TheTecno

Worse than that (to continue your joke)... season garbage time AND the race end was kind of "race garbage time" with the Ferrari taking each other out (hahaha) and Lewis/Albon essentially taking each other out and Bottas blowing up.  It's kind of like if this weekend Simoni/Tuggle crash into each other and both get injured, and Evans/Banks come down with malaria, and Addison gets ejected for rough play.
However, in both the F1 case and the HAM dream above, I will/would take it!  As Milt loves to say: A win's a win.

Worse than that (to continue your joke)... season garbage time AND the race end was kind of "race garbage time" with the Ferrari taking each other out (hahaha) and Lewis/Albon essentially taking each other out and Bottas blowing up.  It's kind of like if this weekend Simoni/Tuggle crash into each other and both get injured, and Evans/Banks come down with malaria, and Addison gets ejected for rough play.
However, in both the F1 case and the HAM dream above, I will/would take it!  As Milt loves to say: A win's a win.

Ah, so they kept the old board software but moved it to a new install of an O/S (probably Linux based on the path separators) with a more-modern version of PHP (which now not only deprecates, but fatals on the outdated magic_quotes stuff).  If you guys say it's faster, they probably built a new box too with much faster guts.
Love it!  Ahhh.... back to normal life now.
However, I very much appreciate having a second outlet for Bomber talk, so I'll keep lurking around MBB here.  (Great... just doubled my daily Bomber time allotment.)  Much thanks to all who run this place!

Ah, so they kept the old board software but moved it to a new install of an O/S (probably Linux based on the path separators) with a more-modern version of PHP (which now not only deprecates, but fatals on the outdated magic_quotes stuff).  If you guys say it's faster, they probably built a new box too with much faster guts.
Love it!  Ahhh.... back to normal life now.
However, I very much appreciate having a second outlet for Bomber talk, so I'll keep lurking around MBB here.  (Great... just doubled my daily Bomber time allotment.)  Much thanks to all who run this place!

Ah, so they kept the old board software but moved it to a new install of an O/S (probably Linux based on the path separators) with a more-modern version of PHP (which now not only deprecates, but fatals on the outdated magic_quotes stuff).  If you guys say it's faster, they probably built a new box too with much faster guts.
Love it!  Ahhh.... back to normal life now.
However, I very much appreciate having a second outlet for Bomber talk, so I'll keep lurking around MBB here.  (Great... just doubled my daily Bomber time allotment.)  Much thanks to all who run this place!

Ah, so they kept the old board software but moved it to a new install of an O/S (probably Linux based on the path separators) with a more-modern version of PHP (which now not only deprecates, but fatals on the outdated magic_quotes stuff).  If you guys say it's faster, they probably built a new box too with much faster guts.
Love it!  Ahhh.... back to normal life now.
However, I very much appreciate having a second outlet for Bomber talk, so I'll keep lurking around MBB here.  (Great... just doubled my daily Bomber time allotment.)  Much thanks to all who run this place!

OK, got the wife's nod (not a happy one) that I can go to the cup!  Stipulation is I have to take my 6y.o. son AND I have to be back before our 10 year wedding anniversary day is over... what an idiot I was getting married around grey cup dates!  Wasn't thinking at all.
Not sure if doing the drive or fly.  Like everyone else, seeing obscene flight prices with very few good dates/times that work for me anyhow.  I'll figure something out.
My big question is on tickets: I'm one to buy them last second before I leave the hotel on stubhub to snag a deal, or at worst try to find scalpers at the stadium.  Has anyone tracked stubhub on grey cup days before to see how it behaves?  The very last thing I want is to get there and the ticketmasters have been all given away to the military and stubhub is sold out or $1k a ticket.  Does anyone know when they do the final free giveaway to claim "sold out"?  Not many tickets left on TM as it is.
Does anyone who lives in CGY have any info on where to find the scalpers at McMahon and whether it's a "thing" there?
Also, on Monday stubhub had a ton of "UPS delievered" tickets, some at good prices, but they all disappeared Tuesday.  So I guess after physical delivery is impossible due to time constraints all those tickets just drop off the face of the earth?  No way for those physical holders to electronic-alize their tickets into "mobile transfer" ones?
If any of you are in CGY and knows someone local stuck with 2 physical tickets and wants to sell them cheap, let me know in PM asap.  Need something between the 20's, don't care how high up.  Need 'em cheap and if I fly I'll need downtown hotel dropoff.
P.S. So freakin' proud of my Bombers!!  Going absolutely mental here.

OK, got the wife's nod (not a happy one) that I can go to the cup!  Stipulation is I have to take my 6y.o. son AND I have to be back before our 10 year wedding anniversary day is over... what an idiot I was getting married around grey cup dates!  Wasn't thinking at all.
Not sure if doing the drive or fly.  Like everyone else, seeing obscene flight prices with very few good dates/times that work for me anyhow.  I'll figure something out.
My big question is on tickets: I'm one to buy them last second before I leave the hotel on stubhub to snag a deal, or at worst try to find scalpers at the stadium.  Has anyone tracked stubhub on grey cup days before to see how it behaves?  The very last thing I want is to get there and the ticketmasters have been all given away to the military and stubhub is sold out or $1k a ticket.  Does anyone know when they do the final free giveaway to claim "sold out"?  Not many tickets left on TM as it is.
Does anyone who lives in CGY have any info on where to find the scalpers at McMahon and whether it's a "thing" there?
Also, on Monday stubhub had a ton of "UPS delievered" tickets, some at good prices, but they all disappeared Tuesday.  So I guess after physical delivery is impossible due to time constraints all those tickets just drop off the face of the earth?  No way for those physical holders to electronic-alize their tickets into "mobile transfer" ones?
If any of you are in CGY and knows someone local stuck with 2 physical tickets and wants to sell them cheap, let me know in PM asap.  Need something between the 20's, don't care how high up.  Need 'em cheap and if I fly I'll need downtown hotel dropoff.
P.S. So freakin' proud of my Bombers!!  Going absolutely mental here.

OK, got the wife's nod (not a happy one) that I can go to the cup!  Stipulation is I have to take my 6y.o. son AND I have to be back before our 10 year wedding anniversary day is over... what an idiot I was getting married around grey cup dates!  Wasn't thinking at all.
Not sure if doing the drive or fly.  Like everyone else, seeing obscene flight prices with very few good dates/times that work for me anyhow.  I'll figure something out.
My big question is on tickets: I'm one to buy them last second before I leave the hotel on stubhub to snag a deal, or at worst try to find scalpers at the stadium.  Has anyone tracked stubhub on grey cup days before to see how it behaves?  The very last thing I want is to get there and the ticketmasters have been all given away to the military and stubhub is sold out or $1k a ticket.  Does anyone know when they do the final free giveaway to claim "sold out"?  Not many tickets left on TM as it is.
Does anyone who lives in CGY have any info on where to find the scalpers at McMahon and whether it's a "thing" there?
Also, on Monday stubhub had a ton of "UPS delievered" tickets, some at good prices, but they all disappeared Tuesday.  So I guess after physical delivery is impossible due to time constraints all those tickets just drop off the face of the earth?  No way for those physical holders to electronic-alize their tickets into "mobile transfer" ones?
If any of you are in CGY and knows someone local stuck with 2 physical tickets and wants to sell them cheap, let me know in PM asap.  Need something between the 20's, don't care how high up.  Need 'em cheap and if I fly I'll need downtown hotel dropoff.
P.S. So freakin' proud of my Bombers!!  Going absolutely mental here.

OK, got the wife's nod (not a happy one) that I can go to the cup!  Stipulation is I have to take my 6y.o. son AND I have to be back before our 10 year wedding anniversary day is over... what an idiot I was getting married around grey cup dates!  Wasn't thinking at all.
Not sure if doing the drive or fly.  Like everyone else, seeing obscene flight prices with very few good dates/times that work for me anyhow.  I'll figure something out.
My big question is on tickets: I'm one to buy them last second before I leave the hotel on stubhub to snag a deal, or at worst try to find scalpers at the stadium.  Has anyone tracked stubhub on grey cup days before to see how it behaves?  The very last thing I want is to get there and the ticketmasters have been all given away to the military and stubhub is sold out or $1k a ticket.  Does anyone know when they do the final free giveaway to claim "sold out"?  Not many tickets left on TM as it is.
Does anyone who lives in CGY have any info on where to find the scalpers at McMahon and whether it's a "thing" there?
Also, on Monday stubhub had a ton of "UPS delievered" tickets, some at good prices, but they all disappeared Tuesday.  So I guess after physical delivery is impossible due to time constraints all those tickets just drop off the face of the earth?  No way for those physical holders to electronic-alize their tickets into "mobile transfer" ones?
If any of you are in CGY and knows someone local stuck with 2 physical tickets and wants to sell them cheap, let me know in PM asap.  Need something between the 20's, don't care how high up.  Need 'em cheap and if I fly I'll need downtown hotel dropoff.
P.S. So freakin' proud of my Bombers!!  Going absolutely mental here.

The 503 and drilling down to the link they provide show that they've switched to a new platform/software and are working on getting the site back up.  What we're seeing there is the site is up for admins, just not for us plebes.  Hopefully they will have it done in time for GC day.
So kiss the old site/interface goodbye.  We'll never see it again.  At least the new software should solve the unicode/apple apostrophe-to-? problem.
I sure hope they found a way to import the old messages, but I wouldn't bet money on it.  Lots of work that probably no one wants to do.  I would bet they'll make everyone sign up again too.  They probably had a catastrophic loss (HDD failure with no RAID and no backup), that's my guess.
Just a reminder that if you hit the old site via a bookmark, make sure you try just forums.bluebombers.com without any path part because when the site comes back up, the old paths probably won't go anywhere.

OK, got the wife's nod (not a happy one) that I can go to the cup!  Stipulation is I have to take my 6y.o. son AND I have to be back before our 10 year wedding anniversary day is over... what an idiot I was getting married around grey cup dates!  Wasn't thinking at all.
Not sure if doing the drive or fly.  Like everyone else, seeing obscene flight prices with very few good dates/times that work for me anyhow.  I'll figure something out.
My big question is on tickets: I'm one to buy them last second before I leave the hotel on stubhub to snag a deal, or at worst try to find scalpers at the stadium.  Has anyone tracked stubhub on grey cup days before to see how it behaves?  The very last thing I want is to get there and the ticketmasters have been all given away to the military and stubhub is sold out or $1k a ticket.  Does anyone know when they do the final free giveaway to claim "sold out"?  Not many tickets left on TM as it is.
Does anyone who lives in CGY have any info on where to find the scalpers at McMahon and whether it's a "thing" there?
Also, on Monday stubhub had a ton of "UPS delievered" tickets, some at good prices, but they all disappeared Tuesday.  So I guess after physical delivery is impossible due to time constraints all those tickets just drop off the face of the earth?  No way for those physical holders to electronic-alize their tickets into "mobile transfer" ones?
If any of you are in CGY and knows someone local stuck with 2 physical tickets and wants to sell them cheap, let me know in PM asap.  Need something between the 20's, don't care how high up.  Need 'em cheap and if I fly I'll need downtown hotel dropoff.
P.S. So freakin' proud of my Bombers!!  Going absolutely mental here.

I'll bite.  You failed to specify when this decision is supposed to be made.  Of course in hindsight now that the season is over Group A is weakest.  However, look at everyone's standings predictions on the other forum in the pre-season.  Almost everyone had EDM and BC high up.  Most had SSK and MTL extremely low.  OTT was a toss-up, I pegged them as 2nd in the E, many thought they'd be crap with MTL.  I knew BC would be the sewer, but most people had them middle-of-the-pack or better.
As the other guy said, OTT had just beaten the invincible CGY when we faced them.  That made them top of the E power rankings.  A team that thinks they are good (or alternately doesn't know they are bad) are still very dangerous.  They still have this magic thing called morale.  When we played OTT, BC and EDM they all still thought they were great.  Well, BC was getting a clue, but it hadn't sunk in yet.  And we played EDM with T.Harris, and as we've seen in the playoffs, T.Harris EDM is actually quite dangerous.
To sum, ask the question in week 2 and I'd say it's a wash as I'd (me personally) have said EDM/OTT good, CGY/HAM good.  That's 2 good teams in each group.  Go back and look at your pre-season picks and I bet your picture wouldn't be as clear either.

I'll bite.  You failed to specify when this decision is supposed to be made.  Of course in hindsight now that the season is over Group A is weakest.  However, look at everyone's standings predictions on the other forum in the pre-season.  Almost everyone had EDM and BC high up.  Most had SSK and MTL extremely low.  OTT was a toss-up, I pegged them as 2nd in the E, many thought they'd be crap with MTL.  I knew BC would be the sewer, but most people had them middle-of-the-pack or better.
As the other guy said, OTT had just beaten the invincible CGY when we faced them.  That made them top of the E power rankings.  A team that thinks they are good (or alternately doesn't know they are bad) are still very dangerous.  They still have this magic thing called morale.  When we played OTT, BC and EDM they all still thought they were great.  Well, BC was getting a clue, but it hadn't sunk in yet.  And we played EDM with T.Harris, and as we've seen in the playoffs, T.Harris EDM is actually quite dangerous.
To sum, ask the question in week 2 and I'd say it's a wash as I'd (me personally) have said EDM/OTT good, CGY/HAM good.  That's 2 good teams in each group.  Go back and look at your pre-season picks and I bet your picture wouldn't be as clear either.

geez... where to start? how about with...
1) maybe you shouldn't expect to win a game when you score 20 or fewer points, but, you should expect to win a game when the last time your offense touches the ball they put together a 4th quarter, 63 yd, 6 min 35 sec touchdown scoring drive, that included 4 first downs, that gave your team the lead while leaving a mere 3:18 left to play in the game... not to mention, Medlock follows up the scoring drive with a 79 yd kickoff that found the Riders being their drive on their own 5 yard line... yeah, I expect to win that game... 
2) maybe you shouldn't expect to win a game when you score 20 or fewer points but you do realize that this game was won by a team that scored fewer than 20 pts (19-17), don't you?  maybe we should have been awarded that win because they shouldn't expect to win a game with fewer than 20 pts... that  seems only fair...
3) maybe you shouldn't expect to win a game when you score 20 or fewer points but that happened 11 times during the 2019 season... if you increase that number by just 1 pt to 21 pts it was accomplished 8 more times, or a total of 19 times during the season... in fact, Hamilton won a game this year by the score of 13-10...
4) 20 pts seems a bit... specific, doesn't it?  why not 19 pts, or 21 pts... should you expect to win the game if you do score 21 pts instead of 20? I mean after all the entire league only averaged 24.7 pts per game this season... 4 teams had an average of 22.8 or fewer... granted, they didn't win a bunch of games but one team in that group made the playoffs with an average score of 22.6 pts per game!  crazy, huh?  Ottawa managed to go entire season and only average a mind numbing 17.3 pts per game!
5) would it really have made a difference if we say that the Bombers have the same exact scenario as in #1 above, but, that touchdown puts the Bombers up 36-35 with 3:18 left in the game... then the Riders have the walk off FG to win the game 38-36... would it have been the defense's fault then for losing the game? to me, and maybe it's just me, but any time your team puts together a final possession drive to take the lead, regardless of the final score or how many points were scored, the offense has done it's job and it's up to the defense to secure the win, or, if nothing else, get them the ball back with some time left on the clock to try and score again... the defense on this day did neither...
6) the Bomber's offense out scored the Riders in the second half, maybe the defense shouldn't have given up so many points in the first half!  see how that works? 
7) you are correct, the Bombers did not get a first down in the first quarter... that was was kind of hard to do when your defense was giving up 9 first downs in the first quarter to the other team... however, the offense did manage to get first downs when it mattered the most, that late game go ahead scoring drive (see item 1 above), which was for nothing as the defense promptly follow that up by allowing the Riders 6 first downs on the following drive to get that walk off, game winning FG... 6... SIX... VI... seis... one more than 5, but one less than 7, 6 first downs in less than 3 minutes...
I could probably come up with more reasons but I'll stop at 7... I think 7 serves my side of the conversation well... 

Hey all!  Just. Beat. Calgary.  We did it!  The hard game is over.  We achieve what we've failed to do since 2011: beat CGY in the playoffs.  If we clobber SSK in the WDF (my prediction) then the guys may have all the momentum and morale that even HAM might not be able to stop them!
Kudos to our D, especially the (much maligned) DBs and DL.  They were the players of the game, not the QBs.
Enjoy the moment, everyone!