diamond_ace

Before the playoffs, nothing can actually be too late, unless you're implying there's not even a playoff berth for us

So it’s been some time since I last paid attention to the All Star Game. It always used to draw my attention because I was a good player and was likely to make it every season, or at least every season after perhaps my first one or two. Now, since I haven’t been as active and by extension that has been reflected in my player, I generally just assumed I wasn’t going to be anywhere near the game and haven’t followed it. What this means, in a practical sense, is that I’m not actually sure if the new system of selecting most of the teams ahead of time and leaving only the last few candidates up for vote is new to just this season, or if it’s been going on for a short while now. I know it’s not an exceedingly old system, I was, of course, much more active not that long ago and it wasn’t a thing then. A quick glance at the League Voting section provides more questions than answers – S46 was the old way, S47 had a draft but doesn’t appear to have had any voting of either type, S48 looks like it had the new system but with also a vote for starters and captains, and S49 is the new system. S49 might also have a vote for starters and captains once the teams are picked. On the whole, I think I like the new system better. In the old system, a player who clearly deserved a berth might not get selected if a less popular member was behind the player, or if his team wasn’t as active and he didn’t accumulate as many votes from the contingent that always just picks their teammates. This way, with much of the team being determined ahead of time, the obvious choices will get in one way or another. Sure, there will still be those who miss out and might have been better or more deserving than those who get in, but there can be less of a complaint if the tenth best forward misses out than if the sixth best forward misses out. The selection committee’s misses are going to be less egregious than that of the general population. This brings me to my final point: me. I noticed I have been selected to be on the ballot for the final two defensemen spots. Had someone asked me, in a vacuum without knowing what I or anyone else put up statistically for the season, if I deserved a spot, I’d not only have thought no, I’d probably have assumed someone was trolling me and not even dignified it with a response. I mean I’m a 389 TPE player (at least what is applied and actively working for me) and that doesn’t exactly scream success. That said, having looked at the poll and the players on it, with their stats so nicely laid out for judgment, I honestly have to admit I belong on the poll. Not only that, I’m borderline worthy of inclusion. It all depends on what you’re looking at for a vote. If you’re a points guy, maybe you’d rather Sleeman and Kyanon (and on points, I’m actually fifth of the six on the ballot). Shot blocks are an interesting thing to look at, but it’s been well documented that it’s a flawed stat in the sim, and players on worse teams will perform better by default. The same thing could be said for plus minus, and both of those stats should be viewed as a piece of the larger player and not as individual determinants because of their flaws. However, there’s one area in which I’m not only deserving, but I stand head and shoulders above the rest of the panel. My physical game is ahead of my counterparts by some distance. World B. Free has fewer than 75% of my hits total and he’s the only one with even an argument in that category. This certainly isn’t a plea for votes, and in fact I’ve been selected so many different seasons over the course of my time as a member that if the other candidates were newer players, I’d probably actively campaign against myself (this is not the case, however, as the two candidates with more votes than me are also members that have been on the site for at least a decent amount of time). It’s just interesting that while I always underperformed in the sim when I had a ton of TPE, I’m actually somewhat overperforming now that I’m a role player.

Vote for the guy with a massive lead in hits

Panzermadels: Tank Dating Simulator. You are a tank and you date other tanks. Only reason I know this is a thing is it was used as the punishment game for a guy who lost a Youtube bet

Yep. Clearer handball than Henry over Ireland, the refs stood and talked about it longer than a replay would have taken but they called it a goal anyway

Weird part is that coming into today, while Brazil were obviously favorites to win the group, it was actually easier for them to finish third than second.

There's a guy I know who was complaining about Poland not smiling after their win. I get that 3 points are 3 points, but neither side were any good. I can definitely understand not smiling after that.

Our resident Heimlich expert is on his way to England once he books a flight out of Colombia

I BELIEVE THAT WE WILL WIN! Costa Rica pulling it out just barely, USA tops group A. Gets to face *probably not Brazil - either Peru or Ecuador pending results* in Seattle on Thursday instead of *probably Brazil* in East Rutherford on Friday. Skip the fruit basket, Costa Rica gets all our fruit exports for a year after this

Costa Rica doing their part to help a fellow CONCACAF member, pulling out all the stops against Colombia. Up 3-1 at the moment

And the first "favorite" not to get the full 3 points... England, yet again. Tell me who had that in the office pool? Oh, wait, we all did?

Diego Forlan... oh wait that was 6 years ago

As a Finnish player, Kerkko Hyvarinen likes to watch the Euro from time to time. We at 93.7 THE FAN decided to catch up with him and find out his opinions on the teams. First off, let me say that no good Finn would ever support Sweden. That's right out. They're our next door neighbors, sure, but they're also our rival. USA wouldn't want Mexico to win a tournament they weren't participating in. Additionally, Russia I don't like because we have a war history against them and beat them on skis. So no Sweden or Russia, but which teams do you like? Well, Iceland is niceland, they're a fellow Nordic land so I would like to see them do well. Maybe Poland or Ukraine, neither of them are the biggest fans of Russia so there's somewhat of a common bond. This all makes sense but the teams you have an opinion on thus far are all clearly dark horses to win. Who do you want to take it all? I wouldn't say they're all dark horses, Greece won one not too long ago and they're not exactly an established power, but honestly, France is the host and they're already one of the top teams, so home games might be able to lift them over the top. Belgium has some nice potential as well. Spain, Italy, Germany, they've all had their time so maybe Belgium could bring some new blood to it, or an exciting different team such as a Croatia or even Poland, a team I mentioned earlier.

This. I have Iceland advancing as a four-best thirds team. They'll beat Hungary (everyone will beat Hungary in that group) and that itself should be enough, but they have a decent enough shot at a draw with Austria. I don't think it'll happen, but second in the group isn't unreachable, especially considering the group they ended up with is essentially Portugal and everyone else (and on top of that, Portugal are one of the weaker top seeds, not that they'll have any trouble with this lot)

That would make 2 legends, like he said. Kimbo isn't particularly close

The rules state we must lose tonight and then win it in SJ on Sunday. The Pens have only ever won cups away.

0 people

I'm going to guess The Wire. I've never seen it and don't particularly care to, but it seems like it's a rule of the internet that if someone makes a drug dealers reference that absolutely no one understands, it's from The Wire.

That said, if New York doesn't end up wanting me, I'll come home on the cheap. I assume they'll end up extending me after the season, when we don't have other things to concern ourselves with.

You know how tempting this is (eventually) but I don't go to free agency. I did once, with every intention of just signing back with Calgary (with Intranquilo, I wanted to see what it was like) and I felt terrible not signing with Vasteras considering the passion Tyler put into his plea. I know I wouldn't be as hot a commodity this time around, but I just can't go to free agency.

Barthandelus. Shortly after that you get to Gran Pulse and it's a big open field with Flans (which you can beat easily at that time), Adamantoise (which you're well underleveled for), and some third creature tougher than the Adamantoise. So you have to grind to get to the point where you can beat the Adamantoise, but you have to do it on only Flans. Actually, re: 6 - if you read my PT, there was a reference in the first paragraph. My SHL player (I haven't been on there in at least 6 months, so he might be auto-retired by now) is Clyde "Shadow" Arrowny, which is the playable character Shadow from FF6 and his real name. Bit of a spoiler but it's not really pertinent to the plot, you'd have to catch the dream sequences so it's something you could play through the entire game without knowing.

The story was that people harassed and innuendo'd her into leaving. Apparently she was actually Slobo, so maybe that didn't happen, but I don't know how much I trust this place to bring a woman into it that I highly care about

I like the premise behind 8, but the system of getting money annoyed the hell out of me. I also agree on the card thing. I hit a massive difficulty spike in 13 and didn't get interested enough in it to want to grind my way out of that. I definitely liked Tactics though, so I'm happy that made the list. 7 is definitely overrated. I ended up not minding it in the end (the Materia was super customizable once you had weapons/accessories with a lot of slots) but it's not the great champion of the series people make it out to be. 6 is actually my favorite, followed closely by 4, and I ended up rather liking 12 despite the weird battle system.

Besides, how do I guarantee people won't Janelle her?

She likes hockey, she knows the VHL is a thing (I got that out of the way right at the beginning, didn't want to waste time with someone who thought this was too weird to abide), but for whatever reason she's never explicitly showed an interest in joining.