The Avenger

Not to mention that ugly episode with the guys at Chef Gym, the workout place for those in the culinary arts......

Amen. Somehow everyone feels we are going to start turning it around because we have a new GM and new coaches. Suddenly we are going to have great drafts and find players who will not only be at the top of their careers 3-4 years down the line, but will also still be with the Bills. What, besides blind faith and devotion to a team, leads anyone to believe that this is not only possible, but probable? Over the past 10+ years I've seen GMs and coaches - some much more well regarded than Buddy and Chan - come in and produce the same crap we have to suck up every year. I'd really like to see us head in the right direction, but even if we do (and that's a big if), we are really far away from putting it all together and being competitive. I'll be happy if by 2012 we have a few first round draft picks on the team who are still worth first round draft picks and at least some decent free agents are even willing to talk to the Bills - right now the only FAs we can even talk to are guys who have very limited options.

I wish I could have an ounce of optimism left, but honestly, the Bills crushed it out of me. I don't honestly know how hope continues to spring enternally. Yeah - we got a new GM - seen a few come and go without any success. Yeah, we have new coaches - also seen quite a few of them come and go without producing. At what point do stop believeing we are a few new front office and/or sideline faces away from getting this turned around? It's taken me quite some time to realize that the problem with the Bills is organizational - as an entire organization they cannot or will not do what it takes to be successful. So bring on the 2010 draft and 3 years from now I'll show you a bunch of thereads hoping we can trade our top 15 pick for a fourth round pick and another set of threads touting why we should target team X's backup QB as our QB of the future - it's been that way for a decade around here.

Does anyone else here feel like puking when they realize we are talking about taking 2 or our first round draft picks of the last 5 years and hoping we can get 4th round picks for them in return? Whitner was a top 10 pick and Marshwn was a top 15. At this point in their careers thier value should be at its peak - young but with some real expereince under their belts, and we sit here with fingers crossed hoping we can get a second day draft pick for each. How about taking our starting QB and hoping we can get a 6th or 7th for him? If that doesn't tell you how piss poor this organization is at drafting and acquiring talent and why we could be another decade away from another playoff appearance I don't know what else does.... Am I really supposed to be excited about free agency and the draft with the Buffalo Bills again? Can anyone tell me why? Oh yeah, new group calling the shots this year - it'll be different - promise.....

Patrick Swayze as a centaur? WTF?

Shooting anything with a fuel tank will cause an instant tremendous explosion

Don't talk about Fight Club - that's the first rule, man!

Of course it helps when you start the leg first and the roadblock is roping - my wife and I were joking that the next roadblock would be "Oklahoma Trivia" to give them another advantage......

The problem seems to be that the affected colonies are under stress and it some point the proverbial straw breaks the camel's back and worker bees do not come back or make it back to the hive and it dies. The reason the big migratory operations see these far more than hobbyists like myself is that their bees are already under a trendous amount of stress being trucked from crop to crop, working a single crop and being fed high fructose corn syrup. It's been compared to being a marathon runner being fed only candy bars - it'll povide energy but not much nutrition to someone working very hard. They aren't finding anything present in colonies hit by CCD that they aren't seeing in comonies like mine - mites, disease, etc. - the difference is that my colonies can cope with it where others can not. So what is the proverbial straw? Pathogen? Peticide? Somehing yet to be identified? Sadly, I think the reason reported cases are on the decline are because these migratory operations are simply going out of business and are no more - the people who were getting hit hard don't have bees any more. There hasn't been any great breakthrough in prevention or treatment. Like I said earlier, there aren't that many people who have migratory operations, but those who do and have had huge losses over the past few years have moved onto another line of work.

Colony Collapes Disorder, but it's mainly limited to the big migratory pollenation operations (people who truck a few hunred hives from crop to crop throughout the country). Problem is, the big commercial guys are few in number and taking HUGE losses - 80%+. These guys (what's left of them, anyway) are entering year 3 of the crisis and are going bankrupt - not many are left. That means producers like the almond growers have to pay more for pollenation services and may not be able to get the bees that they need, leading to lower crop yields. That translates into higher prices for you and me. If they don't get this thing figured out it could spell the end of migratory commercial pollenation and growers would have to keep their own hives year round or go without and have much lower output - it would be a HUGE blow to agriculture and it's impact on food prices would be dramatic.....

For me what is most telling is that with all the injuries we had last season Maybin still didn't see the field very much and when he did he barely recoreded any stats. Face it, we were so banged up on defense I though the Bills might just call me, a 40 year old computer consultant, to come suit up and our #1 pick doesn't seem to have enough to get out on the field? What's up with that? I know we didn't have the best coaching staff, but at a certain point even the worst coaches will do what it takes to make things better, and Maybin's absence makes me believe a big part of his invisibility is his lack of ability. God , I hope I'm wrong, but I'm getting some serious John McCargo vibes.....

I may be the only person here with this one, but one of my hobbies is beekeeping. I was just bottling honey last night from my fall crop - terrible year - only got 32 pounds. This year has got to be better!

It's funny BECAUSE it's so played out! Hitler's going to be pissed with the Jets draft pick. He's going to be pissed at the outcome of the November elections. He's going to be pissed that his guy didn't win Survivor. He's going to be pissed his favorite movie didn't win Best Picture at the Oscars - you can see them now.....

I'm not sure how they do it - the mattress certainly looks to be a single piece, but my wife's side does have you sink in a bit more than my side - not a huge difference, but her side is definitely a bit softer.

I live outside of Boston and the big discouunt chain here (although rapidly expanding) is Bob's Dicount Furniture. It was a few years back, but I remember it was about half of what the similar queen size Temperpedic was. We were also able to get it so my wife's side is a bit more plush and mine is considered firm - she likes a soft mattress. Now there are 3 models of the "Bob o Pedic" - the lite version is $599 queen, the normal one is $999 queen and the high end pillow top is $1299 queen. Like I said, I LOVE the memory foam - I'm not going back!

I have a memory foam mattress and I LOVE it. It took a few nights to get used to it - there is no immediate "give" to it - you gently sink into it a bit so initially your perception is that it's really a hard mattress - it's not. While neither my wife nor I toss and turn much, a great plus to the mattress is that when one person moves the other person doesn't feel it at all - great because my wife works late once a week and comes home after I'm asleep. I was really worried that by kind of sinking into the mattress I'd be too hot in the summer - not a problem. In the winter it does help keep you wam, though, so it's perfect. I bought a store-brand mattress for half the cost of Temperpedic and couldn't be happier I did - no need to pay rediculous prices for the brand. I'm never switching from memory foam!

Sad that that's what he'll be remembered for. I'm not a big fan of Al Haig, but I do believe we was trying to communicate to the American public that there was some sort of control structure in place at a time of chaos and not making some power grab - chosing his words poorly and being a man of great ambition sealed his fate...

Sounds like you may not have received an IP address when you connected to your wireless router. Assuming you use Windows, go to run and type CMD to get a commend prompt. At the commend prompt type ipconfig /all to view your IP settings - it'll show whether you have an IP address associated with any of your network adapters. If you don't, try typing ipconfig /renew to request one. If you do have an IP address you can try and ping a site to see if you can reach the Net - type ping www.cnn.com - if you have a connection to a DHCP server www.cnn.com will resolve to an IP address and you should get return packets from the site. From the command prompt you can also do a trace route to see just how far you can get - typre tracert www.cnn.com and see how far you get before things start to time out.

Thought it was funny that he said he was concerned about the company image after getting feedback from a bunch of women saying they thought the place was degrading to women, yet one of the signs in the boardroom as a fake road sign that says BUMPS and shows 2 hills.....

Chicago Tribune has some pictures that show what happened... Chicago Tribune

Remember, these people are famous for booing Santa and having a court built right into the stadium.....

If nothing else you could look at the album art for the rest of eternity and try and find all the little hidden things Derek Riggs put in......

No, she's Danny Devito's mom from "Throw Mama From the Train"......

Just to play devil's advocate here, the knock against McNabb seems to be that he's older and he's not going to be able to play that much longer. So let's say he's got 3 decent years left that he could give to the Bills. On the other hand, you could use a high draft pick like our first rounder to bring in a rookie who in all likelihood isn't going to really be a solid NFL QB for a few seasons (and that's if we somehow mnage not to draft another bust who we take a few years to find out he doesn't have it). Say we sign that guy to a 5 year rookie deal at huge money because he's a top 10 pick - in a best case scenario he might only give us 3 solid years before his contract is up, and if he's a good young QB at the end of those 5 years you think Buffalo's going to pony up the big $ it would take to retain his services? You could say that with McNabb or a rookie you're only going to get a few good years - at least McNabb's proven and could be cheaper.....

I watched that last night and it was scary. I knew the regional carriers paid their pilots terribly, but $16K a year? Don't you make more at McDonalds without the long hours and fatigue? The problem is that flying is something so many people want to do, and if you ever want to have a shot at being a 747 captain making $300K+ a year you have to start somewhere, so the industry can really really make it tough for those on the bottom rung of the ladder. But the flying public pays in accidents like this because when all is said and done nobody is solely entrusted with their well being - if you think that's the FAA's job you're crazy. Make no mistake about it, to the FAA losing a few hundred lives every few years is an acceptable price to pay when it would cost billions to actually address the real issues.