The Blog for the Sports Gamer

From time to time, I get Best Buy discount coupons in the mail. This week, I received a coupon for 20% off All Blu-ray disc and HDDVD high-definition players, which is good January 25-28, 2008.

The coupon has standard restrictions, which are “Excludes Pioneer Elite, Xbox 360 HDDVD players, all HD DVD and Blu-ray computer drives; special order, clearance, demo and open box items; gift cards; taxes”

Do you note a specific exclusion missing, such as the PlayStation 3, which is a Blu Ray player? No one ever discounts consoles, and I think Best Buy screwed up. If they didn’t 20% of $400 = $80 off! And they don’t ban combo units, which again is a shock so $800 x 20% = $160 off or $640 for a combo unit + 4% back using your Best Buy card = another $25 off.

 If any if you have tried to pick ‘em up, please let me know what success you’ve had. I’m very curious….

When I was a sophomore in High School,  one of the summer reading books was “Black Like Me,” which basically told the story of a white man, who through the use of makeup, became a black man and reported about what happened while in the South.

 Well, while this doesn’t have the same sort of civil rights intensity, a reporter from the Boston Globe bought a Giants Eli Manning jersey and walked around downtown Boston. Check this out.

- So, the Sega Master System is the next console to be added to Nintendo’s Virtual Console. Meh. Most of the best games for it are already on Gametap.

- Super Smash Brothers Brawl will include demos for Wii Virtual Console games… which makes me wonder why in the hell couldn’t they have done it before… Oh, well.

- It’s going to be a huge hockey weekend for me.  Went to the St. Cloud State women’s game today against Wisconsin (My brother-in-law coaches for the Huskies… gotta cheer for family.)  Watched the Wisconsin/Minnesota men’s game tonight.  Tomorrow, I’m taking my daughters to the 2nd St. Cloud/Wisconsin women’s game, and then taking my oldest to the Wisconsin/Minnesota game tomorrow night.  Lots o’ hockey.  Gotta love it.

I don’t know how I hadn’t come across this site before… but if you have a chance… take a look at some of your favorite websites through this time machine.

I was able to find most of the things that I had written on the internet, including the first review that I ever did… for Evil Avatar back in 1998.  Good grief.

The internet can be a very funny place.  Now if only I can find some of the articles that I wrote about Front Page Sports Football back in the day.  I can’t even remember the websites those were on though.

It’s just fun to take these trips down memory lane every now and again.

The idiots and the even bigger idiots have settled on a huge economic stimulus plan that will make the deficit even more gigantic. Apparently these people think by giving you a check for $600, you’ll save the economy. Funny stuff, considering $600 will buy me almost a whole tank of home heating oil. Hmm..do I buy a big screen TV, or do I buy heating oil..which will I do.

 Here’s a better idea: waive the gas tax for a month. It will probably cost about the same, but it will restore consumer confidence in a way that $600 does not. You’ll instead be like wow gas is only $2.30 a gallon! I think I’ll drive to Disney!

1. One of my favorite new series of the short season ends tonight. Chuck is on NBC at 8 and 10 with it’s last two episodes before the strike. Check it out.

2. Speaking of TV, I watched the finale of Life on Mars. WTF was that? I’d rather they did a black screen for 10 seconds.

3. I played those GH 3 tracks this morning before work. I need to brush up on GH3 again, because their medium is so much harder than RB’s medium. For fun, try the Foreigner song on both games and see for yourself :).

4. Waiting for the PS store update……I think there might be a new PixelJunk game on there….

5. Thanks for all the comments about the podcasts. Glad you’re enjoying them.

6. My anadconda don’t want none unless it’s got buns, hun.

- I just got my first email about signing up for March Madness on Demand. If you don’t have the DirecTV, every game pack, this is a great way to watch all of the games that are out of your region on your PC. Signing up now gives you access to a VIP pass that gets you faster access to the site and the games. It’s well worth it to sign up… as it’s free.

- Just so you don’t think that Dan and I are coasting through our podcasts… we’re efforting multiple interviews at this point. We’re hoping to bring you some very cool guests in the coming weeks… so stay tuned for that.

- I’ve been listening to Sirius 24 - Lithium quite a bit of late. I had forgotten how much good music there was in the early to mid 90’s. I’d really like to see some more Foo Fighters and Nirvana on Rock Band now… please.

- THQ killed the Stuntman franchise. That’s too bad. I actually enjoyed the last game… even if it was incredibly frustrating at times.

- So, Rebate checks from the government again? Brilliant economic policy there. Dan will give you much more on this I’m sure. Within 20 years… China will own most of America, I figure.

- Thanks for the comments on LOTRO.  I’ll stay with WoW for the time being.

Journey’s “Any way you want it,” Boston’s “Peace of Mind” and Foreigner’s “Juke Box Hero” are now available in one track pack for GH3. Downloading now!!!!

Over at the Official PlayStation Blog, it’s announced that starting today up until the game’s release on March 4 they’ll be posting a weekly update. This week’s episode: Gameplay/Situational Awareness. Check it out here.

- Just made a Dr. appointment to get the big snip.  Two kids is enough for Sarah and myself.  I know some guys are really hung up about doing things like that… but I just don’t want to have to stress about worrying about kid number 3 coming along.  We struggle enough with 2 as it is.

- This story over at CNET ought to make Dan very happy.   Blu-Ray getting 92% of the Hardware market share after the Warner announcement?  Ouch.

Two ouch stories in a row?  heh.

Back to work…

- Sorry that I haven’t been posting much.  It’s been a crazy busy week at work thus far and it’s not going to get any slower any time soon.   Anywho…

- I received my 5 free HD DVD’s from purchasing my Xbox 360 HD DVD addon back in September.  So, 4 months to get them… Ok, I guess.   Now I just have to make the time to finally sit down and watch Casablanca.  Oh, and I have to get my parents to submit the form for the other 5 free ones I’m due when I purchased my Toshiba player.  (No more than 5 to a house.)

- I think we’re all very happy that Dan got his money back for buying Undertow.

- Hot Shots Golf 5 is finally getting an American release in March.  Which is amazing considering I’ve had the Asian release for the game for 5 or 6 months now.  Region free gaming has it’s benefits.  Thank you very much Sony.

- Has anyone played the LoTR MMO?  I was in the beta for the game and thought that it was a pretty decent game.  I’ve been debating picking it up now that it’s down to $9.99.  Which is crazy considering the fact that I just re-upped with WoW.

- The demo for Turning Point: Fall of Liberty is now on Xbox Live.  I’m very interested in this game.  It’s nice to see alternate reality versions of the same old World War 2 games.  Thankfully, I won’t have to pay for the full version of this as it will be on Gametap on the day of release.

Happy Wednesday.

Finally it’s Wednesday. I’m not gettinga a whole lot of sleep — part stress, part Sudafed, part Fairway Solitaire. It makes mornings before work very difficult. Oh well.

1. Picked up Endless Ocean. It’s about as dumb as I expected. I wouldn’t call it a game, that’s for sure. Of course I’m a huge fan of petting fish. Yeah that’s right — you pet fish. Or you finger tap them. This is a Japanese game alright. Save your $30.

2. I also picked up Burnout Paradise for the 360. Love the soundtrack. Love the game.

3. I didn’t get a chance to play the new DS Advance Wars, but I hope to play that at some point.

4. No Live Arcade game this week but Undertow is free. Good game if you don’t already have it. I can confirm (see yesterday’s post) that by calling Xbox Support, you can get your 800 points back if you had originally purchased the game.

5. Because I was tired of the 23 remotes in my gaming office, I picked up the Harmony 550 remote. The good news is that it’s the first remote to control my Oleiva 323V TV. The bad news is that apparently there’s no discreet command for the TV so everytime it has to cycle through all 23 inputs — and it never works.. Of course now that I say that it seems to work ok. Go figure.Maybe there is hope.

6. I bought that Nyko IR remote for the PS3, so hopefully when my 2nd PS3 arrives for BD playback on my home theater the Harmony will control it. I can’t believe I will have 2 PS3’s but it’s the best blu-ray player around and when I signed up for the Sony Credit Card, I got $100 off, and that’s hard to say no to. Unfortunately because Sony is on the left coast, and I’m on the right coast, it will take approximately 3 years to get here, but I still have some HDDVDs to watch so that’s ok.

7. zzzz. Time for work.

1. As I type this I’m on hold with Xbox technical support — since I already bought Undertow, I’m waiting to see what I’ll get.

 2. Tom Brady in a cast? Wow. That’s a shocker.

3. I bought Advance Wars DS, Burnout 360 and Endless Ocean Wii today. That should keep me busy!

4. Um…Heath Ledger dead? Wow!

5. I had other stuff to talk about but I’ve completely forgotten. Sorry. Is there  a Live arcade game this week? Anyone?

 6. I’ve been on the phone with Xbox support for 10 minutes and counting as they ‘talk to a supervisor’ regarding my free game. Wow, good thing I didn’t have the red ring of death…

7. After a 13 minute call, I got my 800 points back. yay!

Despite the Fed Chairman’s saying we aren’t in recession, they dropped the rates 3/4 of a point today in a surprise move. Hey you know when the Fed does surprise moves? When the country is in recession. The Fed Chairman and George Bush remind me of that wonderful Iraqi Foreign Minister saying that Baghdad is beautiful and not under attack despite the bombs being dropped in the background and the audio of gunfire. Good times.

 Speaking of good times, Burnout should be released today, although the whore Yaris didn’t call me last night. What’s up with that. I think hear name is Yaris — you know the GameStop chick. Oh and the Oasis pack was already purchased by me for Rock Band. Don’t look back in anger :).

The Club demo was released too. It’s a plethora of gaming goodness!

- Sounds like Dan might have a soccer game to look forward to on the Wii.

- If you register here on the Rez HD website, you get a chance at a free copy of the game.

- I’m debating picking up Adventures of Lolo 2 on the Virtual Console.  I really enjoyed the first one… but I’m so wrapped into World of Warcraft and Fairway Solitaire that another game at the moment just seems silly.

- 5 million song downloads?  They like you… they really like you.