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Ukraine Derangement Syndrome

I don’t think Canada is too happy with the Make America Great Again One

About 30 minutes after I was supposed to show up, Alex calls me. He was nice and was like the appointment was 30 minutes ago, do we need to reschedule? I was like I am here. I talked to a woman, and they said they have no record of my scheduled test drive, and I asked to speak to the manager. He apologized and sounded confused and asked where I was at. I said I was standing next to the Cybertruck (total shot in the dark). He says I'm right there, but I don't see you. I'm like I'm looking all around, and I don't see any salespeople, could you wave. He asks can you see me now (I assume he's waving), trying not to laugh, I said no I think I'm just going to leave. He started sounding frustrated and told him to meet at a desk. He mentioned where in the showroom it was, and he was like do you see it? I said yeah, I'll head over there. I wait a few seconds and go I'm here but no one is here. Now I can tell he is catching on and asked if I was at the right dealership. I said yes, the West Bloomfield location. Sensing this was coming to an end, I said how can you not see me, I'm standing at the desk doing a Heil Hitler. Well, now the friendly and personable demeanor completely leaves, and he stammers something about wasting his time. I ask him for five things he accomplished last week. That's when he ended the call.

I'm now back in the Tidewater Mid Atlantic Region where the heat and humidity can get oppressive at times. My son lived near Dallas for a while, we told him never to expect to see us between May and November

Detroit, MI - Little Caesars Arena Pistons 36-29 Wizards 13-50 Next game: 3/13 At home, again the lowly Wizards

I've really got my doubts about Kreidler. I would really prefer Jones over him as the CF option to pair with Perez.

The new Two Buck Chuck. Just a step above Boones Farm

Still a couple Tier 3 rushers available, along with Smith. You have guys like Bosa, Miller, Fowler, Ojulari, Judon, and Lawrence.

A small thing but nevertheless, I picked up the sax for the first time in months today (the alto). It felt good and my lips gave out before my lungs. Actually my O2 Level held fairly stready. My wife was out of the house on a self care day, since she works from home I try not to disturb her with the horn. The weather is getting better, more time in the garage than the dining room.

Disappointed for Carlton Davis that his one year in Detroit ended the way it did. He was a very good addition, and had he not been injured, things may have turned out much differently for the team in the playoffs. But Reed will be an excellent replacement, and Holmes has a strong enough roster that he can wait for pieces to fall into place.

Not sure about now, but in the past it hasn't been at all uncommon for a New Yorker to never learn how to drive.

Don't let these kids get hot! 😁

Thayron Liranzo doubles on a sharp line drive to center fielder Cody Milligan. Max Clark scores. Kevin McGonigle scores. The kids are alright!

BAM...this is some Tyler Durden quality stuff man.

The latter point more important than the former. Happy for all the people who will survive this.

I guess I'd have to ask any MAGA person who is excited about conflict with Canada...WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?

This

It could have been worse. She could have come in the Winter. We moved there in the Spring/Summer of 1990. The first winter was brutal with the winds off Lake Michigan. My wife worked in the Streeterville area of the city where you could definitely feel the "Hawk". Even worse it was almost as if you never saw the Sun until April

When I got married almost 40 years ago and was living in Idaho, my Idaho-born wife had never traveled east and went to Chicago for a conference for work. She called me in a panic one afternoon and said that she was worried that she had asthma that she couldn’t breathe. And I had to explain the sad “facts of life“ about humidity that she had never experienced before.

I’ve lived in dry heat above 100° for the last 51 years and it’s definitely superior to 85-90° heat in stifling humidity. But sitting without shade or much wind on an aluminum bench in 100° in high dry heat, yeah that’ll take a lot out of anyone.

I-4 through Orlando is a major traffic cluster. Last year we did I-95 to I-4 to Lakeland…brutal. This year we went to Ocala off I-95 around Jacksonville and avoided Orlando altogether, going and coming back. The Cactus League would be a great trip one year. My wife wants to go there next year but she heard that there were Tarantulas in Arizona so that might not happen. 🫣

Bobrob’s 2025 Preseason Prediction #7 – Gleyber David Torres After seven years with the New York Yankees, Gleyber Torres signed with the Detroit Tigers as a free agent on a one-year deal for the 2025 season. The Tigers were looking to upgrade their offense while also moving one of their young stars, Colt Keith, to a position that most people predicted he would eventually end up, first base. Torres had his breakout season in 2019, when he hit .278/.337/.535 with 38 home runs and a 128 OPS+. He has yet to replicate that success since, although he did hit 20+ home runs in two of the last three seasons with a 118 OPS+ in 2023. He only had a 101 OPS+ in 2024. Still under 30 years old, will Torres be able to get back his power while playing in a new ballpark? Gleyber Torres is only entering his age-28 season, so he should be in the middle of his prime years. However, he has been inconsistent throughout his career. He has appeared in at least 140 games over the last three seasons with these stats: 2022 – 572 PA | .328 wOBA | .319 xWOBA | 6.8% BB% | 22.6% K% | 13.1% HR/FB% 2023 – 672 PA | .346 wOBA | .362 xWOBA | 10.0% BB% | 14.6% K% | 12.6% HR/FB% 2024 – 665 PA | .313 wOBA | .307 xWOBA | 9.8% BB% | 20.5% K% | 8.1% HR/FB% 2023 was one of Torres’ better years with a 120 wRC+, but he fell to barely above average in 2024 with a 104 wRC+. He was able to maintain his walk rate to around 10 percent over the last two years, improving from 6.8 percent in 2022. His career strikeout rate is a tad above average at 20.3 percent, but he was able to lower it to 14.6 percent in 2023, only for it to go back to his career average in 2024. The biggest change has been in his home runs. He had a 6.3 percent home run rate in 2019, but that fell to below 2.0 percent over the next two years. He was able to increase it to 4.2 percent in 2022 and 3.7 percent in 2023, but it fell again to 2.3 percent in 2024. According to Baseball Savant, only nine of his home runs would have been home runs at Comerica Park last year. For 2025, it’s hard to say how Gleyber Torres will adjust to a new team, a new ballpark, and a new hitting coach. He is likely to bat at the top of the order where his .330 on-base percentage would have been third on the Tigers last year after Riley Greene and Kerry Carpenter (after Mark Canha was traded). Torres was able to have double digits in stolen bases in 2021-23, so maybe he will be more aggressive on the base paths again. He also saw an average of 4.23 pitches per plate appearance, more than anyone on the Tigers last year. I don’t see him getting 20+home runs again, but having an above average on-base percentage, seeing a lot of pitches and putting the ball in play, as well as being a stolen base threat can still be a good asset to this lineup at the top of the order. Experts’ Predictions/Projections: FGDC – 584 AB | .259/.333/.403 | 18 HR | 68 RBI | 8 SB | 64 BB | 117 K Steamer – 585 AB | .258/.331/.403 | 18 HR | 73 RBI | 8 SB | 63 BB | 117 K ZiPS DC – 582 AB | .260/.335/.402 | 18 HR | 64 RBI | 8 SB | 66 BB | 117 K ATC – 557 AB | .256/.328/.396 | 16 HR | 65 RBI | 7 SB | 59 BB | 114 K THE BAT X – 559 AB | .252/.322/.394 | 17 HR | 68 RBI | 9 SB | 56 BB | 115 K OOPSY – 584 AB | .263/.336/.404 | 17 HR | 65 RBI | 9 SB | 64 BB | 117 K RotoChamp – 566 AB | .256/.330/.398 | 17 HR | 65 RBI | 8 SB | 61 BB | 115 K CBS Sports – 486 AB | .272/.330/.407 | 12 HR | 51 RBI | 6 SB | 42 BB | 107 K ESPN – 557 AB | .262/.338/.400 | 16 HR | 64 RBI | 10 SB | 64 BB | 116 K My Prediction: 2024 Prediction – N/A 2024 Actual – 587 AB | .257/.330/.378 | 15 HR | 63 RBI | 4 SB | 65 BB | 136 K 2025 Prediction – 592 AB | .260/.335/.395 | 12 HR | 66 RBI | 15 SB | 67 BB | 134 K

Just amazing how these "Sunday Christians" or maybe I should say Saturday night Christians, depending on their church going habits know so little about the teachings of their savior. https://www.bible.com/bible/1/MAT.7.15-20.KJV

So, this is annoying. How many people in my life have died from pancreatic cancer and it could be preventable or treatable? Elizabeth Cronise McLaughlin: "Having lost someone in our family to pancreatic cancer in January, I can't tell you how gut wrenching it is that this research is being cut because people have lost their damn minds about science." — Bluesky

I understand, but I wanted to read how they justify that statement. Maybe they are referring to something happening behind the scenes that we are not privy to seeing. Godammit, you're gonna make me listen to this, aren't you?

Vikings throwing around a lot of money. Makes sense since Kwesi can't draft and traded all of his picks.

Bloomfield Tesla called me Dan so that must have been the one I used the Dan Campbell alias. The one in Troy then must be Bradford Holmes.

Bob Sackamano

Chase Young is the new Jadeveon Clowney in the sense that they seemingly are looked at and paid entirely off of how prolific they were coming out of college.

I had a couple different responses...I couldn't settle on one: He's the proof not all illegal aliens have an awareness of what makes America special Can I be part of the ground crew? When he stops taking the drugs he's going to crash worse than one of those rockets Someone forgot to load the empathy program at boot but we can test in production

Haines City. Was there for a ST game in 1988 when the Royals were there.

Chase Young 3/51 with the Saints. Good god.

Dan Skipper back on a one year deal.

Yes we can!

prolly laid off the security team

UDS sounds like being diagnosed with a bladder infection.

I can understand why this song would appeal to someone with mental health issues. If you locked someone in a room and played this on repeat for only 45 minutes, it would be considered torture. I love Brian Wilson's music. He was a genius (talking past tense because his days of music-making are over). But like every artist, not everything he did was on-target. There's plenty of nonsense in his repertoire. It doesn't all need to be found.

But I am getting the game on Amazon Prime, with massive closed captions that I didn’t ask for and haven’t yet been able to turn off.

5 Red Wings games, 10 Tigers games. https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/news/red-wings-announce-plans-five-143718184.html

The value isn’t destroyed. It’s just reset for the wealthy so they can buy low again. All part of the rigged game that the billionaire class is playing.

Skubal-Jack-Olsen-Jobe-Mize. I am confirming this today.

matas is taller and longer. dont know if he ever puts on enough weight to be solid enough to play d. ron is solid enough, but i dont know what he's good at other than trying real hard. matas is more projectable and has a higher ceiling if he fills out. both their shots are broke right now. but we'll see. being a rookie on a bad team isnt always a good indicator of how good someone actually is.

I think my 401K just turned into a 250K

While we’re talking age, I hate the word “kiddos”.

Bobrob’s 2025 Preseason Prediction #6 – William Reese Olson Reese Olson became a surprise fixture in the starting rotation the last couple of years. In 2023, after sporting a 6.38 ERA in AAA, the Tigers called him up and he produced a 3.99 in 103 2/3 innings at the Big League level. Last year in 2024, Olson stayed with the Tigers all season long and lowered his ERA to 3.53 in 112 1/3 innings (he did miss some time due to a shoulder injury). Can he lower his ERA even further in 2025? According to Baseball Savant, Olson throws a slider, 4-seamer, changeup, sinker, and curveball. And there is definitely a pattern in how he attacks right-handed and left-handed hitters. Against right-handed hitters, Olson uses a sinker while against left-handed hitters he uses the 4-seamer/curveball combination. Sinker – 371 pitches vs. RHB | 0 pitches vs. LHB 4-seamer – 39 pitches vs. RHB | 403 pitches vs. LHB Curveball – 18 pitches vs. RHB | 94 pitches vs. LHB His slider is his best pitch and he uses it about equally against both right-handed batters (249 pitches) and left-handed batters (266 pitches). Opponents only hit .143 against it in 112 plate appearances with a low .194 slugging percentage against. It’s also his most used pitch, throwing it 27.8 percent of the time. Overall, right-handed batters hit .220 against Olson with a .310 slugging against while left-handed batters hit .253 with a .380 slugging against. Olson improved in many of his stats in his second year in the Big Leagues: 2023 – 103 2/3 IP | 4.01 FIP | 24.4% K % | 7.8% BB% | .255 BABIP 2024 – 112 1/3 IP | 3.17 FIP | 21.7% K% | 7.1% BB% | .291 BABIP The .255 BABIP suggests a bit of good fortune, while .291 BABIP is right around league average. The lower walk rate is good to see and the lower strikeout rate is probably due to more scouting reports that hitters have against Olson. The biggest improvement is that he was able to generate 50.6 percent ground ball rate, which led to fewer home runs (13.5 percent HR/FB rate in 2023 to 6.9 percent HR/FB rate in 2024). I love to see a high ground ball rate with a pitcher as that significantly lowers the amount of damage that a hitter can do. As for 2025, Reese Olson is only entering his age 25 season. There can be several more adjustments that he can make that can make him an even better pitcher. If he can stay healthy all year, that would mean that he will also log in more innings than he has ever pitched before. So, I could see him faltering a bit at the end of the season due to fatigue (although the Tigers may limit his innings to keep him fresh for the post-season). Therefore, I could also see a drop in all of his stats because of this. But even if he keeps his stats similar as last year with more innings pitched, that’s a solid number three starter that most teams would be glad to have on their team (and a solid number seven starter on the Dodgers). Experts’ Predictions/Projections: FGDC – 134 IP | 8-8 W/L | 3.90 ERA | 1.26 WHIP | 124 K | 45 BB Steamer – 144 IP | 9-9 W/L | 3.87 ERA | 1.28 WHIP | 132 K | 46 BB ZiPS DC – 125 IP | 6-7 W/L | 3.95 ERA | 1.25 WHIP | 116 K | 44 BB ATC – 141 IP | 8-8 W/L | 3.91 ERA | 1.24 WHIP | 131 K | 45 BB THE BAT – 141 IP | 8-9 W/L | 3.99 ERA | 1.24 WHIP | 126 K | 45 BB OOPSY – 134 IP | 10-8 W/L | 3.70 ERA | 1.25 WHIP | 126 K | 44 BB RotoChamp – 139 IP | 8-8 W/L | 3.88 ERA | 1.25 WHIP | 128 K | 46 BB CBS Sports – 137 IP | 7-7 W/L | 3.28 ERA | 1.12 WHIP | 126 K | 40 BB ESPN – 151 IP | 10 W | 3.75 ERA | 1.20 WHIP | 144 K | 44 BB My Prediction: 2024 Prediction – 129 1/3 IP | 7-9 W/L | 4.38 ERA | 1.322 WHIP | 130 K | 51 BB 2025 Actual – 112 1/3 IP | 4-8 W/L | 3.53 ERA | 1.18 WHIP | 101 K | 33 BB 2025 Prediction – 144 1/3 IP | 8-10 W/L | 3.62 ERA | 1.240 WHIP | 120 K | 44 BB

I’ve battled weight my whole life, lots of yo-yoing. It was psychological hell in the latter part of 2024, where I was stuck in this vicious mental cycle where I wanted so badly to lose weight but couldn’t get past the mental block of thinking it was just too much and I was incapable. Finally, October 18, 2024, I started calorie counting. I can’t tell you why that date, I just took the step. I didn’t tell anyone, not even my girlfriend of two years, for a month. I joined a local CrossFit gym in December, and it absolutely Kicked. My. Ass. But I kept going back. I was 312.4 on 10/18. As of this morning I’m 260.6. Down 51.8 pounds. I’m not sure my end goal, but I do think saying I lost 100 pounds would be cool. I’ve told a few people. Thought I would share here. 🙂