GhostMachine

The knuckleball is my favorite pitch (with the splitter a close second, though) and its a damned shame more pitchers don't use it, though I understand why. Its damned hard to master and control. He may or may not have invented it (its believed another pitcher used it a decade earlier), but Eddie Cicotte, one of the infamous Black Sox was the first significant pitcher to use it. And now I really want the Reds to make it to World Series just so St. Louis fans can ask why there are no Cardinals on the bench and Reds fans like myself can answer "Because LaRussa's a dick!".

If you can find it, I highly recommend checking out a film he did called A Face In The Crowd. It was directed by Elia Kazan and also has Patricia Neal and Walter Matthau in it. Very good movie.

Yeah, you're better off with Premium packs. Two Gold games is usually enough to get one. I'm still waiting on Geth Inf, Asari Justicar, Drell Vangaurd. At this point I just want the Geth Inf and to get some of the decent weapons. I want a god damn Krysae Sniper Rifle or Reegar Karbine! I have both the Krysae and Reegar. The Krysae's description says its attacks are both armor piercing and explosive. That's only half right. The attacks are not armor piercing at all. You can shoot a Guardian's shield all the live long day and it won't do squat. On the other hand, you don't have to be accurate with it, just in the ball park. It works like the Geth Plasma Shotgun, Graal Spike Thrower and any other weapons I may be forgetting in that you hold down the trigger and release it to fire a shot. But doing so doesn't use up more ammo or cause extra damage like those others. You can actually get off 3 shots fairly quick with it. I had some fun last night using cryo ammo with it. Was pretty fun freezing multiple Reapers with one shot. The Reegar I don't use a lot, as I tend to play characters who either do long range attacks or use biotics or a pistol (Paladin or Carnifex) up close. But its a fucking beast. If you get it, I definitely recommend using the spare thermal clip as one of the two mods, unless you're on a map with good access to ammo boxes all over the place. Don't bother with the smart choke, though, because the Reegar is really only good up close, unlike some of the other shotguns. I still need the piercing mod for sniper rifles and the melee stunner for pistols. Not sure what other weapon mods I don't have yet. Character wise, I still don't have either Ex-Cerberus, the Asari Adept (do have the Justicar), the Geth and Quarian Male Engineers, Krogan and Vorcha Sentinels, Batarian Soldier, and Drell and Krogan Vanguards. (I'm not counting the Battlefield 3 Soldier, which I don't have either)

All I have to say is, if Brooklyn and Orlando do find a third team to make a trade in that scenario, I hope that David Stern keeps out of it. OR he steps in and gets involved and its enough to make the people who matter finally see that he needs to go as NBA commissioner. Also, I hope the Lakers decide to get rid of Metta World Peace this offseason, but I'm not exactly holding my breath.

You know what I don't get? People bitching about the endings in the first place. Its not like anything bad happened to the real hero of the Mass Effect games. Joker. Think about it: Joker flies Commander Shepard and his allies all over the universe and even quits the Alliance to join Cerberus to do so once he realizes the Council is fucking useless as far as the Reaper threat is concerned. He single-handedly saves the ship in ME2 putting his life at risk to do so (along with his health, since he can potentially break bones just by moving wrong). He flies into and away from constant danger. If things go right in ME3, he ends up with a girlfriend. AND he's the only character who can't be killed off without EVERYONE dying in ME2 and ME3. He also gets a lot of the best lines in the games. So the heck with Commander Shepard. The Mass Effect series is really about Joker. He just can't kick ass AND fly the ship at the same time!

I'm a Reds fan and have no problem with Cueto OR Phillips not getting in. But BOTH being snubbed? Yeah. La Russa deserves a swift kick to the balls for that. And when Charlie Manuel snubbed Votto in favor of Howard back in 2010, I hope he got a LOT of hate mail over it. Should have been a `FUCK YOU, CHARLIE! FUCK YOU, RYAN!' chant the next time they set foot in Cincinnati. For a long time I've felt they need to change the rules for All-Star selection: Place a limit on how many players from each team get, but not by fan votes. Limit it by manager picks so they can't pick more players to fill in spots. And I don't think a manager should be able to pick more than one or two players (two only if one is position and one is a pitcher) from his own damn team. I have felt that way ever since the year where Bobby Cox loaded up the bench with Braves players. There are a LOT of players who either get in and don't deserve it or players who don't get in and deserve to be there just because of favoritism. (And if a manager loads up his bench with his guys and manages again the next year, he shouldn't be allowed to pick ANY of his own players then....or any players who were on his team the year before but now play elsewhere, either.)

I don't want to use the term jumped the shark, because to me the show never did that. But it did go downhill a bit when Trace left. As for Joel and Mike, I don't have a preference. I like both, but did miss the invention exchange after Joel left and they realized there was no reason for Mike to be doing it since he wasn't an inventor.

I know there will likely be more games set in the Mass Effect universe. Just not with Shepard involved. But is anyone else kind of hoping for a Mass Effect MMO, provided it plays something like ME3?

Yes, but difficult to get. You've got it wrong. Well, its been a while since I actually played the game - the storyline, that is. I've been doing a lot of multiplayer - so my bad. I haven't bothered to download the Extended Cut free DLC because I don't feel like backtracking in the game to be able to watch it. But I got the Krysae sniper rifle and an upgrade for the N7 Valiant from the reward packs.

Yes, but difficult to get.

I will not be satisfied until I get a Krysae sniper rifle. That thing is seriously overpowered. So is the Reegar Carbine, but I already have that, and its nowhere near as overpowered as the Krysae.

Yes, but I can think of certain instances where it would be a pain. What if you get a team of four soldiers and all are armed with shotguns, for exmaple? Not a good idea if you're facing Reapers or Cerberus and a Banshee or Atlas pops up, unless they all have armor piercing or disruptor ammo. (Or one of them fires off a missile in the case of the Atlas)

Info for this weekend's operation is out. The community goal is to kill 7,000,000 of the enemy's basic troops. The individual goal is to survive any mission/difficulty with a team comprised only of Krogans, Batarians and Vorcha. Don't have to have members of all 3 races, thankfully. But a team compromised of only Soldiers and Sentinels? Yeah.....

I picked Dickey up on my fantasy team about two weeks ago (give or take a couple days), and was stunned no one else had grabbed him yet.

Its big! Huge! McLarge! By the way, did I happen to mention that I'm a card carrying MST3K Fan Club member, and own an autographed copy of the Amazing Colossal Episode Guide?

Well, you know what they say: if everyone liked the same things, we'd all be in a world of trouble and it would be a pretty boring place.

So far the only two new characters I've unlocked are the Male Quarian Infiltrator (My favorite class to play, though Adept is a sort of close second) and a Vorcha Soldier. But I got a Hurricane and a Valiant from last week's operation, because they put a N7 weapon in both packs for this one rather than just the Commendation pack. I use the Valiant in place of a sniper rifle (hey, it does make a somewhat great assault rifle substitute!) on my Soldiers, and don't use the Hurricane at all because of its recoil and because I either use a heavy pistol (Paladin or Carnifax) or the Geth Plasma SMG for close up killing.

And I'm the opposite. I adore the Coleman Francis episodes, especially Beast of Yucca Flats. Flag on the moon. I didn't say I didn't like the other Coleman Francis episodes, now did I? I just felt Red Zone Cuba felt flat. It almost seems like they did the episode on short notice or were just too lazy and rather than write a script they just said "Hey, fuck it. Lets just rip on Coleman Francis!". You'll get no argument from me about Beast of Yucca Flats, by the way. Damn good episode.

Still stuns me that anyone actually likes the Red Zone Cuba episode and that it made the list. My big problem with that one is there are waaaaaaay too many Coleman Francis jokes, and only about half are funny.

Did you really have to post this on here? Hey, if I was drafted by the Jaguars, I'd probably facepalm, too. Oh...wait....

The Rebellion Pack. It includes, among other things, Firebase Jade (think Priority: Sur'Kesh, because I don't know if Jade is actually on Sur'Kesh or not); Firebase Goddess (on Thessia); Ex-Cerberus Adepts and Vanguards (with debuting moves Smash and Lash); Vorcha Soldiers and Sentinels; and male Quarian Engineers and Infiltrators. There were a few new weapons, but I've gotten nothing out of the Rebellion Pack yet. I don't even think I've gotten anything that was released off Resurgence, either. Jade is on Sur'Kesh. They've also added a new equipment slot for a permanent buff item. That is, a reusable piece of equipment you can switch out for another one you have between missions if you need to. So far I have one that increases shield regen by 5%, and another than increases SMG damage by 5%. I've only been buying Recruit and Veteran packs, so now new characters or weapons for me yet. Oh, and the Reapers seem to be tougher than before now.

Rebellion is out, but strangely the reward packs for this weekend's Operation are not. They added a new objective to the missions: package retrieval and delivery. Which means you have about 5 minutes for a team member to go pick up an item from a particular spot and deliver it to another one, then do it all over again. (That is, two different packages. Go grab one, deliver it, pick up another and deliver it) The package retriever has their movement slowed down a bit and the team has to protect their ass while they deliver it, as I don't think they can fight while carrying it. They also have two new maps, and have added a new equipment slot. Its for a piece of gear that isn't used up and provides a bonus while slotted. So you can get different ones and use whichever one you need. I did a few missions earlier and bought a Veteran pack which contained an item for that slot that makes shield regen 5% faster. Haven't done either of the new maps or teamed with a new character yet. I ran a mission on Giant using my Asari Justicar (just unlocked last night) and 2 on Hydra on my Krogan Vanguard before logging off.

Don't know how long its been since you last played, but they added Jumbo Equipment and Premium Spectre packs a few weeks ago.

Rebellion DLC Pack comes out later today, in case anyone doesn't know or forgot.

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