BSR

Well, it was fun while it lasted. A scant 2 weeks after taking the #1 ranking, Daniil Medvedev surrenders the top spot back to Novak by losing to Monfils in the 3rd round. Even in unfavorable conditions (the slow IW courts don't suit Medvedev's game), Medvedev should not lose to Monfils. Not a particularly convincing showing from the world #1. Medvedev can regain the top spot in a couple of weeks if he gets to the semis of Miami.

Grand Canyon National Park charges nominal entry fees, $20 for an individual, $35 per vehicle. Grand Canyon West is privately owned (Hualapei tribe) and charges more (least expensive option is $64). GCW's big advantage if you're coming from Las Vegas is that it's only ~2.5 hours from the Strip whereas GCNP is ~4.5. Factor in scary-high gas, and GCW's prices aren't so bad. I've heard that the views at GCNP are better than GCW's, but I can't say for sure since I've only been to GCNP.

Perhaps I'm lacking in imagination, but I'm still trying to figure out how a guy with a shaved crotch & no body hair is "fluffy." His rates for dinner+1 hour are, uh, eye-popping, but his overnight fee is market rate, at least for pricey NYC.

I don't think the buyer gets a refund ... Tom Brady’s “final” touchdown pass ball sells for more than $518,000

Why do traffickers lace cocaine with fentanyl? I'm guessing the effects of fentanyl allow traffickers to dilute the cocaine more, but not sure.

Well, the obvious difference is that in Manhattan & Chicago, while hardly crime-free utopias, tourists don't have to worry about corrupt cops "arresting" them and shaking them down for money, as was @jeepo1's experience.

After an entire year sidelined with a shoulder injury, Borna Coric returned to the tour at the Indian Wells Masters1000. Unfortunately, he lost, but I'm sure he looked good while going down.

Holy sh*t! A $5K 1-bed in the Bronx?! I never thought I'd see the day.

There are a lot of hot gymnasts, but my favorite is Max Whitlock. In this video, he shows off some of his most difficult moves on the pommel horse, along with his furry legs and bushy pits.

"Culinary legend," to me, connotes a prominent figure in gourmet food or fine dining, like Julia Child or Joel Robuchon. I would describe Charles Entenmann as a food industry giant, like Ray Kroc. That said, I haven't had an Entenmann's cheese danish in forever. Maybe I'll go out & buy one in his honor.

Out & about around noon, I drove past the gas station (cheapest gas in the area) but didn't stop to fill up because I was pressed for time. Regular was $4.37. ~10 hours later, I had time to fill up, but the price had jumped to $4.49!

College scholarships are a zero sum game. Even if, say, 100,000 athletic scholarships are available to high school girls, plenty of girls do not get a scholarship. If even 1 trans girl gets a college athletic scholarship, that means 1 cis girl loses out. You say that you don't think it will happen, but given the height/strength/speed advantages of biological males, how can it not happen? And when, not if, it does happen, even if just 1 cis girl loses out on a scholarship, that matters. I am not saying Lia Thomas is a cheater, and of course she didn't choose her body. When competing against men as Will Thomas, Will's physique was no different from other male swimmers. But look at Lia's height, her armspan, and her musculature and compare them to the cis women she competes against. There is no comparison. One of the advantages Michael Phelps had was his unusually long armspan, but at least he was competing against other men. Lia Thomas was born with a man's armspan but is competing against cis women. When Will Thomas competed against other men, he was ranked #462. Now that Lia Thomas is competing against cis women, she is ranked #1 and wins every race she enters. The advantages of someone born a biological male who competes against cis women are undeniable. Yet you continue to deny them. And you continue to deny the rights of the women who place 2nd in every race Lia Thomas enters.

So the benefit of allowing trans women to compete against cis women is to help trans people because trans people have difficult lives? Well, one person's rights end where another's begin. Every cis woman who competes against Lia Thomas is being denied the chance of winning. Why bother training and sacrificing if you have no chance to win?? Every cis woman in a race with Lia Thomas is supposed to sacrifice her chance of winning just to make the trans community feel better about themselves? That's the second time you've made the argument of "large number of cis women being denied college scholarships." I answered you before, so please either address my counter, or stop repeating yourself. While no cis woman has yet been denied a college scholarship because she was beaten out by a trans woman, given the undeniable physical superiority of trans women, it's a matter of when, not if. If you think one case doesn't matter, then one case of a gay man being fired for being gay doesn't matter, one case of a gay woman being denied custody of her children just for being gay doesn't matter. One case matters because all individual rights matter. The rights of the woman who placed 2nd in every race that Lia Thomas won matter. The rights of even one cis high school girl denied a scholarship because she was beaten out by a trans girl against whom she had no chance matters. If you want to improve the quality of life for trans people, I'm all for it. But you cannot rob others of their rights in your pursuit.

Why do we need an "explosion"? If even one cis female athlete loses out on a college scholarship, that is already one too many. It hasn't happened yet, but it will. I wonder about other swimmers in every race Lia Thomas enters. I guess there is some honor in placing 2nd or 3rd, but I have to think it's terribly demotivating to know you have zero chance of winning. Lia Thomas might be the first trans woman to demolish the competition, but she won't be the last. What exactly is the benefit of allowing trans women to obliterate cis women in amateur and college sports?

Not an issue in amateur or college sports? What about the cisgendered female athletes who know that no matter how hard they train and compete, they don't have a snowball's chance once a MTF trans woman enters the competition? Do cis women not matter? Why not? Trans women's participation in women's sports is just starting. The numbers will grow. How many cis girls will lose out on scholarships because they were beaten by trans girls? What do we tell the high school girls who missed out?

I'm calling bullshit. People make their own decisions about something as important as Covid vaccination. Yes, someone who has decided against vaccination might cite Novak's anti-vaxx belief to buttress their own decision to avoid vaccination, but to claim that people decided against vaccination solely or even in large part because of Novak is a bridge way too far. Novak was for a while in the grips of a nutjob guru Pepe Imaz, who believed in insanity like telekinesis. I don't recall a telekinesis movement springing up because Novak embraced such nuttiness. People make up their own minds.

Hold the phone! Yes, Novak stated incorrectly that he had not traveled to other countries during the 14 days prior to filling out the form, but to say he lied is too harsh. Novak didn't fill out the form, his agent did. Everyone on the planet knew that Novak had been training in Marbella because he posted pix on social media. Don't ask me why his agent made such an obvious error, but she was anguished over it. Is there any other lie you're referring to?

I'm struggling to reconcile "expensive but worth every cent" with "The entire time from shortly before first sight of land smelt of penguin poo."

When Will Thomas competed in men's swimming, he was the #462 ranked swimmer. Now that Lia Thomas is competing in women's swimming, she is #1 and breaking records left, right, and center. Did she start training with Michael Phelps? Did she revamp her technique? What caused her to leap from #462 to #1? One look at Lia Thomas makes it obvious. She is much taller than the women she competes against. Her armspan is incredibly long compared to her competitors. And while perhaps less muscled than she was pre-hormone therapy, she still has a musculature far greater than her competitors. Note that only MTF trans women are winning competitions and breaking records. You will never see a FTM trans man ranked #1 in men's swimming. I fully support trans women's right to live as women, absolutely. But ignoring their physical advantages and allowing them to compete in women's sports is an injustice to cis women athletes.

Dinuguan, from Wiki: a Filipino savory stew usually of pork offal (typically lungs, kidneys, intestines, ears, heart and snout) and/or meat simmered in a rich, spicy dark gravy of pig blood, garlic, chili (most often siling haba), and vinegar. You're a lot braver than I am. My parents love the stuff, but I wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot pole. Not because of the pig blood (I love morcilla, a Spanish blood sausage) but because of the offal. Most people make it with tripe, the sight of which makes me gag, forget the smell. Growing up, dinuguan was a real delicacy because animal blood (you can use cow blood, never heard of goat, but I guess that'd work too) was very hard to find. Now you can buy it in any Filipino supermarket. LOL, I'm pretty sure Filipino puto has no connection to the Spanish word.

To think, the developer initially hoped to sell it for $500 million, dropped the price to $295 million, and it sells at auction for less than half that. The buyer got a deal but a money pit at the same time. I wonder what the total final cost will be.

From Twitter: gas is so expensive now that it's cheaper to buy cocaine and just run everywhere

I talked to someone recently who had just seen "Casablanca" & didn't understand why it's a classic. I told him that I couldn't explain it to him; he'd have to figure it out for himself. I didn't get it either the first 2 times I saw it. The third time I bawled like a baby, and every time since.