nitetrain8601

I agree in that you shouldn't be friends with woman from personal experiences. Just acquaintances(sp?). It helps you keep that mysterious factor, but also keeps you available.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Feb 11, 2010 -> 04:24 PM) Wait, I always thought if they traded Salmons, it would give enough room to squeak under the cap...? If they trade just Salmons for an expiring, they'll get rid of $5,808,000. Say they trade Tyrus for an expiring and draft pick like they're rumored to want to do. That leaves them at $31,850,976. Let's say the cap is at $52 million. Now raises are factored into the previous $31,850,976, but let's look at draft holds. Let's say they get a 15th pick for Tyrus. Say the Bulls draft 17th and 47th which they're currently projected. That means 15th pick: $1,398,200 17th pick: $1,261,900 47th pick: $825,497(rough estimate based on league minimum) Right now, the max salary threshold for Wade who will have been in the league between 7-9 years is $16,224,600. If he's signed and traded his number would be roughly at $17,149,243. We will go with the lower number so we can dream big. $31,850,976 $16,224,600 $1,398,200 $1,261,900 $825,497 = 51,561,173 Now that roster only includes PG-Rose/Hinrich SG-Wade SF-Deng/J Johnson PF-Gibson C-Noah + 3 other players. If we pay the Minimum to those 3 other players to have at least 12 players, we would be in the luxury tax easily. Heck, I think it works even if we don't trade Ty and just flat out renounce him, but I could be wrong.

Being cocky and funny works. If you take it too far, you'll end up going out with a stripper, a girl with psychological problems, a puppy, or you're just trying to get laid. It's good to be mysterious, good to be cocky, but don't take it as far as David Deangelo.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 11, 2010 -> 08:12 AM) If the Bulls need backups, they'll also be in a position next offseason to spend the MLE dollars on grabbing those. Or they could do sign+trade deals involving Miller or others. How sweet would it be if the Bulls were able to move TT, Salmons, and Hinrich, without taking on cap space next year? That'd be 2 full max deals they could legitimately offer even if the cap plummets, in addition to having the MLE, sign and trade options, Rose, Noah, and Deng. Not possible considering the cap holds/draft picks they have to pay. Again, unless JR goes into the tax, I don't see this plan working at all. Even if the Bulls decides to trade Deng, which there has been whispers that they would be willing to, you have to find a team that would be willing to pay him his 14 million towards the end of his contract. If contracts get smaller as well as the cap, Deng even playing at his current level, would be considered a horrendous contract.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Feb 11, 2010 -> 04:01 AM) I'd really like them to hold onto Kirk, and trade Salmons instead. Otherwise, Pargo is your backup PG. And with the Rose uncertainty now, that's not good. Also, if Wade needs another bigtime FA to join him, then you're gonna have to go and get Bosh instead, and I'd rather have Kirk at SG than Salmons. Of the teams mentioned, I'd ask the Knicks and Kings, as you could luck into the #1 (and do a trade in the offseason or a sign-and-trade) or get something like Aldrich if it isn't a high pick. Bulls would not be able to sign a max FA if they kept Hinrich. It's that clear. So he must go. In fact, for the Bulls to have the ability to sign two max FA's. They would have to trade Hinrich, Salmons(unless he decides not opt back in) and Luol Deng or else they wouldn't have enough money to field a complete team. Even with that, the Bulls would be in cap hell once Noah's and Rose's extensions are due. I honestly don't know how they're going to do it, especially considering they have owners who don't like to pay tax.

Darn right. Jerry as far as I know, paid for his own stadium. Me thinks Ricketts should not have bought the team. He's trying to get everyone else to pay for them and will be cutting payroll two years in a row. They won't fire Hendry, even though he doesn't fit in with that philosophy because it would cost more money to do so and replace him.

At UIC, about half my curriculum was gen ed courses. I agree, they are severely overdone.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Feb 6, 2010 -> 02:19 AM) Other thoughts from the loss: Man, I miss Joakim. Also, the Bulls signed Chris Richard for 10 days as a stop gap. Since he's in town, anyone know if we could afford another minimum salary? Byars would be nice for 3 point shooting. Edit: Wow, just checked BG's 3pt%. Salmons is worlds better than him this year. Only if we trade some people. Bulls don't have money unless they go in the luxury tax which they won't for Byars. They'll sign him once they are able to trade Hinrich, Salmons or both.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Feb 5, 2010 -> 06:32 PM) I don't care, never did I say they were. I don't think going to a trade should be included as someone who just finished high school and did nothing else. There is a big difference than graduating from high school and than working at Walmart as a cashier than there is graduating high school working with someone in the field during high school and continuing that on during the next few years and becoming a very skilled tradesmen. In America we should be pushing people two ways...into an established trade program or into college. For the sake of the argument this thread was based on and the new facts coming out(which were on Fox News today), college and trade are vastly different. Coming up, it is implied, College = Most Money by far It is found that it is not. I also don't consider trade and college the same. In college, you might get an internship or two which will last a year. In a trade, you are getting paid to learn and actually apply your learnings in the field as you are learning it. The only similarity between trade and college is that you're learning something. You can say the same about a high school student who starts working full-time at 18. They are always learning something at their job as well.

I'm rooting for the Saints to win. But I think the Colts pull it out.

QUOTE (dasox24 @ Feb 4, 2010 -> 01:25 AM) Yeah, she really is a great girl and we get along very well. I'm fine for now with proceeding how things are, but I guess we'll need to talk about it sometime. She seems to be coming around (and all my friends think we're gonna get back together), but I'm just going to let things play out and go from there. Oh, and thanks for the advice. Sometimes it just helps hearing an outsider's perspective with a fresh take rather than what all my friends say. Though, everyone says pretty much the same thing (but I guess that's good). I personally ask why you guys broke up if I were you. To me, it doesn't make sense to breakup, but yet nothing has changed except for the title of BF and GF. As far as saint, as someone said before, don't confuse love with infatuation. I would probably say, start dating some girls, maybe bring them around to meet this best friend of yours. See how your best friend reacts. If she starts criticizing the girl you bring around, that means you still have hope. If she says nothing, well at least you know you have nothing to wait around for.

I think he will retire. Just a hunch.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 3, 2010 -> 08:46 PM) How the Hell do you go 5-4 on that 9 game stretch...winning every hard game and losing every easy game, with all 5 wins bookended by the 4 horrid losses? meet: QUOTE (MHizzle85 @ Feb 2, 2010 -> 10:10 PM) The Bulls play down to their competition. It's that simple.

Alexi and Hynes.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Feb 3, 2010 -> 05:35 PM) Being a university professor and involved with a state university, I can tell you that your first statement will not happen for state schools. We are slowly going from state schools to state supported schools to state associated schools. All of which will drive up costs with no change in services. We have not received the money for our budget from the state since September. The state owes us millions. Because of this we are having to run the school on generating our own income like private institutions. Most of this money comes from tuition which means we need to raise the tuition to offset the money budgeted to us by the state. However, the state put a cap on how much we can raise tuition in an "attempt" to keep us affordable. This is why an in-state student is having difficulty getting into U of I because the university can charge the out of state student more. This encourages students to leave the state, which is not good for the state. Nice insight Dr. Maybe now is the time to get educated elsewhere since tuitions are going up so high in-state.

As I suspected, she wants you as a fallback option. If you were the last guy on earth, she would love you in the way you want her to. And yes, you have been friendzoned. She basically weaseled out of the relationship and now she's hanging out with you the whole time to be your best bud. My best advice is, don't have any of it. You don't want this girl as your friend because you will be reminded why you loved her enough times to keep you as her personally puppy dog. You'll also hate yourself and beat yourself the more you allow this to happen. Move on past her. If she wants to hang, too bad, you have other things you want/need to do. She doesn't get the same respect and time and care as if she was with you which is what she wants without her being tied to do anything in the relationship. Go out, drink if you want, hang out with your buddies, do stuff you've always wanted to do, but didn't have the time to do now that you're off her leash. In the meantime, I guarantee you'll find some girls, no wait, the girls will find you, love you for who you are and won't pull the same crap.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Feb 3, 2010 -> 04:50 PM) When the job market and the economy suck, people use the opportunity to further their education. The class sizes of universities swell during bad job markets. That's correct. There's a ton of classes as UIC that have 400-500 students.

I think we're getting two different arguments which is where some people are getting confused. Do I personally think college is beneficial? Yes, if you're going into a specific field which needs extra training or a specific field that you want to study. College also makes you much more rounded as a person from my college experience. What I'm arguing is at this point in time, the spending power of someone who didn't go to college is closing in on the gap for those who did graduate from college a little too close, because of all of these student loans and debts. If I had to guess, the largest buying demographic for impulsive buyers would be those between the ages of 18-45. Now as a college student who needs to pay his loan off, I'm going to try and pay off that loan first before buying that big screen tv or building a media room. A non-college student may have to save up initially, but would be able to build that new media room probably faster than the college grad because he doesn't have $100,000 in student loans pending for his household. To end, I'll say this. Life is what you make it. There are college grads who will throw all their money at their student loans to pay it off early by living in their mom's basement for a year or two, then move out and will have tons of money to play with. There are also smart high school grads who worked and invested money in the stock market and have just as much money to play with. All in all, whatever you do, you have to work hard at it and do your homework!

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 3, 2010 -> 03:18 PM) I just want to know when a college degree became the point of entitlement, and not an investment in the rest of your life? If you know you have to spend $100,000 to make an extra million dollars over your lifetime, that pretty much clears it up for me. Keep in mind, the opportunity cost lost in going to school full-time and bypassing any other jobs you could have obtained instead of going to college. They say time is money and it's true. Instead of wasting your time and paying the school for your education, you're missing out on you getting a job and earning money during those 4/5 years. I agree, college is supposed to be an investment that pays off big. With the costs of college and the interest you have to pay back, it doesn't negative it completely, but a huge portion of that investment, at least for around 25 years(which is the term for most college students). Then they'll have probably 15-20 years of not having to pay that back if they pay it all back in time. That's a 25 year freeze on smart college grads being able to spend their big bucks to buy that big screen tv, to buy another car, to buy a bigger home a couple of expensive purses, etc. College grads are not entitled to anything. No one is. But the system is supposed to be designed where higher education = more spending power. In today's economy, with jobs being so hard to obtain, with the recession going on, and with student loans up the wazoo, that system is not working as designed.

QUOTE (vandy125 @ Feb 3, 2010 -> 12:24 PM) So, what other debts should we relieve them of? Mortgages? Car Loans? Credit Card payments? Anything else? After all, they do need money to take out a loan to start a small business. Should we relieve them of that cost too? I'd say no because those are still services or products which are still in use. It's silly to pay for school 20 years after you graduated if it's going to mean you get to spend as much as someone who didn't get their degree. Which is the whole purpose behind the idea of forgiving the debt. Mortgages are paying for a house you still live in. Car Loans are for cars you still drive(well, hopefully you didn't get in an accident). Credit Card companies work with people in bad situations enough on their own, but they would be the only other thing I would consider relieving some of the debt back to stimulate the economy. Unless you want to be something specifically and almost refuse to work if you're not doing what you love, you better have the money to go to school in your own pocket, or it's going to cost you big in the long run. That's the part that sucks. You want to educate yourselves further to help out the world by doing your part in whatever field you enter, but in the end, you get stuck with a crummy bill each month which rivals your mortgage or rent.

QUOTE (bmags @ Feb 3, 2010 -> 08:22 AM) The fact that the not going to college v. going to college is even being considered lets you know how much the system is broken. I say this b/c while college degrees earn more, that is becoming increasingly bogged down and unclear. The bachelors degree system is probably not the most efficient system, certainly not the best use of most's money, and incompatible with a large number who go there. Which makes it more insane that those with the language and math skills to get through to a for year, to reach their full potential, are asked to go into mountains of debt in order to get into a good program It's insane. And it's funny how moral this argument is. The idea comes from the facts that we had to bail the banks out because then lending would freeze, the economy would come to a standstill, crippling depression. YOu can see where you benefit. For this, relieving thousands of the nations best educated from debt of a broken system, gets met as if they are dead beats and why should they get free. If these people were relieved of this student loan debt, these are the ones who could best use that money on capital for a small business, or let alone the fact that these are a whole bunch of single/18-34's who like to spend. But when this is suggested, everyone becomes defensive. 100% accurate in my opinion.

QUOTE (G&T @ Feb 3, 2010 -> 06:20 AM) Except the comparison appears to be flawed, although I don't know much about the business. The college grad can leave that bank and get a higher paying job elsewhere because he has bargaining power. The high school can't necessarily leave, and without that power, he never be paid what the grad will. Despite the experience he has, he will be up against college graduates who have similar experience if he tries to leave. He would be able to leave, but his bargaining power would be less. Also the college grad would probably have an easier time leaving. The high school grad also wouldn't have that college loan debt which is huge. Therefore he has as good if not better spending power than the college grad which is the main point. Now as I stated before, engineers and actuaries are different.

QUOTE (kev211 @ Feb 3, 2010 -> 12:53 AM) Sayid = Jacob. Which is why he told Hurley to take Sayid to the temple. Clearly the water was not what healed Sayid, something else brought him back to life. Came in here to post this. That's why they said Sayid was most important. Jakob took his body much like the smoke monster took Locke's

I agree that not all of it should be forgiven, but at the same time, for a couple that has decided to educate themselves is pumping $1200 bucks of their hard earned dough to just pay back what was supposed to help them get ahead. That doesn't seem right to me. As someone said before, schools are charging for you just to be in the program. Not for what it would actually cost to ensure you get the proper education with the proper utensils, but they are charging you just based on them making a super duper large profit. Seriously, $4,000 for just being in the business program? That's a joke. What seems better to you, especially in this economy. High School Graduate, goes and works at a bank, works his way up from teller, to personal banker, to finance advisor, bookkeeper, to branch manager to regional manager(in the span of 6 years is norm where I am) to VP of banking relations while spending money only on food and travel while living in mom's basement until 25 where he actually becomes a finance advisor and can make some decent money. or High School Graduate goes to State College, racks up about $100,000.00 in college loans, but gets business degree, starts right away working as an intern under the bookkeeping department, then gets a full-time job as a bookkeeper. Then after 2 or 3 years working as a bookkeeper tries to get on in a different department(takes him this long because his degree is accounting and they think he should specialize and become head of bookkeeping since he doesn't have experience on how the other components of the bank works.) and eventually is put in the field as a branch manager for a year than a regional manager after that to VP of banking relations. Now it may have taken the graduate a year shorter or sometimes 2 years shorter or sometimes the same time. But the thing is, the other guy who may have started at a lower position making peanuts busting his butt off did not rack up that student loan debt. He may even make a lower average salary(probable) than the graduate in the same position. The difference is, he has nowhere near the debt the college student who took the shortcut, the good route has. So in all, during the course of their lives, the high school graduate probably will be able to spend more on a monthly basis than the guy who racked up crazy debt. Now of course, if you went to school for engineering or actuary sciences, then the story is different. I'm just going for the average college student. College does open opportunities for more fields such as teaching, etc. But it will cost you a ton in the long run to do something that makes you truly happy. All in all, from my experience, I would say go to college if you have to pay no more than what high school tuition was. If it's more, you better be getting grants and scholarships because then it won't be worth it financially.

QUOTE (Brian @ Feb 2, 2010 -> 06:22 PM) Every show that has a hyped series finale, with the exception of MASH, have their fans either love it or hate it. I have no idea how it is going to end, I have no idea what would make he hate or love the ending. I'm just hoping I enjoy the ride. The Shield.