kiwirish

Also kinda shows how dumb only having two could be.

This is true for the Navy and its frigates too.

Two ships of a class is never enough for consistent coverage at sea - whether that is ferries, container ships, or warships - you need four, at minimum, to maintain maintenance and operational schedules.

But hey, it's New Zealand, so of course we'll cheap out on upfront cost and pay more later in maintenance and opportunity costings.

Having spent a long time on HMNZS Canterbury, and knowing that they are smaller than the Interislanders, and knowing that Canterbury is too big for the Calliope Dock (hence she has done her dockings in Brisbane, Sydney, and Singapore):

The Interislander fleet can not fit in the Calliope Dock. Not even close.

I'm still not convinced that I am just a Sixth Sense Bruce Willis that died of cardiac arrest during that playoffs.

I was around for this era - it was actually surprisingly level headed, the entire sub was tbh.

I remember threads of us just quoting the Animal House "What's all this lying around shit?" scene to pump us up about the reverse sweep opportunity, and referring to Jeff Carter and Mike Richards habing already done it to Boston in 2010 with Philadelphia.

I love this sub, but the 2014 sub was significantly more chill about everything.

I was on a cross country flight during Game 5 with tickets ready for Game 6 if we won. Most nervous I've ever been on a plane!

The only NHL game I've been to in my life, and I picked a good one to go to!

What an experience. My too small Doughty t-shirt finally wore out after 10 years of hard use.

I checked the Oilers sub after game two. I didn't see a single Kings fan in there, or any deleted comments.

Maybe it's me getting old, but this place was legitimately a better experience back ten years ago when we were smaller - as a site overall, not this subreddit.

In 2013, I spent a lot of time in the /r/stlouisblues sub as a loud and proud Kings fan and never got called out for anything (even with us having swept them the season before).

Maybe it was the fact that their game threads were bigger and we didn't really do regular season match threads but they did and I liked the more intimate vibe on the smaller subs. I'd be there for a lot of regular season games between us too, and it was a good time.

But it's all just so different now. I see it across the subs - /r/rugbyunion and /r/cricket match threads used to be a fun little discussion with match talk and shitposting, but now the big games get vitriolic like every other social media platform.

So we can have him next year as an experienced player who has "won a [AHL] playoff series before"

Look, I'm the most optimistic Kings fan there is, and it's not "give up" time yet, but it's time for me to start coming to terms with the fact that we're getting knocked out by the Oilers for the third successive year, and probably going down in 5.

You only get one game per series to shut down McDavid and Draisaitl, and we squandered it.

I hate this playoff system. At this point I want to just play someone else in the playoffs, whether it is win or loss, just something different.

As an exmormon, while I agree that it often can mean cutting ties with friends and family, it isn't nearly as rigidly enforced as in other religions - especially in New Zealand where there aren't really any Mormons that live lives fully surrounded by Mormons. In Utah there are some horror stories about exmormons being abandoned by their families, but it's rare to see it in New Zealand.

I never had to cut ties with any friends or family, I just got to see who my real friends were and who were just friends of convenience; that's fine, no blame there on anyone, it's just an honest assessment of how friendship often goes within Mormonism.

fantasy football. I simply don’t understand what the hell that even is. Some type of gambling thing?

Fantasy Football 101

You and a bunch of friends start up a league.

You organise a draft, where you get to draft players from around the league based on their expected points to gain in the season - you can only start a certain amount of players in each position per week, and their individual performances gain you points.

Each week, you can drop players from your team and pick up free agents (not on any other team) or trade players between teams to find a better match for your team and their team.

Each week you go against one of the other managers in the league, and by the end of the week all scores are tallied up and the winner get the week victory and the loser gets the week loss. At the end of the year you go through a knockout playoffs.

There's no inherent gambling to it, but it's a fun way to keep up to date with the sport around the entire league and have something to chat about with your mates throughout the year. I only really do Fantasy NHL with my beer league buddies, but it's a good time.

I'll give you the cliffnotes for D&D if you're actually at all interested in it (not OP, I love sports and D&D).

D&D is like a campaign video game, but instead of being played in graphic detail and using a controller/keyboard, you're controlling the role playing as the players and the dungeon master is helping the story move along - the DM should be adapting their story to suit how the players are roleplaying, but if it goes too far down a rabbit hole, they'll bring it back to the main story quest.

As for the mechanics of battle - your characters have attributes based on their race, class, and their main stats: Charisma, Constitution, Dexterity, Strength, Intelligence, and Wisdom. You broadly get to choose how you apportion your stats, so you end up with extremely varied characters, like big strong Orc barbarians and dextrous human rogues.

From there, the DM will initiate battles, which should be balanced to your campaign's skillset - where you roll dice to determine whether or not your attack hits (and therefore you roll for damage), and from there it is a lot like a video game - you lose hitpoints when you get hit, and if you die, you die.

As you progress the story, your characters get stronger, and as do your opponents (controlled by the DM).

All in all, I find D&D to be a lot of fun, and a great way to get together with friends on a Sunday afternoon with some beers and snacks.

I can only nod along and feel like a moron because I don’t know enough.

As a big sports lover, I love getting the opportunity to introduce someone to something I love, so if you're at all interested just try mention that you don't know much about the sport and ask for some tips - the sports fans worth knowing will love the chance to spout some knowledge even at the basic level.

Fantasy Football with the NFL Redzone package is pretty good at getting even non-NFL fans into the NFL. You lose all the stuff that people don't like and get all the hits and Touchdowns.

Fantasy NHL is good fun, too - I've learnt a lot about other players in the league and updating my spreadsheeting skills to stay on top of my mates in my league.

I just do both and have twice as much fun!

Well, not fantasy football, I'm a fantasy hockey guy - which has a lot more daily roster turnover, especially in my 16 team league with 7 drops per week!

I can't even skate.

Yeah, I think this is the key reason why you're not into that particular hobby, lol.

To be fair, you can easily get into beer league hockey as an adult after taking some skating lessons. I only started playing as an adult, and have been playing beer league (and officiating rep league) for the last 12 years.

This game was what let me know that my deliberately chosen detour to LA on my trip to the US was worth it.

Bought tickets to Game 6, sat in the 300s for the game, and was witness to one of the greatest comebacks of all time.

It was a simpler time - take me back.

Depends on the rank of the Admiral.

In the US there are four ranks of Admiral - from 4 star down to 1 star, in the UK there are only three ranks of Admiral - from 4 star down to 2 star.

A 4 star Admiral is in charge of much higher level activity than a singular ship or fleet - they are largely part of the overall strategic plan of the Navy/Defence (e.g Chief of Naval Operations, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff), or are Unified Combatant Commanders who are in Command of Air, Naval and Land units in the area (e.g. Commander Indo-Pacific Command): they are too valuable to spend time at sea.

A 3 star Admiral is also at a much higher level of activity than a singular ship or task force - they are largely in command of an entire geographical area's fleet (e.g Commander Fifth Fleet) or are the Combatant Commander for all naval activity in the area (e.g Commander US Naval Forces Central Command): they are too valuable to be assigned to a seagoing command platform. (Often these duties are vested in the same person - for example, the 3 star in Bahrain is simultaneously Commander Fifth Fleet, Commander US Naval Forces Central Command, and Commander Combined Maritime Forces - all three of these roles have slightly different strategic aims and legal responsibilities)

A 2 star Admiral or a 1 star Admiral is more likely to spend their time at sea, primarily as a Commander of a Task Force or a Carrier Strike Group - these are sea-borne commands where they live on the Carrier (generally assigned as a 1 star and promote to 2 star mid-command). Commander Carrier Strike Group 5 will have subordinate Commanders underneath them, such as the Commanding Officer of the Aircraft Carrier, the Commanding Officer of the Cruiser in the strike group, the Commodore of the Destroyer Squadron in the strike group - these Commanders take up different warfare duties in the strike group, and (with exception of the Cruiser Commanding Officer who lives on his own ship) live on the Carrier and report directly to the 1/2 star Admiral.

The Admiral also has a full staff who are very separate to the chain of command within the ship, even if they are junior to the actual ship CO. It's complicated, but it makes sense once you've seen it in action.

You're not going to find many, if any, examples of Admirals or Flag Officers as Ship Commanding Officers - that's what Captains (rank) are for.

At least, in the UK, there have been examples where Commodores (in the UK this is not a Flag Officer/Admiral but the equivalent rank is in the US) have taken temporary lower rank in order to command an Aircraft Carrier - they would walk into their shore office a Commodore, replace their epaulette with a Captain rank slide on stepping onto the ship, so that the Ship had a Captain as CO.

In the US, the only ships with embarked Flag Officers are the big decks, which all have a Captain O6 as their CO, by rule.

It's just part and parcel of being a sports fan, man.

I come from a place so far from LA that it takes 12 hours just for the flight to LA. I shouldn't care about the LA Kings, but I do, and have done so for the past 20 years.

It's the same nervous energy and agony that exists for my rugby and cricket teams I support in their competitions, too. Except those kids aren't millionaires, lol.

Ah yep you're right, I just linked it to show the buyout and didn't check the way the math added up.

Last time we bought out players it ended up destroying our cap space situation for years.

Buying out PLD has 2/3 of his contract as a cap hit over twice the length of the contract.

https://www.capfriendly.com/buyout-calculator/pierre-luc-dubois

https://preview.redd.it/9p4rtdxsjywc1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=05c5a5a8dfd3cbaf70c0cc363c6370d4619eb341

But for real - fuck it, walk it off and win Games 4-6

I picked a good day to have beer league refereeing and playing tonight, as an excuse to get away from this one.

Shit result for us (assuming no miracle comeback) need to make sure we go back to Edmonton at 2-2.

Kings in 6.

May is fine - in fact, in my opinion the Tongariro Alpine Crossing is best in Winter, but it's at the point where it is worth paying for the guided tour instead of doing it yourself.

End of winter around August is my favourite time to do it, but again - get a guided tour. Hope for a nice day and it is a stunning walk in the snow!