sutomcat
No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
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Welcome to National #2 Pencil Day!
The #2 pencil—or its equivalent—is one of the most common pencils in the world. Numbers are used to classify grades of pencils in the United States, while both numbers and letters—in what may be called the HB graphite grading scale—are used to classify pencils in the rest of the world. A #2 pencil is towards the middle when it comes to the hardness of lead (graphite) and the darkness of the shade. If a pencil has a number higher than 2—like 2 ½ or 3— it means it has a harder graphite core, a harder point, and a lighter shade. These pencils are often used by engineers or architects. If it has a number lower than 2 it means it has a softer graphite core, a softer point, and a darker shade—there is a lower proportion of clay in the graphite, and more of the graphite is left on the paper. These pencils are often used by artists because they help them make "a wider spectrum of tones."
Outside of the United States, an "H" is used to indicate a hard pencil, while a "B" is used to indicate a pencil with a blacker shade. Towards the middle of the scale is the HB pencil, which is similar to a #2 pencil. An "F" pencil is also near the middle, and this letter indicates that the pencil sharpens to a fine point. The HB graphite grading scale goes from HB to B, 2B, 3B, and so forth in one direction, and from HB to F, H, 2H, 3H, and so forth in the other direction.
SU News
Syracuse Basketball: Commit Donnie Freeman joins 4-stars, 5-stars at IMG (itlh; Adler)
Syracuse basketball 2024 four-star commit Donnie Freeman from Washington, D.C., isn’t the only highly rated prospect who recently decided to transfer to the powerhouse IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla.
Freeman, a 6-foot-9 power forward who verbally committed to the Orange in May, said on social media in recent days that he would move from St. John’s College High School in Washington, D.C., to IMG, which suits up in the 10-member National Interscholastic Basketball Conference (“NIBC”) and participated in this past spring’s GEICO Nationals.
Per Jordan Divens, the national basketball editor of MaxPreps, IMG went 18-8 overall in the 2022-23 campaign, finishing in a tie for third place within the NIBC. The Ascenders also reached the semifinals of the eight-team 2023 GEICO Nationals.
Looking ahead to 2023-24, when Freeman will be a senior at IMG, Divens has the Ascenders at No. 4 in his preseason NIBC power rankings. And besides Donnie Freeman, IMG has landed a few other top-flight players of late.
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Syracuse Basketball: 2024 class stacks up high vs. other recent SU cycles (itlh; Adler)
Syracuse basketball currently has two verbal commitments in its 2024 class, and it’s hovering around No. 10 nationally, according to various recruiting services.
Elijah Moore, a four-star shooting guard from New York City, verbally committed to the Orange in late January. He’s a top-60 national prospect, per several recruiting Web sites.
Donnie Freeman, a four-star power forward from Washington, D.C., verbally pledged to the ‘Cuse in May. He’s in the top 20 to the top 40 overall in the rising-senior cycle, according to various recruiting services.
At present, the Orange’s other main target in the 2024 class is five-star guard Jalil Bethea out of the Philadelphia area. Bethea is down to a final five of Syracuse basketball, Alabama, Kansas, Miami and Villanova.
We’ll have to wait and see if the ‘Cuse is able to secure a verbal commitment from Bethea. But as it stands, first-year head coach Adrian Autry and his assistants have done a stellar job retaining Moore after Hall of Famer Jim Boeheim retired this past March, as well as picking up Freeman.
So where does the Orange’s present 2024 cycle stack up against other ‘Cuse recruiting classes since the team moved from the Big East Conference to the Atlantic Coast Conference during the 2013-14 stanza?
Let’s review the Syracuse basketball team recruiting rankings in recent years.
I’ve pasted below the Orange’s recruiting cycles from 2013, the squad’s first year in the ACC, until 2024. These ratings are courtesy of the industry-generated 247Sports Composite, the industry-generated On3 Industry Ranking and https://n./team_rankings/2024/all-teams/basketball.
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Roberts’ bike crash: 3 broken ribs, collapsed lung and a big medical bill: ‘My helmet saved me’ (PS; Waters)
On June 11, Terrence Roberts competed in the Tulsa Tough, a national criterium for bicycle racers.
It was Roberts’ first national criterium. The former Syracuse University basketball player had taken up cycling just three years ago during the Covid pandemic. He had gone to Tulsa with the Major Motion Cycling team out of Los Angeles.
“It was really excited,’’ Roberts said of the Tulsa Tough competition. “I was on a real high for doing my first national crit with a team.’’
Three days later, on June 14, Roberts was on a training ride with several other cyclists. Just ahead of him, a cyclist swerved to avoid another rider on his right. He didn’t notice Roberts on his left.
The cyclist’s pedal cut into the front tire on Roberts’ bike, shredding 18 of the wheel’s 21 spokes.
The wheel collapsed like a pancake and sent the 6-foot-10, 255-pound Roberts flying. He was going roughly 26 to 28 miles per hour at the time.
“I tried to tuck and roll,’’ Roberts said, “but it was just splash and slide.’’
A friend helped Roberts into a truck and took him to Long Beach Memorial Hospital where he was diagnosed with three broken ribs, a collapsed lung, tears to his left rotator cuff and right labrum, a deep hip contusion and a bruised sternum.
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Other
The Big Night Out Tour Featuring O.A.R and Goo Goo Dolls
Goo Goo Dolls dust off 90s hits, but they’re not stuck in the past (review, photos) (PS; McCarthy)
Goo Goo Dolls’ lead vocalist and guitarist John Rzeznik may have some fears of the future, but that doesn’t mean the band is stuck in the past.
The Buffalo-based band played for an hour and 45 minutes at the St. Joseph’s Health Amphitheater in Syracuse on Wednesday night, following a strong opening act from fellow alt-rock veterans O.A.R.
In their 25 song set, the Goo Goo Dolls featured all their classic hits, but seamlessly mixed in eight tracks from their two most recent albums. Starting at 9:06 p.m. with “Broadway,” the band played three hits before Rzeznik paused to reminisce.
“I remember playing at the Lost Horizon and just being amazed that anybody actually came and saw us. You guys have been good to us for a long time,” Rzeznik said, and they launched into “Big Machine.”
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NYS Fair Food Hall of Fame #4: A ‘ one-way ticket to brain freeze’ (PS; Cazentre)
It’s not all about eating at the New York State Fair. There’s drinking, too.
“Back in my day, you could get a 32-ounce souvenir cup filled to the brim with pink slushy goodness and sip that thing while walking around,” Syracuse.com restaurant critic Jared Paventi said. ”It was a one-way ticket to brain-freeze land, but it was worth every dollar.”
The frozen, cooling and boozy mix of wine and soda comes in at #4 in our New York State Fair Food Hall of Fame.
”It’s fun — you don’t have to take it too seriously,” said Bill Merritt, co-founder of Merritt Estate Winery, which stakes the claim of being the first to bring the concoction to the fair. “I think that’s why it became so popular. There are lots of things to be serious about. This isn’t one.”
The Wine Slushie has a long, and sometimes controversial, history at the fair. At one point, they were served in cups as big as 32 ounces and could be carried around the grounds. Wine cut with frozen soda is about 5% alcohol per serving, about the same as a standard beer like Bud, Miller or Coors.
Then, at various times, fair officials tried to limit the size of slushies and/or restrict consumption to certain designated areas to avoid problems created by huge mobs of slushed fairgoers.
The cups are now 10 ounces but can again be carried out to drink on-the-go. And you can find the stands scattered across the grounds as well as in the Colonnade, the pavilion with the big columns next to Chevy Court that has long been the home base of the slushie crowd.
“My wine slushie memories will always be a part of my fondest,” said Amy Robbins, a long-time radio host who also joins with co-host Ted Long to provide the voice-over announcements on the fairgrounds. “Yes, you can now get wine slushies elsewhere, but nothing tastes as good as one in the original wine court located between the pillars, especially before they cut back on the gigantic plastic refill containers (were they a gallon?) in the 90 degree heat with some of the worst brain freezes anywhere.”
The origin of the slushie also has been the subject of some debate. But the most widely accepted version places it with Merritt Estate Winery, located in Chautauqua County near the cities of Fredonia and Dunkirk. Bill Merritt credits his wife, Christi, with coming up with the idea when she ran some of the company’s sangria through a frozen juice machine in a stand at the 1984 state fair.
Merritt, by the way, called it the Wine Slush.
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Still images from a video of Jackie McManus's epic battle with a giant Oneida Lake sturgeon two weeks ago. McManus, a registered nurse and certified fishing guide from Mexico, believes the fish weighed around 100 pounds and measured about five feet in length.John Ott
Oneida Lake angler has ‘Jaws moment’ as she battles sturgeon too big for boat (video) (PS; Featherstone)
For a split second, Jackie McManus thought she’d hooked a shark.
The sharp-nosed fish, battleship gray on top and white on the bottom, broke the lake’s surface like an errant torpedo, twisting and turning and slapping the water with its powerful tail fin.
Despite what her pounding heart was telling her, McManus, a registered nurse and certified fishing guide from Mexico, N.Y., knew it was no shark, but a lake sturgeon, the state’s largest freshwater fish.
And the fight was only just beginning.
Two weeks ago, McManus and her two fishing buddies, Jon Ott and Bob Chudyk, set out in Chudyk’s 16-foot boat for a quiet evening of walleye fishing on the north shore of Oneida Lake. McManus knotted a jigging rap on an eight-pound leader and made the first cast on her JTX Light rod.
The rap dropped 30 feet to the bottom and—wham! Her rod doubled over to the point she feared it might snap. Way too heavy for a walleye, she thought. Sheepshead maybe?
“I didn’t even know what it was,” McManus said. “I’m pumping up and it was coming, but it was coming real slow. Is it a kayak? Is it a dead body?”
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