GAME05

Burger King's newest hamburger commercial shows grill marks on the side of the hamburger. What kinda weird grills are they using there?

Ultimately I want Jabari back because I like to root for good people and he seems like the rare player who genuinely enjoys Milwaukee. But even at full strength you've still got the issue of his atrocious defense. Maybe a different defensive system will help him, but he's probably always going to be a liability at that end. There's just something of a disappointing feeling with the Bucks for me right now. They used to be such an up-and-coming team but it's feeling again like they're back to the Kohl days of being permanently mediocre. They've got obvious holes on the team which will keep them from really contending, no cap space to just go and add anybody good, but also no high draft picks to look forward to.

There's no collusion. What few teams that would be willing to give Yu Darvish or Martinez $25M are saving their pennies to give Bryce Harper $40M+ next year. The luxury tax is a joke and very few teams could ever reach the $175M threshold, anyway. It hurts everyone. Rich-team owners have an excuse not to spend above that and they can pocket more revenue, top-tier FAs lose bidding teams which may be already at that cap, and lesser teams lose teams they could otherwise trade overpriced players to. Loria always got hate for pocketing revenue sharing, but he built a team just as a have-not team should, and I hope even more teams adopt the tank-to-win strategy because that's the only way for fans to finally get fed up and for the system to finally change. Selig's big answer to the wealth disparity was to hand poor teams money and expand the playoffs so more have-not teams made it, which does nothing but incentivizes the have-not teams to continue doing what they're doing.

It's effectively a Hail Mary--let the guy catch it and all you've got to do is stop him from running into the endzone. Easy for me to say as an armchair DB, though. But I do feel bad the guy is probably going to end up blaming himself for the whole loss. I think I'd rather see the Vikings win the SB then New England. Anyone but New England.

I realize that players care about the Pro Bowl to the extent that they might have bonuses tied to making one, but otherwise do they really care? Even rookies have enough money that flying their family out to Hawai'i for a while isn't any financial struggle. Plus who'd want to get injured in a Pro Bowl game?

The NCAA always says they want teams to schedule tough opponents, and that strength of schedule matters, but in the end teams really aren't punished for it at all.

Draymond Green said of the game last night that at the end of the 3rd and in the 4th Quarter the Bucks were just running the same play over and over again.

I used to bet sports, maybe $400 per week or so. I did a little better than 50% and the vig brought me back down to even. I always kept a spreadsheet on every penny I wagered. Once I did it long enough that breaking even was more a trend than an anomaly, I just stopped bothering. Although my personal rule for betting on Wisconsin teams was that I would only ever bet on them to not cover. I didn't want homerism to get in the way of making a right decision.

One thing I didn't like when Kidd was hired is that he's got money invested with the owner and they already had a friendly relationship. But that only means when it comes time to fire the coach, it likely delays things a year or two just because of that relationship, or the owner thinks of the money he'd lose if Kidd got fired and then pulled his money out. Sure Kidd doesn't really have a big man on the team, but he used to with Monroe and the team wasn't any better. And while Monroe wasn't the ideal type of center, few teams have ideal players at every position. I can't excuse a coach for not being able to manage around that since that's a coach's job in the first place. Not only should they be better this year, but they're at about max payroll right now with Parker due a small raise and none of the bad contracts coming off the books. It seems like you could peg this team for having the exact same roster next year. There's only so much better Giannis can get and he's 100% carrying this team to begin with.

Gutekunst (who looks exactly like Rudy) has said Wolf could be his right-hand man, but that he would certainly understand if he left. Loyalty is one thing, but I'm sure Wolf is itching to be a GM and doesn't want to wait ten years for his non-guaranteed turn to do so. I agree with the poster above that I certainly figured we'd be fine with Hundley as a backup, but isn't it the job of the HC and GM to recognize how preseason and practice play will translate to real games? And they had three years to do so.

Couldn't you just make concentrated cold coffee, even evaporate it more to make it concentrated-y-er, and add hot water to it? Isn't that essentially what's in those K-cups, concentrated coffee?

You'd think a radio station dedicated solely to talking about the NBA would be more than just LeBron LeBron LeBron, but nope.

Hit another small snowstorm on the way back, but this time I was in the middle of the West Virginia mountains. Only two hours left to drive, but that sorta scenario is too dangerous so I pulled over and waited it out. Had co-workers taking care of my cats when I was gone. They pulled in my driveway this morning, saw my vehicle there, and honked the horn to say hello. So I guess I didn't need sleep.

I've got about 15 years to go, but I'm wondering the same thing. I won't have a lot of money by any stretch, but being a bachelor I do think about the possibility of having one winter home and one summer home. I think it'll depend a lot on how much I might want to live near my brother or if I have close friends I'd like to hang out with regularly. Otherwise I'm thinking a winter house/condo in Belize and a small summer place in Wisconsin.

I've also heard Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare has a great single-player campaign. I actually own the game but haven't played the single-player yet. I've played the campaign for Black Ops III and it wasn't anything special. But you've got older iterations like Ghosts which you could probably get for a decent price. --------- I brought my Playstation VR machine home for Christmas and it was pretty fun to see the reactions people had to it. Everyone thought it was pretty neat and a lot of funny moments. I went into YouTube and loaded up some VR roller coaster videos and my brother had the idea that we should all stand up and watch it. It wasn't easy to keep your balance.

14 hour drive turned into 24.5. Low beans terrible. Windshield wiper fluid froze so had the salt obscuring view. Had a bottle in car, which froze when I poured it on the window.

Left late as opposed to pushing no sleep on a drive back to WI. Hit a deer an hour in and now am stuck in the storm. Forecast only said 0.75-1" of snow, but people here saying 9". The storm is shaped exactly the route I wanna drive. Don't wanna push it because the possibility of waiting three hours in 20 degree cold doesn't sound good. Risks outweigh the rewards of getting home earlier. Motel probably full and I'm in the middle of nowhere, anyway. Safe place here so why move, with warm big gas station if car gets too cold. Wait it out.

TooLiveBrew, you may also want to check out Battlefield1 and maybe Battlefield4. BF1 is a WW1 shooter. I used to play COD but I wasn't any good and didn't like the insults with the online community. With Battlefield, kill/death rate isn't crucial and certain classes get a a good amount of points for helping teammates. If you want to see how a game plays, download Twitch (free). I know I mentioned it earlier in the thread, but see Captain Shock's youtube videos if you're into Call of Duty. Great for strategy and map awareness which will definitely help your kill/death rate.

Kidd also says the expectations for the team are too high and that it's a young team, as he loses to the Bulls who average a year younger.

Reminds me of Jake Locker, who was going to be the #1 overall pick, stayed in school, and then went something like 10th. That's a lotta money to be turning down. Or maybe he still comes out, but saying this simply guarantees he won't go to the Browns but instead be a 2-4 pick and make basically the same money but on a different team. The Browns' history has been terrible, sure, but they have new personnel in place. I can blame the current people for the current problems, but can't blame them for mistakes made by others. At the very worst Rosen plays out his rookie contract, refuses to sign and extension and makes bank as a franchise player for three years, then he's a FA.

I think the "cut Rodgers" stuff was mostly said in jest by other GMs. Even if it were technically true, nobody could possibly expect the NFL to force a team to cut a HOF QB. That and Rodgers on the Browns would further hurt NFL ratings, which are down a LOT again this year. I hear that Elliot Wolf is starting to feel impatient and will be keeping his eyes open in the offseason. Like a top baseball prospect ready to come up and replace the soon-to-retire current starter, the Packers will have a big decision to make.

Fire the OC. Bennett is just there to implement what TT tells him to do. When you've got three very good WRs and every game two disappear, there's something wrong with your plan. Fire HC and DC. They've been together so long they're really a package deal at this point. Personally I like to evaluate coaches not on record, but if they're getting the most out of their players, and the coaching staff in GB has not, consistently. Sure they go to the playoffs almost every year, but when you've got stars at the best QB in football, that's a given, so I expect more. Cut Cobb. Three high-priced WRs is too many, and Adams and Cobb basically play the same position, making Nelson more valuable than Cobb. Second choice is get Adams on a one-year deal and cut both Cobb and Nelson, and draft a WR in the first round. Trade Ty Montgomery if someone would give up a 2nd round pick, otherwise carry three RBs next season and assume some injuries. Draft: Pass Rusher, OT, WR, OL and in that order. FA: A good crop of CBs available this coming year, and/or a pass rusher if one is available. Send TT to forcible retirement. He's put good players here, but there's a point when you have two patient GMs-in-waiting, it's better to hire one of them than to let both walk for another year or two of TT. Ultimately GB does have a pretty good team and would probably have been a SB contender if not for Rodgers and the OT injuries. But ultimately sticking with the status quo only gives you status quo, and what we've been doing just isn't good enough. All MM has done lately is lose to the Cardinals in the playoffs and miss a SB appearance due almost exclusively to bad playcalling against Seattle. And GB is in an enviable position to hire coaches because the new people won't have to do something like turn around an 0-16 Browns team and will be starting with an immediate SB contender.

I got the Playstation VR thing yesterday and it's pretty neat. Although I wonder how much replay-ability there's going to be with it. I load up a game, go "WOW!" and ten minutes later I'm wondering what else there is to play. Though my games selection is somewhat limited since I'm too s-scared to play a horror game. Yesterday I put in the tamest one and I didn't even make it to the main menu. Playing 2-D games or watching TV it feels like you're sitting alone in an otherwise-dark IMAX theater. I just played some Battlefield on it and the picture quality was certainly better than my projector and it felt really immersive, but the headset is too heavy to wear for an extended period of time. Though there's an app where you can watch sports games from the sideline in 3D, so I'm curious how a Bucks or Packers game will be with that (assuming I can get a single game and not have to get some big package thing). I'm going to take it home for Christmas so everyone in the family can watch as everyone else experiences it for the first time. Mom gets shark-diving and of course Dad gets the horror stuff (he hates it like me).

My boss is a big Ohio State fan. He's assured me that no matter what the outcome is, I'm going to lose.

One of the interesting things about Ohtani is that he's a really good hitter, too. He's already made it known that he'd like to hit on his off days. If his preference plays much of a part, he'd be a better fit on an AL club where he could DH.