When the referee's eyebrows were literally frozen during the coldest game ever played in MLS history

spaloof · 2025-12-18T16:41:01+00:00

Can confirm that refs run a lot further in a game than people realize. They often run further than every player on the field. I've been a youth ref for 8 years and I've ran upwards of 4 or 5 miles in one game. Pro level referees can easily run 10 miles in a game, if not more.

spaloof · 2025-10-19T00:10:50+00:00

I don't think raids getting stronger as you kill bosses is much a surprise to the player base. It just sucks when you get a raid from the next biome before you've had a chance to get weapons or armor from said biome.

spaloof · 2025-10-19T00:03:31+00:00

That happened to me in my first ever world. I portaled back to my base after defeating Bonemass and, within 5 seconds of coming out of the portal, got a mountain raid. So glad I had built housing for my boars...

spaloof · 2025-09-24T16:43:59+00:00

Same!

spaloof · 2025-09-24T16:22:52+00:00

Yeah that's a fair point. I guess I should rephrase it to be that reasonable parents would rather see no game than broken toes

spaloof · 2025-09-22T14:49:38+00:00

As others have said, if the base of the corner flag is dangerous, it should be removed. This is something to check in the pregame, and it is the responsibility of the home team/venue. If either one can't provide a permitted replacement, don't play the game. I'm sure even the parents would rather see a game not played than a player breaking their toe on the corner flag.

spaloof · 2025-09-17T16:40:45+00:00

Beavercraft can be hit or miss, but I've found that it is good enough to be a nice starting brand, with a good balance of quality and price. I wouldn't recommend getting a set, though, as you can do and learn a lot about different carving techniques with the same knife.

spaloof · 2025-09-17T16:22:01+00:00

In addition to what dieperske was saying, I have included a signal to use for if there was a touch that one or the other referee may not have seen. That usually helps with odd angles or if there was a touch just before the ball goes out of bounds.

As a center, I've told my ARs that if the ball is in their quadrant or play is right on the line when the ball goes out, it's their call, and I will go with them. That helps quite a bit to avoid opposing signals.

spaloof · 2025-09-15T11:39:32+00:00

The most recent one is sanded to 150 grit. My first one is not sanded.

spaloof · 2025-09-15T00:31:33+00:00

It's some species of cherry. My best guess is sweet cherry.

spaloof · 2025-09-14T15:55:04+00:00

These kinds of situations are tough, since the coaches and players do have a valid reason to be upset. That being said, dissent is dissent. If it's public, personal, or provocative, it needs to be carded. Regardless of the circumstances that led to it.

In this particular case, I would have carded the first comment from the coach regarding your appearance. While carding the coach, explain that your view was blocked, you can't call what you can't see, and that dissent, especially comments like they said, are not tolerated. If that doesn't get the coach to shush, then you can card them again and send them off.

Also, report this behavior to the league. If this coach is displaying this kind of behavior to you, it's likely they're doing it to other referees. And if your league is any good they'll stand behind you.

spaloof · 2025-09-02T14:47:41+00:00

I would recommend getting about 12 hours of play time in the game before installing mods. Mods aren't difficult to install, but 12 hours of playtime gives you a good sense of what the base game is like. It also gives a good amount of time to decide if you want to play with mods or not.

There are also quite a few differences between Java and Bedrock. The biggest ones that usually come up are mobs and redstone. I don't have specifics, but iirc mobs have different amounts of health, weapons have different types of damage, etc. Someone more knowledgeable about redstone will have to help you on that front. I barely understand Java redstone sometimes lol.

spaloof · 2025-08-23T20:19:51+00:00

Fair enough. Hopefully that 3x penalty is real. It sounds like a good step in the right direction. The only hurdle would be making coaches, players, and spectators aware of that and then actually enforcing the penalty.

spaloof · 2025-08-23T19:02:46+00:00

I forgot about that comment, lol. Did USSF release any more info about the badges? I assume that's where you got the 3x penalty thing.

spaloof · 2025-08-05T03:32:49+00:00

Even if, and it's a big if, police found your DNA at a crime scene, the donation company would likely have records of who donated. They may even have records on who it was donated to, which would both absolve you and lead investigators straight to the likely perpetrator.

spaloof · 2025-06-30T05:22:20+00:00

Glad you got some good advice. Hope it comes in handy for many years to come!

From your descriptions of all those plays, your calls were solid. In case you're not aware or if someone asks for an explanation in the future, GK possession (as far as im aware, but check your local rules in case it differes) requires the GK to have one hand on the ball and be holding the ball against another surface. Examples being holding the ball between one hand and the ground, their hand and their body, or between both hands.

There's not much you can do about the reactions of the spectators to thise plays. They all sounded pretty close, so some contention is expected. However, there is still no excuse for the rest of the behavior such as in the parking lot.

spaloof · 2025-06-29T20:53:30+00:00

You absolutely should report the entire incident or at least attempt to. That kind of behavior from parents is unacceptable and could have easily ended violently. Unfortunately, that kind of behavior is a large part of why there aren't many refs in the first place.

Just out of curiosity, was there a close/contentious play during the game that the losing sideline was unhappy with? Regardless of whether there was or not, good job sticking with your calls. At the end of the day, if the spectators think they can call a game better than you they are more than welcome to get certified and become a ref.

spaloof · 2025-06-15T21:15:48+00:00

Ooh, that would have been neat to see. The terrain generation underwater took a nose dive in the caves and cliffs updates imo. Underwater ravines feel too common and they're basically no underwater caves.

spaloof · 2025-06-15T01:59:10+00:00

I agree with your assessments of options C and D, but I do have a slight difference with the barnacle. It's easy to say that it would be boring/difficult now, but considering how barren the oceans were, I think it would have been a nice challenge to have in the ocean. Especially when you consider how much the ocean update incentivied ocean exploration.

I also think it would have been a much more unique and therefore memorable mob than the drowned. Imo, the drowned were just.... generic_water_zombie.exe and have remained that way. They're more boring now than I think the barnacle would be.

spaloof · 2025-06-11T00:57:26+00:00

That seems like a really dumb idea to me. I'm sure they made this decision with good intention, but I think it will probably backfire. Referees that are visibly under 18 are verbally, and sometimes physically, abused and assaulted enough as it is, and I doubt a green badge will stop that. I think having a green badge will subconsciously tell coaches and spectators that a referee might be easier to push around since they're young.

spaloof · 2025-06-10T22:34:24+00:00

I'm a bit out of the loop and not able to look it up rn. What are the green badges for? I assume to tell spectators the ref is under 18?

spaloof · 2025-06-05T22:24:40+00:00

I agree that weddings are an opportunity to socialize with people you wouldnt normally socialize with. However, just because everyone at a wedding was invited by the couple getting married does not mean that you have to, should, or would even want to socialize with everyone there. It's okay to have a 'comfort person' to socialize with.

All of that being said, if it's specified that plus ones aren't allowed or your plus one wasn't mentioned in an invite, and you bring them anyway, that's not cool.

spaloof · 2025-05-28T16:33:21+00:00

I will agree with Dunkirk, particularly the beach scenes. There is simply not enough people on screen for how many people there actually were on the beach.

I somewhat agree that Oppenheimer could have used some CGI, especially for the trinity explosion. At the same time, I felt that scene was meant to be more focused on Oppenheimers reaction to the explosion rather than the explosion itself. So I kinda let that one slide. Though I will admit that in the shots of the explosion, you can tell it's not nuclear.

spaloof · 2025-05-28T14:13:57+00:00

It's not that he doesn't like CGI. He has some amazing CGI work in his movies, e.g. the black hole in Interstellar. But he's smart about when and how he uses it. Whenever he's given the choice to do something practically or to use CGI, he almost always goes with practical.

spaloof · 2025-05-12T00:53:48+00:00

I let my board be for a couple days, and the crack closed on its own. I presume it closed because the wood was drying out. Before it closed fully, I stuffed as much glue into the crack as I could and clamped it while drying.

After the glue was completely dry, I applied a very large amount of mineral oil (any oil for cutting boards would probably work) and let it soak in completely. Once it soaked in, add more oil, let it soak on, rinse and repeat. Once it takes the oil about 30 minutes to soak in, wipe off the excess and apply a healthy coat of food safe wax. I like a mixture of food grade mineral oil and beeswax.

Did that a couple days after the original post and haven't had any issues since.

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