The Recycle Bin

There’s a new entry on the Out of the Park Baseball Manager 2006 site from one of the beta testers “Tiger Fan”. He/She/It discusses creating a league universe with new OOTPBM engine.

There’s a new article at the Championship Manager site that describes the “match day experience” and improvements for 2006.

I gave up on Texas when USC scored its 38th point. I went to bed thinking that Texas put up a good showing, probably better than what the pundits expected, and was pretty satisfied. Holy crap! I just checked ESPN and it seems I missed some football last night!

How stupid does ESPN look now with its total dismissal of Texas’ chances during the pre-game hype?

There are new version 6.0.2 patches available for Worldwide Soccer Manager and Football Manager.

Dave Koch Sports announced that Action! PC Baseball 2006 is now shipping. The new features include a “biased” play-by-play announcer. An intriguing concept for a baseball game.

Welcome to 2006! With the New Year, hope springs eternal within the gaming community for new and wondrous offerings. Here is my 2006 wish list, in no particular order:

(1) Out of the Park Baseball Manager � this is the game that I�ve wished for ever since I purchased my first Tandy PC with dual 5 � inch drives. It will be the Football Manager of baseball games. I�ll have no reason to complain about sports games because in 2006, all of my moaning and groaning will finally achieve the results I wanted. Triple Play is dead. And we will have a complete baseball universe in a career game.

(2) All gaming print and pay online media services go away � OK, this is a wish list, remember. I stopped reading print gaming magazines years ago. I stopped paying for Gamespot last year. I would be much more in favor of online pay services if they just provided fast FTP to download demos, etc. Otherwise, there�s nothing of value on these sites. I don�t visit or read them for reviews since there are many forums that do a much better job. Those of us that are into the hobby will continue to write about games for free. In most cases, these folks� opinions are the ones I want to read anyhow.

(3) All of the Christmas World of Warcraft noobs will grow tired of the game quickly � I�ve had to endure waiting lines of 350+ every evening this weekend to get onto the Bronzebeard server. The only explanation can be that many folks got WoW for Christmas and are playing in droves. Either Blizzard needs to add more servers or the new players need to lose interest.

(4) I finally get a WoW character to level 60 � Speaking of WoW, I�ve gotten a character to 56 and one to 48. This year I will get one to level 60. Or die trying.

(5) Something on the Xbox 360 will actually make the console worth purchasing � I was in Walmart buying an old Xbox with my brother and took a look at the new Xbox 360 games. All five or six of them. Call of Duty 2 looks like the only thing that would remotely interest me, but I�m not going to buy an Xbox 360 for one game. Especially not at $60 a pop for a console game.

(6) The PlayStation 3 will have more then five or six games at launch � One of the reasons I�m waiting on my console purchase is that I want to see what Sony has up its sleeve. They seem to know what they�re doing when it comes to launching consoles and I can�t imagine that they will screw things up like Microsoft has up to this point. Only time will tell.

(7) More blogs will roam the earth � I�m not talking about blogs written by developers and �insiders� here. I�d like to see more gaming fans create blogs that are updated on a regular basis and discuss gaming. Particularly sports text-gaming (again, this is a wish list).

That�s it for 2006. If these simple things happen, we�ll have loads to look forward to in 2007!

The Giants are NFC East Champs again(!). Considering where this team was in 2003 & 2004, 11-5 is more than most intelligent Giant fans were expecting. The playoffs should be interesting, because the surge of really aggressive defense that the team put forth in the middle third of the season really doesn�t have a chance of resurfacing with the current linebacker corps. Antonio Pierce really became a leader on defense, and was Strahan�s equal in terms of making tackles and keeping the defense fired-up. Carlos Emmons was in and out all season due to injuries, but when he was in the game he showed that he�s a solid veteran that just inspires confidence in the way he plays run and pass. With Emmons now on IR, Pierce still in a cast because of a high ankle sprain, and two more LBs who started the season on the 45 man roster not dressing against Oakland, the Giants are into and past the 3rd level of their LB depth chart. Nick Greisen won the job as the 4th LB in training camp, and when Barrett Green could not get healthy (on IR in October), he became the weakside starter. He�s started every game this season at either Mike or Will LB, and he�s had a heck of a season. It just goes to show that hustle and a couple of years learning the system can make an average linebacker pretty darn valuable. Greisen essentially replaced Kevin Lewis as the plug-and-play guy, but surprise! Lewis was signed on 12/26 and started at Mike against Oakland; another testimony to putting a guy in who knows the system (Lewis started 16 games in 2004, but the team was going younger on the depth chart and he did not make the 2005 team). Alonzo Jackson showed up as the Sam backer after signing in October. Jackson was the #27 pick in the 2nd round of the 2003 draft for the Steelers, interestingly. This is a bit of a motley crew, but 25 yards rushing by Oakland speaks for itself. Let�s see how things go with the front 7 when they face playoff teams; the performance against Washington 2 weeks ago was pretty soft. Also, CB Curtis DeLoatch was benched for pretty mediocre play in favor of 2nd round pick Corey Webster. Webster will now begin paying his dues against first-line NFL WRs (he struggled a bit against Oakland) but they have to find out if this kid can play.

A heavy dose of Tiki Barber behind an offensive line that has really come together (false starts excepted), and young Eli making more big plays to Burress, Shockey and Toomer than he makes mistakes could at least get them through a home playoff game. With the current defensive roster, the team is playing with house money from here on.

Our annual holiday stay in Washington state at my Brother-in-law’s was a bit shorter then usual due to a few less available vacation days. For that reason we didnt set up the 4-PC LAN and blast away at one another in Ghost Recon as we’ve done in years past. My nephews have a PS2 and a traditional XBox, however, so there was still some electronic sport to be had. My oldest nephew and I played “Knockout Kings 2002” until 1-2AM every night. (That game was a gift from Uncle Geoff, by the way, right out of the bargain bin. It makes me wonder why no arcade boxing game has been created, or at least ported over to the PC, frankly.) Good uncle/nephew bonding time, for sure. We had a couple of real wars.

My younger nephew recieved “Need For Speed: Most Wanted” for Xmas. As much as I hate driving a virtual car with a gamepad, I was very impressed with a number of things about this game. First, the car selection is more in-line with my real world tastes rather than the credit list from one of the “Fast and Furious” movies. I cite the Ford GT, Lotus Elise and Corvette C6, to name a few. Secondly, the virtual city of Rockport is just plain fun to navigate through, with tight city grids, perimeter superhighway sections, realistic overpasses and interchanges, plus backally shortcuts. Thirdly, the police pursuit element is a different twist on getting from point A to point B in the lowest elapsed time. Once the black-and-whites start to accumulate, it becomes a real challenge to lose them.

I enjoyed this game so much, I bought it for the PC. Getting on the interstate with a supercharged Mustang GT and hitting the nitrous button to speed the RPMs up and hasten the shift from 5th to 6th at 150mph, I can say, gives me genuine enjoyment every time. No, it’s not rFactor, and sometimes I wish there was a hardcore setting to make car damage a little more realistic, but its a challenge to play this game well.

Now that I got the pink slip to Jewel’s Mustang, I sold the Supra, which gives me two Mustangs, an Eclipse and a Porsche Caymen in the safe house, and I’m up to #8 on the Blacklist. My nephew would be proud of me.

Today is moving day, so a little levity is in order to keep me sane. Tonya gave me “Deep Thoughts” (as seen on Saturday Night Live) by Jack Handey, when I graduated from college. The book is subtitled, “Inspiration for the Uninspired.” I came across it early this morning as part of the never ending packing.

“If a kid asks where rain comes from, I think a cute thing to tell him is “God is crying.” And if he asks why God is crying, another cute thing to tell him is “Probably because of something you did.”

“We used to laugh at Grandpa when he’d head off to go fishing. But we wouldn’t be laughing that evening, when he’d come back with some whore he picked up in town.”

“It takes a big man to cry, but it takes a bigger man to laugh at that man.”

If you have to ask why I feel better, please stop visiting this site.

For the last several years I have attempted to see some of every college bowl game played, but each year I come up short. I profess to be a huge college football fan, so what gives?

We could start with the fact that there are just too damn many bowl games. This year there are an amazing 28 games! There is also this thing called “having a life,” but thankfully my wife understands (or puts up with) my passion for football.

My goal is simple � to watch a few minutes of every bowl game. I am not out to do the impossible; I am not trying to watch entire games. Instead I just attempt to watch at least 10 minutes of each game. This allows me the satisfaction of seeing a ton of college football, but also allows me to have a life at Christmas. Seriously, was anyone outside of Kansas and Houston looking forward to the Fort Worth Bowl?

This year I was on track for my perfect season, spending quality TV viewing time with the New Orleans Bowl, the GMAC Bowl, and the Las Vegas Bowl. Then my quest failed at the hands of the 10PM EST kickoff of the Poinsettia Bowl (say what?). Yes, the Poinsettia got the best of me; ruined my perfect season. It was just too late for me to watch after spending a week at Disney, and seven or so hours in the car.

My need for excellence keeps me motivated. Fort Worth Bowl, Hawaii Bowl, Motor City Bowl, Champs Sports, and Insight Bowl have earned me an 88% bowl viewing achievement record for the 2005 season. The next few days hold some serious obstacles � moving day is the 30th, and cable is going to be installed at the new house (sometime) on the 30th. It is going to be a hard road, but worth ever minute of my quest for (near) perfection.

The Florida portion of our vacation ends tomorrow when we start driving back to Texas. WIll be fun to get home. I love my family, but I can only stand them in small doses at a time. So every year we head off into the chaos that is Christmas and hope to emerge at the other end of our vacation intact and re-fueled for the new year.

I switched to the Dish Network and Verizon DSL right before I left for Florida. Since we will soon be paying that $24,000 a year I mentioned earlier for my daughter’s education, I wanted to downsize costs without sacrificing the quality of life we’ve come to know through Cox Cable. The Dish Network is cheaper if you get the highest channel package, plus they throw in four room DVR. That was the selling point for my wife, so now she can clog up her own DVR with those wonderful HGTV shows. Dish also gets the UPN so that I can finally watch the Chris Rock Show. Cox Cable and DirecTV don’t carry the UPN in my neck of the woods.

I’ll be sacrificing some download speed getting Verizon DSL, but the upload speed is actually faster through Verizon and that’s a selling point for an online league commissioner. Since Cox Cable costs almost twice as much as Verizon’s best package, I’ll sacrifice the download speed. I also purchased the wireless version of the modem. I could use my Linksys wireless router, but the last time I used Bell South DSL, configuring the router wasn’t a trivial process.

Some Christmas vacation technology fun! Speaking of technology fun, I finally saw enough HDTV to appreciate how good the picture and sound is compared to regular TV. My mother-in-law has a brand new 50 inch plasma TV, and we were watching the Colts/Seattle game on regular TV. I was looking through her Brighthouse channel guide and noticed the HD channels. So I switched to the CBS HD channel and was blown away. The picture is so clear that I am not sure that I really need season tickets to football games.

Now I just have to build up enough points with the wife for such a mega-purchase…

I was going to write about the Falcons yesterday (or earlier this morning), but being in the Christmas spirit I decided to give it a rest. I am not really in the mood to do this now, but it has to be said – the Falcons are a bitter disappointment this year.

It seems like ages ago when I wrote about the Falcons having a decent chance at the playoffs and back-to-back winning seasons for the first time in franchise history, but all that went down the tubes this week at the hands of the Bears and Bucs.

I really thought the Falcons had the game (against Tampa Bay) locked up, but once it went to overtime I knew our goose was cooked. I missed the overtime debacle, instead attending our church’s candlelight service. After church, listening to ESPN radio, I learned of the disappointment – Atlanta had been all but eliminated from the playoffs.

The Falcons can salvage some pride next week by beating the Panthers, but a victory will be fairly hollow. Yes, back-to-back winning seasons would be nice, but it should have come along with a trip to the playoffs.

Wait ’till next year (again)!

I wanted to take a couple of minutes to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas. Once upon a time, we were allowed to say “Merry Christmas” without having to worry about offending (or excluding) anyone, but now days we also have to say Happy Holidays, or have a great Hanukkah (is that even the right context?), or hope your Kwanzaa celebration is blessed. Oh for a simpler time.

I am a Christian, so I am going to keep it simple, and wish you and yours a Merry Christmas. With that said, this Season, whatever it is you happen to celebrate is a time for reflection. This is a time to be thankful for family, friends, and all our many blessings. Thanks to Geoff and Kevin for taking time to write for the site – your virtual friendship is much appreciated. A special thanks to Chris for keeping the lights on around here – it is always a blast to read your entertaining takes on sports, gaming, and life in general. Seriously, “Like football, marriage requires a balanced attack. And some shopping money.” is a wonderfully delicious quote, and a great observation on marriage.

Of course it goes without saying that I am thankful for you regular Recycle Bin readers. Insert joke – all two of you. For the last four years I have had a great time ranting, rambling, and writing about next to nothing. None of this would have been possible without a willing (even if somewhat reluctant) audience.

There is much more to be thankful for, but the day is young. Happy Christmas!

I hope everyone is getting into the holiday spirit, whatever your holiday of choice may be. I’ve shifted my base camp from the Tampa, Florida area to Tallahassee, Florida. My parents have a fancy wireless network setup. The problem is that (1) they haven’t updated the firmware for their router in two years and (2) they have the slowest DSL money can buy. No World of Warcraft for the next couple of days, but we head back to Tampa on Monday to the fast network at my mother-in-law’s house.

We visited Florida State University yesterday and I was not very impressed with their Visitor’s Center. We walked in on four college students huddled around the desk and I felt as if I was butting in on their conversation. One of the students quickly pointed out that they weren’t doing anymore tours that day, and then asked us if we had any questions about Florida State. Another student remembered that they had a DVD we could watch, so we did that and then took a driving tour of the campus.

I expect more salesmenship for $24,000 a year.

It’s looking like University of Georgia is the favorite at this point. We visit the University of Central Florida next week. But I’m hoping that our visit to Univeristy of Texas will win the day. I can’t have any dawgs in the family!

It seemed appropriate to announce my return from Disney. I will have to write more later, but for now …

Why does beer cost $7.50 a pint at Epcot? Thunder Mountain Railroad and Splash Mountain made Nathan, my three-year old son “Want to go home.” – but he was a real trooper, got back on each one for another go or two. The Animal Kingdom is nothing, but an expensive zoo with a few rides. The lighting of the tree at Epcot is much better than the lighting of the tree at the Magic Kingdom. Why do so many people queue up for 40+ minutes for a three minute ride? Why does OJ cost more in Florida (at various Disney resorts) than in Georgia?

Anyway, good to be home again. Lots of stuffs to write about when I have more time. I am writing this from a new Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop, and my house is still not ready. Those should be pretty good for starters along with the usual Christmas fare. Speaking of which, I hope everyone has a great Christmas!