Author: jcalvert

So FM2006 arrived earlier in the week … and has been sitting on my desk all week. I am not even sure why I pretend to have time to game these days.

I would get to FM2006 this weekend, but the weekend has pretty much been Housecleaning 2005 Spectacular; actually Yard Work 2005 Spectacular. I thought I had a deal to sale my house without listing it (and incurring agent fees), but the buyer could not sale their house in a reasonable amount of time, so now we have to list the house on Monday. What a major pain in the ass.

It looks like our new house will be ready in a couple of weeks – keeping my fingers crossed. We are renovating my grandmother’s 100+ year-old house, and it has been an adventure. New plumbing, re-wiring the house, building a new kitchen, saving a garage apartment, and the list goes on and on. It is amazing how much time and effort this is taking. I was ignorant going into this – figured I could just hire a general contractor that specializes in renovating old homes; silly me. The house looks great, but as I said, it has been a pain getting to this point.

On a completely unrelated note, I have put in a decent amount of time with Madden this week and I have to say that Madden for the PSP does not suck as much as I have read. I will try to write more info later, but I am actually enjoying the game. I have not really played around with the franchise mode (because of all the reported bugs), but single player games have been fun. The ability to play a quarter – then sleep or save – and play some more later is a godsend. There are some load times (delays) between the play select screen and lining up for a play, but that is really my only complaint at this point.

I watched Star Wars III a couple of nights ago – this one is the best of the new bunch. It has everything you would want in a Star Wars move – great space battles, light saber duels, cool aliens, and awesome special effects, but man does the acting suck. Office Space was also re-released on DVD Tuesday, but I passed on it because there is no freaking commentary. Publishers are doing major $ grabs when they release second and third versions of a DVD with minimal extras/upgrades over previous editions.

I really hate yard work. I am not sure what sucks more – having to invest more time and effort into my current house, or the major landscaping effort that looms in front of me for my new house. As I have grown older, I actually find some yard work therapeutic, but mostly I hate wasting weekend time working in the yard.

I am not sure why, but I decided to purchase Nirvana’s “Nevermind” from iTunes. I have always been a casual fan – I like “Smells Like Teen Spirit” “In Bloom” and “Come As You Are” but that is really it. I am not sure why the rest of the album is so beloved. Luckily I had an iTunes gift card so I do not feel like I totally wasted my money. I guess I will really show my age (closing in fast on 35), but Madonna’s “Something to Remember” and “The Immaculate Collection” were much better purchases. Sue me.

I finally decided to get serious about my PSP collection and only keep the games that I am playing, or have time to play more than every now and again. Ridge Racer and Twisted Metal: Head On missed the cut and where promptly listed on eBay yesterday. Wipe Out: Pure may be next; it is a great racing game, but Colin McRae Rally may be the only racing game I need. I know they are completely different types of racing, but there is only so much free time in a day. If I can get some life out of Madden PSP’s franchise mode, then I may wish Madden 2006 for the PS2 a fond farewell.

All for now. Hopefully more to come on FM2006, and Madden PSP.

Georgia beat Florida in my game, that is strange enough, but not the actual bug I came across today. I have had little time to fire up the PS2 of late, so when the opportunity presented itself (kids at mom’s house, and wife taking a nap) I had to dig the game out. While running a hurry up offense late in the 2nd quarter, a CPU controlled CB lined up facing my team, but on my side of the ball, several yards behind the WR he should have been covering resulting in an offsides penalty. I guess the developers had to do something to ensure there would be some penalties called. Strange stuffs.

Hopefully Texas will make a comeback and take care of the Cowboys, and I can only assume that Vince will have another amazing game. As I sit here and write this entry (CG is still down due to bandwidth issues), Texas just pulled to within 9 (28-19) early in the 3rd quarter. Vince Young is incredible – how could anyone not put him at the front of the Heisman chase? It would be a travesty if Young does not receive the award (assuming he keeps on keeping on).

It looks like we busted our allotted bandwidth for October. I did not think we were getting that much traffic, but last month we almost exceeded our bandwidth, and now the site is down until tech-support decides to turn the governor off. I told Chris that a lot of folks must love him – something like that anyway.

I am going to be real disappointed if I find out that we are getting hit by spam bots instead of Chris’ fan club. Thanks for the support, I think.

Three things happened while I was in London that potentially spoiled me to the local Columbus, GA cuisine for many (many) weeks to come. First, I had the best Chinese food ever – today’s take out from one of Tonya’s favorite places paled in comparison. Second, pizza will never be the same thanks to the Dickens Inn (near the Tower). Finally the beer – oh, the wonderfully delicious beer; the sheer variety of beer on tap in London is amazing.

Every once in a while I like diving into a cheap beer or two just to see what is what. I mean, I have kids to feed and all, so I have to be a cheap ass from time to time. To drown away my sorrows from today’s UGA loss, I picked up a six-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. [No I did not really drown away my sorrows, but it sounds like a good line.]

Typical American light lager, best served cold. Honestly not too bad, but certainly not that wonderful. Did you expect more for about $0.60 a pop top? Not much flavor to be had, but I do like this better than my other two cheap beer mainstays – SouthPaw Light and Natty Light (beer flavored water to coin a phrase of a co-worker). OK, PBR is certainly not in the same league with Amstel (the full-body version, not the light stuff) or Stella Artois, but PBR is refreshingly cheap.

To each their own, I suppose.

Going into the season I had low expectations, but it is funny how quickly hope changes after Georgia put together a nice string of victories. Then DJ goes done, and today the dreaded Gators managed to take care of business 14-10 in Jacksonville, FL.

I guess I will look at the box score tomorrow morning and play the “what if” game. What if, DJ was not hurt? What if the defense was health? What if we made one of the two missed field goals – and what if the 52-yarder off the right goal post was six more inches to the left? What if Georgia’s receivers did not drop so many freaking passes (I counted at least 3 drops, including a ridiculously easy one on the opening drive).

Hats off to Florida; they did what they do best – beat Georgia. Damn this one sucks.

While in London I picked up CMR 2005 Plus (not sure what the plus is for) for 34.99UK (ouch). Very quick impressions – the game takes a bit to get used to because the analog is fairly sensitive, but once you get going, the game is pretty much bliss.

CMR 2005 Plus very much reminds me of CMR2.0 for the PSX, but with PS2 quality graphics (almost). The sound is exceptional – nice hearing the transition from various surfaces and hearing a broken engine. Your car progressively handles poorer and poorer if you screw the pooch and crash too much. Luckily you get to perform some repairs at various points in the rally.

Back in the day I would try to figure if CMR 2005 Plus was “realistic,” but these days I could really care less. To this middle aged gamer the game is plenty realistic. The physics engine seems plenty reasonable, and the cars behave plenty differently on different surfaces (and as I mentioned, change with variable damage).

I know this is a pretty piss poor post – short on detail and seemingly shorter on enthusiasm. Just wanted a quick “I am still here” post and to let PSP fans know that CMR 2005 Plus is worth importing. This one is currently my favorite game.

Wow! I think I may have just wasted $49.99 (+ tax + gas money). It looks like the random “system” issues that I have seen (game randomly shutting down, lock ups, etc) are rather common.

EA Sports Forum Madden Issue Thread

Evil Avatar Madden Issue Thread

Most of the issues that I have found after a few minutes of looking describe random shut-down problems with the franchise mode, but I have seen problems loading the game, trying to get to the wireless mode, and within a single player exhibition game.

I wish I followed my normal routine and ordered from EBGames or Gamestop because I would send this turkey back to the store. Un-f’ing-believable!

I am not sure what the deal is with the game. I described some of the “system” problems in the previous post, but this game seems to be packed with all sorts of system problems. The game has turned off on me twice while trying to load (once in the online mode, and a second time when trying to play a game). The load times when trying to move between the various songs is really bad. The deal is a good 2-3 seconds when trying to move from song to song (in order to turn off everything but the NFL Films music).

I setup an online account (could not believe that jcalvert, calvertgames, calvertj, meangrean, etc where all taken) in order to download roster updates, but alas, roster updates are not currently available. That pretty much sucks since the Falcons still have Price.

When I setup my account I was told I need to allow ESPN to pay my $2 online subscription (to play on the EA Madden game servers) or I need to charge $2 to my credit card. WTF – I could care less, I just wanted to get some roster downloads (and of course there were none). So now I guess ESPN is the sponsor of my account and can email me all sorts of crap. Thanks EA – great customer service.

I have only played a quarter so I do not have much in the way of gameplay experiences to write about. I guess I am going to have spend some time trying to see if others are having some of the same system issues that I am encountering. I do not have any problems with my other games, so either Madden is a big fat turkey or my PSP is just going to have problems with this game. Hopefully this is not a sign of things to come with my other PSP games.

This week was a perfect reminder of why I shop online – I cannot find jack-crap in the local stores. I am going to London this weekend for a couple of weeks so I wanted to load up on some new games to help me pass the time (9 hour flights suck). It took a trip to Best Buy (after unsuccessful trips to Target and Circuit City) to land Madden and Namco Museum Battle Collection. I am not sure if Madden was under produced or just plain in demand, but I ended up with the last copy from Best Buy.

I also wanted to get Battlestar Galactica Season 1 on DVD, but no suck luck. Not sure what the deal with this one is; looks like I am going to have to place an order with Amazon.

I have not had much time with either new game. Namco Museum as a nice collection of classis and a few special arrangements of several games (Pac-Man, Dig Dug, Galaga, and New Rally-X. My only comment so far is that the analog stick is either not suited for some of the games (Ms. Pac-Man and Mappy come to mind) or I just have to get a better handle on the controls. I made mistakes too many times as I went left instead of down. I will certainly post more as I have time to play.

Madden has been a no go to this point. The first time I attempted to play, the game locked up when it was trying to find a profile. Then the game would not load at all (some sort of internal error code). I finally got into a game, but it locked up during the kick off. I have not tried again.

Battery life is so bad that I am going to have to buy another if I want to be able to play for more than four hours. The stock Sony PSP battery is $44.95, which is pretty expensive to extend my playing time to 7-9 hours.

This trip is going to really test the value of my PSP and each of my games. So far only FIFA has been sold, but any game that does not receive significant playing time is going to be thrown up on eBay after my trip. If nothing else, I need to make some money to pay for Namco and Madden, and I planning to pick up some games while in London, so there is not a place for the slackers in my gaming library.

I have been stuck with the default 32MB PRO Duo Memory Stick that was included with my PSP. It has not been a big deal � I have no need to put media on my PSP, and there has been ample room for my game saves.

I have been doing the various internet hacks to go on the web, but I finally decided to upgrade to the 2.0 firmware so I could get the built in browser and the various assortment of other upgrades included in the 2.0 firmware. Too bad I could not upgrade because I had to have 20MB free for the download. That was sort of a major ouch.

Yesterday I almost purchased a 512MB stick, but decided I did not want to spend the requested $79.99. Lucky for me Target has SanDisk 512MB Pro Duo memory sticks on sale for $57.77. Very nice. They only had one left at the local Target this morning; not sure if there was a run on these puppies or if Target did not have very many in stock prior to today’s sale.

At this point, I do not have much in the way of comments on the browser. More to later after I have some time to dig around with it to check out the included features. It looks pretty decent � bookmarks are included as are options to manage cookies and temporary files (I could be mistaken on the last two … need to investigate).

This week should be pretty good – Madden is on the way, and I am going to pick up Namco’s recent collection of classics. I also need to pick up an extra battery – I am going to be in Scotland for 10+ days in three weeks, so I should have plenty of time to dig into Madden and some of my other neglected PSP games.

To be honest my PSP has not been getting any love, but neither have GC or PS2 except for NCAA Football 2006. This is more a function of lack of free time vs. the quality of the PSP, but it is not as if the PSP has a killer lineup.

Oh man, what a heck of a weekend for college football. First, the Dawgs survived a tough game against the fighting chickens from South Carolina. And then my Long Horns just managed took out Ohio State 25-22.

Where to begin? I think I am too drunk off of football euphoria to do much with this one tonight. Let’s just say that I told several people that the Dawgs may be in for a fight because too many people were worrying about revenge vs. the Old Ball Coach. I do not have huge expectations for the Dawgs this year, but surely this one could be attributed to over confidence. Then again, maybe Shockley just sucks.

What about Texas? I think I predicted something like a 22-17 victory for the Horns. The key was always going to be if Vince could have some success in the air, and he did throw around the ball enough to keep things interesting. Of course the Longhorn’s defense also managed to do the “bend, but don’t break thing” the entire game. Hell of a game, and Vince Young is truly the man. This is one of the best games I have seen in recent memory. I am sure Kevin is suffering, but gosh darn it, what a heck of a game.

Even my adopted team (North Texas) came through with a 14-7 victory over Middle Tennessee state to continue the Mean Green’s dominance of the Sun Belt conference.

Enough for tonight. Hook ’em; sick ’em! What a night!

Holy crap; Ohio just beat Pitt on an INT returned for a TD in overtime! Just another reason why college football rules.

Needless to say, Hook ’em, and Go Dawgs, Go!

I think I have only seen two complete episodes of Battlestar Galactica; maybe 3-5 parts of a few other episodes. Even so, it is obvious that BSG is about the best thing to happen to TV since the Braves won the World Series.

Seriously, I never get to see BSG on the SciFi network (Friday nights suck for TV watching), but tonight I did get to watch what I would have to consider great TV. Not just good TV, but *great* TV. BSG is that rare breed of show that completely sucks you in and has you begging for the next week’s episode. It is that good.

I did not watch the mini-series or the first few episodes of Season One because I did not really appreciate the concept of someone screwing around with a series that I grew up loving. Forget the fact that the original series is pretty cheesy by today’s standards; I am the type of fan that pre-ordered the Cyclon boxed set when the original series was announced. Sure, call me a purist, but I did not like the idea of an updated version of Battlestar. It would never work. How could it?

Slowly, but surely they hype stared. The good word spread. Trusted bloggers like Chris called BSG sliced bread. Now here I am pre-ordering BSG Season One (complete with the mini-series no less) because the few minutes I have enjoyed of the new BSG have been so unbelievably f’ing awesome. I cannot wait until September 20!

Nice opening weekend of college football. I think I watched all or parts of 10 different games, with TCU vs. Oklahoma, Boise State vs. Georgia, and Georgia Tech vs. Auburn getting the majority of my attention. Some random thoughts follow.

TCU took care of the Sooners, which has to be considered the shocker of the weekend. I assume that Stoops and company just assumed that they would win, but obviously assuming makes an ass out of the best of us. Peterson was never a factor, except for some decent runs that he stringed together on the opening TD drive to start the second half. In short, Adrian Peterson’s Heisman hopes were swallowed by the Hornfrogs.

I think Tennessee also underestimated their opponent (the Blazers of UAB), but unlike Oklahoma, the Volunteers managed to escape with a victory. I have to assume that Tennessee is much better than they played; after all they have been hyped like crazy this preseason.

Man does Zook suck or what? Illinois barely escaped Rutgers, winning in overtime 33-30. I am sure that Zook is a decent guy and all, but he ran Florida into the ground (not that I am complaining) and I see no chance for him pulling Illinois to the top of the Big 10.

The Weis era got off to a great start as Notre Dame easily dispatched Pitt 42-21. To be honest, I never considered Pitt much of anything, but I did not think Notre Dame would score that many points. The obvious question – is Notre Dame that good or is Pitt that bad?

Texas destroyed the Ragin Cajuns (La Lafayette) 60-3, which was hardly surprising. This game was little more than a tune up for Ohio State next weekend. I got to watched some of the game, but to be honest I am not sure that I learned anything about this year’s Longhorns. Next week’s game is going to be awesome and should define what sort of season is in store for Texas (and Ohio State).

How about the ACC? Of course I dislike the Bumblebees and the Tigers, but the Georgia Tech vs. Auburn game was plenty good (Tech won 23-14). I guess if Tech was going to surprise anyone, the first game of the season is the time to do the needful. Another exciting game was Clemson’s last second victory over Texas A&M; Clemson won 25-24.

I guess the weekend games mean that the Big 12 and the SEC are both down this year. Early days, but something to think about.