Big League Quotes

You wanna play hardball, sweetheart? Welcome to the big leagues.

I'm Losing Faith in My Favorite Country Throughout my life, the United States has been my favorite country, save and except for Canada, where I was born, raised, educated, and still live for six months each year. As a child growing up in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, I aggressively bought and saved baseball cards of American and National League players, spent hours watching snowy images of American baseball and football games on black and white television and longed for the day when I could travel to that great country. Every Saturday afternoon, me and the boys would pay twelve cents to go the show and watch U.S. made movies, and particularly, the Superman serial. Then I got my chance. My father, who worked for B.F. Goodrich, took my brother and me to watch the Cleveland Indians play baseball in the Mistake on the Lake in Cleveland. At last I had made it to the big time. I thought it was an amazing stadium and it was certainly not a mistake. Amazingly, the Americans thought we were Americans. I loved the United States, and everything about the country: its people, its movies, its comic books, its sports, and a great deal more. The country was alive and growing. No, exploding. It was the golden age of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The American dream was alive and well, but demanded hard work, honesty, and frugality. Everyone understood that. Even the politicians. Then everything changed.

Did you just call me a hottie? And Jax isn’t better looking than me. He’s just famous.” Amanda let out a loud cackle of laughter. “No brother dear, Jax Stone is hotness incarnate with or without the guitar and sexy as hell singing voice. You never stood a chance. He was what you call playing with the big dogs. This time you’re definitely playing within your league.

Yeah. Kip gets to guard you and I get to house-sit. Life bites the big tee-tawa. (Syn)

What happens when we acknowledge the sovereignty and power of God without trusting in His goodness and faithfulness? A pitcher who saw God's power behind his extremely unlikely rise to the big leagues wondered if, at any difficulty he encountered there, God might be taking his ability away.

I have a secret. A big, fat, hairy secret. And I’m not talking minor-league stuff, like I once let Joseph Applebaum feel me up behind the seventh-grade stairwell or I got a Brazilian wax after work last Friday or I’m hiding a neon blue vibrator called the Electric Slide in my night table. Which I’m not, by the way. In case you were wondering.

Let’s find someplace where there aren’t any dead people, insects, or rodents. For that matter, someplace that’s big enough to accommodate both of us without crimping any internal organs. (Shahara) Picky, picky, picky. (Syn)

Well after that testosterone-shattering experience, I have no more dignity to worry about. Ever. Anyone have a cushion I can sit on? A really big fluffy one? Hell, let’s even make it pale pink with bows on it just for good measure.

Should I be offended? (Livia) Please don’t be. I pride myself on being socially inept. But the only people I ever intentionally offend are my bevy of brothers. And speaking of, where’s Big Bad Angry One? (Zarina)

When it comes to BULLSHIT…BIG-TIME, MAJOR LEAGUE BULLSHIT… you have to stand IN AWE, IN AWE of the all time champion of false promises and exaggerated claims, religion.

In my experience, the balancing act women in politics have to master is challenging at every level, but it gets worse the higher you rise. If we’re too tough, we’re unlikable. If we’re too soft, we’re not cut out for the big leagues. If we work too hard, we’re neglecting our families. If we put family first, we’re not serious about the work. If we have a career but no children, there’s something wrong with us, and vice versa. If we want to compete for a higher office, we’re too ambitious. Can’t we just be happy with what we have? Can’t we leave the higher rungs on the ladder for men? Think how often you’ve heard these words used about women who lead: angry, strident, feisty, difficult, irritable, bossy, brassy, emotional, abrasive, high-maintenance, ambitious (a word that I think of as neutral, even admirable, but clearly isn’t for a lot of people).

She spent an astonishing amount of time in attending lectures and demonstrations, distributing literature for the Junior Anti-Sex League, preparing banners for Hate Week, making collections for the savings campaign, and such-like activities. It paid, she said; it was camouflage. If you kept the small rules you could break the big ones.

You don't get married for yourself, you get married because you're better together than separate.

Everyone who loves pro basketball assumes it's a little fixed. We all think the annual draft lottery is probably rigged, we all accept that the league aggressively wants big market teams to advance deep into the playoffs, and we all concede that certain marquee players are going to get preferential treatment for no valid reason. The outcomes of games aren't predeteremined or scripted but there are definitely dark forces who play with our reality. There are faceless puppet masters who pull strings and manipulate the purity of justice. It's not necessarily a full-on conspiracy, but it's certainly not fair. And that's why the NBA remains the only game that matters: Pro basketball is exactly like life.

Investing is a special thing. In terms of functionality, almost anyone can invest. But in terms of achieving the results of long-term profit and sustainable growth, only some people have the talent or skill sets for that. It’s like baseball for example… anyone can swing a bat at a ball. But only a few people make it to the big league, and even fewer become world champs. These days there are so many apps and platforms for individual investing, but that doesn’t mean everyone is achieving good results or ROI. There are great investors, good investors, and bad investors. A professional investor can achieve exponential growth and profit. A professional investor understands markets and industries and can account for both the traditional and the new.

Investing is a special thing. In terms of functionality, almost anyone invest. But in terms of achieving the results of long-term profit and sustainable growth, only some people have the talent or skill sets for that. It’s like baseball for example… anyone can swing a bat at a ball. But only a few guys make it to the big league, and even fewer become world champs. These days there are so many apps and platforms for individual investing, but that doesn’t mean everyone is achieving the same results. There are great investors, good investors, and bad investors. A professional investor can achieve exponential growth and profit. A professional investor understands markets and industries and can account for both the traditional and the new.

So how big is this thing anyway?” Desideria asked Chayden made a sound of irritation. “You know, that’s not really a question I want to hear my younger sister ask a man, especially not one I consider a friend, while he’s lying bare-assed on my floor.” Hauk and Fain laughed. Desideria was less than amused. “Remember, brother, I’m currently the only one holding a weapon.” Caillen glared at him. “Really, Chay, why don’t you concentrate on the people trying to kill us right now? ’Preciate it, pun’kin.” He turned his attention to her. “About the size of your smallest fingernail.” Fain laughed again. “Damn, I should have been taping that response and using it for playback at every party from here until I die.

Sparhawk just sounded too ludicrous for words when spoken out loud. What had the writer been thinking? Oh, do me, great big Sparhawk. You the man.’ (Taryn)

Buffett continued, saying that MPT has no utility. It is elaborate with lots of little Greek letters to make you feel you are in the big leagues. The

Mostly, as I'm sitting here in A.P. English, I think about the way my classmates are always raising their hands and sucking up to Mrs. Giavotella just so she will give them As, which they will send to Harvard or Princeton or Stanford or where-fucking-ever, to go along with their lies about how much community service they supposedly did and essays about how much they care about poor minority children they'll never meet in real life or how they are going to save the world armed with nothing but a big heart and an Ivy League education.

Very few who manage a big league club are successful, fewer still are the ones who experience success over an extended period of time, but to achieve a level of success so extraordinary that it is given a category all it’s own—“The Big Red Machine”—places Sparky [Anderson] in one of the most exclusive and elite clubs in baseball history.

Q. Your original, self-published version of The Martian became a phenomenon online. Were you expecting the overwhelmingly positive reception the book received? A. I had no idea it was going to do so well. The story had been available for free on my website for months, and I assumed anyone who wanted to read it had already read it. A few readers had requested I post a Kindle version because it’s easier to download that way. So I went ahead and did it, setting the price to the minimum Amazon would allow. As it sold more and more copies I just watched in awe. Q. Film rights to The Martian were sold to writer-producer Simon Kinberg (Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Sherlock Holmes, X-Men: First Class). What was your first reaction? A. Of course I’m thrilled to have a movie in the works. The movie deal and print publishing deal came within a week of each other, so I was a little shell-shocked. In fact, it was such a sudden launch into the big leagues that I literally had a difficult time believing it. I actually worried it could all be an elaborate scam. So I guess that was my first reaction: “Is this really happening!?

It was like the baseball gods were showing off just for him, in honor of his first day of big league baseball. And surely the baseball gods were smiling that day, because the next batter was Larry Brown, and he was a scrawny, scrappy 23-year-old kid who’d never hit a big league home run. And yet he stepped to the plate and became just the second player in baseball history to connect and give his team four consecutive home runs.

Oh.” I’m suddenly so hungry I could have taken one of those sheet cakes we delivered to the face. “Wanna go to Big League Burger?

You know, Dar, there’s no problem so big that an adequate supply of explosives can’t cure it. There was that. But people tended to protest being blown up. Bunch of krikken weirdos. He

Knuckleballers don't keep secrets. It's as if we have a greater mission beyond our own fortunes. And that mission is to pass it on, to keep the pitch alive. Maybe that's because we are so different, and the pitch is do different, but I think it has more to do with the fact that this is a pitch that almost all of us turn to in desperation. It is what enables us to keep pitching stay in the big leagues, when everything else has failed. So we feel gratitude toward the pitch. It becomes way more than just a means to get and out. It becomes a way of life.

The career batting average (.254) during parts of five Major League seasons for Francisco Cabrera—which proves that it takes only one big hit, on the right stage, to become a legend. Cabrera is still honored in Atlanta, and rightfully so, for winning the 1992 NLCS vs. Pittsburgh.

Freddie Freeman led all Braves’ starters with a (.282) batting average in 2011. Not bad for a rookie. Then again, this is the kid who hit his first big league bomb against none other than Roy Halladay … the same kid whose leather at first is so flashy than at times it’s hard to decide which to be more excited about, his bat or his glove, the same kid who joined teammate Dan Uggla with concurrent 20-game hitting streaks in 2011—a first in modern era Braves’ history—and the same kid who won NL Rookie of the Month honors in July after hitting .362 with six homers, 17 runs, and 18 RBIs.

Allison of RADAD: The Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and Disability The ticks of Lyme Suck my blood of time And leave me rather drowsy. My feet move like tar With Epstein-Barr And I wake up feeling lousy. I fall asleep in my Pepsi With Narcolepsy To the chagrin of the soda jerk. My Chronic Fatigue (and thespian ability) puts me in the big league (of insurance fraud disability) So who the fuck needs to work!

Sensational new breakthrough in Improbability Physics. As soon as the ship’s drive reaches Infinite Improbability it passes through every point in the Universe. Be the envy of other major governments.’ Wow, this is big league stuff.” Ford hunted excitedly through the technical specs of the ship, occasionally gasping with astonishment at what he read— clearly Galactic astrotechnology had moved ahead during the years of his exile.

And now to that Victim whose Sign rose above the world two thousand years ago, to be menaced now by that other sign now rising, I say a prayer of contrition. I, whom you have seen as irreverent and irreligious, now pray in the name of Chuckler and Hoosier and Runner, in the name of Smoothface, Gentlemen, Amish, and Oakstump, Ivy-League and Big-Picture, in the name of all those who suffered in the jungles and on the beaches, from Anzio to Normandy--and in the name of the immolated: of Texan, Rutherford, Chicken, Loudmouth, of the Artist and White-Man, Souvenirs and Racehorse, Dreadnought and Commando--of all these and the others, dear Father, forgive us for that awful cloud.

We’re not secretive about the office buildings, but we try to keep a low profile.” “We?” “I have partners.” “Let me guess—the Justice League. The Flash, Wonder Woman, and Superman.” Ranger looked like he was thinking about smiling.

Conservatives and those on the right are usually willing to settle for thinking themselves correct on political issues; those on the left have always needed to feel not so much that they are correct but that they are also good. Disagree with someone on the right and he is likely to think you obtuse, wrong, sentimental, foolish, a dope; disagree with someone one the left and he is more likely to think you selfish, cold-hearted, a sellout, evil-in league with the devil, he might say, if he didn't think religious terminology too coarse for our secular age. To this day one will hear of people who fell for Communism in a big way let off the hook because they were sincere; if one's heart is in the right place, nothing else matters, even if one's naive opinions made it easier for tyrants to murder millions.

Most of us would give anything for the chance to play just one day of MLB baseball—especially for our favorite team. Well, there once was a pitcher named Bock Baker who actually got two opportunities to pitch in the big leagues. He took the mound for Cleveland against the Chicago White Sox in his big league debut. How did he fare? Well, he pitched a complete game. Pretty spectacular, right? Well, sure—but it depends on your perspective. He gave up 23 hits and 13 runs. Baker never pitched for Cleveland again, but the Philadelphia Athletics gave him a second big league start that same year (1901). He lasted juts six innings, and lost again after giving up 11 runs—and then his career was over.

There are so many ways to be engaged in civic life: advocating for policy changes, joining a sports league, organizing a meal train for a sick neighbor, serving on a school board, or even trying to dismantle the entire system itself.

I'd always assumed Beth and I would be friends forever. But then in middle of the eighth grade, the Goldbergs went through the World's Nastiest Divorce. Beth went a little nuts. I don't blame her. When her dad got involved with this twenty-one year old dental hygienist, Beth got involved with the junk food aisle at the grocery store. She carried processed snack cakes the way toddlers carry teddy bears. She gained, like, twenty pounds, but I didn't think it was a big deal. I figured she'd get back to her usual weight once the shock wore off. Unfortunately, I wasn't the only person who noticed. May 14 was 'Fun and Fit Day" at Surry Middle School, so the gym was full of booths set up by local health clubs and doctors and dentists and sports leagues, all trying to entice us to not end up as couch potatoes. That part was fine. What wasn't fine was when the whole school sat down to watch the eighth-grade cheerleaders' program on physical fitness.

This is the same advice they give people who’ve just come out of rehab. After a grueling period of work (or what passes for grueling work in our soft-handed world) you will crave some kind of reward. Don’t let this cause you to rush into a big decision, like a new house or a marriage or partial ownership of a minor league baseball team, that you may later regret. The interesting thing about this piece of advice is that no one ever takes it.

Seemingly every year at least one of the league’s top sluggers can be found in Boston’s lineup—and often times more than one. David Ortiz was second or third in slugging five consecutive seasons from 2003-07. Manny Ramirez was in the top five in slugging six consecutive seasons from 2001-06. Manny and Big Papi were one-two in slugging in 2004, and from 2003-06 Boston’s big bats gave the club two of the league’s top five sluggers—something no other team in the league could boast.

America runs on credit darling. Why do you worry, our credit will take care of this payment. It is not saving or cash in hand that matters. We do not need cash, we just need potential. The system in the US believes in potential. That is the model of the future. You need not be born rich, but you should be in the league that can make it big.

Big surprise. Mom had instituted a curfew. Like there was something we’d do after midnight that we wouldn’t do before.

fight for Truth, Justice, and the American Way.

Vanny, were you gonna want me to help you with your draft list again this year?” I groaned. “I forgot. My brother just messaged me about it. I can’t let him win again this year, Zac. I can’t put up with his crap.” He raised his hand in a dismissive gesture. “I got you. Don’t worry about it.” “Thank—what?” Aiden had his glass halfway to his mouth and was frowning. “You play fantasy football?” he asked, referring to the online role-playing game that millions of people participated in. Participants got to build imaginary teams during a mock draft, made up of players throughout the league. I’d been wrangled into playing against my brother and some of our mutual friends about three years ago and had joined in ever since. Back then, I had no idea what the hell a cornerback was, much less a bye week, but I’d learned a lot since then.

Of course, there were no paper towels to clean up with…just hand dryers. I rubbed my wet fingers over the ice cream, creating a big wet spot right in the center of my chest. Oh, yeah, beauty and poise contest, here I come.

If the case isn't plea bargained, dismissed or placed on the inactive docket for an indefinite period of time, if by some perverse twist of fate it becomes a trial by jury, you will then have the opportunity of sitting on the witness stand and reciting under oath the facts of the case-a brief moment in the sun that clouds over with the appearance of the aforementioned defense attorney who, at worst, will accuse you of perjuring yourself in a gross injustice or, at best, accuse you of conducting an investigation so incredibly slipshod that the real killer has been allowed to roam free. Once both sides have argued the facts of the case, a jury of twelve men and women picked from computer lists of registered voters in one of America's most undereducated cities will go to a room and begin shouting. If these happy people manage to overcome the natural impulse to avoid any act of collective judgement, they just may find one human being guilty of murdering another. Then you can go to Cher's Pub at Lexington and Guilford, where that selfsame assistant state's attorney, if possessed of any human qualities at all, will buy you a bottle of domestic beer. And you drink it. Because in a police department of about three thousand sworn souls, you are one of thirty-six investigators entrusted with the pursuit of that most extraordinary of crimes: the theft of a human life. You speak for the dead. You avenge those lost to the world. Your paycheck may come from fiscal services but, goddammit, after six beers you can pretty much convince yourself that you work for the Lord himself. If you are not as good as you should be, you'll be gone within a year or two, transferred to fugitive, or auto theft or check and fraud at the other end of the hall. If you are good enough, you will never do anything else as a cop that matters this much. Homicide is the major leagues, the center ring, the show. It always has been. When Cain threw a cap into Abel, you don't think The Big Guy told a couple of fresh uniforms to go down and work up the prosecution report. Hell no, he sent for a fucking detective. And it will always be that way, because the homicide unit of any urban police force has for generations been the natural habitat of that rarefied species, the thinking cop.

You may have had big-time plans in your life-major league dreams that haven't panned out. You were going to write a best-selling book, but the opportunities just haven't come along. Are you willing to write for your church newsletter?

The notion, a debatable one, is that the man who knows the problems necessarily knows the answers. This book has not been successful if it has not suggested some big-league problems, such as: (1) Should our financial machinery be scrapped? (2) Should it be further tinkered with, and if so, how much further? (3) Is capitalism doomed? (4) What active stock selling under five dollars looks hot just now for a quick turn to pay for the Buick the wife just bought? There isn’t an assistant instructor in economics in any faculty who can’t answer these and similar questions rapidly and categorically, and if that is not enough there are a million laymen eager to do so. So I don’t feel that my vote is much needed.

The friction began at this first meeting. O’Neill was not initially impressed with Reagan and said to him, “You’ve been a governor of a state, but a governor plays in the minor leagues. You’re in the big leagues now.” (O’Neill had said the same thing to Jimmy Carter four years before.) Reagan replied, “Oh, you know, no problem there.” Despite the genial response, O’Neill’s comment represented the very kind of Washington haughtiness that set Reagan’s teeth on edge. Aides to the president-elect were incensed.

Wall Street bond trading desks, staffed by people making seven figures a year, set out o coax from the brain-dead guys making high five figures the highest possible ratings for the worst possible loans. They performed the task with Ivy League thoroughness and efficiency.

He was pitching to me before I could walk. He gave me wooden bat before my mother let me use scissors. He said I could make the major leagues one day if I had "a plan," and if I "stuck to the plan" Of course, when you're that young, you nest in your parents' plans, not your own.

This is a time in baseball when steroids have become a pretty big deal. On our team, you got Barry Bonds, who is hitting home runs like a mortar barrage, and whose head has grown to a size where when they make his promotional bobble-head, they just do the whole thing to scale, while across the bay in Oakland, Mark McGwire now has forearms like Popeye and will only speak in dialects of horse, and they’re keeping José Canseco chained to a post under the ballpark and throwing him raw meat until right before game time, so the league is starting to get sensitive about it.

Anyway,” the agent said abruptly. “I just . . . wanted you to know that I’m sorry for everything. I want to help you and the rest of the Order in any way I can, so if there is anything you need, you know where I am.” “Chase,” Dante said as the male turned to leave the room. “Apology accepted, man. And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry too. I haven’t been fair to you either. Despite our differences, know that I respect you. The Agency lost a good one the day they cut you loose.” Chase’s smile was crooked as he acknowledged the praise with a short nod. Dante cleared his throat. “And about that offer of help . . .” “Name it.” “Tess was walking a dog when the Rogues attacked her tonight. Ugly little mutt, not good for much more than a foot-warmer, but it’s special to her. Actually, it was a gift from me, more or less. Anyway, the dog was running loose on its leash when I saw it a block or so away from Ben Sullivan’s place.” “You want me to go retrieve a wayward canine, is that where this is heading?” “Well, you did say anything, didn’t you?” “So I did.” Chase chuckled. “All right. I will.” Dante dug his keys to his Porsche out of his pocket and tossed them to the other vampire. As Chase turned to be on his way again, Dante added, “The little beast answers to the name Harvard, by the way.” “Harvard,” Chase drawled, shaking his head and throwing a smirk in Dante’s direction. “I don’t suppose that’s a coincidence.” Dante shrugged. “Good to see that Ivy League pedigree of yours comes in handy for something.” “Jesus Christ, warrior. You really were busting my ass since the minute I came on board, weren’t you?” “Hey, by all comparisons, I was kind. Do yourself a favor and don’t look too closely at Niko’s shooting target, unless you’re very secure about your manhood.” “Assholes,” Chase muttered, but there was only humor in his tone. “Sit tight, and I’ll be back in a few with your mutt. Anything else you’re gonna hit me up for now that I opened my big yap about wanting to get square with you?” “Actually, there might be something else,” Dante replied, his thoughts going sober when he considered Tess and any kind of future that might be deserving of her. “But we can talk about that when you get back, yeah?” Chase nodded, catching on to the turn in mood. “Yeah. Sure we can.

That promotion is satisfactory. Yes, Liverpool Football Club are back in the First Division. Back in the Big League. But that is only where Liverpool Football Club belong. Only where they should have been all along. In the First Division, in the Big League. So the next time you come bearing gifts, bringing presents, it will be because we've won the Big League. Because Liverpool Football Club have won the First Division. And the FA Cup. And the European Cup. And every cup there is to win. Because only that will be satisfactory, gentlemen. When Liverpool Football Club have won everything there is to win, when Liverpool Football Club have conquered the world. Only that will be enough.

Of course there is no denying that all these primordial dreams appear, in the opinion of nonmathematicians, to have been suddenly realized in a form quite different from the original fantasy. Baron Munchhausen’s post horn was more beautiful than our canned music, the Seven-League boots more beautiful than a car, Oberon’s kingdom lovelier than a railway tunnel, the magic root of the mandrake better than a telegraphed image, eating of one’s mother’s heart and then understanding birds more beautiful than an ethologic study of a bird’s vocalizing. We have gained reality and lost dream. No more lounging under a tree and peering at the sky between one’s big and second toes; there’s work to be done. To be efficient, one cannot be hungry and dreamy but must eat steak and keep moving. It is exactly as though the old, inefficient breed of humanity had fallen asleep on an anthill and found, when the new breed awoke, that the ants had crept into its bloodstream, making it move frantically ever since, unable to shake off that rotten feeling of antlike industry.

We shared the same faith, which was big because she was worried about getting matched with an Internet-spawned psychopathic killing machine. I told her that, historically speaking, there have been several psychos who believed in Jesus, but she told me if I gave her any trouble she'd kick me in the crotch and run - she told me it was what Jesus would do.

What would you like to bet on that? A thousand?” “A thousand dollars?” Tag nodded. “Yes. I have to go big. Have you seen what college costs these days? I have to make sure those girls get into Ivy League schools or they’ll end up on the pole. I can’t have my girls on the pole, man. Chris Rock was right. I got a mission in life now and it’s keeping my baby girls away from skeevy dudes who go to strip clubs.

Mike should say no, should tell him to go fool around with boys his own age, his own size, should tell him to knock it the fuck off and find someone who doesn't play hockey, who doesn't care if he does like every other closet case in the league. But Fitzgerald's flashing his big blues and his hands are shaking, just enough for Mike to notice and Mike isn't a saint. He isn't even a particularly good person.

... you know what was really messing me up when I got down there to Pittsburgh? Was how young he seemed. He kept asking me things like what did I think of Kanye West's music, and did I think he should hold on to Kevin Garnett in this fantasy basketball league he was in or trade him. And how he wasn't just in this league; he was commissioner of it. Like that was some big mark of distinction: commissioner of make-believe. And I wanted to slam him, one-handed, against the wall, the way he used to do to me, and scream in his face, 'Stop it! Act your age!' ... I didn't do it, though. I wanted to, but I couldn't. 'Honor thy father,' you know what I'm saying? So instead, I grabbed my car keys, got out of there, and took off. It was messing with my head, you know? You get out of there alive, more or less, wait for your father to come see you at the hospital you're stuck at, and when you finally go to see him, he's younger than you are.

Pie?" I narrowed my eyes at her, and then down at the container in her hands, where there were chocolate hand pies lined up in neat rows. The So Sorry Blondies were all gone by then, devoured between me and Paul and the rest of the dive team, and the memory of their deliciousness was too fresh for me to resist another Pepper Evans creation. I took one of the mini pies with a wary hand, just as she pulled out her phone, tapped it a few times, and smirked. I stopped chewing. "Did you just tweet?" I asked, my mouth full of chocolate. Pepper swept her bangs back with her fingers, and this time the gesture was calculated and breezy. "Did I?" I scowled into my phone screen, lowering it under my desk so Mrs. Fairchild wouldn't see. This one was just a GIF of Regina George from Mean Girls--- "Why are you so obsessed with me?" "At least your pie is better than your tweets," I mumbled. But the smirk on Pepper's face only deepened. "Those are from the Big League Burger bargain menu, by the way." My mouth dropped open. Pepper turned her eyes back to her textbook, burying her smirk in it. "Enjoy.

Then you can go to Cher's Pub at Lexington and Guilford, where that selfsame assistant state's attorney, if possessed of any human qualities at all, will buy you a bottle of domestic beer. And you drink it. Because in a police department of about three thousand sworn souls, you are one of thirty-six investigators entrusted with the pursuit of that most extraordinary of crimes: the theft of a human life. You speak for the dead. You avenge those lost to the world. Your paycheck may come from fiscal services but, goddammit, after six beers you can pretty much convince yourself that you work for the Lord himself. If you are not as good as you should be, you'll be gone within a year or two, transferred to fugitive, or auto theft or check and fraud at the other end of the hall. If you are good enough, you will never do anything else as a cop that matters this much. Homicide is the major leagues, the center ring, the show. It always has been. When Cain threw a cap into Abel, you don't think The Big Guy told a couple of fresh uniforms to go down and work up the prosecution report. Hell no, he sent for a fucking detective.

There is a change underway, however. Our society used to be a ladder on which people generally climbed upward. More and more now we are going to a planetary structure, in which the great dominant lower middle class, the class that determines our prevailing values and organizational structures in education, government, and most of society, are providing recruits for the other groups — sideways, up, and even down, although the movement downward is relatively small. As the workers become increasingly petty bourgeois and as middle-class bureaucratic and organizational structures increasingly govern all aspects of our society, our society is increasingly taking on the characteristics of the lower middle class, although the poverty culture is also growing. The working class is not growing. Increasingly we are doing things with engineers sitting at consoles, rather than with workers screwing nuts on wheels. The workers are a diminishing, segment of society, contrary to Marx’s prediction that the proletariat would grow and grow. I have argued elsewhere that many people today are frustrated because we are surrounded by organizational structures and artifacts. Only the petty bourgeoisie can find security and emotional satisfaction in an organizational structure, and only a middle-class person can find them in artifacts, things that men have made, such as houses, yachts, and swimming pools. But human beings who are growing up crave sensation and experience. They want contact with other people, moment-to-moment, intimate contact. I’ve discovered, however, that the intimacy really isn’t there. Young people touch each other, often in an almost ritual way; they sleep together, eat together, have sex together. But I don’t see the intimacy. There is a lot of action, of course, but not so much more than in the old days, I believe, because now there is a great deal more talk than action. This group, the lower middle class, it seems to me, holds the key to the future. I think probably they will win out. If they do, they will resolutely defend our organizational structures and artifacts. They will cling to the automobile, for instance; they will not permit us to adopt more efficient methods of moving people around. They will defend the system very much as it is and, if necessary, they will use all the force they can command. Eventually they will stop dissent altogether, whether from the intellectuals, the religious, the poor, the people who run the foundations, the Ivy League colleges, all the rest. The colleges are already becoming bureaucratized, anyway. I can’t see the big universities or the foundations as a strong progressive force. The people who run Harvard and the Ford Foundation look more and more like lower-middle-class bureaucrats who pose no threat to the established order because they are prepared to do anything to defend the system.

WE LIVE IN AN age of nontraditional ladder climbing. Not just in politics, but in business and personal development and education and entertainment and innovation. Traditional paths are not just slow; they’re no longer viable if we want to compete and innovate. That’s great news, because throwing out the dues paradigm leads us toward meritocracy. But to be successful, we need to start thinking more like hackers, acting more like entrepreneurs. We have to work smarter, not just harder. We’ll see throughout the following chapters how Sinatra-style credibility and ladder switching—always parlaying for something more—are the foundation for how the most interesting people and companies in the world succeed. It’s not just how presidents get to the top. It’s how CEOs and comedians and racecar drivers hone their skills and make it in the big leagues. It’s how new businesses grow fast, and old businesses grow faster. It’s how entrepreneurs create life-changing products in record time and inventors parlay dreams for bigger dreams. Hacking the ladder is the mind-set they use to get places. The rest of this book is about becoming good enough to deserve it.

It’s important to be aware of the end goal, the grand theme, the big vision. But once that is clear to you, then you just have to take the next step in front of you. What’s amazing about using EFT with this strategy is that it works perfectly on addressing just that: the next step. The next obstacle. What’s in front of you right now! Even though I’m overwhelmed by all the things I have to do with this project … Even though I’m not sure what to do next … Even though I don’t feel confident that I can figure out how to get this done … Even though I’m out of my league and don’t know what I’m doing …

For two months, Dad, it would be like you had a son. Someone to pitch baseballs to--” “I pitch baseballs to you.” “Someone to hit fly balls to--” “I hit fly balls to you.” “You’d have a real boy--” “He’s not Geppetto,” Tiffany said, “waiting for the blue fairy to touch us with her magic wand.” Maybe not, but I knew Dad had always wanted a son. What father didn’t? But that wasn’t the issue. The issue was: I wanted a boyfriend this summer, and to have a boyfriend, I needed to meet boys, and the Lonestar League was guys, guys, guys. Honesty time. I released a big sigh. “All right, so maybe I’d like to have a brother for the summer.” Okay, not so honest.

In this chapter, I want to focus on the really big crimes that have been committed by atheist groups and governments. In the past hundred years or so, the most powerful atheist regimes—Communist Russia, Communist China, and Nazi Germany—have wiped out people in astronomical numbers. Stalin was responsible for around twenty million deaths, produced through mass slayings, forced labor camps, show trials followed by firing squads, population relocation and starvation, and so on. Jung Chang and Jon Halliday’s authoritative recent study Mao: The Unknown Story attributes to Mao Zedong’s regime a staggering seventy million deaths.4 Some China scholars think Chang and Halliday’s numbers are a bit high, but the authors present convincing evidence that Mao’s atheist regime was the most murderous in world history. Stalin’s and Mao’s killings—unlike those of, say, the Crusades or the Thirty Years’ War—were done in peacetime and were performed on their fellow countrymen. Hitler comes in a distant third with around ten million murders, six million of them Jews. So far, I haven’t even counted the assassinations and slayings ordered by other Soviet dictators like Lenin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, and so on. Nor have I included a host of “lesser” atheist tyrants: Pol Pot, Enver Hoxha, Nicolae Ceaus̹escu, Fidel Castro, Kim Jong-il. Even these “minor league” despots killed a lot of people. Consider Pol Pot, who was the leader of the Khmer Rouge, the Communist Party faction that ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. Within this four-year period Pol Pot and his revolutionary ideologues engaged in systematic mass relocations and killings that eliminated approximately one-fifth of the Cambodian population, an estimated 1.5 million to 2 million people. In fact, Pol Pot killed a larger percentage of his countrymen than Stalin and Mao killed of theirs.5 Even so, focusing only on the big three—Stalin, Hitler, and Mao—we have to recognize that atheist regimes have in a single century murdered more than one hundred million people.

You aren’t doing it to me. I’m not falling into that trap.” “What would you like to bet on that? A thousand?” “A thousand dollars?” Tag nodded. “Yes. I have to go big. Have you see what college costs these days? I have to make sure those girls get into Ivy League schools or they’ll end up on the pole. I can’t have my girls on the pole, man. Chris Rock was right. I got a mission in life now and it’s keeping my baby girls away from skeevy dudes who go to strip clubs.” “You go to strip clubs.” “Exacty. No way I want my baby girls around any dude like me. Or you. Or Alex’s kid. I see the way he looks at my girls.” Tag eyed him as though sizing him up. It made Ten nervous. Tag slapped the table. “Two thousand. I bet you two grand you’re getting married at the end of this. Come on, man.

Between the fourth and fifth innings, they had the Kiss Cam going around. A heart was displayed on a big screen in the stadium and a camera would zoom in on a couple. The couple would then kiss. There was an older couple with white hair--had to be married. Then they moved on to a couple of kids, who just laughed and waved. Then there was Jason and me. On the big screen. A big red heart around us. I felt my face turn as red as that heart. I heard Bird squeal and felt her punch my arm, thought I heard Tiffany shriek behind me. “Kiss him!” Bird ordered. The camera stayed on us. I knew it would until we kissed. I turned my head to look at Jason, but he was already there, kissing me, while the spectators screamed and applauded, especially the Ragland Rattlers. I guess it was official--we were on a date.

I thought about my father in 1959, brush-cut and clean-shaven, taking the elevator up to the editorial offices in the CBS building to meet my sad, solitary, lovely young mother. She was tall, she had a nice figure. She had pretty red hair. And she was a real lost soul. It was time for Dick to find a wife. It was time for Jerry to find his next victim. Woody needed a muse. Henry needed to be understood. Spade was on his sacred mission to find the mythical Her. And we, the pretty, bright girls coming up through prep schools and the Ivy League, loaded up with Sylvia Plath and the Romantic poets, were prepped to be the just deserts of genius. We were milk-fed and impressionable. Privileged and heedless. We were disposable and interchangeable. We were only supposed to last for one incandescent moment, like mayflies, then flutter off into oblivion so that the men might be free to work, to publish, and to pursue their next great passion.

That's quite a pile," he said. "I suppose you want me to spin it into gold." "Well, the situation has changed just a bit," said the miller's daughter (who also had a name--it was Meredith). "If you don't, I will die. If you do, I marry the king." Now that, thought Rumpelstiltskin, has possibilities. After all, getting to be the queen was a big step up for a miller's daughter. She would surely pay him anything. And there was only one thing in the world he really wanted--a little child to love and care for. "Okay, here's the deal," he said. "I will spin the straw into gold, just like before. In return, once you become queen, you must let me adopt your firstborn child. I promise I'll be an excellent father. I know all the lullabies. I'll read to the child every day. I'll even coach Little League." "You've got to be kidding," Meredith said. "I'd rather marry you than that jerk!" "Really?" said Rumpelstiltskin, and he blushed all the way from the top of his head to the tip of his toes (which admittedly wasn't very far, because he was so short). "Sure," she said. "I like your ideas on parenting, you'd make a good provider, and I have a weakness for short men.

You might wonder how this hurts taxpayers, especially if you’re a liberal and you think these nonprofits fight for worthy causes. So here’s the kicker: that $11 billion meant for consumer relief? Not only did a lot of it go to Democratic-favored nonprofits instead, but it ended up being much less than $11 billion. That’s because the DOJ offered banks a huge discount whenever they “donated” that money to those nonprofits. Most of the settlements gave banks double or triple credit toward their fine for every dollar they donated to these nonprofits—for instance, a Bank of America $1.15 million “donation” to the National Urban League counted as $2.6 million toward meeting its settlement obligation, and every $1.5 million to La Raza counted as $3.5 million of consumer relief. This is so mind-boggling that it’s worth summing up: after the financial crisis, the Obama DOJ slammed big banks with massive fines so it could trumpet that it was sending tons of relief to consumers. Then it told banks they could pay less than half that much if they donated the money to Obama’s favorite nonprofits instead. And being fond of money, the banks took the DOJ up on the offer. Now that’s a great quid pro quo—the DOJ gets to look good, the banks get to keep most of their money, and the liberal nonprofits get lots of funding.

There is a third premise of the recovery movement that I do endorse enthusiastically: The patterns of problems in childhood that recur into adulthood are significant. They can be found by exploring your past, by looking into the corners of your childhood. Coming to grips with your childhood will not yield insight into how you became the adult you are: The causal links between childhood events and what you have now become are simply too weak. Coming to grips with your childhood will not make your adult problems go away: Working through the past does not seem to be any sort of cure for troubles. Coming to grips with your childhood will not make you feel any better for long, nor will it raise your self-esteem. Coming to grips with childhood is a different and special voyage. The sages urged us to know ourselves, and Plato warned us that the unexamined life is not worth living. Knowledge acquired on this voyage is about patterns, about the tapestry that we have woven. It is not knowledge about causes. Are there consistent mistakes we have made and still make? In the flush of victory, do I forget my friends—in the Little League and when I got that last big raise? (People have always told me I'm a good loser but a bad winner.) Do I usually succeed in one domain but fail in another? (I wish I could get along with the people I really love as well as I do with my employers.) Does a surprising emotion arise again and again? (I always pick fights with people I love right before they have to go away.) Does my body often betray me? (I get a lot of colds when big projects are due.) You probably want to know why you are a bad winner, why you get colds when others expect a lot of you, and why you react to abandonment with anger. You will not find out. As important and magnetic as the “why” questions are, they are questions that psychology cannot now answer. One of the two clearest findings of one hundred years of therapy is that satisfactory answers to the great “why” questions are not easily found; maybe in fifty years things will be different; maybe never. When purveyors of the evils of “toxic shame” tell you that they know it comes from parental abuse, don't believe them. No one knows any such thing. Be skeptical even of your own “Aha!” experiences: When you unearth the fury you felt that first kindergarten day, do not assume that you have found the source of your lifelong terror of abandonment. The causal links may be illusions, and humility is in order here. The other clearest finding of the whole therapeutic endeavor, however, is that change is within our grasp, almost routine, throughout adult life. So even if why we are what we are is a mystery, how to change ourselves is not. Mind the pattern. A pattern of mistakes is a call to change your life. The rest of the tapestry is not determined by what has been woven before. The weaver herself, blessed with knowledge and with freedom, can change—if not the material she must work with—the design of what comes next.

BEYOND THE GAME In 2007 some of the Colorado Rockies’ best action took place off the field. The Rocks certainly boasted some game-related highlights in ’07: There was rookie shortstop Troy Tulowitzki turning the major league’s thirteenth unassisted triple play on April 29, and the team as a whole made an amazing late-season push to reach the playoffs. Colorado won 13 of its final 14 games to force a one-game wild card tiebreaker with San Diego, winning that game 9–8 after scoring three runs in the bottom of the thirteenth inning. Marching into the postseason, the Rockies won their first-ever playoff series, steamrolling the Phillies three games to none. But away from the cheering crowds and television cameras, Rockies players turned in a classic performance just ahead of their National League Division Series sweep. They voted to include Amanda Coolbaugh and her two young sons in Colorado’s postseason financial take. Who was Amanda Coolbaugh? She was the widow of former big-leaguer Mike Coolbaugh, a coach in the Rockies’ minor league organization who was killed by a screaming line drive while coaching first base on July 22. Colorado players voted a full playoff share—potentially worth hundreds of thousands of dollars—to the grieving young family. Widows and orphans hold a special place in God’s heart, too. Several times in the Old Testament, God reminded the ancient Jews of His concern for the powerless—and urged His people to follow suit: “Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow” (Isaiah 1:17). Some things go way beyond the game of baseball. Will you?

You never talk to the pitcher when…” He shook his head. “You just never talk to the pitcher when--” “I just wanted to congratulate him on a good game--” “It’s not over ’til it’s over,” Chase said. “You jinxed me,” Jason said, crouching down in the corner, pressing his palms against his forehead, like he’d been struck with a migraine headache. “You don’t really believe that superstitious--” His head came up so fast, and his stare was so hard that I stopped. He did believe. He really did believe. And judging by the way the other guys were looking at me, they all believed. I backed away, not knowing what to say. I’d just felt sorry for him because he was being ignored. The guy at bat struck out, and Brandon was next. Bird had her fingers crossed while clutching the wire of the fence. “I think I just made a big mistake,” I said, my voice low. “Yeah, I heard you. According to Brandon, you’re never supposed to use the term no-hitter in the dugout.” “Well, I wasn’t technically in the dugout.” “But your words traveled into the dugout. Close enough.” “Great. You don’t really think I jinxed them, do you?” Brandon struck out, the first time he’d struck out since playing for the Rattlers. When he walked by and glared at me, I found myself wishing Harry Potter was real, sitting in the stands, and could turn me into a rabbit’s foot. I didn’t really believe in bad luck. I believed we made our own luck, but I also understood the power of positive or negative thinking. If you think you’ll lose, you’ll lose. The next inning, when six batters in a row got base hits off Jason, the coach put in a relief pitcher. By that time, even people in the stands were looking at me like it was my fault. Someone suggested I sit behind the dugout of the visiting team.

Where will you go if you don’t get into NYU?” he asks. “Where else?” I say. “Ole Miss, with Lucy and Morgan.” “Then Ole Miss is my backup too. Here’s the thing, Jem. I’m going wherever you’re going--whether it’s New York or Oxford. I’m not missing my chance this time.” “Why?” The word just tumbles out of my mouth before I can stop myself. “You’re going to be some kind of college superstar, whether it’s the SEC or the Ivy league. You’ll probably win a freaking Heisman.” “And you just might win an Oscar,” he counters. I roll my eyes. “Yeah, right. Please.” “Why not? God, Jemma, you don’t even see it. How strong and smart and tenacious you are. Everything you do, you do well. I’ve never seen you put your mind to something and not come out on top. You win that trophy at cheer camp every single summer--what’s it called, the superstar award? Only three people at the whole camp get it or something like that, right?” “How’d you know about that?” “Miss Shelby told my mom. I think they put it in the yearbook, too, don’t they?” “Maybe,” I say with a shrug. It’s not that big of a deal. It’s just a cheerleading trophy. “And how long did it take you to win your first shooting tournament after your dad bought you that gun? Six months, tops? From what I hear, you’re the best shot in all of Magnolia Branch.” “Okay, that’s true,” I say, a smile tugging at the corners of my mouth. He reaches for my hand. “And then there’s those dresses you make, like the one you wore to homecoming. You take something old and make it new--turn it into something special. My mom says you and Lucy could make a fortune selling ’em, and I bet she’s right. Don’t you see? You’re not just good at the stuff you do--you’re the best. That’s just the way you are. So I have no doubt that you’re going to be some award-winning filmmaker if you put your mind to it.” My heart swells unexpectedly. “You really think that?” He nods, his dark eyes shining. “I really do.” “Tell me again why we’ve hated each other all these years?” “Because we’re both stubborn as mules?” he offers. I can’t help but laugh. “Yeah, I’d say that about covers it.

How do you decide what video game to choose in the vast ocean of online gaming nonsense? There are 100s if not thousands of options permeating the internet. They range from honestly free, pay to win, and all the way up to an actual subscription based model. One of the first decisions you need to make is quite simply, what kind of game do I enjoy? Are you more of a first person shooter type person? If so you will most likely want to ignore role playing games or real time strategies. conversely if you are more of a role playing or real time strategy fan perhaps first person shooters are not for you. Once you have the type of game you are looking for nailed down games the next step: do you want to pay money? This is a big one and a tricky one. So many games out there present themselves as 'free'. I assure you, they are most certainly not free. Think a simple little game like Candy Crush is free? Next time you are in the Google Play or iTunes store Improve WoW PvP check on top grossing apps. You will very quickly change your mind on that. On a more relevant note some games are both free and pay, but maintain a respectful balance. By this I mean you do not HAVE to fork out hard earned cash in order to compete. League of Legends is an amazing example of this. A player cannot obtain any upgrade which will make their character better through monetary expenditures. What you can do; however, is purchase cosmetic items or other no stat gain frill. On the other end of the spectrum you have a game such as the behemoth World of Warcraft. World of Warcraft has managed to maintain a subscription based model for 10 years now. Multiple 'WoW Killers' have risen up since the inception of World of Warcraft using the subscription base as well. Damn near every one of them is now free to play. Rift and Star Wars are the two that really stick out. Leading up to their release forums Wow XP Off PvP Stream across the internet proclaimed them the almighty killer of World of Warcraft. Instead Warcraft kept on trucking and both of those games changed style to f2p not long after their release. These are just a few different games and styles of games for you to choose from. Remember, you get what you pay for in almost every case. (LoL being the exception that proves the rule)

I realized something tonight when you were in the arena doing your thing.” She took another deep breath of the roses’ scent. “What was it?” “I love you, Elle.” Her eyes flared wide to search his and her heart stopped. “Do you love me?” “Yes, I love you, Chase.” Simple, sure, an indisputable fact she couldn’t’ve held on her tongue if she’d wanted to. But was she ready to love somebody who loved her back? Was she? “You had me since Spin Master,” he said, with that grin she loved. “But I didn’t know it ‘til tonight.” “Oh, well, then, I get it,” she said, smiling back. “You only loved me ‘cause I saved your life.” “I want you to save it again.” He stood up to pull something out of the front pocket of his starched jeans. He reached for her hand. “I’m asking you to marry me, Elle. Will you?” Tears blurred her vision. They caught in her throat. Oh, God, how could she ever be a wife again? But how could she ever leave Chase? She tried to buy herself a little time to think. “You said you don’t trust women.” “Only you. I trust you. I trusted you with my life the first time I ever saw you.” That made her grin. And then she felt very solemn. He was looking right into her soul, holding her hand in his big calloused one. She clung to it. “You’re in a league of your own, Elle. Not just was a bull-fighter, but in every way.” She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know what to think. She knew she loved him, but this was scary. “You’re not the marrying kind, Chase. You’ve told me that a dozen times.” “I changed my mind.” “I’ve been married, Chase. It didn’t last. I left him.” He lifted one big shoulder. “What will last is that I love you,” he said. “That’ll never change. I’ll follow you all over the country if I have to, just to get a glimpse of you. Just to hear you laugh. You can work as many rodeos as you want. You can do anything you want and even if I’m not there, wherever I am, I’ll be loving you. Until I die.” “You’re looking at me as if it’s a done deal,” she said, smiling. His grin broadened. “It is. I can convince you. I know I’m good.” She laughed. “You might as well save us some time. You know I got no quit in me.” “Yes, I do know that.” “So what do you say?” “The main problem is that you’re not the man who’ll do everything I say. I told you that’s what I have to have before I’ll marry again.” “How d’you know I’m not him? I’ve been pretty pliable here lately, wouldn’t you say?” “You are so full of it, Chase Lomax.” “You’re the one who told me I have to get a life after rodeo. Well, that’s exactly what I’m tryin’ to do, right here.

Months later, Time magazine would run its now infamous article bragging about how it had been done. Without irony or shame, the magazine reported that “[t]here was a conspiracy unfolding behind the scenes” creating “an extraordinary shadow effort” by a “well-funded cabal of powerful people” to oppose Trump.112 Corporate CEOs, organized labor, left-wing activists, and Democrats all worked together in secret to secure a Biden victory. For Trump, these groups represented a powerful Washington and Democratic establishment that saw an unremarkable career politician like Biden as merely a vessel for protecting their self-interests. Accordingly, when Trump was asked whom he blames for the rigging of the 2020 election, he quickly responded, “Least of all Biden.” Time would, of course, disingenuously frame this effort as an attempt to “oppose Trump’s assault on democracy,” even as Time reporter Molly Ball noted this shadow campaign “touched every aspect of the election. They got states to change voting systems and laws and helped secure hundreds of millions in public and private funding.” The funding enabled the country’s sudden rush to mail-in balloting, which Ball described as “a revolution in how people vote.”113 The funding from Democratic donors to public election administrators was revolutionary. The Democrats’ network of nonprofit activist groups embedded into the nation’s electoral structure through generous grants from Democratic donors. They helped accomplish the Democrats’ vote-by-mail strategy from the inside of the election process. It was as if the Dallas Cowboys were paying the National Football League’s referee staff and conducting all of their support operations. No one would feel confident in games won by the Cowboys in such a scenario. Ball also reported that this shadowy cabal “successfully pressured social media companies to take a harder line against disinformation and used data-driven strategies to fight viral smears.” And yet, Time magazine made this characterization months after it was revealed that the New York Post’s reporting on Hunter Biden’s corrupt deal-making with Chinese and other foreign officials—deals that alleged direct involvement from Joe Biden, resulting in the reporting’s being overtly censored by social media—was substantially true. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey would eventually tell Congress that censoring the New York Post and locking it out of its Twitter account over the story was “a mistake.” And the Hunter Biden story was hardly the only egregious mistake, to say nothing of the media’s willful dishonesty, in the 2020 election. Republicans read the Time article with horror and as an admission of guilt. It confirmed many voters’ suspicions that the election wasn’t entirely fair. Trump knew the article helped his case, calling it “the only good article I’ve read in Time magazine in a long time—that was actually just a piece of the truth because it was much deeper than that.

He explained that when he had gotten to Toledo, he had a meeting with himself. He said he realized he had become satisfied with being a starting pitcher in the big leagues, and with the money he was making.

wanted to go with her twenty-year-old brother. “I’m a little old for that, you know. Alan’s fine about it though. He’ll make me laugh all night and say rude things about all the big stars, but they all know him and love him.” “I didn’t expect you to fill my shoes quite so handsomely,” he said, sounding both peeved and jealous, and she laughed. Maybe it was good for him. “I’d rather be with you than Alan any day,” she said honestly. “Just remember that,” he smiled. “That’s one hell of a compliment, Allie. I’ve never thought of myself in the same league with Alan Carr.” “Well, don’t let it

The issue was: I wanted a boyfriend this summer, and to have a boyfriend, I needed to meet boys, and the Lonestar League was guys, guys, guys. Honesty time. I released a big sigh. “All right, so maybe I’d like to have a brother for the summer.” Okay, not so honest. “A boyfriend is more like it,” Tiffany said. I glared at her. “Any chance you could move off to college next week? Don’t they have summer classes or something?

She didn’t see what everyone else saw. She was too busy fighting for more; for the next victory, in whatever shape it might come- as small as counting the exact number of steps in a flight of stairs, as big as getting in the Ivy League. For a moment, sometimes longer, these victories slowed the treadmill on which her mind churned, the one that made her feel she could never keep up.

Do not misinterpret the Ivy League educations or Boston Magazine covers or the fact they're generally put-together, functional adults. They're little orphans in nice clothes who know how to use big words.

If all you are looking for is a miracle you are wide open to follow the antichrist and the false prophets because they are going to have a big league of signs and wonders ministry. If signs and wonders do not bring glory and honour to Jesus Christ, then you must be watching a false prophet whose anointing does not come from the Holy Spirit of God.

As Christopher Caldwell observed in a New York Times essay, The Democratic Party is the party to which elites belong. It is the party of Harvard (and most of the Ivy League), of Microsoft and Apple (and most of Silicon Valley), of Hollywood and Manhattan (and most of the media) and, although there is some evidence that numbers are evening out in this election cycle, of Goldman Sachs (and most of the investment banking profession). . . . The Democrats have the support of more, and more active, billionaires [than the Republicans]. Of the twenty richest ZIP codes in America, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, 19 gave the bulk of their money to the Democrats in the last election, in most cases the vast bulk—86% in 10024 on the Upper West Side.4 Wall

Entertaining is a way of life for the Southern girl. We’ve been doing it for over three hundred years now, and we’re not too shy to say we’re just about the best in the world at it. There really doesn’t have to be an occasion to entertain in the South. Just about any excuse will do, from the anniversary of your friend’s divorce (a “comfort” party) to national flag day (Southern girls are always eager to show the flag the respect it’s due). Parties in the South have always been big affairs. In pre--Civil War days, it was a long way between plantations on bad roads (or no roads at all), so parties lasted for days on end. The hostess spared no expense, with lavish dances, beautiful dresses, and meals that went on and on, with all the best dishes the South had to offer: from whole roast pig to wild game stew. After all, plantation parties were a circuit. You might go to twenty parties a year, but you were only going to throw one--so you better make it memorable, darlin’. Grits work hard to keep this tradition alive. The Junior League and Debutante balls are not just coming out parties for our daughters, god bless them, they are the modern version of old Southern plantation balls. The same is true of graduation, important birthdays, yearly seasonal galas, and of course our weddings.

You can’t live off your big events because after you savor them for a moment, God will birth a new dream in your heart, something new to look forward to. I’ve talked to many people who have made it to the very top in their fields. The one common regret I hear is that they succeeded, but at the expense of their families. They say, “If I could do it over again, I would take time to stop and smell the roses. I would be there for my children’s Little League games. I wouldn’t live so stressed and uptight, thinking, ‘If I could just get to the next level, then I’ll slow down and enjoy my life.’” Slow down and enjoy the journey right now. Take time for the people God has put in your life. They won’t always be there. The Scripture says in James 4:14 that our lives are like a mist. We’re here for a moment and then we’re gone.

In 2013, one of the Cardinals’ rival scouting departments commissioned a study that examined draft outcomes more deeply still. The study, which extended back to 1990, found that if a club’s draft produces nine players who appear in the majors for even a single game, it ranks in the 95th percentile. The 95th percentile for number of everyday players—defined as those who go on to accumulate 1,500 big league plate appearances or batters faced—is four. The 95th percentile for number of firmly above-average players—that is, those who produce a cumulative Wins Above Replacement above 6.0 in their six cost-controlled, pre–free agency seasons—is three.

in the middle the road went on southwards. ‘On, on, on,’ said Gollum. ‘We never went that way, but they say it goes a hundred leagues, until you can see the Great Water that is never still. There are lots of fishes there, and big birds eat fishes: nice birds: but we never went there, alas no! we never had a chance. And further still there are more lands, they say, but the Yellow Face is very hot there, and there are seldom any clouds, and the men are fierce and have dark faces. We do not want to see that land.’ ‘No!’ said Frodo.

Once you've established a baseline, you need to get more granular and detailed in your conception of diversity. Too often executives take the wrong approach here and begin to try to "collect" an employee from every race. Instead, try the following questions: Is everyone in management able-bodied? Do you have a mix of parents and nonparents? Straight parents and LGBTQ+ parents? Is the majority of your workforce from one generation? What percentage graduated from Ivy League schools? From HBCUs? Maybe you've upped the number of women in the C-suite? But are all of those women white?

come overland from the Atlantic Ocean: a tide, a wash, a thrice flux-and-ebb of motion so rapid and quick across the land’s slow alluvial chronicle as to resemble the limber flicking of the magician’s one hand before the other holding the deck of inconstant cards: the Frenchman for a moment, then the Spaniard for perhaps two, then the Frenchman for another two and then the Spaniard again for another and then the Frenchman for that one last second, half-breath; because then came the Anglo-Saxon, the pioneer, the tall man, roaring with Protestant scripture and boiled whisky, Bible and jug in one hand and (like as not) a native tomahawk in the other, brawling, turbulent not through viciousness but simply because of his over-revved glands; uxorious and polygamous: a married invincible bachelor, dragging his gravid wife and most of the rest of his mother-in-law’s family behind him into the trackless infested forest, spawning that child as like as not behind the barricade of a rifle-crotched log mapless leagues from nowhere and then getting her with another one before reaching his

My piece was ten minutes long. It took him an hour and a half to play through it, and he spent the entire time telling me I was deaf. He seemed surprised when I fled the room, crying. After that day, this boss seemed to determine I was incompetent. Whenever I said anything in meetings, he ignored me or snapped that I was wrong, and the other producers would look at me sympathetically as I bit my lip and shrunk in my seat. It took so much courage to speak, but if I was quiet, he’d ask why I didn’t have an opinion, or if I waffled around a point nervously, he’d sigh exasperatedly and interrupt me to ask one of his favorite reporters, “What about you?” Sometimes they echoed me, and then he’d praise them for being so incisive. Did I not communicate as well as they did? I wondered. Did I not use big enough words? Was I not witty enough? I tried to emulate them—Ivy League–educated journalists who came from brilliant stock. But I was unsuccessful. A year in, I started being excluded from group edits on important stories.

Pujols was a 13th-round selection by the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1999 draft. Thirteenth-round draft picks rarely make it—I do not say this lightly. Since the first year of the draft, only 13 percent of all 13th-round picks have made it to the big leagues at all, and less than 8 percent have posted even one win above replacement.

Full Disclosure: when Dan DiDio approached me about doing one, I was wary to say the least. Nowadays events often mean character deaths or reboots or company-wide publishing initiatives and so on. But the run Greg Capullo and I had on BATMAN was, for better or for worse, idiosyncratic - about our own hopes, our fears, our interests. It was just... very much ours. Even so, I told Dan that I *did* have a story, one I'd been working on for a few years, a big one, in the back of my brain. It was about a detective case that stretched back to the beginnings of humanity, a mystery about the nature of the DC Universe that Batman would try to uncover, and which would lead him and the Justice League to discover that their own cosmology was much larger, scarier and more wondrous than they'd known. But I wasn't sure it would make a good "event". Dan, to his credit, said, "Work it up and let's see." So I did. But in the course of working it up, I reread all the events I could think of. Just for reference. Not only recent ones, but events from years ago, from when I was a kid. And what I discovered, or rediscovered, was that at their core, events are joyous things. They're these great big stories, ridiculous tales about alien invasions or cosmic gems or zombie-space-cop attacks that have the highest stakes possible - stories where the whole universe hangs in the balance and nothing will ever be the same again! They were *about* things, and - what I also realized while doing my homework - when I was a kid, they were THE stories that brought me and my friends together. We'd split our money and buy different parts of an event, just to be able to argue about it. We'd meet after school and go on for hours about who should win, who should lose... Because even the grimmest events are celebratory. They're about pushing the limits of an already ludicrous form to a breaking point. So that's what I came back with. I remember standing in my kitchen and getting ready to pitch DARK NIGHTS: METAL to Greg, having prepared a whole presentation, a whole argument as to why, crazy as it was, it was us, it was *our* event. I said "It's called METAL," and Greg said, "I'm in," before I could even tell him the story. And even though Dan thought it was crazy, he went with it, and for that I'm very grateful. In the end, METAL is a lot of things - it's about those moments when you find yourself face to face with the worst versions of yourself, moments when all looks like doom - but at it's heart it's a love letter to comic storytelling at its most lunatic, and a tribute to the kinds of stories, events that got me thought hard times as a kid and as an adult. It's about using friendship as a foundation to go further than you thought you could go, and that means it's about me and Greg, and you as well. Because we tried something different with it, something ours, hoping you'd show up, and you did. So thank you, sincerely, from all of us on the team. Because when they work, events are about coming together and rocking out over our love of this crazy art form. And you're all in the band, now and always.

Ruth had three more games to outdo himself. Number fifty-seven was a grand slam off Lefty Grove in Philadelphia. Numbers fifty-eight and fifty-nine came at home against the Washington Senators. The record-tying home run—a grand slam!—came off a rookie pitcher, Paul Hopkins, making his major-league debut. His catcher told him to throw only curves, so that’s what he did. The one Ruth hit, Hopkins told Sports Illustrated in 1998, was “so slow Ruth started to swing and then hesitated, hitched on it and brought the bat back. And then he swung, breaking his wrists as he came through it. What a great eye he had! He hit it at the right second. Put everything behind it.

Everyone in L.A. knew that Spade was a big-league, serial pussy hound. L.A. County was a veritable body dump of his exes.

The goal of fighting, Wilson told the Senate in January 1917, must be “peace without victory,” because “victory would mean peace forced upon the loser, a victor’s terms imposed upon the vanquished.” As Wilson saw it, “only a peace between equals can last,” meaning that “the guarantees exchanged must neither recognize nor imply a difference between big nations and small, between those that are powerful and those that are weak.” In place of one mighty empire acting as globocop, Wilson proposed a league of nations, “a single and overwhelming powerful group of nations who shall be the trustee of peace in the world.

Many excellent sites have been proposed as headquarters for the United Nations, but the location we like best is the Black Hills of South Dakota. Staunch advocacy of this site appears from time to time in the appendix of the Congressional Record, and we have been following it, first with interest, lately with enthusiasm. Unquestionably, the seat of the new world league should be Dinosaur Park, near Rapid City, South Dakota, in the Black Hills, for in Dinosaur Park stand the cement figures, full size, of the Big Five of Long Ago--Tyrannosaurus rex (35 feet long, 16 feet high), Triceratops (27 by 11), Brontosaurus (90 feet long, weight 40 tons), and a couple of other plug-uglies of the period, all of them in combative attitudes astride a well-worn path. Much can be said for such a bizarre setting. Here let the new halls be built, so that earnest statesmen, glancing up from their secret instructions from the home office, may gaze out upon the prehistoric sovereigns who kept on fighting one another until they perished from the earth.

And Ella starts rapping: Straight A's, good grades, that's the plan Study hard, top of the class Doing the best you can You won't need it but you're studying algebra Won't use Japanese, world history or calculus You follow the path they tell you to Go straight to college when you finish school If there's no scholarship take out a loan Clock up a debt kid, you're on your own Take all your stuff, you're leaving home The big wide world is yours to roam The crowd roars. She is seriously so good! Damon picks up his guitar and starts singing: But life can give us lemons and not ice cream And the path we take is not what it seems But we can't give up and cry and scream We have to turn up and change our dream Ella raps again: Science, physics and chemistry Make sure you ace your SATs Gotta get into an Ivy League Make my parents proud of me The say the road is straight and clear No need to wait, choose a career Doctor, lawyer, engineer Need to make a hundred grand a year And Damon sings: But life can give you lemons and not ice cream Find yourself against the current going upstream And all you wanna do is cry and scream Because you realize this ain't your dream You realize you have to change your dream Ella raps: Sat in class reading Romeo and Juliet But never understanding a word of it It's so old fashioned, it just doesn't fit You hate it so much, you wanna quit That's the stuff they think you need to learn But what happens when you crash and burn What happens when life deals you a blow What happens when you sink so low? And Damon sings: When life gives you lemons and not ice cream When you find yourself without a team When it throws you things that are too extreme When you can no longer chase your dream Then know it's time to change your dream And together they sing: When life gives you lemons and not ice cream When you wanna cry and shout and scream When you've fallen off your balance beam Then you know it's time to change your dream And you can do it You Can Change Your Dream

How many times can you tell someone you love them before they realize there is only peace so long as they’re by your side, before they realize in the simplest way possible, their mere existence in your life has changed the shape of you forever so that any other heart, any lips, any hand will forever feel wrong.

Once, in a documentary I had watched earlier, a top Ivy League professor claimed, “Einstein’s brain was 15% bigger than a normal brain.” I wanted a similar study on her eyes to determine how bigger they were than normal ones. I swear, I could have expressed my feelings to her a long time before if not for fear of her eyes. I could never explain to anyone that if I was so afraid of her eyes, then what exactly caused me to fall in love with her? Just the thought of her big eyes would make me sweat like a pig.

We spend the rest of the night baking, using the ingredients I have left over to make another batch of So Sorry Blondies--- this one modified with extra peanut butter, Paige's favorite. We turn on an old Taylor Swift album and eat the dough raw and catch up on each other's lives. We talk about how she and my dad came up with Big League Burger in the first place, and weird dessert hybrids we want to try in the city, and fall asleep watching Waitress with fingers still sticky from chocolate and toffee.