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chronotsr · 12 days

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No. 2 - G2, The Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl (July 1978)

Author(s): Gary Gygax Artist(s): Erol Otus, Dave C. Sutherland III (cover), David A. Trampier Level range: Average of 9, preferably 5+ players Theme: Standard Swords and Sorcery Major re-releases: G1-3 Against the Giants, GDQ1-7 Queen of the Spiders, Against the Giants: The Liberation of Geoff, Dungeon #199, Tales from the Yawning Portal

On the heels of being more impressed with G1 than I expected, will G2 be similarly impressing? Time to find out!

The intro blurb is mostly a repeat of the text of G1, including admonitions that running stock is for villains. Our motivation remains: figure out why the hill giants did that, no matter how fucking dangerous it is. Interestingly, the other main objective of G1 (give 'em a bloody nose) is not relevant here, because that teleport means that the frost giants aren't a threat to the villagers themselves. In fact, the room teleportation schtick kind of means G2 is filler? Like, the big reveal that the G series leads to the D series is not really impacted by the events of G2. So, oops!

Conveniently, the magical chain teleports out outside the rift so you can once again have a secret cave HQ. I feel like you have a responsibility as a GM to have a giant counterattack to at least one of these caves.

I really like the imagery of the descent into the rift here. I mean, I don't think this illustration really does it justice, imagining the deep blue color of light barely passing through the ice and how that gives the area beneath the surface an eerie oceanic glow at all times other than noon -- that's some good vibes. Gary opts for green, which is a fair enough choice. Unfortunately, Gary is more interested in simulating the mounting climbing than vibes, which means that at least one of your party members is going to fall face first into the snow drift below. Gary "generously" caps the damage at 10d6 (avg 35 dmg) -- a level 9 fighter, to be clear, has 9d10 hp (avg 45 hp) and a level 9 magic user has 9d4 hp (avg 23), so that's not ideal. Also recall that you recover 1hp per full day of rest normally, so if you fall and survive you're probably still fucked unless your cleric has a lot of spells left. I'm also pretty sure your cave HQ is above the cliff face, so, risking the descent seems like suicide to me. You're going to lose people and even leaving to heal them back up is simply taking another chance at oblivion. Take the stairs.

If you have the audacity to slow fall down, you will be blown 75ft off course in a random direction. Very cool Gary!

Another interesting detail: monsters in classic DND have a pretty short attention span and will lose you fairly quickly if you flee around a corner. This is particularly amped up here to a breezy 4 in 6 odds of success, due to blizzards blocking chase.

Anyway, we're into the room by room, so let's do some room by room shit.

There is a kind "spiked heads of our enemies at the gates" situation, with corpses mutilated and frozen in transparent ice as a warning to not intrude. Honestly that's badass. What's not badass is if the players have the wherewithal to try and free the corpses (for loot or kindness), most routes lead to the treasure being destroyed and the roof collapsing -- probably instantly killing your squishies.

The hill giants from G1 are lolling about waiting for an audience, so points for continuity. I have to imagine they're freezing their asses off, though.

There are yetis here? Which, going on the graphic and the listed intelligence score in the MonMan, I have to conclude are sentient bipedial apes but like, NOT like the Frost Giants. Actually apparently the average yeti is smarter than the average frost giant, so I guess it's a Diogenes situation where they choose to live in a shitty cave when everyone else has a nice cave?

The 5 hill giants visiting the Jarl have 1k to 6k gold fur cloaks, which like. Imagine a 6,000 gold cloak. Not only is it got to be huge (Hill Giants are 10.5ft tall), for it to be worth 6k to a vendor that's got to be a one-piece fabric cloak off a particularly rare and good condition animal. I guess the players could use it as the world's fanciest comforter?

The official appearance of a Remoraz! These are awful creatures. They swallow you whole and then superheat their insides to cook you. Nasty side effect: its outsides become furnace-hot and destroy nonmagical items and burn people to death. Look at this horrible thing! And of course it's guarding the swankiest loot to date -- a +2 Giantslaying Sword and a 3 Wishes Ring. It's been a weird trend lately that the best loot is, not owned by the leader of the Giants? The best hoard seems to always belong to Some Guy. Naturally this awesome loot "sinks into the ice" if you use a fireball, because this adventure has an addiction to telling the wizard to fuck off. Note that the sword being lost punishes the fighter for the magic users' decision. Note also that the Remoraz going into superheat mode doesn't do the same thing? It sucks. This clause sucks. Cut it. The actual room itself is kind of neat, the implication is that the Remorhaz melted a spherical hole into the ice to make a den, which is awesome.

Another iconic Garyism: ". They have had audience with the Jarl, and after a special wassail to be held on the morrow they will depart for home with a treaty scroll." Translation: They're goin to have a drinking party tomorrow to celebrate a treaty signing.

And like, one room later, we get "leman", which means lover, and "durance vile", which means long imprisonment. The text implies that basically, she's a hot butch storm giantess being held in chains until she agrees to fuck the Jarl. Gary, simply ask a tall woman out. You don't have to be weird about it.

Rather than torches, the feast hall is lit with jarred fire beetles, which is kinda cute

There is a thick iron bar that "transports whosoever is standing on the floor to the entrance of Snurre's Hall [G3]". The iron bar is a lever, obviously, but is this a lever-operated teleporter? An elevator that goes straight down? G3 eliminates the elevator theory, since apparently you can arrive here via pegasus and there are caves one can access overhead. So it's a literal teleporter, and at least how I'm reading it makes it sound more science fiction than magic. Weird.

On the whole, G2 is a massive step down from G1. G2 lacks the factionalism of G1, punishes players for damn near anything attempted, and is broadly less imaginative than G1. It's a pity, really, because it's a far more interesting locale on paper, but the reality is that you could generate a cave like this by scribbling randomly. Meh. Next time we poke G3, and hope hope hope that it's more like G1 than G2.

#1e #chronotsr #dnd #dungeons and dragons #tsr #ttrpg #adnd

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stevecanmakeanythingnerdy · 4 years

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Battle #23

Gaunt: Kryptonite ( Side Gene )

Vs.

The Wipers: Youth of America ( Side One )

Gaunt: Kryptonite ( Side Gene )

Gaunt was a pop punk band formed in Columbus, Ohio, in 1991. The band released five albums and a crap ton of singles before splitting in 1998. Actually 5 albums is a bit of a stretch. Sob Story is really more of an extended EP and clocks in Around 20 minutes, but anyway... yeah the 90s Ohio scene was pretty rock and punk and roll. But at the top of that list was New Bomb Turks and these guys. Really almost compliments to each other. NBT was down and dirty, and Gaunt filled in for the poppier and peppier parts. In fact in the earliest days, they shared members with NBT, but it was short lived. They bounced around a few independent labels and one last album was recorded for Thrill Jockey, entitled Kryptonite, and released in 1996. Kryptonite was released with a metallic lime green cover and contained lyrics about Superman, Lois Lane, and lost love. Over the course of the next year, the band began to drift apart, with Wick recording solo material. The band managed to scrape together one more album for record giant Warner Bros when they came sniffing around after Green Day had made it evident that punk rock sells, but they broke up soon after due to little to no support of it. So in the grand scheme of things, their time was brief, but powerful. And in true punk rock fashion, I don’t think the band really gave a crap about any of it. They just played music and had fun. Unfortunately in 2001, lead singer Jerry Wick was hit and killed by a car while bicycling home. It’s sad too, because he was a great songwriter. “Kryptonite” is the lead tune of course. Blast off into the rock and roll Metropolis of garage punk rock and roll. The very thing that made this band cool is that they weren’t afraid to try different things. This one features piano. “Savior Breath” is not only a great pun but another great song as well. That catchy 3 chord stuff lo-fi blast off! Hell yeah! Certainly not gaunt on the rock (#seewhatididthere). “Hope You’re Happy “ is about as punk rock as you can expect to get. This is what it would sound like if NBT did less yelling and sang more harmonies. Horns and $#!t on this number, again utilizing some new tricks with the old. Not immune to the catchy AF pop punk vibe that Green Day had a stranglehold on in the mid 90s comes “Transistor Sister”. It’s a no brainer but a head banger too. There’s even a video for it! “Bust” follows with the breakneck speedy Gonzalez “bust you in your head!” It’s perfectly placed pauses and fuzzed out guitar will leave you wanting more. The last fast track is “Hand in Pants”. Gaunt never lets up and the backing harmonies prevail. This band had something special. They were a band you could respect. Quick, catchy and no frills. Serious but fun all at once. Hook laden and made to order madness. This and Bricks and Blackouts may be one of their most experimental albums. It’s damn good though. R. I. P. Gaunt. Oh! And Of course there’s a “side Gene”. You have to get a Kiss reference in. (The other side is Paul, duh)

The Wipers: Youth of America ( Side One )

Technically just Wipers, but “The” is often attached. Wipers was a punk rock band formed in Portland, Oregon in 1977 by guitarist Greg Sage, along with drummer Sam Henry and bassist Dave Koupal. The group's tight song structure and use of heavy distortion were hailed as extremely influential by numerous critics and musicians. The band is considered the first Pacific Northwest punk band. Possibly most famous for being both influential to and covered by Nirvana. Greg was interested in music at an early age and has a rather unique perspective on music. His father worked in the broadcast industry so he had access at an early age to a record lathe. He would often study music under the microscope and loved the way it was produced from the record. This gave him a very deep understanding of the way the sound was reproduced. That and Hendrix inspired him to pick up a guitar and the rest is history. Originally they formed just as a recording project. The plan was to record 15 albums in 10 years without touring or promotion. Sage thought that the mystique built from the lack of playing traditional rock 'n' roll would make people listen to their recordings much deeper with only their imagination to go by. He thought it would be easy to avoid press, shows, pictures and interviews. He looked at music as art rather than entertainment; he thought music was personal to the listener rather than a commodity. He is not wrong, but soon shows and touring did happen. Sage has been quoted and remarked on their initial reception: "We weren't even really a punk band. See, we were even farther out in left field than the punk movement because we didn't even wish to be classified, and that was kind of a new territory. ... When we put out Is This Real? ... it definitely did not fit in; none of our records did. Then nine, ten years later people are saying: 'Yeah, it's the punk classic of the '80s'". So this is their second album, and it’s a reaction to the quick short burst of songs all the punk bands were doing in the early 80s. In fact the title track is nearly 10 minutes long! But that’s on the other side. This side contains “Taking too Long” which has highly advanced guitar for a 2nd LP. It’s a serene and peaceful song. Not the BEST Wipers song but still pleasing. “Can This Be” is more the rocking style Wipers fans are used to. Punk elements but wrapped in rock with those fuzz crunch guitars the6 helped stylize. Like a grunge burrito! The dropout bridge and energy are worth the listen alone. For me, the best tune on this side has got to be “Pushing The Extreme”. The Wipers are good at that “haunted melody” sound. You know, kind of creepy sounding but low frequency and underscored by punching bass lines. Accentuated really. I also like the weird phrasing of the word Extreme, it’s partly why Wipers stand out so much. A very loooooooong song though. “When it’s Over” sees Sage showcasing his guitar prowess. Very surfy (another signature of the Wipers sound) and with all of the builds it’s a pretty great piece. Some spoken word but it’s essentially instrumental. These early records have a great cohesion and consistency in their cyclical riffs. Not bad for one of the Northwest’s most influential acts and precursors to the “Seattle sound”.

So it was a real epic battle today of old vs new punk. Well, I guess they’re both old. More like old vs really old? Anyway. Gaunt had a secret weapon on hand, Kryptonite...but will it weaken The Wipers? Gaunt burned 99 calories over 15 minutes and 6 songs. They averaged 16.50 calories burned per song and 6.60 calories burned per minute. They earned 15 out of 18 possible stars. The Wipers tried to engage the youth of America. The Wipers burned 105 calories over 4 songs and 16 minutes. They averaged 26.25 calories burned per song and 6.56 calories burned per minute. They earned 10 out of 12 possible stars. Looks like Gaunt’s Kryptonite worked! They walk away champs today!

Gaunt: “Transistor Sister” (sorry for the piss poor quality but it was the 90s)

https://youtu.be/T7GTSYz1Bmw

#Randomrecordworkoutseasonseven

#Randomrecordworkout

#randomrecordworkout #randomrecordworkoutseason7 #80s #vinyl #80's music #80s music #records #punk #grunge #wipers #greg sage #gaunt #ohio #ohio punk #90s music #90s

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andrewschlecht · 3 years

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On June 20th, 2015, I woke up with the hymn “Great is Thy Faithfulness” in my head. Not like a normal, I have a song stuck in my head, sort of way. It was more like it was blaring in my head, but a peaceful kind of blaring. It may have been the fact that it was 4:00am and that is not a normal time for me to be up. I tend to lean more to the fact that it was one of those moments in life where you know God is letting you know he is there. This was the day I was giving one of my kidneys (turns out my left) to my father in law Dave. It was a decision that I felt was guided and planned by God.

Dave, medically, is no more than a random person. The odds of two random people being a match for a kidney is less than 5%. I felt the compelled to get tested anyway. Dave is a mentor, friend, and a wonderful father in law. He is also a great Papa to my two boys. I couldn’t imagine life without him. Both his kidneys were failing, and he was soon to be on dialysis. The average person on dialysis lives about 5 years, and it’s extremely difficult. So when I found out I was a match it was a no brainer.

I went through a few days of testing over several weeks, and they found me fit to donate. I was asked probably over billion times by my wife, Dave, and the doctors if I was sure I wanted to do it. I always felt peace about the decision so I never felt the need to waver. Throughout the testing I only told a few people about it. Mostly because I didn’t want to announce to the world that I was going to get tested to do something that statistically a long shot. But when I found out I was a match I still felt weird about telling people. I told a few friends about it, and of course my family.

Everyone was supportive, some apprehensive just for my safety, but very supportive. It was just something I knew I was created to do. I didn’t feel scared. I just felt like it was something I needed to do. Easy as that. I also had a friend, Cole Chesney, who had given a kidney to his Dad about 6 months earlier. Talking with him also brought peace.

Back to the morning of the surgery. God was with me. He just was. I arrived at the hospital and went back and put on one of those awkward hospital gowns. My wife and kids came to pray with me and be with me before I went back. A couple good friends, Jeremy Miller and Jason Smith, plus Amy, Dave, and one of his pastors were there to pray with me before I went back. It was one of those moments in life you will never forget. It meant the world to me for those special people to be there.

Shortly after that I was informed that the doctor was going to be late. This is typically a bad thing, but today it wasn’t. It allowed time for me to see my parents and sister before the surgery. The doctor was stuck in traffic or had car trouble or something, but that time was valuable. It gave me more time with my kids before as well which was really special.

The next thing I remember a couple nurses started prepping me for surgery and a nurse said, “Take this. These are the drugs your parents told you not to take” I chuckled and then I was out……….. I woke up in what I think was the same room, but could have been on a different planet for all I knew. I was high as a kite. I remember waking up talking. Just talking. The a couple nurses were there to make sure I was ok. No one I knew was there. They told me before surgery that family wouldn’t be able to come back to recovery, but at the time that didn’t matter. I started semi yelling for them to get my wife. After roughly 7 minutes of strange quasi yelling they went and got her.

For the next 30 or so minutes I continued talking. I guess this is what I do when I’m on these kind of drugs. My chosen topic was what I was thankful for. I rambled on about my wife and kids. My parents, brother, and sisters. Dave and Jenni (my in laws). My job at White Fields. My church. My podcast bros (DTD pod), and just how much I was thankful for everything. I remember this barely, but my wife continued to remind me of this.

After the initial wake up and drug induced ramblings some reality set it. This hurt. I couldn’t sit up. I’m super uncomfortable, mostly because of gas. (… on that.. To be able to see everything in my abdomen they had to blow it up with air.. this is what I was told.. so that’s where the gas came from.. they can’t get all the gas out after surgery) The gas can travel around your body, like a pain in your shoulder could be “gas pain” which is way different than the gas pain I was used to. I had several visitors that day. My parents and mother in law came to see me. Pastors and a few friends. An awkward encounter with another family member and I was ready to try and sleep.

I didn’t sleep at all the first night. I was on pain meds and binge watching Friday Night Lights on my phone, so not a horrible circumstance, but still I was in pain. I heard getting up and walking around is important so I tried to get up that night around 1:00am… but I guess the nurse was new and he didn’t have any clue how to help me up. After a few failed tries, I told him I’ll wait until tomorrow.

The next day I was able to get up. I walked a few laps and went to say hi to Dave who was down and across the hall. I also had several visitors. My wife of course. My friend Jay came, my aunt, and some other friends. It was nice. My friend Jason who came to visit also came that day. He brought me two gifts. One an Anthony Davis action figure, and book Outliers by Malcom Gladwell. He told me that what I did is going to define what it means to be a “Schlecht” for generations to come, and that what I did made me an “outlier” of a person. Those words meant so much to me. I will never forget that moment. I was weeping. Jason and I hadn’t been friends long. But God has a way of bringing people into your life when you need them. This is totally the case with Jason.

I got to go home after 3 days in the hospital. I remember feeling horrible when they told me I was good to go home. I thought, “WHAT?! I CAN’T POSSIBLY BE READY TO GO HOME YET?!” It was fine though. My wife came to get me, with a Braums chocolate malt in hand. You know I’m not feeling great when I don’t demolish a chocolate malt from Braums, but I wasn’t feeling well enough to drink it. But that is my wife. Always thinking of me.

I want to take a moment to brag on my wife, Amy Schlecht. She was incredible throughout this whole process. If you don’t know me at all, my wife and I have two kids (at the time 3 and almost 11 months). Taking care of young kids is tough. That may have been one of my only apprehensions about the whole thing, is the pressure it would put on my wife. I couldn’t pick up my kids or bend over for weeks. She would have to do it ALL, and she did. She did it with a smile on her face. She did it gracefully. She did it with a servants heart. I can never thank her enough for how she handled that month.

When I was home we had meals brought to us nearly everyday for a month. The response from our friends, coworkers, and family was astonishing. My friend Alex Speers even bought me the newest NBA 2k video game. He lives in Portland and had it shipped to me. He and my friend Luke Stephens came to visit me together. Two of my oldest friends. I’ll never forget that day for that and several other reasons I don’t care to share in this post.

Again… Jason Smith…. brought over another gift. If you know me at all you know I love basketball. NBA basketball to be exact, and if you could zero in on a player it would be Shaquille O’Neal. The gift was an entire box of unopened 1992 NBA cards. We sat and opened every pack. We laughed about players. We freaked out about players we loved, and overall just had a great time. Another thing (I feel like I say this a lot) I’ll never forget.

Something I wasn’t prepared for was the impact this would have on other people.. well besides Dave… There was an article printed in the Daily Oklahoman about the procedure so more people found out about it than I was truly comfortable with. This lead to an interaction with a neighbor. In fact with my next door neighbor’s friend.. So not even really my neighbor. I heard the doorbell ring and my wife had taken the boys down to our neighborhood pool. So I slowly got up and went to the door. There stood my neighbors friend who I only kind of knew. (back story. She was in a terrible accident about a year prior that kept her out of work and left her physically not the same… sad deal) She looked at me and started to cry. I was in a drug induced state at that point in time so I didn’t know what to do. She said to me, “What you did… gives me hope in the world again”… wow.. I had no idea how to respond. I think I said, “Really?” but then gave her a hug. I had no clue what God had in store. It was truly humbling.

Another story, but several months later. I work at White Fields. We are a home for abused and neglected boys ages 8-18. I am the education coordinator. One of my jobs is to teach our boys in the transitional classroom. All the boys there are not fit to be in public school. They are too violent, curse too much, won’t do their work, and bring a host of problems to the table. A particular boy did not like school when he came to us. In fact he hated it. Not only did he hate school… he hated me. For about a month he would refuse to work with me. He’d cuss me out daily. Try to hurt me. I tried everything I knew. I was out of ideas. I just thought if I stayed consistent it would pay off. One day I was beginning class and for some reason I opened up with, “Does anyone have anything they’d want to say before we start the day?”… this boy that hated me raised his hand, and I was like… oh boy… here we go… the words out of his mouth are some that…. wait for it… I’ll never forget. He said,

“You’re a good man Mr. Andrew”

I said…. huh? What are you talking about? Is this a prank? He replied that he heard what I did, and that he respected me for it. My relationship with this boy changed that day and that moment. I was able to form a good relationship with him. God had a plan.

A year later Dave and I are recovered from the surgery. Dave’s recovery was slower than mine, but overall he feels better than he has in years. At a recent appointment, he was told his labs looked like that of an 18 year old. Incredible. Dave and I were able to complete a 5K together in the fall, and in April my wife and I completed the Memorial half marathon. The only real ramification is I can no longer become a swim suit model. The scar left on my stomach isn’t terrible, but would take too much photo shop for me to pursue that career.

I want to encourage anyone who has thought about donating to do so. It will change your life and those around you for the better. You can help someone live a longer fuller life. Please call me if you have questions or doubts or anything. I’d love to talk about it. God is faithful.

Great is Thy faithfulness! Great is Thy faithfulness! Morning by morning new mercies I see. All I have needed Thy hand hath provided, Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!

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floraone · 6 years

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Tag Game

So, I’m sorry, @rimelia, that I’m getting to this so late. I wanted to do it right away, because I was very flattered you’d pick me for the sole reason of wanting to know more of me, lol, cause that got me. But, late is better than never, right?

So here you go.

Name: So… seeing as I’ve been taught to be wary of posting my name on the internet, because well… y'know… I’ll give you a few hints, anyway. I share it, among else, with two famous women who are simultaneously actresses and singers. It was a compromise between my parents on my father’s favorite story and my mother’s favorite language. Yet there is another story that made that name famous, about a happy and successful woman with my name who, among else, went down in history as the world’s first literary nymphomaniac and whose author was ordered arrested for her existence.

(Lol… and I promise to keep the rest of the answers simpler?)

Nicknames: My name usually gets shortened only, but my sister calls me Schlaubi (which is the much cuter german name for Brainy Smurf, lol?). Also, FloraOne, I guess, lol.

Zodiac sign: Capricorn.

Height: 5’2 if I stand reaaaal straight

Orientation: Married my favorite human, who happens to be a man.Take from that what you want though lol, cause I’m not entirely sure where I score, tbh. I like you all.

Favorite fruit: Raspberries, Blackberries, Blueberries, Watermelon, Cherries.

Favorite Season: Winter

Favorite book: Difficulllltttt. There’s the kind of books and stories and poems and words that shaped me as a person. That carried me through certain stages of my life but that somehow change their tune whenever I visit their worlds. So, instead of listing all the books that have and have had my heart, lemme give two examples of works that changed me. One is a poem by Jorge Bucay, called “Quiero” that describes the kind of person I try to be both in life, but especially as a psychologist. And then there was Dave Eggers, who wrote a rather autobiographical book about his parents dying of cancer when I was a teenager, and my mom had cancer for most of those teen years and he made me feel not so alone with that – and that life would go on, whatever might happen – in ways nothing else had.

That being said, I worship the words that come out of Neil Gaiman with all the fangirl excitement the universe may ever know.

Favorite scent: Food in ovens. Lame, I know xD

Favorite color: Pale yellow (mostly Calamansi), Apricot, Coral, Arsenic, Bazaar, Cool grey, Lapis lazuli, Midnight Blue, Powder, Blush. (Lol, sorry, I paint.)

Favorite animal: Squirrels, Racoons, Red Pandas, Bunnies, Cats, Deer, Foxes, Sparrows, Blue Tits, Robins, anything that’s a little baby animal and looks at me real cute, Dragons, Unicorns, Miffy.

Coffee | tea | hot cocoa: I’m all about the tea and chocolate, yeah.

Average hours of sleep: 5 on a weekday, 48 on the weekend, pretty much, lol.

Cat or dog person: I will pet all the cats. I will cuddle all the cats until they run from me. I will love all the cats for all the days. And I’m pretty much afraid of dogs.

Favorite fictional characters: Usagi. My list was longer once, and it will again. But she was leading lady when I grew up, and she’s leading lady again today.

Number of blankets you sleep with: 1 big king size thing that I share with my man and which gets stolen from me a lot.

Dream trip: You know, again with the difficult. I have a list of all the places I wanna see, like Casablanca, Lisbon, Le Mont-Saint-Michel, Positano, Colmar, and so many countless places I wanna see again over and over because I fell in love with them when I was there… but at the moment, I’d say my dream trip would be a rented flat or bungalow with my very special cuddle-person husband and a befriended couple in an amazing city we all agree on, trying out things I haven’t done before and cooking together in the evenings with a view and no care in the world.

Blog created: umm…. March 2017?

Number of followers: 418

Random fact(s): My last name, literally translated, means “little carrot", I start bawling whenever little kids start singing, and I sort my books and DVDs by color.

So yeah… I’m gonna tag two people I also wanna know more of, because I liked your approach there ;)

@queenrisa14, @everythingelsewithoutreason

#i was tagged

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whifferdills · 7 years

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idk if you're still doing fic requests, but i've had this half-formed idea kicking around in my head and i trust you'd be able to bring it to life: 12 builds an inspector gadget style dildo/sex toy machine thing. i don't know what else would happen (like i said: half-formed) but that seems like it'd be a fun fic. alternatively, maybe another Kate Lethbridge/12 one because that pairing doesn't get nearly enough attention.

ooh, i’ve refined it a bit more if you’re at all interested: Clara asked him to build one and he gets more excited about the gadgets than the dildo, and ends up being hilariously unusable. but also sexy? idk; i trust what you come up with.

So You Want to Build a Sex Machine12/Clara, not explicit but still risque, comedy mostly, ~1k words

(read on Ao3 instead)

Here’s what you’ll need.

Considerations: materials, feasibility, semantics, ethics, use-case scenarios, mechanics both internal and external. The fulfillment of desire, what ‘want’ means; how to create it, or find it; friction. Erotic as a poorly-translated word from a language you do not speak and that your ship will not speak on your behalf.

Google searches:

sexual requirements of the average human

sexual requirements of the unusual human

sex toy personality quiz

Metallica

how can i know what she wants without asking what she wants

The three ‘R’s: Research, Research, Research.

An hour spent watching videos of anonymous amateur fucking and masturbation.

Two minutes spent with your hand wrapped experimentally around what you’d let someone assume was a cock, if anyone were around to notice. Three minutes with your right thumb pressed into the spot just below your rib cage, where your key is still lodged. You feel nothing, and an aching empty sort of wrongness, in that order.

Five hours spent watching videos of people unboxing new dildo shipments. It’s satisfying, watching them crack open the packaging and methodically assess the contents,

Plans. I know it seems weird, to plan ahead of time, but trust me on this.

Four-One

Two mood boards, one on the ship - in a private room tucked far away - with magazine clippings taped to a dry erase board, and one on Pinterest that is followed immediately by a user named KinkyDave17. Hey there, Kinky Dave.

Four-Two

Fifty rough concept sketches, loose and easy. One drawing of Mr. Blobby holding a sign reading “There is no such thing as ethical consumption under capitalism” (it’d seemed funny at the time). Ten selected and elaborated upon; five chosen and explored with attention to detail. Four mugs of tea, two of which are immediately forgotten and eventually absorbed back into the timestuff of the ship.

Four-Three

One sketch, and fifty variations. The implication and execution of multiple penetrative devices. Orifices, modularity. Texture, color, the minutiae of hydraulics. Desire diagrammed. Both mood boards gradually evolve into evidence that Sammy Hagar is a fixed event in time and space. The Pinterest board is immediately followed by GuitarDave1975. Hey, Guitar Dave.

Four-Four

One variation, ten life-size mock-ups. Cannibalize parts from automobiles and electric pianos. Use similarly-shaped objects as stand-ins for dildos. Create a Catherine wheel of bananas. Remember, belatedly, that that’s probably not how sex works. Take a mental note of the texture and firmness of the bananas anyway. Eat one. Eat four more, and regret it instantly. Thrust, vibration, pressure, response, haptic feedback and precision stimulation. Turn the motor on and watch it spin as you eat a sixth banana.

On the mood board in your ship, tape a picture of her over Sammy Hagar so it looks she has Sammy Hagar’s body, or that Sammy Hagar has her face. Resist the sudden impulse to punch the dry erase board. Resist the constant impulse to do something sentimental. Do it anyway. Say something that pretends to be mean, like your human pastimes are ridiculous at best or it’s just an interesting engineering problem, that’s all. Touch the picture of her face, or Sammy Hagar’s face, touch the picture of the face gently and try to think positively about the ten failed attempts littering the room. Eleven, the eleven failed attempts. Or is it twelve, now?

Immediately realize it’s been Eddie Van Halen all along. Spend an hour arguing in the comments section of a YouTube video with a user named, simply, Dave. We meet again, Dave.

Punch the whiteboard, delete the Pinterest account. Sit down on the middle of the floor with a cup of tea. Make a mental list of all the times you can recall her making a face or a noise or a motion, an indication that there was something in her body you only partially recognize:

When you’d had your hand inside her, knuckle-deep, fingers crooked

The time it took for the red mark to show after you bit the skin on her neck, just under her ear

Not sure but it was a Tuesday local time and you were on your knees

why not ask her, Dave will type. or just fuck her lol. Pause. Type back, shut it you sorry excuse for an internet avatar i never liked you anyway. Turn off your personal computation device with a degree of petty, misdirected anger. You will still be on the floor, at this point. Stretch your legs out and then lay down and press the palm of your right hand to the spot just under your rib cage where your key still is, where it’ll always be, where it’s throbbed inside you since before you left home.

Ask her. Ask her, ask her, stammering and fumbling. Make sure it’s a Tuesday local time. You aren’t on your knees but you might as well be. Ask her what she wants.

And she’ll say, you, and she’ll laugh, but not in a mean-spirited way. Pull out your diagrams, your lists from your pockets. Put them back.

Say No, I mean specifically, in terms of the specific thing. Make a gesture that implies fucking and also hopefully how you understand and accept and regret your inadequacy in this area.

You, she’ll say again.

But for when you’re not there, or you’re there and you can’t, or you can but you’re not enough. What does she want? What’s better than you, what’s the ideal?

Don’t you get it yet? she’ll ask.

From here, futures splinter. It could go any way, there is a near-infinite set of possibilities. But if you take her hand and stay, it’ll be one of the good ones.

10.

Let her lead you to her bedroom on the ship, where she feels safe. Let her hold you. Admit you spent the better part of two days, local time, inventing her a sex machine. She’ll roll her eyes and say I’ve got it covered, but thanks I guess, gesturing to her proudly-displayed collection of dildos and vibrators and a fair few things you’ve never even seen before, despite at least three Googles. You nod and feel a certain awe come over you.

11.

Guide her hand to your belly, the spot just below your rib cage. Feel your key move inside you. Try not to cry.

Go down on your knees; it worked once before.

12.

Later, return to the Van Halen fan forum and ask Dave if he’s David Lee Roth, and if so, is he a fixed temporal event. He won’t respond.

#whouffaldi #promptapalooza #Anonymous

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4pillarshalifax · 4 years

Text

Escaping Debt Podcast – Why credit doesn’t actually matter – Episode 4

Credit is often a misudnerstood concept and leads people to make very poor decisions for their long-term financial wellbeing. David Moffatt, our Senior Debt Relief Specialist, dives into the reasons for this in Episode 4 of the Escaping Debt Podcast.

Transcript

David Moffatt (00:01): Hello everybody, I hope you’re doing exceptionally well. Welcome to episode four of The Escaping Debt Podcast. Today we’re going to be talking about why your credit and the impact of credit really shouldn’t matter when you look at restructuring debt. My name is David Moffatt, and I’m going to be the host today. I’m the Senior Debt Relief Specialist and Local Director of 4 Pillars Halifax.

David Moffatt (00:21): Remember, our goal is that no consumer should have to struggle with the overwhelming burden of debt, and we also believe that it’s simply not possible for a company to represent both the consumer and the debtor at the same time in an unbiased fashion, because of this, we work for you, not your creditors.

David Moffatt (00:38): So today’s topic is going to be a really interesting one. I hear it all the time, people come into the office, swarmed with debt, they can barely pay their bills if at all, and they’re concerned that their credit is going to get impacted. This is something that I understand why it occurs. Think about it, everything in society right now is credit based.

David Moffatt (01:04): If you want to go buy a couch, you can finance it. If you want to buy a car, you can finance it. You buy a house, you finance it. You want to get a cell phone, you need a credit check. You want to get an apartment, you get a credit check. And so credit has become an integral part of our life, and it’s clear to see why people are so concerned about the possibility that their credit would end up getting impacted.

David Moffatt (01:30): But it’s a little bit more complicated than that. And the main reason for this is somebody that’s already struggling to pay their bills, unbeknownst to them, their credit is actually already impacted. Now, their credit score might not be impacted, but credit score is really only one of three components of someone’s credit profile.

David Moffatt (01:56): So what actually makes up someone’s credit profile? So first of all, there’s your actual credit score itself, there’s the credit products that you have, and then most importantly, there is your financial status. I guess, your financial foundation. So what does your asset base look like? What does your savings account look like? Are you making your payments on time? And I don’t necessarily mean again, from a credit perspective, I mean from a money management perspective.

David Moffatt (02:28): Most people are simply unaware of this. And does your money management skills impact your credit score? Yes, to a certain degree. Can you be very bad with your money management principles and still have a good credit score? Of course. However, if you’re not good at money management, your score will only last so long. So for example, you can build a credit score very, very quickly. You go out and acquire a bunch of new products and you make sure they’re paid off every single month and your credit score will increase. Now, obviously that’s a very general statement, but that is how it works, okay.

David Moffatt (03:11): The problem is, is if you can’t actually afford to pay off those credit products each and every month and say the case of a line of credit or a credit card, well then slowly but surely your credit will start getting impacted and then you’ll be right back to where you started.

David Moffatt (03:27): This is why when somebody is struggling with debt, getting another loan to pay off that debt is typically not a good idea without proper professional consultation, because it can simply just further add to the stress that that individual is feeling. So let’s talk about why it really doesn’t matter if your credit gets impacted when you restructured that. So first of all, what is restructuring, right? So restructuring is essentially looking at every single option to deal with debt, ranging from budgeting all the way to bankruptcy and everything in between.

David Moffatt (04:08): What most people know of as debt restructuring from an invasive perspective that would impact credit are the more invasive options. So these would be credit counselling and formal settlements; consumer proposals and bankruptcies. Now of course these don’t come without consequences and the consequences that your credit ends up getting impacted. And this is the big concern for a lot of people.

David Moffatt (04:30): They try budgeting themselves out of the situation. They look at assets that they can sell. They try to get help from friends and family. They might go take out a couple extra loans to see if they’re able to dig themselves out of this, but none of that works. And so what we’ve seen is that the average client of ours spent 18 months on average before seeking professional advice to deal with their debt, trying to solve their situation themselves.

David Moffatt (04:56): Now, that’s a year and a half and that’s from the moment they realized they had a problem, and so you can imagine that most likely the average consumer probably struggled for several years before reaching out for help. Well, actually all of the invasive options have a consequence which is impacting credit. The alternative to not doing these options, in my opinion, is far worse than doing nothing at all.

David Moffatt (05:33): Imagine if you’re struggling, you can barely pay your bills as it is, or you’re living paycheck to paycheck, how do you actually get ahead in life? It’s next to impossible. You’re probably already … You’re basically probably already having issues paying your regular day to day bills, trying to find money to buy groceries because of all of the debt payments and the bill payments you have. You might be trying to keep your credit up at a high level relatively. Yeah, you just can’t seem to do it because of how much you’re spending on debt payments.

David Moffatt (06:12): I’ve mentioned this in other episodes, but what’s the point of going to work to come home to pay bills and the credit card and the debt payments to then just simply repeat it over and over again. The goal is to actually advance in life. So for example, a lot of people have aspirations of buying a house. Now, let’s consider a couple of scenarios.

David Moffatt (06:39): So the first scenario is somebody who’s drowning in debt, is living paycheck to paycheck but has a great credit score. Well, they would go to the bank and the bank would run their debt service ratios, which is the ratio that tells the bank how much free cash you have essentially to be able to afford a mortgage, and because of their debt, they wouldn’t be able to buy a house.

David Moffatt (07:02): This is true even if they had an 800 beacon score, a very, very good credit score, just simply by the nature of their debt, they wouldn’t qualify. In this instance, if they were to restructure rather and now looking at the second scenario of an individual who had recently restructured is now say, has the ability to save $500 a month yet has impacted credit for a maximum of six years. Well, at the end of that six year period, they would end up having $36,000 saved.

David Moffatt (07:38): So now you have to consider this, right? In the first one, they couldn’t even save for a down payment even if they want it to. Whereas now in the very least, they’re able to save for the down payment, rebuild credit along the way and by the time they’ve completed their program, there’s a very, very high likelihood that they’re going to be able to get into a house plus or minus a year or two.

David Moffatt (08:02): Now, they wouldn’t have been able to do that in the other scenario. There would have been two cases that would have occurred. They would have either kept going, hopefully increase their income or decrease their expenses. They would have been able to pay the debt off slowly over time, and let’s pretend that they were even able to do it in five years or less.

David Moffatt (08:23): Well, let’s just go with five years. So let’s say they were able to pay off their debt in five years, well, they don’t have a down payment. So if they wanted to buy a house with even a 5% down payment, and let’s assume that the house they want to buy is $200,000, they would need $10,000 saved, which means that even if they were able to save $750 a month, that’s still going to take them about a year. So you’re right at that six year window anyway.

David Moffatt (08:54): And by the way, you continue to basically live paycheck to paycheck for that entire five year period. It doesn’t take into account that anything that can go wrong and often does go wrong in life. So I always have to go back to the point that in almost every instance it makes sense to restructure.

David Moffatt (09:19): It really bothers me when I have people come into the office that came and saw me a year or a year and a half prior, and at that moment in time, the plan that they could have implemented would have been life changing, yet they chose not to do it because they didn’t like the credit impacts, which by the way, is probably my fault simply because I wasn’t able to properly portray the benefits of actually dealing with their debt.

David Moffatt (09:52): If they come back a year or a year and a half later, and then they come to me and they say, “Listen Dave, I really appreciate the time you spent with me before. I didn’t want to impact my credit, but now I have no choice.” So now you consider all of these people, because I bet you the amount of people that need to restructure that don’t because of credit, I bet you the overwhelming majority of them aren’t the individuals that end up increasing their income, decreasing their expenses and getting out of their situations.

David Moffatt (10:18): I would assume that a lot of them are in a position where they basically, I don’t want to say did nothing, that’s very probably naive of me. They probably struggled through it, tried absolutely everything they could to deal with their debt and then had to restructure but just didn’t come back to me.

David Moffatt (10:42): I just want people to do what’s right for them. So long story short, if you’re struggling financially and you’re concerned about your credit and you don’t want to impact your credit, but you’re living paycheck to paycheck, it almost always makes sense to restructure. Don’t continue struggling.

David Moffatt (11:04): So everybody, thank you very, very much for listening to the podcast. This is episode four of The Escaping Debt Podcast. Thank you very much for listening. Remember that our goal is that no one should have to struggle with the overwhelming burden that debt causes, and we believe that it is not possible for a company to represent both the consumer and the creditor in an unbiased fashion at the same time. That’s why we work for you, not your creditors. Thank you very much.

The post Escaping Debt Podcast – Why credit doesn’t actually matter – Episode 4 appeared first on 4 Pillars Halifax.

source https://www.halifaxdebtfreedom.ca/escaping-debt-podcast-why-credit-doesnt-actually-matter-episode-4/

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thesinglesjukebox · 4 years

Video

youtube

ASHLEY O - ON A ROLL

[5.00]

It's Amnesty 2019! In which our writers choose singles from the year that we didn't get to. And what better way to get the ball rolling than with a song that's got something to say about pop music...

Joshua Lu: In the final episode of season five of Black Mirror, Miley Cyrus plays pop star Ashley O, whose desire to escape her contract leads her aunt to put her under a coma, which leads to two of her fans saving her, which leads to her performing "Head Like a Hole" at a night club, happy now that she's freed from the literal and metaphorical restraints that came with being a pop star. Undergirding the episode is "On a Roll," a remake of that same Nine Inch Nails song but made so overtly benign and bubbly that it becomes as unnerving as the original. Most of these unnerving aspects are probably intentional: the ambiguity behind lines like "'Cause I'm going down in history" or "I'm gonna get what I deserve," the distorted moans and cries buried in the instrumental, or the way the bass drops off at the start of the chorus, leaving Ashley O screaming motivational platitudes over an unfeeling beat. But there are so many parts that are equally unsettling yet don't come across as intentional -- were they really expecting us to hear "hey yeah whoa-oh" and not "hey I'm a hole," or is this mixup supposed to act as commentary on, say, perverse undertones in popular music? (The fact that the original song has "hole" in the same spot makes this mondegreen all the more suspect.) Are the dozen or so seconds of dead air at the end of the song just a consequence of a lazy audio engineer, or was this silence deliberately included to let the song's termination settle uncomfortably into nothingness? It's these parts of "On a Roll" that make it so fascinating -- not the rockist message of its origin, and especially not the corny, ham-fisted cracking screen in the music video -- so much so that even after streaming it for months, I can't tell how much of this song I'm supposed to enjoy, and how much I'm supposed to fear. [8]

Vikram Joseph: Like "Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too", the Black Mirror episode which birthed it, "On A Roll" serves as both escapist fun and a pointed facsimile of meticulously-constructed big-studio pop. Brooker and Reznor's four-part construction is unexpectedly good -- a cheerleader-chant of a chorus (surely intentionally written to, in turn, be wilfully misheard as "hey, I'm a hoe!" by gay twitter) sandwiched between big, melodic, reverberating synths in the pre- and post-chorus sections. Squeezing "achieving my goals!" into a pop chorus is worth an extra point, and also works as a sly joke about influencer culture's obsession with productivity. [7]

Alfred Soto: Imagine shouting "achieving my goals!" with less enthusiasm than an assistant vice president of human resources at a two-day retreat. At least "California Gurls" put the self-help gumption behind solid beats. [1]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: "On a Roll" was designed to be a hollow shell of a prototypical pop song grounding a Black Mirror episode satirising toxic music stan culture. And yet, contrary to the episode's whole point, the Gays™ have still found a way to make it the object of stan culture anyways! Frankly, I can see why: it's low-key a bop, the kind that burrows under your skin and slowly takes over your body until you're singing it all the time. I can't help but like it even though I know I'm not supposed to. Do we really have free will? [6]

Kayla Beardslee: Yas queen, I'm literally gagging. We love a thinly produced bop! New main pop girl Ashley O has done it again, constantly raising the bar for all of us who want to make basic pop that serves looks? eh vocals? I guess its story without ever impressing outside of its narrative context. We stan. Keep her in that coma so she can churn out more average, serviceable music for AO2! [5]

Natasha Genet Avery: Ashley O's Gaga impression had me in the first half, I'm not gonna lie. But Gaga would never waste a verse and bridge this good on that laughably staid three-note chorus. [5]

Nortey Dowuona: A fizzing, swaddled bass synth lopes around the black hole of drums that sucks down every other musical instrument, burying a thinning synth key patch pushing up and sinking while Miley scrapes it off the bottom of the ice cream pail. [3]

Tobi Tella: In the same vein as A Star Is Born, turns out executives trying to make empty, vapid pop music actually ends up slapping. It's a perfect pop parody, with a million meaningless hooks; the drawn out "oh honeyyy," the pre-chorus that has nothing to do with anything, and, of course, the chorus, which hits the cheesy pop vibe perfectly. Not to mention the fact that it's an interpolation of a hard metal song, everything about this is nonsensical yet amazing, and it's honestly probably better than anything Miley Cyrus has put out this year. [7]

Jackie Powell: Ashley O might have just performed my "I can beat burnout" theme song. While this track was released in mid-June, it's exactly what is needed to deal with the darker days of December. It's almost as if I'm visualizing that Rachel Bloom on a stage somewhere singing about burnout, but I'm not actually hearing a musical theater melody. It's one hundred percent pop. It's also sexier while still cheering me on. How's that for an anti-burnout fight song? It's also ironic that "Head Like a Hole" is lyrically so dystopian while "On a Roll" sonically and visually -- with its simple synths responsible for the track's chord progression and a purple wig and white bodysuit -- projects more of a utopian vibe. But as a song featured in Black Mirror, the choice to pay tribute to "Head Like A Hole" was more deliberate than not. [8]

Katherine St Asaph: As long as Nine Inch Nails have existed and yarled, people have observed, often intending to blow your minds, that they might Actually Be Pop. There were the band's early appearances on questionable proto-TRLs. There was that Sound on Sound interview about how Dave Ogilvie mixed "Call Me Maybe" like a NIN song, resulting in this (featuring, in the comments, one "DigitalPimp" marveling at how it sounded like something out of a Black Mirror episode, four years before "Rachel, Jack, and Ashley Too"). There was the weird spate of offhand references in media about and/or marketed to young, non-generally-industrial-listening girls, from Clarissa from Clarissa Explains It All to Cassie from Animorphs to the babies in A Visit From the Goon Squad who are sold future!NIN's hit "Ga Ga." There are the many real-life "Ga Ga"s, like this, this, or this by Devo, or this seasonally appropriate medley. And there is, of course, this deeply strange year 2019, in which Trent Reznor earned his first No. 1 hit with one "Old Town Road," and in which there was this. I'm not a Trent purist -- I'm too much of a Tori Amos fan for that -- but "On a Roll" misunderstands the medium. The track, at least, is done by actual pop producers, The Invisible Men, and thus sounds plausible, though it can't decide whether it wants to be "California Gurls" or Weeknd-produced-by-Max-Martin smooveness or whatever the hell that half-time prechorus or Can't Take Me Home faux-soul backing vocal are. But the lyrics are by Charlie Brooker, and though he nails the inane in-universe promotional bullshit, he doesn't understand songwriting. "Bow down before the one you serve" is a more plausible pop lyric than "I'm stoked on ambition and verve." One shamelessly plunders greed and S&M and melodrama and does so the way actual people talk. One is a thesis statement rather than a lyric, doesn't scan, and is finished by rhymezone.com-ing vocabulary that for the life of me, I cannot remember if any pop lyrics have used. It's not even a timely thesis; in cynical 2019, post-Madonna, post-Gaga, post-Eilish, hell, post-"7 Rings," a pop star is less likely to put out "Everything Is Awesome" jingle music than just cover "Head like a Hole." And indeed, "On a Roll" exists so Black Mirror can get a cathartic moment out of Ashley O singing the actual "Head Like a Hole," which sounds great, because by comparison what wouldn't? Trent says he's OK with it, but then we know his stance on what he'd do for money. [2]

Iain Mew: I was at the lower context end of the scale for my initial listens to "On a Roll." I haven't watched the Black Mirror episode; I was vaguely aware of a Nine Inch Nails link but not its form; I don't know "Head Like a Hole." In that context "On a Roll" sounded like an intermittently functioning pop song with some unusually scanning lyrics that ranged from awkward to witty to both. Listening to the Nine Inch Nails song afterwards brought it together in a different way, but "On a Roll" stood up without that at least as well as most of the high concept early-'00s mashups that it's the conceptual successor to. [6]

Katie Gill: Does this work more if you're canon-familiar? Because I get the joke: ha ha, we're going to turn Nine Inch Nails into a pop song as some sort of commentary for Charlie Brooker's Ham-Fisted Social Commentary Hour! But I've only watched one or two Black Mirror episodes, so I can't help but feel that I'm missing something here. Because if the joke is that this complete antithesis of a pop song is now turned into a pop song, I don't think it works. The lyrics are sheer beautiful banality, a 2010s take on the same joke Music and Lyrics made over ten years ago. But the pop instrumentation & reworking doesn't hide the fact that "Head Like a Hole" is not fundamentally built like a pop song. It's like going into a guest bedroom that was obviously once a storage attic with low ceilings and poor insulation: put on a new coat of paint and the bones still show through. Maybe I have to watch the episode in order to fully appreciate the joke. But then again, great examples of musical parody & homage stand wonderfully on their own without context. Why doesn't this? [5]

Alex Clifton: As a parody of manufactured pop, this is pretty good; unsurprisingly, I'm reminded of Hannah Montana's "Nobody's Perfect" with its aggressive positivity ("riding so high! achieving my goals!"). But I'm seen people refer to this as an "accidental banger" and that's overrating the song. It's serviceable, it's catchy enough to be in the background at a party, but if you're going to go for manufactured pop, go hard or go home. This just doesn't commit itself enough to the genre to meet my expectations. [4]

Will Adams: I've spent the better part of the decade railing against PC Music's uncanny valley pop and its purported inability to make satisfying commentary on pop music. Allow "On a Roll" to serve as my mea culpa. Clickable premise of Miley Cyrus covering Nine Inch Nails for a Black Mirror episode aside, "On a Roll" feels pointless. Especially when a pop version of "Head Like a Hole" already exists, deliberately cynical pop by mainstream artists already exists, and your chorus hinges on a line as fatally clunky as "I'm stoked on ambition and verve." [3]

David Moore: A few months ago I was doing my weekly Spotify trawl and came across what sounded like a long-delayed aftershock of self-titled-era Taylor Swift. I was amused to see that this artist was Taylor Acorn, suggesting an elaborate algorithm designed to generate successive Taylor Swift clones named according to a variation on the NATO alphabet: Taylor Acorn, Taylor Bravo, Taylor Charlie. And this in turn gave me an idea for a television pilot with this exact premise, which I wrote ten to twenty minutes worth of before it fell flat. The problem, as it usually is with these sorts of things, is that the music needs to be good, and it can't just conjure its goodness from the perspicacity of its commentary. And of course most bizzer behind-the-curtain shows fail even at this basic commentary level -- the easiest part! -- and are doomed to be not only bad both in show and in soundtrack, but a little insulting, too. So it's a pleasure, if a mild one, to hear those exhausting try-hards over at Black Mirror let a decent pop song just kind of sit there. I didn't see the episode, but from what I can tell Miley Cyrus is supposed to be a bit of a cipher, which of course she isn't at all -- and funnily enough it makes this song do almost the opposite of what it's supposed to; it acts instead as a kind of metacommentary on how hard it is to make Miley Cyrus sound cool and competent. What, Taylor Acorn wasn't available? [6]

Michael Hong: It's nice to see Hannah Montana aim for something that fits directly into the image of the pop machine. "On the Roll" lodges itself firmly in your head while attempting to stimulate your pleasure receptors, rather than forcing all its energy to generate the cycle's "new authentic me," which ends up barely being a reinvention but more of an embarrassing reminder that Miley Cyrus is once again, back at it. Next time maybe she can aim for something good. [2]

Kylo Nocom: As satire? Boring, but not unexpectedly so! A good rule of thumb is that blanket parodies of pop music are never smart and rarely funny. Just last year A Star Is Born and Vox Lux soundtracked rockist paranoia with gratingly obvious piss-takes: "Why Did You Do That?" had a title that doubled as a lament for Ally's career; "Hologram (Smoke and Mirrors)" drove accusations of artifice that seemed directed equally at an imagined lover and Celeste herself. "On a Roll" suffers the same issues through less obvious signaling, being the commodification of an anti-establishment song, yet even here the writers can't resist an ironic nod. An uncomfortably extended silence following the last "I'm gonna get what I deserve" leaves room for interpretation: is this about Ashley exiting the pop machine as a break into authentic living, or about her suffering as retribution for being part of the pop machine? Who knows! The song is otherwise fantastic, and it being fantastic fucking sucks. Interpolating Nine Inch Nails wholesale puts Miley in her most enjoyable mode: anthemic rock-adjacent joy, some of the best she's done since her Hollywood Records era. Even if Black Mirror's idea of future pop is suspiciously like 2017, with tropical percussion breaks from "New Rules" and the pulses from "Sorry Not Sorry," the arrangement of "On a Roll" suggests actual, realized verve. The charm of the song concerns; in the context of the show itself it's the result of exploitation, and outside its context it's packaged with tacky viral marketing bullshit. But I can't resist. [9]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: I was prepared to give this some begrudgingly high score based on the weird, feverish week in the early summer where I listened to this on loop. But on the return visit, the appeal of "On a Roll" fades away with its novelty. All that remains is the general structure of "Head Like A Hole," which ties that undeniable melody to a much more compelling creep of a beat, and a slightly-above-average vocal performance from Miley. With every year of this nostalgia-focused decade I have grown wearier and wearier of this sort of reincarnation pop, yesterday's pleasures repackaged winkingly for an audience that sees the artlessness, the lack of aura, as the point. There's no way to listen to this sincerely, and I'm no longer amused by irony's mirror. [3]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]

#Ashley O #Miley Cyrus #Black Mirror #pop #music #music review #Amnesty Week

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flauntpage · 6 years

Text

DGB Grab Bag: The Ten Commandments of Replay Reviews and Challenges

Three stars of comedy

The third star: The Vancouver Whitecaps – They're the local MLS team, and they figured they could work a fun marketing tie-in with the city's NHL team.

Unfortunately, that team is the Canucks, and now that Brock Boeser is hurt they don't score anymore. That was kind of a problem, as the Whitecaps learned over the ensuing three hours.

Welp, indeed. Vancouver sports, everyone!

The second star: These two Wild fans – It's OK, they were distracted by the Canucks having scored a goal.

The first star: The Bruins/Hurricanes highlights – Carolina sportscaster Mark Armstrong is here to give you everything local hockey fans want to see, and literally nothing else.

Be It Resolved

Today, everyone hates instant replay challenges.

The offside reviews are tedious, nitpicky, and often appear to return the incorrect result. And right now, those are considered the good kind of review. The goaltender interference debacle is even worse. There's growing momentum to just get rid of them both, and leave replay review to the bare bone basics like whether a puck was over the goal line.

And that's all well and good. But that's today. Tomorrow, or the day after, or someday down the road, something's going to happen that will result in somebody calling for more replay reviews.

Maybe it will be a high-sticking call where the player was actually clipped by a teammate. Or maybe a puck-over-glass that was actually deflected. Or a too-many-men call where the sixth guy didn't actually hit the ice until his man had reached the bench. Or a crucial icing call where a team had maybe reached the red line.

Whatever it is, somebody out there will suggest we make those plays reviewable. After all, we have the technology. Why not get it right?

So today, I'd like to address those people. When the day comes that we get to meet them, feel free to cut-and-paste everything below and send it to them.

Hello, future hockey fans.

Boy, that sure was a controversial call. Those refs, am I right? You'd think there'd be a better way. Hey, why not use instant replay review? The coaches could decide when to challenge, we'd end up getting the calls right all the time, and then everyone would be happy. What could go wrong?

I'm going to stop you right there.

I come to you from the distant past of many years or months or days ago, and I bring a warning. We went through the same sort of controversy you're living right now with offside and goalie interference, and we, too, thought that replay would fix everything. It didn't. It made everything worse.

It will probably do the same for you, too. Not necessarily—there are cases where replay works fine. But over the last few years, us hockey fans of the distant past have learned a few hard lessons. You should learn them, too, before it's too late.

So be it resolved that we never again add more instant replay until we've acknowledged and accepted these important facts. Let's call them the ten commandments of replay reviews and challenges:

1. The missed call you're mad about probably happens so rarely that changing a bunch of rules is an overreaction.

2. If you give them a challenge, coaches will inevitably end up using it way more than you ever thought they would.

3. As soon as you make something subject to review in the name of "getting it right", fans will expect you to get it right every single time, and you won't.

4. If you think replay will only overturn calls that are obviously and indisputably incorrect instead of fixating on too-close-to-call nitpicking, prepare to be wrong.

5. Even if your replay system works and gets almost everything right, fans will still complain about every call that goes against their team anyway, because that's what fans do.

6. Don't tell yourself that the reviews will be quick. They're never quick.

7. The officials will hate them, and they'll make sure you know it.

8. It's never a good idea to train your fans to react to an exciting play by saying "Hold on, this might just get overturned".

9. You can avoid all these problems with one simple fix: Don't add more replay.

10. Seriously, just don't.

Thanks for reading, NHL fans of the future, and sorry about our haggard appearance. We know that we're a wretched, pathetic lot right now. But if we can be your cautionary example, then maybe all of this will have done some good.

Just don't ignore us. You know, the way we did to those fans from 1999.

Obscure former player of the week

So the Canucks haven't scored in three straight games, giving them a shot at setting the modern record. The key word there is "modern"—even though we're suffering through a two-decade Dead Puck Era, there was a time when goals in the NHL were even harder to come by. The low point came during the 1928-29 season, when the average game featured fewer than three goals. That season's Chicago Black Hawks managed just 33 goals in 34 games, and at one point went a ridiculous eight straight games without scoring at all.

So today, let's bestow obscure player honors on the man who finally broke that streak: Johnny Gottselig.

Gottselig grew up in Regina, Saskatchewan, but he was born in Klosterdorf, a small village that was then part of the Russian Empire. This fact isn't recognized in some history books, since he spent some of his youth pretending to have been born in Canada to speed up border crossings, but he was one of the first Russian-born players in NHL history.

He made his debut with the Hawks as a left winger for that 1928-29 season and scored just five goals that first year, which doesn't sound like much but was good for third on the team. Perhaps the biggest came one minute into the team's Feb. 5, 1929 game in Detroit, when Gottselig's goal snapped that eight-game drought. Like many goals scored that season, it held up as the winner in a 1-0 final.

Gottselig went on to play 16 years with Chicago. He recorded a pair of 20-goal seasons, finished third in Hart Trophy voting in 1939, and won two Stanley Cups. The second of those came in 1938, when Gottselig was captain, and he'd later coach the team for four years, making him both the first European-born coach and Cup-winning captain in league history.

New entries for the hockey dictionary

Lower standings injury (noun) – Hockey fans are familiar with the league's insistence on never telling us which players have which injuries. Instead, we get the "upper body injury" and "lower body injury" designations. Those terms are largely useless and they annoy you, but you're an NHL fan and the league hates you so screw you.

But these days, there's a far more important type of injury gripping the league. You can see them popping up in places like Buffalo, Arizona, Vancouver, and Ottawa. Montreal has a ton, including to most of their best players. It's the dreaded last-season injury that shuts a player down for the rest of the season, as long as that player happens to be playing for a team that's well out of the playoff race.

Nobody knows why so many of these injuries happen at this time of year, and only to the bad teams. Clearly it can't be tanking, because we've been assured that doesn't exist. So chalk it up to bad luck, I guess. Every year, some poor team that's already headed toward securing the best odds for the draft lottery suddenly has all their players get hurt. It can be a terrible thing—some of the dozen or so Maple Leafs who all suffered the same fate back in 2016 still haven't recovered.

The phenomenon happens often enough that it needs a name. So forget about the standard LBI and UBI—we're introducing the LSI. A lower standings injury is anything that removes a key player from a terrible team's lineup just in time for a late push for lottery odds.

(Incidentally, you may be wondering if there's such a thing as an upper standings injury. There is, although those tend not to be as serious, and only ever impact teams that already have their playoff seed locked up. For reasons nobody can figure out, teams fighting for a wild-card spot somehow manage to remain completely healthy.)

Researchers are working to find a cure for lower standings injuries. We're trying to get a few strands of Oscar Klefbom's DNA to figure out why he's the only one who's ever been immune to the condition. In the meantime, please say a prayer for all the LSI victims who've already been identified, and the many more we'll be hearing about over the next few days and weeks.

Classic YouTube clip breakdown

It's St. Patrick's Day this weekend. Say those words to most people, and they'll start thinking about green beer and leprechauns. But say them to old-school hockey fans, and they'll start thinking about the St. Patrick's Day Massacre, the infamous 1991 brawl between the Blackhawks and Blues.

Well, "brawl" isn't quite accurate. No, the Massacre actually refers to several brawls that took place over the course of the game. The most memorable of those is the one you're probably thinking of when you hear somebody reference the Massacre: Scott Stevens and Dave Manson squaring off at center ice for one of the great one-on-one showdowns in hockey history. We gave that one the YouTube breakdown treatment a few years ago.

But that fight never happens if it's not for an incident earlier in the game that set the tone for the rest of the night. So today, let's go back the most famous moment in the history of the Blues/Blackhawks rivalry, and then go back just a little further to the earlier brawl that set the stage.

This is, as will soon become clear, the local Chicago broadcast of the game. Our play-by-play voice is Pat Foley, and fair warning, he's going to get just a little bit homer-y here. Ordinarily that's annoying, but we can't stay mad at the man who gave us the wee-knee clip, so he's forgiven.

So we're just under six minutes into the game, with Chicago leading 1-0. In theory, it's an important game, with just two weeks left in the season and these two teams battling for the Presidents' Trophy. But as we're about to find out, the Blues have come to town with another priority in mind: dishing out some payback to Jeremy Roenick.

This all goes back to a game between the two teams a few weeks earlier, one that had featured a hard hit by Roenick on Bob Bassen. That had led to legendary Blues GM Ron Caron calling out Roenick as a dirty player in an epic rant that included lines like "He doesn't pick on someone who could beat him up, he hits you from the blind side and takes off," and "Because he's young, talented and cute, he gets away with that." Ron Caron was the best.

Back to the March 17 game, and our clip picks up in the aftermath of another big Roenick hit, this one against Harold Snepsts. We join the action right after, and if you watch carefully you'll notice something unusual at the 0:03 mark—a Blues player hops off the bench and joins the scrum. That turns out to be important.

Roenick's timing isn't great on this one, as the Blues have several tough guys on the ice for this shift. That's right, teams used to dress multiple enforcers for each game and play them on the same line. Why yes, the NHL was an interesting league to watch in the early 90s, thanks for asking.

One of those tough guys, the fantastically named Glen Featherstone, goes after Roenick, but Keith Brown steps in to save his smaller teammate. Within seconds, Featherstone's jersey is over his head and Brown's helmet is covering his face and neither guy can see anything. Do they stop throwing haymakers? [Checks notes that just say "It's the Norris Division."] No they do not.

As that fight is getting broken up, the Blues start chasing after Roenick. First it's tough guy Darren Kimble, and then Kelly Chase shows up. Chase had been called up for this game, pretty much for this specific purpose. He's also the guy who left the bench at the beginning of the clip, temporarily giving the Blues an extra man in the fight and earning himself a ten-game suspension. He doesn't really get to Roenick, but in the commotion Kimble circles back and starts throwing sucker punches.

Fun fact: Every 80s and 90s brawl features at least one player you recognize but swear was too young to be in the league at the time. For this brawl, the role will be played by Rod Brind'Amour.

The Blackhawks bench nearly empties, which would have been the first bench-clearing brawl since 1987. There hasn't been a full-scale version since, although we've had a few near-misses at the end of periods. I don't know what it would take to cause another one after three decades, but I'm sure Brad Marchand is working on it.

We see Kimble leave the ice, which reminds us of two things: his hockey hair was amazing, and it was completely insane that visiting players had to walk up and down a flight of stairs with no hand railing at the old Chicago Stadium.

"And now Snepsts is going to try to get at Yawney!" Admit it, for a second when you heard that you thought the Blues were trying to fight this guy.

The officials try to clean up the remaining scrums while Foley breathlessly vows that the Hawks can't be intimidated and Snepsts makes crazy old-man eyes at everyone. Meanwhile, the Stadium organist hits us with some Phantom of the Opera. Good times all around.

The two teams mostly behaved themselves for the rest of the period before resuming hostilities in the second, which is when the second line brawl and the Manson/Stevens showdown happens. What can I tell you, both teams had Sutters on the coaching staff, so this was all pretty much inevitable.

And that's about it. The second half of our clip is just a replay of basically the entire brawl, because back then you had to kill some time while the officials sorted out all the penalties. And there were plenty in this game—278 PIM in all, including 13 ejections. The league also handed out 22 games worth of suspensions. We all agreed that this was a terrible thing, and the NHL would be a far better place if this sort of nonsense never happened again.

[Spends the next three hours watching Norris Division brawls on YouTube.]

Have a question, suggestion, old YouTube clip, or anything else you'd like to see included in this column? Email Sean at [email protected].

DGB Grab Bag: The Ten Commandments of Replay Reviews and Challenges published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/

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songfromthesiren-blog · 6 years

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new year, who dis?

Okay so its the new year. 2018. How the hell are ya? Nice to meet ya. etc etc. So in good ol’ new year fashion I’ve spent some time thinking about those pesky little resolutions that we all *try* to set and then let fall to the way side by say... oh.. jan 13th. My oh so lovely and wise wife has a slightly different approach by calling them reso-goals instead of resolutions. Honestly I’m not terribly sure what she gets out of that. Technically they are the same thing but maybe it really falls to the mindset. Currently I’m more on the mindset of not setting goals, well not exactly, but more so implementing systems.

Allow me to explain. It all came from an article that found its way in my inbox at work today. A very appropriate thing for a boss to send his employees on a monday. especially when that monday is the first day of the month. Even more especially considering this particular first day of the month monday is the first day of the year. Anyway the article was more or less discussing how setting goals can lead to unnecessary stress and a feeling of “I’m just not good enough” until said goal is achieved. And its a temporary state. You set a goal, you work hard and stress out while trying to achieve goal, you achieve goal (yay) aaaand then what? Theres a period of void- of nothing- of slacking off- or whatever until another goal is set and then the cycle starts all over again. Honestly it stresses me out just thinking of it. The author of this article suggests that if instead of setting goals you developed a system and just committed to that system then you will in turn be just as successful if not more so in the long run. Their best example was reflecting on their own work for the year. They published 115,000 words worth of articles in the year. Averaging that a typical book sits around 50k-60k words they roughly wrote two books in the year. Now had they said “I’m going to write two books this year” it would have added a very concrete and stressful checkpoint. Where as they set a system to write an article every monday and thursday and stuck to that system. In the long run it was a lot easier and they accomplished the would be goal plus. Anyway that is a very lengthy side note to just say that I really feel like my life needs some systems to actually stick.

I’m already implementing a new system with work to hopefully make my time spent more worth while. This was well in the motion before this article became a thing. I just don’t do well with an 8 hour day in front of a computer. I don’t get shit done- not like I would like. Its not productive to my end goal really. So splitting my admin time over the course of two days bookending my week makes a lot more sense. We will see how it goes in practice but today went well. I accomplished all I set out to accomplish, spent the last 4 hours of my shift on the floor, and then went home when the schedule said go home. Which is a nice change of pace.

Out side of work theres a lot of little things I want to... change... refine... I don’t know i guess implement is the best word but I was aiming to use a different word haha.

first of all I want to write more. I honestly miss my days of creative writing. Spitting slam poems over pancakes and making up stories. Those were some really great days and I just don’t do that anymore. Not from not wanting to- the real world is just different from college. I’m exhausted after work and I find the easy way out of vegging in front of mindless tv or scrolling between the same 2 apps on my phone. No real mental stimulation going on- and while i’m more emotionally fulfilled and prolly won’t produce angst ridden slam poems so much, i can still write and let my inner monologue have legs. Use this blog more for the reasons I started it in the first place. Write short stories, or catalog my day, write letters to mom, or really whatever. As long as i write. So the idea is to take some time every day to do that. What I need to do is make it uninterrupted time. While writing this post i’ve recorded a cat video, sent it to four people, started a conversation with one of those people, and carried a conversation with a 5 person. See theres a lot. and it draws my focus away. So i really have no clue how long i’ve been writing and whether or not my train of thought has been so derailed that maybe this is something different than it originally set out to be. If that makes a lick of sense. all and all, i’ll get better at it. Thats the thing with systems- you put *something* in place and see if it sticks and review/adjust to make it something that will work in the long run. This is a big one for me and lucky enough my beloved has the same reso-goal so maybe we can be accountability buddies in that.

The other really big focus is very adult. I hate it. But the reality of my life right now is I don’t want to live in this state for the rest of my life. I don’t want to live in the way that I’m living financially for the rest of my life. and in order to change those things I HAVE TO stick with a financial plan that pays off debt, keeps it off, and eventually saves money. HA what is this 1987? Right. Whatever- it is possible- we just have to stop wanting french fries and ice cream so damn much. I’m so fucking good at writing a budget. I’m so fucking terrible at sticking to it. Ive read the Dave Ramsey approach, I have a best friend that swears by it, I’ve heard all the success stories, now is the time to make it work. This is the year. The only way its going to work is to stop trying to create shortcuts for myself, follow the actual plan, and stick to our budget. We are our own worst enemy when it comes to this. If i had the spare money maybe I would hire a financial adviser. maybe I’ll con someone to do that for me.

Honestly if I can make these two simple (yet maybe not so simple) things happen then I really think i’ll have a certain level of peace that is missing in my life. I think I’ll be able to see some real success come out of life and I’ll get where I want to be. Age 30 is just around the river bend and I’d really like to be in a certain place by that point. I think I can make that happen.

#newyear #newme #notreally #resolutions #reso-goals #personal #self improvement #letsdothis

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melindarowens · 7 years

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Jobs Report Disappoints, Once Again!

Good day… And a Marvelous Monday to you! You know, I liked last week, when I was still sleeping at this time on Monday morning, due to the holiday! What an awful display of baseball by my beloved Cardinals in the worst possible place, Chicago, this past weekend… UGH! I guess I’ll just have to admit it, this is a bad baseball team, and it’s going to be a long season… UGH! I went to the office yesterday, and cleaned out my office… I’m going to work from home from here on out, so there was no reason to take up space! Now the back of my car is filled with “stuff” that I have to get out of there! Steely Dan greets me this morning with their great song from the Album of the same name: Aja… (my fave Steely Dan album too!)

Well, Friday’s price action in the currencies and metals were something to see.. The Jobs report in the U.S. was disappointing, and the long dollar trades were getting unwound faster than a speeding bullet, no wait, that’s Superman’s speed… Hmmm, faster than you can say Englebert Humperdink! (remember him?) So, the currencies and metals were off to higher ground and remained there through the overnight sessions of Asia and Europe last night. The Petrol Currencies got an extra boost when the price of Oil jumped on news that some of the Arabic countries were shutting off relations with Qatar, saying that Qatar had harbored terrorists…

So, if all this movement in the currencies and metals came about from the Jobs Jamboree on Friday, I guess this is where I have to deal with the BLS’s report… You know I don’t like having to do this, because I’m going to point out the hedonic adjustments, and the off-base assumptions they make… So, here goes…

So, get a #2 pencil and a blank piece of paper and write this down… The May Jobs Jamboree only netted 138,000 jobs, and that puts the year-to-date average at 162,000 per month, and when you just count the last three months, where the drops have really occurred, the average month is only 121,000… So, knowing this, now try to figure out how the Unemployment Rate dropped to 4.3% and is down ½% in these last three months, when the drops in jobs created have occurred… I for the life of me can’t, and yes, I know all about the people dropping off the jobs radar…

Even with this 3-month drop (proving that it wasn’t just “transitory”) I don’t think it’s enough to stop the Fed from hiking rates this month… I said it before and I’ll say it again, they are hell bent and whiskey bound to hike rates this month, so like I said Friday, let ‘em hike rates… I don’t think that in 3 months or so, they’ll be happy about that decision, but for now, it’s all sunshine, rainbows and lollipops, Everything that’s wonderful when the Fed hikes rates in a weakening economy…

Of the 138,000 jobs created by the U.S. in May… The BLS added 230,000 to the survey totals… 230,000 jobs added to the numbers out of thin air! And this brings me to the main reason I just don’t care what the BLS prints any longer, it can’t be trusted as true data! Why can’t 230,000 jobs be added using the Birth/ Death Model? Well, a few months ago, you may recall me talking about how an independent research firm had issued a report saying that there had been far more business deaths in the past 10 years than “births”… But all this time the BLS was adding jobs using this model every month…

Last week, Dave Gonigam, over at the 5 Minute Forecast (www.agorafinancial.com ) talked about this subject regarding business deaths… The Census Bureau calls it” Exits and Entries”… and had a graph that showed how the “exits” were greater than the “entries” but the data stopped in 2013… So, choose your report, the independent research team, or the Census Bureau, they both come to the same conclusion, and that is that the BLS has no basis whatsoever to add jobs each month, especially to the tune of 230,000!

Oh, and one more thing before I go on… the U.S. National Economic Council Director, Gary Cohn, said Friday that we should not obsess over any one number in the jobs report… Hmmm, I wonder if after he said that, one of his “assistants” whispered to him and said, “ahem, the previous 2 months were bad too”… memo to Mr. Cohn… remember to wear flavored socks… wink, wink..

Gold was able to gain $ 13.10 on Friday… As Ed Steer says, “it was able to gain its usual 1% that it’s normally allowed to have on any given day” wink, wink.. Gold closed on Friday at $ 1,278.50, and is up $ 5 in the early morning trading today. We draw closer to the level I said I thought Gold could reach by the end of summer, which is $ 1,300… That’s a good thing, folks, because the shiny metal is ahead of schedule!

Have you heard the news on Gold? Bloomberg, GATA, you name it has been all over this story like a cheap suit, and I’m going to pile on… Basically, David Liew a trader that used to work at Deutsche Bank pleaded guilty in federal court in Chicago of spoofing of futures contracts for Gold, Silver, Platinum and Palladium, according to court papers… Spoofing is an illegal trading scenario, where the trader places orders without the intent of executing them in an attempt to manipulate the price. This trader also acknowledged front-running customer’s orders.. If you would like to read more about this click here: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-02/trader-pleading-guilty-in-metals-probe-tied-to-deutsche-bank

I have to wonder what this leads to… More traders being brought to court? I f I were the CFTC (the commodities regulator) I would have a parade to traders at every bullion dealer, lined up to testify in court of whether they participated in the manipulation of the prices for the precious metals… Yes, or No… Under oath mind you, and then when they said “No” they were allowed to return to work… If they said “yes”, then they were taken to a different courtroom.. Or, was this just a warning to the Big firms that hold most of the short positions?

So, two BIG stories on this Marvelous Monday Morning… Look at Chuck Rocking the Alliteration! HA! The Big Story of the Jobs disappointment and the Gold trader story… Now that’s enough for one day, but hold on, there’s more! And if you’re one of the first 100 callers, you will also get detailed information on the Data Cupboard! HA!

Friday’s Data Cupboard was dominated by the Jobs Jamboree, but there was more behind the curtain… We also saw the Trade Deficit number, that was the net of the actual trade number and investments… The Trade Deficit was larger than expected at $ 47.6 Billion..

Today’s Data Cupboard is chock-full-o-data, that isn’t all Tier 1 data, but it’s printing anyway… First we get the 1st QTR Productivity revision and 1st QTR labor Costs. (that 1st QTR data is really getting stale isn’t it?) Then we’ll see the color of the ISM Services Index, and finally, Factory Orders for April… (really the only data today I care about!) I really don’t care about Services, because as I’ve said for years, “we’ve become a servicing country/ economy and our service lacks BIG TIME!

The U.K. will finally go to the election booths this week on Thursday I do believe. Which also happens to be an ECB (European Central Bank) meeting day. But before we get to Thursday, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) meets tonight (for us, tomorrow for them)… I don’t expect anything but the same-o, same-o, from the RBA… They won’t sound too upbeat in the statement, after leaving rates unchanged, and they have just enough optimism to keep everyone interested…

I think the A$ is going to go through a rough patch here with the RBA dragging their feet with regards to hiking rates. Traders, as I’ve explained many time before, will grow bored with the no movement from the RBA or the currency, and then look for greener pastures…

Getting back to the U.K. elections… The latest poll this weekend has the Conservatives maintaining their lead, but remember the previous polls in the U.K. and U.S.? I won’t believe anything here until the outcome is posted! And currency traders have that same belief, for they’re not giving the pound any chance to rebound ahead of the vote outcome.

And I’m told that the 10-year Treasury yield fell to 2.11% on Friday.. But has fallen back to 2.17% this morning… That’s pretty unbelievable to me, that the 10-year still sports an ultra-low yield like this, with all the talk by the Fed about growth, inflation and rate hikes… Are the bond boys telling us something?

To recap… The Jobs Jamboree on Friday was disappointing and left the dollar out to hang. Traders began unwinding long dollar positions, but it wasn’t just one month of disappointing numbers, May marked 3 consecutive months of disappointing numbers in jobs… Chuck has all the details and a look under the BLS’s hood today… A Gold trader has pleaded guilty to spoofing and front running, but most importantly spoofing because that can be used to manipulate a price. Chuck asks, what will happen next here? The RBA meets tonight, and there shouldn’t be any fireworks here, and the U.K. finally goes to the election booths this week…

For What It’s Worth… Well, this is a subject that I’ve been talking about for over a decade now… It’s the underfunded pensions… Well, this article talks about underfunded pensions around the world, but focuses on the U.S. which happens to have the largest amount of underfunded pensions… The article can be found here: http://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/26/pensions-time-bomb-for-worlds-biggest-economies-could-explode-to-400-trillion-says-wef.html

Or, here’s your snippet: “Future generations are on course to become enveloped in the biggest pension crisis in history, according to the World Economic Forum (WEF), unless policymakers from the world’s leading economies take urgent action.

The Geneva-based organization predicted the challenges of an ageing population could result in the world’s largest economies being forced to tackle a pension time-bomb.

Analysis from WEF showed six countries with the biggest pensions, including the U.S., Canada, U.K., Netherlands, Japan and Australia, as well as the two most densely populated countries in the world – China and India – would face a retirement savings gap in excess of $ 400 trillion in 2050, up from around $ 70 trillion in 2015.

According to the WEF’s forward looking estimates, the retirement savings gap from all eight countries is set to inflate by 5 percent every year over the next four decades. This translates to an extra $ 28 billion of deficit every 24 hours.

“We must address it now or accept that its adverse consequences will haunt future generations, putting an impossible strain on our children and grandchildren,” Drexler added.

Chuck again… yes, we must address this now, but we won’t… Because talking about that kind of stuff won’t get anyone reelected ! It’s that simple folks… So, like I say about debt that the U.S. keeps accumulating at an alarming rate, it might not be something that keeps people like you and me indoors, but our kids and grandkids are a different story… I thought about this briefly last night, when little Delaney Grace was sitting on my lap talking to me.. But I quickly got that out of my mind so I could concentrate on what she was telling me! She’s so darn cute!

Currencies today 6/5/17… American Style: A$ .7480, kiwi .7137, C$ .7426, euro 1.1265, sterling 1.29, Swiss $ .9641, … European Style: rand 12.7163, krone 8.4232, SEK 8.6574, forint 272.82, zloty 3.7098, koruna 23.3622, RUB 56.60, yen 110.50, sing 1.3563, HKD 7.7912, INR 64.27, China 8.1150, peso 18.37, BRL 3.2403, Dollar Index 96.77, Oil $ 47.84, 10yr 2.17%, Silver $ 17.55, Platinum $ 964.75, Palladium $ 844.61, Gold $ 1,283.70, and SGE Gold $ 1,267.78 (the SGE Gold price hasn’t been updated since last Friday, Chinese time)

That’s it for today… Frank sure did a great job on the Sunday Pfennig yesterday, as he talked about Diversification. (www.dailypfennig.com) And then last night I listened to an interview with the father of diversification, Harry Markowitz, that Grant Williams had imbedded in his letter: Things That Make You Go Hmmm… You should check out Frank’s piece, it’s really good! The older kids were here yesterday with the grandkids, and I smoked some pork steaks for them… They meat was falling off the bone when I took them off the Big Green Egg! Darling daughter Dawn will be back this morning to teach swim lessons (I’m thinking that I should get a cut of her earnings, right?) It was downright “summerish” yesterday, and I love it! The Amazing Rhythm Aces take us to the finish line today with their song: Third Rate Romance… And with that I hope you have a Marvelous Monday… Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler Managing Director EverBank Global Markets Creator / Editor of: A Pfennig For Your Thoughts 1-800-926-4922

http://www.everbank.com

The post Jobs Report Disappoints, Once Again! appeared first on Daily Pfennig.

Daily Pfennig

source http://capitalisthq.com/jobs-report-disappoints-once-again/ from CapitalistHQ http://capitalisthq.blogspot.com/2017/06/jobs-report-disappoints-once-again.html

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everettwilkinson · 7 years

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Jobs Report Disappoints, Once Again!

The Geneva-based organization predicted the challenges of an ageing population could result in the world’s largest economies being forced to tackle a pension time-bomb.

“We must address it now or accept that its adverse consequences will haunt future generations, putting an impossible strain on our children and grandchildren,” Drexler added.

Chuck Butler Managing Director EverBank Global Markets Creator / Editor of: A Pfennig For Your Thoughts 1-800-926-4922

http://www.everbank.com

The post Jobs Report Disappoints, Once Again! appeared first on Daily Pfennig.

Daily Pfennig

from CapitalistHQ.com http://capitalisthq.com/jobs-report-disappoints-once-again/

#TrumpNews #CapitalistHQ.com

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flauntpage · 6 years

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Unsustainable! Four Takeaways from the Paul Holmgren Interview and the Flyers last two losses to the Capitals and Devils

Considering the Eagles hysteria – and believe me, as someone who remembers not one, but both Eagles Super Bowl appearances, both Phillies World Series wins, the last Sixers title as well as their 2001 run to the Finals and five Flyers defeats in the Stanley Cup Finals, I can tell you, with absolute certainty, that this is the craziest this city has ever been for a sports team – I’m going to do something different and keep this Flyers post short.

After all, you don’t care THAT much about hockey this weekend, do you?

Anyway, since my one-on-one with Paul Holmgren (and a couple commenters got on us for calling it exclusive. It was, in fact, exclusive because, as President, he doesn’t speak all that often with the media. He did when he was GM, but that was four years ago. If the interview was with Ron Hextall, it wouldn’t be exclusive. But, it was with Holmgren… so it was.) the Flyers have gone on to lose back-to-back games to Washington and New Jersey, both in regulation, and are now on a three-game losing skid and, for the first time all season, have gone three consecutive games without garnering at least one point.

It’s not a good time to do that, especially considering two of those losses came against Division rivals, and both of those game were winnable and had blown leads.

But I don’t really want to get into specifics from the game like we do with most of these takeaway pieces.

No, instead, I want to offer some general takeaways from my interview with Paul and a couple of general items from the last two games.

So let’s hit it:

1. Do I believe Paul Holmgren?

In two words, I do. I respect the hell out of Paul. I know a lot of people got on him about how he handled things as general manager. Overpaying players, signing the wrong guys, and basically putting the Flyers into salary cap hell.

Most of those arguments are valid, however it’s hard to come down on him really hard when there was a directive from ownership to win at all costs – which was the unenviable task he faced in a salary cap world.

And when Paul realized Ron Hextall had a progressive plan to get the Flyers out of the doldrums of not being good enough to compete for a Stanley Cup, but that it would take a few years to implement, Holmgren had the foresight to see it as a smart approach, and took it to Ed Snider and offered to step into a new role and let Ron take it from there.

When he was GM, Paul was always as honest as he could be publicly, and completely honest privately, so there’s no reason to doubt what he told me is true.

He does believe Hextall and Dave Hakstol are doing a good job. He does believe the team is good enough to sustain playing the way they have for the better part of two months and it can carry them to the playoffs.

He does believe in allowing players to develop at their own pace, even if that means stints in the AHL while placeholders are getting time in the NHL.

He believes all those things. He believes the Flyers are on track to do what the Penguins have done in recent years. He believes the Flyers will again be one of the best teams in hockey for an extended period of time.

And, he’s not fibbing when he says the coaches spend a lot of time working with young players – on ice at practice, off ice in the video room, and everywhere in between.

So yes, I believe him wholeheartedly.

But do I agree with him?

2. Not entirely, no

I understand the need for younger players – like Travis Sanheim – to test the NHL water before having to really learn how to swim with the big league current.

I get why young players are held more accountable than veterans for their mistakes. I know that drives fans over the edge, but in the long-term, it’s better for the team. Fans forget that Claude Giroux didn’t start averaging 20 minutes of ice time until his fourth year in the league.

And if that’s an extreme example, fine. Let’s find a defensive comparative for Sanheim.

With the exception of Aaron Ekblad, who was the No. 1 overall pick by Florida in the 2014 draft class, no other defenseman has really gotten much more of a chance than Sanheim. Yeah, there are some with a few more games, but none with overwhelmingly better results that comes from playing in the NHL.

Only six defensemen from the 2013 draft have played more than a season’s worth of games. There’s only five from the 2015 draft class.

You have to go back to the 2012 draft before you get a good number of defensemen (21 total) who have played more than a season’s worth of NHL games… now almost six years later.

So developing defensemen in the NHL is a process for sure.

But, I guess all 30 teams are wrong to be handling their young defensemen this way and Flyers fans are right because the analytics say so.

So, I’m on board with that process.

What I’m not on board with is continuing to stand pat and not addressing your roster with external help of some kind. This is where I take issue with Ron’s plan.

If you want to be a playoff team – and by all indications, that’s what the Flyers want to be, since everyone in the organization is talking about it – then you have to build your team in such a way that the playoffs are attainable.

Right now, the third pairing of Radko Gudas and Brandon Manning is a disaster. Manning has been on the ice for six of the past 10 goals allowed. Before last night’s game in New Jersey, Gudas hadn’t taken a penalty in more than two months. On one hand, that’s good. On the other hand, it’s indicative of the fact that he’s not playing his style of hockey. His blocks are down. His hits are down. His positioning is off. That suspension really got to him.

As such, the Flyers can’t win with this third pairing.

Which opens the door for the fans screaming for prospects like Sanheim and Philippe Myers.

But what is often misunderstood is that players on the NHL roster of a playoff team and players that need to develop are mutually exclusive from one another.

Sure, call those guys up. Play them. You likely aren’t making the playoffs in that case. Are you good with that? Or would you rather they continue to develop and are bigger pieces in the next year or two, when the real window of opportunity for the team is opening?

Some fans just don’t get it though. I had a lengthy argument on Twitter with a guy who said this:

I'll reply to the rest later, on lunch atm, but for the same reason they employ people like ChiaPet in EDM. Hockey constantly employs old and outmoded people because the community demands they do so. That's why we hired a moron like Dean Lombardi back. That's the issue, really.

— VorAbaddon (@VorAbaddon) February 1, 2018

And how were his signings? Whats the Kings cap space now? How's that Richard for Simmonds, Lehtera and two picks looking?

Same with Chiarelli. He won the Cup with the Bruins, but then they fell apart. How's Hall/Larsson?

They got lucky in the short term, exposed long term.

— VorAbaddon (@VorAbaddon) February 1, 2018

I guess it’s lucky to win not one, but two Stanley Cups. Every city should be so lucky.

This guy went on to insist that only quantifiable stats are the true measure of hockey success and failure.

No one has earned the benefit of the doubt. It's either verifiable, quantifiable fact, or it's BS.

And for you to immediately trust in the opinion of People who stand against verifiable fact creates a cycle where they seem unimpeachable because no one asks.

— VorAbaddon (@VorAbaddon) February 2, 2018

So, I offered some quantifiable facts:

So only quantifiable facts. Nothing else counts. Got it. OK. Quantifiable facts: Last 5 years: The best possession teams in each conference: Missed the playoffs (40%), lost in the first round (30%), lost in the Conf. finals (10%) won the Cup (20%).

— AntSanPhilly (@AntSanPhilly) February 2, 2018

The best possession teams in each conference right now are Carolina and Chicago. Neither is in a playoff spot at the moment.

— AntSanPhilly (@AntSanPhilly) February 2, 2018

So, maybe…. just maybe, there is more to hockey than the quantifiable facts that your precious statistics present. Again… I think they are a beneficial tool, but they can NEVER be the only way to make decisions in sports. There is so much more that goes into building a team.

— AntSanPhilly (@AntSanPhilly) February 2, 2018

I put this exchange in here because unfortunately, this guy isn’t some lone nut. There are a lot of people out there who believe the same things he does – that what the analytics say is the arc of the covenant. It’s the holy grail.

Please. It’s not. There’s so much more to this in every sport – not just hockey. These stats are good. They’re a strong measure, but they aren’t always right.

Now see, I got off on a tangent… where was I….

Oh yeah… so rather than immediately re-insert Sanheim into the lineup or call up another kid who isn’t ready for prime time, Hextall is just rolling with Gudas and Manning.

And I get you have to do that for a little bit, but if you want to make the playoffs, make a move. For Pete’s sake Ron, believe that someone else can come in here and help this roster. And heaven forbid you trade a precious draft pick or long-off prospect to help win now.

I’m not asking him to gut the farm system. But at some point, you have to go for it – and this Flyers team is on the brink of being a playoff team, so why not go for it? Especially in a season when the Conference is experiencing a down year.

Get into the dance and see what happens. We’ve all seen it before. Crazier things have happened.

Now I’m going to be a hypocrite.

I don’t agree with Holmgren that the level of success (prior to the All-Star Break) that the Flyers were experiencing is sustainable. I’m sorry. I just don’t.

Can they play hard, and stay in almost every game and have a chance at points? Sure.

Can they keep winning more than 70% of the remaining games? Highly unlikely. I mean, they’ve dropped three in a row. They’d have to win their next seven just to stay on the pre-Tampa loss pace. And then they’d have to do it over and over again twice more.

It’s too much to expect.

So, it’s going to be a dog fight. With a lot of ups and downs. It’s just that these Flyers need more ups.

3. The goalie situation

Brian Elliott was the only Flyer who practiced Friday – and practiced by himself, which means he’s close to returning, but probably not in time for tomorrow afternoon’s game.

Which means we’ll likely see Michael Neuvirth in goal.

I’d rather not at this point.

And not because I don’t think Neuvirth is a better NHL goalie than Alex Lyon. He is. No question. I just think Neuvirth has worn out his welcome. The guy is always hurt. Or sick. He’s forever making excuses – as he did when he was pulled after an awful outing against his former team in Washington Wednesday.

At least Lyon, who should have had the game-winning goal last night for New Jersey, which likely would have garnered the Flyers at least a point, seems to care. He seems to compete. He takes responsibility. The cameras caught him watching the replay on the ice and you could see he was frustrated with himself. He knew what he did wrong. He immediately apologized to Shayne Gostisbehere on the ice. I’m sure he took the blame in the room afterwards. He fielded every question and took responsibility for it afterward.

I’d rather that guy play five or six times the rest of the season and let Elliott get the other 20-something starts once he returns (probably Tuesday in Carolina).

It would be a boost in the locker room for sure, as Lyon is incredibly well-liked.

And it would rid the Flyers of an enigma.

4. The Penalty Kill

At some point, the Flyers just have to tear up whatever they are doing and try something completely different. Give the opposition a totally different look. It can’t be worse than they’ve been since the new year.

In the past 13 games they’ve allowed at least one power play goal against nine times. Their PK percentage in those games is an embarrassing 63.9%. They are now tied for the second worst PK in the entire NHL (73.9%) ahead of only Edmonton (71.17%).

The defensemen aren’t physical enough in front. The forwards are too passive – especially on the second unit. They’re just trying to get in the way and not take away the puck. You can’t do that. Go get it. If you give up a goal as a result of effort, fine. That’s better than standing around as you get scored on.

Also, a couple of kills that come from pressuring the puck builds momentum and confidence. Neither exists right now for the Flyers PK.

Unsustainable! Four Takeaways from the Paul Holmgren Interview and the Flyers last two losses to the Capitals and Devils published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/

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flauntpage · 6 years

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Everything is Right Again…Or Not: Thoughts on Flyers 2, Sabres 1, and Star Wars The Last Jedi

With a mild wave of my hand I feel confident in telling you, “This is not the hockey you were looking for.”

Yes, the Flyers won, extending their season-best win streak to five games. Yes, they somehow have turned a disastrous 10-game losing streak into a 5-5-5 performance over the past 15 games. And yes, it’s Star Wars day and I have something to say about that as well later, for those of you who are crossover fans.

But the reality is, last night’s 2-1 win over the Buffalo Sabres, a team that, based on talent, is in that awful purgatory between NHL and AHL caliber, was Ugly, and yes, that capital U was intentional.

Don’t believe me, ask some Flyers.

“It was a boring game to watch,” Jake Voracek said. “I should know, I played in it.”

And while waiting for Dale Weise to finish up what had to be the longest media scrum of his career, Michael Raffl was standing off to the side waiting his turn – quite impatiently.

I was standing next to him and this quick exchange took place:

Raffl: (to no one in particular) “Come on Weiser, enough already.”

Me: “Guess you really don’t want to talk to us tonight, huh?”

Raffl: “You saw the game. Every answer I give you guys is going to be a one line answer. That’s all this game deserved.”

Hey, at least they could acknowledge when their own product was bad.

“Yeah, I don’t think it was our best game today,” said Valtteri Filppula, who scored a goal. “But it’s good, sometimes you have to be able to win these types of games and I think that’s a good sign.”

So is winning five in a row. It has quelled the mob chanting for Dave Hakstol’s firing… for now. It has saved the season from plummeting into the abyss… for now.

But, when you play that ugly of a game against the worst team in the sport, it’s got to leave you a little chaffed, even though you still got the two points.

Here’s the rest of the Raffl conversation, before his scrum:

Me: “Well, at least you guys won the game right? You gotta be happy with that, right?”

Raffl: “We’ll take it, but I would say we played better in about six or seven of those games in the 10-game losing streak than we did tonight. This wasn’t fun. It was like a war out there. There wasn’t anything fun about it at all.”

So yeah. Bad hockey. So much so that a non-media member sitting in the press box said to me at one point, “What the hell are we watching tonight?”

Which brings me to the shaping of a hockey narrative – which I think is one of the stories I want to tell you today.

I know the Philadelphia hockey media has taken some abuse over the years on this web site – some guys more deservedly so than others.

But, I will tell you it’s probably the hardest sport of the four majors to really cover for the following reasons:

It’s the fourth sport nationally, so the assumption is, outlets don’t need to have reporters covering the sport who are willing to dig deep for great stories – which encourages pack journalism.

Most of the people covering it never really played the sport, so gauging what is good and bad is often done statistically, which doesn’t always tell the story – even through analytics.

And it’s that second point that’s the real sticky one. Because what ends up happening is we become such slaves to those numbers – both traditional measures and modern analytical measures, that we oftentimes miss what’s happening right in front of us.

I admit, there have been times in my 18 years around this sport, that I have fallen in that trap myself. And, to the defense of the guys on the beat who are there day in and day out, it’s easier to do that when you have to provide content on a daily basis.

But, now that I am of the part-time variety here on Crossing Broad, and I don’t have to write something of value every day, it’s admittedly easier to sit back and be a little more analytical of a game.

I’m not a slave to a deadline. I don’t have to tell you any specifics about the game if I don’t want to. I don’t have to operate in that pack journalism mentality that is forced upon the media on game nights by the team – so that everyone ends up with mostly the same quotes.

No, my job here is easier in the sense that I’m given free reign to write about what I want as long as it’s compelling, informative and accurate.

So, I feel bad for the guys covering the team – at least the ones that are left anyway – because they’re working their tails off, even if the protocol leaves them chasing those same tails on a daily basis.

Which is why, last night, Travis Sanheim was your No. 1 star and everybody wanted to talk to him.

Look, it’s understandable. Sanheim scored his first NHL goal:

Travis Sanheim scores his first NHL goal! http://pic.twitter.com/R9Kgyp5B5p

— Sons of Penn (@SonsofPenn) December 15, 2017

And because of that his team recognized him post game by giving him the Ric Flair robe:

Sanheim wearing “Wooo” http://pic.twitter.com/jFN0zk9rA4

— AntSanPhilly (@AntSanPhilly) December 15, 2017

Good for Travis. It’s been a long-time coming and it’s certainly worth mentioning since he is such an important building block for the future of the franchise.

But star of the game? A crush of happy horseshit questions from the media?

Especially when he had plays like this:

Sanheim held the puck for a little too long and his turnover nearly resulted in a goal the other way. http://pic.twitter.com/aCB7SGGlal

— Sons of Penn (@SonsofPenn) December 15, 2017

and this:

Brian Elliott misplays the puck and it's 1-0 Buffalo. http://pic.twitter.com/6Cepe5Hq0y

— Sons of Penn (@SonsofPenn) December 15, 2017

Yes, that’s on the goalie primarily… but where was Sanheim going? He went too far with Filppula right there, ended up getting in the way of Elliott trying to get back into the crease, and wasn’t in his proper position to negate Kane in front of the net.

And he had at least one more turnover in the first period that I couldn’t find on Twitter.

To his credit, with everyone in the media salivating over his first NHL goal as a great story line, Sanheim started spitting truth:

“I don’t think we were very happy with our first period, especially me,” he said. “I thought minus the goal, that might have been my worst period of the season.”

Thing is, look at the advanced stats, and it looks like Sanheim had a good game as well.

His Corsi For percentage (CF%) at 5-on-5 was 60.00, which is very good.

So good possession numbers, scored a goal, must have been a good game, right?

Wrong.

“It’s obviously a challenge to find both sides of [the game],” Sanheim said. “I am just trying to stick with my game. I think the offensive side has always been there. I think if I make the right reads I can join up and join offensively. In saying that I have to make sure I am keeping it safe in my end.

“The better I am defensively; it turns out the better I am offensively. I am just trying to work on the little areas defensively and I can join offensively.”

Improvement? Yes. We’re starting to see it in bits and pieces. But, play this way against a better team? Toast.

The other narrative being pushed last night was discipline. Questions were flying around after another low penalty total for the Flyers that their improved play may be related to the fact that they are taking fewer penalties.

On this five-game win streak, the Flyers have only been shorthanded eight times. And if you count the last loss of the 10-game losing streak, it’s only 10 times in six games.

That’s definitely good stuff. It’s definitely a point worth talking about – like we did here on Crossing Broad two days ago.

Again, not a shot at the writers – it’s much harder to do that job when you are in the moment under deadline pressure and you have to construct a story.

So, I had no interest in that either.

Nor did I have interest in breaking down Elliott’s puckhandling mishaps. You already saw one, that led to the lone Buffalo goal, but then there was this one too:

Before the goal, Nolan Patrick saved Brian Elliott from another brutal goal after a bad play with the puck. http://pic.twitter.com/WPUJ4AH5Ru

— Sons of Penn (@SonsofPenn) December 15, 2017

So yeah, Elliott was a little shaky in the first period. Maybe he was bummed about the death of net neutrality.

Whatever it was, he bounced back and made some big saves – again – to keep the Flyers in the game until Filppula’s goal put them ahead, and then Elliott did a nice job of protecting the lead, finishing with 19 saves.

No, the guy I was most interested in talking to was the guy on the board nobody in the media really seemed to care to talk to – Nolan Patrick.

See, in that story from Tuesday linked above, I wrote that the Flyers were doing Patrick no favors by playing him in meaningless minutes and that they should let him go to World Juniors to rebuild confidence.

And then last night happened.

No, he wasn’t a star of the game. He didn’t muster a point.

He made a nice play to bail out Elliott on that wraparound, which was the one thing the pack did want to ask him.

But, as everyone peeled out of the locker room to go hear Dave Hakstol say a whole lot of nothing, I stuck back to chat further with Patrick. To his credit, Charlie O’Connor from The Athletic was there with me too, but that’s it.

And Patrick was pretty hard on himself when I asked him about not playing a lot of minutes:

“I don’t think I deserved to play any more than I did in those games on the road trip,” he said. “I wasn’t playing very well and I wasn’t doing anything to help the team. The last couple of games I’ve been trying to do what they are asking of me and it’s been getting better. Obviously I want to get the coach’s trust and as a young guy I follow the guys who have been doing this for a long time in their career because I want to keep getting better and earning their trust.”

Nice self assessment from the kid.

Patrick averaged less than nine minutes per game in the three games in Western Canada. He was basically playing a fourth line role and not getting many minutes.

The last two games, he’s seen a bump in ice time, garnering over 12 minutes each game. Against Buffalo, he even was granted a shift late in the third period when the Flyers were protecting a lead – a situation that would have him rooted to the bench in front of Hakstol in games previous.

And while his possession numbers have been terrible, as I documented Tuesday, last night, they were pretty good. His CF% was 60.00 against Buffalo, tied for fifth best on the team.

“One of the biggest things I needed to improve on was D zone faceoffs,” Patrick said. “I just need to keep getting better at that. It’s something that’s pretty easy to work on. We have a lot of really good faceoff guys, so it’s good to go against them in practice and I can learn from them. There’s a lot to learn.

“You know, in Junior you are ‘That Guy’ and you are thrown into every situation. It’s a real adjustment here. There’s guys who have been in this league a long time who are the go-to guys and you just have to try to contribute whenever you get the chance. It’s a process. I’m not worried about points, or confidence, or anything like that. I know with my abilities it will come eventually as long as I keep working every day.”

I still think the Flyers should loan him to Team Canada for the World Junior Championships. And I know this was the worst team in the NHL that he looked really good against, so we should temper any excitement.

But, it’s rare that a 19-year-old player understands what his strengths and flaws are and what he needs to do to become more well-rounded. Patrick’s got that. And although his development is slower than many would have hoped, he does appear to have the right mindset and that can only bode well for him as he sticks around the league even longer.

Holiday light show

If you’re going to the game tomorrow against Dallas, you’ll be in for a holiday treat.

No, the Flyers aren’t giving out free figgy pudding.

Instead, they will introduce the “Holiday Light Spectacular, presented by the Rothman Institute at Jefferson,” a new, holiday-themed light show.

The show will begin promptly at 7 p.m. and light-up bracelets will be distributed to all fans that are programmed to match the sights, sounds and colors of accompanying video projected on the ice and around the building.

The three-part show, the first of its kind in a NHL arena, is set to a compilation of popular holiday songs, and feature reindeer, elves, Santa, animated Flyers players (think Jib Jab), and much more.

“This show is a new, can’t-miss holiday attraction in Philadelphia and one that we hope becomes an annual tradition for us,” said Shawn Tilger, EVP & COO of the Philadelphia Flyers. “This show is in line with the holiday staples of the region, and we’re excited to bring entertainment of this caliber to Flyers fans here on Saturday night.”

The 10-minute show, produced by Montreal-based technology firm PixMob, in conjunction with the Flyers and 3601 Productions, features eight, 32,000 laser phosphorus projectors and 50 moving lights that are programmed to be in sync with the 20,000 bracelets worn by fans.

At least the Flyers are in the middle of a winning streak, so handing out bracelets isn’t a bad idea. Because that’s never gone wrong before, has it?

In all seriousness, it actually looks cool:

STAR WARS

I mentioned Star Wars in my lede.

I will tell you that my two sons convinced me to hustle home from the game last night to go see the late night premiere of Episode VIII: The Last Jedi.

As a kid, I was a Star Wars fanatic. I had every action figure, read every book, and saw each of the original trilogy movies dozens of times.

Then, the prequels came out when my oldest son was the same age I was when the originals came out. I didn’t think they were great, but I also didn’t think they were as terrible as everyone made them out to be.

Yes, there were issues. Yes, the acting was sub par. But, at least the story was there. It all tied together nicely, because it was what George Lucas had planned.

Then came the latest Trilogy.

I was one of the few who instantly hated The Force Awakens a couple years ago. Many Star Wars fans chided me for not liking it, although over time, I’ve noticed more and more people side with me that it wasn’t a good story.

What was a good story was Rogue One, which I felt stayed true to Lucas while J.J. Abrams went… well… rogue himself with a predictable story line in The Force Awakens.

So, with Abrams out and Rian Johnson in, there was hope that maybe the story would get better.

All the major reviews are in and they are praising Johnson for The Last Jedi.

I can’t. I just can’t.

Look, I’m not going to spoil anything here. I’m not going to break it down in gory detail. But, the plot of The Last Jedi is contrived. It takes faaaaaaaaaar too long to play out and tried to trick the audience with a lot of sharp twists and turns that only end up resulting in exactly what you’d expect.

The characters that die, die stupidly.

The ones that live, live in ways that really make zero sense.

And everyone has angst. Everyone is conflicted. And it keeps flip-flopping its way to a conclusion that, for me, is a flop.

There are new characters that are irrelevant. There are old characters with no thread to the story.

There are new creatures – including these annoying Furby-like creatures that really take to Chewbacca. Only thing is, I was waiting for them to get wet and multiply and start saying “Mogwai.”

Methinks the reason behind all the love is today’s audience likes things to be different than the past generation. I get that. Change is good. I don’t disagree.

But when you fly directly in the face of the original story, you’re hurting your product and cheating the audience.

It’s why Mark Hamill has had some negative comments about the movie, although he’s backtracked recently. But he did say Lucas’ original storyline for episodes 7-8-9 was far different than we we ended up with.

And that’s a real shame.

Look, I’m going to be on an island on this one, like I was two years ago, but I’m confident, in time, everyone will look back on this film and say, WTF?

Go see for yourself.

Everything is Right Again…Or Not: Thoughts on Flyers 2, Sabres 1, and Star Wars The Last Jedi published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

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flauntpage · 7 years

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Claude Giroux No Longer the Flyers’ Number One Center… for a Day, Anyway

VOORHEES, N.J. – Sean Couturier has been teammates with Claude Giroux for six years. And other than the odd shift here and there, the two have never played together on the same line with any regularity.

Until now. Maybe.

For one day at least, Giroux was shifted from the center spot he has played exclusively for almost his entire professional career, to the left wing, with Couturier in the middle and Jake Voracek on the right wing.

It was one practice. In training camp. And as Giroux said afterward, “I don’t want to talk too much about it because I may not see one shift on left wing.”

Got it. Don’t read too much into it. Except, it’s an interesting notion.

First of all, for all you analytics geeks, that combination would be a puck possession monster. Couturier was superb last season. Voracek’s possession numbers were down a little bit last year, but were still decent – and normally he’s excellent. And Giroux is always above average.

So yeah, that’s good stuff.

Secondly, the real intriguing concept of this combination is putting both Giroux and Voracek on their off-hand wing.

“So, you always like to play on your off wing because you can see so much more of the ice,” Voracek told me. “When you have two guys who are doing that, and one of them is a guy like G who has elite vision, it can be really tough to defend.”

Defensemen would be on a swivel as there would be additional passing lanes created by two off-handed wingers.

Thirdly, last season, one of the disappointing aspects of the top line was that it wasn’t very good defensively. And no matter how good your possession numbers are (and they were down across the board last season) you still have to play defense 45-50 percent of the time. Putting Couturier on that top line would immediately change that for the better.

So there are a lot of positives here.

But, it is definitely something that could have a ripple effect down the line. Would moving Couturier change the defensive strength down the lineup? Is he a productive enough player offensively to merit top-line minutes? Does moving Giroux to the wing impact his production?

“We’re in camp and we want to look at all the good options we might have, and this is one we wanted to look at,” coach Dave Hakstol said. “This was a good day to take a look at it in practice and overall it was a pretty effective day for that group.

“G is still our number one center, but he’s such a skilled player that he can play anywhere on the ice. The level of camp G has had is outstanding. We talked about this a lot and thought this was a good time to look at it. We still have to evaluate it and take a look at it further and see where we go from there. We’re not going to draw any conclusions, but we’ll look at it and see if there’s a next step.”

Nevertheless, it was a novel idea that Giroux welcomed.

“[Hakstol] came to me yesterday and asked me what I thought about it,” Giroux said. “It’s hard to complain when you are playing with Jake and Coots.”

Giroux was drafted as a right wing in 2006. He played right wing for the Flyers through the 2010 playoffs. But he’s played center only during 5-on-5 play since 2010-11.

But left wing is new.

“We did a lot of drills with me coming down the left wing there,” he said. “I can see the ice pretty good from there with the puck on my good side. It was actually a lot of fun. If it makes the team better, I’m up for it. I liked it today and I think it can work.”

As for Couturier, he is widely misidentified as a mediocre-at-best offensive player. Honestly, he is one of the Flyers’ best 5-on-5 scorers – he was second only to Voracek in even strength goals. The reason his offensive numbers seem down is because he doesn’t get a lot of prime power play time.

“Me and Coots have been talking about it for a few years now,” Giroux said. “We’ve always wanted to play together. I like the way he views the game. He’s a better offensive player than people think. I can bring a little more offensive to his game and he can bring a little more defense to mine – I think it’s a good trade off.”

Couturier knows he’s been labeled as a defense-first player, and while that’s not necessarily a bad thing, he thinks there’s a lot more to his own game than that.

“I guess I got that reputation my rookie year when I played against [Evgeni] Malkin in the playoffs,” Couturier told me. “But I try not to put myself into that ‘shut down guy’ category. I want to be known more as a 200-foot guy. A guy who can play at both ends. I want to be a go-to guy. I want to be like [Boston Bruins center Patrice] Bergeron or [Los Angeles Kings center Anze] Kopitar. They’re not slashy skill guys, but they get the job done on both ends off the ice, and that’s how I model my game.”

My Take

This is definitely something worth looking at in the preseason. There’s no harm in it. However, I don’t think it’s a long-term concept as a regular line for the Flyers.

That said, I definitely think it’s something for Hakstol to have in his back pocket for certain matchups – much like Pittsburgh does when they combine Sidney Crosby and Malkin or when San Jose puts Joe Thornton and Joe Pavelski together.

In fact, Giroux mentioned the two Joes today. He talked about it from a faceoff perspective saying how hard it is to always take a draw against a guy on his strong side – meaning Pavelski on one side of the ice and Thornton on the other – faceoff wins lead to puck possession, and well, controlling the puck is the name of the game.

Positional versatility is an important thing to have on a roster, and it’s especially important for the Flyers, who are overloaded with centers.

Jori Lehtera, for example, played left wing for the first five days of camp and in the preseason game Sunday in New York, but he was back at center today.

Having that flexibility is important, and finding guys who can easily transition between positions is paramount. Giroux is certainly a guy who is capable.

Frankly, this center log jam is the result of some good luck for the Flyers. When the Flyers acquired Valtteri Filppula at the trade deadline last year in the Mark Streit deal, they made the trade figuring they’d have a veteran center with one year left on his contract who could be a placeholder until a younger prospect – like maybe German Rubtsov – was ready. General Manager Ron Hextall never expected to “win” the lottery and be able to draft Nolan Patrick – who will make this team, trust me. If Hextall knew at last season’s deadline that he would get a talent like Patrick in the draft, I’m betting he never would have traded for Filppula.

Nevertheless, there’s a log jam down the middle. Having the flexibility to move guys like Giroux and Lehtera to the wing allows the team to conceptually go into the season with six centers on the roster, which is also good from a depth perspective.

In the end, you may see Giroux and Couturier playing together more regularly, but I wouldn’t go out and start coming up with a nickname for this line combination just yet.

Other Stuff

– Wayne Simmonds missed practice for a second straight day. I asked for an official reason from Hextall and I was given the old “maintenance day” answer. Let me be clear. Maintenance days are rare in the preseason. Even still, I can accept one. But two days in a row? Camp opened Friday. It’s Tuesday. I know practices have been hard, but come on now. There’s something more there, but I don’t know what… yet.

– Talked to Scott Laughton for a bit. He said his biggest challenge was accepting his role as a two-way depth player. “You always want to be ‘the guy,’ you know?’ He told me. “When you’ve been that all your life, it’s hard to just become something else. It took me awhile, but I’ve come to grips with that now. I get it.” Laughton started to accept it last year and looked good at times for the Flyers. He looks to have taken another step forward in camp so far. I think he will be the fourth line center on this team – which would be a credit to him for his work ethic and maturity. A lot of young guys never figure it out. I think Laughton has.

– So much for Travis Sanheim still having a shot to make the team out of camp. He was sent to “Group 2” for practice, which is mostly all the Phantoms players, etc. He was replaced in Group 1 by T.J. Brennan. Brennan, a local product from Moorestown, N.J. is a 28-year-old veteran who can be a good depth guy for the Flyers. Hakstol said he’s looked good in camp and deserves an opportunity with the main group. I don’t think he makes the team, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he gets a call-up at some point – especially if there is an injury early in the season.

– Speaking of defensive depth, some whispers here is that 2014 third round draft pick Mark Friedman may be climbing the prospect depth chart. I think he’ll play a bunch in the preseason, and if he looks as good as he did in the rookie game last week, could be knocking on the same door as Sanheim and Phillippe Myers this season.

Claude Giroux No Longer the Flyers’ Number One Center… for a Day, Anyway published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

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