joekicker

Have to disagree all round. The PLAYERS have driven the price of players sky high. Generally speaking, good on them. They are getting paid competitive wages finally. Finally, there's a generation of ball players who won't have to sit on the steps of 7-Eleven and drink beer, or chase balloons to eat after they're 40 years old. Not only that, they're actually helping to fund the LAST generation of cheated players so THEY won't have to live like dumb-axx Pattaya bums either. So far as "a few clubs" and "big markets" ... well. The Yankees do win once in a while. So do the Marlins. So do the Red Sox and no, Boston is NOT a "big market" in any conceivable manner. They have built a product and found "buyers" (fans) and they market it well, but they are no New York, the perennial champion (NOT) L.A. or should I mention the fantastically successful big market of Washington D.C? And don't tell me about New England - Seattle has got it huge, St Louis has got half the United States still, almost. Fact is that when salaries went up, owners had to admit to their shame that Billy Bean was right. Money Ball is real. It works. It puts the Rockies and the Phillies and Tampa Bay in the Series. It puts the Braves back on top. I've changed jobs a bunch of times in my life and ONLY because it was good for me to do it. Why shouldn't ball players? Sure, I loved the guy who stuck with the club for 20 years, the hundreds of Todd Heltons, but times change. I loved 30-game winners and 145-pitch lefties and 12-innning, 1-0 games. I loved a winner-take-all season with no playoffs, just the Series. Times change. ,

Fedex has pretty well always had a one-price-fits-all policy, and you pay or you don't see your package. .

They're starting Burma flights from KL shortly. .

Personally, to go to the UK in September, I'd want at least 15 million. For 20 million, I'd stay five days. .

Er, well, he was the prime axxhole who organised the "superclub" Yankees/ManU deal. Tried to take a bunch of money from the rubes who came to Yankee Stadium wanting to buy Man You kit. Excuse me, The Stadium. .

I like Texas, but hard to vote against the Yankees. The Dodgers are really going to have to pick it up to have a chance. The Rockies are better right now, say. But I don't think they can beat anything in the East and I think it'll be Yankees and Atlanta. .

Smart businessman to the end, dying in the only year without a death tax. .

You can say that again. .

Not just the octopus but the panda and the hamster ALL pick Spain. Sunday Bangkok Post front page: .

Well I'm never going to do it again. Very disturbing, I'm glad it never happened to me all those times. .

Have to disagree with you there. A passive offside is a guy who is offside and is directly in the line of the ball and is impeding the defensive players. To put it another way, give me a break. The officials blew the call yet again. A passive offside is any offside that the ref and linesmen both miss and think it wasn't offside at all. In this case, the only effect was that the Dutch won the game, not really important, right? Uruguay was (so far) VERY classy to take it on the chin as part of Sepp Blather's form of the game. .

By coincidence, I just got email from Deedial that they have an app for the Blackberry. Details here

And no one notices the 6,000-pound elephant in the room, pooping all over the floor: When Sneijder took the shot on the Uruguayan goal, striker Robin Van Persie was (apparently) in line - to the assistant referee - with defender Diego Godin, who was the second-last opponent (the last one is the Uruguayan goalkeeper Fernando Muslera). However, TV replays showed that his right foot was beyond the line, and according to the interpretation of the laws, the Arsenal striker was in an offside position, as a part of his body with which it is legal to score a goal was beyond the second-last defender. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3cA8IT59Bc .

Heh. 7:09 a.m. according to THE post. .

You don't need a PC, although it helps in the setup. This is a terrific service. There are a couple like it. It is for telephone-to-telephone use. You have to register the phone(s) you will be using to call FROM Thailand to the world. You have to buy and register a card of x baht, 100 to 500 is regular. I've used this and a couple of similar (competing) services for several years. Details are at deedial.com - if it comes up in Thai, click the little British flag at the top for English.

Okay. Then I find it stunning that you classify stereotype military folks the way you did in the first post. I mean I was literally stunned and couldn't think for a few seconds of how to reply to that. And FWIW most military people don't see a shot fired either way these days, and thank goodness. It's just the way it is. Sort of like, it's just the way it is that people in the western world's military are (generally speaking) a cut above the average citizen in several important, even crucially important ways. .

And another one trying to have it both ways, this time from the bleeding-heart side. It's very distressing, this very wide gap between people who understand a bit about the military, and everyone else. Your view of the poor misled lads as victims, Mr mmaaarrrkkk, is just as stupid but WAY more offensive to them and to the military in general than the cretins in here who cheer on the fundamentalists and extremists to please kill them. In a just system, non-military people would have to meet-and-mingle with military folks just a bit, and get to grasp them and their ways and understand it a bit. It's one good argument for a draft, actually, and a non-professional military that even you could understand. In very simple Pattayaesque terms you CAN understand although I already know you won't accept it: The military is not the government version of beer bars. They don't have to take everyone who walks in and asks to join. You feel every member of the military is either rock-dumb or so smart she is gaming the system to learn a trade and move on with it. I have one word for you: Heh. .

You're an idi... no, I take that back and apologise to all idiots for the insult. Freedom of "speach" does not include giving YOU a platform to say what YOU want to say. You want a platform, go get one, I'll support your right to have and use it to the death. Really. AND so will any government worth anything defend it too. You need a little help with freedom of speech, obviously. You can't say what you want on this Pattaya forum. Period. Only one person has freedom of speech here. That person, the owner of this forum is always nearby to help when education is requested or, heck, when it's just needed, or, heck, just because he has this sudden whim and feels like it. .

Is it going to be necessary to have this in every thread from now until forever? Jee Zeus! .

People change. I don't think it's brave to try to get on both sides of this. Plus, I don't think you can. .

So you do NOT agree. .

Jeezuz. I wish you hadn't done that. Rest of my life, I'm going to be repeating to myself, "Homer Simpson does not have a beard". .

Absolutely agree. .

Why do Britishers call it a torch when there's no flame? Why do you call "them" pants when there is only one of them? How can an British person keep a straight face when his girl refers to "a pair" of scissors, when she's holding onto one? Anyway, "American Football" is NOT called that, actually. It is called American football. They don't revere it, just adore it. Whoa. Don't go overboard. .

But that call is always a judgement call. I can't see there ever being video on that sort of call. Video could only disprove that the ball touched his arm/hand at all, not his intention. Let's get video on the goal line. Then for offsides. These are either-or calls, the stuff that technology is good for. .