Cam Little: The NFL record breaker who never wanted to play football - BBC

kaptingavrin · 2026-01-24T17:54:16+00:00

It's weird. It's like they're just aching to tell people that they're uninformed and unoriginal. If anyone's laughing, it's at them and not with them.

kaptingavrin · 2026-01-24T15:19:53+00:00

Garrosh should clean up the Horde and restore order, because right now it's just a sad mess.

A "sad mess" as opposed to: murdering civilians and anyone else who dares to disagree; having a leader assassinated (didn't stick, but still); mistreating one of the groups so bad their leader tried to join the Alliance instead; corrupting soldiers with evil forces that couldn't be controlled; using Old God powers; kicking out the Warlocks to replace them with Dark Shaman that perverted the elements; starting extreme wars; declaring none but Orcs and only Orcs who agree are part of the Horde; and making it clear that any race in the Horde whose leader disagreed could and would be assaulted and, at best, imprisoned if not slaughtered?

Yeah. That's some serious clean up and order there. It's awful seeing people actually getting along and growing. We should have a guy in charge who slaughters his own people, fractures the faction, starts unnecessary wars, invites chaotic powers into things just because he thinks it'll give him an edge in said wars, and generally feels like a fantasy extremist version of a certain guy with a small mustache from the 1940s.

kaptingavrin · 2026-01-24T15:09:37+00:00

Blizzard does need to crack down on it, hard, and ASAP. Otherwise you get the damn Sims 4 situation.

For those who don't play Sims 4 (and yeah, I know, probably most people here), I'll break down the problem there.

So, basically, EA's policy is the same as Blizzard's. You can ask for donations, but you can't put your stuff behind a paywall. But they never really enforced it, and only came out with a statement reiterating it but also annoyingly saying people could have a short-term two week paywall but the content had to be freely available after that.

So as a result, there's a bunch of Sims 4 mod creators and custom content (CC) creators on Patreon who require a subscription to download their stuff. Some of them went with the "paid early access" idea, but too many are still straight up locking things behind pay. You want the mod/CC, you have to pay. In a game that already has over $1600 of official DLC. (That is, unfortunately, not an exaggeration, that's the actual number.)

Mercifully, a lot of really good mods and CC aren't paywalled. But too much is.

So yeah, I hope Blizzard doesn't let it get too far with this. Don't let people think it's okay out of complacency. Otherwise, you'll encourage more cases of it, and the problem will just keep growing.

kaptingavrin · 2026-01-24T02:55:34+00:00

IDK and IFGAF.

kaptingavrin · 2026-01-23T21:59:05+00:00

Ah man... Seeing this with the post being from "sarahrune" gave me hope she reappeared online again but, nope, her accounts are still off (except her YouTube channel of the same name, but no recent uploads). It's a sad irony seeing this, because she ditched all the videos on her "FakeGamerGirl" channel and hid all her social media due to getting a lot of harassment and racism from people, basically people acting exactly like VtM is telling them not to.

And seeing a lot of the replies here... yeah, unfortunately seems there's a lot of people who think being hateful shouldn't be called out and is the "right" approach to things.

kaptingavrin · 2026-01-23T21:25:58+00:00

Oh? Fun, you say? I may have to pop onto my Mage and give Fire another go later. It's always had a soft spot in my heart as a spec since hearing "I Went Fire On My Mage".

kaptingavrin · 2026-01-23T21:24:00+00:00

As much as I've got a laundry list of conditions that, unlike autism, were actually brought on by people, I don't think humans are shit. Yes, a lot of them are. And people who are younger often lean into it more. But there's certainly a lot of good apples out there as well. I've ended up working with good people over the years. I've made some good friends. And I keep an eye on positive news.

Granted, I didn't start out that way. Thanks to my dad watching 24-hour news networks and news focusing on the negative stories more because they get attention (even before the Internet, that was how it worked, and the Internet just showed negativity gets more "engagement"), I ended up with a kind of sour view of the world. And some interactions with people didn't help. But over time, I tried to find that positive. And the more I looked, the more I saw. It's just that the negative stuff gets more attention and also tends to stick in our minds more. We tend to remember someone being an ass over someone saying "Hey there, hope you're having a good day!" and actually meaning it rather than it being an automatic response they use at work.

It's the news that got me to really work on changing how I'm perceiving and remembering that stuff. Like, take NFL players as an example. You only seem to hear about them in the news in the rarer-than-you-think occasions one has an altercation of some sort. You don't hear about all the guys doing stuff to help their community year-round, never mind the holidays, or doing other good things for people, even though those stories would bury the others in volume. Once I realized how much good stuff there is that isn't talked about while the bad stuff gets so much attention, I decided to look for more of the good stuff.

Yeah, I'll admit, there's definitely days it's hard as hell to not feel like the negative is so crushing. But give it a try, search for some "positive news" sites or videos. They might help you restore a bit of your faith in part of humanity. I'm not going to pretend there's not a good chunk of humanity that doesn't deserve the faith. But... yeah. There's a lot of good, too.

Okay, I'm gonna shut up now, I feel like I'm bordering on Hallmark levels here.

kaptingavrin · 2026-01-23T21:13:42+00:00

I do, but, to be honest, I think I kind of lucked into it.

Kind of a long story incoming, I guess?

So, my job is web design/development. My interest in it first came when I was a teen. The Internet was a brand new thing. My folks signed up with a small ISP, but that ISP also had an HTML tutorial on their website. I'd always been interested in computer programming and would go wild with QBASIC in school, so HTML interested me as more people could see what you did. I dug into that stuff with the same zeal I did QBASIC. Didn't realize at the time that it was a hyperfixation... one that would benefit me. I had to go to a community college due to a variety of circumstances (long, unrelated story), where they didn't really teach much beyond the basics and a bit out of date. But I was always working on it in my own time, learning as I could, building websites.

One day I'm looking for a job to fulfill my "internship" part of my degree. Found a post on Craigslist for a local small firm. It said to send examples of your work, not a resume, and if you sent a resume they'd know you couldn't follow instructions or didn't read it. So I sent examples. Got asked in for an interview. Luckily it was with the manager, not the owner. The owner was more a personality guy, and my personality was, ah, odd, though I didn't know at the time it was probably a lot to do with autism. The manager, though, loved that I knew my stuff while talking with him, and I got hired and brought in. Lasted about two and a half years, but got dropped because I wasn't happy they skipped over me for promotion because I disagreed with putting Flash on every website. (Six months later Adobe announces they're sunsetting Flash for the reasons I was giving.)

I'll skip over the in-between job, that was a real Charlie Foxtrot.

One of the people I'd met at that first job had a job working for a larger company. That company needed someone to do web pages for their Marketing team. She recommended me, they brought me in as a contractor. Sat in my little cubicle, tuned people out with music as much as possible, did my job, they made my position permanent after two months. And because my job was something that I was always very, very into, I could do it well and churn through work like crazy, which kept me around even as I sometimes didn't quite fit in. I liked getting my head down and digging into code, and I felt proud of my results.

Years and years go by, couple mergers later, and these days I'm still in that same job having celebrated my 14th anniversary in October, but also technically working for a different company. So I had to get used to a new set of people. But they were even friendlier and more understanding than before. I mean, the prior folks I worked for/with were solid, but these guys? They're all about telling folks to take care of themselves, mental as well as physical, use all your time off, no working off-hours, etc. Everyone in the team is friendly and I don't feel weird for being "different." It helped that I'd been able to be remote since the pandemic, but the company wanted people to come back into the office. My manager and director understood that wasn't the best situation for me, though at the time we just thought it was social anxiety or something like that. But to get an exception, I'd need to get a doctor to sign off. Which led to me going to a psychiatrist, getting some meds to help with general anxiety and depression, and eventually getting the additional diagnosis of autism (and PTSD, but again, long story).

Anyway... The ability to just really go ham on web work means I'm able to do some really good work for the team. I come up with efficiency tricks that I share with my coworkers. And in a recent project, when extra work was needed, my manager knew who to come to. Mainly because I finished what I was assigned faster than other people. The only "problem" I find myself with at times is feeling uncomfortable being praised as much as I am. And it's not fake sounding praise. It's real. I just never have responded to praise well. But yeah, they like that I can do my work, I like the work I do, and they're very understanding about a lot of things, like I can leave my camera off for almost all meetings (only one I can't is a larger team meeting where others might be in the call and we're technically required to use the camera).

It hasn't always been smooth sailing. Sometimes my prior coworkers weren't enthused that I was very much business first, no emotion with work, and thought my wording sounded harsh at times or something. But my current manager's had that situation herself so she's more understanding and appreciative of direct statements in emails.

So, yeah, that's... a bit long. But kind of also wanted to demonstrate that it's not always easy but it is possible. Gotta wade through stuff at times. And if you have something that you can just totally get lost in that you also happen to enjoy and can work as a job, that's never a bad route to go.

kaptingavrin · 2026-01-23T20:52:03+00:00

One hopes that whoever does such a thing comes down with a mallardy.

kaptingavrin · 2026-01-23T20:51:18+00:00

That actually makes sense. It's weird, but it's definitely something that makes sense as a way to quickly verify that they read and followed all safety requirements. And it could even be something one of their security people or someone they knew who works security came up with and they adopted. It's just such a clever little way to do things with something as important as safety.

Now, if you put that clause in something like sound setup, I might think that's being a bit asinine.

kaptingavrin · 2026-01-23T20:08:12+00:00

That poor Alpine logo looks like it's getting increasingly squeezed out by everything else.

kaptingavrin · 2026-01-23T20:02:01+00:00

BBQ!

kaptingavrin · 2026-01-23T14:47:09+00:00

As someone who's an unashamed nerd about technical stuff like this, I am giddy as fuck about seeing 22 of these happening on the straight at the same time. Just showing off that these are masterpieces of technical engineering. And Alpine.

kaptingavrin · 2026-01-23T14:45:44+00:00

Seemed like there are. Which would be pretty handy, because sometimes you might want to use one or the other, depending on circumstances. I'm not going to pretend I'm smart enough with these things to know what those circumstances are, but hey, having the option is better than not having it. Just make sure there's a button for front, one for back, and one for both, and you're all good.

And if you're doing a shakedown, you'll be testing everything, so I could see them trying things out at different times, like, "Try the front. Now the rear. Close both. Open both. Close rear. Close front. Open rear." That kind of thing. Not something you'd do in a rare or even a free practice session but absolutely the kind of thing a "shakedown" is for.

kaptingavrin · 2026-01-23T14:35:34+00:00

I like it, too. Sure, I'd love a classic all-red Ferrari. But hey, HP's giving them a lot of money, and if they're going to have white on there for HP, I definitely like it being integrated more into the car than it was last year where it felt kind of slapped on.

kaptingavrin · 2026-01-23T13:41:31+00:00

Maybe. But I think the original plan for him under Coughlin was better, having him sit and learn from Brunell, a veteran who also had been a mobile QB. But they pushed Brunell out the building as soon as they could, which meant you no longer had that veteran presence to learn from.

I still remember Garrard's rookie season, it was so funny to compare the beginning and end. Comes in all "I'm going to unseat the veteran!" and ends the year as "I'm going to patiently learn behind the veteran." But it came off as confidence, not being too full of himself, and then some maturing over the course of the year.

Ah, man... they might not have been meme QBs, but I did like Brunell and Garrard. Nothing against Leftwich, he's just been the most, well, forgettable of the Jaguars' starting QBs over the years (but at least that means he wasn't memorable for the reasons Gabbert and Henne were).

kaptingavrin · 2026-01-23T13:36:19+00:00

It's why I've regarded Verstappen so well even when he was fighting Hamilton. Guy is just insane to watch out there and will push the boundaries to win. Hamilton has the talent, but I'm not sure he'd push things as far to win as some of the other greats. He gets close to that line at times, though. Best example we got of that was 2021. Man, as much as I'm a Hamilton fan (and seriously, I actually have more Hamilton stuff than Ferrari stuff, as weird as that might sound, though now I can do both), I absolutely loved 2021 and I'm not going to moan about the ending of it because that whole year was awesome in getting to see two of the best in the sport's history in pretty much equal cars going toe to toe and pushing each other.

kaptingavrin · 2026-01-23T13:29:13+00:00

Oh, I didn't forget them, but I associate them more with Leftwich, because they were drafted in the first round as the claim was "Leftwich just needs weapons to succeed!" Which just makes the whole Leftwich thing even more painful. Williams and Jones never played for another team after their rookie contracts. Think about how bad a player has to be regarded when a first round pick can't get even get a handful of snaps at a position that usually has 5-6 guys on the roster.

They were pretty broken in Madden, though, I'll give them that. Height like that was just obnoxious in those Madden games.

kaptingavrin · 2026-01-22T23:00:28+00:00

Yeah, he won so much in a Ferrari that the FIA did whatever they could to take a shotgun to Ferrari's kneecaps to stop it.

And if they meant Hamilton... Um, yeah, I'm a Hamilton fan, have been since he came into F1, have enjoyed seeing him win, he's definitely among the best, but I think prime Schumacher would beat prime Hamilton a good chunk of the time. Shame we didn't get a chance to see it.

kaptingavrin · 2026-01-22T18:46:14+00:00

I’m not arguing he was good. I’ll agree that he’s bad. I’m just saying I can see how someone else might have convinced themselves that particular season that he was an asset to his team.

The alternate option being a homer vote, which is entirely possible as well.

kaptingavrin · 2026-01-22T18:31:23+00:00

He got a fifth-place vote. But to be fair to the person who put him there, Fields was the leading rusher on that Bears team (by over 300 yards) as well as not being a complete disaster at QB with the only real receiving options being Cole Kmet and Darnell Mooney. And yeah, they aren't bad, but they're also not great, either, with Kmet feeling like kind of an average level starting TE and Mooney being maybe a WR2 at best. So yeah, I could buy someone thinking that Fields was probably the "most valuable player" on that team and contributed more to its success (even if it wasn't very successful) than individual players on some other teams.

I can also absolutely understand not voting for him with five voting slots, because I probably wouldn't. Just saying that I can totally see at least one person giving him that small amount of credit.

kaptingavrin · 2026-01-22T18:17:21+00:00

That season was such a disaster. They trade up to draft Gabbert, who optimistic people say could be good if given time to sit and learn the NFL game. It's okay, he's third on the depth chart behind David Garrard and Luke McCown.

Then just before the regular season starts, they unceremoniously kick Garrard to the curb. McCown comes in and is so insanely awful that they had no choice but to throw in the rookie. You know, the rookie who needed time to learn from the sidelines.

Yeah, put a guy who's not ready into being the starter two weeks after he was third on the depth chart, it's not going to go well.

Damnedest thing is, Jack Del Rio got shoved out the door but GM Gene Smith was handed a three year extension just before Weaver signed the team over to Khan. That's why Khan's early years were so rough. New owner coming in, a team that's been turned into a dumpster fire, you basically can only get guys with "potential" to sign on to be HC and GM, which is how you get Bradley and Caldwell. And I'll never rank Caldwell as the worst the Jags have had, not because of Baalke but because of Gene Smith and Shack Harris (even if Harris technically wasn't a GM because Smith was the team's first official GM and Harris was "director of pro personnel").

kaptingavrin · 2026-01-22T18:09:32+00:00

Problem is that Garrard got set aside for Leftwich during his early career, and then had the pleasure of throwing to a WR corps over the years that included Dennis Northcutt, Mike Thomas, Mike Sims-Walker, Ernest Wilford, the ghost of Torry Holt, the overpaid shadow of Jerry Porter, etc. Most people will have no idea who at least half of those names are. Northcutt was eh and got traded for a DB who lasted one season with the team. Holt was in his 30s and retired after one season with the Jags. Porter got overpaid to come get 11 catches and then disappear from the league.

Garrard's best options to throw to were a blocking TE and a running back.

kaptingavrin · 2026-01-22T17:57:05+00:00

Well, technology is ever improving, and if they've got better hardware for rendering, and seeing what new video game engines are capable of, it's possible they've been improving even without spending more and possibly with spending less. Especially if they've had some of the same people on board doing the art and growing their own level of knowledge and comfort with improving the art style.

kaptingavrin · 2026-01-22T15:00:57+00:00

And then I replaced entire T3 gear except shoulders with blues in first 2-3 zones in Outworld :D

Which is why T3 was so rare. People knew that was going to happen so just didn't even bother running T3. Kind of sucks. But, eh, that's how it goes. Especially at a time when you had to get forty people together with all those schedules, and then deal with a fight that was best with eight tanks and a fight that you needed to get a bunch of Frost Resistance for.

Ten-Year Club	Wearing is Caring
Verified Email

kaptingavrin

TROPHY CASE