100 thoughts on “Told You So”

  1. Last night's game: I didn't see the first half, but I was listening. I got home, got my daughter to bed, and three quarters were past. So, all I got to see was the garbage time. Dieng might be a player in this league. He'll never be great, but I think he'll be able to play, perhaps even this year. If so, that'd be a welcome addition. Robbie Hummell was not on the court during garbage time; he was yukking it up with the big boys. Speaking of yuk: Shabazz.

    No K-Mart: 124 points. He's been holding this offense back! Seriously, though, what an effort by this club last night. On to Denver!

  2. Our local high school football team, the Potter County Battlers, plays for the Class 9A state championship today. Yes, I know South Dakota has a ridiculous number of classes of high school football, but a state championship game is still a state championship game, and it has folks around here pretty excited.

  3. Pop Warner participation is down.

    Tony Strickland, an associate clinical professor of neurology at UCLA's Geffen School of Medicine who sits on the Pop Warner's Medical Advisory Committee, said he believes participation dropped "in part because of the description of individual cases and the information out there about the incidence of CTE. If I'm a parent, anybody hearing that information, in the absence of other science, would be foolish not to be cautious."

    But Strickland, who is CEO of the Sports Concussion Institute, said concerns about football and head injuries have outstripped the pace of scientific evidence, creating unwarranted hysteria about the risks of playing football.

    "I have felt that the pendulum swung way ahead of the science and what we know," Strickland said.

    There's an old saying that Mr. Strickland must not have heard when he was growing up: Better safe than sorry.

    1. From another article on the topic:

      Guskiewicz published some of the earliest research linking football to long-term cognitive harm. At one point in time, he was an outspoken critic of the NFL's decades-long campaign to deny and minimize that connection. While working as an athletic trainer for the Pittsburgh Steelers, he saw the sport's brutality up close.

      That said, he coached his sons in youth football, and says he would do so again.

      "For some reason everybody thinks there is a concussion epidemic," he says. "That frustrates me. I sustained two concussions playing football in high school myself. There's not an epidemic. We just know a lot more about them and care more about them than we ever have. We need to be smart about how we're doing this."

      Emphasis added. There's not an epidemic! Why, I myself had a couple!

      1. well, he's probably right, in the sense that there have always been concussions in football. We just weren't very aware of them. What we have now is an "epidemic" of CTE amongst former football players.

      2. Looks like a poorly constructed sentence. I think he's saying concussions have always happened and that it's not something that has become more frequent, not that there's not a lot of concussions.

  4. Anyone else been having very slow response times on the site lately?
    As far as I can tell, less on the main page but on individual posts.
    Particularly long when posting comments.

    1. The new recent comments widget is extremely slow when posting new comments. I didn't notice any issues viewing the site last night.

    2. The odd thing that's been happening to me is that I have to log in twice. The first time I get an error message: "ERROR: Cookies are blocked or not supported by your browser. You must enable cookies to use WordPress." However, cookies are already enabled. So then I log in a second time and it works fine.

      1. I have also noticed it. I'm not sure of the cause, but I'm guessing it's a plugin interacting poorly with WordPress itself.

    3. I switched plugins back to the old one. I'm going to need to profile the new one to figure out why it's so slow before activating again.

  5. I'm not going to link because NSFW, but God Bless Rob Ford. He is the gift that keeps on giving. I hear he now is advocating for eating at home.

    1. I'm not sure what his home life is like, but if I were his wife I'm thinking his dining privileges would be revoked for a while after that gem.

  6. About that Wild game last night. Im guessing Nik Backstrom got a concussion after Nazem Kadri took a run at him. Cheap shot, knocked out the goalie, and only a two minute penalty. As that post point out, it only took a cheap shot on Granlund before he was kicked out.

    1. That was a pretty frustrating game to watch. The Leafs' high-octane offense is a disaster five-on-five.

      1. It's probably time for some cleanup, yes. My remaining free time today needs to be spent on my game, but soon I'll take a look and pull some of the outdated references. I can't promise I'll pull "That'll Do," however.

      1. Right, but the family themselves. I'd like to know who's in on it, and who's not. If the brother isn't in on it, this might be one of the cruelest things ever. If he is, well, Andy would probably be proud.

      2. Funny, my reaction was almost just the opposite: we all know it isn't true, but we all want to believe, and there's something beautiful in that.

        1. You misread my reaction. I certainly appreciate the idea of it, but reading some of the reports it sounds like there were plenty of people there who thought it was true.

          1. And I guess maybe I undersold what I was saying... I'd rather say that those that thought it was true weren't gullible, they were suspending belief to participate in a better version of the world, if just for a time, and there's something cool about that.

            I've kind of been thinking about this idea a lot lately. Like... we all know bigfoot isn't real, but we can also engage in a temporary suspension of belief and think "but wouldn't it be cool if bigfoot was real?" And in that temporary window we glimpse something deeper about the human condition, and, indeed, about the world itself. We'll never experience magic directly, but we can indirectly through our temporary suspension of reality, in favor of belief in the unbelievable.

  7. So, quite a few surprises in the NBA so far. Teams like Philly, Phoenix, and Boston, who are supposed to be "tanking" are off to (relatively) hot starts. Meanwhile, win now clubs like Memphis, NYK, and Brooklyn are struggling. Utah, yeah.

    So I think it's a little weird, given the fact that several of the allegedly tanking clubs are playing pretty well, thank you very much, that SI has this story running at its site prominently.

    1. I can't believe you suckered me into reading that drivel.

      Also, does KG have anything left in the tank? I'm starting to wonder. He's shooting 30 pct from the field, but still shooting as frequently as he has for the last ten years. His rebounding is still at a high level, but his turnovers and fouls are up. I'm guessing he's lost a step.

        1. *notes that SBG studiously avoided the KG critique. Wonders what would happen if the Stones were dragged into the discussion*

          1. I am hearing he might be done. He was still pretty good last year, though, so we'll see. If he continues to play and collect checks, then maybe there's a parallel. Even so, his legacy is pretty secure.

            1. Oh, no doubt. One of the small handful of best PFs ever. A first-ballot, all-time great.

              It's funny. I remember him as a h.s. kid, imported to Chicago (while I was at the U of I), where he teamed with Ronnie Fields at Farragut. Everyone knew that KG was a great h.s. player, but so was Fields. He was a legendary "what if" guy.

  8. By the way, dealing with health insurance su-hucks. (Even as a State of MN employee with access to incredibly good benefits.)

    1. Count your blessings. MN "embraced" the ACA and is lower than most places; my family's insurance is nearly a second mortgage payment -- thank you very much, Missouri.

          1. Actual Spoiler SelectShow
    1. SBNation has really gotten good over the last two years or so. Or maybe I wasn't paying proper attention, but either way, it's a regular stop for me now.

        1. I acutally don't read the team specific blogs, just the homepage with the longreads and GIF tournaments.

        2. I read 90% of the articles on Daily Norseman, but I pay a lot more attention if Arif wrote it. Overall, it's better than any other Vikings coverage I can find.

        1. Oh, those are real articles, not fiction.
          Still, someone in charge there got the good writers involved.

        2. Around the time Bois came on is around the same time Spencer Hall moved from just College Football/EDSBS to an editorship position in the overall structure. That's helped a lot too, I think.

  9. THE POTTER COUNTY BATTLERS ARE STATE CHAMPIONS!!!!!

    The Battlers defeated Leola-Frederick 60-22 to win the State Class 9A Championship. Quarterback Chayce Hall was 16-20 and set state championship records (all classes) by throwing for 466 years and eight touchdowns. He also made eight tackles and kicked a thirty yard field goal. Not surprisingly, he got the MVP award. Receiver Tanner Heuer set a state championship record with 214 receiving yards.

    This was the eighth time that the Battlers (first as Gettysburg, now as Potter County) had reached a state championship game. Going into today, they were 0-7. So yes, South Dakota still has a ridiculous number of classes of high school football, but a state championship is still a state championship, and everyone around here is pretty excited right now.

    1. This was the eighth time that the Battlers (first as Gettysburg, now as Potter County) had reached a state championship game. Going into today, they were 0-7.

      So, you are saying there's hope* for the Vikings and Buffalo Bills?

      *with a lot more suffering before it happens, however.

      1. One of the losses, in 2001, was 76-28. Seventy-six points is still the most allowed in a state championship game.

  10. Hey bS, X is playing in Petaluma in December. That's close to Sacramento, right? If so you should check them out.

  11. If anyone in Minneapolis is looking for a new bike, The Alt bike shop at 29th and Lyndale is having a 1/2 price sale on their bikes!!! Cool store that will help you find what you are looking for with lifetime free service. I'm going to stop by today and check out their selection although I'm not sure the boss is going to let me get another bike. Hey if anyone needs a used but lovingly cared for bike cheap, let me know.....

    1. I've bought two bikes in the last four years, but I would love to get a nice road bike rather than my hybrid. Hmmmmmm. Any idea how long the sale will last?

  12. I blame Spoons for not telling us about Network Notes. This could revolutionize how you guys review stories over at the Casa.

  13. Big copyright case announced this morning. Google wins in federal district court in its book scanning case, arguing that their project to scan a bazillion books to create a giant index (and serve up "snippets") was "fair use" and added value to the works in question.

    I think this is a Good Thing.

  14. I was doing a sporcle quiz where one of the answers was "Chris Andersen". On a whim, I put in "The Birdman" and it accepted it. Kudos to that quizmaker.

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