Bruiser Chong

I'd say they won the Richie Sexson deal.

I had some of the shittiest Chinese food this afternoon. I'm not crazy about veggies when it comes to Chinese food, since they're drenched in a lot of crap, but I figured I'd work some vegetables into my meal, anyway. Mistake. The huge box hardly had any chicken in it and the vegetables were just too salty and saturated. All of this was counteracted by the most amazing egg roll I've ever had. So amazing, in fact, that I went back to the counter and ordered two more and threw that box of shit away.

The Cubs have ALWAYS sucked against marginally talented Astros pitching for whatever reason. I think DeRosa should spell Fukudome on days the team faces lefties once Soriano returns. Soto needs more days off or he'll be toast by the end of the season. Lou's not an idiot, though. He's not going to do everything the way he should, but he's not going to stick with a losing formula. Soriano's absence weakens the offense. His DL stint is not the lone reason the offense is struggling, but that's one of their biggest offense cogs missing. I don't know where you get the pitching unraveling thing. Marmol has looked sharp in his last few outings. And the Cubs have been dropping games because of offensive problems more than anything. They gave up six runs this weekend. Take out Marmol's meltdown in that Giants game and they held the Giants' offense in check that weekend. You're overreacting. The Brewers are obviously much stronger because of the Sabathia trade, but are you seriously fretting the acquisition of RAY DURHAM?

She isn't hideous and she does a nice job of masking her most unattractive feature (her nose). But her nose looks familiar any time her head is even slightly turned upward...

And Czech, get off the ledger. The Brewers aren't going anywhere and the Cards are probably going to last a lot longer than they have any right to (i.e. May), but the Cubs aren't falling apart, either. They haven't been good on the road all year, so this weekend shouldn't have been a huge surprise. The offense is in its first funk all year. It happens. I'm not exactly comfortable with a two-game lead, considering it was five and a half a little over a week ago. But considering the Cubs didn't snatch first place until August last year, I'm not panicking. This is a better team overall than last year's edition.

Kerry Wood is heading to the DL with a blister. A blister isn't anything to scoff at (just ask Josh Beckett), but it sounds like he'll only miss a week and this is more of a precautionary measure.

I won't repeat what everyone's saying, but Ledger met the hype. I loved the way he embodied the Joker character. Even little things like the pacing of his sentences or the way he smacked his lips at times when he spoke seemed to serve a purpose. And god damn, the pencil magic trick surprised EVERYONE in the theater.

I've got my tickets for the 12:01 A.M. showing tomorrow night. I've stopped watching any clips or reading anything related to the movie. I'm hyped enough.

Someone at BTF pointed out that Joe DiMaggio went 0-4 in his first ASG, never getting the ball out of the infield. Moreover, his defensive follies played a part in all the runs the NL scored in the game aside from a home run.

Any hope I had of the Cubs winning the World Series if they got there was just dashed. I know it sounds ridiculous, but with the way they've played at home this year, winning this game was absolutely crucial. The NL East should not be invited back to next year's game.

Is this why Uggla spent 23 years in the minors?

Fuck Dan Uggla. Fuck him up his stupid stumpy ass.

There aren't any bathrooms in the visiting clubhouse? That's quite the homefield advantage.

Your avatar has never seemed more appropriate then. I think what was most bothersome about Ortiz wasn't that he walked across the field during Hamilton's turn. It's that he didn't do anything. I kept waiting for something to happen, even after he'd gone into the dugout. Though it sounds contradictory, doing absolutely nothing made him seem like more of an attention-getting tactic than if he'd done anything.

It's important to remember that the episodes they've been airing for the last year happened in the post-WM III funk where there was very little going on in the company. We've got some good times ahead of us on PTW. There's so much that goes done between now and mid-1988 that the in-studio segments and discussion on the happenings will make each week a must-watch. There's the Survivor Series, the first Royal Rumble, the first Main Event with the infamous Hulk/Andre II, and the build for Wrestlemania IV. Then you've got Strike Force winning the title (if I'm not mistaken, this should happen before the next PTW), the full-fledged face turn of Randy Savage, and the debut/development of Bad News Brown, Ted Dibiase, and The Ultimate Warrior.

My first regular exposure to ECW was through TNN. Even though the promotion's glory days had already passed by then, the whole thing seemed so fresh to me. The raw style, the technical wrestling aspect, and the habit of breaking the more conventional rules of wrestling. But time and perhaps maturity has made most of ECW's stuff a chore to watch. I don't care much for resthold wrestling, but this spotfest junk seems so...mundane now. Lynn and RVD is an exciting match, but the majority of the show only reinforced my belief that ECW was incredibly overrated. Say what you will about the WWF or even WCW, but there's something to be said about some structure. ECW PPVs are unbearable to sit through at times because the whole thing often feels like it's done on the fly. "Oh, we've got a match going on. What's after? We don't know? Let's send some random guys out to fight for a few minutes then." I'd argue the back-and-forth sequence that seems to pop up in almost every ECW match involving two technical wrestlers creates a more choreographed feeling than anything the other two promotions were doing at the time. They're impressive, but when they're chronically used like they were in ECW, it's difficult to suspend disbelief. And I concluded long ago that I hate Sabu. The guy gave his body hell. Good for him. But he was an awful wrestler and did slight variations on a handful of big spots throughout his career. And he did them poorly. It's a nice visual to see him soaring through the air, but the point is lost when he constantly only grazes his target. I don't know. ECW certainly had its strong points and WWE and WCW owed credit to the company for several of the ideas they utilized. But a company can't thrive and flourish with the format ECW peddled. Some of it's admirable, but as a whole, it smacks of bush league.

We made the mistake of watching the 1993 version immediately after the previous years. The crowd is dead from the onset and the action never really moves past lethargic. It doesn't help to have a bunch of guys who can't wrestle or brawl very well in there, either. The only good part about the match is Sid once again spouting off words he probably doesn't quite know the meaning of. "We demand satisfaction" doesn't make much sense in the context he uses it in. The 1992 version is crazy, though. I'd seen it a time or two, but had doubts about re-watching it for some reason. Everyone delivers and the intensity is off the charts. Everyone's also extremely tan in that match.

And he catches a lot of flack around here, but I like seeing Milton Bradley having such a great time out there. He's been in the wrong plenty of times, but I think his rep has made him an unfair target in recent years. He's one of the few non-Cubs I really like to see do well.

I've been as down about the derby as anyone in recent years, but this made me stop everything I was doing. I haven't been in this much awe about anything baseball related in a long time. Like him or not, it's tough not to feel good for the guy.

Yeah, for real. I'm surprised anyone believed it, considering A) I probably wouldn't want to post on a message board, B) I'd be ashamed that it happened, considering I'd just claimed I had drinking under control, and C) I had just said I was going to write a fake addiction memoir. I was hoping it was real so I could raise the question: What's the better TSM scenerio, posting on a message board before getting an ambulance, or at a girls house about to get sex? Wasn't there someone here many years ago who was posting not long after allegedly getting stabbed?

Let Sheets go the distance.

You knew it was only a matter of time...

I have no doubt the Cubs will make it to October one way or the other. It's just unsettling the guy who was hands down their best reliever a few weeks ago has mutated into a guy incapable of preserving five-run leads.

Ive ridden enough roller coasters to realize that its not as big of a deal as they make it out to be, the warnings are put up just to cover their ass so they dont get sued. Walking is also not as big of a deal as they make it out to be. Give it a shot.

Ahh the mental picture of Milky posting on TSM with squinted, almost-swollen-shut eyes, freshly missing teeth and a hole in his cheek. Now that's message board dedication.