Desipio Message Board

I can't imagine anyone that likes Star Wars not liking that movie regardless of whether you are good and smart and right thinking and loved the Last Jedi or you're a basement-dwelling reddit Nazi that hates women and did not like TLJ.

That was just 2 hours of quality, fun Star Wars filler. Solid B+

I know there are several scattered throughout here but I'm going through my annual spring training phase where I read every baseball book I can get my hands on and wondered what I've missed.

I've obviously read Moneyball, really enjoyed The Cubs Way, The Arm by Jeff Passan, and Ball Four is one of my all time favorite books, period. Others I've read of varied quality are Kaplan's Cubs book The Plan, Big Data Baseball, and the Bill James Historical Abstract.

Any great ones I'm missing?

Time for a second ring, but also I don't want to derail the Yu Darvish thread with "WHO SHOULD MAKE THE ROSTER?" talk because there's usually a dedicated thread for that stuff, so here it is.

Don't go if you've got superhero fatigue or if you need Cyborg, Aquaman, or Flash explained to you. But if you don't, and you have fondness for the characters or loved the JL cartoon, you'll probably really like this? They also finally get Superman right

Incredibly fun, beautifully weird. If you love Jack Kirby you will adore the entire design of the movie, especially Jeff Goldblum's gladiator planet. It really is everything a Thor movie should be. My only critique is that it is almost too funny, there are some spots where they could have benefitted from not immediately downplaying the seriousness of what just happened with a one-liner or gag. Overall, though, would definitely recommend to anyone from diehards to newbies.

It took me awhile to finally watch this because I knew it was pretty damn grim and depressing, and there's no doubt that it's hard to watch Patrick Stewart especially portray a dying, Alzheimers-y Xavier, but that's X-Men, I guess. all of their alternate futures are always bad, and it's always a reminder of how dangerous prejudice is. Getting past the grim tone, though, this is a very good movie that's a very explicit homage to Shane, among other westerns it samples. I'd recommend it if you don't mind being perhaps kind of depressed afterwards.

Also an R-rated Wolverine movie...holy shit, the blood.

The goddamn brass balls on this guy. Extension please.

Hi y'all. The wife and I have tickets to see Hamilton on September 30th. It's a 2:30 show, gonna take the train in to town then leave late that night probably. I don't really know the area around the Private Bank Theater at all, so anybody got some good recommendations for a quick/cheapish lunch before the show and a fancier dinner afterwards?

We like just about anything, but usually if we leave bugtussle to the go to the fancy city we try do get something we can't get around here (so good pizza places are fine, but Iowa got pizza sometime around 1982 so anything more original than that is welcome)

I'm not to firebarn stage but his wRC+ is back down to 84. Can he fucking hit at some point or no

Montero responded to a troll on twitter saying he "hit the biggest homer in Cubs history" and while I will grant that Miguel arguably drove in the biggest run in Cubs history (unless you count Zobrist's as the "game-winning hit" as the box score does), the home run thing is debatable.

Challengers:

Schwarber G4 Against the Cardinals= in context not actually the most important in terms of win probability added, but I think it's come to be seen as a major turning point in franchise history.

Baez G1 vs Giants= if he doesn't hit that dinger they might end up facing Cueto in a win or die situation in the first round.

Russell G4 vs the Dodgers= broke that incredibly awful long scoreless streak and gave the Cubs the lead/unleashed the floodgates when they looked momentarily in danger of going down 3-1 with Kershaw looming.

Bryant G5 of the World Series= 5 innings away from going home and trailing, Bryant dingers and saved the season, also broke Bauer's fragile psyche enough to allow Rizzo to nearly go back to back, setting up the go ahead runs.

Russell G6 Grand Slam= broke that one open and guaranteed Game 7.

Any of the Game 7 Dingers= in the end they needed all of them.

I despised Man of Steel. I...whatever is 1,000 times worse than despise'd Batman V Superman. I weirdly kind of liked Suicide Squad while acknowledging that in most ways it is a total mess of a movie. The Justice League rumors sound disastrous, Affleck supposedly wants to bail on his own solo Batman movie, which was originally supposed to be a move he personally wrote, directed, and starred in (and he's abandoned the writer/director parts already). This universe is a disaster, I should not allow myself to be sucked in by anything...

....and yet these trailers make me think maybe, just MAYBE, they've actually nailed the Wonder Woman thing.

The director, Patty Jenkins has actually cited Indiana Jones and Richard Donner's Superman as her two main influences, which would be ideal. There's even a nice tribute to Donner's Superman in one of the trailers, where Diana saves Steve from a bullet in an alley, much like Clark saves Lois in Superman.

God just let one of these fucking movies be good.

For the Star Wars fans, this is a must read: https://www.amazon.com/Bloodline-Star-Wars-Claudia-Gray/dp/0345511360/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1484329281&sr=1-1&keywords=bloodline

A legitimately good political thriller that explains why Leia stopped being a Senator, came to realize the First Order was a real threat, and started the resistance.

I'm sure you may not take my word for it as the guy who loves all thing Star Wars but as a guy who has read dozens of SW novels there's only a handful I would recommend (for instance the Aftermath books by Chuck Wendig that have been covering the events directly after ROTJ have been kind of underwhelming and I wouldn't recommend them to anyone who isn't a completist) and this is definitely one of them.

Let's talk about some goddamn baseball, people.

Who is going to give Rich Hill a lot of money to watch him spend next year on the DL?

Who gives Cespedes the massive contract they should have just given him last year rather than wait and overpay him when he's another year older?

Will the White Sox sell, add, or once again just stand there doing nothing and hoping 85 wins fall into their laps and it works out?

I think that relief appearance in a WS game merits your own thread

The plot is weak and scattershot and basically amounts to "save the world from a big glowy beam thing" much like both Avengers and Man of Steel etc. If you're not fond or familiar with these characters and are tired of superhero movies stay away.

That said I actually liked it and really don't think it warrants most of the shit I have seen it get. It's nowhere near worse than BvS and it tries to have fun and mostly succeeds.

Viola Davis is a perfect Waller. Will Smith isn't really comics Deadshot but he's good enough as Will Smith. Robbie steals the show as Harley even if some of the Joker stuff is dumb. It's really a movie where you'll forgive its issues because you like the characters or you won't if you don't

Jeff Passan's in depth look at the history of pitching, Tommy John surgery, the way youth sports is destroying kid's elbows now, and also a lot of insight into how major league times are trying to keep arms healthy, along with a very in depth look into the Cubs-Lester negotiations. I have no idea how or why but it's for sale right now on Amazon for $1.99 (for the kindle edition at least). I have no idea why it's on such an insane deal but buy it. It's really good.

Ruben Quevedo, dead at 37.

I got this one for Christmas from my mother in law. I'd recommend pretty much anything by James McPherson (Battle Cry of Freedom is easily the best one volume history of the Civil War, and his book Tried By War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief makes an excellent companion to this book), but books written from Jefferson Davis' perspective by a person who is not at all a southern sympathizer (eat me, Shelby Foote) are pretty rare.

Anyways, McPherson says right out in his introduction that his goal is not to compare Davis to Lincoln in any way because that happens so often and Lincoln obviously comes out looking better. This book is solely about Davis and how he probably handled being president of the Confederacy better than anyone else could have. It doesn't deny a lot of the things said about him (namely that he was a crotchety, arrogant, micro-managing dick) but mostly explains why he kind of had to be a crotchety, arrogant, micro-managing dick.

It's a quick read (only about 220 not very long pages), but I highly enjoyed it.

Ah fuck it. Have yourself a fun farewell season, Grandpa.

I don't know if we have something like this, we probably should, if we already do I apologize.

But fuck this fucking guy: Billy Hamilton. Mother fucker has a career line of .241/.288/.331/.619 and hits .322/.381/.504/.885 against the Cubs, which is especially aggravating given his speed and the fact that the Cubs don't really control the running game for shit.

I mean, they still usually kick the shit out of the Reds, but fuck this fucking guy.