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boilerhorn

Certifiably Surly
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Everything posted by boilerhorn

  1. Did our advice work? J/K. Hope you did not lose all hope. My youngest is 20. Never thought we'd all survive to today.
  2. Not sure if this is the right thread, but ESPN has an article titled, "Potential Trade Offers for top 2025 Pick Cooper Flagg." https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/45425353/potential-trades-top-2025-nba-draft-pick-cooper-flagg-dallas-mavericks Spoilered below. IMO, there is no way you trade that pick. You draft Flagg and roll with the punches. Kind of a silly article, but someone needs to fill the bits and bytes of ESPN.com.
  3. Finished this one today. Appreciate the way Larson handles non-fiction.
  4. Visited Hudson Valley for work and stayed for an extended weekend. Looking NW over the Hudson River from the pedestrian bridge in Poughkeepsie.
  5. Just finished these two in the past couple of weeks: Both were fascinating, esp. Titan. In the preface, Chernow highlights that he was initially resistant to a book on Rockefeller, but discovered a 1700 page transcript of interviews that JDR had during the last 3 years of his life. They showed a far more interesting and down to earth person than he had expected. I highly recommend Titan.
  6. I was really into sports card collecting during from late-70s to late-80s, then again in the early 90s. The change between those two eras was stark. Dozens of new sellers, tons of junk wax, and the birth of the special limited edition insert. The last of those actually helped move a lot of junk wax, but it was just high production, so-so product. Some of the inserts included game worn jerseys, autographs, etc. I've paid some attention to the hobby over the past decades and it has evolved even further. Numbered inserts, meticulous focus on grading, etc. With a little spare time and a little spare money, sports card collecting is becoming interesting again. I am curious what everyone's approach is. I see a bunch of things happening: People spending tons of money hoping to pull a super-rare, high demand modern card so they can flip it for something they really want (money or another card). People focusing on specific players, specific eras, etc. and building a moderately sized, specialized collection. Cards of players that have some sort of nostalgic value Cards of HOF players For fun, I bought around 20 of the Topps Now Pope cards when they were released. Told a friend (who's a really passionate collector) and he asked what I ended up with. 19 regulars and 1 "white smoke" X/267 card. He bought 100 and pulled a X/50 Gold card. One has recently sold for around $1000. He's kind of doing all of the approaches above: using modern purchases to flip into things he wants; building a collection with interesting/nostalgic value. From a "store of value" perspective, it seems like pre-1980s HOF players is the best option. But I should never really view this as a store of value. I realize it's a hobby, and hobbies are where you pour money, never to be seen again. Another of my hobbies is enjoying local microbreweries wherever I travel, visit, etc. I literally piss the money away . Perhaps that's how I should view this... How are others around here viewing it? I am sure there are additional approaches that what I stated above.
  7. boilerhorn

    Comedy

    I found this entertaining.
  8. The past few pages have been quite engaging and we have all learned a lot. Foo Fighters suck; Foo Fighters are great Everyone hates Creed and Nickelback Taylor Hawkins was hitting on CTJ's wife CTJ may or may not be eskimo brothers with Blake Shelton Taylor Swift is a very entertaining and plays long concerts Robert DeNiro is short - and a nice guy Treaty was seduced by Kathleen Turner's voice - don't google for pics of her today. I've had few brushes with fame. Sat next to Art Shell and Joe Bugel on a plane when they were leaving Austin after visiting to assess Blake Brockermeyer. Shell said about 5 words to me. Bugel talked the entire time. Saw an extremely attractive woman walking through Austin airport at 6:15a one morning. Looked a little to the left and see Colt McCoy. McCoy's wife is more attractive in person. Dear Johntay (or associated agent), Please publish at least one update per week, so Surly can be entertained. Love, Surly-ites
  9. My bad. Tried to use cut-paste in phone and failed. https://www.slashfilm.com/1866347/fountain-of-youth-apple-tv-plus-first-netflix-movie/
  10. With Fountain Of Youth, Apple TV+ Has Finally Made Its First Netflix Movie (And That's Not A Good Thing)
  11. Fountain of Youth seems like a movie that all of the distributors passed on. It's not entirely clear whether Apple was involved with Fountain of Youth from the beginning, though there were signs, as early director choice Dexter Fletcher and production company Skydance were involved in Apple TV+ "Ghosted." IMO, they were smart to go direct to streaming, even with the $180mm budget. Distribution, etc. costs can top $200mm-$300mm for a summer action film. And they'd been pitted against: Minecraft, Mision Impossible, The New Avengers, another Jurassic Park, yet another Karate Kid, How to Train Your Dragon, F1, etc. I honestly cannot see too many people paying $12+ to sit through that outside of their house. The trailers were mediocre, the movie was bland. Agree with the takes here on the movie. Around 20 minutes in, I had a similar thought to those above: this seems bad, but it has to get better, right? Nope. I watched the entire thing. It is definitely worse than MineCraft, Mission Impossible, and The New Avengers (I have seen all of those). I suspect it will also be worse than F1 and Jurassic Park. That all said, Apple needs to be careful about propagating too many stinkers. It has gained credibility with Slow Horsses, F & N, Severace, etc. I guess it has struggled with feature films...
  12. I also strongly recommend getting a mechanic's assessment of the car before you buy. 99% of the time, they find nothing, but it's that 1% that matters. It's Amazing that a 10 year old RAV is going for around $15k-$17k. I would have guessed around $10k.
  13. Clampson pitcher is the prototype. yes, I’m a jerk.
  14. Siakam kept the Pacers in this game until the rest of the team woke up. It was pretty awesome to watch. also, Carlisle is one of the best coaches in the last 20 years. He might be kind of a jerk, but he’s definitely not as heralded as the others.
  15. And by far the most entertaining for people who enjoy basketball. Really shitty for ratings though.
  16. Bill Clinton's selection process has come up just about every time some sort of age delta or power dynamic relationship becomes public. I suspect it was fairly low effort on his part. The lower the effort on his part, the less likely he is to get caught - he's not pursuing, etc. Outright pursuit would be fairly obvious. Plus, he probably did not think (or realize) there was anything wrong with what he did. Jordon's behavior is just strange and I am surprised Belichick is tolerating it. Even if she's his vision of a perfect beauty, her behavior has to be grating at this point. Even if he paid her in advance for 24 months of GFE, he should cut his losses and not kill his legacy.
  17. Austin City Council to vote on an additional $244mm to fund the caps. Make that "vote to burden the taxpayer by another quarter billion dollars."
  18. This is great to hear @jimmyjazz ! Congrats! My youngest is 20. He's not really shown much interest in going back (yet), despite my willingness to subsidize his housing and tuition from the 529 we've built up. That's OK, as he'll figure it out at some point. Just a different path than my other kiddos took. You may not know yet, but how is the local economy receiving the Bachelors from ACC?
  19. Yes. Bachelor of Applied Technology. Bachelor of Science in Nursing. Bachelor of Applied Science in [Software Development, CyberSecurity] Youngest child struggled in year 1 of college (not aptitude or capability - freedom, etc.) and I've encouraged him to consider ACC to get a restart.
  20. ACC has a 100% acceptance rate, if I recall correctly. If aTm is accepting people who do not apply, then "yes" This is true. It benefits from the high educational level of Austin. Moreover, they explicitly plan to educate the community for the local businesses, etc.
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