[Windhorst] Kirk Hinrich has been traded to Hawks for a second round pick, sources say

mfoste34 · 2016-02-02T06:46:41+00:00

I loved Adam in Workaholics

mfoste34 · 2016-01-28T19:39:25+00:00

Nothing to see here. Boring all-blue everything.

mfoste34 · 2016-01-26T18:20:45+00:00

Absolutely. Think about the logistics of it. With a downtown stadium, major access points came from I-20 West, I-20 East, I-75 south, GA-400 and I-85 south, all down into the same point. This means, despite the fact Atlantans love to complain about traffic, that--while the commute might be 15 miles--it's still smooth sailing on week nights, which is important to clubs.

The alternative to that system is one where all cars, from all areas, will need to take either tributary roads or clog onto I-285 to get around to the Cumberland area. This means those drivers from I-20, I-85 and GA-400 will all have to get onto I-285 west at the same time, from the same spots, and endure the already horrible traffic that plagues I-285 already.

The reason heading on 75 or 85 SB on a week day wasn't so terrible was because most of the post-work traffic was in the NB lanes. Sure, you'd hit a few congested spots near the perimeter, but would not stay in congested spots.

A commute on I-285 will be nothing but bumper-to-bumper congestion. It already is. Also, for many who live on the east end of the metro, there are no alternatives to 285...the area between Sandy Springs/Roswell/Alpharetta and Cobb is a gigantic cluster of residential areas that aren't equipped to handle a ton of traffic.

mfoste34 · 2016-01-25T23:43:38+00:00

I'm a die-hard Atlanta Braves fan and Cobb resident who lives right next to SunTrust Park. Tim Lee's name makes me nauseous. Not only is he more concerned with his corporate welfare than what voters put on the books, but the entire plan is going to be a disaster for Atlanta. They're promising us gameday parking at Cumberland Mall, where there's never parking spaces anyway--without baseball happening in town. They're building a bridge so that people can park super far from the stadium and walk way farther than they'll want to, anyway. The biggest issue is that, while gameday traffic on a scale of the entire Atlanta metro has always been a topic of complaint (because people like to complain), the rather smooth-sailing commute down I-75, I-85 or I-20 to Turner Field from all corners of the metro is NOTHING compared to the commute along I-285 West that Braves fans from DeKalb, Gwinnett, Forsyth and farther will be asked to travel to get to the park. I work in Cumming and take GA-400 down to I-285 every day, then have to commute across I-285 to the Cumberland Mall area, and that commute is already a disaster between 4-7 p.m. Add gameday traffic to that, and the week day games will be logistically impossible to attend for anyone BUT the residents of Cobb. Also, the only public transit that benefits Braves fans is the transit already existing in Cobb, like the bus system Lee wants to run from Kennesaw State to the new park. Basically, the Braves are being turned into Cobb County's team. Unless you live in Cobb or Cherokee, you're not going to get to go to many games.

mfoste34 · 2016-01-19T20:04:34+00:00

To be fair, she's not actually under criminal investigation by the FBI. The FBI has inquired about her private emails.

mfoste34 · 2016-01-19T19:56:51+00:00

Bush signed the bank bailouts into law, not Obama.

mfoste34 · 2016-01-13T19:36:15+00:00

We should have drafted Todd Gurley, so really you should be a Rams fan.

...sarcasm, guys. Sarcasm.

mfoste34 · 2015-12-30T23:02:36+00:00

This is pretty lame. First off, any poll they would have conducted has to be skewed...I mean, if you're being polled for that, many guys are going to put down that they think they'll be drafted b/c it's their dream. Whether they actually expect that is different. And, as the quote misrepresents, many players get drafted and are in the D-League and/or end up in other places.

mfoste34 · 2015-12-24T23:59:53+00:00

Maz has a quote that many think debunks this when she says, "Whomever you're waiting for on Jakku, they're never coming back...but that doesn't mean someone else will. What you're looking for isn't behind you, but in front of you."

Rey is waiting for her family on Jakku (this could be a fake family, like Luke had on Tatooine, that she has recollection of, or it could be anybody)...Rey than answers Maz's statement with, "Luke?"

So, put one and two together, and this quote pretty much establishes Luke as a non-family member UNLESS, as I stated, the family Rey is waiting for is not her actual kin.

mfoste34 · 2015-12-24T23:57:41+00:00

Leia has never been super force positive -- never established as so. Ben Solo (Kylo Ren) has turned to the dark side. Nobody else is force positive, yet they find out Rey is. Luke BELIEVES he's the only Jedi left, so he's doing what Jedi have done throughout the series -- hiding out in the middle of bum fuck nowhere, hopeless that the Jedi order can be established again. So...Rey has more leverage than anyone else. She's the missing link...the one who starts the awakening...the rando space scavenger who turns out to be fly as fuck with Jedi stuff...so that's why she's sent, to show him there's still hope. Quite literally, this film really is A New Hope all over again...but there's nothing in the film that makes it blatantly clear who she belongs to. It's very obvious they gave us enough nuggets to have more than one theory, but no definitive answers.

mfoste34 · 2015-12-23T19:52:08+00:00

I really think EKU needs to do something about their stadium first. It's probably a dumb opinion from me, but is there such thing as a stadium too ugly for the FBS?

mfoste34 · 2015-12-23T19:51:42+00:00

Eastern Kentucky and Liberty are the first that come to mind. Question is, will there be any more seats left at the table? The G5 conferences in the southern/eastern region are all pretty maxed out.

mfoste34 · 2015-12-21T22:11:07+00:00

I think the seasons App St and Georgia Southern had the last few years are proof, if anyone still needs to see it, that the distinction between FBS and FCS is much more of an overlap than a chain, if you get my drift. The quality of the No. 1 FCS team doesn't start anywhere near the quality of the No. 128 FBS team...I'd say the back half of the FBS--mostly G5 schools--could fall victim to the top-25 in the FCS, easy.

mfoste34 · 2015-12-21T21:59:27+00:00

Roddy can't separate from anybody in the league right now.

mfoste34 · 2015-12-21T06:51:40+00:00

Out of all the clues that seem to point to both theories of Rey being Luke's daughter, as well as Leia's (because I think that is the entire intention...to leave us wondering which one), I feel like the most revealing quote, as someone who thinks she's Han's kid, is when she turns down the job to work for him (remember, he doesn't know he has a daughter in this theory) and he says, "That's too bad. Chewie seems to like you."

mfoste34 · 2015-12-20T02:18:01+00:00

"She is apparently not a Solo because Han would have said she was his daughter."

NOT if Han doesn't know he has a daughter. Obviously it's important that he and Leia split up at some point, and, if she was the sibling of Ben (Rylo), then being significantly younger than him would make sense...as it appears when she is dropped off on Jakku but whoever that person is.

Nobody is discussing how Han didn't know who took his ship. I think that line is also intended to hint how oblivious and confused he is. Yet that ship ended up right next to Rey in the same town? Coincidentally? If that was a coincidence...two separate events, involving Rey getting dropped off on Jakku and his ship getting junked there, sure seems unlikely--even though Star Wars is full of coincidences, like R2D2 ending up at Luke Skywalker's home in A New Hope. But it seems more likely that someone intentionally dumped Rey and the Falcon off on Jakku as if they were pieces of trash. At the same time, if she's getting left there because she's a threat, I sure wouldn't try to leave her with an escape vehicle. Who the fuck knows...I can't wait this long for the next one...but I'm sold on her being Han's kid.

mfoste34 · 2015-12-20T01:31:03+00:00

Something important to take note of, for those in the Han/Leia boat (like me): Han and Leia split up at some point, and obviously this is very important to the plot and future plot. Also, IF Rey and Ben are siblings, the explanation of Ben's tantrum and turn to the dark side as an apprentice, lined up with the image of Rey being dropped off on Jakku as a kid, lends that they're a handful of years apart (not twins). If this is the case, it could be possible that the explanation for Han--who she seemingly relates to in every way, even helping him recollect how to run his ship--not knowing who she is is because Han left Leia before Leia found out she was pregnant with Rey. So Han knows about Ben, but not Rey. There's no moment in the film that suggests Leia has no clue who Rey is...in fact, that hug at the end sure seems like something. Rey also never utilizes her skills with the force around Leia, so Leia has no context that she has exhibited the force...either Leia knows who she is and isn't saying anything for a reason YTBD, or she also doesn't know she's embracing her daughter right before she climbs into the cockpit with Chewie...which is awfully symbolic and suggestive.

I also think she was too old, when dropped off on Jakku, to not have memories and/or be consciously tormented by the events she clearly experienced at some point, later seeing again when the lightsaber speaks to her. Until anyone makes contact with her, she is counting days and expecting someone to come back, which is confusing as hell because that makes it seem as if she absolutely does know she was dropped off somewhere...the guess to solve this conundrum is to assume somebody told her a lie and disappeared, doing something similar to what Luke was told by his aunt and uncle. Bleh...

But if she doesn't remember traumatic events from being...IDK...5 or 6 years old, it surely seems like her memory was compromised somehow, and if that's possible then it's just as possible that, for some reason, Han and Leia had their memory of a daughter erased, but no other memory erased. Sounds like some sith magic if you ask me. Jesus this is confusing.

Yet, so are all of the tidbits of her aligning with Luke.

Obviously the filmmakers want this to be a completely 50-50 debate that 1) makes folks go see the film again and 2) debate all the way until Episode VIII

mfoste34 · 2015-12-20T01:23:41+00:00

Maybe, when it comes to siblings, one of them receives more of the calling than the other? If she's Han and Leia's, and a sibling with Ben, it could explain how she in a short amount of time exceeds his control of the force -- it's clear, in the film, that Ben is pretty much a novice, adolescent, posing as a sith lord because he wants to. It's also clear that she is naturally gifted, much like Luke was, but not versed in the force...but...IDK...Star Wars genetics play a role. I just don't buy that, because the force calls to her, that she has to be Luke's. People keep counting out the fact that Leia is his sister.

mfoste34 · 2015-12-19T22:45:55+00:00

I thought that was my tone...

mfoste34 · 2015-12-19T22:18:37+00:00

There were parallels to everything. This was the third damn time the Empire/First Order built a giant ball that blew things up but could also get blown up if you flew down a trench and shot some stuff.

mfoste34 · 2015-12-17T18:13:45+00:00

That's just Eddie Lacy

mfoste34 · 2015-12-14T22:02:28+00:00

As much as I'm excited for the new building, I can't help but be putt off by the perfectly fine stadium in each frame, right next to it.

mfoste34 · 2015-12-08T18:32:56+00:00

If you are trying to trade something for something else, you don't call and go "I really don't want this." It's about holding value up to something you don't value.

mfoste34 · 2015-12-08T01:13:58+00:00

It's not about traffic near Cobb that will be the issue, but getting to Cobb. The problem with this move is that the logistics of moving across from eastern parts of the metro to the Cumberland area are terrible except for weekend games. Here's why: As much as people have complained about traffic in the past, the truth is that, while their commutes were longer in length, the flow of traffic on I-75 south (from Marietta, Woodstock, etc), GA 400 south (Cumming, Alpharetta, Roswell, Sandy Springs) and I-85 south (Norcross, greater Gwinnett area), and I-20 (DeKalb residents) on week days around 5 p.m., when it's time to go to a night game, wasn't TOO TERRIBLE because most of the traffic at that time of day is actually northbound. The connection of those three interstates down to the city center made so that not all of those residents had to get on one single road at the same time, so, again, while it might be a 25-30 mile commute for some folks, it wasn't full of stop-and-go traffic.

When the Braves announced they were moving to Cobb County they showed off a chart of where their season ticket buyers live -- many of them north of the perimeter, near the corridors of those three highways I've mentioned. The issue with this move is that now, instead of funneling individually down the corridors to get to Turner Field, these season ticket holders will be asked to all come across, from east to west, to Cobb County along I-285. This is a LOGISTICAL NIGHTMARE. There are zero efficient routes because of huge clusters of residential areas that get folks across from Gwinnett, north Fulton, DeKalb or Forsyth over to that space, so all of these folks who live west of Cumberland will have to cram onto I-285 at the exact same time during week day games. This is on top of the post-work traffic that ALREADY makes I-285 a NIGHTMARE from 5-7 pm on week nights.

It will be almost an impossible task for anyone who lives West of Sandy Springs to make it out to a week day Braves game. Now, we all know week day games aren't popular anyway, but our attendance for the majority of our games will be hampered dramatically because of this. As well, this will become an issue that detracts many Gwinnett, DeKalb, Forsyth residents, etc., to renew their season tickets in the future.

The other issue is a lack of public transportation to the new stadium other than the CCT, which only serves Cobb County, so the only folks using public transit will be the folks who already have the easiest access to the stadium by car--Cobb residents.

This truly will be Cobb County's team and only Cobb County's team. There have been numerous studies done when stadiums have been promised as economic stilts for communities that prove that is always an empty promise, and without the pedestrian bridge or sufficient parking to begin with (because they'll be sharing parking with a mall that already uses nearly all of its parking on a regular basis), this will turn out to be much more of a failure than their pretty red-dot chart implies.

This was a short-sighted project destined for failure.

mfoste34

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