Bring on the winning teams

The Braves are 14-8 vs. teams with a winning record, the only series they lost was to the Red Sox. That is 6-3 vs. the Mets, 2-1 vs. the Dodgers and Brewers, 3-1 vs. the Padres, and 1-2 vs. Boston. They are 16-15 vs. teams with a losing record. What the hell is up with that. That is just crazy.

No Star Wars

Well the Little One was away and Pretty Bird was off work Friday. There just wasn't time to watch Star Wars. George Lucas would understand, hell if he got busy more maybe the prequels wouldn't be as underwhelming as they were.

Vote Early, Vote Often

The MLB All-Star game is basically a joke but I'm not here to rip it. I actually do enjoy watching it every year and I really enjoy voting. I mix my vote between favorites and players that are having the best year. If I vote for one of my favorite players then I make sure he is at least close to the guy having the best year. Of course none of it really matters, household names, players from popularity/population centers NY and Boston, notorious ballot stuffers Philly and St. Louis, and anyone from Japan (online voting means a whole, high population country votes for you) are usually the ones near the top of the vote. Voting also takes place too early and you get 25 votes per person. So go to mlb.com and vote, maybe even 25 times.

Here is my ballot
American League
1B Justin Morneau, Minnesota (David Ortiz will win. Either deserves it)
2B BJ Upton, Tampa Bay (Robinson Cano will win, Upton or Bip Roberts deserve it)
SS Derek Jeter, New York (Jeter will win, easily. Jeter probably deserves it)
3B Alex Rodriguez, New York (ARod will win, easily. He also easily deserves it)
C Victor Martinez, Cleveland (Jorge Posada will win. Jorge also deserves to make it but I can't vote for three Yankees)
It is really dumb you vote for OF but you do
OF Vladimir Guerrero, Los Angeles (Will win, deserves to win. Great player)
OF Torii Hunter, Minnesota (Ichiro will win, Torii deserves to win)
OF Magglio Ordonez, Detroit (Manny Ramirez will win, Magglio deserves to win)

National League
1B Prince Fielder, Milwaukee (Carlos Delgado or Albert Pujols will win, Prince deserves to win)
2B Kelly Johnson, Atlanta (Chase Utley will win and deserves to win)
SS Edgar Renteria, Atlanta (Jose Reyes will win, JJ Hardy deserves to win)
3B Chipper Jones, Atlanta (David Wright will win, Chipper or Miguel Cabrera should win)
C Russell Martin, Los Angeles (I wanted to vote for McCann but couldn't. Paul LoDuca will win, Martin easily deserves to win)
OF Jeff Francouer, Atlanta (Carlos Beltran will win and deserves to as well)
OF Matt Holiday, Colorado (Barry Bonds will win but I haven't voted for Bonds, ever. I used to only vote for players I liked and Bonds played for the Pirates and Giants vs. the Braves, not good. Holliday deserves to win)
OF Ken Griffey, Jr., Cincinnati (Alfonso Soriano will win, Adam Dunn or Griffey deserve to win but I like Griffey)

So go vote early and remember to vote often.

X-Men

Pretty Bird and I have been playing a lot of Marvel Ultimate Alliance on the 360, it is a really good game. In fact I think it is better than both of the previous games. It really made both of us want to watch a movie based on comics and for some reason we picked X-Men. I think X2 is much better than X-Men but I haven't seen the original in quite some time. After watching it again I still think X2 is much better, probably even more so. The acting is good, the story is pretty good, it just doesn't have much action, it is kinda boring.

Maybe there are Baseball Gods

I was thinking about blogging in a negative fashion about the Brewers, a team I actually like, I didn't obviously but I was thinking about it. The Baseball Gods have repaid by making Smoltz leave with a shoulder injury, which frankly is balls. Oh Baseball Gods, I beg for Your mercy, please allow John to only have a minor injury.

Bad baseball weekend

The holiday weekend wasn't very nice to the Braves or my fantasy team. Being swept by the Phillies, ick. I dropped out of first in my league for the time in four weeks. Oh well, that is the nice thing about baseball there is another game very quickly, like today!

Argh!

Lose the first two against the Phillies and then now we get Cole Hamels, wtf. These last two weeks they just haven't been very good, maybe they'll save a little face and win today, I doubt it though. That would leave the Phillies only 2 games behind the Braves, blech.

Is is so weird

The Little One is visiting her grandparents for the week, Pretty Bird has to work all weekend, and I'm off for three days. I guess it is going to be a boring weekend. There isn't even a movie I want to go see since I've seen the two out that look good.

Happy Star Wars Day!

For those that live in a cave, today is the 30th anniversary of the release of Star Wars. I've written a number of times about how much I like Star Wars and I'm going to keep writing things like that. I really do like Star Wars, I've had so much fun enjoying the movies, the video games, the RPGs, the toys, the CCG, the minis, shit I could go on for hours, they do merchandise the hell out of Star Wars. Sure it is over the top and sure some of it is crap but man a lot of it is great as well.

Today we're going to see Pirates (which like every other blockbuster movie wouldn't be what it is without Star Wars) but tonight we're going to watch Star Wars. Hell I might even bust out some SWCCG (doubtful) or KOTOR (probable). I'll probably write more about Star Wars later.

200, How sweet it is

Congratulations John Smoltz on your 200th win, against Tom Glavine and the Mets. Right now the Braves are 6-3 against the Mets. The best (or worst) part of that stat is that they are 0-3 vs. Oliver Perez and 6-0 against everyone else. It has been a great year so far in terms of watching games.

Smoltz vs. Glavine 3 - The Revenge

Man I hate Oliver Perez, he is fricking Bob Gibson versus the Braves. Tonight however is good times, Smotlz vs. Glavine. Of the big three Glavine was always my least favorite, probably because he got shelled a few times early in the playoffs and he was the union rep for the Braves during the strike. I do like him fine, wish he would have finished his career as a Brave, and think he is a first ballot Hall of Famer, I just liked Smoltz and Maddux more.

Smoltz is 2-0 vs. Glavine this year so that is good. The bad of course is the Mets actually are a better team than the Braves and Glavine is due. We'll see tonight.

A really funny letter

I have a picture of a really funny letter we got at our PO Box yesterday, OMG was it funny. The letter wasn't directed towards us, we received it in error. It was a letter requesting some sort of a meeting with an African American guy who lives in Charlotte. I'm going to wait to post the letter until after my lovely picture of The Little One scrolls away. I can't see having a letter with words that rhyme with rock, rick, paved, slow, hallow, and a word used to describe a house cat and my daughter up at the same time. That being said, it is a hilarious letter.

Last Day in Uniform

Today was The Little One's last day in a uniform. Friday is her last day of school this year and next year she is going to a different school and it will actually be a public school. There a a number of reasons why with the biggest one being it is almost an hour each way from the new place to her school. That is a good bit to drive twice a day. We've loved the school, it has been absolutely incredible for her and for us. Hopefully Friday won't be too traumatic on her (or Pretty Bird).

5 Wins, 2 Losses

To catch the Mets we need a Mets loss and a Braves win. Good thing the Braves were playing the Mets and they destroyed the Mets tonight. Tomorrow should be a sure win for the Mets, stupid Oliver Perez. Even if the Mets pull out the next two wins this series that leaves the Braves at 5-4 vs. the Mets, not bad since they don't play again until August or September. We do need to get another win this series though since the Mets destroy everyone else in the league.

Fantasy Baseball

Today begins the third week in a row that I've been ranked first in both of my fantasy leagues. I'm sure this will not keep up for the entire season, it isn't possible. It is really cool though. Actually the eight team league I've been in first place every day of the season except for one, which is really cool.

Letdown

I will fill it in more later on but right now both of the finales were somewhat of a letdown. Actually I really enjoyed Heroes and think it was really good but it was very predictable. Jack and his clan in 24 however, that wasn't very good, at all.

Jack is Lethal

I wrote a few months ago about my top five TCG cards and I left one of them blank. I’m not quite filling in the section now because the cards aren’t approved, nor in fact are they completely done. Either way the card is Jack Bauer, well not a specific Jack Bauer but a gameplay mechanic that was started with the Jack series of cards.

I will get into how 24 TCG plays at a later time. Obviously we aren’t reinventing the wheel so if you’ve played other TCGs then you can play 24 TCG with little effort. To set up what I really love about Jack then I do have to explain a little bit. The basic premise of the game is that you play your characters (CTU or Insurgents) and they have an overall mission to score 24 (obviously) points. A character may attempt a mission and then your opponent may have one of their characters try and stop that character. That is how battling happens. The characters each have a skill rating and a health rating. When a character losses a battle they are wounded, when they get wounds equal to their health rating then they die.

Our game also has keywords, loaded (a gameplay macro) and unloaded (just to hang stuff off) but we call them traits (loaded) and keywords (unloaded). There were a lot of initial discussions about Jack and how we can give him some impact to the game, something that fits the IP but also is appealing the TCG. One day the conversation went a lot like this, I think this is pretty close to how it went.

“So what do we do about Jack?”

“Well one thing about Jack, anyone who walks into a room with Jack Bauer comes out wounded.”

And that was that, it just clicked with everyone. The trait Lethal was born. The name could change but we really hope not. Lethal works pretty simple, you deal an extra wound. When in a mission attempt with someone with the Lethal trait you receive a wound; win, lose, or draw.

In a game where most characters have one or two health the Lethal trait is incredibly powerful and has required a good bit of testing. When Jack (or anyone with Lethal) is one the table you must be very careful. It makes for some fun, fast paced games, which is obviously the goal.

Hopefully I’ll be able to post a card before too long. We have a few work in progress images up coming in Scrye and InQuest, I’ll post links once they are out.

Back from the ATL

It was a real short trip but a needed one. Now we are back (only to go down again in two weeks) and it should be a weird week. This is the first week of summer hours so I get four 9 hour days and then one half day on Friday. I'm not a huge fan of these hours but some people in the office love them.

Rain Out

I guess a rain out is better than the sure loss the Braves would have received at the hands of the Red Sox. The AL is just better than the NL and the Red Sox are the best team in baseball. Tomorrow is great though, according to Ernie Banks "Let's play two!"

Down to ATL

Minus the Mustang. Pretty Bird needs to get around some separate from what I have to do and she can't drive the Mustang. I make my fourth (or fifth) trip to ATL since I purchased the Mustang and it is the first without it. It is going to be tough going from 210hp to 122hp in four hour trip. Oh well, it will just mean Monday is that much more fun to drive to work.

Are you kidding me?

Losing three out of four to the Nationals. What the fuck is that crap. I guess that shows like I've been worried that maybe the Braves aren't that good. Still losing to the Nationals just sucks.

Trevor on the DL

Like everyone in the world I was listed as day to day yesterday. A few of my many symptoms that bother me in completely random intervals decided yesterday was a good day to mess with me. That just caused me to basically do nothing all day except sleep, I felt like a complete loafer. Anyways I'm back at work today trying to figure out which cards should go with Jack Bauer in the Jack Bauer deck. Good times.

Happy Birthday John Smotlz

There are two things in my life that makes me feel old. The first one is my daughter, to have a 7 year old means I need to be at least a certain age. The other thing is the age of baseball players. Most of the players I've been a fan of have always been older than I am but when they hit milestone ages it really shows how long you've been watching them as well. I guess watching a group of people play ball 80 to 100 times a year, every year, means you identify on some level with them, as pathetic as that sounds. Anyway happy 40th John Smoltz.

Good Pig

He raised a talking pig, got killed by Russell Crowe, invented warp drive, and is Gwen Stacey's dad, oh yeah he is Jack's dad and a fucking terrorist. James Cromwell is all of those things he however is not easy to get images of, fun times.

The Matrix

Both the Kill Bills (which oddly enough we don't own, weird) were on TV over the weekend. We caught some parts, mainly the Crazy 88 showdown. The crazy on-screen kung-fu madness made me really want to see some more high flying martial arts. We own a few but I decided on The Matrix, #4 on my list. Yes it was still great, yes Keanu still says "Whoa" like an idiot, what a nice way to waste a few hours.

Fantasy Golf

Isn't fantasy golf really decided with who gets the first pick. If you get the second (or later) pick don't you just decide not to play that year. Of course you could get an owner that decides to pull a Houston Texans and take the 5th or 6th best player on the board instead of the #1.

That fricking sucks

We almost get no hit, lose Smoltz for who knows how long (probably at least two starts), and then the Mets win and take away first place. What a shitty night in baseball. At least Heroes was really good.

Happy Mother's Day

We wouldn't be here if it wasn't for our mothers. Me, of course I'm a bad son and forgot to mail my mom her card and gift so it would be there in time for today. I'm a bad son and she is a great mom and very forgiving, I think she'll like the gift.

The other mother in my life, The Little One's mom, actually has to work today. The Little One and I picked her out a nice gift though and are making her a really nice dinner. I think she'll at least end the day on a good note.

The Fifth Element

A movie that just gets better with time. Every single time I watch it I enjoy it more. It was on earlier this week on HD which means I had to watch it. Man did it look great, good times.

Brewer Magic

Come on Tom, whatever magic you guys can come up with would be helpful.

The Break Up

Taking advantage of our last few weeks with HBO we decided to TiVo The Break Up. I'm a pretty big Jennifer Aniston fan or at least I was at one point. Both Pretty Bird and I enjoy Vince Vaughn when he is on and for the most part in this movie he was. I didn't see this movie when it was released despite the chance of seeing Jennifer's ass, well it was a nice ass two years later. The movie was pretty funny and we both enjoyed it. It wasn't great and I'm glad I didn't spend any extra money to see it but it was worth two hours of my time.

Sleep

I'm so excited I get to sleep in a little tomorrow. I haven't had a weekend in almost a month when I was able to get a little extra sleep. A combination of travel, work, and some around the house stuff has just made things hectic. I really just want to sleep in tomorrow but I'm sure I will be up early enough with the family running around. It is nice to at least hope for though.

Home Run

So that is what a home run looks like. With the Braves going eight games without a home run I was begging to wonder. I still can't complain since they have now won four games in a row and seven of the last ten. The ass end of the rotation is not looking so ass end and the bullpen has been incredible. When the offense is back on track they might actually be a decent team.

Jason said it right

It is always a good day when you get two checks. Today is payday and we both got our Vegas expense check. Sure the expense check is just money they gave us back but it is still nice to get two checks. Good times.

Smoltz > Maddux

Well Maddux was pretty damn good, hell so was Smoltz. Smoltz only gave up 2 solo HR and the bullpen is who gave up the game for Maddux. It was a fun game and great to watch. Vintage Maddux with him cussing every single mistake he makes. There is no better family entertainment than watching a 40 year old man say 'fuck' a few times on TV.

The Braves bats have really fallen asleep the last 7 or 8 games but they are still 6-4 in their last 10 games, not bad. This is in addition to the closer being on the DL, the 3B and catcher playing hurt, starting a rookie pitcher, and Chuck James sucking up the joint. If you can win with all of that going on then you might actually be a good team. It is still only May, we'll see how it all ends up.

The Rock

Today I was trying not to fall asleep. I'm still beat from the weekend and really just dragging. It was a lot easier with The Rock on HBO. I just love this movie, easily one of my favorite action movies of all time. Like I've written before just look at it as "What if James Bond was caught". It is also pre-drugged out Nick Cage, well at least before he took that much coke. Good times.

Lerew > Redman

I've been saying any random starter from AAA would be better than Mark Redman, it turns out for at least one start I was right. Yes, Girard it was still smoke and mirrors. I do love me some comeback wins though. Tomorrow is Maddux vs. Smoltz, what good times.

Just Plain Weird

Tonight's 24 was much more enjoyable than Heroes. Obviously Heroes was setting up the final two episodes and a nice transition from last week's Days of Future Present episode. For 24 it was its usual absurd, over the top show that just rehashes the same plot over and over again. I still really enjoy the hell out of it and season 5 was incredible. Season 6 hasn't been very good however, it is probably their worst offering so far. There have been a few great episodes with a bunch of junk. Tonights was very enjoyable however, it had lots of things I love to watch out of Jack and 24. Heroes was good just a little slow paced for this late in the season. The sucky part of course is only two weeks left for each one, that just sucks ass.

Working on the weekend can be tough

The worst part is missing the Braves games, it is tough knowing I could be watching Smoltz and Hudson pitch. Now I'm going to get to watch some games during the week and get the ass end of the rotation, the junky pitchers. Oh well. At least they aren't just going win/loss, win/loss, for 10 to 12 days in a row. They still aren't winning four or five in a row but they are winning 2 out of 3.

Long Day

What a long day. I haven't a playtest weekend in quite a few years. I think they are a great tool on a limited(ish) budget to get a bunch of playtesting done. Not everyone can be one of the two big boys and the rest of us must test however we can. This is a great way and this weekend has been great so far, so much work is done. It is kicking the hell out of me though, I'm so beat.

Spider-Man 3

Well it was opening night, where else did you think I was going to be but watching Spider-Man 3. I loved it, absolutely loved it. The Stan Lee and Bruce Campbell cameos were incredible. Sam Raimi really turned up the camp in this one compared to the other two, to the point that I'm sure most critics and comic fans will absolutely pan it. The Spider-Man fan in me enjoys the first two more but the movie goer in me probably enjoyed this one more than the other two. It was just so enjoyable. I highly recommend it, in fact why are you reading this when you should be watching it.

To the DL with you!

It seems Mark Redman has a made up injury. Well I'm sure it isn't a made up injury but he is also a professional athlete, with a 10.60 ERA I'm really stretching that term. As a professional athlete he is expected to play through some of the aches, pains, and injuries that normal people wouldn't to suffer through and still play. So while I don't want anyone to suffer pain I am glad I have at least 15 days without this Kansas City reject giving up 5 runs in two innings.

Good win vs. the Phillies. Once James gave up the blast to Ryan Howard I figured the Phillies would go on to win the game. But Bullpen version 07 is actually pretty damn good. If starting rotation version 07 could keep up past Smoltz and Hudson life would actually be pretty good. Still can't complain too much since they are in first place.

Hot Fuzz

The Little One had a camping trip with the Girl Scouts over the weekend so we decided to take a trip to see Hot Fuzz. I'm not a huge fan of Canadian/British humor, I typically like my comedy to be funny, but Pretty Bird really wanted to see it. I enjoyed Shaun of the Dead, or at least the 75% I've seen. Hot Fuzz was actually pretty funny. It was the type of parody I enjoy, over the top just enough but not too much. Now I will have to try and watch Shaun of the Dead the whole way through.

The future sucks

At least in Heroes it sucks. Man what a great episode of Heroes. I didn't even see the Nathan reveal coming, it was awesome. I thought future Hiro was great but future Peter is even better, he does look different with the scar. I think it is a lot better that you don't see the Peter/Sylar fight. Man I haven't geeked about a show this much probably since 24 first started.

Sucks!

Mark Redman fricking sucks. Someone at AAA has got to be better than this guy. A 10.50 ERA, wtf.