Aggie87

Ha! I expect a few losses, particularly to LSU & Alabama. But we might do better than alot of the talking heads are predicting. I'm excited about it, either way (but sad to be losing the U.T. rivalry).

I've been a 'Stros fan since about 1983 or so - got to meet Nolan Ryan and Mike Scott on the field once, even. They had some good players come and go - Glenn Davis, Ken Caminiti, Billy Hatcher, Kevin Bass, Curt Schilling, Steve Finley, Luis Gonzalez, the Killer B's (Biggio, Bagwell, Berkman). Got to the WS once in 2005, only to be choke big time against the White Sox. Haven't really done anything since then. 7 years of blah and counting. Some day they'll be ok again. Good, maybe. Great, doubtful.

Mine was hyperlinked. I hadn't even thought to check that previously. I now am using a file I saved to my hard drive and uploaded as my avatar, so hopefully the problem won't come back. I'm guessing you're right - that tattoo hunter website got hacked in the last day or so, otherwise the error message would have shown up long ago.

As mentioned in the other thread, I believe I was the guilty party, and wasn't aware of it. I changed my avatar, so hopefully the problem goes away for everyone. Sorry bout that, Ladies & Germs!

I'm the guilty one I believe. I will change my avatar and hopefully the problem with go away. What's odd is I've had this particular avatar (maori shark) for a long time, over a year, and never received the warning I saw last night. And the warning (for me anyway) only occurs in the baseball thread, and only on my home pc. At any rate, sorry about that!

I got the same message last night from my home computer, Al - but only from that one thread. I wonder if one of the images posted in the thread or something is from a malware site?

My Astros are 36-73, dead last in Major League Baseball. For the second year in a row. There's maybe one player on the team that would even be tradeable at this point (Jose Altuve), but I believe he's who they're hoping to build around. It's gonna be 3-4 years before they're even competitive if they're lucky, and oh by the way they're also switching to the AL, involuntarily. So the need a DH. Don't really have any bats on the team. Nor any decent pitchers. Baseball isn't much fun to watch for an Astros fan. Bring on football!

Kevin Kolb's first pass in the game tonight was an interception, lol. May be a long season for the Cards.

Happy Birthday, friend. Wishing you nothing but positive things in the year ahead.

SW has done a number of interviews over the past year or so, with indications that he's not sure he wants PT to get back together. I'm hoping it's just a case of needing a break, and being able to reconvene later with recharged batteries. But SW truly seems to be enjoying his solo efforts, so I don't know that he's inclined to do anything further with PT. We'll see. I think Insurgentes could easily have been a PT album. Not so much Grace for Drowning, perhaps. But parts of that could have been too. I guess in SW's mind there's a certain sound or style that has to be done if he's doing PT music. I don't agree with that - that band has evolved so much since he started it. It seems like he could go any direction with those particular musicians, just as he had on his solo recordings, or those with Blackfield or No-Man or Storm Corrosion Here's an excerpt from an interview with Rolling Stone India, from about 6 weeks ago: At the very end of the interview he does go on to say he wants to get PT back together at some point. So who knows. I just wish PT was more active than it is at present.

"Kscope have just announced on the twenty ninth edition of their post-progressive podcast that Porcupine Tree will be releasing ‘Octane Twisted’ a 2CD/DVD set on November 5th. The audio and video will be taken from the band’s show on 2nd May 2010 at the Riviera Theater, Chicago, which was one of the many shows on tour in which ‘The Incident’ was performed in it’s entirety. More details are coming soon!" I'm looking forward to this one! Especially if Porcupine Tree is now defunct. Also upcoming is Steven Wilson's live set, "Get All You Deserve". There's a BlueRay/DVD/2cd edition available for pre-order on Burning Shed.

All the best for the coming year, Lon!

Real Ale "Hans' Pils" - northern German style pilsner, very hoppy.

One of today's great headlines: China's Dong flips and twists to trampoline gold Way to go, China's dong! Nobody was going to beat dong on this day!

It's almost unfair to have an NBA All-Star team playing against countries that don't even really have professional basketball leagues. And even if they do, they don't have anywhere near the depth of talent. I'd rather go back to the U.S. having non-professional basketball players on the U.S. team.

LOL, that sounds like it would have been quite an enjoyable undertaking. Not sure I'd have been able to hold off sampling them as long as you did!

8 Badminton players expelled for trying to lose their matches to secure lower seedings, and thus less competition (or something like that). No offense to any supporters of badminton (or ping pong), but these just don't seem like Olympic sports to me.

Drinking a St. Arnold Summer Pils at the moment. It's a decent summer, beach-type beer. I also managed to pick up a pricey six-pack of St. Arnold's Divine Reserve (No. 12), which was released today, but in a very limited batch. There were lines in most stores up in Houston, where St. Arnold is brewed. They recommend storing it cold for about a year before drinking it, to fully develop. Don't know if I'll be able to wait that long to sample it!

Cool to see the pig over Battersea Power Station at the very beginning of the opening ceremony video!

Not that this really matters anymore in the big scheme of things, but is this more visual evidence of Bonds' juicing during his playing days with the Giants? This is supposedly a current picture of Barry Bonds cycling, which is apparently his new love. He sure looks ALOT smaller all the sudden now that's he's not a baseball crushing power hitter anymore. That certainly suggests to me that his increased head size and body mass wasn't just a natural effect of aging. Link at Deadspin

There have already been some women's soccer matches - North Korea won (despite being confused with the South Korean team) and the U.S. team beat France as well.

In college football the overall all-time wins leader is John Gagliardi, with 484 wins at the Division III level. He's 85 years old and still coach at St. John's University in Minnesota. At the Division I level, the all time leader is Eddie Robinson at Grambling, with 408 wins.

NCAA could fine Penn State as much as $60M as part of Sandusky sanctions Initial indications are a penalty of $30-$60M!