knightni

He no ronger ronery.

Michael McCaskey pissed off the wrong gypsy. Chris Williams Gabe Carini Matt Forte Jay Cutler Sam Hurd Johnny Knox

I'm open for trades. Looking for 3 pointers and blocked shots.

QUOTE (bmags @ Dec 19, 2011 -> 12:00 PM) If anyone noticed. In the "celebrity is dead" thread.

QUOTE (farmteam @ Dec 18, 2011 -> 10:23 PM) Kim Jong Il. Oh boy. That opens up a huge can of worms. His son isn't half of what he was in power or respect.

If the Sox can get half of what the Padres got for Latos when trading Danks, I'll be satisfied.

Fun draft, guys! This year has a lot of uncertainty about it. I hope that my younger guys get playing time.

Getting Volquez away from Dusty Baker and into Petco is a double-bonus, I think.

Harlem Avenue (43) seems to be the most direct route and it's only 3 minutes longer than messing with the expressways - 41 minutes.

7. The Terminator (T-800) (6 of 16 lists - 107 points - highest ranking #4 BigEdWalsh) "The Terminator" (also known as the T-800, T-850 or T-101) refers to a number of fictional characters portrayed by Arnold Schwarzenegger – a cyborg, initially portrayed as a programmable assassin and military infiltration unit. "The Terminator" character first appeared as the titular antagonist in The Terminator, a 1984 film directed and co-written by James Cameron, and its sequels. The first film in the series features only one cyborg: the one portrayed by Schwarzenegger, although a second Terminator played by Franco Columbu is shown in a future flashback scene. In the first two sequels, Schwarzenegger's Terminator is pitted against other Terminators; it appears briefly in the third sequel as a CGI model. In the sequels, Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Schwarzenegger reprises the role, but with a twist: Schwarzenegger is the hero instead of the villain playing a different but visually identical Terminator in each of the three films. Within the Terminator universe created by Cameron, Terminators of the same "model" share identical characteristics. In the production of the films, this has allowed multiple Terminators to be portrayed by Schwarzenegger. In the context of the stories, this plot device provides a certain continuity for the human characters, by exploiting their emotional familiarity with a particular "human" visage. "The Terminator" is the name of Arnold Schwarzenegger's character in the credits of the three Terminator movies. At different times, the character is given more specific designations such as model and series numbers, in efforts to distinguish Schwarzenegger's character from other Terminators. The Terminator appears in Terminator Salvation. Schwarzenegger reprises the role via facial CGI (he was unable to appear in person as he was Governor of California at the time), while the character itself is physically portrayed by Roland Kickinger. The title has also been used as a generic name for other human-simulating characters in the "Terminator" universe, notably the liquid metal shape-shifting T-1000 antagonist in the sequel Terminator 2: Judgment Day. The Terminator from the original film was ranked #22 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains list of villains and was also ranked #14 on Empire's list of the 100 Greatest Movie Characters. The Terminator from the second film was ranked #48 on AFI's list of heroes. Character nomenclature The end credits of the first three Terminator films list Schwarzenegger's character as simply "The Terminator". Later films call the newer terminator characters by their series numbers (T-1000, T-X, etc.). The only consistent name for Schwarzenegger's Terminator character has been "The Terminator". Kyle Reese in The Terminator and Schwarzenegger's character in Terminator 2 refer to it as a "Cyberdyne Systems Model 101." In Terminator 3, the Terminator refers to itself as a "T-101," which could be an abbreviation of its model number. In Terminator Salvation, the T2 Extreme Edition DVD, and the Terminator 2 video game he is referred to as an 800 series and a T-800. The T3 extras refer to him as an "850 series Model 101", a "T-850", and a "T-101". Additionally, most merchandising for T2 and T3 - both at the time of their original releases and retroactively - (e.g. Action Masters miniatures, Cinemaquette statues, Sideshow Collectables replicas, Hollywood Collectibles statuettes, ArtFX kits, Medicom figures, Hot Toys, and McFarlane Toys) have all used the T-800 and T-850 nomenclature, contributing to this designation having arguably the most popular and widely disseminated usage, especially in direct juxtaposition to the explicitly named T-600s and T-1000. Terminator Salvation has the first on-screen usage of the term T-800, when John Connor sees blueprints of said series' endoskeleton. In the T2 commentary, Cameron states that the Model 101s all look like Schwarzenegger, with a 102 looking like someone else, leading to speculation that the 101 refers to the physical appearance while the 800 refers to the endoskeleton common to many models. A scene deleted from the theatrical cut, but restored in the Terminator 2 Special Edition, lends the most credence to this explanation. In this scene, John and Sarah shut down The Terminator for modification according to his instructions. When he reboots, the upper-left of his HUD reads "Cyberdyne Systems Series 800 Model 101 Version 2.4". Additionally, the original Terminator 2 teaser trailer further verifies this on a display monitor during cyborg tissue generation, referencing the Series 800 Model 101. Role in the series A Cyberdyne Systems Model 101 Terminator, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, is the main antagonist in The Terminator, the original Terminator film. An identical Series 800 Model 101, having been reprogrammed by the resistance in the future, is one of the protagonists in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. In Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Schwarzenegger plays an updated T-850 unit, with the same outward appearance as the Series 800. His character is destroyed at the end of each of these films. The fourth installment, Terminator Salvation, reveals the origin of the 101 Model. Roland Kickinger was cast as the principal actor but CGI was used to superimpose Schwarzenegger's face from the original 1984 film. The original Terminator was sent to terminate a single target, Sarah Connor, in 1984, to prevent the birth of her son, John, the future leader of the human resistance. It survives being caught in a truck exploding, though it is fully revealed as a machine. The Terminator was finally crushed in a hydraulic press by Sarah after a lengthy chase. However, its damaged main CPU and right arm were recovered by Cyberdyne. These artifacts were used to dramatically advance the technological level and direction of the research at Cyberdyne, paradoxically leading to the creation of Skynet. But its remains were destroyed at the end of the second movie when John threw them in the molten metal vat. Schwarzenegger's Terminator's role was reversed in the second film. He was reprogrammed by the future John Connor and sent back to protect his younger self from the T-1000. This Terminator is taught how to speak in slang-like terms like "Hasta La Vista". At the end of the film, he orders Sarah to lower him into a molten metal vat in order to destroy the CPU, though John wanted him to stay with them. In the third film, he is again portrayed as the hero, this time protecting John and his future wife Kate Brewster from a T-X. He tells John he postponed Judgment Day, because the original planned Judgment Day, August 29, 1997, passed without incident. They are also running from Judgment Day, trying to postpone it again, but they fail. They run for protection and the Terminator is destroyed when it jams its remaining hydrogen fuel cell into the T-X's mouth (with a cold remark of "You are terminated!"), resulting in a massive detonation that destroys them both. In the fourth film, the Terminator makes a brief cameo, though once again as an antagonist. Being the very first T-800 produced, it engages John Connor in battle during Connor's attempt to rescue Kyle Reese from the Skynet base in San Francisco. John holds his own with his advanced weaponry, but is unable to stop the Terminator until it is drenched in molten metal and then liquid nitrogen, freezing it temporarily. As John begins planting hydrogen fuel cells (similar to the ones powering the model from Terminator 3) around to blow the base up, the Terminator resumes its attack but is intercepted by Marcus Wright. Although the Terminator succeeds in stabbing John through the heart, Marcus finishes the fight by ramming a metal bar through the Terminator's neck and twisting its head off, killing it. According to Cameron, this Terminator was supposed to be the first Terminator of its kind to be covered with human flesh and skin. Characteristics In the fictional Terminator universe, the Terminator is a formidable robotic assassin and soldier, designed by the military supercomputer Skynet for infiltration and combat duty, towards the ultimate goal of exterminating the human resistance. It can speak naturally, copy the voices of others, read human handwriting, and even genuinely sweat, smell, and bleed. To detect the Terminators, who are otherwise indistinguishable from humans, the human resistance uses dogs to alert humans to their presence. The most notable science fiction characteristics are that of an expert system featuring strong AI functionality combined with machine learning, and the system can interpret arbitrary non-formalized tasks. The other notable science fiction component is that of a power source which can last 120 years. A trait persistent throughout the series is the faint red (or blue in the case of the T-X Terminatrix) glow of the "eyes" when online, which dim to nothing when a Terminator shuts down. In all four movies, the lack of the glow has been used to show when one is out of action. The trait is so characteristic that light-up eyes are often found on Terminator merchandise, with some even replicating the dimming/reillumination effect that occurs during shut down or start up. Construction A description from Kyle Reese from the film "The Terminator" states that: The Terminator is an infiltration unit, part man-part machine. Underneath it's a hyperalloy combat chassis, microprocessor controlled, fully armored, very tough. But outside it's living human tissue. Flesh, skin, hair, blood, grown for the cyborgs. As seen in the movies, a Terminator can withstand standard 20th century firearms, crash through walls intact, and survive explosions to some degree. Repeated shotgun blasts have enough force to knock it down and temporarily disable it, while heavy amounts of automatic fire are able to compromise the organic disguise layer. In the second film, the Terminator says he can run for 120 years on his existing power cell. In the finale to Terminator 2, his power source is damaged, and he is able to find an alternate source, described on the DVD commentary as heat sinks, harnessing the thermal energy from the hot surroundings. In the third film, the Terminator - an 850 series rather than the 800 series depicted in the first two films - operates on two hydrogen fuel cells and discards one of them early due to damage. It explodes shortly thereafter with enough force to produce a small mushroom cloud. The endoskeleton is actuated by a powerful network of hydraulic servomechanisms, making Terminators superhumanly strong. For instance, in the third movie, Schwarzenegger's character was able to handle firing a Browning .30 machine gun from the hip with one hand, while holding a coffin containing an alive John Connor and a heavy cache of weapons, showing no signs of the extra weight being any real concern. Late in the first film, the Terminator is stripped of its organic elements by fire. What remains is the machine itself, in James Cameron's own words "a chrome skeleton, like death rendered in steel." In the later Terminator films, armies of endoskeleton-only Terminators are seen. They are visually identical to the one in the first film, and feature prominently in the "future war" sequences of those films. CPU The Terminator CPU is a room-temperature superconducting artificial neural network with the ability to learn. In Terminator 2, The Terminator states that "the more contact [he] has with humans, the more [he] learns." In the original film, he learns how to swear from the punks he encounters in the beginning of the film. In the Special Edition, he says that Skynet "presets the switch to 'read-only' when [Terminators] are sent out alone", to prevent them from "thinking too much". Sarah and John activate his learning ability, after which he becomes more curious and begins trying to understand and imitate human behavior. This leads to his use of the catchphrase "Hasta la vista, baby." A line spoken by the Terminator at the end of the movie shows that Terminators have the potential to understand emotion: "I know now why you cry, but it is something I can never do." Sarah muses in the closing narration that the Terminator had "learned the value of human life". The terminator's developing appreciation for life and emotion was also displayed shortly before its destruction when John was frantically trying to convince it not to be destroyed, to which it replied "I'm sorry, John." An apology would have been an unlikely action for a machine with no emotional comprehension. Organic covering The flesh-covering that is used on the majority of Terminator models has similar qualities to real human muscle and skin, as well as the ability to sweat, simulate breathing, and produce realistic body odor. Although Terminator flesh does contain blood, it only displays very minimal bleeding when damaged and has never been shown to experience any kind of profuse bleeding even from massive lacerations, dozens of gunshot wounds, or even complete removal. In the absence of a circulatory system, the flesh uses a system of "nanobots" which maintain the skin. It is unknown what biological processes take place to sustain the flesh covering, since Terminators do not require the consumption of food. Under 2007-era analysis, this blood is shown to be similar to human blood, using a synthetic oxygen carrier rather than human red blood cells, as Terminator endoskeletons contain no bone marrow. Terminator flesh heals by itself, and at a much faster rate than normal human tissue and has never been shown to bruise or discolor from trauma, even after several days. However, a Terminator's flesh covering can die if it sustains adequately massive damage, at which point it takes on a waxy, corpse-like pallor and begins to decompose. Although clearly not the normal procedure, a bare T-888 endoskeleton is able to grow itself a new flesh covering using 2007 technology (with the assistance of a geneticist and its own knowledge of future formulae) by submerging itself in a blood-like bath. This improvised process results in a deformed covering that has the appearance of a burn victim and lacks its own biological eyes, requiring it to steal some and subsequently undergo cosmetic surgery to produce a more normal appearance. The theft of the eyes suggests that Terminator flesh is capable of accepting some degree of organ grafts from ordinary humans, that it can circumvent transplant rejection, and is capable of sustaining the life of the grafted tissue via its own unknown biological process. Physical template It has been shown that Terminators' flesh coverings are somehow grown identically, producing many multiple copies of exactly the same physical appearance, indicating the use of specific physical templates for different variations of a model or series. The most well known is that worn by multiple T-800/850 Model 101 units portrayed by Arnold Schwarzenegger; a scene in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles displays a memory of a T-888 model, referred to as "Vick", facing a room (presumably in the factory where he was created) of several dozen units sharing an identical template to himself, naked and moving in unison to his direction. The 'Arnold' model came to be known as the 101, which refers to its likeness and skin type. A deleted scene from Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines reveals that the Model 101's appearance was based on Chief Master Sergeant William Candy, with his Southern accent replaced by the more menacing voice of one of the developers. One part of the scene shows Candy next to a partially complete endoskeleton, indicating that the Terminators were being developed by humans before Judgment Day. This contradicts information from the first film, where Kyle Reese refers to the Model 101 as "new", replacing the older rubber-skinned 600 series, also seen in Terminator Salvation. The T-800 is shown to be stronger both physically, tearing a malfunctioning T-600 in half. It's also the first model to be manufactured using a titanium alloy. However, titanium loses strength when heated above 430 °C (806 °F) which later prompted Skynet's decision to use Coltan, which is also referred as columbite–tantalite, for better heat resistance as its metal base as stated in "Terminator-The Sarah Connor Chronicles"; it is also used for the T-850 and T-888 models. According to Terminator Salvation, the T-800 was the first terminator to have a human styled skeleton built using coltan and titanium alloy. The earlier Terminators had a bulkier appearance. An entirely different origin of the Model 101's physical and vocal templates was provided in the novel T2: Infiltrator (published prior to T3), in the form of former counter-terrorist Dieter von Rossbach. The reason stated for copying Dieter was that Skynet was looking in the old military files for someone whose body could effectively conceal the Terminator's massive endoskeleton. The music video for the Guns N' Roses song "You Could Be Mine" shows a T-800 having its flesh covering applied by a large industrial mold.

8. The Shark (Jaws) (7 of 16 lists - 95 points - highest ranking #5 GoSox05) During an evening beach party on the fictional Amity Island in New England, Chrissie Watkins, a 23-year-old woman, leaves a beach party to go skinny dipping, only to be dragged back and forth violently and then under the water. Amity's police chief, Martin Brody, is notified that Christine is missing, and deputy Len Hendricks finds her remains on the beach. The medical examiner informs Brody that the death was due to a shark attack. A short time later, a boy is killed by a shark at the beach. The boy's mother places a bounty on the shark, sparking an amateur shark-hunting frenzy and attracting the attention of local professional shark hunter Quint. Brought in by Brody, marine biologist Matt Hooper examines Christine's remains and concludes she was killed by a shark, not a boat. A prank by two boys causes misguided panic and the real shark enters a nearby estuary, killing a man and causing Brody's son to go into shock after witnessing the attack. Brody convinces Vaughan to hire Quint. Quint reluctantly allows Hooper to join the hunt along with Brody. The three set out to catch or kill the shark aboard Quint's vessel, the Orca. Brody is given the task of laying a chum line while Quint uses fishing tackle to try to hook the shark. As Brody continues chumming, an enormous great white shark looms up behind the boat; the trio watch the great white circle the Orca while Hooper takes pictures of the shark for research purposes. They estimate it weighs 3 short tons (2.7 t) and is 25 feet (7.6 m) long. Quint harpoons the shark with a line attached to a flotation barrel, designed to prevent the shark from submerging and to track it on the surface, but the shark pulls the barrel under and disappears. The shark reappears, damaging the boat's hull before slipping away. In the morning, the men make repairs to the engine. Attempting to call the Coast Guard for help, Brody is stopped by Quint, who destroys the radio with a baseball bat. After a long chase Quint harpoons another barrel to the shark. The men tie the barrels to the stern, but the shark, after Quint harpoons it again adding a third barrel, drags the boat backwards, forcing water onto the deck and into the engine, flooding it. Quint is about to cut the ropes when the cleats are pulled off the stern. The shark continues attacking the boat and Quint heads toward shore with the shark in pursuit, hoping to draw the animal into shallow waters, where it will get beached and, once unable to swim, suffocate. In his obsession to kill the shark, Quint overtaxes Orca's engines, causing them to stall. With the boat immobilized, the trio try a desperate approach: Hooper dons his SCUBA gear and enters the ocean inside a shark proof cage in order to stab the shark in the mouth with a hypodermic spear filled with strychnine. When the shark attacks and begins destroying the cage, Hooper drops his spear. The shark gets tangled in the cage's remains, allowing Hooper to escape to the seabed. As Quint and Brody raise the remnants of the cage, the shark throws itself onto the boat, crushing the transom. As the boat sinks, Quint slides down the slippery deck into the shark's mouth and is eaten alive. Brody retreats to the boat's partly submerged cabin. When the shark attacks him there, he shoves a pressurized scuba tank into the shark's mouth, then takes Quint's rifle and climbs the Orca's mast. Brody shoots at the tank wedged in the shark's mouth, causing it to explode and blow the shark to pieces. Hooper emerges, and the two make rafts out of the Orca's remains to paddle back to Amity Island. Sequels The film spawned three sequels, all of which failed to match the success of the original. Indeed, their combined domestic grosses barely cover half of the original's. Spielberg was unavailable to do a sequel, as he was working on Close Encounters of the Third Kind with Richard Dreyfuss. Jaws 2 was directed by Jeannot Szwarc; Roy Scheider, Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton, and Jeffrey Kramer reprised their roles from the original film. It is generally regarded as the best of the sequels. The next film, Jaws 3-D, directed by Joe Alves, was released in the 3-D format, although the effect did not transfer to television or home video, where it was renamed Jaws 3. Dennis Quaid and Louis Gossett, Jr. starred in the movie. Jaws: The Revenge, directed by Joseph Sargent, featured the return of Lorraine Gary and starred Michael Caine, is considered one of the worst movies ever made. While all three sequels made a profit at the box office (Jaws 2 and Jaws 3-D are among the top 20 highest-grossing films of their respective years), critics and audiences were generally dissatisfied with the films. Legacy A large replica of the film's shark hangs from a wooden frame. A sign next to it says "Jaws" and a man standing nearby is about a third of the height of the shark. A pulley and rope are used to pretend to hold the shark's mouth open. "JAWS" on display at Universal Studios Florida Jaws was a key film in establishing the benefits of a wide national release backed by heavy media advertising, rather than a progressive release that let a film slowly enter new markets and build support over a period of time. It was also the first film to successfully use "wide release" as a distribution pattern, changing the then-usual handling of film distribution and marketing. Jaws and Star Wars are retrospectively considered to have marked the beginning of the new business model in American filmmaking and the beginning of the end of the New Hollywood period. Similar to the fear of showers created by the pivotal scene in the 1960 film Psycho, Jaws caused many viewers to be afraid to enter the ocean. The film was credited with reduced beach attendance in the summer of 1975. Although it is considered a thriller-horror classic, the film is recognized as being responsible for perpetuating negative stereotypes about sharks and their behavior. Author Peter Benchley stated that he would not have written the original novel had he known what sharks are really like in the wild. Benchley later wrote Shark Trouble, a non-fiction book about shark behavior, and Shark Life, another non-fiction book describing his dives with sharks. Conservation groups have bemoaned the fact that the film has made it considerably harder to convince the public that sharks should be protected. Jaws set the template for many future horror films, so much so that the script for Ridley Scott's 1979 science fiction film Alien was pitched to studio executives with the proposed tag line: "Jaws in space." In the 2000s, an independent group of fans produced a feature-length documentary. The Shark is Still Working features interviews with a range of cast and crew from the film, and some from the sequels. It is narrated by Roy Scheider and dedicated to Peter Benchley, who died in 2006.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Dec 17, 2011 -> 09:35 PM) Butler was a solid ft shooter in college. Maybe it's just nerves, then. I'm only going by the posted video. I never saw him in detail at Marquette.

QUOTE (JorgeFabregas @ Dec 17, 2011 -> 09:13 PM) Didn't he shoot them well in college? Who? Butler or Rose?

QUOTE (Reddy @ Dec 17, 2011 -> 08:14 PM) and this is why you're not great at fantasy baseball. Matt Latos is far superior to Danks. I still don't think this is a bad deal. Latos is an ace, and the reds do NOT need offense. Trade a bunch of hitters you don't need for an ace SP? Totally. Danks can be as good as Latos, he just hasn't been. If Danks was in the NL, he'd be better. Latos is a #3, eventually he can be #2, but I'm not sure if he is a true #1 until he starts pitching with his head more than just his arm.

400+ reported dead http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45705894/ns/weather/

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 17, 2011 -> 06:11 PM) The Rangers didn't make 2 world series in a row by giving up crazy deals. They'll do it if they have to in order to replace Wilson with a proven SP. Of course, they'll probably just promote from within...

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 17, 2011 -> 06:09 PM) Jim Thome work? Um, he'll have to, but he's like an old Ryan Howard.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 17, 2011 -> 06:06 PM) I can't believe the Sox would get a price anything like this for our guys. Hell, if the Reds thought this was a good move, KW had to be asking for the moon for Danks also If Danks would agree to a deal in order to be dealt, just imagine what a team like the Rangers could send back to the Sox for him. http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20...lb&c_id=mlb

Honesly, Howard is a DH in the making. He has massive power, but not much else. The Phils need a guy who plays better D at 1st and Ks less.

Latos is very good, but he's no better than Danks. Just a better contract situation.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Dec 17, 2011 -> 05:27 PM) Losing also creates a lot of problems. It depends what the result of losing is. If it is rebulding and building for the future, then it's not a big problem.

He's gone to the DRose Memphis State school of free throws I see. I hope that Rose can help him get better like he did.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 17, 2011 -> 09:18 AM) They'll find someone else. They always do. Lew Ford coming back?

Sorry for another delay. I will knock some out tonight.