bigAL

On 1/26/2022 at 3:55 AM, Minion said:

@bigALI swear you better get to 375 tpe and thanks for you time with us

I'm doing the math now to figure out how to get to exactly 374

Groovy Dood - the answer to life, the universe, everything, and every most DC Dragons' trivia questions.

It's an honour to be a one-team guy for such a stand-up franchise  

On 1/27/2022 at 1:10 AM, fromtheinside said:

I'll be sure to tell Juice to let him know Groovy Dood is a HoF'er.

he told me and I did not believe him. I had to come check for myself. Damn.

I still don't believe it - whaaaat? I thought for sure the lack of playoff success would sink Dood. He wasn't even ever MVP, and only an All-Star once? I won't argue, but damn those Bluelets really dazzled the voters eh? 

Big shout outs to @Enorama for making the brain-dead decision to draft me (seriously, my favourite theme week piece ever was the "alternate VHL reality" article titled "What if Eno had a brain...?"), @GRZ and @BarzalGoat for mentoring the young Dood (and then not being mad when I smashed Benny Graves' records)

With a first career like that, why would I ever recreate?!

Cheers everyone,  &  (even @JardyB10)

So @osens is the new commissioner now eh?

Awesome! Sam's so passionate about the M, I'm glad to see she's back there.

Heyyy I still have another claim left, awesome. 3/3. 

19 hours ago, jhatty8 said:

I love how this thread devolved (evolved?) into color theory

Proof that people only read the headlines haha

18 hours ago, Beaviss said:

Where can I send the secret society welcome basket?

To my new locker in our evil underground lair, of course 

16 hours ago, WranglersSuck said:

DON’T YOU LEAVE ME!!!

Aww buddy, I remember how crushed you were when I quit AGMing for you. But if you love something you gotta set it free, or some other hippy dippy cliche

6 hours ago, Phil said:

I totally understand the resignation without any context or explanation needed. It's a super time-consuming, often thankless job. Your tenure was short but sweet. Thank you for stepping up into the role for the time that you did. As an oldtimer who's stepped back, I really do appreciate it

It is a lot eh? It’s hard to quantify that from the outside but once you know, you know. 
 

And don’t worry, I’m not done with you old man. I owe you five podcast intros!

2 hours ago, Beketov said:

I love how you started this with “ditto” and then wrote the longest one haha.

Have you ever known me to be brief or succinct? 

2 hours ago, Beketov said:

if you spend a day as a blue you’re a blue for life

And you thought Jardy was bad for snooping and lurking and leaking top secret behind-the-scenes info?

But for real, you're the glue that holds this place together. If you're ever going to go on vacation, plan it six months ahead and download your brain into someone new in case something happens to you.

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Beaviss: This is my official resignation from the role as VHL Commissioner. My VHL interest has stagnated in the last month or so. I recently took a little break and I found when I came back that it didn't get any better. While this is unfortunate since I once really loved spending all my free time coming to chat and thinking up new ideas for the league and how to make it better. I feel like I've left a little mark good or bad (depending on who you talk to) on the league in the role that its a good time for me to walk away. Hopefully my replacement (if one is hired) can have the passion I first did when entering the role.

and

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Quik: So, this will probably come as a shock to most of you, but I haven't really been around much lately. I touched a bit on this when we announced Al as the newest Commissioner, which was 2 months ago, that I was going through some changes in my personal life that meant less time for the league. Initially, this was meant to be temporary, as I settled into a new phase in my career, hoping to return to full activity as a part of the Commissioner team in this great community that I've devoted thousands of hours to over the past decade and a half. However, after a couple of months, it's become clear that I will no longer be able to put in the time necessary to be a contributing member of the Commish team.

and

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bigAL: Ditto.

Seriously, I might as well just copy and paste what Beav and Quik said in theirs. For real, I pulled the classic blue move of “go away for a few weeks and lose the drive to come back.” Someone else on the brink of retirement gave me the lightbulb moment when they said they “were actively avoiding logging in” and I was like, “igen, that’s me, that's a red flag.” I mentioned a bit about December’s hectic ‘goodbye tour’, but that started as a weekend away. And turned into a week. And then another end. And here we are at the end of another week, still barely active. Time to make it official, I can't do the job to the standards that this league deserves anymore.

The VHL was the right place, the right people, and the right project for me at the right time of my life. I’m so proud of almost two years I’ve been a part of this community. From my humble beginning as an AGM, to my work on the WJC, to bringing a voice of reason to the BoG, and then finally becoming the tyrannical overlord for the last six months, it’s been a ride. More important than job titles and responsibilities, though, are the friends made along the way. I’ve been so fortunate to spend time with so many different groups. I broke in with the League folks early days; the 9-5 crew last year was a bumpin’ gang of people who were definitely supposed to be working remotely but were on discord all day; my S72-74 Miami LR, because you always remember your first; the Jackbox party team were the best because that was a game my crap technology could actually handle (unlike Golf With Friends which I swear melted my laptop); the Chess Club, which was so much fun; the podcasting friends, both those that I actually met and podcasted with face-to-face and the people who feel like friends because I hear you talking to me regularly. Everyone here is a “best people around” even if you aren’t old, or a boy, or in the club.

I dunno what my legacy will be here, but I’m intensely proud of the work we’ve all accomplished in the last six months. The moderation team did an unbelievable job of codifying our rights and responsibilities as members, and I’m happy to be a part of that. The VHLE was implemented while I was blue, so that may or may not be on the ‘positive’ side of the ledger for you. I’ve always been a community organizer, a volunteer manager, a policy and good governance of large social groups wonk, and so I got a lot out of being a commissioner. It was fun for me in the same way writing academic essays is fun for me (seriously, I got to help write a few uni papers for a friend this month and it made me long so much for uni). I needed a new project that kept me in the community organizing world since I left my old one behind in Canada. Blue was a job that kept me sharp professionally, engaged and entertained personally, and allowed me to give back to a community that gave me so much during the pandemic.

On top of all that, I’ve got a new appreciation for the work of the commissioners. They tell you that your job description is to do, quote, “everything”, and it’s accurate. The blues are the HR department, managing all our staff; they’re our spreadsheet hockey organizers, responsible for creating and enforcing rules, training new GMs, settling disputes between our squabbling children; we’re community organizers who work hard to make sure there’s a wealth of positive experiences and activities to keep people entertained and engaged; and, commissioners are just generally firefighters, dealing with the unexpected problems that come up when dealing with 200+ incredibly diverse humans all existing in the same space. I was even the lucky blue that didn’t have to sim, so add that daily responsibility on top of all the above, and you’ve got the day-to-day VHL life of Bek and Josh. Holy shit they do a lot. Make sure to hug a blue and call your parents today.

Life changes, and we’re allowed to (and it’s important for us to) change and grow along with it. I’m old now, I can look back and see a number of distinct chapters in my life. Each has a starting and an ending, and each leads - not always immediately - to a new chapter. That could be a new job, a new city, moving away to uni, starting or ending a relationship, or joining or leaving an online community. That’s okay! I’m working through now how to thread those chapters together, how to make an active choice of what and who to bring from a closed chapter to a new one. My VHL chapter taught me a lot of things. It reignited my passion for writing which - ugh, I hate the idea of this but love the practicality - I’m trying to monetize on UpWork. I got to dust off my photoshop skills after 10+ years of stagnating on a back shelf of my brain, and PS is one of those things you can’t really do unless you have a project like creating VHL graphics. As my relationship was deteriorating, the league gave me a place to safely retreat to so I didn’t feel so sad and alone. I got to podcast! I always wanted to do that, but never had a purpose or a thought so interesting that the world needed to hear it. I learned and practiced what diversity looks and sounds like in the 2020s, which was extra important as I lived first in the aggressively heteronormative small town in northern Ontario and then in the aggressively heteronormative country of Hungary. The VHL kept me hip to what the kids are rappin’ to these days, yo. I know that when a student tells me they love to play League, I should ask what their “main” is (and they get so damn excited that I can speak their lingo). These are all skills and experiences that I now have, that are now a part of me, that will come with me on the rest of this crazy journey through life. 

I’m forever thankful that this chapter of my life happened, that so many of your names appear in my daily journals, and that we could all be there for each other during these “unprecedented times”. 

So, that’s it for me. My day to day life in Europe just doesn’t have the required space and energy to adequately do the blue job anymore. It’s not fair to you to have 50% of a commissioner, and it’s not fair to me to carry the guilty burden of not meeting the responsibilities I signed up. I’ve said in a few places, I took this job literally the morning of my last full day in Canada before I had my coffee and immediately when it was offered. With more time to think it through, I probably wouldn’t (shouldn’t?) have done it knowing all the change that was coming in my life. The time zone meant that I wasn’t active at the same time as most of my friends, which takes out a lot of the fun from the league. Since covid doesn’t exist in Hungary (lmao fuck), I wasn’t spending time sitting at a computer long enough to participate in actual discord conversations anymore or to deal with things in a timely manner. 

And, I’m not gone. I’ll still be on the forums. I’ll be on discord probably as much as I have been the last two months (ie: not enough). If we hang out and chat, it’ll be as friends catching up on life and not likely sim hockey fans debating the merits of drafting first overall Vasile Lamb or Tavish MacGroot (don’t blow up this chance, go for the demoman).

So, it’s been a ride. Keep on keepin’ on. Bring joy to someone’s life. Remember to think of things you’re thankful for. Hug your loved ones. Be kind to yourself and treat yourself the way you would your best friend. In the immortal words of bigAL: “don’t be a dick.”

&
 

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Beaviss: This is my official resignation from the role as VHL Commissioner. My VHL interest has stagnated in the last month or so. I recently took a little break and I found when I came back that it didn't get any better. While this is unfortunate since I once really loved spending all my free time coming to chat and thinking up new ideas for the league and how to make it better. I feel like I've left a little mark good or bad (depending on who you talk to) on the league in the role that its a good time for me to walk away. Hopefully my replacement (if one is hired) can have the passion I first did when entering the role.

and

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Quik: So, this will probably come as a shock to most of you, but I haven't really been around much lately. I touched a bit on this when we announced Al as the newest Commissioner, which was 2 months ago, that I was going through some changes in my personal life that meant less time for the league. Initially, this was meant to be temporary, as I settled into a new phase in my career, hoping to return to full activity as a part of the Commissioner team in this great community that I've devoted thousands of hours to over the past decade and a half. However, after a couple of months, it's become clear that I will no longer be able to put in the time necessary to be a contributing member of the Commish team.

It's been a wild ride, and I'll be forever grateful for the opportunity to be a part of the leadership in the VHL. Thank you to everyone I've interacted with for being part of the journey, and if I haven't interacted with you, thank you, as well, if for nothing other than being part of the league.
 

and

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bigAL: Ditto.

Seriously, I might as well just copy and paste what Beav and Quik said in theirs. For real, I pulled the classic blue move of “go away for a few weeks and lose the drive to come back.” Someone else on the brink of retirement gave me the lightbulb moment when they said they “were actively avoiding logging in” and I was like, “igen, that’s me, that's a red flag.” I mentioned a bit about December’s hectic ‘goodbye tour’, but that started as a weekend away. And turned into a week. And then another end. And here we are at the end of another week, still barely active. Time to make it official, I can't do the job to the standards that this league deserves anymore.

Oh well, it happens. I wrote a eulogy, an explanation, a reflection to go along with this, but this isn't the place to do that. Check that heartfelt look back here.

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

&

What a Christmas season. I'm always amazed by the generosity of our community. Nicely done to everyone who donated, and thanks for the participation and attention from those that were unable to. The results from the charity drive are amazing.

The last loose end to tie up is the 12 Days of Christmas Raffle. Every day, you dutifully logged in, said hello, and got entered into the grand raffle.

As explained in the rules, we've got a lot of winners:

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Number of Winners per tier:

Tier 1: 10 Winners
Tier 2: 5 Winners
Tier 3: 3 Winners
Tier 4: 1 Winner

I used Google's Random Number Generator to pull a number of Josh's crazy spreadsheet that organized all the entries. You can view the streams here, here, and here if you don't believe me, but don't waste 15 mins of your life watching and listening to me fumbling around a spreadsheet.

So, here are the winners!

Tier 1:

You win:

Tier 2:

You win:

Tier 3:

You win:

Tier 4: THE GRAND CHAMPION

You win:

Thanks to everyone who participated. The 12 Days raffle is always my favourite because it's an "activity" check of sorts. We had 186 unique users participate in this bonanza. That's fantastic, what a big number. I'm proud of you, proud of us, and happy for all the winners.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Good Riddance 2021, let's all have a great 2022  

Thanks everyone, let’s take all your offers and put them together!

https://vhlforum.com/topic/113170-tpa-dump-by-horcrux/?do=findComment&comment=897927

With Ariane Lablanc’s recent retirement (after the winning bid was paid out by @FonziGG), we need a creative solution to an unexpected problem. 
 

The initial amount offered was 48 TPE. A number of people have offered to step up and let Fonzi spend your TPE instead of Horcrux’s. 
 

Instead of choosing one person to get slapped with 48 spent TPE, we’ll add everyone who offers to a list of potential donors. Fonzi can choose anyone or multiple people from that list and spend 48 TPE total on their players. Maybe he sinks Reylynn Reinhardt with 48 TPE in leadership? Maybe Nico Pearce becomes a penalty shot expert? Who knows!

If you want to offer your banked TPE, feel free to sign up here.  

Sure, I'll claim this instead of Aussies this week

11 hours ago, GustavMattias said:

Absolutely NO ONE should be advocating for this out of self-interest). 

I know it sounds like that's me, but I really really am not. 

8 hours ago, Advantage said:

Not to mention, a lot of members will still choose to start in the VHLM, so its not like its gonna kill depth in the minors.  I

I've given my full thoughts many times so I won't rehash it all here, but I still whole-heartedly agree to the death that the recreate path should be VHLM at recreate for 1/3 of the season,  VHLE draft at the end of season for a variety of philosophical reasons. The depth players showing up in time for a playoff push is a good thing, I think.

On 12/20/2021 at 4:04 AM, GustavMattias said:

we put  waiver  offers  on  the  portal 

I love the waivers-on-portal idea so much for so many reason, and I think it was a technical issue slowing that down? The more streamlined and automatic we can make the path from creation to playing in the VHLM, the better.

oi

Tina and AL defeating together Ricer will be a sweet, sweet victory

Yayaya

20 minutes ago, Shindigs said:

You know what they say: Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.

 

So what's up next for people who won an auction, will there be a post outlining what's next or was there one that I missed already?

Igen, we’ll get that all together early this week. If you’ve won an auction, you can go ahead and make your donation to the league or to your local charity of choice. Post the proof in the donations thread and link to the auction you won. 

9 hours ago, JardyB10 said:

Was this supposed to be open until midnight? Because they're all locked right now! @Commissioner

time zones? I put 23:59, darn. 
 

edit: shit, it goes by my time zone 

1 hour ago, Peace said:

Might be too late for this one.

Nah the thread automatically locks, you’d know if you were late

On 12/9/2021 at 9:59 PM, thadthrasher said:

Merry Christmas everyone! I'll also be donating blood to the American Red Cross on December 15th (we're hosting a blood drive at the church).

This donation will also cover @Peace.

 

 

@bigAL here’s my update. Just gave blood today, December 15th

 

Well I don’t see the blood actually exiting your body, and the set looks as fake as the moon landing, but I’ll accept it.