Month: February 2007

I love The Hardball Times (the site as well as the yearly annuals). If you are a baseball fan, you owe it to yourself to make the site part of your daily surfing.

John Brattain recently wrote an interesting article titled Whom would You Choose? where Mr. Brattain debates “Suppose you had a Hall of Fame ballot with one spot left and you had to choose between Schilling and Smoltz: Whom would you choose?”

Before I started this column, I would’ve voted for Curt Schilling. My mind is changed. If I have one vote to cast between the two at this point, I vote for John Smoltz.

It is a fascinating article, but there are a couple of decent follow-ups.

The first is via a blog (The Pastime) where the author makes a compelling case for Schilling.

The second is a subsequent article by Mr. Brattain titled “You Said It” where Mr. Brattain quotes (and answers) a serious of well-written emails to his first article, mostly in support of Schilling.

All three articles are a great way to start your work week. BTW, I am biased towards Smoltz. I think being a top closer adds to his legacy, and in no way detracts from John Smoltz’s Hall of Fame credentials.

As much as I’ve bad mouthed Out of the Park Baseball 2006 I think it’s only proper to give credit where credit is due. I am having a blast with Spring Training in my online league. It opens a whole new game play dimension over previous OOTPB versions. I can track individual Spring Training splits to see who is doing what on the field and on the mound.

I had to make some decisions about a couple of older players versus AAA prospects to see who was ready to play and who needed to be moved or cut. I have two weeks of data on the prospects, so I can start shopping the older players I want to move before the season starts. Now we have the scenario in OOTPB 2006 of older players being invited to camp and then let go or offered minor league contracts for the regular season. I like this a lot.

Another scenario – I had to make some decisions about who would play catcher for me. I gathered data for the first two weeks of Spring Training, didn’t like what I saw, so brought up some borderline prospects to take a look at. Fun stuff.

The other very nice addition is that players need to actually play new positions during Spring Training to learn them.

These changes make Spring Training much more exciting in online leagues. Getting to Spring Training is painful because it takes so long to sim from November to March. But once you’re there, the season really “feels” like it’s beginning. It helps our league that we have a development report utility that adds an incredible amount of depth to an otherwise complicated and tedious built in system.

Blu-ray: So I am walking around Target yesterday (my wife sent me to spend money at her favorite store since she was not feeling well) and while I was looking at the DVDs, I overheard a couple of young dudes talking about Blu-Ray. Conversation was along the lines of

[dude 1] “What is the difference between Blu-Ray and DVD?”
[dude 2] “Beats me. Never heard of it before.”

The interesting part of this conversation was that these guys are obviously GIs (Fort Benning is in Columbus, GA). Stereotype coming, but I expected young dudes to know the difference between Blu-Ray, DVD, and HD-DVD formats, but they did not have a clue. Sony may have missed the boat on this one.

HD Hockey: Every once in a while I try to get into hockey, but it never works. Everyone says that you have to watch the game in person, and while we do have a decent lower level minor league team in my area (not to mention the Thrashers are 90 minutes away); I can never seem to get into the sport. Last night, one of the HD channels had Nashville (vs. some other team that I cannot recall), so I tried to watch for a few minutes. I can see why everyone raves above HD hockey (better puck viewing, and more action shows on the TV at one time); I still could not get into the game. I am sure I will try again, but for now, hockey is still not sticking with this Southern boy.

How the other half live (Part I): In the February 26, 2007 SI, I read that Ken Griffy Jr. (Reds often injured outfielder) broke his left hand “horsing around with his kids on the family’s yacht in the Bahamas in December.” I can only imagine.

How the other half live (Part II): Or maybe we should title this one “how many millions is really enough?” I read in this morning’s paper that Atlanta Falcons defensive end Patrick Kerney has voided his contract. Boo hiss. I realize that he is coming off of surgery, and he can make more money as a free agent, but what ever happened to team loyalty? Kerney was quoted by the AP as saying:

“I’ve only got about five more years to play, and I’ve got to make the most out of it. As great as it would have been to finish my career with Atlanta, where everybody, especially the fans, have been great to me in my eight years there, the business side is there.”

Thanks for that Patrick. I cannot honestly say what I would do in his position, but what happened to the days when players would spend their entire career with one team? The reality is that the Falcons could cut Kerney at any time – contracts in the NFL are not guaranteed – at the same time, the Falcons were not looking for a change in direction.

EA Sports is lazy: Unbelievable. Why would EA Sports be so lazy as to swap MVP 06 rosters with MVP 07 rosters? I knew that UGA did not look right, but I was really off the mark. UGA has Nebraska’s MVP 06 roster.  Seriously, WTF? I previously posted that the game was easily worth $29.99, even as a slightly updated version of last year’s game, but I have to retract that statement. MVP 07 is a lot of fun, but come on, how much money would it have cost EA Sports to update the rosters? I would suggest that PS2 owners only buy this one used or when it hits the bargain bin; $14.99 is probably a fair price.

Holy price gauging Batman!  Has anyone seen the prices of HDMI cables at Best Buy (presumably the same at other electronics stores)?  Yesterday I was in Best Buy to pick up a DVI (HD cable box out) to HDMI (TV in) for my new Sony 40″ BRAVIA V-Series HDTV (KDL-40V2500), but was shocked at the prices of HDMI cables.  We are talking about $80 or so for a “low end” cable, while the top end cables will set you back about $145 (plus tax).  There is also the $35 to be spent on the DVI to HDMI adaptor.

This is completely insane.  First, I spend two grand on a TV.  Next I spend some money to upgrade to Charter HD service.  Now I have to spend another $100-200 on cables.  Where does it end?  I assume if later this year I decided to pick up a 360 or PS3, I will have to spend even more money on more digital cables.

I have been doing some reading/research at it seems there are two camps.  The first firmly believes that spending top dollar on high-end cables such as those provided by Monster are an absolute necessity.  The other camp believes that a digital cable is a digital cable (assuming reasonable cable length), and you should go as cheap as possible.  I sure hope that the latter is correct because I do not want to spend this much money on cables.

I am sorry that LaDainian Tomlinson’s father was tragically and unexpectedly killed when his truck flipped over on a Texas highway last Friday afternoon. With that said, why would ESPN run the following headline – “Tomlinson says he’s ‘devastated’ by father’s death”? Of course he is devastated, as most of us would be at the news of a parent’s unexpected death. Why not just report the news with a simple headline such as “LaDainian Tomlinson’s father killed in traffic accident” and then use the “devastated” quote within the story? Maybe I am becoming a prude in my old age, but I am getting sick and tired of shock/sensational journalism.

Pretty solid game for the PSP. My wife got this for me as a Christmas present; I think it was probably $39.99 (or $49.99) at the time, but is now a nice $29.99 at most stores. I opened it for the first time earlier in the week on the flight to Costa Rica, and managed to put in a solid couple of hours with the game. On the flight back I did not play as much (maybe an hour). I think people either love the GTA series or they cannot stand the games; not a whole lot of middle ground for gamers to take it or leave it. I have always enjoyed the games because I find them fairly compelling – free roaming immersive environment, tons of fun missions, plenty of cars, great for pick-up-and play rampant destruction, great soundtracks (especially Vice City games), and just downright fun.

The only problem I have with the game is that I can only take GTA games in small doses, and I have never finished one. Of course I cannot play the game (or the PS2 counterparts) in front of the kids. Something about cussing, shooting, and hookers does not make for a family experience.

Vice City Stories features standard camera and control issues that we have come to expect with the GTA series. No real show stoppers, but it is a pain to target multiple folks, and the camera does tend to do squirrelly things from time to time.

I have not seen a deeper (non sports) game on the PSP, and the graphics are remarkable. It is hard to believe that the developers managed to get Vice City into a PSP UMD.

I purchased a Sony 40″ BRAVIA V-Series HDTV (KDL-40V2500) at Circuit City a couple of Sundays ago, but decided not to write about it until I actually got to see some real HDTV. It took Charter almost two weeks to schedule me for an install, and while I am not going to go into the shity Charter customer service I received, I will say that the technicians (apparently it takes two guys to change a light bulb) did not connect the set correctly. Seriously, why would you connect a blue component cable to a green component input?

The good news is that the picture quality is absolutely phenomenal! The viewing pleasure while watching a praying mantis documentary on Discovery HD last night was fabulous. I just wish it was still season because I have no desire to watch the NBA on ESPN HD. Braves HD broadcast cannot start soon enough, or maybe some soccer action in HD. Maybe I will get into some college basketball this year as a tribute to my late father. It is going to be along haul until September.

I need to figure out if I am getting the best picture quality possible; I assume I at this point I am not, but the picture still looks damn good. The HD receiver does not have an HDMI output, but it does support DVI, which of course explains why the technicians decided to set me up with an analog component connection. Did I mention that they set this up incorrectly, and did not stick around to make sure it was working correctly?

The avs forum has been extremely helpful with info on my new TV, calibration suggestions, and an assortment of other useful information. I was worried about the “cloudiness problem” until I came across a post that convinced me that this is not a show stopper.

“The so called cloudiness problem is a non-issue unless you want to be super critical or like to watch a blank screen. It is not something you would ever notice during normal viewing.

There is some faint unevenness across an unused input, but who wants to watch nothing. If you are watching TV with bars at the sides or top/bottom there is no trace of cloudiness in the dark bands.”

Now I am jonesing for some HD gaming action, but I want to wait for a while before picking a system.

I am not really an AV expert; probably apparent from this post. I do not understand why the cables matter so much if the signal is coming from plain-jane coaxial cable. That has to be analog, right? So maybe the box does some type of up-convert, and then it is up to the signal carried in the cables to the TV to provide the best picture quality possible. Ignorant. Certainly, but the HD broadcasts are clearly superior to my old stand-by Sony 32″ Trinitron.

I have a lot of time to write posts today because I am part of the great World of Warcraft Blackout of ’07. Those of us in the Southwestern part of the United States that use Cox Internet services (and brands that use Cox like SuddenLink) haven’t been able to connect to our main character servers for over 24 hours now. That’s what is odd – the main character server part. I can log into every other WoW server, just not the one with my main characters.

Blizzard’s game developing skills are as good as their customer service is bad. Roughly 1,000 posts later (I am not making this up) Blizzard officially acknowledged on the log-in page that Cox users in the Southwest are having problems logging in. No informative posts in their technical support forum. No attempts to calm the masses. Nothing.

Luckily my office internet connection isn’t through Cox so I was able to get a quick fix earlier today. Hopefully this issue will be resolved before the shakes come back.

“Isn’t it amazing how people have the hardest time following the simplest instructions?…I mean, how hard is it to run away from the raid when you’re the bomb?”

Some classic World of Warcraft humor in Pure Pwnage espisode 12.

Not much has changed since I last checked in to the good old Recycle Bin. I now have a 70 priest on the Arathor server. Haven’t explored a lot of the instances yet because I’ve been working on my tailor skills. There are a lot of nice healer patterns available for mooncloth tailors in The Burning Crusade. So I check in during the day, kill a few spiders for netherweb silk, and wait for the four, that’s right FOUR, day clock to reset so that I can make two new mooncloth. I need about 30 or so to finish my robes.

Typical OOTP hype is swirling through the forums. I pre-ordered because wasting $28 is better than wasting $35. Everybody is telling me it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread. But we’ll see. One of the loudest beta critics on the 2006 team seems happy with 2007, so keep hope alive.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it on this site before, but by far the best thing written about gaming is found at The Escapist. Other than a few blogs and forums here and there, it is the only other gaming writing that I read these days. The site has gotten fancier over the year, or so it seems, but I don’t visit the site that much. Instead, the magazine is emailed to me every month. If you don’t like intelligent writing and would rather see flashing women in bikinis ads, don’t bother with The Escapist as it’s bound to disappoint.

Clay Dreslough contacted me out of the blue about reviewing the next version of Baseball Mogul or the current Football Mogul offering. Normally I refuse to do such things, but Mr. Dreslough is one of the baseball career text sim founding fathers, so how can I refuse him? I told him I’d put the review here, so we’ll see if he follows up, hehe. With PureSim’s demise I’m softening up a bit on baseball reviews since who knows what Sports Interactive will cough up with Out of the Park Baseball? Plus Mr. Dreslough worked on Tony LaRussa Baseball 3 and that’s baseball gaming royalty as far as I am concerned.

In other news, I dusted off my 35mm camera and initially decided to get into digital photography. I was thinking about this today – I used to be a photography nut. I worked in dark rooms, I knew which chemicals did what, I rolled film, all sorts of stuff. At some point I just forgot about photography. My wife would say it was when girls started to notice me (and I them), but that’s another conversation. I wanted to pick it up again a few years ago and purchased a Nikon N70 35mm camera. I shot two rolls of slide film with the camera and put it away for a long time.

My youngest daughter is a soccer phenom (known as “sweet feet” to her friends and the reporters on the U7 beat). You’ll get that joke if you know what U7 is. I wanted to start recording her assent to the women’s US National Team and thought a digital camera was the way to go. The more I played with my film camera, the more I decided that digital just wasn’t for me right now. I’ll probably try and find a Nikon D50 body at some point, however, I just enjoy film photography too much.

I’m afraid my World of Warcraft time will suffer. Such is life.

Yes, actually still around and kicking, and surprise, surprise, I have actually been playing some games. I am sure it is not what you think. For the month of February, I have laid a rotten WoW egg; $14.99 pretty much down the drain.

Earlier this week I picked up Winning Eleven: Pro Soccer 2007 (PSP) and MVP 07 NCAA Baseball (PS2). Both games are top notch, and worth the entry price. My only concern with WE is the load times, which to me seem far worse than last year’s WE9. WE is pretty much the best sports game available for the PSP, and perhaps the system’s only saving grace.

I am not sure that MVP 07 is much of an improvement over the under appreciated MVP 06, but I am a college baseball fan, and decent PS2 games are few and far between. I love the analog pitching (“rock and fire”) and batting controls, which are nicely implemented. The gameplay is spot on, fielding, throwing, variety of hits, etc. The commentary gets redundant after a few innings, and the rosters are a mess (have only explored UGA and Texas they seem way off to the 2006 0r 2007 real life teams).

I have several upcoming trips, including one to Costa Rica this weekend, so this is pretty much now or never for my PSP. If I do not feel like I can get decent value during 32 hours in the air, then it is past time to cut my losses and throw this thing up on eBay.

As I continue to research HDTV options, I came across an interesting site (AntennaWeb.org) that shows what free HDTV broadcasts are available in a given area, and what type of antenna is the best choice for picking up the broadcasts.

I am not really inclined to climb up on my steep roof (it was an adventure getting up there, right after Joseph was born, to fix a leak over the sunroom) to install an outdoor antenna, and then run a cable through the attic, and eventually through my 100+ year-old plaster walls. Nope. Not so much fun.

So I am looking for a decent indoor antenna, which could tide me over for a few months until I make a decision to stick with charter or switch to DirectTV.

After doing a lot of R&R (reading and research) I convinced myself that a 40″ LCD was right for my living room. 40″ is about all that will fit where I want the TV to sit (or eventually be mounted), and while I could go a little higher (say 46″), a 40″ LCD seems to be the best value for my money.

I decided on LCD over plasma for a couple of reasons. First, I really wanted the highest resolution possible (1080p seems to be the way to go), and my living room is bright (lots of windows), which may present a problem for plasmas.

I was pretty convinced that I was going to go with a Samsung LN-S4095D 40″ 1080p LCD HDTV, but I finally decided on a Sony 40″ BRAVIA V-Series HDTV (KDL-40V2500). The Sony is a little more expensive, but seems to be the better set based on specs and my test viewing earlier today.

I am close to picking up the Sony today at Circuit City ($2249.99 + tax), but then I came message board that seems to indicate a serious ‘clouding’ issue with the Sony BRAVIA models. I am not sure if I would notice, but still, do I take the chance?

So now I am going to hold off for at least anther day to re-evaluate plasma, DLP, and do some more research on the Samsung and Sony models mentioned above. I wonder if this is kind of like the golden days of videogame reviews – things come up and average folks are never going to notice.

Anyway, I am a little disappointed that I did not get my HDTV set today, because I have been shopping around for over a year now (before finally deciding to get the thing done). I have a feeling that I am not going to pick up a new set for a couple of weeks. $2K (or more) is a lot to spend on a TV, plus I am traveling next weekend. No sense in rushing a purchase.

A little over a year ago we moved into The Gatewood Mannor, and while I absolutely love the house, it took a large chunk of my savings to restore the house to its deserved glory. Taking on a restoration project left precious little money for things like, oh say, actually buying decent furniture, custom blinds (all 22 windows are handcrafted frames, and thus require custom blinds), and other niceties.

My eight-year-old 32 inch Sony Trinitron TV has been sitting on the floor of the living room since we moved into the house, which has not made my wife a happy camper. She hates clutter, and having a TV on the floor, complete with game systems, controllers, DVDs, games, etc has not gone over well with my Tonya.

So now the time has come for a new TV. Reading between the lines, my wife has given the green-light for this big ticket item purchase. It is high time to get the TV off the floor. Funny how things like that work.

I figure that my allotted space will allow me to take on a 42-46 inch TV. Plasma? DLP? 1080p? Time to spend some time researching options, putting forth a budget, and seeing which set provides the best viewing pleasure for my money. If all the local channels broadcast HTDV over the air (and I think several do) then this may be the perfect time to pick up some DirectTV. Say hello NFL network.

HDTV suggestions welcome.

I just got my copy of Eddie Murphy’s Delirious DVD from Amazon.  Man, what a great stand-up act Mr. Murphy was back in the day.  I just watched this great DVD a few minutes ago, and while the language was a little too much for my wife (Tonya left a few minutes after the fag jokes), this DVD is just brilliant.  Long before we had to worry about political correctness (I just said fag), Murphy went after various topics like there was no tomorrow – gays, AIDS, racism, sexual topics (he is right about 18-year old boys), and so on and so forth.  Good stuff!

It was a little disappointing that there was not much more than the Delirious footage; you would think the DVD could have held more extras, SNL footage, something.  Some limited extras (Buckwheat thing was funny) and an interesting interview with Mr. Murphy says that he “might” do stand-up again one day, are included; really nothing to write home about.

I have not seen Delirious for at least 10 years so I was happy to see it again, and while I wish there were more extras, this DVD was well worth the $14.98 (DVD plus shipping) that I spent.