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I'm amazed the Hawaii player didn't also have an anecdote about having visited College Station and thinking it had all of the beauty of the islands with twice the down home friendliness. Oh, and also how he went to Austin once and was attacked by the homeless gays and called the n word by every person he met. Add in those two elements and you have the aggy fictional story trifecta.

John McCain’s farewell statement:

When they release the depth chart today and Kyle Porter is listed as a starter, I cannot be held responsible for the carnage that unfolds near me shortly thereafter.

Coin flip. Texas wins. Defers. Maryland will receive. 35 yd kickoff return to the 39. 1st play from scrimmage. 280lb Linebacker Roach blitzes the qb playaction, rips the qbs head off, shits down his throat, and punches the RBs mother in the face. Texas wins.

Best line from tonight ... “We know separating parents from their children who traveled 2000 miles and risked everything for their kids and sending them back to the country they came from and locking the children in cages is inhumane and unjust ... the only question that remains is whether that’s American or not.” Guy knocked it out of the park. Healthcare Immigration Education Criminal justice reform Race relations Racism Equality The guy is the real deal. And we homos can party like rock stars. Made a Monday party look like a Thursday night place to be. Had probs 125-150 total. Campaign was duly impressed and I had a fantastic time with an amazing team at HRC Austin getting this guy some serious scratch.

Uh, hello? Hello, Dmitri? Listen, I can't hear too well, do you suppose you could turn the music down just a little? A-ha, that's much better. Yeah, yes. Fine, I can hear you now, Dmitri. Clear and plain and coming through fine. I'm coming through fine too, eh? Good, then. Well then, as you say, we're both coming through fine. Good. Well, it's good that you're fine, and - and I'm fine. I agree with you. It's great to be fine

Our fundraiser is tomorrow night I can’t wait. I get the mic to introduce this bad mofo. Might not be able to sleep.

My son had his girlfriend over, he played video a game while she played on her phone: Her: Is that a date? what the hell is wrong with them? I just shrugged and said: Millenials Her: is that the game he's playing? Me: Are you shitting me, you've never heard the term Millenials? Her: Minnillials?? What is it? I told her I have to put this on the list, but I don't think anyone will believe me.

I can’t wait for this season to get underway. Yesterday, I’m outside enjoying a beer with my dog, Earl (that’s not the dogs given name by my kids, but it’s what a call her when their not around) while grilling some burgers and steaks. I hear my wife yell for my youngest kid to bring another tiki tourch down from the upstairs closet. My youngest son’s name is Colt (yes I’m a homer). I hear her yell ... Colt bring another touchdown. Both the dog and I instinctively stood up to celebrate. Alas, she said Colt, bring another torch down. Half of my house has been struggling with allergy issues the past 2-3 weeks. My wife usually doesn’t get sick, but this morning she walks into the bathroom and says Texas Fight! Being that she is a Red Raider I looked at her perplexed, and reminded her that she only needs to say Texas! I’ll respond with the Fight! She looks at me like I’m a retard and says, honey my chest is tight as in I may be getting sick. Saturday cant get her soon enough! I am so ready for the 2018 Texas Longhorns to turn our fortunes around. We need to be back!

What the fuck is a wheatbag?

Do not confuse “unfavorable” with “not objective.” Objectivity is not accomplished by saying an equal number of positive and negative things. It is accomplished by relying on facts to uncover the truth. Sometimes that truth is unfavorable to one side in a dispute. If the truth is one-sided, then objective reporting must also be one-sided.

The reality is, Alabama lays claim to multiple national titles that aren't anything more than bullshit. Many SEC teams do that, and ATM started doing that when they tucked tail and headed east as well. What is good for redneck fatasses spread throughout much of the south should be good for a bunch of redneck fatasses surrounding Orlando. I cheer UCF's continued claims on a title and all of the hypocritical whining being spewed by SEC honks everywhere. Alabama didn't even win their division, they played 8 fucking conference games and Mercer, and they got beat by double digits to a team that lost to UCF by double digits. Enjoy all of the schadenfreude you fucking mouthbreathing, troglodytic hillbillies. UCF has as much claim on the title last year as anyone, as far as I am concerned.

Dear CJ, please do some of this on Saturday. Sincerely, errbody.

Felt like cooking this weekend since being sober gives you a lot of extra time on your hands. HEB had pork loin on sale for $1.49/lb - there weren't any decent ones in the case so the butcher brought me a 8.5lb'er from the back. Decided to make this Tuscan pork roast recipe: https://www.cooksillustrated.com/recipes/8643-tuscan-style-roast-pork-with-garlic-and-rosemary-arista Didn't get all the steps documented like making the infused olive oil and the reverse sear at the end, but the result was good. Would have been great had I not cooked it about 10 minutes too long - I overestimated the amount of time it would take a roast that big to get to 130. Served with baked sweet potatoes mashed with maple syrup, lemon zest and balsamic vinegar, and sauteed asparagus.

I'll believe the staff has a Dallas problem when Chris Nelson transfers from the program. Just because it's reported by the 9.95ers doesn't make it true. We don't dominate Houston every year because of last year and we won't struggle in Dallas every year because we struggled this year. Fuck all of their fraudulent bullshit including that fraudulent shitbag Chip Brown

I wouldn't say joy, but I'm glad that Trump voters are experiencing the consequences of the terrible policies they voted for. I voted against those policies because I didn't want anyone to suffer from them, and I'll vote again in November to stall those policies. But if we are going to have them, I want the people who inflicted them on the rest of us to feel the consequences as directly as possible. It has nothing to do with their party; many don't even belong to a party. It's about reaching selfish, ignorant, and often hateful voters. Every Trump voter whose wife gets deported or loses his job from Trump tariffs learns a valuable lesson that will hopefully spare the rest of us next election. Also, fuck 'em.

Damn it, don't you assholes go ruining my fun! I have many words for you people. Not a troll, but I do love arguing about politics. And since work and family are off limits, this is my outlet. Not much free time, so I mainly lurk these days I was probably one of the few people who enjoyed the Cloak Room. Even learned a few things while arguing. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G920A using Tapatalk

His team lost its 65-day hold on first place roughly 19 hours earlier, and now Alex Bregman is being asked questions he's not really hearing and definitely isn't interested in answering. His level of disengagement is understandable, and kind of funny. It's ballplayer-early in the morning, and his unfocused eyes are aimed somewhere in the middle distance. His politeness is in a pitched battle with his fierce desire to be doing almost anything else. We really should pick this up another time. The setting doesn't help: the visitors clubhouse in Oakland, a low-ceilinged, low-tech, low-occupancy concrete fissure best known for its unreliable plumbing. There is Little League on the televisions that hang from the ceiling. Someone associated with the Houston Astros has decided that country singer Jamey Johnson -- his voice an intravenous sedative, his lyrics an ongoing reminder of every tragic event in human history -- is just the thing for a struggling team on a bleary Sunday morning. The once-unthinkable idea of a do-or-die wild-card game now looms. The apocalypse feels near. Mid-answer, Bregman's connections snap. He stops, apologizes and asks me what he was talking about. It honestly doesn't even matter. Everything is grim. Meanwhile, a low-level commotion rises from across the room. Outfielder Jake Marisnick beckons loudly. "Bregs! Bregs! Get over here!" Suddenly, Bregman is back, engaged, blinking into the sunlight. He grabs a $100 bill out of his locker and politely excuses himself to join his teammates around a high-top table in the center of the clubhouse. Everyone is moving toward the center of the cramped room, sliding past chairs, juking their way around tables, drunk-driving their bodies in a centripetal rush toward money. Someone has a deck of cards, and it's time for a little team building -- $100 apiece, high card wins the pot. It's loud in two languages. Jamey's sorrows are back to being his alone. First place seems inevitable again. The goal now becomes total participation. Justin Verlander presents an impediment to this goal. He is not a regular on the gambling circuit, for one, and for another, he will be the starting pitcher in a little more than two hours, a fact that -- in baseball's quirky ecosystem -- grants him total immunity from any form of pregame interaction. A bomb could be found ticking in the center of a clubhouse and guys would gather to discuss whether they should interrupt the starter's solitude to deliver the evacuation order. Verlander walks purposely to his locker, one side of his headphone perched above his ear, pretending not to hear any of it. But then he reaches into his locker and heads for the table as Marisnick yells, "JV's in! JV's in!" Half of them begin bouncing in place. JV being in is a big deal. This unexpected development leaves one remaining holdout: Charlie Morton. He stands at his locker without changing expression. A chant begins: "Chuck! Chuck!" The script of this moment would list his character as Adult In The Room. Marisnick yells, "JV's in, Chuck. You've got to get in now." In what can only be described as surrender -- "Just throw it in there and walk away," he says later -- Morton relents. The cards are handed out, the volume rising with each throw. Eventually, reliever Will Harris bounces out of the knot of humanity roughly $2,400 richer. Everyone yells. Everyone smiles. Bregman returns, his eyes clear and focused, and speaks confidently about the future. "We know how to handle this, and how to get better from it," he says of the team's recent struggles. "We need to look in the mirror and say, 'We're playing horribly, and the only reason we're in this position is because we're playing horribly.'" The Astros take the field on this afternoon in Oakland and score nine runs to regain first place in the American League West. Bregman smashes a homer and has three hits. Verlander wins his 200th game. Afterward, Gerrit Cole gives a stirring speech recapping Verlander's career. Champagne is involved. Over the next week, they'll win six of seven and reclaim their AL West lead over the Athletics. Morton might be the only man in Houston unconvinced of the restorative power of a children's card game. "People look at you differently" after a title, A.J. Hinch says. "The expectation level is really high." Troy Taormina/USA Today Sports Astros manager A.J. Hinch has a uniquely defiant way of walking toward the postgame interview after losses. He moves with law-enforcement sureness, and you can imagine him backstage, taking a deep breath and loosening his shoulders -- like a surgeon steeling himself to talk to the family -- before heading into the room. His approach sends a message: We're fine. Everybody move along now. There's a lot of moving and a lot of defiance in the 10 days I follow the Astros: nine games, seven losses, 4½ games lost to the Athletics in the AL West. Some of it is messy, especially the first night, when the first four Seattle Mariners hit for the cycle against Verlander and he gets thrown out of the game after two innings (and six runs) for arguing a balk call. It feels as if something has been jarred loose. The Astros can't score. George Springer and Jose Altuve are on the disabled list, and Carlos Correa -- freshly off the DL -- is trying too hard and accomplishing too little. It's mid-August, and the A's are making an extended run while the Astros talk about The Grind like it's something standing in the room. The operative word is flat, because baseball teams that go bad all go bad the same way: quietly. Hinch's message remains consistent: This is a glitch, a temporary setback, and not a trend. Every night, he storms into the interview room, stares out at the handful of reporters who aren't covering the Texans and repeats himself: Not a trend. "My style is to be the calmest heartbeat in the room, the clearest thinker, the one who provides stability on a day-to-day basis in a marathon race that has peaks and valleys," Hinch says later. "How I handle things publicly and how I handle things privately is very important to me. You can't mistake calmness for a lack of fire, and you also can't confuse a public blowup as being authentic in every person." Publicly, Hinch and the Astros spend a lot of time reminding themselves of what happened last year, when they won the franchise's first World Series. After losing to the Colorado Rockies for a fifth straight loss and ninth straight at home, Josh Reddick says, "It doesn't even feel like we've lost a lot of games. I don't think anybody is going to hit the panic button. "But walking back to the clubhouse with your head down isn't really the best feeling, either." "There's a little different feel this year," Hinch says. "More so because people look at you differently. The expectation level is really high. The reaction to wins is largely understated, and the reaction to losses is largely overstated. I don't know if I'm unique in this, but I don't see us 'defending' anything. I just see us trying to win the World Series." But in a world where everyone seeks omens and turning points, it's tempting to conclude that the Astros' front-office decision on July 30 to trade for Roberto Osuna changed something. It's probably too grand to suggest it altered the Astros' entire identity, but the perception shifted from a soulful team with a 5-foot-5 MVP and young stars, a forward-thinking front office and an unconventional manager to a team that will do anything -- up to and including trading for a reliever coming off a 75-game suspension with a pending domestic violence case -- to win another title. Besides, why mess with this? Why plant any seed of possible destruction? This isn't a team that hasn't won a World Series since 1908 (see: Chapman, Aroldis; 2016 Cubs). This is a team with statistically one of the top five bullpens in the game -- even with a perceived closer issue -- that won last year with the kind of modern-day bullpen inventiveness that made guys such as Lance McCullers Jr.and Morton into heroes and Hinch into a patron saint of analytics. Hinch attempts to view it from an Olympian distance. He knows the focus on baseball can turn the accuser into an abstraction amid talk of bullpen options and late-inning matchups. He knows there are waters to calm. (When surveillance video of an Astros minor-leaguer punching his girlfriend in a stairwell was released last year, Verlander penned a tweet that included a middle-finger emoji and the words, "I hope the rest of your life without baseball is horrible. You deserve all that is coming your way!") It's not Hinch's job to make trades, but it's definitely his job to deal with the fallout. "I think you have to compartmentalize," he says. "There's a baseball side, the competitive side, the team side, and there's obviously our own human side. Everyone's belief system is going to be different. It's impossible that all 25 players and 10 coaches are going to agree on everything, especially something as personal and volatile as domestic violence. ... To navigate that as a leader of men is something where I have to keep my balance personally and professionally. When I met with our team after the trade, I wanted our guys to know it's OK to have mixed emotions. Everyone was excited to add this quality of a pitcher, and everyone was curious about what it means and what's going to happen. The fact it is unresolved made it even more complicated." And now, just like that, the Astros are part of any conversation concerning sports and its frequently tone-deaf attitude toward violence against women. Just one example: During this homestand, a national reporter for MLB.com, Alyson Footer, tweets out the phone number for a different women-related service -- a domestic violence hotline, a women's health clinic -- every time Osuna takes the mound. During Hinch's post-trade meeting, he told Osuna he is lucky to join a clubhouse with high-character guys who can help him become a better person. Evidence -- their genuine response to Hurricane Harvey, for one -- suggests Hinch's claim has merit, but it might also be an unwanted burden. Over the course of nine days, the Astros didn't seem to go out of their way to engage Osuna. He mostly sat alone at his locker and stared at his phone. In the ninth inning of the first home game since he was activated from the suspended list, Osuna jogged in from the Astros' bullpen. He warmed up by throwing the first seven pitches off the mound like he was playing catch three hours before the game. When the between-inning clock hit 0:30, he threw a final pitch at full speed. When his name was announced for the first time as an Astro at Minute Maid Park, there was almost no reaction whatsoever. Roberto Osuna's first days with the team were spent mostly in solitude, and without any real reaction from the Minute Maid Park fans. Troy Taormina/USA TODAY Sports The next afternoon, before the second game of the homestand, the Astros' clubhouse stays closed long after the time designated for media availability. As the wait stretches past 30 minutes, speculation begins among the Houston media. Did someone get sent down? Is it somehow Osuna-related? Does anyone know whether general manager Jeff Luhnow is in there? When the doors finally open, a table in the center of the room is covered in white barrister wigs and black judge robes, with a couple of Ben Franklin reading glasses. Kangaroo Court, another baseball tradition intended solely to shatter the monotony, ran long. "Sorry to disappoint you," Hinch says. "No big news. Just bein' boys." I walk into the tunnel that connects the clubhouse with the dugout and see Reddick, sitting in a padded cafeteria chair with his elbows on his knees, smoking a Marlboro and checking his phone. The next day, at about the same time in the same chair, Evan Gattis sat smoking a Marlboro and staring contemplatively at the wall across from him. The light from the field slivers up the tunnel at sharp angles. They're like Hopper paintings, accentuating man's loneliness and melancholy amid the gradual deterioration of a divisional lead. "He carries this team in ways I don't think he realizes," teammate Josh Reddick says of Alex Bregman. Jason O. Watson/Getty Images How much can one position player affect a baseball game? Bregman takes the field every game intent on figuring out an answer to that question. Hinch says Bregman "sweats confidence," and Reddick says, "Bregman oozes and bleeds confidence." It's probably best to leave those metaphors alone, except to say this: Baseball can be a suffocating game for a young, ultra-confident player who doesn't try to hide it. "Not everyone can pull it off," Hinch says, "but he can." Bregman played shortstop when Correa was out, and Bregman liked it so much he vowed to take all of his ground balls there in the offseason and next spring training. "It helps me get in a better rhythm," Bregman says. "Helps me play third the way I want to play third." He hits on the field every day, whether his team does or not, because "I like to see the ball fly." He's a 24-year-old kinetic force: An All-Star, a power hitter who doesn't strike out, owner of the best WAR (5.5) on a team that isn't hurting for stars. "He carries this team in ways I don't think he realizes," Reddick says. Bregman stands at the plate flicking the bat in his hands as if it's the handle of a hot skillet. He chokes up about 2 inches, and his swing is so short and quick it appears he's trying to punch someone with the barrel. Once he hits the ball -- and he's the rare player who walks more than he strikes out -- he runs with a wide base and his hands out to the side, like an enormous toddler with balance issues. His personality seems better suited to a sport that requires more constant movement. When Bregman was 15 and in high school in Albuquerque, New Mexico, he made the commitment to become fluent in Spanish. He played for Team USA in a tournament in Mexico and wanted to be able to communicate with players from Team Mexico and Team Cuba. "I like to talk to everybody," he says. "I was playing with and against guys who spoke Spanish, so why not be able to communicate?" Spanish-speaking players make up roughly a third of the Astros' roster, and at one point or another, Bregman says he has been greeted by each one with the words, "Damn, you speak good Spanish." You can picture Bregman nodding -- Yes, yes I do. "I want to be a leader," Bregman says. "In order to be a leader, you have to be able to communicate with everybody. That's why I did it." He shrugs, pulls on his cap, grabs a bat from his locker and heads out to hit on the field. Amid the tragedies and comedies of a 162-game season, it helps to have a guy whose ambition is so pure, and so unshakable. After Verlander's 200th win, which ended about two hours after Verlander had anything to do with it, the Astros run out of the dugout with a little more meaning. First place is theirs once again. Altuve is on his way to Triple-A to play a game or two before rejoining the team. A day that started with sad songs, lagging spirits and dwindling rations ends with unbridled joy and the hopes for a bright future. But before the Astros head for the clubhouse, before Cole gives his speech and before Verlander stands up for the waning virtue of the win stat -- "When I first started, it was easier to get wins and harder to get strikeouts," he says, "and now it's harder to get wins and easier to get strikeouts" -- something odd takes place on the pitcher's mound: Gattis stands on it, looks in to an imaginary catcher and pretends to pitch. For the most part, the Astros are a subdued and corporate group, free of the outward quirks endemic to people with vast amounts of time on their hands, so this development is unexpected and intriguing. So I ask him. "This might sound strange," I begin. "But what are you doing out there on the mound?" Gattis laughs a little and starts into the story. His father sent him a photograph during spring training: 5-year-old Evan, in his T-ball uniform, standing in the exact spot the pitching mound would be in the proposed stadium for the Texas Rangers in his hometown of Arlington, Texas. The stadium had been approved but construction hadn't started, and as a marketing move, the Rangers marked the spot where the mound would be. Presumably beardless, leg lifted in the crane position, facial expression suitably serious, there's Young Evan, eternally prepared to deliver the pitch of a lifetime. And now here he is, 32 years old, 270 pounds, standing under a San Francisco Bay Area sky the color of skim milk, re-enacting the moment. He does it after every win. The windup, the leg kick, the pause; every time his team wins, he's 5 again. Sometimes, despite everything -- or maybe because of it -- you have to remind yourself you were once a little kid.

Abbott hasn't retweeted that he will stand! Why does he hate our troops?!?

Feeling good, Lewis!

such a classic. melissa mccarthy killed it.

Da fuq? For heat packs, we use these things called (checks notes), yeah... they’re called heat packs. Bag of wheat is usually called flour.

Now witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational battle station... Good. Let the hate flow through you...

The white one.

Maybe if we are REALLY REALLY REALLY nice to them and the NYT writes several more long articles in which Nazis are given the kid glove treatment they will still saying Democrats are molesting children in pizza places and pull the lever for the blue team for a change! Yep fuck ‘em. Deplorables was too nice of a word to use to describe these people. They’re pieces of shit and should be reminded of that at all times. Fuck trying to get their votes. They need to be mocked and marginalized.

That Liucci report is one of the most hilarious, and surreal, things I've read in a while. The echo chamber that those people are in has to be something to behold. The sheer audacity of claiming that every single player is really emerging; that the walk-on fullback, who's never played the role before, is an NFL talent; and that Vernon Jackson, of whom recent footage exists of his running back "skills", is a developing threat in the backfield, is fucking jaw dropping.

Looking good, Billy Ray!

"I've been squinting so long that when I look at something far away I start to squint and say 'Wait, I don't need to squint anymore!'"

You look at Maryland over there and it's just all about the tradition of them having terrible trash uniforms with candy assed split helmets with their dumb flag on it.

You just look at those Terrapins and it's all about us coming out and not stepping on our dicks, again.

Think of all the attention he would get if he died

Every thread you're in is about Hillary Clinton.

Brian Davis is a clown

FCB looks like a dick with ears.

Maybe he meant that Hawaii's schedule was full.

But you ain’t got no legs, Lt. Dan.

I’ll say this of Sumlin - his scheme produces points, which is the best way to avoid tragedies in football. Sumlin took lesser teams and was able to sneak by Arky and Ole Miss etc. by producing points via scheme and coaching, but didn’t have enough talent to be a real threat every week. If Jimbo’s slow-and-low offense is unable to magic-trick some TDs onto the board this year, there is going to be major shock factor related to game outcomes, moreso now with this off-season hype campaign than ever. Should be glorious.

Maryland's going to do this for their coaches today as well

I don't see any good reason to extend love to someone who still supports Trump. That may not be a very kind (or some would say Christian) way of looking at it, but look where we are.

Lol

Disagree. I saw several plays in there where he didn’t get a touchdown.

I used to support republicans. McCain’s death and trumps ridiculous response is just yet another signal to me that the party I used to support is completely dead and needs to be destroyed. From now on, anyone who continues to vote republican is either a complete moron, a narcicist, or is a selfish fool who puts his or her own self interest above the country. So in other words, fuck em. Fuck em all.

Are you playing in the game? If not, it’s a no.

Mueller will let you know. But it won’t matter, you won’t believe it anyway. That’s actually been one of the good things about this whole trump experience. It’s demonstrated with crystal clarity the pointlessness of arguing with folks who are immune to facts. Don’t need to waste our time with it.