Monday notes
- Please, please, stop telling us that you need to retire to spend more time with your family, then come back one year later to a much bigger contract.
If you don't want to work at that place any more, just say you felt that it was time to move on. I'm so damn tired of hearing these guys lie all the time about putting their families above their jobs, when it's quite clear that their families are clearly playing second fiddle to the job they are trying to attain.
Urban Meyer may be the nicest guy in the world, and I'm sure he'll do incredibly well at Ohio State, but I just hate crap like this.
- Speaking of Big 10 football, with the divisions shaking out as they did, I think this game has to be the one rematch that people would like to see most this year for deciding who will go to the Rose Bowl.
Couldn't ask for a better game to end the year in the Big 10.
- Big college basketball game coming up this week for Wisconsin as well, as they travel to North Carolina as part of the Big Ten/ACC shootout matchup thing.
The Badgers played well against BYU the other day, but I'm worried about a team that relies on outside shooting as much as they do. If they have a day where they don't shoot well from the arc, they will lose ugly. I have a sneaking suspicion that will be the case on Wednesday. Just a feeling.
- In gaming, I'm still powering through The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. My daughters sat by me on Sunday for an hour while I struggled with a puzzle in one of the dungeons in the game. You know you love your kids when they say something like, "Daddy, why are you here again? Can't you figure it out?"
All you can do is breathe deeply and ask them to walk away.... heh.
- Speaking of other humorous kids moments, my eldest daughter woke me up on Sunday holding a clump of hair in her hand. She informed me that our 4 year old decided to start cutting her own hair.
When I asked our youngest about this, she informed me that her hair was getting in her eyes and she wanted to fix it.
The sad part was that she actually did a really good job. She wet her hair down and had cut a straight line across her bangs. When my wife got home she did a bit of touch up to finish it.
It's so hard to punish your kids for something when they actually do a good job.
- Speaking of dealing with children, Dan was complaining to me about the scoring system in the fantasy football league again...
For a guy in 1st place in the league, he sure complains about his team quite a bit.
- Lastly, the NBA is coming back. Um, yeah.
- Have a good Monday
Tuesday notes
- A bit of advice to Jerry Sandusky, if you're going to go on national television making a plea of innocence to Bob Costas... Try not to have an awkward 15 or 16 second pause when you're asked about whether or not you're sexually attracted to young boys.
I have to commend Costas on his interview skills though. An interview such as that one is an incredibly difficult one to handle. He asked tough questions and great follow ups.
Moving on...
- Don't believe that the Packers have played a more complete game than the one that they put together last night... and they still made plenty of offensive line mistakes and fumbled on a punt return. Still, you can't complain when you beat a division rival 45-7.
Plenty of tough opponents remain on the Packers schedule, but their offense is playing remarkably well and a 3 game division lead is always a good thing with 7 games to go.
- Speaking of football, I would like to thank the Vikings for stopping James Starks from scoring a late game meaningless touchdown that allowed me to win my fantasy game last night and go to 8-2 on the season. It's hard to believe my team has done this well, when I have only outscored my opponents by 50 for the season. Still, I'm not going to complain.
Only 3 more weeks before the playoffs, so make those last moves count.
Oh, and pay no attention to the playoff brackets that are created by the game. Currently it has teams from opposite divisions playing in the first round. I'll be re-adjusting it so that the top for teams from each division make the playoffs and are seeded from there.
- As far as gaming goes, Skyrim has been eating up quite a bit of my time as I navigate through the initial city that you travel to.
One of the problems that I had with Oblivion was the leveling system and having no idea what way was the best to grow your character. For example, I apparently went up 5 level during the first quest that I tackled with my character, but had no idea if it was a good idea to advance all the levels at once, or if there was a reason why I would want to wait and move up a level at a later time. I'd hate to think that I'm a few hours into the game and I've already made a mistake that would impact my character for the life of the game... but I'm going to stick with it either way.
I guess this is just one of those games where they really want you to buy the strategy guide, as you can tell it's just going to be a massive world that you're going to be taking on.
- Lastly, looking like no season for the NBA. It's just so hard to pick a side between billionaires and millionaires who can't split 3 billion dollars.
Whatever will we do without having to watch the pick-and-roll be run for 48 minutes?
Wednesday notes
- Well, now I guess we can step away from the events at Penn State and get back to normal events.
- Last night I had a chance to finish up the campaign for inFamous 2 (for the record, I was a good guy.)
I have to say that I was surprised at the ending and the choices that the game allowed you to make. Definitely one of the more surprising endings that I can recall in quite some time. Not sure that I'll be going back to complete the game as an evil bastard now, but it has been fun to run around the city zapping street musicians... damn harmonica players.
- With the NBA Players association deciding not to take the owners last offered deal, and seeing highlights of an exhibition game last night, I wonder why the players don't just start a barnstorming league at this point. Create 6 or 8 teams of superstars and travel the country playing in non-NBA owner owned venues and build up the public interest in seeing them play real games.
Sure there would be high costs involved with doing something like this, but right now, all you have is people thinking that rich people are not happy about how much money they are getting.
Give people some games (for very good prices) and they might think a bit better of you.
- Considering my run on all things sequels in gaming lately, I'm having a really hard time with buying Skyrim this week. Uncharted 2 is sitting next to my TV begging to be complete, along with Killzone 2, Resistance 2, and other games from the past few years like Oblivion, and addons to games I have already finished like Undead Nightmare for Red Dead Retribution and Episodes from Liberty City for Grand Theft Auto 4.
Perhaps waiting a few weeks for prices to continue to drop would be for the best.
- As part of the most recent Humble Bundle I had a chance to start playing two indie games that were new to me, The Binding of Isaac and Blocks that Matter.
The Binding of Isaac is definitely a strange game with a very twisted story and plays as a combination of the Legend of Zelda and Robotron. For the price, it's very interesting, and incredibly challenging. You only get one life, and when you die... it's back to the beginning of the game. Unforgiving would be one way to describe it.
Blocks that Matter has been a very fun puzzle type game to play as you acquire various blocks with your character and re-assemble them to escape from each level. The trick is that when you reconstruct your blocks, you have to do so in the form of a tetromino. That adds an interesting challenge level to the game as well.
You also get Voxatron in it's current alpha state as part of the bundle, and all you have to do is spend more than $5.10. Well worth it for those titles.
- Have a good rest of the day.
Wednesday notes
- Oh, well. Brewers lost due to Marcum's inbility to throw strikes and when he did.... he threw them on counts where he was ahead and should have been throwing to avoid contact.
Here's hoping Wolf (and players like Morgan and Weeks) can finish off the D-Backs tonight.
- I already have 4 hours into Fairway Collector's Edition. Man, that game is crazy addictive. It does seem to be quite a bit harder than the last game, if that sort of thing interests you.
- My early time with NBA2K12 has been spent in the MyPlayer mode so far and I've been a bit frustrated with the goals that have been given to my player.
Just to let you know how my player started up, he finished with a A- rating in the rookie challenge game that defines where you will be drafted.
Once you're in the regular season (I was drafted by Golden State at number 11) you get goals for each game. The goals, in my case, weren't all that difficult... but they didn't give me enough time to actually complete them all. For example, they'd give me a goal of 'get one defensive rebound,' but then only leave me in the game for 2 minutes before pulling me for the remainder of the game.
My hope is that my playing time will increase as the season goes on and that will take care of the issue. Otherwise it's going to be pretty damn hard to find a spot in the lineup.
- The downloadable edition of NBA Jam was released yesterday by EA, anyone pick it up?
- Lastly, there is a HUGE Gran Turismo 5 update coming out in the next few weeks that will be adding in-car views for all cars, new cars, new tracks, game loading, in race saves, and support for Logitech's top two wheels (the G25 and G27, which I happen to own.)
What's crazy about the update is that it will be totally free. They've added a ton of features since the game came out and they've done it all without adding any additional cost to the user.
Developers such as Polyphony Digital should be lauded when they support their games for as long as they have.
The game just dropped to $39.99, so if you've been at all interested in the game, now is a great time to pick it up.
- Have a great rest of the day.
Quick Tuesday night notes
- I caught a nasty sinus cold over the last day or so, so I've been pretty much out of it for the day. Here's what's on my mind today though.
- Fairway Collector's Edition is awesome. Easily as good and just as addictive as the first game. I played over 40 hours on the first version of the game and can easily see that repeating itself this time around.
- No more undefeated teams in the Fantasy Football league, and that's a great thing. Glad to see that kind of balance early. 5 teams with 3-1 records and 6 teams with 2-2 records. 11 teams within 1 game of first place? Good stuff.
- Game 3 for the Brewers and Diamondbacks. Amazing to think that the Brewers could move on with a victory tonight. I like Marcum on the mound tonight though. He's been great on the road (8-3) and the team has played better on the road of late.
It would be nice to see them finish off the series today and then get some rest and watch the remainder of the series between the Cards and Phillies. That's my hope any way.
- Started messing around with NBA2K12 last night, but haven't had nearly enough time to play it yet. I'll post some more thoughts on it in a few days.
- Enjoy your night!
Monday morning notes
- Easily the best sports weekend here in Wisconsin. Brewers take the first two games of the NLDS playoffs against Arizona (The place was electric on Saturday.)
Badgers put a beating on Nebraska on Saturday night.
And the Packers whup up on the Broncos today.
Personally, I'm exhausted (and also coming down with a cold) but enjoyed every minute of the whole weekend.
Hopefully Marcum is able to put together a good start on Tuesday and the team keeps hitting like they did today. Fear the beer.... fear the beer.
- As for the Badger game... this team just doesn't look like it will ever be stopped on offense. They have so many talented players and Russell Wilson looks better every game. The schedule is very, very favorable for Wisconsin and if they just keep on winning good things could happen. Stay away from injuries and it should be a special year.
- The Packers? Great googily moogily. I thought they were going to hang 50 something on Denver. The offense is just crazy good. I'd like to see the defense play a bit better, but when you score 49, you can give up a few points and still be ok. The Atlanta game next week could be a big one. I'm sure they're still smarting from the thumping Green Bay put on them in the playoffs last year.
- Just about peed myself when I saw this news today. In case you don't want to click on the link... Arrested Development is coming back to TV and making a movie.
And just because... here are the chicken dances from the show.
- Lastly, I should have my copy of NBA 2K12 sometime this week. I'll be curious to see how well the game sells when it's pretty likely there won't be a season. Actually, playing the game is better than watching it... so it won't impact me much.
- Have a great week.
Wednesday notes
- Well, I had a great time at the Brewers game last night and got to see another nice win and terrific pitching performances from both starters.
I hope that everyone could see that the the magic number that I posted yesterday was done in jest. Seriously, until the magic number is around 10... there is no point in even looking at it. You can't blame Brewers fans for being excited though. We, as fans, haven't had a team that was playing this well at this time of year in almost 30 seasons. We're going to be a bit goofy about it.
One thing that astounded me was the fact that the Brewers have gotten 76 quality starts out of their staff to this point, which means that their starters have given them at least 6 innings of pitching and allowed no more than 3 runs in 62% of their starts this year. That's a great number that shows the kind of consistent pitching that this team has had this year.
Looking back, 3 of the last 4 World Series champions all had at least 84 or more quality starts in a season and the Brewers are on a pace for 100, which would just be crazy, considering people don't even consider this to be one of the top 5 pitching staffs in the game.
You have to tip your hat to Doug Melvin because of the work that he did to bring in Marcum and Greinke, and for acquiring K-Rod, because everything has really clicked for the team since he got there.
- One thing that I definitely learned from last night's game is how hard it is to get a good picture, even with a decent camera.
You have to get so damn lucky to catch the ball or the player at the exactly right moment.
I probably annoyed most of the people sitting near me due to the fact that I took over 400 pictures during the game last night but I was happy that I did get, what I thought, was a great shot of the game winning hit.
Probably my biggest issue was that I was so far away from home plate (probably 250 feet, at least) and the lighting that you have to deal with at an indoor game. Hopefully for my next game I'll be quite a bit closer and can get a lot more shots. (I'm sure that will entertain you all... heh.)
- Lastly, if you haven't had a chance to read the Yahoo Sports investigative report on the activities of a booster at Miami from 2001 to 2010, you really should. It's an amazingly in depth article, with a crazy amount of detail, about the benefits that were given to players and coaches over that period of time, and the way that the university turned a blind eye on the whole thing.
As Patrick Hruby (friend of the blog) writes today, hopefully this will be one of the last straws that breaks the back of amateurism in college athletics.
The fact that Miami's AD (who was one of the biggest critics of USC during the Reggie Bush issues) was part of some of this just makes the irony so rich.
End the crap and figure out a way to start paying the kids.
Monday notes
- That sure was quite a weekend for the Brewers as they got a sweep over the Cardinals and moved into first place in the NL Central for the first time in 2 years.
They wouldn't have been able to do it without the, NL Player of the Week, Prince Fielder though. In the last 10 games, he has hit 8 homeruns, 7 of which have given Milwaukee a lead and the 8th tied up a game. That's pretty amazing stuff.
Very early in the season, but still, encouraging to see them win a series like that against a rival.
- I know it's a smaller story, but I'm sure you've been following it...
There has been a bit of discussion in the last week or so about how baseball is looking to re-align itself in the near future to get 15 teams in each league. Not really sure how to feel about this except for the fact that baseball really needs to try and do something to balance out interleague play schedules. Here's part of the reason why.
St. Louis gets K.C twice, then the Blue Jays, Orioles, and Rays.
Milwaukee gets Boston, Tampa, Minnesota twice, then the Yankees.
I can understand why the natural rivalry games are in there, so that's a wash, but why can't they figure out a way for all of the teams in the division to... oh, I don't know... play the same teams in the other division, like every other sport does?
There's so much to like about baseball, but the unbalanced schedule, and scheduling in general for it, sucks.
- There was no jumping around or yelling in excitement or anything like that, but I was very happy that the Mavericks beat Miami last night in game 6 of the NBA finals.
The reasons why people dislike the Heat are myriad and there is an incredibly good chance that they will be back in this position again if the league plays again next year, but for now everyone can sit back and enjoy the fact that the King's coronation will have to wait for at least another year.
- Now that the basketball playoffs are over, hopefully we'll get a Boston win tonight so that we have all of the sports world focused on a 7th game in the Stanley Cup finals. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to think this will happen considering the fact that the Bruins outscored Vancouver 12-1 in the first two games in Boston.
- In the movie world, I took my girls to see Kung Fu Panda 2 over the weekend. I had a pretty good idea of what they were trying to do with the film, but I just felt that it wasn't executed all that well. It was a decent film, but nowhere near as good as the first. The girls enjoyed it though, so at least there was that.
Then last night I sat down and watched the new version of True Grit last night with my wife. Damn. That was an incredibly well done movie. Some of the imagery in that film will be sticking with me for quite some time. I don't know how, but Jeff Daniels keeps getting better and better every time I see him, and his portrayal of Rooster Cogburn was flat out brilliant.
Sadly, I've never seen the original, but after watching this one, I really have to do that soon.
- Lastly, in gaming I started playing inFamous 2 which is just as good as the first.
The only annoyance that I've found thus far relates to the user created levels. Thankfully they show up on your map with a different type of marker because after you play the actual campaign or mini-missions, you'll really want nothing to do with the user-created ones. Even the missions created by Sucker Punch just feel hollow compared to the actual game itself.
Perhaps they'll get better as time goes on, but if that's a reason you were interested in the game, you'll end up disappointed.
Tuesday notes
- Well, Nintendo sure does make a lot of people say... "Huh?" after their conferences.
I have no idea how good the Wii U controller will be because I haven't really seen how well it can be used for actual games.
I saw a tweet from Patrick Hruby yesterday wondering how good the controller could be for sports games. Honestly, the only thing I could think of was to be able to use the Wii U controller as a 'psuedo-GPS/binoculars' for a golf game where you could point it at the screen and get a view of the green to line up your next shot. Maybe in a football game it could function as your coaching interface, like we had on the VMU back with NFL2K. It's possible that you could handle defensive shifts for your fielders in a baseball game via the touch screen as well. You could use it for all sorts of pitching statistics in a baseball game (Inside Edge type data) as well. Beyond those type of applications though, it seems like it would have very limited options in sports games.
Having said all that, some of the demos did seem interesting. Since we have a year until the release though, I think we'll have more than enough time to hear about how developers are going to push the device and see if it's actually worth our time and money.
- Want to hear the most disturbing thing about E3? NCAA Football 12 isn't being shown at the EA booth. When the game has 1 month before release and almost certainly has to be hitting gold status in the next few days, and you're not showing it to the general public... you're going to have some pretty spooked fans.
I'd love to hear an explanation for this one.
- My daughter's graduation ceremony went off without a hitch, but the thing that was the most disturbing to me was seeing the sign that said 'Class of 2023.' Man, if there is something that makes you feel old.. it's seeing things like that.
- As Dan said, the ability to see videos of the upcoming 3DS games on your system is quite nice. Hopefully they'll push new videos at somewhat regular intervals.
Along with those I tried out Excitebike 3D and I'll give you the IGN review. If you like free games and liked the original Excitebike, I'd grab Excitebike 3D. For some reason, I thought they were adding something other than 3D to the gameplay... but it's just the old Excitebike. Still, it's free, so if you have a 3DS, be sure to grab it.
- Glad to see Capuano pitch well last night for the Mets, but it's too bad that the Brewers pen had to blow the game after Prince hit his 15th in the 6th inning to take the lead.
As I said in the comments section, the Brewers still have the 3rd best record in the NL, so they just need to keep pitching as they have and the hitting should be good enough to get them their fair share of wins.
Also, I didn't wear a Brewers t-shirt last night. So, the loss should be entirely blamed on me.
- Since I was in my rehab chair after the Brewer game, I had a chance to watch the 4th quarter of the NBA finals again.
I know that Lebron is a terrific talent, but I can't recall seeing a situation where a guy like that didn't want the ball in his hands to take a shot when it really mattered in a game. He passed up so many shots in the 4th quarter that it was almost laughable. Dirk looked like death and still managed to take the ball into his hands to control his teams fate but Lebron just faded into the background every time that the Heat needed a big shot, while Dwayne Wade continued to look like the stud for Miami. That was astounding to me.
Even with the win tonight, it seems like the Heat have a pretty advantage in the series. Having the last two games at home, even if you're trailing, is a big deal. I'm still pulling for the Mavs, but things look good for Miami.
- Lastly, Craig sent me a video link of a hit that Tim Thomas put on Henrik Sedin in the last game.
Being a goalie, I really disliked what he did. My main reason for feeling that way is the fact that, as a goalie, you can't be hit by other players without them taking a penalty. To be fair then, you shouldn't be able to hit other players either.
There is something to be said for playing the puck and defending your space, but he was doing neither of those. The player no longer had the puck and he just hit him to hit him. He wasn't playing as a goalie anymore, he was just a hockey player trying to hit a guy coming near the goal.
What he did wasn't a penalty, but it certainly wasn't something that I, as a (incredibly low level) goalie, would every think of doing to another player.
Hopefully Game 4 tonight will be a clean affair, but I really doubt that based on what we've seen in the first 3 games.
Monday notes
- Not sure how many of you are as silly superstitious the rest of you are about sports, but from Friday to Sunday, I wore a Brewers t-shirt (a different one every day...just in case you were wondering) and they won each game by a single run.
Today they get a chance to go for a 4 game sweep of the Marlins, who are a pretty good team as well. Even if they don't win today's game, they have a 4-2 road trip at this point, which is remarkable considering they were 8-17 on the road before this last trip.
Next weekend is the big test though as the Cardinals come to town. They just got done taking a series from the Cubs and won 2 games on walk off homers from Pujols. Should be a fun series.
- Well, we have E3 starting up today with EA, Microsoft and Sony's big press conferences. Apparently Microsoft's list of titles that they will be showing has leaked and, at least to me, it's not all that impressive of a list. And now their own site is listing Halo 4 and a remake of Halo: Combat Evolved. Maybe I'm jumping to a conclusion there, but there really isn't anything on that list that's really grabbing me. We'll see more in a few hours, I guess.
I'll post my thoughts on all three of the conferences later today, along with anything else that might be worth covering.
One thing that will almost certainly be a theme this year? Remakes... lots and lots of HD remakes.
- Back in the early 90's, I got into collecting comics due to the fact that I acquired a job working for a distributor called Westfield Comics. It was just simple data entry stuff, but eventually I got a job working at one of their retail locations in town and I started reading a ton of stuff. In fact, I have 4 long boxes filled with comics from that time... that I know don't have any value. Such is life.
Over the last few years, I've heard a ton of great things about a series called Y: The Last Man and so I went to the library and grabbed a few of the graphic novels to see what the hype was about.
I have to say that I was amazed about the book. For those of you that don't know what happens, there is some sort of plague that impacts the world and kills off every mammal with a y chromosome. No men, and no male animals to continue breeding their species.
The one man that survives is an amateur escape artist named Yorick Brown and the series follows him and the people trying to help him uncover what happened and how they might be able to save the human race.
It's really been an incredible read thus far and I just can't wait to see what happens to Yorick, Hero, 355, and Dr. Mann. Great stuff, I highly recommend it.
If you have any other suggestions of books to take a look into once I'm done with it, pass them along.
- While I was sitting in my rehab chair yesterday, I made myself watch the 4th quarter of game 3 of the NBA finals. Here's what I came away with.
* Sloppy passing is due to "great defense." At least 2 or 3 times in critical situations you'd see players make horrible passes for no real reason. Some real ugly stuff.
* Jason Kidd is a TERRIBLE defender. He was on Dwayne Wade for the entire 4th quarter and only once raised his arms to try and get a hand in Wade's face. Nearly every shot Wade took was uncontested. How that guy was guarding one of the best players in the game is beyond me.
* The last 10 minutes of the game took 35 minutes. One stretch of 3 minutes took almost 15. Painfully slow to watch.
After all that, I just came to the conclusion, yet again, that the NHL Finals is a much better product for sheer excitement at the end of a game when the outcome is in doubt.... but you knew I would say that already.
- Lastly... I had a chance to try out the Duke Nukem Forever demo and I was disappointed to see that it was the same one that I had heard that journalists have been playing for the better part of the last year.
Graphically, the game is not all that impressive, even with the settings set to the max, and the gameplay.. from the early segments didn't really do anything to stand out either.
Still, the Duke vibe is there. I'll be curious to try out the full version of the game, but it seems clear that the main reason that it was being held back... even after all these years... was because of the fact that it isn't as good as some of the other games out there in that genre. A games personality can take you part of the way... but can't cover up all of the flaws.
Monday morning notes
- Well, I'm certainly glad that the Brewers road trip is over. They managed to score 12 runs in 10 games and pretty much totally embarrassed themselves throughout the trip. Errors everywhere, poor baserunning, and absolutely no hitting. (.176 average for the team on the trip.)
Ugh. Flat out... ugh. Terrible stuff.
Thankfully Greinke pitches tonight and maybe something good will come of that.
- Considering the fact that I'm not really a fan of NBA basketball, I actually wanted to watch some of game 4 from the Mavericks and Lakers... as it's just nice to see Phil Jackson and Kobe Bryant get a beat down.
For a guy who is considered a real zen sort of guy... he doesn't really give his players that sort of play style as Lamar Odom and Andrew Bynum got tossed for, very ugly, flagrant fouls. Is there a worse way for a coach to go out? Looking like you completely lost your team? Another ugh.
Every time I try to give myself a chance to watch some of the NBA, it makes me want to stay away. Games like that... it's pretty obvious as to why I don't go back all that often.
- I was pretty tempted to get out and see Thor. Anyone get a chance to see it this weekend and have a brief review? I am still stunned to see that Kenneth Branaugh is the director for the film. To go from Hamlet... to Thor... seems odd.. and strangely appropriate all at the same time. (Danish... and Norse... am I alone here?)
- As far as sports games go, we have Virtua Tennis 4 coming out this week... and I don't have a slot open in my Gamefly queue. Damn. I wanted to see how that matched up against Top Spin 4.
- Nice to see Sony is finally offering us some credit card protection to go along with the free month of Playstation Plus and a free game. The whole thing has been terribly handled from the get go and that is really all there is to say about it. Now I just want the damn service back up again so I can play some co-op of Portal 2... even though I could just as easily play it on the PC.
- Lastly, the Stanley Cup playoffs have been amazing... outside of the Eastern conference, which ended in two sweeps. The Western conference matchups have been terrific hockey games. 2 more-Game 6's coming up over the next two days. Gotta love it.
Monday morning notes
- Well, just when I thought things were going well for the Brewers, they go out and lay a turd in Washington, scoring 8 runs in three games. It's funny that Roenicke has been talking so much about bringing some small ball to the Brewers organization, but they still rely on homers for wins. Oh, well. Nothing can go wrong with the Brewers now that they head to Philly with games against Halladay and Lee. Ugh.
- Every year I try... seriously, I really try... to watch some of the NBA playoffs, but every time I'm mystified about how the college game is so damn entertaining in the post season and the NBA is so damn boring. It's a 2 man game every time down the floor. I just can't enjoy it.
At least there is the Stanley Cup playoffs, which have been incredible thus far.
- I watched episode 1 of Game of Thrones and seeing as how I haven't read the books, I'm not all that into it after the one episode. It sure seems like it could be interesting, and probably would be a great deal more so, if I actually knew more about the characters. Perhaps there are others of you out there that have more experience with the series and can tell us more.
- Well, it looks like all of our Steam games have been given away.
It's funny, but I enjoy giving stuff away like that. Sadly, there isn't another contest in the offing until later in the year. Hmm... I might have to do something about that. Stay tuned.
- I had to spend a good portion of my weekend disinfecting my parents computer from the Malware and Rootkits that had gotten installed over time. Seriously, I have no idea how these things happen so often to them. Regardless, what I found was a great utility disc for cleaning stuff up. Hiren's Boot CD. If you don't have it in your toolkit, you should. More things than you would ever need for cleaning up a system, but it had all that I needed to get their system up and going again.
- Lastly, my six year old tied her shoes for the first time today. It was a proud and sad moment all at the same time. I'm sure you can understand the pride, but the sadness comes from the fact that I'm starting to feel like there is less and less that I will need to teach her. Hopefully that's not the case, but it sure feels like that sometimes.
Tuesday notes
- I had to shut down the forums that we created a few months back. It was creating some issues with the user database. If you notice anything going on with your user account used for comments, just let me know.
- Good grief was that an awful basketball game to watch last night... and I watched Wisconsin and Penn State play a 36-33 game this year.
Congrats to Jess Coker who won the bracket challenge though. He picked Crysis 2 for the 360 as his game of choice. It'll be on it's way to him later today. Thanks again to all who played.
- Way too early for panic for the Brewers, but man.. you'd much rather be 2-2 and not have your bullpen blow two late game leads.
- My new goal by the time I have my surgery is to drop 10 pounds in the next six weeks. I've been on a pretty steady increase in weight since late last year and if I can take that 10 off, I'll be much closer to where I want to be at after I'm all healed up from my surgery.
I do a decent job watching what I eat (most of the time) but I really struggle with finding the time to exercise and still be able to have some time for myself.
Just have to really stay motivated and find a goal that matters.
- Lastly, I know people don't like the political talk... but if it's a voting day in your area, get on out and vote.
No talk about anything other than that, just get on out and vote.
Quick Monday night note
It's not over yet... but this is one of the worst basketball games I've ever seen.
Monday notes
- I didn't actually see it until now... but we have a tie in the bracket contest. Currently two people are tied with a score of 80. We'll have to see what happens tonight. If UConn doesn't win... I'm not sure how the rules will decide the winner. Probably most correct picks... we'll see later tonight.
- Well, I can think of a few better ways for the Brewers to have started their season.
Then I went and looked at who has won the central based on their record in their first 3 games. (I love baseball-reference.com)
Only 2 teams, since the Central was formed, have started the season 3-0 and won the division... the exact same number of teams that have started 0-3 and won the division.
Strangely 9 out of the 16 division winners have started the season 1-2 (which bodes well for Pittsburgh and Chicago.)
Obviously this means nothing. The Brewers just need to get their pitching healthy.. or in the case of their bullpen... functional. Anyway, the first game of the season in Milwaukee is today and while I won't be attending... I'll be there in spirit or something.
- Yesterday I spent a few hours with Tiger Woods 12 and finished up Q school.
What's funny is that even though I have the PS3 version, I haven't messed with the Move controls for it because of the fact that I had a lot of issues with that during the demo. Hopefully I'll have time to give that part a look later tonight.
One of the strange things that I noticed while playing it was the fact that there was a woman on the leaderboard for Q school. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but I can't recall the last time I heard of a woman trying to qualify for the PGA tour full time. Just an oddity.
- The Madden 12 cover contest is now down to the final 8. I'm sure you're all giddy with excitement.
- What I spent the majority of the (gaming part of my) weekend with was Pro Evolution Soccer for the 3DS. If you read through my Q&A with Konami last week, you can get a feel for what sort of changes needed to be made to the game engine to provide a decent 3D effect.
The Player camera that Naoya mentioned in the interview does a great job of creating depth on the field, but it can be a bit disorienting in the beginning. The camera will spin to the back of the player that you are controlling and if you run out of control down the pitch, it will cause it to shift from one player to another due to the fact that it tries to give you the best player based on who is in the best spot on the field to take on the other player on offense. Once you settle in with the game though, and play under control, it is a great camera angle that shows off the amount of depth that they have provided in the engine.
I played a few games with Bayern Munich over the weekend and had a great time learning the game.
So far, I really like what I see in it.
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