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Saturday, August 25, 2012
Sorry, that was a bad link. This link will get you to last year's owner's reference.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/38771269/Rocky%20Bleier/2011%20Owners%20Reference.pdf
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Saturday, August 25, 2012
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Hey Everyone,
This is going to a little bit different of a season since I'm in Afghanistan and can't put the usual effort into management. We'll still hit all the important stuff, but I won't be able to do newsletters, trophies or analysis as I usually do. Also, drum roll please, this is the year we finally hit TWELVE members! We've been trying for two years and we finally made it with little turnover and a few additions.
Now, Samson (Walers) and myself (Marshals) are the only remaining founding members. But all of you who participated last year are exactly the kind of people we want playing. Except for Fish. Just kidding. He still owes a picture of his trophy sitting somewhere prominent in his home, though.
FEE
Speaking of trophies: $12 is the fee for playing, all of which goes to buy the kick-ass trophy we award. You can send it to me on Paypal justin@justinstahl.net or you can pay Samson and he'll send it to me.
ROSTER CHANGE
You'll notice a few changes to the roster with 12 teams this year. Be sure to read all the details on the league page: http://games.espn.go.com/ffl/leaguesetup/settings?leagueId=144613.
I bumped two bench spots off so we have a little more availability in the free agent pool, but you do still have the IR slot for injured/inactive players. We also reverted to requiring 2 starting RB/2 starting WR, you'll still have the Offensive Utility which can be any offensive player, and then one flex that can be either a WR/RB/TE.
SCHEDULE/SETTINGS
The season will be one week longer since we have extra teams, and you'll notice we are now in three divisions. You'll face your division opponents twice during the regular season, and everyone else once. Each division winner will make the playoffs, in addition to the team with the most points scored for the season. You can download last year's Owner's Reference here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/jhbqo7dgisdry3u/2011%20Owners%20Reference.pdf.
Point scoring hasn't really changed, and all of the player rules still apply so you should read that and then double-check all the scoring details on the league page. http://games.espn.go.com/ffl/leagueoffice?leagueId=144613&seasonId=2012
FACEBOOK
Be sure to like our Facebook page. I'll post updates and info there since I can access that from my work computer. (ESPN Fantasy is blocked!)
DRAFT
The draft will be an online snake draft that will take place next Saturday, September 1 at 10:00PM Eastern Time. (6:30 AM Afghanistan). Because of the scheduling and difficulty this year, there is no penalty for using the auto-draft feature. I would recommend spending time adjusting your auto-draft settings as close to your strategy as you can; if you spend time here an auto-drafted roster can still turn out alright. I have already randomized the draft order, so when you check it on your team page, it's for real!
KEEPERS
Everyone except Heather and Ron are taking over an existing team. You can select a keeper from your roster provided they were not drafted in the 4th round or earlier. Please send me your keeper selections this week or set them in your team page. I will double-check to make sure everyone has chosen a legal keeper. Before the draft I will send out a list instructing everyone on when to select their keeper during the draft and everyone else to not touch the keepers. If somebody screws up, I can just pause the draft and correct it.
QUESTIONS
As always, if you have any questions, please email me or Samson. I'll try to spend some time introducing everyone and we should have a freaking blast this year. I'll be home before Christmas, so we may be able to get together near the end of the season to trash talk in person.
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Saturday, May 5, 2012
Left, right. Stab, stab. Left, right. The treadmill scraped relentlessly underfoot. In my path, a post with a purple sign. "Time limit on cardio machines 30 minutes when there is a queue." And beneath, a logo of sorts. Late 90's clipart from word processors. The stylized letters ready creatively: "GYM."
And above, the flat-screen meant to keep me unaware of the physical abuse being dealt my joints and tendons played bright, flashy, gaudy music videos from the same decade. The overhead music I could actually hear emigrated from some European nation - likely Norway or Germany. It was a techno beat that at times synchronized with my footfalls, and others with the dancers on screen. But never both. A faint, persistent sense of discord lurked inside. As well it should: running is not meant to be graceful. Or even pleasant. Only necessary.
As sweet stung my eyes, the built-in fan failing to keep pace, my mind was lost in some vacant space distancing itself from the awkward minutes remaining. But slowly it returned, or perhaps drifted even further. Of which is the case, i can't be sure.
She stepped surprising, but almost expectedly in front of me. Guiding my path rather than blocking it. She looked at me questioningly. A smirk on her alabaster face belied a mischievousness to her effortless presence.
I couldn't - wouldn't - dare assume she was beckoning me. I could only - would only - hope it was so. Her cerulean dress spun around her as she twirled, setting her long hair into a thousand sparks beneath the sun.
She sat down abruptly in front of the grandfatherly oak. Her flowing dress had become denim jeans as she rested against the coded bark, still smiling, still waiting. A soft but stern breeze rolled across the open meadow, pressing scents and sounds sharply through me. The rattle of leaves, hum of distant traffic, mellow of cut fields assuring me the world was continuing on even as time stood suspended here.
I laid my head back against the tree, exhaling forcefully as all my thoughts and burdens were caught away in the summer sky. She leaned close, my ear warming as her nose and breath touched for a moment. The words she spoke are lost, but not their soothing nature.
An infinite moment just before my eyes closed and my mind slept, I could begin to feel it again. Sharp splinters driving into my calves. And she was whisked away, the tree re-forming into the belligerent music videos. The meadow was now planted with ellipticals, and weight weights and stationary bikes. The aroma of grass replaced by sweat and recycled air. The persistent thumping of electronic beats and the clanging of free weights falling back into their place.
I walked uncomfortably along the road: dusty, crowded. Overhead an F16 thundered as it banked hard left while climbing out of reach. Worn brakes squealed as a driver made a last-second stop for a crossing pedestrian. The sun settled just short of the desert horizon. I was still at war. But I was smiling.
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Thursday, April 5, 2012
Tonight, just before the truck arrived to Kilo Ramp to send a Fallen Warrior on his final trip home, a trio of F-16s thundered down the runway, chasing each other into the darkness. Their brilliant white-blue flames became angels in furious flight, lighting the way home. This time, I was in the back of the formation, and found myself straining to be sure I caught a glimpse of the flag-shielded case as he went by. I thought of the woman reaching out to touch the hem of Jesus' garment: that by seeing the red stripes as they passed by questions might be answered, or perhaps some profound truth might be uncovered.
But all I could think of were those jets, now long gone somewhere near the mountains. They weren't chariots to take this soldier home. They were the archangel Michael, with flaming swords ready to strike at the heart of evil, answering the prayers of some other infantryman in Helmand, or Pakitka or Zabul. And I realized, as my teeth ground in desperation to keep the tears back that I would never again hear a jet rocket away or see those blue stars without remembering this place. And these men.
When you're in a football stadium or watching television before a race and those sky-gray bullets come screaming over a cheering crowd: that earth-shaking rumble is not for the men on the field. That deafening, ear-thumping boom is not for you. It's for Sergeant Tyler J. Smith.
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Friday, March 23, 2012
Over the mountains to the north, maybe 10 miles or maybe 30 - if the land is flat and the sky clear enough you never can tell - a bright white blimp has hovered all day, unflinching, watching the land below. From the right angle, you can see another twice again as far, keeping watch on the other side of the peak. Perhaps with their diligent eye fixed no rockets will come in tonight.
Rockets. Everyone always says they could hear the impact, but few probably ever do. Everyone is early enough in the tour that after the sirens sound and the obligatory time is spent on the floor, the atmosphere in the bunker is almost convivial: a mildly successful evening party where everyone from work shows up, but little is provided in the way of entertainment or food. By the second attack in an evening, however, the spirit has already waned as soldiers and civilians alike stand impatiently waiting for the British lass to sound,"All clear! All clear!" followed by a siren that still seems to portend danger. It's at this point everyone is considering the possibility of repeated events nightlong, and preparing for a sleepless night.
No, we don't worry about actually getting hit by the rockets. Of course it could happen. But you don't anticipate being in a car accident, either. So, like a commuter fretting over traffic jams and spilled coffee, we complain about the cold wind or having our conversation with family interrupted. It is not lost on us that 19-year-old infantrymen are walking through minefields sown with blind hatred just hours away. But, again, you never fret over the fireman the next county over while you watch TV in the evening. Knowingly or not, every man has chosen his course and its accompanying fate.
After a dinner conversation about women and their faithfulness that film critics would deride as cliched, the sun has fallen, stars have edged into the blackness, and the faraway blimps are now blinking their marking lights. It was a beautiful day in Kandahar.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
It's no violation of OPSEC to tell you that I'm in Afghanistan, specifically Kandahar Airfield, home of the world's busiest single runway. We've been here nearly a week and are getting ready to take over authority from the unit we are replacing. It's called RIP/TOA in Army parlance - Relief In Place/Transfer of Authority. I'm still forming my impressions, but have started writing some of them down. I'll be sharing them on this blog once the appropriate time has lapsed to render the information inert. (Not that most of my daily observances aren't already also observed by thousands of local nationals who work here, too, but it's best to cover yourself.) If there's one thing I'm grateful for, it's growing up in farm country. The massive waste treatment site known not-so-affectionately as the Poo Pond is frighteningly close to all of the billets, and I feel like it's always mid-spring here. Until next time, keep the home fires burning!
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Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Actor Gary Sinise has accused Brian De Palma, who directed him in Mission to Mars and Snake Eyes, of pursuing a political agenda with De Palma's award-winning 2007 drama Redacted, based on the al-Mahmudiyah crimes involving six soldiers who were convicted of raping a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and killing her family. (The film performed poorly at the box office.) "There are 150,000 people serving honorably, but Brian De Palma didn't care to show those stories," Sinise told today's (Tuesday) Chicago Tribune. The al-Mahmudiyah incident, he maintained, was "one particular, horrible episode that happened by, clearly, some criminals who happen to be in the American military." Although acknowledging that he himself had not seen the film, Sinise said that he had concluded that De Palma had intended to create anti-war propaganda with it. "I knew he had a very political agenda with making that film to make the American military look really, really horrible. ... Brian De Palma hates the American military," he said. De Palma declined to respond. Sinise himself has exec-produced his own Iraq war film, a documentary called Brothers at War due to open on Friday. "This movie is not going to be your typical blood-and-guts, negative, depressing thing about Iraq," Sinise said.
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Wednesday, February 18, 2009
DECLINING MARKET VALUE REFLECTS DUBIOUS AD ENVIRONMENT
One sign of how desperate things have gotten at the New York Times (NYT): the share price is cheaper than it costs to purchase a copy of the Sunday paper in New York City.
Shares dropped below $4 in Tuesday’s trading, reaching an all-time low for the stock. That’s south of the $4 cover price that the paper commands at New York City news vendors. (Newsstands themselves have become about as rare as a good quarter of ad spending.)
Click here to read the rest of the story.
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Sunday, February 15, 2009
I know he was filling in for someone I've never heard of who was sick. But, he is a big-bucks musician, right? No excuse. Just before the Daytona 500 started, my friend texted me about his awful performance. I agreed, so I'll just post my reply below.
It's time we just had the military bands play the anthem.
UPDATE: I initially missed the fact that Mr. DeGraw's last name has two capital letters. I didn't change the title of the post for fear of invalidating the link. Besides, this is the new media, right? We don't worry about accuracy anymore.
UPDATE 2: Apparently DeGraw performed the national anthem at the Daytona 500 in 2006 as well. While still not my ideal performance, it went much better then.
Click here to listen to his 2006 performance.
I found an archive of quite a few national anthem performances here in good old-fashioned wav format. Kristin Chenoweth is on there, too, but from an earlier performance than the one I recall. Still good, but her appearance in 2008, I believe was the best I've ever heard.
Ahhhh! It was disgusting. It was like an easy-listening version. Slow, passionless and tone-deaf, too. I was enjoying my usual annoyance of drivers too cool to put their hand on their chest, but Gavin DeGraw definitely drew all of my ire. It literally took all of the momentum out of the pre-race festivities. It's as if he believed America had died, so he sang a gentle, somber version. And I use the word "sang" in the broadest way possible.
Just awful. I have never heard a worse performance of the national anthem. They should use only local amateurs, who usually nail their chances. Or take Kristen Chenoweth along to every race.
Any time I hear One Tree Hill's theme ever again, I'll only think of his incredible awfulness.
It's time we just had the military bands play the anthem.
UPDATE: I initially missed the fact that Mr. DeGraw's last name has two capital letters. I didn't change the title of the post for fear of invalidating the link. Besides, this is the new media, right? We don't worry about accuracy anymore.
UPDATE 2: Apparently DeGraw performed the national anthem at the Daytona 500 in 2006 as well. While still not my ideal performance, it went much better then.
Click here to listen to his 2006 performance.
I found an archive of quite a few national anthem performances here in good old-fashioned wav format. Kristin Chenoweth is on there, too, but from an earlier performance than the one I recall. Still good, but her appearance in 2008, I believe was the best I've ever heard.
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