#JAKE MILLER WAS ON THE READY SET THE BAD & THE BETTER ??????????

[minody]

wait i'm deep diving. i miss jeremy thurber bad but literally just now from him i found out that this jake miller

is the same as this dude

[thatlovinfeelin]

Flightless Bird | fourteen | Bradley Rooster Bradshaw

Synopsis: Josephine Wilson Miller is alone for the first time in her life. She got married after her first year of college and became a housewife, but that life is gone now. So she runs to San Diego, to her childhood best friend Jake, where she meets the man who could very well be her salvation.

series warnings: unplanned pregnancy, just pregnancy in general, talks of infertility. past mental and emotional abuse. anxiety. talks of women's reproductive systems (idk)

“Good morning, Jose, how are we feeling today?”

“Hey Doctor Kerner,” Jose sighed, moving on the bed, “I feel like I’m going to explode.”

The woman laughed as she sat on her stool, “Welcome to the late stages of pregnancy. My husband said I was the worst.”

“I think anyone around me would agree,” Jose couldn’t help but laugh, “My emotions are bad enough without adding in the fact I’m always uncomfortable.”

“Well, let’s take a look and see what little miss up to,” Doctor Kerner replied, grabbing a pair of gloves, “Have you had any contractions that you know of?”

“Nothing consistent or powerful. Maybe one or two in the last week?” Jose replied. 

“Well you aren’t dilated and I’m not seeing any signs of your body getting ready for labor,” Doctor Kerner informed Jose, “I think this little girl is okay with staying for a little while.”

“Thank god, I’m not ready for her to be out here yet.”

“Is Lieutenant Bradshaw behaving? I can have a talk with his Captain, I know him very well,” The Doctor rolled away on her stool. 

“I-How did you know about Bradley?” Jose questioned. 

“Off the record now, but the women on this base talk a whole lot. Bradley Bradshaw was the catch of the base, until you came along. Not to mention my husband and his old wingmen gossip like teenage girls,” Doctor Kerner laughed, “I also have a soft spot for him, my husband and I knew his parents.”

“You knew Bradley’s parents?” Jose questioned, fully sitting up now, “He doesn’t talk about them a whole lot.”

“Goose and Carole,” She smiled softly, “My husband, Ron, went to the Academy with Goose, of course he was just plain Nick Bradshaw then. Carole and I became good friends over the years. Somehow the boys managed to be at Topgun at the same time. Ron was in the air the day Goose died. It wrecked him for a while. Wrecked all of them really, especially Maverick. I think that poor man still carries that day with him.”

“So your husband was a pilot too?”

“A backseater actually, like Goose, only Ron flew with Tom Kasanzky back in the day, better known as Iceman. After Goose, all of us did our best to be there for Carole and Bradley, no matter what. We lost touch when Bradley was in high school though, my Ron and sweet Carole got sick around the same time. Ron’s been gone nearly ten years now.”

“What was his callsign?”

“Slider,” She smiled at Jose, “Moral of the story, Bradley is a good boy…or man. He’s a good man, between him and Seresin, I think you and your baby are going to be well taken care of.”

“I’m not worried about that, more worried about how spoiled she’s going to be,” Jose remarked, “But thank you for the talk, I think I needed it. Jake and Bradley want to set me up with some girls so I have more than just them and Phoenix. They said I need a mom friend too.”

“I think that’s a great idea,” Doctor Kerner agreed, “That’s my full medical opinion. Now get out of here, you and baby Wilson are all clear.”

Later that night, Jose found herself in Bradley’s Bronco, headed towards his ‘Uncle’s’ place. Jose hadn’t met the great Pete Maverick Mitchell yet, but that was about to change. She was also going to officially  meet his girlfriend, Penny, who owned The Hard Deck, and her daughter Ameilia. Bradley smiled as he told her about the young girl, stating that he felt very much like a big brother towards her now. 

Jose couldn’t help but be nervous, and it seemed like her baby seemed to feel that too. Because the littlest Wilson wouldn’t stop moving around and kicking. Jose grunted a bit as she shifted in her seat again, hoping to get into a more comfortable position, but the baby just kept kicking and punching at her. 

“Is she moving a lot?” Bradley questioned once at a stoplight. 

“God,” You groaned, “She won’t stop. I’m glad she’s moving, but she genuinely won’t quit.”

He laughed a little before putting a hand on her bump. In return the baby kicked right where his hand was. He smiled and moved it over a little, only for her to do the same exact thing. Anywhere he moved his hand, she would either kick or punch it. While Bradley was having a great time with this, Jose was grunting with every movement. 

“You like playing that game with Bradley, don’t you?” You groaned, poking your stomach, “Maybe do it a little bit more gently. Mama is not the best punching bag.”

“Sorry,” Bradley was quick to say, pulling his hand back, “Forgot it isn’t comfortable for you.” 

But Jose just reached for his hand and put it back on her stomach, letting her smile show, “I didn’t say I didn’t like you playing around with her. Just that she needed to kick and hit a little softer. I’m glad she’s responding to you.”

Bradley looked over and couldn’t help but smile at the woman next to him. Every time he thought he knew what she was going to do or say, she kept surprising him. She handled all of his far better than anyone could’ve imagined her to. It made his chest feel almost too small for his heart. For a second, he wondered if this is what his dad felt like towards his mom. He hoped that it was true, he hoped Goose felt a fraction of what Bradley felt for Jose and her daughter. 

“If you want to go at any point, just let me know,” Bradley told her as he pulled in front of a small house, “They’ll understand, I promise.” 

Jose nodded, squeezing his hand before reaching for her seatbelt buckle. She wasn’t sure about meeting three new people at once, but she trusted Bradley. She knew that he wouldn’t bring her to meet people that weren’t worth knowing. She had to trust that they would be just as great as Bradley.

He led her to the front door before knocking a couple of times. A middle aged woman with dark wavy hair answered the door, automatically pulling Bradley in for a hug before turning towards Jose. Her smile was warm and inviting as she got a good look at her. 

“You must be the Jose we’ve heard so much about,” Penny then hugged Jose as tightly as she could without squishing her or the baby, “It’s so good to finally meet you honey. Come on in and sit down, I remember how uncomfortable I was on my feet when I was this far along.”

Jose blushed, “It’s awful really. I have a bowling ball attached to my stomach.”

“I‘ll get you some water,” Penny offered, “Pete! Amelia! They’re here.”

A man rounded the corner. He was shorter than Jose expected for a man of his legend, but seemed more than happy to see Bradley. He hugged him, patting his back several times, before turning towards Jose. 

“I’m Pete, but almost everyone calls me Maverick,” He extended a hand, “It’s good to meet you Jose. Dinner should be ready soon.”

“Alright, let me get her settled, okay?” Bradley laughed, putting a hand on Jose’s back to lead her, “The munchkin has been really active and kicking the living shit out of her. Partially my fault.”

“Of course it’s your fault,” Another voice joked from the living room. 

Bradley sighed, “Jose, meet Amelia, Amelia meet Jose,” Then he shot the young girl a look, “Play nice.”

She stuck out her tongue, “I’m always nice, birdbrain.”

Jose laughed, nudging Bradley with her elbow, “Huh, Birdbrain, I like that. Fits more than Rooster.”

“Hey! Birds can be smart,” he defended himself, helping her sit down.

“Sure they are,” Amelia snorted. 

Bradley glanced around before flipping the younger girl off. She only laughed and returned the favor, narrowing her eyes at him. He told Jose that he was going to help Maverick with dinner, before disappearing out of the back door in search of the older man. 

This left Jose alone with Amelia. The younger girl eyed her carefully, looking her up and down. Amelia leaned back into the sofa, stretching her arms out along the back with a sigh. 

“So, you’re having a baby?”

“Uh,” Jose looked down at her stomach, almost wanting to laugh, “Yeah, a girl. She could come any day, really. But the plan is to keep her cooking a little while longer. At least another month.”

“I’ll babysit,” Amelia shrugged, “You know, if you need anyone. I’m good with kids. I babysit some of the little baby base rats.”

Jose smiled, “I’d like that. As long as your mom is okay with it.”

“I would love it,” Penny spoke up, “In fact, I insist that you let us watch after that baby every now and again. Seeing as you’re apart of this family now, whether you like it or not.”

Jose smiled. When was the last time that she really felt like she was a part of a family? Her mom sure as hell didn’t give her much of a family feel, not since it was just them and her mom was hardly there for her. Mrs. Seresin tried her best, but the relationship with her husband and some of the daughters made things difficult. Michael was her family once, but then he turned on her. 

“I like that,” Jose admitted, “I don’t have much in the way of a family.”

Penny smiled almost sadly, “Well, you do now. And you’re welcome here anytime, with or without Bradley.”

“Thank you, I really appreciate that,” Jose replied honestly. 

“And if you ever need any help with the baby, you can call me anytime. It’s been a while since I had Amelia,” Penny told her, “But I still remember a thing or two. It helps to have someone who’s been through it all before.”

Jose nodded, “I’ve been told. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your offer. I’ll take you up on it, I’m sure.”

“Good,” Penny smiled, “Now, let’s go eat. The boys should be finished with dinner.”

And just like that, Jose had more of a family than she ever had. Four people, aside from Jake, who genuinely seemed to care about her. SIx people, including Jake and Natasha, who genuinely wanted the best for her and her baby. And her baby. Her sweet little girl who would be joining the world sooner rather than later. Her daughter, all hers, hers to love and cherish, hers to protect. Though she was scared to death, Jose couldn’t wait to meet her. 

She couldn’t wait to see what she would be like. What color her eyes and hair would be. Would she have dimples? Or freckles? Even if she looked like Michael, Jose would love her endlessly. Jose simply just couldn’t wait to meet and hold her little girl. And she certainly couldn’t wait to introduce her to her new little family.

[sweater-daddiesdumbdork]

CHALLENGE TIME

Sweater Presents- AMBERS Any-FUCKING-Fandom FIC CHALLENGE

Hi Everyone, one of your resident writers here deciding to finally host one of these things. I have a few milestones I passed, and it feels like time to celebrate. What better way then to let everyone write and let me rage my love for your stories. Since you all are mad talented epic fucking writers. 

As you all know, Im a softy angsty dark smutty random ass fan, so honestly write whatever your little heart desires. It can be drabbles, epic long as hell, can be set in a series your working on (in this case be sure to let me know thats your plan so I can get an understanding of your story) Head Canons, etc etc etc. anything really. Im also going to throw out, if your thing is making moodboards, feel free. I honestly think that they are stunning. 

There is a reason its called Any-FUCKING-Fandom FIC CHALLENGE. Any fandom goes. Im not going to limit anyone to just one thing. The ones im familiar with is Marvel and Supernatural.If you choose some other one, be sure to let me know so if im not familiar, I can look it up. Thats all I ask.  

Have a great time with this, I look forward to everyones submits. Any questions, do not hesitate to send me a message or ask. Please Reblog.

Much Love always. 

ALL THAT BEING SAID, RULES UNDER THE LINE. 

Can be anything you want to submit, writing or art work. 

Non Con and Dub Con is allowed

Underage, Messing with animals, toilet play is a hard NO for me. I dont think this should really have to be added, but Ive seen many challenges include this. 

All that being said, Properly label your work for anything thats needed. 

Please send your request in a ask, with the number, category and whom you want to write for, and if its anything other then marvel, most Evans films and supernatural, what fandom they are a part of. 

AU, OC, Y/N, etc is allowed. 

There will be no date to have it submitted by, I know people have lives and cant always get to stuff ASAP. Or the muse has stepped out. No worries, I got you. Submit when you can. 

Anything thats over 500 words, please use a ‘KEEP READING’ Lets not clutter our friends blogs up. (if your on mobile, i understand its not easy to use, no worries.) 

If there is a prompt you REALLY want thats taken, let me know. Im pretty freaking flexible. 

Please Reblog this for people to see, I appreciate it. 

You dont have to follow me, although be cool if you did

When you tag this, please use #sweatersanyficchallenge and tag me in the fic

Also probably send me a message if I dont respond in a timely manner. Im around most the time, so if thats the case, I didnt get the notification. 

HAVE FUN with this. 

Prompts-

Dialouge Prompts- 

“Please don’t lie to me again, I can’t take it.” @official-and-unstable-satan​ @nekoannie-chan​ with steve or brock @kitkatd7​ with cowboy!steve

“I’m too sober for this.” “You don’t even drink.” “Maybe I should start.” @kitkatd7​ with steve

“Is the cat in a onesie?” “Uh, no? @buckeroonie323

“If I die, I’m haunting you first.” @yespolkadotkitty​ with geralt and jaskier @iwritethingstoo with gambit

“Are you flirting with me?” “You finally noticed?” @averyrogers83​

“Am I your lockscreen?” “You weren’t supposed to see that.” @stuckonjbbarnes​ with steve @constantaking​ with bucky/natasha

“Have you seen my hoodie?” “Nooo.” “You’re wearing it, aren’t you?” @nekoannie-chan with Steve or Brock

“Why are you awake right now?” 💕anon with Chris

“Wake up! Please wake up.” @joannaliceevans-fanficblog​ with andy

“woah, don’t pass out on me.” @xoxabs88xox​

“you really can’t take care of yourself." @voila-tout with steve

“You don’t get to say anything to me!” @lielullabye with steve x 10!percent

“You’re such a dork.” @joannaliceevans-fanficblog​ with andy

“Try to keep quiet.. we wouldn’t want to get caught.” @shield-agent78​ with bucky @hoseokchild​

“I’m not hurting you, am I?” @just-the-hiddles with sir thomas sharpe

“Did you BITE me?!” @mandywholock1980​ with loki or steve

“Untie me already- I want to touch you!” @happygowriting​ with curtis

“Wow… you’re easy to rile up.” @simsadventures​ with alpha!steve

“I got a WHOOOOLE collection of toys- let’s try em!”

“Hey… do you think we could switch positions this time?” @deboryanne​ with (18+) Peter Parker

Song Prompts-

Sam Smith- Fire on Fire @shellbilee with Chris or Andy

Bad Company- Ready For Love

Alex Clare- Too Close

NoMBe- Freak Like Me

Saving Abel- Addicted @official-and-unstable-satan

Kaleo- Break My Baby

Lana Del Rey- You Can Be The Boss @inforapound​ with javier pena

Jace Everett- Bad Things @nellblazer​ with grey!bucky

Eminem- Not Afraid

Imagine Dragons- Im So Sorry

Picture Aesthetics Prompts- 

1. @donutloverxo​

2. @celticheart72 with logan and oc

3.

4. @mr-skyline-r34​ with Noel Miller

5. @celticheart72 with logan and oc.

6. @what-is-your-plan-today​ and @icanfeelastormbrewing​ with jake jensen and oc.

7.

8. @that-damn-girl​ with Bucky (fic and moodboard)

[ultralifehackerguru-blog]

New Post has been published on http://www.lifehacker.guru/fall-movie-preview-50-movies-you-need-to-know-about/

Fall Movie Preview: 50 Movies You Need to Know About

Not only does Fall bring chillier temperatures, pumpkin spice lattes, and cozy sweaters but also plenty of reasons to go to the movie theater (or stay on the comfort of your own couch with new Netflix originals, if you’re into that sort of thing). The season kicks off with everything from a heartbreaking family drama from the creator of This Is Us to the long-awaited Halloween rebootthat will surely give us nightmares long after Fall transitions into Winter. This is also the season when Oscar hopefuls emerge and holiday blockbusters start coming out by the dozen, so there’s seriously something for everyone. If you need an idea of what to see from the end of August all the way to Christmas, then take a look at the list ahead.

1 Operation Finale

Image Source: MGM

The scoop: With a large crew to back him up, Mossad agent Peter Malkin (Oscar Isaac) goes on a covert mission to Argentina in 1960 to find the Nazi officer who masterminded the Holocaust. Mélanie Laurent, Haley Lu Richardson, Ben Kingsley, and Nick Kroll costar.

Release date: Aug. 29

2 Sierra Burgess Is a Loser

Image Source: Netflix

The scoop: The story focuses on Sierra (Stranger Things star Shannon Purser), a smart high school student who unintentionally begins catfishing her crush because of a case of mistaken identity. She teams up with Veronica, the school’s typical popular mean girl (Kristine Froseth), in hopes of winning over her crush, played by The Fosters‘ Noah Centineo.

Release date: Sept. 7

3 The Nun

Image Source: Warner Bros.

The scoop: Even the poster for this follow-up to the Conjuring franchise is enough to send chills down our spines, so we can only imagine how terrifying the actual movie is going to be. This time around, we travel to 1950s Romania, where a nun and a Catholic priest are sent by the Vatican to investigate the mysterious suicide of another nun at a monastery. What they don’t realize is that an intensely powerful demonic force is already there, waiting to claim them.

Release date: Sept. 7

4 Mandy

Image Source: RLJE Films

The scoop: Nicolas Cage and Andrea Riseborough star in this thriller set in 1983. The pair play Red Miller and Mandy Bloom, who lead a remote, peaceful existence in the Pacific Northwest until a sadistic cult destroys everything they hold dear. The invasion sparks a tale of bloody vengeance that will have you on the edge of your seat.

Release date: Sept. 14

5 The Predator

Image Source: 20th Century Fox

The scoop: Alfie Allen, Olivia Munn, and more star in this sequel, which will see soldiers teaming up to battle the vicious extraterrestrial we all know and love (to have nightmares of).

Release date: Sept. 14

6 White Boy Rick

Image Source: Columbia Pictures

The scoop: This based-on-a-true-story crime drama follows young teen Richard Wershe Jr. (Richie Merritt), who goes on to become an undercover FBI informant in the 1980s, although his life tragically ends in disgrace and life in prison. Matthew McConaughey plays his father, Richard Wershe Sr.

Release date: Sept. 14

7 A Simple Favor

Image Source: Lionsgate

The scoop: A Simple Favor, a Paul Feig-directed thriller, stars Anna Kendrickas Stephanie, who seems like she just wants to track down her missing BFF Emily (Blake Lively) . . . but what if she actually had something to do with her disappearance? Although Emily has always seemed like an elegant, aspirational, and all-around put-together human being, she’s also been hiding a dark side from both Stephanie and her own husband, Sean (Crazy Rich Asians actor Henry Golding), which creates an even more complex mystery.

Release date: Sept. 14

8 The Land of Steady Habits

Image Source: Netflix

The scoop: Ted Thompson’s novel The Land of Steady Habits is coming to Netflix this Fall and stars Ben Mendelsohn as Anders Hill, a family man in his mid-50s living in an affluent part of Connecticut who finds himself in a rut. With his son’s college tuition paid off, Anders leaves his wife (Edie Falco) and goes on a clumsy search for freedom.

Release date: Sept. 14

9 The Sisters Brothers

Image Source: Annapurna Pictures

The scoop: This Western drama picks up in 1850s Oregon, where a gold prospector finds himself on the run from an infamous duo of assassins, the Sisters brothers. If that isn’t enough to convince you to watch it, hopefully the star-studded cast is: Jake Gyllenhaal, Joaquin Phoenix, John C. Reilly, and Riz Ahmed star.

Release date: Sept. 19

10 The House With a Clock in Its Walls

Image Source: Universal Pictures

The scoop: A young boy goes to stay with his uncle in a creaky old house and soon realizes that there’s much more to the home than meets the eye — get ready for thrills, chills, witches, and warlocks.

Release date: Sept. 21

11 Quincy

Image Source: Netflix

The scoop: Rashida Jones teamed up with Alan Hicks to direct this Netflix documentary about her father, Quincy Jones, aptly titled Quincy. The film is an intimate look into the life of the music industry icon, exploring his impact, the way he’s transcended racial and cultural boundaries, and the ups and downs of his career over the last 70 years.

Release date: Sept. 21

12 Nappily Ever After

Image Source: Netflix

The scoop: In this Netflix romantic dramedy, Violet Jones (Sanaa Lathan) appears to have it all together — a great job, a doctor boyfriend, and a gorgeous head of hair — until a devastating, life-altering event shatters her illusion of perfection. With her carefully maintained world crumbling around her (and her boyfriend taking up with another woman), Violet decides to figure out just what, exactly, she actually wants out of life.

Release date: Sept. 21

13 Life Itself

Image Source: Amazon Studios

The scoop: This Is Us creator Dan Fogelman just can’t help himself when it comes to making people cry. Not only are we emotionally broken by his hit TV show each week, but the man is also gifting us with a new drama, Life Itself, that’s sure to be a tearjerker. The film hinges on a ridiculously beautiful couple (Oscar Isaac and Olivia Wilde) whose life together — from their first meeting to having a baby and raising their child — spawns “a multi-generational love story” that stretches from New York City to the Spanish countryside. Of course, in true Fogelman fashion, one tragic event is what connects it all. It also stars Mandy Patinkin, Olivia Cooke, Laia Costa, Annette Bening, and Antonio Banderas.

Release date: Sept. 21

14 Colette

Image Source: Bleecker Street

The scoop: Keira Knightley has returned to the world of period films, and we couldn’t be happier. The actress stars as Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, an author who is coerced into ghostwriting a novel for her husband, Willy (Dominic West), after moving to Paris. After the story becomes wildly successful, she’s inspired to fight for creative ownership and against the traditional gender norms of the early 20th century.

Release date: Sept. 21

15 Night School

Image Source: Universal Pictures

The scoop: Night School stars comedian Kevin Hart as a wildly successful salesman who eventually runs into trouble when an explosion at work leaves him out of a job. Unfortunately, his prospects look slim since he dropped out of high school, so he decides to take night classes at the local high school — taught by Tiffany Haddish’s tough-as-nails instructor Kerry — along with a few other troublemakers in order to get his GED and a better career.

Release date: Sept. 28

16 Boy Erased

Image Source: Focus Features

The scoop: Garrard Conley’s heartbreaking 2016 memoir is coming to the big screen, starring Lucas Hedges as Jared, the teenage son of a baptist preacher (Russell Crowe) who is forced to endure a church-supported gay conversion program. The film also stars Nicole Kidman, Joel Edgerton, Xavier Dolan, and Joe Alwyn.

Release date: Sept. 28

17 Private Life

Image Source: Netflix

The scoop: This Netflix film tracks a stressed-out couple — an author (Kathryn Hahn) and her husband (Paul Giamatti) — as they endure multiple fertility therapies to get pregnant. The drama also stars Molly Shannon and Emily Robinson.

Release date: Oct. 5

18 Venom

Image Source: Sony Pictures

The scoop: Tom Hardy’s upcoming Spider-Man spinoff, Venom, sees the villain in all his terrifying, gory glory. The trailer promises that we’ll see Eddie Brock’s (Hardy) transition and struggle going from investigative journalist to symbiote host, finally referring to himself as “we.” (Shiver!) His ex-girlfriend Anne Weying (Michelle Williams) and Riz Ahmed’s evil Dr. Carlton Drake (who will later become the film’s main antagonist, a fellow symbiote called Riot) also appear.

Release date: Oct. 5

19 A Star Is Born

Image Source: Warner Bros.

The scoop: Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga’s romance, which is the fourth iteration of this story, follows a has-been rock icon (Cooper) who discovers a ridiculously talented young singer (Gaga). Not only do they embark on an epic love story, but they’re also forced to navigate some thrilling triumphs and devastating pitfalls as they tackle the music industry.

Release date: Oct. 5

20 Bad Times at the El Royale

Image Source: 20th Century Fox

The scoop: Did God herself cast Bad Times at the El Royale? Because this thriller is seriously stacked with talent. Jeff Bridges, Cynthia Erivo, Dakota Johnson, Cailee Spaeny, Lewis Pullman, and Nick Offerman play a group of strangers who find themselves clashing at the titular creepy hotel, owned by Jon Hamm. According to the film’s description, “Over the course of one fateful night, secrets are unearthed, and everyone will have a last shot at redemption before everything goes to hell.” Apparently “hell” is code for “Chris Hemsworth shirtless.”

Release date: Oct. 12

21 First Man

Image Source: Focus Features

The scoop: Ryan Gosling plays Neil Armstrong in this biopic, which reunites him with La La Land director Damien Chazelle. Based on the book by James R. Hansen, the drama looks equal parts heartfelt and intense and also stars The Crown‘s Claire Foy and Bloodline‘s Kyle Chandler.

Release date: Oct. 12

22 Apostle

Image Source: Netflix

The scoop: Occult horror-thriller Apostle stars Beauty and the Beast‘s Dan Stevens as Thomas Richardson, who returns home to London in 1905 only to discover that his sister has been captured by a cult led by the dangerously charismatic Prophet Malcolm (Michael Sheen) and is being held for ransom. Thomas sets out to rescue his sister, infiltrating the cult’s island community and eventually uncovering an evil secret.

Release date: Oct. 12

23 Beautiful Boy

Image Source: Amazon Studios

The scoop: Get your tissues ready, because Timothée Chalamet will break your heart in this Amazon Studios adaptation of Tweak and David Sheff’s gut-wrenching memoir, Beautiful Boy. Chalamet’s character goes from a lighthearted, suburban big brother who enjoys family time to a young adult battling a devastating methamphetamine addiction. Steve Carell plays his father, and their relationship will shake you to your core.

Release date: Oct. 12

24 Serenity

Image Source: Universal Pictures

The scoop: Anne Hathaway and Matthew McConaughey have reunited years after Christopher Nolan’s existential Interstellar for another stressful cinematic experience: enter Serenity. In it, a very blond Hathaway asks McConaughey to murder her abusive husband (Chappaquiddick‘s Jason Clarke) by dropping him smack dab in the ocean, much to the delight of any nearby sharks. Despite the grim premise, the trailer still makes the movie look pretty damn sexy, for what it’s worth.

Release date: Oct. 19

25 Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Image Source: 20th Century Fox

The scoop: Melissa McCarthy flexes her dramatic acting chops in Can You Ever Forgive Me? as Lee Israel, a real-life magazine writer whose life took a turn when she started forging and selling letters supposedly written by late, legendary writers. She later pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to transport stolen property in 1993 and eventually wrote a memoir about her life, upon which the biopic is based.

Release date: Oct. 19

26 Halloween

Image Source: Universal Pictures

The scoop: A David Gordon Green-directed reboot of the terrifying franchise sees Jamie Lee Curtis reprising her role as Laurie Strode from the 1978 original. Now older (but perhaps not altogether wiser), Laurie has spent years praying that her attempted murderer, Michael Myers, would escape from his psychiatric ward so that she can get revenge for the trauma he put her through by killing him herself. Well, thanks to a bus crash, she gets her wish, and the unstoppable homicidal maniac is let loose on the world once again.

Release date: Oct. 19

27 Wildlife

Image Source: IFC Films

The scoop: Do you hear that? It’s the sound of Oscar buzz for Wildlife, which stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Carey Mulligan as a couple who move their son to Montana in 1960, only for their marriage to fall apart.

Release date: Oct. 19

28 Galveston

Image Source: RLJE Films

The scoop: After mob hit man Roy (Ben Foster) discovers his boss has hired assassins to take him out, he goes on the run with a young, troubled woman named Rocky (Elle Fanning). As they make their way to Galveston, they desperately try to outrun not only the mob but also the demons from both of their pasts.

Release date: Oct. 19

29 An Evening With Beverly Luff Linn

Image Source: Universal Pictures

The scoop: In this quirky comedy, Lulu Danger (Aubrey Plaza) is already deeply unsatisfied in her marriage to Shane (Emile Hirsch), but things only degrade further when a mysterious man from her past (Jemaine Clement) arrives in town to perform an event called “An Evening With Beverly Luff Linn; For One Magical Night Only.”

Release date: Oct. 19

30 Suspiria

Image Source: Amazon Studios

The scoop: As a follow-up to award season darling Call Me by Your Name, director Luca Guadagnino has dramatically changed courses by remaking one of the scariest horror movies from the 1970s: Suspiria. It follows Dakota Johnson’s ambitious young dancer, Susie, arriving at a world-renowned dance company led by a mysterious artistic director (Tilda Swinton), who will send Susie on a journey filled with darkness (translation: satanic rituals, witches, curses, murder, etc.). Mia Goth, Lutz Ebersdorf, Jessica Harper, and Chloë Grace Moretz also star.

Release date: Oct. 26

31 Bohemian Rhapsody

Image Source: 20th Century Fox

The scoop: The long-awaited Queen biopic, Bohemian Rhapsody, stars Rami Malek as the group’s legendary frontman Freddie Mercury and also dives into the musician’s relationship with Mary Austin (Lucy Boynton) and the creative process behind some of Queen’s biggest hits.

Release date: Nov. 2

32 The Nutcracker and the Four Realms

Image Source: Disney

The scoop: Disney’s The Nutcracker and the Four Realms is a beautiful look at the magical world young Clara (Twilight’s Mackenzie Foy) stumbles upon one Winter night. Her new surroundings include a dashing soldier (Jayden Fowora-Knight), a gang of mice, the Sugar Plum Fairy (Keira Knightley), and a tyrannical Mother Ginger (Helen Mirren). Will Clara be able to locate the strange and mysterious key that can restore harmony in this parallel world? Considering real ballet superstar Misty Copeland has a starring role, we have high hopes for this.

Release date: Nov. 2

33 The Girl in the Spider’s Web

Image Source: Columbia Pictures

The scoop: In the first book since David Lagercrantz took over the Millennium trilogy from the late Stieg Larsson, Lisbeth Salander (Claire Foy, taking over for Rooney Mara) investigates an organization called the Spider Society. In the first trailer for the highly anticipated follow-up to 2011’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Foy looks unrecognizable as she terrorizes men who have harmed other women and confronts her dark, mysterious past.

Release date: Nov. 9

34 Outlaw King

Image Source: Netflix

The scoop: Chris Pine is leaving the 1980s behind for the 1300s, as he plays real-life Scottish king and rebel hero Robert the Bruce in Outlaw King. The Netflix historical drama hails from Hell or High Water director David Mackenzie and tells the true story of the reluctant medieval king who finds himself drawn into a vicious battle with King Edward I (Stephen Dillane) and his vengeful, violent son, the Prince of Wales (Billy Howle).

Release date: Nov. 9

35 The Oath

Image Source: Roadside Attractions

The scoop: Ike Barinholtz and Tiffany Haddish’s dark comedy sees a husband and wife attempting to survive “life and Thanksgiving in the age of political tribalism.” In other words, they sit down for dinner with their extended family and find themselves viciously sparring with their Republican relatives over a new government policy that will require citizens to sign a loyalty oath to the president. When two government agents (John Cho and Billy Magnussen) enter the mix, the holiday dinner fully goes off the rails.

Release date: Oct. 12

36 Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

Image Source: Warner Bros.

The scoop: Not only does the Fantastic Beasts sequel take us to Hogwarts back in the day, but it also introduces young Dumbledore (Jude Law) and young Newt Scamander in a few nostalgic flashbacks. Of course, the film also moves to years later, when Dumbledore has to team up with adult Newt (Eddie Redmayne) on his journey to Paris, where he’ll no doubt run into the evil Grindelwald (Johnny Depp).

Release date: Nov. 16

37 Widows

Image Source: 20th Century Fox

The scoop: Another all-women heist flick is arriving this year. Oscar-winning director Steve McQueen has teamed up with Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn for Widows, a thriller about four women who are forced to step in to repay the debt their husbands — a gang of thieves who die during a heist gone wrong — couldn’t. The women in question? Viola Davis, Elizabeth Debicki, Michelle Rodriguez, and Cynthia Erivo, who look more than capable of sticking it to the men in their town who don’t think they “have the balls to pull this off,” according to Davis’s Veronica.

Release date: Nov. 16

38 Creed II

Image Source: Warner Bros.

The scoop: Michael B. Jordan’s boxer is back! This time around, The Land director Steven Caple Jr. is at the helm while Ryan Coogler serves as an executive producer, but Jordan, Sylvester Stallone, Tessa Thompson, and Phylicia Rashad are all reprising their roles. The film picks up after Adonis’s defeat by “Pretty” Ricky Conlan in Creed, as he struggles to balance his boxing career with his relationship with Bianca (Thompson), as well as training for a fight against Viktor Drago, the son of former prize champion boxer Ivan Drago (who killed his father, Apollo, during an exhibition match).

Release date: Nov. 21

39 Second Act

Image Source: STX Entertainment

The scoop: Real-life BFFs Jennifer Lopez and Leah Remini join forces for Second Act, which follows Lopez’s Maya as she struggles to climb the corporate ladder at the big-box store where she works because of her lack of an Ivy League degree. When her close friend and coworker (Remini) gets her son to “Cinderella” Maya’s résumé and internet presence — think: photos of her with the Obamas, climbing Kilimanjaro, a degree from Wharton — she suddenly finds herself with a fancy new job on Madison Avenue. Milo Ventimiglia and Vanessa Hudgens also star!

Release date: Nov. 21

40 Green Book

Image Source: Universal Pictures

The scoop: Peter Farrelly’s Green Book is based on a true story about two men in the 1960s who form an unlikely friendship. Academy Award winner Mahershala Ali stars as Dr. Don Shirley, a world-class black pianist, who hires Tony Lip (Academy Award nominee Viggo Mortensen), a Bronx-born bouncer, to drive him on a concert tour that extends from Manhattan to the Deep South. Using the “Green Book,” which serves as a guide to the establishments that were safe at the time for African-Americans, the pair navigate the ups and downs of their lengthy road trip together.

Release date: Nov. 21

41 Robin Hood

Image Source: Summit Entertainment

The scoop: Do you like roguish vigilantes? Or scenes that feature 50 arrows being shot at once in slow motion? How about dramatic dialogue like, “Who is he? He’s all of us.” If any of those things appeal to you, then good news: you’re going to love Robin Hood. The gritty adaptation of the classic “steal from the rich, give to the poor” tale stars Kingsman‘s Taron Egerton as the masked hero, as well as Bridge of Spies‘ Eve Hewson as Maid Marian and Jamie Foxx as Robin Hood’s mentor, Little John.

Release date: Nov. 21

42 Ralph Breaks the Internet: Wreck-It Ralph 2

Image Source: Disney

The scoop: Ralph and Vanellope have big adventures ahead of them! The adorable duo from Wreck-It Ralph are back for the colorful sequel, Ralph Breaks the Internet: Wreck-It Ralph 2. Six years after the events of the first film, Ralph (John C. Reilly) and Vanellope (Sarah Silverman) stumble upon a WiFi router in their arcade, which sends them on a high-flying journey around the World Wide Web. Luckily, the internet access means they’ll bump into a few Disney princesses — Merida, Moana, Anna, Elsa, Rapunzel, and more! — as well as other iconic internet figures.

Release date: Nov. 21

43 Mary Queen of Scots

Image Source: Focus Features

The scoop: Following the life of young Queen Mary after she is widowed at age 18, the biopic focuses on her relationship with rival Queen Elizabeth. Saoirse Ronan is starring as Mary Stuart opposite Margot Robbie as Queen Elizabeth I. Joe Alwyn and Guy Pearce also costar in the heated historical drama about an age-old story of family ties and dueling women in power.

Release date: Dec. 7

44 Aquaman

Image Source: Warner Bros.

The scoop: Prepare yourself for a more in-depth look at the world of Aquaman and his family. We’ll finally get to see Aquaman’s parents — his mother, Atlanna, played by Nicole Kidman, and his father, Tom Curry, played by Moana actor Temuera Morrison — as well as future wife Mera, played by Amber Heard. And no superhero film is complete without a proper villain, which we’ll get twofold thanks to Abdul-Mateen II’s Black Manta and Patrick Wilson’s Orm.

Release date: Dec. 21

45 Mortal Engines

Image Source: Universal Pictures

The scoop: In a postapocalyptic world, London has now become a giant machine that has to eat other cities to survive. Hugo Weaving, Jihae, and Robert Sheehan star in Peter Jackson’s adaptation.

Release date: Dec. 14

46 Bird Box

Image Source: Getty / Anthony Harvey

The scoop: Josh Malerman’s horrifying novel is coming to Netflix with a whole lot of star power. Sandra Bullock is set to play a mother struggling to keep her two children alive in the midst of an apocalypse that turns people into violent monsters and finds herself faced with navigating them down a dangerous river while blindfolded in search of salvation. Academy Award winner Susanne Bier is in the director’s chair, and the film also stars Trevante Rhodes, Sarah Paulson, and John Malkovich.

Release date: Dec. 21

47 Welcome to Marwen

Image Source: Universal Pictures

The scoop: Welcome to Marwen is directed by Robert Zemeckis and based on Jeff Malmberg’s award-winning 2010 documentary Marwencol and sees Steve Carell playing the real-life Mark Hogancamp, who was beaten into a coma by five men and spent 40 days in the hospital. After the attack left him with brain damage and PTSD, Hogancamp immersed himself in an intricate world of World War II-era miniatures as a form of art therapy. Carell is joined by Leslie Mann, Diane Kruger, Merritt Wever, Janelle Monáe, Eiza González, and Gwendolyn Christie.

Release date: Dec. 21

48 Mary Poppins Returns

Image Source: Disney

The scoop: Mary Poppins Returns will have your inner child freaking out. The sequel takes us back to Cherry Tree Lane, where we get to see Emily Blunt as the lovable nanny and Lin-Manuel Miranda as her dancing companion.

Release date: Dec. 19

49 Bumblebee

Image Source: Paramount Pictures

The scoop:Oh, you thought you’d seen the last of the Transformers franchise? Think again. After 2017’s fifth addition (called Transformers: The Last Knight), a prequel titled Bumblebee posits that “Every adventure has a beginning.” The action film will center on the origin story of the beloved Transformer and introduce the series to a few new stars (Hailee Steinfeld and John Cena).

Release date: Dec. 21

50 On the Basis of Sex

Image Source: Focus Features

The scoop: This biopic stars Felicity Jones (The Theory of Everything, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story) as a young Ruth Bader Ginsburg as she fights for gender equality on the road to becoming a Supreme Court associate justice. The film also has a stellar supporting cast, including Kathy Bates, Armie Hammer, Justin Theroux, and Sam Waterston.

Release date: Dec. 25

(C)

[thesportssoundoff]

“So how early is too early, how soon is too soon and why am I up at 4:30 AM watching China’s best fight in the UFC?” A preview of the UFC Fight Night live from Shanghai

Joey

November 19th

WHEW Boy! First and foremost, for those of y'all in the states I hope you have a kick ass Thanksgiving. Eat plenty, drink plenty if that's your thing, shop plenty on a Friday and then for those of you who are MMAddicted, you got yourself a show on Saturday morning! The UFC has tried and tried and tried and FINALLY they broke through into Shanghai! The Chinese market has been opened up and the dam has busted. Fight fans who are so interested in MMA will be greeted to QUITE the show on Thursday morning. This was set up to be Anderson Silva vs Kelvin Gastelum but drug tests ruin the best of things. To their credit, the UFC found Michael Bisping for the role and now things are humming towards a Chinese showdown. The rest of the main card pits the best of China vs two solid mid level UFC talents plus the debut of one of MMA's more exciting talents. The prelims have one FANTASTIC fight and the debut of 8 different fighters; 1 from Brazil, 1 from India and 6 from China.  Plenty of reason to get excited am I right? Guys? Guuuuuuys?

Fights: 12 (11 if they can't find a dude for Cyril Asker)

Debuts: 10 (Sheymon Moraes, Bharat Khandare, Yanan Wu, Wuliji Buren, Yan Xiaonan, Wang Guan, Muslim Salikov, Kenan Song, Yadong Song, Yan Xiaonan )

Fight Changes/Injury Cancellations:  3 (Anderson Silva OUT, Michael BIsping IN vs Kelvin Gastelum/Liu Pingyuan OUT, Yadong Song IN vs Bharat Kandare, James Mulheron OUT, TBD vs Cyril Asker)

Headliners (fighters who have either main evented or co-main evented shows in the UFC):  3 (Michael Bisping, Alex Caceres, Kelvin Gastelum)

Fighters On Losing Streaks in the UFC:  4 (Rolando Dy, Cyril Asker, Bobby Nash, Kailin Curran)

Fighters On Winning Streaks in the UFC:  2 (Chase Sherman, Li Jingliang)

Stat Monitor for 2017:

Debuting Fighters (Current number: 38-30)- Sheymon Moraes, Bharat Khandare, Yanan Wu, Wuliji Buren, Yan Xiaonan, Wang Guan, Muslim Salikov, Kenan Song, Yadong Song, Yan Xiaonan

Short Notice Fighters (Current number: 22-33-1)- Michael Bisping, Yadong Song

Second Fight (Current number: 25-37)- Gina Mizani, Zabit Magomedsharipov

Cage Corrosion (18-13-1)- 0

Twelve Precious Ponderings

1- I suppose we can begin with trying to piece together this Scooby Doo-esque mystery on Michael Bisping taking the fight. Anderson Silva falls out via drug test gone bad (or good depending on your view of it) and Kelvin Gastelum needs a fight for the main event. Given how vital this show is to THAT market, this is a big deal. Limited options + short notice + Visa + tough as shit opponent = trouble. Under any other circumstance this capsizes a show. The UFC's chasing an opponent for Brunson and Bisping isn't available because he's injured---right? Well according to Bisping, he reached out to the UFC and told them he was fine and ready to fight on short notice vs Gastelum. A week after fighting GSP for the title. Now there are many serious questions we all need to parse through. 1) Should Bisping be fighting? 2) What about his medical suspension? 3) What does he have to gain from this? 4) Is this too soon? Whatever the case may or may not be, you gotta at least give the parties involved some credit for somehow pulling this shit off. For my money, Bisping vs Gastelum is a far greater fight than Anderson/Gastelum.

2- On a scale of 1- Of Course, what are the odds Gastelum somehow finds a way to miss weight?

3- A lot of credit needs to go to Bisping for taking this fight. He probably made more money  than he ever has vs GSP and when most dudes would be fat and happy and ready to just take time off, he's back in there less than a month later. Not everybody loves Michael Bisping but the # of Bisping types is declining rapidly so enjoy the one we have while we got 'em.

4- At this point all I ask of Gastelum is that he doesn't beat Bisping up so badly that Michael can't retire in March in London.

5- Perhaps not enough credit is to be given to Kelvin Gastelum for basically saving his career. Gastelum completely lost track of his career at 170 lbs after missing weight and then the UFC basically told him to move up or move out. Since moving up to 185 lbs, he's 2-1 (1-1-1 in actuality but I dont think he needed WEED to beat up Vitor Belfort)  with wins over Belfort and Tim Kennedy. His sole loss was to Chris Weidman in a fight where he gave Weidman problems, dropping him before losing due to the size difference. Gastelum is in that Jake Shields category of really needing that 175 lb weight class where he can prosper. His hands have come a long, long way since TUF and he's still a killer wrestler. His grappling in my estimation has been his weak spot as he tends to get too lax on the ground (his inability to handle Magny's grappling probably cost him the fight and Weidman outworked him and submitted him). Very excited to see how he handles Bisping because Gastelum's youth, team and skill set gives him a chance to be a real find in the coming years.

6- "The Leech" Li Jingliang has had a very odd track in the UFC. He hasn't really improved but he's so strong and stubborn as a fighter that it works for him. The Leech  is never in a boring fight outside of one time where Nadine Taleb turned him into a fifteen minute grappler type. The leech just looks like a miserable sort of dude to fight; a hard headed hard hitting stubborn as shit dude who can wrestle you and ground and pound plus he's one of those guys who gets better as the fight goes on. Zack Ottow is a weird fight for him; a dude who could be undefeated in the UFC or 0-3 in the UFC depending on how you look at it. Ottow is the epitome of the "mid level veteran" who will test you but probably not beat you.

7- Wang Guan's UFC debut is surely going to be "a happening" as one would put it. Guan feels like a fighter who has been tied indirectly to the UFC for quite some time and now hes here and he draws a tough first out in Alex Caceres. Caceres speaks to how highly the UFC thinks of Guan or how lowly they think of Caceres because he's the weird mix of unorthodox, flashy and blessed with endless cardio. They might regret this booking.

8- A lot of folks are excited about the debut of Muslim Salikhov and again this is another one of those deals where youre either REALLY confident in a guy or really, really low on the person he's facing. Alex Garcia is a big rocked up 170er who has proven to be pretty durable in his fights. Not an easy fight for a dude in his debut.

9- I'm SURE they'll be a lot of people who will whine about the fact that just about everybody on the undercard is debuting.. To that, I'll offer a few simplistic retorts. 1) The prelims will start at 3 FUCKING 45 AM on a Saturday. There has NEEEEEEVER been an undercard you could avoid as easily as this one. Just SLEEP through it. 2) Consider this like an Asian TUF where the TUF guys are fighting for their jobs. Most of this undercard is debuting Asian talent trying to find a home in the UFC---chances are half of these fighters if not more will be gone before 2018 ends. Treat them as one offs. 3)   There's actually some really solid matchmaking here on the prelims. 4) Consider this,

10- Bobby Nash is a tough guy to get a handle on. He had Li Jingliang all kinds of hurt and gave Danny "Hot Chocolate" Roberts all kinds of problems as well. The problem is that if you have little head movement and a shaky chin, more often than not somebody will find it. Nash has two fights and has that "he was winning until he lost" thing going on. He takes on Kenan Song on the prelims.

11- I have not had the chance to talk up how fucking great this Sheymon Moraes-Zhabit Magomedsharipov fight but hot DAMN is it a good 'un. This should be fifteen minutes of pure standup and if it hits the ground then both guys are more than capable there as well. Magomedsharipov has big time star potential in my estimation.

12- Bharat Kandare is the UFC's first Indian born fighter (Arjen Bhullar is a Canadian of Indian heritage) but apparently this could've been a done deal a lot sooner. Per Bharat, the UFC wanted to sign him back in 2014 but SFL blocked it. Either way, I'm just glad we're getting more fighters of different nationalities in the Octagon. It's good for all of the sport!

Must Wins

1- Kelvin Gastelum

Michael Bisping's legacy is secure. Everything Bisping related is locked and set in stone. He will retire with the UFC's best strength of competition in my eyes. We're talking Silva, Belfort, GSP, Hendo twice, Luke Rockhold twice, Thales Leites, Rashad Evans, "Mayhem" Miller, Wanderlei, Chael Soonen and Cung Le all inside the Octagon. He won the title, defended it and then made a PPV payout in his loss to GSP. The guy is secure and approaching one final retirement fight. Kelvin Gastelum is going from a going ticket to an even more golden ticket in Bisping and right now Kelvin Gastelum is in his prime and only getting better. A win over Bisping and he'll have the Bisping win that has eluded other MWs. Remember that the folks who beat Bisping eventually go on to fight for the title so he is very much the golden door for the MW division.

2- Wang Guan

IF Li Jingliang is going to be THE guy in China, he would've been it by now. Wang Guan is being tasked with that role. He's been given a main card spot on the first ever show in China against a reputable opponent in Alex Caceres. At 31, Guan is not blessed with youth on his side so the sooner he can try to make a run, the better of he'll be.

3- Chase Sherman

Chase Sherman's UFC run thus far is a very complicated one. His losses are to reputable competition in Justin Ledet and Walt "The Big Ticket" Harris while his wins are to guys who are no longer in the UFC (Coultier is probably on his way out and Grabowski was sent packing). Sherman has some tools like above average athleticism and great conditioning that should make him a HW of note over time. He's also under 30 so he's rocking the trifecta.

Five Fights You Can't Miss

1-  Michael Bisping vs Kelvin Gastelum

2- Zhabit Magomedsharipov vs Sheymon Moraes

3- Li Jingliang vs Zack Ottow

4- Alex Caceres vs Wang Guan

5- Bharat Khandare vs Yadong Song

[team-adults-blog]

4.02 Heavy Lies the Crown

More reactionary that the last one. Long. Buckle Up, Kids. 

Poor Ilian. But what a great origin story amiright? Tragic. Also appreciating the simple face tattoos that seem to be done by family? His brother had the same ones. It could be clan, but Mr. Ambassador later in the episode has dumb eyebrow arc ones (Octavia should stab him for that alone. Plus he’s talkin shit the whole episode). So those are my thoughts. If you reallllllyyyy want to think about it, it might be a familial tattoo passed down through the mother’s lineage because Ilian’s mom has the same ones too- more woman leaders and power on The 100. Digging it.

aaaahhhhhhhHHHHHHHHHHHaaaaaaOOOOoooo. And repeat.

KABBY SEX. HOLY BAJOBIEE. I was NOT emotionally prepared for this immediately after a commercial break. It makes sense, staging wise, but Look at him there in bed with heart eyes. Here I am sitting all heart eyed. Hot damn.

“You… are a terrible influence” Ok. So this is NOT their first time folks. Waaayyyy to casual. It screams we’ve done this before and we’re going to do it again >>I’m late to go see Roan.

One side of me is yelling FINALLY. The other side is glaring at the writers for this scene. Like COME ONNNN. After 3 seasons (maybe not intended so much in S1) of hurt and comfort, character growth, and angst, you give me this???? I’m down with the slow burn but you don’t get to (here’s my not great metaphor) roll the boulder down the cliff and let me catch a glimpse of the cliff it’s going towards (aka chipped Abby jumps Kane’s bones), but still have it be a mile away. And then BAM. The boulder is now gently rolling through some green meadow at the bottom of the cliff. I DON’T THINK SO. What I wanted: to see the boulder go airborne. Emotions have built to the breaking point. [cut to commercial] Boom.The aftermath. This scene following the break. A BEFORE AND AFTER THE EXPLOSION. THE FALLING OFF THE CLIFF. I’M NOT ASKING TO SEE THE ENTIRE JOURNEY FROM THE TOP OF THE CLIFF TO THE BOTTOM (this is still the CW, after all). I’m asking for pretty typical TV sex scenes. Where was the missing lead in?

At the same time, it is nice to see them comfortable and happy with each other. It doesn’t mean I don’t feel a little cheated...

THE RINGS. This is so so so so so soooo important. There was not a single scene in S3 where Abby was not wearing her and Jake’s rings on that chain around her neck. They’ve been setting up this symbol for a while in anticipation of THIS SCENE!!!!!! Kabby definitely needed to talk about Jake at some point, and this is how a lot of the fandom saw that going down:

a) Marcus sees the rings and feels guilty, and says something to the degree of “I’d never ask you to take them off” because. Respect. Or (this is more of the guilt part) because he doesn’t think he’s as good of a man as Jake was. Abby says he’s a good guy too. He’s changed. He’s grown. A sexy beard. But actually he’s a better person too.

b) Abby feels guilty that she’s betraying Jake’s memory, or pressure to take the rings off.

c) A Combo.

And the Winner is: C

Abby with a wave of emotion as she picks up the rings. Good ‘ol perceptive Kane reading her and knowing what/why she’s feeling this way, saying, “Jake’s a part of who you are.” AND PUTTING THEM BACK ON FOR HER. THE BEST GUY RIGHT HERE. THE ABSOLUTE BEST. BRYAN CAN SUCK IT.

Beard stroke. Kiss from the season 4 promo. A+ writing. Covering all the emotional bases. This should be 50% of the show in my humble opinion.

[later]

Dad!Kane and Octavia to save the dayyyy warn Roan about the dumb ambassador from Trishanakru. Dad!Kane needs save this boy from bad-tattoo-faced ambassador. What’s one more kid? 

[End of they day] Kabby reunites. “One simple task and I’m failing you.” You’re breaking my lil’ heartttt. Diplomacy is hard lil’ marco but you’re good at it. Give it more than once conversation. You have a great deal of experience dealing with stubbornness, remember?

The difference in their faces when Abby tells Kane she can’t help Roan. Kane, mr. perceptive, in the flesh is sad, but gets it. She needs to be useful, so she has to leave Polis and him, to go back to Arkadia. “to Clarke” THIS GUY. The best. He knows. He gets it. A keeper. Okokokokok. So Abby has clearly been staring out the window mentally preparing herself for this conversation and has shut down some of her emotions in preparation. Hence open but distant body language and face. Kane is sad. Ian is very good at that expression. and all of them, honesty. complexity is important.

He looks down. One last glimpse of the boobs, no doubt. Just kiddingggg. Who knows? He notices THE RINGS are missing and swipes her hair thinking they’re covered. NOPE. THEY  NOT HIDING. THEY GONE. “Your necklace…” AH QUESTIONING. IS THIS WHAT I THINK IT IS? Yes, yes it is. Abby decided to take them off while she was alone. That to me is key. She’s taking them off for her. Because she’s ready. Not for any other reason. She can’t say it. But he understands. REALLY NICE HUG. I want a hug that nice. From anyone really. Canon: Marcus Kane is an understanding mind reader which makes him a GREAT diplomat. Pass it on.

[Octavia kills bad-tattoo-faced ambassador from Trishanakru, I know his name is Rafael, but his nickname is more fun for me] Dad!kane knows his kids. Last season it was Boris hurting his heart. Now Octavia. Also kudos to him for knowing what’s up. Kane INSTANTLY is wary and looks at Octavia when bad-tattoo-faced ambassador is missing. The ways she killed him was really smart. He should be proud she’s becoming such a good assassin. She gives herself away though- she’s got zero remorse or chill. Dad sigh. Ilian knows. Echo knows. Rumors gon fly.

I like that everyone is doing what they do best this episode:

Dr. Abby

Problem solver Raven

Ambassador Kane being diplomatic

Badass Octavia

Clarke lying (lol what a drag) and also being a leader. Eliza has one pouty face so far this season and is it bad that it makes me laugh? I’m sorry….

Jasper calling Clarke OUT! and singing

Bellamy having to make the tough call. Officially back to Bellamy from Boris. Also being big bro to some random child 10/10. 

Jaha giving speeches

When the pacing is at a nice speed, and everyone is acting in ways that make sense for their characters to act. The episode turns out really well.

Other Thoughts

Who the fuckkkk is Riley?

Um. Bryan has a cool back scar and should listen to Nate more. His morals are iffy. Where’s Miller senior? What does he think about this boy? Why does Bryan try to get Monty to kill the grounder. Monty is better than revenge and you should know that by now if you think you know Miller so well. Don’t be fucking rude. #Minty

I wish my hair looked as good as Harper’s side braid and crown. Chelsey is a babe.

Poor Lindsey is fit AF and never gets to go run around with the adventure squad because Murphy shot Raven. Yay Raven being a reluctant leader and missing Sinclair. And being savage to Jaha. His ass suddenly became an engineer so he cout be plot relevant this season, smh. He was one before being chancellor. He’s smart, sure, and I can’t see him being in the guard or anything so it fits well enough. 

I dislike Jaha. Disclaimer: I dislike Isaiah Washington as a person. However, the speech he gave Clarke was solid advice. Isaiah’s good at playing pious/arrogant/condescending characters. This season, I would like Jaha to make himself useful and not run over everyone else’s opinions. It’s also important to point out that Jaha was chipped the longest, and while he did go looking for the CoL and probably thought taking the chip was a great idea, ALL of his actions while chipped should be seen as a chipped Jaha’s actions. We don’t know his character background as well as we know others. Because we know so much about other characters who were chipped and that they’d never do the things that they did, we have no problem going back to the way we saw them before. Jaha is an exception to this because 1) we don’t really know what he would do, so we have a hard time separating his actions. I personally think Abby is the best example of the separation. As a doctor, she’s against hurting people. Chipped she ends up causing physical harm to the two people she cares the most about on Earth (I like to think of Raven and Jackson as her adopted kiddos and the next two on the list, who also happen to be the reason she takes the chip in the first place #poorabbs) AND 2) lots of people dislike the character to begin with, so it’s easy to keep blaming him, as Raven does. If Jaha were to humble himself and offer good guidance, I could see his character making a comeback.

The episode title is a misquote of Shakespeare and I find it so satisfying that Thelonious frickin Jaha, mr. pretentious, fucks that up. (He’s the one who actually says the line- to Clarke)

4.01: Lexa laid to rest. Respectfully.

4.02: Jake laid to rest. Respectfully. I hope Abby gives Clarke the necklace when she gets back to Arkadia. 

4.03: Wells? I think it’s still too fresh and early for Octavia to lay Lincoln to rest. Redemption path Jaha needs to talk about his son?

Next week: Dr. Abby goes to save luna and the boat people!

[paradoxicalca]

(OC) Jim Benning goes All In on the Canucks (An Alternate Reality)

(Previous parts of this series include: Mike Milburying the Islanders, Don Cherry Drafts the Leafs, Tom Wilson-Proofing the Penguins, Dundon DIYs the Hurricanes, Re-Chiarelling the Oilers, Moneyballing the Sens, Covertly Tanking the Wild, and Frenchifying the Canadiens.)Part IIt's June 15th, 2019, and the Canucks' war room is quietly optimistic. Elias Pettersson's rookie season has completely changed the outlook of the team's future, and the addition of Quintin Hughes to their blueline late in the year gave just a peek at what was to come: things are finally going to turn around in Vancouver after years of confusion and pain. With a high draft pick and a deep 1st round, the team has every chance at drafting another star.Just then GM Jim Benning bursts through the door, trips over a scout's laptop charger, and falls headfirst into the side of the table. When he gets up, fine save a bump on his head and a rip in the back of his pants, he looks primed for business."As all of you know, my contract expires at the end of this season. Our main priority is making sure that I get extended."His assistants and scouts look nervously at eachother. "Shouldn't we be focusing on building a team that can eventually win the Cup?""Yeah, and how are we supposed to do that if I'm not the GM anymore? Get a load of this guy."Benning grabs a cup of coffee and immediately spills it all over himself. He tries to dry it off with the closest thing at hand, John Weisbrod's sandwich, creating a viscous solution of mustard and Timmies triple triple down his front. "Our best players are in their primes - we gotta be competing for a Cup before guys like Brandon Sutter and Jay Beagle start to decline. It's time, gentlemen. We're going all in.""Hold on, Jim." Jonathan Wall says. "Are you sure that's a good idea? Columbus did that last year and they're about to lose all their stars in free agency.""The guy running that team, does he still have a job?""Yeah""Then get the fuck out of here!"He places his iPhone in the centre of the table and presses on its heavily cracked screen. "I've set up a conference call with every other GM in the league. I want everyone to know we're gonna be a force to be reckoned with."The call begins. Soon everyone is on the line. It's a cacophony. Jim Rutherford's trying to order Denny's delivery at the top of his lungs; John Chayka and Kyle Dubas are arguing over whether Beyblades or Bionicle were cooler; Pierre Dorion is breathing heavily into his team-issued Motorola Razr. Eventually things quiet down.Benning begins "Gentlemen, I'm calling you all because I wanted to let you all know that I really wanna make the playoffs. Real bad. I'll do anything, I'm totally desperate. Please. Trade me some players that will make my team better so I can be in the playoffs and get a new contract. Pretty please. That's all, have a good afternoon and I await your offers."He hangs up, leans back in his chair, and winks at his colleagues. "Now we wait.""Jim, what the hell was that? We just lost all of our leverage! We're gonna get terrible offers now"Benning laughs deeply and walks towards the window of the office, his jowls dancing below his chin. "Bullshit, Jon. We just started a bidding war."The front offices' horrified faces reflect clearly in the gel of his hair.Just then, Benning's phone vibrates - a trade offer from the Lightnings' Julien Brisebois. JT Miller for a first round pick."Now there's an offer! I'm going to go ahead and accept it.""Wait hold on Jim, you can't just accept the offer. We should negotiate, check out the player, see if he's a fit."Benning rolls his eyes. "Great point, John, I'll just go ahead and check his analytics on my fancy computer." He opens his laptop and mimes typing. "Get your head out of your ass.""We should at least lottery-protect the draft pick""Fine. Are you done? You know what guys, I'm just gonna do this by myself." He excuses the rest of his staff and locks the door behind them, inadvertently breaking the knob and trapping himself inside. His phone vibrates steadily with trade offers as he waits patiently for the building services staff to find him and let him out.Part IIThe next week is very eventful.Benning met with 6'8, +11 defenceman Tyler Myers who presented him with a request for a 5 year, 6 million dollar AAV contract. After discreetly folding up the 8 year 8 million dollar offer he had prepared, Benning happily agreed; a rigorous study by the Canucks' analytics department had confirmed that Myers was 6'8 and +11.Benning went on TSN Radio and - without prompt - provided his own personal ranking of the Trade Bait board in order of how much he would be willing to trade for them. He's shocked to be fined $50,000 by the NHL, saying "they'll call anything tampering these days."Benning also lost 3 phones at the draft - not in the EA NHL way where he made bad offers or lost GM rep, he literally just lost 3 phones over the course of the weekend.Benning repeatedly ducked Vasili Podkolzin's calls, knowing that getting to know the young Russian would make it harder to trade him. He attended the Canucks' Prospect Camp but only to take cell phone videos to send to other General Managers - ultimately a waste of time as all the footage is either blocked by his thumb, accidentally taken with the selfie camera, or both.Eventually, the night before Free Agent Frenzy, Benning is ready to secure that contract playoff spot. The Canucks' scouting staff deletes their internal prospect reports like Lucius Fox shutting down the surveillance machine in The Dark Knight. The assistant general managers quietly update their LinkedIn profiles. The Canucks' social media manager solemnly prepares for the ratios.​Vancouver Canucks @CanucksWE HAVE A TRADE TO ANNOUNCE: #Canucks acquire Mike Hoffman (15% retained) from the Panthers in exchange for Vasili Podkolzin, Tanner Pearson, and a 2020 4th round pick.​Vancouver Canucks @CanucksBlockbuster Alert: #Canucks acquire Kyle Connor from the Jets for Quintin Hughes, Jay Beagle, Troy Stecher, and a conditional 1st round pick​Vancouver Canucks @CanucksAnother trade! #Canucks acquire Jack Johnson from the Penguins in exchange for Sven Baertschi​Vancouver Canucks @CanucksOne more for the road: #Canucks acquire Kyle Turris from the Predators in exchange for Brandon Sutter, Adam Gaudette, and a 2020 2nd round pick.​Vancouver Canucks @CanucksMaking space: #Canucks have traded Loui Eriksson, a 2022 1st round pick, a 2021 2nd round pick, and Olli Juolevi to the Senators for a 2022 5th round pick.​Vancouver Canucks @CanucksCanucks acquire Andrew Shaw from the Canadiens in exchange for Jett Woo and Antoine Roussel​Vancouver Canucks @Canuckscanucks acquire matt benning for josh leivo and nils hoglander​The Canucks, at last, are ready to compete for a playoff spot.JT Miller - Elias Pettersson - Brock Boeser Kyle Connor - Bo Horvat - Mike Hoffman Micheal Ferland - Kyle Turris - Andrew Shaw Tyler Motte - Tim Schaller - Jake Virtanen Alex Edler - Tyler Myers Jordie Benn - Chris Tanev Jack Johnson - Matt Benning Jacob Markstrom Thatcher Demko Sure, haters can say "how they hell will you afford Pettersson's extension with all that money tied up," or "what will happen when those rental contracts expire and you have no internal replacements for them" but that's a next year problem. Benning is pretty sure nobody will care about any of that when the Canucks are coming off the high of a hard fought five game elimination (with one win at home, might I add) in the first round.EpilogueA month later, Benning gets a phone call from Francesco Aquilini, the team owner."Hey Jim, we want to talk about your next contract.""Yes, Mr. Aquilini sir, don't worry, we will make the playoffs this year and I'll earn a new contract for sure. Just give me a chance. Please don't fire me, I promise I'll make the playoffs. Please mister owner sir, please let me stay.""What? No, Jim, we're ready to offer you a multi-year extension right now. Are you interested?"Benning looks at his phone in shock. "Uh, yeah, yes sir, I'd be very happy to. I'll have to review the terms of the contract of course but I would be very much interested in that."A week later, his sleeve covered in ink and his heart full of joy, Jim Benning officially signs a contract extension with the Vancouver Canucks. And at last the world is quiet. (OC) Jim Benning goes All In on the Canucks (An Alternate Reality) Source

[hellosaltysaladcollectionstuff]

Back to Sundance we go for another year of discovery. What's on the line-up this year? Out of the 110+ films showing at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, I've chosen 10 that I'm looking forward to seeing the most. To keep things well balanced, I've chosen 5 feature films and 5 documentaries from the line-up. There are so many films playing at the fest, and so many I'll end up seeing (30+), that this is a quick list to get everyone acquainted with some of the work premiering in 2019 (I just want to go see everything). There are new films from filmmakers like Ritesh Batra and Lulu Wang, and incredible documentaries that are also worthy of our attention, plus many other films. You never really know what will good or bad, but here's my first few picks.

This is my 13th year in a row returning to Sundance, starting back in 2007. I'm so excited to be attending Sundance once again, and can't wait to dive into the films more than anything. There's so many I am curious to watch from this year's line-up. For now, here's my Top 10 most anticipated films before the fest begins.

Alex's Most Anticipated \Sundance 2019/ Feature Films:

Hala Directed by Minhal Baig

I've been following filmmaker Minhal Baig (mostly on Twitter @minhalbaig) for a while now, and she is ready to finally break out big and show everyone how talented she really is. Hala is her second feature film following her debut 1 Night, and it's much more personal this time. The story is about a Muslim teenager named Hala - played by Geraldine Viswanathan - who lives in Chicago with her immigrant parents from Pakistan. There she copes with the unraveling of her family as she comes into her own. It's a coming-of-age story but told from an entirely different angle that we rarely see, as Sundance explains that Baig "brings a vital and layered female perspective to the coming-of-age genre." They add that she "crafts a character and story with immense relatability and unexpected consequence." I've been looking forward to seeing this ever since I first heard about it, and I'm excited that it's finally ready to premiere at Sundance. Congrats, Minhal.

Photograph Directed by Ritesh Batra

Back in 2013, I fell in love with a little film called The Lunchbox, starring Irrfan Khan and Nimrat Kaur. After making two other English-language films, Our Souls at Night and The Sense of an Ending (both from 2017), filmmaker Ritesh Batra returns to his roots and his hometown in India with Photograph. Set in Mumbai, the film is about a struggling street photographer, pressured to marry by his grandmother, who convinces a shy stranger to pose as his fiancée. The pair develops a connection that transforms them in ways that they could not expect. As a photographer myself, I'm already intrigued. But I've also got a good feeling this might be a magical, lovely new film from Ritesh Batra and I'm looking forward to seeing where he takes us. If it's anywhere close to as sweet and as honest as The Lunchbox was, it will be another instant favorite.

Little Monsters Directed by Abe Forsythe

There's always one or two films in the Midnight section that I have to see, just because they sound so crazy and fun. Little Monsters is exactly one of those that I'm going to stay up late to watch. Described as a "film dedicated to all the kindergarten teachers who motivate children to learn, instill them with confidence, and stop them from being devoured by zombies." The massively talented Lupita Nyong'o stars as that teacher, taking on an extra bloody role that will hopefully allow her to show off more of her badass side. Plus there's always room for more zombies movies, right? Why not, they're always entertaining. "Armed only with the resourcefulness of kindergartners, [they] must work together to keep the monsters at bay and carve a way out with their guts intact." I'm fairly certain this will be a good one, especially with the late night audience.

I Am Mother Directed by Grant Sputore

One of the few sci-fi films playing at Sundance, which means I have to see it no matter what. But it also looks and sounds compelling. I Am Mother features a robot designed by Weta Workshop in New Zealand, and marks the directorial debut of an award-winning commercials director from Australia named Grant Sputore. And yes, the story seems quite promising. A teenage girl is raised underground by a kindly robot "Mother" - designed to repopulate the earth following the extinction of humankind. But their unique bond is threatened when an inexplicable stranger arrives with alarming news. This reminds me a bit of Moon (which premiered at Sundance 2009) mashed up with other sci-fi concepts. The robot's design is familiar but sleek, and the handful of images they've released so far all look better than expected. Don't let me down, Sputore.

Velvet Buzzsaw Directed by Dan Gilroy

So, this looks awesome! And totally insane! And weird, and captivating, and funny, and twisted, and sly, and wicked, and frightening. Velvet Buzzsaw is the latest film written & directed by Dan Gilroy, a screenwriter who turned director (or perhaps became a true auteur) making his debut with Nightcrawler in 2014, and following that up with Roman J. Israel, Esq. in 2017. This time he attacks the art world, with a film that seems to be about pieces of art coming to life and killing people. Something like that. The cast also is quite impressive: Jake Gyllenhaal, John Malkovich, Toni Collette, Rene Russo, Daveed Diggs. And this looks like the perfect follow-up to Ruben Östlund's Palme d'Or winning film The Square, with both films mocking and lambasting the absurdity of the modern art world. I'm so there. Watch the official trailer here.

More Feature Films I'm Looking Forward To Seeing: Lulu Wang's The Farewell, Rashid Johnson's Native Son, Paul Downs Colaizzo's Brittany Runs A Marathon, Nisha Ganatra's Late Night, David Wnendt's The Sunlit Night, Makoto Nagahisa's funky We Are Little Zombies, Noble Jones' The Tomorrow Man, Bert&Bertie's Troop Zero, JD Dillard's Sweetheart, Patrick Brice's Corporate Animals, Tayarisha Poe's Selah and the Spades, Daniel Scheinert's The Death of Dick Long, and May el-Toukhy's Queen of Hearts.

Alex's Most Anticipated \Sundance 2019/ Documentaries:

Memory: The Origins of Alien Directed by Alexandre O. Philippe

A documentary about the making of Ridley Scott's original Alien! Say no more, I'm already there, I wouldn't miss this for anything. This is the latest doc film made by Swiss filmmaker Alexandre O. Philippe, who has been making docs about cinema and filmmaking for a while - including The People vs. George Lucas, and 78/52: Hitchcock's Shower Scene just before. I'm curious how much this will cover and how much it will uncover. It seems to focus more on how they came up with the original ideas and designs for the film, less so the filming or release. "Philippe's real interest lies in the deep resonance of myths and our collective unconscious. The strange symbiotic collaboration between Alien creators [Dan] O'Bannon, Scott, and H.R. Giger suggests a greater synchronicity across history, art, and storytelling, a synchronicity that gives us the Furies, creatures of Renaissance painting, and even chest-bursting aliens." Sounds damn good, right?

Moonlight Sonata: Deafness in Three Movements Directed by Irene Taylor Brodsky

Another documentary that sounds exceptionally unique. The short Sundance description grabbed me right away: "A deeply personal portrait of three lives, and the discoveries that lie beyond loss: a deaf boy growing up, his deaf grandfather growing old, and Beethoven the year he was blindsided by deafness and wrote his iconic sonata." It's a multi-generational portrait of people dealing with deafness, capturing the complexity of silence and hearing. And I am more than intrigued to find out how filmmaker Irene Taylor Brodsky (of Hear and Now previously) examines these themes and weaves these three stories together. Sundance talks it up even more in their description of the film: "Brodsky explores the meaning of deafness, loss, and the power of silence as her son discovers his unique voice and her parents confront a new chapter of their lives," adding that it's "buoyed by a perceptive soundscape and luminous animation." I really want to see this doc.

Midnight Traveler Directed by Hassan Fazili

There's always a remarkable doc discovery, or two, hidden in the Sundance line-up telling an unforgettable story from somewhere else around the world. Read about this film and you'll instantly get a feeling that it's going to be something special. Midnight Traveler is a documentary made by a filmmaker from Afghanistan, Hassan Fazili, who flees his home country and takes us on a perilous journey with his wife and two young daughters as they travel as refugees across Europe searching for a new home. It seems to be a very personal, inside look at the life of a family just trying to surviving on the run from certain death. "Chronicling every step from inside the action", Fazili's camera captures "not only the danger and desperation but also the exuberance and tenderness of this irresistible, loving family." Just look at that shot of them all in the snow above! They seem so loving, wonderful, and authentic. I want to see this just to meet and learn about them.

Apollo 11 Directed by Todd Douglas Miller

I'm a space nerd. I'm a big time fan of NASA. I'm surprised we haven't seen a documentary like this before, but I guess In the Shadow of the Moon is close (focusing on all of the Apollo missions). And I loved Damien Chazelle's First Man, which is also about Apollo 11, so I'm totally ready for this next. The documentary is purported to be an exhilarating cinematic experience, something that demands to be seen on the big screen. NASA has been digging out old footage and photographs and other artifacts from the vaults, putting all of the original footage from the Apollo 11 mission online + uncut audio recordings and more. Produced by CNN Films and Statement Pictures, this film "features never-before-seen, large-format film footage of one of humanity's greatest accomplishments." Oh yes. Can't wait to experience this. Watch the teaser trailer here.

Hail Satan? Directed by Penny Lane

A documentary about the rise of the Satanic Temple religious movement? I'm certainly curious. And it's the latest doc film made by Penny Lane - a quietly talented, quirky, fun filmmaker behind other fantastically weird documentaries like Our Nixon, The Pain of Others, and Nuts! (about a guy who sold people a goat-testicle impotence cure - it premiered at Sundance 2016). I don't know how deep this is going to go, but I am intrigued to find out. Sundance references this eye-brow-raising part of the Satanic Temple's history in their description: "Through their dogged campaign to place a nine-foot, bronze Satanic monument smack dab next to the statue of the Ten Commandments on the Arkansas State Capitol lawn, the leaders of the temple force us to consider the true meaning of the separation of church and state." Sounds like something I have to see for myself, at the very least because no one else is making films about this fascinating topic anyway.

More Documentaries I'm Looking Forward To Seeing: Kenneth Paul Rosenberg's Bedlam, Steven Bognar & Julia Reichert's American Factory, Ben Berman's Amazing Johnathan Documentary, Ljubomir Stefanov & Tamara Kotevska's Honeyland, Petra Costa's Edge of Democracy, Garret Price's Love Antosha, Hepi Mita's Merata: How Mum Decolonised The Screen, Karim Amer & Jehane Noujaim's The Great Hack, Ursula Macfarlane's Untouchable, and Alex Gibney's latest The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley.

For all of Alex's Sundance 2019 reviews and updates: Follow @firstshowing

For more Sundance 2019 previews around the web, highlighting early picks and potential breakouts, see: The Film Stage's 20 Most-Anticipated Premieres, and Indiewire's 21 Must-See Films At This Year's Festival. You never know what might be a big hit, and it's vital to have a pulse on the buzz – even before the festival starts. There's plenty of exciting and hopefully superb gems hidden in the 2019 line-up, bring on the films.

You can follow our Sundance 2019 coverage and updates in this category. The festival kicks off January 24th and runs until February 3rd, with lots of films to see every day. Let's jump right in and start watching.

from FirstShowing.net http://bit.ly/2FGN8w1

[mollyohmolly]

the first half of age 26

(now five years ago, last half of 2013)

26 overall: not a banner year. I briefly toured a bit of the world, and I’ll keep that as my solace, but overall this will be remembered as a year of grave missteps. And will I ever learn? Yet to be determined. For the sadsack rundown, this year I: -gained 40+ pounds -moved back to Seattle for a sad, sort of humiliating summer -got two telephones stolen off of me -had a few falling outs -remained single for the duration -did not advance my career (read: begin) at all -drank myself into oblivion many, many nights -spent a stint homeless and broke -got fired -borrowed money from my folks -shipped my dog off to my folks since I was too much of a deadbeat to take care of him -am now laid up in my room because I tumbled down a hill blind drunk and rolled my ankle out and don’t have health insurance There were beautiful moments nestled in there, but they are momentary delusions at best. Began my year in maybe my favorite place on earth, a stretch of coastline along California Highway 1. I was living in a hippie home in Lower Pacific Heights in San Francisco with a ragtag group of weirdos, and I was working at a rock venue in the city’s trendiest/most rapidly gentrifying neighborhood. I was sleeping with a chatty blonde boy -- the lights tech -- half because we laughed a lot and I was lonely at the time, and somewhat because he lived around the corner from the venue. I convinced a Canadian boy I had met the previous summer to fly down for a birthday adventure, so he booked a WestJet. If you want something, ask for it. We had a great story if left adbriged - we met dancing in Vancouver one warm August night; lost track of my friends, got locked out of the house I was staying; he stayed up with me all night in a diner; took a bus back to the house as the sun came up over the (?) mountains. (Leaving out making out against a car, sleeping together.) I moved to San Francisco that autumn, and the next March I flew back up to Seattle to get Adderall/show off my California tan, he bussed down from Canada, and we had this idyllic weekend with friends and laughter that in some ways made me idealize Washington all over again. From there, we moved on to Skypes and sexts and adorable phone calls where I just listened really for signs of that damn Canadian accent in my lonely little bunk. My best friend from high school decided to move down to San Francisco from Portland, chasing the sun and good times and whiskey. Laura arrived the weekend of Bay to Breakers, a veritable bro fest. Our friend Lisa was there that weekend with her bro boyfriend Jeff, and we did the whole brunch/Dolores/Divisadero bar thing. I took her everywhere; things were not going to be so lonely. One night, Laura and Todd the light tech and I went to see Akron/Family show at the Independent on Divisadero. I was really the only one stoked for it, as that band had provided the soundtrack to many forlorn rides on the 595 from Olympia to Tacoma to Seattle during college, staring out at the gray Northwest. Turns out their sound had changed from foresty to bad electronica. Laura bailed and Todd walked home, and as I was walking home Nick the Canadian sent me a series of beautiful text that stirred my weary little heart after months of near-despair in San Francisco. “I don’t know what it is, but you get me in a way I’ve never been gotten,” is maybe the last thing I read before I felt plunged forward onto the concrete. So that was the night I was mugged, and the next day my mom and aunt flew into town, and there I was with bruises up and down my knees and thighs and a busted-up hand from punching a grown man in the nose with a strange shock of untapped strength. My heartsick mother replaced my phone with the newest model and we spent the weekend by her pool and exploring the city somewhat. She hated my house, but loved the wharf. Rented a Mercedes and careened down Lombard. Took a duck out, wore a sailboat shirt. Nice time, glad to have had it. I picked Nick up at the Oakland airport in an Audi we had rented for the weekend. He picked me up, he spun me. My hobby, as Stephen said, is importing boys. Tim, Hadleigh, Andrew, Brian, Jake: my favorite moments are at airports. I wore this white summer dress, he wore bright shorts. Went back to my house, my roommate Ryan called him a “Canadian ken doll.” We packed up the car with some tent, some muenster, and off we drove. Highway One is maybe one of the most magical places on earth, a stretch of impeccable California coastline. Craig and I first drove down years and years ago now, had dinner at Orson Welles’ old cabin, sat by a fire on a ledge at the end of the earth. So that’s how I wanted to spend my birthday, figuring that would set the tone for the rest of the year. Put on a playlist, drove into the sunshine, down long expanses of exquisite coast, his hand on my leg, his sideways smile in my periphery, all lips and hair and restless energy. Stopped in Santa Cruz, had lunch on the beach. Felt like we’d been together for years, a wonderful illusion. Bit of his temper towards others was cropping up. Didn’t care. His arm around me, always. He ran up behind me on a ledge. Stopped at coves, watched sea lions. Fell in love for a few days. Put up a tent alongside Big Sur River, then drove to the Henry Miller Library, got into a bottle of Bulleit and some Arnold Palmers. Watched a very formative band, one of my favorites, Two Gallants, play their melodies under soaring redwoods. Nick wrapped his arms around me while the singer smiled that golden smile, elbows rubbed off of his sweater, a brilliant perfect night, drove back, built a campfire, felt like it would never get better, and it never did. So for a weekend, we were this brilliant couple. We never could be: he lived on the other side of a border and it wouldn’t work. But we got along just fine, had the same sense of humor, had a great time because it was fleeting. The next day we took our time getting back to the city, stopping and climbing along bays and ravines in Carmel and old churches in Davenport and everything was wonderful. Met Laura at al our regular bars on Divis on Saturday night, got daydrunk with all my coworkers at the Chapel on Sunday, went to a fancy cocktail bar in the Haight, blacked out, made out, bought a grab bag of bullshit from the bodega for dinner the last night, made out, cuddled, cursed, laughed, cried, bonded, Monday morning my birthday came around and we rented another car called “Maple Syrup” and drove to Crissy Field and he took me to lunch at a French restaurant in an alleyway downtown -- drove him back to Oakland and after he checked in at the desk he came back out of the airport door and instructed me to give him “one more hug” before he flew away. Everything in California fell apart all at once. My $550/month sublet ended and housing was bleak. My parents wanted to ship Brogan back, but he had nowhere to go. Washington State wanted $800+ for my stint on unemployment. The Chapel was giving me a few measly shifts a week, and the money wasn’t stretching, and I couldn’t afford a down payment on lease in this tech-rich city. By fluke, I saw a Facebook posting for a $667/month sublet in Seattle with a group of Seattle University alumni that I somehow had ended up friends with. If I could reverse any decision, it would be this one. But I’m not sure; the summer that followed was one mistake after the next and the regrets would only stack and marinate, but maybe I’d have ended up worse. Maybe moving into Laura’s new apartment would have strained our friendship, maybe a lesson in humility was necessary, maybe it was just nice to have my dog around for a summetime and maybe I wouldn’t be in the apartment that I’m in now if not for a series of disasters. Or maybe had I stayed I would have met a great lad and had a great adventure and now I’d be splitting finances and writing for a living or I’d have lucked into some office job that I’d grow to resent, but wondering gets me nowhere. The fact is, I made a terrible choice, one that I thought would fix everything but just launched me into an awful, unshakeable depression that I’m only now beginning to see the other side of. I decided to move back to Seattle for the summer. With money that my grandmother had left me after her passing, I had booked a plane ticket from New York to Reykjavik to Amsterdam, and then a return ticket from Copenhagen a month later. It was very financially irresponsible, but fuck it, I figured. I doubted my ability to ever have my feet on steady ground, so I may as well get something out of the messes I make. So I moved back to Seattle for the summer. I can’t think of this past summer without cringing, fully. Everything I did was wrong. Everything was bad. I lived in Judkins Park, which is a good mile or two out from Capitol Hill, where I drank and worked and hung. I had all of these illusions of life back “home” after forgetting that I did leave for a reason; there was nothing left for me. It took me a few week to find jobs, and when I finally did, I took anything I could get. I got a job through my old manager at a new high-end restaurant called the Old Sage; the only job left was a fucking host. For weeks, we had to come in in the mornings to train and get the restaurant ready for open, taste scotches at 10am, and for what? So I could work the door at a total dud of a restuarant that was priced above what anyone was willing to pay on 12th avenue? They threw me a few shifts bartending at The Coterie Room down in Belltown, which was painful in its own way. The other job was a fucking GRAVEYARD shift at a hipster DINER that just opened, Lost Lake. Embarassing. So for 8 hours a night, from 10am to 6am, I would sling fucking breakfast food to drunk people who would have to wait upwards of an hour for the stoned cooks to put their mush on a plate and then I’d tip out every goddamn person in that terrible system and walk with like, $150 maybe, and then I’d walk home the 40 minutes to Judkins Park to save money and I’d try to make it interesting by trying to listen to a new album on the walk home every day, but all I’d hear is the familiar chorus in my mind: you’re 26 and walking home from a diner and you live a sad life and you should quit it all you fucking desperate idiot. And they’d do first call at 6am so there’d be this group of fellow idiots on the bar side at dawn and then I’d walk home listening to Wolf Parade: “I’m a disaster. I could not be burning faster. I walk into webs, and take my meals with weirdos.” Then I’d walk Brogan and sleep through the sunshine and hope it all would end. I did not end up with Nick. I was honest with him when he left San Francisco, saying I would not pine for him and that I couldn’t promise anything but that I’d of course love to see him again. We made plans to go to Banff for his birthday. A few weeks later, I was moving a few hours from him but it was too late. He went home to the girl he’d previously quit. She was plain, fit, dull but probably sweet, into yoga and beer and running, 27, and more importantly, local. I think they live together now. Well, fuck. My romantic life was one dud after the next and mostly didn’t happen because I worked around-the-clock for very little pay. Zach Tyerman returned home from med school briefly and we met up at Manhattan Drugs for drinks, then Poquito’s for dinner. We met on my roof the night Craig stole my passport to see me again; a few weeks later Craig and I were dating, and we did that for a few years. Zach moved in around the corner with a guy I had once dated, Ryan Calderon. He hit on my friends, he flirted with me. He was a goofy fellow; Craig and I would joke about it. Zach and I would study at Vivace or Roy Street a lot during the wintertimes. He brought me to dinner to meet his mother and all his aunts, and I won them over easily since I wasn’t dating him so I wasn’t nervous impress them. His parents would come visit me for brunch at 22 Doors. I wrote his essay for med school; he got in. Our friendship was predicated on never sleeping together, so as I got dressed and drank the first few whiskey lemonades of the night, I promised myself: don’t sleep with Zach. When I saw him, he looked sort of great. He had a new haircut, more gentlemanly, and he was dressed well, and age seemed to have softened his features in a nice way. And it was way he treated me: he had flipped the switch to on, and without the usual teasing contempt he reserved for women with boyfriends. He used to say I had some frustrating charm. And I only frustrated him further that night. In assuming sleeping with him might ruin our friendship, not sleeping with him was probably more damaging. We went to Carly’s going away party at Big Mario’s. She was flying off to Hawaii for the summer to be with her parents, who were negotiating a divorce. I’d be taking her room in the third floor of the condo until she got back, the very week I was leaving for Europe. Kaitlyn had decorated the bar with palm trees and tiki lights, and I showed up drunk, and I regaled Zack Bolotin and Shaun Callahan of the story of my very last night in San Francisco. While waiting in a bar on Mission Street, I was approached a man who offered me CINCUENTA for “in-house” services. Mostly I was offended by the price. (Also that night: left my purse with the keys to my apartment with all of my luggage in it at another bar. Right before my flight, while all of my roommates were out of town. Always a fuckup!) Anyway, between dinner at Mario’s we had segued briefly to Linda’s and picked up a friend of Zach’s from highschool, a kind, outdoorsy guy named Alex. And now at Mario’s, Alex had his hand on my leg underneath the table and Zach stormed off into the night. Sent some wild texts. Trying to make amends the next day, Zach seemed to take the whole thing very personally. “He should have read the situation!” and “I feel like you were doing this to hurt me for some reason.” It seemed a lot like when Zac found out about Andrew, so maybe it runs in the name. But anyway he didn’t miss much: Alex and I went back to Judkins, fooled around, and somehow when Kaitlyn and Carly got home, Brogan got out and bolted, and I ran FULL SPEED down Norman Avenue -- never sprinted so fast in my life -- and across fucking Rainier Avenue through traffic BAREFOOT and eventually cornered him and scooped him up by a parking garage maybe a half mile from my house and then realized I wasn’t wearing shoes. Alex invited me to a bonfire at his house the next day, to which I responded (sort of joking? but kind of not?) “I’m not going to Ravenna.” To this day, Zach kind of rudely alludes to this whole situation via text. Fourth of July was my first day at Lost Lake, so I went down and began that awful chapter. While there, I ran into Eric, a thirty-something man I had met the previous summer at a soul night at Chop Suey. We had exchanged numbers, but I ended up with a friend of his, a real weirdo named Aeden. There was still something about him that made me incredibly nervous. And our story had a very loose end. But not to worry! We tied it up that night. Todd flew up to Seattle for his birthday and we had an okay time. I picked him up and he was so incredibly chatty and I realized this was a terrible mistake and I was so irritated the entire ride up from the airport. But it was his birthday and he had flown up, so I figured I’d just show him the town and try to have a good time and not give him any illusions about this being a lasting relationship. So we did. Went to the docks, some bars, Belltown, walked Bro, had some good adventures, rented some cars, did poppers with Tim, made him dinner, he had the time of his life and he still waxes poetic about the week so all in all, I’d say it was his version of my weekend in Big Sur. Then I met Party Bro, a guy who came into Lost Lake at 5am in a puffy vest and a shiny cap and ordered chicken fried steak with a kind friend, then conned me into staying by offering to buy my Uber home if I stayed for first call. He was a real douche and I knew it and he knew it and that was that, I guess. He was unapolegetic about being a party fiend and in love with his own damn life. But I guess I figured that was what I needed; I was leaving in a month and I wasn’t trying to find a reason to stay in Seattle. This was a guy I had 0% chance of falling for. He tried to kiss me getting into the Uber. Then he came to a bar, Montana, where I was hanging with Drew and Brian who’d flown in and tried to kiss me. Then I figured I wouldn’t put out for him, because that’s the way to keep these guys around for a good time. He asked me on a date, a real date. He made reservations, he picked me up in his car, it was a warm summer night. I wore a little black dress and heels, he wore dress shoes, we looked great. He ordered a big platter of food on the back patio of Poppy, and I decided not to tell him how picky of an eater I was, and gamely tried the salmon. I’d like to think we both brought our dating a-game. Then we went to one fancy cocktail bar after another, and he didn’t let me pay a dime the entire night, and Doug Wargo saw us and whispered, “Whoa” to me. We went to Sun Liquor Distillery and then plain ole Sun Liquor and it was a great first date, and I could tell he was very well rehearsed at first dates. So that was an okay thing to distract me from the bullshit of the rest of the summer, there was some dancing, some nights at dives, a canned bullshit speech the night he introduced me to his friends, and of course after I slept with him it sort of petered out. On his birthday at Havana, Kaitlyn let him buy us shots and then told him she was not a fan, and then her and Carey and I sort of ran off into the night, so that was that. During Block Party -- all the roads in Capitol Hill get blockaded off and a bunch of bands perform -- I worked all three nights at Lost Lake, so I got to go all three days for free. It was okay. Not what it used to be, or I’m not who I used to be. It ended spectacularly: Party Bro came in to say hello and kiss me good luck at the beginning of my shift, and towards the end of the night he came in blackout drunk holding hands with a rando girl, and then tried to text me some bullshit - so I put my phone down on the counter behind the bar, never to see it again. Felt like a real fuck up - hadn’t had the phone for more than a month or so since the last one got mugged off of me, and now it was gone again, and for what? Some scumbag I was just hanging on to so I could feel a little less lonely for a little while? Cool. Spent some nights with Nicholas, as has been our way for years and years, but by now it meant less than ever. Whenever I look back on a bad time, I try to rationalize it by considering maybe some good came of it. I did this for San Francisco round one: at least I got to ride out my crippling loneliness in solace, and also I got a great friendship with Drew. Out of this summer, I got a surprisingly great friendship with Carey. The first few weeks in Seattle, I stayed in his room downstairs while he was on a motorcycle trip through Southern California. It was great because the doors opened to the yard, where Brogan could frolic. I spent those weeks with Kaitlyn, a solid friend, and Carly, a peripheral friend. They complained about weird passive-aggressive text exchanges with Carey, a weird poster he’d hung in the bathroom, and the general living situation with him. He wasn’t so bad, I countered. “You’ll see,” they forewarned me. He returned, I moved upstairs, we shared some whiskey, and then we just sort of got along really well. He got along with Brogan. We had the same interests in life, although despite being a stoner, he was way more motivated than I was. Not a hard feat. We were into the same music. We cared about similar things. Liked the same beer and whiskey and bbq food and that made for a good summer hang. We had met summers ago, had practiced our Spanish on each other at cafes, and then had a fairly unspectacular session together before a Weakerthans show, so all of that was out of the way. Things were cozy. Kaitlyn was getting involved seriously with a guy, and so it was just me and Carey a lot. We’d hang on our computers, stay in an watch TV, ride his bike to the bank, grocery shop, share car2go’s to the hill, grab drinks or dinner, catch shows, drink beer, plot our lives. Spent a lot of time on the T-docks along Lake Washington. It was like the best parts of coming home to someone without any of the messiness of a relationship. One night at Judkins Park, I felt this weird desire to just tell him everything that made me tick somewhat incorrectly, just because I felt like at that time it wouldn’t affect his opinion of me really because it didn’t matter, but at the last moment decided against it. I didn’t know how to begin to phrase it. We were in a car2go, headed to the hill like usual. Fuck it, I figured, I like this friendship at the very basic, well-functioning level that it is. All of this would ultimately implode while I was in Europe, but for a few months Carey was one of the people I was closest to, if only from proximity. I do remember nice nights: -Tim got tickets to Hairspray! and it was weird and we almost left and it was raining hard but we were dressed up and it was fine -Seeing Elway with Carey and Peter at El Corazon - the pop-punk soundtrack to our summer -Brian came to town for Block Party weekend in July -One night at Montana with Tim & Drew & Brian and then also Party Bro -Wandering around the hill with Feven -Going to Fisherman’s with Kaitlyn, where we used to work, and getting the tour from Jim -Seeing a lot of sunrises -Seeing a lot of sunsets -A lot of days spent at Madison -Block Party with Kait and Carey -a lot of cab rides -Drew packing up my room -kareoke at Pony with Tim & Stephen and then also Ryan McMichael, in town from Paris -Dom sleepover -SubPop festival in Georgetown -weird rose wine night at some fancy place in Eastlake with Kait and Erin -Marc driving up from Portland and little adventures - exploring Seattle -weird perpetual flirtation with weird Linda’s bartender - a loose end that will likely never get tied up -knowing it was all fleeting But mostly I’ll remember how weird it all felt. Saying farewell to Seattle was all too easy. My illusory trip in March had been washed out by a stale, sad summer. My time there was dead and gone. So I did what I’ll look back on as truly idiotic: I left with absolutely no plan, and not enough resources to return to anywhere. The government had tapped my bank account and drained some money for my unemployment debt, and living in Judkins Park had cost more than the $666 rent, with storage, cabs, and general well-being. I was bloated from eating diner food all summer, and had maybe $1200 amassed after everything for my trip. I quit my jobs with very little notice, so as to burn the bridge and not tempt me to just return to them when I got back. I planned on bringing Bro to NY while I was away so my folks could watch him, but Carey offered to watch him for help with the next months’ rent. Because Bro was acclimated to the house and oddly adored Carey, I figured it was best to leave him be rather than hurtle him across the country. This decision maybe would come to overshadow my summer in Seattle as one of my worst decisions of the year. So off I went. I flew to my parent’s house in upstate New York, and Tim arrived the next day. We hung with our old friend Erika, who had since had two children with one more on the way, and had also gotten married. It was strange. I was sleepy. We spent all day gathering last minute supplies, like locks and weird sheets and walking shoes. (The locks were too small, the sheets were pointless, and the shoes were only broken in by the end of the trip.) Then we packed up our bags, they drove us to JFK, and we boarded our Icelandair plane. Look, I won’t ever regret this trip. There’s a million minute things and some very large ones that I would absolutely change, and a lot of it is within me. I went on this trip very, very lost. I went without a plan, and even less of a game plan for when I returned. I didn’t expect to find the answers out there, but I was hoping that it would at least give me some perspective, or I’d gain some interesting experiences. I’m getting old and I’ve got to get out there any way I can, and I did. All that aside, I went about a lot of things the wrong way. Timothy and I agreed from the get-go that this trip would almost certainly at times try our friendship, and it certainly did. But this friendship’s endured bouts of bullshit before and it will again, oh well. First stop was Iceland. I had become transfixed by the place via Google Earth many moons ago; I’d spun the globe and found this strange land where people actually lived, and a little lagoon where people swam, and it seemed otherworldly. (Years later, my sister would become transfixed and sully my interest a little, but nevermind that.) So we booked the free layover and a hip hostel by the water. Got my first passport stamp at customs. Bought a few bottles of liquor at duty-free. Took a shuttle to our hostel, and our very first night, things went awry. I was anxious to explore, but Tim was cranky and didn’t like the taste of his vodka and just wanted to Skype with his boyfriend. The hostel was a ghost town -- off season in September -- and I sat in the dead but beautifully curated lobby and wondered how the trip would go. We had absolutely none of it planned, minus a few vague ideas: for me, Barcelona was a must; for us, the labyrinth in Berlin was a long-time plan; and for sure, our flights were leaving out of Denmark. It was fucking freezing in our hostel room that night and the next and the next. The next day was better, we explored downtown Rejkjavik -- a small town by any stretch of the imagination -- all of the magical street art and skate parks and rad dads in thick sweaters and the whipping wind and the little shops and cobblestone walks. Then we took a shuttle with a nice Canadian couple to the Blue Lagoon, and it shot straight up to one of the more surreal, magical moments of my little life. The drive there looked like we were scaling the moon, and we drank vodka 7up out of Icelandic water bottles. We changed in futuristic locker rooms where I shared awe with an older Canadian woman. “Look at where we are now,” I must have repeated several dozen times to Tim. And then I spun around in the warm water memorizing every curve of each hill and every plume of smoke and the expression on every placid face, like I used to when I was young, and I filed it all away for when everything else gets bad. We drank some expensive beers and paid via our wrists, and then I had a truly spectacular exit: we ran to catch the bus, Tim pulled my arm to lead us to the correct one, and down I went, headfirst into a beautiful glacial spike. Boarded the wrong bus and then the right bus with a bleeding head gash and napped the whole ride home. Tim fed me water and ibuprofen and made us friends for the night, and then I went out dancing with a fresh head bump. I’d eventually fall in every country I visited, but the first fall is the deepest, and I gashed a hole in the only pair of jeans I’d brought with me, day two. Same ole story, different backdrop. But Iceland was weird and magical and met got my first taste of traveling life, where everyone hails from far-flung places and asks each other, “How many months have you been out?” Met a cute girl from Baltimore - danced all night - drank water - Haarlem - dance clubs - regulars - beautiful intriguing blondes as far as the eyes could see - winding streets, whipping wind - met some rando, deliriously stylish Icelandic students in a closed-up Mexican shop/drank their tequila - the next day was one of the most painful mornings of my life: hungover to hell, freezing, massively dehydrated, and with a gaping head wound. Veronika from Baltimore left a bottle of alcohol and a note in her wake, off to drive off towards the Northern Lights, never to be seen again. But that’s how it goes. And later I got drunk on that traveling life and also a Mexican writer’s Mezcal - walking down the hall to a huddle of chairs by the window, seeing their silhouettes in the light from the water and the mountains - seemed unreal. Some Canadians, a German girl, two English blokes, the Mexican, and once we drank everything up, we went downstairs to where a man named Magnus was hosting a bunch of beautiful, sweatered musicians grown and raised and grisled up there, with a set by a man named Snorri. And so the night went - up a hill just following along, a feeling I felt once in the Hollywood Hills - in a corner of a bar with a softspoken man who studied caribou in Greenland - dancing to a song I vowed to remember as I recorded the moment away in a small room - every moment stranger, colder, kinder than the last. We barely made it out of Iceland. I stayed awake all night, just Tim, the caribou man now, and me in that cold 8-bed room. Got us up for the 4am shuttle to Keflavik. Babysat Tim the entire time, nausous and obnoxious. Got on our flight to the Netherlands, Tim vomited while we were taxiing. Then again. Cruised in to another odd world, this one with long swathes of colored fields (tulips!) and long rings of canals. Then we got to Schiphol and my card was rejected at the ATM, despite forewarning my bank of impending travel. Also, despite paying the $25 for international service, that was also a fluke. Exchanged some cash at an exchange to get by, Tim bought us Burger King in Schiphol for being such a baby, and I secured a place to stay via Couchsurfing. The address was maddeningly confusing and the directions even murkier, but we got on a train and winged in and finally things were feeling foreign, with all the gibberish on the signs. I’d found a nice Scottish lad to put us up for a few days, and he had a flat on a canal in Leidseplein that his corpo job put him up in and he let us stay in for free. It was lovely: white walls, exposed beams, two floors, very modern. It looked exactly like where Craig would live and how he would keep it.  The lad was nice, his speech very garbled. He gave us the entire top loft, which led to a garden patio. Spent about four days in Amsterdam. It was my first European city, so I drank it all up - the bikes, canals, flower shops, buildings from the 1500s on, cafes, languages. I had never visualized Amsterdam much. The Red Light district was disarming, fantastic looking women framed in little windows offering themselves up. Not sure what I expected there. In some windows, they were doing mundane tasks, like snacking or texting or removing nail polish. Went to the photography museum and saw a photograph of Newburgh, New York. By a canal, flipped through an entire photo book of self-portraits over several decades; watched a man’s body degrade, shift, had to briefly confront my own terror of aging, already felt. Ate an expensive breakfast and realized we ought to start scrounging around grocery stores to save our cash - hated having to give so much consideration to money but necessary. Smoked in a weed cafe, but all the weed in Europe is cut with tobacco. Tim found a massage chair, changed his world. Found a really old cafe, felt really weird in it, got lost on the way back. Still a lot of fresh panic from that mugging last spring. Didn’t go to any of the big museums or the beer tours because I don’t know. I’ll save that for when I’m older. This trip was, as I’ll repeat often, the sampler platter trip. It seems like a very American way of saying I’ll dip my feet in a few seas or whatever. Went out with Iain, our host, nice bloke. Kind of was over Amsterdam and the cold after a few days and ready to journey on though, and convinced Tim the sun was what we needed. Years ago, I planned to do a semester in Barcelona. I had spent a semester in New York studying art, which consisted of just going to galleries and museums and plays and ballets and operas and concerts for a few months and somehow getting college credit for that. I lived in the ground floor of a classmate’s fucking $7 million dollar brownstone while there, and I split the roommate with my classmate Kate, and we plotted replicating the program in Spain. And we hammered out the details and I saved up several thousand dollars to do it and then when the time came Kate -- working parttime as a florist in Olympia -- did not raise the funds and then my relationship fell apart and I moved into a terrible apartment in Capitol Hill and postponed the trip to the winter, then the spring, and then by summertime my grandmother had passed and my cousin was getting married, so I spent it back in New York instead, and I never went to Barcelona. So if there was one fucking place I was going on this trip, it was Spain. It seemed like the place where I belonged, if that’s such a thing -- I loved the language, and I loved all the stereotypes -- the siestas and the long nights and the lax sense of time and the beaches and the dancing and the casual drinking and the small plates and it seemed like it would fit well with my idealized self. So we went. Tim chose the hostel, I whined, it was kind of the worst -- a lot of younger kids, a late-night hallway brawl, not much charm, but a big patio and, you know, a place to sleep I guess. Food was cheap. All was well. We arrived unexpectedly the first day of Barcelona’s biggest festival, La Merce. Just a wild party in the streets waiting for us. I’d met a South African bro on the plane ride, who at first weirded me out because he never moved from the middle seat when the aisle was open, but was rather nice, spoke with a vaguely British/Afrikaans accent. We ventured out on their relatively simple train system to where the festival was, along the way met a cute guy from Seattle, now studying mathematics in upstate NY at Cornell. Brilliant! The festival was brilliant as well and perfect and wonderful and all else, and beer was a euro on the street, and we wound our way through these little alleyways to find a bizarre dance with a bunch of gigantic puppets, and children building human towers in white with red sashes, and drank Manhattans in some pub, and danced to this African woman who was intensely wonderful and I promised I’d look up though  I had no reference. We caught a train back - walked the wrong way drunk - Tim was pissed and drunk and weary of me probably - furious - walked ten paces from me and I’ve never felt such weird tension, disappointed - ended up getting in a cab and it was playing this British kid Jake Bugg - “Broken” - his voice was wobbly, maybe a little contrived - but at that moment it broke my heart in a million little ways and I couldn’t shake it and I felt rejected kind of cruelly by a friend and it was sort of crushing - this came at a time when I felt wholly rejected, kind of cast off, adrift, and I needed something, anything, because I was not enough for myself. We acted the next day like nothing had happened, as we do. We met up with the South African, Stephen, at Barceloneta, and for the first time I swam in the Meditteranean, and it was warm and lovely as beaches tend to be. We agreed to meet up again, and a memory burnt into my mind is meeting up again at the Arc de Triumf for the festival that night - Stephen in his backpack, but further off, for some reason a perfect image: Sam Hopkins, the Cornell baby genius, leaned up against the ark, one foot up, with a bar of dark chocolate tucked into his flannel, hair askew. We had a lovely night and then another and then they, too, were gone from our lives, with vague promises to meet again in Capetown or Seattle. On a Sunday we climbed Montjuic for another part of the festival that allegedly included a circus, but instead ended up at an EDM festival. I was out of sorts with Tim and it was weird when maybe it could have been wonderful if I didn’t live so much in my goddamn head, or wasn’t so sensitive, or maybe if I took more of the molly that our new Swedish comrades offered up. There was another girl named Ally that only fueled my crumbling spirit, although I can’t place why. But there was a bunch of sweet humans, and we had a good night, a Pernilla and a and a, should have took more drugs maybe, should have let go for once, but the fear was burrowing into me and I felt it hard that day and that night and even at some dark salon bar I would have loved, I felt so entirely out of sorts. I felt wholly undefined. And it’s not easy to snap out of it in a communal room with three German guys. We decided to slow our pace because the time we had already spent in transit was irritating and who ever is in a rush to get out of Barcelona? So I found the next hostel and it was a damn good decision. The next week was long and wonderful and cozy. Within a few minutes of settling in, we met a Slovakian girl named Nina and a French-Canadian boy named Dominic, and set off to the beach with them, and collected other friends that week. We found L’Ovella Negra, a little pub for travelers that offered sangria by the five-gallon bucket, and the hostel offered a full slate of activities mapped out on a chalkboard. That night we went to La Merce and then a club and there Dominic the young French Canadian, off to southern France in the morning, kissed me and we kissed again among all the characters along Las Ramblas and then I told him he should stick around a few more days and when we got back to the hostel he booked his bed for a few more days and then we made out in a space made for hanging out clothing to dry. Should have left it at that night, but no. He stayed. We collected more friends, had more adventures, went to more clubs and bars, went off to Sagrada Familia, insane and intricate. Connor came along, a big, moody young guy from San Luis Obispo. The “tour guide” for the hostel was a Polish girl named Kate, but she was so casual about her role, it actually made for a way better experince. Kind of a rather beautiful weirdo. A few more. I settled in with Dominic because, I don’t know, looking back I needed affection, and he was sweet and simple, and he liked little things like going to the Dia  market together to make a simple breakfast, and maybe I just wanted that feeling of someone wanting to be around me so much. Ended up kind of hating myself for it, but not til later. For now everything was nice. Dominic and I went to Park Guell. We took naps, woke up at odd hours, drank one-euro wine by the bottle. Gave Tim and I the airing out from each other that we needed. Easily one of the best feelings was when we all decided to stay even longer, and lined up by the desk, and rebooked our rooms again. So Barcelona will always exist as this time in my life when reality was suspended and I was maybe the maximum amount of cozy one can be before death. Could never list half of what we did there. Decided on Berlin next, since we were eating up a lot of time in Spain. We only had a few bad moments in Barca. One night we agreed to go to a gay club for Tim, and everyone backed out, but Dominic and I still went and shored up enough euros for cover and drank shit beer in a musty room while Tim whined for a good half hour that no one would do gay things with him when we did, in fact, come hang. Another night we all took Adderall, and Tim became kind of a dick, and Dominic was kind of a youth about it and reacted poorly to his now-racing mind, and Connor disappeared for a solid 24 hours in the Barri Gotic, and I just felt elevated and chill like I always do when I take it. And while he was grouchily coming down, Tim and I squabbled a little bit about our tickets to Denmark, because sharing finances AND making travel decisions together was kind of becoming a burden. There was also the morning we left for Germany, because we hadn’t actually communicated about getting to the airport after the ticket-booking showdown, and when the time came Dominic, now claiming he loved me, took awhile to say goodbye to, and we had to run to Plaza Catalunya to board a shuttle, didn’t speak to each other once during that ride, and then RAN across the entire airport with our fucking backpacks, while all the while thinking: If we don’t make this plane, this might be the end of our friendship. So then there was Berlin. I broke down that night in my hostel, the Heart of Gold. Finally everything caved in. It dawned on me that I was heading “home” soon but that I actually did not have a home; my parents were in NY, my dog and belongings in Seattle, my best friend and a few solids and a job I guess were in SF. But they all felt like I was going backwards, without any forward momentum. I had an 8-bed room, but I was alone in it, and I slept for a solid day, and when I woke up I had no concept of where I was, and it was one of the eeriest feelings I ever felt, though peaceful. I had created nothing meaningful to return to. So I wallowed a bit. Berlin was cold and drab and I felt like I was coming down from Spain, and that familiar yearning for a sense of belonging. So a dull panic washed over me. Germany’s history is bleak, so attempting to distract myself playing tourist was futile, so I just wrote by the River Spree. A group of deaf people sat around me, the only person occupying a bench, and one stood in front of signing to them. Felt surreal, like a joke I’d laugh at later. I sat up late and read the internet in the lobby, also a 24 hour bar, the only area with wifi. It was meant to promote interaction over technological addiction, but in actuality it caused everyone to gather in the lobby to plot out their days on their devices, alienating everyone. One night, a lovely moment: a rando group of travelers gathered together playing music, a quiet performance of “Fly Me to the Moon.” My aircraft was grounded, and they offered to rebook me. “I’ll meet you anywhere in the world,” Dominic wrote from Toulouse. So I contacted my parents, upset, and they booked me flights to Paris, and I told Tim. Discouraged, I posted on FB about my flight being grounded/being bummed in Berlin, spoke with Carey about the delay, and got a message from Dana putting me in touch with some friends of hers. Had another bad moment with Tim the next day nearing the Berlin Wall, but kind of getting tired of telling those stories now. Doesn’t matter. Later he tried to make amends when he found a festival -- it seems we arrived just in time for their Reunification festival -- and I tried to muster up some excitement, but I’d been so weirded out in my hostel and with Tim it was difficult. Rode a ferris wheel with a Syrian, watched the poppunk band The Wanted perform, got a scarf for the cold, drank an Irish coffee. Taryn told me that if ever I feel weirded out while traveling, to find an Irish pub, and she was right. They’re the same everywhere. Checked in to Tim’s hostel since he convinced me it was better, but switched rooms to an all-girls rooms to allow us more space. Somewhat bolstered by the promise of Paris, and not ending the trip on such a sour note. But then Dana’s friend Warwick contacted me, and I met up with him and his wife and their friends in a little smoky pub in Nuekolln. In high school, I had a penpal named Colin, and he spent a semester abroad in Copenhagen, and he’d written to me about the Dutch concept of hygellig. Cozy. And I’ve been chasing it ever since. And then there it was, at Leidak. I drank nearly two liters of wine, got reamed at by the old German cashier in German, got on a random train, wandered around in a wino daze, and then there it was. I hadn’t taken to Berlin the way people told me I would - it was quiet and cold and harsh and bleak, and I used those descriptors to exhaustion - but a quiet, simple sort of night changed my mind, because it was so quiet and simple, and because the humans were so kind, and because I knew they had endless strings of quiet, simple nights drinking Dada cocktails at little smoky pubs and talking about this or that and maybe some nights were wild but all I ever wanted were the mellow nights I knew they experienced in abundance. I looked around: I would have loved to be a part of any circle of humans in that bar, and I heard snippets of their languages and laughter and I wanted in. I guess it’s that simple: I wanted in. I didn’t feel so much as I belonged with this particular set of humans as I felt I could belong somewhere, a feeling I hadn’t had in a long while. I made eyes with a bright-eyed boy across the way, and my next memory -- this one clear as fucking day -- was being held against him at a U-bahn station in Kreuzberg -- I remember because when we momentarily broke off from me I asked “Wait...where the hell are we?” and he answered, with his sloppy smile, “We’re in Kreuzberg” -- and note I don’t think anyone has ever kissed me quite that fervently -- he reminded me of a schoolyard bully, can’t place why -- and we ended up back at his large flat in Kreuzberg via taxi -- and goddamn if I hadn’t sifted through this night 200x since -- Laurence, you ruined Paris for me. I awoke in his bed with all my stuff back at the hostel in Mitte, but it was settled, I would stay with him for the rest of the weekened - “Now let’s go get you sorted” - since I was just wandering through, there was no pretense about a relationship, no bullshit. And so we went, and we got sorted. Found Tim. I made shit hostel breakfast with what leftovers I had, some stale bread, some scrambled eggs, and while I cooked he came and put his arms around me, a simple movement, but I still riding that high of a fleeting sense of belonging. He was a writer, teaching English, approaching 30, a bloke from Manchester. We napped at his place after wandering around Kreuzberg, and then he went and fucking kissed the top of my head just when “Slow Show” came on, unknowingly, and he held me the whole time as I promised not to fall for the loveliness and novelty of this stranger, but by then it was too late, si claro, he could easily shoehorn into being the next Nick: a beautiful taste of something I’d always want to drink some more of. Nick had done a similarly absentminded thing -- he’d wrapped me up into his sweater with him while waiting for the bus that morning in Vancouver -- and even then my heart was like oh no, oh no. And ever since, I’ve been giving up on decent guys whose only real fault is they never caused my dumb little heart to spike in some silly way. We met Tim at the labyrinth, a plan we hatched long ago. We drank in the corridor for awhile, then got the gold coin - a woman spun me and sent me off - first fright was own damn reflection popping up - crawled around in that wild, haphazard maze for awhile - standing there was Laurence, taller, eyes bluer, hair wilder - found Tim and the other Laurence, crawled on the floor to a neon-white room and danced and crawled back and went upstairs and kissed Laurence for awhile. Everytime you access a memory, it degrades like a shitty jpeg, so I try not to tap into these things anymore. We had dinner back in Kreuzberg at some Italian place and then fell asleep together again and woke up; I had a flight to catch and he had a match to get to, so he walked me to the bus stop and I said farewell and he went, nearly offended, “Wait a minute, kiss me goodbye.” So I kissed him goodbye and went to Paris to meet Dominic “under the Eiffel Tower at sunset.” Paris was doomed from the start. Never agree to meet anyone under the fucking Eiffel Tower at fucking sunset. Never flee to Paris as a means to delay figuring out your damn life. I never gave it a fair shake. Don’t even feel like thinking about it. Flew to Orly and stopped at a McCafe to charge up, got an awful message from Carey, checked my depleted bank account, I don’t even really want to go through this part of the year right now. It’s like a cloud fogged me over from the inside out. Blood went tepid. Can’t explain it. First few moments in France: I don’t know, what the fuck ever. You know what, Paris was beautiful, and odd, and winding, and I had some great nights, drank some great wine, met some weird humans, and maybe some other time in my life I’ll process it, but not now. Point being, by the end of the trip, I was a mess. And I had to catch a flight to Denmark from de Gaulles. McMichael had taken me to the train and bid me well - I fell one last time in the square before leaving. Gave me a strange smile, like we both recognized how fucked up it was, and I remembered him in his apartment on Melrose years ago, and again in his apartment in the first arrondisement of Paris playing “Life is a Pigsty,” wearing the same face. On the plane, tucked into a copy of a The Big Sleep I’d picked up at Shakespeare & Company at Laurence’s suggestion, I found a series of post-its written haphazardly by a drunken Dominic from his last night in Paris and it all slowly dawned on me. Between those and Carey’s increasingly agro messages, man, I crumpled. I’m weak enough as is, but damn. So Copenhagen was weird. Caught the train to the hostel Tim suggested in Norrebro, only to find it all booked up and in fact, every hostel in Copenhagen all booked up. Sent out some flairs on Couchsurfing from an Irish pub where the barman had a vague Manchester accent. Can’t explain the daze I walked around Copenhagen in, carrying my full backpack, feeling utterly defeated. Knowing that all of this navel-gazing and sorrow was overinflated and bearing down on a good time, but maybe necessary, no I didn’t realize that at the time. I just wanted to drift off into the sea and let go of it all. The trip was over, my escape was over, and reality was even bleaker. I could not have charted a rockier landing. And where to? What next? What did I have now? I saw so many lives pass in front of me that I wanted to try on for size, but not this one any longer. Melodramatic, sure, but I suppose in a foreign land all alone there’s some lenience on grand, sorry self-pitying. A Taiwanese man found me on CS and I met him and a few others at a lovely pub after being berated by my taxi for not having a chip on my card. Threw all my krona at him and ran in, backpack and all, to a rather nice place. Had a lovely night with another host and his surfer, a blonde book publisher out of Helsinki. Taoi ended up being kind of a weirdo, but nevermind that. Everything faded away for a little while. Called Dominic to apologize, and perhaps explain myself, wished him the best on his travels. So by the end of the trip, I was a real mess. I hadn’t combed my hair in a month, and it was curly as hell and nearly dreadlocked. I took my flight to Norway, where everyone has blue eyes and everything is polished nicely and beer is nearly 20 bucks a bottle and I was hungry and weary and broke and tried to sort of bathe in the good nights, the good humans, the good stories, the good hours, the good moments I’d memorized from every angle. There was no shortage, and I tried not to let the fear leak in to those, quarantining them to a kinder home in my mind. Took an 8-hour flight back to JFK. Was alerted at customs that it seems I now had two pink eyes. Rushed to the bathroom to clean up before seeing my parents, and there was my mother, and there was her vision of her lost-at-sea daughter: two pink eyes, matted hair, unwashed clothing, torn jeans, kind of gaunt and very tan. They fed me and let me sleep for a day or two and then I broke down in my parent’s bedroom and admitted I had absolutely no plan for what came next and not even an idea of what I wanted out of life and very little money and no way to take care of my pup adequately and all of this came from their 26 year old daughter. They went to work and when they came back, they offered me a bailout: I could come home for a little bit while I got back on my feet. Safe and sound in my bed, I almost considered it. But you know what, fuck that, fuck all of my whining about poor decisions, I love my parents and I know this offer was put on the table in order to help me out and ultimately get me back on the east coast and away from my haphazard nomadic ambling, but thank the LORD I did not take them up at them. It would be like redacting the past near-decade of my life. Ultimately, they gave me a grand as a loan to sort my shit out with the promise I’d repay it from a paycheck at a financially lucrative, upstanding job, and soon, but as it so happens I’m not that on it, but at least I’m not living at home. The following winter was one of the most depressing periods of my life. I entered into a phase of homelessness, unemployment, couchsurfing, meandering, freeloading, and just being a general degenerate while I tried to get my ducks in a row. And I pitied myself, dear lord did I pity myself. More, I despaired every decision that had led me to this life. Couldn’t pin it on any one thing - I was pretty consistently irresponsible. Realized early on I’d have to cash in on every ounce of good fortune I could, cash out really. So I did. I stayed with Nicholas for two weeks in Seattle while I collected Brogan, paid off Carey, paid Tim the remainder for our trip, moved my stuff from one storage locker to a cheaper unit, collected leftover checks, whatever. Got to Seatac, then to SFO. Stayed with Todd for a few weeks on 19th & Valencia in SF, WITH Brogan, but didn’t sleep with him so as not to make it any weirder, eventually he got weary of that arrangement. Shipped Brogan back to New York, stayed with Laura for a month. That took us the holidays. Couldn’t afford to go home for either, for the first time in my life. Thanksgiving Laura and I ate mashed potatoes at an Irish pub, and then drank at Pop’s. Christmas we ate at a Chinese restaurant, and then drank at Casanova. She left from Makeout Room to see about a boy, and so did the others we were out with, so it was just me and this stoner bro, so spent the night with him. Picked up every shift I could at the Chapel, working 6-7x a week. Agreed to a $900 sublet on 26th & Folsom for the month of January while I worked on setting up a living situation. New Years Eve was my last night at the Chapel though; worked the mezzanine bar alone, and when 12 struck I was just sort of there to watch it happen, stayed up into the wee small hours of the morning with my coworkers and then disappeared off of the schedule. Had to go in not once but twice to ask if I was fired, and finally Keith told me: yes, we’re letting you go. Per the owner’s requests. Cool.

favorite moments of the year: -blue lagoon -sam - arc de triomf -cab - pigalle -party bro - poppy -hallway @ kex

[thrashermaxey]

Capped: Team by Team Buy and Sell – Part 2

  This week's Capped continues the buy and sell series with Tampa Bay through to Philadelphia.

****

As I prefaced last week, “this will be a multi-week feature, covering each NHL team, analyzing one player to buy, and one to sell. These recommendations will be based on their performance versus cap hit. That means in non-cap leagues, some of these suggestions may not be as relevant, but that doesn’t mean the analysis isn’t relevant. Generally, these players will either be riding new contracts into the season or be expected to have a large shift in value, for one reason or another.”

  This week, we work through from Tampa Bay to Philadelphia. But first, let’s catch up on a few cap world happenings first.

  Ryan Ellis signed an eight-year extension with the Nashville Predators with an AAV of $6.25 million. This is exactly the type of deal we had gone over for him in last month’s article looking ahead to significant contract extensions. He may not keep up last season’s 60-point pace, but that doesn’t mean he won’t be outplaying his value throughout this deal.

  Dylan Larkin signed a similar extension and is a popular pick by many to break out this coming year. Even at last year’s pace, he’s worth the dollars. Any improvement on top of him makes him a bargain. Best-case scenario is this contract starts to look like those of Nathan MacKinnon and Mark Scheifele.

  Steven Santini signed a three-year contract at an AAV of $1.4 million, and with it, seems ready to play out an entire season. Last season he provided great per-game rates in the peripheral categories, however he didn’t play enough. As a third-pairing defenceman, as this contract seems to indicate, he will provide sneaky value in deeper leagues.

  Ondrej Kase also signed a three-year deal with an AAV of $2.6 million. This was lower even than my cautious estimates. He is already the best right winger on the Ducks, and this contract is going to be a steal for all three years.

  ****

Tampa Bay Lightning

Buy: J. T. Miller

Cap Hit: $5,250,000 with five years remaining

  Take advantage while your league makes haven’t fully grasped the potential here from Miller. Last year’s 57 points will be surpassed this season, as Miller seems the likely fill in on a line with Nikita Kucherov and Steven Stamkos. Miller also adds hit volume, and should provide faceoff win totals, taking draws on his strong side.

Miller’s shot totals have never been exceptionally high, however with line mates of Stamkos and Kucherov, he doesn’t have to be the shooter. As a minimum, we can probably hope for a 25-goal and 40-assist pace (assuming good health). His contract looks like a solid deal all around.  

  Sell: No one?  

It’s tough to see anyone on this squad that you could really sell before a drop off in value. None of the top guns are going to see their value drop off, and none of the secondary players have their value inflated extremely high. A case could be made for Yanni Gourde before his next contract, however there are so many red flags, that’s all owners will see and you won’t get fair value.

Aside from that, general manager Yzerman also does a fantastic job managing around the salary cap, so you don’t have to worry about large long-term extensions denting a player’s value. Hold your Tampa Bay players for now, sell as needed when they get off to a torrid start again this year. In the month of October (11 games) the Lightning play only one team that got past the first round of the playoffs last season – that being the Golden Knights, who are likely to regress a little from last year’s adrenaline-fueled run.

  ****

St. Louis Blues

Buy: Jake Allen

Cap Hit: $4,350,000 with three years remaining

  While St. Louis revamped their forwards and looks to have a healthy blueline going into 2018-2019, no one is discussing their goaltending.  Allen has had some ups and downs during his career, but last year it was mostly down. Last season was especially bad; and especially his last five starts. However, goaltenders can be the toughest ones to acquire, regardless of contract. Allen’s is cheaper than most starters, and St. Louis has the potential to be a 50-win team next season based on skaters alone. With Allen starting 55-60 games, that would give him about 40 wins next season. If a 40-win goalie could help your team at $4.35 million, then you should be inquiring. It won’t get any less pricy than this in terms of starters.

  Sell: Alex Pietrangelo

Cap Hit: $6,500,000 with two years remaining

  There are three things working against Pietrangelo’s value at the moment. First, is the likely reduction in powerplay time (going down from a career high of 3:02 per game). Second, is the fact he just had triplets (not one, not two, but three babies to disrupt his offseason schedule – that won’t be easy). Third, he has two years left on his contract, and by the end of the season, everyone is going to know he will be looking for a Drew Doughty-like extension.

Put those three together, and you’re looking at a recipe for a big decline in trade value by the end of the season. As a 50-point defenceman who put up over 200 shots, there is a lot of value here. You may not want to move him now, but it will sting much less if you can get a package along the lines of Matt Dumba and a decent forward. Shop him around at least and see what the offers are like.

  ****

San Jose Sharks

Buy: Tim Heed

Cap Hit: $650,000 with one year remaining

  This is a buy for slightly deeper leagues (not just your standard 12 team league). Heed’s value is about as low as it can be right now, but as the season goes on, that should change. San Jose hasn’t exactly needed a secondary offensive defenceman since the Wookiee (AKA Brent Burns) carries more than his own weight in the other team’s end. However, with San Jose looking like they can roll out a more balanced attack than any of the last handful of years, having a true powerplay quarterback for the second unit would do wonders for them.

Giving Heed a little more help on the second powerplay and allowing him a little more rope that the 16 minutes a night, could jump his production way above the 11 points from last season. In his first quarter, Heed posted 7 points in 16 games, racking up 37 shots in that span. None of his secondary numbers were remarkably unsustainable, all that he needs is a chance to play. If he can beat out one of Joakim Ryan or Dylan DeMelo, we will see just that.

  Sell: Logan Couture

Cap Hit: $6,000,000 with one year remaining – $8,000,000 AAV extension kicking in as of July 1, 2019.

  There aren’t really many sell highs in San Jose. Generally, with these players you know what you’re getting. That being said, Couture’s extension flying under the radar at this point, many GMs will have forgotten he is due $8 million for the next eight years. That is likely a contract that is worth getting out from under, and this may be your last chance to do so at close to fair value.

Couture is viewed as a consistent 60-65 point centre, of which there are many on better contracts around the league. Keep an eye out on the buy sections here especially, as there may be some good trade options for you these.

  ****

Pittsburgh Penguins

Buy: Daniel Sprong

Cap Hit: $734, 167 with one year remaining

  Sprong is on a one-way contract for the first time in his career, and as a result, he seems set to play a full season for the first time too. We have too small a sample size to determine much about Sprong’s potential (26 games over the course of three years doesn’t tell us much). However, we do have the wonderful folks over at DopperProspects to help us out here.

From Daniel Sprong’s prospect page, the bottom line on him is that he is going to be a very good player: “A bright prospect who would be on the NHL roster of most organizations, Sprong has a promising future as a big league sniper”.

Prospects are generally tough to acquire before they get their big break, however their value peaks as soon as they start producing at the NHL level. Expect that to be this season for Sprong, perhaps even by November as he gets settled in. At that point, you could flip him for even more, or sit back and enjoy the production.

  Sell: Matt Murray

Cap Hit: $3,750,000 with two years remaining.

  Hold on a second, hear me out, and don’t call me crazy (well at least don’t do it yet). Matt Murray is at his peak value right now, even though his numbers have gone down every year. He’s on a tiny contract, he is led by one of the best teams in the NHL, he is 24 years old, and has already won two Stanley cups. For all those reasons, you should be selling. Murray has an injury history, a quality youngster coming up behind him (Tristan Jarry), a big contract extension coming in two years. Goalies are also voodoo. Three years ago, in your average league setup, the sixth-ranked goalie was Andrew Hammond. Last year, the top two goalies off the board in almost every draft, were Cam Talbot and Carey Price. How well did that work out? If you can trade Murray for a goalie with a little less variability, and a star forward, you had best be considering it.

  ****

Philadelphia Flyers

Buy: Nolan Patrick

Cap Hit: $925,000 with two years remaining

  There aren’t really any other buy-low opportunities with a team that saw most of its players overachieve last season. However, Nolan Patrick still has plenty of room to grow. The addition of James van Riemsdyk and a more consistent effort from Travis Konecny would provide a balanced top two lines. Patrick also saw more minutes as the season went on, and his production followed. In the last quarter of the season, he was scoring at a 50-point pace. His ice time should continue to rise over the 15 minutes he averaged in the last quarter (touching 19 minutes twice in six playoff games.

Powerplay exposure is also key. The former number two overall selection jumped to the first unit powerplay more and more as the season went on (taking Wayne Simmonds’ net-front presence role). Should Patrick see enough exposure on the top unit, he could triple his poweplay output of eight points from last season. His floor for this season should be 40 points, with potential to break out for much more. Just be wary of the injuries and be ready to replace him for stretches during the season.

  Sell: Claude Giroux

Cap Hit: $8,275,000 with four years remaining

  In a cap league, how do you sell high on a 30-year-old with a cap hit above $8 million? You wait for him to have a 100-point season, and then you shop him around. Giroux won’t replicate these numbers. All of his underlying percentages are screaming regression, so be wise and listen. You won’t be able to swap him for someone like Kucherov, but instead target someone only a couple years younger, and a little cheaper. Something along the lines of Mark Stone and a kicker, or perhaps check in with the Seguin owner to see if they’re scared off by his impending extension. This one isn’t rocket science.

  ****

Recent Capped articles:

Team-by-team Buy and Sell – Part 1

Injuries and Internal Replacements

    ****

All cap related info is courtesy of Capfriendly. All player data was pulled from FrozenTools.

  Thanks for reading. I would be curious to hear if you have any buy/sell candidates on the above teams, and why.

As always, you can find me on twitter @alexdmaclean.

from All About Sports https://dobberhockey.com/hockey-home/capped/capped-team-by-team-buy-and-sell-part-2-2/

[placetobenation]

**I was born in 1990 and became a wrestling fan in 1996. Shawn Michaels was my first favorite wrestler, and I watched every minute of the Attitude Era religiously. Needless to say, 90s WWF is my wrestling foundation. I have heard about the mythic era of the NWA and the territories, (and of course I’ve seen bits and pieces) but never truly steeped myself in all its glory. Follow my fresh/ignorant breakdown of classic wrestling!**

Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling—September 26, 1981

Bob and David are tickled pink to announce that since the last episode, Ric Flair defeated Dusty Rhodes in Kansas City to become the NWA World Heavyweight Champion. Flair must be a huge face at this point because they are just beside themselves with excitement. Absolutely insane that they are describing Flair’s first world title.

They run down tonight’s show, then turn to Jake Roberts and his good buddy “Bad Bad” Leroy Brown for a quick word. Leroy is a lively dude in construction overalls and a hardhat that begins his portion of the interview by vigorously rubbing his right breast. Leroy will make Ole Anderson pay SOME HEAVY DUES! WOO! I enjoy Leroy’s lust for life.Jake can barely contain his laughter. I wish that Ride Along was around in 1981 so I could see these two making the towns, though I have a feeling that some of the activities may not reflect the corporate views of World Wrestling Entertainment. 

Austin Idol vs Scott Mcghee The two exchange holds for the majority of the match. Mcghee frustrates Idol with his ability to nail a single leg takedown, which leads Idol to abandon the holds in favor of striking. He throws Mcghee out, and when he is able to make his way back in, finishes him with the figure four. 

Match Notes Apparently Mcghee is from England, which has not been previously mentioned. Mcghee tries some strange frantic jerky wiggling to break out of a full nelson, and David says he is going “90 miles per hour,” which is some quick wiggling. But really, it looks like a Jack Lalanne routine.

I really hadn’t notice up until this match when Mcghee gets tossed out, but guys really don’t get thrown out of the ring very much. It’s a great example of something that is done so routinely now, yet here it’s done sparingly, so it really has a real noticeable effect. I knew Mcghee was screwed once he got thrown out. Even so, Mcghee my have a little bit of a future because he held his own well. Or maybe Idol is not presented as a dominant figure like someone like Slaughter. Idol’s promos have been pretty entertaining, so hope he has more than this to offer than the boring offense he used in this match.

Winner: Austin Idol via submission Rating: *

Jim Nelson vs NWA TV Champion Ron Bass The two exchange holds (seems like I should get use to typing that) for awhile with the underdog Nelson getting over on the Outlaw. Eventually Bass turns on the heat with the some good power punches and, finally, his trademark powerslam.

Match Notes The crowd barely lets out a yell for this match until the end. Bass finds himself in a tough spot being a babyface who relies on power. If he gets too aggressive, he would seem like more of a heel like Slaughter. And unlike Steamboat, or even Jake, a quick fiery style doesn’t fit his character. He ends sort of plodding along at times with some slow holds, and it makes his matches very flat. His style does not work well in a squash. I could see how he might step on the gas a little more if he was against a hot heel who deserves a beating.

Winner: Ron Bass via pin Rating: *

Announcing Aside David seems to be getting a little better here. He doesn’t stammer as much and says a few relevant lines instead of the normal gibberish. Go Davy!

Sgt. Slaughter vs Frank Monte After working a wristlock, Slaughter tosses Monte outside, where he almost pegs the camera. Sarge actually teases a jump from the top rope to the outside, but Monte runs in, only to pass out in the cobra clutch. It doesn’t sound like much, and it isn’t much, but Slaughter really connects on his offense and bears down on holds. Pair that with Monte’s strong selling, most notably after the finish when he just slumps over, and you have an entertaining squash.   

Match Notes This was apparently a “taped” match and there is some mystery man who isn’t Bob on play by play. He’s pretty smooth too.

When the match starts, there is one lady–the only audible member of the audience and possibly Monte’s aunt–who just screams, in a heavy Southern accent, “GOMER PYLE!” and then follows it with, “GIT EM FRANK!” to heckle Slaughter. She keeps yelling “C”MON FRANK” throughout match, and even starts a “GO, FRANK, GO” chant with some other audience members.  She may be responsible for some of the letters that are always showing up at the Mid-Atlantic office. Monte looks like a juiced Jim Croce here. I’m hoping he teams with Leroy Brown at some point because it just makes sense. 

Winner: Sgt. Slaughter via submission Rating: *½

We cut to David, who’s interviewing the lost member of AC/DC, Scott Mcghee. Being the nice guy he is, David tries to make Scott feel better about his loss by calling him a loser, only to then reassure him that he really is a winner because he fought so hard. So Mcghee responds with the most appropriate face one can make when someone calls you a winner for losing.

David says because of his heart and competitiveness, Scott finds himself as one of the top contenders for the Junior Heavyweight title. And then he turns the mic to Mcghee.

So I’m expecting him to sound like most of the other faces (Steamboat, Bass) and be calm, confident, and a little feisty. Instead he has the softest, whispiest schoolboy voice. I was completely floored. You have all these maniac heels running around ranting like they just snorted coke with their eyeballs…and then little Scott Mcghee who sounds like he would ask to shine your shoes for a nickel.

That said–and I know most people would call it terrible–it’s a good promo! It really makes me want to root for him as soft spoken, scrappy underdog telling us about how he’s been pushed by his father since he was young to be great and he was watching Steamboat even before he started wrestling. Though he doesn’t exude typical charisma, he feels authentic, and you hear this type of interview all the time in professional sports. When I watch a promo, I always want to believe the character, and I do here, even if he sounds meek. I like having some different characters.

Also, being the Peabody-caliber journalist that he is, David just inexplicably asks him what part of the leg the figure four puts pressure on, which completely throws off Mcghee.

The Grappler and Super Destroyer vs Ron RItchie and Johnny Weaver The underdogs make a go of things by continually working the arm with any move they can. Weaver gets backed into a corner, swinging the momentum. Eventually he makes a hot tag, but the masked men sneak in for a double clothesline, which sets up the superplex to finish. The masked men are able to take advantage through power and a little cheating. 

Match Notes These matches start so abruptly. Right back from commercial, they just ring the bell and start with the crowd dead quiet. No introductions. No entrance. You rarely get an actively bad tag match on these shows. The style of quick tags and constant action make for some really engaging matches, considering they are squashes.

Winner: The Grappler and Super Destroyer via pin Rating: *1/2 

Jake comes out post-match, hot over the fact that the Super Destroyer and the Grappler swapped without a tag at the end of the match. I like how the faces don’t just stay in their own little conflicts. They hate any injustice.

After the break, the masked team is in studio to call out Jake and tell him to stay out of their matches.  Austin Idol pops in to tell us that he, and everyone out there, knows he has a masterplan that he’s ready to unleash, but it’s none of our damn business anyway. Not sure I believe you, Austin. Also, his cockles are warmed at Flair winning the title.

Ole steps up next to call out the faces and emphasize how bad a man he truly is.

Presentation Aside The interview layup line that divides the matches is so expertly crafted to utilize every second of TV time. It reminds you of all the characters, and by having the heels always calling out all the babyfaces and vice versa, it creates constant tension between both sides, so you can throw any face and heel together and expect at least some built-in heat. The tension drives the show. 

“Bad” Leroy Brown and Jake Roberts vs Ricky Harris and Mike Miller Harris and Miller get virtually no offense, as Jake and Leroy take turns pounding on them, with Jake doing most of the work. Leroy finishes of Miller with a running splash. No story to this one at all, except I guess to illustrate  that Jake and Leroy are buds.

Match Notes The announcers hype an upcoming US Championship tournament in Charlotte, and, according to David, it’s going to be “some tournament.” Don’t oversell it, now, Davy. Also, he pauses for a three complete seconds trying to say anything about it. I deserve this for saying something nice about him earlier.

Bad Leroy, in his construction worker overalls, serves as the first wrestler on these shows that seems to rely more on his character and histrionics than his wrestling ability. In this match, he does mostly elbows and basic offense, instead focusing much of his energy on gesturing and smiling to the crowd. At one point, he even cartoonishly no-sells a barrage of punches, which really contrasts with the realistic tone of the show. Not that there’s anything wrong with that!

Jake continues to impress on these shows and is quickly becoming a highlight. He just moves so smoothly and his offense, from his knee lift to the quick jabs, looks great. He just knows how to make you pay attention to what’s happening in the ring.

Winner: Jake Roberts and “Bad Bad” Leroy Brown via pin Rating: *

In what seems to be a developing trend, David gives some interview time to the losers, as Jim Nelson steps to the mic with his famously large head featured prominently. Both Nelson and David make the promo nearly incoherent with all their stuttering and stammering.

Next up to the mic are Miller and Harris fresh off their loss. They confuse David by vehemently insisting that there were they were double teamed in the loss when they clearly weren’t. Miller claims he is gonna find a counter to Leroy’s big splash. These guys are probably not going to push themselves up the card with these odd, unfocused promos.

Jay Youngblood vs Ole Anderson Two prime guys in the feature match here (a main event anywhere in the world according to Bob.) They scrap on the mat, then Ole throws Youngblood, only for the Grappler, sitting on commentary, to throw him back in. Ole continues to work him over, but Youngblood fights back with some brutal chops. Not much later, the Grappler comes in to take out Youngblood for the disqualification. I wasn’t expecting anything too decisive with two major guys, but it accomplished what it was meant to–get more heat on the heels, primarily Ole.

Match Notes Before jumping into the match, the Grappler sat in on commentary and continued to run down Jake for interfering in his match.

Winner: Jay Youngblood via disqualification 

The reinforcements (Jake and Bass) come down to even the odds and send the heels running. But they run into Bad Bad Leroy on the way out!

The show concludes with a promo from the four faces who claim that they are tired of getting ganged up on. They are now a cavalry that will have each other’s backs. Everyone is angry…except for Leroy, who’s still feeling pretty chipper.

  End of Show Notes

If You Only Watch One Match: “Bad” Leroy Brown and Jake Roberts vs Ricky Harris and Mike Miller

MVP: Jake Roberts I was tempted to go with Leroy for his entertaining character, but I had to give it to Jake, or I would feel like I was taking him for granting. He carries the team with Leroy and is just so fun to watch. I would not shocked if he gets this award multiple times in the future.

Overall rating: 5/10 This was solid enough. While I do enjoy how the heels and faces are grouped against each, I would like to see some individual personal issues develop, even if I know we won’t see the actual payoff on this show. It was lacking in promo time from some of the more memorable heels (Piper, Slaughter) and any big angle. So we will call this an average day in the Mid-Atlantic area.

So long for now!

[flauntpage]

Your Thursday Morning Roundup

With the new NFL league year beginning at 4 PM yesterday, the Eagles are officially the defending Super Bowl champions. That still feels weird to say.

The Birds were relatively quiet with the exception of re-signing Nigel Bradham to a five-year, $40 million deal. The team also pushed back Michael Bennett’s roster bonus. Just this morning, they restructured Zach Ertz’s contract. Does that mean Vinny Curry and Mychal Kendricks might stay?

Eagles created $5.407M in cap space in 2018 by converting $7.21M of TE Zach Ertz's $8M base salary into a fully guaranteed roster bonus, per @FieldYates.

Broncos created $12.375M in 2018 cap space by converting $16M of LB Von Miller’s $18.5M base salary into a signing bonus.

— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) March 15, 2018

The biggest surprise of the day came with cornerback Patrick Robinson, who appeared to be staying with the Eagles, but signed a four-year, $20 million deal with the New Orleans Saints. Even though the Eagles reportedly offered more overall money, the Saints offered more guaranteed money.

The #Eagles and Patrick Robinson got close on a contract extension on Monday. Then stalled. … then his window opened. And the #Saints jumped in and locked him down. He’s a former #Saints first round pick.

— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) March 14, 2018

Meanwhile, there’s more decisions to be made with some current players. Vinny Curry might have to restructure his deal or be let go, while Mychal Kendricks appears to be getting shopped around once again. But the most interesting nugget involved Nick Foles:

Good nugget from @MikeGarafolo — Arizona Cardinals made a call to Philadelphia about Nick Foles. Obviously, didn't go far.

— Peter Schrager (@PSchrags) March 14, 2018

Arizona later signed Sam Bradford and Mike Glennon. Good luck with those two QBs. And will Buffalo signing AJ McCarron, it seem more and more likely Foles will stay in Philadelphia for the upcoming season.

As for free agents, Beau Allen signed with Tampa Bay and LeGarrette Blount will meet with the Detroit Lions on Friday.

Elsewhere, the Giants signed Nate Solder, the Cardinals released Tyrann Mathieu, Ndamukong Suh and Julius Thomas were released by the Dolphins, Trevor Siemian was traded to Minnesota to serve as Kirk Cousins’ backup, and Joe Thomas announced his retirement.

The Roundup:

Recapping Tuesday’s tough home loss to the Indiana Pacers.

How big of an impact is Robert Covington making on defense?

Victor Oladipo believes Markelle Fultz will be an impact player when he returns to the court:

“Everybody’s path is different,” he said. “Everything happens for a reason. What he’s going through is only going to make him stronger and better as a man and a person. … His time is coming.”

The Indiana all-star finished with 11 points Tuesday in a  101-98 victory over the Sixers at the Wells Fargo Center. One gets the sense that he anticipates playing against Fultz, if not in the playoffs then in future seasons.

Sixers coach Brett Brown said it hasn’t been determined if Fultz will return this season. However, there’s a good chance that he will do so and soon. Fultz’s shooting form has been looking close to normal in recent workouts.

“His time is coming,” Oladipo said. “I know he’ll be ready for it, because I know he puts the work in.”

Six players Sixers fans should watch as the NCAA Tournament begins this afternoon.

The Sixers also have a game tonight, as they take on the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden. Tip off is scheduled for 7:30 PM on NBC Sports Philadelphia +.

The Flyers have a big game tonight against Columbus at 7 PM on NBC Sports Philadelphia. One player that looks to finally make an impact in the scoring department is rookie Oskar Lindblom:

When he hasn’t had the puck on his stick, Lindblom has been diligent about providing back pressure. A regular all-situations player (including penalty killing duties) during his time in the American Hockey League with the Lehigh Valley Phantoms, Lindblom prides himself on his two-way abilities.

While hockey is a bottom-line business in which results needs to follow process at a certain point, the coaches and organizational decision-makers gain insight into a player, especially a “skills guy” whose role includes expectations of relatively frequent point-production, by how he handles dry spells. Does he let it drag down other facets of his game? Does he start to force ill-advised plays that only compound the lack of points?

In Lindblom’s case, the young player has shown considerable mental toughness while continuing to push for his first NHL point.

“Quite frankly, that’s why a guy like that stays up [in the NHL] versus maybe another guy who’s not producing and turns pucks over. Oskar’s going to break through at some point,”Flyers general manager Ron Hextall said. 

Good news for Jake Arrieta: Not only did he get his #49 from Ben Lively (in exchange for a boat), he’s already thrown his first bullpen session with the Phillies:

For Arrieta, it was just a minor test, a necessary hurdle to pass before being ready to start the season. For the crowd, it was a happening.

“He looks great to me,” Kranitz said. “He always stays in shape. There’s no question about that. What I was looking for today was how the ball was coming out of his hand — it was coming out great. I didn’t expect anything different, but it’s always great to get eyes on him.

Arrieta plans to pitch Saturday in a minor-league game at the Carpenter Complex. He threw roughly 40 pitches Wednesday and should throw 50 on Saturday. He would then have time to pitch in two Grapefruit League games before the team leaves Florida. Arrieta is confident he will be ready to start the season on time despite not signing until a month into spring training.

“I don’t think there’s going to be any issue with getting extended quickly,” Arrieta said. “I was able to build up throughout the offseason to a point where I feel like I could slide in and be ready for the start of the season. That’s the game plan for right now, and I plan for that to go very well.”

Meanwhile on the field, the Phillies fell to the Atlanta Braves 5-3. Jorge Alfaro hit a home run in the second inning.

Buster Olney thinks the Phillies could compete in the Bryce Harper sweepstakes:

“I would bet the family farm that Bryce Harper winds up with the Phillies or back with the Washington Nationals.”

There’ll be some new food at Citizens Bank Park, including edible cookie dough, which is actually crap.

Phillies take on Detroit today at 1:05 PM.

Both Philly-area NCAA Tournament teams are in action today. First up, 16th seed Penn takes on Kansas at 2 PM on TBS. The Quakers got a welcoming surprise at their open practice yesterday:

Kansas University is about a 2 1/2-hour drive from Wichita and many of the Jayhawks fans were in attendance Wednesday. But unlike some fan bases that might boo the opponent, this one greeted Penn enthusiastically.

A large portion of the fan base was schoolchildren bused in for the event. That’s how big basketball is in Kansas. Each team had a 40-minute open workout. After Penn came North Carolina State and then Kansas.

“I didn’t expect this,” Penn point guard Darnell Foreman said. “First of all, having so many kids come, that was pretty cool and all the Kansas fans intrigued about who you are and still waiting for their team. That fan base is crazy.”

The attention caught Penn a little off-guard, in a positive way.

“It was awesome,” said Penn leading scorer Ryan Betley, averaging 14.5 points. “We didn’t expect this.”

Meanwhile, No. 1 seed Villanova takes on Radford at 6:40 PM on TNT. Nova’s freshmen are ready for their first taste of March Madness:

“I don’t really think I’ll have nerves,” Gillespie said. “I’ve played for so long at this point, I really don’t have butterflies anymore. It’s just basketball to me, and just another game that we have to focus on defending and rebounding and playing together.”

“I don’t think I will be nervous or anything because I’ll be focusing on what I can do for my teammates,” said Cosby-Roundtree. “I try to just be focused, dialed in on what we have to do so that I won’t have to feel nervous.”

The older players have talked to the younger players this week about coping with distractions, but there were some signs of nerves Tuesday at the Wildcats’ practice at nearby Duquesne.

“I kind of sensed it at practice,” coach Jay Wright said. “Collin Gillespie wasn’t being his normal self, which is rare, nothing bad. I just thought they were a little distracted. I tell the older guys, keep an eye on them, keep talking to them.

“But I think the only remedy is they’ve got to get in a game. Once you get in an NCAA game, you get in there, it is really different than any other experience. You get in there, you feel it. Then I think when you come out of the game and you go back in the second time, you’re good. But you’ve got to get in there and feel it.”

Meanwhile in the NIT, Temple fell to Penn State 63-57 thanks to a 15-3 Nittany Lion run late in the game up in Happy Valley. The tournament also experimented with four quarters and a three-point line that was nearly two feet further than current college rules.

In other sports news, Syracuse held off Arizona State in their First Four matchup 60-56, while Texas Southern crushed NC Central for their first ever tournament win 64-46.

Minor League Baseball announced new pace-of-play rules for the upcoming season. They include a limit on mound visits, a pitch clock, and having a runner begin at second base in extra innings.

Aaron Judge jokingly tried to recruit Manny Machado to come to the Yankees next season, but MLB wasn’t having any of that.

Former Patriots cornerback Malcolm Butler still doesn’t know why he was benched for Super Bowl LII.

UFC fighters Kevin Lee and Edson Barboza promoted their April 21 fight in Atlantic City by visiting a ton of spots in Philadelphia.

In the news, Meek Mill could be set free while he appeals his probation sentence, according to the District Attorney’s Office.

Toys R Us will close or sell all of their stores after 70 years.

iHeartMedia has filed for bankruptcy.

Your Thursday Morning Roundup published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/

[amtushinfosolutionspage]

Turf Guy, Bama-OSU, and the Joys of Bowl Season: The Weekend in College Football

Welcome to the final Weekend in College Football of the season. This week, we’ll take you through everything you missed on Saturday (or, God forbid, Friday night), tell you the things worth learning, and look ahead to the College Football Playoff field. Enjoy.

1st and 10

Oklahoma steamrolled TCU 41-17, a nearly note-perfect recreation of the Sooners’ 38-20 triumph over the Horned Frogs on November 11th. The consistency is notable for two reasons.

First, the Sooners once again flashed their trademark balance on offense. Baker Mayfield was his usual, soon-to-be Heisman-winning self, efficient and ably spreading the ball across his receiving corps. Rodney Anderson ground out 93 yards, with Mayfield and Trey Sermon combining for 128 more. The offensive line, one of the country’s best, turned back Gary Patterson’s defense in both phases. By now, we’ve come to expect nothing less from what is far and away the best offense among the playoff field.

But it’s a second strong defensive performance that provides more optimism for a possible national championship run. As Sooner fans are well aware, Oklahoma has all the talent necessary to field a plus defense. Some of the individual cogs, such as sophomore linebacker Caleb Kelly, have flourished, too. But the unit ranked 100th in the S&P+ rankings heading into Saturday, which is embarrassingly low no matter how potent Big 12 offenses generally are across the board.

The Horned Frogs’ offense checked in at 45th, so the Sooners didn’t quite lock down one of the conference’s scariest attacks. Nevertheless, it was enough of a statement to beget optimism that Oklahoma can deliver on defense almost as well as they do on offense. Point blank: Two more strong defensive efforts probably means they’re winning the national title.

2nd and 8

The Sooners are the upside play, but Clemson is the safe bet.

Some of this, of course, is because they won it all last year and a not insignificant amount of that national championship team is back. The Tigers also have much of the Sooners’ offensive balance, if not their explosiveness, and augment that with the nastiest front seven in the country. The talent, production, intangibles, and resume—their one loss came when quarterback Kelly Bryant left early with a concussion—make Clemson the prohibitive favorites.

Still, confidence in the Tigers is inextricably tied to a belief that Bryant can drive an offense through an elite defense when the chips are down. DeShaun Watson did it last year and even his brilliance was barely enough to carry Clemson past Alabama. Now Bryant will be tasked with doing the same thing and, despite Watson’s proclamations to the contrary, the junior is not yet on par with the greatest quarterback in program history.

Still, Bryant’s potential is abundant, and his performance in the Tigers’ 38-3 demolition of Miami—23 of 29 for 252 yards and a touchdown—is an extremely promising tune-up. But if Alabama takes away the run game, will Bryant be ready? It comes down to timing, and whether he can develop into what Clemson needs him to be before it costs the Tigers a game.

Clip of the Week

Bronze: The play itself—the mechanics of it—are fairly mundane. USC senior linebacker Uchenna Nwosu bursts around an edge and drags Stanford’s Cameron Scarlett down by his shoelaces. Impressive, but not spectacular. It’s the context that elevates it.

Nwosu makes this stop on 4th and goal from the USC 1-yard-line with eight minutes remaining in the game and Trojans bleeding momentum. A few more inches and Scarlett delivers the Cardinal a 28-24 lead. Instead, it’s a turnover on downs and the Trojans march 99 yards for a game-sealing touchdown and their first conference title since 2008. Sam Darnold and Ronald Jones get many of the plaudits, but Nwosu was the hero on Friday night.

Silver: Speaking of big plays at crucial moments, Georgia’s coup de grâce came from true freshman tailback D’Andre Swift, the heir to Nick Chubb and Sony Michel’s throne in Athens. Swift was similarly regarded coming out of high school, but he has the edge on the upperclassmen—and most everyone else—in top-end speed. Case in point, this 64-yard bolt of lightning down the left sideline that even had Bulldogs coach Kirby Smart running along with him. Georgia went up 28-10, walling off any hope of an Auburn comeback.

Gold: Given how TCU got flattened by Oklahoma, the Horned Frogs’ John Diarse can’t match these last two in dramatics. No, this is about pure aesthetics and degree of difficulty. Here’s why the last week of the regular season delivered one of the very best catches of the year:

3rd and 1

Georgia’s 28-7 win over Auburn in the SEC Championship Game was a clinic in what the Bulldogs do best: pounding opponents into submission, both with a deep, physical defense and a hydra of running backs on offense. There is no transcendent strength on par with Oklahoma’s offensive skill position talent or Clemson’s front four, but Georgia’s offense is far less of a question than the Sooners’ defense, and while true freshman Jake Fromm carries many of the same questions as Bryant, he also has a much stronger TD:INT ratio (19:5) and his running backs are far more established.

Think of the Bulldogs as a faster, more dynamic Wisconsin. Opposing teams know what’s coming but there’s still the matter of actually stopping it. Except, unlike the Badgers, Georgia dispatched more than enough opponents to verify that their strategy is the real deal.

As is the case with Clemson and Bryant, the best hope of beating the Bulldogs will be to take away the run and force Fromm to win with his arm, something Auburn achieved when they defeated Georgia in their first matchup back in November. Also like Bryant, Fromm boasts superstar potential—but while Bryant gets thrown into the fire against Alabama, Fromm has a date with the softest defense in the playoff field. If his play takes a jump against a vulnerable Sooners secondary, the Bulldogs could play for their first national title since 1980.

Punt

On dissecting the debate for the final playoff spot, because the anticlimactic truth is that Alabama and Ohio State each had a case making the field.

For Crimson Tide, it’s the fact that, for the overwhelming majority of the season, Alabama looked like the best team in the country, and their only loss came on the road against a top-ten team. They’ll also enter the postseason healthier than they’ve been since September, with Mack Wilson, Christian Miller, and Terrell Lewis set to bolster a decimated linebacking corps.

An Alabama–Clemson rubber match will also be catnip for television ratings, which almost certainly played a role in this outcome. But there’s ample reason to believe that the Tide offer the best hope of giving Clemson a really great game, not only on account of the last two season but because Alabama is the most balanced team in the field. Everything I said about taking away the Clemson run game and forcing Kelly Bryant to throw? Yeah, Alabama can do that.

But Auburn provided a blueprint for defeating Nick Saban just last week, and Clemson’s defensive front combined with Bryant’s efficiency—his 67.4 percent completion percentage ranked sixth nationally—give Dabo Swinney the tools to stem the Tide for a second straight season.

Player Who Deserves to Be Paid This Week

For the second week in a row, undefeated UCF needed quarterback McKenzie Milton to go blow for blow with another highly regarded signal caller. Once again, Milton led the Knights to victory. Memphis’ Riley Ferguson was nearly as good in Saturday’s frenetic 62-55 AAC Championship Game, but Milton was just a tad better, completing 28 of 40 passes for 494 yards and five touchdowns.

Soon after the game ended, UCF coach Scott Frost was announced as the new head man at Nebraska, where he’ll earn $5 million annually. It’s only fair he donates some of it to his now-former quarterback.

Coach Who Does Not Groundskeeper Who Does

There was no egregiously bad coaching performance on this week’s short slate, so let’s keep things light and pay homage to Eric Harlow, the humble groundskeeper at Lucas Oil Stadium.

Late in the fourth quarter of the Big Ten Championship Game, Wisconsin’s Chris James scored a one-yard touchdown so violent it literally ripped the turf off the ground. The game must go on, so in stepped Harlow, the Winston Wolf of faux horticulture, who proceeded to pour on rubber pellets and do field triage for the next ten or so minutes as a capacity crowd plus millions of people on television watched him work. You could argue that it’s the most high-pressure field-repair job in football history. (I do not have a list of other contenders, don’t @ me.)

If this does not merit a performance bonus, I don’t know what does.

Obscure College Football Team of Note

One of the chief casualties of the College Football Playoff’s hegemony is a tendency to downplay the significance of what a bowl game, any old bowl game, can mean. On Saturday, New Mexico State issued a heartwarming reminder.

The Aggies entered the week needing a win over South Alabama to clinch bowl eligibility for the first time in 57 years. Here is an obligatory list of notable American events in 1960, the year they last made it:

John F. Kennedy announced his presidential campaign

Joanne Woodward received the first-ever star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame

The U.S. sent more troops to Vietnam

Ben-Hur won best picture at The Oscars

You get the picture. Consequently, you can empathize a bit when, following NMSU’s 22-17 win, the Aggie faithful stormed the field and head coach Doug Martin cried during his postgame interview. And, as fate would have it, NMSU’s opponent in the NOVA Home Loans Arizona Bowl is none other than another set of Aggies: Utah State, who remarkably enough was NMSU’s opponent all the way back in that last bowl appearance in 1960.

Bowl are great and don’t let anyone try to convince you otherwise. Speaking of…

Something to Look Forward To

Bowl season. A month’s worth of football, in varying shapes and stakes and times. Some of them will be memorable; many more won’t be. There will be goofy sponsors and exotic matchups and at least a few memorable performances. Even in the low moments, bowl season is the best college football has to offer. Take a cue from New Mexico State and make sure to savor it.

Turf Guy, Bama-OSU, and the Joys of Bowl Season: The Weekend in College Football syndicated from http://ift.tt/2ug2Ns6

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Free Ebooks (8/13/17)

    PLEASE REMEMBER THAT THE FREE PRICING IS ONLY A SPECIAL FOR THE DIGITAL FORMAT OF THE BOOK THAT IS LISTED AND IS ONLY AVAILABLE FOR A LIMITED TIME, SO BE SURE TO PURCHASE THE E-BOOKS BEFORE THE PRICE RETURNS TO ITS NORMAL LISTING. (Unless you want to buy them at full price:)

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  Honeymoon in Italy by Jen Carter: When Jill plans a vacation to Italy with her sisters, she never expects it will unearth family secrets…or lead to love.

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  Kula – The Famous Surfing Dog by Chip Hughes: Summoned to the Honolulu hilltop mansion of radio pitchman Barry Buckingham, presumably to trace his missing wife, the Surfing Detective is in for the letdown of his career. Kai Cook is hired to track another lost family member. A dog.

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  Back to Lazarus: A Sydney Brennan Novel by Judy K. Walker: Isaac Thomas murdered his wife twenty-four years ago. When he commits suicide in prison, his estranged daughter hires Tallahassee PI Sydney Brennan to find out: why now? Sydney’s investigation uncovers a connection between the decades-old domestic violence and a present-day web of deceit. A connection someone is willing to kill to conceal…

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  Clint Wolf Mystery Trilogy: Boxed Set by BJ Bourg: 3 COMPLETE MYSTERIES – Book 1: While investigating a human arm found in an alligator’s mouth, Clint Wolf unearths an evil plot. Book 2: Random people are being killed with arrows, and Clint’s in a race to find the murderer. Book 3: When a bar manager is murdered, Clint is forced to face demons from his past. How he reacts could change everything.

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  The Wave at Hanging Rock by Gregg Dunnett: What if your best friend was a psychopath, and you didn’t notice? The Wave at Hanging Rock is a powerful coming-of-age story of adventure on the Atlantic coast, alongside a second story of a young woman searches for her missing husband. The stories come crashing together with a twist at the end you won’t see coming!

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  Nine Millie: Execution Style by Allen Manning & Brian Manning: Kidnapped from her village as a child, Millie is taken to an orphanage and trained to fight, becoming a part of an organization building a shadow army. When she breaks free of her programming she escapes execution and brings the fight back to those responsible, to save her friends.

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  The Rossler Foundation Mysteries by JC Ryan: The first 4 novels in the Rossler Foundation mystery/thrillers series. For decades scholars have been saying that the truth about human history is hidden inside the Great Pyramid of Giza, but no one has ever been able to find it. Until now.

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  The Forever Man: PULSE (Book 1) by Craig Zerf: We will never surrender… A series of solar flares has reduced humanity to a pre-industrial civilization. And then ‘They’ came. Through a portal in time and space. The Fair-Folk and their minions. Orcs and Goblins and Trolls.

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  Steel My Heart: Motorcycle Club Romance (Book 1) by Vivian Lux: Keep your head down. That’s what they told me when I got out of prison and again once I finished my parole. And I meant to do that, I swear. I had my brothers, The Sons of Steel Motorcycle Club at my side. I had a mission and a sense of pride. I wasn’t looking for a fight. But meeting Emmy turned that all on its head. She’s too damn beautiful not to fight for, no matter what it costs me. Whether it’s my freedom, or my life. She’s worth it.

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    Inevitable I by Remington Kane: When the client changes his mind after ordering a hit, the assassin named Tanner continues to stalk his target. There’s no off-switch with Tanner. Once he’s on, he’s on, and he’ll go up against incredible odds to make the hit. It’s killed or be killed, and no one is better at killing than Tanner.

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    Original post: http://ift.tt/2uB9UjE

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[thrashermaxey]

Ramblings: Vegas JAM; Boeser Injured; Laine Snipes Again – December 18

One day after a 48-save shutout from Carter Hutton was needed for St. Louis to defeat Winnipeg, it was much the same kind of domination by the Jets on Sunday. They jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the first period thanks to Adam Lowry and shots on goal were 21-10 for Winnipeg halfway through the game. St. Louis has a couple of injuries in the lineup, but they have been one of the better defensive teams in the NHL this season, and Winnipeg was shredding them.

Patrik Laine shredded them for his 16th goal of the season, this one coming with the man advantage (his 10th PP goal). It looked like a play where the team would have to continue setting up, working for a good shot. Laine had other ideas, and it’s shots like this that make him one of the most dangerous shooters on the planet:

that laine shot tho pic.twitter.com/lbwGuHJmKP

— Michael Clifford (@SlimCliffy) December 18, 2017

That he can shoot at that angle with the goalie in a set position, and make said goalie look as if he had no chance, is something special.

Mark Scheifele and Josh Morrissey each scored in the third period to salt this away. Connor Hellebuyck held on for the 24-save shutout. Jake Allen faced 45 shots, giving the Jets 93 shots (!) in two days against St. Louis.

*

For those that may have missed in on The Athletic, Paul Campbell had a nice article breaking down the adjustments Connor Hellebuyck made in the off-season as it relates to being quieter, more compact, and not relying on pure athleticism/size all the time. His save percentage now sits at .920 after that game. If he can be anything close to that goalie, with this team playing the way it is, they are a legitimate Cup contender.

*

Alex Pietrangelo was activated off the injured reserve on Sunday in time for the Blues’ game against Winnipeg. He missed four games with a lower-body injury. While it’s obviously good news for the Blues and Petro’s fantasy owners, it’s bad news for fantasy owners of both Colton Parayko and Vince Dunn. Both blue liners had seen some top PP time with the team’s top defenceman out of the lineup, and that PP time is sure to disappear now.

It should be said, though, that Parayko was kept on the top PP unit for Sunday’s game, even with Pietrangelo back. I doubt it lasts, but it’s worth mentioning.

*

Patrick Kane got the scoring started for Chicago, potting his 13th of the season in the middle of the first period, and his 14th in late in the second frame. He’s now on pace for 35 goals and a shade over a point per game. This is pretty much the Patrick Kane fantasy owners have come to expect, outside of his career year in 2015-16. He and Artemi Panarin undoubtedly had great chemistry, and we’re seeing a return to normalcy for Kane with Panarin in Columbus. It’s no coincidence his two highest five-on-five on-ice shooting percentage seasons came with the talented Russian on his left wing, so expecting Kane to pass 100 points again is asking too much. He’s undoubtedly one of the elite offensive talents in the NHL, but he can’t do it all himself.

Alex Stalock faced 45 shots, stopping 42 of them in the loss while Corey Crawford stopped 27 of 28 for the win.

Richard Panik was scratched again for Chicago, his third game in a row (if I’m counting correctly). It’s a confusing situation, but if you were hanging on to him, it’s probably best to just drop him now. Even if he were to make his way out of the press box, it seems pretty unlikely he jumps back into a top-six role.

*

Minnesota got a boost last night as Jared Spurgeon slotted back in the lineup after missing three weeks with a groin injury. He had been on pace for career-highs across the board until being forced to the sidelines, so it’ll be interesting to see how he rebounds. At the least, this will help the Minnesota defence that has been inconsistent at best this year, which in turn should help Devan Dubnyk get on track once he himself returns from his current injury.

I will say, though, this team hasn’t been great defensively all year, with or without injuries. Over the last month, with a mostly-full roster, the team is 20th in adjusted shot attempts allowed. Now, they still aren’t giving up a lot of scoring chances, so maybe their defensive system will hold up as it has for a couple years now. We’ll see how this goes.  

*

So, uh, sorry, Canucks fans?

Here is the play – Boeser blocks the shot on the PP#Canucks pic.twitter.com/drRssHnrl1

— Ryan Biech (@ryanbiech) December 18, 2017

Boeser did not return to the game. It’s doubtful we get an update on the severity of the injury until sometime Monday afternoon at the earliest.

It wasn’t long ago that Baertschi-Horvat-Boeser was one of the top production lines in the league. Now, Horvat has a broken ankle, Baertschi is out for another month with a broken jaw, and we’re awaiting the severity of the injury to Boeser. I suppose by default the Sedins are now the top line again, but this is going to be a slog of an uphill climb. I suppose Rasmus Dahlin is a decent consolation prize?

*

Mark Jankowski scored his sixth of the season in the first period of Calgary’s game on the road against Vancouver. I know Flames fans were hoping for more when he was originally drafted, but Jankowski is on pace for nearly 20 goals playing 13-15 minutes a night on the third line. For a guy that took five years to make his NHL debut, it wasn’t always certain he’d pan out. If he could even be a middle-six winger for the next decade for this franchise, that is a huge win. By the way, he has given some sparse top PP minutes tonight with the Johnny Hockey line. If that can continue, he could be a viable fantasy option in most leagues. That’s a big if, however.

Mark Giordano added a couple goals for the Flames in their rout of Vancouver with David Rittich picking up the win in net.

Sam Bennett picked up four points here, a goal and three assists. After going pointless in his first 15 games, Bennett has 15 points in 19 games. If you own him in a league with hits, you're laughing. It's nice to see him right the ship after the rough start to the year. 

Of course, all fantasy goodness was secondary to the health of Boeser. He had such an incredible start to his career. Let’s all hope it’s nothing serious.

*

The game of the night was Florida/Vegas, without a doubt.

Michael Matheson and Radim Vrbata scored less than two and a half minutes apart in the first period to get the Panthers out to a 2-0 lead. Nate Schmidt and Colin Miller replied for Vegas to give us a 2-2 game at the end of 20.

Erik Haula tipped home a Miller shot in the third period that would stand as the game-winner.

Jonathan Marchessault scored an empty-netter and added two assists, meaning he’s now a point-per-game player on the season with 29 points in 29 games.

I talked about it a couple weeks ago with regards to Miller, but one thing that has been fun to watch in Vegas this year is how guys who had been typically third-pairing guys for their careers are now performing in Vegas. Miller is absolutely crushing it in all facets; Nate Schmidt is having a rough year in the shot-share department, but is doing much better playing away from Luca Sbisa (surprise, surprise); Brayden McNabb is performing as expected, and even earned himself a new contract. Guys who couldn’t earn a top role in other spots are flourishing for the Golden Knights. I’m sure there’s a lesson to be learned here from league execs/managers, though we’ll see if they actually glean anything.

*

A bit of news regarding injuries to a few of New Jersey forwards. Taylor Hall skated with Nico Hischier in practice on Sunday, indicating his return to the lineup is imminent. He missed two games last week with a knee bruise, but looks ready to go for Monday’s game against Anaheim. Those in weekly leagues, don’t forget to activate him; with three home games and a relatively soft schedule (Ducks, Rangers, Blackhawks), you don’t want to leave him on the bench by accident.

Kyle Palmieri also skated on the top line with Hall and Hischier, which means he’s likely ready to return Monday after missing four weeks with a broken foot. Palmieri averaged 28 goals and 55 points over his first two years in New Jersey, and had showed promise skating on the top line earlier this year that he could repeat close to that level again. Like Hall, if you’re a weekly fantasy owner, it’s time to get him back into your lineup.

Marcus Johansson, on the other hand, appears to not be quite ready to make his way back into the starting lineup. He did practice with his team on Sunday, but skated as an extra, meaning he will likely miss at least one more game. He’s officially a game-time decision for Monday night.

*

An update on Logan Couture:

Logan Couture out tomorrow (at least) with a head injury, per DeBoer. Day to day

— Kevin Kurz (@KKurzNHL) December 17, 2017

Readers will remember that Couture left San Jose’s game against Vancouver in the third period after taking a hit to the head. As always, concussions are a fickle injury, and when Couture will be ready is anyone’s guess. It could be a couple games, a couple weeks, a couple months. There’s just no way to know.

With Couture out of the lineup, Chris Tierney moved up to the second line with Tomas Hertl while Kevin Labanc took Couture’s spot on the top power-play unit. In practice on Sunday, though, Hertl shifted to the middle of the second line with Labanc and Melker Karlsson on his flanks. My guess is that this is probably just a situation to avoid, and looking for a direct replacement for Couture from the Sharks roster is not advised.

*

Nikita Zaitsev was placed on injured reserve by the Leafs and Martin Marincin was called up to take his place. That will keep Zaitsev out until after the Christmas break, which is a break in itself for Toronto as the team only has three games in the next 10 days.

It has been a rough year offensively for the 26-year old, but he was still valuable in real-time stats leagues averaging nearly two hits and three blocked shots per game. It shouldn’t be too difficult to replace him on waiver wires, however. It depends how deep your league is, but a couple blue liners that can help replace Zaitsev’s production include Derek Forbort and Calvin de Haan. Keep an eye for more information today on de Haan, though, as he was seen in pain after the team’s overtime win on Saturday night. It may be nothing, but no need to pull the trigger on the waiver add just yet.  

*

Colorado could get Alex Kerfoot back tonight after missing a few games with a foot injury emanating from an unintentional blocked shot. On the season, Kerfoot has nine goals and 21 points in 29 games, with 10 of those points coming with the man advantage.

While this could be construed as a good thing for fantasy owners, it might be time to see what he can fetch in a trade. He’s averaging just over one shot on goal per game (seriously, he has 30 in 29 contests), and the team is shooting 12 percent with him on the ice at five-on-five. All his numbers are going to regress over the final 50 games of the season, and it could be severe. Anyone that took the chance on him with a late-round flyer in September should be looking to trade him now. You got as much value as you could have hoped for. It’s time to move on. 

from All About Sports http://www.dobberhockey.com/hockey-rambling/ramblings-vegas-jam-boeser-injured-laine-snipes-again-december-18/

[flauntpage]

Turf Guy, Bama-OSU, and the Joys of Bowl Season: The Weekend in College Football

Welcome to the final Weekend in College Football of the season. This week, we'll take you through everything you missed on Saturday (or, God forbid, Friday night), tell you the things worth learning, and look ahead to the College Football Playoff field. Enjoy.

1st and 10

Oklahoma steamrolled TCU 41-17, a nearly note-perfect recreation of the Sooners’ 38-20 triumph over the Horned Frogs on November 11th. The consistency is notable for two reasons.

First, the Sooners once again flashed their trademark balance on offense. Baker Mayfield was his usual, soon-to-be Heisman-winning self, efficient and ably spreading the ball across his receiving corps. Rodney Anderson ground out 93 yards, with Mayfield and Trey Sermon combining for 128 more. The offensive line, one of the country’s best, turned back Gary Patterson’s defense in both phases. By now, we’ve come to expect nothing less from what is far and away the best offense among the playoff field.

But it’s a second strong defensive performance that provides more optimism for a possible national championship run. As Sooner fans are well aware, Oklahoma has all the talent necessary to field a plus defense. Some of the individual cogs, such as sophomore linebacker Caleb Kelly, have flourished, too. But the unit ranked 100th in the S&P+ rankings heading into Saturday, which is embarrassingly low no matter how potent Big 12 offenses generally are across the board.

The Horned Frogs’ offense checked in at 45th, so the Sooners didn’t quite lock down one of the conference’s scariest attacks. Nevertheless, it was enough of a statement to beget optimism that Oklahoma can deliver on defense almost as well as they do on offense. Point blank: Two more strong defensive efforts probably means they’re winning the national title.

2nd and 8

The Sooners are the upside play, but Clemson is the safe bet.

Some of this, of course, is because they won it all last year and a not insignificant amount of that national championship team is back. The Tigers also have much of the Sooners’ offensive balance, if not their explosiveness, and augment that with the nastiest front seven in the country. The talent, production, intangibles, and resume—their one loss came when quarterback Kelly Bryant left early with a concussion—make Clemson the prohibitive favorites.

Still, confidence in the Tigers is inextricably tied to a belief that Bryant can drive an offense through an elite defense when the chips are down. DeShaun Watson did it last year and even his brilliance was barely enough to carry Clemson past Alabama. Now Bryant will be tasked with doing the same thing and, despite Watson’s proclamations to the contrary, the junior is not yet on par with the greatest quarterback in program history.

Still, Bryant’s potential is abundant, and his performance in the Tigers’ 38-3 demolition of Miami—23 of 29 for 252 yards and a touchdown—is an extremely promising tune-up. But if Alabama takes away the run game, will Bryant be ready? It comes down to timing, and whether he can develop into what Clemson needs him to be before it costs the Tigers a game.

Clip of the Week

Bronze: The play itself—the mechanics of it—are fairly mundane. USC senior linebacker Uchenna Nwosu bursts around an edge and drags Stanford’s Cameron Scarlett down by his shoelaces. Impressive, but not spectacular. It’s the context that elevates it.

Nwosu makes this stop on 4th and goal from the USC 1-yard-line with eight minutes remaining in the game and Trojans bleeding momentum. A few more inches and Scarlett delivers the Cardinal a 28-24 lead. Instead, it’s a turnover on downs and the Trojans march 99 yards for a game-sealing touchdown and their first conference title since 2008. Sam Darnold and Ronald Jones get many of the plaudits, but Nwosu was the hero on Friday night.

Silver: Speaking of big plays at crucial moments, Georgia’s coup de grâce came from true freshman tailback D’Andre Swift, the heir to Nick Chubb and Sony Michel’s throne in Athens. Swift was similarly regarded coming out of high school, but he has the edge on the upperclassmen—and most everyone else—in top-end speed. Case in point, this 64-yard bolt of lightning down the left sideline that even had Bulldogs coach Kirby Smart running along with him. Georgia went up 28-10, walling off any hope of an Auburn comeback.

Gold: Given how TCU got flattened by Oklahoma, the Horned Frogs’ John Diarse can’t match these last two in dramatics. No, this is about pure aesthetics and degree of difficulty. Here’s why the last week of the regular season delivered one of the very best catches of the year:

3rd and 1

Georgia’s 28-7 win over Auburn in the SEC Championship Game was a clinic in what the Bulldogs do best: pounding opponents into submission, both with a deep, physical defense and a hydra of running backs on offense. There is no transcendent strength on par with Oklahoma’s offensive skill position talent or Clemson’s front four, but Georgia’s offense is far less of a question than the Sooners’ defense, and while true freshman Jake Fromm carries many of the same questions as Bryant, he also has a much stronger TD:INT ratio (19:5) and his running backs are far more established.

Think of the Bulldogs as a faster, more dynamic Wisconsin. Opposing teams know what’s coming but there’s still the matter of actually stopping it. Except, unlike the Badgers, Georgia dispatched more than enough opponents to verify that their strategy is the real deal.

As is the case with Clemson and Bryant, the best hope of beating the Bulldogs will be to take away the run and force Fromm to win with his arm, something Auburn achieved when they defeated Georgia in their first matchup back in November. Also like Bryant, Fromm boasts superstar potential—but while Bryant gets thrown into the fire against Alabama, Fromm has a date with the softest defense in the playoff field. If his play takes a jump against a vulnerable Sooners secondary, the Bulldogs could play for their first national title since 1980.

Punt

On dissecting the debate for the final playoff spot, because the anticlimactic truth is that Alabama and Ohio State each had a case making the field.

For Crimson Tide, it’s the fact that, for the overwhelming majority of the season, Alabama looked like the best team in the country, and their only loss came on the road against a top-ten team. They’ll also enter the postseason healthier than they’ve been since September, with Mack Wilson, Christian Miller, and Terrell Lewis set to bolster a decimated linebacking corps.

An Alabama–Clemson rubber match will also be catnip for television ratings, which almost certainly played a role in this outcome. But there’s ample reason to believe that the Tide offer the best hope of giving Clemson a really great game, not only on account of the last two season but because Alabama is the most balanced team in the field. Everything I said about taking away the Clemson run game and forcing Kelly Bryant to throw? Yeah, Alabama can do that.

But Auburn provided a blueprint for defeating Nick Saban just last week, and Clemson’s defensive front combined with Bryant’s efficiency—his 67.4 percent completion percentage ranked sixth nationally—give Dabo Swinney the tools to stem the Tide for a second straight season.

Player Who Deserves to Be Paid This Week

For the second week in a row, undefeated UCF needed quarterback McKenzie Milton to go blow for blow with another highly regarded signal caller. Once again, Milton led the Knights to victory. Memphis’ Riley Ferguson was nearly as good in Saturday’s frenetic 62-55 AAC Championship Game, but Milton was just a tad better, completing 28 of 40 passes for 494 yards and five touchdowns.

Soon after the game ended, UCF coach Scott Frost was announced as the new head man at Nebraska, where he’ll earn $5 million annually. It’s only fair he donates some of it to his now-former quarterback.

Coach Who Does Not Groundskeeper Who Does

There was no egregiously bad coaching performance on this week’s short slate, so let’s keep things light and pay homage to Eric Harlow, the humble groundskeeper at Lucas Oil Stadium.

Late in the fourth quarter of the Big Ten Championship Game, Wisconsin’s Chris James scored a one-yard touchdown so violent it literally ripped the turf off the ground. The game must go on, so in stepped Harlow, the Winston Wolf of faux horticulture, who proceeded to pour on rubber pellets and do field triage for the next ten or so minutes as a capacity crowd plus millions of people on television watched him work. You could argue that it’s the most high-pressure field-repair job in football history. (I do not have a list of other contenders, don’t @ me.)

If this does not merit a performance bonus, I don’t know what does.

Obscure College Football Team of Note

One of the chief casualties of the College Football Playoff’s hegemony is a tendency to downplay the significance of what a bowl game, any old bowl game, can mean. On Saturday, New Mexico State issued a heartwarming reminder.

The Aggies entered the week needing a win over South Alabama to clinch bowl eligibility for the first time in 57 years. Here is an obligatory list of notable American events in 1960, the year they last made it:

John F. Kennedy announced his presidential campaign

Joanne Woodward received the first-ever star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame

The U.S. sent more troops to Vietnam

Ben-Hur won best picture at The Oscars

You get the picture. Consequently, you can empathize a bit when, following NMSU’s 22-17 win, the Aggie faithful stormed the field and head coach Doug Martin cried during his postgame interview. And, as fate would have it, NMSU’s opponent in the NOVA Home Loans Arizona Bowl is none other than another set of Aggies: Utah State, who remarkably enough was NMSU’s opponent all the way back in that last bowl appearance in 1960.

Bowl are great and don’t let anyone try to convince you otherwise. Speaking of…

Something to Look Forward To

Bowl season. A month’s worth of football, in varying shapes and stakes and times. Some of them will be memorable; many more won’t be. There will be goofy sponsors and exotic matchups and at least a few memorable performances. Even in the low moments, bowl season is the best college football has to offer. Take a cue from New Mexico State and make sure to savor it.

Turf Guy, Bama-OSU, and the Joys of Bowl Season: The Weekend in College Football published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv