Geoff B

Hey all,

I was the commish of a Fantasy Football league for the first time last year and now that we're coming up to football season again I wanted to invite my friends back to the same league.

Do I have to manually re-activate the league or invite them back or something? Or will the league just start again on its own?

Thanks!

Good morning all,

Around 6:30 today I was awoken by a light bulb shattering in the living room. The lamp in question is plugged into a power strip. My girlfriend had turned off the lamp, switched off the power strip, and then unplugged it (She is very meticulous about this).

I've read that bulbs can pop like this either due to a sudden temperatures change (Very doubtful anything could have caused this), being a faulty bulb, or a wiring issue. The wiring issue is what I'm most afraid of. Still, we've lived in this apartment and used this lamp through this power strip plugged into this outlet for a year and a half and never had this happen, so if it was a wiring issue wouldn't this have happened before?

The bulb in question had been in that lamp for awhile, at least a few weeks. Any insight from someone with some knowledge on this topic would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

Good morning all,

Around 6:30 today I was awoken by a light bulb shattering in the living room. The lamp in question is plugged into a power strip. My girlfriend had turned off the lamp, switched off the power strip, and then unplugged it (She is very meticulous about this).

I've read that bulbs can pop like this either due to a sudden temperatures change (Very doubtful anything could have caused this), being a faulty bulb, or a wiring issue. The wiring issue is what I'm most afraid of. Still, we've lived in this apartment and used this lamp through this power strip plugged into this outlet for a year and a half and never had this happen, so if it was a wiring issue wouldn't this have happened before?

The bulb in question had been in that lamp for awhile, at least a few weeks. Any insight from someone with some knowledge on this topic would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

Hi everyone. So I am currently entered in my college's "Man Pageant." It's a charity event and is just for fun, but there's a swimwear part and I certainly wouldn't mind impressing folks.

That being said, I started working out for it about a month ago. My resources are a little limited, but I think I developed a pretty good routine of doing pushups, bicep curls, tricep curls, bicycles, and full body crunches.

My abs are coming along alright. I've always had sort of a 6 pack but now it's actually solid and defined. It isn't model material, but you can see it at least.

Anyways, what I'm more concerned about is my arms. The weird thing is that throughout my life (I'm a lefty) my left arm has always been bigger than my right by a little bit. I think that this is relatively normal BUT now my right arm seems to be larger.

In any case, what I'm trying to focus on now for the next couple weeks is my upper arms. They're alright, but I'm a naturally pretty skinny guy so even though there's a lot of definition, there isn't that much bulk.

So my question to you guys is, how much would be too much training to add bulk fast to my upper arms? At what point would I start doing damage to the muscles rather than promoting growth?

Thanks!

Let me first say, this is NOT a question. This is me making observations and posting it on a forum full of great tennis fans whom I know will appreciate it.

It's a tall order. No doubt about it. I am very bored and have a couple of hours to kill, so I'm going to piece together the MOST PLAUSIBLE possible way for Roger Federer to slowly overcome the ridiculous gap between himself and Rafael Nadal in order to reclaim the world No. 1 ranking.

RIGHT NOW (Gosh I wish they had the option to make bold letters here, caps look so aggressive)

Rafael Nadal: 11880

Roger Federer: 7335

Okay, sweet. Just took a bathroom break and then went to get a couple of cold Leine's. I'm ready for this. Also, let me give a premature thank you and shout out to the invention of tabs in internet browsers for making this possible.

Here we go. This week, Roger Federer competes in Stockholm, a 250 level tournament. He has a relatively easy draw, with the most difficult competition prior to the final being Stanislas Wawrinka. In the final, he would face either Robin Soderling or Tomas Berdych. I would favor him over both guys, but especially the Swede. Additionally, I would favor Robin over Tomas in their potential semi-final clash. Therefore, I will make the reasonable prediction that Roger Federer can and should win this tournament, adding 250 points to his total.

I just realized the real challenge here will be keeping this within Yahoo! Answers' "character limit." *Edit* I am well over their limit. I am posting this to a blog for those who wish to read it. Please please click this link to continue reading. I worked for hours at this actually and I hope you won't be disappointed if you're willing to take the time to look it over.

http://geoffbruce.blogspot.com/2010/10/how-roger-f...

Okay, a lot of people might scoff at the question initially, especially Rafa fans, and that's perfectly justified, but allow me to elaborate a bit. I was originally going to ask, who is better with their backhand when on the defensive, which is a far more interesting question at surface-value. However, if you really think about it, Fed has improved his backhand tremendously in the last couple of years, it's really the only part of his game that hasn't gotten worse. It's a very big weapon for him offensively.

Their backhands are as different as possible. Nadal loves to rip his crosscourt tremendously hard and has also developed a relatively good slice. It is a relatively safe rally shot for him but he can also attack it. His 2 hander is as powerful as any in the world, particularly when using the extreme angle. Meanwhile, Fed's is much more about precision and placement. He makes far more errors off of his backhand than Rafa, but part of that is because he tends to go for it more often. When Nadal attacks his backhand it's crosscourt, when Roger goes big on his, it's almost always down the line (See Aussie Open 2010 against Murray). Fed can also create an extreme angle with the backhand to open up the court and probably has the best slice in the world.

In regards to defense, both are great off of the backhand wing as well. Nadal gets great depth on his backhand to keep him in points, has developed the reliable slice, and hits stinging passes from a good ten feet behind the baseline if you come in towards his backhand, which you really have to, since his forehand will almost always pass you. As for Roger, his topspin backhand is relatively lacking on the defensive end. He can hit some great passes with it, but the true defensive strength of his backhand is his incredible ability to be stretched way off the court and still slice the ball back right to the opponents' baseline. While Rafa uses a stopspin 2 hander to keep his opponent at bay, Roger uses the slice with incredible control and touch to keep him in many points that he probably should lose. The other big thing about Fed's defense on the backhand is "the Flick" which is just an outrageous bit of skill that no other player in the world has. Even other players with better backhands, such as Gasquet, don't have the ability to flick passing shots and backhands like Roger does.

So I put the question to you, Yahoo! Answers. Who has the better backhand overall? It's interesting because at least for me, I think about Rafa's backhand initially as an offensive shot, but it's probably even better when he's on the defense. Remember how many times he destroyed Djokovic earlier this month with those huge crosscourt passes? And initially I think of Roger's backhand as a defensive shot because of the great slice, but it's actually probably stronger when he's attacking now, particularly since he's not quite as quick to get around it and hit a forehand, his backhand has had to become better for attacking, and it most certainly has.

The first instinct for everyone is to write Roger's off, that's what I would have done. But if you really think about it, it's at least a much closer discussion than you might have originally thought.

During his meteoric rise at the end of 2007 and the beginning of 2008 I really disliked Novak Djokovic. I suppose some of my reasons were pretty immature, as they included things like disliking him for displacing Andy Roddick at No. 3 in the world and then taking out Roger Federer a couple of times, but I also feel like most of my reasons for disliking the guy were legitimate.

He definitely had an arrogance to him that I didn't really feel was deserved. I thought he acted pretty immature and disrespectful at times and I also really didn't like how his family, particularly his mother, who was quoted as saying she believed her son was already better than Federer, reflected this arrogance. Even if Nole was better than Roger at the time, to say that about one of the all-time greats is pretty disrespectful. Nobody in Rafael Nadal's camp has ever said that even though it might actually be true with him.

Anyways, I feel like since his humbling upset at the 2008 Wimbledon to Marat Safin, Nole's been a lot more reserved and mature in his manner. At the same time his play hasn't been as stellar as it was during that incredible nine month run between the 2007 Rogers Cup and the 2008 French Open, but still, I can't help but be a fan of the guy now. He's one of the guys I really cheer for in Grand Slam tournaments now. I really wanted him to come through and win Wimbledon last month but his inconsistency shone too brightly against Thomas Berdych.

Anyways, does anyone else feel like Nole has really grown up and become a lot more easy to be a fan of in the past year or two? I remember how much I disliked him back in early 2008, but now he's one of my favorite players and I'm not really sure when this change occurred.

I'm a 4.0 level player

My last racket was a Wilson K Factor K Sting. It was 9.2 ounces, 105 square inch head and 16x19 string pattern.

I found that this racket was way too light and generated very little power and not too much control on volleys and dropshots. I loved how much spin I got with this racket, but then again, the only thing I have to compare it to was the first racket I got second-hand which was like an 8 year-old Prince racket with probably equally old strings.

I'm shopping around for a new racket and I've settled down to two choices:

First is a Babolat Aero Storm Cortex. It is a 98 square inch head, weighs 11.4 oz and has a 16x20 string pattern. I would have it strung with Babolat Addiction 16 strings because they are pretty solid strings in my experience and come free if I buy this racket.

Second is a Head Youtek Mojo. 100 square inch head, 10.5 oz and 18x19 strings. I'd probably get Head Sonic Pro 16 strings because they come free with a Head racket.

I'm unfortunately a victim of the horrible job market this summer and will have no time for a part-time job during the school year once I go back to college because I'm in charge of the school newspaper which requires 30-40 hours / week without paying anything, so money is pretty short for me and I want to make my next racket a winner.

I'm also planning on demo-ing one or both, but I wanted to know what other people thought.

Okay so I know people want to cite his age, his family, his breaking of all the records, his declining motivation, his injuries, etc. But really all of that was present earlier this year when he dominated the Australian Open.

Roger Federer himself said that the 2010 Australian Open may have been his most dominant major performance in his career and the stats speak for themselves. Outside of two iffy sets, one against Igor Andreev and the other versus Nikolay Davydenko, he was on a different level than all of his opponents. His backhand looked as good as it has in years, his forehand was classic, his serve was clicking, and his return game was the best I've seen.

Since then, he's been off, as we all know, and I'm just trying to figure out exactly what changed between then and the early hardcourt season in March. There's no doubt that he still has it, I know all of the critics and doubters don't believe that, but people said the exact same things about him in 2008 and early in 2009. The 2010 Aussie Open was an incredible display of tennis, and I'm just wondering what you all think has changed since then (It's really only been a very short time).

My only explanation is confidence. He had a couple of bad losses and since then he has allowed to snowball and hurt his mental toughness.

Hi all. So about seven weeks ago (May 15th) my laptop contracted a virus called "Antispyware soft" which is basically just one of those many viruses that disguises itself as antivirus/antispyware software and prods you to purchase the full version. It wouldn't let me open Firefox or even my actual virus protection program and just told me to purchase the full version over and over. I had already gotten one of these before (Vista Guardian), a few months earlier and was not in the mood to deal with the problem, so I just shut my computer down.

I moved back home from college for the summer later that day and so I have been using my parents computer all summer. Just this afternoon I finally decided to turn on my laptop and see if I could fix it. However, the virus that before just popped up as soon as I logged in and wouldn't let me do anything seems to not be there anymore. I started running a scan and was able to open all of the programs I attempted to. I haven't seen the icon of the virus anywhere and there have been no signs of it whatsoever.

So I'm hoping that it's just gone? But that doesn't seem possible. I swear I haven't even touched the computer since May 16th, but the virus is just not there anymore. Is it possible that it's just laying dormant and will attack again any second? Or is it actually possible that it just went away?

I know it sounds a little far-fetched, but I personally think that the threat of a rain delay and when it actually happens can be a good thing for a match. Obviously most of the time it's unwelcome and an annoyance, but even with the roof, think about how great the anticipation and excitement could have been had there been a 30-40 minute delay today while Andy Murray was up a break in the 3rd set.

Rain delays actually probably helped what some say is the greatest match of all time, the 2008 final between Nadal and Federer, to be as incredible as it was. After all, it may have been the first rain delay that gave Roger the time to regroup and actually take it to 5 and even 4, and then the delay in the 5th set just made things unbelievably tense and exciting.

At Roland Garros in 2008 he played brilliantly before losing to Rafa Nadal in the semis. At Wimbledon two weeks later he was upset in the 2nd round by Marat Safin and since then we haven't seen the same Nole. This year at The Championships even I started to be a believer in him again as he played unbelievably good tennis through his first five matches.

But then, as has been the case very often over the last two years, he just didn't show up. Yes, Tomas Berdych played great, but he didn't play as well as he did against Roger the other day, Novak just failed to play his best outside of about 5 minutes here and 5 minutes there.

If Grand Slams required you win 5 matches in a row then he probably would have won a couple more slams, but you need to win 7, and he just can't seem to put that many good matches together in a row.

Okay, so yeah obviously I have a grudge against him for taking out Roger, but I really am cheering against him in his match versus Djokovic because I want to see a really good final. And let's face it, as well as he's playing, Tomas Berdych won't provide us with a great final.

It's a classic pattern that an upstart player makes an unlikely run through the draw and breaks through at a Grand Slam, makes the final, but then the pressure gets to them and they don't play nearly as well in the biggest match as they have in the six leading up to it.

Is anyone else cheering against Tomas for that reason?

Hey guys. I know all Federer fans are pretty bummed right now, but now that he's out, who are you pulling for to win the tournament?

For me, I'm rooting for Djokovic because I really want to see the guy become a major player in the game again. Nobody was talking about him as a favorite early in the tournament this year but he could be considered the favorite at this point with the way he's played. It's just the breathing problems that could mess him up.

I also wouldn't mind seeing Jo-Wilfried Tsonga come through just because I'm a big fan of him. I think he's incredibly fun to watch and very charismatic.

And even as a Roger fan I wouldn't mind seeing Rafael Nadal win the tournament because he too is just a fun player to see succeed.

So, earlier in this year's Wimbledon, Novak Djokovic won in the latest finish in Wimbledon history. Last year, Andy Murray won well past darkness as well because of the new roof in Centre Court that allows for sufficient lighting to continue play.

While watching this Roddick-Lu encounter, I'm wishing that they were on Centre Court so that darkness didn't have to be a factor. So I was thinking, in situations like this, would it work in ANY way shape or form to just move the players over to Centre Court? At most, it would take them about 15 minutes to walk there and word could be sent ahead to begin closing the roof right away. The roof-closing process takes about 30 minutes so there wouldn't be any more of a delay than if they were already on Centre Court by having the players walk over there, but I don't know if the court would be too different and if that would mess with the players' heads.

I was thinking about this last week too when Isner and Mahut were going so long. I'm pretty sure this idea wouldn't work for some obvious reason I haven't thought of, so I figured I'd count on someone else to point that out for me, lol.

I have a Wilson K-Factor that I bought last summer and opted to go with the free strings. I play a lot of tennis (At least 2-3 times per week) and only have this one racket. I haven't done anything with the strings since I bought it just about a year ago and I'm not sure what the average lifespan of professionally strung strings are. After a bad mishit or if I put some wicked topspin/slice on the ball I often have to fiddle with the strings and straighten them and stuff in between points.

Can anyone out there help me out and let me know if I should be expecting to have to find someone to re-string my racket anytime soon? As far as I can see, none of them seem to be fraying or anything yet.

It seems a bit blasphemous to say, I know, but I bet you could certainly argue it. I haven't done the necessary research, but just watching him play compared to other top players (Top 10 is what I'm talking about), he barely ever hits return winners and probably has one of the worst break point conversion percentages out of the top 10 as well. It also seems like he doesn't put that many returns back in play.

Obviously a set and a half isn't too much to go on, but so far Federer has looked pristine. He has 17 winners and only 3 unforced errors and has completely controlled his service games.

Clement has made a lot of errors, but Roger is certainly playing much better than in the first two rounds. I kind of wonder if it's just him taking awhile to find his best gear, much like he did at the Aussie Open earlier this year.

Not that I would use the word "fat," but let's face it, Serena, especially a couple years ago, was looking a little bit chunky. I know that she's just very muscular and strong, but in like 2007-2008 she definitely had put on some weight. But this year, especially right now at Wimbledon, she looks as fit as I've seen her in quite awhile, at least five years or so.

Does anyone else agree with this or are my eyes failing me again?

I would think, and at least hope, that they at least said something like "If you just want to go, feel free to leave" but to even ask the guy to stick around with the physical and emotional turmoil of losing an 11 hour, 3 day, 183 game match is pretty rude.

Just now, even after the awards and speeches they asked him to pose for pictures too and the crowd started to boo because Mahut obviously just wants to leave and probably go to the locker room and cry for a few hours.

What do you guys think?