Agent Cooper wrote:Thanks kindly Guido.  Just wanted to hear from an Acaeum member for a reliable review, cuz we're all gamers here.  

Kingofpain:  Yeah, I'm pretty bad at trash talking.  All kidding aside, yes, my G-men did good.  Will we surprise everybody again and beat GB?  Not likely, but who knows?  We certainly weren't supposed to beat Dallas.

I wonder where Badmike is?  I thought he'd have been here by now to get all riled up and  flame me up one side and down the other.  

Nah, the Giants won, what can you say. Besides, I can't work a scenario in my head that has the Giants winning next week against a fired up Packers team at Lambeau, so it was a nice ride while it lasted.  It's past time for Eli to play to form...although I do find it quite funny that HE"S the Manning brother that will be playing next week, and not Peyton...

Mike B.

killjoy32 wrote:ps. oh yeah, you americans regard the world as yours dont you

Actually, yes.

The Cowboys picked a horrible time to start committing mental errors.  Kill your own drives....sounds like the Seahawks...oh...wait....

The Giants are to be commended for keeping their spirits up and their heads in the game.

With the demise of the Colts, the Patriots look pretty much like really, really odds-on favorites to win it all.  As a Cowboys fan, I wouldn't really have liked to watch Dallas blow the Super Bowl.

Two good things could come of this:

Green Bay could defeat the Patriots, slay evil, and Brett Favre could go out as a storybook winner....

(Which would mean we'd have to endure more smarmy worship of Brett Favre and all the "Title Town" crap and general nonsense about the town of Green Bay and how special they all are.)

The Patriots could win the Super Bowl and Junior Seau will finally be a world champion and we can finally stop hearing all the sloppy crap about Miami and their perfect freakin' season from a thousand years ago before they were a joke (including the Marino years).

(Which would mean we'd have to endure an entire year about what a great guy Tom Brady is and listen to all the goofy tripe about the Patriots' "system" and deal with an entire year of their coach and his villany rewarded.)

Or...the Chargers could win.

So...there you have it.  (People pay money for analysis like this, you know.)

I'm still not sure why the Seagulls were in the playoffs............

Xaxaxe wrote:Touching on the massive implosion of the sports card and comics industry in the early 1990s, which we've bandied about a bit from time to time, here's a pretty decent article about that era (mostly from the comics standpoint):

http://www.comicbookresources.com/columns/?column=28

It's a good read, with some interesting history, and should be of interest to anyone who has ever been a collector of any sort of pop culture. I found it revelaing that more than one source pointed to the exact month that the comics industry began its death-spiral.

Wow, what a great article.  I remember every bit of it:  The over-ordering of product, the "instant collectibles" such as Death of Superman, every Valiant #1, Batman's back broken, etc;  The comic book print runs of a million copies (nowadays, a very successful comic MIGHT have a print run of 200,000, but most are under 100,000 copies); the jackass baseball card sellers who jumped into comics with the same lack of customer service and appreciation they showed peddling cards, the speculation at the time that Marvel would go under after the Heroe's World fiasco, etc. I worked quite a few comic book conventions in the 1990-1995 era, the stories I could tell.

I still remember seeing the end coming in the summer of 1993; the few conventions I worked in the spring and summer of that year had the stink of desperation all over them, as dealers tried to move unsellable product for ANYTHING; I've told the story elsewhere of the guy trying to move Valiant and Image comics by the caseload for a dime a comic, and having to throw them all in dumpsters when he didn't have any takers.  The area I live in went from about a dozen comic shops to about 3 in just six months time.  For awhile, I was making good money buying speculator's collections by the box for 5 cents a comic, and bringing them to cons to sell for 50 cents a comic. Some of the last few cons I worked, I came up with "The Last Idiot" principle: The Last Idiot was the one holding the overpriced comic book when the value finally plummeted to what it should be.  I did everything I could not to be the last idiot, and sold/traded a ton of now-worthless Valiant comics to dealers who didn't see the handwriting on the wall, sometimes actually getting Silver age comics in the deal.

I don't consider myself a great businessman, but I always pat myself on the back when I remember that I got out of comics speculation at exactly the right time.  Another few months, I'd still have boxes of Valiant, Image and others crowding me out of my home...

Mike b.

Plaag wrote:As for that booing Indy crowd to the girl...

Yeah, that reminded me of another occasion when a brutal mob went after a little girl...  



She's balling and the dem supporters keep laughing at her, shouting sneers.  Typical.

bonk!

VermilionFire wrote:
The father, Phil Parlock, is a publicity hound who staged the confrontation to get on radio shows.  Shame on him for purposely putting his daughter through his pathological need for "trauma."     

Phil Parlock information

So, it doesn't matter what the Democrat supporters in the crowd actually did...that they felt justified in their behavior because they are good and Republicans are evil...

All that matters is that Parlock set them up to show their true colors?

I don't give Parlock high marks for carrying his daughter into a hostile crowd.  That doesn't change what those around him actually did.

FormCritic wrote:
So, it doesn't matter what the Democrat supporters in the crowd actually did...that they felt justified in their behavior because they are good and Republicans are evil...

All that matters is that Parlock set them up to show their true colors?

I don't give Parlock high marks for carrying his daughter into a hostile crowd.  That doesn't change what those around him actually did.

How horrible!  They tore up his little sign and actually had the nerve to laugh at him.  Boo friggin' hoo... they probably picked him last for kickball during gym too!  
Give me a break, the same thing would have happened if the situation were reverse...
There are many examples including three teachers from Oregon wearing t-shirts that read "protect our civil liberties" that were kicked out and threatened with arrest at a Bush campaign rally in 2004.  Ironic, eh?  

If Parlock is not man enough to take the light abuse that comes with taking a contrary opinion at an opposing party's political rally then he's not much of a man... even worse that he had to hide behind his little daughter and set up a publicity stunt with a friendly photographer to shoot the spectacle.  The opprobrium should be on Parlock, not on the typical partisan mob, whether it be Democratic or Republican or whatever.  He wasn't hurt or hit, he wasn't arrested, he wasn't cursed at, he wasn't kicked out, nothing was thrown at him... he just had his little sign torn and he was laughed at, which was probably at lot less than he wanted to happen... again, go ahead and cry me a river...

And on that note, the owner of the Pats has invited that girl to the championship game.  He called her personally and sent tickets to her and her family.  Classy move on his part.

deimos3428 wrote:I'm not looking up "opprobrium", but if that means "shame", it should apply equally to both parties.  Partizan politics should never be put ahead of little children.  Pathetic.

Get ready for more of it come this election year....  

I vote we keep the OT folder away from politics in 2008...and stick to less contentious subjects, such as sports, which seems to have such a soothing effect on everyone here

And totally off topic (of course)...you comic book fans, what do you think ridiculous Spiderman storyline that has basically trashed the last 20 years of his and Marvel's history?  I dropped the title from my pull list for the first time ever.  Hopefully when sales plummet they'll retcon the entire thing....

Mike B.