Gaming Tuesday

Achievements

Gamerscore Last Week: 21674
Goal: 21800
Gamerscore Now: 21704

Achievements Unlocked

NCAA Football 11

Treasure Hunter 30G

Goal for Next Week: 21800
$ for HPA: 6.10(+4.80 this week)

Kinect(and the like)

Ok, so there is a new trend towards controllerless gaming. I'm definitely not going to be getting a Kinect for my XBox. It's not really for me. I don't play video games to move around. I wouldn't say I'm vehemently opposed to this new trend, but I'm kind of afraid that this may be the way the video game industry wants to head. By theory it does have broader appeal, but I think most gamers are not big fans of this.

One of the new games for the Kinect is one where you have a virtual pet. So, have this mythological creature as a pet and you pet it by moving your hand over air. Is that not really bloody dumb? And people bitch about regular video games making a person dumb. If I'm playing Call of Duty, I have to think about lots of things(strategy, spawns, douche bag toobers, etc), mast hand-eye coordination, and good twitch reflexes. If I'm playing a game where all I do is pet an imaginary unicorn, well I don't even see how that's fun and I'm definitely not thinking about anything.

If I'm ever at a friends house and the opportunity presents itself to play Kinect or the like, I'll play it can probably have a lot of fun. I just won't spend any of my money on this new trend.

Medal of Honor

There has been a bit of a ruckus of late over the multiplayer in the new Medal of Honor game. *disclaimer* I'm not going to buy this game and totally not because of any this stuff, but because it doesn't look that great to me and there are other games coming out this fall that my gaming budget should go to. So, the deal is that in multiplayer there are two sides and one of them in the Taliban. UK Defense Secretary Liam Brown has called for a retail ban on the game in his country.

So, there's this entire shit storm over this game. Here's the thing though. It's a first person shooter. You don't ever see your character. While you are actually playing you don't know what side your on. In reality, the only noticeable difference is the initial spawn point. Like, on MW2 you may prefer the Spetsnaz spawn on one map and the TF 141 spawn on another. Not to mention that in World at War multiplayer one could could be on the fucking Nazi side.

Point here is that in a FPS nobody really cares what side they are on.

No question this week.

Thanks for reading and please comment.

-Michael

Browns' Monday- The Ghost of Brady Quinn Edition

Browns @ Lions

Cleveland 27
Detroit 35

Scoring Summary

1st Quarter
Cleveland FG: Phil Dawson 35-yard Field Goal
Detroit TD: Matthew Stafford 7-yard Pass to Byrant Johnson
Cleveland TD: Eric Wright returned fumble 44 yards

2nd Quarter
Cleveland TD: Jake Delhomme 5-yard pass to Lawerence Vickers
Detroit TD: Chris Houston returned fumble 14 yards
Cleveland TD: 1-yard rush by Peyton Hillis

3rd Quarter
Detroit TD: 2-yard rush by Kevin Smith
Cleveland FG: Phil Dawson 45-yard Field Goal

4th Quarter
Detroit TD: 4-yard rush by Aaron Brown
Detroit TD: 2-yard rush by Aaron Brown

Significant Stats
Jake Delhomme: 20-25, 152 yards, 1 TD
Colt McCoy: 10-14, 76 yards

If ever you could extrapolate anything from any preseason game, it would the third preseason game for a team. It is given more significance than any other preseason game and usually the starters play the entire 1st half and at least 1 series in the second half. It is the NFL equivalent of a dress rehearsal. For the Browns this year, it looked good on the offensive side of the ball and very poor for the defense.

The 1st team offense looked pretty good. Given that they were playing the Lions; a defense that allowed the Browns to do this last year. I still don't get it though. Daboll somehow became less crappy over the offseason. The personnel on offense hasn't got tremendously better, but the play calling is so much better this year. Like a real NFL offense. It also really helps that Delhomme has avoided throwing the ball to the other team. He was really good at that the past few years. Josh Cribbs seems to have a made the transition to receiver pretty effectively this offseason. He had a pretty cool catch on the sideline on Saturday.

Introducing a new character: Janus, The sheep who enunciates.

The Browns Defense was Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad.

Thanks Janus.

It didn't matter if it was the starters, 2nd string, 3rd string, or some combo of the three. The defense was very bad against the Lions. Granted the Lions offense did this to the Browns defense last year. I really hope Shaun Rodgers will make a big difference when he returns to the front seven, because it was really bad*. The defense didn't really ever stop the Lions, but did manage to score a touchdown. So, good for them. Hopefully they won't allow their opponents to put up forty on them every Sunday.

Nick Sorenson

He was immobilized and carted off the field in first half. Fortunately, he has movement and the tests came back negative. The hit he took was a helmet to helmet sandwich. Basically, the Detroit wedge wedged right on his head and he went down straight away. He's been around for a while and has been a back-up safety and a great special teams player for the Browns. Hopefully he will be able to return to the team soon.

The Ghost of Brady Quinn

I'm going to make premature and over the top statement about Colt McCoy. He reminds me a lot of Brady Quinn. That's not good. Probably not fair after just three preseason games, but he did something to day that screamed of Quinn. He threw a fucking Hail Mary out of bounds. What the Hell? That's something Brady Quinn would do and actually did. Add to that, Colt McCoy always seems to throw it short and to check downs and rarely tries down field. That's Brady Quinn in a nutshell.

Also Peyton Hillis is proving to be a great addition to the team. He was acquired in the Brady Quinn trade.

It's weird to be reminded of Quinn though, because he was so awful. Colt McCoy may be reminding me of Quinn right now, but he has probably the most secure position on the team. He won't be cut no matter what. Even if some reason Mangini decided to keep Ratliff, Delhomme would probably be the one to get the axe. In this alternate reality there are unicorns who crap ice cream and double rainbows happen daily at 13 o'clock.

Thanks for reading and please comment.

-Michael?

*Really Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad

Thanks again Janus

Buckeye Sunday- Marshall

Marshall University

Where: Huntington, West Virginia

Mascot: Thundering Herd

Enrollment: 10,000 approx.

Conference: Conference USA

Record Last Year: 7-6

Head Coach: Doc Holliday

That won't be done with every opponent, but I'll do it for the 3 lesser-known, small conference opponents this season.*

Ok, insider information. I went to a Marshall football game last year. In fact, I'm a bit of a fan of this team.

This season, Marshall has a new football coach, Doc Holliday. He's been an assistant to Urban Meyer at Florida and most recently an assistant at West Virginia. Last year Marshall was coached by a lost** Tressel disciple, Mark Snyder. So, Marshall will be making a offensive transition under Holliday to a spread look.

Marshall's starting quarterback will most likely be Brian Anderson. There is some competition, but it appears that he will at least be the starter at the beginning of the season. Anderson isn't a great quarterback and has major constituency issues. He is experienced though and will likely be improved from last season. Marshall has a young wide receiver group that could potentially be pretty good. If the questions about the the Buckeye secondary, especially at the safety position prove to be true, Marshall could potentially expose them.

In the rushing game, Marshall lost it's star from last season in Darius Marshall. He had rushed for over 1,100 yards and 11 Touchdowns and made an poor decision to go pro. He didn't get drafted. His likely replacement will be Martin Ward. He's a quick young player who has shown some promise. I witnessed last year him getting cock-blocked by an official getting in his way as he was breaking a run to the end zone.

Defensively, Marshall has major issues, particularly in the secondary. The secondary was pretty shaky last year for the Thundering Herd. Add to that, two important pieces of Marshall's secondary were dismissed from the team and it looks like Marshall may have some series issues in their back line. I think Marshall solution will need to be blitz, blitz, blitz and then blitz some more, because the secondary will need to be exposed as little as possible.

Ok, that's what I got on Marshall.

Prediction

Ohio State 45
Marshall 7

Yea, I don't see this one being close at all. Sorry, Patrick.

Thanks for reading and please comment. Maybe give me a guess as to what you think will happen.

-Michael

*If you want I'll do it for all the school. I just think it's unnecessary and patronizing with schools like Miami(FL) and Penn State.

**By lost, I mean really shitty coach.

Non-Post

The Browns game starts in less than an hour. I don't know what to think about it. Mangini played the last game like it was the third preseason game. So, I don't know what to expect. Will he play the 1st string into the 2nd half like he did last game? Or will it be more like a 1st preseason game where the starters only played a few series max? I don't know and that's not what I want to post about. In fact I'm having a hard time picking something to blog about today. I mean I have ideas, I just don't particularly write about them.

There's Glenn Beck going into a new dimension of insane. He's held a rally today on the national mall, which is alright. People are allowed to peacefully assemble even if they are proposing bat shit insane things. It's just that this is the anniversary of MLK's I Have a Dream Speech. It's just I try my best to ignore the tea-baggers.(hehe)

There's been that controversy over the Islamic community center being built in Manhattan. You know it's just a bunch of racist bullshit. It's The proud American tradition of fucking over the newest out group. Here's a question to ask any person who gives one of the many non bullshit reasons other than 'I don't like Muslims'

If the attacks were done by Catholic extremists, or better yet Southern Baptists, would you be afraid to build a church or christian center in NYC?

I was thinking about writing about a few video game topics. There's a new faux-controversy about the new Medal of Honor game. In multiplayer you may be on the 'Taliban' team. I decided to leave a bigger discussion about that for Tuesday. Along with that I wanted to talk about 'Kinect' and the new trend towards hands-free gaming. I'm passionately indifferent about this. More on that, Tuesday as well.

I've made a post of stuff I've decided not to blog about... Success

Thanks for reading.

-Michael

Not Hot. Pretty, but I Won't Say Either

Hello all. Get ready for a pretentious attack. The second part hopefully won't be so pretentious. This is also totally deep into the shallowness.

I try to never use the term 'hot' when I'm describing a girl. I try to stick with 'pretty'. All of theses words come with weird and difficult to describe baggage. I mean it seems that 'hot' and 'pretty' should mean the same thing and in reality I guess they kind of do. It's just they are totally different somehow. At least to me. I'll try to describe, but this may become convoluted and confusing.

'Hot' means a girl is really attractive, but also seems(at least to me) to convey that it's fake. Loads of make up and breast implants are 'hot'. Five inch high heels are 'hot'. 'Hot' implies artificial perfection. 'Hot' also creates a sense of the unobtainable. It's like that's her and I'm me and that's it. That's how it will always be.

Example: Porn Stars

'Pretty' means that the girl is attractive, but it's different than 'hot'. It's more real, whatever that means. It's not clothes, it's not make up. It just is. 'Pretty' doesn't necessarily mean obtainable, but it's just that a 'pretty' girl doesn't seem so different. While a 'hot' girl may seem almost like another species, a 'pretty' girl is another person.

Example: The girl you have a crush on

I hope some of that made sense. It's probably nonsense. Hair-splitting bullshit. I may be just loading words that don't need it.

Ok, on the topic of using labels to describe attractiveness.

I seriously have a major issue with telling a girl I think she's pretty or looks nice or whatever. Whether I actually believe it or not, it just always feels like it would be received as cheesy, pandering bullshit. I'm not talking about times when it's totally inappropriate. Douchebags will tell girls they're looking hot when it isn't called for. I'm talking about times when saying you look nice would be appropriate(i.e. a girl saying she looks bad when she really looks good.) I still won't say it.

It's probably mostly my shy/awkward nature. It's also my liberal guilt. I think it's kinda chauvinistic to tell a girl she's pretty.

Anyway a few drinks gets me over that.

I was thinking of doing pictures with this post, but decided it was shallow enough.

Thanks for reading and please comment.

-Michael

One Week

One week until the college football starts and Ohio State plays Marshall in the opener. Pretty exciting. It will be nice to finally see some football that actually counts. It should be an absolute ass kicking, but still... FOOTBALL.

I'm really unabashed about how good I think this Ohio State team is. There is really only one team in the country who can rival the Buckeyes and that is Alabama. But lets say, Ohio State totally over looks Marshall and bad Terrelle Pryor shows up. It could end up like this:



Ok, that probably won't happen again. '04 was the worst Ohio State team in the past 10 years. Especially early in the year when There was the QB controversy. Justin Zwick and Troy Smith both kind of sucked it up early in 2004. Eventually Smith got the job entirely when Zwick got hurt in a game where Iowa absolutely wrecked Ohio State and by the end of the season showed great improvement. Of course Smith was got suspended for the Bowl game, but still he had won the job for 2005 and would end up winning the Heisman in 2006.

Completely side-tracked yet?

Buckeyes play in one week on Thursday Night for the first time. Anyone have any thoughts on playing a Thursday Night game at Ohio Stadium? Playing college football on almost every week night is the new trend and I don't think Ohio State is above it.

Stop talking now, Michael.

-Michael

Random Wednesday- Nonsensical Imaginary Spending

An alternative title for this post could be "super expensive stuff I want." So, if I had I had a finite infinity of money, this is a list of somethings I would buy. Materialistic bullshit commence.

Old Guitars- More specifically old electric guitars. Like a 50's Fender Stratocaster, an early 60's Les Paul, a mid 60's Epiphone. Oh, and a Gibson SG and I don't really care about the year. In reality, I actually prefer acoustic guitars, but I wouldn't necessarily want to add any Acoustics to my imaginary collection. Maybe a Gibson Dove or something like a Woodie Guthrie guitar or something of the like.

Gaming Consoles- I would buy a PS3 and Wii. Also I would update to one of the new 360 slims, just because the older versions of XBox 360s are so freakin loud.

Car(s)- An Audi R8 V10 would be the car I would want most. Maybe a '70 Corvette Stingray as well.

Trips- I would make a list of all the places and things I want to see, but it can be made simpler. I want to go everywhere and see everything.


I thought this list would be longer, but really that's all.

Thanks for reading and please comment

-Michael