Aggie87

I would like to add that I don't see Chris attacking other board members here though. Sort of a one sided pissing contest.

Welcome back, Jim! Any chance you're going to re-open your old forum, as a backup for the O Board when the server acts funny?

Happy Birthday!!

If you paid for the items, they aren't taking a loss. Seems like with your "proof", they could go through their automated (?) system and find your purchase, and confirm the items you purchased, and give them to you. I'd get credit card company to send me a copy of whatever info they have about the transaction, and go back to see the manager.

Feds Charge Bonds With 14 Counts Of Perjury SAN FRANCISCO -- Federal prosecutors Tuesday re-filed an indictment against former San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds, charging him with 14 counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice surrounding his testimony in the BALCO Steroid Case. The new indictment broke down every individual statement prosecutors claim was falsely made during his days testifying before the grand jury, increasingly the number in the original perjury indictment from four to 14. A June 6th hearing was scheduled at which time Bonds would be required to enter a plea. U.S. District Judge Susan Illston had told prosecutors on Feb. 29 to fix their original indictment because it lumped multiple allegations into too few counts. Illston said that prosecutors needed to drop some of the allegations from the indictment or add more charges. Nine people connected to the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, or BALCO, have pleaded guilty or been convicted of drug charges or perjury, including track legend Marion Jones who admitted lying to investigators about using steroids. Tammy Thomas, an elite cyclist, was convicted about three weeks ago of three counts perjury and one count of obstruction. She is scheduled to be sentenced July 18. Bonds was indicted in November on four counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice, charges stemming from 2003 grand-jury testimony in which he denied knowingly taking illegal performance-enhancing drugs. Bonds was let go by the San Francisco Giants. The 43-year-old outfielder remains a free agent and wants to play this year. "I'm not going to retire. I don't think that's going to happen," he told MLB.com. "I'm working out. I'm training. If my phone rings, it rings. If it don't, it don't. I have a cell phone." "I have a Blackberry. They work. If something comes up, I'm sure they'll let me know. I'll come back in July if I have to. It depends on the circumstances."

A couple of nice surprises: Bennie Maupin - Jewel in the Lotus Dewey Redman - The Struggle Continues Carla Bley - The Lost Chords Find Paolo Fresu plus: v/a - Droppin' Science: The Greatest Samples from the Blue Note Lab Return to Forever - Definitive Collection Antonio Carlos Jobim - Pure Bossa Nova Keith Jarrett - My Foolish Heart (been there for a few weeks now) Trio Mediaeval - Folk Songs

Tony needs to stick to playing football! Romo sings Take Me Out to the Ballgame

Spurs are blowing out the Hornets tonight, and are about to even the series at 2-2. Duncan is healthier now than he was in the first two games, and they're clicking right now. Will be interesting to see how the Hornets respond in Game 5 on their court.

How on earth did McDonald end up in Foreigner??

My condolences as well. May he Rest in Peace. And may your memories of him and your good times together be a source of strength for you. A piece of him lives on in your daughters.

I still see it for $4.95 from seller IMPORTCDS. Hope it works for y'all!

If anybody's interested in the 3 disc deluxe numbered TW set, it's available through the Amazon marketplace for $4.95 plus shipping (total $7.93). I already had the beige set, but ordered this one just cuz.

and

Some photos:

Glad my house wasn't located on top of this property! Massive sinkhole continues to grow near Daisetta DAISETTA — The nervous vigil at a huge sinkhole that mysteriously opened in this Liberty County town on Wednesday -- and grew rapidly throughout the day -- is continuing early today as county officials hand off oversight of the emergency to the Texas Railroad Commission. The sinkhole, which appeared near the center of Daisetta on Wednesday morning and grew to four football fields in diameter and 200 feet deep by nightfall, did not grow severely during the night and no evacuations have yet been ordered, a Liberty County sheriff's official said today. Still, authorities are preparing to act quickly if the sinkhole should resume its stunning expansion from Wednesday, when it swallowed trees, telephone poles, storage tanks, oil field equipment, a tractor and the cab of an 18-wheeler. With the arrival of daylight, said sheriff's Cpl. Hugh Bishop, authorities can tell the sinkhole grew somewhat during the night, but at a slower rate. No injuries have been reported. Bishop estimated the sinkhole's size now at 600 yards wide and 200 feet deep. "There are signs it's slowing down, but it's a nature thing. We don't know what to expect," he said. Bishop also said officials with the Railroad Commission and a geologist are on site to determine the cause of the sinkhole. One possibility is that it resulted from the collapse of one of the many salt domes in this region. The good news, Bishop said, is that the crater is not growing eastward toward FM 770, the main road through Daisetta. It seems to be expanding toward the southwest and north, he said. The sinkhole is near the intersection of FM 770 and FM 834 on the north side of town. The next likely victim if it continues growing appears to be a maintenance shed on the Deloach Vacuum Disposal Co. property. "The building is on the edge," Bishop said. The sinkhole announced itself about 10 a.m. Wednesday as ground that had been "flat as a pancake" began to collapse, said Tom Branch, the county's emergency management coordinator. Sometimes as much as 20 feet an hour would vanish into the growing pit. Lester Edwards, Liberty County's hazardous materials coordinator, said nobody knows how big the hole may get or when it will stop growing. He said all authorities can do is monitor the pit and keep people from danger. By nightfall, the hole was located on the property belonging to the Deloach Vacuum Disposal Co., but only a block from the town's fire station and Hull-Daisetta High School. Officials for Deloach, a saltwater disposal company, could not be reached for comment. In 1981 a smaller sinkhole developed on the opposite side of town. That one appeared overnight and grew to 250 feet wide and 30 feet deep. It expanded from a much smaller sinkhole that appeared in 1969 and was on Gulf Oil Corp. property near a salt water disposal well. The new sinkhole formed near another salt water disposal well owned by Deloach. Daisetta sits above a salt dome. Salt water separated from crude oil taken from production wells is often disposed of in wells in the dome. Mary McCann, whose husband, Harold, was the town's mayor when the last sinkhole formed, lives near the new one. She said Deloach workers were injecting salt water into the well "when the ground started separating and everybody ran like devils." She said the workers ran to FM 770 and stood watching the phenomenon. As to what's causing it, "I wish the heck I knew," McCann said, but she said she suspects the salt water well was at fault. "I think we're in jeopardy. This property is our life's savings. We're old people," said McCann, who is 80. Power precautions Entergy, the power company, was called to the scene early Wednesday to cut electric lines to Deloach as the hole sucked down utility poles. The move was made to prevent power from being cut off in the town of 1,200. Sunoco, a leading manufacturer and marketer of petroleum and petrochemical products, secured two 6-inch crude oil pipelines near the sinkhole that were starting to leak, Edwards said. Ramona Nye, spokeswoman for the Texas Railroad Commission, said the owners of two crude-oil gathering pipe systems and one natural-gas gathering system in the area were warned to keep close watch for potential damage. She said none had experienced any damage so far. Railroad Commission investigators were monitoring the site and checking pipelines in the vicinity while Texas Natural Resources and Conservation officials were monitoring air and water quality. No pollutants had been detected. A mile south of the site, an old abandoned oil well began gushing massive amounts of salt water Wednesday. Nye said, "So far we don't think it's related." May take weeks to stabilize When spectators stood on the edge of the sinkhole they didn't have to wait long to see something happen. The hole was surrounded by giant growing cracks that extended several hundred yards in concentric circles. Without warning, dark, oily water in the bottom of the hole began to churn and whirl and then chunks of earth fell from the walls. Equipment, tanks and sheds slid with the dirt and disappeared into the hole. Sometimes water poured from a nearby lake into the growing hole. Geoffrey Paine, a geologist and geophysicist with the University of Texas, said sinkholes are rare and generally form in areas where underground salt or limestone formations are dissolved by water and allow the surface to collapse. "It's not something easily predicted, but we do know where the salt domes are," he said. He said water can leak into the formation through drill holes, disposal wells, oil production wells or water wells. "Sometimes areas that have been drilled over the years can allow water to dissolve the salt to create voids that collapse from the materials above it," he said. It often takes up to two weeks for the hole to stabilize, Paine said. Oil has been produced in the area since 1918, according to the Handbook of Texas. Although most of the old wells have long since been abandoned, some oil and gas is still produced. The 1981 sinkhole became a lake, McCann said. "It sealed itself," she said. The current mayor, Lynn Wells, filled most of the earlier hole with dirt and built a house on it. He said he's not seen any problems on his property since the new sinkhole began forming about 500 yards away. Investigators will continue to monitor the situation and try to determine whether any regulations have been violated, Nye said. "We don't know what's going to happen," Wells said. "We just have to monitor things and make sure everybody is safe."

Kenny G: You know, Charlie Parker got his nickname because of his reed. It chirped like a chicken that was trying to cross the road, got hit by a car, and landed in some yard. Yardbird. Interviewer: You really think that’s how Charlie Parker got his nickname? Interesting. Kenny G: Of course. I study these things, you know. I play much more in tune than Parker did, too.

No clue what an Ace of a Cake is.

I agree, and think that's the problem. Maybe they added nothing, maybe they added a little, or maybe they added alot. Who can say? That's why it's still an issue, and puts a cloud over the Pat's success, to some undeterminable degree (at least to non Pats fans). That's why the rules (whatever they are) have to be clear and enforced, and teams have to respect them. Is Belichick a great coach? Without doubt. Are the Pats a great team? Yep. Do I think Belichick knew the rules and chose to bend them anyway? Yes. I also agree with Shawn in that I'm tired of all this, and think allowing the defensive players to communicate through headsets like the offensive ones will help resolve this for the future.

Not good for the Pats, but also not the "smoking gun" video of the Rams' Superbowl practices. Ex-Patriots Assistant Sends the N.F.L. Eight Tapes By GREG BISHOP Published: May 8, 2008 A former New England Patriots employee has sent the N.F.L. eight videotapes showing the team recorded play-calling signals by coaches of five opponents in six games between the 2000 and 2002 seasons, in violation of league rules. But the group of tapes does not include video of the St. Louis Rams’ walk-through practice the day before the 2002 Super Bowl. The employee, Matt Walsh, had been linked to such a tape by news media speculation. Walsh emerged as a pivotal figure in the spying controversy that enveloped the Patriots last season after they were caught taping Jets defensive signals in the season opener. Walsh, who worked for the Patriots from 1997 to 2003, agreed to turn over the tapes and other evidence by Thursday under an agreement reached last month between lawyers for the N.F.L. and Walsh. The agreement indemnifies Walsh from all future legal fees. Walsh’s tapes show that the Patriots recorded the signals of offensive and defensive coaches in regular-season games against the Miami Dolphins, the Buffalo Bills, the Cleveland Browns and the San Diego Chargers and against the Pittsburgh Steelers in the 2002 American Football Conference championship game. In that game, the tape has been edited to show Steelers coaches signaling plays, followed by two different camera angles of the actual plays that were called. The New York Times obtained a list of the Walsh videotapes. The information was later confirmed by Walsh’s lawyer, Michael Levy, from the Washington offices of McKee Nelson. The N.F.L. declined to comment Wednesday night because it did not have the tapes in its possession. The Boston Herald reported the day before this year’s Super Bowl that a tape of the Rams existed, citing an anonymous source. Walsh does not possess such a tape, Levy said. “Mr. Walsh has never claimed to have a tape of the walk-through,” Levy said in a telephone interview. “Mr. Walsh has never been the source of any of the media speculation about such a tape. Mr. Walsh was not the source for the Feb. 2 Boston Herald article.” On Tuesday, Walsh is scheduled to speak with Commissioner Roger Goodell and Senator Arlen Specter in separate meetings. Walsh could provide additional information at that time, including how the taping worked, how extensive it was, which Patriots employees were involved and the significance of the evidence he handed over. The first tape is dated Sept. 25, 2000, from a game the previous day. The last is from Sept. 29 two years later. All the tapes are scheduled to arrive at N.F.L. offices Thursday morning. Levy would not say whether Walsh was behind the camera on each tape, but confirmed that Walsh obtained the first seven tapes during his time in the Patriots’ video department, which ended after the 2002 Super Bowl. The last tape, in September 2002 against the Chargers, was shot by someone else after Walsh left the video department for a job in the scouting department that ended in early 2003. The Chargers tape shows raw footage, Levy said, of the San Diego coaches from the Patriots’ sideline, followed by a shot of the scoreboard showing time, down and distance. The tape contains no footage of actual plays during the game, only the sequence, which the Patriots could match to play tape. The other seven tapes are more sophisticated. They show shots of the opposing coaches’ signals, followed immediately by a shot of the play, usually from the end zone camera, Levy said. The tape from the A.F.C. championship game is the most extensive, showing two angles of each play. Goodell has left open the possibility that additional evidence will lead to additional penalties against Coach Bill Belichick and the Patriots. After the Jets game, Goodell levied a total of $750,000 in fines and docked the Patriots a first-round draft pick. After this year’s Super Bowl, Goodell met with Specter and revealed for the first time that Belichick’s illegal signal filming dated to the beginning of his tenure with the Patriots, in 2000. Some accounts said Belichick admitted to taping defensive signals, others just signals in general. At the Super Bowl, Goodell said of the Patriots’ practice of taping, “I don’t think it taints their accomplishments.” Under Belichick, the Patriots rose from one of the league’s middling teams to its best, winning three Super Bowls in four seasons. Last season, they went undefeated until losing to the Giants in the Super Bowl. Based on a win-loss tally from games after the ones on tapes provided by Walsh, the Patriots went 9-6 against the Dolphins after the first taping. They also went 12-1 against the Bills, 3-0 against the Browns, 4-1 against the Steelers and 3-1 against the Chargers. This included three victories and no defeats in the playoffs. “We consider the tapes of our coaching staff during our games against the New England Patriots to be a nonissue,” the Steelers chairman, Dan Rooney, said in a statement released in February. Telephone messages to the five teams left Wednesday night were not answered. Since Belichick’s first season in New England, when the Patriots finished 5-11, they have gone 86-26 in the regular season, a .768 winning percentage. It remains unclear whether the league will make the tapes public. During the initial investigation into the Patriots, the league accepted seven tapes gathered by the team, dating to 2006, while collecting a written promise that it possessed no more. The N.F.L. destroyed the tapes that the Patriots turned over. Under the indemnity agreement, Walsh’s lawyer can keep one copy of each tape, but he cannot release it without the league’s consent.

Of these I'd go see: Billy Bang Steven Bernstein's Millenial Territory Orchestra Paolo Fresu Richard Galliano Hank Jones/Lovano, and Jones/Mehldau Abbey Lincoln Brad Mehldau - solo & trio McCoy Tyner Saxophone Summit (Lovano/Liebman/Coltrane) Cassandra Wilson and also: Bettye Lavette Orchestra Baobab Steely Dan

PRIVATE BUSINESS PROPOSAL. Dr. Idris Musa Chief, Federal Poultry Division No. 16 Kingsway Road Lagos, Nigeria. 6th May, 2008 First I must solicit your confidence in this transaction.This is by virtue of its nature as being utterly confidential and top secret. We are top officials of the Federal Government Poultry Contract Review Panel who are interested in importation of poultry into our country with funds which are presently trapped on the other side of the highway in Nigeria. In order to commence this business we solicit your assistance to enable us RECEIVE the said trapped chicken across the street. The source of this fund is as follows : During the regime of our late head of state, Gen. Sani Abacha, the government officials set up poultry companies on the other side of the street, and awarded themselves contracts which were grossly over-invoiced in various Ministries. The NEW CIVILIAN Government set up a Chicken Contract Review Panel (C.C.R.P) on this side, and we have identified a lot of inflated contract funds which are presently floating in the Central Bank of Nigeria, Farming Division (C.B.N.F.D.). However, due to our position as civil servants and members of this panel, we cannot acquire this money in our names. I have therefore, been delegated as a matter of trust by my colleagues of the panel to look for an Overseas partner INTO whose ACCOUNT the sum of US$31,000,000.00 (Thirty one Million United States Dollars) WILL BE PAID BY TELEGRAPHIC TRANSFER. Hence we are writing you this letter.We have agreed to share the money thus: 70% for us (the officials) 20% for the FOREIGN PARTNER (you) 10% for the Chickens who actually make it across the road It is from this 70% that we wish to commence the importation business. Please note that this transaction is 100% safe and we hope THAT THE FUNDS CAN ARRIVE YOUR ACCOUNT in latest ten (10) banking days from the date of reciept of the following information by TEL/FAX: 234-1-7747907: A SUITABLE NAME AND BANK ACCOUNT INTO WHICH THE FUNDS CAN BE PAID. PLEASE ENDEAVOUR TO RESPOND BY TELEPHONE OR FAX. Please acknowledge receipt of this letter using the above Tel/Fax number. I will bring you into the complete picture of this pending project when I have heard from you. Please help the trapped chickens. Yours Faithfully, DR. IDRIS MUSA

Curiously, Clarke types very similarly to Greg...

Got my discs today, thanks David!