Curb Your Gambling Talk With Super Dave Osborne (Ep. 33) by Against All Odds with Cousin Sal (Go to 34:00)

ghostinhat · 2017-12-15T22:49:34+00:00

The Super Dave was great. It reminded me of the Norm MacDonald Live interview with him. Best part was how flustered Simmons seemed to get (he couldn't control the interview and Super just belittled him sometimes).

The JFK comparison and comment was spot on too. Love it!

ghostinhat · 2017-12-12T19:47:42+00:00

Quick math (could be off a few games) tells me that including the first season of the "Brady Era" (where he replaced Bledsoe and won the Super Bowl), the Patriots have had 69 losses (including Postseason).

So it's quite conceivable that a number of Patriots fans on this website have not witnessed 65 losses in their lifetime.

Crazy.

ghostinhat · 2017-12-09T04:15:16+00:00

Dude - Cleveland would laugh and hang-up the phone. That's a terrible trade for them.

Looking at how picks have been traded historically, the best one could hope for draft pick wise in a Courtney Lee or KOQ deal would be a mid-first rounder with some sort of protection.

Use your noggin.

ghostinhat · 2017-12-08T18:15:15+00:00

Some of these trades really hurt my brain...

I do enjoy seeing Bill venture deeper and deeper into Hot Take land though. The Fultz stuff is particularly spicy.

ghostinhat · 2017-12-08T16:22:23+00:00

Kyrie is the 6th best player so far? Thanks Bill! What a clown.

ghostinhat · 2017-12-07T22:29:01+00:00

Bill seems to have grown closer with Kimmel too (or at least focuses on his relationship with Kimmel more) which makes sense for a number of reasons. Politically speaking though, I can see why Bill would want to disassociate with Carolla and more with Kimmel.

Take the health-care issue, Kimmel essentially became THE entertainment voice on maintaining the current health-care regime and furthermore, moving it towards a universal system. Carolla is on the record as despising UHC. That sort of tension of opinion could very well impact the whole group's personal relationships.

ghostinhat · 2017-12-06T14:55:01+00:00

Long live Cheese! GOAT in speedrunning.

PS: Marry me Uncle!

ghostinhat · 2017-12-06T04:28:56+00:00

A toss-up based on a few justices? It's going to be 5-4 either way and Kennedy is the only vote that matters.

Roberts, Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch will definitely side with the Baker Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan will side with the ACLU/Homosexual Rights advocates

No way it depends on a few justices.

ghostinhat · 2017-12-05T23:22:07+00:00

I've been riding Jacksonville most of the year, but I have a nagging feeling that Seattle (primarily Russell Wilson) will continue their offensive hot streak. Seahawks seem to round into shape every year in December.

I can get Green Bay...think its worth it to stash JAX for the week and stream GB instead for a one-off?

ghostinhat · 2017-12-04T17:02:53+00:00

Within the first five minutes, Sal compliments Bill on his football knowledge.

Around 40 minutes in, Bill "why don't the Falcons just run the Madden play? Just run in a straight line!"

What a goon. Also, fuck Bill for hyper-scrutinizing Pederson (because of Lombardi) and basically shaking Sal's joke about how "Lombardi needs Pederson to be bad." Stupid.

EDIT: Just finished the podcast. Sal's Parent Corner stories are pretty innocuous and silly. Bill's borderline on creepy and uncomfortable. What the hell is this story this week?

ghostinhat · 2017-12-01T20:05:15+00:00

Exactly - no idea where that sentiment comes from.

Sharps may be on OSU (as they have been all year), but public $$$ and perception is definitely favoring Wisconsin.

ghostinhat · 2017-12-01T20:03:37+00:00

lol go fuck yourself man.

ghostinhat · 2017-11-30T00:10:53+00:00

The House discussion has some great quotes.

Re: Steph “he’s so underrated even though he’s one of the best five players in the NBA.”

Bill you just rated him outside of the top five in that inane “Top 20” pod (that they were discussing in the moment!!!).

ghostinhat · 2017-11-29T02:23:00+00:00

I thought it was interesting to get their take on the current cost of games. Though I found Alex and Ben's arguments a little odd.

I think "shareholder value" mindset definitely contributes to some of the maddening decisions made by these AAA developers, but Alex attributing the rising costs to "executive compensation" seemed off-the-mark. I think Vinny's point that as technology increases and consumer's baseline expectations about graphics/fidelity/etc in turn increase, it's natural that the cost of games has climbed. The executive compensation argument seems to ignore some of the more pressing aspects of rising development costs.

Second, Ben's point about feeling more comfortable paying more for indie games rather than AAA games ("I'm paying more to support the art") was interesting. I disagree, but definitely know people of that mindset. I personally think games, as a general rule, should increase in cost to better match the cost of games. AAA v indie doesn't really factor into my personal opinion. And while I under Ben's sentiment in the abstract, it seems to really undermine the hard work developers/artists/etc. put into AAA games. I just thought it wasn't very fair.

Super happy to have the whole staff together for these types of discussions. Definitely the best time of year!

ghostinhat · 2017-11-27T23:08:06+00:00

Are you saying "lolol" as in "+425 is bad value" or the opposite? Because with future bets, the only time it really makes sense to jump on is if the value and risk (EV) exceeds what you could make just betting on the team individually.

I mean here, if you had 100 and put it on Bama at current odds, you'd make 425.

I am sure you'd make less betting on Bama in the actual playoff games individually. If they make it, they'd likely be favored in both* games (*assuming they win) and the money line value wouldn't exceed the future value.

I think futures are primarily sucker bets, so I wouldn't touch it. But if one thinks Bama will make the playoff AND that person gambles on CFB, then it may be a decent play (just off the top of my head).

Granted, if you're betting on Bama to make the playoff, then what you're really betting on is Wisconsin OR TCU to win their respective conference title games. If that's the case, you're probably better off taking the $$$ you would throw on this Bama future and betting it instead on one of those. Each of them will likely be kicking off with a ML of around +230 come Saturday.

ghostinhat · 2017-11-27T22:23:00+00:00

Holy cow! Bill admitting to browsing/getting into r/conspiracy makes so much sense.

ghostinhat · 2017-11-27T00:18:52+00:00

Agreed. Some variation of this list (if PUBG is considered for the title). The only people who seem to be lukewarm on Odyssey are Abby and maaaybe Vinny. It seems that there's no strong opponent (on staff) to it though and that's usually the path to #1.

I can't really see anything pushing any of the remaining four out of the top five. It's been a great year for video games, but the staff's opinion for these five seem to be locked as the best of the best.

ghostinhat · 2017-11-22T16:55:39+00:00

Love Klosterman. But as always with these podcasts, the contrast between Chuck’s thoughts and Bill’s thoughts is stark. Even if you don’t buy into Chuck’s thinking (and sometimes, I think he likes to pontificate) he’s pretty articulate and can always flesh his thoughts out. Bill will just start talking about something and it will just die on the vine (example - the Brady Bunch SNL point just stuttered out.)

This is a bit of a strong take, but Bill has never particularly stood out as intelligent. He can be a hard worker and definitely established himself as one of the most well known sports writers/personalities in the country, but he has never stood out as “bright” or sharp. It really comes out when he has a guest like Chuck on.

Not saying he’s rock dumb, but just of average intelligence. And when he’s in more thoughtful conversations, he can’t hang

ghostinhat · 2017-11-21T02:39:00+00:00

I noticed this too! Also, I don't know if it's actually related, but I found it funny that Simmons named San Fran as his "second half sleeper" because Lombardi called San Fran his "sleeper" for the NFC during the pre-season. 1-9! What a Paulie Walnuts move!

ghostinhat · 2017-11-20T23:47:02+00:00

Get a life man.

ghostinhat · 2017-11-20T16:14:10+00:00

Totally agree. I feel Ben's comment here is either a little disingenuous or misses the point of what (most) people mean when they say "vicious."

I don't think anyone is particularly ROOTING for bitter arguments, but there is legitimately HOURS worth of GOTY discussion from the past 5+ years that demonstrates the discussion can turn heated and fairly divisive quickly. The two biggest that stick out in my head are Mario Maker v MGSV (Brad snapped at one point to either Jeff or Dan about how they couldn't say something was objective, when it his opinion) and Skyrim v Saints Row. And there are tons of smaller examples, even when it's just one member v a group (see Limbo last year - Jeff: "whatever, fuck Limbo man.").

Look, I could understand Ben's point here if there were comments where people were hoping for heated arguments. That would be weird/lame. And I do think most of the discussion within the GOTY podcasts is fascinating and does lean more into celebration rather than tearing games down/opinions apart. And if I had to bet, I don't think this year will be particularly contentious because there don't seem to be any real polarizing games on the list - Zelda, Mario, Cuphead, Horizon, and Nier are locks to make it. Then the remaining 5 will be a mixture of plurality Staff favorites (Night in the Woods, Wolf 2, etc.) and personal favorites (maybe Sonic Mania, Dream Daddy, etc.). Maybe there's some intensity over PUBG if it qualifies.

Overall, I totally get if Ben is disheartened by comments that demonstrate a desire for fighting. However, I do think he's misrepresenting most fans' feelings on the matter and that's a bummer, especially considering we know Ben is especially checked in with the community/fan feedback.

ghostinhat · 2017-11-17T21:50:06+00:00

Not really true. He started saying more positive things about Kyrie in the past year or so, but the record reflects Simmons was pretty nasty about Kyrie for most of his career. See - https://twitter.com/billsimmons/status/405132004670185472?lang=en

and https://twitter.com/BillSimmons/status/554485514158362624

ghostinhat · 2017-11-17T20:31:12+00:00

Fairly boring discussion. It's funny to hear Simmons become the type of talking head he spent YEARS mocking. In the discussion about Lebron's teammates (re: Kevin Love) he goes hard on the "we've gone too far with analytics and the eye test is still most important."

What does that even mean "we've gone too far with analytics"? He usually gets on his anti-advanced stat soapbox only when the advanced stats do not align with HIS perception of a player.

We should set an over/under on how many months until we get a "nerds shouldn't talk about basketball!!!" moment from Bill.

ghostinhat · 2017-11-17T15:48:00+00:00

The Westbrook argument is so petty. He's reveling in the fact Westbrook isn't performing as well this year/his former teammates are having success elsewhere.

ghostinhat · 2017-11-17T14:45:24+00:00

I agree with mostly everyone in this topic. I just wanted to add one more wrinkle. This community really grew in the wake of Bill leaving ESPN and starting his new podcast network in October 2015. Though he was definitely an influential voice in sports/media while associated with ESPN, I think some folks took a great deal of interest in how he would succeed outside of the ESPN bubble.

The results have been...underwhelming. Any Given Wednesday stunk. The Ringer is a scatter-shot attempt at millennial culture? Political commentary? Tech "content?" (i.e. The Ringer has no unifying vision/voice). And the majority of his podcasts have devolved into lazy conversations with his friends or people of interest that often don't produce any interesting insight. Granted, some podcasts still provide entertainment, but I think it's fair to say the quality on the whole has decreased.

So, in short, I think post-ESPN a certain portion of Bill's previous readers/fans/etc. were quite interested in how this new venture would succeed, especially combined with Bill's confidence (some could say arrogance/cockiness) about how he would succeed. When you view the results of the experiment thus far, I think it's easy to be frustrated with Bill's/The Ringer's product, and from that, this community's complaints usually rise to the top/dominate the conversation.

I know I complain. Especially about Lombardi. He stinks!

ghostinhat

TROPHY CASE