bmags

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 24, 2016 -> 04:10 PM) When it comes to people of the other party, I still have this base interest to see them and meet them. I love to see how they work a room, a crowd, or just an individual. If Obama were coming to my hometown, I would do whatever I needed to do to see him speak. I did the same for Bill Clinton when he was here in 2008, and damn can that dude still work a room. Even with knowing the guy is full of s*** most of the time when he speaks, I still had a reaction to watching him speak. I was blown away. I imagine Barack being the same way, except more visceral. I get the feeling that seeing Hillary would be more like meeting Mike Pence where everything came off as fake and forced. Both times I saw/met Pence it felt like he was trying to sell me a used car at above sticker price. My eyes hurt from rolling them so hard. Take it or leave it, but Clinton's main campaign tools are small low key town forums. I think you'd be surprised.

QUOTE (CanOfCorn @ Oct 24, 2016 -> 03:41 PM) She was rattling off the zingers pretty well at the Al Smith dinner. Trump was straight up reading. Which was really out of character...except for the fact that he can't make fun of himself. But that's a different dinner, that's a roast. It's when she tries to bring in humor in mid speech that it's usually weak and contrived. ^^ Yes, like Dangerous Donald.

QUOTE (Ezio Auditore @ Oct 24, 2016 -> 02:04 PM) I think everyone more or less agrees that Obama is a funny guy, but he delivers lines like that sometimes too and they fall flat. He grins, as if to say "I said that, so it's funny, right?" Usually it is, but sometimes it seems like he's trying too hard. Clinton's sense of humor is a lot more dry or sarcastic, she's not like those three at all. When she is candid on plane that's her sense of humor but her prepared remarks are safe and OBVIOUS as hell. And it works well for non-comedy settings, she was able to lay traps over and over for Trump in debates. But, she has had legitimately funny people work for her, so it seems to be the cautious nature of the candidate. I mean, I can visualize the meeting where someone says "what about trumped up trickle down" and it makes me CRINGE.

I'm not sure I would trust a sports reporter that claims they don't root for a team. How on earth did you get into sports then?

You would think scrooge mcduck would be the better duck to use. Starting to gather that what the Clinton team looks for in a slogan/zinger is similar to what my mom looks for in a birthday card.

QUOTE (SoxAce @ Oct 24, 2016 -> 01:01 PM) There goes a top 3 pick.. Not sure about that. A line of Eric Kush and Ted Larsen, and a defensive line in shambles. Plus, we do need to see more of what cam meredith is, what jordan howard is. Matt Barkley at QB is terrible for development.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Oct 24, 2016 -> 11:16 AM) I'll add that there's nothing worse than rooting for a team that "goes for it" every year and is still miserable. You brought up the Lakers and Phillies, these are teams that are in some sort of a rebuilding phase and as a fan you know they're going to have down years and you can deal with it or even enjoy it some. The way the Sox have been for the last 6 years now is about as bad as it gets from a fan stand point. That's a great point. When you are already being sold a lie, you aren't going to buy into the other marketing ones.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Oct 24, 2016 -> 11:02 AM) I think for me a lot of it has to do with how much more information there is available now compared to when we were younger. I see and read about the misery of this franchise all the time and it definitely starts to wear on you. When I first started on this board I honestly didn't realize how pathetic the Sox franchise has been on the whole. And we're old too. I'm not saying we shouldn't be miserable - the play on the field has been miserable. There's no sugarcoating that stuff. But what I'd point to is even laker fans in the basement have had fun passing around Nick Young gifs. My friends that are phillies fans were still having fun with things that are only fun to phillies fans. The only thing that comes close was fleeting - the albers double. Last year the Abreu home run with JBJ jumping into the bullpen and losing the ball. There is no optimism around this teams performance, but there's also nothing aside from winning that we can suck enjoyment out of now. There's no nancy faust fawning, there's no Sodfather talk, there's no Man Soo Lee in the bullpen. But there is one part that hits me. When I was a kid I liked Bill Veeck, I loved all the gimmick stuff, added the lore that we were different. Now I think he was a failure that ruined numerous chances at a pennant. Zoops.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 23, 2016 -> 09:17 PM) Painters tape and soapy water. Lay the tape down with a gap as wide as you want that caulk to be. Apply caulk, run your finger down the middle smoothing it out, pull tape, admire perfect caulk line Yeah...too late haha. It is not the worst thing ever, luckily silicone plays a little nicer than most caulk

I think you are right, lost, but I tried to focus in on the pre-2005 years as well. That is why I thought of my Royals fans friends in 05. Maybe there is that tipping point after so many years of losing that can't be interesting no matter how much you care.

There is no real tl;dr of this post, though I'm sure I will write one part poorly enough that it will get argued about over and over. It's long and melodramatic. [edit: alternate possibility, nobody reads it ] But throughout this year I have been working with the idea that something just feels different about being a sox fan than when I was younger. It's hard to figure out whether something like this is just personal - change in social interactions, change in social life - or something actually happening so I wanted to write a post on it. First off, I'm 30. My white sox fandom becomes conscious around 93, takes a vacation after 95 strike, and comes back with a vengeance with the 2000 group and never stops. I basically grew up on this board, like many others. So it's very possible that older fans have seen this before. How can you tell they're a sox fan As the Cubs explode around us, it's hard not to notice the signs of being a cubs fan surpass ours. The W flag, that f****** song, the "try not to suck" shirts - whether or not these things make you want to vomit - there is a culture around being a cubs fan that extends beyond wearing a cubs hat. A shared experience of watching the team extending to memes and memorabilia. When I talk about culture of being a white sox fan, this is what I'm talking about. In a time that is more meme-able than ever, it feels like there has been a huge dropoff of these shareable experiences as a sox fan, and anything that's tried is very corporate, very astroturf (melkman tshirts, soxmath) In fact, the only thing that seems to hold us together at this point is misery. There were a lot isolated happenings this year that taken my themselves and put in more prosperous times, they'd have been no big deal. But with Twitter, the sale jersey cutups, the drake laroche scandal, the Guaranteed Rate change, it all feels agonizing. And the only thing that grounded me to other sox fans was that, that we were miserable, that we couldn't stand being the butt of the joke. "Hey you are pissed off, you must be a sox fan!" This frankly just reminds me of Royals fans when I moved to Missouri in 2005. In the face of all of the Cardinals fans, all they had was their camaraderie that they face humiliation every day but keep coming back. When we were young I compare this to just 10-15 years ago. Perhaps not-coincidentally, these were the formative years of my fandom. We were winning - to be sure. But it felt like I was soaked in a White Sox culture that extended beyond a box score. The thing that reminded me all of this was raBBit's post about his friend's all wearing their CORK shirts until they were full of holes. That was me! It was also 4 sizes too large. But there was more. There was the OH-EE-OH, MAGGGLIO chants. There was the JOSE OLE chants for Jose Valentin. There was the super embarrassing now, but certainly happened GONG phase from Shingo. Thunderstruck. Metallica when Jenks came out. Then of course - there was the co-opting of don't stop believing by the 05 white sox. I'll chalk this one up to the things that happen when you win. Some of these are as "astroturfey" as melkman. But there was a time when the white sox players and organization would feed us something and we would eat that s*** UP. New chant? I'll sing it ad nauseum. New player from far away? let's find a nickname and scream it. But now, I feel like I'm spitting up everything that they are spoon feeding me. There were always less sox fans, since I've been around. There was always a monopoly on "LORE" that the Cubs held. But there was a time when being a sox fan was different. It was an alternative pick. You were there for the baseball, and you mythologized and meme'd the players, not the losing (like the cubs). But now? Hey ... the k zone. Um, melkman. Oh those cool handmotions they do. What about Hawk? Oh he's old and incoherent. Am I just older? That's a definite possibility. But I guess you all can tell me. Being a sox fan this decade has been a bitter, bitter pill. And maybe all of this stuff is the stupid crap that doesn't matter. But damn if I can't wait for an intro song to play, a chant to start, that I can share with everyone, and it's ours. But until then, I guess misery is what we got.

Also I finished up season 3 of halt and catch fire. I'd like to say to all 4 other people in the world that watch the show that it was good.

Regardless of actual election, Obama being gone is good for SNL. They had no idea what to do with his character. Kate McKinnon and Baldwin have been among the best, but considering the materail not surprising.

QUOTE (Brian @ Oct 23, 2016 -> 06:16 PM) Fantasy football sucks this year.

I just did a terrible job redoing the silicon caulk around the shower tub. Gonna be staring at that for a while.

Nina Arianda in Goliath is the best character in a show I've watched in a while

QUOTE (Ezio Auditore @ Oct 21, 2016 -> 02:50 PM) goddammit I couldn't remember if that exchange happened on Facebook or here. Now I look like a dumbass. Well more than usual. I ghostwrote your entire facebook persona

Let's go full gimmick and hire Jared Lorenzen.

QUOTE (bmags @ Oct 20, 2016 -> 09:25 AM) Governor Pence would force you to have a funeral for your living son. Who wore it best?

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 20, 2016 -> 05:13 PM) News from the other AZ Senator Flake says it might be Garland time I don't think McCain deserves much credit because he's still going along with the BS idea that simply refusing to even consider a President's nominee is okay. I didn't say give him credit, I am advocating giving them room. We all know that republicans pick their candidates based off of democrat feedback, so I'm trying to prevent armageddon again in 2020.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 21, 2016 -> 10:49 AM) It has been like six weeks now, right? It has to be about fully healed anyway. Name a recent bears injury where the information we were given was correct.

Also Michael Clayton has been on HBO again so

Denial looks like it could be good.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Oct 20, 2016 -> 05:48 PM) if you followed any of the Lucas Museum troubles, you will realize a ballpark isn't going to be built on the lakefront. And unless JR wants to foot the bill, not in Illinois either. This, and frankly soldier field is a pain in the ass to get to. Along River much more realistic and interesting density wise. But Friends of the Park have concluded that nothing is ever allowed to be built on the lakefront. Even the parking lots are human wonders that must never be destroyed.

QUOTE (Ezio Auditore @ Oct 21, 2016 -> 10:31 AM) I remember Bush doing it and Clinton, but really only if you watched the news, and you'd see a few clips and that was it (maybe cable news would replay it at night). It wasn't an instant viral thing. The first time I ever remember seeing an Al Smith dinner was in 2008. Yes I think that's the case for me too. Don't recall Kerry/Bush in 04 but I have to believe it came up because wasn't there a thing at the time of catholic churches refusing Kerry getting communion?