Balta1701

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Apr 28, 2010 -> 08:45 AM) Arrest 'em all and let God...er, INS sort 'em out! It hasn't been the INS in years. It's ICE, ever since the INS was rolled into the DHS and combined with the BCIS by the 2002 HSA.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Apr 28, 2010 -> 10:13 AM) I'd probably stick with the pros when moving. The wife and I have accumulated some pretty nice furnishings over the years and I'd hate to wind up damaging any of it. My next time moving, I'm leaning towards just moving myself again...because I'm hoping that the next move is to a tenure-track or long-term position where purchasing a house is possible, and as such I'm hoping I can discard most of the furniture I've been lugging around prior to that move.

I've done it twice in the past few years, but never had to sell a house. Moving: I've done it 1 time by renting a budget truck, packing and unpacking myself. It saved a lot of money, but there was slightly more "Stuff damage". I didn't care about it because it was all stuff I was stealing from parents. I also didn't own a car at the time, so I didn't have to add in the car-hauler. The other time, I hired professional movers. Packing and loading was a lot faster. Shipping actually took a couple days longer while waiting on them. However, the drive was much more pleasant. It cost probably 2x as much though. Both times I've wound up renting a place sight-unseen thanks to the internets. The first time found an adequate place with a good location, but I probably would have looked elsewhere had I had the chance to stop and search for places early. Second time, found a much nicer place. If you go there for an interview and you're looking to rent...ask about what resources are available. Look for housing sale/renting magazines on the streets, ask if there's a local rental agency that you could deal with. I'm not sure I'd 100% recommend renting sight-unseen, but if you're looking for a month-to-month plan while shopping for a house, even if you find a poor place, you'd only be there a few months.

"That's good ol' fashioned family racism, Mr. Will."

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Apr 28, 2010 -> 09:51 AM) I know exactly how you feel. And if I have to see his carbon copy groundout to second one more time I am going to throw my remote through the screen. I would have been happy with a groundout to 2nd in the 7th inning. They wouldn't have been able to turn 2. I could have lived with that.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Apr 28, 2010 -> 09:46 AM) On the second part, I don't think that was necessarily IQ, that was just a plain old misread. Pods had lots of those, Pierre I've seen have a few too, but not as many. I know, I'm just annoyed and angry at Pierre after last night. Call it an irrational, illogical emotional response.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Apr 28, 2010 -> 09:38 AM) Why is it odd? He is a gamer, wants to get closer to the action, and he grew up in Ames. Seems like a perfect fit for him. And if he wants a long-term coaching career...he starts building up "Head coaching experience".

Pierre. He can't possibly look worse than yesterday.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Apr 28, 2010 -> 09:24 AM) Maybe its just me, but Pierre is Pods + baseball IQ. There really isn't any difference in their games or abilities, except Pods is baseball dumb, and Pierre understands what is going on around him. Then why the Hell wasn't he bunting yesterday in the 7th? And what the hell was he thinking while trying to field that double?

JFP...take head, remove from tail, look at plate, throw strikes, retire batters.

QUOTE (danman31 @ Apr 27, 2010 -> 09:47 PM) The thing with Heyward is that his minor league K-rate was below 20. As I mentioned, guys will strike out more in the Majors like Heyward is doing. That's a rather alarming number, but it's awfully early. Ideally less than 20%. 20% K rate in a 600 AB season is 120 K's a year. That'd be quite an improvement. Basically...the higher his K rate goes above that...the more BB he needs to take and the more power he needs to show to be effecitve.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Apr 28, 2010 -> 07:27 AM) While I agree with this, I dont think the Bulls were going to win the series if the refs called a semi-fair game and the Bulls won this game. It was seriously a joke to watch the refs in that game. How can you take that And-1 away from Rose? Brad Miller gets consecutive fouls against Shaq on an isolation play when Shaq is initiating the contact with his elbows and pushing Miller back, and then they call the exact same thing on Noah? That was seriously the set of plays in the 4th quarter that changed the game. The Bulls were immediately put in foul trouble with all of their big men and had to play soft the rest of the quarter, and they still only lost by 2. Im still disgusted with the game Ditto on that. This series is back in Chicago for game 6 if the refs had even been somewhat one-sided.

QUOTE (MHizzle85 @ Apr 28, 2010 -> 02:14 AM) Decision on VDN to take 'few' days. Um, what? You basically fired the guy earlier in the season, then didn't because you didn't have a "suitable" replacement. Then you hang him out to dry on a few occasions on top of that? This front office is f***ed. This could be the one thing that keeps the Bulls from getting a big name FA. Maybe they have a good/contractual reason for waiting or something like that. I am annoyed that I'm not waking up to "I've cured my case of VDN" threads.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Apr 27, 2010 -> 06:49 PM) Didn't he jump from a plane on the west coast in the 70's? You know what the "D" in DB Cooper stands for? My God, it's you!

QUOTE (whitesoxfan101 @ Apr 27, 2010 -> 06:46 PM) Julius Peppers got paid. Good luck getting consistent effort out of him now, as that's always an issue (including last year), let alone after he gets paid. To say we have no idea how this season will play out is overly hopeful. You could argue the Packers and Vikings (if Favre comes back) are the two best teams in the NFC not named New Orleans. The Bears haven't done nearly enough to catch either of those teams. And you could also argue that Adrian Peterson is falling flat on his face and the Vikings defense and O-lines were showing signs of strain last season.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan101 @ Apr 27, 2010 -> 06:40 PM) The Bears are a DISTANT 3rd in the NFC North to the Vikings and Packers, even if Brett Favre doesn't return. Was I the only one who saw Julius Peppers single-handedly defeat the Vikings last year? No idea how this season will play out. I could see the Bears winning the North, and I could see them in last.

QUOTE (fathom @ Apr 27, 2010 -> 06:39 PM) If we're not taking salary into account, Ordonez might be the best hitter we could get back. I take it you're buying the .911 OPS he has this year and not the .804 he put up last year?

QUOTE (The Baconator @ Apr 27, 2010 -> 06:28 PM) I might be a little late to this discussion, but I recall watching the Braves game the other night, and they highlighted Hayward's K-rate as over 34%. Is it more acceptable for him to have such a high K-rate because he has more power than Danks? Yes, the more power you have the more acceptable your K-Rate is going to be. When the ball leaves the park, it still counts as a hit, so a guy hitting 40 HR can still put together a reasonable set of overall numbers with those sort of K-rates and won't be guaranteed to hit .220. However...34% is high even for a 40 HR hitter. Over a 600 at bat season that's >200 K's.

QUOTE (MurcieOne @ Apr 27, 2010 -> 06:19 PM) Hester should be a KR first and a slot receiver second. That being said, I don't really believe in this WR group. I don't care what Cutler, Martz, Lovie and Angelo say, I saw a lot of bad out of that group last year and I'm not sure that we still don't have the worst WR core in the league. They're certainly not experienced and they need to spend the whole offseason working with Cutler and the O on a number of issues...but especially in the 2nd half of the season, that group looked like an extremely talented group just in need of time.

Jones

QUOTE (Controlled Chaos @ Apr 27, 2010 -> 06:02 PM) Since we're on that topic.... Nuke Cleveland?? Anyone ever hear from him? Did he get banned? Leave on his own? It was the latter. He did receive a suspension but has not chosen to come back since.

Polling data in Arizona suddenly showing a 26 point surge amongst Latino voters for the Dem governor candidate. Even if this law gets overturned...the state of Arizona has a large and rapidly growing Latino population. This bill could easily change the national voting dynamics, as noted in the Kos post I linked to.

QUOTE (chisoxfan09 @ Apr 27, 2010 -> 05:13 PM) Worse case scenario you may have a 30 year old reliever on the decline after 2011. May or may not be good enough to net Type B status which gets us a supplemental pick I think. If we keep him for 2011 and he doesn't significantly increase his numbers, it won't matter what draft status he is, you won't be offering him arbitration.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Apr 27, 2010 -> 04:37 PM) Do you think we'd all feel differently if Williams was say a 23 year old rookie (let's say his last name was Wasserman) versus a 30+ journeyman/veteran pitcher who has experience in more than half the minor league and semi-pro systems in the world? There is a time and a place for a LOOGY. You just can't crucify him if your manager forces him to go up against RHP. Wasserman is a ROOGY. That's a bit of a different beast; lefties killed him. 1.360 OPS against him for lefties in 2007, .430 for righties. A ROOGY is a bit of an odd beast for a bullpen to carry, because usually teams set themselves up more to be able to put a LH pinch hitter in to face a RH reliever since most bullpens are very, very RH heavy. Either that or they've already dispersed lefties throughout their order. Even with that, I wouldn't have had a problem keeping Wasserman in the pen if he was effective at his job. Oh, and Wasserman in particular lost it because in 2008, he gave up a nearly .900 OPS to Righties. That made him a Rohgy (righty one hit guy, guy who comes in entirely to give up a hit).

QUOTE (SoxAce @ Apr 27, 2010 -> 04:30 PM) That and hes been walking alot this year (Alexei bats lower and has more Abs, but Alexei ya.. doesn't walk) Actually...I checked that...he has fewer BB's than Konerko or Quentin, hitting higher up. Alexei also has quite a few more PA's than Teahen does as well.