Why GTA IV isn't all that

So today, I'm catching up on some of the other achievements and working on other random things. I decide I'm going to work on the swimming part of the Liberty City Marathon (of course if they knew what they were doing, they'd have called it a decathlon - ten events - but whatever), 40 miles. I've got 1 done, so I've got a ways to go.

I swim for a bit, climb into a boat and drive, jump back in and swim, walk on the shore, and so on. At one point, I look up and notice that I'm taking damage ... from ... uh, I don't know. Fatigue, I guess?

So I panic and swim madly for sure, but of course action fatigue sets in and so Niko can only swim at slow speed for a while. (I guess that experience in the war didn't really help any.) Finally, I crawl onto land just before I die.

As I'm making my way back to civilization, Packie calls me. Sure, I'll play pool. So I head toward a street where I can catch a cab.

I pass a hot dog stand. Hmm, I'm almost dead, I could use one. And here is where some of GTA's many flaws converge:

• There's someone standing on the hot spot, so I can't buy a hot dog; worse yet, I start circling him, moving back and forth to try to find out how to get where he is.
• Naturally, he takes exception to me, but I don't want to start anything because I don't have a car or life. He takes a swing and takes the last of my health.
• I wake up outside the hospital, without my untouched life vest (I guess even though they can resurrect you with all your weapons, they take your body armor). However, now Packie no longer appears on the map.
• I don't come pick him up (because I don't know where he is), so of course he texts me and is mad.

Awesome.

Rockstar, you're playing with fire. GTA has a fairly committed fan base, but honestly, there are problems with GTA IV. A lot of them. You need to address some of them before GTA V comes out, or you're going to end up like EA (I know, from an economic sense that would be great), with some casual fans who like the games and hardcore enemies who hate how solid franchises were slowly brought down to earth.

At the very least, next time, give me an option to tell my friend "Sure, I'll play pool, but I'm dying on the beach right now. How about two hours?"

Dear Powers-that-be,

I'm not sure what exactly it was that we did, or who did it, or whatever, but anyway, on behalf of the residents of and visitors to the state of Indiana, I apologize for all of it.

Sincerely,
zlionsfan

P.S. I thought I should clarify for anyone interested that I have been fortunate to avoid any damage from the rain. This is basically a plea on behalf of those I know who have not been so lucky.

Happiness is being a Wings fan

I was out at BWW with some friends last night after volleyball; Game 6 was starting soon and we were talking about it. One of my friends, a woman who's a big NFL fan but not so much into the other sports (yet), was surprised at my approach (I was fairly confident that the Wings would win, but not too worried if they didn't). Partly from our NFL discussions, she'd come to believe that I was pessimistic about all Detroit teams, and to be fair, both the Tigers and Pistons have generated some pessimism recently.

The Wings, however, are an exception. Over the last 15-20 years, they've enjoyed success they hadn't seen since the '40s and '50s, and certainly over the last 12 years, they've been the best franchise in hockey (perhaps of all time, considering that they're playing in a 30-team league and not a 6-team league).

I explained it briefly to her, but I don't think I did it justice. Look at this history, and tell me what your approach would be.

• 2007-08: 1st in NHL, 1st in West, 1st in Central, won Cup


• 2006-07: t-1st in NHL, 1st in West, 1st in Central, lost in conference finals


• 2005-06: 1st in NHL, 1st in West, 1st in Central, lost in conference quarters


• 2003-04: 1st in NHL, 1st in West, 1st in Central, lost in conference semis


• 2002-03: 3rd in NHL, 2nd in West, 1st in Central, lost in conference quarters


• 2001-02: 1st in NHL, 1st in West, 1st in Central, won Cup


• 2000-01: t-2nd in NHL, 2nd in West, 1st in Central, lost in conference quarters


• 1999-2000: 2nd in NHL, 2nd in West, 2nd in Central, lost in conference semis


• 1998-99: t-6th in NHL, 3rd in West, 1st in Central, lost in conference semis


• 1997-98: 3rd in NHL, 2nd in West, 2nd in Central, won Cup


• 1996-97: 5th in NHL, 2nd in West, 2nd in Central, won Cup


• 1995-96: 1st in NHL, 1st in West, 1st in Central, lost in conference finals


• 1994-95: 1st in NHL, 1st in West, 1st in Central, lost Cup finals

In that 12-season span, they had the best record in the league 6 times (and tied for the best one other time), best record in the conference 7 times, and they won 9 division titles. Sure, they lost in the first round 3 times, but they made it to the finals 5 times and won 4 of them.

That's not just success. That's dominance.

So no, the prospect of the Penguins winning Game 6 didn't trouble me much. I didn't like that the Wings lost Game 5, and I've seen Detroit lose tough series before (although it should be noted that they haven't lost a Game 7 since 1994 against San Jose - for that matter, they've only played two Game 7s since then: Stevie Y's double-OT goal against St. Louis in '96 and the wonderful shellacking of Patrick Roy in '02). But the Wings have played so well this season, especially late against Nashville and Dallas, that I figured the odds of them losing three straight games were pretty slim.

And if they did, who am I to complain? They'd have still won 3 Cups during my lifetime. Only seven franchises have won more than that in the history of the NHL. Even if you look at only post-expansion Cups, there are three teams who've won more than Detroit prior to this season: Montreal (10), Edmonton (5), and the New York Islanders (4). There are many, many fans who'd pay to see that kind of success from their team (like in Toronto, for example).

I remember following the Wings in the '70s and early '80s, when they really sucked. For part of that time, there were 21 NHL teams and 16 made the playoffs. For 4 straight seasons, the Wings were one of the five teams that missed. They lost in the first round the next two seasons and then missed again the next season. This was a bad, bad franchise, and so it's that much nicer to see them so good for so long.

It also takes away a lot of the pain that the Lions cause. Sure, they've sucked for decades, but that's just one sport in four, and when the other Detroit teams have been so successful, does it really matter that one of them is so bad?

We win!

Sorry, Pittsburgh, the officials can't give you this one. Nice try, though. I'm guessing there should have been a penalty on Malone for interference, and there definitely should have been a penalty for Datsyuk being taken down at the end, but you know what? It doesn't matter, and that's what Babcock was probably telling his players after Game 5. Don't call them yourselves, and if the refs don't call them, don't worry about it.

It's nice to see the best team in hockey win the Cup ... when was the last time that happened? Oh yeah, 2002, the last time the Wings won. :)

The only problem is that because the five-year rule is cumulative, now I can't complain about anything Wings-related until 2017.

Maybe 2018, if the skipped season doesn't count.

Almost there ...

It's difficult to explain what it's like to be rooting for the best team in a league, especially in a sport where you can only get one point at a time.

Maybe I'll get a chance to talk about it a little more on Monday. For now, let's just say I'm very happy.

Series over

One way you can tell when a team is beaten is when they start taking cheap shots at the other team - usually it's just a couple of players, but they typically won't miss a chance to do it. Jarome Iginla would be proud at the way that Gary Roberts and Ryan Malone have been playing in Game 2.

Michel Therrien should take note, though. Just as Iginla took boneheaded penalties against the Wings in 2007, so has Malone in 2008. In Game 2, all three of Malone's penalties were offensive-zone penalties, and the third was early in a Pittsburgh power play. (Roberts took a minor penalty as well, but at this point in his career, he's clearly a designated agitator anyway. he's got nothing else to contribute.)

Obviously the Penguins can come back, and certainly a 2-0 series lead isn't invulnerable. If Pittsburgh wins Games 3 and 4, it's a best-of-three series. However, they're not going to win if they don't score, and there's nothing in Game 2 that indicates they will do so.

One of the knocks on the Wings since maybe 1995 is that they're not "tough" and that they can be beaten with "physical" play (Mike Modano was one of the players who brought this up most recently - he probably still thinks he can't be checked). Usually, "physical" play is a euphemism for enforcement, and Pittsburgh's lucky Detroit doesn't have anyone like that. (McCarty is well past that point of his career, mostly being a Roberts-type guy, and no one on the active roster really does that, except maybe Chelios as a pest-type.)

If the Wings did, one of the Pens would likely get run late in the game. There have been quite a few shots exchanged late in the game (translation: weak officials, although Detroit just got a power play as a result of some of this), and usually that's when your "tough guy" has to "send a message".

Unless you're in Calgary, in which case your "tough guy" doesn't realize he's really the best player on the team and can't spend five minutes in the box.

Two games down, two to go.

EDIT: Pittsburgh just committed another penalty, another shot to Franzen's head, this one after the whistle blew. Brian Burke would be so proud.

Ed Olczyk still doesn't understand what the Penguins need to do to turn things around.

Maybe that's what got him fired in Pittsburgh.

EDIT: Now it's out of control. Well hey, the NHL would have stopped this if it really wanted to. They don't care. Wonder why the NHL is a second-tier sport, relegated to the cage-fighting channel? There is no enforcement. No postseason game should ever devolve into a brawl. Ever. And this wasn't a baseball brawl, either. It was Osgood getting run by Sykora (are you kidding me? Sykora? not at all a guy I thought would do that) ... one thing I noticed was that Franzen was on top of someone, not exactly discussing the economy. Can't say I blame him much.

If the NHL isn't going to protect you, then you feel you have to protect yourself, and that never works. It didn't work in the '70s and it doesn't work now. There is always someone else who will keep it going. The NBA realizes this. The NFL realizes this. MLB doesn't, but Selig's an idiot anyway.

Olczyk thinks the Penguins can build off this. Uh, sure. I guess now you get points for cheap shots.

Fixing baseball

If I were commissioner for a day, and by "commissioner" I mean the position in these hypothetical questions that has absolute power and can write decrees that will take effect permanently even after I leave office (because really, if that weren't the case, then how dumb does the question become?), this is what I would do.

I would fix scheduling.

Yes, scheduling. Ignore the DH for now, skip the idiocy that is homefield advantage in the World Series (novel idea: do what every other sport does and decide it by the record of the competing teams), and focus on baseball's main problems.

That's right, problems. I can kill two large birds with one well-placed stone.

The first problem is unfair scheduling. Most franchises realize it and very few columnists seem to understand it (Google "unfair baseball schedule" and see what happens). The idiots who figured that three-division teams would be a good idea didn't bother to consider the problems with an uneven number of teams, either within or between divisions. (If it's a 24- or 36-team organization, you're fine. You need the same number of teams in each division for fairness and an even number of teams in each league for scheduling.) We know wild-card competitors won't play the same schedules, but when division rivals don't play similar schedules, there's a problem. (Look back at the 28-team NFL, when a fifth-place team would make a run at a division title the next season, and you'll see what I mean.)

The second problem is unbalanced leagues. Of course, with 30 teams, you have to have unbalanced leagues. 15 and 15 means interleague play all season long, and no one's dumb enough to buy into that. No, really, not even Bud.

So here's how to fix it.

Expand to 32 teams. I know, I'm not really a proponent of expansion, but we need to divide by 4 (you see where this is going?) and if you think you are going to contract by 2, good luck with that.

Besides, there are population areas that could probably sustain major-league teams no worse than, say, Miami does. The two largest MSAs without teams are Portland (2.1 million) and San Antonio (just under 2 million). Both already support major-league teams in other sports and do so rather well (except when the Blazers' owners are total morons).

Note that the greater Montreal area has 3.6 million people and the Vancouver area has 2.25 million people. From a population perspective, these would naturally be the expansion markets you'd want; as a bonus, you'd have three Canadian teams in the American League (ha ha, joke's on us) and Seattle would finally have a local rival. (Well, they'd have that with Portland as well, but anyway ...) Montreal did sustain a baseball team, just not one run by a guy who has no idea how to do it. Funny how the same thing's happening in Miami. Think MLB realizes Loria's a franchise-wrecking jackass? Nope, me either.

Anyway, we'll look at both concepts.

Realign into four eight-team divisions. Yep, we're getting rid of the Central divisions. It doesn't work now and it gets into the stupid wild-card thing.

How do we do this? Well, we go back to the old-school alignment from 1993, but keep teams in the leagues where they are now, and add the two expansion teams to the AL. We will have to shuffle teams around, of course, to get to eight per division ...

(Sorry, but I'm linking to my Google doc. Hand-typing HTML tables isn't my thing.)

So take a look at my solutions and then follow along.

Option A: US expansion.

1. The two new teams are Western teams, so they go to the AL West.
2. The easternmost team in the West, Chicago, moves to the East.
3. As in the real-life three-division alignment, Chicago and St. Louis move out of the East and Atlanta and Cincinnati move into the East.

The AL was pretty much set anyway, and Chicago could play in either division (and will, as you'll see below). In the NL, we keep geography in mind, moving the Reds and Braves where they belong. (St. Louis has to play in the West, and it will be easier to convince them if the Cubs move as well.)

Option B: Canadian expansion.

1. The two new teams are on opposite sides of Canada, so they fit perfectly into the existing seven-team divisions.
2. Again, the NL realigns by switching Chicago and St. Louis with Atlanta and Cincinnati.

One benefit of this option is that Montreal and Toronto are now divisional rivals, and if you're a hockey fan, you now have five of the Original Six cities represented in the AL East. (Chicago really does belong in the West here.) Vancouver fits geographically with Seattle, and the NL realignment keeps teams separately fairly well between east and west.

Now, the final touch:
End interleague play. It's a joke anyway. Sure, New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago fans love it, but really, aside from those rivalries, nothing else really has the same ring to it, and we don't need any more Detroit-Arizona games.

Simple, regular scheduling. Fourteen games against each divisional opponent, eight games against each opponent in the other division. Divisional play dominates the schedule again, and everyone in the division has the same schedule.

You really should take just the division winners in this scenario. I suppose you could take the two next-best records if you wanted, but that's up to you.

Will it ever happen? Only if you're playing Out Of The Park. In the real world, no chance in hell. MLB doesn't do intelligent things. Not any more.

Big

If you've never been to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, then you won't understand.

It's big. Big. Now, you can look up the Wikipedia article and read the facts about it – capacity of nearly half a million people, kilometer-long straightaways – but you won't really appreciate it until you're there.

I've seen a NASCAR race and an F1 race there, but this was my first 500. I was volunteering and working an early shift, so I didn't stay for the race itself. The souvenir tent was on the inside, so it was my first time inside the track.

It was cool to be there early and see the stands so empty on race day (yes, we get there really early to set up), but when we left at the end of our shifts, it was amazing to be inside the track while the race was running. (There are tunnels under the north and south ends of the track for access to the massive infield area.)

We were walking back to the parking lot (alas, no shuttles running during the race), and it was something to look around in all directions and see people seated off in the distance ... at times, the cars were far enough away that you really couldn't tell the race was going on if you didn't see the pylon or one of the big-screen TVs. (Think about it ... could you hear something more than half a mile away?) Then you'd see the cars flash by, practically at eye level, and gradually the sound would dissipate. All the way on the inside, people are moving to infield seating, walking around looking at the garage area, the souvenir stands, the Hall of Fame museum ...

Oh yes, and because you can bring your own beer (shocking!), most of them are happy, especially with the weather we had today. (Mid 70s, sunny. Perfect for viewing.)

I've been in Michigan Stadium before, but only once, when I was little. Since then, the largest field I've seen was probably the Silverdome, seating 80,000 at its finest. With five times that many people in that area, let's just say it was a good idea to leave early.

I do recommend that you go at least once, especially if you live anywhere nearby, just to say you've been. It isn't like the old days, where you'd have four solid weekends of fun and a massive party in the infield, but it's still amazing.

Sports apocalypse

Joe Paterno makes sense. In fact, more sense than most who speak out on this issue, and JoePa is 137 years old, so that should tell you something right there. (No, not that he's senile.)

The Celtics lost the Eastern Conference Finals. Well, okay, they only lost Game 2, but they can't win on the road, and Doc Rivers is still their coach. Bet on them if you like. I'll keep watching hockey myself - hopefully one Detroit team will wipe out its opponent quickly so I can focus on the other.

The Yankees are still in last place. Of course, the Red Sox are now in first, but so what? You can't have everything. Where would you put it?

I have thee not, and yet I see thee still

O Spring Update, how I longed for you
I dreamt of your sweet glow on my dashboard
Of fixes, and patches, and DRM that works
But now, you say you cannot be
And hope I will survive without you
Go to hell.

Or not quite. xbox360fanboy reports that the one thing Microsoft will be doing is addressing the DRM issue. (If you haven't heard about it or been affected by it, here's the deal: Microsoft licenses DLC to a console and a gamertag. If both are present, no problems. If only one is present, then it has to check with the server to confirm you're really licensed to see the content - this is typically if you're using a new console because your old one broke. So if you play offline, or Live is down, or you have some crappy port like Sonic where the DRM checking doesn't work right, you can't use the content you licensed.)

In theory, when this tool is rolled out on xbox.com in June, you'll be able to consolidate your licenses to a single 360. (In the past, you had to call support and they would address a single issue for you. Yeah, right, like I'm spending 30 minutes on the phone for someone to tell me to try rebooting the 360.)

We'll see. I really would like to play Sonic again. Wait, what am I saying? That game was incredibly frustrating.

Updated Rock Band spreadsheet

Sorry folks, I've been delinquent. My Rock Band DLC spreadsheet should be updated through, I think, last week's content (prior to the no-longer-exclusive-to-Europe DLC).

I took out the formatting for master tracks vs. cover bands because it didn't seem to be working, and I added tracks that I don't personally own (now that I can get that info easily from the Rock Band Store).

Enjoy!

P.S. I added a link to it on the left, so that in a couple of months when this isn't on the front page, lol, you'll still find it easily.

Confessions of a fool

I live in the Indianapolis area.

One year, I had Lions season tickets.

Why? Well, for one thing, I'd been to my first Lions game the year before, and it was kind of nice to be around a bunch of people all rooting for the same team. (And they beat the Packers, and that Favre guy.) And I had some extra money and some time on my hands. (Too much time on my hands ... so I do this ...) And they were good. (Relatively speaking. They'd just made the playoffs for the fifth time in seven seasons. And they had a pretty good running back.)

So I bought the tickets and was immediately acquainted with one of the sad facts of NFL fanship (and, I suppose, pro sports in general).

Exhibition games are included. At full price. Yeah, not going to those.

So anyway, I went to the first five regular-season games, watched the Lions play like crap, figured out how long a drive it was if you made it twice in one day, and then skipped the last three games (Thanksgiving, cold weather, and Christmas).

But through all that, I never got treated like this.

Yep, they messed with a season-ticket-holder's seats (happens from time to time, especially with reconfigurations), promised to fix it, and then didn't. And then when he wrote to see if it could be resolved, the guy presumably forwarded it to his boss, copying the ticketholder, asking for help.

And the boss wrote something back, relaying a not-particularly-complimentary exchange about similar issues, mentioning that it wouldn't be addressed this season, using a four-letter word that sounds like "Firetruck".

And he replied to all.

oops.

The Consumerist posted something about the article as well, and then Football Outsiders referenced that, all the while trailing confused fans from other teams in their wake. You mean you can just go up and get more season tickets? (Teams like the Packers, Giants, and Redskins have long waiting lists. Long, as in bequeathing places on the waiting list to heirs.) And why would you root for this team anyway? Is it any wonder they stink when management treats the best customers like that?

That's right. That's my team. Heck, that's the team that's the reason for my username.

Not a well-respected Division I school.

Not a school with a slightly better academic reputation.

And not the CFL team. (Too bad. They've won more titles, all more recently than Detroit's last title, and they're coming off a 14-win season.)

Nope. My team is the team run by fools, clowns, and jackasses.

It could be worse. There are other cities with a lot less to cheer about. I've got a team in the Finals in one sport and a team in the semis in another; my teams won titles in 1984, 1989, 1990, 1997, 1998, 2002, and 2004, and they made the finals in 1995, 2005, and 2006. At least only one of the franchises is a complete wreck.

Geekasaurus!

Four stars! Won't Get Fooled Again! Expert/Expert!

That's right, I did that. Over a million fans, too, because it was in Moscow. (No, I'm not doing the Endless Setlist on E/E. Probably not ever.)

You can kind of track the band's progress here. I say "kind of" because you can really only see our score and fans, and even then it may not mean a lot at first. Just know that you can't break 1 million unless everyone in your band is playing on Expert.

Also, I still can't get the Blink song to download properly. I blame that on EA.

Suspense? Um, no.

The Wings have certainly made things interesting this postseason, from splitting the first four with Nashville to letting the Stars back into the conference finals. However, they do have this knack for shutting the door firmly on their competition, and yesterday was no exception.

There are few things quite like the feeling you get when your team is the favorite in a game that will eliminate the other team, and shortly into the game, you see there is no doubt that your team will win. It wasn't quite as special as the 7-0 rout of Patrick Roy and Colorado the last time the Wings won the Cup, but nonetheless, it was much better than watching a nailbiter.

It's true. People talk about how close games are so exciting, but what they really mean is that winning a close game is exciting. Watching a solid win for your team is better. Trust me.

Too bad the NHL is copying the NBA with respect to the Finals ... Game 1 on Saturday night? Maybe they're afraid they won't get enough June games on the calendar. News flash: the ratings will suck on Vs no matter when the games are played. (That's right. The NHL is so dumb, they don't have their finals on a network channel. Even the NBA isn't that dumb.)

Yahtzee agrees with me

What? Who?

Yahtzee. Escapist Magazine. Zero Punctuation reviews. (Yes, that's what it means. Five-minute reviews with no punctuation. Just watch one.)

Anyway, he reviews GTA IV, and he likes it. Well, actually, he thinks it's really good. On his scale, that translates roughly to "Best Game Evar." (He's a critic in all senses of the word.)

Also, we see eye to eye on the faults we find with it.

Cars that drive like battleships (unless piloted by AI)? Check.
Tiresome escort missions with people who don't know how to find cover? Check.
"Friends" calling you up and expecting you to make it across town in an hour? Check.
Terrible visibility (didn't they have color in New York in the '90s)? Check.

Read the review, but avoid the ads - there's a pop-over ad at the beginning that can be closed and an ad at the end after the review is over. Bonus points to Yahtzee for the Skid Row clip at the end.

Vs = Versus Sucks

Here is another reason why: late in Game 4, the Wings are down two and pulled their goalie on a power play. What does V show at the top of the screen? "Empty Net". Why? Well, it's too helpful to show power-play time remaining, so they went with the less-helpful information. Five-on-three? Doesn't matter. Not important.

Also, if you want to know one reason why Dallas is down 1-3 in the series after winning tonight (thanks in part to a blown call by the refs, disallowing a goal by Datsyuk), here's a hint. With just over two minutes left, a Star takes a penalty for delay of game, lifting the puck over the glass into the seats. Who is it? Brendan Morrow, the captain. Well done, sir, that's about as dumb as you can get ... well, except for the guy who took the hooking call with about 35 seconds left in the game. Keep in mind that even in the modern NHL, in the playoffs, referees rarely call additional penalties during a power play. (Case in point: Steve Ott lying on top of Holmstrom late in the power play, then pulling his helmet off. Outmanned teams frequently resort to this kind of play. Idiot announcers refer to this as "letting them decide it on the ice." It's no coincidence that many of these announcers were former mediocre players themselves.)

Anyway, who was this other guy? Alternate captain and former captain Mike Modano.

The last thing you want late in a game is to be down a man. Now you're down three (remember the empty net?). They didn't give up any goals, but they sure tried.

The Wings will win in five - this was a desperate effort by the Stars, and it did pay off temporarily, but Dallas is not good enough to win two in a row from these Wings, much less four.

Sad but true

I had an interesting thing happen today. I can't give you most of the details, but I can tell you this much: I met a former NFL player today. He played for several years, a long time ago. (Some of you might recognize the name; many probably would not.) He was a nice guy, married to a nice woman, but it was obvious that what happened during his career had left long-term effects on him. He knew it, and his wife knew it, and they both could explain it pretty well, but they couldn't do anything about it.

I've met very few current or former players before and talked with fewer still. This was the first time I'd come face to face with what's been in the news for the last year or two with respect to former players from the olden days and what they aren't getting from the league.

Football is a brutal sport, and it exacts a terrible toll on many of those who play it. I will do my best to remember that when I watch.

Observations

Yeah, not bad. That's from 6000/768 service. I upgraded from 1500/384 because a) the price of that was going up and b) the price of the faster service was less than I paid originally - they cut prices about six months ago. Pretty nice. Hope that should help with any XBLA issues I might have.

Also, I was in a waiting room recently and worked out something pretty cool. The carpet there had a pattern that looked roughly like this:

00__00--00__00--00
00__00--00__00--00

except picture the dashes at the top instead of in the middle. When I first looked at the carpet, my brain interpreted the 00s in diagonal lines, as if there were something connecting them. I looked at the pattern close to my feet, so I could focus on it, and saw what you kind of see above. I looked out again, and this time my brain looked at it as if there were only rows, no diagonals.

Basically, it didn't get a clear view at first, so it saw the larger shapes and figured there were probably lines between them. (It's not too different than looking at black squares with white lines between them and seeing black squares in the intersections.) Once I gave my brain the correct mapping, it interpreted the pattern correctly, so it knew what I could see farther away.

If your brain has seen something similar before, it maps a new thing onto that memory until you provide it details to distinguish the two. If it's unlike anything you've ever seen, your brain can't interpret it correctly, so you may have no idea how to explain it.

Sorry, that's just science babble, but I thought it was cool.

Oh yeah? Well I don't care!

So yeah, I didn't get the late-night delivery I wanted. Supposedly it's out for delivery now. whatever.

I seem to recall this happened before with Amazon. Well, that's it! No more pre-orders from them! Ever!

I thought I'd look it up, just to ensure I wasn't forgetting anything ... and it turns out that it was EBgames.com, not Amazon. I think it was Mario Kart: Double Dash for the GameCube.

oops.

But that doesn't really matter. If I really want a game on launch day, I'm better off driving around for an hour and finding it live than paying extra to get it delivered and then finding out the day of arrival that it's not coming.

It's a shame that there's really no pressure in B2C relationships that you'd see in B2B ... granted, it's not about the money (I'm sure that'll be refunded) as much as the promise. I just don't feel like there's any urgency on UPS' part to deliver the game.

Well, it's not like I pre-order that many games anyway. I sure wouldn't do it if I had to put down a deposit ...

Update, 2:10 P.M.: It's here, finally. Of course I'm in the middle of a long Culdcept duel and won't be able to play for a while ... and today is supposed to be a DDR day ... grrrr ...

3-0

Well, I never would have guessed Game 3 would have turned out like this. The Wings held on to win, 4-3, but it was a great save by Jose Theodore that kept the Avs in the game late (on a breakaway by Dan Cleary), and even more surprising, Colorado pulled their goalie with about 1:30 left and not only got no shots on goal, they didn't even get the puck in Detroit's zone.

Andrew Brunette put in a couple of power-play goals that kept Colorado close, but really, this is the difference in talent between the two teams. Despite that, Games 1 and 3 have been great games, and this is what people should remember about Detroit-Colorado playoff series, not that fighting and thugging crap. (Note: pretty much all the cheap-shot players on both teams have moved on. Hopefully Claude Lemieux is having back problems somewhere.) The NHL needs to understand that you can have a really good game between two good teams that doesn't involve dropping the gloves every five minutes. (Don't think the NHL approves of thuggy play? If they didn't want it around, teams like Anaheim and Philadelphia wouldn't be able to play two consecutive games without calling up half an AHL roster: they'd have multiple players serving lengthy suspensions.)

The third period tonight was about as exciting as hockey gets. It's a shame the NHL screwed itself by burning an entire season for greed and settling for some third-tier network that can't even show all the games in HD. The Penguins are one of the more significant stories in sports the last ten years, and chances are most people have no idea at all. (I will say, though, that there are hockey fans around. Last week at BWW, there were some Pens supporters cheering the comeback win against the Rangers. We were surprised to hear cheering that didn't match any of the baseball or basketball games we saw.)

The what is where?

So, like five hundred thousand other gamers in the US (or so Take Two hopes), I preordered GTA IV, and just for kicks, I spent the $5 to have it shipped next-day instead of second-day air. So I figured I better get up early today to ensure I'd be at the door when the UPS man arrived. (It's not a big deal, usually, because they can leave most things, but sometimes you have to sign, and on rare occasions, you can't change it, you have to be there anyway - see UPS Ground Sucks.)

Today, I checked the status of my package.

US 04/28/2008 2:55 P.M. BILLING INFORMATION RECEIVED

Well, that's normal, although sometimes it says where it originated. This should be followed by arrival in Louisville, then departure, then arrival in Indy for delivery.

PHILADELPHIA,
PA, US 04/29/2008 2:20 A.M. INCORRECT ROUTING AT UPS FACILITY / THE PACKAGE WAS MISSORTED AT THE HUB. IT HAS BEEN REROUTED TO THE CORRECT DESTINATION SITE

Um, what?

panic. I'll have to play something else today.

Then calm arrives. Of course this happens from time to time. They'll ship it back to the Louisville hub, then ... um ... fly it up? It's a two-hour drive, so I doubt they'd drive it ... hmm ...

PHILADELPHIA,
PA, US 04/29/2008 10:42 A.M. DEPARTURE SCAN

Okay, that's better. Back on track, but when will it be here?

LOUISVILLE,
KY, US 04/29/2008 12:33 P.M. ARRIVAL SCAN

Not bad. It still has to be flown up here, though. I'd say 12:57 P.M. for departure scan from Louisville, 1:45 P.M. for arrival scan in Indy, and then 2:45 P.M. for "Out for Delivery."

Naturally, the whole time the status has been "In Transit - On Time", which is what I would tell a panicky customer who was worried that a very important shipment would be late.

Updates to come, but let's just say that right now, I'm unhappily playing Culdcept Saga.

Update, 2:15 PM: Yeah, it's not arriving today. They just updated the status: "In Transit." As in "Not On Time."

Oh well. It's not worth spending an extra $50 or $60 just to get it now, assuming I could find a copy of it.

boo.

I'm getting my $5 back from Amazon.

Update, 5:35 PM: but wait! There may still be hope:

LOUISVILLE,
KY, US 04/29/2008 4:24 P.M. DEPARTURE SCAN

Right, so it did leave Louisville today. That's a good sign. Still, even if it's scanned in Indy at 5:25 P.M., I'd be surprised if it's on a truck and at my door by 7.

Surprise me, UPS.

Update, 8:25 PM: Closer, closer ...

INDIANAPOLIS,
IN, US 04/29/2008 7:32 P.M. ARRIVAL SCAN

Of course, it doesn't say "Out For Delivery". It may actually be out, and the data may be out of date, but I doubt it.

boo.

Free Bird!

I just beat Free Bird on Hard.

Four stars, even.

I am getting better. I made it to the fourth set on Expert, too. My wrist kind of hurts, but still.

My 360 won't tell you about it tomorrow, not directly, but it will tell you that I added one achievement. Can I get a hell yeah?

P.S. I saw some of a rerun of the CMT Awards Sunday, and I remembered several reasons why I like country music.

Ha ha ha ha ha

The cheap-shot team in Calgary is playing San Jose in the first round. Ordinarily, I wouldn't mind seeing a strong team eliminated so the Wings have a smoother road, but aside from my brother's preference for the Sharks, I hate teams like the Flames. I believe they are the main reason why the NHL has been relegated to Vs, that and the fact the NHL apparently doesn't care. I'd like to see Calgary, Anaheim and Philadelphia swept.

Anyway, ha ha, the cheap-shot Flames whacked one of the Sharks and got caught. Power play. Then another one tried something else and got caught. Two-man advantage. Then another one flat-out slashed a Shark in what probably should have been a four-minute penalty, but still, drew another penalty. If you're scoring at home, that's three Flames in the box. I'd guess that happens about once every 20 years or so.

Kudos to the refs for calling what they see. I hope the Sharks win 5-0 and that Iginla is injured starting a fight as I'm sure he will if the game is out of reach at the end. What a bunch of thugs. Go Sharks!

'70s horror returns

Well, it's time to move on ... my employer decided to become former. It's for the best for everyone, I think. Anyway, I had a phone call with a recruiter scheduled for 3 PM today.

At 2:45, my phone line went down. (I figured this out when my internet connection disappeared.) Aha! Neither my cats nor my house want me to find a job. What they did not know is that I am not left-handed. Actually, that I use my cell phone and already had relevant pages open in my browser.

Magically, the problem went away right before the recruiter called.

Uh-huh. Busted. Watch it, house. Just because you're in high demand doesn't mean I can't call an exorcist.

Stupid coaches

Dear Rick Barnes,

YOU LOST. STOP FOULING.

Good God. I think it's time to go to something like four free throws for fouls beyond 12 or something like that. You're down 17 with a minute to go. YOU LOST.

What a bunch of hacks.

Billy Packer, always 30 minutes behind the action, just noticed that perhaps the fans might get upset if Texas kept fouling. (They've been booing loudly for the last three fouls. Even they realize the game is over.)

Also, CBS sucks. That is all.

l2count

Dear math-challenged announcers, and you know who you are (Mr. Manaman),

When a team is down late in regulation or overtime, generally speaking, yes, they do need threes. Example: you're down 4 with 20 seconds left. If you hit a 2 right away, and you steal the inbounds pass and hit another 2, then no, you didn't need a 3. In any other situation, though, yes, you did. (It's also possible to foul, watch them miss two, and then come down and hit a two, but about as likely.)

What is much, much, much more likely is that your opponent is going to score again. Anything less than 10 seconds a possession is luck. You should expect your opponents to hit free throws, not hope that you'll somehow hypnotize the ball out of their hands. If they get two free throws per possession, you need three points per possession.

Learn to count.

CBS = teh suck

CBS can go f themselves. The announcers did everything but paint their faces blue at halftime.

You got the team you wanted. Make sure to root for them against West Virginia, too. Normally, biased announcers favor the underdog, but it's cool, don't worry about it.

wow

Not sure how to describe today. All I know is that a) I need to save some money so I can experience more of this tournament and b) if I went to the doctor, he'd say no way, not going to happen. (I think I'd rather have a female doctor, actually, not for that reason, but I'd rather not have a man checking out my parts. Anyway.)

Wisconsin has officially set the sport of basketball back 10 years. Good God. And yeah, Beilein has some work to do. Michigan looked awful. A decent team would have beaten Wisconsin. I'm glad MSU won, because the rest of the day sucked ...

until just now. I should have left the radio on. Hearing Don Fischer announce the end would have been priceless, but I was angry at the refs and I switched it off.

Anyway again, we watched the first two games, ducked out early and got a table at the Claddagh 15 minutes before everyone got there, headed back to watch Purdue lose a heartbreaker, and then saw Minnesota show IU why Dan Dakich is not the right man for the job. (Of course, it could also be that IU has too many players who don't realize maybe D.J. White should get the ball from time to time.)

Also, I got a free grande frappuccino at Starbucks, because they made the wrong one, which makes up for their stupid system where they have only three baristas anyway and they serve cold and hot drinks on opposite sides, so you can't ever find out if yours is ready.

One of my good friends, who is totally awesome, got tickets to a suite for the evening session. If I didn't mention this before, she's awesome. Anyway, the seats were great, and on top of that, one of the people there knows Landon Turner, so he invited Turner to the suite. (If you don't know who he is, check out his site. He was one of the key players on Indiana's 1981 national champs; he was paralyzed from the waist down in a car accident, ending his collegiate career. Most people who saw him play would say he had definite NBA talent. From everything I'd heard, he's a great guy, and I'd definitely agree.)

As a bonus, Wayne Duke stopped by as well. If you don't know him, look him up. (Big Ten history.)

I did kind of have a little too much caffeine, so that didn't help. But it was a great day. (I recommend the General's Meatloaf at the Claddagh.)

Totally worth it. Bring on the dance!

P.S. Portland State won its conference. Did your school?

Oh yeah, I forgot. Some drunk jackasses from Ohio State (shocker) sat behind us, thankfully on a level up, and every other word out of their mouths was a word I will not repeat on this blog. Suffice it to say that "earmuffs" doesn't quite cover it. Probably Yankee fans too. Anyway, to them I say ha ha, your team lost, and no one cares that you stole beer from suites. (Big Ten tournament = no beer sales.)

Also, I had the worst back spasms I've ever had. Ever. I thought at one point I would have to fold myself in half to make them stop. It's possible that sitting in an arena seat for four hours and then sitting on a short stool for two hours set it off. I think it's because I drank about seven Diet Cokes at the Claddagh and didn't go to the bathroom. Why do I say that? When I got to Conseco and excused myself, after reprising the scene from A League of Their Own, the back pain was gone. If that's anything like what pregnant women can go through, wow, I never want two X chromosomes as long as I live.

Champs!

We goin dancin! We goin dancin!

I hate you, 2K

So I rented MLB 2K7 to make up some gamerscore. I spent an hour modifying the Mets and Tigers to set up a good game to get a ton of points. I play the whole game, and guess what?

no achievements.

no gamerscore.

You know what? I broke up with you first. Before you even called, I decided to break up with you, so none of this matters, we broke up anyway, and I did it. You know what this is? Me hanging up on you.

bang.

And this too.

bang.

EDIT: okay, so it's because they hid an update as "Hey, download these stadiums!" And I said no.

I'll fix it later.

Congratulations, cheaters

Good luck with that fouling press and those moving screens in the tournament. I hope you make it myself. I'll be betting heavily on your first-round opponent.

If betting were legal, of course.

Boo Sharks! Boo ref!

So I went to the Joe tonight, first time ever. awesomeness. Pictures to come later if I remember.

We got there early, got in when the gates opened, very cool. Arenas are always smaller than you think when you're older. It was nice to finally be at a home game, although the crowd was pretty quiet. (I hate scoreboards that tell you when to cheer. I know when to cheer, idiots.)

Too bad the Sharks scored early and kept up the pace. The third goal was crap - off the net and onto the ice, but of course the Wings stopped playing and waited for the whistle. Bad idea. Stupid ref wouldn't review it. Um, that's why the NHL has video review. Expect an apology. Don't expect a penalty for the ref.

Great experience, though, until we got back to Ann Arbor. We kind of went a different way through town, which meant that instead of my brother and sister-in-law getting back to their B&B right before the snowstorm, we drove around in it. Not fun. Good thing it was a rental.

Boo Sharks!

UPDATE: apparently it's not a reviewable call, because goodness knows we're not allowed to see whether or not a puck went out of play. (Upside to black netting: less visible to fans. Downside: less visible to refs.)

Hello, my good friend

Ah yes, there you are. Your solid blue casing, your familiar buttons ... that 10-key pad I know so well ... trivia, dear trivia, we are reunited again.

Stopped at Damon's for dinner (ribs, yum) and trivia. Surprised that the one here in Ann Arbor is all SD. Dominated as usual (topped the board on Get Reel, which was a pleasant surprise). Then back to the room for some 360 gaming (got to work on that Auto-Challenge). A quick 150 on arcade games should give me a good start. It's a one-week challenge. Too bad Avatar isn't arriving soon.

I didn't bring any retail ones because they'd look bad in SD. Wonder if that Wyndham in Chicago has HD in the rooms? Can't remember.

Cheater

I just came up with a great analogy. I think it's great, anyway. If you don't, too bad, you'll notice I didn't add a poll to this post.

Here's the deal. It's like Sampson has a white-collar job with this big company, and he's stealing mechanical pencils. Cheap ones, you know, 89 cents or something like that. Maybe the first couple were accidental: you have one in your hand near the end of the day, you get a phone call or run into the boss' office or something, you put it in your pocket and forget you did that, and you get home and there it is. It's just one pencil, why take it back?

But eventually he realizes that no one's really bugging him about the pencils, so he starts taking a few of them home a day. Just a few. No big deal yet. And as he doesn't get caught, he takes more, and more, until he's taking home a couple of boxes at a time.

What he doesn't realize is that all the pencils have RFID tags, and so his company knows he's doing it, so HR calls him in.

"Dude, you can't be taking pencils home with you like that. It's getting out of control."
"What do you mean? I'm not taking pencils home."
"Um, yes you are. Hundreds of them. You've been doing it for weeks."
"No I'm not."
"Alright, here's the deal. You've been stealing pencils. A lot of them. However, it's not like you're stealing computers. Yet. So, no more vacation time for you. Actually, it might be better if we relocate you to another part of the company, so you can kind of get a fresh start.
"But here's the thing: no matter what, DON'T STEAL ANY MORE PENCILS. I don't want to see you breaking any rule or law, but definitely don't steal any more pencils."
"Um, okay."

So yeah, his coworkers are saying "Dude, you got transferred because you were stealing pencils? That's weak!" Well, no, it was because he stole a bunch of them over a period of time and wasn't really forthcoming about it.

Well, time goes on, and what do you know? All of a sudden, pencils are disappearing again. So they call him in.

"What did I tell you? No more stealing pencils! And now you're doing it again!"
"Um, no I'm not."
"The hell you aren't! We track them, you know. We can tell you every single pencil you've taken."
"Those weren't stolen. See, one of my coworkers, Rick, he was doing this project, and he needed a lot of pencils, and I told him that if it was work-related, then he could use some from work if he took them back when he was done, and so he did, but he got busy at home, and he couldn't take them back, so he asked me if I would take them back for him, and before I could answer, he drove up in his truck, dumped them in my yard and took off. And I couldn't just leave them there, so I brought them inside, and I was just getting ready to take them back when you called."

See, it's not the pencils themselves. I realize that's not a major issue itself. (I also realize that the NCAA isn't limited to pursuing a single coach at a time, which seems to be a main point of that "argument." See, they can bust Sampson for pencils and someone else for manslaughter AT THE SAME TIME. Very clever, they are.)

It's that he stole HUNDREDS of them. MORE THAN ONCE. And LIED about it. BADLY. Now, I've never done this myself, but I know people who have ... when you are on probation for something, don't get caught doing it again. Just a tip.

But it's okay. He can always get a job announcing. Hell, Valvano did it, Packer does it, anyone with basketball experience can. Clean ethical background not required.

sweet!

I finally got past Vasoline and Green Grass and High Tides on Hard drums. In the same night. (Practice, practice, practice.) Working on the seventh set now.

And on top of that, I was one of three winners in x360a's seventh-day contest, so I'm getting two free games, College Hoops 2K8 and Culdcept Saga.

And I get bagels tomorrow, imported from Ohio.

And I have a helpful cat assisting me with this post, or perhaps subtly reminding me that it is time for bed. (Okay, it's the latter.)

Sunday ftw!

Good weekend

So I got my replacement guitar from EA (and two customer sat surveys: um, yeah, slow response, fix it - next!), and proceeded to rock out with the Pastries through our Hall of Fame induction. 100 gamerscore for that? w00t!

And this little basketball thing. Purdue +1. It's like the men's team is suddenly good or something. We'll see for sure Tuesday, or not. They could easily lose and then go back to where they were projected prior to the season, which is to say, first-round NCAA out at best.

Or they could beat the Spartans, and lock down the Big Ten lead for a while, and ... we'll see.

Also, it's cold.

Wheel: squeak

So, while some people were receiving something more than an apology for their broken Rock Band equipment, others were getting nothing. nothing at all.

Yep, nothing.

So I added a new issue and said Hey, where's my stuff?

nothing. nothing. nothing.

So yesterday, I updated that issue and said hello? I'm not happy.

Today, I got two messages: an apology (their system had a problem and didn't automatically send out my guitar) and a tracking number. Second-day air.

good. Of course, I don't get a game for it ...

Calle 1, cancer 0

As is too often the case, good news is infrequently reported here; bad news generally hits the front page. Allow me to change that today.

Calle and I came back from the clinic today. She had chest X-rays and an ultrasound today, and everything came back clean - no sign of anything bad. Naturally, there are no guarantees, but for now, things are as good as we could imagine. She's healthy, happy (except for this morning: not keen on fasting or going to the clinic), and just a little lighter (I'm not saying she had a pound or two to lose prior to this stuff ...).

Her next appointment is in the middle of March, just to see how things are going. If that goes well, we'll do another one six months down the road or so. For now, things look good.

One nice thing to all this is that it served as a reminder to me that all cats will eventually die, even mine, and I need to be prepared for that. That may not sound like a "nice" thing, but it's important to understand how life works. Enjoy the time you have with your cats, and when that time is up, remember your cat well.

Kevin McCullough is an idiot

If your name is Kevin McCullough, and you're not responsible for this post, then I'm sorry, and you should go after this guy for giving you a bad name. (so to speak)

It is worth noting that Townhall.com bills itself as a "conservative web community," and that it apparently takes pride in the bloggers it employs who are also talk radio hosts.

I consider the linked column an excellent example of trolling at its finest: starting with a basic fact (Mass Effect is a game for the 360), taking another fact (containing leading scenes), and spinning it so far into half-truths and outright lies that combating it directly is nearly impossible.

I will leave you to draw your own conclusions from this.

And I'm going to buy a copy of Mass Effect.

TV! TV!

omg no tv n00b teh sux0r.

So New Year's Eve, the satellite is out. This is not news: I've had good reception in heavy rain, snow, pretty much everything except high winds. We had high winds and rain, so yeah, that I could understand.

Tuesday, reception is fine (although I went out to watch football and get my annual case of bronchitis; I may have failed and got only a sore throat instead), same thing up through Friday.

Saturday, friends come over to play Rock Band and watch football. Except ...

771.

Yes, by coincidence, that's the calculator trick to say ILL. So I have no satellite. Undaunted, we run out to Radio Shack (I use the un-royal we - I stayed here and sent money) to get an antenna, which I'd been meaning to get because we can't get CBS in HD through DirecTV. Football is fine, but other TV is not.

Same thing Sunday and Monday, so I call customer service. (My throat was just a little, little sore, so I was hoping one or the other would get better.) They're coming by Wednesday. We'll see. I bet it's just a bad cable somewhere up above.

I don't even care if it's something stupid. I just want to know what it is so I can fix it next time. Hell, one prolonged outage in X years that I've had the service, not so bad.

And it's not like I don't have a thousand games to play. I'm not sure that's an exaggeration, either.

XBLA review: Sensible World of Soccer (5/10)

I wanted to like this game, I really did. It's a port of a PC game, I believe, because the season you start in career mode is 1996-97, and it looks like the World Cup it lets you play is the 1994 Cup. The premise is pretty cool: you can play as pretty much any national team or in any one of the leagues in the world, in a friendly, league competition, or career mode, where you buy and sell players and get job offers and such.

On top of that, gameplay has been simplified: it's one-button play. So, in theory, this would be a great game for a novice, right?

Wrong. Completely wrong.

The frustration meter pegs at 11. How do I hate thee? Let me count the ways ... you can't switch players (on defense, the A button does a sliding tackle), and invariably the computer will give you control over a guy nowhere near the play. The computer always knows whether or not it has the ball and will tackle or run to the ball appropriately, whereas you will frequently lose possession because there's no indication to tell you you have possession. The computer knows where all of its players are at all times, and you don't, so its goal kicks will give it possession at midfield, whereas yours will be stolen and turned into shots on goal 90% of the time.

The strategy part of the game is very cool, and I might try just simming games and coaching, but honestly, unless you owned the PC version or are willing to put in hours and hours to raise your skill enough to manage the game, I can't recommend this. I was taking top club teams against bottom teams or solid national teams against minnows and getting beat over and over again. I'd like to keep playing until I get the hang of it, but frankly, I get tired of 70 minutes of fun soccer and 20 minutes of BS every match.

zlionsfan's rating: 5 bookings out of 10.

Oh, yes, the cat

We had a minor scare recently. Calle went in for her (hopefully) last dose of chemo last week, and the tech noticed she was lighter than usual and more scared, down a pound or so. The oncologist checked her out thoroughly and found nothing, blood test came back fine, so we didn't know what was up.

This week, she did seem to be more of a lap cat (bad sign, if it means less energy), but she was still chasing after Josie; jumping on the counter poorly, but still doing it. So tonight, in addition to dry food, I put out a can of wet food.

Suddenly, the cat disappears and is replaced by a transmogrifier, and before my very eyes, cat food becomes a nitrogen/oxygen mix. I think I even heard a pop from the vacuum that the air filled.

Looks like she just decided not to like that dry food any more. sucks for me. Fortunately, I have some of the wet food left, and it's easy to get more.

Also, I've apparently discovered for the (n+1)th time that I'm allergic/sensitive to cigarette smoke. Not much of a big deal - I wait for symptoms, go to prompt care, get my meds, wait it out - except that friends are coming over to play Rock Band and stuff tomorrow, and the Expert-level singer is out of commission.

Drums, here I come.

Bam!

Green Grass and High Tides.

Lead guitar.

Five stars.

Hard.

Axe Assassin.

Happy New Year!

Yeah!

Dear final set on Expert,

Suck it!

Sincerely,
me

P.S. No, Mr. Bowie, it's a figure of speech. I'm not your type anyway. Go away. Shoo.

Reptilia was definitely the most difficult song for me. I did have an advantage in that I really like Rush and Boston, so I'd heard Tom Sawyer and Long Time thousands of times. Highway Star and Run to the Hills are both cool, but I hadn't heard them as much. Suffragette City was most difficult in that set because I'm not a big Bowie fan (and I'd rather sing Changes or Space Oddity anyway), so I wasn't really familiar with the pitch of the vocals, and I had trouble nailing the sustained notes. (zlionsfan tip #1: hold your notes. I know it says these are short notes, but trust me, if the game is out of sync just a little, you'll lose a lot of points if you're just missing those, and unless you really know the song, you'll need those to make it through.)

Sing, sing a song

I finally got past Reptilia. stupid song. I did much better singing in my natural octave; I'd been singing an octave lower and couldn't hit the lowest notes consistently.

I also posted a top-10 score on Brass In Pocket. I'd link but you can't get a link to a specific leaderboard, just to the whole thing. Anyway, because it's DLC and not in-game content, I'm sure I'll drop over time, it's just that people haven't bought it yet.

Three more sets and I can start helping people out with Riding on Coattails ... except ... except ... damn. You have to finish the Endless Setlist on Expert. crap.

never mind.

We talkin' bout practice?

Okay, there is one thing about Rock Band that is astoundingly worse than Guitar Hero III.

Practice.

Struggling with a song? In Guitar Hero, you can slow the song down, start at the beginning of any section, and play through the end of that section or any following section. Repeat as needed.

In Rock Band, you can play the whole song. At normal speed. That's it.

Struggling with a phrase/riff at the end of a song? Especially a long song? Take a nap and wait for it to come around.

I wonder if that was EA's decision. (joke. Well, sort of.)

I hope this is corrected with a patch. What a terrible decision. What the hell's the point of practice if you can't practice what you want?

The Jokes

Reptilia sucks. The Strokes suck. The lead singer sucks. I would rather sing Bob Dylan than him. Someone needs to tell him that his bucket is empty and he dropped his tune way back there.

Seriously. I can barely get one phrase right on Expert. I've failed one other song on Expert one time so far. I guess I just can't get myself to sing like crap.

If you're reading this blog (you're in select company) and you actually like the Strokes, good for you. Just know that if you're a single woman and we meet, that's going to be a deal-breaker.

(In case you think this is just whining, I can sing pretty well. I'd link to the Rock Band leaderboards, but apparently EA doesn't understand anything about the popularity of these games. They haven't had a game like this since, I don't know, maybe Madden 02. Don't worry, the site will be up about the same time I get my replacement guitar.)

XBLA review: Tempest (2/10)

Yet another recycled '80s game, complete with an "evolved" mode that's basically just fancy graphics that detract from gameplay. As added bonuses, the default difficulty level is faster than the original arcade game, the Super Zapper takes effect slowly rather than wiping out everything on-screen, the window in which the game sits isn't wide enough, so the far edge of the playing field is cut off on some levels, and all the achievements are in the evolved game, so you have to play it.

Oh yeah, and there's no spinner control for the 360.

And, as usual, the in-game leaderboard is reset every time you play.

Don't bother.

zlionsfan's rating: 2 feeble efforts out of 10.

Yeah, that's about it.

So on NFL Countdown, Ditka says roughly "What I don't get is this: you cheated, I caught you, and you're going to take it out on me?"

Mike Ditka, the voice of reason. Thank you, Belichick, you have officially turned the world upside-down.

I'm done! Or, not.

Just noticed that there are actually only eight sets you have to complete on Medium. I was singing Suffragette City on Hard and thinking "Wow, this isn't so easy. I don't remember singing this before." Looked back at Medium, and sure enough, here's this new set (Suffragette City, Highway Star, Tom Sawyer, Run to the Hills, Foreplay/Long Time).

Nice touch. You don't need to finish them to complete it on Medium, but you get to go back and do them once you've unlocked them on Hard.

Playoffs? That's right.

See, I'm not the only sane person around here. WhatIfSports is simulating a 16-team playoff as it might have happened if the NCAA grew some balls gathered some courage and took control of I-A football.

Note: by "sane" I mean not only "supports a playoff" but also "includes all conference champs." (Mr. Tiller, please note that CMU scores 3 points on LSU.)

Go check it out. Very cool.

I'm getting the band back together

So last night, I'm working my way through some of the Hard songs on vocals (much easier now that the video sync setting is correct). I tried playing multiplayer with just one person in the band, and the game shot that down: two or more people, son.

And then I realize that if I'm working on Expert guitar and Hard vocals, I could step them both down a notch ...

I start up the band, forming it with my singer (because vocals + guitar/bass is okay, vocals + drums is okay, other combinations not so much), and add the guitarist. (Note: if you don't log in on another controller, you can use one of the characters from the people who've signed in already, or maybe only the band leader. No difference here.)

First two songs: In Bloom and Say It Ain't So. Five stars each. It's more difficult because I can't hit the mike for the tambourine/cowbell stuff (also because I'm using a headset), but I did discover that you can shout into the mike and it works. Of course, I can't watch to see when to hit it because I'm watching the guitar line ... also, you have to know the vocals pretty well or you'll miss your cues.

That opened up the next venue. Mississippi Queen wasn't bad, but I think I got four stars. (Much harder vocals.) I made my own set list, Wanted Dead or Alive and When You Were Young, and got four stars on each.

The thing is that if the rhythm doesn't match, you end up messing up one or the other, breaking streaks and all. It was a lot of fun, though. I'll have to try vocals/drums later. I think vocals/bass might work the best, plus you can get up to 6x on the bass.

I don't know yet if points matter. Probably only for overall song score, and I don't care. I can just keep playing until I get more fans. (Plus Expert bass is probably easier than Expert guitar.)

I love Rock Band.

Now back to vocals ... I want to get into the top 1000, even if I can't stay ...

Your what has a what?

My 360 has a blog. It's pretty cool. 360voice.com, the site that's running Challenges for the 360 now (because we all now xbox.com sucked at it), also has a feature that takes your games-played history and writes it up in blog form.

It works like mygamercard.net, by reading the history of games you've played since registering at the site, so even though it knows about my gamerscore, teh awesum, it doesn't know everything I've played. Guess I'll have to dig up Perfect Dark Zero again. oh joy.

Rock Band song difficulties

Just in case you're playing in a band and haven't figured out which songs to try. Keep in mind that these are sorted by the average of the set for all three solo instruments in which they appear: your group experience may vary, especially if there's only two or three of you.

EDIT: I think I'm going to swap this out for a link to a Google spreadsheet. I figured out the bass sets and dumped in pretty much everything, plus fields that show the average difficulty for every combination of instruments. That won't mean anything here.

P.S. Run To The Hills is still teh impossible.

h2. One-point songs

• In Bloom, Nirvana, 1.0 (guitar 1, drums 1, vocals 1)
Anyone can play this song.
• Maps, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, 1.7 (guitar 1, drums 3, vocals 1)
Interesting song. Not so bad.
• Garbage, I Think I'm Paranoid, 1.7 (guitar 2, drums 1, vocals 2)
eh.
• Weezer, Say It Ain't So, 1.7 (guitar 3, drums 1, vocals 1)
Not bad, although I like My Name Is Jonas better.

h2. Two-point songs

• Here It Goes Again, OK Go, 2.0 (guitar 1, drums 2, vocals 3)
eh.
• Blitzkrieg Bop, Ramones, 2.3 (guitar 2, drums 4, vocals 1)
Good song, but make sure you've got someone with experience on drums.
• Creep, Radiohead, 2.3 (guitar 4, drums 1, vocals 2)
Not bad.

h2. Three-point songs

• Should I Stay or Should I Go, The Clash, 3.0 (guitar 1, drums 4, vocals 4)
Not a bad song, but not a good choice for new bands.
• Wave of Mutilation, Pixies, 3.0 (guitar 2, drums 2, vocals 5)
Didn't care for this one much, especially not the vocals.
• Learn to Fly, Foo Fighters, 3.0 (guitar 3, drums 4, vocals 2)
Good song. This is about as far as you want to go until you get a couple of other songs down. With an experienced guitarist, though, you can move further.
• Orange Crush, R.E.M., 3.3 (guitar 2, drums 5, vocals 3)
R.E.M. is one of my least favorite bands.
• The Hand That Feeds, Nine Inch Nails, 3.3 (guitar 2, drums 4, vocals 4)
Not bad, although like other songs with spoken/freestyle lyrics, it suffers a bit.
• Celebrity Skin, Hole, 3.3 (guitar 4, drums 2, vocals 4)
Some jokes write themselves, don't they?
• Mississippi Queen, as made famous by Mountain, 3.7 (guitar 1, drums 2, vocals 8)
Try this song as a new band and you'll be looking for a new singer.
• Epic, Faith No More, 3.7 (guitar 5, drums 3, vocals 3)
I like this song, but it's really not suited for singing ... there are worse songs for that, though.

h2. Four-point songs

• Sabotage, Beastie Boys, 4.0 (guitar 3, drums 5, vocals 4)
This might be my least favorite song in the game. The fact that almost all the lyrics are freestyle is part of it.
• Go with the Flow, Queens of the Stone Age, 4.0 (guitar 3, drums 7, vocals 2)
I like them no more than I did in GH III, which is to say, not much.
• Black Hole Sun, Soundgarden, 4.0 (guitar 5, drums 4, vocals 3)
Finally, a decent song in the 4s.
• Paranoid, as made famous by Black Sabbath, 4.0 (guitar 6, drums 5, vocals 1)
Now you can make it up to your singer after trying Mississippi Queen.
• Wanted Dead or Alive, Bon Jovi, 4.0 (guitar 6, drums 5, vocals 1)
Good song.
• Main Offender, The Hives, 5.3 (guitar 5, drums 3, vocals 5)
Well, it's not Queens of the Stone Age.
• Gimme Shelter, The Rolling Stones, 4.7 (guitar 4, drums 2, vocals 8)
Mick's voice is only an 8 difficulty? Hmm.
• Reptilia, The Strokes, 4.7 (guitar 5, drums 3, vocals 6)
Not a fan of this either.
• Dani California, Red Hot Chili Peppers, 4.7 (guitar 6, drums 5, vocals 3)
eh.

h2. Five-point songs

• Detroit Rock City, KISS, 5.3 (guitar 3, drums 7, vocals 6)
Hell yes. I voted for this song.
• When You Were Young, The Killers, 5.3 (guitar 4, drums 6, vocals 6)
Glad to see this was in both GH III and Rock Band. I hadn't heard it before GH III and it really grew on me.
• (Don't Fear) The Reaper, Blue Öyster Cult, 5.3 (guitar 6, drums 8, vocals 2)
Yeah, this is kind of a difficult song for drummers, but it's worth it.
• Electric Version, The New Pornographers, 5.7 (guitar 4, drums 6, vocals 7)
I liked this song a little more once I saw the lyrics, but it's still eh.
• Suffragette City, David Bowie, 5.7 (guitar 5, drums 3, vocals 9)
Not my favorite Bowie song, but I guess most of them wouldn't translate well?
• Vasoline, Stone Temple Pilots, 5.7 (guitar 7, drums 6, vocals 4)
Sorry, the misspelling (for trademark reasons?) bugs me.

h2. Six-point songs

• Are You Gonna Be My Girl, Jet, 6.0 (guitar 6, drums 5, vocals 7)
Another song that I liked more once I saw the lyrics. For some reason, the intro makes me think of Lust For Life, one of the most overplayed songs in commercial history.
• Ballroom Blitz, as made "famous" by Sweet, 6.3 (guitar 7, drums 7, vocals 5)
Well, they do have T. Rex's version of Bang a Gong, but you know, if you did Smokin' in the Boys Room, would you use Mötley Crüe or Brownsville Station? (Then again, these are the guys who put White Lion's version of Radar Love into Rocks the '80s.)
• Dead on Arrival, Fallout Boy, 6.7 (guitar 7, drums 7, vocals 6)
Not bad at all.

h2. Seven-point songs
Now you've got some experience and can start throwing it down.

• Cherub Rock, Smashing Pumpkins, 7.0 (guitar 8, drums 8, vocals 5)
Another GH III/Rock Band shared track. I like this song.
• Enter Sandman, Metallica, 7.3 (guitar 8, drums 8, vocals 5)
Hell yeah!
• Welcome Home, Coheed and Cambria, 7.3 (guitar 8, drums 6, vocals 8)
Um, okay, whatever.
• Green Grass and High Tides, as made famous by The Outlaws, 7.3 (guitar 9, drums 6, vocals 7)
Two things you need to know about this song: one is that it's the hardest guitar song in the game, and the other is that it's a loooooong song. Good for points, bad if you're going to mess up a solo near the end.
• Next to You, The Police, 7.7 (guitar 7, drums 9, vocals 7)
This is the Police song you include in the game? There are like 50 Police songs better than this, including the three in the DLC pack.

h2. Eight-point songs
Ready to knock out some of those achievements, huh?

• Won't Get Fooled Again, The Who, 8.0 (guitar 7, drums 9, vocals 8)
I got chills the first time I played this song.
• Train Kept A Rollin', as made famous by Aerosmith, 8.0 (guitar 9, drums 7, vocals 8)
Yeah, this one's kind of hard.
• Foreplay/Long Time, Boston, 8.3 (guitar 8, drums 8, vocals 9)
Another great song.
• Flirtin' with Disaster, as made famous by Molly Hatchet, 8.3 (guitar 9, drums 9, vocals 7)
I think this is one of the two I haven't passed on Hard guitar.
• Tom Sawyer, as made famous by Rush, 8.7 (guitar 8, drums 9, vocals 9)
Geddy Lee's voice is only a 9 difficulty?
• Highway Star, Deep Purple, 8.7 (guitar 9, drums 8, vocals 9)
The song in the game's intro. I like Deep Purple. This might be a master track - I need to confirm. Yep, a master track. This is a great song.

h2. Bring it on!

• Run to the Hills, as made famous by Iron Maiden, 9.0
Knock this one out and you can play pretty much anything you want.

360 review: Rock Band (10/10)

You did buy this, right? At launch? So you're asking why it got a 10? I'll explain.

Let's set the tone first. Rock Band is kind of like Guitar Hero, but with drums and vocals as well, meaning that you can have up to four players at once. The idea is the same - match the notes coming down the screen - but there are some pretty big differences between the two.

There were definitely problems with the launch: only two options (game only or full set), the USB hub and guitars broke quickly or didn't work at all, and even confusion at retailers. Fortunately, EA has been replacing them. I got my replacement hub before I sent the old one in. The guitar is going out Monday, so we'll see if I get one before Christmas.

With those in mind, let's talk about differences, assuming that you have a fully-working game and controllers.

h2. Character creation
Unlike GH III, in Rock Band, you create your own character. This isn't like a GTA or Saints Row where you have all kinds of options, but there are enough to personalize the character quite a bit (especially for women), and you get a better feel for being in the game. Another way that's enhanced is by seeing your name in lights: on tour buses, album covers, and so on. A very nice touch.

h2. Overdrive
Activating Overdrive (Rock Band's version of Star Power) is the same - Select or tip up for guitars. What's different is that you can continue to hit Overdrive phrases while you play, and if you complete them, they add to what you're using, which can lead to monstrous point streaks in some songs. This is a great change.

On guitar, Overdrive notes are half-width gems. I didn't like this because they're much more difficult to identify. On drums, they're all white, and on vocals, they're all yellow - much better ideas.

h2. Set progression
GH III has 8 sets with 5 songs each (let's skip the boss battles for now and assume they actually had a final song), and unlike previous versions, all songs and all sets are available on Easy. The fifth song is an encore and is unlocked after passing three of four songs in the set on Easy or Medium, or passing all four other songs on Hard or Expert.

Rock Band is a mix of GH II and III: there are 5 songs per set, but only the first 6 sets are available on Easy - there are 9 sets in all on the higher levels. You must pass all five songs in a set to unlock the next set. However, if you've unlocked a set on Medium or higher, all songs in that set become available on all lower difficulty levels. (This also means you can get the achievement for that level by playing just the final set once you've unlocked it. You don't have to complete all the other songs.)

I'm not such a big fan of the five-song requirement, especially because you're playing them three times as a solo artist (lead guitar, vocals, drums). If you're good enough to complete the game (I won't be), you'll play most songs at least 12 times and the other songs at least 9 times, and frankly, some songs aren't worth it.

h2. Visuals
I know, it seems minor, but it's not. GH visuals are drawn and are pretty much random. Rock Band visuals are motion-capture and pretty much match the songs. This gives you much more of the in-the-band feeling. The only thing that's awkward is when you're watching your character play the song, but you're on a level below Expert, so his sticks are going everywhere and you're simply tapping red. Big win for Rock Band.

h2. DLC
Harmonix has committed to weekly DLC and has also made it available as single tracks or a track pack. Again, a huge win for Rock Band. GH III has some DLC available, but they haven't yet got into single-track pricing, and while Rock Band is selling Metallica and David Bowie, GH is selling random bands.

h2. Master tracks
Rock Band has significantly more master tracks (21 in GH III, 36 in Rock Band), which is great, especially for singing: it sounds much better when you're echoing the original artists. Also, by now you've probably read that Metallica is releasing a new single via Rock Band. Yeah, that's pretty cool.

h2. Song progress
Rock Band shows the number of stars you're earning for the song on-screen, updating it as you score points. This is great if you don't get five stars and want to know how close you were, or if you did get five stars so you don't have to feel bad about pausing the game. However, it doesn't break down accuracy by phrases at the end of the song.

h2. Career progress
Rock Band does not mark perfect songs differently than five-star songs: this is like GH I. Not such a big fan of that change.

h2. Big Rock Ending
In some songs, everybody (except for vocals) has Freestyle phrases at the end. Play anything you want and get credit for it ... if you hit the notes that close the song. This is a nice way to finish off that extra star or score some really big points.

h2. Vocals
Now we're getting into the good stuff. Rock Band's vocals are like the Karaoke Revolution games: hit enough notes in the phrase and you increase your multiplier. For Overdrive, you just sing or shout during a Freestyle phrase.

Some songs have cowbell or tambourine notes in them. For these, you tap the microphone or press A on the controller (sorry, you need to have a controller hooked up as well as the mic). Hit them all, and you get a boost; miss a few, no big deal, these are extra.

h2. Drums
You also get a mini drum set (snare, crash, and cymbals/toms according to the manual, with one bass drum). The pads are color-coded, and you get a track like the guitarists; bass drum is a line across the track. Overdrive is activated by hitting a single note at the end of a Freestyle phrase.

h2. Guitar
Bassists don't get a solo career (boo), but we do get a Bass Groove: once your multiplier reaches 4, you get this really cool background, and you can extend it up to 6. Nice to have us around, isn't it?

The Stratocaster that comes with the game is different in a few ways. It has solo notes down the neck of the guitar. Most songs have at least one guitar solo: like the mini-percussion for vocals, hit the notes and get a bonus. With this guitar, you don't have to strum, just finger the notes. (This also works during the Big Rock Ending.) You can play the solo normally if you like, or use these notes and strum to play normally. I found it a little awkward to go down the neck for a solo and back up, but I guess that comes with practice.

The guitar also has an effects switch on it. When you are in Overdrive, you can hear the effects in your notes. Don't have a Strat? No problem, the game seems to assign an effect to you.

The Select and Start buttons are big and round like the GH III guitar. This is great - I still don't know why they messed up the GH II guitar. Also, the whammy bar feels more realistic and is easier to use than the GH II ones, at least on the 360. The PS2 guitar also had a good whammy bar.

h2. Multiplayer
Now here's where Rock Band really shines. When you create a band, any time the band wants to play, you have to be there, but you can use whatever other people are around. You can even change your characters so you play different instruments.

You start with a single city and a few gigs to play. Do well in the gigs to earn fans and money: more fans means more gigs in more cities, and more money means, well, more money. Eventually, you'll get gambling options: you can choose double-or-nothing money on the next gig, or take either double fans/no money or double money/no fans, if you meet certain conditions (pass all songs, five-star all songs, things like that).

There are several types of gigs: single, pre-selected songs; multiple pre-selected songs; single or multiple songs you can choose; and multiple random songs. You can check out all the non-random set lists prior to playing them. I like this much better than the traditional set lists because you can focus on specific songs if you like, rather than playing the same old stuff in the same order.

Get enough fans and you unlock transportation to new cities for new gigs. You can't just cruise along on Easy, though. (Like GH III, you can play at different difficulty levels for a given song.) Your fan base is capped based on the difficulty levels you're using. Want more fans? Step it up.

Scoring is interesting. It seems that each player scores individually, so you don't have to worry about common streaks and such. Instead, when you go into Overdrive, the multiplier affects everyone. More band members = more Overdrive = more multipliers.

Also, if someone struggles, the whole band doesn't fail. Instead, that person is silenced. You can bring them back with Overdrive, but only twice. If they fail a third time, L is for Loser.

There are definitely things about the game that could be improved: the mic should really have had buttons on it so another controller was less necessary (although at least you can use any USB mic in the game), timing for drums and spoken vocal phrases seems odd, and slogging through a song you didn't like once so that you can play it again later isn't so fun.

However, the emphasis on fun over technique (no Perfect-this-song-blindfolded achievements) helps out quite a bit. The difficulty is lower, if you haven't heard. It's true that it's about one level easier in Rock Band, and that helps the band concept, especially if you don't have anyone with vocals or drums experience.

Once the hardware difficulties are resolved (EA says they are, but EA also says that an exclusive license didn't hurt Madden), go out and get the set.

zlionsfan's rating: 10 out of 10.

Here's your playoff, sir. Oh yes you did.

That's right. One of these days in the not-so-distant future, the NCAA president will arrive in his office (a female president? Consider the constituency - no chance) to discover that the I-A (you say BCS, I say you're retarded) playoffs are set to begin December X and conclude January Y.

Wise people have been preaching this for years, but now the bandwagon is starting to open to the masses. Austin Murphy of People Illustrated has an article on the very subject this week. (Yeah, I linked to the single-page version. a) SI sucks. b) They don't even provide you with forward and back buttons. c) SI sucks. Why is this on their site? Why am I paying for a subscription? Oh yeah, it's a gift. Move along.) He provides some cogent arguments for a playoff, but fails in his eventual solution. Come now, Austin. Your rivals at The Sporting News proposed a 16-team playoff many, many years ago, and it's still a better idea than yours.

But hey, it's a start, and in honor of that, I shall summarize his arguments and support them. (You'll see that he lists "arguments" for the bowl system and debunks each one.)

1. The sanctity of the regular season.
Murphy: You mean prior to conference championship games, right?

Dude, you're making it too hard. The correct question is "Compared to what?" The current system? The one where at least 75% of I-A has absolutely zero chance whatsoever at a championship, and by season's end, exactly two teams have a shot at a "title"?

I actually read something that claimed that with a playoff system in place, this year's Kansas-Missouri game and last year's Michigan-Ohio State game would have been virtually meaningless. To that I respond, sir or madam, you are nuts, and completely wrong.

I counter with several pieces of "evidence." For example, pretty much every SEC game. Or, for that matter, a large number of basketball games. Resident moron Jim Delany claims that "[t]here's only one game in the country that carries a premium: Duke-North Carolina."

For those of you who don't know, Delany is commissioner of the Big Ten. Apparently he's unaware that his conference plays basketball. As someone who's attended a sizable number of Big Ten regular-season basketball games, I can say that he is wrong. Very wrong. (Of course, he's the latest in a long line of wrong. Keep in mind that for decades, Big Ten teams went to the Rose Bowl or nothing. Why? Because bowls are for sissies. And the rest of the football universe. But not for us.)

If you don't believe games prior to the playoffs matter, watch teams who are on the bubble.

2. Preserving the bowls.
Murphy: People watch the non-title bowls now, and besides, the lesser bowls need to go.

Got to disagree with you, my friend. For one thing, you cite Michigan going to the Rose Bowl as an example of this. Delany just got done telling you how his conference and the Rose Bowl are likethis. Of course Wolverine fans will go to that game. You should have brought up, say, Michigan fans going to the Alamo Bowl.

Uh huh.

Second, those lesser bowls are precisely what middle-tier schools need. You're locking into the BCS mindset, and it's important to remember that they don't represent all of I-A. Sure, maybe you don't think a 6-6 team deserves a bowl bid, and if it's Notre Dame, I agree, but if it's Eastern Michigan or Troy, I don't think you understand.

What you should have said is this: "Preserve what, exactly?" The names? The conference matchups? The dates? The locations? The bowls have already changed all of this themselves every time old Benjamin and his 10,000 friends came knocking.

Besides, what's better? Neutral-site or home games? Sure, the men's tournament kind of has to play at neutral sites, with 6 rounds in 3 weeks and all that, but what's going to draw better: LSU vs. Hawaii in Tucson or LSU vs. Hawaii in Baton Rouge (or on the island)?

If anything, it's the top-tier bowls that need to go. They're whores anyway. Keep the lower tier. We're breaking with tradition. Let's not get caught up in what's left.

3. Effect on academics, blah blah blah.
Murphy: 12 games? I-AA? Baseball? Basketball? Golf?

Best of his three arguments. He left out a few, too, so let's help.

Yeah, what about that 12th game? I suppose that's played during winter break? Or the kickoff "classics" in late August? Or the conference championships? Or the games on Thursday? (and Wednesday, and Tuesday, and Sunday) Or the games against I-AA opponents? Or the cross-country non-conference games?

And yes, I-AA has a playoff, as does every level of every other sport, and nobody seems to kick up too much of a stink there.

Which is more likely to interfere with classes: practice during the week, or games on Saturdays in December? Do you see the NCAA trying to further restrict practice during the week? Me neither.


Anyway, Murphy presents us with an eight-team playoff. (To his credit, he points out that if I-A dropped that 12th game, they could play a 16-team playoff like I-AA. He did not, however, point out the 16-game season in Pennsylvania high school football. Probably because Pennsylvania understands more about football than the BCS.) The top 7 teams and Hawaii. (Yeah, that's pretty weak. What are your criteria again?) Tolerable, but let me help you.

Zlionsfan's Wonderful, Beautiful Playoff Idea

1. 16 teams: 11 conference champions and 5 at-large berths.
Why? Several reasons: you ain't havin' no playoff without the non-BCS conferences, uh-uh. They'll shoot it down faster than you can say Congress. Plus it's an NCAA title, and in case you hadn't noticed, everyone gets a dance card.
2. First- and second-round games at campus sites.
Cut down on travel costs. That'll be vital. Plus you've got to get the big schools on board, and if the playoff itself doesn't do it, the prospect of an extra home game or two certainly will. Ask the ADs in Delany's conference (or in the Pac-10, headed by fellow idiot Tom Hansen) if they'd like the chance at two extra home dates on national television against a (most likely) ranked opponent, and if they say no, they're lying.
3. Blah blah bowls blah blah rotate blah blah Final Four.
Honestly, I don't know that this is necessary any more. Maybe it's better to play the games in one location so there's less travel. Anyway, screw the bowls. Except ...
4. Keep bowls for teams finishing out of the playoffs.
Because, you know, a lot of teams will.
5. DROP THE FRIGGING BCS RANKINGS.

Yeah, that's the most important part of it, and let me tell you why.

They're stupid.

Why? Because they were initially designed to determine relative strengths of teams, but every time they disagreed with "people", they were changed to be more like what the "people" thought. Anyone with half a brain would see that an objective system can actually rank teams fairly accurately, even if you don't like how it's done, and a person can't possibly rank 10 teams accurately, never mind 25, given one day to absorb all the games on a standard football Saturday.

So do what college basketball does: make your own formula THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH POLLS, use other components, and then sit in a room and pick the best five teams that didn't win their conference. Seed 1-16. End of story.

This year, for poops and laughs, we'll do it this way ...

1. Ohio State (11-1): Big Ten champion
2. Oklahoma (11-2): Big 12 champion
3. Virginia Tech (11-2): ACC champion
4. LSU (11-2): SEC champion
5. Kansas (11-1): at-large bid
6. Missouri (11-2): at-large bid
7. Georgia (10-2): at-large bid
8. West Virginia (10-2): Big East champion
9. Florida (9-3): at-large bid
10. USC (10-2): Pac-10 champion**
11. Arizona State (10-2): at-large bid****
12. BYU (10-2): Mountain West champion
13. Hawaii (12-0): WAC champion
14. Central Florida (10-3): Conference USA champion
15. Florida Atlantic (7-5): Sun Belt champion***
16. Central Michigan (8-5): MAC champion
Navy (8-4): Independent champion*

*Sorry, the Navy thing was my own little joke. Only the BCS and the Gator Bowl think that you can act like a conference without being in one, not that Navy does, of course. It's just that this spot, ordinarily reserved for a Notre Dame joke, was spoiled by ND's inability to beat pretty much anyone. That Weis guy is a genius.

**Further evidence Hansen is a moron: the Pac-10 plays a round-robin schedule. This is a good idea according to about five people on the planet. Come on, even the Big Ten knows better. Playing additional conference games does not help you establish how good you are with respect to other conferences.

***Apparently they don't care who wins it right now. I pick FAU because they beat Troy.

****Over South Florida because they were conference co-champs.

So you get this:
Central Michigan at Ohio State - I flipped CMU and FAU (about equal) to keep them closer to home. Less travel, remember?
Florida Atlantic at Oklahoma - Howard will love this game.
Central Florida at Virginia Tech
Hawaii at LSU - hey look, my hypothetical example!
BYU at Kansas
Arizona State at Missouri
USC at Georgia
Florida at West Virginia - lookit! Runnin' QBs!

You probably don't want to mess with seeding too much, not with only 16 teams. If ASU and USC meet in the first round, so what?

Is it the best way to do it? Yes, so don't argue with me. Okay, you can argue a little, but if you think the BCS is better, well, no.

Dude!

Holy cow.

So the Tigers want to win big, and win now. I love it.

I saw rumors about the deal this afternoon. When ESPN ran the story from Gammons that it was all but done, I nearly broke off my workout to go home and write about it. (Then I remembered that I'm 25 pounds overweight and really don't need to be ditching cardio work.)

Left field isn't set yet, at least the PAs that Sheffield won't use when he's not DH/1B with Guillen, but aside from that, Detroit now has

1B Guillen (123 OPS+ in 2006)
2B Polanco (122 OPS+ - yep, that's right)
3B Cabrera (150 OPS+)
SS Renteria (125)
LF Jones (87)
CF Granderson (136)
RF Ordonez (167)
DH Sheffield (120)
C Rodriguez (85)

(Yeah, I forgot the acquisition of Jacque Jones. My bad.)

Pudge may remain below-average, LF might be another below-average bat, and a couple others may drop as well, but right now, that's one solid lineup. I may head over to WIS to see if I can test it against some other current teams ....

SP Verlander (ERA+ 125, WHIP 1.23)
SP Willis (ERA+ 83, WHIP 1.60)
SP Bonderman (ERA+ 91, WHIP 1.38)
SP Rogers (ERA+ 103, WHIP 1.43)
SP Robertson (ERA+ 96, WHIP 1.48)

More questions in the rotation, of course: can Willis regain his form, is Bonderman going to be healthy, is Rogers going to be healthy/clean/not cheating ... anyway, the rotation should be stable, at least, which it hasn't been in a long time.

RP Rodney (ERA+ 107, WHIP 1.32)
RP Jones (ERA+ 107, WHIP 1.42)
???

The bullpen has some work to do, with Zumaya likely out for the year. Byrdak and Seay posted some good numbers, and the new guy might help as well, but the Tigers will need consistency from the pen. Not much more, though. If the lineup lives up to its billing, the pitching will be fine.