Guard Dog

In 1244 counted posts, and an untold number of uncounted ones (most of which were good) this is by far the best zinger you've ever dropped!

And your Non-Troll credentials are above reproach. So it's an Oby thing not a Russian thing.

http://www.raysindex.com/2015/04/rays-dfa-grant-balfour.html What happened to this guy? He went from a top tier reliever to a late innings disaster and shows no sign of turning that around. I have to hand it to Silverman & Co. this was a gutsy and much needed move. Maybe we could trade him to Detriot? Dobrowski owes the Rays one. He got David Price for Drew Smyly, a used tigers gym bag, and the contents of his office wastebasket. The tigers need bullpen help don't they? I'll say one thing, Having Ball-Four in the pen will motivate the starters to pitch complete games.

Is the pot calling the kettle black here?

Hmmm. I was hoping you meant you were having sex with a girl born in June. Hope it's not serious.

Well... as improbable conspiracy theories go it's not the worst one I've ever heard. But not my favorite one. My all time favorite was that Ronald Regan ordered the destruction of the Challenger just to kill school teacher Christina McAuliffe to send a message to the teachers unions that were contemplating a strike back in 1982. Now it takes some real mental gymnastics to thread THAT intellectual needle!

Its very reassuring and positive to see some of the ardent support veterans receive in the USA, thats how it should be for people are prepared to risk there lifes for there country I agree. Unfortunately it has not always been so in these parts.

You know Hemingway did his best work after a few glasses of whiskey. There is a precedent here.

Well, Alex Rodriguez can still play. I guess you can't have an Evil Empire without a dark lord to give it menace.

I haven't been around much the last two weeks. Just checking in. I see there has been some good news, Calax has a girlfriend (I know he said almost but that was a few days ago. I'm sure he's closed that deal by now) and bad news with Shady taking cold showers. I'm working long hours both at work and home learning the new job. The hardest part has been absorbing the state laws and county codes for property use and water management. I'd describe this job was 33% engineering, 33% ecology and 33% lawyer. Obviously I'm weakest on the last part to that is where I'm spending the most off hours studying. I did hear one interesting nugget. The job was offered to two other candidates who were more qualified but they turned it down because (I'm assuming) it is a public sector job and does not pay well. The offered it to me because I interviewed well and because I'm a vet and they make veteran hiring a priority. I thought that was nice.

This statement will either be proven completely false or only half true. We'll have to wait and see which. It will never be completely true.

The Dorne storyline won't be as interesting as the one in the books because half the characters are missing. Particularly Arianne Martel. But it's one I am looking forward to. As for watching the leaked episodes, nah. If I can't watch it in 1080p on my 80" TV I'm not interested.

Do you enjoy pain? If you've read all of those you have definitely walked a hard road. I found Atlas Shrugged a real chore to read even though I enjoyed it for the most part. Foutainhead could easily have been condensed and still made it's point. Her writing was ponderous to say the least.

Another appalling pitching performance from the Rays last night. They got down 8-1 in the 2nd inning. But then battles back to tie it at 9-9 in the 9th. Only to choke on it on a worm burner single in the 10th. Just heartbreaking. In other new the Fabulous Fighting Fish of Miami let a 8-1 lead slip away in the 7th. What the hell? At least they pulled it out with a walk off single in the 10th. It's odd watching your two favorite teams play each other isn't it?

My advice would be to start a business. If she's passionate about books I'd start there. A used book business has a low overhead and low startup costs and if you are creative does not require a "brick and mortar" footprint. You can start with a website and a table at a local flea market or swap meet. You will have to do some legwork coming up with inventory (yard sales, library sales etc.)and you really have to keep the price point low since you are "competing" with Amazon & e-readers in a way. But since most folks don't re-read book the idea of buying a used copy last years best-seller for $1 is still appealing. The start up costs are low but not nothing and this is not a business model that will ever yield high earnings but if you are smart and careful you can grow it into a steady income stream. I'd be sure to make flyers and post them in high schools and community colleges. Those students always have reading assignments and are looking to save a few bucks. Just an idea. I've got lots of those.

Absolutely. There was a small, but incredibly well done persistent world server for NWN1 called Montlethia. The interactive roleplaying experience there was almost indescribable. After a bad experience, I rolled a cleric of Talos and went full darkside. My villain became so notorious for extortion, chaos, and mayhem, that the DMs made one of the port towns hostile to me. That town's guard even had an official quest with journal entries and everything where they were to hunt me down and bounty my ears. One day I got caught by a group of Tyrians (my mortal adversaries) alone deep in a dangerous part of the woods. I even used my special unique ring given to me by the DMs that could change the weather, but there were too many of them and my reign of terror was brought to an end--not before taking several of them with me of course. The paladin that turned in my ears even refused the kingly bounty...how disgusting is that? Hahaha. Such good times. Well after some informations posted about the game in last two weeks, I can already see the developers saying. "We disabled the evil alignment to streamline the multiplayer experience." No kidding. There seems to be a concerted effort to dumb this thing down as much as possible,

I've been very busy learning the new job. I haven't played PoE in over a week. A week! That is weak. Tomorrow we catch up on house projects, watch the last three episodes of the Walking Dead that neither of us has had time to watch, and maybe get some PoE time in. I was thinking of making a new PC & starting over. I hate it when I get like that.

Hmmm. Since Shady lives in Colorado when I saw the word joint in the title I thought this thread was going to be about something else.

I speak English and Spanish. Well, a friend of mine from Puerto Rico says I don't speak Spanish, I speak Mexican. But anyway it requires a real mental effort for me to switch from one to the other. The languages the OP speaks are so dissimilar that it's amazing he can speak with fluently. I found Spanish so much easier (since it's also Latin based) than trying to pick up Japanese or Tagalog when I was living in those countries.

The Rays picked up their first win last night. Odorizzi was razor sharp. With all the injuries to the pitching staff it's nice to see one of them can do better than just throwing BP to the other team. In other news I've got tickets to the Redbirds home opener against the Cubs tonight! Yeah, it's the Iowa Cubs but still...

Sonny Gray just missed a no-hitter in Oakland: http://m.mlb.com/news/article/116668668/sonny-grays-bid-for-history-foiled-by-rangers-ryan-rua

Great job Shady. Now look what you've started!

Well, except for Longoria and Kieremier the Rays performance was quite crappy. But, the upshot it we'll try again tonight.

I'd say Gandalf. Here's why. You know what Vader's got. There is no secrets there. Gandalf doesn't look lime much but he always seems to come up with whatever he needs right when he needs it. Gandalf wouldn't let it come to a fight with Vader unless he knew his hole cards were winners.

I'll tell you one thing. L Ron Hubbard was a genius. And not in the way these folks think. Here is a guy with what looks like bipolar disorder and paranoia who's writing crappy science fiction stories for a penny a word in a crappy magazine, so broke he can't even buy a car. He get's involved with a group of Satanists, dates one of the girls in their group and sees how into they are so he decides to invent a religion. Well, all he does is write science fiction so he writes a pseudo-science fiction psychology book that ridicules psychology and sells it to people a s religion. The he gets people to give him thousands of dollars to teach them the crap he made up. He takes that money writes another book with an even wackier backstory and brings in more people who give him more money. I wonder is he ever started believing his own stuff himself? I think he probably did. We should invent a religion. It's easier than working for a living.