Armory

"I don't need alcohol to make it through the day.... (shakily takes sip of water) Oh that is awful, oh my God, 70% of the Earth is made of of that s***? How do the fish do it?"

"That ball can't be buried in a Jewish cemetery because it was tattooed!"

1 hour ago, archer said:

 

That's better than a gas-based PC called Flatulence....

That's one we tossed around!  This player has gone through several names for his character, including Killer Fog (he started as a villain), and The Green Gasser...

"World's Greatest Dad" - Robin Williams in a dark comedy written and directed by Bobcat Goldthwaite.

"I'm gonna count to one."

I'll wait for an "I told you so" until they actually reinstate him.  ?

On 8/8/2018 at 2:11 PM, Christopher R Taylor said:

Baseball should:

• Call the full strike zone (high and low strike, as the rules indicate)
• Eliminate video challenges except for post season
• Eliminate the DH
• Eliminate Interleague Play
• Call any ball tipped into the catcher's mitt by the batter an out
• Eliminate the "signalled intentional walk"
• Reduce the number of games to 154, to shorten the season.  The World Series shouldn't be played in November.
• Vigorously club about the face and neck anyone who thinks that team chemistry and morale means nothing and only stats matter for a team's performance
• Create a "Caribbean" and "Asian" league to go with the National and American leagues.  Start by adding one level of play each year (start with A, then AA, etc) before having the draft for full MLB teams
• Restructure free agency to encourage players to stay on a team
• Quit monkeying with the ball every year to get more home runs
• Eliminate catcher's indifference. If they stole a base, they stole a base, even if there's no throw

 

 

Call the full strike zone?  I say automate home plate.  It's time to ditch the subjective zone.

I don't mind video challenges, especially considering the number of calls that are overturned.

The DH...meh.  I've always been an NL guy but recently I'm coming around to adding it to the NL.

I agree, eliminate interleague play.  Contract a couple of teams if that unbalances the schedule.

I disagree about tipping into the catcher's mitt being an out.  It should remain a foul ball.

I too would like to see the automatic walk eliminated, but I don't consider it that big a deal.  It does save a bit of time, but not enough to be significant.

I agree, go back to 154 games.  This also might require contraction.

Ask Reggie Jackson and Billy Martin about the value of clubhouse chemistry.

I like the idea of adding Caribbean and Asian leagues to MLB, but I'd vote for actually adding some of those teams to MLB.  They're already defacto MLB farm systems, to a degree.

Free agency is fine the way it is.

I agree, don't mess with the ball.  But if you do, freaking admit it.

Not sure where I land on defensive indifference, but considering the dearth of stolen bases in the last few decades I'm not sure it makes any difference to anything.

I gotta brag on my hometown Indianapolis Indians:  last night against the Lehigh Valley IronPigs, not one but TWO Indians players hit for the cycle!

https://www.milb.com/indianapolis/news/indians-ride-bi-cycle-to-rout-over-ironpigs/c-289349626

"The bi-cycle by Newman and Stallings marked the second time in baseball history where teammates have hit for the cycle in the same game. Oddly enough, High-A San Jose accomplished the feat in April of this season."

9 hours ago, zslane said:

 

I'll take that bet. What would you care to wager?

 

I (and other industry insiders) understand Disney and how it operates. I am also, as Black Widow would put it, reading the terrain, and my analysis says Gunn is done at Disney.

I think the outpouring of support from pretty much everybody will have an affect on Disney's knee-jerk decision.  Just one example of such a reversal is Chris Hardwick's reinstatement by AMC.  But of course, I'm not an industry insider...

7 hours ago, Pattern Ghost said:

 

Well, it harmed Gunn.

 

But I can understand that as a brash, younger man how he'd make some jokes in bad taste for attention. I mean, he was only in his 40's, he hardly knew better . . .

 

I'm willing to bet that Disney knew every bit of what they were getting with him as ABC did when they put Roseann back on the air. Both companies hired someone to make money from them then threw them under the bus when it looked like they might lose money on them. That's kind of scummy behavior, though not unexpected from Disney.

 

As far as Gunn goes, if he's truly recalcitrant, a better person now, etc. . . . then sure, give him a second chance. No third chances, though. If he hasn't learned the lesson he'd apparently been missing out on in his 40's, then he'll never learn.

I agree with that last bit.  I'm all for second chances, but that's it.

7 hours ago, zslane said:

Sure, Gunn could be rehired, if he finds someone who will buy out Disney and who will put him back in charge of the Guardians franchise.

 

Look, Iger won't override Horn's decision since Iger approved it--if not outright dictated it--in the first place. Horn won't go back on his decision without Iger's blessing, and that's not going to happen because the (PR) ramifications of doing so would be devastating for Disney. And Feige can't override it because that is beyond his pay grade.

 

When was the last time you heard rumors that Disney was going work with Weinstein again? Oh that's right, never. When you screw up this badly, Disney does not forget (or forgive). They can't afford to.

Oh let's not pretend that objectionable words are comparable to physical assault, even in this hyper-sensitive age.  I'd bet money Gunn will be re-hired.  I'd bet that same money Weinstein will never be, because what he did actually harmed people.  What Gunn said harmed exactly no one.

If you leave a dimensional portal laying around something will come through it that wants to kill you.  Even if it looks just like you.

Our primary super-team is based in Indianapolis, but they've had adventures in Chicago, NYC, Seattle, rural Kentucky, and as far away as Sri Lanka.  Oh, and the next one will be Indianapolis, but in a mirror dimension.  ?

One of my players has a gas-based PC called Vapor.

Not a fan of the "tosses self out of the plane with no parachute" shtick, or perhaps I should say I was a fan of it the first time I saw it in Captain America.  That makes me worry about other choices they've made.  But I'll go see it.

Saw a headline on ESPN this morning about how getting Machado makes the Dodges the "NL team to beat".  Last I looked LA had a lot more holes to fill than SS.  Between other injuries and a few underperformers like Bellinger they need more help than Manny's going to bring them.

11 hours ago, RDU Neil said:

 

I've been reading Iron Man since Tales of Suspense and I loved Iron Man 3 ... Mandarin is a dated, racist villain, and what they did with Trevor was genius, a real dig at fear mongering and profiling, etc. 

This^.  Iron Man was the only comic I had a subscription to back in the early '70s.  I used to have a ton of old Tales of Suspense, including #s 39 and 40. I had no problem with the way they handled the Mandarin in IM3, for the reason you stated:  he was a racist caricature, with a rather silly origin to boot.

Having said that, I am interested in who this 'real' Mandarin is who was mentioned in that short, if they ever get around to showing us.  I'm hoping it was more than just a sop to the fanbois who were complaining.

On 7/14/2018 at 7:30 PM, Badger said:

 

Yeah, just 3 (now 4) days without real baseball to me.  Also I intentionally avoid it ever since Selig decided it mattered (a decision he obviously made because he got butthurt it ended in a tie in his hometown)

That's probably the only good thing Manfred has done, to get rid of that "this time it counts" nonsense.  It's an exhibition game, it shouldn't count for anything.  OTOH I think it should be treated less like an exhibition in that I'd like to see the lineups handled like a regular game, meaning more concern for winning and less concern for getting everybody into the game.

As far as expansion goes, I'd rather see them contract.  Get back to an odd number of teams so we can do away with interleague play during the season.  That's part of what made the All-Star Game so great in the past, it pitted players against each other who normally would never play on the same field.  The World Series has lost a bit of its luster for the same reason.

I come up with titles for all of my adventures.  Some are better than others, of course.  I don't usually come up with one until after the session, in case the players do something that would suggest a better title than I had in mind while writing it.  They can all be seen at the Obsidian Portal links in my sig, but here are the better ones:

Jurassic Quark - a particle collider accident creates a breach between dimensions and the team is pitted against intelligent, evolved dinosaurs.

The Shocking Dead - the team fights electric zombies...cross that one off the bucket list.

He Ain't Hedgy, He's My Brother - long story short, a PC with a plant-based origin discovers his long-lost brother, who transforms into what is basically a gigantic, walking tree of destruction.

Nano He Didn't - The mad scientist father of a PC's girlfriend infects the team with nanobots, which led directly to the next session where he took remote control of three PCs' bodies and forced them to murder villains, which was called:

Excuse Me While I Kill This Guy - to the tune of "Purple Haze", natch.

Twisted Christmas - the PC team Christmas party is crashed by their evil twins from another dimension.

"The rest of the world loves soccer.  Surely we must be missing something.  Uh, isn't that what the Russians told us about communism?" -- Tom Weir

Thankfully I don't have to grin and bear it, I can just ignore it.

2 hours ago, Cancer said:

For lots of typical Americans out there...

 

Whom to root for (in no way serious).

The website told me Spain, but I'm actually rooting for the whole thing to be cancelled.  I am the typical American who finds soccer to be the sports equivalent of loose bowels.  It's something that is endured rather than enjoyed; it feels like it lasts longer than it really does; and it stinks.   ?  ?

13 hours ago, slikmar said:

According to Ken Rosenthal, the main office, including the Commissioner, are shocked after 5 years of shifts that there hasn't been an adjustment at the plate - hitting other way and bunting. Course, when contracts seem to be all about how many HRs did you hit, I almost understand it.

The contract thing is one part of it.  The other, I think, is that baseball is hard.  Even for the best-of-the-best, it's a difficult game.  I don't think it's all that easy for guys to completely change their game plans (their process, as Brian Kenny says).  For a guy who's never bunted, it's not an easy skill to learn.

OTOH, baseball is a game of constant adjustments and if more of them started bunting against the shift and succeeding, the shift would die.

5 hours ago, zslane said:

 

In this particular case, Quill "losing it" did not feel like the plausible reaction of a Hero (who knew the full scope of the stakes involved) in a moment of stress, but rather it felt like a highly contrived reaction forced on the Hero (by the writer) in order to propel the plot to the next required point in the narrative.

I get that.  I disagree, but I get it.  It did feel authentic to me.  What bothered me about it was that his Celestial powers were nowhere to be found.

"Meta-textually"?!?  Whatever.  He's human, thus fallible.  That is all.

On 6/3/2018 at 6:47 PM, zslane said:

I don't think it is reasonable to compare the situation Quill was in to the typical situations real people find themselves in when they make bad decisions on a daily basis. I'm sorry, but when the fate of half of the sentient universe is at stake, that excuse simply doesn't hold water. Heroes who find themselves in such epic situations are expected to rise to a much higher standard than ordinary humans. When they don't, they become tragic failures who, IMO, deserve all the cultural scorn and derision that gets hurled at them.

IOW, it's not reasonable to consider Quill a human being.  He shouldn't be a human being, because he's a hero.  Pffft.

At Crosley Field, the era of nighttime baseball begins on this day (well, night) in 1935.  Twenty-five thousand fans watch the Reds beat the Phillies 2-1 in the first Major League game ever played under the lights.  During the pre-game ceremonies, President Franklin D. Roosevelt pushes a button at the White House to illuminate the field.