Thursday, November 3, 2011
Twilight
I haven't read the books or seen the movies, but I've gotten the gist of Twilight and its sequels from their being lampooned frequently in pop culture. Oh Noa has brought Reasoning With Vampires to my attention with her "Funny Bitch Friday" post. It's a great rebuttal to those Twilight fans who claim that Stephanie Meyer is a good writer despite what you may think about the books.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Google Reader
I don't like the new Google Reader interface at all. Before it was compact and easy to navigate. I understand they're trying to mix it together with G+, but I wish there were a way to use the legacy mode.
Monday, August 15, 2011
I can't tell if this is annoying or awesome...
I was trying to copy and paste a line from an article on one of my favorite time-waster websites, cracked.com today when I noticed the clipboard had extra text added to it. Example:
Now if i just want to post a one-liner to someone from one of these websites, I have to manually sanitize it through notepad. Thanks, web 2.0!
If you hang around Internet message boards, about once a month or so somebody will announce they're fed up with America and want to move abroad. The reasons vary: they want to escape to Canada to get away from the corrupt corporations, or they fear a President Bachmann. Maybe they want to go to Japan and get a job as President of Anime.My first reaction is "wow, that's annoying, I bet they have some sort of javascript on the backend that does that." So, with a little bit of searching, I discover that a lot of websites are starting to do this and they use a service called tynt to do so. Rather than using a third-party to insert the text, another person has found a way to do it in javascript. It's a clever little script that doesn't modify the clipboard contents, but rather the buffer of selected text as it gets copied to the clipboard.
Now if i just want to post a one-liner to someone from one of these websites, I have to manually sanitize it through notepad. Thanks, web 2.0!
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
News and Notes
- Just got a new job, going to be dealing at the Horseshoe of Southern Indiana (the one in Elizabeth, not the one in Hammond, since there are two casinos named Horseshoe in Indiana.) I haven't dealt since the WSOP so we'll see how rusty I am.
- My good friend Matt got me to play City of Heroes/Villains with him. I'd played it off and on a bit before but never really got into it. I'm having a lot of fun with it now. I made a mind/energy controller and I enjoy having mobs attack each other instead of me. I'm almost level 30; I should hit that tonight and I'm going to be creating a new costume. The character customization in the game is awesome, 100x better than anything WoW has. My other favorite activity in the game is exploiting the Black Market (Auction House). People really like to leave a lot of money on the table at the benefit of dumping an item quickly.
- I haven't told any stories from the WSOP yet, but I promise I will. Here's a taste: http://bit.ly/q4Td03 I totally dealt this hand.
Friday, July 22, 2011
Back from Vegas
So, I'm back from working in Las Vegas for 2+ months. I had a lot of fun out there. I'll try to write about some of my experiences in my upcoming posts.
The flight out there sucked. I'd been flying Southwest recently, but I found a much cheaper flight on American so I went with them. I'd been flying with Southwest so long that I forgot that other airlines charge you to check bags. The woman behind the counter was unsympathetic and frankly was a fucking bitch. Another AA employee I encountered later was also being shitty, so needless to say, I won't be using AA for my travel needs in the future.
I went with United on the way back (two months later) and the people I encountered with them were much more friendly. There were issues with the flight that were out of their control but they handled them as well as I can imagine. My flight back to Louisville had an hour layover in Denver. As I was getting ready to board in Denver, there was a slight delay as storms moved into the area. They stopped long enough to let us get on the plane, but then more storms kept us trapped on the plane for another hour.
The flight was fine after that, but then once again, more storms in the Louisville area and we had to circle for 45 minutes. Eventually, the pilot told us we were in danger of running out of fuel, so we had to land in Indianapolis to refuel. By the time that happened, the storms in Louisville were over and the airport was reopened. We landed a little after 2am, instead of the scheduled 11:15pm. To top off the wonderful night, the power was out when I got home and didn't come back on until 9am the next day.
Okay, I guess I'm done bitching for now. I had limited net access while I was in Vegas, so I have lots of blogs and tweets to catch up on. I'd really like to write a lot about dealing in the WSOP but I want to doublecheck the legality of doing so as to not endanger my working relationship with Caesar's/Harrah's. I believe their terms specify badmouthing the company, but I don't have any plans to do so. I'd rather be safe than sorry however.
One quick note though: they were talking on the radio about whether or not the Yankees should bat Jeter lower in the order. If your immediate answer isn't "yes, of course they should" then you need to take Jeter's dick out of your mouth and start asking yourself what the ultimate goal in baseball is. Is it to pander to once-great players egos or is it to win games? Too many people are concerned about the former.
The flight out there sucked. I'd been flying Southwest recently, but I found a much cheaper flight on American so I went with them. I'd been flying with Southwest so long that I forgot that other airlines charge you to check bags. The woman behind the counter was unsympathetic and frankly was a fucking bitch. Another AA employee I encountered later was also being shitty, so needless to say, I won't be using AA for my travel needs in the future.
I went with United on the way back (two months later) and the people I encountered with them were much more friendly. There were issues with the flight that were out of their control but they handled them as well as I can imagine. My flight back to Louisville had an hour layover in Denver. As I was getting ready to board in Denver, there was a slight delay as storms moved into the area. They stopped long enough to let us get on the plane, but then more storms kept us trapped on the plane for another hour.
The flight was fine after that, but then once again, more storms in the Louisville area and we had to circle for 45 minutes. Eventually, the pilot told us we were in danger of running out of fuel, so we had to land in Indianapolis to refuel. By the time that happened, the storms in Louisville were over and the airport was reopened. We landed a little after 2am, instead of the scheduled 11:15pm. To top off the wonderful night, the power was out when I got home and didn't come back on until 9am the next day.
Okay, I guess I'm done bitching for now. I had limited net access while I was in Vegas, so I have lots of blogs and tweets to catch up on. I'd really like to write a lot about dealing in the WSOP but I want to doublecheck the legality of doing so as to not endanger my working relationship with Caesar's/Harrah's. I believe their terms specify badmouthing the company, but I don't have any plans to do so. I'd rather be safe than sorry however.
One quick note though: they were talking on the radio about whether or not the Yankees should bat Jeter lower in the order. If your immediate answer isn't "yes, of course they should" then you need to take Jeter's dick out of your mouth and start asking yourself what the ultimate goal in baseball is. Is it to pander to once-great players egos or is it to win games? Too many people are concerned about the former.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
MLB2K11 and WoW
I spent some time over the last few days playing both of these games. I'll talk about MLB2K11 first and then WoW in my next post. I have a 360 and not a PS3, so I'm talking about that version of the game. Unfortunately, this also means I can't play The Show, which I've heard by all accounts is a better game.
First of all, I have to say the controls are much improved over last years game. The step hitting timing was so difficult for me that I could only do slap hits and my offense sucked ass. Also, even though I'm bad at pitching, I'm better this year. Last year, if you were only a little bit off on a gesture, you'd throw a "meatball." This year, it's better at figuring what pitch you meant to throw and at least makes some semblance of that pitch.
I only rented the game for five days and I spent the majority of my time playing My Player mode. I made a left-handed 1st baseman in the Cubs organization. I figured if I could build my guy up through a year in the minors, I'd have a shot of making the major league club the next year, depending on what direction they wanted to go. So, I messed up on my "clutch moment" at the beginning of the game and began my grind.
Every at-bat, the game gives you a task to try to complete for points you use to increase your players attributes. These tasks include get on base, get an extra base hit, drive in a run, don't swing at pitches out of the zone, etc. They add to the fun of each at-bat.
I found hitting to be very streaky. I'd go a few games getting a hit or two or three in a row, then I'd go cold for a week. I know hitting a real baseball is incredibly difficult, but the timing just seemed to be off a lot more than it should be. After playing the game a bit, you'd get into a pretty good rhythm, however sometimes you'd just start being very early or very late on all pitches. Also, "power hitting" is incredibly sketchy. They should've called it "pop foul back hitting" instead. You could get a four-seamer right down the middle of the plate, perform a power hit, and the ball would fly straight up and back and get caught a few seconds later by the catcher. I found contact hitting to be much more reliable. I only hit one(!) home run in the minors and that was with a contact swing. As I kept putting points into the necessary categories, I did notice my guy was making better and more solid contact with the ball.
Unfortunately, the hitting was the best part about My Player mode. The defense was kinda terrible. To minimize the amount of time you're actually controlling your guy during a game, you'll only be active on defensive plays where you're going to be making a play. As good as this is for speeding up the game, it means that if you're asked to play defense, you're *going* to be making a play. Playing first base was basically following the exact same steps:
Ball is hit. If line drive, catch ball, play over. If bouncer, if you moved to left, catch and step on bag. If you moved right, catch and toss to pitcher. If play started with runner on first, throw ball to second to start double play. If ball is hit over head into right field, do nothing. If ball is popped up, move to target to catch ball.
There, I think I just covered every scenario. It was so bad, that sometimes the guy would ground the ball foul. If this happened, he would often ground it to the exact same place 2-6 more times until he eventually grounded it fair and you could step on the bag. I only made one error at first base when I accidentally put too much oomph on my toss to the pitcher and winged the ball into the dugout.
Baserunning was the most time consuming part of the game. If you got a single with zero out, you'd often spend as much time on the bases that inning as you would spend playing the rest of the entire game. You press the right trigger to increase your lead and the left trigger to decrease it. You can increase your lead from first four "units." If you increase it to 3 or 4, sometimes the pitcher would throw over to first and you'd have to go back. So far so good. However, to signal a steal, regardless of your lead, you hold down the right trigger until the controller gives a very slight vibrate. 99.9% of the time when you did this, a second later, the pitcher would throw to second and your guy would start running to second. You'd immediately have to hit left trigger to retreat him to first, then the second baseman (or shortstop) would throw the ball to first and you'd easily be safe. I literally did this little dance twenty(!) times in a row. Signal steal, start for second, back to first, Signal steal, start for second, back to first. If you try to wait until the last possible second to signal a steal, for example, when the pitcher comes out of the stretch, it's too late. You can't start the runner until the ball is either caught by the catcher or hit. It's *incredibly* frustrating to be given a task of "complete a hit 'n' run" and you can't even leave first base early.
So, despite all of the problems, I played an entire minor league season with my guy. The only stat-based requirement I fulfilled was "play 15 games" I did not get an average of .260, OBP of .300 or a slugging % of .400. I only had 21 RBIs, 1 HR, a handful of extra-base hits and five steals for an entire season. I did complete all of the skill based requirements save one, and I thought I'd possibly get called up in September. My team, the Smokies won their AA championship but I didn't get called up. The Cubs didn't make the playoffs, but I remember the Angels beat the Brewers in the World Series.
Before I returned the game to the store tonight, I got invited to Spring Training. I only played ten games or so, and I was batting .200 with 4 RBIs. The team was in an odd state at the beginning of 2012. The organization didn't resign Carlos Pena, or any first baseman for that matter. Even my terrible guy was a shoe-in to get the starting job, considering I was the only listed first baseman in the entire organization. The Cubs did sign one guy though: Grady Sizemore was our new center fielder. Other than the unfun defense and baserunning, I also didn't like how the Spring Training games were going. You'd expect the lineups to be different so other players could get to play, but no. It was just the regular season lineup and rotation.
The game has a lot of problems that make me not want to purchase it. I'm really eager to try out The Show now.
First of all, I have to say the controls are much improved over last years game. The step hitting timing was so difficult for me that I could only do slap hits and my offense sucked ass. Also, even though I'm bad at pitching, I'm better this year. Last year, if you were only a little bit off on a gesture, you'd throw a "meatball." This year, it's better at figuring what pitch you meant to throw and at least makes some semblance of that pitch.
I only rented the game for five days and I spent the majority of my time playing My Player mode. I made a left-handed 1st baseman in the Cubs organization. I figured if I could build my guy up through a year in the minors, I'd have a shot of making the major league club the next year, depending on what direction they wanted to go. So, I messed up on my "clutch moment" at the beginning of the game and began my grind.
Every at-bat, the game gives you a task to try to complete for points you use to increase your players attributes. These tasks include get on base, get an extra base hit, drive in a run, don't swing at pitches out of the zone, etc. They add to the fun of each at-bat.
I found hitting to be very streaky. I'd go a few games getting a hit or two or three in a row, then I'd go cold for a week. I know hitting a real baseball is incredibly difficult, but the timing just seemed to be off a lot more than it should be. After playing the game a bit, you'd get into a pretty good rhythm, however sometimes you'd just start being very early or very late on all pitches. Also, "power hitting" is incredibly sketchy. They should've called it "pop foul back hitting" instead. You could get a four-seamer right down the middle of the plate, perform a power hit, and the ball would fly straight up and back and get caught a few seconds later by the catcher. I found contact hitting to be much more reliable. I only hit one(!) home run in the minors and that was with a contact swing. As I kept putting points into the necessary categories, I did notice my guy was making better and more solid contact with the ball.
Unfortunately, the hitting was the best part about My Player mode. The defense was kinda terrible. To minimize the amount of time you're actually controlling your guy during a game, you'll only be active on defensive plays where you're going to be making a play. As good as this is for speeding up the game, it means that if you're asked to play defense, you're *going* to be making a play. Playing first base was basically following the exact same steps:
Ball is hit. If line drive, catch ball, play over. If bouncer, if you moved to left, catch and step on bag. If you moved right, catch and toss to pitcher. If play started with runner on first, throw ball to second to start double play. If ball is hit over head into right field, do nothing. If ball is popped up, move to target to catch ball.
There, I think I just covered every scenario. It was so bad, that sometimes the guy would ground the ball foul. If this happened, he would often ground it to the exact same place 2-6 more times until he eventually grounded it fair and you could step on the bag. I only made one error at first base when I accidentally put too much oomph on my toss to the pitcher and winged the ball into the dugout.
Baserunning was the most time consuming part of the game. If you got a single with zero out, you'd often spend as much time on the bases that inning as you would spend playing the rest of the entire game. You press the right trigger to increase your lead and the left trigger to decrease it. You can increase your lead from first four "units." If you increase it to 3 or 4, sometimes the pitcher would throw over to first and you'd have to go back. So far so good. However, to signal a steal, regardless of your lead, you hold down the right trigger until the controller gives a very slight vibrate. 99.9% of the time when you did this, a second later, the pitcher would throw to second and your guy would start running to second. You'd immediately have to hit left trigger to retreat him to first, then the second baseman (or shortstop) would throw the ball to first and you'd easily be safe. I literally did this little dance twenty(!) times in a row. Signal steal, start for second, back to first, Signal steal, start for second, back to first. If you try to wait until the last possible second to signal a steal, for example, when the pitcher comes out of the stretch, it's too late. You can't start the runner until the ball is either caught by the catcher or hit. It's *incredibly* frustrating to be given a task of "complete a hit 'n' run" and you can't even leave first base early.
So, despite all of the problems, I played an entire minor league season with my guy. The only stat-based requirement I fulfilled was "play 15 games" I did not get an average of .260, OBP of .300 or a slugging % of .400. I only had 21 RBIs, 1 HR, a handful of extra-base hits and five steals for an entire season. I did complete all of the skill based requirements save one, and I thought I'd possibly get called up in September. My team, the Smokies won their AA championship but I didn't get called up. The Cubs didn't make the playoffs, but I remember the Angels beat the Brewers in the World Series.
Before I returned the game to the store tonight, I got invited to Spring Training. I only played ten games or so, and I was batting .200 with 4 RBIs. The team was in an odd state at the beginning of 2012. The organization didn't resign Carlos Pena, or any first baseman for that matter. Even my terrible guy was a shoe-in to get the starting job, considering I was the only listed first baseman in the entire organization. The Cubs did sign one guy though: Grady Sizemore was our new center fielder. Other than the unfun defense and baserunning, I also didn't like how the Spring Training games were going. You'd expect the lineups to be different so other players could get to play, but no. It was just the regular season lineup and rotation.
The game has a lot of problems that make me not want to purchase it. I'm really eager to try out The Show now.
Friday, February 11, 2011
The Black Hole of Sports
That's how I feel about this time of the year. I'm only a very casual NBA fan and my interest in NCAA basketball has waned since high school. Speaking of NCAA Basketball, I'd rather listen to two Dick Vitales arguing with each other than have to listen to Bill Rafery. Everytime he starts off his broadcast with "AND THE SOANDSOS GO MANUHMAN!" I curse myself for forgetting to mute the TV. Sometimes the other team starts off in a 2-3 zone and he's not as enthused; those are good times.
But I digress. Football is over (forever!) and even though pitchers and catchers report this weekend, that still means we don't get to see real baseball games for a couple months. Thank god there are video games to keep me entertained.
But I digress. Football is over (forever!) and even though pitchers and catchers report this weekend, that still means we don't get to see real baseball games for a couple months. Thank god there are video games to keep me entertained.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Sports Notes on Super Sunday
- The Super Bowl is only a few hours away now. Devon is roasting chicken for us to eat while we watch the game. Amazing food and a (hopefully) amazing game.
- Gonna watch Celtics/Magic before the football comes on. I can't bring myself to watch NFL coverage the day of the game before the game. They just repeat the same shit over and over. I'm tired of hearing about why the '85 Bears didn't win more than one championship and where the Terrible Towel and Cheesheads came from.
- Speaking of the NBA, apprently Melo might go to the Knicks. This looks like the piece they need to break into the top of the East.
- UK/Florida last night had some of the horrendous officiating I've come to expect from college basketball these days. I'm not just complaining because UK lost, at least the bad calls were going both ways. Maybe the referees need to stand in different places or something? I always hear about games being called by a "Big East Officiating Team" or something during the NCAAs. Does that mean that each conference is basically calling the games differently? I've seen ACC, Big East and SEC games this year mostly, and they're all pretty bad. Does the Pac-10 have awesome officials and I just don't get to see them?
Saturday, February 5, 2011
It would be a dream come true
http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2011/02/pujols-talks-not-going-well.html
If Pujols does hit the open market after the 2011 season, Rosenthal writes that the Cubs, Rangers, and Angels are among the teams that could pursue Pujols.
The snippet also mentions that the Red Sox and Yankees probably wouldn't pursue him because they're already set at 1st base. Dare I think Pujols could sign with the Cubs? The reality of the situation though is that the Cardinals *have* to resign him... he's the best player in baseball and more or less the face of the franchise. I wonder what he's asking for that's higher than $275mil/10yrs.
If Pujols does hit the open market after the 2011 season, Rosenthal writes that the Cubs, Rangers, and Angels are among the teams that could pursue Pujols.
The snippet also mentions that the Red Sox and Yankees probably wouldn't pursue him because they're already set at 1st base. Dare I think Pujols could sign with the Cubs? The reality of the situation though is that the Cardinals *have* to resign him... he's the best player in baseball and more or less the face of the franchise. I wonder what he's asking for that's higher than $275mil/10yrs.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Super Bowl XLV
I'm a big Steelers fan so I'm pretty excited about Sunday. I've been pretty lucky as a sports fan to be rooting for teams that have been somewhat successful over the years. I've been a Kentucky Basketball fan since I was a kid so I got to experience (in my opinion) the greatest college basketball team ever assembled (the 1995-1996 team.) I've also been able to witness the Steelers win a couple titles so there's that. However, I'd trade all of those just to see the Cubs win the World Series.
Sunday's game seems like it's going to be interesting. I hope the Steelers can pull it off, but I'm worried about Pouncey being out. Guess we'll see what happens.
Sunday's game seems like it's going to be interesting. I hope the Steelers can pull it off, but I'm worried about Pouncey being out. Guess we'll see what happens.
First Post
My old blog (which is now defunct) kinda sucked. I don't expect this one to really be that much better.
I kinda hate twitter. It's usefulness as a social networking tool to send small amounts of pertinent data to large groups of people is quite remarkable, but I'm not particularly good at quippy one-liners. So using it as a medium to convey complex ideas is quite difficult. I used to be violently opposed to twitter, but I finally drank the Kool-aid and signed up for my own account. My life hasn't changed in the least.
Rather than lump anything else into this post, I'm gonna post it and write something marginally more substantial.
I kinda hate twitter. It's usefulness as a social networking tool to send small amounts of pertinent data to large groups of people is quite remarkable, but I'm not particularly good at quippy one-liners. So using it as a medium to convey complex ideas is quite difficult. I used to be violently opposed to twitter, but I finally drank the Kool-aid and signed up for my own account. My life hasn't changed in the least.
Rather than lump anything else into this post, I'm gonna post it and write something marginally more substantial.
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