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QUOTE (mumbles3k @ May 13, 2012 -> 11:16 AM) So, inspired by this thread, I re-watched MAJOR LEAGUE. I still think it's quite bad. The biggest problem with it is that it's not funny. The jokes are so easy and over the top that they border on cartoonish, and can be seen coming from a mile away. Likewise, all of the characters are extremely broad caricatures which are obviously designed for maximum humorous effect. As a result, they lose any sort relatability. Surely this is why they included Tom Berenger's character. He was the audience's proxy into this otherwise insane world. The problem is that everyone else's problems and goals are so outlandish that Berenger's arc ends up being basically non-existent. He didn't grow as a player, he wasn't the one to hold the team together, he basically didn't do anything. Presumably, this is why they chose to add the romantic subplot, which was half-baked at best. He sees his engaged ex, and wants to get back together with her. She says no, because he cheated on her, and she's with a better guy now. We don't see her fiancé being any more of a dick than Berenger. He's more successful, he never does her wrong. But then at the end of the movie, presumably because he's on a winning team, she goes back to Berenger. What the hell is that? So yes, I still hate MAJOR LEAGUE. Not because it's bad (which it most certainly is), but because it's stupid (there's a difference). That being said, I did notice that the Indians beat the Sox to force Game 163, so I've added it to the list. Because of the Sox element, I'm also looking forward to watching MAJOR LEAGUE II, hopefully soon. FWIW, it's mentioned in the sequel that the Indians lost to the White Sox in the playoffs after the first movie.

My English teacher wrote this on the board one day and told somebody to try and read it. I have no idea what the actual lesson we were supposed learn was but I've always remembered it for some reason. mr ducks mr not ducks osmr cdedbd wings? lib mr ducks Translation:

QUOTE (greg775 @ May 8, 2012 -> 12:57 PM) If there was no God, what is the point of all this? Even being here? Are we just going to die and bam, that's that, thanks for playing 60-100 years? It's possible. We will all find out eventually.

So my parents decided to become permanent campers like us. Since they are going permanent, they decided to upgrade from their 23-foot expandable to a 29-foot travel trailer. We went with them to look and found one that we fell in love with. So now we are upgrading from a 12-foot pop-up to a 32-foot travel trailer. It’s got an entire room with 4 bunks in the back and a TV hookup, so our kids can have their own little space. I just got the call that we’ve been pre-approved for the loan. Got to go up and finish the paperwork this weekend. Hopefully we’ll be all be camping in our new trailers within the next 2 weeks. Anyone interested in a 12-foot pop-up or a 23-foot expandable? Both are going up for sale real soon.

Now to me I don't see it as any different than the people who pick stuff up from the curb that has been put out as garbage. I've purposely put stuff out with the garbage with the hopes that somebody will come along and pick it up before the garbage men get there. Those big plastic slides, see-saws and play houses for kids are one good example. I had a few in my backyard that my kids out-grew and I didn't personally know anyone that wanted them. So I put them out on the curb and sure enough, somebody came along and picked them up. Now if I would've taken them up to the Goodwill and left them and somebody came along and took them, I wouldn't have minded at all. I've typically used Goodwill/Salvation Army as a last resort when I can't get rid of my stuff any other way either by giving it to somebody I know or even through a garage sale. Even though I was an only child, I grew up on hand-me-down stuff from friends and family. Clothes, bikes, sports equipment, tools, etc...

I debated about making this a seperate thread but I'll stick it here for now. There is a Goodwill store near our house that I drive past all the time. On the side is the door where people drop off their donations. Many times people will come after the store is closed and just drop stuff at the door. I've even done this myself a couple of times. Mostly with bags of clothes. I don't care about getting a receipt for tax purposes. I don't want to throw the stuff away because it's still usable. I just want to get it out of my house and hope that somebody else can use it eventually. I've actually seen some pretty nice things left by the door including a wooden rocker/glider chair and a big screen TV. Now the question I have is if somebody comes along and takes something that's lying by the door, should it be considered stealing?

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Apr 27, 2012 -> 08:57 AM) Those guys are always cruising around, which is why whenever I have something like that, I just drag it to the curb and know it'll be gone before morning. Same here. Most of the time it's gone before midnight. They kinda pissed me off though when I threw a couch out that had recliners on each end of it. It was already falling apart but they ripped the metal out of if and left the rest of the couch in pieces. So I spent an hour or so with a box cutter and a hammer tearing the rest of it apart. I'm using the wood for firewood and I took the stuffing out and used it to stuff the giant pillow we have for our dog. QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Apr 27, 2012 -> 08:49 AM) I do this for the money. Usually we put it towards whatever trip we do during the summer. I add that to whatever money I make from pay for click type sites and usually end up in the area of $500 annually. That way I don't have to worry about budgeting for a small trip. We recycle aluminum cans as well but we just give the money to our kids. We usually only get around $10 or so each time we go. That's for 4 or 5 garbage bags full. It's almost not worth it. We recycled a cast iron bathtub one time and got like $40 for it. Just last night we "recycled" a dog house that our neighbors were throwing out. It's a good solid dog house with a floor and real shingles on the roof of it. It even has insulation in it. I can't figure out why they were getting rid of it.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Apr 26, 2012 -> 10:42 AM) No, that's the tragic result. Everything leading up to it was 100% reasonable and expected given the circumstances. Yea, it's just too bad he didn't stop after his obligations were fulfilled which was simply calling the police and letting them handle it. Much like many of his neighbors had already done and had actually led to at least one arrest.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Apr 26, 2012 -> 10:26 AM) I just finished that article. It's a tragedy that an innocent kid got shot, but I can't fault Zimmerman at all for carrying a gun and being proactive about the problems he and his neighbors were having. I'd be fed up. You've watched your neighborhood go to s***. You've watched criminals REPEATEDLY commit crimes with nothing done about it. You know that even if a kid gets picked up he's sent to juvi or given probation or something and is back on the streets days or weeks later. The cops have clearly failed (though really without having a 24/7 presence there's not much they can do). So Zimmerman did what he felt he was obligated to do. He felt he was obligated to follow and kill an innocent teenager because some break-ins had happened in his neighborhood recently? That seems like a bit of a stretch.

Humber wasn't the only pitcher to throw a perfect game on Saturday.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Apr 19, 2012 -> 03:21 PM) Well, as I see it, helping your fellow man/woman/child when it comes to jury duty isn't supposed about financial or personal gain. Our court system, which people repeatedly call the best in the world, is set up in a way in which your civic duty results in a call to help your fellow man/woman/child get a fair trail in front of a jury of their peers, who will convict the guilty and set the innocent free, or in the case of civil suits, award proper damages, if any. Being how important of an event that trial can be in a persons life, I think we should all view it in the way in which, while quite inconvenient, you're actually doing someone a great service, even if it's quite anonymous. This again comes full circle...people love to talk about how giving they are, but they only apply that "giving-ness" to things such as charitable donations, or walking for breast cancer awareness, because that's an accepted societal norm, and wearing a pink Susan G Koman shirt makes you awesome in the eyes of society, while being a juror sucks. Society doesn't care if you served on a jury and potentially prevented an innocent person from a life of hell in prison, or perhaps prevented a guilty rapist from walking the streets and ruining another set of lives...the collective hive mind decided to arbitrarily care that you walked around in a pink shirt, instead. Last I checked, people don't get paid to walk around for breast cancer awareness, either...they actually pay to do it...and it's also an all day, or multi-day event. But...that's not like jury duty...jury duty just sucks. :/ And yes, I realize one is completely voluntary...but that only works because society decided it's awesome...and unless they found a way to make jury duty as awesome as walking around for some disease, the only way to get people to serve/help/do their duty is at gun point...practically...or apparently, to bribe them. TL;DR: I try to view jury duty as *giving* someone a shot at a fair trail, be it civil or criminal...instead of an inconvenience. Something you shouldn't need to be bribed into doing for them. Not to mention it's a maximum of once a year, IF that...it's not like they're asking you to do this once a month. First of all, it's not about financial or personal gain at all. It's about keeping the status quo. I simply can't go a few days, or a week, or a few weeks with no pay, because I'd be right back in the courts again but it would be bankruptcy court. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one in that same situation. Secondly, comparing jury duty to breast cancer walks is a horrible comparison for the exact reason you stated. It's voluntary. FWIW, I don't do those either because I can't afford to take off from work.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Apr 19, 2012 -> 10:33 AM) Mandate that employers pay a full days wage for jury duty. ^^^This. If I got paid my regular wage for being there, I'd have no problem with it at all. Until then, the livelihood of myself and my family come first.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Apr 18, 2012 -> 10:42 AM) The cutoff for school is August 1 around here. She was born Nov 4. She started K at 5, and turned 6 two months in. Yea, I thought about that after I posted it. Here the cutoff is Sept 1 and she would've missed that too. My middle daughter is the same way since her b-day is in December. you ->

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Apr 17, 2012 -> 03:08 PM) No they aren't. My first was born a week and a half after we won it all. She is in Kindergarten. That seems way late. I turned 7 in second grade and all 3 of my kids were 7 in second grade.

QUOTE (illinilaw08 @ Apr 17, 2012 -> 01:57 PM) That's true. And due to the cost, in a lot of lower charged cases (think not murder or rape - or DUI since labs are kind of important there), there aren't any labs. That doesn't stop a panel of jurors from expecting DNA evidence to conclusively tie the guy charged with car theft to the vehicle by some fiber of hair left on the seat. In fact, if you are in a jury pool, you might get a question asking if you watch CSI and an answer in the affirmative might make you more likely to get struck from the panel. I need to remember that the next time I get called for jury duty. One more way to get out of it.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Apr 17, 2012 -> 10:42 AM) That really sucks that a lot of employers do this. I have to turn in my $11 check or whatever it is as proof that I went, but I otherwise receive my normal pay. My old job would've done this. Of course I never got called in the 11 years I worked there. The job I have now doesn't and I got called a month after I started here. Go figure.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Apr 17, 2012 -> 09:25 AM) Something needs to be done to get the people involved to care about the system again, to care about their civic duties and not look at them as an inconvenience...so people like Zimmerman can -- without a doubt -- get the fair trial they deserve. I've mentioned this before but for me it's easy. Pay me my regular day's wages and I'll be happy to sit on a jury. $11 a day won't pay my bills.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Apr 16, 2012 -> 01:19 PM) recurring billers are all tough to deal with. Magazines, internet service providers, etc. Some people throw their hands up and just change the card number altogether AOL was the worst though. I think the CS reps were trained to do anything and everything except actually allow you to cancel your service. People were literally recording their conversations and posting them on Youtube.

I had to get Discover involved back when I finally got rid of AOL. I'm not sure how many times I called them and canceled yet they continued to charge my card for 3 months afterward. AOL was notoriously difficult to get rid of. I remember hearing some real horror stories about people trying to cancel.

QUOTE (elamins @ Apr 14, 2012 -> 03:06 PM) Just bought a new 2012 Kia Rio. Now I'm not a car person by any means but even I can see something is wrong here. It is listed at 30mpg city and 40mpg highway. So I drove the car about 18 miles over 3 days ( it was a relaxing period for me) anyway my gas range in the car went from 298mi down to 254. Im no genius but that math doesnt make sense. Oh and I also had the eco drive on which is supposed to help save gas. Any ideas on why it would be that far off? I'm pretty sure it figures that based on your MPG. So if you filled it up and were getting 38 MPG, it's going to calculate your range based on that. If you drive it for a few days and you drop to 33 MPG for whatever reason, it's going to re-calculate on the fly. I've noticed with mine it always starts around 422 when I fill up. But it doesn't always match my odometer mile for mile since I do a lot of highway driving. As my MPGs start to creep up, it may only take off a mile for every 2 or 3 actual miles I drive. I'm guessing you do a lot of stop-and-go city driving.

We just taught our 3-year-old dog how to shake. She learned sit, speak and down when she was a puppy. She also knows "off" when she gets her front paws up somewhere she's not supposed to be and "leave it" when she chases after one of the cats (although they usually do a pretty good job of letting her know if they don't want her around. In fact she's scared of one them and he's the smallest one.). For some reason she never understood "shake" until a few days ago.

QUOTE (bucket-of-suck @ Apr 9, 2012 -> 10:26 PM) Take a second and think about what Chris Sale did tonight. He absolutely dominated a major league lineup in his FIRST ever professional start. That is amazing. I've seen it plenty of times in years past. The problem is that it's usually the Sox hitters that are getting dominated.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Apr 10, 2012 -> 12:09 AM) With 50/50, you'll actually be pleasantly surprised. Seth Rogen isn't half as annoying as he normally is, largely because he's a supporting actor. Both a totally realistic and "feel good" story at the same time that doesn't feel completely contrived...at least not as much as most Hollywood fare these days. Bryce Dallas Howard does a great job of making you dislike her, which means she hit her mark well. You pretty much nailed it. It was really, really good. I've always liked Seth Rogan for the most part and JGL is awesome. I might pick up Hesher sometime soon just because he's in it.

The reason I ask is because some of those things you mentioned are problems we are having with one of our kids. We check her grades all the time and make sure she has her homework done but once she's at school it's sort of out of our hands to make sure she's actually paying attention in class, absorbing the information and turning in her work. We actually had a conference with her teachers once and it didn't help at all. I asked them the same questions and they couldn't give me any answers. We only got to talk to 3 of her 7 teachers. None of them taught the classes she was struggling in the most. They couldn't even tell me if the problem was that she wasn't turning in her work, or she was turning it in and just getting all the answers wrong. Either way she's obviously not retaining the information at all because she keeps failing her tests. She has ADD and I know that's a big part of it. I think we might be too late to salvage this year but we need to get an IEP for her. She's struggled more this year than she ever has in the past.

I watched Jack and Jill last night. It was just as horrible as everyone said it would be. Then we watched Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and it wasn't much better. The previews certainly made it look better than it actually was. We also watched Hop and The Sitter. They were ok for a few laughs but neither one was real great. Tonight we are going to watch 50/50 or some other movie that we rented and I can't remember the title of right now.