Ghost of LL

I haven’t thought about aggy all weekend. But then I see this thread and, oh it’s so good when it touches your lips.

With all the talk of not just Texas, but also SMU (which is in the discussion for a January 1 bowl) having OU as a very good loss, I’m starting to wonder whether OU is going to get into the playoffs.

There’s no choosing. The 2 and 3 seeds play in the Rose. I’m counting on Georgia and FSU losing.

That’s it—I’m pulling the trigger on Rose Bowl tickets.

This post aged poorly.

So Many Commercials.

I have absolutely no clue who this rando is.

This college football season has been incredibly fun, and PAC 12 After Dark has been a big part of that. I’m really going to miss this conference.

Have we reached a consensus on whom we’re cheering for here?

Yeah, and I think this is worth remembering as we continue to hear whining and complaining about Texas from the Irate8. It was Nebraska that destroyed the Big 12 when they decided they were sick of losing to Texas. It was a petulent little baby temper tantrum that sowed the seeds of the conference's destruction and ultimately cratered their own program.

But to that point, the Big12 CG is an ESPN property. It could easily simulcast the game on LHN if it so chose.

I hadn't seen that, but that looks good.

I kind of weirdly like trains, as some of you have noticed from my occasional spats with @Spankytoes on various European travel treads in which he advocates for flying between European cities and I favor taking the train (including overnight trains, which are seeing a major resurgence across Europe). And one train-centric trip I have toyed with taking from time to time is the Trans-Siberian. Tangentially, there is a very peculiar subset of train nerds out there who have taken the BAM. There are a number of videos on YouTube. And on that line, the primary tourist attractions are the stops at largely deserted Soviet-era towns that were originally built and settled for the workers that built the BAM. The Soviet expectation was that those towns would be further populated by people coming to work in nearby coal mines and other industries that would pop up along the BAM. But with the fall of the Soviet Union, those enterprises never materialized. And the workers who were there to build the railway left. So you have these deserted Soviet towns that are kind of similar to what you will see in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. So you can go and see that without getting all radioactive. By the way--one of those videos is from that delightful Englishman whose videos about Donbas were posted on this thread about a thousand pages ago. It's really an interesting watch.

The BAM is a real interesting piece of late-Soviet era planning. The purpose was to create a line parallel to the Trans-Siberian further away from the border with China for obvious strategic reasons. For much of its length, the Trans-Siberian runs just a few miles from the Chinese border, which is a real problem given the tension of Sino-Soviet relations. The entire thing was a shitshow from the beginning. The Soviets sent a bunch of workers out to new towns that didn't have electricity or running water (many of which are now abandoned). And the permafrost on which the line is built is now thawing, which is going to destroy the entire line in the next decade. The tunnel that was attacked took nearly 30 years to complete. So if it was structurally compromised, that's not going to be an easy fix. It runs a mile underground and is 10 miles long. But here's the thing--there is an old bypass line that they used on the BAM during construction of that tunnel. I don't know what kind of shape it's in, but it'd obviously be a lot quicker to bring that into operation. And, of course, there's always the Trans-Siberian. So on balance, I don't think it's that big of a catastrophe.

And what I'm saying is that that's still better than it was five years ago. Or ten years ago. Or certainly 20 years ago. The economy is performing well for everyone.

The statistics don't bear that out. Wages are increasing at a >5% clip this year; inflation is at 3.2%. Wage growth has exceeded inflation throughout 2023. I'm sorry, man, but this is entirely a case of "feels" and misinformation. The truth is that the economy is great. For everyone. And particularly for those at the bottom of the wage scale. Arguing otherwise is to ignore every measure of objective reality.

Well, I don’t think it is very funny.

I would use a different “G” word when speaking of Pluckers’ food in any quantity: gross.

With the common people? Is this some sort of joke?

You need to explain this to me, because I don't understand it. For the average-earning bloke, this isn't just a good economy; it's a great economy. The average-earning bloke has no worries about unemployment. Even if he lost his job, he'd be able to find a new one in very short order. The average-earning bloke's purchasing power has never been higher. And as a result of that, the average-earning bloke's debt has increased consistent with the pattern seen during economic expansions (consumer debt only decreases during recessions). People are taking on more debt because they can afford it and are secure in their income streams. Consequently, the number of houses in active foreclosure is at its lowest point in years, and the number of mortgages that are delinquent is running well below pre-pandemic levels. So the average-earning bloke has a job, is secure in that job, has plenty of money to spend, and is paying his mortgage and credit cards. So yeah--it's pretty fucking hard for me to understand why it doesn't feel like a good economy to said bloke. Pluckers has that effect on people.

And you know--Biden could adopt that commercial damned near word-for-word next year, and it'd be accurate the way things are trending.

This year in particular, there's been kind of an innate conflict of interest for Deion. On the one hand, he wants to showcase Shadeur and set him up to be a high draft pick. But you can't do that purely with mobility and a chuck-and-duck passing game; the NFL requires a showing of drop-back capabilities. Unfortunately, Colorado doesn't have the OL to allow Shadeur to drop back. Hence the conflict of interest: Deion can either run a chuck-and-duck offense that will maximize wins, or he can run Shadeur as a drop-back passer to highlight Shadeur's NFL capabilities at the expense of the team. I think it's pretty clear that this conflict of interest was at the root of Deion's decision to sideline Sean Lewis. Maybe this problem goes away when Shadeur graduates. But if I'm a Colorado booster, I'm pretty displeased with the appearance that Deion is out primarily for himself/family at the expense of the Colorado program.

Of my nephew's girlfriend? Yeah, no.

This would be for federal income tax purposes only. State-law property taxes would be unaffected.

Yeah--we used it last summer and I'm going to use it again in January. The baggage allowance is small. But if you're just there for a long weekend and you're just taking a carry-on, it's fine. Otherwise, you're going to have to deal with a luggage-delivery service. But here's the thing: it's a combination transportation and sightseeing deal. Yea, you get to the airport in 7 minutes. And that kicks the shit out of an hour in an Uber (which is going to cost at least $100 on its own). But you get an amazing sightseeing tour along the way. From the 30th Street Heliport, you go south down the Hudson as Manhattan is restricted airspace. You then hook a left south of the Battery, which gives you a great view of the length of Manhattan on one side and the Statue of Liberty on the other. And then five minutes later, you're zooming up between the departure runways at JFK (which I found actually to be a bit unnerving) as you approach the helicopter terminal. Is it worth it? I mean, yeah--I think so. It's damned expensive. But it's also something you're only ever really going to do in NYC.