#this is getting posted later but as of now I have like. 170 wins

[seltzher-bottel]

Cosmo Kuiper My Beloved

[azrakaban]

A Little Longer - Mattheo Riddle X GN!Reader

A/N: OH MY GOODNESS ME. Sorry I've taken such a long break from writing, if I told you all the things that have happened in the past two months you honestly wouldn't believe me LMAO

Warnings: cursing, yelling, soft Mattheo I think? lmk if i missed anything xxx 

Note! I tried to make this as gender neutral as possible, if I've messed up anywhere, please feel free to correct me! But please do it nicely guys <3

The wind nipped at your face, chilly and biting as you wrapped your scarf tighter around your face. You forced your eyes to look into the swirling sky, where your poor boyfriend, Mattheo, sat frozen to his broom. 

Watching house Quidditch games was the highlight of every month for Hogwarts, but it made it supremely less enjoyable when the weather was unpleasant. And, as a particularly dark cloud decided to let fall a rainstorm, it became decidedly worse.

You craned your neck back to watch him above you, barely hearing whispers of what he was saying as he yelled instructions to his team members. 

Mattheo had been pushing the team hard all season - it being his first year as captain, he did not want to disappoint. You rememered the long suffering look Enzo gave you in the common room when Mattheo was dragging your friends out to train at 7am. 

As you watched, Astoria flew over your head, flanked by two Gryffindor chasers, who managed to throw her off, causing her to drop the Quaffle. She swore, sighing as they sped up towards the Slytherin goalpost before giving chase, but not quick enough to reclaim the Quaffle before another goal was put through the post, making the score 20 - 230 

You noticed Mattheo's expression darken further, and sighed. He would likely be in a bad mood later. 

Your eye was then caught by a sudden burst of movement on the other side of the pitch, where Potter and Draco were neck and neck in a dive for the Snitch. 

Draco raised his hand, victorious with the snitch clutched in his hand, yet the Gryffindor end exploded in cheers. With the score now at 170 - 230, Gryffindor had still won by a large margin. 

The Slytherins around you were all sighing and shaking their heads as they all made their  way out of the stadium. You had agreed to meet Mattheo at the Slytherin locker room, so you made your way there.

 As you approached the door though, you heard yelling. Pushing it slightly ajar, Blaise caught your eye and mimed cutting his head off quickly, clealy telling you to leave. You nodded, leaving swiftly and heading back to your empty dorm. 

About 45 minutes later, Mattheo turned up in your dorm, hair slightly damp from the shower, and, spotting you, promptly came over and lay his head in your lap. 

"Heya bubs." You smiled slightly, looking down at him. "Hey." He mumbled dejectedly.

"We lost." He groaned, messing up his curls. You lifted a hand and started gently playing with them. "Yeah, this time. But there are still going to be other games, you don't lose everything from this game, okay?" You replied soothingly. 

"But it was our first game, my first game as captain, and I blew it. I pushed them too hard, and I blew it." He sighed. "I wanted to win this for them, to prove that I could do this, be responsible, make it work. And it just..." He lifted a hand and let it drop onto your sheets. "I failed them, and it's not even their fault. I yelled at Draco for catching the snitch, even though that was the best thing to do..." 

"You didn't fail your team." You interrupted him. "Sure, you lost a game, Mattheo, but all captains lose games! It's part of playing, you make mistakes, and you learn from them. PLus, you guys were playing into the wind, the Gryffindors had the weather behind them. Now, if you wanna say that the weather is your fault, you're gonna start sounding a little self centered..." You giggled slightly, and an amused huff escaped Mattheo. 

"Yeah yeah, okay, I get it." The pressure lifted off your thighs as Mattheo moved to sit back against your pillows, opening his arms for you. "C'mere sweetheart, wanna hold you, please." He asked, giving you puppy eyes. 

You immediately caved and moved forward towards him, letting him cuddle you like a teddy bear. 

"Thank you."  He sighed after a few moments of holding you, drawing patterns on your back with a fingertip. "What for, silly?" You looked at him, confused. He chuckled slightly. 

"Grounding me, not thinking I'm a dick, just being an all round awesome person to date?" He shrugged. "For letting me rant about this shit." He squeezed you slightly. 

"No worries, idiot." You smiled, kissing his cheek. He gasped in mock horror. 

"Idiot? That's what you call your suffering boyfriend? WOW, okay, WOW, I see how it is." Mattheo mock glared at you, gently shoving you away. 

"Aw come on, don't be like that." You laughed slightly as he pulled you back into his arms. 

"I should go apologise for being a Class A dick to the team shouldn't I?" He sighed, looking at you. 

"Yeah, probably." You nodded, squeezing his hand. Hd pulled you a little closer. 

"Not yet though. Wanna keep holding you just a little longer..." He muttered, pulling you back into the nest of pillows with him.

A/N: Writing was shit, may delete later <3 Sorry for this miserable attempt at feeding u hungry people, love you all!

[theanticool]

Lately ive been seeing multiple top ten lists that squeeze in kamaru usman at number 9 or 10. Do you think this is a fair assessment or recency bias? I feel like having 2 of his title defenses against bum ass Masvidal kinda works against his legacy. Obviously usman is a much more complete well rounded fighter than izzy hut i think theres an argument to be made Izzy had a better level of competition. I wonder if one of Usmans victims (strickland) becoming mw champ is whats propelling him to top ten status since what seemed like a random win at the time is now aging extremely well

Yeah, sadly half of Usman’s titles wins (Colby 2, Masvidal 2, and Woodley) aged really poorly. TBF the Masvidal and Colby rematches were crap from the jump. Woodley went on to lose every round of MMA he fought after Usman and threw like 10 punches combined. I do think the first Masvidal and Colby wins (+Burns) are worth a lot but if we’re holding those up as Usman’s big career wins? How do they match up against the best wins of Fedor, Silva, GSP, Aldo, Holloway, Volk, DJ, Jones, DC, Lawler, Khabib, Alvarez, Poirier, TJ, Cruz, McGregor, Islam, Do Bronx, BJ, Edgar, Stipe, Whittaker, or Izzy (I’m leaving a lot of names out). I just don’t think the wins are there to be honest. I also don’t give Usman too much credit for his win over Strickland because this is the same guy who was losing to Zaleski dos Santos and Ponz at 170lbs. Good fighters but not on anyone’s top 30 greatest fighters in WW history. Sean’s best win at 170 is arguably Nordine Taleb.

The story of Usman’s title reign was one of rebirth and gridlock at welterweight imo. Lawler, Woodley, Condit, and Wonderboy were aging out. Hendricks ate his way out 170. Then you had guys like Usman and Colby coming up on the old guard (Maia, Woodley, RDA) while Masvidal just so happened to get hot at the right moment off beating a guy who had heat but wasn’t as good as we thought (Till) and a loudmouth meme generator with a nonfunctional hip (Askren).

But guys like Leon, Belal, and - to a lesser extent - Rakhmonov, Chimaev, etc were kind of left on the outside looking in. Once Colby and Masvidal established themselves as contenders and stars(?), they did not interact with anyone else again. For as good as they had been on the rise, I’d argue neither Colby or Masvidal ever solidified themselves in real Max Holloway/Robert Whittaker “I’m going to be at worst the #3 fighter in this division for a long time” way. And it’s still a thing we are dealing with years later. It took Leon and Belal like 10 fights with no losses to get a title fight. And Belal only just got his this year! That’s insane. He came up at the same time as Colby and Usman! With no immediate stars at 170, we’re probably back to guys getting to mix it up across the rankings so I’m happy the division is finally out of gridlock. The logjam seems to have passed.

Another knock against Usman is he hasn’t really had anything to show in his post-prime. When Aldo, Holloway, and Whittaker, for example, lost their titles? They proceeded to come back and just start picking off contenders. Taking big fight after big fight. To his credit, I thought Usman looked good in his fight with Chimaev for the circumstances he found himself in. I think he might still have some gas in the tank. A couple big name wins would really boost his resume.

But ultimately? ATG list are subjective. I don’t think the welterweight division has gotten significantly better since the days of GSP like some of these other divisions have, but that’s my opinion. I do think you’re correct about recency bias though. A lot of modern MMA fans don’t actually know anything about the sport pre-2019 though

[aforrestofstuff]

Chapter 170 Expert Review

Garou said he liked a woman. People died.

Not me though lmao y'all take it easy!! I wanted to die earlier this week though because I got a haircut and they fucked my shit up severely but I'll get through it ok. I won't get any bitches but it'll be okay, I just gotta stay strong. (<- typed with tears in my eyes)

My schedule in doing these reviews has gone to shit because a lot of the time I just have absolutely zero opinions on new chapters... or entirely negative ones. And I don't wanna make a post that's just 100% negativity, y'know? Gotta balance it out. Gotta have the vanilla and the chocolate.

With that being said,

fuck the MA arc lmfao so glad that shit is over god bless amen i love you jesus!!!!!!

Nice cover. The perspective bothers me a bit, especially since Genos' feet are exactly the same size when one is below the other but it's FINE, okay. (<- also typed with tears in my eyes) (for legal reasons this is a joke i genuinely like this cover and i think it's swag)

But I'm being dramatic. The MA (Monster Association) arc wasn't all bad. There were little pockets of joy in between the seemingly pointless fighting chapters and that kinda solidified my opinion as this being the most "meh" arc in this manga thus far, and I'll elaborate on that. If you don't wanna read my neckbeard rant on the MA arc, you can go ahead and scroll down to my next bullet point. It's nothing I haven't said already. Just wanna preface it with the fact that these are my opinions and you're entitled to your own feelings. Hell, if you love the MA arc, I'll suck you dry right here right now! Just don't suibait me for disliking it hehe thnx &lt;3

I think the manga is at its best when it's character-centric, as I'm sure that's why so many people love it to begin with. Those little chapters with Badd and King slingshotting themselves to the fight and the tanktoppers and other heroes running out of the hospital were honestly some of my favorites!! Everything else was just... kinda muddled together. A giant fight filled with smaller fights in an arc that takes up over half of the manga's current 170-chapter run yet takes place all in one night. So much happened, but it also feels like nothing happened. And in a way--nothing did, because ONE is allergic to committing to whatever hole he's dug himself into.

ONE purposefully backtracks on character-defining moments like the two fake-out deaths: Tanktop Master and Genos. Aside from it just being cheap, he treats death like a corner to write himself out of instead of an opportunity to shift the narrative and add a major risk factor, to which there was none. It was boring. Borderline infuriating, actually. Why even have so many fights just to show the good guy winning in a slightly different way every time?

It was especially jarring when Saitama time-traveled back and forgot all the shit that happened in the fight with Garou (which took 8 giant chapters, by the way). So why even do all that just for Genos' core and the Ominous Future to MAYBE crop up as a plot device later? Why elongate an already stupidly long arc with something that could've been achieved in a much shorter, simpler way?

There were over 20 redraws. Some of them were just Murata fixing some things he wanted to, which is fine, but then you have things like bringing back the mercenaries, bringing back Do-S, and retconning the Saitama sit-down arc, and it's just... confusing. It's confusing as a reader and I'm sure it was also confusing as a writer because it definitely gives the impression that ONE was in the office throwing darts at a board to see what happens next. It's like... does he even know what's going on? Why are we planting so many seeds for future plot points now, when the current plot is already plenty convoluted (yet, simultaneously lacking substance in favor of pretty pages)? CANT THIS FUCKING WAIT TILL LATER--

Whatever. It's over now. I hope it gets more ironed out in print. I'm just frustrated with this because OPM is supposed to be a satire of the shonen/seinen/whateverthefuck genre, yet ONE keeps allowing it to have the same narrative pitfalls as most others. (Also the same homophobic and racist tropes--can't just do like 80% of the same things as the genre you're claiming to satirize and say you're any different, ATP.)

Murata said he'd be taking a month-long break and good for him. Hope he parties hella hard.

TLDR: I think the MA arc is too long, the pacing sucks, too many fights, not enough substance. also drive knight is still a punk ass. also I think the time travel was stupid and I'm afraid ONE is gonna use it to weasel his way out of more consequences for his characters in the future but anyway,

In my rant about the MA arc, I completely forgot about the actual chapter I'm making this review about. I had to go back and re-read it. Anyways, fuck yeah character interactions! I love when people be talking to each other n shit! fuck yeah! woo! characters! love em! love guys!

this makes 0 sense but this is the most Garou that Garou has looked in years. I mean, over time Murata's art style has changed and that's just groovy, man! But I kinda missed his stupid little evil face. I wanna hit him with my car.

I was waiting and praying and creaming my pants to see him with short hair but that just... never happened. I'm not mad. We got to see him and Silverfang be the most dysfunctional pussy-eating uncle/bitchless nephew combo ever and that's just priceless, but it makes me curious how his whole redemption thing is gonna turn out, if it even happens. Because if this is it then... it's a bit underwhelming. I thought there'd be more introspection and humbling other than Garou just saying "Fuck y'all, I'm suicidal!" in front of everyone before leaping fifty feet into the air, meditating under a waterfall for an undetermined amount of time, and getting bonked over the head with a closed fist (which is illegal everywhere, btw. Silverfang prison arc when? /j)

What I mean is, Garou did a lot! A lot of bad stuff! Lots of bad things! And for that to be mended offscreen is... a weird choice. But I guess this is where Genos' core is gonna crop up later, my man's gonna make the callout post of the century: Garou Whooped My Ass In The Multiverse: Part 1 of 97, which is gonna send Garou spiraling and then he's gonna get humbled the only way he can be humbled! Working minimum wage. Because beating his ass to the point of him wanting to get laid out like carpet in the ruins of City Z just wasn't enough.

I like Garou. He's a cool character. I wanna kiss him on the lips.

I give ONE a lot of shit for his dubious writing decisions but he did well with Garou. That's it. That's all the praise I'm giving him.

This dude really tried to give Bang the ol' "you're not my dad!" Nice try, fuckhead. He's still got legal custody of you until you're 35 because you can't go 10 minutes unsupervised.

lmfao this dude's parents dont love him lmfaoooo what a loser lmfaooooooooooooo

I was right when I said Garou had mommy issues in that one fanfic I wrote over a year ago that I forgot the name of but I was right and everyone needs to know that for some reason or else I'll die

Anyways, it's nice to see Bang be a nice parental figure. I would call him a father figure but that ship sailed 50 years ago. My man is a grandfather figure. My man's an ancient figure. My man's an archaeological-find figure. My man's a 2-years-from-the-urn figure.

This dude beat so many of his own disciples' asses I was worried his first instinct upon finding Garou again would be to whoop him into silly putty, but I'm glad he's approaching it with kindness. This kinda goes in line with why Garou likes the girl he likes (whether it be as a crush or as a role model-esque kinda admiration, I don't fucking know nor do I care) because she's kind. I guess deep down, he knows it must take true strength to be kind in a world full of cruelty.

Also, I love how absolutely emotionally constipated he is to where he doesn't even know how to reply to Silverfang waxing poetic about being a parent. Motherfucker just yanked that shit right out before it sunk in and went "Ha! This is gay." I love you Garou. Never change-- actually, please change. On GOD we gonna get you therapy bro on my MOMMA you are gonna grow as a person !!!

Additional observations:

-Garou is so dorito-shaped here smh where's my slim-thicc king at, huh. Where's my wide hip representation?

-Adding on to what I said about Murata's art style evolving over time, one thing I'm kinda iffy on is how he's been drawing Garou a lot buffer on the top half lately. I also don't really like his shoulder muscles looking like padding lmfao. I mean, that could also be attributed to the extra training he got (and maybe Silverfang is actually feeding him 3 square dog kibble meals a day now since he wanna act a furry) so idk, take me back and shoot me between the eyes if I'm wrong.

-I know Silverfang is hunching over (probably from playing too much League of Legends, smh) but Garou is still so tall!!!

I know this fuckhead's immune system has gotta be benching 480 just from the monster arm he ate that one time, but how he is not worried about some kinda infection crawling up his bare asshole underneath that nasty ass river water just amazes me. Maybe that's why he's always clenching.

Garou: hey, fuck off you old shit! I'll kill you!

Garou: let me in ur house though? and train me? and feed me? pls? pls pls pls?

GUYYSSS HE INTENTIONALLY WENT TO THE WATERFALL BANG SHOWED HIM BECAUSE HE WANTED TO BE FOUND EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!! He wants to be loved so bad ouuuugghhh he just wants affection ouuugughhhghhghuuhuh

And then he's emotionally constipated about it again because he tells SIlverfang he just wanted to perfect his "fist" which like, sure okay buddy you definitely didn't wanna freeload off air conditioning and dog kibble and perhaps even receive the parental affection you were starved of. okay yeah sure whatever.

"I'm gonna do the same" yeah until your ass gets EXPOSED in a 5-hour youtube documentary Genos is gonna upload to his 3 billion subscribers, you little scrub.

All the kids are friends! They're friends and they're besties and they're so nice to each other and I'm gonna dunk em all in my coffee.

I read "sentai" as hentai at first and almost went into cardiac arrest.

This page is so funny. "So, Garou, you've been normal for two days. you got a bitch yet?"

This whole thing reads as him pulling out some random name just to make Silverfang shut up. I've said this already but someone on Twitter said he brought it up so he can infodump about his favorite show, and that seems really plausible because he soon goes "Lemme tell you some shit about sentai, old man."

Also, the way he says "...or something?" to make it seem like he doesn't know literally everything about his favorite actress in his favorite show like, okay. We know you've got her horoscope and birthday bouncing around in that tiny ass head, you fucker. We know you read all the nerd-equivalents to those Cosmo mags about what kinda people she admires.

I love that he's a nerd, but we already knew that. He absorbed his entire worldview from cartoons and got relentlessly bullied at school--what's nerdier than that? And it's certainly no secret that he's pretty juvenile. Garou's just a lonely little kid in a body too big for his brain.

And the people saying Garou "liking" a girl (which again, it isn't even made clear which way Garou likes her) makes him straight are 1. incorrect (bi, ace, aro, etc people exist) and 2. unaware of the fact that I will draw him kissin boys until that little fucker turns to dust okay. I do not give a shit. Every time someone complains about it, I imagine him kissin a boy 5 more times. Suck my ass.

In conclusion: Kiiro ("...or something?") is actually pretty cute haha mrow. trust me girl, whatever you got lined up aint nothing to me haha i can treat you RIGHT (after my hair grows out)

In conclusion 2.0: Rover is definitely showing up again soon also, which is cool. Good chapter. Love characters! woo! love it! Finally, the evil is defeated (MA arc) woo! yay! yeah! fuck!

Thanks for reading! Tomorrow's my birthday (august 21st)! I'll be 21! You all have to wish me happy birthday or i swear to god ill start crying

[theuniversitychallengereview]

UC 50 Grand Final - Warwick vs Magdalene, Cam

In the world of sports a Grand Final is defined as ‘a game that decides a sport’s league’s premiership (or championship) winning team, i.e. the conclusive game of a finals (or play-off) series’. It is most commonly used in Australian sports and is synonymous with the championship game in North American Sports - e.g. the NBA Finals or the Superbowl. British rugby league adopted the term for its season ending affair in 1998.

The commonality between all of these examples is that the Grand Final comes at the end of a league tournament, after which some number of the highest ranking teams take part in a knockout tournament to determine the season champion. Even with its complicated quarter-final format, University Challenge is a knockout tournament from the start, with no semblance of a league at any point. There does exist the possibility that the finalists could have played each other prior to meeting in the final, as has happened this year with Warwick beating Magdalene 200-160 in the quarters, but that hasn’t always been the case. 

All of this is just to say that in the case of University Challenge, the use of ‘grand’ seems to be purely adjectival rather than providing supplemental information regarding the competition format as it does in these other cases. Not that I’m going to quibble with it, tonight’s final is undoubtedly going to be Grand.

For the second year in a row, after six consecutive appearances by various colleges, we have no Oxford team in the final. The two finalists certainly had something to say in that matter, with Warwick dispatching two Oxonian quartets - Wolfson and Merton - and Magdalene three - University, Corpus Christi and Balliol. Warwick won the whole thing in 2007, beating the reigning champions from Manchester, while Magdalene’s sole apperance in the Grand Final was a loss to Sidney Sussex back in 1978.

Warwick arrive in the Grand Final as slight favourites, courtesy of the unbeaten run that took them there, including their aforementioned defeat of tonight’s Cantabrigian opponents. Their average score of 201 is actually slightly lower than Magdalene’s 202, but they hadn’t looked troubled until their semi-final against Imperial. 

Magdalene have produced two of the most impressive performances of the series, beating Birkbeck 240-140 in the quarters and annihilating Balliol 270-50 in the semis, and (stats taken from @StatsUC on Twitter) rank first of all teams in bonus question percentage, correctly answering 128, or 71%, of the 170, they have faced thus far. Warwick have an inferior percentage of 59%, but rank higher on the starter question league table (Magdalene have averaged more of those too, though with a lower percentage, suggesting that Warwick have been involved in slower matches).

Another interesting statistic is that Magdalene Captain Lawson, with six, has twice as many incorrect interruptions as the entire Warwick team so far. He is Magdalene’s best buzzer, and will likely have to take some risks to overcome Warwick’s superiority in that respect. If these risks pay off, and he is able to steal a few starter questions early on, I think Magdalene will have a far bigger chance of taking home the trophy. The first set of questions pre-first picture round will be pivotal.

Whoever wins, or rather, has won, by the time you’re reading this, its been another terrific series of The Challenge. The fact that they weren’t able to get the filming done at the usual time because of Covid, and then had to come back in later to record most of the episodes with plastic screen dividers makes me even more grateful to have been able to watch the show this year. We all needed that slice of normality on a Monday night, and what could me more normal than watching a bunch of nerds answering questions about complex organic molecules or Byzantine emperors?

Anyway, that’s enough sappiness, here’s your first starter for ten...

Warwick’s Burrell is the only one who has put any effort into their Grand Final attire, and is rocking an awesome floral shirt. Lawson comes in early with love, but he is wrong, and my flowery boy Burrell scoops up the points with hell. Only one bonus follows, but they are twenty points clear courtesy of Lawson’s neg. 

Braid takes the second starter, and Rout remembers Burrell’s surname (which he had failed to do in the closing moments of their semi-final) to nominate him on two of the bonuses, of which they take three. The funky shirt must be providing Mr Burrell with some extra knowledge on top of the chilled out vibes, because he takes his second of the night. 

Magdalene manage to get off the mark with the first picture starter, and a full set on grid references takes them up to twenty points. No one gets a starter on cavitation, before Burrell grabs his third starter! He’d averaged 1.4 in their previous five games! 

There’s a second starter for Braid, before Rout wonders aloud whether ‘this is another example of us not knowing the popular culture’, in relation to a bonus set on vampire films. They miss Only Lovers Left Alive and A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night, but get Let The Right One In, so they’re not entirely ignorant. 

Davies snaffles some more points for Magdalene, and then both sides miss the music starter, before Davies takes another to win the music bonuses for Cambridge. They are only forty points behind now. Davies completes a hat-trick of consecutive starters with Fox and Hedgehog, based on a clue about Jemima Puddleduck. We’re down to twenty points...

Braid gets his third starter, before an excellent bit of flagwork from Byrne allows Magdalene to close to within ten points. A neg halts their momentum and Rout swoops in to drag Warwick forty clear again. Magdalene can’t afford any more slip ups, but Lawson isn’t able to identify a Titian painting on the second picture starter, allowing Braid in to steal. A couple of bonuses put Warwick sixty ahead, and one feels as though Magdalene may have missed their opportunity. 

In what could possibly be the most unfortunate incorrect interruption of all time, given the state of play in the match in which it occurred, Davies buzzes in with Bannerman Campbell rather than Campbell Bannerman, losing five points instead of gaining ten, and surely confirming Warwick as champions. It seems harsh, but in the end he was wrong, and he looks devastated.

Lawson buzzes frantically on the last starter of the year, and gets it right with a defiant shout of glucagon, but the gong sounds immediately afterwards, and Warwick have won.

Final Score: Warwick 195 - 140 Magdalene, Cam

Another fantastic match to end the series! Congratulations to Warwick on a flawless campaign, and commiserations to Magdalene, who were brilliant throughout as well. Like I said before, this has been another excellent series of UC, and has helped to keep me sane throughout the year. Roll on the next series...

The gap between the sides was 55 points, but this can be almost entirely attributed to the Campbell Bannerman Bannerman Campbell mixup. Warwick gained 20 points and Mags lost five. Had Davies got the names the right way round, and then the same two bonuses as Warwick the points swing would have been forty five. Not quite enough to turn the tide, but it would have been mighty close.

Thanks for reading this blog over the whole series. It means a lot that people continue to consume and engage with the silly ramblings I post, and I look forward to coming back for the new series, whenever that happens. 

In the meantime, if you enjoy what you read here and want to support the blog, or more importantly can’t wait a few months for some more UC content, I have a Patreon where I’ve been reviewing the 2015/16 series. You can sign up here, for as little as £1/month. 

[snkpolls]

SnK Episode 71 Poll Results (for Manga Readers)

The poll closed with 176 responses. Thank you to everyone who participated!

Please note that these are the results for the Manga Readers’ poll. If you wish to see the results for the Anime Only Watchers’ poll, click here.

--

RATE THE EPISODE 172 responses

This week’s episode keeps up the high mark of the previous episodes, with 98.8% of respondents giving the episode a score of 3 or higher (overwhelmingly 4s and 5s). Nice!

It was aight. 

It's cool

8.5/10 

great!

Very rocky imo in terms of animation, as the cracks are beginning to show but overall look like the backgrounds and music choices were top tier.

Really good episode, I was disappointed in the jacket scene but it’s not the end of the world

loved it

It was overall a great episode I loved it. 

🔥🔥🔥

WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING MOMENTS WAS YOUR FAVORITE? 174 responses

46.6% of respondents overall were most excited to see Eren meeting up with Floch and the others, with 23.6% of those respondents favoring the scene of Eren putting on his jacket specifically. 12.1% most enjoyed seeing the angry citizens shouting out the Survey Corps motto. 9.8% were thrilled to see Zackley’s death animated. 8% were psyched to see Pieck in disguise at the end, and 6.9% most enjoyed the moment where Hitch caught Armin red-handed trying to touch Annie’s crystal.

YOUR REACTION TO EREN PUTTING ON HIS JACKET? 171 responses

Eren putting on his jacket was a scene many obsessed over when it first appeared on page and many looked forward to seeing it animated. Most of the response choices were focused on various forms of swooning over Eren and his abs. Some (13.5%) stated that they didn’t really understand the dramatism and some others (another 13.5%) simply stated that they did not see much in Eren outright. We’ve gotten a lot of write-ins about comparisons to the pre-animated trailer shot of said scene. More on that in a later question. 

i mean i understand the thirst, but eh

Prefer manga :/

The trailer did it better 

Meh. Better in the trailer and the manga.

TF was that? Well it's still good in its own way. 

YES! YES! YES! YES! Y E S! 

both "HOOOOOLYYYYYY 😳" and "so dramatic and for what?"

Trailer/Manga shot was way better

Manga shot/trailer version are way better. Dissapointed

Trailer looked better :(

Mappa only made Reiner thicc, why Eren is so frain he has 1,85! He is so strong in the manga

I don't care

Manbun.........👀

He can have my babies anytime 😌💅🏻

Not as sexy as advertised; that’s okay, though.

That scene looked weird af ngl. It looked better in the trailer 😔

Me after THAT eren scene: 🤰🏻🤰🏻🤰🏻

Eren makes my dick rise

ON A SCALE OF 1-5, HOW HAPPY ARE YOU NOW THAT WE APPEAR TO BE GOING BACK TO LEVI AND ZEKE’S PERSPECTIVE NEXT WEEK FOR A BIT? 171 responses

Levi and Zeke’s chemistry has been the subject of praise for many, so it’s no wonder that 87.1% of respondents are rather excited to get back to seeing Levi and Zeke again. Wow!

ARE ARMIN’S FEELINGS FOR ANNIE GENUINELY HIS OWN? 173 responses

Armin’s feelings for Annie have been looked at under a microscope for a variety of reasons, which is why we’re asking if you believe that his feelings for her are genuine. A plurality, 49.1% think that they’re a mixture of his feelings for her, as well Bertolt’s. Slightly less (30.6%) believe that Armin’s feelings for her existed since before any of the recent developments. Only a select few believe that he either became interested in her post-timeskip or that his feelings are solely influenced by Bertolt. One person doesn’t think Armin has any feelings for Annie at all. And a few others just don’t care.

Bertmin simping for Annie and that apparently being enough for her to start considering him as boyfriend material is the fucking worst. I hate this shit. It's made me like both characters considerably less.

Uhh Armin where ya reaching?! 

He was interested with her even before it was revealed she was the Female Titan and now that he has Bertholdt's memories, he sympathizes with her too and wants to understand her more so maybe Bert's memories intensified his feelings

His feelings for Annie are mostly his own. Bert's feelings might be in there a little, but the feelings are still Armin's.

CONTINUITY ALERT! EREN HAS HIS HAIR UP IN A BUN IN YELENA’S FLASHBACK. THOUGHTS? 173 responses

Uh-oh, Eren’s hairstyle moment. It would appear that there might be a continuity error with Yelena’s flashback and whatever that means for the timeline. A slight plurality (37%) didn’t seem to care about this, actually. But 33.5% appeared to believe that it was a mistake on MAPPA’s part that might get fixed in the BluRay version of the episode. 16.8% also believe that it was a mistake, but don’t believe it’ll get fixed. 9.8% think that it’s actually a retcon and that Eren’ll have the man bun when Chapter 123 gets adapted in Final Season Part 2.  

I hope it gets fixed because it's bugging me.

I really wish it was like how it was in the manga. Eren looks good with his hair down in his 16-17-year-old phase. Despite the error, it wasn't a deal breaker for the episode.

He looks totally gorgeous with his hair up in a bun, please let this mistake be

Honestly I don’t mind it. It looks great either way.

Eren in a manbun is a total win for me!

WHICH PIECES OF INFORMATION MISSING FROM YELENA’S ADMISSION IN THE MANGA DO YOU WISH WOULD HAVE BEEN INCLUDED IN THE ADAPTATION? 163 responses

As with almost all dialogue-heavy chapters in this series, there are cuts. In this episode, these cuts mostly affected the conversation between Yelena and Pixis. The most yearned for cut material was Yelena never telling Eren to go along with the plan and Yelena saying that she used Floch as a “go-between” between her and Eren. Others also noted missing lines about Yelena wanting Eren to stand up for himself, Yelena stating that Zeke gave the volunteers a hopeful future and the idea that her and Eren came to quick agreement. The plurality (31.9%) however, didn’t seem to mind any cuts. 

WHAT ARE YOU OVERALL FEELINGS ABOUT SOME OR ALL OF THE AFOREMENTIONED DETAILS BEING CUT? 161 responses

There is often a sort of expectation to have everything (or almost every) line from the manga adapted in the anime, so it’s interesting to see how people react to that sort of stuff. An almost 50% of respondents stated that they didn’t really care about the cuts, whereas smaller handfuls of respondents stated that the cuts either took away from the characterization of the conversation, or from the context and timeline-building purposes. 

I'm not thrilled about the cuts, but I understand MAPPA can only fit so much in on each episode, so I'm okay with it

the yelena/volunteers plot has always been wonky and hard to follow

I don’t think it’s a problem, they need to cut certain things. 

i literally never notice but i agree that it makes it harder to piece things together 

Meh

It might seem for anime watchers that Yelena didnt do much, and Floch and Zeke that did the most part, in their own plans. Floch to betray and Zeke in predicting Eren wouldnt be on his side in some way. Yelena helped Zeke a lot to where he arrived in the rumbling 

All of the above

ZACKLEY WALKS OVER TO HIS TORTURE MACHINE IN THE ANIME BEFORE MIKASA ASKS WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO EREN, RATHER THAN GLANCE OVER AT IT AFTER HER QUESTION. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE CHANGE? 170 responses

There was a partially comedic insinuation in the manga that Zackley thought about strapping Eren to his “art piece”. The insinuation is possibly still there in the anime, but in a different form. So we asked how you felt about it. Slightly below a half (48.8%) stated that they thought the subtlety was still there. 18.8% thought the subtlety was lost with the small change and 8.8% believed the change made Zackley seem less unhinged. 21.8% really didn’t care at all. 

Why is this a question?

The glance was funny as fuck in the manga, but might have been awkward to pull of in the animation

They're blown up tho, does it even matter?

DID EREN KNOW ABOUT THE BOMB? 170 responses

Whether Eren truly knew about the bomb is a bit unclear to this day and with how it endangered Armin and Mikasa. A plurality (40%) believe he knew about the bomb, but did not know about his childhood friends meeting Zackley. Slightly less (30.6%) think that Eren did not know about either the bomb or AM meeting the Artist. A minority (7.1%) does believe that Eren knew about both the bomb and meeting and 21.8% simply aren’t sure!

Even if he didn’t know, he obviously doesn’t care either way.

THERE IS SOME DEBATE ABOUT WHETHER EREN’S JACKET SCENE WAS BETTER ANIMATED IN THE PROMOTIONAL VIDEO OR IN THE EPISODE ITSELF. WHICH DO YOU CHOOSE? 170 responses

Here we go… The elephant in the room… Which Eren abs scene did you prefer? The Promotional video or the actual episode? A somewhat slight majority (57.1%) seemed to like the version seen in the promotional video more than the episode itself versus the ones who preferred the episode’s style (42.9%).

THE EPISODE MARKS THE BEGINNING OF FLOCH’S ACTIONS AS THE VOICE OF THE YEAGERISTS. HOW ARE YOU FEELING ABOUT IT? 170 responses

Floch has always been a controversial character and the developments seen post-time skip have not been any less debatable. You may floching love him or floching hate, but he’s here and he’s staying for a while. A plurality (48.8%) notes that although they may not personally be a fan of the character, they truly do appreciate the nuance his appearance gives to the story. Just over a quarter (25.3%) stated that as big fans of the character, they’re looking forward to all the screentime the Flochster will receive. In contrast, 20.6% despise the man and his questionable haircut and are also dreading the showcase he’ll soon receive.  

I hate Floch and will cheer again when he dies, but I enjoy his character.

I detest Floch but I'm not dreading all the screen time he'll take up.

Since he died in the manga, my hatred for him has cooled down somewhat now that I'm watching the anime.

I am once again asking for you to shut the fuck up, Floch.

WE KNOW NOW THAT EREN DID CONSPIRE WITH FLOCH TO BETRAY ZEKE TO ENACT THE RUMBLING. STILL, DO YOU BELIEVE HE DID IT BECAUSE HE HAS THE SAME BELIEFS AS FLOCH, OR WAS HE JUST USING FLOCH AND THE YEAGERISTS AS A MEANS TO AN END? 161 responses

An overwhelming amount of respondents (87.6%) stated that they believe Eren never truly saw eye to eye with Floch and his ideology and that Eren was simply using Floch as a means to an end. In contrast, 9.3% truly do think that Eren was ideologically similar to Floch and the “New Eldian Empire”. A select few thought you couldn’t just say one way or another. 

They both wanted to protect Paradis

DO YOU THINK IF THE YEAGERISTS, BESIDES FLOCH, KNEW ABOUT THE FULL SCALE RUMBLING BEFOREHAND THAT THEY WOULD WILLINGLY FOLLOW EREN? 167 responses

The majority (53.3%) feel that the Yeagerists would see a divide if they knew beforehand that Eren wanted to initiate the rumbling, with some sticking around for the cause and others possibly leaving because it’s too extreme. 25.1% believe that they all would have fully supported the rumbling in the name of their own survival. 15% believe that every Yeagerist already knew about the plan to commence the rumbling, and only 6% feel that they would most certainly have betrayed the Yeager brothers (and Floch) if they had known. 

I don’t know, this is a loaded question and I’m tired.

DO YOU THINK THAT, IF THE STORY ENDS PEACEFULLY, MIKASA WILL HAVE A ROLE TO PLAY IN HIZURU? 170 responses

While this plotline may not be going anywhere in the manga (or so it seems), the reminder of its existence is brought to light again as we revisit these older moments from the manga. 32.4% feel that Mikasa wouldn’t leave Paradis behind to start a life on Hizuru. 23.5% think that she wouldn’t leave Paradis behind, necessarily, but will still have a role to play in Hizuru. 21.2% think it doesn’t matter because Isayama has completely discarded (or forgotten) about this plotline. 12.4% don’t know what to predict (if anything) and only 8.2% believe that her future lies in Hizuru beyond the main storyline.

The last two options plus me not caring. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

hizuru is already rumbled, gone, but she will continue the azumabito clan in paradis

Is no one else gonna question Kiyomi's hair being sucked into her skull??? HELLO MA'AM???

Hizuru is likely flattened

WHICH SCENE FROM THE PREVIEW ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO? 171 responses

Episode 72 has already broadcasted as of the completion of this poll. For scenes that were most anticipated, 35.7% were most looking forward to seeing Levi and Zeke’s interaction in the forest. 33.3% most looked forward to Niccolo leaning straight from Gabi’s mouth that she is Sasha’s killer. 18.7% highly anticipated the Blouses learning about Gabi killing Sasha, and 9.4% were looking forward to Gabi/Falco and the Blouses gathering at Niccolo’s restaurant. Only a small amount were looking forward to Niccolo protecting Jean and Connie from drinking the wine.

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS ON THE EPISODE?

Man the animation was gonky 

no levi </3

So many faces of Niles are weirds !

Let hange aloneeeeeeee and happy, please

I have no word for this, but I feeling good

Shit is getting really real now! 

Everyone talking about Eren’s abs and I just wanna say the music in that scene was amazing!

I loved how it was all neatly put together and fast moving

Armin looked so good. Homie walked from point A to B and i SCREAMED. Thank you. 

i wish they included eren's warhammer escape from the prison, besides that solid episode all around, the people chanting 'dedicate your hearts' gave me chills 

I can't stand Hitch at all but MAPPA made her really pretty. Re: The jacket scene The trailer version was pretty much identical to the manga panel. But I liked the version that made it into the final episode too. People have been so ridiculous about MAPPA ""ruining everything"" this season, they should stop watching if that's how they feel. I thought Eren looked great and found the sun shining on his abs funny. The scenery was better in the episode, imo. I hope they don't cut Jean's line about booze not caring about what race you are. Lmao

Meh. It's not bad of course, I just find the rythm weird and I don't really feel many emotions watching the episodes. And I was so thirsty for the jacket scene, and it turned out weird too.

Mappa pls stop drawing eren like shit he is gorgeous in the manga

MMGH SOON!! LET'S GOOOOOOO

You friccin moron, you just got zooked!

i miss eremin </3

Wish they had shown how eren used his titan powers to escape.

I'm so not looking forward to the controversy that's gonna be reignited during the EMA talk scene. I'm actually dreading it, but we'll finally get the Levi vs Beast Titan scene so I'll be fine

112 will destroy ships 

I felt the animation was flawless as usual but the script was kinda boring, I expected more of these aspects: -Yelena, it was bland with the cuts -Hange, they cut something I cant figure what in this Yeagerists coup act that turned her scenes a little bit lacking? Idk something -Again the soundtrack in the episodes is so silent. The only episode so far I liked the ost beyond the Opening and Closing themes is Reiner episode. I miss the melodrama of Witstudio osts

Eren putting his jacket on in slow-speed whilst talking at regular speed is fucking trippy

Just happy to see Hitch!

It was slow and mainly plot driven. I enjoyed it despite the changes.

goddamn is that a hella well-animated explosion

more abs please

Great episode. Really ridiculous how many people overreacted about the jacket scene. It's ok to perfer the way the trailer did it but to those who say Mappa is ruining the adaptation because of minor things like this, calm down. 

I wish the jacket scene was better But over all the ep is pretty good

Boring, but then again so was this phase in the manga.

I really like the VA they chose for Onyankopon! His voice is very warm and genuine, which suits his character well

The sunset was so aesthetically pleasing 

yoooo just read ch. 138 and im crying in da club :(

These MAPPA episodes have been a low point for me. I’m trying to enjoy them because I love this story but it feels like a chore.

WHERE DO YOU PRIMARILY DISCUSS THE SERIES? 161 responses

Thanks again to everyone who participated!

[garageprojectmotorcycles]

Royal Enfield Continental GT650 review / ride report.

When was the last time you read a bad bike review in a magazine or online? Was it the debacle that was the Bimota V Due? Even Braap’s are given a positive spin by reviewers even though they had 5 product recalls in less than a year. So many motorcycle reviews these day are either a reworded press release or a well written advertisement. Now I reckon there are two reasons for that; the sceptic in me says if the magazines don’t write a positive review, then the advertising dollars stop flowing. There are plenty of examples of that car companies having a dummy spit when they don’t win car of the year so it no doubt happens in the motorcycle world too. The other reason is that it’s 2019, motorcycles have been manufactured for a long time, manufacturers have got the basics down pat. This is were Royal Enfield excels, the basics.

I wasn’t planning on writing a review but my bike was getting serviced and it wasn’t going to be ready in time for the Perth Café Racer Run to the Hills ride, so I needed a suitable replacement. As my review of the Benelli Leoncino got an amazing 36 likes (amazing because that’s 34 more than I thought it would get once Ric and I liked it) and a couple of sales, I thought Ric might be open to the idea of handing me the keys to something else. Scanning the showroom floor at MotoMax, a Ducati Sport Classic, Triumph Thruxton, Rickman Honda and a cluster of classics caught my eye. Ric handed me the keys to a mildly customised Continental GT650. Ah well, beggars can’t be choosers.

We both had conditions, Ric’s was simple “Bring it back with a full tank you tight arse bastard and if you drop it, you bu….”. I’m not sure what he said as Peter was saying “look, look” while pointing at a lady across the road who was jogging past. It was far more interesting watching the world go up and down. My condition was the same as always, I wasn’t going to write a positive review just because I got a bike for the weekend. If the bike is shit, then I’ll say so but you don’t have to post the review.  So here it is….hang on…before we get to the review, lets get some background.  

Royal Enfield sold 32,000 motorcycles in 2017 and not many of those were sold outside of India. They now sometimes sell double that in one month with their top selling model the Classic 350 outselling all their other models combined. It sometimes cracks the monthly top 10 list of number of bikes sold in India. Royal Enfield sells more Classic 350’s in one month than all the road bikes sold in Australia from all brands in one year. Unfathomable figures when you consider the company was at the brink of bankruptcy in 1991.

When Sid Lal’s dad bought the company, nothing really changed until 2010 when the Indian Tech economy boomed and hipsters finally had some disposable cash. Sales picked up and then skyrocketed the company to the fastest growing motorcycle manufacturer in the world. The success of the brand in recent times is partly because they upgraded (think EFI, ABS etc) their Bullet/Classic line to make it relevant while keeping the looks of the old motorcycle. Boomers started realising their bucket lists were getting longer and they were running out of time to cross stuff off. Learners around the world are often restricted to motorcycles that take more time to get to 100km/h than it does for a politician to answer question in parliament and Royal Enfields are perfect for that market.

The increase in sales meant Sid (the CEO at the time) had cash burning a hole in his pocket so off he went to the UK and bought Harris Performance which I remember reading about in the UK magazines for making custom frames for GP bikes. They’ve developed the chassis for all the new models including the Continental GT Café Racer, the Himalayan adventure bike and the recent 650 twins. The Café Racer handled as good as it looked but it didn’t get many hearts racing and only sold in low numbers, hence it was discontinued after a couple of years. The Himalayan has been known to get a few hearts racing which has more to do with them being ridden where they are named after. A devoted fan base will see the Himalayan continue to be developed for many years. The real game changer for Royal Enfield though, are the two 650 twins, the Interceptor and the Continental GT 650. Royal Enfield are exporting more than they are selling domestically and dealers in Oz are selling far more twins than they are of the 350cc and 500cc singles.

I’m not a brand snob so will any bike I can get the keys to. My list of motorcycle brands I’d like to put my bum on is topped, like most peoples, by the Italian exotics such as Bimota, MV Agusta etc. For me, Royal Enfield sits a long way down that list; I’m no fan boy who gets excited when a manufacturer changes the colour and releases it as a 2020 model. I lived in the world of sportsbikes and track days so Royal Enfields never registered on my radar; I always felt they were a little weird looking. Sort of like a girlfriend I had  in the 90’s that looked like a cockeyed Nicole Kidman without the Botox. Like my girlfriend, if you ride a Royal Enfield a few times you start appreciate the attraction and you end up falling in love. Since my first Himalayan motorcycle adventure in 2013, I have ridden all of the Royal Enfield models in Australia and in the harshest of conditions that the Himalayas can throw at you and while I still wouldn’t consider myself a fan boy, I would say I was an advocaat. Damn, it’s 11pm and I’m out of beer and wishing I had a liqueur cabinet. Is there an Uber drinks?   

The Conti I got had a few subtle changes made to it. The tank hand been replaced with the rounder tank from an interceptor, bar end mirrors had been fitted and the bike had been encouraged to find its voice with some aftermarket reverse cones mufflers fitted. The bar end mirrors worked perfectly, completely vibration free all through the rev range however the bike was a little quiet for my liking. You could certainly hear it under throttle and it let out pleasing pops and crackles on a decline but I’d like a deeper, louder sound. More Tom Jones than George Michael. If you’ve got standard pipes on your bike and you’re bored with it and possibly considering a change of bike, put an aftermarket set of pipes on and you’ll fall in love again. The Interceptor tank looked great on the Conti and helped take my eyes off what I consider to be the ugliest seat in the market. For some reason, Royal Enfield in Australia decided that the dual seat would be standard and the solo seat with a cowling that is used for the promo pics, and is standard in most of the 50 other countries that it is sold in would be option for Australia. I know looks are subjective but the transformation that the single seat makes on this bike is amazing and I wonder why more people aren’t swapping them over when it is such a cheap option. Maybe it’s just me. 

I am trying to squeeze myself into my daughters Katy Perry T-Shirt when Andy arrives early on his Ducati Sport Classic. With no time for Small Talk, it was time to Roar into Leederville to meet the others. We took the back roads before getting onto the freeway and this is the Conti’s playground. With narrow 100/18’s on the front and 130/18’s on the back, the bike flicks left and right really quickly. On familiar roads, I found myself turning in too quickly and having to readjust my line which the bike did without drama. Later on in the day when the speeds picked up a little and the mercury wanted to blow its load, the front end felt squirmish when going over the bitumen that is poured into the cracks of the road. No one else felt it so again, maybe it was just me.

Our group heading to the start point of the ride consisted of a Sport Classic with Zard pipes, a Thruxton with Staintunes, a V7 Guzzi with Lanfranconis, a Honda CB1100 with an aftermarket 4 into 1 and a W650 with open pipes. It was amazing listening to all the different sounds as we lined up at the Christmas trees, sometimes known as traffic lights by boring people. The Sport Classic consistently got the jump on the rest of at the lights but the rest of us all had a turn at coming second without any clear next fastest. The Conti is styled as a Café Racer of old but it is no race bike with ligths like they were in the old days. Sid Lal himself says “…we (Royal Enfield motorcycles) aren’t going much faster than 100 miles an hour. If someone wants a quicker motorbike, go elsewhere.” During the week, the media reported that a car was hooning through the tunnel at the outrageous speed of 140km/h. The bar had been set low so there was simply no need to crack the ton in the tunnel. Absolutely no need. By my calcs, I reckon 170+ is possible but as I never break the speed limits I’ll never find out.

Riding along the Tonkin, I rolled the throttle on and off, looking for flat spots but couldn’t find any, it just smoothly accelerates all the way to the redline in a very linear fashion. The 5 speed box has perfectly spaced gear ratios and I rarely looked for a 6th like I constantly do on my W650. We joined the rest of the riders and took off along the escarpment as the pace crept up through the hills. The bike was in its element, enjoying being thrown around and asking for more. I worked my way to the front of the pack and when there was a break in the traffic I gave it what it wanted and took off. On these sort of roads, I neither needed or wanted anymore power, I just enjoyed rolling the throttle on and rolling it off coming into a corner, letting the engine compression slow me down with only a slight dab on the rear brake when needed. The Pirelli Phantoms had more than enough grip and never troubled the ABS system. I considered putting the Phantoms on my bike but baulked at the price so Royal Enfield aren’t skimping on quality to ensure they stay at the $9990 price point.

After a cool down and a group photo, we headed to lunch at Parkerville and to pay our respects to Kevin the kookaburra who had his head ripped off recently by a complete and utter wanker. As we hit the road again, I found my right hand feeling a bit tingly which is a little unusual. My bike has thicker grips so maybe the thinner grips on the Conti passed on the vibes or maybe I’m just old and the years of abuse I’ve given my right hand is coming back to bite me. The suspension soaked up the bumpy roads but my bum was starting to feel a bit numb. The seat looks flat but is actually slightly rounded which was giving me numb bum…which would have come in handy when it also got years of abuse in a previous life. These are the only two faults with the Conti GT that I could find, both of which wouldn’t stop me buying one as I’d change the hideous seat and put thicker grips on anyway. Everything else was perfect; the horn is louder than my cars, the clocks are easy to read, clutch and brake lever action is effortless, the gearbox is ridiculously smooth, riding position is spot on.

At under 10k, the only bike that is comparable to the Conti is its stablemate the Interceptor. The visually challenged Harley 750 is being run out a similar price, Suzuki threw a bikini fairing on its SV650 and called it café racer and is watching them gather dust on the showroom. The Benelli Leoncino and the oddly styled Husqvarna Svartpilen are similar prices but I doubt the circles in the Venn diagram of people interested in these three bikes would overlap.

For $13,000, the W800 from Kawasaki is another option but I’d rather have the Conti and spend the difference on customising it. The only other option is to buy a Triumph Street Twin at $16,000 and then throw some money at it to make it a café racer. Buying a bike that 100’s of other people have got and keeping it standard, doesn’t make any sense to me. If I had Triumph money to spend and the option was to have stock a Street Twin or a one of a kind Continental GT with a big bore kit, killer paint job, custom seat and a custom exhaust then it’s a no brainer. I’m in the minority though as most riders are happy with buying a good looking bike and leaving it alone. The Continental GT can be enjoyed as is but also makes a very smart choice as base for a custom motorcycle.

[freifraufischer]

Something else we can learn from Captain Marvel's anticipated huge global debut this weekend (a domestic debut presumably flirting with $120m-$140m and a global launch between $300m and $350m) is that we can finally and safely ignore the online trolls that have hijacked the conversation for the last few years.

We saw this in 2015 when a handful of grouchy dudes complained about Mad Max: Fury Road being dominated by Charlize Theron's Furiosa, but the film still opened with $46 million and legged it to $153m domestic. We saw this later that year when a handful of trolls tricked the entire Internet into writing about an alleged campaign to boycott The Force Awakens over the presence of Daisy Ridley and John Boyega in lead roles. The film opened with $248m, legged it to $937m domestic (the biggest unadjusted grosser ever in North America) and grossed $2 billion worldwide. Yet, that campaign, where a few folks wrote some mean tweets and the entire media covered it as well as the "clap backs" that followed, taught the press a horrible lesson.

Namely, that we could take a handful of mean tweets from anonymous people and frame it into a trend story, either about the initial offense or about how celebrities or fans were responding or fighting back. Such was the case when the Alamo Drafthouse announced their intent to hold women-only screenings of Wonder Woman which naturally caused a negative online response from the sort of folks who were naturally opposed to a Wonder Woman movie in the first place. But rather than ignore them, we turned this into a national conversation, with folks actually debating the morality of what should have been a giant "Oh, neat, that sounds like fun" issue of a theater holding women-only screenings for a female-led superhero movie. Oh, and Wonder Woman then opened with $103 million and legged it to $412.5m domestic and $821m worldwide.

Okay, but what about Ghostbusters? Well, the two years between the announcement of Paul Feig's female-led Ghostbusters reboot (starring Melissa McCarthy, Leslie Jones, Kristen Wiig and Kate McKinnon) became a canary in the coal mine for Gamergate politics playing a role in more mainstream discourse, one which had adult men losing their minds online over the notion of a Ghostbusters movie featuring ladies. And the end result was that the merely okay comedy (the extended cut is ironically a lot better) earned a just okay $126 million domestic. It cost way too much ($144m), didn't play in China due to their prohibition of supernatural content and was mostly ignored overseas for a mere $229m worldwide cume. But, warts and all, Ghostbusters was still the biggest-grossing straight-up comedy of the year give-or-take Deadpool.

Okay, fine, but Star Wars: The Last Jedi took a hit due to viewer dissatisfaction right? Well, to the extent that post-debut online complaints about the movie (specifically the online criticisms related to the gender and race of its heroic cast) represented the general public (with a possible push from Russian troll bots), The Last Jedi still earned $620 million in North America and $1.335 billion worldwide. Yes, that was 1/3 less than The Force Awakens, which is about the same decrease as The Empire Strikes Back from Star Wars and Attack of the Clones from The Phantom Menace, along with (random examples) The Lost World, Batman Returns and (domestically) Fate of the Furious and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. That loathed super-flop The Last Jedi made about as much in North America as Aquaman ($333m), Mary Poppins Returns ($171m) and Bumblebee ($125m) combined.

Now we have Captain Marvel, which has been greeted with the usual wave of online hysteria both over the notion of a female-led superhero movie and the idea that Brie Larson's request that the junkets be slightly less 'a bunch of white dudes' was tantamount to white male genocide. Rotten Tomatoes had to revamp their system to prevent trolls from pushing the film's pre-release score to record lows before a single consumer (or critic) had seen the film. They tried that with Black Panther as well, to great ($700 million domestic) and unmitigated ($1.346 billion) success. I'm sure it'll get review-bombed this weekend by the same folks who pushed The Last Jedi's Rotten Tomatoes user score down to 51%.

But history shows that the online troll brigade and their YouTube videos arguing that the Oscar-winning star of Room and Short Term 12 is going to singlehandedly destroy the Marvel Cinematic Universe is going to be about as effective as they usually are. Yes, A Wrinkle in Time bombed, but not because of the trolls. Solo: A Star Wars Story bombed, but not because of the trolls. Both films, incidentally, did okay in North America ($103 million and $213m respectively) but were utterly ignored overseas. Oh, and the newest game is attempting to pit Alita: Battle Angel (allegedly a female-led action movie that isn't plotting the destruction of the male species) against Captain Marvel. Nevermind that both films are or will soon be under the Disney umbrella. You know what? I absolutely endorse the #AlitaChallenge.

I'm serious, folks. I encourage you to flood the theaters this weekend and buy tickets for Alita: Battle Angel. You clearly didn't do so in the during the $170 million-budgeted film's first month in theaters, as it has earned just $74m domestic and an okay but not big enough $360m worldwide, so you're missing out on a damn good action fantasy. I loved Alita, and my daughter really wants a sequel. So if you want to boost Alita: Battle Angel's fortunes this weekend right as Captain Marvel opens with its expected $100m-plus debut weekend and thus give a boost to a big-budget action fantasy starring a Hispanic actress and directed by a Hispanic director, I'd count that as a win/win. Or hell, you can absolutely boycott Captain Marvel this weekend and instead buy a ticket to Greta, Happy Death Day 2U, Miss Bala, What Women Want, Isn't It Romantic, or The Prodigy. Vote with your wallet and show Disney what's what!

The likely (relative) success of Captain Marvel in theaters this weekend won't stop the online troll brigade or the flurry of online abuse that is still going to be directed and women on the Internet for the crime of being a woman on the Internet. Yes, it's worse if you're a woman of color on the Internet, but I digress. But we have a chance to look at the relative success of Captain Marvel and realize that the trolls, be they actual racist and sexist schmucks, bots or just people who just enjoy spreading chaos, don't represent the general pop culture populace. We don't have to treat them as news and we sure as hell don't have to give them a seat at the debate table.

They didn't make Ghostbusters a flop and they certainly didn't stop The Force Awakens, Ocean's 8, The Last Jedi, Black Panther and Wonder Woman from being a hit any more than (all due respect) #WokeTwitter prevented Bohemian Rhapsody from topping $850 million worldwide and Green Book from winning Best Picture. None of these people will be the deciding factor as to whether Captain Marvel, which is earning mostly three-star reviews, grosses closer to Ant-Man money, Doctor Strange money or Thor: Rangorak money (or behind). After this weekend, it's time we stopped treating them as anything resembling influencers of anyone beyond themselves or those already converted to their toxic point-of-view. They will never stay silent, but we have a choice as to whether to give them a bullhorn.

[ciathyzareposts]

Game 334: Bokosuka Wars (1983)

           Bokosuka Wars

Japan

ASCII (developer and publisher)

Released in 1983 for Sharp X1; 1984 for MSX and PC-88; 1985 for FM-7, PC-6001, PC-98, and NES 

Date Started: 25 June 2019

Date Finished: 28 June 2019

Total Hours: 6 Difficulty: Hard (4/5), but would probably go down to 3/5 with more experience Final Rating: (to come later) Ranking at time of posting: (to come later)

Well, I did it. I downloaded a Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) emulator–Nestopia–and I gave it a shot. It was easier than I expected. I was the thinking that the NES had a directional pad and an analog stick, but I guess that came with later consoles. The original NES controller is little more than a joystick (albeit one that made it harder to move diagonally) with two buttons. Easy to emulate, easy to remember.

Bokosuka Wars was on no one’s list of “must play” console RPGs, but I figured I’d give it a try anyway. It’s the earliest Japanese game on my list that had a western release and the earliest Japanese console game, beating several 1986 titles by a month or so. That it’s not actually an RPG by my definitions (no inventory) shouldn’t bother us too much. It was an easy step into this sub-genre.             

A common screen, probably responsible for a lot of the hate the game receives.

          The game is an “afternoon RPG,” as any console must be until saving was possible. The setup is simple. You are King Suren, and your country has been overthrown by the evil King Ogreth of the Basam Empire (Ogreth is called “Dragonet” in the original Japanese versions). Ogreth has used his magic to turn all your knights and soldiers into rocks and trees and cacti. You embark on a mission to reclaim your throne. You start 600 meters to the east of King Ogreth’s throne room and slowly make your way left down the battlefield, fighting his forces as you go.           

The king starts alone, with 595 steps to his evil counterpart.

            You’re not alone in this endeavor. Along the way, you can rescue many of your knights and soldiers. (In the Japanese PC versions, Suren starts with many of his warriors already activated, but in the NES version, he starts alone.) Some are inanimate objects, but they’re revived if you touch them. Others are kept in stockades and must be rescued. Either way, you slowly build (and, just as fast, lose) an army. Eventually, if you survive, you reach Ogreth’s throne room and throw your remaining forces at him, including King Suren if necessary. If any of your units defeat Ogreth, you win the game.          

King Suren turns a tree into a knight.

           The problem is that you can revive and rescue only 50 warriors (about 15 knights and 35 soldiers), and opposing you are 180 enemies: guards, mages, warriors, and pages. Some of them can be avoided, but most must be fought. Characters move around the battlefield in real-time, but this is in no way an “action RPG.” As frenzied as the game looks, no part of your success depends on your speed with the controller, particularly since enemies cannot attack you and combats are resolved statistically.

The game’s strategy lies in who fights what enemies, and in what circumstances. Your one huge advantage is that enemies can never initiate combat. They can block your way, but combat only begins when you decide to move Suren or one of his warriors to the enemy’s square. Thus, you can almost always choose who fights.

Combat is a probability test that pits your character’s power against the enemy’s, but with a heavy random component. If the die rolls go in your favor, you win; if not, you die. If the character fighting on your side was King Suren, and he dies, the game is over. Winning and losing is completely binary; there are no hit points in the game, so one character can’t “weaken” an enemy for the next character.            

My king battles a “summoner” in the middle of his spirits. Since my king has 320 power and the summoner only has 50, I’m relatively confident. During battle , the tile flashes between crossed swords and “B.” I’m not sure what the “B” means, but it doesn’t have anything to do with the “B” button on the controller. Maybe it means “Bokosuka.”

        If you win, the winning unit gets an increase in power–sometimes substantial. For instance, soldiers start at a power of 30 and rise to 40 and 50 with their first two victories. But if they achieve a third victory, they change color and rise to 140. Knights do the same thing, with the progression going 150, 160, 170 and then jumping to 260 on the third victory.           

Note that one of my knights and one soldier have “gone gold,” making them more powerful than their counterparts. A knight is needed to bust through the shield around the stockade.

          King Suren himself starts at 220 and maxes at 320; soldiers and knights max at 310. Throughout the game, you have to keep making the decision about whether to throw your more powerful figures into combat, thus risking them, or try to build up weaker units. There’s no easy answer. And occasionally even the most disproportionate combats can go wrong. I saw plenty of knights at 310 power killed by enemies at 10 power.         

Enemy and ally unit powers. This is from the Sharp X1 version. NES players had to read the manual.

                      There are a few other tactical considerations. Regular soldiers (for some reason) knock enemy guards from 100 power to 10 power when they engage in combat. Knights are the only units that can break the walls of stockades, so you want to keep at least one around. You need soldiers to disarm traps (which don’t appear until after your first victory). Only the king can trigger special squares that remove the walls blocking “summoners,” who then summon a bunch of spirits (which don’t count against the enemy’s total) until you kill the summoners.            

Every once in a while, the king runs out of soldiers and stands alone.

           I suspect the game would be “easy” for those with a lot of patience. One key problem is the movement of your forces. By default everyone moves together when you press the directional pad; if they’re up against an obstacle, they just stay in place. You can toggle so that you’re only selecting one type of unit at a time (i.e., the king, all soldiers, or all knights), but it’s still tough to move them in unison, and I probably left more allies stuck on obstacles behind me than I lost in combat. This problem is the source of a lot of modern complaints about the game, I later found, but I think it added somewhat to the game’s strategy. When you have a lot of units in your army, you have to be careful about every move, noting who is going to end up in what square, and thus what units will find themselves in combat. A player who develops a huge army is handicapped by having to more carefully manage its movement. I can’t claim that I exactly “enjoyed” such a gameplay element, but that doesn’t make it inherently bad.           

Moving through terrain like this is easier when you only control one unit “type” at a time.

           You don’t have to fight every battle. In fact, there’s a good argument to be made in fighting as few as possible, thus reaching the end of the game with as many forces as possible. On the other hand, it helps if those forces have gained a lot of experience along the way, so you don’t want to eschew every combat. It’s a tough call.

            Having broken a bunch of soldiers out of a stockade, now approaching a phalanx of guards. To get the soldiers out of their building, I’m going to have to move everybody back and up a few spaces.

          You eventually reach a point where you have to thread a narrow hallway to get to the throne room, which features a number of unavoidable battles with “killers” with 250 power. Even though you might have more than 300 power at this point, the killers seem to win more than half the time. The same is true for King Ogreth himself, who only has 250 power but seems to beat 300+-power allies at least three-quarters of the time. So whether you win or lose upon reaching the end is largely a matter of whether you have enough allies to overwhelm the probabilities of losing individual combats. You definitely don’t want it to come down to King Ogreth vs. King Suren.

Reaching the final throne room. Looks like I’ll have to take out a summoner before engaging the king. I only have three (promoted) units with me, but there are 10 more somewhere behind me if I didn’t want to risk Suren in the final battle.

A good opening strategy is to have Suren fight all the combats until he gets to his maximum power of 320. If he’s going to die, better it happens in the opening few minutes than hundreds of meters down the battlefield. After that, I tended to prioritize building weaker units than risking more experienced ones. That had the effect of keeping my numbers small but my individual units powerful. However, I’m sure there are several strategies that would work. I’m sure it’s possible to have King Suren charge down the battlefield alone, fighting only the necessary combats (i.e., when an enemy is blocking you and there’s nowhere to go), and make it all the way to the end. I tried it and made it to about the 300-yard line–halfway through the game–before I was overwhelmed by a group of knights and ultimately killed. Some other player makes that strategy work in this video, winning the game in just under 5 minutes, but there’s a note that the session somehow “manipulates luck,” so I’m not sure if it’s an honest win.

A winning game takes about an hour, taking modest care, and perhaps two hours being extra careful. If you win you get a nice screen and then an invitation to try again. Small squares in the upper-right corner keep track of your victories. The only thing different about subsequent loops is that they feature traps that kill you instantly unless a soldier walks over them. Apparently, you face more traps the more previous victories you have under your belt.           

An angry King Suren chases his enemies off screen.

             The game scores poorly as an RPG, getting only 15 points on the GIMLET, nothing rating higher than a 2, with 0s in economy and equipment. Nonetheless, it was enjoyable for a few hours as I tried to figure out the right strategies, watched the odometer count down my distance to Ogreth, and held my breath every time Suren entered combat. I lost 8 times–twice in the last 100 meters–and I suppose I would feel differently about the game if that had continued much longer.            

The box captures the somewhat linear nature of the game.

            Given my generally positive feelings, I was surprised when I started doing my post-game research and saw Bokosuka Wars repeatedly referred to as the worst game ever made for the NES, with multiple sites calling it completely impossible. Granted, PC games were significantly ahead of the experience that Bokosuka Wars could provide, but even console-only players seem to love to trash this title. I suspect what’s happening here is that RPG-oriented players want their success determined by statistics that they can manage, and arcade-oriented players want their fate decided by their own dexterity. A game that’s so heavily based on random probability serves neither group. Nonetheless, I had fun with it. It showed me an approach to gameplay I haven’t experienced before. I wouldn’t want every game to take its mechanics from Bokosuka Wars, but as a one time experience, it was fine.

(Believe me, I appreciate the irony of me, who never heard of this game two weeks ago, who resisted the console sub-genre for a decade, suddenly mounting an impassioned defense of the first console RPG that I played.)                 

The Sharp XI version starts the king with a large army.

            As poorly as the game was apparently received, it is credited in many sources in laying the foundations for the tactical RPG genre in Japan. I’ll reserve judgement on that until I actual play more tactical RPGs. In a funny footnote, Bokosuka Wars II was released for the PlayStation 4 in 2017. (There’s a so-called sequel called New Bokosuka Wars for the Sharp X1 alone in 1984, but I really think it’s just another version of the original game.) That gap of 33 years must be one of the longest between an original game and its sequel in gaming history, although Bethesda seems determined to beat it.

I’m disappointed that the game didn’t explain what bokosuka meant. Does anyone know? Googling provides mostly this game and a VR game called Bokosuka Girls. I’m trying to think what adjective could apply to both wars and buxom women and I’m coming up short.

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/game-334-bokosuka-wars-1983/

[antiquesounds]

A440. Not A435. Why?

I had a wonderful time looking through the original armistice and supporting document that showed that in 1919, the post-war European community and North America committed to 435 Hz for the standard Diapason Normal. 

However, anyone who follows Western music knows that the current standard is 440 Hz.  The next phase of this quest begins with the looking at some political impact of the Treaty of Versailles.  Not only is what I am going to write, “arm-chair” history, it is also based a lot on my limited grade school training (may I say, ca 1970′s-biased) and based upon very small selected reading about the era of mid-late 19th and early 20th century geopolitics. And, as an amature affectionatto of comic art, a lot of what I see about U.S. posturing and waffelling during the early 20th century is based upon the wonderful political comics from the era. As my parents used to ask me when I was young, “How’d you know that?” And I’d point to the political cartoon from the paper that day. 

Source Ohio State University - https://hti.osu.edu/opper/lesson-plans/wilsons-14-points/images/barring-his-way

Coincidentally, I heard a wonderful interview with an author that has just released a book on this subject in general.   How to Hide an Empire by Daniel Immerwar is on my to-read list. The book has more to do with territorial United States. But the general imperialist drive was as strong as ever post-war. Like a nasty big brother trying to take most of the cake after the fight was over, the political posturing inside and outside the U.S. was mostly to take and make itself more globally important and culturally powerful.

In the 1930′s (pre WWII), there is little argument that the United States delivered a global political posture of Imperialism - if not outright colonialism that had extended from the Spanish-American war through the Roosevelt era. A lot has been written about Wilsonian policies. You wouldn’t think this would have anything to do with concert performance standards in Europe post-war, but in fact, one of the most amazing things I learned while perusing the Treaty of Versaille is this entire section 2. Section 2-  Article 282, has all of the kitchen sink items that the countries deemed necessary to settle once and for all. I liken this to being the part where the negotiators say to the parties, “And sirs, is there anything else you guys want to settle here once and for all?”  Like a kid saying, “Yeah, and I wanted that candy, too!”  So a whole bunch of interesting stuff came out of that list. I will share some of that later. 

Deeper reading into the history of diapason normal debates going back to the 1855 treaty mentioned in the prior post taught me that this battle over both the creation of the “normal” and the value of the normal (435 versus 440, versus other frequencies) went way back prior to the 19th century especially in Europe (North America still being a western world social pariah in the 18th century.) So I can easily accept that this would be on the list of “wish we coulds” for the armistice of 1917. Now that I saw the context of the list of things included in that section, it became more obvious that it actually makes sense to have this in the treaty. I am a converted man on this subject now. I am not longer scratching my head about it being referenced here. “No more fighting, boys. We addressed all of your issues. Okay?”  If you want to be shocked at how extreme this is, check out the actual list (see page 170)! Here it is:

So far, pretty mundane.  Mostly agreed upon tolls and tariffs and an interesting standardization of railroads #4 (tracks and such if you look into it). I will note some things that put this into context and save the details for my next post on this subject.  But #2 is REALLY cool. I will share more on this that later. Any reference to “motor-cars” piques my interest. Also note #1 which makes sense post-war. And we go on... 

 With 12-14 back to tolls and tariffs. Then come the SOCIAL ones. This is what is so interesting. Again, take this in context. The winning powers (big brothers) after the fight are now going to pick the things they get to enforce on the world (or at least for Europe for now). The war to end wars is supposed to stop the bickering and delivery all the rules on how to behave. This includes a new set of social norms. I keep saying this, and I will say it again. I will get back to a few of these specific items on why they seem so silly here, but were of huge geopolitical social importance in 1919.  Amazingly, look at #15, 17-18, and 26 as progressive and at the same time regressive social rules. And then look at #16 (what is that about? Matches???) and 25, bird? and our favorite “Concert pitch”. It is like a kitchen sink of items. I assure you that when you look at these in detail, they each represent a longer term social issue that was unresolved. And, often, the issue was quite significant to the overall worldwide population.

But I digress. The diapason normal was 335 Hz in 1919. After this, there was a push to make a formal standard committee embrace this diapason normal under a different set of standards - literally.   I found evidence that going into this battle in Europe, in the United States, there was a belief that “science” showed little difference between 435, 438 (the compromise proposed) and 440 (the German standard). Even in the United States, there is documentation that describes how some scientists wanted to leave well enough alone and leave it at 435. 

However, between the wars, it seems that the United States and German did not participate in the 435 standard. The Acoustical Society of America decided that the standard should be 440. Why? I do not know. But by 1936, the Americans sided with the 440 and placed it into their standard. This does not make it diapason normal, though. So for what seems to be the time between 1936 (WWII) and 1955, the United States joined with Germany in continuing to use 440 as the tuning standard, while the treaty said it should be 435! I was surprised by this. Several documents point to this, but do not explain why The U.S. was so bull headed about this. If the research (and I dare say, common assumptions) would tell you that once established, nobody can tell the difference, then why did the U.S by themselves put it into their standards in 1936 (less than 20 years after Europe resolved the issue). I have no answer on this. I have a post facto answer/excuse that arrives after the next stage, but nothing as to why this was such a big deal to the U.S  in 1936. There are conspiracy theories about this because of the German connection but those seem like they are contrived. 

After WWII, the same push that drove the standardization post WWI happened again after WWII but as far as I can tell, there was no post-WWII declaration of standard pitch. However, there was a push again for the scientific community to come together on international standards. In 1947, the International Standards Organization was formed (ISO). Many people are familiar with ISO. It establishes, documents, and helps evolve standards for just about everything. I have had personal experiences with ISO over the years with data communication and quality standards. One example that everyone experiences daily is the ISO 9000 standard suite for quality.   

The ISO came out of a drive in the post-war era to deliver a more generic solution to that problem described in the post WWI days. In other words, for those things that require universal standardization (like concert pitch?), we need an international organization to address this need. For example, if we want to standardize on household electrical power norms -- even if we cannot change our world-wide deployment (110 volts versus 220 volts for example), at least we need to document and define these differing standards so that the worldwide community can interoperate. I consider this to be more of a meta-level approach to solving the same issue that the Treaty of Versaille Section II, Article 282 tried to address. This is a guiding principle of the organization, and remains a lofty goal.  In 1955 the 440 Hz standard was officially entered as ISO 16.  I did not pull it because it costs money to see it but it is here: https://www.iso.org/standard/3601.html. 

This still bugged me though, because why would they have taken the U.S. request for 440 over older established 435? And, does this mean that diapason normal is not the same as ISO 16? Well, frankly, I am not completely sure on the last point. I see no formal migration to the ISO standard although I do see a relinquishing of stature in some supporting texts from the era. It is fair to say that the world has conceded, but I still do not see where it did so with a revised diapason normal declaration. Here is a funny clip from The Acoustical Society of America as late as 1971 was lamenting that Europe still had not come around on this.

 [Note that ISO reformalized ISO 16 as A440 Hz in 1977. A coincidence?]

So here is where I found the most useful reasoning behind the continuing push by the U.S. to make everything based upon 440 Hz.  It is because of warfare and communications. This is the punchline to the whole thing. 

I found out that starting way back around 1949 the U.S. government was looking at which frequencies were best for different broadcasting needs. Assuredly, these all had to do with military and espionage usage There is evidence that they believed 440 and 600 to be the best for delivery of communication tones (audible). It is not a huge leap to assume that this belief also drove a campaign to enforce the standard on the world. The organization to look at is NOT ISO but rather, NIST (U.S. National Institute of Standards.) And, in hindsight, this makes complete sense to me. NIST would drive all U.S. standards especially as pertains to radio broadcast and military.  

Here is an example of such a document. I misplaced the one that originally capped my discovery. But this is a representative similar document. And this one, too. 

In fact, to this day, there is a growing stack of documents that describe how and why 440 Hz is used as the standard for synchronization tones. It’s the tone that is used when we listen to NIST WWV timeclock at the top of the hour.  The reason is that this tone is apparently what was believed to be the best (least-lossy) audible tone frequency.

So possibly, the push to deliver a hard 440 Hz standard had something to do with 1949 -1960 thoughts on best possible audible tone over radio. It sure seems that way. And it is definitely the common NIST mantra since 1960. See the end of this doc for oodles of examples: 

https://tf.nist.gov/general/pdf/1969.pdf

One parting thought on the A440. While researching this I found a whole bunch of crackpot theories about A432 being some sort of universal vibration. A432 is just another of the possible frequencies one could choose as a standard. And, indeed it was in the mix of options over the centuries this has been fraught. If you wanted to tune to any frequency that you want, you could. Who gives a darn? And just because 432 was used by someone for some reasons long ago doesn’t necessarily mean that it is “better”. It is a fixed tone used to derive other relative tones in music. So it really doesn’t matter until or unless you get all freaky-deaky about the differences in relative microtones for western scales. And if you care that much, 432 doesn’t solve all of those issues anyway.

 All I can say is that it made me feel a bit better about myself seeing that others are more nonsensical about their 432 Hz desires than I was about my historic research. I thought I was wasting MY time doing all of this research. But think of all the wasted energy surrounding this sort of notion and the other various conspiracy theories about various pitches being part of betterment of life. 

Next post will be about those other amazing discoveries associated with The Treaty of Versailles. cars, birds, and sulphur matches up next.   Those side discoveries were the best part of it all. 

[packernet]

New Post has been published on https://www.packernet.com/blog/2022/09/19/bears-prove-no-match-for-must-win-packers/

Bears prove no match for must win Packers

The Green Bay Packers knew they would be in deep shit if they lost to the Bears last night. I’m not going to go over the odds of making the playoffs after a 0-2 start, you’ve heard them already. This was indeed a must win game and the Packers did just that. There was some good, and some bad, but a win is a win in the NFL.

Now the Packers head to Tampa Bay, where they got shellacked two years ago in the regular season. But we’ll worry about that later. Against the Bears it was a 21-point second quarter that did the fatal damage. After being the forgotten man against the Vikings last week running back Aaron Jones almost single-handedly beat the Bears. His 170 total yards and two touchdowns were the difference.

By his own admission, quarterback Aaron Rodgers didn’t have one of his best games. He missed a couple of throws he normally makes in his sleep and he botched a handoff to AJ Dillon. But after the Packers’ defense came up with a huge goal line stand Rodgers was at his best. He even called his own number and ran around the corner for a key third-down pickup that got the Packers out of a hole. Two plays later he hit Sammy Watkins for 55 yards and it was game over.

If this is what the Packers’ offense is going to look like this year I’m good with that. I certainly hope they can get the running game going next week in Tampa. I have serious doubts about the Packers ability to protect Rodgers against that Buccaneers’ defense.

Pass defense was awesome

The Packers defense did a helluva job defending Justin Fields in this game. They essentially took away the pass from the Bears, holding them to 48 net passing yards. After a 71-yard drive by the Bears gave them a 7-3 lead, the Packers’ defense shut down the Bears the rest of the half.

If there was a concern it was the defense’s inability to stop the run again. The Bears literally quit trying to pass the ball in the fourth quarter. They didn’t need to. They marched 89-yards with ease to the Packers’ 1-yard line. Somehow the Packers’ defense held on fourth down and Rodgers then put the game away.

It’s concerning that the Packers couldn’t stop the run, but the Bears weren’t going to come back strictly running the ball. It took them over half a quarter to go that 89 yards and that included runs of 28 and 27 yards back-to-back. So in some ways you just say let them run it, eventually they will have to pass and that will present opportunities for big plays. And it did when Jaire Alexander got his first interception of the year on the Bears last drive. So we’ll see if they can get that corrected going forward.

Beating the Bears is always a joy. Now it’s on to Tampa Bay and Tom Brady.

[duggardata]

Could Josie + Kelton Beat Carlin + Evan To The Altar?

(ICYMI—I’ve written on this topic before, notably in this Post.  That Post was all about guessing wedding dates, based on Josie and Carlin’s courtship and pre–courtship dates.  This Post plays around with courtship length a lot more, and I hazard guesses on the probability of Josie marrying first!)

Jelton vs. CarlVan...  It’s a tense, exciting race.  Could Josie—the mature, well–dressed younger sister—really tie the knot before attention–loving Carlin?  If it’s possible, how exactly would it happen?  Let’s find out!

After the jump...

Recap—Carlin, Josie, and The Boyfriends

Alright, guys...  Here are the facts.  Carlin Brianne Bates was born to Gil + Kelly Jo Bates on April 11, 1998.  As of today, May 29, 2018, she is 20.13 Years old—i.e., 480 Days (1.31 Years) older than her next–youngest sibling.  Of course, that sibling is none other than Josie Kellyn* Bates, born August 4, 1999.

* Note—Am I the only one who just realized this was her middle name?  It’s so similar to ‘Kelton’!  That is great.  It’s kind of freaky...  Similar names and similar birthdays (August 4 and July 4).  Maybe they’re meant to be?

Currently, Josie is 18.81 Years old.  Interestingly, Josie’s boyfriend is older than Carlin’s:  Born July 4 (Independence Day), 1995, Kelton Balka is 51 Days Older than Carlin’s beau, Evan Stewart (b. 8–24–1995).

Carlin + Evan   (“CarlVan”)

Carlin met Evan on September 17, 2016, and the two immediately began pre–courting.  After 322 Days, Evan finally courtposed to Carlin on August 5, 2017, and she accepted.  (See BUB, “The 4 Cs...”)  As of May 29, 2018, they’ve been courting for 297 Days, but we’ve  only known about it for 145 Days.  They kept quiet for ~5 Months, finally announcing via UP TV on January 7, 2018.  Season 7 of Bringing Up Bates (BUB) premiered the same day, and Episode 1 featured Evan’s courtposal.

Josie + Kelton  (“KelSie” ?... “Jelton” ?)

Apparently, Josie + Kelton met when Josie was just 15(!) Years old.  According to BUB (“Fixin’ For New Beginnings”), they started out as friends—but, before long, developed feelings for one another.  Gil thought Josie was too young, so he asked her to wait, and she did.  However, by Thanksgiving 2016, their pre–courtship was back on.  (Personally, I think they reunited in late October 2016, during the Bateses’ Fall Break trip to Florida—where Bobby Smith and Kelton were attending college.  See BUB, “I Donut Know What I’d Do Without You.”)

On January 24, 2018, Josie + Kelton announced their courtship—but didn’t say when, exactly, it began.  Early January 2018 seems quite likely, though.  In BUB (“Fixin’ For New Beginnings”), Kelton told Gil + Kelly that he and Josie hoped to begin courting shortly after New Year 2018.  Then, on January 7, 2018, Kelton’s sister (Ariana Balka) posted on Instagram several photos of Josie Bates wearing the red dress and black coat seen in her courtposal photos.  (Sadly, Ariana’s IG went private just days later.)  Based on that, my spreadsheets all use January 7, 2018 for the start of Josie’s courtship.  If I’m right about the day, Josie + Kelton have been courting for 142 Days, as of May 29, 2018.

Bates Family Baselines

Currently, a Typical Bates Courtship lasts 236 Days (7.9 Months), but it varies by a standard deviation (S.D.) of 170 Days.  As such, there’s a 95% Probability that a Bates courtship will last ��576 Days (Mean + 2 SDs), and 68% Odds that it’ll last 66–406 Days (Mean ± 1 SD).

Of course, not all Bateses are typical.  As of May 2018, the record for Shortest Courtship is held by Alyssa + John Webster, at 71 Days, and that for Longest Courtship record is held by Michaela + Brandon Keilen, at 469 Days.  

A Typical Bates Engagement lasts for 105 Days (3.5 Months).  Since the Anon specifically said:  “Let’s assume Carlin and Evan’s courtship will be long ... and Josie and Kelton’s will be short,” we’ll assume both couples have an average–length (105–Day) engagement.

Now...  Who will marry first, Carlin + Evan or Josie + Kelton, if...

If Carlin Has A Long Courtship ...

As stated above, Carlin + Evan have been courting for 297 Days, as of May 29, 2018.  Already, that’s 61 Days (+ Counting!) longer than the Bates–typical, 236–Day courtship.  While CarlVan aren’t yet outside the 68% (or 95%) Range, their current, non–engaged status suggests they’re headed for a lengthier courtship.  How long, exactly?  Well, it’s hard to say, but here’s what we know...

Based on Bates data, there’s a 95% Chance that Evan will propose within 576 Days of asking Carlin to court.  So...  There’s a really, really, really solid chance that they’ll be engaged on or before March 4, 2019 (C.S. Date + 576 Days).

Most data points fall closer to the mean, though.  So... There is actually a 68% Chance that Evan will propose a bit sooner—specifically, on or by September 15, 2018 (C.S. Date + 406 Days).

Finally, let’s say Carlin + Evan beat the Keilens’ Longest C.S. record.  To do so, Evan must propose after >469 Days—or, on or after November 18, 2018.

Remember... We’re assuming both couples will have a typical, 105–Day (or the closest Saturday) engagement.  So, we have three scenarios for Carlin + Evan, based on the dates above...

Scenario 1—Carlin: Just Within 68% Range  (406–Day C.S.)

Proposal   September 15, 2018

Wedding   December 29, 2018  (+105 Days)

Under this Scenario, Josie beats Carlin if she marries on or before the Saturday prior, December 22, 2018.  Assuming a typical, 105–Day engagement, Kelton’ll have to propose by September 8—and ultimately, they’d court for 244 Days (or less).  Doing the math...  If Carlin + Evan marry on December 29, there’s a 23% Chance (as of May 29, 2018) that Josie + Kelton will beat them to the altar.

Fun!  Let’s do the next two Scenarios...

Scenario 2—Carlin: Longest Courtship Yet  (470 Days)

Proposal   November 18, 2018

Wedding   March 2, 2019  (+104 Days)

Let’s skip the chart this time, and I’ll just tell you:  If Carlin marries on March 2, 2019, there’s a 37% Chance she’ll ‘lose’ to Josie.  Josie + Kelton can have an above–average, 307–Day C.S. (until November 10, 2018), and still marry first.

Scenario 3—Carlin: Just Within 95% Range  (576–Day C.S.)

Proposal   March 4, 2019

Wedding   June 15, 2019  (+103 Days)

Wow, that’s a long courtship!  If Carlin + Evan prolong things this much, there’s a 58% Chance that Josie + Kelton will get married first.  All Kelton needs to do is propose by February 23, 2019, after a Maximum 412–Day C.S.  Doable!

Okay, now let’s see what’s up with Josie + Kelton... 

... and Josie Has A Short (or Typical) Courtship

Unlike CarlVan, Josie + Kelton are potentially on–track to have a 100%, Bates–typical (236–Day) courtship.  As of May 29, 2018, they’ve been courting for 142 Days.  If they’re totally average, here’s what’ll happen—

Scenario 4—Josie: Bates–Average Courtship  (236 Days)

Proposal   August 31, 2018

Wedding   December 15, 2018  (+106 Days)

Notice that all of Carlin + Evan’s scenarios, above, put their wedding after 12–15–18.  If Josie’s C.S. is typical, there’s a ~83% Chance she will beat Carlin to the altar (as of May 29, 2018).  Carlin will ‘win’ only if Evan proposes by August 25, 2018.  While that would give Carlin + Evan a fairly lengthy, 383 Day C.S., he only have 88 Days left to propose!

Now, what is Josie’s C.S. ends up being short, rather than typical?  Technically, she’s already past the major baselines:  The Shortest Bates Courtship, to date, was 71 Days, and Josie has been courting twice that long, already.  Also, she’s past the low–end of the 68% Range for C.S. Length (66 Days).  So...  Let’s use the Mean C.S. Length – 0.5 SDs, instead—

Scenario 5—Josie: Average – 0.5 SD Courtship  (151 Days)

Proposal   June 7, 2018

Wedding   September 22, 2018  (+107 Days)

Yeah...  If Kelton proposes to Josie on June 7, 2018, they’ll marry before Carlin + Evan, unless Evan proposes first, on June 2, 2018.  There’s so few days from now until then, that the odds of him doing so are only ~1%.

What?  I’m Lost.

Here’s the take–away:  Unless Carlin + Evan get engaged soon, Josie + Kelton have a good chance of marrying first.  Ready...  Set...  Go!

[cruger2984]

I posted 19,035 times in 2021

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#spider-man: across the spider-verse (part one) (2022)

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

Good to know...

Cells at Work might be great for biology class, Code BLACK would be perfectly great for PhE (health and safety) class.

21 notes • Posted 2021-01-23 16:00:31 GMT

#4

Arashi: Thought I was meowing at the cat for the past hour.

Arashi: Turns out it was just Mika-chan and I meowing at each other from different rooms in the house.

23 notes • Posted 2021-04-20 17:46:36 GMT

#3

Rei: What are you talking about? You love it here.

Shu: I'm not sure I do. I think I just developed Stockholm Syndrome.

Wataru: Catch yourself on, you've never even been to Switzerland.

23 notes • Posted 2021-03-03 07:34:07 GMT

#2

Adonis: I know you can climb faster than me.

Koga: So what if I can?

Adonis: Why do you always let me win?

Koga: You like winning.

Adonis: So what do you get out of it?

Koga: I get to see your wonderful smile after letting you win.

[A few moments later...]

Adonis: He is staring at my ass.

Kaoru: He is staring at your ass, indeed.

24 notes • Posted 2021-03-03 07:21:44 GMT

#1

Hetavision ‘21 - Battle Royale Grand Final Results!

The dust is receded and one emerged victorious in Rotterdam! The Vargas (Feliciano and Lovino) Brothers are now ruled ESC 2021 with a rock-themed song, and now they add the newly polished glass mic trophy into their shared trophy case! Here are the top ten finishers that is based on the combined both the jury and the public votes.

1. Italy: Måneskin - Zitti e buoni (Shut Up and Behave) [524 Points]

2. France: Barbara Pravi - Voilà  [499 Points]

3. Switzerland: Gjon’s Tears - Tout l'Univers [432 Points]

4. Iceland: Daði og Gagnamagnið - 10 Years [378 Points]

5. Ukraine: Go_A - Shum (Шум) [364 Points]

6. Finland: Blind Channel - Dark Side [301 Points]

7. Malta: Destiny - Je me casse [255 Points]

8. Lithuania: The Roop - Discoteque [220 Points]

9. Russia: Manizha - Russian Woman [204 Points]

10. Greece: Stefania - Last Dance [170 Points]*

* - tied with Bulgaria!

After 31 years of beating the crap by their enemies, they finally rule Europe once and for all as they rule the battle royale and the bloodbath in Ned's backyard.

SEE YOU NEXT HETAVISION!! And here’s some notes!

Feliciano: Romano, we've been waited 31 years for this, right? We got 318 points from the public! Good thing grandpa’s watching us at the sidelines. Romano: That's right, you bastard! It's all thanks to these skimpy outfits that our boss force us to wear it!!

- Both Big Bro France and Swiss are into the corner of defeat, but good thing Swiss has coped by Liechtenstein, telling him that he fought a good fight with that entry. After this, France, then accepts defeat and gives Swiss a much deserved respect, despite Swiss won the jury vote. - Iggy, Germany, Boss Spain and Neddy have become shocked as they received zero notes from the public. SHAME!! - Su-san has to go back home, as he congratulates Finland for making it to the top ten finish. He then decides to treat him a romantic dinner at the rooftop. - Liet cowered in fear after he landed 8th, while Russia has to prep his iron pipe after he landed 9th. - Iceland is so relieved after he managed to landed into the top five during quarantine, thus he is congratulated by what else, but Mr. Puffin, recently come back from migration. - Ukraine's spring ritual paid off thanks to some efforts and help from Belarus.

37 notes • Posted 2021-05-22 23:32:11 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[gokul2181]

KXIP vs SRH Live Score: Sunrisers Hyderabad opt to bowl against Kings XI Punjab | Cricket News

New Post has been published on https://jordarnews.in/kxip-vs-srh-live-score-sunrisers-hyderabad-opt-to-bowl-against-kings-xi-punjab-cricket-news/

KXIP vs SRH Live Score: Sunrisers Hyderabad opt to bowl against Kings XI Punjab | Cricket News

KXIP vs SRH: Live Blog | Live Scorecard Playing XIs: Kings XI Punjab: KL Rahul (w/c), Chris Gayle, Nicholas Pooran, Glenn Maxwell, Mandeep Singh, Deepak Hooda, Murugan Ashwin, Chris Jordan, Mohammed Shami, Ravi Bishnoi, Arshdeep Singh Sunrisers Hyderabad: David Warner (c), Jonny Bairstow (w), Manish Pandey, Vijay Shankar, Priyam Garg, Abdul Samad, Jason Holder, Rashid Khan, Khaleel Ahmed, Sandeep Sharma, T Natarajan TOSS | Sunrisers Hyderabad skipper David Warner wins toss, opts to bowl against Kings XI Punjab in Dubai Captains at the toss: KL Rahul:“I would’ve liked to bowl as well. We’ve batted second in the last few games which we’ve won. The wicket shouldn’t change much, it looks good. Winning obviously gives the group a lot of confidence especially when it comes against the top three teams. Different people have put their hands up in all three games which was pleasing. We had to win each game in the second half and we’re taking it one game at a time. Chris has been a big matchwinner, he has come good and brings calm and a winning spirit into the dressing room. He keeps the mood of the dressing room very light and the boys love playing with him. There have been different people in different games, the bowling has come good as well. Maxwell coming good in the last game gives confidence to the group. Hopefully we can play aggressive cricket. Two changes – Mayank Agarwal and Jimmy Neesham miss out and Mandeep Singh and Chris Jordan come in.“ David Warner:“We’re going to have a bowl first. I think the last game proved that a little bit of dew came towards the end. Towards the back end there was a bit of pace on the wicket. Each game presents a new challenge, these guys are on a roll and it was nice for us as well to win the last game and get some momentum. We have spoken a lot about our middle order and it was nice to see the guys play without risk in the last game. Khaleel Ahmed comes in for Nadeem.“ Pitch Report: “What we’re seeing at the back-end of this tournament is a little bit of grass being left on the surface. The grass gives a little bit of pace and bounce. So what we’re seeing is a different tactic, where captains want to bat second. These slightly cooler nights mean dew and the ball skidding on later in the evening. 165-170 looks par.” – Simon Doull KXIP’s Glenn Maxwell:“Going well, to take down the top three teams in the last week has been really rewarding. Things have started to go our way, things can be fickle in T20s. To get little parts of the game to fall our way feels nice. It has been a tough few games at the start of the tournament, to not have wins in such tight games was hard on the boys. But we now have a chance to make it to the top four. Pretty chilled out change room, we haven’t gone very high or low. Credit to the backroom staff, there are so many highs and lows in T20 cricket. I might not be getting the runs, but I was training really well. I only had three or four balls to face at the back end of the innings in a lot of games, but I was hitting the ball well. I wasn’t losing focus, not getting too hard on myself. Last match was nice to spend some more time in the middle and help out the side to get to a win. Hopefully it is a stepping stone for the team.” Hello and welcome to the live coverage of Match 43 of the Indian Premier League 2020 between Kings XI Punjab and Sunrisers Hyderabad in Dubai. STATS THAT MATTER * SRH have an 11-4 head-to-head advantage over KXIP * Warner, with his tally of 871, is the leading run-getter against KXIP in IPL * KXIP’s death-bowling economy rate has dropped to 10.36 in the last five games, as compared to 14.81 in the first five

Meanwhile, how excited are you about this fixture?#Dream11IPL https://t.co/UdxhLedUiM

— IndianPremierLeague (@IPL) 1603543178000

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[auburnfamilynews]

John David Mercer-USA TODAY Sports

Ok, this is time for a little bit of a bounceback, but it has to come against one of the best offensive minds in the land.

We can play the silly game of pretending that last week didn’t happen, and talk about “Oh, it’ll be great to see Auburn play after a week off”, but we have to be real. What happened in Columbia was at first quite pleasing, but it quickly devolved into what we may see a good bit of this season.

We didn’t really count on what would happen if we lost some of our star linebackers, and we can now reveal that only two guys playing every snap tend to get a little tired. All of a sudden, Bo Nix and Seth Williams are arguing on the sideline — this was supposed to be our special connection!

HOWEVER. After just a few games, Auburn is, by many accounts, one of the most successful rushing teams in the conference. Tank Bigsby is one of the tougher and slipperier backs in the league. He can catch the ball out of the backfield, and he’s not going down on the first hit. Ever. And even the offensive line seems to be figuring things out in the rushing game!

We have a bit of an identity problem, though. Bo Nix has thrown the ball a lot. We’ve definitely got the kind of receivers that can make those plays, but somehow Bo and his crew aren’t on the same page. The offensive line doesn’t know how to pass protect yet. I keep getting flashbacks of free rushers every time I close my eyes.

And now we’re going to be taking on a team that could be that rattlesnake in the grass, ready to bit at any time. Ole Miss hasn’t exactly set the world on fire, but they’ve had a couple of really impressive performances. First they posted more than 600 yards apiece in losses to Florida and Alabama, and diced through those defenses like nothing else. Unfortunately, they allowed about 700 yards on average to the opposing offenses. Currently the Rebels give up 265 yards per game on the ground at a 6.2 yards per pop rate. This is an opportunity.

In case you weren’t aware, Auburn has a rich history of rushers taking advantage against Ole Miss.

2000 - Rudi Johnson - 29 carries, 165 yards, 2 TDs

2002 - Ronnie Brown - 33 carries, 224 yards, 3 TDs

2004 - Ronnie Brown/Cadillac Williams - 32 carries, 196 yards, 2 TDs

2009 - Ben Tate - 25 carries, 144 yards, 1 TD

2010 - Michael Dyer - 21 carries, 180 yards, 1 TD

2011 - Michael Dyer - 27 carries, 177 yards, 1 TD

2013 - Nick Marshall - 14 carries, 140 yards, 2 TDs

2014 - Cameron Artis-Payne - 27 carries, 138 yards, 1 TD

2016 - Kam Pettway - 30 carries, 236 yards, 1 TD

2017 - Kerryon Johnson - 28 carries, 204 yards, 3 TDs

2018 - Boobee Whitlow - 19 carries, 170 yards

That’s just this millennium! You can see some of Auburn’s best all-time individual performances on that list. It’s going to lead into what we’ll see later today with Tank Bigsby. Today has to be an opportunity for the Auburn offense. Get back to what Gus Malzahn knows how to do, since apparently they’re not bad at it. We need to make this a quick game and we gotta get home for lunch.

SERIES HISTORY: 33-11 in favor of Auburn. The Tigers have won four straight and six out of the last seven.

LAST MEETING: Whew, this was a much closer than necessary 20-14 win for Auburn in 2019. Bo Nix had a great night with 340 yards passing, but the offense couldn’t punch anything in once they hit the red zone Anders Carlson went just 2-5 on field goals, and the Tigers had to rebuff a late Rebel drive late to preserve the win.

Oh, and Derrick Brown killed a guy.

Derrick Brown ran off to the sidelines… then ran back on the field to blow up the play. pic.twitter.com/Aus8zPAknB

— Bryan Fischer (@BryanDFischer) November 2, 2019

WHAT WAS DERRICK BROWN DOING OUT THERE. HOLY HELL HAHAHA.

— gotchya and grabass purveyors (@CollegeAndMag) November 2, 2019

LAST WEEK: Well, for Auburn...

And for Ole Miss, they weren’t great either. Matt Corral threw six interceptions in a loss to Arkansas. Wait, how many interceptions?

So yeah, this is a game for Gus to not get fired and for Lane Kiffin to have fun because that’s certainly what they hired him to do in Oxford.

KEYS FOR AUBURN:

We touched on it above, but BY GOD RUN THE BALL 60 TIMES. Ole Miss is horrible — ATROCIOUS — at stopping the run. They literally only stopped Najee Harris by buttering the ball near the goal line, and they’re dead last — DEAD LAST — in the nation in scoring defense. Yes, last! They allow 265 rushing yards per game. Auburn must run the ball every time. 30 carries for Tank, another 15 for D.J. Williams, and 10 for Shaun Shivers in his first action back with a few sprinkled in for Anthony Schwartz or Eli Stove. If Bo Nix throws more than 15 times, the Gus Bus loses a few more passengers.

Running the ball speeds the game up, and that means our defense will be a little less tired with fewer opportunities for the Ole Miss offense, but there’s still an area where Auburn has to do better, and that’s getting off of the field on third downs. Ole Miss can absolutely roll up yards and points, and maybe our defense won’t actually be tired because the Rebels score quickly, but we need to see improvement in forcing punts. Maybe Matt Corral’s six-pick day will swing around and bit him again as well.

As much as it pains me to say this, Gus and Chad Morris have to limit Bo Nix’s involvement in the offense. Just try it for today. Let him be a game manager. He doesn’t need to be the gunslinger, and after last week, he needs to take a breather to just run the offense and not try to force everything. Sometimes watching him play quarterback is the perfect square peg/round hole analogy, but he’s the wrong type of fiery at the moment. The sideline interaction and attitude last week shows that much. Another outing like that and you’re going to have more than a few Auburn fans calling for Caylin Newton to get in the game and run his older brother’s zone read offense.

Remember who you are. When you’re the head coach at Auburn (and Gus has done fantastic at this), you need to beat certain teams at a pretty solid clip. Like an 80% clip. Gus has done that against Ole Miss, with just one loss to the Rebels (in his worst year). After other disappointing defeats during his career, he’s been hit or miss, sometimes rebounding hard and other times stringing together a pair of losses. It’s no coincidence that those were some of the instances when the Auburn faithful questioned the job status of their head man.

STRESS-O-METER:

Just run the ball, guys. War Damn Eagle.

from College and Magnolia - All Posts https://www.collegeandmagnolia.com/2020/10/24/21531381/game-preview-and-open-thread-auburn-ole-miss