Wait til Next Year
Posted on October 6, 2008 - Filed Under Sports, baseball
Well…that was a disheartening way to end the season. The Cubs make the playoffs with the best record in NL, one of the best offenses NL, one of the deepest rotations in the NL, and with a good end of the game bullpen. The stars seemed aligned to make a good playoff push.
Sadly, the offense didn’t show up, the starters got lit it up, the bullpen got lit up. It was embarrasing to be just about anyone on the team besides DeRosa and Lee. Soriano managed just 1 hit in the series, and Ramierez left more runners on base then I’d care to count. Demster lost his homefield dominance at the wrong game after getting off to a good start. Zambrano had a decent effort wasted do to multiple errors. Both had an encounter with a Manny moment, including a golf swing homerun in game 1.
So an all around good year that ended on a very sour note. I don’t know what to expect for next season, but I feel we are now in a similar situation as the Mets. We may have a very talented team, but we have a team that isn’t showing up when it matters most. It might be time for the cubs to be sellers instead of buyers this offseason. See if anyone is interested in Soriano, Fukadome, Rameriez, or Demster. Look to get some solid prospects that can be ready while Lee, Soto, and DeRosa are still apart of the club. Changes will need to be made, and we’ll just have to wait and see if those changes will be addition by substraction, or if we just look to increase the payroll.
Cubs fans across the nation are going to be left watching the post season asking what happened. Asking, is the 100 year curse of the Billy goat going to be as long as the 100 year war? Asking was it the pressure the fans, the history, and the game placed on the players that robbed us of our offense. Perhaps the only question with an answer, asking how many days until the Bears play? Just so they can forget another lost year, for reasons they can’t explain and reasons we can’t understand.
EA’s at it again.
Posted on October 1, 2008 - Filed Under Gaming, NFL, Sports
To think I’d been opening up to EA a little bit lately. They are starting some new IPs rather then churning out everything as a yearly sequel or movie tie in. I felt beyond keeping DRM in their future games, they did a farily good job handling the spore issues.
However it seems now their desire to create a monopoly in the football industry includes screwing over Hall of Famers. At least these guys are fighting back. As some of you may or may not know, 2k sports tried to reenter the NFL world with All Pro Football 2k8. The premise of this game was you had a hundred or so Hall of Famers or legends of football and you would select 11 of them total(for both offense, defense, and special teams) then you would be able to go online and play or play a single season in a league made up of these hall of famers.
The Quality of APF 2k8 was as high as 2k5, however it really suffered by not being able to offer many of the features football fans have come to expect, namely a franchise mode. However the game was still fun and many felt it was simply a way for 2k to stay ‘fresh’ in the football market until the NFL deal was supposed to run out.
Being the cowards that EA is, they made an offer of $200k to grab the rights to Hall of famers for the madden series. An offer that was millions below what 2k was spending on getting Hall of famers. Yet somehow the NFLPA had no problem saying sure why not, sounds like a good deal. A good deal that left an EA person saying this in an E-Mail back to the NFL, “[I Owe him] a huge favor” because a deal struck with the Hall of Fame “was enough to persuade Take-Two to back off its plans, leaving EA as the only professional football videogame manufacturer out there.”
So congrats EA, 1 step forward and 2 steps back. Way to go.
NFL Week 3 Review
Posted on September 23, 2008 - Filed Under NFL, Sports
Another football week done and another one chalked full of it’s own stories. This weeks biggest story was the New England Patriots getting embrarased by the Miami Dolphins. Hardly anyone saw this coming, especially after Joey Portor gave the Patriots some Bullentian board material and the fact that the last regular season game the Patriots loss was to the Dolphins, so you wouldn’t think they’d let it happen again.
Luckily for the dolphins, it did happen again. It wasn’t something they sqeueked away with, they dominated the team with a great offensive plan and a defense that was able to keep the offense in check and wrap up tacklers in the open field. When a single player scores 5tds, it going to be hard to beat that team, and Ronnie Brown ran and threw the ball all over the New England defense. This footage will be disected by every team in the NFL and it’s not going to help their cause to make another playoff push. It’s looking like they might have finally hit their limit of having the depth on personal to keep letting their star players go. The defenses age is showing and they are left with a back up who has no buisness even being in the NFL trying to manage the offense.
The only story in the AFC East isn’t just the Dolphins vs Pats games, the Bills are contining to be an early surprise. They overcame a late 10 point lead the Raiders had on them to come back and win the game. Leaving us back to asking who are the real Raiders? the week 1 raiders that got blown out by denver or the week 2 raiders who looked like an NFL team. Speaking of Denver, they continued to show they are the new greatest show on turf, and like the old show, they don’t have a defense to speak of. So far that hasn’t been a problem as they are just out scoring their opponents, with a little bit of luck. Denver vitits the Chiefs next week, so they should win again, but as the dolphins have shown, divisional opponents are always tought games not to be overlooked.
That AFC West division also has the San Deigo Chargers in it, who finally played like the Chargers on Monday against the Jets. LT is still bothered by his toe injury and it shows, but fantasy owners are going to be at least happy with his 2 tds. Unforutently the Jets are still uncertain of where they stand. With the Patriots showing vulnerable they need to take advantage but the offense just isn’t clicking quite yet. It’s only a matter of time before Brett is comfortable, but will it be to late when that happens?
Looking in the NFC, the bears gave away another game. Thanks to a pair of Orton interceptions and a last minute defense collapse, and assaulting another player being no penalty but getting the guy off the guy he’s punching in the face is a penalty. Granted, the game never should have went to over time in the first place. Orton finally showed a little bit of the deep ball, but both of his ‘long’ throws were underthrown and required Lloyd to make a great catch and forte to just wreslte it down. This offense is still the problem and looking to lose more games then ‘bad’ rex has ‘lost’. Beyond chicago you had a handful of good NFC East games. The first game being the Giants overtime win over the Bengals. The benglas played hard and started to show the offense they are capable of, but Eli and the giants showed just a little bit more with a big overtime catch for Toomer. The eagles and their pressure kept the steelers and Rothesburger throughly grounded. Ben was sacked 7 times in just the second quarter. The Offensive line of the steelers is going to need some work, but they at least kept it close. Then the final NFC East game was the Cowboys over the previously undefeated Green Bay Packers. The Cowboys are continuing to look like the team to beat in the NFC. Let’s hope the Bears can squek out the division and the cowboys continure their first round exits.
Then for a little baseball flair, how about them cubs? Even the pitcher is getting in on the action with a grand slam in yesterdays game.
What a baseball weekend
Posted on September 22, 2008 - Filed Under Sports, baseball
First and foremost, it’s not official the cubs are in the post season and won the division. They far exceeded my predictions, of 88 wins as they have an off chance of 100 wins, however given I’d expect Z and harden to get an extra bit of rest in the final 7 games, I’d be shocked if we ended the season winning 6 of 7. We also have a pretty good lead on home field advantage, so I guess all that’s left is…when do world series tickets go on sale 
Okay…maybe I’m a little over confident but the Cubs have played amazing baseball all year. They have shown they can beat one of the best pitchers in the league when he was absolutely dominating(C.C.) and that they can dominate with their pitching. With a rotation involving Zambrano, demster pitching amazing, and harden a great hard throwing youngin. Then you’ve got lilly as the 4th, Marmol and Wood in the bullpen, the team just looks like it’s ready to end this ‘curse’. The only team that looks like a threat in the playoffs are the phillies, that offense can put up runs, but the cubs should be able to answer back.
If…when, we reach the world series though, it’s not looking like an easy match up. The Rays just seem to not want to lose, and beat us in interleague play earlier in the year. The Red sox are looking good even without manny and also have a powerful offense and solid pitching. Then you can’t count out a Windy City match up as it looks like the white sox are going to hold on to the division. Of course that still leaves the team with the best record in baseball who have managed to turn baseball into a 8 inning game, the Angels are another team that’s strong top to bottom. All in all, I’m glad to be an NL team as the road looks easier.
It wasn’t all cubs though this weekend, probally the bigest story is the final game of Yankee stadium was played. With Pettite getting the win. I may not be a Yankee fan, but it was good to see the stadium get it’s proper respect and have the home team win the last one with such a long timer getting the final win and Rivera getting the final outs.
I’ll leave those paying respect to those that appreciate it most, jeters thoughts and a great picture collection of some of the stadium’s greatest moments.
All in all it’s been a great baseball season, and we can only hope that the post-season is just as great.
NFL Week 2 Review
Posted on September 16, 2008 - Filed Under NFL, Sports
What a week for come backs week 2 was. In 8 of the games was the team that won trailing in the 4th quarter. Including…the panthers. The bears played an okay game and should have been good enough to win. However Orton complete lack of a deep ball resulting in wasted plays and missing a gimmie TD killed any progress the offense could get. Greg Olsen fumbling the ball twice didn’t help matters either. However all that I could think of is how does Ron Turner, offensive coordinator, still have a job? Calling a run on virtually every first down.
It worries me into how long can forte stay healthy when your going to ask him to run that often, he’s a rookie right out of college and is going to take a bigger beating then he ever has before. Hopefully he’s a tough kid and won’t get hurt, but if the bears don’t try to take advantage of Orton his accuracy in short yard passes, we are going to throw away a defense that is back to super bowl form. Which speaking of, even bad Rex didn’t lose when his defense showed up…and orton just threw away a game in which we got a punt block return and a few turnovers. At least Zambrons nohitter and the cubs winning a pair of games helped take the sting of the Orton and Ron Turner doing what they could to make us lose that game.
Going outside of Chicago, what a Monday night game we had. The Eagles and Cowboys put up a shoot out and had the second highest scoring MNF game. All though I was rooting for philly, I didn’t mind watching the cowboys win. After all with the pure entertainment that game offered, it’s hard to be upset over the outcome. So many big plays it was almost like watching a home run derby. It’s looking like both teams are capable of going deep into the playoffs.
This week also brought 3 big upsets. It’s hard to say what was a bigger surprise Oakland beating the chiefs after getting destroyed by Denver or San Francisco sneaking past the must injured Seahawks. The AFC East also got a little bit more competitive with the Bills upsetting the Jaguars. All in all…i did terrible in pick em. After getting 12 games correct in week 1 I only managed 5 in week 2.
so will turn our heads towards next week. The MLB season is nearing an end and some good match ups in steelers vs philly and Packers vs Cowbows for the Sunday night game. Plus Heroes is back on Monday!
Guitar Hero World Tour Setlist
Posted on September 12, 2008 - Filed Under Gaming
Well Activision has finally given the entire set list and here it is. I’d say it’s a solid list might end up better then 3 but the first 2 games are still the best IMO. Also to much tool in this list </3.
30 Seconds To Mars–The Kill
311–Beautiful Disaster
Airbourne–Too Much, Too Young, Too Fast
The Allman Brothers Band–Ramblin’ Man
Anouk–Good God
The Answer–Never Too Late
At the Drive-In–One Armed Scissor
Beastie Boys–No Sleep Till Brooklyn
Beatsteaks–Hail To The Freaks
Billy Idol–Rebel Yell
Black Label Society–Stillborn
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club–Weapon of Choice
blink-182–Dammit
Blondie–One Way or Another
Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band–Hollywood Nights
Bon Jovi–Livin’ on a Prayer
Bullet for My Valentine–Scream Aim Fire
Coldplay–Shiver
Creedence Clearwater Revival–Up Around the Bend
The Cult–Love Removal Machine
Dinosaur Jr.–Feel the Pain
The Doors–Love Me Two Times
Dream Theater–Pull Me Under
The Eagles–Hotel California
The Enemy–Aggro
Filter–Hey Man, Nice Shot
Fleetwood Mac–Go Your Own Way
Foo Fighters–Everlong
The Guess Who–American Woman
HushPuppies–You’re Gonna Say Yeah!
Interpol–Obstacle 1
Jane’s Addiction–Mountain Song
Jimi Hendrix–The Wind Cries Mary
Jimi Hendrix–Purple Haze (Live)
Jimmy Eat World–The Middle
Joe Satriani–Satch Boogie
Kent–Vinternoll2
Korn–Freak on a Leash
Lacuna Coil–Our Truth
Lenny Kravitz–Are You Gonna Go My Way
Linkin Park–What I’ve Done
The Living End–Prisoner of Society
Los Lobos–La Bamba
Lostprophets–Rooftops (A Liberation Broadcast)
Lynyrd Skynyrd–Sweet Home Alabama (Live)
The Mars Volta–L’Via L’Viaquez
MC5’s Wayne Kramer–Kick Out the Jams
Metallica–Trapped Under Ice
Michael Jackson–Beat It
Modest Mouse–Float On
Motorhead–Overkill
Muse–Assassin
Negramaro–Nuvole e Lenzuola
Nirvana–About A Girl [Unplugged]
No Doubt–Spiderwebs
NOFX–Soul Doubt
Oasis–Some Might Say
Ozzy Osbourne–Crazy Train
Ozzy Osbourne–Mr. Crowley
Paramore–Misery Business
Pat Benatar–Heartbreaker
Radio Futura–Escuela De Calor
R.E.M.–The One I Love
Rise Against–Re-Education Through Labor
Sex Pistols–Pretty Vacant
Silversun Pickups–Lazy Eye
Smashing Pumpkins–Today
Steely Dan–Do It Again
Steve Miller Band–The Joker
Sting–Demolition Man (Live)
The Stone Roses–Love Spreads
Stuck in the Sound–Toy Boy
Sublime–Santeria
Survivor–Eye of the Tiger
System Of A Down–B.Y.O.B.
Ted Nugent–Stranglehold
Ted Nugent–Original Guitar Duel Recording
Tokio Hotel–Monsoon
Tool–Parabola
Tool–Schism
Tool–Vicarious
Trust–Antisocial
Van Halen–Hot For Teacher
Willie Nelson–On The Road Again
Wings–Band on the Run
Zakk Wylde–Original Guitar Duel Recording
NFL Week 1 Recap
Posted on September 9, 2008 - Filed Under NFL, Sports
After such a long time of waiting, it’s finally time for football. Sadly…the cubs seemed to get the message that baseball isn’t important anymore and have decided to not win anymore games*grumbles*. But that’s enough baseball.
Let’s start with the Bears. Thank’s to a Sunday Night Football, I was able to watch the Bears season opener against the Colts. It turned out to be a great game with a great finish to it. The biggest concern I had from the preseason was how the defense was going to play. They weren’t doing that great in the preseason with the starters playing and without our defense playing up to their potentional it’s going to be a long season. Luckily, they played just like the defense that lead us to the Super Bowl just a short 2 years ago. Forcing turnovers, scoring points on those turn overs, stopping the run game, and keeping Peyton pressured throughout the game. Even came away with a safety.
The offense looked, okay. Matt Forte brought us 50 yard run that was amazing to watch. It’s nice to see someone with that kind of vision and speed again. He’s looking to really blossom into a great RB and not a bad late round fantasy steal Orton played okay, but he hasn’t calmed my fears about the offense and our lack of anything beyond short and medium range throws. The only downside is Hester has grown quite an ego with his little stunt of standing in the endzone for a while and then running it all the way to the 4 yard line. I’m sure Lovie will be quick to remind him to think a little bit more and remind him how that really put the colts back into the game.
Now beyond the Bears a lot of things happened this week. The biggest news is Brady out of the year. I’m not going to lie, I smiled when I hear the news. Yes, I know it makes me a bad person to get joy out of someones misfortune, but I don’t care. With the way Brady acts and the Patriots treated the league last year, I’m glad karma is hitting them back. With how the jets looked with all their additions, including Favre, it appears that division just got competitive. Expect a couple of bloated win-loss records out of these two teams due to a very easy schedule.
Not only did Favre look good in his openor, so did Jay Cutler on the broncos. Granted it was the Raiders, but it’s still something that should give Bronco fans some hope for their season. The defending Super Bowl champs, New York Giants, looked quite good despite lossing both their DE. They still had good pressure up front and Eli continues to grow as a QB. He’s looking to grow into a good one.
Then lastly, my Super Bowl pick, Pittsburgh Steelers, looked like a super bowl team in week 1. They completly destroyed the Texans. My hopefuly Fantasy MVP, Willie Parker, played great and Big Ben continues to be a great QB in the league today. The Eagles looked to give some reason that they can get back to the Super Bowl, but the fan in me can’t pick against the Bears.
Here’s hoping to another great NFL season and hopefully the Bears can go the distance.
Spore, DRM gone bad.
Posted on September 8, 2008 - Filed Under Gaming
Last month I wrote a bit about piracy and DRM and how the two are combining to dry up the PC market. Well it seems EA doesn’t read my blog 
or well…anything on the internet. Spore was released over the weekend and it’s taking a beating across the internet. At the time of writing this 749 out of 813 reviews on amazon.com have given this game a 1 star rating. No, it’s not because Spore turned out horrible, It’s because EA decided to punish paying customers.
You get 3 times you can install spore. So if you own a laptop and a dekstop you better not intend on upgrading both or have anything happen to your hard drives. If you do need a 4th install you can call EA and as long as you still have you receipt for proof of purchase and can explain why you need a 4th install, they may grant you one. But the question remains, why is this here in the first place?
How does punhishing your paying customer help prevent piracy? The reason behind some companies, like EA, is beyond me. The first thing many of us are going to do, is find a crack around the DRM issues. If I pay $50 for a game, I want the game to be mine, to use how I want. I’ve been eagerly awaiting this game and I was planning on this being the first game I was going to play on my computer whenever I get the chance to pick that up. Now it seems I just might end up passing on a game I’ve been watching for nearly 2 years. Hopefully EA will listen to the complaints and quickly release a patch to fix this problem. I understand wanting to protect your work, but this isn’t the way to do it EA.
Help Toast build a computer!
Posted on September 5, 2008 - Filed Under Uncategorized
So…since my laptop is dead I can’t really do much, if any, research. However I should be able to buy enough parts to at least get a working PC next weekend. So if anyone has some suggestions and/or tips for building a computer or would be so kind to make a part/wish list for a PC I would love you long time.
I’m looking to stay at around $1100 w/o monitor. I’m pretty well set on getting the ATI Radeon HD 4870 for the video card and ideally i’d like dual core with around 3ghz processor.
In an unrelated note…You should be able to comment again…for some reason Wordpress doesn’t want me to use any type of linking besides the uninformitive r=?. I’ll try to look into this later.
First to 80
Posted on August 25, 2008 - Filed Under Sports, baseball
With us approaching the last few weeks of baseball, the Cubs are still playing like the best team in baseball. It’s getting harder and harder to not want to believe this year is finally here. Even as someone whose really only been a cubs fan since Sosa and McGuire were battling it out for the then Home run record, I feel I’ve learned alot about the Cubs history and lived a little of it with the ‘bartman’ incident.
However here we are, 100 years since the last time the cubs won a world series. The cubs doing things they haven’t done since 1908, like have the best record in baseball this late in the year. Things in the world even seem to be shapping up that it’s time what was once status quo to change. The olympics had their first back-to-back gold medal winners in volleyball. US womens softball lost their first ever womens Olympic game. The US basketball team actually played like a team. Britian had their most Gold Medals since 1908. For the first time in a long time that a country besides Russia(or the USSR) or USA didn’t lead the gold medal count when the Olympics ended. The Democratic Convention is back in Denver, the first time since…you guessed it, 1908. It just feels like it’s finally time.
The Cubs are doing what every fan has wanted them to do and that is quite simply, win. With Zambrano, Demster, and Harden leading the rotation how can we not get excited about a playoff run? With the best Home Record in the NL and home field advantage a virtual lock how can that excitment not peak a bit higher? Then you look at the offense on the team with Lee, Ramierz, Soto, and DeRosa howcan you not get just a bit more exicted. Then you have Marmol and Wood in the bullpen and you just begin to forget about the past 100 years. You forget about bartmans, black cats, and goats. All thats left is belief. The belief that it is going to be this year. That Waveland is going to be packed, Wrigely filled to the brim, and a sense of chaos just on the verge of being emptied into the streets of Chicago.
It’s not just the NL that’s making this series look to be a great one, and heck it’s not just the Cubs that are getting Chicago excited. With the Twins and White Sox competing for their division. With only one series left against each other, it quite possible the loser of the division will be the winner of the AL wild card. Which if Tampa continues doing what it’s been doing all year, will mean no Boston and no Yankees in the playoffs. With a little help from Phily, there might be no New York teams at all in the post season.
This season, like almost all baseball seasons is a great one. With it’s own great stories, with it’s own new additions to the game, it’s own great plays and players. It’s just another great year for baseball.
Pages
Meta
Recent Comments:
- Mike: I want to change some of the coloring…but i’m being lazy >_> Namely the black on the dark blue text...
- Jason: Looks like a good collection. Btw, nice site layout
- Michele: Zambrano pitches the first no hitter since 1972. Cubs win! Today Lilly has pitched 6 innings without a hit....
- Michele: Don’t give up on our Cubbies!! We went to the game on Aug 29th and it was so exciting to be in the...
- Jason: How about we stopping being so dependent on extravagant entertainment?
Bring kick the can back! - Anon: tl;dr, but I for one don’t pirate modern games. I have thought about it however when I can’t...
- ryan: Mark - if you watch the video (you should be able to find it on youtube pretty easily) I think you’ll...
- Mike: It’s not supposed to be a Silent Hill or resident Evil by any means, but I do get the feeling it’s...
- Mark: The faces look almost plastic. Unless the game’s meant to feel scary, it probably won’t feel right...
- Mike: Ya, thus far the developers has just been showing off the graphics engine. I wouldn’t expect much in the...
Recent Trackbacks:
- Mike Likes: Wait til Next year, tale of Cubs post-season.