atx_newbie

Personally, I don't get why athletes are held to such high standards. Yeah, I understand, they are role models. So how about the example that the NFL just set: Sure, you didn't break the law, or any team or league issues, but we're still going to suspend you. Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty? Just because he's had problems in the past, he's being hung here. There is no way of knowing what happened in this issue. For all we know, the bodyguard came at him. Would any of you not defend yourself if being assaulted? I'm not condoning his previous actions by any means, but this is kinda rediculous. And I'm a Saints fan.

Sure helps Kansas to have Missouri lose 2 in a row doesn't it Well, I am going to pick Texas as well. I think that Mizzou will be looking for some redemption, and the Horns will probably be a little flat, but they're playing at home, and people around here are fired up about this team. That stadium is going to be rediculously noisy Saturday, and I'm not sure Mizzou will know what to do. Also, I feel these two teams are pretty evenly matched, which means it will come down to coaching. Meaning Mack Brown has a huge advantage

You should never boo your own team. End of story. In private, you can complain about the team's performance or the coach's decisions all you want, but in public a true fan should sit quietly in peace if he can't find anything positive to cheer about.

Yeah you've got a point, that is a second N/S thoroughfare. The problem, though, is that it never connects to IH-35, so it doesn't alleviate any traffic issues on 35.

The good thing for us LSU fans is that the loss really doesn't change anything. I mean seriously, at the beginning of the season, did anyone really think LSU would make it through this schedule undefeated? I've been bracing myself for a loss to either Auburn, FL, or GA since June. The Tigers still control their destiny in the SEC and the NCG with a win over Bama to put themselves into the SEC championship. Though between now and then will have to figure out a way to play with Florida, because I think it is obvious now which is the team to beat in the SEC

I can't wait! I'm moving to Chicago in December. I've never spent more than a week at a time north of Texas, and am looking forward to experiencing winter. Only snow I've ever seen was a trip to Buffalo where we got 8 inches, and a trip to Chicago, also getting 8 inches

I can promise you that there is no highway around Austin, especially on the N/S route. E/W, maybe, but there really isn't any E/W traffic here.

So a little color commentary before my question: I'm from Louisiana and Texas, and being a proud southerner I always thought we had more water to fish here than anywhere else. Then I grew up and learned that most of our lakes were dammed up rivers and flooded swamps. Now I've met a girl from a NW suburb of Chicago, and am moving up there, and... I went last weekend and couldn't believe how many small ponds there were everywhere!!! I guess from all the glaciers during the ice age, blah blah... So anyway, I'm dying to fish all of these, but my question is: How do you tell if a pond has fish. Some of these are tiny. Like surface area measured in sq. feet, not acres. But they all have a lot of great cover and seem like Edens for bass. Do you just have to go fish to find out, or are there some signs that you guys look for before fishing a new pond?

Sam explained it right. All interstate highways have 2 number names, as in I-20, I-35, I-90. Shorter interstate highways that serve a singular purpose have 3 number names, and the first number of the name determines what that stretch of highway does: an even first number means that it is a bypass/beltway/whatever your area calls it that goes around a city, and if it is odd then it is a spur into the city. For example, driving west on IH-94 towards Chicago you have a choice--stay on 94 and go through Chicago, or take IH-294 for a short period and skirt the city and theoretically miss the traffic. Or, if you are driving into Baton Rouge, IH-10 will take you through one part of the city, or you can take the IH-110 spur to go into the northern part of the city that is not serviced by IH-10. On a side note, Austin, TX is the largest city in the U.S. to not have an interstate bypass. This means that IH-35 is a parking lot for the 20 miles or so around Austin, 24/7. There is no rush hour. It's just always packed because all traffic is forced to go straight through downtown.

The first time my Chicagoan girlfriend heard me call a car accident a wreck she looked at me like I was speaking Japanese.

Ahh, ok, I know now, but I googled it so it doesn't count.

Fear and Loathing in LV???

Well I can't say this for sure, because I haven't done all the research I should, but the nationwide anti-fraternity PR wars hadn't been launched yet. Animal House hadn't come out yet and moms in the flyover states didn't think there was anything wrong with fraternities. Now though, there is a lot of negative PR because of a few bad apples, and the word frat has an immature, negative connotation. Here is an example: In my fraternity, we had an annual See-Saw-a-Thon that raised anywhere from $3k-5k for a local charity. The paper wrote an article, buried in the style section, about it, with the headline "Fraternity men See-Saw for Cause". The article praised our work. Two months later, one of my brothers commited suicide. This story ran front page the next day, under the banner headline "Frat Member Dead in Shooting". Maybe I'm just taking it personnally, but I can see quite a bias in those two headlines.

Ok, so the Saints played terribly and deserved to lose that game. You can't turn the ball over that often, have a FG blocked, and have that many penalties called on you and still win a game. The upside though--It looks like Reggie Bush might have finally had his break-out NFL performance, running back two punts for TDs. It was a pretty amazing performance. I've never seen running like that before in my life. He was covering three yards with each step, and at some points going almost 22 MPH. Now if he can only do that from the line of scrimmage...

Fixing to--About to do something Ole--Oil Bear--Beer (as in: Give me a bear!) Other than that, where I come from the first syllable of every word just gets way overstressed, for example: Seegar--cigar Mackdonalds--McDonalds etc... And finally, this is the one most important to me: In the south you will likely never hear the word frat. Around here, we call them fraternities. Frat is the word that newspapers use to connote a negative image in articles about how evil fraternities are

Being from Shreveport, LA, which sometimes feels almost like a dallas suburb, I called soft drinks cokes all my childhood, regardless of brand. Then someone explained to me the economic dangers of name-brand product associations (coke to refer to all soft drinks, band-aids to refer to all medicated adhesive strips, etc...) and since then I have tried to be more specific. I still slip up though.

"Newspapers called it a crime of passion. The boy said there wasn't no passion to it. He liked killing, would do it again."

Come back when your teams learn to play some defense. If LSU can put up the offensive numbers that it did against Auburn, I'm sure we could also average 50 points a game against teams with no defense. Maybe that will change though, as Bo Pellini will bring some of what he learned out to the Big 12

Hey, anything that ends with LSU on top and I'm a happy camper.

Yeah, bad news is the only thing that ever gets reported on these days. As a result, Americans seem to be more scared and more sissy on a day to day basis. Every company out there, from car insurance companies to household cleaning products, to bottled water companies feed and contribute to the fears and insecurities of Americans, and it's driving me crazy. Like those disposable plastic seat covers for public restrooms, give me a break. Anyone who passed high school biology knows that a toilet seat is about the most inhospitable place there is for bacteria. Food for thought: a man's bald head carries more bacteria than the inside of a urinal. Sorry for hijacking the thread, this is just one of those issues that gets me going. I'll keep quiet now

So I just thought of a pretty interesting scenario that I would like to see play out for the rest of the season. It won't be exactly likely, but certainly plausible, especially with what we have seen in college football from last season and so far this season. Besides, the guys on ESPN all get paid, and are wrong way more than half the time. So why can't I give my opinion and be wrong for free. Texas looses 2 between now and December to teams from Big-12 North, but beats Oklahoma, and Oklahoma looses one to OK State because of the rivalry (work with me here). So Texas goes on to rep the south in the B-12 championship and beats Mizzou. Meanwhile, in the Sec... LSU drops 2 of it's remaining games--FLA and GA seem likely, and beats Bama. Bama then goes on to drop one to Auburn in the rivalry game. So LSU reps the SEC west in the championship, and beats Fla to take the SEC title. Now you have 2 teams, who played the most difficult schedules in their respective conferences, took 2 losses, but still won their conference championships. Then you would have a national championship with a couple of 2 loss teams. And this is fairly feasible, we've seen crazier things happen. Man, wouldn't it be cool to see the analysts heads explode after that!

It's also used for profusive sweating. I need to have it done because my palms sweat non-stop, but I'm afraid I would lose all dexterity

When Jesus goes to sleep he prays to Chuck Norris.

I agree. My girlfriend is from Chicago, so naturally she talks a lot of smack about Favre, but I just can't find anything about him to knock. Not his play or his persona.

No amount of painkillers are worth a broken ankle. I broke my ankle skateboarding about 5 years ago, and to this day I still blame that for keeping me from playing college soccer. It still acts up on me about once a week and will be sore the next day after any kind of strenuous activity. Make sure to take ample time to recover and keep plenty of ice on it. I rushed the healing process on mine, and it never got back to 100%.