Author: jcalvert

Today’s AP and USA Today Polls have Ohio State remaining in the top spot. Fair enough; that Texas win was a big statement for the Buckeyes. Texas slipped to the eighth spot in both polls; once again seems reasonable.

Is Georgia really a Top 10 program at this point? AP has the Dawgs ranked tenth, while the coaches think UGA is number nine in the country. Maybe by the end of the year, but seems premature at this point.

What about Florida State? After that near disaster against Troy, how can they be ranked ninth (AP) and tenth (USA Today) respectively? Sure they won, but did anyone voting watch the game? Giving the Seminoles credit for overcoming adversity, but they should drop for their poor performance.

Same goes for Tennessee. You do not let Air Force come within a whisker of beating you and still remain a Top 15 team. At least the AP got this one right, dropping Tennessee from eleventh to thirteenth, while the Volunteers remained ranked seventeenth in the USA Today poll.

It is only week number two, but already there should be plenty to debate about the polls. Once the BCS nonsense rolls into town, the real fun begins.

Just realized that I have not made any predictions for this year, and while one game is already in hand, I think it is still fair for me to throw out a couple of picks.

• AFC East: New England (a safe pick, and while Miami should be better, I think Brady is too good to let the team slip)
• AFC North: Cincinnati (mostly due to me expecting the defense to be improved enough to complement the explosive offense)
• AFC South: Indianapolis (another safe pick; Jacksonville will be better, but they are not going to dethrone the Colts this year)
• AFC West: Kansas City (a new QB in San Diego will not help their cause, but Denver could sneak into the mix)
• AFC Wildcards: Miami and Pittsburgh (the only reason I am not picking Pittsburgh is because I did not make the pick before their first game; their defense is impressive)
• AFC Champion: Indianapolis (probably a safe pick, but I think this is the year everything falls in place)
• NFC East: New York (they may not go far in the playoffs, but this is Eli’s year to shine)
• NFC North: Minnesota (Chicago would be safe, but I have too many safe picks; the Vikings will have just enough to pull off the surprise)
• NFC South: Carolina (this team has it all – a strong defense, decent QB, strong running game, great WRs)
• NFC West: Seattle (no competition here in what has to be the weakest division in the NFL)
• NFC Wildcards: Philadelphia and Atlanta (the Eagles will rebound, while the Falcons are my homer pick, after all, I need a reason to cheer them on)
• NFC Champion: Carolina (safe pick is Seattle, but I did not respect them last year, so no point in starting now)

Super Bowl will feature Indianapolis over Carolina. Just don’t remind me in January if I am wrong in September. Happy football!

Things should look a lot different about the ‘Bin today as I continue a whirlwind upgrade effort from Nucleus to WordPress. Why the change? Because I think that WordPress is going to provide us with more options, is very flexible, and it seems to be a fantastic tool for blogging.

A few quick points:

• data conversion was a bit difficult – I am sure a few things are going to look odd (like formatting of the previous posts and some missing graphics)
• 9 posts did not convert; no idea why. not sure if I will manually convert the missing entries
• comments are disabled for now, until I get my arms around spam filters and the like
• layout may change; looking for something simple, clean, and crisp
• TODO: send Chris posting instructions
• a few links such as “about” are dead (until I have time to fix them)
• any bookmarks are mostly dead … so hopefully everyone will figure out how to navigate the new layout

Calvert Games was officially launched September 27, 2001 – back in the day, things around here were pretty barebones, and more or less hit the mark despite the Mickey Mouse look and feel. June 2003 saw a major overhaul of the site – the switch to a php Nuke based site brought about Calvert Games 2.0. August 22, 2004 saw the switch to Nucleus, which facilitated the launch of The Recycle Bin 3.0 (emphasis on blogging), and was my attempt at a simpler, more interesting format.

So here we are – The Recycle Bin 4.0 – not sure where we are going, but I am sure it will be an entertaining ride.

As the Recycle Bin fast approaches its fifth anniversary, I have decided it is time for a face lift. Site may be a bit of a mess shortly, but hopefully everything will be back in order soon.

Another glorious weekend is on the way for SEC football. This is the quickie version, so sit back and enjoy the abbreviated weekly preview.

Mississippi – Missouri
I do not like Mississippi, but I have to go for them for SEC pride. If Ole Miss manages a decent rushing attack, they may be able to pull this one off, but if not, they are going down to a Big 12 team. How bad is that?

(4) Auburn – Mississippi State
Cats and dogs do not mix, and the poor State Bulldogs are going to get the worst part of this mismatch. Auburn by 21.

Vanderbilt – Alabama
Vanderbilt played Michigan well early, but in the end they did not have the talent on offense or enough depth to really challenge the Wolverines. I expect this one to go pretty much the same way. Alabama will Roll, Roll, Roll to victory.

UCF – (7) Florida
While UCF may be a program on the rise, they do not stand a chance in this one. Florida will win going away; close early, but expect the gap to exceed 28 points.

Texas State – Kentucky
The Wildcats are always candidates for the SEC Shame of the Week Award, but Kentucky should be able to manage this one. Then again, Kentucky does suck.

Arizona – (8) LSU
I do not think LSU is a Top 10 team, but they will have this one under wraps fairly early. If not, this one will be a mild upset, but not as major as the guys on ESPN will make it out to be. LSU is not high cotton material. I will be seriously disappointed in a PAC 10 team puts a damper on my predictions.

Utah State – Arkansas
Arkansas will win, and all of hog-nation will think the USC game was an aberration. Something like that. Arkansas is the team I love to hate, but they will represent the SEC well with an easy victory.

Air Force – (11) Tennessee
An interesting match up, but do the Falcons really think they have a chance? Tennessee’s defense is going to be way too fast.

(12) Georgia – South Carolina
Georgia never plays well in Columbia, but the Dawgs have plenty of talent, and more depth than the Gamecocks. I expect this one to be close for the first three quarters, before Georgia pulls away by 10.

I started to make this post another RBT exclusive, but I think I may have already played that one out. Sorry Chris.

My wife’s laptop now has 1,256MB or so RAM, so it should be good to go to actually play a decent game or three. My wife is happy that email and web surfing are noticeably faster, while I have seen a nice improvement with OOTPB 6.5 and 2006. I should know better than to actually try to scrimp on memory. Will not make that mistake on my next purchase.

The next step is to actually take the next step (so to speak) and buy some sort of PC game: Age of Empires, Civilization, or something along those lines. Or I may just realize that I do not know what the hell I am doing with OOTPB 2006, save my money, and figure that one out. Either way, surfing has never been faster.

I love me some NFL football. How can you not be happy that football is back again? How can you not love Heinz Ward? What an awesome catch (Steelers 14, Dolphins 0 as I write this post).

My three sons. Has a nice ring to it. I feel really blessed today knowing that Tonya’s doctor said that baby is nice and healthy. And the little guy is a boy! Happy days.

Yesterday I order a 1GB memory stick for my laptop, which means I am now one step closer to being a PC gamer. I am not sure I ever would have considered myself this close to being a PC gamer, other than the occasional text based PC sports sim (i.e. OOTPB and FM), but here I am with enough memory to actually consider some sort of PC gaming. Now what to play?

As much as I think I would actually enjoy WoW, I do not think that will happen anytime soon because I have a hard time with the whole $9.99/month to play subscription thing. So I am looking more towards AoE or maybe the Civilization thing. Then again I could always just focus on Final Fantasy for the PS2 and be done with it. Tough choices all around.

I tought the whole street racing thing had run its course, but it looks like EA disagreed. So says Need for Speed (NFS) Carbon, which is really the third iteration of the Underground series. I see no reason for EA to release a third version in the series other than EA knowing that everything Need for Speed sells (i.e. cash cow).

Seriously, I figured by now everyone would have done the street racing until they were ready to puke, and move on to more interesting aspects of the NFS series. I assumed the car pimping thing was played out by now. Silly me. Never under estimate the EA marketing machine.

I never played the Midnight club series, but I spent plenty of time with NFS Underground, and just enough with Underground to know that I was done pimping.

Traditional NFS with exotic sports cars, and great multi-stage tracks is what NFS is all about. Not illegal street racing, pimp daddy stuff. The only thing that will save this thing has to be the graphics, which look impressive, but I still have to wonder why EA would not go after the broader NFS audience. Pimping has to have limited market potential compared to something like NFS Hot Pursuit 2, which is really one of the high points in the NFS series.

Yet another sign that I must be moving further outside of anyone’s target audience for fun. I hope the gaming companies remember that as games get more expensive, my demographic actually has disposable cash spend on nonessential items, such as video games. No pimping for me, but give me a new NFS with some sort of Hot Pursuit mode – and of course some pretty graphics – then call me happy.

This is probably more for Chris, because I am not sure who else reads my crap, but just in case, I figured I would ask. Where is a decent source of PC gaming reviews? I am looking for a site or two where I can find well written reviews that target RPG and RTS games. I have not been a PC gamer for years, and I doubt I will be again anytime soon. With that said, I have this jones thing going for AoE right now, so I may as well do some reading to see what is out there � popular, cult favorites, or something off the well-worn path.

I found myself in Best Buy today; Joshua had some money burning a hole in his pocket. Ultimately he could not decide between one of three Nintendo DS games � StarFox, Super Mario Bros DS, or the upcoming Pokemon Blue Rescue game. I talked him into waiting for a few days to “decide” what he really wants.

I spent a few minutes with the 360 Madden 07, and I have to say the thing looked damn impressive. Pretty much in the same way NFL2K (Dreamcast) graphics were leaps and bounds better than the PSX, the 360 graphics for Madden are far and away better than the PS2. Not that I am making a next generation purchase anytime soon.

I came close to picking up Age of Empires for the DS, but I decided to stand pat for a while longer. I could see myself picking up a DS Lite, but I did not want to blow $170 or so today. I suppose I could “borrow” Joshua’s DS, but that would be like pulling a bone from my dog. Not going to happen.

So I decided to take a look at the PC aisle. I came this close (picture my fingers about an inch apart) to picking up Age of Empires III, but I decided that I was not going to pay $50 for a PC game. I am not sure why, but I thought gaming on a PC was cheap these days. I know top systems are expensive, but I thought the actual games were cheap, or they were discounted fairly quickly. Anyone know of a good place to get discounted PC games?

So I was almost a PC gamer … but not yet. I have a feeling within a week I will have AoE for the DS (with a DS Lite) or for the PC (with a $90 memory upgrade). Either way, I want to play AoE, and I either have to get a DS or upgrade my system to handle games.

I think the memory upgrade is the better route right now because it would be useful for other things besides a gaming fix. So the real question is how much memory do you actually need to run the game? I think the box said 128mb (or maybe 512mb), but that sounds pretty low. The machine I am going to put it on has 512mb and runs slow; processor is fast, but just not enough memory. Recommendations?

Found this interesting bit at Dawg Sports:

“For what it’s worth, I would note that the Bulldogs’ 48-12 win over Western Kentucky marked the fifth occasion in program history on which the Red and Black scored exactly 48 points in their season opener.

In the four previous seasons in which the ‘Dawgs hung 48 points on the autumn’s inaugural opponent (in 1974, 1991, 2004, and 2005), Georgia averaged almost nine wins per year . . . and the Red and Black were 3-0 against the Gamecocks in those seasons.”

Steve’s boys scare me, not because they have better talent, but because it is such a big deal to the Gamecocks if they beat the Bulldogs. While UGA expects high standards, South Carolina will be “up” for UGA because they hope to achieve lofty standards.

More to come on this one…

How much hype can one stand? I thought there was way too much around the Irish/Tech game, but this FL State/Miami thing is way out of hand. Hope the game lives up to its billing, but I bet we are going to be in for an ugly defensive struggle.

Speaking of hype and Norte Dame, I just heard someone on ESPN Radio say that Norte Dame’s defense was the most impressive thing he saw for opening weekend. WTF is up with that? Georgia Tech’s offense is a far cry from actually being good; of course things would be different if the bumblebees actually had a decent QB.

All in all, not a bad first week for predictions. I went 9-1, with my only miss being Hotty Toddy, and that just barely. Before you ask, I do not go against the spread (I could never condone gambling) and I do not track the non SEC action.

Early favorites for Calvert Games’ SEC Shame of the Week Award were Mississippi and Kentucky, but the award goes to Arkansas. While there is no shame in going down to USC, Hog-nation was certain things would be different this year. I am sure that they are coming up with excuse after excuse, but to have someone drop 120 combined points on you over the last two years is just damn embarrassing. The Wildcats *could* have received the award, but everyone knows they are bottom of the class; Arkansas is *supposed* to be better.

If dad was here, he would certainly be happy about McCoy’s impressive debut for the Horns, but he would be worrying-up for this Saturday’s Ohio State game. And yes, the Arkansas debacle would have brought a smile to his face.

I am not sure if there were any real surprises around the SEC. I called California mud a while back, so I expected Tennessee to win (figured it would be closer). I am not sure why, but I never expect Auburn’s backs to be as good as advertised, but that Irons kid put up 180+ on the ground, which is gosh darn impressive. I did not expect Mississippi to find a ground attack (and actually win), and while I expected Kentucky to stick, I certainly did not think their defense would stop just shy of 60 (ouch).

Hope the Dawgs figure out some things in a hurry before Saturday night. Namely, how to open some holes for our trio of backs, how to hold onto the ball (come on receivers!), and how to get some consistent QB play. It seems like nothing comes easy for Georgia when they travel to Williams-Brice Stadium, so this one could go wrong fast.

Not to be looking ahead because the Dawgs cannot do that this year, but that UAB game has to look a tad scary now after UAB’s performance against Oklahoma. The Colorado game now looks like a cake walk.

Go Dawgs!