Shindigs

something something can make similar sounds to one something something

So what I learned from this is that Ravenclaw are to @Horcrux friends what dmen are to the VHL. Which is to say under-represented.

Maybe it's the famed masterpiece of legend though. "The polar bear in a snowstorm". But yeah, probably something went wrong.

Miami won! And through some unknown miracle Bo scored twice in our loss. Like how? Mans got 40 scoring and is tied team 2nd in goals. Meanwhile Simon is refusing him to be awesome at what he *should* be good at. <insert old man yelling at Simon-shaped cloud.jpg>

Commissioner? How dare you!? Also @Berocka @dasboot why is this one even longer than the last one? RIP sleep schedule, I guess?

Wait, there's more than one? I read the first one and it felt like it pretty much tied everything up that it needed to. So just assumed that was it. What I would point out as the biggest flaw of the first book, other than using the same exact morale to fuel it's story that just about every sci-fi tends to. Is that the book is written to portray a genius, and a tactical genius at that, by someone who is neither. So to create the separation between Ender and his peers. The writer makes every single other person (except arguably Ender's friends) complete and utter morons. Because it was the only way to create the separation required for the story, while still being able to describe Ender's actions and thoughts. To some this won't matter, to others it will be a dealbreaker. To me it made the entire book feel very naïve. But it was still a fun summer read, despite its shortcomings. It didn't help that I read it back to back with another (slightly better) book that had the exact same morale. So that may have made me harsher on it than it deserved? Do those same things continue in the rest of the series or is that more of a 1st book only thing @Enorama? As you did say it gets better from there.

IDK, but since this thread was started by a Velociraptor. I'm going to pander and say that weird organ velociraptors used to make velociraptor noises.

NGL, read that as "out here winging".

Turns out their hair gel is so strong it can be used to maximize the grip of your stick, to get those extra smooth outlet passes we all crave! *SELLOUT INTENSIFIES*

So the most common criticism of my forum sig, by far, was the white outline (despite it having an opacity of 69% SMH). So I went with a slightly updated version of it as my .com Graphic for the week. I'm honestly not sure which one I prefer...

I really just love how clean the Toronto logo is. Which makes me slightly biased towards liking just about anything with that logo in it. I also like clean graphics, but this is a bit too minimalist. It would need something more to create slightly more contrast between the logo and the background. Or alternatively just something to make the background pop a bit more. Which I know is a useless word to use to review something, as it literally doesn't mean anything. But this is one of those situations where I look at it and just feel like something is missing. But I have a hard time saying what it is. I had the same issue when I was making the (admittedly pretty lazy) banner for my profile with the Miami skyline. My solution was to copy the original base layer without the gradient map and set it to some blending mode (think either Overlay or Modify) to bring in the contrast of the highlights and the shadows again. That being said I wasn't particularly happy with my results. But it did at least bring back some contrast. So can't really give you what I'd consider a good solution. Because I don't know it. Overall though I give it a 8/10 mostly because I like cleaner graphics and the Toronto logo. But hey I get to be biased if I feel like it!

Readability on the names is on the low end. Since the San Diego logo has the dark blue outline. Maybe mirroring that in the Text would help both readability and tie it into the San Diego theme. Possible do their names in the blue (top line) and role in yellow (bottom line) to tie it into the logo even more? Actually just noticed you had their Discord names in the graphic too. I didn't even see that at first due to the text blending into the background. But other than readability I like it. So overall about a 7/10, with all the points knocked off for readability, rather than artistic choices.

Then they proceed to end the book in about 5 pages, when there was at least 50 more pages required for closure. Like did your deadline run out, or what? I get when TV shows do it, hoping to cliffhanger for a new season. But doing it in a book is just so bad imo.

That's kind of what you want though, those more understated interesting thoughts on today's society. But when they take out the big hammer and try and force it down your throat, it does indeed get old so quickly. Not to mention it's pretty insulting when they overdo it to that point. It's basically like saying "I know you're just a silly non-author, so let me explain it like you're 5". Which sucks about as much as the "twist endings" that get spoiled by the author around 3/4 into the book. Then they spend 150 pages slowly an meticulously explaining the twist, to make sure you got it, until you just want to throw the book at someone (preferably the author). That last part happens so much in Swedish criminal dramas it's basically part of the genre at this point. Thanks for the book suggestion though. It's going on the quickly growing list.

Make the rating outta 6 @Berocka, to make all the sociology nerds happy! Also Bank! Also stop trying to get the podcasters vote for Elmebeck... You know @JardyB10 is just going to get them regardless. You're basically endorsing him by doing a car podcast anyways.

What's the point of getting ice in @JardyB10's skates? Considering where he lives, your ice is probably just going to warm him up. Again, nice and chill listen. Really hope we can start catching some breaks with Miami. Statistically we aren't as bad as our record honestly. I'm mean we're very nearly as bad as our record. But not AS bad. Our shot diff and special teams are marginally better than the two teams ahead of us. But I think we have a SV% of about 85% currently over the whole season thus far. So that's slightly unlucky. I'm gonna call it and say @Nothing but goals's player Ben Dahl has probably been hitting the club trying to get instamodel's numbers too much. Gotta get him back in the game and he will steal us some big games sooner, rather than later. #DroppingTheAnchor

Mushrooms! I was making a Chicken and funnel chanterelle stew tonight. Which got me thinking, some people un-ironically hate mushrooms. So mushroom haters and lovers, what's your deal?

Nice to see I'm not the only seasonal reader. Though for me I do all my reading during the summer. As I loathe tanning, the only way for me to get a tan going is to sit in the backyard in a lawn chair and chain read books in between walks and workout sessions. I legitimately had a "book tan" this summer. A white patch under my chin from looking down at the book and a book shaped white spot on my abdomen. It didn't look ridiculous at all! You get this a lot with books translated by less than stellar translators from languages with different grammatical structure. It's pretty common with Russian => Anything western. So I assume something similar may happen with Chinese => Western. If the translator translate what's written, rather than what is conveyed. Then it will usually look like it was written by a child. Because that's just how Russian grammar is structured. It's also why Russian books become so dense when correctly translated. A 500 page Russian brick translates into a 1500 page Swedish brick, for instance. Usually they get around it by using like font size 6, so you have 1500 pages of words in 500 pages. I read at a very consistent pace and normally finish a 500 page book in 2 days. But Metro 2033 took me over 6 days, despite being 500 pages. Because the text is for ants. Tonnes of really good recommendations that I'll want to check out next summer ITT btw. So thanks everyone! Wait, those exist? Think every single sci-fi work I've ever read has had some really obnoxious commentary on today's society in it. Any good examples that break the mold? Would love to check some of them out.

Yeah, as someone who manually tracks it for my own player/choice teammates I can say that there is certainly some wiggle room in what you might actually count. For example, a hit that leads to a loss of the puck. Is that a takeaway? Some will say yes across the board. My personal way of tracking it in the PbP is to check if the next entry isn't from a player on the same team that lost the puck. Because then it's actually a takeaway. But due to the formatting of the PbP you sometimes have to go to the next tick to find it. Sometimes the hit is the last thing to happen in a period so there's literally nothing after. Sometimes the hit leads to a penalty and a face-off. I'm assuming whatever he wrote takes all those cases into account. But it does leave quite a bit of wiggle room. Same with the low puck handling "Bo Johansson loses the puck". If your player/team mate gets to it first it's not really a giveaway. I've already had to redo all my stats because in the first few games there simply were 0 cases of some of the more "fringe" ways to lose the puck. So I didn't include it in my search criteria. The saddest part of that was losing Bo's +69 possession on the season. Upside being, that he can now reach it again! Edit: Expanding on this with takeaways from hits rather than giveaways. Because that is where it gets real muddy. If Bo hits a player, and they lose the puck. IF Miami gets it, it's almost never going to be Bo that got it, as he is still recovering from throwing the hit. So then the question becomes, whose takeaway is is? Bo for throwing the hit that lead to the loss of the puck, or whichever Miami player skated onto the puck to make it an actual takeaway? There isn't a right answer to that question (I picked the player throwing the hit for my personal stats). Which then leads to the followup question: Should takeaways from hits simply not count? But if so then giveaways shouldn't either, or the entire league will have net negative possession instead of +/- 0. But at that point so many actual giveaways and takeaways aren't represented, simply because you don't know who to credit statistically, that the stat no longer really represents what it was meant to in the first place. But if there IS a way to make it work, even with some inherent margin for error (most stats have that anyways*, as long as it isn't biased it's not a massive issue). I do feel it would go a long way to make judging defensive prowess more approachable. Right now you have to be dedicated to finding out if someone is/isn't good defensively. And unless you know how to program/have access to some of these tools. It's a very time consuming process. It's very easy to look at two players and say "Oh they both have 70 def, so they are equal defensively!". Meanwhile on Miami we have a forward and a Dman with (basically) identical def. The forward is -95 the dman is +42 (which just happens to be the meaning of life, the universe and everything). You wouldn't really have guessed that without having access to information that is anything but readily available. I know I just glanced at shots blocked and picked the top guy when asked to predict who I think will be VHL defensive defenseman of the year. Because anything else would simply have required hours upon hours of work to even be able to look at. *The way +/- is tracked IRL and presumably in-game opens up for what I like to refer to as "the douche shift". Where a player gets caught up ice. Knows they have no way in hell of actually making it back in time to affect the play. So they just go change, and dodge the -. They caused the odd man situation that is currently happening, because they got caught up ice. But whoever they change with will take the - from the probable goal, which they had literally nothing to do with. This inherently makes +/- have a massive margin for error. But since it's grandfathered in we're kinda just letting it slide. So would it be the end of the world if we had a similar issues with possession?

Nice to get to know "The Wall" more. I was just thinking "Huh, Things look a bit stacked in net for Philly". Then the wall was moved. Wish you all the best in Houston, and thanks for ruining Halifax' confidence @Collusion

Damnit Simon! But doesn't @rjfrymanhave that handy tool that he made that reads the output and gives you all those stats? Isn't there some way to get that output in a way that can be applied to the portal?

Damn, that is some praise. Thank you so much!

Coulda been worse, coulda been 60-9. That would have just been brutal. Also thanks for tanking about as hard as us. It gives us hope!

As a new defensive defenseman. Having to manually track possession, as the league doesn't. Isn't exactly helping with the glory.

Hey, masochists need to eat too.