Friday OT Thread

1. When I was 13 I tossed a no-hitter for 6 2/3 innings – the very last hitter reached on a bunt single. Struck the next guy out. It was all downhill from there.

2. There is a montage on the show “West Wing” where Toby goes to the homeless vet’s funeral and they play “Little Drummer Boy” in the background as the President does a lighting ceremony for the Christmas tree. It has all the elements I should hate – jingoism, blatant manipulation, a song I hate…and yet it always gets me choked up and its just awesome.

The montage before KU basketball games is pretty awesome too.

3. Most endearing: the fountains

Least endearing: the location.

Install more automated ticket kiosks.

4.

Flailing

Royal

Endears

Ned

Couldn’t

Hit

Yomama

5. Caddyshack

Bonus: When Jim kissed Pam for the first time.

1. Teaching several guys on my floor in college how to play volleyball properly, and them winning the intramural championship game without me when I had to miss the game to go to Toledo for a job interview.
2. Maybe because I just saw it, but the ‘birth of the universe to the birth of man’ montage in “Tree Of Life” was unforgettable. I also liked the Montage Song montage in “Team America World Police”
3. The ease of parking or the sight lines being good from every part of the park.
4. Nah, not really into that kind of wordplay. Or going into why.
5. “Raizing Arizona”

When they replaced Correll with Idris Elba as the manager (love Elba, but you can’t have two straight-men, Jim being the other, and have it work well, and they should have known that); it’s the first time I think the writers miss-stepped. I thought those episodes were clunky.

1. What athletic feat from your past are you most proud of? Regale us with a story like some Dickensian ghost of Little Leagues past. Feel free to embellish. It’s the internet, we all assume you’re lying anyway.
Completing a marathon. It was really difficult and took months of training to get ready for it. It’s not that great of a story beyond that – my time was pretty middle of the pack. But, rarely in life does something with so much hard work have such a clearly defined payoff. Crossing the finish line with hundreds of people cheering for your is a pretty special feeling.

2. In your opinion what is the most awesome montage in the history of film? This can be interpreted in a couple ways; it can be awesomely good or awesomely bad, but it must be a montage that inspires awe.
I’m a fan of the ‘Indians start winning’ montage in Major League. It’s a mixture of game highlights, practice highlights (Roger Dorn’s learning how to field!), taking the pieces of clothing off of the picture of the owner, the commercials…it’s a pretty good one.

3. What is the one thing that endears Kauffman Stadium to you the most? The least? If you could make one change big or small to the operations there, what would it be?
The least is how bush league/minor league it tends to be. It seems like baseball is a small part of the experience. The constant in-game promotions, the K crew, the shiny objects and loud noises going on CONSTANTLY, the carousel, etc. I’ve been to games at some other stadiums, and the experience is so much more about baseball. The Royals experience is just so gimmicky. It’s understandable in a way, considering that the team has been so bad for so long than you can’t really blame them for wanting to distract fans from the actual baseball…but it’s not what I’m into. That and not being a downtown stadium.

Favorite part is probably just how affordable it is, relatively speaking. The prices for parking and beer are absurd when compared to the real world, but they’re pretty terrific just in terms of in comparison to other sports. If you bring your own food to the game or tailgate beforehand, you can get pretty reasonable tickets at a good price. It’s pretty doable to go to five to ten games a year without being wealthy to do it. When I went to a game in St. Louis, I paid $90 for our two tickets that were literally in the second highest row of the upper deck (albeit right behind home plate). Those same tickets at the K are going to cost like $12 a pop, potentially less if you get a deal, and you might get a bobble head or a jersey to boot.

4. Name acrostic puzzle time! If you don’t know how to do these, then I’m assuming you never made it past 1st grade. Let’s try one for Frenchy first.

F – Free swinging,

R – right field

E – everyman.

N – Naked BP,

C – clutch

H – hits

Y – ya heard?

5. What’s the most quotable movie of all time? What quote are you most likely to work into a conversation?
Clerks is pretty damn quotable.

1. The old hat trick in soccer.

2. Kenny G’s 1993 album, “Montage”.

3. Haven’t been since 1990, but I always like the grass beyond the outfield walls. I’ll get over that loss someday.

5. Anchorman or Stepbrothers.

Bonus: Casting John Krasinski.

1. I ran a marathon once just to spite an ex-girlfriend who made some comment after we broke up that went something like “I’m starting to work out more, so I can expand the field of guys that are available for me to date”. I dropped 40 pounds in the process and developed a bad case of tendonitis in my knees around mile 12, but I finished.

2. The original Karate Kid montage is my favorite. None of it makes any sense. Daniel almost loses his first fight in the tournament (which inexplicably is full of spectators), then suddenly figures out that getting out of the way of punches and kicks is a good strategy for not losing. This is enough to trigger Joe Esposito’s “You’re The Best Around” to start playing while Daniel lays waste to a competition field full of contestants who would definitely kick his ass in real life.

3. I love the scoreboard and the fact that they didn’t really change the feel of it by making it infinitely better with the HD display. I hate that all you see behind it is trucks on 1-70. I’d change some of the “Outfield Experience”. I love the Little Kauffman field, don’t really have an opinion on the carousel good or bad, and hate the mini-golf course. WTF?

4.
F – Former Brave
R – Righthanded pitcher’s favorite
E – EVERY day player
N –
C – Crazy Eyes
H – Hot(ish) wife?
Y – Leadership. Y? Because he said so.

5. Stepbrothers for me. “Stop being a fucking dinosaur and get a job”

Bonus: They definitely wrote themselves into a corner when they made Ryan VP for awhile. Then a bowling alley attendant. Then hired him back. But it was probably when they decided they needed Jim and Pam to end up together in the first place.

Your welcome.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/extramustard/hotclicks/02/10/alex-morgan-in-sports-illustrated-swimsuit-issue/?xid=cnnbin

1. I once robbed a home run in little league

2. Has to be Team America or Rocky IV

3. Home of the Royals
Merry-go-round
Oklahoma Joes

4.
F – Fucking

R – Rock Star,

E – Esoteric

N – Neanderthol,

C – Cant

H – Hit

Y -Yovani

5. The Big Lebowski

1. I completed an Olympic distance triathlon last year in Paola, KS. I agree with the above marathon posters… the camraderie and overall positive experience was worth the training. Definitely gonna compete in more. If I had to go earlier in my life, I once put up 24 points in a half in basketball before the opposing team went to a box and one defense for the second half. Sophomore in high school.

2. Serious answer: Rocky’s training montage. Inner child answer: Southpark – Randy’s beer drinking training montage. Awesome.

3. Like the most – The open grass hills in the outfield The fountains
The least – The fact that neither outfield restaurant is a Kansas City barbeque business
Change – Less in-game distractions. I go to watch the game, not to be entertained every single minute. Although I do love the hot dog derby.

4. F: free swinging
R: Riveting (in a bad way)
E: Everyday
N: Nut-tapping
C: Cannon-armed
H: Hijinx-minded
Y: Y-Chromisome (I always viewed Frenchy having both a masculine and immature boy-type mentality)

5: Caddyshack, Airplane, or The Hangover. If I had to pick one, I’d go with Caddyshack. So much talent in that movie.

1. What athletic feat from your past are you most proud of? I’ve said it on here before, but…in high school freshman gym glass, on the softball diamond, took giant swing at the ball and broke aluminum bat squarely in half (did you know that there’s this foam rubber stuff inside them?). Sadly the next best of mine is scoring 14 or so points in a jr. high JV basketball game. I was also the only one of my friends who could do a “backside shove-it no comprende.”

2. In your opinion what is the most awesome montage in the history of film? Rocky IV—“There’s No Easy Way Out” - I’m sure there are better ones out there, like “you’re the best around” Karate Kid one, but the Rocky IV one came to my mind immediately-him slogging through the snow, carrying bags of grain or whatever, working out like a commie on commie turf. Just beautiful.

3. What is the one thing that endears Kauffman Stadium to you the most? I really don’t have a good answer to this. I wish there was something there that has always been there that was somewhat iconographic, but I can’t think of one other than my favorite team in all of sports. The least? Location, location, location. Downtown, dumbasses. If you could make one change big or small to the operations there, what would it be? Cheaper beer, even slightly. Say, $5 instead of $7 or $8. That might spell a giant dip in revenue, but it could be made up for in some other way. Maybe, I dunno, NOT overpaying Francouer?

4. Name acrostic puzzle time! If you don’t know how to do these, then I’m assuming you never made it past 1st grade. Let’s try one for Frenchy first.

F -or

R -eal

E -ven

N -eifi

C -an

H -it

Y -o

nonsensical. just didn’t want to pass on it.

5. What’s the most quotable movie of all time? For me, it’s The Shining, also one of my favorite films. What quote are you most likely to work into a conversation? “Mr. Grady, you WERE the caretaker here.” I don’t know why, I guess I don’t quote movies often, but I have used that quote a few times for whatever reason.

Bonus for watchers of The Office: In lieu of last night’s development where the writers are obviously trying to concoct a new Jim and Pam storyline for no real reason, if you could pinpoint the moment in series history where the show officially jumped the shark, what would that moment be? The fifth or sixth time Jim looked to the camera and raised his eyebrows.

1. What athletic feat from your past are you most proud of? Regale us with a story like some Dickensian ghost of Little Leagues past. Feel free to embellish. It’s the internet, we all assume you’re lying anyway.

I guess running three sub-17:00 5Ks my junior year. If only I had been able to carry that on into my senior year…

2. In your opinion what is the most awesome montage in the history of film? This can be interpreted in a couple ways; it can be awesomely good or awesomely bad, but it must be a montage that inspires awe.

Oh God. Where to begin? While one could certainly look toward the granddaddy of them all ‘The Odessa Steps’ sequence in Potemkin, I feel like that is too ‘first-year film school.’ While the montage obviously owes an immeasurable debt of gratitude to the Soviets, I would tend to believe that the training montage in Rocky IV was the most important as it (along with Rocky’s heart) won the Cold War.

It’s either that or the Kenny Rogers working himself into racing shape montage in Six Pack, especially when one considers what a deviant Rogers is and the fact that he was invariably propositioning phone sex from (or more likely foisting it upon) a nubile Diane Lane. They might be the creepiest sit-ups ever performed.

I do feel like I should at least mention the montage of the war between Max Fischer and Herman Blume in Rushmore and the training sequence in Wet Hot American Summer that is itself an homage to the Rocky films, as both are fantastic.

3. What is the one thing that endears Kauffman Stadium to you the most? The least? If you could make one change big or small to the operations there, what would it be?

Having only been there a few times, I don’t know that I’m especially qualified to comment on this. I do tend to think the improvement in the outfield have taken some of the shine from the idyllic fountains of old (at least the image of them that I have in my head, which could surely have been betrayed by my memory and the ill-effects of nostalgia).

4. Name acrostic puzzle time! If you don’t know how to do these, then I’m assuming you never made it past 1st grade. Let’s try one for Frenchy first.

I’m going to operate under the assumption that you meant ‘acronym’ time an go forward, as there are no questions with numbers corresponding under the blank spaces for the answer that then correspond with another puzzle in which those letters are applied to the appropriate numbered space.

F – Francoeur

R – RBIzzzz

E – Everyone

N – Never

C – Cries

H – Heals

Y – Youths

5. What’s the most quotable movie of all time? What quote are you most likely to work into a conversation?

MQoAT – The Big Lebowski
Most used – “So that happened.” – from State and Main

Bonus for watchers of The Office: In lieu of last night’s development where the writers are obviously trying to concoct a new Jim and Pam storyline for no real reason, if you could pinpoint the moment in series history where the show officially jumped the shark, what would that moment be?

I actually don’t think that plot point was for no reason. Relationships are tested all the time with stuff like that. Also, I’m apparently in the minority, but I think the character of Michael Scott had been hanging like an albatross around the neck of the show for ages. He needed to go and should have left with Holly the first time. While I don’t necessarily think choosing Andy to be the boss was the best choice, I’d rather have that than more seasons of Michael’s tedious buffoonery.

I actually re-watched the whole series over the last few months of 2011. Waiting for the Jim and Pam relationship to happen is really the only emotionally affective capital the show had until Michael’s farewell (which was touching until they had Pam say what Michael told her sans mic). We can say that the show hasn’t been the same since they got together, but there’s also little the producers could have done to avoid that. You can only fuck around with characters who so obviously belong together for so long before the audience feels resentful about it.

The real issue is that the show was working too closely to its British predecessor, and therefore had two characters that the audience could actually care about. Sure, some have developed since the show began, but none developed past the point of being caricatures or general stereotypes, so there is no one to actually care about. It’s clear that they learned their lesson with Parks & Rec, as we have emotionally invested a lot more energy into the secondary characters from the beginning of the second season on.

-OMD

1. First game, Senior year, named captain of basketball team, messed around and got a double-double (26 and 14), ended up being by far best game of my career. All downhill from there, blew ACL in rec league game in college, can barely jump and touch the god damn net anymore. Those fuckers from Neligh remember that night back in Nov 1983 tho.

2. Excellent choices so far. Just to be different, how about the montage spoof in Team America, or flashback montage work in underrated cheeseball classic Fandango, or any manner of gangsta related score settling montage scenes in the Godfather movies or even Goodfellas, and just about any Wes Anderson. Hackman running riot with Ben Stiller’s boys, including the dog fight, was pretty sweet in Tenenbaums. Awesomely bad, how about Butch Cassidy & Sundance Kid.

3. I like the sight lines in the stadium, and the child-like thrill I still get when I come down from the hinterlands of the north, switch from 435 to 70, and BAM, Royals stadium looming pretty on the right like a blue fucking jewel. Not really a bad seat in the house if you aren’t up too high. The grass has made a huge difference. I dig seeing all the green, man. But yeah, should be downtown. KC and the powers that be are going against a big trend in development by surrounding a sporting venue with acres of parking instead of mixed use retail, bars, shops, etc….too bad it didn’t get moved downtown when the chance was kinda sorta there for the taking.

4. F: Fucking
R: Renders
E: Eagles
N: Non
C: Conformists
H: Howling
Y: Yowling

5. Yellowbeard or Waiting for Guffman

1. I have surprisingly few athletic accomplishments in my life. Do we consider marching band to be an accomplishment? Thank God I don’t have to do it now. We played frisbee in the dorm hallways freshman year of college. But that wasn’t an ‘accomplishment’.

2. As far as epic montages go, there’s not many that can beat the one in LOtR: Fellowship of the Ring in which the Fellowship is travelling all sorts of places with Shore’s music and cool helicopter shoots.

3. I WOULD MAKE SURE EVERYONE GETS A T-SHIRT DURING T-SHIRT TUESDAY AND THAT NO ONE TAKES MORE THAN ONE. Ahem. But I love Kauffman. It has a clean, organized, efficient feeling about it. No bad seats in the house.

4. Fantastic
Revolutions
Equip
Nigel’s
Chaimail
Happy
Yarn

That was bad.

5. Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Duh. “It’s only a flesh wound!”

1. I have some grand SPA memories, but the most strenuous thing I can think of is: I fasted for 11 days once. I feel like this is an athletic endeavor. I still don’t know how I did it. I plan on doing a juice fast sometime in the future if I can get to that point. The weird, or not so weird part, was that I was still working, exercising and playing racquetball during the fast.

2. Glad to see the Rocky mentions. I will go with 2 others: The first is a cheat, but the ESPN 30 for 30: June 17, 1994 is just jaw-dropping. No other way to explain it. It is a montage the whole way through, but plays like a movie. The Royals are even in it. One of the few films that left me stunned for an hour after I watched it.

The second is the montage at the end of Season 2 of The Wire. Just a culmination of a lot of emotion with flashes of hard-working Baltimore. Amazing way to end a highly underrated season.

Honorable mention: the Usual Suspects for use pertaining solely to the plot

3. I love that the giant crown is on display in all of its glory when you drive by on I-70. I used to bow down in the car driving by like Wayne & Garth. And I happen to like the trucks driving by on the highway in the background while in the stadium, because it gives me a feel of where I am at (and isn’t Kansas City all highways anyhow?). I also like imagining what it would take to hit a homer onto the highway.

Put Outfield GA back in!!!!!!!!!!!!!

4.
French
Renal
Eyelets
Never
Crack
Homers
Yaknow?

5. Pulp Fiction: “Say what one more time…”

Feisty Royals envision new crown? Hosmer: Yes!

is the Freud of quotable movies…we know all the quotes, but we don’t know where they come from

I just got one but am getting annoyed at not being able to jump to new comments. I just scroll up and down to look for the yellow ones, is there any way to jump comments like you can with a computer and keyboard?

I responded by saying “when they’re getting ready to fly back home you should ask them if you could borrow $50” and he said “haha I will”

I should respond with “hey man can I borrow $5000? I’m serious.”