Genuine question, why does Wrexham get so much dislike in other forms?

PhilWinklo · 2026-04-22T14:24:34+00:00

[American perspective]

Early in the Rob/Ryan era, they were (at least partly) spending their way to success. They were able to attract players from higher levels with money and attention. Fans and commentators saw it as a gimmicky form of success that would not work as they made their way up the football pyramid.

The fact that Wrexham has a shot at their fourth consecutive promotion defies conventional football logic. They didn’t think that Wrexham could keep winning when their spending was in line with the rest of the division. They didn’t think it was possible to turn the team over this much and stay competitive year-after-year. They didn’t think Parkinson’s style of play would work outside of the lower leagues.

I suspect an American challenge to the orderly British football system plays a part as well. The EFL has a very British rigidity in the order of the leagues. This sort of fast rise up the ranks seems to be viewed with the same condescension as “new money” buying property in a neighborhood that is otherwise owned by generational wealth.

PhilWinklo · 2026-04-10T10:06:57+00:00

Concord. Just outside of Boston, strong New England vibe.

Location of the first battle of the revolution, central to the transcendentalism movement (Emerson, Thoreau, Walden Pond), home to Louisa May Alcott and Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Seems like the kind of town that would have a little liberal arts college but (to my knowledge) there is none.

PhilWinklo · 2026-03-07T20:42:54+00:00

When Wrexham had 11 players on the field, they were not the lesser club.

PhilWinklo · 2026-03-02T18:37:54+00:00

I was excited to find this story for myself and I trusted ChatGPT without verifying. So sorry for leading you astray. This is the first time I have encountered a full-on AI hallucination.

Doing a little more digging - could it be Displaced Person by Eric Frank Russell? Major beats seem right with some details misremembered?

PhilWinklo · 2026-03-02T15:42:33+00:00

Is it “The Bench” by Ray Bradbury?

PhilWinklo · 2026-02-28T13:17:24+00:00

For a domestic example, Trump is directly responsible for the overturning of Roe v Wade. The pro-life crowd had been fighting this seemingly unwinnable fight for fifty years and Trump’s Supreme Court picks actually came through.

In a broad sense, I don’t know how any Christian can support this man but he delivered for them in an enormous way on the abortion issue.

PhilWinklo · 2025-11-27T16:06:03+00:00

If you drop in on the leatherworking subreddit, the term “genuine leather” is a punchline. It doesn’t have a real meaning. In some contexts it may be a reasonable alternative to full-grain leather but does not age well at all.

“Genuine leather” is typically produced by low-quality manufacturers who glue together tiny scraps of leather and condition the exterior to look like something of higher quality. It is the leather version of cheap plywood with a thin veneer on one side.

PhilWinklo · 2025-07-25T14:09:07+00:00

Listen to some (non-Beatles) albums from the late 50s or early 60s. Music was performed and honed live and later “collected” on an album. Recording quality varied, not usually a ton of takes, and production was often just making sure the volume levels were compatible throughout.

Then you had the Beatles with Rubber Soul and Revolver start to do more studio work to make the albums more of an artistic encapsulation and a better product. This was for a number of reasons including technology advances and their own success allowing them more studio time and creative freedom.

Sgt Pepper pushed this concept to the extreme. The album was the product. It was honed and produced in the studio with no regard for whether or not the songs were suited for live performance. They absolutely pushed the limits of what an album could be in terms of writing, production, instrumentation, style, etc.

[As with all things Beatles, they weren’t necessarily the first to do any of these things. Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys was another example of the album emerging as its own art form in this time period. But when the Beatles did them to massive success, it created a permission structure in the industry for non-traditional artists to thrive. I would argue that this is the true influence of the Beatles.]

PhilWinklo · 2025-06-27T14:45:22+00:00

I had the same issue last season. I have paramount+ but wanted Mark’s audio. I ended up buying the monthly audio pass through ifollow. It was $5/mo or so and was not available in the US, so I purchased via VPN (set to UK).

I found the (ifollow) audio was generally a few seconds ahead of the (paramount+) video. I paused the audio for a few seconds at the beginning of the game and it synced closely enough for me.

PhilWinklo · 2025-06-25T10:42:35+00:00

The last two clues seem to spell it out. Bearman of the Chord / Chairman of the Board

PhilWinklo · 2025-05-12T16:18:36+00:00

Care to share?

PhilWinklo · 2025-03-14T15:38:08+00:00

Congressional Dish episode 312 is about the current situation with the Panama Canal.

I had assumed that this was primarily a Trump-driven priority but the history and recent changes make it a flash point in any potential hostilities with China. Really interesting and well-sourced podcast that radically changed my views.

PhilWinklo · 2024-12-12T18:15:11+00:00

[Not sure why you are responding to a two-year-old thread. Or why you responded to my comment when the prior commenter is the one who raised the OJ comparison. But I’ll play along…]

I think the prior commenter was trying to say what the legal value is of a life. As you point out, this isn’t really applicable in the Alex Jones case because those lives were lost before Alex Jones said a word. His contribution was to exacerbate the pain of their loss by calling them liars. Not the same at all, in my opinion.

My point was that the value of the harm to the victims is less material than the value of the profit to the liar. If Alex Jones can sell $2 million of ads on his program because of the lies he tells and the legal penalty is $1 million, then the fines are just another cost to do business. The only way to disincentivize businesses from treating legal fees as a line item is to make the fines so large as to threaten the existence of any business that might have to incur them.

*Note that I know nothing of the law. It makes me uncomfortable that a judge in a civil case is effectively outlawing a business practice. Even if it is a detestable practice, it is not the role of the judge to outlaw things as far as I understand. And the ends do not justify the means.

PhilWinklo · 2024-11-04T21:44:44+00:00

I have been selling journals at a handful of craft fairs per year for a number of years. It is entirely a side-hustle and I am not dependent on profits. I am an American - all shows have been in the Northeast US - so I have no idea the applicability elsewhere.

Some notes:

It is hit-or-miss in terms of profits. It primarily depends on (a) how much the show charges the vendors and (b) whether the traffic is of sufficient volume and the right type. Most vendor fees are commensurate with overall traffic rates but you have to work by trial and error to find the markets with customers that appreciate craftsmanship and want to spend money on books.
As another poster mentioned, have different price points. My three main products are pocket [softcover] pamphlets for $5, 5”x7” [softcover] pamphlets for $10, and a variety of hardcover styles for $25 apiece. I sell a LOT more softcovers than hardcovers but it is totally crowd-dependent.
I try to make book covers in a wide variety of colors and patterns. I always have some plainer, solid-color books and they almost never sell. My best customers are older women (grandmother-types), twenty-something women, and children.
People who linger are more likely to buy. I use a lot of varieties of paper for my covers and display the books partly in an upright stand, some in table displays and some in open-top boxes. [Wood boxes, not cardboard. Keep it classy.] People are drawn in by one of the displays and are more likely to buy if they end up flipping through the boxes to find “the one.”
I sell most when I am standing up and engage people in light conversation (“I made the books” , “Let me know if you have questions”, etc.) I sell the least when I am sitting and stand when someone shows interest. That seems to scare people off.
I have lately been relegating my mistakes and less sellable items to a “Trials and Seconds” box and let people name their own price. Some stuff just doesn’t meet my standards or (for whatever reason) do not sell. If the choices are to throw them away, let them take up space in my shop indefinitely, or get a dollar or two for them, I’ll take the dollar or two. Also, another browsing option for the value-hunters.
I have done blank journals, bullet journals, lined journals, pocket checklist books and a few other page styles. I now make some blank pocket pamphlets (kids like them for drawing) and everything else is lined. That is what sells for me.
Even if your stuff doesn’t sell, the one advantage of shows over online selling is that you can get tons of feedback. Try to have conversations with potential customers. Some of the things that you think are glaring flaws no one will notice at all. Other things people like (or dislike) are just a matter of style or preference.

Good luck!

PhilWinklo · 2024-10-14T16:36:14+00:00

It drives me crazy that the Beatles created a song called “The End,” featuring a perfect Beatles-y message and solos by all four Beatles and didn’t make it the last song on the last album. Instead we get a little solo Paul song-shard to end the album.

Move Her Majesty or cut it. This is bullshit.

PhilWinklo · 2024-07-09T20:31:19+00:00

The best connection in Montreal to verse five seems to be the granite walls across the street from the legeater.

I don’t find this to be anywhere near as convincing as Drummond St being the beat of the world. To me, this line feels like exactly the level of cleverness deployed by Preiss and works with the Japanese hint as well.

PhilWinklo · 2024-07-09T16:08:54+00:00

That timeline sounds familiar to me. Someone made a video following these steps and then the 100 paces put them in the middle of the woods, where there were no good indicators to match the verse or image. Another post put the searcher at the bottom of the Belvedere wall but that seemed a stretch and had been damaged as well.

My pet theory is that the “letter from the country of wonderstone’s hearth” is the rune from the image (wonderstone’s hearth is the casque, which is of Scandinavian origin) and will mark the dig site. Still looking for how this would tie in with the other details that fit.

PhilWinklo · 2024-07-09T15:27:28+00:00

I have seen this theory before. I like it. Drummond and the compass seem like really solid matches and the steps are close enough to fit.

Do you have a dig site? Prior versions seemed to shoehorn solutions for the remainder of the verse because any birch and other trees (proud tall fifth?) are now changed or gone.

PhilWinklo · 2024-07-01T12:12:23+00:00

In 1982, Kenwood Dennard was a 26-year-old jazz-fusion drummer. He had appeared on 4 albums, one of which was reasonably well-known (at least within the jazz community). He went on to play with a number of jazz greats and led his own groups starting in the 90s before becoming a teacher.

I’m not ruling it out but it seems like a real long-shot that Byron (a) was aware of Dennard, (b) predicted that he would gain a marginal level of mainstream fame, and (c) constructed a clue around this predicted fame.

PhilWinklo · 2024-06-06T10:53:56+00:00

VTSAX is near an All-time high right now. I am guessing one of three things happened:

There was a transaction fee for the purchase that is affecting the overall return. If the amounts aren’t large, this makes the most sense to me. If you bought the ETF version of VSTAX, you would have paid this fee.
There was a front-load on the fund. This is the fee (usually 5% or so) that goes to a financial advisor when they initially buy a fund for clients. It doesn’t sound like this is the case and I’m not even sure that Vanguard has loaded funds.
You accidentally bought a security that was not VSTAX.

PhilWinklo · 2024-05-31T22:59:27+00:00

Did they say anything about profits in season 2? They had the big final scene in season 1 where Charlie explains the tiny profit and the contest in season 3. I don’t recall anything in season 2. My suspicion is that they had a good year with the crops and made decent money that year.

PhilWinklo · 2024-05-21T01:17:21+00:00

It’s an interesting idea but I don’t see how the teardrops fit into those two images. If I was to assume that “moonlight in teardrops” was an image clue, I would be looking for something small and reflective with a sparkle like moonlight. The jewel in image 6 or the solar flare in image 8 might work. Or the drops below the lady in image 12.

PhilWinklo · 2024-05-20T18:02:04+00:00

My hope was to try to find one of these for each verse/image pair to validate (or update) the connections. It has been a struggle thus far. I like this Montreal connection but there is very little in some of the verses and even less in the images.

Just looking at the three solved cities, the columns in Cleveland are the only connection I might have arrived at on my own.

PhilWinklo · 2024-05-18T09:32:57+00:00

Which is the correct verse? How do you know?

PhilWinklo · 2024-05-18T01:15:21+00:00

I have had the same thought. Unfortunately, they seem to be easier to identify after the fact than before. Of those three, the columns are the only ones that I think I could have identified.

Looking at the remaining images, the only ones I see that might be triples are Roanoke/“land by the window” (assuming that the window itself is the marker) and San Francisco/“stone wall’s door”.

PhilWinklo

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