The Blog for the Sports Gamer Three guys who love Sports Gaming rant and rave about various stuff.

Bonjour

Greetings from Paris.

My wife and I landed a few hours ago and I finally got internet set up on the laptop.  39 Euro for 3 days!  Woo.  What a bargain.

The flight went quite well and we got into Paris in the morning.  Now I just want to take a nap to try and get on some sort of sleep schedule.

We had a bit of a mishap on the buses of Paris and missed our stop and ended up being stuck on the route until the end.  Ugh.  Oh, well.  Ce La Vie, or something.

The other thing I didn't get about the bus was the fact that some people had passes, some people bought tickets and others just walked on and did nothing.  I have no idea what went on there.

First lunch was terrific and decently priced.

We can see the top of the Eiffel Tower from the room that we're staying in.  We're pretty much in the center of Paris and there are tons of shops, museums, and restaurants to venture to.

I'll try to post more over the next few days, but I don't think I'll be renewing the internet at that cost again.  heh.

Have a great week everyone!

Quick Friday note

- Here we go.

My wife and I are leaving the house for Paris in a few minutes.  How I was able to prevent her from knowing where that we're going... I have no idea.

I'll post more when I get there.

Enjoy the NFL draft, NHL and NBA playoffs everyone!

One more thing

This computer failure made me very, very happy I signed up for Carbonite. I kept hearing about it on Howard Stern and signed up for two years. The thing works in the background and thankfully my 76GB of music and photos were backed up. I left my computer on all day and most of my files have been restored.

Well worth the money, in my opinion…

Thursday Thoughts

Wow, stuff just keeps getting weirder….first Madden retires…then Danny Ainge gets a heart attack…then the Bruins beat the Habs, which happens in the playoffs, like never…

In pseudo-sports news, Outrun for the Xbox is a lot of fun and looks great.

PSN wasn’t that exciting today….my mind is really spinning but I’m still alive.

Oh and about 17 months ago, someone on this blog left a comment when I was PC shopping about Velocity Micro. I applied for and received a VM credit card but went to Best Buy and bought a Gateway instead.

Not a good idea as yesterday the thing borked big time…HD failure and memory failure…actually this was Monday, not yesterday.

So this time, not bothering to try to repair the PC, I used the power of Amazon prime to purchase a new Velocity Micro PC. It’s a Quad Core 9900, with 6gb ram, 1tb HD, and the case is gorgeous…it’s 64 bit Windows Vista…but so far I haven’t run into any issues.

Of course I’m two days into my purchase…but man, this thing is very professionally made – I was shocked for a retail box it felt like it was custom made for me – motherboard manuals and extra SATA cables…so far so good…

The Bigs 2 screenshots

Tuesday Thoughts

Watching George Sherill pitch the last inning for the Orioles is like playing Home Run on the Atari 2600. You can hit the first three batters to load the bases and make it interesting, but then you can get a triple play on one dribbler and it's game over.

Still, the things this guy does to make the game a save situation....that's one of those reasons why I don't like that stat. In tonight's game Sherrill goes to pitch the bottom 10th with a 4 run lead (7-3)....and then gives up hit, hit, hit, hit and then it's 7-5...before he gets 3 outs. Jesus, give me a heart attack why don't you....so anyway, the Orioles are guaranteed of winning their 3rd straight series of the season...and then it's off to my neck of the woods this weekend.

If any Sox fans have fallen off the bandwagon and want to unload their Patriots Day tickets, please let me know .

Tuesday Night Notes

- Judging by the last few Brewers games, it could be a long year.  Although, I'll be living off of the playoff run from last year for quite some time.  So, if they suck, I'm ok with that.   I got to watch a playoff baseball game in Milwaukee.  I don't think I'll get over that for a long time.

- I really want to play another game tonight, but I just don't want to start on something that I won't be able to play again for a week or so.  Know what I mean?  Grrr... I guess that's a good problem to have.

- The more I think about it, I'll probably just watch more of the IT Crowd.  The first season ends in a cliff hanger (of sorts...)  Best to get back to that.

More tomorrow.

Tuesday notes

- Man, this week can't go fast enough.  I'm just so anxious to begin my vacation.  I only have a few more things that I need to do before I go (buy some new shoes, pick up a few books, etc.)  Friday can't get here soon enough.

- The bummer of the week is missing most of the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

For my money, the Stanley Cup playoffs is about as good as it gets for post season competition.  Thankfully I should just miss parts of round one and not much more than that.

- Anyone go to the new Gamefly site recently?  It's faster, but I still find the site very annoying.

- Finished Heavenly Sword on Sunday night.  It's not the longest game, and some of the "twing-twang" sequences are annoying, but the game is a great deal of fun.  I'd highly recommend it as a rental to anyone who likes the God of War style of games.

- For TV watching, I recently stumbled across a British show called 'The IT Crowd.'  There is some pretty bad stereotypical geek humor there, but there are also some moments where I was laughing so loud last night I thought I would wake up the kids.

There was one moment where their high speed internet wasn't working well and they were forced to deal with dial-up speeds.

"Oh, do you remember the Internet at this speed? Up all night and you'd see eight women."

Awesome.

This just in…

Jeff Suppan sucks.

I'm sure that every team has a pitcher that has no business being on their roster, but how many can afford a $12.5 million starting pitcher that can't throw strikes....

Terrible pitcher.  Absolutely terrible pitcher.

Sunday night notes

- A very entertaining last day at the Masters.  I was pulling for Perry, but he just couldn't do what he needed to do over the last two holes.  (2 bogeys, with a 2 shot lead... ugh.)

- Took the kids on a bike ride this morning... wow, the first ride of the year is always a challenge.  That and the fact that the kids have 10 more pounds on them that they didn't have last year.   I guess it gets easier each ride... or so I hope.

- Any thoughts for great travel games for the PSP or DS?  I have Rhythm Heaven coming via Gamefly, but that's about it at the moment.  I was figuring that one of the Brain Age titles, for Sudoku, and the New York Times Crossword Puzzle title for the DS would work for a flight as well.

Amazon DOTD: Tecmo Bowl DS $14.98

Subject says it all….

Saturday night notes

- Pisser.  This time the Cubbies took one in the 9th.  Villanueva got rocked for a 2-run homer as the Cubs beat the Brewers 6-5.

I have to say that if this seasons games between the Cubs and Brewers are as entertaining as the last two days have been, you won't hear any complaints from me.

- Started Heavenly Sword after lunch today and am half way through it.  It really is an amazingly beautiful game.  They also had a nice little dig about "hitting your weakpoint for massive damage" in there.   I picked up the game on clearance at Target a year or more ago for $29 and think it was well worth that based on my time in it thus far.

- 6 days until my trip.  It'll be tough to be away from my daughters for 9 days... but I know they'll have a great time with their grandparents while we're gone.

- The NCAA Championship hockey game was a terrific battle.  Miami (OH) took a 2 goal lead late in the third and Boston University scored 2 goals in the last minute to tie the game.

I was watching the game with some friends and commented about how smart it was for BU to pull their goalie with 3 minutes remaining.  You need every advantage you can get at that point, and at the very least you're going to put a ton of pressure on the other team.  In this case, Miami cracked over time and let in the two goals to tie the game.  In the OT, Boston University controlled the tempo... and the only sad thing was that they won the game on a tipped goal that popped over the goalie's shoulder.

Still, it was a terrific national championship game.

- I love that the people got what they wanted and got Tiger and Phil in the same group on Sunday at the Masters.  The only problem is the fact that they're both 7 shots back.

It'll be interesting to see how the ratings play out on this one...

W00T!

- Brewers win = awesome

- Brewers win over Cubs = More awesome

- Brewers win over Cubs, scoring two runs in the bottom of the 9th = WOOOOO!!!!!

Friday notes

I have just been wiped out this week.  Played hockey for 2.5+ hours on Wednesday night and fell asleep on the couch last night around 9:30.  Really looking forward to the weekend.

- Finished up GTA4 the other night.  What a pain in the ass that was.  I still don't get how this game got the ratings that it did.

Throw 'Generic 3rd person shooter' as a title on it and I think the game gets 8's instead of 9's and 10's.

The thing that was the most frustrating to me was the need for the driving from one island to the next.  I understand that's life in the big city, but more often than not it was a lame attempt to hack the story together.  I would have greatly preferred a 5 minute, split-screen, cut scene than having to complete the same drive over and over again on the more difficult missions.

The worst thing along those lines was the fact that the last mission wasn't even all that difficult.  You had a gun fight, then had to hop on a motorcycle on the beach... to chase someone who is in a boat.   Never mind the fact that they have a boat and could leave the f'n city and get away from you clean... Oh, no... they had to stay close to the shore so you could keep tabs on them.  Grrr....

- I think the next game that I'm thinking of working on is Heavenly Sword.  I haven't played a good hack'em up, God of War, style game in a while.

- Best feature of the DSi thus far, which will sound a bit funny, is the fact that pictures that you take are shown to you when you turn your system on.  Seeing pictures of my daughters when I turn on the system is always a nice surprise.

- Starting to get excited (and nervous) about my upcoming trip.  The fact that my wife still doesn't know where we're going is an interesting challenge.   She's very sneaky in her question asking.

- We've awarded Jermaine the game of his choice for winning the bracket challenge this year and his first choice is Madden 10 for the PS3 when it is released.  Congrats again Jermaine on winning the contest.

Tuesday notes

- Thank goodness it's only one game... Jeff Suppan is a terrible day one starter.  When all is said and done, the Brewers give up 10 against San Francisco.  I love how the hitters get a 5-4 lead after Soup gives up 3 in the bottom of the first, and he goes and gives it right back.

Oh, well.  At least the team was agressive on the bases, stealing 4.

That's something to build on, I guess.

- Still liking the DSi.  My daughters absolutely love the camera functionality.  I've been taking pictures of them and playing with the effects and amusing them to no end.  Plus, it is nice to have a picture of my girls show up when you turn on the system.

- Nearly done with GTA4... although I just don't know if I'm going to make it.  I've gotten insanely tired of 10 minute driving segments to a mission, only to get to a mission where you have to ride a motorcycle on the beach.  YAY!  Let me tell you how much that sucks.  Ugh.