The Recycle Bin

This is not an interesting weekend in the SEC, and I am pressed for time [forgot to post this before the kids’ soccer games], so let’s get this thing started.

Marshall – Tennessee
Somewhat of a breather this week for Tennessee.  I suppose they could have something of a major lack of focus after the Gator debacle.

Mississippi State – UAB
These Bulldogs stink.  By stink, I mean they are going to embarrass the SEC by taking one on the chin today.

Tennessee State – Vanderbilt
Vanderbilt will claim their first victory of the year.

Florida Atlantic – South Carolina
It should be a laugher for the Gamecocks, but SC has no offense, so they will win this one ugly.

Tulane – (10) LSU
These Tigers are going to make it two SEC victories in a row for the Green Wave.  LSU by 35+.

Kentucky – (5) Florida
This one has a huge ouch factor for the Wildcats.  This one will be over quickly.

Mississippi – Wake Forest
One of the two Mississippi teams will win TRB SEC Shame of the Week Award.  I am going to have to pull for Ole Miss in this one; they should manage to take out an ACC bottom feeder.

Alabama – Arkansas
Everyone knows I hate the Razorbacks, so no reason not to pull for the Tide this afternoon.  Bama’s defense will be stout, but the Tide will have to find some offense to pull this one out, but as usual, the defense will be stout.

Buffalo – (2) Auburn
No reason for the Tigers not to remain undefeated.

Colorado – (9) Georgia
This game will be close early, but Georgia should be able to pull this one out in the second half.

In other games of note, (7) Texas will continue to get healthy, this week Iowa State will be the victim of a 28+ point thrashing.

I purchased season tickets to the Jaguars games when Jack Del Rio and James “Shack” Harris were hired. My friends thought I was crazy because the Jags weren’t very good. But I knew Del Rio would bring a toughness that I like in a football team and Shack built the Baltimore Ravens defense. I grew up with the New York Giants, the Buddy Ryan Eagles, and the Chicago Bears defenses. It is in my blood.

My wife was giving me a hard time that she saw a tear in my eye as I was watching the Jags beat Dallas last week. Everytime they panned the crowd she would say “Look, there are your people!” It was very hard moving away from Florida and giving those four seats up. They were mine for three years and I enjoyed every minute, including the pre-season games. I watched Mathis as a rookie, saw Leftwich’s first game as a pro, and still have my Fred Taylor jersey hanging in the closet.

I would have been going CRAZY right about now as I walked to parking lot DD (or something like that) after the beating Jacksonville’s defense put on the Steelers tonight. CRAZY!

I decided that I am going to throw some stuff on eBay and come up with a PC gaming fund.  Will keep everyone updated, but I am certainly going to need a “quick start” guide, or some getting started tips from those of you in the know.  I do not plan to spend hour after hour killing bunnies, and I am not going to have time to dig for gold all day.  Maybe those are misconceptions of what WoW is all about, but hopefully I will have enough in the eBay war chest to make a purchase next weekend.

Stay tuned.

OK, I know there is probably not much point in doing this sort of comparison, besides aggravating Chris, which I probably should not do since I need his help with the IOSBL OOTPB 2006 transaction. But what the heck, there is time to write, so I will give this a go.

I did not get to see either game, or highlights of either game, so I am just going by what I read in the NFL.com gambook summary reports. If you have never checked out these detailed box scores, and you consider yourself a “stats guy” you owe it to yourself to peruse these for a few minutes. First up, Mario Williams, who ended his day with two tackles, which increases his yearly total to four tackles and one assisted tackle. Maybe Williams put a lot of pressure on Manning; I am sure Chris will let us know if there is some hope for his newly adopted team.

Next up is Reggie Bush, who had a horrible day on the ground, with six yards on five attempts. That is pretty much an ouch, however Bush was the leading receiver for the Saints, with eight receptions for 68 yards. Bush also managed 36 punt return yards on four attempts.

For those keep score at home, I think this squarely puts the score at 2-0 in Bush’s favor. Of course it is still early days in the careers of both players, but I am just putting this out there because I have a few minutes on my hand as the New England/New York Jets game is at the half.

I did not get to watch nearly as much football as I wanted to yesterday, but what I did see was wonderful. I did completely miss predicting the Mississippi State game vs. Tulane; yes I now they are in the SEC, but after an embarrassing 32-29 defeat to the Green Wave, the Bulldogs earn The Recycle Bin SEC Shame of the Week Award.

I was 7-0 on the weekend; 24-2 on the year. Not too shabby. To recap, I am only counting SEC games in my tally, and I am not going against a point spread. After all, this is for entertainment value only.

How does South Carolina let I-AA Wofford come within an eyelash (27-20). Spurrier has some issues to deal with before he can get the chickens competitive in the SEC East.

No problems for Kentucky against Mississippi (31-14), which makes for a two horse race between the Mississippi schools for worst in the SEC.

Alabama and Georgia took care of their respective opponents, but Arkansas only won because Vanderbilt’s kicker could not hit a last second, game winning, field goal attempt.

Florida got the better of Tennessee, but I did not expect this one to be so close. Florida has to have the inside track on the SEC East, while Auburn’s close victory over LSU gives them early favorite honors for the SEC West.

Games outside the SEC saw Texas rebound nicely against Rice, and Michigan took down Notre Dame. Grateful on both accounts. Texas has not had consecutive losses since 1999, and who likes Notre Dame?

If I find myself with some free time later today I will do a write-up on their 34-0 victory over UAB. After shutting out South Carolina last week, and UAB yesterday, UGA racked up consecutive shutouts for the first time since 1980.

Go Dawgs!

This is the day that the Lord has made, and what a glorious day for some SEC football action!  LSU/Auburn and Florida/Tennessee are in the mix followed by a bunch of crap games, starting with, in order of suckyness:

Wofford – South Carolina
The ‘Ol Ball Coach is going to be majorly pissed, and the fighting chicken fans need something to cheer for after another depression loss to the mighty Dawgs.

Louisiana-Monroe – Alabama
Bama will Roll, Roll, Roll, but their defense better be stout because much like last year, there is not an offensive presence on this team.

Mississippi – Kentucky
Lets be honest, this is a battle to see which team sucks the most.  I have been wrong on every single game Ole Miss game so far, so why stop now.  Somehow the Wildcats manage to score a few more points than the Rebels.

Arkansas – Vanderbilt
I hate pulling for the Hogs, I really do, but they better have more talent than the Commodores, or there is going to be hell to pay for Nutt.  So I pick the Razorbacks under duress.

UAB – (10) Georgia
The Stafford era begins here, and everyone is going to leave Sanford Stadium happy campers.  I know that UAB can sneak up on some teams (cough … Oklahoma … cough), and a few years ago they kicked the LSU tigers in their collective tails, but it is not going to happen this day.  Dawgs will win by 13, something along the lines of 31-17.

(7) Florida – (13) Tennessee
While this one is right behind LSU/Auburn, lets not kid ourselves.  How much do the Volunteers suck?  They should have lost to Air Force last week, but chalk up some Rocky Top magic that allowed them to escape with a weak victory.  I am a card carrying member of the Gator haters club, but I think this one is going to be an easy Florida victory.

(6) LSU – (3) Auburn
This one is the headliner of the weekend, and I think this one has the Tigers from the Plains all over it.  This one is going to be a tight defensive affair, but AU will come from behind, and win by three.

Other Games of Note
Two other national games of note are on the weekend menu of football goodness.  (11) Michigan vs. (2) Notre Dame and (8) Texas vs. Rice.  I am not a Wolverine fan, but I cannot stand the Irish, so I am going to be pulling hard for Michigan.  I just do not think Notre Dame is a Top 5 team this year, but I suppose this is a chance for them to prove me wrong.  I am expecting something like 31-30, Notre Dame, but I hope victory belongs to Michigan.  Texas will put up 56 on Rice, in what amounts to a wound-licking game after the Buckeye debacle.

Go Dawgs!

Lots of my friends complain about “monthly fee” games, so Jonathan’s reaction to paying $14.99 a month for World of Warcraft is pretty consistent with most gamers I know. Yet one by one they put down their FPS gun sites and slowly migrate to WoW. Here’s my simple analysis of the cost issue.

I’ve puchased two or three games since World of Warcraft was released. Civilization IV and Out of the Park Baseball cost me roughly $49 and $29, so $78 total over a year. I generally purchase WoW in six month chunks because it’s cheaper, but let’s say I pay the full $15 a month. That’s $180 for a year. The first year it’s minus $15 since the first month their is no fee. I paid $49 for WoW, so that’s $214 a year for one game. Grand total for my gaming expenditures this year was $292.

The total is MUCH less than what I normally spent on games prior to WoW’s release. Let’s look at a slow year. Throw in a Madden, Galactic Civilizations, Football Manager, some random space game, a FPS to try out and quickly get bored with, and what is the total cost? If we assume a $45 price for each game, that’s $225 just for five titles. Since console games are more expensive than PC titles, it would be even more expensive. Note – since my wife reads this blog I will only publically admit to purchasing five games a year. These are, shall we say, conservative estimates.

Is the extra $70 for WoW worth it? I don’t watch TV much during prime time anymore. I Tivo everything with my DVR and watch what I want when I can fit it in. I’ve never played a game so much for so long a period of time. For my online baseball games I may spend an hour or so looking over rosters on occasion. I do spend time three days a week running a baseball sim for an hour or so. Otherwise, I am playing WoW.

So I think I am getting much more out of my gaming dollar today. There’s really no comparison.  When you enter the WoW-universe, gaming habits change.  People think they will play WoW plus buy a bunch of other games, but you won’t.  There simply aren’t enough hours in the day.

Anyone want to bet how many crap games have to be purchased as part of the GameStop.com Wii bundle?

Check back soon for information on our exciting pre-order bundles.

I am not sure I would say exciting Bob.  Maybe expensive.

I have still not decided what I am going to do as far as next generation systems go.  I doubt I am going to get a 360 anytime soon.  I am not so sure I want to spend a mortgage payment on a PS3.  And while the Wii looks interesting, I have yet to see how much the backwards compatible game will cost, or what sort of support the thing is going to get.  Right now I could care less about the audio/video capabilities, because I do not have a fancy pants HDTV set, so if the Wii is on par with my PS2 and GameCube, I can live with that.  No Mario on the tentative release list?  That could be a problem.

The transition to Out of the Park Baseball 2006 has entered the painful phase.  The computer AI just does odd things with players.  Some get released when traded, others are listed as being parts of teams but don’t show up on rosters, all sorts of nonsense.  The good people at Sports Interactive must be on vacation or doing something OTHER than fixing the bugs that were claimed fixed, but in fact were not.  A brief glance at the technical support section of the OOTP 2006 forum shows at least full page of unanswered problems.  Own a Mac and want to FTP your team exports?  Too bad, because SI doesn’t seem to have a clue about Mac FTP issues.

So I am not talking about anymore SI games until OOTP 2006 is finally patched up and doesn’t feel like an unstable mess.  If you’re an online league, please take my advice and wait a while before suffering through the transition pain.  There are some brilliant additions and we will work through them to enjoy the game, but a lot of commissioner’s blood will be shed to get there.

In other news, World of Warcraft continues to shine.  Lots of nice looking games get released and fall by the wayside because I am playing WoW whenever I am not dealing with OOTP 2006 issues.  I am finally at the point where I can do the end game raiding content whenever I want.  Getting together with 20 or 40 people to take on a dungeon is a pretty exciting experience when things work.  When they don’t, it can be very frustrating and expensive.

There is just so much to do in WoW that it’s hard to describe.  Many people approach the game thinking it’s all about getting to the highest level (60) and enjoying the end game content.  It’s so much more than that.  First, you must determine how exactly you want your 60 level character to participate in raiding instance dungeons.  Is you priest going to focus on shadow damage or become a healbot?  Is your warrior going to abosorb a lot of damage or deal a lot of pain?  The answer to each of these questions leads to long and winding paths to various armor sets, trinkets, rings, weapons, etc.

So there is a lot of research involved.  Various web sites contain a lot of information about the best strategies for different portions of the post-60 world.  Need a pre-Molten Core priest build?  Look it up.  Want to know how to spec for Zul’Grub?  Look it up.  This is the sort of gaming complexity that keeps me coming back for more in the same sad, sadistic way I keep trying to solve OOTP 2006.

I’ll write more about WoW since I’m done with SI games for a while, even with NHL Eastside Hockey Manager on the horizon.  Let’s see if we can get Jonathan to join us on Bronzebeard server!    

I rarely quote IGN these days; I think the antiestablishment period in TRB has long since passed, but allow me to post this gem from the IGN DVD review section for the new Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (Limited Edition) release:

“Otherwise, however, avoid these sets by any and all means; no matter how many retailers offer cool slipcases, comic books, or other swag, these sets were designed as a sort of back-handed show of gratitude to fans, or more likely as a stopgap for folks who wanted the originals and have yet to hear about the releases coming in 2007 in honor of the series’ 30th anniversary. (Mind you, we don’t have any details, tentative or otherwise, about that release, but seriously – do you think they’re gonna pass up the opportunity?)”

I have had this one, along with Empire and Return of the Jedi in my Amazon shopping cart for a long time, but I have yet to pull the trigger. I am a Star Wars child, so these movies are special to me, but do I really need this release? Am I enough of a movie buff to notice all the differences between the various sets? I do not even have a decent TV, surround sound, or anything of the like, so you guess I could get away with saving my money for now. That 30th anniversary thing is calling my name…

Then again, this is still Star Wars to me, not that New Hope nonsense.

I have covered this a few times before, but at one point in my life I was addicted to “collecting” games.  Thankfully those days have now passed, because they typically ended with a game library that grew dusty, stale, and worthless.

Ah, but there are a few gems to be had.  I am talking about the holy grail of collecting.  The sought after gems on eBay.  Yes, the RPGs.  I recently cleared more than the original MSRP (or at least what I paid way back when) for Legend of Mana, Vagrant Story, and Chrono Cross.  The common theme?  All Squaresoft titles for the original Playstation.  We are talking about clearing over $150 for these games, which if you think about it, is a horrible investment, but this is far better than losing my shirt, which is what usually happens when I toss up older games on eBay.

Bush vs. Williams is certainly fun, but the best story of the weekend for me has to be the Ravens. Could it be possible that they are now a legitimate contender? The addition of McNair, if he stays healthy is going to be huge. Throw in a strong rushing attack and a revived defense and you have to wonder how far Baltimore can go this year:

I came away from my trip through Baltimore’s training camp convinced that the Ravens’ defense might just be back. That’s looking like a solid hunch so far. Maybe it was just good karma resulting from the return to the field where Baltimore won a Super Bowl title more than five years ago, but the Ravens defense looked to be in 2000-2001 form at Tampa Bay.

Baltimore held Cadillac Williams to 22 yards rushing on eight carries, with the Bucs limited as a team to just 26 yards on the ground and 142 yards of total offense and eight first downs. The Ravens picked off Chris Simms three times, including cornerback Chris McAlister’s 60-yard interceptions return for a second-quarter touchdown.

Word of warning to the rest of the NFL: I think Ray Lewis and Co. are interested again.

I was equally impressed by the Falcons, but I did not want to pick them first for homer-factor reasons. 47 rushing attempts for 252 yards (5.4 yards/rush avg) is balls to the wall outrageous. What about the defense holding the Panthers to 215 yards? Vick managed another sub .500 effort (10-22 for 140 yards and 2 TDs), but he did not make many mistakes and he also rushed seven times for 48 yards. Not sure if the Falcons can keep it up, but it was fun being a Falcons fan yesterday.

For all of those pundits out there that think Houston should have picked Reggie Bush, please take a good look at the Texans’ roster. I am a long time fan of teams with great defenses – New York Giants and the current Jacksonville Jaguars. Houston learned what Jack Del Rio already knows. To beat the Colts, a big front line is the first step toward a division championship. Would Reggie Bush have helped this Sunday? Might have been closer, but no, not at all. I have to watch the pathetic Texans play every weekend and I am very happy that Williams is a member of the front line. The Jaguars have a great record against the Colts because they have big Marcus Stroud and John Henderson (Big John Henderson to his fans) anchoring a solid defensive front.

So the Texans made the wise football decision if they want to build a contender. Williams may or may not be a bust (jury is still way, way out as of today), but Houston made the same decision I would make if winning the division is a goal of the franchise.

is a lot better than anyone in the Texan’s backfield.  Reggie Bush managed 141 total yards in his debut against Cleveland (61 on the ground; 58 receiving; 22 on punt returns).  Houston’s leading rusher, Lundry only managed 32 yards on 11 carries.  A season one game does not make, but second thoughts in the Houston front office?

I came across this MSN Autos gas prices site the other day (I think I saw it in a recent Road & Track magazine) and figured I would pass it along. I paid $2.49/gallon this morning, which was $0.02 over the cheapest I could get in Columbus, but is a lot better than the national average of $2.62/gallon.  How else are you going to save for a shiny new PS3?