Balta1701

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Dec 19, 2008 -> 09:41 AM) Franken now leading by 150 votes. While he's passed him, this is certainly by no means over. His lead will probably increase throughout today. However, there are still some 5000 or so ballots on which there were challenges that were dropped, which somehow have not yet been sorted and my not be done until the new year.

QUOTE (SouthsideDon48 @ Dec 19, 2008 -> 09:22 AM) I gotta be honest, though. Am I the only one who hopes Bobby will end up staying with the Sox for many and many years, avoid any major problems with his elbow, and ending up being Trevor Hoffman's all-time saves record? Bobby's young enough to do it. You mean Mariano Rivera's all time saves record.

QUOTE (Baines3 @ Dec 19, 2008 -> 12:41 AM) I sure wouldn't give Bobby a long term deal especially when he is under contract for 3 more years. Assuming Bobby has another solid season this year, one thing I would consider doing next offseason is offering him a 3 year deal to buy out a year of his FA. But yeah, I don't like going beyond 3 years with pitchers, I especially don't want to do so in this economic environment where revenues are going down.

If we're over budget with the team as currently constructed, then we really can't afford to add a guy who ought to be solid and suck up innings in the FA market unless they are really cheap for some reason. If someone offers Garland a fair contract, fact is we'd be priced out of that market.

QUOTE (knightni @ Dec 19, 2008 -> 12:46 AM) That'll happen in The Vatican. "How old is the earth?" "4.56 billion years" "Punch punch punch"

QUOTE (Texsox @ Dec 18, 2008 -> 08:12 PM) I was just listening to a report that has me now comparing this flinging a shoe to flipping him off. The shoe is not meant to hurt anyone, but it does seem to be the equivelent of flipping him off, or any of the other gestures of anger. The last time I flipped someone off, they imprisoned me for several weeks and tortured the hell out of me.

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The Minnesota canvassing board is going through the challenged ballots, after a series of other legal challenges regarding absentee ballots. The Franken challenges have been completed over the last couple days, and they're starting on the Coleman ballots now. According to the Minneapolis star tribune, the official ballot tally is now down to a 5 vote lead for Coleman, with mostly Coleman challenges remaining. This race should be considered Franken's to lose. 2 votes.

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"Hailing frequencies closed".

So, to make my point about Tyrus's totally inconsistent minutes regardless of his play, just look at the raw numbers for minutes pulled per game. They're ridiculously all over the map. Starting at Nov. 1: 35 24 7 5 22 32 25 8 23 5 17 22 31 6 34 21 23 26 15 17 26 More than a few times in there, he has a decent game, then sees his minutes drop the next game. And aside from 1 game, low minutes really don't correlate with foul trouble, he's never gotten more than 4 fouls in a game this season. Meanwhile, same numbers for Nocioni: 23 19 15 22 27 12 28 11 9 19 21 23 26 23 31 29 31 38 18 26 26 29 Nocioni has had less than 10 minutes 1 time this season. He averages the same number of minutes as TT, but his are vastly less "All over the map" despite still being on the bench. There is also ridiculously little correlation with his performance. He'll play 15 minutes, shoot below 30%, we'll lose, and his minutes won't go down the next game. He has a cold shooting period, like the one called "December" and his minutes don't change. And there is very, very little of the 5 minutes 1 game, 40 minutes the next game that you see for Tyrus. No matter what, the small lineup is assured of 10 minutes+ per game.

QUOTE (rangercal @ Dec 17, 2008 -> 02:28 PM) Dbaho is right. If Tyrus played like that every night, it would take the Bulls to the next level. (he won't) We lost because Rose got schooled by Augustine and the refs were bobcat fans. No one plays "like that" every night. Espeically kids, but everyone has an off night. I still contend a big part of the problem is that when a normal player has an off night, they may lose a few minutes, but they still play. When Tyrus has an off night, he's on the bench for the next 2 weeks. On the other hand, when say, Nocioni has an off night, he's rewarded with twice as many minutes in the next game.

Newsweek seems to have broken 2 of the key "Bush's illegal wiretapping program" stories in the past 2 days. First, a detailed summary of what they were doing that was so illegal that it prompted the revolt of even the Ashcroft folks in the DOJ which led to the whole Gonzalez trying to get drugged up Ashcroft to sign off on it in hospital bed scene. Basically, every email you sent, every call you made, no matter who you were, they dumped it all in to a giant database that they could try to filter for key words or trends. Secondly, Newsweek has ID'd the hero who broke the story to the NY Times. He's lost his job, had himself investigated thoroughly by the Feds, and has to suffer the pain of having had a conscience about the President breaking the law, because you know, that's the way it's supposed to be when a guy betrays the don President.

So, I have no advice to give on the math section other than trying to go through practice problems. My Vocab section advice is that if you're not a big vocab type person, the company "Barrons" put out a few years back what was for me an excellent study guide booklet with a gigantic vocab list. I just went through and created a flash card with every word in their dictionary that I didn't know, and then flipped through those for 2 months. If they still have the writing section, you're probably in decent shape just based on your ability to write here. Review some of the questions they tend to ask, and don't be afraid to build a case for whatever you want to make.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Dec 15, 2008 -> 08:56 PM) About 4 pages too late. Gimme a break, was driving to San Francisco yesterday and at large geologist gathering today.

QUOTE (Princess Dye @ Dec 15, 2008 -> 07:34 PM) The White Sox will go to Las Vegas - but will Brian Anderson be able to leave This is all just part of Ozzie's plan...

False. Can I steal some gold from a person named Ari? That'd make me like him. The person below me was just away from ST for a time and is amazed this thread is still going strong.

QUOTE (Kid Gleason @ Dec 15, 2008 -> 06:00 PM) Microwave popcorn is one of the devils tools. There are few things worse than going to somebodies house, them saying "how about some popcorn" and then they return with the vile bag of putrid popped crap. It soils all things that are the beauty of REAL popcorn. Whoever invented that stuff needs to be forced to live on a steady diet of butter flavored animal lard. MMMMMM, Butter flavored animal lard...:::Drools::::

"Seriously, who throws a shoe?" -Austin Powers

And by then we'll be able to get 5 star rooms for like $60 too.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Dec 13, 2008 -> 05:21 PM) Yes, you will always need to be overweighted towards sluggers playing in USCF, but to be completely overloaded or one-sided results in 2001-2004 and 2006-2007 campaigns more typically, especially without the pitching to fall back on. There was nothing bad about the 2006 offense. The 2006 offense did it's job excellently. The 2006 pitching staff fell apart.

Mo Cheeks fired by Philly. Seems like every coach is being dumped early this year.

if Getz winds up in the leadoff spot, then I think the ideal guy in the #2 spot is alexei. You may want someone who can bunt or whatever, but that's not the main thing I want to see out of the #2 spot. The main thing I want out of that spot is a guy who is going to put the ball in play, and Alexei does this. He has excellent bat control, and we've seen him use the whole field a lot. But most importantly, he's not going to strike out that much. Last year he struck out 61 times. In 2005, Iguchi struck out 115 times, in only about 50 more plate appearances. If you get someone in front of him who gets on base, whether or not they're a speedster, having Alexei put the ball in play in the 2 spot gives that person an opportunity to move to 2nd or more. And hell, if the person can steal a base, and there's a deity hitting behind him, then that's going to set Alexei up to see a lot of fastballs and maybe make him even better.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 13, 2008 -> 01:49 PM) You actually hit on my favorite part of all of this. We get to hear things like "why is it so bad that these guys make as much money as they do?" and all of the other class warfare type stuff that goes along with these debates, and the bottom line is that if people REALLY believed in these workers, they would be buying American cars. THAT is the one bailout that will actually work. If you don't care about American autoworkers, keep buying Toyota's and Honda's. As soon as they make a car that would actually interest me, I will. Assuming they don't go bankrupt and push us all in to depression that is. And I believe the launch date for the first car from these companies that will actually interest me is what, 2010?

This one made my list entirely because of this song.