Senior time... That's starting to get a little too close to happening!!

Apparently cloth masks are not very effective against the Omicron variant so disposable, surgical masks or N95 or KN95 masks are recommended:

As the highly contagious Omicron coronavirus variant continues to spread, some experts say it's past time to reconsider your face mask options -- especially if you're still wearing the cloth variety.

"Cloth masks are little more than facial decorations. There's no place for them in light of Omicron," said CNN Medical Analyst Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency physician and visiting professor of health policy and management at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health, on CNN Newsroom Tuesday.

"This is what scientists and public health officials have been saying for months, many months, in fact," Wen added in a separate phone interview.

"We need to be wearing at least a three-ply surgical mask," she said, which is also known as a disposable mask and can be found at most drugstores and some grocery and retail stores. "You can wear a cloth mask on top of that, but do not just wear a cloth mask alone."

Ideally, in crowded places, "you should be wearing a KN95 or N95 mask," which can be as inexpensive as a few dollars each, Wen added. By having a better fit and certain materials -- such as polypropylene fibers -- acting as both mechanical and electrostatic barriers, these masks better prevent tiny particles from getting into your nose or mouth and must be fitted to your face to function properly.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/24/health/cloth-mask-omicron-variant-wellness/index.html

Ok...I'm in for $10 bucks more. We are now funded for another year. Thanks to everyone who contributed and Merry Christmas to all!

Of course there was also the famous, or infamous for some, Murder Burger that ended up becoming Redrum Burger.

We didn’t get anything off the bench — DrMike

Milling is averaging 6.5 ppg but after him there isn't much scoring at all. We are getting some good defensive efforts from the bench when they're in to give the starters a blow but not anything significant on offense. Of course, Ade doesn't score much either so we really rely primarily on Pepper, Manjon, Fuller and Anigwe and, when a couple of them go cold, we don't have much scoring punch.

Post-game comments from Les:

“I didn’t think we came out with the right mindset,” said Aggie head coach Jim Les. “I’m disappointed in our effort. We took some bad shots and just didn’t defend well when we needed to.”

Regarding Moses Wood the 6'8 forward who has played at Reno and Tulane:

“We knew he was a great shooter, but defensively we let him get open looks and didn’t have an answer for him,” Les added.

https://www.davisenterprise.com/sports/basketball-chilling-loss-for-ucd-mens-basketball-team/

The at men's cancelled game on December 28th at UCR will not be rescheduled and will go down as a no contest for both teams.

Each year we tend to be a team that plays stout defense but struggles often with inconsistent offense. Just about all teams have hot and cold stretches in games but, generally, it doesn't continue for long stretches time. We went cold after the first few minutes of the second half today and many of our shots were missed badly...barely drawing iron and way off target. It was surprising given how well we had been playing on offense coming into this game. Let's hope it doesn't happen too often in conference.

Ags lose 66-60.

We played pretty good basketball for 25 minutes and then rather poorly for the final 15 minutes. Manjon and Fuller couldn't carry the Ags for the whole game with Pepper cold as ice and not much help offensively from anyone else.

Manjon and Fuller are keeping the Ags in the game. Pepper can't find his shot though...

Unfortunately, we'll be watching the game from home today. Too many house chores to complete before our social schedule gets very busy starting tomorrow.

I hope the Ags continue to play as well as they have here recently and bag another W. Cheer us on guys!

That's the safest thing to do.

Our son works for Google in San Francisco and they gave all of their employees some kind of Covid test machines so he can test quickly and easily whenever he feels the need even though he's been working remotely for nearly 2 years now. I'm going to have him bring it with him when he's home so we'll be able to test also. Test kits aren't easy to find at the moment and there's some price gouging going on at sites like Amazon.

No and we do realize that even boosted people can be infected and not know it but we are far less likely to be carrying the virus than someone who has not been vaccinated. We know that the vaccine is not 100% but our friends do not want to knowingly expose themselves to anyone who has not been vaccinated while being in close contact over the course of an evening.

If I were not vaccinated, I would gladly take a test in order to be with my family and friends who want to be safe and if I was not feeling well, even though I'm boosted, I would test before going to the dinner for my own peace of mind and for the safety of others. It's not political for me. It's simply responsible and considerate and our friends feel the same way.

You are correct that the safest thing possible would be for all of us to test even though we're all boosted.

I don't know, Mike. I'm not surprised though and it does make sense.

It's getting more than old and, yes, people who have had the booster have pretty good protection but there have been breakthrough cases. Generally, vaccinated people are not getting seriously ill but those with underlying health conditions are at higher risk at getting very sick. Of course, there's also those unfortunate people who end up with long haul Covid.

If we could get more people vaccinated and boosted, we'd be much better off. The problem now is that we've reached the point where most of the folks who are not vaccinated are the ones who vow never to be vaccinated even when they know that hospitals are currently packed with unvaccinated people who have Covid.

We have a good friend whose adult son refuses to get vaccinated and it's dividing their family. It isn't that he doesn't believe in science, he says he just doesn't want the government telling him what to do. We also have some dear friends that we get together with on Christmas eve for dinner each year. Our friend has a sister who is not vaccinated so she asked her to if she would take a test before coming to the dinner this year and she has refused so they told her she was not welcome this year. The crazy thing is that she retired from a health care career. Go figure! Heaven help us!

At least, at this point, the game tomorrow vs Portland is still on and the women's program will not be affected since they're on the road during the Aggie fan restriction period and the Riverside cancellations only affects the men's program.

Riverside has "paused" their men's basketball program indefinitely at this point and Long Beach has recently been cancelling games. It's going to be a weird year in the conference. I just hope this virus doesn't get going like crazy and we end up in complete shutdown again.

I think this will be a great ball game but, right now, I like MSU's chances.

Ezra's can ball fake one way and go the other as quickly as any player I can recall watching. I don't think he's quite as acrobatic as TJ Shorts at being able to finish with big defenders all over him but he may be a fraction quicker. His ball fake and spin to the other way is almost unbelievable...lightening quick. And, like you say, OBA, now that he's hitting those mid and long range jumpers...wow...tough match up for any defender!

Great recognition for Ezra. As good as he is now, can you imagine what's yet to come?