BobDylan

QUOTE(Steve9347 @ Mar 28, 2008 -> 05:32 PM) You should have clicked the link. He was making the fairly obvious joke that the White Sox haven't updated their team broadcasters page. I second that. But I'm grabbing a bucket of popcorn as this might make for some decent entertainment.

QUOTE(StrangeSox @ Mar 28, 2008 -> 12:53 PM) I HATE James Joyce. That's my only input. He's an asshole, I won't deny that.

Well, I just did a second one. Feel like I did a hell of a lot better. R1 P7 - Miguel Cabrera (3B) R2 P6 - David Ortiz (1B, UTL) R3 P7 - Victor Martinez © R4 P6 - Carlos Guillen (SS) R5 P7 - Chone Figgins (3B) R6 P6 - Justin Verlander (P) R7 P7 - Billy Wagner (CL) R8 P6 - Jermaine Dye (OF) R9 P7 - Trevor Hoffman (CL) R10 P6 - Tim Lincecum R11 P7 - Chad Cordero R12 P6 - Josh Hamilton R13 P7 - Kelvim Escobar R14 P6 - Placido Polanco R15 P7 - Jeremy Hermida R15 P6 - Joe Blanton R17 P7 - Rich Harden R18 P6 - Bengie Molina R19 P7 - Ryan Theriot R20 P6 - B.J. Ryan R21 P6 - Lastings Milledge R22 P6 - Erick Aybar EDIT: s***. Didn't realize Escobar was hurt.

12 team, 5x5 rules. R1 P5 - Miguel Cabrera (3B) R2 P8 -Mark Teixeira (1B) R3 P5 - Victor Martinez © R4 P8 - Carlos Guillen (SS) R5 P5 - Chone Figgins (2B) R6 P8 - Nick Swisher (OF) R7 P5 - Hideki Matsui (OF) R8 P8 - Javier Vazquez (P) R9 P5 - Tim Linecum (P) R10 P8 - Chad Cordero (CL) R11 P5 - John Lackey (P) R12 P8 - Josh Hamilton (OF) R13 P5 - Placido Polanco (2B, UTL) R14 P8 - Jeremy Hermida (OF) R15 P5 - Joe Borowski (CL) --- Feel this one was a mistake R16 P8 - Joe Blanton (SP) R17 P5 - Todd Jones (CL) R18 P8 - Bengie Molina © R19 P5 - Ryan Theriot (MI) R20 P8 - Kevin Kouzmanoff (3B) R21 P5 - Erick Aybar (2B) Outfield players went faster than I anticipated. I have a pretty good feeling about Hamilton. Feel like I jumped too early on Swisher but I was starting to panic when the OFer's were selling out fast. I probably could have nabbed a better starter or closer if I waited a round or two on Swish.

QUOTE(SoxFan562004 @ Mar 24, 2008 -> 11:21 AM) I think you should write, write, and then write some more... Now, to the more practical issue of how you will pay your bills, eat etc... that depends. If you need to get a decent paying job right off the bat, look around in bigger companies, ie insurance or bigger law firms. You can probably find a receptionist job or something in the mail room, that will be a steady check with possible health insurance and the like. You can also wait tables, that would help you meet a lot of interesting people to add fuel to your creative fire. Things like working at a bookstore or a movie theater cna give you more schedule flexability. Travel if you can. Do Europe on the cheap. Overall just have fun. I have a "career", but don't have a ton of bills or a family I'm responsible for so i take advantage of that. From September of last year until August of this year I will have gone to Vegas x3, Hawaii, Ireland and Portland, with weekend trips to my friends places on lakes mixed in. Enjoy yourself and don't spend a lot of time sweating the small stuff. Traveling is an option. But I've always been terribly uncomfortable in foreign places (and I don't just mean outside of the U.S.) But I'm considering the option.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Mar 24, 2008 -> 03:17 PM) Shakespeare wrote plays for a mostly illiterate population, so they are accessible to most High School students. I'd actually say being understood by that level, and enjoyed by adults, takes a great writer. Twain is on many critics list as the best American writer. His short stories are amazing, and he was the first American author of note to actually write using American regional dialects. Yes, high school kids can read Sawyer or Finn and enjoy a tale of kids playing on the river. Adults can read those same books and see the bigger tale of social justice, racial equality, and human frailties. I also tend to include poetry and short stories into the mix. In a kind of cruel paradox, having that "one pinnacle work" sometimes makes the rest of your work seem of lesser caliber. Most of these writers, on their worst day, produced works many times better then their contemporaries best days. But where we really differ is where to draw the line on great. Out of the tens of thousands of American authors, I'm comfortable calling the top 50 or so great. I think it is also appropriate to factor in their influences on others. Can we also tell I come from a program at a traditionally Hispanic University where non traditional works, especially by minorities is celebrated? I'm just not all that fascinated by dead white guys and their works. I actually hate Shakespeare. I can't stand his books(plays). But his influence to literature is unparalleled. The thing about the writers I call great, they have more than one great work. Shakespeare has several. Homer has two (The Iliad, The Odyssey). Joyce has three (Dubliners, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses). Nabokov has two (Lolita, Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle). There are so many great books that I can't give the title to every author that has written a great book.

QUOTE(retro1983hat @ Oct 11, 2007 -> 01:34 PM) Date -- Opponent May 16 at San Francisco May 17 at San Francisco May 18 at San Francisco Wtf?

QUOTE(iamshack @ Mar 23, 2008 -> 10:02 PM) Honestly, once in a while I'll start going and a rogue stream will break away off to the side from the main stream. The other week I was in the bathroom in a bar, and I was at a urinal, and there was a guy dropping a deuce in a stall right next to me, and I literally pissed right on his shoe.... I've never reeled it back in almost in midstream like I did that time... I don't know if he didn't know it happened or if he just didn't know who did it to him.

Mar 17 Brian McTaggert, of the Houston Chronicle, reports Houston Astros 2B Kazuo Matsui (anus) is likely to begin the season on the disabled list.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Mar 23, 2008 -> 10:27 PM) For the sake of argument, I will not challenge your statement about them carrying the jock. You picked writers who I agree are great. I just believe there is much more room on that list. Basically you nailed a list of conventional, dead white guys in US literature. Even in that vein I would have added Twain Thoreau London James Whitman Poe Frost Cummings Eliot And certainly we have produced some great women writers Wharton Stein Chopin Alcott And minorities Frederick Douglas Rolando Hinojosa-Smith Du Bois William Carlos Williams Langston Hughes I'd also give consideration to Capote and Sinclair. Same goes for most of the writers you've listed. One great work followed by minor works. Sinclair's "masterpiece" (which I don't think it is) is The Jungle. It's a good book, if not average. I don't know if I'd put Poe and Frost on that list. Poe was a terrible poet if I can say so without having read much poetry. He was also a short story writer, not a novelist. Frost, I mean, just too hokey to be taken seriously. Twain, gotta respect Huck Finn. Most people probably don't know who Jack London is outside of The Call of the Wild. I've always hated that book but I understand the appeal. I don't know, it just feels like the list you've compiled is the high-school catalogue.

QUOTE(Steve9347 @ Mar 23, 2008 -> 11:20 PM) I've seen your website, do you really need a degree to tell you you can write? Thanks for the compliment (I think that's what you were saying?) I need the degree to get a job, I think.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Mar 23, 2008 -> 07:05 PM) Kerouac not a great American writer? Would he be in your top 10,000? 1,000? 100? I'm guessing that Ginsberg, Burroughs, and the rest of that group is also not on your list of great American writers? (All of what I'm about to write is subjective.) Ginsberg is a good writer, I won't deny him that. Though, I'm not a fan. Same goes for Burroughs. I think the term (phrase?) "great American writer" is overused. The word "great" is strong. Off the top of my head, I can only think of four writers that I'd give a free pass into "great" status: Shakespeare, Homer, Nabokov, Joyce. Most of the "great American writers" have one great book and then a few, if not several good or average books. (I'm not counting poets because I don't follow/read poetry.) Hemingway: The Sun Also Rises Salinger: The Catcher in the Rye (though I love Franny and Zooey) Faulker: As I Lay Dying (and possibly The Sound and the Fury) (Actually, Faulkner is a good f***ing writer. A lot of good, if not great books. He might be the sole writer from America I'd call great--(if we discount Nabokov for being, well, Russian). But, I won't argue against people who won't.) Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby Hawthorne: The Scarlet Letter Melville: Moby Dick Stephen King: Carrie, The Shining, Dark Tower Series, The Stand, It, Cujo etc. I also don't think Ginsberg, Kerouac, or Burroughs can carry the jock-strap of any of the writers I mentioned in the list above. ('Cept King.) But hey, to each his own. If you'd like to keep the discussion going or if anyone else wants to chime in, I'm game.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Mar 23, 2008 -> 06:22 PM) Of course King as made a lot more money than Kerouac ever did. It all depends on your yardstick. Yeah, but anyone with the ability to read can make sense of "On Writing." I'm sure even Ginsberg struggled to make sense of Kerouac's list. I believe in Bukowski's rule, if anything. "Don't try." And King doesn't tell people how to write. He doesn't offer the "forumla" to big commercial success. At points he even admits that he doubted his "talent", his know-how, to write the book. Didn't think of himself as a great American writer. And he's not. And neither is Kerouac, for that matter. King basically says to write your ass off, read your ass off and he gives a few pointers on writing style. Example, don't write in the passive voice. All I'm saying is Kerouac's list is more philosophy than anything. And it doesn't help me get a job.

QUOTE(Greg The Bull Luzinski @ Mar 23, 2008 -> 04:42 PM) I could see WSI members letting the air out of tire of cars with Soxtalk bumperstickers. Only one way to settle the war. Dance fight. West Side Story style. Let's start nominating our team now.

Does anyone know how much having published works helps in a job search of this sort? I know how it relates to getting an agent and getting your foot in the door with publishing groups taking a look at your own work... but how much do employers take into consideration a writer's publishing record (when they're not looking to publish work, but rather give work)? Are my published works worth putting on my resume?

QUOTE(Jenksismyb**** @ Mar 23, 2008 -> 01:33 PM) Have you thought about grad school? I think if you lack meaningful experience and/or connections in the field be prepared to be on the job search for a while. Getting your masters or phd will afford you another few years to get internships, jobs, etc. The most underutilized resource for jobs, imo, are professors. Get in the good graces with one you like, and they'll open up lots of opportunities as they normally have pretty good rolodexes. Also, just so you know, the editor/publisher field is insanely competitive, at least here in Chicago. My GF is in that now, and she's the perfect 4.0 gpa, top 5 school, never paid for anything in college/grad school (tuition wise) types. Grad school is probably the one thing I've crossed off my list. I absolutely hate school. Your girlfriend is probably shooting a lot higher up the job shoot than I am. I don't want/need to be an editor/publisher for somebody like Penguin. And I don't plan to stay in Chicago. Seems like the Peace Corps is my best opportunity to be able to write.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Mar 23, 2008 -> 03:37 PM) Read Kerouac's On the Road Follow his guide, I highlighted a couple things for recent college grads 1. Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy 2. Submissive to everything, open, listening 3. Try never get drunk outside yr own house 4. Be in love with yr life 5. Something that you feel will find its own form 6. Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind 7. Blow as deep as you want to blow 8. Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind 9. The unspeakable visions of the individual 10. No time for poetry but exactly what is 11. Visionary tics shivering in the chest 12. In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you 13. Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition 14. Like Proust be an old teahead of time 15. Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog 16. The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye 17. Write in recollection and amazement for yourself 18. Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea 19. Accept loss forever 20. Believe in the holy contour of life 21. Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind 22. Dont think of words when you stop but to see picture better 23. Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning 24. No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge 25. Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it 26. Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form 27. In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness 28. Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better 29. You're a Genius all the time 30. Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven Read it and know the list. I feel "abstract" guidelines to creative writing are even less helpful than technical guidelines. I'd recommend Stephen King's "On Writing" far before I'd give that list to somebody. Plus there are a lot of existentialst writers that would/will disagree with just about everything on that list. Kafka? Dostoevsky? Camus? I don't think these people were in love with their lives. Or wrote in amazement of themselves. It is an interesting list, though.

QUOTE(kyyle23 @ Mar 23, 2008 -> 11:03 AM) I suggest hardcore porn. If that doesnt work, you can always be a pimp In all seriousness, what kind of job are you considering to pay the bills until your novels start flying off the bookshelves? writing for a paper? advertising? something completely different so you arent burnt out on writing all the time? I've considered manual labor so as not to burn myself out writing. I really do not want to work behind a desk, but with my skills, that is my best option. I'm well educated in web design/building (however, only one web page to show for it) and have writing skills. I wouldn't mind writing speeches, but I'm not exactly thrilled about that idea. What I want to do most (if I can even say that with a straight face), probably, is go into editing. I've been a part of the editing for process for one book that is due out on shelves shortly. However, when I saw the professional go at it and saw what kind of input she had, I was, well, not exactly in her league. I more or less helped the author build ideas, flesh chapters out and omit needless portions. The professional was well schooled in grammar (I am not, hence the "creative" path I took) and worked almost soley on making sure the book made grammatical sense. It was a business book (and deathly boring to read), so I wonder, perhaps, that editors work differently when working with creative writing. I've considered journalism. I apologize to all the journalists out there before I even write this, but I've always stayed away from the field and gaining experience in it because I don't think it takes much of a writer to write journalism. Although, it does require skills I do not have. (Interviewing, people skills--I am terribly uncomfortable around peole I don't know, and, well, frankly, I don't think I have it in me to write an article every day or even just a few times a week.) There are probably journalism fields that don't require the people skills. In all honesty, I don't care what I end up working in. I know I'll hate it because I'm not the 9-5 type of person. I hated school even though I was doing something I enjoyed. I'm not even totally concerned with salary. I don't need $100,000/year (but I'm not against it!). Even just $20,000 a year is sufficient enough with my lifestyle--as long as I have health benefits to go along. I've thought about hardcore porn, too. Trust me. Helped a guy write a screenplay once. It was just... weird.

I want to write books, but I need something to pay the bills in the meantime. The appeal of Toronto is the cold weather and city. I know I can get that here in Chicago, but I'm tired of Chicago and it's retarded expensive to live here.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 22, 2008 -> 05:53 PM) I disagree - I thought the book was better. But the movie was indeed well done. Movies better than the book? --The Hunt for Red October --LOTR - all 3 Nothing else comes to mind at the moment, but I'll give it some more thought. Didn't read The Hunt for Red October. Disagree about Lord of the Rings. As far as No Country for Old Men, I thought the Coen brothers tightened up some of McCarthy's dialogue, rid some essentially meaningless scenes (the movie was astoundingly tight), and upped the suspense. If you remember the scene with Chigurh and Wells in the hotel room, the Coen's were able to take about 12-15 lines of McCarthy's dialogue and put it down into one--"ATM?" Overall, I just thought McCarthy didn't tighten his story enough. Parts felt loose and careless. I thought the Coen's fixed that for him. The only superiority I feel the book had over the film was letting the reader/audience know that it was the Sheriff's story, not Moss' or Chigurh's.

I'm set to graduate in a few months. Creative writing degree. I'd like to move to Toronto, but I don't think it's smart to limit my locations when I need a damn job that'll take care of me. I have no references, pretty much no job experience in any writing field. I have a portfolio (short stories, etc.) No start on a novel. Help me before I s*** my pants.

QUOTE(Heads22 @ Mar 21, 2008 -> 09:54 PM) Anyone else here not a big fan of urinals that go all the way to the floor? Those are dangerous. And you bring up a good point. My aiming strategy definitley depends on the type of urinal. Generally though, I aim wherever I feel I'll get the least splashback.

QUOTE(santo=dorf @ Mar 22, 2008 -> 01:15 PM) Oh hush. You think every movie sucks. I did like No Country for Old Men! And for the challenge I sent this board earlier (5 movies better than the book) that I never checked up on... The movie was better than the book in the case of No Country.

QUOTE(santo=dorf @ Mar 21, 2008 -> 11:40 PM) Only everyone in the movie industry disagrees with you. I never thought I'd see these two movies in the same statement. I'll fix the statement. American Gangster and Good Luck Chuck were both bad movies.

I'm surprised by Cabrera's rating, but it's nothing to lose sleep over. If the White Sox start Uribe at 2B and Anderson in CF, that's some pretty solid leather up the middle of the field. I don't think you can ask for anything better than that in terms of defense. Now if Contreras rebounds and the bullpen can hold a lead with consistency, I'm feeling pretty good about the Sox. Defense, baby.