New Jersey Diligent: Fill & Download for Free

For me?The entire debacle of Donald Trump owning the New Jersey Generals of the now-defunct USFL professional football association, and his handling of the anti-trust lawsuit that doomed the league.Here's what happened in a nutshell: Donald Trump wanted to get into football team ownership by purchasing the then-failing Baltimore Colts. The NFL did its due diligence and decided not to allow him to do that (plus he couldn't raise the money needed) so instead he bought a controlling interest in the Generals.After a bunch of hoopla and braggadocio, Trump proceeded to run the Generals into the ground, lure in a number of gullible investors with promises of building a new stadium in New York City itself, and convinced the other owners of USFL franchises to enter into an antitrust lawsuit against the National Football League.What were the results?The New Jersey Generals fell apart under Trump's ownership.The investors got the shaft as Trump never built a stadium in New York, nor anywhere else.The USFL declined several lucrative settlement agreements in favor of winning a judgment against the NFL. The “ victory”, pressed for by Trump himself, netted the a grand total of $3 USD (Yes, you read that right) and the league collapsed following its “win”.I followed the entire matter at time, reading whatever I could find and watching many news broadcasts and business stories as possible. Basically although I didn't know much about professional sports financials, I did sense that Trump was more talk than action. I “predicted” to anyone who would listen that he was going to fail and I was correct.That was 1986.Fast forward to late 2015: When it became clear that Donald Trump was pulling ahead of the entire clown car that was the GOP's field of candidates, I pointed out to people how badly he had done with the USFL which essentially had been a cake walk. Not many of them listened, and here we all are.In 1986, nearly 34 years ago, I thought that Donald Trump was incompetent, and his actions since that time (the airline, the casinos, Trump University,etc.) have done nothing but bolster my opinions on the matter.References:The day Donald Trump's narcissism killed the USFLThe NFL Fought Donald Trump's Bullying 30 Years Ago and Won. Should It Do It Again?

Actually, three, maybe four encounters with Mafia in the U.S. I’ll recount one of them.I had just assumed the position of CEO for an engine manufacturer, a John Deere spin-off. The company was in financial trouble and I was diligently trying to cut fixed expenses. One of those was for a huge garbage disposal bin the size of an eighteen-wheeler truck. We did not need that capacity so I tried to sell it to a commercial equipment broker.One of my engineers saw that it was for sale and paid me a visit. His message: “The mafia has that garbage contract. If you see a guy the size of a refrigerator with no neck coming down the corridor, run!”My office had a video surveillance camera and yes, here comes that guy. Huge, unsmiling, with a jacket bearing the logo of the disposal company. He stood in my secretaries cubicle, taking up most of the space, and yelled, “That garbage unit belongs to us!”My secretary, a sweet, white-haired lady with guts, just smiled at him and got him to sit down. I told him I was new at the company, but I would look up the invoice and check whether we actually purchased it or just rented it. I went to the accounting archives and looked u the company on a Google search. This was New Jersey. By rumor, at least, the Mafia owns the garbage industry in New Jersey.I also found the asset tags, purchase order and payment for the container. I brought them to Mr. Refrigerator and went through them. Politely. I was probably half his body mass.He studied them like he understood. It took some time. He then apologized and asked if we could please continue the disposal contract on whatever new container we got.We shook hands. It was like putting my hand into a catcher’s mitt.We did continue the contract at a fair price.Of the other incidents I had with Mafia, only one turned dangerous. I had to hire body guards. I’d rather not tell that story.

Was Twice's New Jersey concert a success?Thank you for the A2A.So, thanks to a diligent YouTuber who uploaded the whole concert, I was able to watch it, sans all the extraneous stuff.I found his channel as he was uploading video #2 and was watching faster than he could post. There are 6 videos, each just under 30 minutes. Some points:Cool, elaborate intro and intermission videos that didn't really do anything but showcase how good-looking they all are. Twice visuals are off the charts.Long opening act with several songs. Great start.The house was packed. It was a great turnout. Another poster said it wasn't sold out, but it looked close.The crowd was jazzed.Video poster zoomed in and out at good times, showing the massive screens with Twice personal cameras and going back in to center on the girls. Good job, I didn't feel as it I missed anything.Many costume changes. Thankfully I didn't have to put up with the in-between waits. At one point they dressed in all white gowns to sing slow songs.Lots of fan interactions that allowed them to rest and talk and play. But that's normal. Still, cute as always.They broke into units to cover some songs. Momo and Jihyo worked an intricate dance routine that just reeked of something Momo and Mina would do instead. Momo was incredible as usual and Jihyo did well keeping up. If this was originally for Mina, props to Jihyo for learning this damn thing. She did well but come on…anybody would pale dancing next to Momo. Even Mina.Lots of love throughout the whole thing. Contrary to what a recent reviewer wrote, the entire team seemed to love being there. They danced their hearts out and had a blast.Some criticisms.I didn't like their covers. I respect them for trying, but “Born This Way" didn't really fly. And I just flat out hate their “I Want You Back" cover in general.They used a translator, as usual, to communicate. Again, beating the dead horse here, but I still say the team spent too much time learning what little Japanese they know when already having 3 Japanese members. They should've been learning English. At least 3Mix anyway. But there was a sequence near the end when they all (except Jeongyeon for some reason) spoke a little English to the crowd and it was epic cute.The lip synching was overdone and obvious for everybody but 3Mix. 3Mix were all noticeably powering through the songs, but never bad or off key. The others gave no signs of different inflections or fatigue whatsoever. They had recordings. Now…as a sound engineer, I've mixed doctored singing and natural. In some huge venues, depending on technical stuff, you simply must lip sync to have it sound good. But at a location like the Prudential Center, you don't have those exceptions. No real technical reason why they'd have so much lip synching, especiallywhen 3Mix didn't use any. Here are my thoughts:A. They used their method prepared for every venue just in case there were issues. A safety net.B. There wasn't any faith in the sub vocalists being able to handle the strong dances and also sing. There was no lip synching during the slow songs.So! As I sadly didn't get to see it at the PC (I'm from NJ. If I'd had the opportunity, I'd have loved to visit home for this), but I still feel I had a good secondary experience. From my POV and the crowds' and the evident near sell-out of the show, yes, I'd say this was quite the success.Thanks for reading.