Pandalsson 1st MRB

Sign me up. No 2nd place this time.

Yeah, I meant getting luongo on TOP of dealing away nash. That would cement his dubious title.

Whoa there... let's not get ahead of ourselves. I think Howson needs to trade away Ryan Murray + Ryan Johansson for Luongo before that happens.

Howson is officially channeling Matt Millen's ineptitude. Sather should let his underlings negotiate free agent contracts while he concentrates on raping faces in trades.

You're right part of my beef is actually with the numbers but I have no problem with front-loaded contracts themselves (unlike Parker who doesn't like this method at all). The problem isn't so much with exploitation (someone's doing their job and I'm fine with that). The problem is that teams with cheaper owners/owning groups probably won't want to match astronomical front-loaded contracts. They all have the money to pay, but some won't and that ruins the end product and the fans are the ones who lose out. What's weird is that people were talking about having a max % of payout based on the annual cap hit but I haven't anything mentioned since the Kovalchuk debacle. Personally, I think that would be a totally acceptable solution. Instead of Weber making: 14, 14, 14, 14, 12, 12, 6, 6, 6, 6, 3, 1, 1, 1 on a 7.86 hit, say the max % was like 30% extra/year then he'd be making 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 7, 7, 3, 1, 1, 1 It's still front loaded but chances are that Nashville might see that as more palatable an offer to match (not saying they would). Everyone wins. Players gets money. Fans keeps/gets player. Teams get cap relief.

The 20k sum was explained right after what you paraphrased: "With all the specialty body gear, ammunition, booby-trap devices and more, I'm guessing this is at least $20,000 in weapons and tactical gear, much of which is very difficult for civilians to get in the first place." Apart from huge logical leap to equate a democracy with cult-of-personality/dictatorships, he *is* trying to make an argument on whatever "connect-the-dots" he sees. One problem with conspiracy theories is that it requires the masses to deconstruct themselves from all the bullshit they've been fed by the media and revisionist historians. The other problem is that for every quite feasible theory there are 10 less feasible one that bury it. To be honest, conspiracy theories can never outright prove their validity in empirically-backed logic. However, I see theories as ways to make you question whether you see/hear is truth and not what someone wants you to believe as truth. Well, when taken out of context like you just did, yes, using those kinds of words aren't ever a basis for an argument. However, 1) he wasn't using those for argumentation and 2) you kind of took them out of context. Not really sure why you think it's sad that some people see a connection between this dot and other seemingly unconnected dots? I didn't see anything that defended the shooter's actions. What are you *actually* sad about? In a country that has a vocal, and influential, group advocating that it's a "god-given" right for every citizen to bear arms, it just seems that this kind of tragedy happens too often. What saddens me is when people don't see the terrible connection between the two. And it's not really conspiracy theories that preventing people from doing so.

Actually it doesn't work as a normal contract should (if I understand the reference in your first sentence correctly). It penalizes the player's total earnings and indirectly affects a team because players will sign with other teams who are willing to give out the $ and take the proportional cap hit. It's not at all like the 10mill/yr contract because the player loses out on the money by retiring 2 years before the end of the contract (95 mill paid instead of 80 mill at the same cap hit). While it's true that it takes into account "retirement seasons" there are 2 primary functions of a front loaded contract: 1) get around salary cap issue (the biggest reason of course) and still give the desired contract sum to the player in question Let's say you take the example of the 10 mill/yr contract. The purpose is to give the player 95 mill over, say, 8 years without getting the 12 salary cap hit (the actual totals talked about with the agent), you get 95 mill over 8 years @ 10 mill cap hit. 2) team pays less than full contract So now that the team and the agent have agreed to the actual payout (95 mill) the contract is structured so that when the player retires 2 years before, the team won't have to pay the extra sum nor get a cap hit because it doesn't trigger the "35-and-old" clause. In the end, the front-loaded contract pays the player what he wants and the teams don't get strapped with the associated cap hits. But doing away with the front-load, players have to either accept less money or teams have to accept higher cap hits. Either way, it complicates finding a middle-ground for teams already stacked with large contracts (hence the "levelling the playing field" intention).

Didn't know they already made characters like that. I always love characters that eat other things for benefits. lol As far as "organized" religions are concerned, of course they get pissed off. ALL, and I do mean ALL, organized religions are entirely self-serving bureaucracies aimed at profiting from desperate people looking for guidance. Cut them a % and I'm sure they'd turn the other cheek. More honest adherents likely (and should) care less as it doesn't affect how their supreme beings are being represented (even if intentionally demeaning). The whole point of faith being personal is that it should be immune from the perceptions of other human beings.

Actually looks pretty decent... And imagine if they added a hero like this guy in LoL

Magoo, I think it this dream scenario exercise was meant to not have any superheroes or non-humans (Bishop). Although Tony Stark could be the best call if the tech is considered "feasible".

True enough. Of course, then teams might go with front-loaded "performance bonuses" with really easy to meet criteria. I'm sure there are always ways around things since that's what GMs hire teams of lawyers to do. But I guess it would be a lot easier to see those kinds of shenanigans.

Great job. Benson, you just became the lone zombie-apocalypse-infected survivor that made into the human stronghold. You just zombie-fucked us with this post. Pretty... Lights... Delightful... Sounds...

All contracts have to be approved by the league. If the league is ok with the long contracts then I'd like to think they have an idea of where they want to go. I'm not saying that it's a good place to go, but the onus should be on the league to say no to these shenanigans not the GMs or the players. Personally, I think it's silly to limit contracts to 5-6 years just because teams are bending the rules of the payouts. A better approach would be to say that contracts get averaged normally. If you give 100 mill over 10 years, that's 10/yr (for both salary AND cap hit). Problem fixed.

Actually, it was inspired by and used bits of a Kurosawa film called Throne of Blood. Sorry if this blows your mind again. Personally I wouldn't mind if Abrams rebooted the Star Wars franchise like he did for Star Trek. Wait... I sense a disturbance in the Force. It was as if a million Star Wars fanboys all screamed at the same time.

Brees:I'm surprised he got that much but is it overpayment? Probably not. He's still the engine that runs the offense. Right now, only 3 other QBs can do what Brees did in NO imo. NFL: Big names with bigger questions marks - Welker, Luck, Newton, Chris Johnson, All-day... NBA: Lin a Rocket. good for him. Rockets offense is going to run primarily pick-and-rolls. He should keep getting 21/9s regularly since he did it with guys like Shumpert, Fields, Jeffries, Novak. No superstars needed there. Just good old fashioned hustle. NHL: It's going to be a weird weird locker room when Nash returns during training camp. He and Ryan should be twitter buddies.

So who gets to play with Granlund?

And why has Engle posted anything? Oh that's right he's already partying like it's 1982. Now you get to be the fan of the 3rd worst team to kick around the MRB forums! Congrats Engle! Damn, am I happy to have kept Koivu and Backstrom in my keepers.

True story. However, Durant is likely to come back in beast-mode next year. Losing to 2 eventual championship winners during West Conf playoffs (LAK, Mavs), losing in conf finals, losing in finals. This kid's going to want to win it so bad next year. This is like a TSN turning point in his career. Despite lack of assists, is Durant ready to become Jordan-esque in results? Also, my money is on Durant winning a championship before Melo does (despite Melo recently saying his time is near).

Thanks Yama for getting us back to our regularly scheduled programming. Soooooo... I haven't played D3 since the latest patch. supposedly they nerfed the IAS by 50%?? My monk build just went south real fast if that's the case. Probably a bunch of DH builds probably died with this patch too. Guess it's time to see what the WH class can do lol

I don't think they could pay Bayless and Smith to stay on for that kind of beating. Cuban would do it for free I think lol

1- Arkham Asylum 2- Bayonetta 3- Bioshock 4- Smash Bros 5- FF13 6- Brutal Legend 7- Guitar Hero 8- Little Big Planet 9- Gears of War 10- Mirror's Edge 11- MGS 4: Guns of Patriots 12- Mass Effect 3? 13- Gran Tourismo? 14- Red Dead 15- Pikmin 16- Soul Calibur 4 17- Resident Evil 5 18- Halo 3 19- StarCraft Bah 16 of 19. [edit: btw, awesome find! Would play any of those "old-schooled" versions!]

Decision wasn't his. That one's on the coach. Generally it goes - captains, best strikers, best shots. That last minute switch with Nani was just odd (luckily he got the goal or else it would have made a bad situation even worse). Since I'm a Germany fan and I hate Italy (although this Euro has almost turned me 180 on the Italian style of play), Spain and Portugal, it was a lesser of two evils with the Iberian match. Now I get to see Die Mannschaft have a great and entertaining game.

lol @ serious guy. Yeah, Millbury will likely go down as one of the worst ever. Traded Olli Jokinen & Roberto Luongo for Mark Parrish and Oleg Kvasha Traded Zdeno Chara, Bill Muckalt, & 1st Round Selection (Jason Spezza) for Alexei Yashin Traded Bryan McCabe, Todd Bertuzzi, & 3rd Round Selection (Jarko Ruutu) for Trevor Linden Traded Bryan Berard & 6th Round Selection for Felix Potvin & 6th Round Selection Drafted Rick DiPietro with #1 Overall Pick at 2000 NHL Entry Draft Traded J.P Dumont & 5th Round Selection (1998) for Dmitri Nabokov Traded Chris Osgood & 3rd Round Selection (2003) to St. Louis Blues for Justin Papineau and 2nd Round Selection (Jeremy Colliton) Traded Brad Isbister & Raffi Torres for Janne Niinimaa Traded Tommy Salo for Mats Lindgren & 8th Round Selection (Radek Martinek) Right up there with:

But at least Geoff is trying to right the ship that Gilette almost sank (although Molson was quite the loafer in high school) so I hope these past 25 years have been a long journey of self-improvement. And it's not as if Tannebaum is actively deep-sixing the Leafs. They got rid of this bum didn't they?

It was just so funny to watch him trying to say *anything* that could help show he knew what he was talking about. He even tried to add MORE generalities. Cuban just absolutely destroyed when he said "so essentially you're saying the Lebron won because he listen to you..." Sadly we couldn't see the other two's reactions when Cuban asked them "... am I right?" I never really disliked Cuban as an owner because he puts a product that fans can care about for because HE cares. Every owner should love and care about the teams they own because it translates to everyone winning: owners, teams, and ultimately fans. Unlike this idiot...