🐿️Tubz Unfiltered - Volume 146
Squirrel goes bye-bye; CFB + NFL Recap; McD's Ice Cream Machines
Happy Wednesday, y’all!
Written meme: “Marked Safe From Political Texts and Ads”
🛁 EXTRA BUBBLES 🛁
P’nut the Squirrel, beloved pet and internet sensation, euthanized after being seized by NY state
First Harambe, now P’Nut the Squirrel and his brother from another mother, Raccoon Fred? Say it ain’t so.
An OnlyFans couple, who run a animal sanctuary nonprofit, “P'nuts Freedom Farm,” were housing P’Nut, who had amassed ~3 million social media followers, and Fred. However, some of their narc neighbors presumably heard loud noises coming from inside the couple’s home, so they called NY Department of Environmental Conservation and complained “about wild animals living in the Longo house.”
In New York State, it is illegal to house animals considered wildlife without a special permit; Mr. Longo has said he was in the process of applying for one. Longo said he was working to get Peanut certified as an education animal.
The DEC allegedly raided the Longo home for five hours (and allegedly used “excessive force”) and took the animals. During the kidnapping, P’Nut bit one of the DEC agents as if he or she was an acorn. That prompted the agency to euthanize both animals to check for rabies.
I guarantee you a sector of the population talked amongst themselves and said, “if the government is going into a home to take two animals, what’s next?! Our guns!?”
But there was at least something good that came out of the tragic, unfortunate deaths, as a New York State Assemblyman introduced new legislation in connection with animal seizures, dubbed “Peanut’s Law: Humane Animal Protection Act.”
According to WETM, the law proposed by Blumencranz would amend Section 11-0512 of New York’s Environmental Conservation Law to ensure humane treatment and due process of sanctuary animals, including a mandatory 72-hour waiting period before euthanizing any sanctuary animals.
🏆 SPORTZ 🏆
CFB WEEK 10 RECAP
OHIO STATE 20 Penn State 13: Death, taxes, and Penn State HC James Franklin losing the big one. This game was won for the Buckeyes, and lost for the Nittany Lions, in the red zone. OSU’s Davison Igbinosun snatched the ball out of a Penn State receiver’s hands in the end zone on a fade route at the end of the first half, and OSU stopped PSU four consecutive times from the 3-yard line with under seven minutes left. The lack of creativity from OC Andy Kotelnicki was mind-boggling. “Hey, let’s run it up the gut with a running back three straight plays. It’ll work one of these times!” Narrator: it did not.
IOWA 42 Wisconsin 10: The Badgers got their doors blown as if they were an Atlanta drug house. They allowed a whopping 329 yards on the ground and QB Braedyn Locke threw two “what in the flying f— did he see there?” interceptions, the latter of which is becoming a trend. Next up for Luke Fickell & Co. (Nov. 16): The No. 1 Oregon Ducks in front of a national audience. Yippee!
CFP RANKINGS
The first edition of the 12-team playoff bracket came out Tuesday, with Oregon (Big Ten), Georgia (SEC), Miami (ACC), and BYU (Big 12) each projected to win their respective conferences, thus earning a first-round bye and an automatic spot in the quarterfinals.
A few thoughts:
No surprise that the Big Ten (four teams) and SEC (four teams) dominated the initial rankings, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that held up in the end.
Penn State being ranked ahead of the Hoosiers is an interesting choice. Yes, IU has played a soft schedule thus far, as its best victory is Nebraska, but they have boat-raced everyone on their schedule. Moreover, Penn State hasn’t exactly played a murderer’s row of opponents; their best victory is Illinois, who has dropped out of the top 25 after consecutive losses.
Alabama boasts arguably the best victory in the country (vs Georgia), but the Crimson Tide find themselves in a glorified elimination game this weekend when they travel to Baton Rouge to take on No. 15 LSU, another team with two losses. If the Tigers win, they are right back in the mix.
NFL WEEK 9 RECAP
LIONS 24 Packers 14: This was the first Packers game of the season that was televised in my neck of the woods, and boy did it increase my blood pressure and prompt me to text some people the following message: “I’m going to become an avid book reader. WWII, the genesis of Candy Land — you name it, I’m going to read it.”
The Packers have been the kings of self-inflicted wounds this season, highlighted by penalties, bone-headed interceptions by Jordan Love, and dropped passes. All three of those were on display in Sunday’s loss.
The Packers finished with 10 penalties, too many of which were pre-snap penalties. Through the first nine weeks, the team is 24th in penalties, averaging 7.3 penalties per game, and is 31st in pre-snap penalties, according to The Athletic’s Matt Schneidman.
Sometimes the plays that Love makes lead me to believe he has the goods to be a generational quarterback, while other plays lead me to believe he should be a Walmart greeter in the middle of nowhere. The pick-six at the end of the first half was mind-numbingly stupid and idiotic. All he needed to do was throw the ball away/throw it into the dirt. Pretty simple. He has had too many plays of that variety through the first nine games. This time, it completely flipped the game because, by the time Green Bay got the ball back, the Lions were up 24-3. As a result, the Packers had to abandon the run game, an area in which they dominated Detroit in the first half.
As to the drops (the Packers have the fourth-most drops in the league, per Schneidman), they came at inopportune times. I know the conditions were not ideal, but Dontayvion Wicks dropped a touchdown pass on third down; Tucker Kraft dropped a pass on third down, one that would have gone for a first down (Brandon McManus missed the 46-yard FG); and Wicks dropped another one on third down, this time in the third quarter, which, again, would have gone for a first down. Better hit the JUGS machine during the bye week, gentlemen. And remember: see the ball, catch the ball. Day 1 stuff.
In closing, no need to sound the alarms — after all, Green Bay outgained Detroit, 411-261 — but there are definitely things to clean up.
NFL TRADE DEADLINE
Tuesday was without any big splashes, outside of Saints CB Marshon Lattimore getting traded to the Washington Commanders for a 2025 third-round pick, a fourth-round pick, and a sixth-round pick. Washington’s offense is humming, but its secondary is a mess, so good on them for securing Lattimore’s talents. The Commanders also received a 2025 fifth-round pick from the Saints.
By far the dumbest move that occurred at the deadline was the Cowboys’ acquisition of Carolina Panthers WR Jonathan Mingo. Beyond CeeDee Lamb, Dallas does not have any proven wide receivers, so I understand the want to get one, but giving up a fourth-round pick for Mingo, who STINKS, is absurd, proving that while Jerry Jones is an excellent businessman, he is a Grade-A dumb-dumb of a general manager. For comparison’s sake, WR DeAndre Hopkins went to the Chiefs for a fifth-round pick, WR Mike Williams went to the Steelers for a fifth-round pick, and WR Diontae Johnson went to the Ravens for a fifth-round pick.
Mingo was behind Xavier Legette and Jalen Coker, an undrafted free agent, on the depth chart and produced one catch over the last four games (12 receptions for the season!). Sure, Mingo is only in his second season and is relatively cheap, but he had the “second-lowest receiving DYAR (Defense-adjusted Yards Above Replacement) in a season EVER” in 2023, according to Aaron Schatz.
How ‘bout dem Cowboys?!
🤓 BATH TIME READING 🤓
A new copyright rule lets McDonald's fix its own broken ice cream machines
What a day it is! Individual McDonald’s stores were usually never able to fix their own ice cream machines because such repairs had to be done by the manufacturer. The “Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which protects the code embedded in the ice cream machines, made it illegal for third parties, like McDonald’s employees and franchisee owners, to break the digital locks installed by manufacturers.”
Looks like that’s now a thing of the past. An exemption to Section 1201 went into effect on Monday that “allows outside vendors to fix ‘retail-level commercial food preparation equipment.’” The FTC and DOJ antitrust division filed a comment with the US Copyright Office in March 2024 and presumably told the the Copyright Office to get their sh*t together because McDonald’s shtick of telling customers, “sorry, no ice cream for you; our machines are down” was getting tiresome for hard-working Americans.
So if I go to a McDonald’s and they say the ice cream machine is down, I will tell them they are lazy pieces — actually, you know what, I won’t write what I was going to write because there needs to be more peace and love in this world.
If you chuckled and/or enjoyed it, make sure to forward it to others and/or share it on social. Any corrections, omissions, suggestions, etc., send 'em my way. Much love. -Tubz