They were coming in with a five game winning streak, they came back from being down 4-0, being down 7-3 and it wasn’t until the 11th, with Larry Cobb was touching third and rushing for home while the centerfielder scooped the ball and threw towards home that I thought I might actually see a win.

And then the throw beat him by a step. Cobb hit the catcher hard, hard enough to knock the wind out of him, but hard enough to knock the ball away. The Cougars bullpen did a remarkable job to keep this a game (Scott Hodsdon was game saving) but it figures it couldn’t last. Wisconsin had a perfect squeeze to get the go ahead run.

Attendance was announced 8,000, but there couldn’t have been more than 500 by the finish. Most of them were kids, having one last night out before school starts.

other stuff that sucked
- It was Dog Day at the park. Even if I wasn’t already not a big fan of dogs, having people suddenly stop in front of you because they need to gawk at one wouldn’t help.
- the road was closed, right before the park, due to an accident. Instead of going off to a side street and crowding back on to the road (which was all backed up), I thought I’d bypass the whole mess and just circle around to the park from the other direction…where it was even more backed up and slow. 5 minute drives taking 45 minutes is never cool.
when I’m there: 2-9
when I’m not: 64-50

one more regular season game (unless I end up going up on Labor Day) left.

08/12: Madden NFL 09 and (20th Anniversary Edition) [metacritic] - I swear, it’s an actual improvement on the game. It’s definitely a step above the previous PS3 versions, especially in game presentation. There’s online leagues, though they’ don’t yet fulfill the promise of taking franchise mode online. It’s amusing multiple reviews note the same thing - the Rewind option (cancel the last play) isn’t something you want for head to head games, but it’s a great fix for the improbable CPU interceptions that always creep in Madden. (It also seems to me this is not a New feature, and they tried this for a few years back in the SNES days. And then, as now and as with stuff like the Madden Card abilities, no one used it because it feels like a cheap unearned advantage.) Not a big fan of the adaptive difficulty and wish the autosave worked a little better so I would stop losing progress, but I’m glad I picked it up.

Downloadable Games
- Bionic Comando: Rearmed {$10} [metacritic] - in for ‘08: doing remakes of 8 bit games in the style of 8 bit games. Essentially a port of the original game for the NES released 20 years, with HD graphics and a new final level. There are some control issues, more on 360, but reviews say it’s a faithful recreation with some adjustment to modern gameplaying (unlimited continues, boss battles changed to center around smart use of the weapons rather than lots of attrition) and the addition of offline multiplayer modes.

PS1 Classics
- Street Fighter Alpha

Add on Content
- Rock Band
* “Constant Motion” by Dream Theater ($1)
* “Aesthetics of Hate” by Machine Head ($1)
* “My Curse” by Killswitch Engage ($1)
* “Clouds Over California” by DevilDriver ($1)
* “Runnin’ Wild” by Airbourne ($1)
* “Sleepwalker” by Megadeth ($1)
or all six for, uh, $6. What a deal. All songs jump to $2 on 08/21, and the pack will go up to $10 (which is actually a deal)

Game Demos
- Bionic Commando: Rearmed
- 1942: Joint Strike
- NHL 2K9
- TIger Woods PGA Tour 2009

Game Videos
- The Last Guy (Gameplay)
- Bionic Commando: Rearmed (making of, launch)
- Saints Row 2
- Vampire Rain (2)
- Legendary (BTS)
- Madden NFL (3)
- Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2: Fusion (trailer)
- Mirror’s Edge Story (trailer)
- AST Dew Tour (4)

PS3 Theme
- BioShock
- Bionic Commando: Rearmed (2)

PS3 Wallpaper
- Bionic Commando: Rearmed (2)

over the horizon (last updated 08/01)

08/21: Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest For Booty (download, $15)

08/26: Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 [metacrtic]
08/26: Disgaea 3 Absence of Justice [metacrtic]
08/26: Vampire Rain: Altered Species [metacrtic]
08/26: Ferrari Challenge

08/31: Mercenaries 2: World in Flames [metacrtic]

09/02: Rapala Fishing Frenzy
09/02: TNA iMPACT!
09/02: World in Conflict: Soviet Assault
09/03: FaceBreaker [metacritic]
09/03: NFL Head Coach ‘09 [metacritic]

09/08: NHL 2K9
09/09: NHL 09
09/09: Legendary: The Box

09/15: BAJA: Edge of Control
09/16: Pure
09/16: Star Wars: the Force Unleashed
09/16: Madden ‘09 En Espanol
09/16: Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust

09/23: Lego Batman
09/23: Cabel’s Dangerous Hunts ‘09
09/23: Brother’s in Arms: Hell’s Highway
09/23: Buzz! Quiz TV Bundle
09/23: Just Cause 2

09/30 (maybe): Hei$t (metacritic)
09/30: Shellshock 2
09/30: Silent Hill: Homecoming
09/30: Legandary
09/30: Rise of the Argonauts
10/01: Far Cry 2
10/01: MotoGP 08

10/06: Monopoly Here & Now Worldwide Edition
10/07: Fallout 3, Collectors Edition and Amazon.com Exclusive Survival Edition
10/07: Midnight Club: Los Angeles
10/07: Fracture

10/07: Motorstorm: Pacific Rift
10/07: NBA ‘09
10/07: Disney Sing It Bundle w/Microphone
10/07: NBA 2K9

10/14: Saints Row 2 and Collector’s Edition
10/14: SOCOM US Navy Seals: Confrontation Stand Alone and with headset
10/14: Golden Axe: Beast Rider
10/15: Shaun White Snowboarding
10/15: Tom Clancy’s EndWar [metacritic]
10/15: Naruto Ultimate Ninja : Storm

10/20: Dead Space
10/21: Little Big Planet [metacritic]
10/21: Spider-Man: Web of Shadows
10/21: Ghostbusters - perhaps

10/27: Guitar Hero World Tour

At some point: WipeoutHD

I was going to wait until tomorrow to write this (well, twelve or so hours, whatever tomorrow is), but it appears I have some time to kill here. Madden has an immediate 1.10update. Uploading a lucha match at the same time is surely not helping things.

Not much to say about the line. Apparently you were supposed to head inside earlier in the day and get your receipt golden star-ed to ensure speedy delivery. Since I specifically asked the GameStop people if I needed to bring anything, and they specifically no, I just hung outside, singing along to Johnny Cash in the empty Starbucks patio. GameStop had let people come in and fool around in the store during the lead up, but kicked out everyone 10 minutes ahead of time to form a pseudo line.

There seemed to be about 20 people waiting by the time midnight hit, and some were just hanging out with their one buddy who was buying it. Surprisingly, only one football jersey. Not surprisingly, one girl, and she was just there with a boy friend. Most were just talking to the friends about what they heard about the game (Farve did come up.) I chatted with a off-duty employee who was there to pick up the game for his brother, and who confirmed I’m better off not getting Metal Gear 4 if I haven’t played 1-3.

The line moved super fast, despite only letting 3 people in the store for fear of mass chaos - I wandered over to the end of it and was in and out before 12:05. The golden star really meant nothing - maybe more to a busier store, but I it was just about making it easier for Gamestop to figure out who gets what if they had a lot people. They didn’t, and they’re probably shutting down around 12:20. They tried to sell me on the guide, and I resisted. I have a little sense I have left, apparently.

Player L: 269/369/399 (768)
Player H: 277/313/482 (795)

Player L can be quickly identified as the beloved Kosuke Fukodome. He’s still credited for walking 10% of the time, but it’s more like 7% in the last couple months.

Who’s Player H?

Player H, having as good or better season, is 2006 Jacque Jones, his first season as a Cub. Uh oh.

Why is one still loved and one not so much? Defense surely plays a part, as does rep. Bigger than all that is first impressions

Jones, April ‘06: 228/274/474
Fukudome, April ‘08: 327/436/480

Jacque dug a hole and could never do more than try and make up for it. Fukodome elevated himself and it took months of bad play for people to notice he might not be that guy.

Jacque had about the same May, a better June, and a worse July (where both were quite awful.) August was one of Jacque’s better months. It hasn’t been one of Fukodome’s.

This is at least the fourth straigtht year where I’ve vowed in January to skip a year and end up buying it within the first week it comes out. In my defense, I subcumbed to peer pressure.

I’ve barely played NCAA ‘09 - maybe about 6 hours since getting it - because July and August have been  busy (and August and September aren’t looking better.) At least NCAA feels significantly better (roster bug aside) and I’m hoping Madden is the same.

When I have been having video game time, I’ve just been zooming thru whatever I’ve got in from GameFly. I just beat Lego Indiana Jones this weekend. The reviews were not as high on as the Star Wars game, and they’re pretty much right. It’s a lot more puzzle solving, occasionally in ways that don’t feel natural (you mean I have to move this piece ledge by ledge by dropping it, jumping to the ledge, and using my whip to pull it apart, and I’m supposed to know to do that despite never doing it before?) It was also like two-thirds of the game before I realized how the unlock blocks were supposed to work, not that I got any.

Anyway, I’ll probably wander over to Gamestop around 11:40, hoping for something amusing to happen.

08/07: Monster Madness: Grave Danger (metacritic) - port of the 360 title, with new features (and a new subtitle) but nothing that actually fixes some of the game playing problems of the first game, and the visuals are really bad.

in the store

Qore #3 ($3, or $25 for a yearly subscription) - DC Super Heroes preview, invite into the Resistance 2 beta

Downloadable Games

PS1 Classics (3 weeks)

Add on Content
- Snakeball: multiplayer mode {$2}

- NASCAR ‘09
* Montreal Track {$4} - I wonder if it rains? Thinking no
* Skin Packs - 3 @ $2.50 each of alternate paint schemes not included in the game. EA’s website doesn’t seem to have a full list of what’s in which pack, though the PS list does mention the main ones.

- Guitar Hero III - Legends of Rock Interscope Track Pack {$6.25 for all 3}
* “Carcinogen Crush” by AFI
* “Tina” by Flyleaf
* “Putting Holes in Happiness” by Marilyn Manson (just this one remixed by Nick Zinner or maybe all?)

- Rock Band
* “Toxicity” by System of a Down ($2)
* “B.Y.O.B” by System of a Down ($2)
* “Rescue Me” by Buckcherry ($1)
* “Face Down in the Dirt” by Mötley Crüe ($1)
* “Life is Beautiful” by Sixx:A.M. ($1)
(or the last three for $3)

Game Demos

Game Videos
- PS3 Home (E3)
- The Last Guy (BTS)
- Star Wars: the Force Unleashed
- Tomb Raider: Underworld Trailer
- Madden NFL ‘09 (3: E3, 20th Anniversary Details, Adaptability)
- TNA iMPACT (trailer/AJ vs Joe)
- Dead Space (Dev Diary #5, Animated Comic #4)
- AST Dew Tour (4)

Movie/Blu-Ray Trailer (3 weeks) - probably just moved to the video service and I haven’t paid attention. I’ll drop it after this week.

PS3 Theme
- PlayStation Home. This is less a theme and more a lottery ticket to get in the beta. How they choose who gets in isn’t completely specified. The only thing mentioned is “activity on the Playstation Network”. It stands to reason you’re more likely to get access to a future method of selling you stuff if you’re already buying from the store.

PS3 Wallpaper
- Disgea 3: Absence of Justice Wallpaper (x3)
- Tomb Raider (SHARK)

over the horizon (last updated 08/01)

08/12: Madden NFL 09 and (20th Anniversary Edition) [metacritic]

08/21: Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest For Booty (download, $15)

08/26: Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 [metacrtic]
08/26: Disgaea 3 Absence of Justice [metacrtic]
08/26: Vampire Rain: Altered Species [metacrtic]
08/26: Ferrari Challenge

08/31: Mercenaries 2: World in Flames [metacrtic]

09/02: Rapala Fishing Frenzy
09/02: TNA iMPACT!
09/02: World in Conflict: Soviet Assault
09/03: FaceBreaker [metacritic]
09/03: NFL Head Coach ‘09 [metacritic]

09/08: NHL 2K9
09/09: NHL 09
09/09: Legendary: The Box

09/15: BAJA: Edge of Control
09/16: Pure
09/16: Star Wars: the Force Unleashed
09/16: Madden ‘09 En Espanol
09/16: Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust

09/23: Lego Batman
09/23: Cabel’s Dangerous Hunts ‘09
09/23: Brother’s in Arms: Hell’s Highway
09/23: Buzz! Quiz TV Bundle
09/23: Just Cause 2

09/30 (maybe): Hei$t (metacritic)
09/30: Shellshock 2
09/30: Silent Hill: Homecoming
09/30: Legandary
09/30: Rise of the Argonauts
10/01: Far Cry 2
10/01: MotoGP 08

10/06: Monopoly Here & Now Worldwide Edition
10/07: Fallout 3, Collectors Edition and Amazon.com Exclusive Survival Edition
10/07: Midnight Club: Los Angeles
10/07: Fracture

10/07: Motorstorm: Pacific Rift
10/07: NBA ‘09
10/07: Disney Sing It Bundle w/Microphone
10/07: NBA 2K9

10/14: Saints Row 2 and Collector’s Edition
10/14: SOCOM US Navy Seals: Confrontation Stand Alone and with headset
10/14: Golden Axe: Beast Rider
10/15: Shaun White Snowboarding
10/15: Tom Clancy’s EndWar [metacritic]
10/15: Naruto Ultimate Ninja : Storm

10/20: Dead Space
10/21: Little Big Planet [metacritic]
10/21: Spider-Man: Web of Shadows
10/21: Ghostbusters - perhaps

10/27: Guitar Hero World Tour

At some point: WipeoutHD

On the upside, I can now repeat the speech from Animal House in my sleep.

I have playoff tickets, but I might support the team better by staying away at this point.  I’ve got at least 2 more regular season games to fix things.

Other trend: the last 2 Cubs games I’ve gone to have ended in horrible rainstoms. I bring this up because I’ll be in the bleachers on Saturday afternoon. There’s isolated thunderstorms in the forecast.

1) The neighborhood itself was taking the day off. My usual parking place was unstaffed, and I got stuck at a place that boxes me in instead. The bars and the atmosphere felt different too…

2) but maybe that’s because the crowd was different too. Lots more families, less 20/30s singles like at a usual Cubs game. It was very similar to what you’d get at a normal minor league game, just a lot more of it.

3) 32,000 people was shocking. I was thinking they’d be happy with 20,000, but they ended up being six ML games (I think). It being in Wrigley and being a novelty were contributing reasons, but not one of the biggest. The much discounted ticket prices were one - $5 upper deck ticket is old school. Like old times, those seats weren’t even filled, but that’s because the main level seats were so much cheaper than usual that people just grabbed them before the upper deck went on sale. The main level and the bleachers seemed about 95% full (the obstructed sections of the 200s might have not been sold), and most of the empty seats were upstairs.

4) The second biggest reason for the tickets was Ryne Sandburg, who’s still very beloved. More than any player or either team, Sandburg was the guy most people came to see, and the number on the most Jerseys. Sandburg’s probably the reason the game happened - he does National City bank ads all the time, and they were the big sponsor for the show. The early plan was to rotate the game with all the minor league teams. Iowa will probably work out pretty well, but I don’t about everyone else.

5) My seat was right behind the Cougars bullpen bench. Always fun when you can sneak down that far, and watch the players with people. Usually, only a couple guys sit in the pen early on and the relievers who might be used wander down during the early inning. In Wrigley, every pitcher on the team was hanging out there.

6) When the Cougars were warming up, I looking at the uniforms and was surprised to see they got new ones for this game. (Unlike pretty much every other team, the A’s give the players A’s jackets so they can keep wearing them at every level, instead of Cougars gear.) It took me about five minutes to realized the uniforms looked new because this was a ROAD game and they were wearing their ROAD uniforms and I still haven’t gone to see them at a visitor’s park this year. Duh

7) The Peoria Firedog is dumb. Why is the mascot for the Cheifs a fire fighting dog, anyway?

8) I don’t have many thoughts about the game. I was hoping that since it was a major league park, they’d do something crazy like give out the lineups before the game. No. (They were better about pitchers changes than the Cougars game.) This was the first time I saw fantastic new draftee Jemilee Weeks, and sliding into first and getting hurt wasn’t the greatest impression. Paramore has some power but I don’t if he’s going to hit for average. Richard seems to get all of his hits when I’m not at the game. It was a pretty fine hitting day because of the conditions and it showed on the scoreboard.

Leonardo Espinal is my favorite guy on the whole team. I’m not sure he’s the best player, but he’s the best guy.

The only scores they had on the scoreboard were this game, and the Milwaukee game. Every time a number went up on the board, or people checked their phones and heard something good happened, the crowd cheered louder than anything for the game they were actually watching.

9) It started to sprinkle in the middle innings, but it never got more than an occasional drop and I thought we might have missed it. The game just took long. It started raining decently in the bottom of the 9th, they tried to play thru it only because it looked like the Chiefs might just end it and solve the problem for them, but the Cougars held on just long enough (perhaps stalling a little bit on purpose) and the skies just opened up and unloaded on all of us on once. It was the worst storm I’ve seen at a ballpark*

Like everyone else who was exposed to the elements, I rushed towards the interior of the stadium. 30,000 people crammed into the concourse, trying to get away from the seats but just as disinterested at getting all the way out of the stadium. It wasn’t a soccer crushing situation, but you couldn’t really move without forcing your way thru people, and you couldn’t do much else but stand and wait.

I waited about 10 minutes, killed time writing stressed out text messages (crowd aren’t my thing.) I had promised to meet Mike at his apartment to exchange tickets* and pretty much needed to do it. Once I could no longer stand anymore standing around, I slipped my way to the exit, opened my small umbrella and made a run for it.

My umbrella quickly broke, bent in the wind. And also, I kinda started walking towards Mike’s old place, maybe a half mile west of where he actually was. On the upside, I got plenty of practice wearing my new bluetooth headset when I got directions.

The rain stopped by the time I left to walk all the way back to Wrigley for my car, and my car was no longer boxed in, so it worked out in the end. Except for that non-finish thing.

* Since then, I’ve been back to Wrigley on Monday (08/04) and that storm beat this easily. This time, I was seated underneath the upper deck and we were all willing to sit out the rain delay for at least a while. We were still feeling okay when they told everyone to seek shelter, because we felt pretty safe. Then the tornado sirens went off, possibly for the first non-test ever at Wrigley, and no one much felt safe.

Again, I was stuck on the concourse, packed in with people watching a storm blow by. This time was worse. The storm was so bad, the wind took driving rain and made it go horizontal. (Which made it a good thing we left our seats, because nothing was protecting people from that.) And the concourse waiting was worse too; because the rain happened before the 6th, beer vendors were free to keep on selling, and they had no issues with getting people hot, confined and on nerve very drunk too. It was so dumb.

I got to the park way early (another story that I’ll skip) and I had gone to IHoP for dinner. Everyone else had just gotten from work and didn’t want ballpark food, so the plan was to go to a place around Wrigley after the game for an actual meal. We decided we might as well go now, rather than wait out a game that didn’t look like it was restarting and tried to time it with a down moment with the storm. The idea was great, but the storm kicked up again once we battled thru to the exit and I had no umbrella (because it’s still broke and unreplaced.) But dinner was good and it was finally sane outside when we were done.

I was just about home when the game picked up. It looked like it was going to restart at some point when I passed it again on the way to my car - amusingly, some ushers were stopping people from coming back in, but you could walk around to another side and be welcomed back with a problem - but I was still surprised it actually happened. Given that they only lasted about 40 minutes before being stopped (and for good) again, I’m not sure why they bothered.

I took Lake Shore on the way home. Lightning over the city and the lake is awesome to see, but it would’ve been better if people were not slowing down to watch it.

** Mike had to give me a ticket for the Fire/Everton game the next day, and I thought enough to give him my new camera so I didn’t have to carry it around in any more rain. I had planned to take more pictures at THAT game, but Mike didn’t think to bring the camera into the stadium, and so I didn’t get it back until later.

short: The Fire’s stadium’s really nice, it was a fun game, and I’d totally go back.

Catchup stuff possibly later. Right now, I’m just seeing if I’ve got
post via e-mail working.