CodeMonkey

I'd venture to say not from friends and family making him feel comfortable or giving him emotional security.

If you wish to send Sen McCain a message (I just did), you can do so here. http://www.mccain.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.contactform

Wow, this is ass backwards even for the NFL owners ... Soo according to the owners, the blackout rule has increased fans ability to watch games on TV because the number of blacked out games has decreased? Seriously?? But I will tell you what ... if Sen. McCain gets rid of black outs I will retroactively vote for him for President

Nice weather and some red pinto tailgate wings at the kids day (night actually) game.

Yikes. I was not a believer in the "pussification of the NFL" theory until I read this post.

Not sure I buy your premise. Ticket sales money is dwarfed by the TV revenue. And Mr. Wilson doesn't even get all of the ticket revenue, it is shared with the visiting team. More butts in the seats means higher beer and hotdog sales I guess, but to a Billionaire like Mr. Wilson I can't imagine that money is more than a blip on his radar. The bottom line I think is that even if the blackout rule isn't making the owners much money, it certainly isn't costing them any, So they have no reason to get rid of it if they do not have to. And right now at least they do not have to. I hope McCain can change that, though I am not hopeful.

Anyone have any info on when the tickets are going to be available from Verizon for the first evening? I figure there has to be at least one Verizon employee here

Well said. I also wonder how effective the blackout rule is anyway. How many people that would watch the game on TV get a ticket (not from a scalper, but from the team) and go to blacked out games.? If I decided to go, which is unlikely in the extreme, I would get a ticket from a scalper or from stubhub. Never from the Bills. So it makes me wonder if the blackout rule has much of an impact on team ticket sales at all. There is a huge difference between watching low-def streamed video from a dedicated server and playing a real-time online game with other human players. If it is easy to get the wired connection to the laptop that will always be better. But my experience with streamed video, even near HD from places like netflix, is that wireless N is generally more than sufficient (caveat: assuming 10 other people aren't streaming video or playing online games via wireless while you are watching the streaming video ).

The HDMI has no bearing on your internet connection except that generally for throughput wired is better than wireless because it is faster and less prone to dropped packets, It can make a difference for things like netflix where it is trying to stream HD (or close to it) content. But for things like firstrow or Justin if you have wireless N it is fine as these servers don't try to push anything even close to HD down to you. But I use netflix with wireless N and the only issues I have are with netflix, not the wireless. The pauses while the buffering happens is generally due to the data coming from the server (firstrow, justin, or whatever), not your wireless (assuming you have a fairly modern wireless router and laptop). So hardwiring your laptop to the router is unlikely to affect the buffering issues. I have given up on the internet feeds. I guess I am too spoiled watching HD content. I wait and watch blacked out games during the next week or pull the network feed directly from a satellite (complicated and time consuming process to setup even if you are tech-savvy). Unless someone like firstrow starts streaming [near] HD content, which is highly unlikely, that's how it is likely to stay for me. Or until the government finally forces King Roger to drop the blackouts. As for getting the video to your TV once you have the HDMI connection, usually I set the HDMI out to be the second monitor on the laptop, set the resolution of that "monitor" (your TV in this case) to match the resolution of your TV, drag the browser that has firstrow or Hulu or whatever to that second monitor and press the "full screen" button on the video window (now on your TV) . In Windows, set the audio to go out the HDMI instead of the laptops speakers (assuming you want audio to come out of the TV and not the laptop). Open your beer and enjoy Hope this helps.

I'll probably be there for the first one seeing as how it is in the evening. But that will probably be it for me. The rest of my family, however, go ever year to almost every daytime practice. I say this pretty much every year, but if you have kids you owe it to them to take them to at least one daytime practice. The Bills do a great job and go out of their way to make it a fun time for kids.

So you think that Spiller last season was a better all around back than Thurman? I guess we have to agree to REALLY disagree on that one. Not saying Spiller can't get there someday, and I sure hope he does, but so far not even close in my opinion.

Not yet in Roch, but coming. "Sonic, based in Oklahoma City, announced Monday it had signed an agreement with a local franchise group headed by Fran DeSimone to open five local Sonics over the next four years. DeSimone has had local experience with Panera Bread, Burger King and Taco Bell franchises." http://www.democrata...?nclick_check=1 I've watched some on the internet as well. I prefer watching at home instead of at the Ralph because I can watch with my family and because of HD broadcasts. Those internet feeds are painful to watch due to the horrible video quality (I watch on my TV via the HDMI out on my laptop). If I really needed to see a game the same day (instead of watching during the next week via the replay they always have for blacked out games) and my choices were justin.tv (or any other internet feed) or making the trek to the Ralph, you would find me with my scalped ticket.

Well saying he is one of the best players to play for the Bills in recent history really isn't saying much. He has shown some flash and considerable improvement so far. But 20 years brings Thurman Thomas into play. Spiller shows a lot of promise, but he has a long way to go to be even as good as Thurman, much less better,

I'm one as well. I like CJ and hope he can continue to improve and really have a breakout season and a HOF career. He, in my opinion, was just the wrong pick at that point in time. But I still have doubts as to him being physically able to be an every-down back. I hope he can be, but we will see (hopefully as soon as this season).

I struggle to make sense out of probably 75% of the NFL rules around player contracts.

Actually the bolded part is the only reason I could see for having him at all. Insurance policy in case they did not get a QB they wanted in the draft, Once they secured Manuel they no longer had a need for TJax.

No.

My actual guess at this point is 6-8 wins.

Really not terribly surprising at all. These guys have taken repeated blows to the head from the time they were young kids. From the time they were in high school, if not before, they have been coddled and treated with kid gloves because they were good at a sport that is overtly very violent. They are by and large not intelligent individuals. What surprises me is that there aren't more arrests. But maybe some players continue to get special treatment from law enforcement as well.

Nothing special. Don't want to ruin good clothes when I slop pizza, wings, chilli etc eating dinner on my couch

There should be no bye week. End of story.

With all the kool aid drinking going on I will be disappointed to see any tickets available at noon on July 10! Lead the charge! (or whatever this years catchy slogan is )

Hoodie must have something up his sleeve.

You are right that none are farfetched. But they are all far from slam dunks as well. Far too many unknowns for anyone to make an educated guess at this point in my opinion. I mean, 0-16 seems as unlikely as 16-0. But trying to discern between 6 wins and 9 wins at this point is a flat out guess.

The only solution is actually that the lawyers do not get paid a percentage of the settlement and get just a flat, reasonable, fee (and only if they win the case).