UpperWestside

The only time I listen to politics at work is when the person is from another country and they are explaining how things work where they are from. I find that okay and interesting, especially when a friend at work originally from Niger gave me some fun in-depth stories about how things are back home.

Sorry in advance for missing the birth of your child.

We live in a culture that complains about EVERYTHING. If a movie is longer than 90 minutes there are complaints it’s too long. I do not read critic reviews before or after going to a movie. I think the audience score on this movie should be really high and that to me is a far better gauge than the opinion of a small group of people with inflated and massively outsized egos. The only writers less fun to hear from are food critics. Any critic that does not enjoy this should probably just be a critic writing about sitcoms on Hulu or Freevee and call it a day.

LOVED this movie. Jesse Plemons absolutely had to love his role considering where he’s from. Lily Gladstone was so, so good as Mollie. Seeing Brendan Fraser and John Lithgow in this was pretty awesome. Leo’s character I will leave up for debate what people think of it. I personally liked his performance, but that was one complicated guy. I don’t want to hear a single complaint about the length of this movie. It was completely worth every single minute. If you don’t have the ability to sit for three plus hours don’t complain about it and just skip going to see it. It’ll be your loss not to watch this in a theater.

I’ve never seen that thread and I think it sounds best to keep it that way.

Those were good times man. I can distinctly remember hearing the score from that Cuero game and thinking “Oh man Marble is out!” As an 8th grader playing football you look up to these guys because in a small town they seem larger than life. Every Friday was exciting. Beating Todd Dodge and Cameron that year for the first time in forever was big for us that season in non-district. I also remember the final score being 14-6 Cuero against the Lake Rats. One of the quirks of having autism is I can remember random scores like that one. I get some good laughs out of friends at how I can recall scores like that. That would also be the same score SLC beat them by in the final in their last game in Class 3A. I also remember about that year that we beat Pearsall in the 3rd round 33-0. They were coached by Kiff Hardin. He became a finalist for the Lampasas job in 1995, but we gave it to Mark Bell instead who stayed two seasons before going to China Spring and winning a whole bunch. Things worked out well for Hardin since Gatesville hired him and he got the 2000 state title riding Taurean Henderson and his defense to a title. As random luck would have it I was doing play-by-play for them that year. Never met Hardin as I just showed up from college each week to do their game while the dad of a childhood friend did all the legwork. Fun ride though.

The stoner guy saying TIE-RANNY and then not having any awareness of the irony of his Never Surrender shirt was just fantastic. We share a country with people like this. The sooner I get moved off the mainland and eventually to a cool island in the South Pacific the better.

The man’s priorities are straight. Still to be at peace with death is a good place to be. I feel for his grandkids and the love they’ll be missing out on. He has always seemed like a good guy and it’ll be a sad day when he passes.

Moment by moment man. Take it slowly and let your body heal. You’ve got a lot of years in front of you still to live.

I do not mind the DT section of the board. It’s got the good and not so good just like the CR. The only board I find unreadable is the football board, especially after a loss. Most of the recruiting board is just weird to me. Grown men following the comings and goings of teenagers and what college they decide to play FOOTBAW! at is strange in a way I cannot fully put into words. What a weird way to devote hours upon hours of your one shot at life.

Awesome.

Awesome. Good to know.

Yes I’m good with that and he’s a cancer survivor, which at his age, takes a lot to persevere through it when you are approaching 80. He’s just like the rest of us and he’s flawed. At the end of the day I think he’s a good guy and I’d sit and listen to him talk about life or coaching. I feel like he chose poorly in deciding that College Station was where it was at for him. He could’ve stayed in LA and probably won on a grand scale, but Hollywood wasn’t for him. I just don’t have misplaced anger for someone because of who they coached.

They have had exactly ONE successful head coach since 1939. RC has been it. I actually respect him as he is by all accounts a pretty good human being. He’s someone I would sit down with and listen to his stories from his coaching career. Jimbo on the other hand is a guy trying to sell you on buying a Maybach and instead what you get is an 85 Cut Dawg up on blocks with no tires and a cracked engine block. That’s what that nine figure contract got the boosters and fans that half fill the Tackle Box. Once he’s gone he’ll get replaced by the next “Big Thing” that’ll take them on the same roller coaster over and over and over.

Finished this book a couple of days ago. It’s an easy read of around 240 pages, but the story really grips you with how Chennault and his airmen took on Japan when the US was still reeling from Pearl Harbor. The personal backstories of this motley group are worth the read.

The latest season of Unforgotten was really good. Having to put in a new DCI in actress Sinead Keenan to replace Nicola Walker went almost seamlessly. This is probably the best produced show in the UK currently going. How they are able to merge several storylines together by the 6th episode is just brilliant writing. The writing and acting on UK police dramas are superior in just about every facet to an American police drama in my opinion.

Lampasas and Davenport are playing on Friday for the district championship at Badger Field. Davenport has the experience of losing the game that decided the district title last year against Canyon Lake and that might be what wins this game for them. Both teams have ridiculously talented offenses and both have sophomores at RB. Every skill position player of importance for Lampasas is an underclassman. Jett Walker has had over a 100 yards on the ground in 6 of 7 games and missed the other by three yards. He went well over 200 last week with at least three TD’s longer than 55 yards. He’s 6’1 195 and has really good open field speed. Reed Jerome directs the offense and the Junior accounts for about 265 yards a game passing and running. I believe he was a linebacker before being the QB. He definitely plays like one. Lampasas has the best freshman WR in the state, regardless of classification, in Ty Johnson. I really have no idea how they wound up with a player like him, but hoo boy is he GOOD. He’s easily the fastest player on the roster and already is 6’2” and 185 or so. He does not look nor play like someone going into just his 8th varsity game. @Beau Vine’s guys can attest to the 87 yard TD he had against them where he took a screen and ran right past six defenders all the way across the field and wound up about 10 yards ahead of everyone. It is not an exaggeration to say he will be the best football player for Lampasas since Johnny Lam Jones. One of these two teams are going to make a run to the regional finals I believe. I expect Lampasas to be playing for a state title next year with everyone returning. Troy Rogers, the Badgers head coach, was the Class 3A state MVP in 1993 as a QB. He was one of the forerunners to the high octane passing offenses we see everywhere as he threw for 3400 yards that year before losing to Clint Finley and Cuero in the regional final. He still has a gunslinger’s mentality and likes to run trick plays anywhere on the field. His high school head coach, Rod Hess, was running a variation of the Mouse Davis run and shoot back then and had won a state title in 1982 at Eastland with his son Jay (the OC of the 1993 team) as the QB. I was in the 8th grade back then and I can still vividly recall the game that decided the district title in 1993. It was the 8th game and Lampasas was hosting Marble Falls. Both were undefeated and in the top 10. Lampasas scored first on a TD pass and never scored again which later led to chants of “We scored first!” in the 40-7 loss. That was a fortuitous loss as Marble Falls lost in the 2nd round to Cuero. Lampasas upset 2nd ranked Sweeny and future UT DL Cedric Woodard in their own 2nd round game. I expect the winner of this one to have to put up at least 45. Last year Davenport won 55-34. I believe Maxpreps has Lampasas ranked 13th and Davenport 23rd. I hope this game goes better for Coach Rogers and Lampasas than the one 30 years ago.

Anytime I need a good reminder of what finding out looks like I can check in here and see how the Russians are doing. The IJN in WWII did less finding out than these clowns.

Feel free to vent some when you have time to do so.

There are some days where I feel out of sorts and today felt like one of those days. I went to the store and while I was in there an older gentleman was buying a rotisserie chicken. He started to talk to me and I just listen as he tells me how he will cut it up and put it in some airtight containers to eat during the week. I could’ve just politely went on my way, but in my life I have learned to just stop and talk with older folks because often they want to chat because they may live home alone and this is their way to stay in contact with the world around them. We talked for at least a good 5-10 minutes. I shared a few short stories with him and he shared some interesting stories with me. I believe daily interactions like this are both important, but also fun because I am learning about someone else’s walk through this life. I am glad I have always had the patience to stop and want to listen to folks. A random meeting like that in the store was cool to me and it makes my day better and hopefully his as well.

There is some absolute gold in that thread.

Probably because Caitlin Clark would be a better QB than the guy taking them back to the days when the forward pass was still just a theory.

Should they? Absolutely. Former players have been pretty adamant that he is mostly despised and to use the nicest term he is not a coach anyone wants to have. By any objective measure his offense is a complete failure and an embarrassment to football. Doc Blanchard would even be laughing at this stuff if he were around. Will they fire him? Probably not, because, nepotism is one heckuva drug.

I am watching this as well right now. I am on the first episode. It’s pretty good from what I have seen so far.