lostfan

Oh and Thibodeau = clearly the right move. Prior to this the organization was looking pretty incompetent and amateurish.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jun 6, 2010 -> 09:13 PM) Kobe with an absolute joke of a game. After having 5 assists in the first quarter, he's not passed the ball once in the second quarter and is complaining even more than usual. There are a handful of Facebook friends I have, total Kobe dickriders, that say things like "Kobe needs more help" and such but they're the same people who were gleefully ripping LeBron a few weeks ago for the same reasons. I like to point out the blatantly obvious fact that Kobe now has Pau Gasol and some guy even said how Gasol has a 0-16 record in the playoffs before coming to the Lakers. lol... the Lakers were barely a playoff team without him, and Kobe's 2008 Finals was just as bad or worse than LeBron's Game 5 this year. I wish people would stick to facts

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 4, 2010 -> 04:35 PM) Some things just make me so proud... The drivers are the kinds of "Americans" I wouldn't mind getting rid of in a one-for-one exchange for some illegals.

If you need starter material for the evening, check out Ciara's "Ride" video. Damn Ciara, what happened to the girl that was holding onto her "Goodies"? lol.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jun 4, 2010 -> 11:05 PM) Hawk crying about the umpire. Yeah Hawk the team just can't get over the hump and get themselves a 2 or 3 game winning streak. Great team KW. lol what is the point of crying about the ump when you are losing by 9 f***ing runs

I'm on Facebook the most out of any other site, followed by Soxtalk.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jun 4, 2010 -> 01:51 PM) Kind of how the street scum all do the same, only against the police, all the time. So it's of no surprise the police are like this to me...when you have scumbags crying foul and making false accusations against cops on a daily basis, you'd begin to understand. And while them doing what they do will cause a few bad apples to get away with some bad stuff, it also prevents those bs false accusations from costing a lot of good police officers their jobs/livelihoods. What kind of comparison is this, who actually has a positive view of street scum or defends them for being criminals? It doesn't make any sense to compare them to police officers.

QUOTE (WCSox @ Jun 4, 2010 -> 05:03 PM) You actually expected four veterans to hit THIS far below their career numbers? AJ - .604 OPS (career average .748) Alexei - .651 OPS (career average .740) Pierre - .589 OPS (career average .715) Quentin - .723 OPS (career average .827) Well, with Alexei, his predictably bad April is weighing his OPS down so far this season compared to his career average which is 2 Aprils across 2 whole seasons.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jun 4, 2010 -> 10:24 AM) For the record, when it comes to 'Google catching up to Apple in mobile phones', this isn't going to happen. Google has ONE mobile phone -- the Nexus 1 -- and it's an industry failure. Android, however, WILL catch up and surpass Apples mobile OSX as the sheer distribution is higher, as anyone in the world can use it, including Dell, HP, ASUS, etc...whereas only ONE manufacturer can use Apples OSX (mobile or otherwise), and that's Apple. When I say Google I mean Android-based phones and the various degrees of influence Google will have over that market.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jun 4, 2010 -> 03:45 PM) When I scrolled through this page of threads, I read that as "Brady Quinn leading in the polls..." I had to scroll back up and re-read this. haha man I never thought of that before you mentioned it

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jun 4, 2010 -> 03:15 AM) Keith, this is gaining more and more steam in the midwest in areas of Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, etc. Basically, it was not economically feasible unless you were separated from natural gas service and had to rely on propane for heat. But with the costs of energy rising, it is becoming more and more a viable alternative, especially in large commercial/government/municipal buildings such as schools, hospitals, military bases, etc. Basically, there are two types of systems, a horizontal loop system and a vertical loops system. Not sure of the feasibility in a metropolitan or urban setting, but my guess is a vertical loop system would be necessary unless your property were to lie on a very large lot. The key will be absorbing the installation cost. You are correct in that there are tax credits available, however I am not certain off the top of my head what expired and what did not recently. However, if you can absorb the installation cost, the return on investment is very fast - probably within 3-5 years depending on the size and efficiency of your building. My stepdad and I have completed a lot of research into this and so I can get you information should you so desire. Sent you a PM. This would be for a restaurant-sized building, about 4500 square feet, probably no more than 6000 square feet. It seems like the larger the building, the better. I'm looking at solar water heaters too, the return on investment on those seems to be very fast, those two things together would probably drop the costs of heating and hot water by about half, maybe even more, add in some LED lighting to trim electricity costs and it's even more than that.

QUOTE (WCSox @ Jun 3, 2010 -> 02:09 PM) Putz was a successful closer for a couple of years. Santos has only been pitching for a year and a half, and his arm isn't conditioned for the closer role yet. Mishandling Santos in what is likely a lost season would be a major screw-up on the Sox's part. They could move Putz to the closer role and try to sell him instead. His contract is a lot more reasonable and might attract more suitors. Adding to this, Putz's 2007 completely blows any given Jenks year out of the water. Then he got hurt. It's not like he is chopped liver now, though. His WHIP and ERA are HALF that of Jenks in about the same number of IP. Ridiculous K:BB ratio, etc. I don't understand why anyone can say Jenks is better than Putz right now.

Well all of it would be several feet underground so depending on where you are, you might hit water anyway.

Yeah, I was reading that site just now, that's where I got the $15k guess from. From what I understand you need water underground, that shouldn't be a problem in Chicago. I'm interested in how it works, and I'm kind of surprised that people don't talk more about this. I'm also seeing that there is a federal tax credit worth 10% of the installation cost... gotta look at IL too

Can someone give me a quick crash course in a geothermal energy system? More specifically, how much they cost to install for a commercial building about 4000-5000 square feet (sports bar, and I'm guessing $15k?), how reliable they are, how much they save in heating costs, whether it's going to be cost-effective for me, etc. I think if I'm having to rehab a building and install a new heating system it would probably be worth it to pay the extra up-front costs, assuming the bank finances me. I really want to use a lot of green energy - LED lighting, solar water heater, etc. to the extent that it's financially possible for me to do so.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Jun 3, 2010 -> 07:53 PM) Love the direction this thread has gone. As for Google vs Apple in the mobile phone world. I have worked on the droid from moto, the droid incredible and the iphone, and IMO the iphone is ridiculously superior. I do like that the competition will drive Apple to innovated faster, but honestly the droid wont be anything more than an iphone alternative. Gage-GSM is about 85% of the world's cell phone market according to the sources I saw, I am not sure what the GDMA is that you cited, can you point me there? I love learning about this s***. The best news for all of us in this is that as consumers we have very very large companies vying for an ever expanding turf. It can only mean good things for us as far as innovation. Several years ago Verizon was absolute s***, I chose Sprint and Tmobile over them because they were so terrible. Now Verizon has the rep of reliable while others have fallen behind. If Spring somehow masters the VOIP thing and lets us not only work with a large network, but also tap into large WiMax or Wireless networks, we then have an entirely new leader. Regardless of whether Google ever actually catches Apple in mobile phones - they might, they might not - Google isn't one of those companies you just brush to the side and declare superiority over. If you are running a company like Apple, you either already know this, or you learn the hard way in a couple of years. That said, I totally agree - I love this kind of competition. This is how markets are supposed to work, companies scrambling to build up something so they can sell it to everyone at the best price, always trying to get the leg up on each other. Apple having a fire under its ass is probably a bad thing for Apple but that's great for us.

QUOTE (BearSox @ Jun 3, 2010 -> 02:51 PM) I'd probably be more upset if it wasn't the 3rd perfect game in 3 weeks. That's kind of how I feel, and what Kalapse said. Also, I wouldn't have been able to see this coming yesterday, but I really feel bad for Joyce. From hearing him talk he really knows he f***ed up bad, and he knows there's nothing he can do about it and you know he badly wishes he could. The way the whole thing was handled by the main people involved (Galarraga and Joyce) was 100% class.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jun 2, 2010 -> 11:32 PM) Yeah the team is really playing well without whipping boy Wise. Time to start booing Kotsay like the fans booed Wise. Gotta have a whipping boy. lol, Kotsay *is* a whipping boy around here, because he sucks, so I'm not sure what you're getting at here. He gets ripped for the same reason Wise did, because he is a below average player that is good when used in a certain role but gets way too much playing time. Actually the season isn't even half over yet and he's pretty close to getting more PAs than Wise did in either '08 or '09.

The AT&T vs. Verizon ads are completely meaningless for most people. AT&T's claim to be the fastest 3G network might technically be true but their actual data rates aren't much different from anyone else's in practice when you live in a densely populated area and there are a lot of others on the network at the same time. Verizon's map where they show all the holes in AT&T's map doesn't mean anything either, AT&T might not have the whole country covered but they have the metro areas covered, where almost everyone actually lives. So unless you travel a lot, and not "living in Chicago and flying to Dallas for business" type traveling but "driving to rural Nebraska" type traveling, what does that even matter?

If I lived in Chicago and every game was on TV, I would probably be watching a lot more games, but as it is right now I don't have a long cable connecting my PC to my TV so I have to sit in front of the PC, which takes a lot of willpower. mlb.tv was the best thing ever for me in 2006 because I was out of town for half that season and because I don't live in Chicago. So I watched in 2007 when they were bad, but eventually I lost interest because it just hurt too much to watch and I got sick of seeing Gonzalez, or Erstad. The 2008 team was mediocre, but they were in a division race that they eventually won, and the blackout game made that season worth it, so I stayed on most of the year. I started feeling the same pangs of mediocrity early into 2009, but would end up watching a lot of games anyway, because that team didn't have painful, gaping holes like 2007 did. But eventually, towards the end of the season when it became clear they were underperforming again, I lost interest. This year they sucked hard, almost right out of the gate. It seemed like 2007 hurt worse because it was out of the blue and so close to 2005, but I can't say I didn't see 2010 coming. I was optimistic, but around the 3rd week of April, I didn't feel like I was pushing the panic button when the team was playing like they thought Opening Day was in May despite the objections from posters here. I'm not a fairweather fan... the only reason I didn't watch a lot of games pre-2005 was because I left for the Army in early 2001 and was gone overseas a lot... incidentally, the season before that where I can remember watching a lot of games was 2000, the summer that I graduated high school. The fact that the 2000 squad was fun to watch and made the playoffs was a coincidence. Then it was another coincidence that I started watching a lot of games in 2005 of all years because although I was still in the Army, I had some kind of stability where I actually had time to do that again.

QUOTE (SoxAce @ Jun 3, 2010 -> 12:59 AM) Jesus... my favorite player of all time (emulated his stance to hitting left-handed, to playing CF) is officially done. He and Frank I adored growing up. I actually teared up a bit hearing this. That makes me, and you... I'm sure there are a few others here. Anyone else bat right-handed and tried to teach themselves to bat lefty just so they could do Griffey's stance and swing? It's a lot harder than it looks... perfection is hard to emulate!

Israel does have the right to defend itself, and the right to enforce a blockade to keep weapons out of Gaza, just like any other country would, since Israel is kind of in a de facto state of war. Israel really does find itself in a lot of "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situations and yes, sometimes they are held to a ridiculous double standard. The thing here is that the Israelis really came across as amateurish, like they just didn't know what the f*** they were doing, and genuinely didn't have a clue how to handle the PR debacle (or maybe even completely oblivious to the fact that there would even be one). This is something even the Israelis have been getting on the Netanyahu government about. They make things harder for themselves than they have to be and give themselves some self-inflicted wounds. I bet the Hamas leadership themselves couldn't have scored such a big strategic coup if they wanted to.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jun 3, 2010 -> 05:06 PM) That might change a bit. ATT more than any other provider is so reliant on a 3rd party provider. Yes, they all rely on the LG's/Blackberry/etcs of the wrold, but ATT is the only one with this huge exclusive rights deal that they rely on for a major chunk of their business (and the Iphone business tends to be there biggest $ maker as the smartphone segment has much higher profit margins). The Android base is growing significantly and most of the good Android based phones are being released on the CDMA platforms and quite frankly if I was going to get behind a company during a war, I'd get behind Google. They should see an extraordinary market share gain as they continue to gain notoriety on the Verizon and Sprint networks, not to mention the new 4G phones being releasd by Verizon/Sprint appear to be incredible phones. Iphones are also incredible but more and more phones are capable of doing what an iphone can do at a lesser smart with more carrier flexibility. I also am not completely convinced that ATT has the best Blackberry phone. All of the BB phones with the exception of the storm appear to be kind of similar (from a general consumers standpoint). The big difference is on when the most recent model was released on each carrier, but be it a curve/tour/bold/etc they all tend to be similar. Only question is whether you need a world wide phone or not and than if you wnat a touch form (see storm). The European countries have some badass technology so I'd be really curious to see how that market does. I also am not sure who streams more...US or other countries. I know the rest of the world texts more than the US (albeit US texts a lot more than we used to), but I see us as being larger data hogs for some reason (complete guess though as I haven't looked into that). Google is just... well... it's kind of hard to overstate how much s*** Google's managed to accomplish in the last few years. They aren't intimidated by anyone, and when they decide to pick fights, let's just say they have an impressive W-L record. For now, Apple's products are superior, but anyone from Apple that tells you they aren't at least a little worried that Google is trying to get in on their slice of the pie would just be lying.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Jun 3, 2010 -> 01:56 PM) Their 3G growth was exponentially faster than they thought it would be. CDMA's "3G" technology is really something that has been around a bit longer and didnt require the advances that GSM's did for rollout. Their "distressed" network is simply a lack of 3G coverage in certain areas which is overloading some of the towers which have to stream the data back to the sources. This wont be an issue for long as this has been ATT's push for over a year. In fact in Chicago, its made some major strides. Of course like I said before, CDMA devices interfere with GSM calls, so in large cities, more CDMA makes it harder for GSM devices to work properly. But clearly ATT has had superior devices, both on blackberries and now the Iphone. They just weren't ready for it. But who was?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 3, 2010 -> 09:14 AM) Wow, if you ever wanted to kill any desire I had to own an Apple product, this is the way to do it. Good work AT&T. I don't really disagree with this - what this means is that AT&T can charge like $10 less to the average customer for a data plan and make the power users charge more, which means that everyone else doesn't subsidize a handful of people's data usage/pay for bandwidth they don't really need. So AT&T loses some profits short-term and might piss off a few people, but long-term they have more control over their network and who does what on it. I know AT&T's taken a lot of heat for its s***ty network, a lot of it deserved, but really what carrier wouldn't have had at least a few problems once they add the explosion of new iPhone users onto their network? They would've been frantically trying to keep up with the increase in data usage, too.