DuWayne Steurer

Here's another question then. I'm hearing (and this could very well be wrong of course) that this rebate is simply an advance on next year's tax return, and that we'll be getting that much less in our 2009 return.

I'm talking about throwing up a red flag to Padmedalla. I don't care how in love with someone you are, I imagine one would think twice about marrying somebody who wantonly slaughtered a bunch of children.

the love story between Anakin and Padme was awful and the chemistry even worse, Awful isn't descriptive enough. The serial stalker-ish leers and whatnot that Hayden Christiansen were sending Natalie Portman's way were downright creepy, in a "He just might tie her up and throw her in the back of an unmarked van" type of way. I guess my other big problem with the "love story" was the sand people slaughter. I realize they're "savages" and all, but he makes no bones about killing them all, including the children. You'd think that would throw up some huge red flags, but no. The biggest problem with I was Jake Lloyd. Expecting a child to be a focal point and carry your film was a disasterous idea. Can't argue with that. He delivered his lines (and they were bad lines, I must add) with all the zing of a block of wood. I guess to me, I loved Star Wars when I was a kid, and I still do. I watch it now and I realize it's pretty damn cheesy, but it's still a load of fun, mostly because it reminds me of probably the best parts of my childhood. This new trilogy was just a mess.....Lucas tried so hard to make it everything he thought the original trilogy wasn't, but he just doesn't seem to understand that people don't CARE that the effects and whatnot in the first one don't measure up to today's standards. He's got a lot of great sci-fi ideas, but his script writing is just a touch above awful. The acting performances in this trilogy were not very good, but to be fair, the stuff they had to work with was even worse. The plot holes were big enough to drive a Star Destroyer through, and I thought he tried WAY too hard to make references to the original trilogy. The coincidences that kept flying out left and right that these characters and families and robots would continually cross paths in a GALAXY were just way too forced for me to even suspend disbelief and just enjoy a movie, and that's pretty bad, because when it comes to the big screen, I'm usually pretty easy to please.

I'm having a hard time getting excited about this. A prequel to the final chapter of a trilogy, which is itself a prequel. Prequels are ok in some aspects, but I, II, and III tell the story (bad as it is) without the need of *in-between* filler. A story set either after RoTJ, or between the new trilogy and old would have a lot more draw, at least in my opinion. And just to add on, II was awful, awful, awful. I didn't like III nearly as much as most. Grievous and Dooku were terrible bad guys (with really stupid names to boot), the transition from light to dark for Anakin could not have been executed any worse, and Darth Vader staggering around Frankenstein-ish screaming "NOOOOOOOOOOoooOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" over his lost love is probably the worst thing I've ever seen in a movie.

I wasn't working while I rehabbed from TJ though. I was going in 5 days a week for 4 hour sessions. Generally speaking though, yeah, for most "normal" injuries, their rehab I'm sure is a lot more intensive than ours. I can honestly say though having had a good handful of rehab-requiring injuries, that TJ rehab was far and away the worst. How I did it was just years of abuse in the construction industry, and I didn't go see a doctor until I was losing feeling in my hand.

Carlos is a young guy. He's got plenty of time to "learn" control before he's at an age where we shouldn't or can't expect improvement. Now that being said, I don't know if I'd put him ahead of Parra at this point in time, but walk rate for a guy CV's age isn't a huge concern (yet). And I'm just going to say that being glad someone is hurt, even for the "good of the team" is pretty sick. Having gone through TJ surgery personally, you don't just lose a year of work, you lose the ability to do a lot of things you normally take for granted, as your "good" hand is all but useless for close to 6 months. Not to mention the fact that TJ rehab is downright brutal. I sometimes think that some "fanatics" lose sight of the fact that these guys are actually people, and have lives and stuff when they leave the ballpark.

I know this is a Marquette thread, but I see Steimsma getting knocked a lot. I think people just have a really built in mindset that any white guy over 6'8" tall is a gangly, unathletic clod who can't do a thing. Stiemsma is never going to be mistaken for a scorer, but he does do a lot of things well. He defends very well, he moves around on defense....he doesn't just stand in the paint and take up space. He passes very well for a big guy, he rebounds well. He's got a strong understanding of the swing offense, and he knows that he's not going to get but a shot or 2 in most games. That being said, he's more than capable of knocking down the 12-15 foot jumper if the opposition gives it to him. Since it's a Marquette thread though.........I watched a lot of Marquette games this year, and as others have said, they certainly could have benefited from having more than one"big" guy to do the dirty work in the paint. The focus is of course, the guards, but MU relied too much on those 3 guys to make things happen as individuals. On a given night if they were having issue getting to the hoop and creating their own shots, they struggle as a team. Yes, they score in the paint because they take the ball to the hoop, but that's not really the same as having an inside game, as they're not really post up players. MU has as much athletic talent as anyone, I just had a strong feeling their lack of size and consistency would hurt in the tourney if they got matched up against a team with solid bigs, and it did.

KOTOR I and II were outstanding games, just too bad they came out on a buggy, crash-happy platform. During K-1 I could play for maybe 20 to 30 minutes, making sure I saved every 30 seconds, and then the X-Box would crash or freeze. I did finally get through the game, but it was horribly frustrating having it crash all the friggin time. I got about 30 hours into the sequel, (on a different x-box no less) when the game froze up, the x-box crashed, and it erased all my saves, so I never got to the finish of that one. That being said, the storyline and dialogue were 10X better than Lucas's craptastic 1-3 trilogy. Gameplay was fun too. Battlefront, great game, obviously not as character driven as KOTOR. Still loads of fun. Now the Lego Star Wars.......if you're like me and have a wife who doesn't play games, this just might be the one that gets her to pick up the controller. I'll be the first to admit the game (we have the PS3 "ultimate" edition, 1-6, with LOADS of extras) has a very "kiddie" bent to it, and you almost CAN'T not beat a level, but it's loads of fun 2 player, VERY easy to play, utilizing only 4 buttons and a directional, and with no "friendly fire can't hurt you", it can get hilarious at times if you have anything close to resembling a competitive nature.

I think there's got to be a way they could compensate for the lack of height. Move the pitching rubber in a few feet, something. It's all just talk anyways, as baseball is slower than molasses running uphill in January when it comes to instituting change in the way the game is played on the field.

You can't win in the tourney with the kind of guard play that K-State brought today. Can't. Big, slow, unathletic, plodding offense, blah blah blah blah blah. Keep talking.......you don't get to 31-4 by luck.

For not playing a very crisp game, the Badgers "only" managed to hold CSF to 28 points below their season scoring average. I'm confident the Badgers can give Beasley his 25 points or so and still handle K-State.

I understand that injury can occur on a hook-slide, but ask yourself which play is more likely to induce injury - a hook slide, or a full-grown man running full speed & lowering his shoulder into another man's upper-body I'd say the odds are in the favor of the guy wearing all the body armor. I'm not going to go any further with this, it's obvious you think taking the catcher out in ST is "tuff-guy stuff", and I think it's a hard, clean play. Nobody's going to change their mind, so further argument at this point is just static.

and if you don't score the run, big whoop - the games don't count anyway. If the run scoring (or not) is no big whoop, then why is the catcher blocking the plate? As many have said, a hook slide is just as dangerous, as a hand can get stepped on, or fingers jammed or broken (Jenks has proved this), and a straight slide into a guy wearing body armor can result in an injury to the runner as well (JJ Hardy).

How is playing baseball a "right"? That doesn't even make sense. It's a privilege, sure, but the Yankees (or any team for that matter) have the *right* to pay anybody they want to play in a meaningless game if they want. I'm no fan of it, but I could care less. Apparently Billy Crystal has pooped in a lot of people's cheerios over the years. And City Slickers wasn't *that* bad.

Tampa Bay is putting careers of other players on the line in ST so they can feel better about their 'We're tuff!' quotient. That's disgusting. Don't you think that's a bit of an over-generalization after *one* tough play at the plate in which *the catcher was blocking the plate*, making a hook slide or feet first slide just as dangerous as bowling over the catcher?

I have to echo other's sentiments on this one.......if you don't want to get hit, *don't block the plate*. Yes, he could have done a hook slide, but there's a huge difference between knocking a catcher down when he's blocking the plate, and going in spikes/knees at 2nd base. One is an acceptable and *legal* play, the other is not. It doesn't matter if it's ST, I strongly suspect a guy coming balls out down the 3rd base line is going to be thinking about that at the critical moment.

During the Car Bash (Pay a buck, swing a sledgehammer for 60 seconds at a beater painted in our rival school's colors) my junior year, I took a big overhead swing at about the 5 seconds to go mark (arm fatigue really sets in quick swinging an 8 pound sledge as fast as you can), struck just a glancing blow on the driver side door, and squarely drilled the big toe on my right foot. Walking away, I could not put any weight down on the foot, and it was throbbing like nobodie's business. I stopped, leaned on a tree, and blew chunks. Only then did one of my buddies take off my shoe and we saw what a disaster my toe was. After that, they changed the car bash to "5 swings for a dollar" rather than swing balls out for a minute straight.

Well, thanks to Danzig, we found our dog, and brought him home friday. I'll post a few pics when we get a couple good ones of the little killer.

That's great news for me. I liked Night Watch, but felt that it kind of dragged on at points. Certainly not enough to dissuade me from seeing Day Watch, but I felt it could have been more than what it was. Your review is going to force me to get Day Watch on my On Demand one of these nights now.

I guess the point of my ramblings is to maybe think about out of state options. I did. I won't go into detail, or I'll draw scorn. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif

I want a small(er) dog. I would like a dog with a good temperament and an ability to be around children. I want a dog that trains somewhat easy. I want a dog that has a sense of self cleanliness, that doesn't let itself get caked in crap. I want a dog that doesn't bark at every shadow or noise. The dogs I'm looking at have all these things, to some degree or another. These traits differ in dogs. Obviously you can get a dog from a breed that's good with kids, and it's mean. You can get a dog from a breed that's tough to train, and get one that trains in a week. Obviously there's exceptions to every rule, but there's nothing wrong with playing the percentages. If you go the rescue or shelter route, I applaud you, I don't deride that decision at all. However, I don't really understand the scorn that's coming on this issue, to be completely honest. And I'm sorry, in my humble opinion, getting a pet is nothing at all like having a baby or adopting a human child.

It's always good to hear from other owners, so that's cool. I don't have to worry about the "other pets" angle, as the only pet we currently have is a tortoise, and I think most people don't even realize he's alive.

Just curious do you have an idea of what breed you're looking at yet? Actually, yes. We looked at a Shiba at the pet store, and are considering finding a breeder as well. They're a perfect fit for what we're looking for in a dog. I've talked to a few owners, I've read about them on the web, so on and so forth. I'm not "locked in" to getting that type of dog, but they fit the profile of what we're looking for.

In my life, I've had or lived with 3 dogs that were either pet store or breeder dogs, and they were all 3 wonderful dogs. We had a Collie when I was a kid that was bought from a pet store. We had a Samoyen (SP!) Husky who was bought from a breeder. And my last dog was given to me by a breeder who was a personal friend who had an extra large litter. On the flip, I've had 2 dogs from the humane society, and to put it plainly, they were disasters. I won't go into details, I have a feeling I'll simply be told I wasn't doing things the right way. I have a relative who had a rescue dog, and the dog was so mean when my relative got pregnant, they put the dog down, as no one (not even a rescue) would take it, and they couldn't have it around a baby. I understand there's many more good than bad stories as for rescues and humane society animals, I do. I simply have to say that I've been down that path, and don't want to do it again. I have kids, and I have very young nieces that come over. I could choose to not have a dog, and we initially thought to wait at least a few years, but we've all talked and everyone would like to have another dog around the house. Thanks for the responses and opinions, I respect them all even if I don't necessarily agree with them.

Sorry to hear about your loss. I was wondering how things were going after the post about your dog last summer. Thanks Casey. She seemed to bounce back for a while, and then the last few weeks I kinda had that feeling. She was being really naughty, and instead of slinking off or acting pathetic when she got told "no", she started baring her teeth and growling. Not eating a lot, yada yada. Friday night while she was out going to the bathroom, she more or less collapsed in the snow and I had to carry her in the house. She laid in the kitchen, crawled to the bedroom where my wife was, but never got back on her feet. We decided to take her in saturday and have it done, but unfortunately she never made it that far (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), and she passed away about 5 in the am saturday.