unclevlad

Even if the theaters *could* be open...for what movies? What significant new releases have there been this year? I take no joy in saying that...the theaters are not going to survive, whether restrictions are greatly lifted or not. Lifting restrictions does not automatically translate to return to normal. I have no desire to see a movie in a mask, and LESS desire to be in a movie theater where masks would not be required. How many schools (at whatever level) have tried to re-open, then within a few weeks had to pull back and stop? Yes, there will be an increase in suicides, especially as the weather turns to winter. But how many people would die because they need an ICU bed that isn't there, or because the medical professionals are so heavily swamped with treating Covid-19 patients? How many *more* first responders would be going down? How many *more* finances will be wrecked due to hospital expenses? There's 170 ICU cases in El Paso right now...at, what, $25,000 a pop, if not more, on average? Heck, 570 in the hospital right now, and that's gonna be bad enough. AND we haven't even talked about the serious, long term or even permanent organ damage. There is no way to overplay how crucial it is to get this under control. And that is something at which we have utterly failed. 81,000 new cases today. Highest single day number in the US. So far.

If that's all true, then why is he constantly saying nothing is wrong, which is clearly BS? It could be pretty darn straightforward hand surgery that he's been told he can delay until after the election...altho the pace at which it seems to have advanced is disturbing, but we're not doctors and we haven't actually examined him. So it's possible...but if that's the case then not saying anything is worse, isn't it? archer: there's MANY other articles. I saw only one shot where he had a bandage on the back of his left hand. Some other shots MIGHT indicate that kind of discoloration around his upper lip, but those are much less clear. No. Besides, even if true, in the scales of malfeasance, this might put Biden at 5 pounds...but Trump's at 5 tons.

So it's OK with you because it's only 1 in 1000 that die. Also, your extrapolation is totally, completely wrong. The Texas population does NOT mirror the high-death-count areas such as New York. Heck, it's not going to be the same from city to city. The Texas age distribution is here: https://txdshs.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/ed483ecd702b4298ab01e8b9cafc8b83 Yes, it's heavily weighted to older...but here, it's 50+. And, yes, that's known and expected. But man..."even that is massively skewed"...so you're saying it doesn't matter? Because it darn sure sounds that way. Let's not even mention that El Paso will have no free ICU beds. Or that this is *after* taking whatever measures have been taken.

Wow. I'd downplay 1 pic; could always be faked, right? But there are just too many, from different sources, for me to think that's credible. So on the presumption it is real? That's not pretty, and it's gone from literally nothing (at least visually) to extensive involvement of most of his right hand.

The Raiders placed.... not 1... not 2... not 3.... but 4..... STARTING.....offensive linemen on the Covid list today. The NFL pulled the game against the Bucs from Sunday night and slotted an interesting matchup (Seahawks-Cards) in there instead, because they may have to delay the game. Well, YEAH...I don't recall all the ins and outs of the Covid list, and when people can return...but I don't think it's this Sunday. Raiders have 5 linemen on the roster...who are they gonna pick up this late? Cuz trying to play with just 5 is ludicrous. And let's not even begin to talk about how they're gonna perform. They were 3.5 point dogs...yeah, well, if the game does get played (and IMO it shouldn't be, but we know competitive balance isn't a factor...money is) I'd take the Bucs and give the points. And honestly, I'd probably be willing to give 10. Come on, this has the earmark of a *bloodbath.*

Unfortunately true. Didn't set a new record today but it did end up the 3rd highest, at over 74,000. Oh, and those Texas numbers...don't hold for El Paso. --1100+ cases TODAY...in a city of about 600,000 (EDIT: but the county is about 840 and the case count is for the whole county). That's about 1 person in 750. TODAY alone. ~currently 570 hospitalized, 170 in ICU...KFOX reports there are *11* ICU beds free. There's a crawl on it as well, and it's saying a 96% chance of running out of ICU beds in the next 3 weeks. EDIT: This is what you want to avoid. And when you relax too much, it's what you'll get. 1161 new cases for El Paso County...1167 for Dallas and Tarrant (Fort Worth) counties *combined*, with over 5x the number of people.

Ohhhhhhhhhh no.... With about 3 more hours, over 64,000 new cases today, which leaves open the potential that we might break the worst day so far, which was back in late July. We've already passed yesterday's full-day total, which was bad enough (63,000).

Hmm. Another one. Cantonese at idiomatic; Mandarin and Hakka at completely fluent. No linguist: Cantonese costs 4, Mandarin 2, Hakka 2. That's all fine. Linguist: Cantonese 3, Hakka 2 (still), Mandarin 1. It also seems like there's some other things going on. I was turning linguist on and off a few times, then deleted Mandarin. Cantonese first, Hakka second...4 and 3. Hakka first, Cantonese second...3 and 3.

The only thing Stephen A. takes into account is his personal favorites. OBJ has issues he'll seemingly always dismiss; he's NOT a Mount Rushmore receiver that SAS seemingly thinks he is. I think Mayfield's quite limited, to be sure, and to be sure, I can see his overpromotion and attitude, combined with a general LACK of performance/execution, causing locker room issues.

Take Clemson and give the points. I do find those lines amusing. They're not unusual in the typical early-season, cupcake and paycheck games, and sometimes in the gross conference mismatches like this one. It leads to the Quest For The Rout of the Week, and the debate...what's worse, 68-7 or 59-0? Think I mentioned that CSU-UNM was scrapped completely; it won't be made up, it's as if it was never scheduled. That's due to a serious uptick here in New Mexico. The University of Michigan just told their students to stay home, by *county* order. How is this gonna impact UM football? NO clue. And virus numbers have been rising across the board, with more and more places reinstituting some restrictions. So, get your sugar high while you can, Dabo; it might not be around for that long.

If the Rays relocate, in large part it's because the area doesn't support them. Their attendance in the last decade has been abysmal. For the last 56 years it's been less than 60% of the AL average, and well under 50% capacity. Well under 40% of capacity for 2018-9. Their attendance situation was notably worse than, say, Miami...until the fire sale by Jeter et al. and the fan revolt. Marlin's attendance was cut in half for those 2 years...but before then, it was 5-6000 people a night higher. I think the bigger difference in the Series is that TB can only score with the home run. Bottom of the 5th, Dodgers scored 4...walk, walk, double steal, strikeout, fielder's choice gets no outs (1 run scores), single (run scores), pop out, single, single for the last 2. Manufacturing runs isn't something the Rays can do to any great degree.

ARGGHHH!!!!!! The blind obstinacy of some people makes me SO BLOODY ANGRY.... So, the governor instituted some tighter restrictions; New Mexico has had an *alarming* rise in new cases; particularly in several counties. (The UNM-CSU football game was scratched due to spread rates in Bernalillo County, where UNM is.) So that got posted on the local neighborhood app. One......person....posted this: ARGH!!!!!!! Dona Ana County has about 200,000 people total...and has had almost 1100 new cases in the last 2 weeks. If the demographics hold, we've had about 4900 total cases, and 63 deaths. Figure that, for the most part, deaths don't occur within 2 weeks, so that's 63 deaths out of about 3800 cases, let's say...which means around 15-17 more people will die from this, just from infections in the last 2 weeks.

So the background for this character concept is he was gonna be from around the old Soviet Union; Belarus ultimately looks like it'll work. That meant, for languages, I was gonna go with Byelorussian, Russian, and...what the heck, Ukranian. Linguist is NOT enabled Byelorussian: idiomatic, 4 points. Russian: completely fluent (3* points) Ukranian: completely fluent (3* points) HD is giving me the Ukranian for 2 points, as expected, but the Russian for 1 point. The 3 languages are Very Similar, so the 1 point reduction is expected...unless Russian and Byelorussian have become Overlapping...? That would do it...

BTW, I did that with the online version 2.5. 3.0 has more details and more models. Playing a bit with it while I'm also finishing off Simoom's background...he's turning out to be a walking contradiction.

Stats of the night from ESPN during the first half.... #1: Cowboys have the worst TO margin in the league. -2 for the half. #2: Cowboys opponents have...I believe the stat was, had 1st downs in the red zone, 14 times. They've scored...14 touchdowns. That second stat should make the defensive coaches extremely nervous. Did y'all see the sterling matchup for TNF? I'm hoping there's a rainout in the WS for game or game 2, so I have something else on offer... Joe Buck's racking up the frequent flyer miles in DROVES. Texas Saturday; Tampa Sunday; Buffalo Monday; Texas Tuesday; Philly Thursday; Texas Friday; not sure if he'll do the WS or NFL Sunday, but could be another trip there, then back to Texas for game 6 if the WS goes that far.

I suspect that 'dastardly' is how the word evolved, but I'd have to look at the etymololgy....

The part that is somewhat surprising is it's so...pick your word. Blatant? Egregious? Flagrant? Quick, Robin! To the Thesaurus!!!

Some of you probably know this site but it was new to me. HeroMachine.com. Needs Flash; they're working on that, since Flash is gonna go bye-bye fairly soon, but the online version is free. You can buy a copy for Mac or PC pretty cheap too. This is Simoom. Simoom is a regional name for a very, very nasty desert wind...VERY hot, very dusty. That inspired his power set...a few different types of blast, can lock you into a sandstorm that's all in your head, can create a region of blowing dust that blocks all sight (but not his), desolid (but at full END so not for long). I think the visuals come out quite nicely; wanted a little different head gear, but that one works. I'm probably going to buy the PC version cuz it was fairly easy to use, and it's fun to do this. And I can't draw for squat.

Philly supporters get PO'd when the Santa snowball barrage gets replayed after umpteen years, but then they go do this, showing some things seemingly never change.

That....is unreal. Or maybe not, it was Philly. At the very least, a few morons need to be barred forever from the stadium, if they can be IDd.

My take on this is, we're not building pitchers or hitters, we're building robots. Pitchers are trained to throw hard, harder, hardest; hitters learn one single, grooved swing. Both are massively overtrained to do that, and very nearly, that alone...robots. Brandon Lowe showed the good and bad sides of this, when he bunted against the shift. He's having a *rough* postseason at the plate, so...ok, yeah, he did try to switch around, and bunt. He pulled it off...it was a horrible bunt, but with no one in position, it worked just fine, thank you...got him a leadoff hit. The play to advance the runner does have issues, tho; Braves have the best possible situation for scoring at least one run, I think...runners on 2nd and 3rd, no out...and *botch* it. They have bases loaded, none out, and get nothing. Is it the power pitching...or the robotic, can't adjust, gotta blast every pitch out of the ballpark, approach to hitting? If the '98 Yankees could be reprised today, I think they'd win 120 games because they knew how to play. EDIT: another aspect that I question is, do the metrics start considering the negative impact on the pitcher when he has runners on? Because that's another common theme...pitchers don't like pitching with men on, and they tend to not do it as well. Defenses feel more pressure; a mistake often goes from costing a base, to costing a run.

Whoa!! Trump can speak truth!! From the story Tom posted above...the adjective picked is spot on. "We have unbelievable vaccines coming out real soon. And the therapeutics are unbelievable."

There is reason to be skeptical but disregarding them completely is throwing the baby out with the bath water. If nothing else: you don't hear CNN or the NY Times talk about the deep state, and that whole....situation. Conspiracy elements have been part of the conservative media for quite some time; Rush, IIRC, was a pretty big proponent. And fearmongering certainly has been; the two are a natural fit. Heck, look at Fox's talking heads on the coronavirus and climate control..."it's all a big lie." What is that if not a conspiracy theory?

Baserunning is ABYSMAL these days. I can't even begin to count the number of times I saw a first or third out made at 3rd base, for example. Runner on 1st, 2 out, down 2...gets picked off. This play. Not knowing when to go halfway or 1/3 of the way or back to the bag altogether. Personally, I blame coaching across the board. At lower levels, they're too busy trying to get the basics in place. Later on, tho, the obsession with the grooved swing, with the killer fastball...situational ball goes by the wayside. There's too much of a rush to get the talented players to the bigs; the lesser players are training their basics to move up. So it probably doesn't happen in the minors enough.

Playoff rule #1. TAKE ADVANTAGE OF YOUR OPPORTUNITIES. Playoff rule #2. MISTAKES KILL YOU. Runners on 2nd and 3rd in a tie ball game with none out for the Braves. Runner goes on contact...on a, IIRC, one-hopper to 3rd. Short throw. Runner's dead meat. THEN TO MAKE MATTERS WORSE...the stupid runner on 2nd botches trying to take 3rd. He's got to commit fully when the runner starts turning towards home...he hesitated. And got thrown out. Base running 2002...gotta hate it. From 2nd and 3rd, none out, probably expect to score, what, 1 to 1.5 runs? To 2 out, runner on 1st. Fat chance at that point. Fine, the game was still tied but that kinda thing is a killer. And so it turned out. Braves never sniffed after that.