Dr. Tom

I think this is directly related to having a spineless coach. When your coach always punts on 4th down, even when only an enormous pussy would punt, then the players don't really have any reason to play with any fire. If the coach isn't trying to win, why should they?

Hmmm, I worked for Staples several years ago, and I had no idea they had a distribution center in MD. Anyway, yay for you. It's not a bad company to work for.

Washington at Tampa Bay: I hate the 'Skins, but they're on a roll and doing everything right. I'll take them by 6. Jacksonville at New England: Sorry, Jags fans. The Pats got healthy and got it together when it counted. And you're not going to go in there and beat Brady in the cold. NE by a TD. Carolina at NY Giants: I'll go with the home team here, though Carolina could make it interesting by actually showing up to play. Giants by 3. Pittsburgh at Cincy: Sorry, Marvin, but after that dogshit effort this past weekend, there's no way your team handles Pittsburgh. Steelers by 10.

Not surprising. The man has always been good as an offensive coordinator, but always shitty as a head coach. I was very surprised the Raiders even hired him in the first place.

How many games has he won recently, though? If you want to discount this year because of all the external factors, fine, but how successful have the Saints been under him? I'm sure he wanted out as much as they wanted to make a change, and I think it's a good idea for both parties.

Maybe the Bills can find a competent GM, and a coach with a spine.

All is right with the world again.

Eh, I think thesmartmarks.com is too limiting. It's intrinsically linked to rasslin', and we're trying to be more than that. TSM.com would work better... everyone calls this place TSM already, anyway. Also, are we still using Article Manager for this? If so, cool, but if not, I'd like to be setup as I was before (I'm an admin in AM, since I used to handle all the mainpage stuff), so we don't have a single point of failure if our one person is indisposed. I'd also be willing to help screen writers and weed out the shitty ones.

Yes, I was busy with friends and family for the holidays. And I was also busy being sick. Meh. Anyway, a few suggestions. I generally like the look of the Beta page, but that's way too many subcategories. Most of them can probably go. Writers should not use their forum handles when writing articles. If this is supposed to be an actual website, not an extension of a messageboard, then it needs to look as professional as possible. If I see an article by "Kingofthe909," I'm not going to think, "Oooh, that might be interesting," I'm going to think, "WTF is a 'Kingofthe0909?'" (Not trying to pick on King here, but it's a decent example.) Using your real name should be encouraged, or at least a variation thereof. No one is going to find you and kill you because you signed your name to a column. (unless they already knew where you lived... ) Are articles going to be in Pending status until an editor approves them?

I just made a new thread in Feedback, so the interested parties (and their ideas) can be easily collected.

Ok, I see the prospering thread in Feedback. It's good that so many of our users (and so far, they seem to be among the more intelligent ones) are interested in relaunching the mainpage. I think we need to start discussing it here, too. And probably make a new thread. I was considering make a subforum that only the admins and the users who had expressed real interest could see. I'm not quite sure how I'd do that without using a member group and masks, though.

That actually might IMPROVE Baltimore's offense. It will. Past readers of my NFL column here will remember that I used to refer to Lewis as JAMAL~!, in the fine tradition of PRIEST~! and MARSHALL~! After his miserable season this year, Lewis has lost the single-name tilde-bang status reserved for the best RBs.

Option C sounds too swingy. One upset could kill you there, while one upset in another system is just one more game. I'm aware that greater risk = greater reward, but the 1-16 power picks approach just seems gimmicky to me. After some thought, I actually like the spreads, so long as we're using the real Vegas lines. So I'll stick with what we have now: option A. Picks made on the other board, though I'd like to add 5 to my TB points. Since I just found out I had a team here now. :-/

I think it was the threat of the steel-toed boot that did it... PH34R Hoff's footwear. And not just because hit feet were in them.

I figured you had taken your baseball columns to a site where you could get more traffic and publicity. And I certainly wouldn't blame anyone for doing that, since writing (especially writing without compensation) is an inherently selfish exercise. Actually, you probably are. Ah, the glory days, when we had 7-10 new articles a week, and several writers getting more pub for both themselves and TSM by being cross-posted at other sites. Unfortunately, the business has lost popularity since then, we've lost a ton of writers, and the aborted mainpage revamp of last summer pretty much killed dead the chances of starting it up again. I suppose we could hire more writers, but then we'd be doing the same "wrestling with a splash of pop culture" that infinite other sites are doing. Yawn. If we're going to seriously relaunch the mainpage, it has to be as something different. Also, I used to screen the potential writers and do a lot of editing work. I don't really have the time to do that anymore, and there aren't many people I'd trust to do it in my place.

But if that same URL went to the main forums page instead, would we really be losing anything?

Likewise. Heck, I have books piled up on the floor after I moved because I've been too lazy to put a new bookcase together. :-/

Just buy a laser printer. Screw those commie ink cartidges. Buying a couple of those is more than the bloody printer costs. Lasers are usually faster, more reliable, have a lower per-page printing cost, and are quite reasonably priced. You can get a good laser for basic home use for about $150. Color lasers for home or small office use start around $400-500.

Better idea: let's just do away with post counts altogether.

Ok, let's start talking about who we want to keep, axe, and maybe even bring on as GMods. First, what about folder-specific mods, like we had for a while? The busier folders could have folder mods, which would mean we'd need fewer GMods. After recent events, the fewer people who have AdminCP access, the better, IMO. Discuss.

Meh, getting everyone together for an AIM chat may not work. We can always bandy things about here.

You're laughing with me, not at me, right?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}> Requoted, considering some recent controversy. I think discussing staff would be a good idea.

Hmmm, a sports-themed show would be a good endeavor, IMO. "The Bobby Abreu Hour, with Al Keiper"

Hope it was a good one, mang.