Remianen

Haven't you heard? Neither did anyone else. Or are you not familiar with Kurt's story? Nobody else thought Kurt was that kinda QB either. People don't generally let their franchise QBs play in the Arena League, after all (or bag groceries for a living). It honestly doesn't matter what you think or I think or Peter thinks. What matters is what's in that man's heart. Keep judging the size of the dog in the fight and you'll be surprised many times by the size of the fight in the dog. "The experts" have been dead wrong many many times, for that very reason. Again I say, the same kinds of knocks were made on a kid in the 1979 draft. Three QBs were taken in the first round, all supposedly "prototypical" QBs. Only one QB from that draft is in the Hall of Fame and he was picked in the 3rd round, despite having less than ideal mechanics but off the charts intangibles. *shrug* I take the experts' opinions with a lick (not a grain) of salt. Best part of the draft is going to be Saturday, when the players with the highest value (cost for production) reside.

Is this the same ESPN that rated Leon Hall better than Darrelle Revis? The ones who also put Drew Stanton, Trent Edwards, and John Beck as better QBs than Kevin Kolb? The same folks who said Pierre Garcon was a "nice" receiver who "could make a team"? Eddie Royal is a "decent slot receiver". Oh oh, here's a good one: Lining up opposite Calvin Pace, OLB Vernon Gholston has a chance to get a lot of sacks in his rookie season. O RLY? I'll say this: Matt Cassel held a clipboard his entire college career (DIDNT EVEN PLAY!). Didn't do too badly after Josh got his hands on him. All Tebow's done is won championships (and a Heisman) in the most competitive conference in all of college football. I'm not too concerned, honestly.

The same can be said for Bradford (who has no O-line worth mentioning) and Spags (who still doesn't have a defense worth mentioning). You have to remember, this is the same league scouting structure that pegged people like Leaf and Marinovich as first round talents and some kids named Brees and Brady as non-first rounders. I think Tebow pans out far better than a Rex Grossman, for example (picked higher than Tebow btw ). As long as Tom Brady is active, no first round QB should be considered "the real deal" right off the bat and no late round QB should be considered "useless" or "roster fodder" (who's quarterbackin' the Chiefs right now? What round was he taken in?). I like the Tebow pick. Paired with an offensive minded coach, with his intangibles, I like how our future looks.

Katie Lea hasn't been able to showcase her talent since SHIMMER, honestly. You'd have to go back to QoC, Shimmer (vol. 5ish?), and her FWA work to really see what she can do. Oh, and back then, she was known as Nikita. I'd like to see her do a tour with NEO, personally. But she's probably too expensive for them.

Liking this draft a lot. I could really care less about people who give credit to a system or a coach. You could do the same with Montana and Young. But three years down the line, Tebow to Royal & Thomas could be akin to Warner to Boldin & Fitzgerald. Well, maybe. So Royal moves to X, insert Thomas at Y, with Stokley in the slot. Now, if they get Aaron Hernandez (or OMG Rob Gronkowski) in the 2nd or 3rd or maybe Clay Harbor or Dennis Pitta in the 4th, and Scheffler's spot will be filled.

We obviously have VERY different views on what leadership in a teammate is actually all about. Leading a prayer? Come on. Agree to disagree, I guess. I've played gunner. I wouldn't put Tebow there (he's probably not fast enough). Ideally, your gunner creates fair catches (or fumbles) so he has to be down the field at the same time as the ball. And the Cowboys move up to take Dez. Gee, I guess that Roy Williams project hasn't panned out. EDIT: HELL YES! WE GOT TEBOW!

I agree. They reached huge to take a back with durability issues. They could've taken Ben Tate or someone tomorrow and gotten better value and less risk. And it looks like someone in Denver agreed with you, Stennick. I'm not too sure it was the best move to make but Demaryius is a far better choice than Dez, in my view.

Yeah, I'm hearing Tebow with the 1st rounder. Not a bad choice as I like him more than Clausen (you can't teach the intangibles Tebow has and Clausen hasn't won squat). But I honestly think someone will jump him before then. Panthers won't trade their backfield (either of them) for Clausen. Considering who their last franchise QB was and how he was acquired, they could do very well with a Tony Pike or Colt McCoy or Dan Lefebvre. Clausen isn't worth selling your entire franchise down the river for.

Kinda. The Raiders deciding to make a pick that makes sense NOW is annoying. It's okay though, Mike Iupati is still up there. And dominating, game changing WR aren't the sole purview of the first round. They'll take 3 receivers this draft, but it won't be in the first round (second at the highest, probably with the Dolphins pick). EDIT: OH YEAH! Trade down and load up on picks! Way to go, Josh! EDIT2: I hope he got a ton of picks for dropping down that low. EDIT3: OH YEAH! Two 3s will work, sir!

No they don't. I'm probably the only Broncos fan on the board and I can tell you unequivocally that that's not the case. If you dispute that, tell me which round Brandon Marshall was drafted in. I'll wait. Here's a hint: It wasn't the first round. What round was Wes Welker drafted in? What round was Charles Rogers drafted in? Who's better? Receiver is one position you don't need to blow a first rounder on. There are enough of them in every draft to go around. Golden Tate in the second round would be fine, as would Mardy Gilyard, Arrelious Benn, or Damian Williams. Dexter McCluster should slip into the same round Marshall was picked in. If the Broncos take anyone but Rolando McClain in the first round (assuming he's still there), I am gonna be PISSED. EDIT: FREAKIN' RAIDERS! TAKE SPILLER, you speed junkies!!!

I dunno. QBs don't tend to do well when the defense is in their face right from the snap. I'm hoping the Rams do SOMETHING to protect him (hell, erect a chain link fence, I don't care!) unless they have AJ Feeley take all the hits while they put together a decent O-line.

Draft time, woot! Browns trying to get the #1 pick but they have nothing to trade for it (crappy players and no one wants multiple future picks for a #1 overall ).

I don't get the ire behind smartphone. Is there another, more appropriate word available to describe a phone that does tons more than just make and receive calls? A lot of those words I agree with you on, but language has to grow to remain relevant. How many people do you know who still speak Latin? Assyrian? Same way you move to another city. Take yer stuff and go. You can apply for a residency visa or apply for citizenship (though some countries require you renounce your prior citizenship) when ya get there. Oh yes, I've considered it many a time, for several reasons CQI13 has stated.

Hardcore (by our guild's definition) is 5-8 hours a day, six days a week. "Life wasting" is highly subjective. How much TV do you watch? There's a misconception that people who play a lot somehow have "no lives" or "live in their mother's basement" or some such nonsense. As I've said, I am nothing if not a hardcore player but I still hold a job (in fact, I can often play from work, though only doing drudgery type tasks), somehow I've managed to maintain elite frequent flyer status with three airlines (so obviously, I get plenty of fresh air), and maintain a somewhat active social calendar (I try to stay away from clubs to avoid trouble...but if a friend or client is promoting an event, meh, I have to go). I'm not saying I'm typical (though I have quite a few guildmates who are in IT and can be found online, ingame, during the work day) but I haven't yet run into too many of the "deadbeat" types. My Xfire says I've spent over 10,000 hours gaming since October 1, 2005. That's a bit low but only because I only run xfire on my primary PC at home (so my time playing from work or on the road, aren't counted). Might be actually close to double that. Well, I've been MMOing for over a decade now so my setup mitigates any inconvenience that might arise. It's kinda hard to be truly hardcore in WoW since the game is just so easy, you quickly run out of things to spend time on. But that's by design since you really HAD to be hardcore to be 'high end' in the game most of WoW's senior developers started in (EverQuest 1). Nowadays, games aren't nearly as demanding of time as they were way back when, so many have lowered the bar as far as that definition. But there are some guilds that don't like being restricted by the standard windows of their peer guilds. It's also a reason why there is no longer competition for spawns (which is where most of the ingame time was necessary) so you can plan out a fixed raid schedule and stick to it with no problem. I recall years ago in EQ where my guild at the time had just beaten a key mob and was going to go into the "end zone" of the expansion (Vex Thal, in this case). The problem was, we couldn't leave the zone until we had cleared it because if we did, a competing guild would just walk in and kill everything we left up. As the last mob in the zone was the one with the most sought after loot and you HAD to clear everything (or most everything) before you got to her (or she'd cast an AoE death touch on the entire raid), we didn't have much of a choice. We spent 13 hours clearing that zone....starting at 9pm on a Friday night. Some people had to log out but we were lucky enough to have some Aussie members who logged in shortly after. That kinda thing doesn't happen in MMOs anymore. Now, you just gather outside some spot and enter the instance. No muss, no fuss, no time needed to scout mobs ("Statue is up!") or fear of losing out if you quit early. That's where the "hardcore" requirement comes in. When we mount up, we typically hit everything that's up, in one play session. That might be as long as 7 hours (if there's a lot available) but is rarely less than 5.

Joshi promotions do tend to get silly quite a bit but it's to keep the gravitas-levity balance. NEO and Oz Academy are personal favorites, and ICE Ribbon is awesome for seeing really young (like 13-16 year old) workers really tighten up their game. ICE Ribbon's top title (ICE x60) also has a weight limit (60kg) and its current champion (Emi Sakura, the owner of the promotion) is about 17 lbs over the limit so she has to "make weight" before the next event or forfeit the title. Kinda like when Matt Hardy was cruiserweight champion, but lots funnier due to the various videos they produce showing her trying to lose weight. Hmm speaking of which, I need to see about hitting a few shows this summer.

YES! I run into this all the time at places like KFC and White Castle. DUDE, if you're at KFC, you have two choices: chicken and....CHICKEN. PICK ONE! If you're at White Castle, you have Murder Burger....and Murder Burger with accelerated delivery system...err, I mean "cheese". It's even worse when they have their hellspawn jumping up and down in the back seat. There's a White Castle here in Brooklyn where a cop car hangs out right on the edge of its parking lot overlooking the drive thru, busting people for car seat violations (that child should be in one. If they're not, it's like a $90 ticket). Every day between 1pm and 5pm, this car is parked there.

God yes. But what grinds my gears even more is friends/relatives berating me for "tipping too much". WTF? Hello? I'm paying, which means I get to decide how much is too much. Plus, because of the people who don't tip (or tip badly), I stand out for tipping well. Had a fight break out at Carmine's between servers who wanted to seat me and my friends in their section. There are certain places I can go in NYC and get the best service imaginable because of my tipping habit (Peter Luger being one). DING DING DING! I typically laugh at these kinds of people. But then, Al Sharpton is a friend of my mother's (and my godfather's) so I guess I'm used to it by now. Sorry, no excuse. As much as I tend to overdo it with the tip, I wouldn't give her anything but a buck, regardless of how much the check came out to. People need to learn that you don't get rewarded for being (poop) at your job. Ahhh, guilty of these. In my defense though, high quality sound in a vehicle isn't cheap. I don't mean trunk rattling sound (you can get that for pennies), I mean high quality sound at medium volumes. And my grills were half price. However, the "too much money" thing might be a bit shortsighted. I have Rolexes and Tag Heuer and Breitling watches that I don't wear (often) but that I bought as a kind of rite of passage. Basically a concrete way to signify you've achieved something (or a certain level of "status"). You know how people celebrate special events with champagne or some such? I look at it exactly like that. It's not meant to be grammatically correct. 'noob' is a pejorative, in this case denoting a person who doesn't know something they're expected to know. There has to be a distinction so people know whether a newbie (a new player) is being referenced or a noob. If you're playing a game, let's say, and your friends ask you to meet them somewhere, if you say 'One sec. Newbie', they'd tend to know you're helping a new player. The reaction would be the complete opposite if you said, 'One sec. noob' Yes, it's still annoying that communication has come down to four character blips. But then, many people haven't learned to type at a decent clip so they have to shorten dern near everything. Yes, go get groceries, two states away, on a single tank o' gas. I've got a few more... - MMO communities. OH MY GOD, makes me wish I could fill the gene pool with hydrochloric acid. Seriously, if you love THAT game so much, why are you playing THIS one? - Faux hardcore players. What I mean is, people who like to think they're "hardcore" but aren't. If you app to a guild that calls itself 'hardcore', and you say to the recruiter 'I typically play 3 hours a day, four days a week', you are not hardcore, Mr. Casual. There's nothing wrong with being a casual player. But don't app to a hardcore guild. If they let you in, you'd be the source of endless drama because the guild's loot system is designed to reward activity (which you would be missing out on a lot of). And no one wants to keep repeating the same content because you haven't gotten what you need from it. - Multibox haters. So lemme get this straight. I should be banned from this game, because I play more than one character at the same time? Because I'm not waiting 30 minutes to an hour for a <insert support class here> to log in and be willing to join my group, I'm a bad guy. Funny how I wasn't a bad guy when you needed X drop from Y zone and no one (not even your poor excuse for a guild) would/could help you.

For what it's worth, I'd do Beth well before I'd even look twice at Maryse so I share that opinion. But there are multiple studies that show many men are intimidated by women of a certain body type or look or disposition. It's kinda like how an assertive, confident woman is often viewed negatively ("bitch") but an assertive, confident man isn't. And there are DVDs available from many of the shows run by joshi promotions (Wave, Ibuki, SPIRIT, NEO, etc). I'll dig up some links. I typically get mine from friends in Osaka and Okinawa. For what it's worth Self, I have to do this exact thing. Back in 07, I explored the possibility of opening a women's promotion or investing in an existing one and during the due diligence process, my eyes were opened. Women's wrestling will never be mainstream in America (Canada's possible, but there's no real money to be made in Canada. Sad but true.) due to our cultural tendencies. That, along with mandatory roster turnover and a relative lack of a replacement pool (male wrestling school graduates outnumber females by 9 to 1, as of 2007), and it creates quite a bit of difficulty. (By mandatory roster turnover, I mean things like the moment a woman finds out she's pregnant, she can't be used in any physical roles due to insurance requirements/restrictions, as one example. So you lose that worker, for all intents and purposes, for a year or more). Bottom line is, while there are millions of "hot girls", there are maybe a few dozen "hot girls who can go in the ring". The costs involved are also somewhat prohibitive given the possible revenue that can be realistically projected. Moe, wrestling is visual, is it not? It's conveyed via media, yes? That makes it either a supporter of the status quo or an opponent of it. The status quo is 'women should look like this'. Those are the images that women (and worse, GIRLS) are bombarded with on a daily basis. I coached a girls basketball team. Several of the girls on the team dreaded (DREADED) puberty because "it's going to make me fat". I worked for a while with Emme (the plus size model) and saw several appearances she made talking to girls about this very issue. Right now, men are getting just a little taste of what women have to deal with ("Smiling Bob" ring a bell?). But it doesn't affect guys the same. Besides, they don't give specific numbers in those ads (women get the numbers with the dress size and bra size thing). The issue is real and exists across all visual media. In fact, here's a test you can do to prove it (at least partially). Look at the body types of women in various media. You can tell almost immediately which demographic that ad or product is targeting. Rap videos have what kind of body type? Ads in magazines for rims have similar body type women. What demo(s) are being targeted? I'm not saying wrestling should buck that trend. What I'm saying is they're in a position to be diverse and choose not to be. Thus, they're going to lock out a large (and growing) portion of the available audience. That's okay if the current audience is growing at a decent rate and the status quo of the past remains the same. But neither of those things is happening.

Whether you believe it or not is immaterial. It doesn't change the fact that it's true. Besides, your taste is totally atypical. Do you think Beth plays an intimidating gimmick just because? She could never play the Melina/Maryse/Michelle McCool type of 'look how hot I am', because she's "too big" for that (in the eyes of the people who decide these things). For that matter, neither will Nattie. Beth is intimidating more than hot (in their eyes) so that's how she's portrayed. But just look back at her short stint in SHIMMER to see how she COULD be portrayed (in the 'look how hot I am' manner). Um, sorry. Angel Williams isn't in the same league as Beth or Gail, as far as ring work goes. Has she improved a lot? Sure! But her ringwork is still on an Annie Social level. Luckily, she's not expected to do anything particularly stressing in TNA, so it's fine.

All I've said is read what I wrote: Lemme highlight the part that I've been trying to reiterate. At no time did I say or imply that he would have a breakout year. I said he'd be primed to have one due to the motivation of being "sold out" and his contract situation. When asked what I thought would be a 'breakout year', I gave stats that were slightly above last year's. Even in a shortened season (for him), it's still possible for him to reach those numbers if he's the team's primary option in the passing game (and he would be, given the team's current makeup) and given the team's divisional schedule. A team's ability (or lack thereof) factors in huge with regard to strategy. While running the ball and eating up the clock makes sense if you're facing the Colts, the same motivation does not exist when you're playing the Bills. This would be especially true if the Bills stack the box (which people tend to do against a run oriented team). I hear people saying (with conviction, even) that the Jets aren't going to throw the ball more or that the status quo as established last year will reign in a new season. I disagree. This league isn't full of slow learners. The Jets established themselves as probably the best running team in the league last year. This year, people will scheme to take away that advantage. So the offense will move toward balance, which means throwing the ball a lot more than they did last year (which really isn't saying a whole lot). That's where my idea came from.

For the same reason a dude can be 5'8, 300 lbs with a beer gut and still think he's dead sexy. Men aren't as susceptible to societal pressures with regard to body image as women are. Men aspire to be Bill Gates far moreso than Arnie or Woody Harrelson. Gee, I wonder why that is? A man doesn't need to be physically attractive to be considered attractive or desirable. A man doesn't LOSE his attractiveness or desirability with age. Both of these things are the polar opposite to what women have to deal with. Sean Connery and Sophia Loren are around the same age (mid to late 70s). Who's considered more attractive and desirable? I'd wager there are far more men who would aspire to be like Connery than there are women who would aspire to be like Loren. Warren Buffett isn't the most physically attractive man in the world, but show of hands, how many men would switch places with him in a heartbeat?

http://torch.cs.dal.ca/~seaboyer/misc/sarcasm_detector.jpg

False. Ayako does speak English. She's just not very good on the mic. Self, I mean no disrespect here, but do you know any women? I only ask that question because the answer (to me, having been raised by and around 'em) is so painfully simple, and I'm sure any of the married guys here can attest to it. They don't need a reason! At least not one that we understand. That's what makes them interesting and oftentimes vexing, but rarely boring. They don't need a reason to do anything that they choose to do. Men, being largely simple, don't get that as readily because we at least have an excuse to fall back on. If we don't, we make one up! Give ya a couple examples. You and a friend show up at an event wearing the same suit. "Nice suit, bro". Two women show up at an event with the same dress on. Is the response the same? WHY? You come home and your wife/gf is giving you the cold shoulder. She's upset over something you don't even remember! "Do you know what today is?" Blank look. Turns out, it's the sixth anniversary of the day you met. WHAT?!? Mind you, I'm not saying EVERY woman is like that. But it happens enough to be considered the baseline or norm. Part of what makes writing for them difficult (at least where wrestling is concerned) is that the very thing that booking is largely based on (making sense to the wider audience) works against being true to the 'accepted' behavior of the characters due to gender. If you book them the same as the men, they don't shine because (news flash!) they aren't men and don't fit into the typical male motivations. So you book them to appeal to the male audience but while doing so, you basically shun the female audience because they can't identify with the characters for several reasons. First, "divas" don't tend to have body types that mirror the majority of the female audience so you wind up just supporting the traditional body image problem. Secondly, most of your female audience wouldn't identify with the actions of a diva product because they (and most of their friends) don't act like that. So you basically shut yourself off from the majority of the potential female audience, to appeal to men in a manner that might even be borderline offensive to the larger female audience (through the perpetuation of the body image thing). The problem (as I see it) is the fact that the population is changing. Heck, I can pull several quotes from male members of this community who have admitted that their wives control the finances in their household. That seems like a trend. So it would seem to me to be a good idea to attract the interest of the people who are increasingly finding themselves in control of the family's finances, in a way that appeals to them and their (general) sensibilities. Strip clubs tend to appeal to one gender far moreso than the other, so a hyper-sexualized product that promotes unrealistic images of women would appear to me to run counter to that goal. But then, I'm biased. I'd take a Mia Hamm or Candace Parker over a Madison Rayne or Lacey Von Erich any day of the week and thrice on Sunday.

Um, any music fans here? Concerts taught this lesson decades ago. It also has something to do with demographics. Look at the Rolling Stones. Now, I don't know how many folks have gone to or looked into going to a Stones concert but tickets start at around $100 (and go up to around $2,000, last time they played the Meadowlands and PNC Bank). That's just face value, mind you. But the Stones can pack a stadium, even at that price, while say My Bloody Valentine or summat, has tickets that cost less than half that and can't do the same numbers. Given the price of their tickets, it makes perfect sense for WWE to book the largest venues they can (since the cost is being spread over more potential attendees so the projected profit is a bit more). WWE's fans watching on TV don't care about chants (as fatallylost noted, noticing this as you're "growing out of" their target demo), all they care about are the performers themselves (not necessarily the performances either). Besides, packed crowds tend to be rowdier (it's basic animal behavior) and WWE doesn't want/like rowdy crowds.

I've heard people say this repeatedly, but I've never (NEVER) seen it actually be true. I might chalk it up to environment or background but I dunno. I've done some really dirty things in life (some of which the statute of limitations doesn't apply to) but I was never caught because the thought stayed in the front of my mind (not the back) of what would happen if I did get caught. Heck, Apupunchau, I actually got away with lifting the USS Flagg (the GI Joe Aircraft carrier) from a store, but it was planned out like freakin' Oceans Eleven. My problem was, you couldn't ground me and expect that to be effective. I've always loved to read (and write) so I'd just go in my room, pick up a book and get to it. There'd be no pain or deterrent involved at all. Take my TV? I don't care. Oh look, she took my Atari and Colecovision. Guess I get to finish The Count of Monte Cristo now. *shrug* I had a hustle in middle school where I'd write book reports for people so you ground me and you actually HELP ME. It's not theft if you hand it over willingly. That's where the 'sheep' part comes in. What they're doing is hedging your desire to stay employed with how much you value your phone. The unspoken threat is that if you don't hand it over, things could turn out badly for your employment prospects. But it might have something to do with the vocation in question. A lot of times when I was under contract, I WISHED they'd ban cell phones, are you kidding? Line producers love to call and find out how costs can be reduced and they'll call whatever number they have to to get through ASAP. I'd shut mine off and toss it right into the backpack if I could. "No cell phones? WORD? THANK YOU!"