bani1717

Sorry, I wasn't Laffing, I was just Aaron' out my throat a little.

This is far more of an issue with bikers than with drivers. There was a piece on TMJ4 last night about the illegal/stupid things bikers do on the streets. As my dad has said, "equal rights" for bikers are far different from "special rights" for bikers.

I would like to think I am part of the "younger crowd" you describe as I am in my mid-20's, but I do not have a smartphone as I don't see the need to be on facebook, email, etc. constantly, and it's just not worth the money to me. Honestly I don't want to have access to my email all the time. But I do see the convenience in having a smartphone. My wife has one, and when she and I are out and about, it is good to have it in case we need to find a place, check their hours, look up their number to call them, etc. With that being said, I do have a basic cell phone, and I do carry it with me almost all the time (with the exceptions being things like while working out or doing yard work). I figure if I have it, I might as well use it. It is nice to have it with me in case there is some kind of an emergency or what-not. My wife and I don't even have a landline. We each have a cell phone, and people know how to reach us whether we're at home or not. As a side note, my mom does not carry her cell phone much of the time. So rather than calling her, I generally call my dad, since he is far more likely to pick up his phone. And then she gives me grief for talking to my dad more than her. That bugs me.

People who confuse the last name of the Bucks' GM with the last name of an overpaid outfielder who played for the Brewers from 2001-2003 Though I can understand the confusion as both perform(ed) poorly for Milwaukee sports franchises.

I haven't bought off of ebay recently so I could be wrong, but I was under the impression that ebay wouldn't let you "outbid yourself". Basically if you increase your max bid, it won't show your increased max amount until someone else bids (forcing your bid up) or outbids you completely. Based on my understanding, perhaps it is more likely that the bidder increased his max bid several times within minutes of each other, either because he changed his mind on what he was willing to spend or because he wanted to see what someone else way above him was bidding. It appears from looking at the bid times that the latter is the case as his bids were often placed after the bids that were higher than his.

Like chadomac I don't really think about what place the Brewers are in. Honestly other than hearing it on here or from other people, I wouldn't even know what place the Brewers are in (not sure if it's 4th or 5th right now), as my general rule is to not look at the standings at all until July. Yes, 12 games below .500 is not that good, but it's not terrible, and I still believe the Brewers are going to get things together a bit. But for me, going to Brewers games is more about one game at a time. I started going to a decent number of games in about 2005 when the Brewers were finally becoming respectable. I went to 13 games in 2005, about 31 in 2006, 51 in 2007, 54 in 2008, around 40 in 2009, probably somewhere around 35 in 2010, 30 or so in 2011, and 10 last year (with the primary reason for the drop-off being a busy work schedule). At this point, going to Brewers games is so engrained in me that it doesn't matter whether the team is good or bad for that season, I always go hoping to see a solid performance. When the Brewers are playoffs-good as they were in 2008 and 2011, I get an extra feeling of excitement, but I still get excited to go to games even when the Brewers are struggling. Just this past Saturday, I couldn't go to the game as I had a graduation party to attend in the afternoon/evening. But before that I went to Miller Park about 2 1/2 or 3 hours before the game, parked on the street, picked up a cheap ticket for $8 from someone tailgating, went into Friday's to watch early BP before the stadium opened, and then spent some time getting autographs and watching batting practice. I enjoy enough other things about going to Miller Park, and I know enough other people who go to games regularly that even going by myself when the Brewers are struggling is still fun. I was also at the games on Friday and Tuesday, and to see solid performances was just icing on the cake for me.

I honestly don't see the point of the 5-inning minimum to get a win. You could have someone pitch 1/3 of an inning and get a win because the offense explodes the next half inning. You could have a reliever blow a save and get the win. But you can't give a win to a guy like Hand who makes a spot start and pitches 4 2/3 of shutout ball?

I am not an expert on the draft but the whole idea of having to worry about the "signability" of your draft picks is beyond stupid IMO. I feel like once a player is drafted they should not be able to decide to wait for another year to go for another team/more money. I am all for a system where a player needs to declare and then has one shot at the draft.

If you're willing to share, what is the name of this place so that others know to avoid?

As a side note, my wife and I recently bought a fairly expensive camera that I had planned to take pictures with and then get 8x10's printed of some players. Are you saying that Walgreens would probably cancel my order if the photos look "too good"? I'm just wondering how they determine if something is off the internet. The times I have been questioned in the past, it has been because they look to be high-quality, but I just had to sign a form and they let me print the pictures we had taken.

This is one of the most misunderstood topics regarding copyrights. Certain things can qualify as "fair use," and it certainly helps your case if you're not using the item commercially. However, there are four factors that a court would weigh in determining whether you can use the fair use defense. You can find them at http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html (you can also find plenty more details just by googling "fair use"). Not being a commercial use certainly helps your case, but trying to make a copy of the entire picture in order to avoid buying it does not. The gray area of course is if the person posting the picture has no intention of selling it and doesn't care if you take it, but hasn't given you clear permission to use the picture. That's where you're "taking a chance" and is why stores will not print your pictures or will make you sign a form. I say "taking a chance" in quotes because probably the worst that will happen to you is that the store won't print your picture. Chances are no one will find out and/or sue you over making a couple copies of pictures off the internet. The long and short of it is that there is no black and white answer for many copyright infringement cases, and the only way to really find out is to get sued and have a court decide if you're infringing the copyright. Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, I have never attended law school, and this is not legal advice.

Are they trying to keep secrets? In past years have they advertised what alternates they were giving out well ahead of time? Keeping secrets is different from just not thinking about releasing the information in the first place... I am sure the marketing people are not thinking about the hard-core collectors who want both when thinking about how to advertise the bobbleheads

My assumption is that they will have a variety of pens there but if you want to be safe then bring exactly what you want.

I was told by an usher that you could literally bring in a turkey dinner if you wanted to

Two things to add to the discussion: 1. If you have a picture from the internet printed at Walgreens (or anywhere else for that matter), you are technically infringing the copyright of the owner of the picture (even if you can view it for free on the internet, you still can't make a copy without the owner's permission). If you have professional quality pictures printed at a place like Walgreens, they may ask you to sign something saying that they're your pictures and that you own the copyright. 2. I am guessing that players asking for copies of 8x10's is far more common at the minor league level... I have been asked maybe once by a major leaguer (Jeff Suppan) if he could have a copy. And even then he wasn't asking me for a copy, he just wanted to know where he got it so that he could get some for one of his family members. Minor leaguers though will not see their own photos/merchandise out there, so they will be more likely to want that kind of stuff to give to family/friends.

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Maybe I am drastically over-simplifying and over-estimating what we could get in a trade, but I think we need to try to sell high this season on either Gomez or Aoki. I would look to trade one of them along with Ramirez for a high ceiling upper minors pitching prospect and salary relief (and maybe another 1-2 mid level prospects). Gomez's value is as high right now as it's ever been and Aoki I have to think would also have high value in a trade as I believe he still has 4 years of team control left after this year. Yes, we could be looking at years of bad baseball if we don't find a way to get better, younger, cheaper talent than what we have now. But I feel as though we're not that far away from contending and that it's not time to go for an all-out rebuild right now. The Brewers have played more poorly than most expected, and I am willing to bet that they finish a lot closer to original expectations than where they're at right now. I think a trade like the one I described would be a step toward improving the most lacking part of our game with a long-term solution. Yes, we'd lose a lot of offense in Ramirez and Gomez/Aoki. But Ramirez would have been overpaid next year, and I think we can handle the outfield with in-house solutions. This would free up a lot of money to go after another Lohse-type pitcher (yes, I would make that move more often than not despite the arguments that we suck and he's not turning us into a contender) and/or another offensive weapon. Do that and I think we're in position to be a competitive team next year. The fact that this thread was started now is not surprising, but I think people are drastically overstating how bad our organization is. There is a reason that not every team is built like the Cardinals who have an average payroll, an incredible team, and a loaded farm system. It's because it's not easy to do. I think expectations need to be tempered a bit as all teams go through ups and downs through the years. It is ok to strive for a team that perenially competes for division/world series titles, but to expect that is unreasonable for a small-market team IMO. Our current record is not indicative of our talent level. Even the 2002 Brewers didn't go through a month like this May. While I don't think we are in as dire of straits as others on this board, I do completely agree that the long-term solution is to spend more on drafting and developing players, and that starts with expending the time/effort/money to get people who are good at drafting and developing both position players and pitchers. I just think that there is more to this long-term solution than giving up on 2013-2014/15 now because of one absolutely horrific month. We will probably not make the playoffs this year, but I think we are closer to making the playoffs than needing to go into all-out rebuild mode while we still have guys like Braun and Segura on our roster.

Hopefully his biggest impact comes in a trade later this summer.

I don't know of any specific dates right now, but I will probably try to take you up on this offer at some point this season. Thanks for posting them here.

It's people like you who trample on other people's freedom to waste their time gobbling up free tickets to a weeknight game in May and then sell them for next to nothing. Even if Lilrebel had been trying to do that, so what? He got the tickets without breaking any of the promotions rules, and now he is trying to sell something he has a legal right to sell. It's not like he broke the rules and hoarded multiple gnomes to sell the tickets. To me, your argument sounds more like sour grapes from someone who wasn't up early enough to make it to the promotion than anything else. (Not saying that's what it is, just that that's the way it comes across.)

Considering reviewed plays would likely be under especially heavy scrutiny from MLB, I would think they'd be more concerned about keeping their jobs... I also think that people in general know very little about what it takes to be an umpire at the MLB level (myself included). But from officiating grade school and high school basketball I have learned that you generally need to give these guys the benefit of the doubt, even though some of them have bigger egos than others, and at some point they all make mistakes, do stupid things, etc. Just because there is that stuff out there doesn't mean that the prevailing attitude is that the umpires will be stubborn about upholding bad calls at all costs. And just because umpires don't publicly admit their mistakes doesn't mean that they're stubborn, unaware that they're imperfect, etc. Think of it this way. If you went to work every day and had 30,000-40,000 amateurs (who often don't know what they're talking about) trying to tell you how to do your job, would you want to publicly admit your mistakes to them? Or would you privately take the more accurate feedback you can get from evaluating your own performance and having other experts evaluate it? I would do the latter. Why bother trying to explain yourself to the amateurs who generally have much less than you and whose opinions don't ultimately affect your job or performance? But now if you introduce replay into the equation, then yes you are essentially admitting your mistakes by reversing a call, but that is a situation where the public admission that you were initially wrong will affect your overall performance as an umpire and potentially the outcome of the game as well. All in all, I am willing to put my money on the fact that the vast majority of MLB umpires would want to get the call right via replay if it were available to them in a practical manner. (And the ones who repeatedly get calls wrong with replay should unquestionably be fired.) Which means to me that the only two real questions of whether replay should be implemented are (1) is it practical, and (2) is it cost effective, giving more of a benefit in terms of correct calls than the cost in terms of money, time, etc. As I alluded to before, I am kind of indifferent about replay being implemented. I don't really have a problem with it either being implemented or not as long as it's considered in light of these two main factors.

I suggest you read this article, particularly the quote below: http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/8043745/the-state-umpiring-major-league-baseball Baseball has a rating system in place for both balls and strikes and safe-or-out calls. Torre said the computer printouts and success rates are diligently catalogued and reviewed, and umpires who perform poorly can expect to hear about it. "People think if an umpire has a bad game or does something wrong, nobody pays attention to it or has a conversation about it," Torre said. "But it's addressed. There have been situations where umpires have been disciplined, but we don't share that information. You don't want to give players more ammunition. If they know somebody has been disciplined, we don't want them to take advantage of that." This article describes some of the other pressures of being an umpire: http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070827&content_id=2173765&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb It is not an easy job. There are a lot of misconceptions out there about what it takes to be an umpire, about how these guys get/keep their jobs, etc. As for replay in specific, I am not all that bothered by "wrong" calls. I completely agree with topper about the luck factor. That is what I consider blown calls to be. We have seen that even replay won't perfect things, and I don't really have a problem with the human element. At the end of the day you may say that a lack of replay makes things inherently unfair since someone may get screwed, but I would argue that being perfectly fair doesn't make the sport any more or less entertaining/interesting to me.

I guess you can't make a statement like this as fact either then: "A team does take on the personality of its manager, that is 100% true." I think this team is exciting to watch, as we have a mix of proven veterans and young guys with potential on our team. (Not every veteran is "proven" as a quality major leaguer, but we do have several in Braun, Ramirez, Hart, and Weeks.)

As burnzy mentioned, the "problem" is likely magnified by the fact that the neighbor is an ex-smoker and is probably especially sensitive to the smell of smoke. I also agree with JimH that I think the best solution for everybody is to not smoke in the first place. However, with that being said... There is a difference between what you have a legal right to do and what is the (maybe) nicer thing to do. I see where the neighbor is coming from if he/she is an ex-smoker and doesn't want to have to smell the smoke for any one of a number of reasons. I also see where you're coming from that you want to be able to smoke on your own property. It boils down to do you want to help the neighbor stay away from cigarettes (if that is really their main concern with smelling the smoke) or do you want to exercise your freedom to smoke on your property. No one else can really answer that question for you. You have to decide whether the sacrifice of not smoking on your own property is worth it to try to help the neighbor stay away from cigarettes (if that is really their main concern). If I were a smoker in your shoes and the neighbor wasn't an ex-smoker, I would likely ignore their request. (And I am someone who has never smoked and despises the smell of smoke... but the neighbor has no business whining if it's simply a matter of personal preference.) The only complicating factor is that the neighbor is an ex-smoker and may be sensitive to the smell of smoke. Edit: It also makes zero sense to me to start smoking more (as was suggested). Yes, it would get your point across to the neighbor, but I would not for a second consider doing more of an unhealthy activity solely for that purpose.

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