Jake

It's the frustrating thing about Illinois...they can beat anybody.

I'll be hightailing it out of the USA if we go into a full-blown war over this.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Jan 31, 2013 -> 08:59 AM) This conference is so strange. You have teams that slow down, speed up, shoot 3's, cant shoot, and play lockdown defense. You get alot of flavors week in and week out. I love that Illinois flavor. No offense, bad shots, and a defense good enough to keep it close but bad enough to let it get blown open once the O makes a few shots.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 31, 2013 -> 10:21 AM) Poll shows a double standard on religious liberty IIRC it was a poll by the Barna Group that I posted several months ago that found that an increasing number of young people are leaving religion and that one of the biggest motivators are various churches' treatment of gays and lesbians. Living in the South and parts of the Midwest has taught me what religious freedom means. It means if the government is not advocating for your religious beliefs, then your religious freedom is being oppressed. The government might let gays get married! ...but my religion says that's bad! The government won't let my son's teacher lead him in a nice Christian prayer in my public school! f*** the Muslims and the different way they pray they should get used to feeling different!

Was never a huge fan of the Andy Griffith show, but I do find Leave it to Beaver charming after all this time. All in the Family is great. I don't know how much of any of them I'd want to watch, but watching an occasional episode or two is a nice window into the past. While it's easy to see how there were some reinforcements of dominant norms in these shows, there's also quite a bit of subversion as well.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jan 30, 2013 -> 04:19 PM) Yes he did. However, there are a lot of red flags regarding his season #1) A career high .313 average (never hit .300 prior). #2) Walked much less often (fewer than 40 times for first time since 2005) #3) Set a career high in strikeouts (133) #4) Large decline in power (fewest HR/PA since 2000) #5) Age (going to be 37 next year) So the only thing he got better in was hitting for average...somehow, I doubt that he improved himself as a hitter at the age of 36 while also striking out more. It is entirely possible that Torii Hunter hits around .250-.260 with no power and no walks. Likelier is that he regresses to about a .750 OPS, but I wouldn't expect anything more than that. A lot of his numbers screamed "luck." He certainly benefited from having two of the best hitters in baseball in front and behind....but then again, he's going to have that benefit again.

Our batters failed us down the stretch, particularly in the epic fade in the final 2 weeks. Our pitching regressed to being more average, which made the offensive horribleness feel much, much worse.

I saw the ingredients for "Pink Cream" -- among a bunch of BS, Test E! lol I wonder if someone dumb enough to put amino acids in a topical would actually know how to topically deliver Test E. I've never known anyone to take that in a topical. Who knows, this whole thing is pretty weird. The dad thing is also weird.

Sorry, I got my earlier statement backwards. The teachers must tell the parents if they believe the student is gay. At the discretion of school officials, students with potentially harmful tendencies or actions will be told on. These harmful tendencies would probably be high pitched voices in men, pants that are too tight, women with short haircuts, too many ass smacks on the basketball court, etc. Always good to help increase the amount of homeless LGBT youth

When Hillary is elected President, Benghazi will appear as a few sentences in the "Controversy" section of her Wikipedia page.

If Kep isn't getting the job done, ARod is cleared to play, and the contract is voided...sure.

Tennessee's "Don't Say Gay" bill now includes a provision that requires parents of gay children to notify the school that their child is gay. Headscratcher.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 30, 2013 -> 08:53 AM) Economy contracted by 0.1% last quarter, first time since Q2 '09. It was due to cuts in federal spending, mainly defense. http://money.cnn.com/2013/01/30/news/econo....html?hpt=hp_t1 This is why I like the Reagan method, just keep bloating the defense budget until everybody has jobs!

I've watched a fair amount of Breaking Bad, and I just can't decide what I think. It pisses me off and it frequently recycles its own plotlines. That said, Mad Men is an amazing show.

The problem is oral bioavailability. He wouldn't take a ton of the oral if he was aware of these dosing issues...he would just take HGH via injection

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 29, 2013 -> 06:37 PM) If anyone really worried about it, it would work more often. The idea is that they don't want to steal because it's there. If they do want to steal, they have to wait to see where he's going like he's a left handed pitcher.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jan 29, 2013 -> 03:35 PM) 3rd one down Those reviews are always great. The company I work for sells through bb.com. People think our protein product gives them energy. We also have 0 reviews because people didn't lose weight/gain muscle/etc.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Jan 29, 2013 -> 03:09 PM) Are you saying its proven to not do anything or thats your opinion? There's no research on human beings supportive of benefits to athletes, or really anybody. QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Jan 29, 2013 -> 03:13 PM) Do you think that this could get Melky Cabrera additional time suspended? That's a good question, I wondered the same thing. It wouldn't be fair if this was the original person he purchased from. If he lied about how he got things, though, strike him down.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Jan 29, 2013 -> 03:07 PM) So you are saying that this guy is selling Lewis a under-the-tongue spray that doesnt work? Yes. Sweet, sweet profit. The dietary supplement industry is all about what some guy or personal trainer tells you works, and typically these people heard about things the same way. Or they just read the product packaging and called that "research." Here's a recent research review on Deer Antler Velvet on a variety of human uses: QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Jan 29, 2013 -> 03:09 PM) Arent these 2 different arguments. 1) This substance is banned by the NFL, therefore its illegal regardless of the results. 2) This substance while banned does nothing and therefore we shouldnt care. It always seems that argument 2 is irrelevant. Otherwise sports would have to actually prove that the alleged substance helped the competitor. Sure, 1 makes it technically illegal though it will be very difficult to prove that he took it. 2 is important because the national media is crucifying this guy for having cheated when he is really just a hoodwinked consumer. This same news media is likely the very reason he ever took it in the first place, because they go crazy when they hear there is some new supplement going around that makes outrageous claims. While the NFL can do what it wants with its rules, we as fans can say "hey, he took something that doesn't work and won't be playing better because of it since it does not work." The reason it can't be tested for is because it isn't changing anything within you enough to actually be indicative of a change. That says enough for me.

It does nothing when taken orally or transdermally. I'm not even sure that it is in Deer Antler Velvet at all, though I don't recall that specifically. But yes, it sounds like a big deal. That's how they make you want to buy it, too.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Jan 29, 2013 -> 12:44 PM) I think the more interesting Ray Lewis story is about the alleged use of performance enhancing drugs to recover from his injury this season. They are reporting that he took Deer Antler Velvet, something so disproven that mainstream dietary supplement makers won't even sell it anymore -- and they have no qualms selling things that don't work. Lewis would have a greater anabolic boost from looking at porn. Seriously.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Jan 29, 2013 -> 12:01 PM) This is the key. The dosage of the drug given out for replacement therapy is not enough to produce the massive strength change you see in the professional athletes. This is also very easy to detect with normal PED testing. The recent advent of topical TRT products is thanks to Patrick Arnold, the chemist behind the Cream and the Clear. He and I are acquaintances (he lives in Seymour, IL and still sells legal supplements). Anyways, if the documents only say that Gio took the AminoRip, then that newspaper has done him a huge disservice. That's nothing, you can buy similar products all over the place. Under most conditions, they would do nothing at all. Almost as asinine as the line of inquiry on Ray Lewis and Deer Antler Velvet, which doesn't do a damn thing.

We had a period of a year or two where damn near every young pitcher we had had devastating arm injuries. I recall Parque, Biddle, Barcelo, and I'm sure there were others.

It's not TOO hard to get a prescription for testosterone, I know a lot of fitness-oriented guys that have done it. You're not given d-bol or something super potent, but T replacement therapy can have some big time physique benefits. Oftentimes you're sacrificing your fertility in this quest, though, if you jump into it as young as some of my acquaintances.