meangreendork

Looks like Obama's changed his tune on drilling: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26010962/

Wow, not only was that a piss-poor freestyle (it was, it was so horribly bad), but that kid sounds like a remedial school student.

That wasn't my objective, sorry if it sounded like that. About the WMD: right about the time the US government was planning the initial assault, the Texas LEO community was tracking down a group of fugitives. I said the following more than a few times: "If the Texas law can't find a group of fugitives only on the run for a few months, how hard do you think it'll be to find weapons when the governmental head of Iraq has had years to hide evidence of weapons he's had?" Are there weapons there? Probably nothing immediately effective, but it's hard not to think at least some of the equipment needed to make them isn't around somewhere.

Here's the thing, BECAUSE the strategic planning for the war was so mishandled anything of any scale will grab the attention of the media. Had more time been taken to strategically plan the war and post-war phases of the conflict, more countries probably would've joined in, more troops would've been on the ground, and everything post-war would've probably worked out better and with fewer hiccups. You can't tell me that the war planning was perfect, and you can't sit here and tell me that the post-war planning was perfect either. Anyone who thought that the clean-up and rebuilding process would be fast is horribly mistaken. Looking at the rebuilding of Germany and Japan, where the population was generally supportive of US/Allied presence and without the same sort of interference from outside/3rd parties, that still took over a decade to complete, with the combined efforts of the Allied nations and the US. But with Iraq/Afghanistan, you have two nations that don't completely support (but that's changing for the better everyday) US/Coalition presence and also have tons of interference from outside nations/forces and 3rd parties. But don't ask me if I think the US/Coalition should leave Iraq. I'll tell you "yes, it does need to happen" but I won't tell you when. I'm not on the ground over there, and even if I were, I wouldn't know what would happen if the pull-out happened within the next 2 years since the odds of things improving or getting worse is basically 50/50.

I read the article differently than some of you probably will. Not so much as a "we need God back in our schools" but we need a basic set of values to teach our kids. You can find that in any religion, and you can find that without religion. But the point is, many parents don't instill their children with any sort of values beyond "make money". It really doesn't matter what background the parents are from because you'll see this in religious and rich communities and in poor and not-quite-so-God-fearing communities. While this may not address the issue of stupidity, it does address the general lack of morals and ethics in our society. But who can blame us? We have politicians marching crusades against child pornography and then being caught with it on their office computers. We have people in business dealings that damage not only the money of the average stockholder but also the average worker for that company, costing them their jobs. We've got folks knowingly selling harmful, addictive drugs to people. There are people at all levels of society displaying real lack of ethical judgment. I'd say fixing that means looking at yourself, seeing what you can do, and what kind of example you set for not only your peers but also for the younger folks you know. All the organized religion in the world can't do that, all the self-help booklets can't make you do that. They can suggest it, but you're the only one that can do it. Ben Stein has a point. I'm not so sure that things are worse than before so much as things have never improved.

That's the whole point here. I think they're trying to forget about all the purchased players. I'd wanna forget about that too. But your reasoning on that style is probably accurate. Probably to make sure all of the media bases are covered with hope to bring in as many fans/potential fans as possible. Frankly, that's not a bad billboard. The writing is smart, the style is good. The thing is, I don't know for sure if that was the right angle to take on the program. It's a risky way to discuss what they're trying to sell, but it's a lot better than "It's Wide Open". Frankly, our Athletics Marketing Dept needs to turn over their work to someone else. To this day, I don't know why everything in every athletics department publication has to have a green glow.

That's a sound plan, and it's not a suddenly huge +$100 fee. Here's the other thing, and I think we all agree on this, that the stadium is worthless without the product in the stadium. We have the other facilities that we need to have a successful team, I figure that once the team starts to show more progress, more money will come back in and people will want to see the games or at least know about them./

I know we just disagreed in another thread... ...but we all know these two doing more than ok on $100 a month. I won't even go into the laziness factor in this story. Yeck.

This is one of those things that's will need to be changed with time. Not to the point where someone can just show up from overseas one year and then run for the Oval Office the next, but at least opens it up for people born abroad and then raised in the states for a majority of their formative years and then having a US citizenship a vast majority of their lifetime prior to their running. There's no reason why someone born in another country and basically raised as an American in the US can't run as long as they've been here long enough (long enough meaning citizenship for more than 95% of their life).

No one flame him. Seriously. However, it's very easy to be critical of this country. Failing infrastructure, continued discrimination, crime and general violence, the immigration issue, VA problems, poverty, and a sagging (not failing) economy as well problems in education, the medical system and the like. On that same note, there is a lot to be thankful for. From someone that wasn't born here and with family in what amounts to a failing nation, I see the US as a country that is great now but can be so much more when it's properly balanced in all aspects of government and society. Do I love this country? Yes. Do I know it's got serious, serious problems that can make someone conflicted as to the real value of this nation? Oh, definitely.

OH NO, A NON-US CITIZEN RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT? You know, I kind of like this idea. I mean, especially if you're born in a 3rd world country. Hey, who would better appreciate all this country has to offer than someone whose country of birth has nothing to offer? That is, if this is even true.

Hey... A few questions on this: When are we starting the league? ANNNDD What rosters are we using for this? The ones from FreeNCAARosters?

I think that's Nathan Tune. BTW - Are you guys using dowloaded rosters or rosters you made from the one on MGSports?

I assume there's a "toggle on/off passing buttons" or a similar command. There should be one.

That's about on par with what I hear from people coming over there as well. The good thing is that the media doesn't seem to be turning the tide of opinion against the soldiers overseas, and I'm happy about that. Most people I know, despite their political leanings, have a great deal of respect for the soldiers. Those who don't agree with the war really disagree with it based upon what the government did to justify it and how it was initially handled, but again, no one's got anything against the soldiers themselves. About the only people I know with problems with the soldiers are the far, far lefts and I don't pay attention to them or the far rights either.

There's a few ways to do it: 1. Download it from your computer. Your PS3 has a wifi card built into it and an ethernet port and if you're on a wireless network or a LAN, your PS3 should appear in the network. Your computer should also detect it as well. Go to your Windows Media Player (for XP/Vista users) and find the Library options. Your PS3 should appear on the list and allow it to share files with your computer. Now, your music will need to be in your My Documents folder in a music folder in order for your PS3 (and 360,too) to pick it up. Find the folder your music is in, and find and use the copy command to copy your music from the computer to the PS3's music drive. 2. Put the music on a Flash or other USB drive, then link that to your PS3 and copy the music. That should also work.

Ticketmaster is like the stinking Monster Cable of the events world. It's like anything with their name on it suddenly gets a whole heap more expensive and somehow, despite the fact you would expect more quality, you don't get that either. Ticketmaster? More like, TicketMonster.

Not quite that simple but also that simple. 360 and PS3 owners can grab rosters from the EA Locker in the online section. Right now, it looks like some of the EA Locker rosters are causing glitches with the game, so they're saying to wait on EA to release a patch for that. More info here: http://www.freencaa09rosters.com/ Oh, and don't pay for rosters. That's BS

I've played for a few hours today. The beauty of freelance design... ...anyhow, here's the quick rundown on the PS3 version. Everything looks good. Everything also sounds good. I was hoping to see better crowd detail and better animations for the players, but this is alright. From a sound/video angle, this game is good-to-go. In game, the controls have changed, with the R2 and R1 doing more work than before, but it shouldn't take long to get entirely used to it. The Six-Axis is used as well, but nothing revolutionary. What I did notice was the MAJOR change in the playcalling system. It offers more options than the old one, but for some reason, it feels harder to navigate. But then, that's probably something I'll adjust to as well. It is cool to have different ways to choose your plays and sort through the playbook. You'll notice that there isn't (at least in the one quick-game I started and didn't finish) there's no player-focused intro at the start of each game. They talk about him, but they don't show your player in warm-ups like before. I also took time to go through part of Campus Legend. You create your player just like you did last year, but now there's more equipment options than before. You'll also notice you'll enter your player's high school colors, and for good reason. Unlike last year, you take your player through the high school playoffs to determine where he'll get recruited. As you play each game, you can sim straight to your player's opportunity to play. I chose QB as usual, and it was good stuff. What was kind of cool was being quizzed on what the defense was running when I had a pass picked off. I did win every playoff game, and at the end of each game, I got a star ranking based on my performance, as well as a listing of what scouts were present at the game. Once I was done with all of that, I got a list of schools I could join and at what conditions. Despite winning every game by far, I was only able to get 2nd string QB at UNT even though I had higher ranking schools offering me the first spot. Just like last year, make sure you do your roster edits before you play Campus Legend. I'm playing with the Custom Stadium Sounds feature. I doesn't look like you can pick certain parts of a song to play, so you'd have to play the entire song or whatever your first few bits of it are. To fix this, I'm editing/making new mp3s specifically for NCAA09 with this program http://www.nch.com.au/wavepad/index.html. It works on ALL OS's and it's a short and easy download. You can use it to edit your favorite tracks down to the best part, save them to a folder (preferably an NCAA09-specific folder) inside whatever folder your 360/PS3 accesses its music from. There are plenty of options to play with on this. However, I can't find a good quality UNT Fight Song recording or anything by the Green Brigade on my machine, so a hookup would be nice. No custom teams this year, sportsfans. I haven't tried anything with Online just yet, but here's an important question: If you auto-name your rosters...heck if you name any of your rosters, does this carry over into Online Dynasty? That's all I've got so far. Hope this gave you guys an idea of what this year's game is about. -----EDIT----- About the mp3 program I mentioned: when you save the files, set it to "Variable Bit Rate". -----EDIT2----- I think it's probably a good idea that we all get standardized rosters from EA Locker and ncaastrategies.com to avoid any mess, if there is any with online dynasty. Also just as important: THE PLAYERS MAKE EAGLE CLAW HANDSIGNS.

Count me in for PS3 O-D as well. I'd like to go with Hawaii or maybe some random Ivy League school like Dartmouth. As long as I can get my green on. Do we know if OD will support custom teams? If so, we may need to set limits on how many stars/letter rankings a team can have.

Jonathan Ieans.

Brilliant. The whole post. Brilliant. I think far too many people get bogged down in that mindset...that "Liberals are wrong because blah, blah, generalism" and "Conservatives are wrong because blah, blah, generalism". I cringe BIG TIME when I read or hear generalize statements about any of the polar ends of the political spectrum, mainly because they're exactly that- generalisms, and they don't pay attention to the people in between, and to make things worse, generalized statements also have a horrible tendency to widen that divide between people. I can't stand to read "Conservatives are all war-hawks and Bush drones" because there's good reason to why many people in the party are distancing themselves from his policies. I can't stand to read that statement about them all being war-hawks because not all of them are, and not all think it's a great idea to send soldiers overseas, especially in this case, where the war and post-war strategies were faulty. I nags the hell out of me to read that "Liberals only read liberal media, are all hippies, and hate the military". Don't get me wrong, just like the Conservative side, you have your extremists and extremists are rarely ever good for any side. The media tends to draw whatever audience draws commercial dollars. They're not all hippies, especially up north, and barring the extremists, most like the existence of the military provided it's not used against them and it's not deployed irresponsibly. The name-calling really hacks me off because when I hear it from either side, it probably means that the people doing it are probably never going to be able to see each other's point of view and probably never going to be able to act in a cooperative manner, even when the situation may benefit them both.

Academic-based billboards: We have plenty of incoming freshmen, so we don't need to aim at them. Grad students and such, yes we should probably aim out for that, but billboards are SUPER MEGA expensive, and that's just for the billboard space for a short run of time, for 1 board. You'd want multiple boards for longer spans of time to get the highest amount of impressions possible. Athletics-based billboards: Unfortunately, most people in the public don't care about your athletics if your football team doesn't win. So until then, I'd wait for the team to win before I try to sell a "bad product".

Another great opportunity to compare this to judging ANYTHING by headlines only. I mean, by headlines, guns are going to get us all killed. I mean, when I hear of a gun in the news, it's usually in a criminal act. Or cars, when I hear about cars in the news, it's probably a car accident. Alcohol, too...when it's in the news, it's a DUI/DWI accident. And video games, those tend to be in the news when some crackpot media "expert" calls them dangerous. And knives? When are they news? When someone is stabbed. By KRAM1's logic, we should outlaw the following: knives guns cars gasoline tornados dogs trucks SUVs electricity AMTRAK alcohol cigarettes video games fists feet firecrackers bullets glass food cholesterol carbon monoxide metal bears poisonous snakes hiking areas campgrounds sharks jetskis motorcycles earthquakes I mean, come on, they're all dangerous and only tend to be in the news when someone dies. Or better yet, KRAM1 can realize that simply because something is in the news does not mean it's actually newsworthy, unbiased, well-researched, or even for actual informative purposes. I mean come on, anyone with a brain will tell you that news at this point in history is nothing more than a political platform, sensationalist haven, commercial outfit, and as such is really subject to greed and the fact that SHOCK SELLS. Why? Because the news outlets don't think we need to hear good news or anything that isn't full of blood, guts, sex and greed. Matter of fact, broadcast news isn't so much news as it is entertainment. So, KRAM1, you still gonna grab all your info from the headline news outlets? Or are you going to put the fault where it belongs: in the hands of the owners?

FFR, sometimes I wish we could send you into the CLC offices with a baseball bat and an ink pen to fix this. But then... ...the demand for much of this stuff, past the students, alumni and faculty/staff is going to be based upon fanbase purchases. The downside to that is that even with the greatest promotions in the world, that's worthless without at least 2 major winning seasons to boast.