The Recycle Bin

The Atlanta Braves have looked very bad of late, losing three in a row to Philadelphia, which makes them 2-5 in the last week. That is good enough (if you want to call it that) to put them 4.5 games back of the Mets. The Braves need Chipper Jones back in a hurry, and of course some consistent starting pitching would be helpful. Not having Mike Gonzalez the rest of the way is going to have an impact. If the Braves want to stay in the NL East (or NL Wildcard) they are going to have to pick up a lefty arm for the pen, and please, oh, please, acquire a real first baseman.

I wonder when Vick is going to go down. One would think it has to be fairly soon, and according to ESPN.com Vick is a dog fighting heavyweight.

“He’s a pit bull fighter,” the source said of Vick. “He’s one of the ones that they call ‘the big boys’: that’s who bets a large dollar. And they have the money to bet large money. As I’m talking about large money — $30,000 to $40,000 — even higher. He’s one of the heavyweights.”

Of course you have to love an anonymous source, but the next quote may be more damning.

“Everybody in the dog world is worried about Michael Vick talking,” the source said, shortly before leaving our interview room and heading back to work. “Michael Vick is making large money; he’s making millions, OK? And if he has to tell on some people [to avoid prison time], I think he would tell … I don’t put nothing past him.”

Character? Roll model? Vick brings it all to the table. Dog fighting has to be about the lowest form of entertainment, and now we know that Vick is one of the “big boys” – he comes to play.

What sucks about this story is that I was a big time Vick fan; a few years ago I purchased a season ticket, a jersey, took my oldest son to games … the whole nine years. My boys love Vick (probably my doing as an over zealous Falcons fan). When Vick get suspended (or worse), what do I tell the kids?

While skimming through the Gameshark content on The Blog for the Sports Gamer, I paused long enough to notice the following sentence – “PYS4 is the best baseball game on the market.” I haven’t played PYS4 but I think I can state with almost 99.99% certainty that the best baseball game on the market is Out of the Park Baseball 2007. At least it is as far as the mighty Recycle Bin is concerned. However, it’s clear that a lot of people are going out of their way to get a Japanese PS3 baseball game playable by folks who do not speak Japanese. So PYS4 is probably a pretty good baseball game.

When did America lose the baseball cold war?

How is it that in 2007 the United States can only put Baseball Mogul and MLB The Show out as their heavyweight contenders? Why aren’t there hearings in Congress about this baseball gaming gap that has been going on too long? Yea, we have Diamond Mind Baseball still but that’s like claiming we have nuclear weapons, but they turn out to be of World War II vintage. Is this also part of George Bush’s horrible legacy? Only gaming historians will decide…

The Grand Prix of Monaco was more or less a let down, as cars paraded around the circuit lap after lap. Not sure why I expected anything less.

The Indy 500 is in a rain delay. I bet Marco is kicking himself right about now for not putting up a fight.

Maybe the Coca-Cola 600 will prove more interesting. I hope so, or else the racing weekend is a major downer.

If you noticed any erratic site behavior, I spent some of the afternoon making a few minor changes to the site. Most of the changes are cosmetic in nature, but the new Sphere link may be useful. The site has been upgraded to the latest version of WordPress, I added some new handy-dandy admin plug-ins, did some other miscellaneous housekeeping. Fun stuff I suppose.

I actually put in some time with GT4 today; first time I have played my PS2 in recent memory. I need to do that more often, but it has been hard to get into any sort of playing pattern of late.

I also spent part of the afternoon repairing (or attempting to repair) Tonya’s Dell Inspiron 6000 screen. The damn display is going bad; the bottom third of the screen freezes or turns some funky color. Most of the time I can press the screen in just the right spot to fix things, but today I just could not get the damn thing to display correctly. I took out all the screws and attempted to readjust in order to tighten the screen. So far so good. Maybe a bad connection instead of a bad screen?

More later. Maybe.

I have a few miscellaneous items that I was going to throw up on eBay, but figured I would offer them here first. I do not think these are worth much, so I figured the listing fees would not be worth the effort. If you are interested, please make me an offer. We can complete the transaction via PayPal; shipping should be around $5.25 (Priority with Delivery Confirmation). Drop me a email (jonathan at calvertgames dot com) with your offer or leave a comment.

• Battle Arena Toshinden VHS. Uncut Version (I think it does have nudity – that is my warning to minors or enticement to you sick anime perverted types – LOL). I think I won this at a past E3 as part of some promotion.
• Championship Manager 4. Complete with case, manual, and CD.
• Football Manager 2005. Complete with case, manual, and CD.
• ESPN NFL 2K5 (PS2). Complete with case, manual, and CD.
• Nanotek Warrior (PSX). Complete with jewel case, manual, and CD.
• Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX (PSX). Complete with jewel case, manual, and CD.
• NeoGeo Pocket AC Adapter, complete in box. Brand new. Shipping will be $7.00 for this one due to the package bulk; yes new Postal Rates suck.

I also have a number of items on eBay. Late spring cleaning, if you please.

I am not sure why, but I love watching the Grand Prix of Monaco.  Actually, I guess it is just a wonderful looking street circuit, with lots of history, and while the racing may not be all that great from a pure wheel-to-wheel passing standpoint, the drivers have to go balls out to make things happen.  One of my dream vacations is to take in an F1 race at Monaco; hopefully it will happen before I am too old to enjoy this sort of vacation.

Today is the first time I have watched qualifying from end-to-end this year, and I have to say that I like the new qualifying format.  I am assuming this format is new; I did not watch much F1 last year.  At any rate, I like the multiple knock-out sessions, which provides plenty of excitement and is better than the old “wait until the last minute” to give it a go, and the previous format that was in place a couple of years ago.  I guess that shows how much I have been following F1 in recent years.  For whatever reason, I went from being a “can’t miss a race fan” to a casual, keeping up with the F1 news at a glance fan.  Ah, but Monaco always brings me back.

Today we saw a nice duel between Alonso and Hamilton.  At the very end, Alonso managed to take the pole from Hamilton.  Massa managed P3 for Ferrari.  Good stuff!  The multiple tire rules will create opportunities to pass in the pits, but from what bits and parts of F1 I have seen this year, the McLarens are going to be up to the challenge.

Tomorrow is going to be heaven on TV!  Back-to-back racing – Monaco, Indy, and Coke 600.  Good stuff all around.  Better go get some chores out of the way to build up some “bonus” points because I will need them for tomorrow.

I wrote about Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD a while back, and to a lesser extent I also discussed PS3 vs. 360.  After taking a break from various google searches for the past week (cold turkey would be a better description), I decided to spend some quality time this afternoon to come up with this post.

I may be in the minority here, but if I get a PS3 one of the primary reasons will be for the Blu-Ray player; I really want more bang for my HDTV buck.  If I am going to spend $500+ for a Blu-Ray (or HD-DVD) player, I may as well get a game system thrown in for good measure.  I am not spending a lot of time with my PS2, but I have a huge PS2 and PSX library, so backwards compatibility is a plus.  It sounds like the new firmware upgrade does some sort of upconversion on PS2 and PSX titles, so that could be a nice little perk.  Where it stands right now, if I squander $599 for a PS3 system, I am buying it for 40% Blu-Ray format, 30% PS3 games, 20% backwards game compatibility, and 10% who knows what else.

I keep looking at the 360, but it just does not seem to be in the cards (at least for the immediate future).  Maybe Forza 2 will put me over the edge, but the ad-on HD-DVD player does nothing to excite me.  In general, ad-on accessories are not supported, so I may as well purchase a dedicated HD-DVD player if I want to go with this format.

All news articles, sales data, blogs, and various news sites indicate that the Wii is still selling like hotcakes.  In fact, I read earlier today that some industry analysts are predicting shortages for the rest of the year.  I never see any Wii systems in any stores I frequent, and I am not going to go the bundle route.  I assume I will get a Wii at some point, but I am not in a hurry (even if the kids are ready now).

I still have no idea about HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray; which format will ultimately win?  If I go with a PS3 then I am betting on the Blu-Ray horse, but is the format really going to be viable in 3 years (or 5 or 10)?  My assumption is that DVDs are going to be around for a long time, but I am not yet convinced that Blu-Ray (or HD-DVD) is the wave of the future.  So for now I am (still) not throwing any money in either direction, but I have been pricing upconverting DVD players, which may be a cheaper (and better alternative) solution for the next couple of years.

In short, a lot of writing about not making a purchase.

Congratulations to John Smoltz on career win 200 last night (2-1 over the Mets).  I heard on the radio this morning that Smoltz is the only pitcher to ever amass 200 wins and 150 saves; hopefully that makes him Hall of Fame worthy.

Not that anyone thought I would, but I am not in a position to retire anytime soon thanks to all the cash rolling in from Google AdSense. With that said, it has been good for a few laughs. I recently noticed a Ron Mexicoad. Now that is some funny stuff.

It has been interesting watching the ads get more targeted based on content from the posts. If Google did beer ads, I would probably be rich. Oh well, cannot have it all.

It is always nice to be back from vacation, especially when I was sick and incapacitated for most of the vacation.  Oh well, win some, lose some.  My parents have another beach rental lined up for October, so I will have to try it again in a few months.

For what it is worth, I was video game free for the last seven days – no WoW, no OOTPB 2007, and the PSP never made it out of my backpack.  I have already said it several times, but maybe it is time to cut bait on the PSP and get whatever I can for the system and the games.  Too bad most games have almost no resale value on eBay.

When I was not sick, I was enjoying the beach and the pool.  Time here, there, and yonder, was spent drinking beer (what else).  Lots of Miller Lite (my current cheap beer of choice), Smithwicks, Harp, Sweet Water 420, and Sam Adams Light.  Ah, the taste of beer, surf, and delicious seafood.

Memorial Day weekend and great racing is upon us!

I wanted to get a quick post in before I head to the sunny beaches of Florida’s Gulf coast because Coach Cox has been congratulated for the last five days!

When I travel I always pack my PSP, so this trip in not an exception.  It will be interesting to see if I get any use out of the system.  I noticed that a PSP version of NCAA Football is not scheduled for release this summer, which is a bummer.  I wonder if EA figured sales sucked last year, so why bother this year.  Then again everyone was pissed off about the running bug, so chicken or the egg I guess.

I am on the bad half of 35, so everything is starting to break down.  Been out of work the last two days due to some, shall we say, issues.  Speaking of breaking, Tonya’s Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop simply sucks.  The display is having all sorts of issues, and we recently had to replace the battery because it would no longer hold a charge.  I will have to write about Dell’s support, because my adventure ordering a battery was a huge ordeal.  Also breaking this week was the transmission on Tonya’s Chrysler Voyager minivan.  We are talking about a 2002 car with just under 60K miles.  And people wonder why Americans are not buying American cars.

I do not think Bobby Cox gets near as much credit as he deserves. During the Atlanta Braves run over the last 16 years (excluding last year), we are all told that the pitchers did all the work. Or maybe it was the pitching coach. Regardless of the changing faces of the Braves (and a certain departed pitching coach), Bobby Cox keeps on winning.

Last night’s 9-2 victory over Pittsburgh was Cox’s 2,195 victory of his 27-year career (23 with the Braves), good for fourth overall on the all time list. Congratulations are certainly in order.

I wanted to take a couple of minutes to wish all our readers that happen to be mothers, a happy Mother’s Day!  Since there are probably not too many mothers that read this blog, you fathers better remember to thank your wives (and your mothers) for all they do.  I know life would be fairly miserable without Tonya to raise my children.

Tonya’s day was extra special because we christianed Joseph, and she gets to go out to lunch in a few minutes.

So on to other stuffs.  Happy Mother’s Day!

I think there was a lot to write about this week, but just not a lot of time to write. Seems like the same song and dance with gaming; OOTPB 2007 and WoW are about all I have played lately. I figured I better post a quick update (being a blog and all), so here are a few things that make me wonder “WTF were they thinking?”

• DEI does not cave to the demands of Dale Earnhardt Jr. Stupid, stupid move by Teresa. Wicked stepmother? You bet.
• Vick has an “extra” house full of dogs. Sure Vick never saw a dog he did not want to kick the living crap out of, but he is being taken advantage of by wayward friends and family. In Vick we trust? Uh, not so much.
• Not to kick a man while he is down, but come on Ricky, lay off the wacky weed. Exhibit A for the dangers of drug addiction and proof that a “little weed is not that big a deal” is just plain wrong.
• My free subscription to ESPN The Magazine comes complete with a free Insiders subscription to ESPN.com. Free if I want to sign up for automatic yearly subscription renewals to The Magazine. No thanks.

This time next Friday I will be on my way for a much needed Gulf coast beach vacation (just west of Panama City, FL). We are also closing in on Memorial Day weekend racing – Monaco, Coca Cola 600, and the Indy 500. Good stuffs!

Happy weekend!

My video card died on me. Thank goodness my Dell laptop can handle most of my gaming needs. The 6800GT has stopped playing 3D games. I get all sorts of graphical artifacts and then the system seizes up and crashes. I think I am going to buy a relatively cheap Saphire X1900XT for about $130. It seems to be more than enough power to run the games I’m playing, since everything was working fine with my 6800GT.

One result of this is that I’m not on AOL as much as before because I don’t turn it on when I’m on the laptop and playing World of Warcraft. Don’t like the screen minimizing right when I am dealing the death blow to an unsuspecting creature. Jonathan was the first with the “where have you been” flood and ten more complaints were filed with the Johnson AOL Better IMing Business Bureau. I’ll be back up 24/7 on AOL once I fix the video card issue.

This means my Lord of the Rings Online purchase was very poorly timed. It plays like a dog on my laptop at 1280 and I don’t want to reduce all of the settings because it’s a new game and I like to drink in a new game’s essence. So I will wait to get in more detailed play after I fix the video card issues.

I was thinking the other day that LoTR is another example of why video gaming press/web sites are pretty useless in 2007. I did not read about LoTR in any “press” area. Many forums were read and it was based on the comments in the places I trust that the purchase was made. While I may give places like FOFC a hard time, they are much more informative on their worst day than any web site/video magazine writing about text sports gaming. You just have to put on your FOFC lens to filter out the good information.

But not all forums were created equal. I haven’t visited Operation Sports in years with one exception. Their much discussed “review” of OOTPB 2006 reminded me why I don’t read the site. So when they give OOTPB 2006 a 9/10 and OOTPB 2007 a 10/10 I say meh, who cares? I’m not visiting their site to read the 2007 review because the 2006 review was completely off target. They may know something about sports gaming, I don’t know, but they know very little about sports text gaming.

Find forums of like-minded people and see what they have to say about a game before purchasing it.

I wonder if Vick is a total dummy, leaving cookie trails and bread crumbs back to his name (and unfortunately the Atlanta Falcons). Since it is too early to fiddle, I figured I would google for some Vick/dog fighting info, and came across some interesting news on the aol sport blog:

According to WVEC.com, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has joined the investigation and made some more questionable discoveries. Along with his own personal website, Vick apparently had a website created (Vick’s K-9 Kennels) that allowed users to purchase pitbulls and other breeds — the same types of dogs that were discovered at his Virginia residence.

I wonder if the Atlanta Falcons’ front office is having second thoughts on the Schaub trade.