*To Win or Not to Win - Printable Version +- International Simulation Football League (https://forums.sim-football.com) +-- Forum: Community (https://forums.sim-football.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=5) +--- Forum: Media (https://forums.sim-football.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=37) +---- Forum: Graded Articles (https://forums.sim-football.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=38) +---- Thread: *To Win or Not to Win (/showthread.php?tid=49860)

*To Win or Not to Win - lock180 - 02-26-2024 *FULL DISCLOSURE: Currently reading through my media with fresh eyes and usually I put in the work to correct and edit my media to look somewhat decent but I think this time not editing it adds to the vibe I’m going for. So yes, I know the grammar and misspelling etc is worse than normal (even though it’s usually pretty bad anyway)....get over it. First and foremost what’s good? Been a while and you know when you aare so tired you start to feel drunk? Well that’s the sort of feeling I’m feeling right now so we will see if I can put my thoughts to paper or whatever we are calling this. Words to screen? Typing to laptop? IDK my brain is broken but that isn’t going to stop me from doing this because We’ve got chaos to cause! Before we do though I want to show you the incredible, amazing, *insert descriptor word that I would usually be able to think of but am too tired to even remember what I was originally doing this for here*. Oh yeah, the incredible art by @homercrates aka Thor Dangerson to honor the Year of the Joker Take a gander at this graphic because i’m sure you can find some easter eggs that we threw in here. I wouldn’t be doing this without the support of all of you that I pretend to hate so much. So this is a little something for me, but also something for everyone else. We must move on and there is so much to discuss! So much to discuss in fact, that I had to start writing myself little notes about what I was angry about! I also just realized it is the middle of the night and i am hitting my spacebar like a freakin flappin jackhammer and I don’t think my roommate is too happy with that. But he must suffer at the cost of my beautiful masterpiece! Let’s see here, first note says “Mega Tron failing stocks” so let’s get into it shall we? Last we left off with Mega Tron or whatever he is going by these days, he had just backstabbed Yellowknife after we had so cordially invited him into our locker room only for him to go against his word and purchase stocks in his own team when he said he wouldn’t. I had said this in last weeks edition regarding the situation “McGriddy10, you will not be the first victim nor will you be the last victim of the Year of the Joker. But believe me when I tell you that you WILL be a victim of the Year of the Joker. And when it happens I will be sitting in the comfort of this very bed I lay in and eating popcorn while writing about your downfall. Xoxoxo”. I must say, I’m quite proud of myself. He called himself the “prophesiah” but in the end I became the prophesiah because you see, he certainly wasn’t the first victim of the year of the joker but I sit here in the comfort of my own bed and see that McGriddy has indeed fallen victim to the Year of the Joker and is in fact not the last victim either. The only thing left from my premonition is popcorn and with all this discussion in discord about food (which I will get to later) I think that can be ticked off the list as well. But McGriddy has fallen victim to the Year of The Joker because he flew too close to the sun and his hubris got the best of him. His confidence was too much, and when the dust settled on a week of trading in the ISFL team stock market, McGriddy had fallen from first, all the way down to fifth. Karma’s a bitch McGriddy hope you're happy with yourself. Okay um this is actually kind of awkward. I was going to go on to the next segment but I think I need to bring attention to something that I haven’t told you guys yet. I know it may seem a little personal but I think I need to share it with you all….. I have a girlfriend. I know! It may come as a shock to some of you but I do. I mean you wouldn’t know her because she goes to a different discord server. And she plays in a different sim league. And she goes to a different school but I promise she’s real! Okay anyway glad we could clear the air it feels like a weight has finally been lifted off my shoulders. Back to business and I can’t be bothered to look at the timeline of events so I’m going to throw the Silverbacks game in here now. I swear I missed a kick in this game but looking through the play by play I guess not. I mean we did end up losing to a Wing Wang field goal with 4 minutes to go but that wasn’t what I was thinking of. We can all point and laugh at the rising star quarterback for Yellowknife Minimum Boobdoe or something like that. Got sacked 5 whole times and intercepted another 3 times. And somehow only lost by 3. How that is possible I have no idea. Now that that game is once more forgotten I just wanted to let you guys know that my girlfriend is right next to me right now. I swear. It’s true you can trust me. Actually she isn’t right next to me. She’s outside my window. I think she’s throwing rocks. Oh wait no I’m thinking of Shakespeare. Oh wait no I’m thinking of Taylor Swift but in that song she mentions Romeo and Juliet and THAT is Shakespeare. I knew it was all connected. Wait. Did Juliet throw rocks at Romeo’s window? Did he even have a window? WELL I DONT KNOW BECAUSE SHAKESPEARE HAD TO GO AND WRITE ALL OF HIS PLAYS AS COMPLETE GIBBERISH THAT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO UNDERSTAND. AND FOR SOME REASON SCHOOLS THINK YOU KNOW WHAT? YOU ARE GOING TO NEED TO LEARN HOW TO UNDERSTAND LIL SHAKY BECAUSE THAT IS GOING TO BE SUUUUUUUUUUUUUPER IMPORTANT WHEN YOU GO OUT AND HAVE TO READ WHAT YOU WANT TO ORDER AT A MCDONALDS. Welcome to the Shakespearean portion of the article. Or as I like to say sLim Shaky. There are two main characters in this story and I would like to preface this by saying I would have loved to make this portion FILLED with Shakespearean references but for one, I’m tired, such is the way of life. Second I don’t care so suck it. And three Shakespeare is overrated and is as bland as oatmeal. Even if I DID understand a single word he put to paper I would be no closer to liking him than I do right now. On to our two Shakespearean love birds. It all starts with Tyler Higbee II (shoutout to second of their name gang) who says he is reading Hamlet in class to which Brad Woof (our first main character) says “ah my old boy Willy Shakes, love him”. As soon as he uttered those words I knew we would have problems. I quickly respond by saying reading Shakespeare should be illegal to which he replies by saying “this is going to give me an aneurysm”. I quickly ask if we are beefing and he confirms by saying “you got a problem with Slim Shakey, you got a problem with Brad Woof. all im sayin”. How can a man that talks like what I just showed you, say that he loves William Shakespeare? Huh? riddle me this? Not finishing his words, coming up with foreign names, you know what? Maybe he is more like Shakespeare than I thought. But Brad says “Shakespeare is GORGEOUS”. And yet here he is typing sentences like “all im sayin” clearly Shaekspeare really struck home and means a lot to you Brad. Just when I thought I had enough on my plate another Shakespeare lover enters the fray this one being none other than “Mayo + Fries are the best” which is also another bad opinion. But liking Shakespeare is not just a wrong opinion. It is just simply wrong. I call it theater kid garbage to which Mayo man says it isn’t just for theater kids….except get this…..he is a theater kid. Thus proving my point. *insert airhorns here* We then turn back to Chad Brad? Brad Chad? Meow Chad? Brad Meow? IDK but he quotes a random Shakespeare line he probably looked up online “I desire that we be better strangers”. At first I thought this meant he wanted to be friends like oh “I want to get to know this stranger better” but because Shakespeare is dumb, and stupid and probably pees while sitting down, it actually means “We don’t need to be friends and to be honest I’d rather we don’t interact at all, ever” Which is the COMPLETE OPPOSITE of what I thought it meant. Then I say I like the sound of that better to which Brad replies “in no universe does that sound better”. Keep in mind this is the guy that talks like “you got a problem with Slim Shakey, you got a problem with Brad Woof. all im sayin” So I’d say he has no right telling me what “sounds better”. So this part of the article has no purpose to any story whatsoever besides the fact that I wanted to shit on Shakespeare for a few paragraphs. Plus I kind of alluded to it in the title so it would be weird to not include it in the story. UPDATE: Girlfriend…..Yep still have one. Second game of the week brings us to Colorado where we play quite possibly my favorite game ever. We get out to a 20-3 lead by the time the first half is done and things look to be all wrapped up. But drama is beginning to form the commentators are saying I’m a bad punter to which I reply that I’m a second half punter. Tomato, one of the commentators is constantly taking jabs at me any chance he gets. And that is when devastation strikes. Up 20-10 with a little over 13 minutes to go in the game we (Yellowknife) score a touchdown to make it 26-10 and Xystarch walks onto the field having a perfect track record for extra points. Scoring this extra point would make it a 3 possession game. Xystarch misses the extra point and Colorodo scores two touchdowns and two 2 point conversions to tie the game at 26 a piece with 5 minutes 45 seconds to go.  In those final almost 6 minutes 4 punts would take place meaning each team had the ball for just over 1 minute per possession with the final possession for Yellowknife going from the Yellowknife 35 and in four plays going 23 yards to the Colorado 41. With 3 seconds left Xystarch has a smile on his face because this is what the Year of the Joker is all about. Missing the extra point to take all the glory for himself on the final play of the game? What more could you possibly ask for? Xystarch sets up for the FIFTY EIGHT yard field goal and kicks it without even looking where it goes. Instead he looks to the heavens as if looking to some foreign being commentating on the game. In the press box Crazy Tomato sits in stunned silence as he watches the 58 yard field goal soar through the uprights giving Yellowknife the 29-26 victory. But Xystarch wasn’t just looking toward Crazy Tomato, he was looking at one more person lurking in the shadows. And no, I know you were thinking it’s my girlfriend. It’s not. Back at ISFL headquarters lemonopy sits on his paper throne contemplating what masterpiece he should write next. Looking through the various history books he shuts them in disgust. What is there to talk about anymore? He wonders. Then he glances at one of his most recently graded articles “lock180 The Joker Series” and he comes up with a plan. Lemonopy has never openly admitted to hating lock180 but we all know it to be true. Who would actively want to read all of his long ass articles anyway? Well, lemonopy was forced to due to his obligation to his job. But he had finally come up with a plan to get back at the user known as lock180.  The article reads “Mapping a Hypothetical Kicker to NFL Salary” and lock180 is immediately intrigued. It is rare for someone to write about kickers as is and money is of course of interest so lock180 immediately clicks on the article. But what he finds inside leaves him shocked and surprised. The talented lemonopy compares a “hypothetical” ISFL kicker's stats to the fake NFL league and sees if they should be getting paid the same relative to their skill and success. The first thing lemonopy says when talking about the stats is “One thing that sticks out to me is that our Hypothetical Kicker missed 10 field goals in a season, it’s actually quite difficult to miss 10 FGA in the NFL because you just get cut before it happens.” then says this “I think our Hypothetical Kicker is probably not as good as Matt Gay, they’re being relied upon for a similar amount of raw production, but is whiffing some short kicks that should be more automatic, while not having that consistently accurate booming 50+ kicks that Matt Gay is making” and concludes with this “Now, would I pay a kicker this much? I wanted to conclude that our Hypothetical Kicker somehow hoodwinked a team into this contract, but it looks like more of a shrewd agent pushing the locker room aspect for a 3 million dollar deal”. All of this may seem fine to you until you realize two things.  First of all lemonopy made a fatal mistake. He attempted to redact this hypothetical kicker’s name from the article by blurring it however he failed to blur the first letter and team name and when lock180 put two and two together realizing that lemonopy was in fact describing his own kicker Zenzeroni Xystarch II, kicker for the Yellowknife Wraiths he couldn’t believe it. He KNEW Zenzeroni was well worth this money and yet lemonopy decided to drag his name through the mud. So when Zenzeroni kicked that game winning kick he wasn’t just looking at Crazy Tomato but also lemonopy as well. I’m sure when I said that I realized two things when reading the lemonopy article I had something really spicy for point number two. But reading it back i have totally lost the plot so we are going to move on. Homestretch homestretch. Shake out those arms jog in place a bit for the final part of our journey into the most recent events. My girlfriend is doing these warmups as well so don’t feel like you are doing them alone. The title of this article is to win or not to win and that is a question Yellowknife seems to ask every gameday. The final gameday of the week brings Yellowknife to the best team in the NSFC, the Baltimore Hawks. The Yellownife simmers had done an excellent job giving the team the best chance at success however this did NOT show in the first half of the game down 27-6 with 10 minutes to go in the third all looked to be lost. But two touchdowns for Yellowknife and one field goal for Baltimore brought the score within reach for Yellowknife at 30-20 with 2:30 left to go in the game. To win the game Yellowknife would need to score on two possessions and needed to kick and recover an onside kick after their most recent touchdown. Zenzeroni, a true natural in the art of onside kicks, placed it perfectly and Yellowknife recovered. Four plays later and with 1:03 left in the game, Boudreaux connects with Suzuka to bring the score to 30-27. But Zenzeroni can’t get lightning to strike twice and Baltimore recovers. They end up going three and out and give the ball back to Yellowknife but there isn’t enough time to do anything and Yellowknife loses by three….. Three you say? A field goal would have tied the game. Let’s take a quick look back at the game. Oh no. In the first quarter of the game Zenzeroni missed a 52 yard field goal. That would have been enough to tie the game. And oh no. Because of that missed field goal Baltimore had excellent field position and marched down the field and scored a touchdown. Yellowknife would have won if not for that missed kick and it is all Zenzeroni’s fault. Will he be able to recover in the final week of the regular season? Will HE be the final victim of the Year of the Joker? The Year of the Joker has already taken many victims. So many in fact that I’ve already lost track. Before I leave I would like to call out the unprofessional journalism of one “Weekly Mirror”. Try as you might to take the crown away from me. But the only way you are getting it is by taking it off my cold dead hands. So be careful with what you write because unlike most writers in this league. I’m not afraid to bite back. I’ve taken on the media queen herself, I’ve single handidly taken on HO, I’ve even fought with my own GM’s and teammates. So if you think I’m afraid of your cute little start up budget TMZ, you are sorely mistaken. I will conclude this article with all of Crazy Tomatos controversial meal choices Ketchup on Pizza Mayo mixed with ketchup Ketchup on spaghetti  *because “the sauce doesn't stick to the noodles” Honey mustard on mac n cheese And many more I’m sure I missed or he hasn’t dared to say out loud. And you know what? I have one more thing to say. If you are from the Midwest and do not like Culver’s I will kindly ask you to get the fuck out of our region and go munch on in n out or whatever other bullshit the rest of the world eats these days. Wow that was a lot longer than i thought it was going to be. And now I’m more awake than I was when I began writing this whole thing. I guess this is what happens when you have to deal with having a girlfriend. PS.s: Sorry if you read any of this and were completely lost. For one I was super tired. Second, lots of specific references that I really haven’t given proper context to, and three this is a lock180 original series what the fuck else did you expect xoxoxoxo pssssssssss: didn't realize till now (right before I'm about to post this) that I've been spelling @lemonoppy name wrong the whole time hehehehehe whoops RE: To Win or Not to Win - jreed12 - 02-26-2024 Zenzy…. I thought we were cool… but play stupid games, win stupid prizes. We’re having a cookout, and the menu is all pasta. You are gonna wish you never even opened that silly little keyboard of yours. See you in the next edition of the Mirror hasta luego. RE: To Win or Not to Win - Baron1898 - 02-26-2024 I'm so proud of you, you almost made it through a whole article without mentioning me or my players ...almost RE: To Win or Not to Win - McGriddy10 - 02-26-2024 I'm McRizzy now @lock180 RE: *To Win or Not to Win - Assistant to the POR GM - 02-26-2024 Very Portland centric article I’m seeing RE: To Win or Not to Win - homercrates - 02-26-2024 I sit down to pee. Consider yourself warned Bard. RE: *To Win or Not to Win - griis - 02-26-2024 Aripiprazole (15 mg once daily) Risperidone (2 mg once daily) Olanzapine (10 mg once daily) Quetiapine (25 mg twice daily) Clozapine (12.5 mg twice daily) Paliperidone (6 mg once daily) Try any (or all!) of these medications to help with your apparent schizophrenia - and think twice next time you slander The Mirror. You shoot for the king you better not miss. RE: *To Win or Not to Win - lemonoppy - 02-26-2024 If you think you're the hypothetical kicker, seems like you have some imposter syndrome