johnzo

all those oligarchs should get a union, those are some serious workplace safety concerns they got there. (this is a joke. the oligarch's union is called "capitalism.") war nerd spew: inflatable weapons go at least as far back as WWII. In the runup to d-day, the Allies had an entire army worth of inflatable tanks staged to attack Pas de Calais. Nazis bought it hook line and sinker; even after the Allies were ashore in Normandy Hitler refused to authorize a full counterattack because he was looking at photos of this massive undeployed floaty army and that convinced him that Normandy was a feint. so yeah, inflatable weapons are old-school antifascist friends.

Eastman is a MAGA chudstar. There's a clause in the Alaska constitution that says basically "seditionists are not allowed to be legislators." He was a 1/6 participant and so some Alaskans sued to have him removed from his seat. He won and is staying, and needs to stay in the headlines I guess. I would have way more respect for him if carried his modest proposal all the way thru and recommended a state program to collect the remains of the dead children tax burdens and process them into food. Take a look at what they do where they have unified control. Dems in Michigan and Minnesota are going wild with legislation. Blues states are passing abortion protections like crazy. Look the federal Inflation Reduction Act, passed under unified federal dem control -- it does a massive amount of stuff. For me the Dems sums up to "incremental social progress that the establishment approves of and that doesn't threaten too many revenue streams." It's maddening but in a two-party system, it's the best we got.

yeah, I hear ya, but I'm at the age where that high protein / low calorie thing really helps me out, I gain weight way too easily. Finally got down to 200lbs this year (from 250ish) and intend to hold there. plus eating tofu 2-3 nights a week helps me get away with having pizza for multiple meals on the weekend. finally, if you make it right, tofu can be tasty.

this is the post of the off-season so far. No more microwaving pizza like a chump for me! my breakfast pizza was delicious and crispy this morning. maybe even better than fresh -- I like a bit of char on my pizza but it's risky to order it well-done. Did some nice air-fried tofu last night too. press the tofu, coat it with cornstarch, salt, pepper, a little oil, a little soy sauce. tasty and healthy, at least until I put the sweet chilli sauce on. The One Weird Trick I've learned about my air fryer is that if you want crispy food out of it, you have to preheat it. Wasn't preheating before and everything came out too too soggy or too dry. Started preheating and I feel like a frying wizard now. Going to have to try steaks soon, I had no idea you could do steaks in there. I've found our air fryer is a lot more reliable than our instant pot. Instant pot, we had trouble with burning food all the time, it was a tricky thing to get right, it seemed like we were always struggling with it, though mrs. johnzo used it more than I did. if I did it again I'd skip the instant pot and spend that money on a bigass air fryer. Ours is 6L and it's a struggle to cook for two in it. Definitely can't entertain with it -- I think I could cram a cornish hen into it, but nothing bigger.

vintage Blue Bombers: during halftime, visit the scenic pee trough. vintage Lions: prairie small timers. we put a pee roof on our stadium! modern Roughriders: stupid coastal elites, we built our whole stadium like a giant toilet!

(delete, never mind)

I want to formally apologize to Ticat Grey Cup Celebrating Guy for featuring him in a post that drew comparisons between him and Kevin McCarthy.

thanks! I feel a little bad picking on that guy tbh ... but this image is so perfect and I can only really use it here on MBB so I think I forgive myself.

My favourite part of the McCarthy humiliation is that the dude moved all his stuff into the Speaker's office before the voting even started. That is some stone cold hubris.

as an immigrant to the USA I am of two minds about this: 1. yeah, you can't have a government unless you can collect taxes, dummy. the US federal government spends money as stupidly as any other trillion-dollar organization, but it pays for medicare, medicaid, social security, infrastructure, weather safety, food safety, javelin missiles for Ukraine -- lots of good ****. there is value in those tax dollars. 2. American tax law is so jacked up that you can buy your way free of taxes with the right help. Many wealthy Americans will happily pay their accountants $100K to avoid a $101K tax bill. So is the extra IRS enforcement going to help mitigate these structural issues and make the wealthy pay their fair share? Or is the burden of the extra attention going to fall on the smaller fry?

Ted Cruz's wife has been there. Trump called her ugly and also said that Cruz Sr. probably collaborated on the JFK assassination. And yet on 1/6 Ted Cruz did his best trumpian footsoldiering in the Senate, trying to coup the creep into another term. I don't like seeing the world as alphas and betas but damn that was some accomplished beta work there.

Will always remember our home game vs. BC in the great 2016 turnaround season. Nichols was in peak form -- he caught a TD pass from Rory Kohlert! Denmark was continuing his great comeback season, Fogg and Leggett were making big plays all over the field. We won, but BC gave us a hell of a game, largely because Burnham played ludicrous. He put 200 yards on us that day, we could not deal with him. Just dominating. Good luck to him with his next chapter.

Buck refutes Milton: better to serve in heaven than to reign in hell

yeah, I would not classify Twitter as something that was thriving business-wise. It has a massive audience of super prominent people but no one has ever figured out how to monetize it. I'm mainly watching musk's twitter rampage as a software engineer. It's extraordinarily complex with some gnarly failure modes. I am curious to see how it runs with 10% of its original engineering headcount being under the gun to roll out new features. you know that Ted Cruz's father killed JFK, right? Connect the dots, man!

I agree, my experience is the same. I don't know anyone personally who died from Covid. I also don't know anyone who lost money when FTX went down. I don't know any Iranians who have been executed for protesting. I don't personally know anyone who voted for Trump, either time. I don't know anyone who protested in Ottawa or at any border crossings. I don't know any Ukranians who are shivering in candlelight because some Russian fuckstick droned their neighborhood substation. I don't know any trafficked women. I also don't personally know any exobiologists, or forensic accountants. however that does not lead me to conclude that those people do not exist.

this is a great conversation. like a lot of others, I've got my own emotional / mental health things to deal with. all best to all those who struggle.

I can feel this, I stepped back from sports in general in 1996 when Jets 1.0 packed up, the Rough Riders folded (I was in Ottawa then) and the CFL -- my original sports true love -- was just about dead. Prior to that I was a massive sports fan, really into everything. I've never really been bothered by teams winning and losing -- that's cyclical -- but the ongoing existence of the league is where my anxiety would go if I let it. So nowadays I tune out all mention of the CFL's economic health and management and just watch the games on TSN (occasionally live too). I'm thankful for every kickoff and I actually kinda can't believe the CFL still exists in the same form it did when I first fell in love with it. since it's USA thanksgiving tomorrow, ought to note I'm thankful for MBB too, this place really helps me feel the bomber love, the strange, ineffable thrill I get from watching the blue and gold kick ass. this place really keeps my fandom alive. thanks folks.

I'm not going to rewatch that **** but my takeaway from Sunday is that Toronto found ways to get pressure on Collaros that he couldn't cope with -- they dialed up some excellent pressure in the 4th quarter with delayed blitzing that got home. Normally in the 4Q our OL goes fortress mode, but the Argos found the cracks. Credit to Corey Mace and their D for that. I don't think Collaros was 100%. That missed throw to Ellingson, he's made that throw dozens of times as a Bomber. I think he was well enough to play, but not to play well. I wonder if that influenced the playcalling, if Collaros' injury shortened the Bomber playbook?

If Schoen bolts for the NFL, Lawler would be a real nice replacement. Bailey and Ellingson appear to be free agents after this year -- the signing stories I see talk about them both signing single-year deals prior to this season.

GRANT!

foodwise I am simple. my usual Grey Cup thing is a trough of poutine. I get some oven fries and some real nice curds from the fancy cheese store. maybe some chopped bacon in there, some green onions, whatever else is lying around. Assemble in baking pan, cook in oven, cover with envelope gravy and lots of good coarse pepper. delicious. If I get inspired to peel some ginger tomorrow, I might have some homemade ginger ale too. Alas I can't drink anything harder anymore, doctor's orders. my birthday falls near the Grey Cup so sometimes there is leftover cake too!

maybe a youtube tour? something of this magnitude might need video...

please does anyone have a picture of the Argos practicing in parkas? I think one could have some fun with that.

Can't find it now but I remember a photo of an awesome whiteboard in the Bomber dressing room with a game day weather forecast written on it. it went something like: Winds: 50km/h Snow: 30cm Temperature: -10 C Forecast: WE DON'T CARE wish I could find that. searched on twitter but no love, Musk probably broke their search. wind really helped us too. I think the TiCats win that game if they had a punter who could punt into the wind even a little bit. Those repeated nine yard punts he gave us were basically turnovers..

I love this whole weird league of ours and TBH if Hamilton had managed to close out last year's Grey Cup I would have been happy because the game was real competitive & dramatic. Certainly less happy than I was with the epic bomber win, but I wouldn't have been too bummed about a bomber Grey Cup loss in 2021. The only team I really hate is the maple leafs. I grew up around a lot of super dumb Leaf fans and so I will continue to celebrate Leafs Elimination Day and if I need a pick-me up I go and read about their recent playoff collapses.