The Man in Blak

Agreed, but just wanted to give some positive feedback, since the post that was torched (not sure who did it) was a little antagonistic and probably wouldn't have helped matters at all. But yeah, let's stay back on-topic: Well, as the first part of the point says, there is the option of tearing the whole thing down and assigning the TSM domain to an IP portal of the forum itself. I just wanted to suggest some different options because, as is, the front page is really an eyesore and it probably does an admirable job of repelling potential newcomers just by sitting there. But, overall, the suggestion was just to do something - even euthanasia, at this point, would result in an improvement.

Good call on the delete, boss. We're trying to stay positive here.

Okay, four major sports. (There's a debate to be had about Hockey, but there is a fair amount of activity for hockey in the sports forum, so it could work anyway.) Still curious how to approach the rest of them, though - a "General Sports" folder?

I was considering offering the split sports folders as a suggestion, as it seems like there are capable moderators for all three of the major sports, but I wasn't sure what to do with "The Rest Of The Sports Folder" in that scenario. Also, regarding my suggestion for moderator nominations, that was more of an advocacy for AndrewTS, than anything else. The guy hasn't just racked up a post count (which I couldn't care less about), but he's also done a lot to push quality discussion in the folder. Just thought I'd throw his name out there.

Hate, hate, hate, hate, hate the Mulder deal already. This guy was arguably damaged goods when we picked him up in 2005 and he's coming off of rotator cuff surgery in 2007, so we could be looking at $13 million down the drain for virtually nothing. If he does come back and hit his incentives, the dollar figures skyrocket towards Zitoland and away from an ideal ratio of salary-to-performance...and, on a team with a young and uncertain rotation, the temptation to throw Mulder out there will be far too great, even if he's average at best, making those incentives a very likely conclusion. The fact that his incentives appear to be playing-time based, rather than performance-based, indicate to me that the Cardinals still think Mulder is an ace-quality starter, which really makes my head hurt. I would have much rather given 4/40 to Weaver than roll the dice at full retail value with a pitcher whose mechanics over the last two years were borderline terrifying. The Franklin deal is a much more savvy pickup, if only for the price - I sure hope we don't have to give him 20 starts, but I would expect more out of Franklin than Sidney Ponson, who we picked up at the same price last year.

I think everybody's busy brainstorming a way to trump his thread, which might be the most unintentionally hilarious thing I've read in a while.

Also, it seems that the Hall of Fame (and, really, baseball in general) is held as some utopian ideal of virtue by writers that are desperately trying to preserve the childhood innocence that they once had for the game, rather than an institution dedicated to preserving the history of baseball. Compare the reactions of announcements for the Baseball Hall of Fame to the Football Hall of Fame or even the reaction to the use of PEDs in each league.

According to the last interview I read from him, he's actually wanting to branch out and write more songs on the piano. Which, if this performance is any indication, could be a disastrous career choice. His "conventional" live stuff is very good, though - the Over The Top Festival bootleg is probably my favorite, from what I've heard. The looping trick with the violin is something that he took from Andrew Bird's live show, though. I dunno. I think there's a chance of liking some of the better tracks from He Poos Clouds, but I don't know if I'd see you liking the rest of the album; save for "This Lamb Sells Condos", virtually every track is quirk arranged for string quartet. You might find it a bit gimmicky.

Topic swerve - the bootlegs of Final Fantasy's Sept. 19th performance in Vancouver (available here, just for reference) are really disappointing. If your knack involves elaborate string arrangements and/or violin lines looped in sequence with a sampler pedal, you probably shouldn't be playing your tunes live on a cheap-ass electric piano. I would have never thought "Hey Dad" or "Arctic Circle" capable of solving insomnia, but here they are, in all their homogenous keyboard glory, completely bereft of any of the textural elements that made them so intriguing in their original form.

Here's a suggestion that might not undermine the bowl system with minimal adjustments to the BCS: Instead of provisioning the National Championship Game to one of the BCS Bowls, create a separate BCS National Championship Game that would be played between the #1 and #2 teams (according to the polls/BCS calculations) following the outcomes of all of the bowl games. You could continue to rotate the adjusted seeding / scheduling between the different bowls - perhaps the game that would have formerly hosted the National Championship could become the "Bowl Championship" or "Road To The Title" (or some other marketing nonsense), with the winner getting a guaranteed seed in the National Championship Game against the newly voted #2 team. The new vote following the bowl games could allow the voters the opportunity to pick a team like Boise State to get an opportunity at the winner of the "Bowl Championship" (in this case, Florida). It would only be one additional game, but it would theoretically be the one game that would tie up all the loose ends, the one game that everybody would like to see. And the additional revenue from having an undisputed (well, as undisputed as you could get in football) national championship game following the bowls should bring in enough money to counteract any prestige lost from taking the "National Championship Game" moniker away from the BCS Bowls.

I need to type faster. Or be less articulate, either one.

There's no real good reason for the current system, in regards to competitive balance, but there's a lot of reluctance between the larger universities to dissolve the bowl system for a playoff brackets, when the bowl matchups are basically a license to print money in their respective cities. The playoff is probably feasible, although it could be tricky; you could essentially be shifting controversy from the final season rankings to the playoff seeding / choices (similar to college basketball), in addition to issues with scheduling. The risk doesn't outweigh the current reward of the bowl system for the BCS conference schools, as far as I can tell. All that being said, I think the BCS actually didn't do a terrible job. Yes, I know Boise State is undefeated and, thus, there's a lot of outrage about their placement, but their shining win in bowl play was an overtime win, in which they scraped by a two loss team (Oklahoma) that was the champion of a weak conference. You can argue that SOS needs to factor less in the calculation, but the reality is that, with so many college teams in the spectrum playing unbalanced schedules, strength of schedule is basically the only compass you've got in a very stormy and uncertain sea. Boise State has earned respect and renown for their program and I would anticipate that they'll attract a stronger schedule for next year, and a new opportunity to prove themselves amidst high expectations.

The Apples In Stereo - "Strawberryfire" Not exactly subtle, is it?

Ah, I see. Isn't Super Star Soldier already out on the VC? That's kind of a peculiar move. (Though, if it's a decent game, then no harm, no foul, I guess.)

I'm not an avid reader by any stretch of the imagination, but I felt compelled to spend some Christmas money on some literature for the 30 minute train ride to work, grabbing Naked Lunch and the aforementioned Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72. I considered picking up some Pynchon in there as well, but I'll freely admit: the sheer size of Gravity's Rainbow is a little intimidating for somebody who has read three books in the last two years.

No idea what Soldier Blade is, but Dungeon Explorer is an old Atlus action/RPG title for the TG-16 that's similar to Gauntlet, as I understand it. Probably not a bad multiplayer spin for $6. Gradius is the big name being released, but I'd rather play Life Force, all things considered. As much credit as I've given Nintendo for the Virtual Console, they should probably consider "catching up" the North American game list to Japan's VC, as some folks are starting to get restless with the slow stream of titles coming out.

"So yeah, I post on this internet message board. Yeah, well, it's actually a wrestling discussion forum. No, no, I don't really watch wrestling anymore but...yeah, well..."

Gave Return to Cookie Mountain another try and reaffirmed my faith in second-chance listens. (I actually traded in Kid A after an underwhelming first listen and now it's one of my favorite albums ever.) I'm not all the way through the album yet, but it's pretty hard to turn away from the sequence of "Hours" through "Wolf Like Me." I think Edwin mentioned it earlier in this thread - this is not an album that you want to try to cherry-pick through, because all of the songs basically flow into each other (from what I've heard so far). And those four songs that I referenced above are all fantastic.

Because I made one off-hand remark? You're taking this way too seriously. It's an offhand comment, but it's a fucking stupid one, and one that's worthy of derision, for reasons that have already been explained above. And, though trying to play down your original comment is an admirable turn, you did follow up this innocuous little throwaway with a second post in the thread and a cameo here, riding sidesaddle on Al's dick somewhat triumphantly. How about we call it even at "we both care too much"? I already posted that one had nothing to do with the other. Yes, you did, and the entirety of your argument was "um, they have nothing to do with each other, er, so there." Would you like to actually explain your contention, or were you just trying to be dismissive? Okay. I use the internet to follow sports. Even though TSN's Jennifer Hedger is a looker. You know, citing the internet as an alternative when I'm talking about television coverage is kind of moronic. There is a demand out there to be able to see what happened in the game and hear intelligent analysis about the proceedings; ESPN provided this astounding and apparently stupifying combination at one time, but have steadily gone downhill in recent years for both areas, far beyond the point of parody. Thus, they've opened themselves up to rampant (and ultimately meaningless) criticism from folks everywhere, particularly on the internet. Just like you have an insatiable need to hop on the internet and discuss Tina Fey's latest project or talk about what Hollywood B-lister that you got a snapshot with, sports fans (who are frustrated with the lack of objectivity and overall quality in ESPN's coverage) are looking for an outlet to talk about how fast The Worldwide Leader is swirling around the toilet bowl. The fact that the second thread on the topic has 30+ pages of posts should tell you that it's something that people want to discuss. I just think it's funny that in the midst of a big playoff game, a lot of the posts were about a freaking sports network. Who cares? Well, apparently, you cared enough to make a post about it in the first place. Given that you acknowledge that ESPN has been driving the Romomania bandwagon below, it's kind of puzzling that you can't grasp why people were reacting in the way that they did. I know that ESPN's been on Romo's cock. I still think it's funny that everyone obsess over what a sports network might say, or debate on who they hate/don't hate. I like the word imbecile though. Well, thank you for such a valuable and enriching commentary. If "imbecile" is a cheap thrill, then this post will surely be a wild ride of five-star linguistic derring-do. ("An absolute delight!", says Joel Siegel.) You're entitled to think that such discussion/debate is funny but, if you're going to enter a thread and ridicule folks for taking shots at ESPN when these criticisms/cheapshots are completely valid, you should understand that such an "off-hand remark" will probably earn a reaction. Of course, since you acknowledged that ESPN has had overwhelming favoritism towards Romo and still somehow managed to be shocked by everybody's reaction in the thread in question, perhaps such an expectation is a stretch.

Yeah, I did, because you were being a fucking idiot. People are "obsessed" with ESPN because it's basically the only place where you can even get dedicated sports coverage on TV anymore, as poor it may be. As I proposed in the original thread, why don't you meander in to the WWE folder and ask people why they're so up in arms about the WWE? And please don't even bring up Fox Sports; with highlight shows that look like they're produced out of somebody's basement, Best Damn (the absolute nadir of sports shows to begin with, as far as I'm concerned) somehow de-evolving even further into endless Top 50 shows like some VH1 Sports of the Damned, and Final Score - the one decent highlights show out there - only showing at 1:15 am CT or whatever, Fox Sports is a laughable "alternative" that shouldn't even enter the conversation. It's ESPN or bust, unfortunately. If Al wants to bitch at KingPK for creating the thread, at least he picked the right place on the board to do it. You, on the other hand, clumsily stuck your nose into the middle of a playoff discussion thread and tried to line everybody out for daring to criticize ESPN when: A) a particular player completely fucked up the game-winning play for his team and B) ESPN's never-ending verbal fellatio of this particular player has been part of the bigger subplots throughout sports this year, thus causing C) everybody to share a big hearty laugh at ESPN for B) after the occurence of A) You probably could have found that out by opening with "Okay, I haven't been watching much of the NFL this season, so I don't get it - why's everybody getting onto ESPN about Romo screwing up the snap" but, instead, you chose to slam your balls in a drawer and get onto people for "obsessing" about ESPN, like you've been keeping score on everybody's commentary in sports all year long. Imbecile.

In terms of draft position, Gallery's the biggest bust, but Manning is probably the biggest overall disappointment in the draft by far, considering that the Giants traded Rivers and three draft picks to get him (which San Diego would later use to get Shawne Merriman and Nate Kaeding).

See, if we hadn't banned wildpegasus, he could have given you weight-lifting tips. Like what muscle groups to work, or whatever.

"Hi, Tony? Yeah, this is Carrie. Oh yeah, I saw the game - there's always next year, right? Yeah, you know, Tony, I was just thinking about that. Well, you know, I'm not sure if we should see each other anymore. Oh no, oh no, it's not you, Tony, it's just me. Yeah, we've just got so much going on in our careers right now and...yeah, it's okay. You let me know if you ever need anything, okay? All righty, buh-bye now."

It is the anointed flavor of the month. Bob Barron in the wrestling folder: "Why are so many people obsessed with the WWE?" Why don't both of you go away. It's a topic in the sports folder and ESPN is the most prominent sports network in the country. Criticism of their coverage (which has been well-deserved, in recent months) is Perfectly Acceptable Discussion here, just like criticisms of Fox News would be acceptable in the Current Events folder, etc.