#golf components

[monarkgolfsupply]

Elevate Your Game with Monark Golf

Discover the game-changing world of Monark Golf, where precision meets performance. Our extensive range of golf equipment and supplies is crafted with meticulous attention to detail, ensuring every swing is a step closer to perfection. From customizable club components to cutting-edge accessories, Monark Golf empowers golfers of all levels to enhance their game.

[untilthenexttee]

REVIEW - Golf Pride CPx Golf Grips

REVIEW – Golf Pride CPx Golf Grips

“Get a Grip“ The Set-Up The golf grip. An integral part of your golf equipment that might be taken for granted or completely overlooked. Yet without one on the end of your shaft it makes swinging a golf club a little more difficult. The grip is important when it comes to golf equipment because it not only is your connection to the golf club – your hands and glove notwithstanding – but the grip…

[dental1231]

Periodontal Treatment: Glenview's Strategy Against Gum Disease   | Best Dentist in Glenview

Combatting gum disease is a critical component of optimal oral health, and in Glenview, the frontline defense is at "The Dentists on Golf," recognized as the best dentist in the area. Our practice takes pride in offering advanced periodontal treatment strategies to address gum disease effectively.

As your trusted dentist near Glenview, we understand the importance of maintaining healthy gums for overall well-being. Gum disease, if left untreated, can lead to serious oral health issues and even impact your systemic health. At "The Dentists on Golf," our experienced team specializes in providing periodontal treatment in Glenview to tackle gum disease at its roots.

Our approach involves thorough assessments, including probing depth measurements and examinations to determine the severity of gum disease. We tailor periodontal treatment plans to each patient's unique needs, offering personalized solutions to restore gum health. Utilizing state-of-the-art technology, "The Dentists on Golf" provides comprehensive periodontal treatments near Glenview, including scaling and root planing, laser therapy, and other advanced techniques. Our commitment to being the best dentist in Glenview extends to ensuring that our patients receive the most effective and comfortable periodontal care available.

Don't let gum disease compromise your oral health. Schedule a consultation with "The Dentists on Golf" today, and let us be your partner in achieving and maintaining healthy gums. Trust in our expertise to deliver the best periodontal treatment in Glenview and keep your smile vibrant and disease-free.

[seat-safety-switch]

If you're the kind of person who gets really mad when they lose at mini golf, then I pity you. To get the opportunity to lose at a low-stakes game is a chance to find out more about yourself, but most critically your competition. How they laugh when they realize that you have been beaten. How readily they plant the seeds of their own demise.

I've never been a huge fan of board games, not least because you have to have a clean enough horizontal surface in your home to spread them out on. Losing even one of the little Catan houses down a coolant passage of an old Slant Six bottom end is going to put a damper on the whole night. What else are you going to do with your friends, if both mini golf and board games are off the table? I came up with a new and exciting game: Junkyard Roulette.

How do you start playing? Well, besides giving me $29.99 for the official rules and an empty box, your next step is to head on over to your local junkyard with all of your friends. If you're already visiting the junkyard regularly with your friends, then great! You're going to beat everyone else hollow and make them eat their hollow boasting about the fucking clown on hole 18 that spits out your ball if you get the timing wrong, as if that's seriously a component of real golf. I'm not mad.

Once you're at the yard, the next step is to compete with your friends to see what the craziest shit you can pull out of it is. Five-bolt limited-slip conversion for a Hyundai Accent? It's in there somewhere, if you can slap together enough random parts. Your own DIY yard wheelbarrow, made entirely out of Ford rear axles and the thermite you smuggled into the yard in your pockets? I think that's a winner. At the end of the round, all the points are added up, and the person with the most points gets to dig through the trunk of the sketchy-looking Altima at the end of the yard, and they can keep whatever prizes they find in there.

[ginandoldlace]

King Edward VII (1841-1910) at races , one of his loved elements together with house and shooting parties. Differently from his parents Queen Victoria and Prince Albert who considered horse racing and house parties decadent, in his younger years as Prince of Wales with plenty of money ‘Bertie’ made his vision of life, full of pleasures, the fashionable trend of the British Society , thus leading it out from the severe Victorian Age. Great aristocrats and High Society members immediately followed the Prince and his desires, as a friendship with him was the best guarantee of social success. That was the start of the Edwardian era ( 1860s-1914), during which all the main components of the elegant way of life of the British Aristocracy and upper classes were established and became major events and traditions :during the Season race meetings such as Epsom , Royal Ascot, Newmarket and Goodwood with the involvement of ladies that were expected to talk about racing and to be well dressed at races; after the Season (August and September) country house and shooting parties in which the host and the hostess had to supply rooms in their homes for all the guests and the guest’s maids and footmen as well as meals ,outdoor sports activities in addition to shooting such as tennis, cricket, golf, and evening balls. That kind of gatherings has been so perfectly described in Gosford Park movie by Robert Altman (2002). This Edwardian way of life has had also a great influence on the classic menswear history as fabric patterns and cloth styles, which had origin in country wear, were subsequently adopted, in a beautiful admixture of the two clothing worlds, also for town wear with particular regard , but not exclusively, to informal occasions such as attending sports events, leisure strolling and traveling. This is another relevant legacy left to us by Edward VII , King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India , whose world ended with the start of the World War I ( 1914-1918).

[cellarspider]

18/?? Alexa, play Despacito

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And now, we return to Prometheus, which is trying to redeem the last two fifths of itself through blood sacrifice. Content warning for discussion of eyeball nastiness and death by immolation, Holloway.

Taking things slightly out of chronology this time, because there’s an excellent, quiet scene sandwiched in between lots of screaming: I'm sure they meant to put it in juxtaposition with this to heighten the emotion, but I refuse. We'll save that one for later. As a treat for me. And now, as a treat for me, Holloway is dying! Hurray!

So, turns out we’re spinning the wheel of Inconsistent, Ominous Black Goo effects again, and landed on “hangovers aren’t supposed to make your eyes grow tentacles”.

Holloway, apparently in denial, does not recall this fact until he’s gone out with what could generously be called a rescue party, to try and locate Millburn and Fifield. Janek belatedly and unwisely goes along to help, while David appears to go on a pleasant Sunday drive in his golf cart. He’s heading to a better scene, the lucky scamp.

Millburn is very dead–a rubber snake jumps out of his mouth, so you know he’s toast. Fifield’s body is nowhere to be found, and it will make an underwhelming return later.

Holloway collapses, covered in creeping black veins. Shaw finds this distressing. I would be fascinated to know if anybody in the audience agreed with her. I usually would, if only because certain kinds of screaming can kick me into sensory overload, but apparently there’s a psychological component to that response. And so I placidly watched Vickers meet them at the Prometheus vehicle bay with a flamethrower.

I appreciate her belated interest in quarantine and sanitation, but frankly, it’s a little late for that. I already had my rant on that earlier. At this point, things have gotten so bad that even Holloway realizes that the only solution is to go 40k on his ass.

[Video description: A 40k meme clipped from TheRussianBadger’s review of the game Space Hulk: Deathwing: A player says “BROTHER. GET THE FLAMER. THE HEAVY. FLAMER.” Sudden cut to almost incomprehensibly fiery gameplay, with a dramatic choral soundtrack and in-game voice lines “WE ARE THE ANGELS OF DEATH!” “MY FURY IS MADE MANIFEST!”, and ends right before a player yells “I WOULD LIKE TO REGISTER A COMPLAINT” and spins wildly around, spraying flames everywhere.]

Yes, Holloway burns to a crisp! I don’t know what the movie wants me to feel here, but whatever it is, I did not feel it. Did it want me to feel sad about this, because Shaw doesn’t want this to happen? Does it intend to raise the tension by having things spiral further out of control, demonstrating that a drop of the Ominous Black Goo is enough to kill a man in under a day? Am I supposed to take sick satisfaction in watching him die? All these are possible in bog standard horror movies.

However, this is a movie that wants to speak to something thematically. Holloway is positioned as a character we are not necessarily supposed to find sympathetic. As previously mentioned, the Engineers did not invite humanity to this planet. They were warning humans that if they continued to stray in their behavior, they would be killed by something that would come from here. 

Perhaps we are thus supposed to be asking questions about this: why would the Engineers do this? Why create humanity and then threaten to destroy their creations? What was their justification? David has turned this weapon on Holloway, making the choice that at least one man deserves the fate the Engineers planned for all humanity. Does he deserve that? Does anyone?

I was not thinking any of those things in the theater. Because what I actually felt was a desire to return to the scene interwoven with this one, which we will get to next time. This is the danger of creating an unlikeable, expendable character: the audience may feel no pathos when they die, nor question the death’s necessity. If they’re not along for the ride, then they may simply shrug.

Particularly when the rest of the movie is such a mess. This is only their second day on the planet, does anyone else remember that? I mean, I’ve been here for what feels like eternity, but they behaved so stupid, so fast, that this feels less like the inevitable falling apart of dozens of smaller mistakes, and more like one gigantic katamari of mistakes that will not stop rolling until it has collected every mistake in the world, and is thus deemed worthy of becoming a star all on its own, to forever shine out how badly they fucked it all up.

Next time: one of the two good scenes people tend to remember.

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Citations for alt-text rambles:

https://www.swtor.com/ 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSpFnDQr88xCZ80N-X7t0nQ 

https://youtu.be/vy5fgDvb9-c HYEEh-HAA!

Overflow Ramble, because tumblr lets you put in more alt-text than it will actually display in-browser:

A wide shot of Holloway with his arms outstretched, walking toward the vehicle bay ramp. Is this pose supposed to be a crucifixion allusion? I hope not! That would be baffling. Though as these posts have proven, something being baffling doesn’t rule out Prometheus doing it. Shaw is on the ground behind them, restrained by Janek. 

I’m trying to figure out if this was done on a studio stage, or on location. You’d think the latter wouldn’t be possible, but I’ve seen behind the scenes shots of them filming in the volcanic desert of Iceland, they definitely were in places that looked similar. But the background may still be fake after a certain point–outdoor green screens are a thing. 

The lighting on Janek and Shaw doesn’t quite feel right. Part of it’s the shadows: they’re darker on the people than in the background, which is a common problem for CG elements.The visual fidelity of the gravel behind them kind of has a sudden shift about halfway up Shaw’s head, and I’m not sure if that’s just focus or what.

If it is a composite of real and CG, it makes sense that it looks a bit off, though: these are background elements that are not supposed to be your main focus, on a shot that’s not held for too long. There’s always been trade-offs like that in visual effects, they’ve just shifted over the years. Anyway, back to Charlize Theron with a flamethrower.

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[oceandiagonale]

Note: the big fence isn't actually a fence, it's just a visual reference for me to see which way the door swings open 😂

a LOT more acnh references + image descriptions under the cut

(images: guzma's room made in acnh, from various angles. most of the things from his canon room are still there -- round end tables, an iron shelf, his bed, his throne/chair, several small dressers, nice lamps, and paint-spattered walls+paintings -- but they're a lot more organized.

the bed is against the wall bookended by two dressers, the iron shelf is against the wall, and his chair is being used at an actual desk. there are small sitting areas in the upper middle and bottom right corners of the room now, and spaces are separated visually by a variety of rugs. it's the same components as before, but more people can hang out in the space now.)

(images: main part of floor 2F of the Ultra Flare base at aether, made in acnh. layout is a square instead of a rectangle due to size limitations, and the square is divided into 4 even sections: a gaudy, gold-covered bedroom for Ghetsis, an equally gaudy "common area" that's also for ghetsis but has a table in it, a room chock-full of gadgets and tech, including tools and specs of Celebi for Cyrus, and a cramped, but still cozy, office for Archie and Maxie, which crams in two desks and a couch. every single room has a pager on the wall. notably, archie and maxie's office is the only one of this bunch that has a security camera in it.)

(images: back part of UF base floor 2F, which consists of Giovanni's office, storage/employee training room, and assembly/meeting room. The walls are all red, except for in the assembly room, which has stark robotic walls.

the office has dark tile floors, a desk with two chairs at it, a small seating area, and a Team Rocket banner and paintings of Giovanni's team on the walls, much like his office and gym in Pokemon Let's Go. like the others' offices, Gio's has a pager on the wall next to his desk.

the training room has fluorescent lighting, a tatami floor, filing cabinets, a fax/printer machine, a whiteboard, a projector, and many black folding chairs in it. there are iron bars along the walls of the office and training room, indicating that they can close in the event of a lockdown. there are also security cameras everywhere except for Gio's office.

The assembly room is full of all the acnh machines and gears available, as well as a red control desk.)

(images: the main area of floor 3F, again confined in shape by limitations. there is a fancy white/golf dining area with a long table and red carpet and spiral chandelier for Lusamine, and a small kitchen area meant to be used by everyone, which includes a nice hanging wooden light, kitchen island with bar stools, and fridge.

there's also a break room area, which has clearly only been used by Guzma -- he's dragged in a pinball machine, pool table, and dartboard, and Team Skull brand clothes and paintings are scattered on the walls, couch, and in the closet. he's also tucked a hammock into a corner by the vending machines. understandable, since he doesn't have his own office. there's a pager in the break room, and security cameras in each area -- though there are blind spots, such as guzma's table directly underneath the camera in the break room.)

(images: the back area of floor 3F, which consists of Lysandre's office, storage room, and meeting room. the walls are all black except for a red accent wall in the meeting room, and there is only one security camera in the storage room and one in the hallway.

The storage room is full to the brim with papers, broken machinery, filing cabinets, and boxes. there's a ladder and a moving cart in it for ease of access, as well as a clipboard with a checklist on it. there's a pager in the room, as well as a broom+dustpan set on the wall. it's a veritable treasure trove of information, which guzma has access to as the person lugging it all around. the room has an ugly beige argyle rug, and harsh fluorescent lighting.

Lysandre's office has a modern red-wavy-striped rug in it. on one side, he has a nice desk with a golden tree next to it, a desktop computer, a coffee cup, and a filing cabinet. on the other side, he has a large machine + red button, and a sturdy project table with a blueprint and an espresso machine on it. there are tools on the wall, but also a nice painting and cabinet. Lysandre has his own pager.

The meeting room is a stark place, with only one desk, screens all over the walls, and a clock on the wall. another pager, obviously, and dramatic lighting. This is the place that Lysandre and the other villains initially interviewed Guzma to join Ultra Flare, and the lack of other chairs or comforts -- or anything, really -- is the most notable feature of it. Lysandre clearly wants to make anyone who comes into the room as uncomfortable as possible.)

[krispyweiss]

Dickey Betts Dead at 80

- “The monuments that he helped to create for Southern rock will never be replicated,” the Marshall Tucker Band says

Dickey Betts, the Allman Brothers Band co-founder who was ousted from the group in 2000, has died, the guitarist’s family said.

Betts, 80, died April 18 at his home in Florida. No cause was given.

Betts’ family remembered the musician as a “legendary performer, songwriter, bandleader and family patriarch” in their statement.

“His loss will be felt worldwide,” they said.

With Betts’ death, drummer Jaimoe is the last surviving original Allman Brother.

“Sad, sad day,” Tinsley Ellis said. “Rest in peace, Dickey Betts.”

Betts co-founded the ABB in 1969, establishing a 12-string conversation with fellow guitarist Duane Allman and quickly became “an essential component of the Allman Brothers Band’s improvisatory magic,” as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame said in a eulogy.

“One of the best to ever do it,” Tedeschi Trucks Band said of Betts. “Rest easy, Dickie.”

After Duane’s death, Betts, as lone axeman, was the country to Gregg Allman’s blues, giving the band its biggest hit with “Ramblin’ Man” and imbuing the ABB songbook with epic instrumentals such as the jazzy “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed,” inspired by a tombstone in the cemetery where Gregg and Duane Allman now lie, and the countrified “Jessica,” inspired by Betts’ daughter. And Betts’ 1974 LP Highway Call is an album anyone who calls themselves a fan of bluegrass or Americana music must have in their collection.

“Dickie more than anyone had an impressionable impact in shaping and defining the genre of music that has come to be known as Southern rock,” the Outlaws said in a statement. “The influence of his musicianship and songwriting skills are immeasurable and his passing marks the end of an era.”

The Marshall Tucker Band echoed the Outlaws, saying: “The monuments that (Betts) helped to create for Southern rock will never be replicated.”

After a time, the ABB returned to its two-guitar format and Betts played alongside such masters as Dan Toler, Warren Haynes, Jack Pearson and Derek Trucks before he and the group split acrimoniously in 2000.

“He was passionate in life, be it music, songwriting, fishing, hunting, boating, golf, karate or boxing,” the Allman Brothers said in a statement attributed to the “band, family and crew.”

“Dickey was all in on and excelled at anything that caught his attention. … Play on, Brother Dickey, you will be forever remembered and deeply missed.”

4/18/24

[lila-rae]

when did t post the golf club photo? sometime in august? do you think they got back together before or after her emmy win?

I always say mid September to give Tom time to "mourn" his relationship and to have time to discard all those liquid components that didn't belong to him, but please, nobody in their right mind thinks that there was nothing going on there before September, you're going to tell me that you upload a picture of your girlfriend one day and in less than a week they leave each other? But good for Z because she is clear that if she tells Tom to jump he will ask her how high.

Z out here like the brunette Lizzie McGuire when it comes to Tom and I respect it.

[greatwyrmgold]

So, apparently there's been a standoff between the Texas National Guard and US Border Patrol for the past couple of weeks, a physical manifestation of political conflicts between President Biden and Governor Abbot that has disrupted local life and caused multiple deaths.

Shelby Park is a park in Eagle Pass, the town in question. It's a pretty significant component of civic life, hosting events that the town's residents enjoy (and the town's government uses to fund its activities).

Unfortunately, it's next to the Rio Grande, so Texas had the park surrounded with concertina wire (razor wire coils that can be expanded to quickly set up a "fence"). Needless to say, that's going to disrupt local activities. The Eagle Pass residents are not exactly happy about this state of affairs.

Things got worse when migrants started drowning in the river. Border Patrol wanted to access a boat ramp in Shelby Park so they could rescue migrants before they drowned, but the Texas National Guard wouldn't let Border Patrol in under any circumstances. Four people were alive in the river when the Border Patrol showed up; two were rescued by Mexican authorities, but the others drowned. They didn't have to.

I'm not going to argue that someone who fails to save a kid from getting hit by a bus should be held responsible for that kid's death. But if they instead stop a third party from saving the kid? Yeah, that's their fault. Saying that Texas caused the (preventable) deaths of those migrants seems pretty straightforward to me.

(Complicating matters are three other people who drowned about an hour before US Border Patrol was informed that people were drowning in the river. These three deaths are often reported as being connected to this dispute, possibly because talking about a mom and two kids who drowned is more evocative than talking about...I don't know anything about the other two dead guys, because hardly anyone reported anything except their deaths.)

Anyways, the Biden administration sent a cease-and-desist letter demanding that federal agents should be given free access to the park. Texas claims it's still open to the public, even though they're only allowing access for media personnel, golfers at the golf course within, and "a memorial".

Texas plans to ignore that sternly-worded letter. The attorney general defends the state's decision by saying that the feds weren't properly enforcing US immigration law, which apparently gives them the authority to...further impede Border Patrol activities...? He also invoked the state's right to self-defense, which is already absurd when we're talking about the general "threat" of people crossing borders, but becomes even sillier in the specific case of blocking Border Patrol from saving four people from drowning.

Biden told Abbot to remove the razor wire. Abbot ordered more razor wire. The Supreme Court agrees with Biden (despite being primarily composed of Republicans). Twenty-five Republican state governors side with Abbot.

Several sources describe the physical standoff between the Texas and Federal forces unprecedented. I'm not sure that's true, or at least not true in the way that's implied; remember the Little Rock Nine? But it's definitely unusual, and if Republican figureheads keep rallying their bases by insisting that “The feds are staging a civil war," it could grow into something worse.

But hopefully it doesn't. It's an ongoing story, and Abbot has two more days to decide whether he wants to pick a fight with the federal government.

Sources below the cut.

[monarkgolfsupply]

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[agbpaints]

With a couple very Liao mechs added to my collection recently, I've decided to go and start building myself a force of Capellans. With some vindicators, combat vehicles, and battle armor sorted I started digging around for some more CCAF designs to round out an augmented company. Then I remembered the Men Shen.

Don't let TRO:3060's janky visuals fool you, this walking gym shoe is one of the most technically advanced 'mechs the inner sphere built up to its intro date, Hellespont Industrials and the Confederation's Ministry of Appropriations spared no expense when they outfitted their first domestically designed omnimech. The 'mech is built around the heart and bones of a Magna 330 XL fusion engine seemingly designed expressly for the Men Shen and a 55 ton endo steel frame, with a normal top speed of nearly 100 kph, augmented up to 130 kph in short bursts by the 'mech's integral myomer accelerator signal circuits. This speed is paired with a thick skin, with the mech mounting 11 tons of standard armor, more than 95% the chassis possible total protection and enough for every component except the arms and head to take an AC/20 shot without internal damage. The mech carries 10 double heat sinks and an active probe fixed to the chassis, with the remaining 17 tons available as pod space.

The Men Shen MS1-O mounts a single LRM-15 with an attached Artemis IV fire control unit in its torso and a pair of medium pulse lasers in each arm. Intended as an all range skirmisher, the Prime configuration can leverage its speed to keep the range open while harassing with its missiles before driving in to deliver a finish off foes or pick appart scouts and picket mechs with its quartet of lasers. While the endurance of the LRM is somewhat questionable given it only comes with a single ton of ammunition, the speed at which the MS1-O depletes its missiles is probably a good thing given the XL engine and lack of CASE.

The Men Shen's alternate configurations fall into roughly three groups- either serving as remixes of the Prime's role, specializing in hunting non-mechs in a combined arms environment, or working as medium range strikers and forward operating units.

The Delta and Golf are Prime lookalikes, pairing a long range weapon (an ERPPC and a TSEMP cannon, respectively) with a payload of pulse lasers and SRMs to harass and disable mechs at long range before closing for a finishing blow. Unlike the Prime, these designs lack minimum ranges on their weapons, but the heat build of a full alpha strike is risky enough to a mech without jump jets that both designs effectively work as bracket fire machines.

The Beta and Echo configurations are combined arms killers, packing specialized ballistic weapons in their arms supported by a more generalized torso loadout. In the Beta's case this is a pair of LB2-X autocannons supported by a quartet of ER medium lasers, effectively making it a fast, high tech version if the BJ-1 Blackjack and ideal for hunting VTOL and aerospace assets with its flack guns. This configuration is also possibly the very first inner sphere mech to mount the LB2-X autocannon despite it supposedly being invented in Davion space. Chalk one up for the Maskirovka. Where the Beta makes helicopter pilots sweat, the Echo is an infantryman's nightmare demon. It mounts 8 light machine guns arranged into two arm mounted machine gun arrays, supported by a plasma rifle and 2 medium lasers in the torso. On average this thing will brrrrt an entire platoon of inner sphere ground pounders to mulch with every trigger pull, and the crit seeking/random heat mean it's not too much of a slouch in mech combat either. The 4 tons of ammunition does mean it is worryingly explosive, though.

Finally the Alfa, Charlie, and Foxtrot are the mid range strikers. The Alfa pairs a trio of ER Medium Lasers with an LB 10-X autocannon to deliver a decent ammount of firepower at close and medium ranges, backed up by a TAG laser designator to call in artillery and LRM strikes from the rest of your force. The Charlie and Foxtrot are very much like each other, using pairs of accurate, high damage energy weapons to make for any light mech's worst day. The Charlie chooses a pair of large pulse lasers supported by a Guardian ECM suite and an ER small laser to hunt things like Locusts and Striders while shutting down enemy electronics such as C3 spotters. The Foxtrot swaps the pulse lasers for a pair of snub nosed PPCs linked to a targetting computer to wreak havoc with its disgustingly long short range (270 meters!) and brings a TAG to make sure Marty the Arty will lay low anything its particle cannons can't. The Charlie and Foxtrot's placement of their main guns in the arms also makes them the best versions of the chassis to carry battle armor into fights with.

The Men Shen is best deployed as a 'cruiser' of battlemechs- calable of outfighting anything it can't outrun and outrunning anything that outguns it fairly easily. It will likely operate best at the front of formations to scout and probe the line of battle until the main battleline of mechs arrives, at which point it shifts to outflanking and finishing off wounded units.

Despite its durability, speed, and weapons options, the Men Shen isn't without flaws- the lack of jump jets mean that it can easily get bogged down in cities or other rough terrain and while it's speed and thick armor mean it can tough through some pretty heavy shots, the XL engine means that it won't survive drag out fights for particularly long. The cost is also fairly prohibitive- while most variants run between 1400 and 1700 BV, the MS1-O is a whopping 16.6 million c-bills. For the same price, you could by an entire company of urbanmechs, or a full lance of Vindicator 3L's. This price and the operational fragility of an XL engine paired with unCASEed ammo will likely make campaign commanders balk and relegate the design (like many omnis) to hangar queen status. As a player of mostly pickup games, though, it's a design I'm excited to run

[pleasespellchimerical]

What the fuck is this

The unscreened compost has been an adventure. Cow and chicken bones are common. We've found tools (pliers, knives, clippers). I found a golf ball. A pair of work gloves.

But this thing?

We're debating over whether this compost cryptid is a bone or some kind of tractor component. The lick test says Not Bone. It feels like it could be acrylic to me. But there are bits that are porous like bone, and it's very unsymmetrical. Also hollow.

Any thoughts on the fuck this is?

[alexbkrieger13]

Has the article already been shared? www(.)espn(.)com(.)au/football/story/_/id/38079094/how-cornhole-created-frenzy-swedens-world-cup-camp

How Cornhole has created a frenzy at Sweden's World Cup camp

UPPER HUTT, New Zealand -- Sweden and Bayern Munich defender Magdalena Eriksson has a target on her back. "Everyone wants to beat Magdalena," her Sweden teammate Olivia Schough says.

Eriksson and Scough are both part of the Sweden squad that hope to win the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, but they are fierce rivals when it comes to what has been dubbed "The Alternative World Cup," a Cornhole competition that has gripped the camp between games. In the run-up to Sweden's nervy 2-1 win in their opener against South Africa, the Cornhole "group stage" took place, with the knockout rounds being played this week ahead of their second World Cup match against Italy at Wellington Regional Stadium.

Cornhole is a simple game, but one that's stirring strong emotions among the Sweden players. The competition is ferocious; there have been tantrums and wild celebrations, while both players and coaching staff have come up with far-fetched reasons not to take part because they can't handle the idea of losing.

The idea for the competition was proposed by team psychologist Rasmus Liljeblad as a way to help cure the boredom that can set in when you are away from home for potentially more than 40 days. For Sweden, whose base camp is in the quiet town of Upper Hutt, some 20 miles north of Wellington, that was a particular danger; therefore, they sought ideas to keep the players entertained. There are table tennis tables, a basketball court and a massive indoor screen alongside one of the training pitches where they can play interactive games. There is also an area where they can practice their golf swing.

However, Cornhole is the one activity that's created a frenzy across the squad.

Teams of two -- some opted for a three-player squad -- met in a "group stage" before this week's playoffs. The games take place in the players' lounge, using boards branded with the national team's crest. The aim is to throw a small hand-held sack through the hole in the board. If you manage that, you get three points. If the sack lands on the board, you get one point. The winning team is the first to 21 points.

The game is popular in the United States, one of the seldom-seen sports from around the world that features annually on "ESPN 8: The Ocho." The American Cornhole League events, which are broadcast globally, allow ACL pros to team up with celebrities for the competition: maybe the winners of Sweden's Alternative World Cup could get an invite next year?

Eriksson, who recently left Chelsea for Bayern Munich, hopes she will be in the running when the final comes around. "It's extremely competitive, as you can imagine," she told ESPN. "We don't know who is the best yet. We are coming into the playoffs now after a very tight group stage."

After a tough start, Eriksson and her partner, Barcelona forward Fridolina Rolfo, progressed to the knockout rounds, although they needed a win over the team's physios to kickstart their campaign. "If we had lost that, I think we would have withdrawn from the tournament," Eriksson added. "We wouldn't have deserved to be included."

Rosengard midfielder Schough, part of a team with defender Linda Sembrant and Sweden captain Caroline Seger, is waiting for Eriksson in the next round. "We had an easy group stage, four out of four wins," Schough told ESPN. "We are a strong team, but now we are facing Magdalena and Fridolina. [Eriksson] is a tough one, but I am very excited to beat her.

"Of course there is a fun side, but we always want to win ... and everyone wants to beat Magdalena."

Once the competition is over, there may still be some debate about who is the best. That's because Everton right-back Nathalie Bjorn and Manchester City midfielder Filippa Angeldal are not taking part.

Bjorn and Angeldal have known each other since they were six. They have gone on to play in an Olympics, a European Championship and now a World Cup together, but perhaps more importantly, they won the inaugural Cornhole competition, which took place at a camp before the World Cup. Given their 20-year relationship, they might have already had an advantage over their teammates, though some previous training with Bjorn's dad also helped hone their skills.

"My dad plays a little bit at home in Sweden, in Uppsala," Bjorn told ESPN. "He took me at Christmas, with Filippa and her girlfriend, and we went and played and had a competition against other players."

So why are they not trying to retain their crown? "I already won once," she added. "This time I felt like I can be a coach or referee and just see because I get easily bored. I can play two games and not be focused anymore. I just thought no, I am just going to watch now."

Eriksson is not so sure. "They don't want to come back and do worse after winning the last tournament," is her opinion. That gives an idea of how competitive the games can become.

"We have some players that get so angry and frustrated which is just funny to watch," Bjorn said. "You sit on the sidelines and just laugh. I would say everyone here is so competitive, so it's hard to name one or two because it's the whole team. When they are going to throw the bag and it goes somewhere else, it's just bad words coming out."

While some members of the backroom staff are involved, the coaching staff are not. Schough jokes that we should ask assistant manager Magnus Wikman why he didn't sign up.

"I like to play and I think I am quite good," Wikman laughed when asked by ESPN. "But in this situation, I think it's bad for the players to play [with me] because I talk a lot with them and [have to make decisions], so I think it's better I don't compete. If I lose, I am not going to control my emotions and that's not good for the players!"

Ultimately, the silliness and competitive Cornhole helps take some of the pressure off a group of players who headed to New Zealand with heady expectations placed on their shoulders by those back home in Sweden. Peter Gerhardsson's side are ranked third in the FIFA rankings and have a rich history in the women's game. They were runners-up at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 and finished third at the World Cup in France four years ago. There is a demand for them to go far this summer.

"It is important to do these type of things as a team, to not always only think about football," Eriksson said. "Talking from my own perspective, I know I can be quite obsessive about football so I need things to distract myself and other competitions.

"It is a really nice way to get the group together. These games have been the highlights of the evenings. It's been fun and now we have the playoffs, so I will keep you updated."

[seat-safety-switch]

If your living conditions are anything like mine, then you also exist inside one of the largest, most complex machines ever devised by humanity. I speak, of course, of a city. Cities are full of hundreds of thousands of interacting components that all have to work well in order to accomplish their goals. When even one small sub-system breaks down, it has unpredictable effects that can lead to societal failure. Last weekend, we came real close to that red line.

As I’ve talked about previously, I have picked up a part-time job at City Hall. More specifically, I work directly for The Mayor Himself as a sort of dirty-tricks specialist. Like all the best jobs, I got this through nepotism: we went to high school together, and he knows I certainly didn’t follow him through the rest of his life after that. To his elite buddies and hyper-rich golf pals, I might as well just be a weird unhoused person that he occasionally gives a thousand dollars to in large manila envelopes.

Although the idealists and dreamers out there might not like it, sometimes you do need a dirty-tricks guy to get things done. Last weekend, that problem was the park garbage cans. These are bear-proof bins, even in parts of the city that has never seen a bear not manufactured by the Ty Corporation, and they are very durable, but they are not fireproof. Kids had been throwing their disposable vape batteries into them, which caused little lithium-ion explosions when they were compacted in the trash truck. Rightfully, the trash truck operators were very concerned about this turn of events, and refused to pick up park trash until someone Did Something About This.

I’m definitely no expert in electrical engineering. In fact, I got banned from the local elementary school for teaching kids about how to burn the insulation off of stolen copper wire. What I do know, however, is that necessity is the mother of invention. I went to the public library, hopped on the ol’ Wikipedia, and figured out what the combustion temperature of those pesky vape batteries were. Then, I devised a prototype. The Mayor visited, but in disguise (wearing a sweatshirt over top of his Brooks Brothers suit) lest the opportunists from Channel Four Action News were lurking in the bushes trying to find non-union sex workers again.

So, yes, I did start a forest fire by strapping a propane-fired 2.2-litre Chevrolet pushrod four to the bottom of a garbage can and then venting the exhaust ports directly into the trash. I had not factored in that, without liquid cooling, the head gasket would fail and the engine would tear itself free from the bottom of the can, shooting burning fuel all over the dry tinder grass of the Saint Accidents Semi-Accessible Park. You will note, however, that the batteries were not what started the fire. Mission accomplished, I say, but politics has a way of moving the goalposts on you.