Fidelio
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Posts posted by Fidelio
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Dixon, and it's not really close. I don't mean to hurt your "Jackson is shot" narrative, but Williams almost caused an INT with a horrid pass blocking effort that never would've happened with Jackson back there. In obvious passing downs Jackson would be a no-brainer to have on the field.
Separately, how many personal foul penalties are we going to get this year? At least two per game, right? :lol:
I did! Sorta, anyway. Friend and I play each other in fantasy this week and we always bet a 6-pack. He had Gronk and Brady, and my QB is luck...I bought him his beer before kickoff today.
Haha nice.. I did write it down earlier in the thread but my score was a little to generous to Mr. Luck and Co. Still, 1 down, 15 to go... whats the prize of the prediction competition BTW? Do we get bumped up 2 Sabres logo's?
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Knew Luck would throw 2 picks :ph34r:
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Indianapolis W
New England W
@ Miami L
NY Giants W
@ Tennessee L
Cincinnati W
Jacksonville (London) W
Miami W
@NY Jets W
@ New England L
@Kansas City W
Houston W
@ Philadelphia L
@ Washington W
Dallas L
NY Jets W
11-5. PLAYOFFS!
Surprised myself, was expecting to come up w/ 10-6. Playoffs!
Loss vs TEN? Dayum....
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8-8. Because until they disprove 15 years of ineptness. It is what it is.
Care to take a gander at which 8 are losses?
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There's nothing dreamy about that. You can disagree all you want but that doesn't mean it's crazy.
Agreed. This is crazy. And this.
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I'm up for one. I'll kick it off:
As I said, I'm very optimistic about this team. I see 11-5, and I had to force a couple of those losses. I could see our record even better than that, but trying not to be too optimistic
Ill lateral... er forward pass...
Indianapolis W 28-24.. Luck, who bragged ..erm...bluffed ...about being impervious to blitzing, but has surprisingly mediocre results outside of lackluster division, throws 2 picks.
New England W 21-17 Bradys head inflates beyond ambiguous league regulations, gets him thrown out at half time when marcel dareus calls for a measurement after late quarter sack
@ Miami L 19-13 One of those games where the Bills Run up yards but tyrod comes down to earth, throws 2 picks, one lost fumble for touchdown. makes you want to destroy TV
NY Giants L 21-17 Quarter season panic ensues after T Mobile has trouble with his connections, Eli throws 3 TD, all of them to OBJ who catches one with his toenail.
@ Tennessee W 38-17 Total destruction.. Marcus terrorized by Marcel, throws a TD in garbage time
Cincinnati W 24-17 The pandemonium gains steam again as Dalton gives gingers a bad name.
Jacksonville (London) W 22-18 In the game with the most non-football sounding score ever, the brits get a treat as the Bills, minus Mccoy, sneak away with a late TD
Miami W 30-21 Rex gets revenge, Tyrod has 17 pass attempts, bills still put up 400 yards, 250 through the air. Suh gets suspended after kicking ryan tanne-hill when he's down
@NY Jets W 21-7 Geno Smith, coming off a 250 yard performance, remembers 2014... Jets D not the same without Rex.. even with Cromartie and Revis who suffers significant regression.
@ New England L 31-17 The Bills first blowout defeat of the season..... The bills hear audio of the Kim Kardashian Sex tape throughout the entire game... NFL claims it was hackers in China
@Kansas City W 28-14 Pretty much the same as the last 2 times these two teams met. .Except this time Tuel isn't playing, and Healthy Mccoy doesn't fumble while crossing goal line.
Houston W 17-14 Much closer than Bills fans, now in total ecstasy, care to witness, Tyrod has an injury scare.. EJ comes in and goes 2-14 for 140 yards and 2 tds...
@ Philadelphia L 27-17 Fans who already bought Super Bowl tickets shutter in terror as EJ can't match up with Eagles, and "Racist" coach
@ Washington W 28-3 Redskins, gunning for that #1 pick, make EJ look like Marino, Bills D like well.. 2015 Bills D.
Dallas W 23-13 Romo's fingers get cold, brains slows down.... Tyrod returns... Jerry Jones motions to ban football in cold weather.
NY Jets W 10-3 Bills, already a lock for Afc East Champ, and already out of Conference race, sit starters, still win against, Jets with Tim Tebow at QB.. Brandon Marshall Committed for BPD
Ending 15 year playoff drought with a bang, Rex and the Bills muscle their way into the playoffs with a snarl reminiscent of his Dad's 85 bears. Mike Ditka Endorses the team, Health Miller becomes lead NFL reporter after correctly predicting entire AFC standings, Bills set NFL record for Sacks and Jack Eichel stops awkwardly loving on Torey Krug...
Bills 12-4
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I still feel bad for Fred...... he's lives on my street and you can literally see how sad and hurt he looks. He felt betrayed, he told another of the neighbors Whaley gave him his word back in March he'd get this season, thus the feeling of betrayal and Whaley being untrustworthy.
I like Fred and everything he represented but regardless of whether Whaley made informal promises to him or not, he is an NFL player and thus held to the same scrutiny as anyone trying to make the team, and will be evaluated similarly by Seattle or whoever he aspires to sign with next. You can't build a team on emotional attachments or feeling indebted to a player for his contributions to your community. Fred was well compensated over his tenure, both financially, and from the city (maybe even nation) wide outpouring of admiration, and seems to have a pretty enviable life. I think hell be OK.
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Looks to have come down to due process concepts and law of the shop type stuff, as others had predicted upthread.
And I think Berman got it right, as a legal matter: Brady's a cheat and a doosh, but Goodell is frickin' out of control.
I just feel like these are separate issues that have been conjoined for the convenience of Bradys case.
So the NFL justice system is flawed, its true. But it was already collectively bargained, so if you are going to amend it, you can reference this case, but not use it as the sole determining factor in a case regarding tampering and blemishing the integrity of the league. IMO
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer.
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Totally nonsense....
Berman cites the NFL's not setting specific disciplinary boundaries regarding deflation of footballs, the lack of "proof" (despite the fact that it was established within the CBA), not being transparent enough with Brady's camp etc... Essentially he ruled on the matter of undue process.
This is death of justice/values/truth by semantics to me. It was clear Brady was lying, that he was communicating with locker room officials, that he was aware of the deflation of the footballs from the very start. From that obnoxious press conference where he quaintly dismissed every question with sarcasm to the radio interview where "he had heard it all now", his behavior told it all; he was clearly hiding something. He had a multi billion dollar institution behind him to obscure the facts, smear his accusers, and run the essence of the case so deeply through the mud that true north became completely indistinguishable as it often does in these circus parades. It went from "The Patriots cheated again to "Roger Goddell does not have the authority to be judge jury an executioner", and actually, he does.. or he did, based on the damn CBA that the NFLPA agreed to.
Pathetic...
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I don't think Rex wants the job. I think he's using us as leverage for Atlanta and/or ESPN.
Interesting about Atlanta, tho I'm pretty sure he didn't need to take another job to be attractive to ESPN.
BTW... Dear Seasoned vet,
How do prediction threads fare on this site? I'm thinking of starting one (I REALLY LOVE PREDICTIONS) but won't if there is no market for it.
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TL;DR: They tried to tell too many stories with too many plot points. Ultimately it failed, but the final product is full of passion. They were very careful not to spend time examining themes and character archetypes that were covered in Season 1. I can't help but have respect for that kind of failure.
I'm going to outline some of the major themes and plot threads, then I'm going to analyze each character arc and break down what I think they were trying to do (and where they went wrong).
The Themes:
Major themes present in all 4 main characters' arcs are
1) Identity/Where you come from
2) Struggling with demons from the past
3) RAAAAAAGE
4) Corruption (both literal and of the soul)
5) Velcoro and Frank both have relationship/sexual reproduction angst - Anti and Taylor Kitsch both have sexual repression/expression angst
The Plot Threads:
Episode 1- This episode tries to start almost every single thread that ends up being important to the central plot. It also tries to emotionally establish every main character except for Frank. What results is probably the worst episode of the season.
Anti- She starts her arc with some sexual disagreement with a partner. Instead of talking about her problems she just pushes him away and puts the blame on him. Her troubled relationship with her father and sister are separately covered in this episode. She pushes both of them away, but we get some information about her character from each interaction. When Anti speaks to her dad, we learn that her mom dies and she blames him for it. He goes all psychiatrist and tells Anti that her entire personality is all just a criticism of his values. When Anti has sister family time, she unnecessarily uses a police raid to bust up her sister's job (which is a totally legal webcam porn site). Her sister is reasonably pissed off, to which Anti's response is life criticism. The way she treats her sister echoes a parent that can't express themselves and tries to force their children to become better people by force.
Taylor Kitsch- Wants to get back on the bike, doesn't care for his girlfriend, and is suicidal. He also has a dark past involving injuries from Iraq. He accidentally finds Ben Kaspere's body at the end, starting the plot. That's pretty much it.
Velcoro- We learn about his strained relationship (more like a connection that only exists because of the kid) with his ex wife, informed by how terrible a father he is. We also learn that Velcoro has some very messed up ideas related to what he's owed when somebody "crosses him." In a flash back we get the story of how he and Frank became boyfriends. Frank supposedly gave him the name of the man that raped his wife. The flashback also serves to juxtapose present day burnout Velcoro with clear-eyed rage induced Velcoro of the days of yore. This was the character I was most intrigued by after the first episode. Despite (maybe even because of) his brutal retribution against the schoolyard bully. You get a first hint of how black and white Velcoro has allowed himself to see the world. "12 years old and you're already evil as f*ck." Yeah, ok, Velcoro.
Frank- The foundation for his character is barely laid in this episode. Most of Frank's scenes are exposition about this land deal that he's involved in (and the players: Kaspere, Blake, Osip). What we do learn about Frank is that he's in the money now, but he didn't used to be. We get some warmth between him and his wife, but also sense some distance there as well. Frank's character isn't activated until he finds out that Kaspere's dead, so this entire episode isn't really about him.
Other stuff we learn:
-Elvis is Anti's partner. They both go to serve an eviction and Anti gets guilted into looking for a woman's missing sister.
-Dixon is a fat disgusting blob monster (and is also Velcoro's partner). They both go talk to Kaspere's secretary (who ends up being Kaspere's daughter and the brother of birdman) and check out his house.
-A bird man has a dead man in his car. That dead man is Ben Kaspere.
-There are 3 different police departments that all want different things. They have power over our protagonists and are forcing their hands.
So you can start seeing the root of the problem. They tried to roll all of this up into 1 hour of television. I remember after first watching it I couldn't say if it was bad or good. There was no context to judge most of the scenes, and juggling 4 different cold openings is really tough for both the viewer and the story teller.
I dig the highway motif. It's an interesting way of visually communicating "Yes, there's a bunch of plots weaved together, but they're all going to the same place." Did they deliver on that promise? Eh, nah.
Good post.
Nice observation regarding the highway motif.
Maybe its to say:
there is the left handed path, the right handed path, and the middle path.
The handed paths start out maintaining an illusion of linear progression, but dictated by their nature, eventually lead to a revisiting of trodden ground (same mistakes in life, perhaps returning to experience the same life etc.)
It is only the middle path which leads to the escaping/ overcoming/ exodus of the chains of this world/suffering/the circle in a spiral, the wheel within the wheel... aka enlightenment, attainment, conscious evolution/ freedom
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Sorry if you covered this already, but what do you think about the cop-driver and the Facebook war?
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Degrading an abstract idea through semantical analysis will always result in your favor because you decide the terms and manipulate the circumstances for your favor. All I'm saying is its a dangerous way of thinking.
But yes actually, a cop who abuses his power and does not act in accordance to the rules of objectivity ... aka becomes a champion of his own causes, and begins to (ab)use his powers of authority to unlawfully exert his will.. then yes, he is as dangerous, in a sense, as someone who acts on dark temptations despite knowing the acts are wrong (vague), because both of these fictitious characters arcs lead to abuse and misdeeds and both pose a threat to the well being society/ proper functioning of their surrounding community.. whether you have a bias towards the cop because you envision him to be the superior entity before examining the facts of the situation is your prerogative.. but its a fundamentally flawed one.. purely from the perspective of reason that is.
Im saying this because we all have this tendency as emotional beings and I believe it is helpful... even essential.. for the betterment of of our society, for us to practice withholding decisive judgement until the entirety of any story has unfolded (In Life, Logic, Math, Physics). After all, it is literally what humans as an entire species have been attempting to reconcile since the renaissance, and it is the stuff that destroys our capacity to expand ourselves beyond the confines of our current understanding (or limitations in the case of the more physical sciences).
My head hurts.
To be clear: I was referring to a "PC cop" as a metaphor, not an actual cop. I meant the "PC police," I guess. That person who allows highly sensitized emotional impulses to inform all judgments and pursuant policies, in your model.
My point is, I'll take a dozen Rebecca Nagels (as arch a feminist I could think of) in my neighborhood before I'd take one average Joe dad who has slowly allowed his darker angels to guide his choices (and is, as a result, skimming from the parish's collection baskets and occasionally beating the crap out of his two sons).
Haha..
Yea practically speaking I would take the Nagles too.
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Oh, okay. Gotcha now.
So, a bleeding-heart PC cop run amok is as dangerous as someone who acts on dark temptations despite knowing those acts are wrong.
Um, no.
Degrading an abstract idea through semantical analysis will always result in your favor because you decide the terms and manipulate the circumstances for your favor. All I'm saying is its a dangerous way of thinking.
But yes actually, a cop who abuses his power and does not act in accordance to the rules of objectivity ... aka becomes a champion of his own causes, and begins to (ab)use his powers of authority to unlawfully exert his will.. then yes, he is as dangerous, in a sense, as someone who acts on dark temptations despite knowing the acts are wrong (vague), because both of these fictitious characters arcs lead to abuse and misdeeds and both pose a threat to the well being society/ proper functioning of their surrounding community.. whether you have a bias towards the cop because you envision him to be the superior entity before examining the facts of the situation is your prerogative.. but its a fundamentally flawed one.. purely from the perspective of reason that is.
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I think that is part of what's being discussed with rape culture, yeah. Words matter. A lot. And they reveal a lot, too.
I think the term "socially acceptable" is a murky one. Sure, 99% of polled Americans would reject sexual assault as a taboo. But dig a little deeper. Scratch the surface a bit. What did the person being asked understand when s/he heard the term "sexual assault." Is it a perverted stranger jumping out of an alley? Or is it that guy you just met at the bar and led on by grinding up on his pelvis on the dance floor? Is it your boyfriend of 3 years who's looking for some love and you're just not in the mood? Same question for a lady's husband. The attitudes and views will become more varied as the facts become more detailed. Such as has been the case here, I think.
Or, you know, you can go to the home page and just click on a category (e.g, eel pr0n). :ph34r:
This is not just anything. It's a big, fluid conversation with lots of ideas and concepts being discussed.
Not sure you read what i said. Your emphasis on just as in "only" is incorrect when considering the context of my statement. What I meant was just as, or in other words, as much or to the same degree.
Im saying that allowing emotional impulses to override the higher judgment of the conscious mind in the act of making strong and unsubstantiated assumptions that bury the notion of logic on the level of a system of social organization, is as dangerous as someone who slowly resigns to their darker impulses despite a higher awareness that they (the impulses and the behaviors they cause) are wrong/ immoral/ unethical.
I was attempting to contribute to the big fluid conversation.
But this hasn't been my thread so far LOL...
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On Season 1 of TD: I thought all the Rust Cohle philosophizing was silly BS, and I thought all the mystical yellow king theorizing was just silly.
On BE: I thought it was cliched, predictable, humorless and overall just mediocre.
Now, to be sure, it suffered by comparison with the great HBO shows like The Sopranos and The Wire -- but BE was the show that HBO was rolling out as a successor to those 2 -- and it wasn't even in the same ballpark.
Well the nature of philosophy and perception is obviously subjective, so i SHANT argue with you.
But.... To me, the (perceived) transformation of Rusty from an ardent pessimist (resulting from the death of his daughter and the ensuing erosion of his marriage, in tandem with (likely) rewiring of his neural pathways from the persistent use of drugs (most namely meth) causing serious emotional and behavioral disfunction) to slowly beginning to appreciate the mystery of the universe through his obsessive inspection of details pertaining to murders, near death experiences, and ultimately, at the end, an epiphany while he was in a coma that he had shed his body and sense of identity completely, and became one with the "warmth" that he associated with his daughter but with the understanding that it was the greater state of non existence in this realm, and that through his admiring of the stars (metaphorically the great unknown, the great beyond) he had some sort of incomplete, but newly present awareness of the progression of reality, that it all might be connected, the "oldest story of light and dark", and that in the final moments, he sincerely and openly gestured towards optimism by correcting woody's initial assertion that the dark blanketed the sky, simultaneously signifying his evolution as a character and the infinitely layered dualities of nature...
WELL.... IT MADE ME HEART WARM
BE to me was really a cold, harsh but honest look into humanity as it pertains to WILLFUL choices and their consequences.
I thought the finale was one of the most powerful, satisfying ways to close out an act of expression i have ever seen.
The way that Nucky, this man of power and control, devolved into wandering the boardwalk in dissolution as he once did as a child, the way that he was burdened with the reality of his failures; the pain of leading so many who looked to him for direction astray, that lack of anything meaningful in his wake and the resulting sense of purposelessness, the awareness that he was in fact a "bad" person and had been responsible for so much destruction for the purpose of his fickle gain, all cascading in his consciousness as his final moments drew near, really struck me.
(That final conversation between him and his brother where he essentially endows upon eli whats left of his material self and they examine their lives together in earnest, sent chills down my spine.)
Then of course, when the young boy who was the son of a woman whose life nucky destroyed before she even had a chance, for the prospects of "advancement" puts his lights out, as they say, and it literally catches up with him, he fades out realizing in that moment, that at any point along the way, the opportunity for redemption, a "lineage", was there for the taking and he simply ignored it in favor of perpetuating his empty, Sisyphean, ego driven conquests...
to me it cleverly made the concept of causality, maybe even loosely sin, or good and evil, come to life in world where those words have oft come to mean nothing more than remnants of myth or lofty ideals.
To me that last episode was top 10 of all film or tv I've watched in my life, and I've watched a lot...
Just my thoughts anyways.
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This idea. Blaming the victim. The "she must have deserved it" idea. What was she wearing. Or slut-shaming. Calling a victim a "gold-digger'?
Is this what we are really talking about when we say "rape culture" ?
The metalanguage used to discuss the sexual assault?
If so, I think a case could be made for "pervasive," at least in terms of comments like that being widespread.
I was hung up on the idea, (and maybe still am) that "normalized" means that sexual assault is socially acceptable. I'm still balking there.
I think you are right to be balking.
This is just a much an exercise in misappropriated logic and imbalanced reasoning as the conscious unfolding of deciding to act on impulses that one knows to be immoral.
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You and D4rk can have at this one but I would like to point out that enjoying rough sex is not the same as rape. I have no doubt we all know that but I wanted to state it explicitly.
Perhaps that is a better definition and more in line with the wording "rape culture". We do not have a culture that is okay with rape, which really would be the hard definition of "rape culture". We do have a culture that seems predisposed to question the victim and their motives. Again very complex issue.
Our culture questions the motives of victims because there is a precedent for it, not by some malicious intent or societal craving to satisfy the whim of the gods through sacrificing of the innocents.
The ensuing confusion and blurred lines that are taken advantage of by both sides is an unfortunate consequence no doubt, but the underlying causes run to the depths of how this country is operated and the resulting values that are promoted.
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For a contra opinion: I was pretty lukewarm about season 1 and I'm finding season 2 similarly meh. I think it's a bit better than Boardwalk Empire, which is the faintest of praise, but much closer to that show than to the high-end HBO shows.
OMG BRO,
No you didn't (shakes finger sassily)
I agree about season 2 of TD. The pacing and script were disjointed and the actors chemistry wasn't top notch.
Season 1 however.. well .. what didnt you like about it??
But most importantly? HOW DID YOU NOT LOVE BWALK..... ESPECIALLY THE FINAL SEASON..
seriously just wanna hear your thoughts.
Just watched episode 4 and 5 today.....gotta say season 2 is growing on me.
WAIT HUH? Cohen wrote this song? That damn priest.. great lyrics, tho I envisioned some embattled former gang or war vet/ lifelong sufferer (guess he is).... not this guy.
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Good morning. To break the ice,
Here is some unrelated but awesome media.
RIP Jet Li's Movie career.
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But Robins Egg is probably right that the ROR trade doesn't happen if we pick Hertl instead of Grigs, due to the butterfly effect. Darcy probably gets to keep his job longer because he looks like a Magician in the draft. Then DeLuca's assassination plot goes off without a hitch (Darcy was fired a month before the scheduled date, according to some old TSC PMs I was able to find in the ether of the interwebs).
Nice. But what if Deluca killing darcy (I assume thats what you mean) resulted in a mass mourning (everyone around the league suddenly idolized darcy after the "Miracle at Draft") from which the Sabres players in particular became despondent and disinterested in Hockey and in Life in general, thus leading to an unintentional tank, drafting Reinhart in 2014, then winning the lottery and drafting Mcdavid in 2015?
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That's only fair if you've ignored much of what I've said. These are the kind of responses that have really turned this discussion into a free for all. Making these insinuations only makes matters worse, I thought you were better than that.
Yea I'm exhausted from it. It may be trolling, who knows. Goodluck.. I really gotta get back to my Lab.
Apologies to anyone i've offended, it wasn't my attention.
I just can't accept bigotry in any from because truly, all such judgement is the same, and of the same essence.
Lastly, I am not a returning user.
Enjoy the day.
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I really wish certain individuals would just come out and say it, rather than hiding behind "I'm not saying she deserved it, but...". Guess I shouldn't be surprised that those who internally hold such opinions are, at their core, cowards.
I hope your trolling.
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I can't seem to recall. Which troll has trouble distinguishing between your and you're?
It was serving an educational purpose until it got commandeered by buffoonery.
This is the epitome of my accusations.
Really? Calling someone out who is responding to 20 people at a time trying to finish a lab for their spelling?
And then the insult, buffoonery, after you just got done lecturing me over adult like conduct.
Buffalo Bills 2015
in The Aud Club
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