johniam

quote: Either : A) God allows evil to reign (for a good reason of course) B) God has not enough power to stop the evil from reinging (Why do we we even call him our God then?) C) God is too busy and just isn't priority to stop him (Must be the Deist resting somewhere - Go wake Him up) D) God doesn't know (Umm, again, why do we call Him our God?) There's another option. God's love allowed Adam's free will to give the devil rulership and dominion over this world, thus giving the devil access to do evil to God's creation. That's not a good reason, but it's a reason. God's love also allowed the devil to trip over his tail by crucifying Jesus and sealing his own doom.

quote: QUOTE(johniam @ Nov 12 2006, 12:41 AM) I was at a concert and got a big bambu joint passed to me. ....and....? I took a hit off it. Came back to me couple more times. We used to call ourselves stoned most often, but there were other trendy words like ripped, blasted, wasted,higher than a kite,torched...to name a few. Never drank bong water. Used pink chablis instead of water a few times. Once smoked hashish through a shelled peanut. Made bongs out of toilet paper rolls. Used to save roaches and when driving, got the lighter hot and dumped the roach residue directly into the hot lighter for about a minute's worth of good nose hits. Back in the day I was a doper brave and true whatever but since becoming a father it strikes me that dope just does NOT fit in with that lifestyle. Fun reminiscing but it's been almost 30 years for me.

In 1978 there was a party and the limb leader was there and at the beginning of the party the LL said, "You're never going to know what your limit is unless you hit it once or twice". He was talking about drinking. Nobody died.

Can anybody say reprobate mind?

Just because LCM made a big deal out of something doesn't make it the 11th commandment. It is human nature to slack off over time, especially if the work is repetitious. Every place I've worked for any length of time I saw authorities "shake things up" every so often for office people. warehouse people, whatever. What I'm wondering is why did LCM himself have to address this? I don't fault him for spying on those people, or for wanting the situation to change, but THAT one he could have delegated to someone else. IMO.

quote: OOOOOOOOOoklamhoma! Where the wind comes sweeping down the plain... Remember we had to sing that for Him everytime came back from somewhere? No way! That is too weird. I played Judd Fry, the villain in Oklahoma when I was in 9th grade. I swear playing that role ruined my life. Speaking of birthdays, I noticed that John Lynn turned 63 this past week. Mary of Peter Paul and Mary turned 70 too. Makes me feel 'old by association'. My birthday is May 17th...right around the time that the weather is pleasant and going to continue that way and school's almost out.My whole childhood I got spoiled sick on my birthday. I mean disgusting ewwww ridiculous spoiled. NOBODY deserves the way I got treated on my birthday as a child. I figure that warm pleasant weather brings out the giver in some people. Who knows? I guess it's a good thing I wasn't born in Austrailia.

I got married in fall of '88. The guy who married us was at HQ so 2 weeks before the wedding we drove down for the weekend to finalize plans. During the weekend we attended the SNS sitting in the front row. IMMEDIATELY after the service ended LCM made a bee line for us. He noted that we were not normally at the SNS and very politely asked who we were etc. The exchange lasted less than a minute but he just wanted to make sure we were having a good time. He was cool to us. Hmm. That was not long before the fur really flew.

I was at a concert and got a big bambu joint passed to me.

Boy, was I wrong about Edmonds; the Cards just signed him for 19 mill over the next 2 years. I guess that means they're not expecting to sign any free agent starting pitchers from other teams.

The gurdawad's the gillawad! I probably would've enjoyed hearing that on acid.

Hmm. The Cardinals have 2 days to decide whether or not to pick up the $10 million option on Jim Edmonds or buy him out for $3 million. With Juan Pierre a free agent, I can see them letting Edmonds go and signing Juan Pierre if they can.

allworkandnoplaymakesjackadullboyallworkandnoplaymakesjackadullboy

If LCM was right, and the devil disguised himself as a woman and seduced Eve, then perhaps he wore "heels" and...oh, forget it!

quote: Hey, I gotta get passionate about something in the off season. I'm waiting to see what team is suckered into giving Jeff Weaver a huge contract. quote: Look at Jeff Weaver...Would you want him?...Couldn't even compete as a starter for the Angels,then he's suddenly lights out in the playoffs...What's he worth?...What good is a great post-season pitcher if he can't help get you there... I have to say something about Jeff Weaver. Each quote here might play out to be true, but I have followed his career all the way back to A ball, which he played in the town I lived in, Grand Rapids, MI, for the West Michigan Whitecaps. Jeff was a highly touted star of the future who advanced to the majors very quickly, but he seemed to immediately alienate himself from the respect of other players. There was an incident early on where Jared Wright, then with Cleveland, hit a Tiger batter, so JW hit an Indian in retaliation and laughed openly about hitting this guy in the head. Then some years later he yelled something to Mike Sweeny of the Royals from the mound and Sweeny charged the mound and beat him up. And of course, Todd Jones said during the WS that there was no love lost between JW and the Tigers since he left the team. Doesn't sound like he has a good reputation around MLB. So when I heard that the Cardinals had traded for him this year I wasn't expecting much. Plus it kind of turned me off that during interviews immediately after he joined the team he repeatedly referred to his manager and pitching coach as "LaRussa and Duncan" without their first names or any title. Notice that whenever Fox interviewed managers between innings during the playoffs they began the interview by stating the first and last names of the mgr. My general impression of JW was that his personality is fragile somewhere. Not much substance. But he obviously improved at some point. I think the turning point for him was an August game at Cincinnatti. They were our closest division rivals at the time. This was a BIG game; lotta pressure. He went 8 innings and dominated. You could just see in his eyes that he was thinking, "I CAN DO THIS!!! I CAN STILL PITCH IN THE MAJORS!!! WOW!!!" I believe that moment is when he got his confidence back. The rock band Rush has a song called 'New world man' whom they describe in the song as "wise enough to win the world, but fool enough to lose it". I think that fits JW to a tee. Some team will probably offer him more than the Cardinals will, but his success this year was predicated by regaining his self esteem. Perhaps it's too early for him to "leave the nest". He may be wise to stay here for at least another year. But he's 30 now, not 20 and he seems to have wised up some since the Sweeny incident. Let's see what he does.

I never told you I was a virgin.

Yay! Albert Pujols got a gold glove.

Like I said, anger is being upset, wrath is going off on somebody (yelling at them or worse). You're going to have fights with your spouse; just by the time you are done for the day no more yelling. Of course, if the fight starts at midnight, then you might not get much sleep. I agree with whoever said that certain things in life are just going to make us angry sooner or later, but like I said, it's what you do with anger that makes it potentially destructive. Case in point: coach Bob Knight. I respect the hell out of the results he's gotten. 3 NCAA championships. But when he gets angry sometimes he loses touch with anyone and anything else. Even Isiah Thomas has mixed feeling about having played for him. In coach Knight's case, anger is whatever he's feeling; wrath is throwing chairs, grabbing people by the throat, swearing at reporters, etc. On the other hand, he once instantly had a player's scholarship revoked when he found out the player was arrested for hitting his girlfriend. That ties in to anger, too. Anger is going to come to everybody. To tell yourself you're not angry when you are is destructive as well in a different way. Wrath comes to everybody, too, in different measures. Anger isn't something to be avoided; you can't. It's more like something to juggle, or manage, as they say.

Ironic: a thread on anger started by a poster named 'shortfuse'. quote: My only study on anger showed that one should stop that reliving of the situation Many times GSC is a reliving of the situation. I think anger is like humor. You can't just become angry or start laughing like flipping on a light switch. There has to be something that triggers each one; a momentum kind of thing. Everybody will get angry, but normally it will run its course eventually. It's what you do with anger that can become destructive, not simply being angry. I also think it should be pointed out that there's a difference between anger and wrath. Anger is being upset; wrath is going off on someone, an outburst of anger. Eph 4 says not to let the sun go down on your wrath. It doesn't say not to let the sun go down on your anger. Sometimes you just can't help it.

Hmm. Methinx those stats are flawed. The Places Rated Almanac rated STL the 22nd best place to live in the US. Cincinnatti was #1. PRA rates cities based on cost of living, jobs, housing, transportation, education, health care, crime, the arts, recreation, and climate. The 2 worst cities on crime were New York and Miami, yet overall Miami was ranked 33rd and NY 105th out of 343. I live in north STL county which has a larger minority population than anywhere else in the county. I don't spend much time in the STL city limits, but when we go to a concert or sporting event downtown we usually take the metrolink train. We are not afraid to go where we have to go. Maybe we're like Sudo. By the way, Boston was ranked 17th, Memphis 97th, and Dallas 94th. Also, the 4 worst overall places to live were Yuba City, CA, Merced, CA, Waterbury, CT, and Sumter, SC.

Jeff Weaver looks like a Venice beach surf bum. I notice that Kerry Wood is now a free agent. Wonder what Dave Duncan could do for him. They're saying that book "3 nights in August" might be made into a movie. If they do they should have Father Guido Sarducci play Tony LaRussa and Anthony Hopkins play Dave Duncan and Chris Rock play Kerry Robinson (2003 Cardinal bench player reputed to be secure in TLRs dog house). Interesting to me that one commentator during the WS repeatedly referred to Chris Carpenter as a "former" Cy Young winner. Until the voting is revealed he's the "reigning" Cy Young winner, isn't he? Sounds to me like some media people must have access to the voting results ahead of time. It really doesn't bother me that CC won't win it again; he lost 2 critical games in a row down the stretch. Brandon Webb will probably get it...or maybe even John Smoltz or Tom Glavine. Some of these media people should at least ACT like they're genuine baseball fans rather than burned out since July working stiffs. Geez, even Jim Rome had positive things to say about the Cards WS play.

quote: Despite the Cardinals making the playoffs by default, I'm optomistic. Back in the 90s I still lived in MI and rooted for the Red Wings. Three years in a row they were the number one seed (94-96). All 3 years they fell on their face. Then the 2 years in a row when they won the Stanley Cup (97/98) they were the #3 seed. Same for '02. The Cardinals won 100 plus games each in '04/'05 and did not win the WS. This year, NOBODY expects them to go past the 1st round of the playoffs. They don't even have home field advantage. Hmmm. (post #1381 p. 70) Hey, did I call it or WUTT???? Rocky: The Cards finished 83-78.

Bring some dry toast and sit close to the front. There's a line in the movie where a guy says, "I propose a toast!" and people really do throw toast at the screen. Kinda free form theatre going on. Enjoy.

OK I gotta add this. Back in June we spent 10 days in Fla. We had $250.00 in traveler's checks left when we got back, so my wife goes to a BP (Amoco) station and tries to use one. The lady in charge (black) says no. During the 10 days we were in Fla. we went to several BP stations without incident. The only place that wouldn't let us use a traveler's check was a local chain in Tennessee. So my wife points out to the lady that traveler's checks are the same as cash. The lady (I use the term loosely) tells my wife to get her GDFA out of her gas station. My wife used the check at a QT station without incident and then traded them for cash at our bank. Not acceptable. When I found out what happened I drove back there with my wife and the lady's supervisor was there. I raised holy hell. I screamed at those people. I was careful though; I didn't swear, vandalize, or threaten, other than taking the supervisor's name and telling him I would most definitely complain to his supervisors. There were other customers in the store hearing all this. He called the police so I drove across the street to a Shell station and waited for my wife to get done telling her side of it to the lady's boss. The cops came and did nothing to me. My wife says the lady tried to interrupt her several times when finally her boss told her to shut up and that he'd deal with her later. I tried to call every Amoco and BP phone number I could and never got a number to call for customer complaints. But I made them pay. If you make a scene in front of other customers you WILL get their attention. Amoco/ BP is not the only game in town. We haven't been back to THAT BP station. I don't know that lady personally and I don't know her work history, but I wasn't born yesterday, either. I feel very confident in concluding that the lady wouldn't have told my wife to get her GDFA out of there if my wife were not white. Like I said, we made them pay. Feels good.

This is a big change from the 80s. I was a shift mgr for a fast food chain then. Customer service was a BIG DEAL. The company had an 800 number for customers to call if there was a problem. One store got 4 800 number complaints during the same lunch shift. That store mgr was history. Today I still see that kind of customer service on occasion, but it's the exception, not the rule.

I remember the Orioles/Pirates series of '79 was pretty cold, yet even the NY games in 2001 were not particularly cold and if I recall that series ended in November. It's been rainy and cold all day here. First team to score 2 runs in an inning wins.