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stephenrjking
History
- Member for
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Recent Comments
| Date | Title | Body |
|---|---|---|
| 5 hours 22 min ago | I'm rooting for the meteor. |
I'm rooting for the meteor. Ed: Philly just got hit by one. |
| 5 hours 23 min ago | This broadcast is proof that |
This broadcast is proof that the SEC is running ESPN. How, you ask? The SEC doesn't like sports that threaten to supersede SEC football in popularity. So they ask: "How can we make a thrilling playoff game on national television as uninteresting as possible?" The answer is this broadcast team. |
| 5 hours 38 min ago | Hubie's fine but this PbP is |
Hubie's fine but this PbP is totally deadening this Bucks-Celtics game. A huge Celtics comeback, teams now trading haymakers, and he sounds like he's describing a middle-aged man putting a carton of milk in a refrigerator. |
| 21 hours 53 min ago | Also: *shakes fist at Jeff |
Also: *shakes fist at Jeff Jackson* |
| 1 day 3 hours ago | I agree. There's nothing left |
I agree. There's nothing left to gain there. I would guess that he would rather go to the OHL than to stay in Plymouth for another year, but that's just a guess. If it's correct, though, that suggests that the reason he hasn't already made such a move is that Michigan is a real option, perhaps his first option. Which makes the question of his schooling the big question. Tough job for an elite athletes to finish a lot of school in a few months. Lots of guessing. But I want to believe. |
| 1 day 3 hours ago | That bit about Sauer's mom, |
That bit about Sauer's mom, man. Tough. The tough thing about sports is that, for some people, there is no wonderful redemption at the end of the tunnel. Billy Sauer's legacy is, more than anything, being the weak point that cost some ridiculously loaded Michigan teams shots at the national title.
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| 1 day 4 hours ago | A little more on the Hughes |
A little more on the Hughes watch: Packer, an invaluable Michigan hockey resource on twitter, noted that Mel Pearson retweeted a couple more USA U-18 team updates featuring Jack Hughes without comment. Mel's got an interesting twitter game and those RTs alone are more buzz for Hughes than anyone that talks about Mississauga, the team that holds his OHL rights. Mississauga fans that bother to talk about the team on the Hockey's Future board consider Hughes to be a wasted draft pick, and the team is drawing poorly enough in Mississauga (a perpetual problem in that market) that the owner has whispered about moving. Anyway, Hughes isn't likely to go to Mississauga. I have to believe Mel thinks there's a decent chance he comes to Michigan. Anyone remember when Werenski wound up taking the plunge? My guess is we'll find out about the same time of the year. |
| 1 day 20 hours ago | Werenski and Hughes (who |
Werenski and Quinn Hughes (who could leave himself) aren't the #1 overall pick. #1 overall picks always, always spend the following season with their NHL club. According to Wikipedia's list of #1 overall picks you have to go back to Erik Johnson, the #1 pick in 2006, to find a player who didn't spend the entire season with the parent club, and he spent a whopping one game playing for the minor league team. Prior to that, excepting for Neil Yakupov spending time elsewhere during the lockout, you have to go back to Owen Nolan to find a #1 overall pick non-goalie who didn't spend his entire first season with the NHL level club, and he only played six games in the minors that year. Not since Joe Murphy was drafted #1 overall in 1986 has a #1 overall pick skater failed to spend nearly the entire season in the NHL. Respectfully, teams don't draft players #1 overall that aren't ready to play right away. If they think Jack Hughes isn't ready, they won't draft him. He's not playing in college, junior, or even the AHL in 2019-2020. He's playing in the NHL. |
| 1 day 20 hours ago | Interesting thoughts. Not |
Interesting thoughts. Not sure I agree with all of your conclusions, but I enjoy the reasoning. Worth noting: in some cases the term "dying" is a misnomer. "Contracting" is a better term to me for what is happening to brick-and-mortar retail. There's always going to be a market for some in-person shopping, but it is getting tighter and the effects aren't yet fully known. Innovation is non-linear and it can be hard to predict the impact new technologies will have. We aren't close to flying cars, but everyone has a smartphone, etc. I think there's good potential for AI processing to grow significantly in its role in society (low-level accounting as you mentioned) but as argued above me there's no telling what industries may or may not be impacted. |
| 1 day 21 hours ago | Not sure what's remarkable |
Not sure what's remarkable about a guy going to a 6pm softball game on a Friday night. I mean, I wouldn't choose to do that with my time frequently, but it's an evening game that a lot of jobs don't overlap. How and where do YOU make money? |
| 1 day 21 hours ago | Anyone know what surface they |
Anyone know what surface they are installing? The color maize will be really interesting. The 2003 install was way too orange; the last install matched the brighter Adidas color well and I liked it, but the new maize on the unis once again clashed. |
| 2 days 1 hour ago | I think this is a great trend |
I think this is a great trend and hope it grows. It's good for the student half of the equation, guys taking advantage of the opportunity. It's good for the athlete portion, too. More time on campus training and bonding with teammates. For guys who stay four or five years, their prime athletic years have less academic pressure. And guys whose careers aren't going as well as hope have an option to transfer. Which also opens roster space for the team. Everyone wins here, as long as the classes are legit. The grad transfer rule is terrific. |
| 2 days 1 hour ago | Hearing from the NYT profile |
Hearing from the NYT profile that Hughes isn't accelerating, accurate or not, is a big bucket of cold water. If he's the #1 overall pick next year, and there's no reason to believe he won't be, this coming season is his last on a roster that isn't in the NHL. Accelerating his schooling, a challenging undertaking for anyone much less a full-time star athlete, is not his only option. The OHL is certainly still an option, and so is staying where he is. |
| 3 days 3 hours ago | There's a much better chance |
There's a much better chance of me seeing MIchigan in person when they play in Minneapolis. So it's good to see that MIchigan will be going to Minneapolis twice next season. |
| 4 days 3 hours ago | The "big picture" is a lot |
The "big picture" is a lot more than just what the defense is doing. There is the state of the players, the refs, the score, the game situation, clock management. He has to know the entire state of the team. Andy Reid, for example, has had a notoriously hard time with clock management. Why? He's been busy calling the plays. ' One of the guys on the coach's film room this past post season (Gundy, maybe?) discussed why he eventually had to give up playcalling. And how it helped him. Because there is a lot going on that is outside of who is calling plays. The head coach doesn't have to be involved in the defensive playcalls to need to be attentive to what's going on while the defense is on the field. |
| 4 days 3 hours ago | Yeah. He has no role in the |
Yeah. He has no role in the NBA right now. Bench player that can create scoring? Not good enough. 3-and-D? Not good from 3. Incredible can't-miss athlete? He's athletic, but guys who get drafted for that are guys like GRIII, who was on an entirely different level. He needs to develop offensively a lot to be a draftable prospect. He might; he's playing for the right guy. But he's not close to the NBA right now. |
| 4 days 4 hours ago | Engler is there because the |
Engler is there because the board wanted exactly what they're getting. He was hired with a mandate to act pretty much exactly as he as acted. It's not hard to tell, given that they were talking about how great Lou Anna Simon was because she was a great fundraiser at the same time victims were begging for her presence as they testified in court. The board has a very narrow view of what the problem is for MSU: Liability. They hired Engler because they knew he would do a good job at the narrow scope of issue that they had in mind. There was no consideration of healing, of public image, of taking care of the victims, of learning what went wrong to fix it and prevent it from happening again. Engler isn't the guy for those things and they knew it when they brought him in. This is the equivalent to bringing in Sonny Corleone to fight your mob war or Bob Probert to anchor your fourth line. You know what they are and you know what they will do. The board called this play and they hired the man to do it.
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| 4 days 4 hours ago | The problem with CK2 is that |
The problem with CK2 is that the program defaults to either an extremely small font on 4k screens or a virtually unplayable VGA look if you try to draw the screen size down, and the plug-in to fix it has been difficult to find. But it's way cool. |
| 4 days 4 hours ago | It sounds like Pep has the |
It sounds like Pep has the role that Drev had for most of last year. Though recall that Drev got moved down to the field level late in the season, which turned out to be extremely telling. Not sure I'm enthralled with Pep calling the plays, but someone has to and Pep has more time to familiarize himself with Harbaugh's system. It's pretty clear that Harbaugh (and basically all HCs) needs someone calling the down-to-down plays to allow him to focus on the larger picture during a game. But Pep will still basically be calling the gameplan that Harbaugh wants him to call. This does put more responsibility on Harbaugh in the bigger picture. That is, if a playcall is bad, he's the one that is telling the coaches how he wants the game called and has the final say on what game plan is brought in, and of course he can veto and/or supply any call he wants. So the first time Michigan takes a sack while all of the receivers are running 15-yard routes and people start calling for Pep's head again, remember that if Harbaugh doesn't want Pep to make those calls he is free to delete those plays from the appropriate area of the playsheet and to override the call from the sideline. If Pep calls a play, it's because Harbaugh has equipped him to call it.
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| 4 days 7 hours ago | This is a great thread. Lots |
This is a great thread. Lots of good info from people. I don't consider myself a novice but I've learned stuff. |
| 4 days 7 hours ago | I appreciate airlines with a |
I appreciate airlines with a good sense of humor. Spirit has rated high in that category in my experience. Of course, I'm biased. I flew Spirit to Florida and back in 2003 when my Dad died in Fort Myers (after a long bout with cancer, but was on vacation when his body started shutting down). I took an early Spirit flight back up to Detroit Metro the morning after he passed away, alone. We had a long taxi and the stewardess spent most of it on the PA cracking quite funny jokes on the way to the terminal. It was perfect for where I was at the time, and I'm glad I was on that plane. |
| 4 days 7 hours ago | 6'5. Flew a middle seat on |
6'5. Flew a middle seat on Spirit a couple of months ago. It was horrid, but it was very cheap and they could not be more clear on their website about what you get; I might pay that extra next time. And I flew United even more recently, on a plane (737, eerily enough) with DirecTV in the seatbacks. Because there was a screen, the armrests were locked into place. I was with my wife, which allowed me to lean into her, but I had every bit the same space constrictions I had on Spirit with far fewer options to change. Anyway, I don't resent Spirit. I do concur with my above 6'5 colleague about seat leaning to some extent, though I should point out that with where my knees are people in front of me find leaning back physically impossible and stop trying after a while. There is physically nowhere for my legs or their seatback to go. The bruises go away after a while. |
| 4 days 7 hours ago | I can't believe how badly |
I can't believe how badly they've handled this. The board is absolutely out to lunch. Usually, people know a lot more than their critics give them credit for. Warde Manuel, etc. This is not one of those cases. The MSU trustees have done one of the worst jobs I have ever seen, from the way they handled the Simon situation, to their choice and mandate for Engler (I'm not the hater many are, but he has clearly been brought on to protect the university from liability at all costs and those costs are mounting fast) to their public statements to the other people they have hired. This is all rugged give-no-inch defense, Hitler ordering no retreat to his generals on the Eastern Front in the face of the massive Soviet offensives. It is completely unsuited for the situation or for the times, and is a growing, permanent stain on the reputation and history of an important institution. |
| 4 days 21 hours ago | Where are you flying out of? |
Where are you flying out of? Sometimes flexibility with airports yields real price gains. I prefer flying out of Duluth, but flying out of MSP can often save me hundreds and I always check for options. Also, Spirit is fine if you accept that you get what you pay for. They're extremely up front about the fact that they nickel-and-dime you for anything beyond a very small middle seat with a personal item at your toes. |
| 4 days 23 hours ago | Winning builds fans. I freely |
Winning builds fans. I freely admit I was not as plugged in to the basketball team at the time, though I did follow their progress--I always followed the hockey team more intently. But my intensity has grown as the program has roped me in. Back then, you were happy they made it. Now, people show up at places like DC and MSG expecting and getting greatness. |
| 5 days 27 min ago | When Wellesley College chose |
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| 5 days 2 hours ago | You have no clue how Harbaugh |
You have no clue how Harbaugh handled or didn't handle this situation. Given that Mbem-Bosse has been out of the program since November, there's no real evidence that Harbaugh had anything to do with his current mental state at all. And if you think when someone is threatening violence that the subject of such threats likely could have handled it better, well, you're off your rocker and you've never encountered someone who is completely irrationally violent or angry. |
| 5 days 2 hours ago | This is a "fog of war" issue |
This is a "fog of war" issue here. We don't know exactly what he meant; some people speculated that the reason he was in trouble was that he was in possession of a firearm, and he is in such a statement proclaiming that he was unjustly treated. But we have no idea. We do know that other tweets could be read as threatening. |
| 5 days 2 hours ago | Oh, I know what you mean. |
Oh, I know what you mean. I've dealt with quite a bit of it myself. However, there's too much we don't know about his situation, and might never know, to understand everything. My point was more that people who are following base emotional impulse may be more in "cry-for-help" mode but are still capable of doing some pretty dangerous things. Some suicide attempts, for example, are "cries for help." Sadly, not all of them fail as intended. |
| 5 days 3 hours ago | How does this make it a |
How does this make it a "circus?" Harbaugh has been virtually silent for the last six months. No weird stunts, no strange recruiting stories (pretty slim in high-profile recruits, too), no exceptional publicity. Some fans have even criticized him for seeming disinterested. This is a player, who has been off of the team for months, having a meltdown of some kind. How is this the program's fault in any way? The answer: It isn't. This specious attempt to discern a larger "theme" is just imaginary. |
