GAME05

It seems like schools should be paying for coach memberships to everything, just for the sake of the kids being eligible for more awards. I'm acquaintances with a top-tier college girls coach and he's going everywhere to recruit constantly, but I would only figure (or maybe I'm wrong about it) that getting awards would make a difference in getting recognized and scouted by college recruiters.

I picked a 180k peak at the start and haven't moved from that, so it's great to see where on the same page. Especially since I remember your posts from last cycle and so have a lot of respect for your opinion. I was buying from last October and have put money in monthly, and it bugs me that we've seen 2-5- even 20x from a lot of these projects so far yet I haven't seen near that yet. Ultimately I think my mistake was going with too-small projects to start and not just riding the established large-cap projects for a while. I should have played the BTC-->Large MC-->Small MC money flow better than I did. It also bugs me that I put a market order in for a Grayscale product and immediately lost $1000. Guess I won't do that again! (I doubled up on my Grayscale Chainlink Trust holding.) I have Karrat for gaming but am otherwise riding mid-cap AI projects like Neural and 0x0 and HashAI. Axie hit $8b last cycle and that's probably a good aim for Karrat. Though I'll be dumping it before their big April 18th VC unlock. $1-10b I think is a good target for the mid-cap AI projects, roughly a 10x from here. Seems to be a little more optimism that Trump is indeed going to add BTC to the federal reserve, granted what any politician *says* isn't worth much. But hopefully so and then China and Saudi Arabia follow. China allowing BTC buys on the mainland is always possible and would certainly crush that $180 prediction.

"The first M2 Money Supply bull market" could indeed be interesting. Considering the macro environment right now maybe we don't really see the diminishing returns this time around, though I suspect this cycle will be the last particularly volatile one we'll get to see. Seems there's just as much reason to believe in a short-cycle top (April/May) this time around as there is a usual top in November/December. Already planning on a heavy out come March-ish, and I guess buying back in for summer (whether we're in a real rebound or a dead cat bounce) will be tough to tell, but maybe I'll base it on the price of BTC at the moment. That is, if we're hovering around 130 I'll decide there's more to the run, but if we're approaching 200 in Spring I'll just call it a day and not take more risk. But overall I'm still not really sure on a practical exit yet. Like everyone else I particularly like AI this year. My HashAI and 0x0 bags have been great so far. AI Agents are getting all the talk now, but with no price history to go on I just don't know what constitutes overbought and underbought and so I'm just staying away from those. I'm not sure what to make of gaming this time around, or at least I'm not as high on it as I was last cycle. Though I've got a big bag of Karrat right now. Karrat and Off the Grid seem to be the only games people talk about (Illuvium seems to be in permanent beta) and instead people are hyping the launchpads. But if there's no hype for individual games, why buy the launchpads in the fist place? Or maybe I'm just upset that Karrat hasn't had a run yet. Karrat has also soured me on any project which isn't a fair launch. Seems like these are very much noticed this time around and buyers are staying away, so from now on I will, too.

Did a blind writing test with the Mont Blanc pen I gave a sister for Christmas. Everyone, including me, liked the cheap-o pen better.

Almost feels like we just skipped right over the 70s and went right from the 60s to the 80s. Maybe an announcement in the coming months of the US adding BTC as a reserve asset. I've heard it would be something like buying 1 million with a 540-BTC buy per day, which is roughly 100 more than miners can produce. Maybe a small rate cut coming soon. And China just announced the printing of $1.4 trillion to throw into their economy.

Forgot there was even a game on. I hate Thursday football. And then when it's your team that plays you're actually expected to be productive come Sunday.

2nd Apron means Bucks can't add salary and can't do a 2-for-1 where they send two small salaries to get a larger one in return. Considering the direction the team is going, the 2nd apron shouldn't really be a hindrance on anything they'd want to do, or at least I assume they're not looking to do some big-splash upgrade. 1st apron also means you can't get more salary than you give.

Once you're logged into NFL+ you can automatically hide all the scores. But in order to log in, you have to pass through a few pages which prominently display the scores.

Really, probably not, no. That's a hefty paycheck to walk away from. Plus maybe he'll tell himself that NOW they'll start winning with Adams there. I recognize their offensive line isn't the best, but they've got great players all over the place and every team has flaws. It doesn't make sense they'd be so bad unless the coaching staff really is that terrible.

The Jets' remaining schedule isn't all too terribly difficult, though it also isn't "We're playing the Jets" easy, either. And New York isn't a good enough team to consistently beat the mediocre teams yet, At home against the Rams will be difficult and at Buffalo won't even be serious football. You'd figure they'll drop at least two against Arizona, Seattle and Tuax2. That's 7-10 before Rodgers retires and Adams fires his agent for all the bad advice.

It really seems like the curse of your star player being able to do everything. Instead of adding glue guys or clean-up guys or guys who add to what the star is missing, the Bucks instead went after the extras. Nobody plays team ball because we weren't built like a team. We're left with five guys on the court and each of them think that when they touch the ball, they're the ones who have to score. I've heard if you're above the second apron you can only trade a player for one equally paid player, so that certainly complicates an Giannis trade. Maybe you'd have to involve a third team. Others were saying Giannis would be worth the equivalent of 10 first-rounders.

Still trying to come up with an idea for a girl who is something like 7-9 years old. Too young for the teen-girl stuff but also doesn't want to be thought of as that little kid. The other two around the same age I think I'm going with a Lululemon backpack (for the ~11 year old one). I think girls really like that brand and maybe she's reached the point of being brand-conscious. The other one is getting a kids' metal detector. I'm leaning to the idea of one of those big bags of sand which have non-prescious but pretty minerals in them and telling her I took the bag from a gem-mining company and I don't know if there's anything in it or not. Nah, think I'm going with a bonsai tree and trimmers for the other one. Good chance of hating it but girls like plants.

I'll cheer for the Cowboys so long as Ferguson catches the pass. I've otherwise grown somewhat indifferent. It's hard to hate something you don't so much fear anymore. A co-worker is a Cowboys fan. He was done after the Packers game and has never really come back from that. He gave up on this season many weeks ago and has been all for hitting the complete reset button. I asked what he would do if he had the #4 pick in the draft and he'd take a RB, which I thought was ridiculous.

I mentioned this last year, but I bought a Crokinole board a couple years ago (Canadian carroms) and it was great. There's also the Unique Dice company for dice games like D&D. I know a few people who do "board game nights" with friends once a week. Really a great idea. Must be all the adults who played co-op video games as kids and want the same thing back but more social.

CenturyLink/Brightspeed won't service my house anymore. They're replacing all their copper line with fiber and they just don't want to or can't get to my house. All that I have available is Starlink, but I have enough tree cover that it's reallllly slow and somehow getting worse. Took about 30 seconds to open this page up. Trying to find an antenna installer to get it above the trees but nobody has picked up the phone, plus I worry we're talking about $10k and not more like $1000. Last hope now is we have a contractor at my work and maybe I can pay him to push the trees over or maybe he's already using a bucket truck that I can top the three big trees that are in the way. Contractors tend to have clever solutions to things so maybe he has some ideas.

I'll try this again on the chance people might appreciate it. I'm just thinking a thread to ask for gift suggestions or to throw out ideas or maybe what's gone over well for you in the past. The Brother is always a challenge. I'm known for the odd-but-good gift and I don't have much for ideas this year. Last year it was good boots and the year before was a Canadian board game. One year it was indian clubs which were great. Sister in law a Sassenhaus bread slicer, as she's into baking. It's in the "fancy but useless" range. Pre-teen girls I guess an air diffuser and a slam ball and a weighted blanket (both anxiety aides). Teen nephew a castable fish sonar. Sister a really nice pen or potentially a nice scarf. Tried the heated doormat last year, but the water just ran off it and froze immediately off the mat which kinda defeated the purpose.

I don't really see any scenario in which the Bucks are really any better than they are now. You could have done a youth movement and not re-sign Middleton and Lopez, but so close to a Championship the fans would have revolted, or a Giannis you were hoping to extend revolts that his friend was traded. You could keep Jrue and we'd have a great defensive team with a one-dimensional offense and Giannis breaking down from the workload. We needed a #1 scorer and who else are you choosing but Lillard? If Haliburton were available, he's a great player but who is he passing it to? Young, emerging scorers don't grow on trees and it tends to be their teams won't trade them for a lockdown defender who shoots 5-20 each night plus a bunch of late first rounders who are typically more like Beauchamp than the late rounders Toronto manages to find. It is what it is. In a year or two we'll probably get to see Giannis asking to leave and we can drool over what sort of return we can get for him.

I figure he just needed to talk out his firing and his career options with his good friend MlF, who just casually invited him to hang out at practice and that's all it ever was. Saleh notices some things and makes a few comments, because that's just instinctual for any NFL coach, and the media just takes it from there.

I get the idea of the Panthers playing Andy Dalton--it's a good way to evaluate Bryce Young to see how a different QB handles the same players. But hasn't the Andy Dalton Experience lasted a few weeks too long already? It's not like they're making the playoffs with Dalton, or have they so totally given up on Young already? And if they've given up on Young, do you change strategies and draft the rest of the team first like Chicago or try for a QB again? I'd guess with a weak QB draft class next year they draft a WR, instead. I also presume Atlanta will be shopping Cousins in the offseason.

I presume Hafley has always considered FS/Slot Corner fairly interchangeable considering they added so many safeties in the offseason while not addressing CB. It seemed pretty clear Bullard, in particular, was going to be spending solid time covering Slot.

Drake Maye looked decent. This could end up being the historically best QB class.

But if you ship him out now doesn't that send the message that if you complain just a little bit you'll get your way? Or this is all very normal for any player and Packers media just picked it up and ran with it?

It's gonna be a long Bucks season, isn't it? Older than dirt, nothing we can do about it, on our 17th HC in three seasons, and maybe we see the second round this time. Giannis, Dame and 'etc.' vs. the world. I'm expecting Middleton to be stiff and Lopez a downright liability for a lack of motion and Giannis to be completely overused. Giannis can't be both the 4/5 and the lead-dunker the whole way through because that's too much to ask any one person to do. We're gonna be desperate for a 5 come trade deadline. Hopes aren't high. Giannis will do what he does but it just doesn't work when he has to be the primary weapon. I expect Lillard to be over his personal issues, but two stars aren't really enough when the remainder aren't really capable of playing the roles they should play. Gary Trent is a fantastic pickup, but too much is going to be demanded of him since he's going to end up having to be the 3rd best offensive player. You can do it with two stars when the others perfectly fit their roles, but here it's more patchwork. I think we're really going to struggle to stop anyone defensively.

I respect that on a passing down there's two option routes and two decoy routes, and sure, maybe Doubs is the decoy more often than not. But it's not like teams have these superstar All-Pros who just aren't being used. If you aren't getting used that's on you. And 51 catches is nothing to scoff at. Maybe he'd get more targets on Carolina, but would you really want to go there? We'd all like to be President but darn if we can't get the votes. Suck it up for a couple more years and then you're a FA and can go wherever you want. To be a malcontent only hurts your future salary. I get that to be a professional athlete you need ludicrous-speed levels of confidence and cockiness, but reality is something different. Not everyone is Davante Adams. Others are just Romeo Doubs. A perfectly good WR, better than average even, but still Romeo Doubs. Four targets, three catches and there ya go.

I don't like a Lawrence trade because we really aren't in a position to need to fix our DL by adding good players so much as just needing the good players currently there to step up. Thus not a position group of need, as opposed to a group LB where McDuffie and #7 probably are playing to their standard and so there's a bigger need for more talent in the group. Plus a big trade now would likely sap our assets and hamstring us if a bigger need suddenly appeared like a key player getting injured.