Edgy MD

You may appreciate the film, but it won't be hi-jinx you experience. It's more of a cautionary tale. Dostoyevsky-esque. You see from the posters that this film has more than a little bit of Reservoir Dogs in its mindset. But it's based on a real story. (Actually, at the beginning of the film, they make the distinction that it isn't based on a real story; it is a real story.) It's also a quasi-documentary in that the film regularly pulls back from the dramatization of the story to include commentary from the actual young men involved, as well as their family members, and eventually, their victims. The four guys who perpetrate the heist have very little in common, apart from apparently coming from the same suburb, and don't even like each other very much, but they're all disillusioned by college life and affluenza. They plan the heist by watching as many heist DVDs as they can. The young man who first comes up with the plan is a really talented artist, but feels his life needs a transformative experience in order for his art to come alive. He pitches the idea to his doobie brother, narcissistic soccer turd Warren, and once once he gets involved, he becomes the alpha, and any time one of the others thinks that they're taking this too far and want out, he either bullies them back in, or they make their consciences go away with copious weed usage. Even as things go sideways, a part of them (and all of Warren) just can't resist the need to see what's on the other side of the criminal line. Something about the young male brain compels them to put their hands on the hot stove. The best thing about it, and it's odd to say it, is the violence. In most white-boys-get-mixed-up-in-some-hinky-shit stories, you either get the cool sanitized violence of a spy flick, or the fetishized violence of a Tarantino film. The violence in this is brief and light, but as ugly and unsettling as violence really is when perhaps-otherwise-good people are disgusted by what they are doing even as they are doing it.

Great to see that font on his name. The idea that the Mets have an opening to capture Staten Island is something. The idea that the they can't do that without playing is also something.

Four bored college students of privilege conspire to rip off one of their university's libraries of a handful of exceedingly rare volumes. Nobody is quite sure why they're doing it, but the judgment of young men being what it is, the caper takes on a life of its own. https://artwisher.com/files/products/5c461887de69f_445773b.1400x1400.jpg?b1b92c6083716c2419b3923d0951abf4>

That's true. If they want to take the industry by the throat, they had better get to it.

The pluses and minuses of reboots is a big part of why this exists. Hugely divergent opinions about the last attempt to jumpstart the franchise is a big part of why this film exists. Reportage about opposition to the 2016 Ghostbusters was all about misogyny. And while I have no doubt that some haters just resent women, that's not the reason the film didn't gain the hoped-for traction. In making it a reboot, instead of a sequel, the viewer couldn't engage with the new film without letting the old film go. The two didn't (and apparently couldn't) exist in the same universe. Lost in all the goofy controversy was that the film was kind of good, had the tone almost perfect, and it wouldn't have taken a great effort in terms of adjusting on the fly to make it more sequel-y and less reboot-y. So this film exists as almost an apology, returning us to the timeline in which Egon, Peter, Ray, and Winston long ago vanquished a spectral assault on New York in the eighties. Unfortunately, despite bending over backwards to re-attain the audience's good will, even bringing in Ivan Reitman's son to direct, the original tone is what they fail to find. Instead, we get a Disney-ish Escape from Witch Mountain kind of soft-core juvenile supernatural horror in which the unsupervised kids take up the fight right under parents' noses, as parents are off concerning themselves with God knows what. It's a joyous fantasy to a tweenage mind, but in the age of 24-hour supervision, the plausibility of such stories becomes tougher to pull off. The thing is, as far a science and supernatural speculation go, the Ghostubsters franchise is about as stupid as possible. If you don't get the comic tone right, you kind of don't really have a movie. And they don't. The re-use of The Sta-Puff Marshmallow Guy has all the joy of suits sitting around a boardroom table insisting that the money won't be there if they don't work the Marshmallow into the script. It's really unsettling garbage and has nothing to do with the rest of the alleged plot. Including the wonderfully named young actor Finn Wolfhard also feels like a corporate synergy move, with Finn already linked to the brand by him and his co-stars dressing as Ghostbusters in Stranger Things' season two. What this attempt at redeeming the franchise seems to not have realized is that they also needed to redeem the joyous but misbegotten 2016 installment as well. And if they cared enough, they'd have found a way to retroactively incorporate the apparently separate timelines into one story. If they did, they would have gotten the kaching! they longed for. But they bypassed that, going straight for the kaching! without doing the deeper thinking and the emotional reasoning. And they, and we, and the GB brand are all poorer for it.

I'd be deeply disappointed by a capitulation by the players. They have exclusive possession of most of the best talent in the world. What do the owners have? Last I checked, there's no shortage of rich folks who can take out a lease on a ballpark and order some uniforms.

It looks like it'll be the third straight year that Mets Opening Day has eaten dirt.

I'm doubly pissed. I took it to the bank.

I'm all about expanding the playoffs to 30 teams and calling it "the season."

I know what it is about Jeter. It's too rife with everything that is wrong about America (race, bullying, economics, drugs, brand identification, the culture wars, marketing as culture ...) to get into too much detail without first getting a PhD, but Jeter is a magnanimous paladin, classy and courageous hero, and unblemished role model simply because so many people want or need him to be in order to reconcile their worldview with the reality of the world as it is. This is true of many athletic stars, but few have ever been as aware of how to cynically but convincingly play the role in order to serve that need. [media=youtube]4kiAHDbWeCw[/media]

A single mom at the end of her rope takes her high school-aged son and middle school-aged daughter to live in a rundown farmhouse she has just inherited from the father she never knew. When the two kids start finding old ghostbusting shit in the basement and shed, things get freaky, and busting ensues. [FIMG=450]https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMmZiMjdlN2UtYzdiZS00YjgxLTgyZGMtYzE4ZGU5NTlkNjhhXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTEyMjM2NDc2._V1_FMjpg_UX1000_.jpg[/FIMG]

=Marshmallowmilkshake post_id=86320 time=1646070466 user_id=119] Will take years to undo the damage Jeter did to that franchise.

Yeah, that can't be long. Captain Indefensible wrote: We had a vision five years ago to turn the Marlins franchise around, and as CEO, I have been proud to put my name and reputation on the line to make our plan a reality. Through hard work, trust and accountability, we transformed every aspect of the franchise, reshaping the work force, and developing a long-term strategic plan for success. Marlins Winning Percentage by Year 2016: .491 2017: .475 2018: .391 2019: .352 2020: .517 (in 60 games) 2021: .414

Whoah.

You're just talking past me. Please forget it.

Frayed Knot wrote: I'm not arguing FOR market constraints and never have. I didn't write that you were. I wrote that artificial market constraints were influencing decision making. Frayed Knot wrote: But MLB salaries are down in recent years because teams are giving large and longterm contracts to 30+ y/o players less often these days and in many cases NOT paying players in their 30s for the production they gave in their 20s turns out to be a good decision by the club. While this is true, it too doesn't dispute anything I've written. What I've written is that this is true to a great extent due to artificial market constraints. Frayed Knot wrote: But none of that has anything to do with F.F. Of course it does. The MLB salary rules affect every player and his market value. This shouldn't be controversial in the least, and I can't imagine why it suddenly is.

I'm not sure how you can miss the evidence. https://apnews.com/article/mlb-new-york-baseball-new-york-yankees-los-angeles-dodgers-97ef96fe2070b4d98a60b847eba6a4beIt's certainly there. If you don't see artificial market restraints influencing a team's decision-making, then I don't know what to write, but I'm certainly surprised.

He's lost more than half a season to injury. For a large part, the late debut is due to injury. I have no idea how Jacob deGrom is going to be able to fully realize the legacy he might have largely built by now, and I think about it a lot. I get irrationally angry almost every time the hook comes for the starter. I consider that shit to also be anti-competitive, although not as intentionally so.

The system under which MLB plays creates artificial market constraints on younger players' salary and freedom. This not only screws over younger players, it screws over older players too, whose bargaining leverage makes the pursuit of those without such leverage much more attractive. So after they reach their six-year tenure, the truly best players find themselves attractive only to the wealthiest of teams, and the merely good players find jobs really really scarce. This is what the system incentivizes. And the middle class disappears. Our eyes pop at the astronomical salaries earned by a special group of players, but payrolls have generally flat-lined over the last decade or so, while MLB revenues have gone up something like 17 years in a row, up until the Covid interruption. The teams that fail to compete for such players can't really fail. Losing is rewarded with pooled revenues and high draft picks, their license to operate in MLB remains, fans are patient, and you can try in earnest a few years later just to occasionally prime the pump on that patience. And you're protected from another team moving into your territory looking to steal those fans away. The problem isn't that it was smart to not sign Albert Pujols, it's that the system made it smart, by artificially making Allen Craig a bargain. Anti-market economics, in an industry whose very product is competition, just screws everybody.

That's terrific. Elizabeth Benn has played for (and still plays for, for all I know) https://www.yonkersrailsplitters.com/pitchingThe Yonkers Railspliitters of the New York City Metro Baseball League. As far as I could tell, she was the only woman on the team, which was almost all Latino, last I checked. Look at that control! Two walks in 32 innings!

It's a crappy system that incentivizes teams to make anti-competitive decisions?

For all we know, he's already got a deal in place with the Mets that can't be announced.

For all we know, he's already got a deal in place with Atlanta that can't be announced.

It's a crappy system that forces teams to make anti-competitive decisions.

Today on Long-Ago Jettisoned but Only Now Reported, we have lower-level outfielders. Transactions, 9/30/2019 [td90]Direction[/td90][td90]GOING[/td90][td90]GOING[/td90][td90]Transaction[/td90][td90]Released[/td90][td90]Released[/td90][th]Position Group[/th][th]=#FFC2C3] Outfielder[/th][th]=#FFC2C2] Outfielder[/th][td90][/td90][td90][fimg=90]https://metsrostercentral.files.wordpress.com/2018/07/mario-paiva-2018.jpg[/fimg][/td90][td90][fimg=90]https://metsrostercentral.files.wordpress.com/2018/07/jhonny-ventura-2018.jpg[/fimg][/td90][td90]Name[/td90][td90]Mario Paiva [fimg=50]http://thecranepool.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/venezuelan-flag-small.jpg[/fimg][/td90][td90]Jhonny Ventura [fimg=50]http://thecranepool.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/venezuelan-flag-small.jpg[/fimg][/td90][td90]DoB[/td90][td90]10/22/01[/td90][td90]1/25/02[/td90][td90]B/T[/td90][td90]R/R[/td90][td90]R/R[/td90][td90]High Level[/td90][td90]DSL (2919)[/td90][td90]DSL (2919)[/td90] Based on the thumbnail shots, it's not hard to see that Mario and Johnny were signed on the same day, and bookended their careers with a simultaneous release. Neither saw much time or much productivity, although Ventura could draw some walks. Transactions, 1/15/2020 [td90]Direction[/td90][td90]GOING[/td90][td90]Transaction[/td90][td90]Released[/td90][th]Position Group[/th][th]=#FFC2C2] Outfielder[/th][td90][/td90][td90][fimg=90]http://www.milb.com/images/silhouette/180x270.jpg[/fimg][/td90] [td90]Name[/td90][td90]Jan Cabrera [fimg=50]http://thecranepool.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Dominican_Republic.jpg[/fimg][/td90][td90]DoB[/td90][td90]9/11/00[/td90] [td90]B/T[/td90][td90]R/R[/td90][td90]High Level[/td90][td90]DSL (2021)[/td90] Jan was three-true outcomes incarnate, bu5t a .204 career batting average just won't play. Transactions, 9/8/2020 [td90]Direction[/td90][td90]GOING[/td90][td90]Transaction[/td90][td90]Released[/td90][th]Position Group[/th][th]=#FFC2C2] Outfielder[/th][td90][/td90][td90][fimg=90]http://www.milb.com/images/silhouette/180x270.jpg[/fimg][/td90][td90]Name[/td90][td90]Jhoandry Gonzalez [fimg=50]http://thecranepool.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/venezuelan-flag-small.jpg[/fimg][/td90][td90]DoB[/td90][td90]1/29/02[/td90][td90]B/T[/td90][td90]R/R[/td90][td90]High Level[/td90][td90]DSL (2021)[/td90] Jhoandry was to walking what John Henry was to hammering. If they built a walking machine, Jhoandry Gonzalez would beat it, or die trying. In a measly 49 plate appearances, he managed only five hits, but augmented that with 15 walks! That's a .408 on-base percentage on top of a .147 batting average. I don't know about you, but when I see that in a 19-year-old, I give him more than a month's worth of plate trips to find his stick. Transactions, 10/6/2020 [td90]Direction[/td90][td90]GOING[/td90][td90]Transaction[/td90][td90]Released[/td90][th]Position Group[/th][th]=#FFC2C2] Outfielder[/th][td90][/td90][td90][fimg=90]http://www.milb.com/images/silhouette/180x270.jpg[/fimg][/td90] [td90]Name[/td90][td90]Darwyn Encaración [fimg=50]http://thecranepool.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Dominican_Republic.jpg[/fimg][/td90][td90]DoB[/td90][td90]3/31/01[/td90] [td90]B/T[/td90][td90]R/R[/td90][td90]High Level[/td90][td90]DSL (2019)[/td90] A terrific name, but just another teenager ho couldn't escape the DSL. Transactions, 9/15/2021 [td90]Direction[/td90][td90]GOING[/td90][td90]Transaction[/td90][td90]Released[/td90][th]Position Group[/th][th]=#BF80FF] Infielder[/th][td90][/td90][td90][fimg=90]https://metsrostercentral.files.wordpress.com/2019/08/monegro-isnael-2019-1.jpg[/fimg][/td90][td90]Name[/td90][td90]Isnael Monegro [fimg=50]http://thecranepool.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Dominican_Republic.jpg[/fimg][/td90][td90]DoB[/td90][td90]10/1/02[/td90][td90]B/T[/td90][td90]R/R[/td90] [td90]High Level[/td90][td90]DSL (2021)[/td90] I don't know why the only shot we have of Isnael has him doing a facepalm, but we guess it's an appropriate illustration to accompany news of his release. Izzy played first, second, and third, but rarely visited any of those places as an offensive player.