Month: December 2005

What’s wrong with this picture (from the Falcons 36-17 win over the Saints last night)?

On third-and-goal from the 2, Vick scrambled to his left and appeared to be pushed out of bounds near the 1. The officials spotted the ball at the 1, but Mora called for the review.

“Because Mike Vick told me to,” Mora said. “He said ‘Challenge it, we’ll win it.’ You listen to what No. 7 says.”

The officials ruled the run was a touchdown after replays showed Vick kept his leg in bounds as he flew over the pylon with the ball in his hands. [Source: Yahoo! Sports/AP]

I love Vick as much as the next guy – I own the official shirt, I run around with Vick like ants in my pants in Madden Football, and I even believe all the “Vick is a different sort of quarterback” philosophy mumbo-jumbo crap. No, really, it is all true.

See, what had happened was …

Vick is a special athlete, but I do not think it is wise to say he is a special quarterback. Not yet. Maybe tomorrow or the next day, but not today. I love how Vick can be a dangerous weapon on the ground as well as in the air when he hurls bullets for passes as he rolls out dodging defender after defender, but that is part of the problem. Until Vick learns how to put some touch on his passes, and until Vick improves him completion percentage, Vick will continue to impress us as a special athlete, but not necessarily as an elite quarterback.

Not that it matters. Lucky for us Falcons fans that Mora has it all figured out � if Vick tells you to do something, you damn well better. Seriously, we all know that outrageous signing bonuses and 100 million dollar contracts are reasons enough to “listen to what No. 7 says.”

But I do love me some Vick. Honest.

Markus Heinsohn posted a new blog entry on the Out of the Park Baseball Manager site. The big news is that a pitch-by-pitch mode has been added to the game! Other game engine issues are discussed in the artcle. Spring 2006 can’t come soon enough.

Turns out my mother-in-law already has a wireless network set up in her house. Who knew? She sounded a bit insulted when I said I was bringing my wireless router.

Although the score was much closer than the game, the Jaguars at least made it entertaining on Sunday. The Seattle game is looming very large. The Seahawks look very, very good right now.

The Houston Texans are the worst local team I�ve ever been forced to watch on television. I had the Texans/Titans game on CBS. I actually did work instead of watching that �football� game.

The more I think about the �No Fly� list, the angrier I get. My wife asked me if they took me to some back room and interrogated me when they informed me of my exalted watch-list status. They didn�t. In fact, the only reason I knew I was on the list was that they told me. Otherwise, things were the same except I couldn�t use computer check-in.

What makes me angry is that while the airlines can apparently clear me to board a plane, this information has no impact on my status on the watch-list. My non-threat status isn�t communicated back to TSA. TSA is the only unit that can clear me. So it ends up being a big hassled for people trying to get off of the watch-list in order to satisfy some government demands about ID certification. But that has no impact on my ability to fly. So why not just let the airlines clear me?

My years of service in the US Marines were not enough. I now must serve my country on the watch-list!

There is some discussion in the Grey Dog Software forums about the price of Bowl Bound College Football being very steep at $35. I’m inclined to agree. For a first issue product that still has some tweaking issues, $35 does seem a bit much. I’ll probably wait until a few patches are released, but if BBCF was released at the $29 price point it would have been easier to justify the speculative purchase. Yea, it’s only a $6 difference, yet for some reason I don’t have a problem wasting less than $30 on a game. I’m just odd that way.

Speaking of odd, what’s next at The “Blog” for the Sports Gamer? Pop-up ads?

The Jaguars/Colts game should be interesting today. I think expectations are low because Leftwich is out. For some reason the Jaguars always play the Colts close. I will be surprised if this trend doesn’t continue today.

I am going to Florida over the holidays for a couple of weeks. Nothing scares an online gamer more then hearing your wife say “We’re going to Florida for two weeks.” Why? Because we’re not staying in fancy hotels. We’re staying with family. I’m taking along my wireless router so that I can be a road warrior with my laptop. Hopefully my in-laws won’t be insulted when I start upgrading their networking. I’ll even be updating the World of Warcraft install on my laptop so that I can play it when I’m gone. WoW at 800×600 is better than no WoW at all.

Such is life.

There are three new Out of the Park Baseball Manager pics on the web site. I broke down and pre-ordered the game today. It should be good, even if we don’t know enough about the online portion yet.

Grey Dog Software released a number of updates, including the retail version of their new Bowl Bound College Football. I’ll probably check out the updated demo before I take the plunge, but I’m looking forward to leading the Midshipmen to the BCS Championship game!

I wasn’t around to write for the site because I had to fly to Tampa for a meeting on Friday. Imagine my surprise when I found out that I was on the “No Fly” list! It seems that evey Christopher Johnson in the United States was on the government watch list. This is not a trivial number of people. So, all of the thousands of us who aren’t terrorists have to fill out some forms and give three notarized (at our expense) copies of identification to TSA. And all of this apparently only makes us able to check in quicker – no more electronic check in for us, no more using the computer check in at the airport. For all of the Christopher Johnsons in the United States.

I’m all for increased security, but when you’re making lives miserable for a huge percentage of the named population, it seems a little silly to me and a pointless system. But I will bear my burden knowing that my inconvienance in airports is making everyone else safer to travel!

The good folks at Sports Interactive posted 10 new Out of the Park Baseball Manager 2006 screenshots. There’s a baseball league in Germany? Who knew?

I switched back and forth between the Texas Colorado and Army Navy games yesterday. I think the Texas A&M game was a wake up call for the Longhorns, and poor Colorado had to suffer through a serious beat down because of it.

Navy beat Army for the fourth year in a row. Life is good.

I downloaded Grey Dog Software’s Total Pro Basketball 2005 and will take a look next week. The game looks much improved over last year’s version. I’m looking for an NBA sim, and this is pretty much the only game in town for GM fans.

A few “experts” seriously picked UCLA over USC.

I had the good fortune of being around San Diego State when Marshall Faulk was there (my wife is a proud Aztec). He is the greatest running back I’ve ever seen in college. Reggie Bush is a close second. The difference is that Marshall Faulk was by far the only option at San Diego State. You knew who was going to get the majority of the touches. Yet when he touched the ball and got to the secondary, there was always a chance that he would score a TD. Reggie Bush is one of many options at USC, so that’s why I will always think Faulk was the better college running back. Teams would line up 10 players in the box and Faulk would still rush for 200 yards.

The Army Navy game is today at 2:30 PM ET. I tell my students at Texas A&M that they have a nice little quaint rivalry with University of Texas compared to the proud tradition that is the Army Navy game. Graduates of both institutions take the game very seriously. I remember when I was deployed in Japan many years ago breaking into the Officer’s Club at 3:00 AM to watch the game with some of my fellow Academy graduates. Losses are devestating and victory is expected. Records really don’t matter because history shows us many examples of a scrapy Army or Navy team defeating the opponent with a better record.

It is a good natured rivalry. One of my students at the University of Florida was a helicopter pilot in the Army, a West Point graduate, and we had fun giving each other a hard time during this time of year. I ran track and raced bicycles when I was a Midshipman, and it gave me great pleasure that I never lost to an Army doggy while I was at the Academy.

Games like these make college sports so much fun.

A couple of new posts at the Out of the Park Baseballl Manager site. In the first, Markus Heinsohn discusses the stats engine and how it works. The second post asks for volunteers to help write the OOTPBM manual. It’s not clear how they are going to choose the help that they’re asking for from the OOTP community, but it is nice to see that a manual is in the works.