, but the first couple of innings the Giants hit the ball but had nothing to show for it.

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and I think he could've come out to finish it but I htink he had thrown about 80+ so they opted to save his arm a little.

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MLS: season paused

https://twitter.com/MLS/status/1298790330813251585

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Also, A's may not play today according to Melvin.

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NHL: Coyotes lose '20 2nd round pick and '21 1st round pick due to combine violations

https://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/29746833/coyotes-forfeit-two-draft-picks-combine-testing-violations

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NBA: Bucks/Magic, Thunder/Rockets, Lakers/Blazers postponed as players support BLM following Jacob Blake shooting

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And the playoffs are back on. Though today's games are postponed. I assume either start sometime over the weekend. I assume this is with the Lakers and Clippers.

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/29752941/nba-players-decide-resume-playoffs

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And will the Lakers and Clippers pull out of playoffs? I saw a couple of different tweets that they did and another that said that leaving the conference call wasn't them pulling out of the playoffs.

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Will the playoff games scheduled for today go on? There was a talking head, I think Jay Williams, that said if the games go on today there will be definite blowback. Even Barkley said he thought the teams today should not play.

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They're going to push back to Friday or Saturday

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MLB: Reds/Brewers, Giants/Dodgers, Seattle/SD postponed as players support BLM following Jacob Blake shooting

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We shall see how many (if any) games are played today. A's/Rangers, Phillies/Nats are postponed. Red Sox/Blue Jays are a maybe right now.

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CAL

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Under Armour: Some insight as to UA's defence via UCLA. Unsurprisingly, they're using Force Majeure as their way out.

https://www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/29749328/ucla-sues-armour-terminating-280-million-sponsorship-deal-school

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I missed the Twitter drama with Luke Rubenzer. What happened?

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He went full MAGA and got called out by most of his former teammates.

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then deleted his twitter account

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seems he wasn't sold on the maga then? the true believers i've come across don't back down after being called out by their friends, and dumped by their families.

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or he's just a coward

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I would like to think that there is hope for him yet.

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Not at all surprising, but what did he actually tweet?

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