DBAHO

Belated thanks to y'all, unfortunately I don't have the time to post as much as I used to back in the day, but it's nice to see you haven't forgotten me.

An Aussie pitching for the White Sox, well there you go.

My old man's working in NJ/NY currently, staying right on the Hudson River. He's pretty much going to spend the weekend indoors in the apartment his company are renting by the sounds of it. Hopefully it dies down enough by the time it reaches that area on Sunday.

And in this week's episode of "Let's all LOL at Lebron James";

QUOTE (Brian @ Aug 18, 2011 -> 01:12 PM) Lost to Barrett Sunday. My apologies, I should have posted that in spoiler tags. Just wait til Smackdown in a couple of days.

Well good job making Daniel Bryan look like an idiot.

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Aug 14, 2011 -> 06:53 PM) Cowboys and Rams won. I'm happy so far. Don't think there's much doubt the Cowboys will rack up points this season, especially if the key pieces can remain healthy. It's the other side of the ball which is still the problem. We've gotten better at some spots e.g FS with Elam, but I think at least for the 1st half of the season we'll struggle on that side of the ball trying to learn Ryan's system.

More Mass Effect 3 spoilers, the little blurb on Garrus and Grunt is quite hilarious; http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/index.php/201...s-detailed.html

All comes down to the 40KM Time Trial around Grenoble tonight. Voeckler finally reliniquished the Yellow Jersey (going solo on the 2nd climb killed his chances), Andy Schleck's got a 53 sec lead on his brother Frank, Cadel Evans 57 secs back and Contador's about 4 mins behind. Evans is the best time trialist of the top 3, but tonight's course has a couple of little climbs which will help Schleck. It'll be very, very tight.

From an outsider's point of view, looks like nothing will be agreed upon unless the House Republicans budge on their stance on not raising taxes for the wealthy and corporations from the Bush Era Tax Cuts. Don't know if I see that happening, with the whole Tea Party idology front and centre within the Republican Party, but the blowtorch will be applied to them this week by the Democrats and the Media (well except for Fox News) you would think.

QUOTE (The Critic @ Jul 19, 2011 -> 07:47 AM) I was another who said he was done watching, and for a good while I did stop. I read spoilers and results and not much was keeping my attention. Two guys who did were/are The Miz and Punk. When I saw that promo Punk did on the ramp, it brought back everything I love about wrestling and I was sucked back in. There is still a TON of garbage in wrestling (Sin Careless, 99% of divas matches, 87% of TNA) but when something is based in reality, built up carefully and executed perfectly like this whole Punk angle is, it's easy to love it. CM Punk is the best thing happening in wrestling today because he loves wrestling and it shows - he was a fan, still is a fan and is not ashamed of it. He's the best talker in the business right now, if you ask me. His only drawback in my opinion is he's not good as a face. Vince has to be careful not to weaken his heel elements if he wants to turn him good - he has to be that Austin-style good guy who gets cheered because of his own personality and the fact that he fights bad guys. Oh, and I read on Punk's Twitter that he's going to the Cubs game today, so no Punk on RAW - which is the right move to further the storyline. Tonight is Cena's day of reckoning. Pretty much said the same thing after Edge retired, but this angle has brought me back in for the moment. Seriously, it's the best thing they've done in Wrestling for at least 10 years I reckon, or at least the Attitude Era. I haven't seen a crowd reaction at a Wrestling Event as I saw at MITB for a long, long time. They've got to run with it though, if I see CM Punk back on Raw next week because VKM isn't there anymore, that's nothing than a copout and losing a chance to develop one of the best storylines further.

I don't see Murray ever winning a major, just don't think he's tough enough mentally when it matters. Tonight's game should be a classic, and hopefully it goes the distance.

Day 1 last night and a crash in the peloton 10km before the finish pretty much screwed Contador over. Great start for Cadel Evans though, think he's got a real big chance this year if he can stay out of trouble. Team time - trial tonight will be very important also.

So if there is a lockout for a whole season, wonder what does with the situations of Dwight Howard and Chris Paul. Do they both bolt to say New Jersey and link up there, or does CP3 try to join Orlando for 12-13? Can they even do that without having to waive / trade Arenas and Hedo? Teams that have some expiring contracts this season and cap room heading into the next off-season, could find themselves in really good shape, depending on what a new CBA will eventually look like.

Wowee, never thought they'd be able to dump Campbell's contract, but they've been able to do that and not get a bad contract in return for doing so. Seen that Richards, Kaberle, Pitkanen etc. have been mentioned as possible FA targets. Do the Hawks go really hard after a #1 center like Richards, or try to sign a real good defender to replace Campbell as their 1st priority?

Certainly some action today, although was hoping for some bigger names to be dealt. From the Bulls perspective taking Mirotic is very understandable considering the success they've had with Asik. They better hope that he doesn't get settled in Madrid however otherwise you're looking at a Fran Vazquez scenario all over again. Still at that point of the draft, he's pretty good value. We traded 2 future 2nd rounders for Justin Harper, apparently he's Rashard Lewis lite (75% of his shots for Richmond last season were 3's apparently). Overall I thought Charlotte did well getting 2 1st rounders today, although not getting Thompson hurts. No other real big suprises, SAC picking Fredette had the Maloof Brothers all over it. Getting George Hill for pick 15 is excellent value for Indiana as well. Now do they package Collison and Granger in a trade to try and get a real superstar?

QUOTE (Felix @ Jun 22, 2011 -> 08:35 AM) It has no legs. Do you think any of the deals proposed have legs Felix? The one which to me makes the most sense for Minny is probably Marcin Gortat plus 13 for 2, although Gortat needs a good pick and roll PG to be effective.

Vince ain't got too much left in the tank at all. He's soft defensively, and some of shot selection in PHX was cringeworthy to say the least. Bulls should target a younger SG with room to grow, Courtney Lee would be ideal.

One of the first of many offers I'm sure;

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 14, 2011 -> 11:25 PM) The role players are easy to move. Hell Chicago and Miami could be first in line for a couple of them. Chris Duhon's all yours for free if you want. Besides that, I think Redick's the other contract which isn't that cap friendly, although the cap hit goes down to 6M and 5M for the next 2 seasons. I'm worried about SVG going on radio yesterday and saying we want to re-sign J-Rich though. Just seemed as if he has nothing left in the tank, and I think we need to get younger overall as a group going forward.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 15, 2011 -> 11:07 PM) Unlike the NFL, I'm pretty sure that the NBA has been much more willing to open the books of its teams and actually show that franchises are losing a lot of money. Yeah I've got no doubts that the NBA is probably on the owners side here (otherwise contraction would be a big possibility). They definitely want a hard cap and probably the ability to release players from overpriced contracts as you can do in the NFL (so we don't have situations such as Jerome James' and Eddy Curry's occurring again). As I've said though, the players aren't going to want to take those sort of things away. They are pretty happy with the system the way it is now for the most part I would have thought. It comes down to the argument of having a hard cap as the NHL's introduced, or allowing your bigger market teams to spend over the cap and pay a luxury tax if they wish, but that has caused the issues with the likes of Melo, Lebron, Bosh etc. going to whichever team they want in Free Agency.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Jun 15, 2011 -> 01:23 PM) The NBA actually has real problems, the NFL not really, just imagined problems. The NBA is bleeding money and actually showed their books, the NFL is just trying to grab a bigger piece of the multi-billion dollar pie I've got a feeling we could get a lockout not as bad as what the NHL went through a few years back, but we could definitely have some period of a work stoppage. When you've got Derek Fisher coming out and saying financially everything is good (with record TV ratings etc), and some owners losing tens of millions every year, well something is going to have to give eventually there.

QUOTE (Heads22 @ Jun 14, 2011 -> 10:30 AM) The Magic can ask for a lot for Howard, ya know, because he's a legitimate MVP candidate, the top center in basketball, the top defensive player in basketball, and extremely marketable. That being said, I think both side are really wanting to work something out in Orlando. Right now the ball's definitely in Otis Smith's court. All he has to do is surround Howard with enough decent talent for them to go back to the finals, and the only way that's probably possibly is by adding a 2nd star. Smith thought that would be Arenas, which was ludicrous from day one. It's not like a Melo situation where he's got his heart set on playing somewhere in particular from 12-13 onwards.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 14, 2011 -> 06:18 AM) That doesn't mean the Magic have to help, especially if they're not getting something really solid back in return. Right now I think Howard's desperate to play with either Deron Williams or Chris Paul in 12-13. If Orlando could somehow dump enough contracts to be able to sign both Howard and one of those guys to a max deal under a new CBA, I think Howard would definitely stay with Orlando. Don't know if that was possible though, but I'd be willing to write off next season if that's what it took. Amnesty waive Gilbert, dump Hedo's contract somehow and you may have a chance.

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ Jun 13, 2011 -> 02:35 PM) Is it not painfully obvious at this point that LeBron James is an entirely uncoachable player who undermines any coaches ability to effectively manage the roster? That was going to be my next point also. After what happened to Mike Brown and now probably Spoelstra, who's going to want to coach Lebron? The only guy I can really think of besides Pat Riley taking over is Rick Adelman, but at his age, is he going to want to deal with that headache?