Dr. Tom

Can I be your Secretary of State, Mike? I'd love to give the middle finger to every leader in the Middle East. The day before we bomb the shit out of them, of course.

I think there's little doubt Pedro should have come out of the game. Of course he's going to say he can still get it done, and only a fool would listen to him in that situation. I remember seeing an article about how Pedro's numbers like ERA and WHIP shoot into the stratosphere after he hits 100 pitches. Joe Torre clearly outmanaged Grady Little in that game, despite the fact that Little had the advantage on the field for most of the 9 innings.

True. But it's hard to change him without betraying the character and selling out to the more cynical, jaded audiences of today. Superman's "the big blue boy scout," and his moral code is straight out of the 40s and 50s, but that's a part of him that can't really be taken away. If Superman went on a killing spree against the criminal underworld of Metropolis, the movie would suck. Considering that pretty much everyone knows who Superman is and what he stands for, you have to leave the core of the character intact.

One of the things I and others have been saying is that comic books and movies are two very different mediums. What works in a comic book will not always work in a movie. Movie audiences are much larger, more diverse, and largely ignorant of the source material. Keep this in mind: we live in a post-Matrix world. Movie audiences don't want goody-goody heroes who wear bright costumes. Heroes wear black, wear trench coats, wear sunglasses. They swear too much, narrow their eyes and scowl a lot, and kill people. They know they're right, they don't care about the legality of being right, and they bed the pretty girls. In movies, the line between a hero and an anti-hero has been blurred, in more areas than just the costume. In past eras, dressing the hero in white and the villain in black was the standard. Audiences have evolved; we can handle subtexts and shades of grey in our characters now, and those characters without them seem flat by comparison. Get with the times, man. The costumes aren't supposed to be the source of entertainment (well, unless they would've dressed Storm and Jean in bikinis the entire time...). The characters and the adventure story are supposed to be entertaining and fun. None of the X-Men have iconic uniforms or costumes, and changing them for the movie was no big deal. Good job not answering the question. I didn't ask you if you'd be scared of bloody Wolverine. If a guy (let's say he looks like Hugh Jackman) comes up to you wearing bright yellow and blue spandex and a silly mask and says, "Bub, it's ass-whooping time," are you going to be scared? Before you mention claws, keep in mind that Wolverine wouldn't need them to beat up on you or me. So, would you be scared of someone in that situation? You're not. You apparently think comic books are holy, and damn those impudent heathens like Bryan Singer and Sam Raimi for changing one thing in their holy scriptures. I've been saying that what works in comics works in comics, but you need to recognize that movie audiences are made up of more than fanboys: they're made up of teens and adults from this ADD generation who are looking to be entertained, and don't have voluminous knowledge about the source material. And if you give them a supposed badass in a gay pride costume, they're going to fucking laugh it out of the theater.

I concur. Bright blue, red, and yellow isn't really needed, and it looks pretty silly by today's standards. A darker blue with maroon would be OK. A radical reinvention of the costume is probably too much for most people to handle.

Who cares where he put them? He could've put them up his ass for all it matters. "OMG HE NEVER PUT THEM IN HIS SAWKS~!!!11!!!1!!" He still stole classified documents. Quit trying to defend the theft of sensitive material by disputing where the guy put the things he made off with.

The mayor of DC was on a radio show earlier this week, and seemed a little cheesed that, if Northern VA gets the team, they presume the team will play in RFK, which is in DC. He was amenable to reaching a solution, but thought the presumption that RFK would be used was arrogant. I'd love to see this be a snag in the process, after the team moves, of course.

No, you tool, you're blind because you're sticking your fingers in your ears at everybody's rational arguments and shouting, "OMG NOTHING CAN EVER BE CHANGED FROM A COMIC BOOK~!" Times change, people change, societies change, and only a fool would think things don't need to be updated with time. Spider-Man's origin story was changed in the first movie: the radioactive spider written in a time when we were in fear of nuclear winter was replaced by the genetically-engineered spider, made for a time when cloning and stem-cell research are hot-button issues. The random burglary of the Parkers' house was updated to Uncle Ben getting carjacked. And you know what? It worked perfectly well, and IMO, MUCH better than blind fealty to the source material would have worked. Until you accept a few things that people have been telling you all fucking day, then yes, you're going to be blind. But like I said, none are more blind than those who refuse to see. Wolverine's supposed to be a badass. So tell me this: would YOU be scared of some guy in bright yellow and blue spandex? Movies are a much different medium from comic books: the visuals are more immediate and more impactful, and thus have to be more carefully considered. I'm going to say it now: Superman's costume is a product of a bygone era, isn't intimidating at all, and should be updated whenever WB pulls their heads out of their asses and makes the movie.

Does the Action Replay get you updated rosters? Would you need Live to take advantage of it? I don't have Live, and I have no plans to get it, so if it does, then that's a frown squad for me.

I wouldn't make Ryan the closer. Left-handers rarely get turned into closers because they have value as setup men when managers play matchups. I'd rather have Ryan to bridge the game to Julio than send Julio packing and make Ryan the closer. Julio's shown he has the stuff and the mental makeup to be a major-league closer. The team just needs to get him more save chances. Anything that got DeJean out of town was fine with me. I have no idea why he was even signed in the first place. Now if only we hadn't made that bloody stupid trade for Grimsley...

Believe (or refuse to believe) whatever you want. None are more blind than those who refuse to see. Regarding translating things to the big screen, nothing really adapts perfectly. Peter Jackson said he made some changes to The Two Towers relative to the book because adapting the book 100% faithfully would have been "death on film." And as much as I love all the LOTR books, he was right. In the comic book world, you have years to build and keep an audience. And you expect fans will come to the books as others leave. In the movies, you have about two hours. People are less willing to suspend their disbelief about things on film than in comics. You have to make sure your jokes and sight gags are intentionally funny, not unintentionally so (as Hugh Jackman in yellow and blue spandex would've been). And you don't have the luxury of losing fans. Besides, the character is more important than whatever costume they put him in. And I think that, after two movies, the character of Wolverine has been done pretty well. The costume they've given him is actually an improvement over the comics. Some iconic costumes really can't be changed (like Superman's, even though it should be), but the rest just don't matter.

Hmm, I'll have to check out Party Poker. I figured it had the most fish, since I see ads for it everywhere. They're going to draw people who aren't poker players, but just like giving their money away because they get to feel like real gamblers. The cash game I play in is a $20 buy-in, .25-.50 NL Hold'Em game at my old roommate's house. He has two poker tables (just got the second one), and the crowd ranges from 8-18 people. Most nights, I walk out with about $60-160 more than I walked in with. The last time I played, I could only stay for 2 and a half hours, but I won $120, and won each of the six hands I showed down.

It's amazing that, even now, we subject Arab males to no extra scrutiny at airports. Children and Chinese grandmothers are not terrorists. We know what the terrorists who did this look like, we know what the ones who have been doing dry runs at assembling bombs on board a plane look like, yet we refuse to do anything about it because of political correctness. Tremendous. As for being a hero on a plane, it's hard to say. The fourth flight was driven into the ground by the passengers, but because of cell phones, they already knew the fate that awaited them. The people on the first three flights were probably operating under the "cooperate and you won't get hurt" presumption.

You and me both. If I did something like this now, I'd probably get shot and have a quick "trial" while I bled out. Ignore political affiliations: the man STOLE CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS. Considering the position he had, he should bloody well know better than to do something so dangerous and foolish. How long he served as a good employee doesn't matter when national security could potentially be at stake.

No one said the movie wasn't doing well. Would you care to actually address the points people have made, or are you going to continue to ignore them and be full of shit?

Orioles: Miguel Tejada Eric Bedard Daniel Cabrera Really, I think anyone else is touchable. They have some decent young players at other positions, but those three are the ones I'd never expect to see moved. Personally, I'd like to see the O's dump some of their FA signings from this offseason, like Palmeiro, Ponson (good luck on anyone taking that worthless tub of shit... who signs him to a $22m contract, anyway? Oh yeah...), and maybe Javy Lopez. Without the salaries of Segui and a couple others next season, the O's will have some money. Now all they need to do is spend it intelligently.

On PTI yesterday, they were talking about this issue. The idea of using the DH permanently in the ASG came up, and Wilbon had the absurd idea that this would give the AL the advantage. How? Both teams get to have a top-10 hitter in their lineups instead of wasting a spot on the pitcher. While the AL might have permanent DHs, anyone on the NL squad could fill the role. And it would save the benches for later in the game. Furthermore, since the ASG is all about the fans, I think most fans would rather see someone who can hit than someone whose best function at the plate is to intentionally make an out.

Apparently, they thought the Rays would be concerned about a crowded outfield next year, when Delmon Young is presumably ready to play in the majors. I think that, after years of bad signings and general ineptitude, that is precisely the kind of problem the Rays would like to have.

The plot summary on IMDB lists something about the murder of the Chinese vice-premier being carried out by "Jason Bourne," but that's how the book begins. Nothing in the trailers indicates that this will follow the book. I didn't mind the first movie updating the book, since we don't live in a Cold War world anymore, and people like Carlos the Jackal would be much more easily dealt with in these times than in 1976. For those who are fans of the book, there was a two-part TV movie made in 1988 that follows the book storyline pretty faithfully. I tracked it down on Amazon, and while it's not as good as the Matt Damon version, it's still true to the book and tells a good story because of that. It stars Richard Chamberlain as Bourne, and Jaclyn Smith as Marie. As shocking as those castng decisions might be, I never really noticed them when watching the movie.

Personally, I thought the Green Goblin movie costume was dreadful. It looked bloody ridiculous on film. I think purple and green "pajamas" would have looked silly, too, but there had to be a middle ground somewhere. Spider-Man's costume never looked like pajamas during the movie... why couldn't they have made a Goblin costume out of that same material? As for the X-Men, I'm glad they went with the black/brown leather. Wolverine would look bloody silly in yellow and blue spandex. What works in comics does not always work in the movies. Comics, especially ones that have been around for a while, settled on certain colors because of printing technologies at the time -- this is why the Hulk was turned green from his original grey, for example. While printing has come a long way (a grey-skinned Hulk is now easy to render), a lot of those old looks have become "classic." And when you're making a movie, you're not just making it for the 300,000 people who might regularly buy the comic: you're trying to draw millions of viewers, some of whom will only be superficially familiar with the source material, from all over the world. And for every fanboy who popped a comic purist boner at seeing Wolverine in yellow and blue spandex, 500 other people would have thought it absurd and laughed at the character.

I play poker (Hold'Em in particular) as often as I can. I play in a cash game at least once a week (I occasionally have to miss it because of schoolwork), and I play online for money at Ultimate Bet. I just got a Poker Stars account, but I've yet to put any money in it.

He has some things he's been dealing with that are a lot more important than this board. I'm sure he'll be back when everything is squared away.

Argh, two in the same day? People, I posted this days ago because I'm infinitely cooler than the rest of you. Look in General Chat, which is where it belongs.

Beltre's finally having a good year (in a contract year, no less), but to me, the NL MVP is a two-man race between Rolen and Bonds. And right now, I'd give it to Rolen.