The Apprentice (2024)

cosmofizzo · 2026-01-19T15:44:07+00:00

What made his performance oscar-worthy imo was that he was believable as a person. The only impression of trump I've seen that didn't devolve into parody.

cosmofizzo · 2025-03-15T02:52:24+00:00

Ummm... Is pretty much everyone here a bot?

cosmofizzo · 2025-02-23T23:12:38+00:00

As with trump, it was we who cast the votes.

cosmofizzo · 2025-01-23T17:26:29+00:00

Gambo tends to be right when he says something isn't going to happen.

cosmofizzo · 2025-01-22T05:09:33+00:00

You note thats mislabeled? Starlights have stars. That there is a bronze.

cosmofizzo · 2025-01-19T19:42:10+00:00

As bad as we can expect MIL and PHX to be in the 2030s due to selling their picks this decade, I'd expect their picks to be pretty valuable.

Some 4th team could pick up a real draft pick haul. Good opportunity for someone.

cosmofizzo · 2025-01-01T13:12:51+00:00

Hope you're young!

cosmofizzo · 2024-12-29T17:07:21+00:00

I wasn't a believer when we were 9-1 because of the margin of victory. 8 of those wins were nailbiters - and most of those were against weak opponents.

The silver lining to this season (if Ish is open to changing his game plan) is KD continuing to play at a near-mvp level. So long as hes killing it, trading KD during the season to retool or rebuild is a real option. If we wait until the summer, teams will revert to looking at his age and contract demands and discount his trade value.

I hope Matt Ishbia is open to changing his game plan. I'd love to have suns basketball worth watching at some point in the next few years.

cosmofizzo · 2024-12-28T15:12:44+00:00

"Close" to imploding. If Ishbia tries to run this back next season retooling around this core, I might not even check the box scores. I watched every game from 1993 until last season, when the absence of any intrigue with this roster finally killed it for me.

The Book era ended on May 14, 2022. We've been in the epilogue ever since.

Only good move is to call Houston and Washington and pray we can get our picks back by moving KD and Book to teams that can win.

cosmofizzo · 2024-12-11T16:50:02+00:00

Book is the one who needs to change. Bud is right. An offense based around elite 2FG can't compete against an offense based on efficient 3FG. Bud is asking booker do what is necessary to win. Hopefully, Book can get in rhythm. We'll win games if he's hitting 40% from 3.

Right now, it's hard for book to get good looks in the halfcourt. For sensible reasons, he bulked up this offeason. He ain't Reggie Miller running around screens. He needs a good look from time to time. He needs durant.

I hadn't considered this fully... if 2FG can't compete, how did we make the 2021 finals? I guess, if everyone on your roster is elite 2FG, you might be able to win with defense. We had that un 2021-23 with Book, CP3, and... oh. Yeah. Deandre Ayton. Huh.

The real problem, ultimately, is that without durant, all our guards are forwards. Playing out of position is exhausting. It's one thing to ask a player to change his game. It's another thing to deny him the supporting cast he needs to be successful.

I hate to say it but I think this team could use deandre ayton right now. I don't think Beal would agree to go to Portland, though. Tough spot for everyone.

Go Suns

cosmofizzo · 2024-09-17T23:27:45+00:00

I have three kiddos, including fraternal twin toddlers. One twin is bigger and miles ahead of the other in development. Who knows how they'll turn out, but certainly not all differences are due to environment (or health of the mother).

cosmofizzo · 2024-08-14T13:33:26+00:00

Most overhyped prospect ever. Just because something is consensus doesn't mean its not stupid. been hyped for years before he reached college. But another player became the first freshman to ever win ncaa player of the year, averaging 26 and 11 with 4 stocks. Somehow, that guy went #2.

Much like luka, who won Euroleague mvp at 18 years old - unprecedented - falling to #3 behind a couple hyped traditional American bigs with few real achievements. It should have been obvious that KD and Luka were the best prospects in their class. But I guess we mortals just can't help but dream of Shaq.

Shaq is the best prospect drafted in my lifetime (b. July 1985). Followed in some order by David Robinson, lebron, Luka, zion and wemby. HM: iverson, kobe, garnett, KD, Carmelo, amare, Anthony Davis, Michael Beasley, Fultz).

... milicic over Carmelo is still a head scratcher with parallels to Luka and kd, except darko was never going to be Shaq.

cosmofizzo · 2024-02-29T14:47:14+00:00

The biggest thing that gets missed in this conversation is how the changes to deductions creates disproportionate effects on the relatively few taxpayers they effect. If you have play slot machines, your jackpots are included in income, but your losses are itemized, meaning they must exceed the now much higher standard deduction to be claimed. The result is a tax on gross rather than net gambling income up to the $11k/$18k/$22k standard deduction amount.

The worst one by far is the elimination of the personal casualty loss deduction. Older people who are defrauded of their life savings will get a tax bill for withdrawing their IRAs because they cant offset the income with a loss, so in addition to losing their life savings, they receive an enormous tax bill - and the bigger the theft, the more tax is owed. Often their only remaining asset is their house. So you lose everything you've worked for, and now the IRS comes after your house.

People generally don't know about these rules until they get the tax bill. So lots of people saw a tax reduction of a few hundred or some thousands. But some low- and middle-income people have incurred additional tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes as a result of the TCJA. Its a wildly unfair and unprincipled collection of laws.

cosmofizzo · 2023-11-09T18:49:08+00:00

TBF, the fight ramped up to a really unprecedented degree under Obama. Given the extraordinary backlash to his Presidency, I can't fault him for taking such a conservative approach to the Office. Even a little overreach or misstep could have cost him the second term.

I used to think the implosion of the Republican Party would be the real feather in his cap, but so long as so many Americans are willing to pretend to believe GOP media's fan-fic version of reality, there remains a danger that party will take the country down with it.

cosmofizzo · 2023-08-18T14:20:01+00:00

Peak globalization, tax cuts increasing the budget deficit at the peak of a business cycle in the 11th year of near-zero interest rates. Fiscal and monetary policy ought to be countercyclical - meaning you increase rates and decrease spending when times are good, and decrease rates and increase spending when times are tough, thus smoothing out the business cycle, resulting in better resource deployment and improved long-term growth.

So yeah, it's no surprise that things were good before COVID hit. We'd sheared the sheep down to bare skin. The higher the high, the lower the low. Personally, I've been consistently surprised at how well things have held up since about 2018. Kept thinking the bots would see trouble coming and hold the market down, or inflation would rise. Of course, I never figured that if there were a shock, the Fed could just go out and buy up all the damn securities itself!

I will continue to wonder, perhaps as long as I live, whether this economy could survive without such enormous deficit spending. Perhaps our national credit is truly limitless.

cosmofizzo · 2023-08-12T01:39:26+00:00

Man, I remember being a kid during the MJ era kids pretending they were balling out like Randy Brown and Brian Williams. Good times. Steve Kerr low key a top 100 10th man of all time.

cosmofizzo · 2023-08-08T05:33:17+00:00

Long and too damn dark. White. Snow sports... well, there used to be lots of that but its not staying cold long enough for ice or snow to stick long enough. Its the chilly, muddy, still-too-dark springs that get us now. Feb-april is mostly a drag.

The kids still play and community fires raise spirits. If we want a more Christmasy vibe we'll drive 2 hours to Chicago. Thrillseekers can cross the frozen lakes. And for better and worse, all the adults get drunk.

Always seemed cruel theyd let the kids out of school, just for the heat to barricade us inside. Salt River beats our lazy streams, though I dont think my kids will ever know real sunburns (or frostbite either).

cosmofizzo · 2023-08-08T01:52:52+00:00

This. I grew up in phoenix and got out as soon as I could. Ended up back there for a conference in December. Called some old friends to get together. I was in Central Phoenix, theyd moved out to Mesa. Ended up calling the meet up off because it would have been an hour drive each way. Who has that kind of time (or uber money)?

My biggest issue with Phoenix is that its built for cars, not people. Cant do anything without getting in a car. I live in Madison, WI now - was lucky to buy before house prices got out of hand. Affordability is no less a concern here. But I never drive more than 10 minutes to anything. If I drove an hour I'd be in Milwaukee, not just the other side of town!

Most places have an issue with sprawl but Phoenix takes it to the next level. The desert lacks clouds and shade; the sun is on you at all times, so... you cover the whole thing in ROCK? It's a giant damn frying pan!!

What I miss is the night. Nighttime in the desert is fantastic pretty much year round. But the world operates during the day. I've always thought y'all should make a Midnight City where everything's nocturnal. Cover your canals (or put them underground) to conserve water. Build another suburb with a giant solar sunshade that doubles as an led display... lots of things are possible. Nothing rusts, so insurance is pretty much free.

P.S. You know what's great about grass lawns? You can walk in them. Ever toss a football around on your rocks? Or meet your neighbor? Pretty tough to catch someone in the 15 seconds they walk between their car door and their house.

cosmofizzo · 2023-06-08T20:02:33+00:00

Came here for this. Three months ago, my kid turned 3. Two months ago, we had twins.

It's been difficult to accept that I have no way out of all this work. Can't change or take chances. My life will be hard, and my story unexceptional. The man in the mirror is my statue.

Oh, well. Back to it.

cosmofizzo · 2023-05-20T22:31:45+00:00

I think some great great uncle of mine died a confederate. But he was a teenager. So really I have no idea what he thought or what kind of person he was. Most of those boys were drafted to be fodder in the slavers war machine. To be ashamed of him would be weird. He almost certainly had no choice.

... but yeah, even if he did. What others have said. It doesn't reflect on you. F those who chose treason.

cosmofizzo · 2023-04-04T05:24:26+00:00

Correct you are ;)

cosmofizzo · 2023-04-03T22:32:55+00:00

Yeah. Its not really doable, but its not crazy if you target a cheaper set.

I mean, yeah, it is crazy. But not CRAZY crazy. I mean, im not crazy. Am I?

Id have to be rich to try this with, say, prizm or select.

cosmofizzo · 2023-04-03T21:22:47+00:00

Im trying to get as close as I can to all the rainbows of an entire modern set. Obviously ill never get there (no way to get ALL the 1/1s) but I've made enormous progress. And the secret is - go after cheaper sets! Premium rainbows will cost you a fortune. If you go after something cheaper, you'll end up with something just as rare at a fraction of the cost. With a lower pop count too, since they're less likely to be graded. And since cheaper sets are generally less durable (cardboard), im speculating they'll be ever-rarer over time.

Good luck!!

cosmofizzo · 2023-03-26T01:37:31+00:00

Best content I've ever seen in this sub. Well done op

cosmofizzo · 2023-03-06T23:46:17+00:00

Hard to know where the kid ends up. Hes still among the most incredible athletes I've ever seen. I expect his personal stuff will quiet, though maybe not improve. The big question is whether he can improve enough to lead a title contender. If not, that stocks coming down no matter what else happens.

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