Month: March 2008

PS3 Releases: week of March 10, 2007

on the shelves Winning Eleven: Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 (The W at Amazon) (gamestats). Reviews are varied on this game, which came out in the UK last fall. There’s some improvement here, but it reads like a roster update for a franchise lacking licensed rosters. There’s some major PS3 slowdown issues here, and the online … Continue reading “PS3 Releases: week of March 10, 2007”

on the shelves

Winning Eleven: Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 (The W at Amazon) (gamestats). Reviews are varied on this game, which came out in the UK last fall. There’s some improvement here, but it reads like a roster update for a franchise lacking licensed rosters. There’s some major PS3 slowdown issues here, and the online version just makes it work.

Condemned 2: Bloodshot (gamestats) but there’s no reviews out there. This is a equal of a 360 launch title. This week’s twist on a horror/first person shooter: you’ve got to get booze in your system, or you’ll start shaking.

in the store (blog.us.playstation.com)

Add On Game Content
– Toy Home: Expansion Pack {$7} – 6 new vehicles, 2 new rooms, and four player battle. That’s a lot of additions for a downloadable game.

– PAIN: Nurse Ginger and Cheerleader Muffy characters {$1}

– Guitar Hero: Dropkick Murphy’s Track Packs {free!}
* Famous for Nothing
* Flannigans Ball
* Johnny
* I Hardly Knew Ya

– Rock Band: $1 each
* “Shockwave” by Black Tide
* “Beethoven’s C***” by Serj Tankian
* “CrushCrushCrush” by Paramore

Demos
– MLB 2K8 Demo – same teams, same stadium as the MLB ’08 demo

Game Video
– Hot Shots Golf Out of Bounds (2)
– Viking (3)

PS3 Theme
– God of War: Chains of Olympus
– Pain (2, new character)
– Condemned 2: Bloodshot (2)

over the horizon

03/18: Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas 2 (and limited edition)
03/18: Hot Shots Golf: Out of Bounds
03/18: Sega Superstars Tennis
03/18: Karoake Revolution: American Idol Encore
03/25: Dark Sector
03/25: Viking: Battle for Asgurd
04/01: NBA Ballers: Chosen One
04/17: Gran Turismo 5 Prologue
04/22: Monster Madness
04/28: Midnight Club: Los Angeles
04/29: Grand Theft Auto IV (and special edition)
05/02: Fatal Inertia
05/02: Iron Man
05/13: The Chornicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
05/19: UEFA Euro 2008
05/20: Haze
05/27: Kung Fu Panda
06/01: Soulcalibur IV
06/02: Civilization Revolution
06/03: LEGO Indiana Jones
06/03: The Incredible Hulk
06/03: Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway

The Battle For Two Extra Home Gates

W L GB New Jersey 27 38 — Chicago 26 38 0.5 Atlanta 26 38 0.5 Indiana 25 39 1.5 Charlotte 24 40 2.5 Milwaukee 23 42 4.0 Yea, this is not exactly the Western Conference. The team in the lead for the 8th spot has been taking for a month and still can’t get … Continue reading “The Battle For Two Extra Home Gates”

       W  L  GB
New Jersey 27 38 ---
Chicago    26 38 0.5
Atlanta    26 38 0.5
Indiana    25 39 1.5
Charlotte  24 40 2.5
Milwaukee  23 42 4.0

Yea, this is not exactly the Western Conference. The team in the lead for the 8th spot has been taking for a month and still can’t get into the lottery. Indiana and Milwaukee are bad teams that just can’t find a way to lose out of this. Atlanta and Charlotte are not much better, but they both desperately want even a token playoff appearance. The Hawks even made a deadline deal to make it, and they still can’t do it (because they’ve played awful on the road.)

And then we have the Bulls. This season has been somewhat more miserable than the the 98-03 stretch. In between the unending losing, you could there were bursts of improvement and progress. No one ever got to the level they were drafted for, but they were plateauing at worst. Watching this team come all together and implode under it’s own weight. This team will be blown up in the off season and deserves to be, but no one’s looking forward to nth iteration of rebuilding

beta: the 1998 season where they didn’t even bother
1: Brand, Artest, Miller
2: Chandler, Curry
3: Crawford, Jay Williams, a motorcycle: last part might have been a flaw
4: Hinrich, Deng, Gordon

Gordon’s so gone. Hinrich might be traded if they can get an offer. Who knows what’ll happen with Deng. And everyone else will get swept up in it.

(sidenote: At least if they were going to lose all the time, they could be a more fun team when they do it. Such bad basketball)

Anyway, that’s the near certain future, but it’s still the future. The NBA decided to make them play all 82 games this year, even though the season was just about knocking service time off contracts once the Wallace trade went down. And since no one in the East will grab it, the Bulls have a good shot of making the playoffs.

Except, given we know they’re going to want to rebuild, we know they’d want the best draft pick possible to help them along. Not making the playoffs gives them a shot at a really good draft pick.

Except, the whole idea is to get in the playoffs and then win the whole thing. The 9th seed in the East will probably end picking 10 or worse, unless they win the lottery. Draft picks are nice, but draft picks around where a non-lottery pick would be located aren’t going to be franchise players, and aren’t going to be much better if the Bulls finish 8th. (Might even be the same player, depending on needs.)

The Bulls have a tiny chance of making a playoff run. The Bulls have a tiny chance of winning the lottery. (On Thursday, ESPN’s playoff odds gave them a 7 times better chance of winning the lottery, but it was .1% vs .7%, not big numbers either way.) I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be rooting for at this point.

Even though the Celtics would thrash them, I think the odds of winning the lottery are low enough that’s it not worth dropping into it for a minuscule chance at a high draft pick. (I’m not totally sold on the draft class either, and may end up eating those words.) I figured by this point that the math would work out the other way, but the barrier of entry in the playoffs keeps on dropping.

small messages, large bill

I’ve added twitter tweets to one of the sidebars. Maestroken signed up for the feed on twitter, which reminded me everyone can read them if they look hard enough, so I might as well make it a little less hard to find. I figure they’ll be at lot less the rest of the blog – … Continue reading “small messages, large bill”

I’ve added twitter tweets to one of the sidebars. Maestroken signed up for the feed on twitter, which reminded me everyone can read them if they look hard enough, so I might as well make it a little less hard to find.

I figure they’ll be at lot less the rest of the blog – infrequent updates till baseball regular season, and then crazily updated during. The difference is the posts here will be mostly about the baseball, and the posts there will be mostly about killing time while bored by the in between inning bowling ball contests and in danger of running out of power on the phone if I check email one more time.

That was a lame segue into my Ticket List (a summer spent watching tons of minor league baseball)

04/04 FRI: Cubs vs Houston
04/07 MON: Cougars vs Burlington (opening day, 2pm)
04/27 SUN: Cougars vs Dayton

05/12 MON: Cougars vs Cedar Rapids
05/12 MON: Cubs vs Padres
05/15 THU: Cougars vs Cedar Rapids
05/24 SAT: Cougars vs Quad City
05/28 WED: Cougars vs Wisconsin

06/06 FRI: Cougars vs Beloit
06/14 SAT: Cougars vs Cedar Rapids
06/20 FRI: Cougars vs Clinton
06/24 TUE: Cubs vs Orioles

07/04 FRI: Cougars vs Burlington
07/10 THU: Cougars vs Peoria
07/16 WED: Cougars vs Great Lakes

08/03 SUN: Cougars vs West Michigan
08/08 FRI: Cougars vs Beloit
08/09 SAT: Cubs vs Cardinals
08/18 MON: Cougars vs Wisconsin
08/31 SUN: Cougars vs Peoria

09/16 SUN: Cubs vs Brewers

This list doesn’t include games other people are taking me too, or giving me, or playoff tickets I hope to be buying in September and October. I’d still like to fit in a few away games to other parks. But that’s what I said last year.

Cougars are offering both many Unused Ticket Nights (07/01, 08/05, 08/18, 09/01 – last game of the season) and just changing the ticket to another date in the same month, provided you give them two weeks warning. I just have to get to the ticket office to do that for the 05/12 game, and probably will end up doing it for a couple other dates.

I don’t think I’ll be making a 2pm game in April, even for a pregame barbque.

waste of paper

I can’t believe I woke up this morning, drove ten minutes, and showed my voter’s identification just to fill out one line on a ballot. There’s even only 2 choices – the Green party didn’t bother with it, like more than half of the voters, I’m sure. Not to mention all the paper used in … Continue reading “waste of paper”

I can’t believe I woke up this morning, drove ten minutes, and showed my voter’s identification just to fill out one line on a ballot. There’s even only 2 choices – the Green party didn’t bother with it, like more than half of the voters, I’m sure.

Not to mention all the paper used in the never ending campaign fliers and door hangers. Somehow, they even snuck one on the door in the twenty minutes I was gone to vote (and get donuts.)

From a big picture standpoint, this election is kinda interesting as foreshadowing to the fall ones. Even with the demographic changes, it’s should be quite leaning Republican. If the Milk Man goes down to the Mad Scientist, it’s a big status quo change.

But as far as representation for this district in the House, it seems like a waste of time. Run an election in March, get set up in DC by April, get back on the campaign trail in May. There’s an automatic rematch coming up in November, and it’s not like representatives in normal situations get a lot done during this stretch. This just seems like a gigantic waste of time, only going on so someone can have “incumbent” written next to their name when it counts for real.

PS3 Releases: week of March 3, 2008

on the shelves MLB 2K8 (The W at Amazon) (gamestats) MLB ’08: the Show (gamestats) IGN says Sony’s ’08 is an improvement, not just a patch + roster update. The AI fielding issues aren’t all gone, but they’re a lot better. Visuals have improved, and the Road to the Show career mode is highly recommended. … Continue reading “PS3 Releases: week of March 3, 2008”

on the shelves

MLB 2K8 (The W at Amazon) (gamestats)
MLB ’08: the Show (gamestats)

IGN says Sony’s ’08 is an improvement, not just a patch + roster update. The AI fielding issues aren’t all gone, but they’re a lot better. Visuals have improved, and the Road to the Show career mode is highly recommended. Gametap goes crazy for the quantity and quality of animations.

2K has changed it’s pitching and hitting mechanics, making them too hard according to 1UP. 2K has lesser video on the PS3 version, again. Regardless of the platform, there’s lots of visual issues. The franchise mode is deeper here, including 90 minor league teams and 20 minor league stadiums, though IGN says it’s showing it’s age. The commentary is inferior to the other game.

Army of Two (gamestats) – a two person military shooter, which you probably could tell from the name. Pushed back from a Holiday release, this game has marked improvements from the what it was looking about then. The idea is supposed to be that you can play single player, and the AI playing the other guy will react just like a real person reacting off of you, but the game still doesn’t quite reach that level and you’re mostly directing them around. It sounds pretty fun when you’ve got two actual live bodies.

Rescheduled:
Karaoke Revolution: American Idol Encore – March 18th
Destroy All Humans! – June 16th

in the store (blog.us.playstation.com)

Downloadable Game
– Rocketman: Axis of Evil {$10 and a free demo, though I couldn’t find it last night) –

Add On Content
– Guitar Hero III: Modern Metal Track Pack {$6.25, must buy as a pack)
* Almost Easy by Avenged Sevenfold
* the Arsonist by Thrice
* Hole in the Earth by Deftones
(no)

– Rock Band: Grateful Dead Pack {$10 for 6, or $2 each}
* Casey Jones
* Sugar Magnolia
* Truckin’
* Franklin’s Tower
* I Need a Miracle
* China Cat Sunflower

Game Video
* NBA Ballers: the Chosen One

Movie/Blue Ray Trailers
* Hancock
* 21

PS3 Themes
* Lost Planet

PS3 Wallpaper
* Condemned 2 (3)

over the horizon
03/11: Condemned 2: Bloodshot
03/11: Winning Eleven: Pro Evolution Soccer 2008
03/18: Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas 2 (and limited edition)
03/18: Hot Shots Golf: Out of Bounds
03/18: Sega Superstars Tennis
03/18: Karoake Revolution: American Idol Encore
03/25: Dark Sector
03/25: Viking: Battle for Asgurd
04/01: NBA Ballers: Chosen One
04/17: Gran Turismo 5 Prologue
04/22: Monster Madness
04/28: Midnight Club: Los Angeles
04/29: Grand Theft Auto IV (and special edition)
05/02: Fatal Inertia
05/02: Iron Man
05/13: The Chornicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
05/19: UEFA Euro 2008
05/20: Haze
05/27: Kung Fu Panda
06/01: Soulcalibur IV
06/02: Civilization Revolution
06/03: LEGO Indiana Jones
06/03: The Incredible Hulk
06/03: Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway

how to lose friends and influence no one

Jason Marquis is not a smart man. I mean, I don’t know him, maybe he’s just the best at Brain Age or something, but he sure isn’t smart when it comes to taking the temperature of the room. The Cubs have quietly, but noticeably, been offering him up to other teams in trade proposals this … Continue reading “how to lose friends and influence no one”

Jason Marquis is not a smart man. I mean, I don’t know him, maybe he’s just the best at Brain Age or something, but he sure isn’t smart when it comes to taking the temperature of the room. The Cubs have quietly, but noticeably, been offering him up to other teams in trade proposals this off season. (That’s the only way his name gets in rumors; no other team is looking for Marquis.) The Cubs are giving him a shot at staying in the rotation in the meantime, less because of his promise and more because of his contract, but Jason Marquis still has control of his own destiny.

Today, Marquis took that control and gave up 2 runs in 2 IP. Not good, but it’s not going to bury him this early. Jason words can do a lot better

“So as much as I want to be here in Chicago — I love it, I love the fans, I love the stadium — I also have a family to worry about, too. I think I can take my services elsewhere if that’s the case and I can help another team, in that capacity as a starter.

“So, my value doesn’t lie in the bullpen in my mind.”

Marquis need to worry more about his budget if the current 3 year/$21 mil contract he signed is not enough to support his family, because it’s probably the biggest he’ll ever see.

Lou’s response was brilliant:

“Sure it’s a surprise,” he said. “We’ve got seven guys here that are competing for spots in the rotation and everyone is going to be given an equal chance. After the first start of spring training, saying if I’m not going to make the rotation I’d like to go somewhere else?

“He can go somewhere else right now if he wants. How’s that?

(ChicagoSports.com)

I don’t think Lou gets his wish, quite yet. (Beat guys can start writing the “they had a meeting and everything’s straightened out now” stories now.) If this was the NBA, I’d think the Cubs would buy out Marquis’ contract by June. This being MLB, I bet he’s traded away for junk (and the Cubs paying most of his salary) by the same time, and the Cubs will be better off for it.