Prognosticate this... sorry, funny word!

So prognostication is not my forte. Well except in the survival football league where I am 7-0(!) None the less, I made projections based on averages of other projections in order to see who would finish where this year. If you use the actual rankings, records and points scored so far, I just sucked on that analysis.

This is not a bad thing as far as I am concerned, considering I am first and second in the two leagues. I think I’ll keep projecting myself to suck every year now!

And Newman buddy… yea, let’s fix that big zero OK?

A bunch of games others have reviewed hundreds of times like 3 years before I played them

A few quick game reviews and thoughts since they have piled up and I never quite found the time to write anything about them:

Fall Out 3
Why the heck am I even bothering to write this? Everyone who games knows the scoop. This was one of the best ever. A ridiculously sized open world in post apocalyptic Washington D.C. with crazy stories, monsters, weapons, and missions. Player customization was without a doubt the highlight of this for me. As always, it is perplexing to realize your character is carrying the load of a pack mule while traversing the wasteland, but it is a game mechanic long accepted. While I ended up skipping half the missions and having to go back during one of the expansions to beat them, the logical layout of mission projection and game advancement was skillfully thought out. Really you need to give 60+ hours of time to Fall Out if you are a big RPG fan. Or a fan of lasers. Or robots. Maybe werewolves too.

Score: 5 out of 5 nuka-colas

Uncharted
Uncharted 2 drops next week, and for the first time as a PS3 owner I am beyond psyched. Uncharted provided the kind of action movie/game experience you never get from either action movies or games. The characters and dialog are the sole winners of this game. You care about your protagonist and his story. The game mechanics are fun, fluid, and tricky enough to make you die a few times. I am sure Uncharted 2 will improve on all the low points, but for Uncharted, the low points are still 8 out of 10s. If you liked Tomb Raider for the genre and not the big boobs, this is right up your alley but sooooo much better. Nathan Drake FTW.

Score: 4 out of 5 zombies in this game for some random reason

Resistance
Seriously poor buy. I have Resistance 2 on my shelf waiting to be played, because I heard so many good things about it, but Resistance was so hard to control, navigate and play that I don’t even know if I should open it. This game comes off feeling like Halo: CE, 5 years after Halo came out. The story gives me hope for Resistance 2, but Resistance one, blow me.

Score: 1 out of 5 wtf aliens from Russia?

Killzone 2
I never played Killzone on the PS2, but I did have a run in with it for the PSP, which turned me onto the story a bit. Boy am I happy I jumped in. Killzone 2 is a fantastic, gritty, futuristic shooter. The sound, graphics, mechanics, story and weapons all drew me in. Killzone 2 falls as a mix of Call of Duty and Halo really. Realistic weapons, combat variants and gore, in a other worldly setting. I really can’t promote the multiplayer as I have not touched it, but it looks to be about as fun as Gears of War, just first person.

Score: 4 out of 5 grenades that beep when thrown are much easier to run away from than the silent type

The Best Video Game Consoles Ever: #10-6

So the first 5 consoles of my top 15 ranking drew up a little debate on the ‘ol blog and on the export of the article to Facebook… exxxcellent. I cannot tell you how much I love that you hate that I put the SNES so low. If you missed numbers 15 through 11, you can see them here. Now it is time to show you who was just a pixel above the worst of the best, I guess you could say.

10. Microsoft Xbox
Score: 31
Games: 7
Graphics/Sound: 7
Controller/Interface: 5
Durability: 6
Intangibles: 6

I hear another wave of complaints coming, but I don’t think I’ll be able to find and read them. See this giant, no; behemoth console is blocking my view. We get it Microsoft, you are monsters. You create everything that is good and powerful. I recommend next time you don’t make a console that won’t fit inside the door of a home. For real though, this was a big machine. The Xbox never got a foothold to go up against the PS2; it simply came out way to late in the generational war to combat Sony. The hardware issues could be called petty, but they existed. The box consumed more power than Zeus, the controller was too big for anyone not named Gigantor, and I defy you to name a console exclusive title outside of Halo: CE and Halo 2 that anyone would look at today with fond memories. A good start Microsoft, but a middle of the road machine.

9. Sega Dreamcast
Score: 32
Games: 8
Graphics/Sound: 5
Controller/Interface: 6
Durability: 7
Intangibles: 6

So many people have the Dreamcast as their favorite console. So few of you actually ever owned one. Those that did, myself not included, considered it a gem. The last Sega console ever was a beauty. The controller was beyond innovative, comfortable and futuristic, the on-line network ahead of its time. The failure of the last great Sega unit is as perplexing as it is sad. Titles like Phantasy Star On-line, Shenmue, Jet Grind Radio, Sonic Adventure and Grandia 2 provided ample chances for the Dreamcast to grab attention as exclusive titles, but the propaganda and advertisement war against Sony and Microsoft was not powerful enough. At the end of the day, many see the Dreamcast as another NES, a system you keep for life and cherish memories with; it just didn’t live long enough.

8. Sony Playstation
Score: 33
Games: 8
Graphics/Sound: 4
Controller/Interface: 5
Durability: 8
Intangibles: 8

The first Sony brought the first massive game library on optical discs. Chances are if you owned an original PS, you still do, because it really didn’t break down. The PS brought us our first appearance of the innovative Dualshock controller, our first play of Crash Bandicoot, and who can forget Final Fantasy VII… seriously, get over it, it happened like 34 years ago. The PS had new games out every damn day, any title you wanted to play that wasn’t named Mario, you had it. Grand Theft Auto, Persona and Star Ocean all provided innovation still copied today. The PS was revolutionary for giving the industry a viable reason and method to go optical, while it’s contemporary the N64 was still slugging along with solid state cartridges. 100 million consoles worldwide are not ever wrong.

7. Nintendo Gamecube
Score: 34
Games: 6
Graphics/Sound: 6
Controller/Interface: 8
Durability: 9
Intangibles: 5

Oh Gamecube, I loved you so much. You were so cute and cuddly for a cube. All tiny and cubey and colorful. It was a console to be loved, and one with some really shining examples of Nintendo game design. While a lot of the games you played on the ‘cube were third generations of SNES and N64 titles, they provided explicit reasons to purchase the console, even late in its life. Zelda Windwaker and Twilight Princess, Super Mario Sunshine, Metroid Prime, Mario Kart Double Dash and any of the 80 versions of Mario Party. This was a fun console to play with friends, and the portability of a tiny lil cube, especially when compared to the monster Xbox or fragile PS2, was nice. The controllers, the last great controller Nintendo ever made, were real joys to hold, and it is no mistake Wii players today still crave the feel of an old Gamecube controller.

6. Sony Playstation 3
Score: 35
Games: 6
Graphics/Sound: 9
Controller/Interface: 6
Durability: 7
Intangibles: 7

And here we go; the first major console of the current generation. Yea the Wii was ranked really low, but I don’t consider the Wii to be current generation gaming at all. So the PS3 falls at least lower than the Xbox 360, and several other units. Graphically, it’s a great machine, top of the line and worth playing new games on. The Blu-ray disc drive is nice for the new movies and such, but the longevity of Blu-ray is still far from determined. Let’s go over some real down points though. The third generation of the Dualshock controller, the Sony “Sixaxis” blows. It feels so light and weak, and the “six axis motion control” is a pointless gimmick and very annoying when you are forced to use it in games. The games themselves are fine a lot are great fun. Console exclusives Killzone 2, Little Big Planet, Metal Gear Solid 4, Uncharted, and soon to be Uncharted 2, are all fantastic. The big issue is that is all there is. The exclusives on the 360, and the downloadable content of this new generation for the 360 games surpasses what is found on the PS3. The dashboard and whole console navigation scheme is clunky, slow and confusing. The real downfall though is the network, it just sucks. Nobody wants to play PS Home, and finding and playing with friends on the PSN is nothing when compared to Xbox Live. Yes the PSN is free, but you get what you pay for in this scenario.

So there we go, another 5 charted and scored, another 5 to be digested and spat back out with your own opinion. That is what is so fantastic about these machines though; so many people had unique and impactful experiences on a particular device, that they still feel the joy of it today. Next week I bring you numbers 5 through the king console of them all, so till then I say bleep bloop.

The Best Video Game Consoles Ever: #15-11

I am a big video game nut. I still own in working condition every system I have ever had except for my PS2, and I’ve played every console available for home use. In purchasing my latest toy, the PS3 Slim the other week, I began a thought process on what console had been my favorite, which was the best in practical use? Well here we go; I done figured it out and ranked the 15 most popular consoles based on five levels of criteria. Each category has a total possible score of 10 points. Consoles 15 through 11 are presented today and I will count down to the next 5, then the top 5 at a later point as soon as well.. I do it.

15. Sega CD
Score: 16
Games: 1
Graphics/Sound: 3
Controller/Interface: 5
Durability: 5
Intangibles: 2

Ah the Sega CD, the only system I ever traded in anything for. I ultimately owned just 3 games for this beast of a console; Silpheed, Tomcat Alley and NBA Jam. The system functioned as an add on to the Sega Genesis. Most of the games developed for it were geared to adults, and they all just sucked. The console was the first to go with an optical disc drive, and the complications of that showed up in spades. Slow read times, flimsy CD tray (replaced for a top load unit later on) and poor capacity for data. Yea that whole saving games thing was an issue. Sega tried to push the envelope here and keep the aging Genesis alive through add ons. The 32x (grouped in with the Genesis for this story) did more for developing greater games than this system ever did. Ultimately there was nothing the Sega CD did that the Sega couldn’t do, outside of video… and lemme tell ya, nobody had a clue what to do with that. Hey it played audio CDs though…

14. Atari Jaguar
Score: 20
Games: 2
Graphics/Sound: 4
Controller/Interface: 2
Durability: 6
Intangibles: 6

A guy I knew had a Jaguar and man did I think it was cool. My first encounter with it was a great game called Dragons Lair, an interactive movie drawn by a famous Disney animator. Titles like that and Alien vs. Predator gave the Atari console some bite, but not enough to ever make a real impact. The controller was a monstrosity, buttons for no reason. Looked a lot more like a phone really. There was no advertising for the thing, which probably makes most people think of the Tiger based handhelds when you bring up a video game system named for an animal. I liked the Jag, but in no sense did it ever compel me to own one.

13. Atari
Score: 25
Games: 3
Graphics/Sound: 1
Controller/Interface: 8
Durability: 7
Intangibles: 6

The Atari was pretty much the start of it all. While not the first commercially available in home system by far, it was the first real mainstream one. This was my first memory of gaming… the gateway drug if you will. I give some major points to the Nintendo for its 8 bit graphics and 8 bit sound later on, because that really generates some saliva from the mouths and minds of gamers when they think of quality, but I don’t give those points to the Atari. It was pretty primitive, bloops and blips. It was replaced for a reason. The games were damn simple; graphing calculators have had better. Basketball was identical to hockey, was identical to tennis. The controller though, man what a beauty. The Atari joystick has come to and will always symbolize gaming.

12. Super Nintendo
Score: 27
Games: 6
Graphics/Sound: 5
Controller/Interface: 6
Durability: 8
Intangibles: 2

So the follow up to the great NES did not quite hold its own for as long and as strong as it should have. The first console war broke out over the SNES and the Sega Genesis, and the SNES just fell short. Graphical power was equal, but the game selection proved mundane. The SNES gave you what Nintendo will be known for forever. Mario, Zelda, and Star Wars. While the Bazooka gun was pretty cool, the gamepad fell far short of the Sega controller. The console was fairly durable, and spit out a lot of solid games, but just not the innovative titles Sega was able to produce on a yearly basis.

11. Nintendo Wii
Score: 30
Games: 2
Graphics/Sound: 3
Controller/Interface: 8
Durability: 7
Intangibles: 10

This will easily be the most controversial ranking on the list. No console has ever sold so fast or created such buzz. No console has ever re-designed how we game faster than the Wii. The controller and whole concept is very innovative, a true game changer leaving Sony and Microsoft running to catch up. It’s a child’s toy however, a lame step back in entertainment. This system is for non-gamers. If you grew up on games and you love challenges and adventure, you laugh at this. Every game put out for it is mundane, simple in execution and scope, and laughable graphically. Step aerobics and swinging cheap peripherals around to simulate what I used to be able to do with a joystick? No thanks. I play sports for a workout, not video games,

Next week I’ll drop 10-6 on ya. Stick around.

Not sick and not a dope

So I have a bunch of posts coming soon on video games, music and sports... ya know, the important stuff. I may also have a post about how police officers can suck my nuts, but anyway, allow me to hold you over with a pearl of wisdom.

No.. no Facebook, I will not click to play. See I am not 14, from 1997, nor am I a Ninja Turtle. I find the terms "sickest" and "dopest" to mean disease and stupidity.. something you come to represent more and more everyday.

OK, see ya soon.

Why bother playing? Grading the fanatasy football draft

So after feeling particularly horrible about my fantasy football draft last night, having scored the super sweet 14th pick in the swing position, I decided I should really take a look overall at how that horrible team I had pieced together stacked up. I began to think about a way to grade everyone’s draft, but outside of using my entirely unprofessional opinion, a way to do it mathematically, and give what I rate some credence.

A few magical seconds later I came up with this method: Using the Yahoo! projections, (which is based off of Rotowire) take every starter’s projected year end fantasy points position for a team, each divided by 16 for the games played, and add them up. This figure should represent an average points scored per week for that team. At the end of it all, I would have a rank of power per team, theoretically breaking down that team’s performance for any given week. A few players did not have kickers, so I gave them an average overall kicker score. Well, let’s just say this got interesting.


My horrible draft turned out not so bad after all. Only five of us crafted a 100+ point team, with my hot Cooley Wives coming in 5th. My co-worker Greg gets the top spot with 104.04, and poor old Scott didn’t make it to 90, with 89.65. #1 overall pick holder Mr. Ford gets a 96.52 good for 9th place.

So naturally, it was time to turn this to our Dynasty league. This took a slight bit more prognostication, and some players had not set their starters yet. I used the best number per position on a team, so if Drew Brees was a 350.00 and Tom Brady a 400.00, I put Brady in the QB slot. This league also has one more starting position than the regular league, and only 10 teams, so point totals were significantly higher.


Well there you have it. The rich got richer. Last year’s champ Swampy Drunk Donkeys of Fordy score a motherfucking 134.50. That is 17.86 points higher than runner-up Dave at 116.64. Poor Howie appears not to have improved his chances much on finishing ahead of dead last again, with a score of 105.53 good for last. Myself, well I felt pretty good about my chances this year, now… well, who wants to trade me some free agency money and draft picks?

Another interesting item is Newman dropping from 3rd to 8th. Obviously intangibles like bench spots are not a factor here, as Newman’s “3 Great QBs” scheme does not equal points on the starter bench in this algorithm, where last year it proved strong when injuries and trades came up.

All told, this paints an interesting picture for the year to come, I think it is a fair guess at how everyone will finish, if you subtract manager skill, and give or take the free agent gems and injuries … not to mention those who fall asleep after week 6.

Can’t wait to come back in December and see how this draft score/projection worked out.

Rumors of our demise were greatly exaggerated

100 can be a big number can’t it? If you make it to 100 years old, you’re considered healthy, a specimen stronger than 90% of your peers. 100 bucks is nothing to scoff at for the vast majority of the world’s population. 100 M&M’s filled that jar you tried to guess the contents of.

In the Blogging world, 100 kinda blows… well depending on how long it took you to get there. A really well written, ok scratch that, an obsessive blogger who cares to write content daily would be here in a few months. It took us three years. But yay for us!

A project born of communication between college friends expanded into commentary on media, booze, life, sports and empty thoughts. Readership is only a hundred or so people who all know us directly, mixed in with the hundred or so who stumble in from the wide world of the interwebs.

What matters about this blog is the ability to type what comes from our minds and have our friends absorb it. We used to have discussions about nothing on an hourly basis in our dorms and apartments. Now we only talk on birthdays, weddings and non-frequent random occasions. By placing thoughts and content on a equally assessable shelf, we can all hear… or read, the opinion of our friend again whom totally forgot we didn’t want to hear it in the first place.

So to our 100th post I say hello to my college brethren, all our gathered friends, and to the randoms who googled Miley Cyrus and found that one post where I wrote she’s a bimbo. I hope you come around for out next 100 as well.

A few good blogs are your allies in the fight against Mr. Clock

What do you do when you are bored? I read. I don’t read books per se, but I like to read articles; Stories and snippets on science and technology. Then there is the oft found blog about junk food and just junk that catches my eye. I thought I would share a few favorites.

This is Why You’re Fat is an incredible photojournalistic journey through some of the most disgustingly good looking food stuffs you could ever conceive. The skill some of these confection’s creators had to know the desires of our stomachs is beyond devine.

Everyone is familiar with the Gawker Media stable of blogs. I personally enjoy Kotaku’s work on video games, Gizmodo on technology and gadgets, and Lifehacker on 1,001 ways to improve the way you live your life.

Uncrate is a collection of things a guy never knew he needed to have until they told him. Five new items appear every day, and I recommend glancing through them all at the end of a hard day’s work earning your money to buy such devices.

Lunch Bag Art is a series of photographs by a video game artist who draws a new cartoon on his children’s lunch bags every day. All of you looking forward to being parents one day, this guy trumps you already.

Now if you forgive me, work needs to be done.

District 9

So I just saw this movie tonight, and in light of Jason's rave review, thought I would offer my own thoughts of it. I'll do my best to keep the plot spoiler free. If I'm to judge District 9 by the reactions of the person sitting next to me, then there's but one emotional response I need to go into: cringing. People explode in this movie. Lots of people, lots of exploding. If you've ever imagined a way that someone could possibly explode, this movie has you covered. Ok, to be fair there are some funny moments, the action and animation are top notch, and the whole human/alien oppression shtick hits pretty true. But man, this movie is gruesome.

The other point I wanted to make is about the aliens. Jason's review noted a real sense of caring for what come to be known as "prawns". I'd say he's half right. As a race they definitely come off as less despicable than their human oppressors, but there's only ever a couple of them that are given much regard, which I thought still fell a little short.

At any rate, if you can get past the abundance of exploding and gore, District 9 is a good movie. Action and aliens set to a solid, if guilt-inducing, story. Also, a robot. What more could you ask for?

District 9 equals total awesomeness

Very minor content and non-plot based spoiler alerts for those who have not seen District 9.

Not a spoiler alert: I am a geek. I love Sci-Fi.

I love this fucking movie.


District 9 elicited several emotions out of the person sitting next to me and myself. Laughter. Cheers. Anger. Crying. Really really crying. Fear. Disgust. Lots more cheers.

The basic plot is about aliens coming to earth, not really having any wherewithal to take care of themselves or find a way home, and the humans abusing them, segregating them, and trying to steal their technology.

What develops is a story about one man who is a self absorbed idiot, who somehow got the hot wife and thus a cushy job from her dad. Our “hero” never inspired much sympathy from me because his heroic acts are all self-involved, and hes a doofus.

Who I did/do cheer for are the “Prawn” or aliens. I found a very high level of emotion levied in them, and found myself drawn to their plight and personal desires. I caught myself wanting so badly for the humans to be slaughtered and the Prawn to escape back to their home world. The emotional journey you are taken on, from curiosity about the creatures, to disgust for human nature, to anger over torture, to joy when at least some aliens improve their lives, is a long trip.

I found myself the day after during a long drive, daydreaming about the alien characters I had just met, their incredible technology, guns, robots and the battles that ensued. I wanted to hear the child alien’s words again, and I wanted to watch 100 more human bodies explode upon use of the alien lightning gun. In other words, this is a DVD purchase.

Director Neil Blomkamp would have killed it if he got to make his Halo movie, instead he created this masterpiece. I feel this is a story that makes comments on bigotry, racism, class struggles, weapons industries, and the general disgusting feeling you get when you look at what really drives the human condition. Probably the most memorable line for me of the whole movie happens right away. “Not everyone was shocked when the alien ship did not come to rest over New York, Los Angeles or Chicago; but in Johannesburg.”

Simple messages, simple pleasures. Go see this and enjoy the CGI, enjoy the weapons, enjoy the action and the emotions. Stop for a second and think about the comments the movie makes, and then see the damn thing again cause it is so fun.

Hopefully you walk away feeling the same way I did; wanting the aliens to declare war on Earth and blow it all up. In this movie, we deserve it.

Score: 5 out of 5 for wicked alien badassery

Why Ad writers don't write movies... most of the time

Reading some news articles… who am I kidding… blog posts today, I found myself wondering why so many people, millions really, are so shocked that Transformers 1 and 2 were some of the worst movies ever made. G.I. Joe is ready to step in and take T2’s spot next week. Why such a shock though? Look at what you are working with for source material, and who was put in charge.


Transformers and G.I. Joe were not well written, story driven, childhood gems. They were commercials. 30 minuets long, decade spanning commercials, designed to sell toys. Trying to make a real movie out of them is like trying to take the Geico cavemen and make a TV show…. Oh yea, opps... well, point proven.

We didn’t watch these shows because they had stories on par with Looney Toons or Chip and Dales Rescue Rangers. We watched them because they had toy tie ins that we were captivated by and bought.

Very few of these series in the 80s had anything close to smart intellectual property, and because of that, I don’t ever expect the likes of Michael Bay or any other talentless director to be able to craft a real story about them.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had a moderate amount of entertainment value and success as a movie franchise, but that was because the source material had real writing and didn’t have to showcase a new vehicle or character every week to buy. There is one other hope for a great movie from our childhood in line with the Turtles. Thundercats.

The Thundercats were one of the most unique and well written ideas and series in the entirety of the decade, and it would transfer over beautifully to the live action big screen with the correct team.

Just take a look at what fans were able to do. (from io9) Gets you kinda juiced up doesn’t it?

Barrier of entry

I've been cursed with feeling insightful today. On a normal day I'll be searching through my usual treasure trove of entertainments to occupy my mind until the next essential comes up, but not today. Today, just glancing about the usual settings yields something new and inspiring. I don't need some overstimulating nonsense to keep my mind going at a normal clip, there's just a natural flow of good ideas coming in. I can even write this blog with a surprising minimum of distractions and needs to drag out my thesaurus. Now what's so damning about this welcome change to the norm? It just so happens I'll tell you.

This insight I'm boasting about comes at a price. All the things crammed at the back of my mind are resurfacing in a fresh new light. It still sounds like I'm complaining about a good thing doesn't it.....well so much of what inhabit the back of my temporal lobe are regrets. Things I've had such well meaning intentions to learn or revisit but never do. Books I haven't read, good movies never watched. Places never explored, ideas never fully thought out. Old friends I haven't reconnected with, girls I was too afraid to ask out.

On a normal day I have reasons for each and every one. "I was focused on something else", "I had too much going on", "I haven't finished that last book I started", "they probably don't remember me", "no WAY she's interested...." But on a day like today, I know these are all barriers I've made for myself. My cozy little comfort box that blocks away all things scary and new. All it would take is to invest some small time and effort to get past that initial hump of doubt and I'll have expanded this minuscule little chunk of existence I inhabit. That's it, that's all. On a day like today, everything feels like it should be in reach.

So why isn't it? Why can't I accomplish everything I want to in life? All kinds of imagined restrictions circle around, but the only one that seems to hold any truth is the one I hate to acknowledge more than any other: Time. Even should I manage to focus and accomplish things one by one, my imagination will always work faster than the rest of me. That's not even counting tomorrow when the flurry of doubts and barriers come back to play. Well, it's 4pm right now. Let's see what I can do today.