Jim Dabrowski

Good old Cox communication. After being on hold for 15 minutes I get transferred to collections for some reason. They can’t help me so they go to “transfer” me and hang up. Now I get to start all over again.

And the cable internet industry wonders why people hate them and are fleeing in droves. Trying to close my account because I am moving. They deliberately make this as painful as possible.

Packers @ Bears game prediction: This is going to be ugly. Rodgers will simply torch the Bears all game long. No pressure, no secondary - damn right I’m starting Christian Watson in Fantasy. He alone will probably win me my matchup this week. With Fields likely starting, I’d take the over on 70 points scored this game. 40+ to 30+? Oh yeah.

Rebuilding

All I keep hearing about is how bad the current Bears roster is. No building blocks for the future, need total rebuild on both sides of the line, no receivers, etc. etc. If this roster is as bad as everyone is saying, there is no way next year will be much better than this one. Even with a gazillion dollars in cap space there are only so many players Poles can acquire in the off season. That's a bit disappointing.

Bears Ownership

When does Virginia McCaskey get some blame for the current state of the Bears. When a team is bad, year after year despite changes in players, coaches, GMs, etc. the only one left to blame is the ownership. Sure you can blame Michael and now George the previous and current Chairmen of the team, but she put them in those positions and throughout both their tenures (most of my life), the Bears have pretty much sucked. The Bears need new ownership.

Should Justin Fields Play vs the Packers

I don't care. The only reason to watch the Bears play any more games this season is to watch what Fields can do. For that reason alone, I want to see him play. Without him, it's going to be dreadful and I'll probably do something I almost never do: shut the game off before it's done because you know Rodgers will be screaming he owns the Bears multiple times, flipping off fans, mooning them, whatever. So play him, don't play him, do whatever you think best Matt and I'll watch for however long I can stand it.

Next Season

Guess that's it. As is becoming pretty usual for a fan of this team in December, it's time to start looking forward to the draft and next season. "Wait til next year!" our perennial cry. Also, as usual, it promises to be interesting. Justin Fields sure looks to be "the guy" the Bears have draft picks and cap money to spend. Will be interesting to watch.

JIm

Packers @ Bears game prediction: This is going to be ugly. Rodgers will simply torch the Bears all game long. No pressure, no secondary - damn right I’m starting Christian Watson in Fantasy. He alone will probably win me my matchup this week. With Fields likely starting, I’d take the over on 70 points scored this game. 40+ to 30+? Oh yeah.

Bears @ Jets game prediction: I think Bears fans will see how unwatchable this team would be without Fields and with a bad defense. Not saying it’s a blowout, but I do think the game will be borderline unwatchable. Look for a big day from the punters.

Bears @ Jets game prediction: I think Bears fans will see how unwatchable this team would be without Fields and with a bad defense. Not saying it’s a blowout, but I do think the game will be borderline unwatchable. Look for a big day from the punters.

Bears @ Falcons game prediction: My prediction is more of the same. The Bears on offense, and Justin Fields in particular, will continue to shine and score 30+ points. The defense will continue to struggle resulting in giving up 30+ points. Who wins? Who knows? It’s a toss-up.

Bears @ Falcons game prediction: My prediction is more of the same. The Bears on offense, and Justin Fields in particular, will continue to shine and score 30+ points. The defense will continue to struggle resulting in giving up 30+ points. Who wins? Who knows? It’s a toss-up.

Since the purchase of Twitter, Elon Musk has done a lot of things that sure seem stupid, and plenty of people on Twitter and on the internet in general have made that observation. Musk isn't stupid, but yet he seems to be doing a bunch of stupid things.

Everyone with half a brain knew if you eliminated the verification part of Twitter's blue checkmarks and turned it simply into a badge indicating you paid your $8 there would be a complete flood of people impersonating corporate and personal accounts for malicious purposes or simply for laughs. Musk isn't stupid, he too knew that, and he did it anyway.

Twitter's primary source of income is from advertising. In 2021 $4.5 of its $5 billion in revenue came from advertising. Major brands, however, don't want to be associated with anything remotely controversial so they only advertise on "safe" platforms. Musk isn't stupid, he knows this. Despite knowing this, he removed the verification system, he retweets and supports conspiracy theories, threatened war against those brands if they removed their ads and with his "free speech maximalist" stance has signaled there will be many more controversial posts in the future. None of this makes Twitter a "safe" platform on which to advertise.

In today's economy and in the wake of Covid, workers enjoy the freedom to be more flexible in the location and time they work. Especially in the high tech industry programmers are in high demand and an employer has to be willing to do what it takes to keep their talent and to attract high caliber talent. Musk isn't stupid, he knows this, he's been in this exact industry for years. Yet, he immediately fires half the staff. Starts publicly denigrating and firing people who speak out against him. He is instituting a demand that everyone has to work in the office and even announced that anyone staying has to be ready to work excessive numbers of hours - basically saying to hell with "work-life balance". Musk knows all this but he does all this anyway.

It's easy to see all his actions and conclude he's some tech billionaire who is actually clueless about how the entire high business world runs despite years of actually being involved in it. I think that conclusion is wrong. Musk isn't stupid. He does know all this. If he knows all this, we have to ask: Why is he doing it? The only conclusion to draw is he is deliberately trying to destroy Twitter.

He made an ill-tempered decision to buy the company and when he realized he wasn't going to be able to buy his way out of it, that he was actually going to be held accountable for his actions, he immediately reversed course and went through with the deal solely so he could destroy it out of spite. Every action he has taken since his take-over has shown this to be his intention. It's sad to see something like Twitter go since it's been such an integral part of the Internet for the last 10 years. But as they say, all good things must come to an end.

JIm