u/TheThirdGathers

https://preview.redd.it/5651e4htzfph1.jpg?width=1923&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=316f0fe9a109e29c88bda64218a2eb27e719a98b

Now I don't know if he butchered any names like last year, when people were calling him to be put out to pasture. But I felt like he seemed to have a vitality at finals that I've not seen for a number of years. The man is 85 years old. He had one senior moment which he casually made light of to everyone's enjoyment. But it wasn't really a senior moment: the sentence he was having to say was this:
Drum Corps Fans: presented by Yokohama Tire Executive Director of Corporate Accounts, Brian Rankin. Fans, your 2026 Yokohama All Age World Class Fan Favorite: is PhaaaaaaaaaamRegiment!
For announcement of scores, it may as well have been 2006, or 1996, with the speed an accuracy with which he announced the corps and caption awards.
Last night, Crocker sounded like he will still be doing this in 2036 at the age of 95.

Though they're not quite on track yet to do it, here's some score comparisons Bluecoats 2026 to Blue Devils with 2 weeks left.
DCI Finals '26 8/8. DCI Finals '14 8/9

Blue Devils: 9 shows left from the 26th. They scored a 95.1 which is probably a record for 2 weeks before DCI
Bluecoats: 8 shows left from the 25th, assuming they all happen. Last show a 94.3, let's see if they can match BD's 95 tonight.

The "Push" theory that strong 2-4 corps will push Bluecoats over the top. Let's take the top 5 for each year.
2014 7/26 Cadets 93.7, Bluecoats 92.95 Crown 92.65, SCV 91.825. Corps tonight would want to break/tie this, for those who like that theory.
2026 7/24 BAC 92.3, BD 92.3, Crown 92.2, SCV 91.65. Close but we'll see what happens tonight and update.
2014 8/9 DCI Bluecoats 97.175, Cadets 96.875, SCV 96.075, Crown 95.675

...coats

First off, good news, the Xpedition has its Black Friday/President's Day/Lightning Deal back on the Xpedition 2.0. Best Buy had it during the Mother's Day/Memorial Day sales (which were not as good of deals) but turns out they were sold out and estimated to deliver by the 16th. Rather than add a middle-man, better to order direct.

But I did notice a few possible website mistakes, which I've passed on to them and they've said they'll pass on to the website people. (For the times I've called, I've only been passed overseas to a loud call center one time, who put me on hold 4 times to speak to her manager before telling me to just go with the website.)

One: for the crates, if you wanted to buy them for the Orbitor, they say they hold 2 26 quart crates. But when I google that, I get a square, collapsible crate with the wrong dimensions, too tall as well. Googling 24 quart crate, that seems exactly right dimensions,
Width- 19in (Orbitor is 507mm or a little over 19in)
Length- 13in (Two of these makes 26in. Orbitor is 800mm or about 32in but that's at the top, the bottom looks more like 26in.)
Height- 11in (Oribtor is 250mm or about 8in, so it looks like the picture on the website.)

The other thing, and only affects them I would think. If you add an add-on not included in the bundle on the website, such as the mirrors, it subtracts the amount of the mirrors from savings. This seems wrong, because the amount of savings from the bundle should remain the same. The amounts which should be affected by adding something should be the price (for example if adding the mirrors to an XPedition2 this would go from $1999 to $2043- this does happen correctly) as well as the price before savings (this should go from $2892 to $2936 but it doesn't, that seems wrong). The savings drops from $893 to $849 even though it should be affected as you're still getting everything in the $893 bundle- so it makes it look like you're not getting as good of a deal, if you add something.

This would be like, if you got a free apple with the purchase of the bike, but they also sold bananas. And you're like, I'd like to add a banana, and they're like OK we can do that but if you want to add a banana then we can still give you the apple but we have to take a bite out of it first.

Today, I saw that someone made a post which seemed racist. There had been a car accident in town involving a fatality and a news report about it on social media, and a person posted in comments:
"Black driver?"
I click on their profile and saw that they once marched.

Sounds like people think I should just let it go and move on.