Keyrock

Where will Jameis Winston be playing next year, the CFL or the XFL?

Eli was fine. The problem for the Giants was Dak TORCHING their secondary. It's week 1, though, so this may not be indicative of how these teams will perform once the season is in full swing.

Starting the season off right with a nice and easy W over the G-Men.

Yet another GreedFall trailer, just days before its launch.

Less than a quarter into his Jags career Big **** Nick goes down with a broken clavicle. Damn.

Epic bed ****ting by the Skins in the second half. Speaking of bed ****ting, time for muh Boys.

On the one hand, Belichick will make this work, because he always makes it work, and lord knows the Pats don't need any help to win their perpetually horrible division and return to the Superbowl. On the other hand, I'm glad Antonio Brown is off the market so that Uncle Jerry doesn't get any bright ideas. We have enough troublemakers on our team as it is.

Try MS-DOS 6.22, the DriveSpace compression should help tidy things up.

Nice W for the cheeseheads. I still expect Da Bears to take the division, but it's a good way to start for Green Bay.

Seems like a Gruden Grinder.

I knew Uncle Jerry would cave eventually, I didn't think it would be this quick. I wonder if Zeke plays this week. Muh Boys can afford to sit him against the G-Men, methinks, and start him next week with a full week of practice. Jerry knows his clock is running out and is going all in with this team for a shot at one last Lombardi Trophy.

I know I just had BBQ a couple days ago, but I'm in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and it would be just plain wrong to not get BBQ when in central Texas. Soulman's BBQ in Rockwall. Both the brisket and the sausage were delicious. I used almost none of the sauce, central Texas BBQ doesn't need sauce.

I stopped at the Love's truck stop in JacksonTennessee for my 10 hour break and discovered there's a shack across the street that sells BBQ. Pretty dang good, reasonably priced too.

^ I expect Zeke will sit out the first 3 or 4 games. Muh Boys first 4 games are Giants, at Skins, Fins, at Saints. At Saints is tough but the other 3 are gimmies. The Boys have gone 32-16 over the last 3 seasons with largely the same team they have this year (a few changes obviously). Dak is in a contract year, so I expect he's going to try his absolute hardest. Our D looks good. As long as the Zeke holdout doesn't drag too long, I think we'll be fine. It helps playing in a creampuff division. As for the Iggles, can Wentz stay healthy? They don't have Big **** Nick to step in any more. Who is their backup, anyway? Edit: I looked it up. Their backup qbs are Nate Sudfeld and Cody Kessler, so... Yeah.

NFC East predictions: Dallas Cowboys 11-5 Philadelphia Eagles 10-6 New York Giants 5-11 Washington Redskins 5-11 The division winner is up in the air, it could be the Iggles, but both the G-Men and Skins should be terrible so I think 2 10+ win teams seems fairly likely.

Yakuza 7 1/16/2020 in Japan. Presumably sometime later in the west.

Any one of the Valar could have just showed up in Middle Earth and said to Sauron "Bro, you need to cut that **** out." and he would have had to cut that **** out because the Valar's power level is OVER 9000, Sauron' even with the One Ring, is maybe at like 500. But they have their rules and all that, except when said rules get expressly broken by Melkor et cetera et cetera.

I concur that the Eagle rescue was bollocks. I mean, I guess the reason Radagast never just had the Fellowship hop on the backs of the eagles and fly to Mt Doom is that the Istari were in Middle Earth to guide the mortals via subtle ways, I guess by saying "good job" and giving them a star sticker every time they did something good and saying "no no no, bad mortals" *finger shake* when they did something bad. They really weren't supposed to get directly involved, not that that ever stopped Gandalf or Sauraman.

^ Here are a few from the new trilogy: * Our heroes are being chased by tie fighters with seemingly no escape on Jakku. OH NOES! But wait, the Millenium Falcon just happens to be sitting right there in a junk heap AND it's open AND fully operational. What luck! * Our heroes have been captured by Nu Empire and are presumably about to be executed. OH NOES! But Nu Rebel Alliance happens to show up in X-Wings st that exact moment with no foreshadowing or explanation whatsoever and shoot down the stormtroopers with bizzarro stormtrooper accuracy. * Ship gets blasted apart and Leia is sucked out into the vacuum of space. Guess she's dead (pun intended) OH NOES! We already knew Leia was force sensitive, but she has never once been shown to use force powers... Until it's revealed she's Space Mary Poppins. Also, somehow she didn't instantly explode as the air in her lungs escaped into the emptiness of space. Must be another force power she was never shown to have. * Finn and Rose get cornered by Nu Empire troopers and are hopelessly overwhelmed. Guess they're done for. OH NOES! But wait, best selling action figure BB8 somehow took over a AT-ST... at some point... off-screen. Also, this particular AT-ST is a fan of the Fast n Furious franchise and comes equipped with a nitrous boost to help them escape. * Rose is about to get blown to smithereens by 3 tie fighters. OH NOES! Suddenly, literally from out of nowhere, the Millenium Falcon appears with Rey - Galaxy's Greatest Gunner manning the turret. TRIPLE KILL! * Nu Rebel Alliance is trapped in a cave behind a giant door with no escape until the door is blasted open by Nu Empire. OH NOES! But wait, there was an escape tunnel at the back of the cave all along. * Finn and Rose went off on their side quest and failed and got captured because they are bumbling idiots. OH NOES! But wait, they have a cell mate and he just happens to have the exact set of exceedingly rare skills necessary to complete the side quest.

I don't see how skill with a physical staff transfers over to a light saber, which has zero weight to it, outside of the handle. That's like saying skill with a halberd gives you proficiency with a dagger. They're both melee weapons, but that's where the similarities end. As for traditions, bad traditions are bad traditions. We shouldn't continue them just for the sake of continuing them. I don't see tradition as an excuse for piss poor writing. At one time, the vast majority of women in cinema were damsels in distress and jealous love interests, but we evolved past that. At one time we had comedies with black face, but we evolved past that. I have a dream that one day we can make hero stories with nuanced characters, a plot that makes sense, and heroes that can overcome obstacles using clever thinking and resourcefulness, rather than blind luck.

Yeah, I absolutely include the original trilogy in my critique of overuse of deus ex machina. I don't think tradition is a good enough excuse for continuing to overuse the same tired plot device. Just because your weird uncle has a tradition of getting blackout drunk at family get togethers and passing out in a puddle of his own puke doesn't make it alraght that he keeps passing out in a puddle of his own puke. The new series has it's own faults, namely giving us one of the worst protagonists ever. I probably don't need to go over how Rey is a Mary Sue, and Luke was kind of a Mary Sue also, but at least he had to struggle. He sucked with the light saber at first. He got his ass handed to him by his pops the first time the fought, etc Rey is instantly the best at everything. Never held a light saber before... 5 minutes later she's the greatest swordswoman on the battlefield. She thwarts off the powers of a sith who has been training his whole life with zero force training. She hops into the Millennium Falcon turret, having never fired one before and is instantly the best gunner in the galaxy. The goal of having a strong female protagonist for girls to look up to is an admirable one, but in the process the writers went waaaaaaaaaaaaaay overboard and robbed Rey of the very thing that makes us cheer for the protagonist, them being the underdog, failing, getting defeated, then dusting themselves off and finally triumphing. Rey can never be the underdog because she is perfect and the best at everything from the start. Where's the struggle?

What really killed my interest in the Star Wars movies is how much the series leans on deus ex machina. It's a useful plot device, but only if used sparingly. The amount of times the heroes in Star Wars are put into an unwinnable situation and I guess it's all over now... BUT WAIT! Incredible coincidence and luck happens! (which, of course, can be hand waived away as the will of the force, or whatever) It's a get out of jail free card the series' writers use way too often to get out of corners they've written themselves into, which leads to lazy and, quite frankly, terrible writing.

When I was a wee lad and first got into Star Wars, the force users seemed the most interesting aspect to me, because space wizards. As I got older I grew less and less interested in the space wizards, to the point where I now find them to be the least interesting thing about a rapidly less and less interesting franchise. To that end, I care slightly about The Mandalorian and not at all about whether Rey has turned to the dark side in the latest main series teaser.

Thanks. I did manage to reach Gran Soren and I changed my main from Strider (Hiryu) to Assassin and my pawn from Mage to Sorceress. I may ultimately go Ranger with my main for maximum ranged damage, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.