Chaos Theory

The Cast

Date: 09 April 2020

FILLERBUSTER’S ELEVEN

BACKGROUND:  This started as a long-winded numbered blog.  It transformed into an organized long-winded category blog.  Now, it is a quick-hitter to ease your pain.  I lack time.  So, the preparation of the blog actually made me procrastinate from writing the thing.  Let’s see who makes the cut.  Barely edited as usual unfortunately, so please excuse any mistakes during my stream of consciousness.  I feel the need…the need for speed.  Let’s turn and burn.

SETTING:  This is written 98% on Wednesday night.  Tailored and posted on Thursday morning at 750am before I hit the grind.

1. EVERGREEN 1:  This is evergreen mainly because we won’t know for a few years, and mock drafts are a lot of what we have in life right now.  For the NFL, these are the guys I love.  I think Tua (Bama) should not be overlooked because of his injury, and I think he has the highest ceiling of the top QB’s.  Chase Young (Ohio State) makes it VERY simple if you aren’t going offense.  Okudah (Ohio State) is a complete corner, and I am taking him before any best player available if I long for a shutdown corner in the mold of Peterson, Sherman, and Revis in the last ten years.  Isaiah Simmons (Clemson) is my favorite player in the first round, and I am reaching for him if needed.  He is a game changer at multiple positions.  I have seen as high as #3 and as low as #14.  If you need a WR, you are in luck this year.  I like Lamb, Jeudy, Ruggs, and Higgins, in that order.  BUT, if you look at the last three years and difference in stats between first and second round WR’s picked, there isn’t much difference.  Unless you NEED one badly, and don’t need a tackle, I might wait until the second round for my WR.  Someone late in the first round will get RB luck if they want with D’Andre Swift from UGA.  Short career as it is a RB, but game changer in the interim.  I LOVE Jordan Love for a fun chancy backup if I am set at QB already.  Late round choice, but could be better than all the rest when all said and done.  NBA DRAFT.  People I love.  James Wiseman is semi-forgotten, but was and still is a stud inside.  He had to step away from Memphis.  James might have been off radar, but he is special.  People who don’t pick Deni Avdija will be petrified they just passed on a Doncic-like talent.  Love Toppin, as I have said many times.  People have forgotten about RJ Hampton, and his year of pro didn’t prove much more, but I like his ceiling still.  Cole Anthony is all up and down draft boards.  I love him.  If he slides past 12-15, I am scooping him up for some guard help.  And if I miss on him, I take Jahmi’us Ramsey.  That Tech team was too young and he was too young for him to win more than he did.  Love that kid.
2. EVERGREEN 2:  Everything is replays.  Everything is mock drafts (just look above).  Everything is hypothetical lists of all-time something in some sport.  It can be irritating, and then becomes fun because you HAVE to embrace it.  But, you almost HAVE to embrace the replays.  The Masters replays are starting.  They just showed Ripken’s record-breaking game.  I am catching up on some 30 for 30’s (saw John Daly today).  Sure, ESPN is probably regretting not having more sports shows in the hopper, and they are doing their best with entertaining us.  It could be worse.  It could be ALL about Tom Brady switching teams or his Howard Stern interview, but they are finding other things to talk about.  And, the Buccaneers and Falcons changed uniforms, so that is exciting.  Listen.  My point is this.  Be sad about no new stuff, but watch SOME of the replays.  Even if you watch just the beginning or just the end.  Watch them.  Call your buddies if they are a fan of a team that is on.  Say a prayer for live sports soon.  That is all we have.  Not sure if Belarus soccer is still somehow going on.  Embrace what we have and it could be worse.
3. EVERGREEN 3: My random notes on our quarantine, COVID-19, our leaders, good stuff, bad stuff, and whatever.  Everyone be careful when at home cutting produce, doing some housework, or messing with any sharp objects.  I haven’t left my house in weeks, but assume it would be tough to get some normal medical attention right now.  Tom Dempsey died from COVID-19.  The debate on his flat-footed 63 yarder will have to live without him.  China opened up a bit, and some travel sites were jam-packed before 8am.  Considering they have been smarter than the U.S. up to this point, I assume we will make reentry look even worse.  Wuhan at least has some rules still.  76 days though, folks.  We are still in the opening frame apparently.  All the golf Majors have been moved, meaning people like me who clear out our entire weekend to watch one, will have some other things going on the other channels when they do happen.  All of their tentative dates are now on my Google calendar.  The Colorado Convention Center in Denver will turn into a hospital, so Denver is starting to feel the changed heat too.  I read a debate on where this thing came from (bats), so let’s to get that vaccine, folks.  Glad to see Boris Johnson is doing better after intensive care, and we don’t really need someone in his position to go down.  There are disagreements in the situation room, there are more changes of staff every day it seems, and the President doesn’t exactly sound like a moving guy we would follow into battle.  I can only tune into 1 out of 4 or so daily updates from our fearless leader.  I am impressed that Trump at least writes down all of the stats and gets them right, even if he is projecting drugs that aren’t even approved fully as our saving grace.  I am so confused how someone hasn’t said “just do ONE daily update without throwing the other party under the bus or glorifying yourself obviously.”  Does Trump call Dr. Fauci to show us their bond on the staff, or is it just another pure sign of disrespect on all levels by Trump.  On the daily tracker, I just like to see Colorado hover outside of the top 15 or so.  That makes me happy.  Small battles.  I am still not going anywhere unless I absolutely NEED something.  No point.  This is the bad week, right?  Apex and then down?  Man, I sure hope so.  A man in Russia shot and killed five neighbors after they didn’t want to quiet down during lockdown.  Miss England 2019 returned to her schooling and went back to being a doctor to help out the cause.  A tiger at the Bronx Zoo got COVID, so we really don’t know anything, and keep your cats inside.  Auto premiums are being returned, Los Angeles has no pollution above it skyscrapers, and all because no one is driving.  The whole Navy Commander situation is just weird.  More command changes.  All sounded very stupid during that.  Two pandas refused to mate for 10 years at the same zoo, but just did, as soon as the customers couldn’t come anymore.  I said I wouldn’t go out anywhere, but a very small part of me wants to see these one-way aisles they are playing around with.  Hamilton did a Zoom concert for a lucky fan, and I assume it didn’t get bombed.  There are NFL team worried about their little draft thing being bombed too.  Test runs will be run.  Man, part of me to be in public, but another larger part wants NO part of any gatherings with some rapid test result option.  The howl is fun if you live in Colorado, and you should join when you can.  My neighborhood continues to get louder.  I never thought I would see a full-on Angel Soft toilet paper commercial about how they are doing their best.  Yes, they are.  National Beer Day was Tuesday, and just not the same celebrating it all separately.  The Wisconsin primaries were still held and those multi-block lines had to be the most ridiculous thing I saw this week.  I don’t know about you, but I am all out of sorts as far as movies and music.  I am used to going to the theater as an experience, and I mainly listened to hot songs in my car.  Jay Cutler went to the Bahamas (AFTER most places shut down), and barely got back with his wife, so if you somehow ran out of Jay Cutler jokes (probably impossible to do), there is another one.  What an idiot.  The City of Denver is cancelling their City Park Jazz season but is very coolly still paying their musicians.  I made a grocery list and grouped things into “need,” “would prefer to have,” and “bonus.”  Like mustard and cheese is on the second level.  Twitter has some TERRIFYING stories being posted.  Delivery menus, I feel like, are getting slowly shorter with less stuff and that scares me.  100 American Airline flight attendants have CV, and surprised we haven’t heard about more in that line of work.  Verizon is stopping all home repairs, and that makes sense.  I wake up and cross my fingers about my heat/A/C, internet, cable, refrigerator, oven, etc., because this would be a shitty time for one of those to stop working.  Why CAN’T college coaches hope for actual games on time.  That is FOUR months from now.  Do they have inside medical or projection info we don’t know about?  Volunteers made 20,000 masks for a Memphis hospital in one weekend and that is moving.  Mike Greenburg said Wednesday instead of Tuesday to open his show, and he came clean at the end of the show and just said he had never done that in 30 years and these are some crazy times.  Very thoughtful and transparent comment.  We ordered our first curbside Safeway pickup for Friday.  I think we did pretty well overall.  We could have dove into canned goods, but if you are giving me options for more milk and eggs and bananas, I am taking it.  Sixty percent of the Australians and New Zealand people on an Antarctic cruise tested positive for COVID.  Think about this.  Sure, different coasts, but Cali and NY had equal number of cases the first week of March, and now New York has eight times Cali’s amount.  I have a feeling we will see some moving stories online about how people will handle Easter.  It will be sad, joyous, everything most likely.  I read about a church that is doing pre-filled up disposable communion cups.  Some tribal casinos are just now closing, and if you are confused, they are their own sovereign nation.  Carl and Jeri Goldman are back home safe and COVID-free from their horrible Princess Cruises trip, and people are STILL threatening them with putting them in cage, death threats, and just meanness.  Sad, sad, sad.  This is truly a new definition of things at home.  What you want, what you need, etc.  If you don’t think I won’t have a home gym (thank GOD for my TRX) and a bunker of stored goods, then you are crazy.  My wife just read an article from CU that said Colorado’s peak MIGHT not be until September.  Hope those smart people are very wrong.  But, MAN, that howl was getting loud as of Wednesday night.  Love the tweet I post below of the doctor doing the Roger Federer wall hit thing.  Very moving.  The band Radiohead is of course doing nice online stuff, as they are always ahead of the nice curve I feel like.  Things are being affected like you would never think about previously.  TRASH has increased, because everyone is at home all the time (I know we are running the dishwasher about ten more times a week), and with workers calling out because their kids are home or worry about getting COVID, it makes supply and demand go the wrong direction.  THAT would be a problem if trash couldn’t get picked up.  Conserve, folks.  Reuse what you can.  You know those bars that have the dollar bills all over the walls?  There is one in Georgia where the owner took them all down ($3700 plus) and gave them to the employees that are out of work. 
4. NFL:  Trump alluded to the NFL season starting on time, and I do believe that leads into the “stay in your lane” cliché.  So, this draft is going to make so many coaches wives happy, as it is basically an excuse to overdo the husband’s basement with football “stuff.”  That being said, after this, the wife can say you can do a LOT more of your job from home, hubby.   AB hired an agent for a possible return, and can we all make a deal to NOT cover his practices or workouts until he gets cleared and has a new job?  That is a fair ask I think.  I can’t take another round of constant AB news.  Solid article about one player from each team who would be hurt the most by no offseason-not always the obvious one.  https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/28988847/nfl-players-all-32-teams-hurt-most-lost-offseason   Interesting concepts are floating around about every sport’s season.  People are really thinking about this.  If the NFL season is, say, only 12 games, they are talking about not having teams play anyone from the other conference (those four games in the other conferences division everyone does each year), so it will be more like baseball before interleague play began.  The first time one conference met the other would be in the Super Bowl.  So, SOFI Stadium (and the Raiders one to add to the point) is not even done yet, and Hard Knocks has decided to knock out two birds with one stone and make the Rams and Charger the headliners?  That is some positive hope I guess.  I get prep, but that might be cart-horse logic right now.  I get not lunging for Cam Newton as a starter, but I hope SOMEONE is calling him about being a backup.  I would take that guy as my #2 any day…just not as my #1.  An experienced, hungry guy with high upside as my #2?  Taking him.  The Bucs have new uniforms that pounce on the era they won a Super Bowl, and the Falcons just went back to black.  If I was the Bucs, I would have gone to the 70’s look for a year, and THEN done the more recent one.  If I was the Falcons, I would question why anyone changed those uni’s in the first place.  Their black ones were always dope.  They won’t pull JJ of course, but the Steelers now have TWO of the Watt brothers as of this week.  Derek will be a fun FB or whatever option.  I read the transcript of the Stern-Brady interview.  They got WAY deeper than I expected.  I thought Stern asked better questions than I thought he would, and Brady had some really thoughtful answers.  Good stuff.  I learned a few things.
5. COLLEGE BASKETBALL: Carlik Jones will transfer from Radford to Louisville.  Jones and Chris Mack have some old ties, so this makes sense.  Solid pickup.  Tyrese Maxey declared because why would anyone stay at UK for another year for that title thing?  On Tuesday, it was the anniversary of Melo’s Cuse title.  He had 20-10-7 in the title game.  I might dislike him.  You might dislike him.  OK.  But, he put that team on his back and willed them to an awesome title (with a little help of course), and if you read the link I posted over the weekend, it was a title game many announcers wished they would have called.  Cassius Stanley from Duke declared, and he is barely a first-round pick, if that.   Nico Mannion has decided to declare and I feel like his entire career thus far has been based on “ceiling.”  With a lot of these guys now declaring (and they can still come back of course), it is never too early to look.  I LOVE this ranking better than ESPN’s.  You know why.  UVA is top five on this board.  Here we go, Sam Hauser.  WE get everyone else back and they HAVE to be able to shoot better this year.  It can’t get WORSE.  https://www.si.com/college/2020/04/07/ncaa-basketball-rankings-early-top-25-villanova  Toppin won the Wooden.  Love his year, love his ceiling, love his style, and will be a fan of his at the next level. 
6. NBA:  Kobe, Tim, and Kevin highlighted the most recent Naismith Memorial HOF class.  Those three are all we really need, but glad we get another chance to remember Kobe in full-fashion, glad Tamika Catchings got acknowledged for her stellar college and WNBA career, and Rudy is so glad that MJ took a baseball break for HIS two titles.  I am excited for The Last Dance, as all normal people are, but also excited about this Coney Island special with Mr. Marbury as lead.  You have to do what you have to do.  Garnett apparently doesn’t want to have anything to do with the Wolves after the last exit.  Sad to hear, but he is going to stand his ground, and it did sound like a messy breakup.    I get we miss sports, but not sure I will tune in to the H.O.R.S.E. game being conjured up.  I will pass.  Put my money on LaVine to go down early, Young to light up the long shots, and then Paul to take it home on some wily old school behind the backboard shots.  No, I do NOT know who is winning, losing, or playing in the NBA 2K competition.  Don’t ask.  Don’t expect answers. 
7. MLB: Al Kaline died, and he is the perfect example of All-Star, class-act, good guy staying with one team for an entire career.  Like Tony Gwynn minus some batting titles but adding a World Series title.  MLB is looking at ideas like playing all games in Arizona in a closed environment.  That is great, but what if a player gets COVID?  I am doubting of the measures that would be taken and how to stop another breakout.  I can think of too many situations where things would get dicey.  But, no one has the answers.  I already mentioned it, but I watched when Cal Ripken came out time after time for the crowd, and ran around the stadium and touched hands on all sides.  Remember, he didn’t just break the record for games played.  He played all of those games WELL.  He played the toughest position…at a high level, for that entire time.  The Mets had a simulation game and commented on the lack of crowd noise and how you WOULD be able to hear something like pounding trash can lids with the library-like atmosphere.  That is kind of funny.
8. MISCELLANEOUS: I had just one college football item, so we will throw it here today.  Mike Gundy can have overachieving teams, produce pro prospects, recruit well, and always be famous for the 40 year old speech.  But, he probably should NOT be chiming in about COVID-19 timelines and when football will be played.  The NHL is considering playing their remaining games in North Dakota.  I hope MLB and the NHL are working together on problems that could arise.  Sounds like a similar solution to MLB’s Arizona solution.  The three Avs players who have it probably just want to get better before anything is decided.  There were MULTIPLE nights of Wrestlemania?  And I thought Gronk would be announcer.  Did he WIN something?  And did Lesnar lose?  I am desperate for sports, but not watching that nor looking up my possibly wrong stats.  Man U player futbol-er Kyle Walker hired sex workers (under the name KY-brilliant) during the stay at home order, then after he got busted he watched porn at home and used emoji’s from his actual IG account so we knew it was still him, and no word on whether he pulled the natural hat trick.    He must be learning.  Dana White has “secured” his own island to host UFC 249 in a couple of weeks.  If anyone can pull it off, he can.  And, he DID put together quite a fight still last minute considering one of the original fighters is stuck undefeated in Russia still.  Gaethje will give Ferguson all he can handle when on the mat.  On editing, the location might be a tribal casino in Cali as opposed to an island.  That makes sense, but is less impressive, Dana.  The Masters will be played in November.  When I read more about this, I totally did NOT know that the course actually CLOSES in May and OPENS in October.  Makes sense, and I guess I never thought about it.  Ionescu won the Wooden Award and it was refreshing to read again an interview about how she came to be close to Kobe (short article in SI).  A robber even needs to do background work before doing their job.  At least, they can dodge the badass people.  A robber got subdued until police could get there after trying to rob Anthony Smith, a UFC fighter.  Bad plan.  Do NOT do Tiger and Phil again, golf.  It is not the year 2000 anymore, their talk from tee to green was horrible, you couldn’t fill the time, the announcers were weak, and Tom Brady and Peyton Manning won’t make it better.  Well, Peyton might, but no one else.  Just don’t do it.  Ronaldinho got sentenced to house arrest after a month in a foreign jail after using a bad passport.  So, he got in trouble, and now is just doing the same thing we all are doing.  That is some hard justice.  Tiger Woods had his Masters Champion meal in quarantine.  He just copied his last two meals he gave people.  Fajitas and sushi.  I mentioned briefly in my COVID rant that Roger Federer has started this wall hitting tennis craze on Twitter.  Love it.  People are really getting into it.  The John Daly 30 for 30 was awesome.  Hadn’t seen it start to finish.  Man, when he won The Open in 1995, it blew everyone’s mind.  Especially since he was in the clubhouse, and had to come back out cold after a miracle shot.  I have noticed a lot of elective surgeries being done by athletes.  Smart.  Get it done now.  Aint’ nothing happening anytime soon. 
9. THIS AND THAT:  My wife played me Jack Johnson’s remake of Imagine and it moved me.  We had a reason for happy songs this weekend.  For some reason, my mind directly to Cheeseburger In Paradise by Jimmy Buffet.  El Camino dishes out some really good food and has a good margarita deal if you live in the area.  Their queso is off the hook.  32^nd Street in the Highlands.  Booksmart and Super Troopers are classic movies that can fit in any rotation when you want to laugh, and stop reading if you haven’t seen them.  Jurassic Park still holds up the test of time (yes, watched a lot of classic movies recently), and Navarro from Ozark is actually a surprise character in it from his younger years.  I was singing the Jurassic Park theme for DAYS.  And love Jeff Goldblum in that movie still.  Chaos and the water in his hand and his one liners always get me going.  Classic movie and fun to watch, especially when you have more time and don’t feel like doing house projects quite yet in day.  Get the Hatchburger if you order Snarfburger and like hot stuff.   I might tune into the Shaq Life show, but I feel like I already know a lot of what will be on it.  Not like he hid from the media.  It will just be in more detail.  Movie star, DJ, athlete, titles, Kobe, rich guy, family guy, we get it…  Who won that Ben & Jerry’s best flavor?  I saw the tweet of the Final Four, but never saw the result.  Mine was still in the mix.  Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough.  I read an article about how JC Penney, Neiman Marcus,, J. Crew, and Sears might not make it through this COVID stuff.  I actually thought that JC Penney and Sears were already done, but sorry to hear about it.  By the way, HOW did Sears and JC Penney NOT get into the online game more aggressively early on when THEY were the early birds who had the catalogs initially?   Bernie Sanders dropped out of the race.  His angle proved one can be significant in a race, but unfortunately it also proved the higher ups on his side probably won’t let someone that extreme win.  Modern Family is signing off after 11 years.  Great show that was edgy before edgy was a thing.  I admit to only seeing about 15 episodes.  Enjoyed it, but never got hooked.  Schitt’s Creek signed off, and it was clever and awkward at the same time.  I never JUST watched the show, and my wife always watched it while I was doing something else, but my 30% catching of the plot seemed to tell me it was enjoyable.  We are still watching The Voice, and have our favorites, but still wondering how they pull off the Live Rounds.  It was 70 degrees two straight days in Denver.  I hear snow is coming this weekend.  Love it.  Always exciting. 
10. THE FILLERBUSTER:  Oddly, I just work at work and don’t do what you expect…listen to sports shows all day.  But, I will say I am using a little of my lunch to listen to a segment or two of the Jim Rome show.  I was a clone in old school times.  War Jim Rom Abrasiveness.  Man, it sucks to not make money off of out air bnb, but having those supplies sure puts me a little more at ease.   We needed a happy movie this weekend.  It made it funnier when we figured out actual people tied to the characters.  Movie was Mike and Ted Need Wedding Dates.  Mike was Pancho.  I was Dave.  Gini was Gini.  Eric was Drew, but mainly because he is marrying Gini.  Alice is Linds.   Tattiana was Avery by a landslide.  Becky is Kristin.  Terry is Alexa.  We then ran out of characters for the rest of our friends.  I am only on episode 3 of The Wire.  Extenuating circumstances have delayed my progress.  Have to wait for wife.   Not going anywhere still.  Going to ride this thing out and live on delivery when I need to.  It might be possible that Linds watched all the rest of the Jurassic movies but never saw the first from start to finish.  I did a version of Plush on the piano the other night that would have been famous back in the early 90’s.  Shame it is 2020.  Should have thought of it earlier.  As I work from home with my TV on silent, I have noticed that those $19.95 long commercials still exist, along with that Judge Judy chick and Maury fellow.    Like those special ops sunglasses kind of look cool during the pitch.  Well, the sunglasses are sort of ugly though.  But, imagine this.  In all of our inflation, the commercials STILL have products that are 1 or 2 installments of $19.99.  Amazing.  I have decided that red pepper is not for only pizza and now put it on many things.  But, I am about to run out during quarantine, so maybe I should be saving it for the pizza.  I am still moving along with daily lessons in Spanish.  I am playing guitar every other day.  I am back to stellar workouts and kind of mad for slacking the first two weeks of quarantine.  Took me time to adjust.  Because I love lists of all sorts, of course I have started a list of things I will have in my bunker, my bug-out bag, and in my house before another pandemic or purge or whatever happens next.  I am not going to dive into our rough weekend.  I lost a guy who I lived with when moving in with Linds years ago.  He was the man.  Joe made people laugh at the airport behind the bar at Timberline and was everyone’s stop before flying out, was true to every friend he had, was very special to my lady as she lived with him for four years, and was just a great dude.  We had some fun times, including pushups in an alley.  He will be missed.  You were the man, Joe.  When I lose someone close, the song I’ll Be There by Escape Club (yes, THAT Escape Club) makes me feel better.  Check the song out sometime.  Finally, my boss, Jason, lost his dad this weekend. Thoughts and prayers go to his family, as the last months have been tough. Crappy weekend.
11. TWEET OF THE WEEK

ALTERNATE CATEGORIES THAT DIDN’T MAKE THE CUT:

1. THE BEST WORKOUT SONG EVER FOR THIS WEEK (because the best song this week IS the best song ever…for now):
2. QUOTE OF THE WEEK
3. LINKS TO SAVE YOU TIME IN LIFE
4. TRAVEL
5. THIS WEEK’S LIST
6. MY NUMBERS
7. GONE FISHING (the riddle for money):
8. PICS BY MY PIXEL (pictures from my phone):
9. LIFEGUARD ENTRY:
10. COLLEGE FOOTBALL
11. NHL

The theme?  Tough to figure today, but went with Jeff Goldblum as far as randomness and his mention of chaos, which we are sort of experiencing.  Plus, it will remind you to watch the Movie again during your quarantine. 

And our weekly reminder of the greatest sequel ever made coming out now at Christmas because of the virus… Top Gun 2.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epgkqPJ_bc0

MWTILMGBDEOASMGUWGEMCDFTWBIPMFBRMBWC

That’s it for today.  Hope you enjoyed or are at least more informed.  Remember two things.  First, feed yourself, feed your family, but always, always remember to…feed the wolf.  Second,  if you can’t spot the sucker in your first half hour at the table, then you are the sucker.  Will I blog again?  That is a CLOWN question, bro.  As one shepherd said to the other shepherd, let’s get the flock out of here.