Gotham Stakes Puns

Needless to say, this weekend is jam packed with big races all over the country….. But it could have been a lot bigger.

With the blockbuster news that Santa Anita Park has been closed “indefinitely” due to an alarming 21st horse suffering a life ending injury during a training session four major races won’t be run this weekend.

Affectionately known as “the Big ‘Cap”, the Santa Anita Handicap, a major three year old Kentucky Derby prep race, the San Felipe Stakes, the Grade: 1 Frank E. Kilroe Mile and the San Carlos for sprinters were all slated to be run and will be rescheduled.

This statement was released last Tuesday at 10:15PM:

“The Stronach Group announced the closure of Santa Anita Park for live racing and training effective immediately while the one mile main track undergoes additional extensive testing.

All stakes races scheduled for this upcoming weekend, including the Grade I Santa Anita Handicap, the Grade II San Felipe and the Grade II San Carlos will be rescheduled.

“The safety, health and welfare of the horses and jockeys is our top priority,” said Tim Ritvo, Chief Operating Officer, The Stronach Group. “While we are confident further testing will confirm the soundness of the track, the decision to close is the right thing to do at this time”.

The additional testing of the track will be led by veteran Trackman Dennis Moore, expanding on the ground radar testing conducted earlier this week by the University of Kentucky's Dr. Mick Peterson. Measures will include utilizing an Orono Biomechanical Surface Tester, a device that mimics the impacts of a horse running at full gallop allowing engineers to see how the track holds up. These test results will be evaluated to ensure track consistency and uniformity for both training and racing.

Further, The Stronach Group will be conducting a comprehensive evaluation of all existing safety measures and current protocols.

This decision comes a little late. In all my 40 years of being involved in this sport, I can’t recall a time where 21 horses have lethally broken down in such a short, 10 week time span.

I’ve been to Santa Anita several times in the past year. I walked the upper stretch, the surface seems fine.

The whole situation is both tragic and baffling. The only thing I can come up with is the weather, as I’m not sure the Santa Anita surface was designed to stand up to it. Los Angeles and surrounding areas have been pounded with rain over the last several weeks and the temperatu

I have glanced over the field for the Gotham S and feel it should be a very competitive race. The favorite, El Areeb, will carry top weight of 123 lbs and give others from 2-7 lbs. He has so far shown preference to laying close to the pace and getting first jump on others after the speed starts tiring.

Noting that, I believe there are at least 2 horses that can surprise. My pick for this race will be 9)Cloud Computing who won his first start despite trouble at the start. While he is stepping up several classes, his pedigree suggests he should play a catch me if you can role. His female family is full of distance speed including the sire line of Sunday Silence. 8)So Conflated won the California Derby in his last and is the best bred horse entered in the Gotham, so he will be my pick to run second. He is inbred to Storm Cat, Seattle Slew, Raise A Native, Secretariat(x3) and Northern Dancer(x3) and would be no surprise in the Ky Derby, much less this race. My pick for 3rd will be 6)True Timber and mainly because 4)El Areeb has yet to rate behind horses that were clicking off decent fractions like he will face this weekend. With the weight and quicker pace, it would not be a surprise to see El Areeb finish near the back of the pack. His trainer knows how to get them ready and is the only reason he is not a complete toss to me.

I'm new to this Sub, so I'm not sure if this is acceptable, but I thought maybe we could get somewhat of a live thread going for people watching the same races. Feel free to discuss Aqueduct in the comment section.

TL;DR at the bottom.

Even if no one cares, I'd like to chat a bit about my version of the Four Act Structure, and what I call a character's 'Deep Wound' (with a pitstop on scene). So, I have spent a possibly annoying amount of time learning about different story structures (Campbell, Harmon, Weiland, etc) and none of them clicked for me fully, but all of them had something valuable to teach me about storytelling and thus I went away from them having bettered myself as a writer. But still I was looking for a story structure or outline that clicked with me. One day, I decided to take all of these structures and make a Franken-Structure that best fit my style of storytelling, that being predominantly character-driven, but with a healthy obsession with plot and setting as it relates to character.

I started with what I now call a character's Deep Wound, which is a list of nine (twelve if you count the plot-based ones) things that make up a character and how they behave and function in the story world they live in. All twelve are as follows:

Ghost

A character’s Ghost is the thing that happened to them, usually but not always before the events of the story (like in a prologue), that informs the rest of their Deep Wound. It haunts them and was a pivotal moment in their past that shaped who they are today. It informs the other elements of their Deep Wound by being the cause of them. It was their character-defining moment (not to be confused with a character establishing moment). Maybe we know what the Ghost is and how it happened, sometimes all we know is the basics ("Riff-raff, street rat, I don't by that" and so on).

Fear

A character’s fear is the thing they are scared of and thus avoid at all costs. Whether that be the fear of something happening, of something not happening, fear of an object or event, fear of a person, etc. The important thing is that the character avoids what it is they fear most. This Fear is a direct result of their Ghost. The way that they avoid their Fear plays a direct role in keeping them from achieving their Yearning.

Dissatisfaction

A character’s Dissatisfaction is the thing present or lacking in their life that makes them unhappy or discontent. The Dissatisfaction is also a direct result of their Ghost. What is important is that the Dissatisfaction is prevalent enough that it makes them unsatisfied (whether they realize it or not) with the state of the Old World.

Yearning

A character’s Yearning is the thing t

Do your worst!

For context I'm a Refuse Driver (Garbage man) & today I was on food waste. After I'd tipped I was checking the wagon for any defects when I spotted a lone pea balanced on the lifts.

I said "hey look, an escaPEA"

No one near me but it didn't half make me laugh for a good hour or so!

Edit: I can't believe how much this has blown up. Thank you everyone I've had a blast reading through the replies 😂

It really does, I swear!

I finished season 1 and I'm very divided on my thoughts. On one hand, the penguin's rise to power, along with the battle between Falcone, Maroni, and Fish is super entertaining and well done. I loved that whole storyline and I found that each character was compelling and fleshed out. I also loved Bullock's and Gordon's enemies to friends arc and they have great chemistry. On the other hand, I found myself bored to death with the random episodic villain storylines that were usually resolved within the episode. Most of them didn't reveal anything interesting about Gordon or Bullock's characters and served no purpose to the overall plot, so it was hard to stay invested. A lot of it felt like a criminal minds episode which I personally hate and truthfully I skipped over a lot of the episodic villian storylines. I did like the balloon man villain because he showed us the corruption of Gotham early on, I liked the spirit of the goat because it showed us more about Bullock, and I really liked the rich serial killer arc because there were real stakes for Jim and consequences even after he was killed. The last few episodes were the most entertaining as the gang war reached it's climax, and I loved fish's return but her death felt anti-climactic. Overall, I'd give this season a 6.5/10. What are your thoughts?

They’re on standbi

Pilot on me!!

Content Warning: There will be brief descriptions of fictional sexual assault and genitalia. Directly-linked images in this post will not contain any explicit content. News and forum links that contain explicit material will be marked as "NSFW".

#Edgy and Provocative

The Dark Knight Returns. Watchmen. The Killing Joke. The Sandman.

Take a look at any list of bestselling DC graphic novels, and you'll see a lot of the same titles over and over again. And you'll also see that they have a lot in common. There's a lot of Batman, a lot of Watchmen, and a lot of Alan Moore. And, they're all considered, one way or another, to be "mature".

Now, the "mature" label can mean a lot of things to different people. For some, it means extra violence and sex. For others, it means it provides commentary on themes and subjects that appeal to older readers. Maturity can mean "politically charged", or "edgy and gritty", or even "gross and juvenile".

Dark. Gritty. Political. Sexy. Violent. Controversial. Rauchy. "Mature". These are descriptors that DC (and by extension Warner Bros.) has happily embraced, and you see can see that brand extend out to other media adaptations, too, from The Dark Knight to Joker to Zack Snyder's rather divisive vision of a cinematic universe. Now, that's not to say that DC doesn't market to kids (after all, Teen Titans Go! and DC Super Hero Girls are incredibly profitable franchises), but it's fair to say that DC and WB really want to corner the market on "adult" superhero media.

So it wasn't too surprising when DC announced in March of 2018 that they were unveiling a new imprint called "DC Black Label" for mature superhero stories. Citing works like Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, DC: The New Frontier, and Watchmen, publishers Dan DiDio and Jim Lee promised mature-rated "edgy and provocative standalone stories" for the likes of Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman. In truth, it really meant getting big name creators to tell "evergreen stories" (aka standalone stories not tied to any continuity) with

Dad jokes are supposed to be jokes you can tell a kid and they will understand it and find it funny.

This sub is mostly just NSFW puns now.

If it needs a NSFW tag it's not a dad joke. There should just be a NSFW puns subreddit for that.

Edit* I'm not replying any longer and turning off notifications but to all those that say "no one cares", there sure are a lot of you arguing about it. Maybe I'm wrong but you people don't need to be rude about it. If you really don't care, don't comment.

I won't be doing that today!

You take away their little brooms

This morning, my 4 year old daughter.

Daughter: I'm hungry

Me: nerves building, smile widening

Me: Hi hungry, I'm dad.

She had no idea what was going on but I finally did it.

Thank you all for listening.

Hey folks at r/chess I am new to the game having started playing on chess.com app in the last 2 weeks (thanks to GothamChess and YouTube for getting me hooked).

My question is related to ELO rating. If I can regularly beat a bot with X rating on the app, how strong is that an indicator to my skill level and possible rating?

I assume it’s not 1:1 as the pressure/stamina required to compete in a tournament is different to just playing against a bot with zero stakes, also guessing the bot skill varies to an actual rated player.

P.S if this is a dumb question because I have misunderstood some fundamental concept happy to be flamed below.

It’s pronounced “Noel.”

After all his first name is No-vac

What, then, is Chinese rap?

Edit:

Notable mentions from the comments:

• Spanish/Swedish/Swiss/Serbian hits

• French/Finnish art

• Country/Canadian rap

• Chinese/Country/Canadian rock

• Turkish/Tunisian/Taiwanese rap

There hasn't been a single post this year!

(Happy 2022 from New Zealand)

Bob

What did 0 say to 8 ?

" Nice Belt "

So What did 3 say to 8 ?

" Hey, you two stop making out "

When I got home, they were still there.

There hasn't been a post all year!