Lurker > SmartMuffin

Next in our "good non-FZ guitar solos" series, this came on the blues XM station while I was recently driving around with the fiance

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmsUkutNnI0

(solo starts at about 3:38)

She even commented that it was a great solo!

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John Fogerty (another favorite of mine!) did a lot of that too when he went solo.

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Random awesome non-zappa guitar solo time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SFNW5F8K9Y

Prince starts around 3:30. Epic!

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challenge: help me think of zappa songs (instrumentals) that are innocuous enough that my fiance will allow them to be played during our wedding

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Just looked up Dweezil tour dates. He's coming to Dallas and Austin next month but NOT Houston.

Lame!!!!!

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when are we getting those detailed thoughts on the Dweezil show???

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If I had to keep it super short, I'd say the absolute essentials are Over-Nite Sensation, Apostrophe, Bongo Fury, Chunga's Revenge, and Joe's Garage.
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cool

I listened to YCDTOSA Vol 2 at work the other day. Even better than I remember! Great album/show.
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https://imgur.com/KRzp2CS

Birthday present from my dad. It's actually a pretty low quality shirt but the image is nice!
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Not that Zappa relevant, but figured I would put this here.

I had my phone on shuffle today at work and it found "Running With The Night" by Lionel Richie of all things. And something I never noticed before is that at the end of this Lionel Richie pop song is... a hell of a guitar solo, actually. Not like "one of the best guitar solos I've ever heard" or anything, but definitely "way too good of a guitar solo to be shoved into the end of a random Lionel Richie song", IMO at least.

Check it out.


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Cheap Thrills is such an amazingly effective compilation for what it is.
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FYI - The hologram Zappa tour is coming to Amsterdam (but in the US seems to only be playing in a small handful of northeastern cities... nowhere near me)
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feedme feedme feedme feedme feedme feedme feedme feedme LOAF
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How many of these cuts will feature Don Pardo?
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This is a pretty impressively pathetic laydown by the Vikings here.
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I looked for this a couple weeks ago because I had something Zappa-related to say.

But now I don't remember what it was.
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https://twitter.com/Rob_Tychkowski/status/1079520264868622336
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Word is that McDavid was pretty close friends with the guy they sent away, too.
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Also my desire for an 8 team playoff is to try take some of subjectivity out of the playoff selection. At the start of the season you know the exact criteria to make it.

P5 Champion
G5 Champion if undefeated
2+ at large

Also this sort of automatic qualifier system is why we had to put up with Big East teams guaranteeing that at least one BCS bowl game would be an irrelevant blowout every single year.

Let's ask Para how he thinks a UW/Alabama or UW/Clemson game would have gone this year LOL
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Some years we have a clear 1-2 who are better than everyone else and some years we don't.

We always know who is better. The problem is that the committee still puts a large weight on who "deserves" to be there. There is essentially nobody on Earth who thought that Notre Dame was better than Georgia. But they get in, with virtually zero controversy, because they "deserve" it.

Give me 1 vs 2. No selection committee. Put it in the hands of the Vegas sportsbook point spread power rankings people. That will get us the best matchup, as judged by the betting public (i.e. the segment of the public that is actually informed and not just agreeing with media hype).
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Also, the absolute worst take I keep seeing is "This just proves we should expand to 8 teams."

Yeah, because if you thought watching Alabama destroy Oklahoma was boring, you'll love watching them destroy UCF by even more, waiting a week, and then watching them destroy Oklahoma anyway!"
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Why can't the Leafs ever suck when I watch? Every time I watch them they look 100% dominant :(
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I blame all of you pro-playoff losers for this.

If we stuck with the BCS, we could have just gone straight to Alabama/Clemson and not have to have wasted our time with these two pathetic excuses for football games.
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Strife2 posted...

Why doesn't this kind of team turmoil happen to the Wild? We have some people worth running out of town and starting over. But it's the coaches who always get fucked instead.

Seguin and Benn are probably tradeable. Parise and Suter aren't, with those contracts.

And it's weird how the Stars and the Wild are basically in the exact same situation (mediocre teams that can't contend but also aren't going to be getting any better anytime soon) but in exactly the opposite ways - Dallas has a few big stars who are underperforming, Minnesota has a group of mediocre nobodies who aren't becoming stars.
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Hes not wrong, tho
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I have no idea why Clemson is favored by that many points

Yeah, that's really so much.

Don't get me wrong, I totally get having no faith in Notre Dame, but Clemson probably should have lost to A&M and definitely should have lost to Syracuse...
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Yeah, she actually really likes Don Cherry and we try to watch Coach's Corner whenever we're home on Saturdays around that time. Apparently she heard him mention it would be the last one and decided to get it for me!
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Servpro, like it never even happened!
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the newest one ofc
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Hah, my girlfriend got me Don Cherry's Rock Em Sock Em Hockey for Christmas. It's like I'm a 10 year old Canadian boy!
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When are the Red Wings and the Rangers going to remember that they're supposed to be tanking this year?
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I normally give him a lot of leeway in the "his job is to appeal to Boston fans" sense but this was a bit over the top, even for me
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Jack Edwards' 3-minute rant on how disgraceful it was for Dougie Hamilton to wear a retired Whalers number sure was... something...
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Also, one of the most underreported stories in the league is how quietly Boston has demoted Tukka Rask and made Jaroslav Halak their #1 goalie.

As someone who owns Rask in TWO fantasy leagues, I am very much aware of this issue :(
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eh, its not just about getting the #1 pick though, it's a whole attitude

I actually think getting Hughes might not be the best thing for Chicago. Because then they definitely won't rebuild. They'll think "Oh good now we have Hughes, he can plug in nicely with Kane and Toews and Keith and Seabrook so we don't need to get rid of anybody now! Problem solved." But the problem won't be solved. The Hawks problems go much deeper than any one skilled offensive player can solve.

You could give them McDavid for free and they still wouldn't be a contender this year.

*Although if you gave them McDavid AND a goalie...
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Yeah, the Wild are one of those teams in basically the absolute worst position in hockey - not good enough to be a contender, but not bad enough to be in rebuild mode. Basically hockey purgatory. See also: Montreal, NY Islanders, Carolina.
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lol, Pens cry that Wilson is afraid to fight Oleksiak, then cry that "Oleksiak wasn't ready!" when he does.
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Flames/Stars is one of the worst officiated games I've ever seen.

Like EVERY call the refs have bothered to make has been wrong. And a bunch of things that should have been calls were just ignored/missed. And it's not even biased against either team really, they're being equally stupid on both sides.
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Shadow Dino posted...

Oh, just realized the Flyers have jumped into the #LoseforHughes Tankfest.

That would explain why they fired their coach.

Well, also because their coach was mediocre at best. This is probably the most deserved firing of the year so far.
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Goddamn, Lightning/Jets with a game of the year candidate right there.
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Jesus, that giveaway by Doughty to Pearson was fucking brutal.

If a fourth liner did that, you'd bench him for the rest of the game and send him down to the AHL immediately after...
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I still maintain the untold story of the Caps finally winning in the playoffs was developing two seriously threatening lines.

Almost entirely due to the emergence of Kuznetsov who could play with Ovechkin (and Wilson of course) and the improvement of Oshie to play with Backstrom.

Name me a recent cup winner who didn't have at least two lines that were really serious threats. Chicago split up Kane and Toews. LA split up Kopitar and Carter. Pittsburgh split up all three of their best offensive players.
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Yeah, I'm not sure I believe Rantanen is as good as his numbers suggest, but this is now the second year where he's doing well and at some point we've got to accept that maybe he's just good.

You can't win deep in the playoffs with only one line.

Imagine what the numbers would look like if the Pens went out there with Crosby Malkin and Kessel all on one line. They won't though, because that's dumb.

Speaking of, are McDavid and Draisaitl still skating together or no?
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I'm still not sure what to think of any of Colorado's top line players. Which of them are 100% legit and which are just benefiting from playing on a team who stacks its only good players all together?

Who is Joe Thornton and who is Jonathan Cheechoo?
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MacKinnon was never looked at like those two. Seth Jones was expected to be drafted over him until the last minute, actually.
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having so much salary committed to that aging core

That I don't disagree with at all. It's sort of the curse of success. Guys are paid based on their past accomplishments rather than their future expectations. That's definitely true of Chicago. I'm not so sure it's true of LA. Kopitar and Doughty may be slightly overpaid but not much. Quick is I guess, although the term is the bigger issue there.
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By "Texas" SHINE means "Southern Oklahoma"

Didn't snow in real Texas.
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I think the issue here is that I'm not saying that your team has to be "young" to win, but that being "old", as I would define the Kings, is not a recipe for success even if their two best players, or at least Doughty, are not "old".

I guess my point is that there really isn't any metric of "too old" you can come up with that would include the Kings and Blackhawks but NOT include the Caps and Pens.

Even if you assume all players are equally important and go with pure averages...

https://herosports.com/nhl/oldest-youngest-teams-hurricanes-kings-wild-golden-knights-aiai

Kings - 28.7
Blackhawks - 27.9
Capitals - 27.9
Penguins - 28.5

Surprisingly, there really isn't a lot of variance here at all. At a quick glance, it looks like the youngest team comes in at 25.7 and is the dominating dynasty of the... Carolina Hurricanes.
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Isn't 27 supposed to be the prime age in hockey? Kuznetsov at 26 is a perfect example of the argument I'm trying to prove, and somehow you are using that same example to prove your own argument.

The problem is, Kuznetsov is basically the only one of the Caps say, Top 5 contributors that's under the "prime" age. Unless you guys are suddenly wiling to concede that Tom Wilson was a major part of why they're good <_<

Ovechkin and Backstrom are over the age 30 hump when your ability is theoretically beginning to decline, but they are surrounded by players like Kuznetsov entering his prime and Holtby and Carlson who are still in the stages of their career where they are not declining.

So who plays this role for the Penguins? Jake Guenztel? Is he really better than say, DeBrincat? Or even Saad? Or Panarin two years ago?

How is Pittsburgh doing this year, compared to the last few years

IIRC they had pretty slow starts in each of their recent cup winning years. You may recall during one of them they were bad enough to get their coach fired midway through the season and rallied to win the cup. Count them out this year at your own risk (especially given how weak the metro is)

My point here is, who is the last young team to win the cup? Did the 2012 Kings count as young? Certainly nobody since them really does.
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I'm hesitant to accept "Crosby + Malkin, Ovi + Backstrom are old, so age doesn't matter" when it's very clear that both of those teams are much more than those two players.

I mean sure, but if you keep looking, the other key figures on those teams aren't exactly teenagers either. Holtby and Carlson are late 20s. Kuznetsov is 26, so not old, but not really young either. Letang is over 30, as is Kessel.

My general point is that everyone says "It's a young man's game now! Look at Matthews and Laine and McDavid and MacKinnon and Eichel! They're tearing up the league!" Which is sort of true. But it's worth pointing out that none of those guys have been past the second round.

There's really no particular reason to believe that having a younger-than-average team produces legitimate success, even if it does produce a lot of highlight reel goals.
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