Jake

QUOTE (Joxer_Daly @ Jan 8, 2013 -> 03:56 PM) Interesting stuff, though, all the same; the evolution of aspects of the game. What would the feeling on here be - does more homers equate to a more interesting spectacle? I find myself attracted to the idea of the focus being on skill and strategy. Maybe that's just because I'm reading about the victorious Hitless Wonders of 1906 at the moment. Generally speaking, it seems that the average baseball fan is brought in by the big boppers. Folks don't necessarily like blowouts or what would be the equivalent of two American football teams running up the scores on each other, but the more home runs the merrier. During the steroid era when home run records were being routinely threatened, baseball was getting much more scrutiny and interest from people that don't necessarily consider baseball an important sport to follow than it does now (at least IMO). A common critique of the sport from people that are not fans or not big fans is that "nothing happens." It moves slow, scoring is often not frequent, etc. Nothing breaks up that inaction better than a home run. In general, folks don't appreciate a well pitched at bat or even a strikeout unless they actually like baseball unconditionally. You can see how soccer isn't big in the USA -- it has the two things Americans don't like: very low scoring and ties. Hockey only barely survives because people like big hits and fights.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jan 8, 2013 -> 12:20 PM) What are the odds smokey the bear is between us and an explosion of camp fires. What about we encourage states to have 1 quarter of phys ed cover outdoor education. Seems worthwhile. That would cost significantly more than the proposed cut costs. May improve efficacy, but not efficiency. You're looking at many teacher hires, supply purchases, curriculum research, etc. On the note of cost cutting that refuses to happen, the defense budget summed up in charts. After seeing that, you may realize that we don't have a spending problem, we have a military spending problem.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 8, 2013 -> 04:20 PM) Slate links to RAINN's data, but I have no idea what data Enliven was using. http://theenlivenproject.com/the-challenge-of-data/

QUOTE (Joxer_Daly @ Jan 8, 2013 -> 01:49 AM) That's a very cool thing to find out. Also, he and the rest of that part of my family hail from Cappamore, Ireland! Apparently that is in the general vicinity of Limerick, though it appears to be a really small and rather isolated community from Google Maps.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 7, 2013 -> 07:12 PM) It's the most under-reported serious crime As I've gotten close to many women through friendship, dating, work, etc...it is astonishing how many have been victims of some sort of sexual assault. I can think of three girls within my circle of friends that lost their virginity via rape. None of them made attempts to bring their rapists to justice. One of them doesn't have a clue who the perpetrators were. Even the assaults that aren't like the horror film depictions are often life shaping events.

QUOTE (Harry Chappas @ Jan 8, 2013 -> 08:58 AM) RGIII has a short self life no matter what, Cousins and Shanny may work pretty well with one another. If so, that's a hell of a draft.

Just found out that my great-great uncle, Clarence (Billy, Clare) Finucane played with the White Sox during their ST in Pasadena in 1938. He also played for a few minor league affiliates. We have some pictures at home of him wearing the big league club's uni and stuff at home. Real cool and I can't believe I didn't know it, proud to be a Sox fan

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 7, 2013 -> 03:48 PM) Someone really overplayed their hand... Bob Klapisch ‏@BobKlap Told Scott Boras asked #Yankees last month if they'd consider taking Rafael Soriano back on a 1-yr deal. Request flatly denied. Only Scott Boras can make teams ask for more years

QUOTE (pittshoganerkoff @ Jan 7, 2013 -> 09:03 AM) I recently bought a new Smart TV with apps like Netflix and Amazon Instant Video built in. So, after signing up for the free month of Prime and Netflix I've been watching movies that I just never rented. Limitless was pretty enjoyable. I never had a desire to see it, but I was pleasantly surprised. I also watched a half-decent horror movie called The Pact. Oh, and I had re-watch Piranha (the one with Elizabeth Shue and Jerry O-Connell...not the horrible sequel 3DD). That movie is awesome. I enjoyed Limitless as well. I work for a dietary supplement company and our focus/memory enhancement products got a ton more interest. For about a year, that general category of product in the industry exploded. We're now discontinuing some of ours because of how precipitously that interest fell when people found out that we haven't yet created NZT.

37 Congressmen voted against Sandy aid despite asking for relief in their own states/districts

Sounds like he's probably not having issues, but they have to be tempted to have both Q and Santiago on the Opening Day roster. You can play it safe with John while figuring out who your fifth starter is by having a 2-4 start tryout. This is assuming we don't move Gavin.

Wow.

QUOTE (Reddy @ Jan 4, 2013 -> 10:56 PM) Haha no argument would be had. I'm mostly doing this to see if it heals my reflux issues that have been killing my acting career. right now I'm just using NOW Pea Protein and shakeology Shakeology tastes good. Pea Protein tastes awful. Yeah, pea is notoriously difficult to flavor...though most plant based things are. The texture of plant-based proteins tends to be just...off.

QUOTE (Reddy @ Jan 4, 2013 -> 10:06 PM) i must be slow. but i no get it. lots of vegan athletes though. I'll avoid the argument and instead let you know that the company I work for sells a vegan protein powder . It is rather delicious and price effective when compared to its competition. PM me if you're interested.

QUOTE (Reddy @ Jan 4, 2013 -> 08:02 PM) awesome dude! I think I'm gonna be going vegan. I'm gonna use whatever crap I still have, but next time I'm shopping - it's alllllllll veggie I'm gonna try it for like... 2 months... or something like that... and see how I feel. Placebo vs. The Malnourished Athlete Who shall win?

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jan 4, 2013 -> 09:41 PM) Depends on your carrier. The Note 2 is a big phone, but if you love big screens, that's the phone to get. S3 is a great phone as well, I really like the feel of it in the hand. But you should probably hold off. New flagship phones will be here in 2-3 months. Interesting. I'm not in a hurry, probably going to wait until my iPhone 4 bites the dust.

Thinking about making my next phone an Android. I like the app cross compatibility with my tablet and I really love widgets. Thinking about Samsung S3 or Note 2. Unsure of size and price of the Note obviously. What other things should I consider? Other phones I should bring into the mix?

Beatty ranked 11th this year, very good. Last year - 35th, above average. 2010 DNP 2009 middle of the road.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jan 4, 2013 -> 08:29 PM) It's like hey, we finally have a stats-oriented GM! I'm probably gonna pay for the site next year to use it for fantasy football. Yeah I see they have a Fantasy Package, I'm not sure how it differs from what I purchased beyond the fact that it is different.

Jake Long rated exactly in the middle of the pack among tackles, just one spot ahead of J'Marcus Webb. Every other year they've done these statistics though, he's been absolutely awesome and number 2 more than once. A downward trend, though. Ryan Clady is in the top 4, though. He was rated as terrible last year and good to very good every other year.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jan 4, 2013 -> 08:20 PM) Carimi better have been playing on one leg, because that is inexcusable. Rated as 7th worst T in football among all of those that played in at least 25% of their team's snaps. 3rd worst in pass blocking. Kind of absurd that they rated his run blocking so positively but his pass blocking was SO bad that it undermined his positive entirely. When looking at our run game splits, we are positive when we run behind our RT (Carimi mostly), TE (they give Spaeth a very positive rating for blocking), and FB. LT was neutral, all 3 interiors very negative. This website rules and it is even more comforting to know that Emery sees this too. I'll post more interesting things as I find them for all to see. I'll take some requests too if you're curious.

QUOTE (Jake @ Jan 4, 2013 -> 07:37 PM) According to PFF (the source Emery cited in his press conference), these are the yearly pass blocking rankings for Jay Cutler's offensive lines as a Bear: 2009 21st (woo!!!) 2010 32nd (last) 2011 30th 2012 27th In 2008 as he threw for 4500 yards, his Denver line ranked 6th. This was PFF's first year of compiling proprietary statistics like these. On PFF's grading system, positive impacts are reflected in positive values and vice versa. A 0 would mean roughly average, neither a positive nor negative impact. For any statistic, +20 would be great and -20 would be just about the worst of the worst. Our linemen overall: Webb -0.8 Garza -5.6 Carimi -10.1 Louis -1.8 Rachal -12.1 Spencer -4.0 Scott -8.1 Brown -6.4 Edwin Williams -2.9 Pass Blocking: Webb +1.4 Garza +1.9 Carimi -17.4 Louis +5.7 Rachal -1.0 Spencer -9.2 Scott -7.3 Brown -2.7 Williams +1.1 Our team rating for pass blocking is -22.2, which is horrible. However, a huge portion of that negative rating is wrapped up in our right tackle, which is just crazy. You may have noticed that our blocking became less of a factor after Carimi's benching, and these stats may explain why. While things don't translate exactly from position to position (they said they are really working on this but it favors RBs a bit), Marshall led our team and was one of the highest in the league with an overall 21.3 rating.

According to PFF (the source Emery cited in his press conference), these are the yearly pass blocking rankings for Jay Cutler's offensive lines as a Bear: 2009 21st (woo!!!) 2010 32nd (last) 2011 30th 2012 27th In 2008 as he threw for 4500 yards, his Denver line ranked 6th. This was PFF's first year of compiling proprietary statistics like these.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Jan 4, 2013 -> 11:15 AM) Obama plans on creating a trillion dollar coin to pay off national debt http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/...ing-end-around/ "Obama plans" being an interesting way to put it. Nonetheless, I think it's brilliant. If the Republicans want to hold us hostage on something they should have no say in anyway, then Obama should have an equally ridiculous yet absurdly legal trump card. If they wanted to make changes to the budget, they should have negotiated over the budget. Obama was going to give them hefty spending cuts that they're now going to have to make asses of themselves to fight for.

We can't talk about Columbine, Wayne LaPierre says security was totally different back then and it was too easy to shoot up schools. Therefore, if a bomb failed at Columbine, then it would REALLY fail now.