Czech please!

Don't be dumb.

I never liked the term "homeland." We'd never really used it until then. David Mamet wrote a good piece about this.

Those are all very salient points, don't get me wrong, but only one guy has an entire lost season on his hands. Not that it means the NBA isn't full of corrupt referees and bullshit salary caps and expiring contracts and all that crap, but the NHL got so fradulently bloated that it stopped existing for a year. That's the lowest of the low. "But he's working to eliminate staged fights!" Big fucking deal.

I'm trying to think of a way we can do a big Spoon Sendoff before he leaves for the Army. We should try to compile as many great Spoon threads and things as we can. Ballston, State of America, that time he wrecked a car, the time he almost fucked a girl that was passed out, some stuff from when he was a mod, I dunno. Something.

I had to learn how to score a bowling game when I took it for gym class (where I had the highly embarrassing pinched nerve incident). We talk about things we forget we learned in high school and cite algebra and the War of 1812. No. This is the shit you never remember.

meandmyasian/pictures/095-sweet-faced-asian-penetrates-her-asshole-with-a-toy/pictures/

Bowling is one of those things you wouldn't wanna be good at anyway. I bowled a 41 once and I don't even care. One time I pinched a nerve somehow, and my entire left arm went numb, leaving the ball to fall off my hand and gently roll into the gutter. Turned me off the game for good. That and the insufferable atmosphere, which makes me want to slit my wrists in a bathtub. None of those fancy-schmancy clean bowling alleys within 30 miles of me. Smoke, beer, paneling, and proletarians.

Well, that's probably hyperbole, but I don't suppose the lockout really helped.

Apparently the wedge causes a lot of concussions. So does the rest of the game of football. Maybe we should just let the teams negotiate where drives start. 24 sound reasonable to you? Well why don't we just let you start at our own 1, for the love of God. Fine, 20? Sounds good to me. Think I can get you up to 21? Don't hold your breath. 20 it is? 20 it is. Break!

Stone Temple Pilots bore me. "Under the Bridge" isn't that good. "Creep" is one of my least favorite Radiohead songs.

The commissioner is supposed to act on behalf of the owners, though. That's pretty much how it's always been, except for Kenesaw Mountain Landis.

I don't want to see Vinny Del Negro coach four more games.

These are things that Gary Bettman did, but they're not necessarily good things. Adding six teams doesn't look so good now, when we're looking at possibly subtracting at least one. It's common knowledge by now that the expansion was fueled by the desire to collect expansion fees and make some quick cash to the long-term detriment of the league. Implementing a hard cap after Quebec City and Winnipeg no long have to stay on pace with New York and Detroit is closing the barn door after the horse is out, and has hamstrung today's general managers in ways they ought not be hamstrung with "cap hits" and silly deferred contracts and resignation to the fact that any team with numerous young stars cannot be sustained (unless you're the magical Red Wings, apparently). I've said it in other threads: if you want a check on irresponsibility, you can have a hard salary cap, or you can have guaranteed contracts. You can't have both; it's a nightmare. You popped your own balloon on No. 4, because any deal with a channel most people cannot watch is intrinsically a Bad Deal. Bettman really did buy the proverbial Kansas beachfront property on this one. So Bettman got a big contract out of Disney. Okay. Do you think another commissioner could've gotten a similar deal (let's say up to $500MM) without presiding over expansion and relocation patterns that falsified the prosperity of the owners, an exponential rise in contracts disproportionate to the scale of the league that eventually resulted in an unprecedented wire-to-wire cancelled season, annnnd a league whose nationally televised games are largely unavailable to American viewers? Runners-up: Selig is an asswipe and a crook who allowed steroids to scar baseball for years to come, but he's doing something right. Roger Goodell is a draconian idiot and something about him just bothers me. David Stern has had some slip-ups in recent years but still has a hell of a track record and can be largely forgiven for any transgressions based on what he's done for his league. Shaking down the city of Seattle is pretty bad, though.

Also consider that midseason improvements are going to be very difficult with the ownership in flux and the money pits that already populate the roster. Look, I want to believe that Milton Bradley will do well, but I don't see it happening. I don't see Fukudome getting better. It's not going to be the walkover people think it will be at all.

Oh shut up. There are perfectly good reasons to be skeptical about this team. You have enormous injury risks at left, right, and third. Precipitously declining production at first, soon-to-be-overexposed bench player at second, and unworthy replacements behind them. Rich Harden is already set to Prior Standard Time and scheduled to be out for the entire month of April. They took last year's team and made it worse in a variety of ways. The last time the Cubs subtracted critical pieces and told us they'd contend was 2005, a disastrous season, and I feel a lot like I did before that season, trying to convince myself that somehow this players on this team add up to a world championship. If everything goes right for the Cubs, they'll win 90, down from last year but enough to win a weak division and get summarily bounced by a team that's built to do more than win a weak division. At worst, they're in the mid-70s. I think things will be worse rather than better. Take all the missed time that Soriano and Ramirez had from being old and creaky, now subtract Mark DeRosa for no good reason other than "he talked to the media." It's not promising.

That's not "wrong on so many levels" if you're first conceding that race did have something to do with it. It's right on one level, and wrong on another. The dangers of prefab verbiage.

If this community could sustain yet another splinterboard, which it cannot, these travesties (in addition to "Brick" losing) would precipitate the schism. EDIT: Look what else lost! Bittersweet Symphony? Hey Jealousy? Iris? Waterfalls? You guuuuuuuys.

Montell Jordan- "This Is How We Do It": I'm sure that this song is an instant flashback to the 1990s for a lot of people and thus deserves to go far. Deee-Lite- "Groove Is In The Heart": I don't like "Gin and Juice." Warren G. (ft. Nate Dogg)- "Regulate": Best song in this bracket, and it inspired the best episode of Yacht Rock. Jay-Z "Can I Get A...": I still like this beat a lot, even though the Amyl verse has always annoyed the shit out of me. Stone Temple Pilots- "Interstate Love Song": haha, this will have gone far. What an average song. Average band. Smashing Pumpkins- "1979": Tough call, as "Don't Speak" was actually a pretty neat song, but this is still one of my favorites from that time period. R.E.M.- "Losing My Religion" Blind Melon- "No Rain": both of these are from the '90s but not MY '90s so I don't care. I picked the bee girl. Skee-Lo- "I Wish": STP is already this far; I cannot abide more sludge progressing. Not at the expense of Skee-Lo! And where is he? DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince- "Summertime": samples "Summer Madness" which is awesome Beastie Boys- "Sabotage" Red Hot Chili Peppers- "Under the Bridge" New Radicals- "You Get What You Give": "Creep" isn't that good. This is a ray of sunshine. Not a ray of light. That didn't make the cut! Hey! Faith No More- "Epic" Hootie and the Blowfish- "I Only Wanna Be With You": oh fuck no aw shit it beat Brick! Well, I'm going to root for the song that beat my song so as to lend validation to its defeat. I feel so White Soxy. Meat Loaf- "I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)": Garbage does little for me.

Something I always wanted to do with time travel would be to spend modern dollars in a time when inflation had yet to make them worth less. The flaw, of course, is that the dates on a lot of the currency would be from the future, and I'd be in trouble for counterfeiting, or burned at the stake for being a witch.

Yeah, why not. It's just as artificial and arbitrary as "Nick Punto: Team Italy." I wanna watch Team Hutu vs Team Tutsi. "Aaaaand the pitch, Umtumbe's going for second here he iiiiiiiiiis OUT at second, overslid the bag. Umpire Randy Marsh having a word with Umtumbe here aaaaaaaand there's the machete, sending Marsh's head rolling into shallow right."

I think Ontario has a different system. Two of my friends in high school were pretty obviously gay, but both worked hard to get over their gay issues. To link this thread over to the one about fake tans, one of them got one before Prom and was the target of much good-natured ridicule. The girls and I had to explain to him that fake tans are for girls, and guys are expected to just be outside and stuff. His beard had a huge rack and turned out to be a lesbian:

Smues was also a late arrival to the Rays and Arizona Cardinals bandwagons, guys, so place your bets accordingly. Apparently the "Team USA officials" pissed off Derrek Lee by badgering and hectoring him into playing in the WBC, even though he was injured: He's so mad, he's going to ground into his first of this year's thirty double plays extra hard! In related Cubs/WBC news, Geovany Soto is said to be overweight and out of shape. Probably should've been in spring training, getting into shape and working with his pitching staff.

When I came from the world of theatre, I worried about having to deal with gay issues, but it never really came up.

Discuss how you have worked through your own gay issues.

Let's pause as we check with the war room in Binghamton.