Real Deal

Just an FYI, I went over to my parents' house today and learned that my bro's Blackberry is completely dead, and he's looking to get a new phone on pay day tomorrow. Not a surprise, with all the problems he's had over the last month (and he bought it back in May, on his birthday). I guess it's been locking up while he's texting, and now the screen isn't lighting up, calls aren't coming through (tried calling him before I went over there), and he basically just threw it up against the wall when I got there because his boss needed him to come in this afternoon, and she couldn't reach him, lol.

I think you can receive transfers at our local Wal-Mart...never done it, though, lol. And, by the way, Kyle (illwill) sent a donation. I figured he'd confirm it in here, but it's all good...I'll go ahead and put that out there. Thanks Kyle. The Knicks are a decent team. Giants, maybe.

Get the iPhone. My brother has had far too many problems with his Blackberries, and I'm still using the iPhone 3GS, and it works perfectly. The iPhone 4 is nice...Jess' brother has it. It would be in my hands if I had the spare cash, lol.

Given the fact that we've seen quadruple doubles, and that Kobe's 81 is the only 80+ point game anyone has any video evidence of...it's easily the 81.

I'm not going to put anyone's name out there because I'm suspecting everyone knows what instances I'm talking about. Also, I'm not going to step in between the fights because, to be honest, you guys should be able to deal with it in a mature and respectful manner. But the one thing I will do is point out that there are problems, and things that should be resolved, after so many weeks (or months) of seeing them escalate. Let's all figure this one out together: if you're still a part of this community, you've done something right. As all of you know, I have always placed high expectations on every dedicated member here. You can say they "survived" some of the more strict years we've had on the board. For over six years, people have left OTR because it was too strict. In a way, sure, that was a bad thing...but more good than bad, because it eliminated a lot of trolls. So, it's not a reach for me to sit here and say that OTR's foundation is made up of contributing, mature members that are expected to be "role models" of a productive basketball community (or any sports community, for that matter). Due to the reputation I believe we've earned, I think it should be easy to put a halt to things like this without the staff interfering. A simple topic should do the trick, and I'm expecting it to work out.

Simply put, I have a friend that has been taking her son to a doctor in town, and the little guy hasn't been diagnosed with anything yet. Sadly, he's pretty damn sick, and it's a problem because insurance won't allow the mother to take her son to another doc without a referral or release, and I don't know if he has time for that or not. Since we don't have much to talk about when it comes to basketball, I'm wondering if we can come together and figure something out with this kiddo. Here are his symptoms: low hemoglobin blood in stool pink around the eyes (not in eyes) fussy and acts like he's in pain sleeps a lot hardly eats shortness of breath and heavy breathing vomiting iron deficiency A local nurse practitioner suggested Aplastic Anemia, but legally, she can't diagnose it. Also, the baby has a tumor-like birthmark on his cheek, although his doctor suggests it has nothing to do with what's going on. ------ So far, I've come up with... severe food allergy Aplastic Anemia Crohn's disease Hepatitis A Parvo Cancer Obviously, I'm hoping for the food allergy. If any of you guys aren't doing anything and would like to help out and do a little research, that would be GREAT. Thanks.

This would actually be cool if it was done for every team, but for about a third of the teams in the league, it would be FAR too much work.

Shocker, really. I was pretty sure he was going to prep school. Huge break for UConn, though. Drummond is a freak.

Thank you.

You guys are done doing it, simple as that. Stop posting irrelevant topics bashing the teams you hate, and stop bringing them up for no reason at all. Stop talking about predictions others have made over the years, because I haven't seen anyone make a significant and accurate prediction for more than one season at a time. If it continues, I'm going to completely disable all posting in the NFL section of the site, no matter what. Activity lost? It doesn't matter. If that doesn't work, the moderators will be advised to hand out 30-day suspensions, and those that are given the 30 days will also have their NFL forum access cut off for 90 days. Don't start the fire, then come running to me to stomp it out. Don't continue to pour gasoline on the fire, either, because you know it hurts our reputation as a mature community at the end of the day. There are a few other sites I can think of that will welcome this type of behavior. Makes for good activity, and that's about it. Ruins everything else. It ends tonight.

The hosting hasn't been the same all the time. Costs did go up on all of the semi-dedicated servers, though, and I'm needing more HD space for what I'm doing with the website portion of OTR, so I'll more than likely have to bump back up to the second package. http://www.mddhosting.com/semidedicated.php If you combine that with the IPB board software and the video system renewals, it's just getting a bit ridiculous to pay for some of this stuff when I'm getting bombarded with medical bills (guess it's that time of the year). The kidney failure scare really put a nail in the coffin, because most of my eye issues were paid for (the major surgeries, anyway). We aren't sitting on a dedicated server hitting me up for around $200 a month, but the semi-dedicated plans are still pulling from my wallet when I'm hurting for money. It's asinine having to pay around $140 for cable and internet, $220 for electric, a car payment, house payment, and still expected to spend all of your money on unnecessary gas and food prices. Bills are a part of life, that's cool and expected, but the food and gas are killing me when I'm also having to pay off massive medical bills and a couple of loans. I'm not actually asking anyone to donate anything. All of you know I've always stated I never wanted to make money off of OTR. When I added Google Adsense (ripoffs), that money would have gone to the site if they decided not to shut me down exactly 30 days of promoting their clients. The option is just there for anyone that wants to say they made a donation to the site, to say they did a little more than post. The truth is, active members do enough just by posting. OTR won't close down, either way. Zero donations means I'll pay the entire hosting bill. Nothing changes. By the way, I did get a donation already...and it's from an anonymous member. I actually know what member it is (lol), so I'll just say thanks for the help, and that they can PM me if they want me to say their name (or that member can just do it here).

MISSED IT LAST NIGHT. I don't watch much TV, so I wasn't aware that it was coming on earlier than usual. But, okay...so Ronnie doesn't knock out Mike? WTF. I'm disappointed.

A lot of people talking about how the East Coast is full of sissies again, but it's mostly people living in locations that never see severe weather. http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/frightening-hurricane-irene-destruction-photos Take a look at those.

Possibly, but I'm one to think that Sterling would reach into his pocket with someone like Bryant in his grasp. He's trying to do it right now with Blake Griffin (he's going to do whatever he can to keep him, DeAndre and Gordon together), and honestly, when was the last time he really had a superstar on this team? I'd say never, since he purchased them in the early 80s. Other than Blake, Elton Brand may be the best player he's ever had, and in the franchise's history (even before Sterling), McAdoo is their only All-NBA First Team player. Guys like Odom (who Sterling thought was going to be the next Garnett, his words if I recall correctly) and Brand were not going to save a franchise that basically didn't give them much support as far as teammate quality goes. Elton was never going to be a franchise player, and Odom could never find a true position to play in a starting five. Of course, I'm not going to sit here and say Kobe would bring championships to "the dark side of LA" or anything. I doubt they would win it all even with him (or any single superstar over the years) on that roster, all because of the lack of planning and the bad decision-making (as you said). But, I can't compare it to LeBron's situation, especially if Kobe left the Lakers for the Clippers, because quite frankly, LeBron promised Cleveland a championship in 2006 or 2007, led them to believe he was going to stay in 2010, and Kobe would be leaving the Lakers with three rings and giving us an idea that he was headed out the door (basically stating it).

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