LTS

Fair. I find myself wondering if 13 years of misery is also tainting my perception. However, I think I can live with Tuch/Dahlin alternating... although at the same time I do feel that it is just pick one and stop waffling. It seems like all this franchise has done is waffle under Pegula. I guess I just need this team to be successful so I can feel more positive in how I feel?

Love to know more if you dig in, but my experience is not in rate. People who have high credit scores are targets for all kinds of offers. Financial institutions make money by having your money in their control. Whether that's your savings, your investment portfolio, or your obligation to pay debt over time. It's why lower credit scores get higher interest rates. Those rates off-set the default risk. Ooof. Those two institutions are, in my opinion, some of the scourges of the financial industry. They are not direct lenders but instead buy loans from other leanders and then turn them into securities. It's all secondary mortgage marketing and really gets into the weeds of financial management. Lower fees, higher rates. It's all a trap to get people into a debt cycle. Naturally the ideal situation is to never carry debt. However, if you were to carry no debt and only pay cash for everything your credit score would most likely go down. Why? Because financial institutions no longer have leverage over you. No auto loan or mortgage? No chance to miss a payment. Use your debit card instead of a credit card? No good. No chance you miss a payment. But if you charge everything and still pay it off each month to avoid a finance charge that's a plus, because there's at least a chance you'll miss a payment, or not pay your balance in full and then the credit companies make money! It's a real treat.

Ummm, no? but the question is whether he's a top 15 center, not a top 15 point getter. So, as a C, and as I evaluated his skill as C, not an offensive player, then he's not good. Nothing i said about TNT's rankings were my opinions, those were facts taken from the NHL.com stats page. I said he was a good offensive player, but he is NOT a good C, if judged by traditional C criteria. Re-read the assignment?

Yep.. if I recall we had articles a few years back talking about all the people taking advantage of him, etc. Perhaps I am misremembering?

If we are evaluating the center position as the traditional factors a center is expected to bring to the game then no, I don't think Thompson is much of a center at all. He's definitely a forward with offensive capabilities. He's not close. Most centers have more assists than goals, that's not Thompson. Most centers have a solid enough FO% that teams don't feel the need to use a winger to take face-offs depending on the side of the ice. Most good centers have a FO% win rate above 50%. The Sabres were notoriously bad on FO's as we know. But how did TNT rank on his own team? Despite being the #1 center he had the third most face-offs behind Cozens and Mitts. His FOW% ranked 5th behind Girgensons, Mitts, Cozens. and Krebs. He ranked dead last in PP FOW%, coming in at 41%. Jeff Skinner had 52.9% for reference. I can't get behind TNT as a good center, at all. I can support that he is a solid offensive player and the theory that he scores better playing from the C position, but scoring is a forward thing more than C thing. A center needs to do more and TNT ain't got it.

I had a lot of words I could use to respond to this, but all it deserves is :eyeroll:

Why do you know these things? It has to suck having that knowledge. It makes the drought that much worse and now i hate both of you for educating me. My day would have been much better if I had never been introduced to this fact. I hope your bread is moldy today.

But punished how? Like continually getting marketing offers to use that great credit rating on a personal loan? I'm not sure how having great credit is a punishment... at least not in the way of impacting actual financial circumstances.

Did you consider the Drury/Briere decision weak? I'm honestly not sure how I felt about that situation or how I would feel about a co-captain decision now either. Just curious since it's an easy comparison.

Did he thank the fans at any point in that article? I looked a few times but did not see it.

There are people on this site who get hurt when someone disagrees with them. They didn't have to reach for the salt. It's all chasms and mountains for some people. Anyway.. glad Ruff is preaching discipline and attention to detail. Imagine.

No one could pitch chocolate milk like Tyler. "Wanna go for a skate?"

Do you get paid to start new threads? @amidoingitrite?

No, I did not know this. Now I wish I did not know this. Although I was aware of how people flood Discord and go well beyond what they are able to do on Twitter. The thrill of social media is that it makes the "celebrities" approachable.. it's just like you are standing right next to them. Ugh.

I can't be surprised by this. Given the level of angst people get to over trivial disagreements on message boards it only stands to reason that the level of response ramps up dramatically when you brainwash people into thinking their very way of life will be threatened given certain outcomes. It's scary what a decline in teaching critical thinking (or perhaps its the decline in ability to critically think) being coupled with the limitless supply of information (both factual and not) from the Internet has done. I can only hope that we figure it out before its too late. But it certainly feels like the escalation is continuing and I don't just mean with our Presidential election either. It seems easier than ever to incite the mobs, unfortunately today they are armed with instruments more dangerous and destructive than pitchforks.

Seems like sometimes it's about winning and not about the money. I say this as they, and others, do provide the exception that money matters most. For some yes, and for others no. It's about winning. Now, if you aren't winning AND you are in a state where taxes are high... well, that's a double whammy.

Yeah.. crazy. Then it doesn't help when Elon Musk weighs in.. resulting in what presumably was a Secret Service response to his tweet. Had to use a screen shot since it was obviously deleted.

Legally.. yes. That's for the lawyers and courts to handle. My commentary had nothing to do with his legal defense. It could be reasonable to infer that your commentary in this thread has bordered on making a defense for this person, but I don't want to infer. So I'll just ask it straight. Are your comments made in an effort to defend his actions?

The idiot was driving with an open container in the car. Literally drinking while driving. I've been inebriated many times, not once have I ever felt the compulsion to bring it into the car with me, and that's when I'm only going to be a passenger. Every bit of information says to me this man has an alcohol addiction problem. There has been information provided that his drinking had become commonplace. The sad thing is he works for an addiction treatment company. Couple that with rage issues and it was only a matter of time before he caused harm to others. No remorse for the guy. I don't know how anyone can even begin to provide a defense for him. He established a pattern of drinking and rage... that never ends well and usually causes significant harm to others. In this case, the worse possible harm.

Are we talking about iconic voices in entertainment? There are still quite a few... but my head immediately goes to:

There was some commentary on the radio broadcast that the field hadn't recovered from the Dolphins - Jags game on Sunday.. 4 days in between the field was kind of beat up. Could be it.

Someone, somewhere

Were they any more the problem than other parts of the team though? The team itself was an abject failure last year. You can look at Peterka showing improvement and Benson's play and say they were exceptions sure.. but neither of them are in the running to be captain, of that I am certain. I honestly would not be surprised if they pulled the Briere/Drury playbook out and alternated Dahlin and Tuch. But if they were only picking one, I think it's Dahlin. Tuch is then an A and I think TT gets the other A simply based on seniority. I could see an argument for Cozens, but he's not yet fully taken over a game like Thompson has.

Stick taps to Mr. Crouch. James Earl Jones is definitely one of the iconic voices in entertainment. As evidenced above, his roles have mostly been those that stick with people. While he's a fine actor and certainly his presence in films were engaging, without his voice, without his delivery, he would never stand out. It's easy to look to his voice in roles like Mufasa, Darth Vader, and the CNN guy :). But consider his monologue in Field of Dreams, clearly the most well known and endearing work he's done in cinema. Without that moment, he's just an actor in the movie. Hell, without that moment, the movie might never be considered as good as it is. There are a lot of "voices" in entertainment, but not many reach his level. I'm thankful James Earl Jones overcame his speech issues and was able to gift us with so many memories. I don't even have to physically hear his voice to know exactly what it sounds like. RIP James Earl Jones, your voice will live on forever.

Yeah. This is what concerns me most. It's a group who primarily have a strong love of their guns, listening to rhetoric on Making America Great Again while not realizing that the constitution that was what "Made America Great" is completely neutered by the principles being advocated for by those leading MAGA. Essentially drones who want to resort to violence under the auspices of their "forefathers" while unwittingly supporting a movement that will strip them of their freedoms. But, the less educated masses have always been the fodder of those who seek power and authority. I do fear that if Harris wins that someone(s) will take egregious action leading us down a road that justifies the next level of erosion of our personal freedoms and places the every day citizen at risk.