JimH5

It's just a fountain dispenser. I think it's $1.89 for a cup from the cashier at the wing place. Then you're on your own to fill. Just like at Speedway or Culvers or wherever. But this one has more combinations of flavors and a touch screen. Yeesh, I'm staying up late at night to type words about a soda dispenser. That's pathetic. April can't get here fast enough.

He was very prolific, doing Packers, Badgers and Bucks games. He was everywhere. . .Channel 4, WTMJ AM. For awhile, he was just the voice of everything non-Brewers--and he did some Brewers games as well. We keep losing these guys from the past, though that's the way it works. It doesn't make it any less sad, though. He seemed like a fine man. RIP Jim, and thanks.

Haudricourt tweeted: Braun: "I've always believed that a person's character is revealed through the way they deal with those moments of adversity." So, I guess Braun thinks he's handling it right. . .

Wings with or without bones. . .Chicken Strips. . .something called a Glider Sandwich, which I think is just a small breaded chicken sandwich. No burgers. No hotdogs. It's a chicken shop. You can get them flavored 9 ways, plus a few different dipping sauces. The coke machine is cool, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. It's a fountain drink machine with a touch screen and a bunch of different flavors. In the end, you're drinking a soda, so unless you're completely jacked about diet caffeine-free Mello Yellow with a splash of Vanilla Coke Zero, the novelty will wear off as soon as you put the straw to your lips. I kind of equate it to the M&M stores where you can get M&Ms in a variety of colors. In the end, it's still M&Ms, even if they're neon pink. They also sell bottled beer there. There were maybe 15-20 tables. A couple of televisions. A nice place for wings. Cool that they're open late. Everything is made to order, so you have to wait 14 minutes after your order to get your food. Enjoy!

Greinke for sure. Marcum's performance is good, though not unique. If he fell off the map, you'd be able to find someone else who could do what he can do. Greinke is a top 10 talent, capable of much more. No need to overthink this one.

Me and Mrs H5 and Daughter H5 visited the Miller Park area Wing Stop today for lunch. The Coke Freestyle machine was coolish. . .but I just don't know how many flavors I'm really interested in. FYI--The Diet Coke w/Raspberry is a one and done for me. I settled on the Diet Coke with Lime. . .though that's been available in cans for quite awhile. But it is a cool machine. The wings were pretty good. We picked Original Hot with Blue Cheese dipping sauce--tried to make it as Buffalo-ey as possible. They were good. I prefer a crispier skin, but these were good. Not a big fan of the sugary seasoning they put on the fries--though you can order them plain, and salt your own. The place is open until midnight 7 days a week, which is good to know. . . It was certainly worth a return visit to try the other flavors of wings. . .

A Baltimore elementary school hosted a pep rally event for the Ravens today. Kids who didn't wear purple were prohibited from attending the rally, and were forced to sit in the library. http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nfl-shutdown-corner/baltimore-elementary-school-kids-wear-purple-sit-library-180953556.html I'm bugged by a couple of things. . . Why do we bow at the alter of the NFL? And why do some people with a small amount of authority insist on exercising a large amount of authority?

How sad. He's only 57, and it's not sounding like he'll get past 58. The Stand Up to Cancer spot with Ron Darling holding up a "My Catcher" sign was really moving. I wish him and his family well in this very rough time.

There was a story several years ago about a guy who was always ringside with signs (not sure if it's the same guy as the one we're talking about now), but I think the story was that his wife died very young, and he was either getting his money from her life insurance, or from a wrongful death suit or settlement. . .anyway, he was very despondent and he found happiness in the WWE, and so it became a part of his life to travel around to different events with some clever signs.

Drinking Vernor's reminds me of the first time I drank whiskey. That bite is powerful. That's all I have. Sorry you clicked on this link for that.

Yep--He was twitching like Canseco, feeling the rage building up inside. . .He will NOT be disrespected! If they make a Laurinaitis bobblehead, I'm first in line to get one. He is my new favorite guy to watch. We still need to figure out who he is texting--and did they ever resolve the anonymous Raw GM angle? Can't believe I'm up late contemplating this junk. . .

I'm hoping they can still work a deal with Pepsi. I'll drink diet Coke if I have to, but would prefer diet Pepsi. Family section, baby!

Embrace it. It will bring you lots of laughs and a thrill once in awhile, and it guarantees a bunch of eye rolls from your spouse. That's worth it, no?

I would say it's the worst since Cryme Tyme, which was really offensive. Brodus was just laughably dumb. I was expecting an athletic superheavyweight, like Umaga, but instead, we got the Godfather mixed with Akeem and some Scotty 2 Hotty. I do like them mixing it up with "character-types" instead of the standard "guy trying to win matches", but after the big build up, I watched his debut in disbelief. How often will people tune in to watch the dancing fat man?

I'm mostly a grouchy overreactorhttp://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/mad.gif. . . And I suspect that my problems are mostly with my wifi. TWC markets their wideband as "up to" 50 Mbps download speed. . .I forget what they claim will be the upload speed. On my laptop (through wifi), I'm getting just under 19 Mbps download and 5 Mbps upload. On the phone, I'm getting 3.2 Mbps download and 2.4 Mbps upload. When I turn off the wifi and use the 4G LTE, I'm getting 9.2 Mbps download and almost 6.5 Mbps upload. I think I will still talk to Verizon to see if they have any "tweaks" on the phone end. . .then I'll talk to the fine folks at Time Warner to swap out this piece of junk router. . .

I'm not too bad with the TV/Audio stuff when it is physical cables going to physical ports. But this phone is bugging me, and I plan on stopping in a Verizon store tomorrow to figure it out. I don't think you and I have the same phone, as mine was just released a few weeks ago, to much industry hype. It is supposed to be the device that is at the cutting edge and sets the new standard for speed, multitasking, etc. Mine's a dog, and I don't know if I just have unrealistic expectations, or if I'm doing something wrong, or what. I have TWC Wideband in my house, supposedly also at the cutting edge. And it too is producing less than I would expect for being the top of their product line. We had Verizon Fios in New Jersey and that was awesomely fast. And the Starhub service that we had in Singapore 4 years ago was faster than I'm getting for $100 a month here. Maybe I have lead walls in this house. My wife has an iPhone, but I don't like how thick and heavy it is, plus the cult of Apple is a little too happy for me. I drove a Saturn 20 years ago, so I've been through the "products as emotional fulfillment" thing before. Judge Landis is jaded. Thanks for the tips. I'm hoping it's running a bunch of stuff in the background that can be shut off, and then bring the speed up, while not sucking the battery. I can't imagine all the tech writers are getting all fired up over the experience that I'm getting.

Its too bad you don't want to root it and tweak it. I might one day want to do those things (whatever they mean). . .but first I'd just like to use it.

Your avatar in text form! Wait until you boys (and girls) get old. . .The crankiness just starts to ooze out of you, creating this wonderful and repulsive cloud of scorn for all the world to avoid!

I waited and waited and waited to get a smart phone, and I finally got the Samsung Galaxy Nexus for Christmas, and I can't tell if it's a piece of junk or not. I'm wholly disinterested in learning all of the little quirks in how to maximize it's use--it's supposed to be smart and make up for my laziness. This thing sucks battery like a kid sucks chocolate milk. It often can't seem to find the wifi in my house except when it's sitting 10 feet away from the router. Doubletwist is supposed to replicate iTunes as a podcast application, and I'm getting no podcast updates, even though I did last week. Internet on 4GLTE is okay, but hardly lightning quick. Big disappointment thus far.

As Topper keeps saying, when these guys were so productive, steroids weren't a violation of baseball's rules. That's NOT cheating, then. Of all the arguments supporting the steroid users, I think this is the weakest--it's certainly the weaseliest. It suggests that baseball was played in a vacuum, outside of the laws of he United States. If the distributors of these drugs were being convicted of felonies, and if drugs were being taken in secret--and taken with other things known as masking agents, don't you think the users feared getting caught? Guys were untruthful before Congress. They knew they were doing wrong. And now, some HOF voters are reacting. The rules of baseball--certainly the rules related to PEDs--were and are negotiated between MLB and the MLBPA. Baseball couldn't just declare something as being against the rules without the players' approval. And the Players Association under Don Fehr did nothing to help that cause--ask Rick Helling. More homers meant higher player salaries, which was first and foremost on their agenda. Not to suggest that the owners weren't also happy to cash in, too. Interest, attendance, tv ratings and gate receipts soared, pushing the steroid fight to the back burner. Perry's spitter & ball-doctoring was. Perry was inducted 20 years ago by a different group of writers. His "crimes" were also done with a wink and a smile, and don't think that doesn't compare favorably to Rafael Palmeiro defiantly pointing his finger at Congress and Sammy Sosa forgetting his understanding of English. My point, again, is that if everyone's going to look the other way on Perry AND anyone who used greenies, amphetamines, or any other stimulant-category substance (legal or illegal -- they were the steroid-equivalent PEDs of their day!!!), then this anti-steroid sentiment is PIOUS HYPOCRISY -- dis-credible foolishness! Standards of conduct change over time, and now some voters are declaring that players who engaged in unlawful conduct shouldn't be given the game's highest honor. And I agree with them. On a related note, Pete Rose, while arguably still highly arrogant and perhaps questionably repentant at best, did serve time in the government's license plate factory for his crimes. Doesn't that put him on legally if not somewhat morally higher "redemptive" ground (speaking in very relative terms) than others who never paid a price for their "crimes" against the game? Rose has paid his debt to society. But his crimes against the game were much more egregious than someone using steroids. Insider gambling brings into question the whole validity of a sport. It makes one wonder if both sides are playing to win. And the Museum has plenty of his stuff on display, to accurately and fully tell the story of his greatness. They can do this without honoring him with induction.

When baseball players started using steroids they weren't against the rules. Regular people in the real world are given prednisone and other steroids all the time for back injuries. Ken Caminiti and David Segui both admitted using steroids or HGH to recover from specific injuries. How is that different from TJ surgery. Or from the surgery Bartolo Colon had in 2010 that basically rebuilt his arm? One of the owners of the Palm Beach Rejuvenation Center, where Segui got his HGH, pleaded guilty to the felony charge of criminal sale of a controlled substance. Nobody is convicting Dr. James Andrews of anything. That's how it's different.

Sure, the guy who risked his health at least had some sort of consequence for his behavior, the guy who just doctored the ball was just pure cheating with no chance for it to matter, that is so much worse. That's an interesting slant, though wouldn't that mean we are to hold armed robbers (because their actions had more potentially serious consequences for themselves) in higher esteem than purse snatchers? I'll be honest, no matter what sport you like and no matter who your heroes are if you grew up in the 80s odds are your favorite players used steroids. Are you saying more than 50 percent of the 1982 Brewers were steroid users? I don't think that's true. Just because your hero wasn't linked to it doesn't mean he didn't do it and if your hero played something other than baseball the chances are even higher that he did it since football and NBA basically had no testing at all while baseball at least acknowledged it. If you want to hate a player because it was proven he did steroids that is fine but not putting someone in the hall because of some vague rumors about him doing them is just stupid. I don't hate anyone. I like Clemens and Bonds and Piazza. I like Sammy Sosa. I'm just unsure that the BBWAA should give a player the highest lifetime honor when some of their achievements were accomplished while they were aided by drugs that were taken in secret, solely for the purpose of improving their performance. Bagwell's case is the most compelling. By all statistical measures, he was an all-time great, and should be elected. But I don't blame writers for withholding their votes for the guy if they think he was aided. He's got 15 years with the writers, so there's plenty of time for some of the voters to change their minds--or to be replaced by a new group of writers who view his case in a different light.

I have done a complete 180 on Laurinaitus. I am completely glued to him whenever he is on camera. He is awesome on twitter, announcing tonight (in full character) that he worries that he is setting the bar too high for his eventual successor, and that he enjoys model trains. Great comedy.

First Nominee: Shea Vucinich

Totally agree. The science is ever changing. Today's climate will be looked upon with aghast (or quaintness or mockery) as we learn more and more about human health and the impact of various substances and treatments over time. But that needs to be done with the approval of the governing bodies, not in the shadows.