Trash Talk: Dead on the Field

I didn’t think anyone would miss my Trash Talk, but lo and behold, someone actually did.

Yeah, I’m surprised, too, because I’m not a sportser whether on a field or in the woods or on the water.

I do take some sick pleasure in sportsers’ pain, though.

Don’t tell my kid but I laughed my butt off when they complained in all caps it was COLD in the woods during their week of deer hunting.

You wanted this, kid. You knew going into the woods it’s cold, the hours are long, and venison is not a sure thing. You really have to enjoy nature and solitude.

The stories that come out of these hunting trips will last for years, though, and they’ll be buffed up and hauled out over every family gathering. They’ll last far longer than the venison sausage exchanged for a week’s worth of dogsitting.

Can’t wait to hear the tales during our next family gathering during the holiday season.

~ ~ ~

Today was the first Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) World Cup match. Ecuador met host Qatar and kicked their asses 2-0.

It’s the least that could happen after so many workers died building Qatar’s field, stadium, and other amenities for its participation in and hosting of FIFA’s World Cup.

Someone calculated the estimated number of hours of play expected in this World Cup series against the total number of workers’ deaths since Qatar was awarded this series in 2010, arriving at a figure of one dead worker for every 64 minutes of play.

Nobody needs futbol that badly.

FIFA’s president also set the tone for this series with an hour-long rant:

FIFA President Gianni Infantino’s extraordinary tirade against Western critics of the controversial tournament in an explosive hour-long monologue is still making headlines around the world. Human rights groups described it as “crass” and an “insult” to migrant workers.

Infantino, the boss of world soccer’s governing body, looked on glumly as he addressed hundreds of journalists in Doha, Qatar, Saturday, and started the news conference with a near hour-long speech, during which he accused Western critics of hypocrisy and racism.

Sure, sure…just because the colonialist west built itself on the backs of enslaved people and occupied indigenous lands, they’re not entitled to grow the fuck up and demand better especially from a sport which has been ridiculously corrupt?

The topper: no beer allowed because it’s a Muslim country and alcohol is forbidden.

I get it, your country, your rules, but those dead workers deserved better. The least they merit is a memorial toast if you’re in reach of alcohol while committing to a global standard for workers’ safety.

It wasn’t just alcohol but kosher food which was banned. Not exactly welcoming to all the people of the Middle East.

I’m not looking forward to the rest of this series.

Wonder how Twitter handled the match; I have no idea because I haven’t been over there. Probably not badly given the largest number of Twitter users are in the U.S. and Japan.

~ ~ ~

Speaking of Twitter, was Kyrie Irving ever suspended or banned from social media platforms?

I see he’s apologizing now for his bullshit anti-Semitic speech. Wonder if that’s about the National Basketball Association’s 8-game suspension alone, or if it’s about Irving’s access to media.

The Brooklyn Nets guard has been cleared to play and will start Sunday night against the Memphis Grizzlies. It will mark his first game since he was suspended Nov. 3 for “harmful impact of his conduct” relating to social media posts around a book and movie that contained antisemitic ideas.

With Twitter’s Musk relying on a poll outcome manufactured by the trolls/bots he derided, Twitter’s allowed both Trump and Kanye West back on and both committed their share of hate speech.

And look, there he is on Twitter, no mention of his hate speech, though.

Which means it’s not Twitter access spurring Irving to offer his questionable mea culpa.

~ ~ ~

What the actual. Detroit’s kitties won their third straight game today, this time over the New York Giants with a final score of 31-18 at the Giants’ field.

Jamaal Williams scored three touchdowns for the Lions.

Anything is possible, huh?

Bmaz wondered earlier in the week where Buffalo was going to play if at all given the record-breaking snow storm expected which was supposed to drop six feet of snow.

Since the Lions were in Giants’ Meadowlands MetLife stadium in New Jersey, the Buffalo Bills played in Detroit’s covered Ford Field stadium, located less than a three-hour drive from Cleveland.

Detroit was on the wrong side of a Great Lake for the weather system which dropped snow on the west side of Michigan and New York state – conveniently for Buffalo, since the team won 31-23 over the Cleveland Browns.

Looks like it was a good time even if it wasn’t at home.

~ ~ ~

This post’s title “Dead on the Field” is derived from a riddle:

Dead on the field lie ten soldiers in white, felled by three eyes, black as night.

Offer your solution to this riddle below in comments.

Treat this as an open thread.

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93 replies
  1. Rayne says:

    I must say sports on Mastodon is a very different creature from sports on Twitter. I had no idea how things were going with American football or basketball, and I learned only slightly more about FIFA. I did learn that bit about number of dead workers. Absolutely offensive.

  2. punaise says:

    Righteous, Rayne. I declined to participate in our office pool for the World Cup, citing linking to articles citing these very problems:

    The Wrenching Moral Calculus of Watching the World Cup
    Qatar 2022 is rotten to the core, but ignoring the tournament is unrealistic.

    Qatar World Cup is insane, evil and corrupt, so what’s a soccer fan to do?

    One response I got: ” …But let’s not pretend FIFA is a saint in all this. We all know how corrupt FIFA is and that certainly didn’t stop us from enjoying the tournament in previous years.”

    Sports gaslighting? I guess that makes me a moral relativist.

    • Rayne says:

      FIFA needs to be burned down and a new entity with far greater transparency needs to take its place.

      That’s where I’m at.

      • Raven Eye says:

        I remember when whoever-the-FIFA-boss-was-at-the-time suggested that women soccer players should wear the same kit as female beach volleyball players. However, I don’t recall him suggesting Speedos for the men.

        • Peterr says:

          That would be Sepp Blatter, the same FIFA chief who presided over the scandal-ridden awarding of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar. [Translation note: “football” here is “soccer” for US readers.]

          Football’s most senior administrator attracted the wrath of the women’s game last night by suggesting female players wear tighter shorts to promote “a more female aesthetic”.

          Sepp Blatter, the president of the world governing body Fifa, said women should have skimpier kit to increase the popularity of the game. “Let the women play in more feminine clothes like they do in volleyball,” he said.

          “They could, for example, have tighter shorts. Female players are pretty, if you excuse me for saying so, and they already have some different rules to men – such as playing with a lighter ball. That decision was taken to create a more female aesthetic, so why not do it in fashion?”

        • Raven Eye says:

          That was about the time that FIFA was waking up to the reality of the Women’s game. Like, ya know, people watch those matches. FIFA didn’t know what to do.

          I actually prefer the women’s game. Not as many of the “drama queens” that infect men’s European club football…All the dives they take rolling around the pitch in “agony”. (The exception used to be some of the Brazilian women.)

          I got to shoot a dozen games of the 2003 Women’s World Cup…It was fantastic.

  3. Allagashed says:

    Don’t knock deer hunting just because you don’t have the cajones to sit on a cold metal seat, 20′ above the ground, in a howling wind, for innumerable hours, just for the opportunity to NOT see a deer. Seriously, some people… Where is your head at?

    Deer hunters are god’s chosen people, deal with it.

    • Rayne says:

      Welcome to emptywheel. Point to where I knocked deer hunting.

      About half of this household’s red meat is venison. It’s what’s for dinner about 2-3 nights a week.

      What I will give my own kid some crap about is whining. If you’re going to take a week off to sit in the woods in a blind in the middle of November in Michigan, chances are good it’s going to be fucking cold. You have to want it. And don’t whine to your mom about it while she’s dogsitting your pooch because mom isn’t too keen about following a dog in the same cold every night with a flashlight in order to pick up their shit just so you can whine it’s cold.

      Furthermore you can back the fuck up because deer hunters aren’t any gods’ chosen people. They’re just people who like to hunt and/or like venison.

      • P J Evans says:

        I don’t think I’ve had venison, but one place I worked, many years ago, one of the guys was a duck hunter, So I’ve had a little bit of duck.

        • blueedredcounty says:

          That was also the best duck I ever had…but it was the duck legs confit, positioned like a crown in a mound of cornbread stuffing, some fois gras in the center, slices of duck breast around it, and the whole drizzled with a brandy reduction. To die for.

        • ernesto1581 says:

          ah, wild food. my usual pre-Thanksgiving event, years ago, was standing in the Long Island Sound in cold water up to my belly button and casting over striped bass still moving up toward the Hudson River. Occasionally, there would be a snow squall. Great stuff.
          Duck — you have to sweat the fat off first, preferably over steam. Seawater is good for this.

          Coppa Mundial? you can keep it, it just stinks to high heaven and has from the moment Septic Bladder opened the surprise envelope, twelve years ago. I say this sadly, but I will abstain.
          This morning’s news: team captains are being told to lay off the rainbow arm band or risk booking as they step on the pitch. also no cooked kosher food or “jewish prayers” in public. dutch videographer held at gunpoint by “security” the other day for filming in a public place (??) US guys invited a couple dozen “guest workers” for a kickabout the other day — probably caught hell for it.

      • Bobby Gladd says:

        We had deer hunting every year in Tennessee near Oak Ridge where I worked in an environmental radiation laboratory. You had to bring your kills to a field radiation testing center because of the widespread rad contamination in the area (off Bear Creek Road).

        We had salt licks outside our lab facility. I never hunted any deer. But, I narrowly missed hitting several that were jumping across Bear Creek Road as I came to and left from work.

        • P J Evans says:

          I remember once, when I was working off Page Mill in Palo Alto, seeing a very fat quail on a tree branch next to the sidewalk. My sis sent me a pic of deer just outside the fence around her apt complex, where there’s a small canyon that starts just a few feet the other side. (It has skunks, too. They like my sis, she’s been feeding them for years.)

      • Peterr says:

        Venison is very very tasty stuff. At a congregation I once served, as a “welcome to our church” gift to me, they packed my freezer with venison, pheasant, walleye, bison, and trout. All of it came from members who were hunters and anglers, as well as one who raised bison on his ranch.

        In the summertime, the church had a great solution to over-production in people’s vegetable gardens. They put up a bunch of tables in the entryway, and people would bring the overflow from their gardens and put it out for anyone to take. If I had more tomatoes than I could use, I’d bring them to church and then take home green peppers, beans, carrots, or whatever failed in my garden but succeeded in someone else’s. You didn’t have to bring anything to take anything, and whatever wasn’t claimed on Sunday went to a local food pantry on Monday morning.

        And don’t get me started on their potlucks . . . yum!

        • Ginevra diBenci says:

          Walleye, the tastiest gamefish in the world. Yet still an upper midwest secret. And may it stay that way.

      • harpie says:

        And don’t whine to your mom about it while she’s dogsitting your pooch …
        That made me lol! Yes, exactly!

        Venison [the tender cuts like steaks, tenderloin etc] is really good, pan seared and with a tomato/caper/white wine/garlic sauce. Yumyumyum.

        I’ve never cooked a whole duck, but do duck breast several times a year for special occasions. The rendered fat is a HUGE bonus. There’s nothing better for frying or pan-roasting potatoes. [Double yumyumyum!]

        And, one of these days I WILL try making duck confit.

        • Rayne says:

          I’m debating putting up a holiday cooking post as an open thread for recipe exchanges ahead of T-Day. You might want to brush off that tomato-caper sauce recipe. LOL

          We fight over the back straps when someone in the family gets a deer. I usually grill them after a Chinese marinade of light and dark soy sauce, black vinegar, garlic, ginger, toasted sesame oil, brown sugar, shaoxing or sherry. Yum.

    • 4Emilias says:

      Mere technicality Allagashed, but it’s “cOjones” not “cAjones”.

      Cojones = testicles; cajones = drawers, as in a chest of drawers.

      Deer hunters are groovy and all, but polyglots are also “god’s chosen people”.

      Then again, aren’t we all?

        • punaise says:

          Home team Cal finally beat Stanford in the Big Game to reclaim the axe yesterday. I could hear the roar of the crowd from our house one mile away. A titanic struggle of mediocre 3–7 teams.

        • Rugger_9 says:

          Yup, it was great. We actually extracted the Axe back last year, but it’s the first time we won at home in a long time. This is a game where records are meaningless and a coach can be fired for losing one especially if the team stinks otherwise (see Theder, Roger at Cal). Shaw, who deserves better, would be the one on the hot seat in Stanford.

          It was also a pretty entertaining game, because everyone knows this can save a season. There are variants on the Axe game for almost all sports, rugby’s trophy is a Native American war axe but it’s been a long time since Stanford has gotten it. 1980, 1996 and not since.

          Time for Army-Navy in two weeks.

        • Molly Pitcher says:

          I was missing Trash Talk because I wanted to gloat about Big Game!

          And the only reason Wilcox isn’t getting fired (but they canned the OC and the O line coach in his place) is because Sam Bankman-Freed, of FTX crash infamy, will not be ponying up his $15M donation to the Cal Athletic Department, and they can’t afford to buy out the football coaches contract.

          This Big Game was the 40th Anniversary of “The Play” which happened right in front of my seat. The 1982 Big Game was one of the best games I have ever seen, even before The Play. They dedicated a huge bronze statue to The Play on Friday.

          Today we are preparing jumbo shrimp tacos to have while we watch the 49ers play the AZ Cardinals. bmaz, care for a wager ?

  4. Peterr says:

    The thing about the beer at the World Cup is that until three days ago, FIFA, Qatar, and Budweiser had a contract that said the sale of beer in the stadiums would be allowed. Budweiser is going to get a lot of money back from FIFA/Qatar for breach of contract here. Qatar and FIFA are trying to happy-talk it by saying “But Bud Zero will still be allowed!” as if that will satisfy anyone.

    Two of the best reactions to this came from the Guardian.

    First up is Marina Hyde, after going on about paid spokesperson David Beckham shilling for anti-gay Qatar and FIFA boss Gianni Infantino posturing against anyone making moral statements:

    Anyway: is there anything to love about the imminent World Cup? Certainly not the sensational last-minute beer ban. (Although let’s face it – serving only Budweiser was already a de facto beer ban.)

    Snap!

    She followed this up with a brilliant observation about one of the brand new stadiums, and the organizing committee who signed off on it:

    But, hand on heart, my favourite thing so far is the Qatar World Cup stadium that looks like a vagina. I feel it says everything about what we’re dealing with. Consider this: at no point in the design sign-off process did one of the guys on the organising committee – and it will have been all guys – have the balls to say: “Look lads, I might end up taking a lot of stick, but doesn’t this … doesn’t this look like a vagina?” I mean, come on – they must have seen one.

    Punaise, I’d love your professional opinion here.

    Then there’s Barry Glendenning, who opened a recent piece like this:

    It is a measure of how utterly squalid the Human Rights World Cup is shaping up to be that one of the few small pleasures match-going fans could look forward to apart from the actual football was a plastic cup of preposterously over-priced, weak, tasteless, bland, American-style lager with which to slake their thirst under the searing Doha sun. Normally a dry country where the guzzling of foaming shaft and assorted top-shelf beverages is not only frowned upon but largely forbidden, Qatar had agreed to relax their laws on alcohol consumption so that fans might be able to neck a few £12 suds within the perimeters of stadiums. Far more crucially, it meant Fifa would not lose out on the tens of millions of dollars of lovely sponsorship loot it receives from Budweiser in exchange for the exclusive rights to hawk their beer.

    On Friday, however, the powers that be in Qatar reneged on the agreement struck in February and made it clear that alcoholic beer (or beer, as it is more commonly known) will no longer be served in or near stadiums, unless of course those attempting to procure some happen to be among the privileged prawn sandwich-munchers, whose corporate boxes retail from a risibly cheap £19,000 and upwards per match. The good news, however, is that those in the cheap seats will be able to drink non-alcoholic beer, an activity that is only marginally preferable to licking one’s own pee off a gate.

    Barry is a real treasure, both in print and on the radio on “The Warm Up” on Sunday mornings with Max Rushden.

      • Peterr says:

        Clausthaler is a good German non-alcoholic beer.

        Bud Zero is neither German nor good. I’ll leave the question of whether it is beer up to the lawyers.

        • P J Evans says:

          I enjoyed it!
          (My parents referred to Coors ans “Colorado Cool-Aid”. They did drink Bud, though. And wine. I’m a beer or whiskey person. Most wines are way too dry for me.)

        • earlofhuntingdon says:

          Decades ago, Coors was considered a delicacy east of the Mississippi. Nowadays, I consider it foamy yellow water.

        • Doug_Fir says:

          Hey, Bud, this one’s for you.

          Old Canadian proverb: What do American beer and sex in a canoe have in common? Both are fvcking close to water.

          (Scurries towards exit…)

        • theartistvvv says:

          Indeed, in the late 70’s/early 80’s a person going thataway would get more requests to bring back that pissy stuff to Chicago than they could possibly carry.

          And it was quite the status thing to actually receive a can or two.

          Me, if it ain’t Guinness or Bass or the like, I pass, altho’ I do recall my golf course bartending days when Miller Lite on ice was a fad, contrasted to my summers working construction, chewing baccy and drinking boilermakers where Old Style or Hamms was the thing.

        • matt fischer says:

          I have the proud [sic] distinction of being related, on my mother’s side, to two of the, ahem, finest [sic] beer makers the US has ever known: Schlitz and Pabst!

        • bmaz says:

          College friends, and the distributorship was owned by parents forever. Honestly, I did not like their beer, but were wonderful people.

    • punaise says:

      Punaise, I’d love your professional opinion here.

      Well I’m not in the medical field, so I deduce that I’m not being asked about the anatomical/anthropomorphic matter but rather the design process that resulted in same. And yeah, someone probably should have done a reality check there!

    • Lit_eray says:

      Of all the large breweries Budweiser is the most traditional. If they did not use rice as an adjunct, they would meet German Reinheitsgebot requirements of only malted grains, hops, water and yeast. This does not apply to Bud Lite or the other abominations fostered upon us as refreshing beverages.

      There is a huge list of ingredients that can be legally used in making beer. Most of the big breweries use some subset of the available ingredients – Budweiser does not use anything other than five ingredients. Many of these approved ingredients are not very attractive to the mental palate, propylene glycol alginatas or ground up swim bladders of fish for instance. Beer is regulated by the Treasury so it does not fall under FDA ingredient listing requirements.

      It is an amazing engineering feat that they can sell a beer all over the world that tastes the same. I was once told, I think by a Budweiser executive at the Great American Beer Festival – beer memories can be suspect, that they hold back a portion of each barley and hop harvest to mix with current ingredients, and ship ingredients around the world to achieve consistency.

      I once had a sample of Budweiser’s yeast. It was amazingly good. Fermented quickly, flocculated extremely well, and produced no detectable volatile off aromas. It is not available to other brewers. Separating out a few cells from a beer is difficult.

      You may not like the style or industrialization of beer– that is your choice – but Budweiser is good beer.

      • theartistvvv says:

        I tell this true story of being a lumper on my dad’s semi in the 70’s, picking up Bud at the brewery rather than deadheading home, and the jeep dropped a pallet of Bud bottles and it smelled like … nothing.

        Seems the beer ferments in the bottle and the process has just started about when it ships the day after packaging.

        • Lit_eray says:

          Your olfactory experience, or lack of it, is interesting. Especially since the sense of smell is the most directly wired to your brain of all our senses. We can recall smells intensely and accurately many years later.

          Fermentation stops when the fermentable sugars are used up. A highly controlled introduction of fresh wort (the sugary liquid rinsed from the mash) may be added to the large fermenters after the main fermentation is finished to control carbonation. Some larger breweries collect the CO2 from fermentation and then reintroduce some of it, selling the balance as an industrial product. Fermentation in the bottle, a common home brewer technique to carbonate, would be a quality control nightmare. That wonderful flocculating yeast is essentially 100% collected by the Beechwood chips on the bottom of the fermenters. No way Budweiser would leave final carbonation up to chance.

      • matt fischer says:

        If they did not use rice as an adjunct, they would meet German Reinheitsgebot requirements of only malted grains, hops, water and yeast.

        That’s a pretty big IF!

        Under today’s Reinheitsgebot, lager (e.g. Budweiser) brewers are limited to the use of malted barley, as far as grains are concerned. Other malted grains, like wheat and rye, may be used in ales. Aber Reis ist verboten!

        That said, just because rice isn’t allowed under the venerable Reinheitsgebot doesn’t mean that its use is untraditional. For example, in the late 1800’s (and before the unification of Germany and extension of Reinheitsgebot beyond Bavaria) rice was the most common adjunct in northern German beer.

  5. AndTheSlithyToves says:

    Can’t remember if I’ve ever linked to Neil de Mause’s site. Great analysis and reporting on the intersection of money, politics and sports, a surefire recipe for graft and corruption.
    https://www.fieldofschemes.com/2022/11/18/19369/friday-roundup-nycfc-deal-gets-even-worse-royals-and-titans-plans-world-cup-stay-as-awful-as-ever/
    P.S. Our DC Mayor has finally managed to get the demolition permit for the old RFK Stadium approved. Bye, bye, Bobby!

  6. Rugger_9 says:

    One reason for Buffalo coming to Detroit is that IIRC they are the Lions’ opponent on Thursday. That’s why they used the visitor’s locker room.

    For Qatar, the only way attention will be paid is if we stop using oil from there. FIFA also needs to go.

    OT: Anyone else full of schadenfreude over Nunes being left out in the cold over at ‘Truth’ Social now that Elon is letting Individual-1 back on Twitter? Of course TS might be needed in a week anyhow.

  7. Kennygauss says:

    Hi Rayne, I,ve often wondered if our feral deer here in fnq Australia are considered venison?
    Very tasty and games for a beef eater!

  8. Jenny says:

    Thank you Rayne. No trash talk, just topic of interest with Thanksgiving on Thursday.
    PBS American Experience “The Pilgrims” originally aired in 2015.
    https://www.pbs.org/video/american-experience-pilgrims/
    Explore the converging forces, circumstances, personalities and events that propelled a group of English men and women west across the Atlantic in 1620. The challenges they faced in making new lives for themselves still resonate almost 400 years later: the tensions of faith and freedom in American society, the separation of Church and State, and cultural encounters resulting from immigration.

  9. Bears7485 says:

    I’m not sure I have any respect remaining for Morgan Freeman after his part in this sports-washing event in Qatar.

    “What unites us here is so much greater than what divides us.” Slavery, that is what fucking divides us, Morgan.

  10. Kirk_222 says:

    Thanks for all your great work. Here in Forks we do eat lots of wild game. Have a bear roast and would like some recipes.. Thanks again.

    • meryvrmer says:

      Bear’s not great eating in roast form. You need to remove ALL of the fat, gristle, and silver skin – the fat especially will retain the flavour of the bear’s last supper, which during bear hunting season in the PNW (August-November) is likely to be fish (often rotten) or trash or both. So do that, then turn it into ground or diced. It doesn’t make good burgers unless you like yours very well done (no pink, no juice), so a heavily seasoned stew or chili is probably your best bet.

      I have many fond memories of Forks, our resupply town when my dad took us kids camping at Second Beach (La Push) for several weeks every summer. Saw Nixon resign through the window of a (closed) TV store there. Good job we were just kids – the locals took a rather dim view of our jeering.

    • earlofhuntingdon says:

      From a certain mindset, everyone is a member of God’s chosen people. The problem arises when people claim exclusivity to extract a terrible price from those whom they exclude from that category. Echoing the Gandhi quote, above, Jesus was revolutionary in his inclusiveness. But not the zealots who made him into the Christ and many who follow them.

  11. Bay State Librul says:

    Thanks, Rayne for TT. It is a great tailgating party
    I miss Scribe for his diatribes on the Cheatin’ Pats.
    Speaking of which, we had a snoozer and then a doozer finish yesterday in the menacing winds at Foxborough
    Why didn’t the Jets punter kick the devil out of bounds with seconds remaining and OT on the horizon?
    Speaking of which, the Jets had more punts (10) than completed passes (9)
    The Pats have gone 37-11 since Brady left town, but the buzz is gone.
    My focus has switched from Gillette to the Garden with the Bruins on a wild ride to Stanley.
    Speaking of which, the Bruins hired Loretta Lynch (what am I doing on the Tarmac incident) to track down the whodunit on the signing Mitchell Miller.
    All very strange like Catch-22’s fighter pilot.

    • Epicurus says:

      You may want to check that Patriots record since Brady left. Brady. I think it is closer to 23 – 20 than 37 – 11.

      • bmaz says:

        Someone has won yet another Super Bowl though, and the other part has not come close. That seems worthy of mention.

        • Molly Pitcher says:

          So bmaz, care for a wager on tonight’s game in Mexico City ? How is Kyler Murray’s hammie ?

          I owe you for the excellent recommendation of the Barrio Cafe in Phoenix this summer.

        • bmaz says:

          There is seriously not much better than the Barrio and Chef Silvana. For a small place, it is seriously the best.

          Murray looks to be on the sideline, which may be better for the Cards actually. Expect Jimmy G and the Niners to win this.

        • Lit_eray says:

          I will check out Barrio next time I am in Phoenix. Do you have any brewpub recommendations? I have been to a couple, but none stood out enough to remember details.

        • bmaz says:

          Maybe Four Peaks. But Helton on East Indian School is more interesting.

          But absolutely do the Barrio on 16th Street. It literally may be the best Mexican food in the world. And I’m not kidding.

        • Lit_eray says:

          Have been to Four Peaks on 8th St a couple of times. The beers are generally good. The tap room is a bit too busy and corporate for my tastes. The Kilt Lifter is a good retail beer choice. The impression from Helton’s website seem more aligned with my tastes. I like that the beer list does not include super high alcohol beers. Way more traditional ABV levels for the styles. The Scotch Ale at 7% ABV is the highest and appropriate for the style. Will give them, along with the Barrio, a try next visit. Thanks.

        • bmaz says:

          That captures it about exactly. Kilt Lifter really is a decent beer. Not gourmet, but pretty decent. You will love the Barrio.

    • Rugger_9 says:

      Well, they ARE the Jets so nothing surprises me when it comes to bonehead plays. Kind of like the Red Sox for many years, but I suspect ESPN has them on a contract for content mid-week.

  12. Bay State Librul says:

    Epicurus

    You are right — the 37-11 number is Belichick’s wins over the Jets.
    Good pickup
    I regret the mistake

  13. punaise says:

    Just finished writing a batch of get out the vote postcards for Senator Warnock. Who knew there was a place called Hephzibah, GA?

  14. mospeck says:

    Rayne, you’re not on the same page, and just not into the football game. In fact u take a gleeful axe to it. And so yea I won’t miss your trashtalk since you don’t give a flying fuck about my Pats vs the Vikes tomorrow night. But then it’s ok since you’re an American Girl raised on promises
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXkblbJqwn0
    and right now the times are hard since our gas and cornflakes cost a lot more, and it’s all because of this damnable war. So us Westerners, we in the big wide Western World, want for Zelensky to just make a deal. But then the NYT says it’s just a no way Jose — idea of trading land for peace remains a nonstarter in Kyiv. The Zelensky government does not believe any negotiated settlement would be lasting. Speaking by video to the Halifax International Security Forum on Saturday, Mr. Zelensky said that many people are asking how to end the war. “But I will ask you to formulate a more precise question — how to restore real and just peace. A truce now would not mark the end of war. It would just grant Moscow time to recover before attacking again. Immoral compromises will only lead to more blood.” Meanwhile yesterday a Russian rocket hit a hospital maternity ward in southern Ukraine killing a newborn boy and injuring his mother.. . Emergency workers pulled the boy’s mother and a doctor from the wreckage of a two-story building in the town of Vilniansk, in the Zaporizhzhia region
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNAspOYRCG0

    • Rayne says:

      mospeck, I say this with all due respect: fuck off. Nobody here owes you anything especially coverage of your favorite sport or team.

      You are owed even less if you’re going to make a reference to a song about suicide in reference to me.

  15. mospeck says:

    sry Rayne — look, for a typical homined, Neanderthal gene dose is only around 3%. But while u got like 5, maybe 6, copies of the ornery gene, u still got only like a half dose of Neanderthal DNA. Plus, via the 50-50 coin flip u also managed to avoid the stupid gene (how my dear ex refers to us charmers gifted with the y chromosome; for illustration see I think im paranoid by Shirley M and Garbage). But for a second just imagine yourself .. I mean just put yourself into same boat with us with both the SG and maybe a triple dose of the Neanderthal DNA. It’s why we love the NFL :) yea, the Vikes were slightly better than us last night, but Jefferson, he was way better.
    btw, u have a total misunderstanding of the song American Girl. It’s not at all a song about suicide. It’s a wondrous song that like all great art is a criss-cross, both praising and criticizing. u and bmaz broke the rules of trashtalk.
    But also figure that you two saw the Sat lights out pics of Ukraine. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told CNN that he’s “confident” that both Hungary and Turkey will ratify the accession of Finland and Sweden to the alliance, following Hungary’s announcement that it would support membership for both countries next year. “I can’t tell you exactly when,” he said, but added on “CNN This Morning” that it was “one of fastest ever accession processes in history. President Putin is trying to weaponize winter, and by deliberate attacks on civilian infrastructure, he tries to deprive the Ukrainians of gas, heating, water, and this just demonstrates once again the brutality of this war and the importance of President Putin, Russia, ending this war,” Stoltenberg said, adding “the best way we can address the horrific scenes we see from Ukraine is to support Ukraine.” He commended the United States in particular “for providing unprecedented support to Ukraine.” Stoltenberg told CNN that supporting Ukraine was important, “because our own security interest is to ensure that President Putin does not win in Ukraine.” When asked about comments from Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley that there may be a window for negotiations to end the war, Stoltenberg replied, “what happens around the negotiating table is dependent on what happens on the battlefield.” And the man is a liberal.

    • Rayne says:

      u have a total misunderstanding of the song American Girl.

      No, I don’t. It’s about a student who jumped off a balcony in Florida, near the 441. That’s why “she was an American girl” is past fucking tense.

      When you can’t get this right I’m not going to bother engaging the rest.

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