GAME05

at least for me, in the history of the show, The Office hasn't had the ability to both be funny and to move the storyline forward. it's one or the other. it's why last season was so bad, because they couldn't figure out which to choose. with the show essentially coming to an end, i can certainly understand that more fans would be interested in seeing a finality to the characters than just being funny. and with the limited number of shows remaining, i'm guessing there won't be a ton of funny episodes remaining.

Holly was only in town temporarily. so this whole time i've been assuming she'll eventually have to go back to Nashua when Toby returns, and then Michael will have a "won't made that mistake again" moment and stay up there with her.

i was just assuming he was retiring this year because making the playoffs again isn't quite the lock that it used to be. i personally wouldn't give him my HOF vote, but i definitely think he makes it in. just too many voters out there who heavily weight the rings, wins and being a Yankee (i.e, a "winner"). i also think his PED use will end up being almost inconsequential by the time he is eligible. once one of Bonds/Clemens gets in, that will open the HOF floodgates to anyone else who was using drugs at the time, too.

they don't compare to me. Stephen A. Smith is loud/cliche, but AW is really more the ignorant slacker. but considering AW's mass-media competition, he should have a long and successful career doing what he's doing. off-off-topic, but Stephen A. Smith's radio show is the worst thing i've ever heard in my life.

eh, at this point you could show a video of Rodgers eating yogurt, add a rock background and i'd still get excited about the game. doesn't take much.

i was reading some articles on this out of curiosity, and from what i saw, the only time an employee won a privacy case on this was when he was emailing his lawyer from a work computer on his private email account based on lawyer-client confidentiality. related was the case of an idiot who was emailing her lawyer using the company's email account (how to sue my company type stuff)--she lost. so reading all the accounts, the individual has basically zero right to privacy when using company property. in every case, though, it was somebody being fired for saying something stupid over email or getting fired in general. i read a statistic once that said about 14% ( a lot based on crooked memory) of employees used work computers to do job hunting, so i can't imagine you'd be alone in quickly checking personal email on a work phone.

i once bypassed the company firewall and visited espn for all of 10 minutes at work once--got in trouble for that, so clearly IT can see what sites you're visiting. if they can do that with a regular work PC i don't see why they can't do that with a phone. i wonder what the privacy laws are regarding personal email accounts sent using company computers. i've done my share of job searching while at work. at first i was a little paranoid about it, but then i realized that IT guys more than likely aren't spending their days (or their breaks from D&D) searching to see if anyone is searching an industry job site. plus, would IT guys be so cruel as to report it even if they found it? i wasn't job searching for very long at all, and i don't think a brief internet check matches something as funny as getting caught printing your resume on the company printer.

i always liked Bush. he usually has great peripherals, but just has those lapses in concentration. i wonder maybe if he had a veteran SP to mentor him that he could very well turn out to be a decent pitcher in the Majors. i don't disagree with Milwaukee cutting him loose, but i sure hope he catches on with the Rangers or somewhere else and ends up playing for a lot more years.

this really isn't any big deal at all, but i thought i'd mention it (and often i end up restating an already-known issue). i have my pages set to 20 posts per page. in the "Greinke to Milwaukee" thread, page 28 had the usual 20 posts on the page, page 29 had five posts, and then page 30 was blank. really not the biggest deal or anything, but thought i'd bring it to your attention, regardless.

i've been to only a few, but Coors was my favourite experience. i usually hate sitting in the bleachers, but there it's the best seat, watching the sun go down over the mountains in the west, and then the skyscrapers rising to the immediate east. gorgeous. the fans there were completely apathetic--the Rockies rallying to beat the Brewers in the 9th barely earned a cheer. i've driven by Kauffman a few times and have always wanted to go. the place just looks really interesting. a lot like Jim said, some of my best watching experiences was when i'd take walks on Saturday mornings in Fort Atkinson and happen upon a softball game. i didn't know a soul there, but i'd grab a few cheap hot dogs and beers, park myself on the bleachers and just enjoy the game. i don't think any of the times did i ever even know the score.

i like the sucking on a pen case idea. i may even try inserting a cigarette filter in there so it has the same resistance, too. ok, so i've had my e-cigarette for about three days now and wanted to give my initial impressions. i bought the Blu brand because it supposedly had the best Original Tobacco flavour, plus some of it being made in Johnson Creek didn't hurt, either. the Throat Hit has been the#1 downside for me. i've been getting very little vapor. i borrowed it to two smokers who somehow got a much better hit out of it, though, so possibly it's just me. but sometimes i get nothing out of it at all and sometimes it's just a very light hit. it sometimes has me wanting the regular hit of a usual cigarette, especially when i'm heading to work, when i know i won't be able to get my nicotine fix for another six hours. i've been told through Blu's chat forums that there's a better version of the vaporizer that should fix it, but i'm just not ready to spend another $70 on this experiment yet. the battery life is short, so you have to recharge it every single night (wall outlet or USB). although i guess the Blu pack is a portable charger, so i'm not seeing this as a big problem going forward. the number of hits you are supposed to get out of a fake cigarette is greatly exaggerated by their marketing (go figure), so keep that in mind when you do the math on the cost. however i've discovered a website where you can buy the "juice" for a lot cheaper, so maybe that balances things out. i was never 100% motivated to quit real cigarettes for good, so i'll still have a real one here and there. i was a half-pack per day smoker, and for those negatives to the e-cigarette, i think i've had two real smokes today. that seems pretty significant to me. even if i don't end up using this to quit real cigarettes, i'm happy enough that it's apparently getting me to cut back considerably. also, i like the idea that i could use this without getting the cigarette stink on me if i'm heading to a job interview or to meet a girl where i wouldn't want to smell like that. overall, i don't know if i'd get the Blu brand again but search out the one that rates the highest throat hit. but at least in the past couple days i've been able to cut back on the real cigarettes, despite not having a huge desire to do so. that's a win for me. but yes, this is a small sample size, so i'll definitely post again on this thread in a month or so to see what happens with this in the long term. ok, for the sake of this post, i just went outside to have both a real cigarette and the e-cigarette to better compare. with the real one, you can still feel that throat hit even after you exhale, but not so with the e-cigarette (i hated that about real cigarettes, though). you hit the e-cig and get the very slight tingle and then it's gone. again, maybe just me, but to get an equal amount of smoke i have to smoke the e-cigarette a bit differently, taking a tiny pre-puff and then dragging on it much slower than i would a real one (slightly annoying). flavour-wise, the e-cig doesn't have the depth/strength of a real one, maybe like an ultra-ultra light real cigarette, plus it's just a little bit sweet.

this thread is making me wish i had a salad tonight instead of a pizza.

for a few seasons they've gone back and forth between a funny episode and one where the characters develop, but the last episode was neither.

go figure, i guess "poutine" means french fries. just say french fries. i'm not exactly thumbing my nose at the food, but i'll stick with the beer. the kabobs have potential, but to add "Racing Sausages" to the title just makes me think that i'm ramming a sword through each of them, and it becomes too sad to eat. eat the losing sausages, i guess.

i used to work at a video store and would always try to recommend lesser-known movies to people so they wouldn't say "saw that already." haven't seen these in a while, though. Sexy Beast--great-acted action-type starring Ben Kingsly Snow Walker--my "will make you cry" recommendation for the ladies, though not overly spectacular Saint Ralph and World's Fastest Indian--my "uplifting, cheer-for-the-character" movies Bubba Ho-Tep--recommended "really weird but good" Dummy--very creative with interesting characters. smart and funny

well, my experiment as an employee in the Wal-Mart Deli will now be ending in a week's time. was offered full-time hours at my other job, which means i'll get dental and be able to buy into their health plan in another 30 days, which is just too valuable to pass up. i'd also been working long hours every single day for the past two months because of having two jobs, and i've hit my physical and mental breaking point (which included many days when i didn't have time to eat). surprisingly, the Wal-Mart Deli didn't turn out to be the worst job in the world, and i pretty much knew how to do all the work by the end of my first day. found what was pretty much my ideal job in my field the other day, which requirements i'm perfect for, and then saw it was a five-month temporary gig. good for the resume, but right now it seems too scary to be both broke and unemployed again in five months' time.

wanted to bump this thread because i've also started to watch The League on FX (watching it through Hulu). it centers around a small handful of guys who have a fantasy football league together, but basically the whole show is them getting together to trash talk and insult each other. it's great.

it had never occurred to me until i wrote it just then. i'll ask her next time we talk and see what she says.

sorry, i meant to say that I don't really hear myself doing it. my sister hears it from me all the time.

SportsNation is inane, useless and annoying, yet i watch the show every chance i get, too. wonder why...... there exists a certain illegal website that streams espn most of the day, and would maybe have the show. protocol prevents me from saying more.--i don't want to break the rules or anger Disney. you wouldn't like Disney when it's angry.

i'm 33 now and i picked it up around maybe 5 years ago. my sister is in graduate school to be a speech pathologist and has talked to a practicing one about it and neither of them had ever heard of anybody developing one like that, especially at my age. so apparently it's uncommon (based on that extremely limited survey, anyway). only one time ever have i not been able to get a word out, so it's always been very minor--i really don't even notice it, myself, until family members tell me to slow down or friends/roommates admit they've heard me stutter. actually, since i don't hear it myself that makes me curious to ask some coworkers to see if they've noticed anything. my sister calls it a stutter, but i don't now if it might be clinically something else. my family and i are completely stumped as to how/why it began. but all that said, my problem is so very slight that in no way would i ever compare my issue with someone who has a true challenge with it.

you know it's getting late and definitely time for bed when you come back to brewerfan after a long stretch of time and there aren't any new posts.

ah, i'd almost forgotten an update on this since a couple people offered advice. for one, from coworkers' comments, i guess he's typically like this, so i guess he didn't dislike me. after this incident i generally made our conversations short and to the point (but friendly) and everything was fine. about five years ago i developed a stutter--not severe, but it shows itself on occasion. anyway, about a week ago, he made a joke of it when he was talking to me. my response was only a calm "yeah, i have a stutter." the day after he, gets to work and immediately comes up to me and apologizes for it, which was a kind gesture. now he's super nice to me. although the strangest thing is that it feels kinda weird now.

i hope you're being sarcastic.

my own guess is because it's just Opening Day and a chance for Melvin to occasionally throw out something now and again that will keep and build excitement for potential season-ticket buyers. naming only the Opening Day starter won't force Roenicke to do any real adjustments in his rotation heading into the season. naming a Home Opener starter would, though, and i think Roenicke will do that.