The Blog for the Sports Gamer

As mentioned earlier, I was able to get NBA 2k8 early. While not trying to make it into a 32,056 page forum about LeBron’s socks, I have posted my thoughts on the forum. Comments about socks will be ignored.

Since I haven’t written much, I guess I’ll make up for it over the weekend. First off let me go over with you my current TV schedule.

Monday – Chuck on NBC, How I Met Your Mother on CBS. I’m going to see if Big Bang Theory (CBS) is going to be okay. I watched one episode and I’ll give it another shot…it’s a maybe. I liked Chuck.  I didn’t like Journeyman.

Tuesday – Tough TV night — too much to watch: The Unit (CBS), House (Fox) and my sleeper pick is Reaper (CW). Still watching Damages on FX as well. Anyone know if/when this show ends? It’s very good but I hope it comes to a conclusion!

Wednesday – Back To You (Fox). It’s not OMG or new but I like the actors and the characters. Sue me.  Wednesday Nights aren’t big TV nights around here . More like catch up on Tuesday’s shows. lol

Thursday – 30 Rock is awesome (NBC). We all watch Ugly Betty (ABC). The Office rules as well, but you already knew that. We like Don’t Forget The Lyrics (Fox) over The Singing Bee. Finally Mad Men is a pretty interesting show (AMC).

Friday – OMG OMG this Friday is the new Friday Night Lights episode. Probably only going to be watched by me and 3 other Nielsen families but I’m going to enjoy it. I’ll probably check out that Pushing Daisies show too since I kept earing about it.

So there you go. Discuss.

#3, #5, #7, #11, #13, and #21 all lose… and there are 3 more ranked teams playing tonight. What a day.

Edit: Add #22 and #10 to the list as well. Crazy.

Edit part deux: Post your thoughts on the college football weekend here.

Edit #3: #4 Florida falls as well.  Insane day.

Oh, and the Badgers just barely hang on to win…. again. Seriously, the Defense on that team needs to figure out how to cover screens and swing passes. Ugh. Still, 5-0 is better than 4-1.

Well, the Brewers were eliminated last night and while it was disappointing to see them blow a 8.5 game lead, this team has tons of youth and will be one of the favorites for the NL central next year.  It’s going to be a ton of fun to watch Weeks, Fielder, Braun, and Hart put up a ton of runs next season.  If they can figure out what they are going to do with their 7 or 8 starters and their bullpen, they should be one of the teams to beat in the NL next year.

Considering we hadn’t seen meaningful September baseball since 1992, this was quite a season to watch.

Sorry for the lack of posting — when your sinuses are filled with phlegm, it’s tough to get motivated for much.

 Anyway, even though the Orioles have been a laughing stock, you’ve got to love the way they knocked the Yankees out of the AL East crown. Down 3 in the ninth, they tie the game (with 2 outs) and then win on a suprise bunt single by Melvin Mora. That game ruled. What a way to end a disaster-like season.

My TWID column will post today — sorry for the delay. Technical reasons, and all that.

Has anyone received their MS Wireless Wheel retrofit kit?

Thanks to a friend in the business, I was able to get NBA2K8 early. I played multiple games last night. I will say the end product plays and feels much different than the demo. I’m actually having a lot of fun with it. I will post some thoughts in the forums and on here later when I get out of work today.

- Rock Band’s pricing is official.  $169.99 for the complete Guitar/Drums/Microphone/Game bundle.  I’m leaning towards the PS3 version at this point because of the wireless guitar.  If I heard that the wireless controller worked with GH1 and GH2, then that would seal the deal for me.

- I rented Halo 3 today from Blockbuster (They had 20 copies on the shelf and 6 were available for rent.)  I’ll give the single player campaign a go tonight and hopefully get in some co-op play as well.

- I pity the team that finally loses to my fantasy team.  The rest of the league will mock you when said loss happens.  I’m just anxious to find out who that team will be….

- I’ve posted my thoughts about the Jericho demo on the forums.  I’ll be interested to hear other peoples feelings on the demo.

- Man… the Cubs are really going to back their way into the playoffs.   I wonder who they can blame their losing streak on.  A goat?  Bartman?  Bill Murray visiting the clubhouse?  It couldn’t be the players or the coaches fault… so who’s fault is it?  Hmm….

- Things look good with the forum registration change.   I’m still hoping to make the spoiler code change on the forums very soon as well.  It’s just more complicated than it first looked… and I haven’t had a ton of time to add it.  We’ll get there.  I really like how the site and the forums are developing, so I’ll keep working on suggestions as you guys think of them.

- It’s been a really long week, so now I’m just looking forward to watching some football on Saturday and Sunday and getting my ass handed to me in Fantasy again.

The folks at 2K Sports just let us know about their new NBA Media Player which you can check out below. Give it a whirl!

Damn… I just watched the highlights of the Islanders/Rangers game from Monday night. 7 fights, including the goalies… in the PRESEASON. Oh, and Al Montoya shouldn’t ever try and fight again… DiPietro just destroyed him.

I can’t wait for the regular season to start. The Isles pretty much gutted their roster, but I’m a fan, I’ll stick with them. I just picked up a jersey for my two year old daughter, so we’re all ready here.

As soon as she put the jersey on she said, “Daddy.  I’ll play goalie.”

If my pocketbook has any say about that… she won’t.

Drop the puck!

Man, what a last day…. I got to work yesterday at 8:00 a.m. and ended up finishing my day at 9:00 a.m. this morning… by sleeping on a cot at work. Got a few hours of sleep then ended up in meetings for the rest of the day. Next up? More work until around 11 or 12 tonight. Fun, fun, fun. On with the news.

- MLB2K7 for the PS3 has dropped to $29.99. For that money though, I would wait a few weeks and buy MLB Power Pros for the PS2. Same cost and from what I hear, it’s a much more fun game.

- I saw this story the other day and couldn’t wait to comment on it. So, let me get this straight lady… you blog about how your friends think you are a pothead, rip on your boss, and then think that you shouldn’t have been fired for it when you’re found out? I love this quote.

“Ten years ago, someone would never get fired for their blog. This is such a sign of the times.”

Ten years ago you were in the 8th grade…. and there wasn’t anything like blogging happening then. I do have to think if you had a webpage detailing your life back then… yeah, I think you probably would have been canned for those comments then as well.

- Ok. My highlight of the Zero Punctuation this week is the image when he says ‘Basically.’ Funniest gaming related guy on the internet. I’ll repeat that every week until the guy proves me wrong.

- For those of you that missed it, All Pro Football 2K8 (for the 360 and PS3) will be $29.99 at Best Buy again next week.

- Oh, I made a change to the registration page for the forum.  There is a code that you find on the forum page now when you want to register.  It should reduce the number of spammers that have been registering lately.  Sorry for the inconvenience.

OK just like the NHL 2K8 call, if you have any specific questions re: NBA 2K8 you would like to me ask, fire away either here or better yet in the forums. The call is this Friday at 5PM.

I’m starting to actually like Jason Whitlock. He’s written some columns of late, going back to his virtual finger at ESPN, that I think makes sense. His latest is in regards to the now infamous Gundy tirade.

Not sure how I feel about this. Not the column thing. That woman’s column was a complete hack job. But agreeing with Whitlock?

Thank goodness I didn’t buy Halo 3 Limited Edition. The reports from my local store (name withheld but you know it) say that 250 people showed up to buy the game at midnight. Thankfully I wasn’t one of them. But everyone that got the Limited Edition got hosed becuase the same store now has 30 returns of the LE because of the scratched disk. Oops.

Microsoft quickly updated their site to have this problem fixed, but seriously if there’s something that can go wrong for Microsoft, it will. Besides, since you are already waiting for (1) your Xbox 360 to be returned to you fixed, (2) the adapter for your MS Wireless Wheel so you can play it with the AC Adapter again, what’s another month waiting for Halo 3?

In other news, I guess I got lucky. My daughter is a ginormous fan of Hannah Montana and is in the Miley World fan club. Today was the day tickets went on sale at DCU center so it was my responsibility to obtain said tickets. Based on the web articles I’ve seen, I had heard it was harder to get than U2 tickets (that fan club sale was a clusterfrick — by the way guys, still waiting for that last printed issue of Propaganda you owe me but thanks for ignoring my emails). Anyway, I went right to ticketmaster at 10am, entered the presale code and got two tickets. Of course, in typical ticketscalper fashion two tickets at $64.75=$155. I love their fuzzy math — I had to pay an $11 per ticket “f-you convenience charge” and a $1.25 facility charge, and a $3.55 order processing charge.  I’m sorry, wouldn’t the ‘convenience’ of ordering online count as the order processing charge? Oh and of course my favorite — we’ll mail you tickets for free on our own card stock, or you can use your own printer at home to print your tickets for an additional $2.50! Everyone is okay with this?

 Okay, I’m just ranting now. But seriously, that needs to be fixed. Okay, time to try out some Hot halo action.

Posted in the forum. I know a lot of guys are digging NHL 08 but NHL 2K8 is feeding my hockey gaming hunger just fine.

So, for those keeping score at home, that’s:

NCAA 08: Already shelved
Madden 08: Shelved
Tiger Woods 08: Still playing online. Soon to be shelved
NHL 2K8: 20 games in and going strong.
NBA Live: I expect great (OK, good) things
NBA 2K8: The Cavs are the 18th best team ratings wise? *18*?

- So, Microsoft is skipping a new Arcade game this week and has decided to just give out 25% discounts on old games. I guess they figured that the 50% off thing worked a few weeks ago, so now they’ll see if they can give out less of a discount and still get a sales boost.

- 4.2 million copies of Halo 3 shipping at launch. My thought is that you’ll be able to find plenty of copies for the rest of the year.

- Want pictures of the new PS3 Wireless Guitar for Rock Band? The FCC has them. Never thought I would be linking them.

- Apparently the Brewers aren’t going to lay down (up 12-2 in the 6th.) I hope they just finish out strong now.

- No games for me this week. Thank goodness. I’m thinking I’ll just mess around with the ones that I have. Some more NHL perhaps.