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.