ohiomauler

The west 6th to west 9th street area is about a 5 minute walk from the stadium, called the warehouse district. There's a pretty good group of bars. Further into town around the baseball stadium there's another cluster, but it's about a 15 minute walk to the game from there. West bank of the flats is full of places too.

Only if you deserve it. Town's in a pissed-off mood about now. Sure you can do it, but you put a target on yourself especially since it isn't a Steeler's game. Expect a few snowballs, good packing batch this time. Hey wait, you aren't even going to the game.

Bring your snowshoes, it has been an unexpectedly early winter here. Been plowing all day. Lots of tailgating a short walk to the muni lots along the shoreway. Don't wear Steeler's stuff. Stadium is nice and try to get into the buffet in the upper crust area on the second tier. For $25 you can stuff yourself until the end of the first quarter. Great food. The area around West 6th has become the hoppin' place now. Avoid the east bank of the flats after dark. The west bank has a great old longshoreman's bar called the Harbor Inn. Every kind of booze or beer you ever knew existed. There's also a few high-dollar strip joints in the same area.

I agree, the guy has won me championships and $$$$ going back many years. He carried my team again this week, can't ask for more. Luckily I've been able to miss his bad years and capitalize on the good ones.

You forgot the physical effects of having to eat the food over there for a week. Remember, Hell is the place where; The Germans are the police The French are the mechanics The English are the cooks The Americans are the lovers. By Saturday they'll be sneaking off to France for a few of them 'Royales' with cheese(thank you, Pulp Fiction).

Good news is he won't be riding any motorcycles any time soon. Thought I saw him floating over the stadium Monday night, but it turned out to be a blimp.

About 25 years ago a local bar chartered a bus for a trip to a Cleve/Buff game. The bar owner filled the bus with many cases of imported beer, about 25 bottles of schnapps, Jack Daniels, rum, you name it. He also had 400 corned beef/swiss & roast beef sandwiches which turned into an easily stored and accessible food that required no refrigeration. A bit of over-kill, but there were lots of them left when we got back and noone left hungry. Needless to say, the 40 people on the bus were all drunk as skunks by the time we got to the game which really helped because the game was played in a steady rain in about 35 degree weather. The bus driver was drunk by the time the game was over and the trip back was a bit uneasy, but was highlighted by 7 of us playing poker on a seat cushion in the middle of the aisle. All in all it was a blast, but wouldn't want to do it again remembering the 3 day hangover. The sandwiches are a good cold food remedy for your tail-gating party.

Win or lose it's fun when your guys are running up the points. All my games have been decided by 10 points or less. Team has scored 492 points so far(60 up on #2), but sit at 2-2. 115-118 136-141 89-85 152-143 surviving last minute barrages from Tomlinson and Romo and holding off Balt. D and Ward mon. It's one of those years when you turn everyone you play against into superstars.

Playing for a playoff spot with 3 other teams(2 get in), I'm facing a win-and-in situation. Got a nice start for the week with Romo and Crosby in the books, but am going against Moss and Tomlinson. Last game 6 weeks ago I prevailed in a shoot-out 149-147 over this team, so I gotta score a bunch. I figure I have to either play both Taylor and Peterson or sit them both. I've got a couple of good options with Portis and Kolby that I'm leaning towards. ADP has been a star all year and how can you sit the guy, but I feel more comfortable with guys who should get all their team's carries.

The way I see it and may be way off in this, but if the new sod is still sitting on a layer of the root network from the old sod that's really wet, any rain that falls will get between that and the new sod layer. The new sod's root network only goes down to the layer it came with and has not had any time to start digging a foothold into the dirt, the equivalant of a throw rug on a floor. It may look pretty, but could turn out to be 'groin pull central'. If it freezes good tonight that may compound it. With that said, watch them run up and down the field all day. Still like your under bets.

Seeing as how they over-use that field so much they probably have a tractor pull there tonight and the circus there tomorrow. Did I actually read they just threw the new sod over the old grass? Doesn't seem like a good idea from here. Wet, moldy grass is really slippery.

Personally, I don't like your idea. A few years ago in trying to eliminate ties we went to the decimal system with no threshholds. We made all 'chip shot' FGs up to 30 yds. 1 pt., from there it was .1 for every yard so a 49 yarder was worth more than a 40 yarder by almost a point. We also penalized missed XPs and FGs 1 point. We did that on all players(tenths with no threshholds) and wound up eliminating all ties and we had a few games decided by less than a point. We still gave the 100 yd. bonuses and since the web was totalling the scores the commish didn't have to much at all once the perameters were set. It worked out well.

Well, for me it's possibly the last game of the season. A loss could could mean being knocked out of the playoffs if 2 other teams win. Do I go for all the yards between Taylor and Peterson or risk shooting a dart at the Denver situation? It's probably the first time I've ever been so tempted to do something I swore I'd never do, but there could be a couple of hundred yards and a few TDs in there. I still have good other options in Portis and Bush& Maroney(who've both been riding the pine for longer than I can remember along with Selvin). If it wasn't for the bottom half of my draft & and the wire it would have been a bad year. Anyone else in a similar mindset?

Luck comes into play in many forms. Getting lucky this year is when you're playing the Brady owner on his bye week(not me). Luck is when your opponent sits a guy who goes off. Luck is not losing a game or two a year by micro-managing your team and overreading match-ups like I did thinking Romo wasn't as good a start against Chicago as some stiff named Young. You have to be lucky if you can even that out or not do it at all. This year the 'never bench your studs' theory is a minefield with all the injuries. You're lucky this year if your 1st rd. pick is still standing. I find I've gone farther towards championships when I have a team that gets me steady points every week. This year I've got one of those teams that scores huge every once in a while. I'll have weeks when I lose when every player has a collective letdown and score 90-100 pts. followed by a week where I score 150+. This year I've gotten clobbered by more 'garbage time' points than ever before, bad luck. Last week I won 181-66, but sat there with an empty feeling wishing those points were spread out to close games where they could have made a difference. You also have to be lucky to not pull the plug on guys after 3-4 weeks of bad play(Lee Evans and the like).

Any other candidates?

The results so far are pretty interesting, very spread out with no clear-cut leader. In throwing this together this morning I really wasn't that awake and should have added Jennings and Edwards. Anderson does make sense, not being on most drafts, being the top pick-up. I was pondering leaving Brady off the list, but from what I saw so many QBs were picked before him and he has distanced himself by so much there probably aren't too many owners who don't feel they 'stole' him. In our draft Manning, Brees, McNabb, Palmer & Bulger went before him. I took ADP in the 8th rd. as my #4 RB behind Bush, Maroney & Portis so he gets my vote narrowly beating Romo who I drafted in the(cough,cough) 11th rd.

Waking up yesterday I was a 15 point dog on Sportsline playing a 6-2 team with me in the basement at 2-6. My team was: Romo ADP Portis Fitzgerald Evans Curtis Sheffler Akers GB d Wake up today winning(so far) 181-54. His team: Brady McGahee Alexander Chad Johnson Roy Williams Santana Moss Gates Vinitieri Minn d He had pulled off a trade Sunday AM that involved 2 of his players in his active lineup that were updated while the live scoring was going on. He had Jamal Lewis active then Alexander was put in in his place. He also had Jennings active replaced by Roy Williams. He kept losing points and by 4:00 games I was ahead 138-14. So many strange things going on like Gates not getting points and Evans(who he had originally drafted then dropped after week 5) going off. The 181 points are the league high for the year and I rank it my most bizarre day in FF.

Seems you can throw a hat over all these guys this week. I know I'll leave points on the bench, but how can you maximize? I hate Rattay, but Fitz is my #1 Curtis is the biggest risk/reward Berrian has hands of stone, but is always open Cal Johnson looks great, but.... Mason=steady points every week All help is appreciated

Looked like last week they were running from the spread formation in the first half. The end zone shots showed the gaping holes resulting in 88yds. by halftime. The second half they came out with a lead and packed it in running it up the gut. It drove me nuts in the middle of a 149-147 battle for survival he got to the 100yd mark, bonus kicked in, lost 4 yds., gained 1 yd. in 3 carries, game over.

I'm not about to bury Bush just yet, this week may show his true colors(whatever they are). As far as AD, every time I see him it looks like a 6th grader playing against the 5th graders. He reminds me of the kid from your neighborhood that kept hitting you in the face with his elbows as he's chugging along with you hanging on trying to tackle him. I'm sure glad to have him on my team so far.

As much as I'd like to plug him in, I just can't risk it. No other alternatives in the late games so I'll stick with Portis and Bush. Listen up Reggie, if you want to see the field for the foreseeable future you'd better get me some points. Too bad it'll be 2 more weeks before they play again, but the situation should be much clearer then.

After a weekend where my 'out' player played(Ward) and my 'questionable' players sat(Maroneyand Walker) I had Graham pencilled in all the way till Tuesday. The words that changed my mind came from Henry's mouth. He said "he thought his season was over" when he got hit. Funny thing is that was before the suspension stuff. He may have been quite prophetic without even realizing it. Dropped Ward BTW. Now to hope he doesn't do a Quentin job on me. He looked great against the Browns in preseason, the only time I've seen him play.

My season started with picking the last pick in the draft out of a hat when the piece of paper stuck to my hand. I should have seen it as an omen. Not a bad team, but got crushed by teams who went nuts on me first 2 weeks. Week 3 I just had to over-think my QB decision and sat Romo in favor of Young on MNF. Lost by 5. Last week I had Bush and Portis on a bye. I still had ADP playing and had to choose between Maroney or Ward as a #2. Along with them I had Walker as questionable. Our league only lets you IR guys who are doubtful or out. First thing Sunday news comes out Ward is out. I plug in Maroney figuring he's just questionable. Sunday night there's Ward starting and Maroney never hit the field. Lucky for me I couldn't get Sportsline to do a WW pick-up for Ward, was going after buckhalter. May have forfeited a win which I doubled the opponent(commish) even with an egg from Maroney. If this is any help. I picked up Selvin Young, so Henry will probably play and go crazy, mark my words.

A little help, if you could. I know 8 team leagues suck, but when the commish doesn't lock up the other guys he's 'lined up' that's what you get. Got some interesting picks this week let me know who you'd take. QB Young or Romo RB's(2) Bush Maroney Portis Peterson WR's(3) Fitz Walker Cal Johnson Berrian Thanks

The Browns look a bit inspired and could give the Steelers quite a game. I wish they had the balls to start Quinn right out of the box. I'd also start Cribbs and give him the ball on a lot of trick plays, he's looked very good in the preseason. It's a rainy, sloppy day and everybody's gonna get muddy. The stadium flooded out this summer and hopefully the sewers will hold. If not it could be the ugliest game in history.