The Recycle Bin

Falcons release 53-man roster.

It looks like Atlanta is ready for the Dolphins on September 13, but I expect that the defensive backs could change a little if Atlanta is able to find help on the cut list. And they still need some help. According to the Falcons official website, the roster is set, and two former Bulldogs did not make the final list.

Former Georgia standouts Thomas Brown and D.J. Shockley were released along with two players from the team’s 2009 Draft class: cornerback William Middleton and defensive tackle Vance Walker.

It is not a huge surprise that D.J. did not make the team; if you carry a 3rd string QB for a while you expect him to beat out the 2nd string QB, but D.J. was nowhere near ready to take down Redman. Next year Atlanta will be in the markup for a backup to Ryan because I do not see Redman sticking around; he wants to start again.

I am disappointed for Brown; he was a great former Bulldog, but just could not stay injury free. The final roster breakdown includes:

* Nine defensive linemen (four tackles, five ends)
* Six linebackers (three starters and a backup at each position)
* 10 defensive backs (five cornerbacks and five safeties)
* Five wide receivers (including 11-veteran Marty Booker)
* Three quarterbacks (two will likely be active on gameday)
* Three tight ends (Keith Zinger wins the final spot over Rader)
* Nine offensive linemen (Quinn Ojinnaka continues to backup multiple positions)
* Five running backs (three tailbacks and a pair of fullbacks: Ovie Mughelli and Verron Haynes)
* Two kickers (Jason Elam and Michael Koenen)
* One long-snapper (returning starter Mike Schneck)

The Falcons will establish their practice squad today, so it will be interesting to see if there are any real surprises.

SEC Roundup (Week 1.1)

8-2 on Saturday play, unfortunately I was wrong on the Georgia game.

I am not much for saying that poor officiating cost a team a game. It happens; it is part of the breaks over the course of the game. In the case of the home cooking in Stillwater, Georgia had a couple of huge calls go against them, including one personal foul that set up the backbreaking TD to put Cowboys up for good at 24-10.

How bad was the call? The announcers continued to talk about it for at least 10 minutes. It was that bad. With that said …

I really thought that good things were in store for the Dawgs after they opened up on a great drive, but it because quickly apparent that on offense the Bulldogs could not sustain any sort of rhythm.

Cox is not the answer. Probably a good kid; smart … nice … all the intangibles, but if Georgia drops the South Carolina (home) or Arkansas (road) game, it will be time to bring this experiment to a close and concentrate on next year’s QB.

A college football team loses a quarterback and a running back in the first round of the NFL draft, and what do we hear? That they’ll be more of a team. That they’ll be better up front. That they’ll spread things around and function as well — maybe even better — as before. Nobody in Athens ever said, “Matthew Stafford and Knowshon Moreno were holding us back.” At times, it just sounded that way.

Well, try this. Georgia just opened the season scoring 10 points against an Oklahoma State defense that ranked 93rd in the nation last season, which has been fairly the program standard. How does that make you feel going into SEC play? If can they manage only a field goal in their last 11 possessions against a defense poor by even Big 12 standards, how will they fare against South Carolina, or LSU, or anybody?

What else did we learn? The Bulldogs have to figure out how to get more touches for Green (4 receptions for 52 yards). I wonder if Samuel is the answer (20 carries for 87 yards); he looked tough enough, but often went down on ankle tackles.

Georgia has one week to right the ship before the Fighting Chickens come a calling. When was the last time Georgia started 0-2, or maybe 1-2? This year may go south in a hurry.

Will Chrome be released for the PS3 and PSP?

Could the PS3 and PSP get a new browser in the near future? According the Brutal Gamer, if you connect the dots, a Chrome release is likely to happen.

To be honest the introduction of Chrome on the PS3 or PSP would be an absolute god send. The current browser is fast, almost as fast as Firefox and Chrome and certainly beats the pants off of IE but it needs better integration, more functionality and a streamlined experience. I’m certain that a lot of people spend a scant among of time using the browser on their PS3 but for the occasions that I do use it, knowing that a more feature rich browser like Chrome is under the hood would give me greater confidence. I think it would ultimately encourage me to use the system more for my browsing needs rather than get up off the sofa and goto the PC or laptop.

I am not a big fan of the PS3 or PSP browser, so I would welcome a switch to Chrome. Hope it happens!

More Final Fantasy Conundrums

There is nothing like a PS3 vs. Xbox 360 controversy to heat up the N4G charts. Add in a dash of Final Fantasy XIII is being compromised due to the limited capabilities of the non Blu-ray system, and you have the makings for a serious chart topper. This story from PS3Center makes the case that the PS3 version, which is the ideal platform for FFXIII, is not going to be perfect.

Many PS3 fans were looking forward to playing the PS3 version of the game with the Japanese voices with English subtitles. It was safe to assume that this would be the case at least for the PS3 version, because it didn’t have the size constraints of a DVD, Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm has this so why wouldn’t Final Fantasy right? Wrong. Due to the limitations of the DVD, the PS3 version of the game has been compromised in order to “keep both versions of the game identical.” This was confirmed with Final Fantasy XIII’s producer in an interview with GameTrailers.

He specifically mentions here that it is because they want to keep the game the same on both platforms, is that the Xbox 360 version not affecting the PS3 version? How hard can it be to include the Japanese audio track in the game? It will most likely include English subtitles anyway; the Japanese language track would simply replace the English language track. Well we can at least hope this will be coming as DLC at a later stage…

What a conundrum for the FF developers/publishers. Keep the game true to form on the PS3 or go after a wider audience and “compromise” FF XIII with a release on the Xbox 360. In the end the potential to make more $$$ always wins out.

Gulf Coast vacation. Life is good.

I found a nice little hot spot to post from; actually it is probably just someone’s unsecured network. The weather is great – and the beaches are truly some of the most beautiful in the world. To give you an idea, click on the following link.

I should offer up a few more updates here and there over the next couple of days. Today I am torn between going to a sports bar to watch the Georgia game, or sitting on the beach with a cold one or three.

Either way, more seafood is in the works. Family, beer, seafood, and the beach. As I said, life is good.

SEC Predictions (Week 1)

The first week of the season brings new hope to a lot of teams. Is this the year of Ole Miss? Can Vanderbilt make it to a bowl can for consecutive years? Will Alabama or Florida make another National Championship run, marking 4 years of SEC glory?

Kentucky vs. Miami (OH)
The Wildcats are favored by 15, which should be plenty. No chance of an upset.

W. Kentucky vs. Tennessee
The Lane Kiffin era officially begins with a ridiculous matchup. Vols by 30, which means they cover the 29.5 line.

Jackson St. vs. Miss. St.
The “other” Bulldogs should be embarrassed for this travesty of an opening game. I understand that some schools need to find a filler team on their schedule, and the fillers often need the money, but this one is ridiculous.

Louisiana Tech vs. Auburn
Auburn may be favored by almost a TD, but the Tigers from the Plains will be the SEC Shame of the Week. If fans were saying WTF is a Chizik imagine their surprise after this upset.

Missouri St. vs. Arkansas
The Hogs will run wild, but no one will care. Another silly SEC opening day matchup. This kind of scheduling should be banned.

5 Alabama vs. 7 Virginia Tech
Perhaps the best matchup on the plate, certainly the best of the night after the Dawgs/Cowboy game wraps up. The Tide is favored by almost a TD; I say they roll.

11 LSU vs. Washington
Horary of decent scheduling. SEC vs. Pac-10. Even if it does not feature a top Pac-10 team, at least LSU is more than willing to travel to get a better than decent opening day matchup.

CSU vs. 1 Florida
Speechless. No comment. Gator fans everywhere should be appalled.

W. Carolina vs. Vanderbilt
Vanderbilt is going to be well on their way to a 6 win season.

13 Georgia vs. 9 Oklahoma St.
Saving the best for last, we find our beloved Dawgs 5.5 point dogs. I do not get all the love for the Cowboys. This is like déjà vu all over again; remember what happened a couple of years ago when the Oklahoma St. paid a visit to Athens? All the pundits said that Georgia was in for a rude surprise, but the Dawgs romped 35-14.

While I do not think this one will be a repeat of the 2007 game, I do think the top of the SEC is better than the top of the Big-12, which does not know how to play defense. Wild-wild-west and all that.

If the Dawgs can keep the Cowboys in the mid-20s, Georgia will pull out a victory and be on their way to a solid season. If the Dawgs get in a scoring race this one will not end well, and it will not get any easier as the Dawgs will have to come home and get ready for the Fighting Chickens.

Georgia 31-27. Go Dawgs!

*I did not get this written in time to predict South Carolina’s 7-3 victory over N. Carolina St., but it is a safe bet that I would have gone SEC over ACC.

The Hunter

I am not really a “hunter” – more of a tree rat (and nasty r-a-t) sniper. OK, how about a varmint hunter. That’s the ticket. I do enjoy watching the occasional hunting show (at least everyone once in a while). The other night as I was flipping through the channels I came across Steve’s Outdoor Adventures and saw an advertisement for The Hunter.

While I have never been a fan of hunting games, I decided that I would give this one a go; free trail to hunt some mule deer. The Hunter is billed as the most realistic hunting game you will ever play. It has been a long time since I played a PC-based game, but I am strangely compelled to try The Hunter.

I searched for a review, and this one from GamePro (4.5 out of 5 stars) was the first returned in my results list.

When you do decide to hit the Evergreen Hunting Reserve, you’re in for quite a treat. You begin your adventure by selecting your weapons, ammunition, lures — even canned smoke so you can tell which way the wind’s blowing. After selecting a drop-point, the game is pretty much your oyster. Flexible to all styles of hunting, you can spend hours tracking animal droppings and noises, or lay low and try to lure animals to your location — it’s all up to you. The feeling of successfully tracking my first deer, even if it was about 3 AM in the morning, was fantastic; hours of watching for buck tracks, using my HuntersMate GPS system to analyze and locate the creature’s last known location… when I finally came eye to eye with the beast, it was simply fantastic, and a genuine experience that I haven’t felt in a game of any genre for quite some time.

GamesRadar also has a review (6 out of 10), but it is not very encouraging.

Of course getting close enough to take the shot is the majority of the game, and finding players willing to slink around through brush for hours at a time might be a problem. The game essentially drops you into the reserve with no tutorial and says “go for it”. While the Forum FAQ and PDF guide help, figuring out where you’re supposed to go on the reserve, where you should be looking for tracks, and where specific animals are is all left up to the player to figure out. On my first play, I was convinced the game was broken as I wandered around aimlessly for 15 minutes before finding a trail or any sign of life.

I downloaded the game, and attempted to play, but it does not look like it will work on my Dell Inspiron 1525 laptop which pretty much sucks for me. The game states that:

Video Cards that ‘The Hunter’ presently supports are:
– Nvidia: 7 Series (from 7600 and above)
– ATI: X1800 (and above)
Note: The Hunter does not support Intel / SiS graphics

Oh well. I did try to get into a PC game, and a hunting game at that! Kudos to me for doing something different. I need to get the kids a laptop for Christmas, so you can bet my next purchase is going to support The Hunter.

Falcons not worthless …

ESPN’s NFC South blog has an interesting article on the franchise values for the NFC South teams. Surprisingly (at least to me) the Falcons are not chalk full of value.

The one I found surprising was the Atlanta Falcons. Despite adding Matt Ryan and a lot of excitement, the Falcons came in at No. 30 and were valued at $856 million, a two-percent decrease from last year. I guess that’s why the Falcons are making noise about wanting a new stadium.

I have read some of the articles about ATL wanting a new stadium, but the time is just not right. I don’t think the Dome is awful; don’t get me wrong it is not all that great, but the Falcons are having a hard time selling luxury boxes and I doubt a new stadium would have fans forking over cash left and right for the opportunity to sit in a shiny new location.

Marauder First Look

I came across this informative “first look” Marauder article at airgunweb.

If you’re reading this review and you’re like me, you’ve already read every other review you could find on the internet, so let me attempt to describe just how quiet it really is. The “ping” of the hammer and spring releasing the valve is LOUDER than the discharge. Or to put it another way, you’ll be able to HEAR the vibration in the hammer spring as it makes a cute “ting” sound. I accidentally blank-fired a BSA Sportsman HV .22 in a sporting goods store in Phoenix, AZ the other day and the report’s echo slapping off a nearby wall made my ears ring. The BSA wasn’t fully charged. Popping off the Marauder the same way, at 2500 PSI, in the much closer confines of my garage won’t make enough noise to frighten my 4 year old daughter! The blast of air will effectively eliminate a black widow spider! Yes, you WILL wonder if the rifle isn’t working right… until you shoot through your pellet trap, as I did! Mind you, I’m using this just as it came from the box, with the recommended valve, spring tension, and hammer-length adjustments. I’m not firing it remotely close to its maximum velocity! My pellet trap is (was) rated for .22 rimfire rifles. I’m going to need a sheet of battleship armor plating very soon. That’s no exaggeration. If you’ve got a pigeon or squirrel problem, you’ll be dropping them so fast, and so quietly, the live ones will be walking around wondering what happened to their buddies.

I like the description on the “ting” sound, and the rest seems to be pretty spot on. I am still shooting my Marauder at around 1500-2000 psi, but hopefully I will be able to go higher once my replacement screws for the Hill pump mount arrive from Straight Shooters.

I look forward to the author following up with a full review and/or subsequent reports.

Tough Falcons schedule features four teams coming off bye weeks.

I am sure everyone else has noticed that the Falcons 2008 Playoff run was rewarded with a much tougher 2009 schedule. Making matters worse, is that the Falcons face four difficult games in a six week stretch where Atlanta faces teams coming off a bye week.

Chicago Bears (Oct 18)
at Dallas Cowboys (Oct 25)
Washington Redskins (Nov 8th)
New York Giants (Nov 22)

I think the Falcons are going to be in for a rough time if you consider (A) the schedule is difficult (B) the schedule features four teams that get extra time to prep and heal up before facing the Falcons (C) the secondary sucks (D) the defensive line does not have anyone to compliment John Abraham.

Maybe (C) the secondary sucks – will change with the acquisition of Ty Hill, but until I see him in action, I do not have high hopes.

Hill is a guy who still has some upside. In fact, Hill is the kind of first-round talent the Falcons haven’t had on their roster since … well, DeAngelo Hall, but that’s a bad example. Atlanta went through last season kind of patching things together at cornerback and they seemed destined to do the same thing this year.

They didn’t have any blue-chip corners and appeared ready to go into the season with Chris Houston and Brent Grimes as the starters and rookie Chris Owens and second-year pro Chevis Jackson as the backups. Houston’s been good at times, but not so good at other times. He came into the league as a second-round draft pick and Grimes came in as an undrafted free agent. Owens and Jackson were third-round choices.

So now the questions are – can Hill perform and what did the Falcons have to give up?

Getaway Day!

I am heading off to the Gulf coast for a mini vacation – 5 days of fun in the sun at one of the most beautiful beaches in the world! Family, great seafood and lots of beer. Does life get any better?

I do not know how many “live” updates I will have over the next few days, but I have a few posts that are “schedule” to go live daily to give some new content.

Hope everyone has a great Labor Day weekend!

And before I forget, Go Dawg!

PS3 3.0 Firmware causes complaints.

Just when you think you have it all figured out, along comes an article complaining about Sony’s newly released firmware upgrade for the PS3. SCRAWL fx is not at all happy with the newest upgrade, mostly complaining about the lack of major changes in the various new features.

The newly redesigned friends list is hardly a redesign at all. If anything, it complicates the friends list even more by adding a gray but shiny box around each friend, which seems highly unneccesary, and really gives a cluttered feeling to the list. If anything, it shouldn’t even be touted as a new feature, as it’s just an image thrown in the background of a friend. On top of that, there’s no option to customize the color, and with the added space, no trophy information is displayed for each friend without going to their profiles.

Whatever. Gift horse, open your mouth.

Love me some screws.

Today my Hill pump replacement screws arrived from Straight Shooters. That was fast! To recap, my order arrived last Thursday, but the Hill pump packaging was missing the screws that attach the base of the pump to the shaft. I am sure this was not the fault of SS, but they quickly sent me some replacement screws to get me back in the game.

Too bad for me that I am going on vacation and will probably not get to some serious shooting for another couple of weeks, but I have to give SS kudos for getting me the replacement screws so quickly.

Can the Braves make me eat crow?

Every time I write about the Braves being in the thick of the playoff action, they prove me wrong, and start dropping games. While the NL East is a lost cause, the Braves are now within 3 games of the Wild Card. Will Hudson’s return give them enough of a boost to push them over the hump?

I still think this team is too flawed to make a serious push or if they make the Wild Card, to go very deep in the playoffs.
The starting pitching is deep enough, but as has happen in the past, a power outage or a leaky bullpen will let Atlanta down. Brian McCann (17) and Chipper Jones (16) are the Braves HR leaders. Rafael Soriano (20 SV) and Mike Gonzalez (9) are better setup guys than closers.

PSP Go again.

It has been a while (a few days; maybe a week) since I last posted about the PSP Go. Just came across this “unboxing” of a PSP Go at CVG via NG4.

Most of the user comments focus on the price, which at $249 is a little high, but I am still more focused on what sort of UMD trade in program Sony may offer.

I will probably make a decision this week to purchase or punt. If I decide to wait, then I am going to hold out for a price cut. Of course if I make the decision to preorder a PSP Go, then I am all in. I have never had much luck turning in UMDs for cash via eBay so I hope that Sony gives PSP owners some sort of incentive program to “upgrade” to the all digital PSP Go format.