About time.

You know, more than just barking about the forecast, I want to show you why the majority of meteorologists and weather forecasters in Japan are calling for cooler temps on Friday.

It sounds odd talking about cooler weather when it is bloody close to 35c, but it will happen. I do concur that we will start to see more temperate weather as we head out the week, but I want to show why we think this. Check out the video and you can get inside my thinking and reasoning about weather modeling for a couple of minutes.

In a Toyota dealer today for a service, and something like 80% of their models are currently not on sale.

The others are on sale but there is a multiple month lead time to actually receiving the car.

Is this the new normal now? Is it more profitable to sell cars abroad so there are fewer for the Japanese market? Is this some strategy to boost second hand car prices?

Why can you no longer walk in and just buy a car?

Baby powder. I was prepared for walking 20k+ steps a day but my balls and thighs were not. After the second day I desperately found some baby powder and no longer had pain for the rest of my trip. It also helped my wife’s comfort as well for her chest.

I keep seeing articles and videos saying China is on track to overtake the US as the world's most powerful country, economically, military, and politically. But others say the country's plagued with too many internal problems to do so.

How would the US respond to being overtaken?

I need to renew my spouse visa and I took a day off for it but my wife is in "I don't talk with you for three days" mode right now. I can not get another day off so can I ask my Senpai to be my guarantoor and sign the letter of guarantee? I could not find anything that says "your spouse has to be the guarantor". If it works I will just ask my male senpai to guarantee me.

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Acquiring George was one of several requests made by Leonard and his camp, led by Leonard's uncle, Dennis Robertson, who outlined a series of asks for the Clippers in the days leading up to July 5.

Those requests included part ownership of the team, access to a private plane, a house and guaranteed off-court endorsement money, one source with direct knowledge of the talks said. They were the same requests that, according to The Athletic, Robertson made of the Lakers and the Raptors.

These verbal requests fell outside the boundaries of the league's collective bargaining agreement, and while the Clippers didn't say yes to them, they did say yes to others, according to a source with knowledge of the talks.

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What are the chances that once the investigation is done we find out that Uncle Dennis was the greatest scammer of them all?

The culture of community (friends as I don’t have fam here) I have now after a year is my most cherished. If you are new please seek the communities.

More context: We were out to dinner one night at an expensive hotel. My boyfriend let me borrow his Canon G7X (1800) camera to bring to take pictures with my friends. At the conclusion of the dinner, I went up to the room and realized the camera was gone. I went back right down to the table and no one had seen it. I immediately got with hotel security and she is on video, clear as day, swiping the camera when my back was turned and shoving it in her purse. I covered for her initially with my friend, and contacted her to find a resolution. She had taken the camera with her and my other friends to a club after dinner, which I did not attend, and lost it there. For background, this is my good college friend who I know well (the camera thief). She has been taken on free trips to Coachella and St Barths on my dime (not kidding), as well as many other things. We have done a lot together and are good friends, so I expected her to feel sorry. Initially she lied, saying she did not have it. When I told her we had video, she confessed and then said yes she took it but lost it at the next bar she went to with my other friends. It is now gone. I asked her to help me replace it by going in on me with the cost. She has refused all measured or resolutions, and now I feel I have nothing left to do but file a police report and let them handle it. It is impacting my relationship, and I am furious my friend is not helping at all. Why should I be on the hook for something she stole? I have given her three weeks to help me resolve this, but she insists she is going to do nothing. I am being pressed by my boyfriend to either replace the camera or help him file a report with her info and the footage. I even asked her to just throw in half or less than half the cost to help, but she still refuses. I do not want her to get in trouble, but I am at the point where I feel she really does not care.

UPDATE: I sent her a text this AM telling her if I do not receive full cost of the camera or shipping confirmation of a new camera from an approved vendor to a provided address by end of day Friday, we will be filing a report with the police Saturday AM. I felt like an asshole typing this out to her, but I have to do it.

UPDATE X2: She told me she is sick of me and that I will be receiving a tracking number by 12 eastern on friday and not to blame her if the package is never receieved. I told her if she was my real friend, she would be sorry and in no way will I allow this to be flipped on me. Should I ask if the camera is new, or the one that "Dissapeared"?

The Clippers had watched from afar how Leonard's tenure with the Spurs had ended because of a rift over how best to manage Leonard's health following a March 2016 lower-body injury that the team declared was quadriceps tendinopathy in 2017. ESPN's Michael Wright and Ramona Shelburne reported in 2018 that a key part of that divide was whether Leonard's issues were, as the Spurs believed after consulting with medical experts, degenerative and irreversible, and would need to be managed indefinitely. Leonard's camp, including Robertson, disagreed.

Ultimately, Leonard requested a trade in the summer of 2018, with two years left on the max deal he'd signed in 2015. Even before the Clippers signed Leonard, they knew that if he could lose trust and dismantle a seven-season relationship with Spurs for such a reason, then he easily could do the same to them.

"The Spurs were maybe the most respected, most revered pro sports team in America," one former staffer said. "It was like if this guy is willing to tell those people to go f--- themselves, he can't possibly be afraid to tell us to go f--- ourselves. ... Everybody was afraid of Kawhi leaving." That sentiment was echoed by multiple team and league sources.

Across the organization, details about Leonard's health were considered sacred secrets, multiple sources say, and a schism between those who were in the know and those who weren't emerged early.

"He was very separate from [the Clippers'] staff," one source with knowledge of the situation said.

"It caused extreme angst within the medical department," another former staffer said. "It was like the Clippers' medical staff wasn't really allowed to touch Kawhi ever."

In an effort to placate Leonard, news releases, public statements and social media posts that mentioned him received intense scrutiny both from the Clippers' senior leadership and, where necessary, from Leonard's camp, multiple sources said. While a team source said it was and is common practice for the team to run potential public statements by those representing all Clippers players, some team staffers nonetheless feared the wrong word or term in anything related to Leonard could lead to Robertson calling management and igniting a Spurs-like war.

The constant secrecy and tension surrounding Leonard -- and his health -- grated some staffers who interacted with players on a daily basis.

"There was clearly a heightened sensitivity," one said.

"Everyone was so uptight," another said. "I'm telling you, when I say uptight, I mean uptight."

"Kawhi Leonard is an elite player and admired teammate who has made significant contributions to our organization," the Clippers wrote in a statement to ESPN. "We treat Kawhi with the same respect as we do all of our players and staff. Unfortunately, he's battled injuries, which have led to undue scrutiny and criticism, but we appreciate his resilience and relentless work ethic. We're grateful he is part of our team and look forward to the start of training camp."

After the postseason, Leonard had hoped to play for Team USA, which in mid-April had named him one of its 12 players for the Paris Olympics.

Team USA imagined Leonard as a powerful addition who could halt virtually any key international player it would face, including Serbia's Nikola Jokic. But given Leonard's knee inflammation, officials weren't sure whether Leonard would be healthy enough to play.

It wasn't until the end of June that they learned that Leonard had undergone a procedure on that knee two months earlier, in early May, which wouldn't become public for several months.

Team USA officials were shocked to learn about the procedure after the fact, especially with training camp slated to open in early July in Las Vegas.

During camp, Leonard looked "slow and laboring," one source who watched him said.

Clippers coach Tyronn Lue, who took over for Rivers in October 2020 and was a member of Steve Kerr's coaching staff, stressed to Team USA officials that Leonard knew his body, and that if he wasn't healthy, he wouldn't play -- but Lue emphasized that Leonard wanted to play.

Lawrence Frank, the Clippers' president of basketball operations, stressed the same. But Team USA officials were unconvinced.

"I think he thought that he could come and rehab for three weeks with [Team USA] and then he'd be ready to play in the Olympics," one source close to the process said. Team USA couldn't do that, sources said. Celtics guard Derrick White replaced Leonard on the roster and went on to win the gold medal at the Paris Olympics.

While sources say Team USA officials regret how the situation played out, those same officials also recognize that Leonard's camp hadn't been forthcoming about the knee procedure or about his recovery.

All of it had been shrouded in secrecy.

On July 15, 2024, Frank addressed reporters about Team USA's decision, saying he was "very disappointed" by it, that Leonard wanted to play and that, when he was there, Leonard looked healthy. Frank was asked if Leonard had undergone any type of procedures or treatment to his right knee before camp.

He declined to comment, saying he wasn't going to get into specifics.

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Every once in awhile a movie comes along that should of been forgettable. Maybe it was based on an existing brand or toy or it just had a tiny budget and no big names attached. For whatever reason the expectations were low, but then the film turns out to be suprisingly great.

I recently rewatched The Lego Movie and found it a great example of this, and am looking for more suggestions. So whats your pick? Which movie shocked you by being way better then you thought it would be?