unclevlad

What's written in the books sometimes includes hard-to-recognize factors, too. But yeah, sometimes the published costs don't work out very well, even considering those factors I can extract from similar items.

From NYT email about DeSantis and Florida: This is why, IMO, the modern far right is so much more of a threat. They're not simply imposing from the top, they're also strengthening the roots.

Angels are beating the Blue Jays 7-2. Buck Martinez, the Blue Jays analyst, is a square shooter...always has been. He's not a club apologist. Blue Jays have been playing poorly; there was a base running incident where a runner at first jogged on a ball up the middle. So he and Schulman have been talking. Buck made a big point. He feels that ball players don't feel enough pressure to keep their jobs...that there's a general lack of depth. That's why you see the inconsistent performances, the repeating of mistakes, the refusals to adapt...if the players aren't worried about being replaced, why should they? This doesn't apply to rookies on min contracts...which can be a lot of players on some teams...but once a player's getting guaranteed money, getting a 'paltry' 3-4 mill a year...it's a whole lot harder to send him down. He noted one factor, applicable just in the last couple years: teams only have 4 farm teams. I'll add, more broadly, simple expansion...most of the top 400 players are already in the majors for much of the year (counting long-term injury call-ups), so you're already down the depth chart quite a ways. There's very broad conservatism...the fear of doing worse is largely stronger than the hope of making a mild improvement.

I'd be stunned if any international league or association holds a sporting event in Russia. The invasion, sure...but also Brittney Griner. On the personal level, this is the incident that would have me saying no chance, no way, no how am I entering Russian jurisdiction.

League's policy is that whatever happens in practice, is left to the team to discipline. That includes practice against another team. Donald didn't really do anything that doesn't happen from time to time, when teams hold joint practices. Heck, sometimes just during normal practices. Yeah, the Bills GM isn't looking smart. He's claiming the severity wasn't really explained...but if one is briefed by the guy's lawyer, you MUST assume you're getting a highly sanitized account. That's the lawyer's job. But hey, what's the NFL without domestic violence or inappropriate conduct charges? Funniest thing in the PFT comments: do the Browns need a punter?

The only one like that I've personally read was Straczynski's Superman: Earth One...and only volume 1. I had no problem there, altho I know lots of others did, because to me, only details were changed...mostly modernized from a 30's or 40's basis to a 90's or 00's basis. One can argue that the ongoing development was...more problematic. But I also liked Thor having issues after the issues in the latter MCU films. However, to your point, you want Clark to work through the issues to develop the moral core...or it's not Superman. I think the entire reboot notion just won't work enough of the time. Rather than a reboot...move forward. Retire Clark...marry him off to Lois, make the happy ending, bring in Jon as their kid. Or make it a little weirder...age Lois, let her die. Clark becomes involved with some other female hero...possibly Diana. THEY have a kid. The mix of powers is...non-standard. Build from there. I wonder if they got leery of that because that's kinda what they tried with different Green Lanterns, but they made those new GLs putzes.

Does seem likely but it's also possible that Chapman messed up afterwards. https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/adult-health/in-depth/tattoos-and-piercings/art-20045067#:~:text=Bloodborne diseases.,hepatitis B and hepatitis C. Seems stupid at any point during the season, as long as you're on the active roster. Tatis can go get some at this point, no problem.......... Yeah, I think I first heard this on MLB Tonight, and one of those guys made the same comment. NOT good judgment, even if the risk is typically low these days.

A "lab" can also be a type of practice/development area. I take OPs notion as basically a holodeck approach.

This is if you do still care... Butternut squash. Clean out the seeds, break down into a few manageable chunks (also makes it easier to seed), salt, seasonings, a bit of oil. Slow roast at 275 for 45-60 minutes. Let cool. The skin can be cut off easily at this point. Messy, what with the oil and all. After that? Measured amount of roasted squash, about 50% more liquid, by weight. I use unsweetened almond milk. Salt, sweetener (light touch to start), seasonings...tonight was five spice and cinnamon. Puree til smooth; I use my smoothie blender. Then just heat over low heat to avoid burning, and covered to prevent splatter (and evaporation...the squash makes a thick emulsion by trapping the free water, so you don't have much spare liquid.) Sooooo good. Works with acorn squash, altho that's even milder than butternut, and pumpkin, preferably pie pumpkin. I love fall. I wish I could get the array of fall seasonal beers that were around, 15-20 years ago, but...not available locally....

In the What the......... category Aroldis Chapman has been put onto the 15 day IL due to, apparently, a rather nasty infection in his leg. The WTF aspect? It was from getting a tattoo. Can't make this stuff up...

If you bar the direct route, then you should absolutely bar the indirect route...especially if it makes it cheaper. And this is just getting way too convoluted for my taste. Actually, I can see how this would work in that case...as long as one kept it highly specific. This is from a wiki article on a related practice: So it's a binary agent...the triggering agent, arsenic, is there to produce the reaction...THEN the second component reacts with the immune response, in whatever form, and *boom.* There's precedent for this. Parathion and malathion are both pesticides. In humans, malathion is generally the more lethal, because parathion is neutralized by the liver, IIRC. However, a tiny dose of malathion knocks this response out...and at that point, parathion is the more lethal. Believe that's correct, anyway...I'm going back, cuz I'm pretty sure this was in Silent Spring, Rachel Carson's seminal early work on environmental damage. I think some snake or spider venoms work that way too...some are exceptionally complex, and have components that disrupt the response to other components, so the whole is nastier than the parts. Alternately, the binary agent's secondary component reacts with the secondary metabolic byproducts of the body's response to the main toxin. But again, these are quite specific.

Guy needs to stop being so easily distracted... There's a lot to be said for starting a reset by cutting WAY back. I'm looking over what DC's got out now...and it is a jumbled mess. NINE different Batman series? One thing tho: being tied to mega corps means that suddenly paying living wage rates for pages seems unduly optimistic. It's not how they work. If the core talent isn't there, then the quality can't be, even if there's better editorial control.

Yeah, they weren't bad ideas, it's the way they were introduced, and the way the whole thing was such a massive retcon. Retcons BAD.

Anyone else see this? Braves are up big, 9th inning. Pitching isn't all that sharp...couple runs scoring, couple more on. Not worrisome by any means, but not what a manager wants to see. But then, the pitcher, Jackson Stephens, takes one *SQUARE* on the forehead...near the hairline, above the right eye. OOOF. He never drops down to the ground, but there was no question he *had* to come out of the game. Leaving him in would be reckless. News today, he was put on the 7 day concussion list, but there was no further word. Also saw: Adidas just dropped Tatis after his PED suspension. That's gonna sting; got to figure he had a *nice* sized deal with them. He may lose others, too; he's been one of the most prolific, high-profile pitchmen from MLB this year. Final note: we haven't hit September...and the Dodgers' number to clinch a playoff berth is 17.

What I saw, to the limited extent I paid any attention... --horrible art. First and foremost. SO bad that it completely disrupted any attempt to tell a story, at least for me. --Continuity disruptions. I think the big one for me was the death of Superman...only to bring him back in so many bizarre ways. --The storylines I saw got to be beyond ridiculous, MUCH of the time.

Went to school in Boulder back in the Big 8 days. HATED Nebraska. Partly because they beat us like a drum...we'd hang with Oklahoma some years before getting waxed, but Nebraska games were a disaster. But more...second worst fans I remember. LSU showed up freshman year; they were worse. Then Nebraska. So, yeah, they're not exactly on my favorites list. And it's been a source of continual amusement that they fire Frank Solich, who gets them into the final poll top-10 3 times...and never get close. 4 or more losses every year, only marginally relevant nationally one time. And then of course, they bail... And during Covid, Frost was a jerk. So...yeah, it's almost as good when they lose as when the Cowboys do. Utah State 31, NoConn(test) 20, 6 minutes left. In the words of your hero, Mr. P.... R e l a x <ducks the barrage and flees....>

What level of LS: poison? It's an extremely vague, horribly scaled power, and the examples in HD make no sense if you know anything about poisons. Ophidotoxins...? No such thing. I presume it means snake bites, but those are all over the board. Rattlesnake venom disrupts muscle tissue, IIRC; cobra venom's a neurotoxin. Generally, I'd discourage something like this. On the one hand, it won't come into play very often, unless it's any level of LS that's poison-related, and that becomes pretty weird to explain. In general, tho, I don't like attacks like this, where it feels like "oh I'm gonna hose you *because* you spent points on something to do you some good." NNDs should only be "when you don't have..." and never, IMO, "when you do have...."

I'd grant that one. Someone could pull a dagger, and the character's STR would still apply. Plus, of course, doing killing dice to the entangle. But just allowing some movement isn't enough in itself. Go with the Limited Power guideline...how often would this make the entangle less effective? A funky speedster-like spinning power isn't something I'd expect to see. That's not to say there might not be some other examples where it might apply, but it seems unlikely to me.

Nebraska coach Scott Frost's job couldn't have been very secure coming into this season. 4 years, combined 15-29; 10-25 in conference play. So today...Nebraska plays a good first half, but gives up a late drive; Northwestern has a 17-14 halftime lead. The second half starts out GREAT for the cornheads...force punt, TD, force fumble, TD. 28-17. Awesome. Then the roof caved in. A VERY questionable onside kick fails. NW slams it down the short field. Nebraska's possessions for the rest of the game: punt, punt, INT, punt, punt, INT that ended the game, as NW got the go-ahead TD, and ran a pretty good clock-burning drill. 9 plays, 4 minutes, forced Mini Red to burn 2 TOs. In those 6 drives, they ran only 23 plays total. One can expect mistakes, especially this week, but this is another close loss, and another blown lead. That's pattern and practice. It's hard to gauge Northwestern, in that they've been good and bad...10-3, 9-5, 3-9, 7-2, 3-9 the last 5 years. (One has to wonder about conference scheduling, due to the bloated size of the conference. There are years when a team can miss most of the better teams, and years when they get overwhelmed.) But this was a conference loss, and it's another one in the bad pattern that's been Frost's tenure. And with his record, one can't expect patience from the boosters. I note CBS Sports rates the heat at 5 for Frost...win or be fired. They call it the hottest seat in the country...only Herm Edwards also gets a 5, for various reasons they mention. Bleacher Report opines bowl or bust, as does Yahoo Sports. (They point out that Frost's buyout became much more school-friendly, not a good sign.)

He should've been shaved.......................

Who's bigger? Warner's owned by AT&T. They're the biggest on the block. There were anti-trust issues before this, and trying to combine with someone else would clearly draw regulators' eyes. Whether they could stop it might be a different question, of course. But half their problem is the massive debt load taken on to manage this merger...Disney has the same problem to, IIRC, a somewhat lesser degree. https://www.zippia.com/advice/largest-media-conglomerates/ I'm not pushing for Warner or DC to fail, but I'm also not in favor of keeping them on life support if they've so badly mangled their business affairs. It's plausible to me that the only way they survive is to be spun off, to re-think their entire product strategy assuming the numbers the guy cited were even vaguely correct, and to start over with material people want to read and see. And going back just a bit further, how many times did people go to see the first 3 Star Wars? But I think Ternaugh's right; delaying the streaming and video releases won't work consistently. There might be times when you can, but those windows are likely narrow...during summer, there's multiple blockbusters coming out, for example. As a side thought: people may not go as often because ticket prices are higher. To a point, it's partly the theaters...the 2 first-run ones here have gone to larger seats, but fewer, and often have high-end sound. Those seats run, IIRC, $11, which is about 50% more, after adjusting for inflation, than ET tickets. And the practice of no discounts is firmer, at least for the first couple weeks. I saw the 3 LOTRs mid-week, mid-afternoon...Christmas season, so it was pretty crowded still..and got discounts. The biggest ones now, don't do that. YMMV on that; Allen Theaters pretty much has a monopoly locally.

The alt-right doing what it does best...distort and demonize.

Look at The Batman. Started in 4400 theaters. 4th week, still over 4000. 2nd Friday, $4200 per location. 3rd Friday, $2500. 4th Friday, $1400. 5th Friday, 3700 locations, $825 per. 6th Friday, still at 3250 locations, but now it's down to $550 per. Those who wanted to see it...have seen it. And this roll-off is for the 4th highest grossing (domestic only) movie this year. Domestic take total: $370M. Of that, $300M came in the first 17 days...the 3rd weekend. That's 80% of the revenue in that period, and therefore...I'd guess, 65-70% of tickets. The initial part of the run is when the fewest discounts are given.

And on 216, Escaping From Entangles...one of the methods is Contortionist to get out of handcuffs. Contortionist implies movement of body parts. I generally dislike making too much of SFX vs. SFX, but this might be one of the cases where you may have to. I'll disagree on one thing: the rule you cite does say "typically" it renders a character fully immobile. Personally, I'd be very hard-pressed to allow a limitation when it doesn't, because the SFX might allow one type of escape, but not another. If you're going to use SFX issues in your adjudication process, some seeming mechanical limits have to disappear, IMO. A sphere completely surrounding someone, assuming it's basically solid (no holes), blocks Shrinking and Desolid that can't pass through solids, as well as alternate desolid below fully desolid.

Because for whatever combination of factors, I don't think it works that way. Assuming a Thursday or Friday intro, I'm pretty sure the first weekend is the largest weekend most of the time...and if not the first, then the 2nd. After that, I believe the drop-off is typically steady, perhaps even sharp. Here's one movie: Knives Out! Last theatrical I saw. Good fun, altho Daniel Craig's accent was less than convincing. https://www.boxofficemojo.com/release/rl3204875777/ Note that about 25% of its box office was in the first 5 days. And while it lasted...note the decline in the # of theaters, as it likely moved from a prime spot, to secondary in the first-run theaters, and down to the budget theaters. Also note that it had a Thanksgiving release, got its good pub, then did another about $35M over Christmas. But also note: this was also the type of film...high-level ensemble cast, appealing to a broad audience as a mix of comedy, drama, and mystery. A superhero movie has a LOT harder time doing this. For a comparison, The Batman: https://www.boxofficemojo.com/release/rl67732993/ First weekend (Fri-Sun): $134M. Second weekend: $66M. Third weekend: $37M. Fourth weekend: $20M. Fifth weekend: $10M. I believe, by and large, this is the pattern for supers movies...typically to a rather smaller degree of course.