The Recycle Bin

It has been a while since I bothered to update this blog. I am surprised that anyone is still reading, but here we are and so I write.

I have decided I like some good old fashion country music, which plays into my most recent UK trip, but I am getting ahead of myself. First a bit (albeit small) of gaming. I did not bring out my PSP once on my flight over to the UK, not even on the couple of trains that I had to take to my final destination. Even on the flight back I only played a few minutes of Star Wars Battlefront Renegade Squadron and some Final Fantasy Tactics, which pretty much is a sign of serious gaming Mellon Collie, or just gaming Sadness. Either way, I now have serious questions about the viability of my PSP.

The boys (the baby is not part of this twosome yet) are getting new Nintendo DS systems for Christmas. My oldest is getting the crimson version, while the middle kid is getting the polar version. Maybe dad needs one two. Still plenty of time before Christmas.

While I was out of town my baby became a toddler, taking a good five or six steps at a time. My wife also tore up her ACL. On the flight back my luggage did not make the return trip. My car would not start; the battery was dead. The keyboard on my Dell Inspiron 6000 died. There has to be a country song somewhere in all the mess.

Chris is calling it quits on his IOSBL. Too bad. Lots of bad news in a short period of time.

Crosman is sending me a new scope.

Dell is sending me a new keyboard even though onsite keyboard replacement is not part of their warranty program.

I am listening to country music.

Sweet Water Georgia Brown is the beer of choice, with a little Crown to wash it down for good measure.

Georgia is in a no win Sugar Bowl versus Hawaii, while Texas is doing the Holiday thing again. Kind of a bummer on both accounts.

Discombobulated? Maybe. That is the way things have been of late. Let’s recap. No PSP gaming on two 8+ hour flights. Lots of country music (more on this later); delayed luggage, dead battery, and my wife torn her ACL all on the same trip. Lots of good writing material. I am not ready to make nice, but there is always tomorrow.

Hope you and yours has a wonderful (and safe) Thanksgiving.  May turkey fill your belly, but not too much; don’t nap through Thanksgiving Day football.

I have had a pretty hit or miss experience with my Crosman Sierra Pro 1000. I really enjoy plinking and shooting at varmint targets, and of course, squirrels, which is the reason I got this airgun in the first place. I have been frustrated with the gun’s accuracy, exchanging my first Sierra Pro, and wondering if my current Sierra Pro’s scope is defective. So I enjoy shooting, trying to hit my targets, but I am frustrated with my lack of ability to hit bullseye on targets about 15-20 yards away. Seems like it should be simple.

I have managed to take out a couple of pesky squirrels, but not with clean shots, which is disappointing. I want to eliminate the pests, but I do not really want to see them flop around and suffer. The first one I took down with a shot in the chest. It flipped and flopped for about ten seconds before calling it a day. A couple of weekends ago, I took out another squirrel, but the results were far worse. A shoulder shot sent it back into the top of the pecan tree. An hour or so later I saw it struggling down the tree; I guess it did not have the strength to remain up in the branches. I was able to get close enough for a head shot to put it out of its misery.

I decided to get the gun sighted properly before taking on another squirrel. I decided to get out the Black and Decker Workmate to try to stabilize the gun. What a difference. While the gun is not perfectly sighted, it shows vast improvements. I did not realize how unsteady my aim was, but the Workmate allows me to let it do the holding or gives me a place to rest arm. Either way, the steady results are much improved over my freestanding aiming techniques.

Hopefully my next update will have me shooting nice groupings, on center.

Funny article from ajc.com:

Suddenly the Falcons are not completely out of the NFC South race. With New Orleans’ loss, Tampa Bay leads the division at 5-4, followed by Carolina and New Orleans at 4-5 and the Falcons at 3-6.

Comforting. As a fan, is it really so bad to want your team to punt on a season and go after a top pick?

Has it really been over a week since my last post? Not enough time in the day to keep things going this past week. Random stuffs follow.

UGA’s Moreno is an absolute stud. Yesterday he racked up 101 yards on 22 carries, and 2 TDs. I never would have guessed that the Dawgs would blow out the Tigers by 25 points. 44-20! Amazing! I guess there is still some hope for the SEC East, but Georgia has to take care of business against Kentucky and Georgia is going to need some help. Vandy or Kentucky (assuming Georgia takes care of business) are going to be our new favorite teams.

Interesting article about the Braves at The Hardball Times:

There has been, and continues to be, healthy speculation about the merits of Liberty as owners. The signs were promising at the start with the acquisition of Mark Teixeira, which hoisted the Braves’ payroll over $90 million, a mark that it had been slipping from in the twilight of Time Warner’s reign. However, the decisions not to negotiate with Andruw Jones and to ship Renteria off to the AL have raised concerns among the Tomahawk army that the Teixeira trade was an illusory, short-term action.

The Falcons managed to come up with their third victory of the season. They are now only two off the pace of my five win prediction. Good things to come? No. This team really is not that good, and when you just sneak by a team with a 40+ year old QB, you are lucky instead of good.

It has been a while since I made a beer post. Current favorites are SweetWater 420 Extra Pale Ale, SweetWater Georgia Brown, Terrapin Rye Pale Ale, and of course Miller Lite always has a place in my fridge as the cheap beer of choice.

No gaming to speak of this week, but my IOSBL team is above .500 for the first time in forever, and I did manage to put in an hour of WoW for the first time in a long time. I think I am getting the short end of the stick with my monthly subscription fee with Blizzard.

Sweet victory! Moreno – 33 rushes for 188 yards and 3 TDs! I do not see UGA winning out and having a chance to represent the SEC East, but this victory is so nice that it really does not matter.

Go Dawgs!

28-24 GA at the start of the 4th QTR.  Too close for comfort, but an encouraging game.  Georgia can pull the upset off if they do not get too conservative.  Hunker down Dawgs!  Hunker down!

This is the most fun I have had watching Georgia in a while.  My wife just told me that GA had not won yet (gee, thanks a lot).  I told her that GA has only won two of the 13+ years we have been married (1997 and 2004).  Too few and far between.

Go Dawgs!

14-7 GA at the end of the 1st QTR.  Good start for the Dawgs.  I am loving the high intensity, but the penalties may come back to bite them if they go overboard.

Still a long way to go.  Go Dawgs!

I decided to save any posting about the annual Georgia-Florida game in Jacksonville, FL until after kickoff.  FL owns the Dawgs, so any predictions for my beloved Bulldogs would come across as wishful thinking … overly optimistic to be sure.

This is the one game that Georgia fans want to win, but it is the one game that Georgia just does not seem capable of winning.  Maybe, just maybe, having an off week is just want the doctor ordered.

Keeping my fingers crossed for a surprise upset.  FL just turned the ball over on their first possession (10 mins into 1st QTR).  I am going to go out on a limb and say if GA turns this gift into a TD, GA takes the game 23-17.  If not, well, I do not want to think about another loss at the hands of the Gators.

When we lat met I complained that EA’s PS3 demos of NHL 08 and FIFA 08 were rather bland, short, and overall did not really help me make a purchasing decision.  To me that is the purpose of these demos, and you would think the developers would do everything they can to hook you in and close the sale.  Not so much with EA.

Thursday and Friday night I spent some quality time with the Sega Rally Revo and DiRT demos.  Unlike NHL 08 and FIFA 08, these are really demos, not some crippled, watered down version of the game.  I understand that developers cannot give too much away or they risk everyone playing the free version instead of going after the full retail copy.  With that said, sports games are tricky because the developer needs to give players more than 4-5 minutes to “get into” the game.

Sega Rally Revo was just what I was expected; slip, sliding, on dirt.  It has been a while since my Sega Rally days, but this is fine arcade racing.  Sega gives us a couple of different tracks to try out (3 lap races) which was more than enough for me to think “nice and pretty, but I am not buying it for $59.99.”  I keep writing about the prices of PS3 titles, but to me they are no longer impulse purchases.  I cannot be the only one that feels this way, and if I am, I guess I should just quit my bitching.  This one seems like a good way to waste a weekend (fun in small doses), but it is not going to hold me captive for very long.

DiRT is the complete opposite of Sega Rally Revo; no point in comparing the two, so I am not going to try to embarrass myself.  The DiRT demo lets you try several styles of racing including some crazy ass fun in mud buggies (I forget the technical term), rally, and rally cross.  The sense of speed is fantastic, and the wrecks are rather wicked.  The mud buggy and rally cars handled differently, and the rally cars responded different depending upon the terrain.  I do not like using shoulder buttons for racing (Sega Rally also required L2/R2 triggers), so hopefully the retail version allows you to configure the right analog stick for gas/brake responses.

I will pick up DiRT at some point.  I have read a few reviews, seen the ads on TV, and watched plenty of videos, but playing the demo was enough to finally put me over the edge.  My problem is going to be timing a purchase to line up with free time (it would suck if I do not actually have time to play).

I am running out of steam.  It is 4AM, so hopefully I have represented myself well, without too many type-o’s (at least not more than you are accustomed to reading in my typically ramblings).  I guess I could have simplified things by summarizing this post into a simple two line review.  Sega Rally Revo and DiRT demos available for download at the Playstation Store.  If you have not already done so, download them today!

As I have been working my way back into a steady diet of gaming, I have been pulling down the various demos available on the Playstaion Network.  Sony and the various third party publishers are finally starting to get serious about the availability of PS3 demos.  Or are they?

I have spent a decent amount of time with NHL 08 and FIFA 08 demos, and the common theme for both is that EA did not make the demos long enough to convince me one way or another to buy or avoid each title.

NHL 08 certainly looks pretty, but I have never been a fan of hockey, no matter how often I try, so something other than nice graphics has to convince me to make a purchase.  I think the last hockey game I owned was the original Sony FaceOff game for the PSX, which was something like 2-3 kids ago.  At any rate, I just cannot get into NHL 08.  I probably just need to learn the controls (I am seriously lost on the ice), but the five minute timeline is just not long enough to get into any sort of rhythm.  While I have won a few games, my scoring efforts seem to be a random act of luck, and defense is all CPU AI; I have no idea how to play defense.

Bottom line is that EA did not make the demo compelling enough for this sports fan (and sports gamer) that knows next to nothing about hockey.  I have read that NHL 08 is a wonderful game, but I just do not see me picking this one up for $59.99.  Not sure what I was really expecting, but I guess I was holding out hope that something was going to draw me in and to me to buy this game.

The FIFA 08 demo suffers the same fate as NHL 08.  While I actually understand soccer, the four minute demo is much too short for me to make any sort of judgments.  It sucks having to start over and over and over, just to try to figure out if I want to pick up the game.  I guess having a short demo is better than not having any demos, but the FIFA demo is borderline not worth the effort.

FIFA 08 did not do anything to make me not pick it up, but the field seemed a little too narrow, I seemed to lose most one-on-one battles for possession.  I hate it when games have AI that can do things I cannot, which is a trait for may EA Sports titles (to be fair, mostly thinking NCAA Football and Madden).  Common tread this week has been controls; maybe I have to learn FIFA better before saying that the AI is doing some shady things, but I figured I would throw it out there.

I will probably wait a while on FIFA.  Maybe read some reviews, check out some forums to see how the game is holding up.  The bottom line is that I did not find anything compelling enough in the demo to make me feel like I have to buy this one right away.

It looks like current PS3 owners of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion can look forward to a stand alone Shivering Isles content disk in November.

This new retail product follows the October release of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion® Game of the Year Edition (GotY) for PLAYSTATION®3 system, which includes the Shivering Isles expansion. Originally released in March 2006 for Windows and Xbox 360™ video game and entertainment system from Microsoft and in March 2007 for PLAYSTATION®3 system, Oblivion has already earned countless awards from publications around the world and won numerous Game of the Year and RPG of the Year awards.

I am not sure if that is good news, a rip off, or just a sign that Bethesda Softworks (or whoever actually did the development for the PS3 version) cannot get content to work with PSN.

• Good News: I do not have to pay full retail for Oblivion GotY Edition just to get the Shivering Isles bonus content.
• Rip Off: I am sure it costs more to distribute a retail version, including packaging (case, manual, inserts, disk) compared to pure downloadable content from the PSN.
• Bad News: Is there some reason the developers could not offer the Shivering Isles expansion and other content via the Playstation Network (store)? What’s the problem here? Did the developers not plan for downloadable content and patches? Or did the developers decide it was not worth the effort? I thought downloadable content such as the SI expansion was the reason for PSN.

AS I have previously said, I have not played Oblivion as much as I would like to play it (same with many games), but it is a damn good game. I cannot find anything that indicates if the GotY version contains anything above and beyond the Shivering Isles. In other words, am I better off going with the original plus expansion, or am I better served if I go with the GotY version?

Go visit the gurus at ESPN and see how poorly Diamond Mind Basesball predicted the playoffs. Maybe we can put to rest the “most accurate” baseball game claims made by the DMB crowd.

All indications point to Conan being a fairly average gave for the PS3.  I do think it is interesting to see the various search terms that are coming into the site “PS3 conan boobs” and “ps3 conan breast” seem to be favorites. I expect that we will see fairly low review scores from the various mainstream review sites, but we will see high reader scores. This one has instant cult classic all over it. A teenager’s wet dream come to life. Good stuff!

Speaking of good stuff, there really are a handful of games that I would love to pick up for the PS3, but this $59.99 price point thing pretty much sucks. Back in the old days, I would not hesitate to pick up Heavenly Sword, Conan, Oblivion Game of the Year Edition, FIFA, Ratchet & Clank, Sega Rally Revo, Skate, and DiRT. The $59.99 price point is making these purchases unrealistic; even if I sale them on eBay before the price (or demand) drops, I just no longer consider games priced at $59.99 realistic impulse purchases. On average we are talking about $160 more than I would have paid compared to the typical $39.99 PS2 game.

If Sony really wants to pick up some momentum, they should do something to get first party titles to $49.99 and third party titles to $54.99. Yes, I do think $5-10 will make a difference.