Music update
Here’s what I’ve been primarily listening to as of late:
For those playing at home, that’s Cartel, Haste the Day, Imogen Heap, Juliana Theory, Thrice, and Radiohead. I’d put them in arbitrary groups to help describe them, but some of my readership gets uppity when I mislabel certain bands, so I won’t bother. Check out Seeqpod for samples by the bands if you’re looking for something new on your playlist.
Favorite songs by the groups above are:
- Cartel - Burn This City
- Haste the Day - Long Way Down (Goo Goo Dolls cover, actually)
- Imogen Heap - Hide and Seek
- Juliana Theory - We Make the Road By Walking
- Thrice - Deadbolt
- Radiohead - Reckoner
Enjoy!
Cat Charity Update
So far I’ve been able to sell everything but the Game Boy Advance, the PS2, the Xbox (which I am going to keep and turn into an emulator box / media center anyway), and a few minor things that aren’t worth much anyway. We’ve netted just over $600 to donate to the cat’s medical bills. Great job, and thanks for participating, everyone. The cats are currently staying with me since Astrid and her family are moving out, so I’ll try to get a picture or two before I have to let them go. My cat isn’t necessarily happy that they are there, but deep down inside I am sure she appreciates the company (since I’m always gone).
Finally on the Nintendo DS bandwagon
I know, I’m just on the cutting edge of technology, right? Anyway, I just picked one up when I went to reserve Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare at the downtown Gamestop (and getting like $30 on traded in stuff that I thought was essentially worthless, which was nice). My co-worker Kevin coerced me into buying it after showing me the emulator that he has for it, since it takes MicroSD cards and is really easy to operate. Apparently the DS can operate as a VoIP device over some networks, which is amazing. It won’t be soon before technology simply passes me by and I’m no different than the average middle-aged man who shakes his fist at the Internet.
Do you guys have any recommendations for games besides the Brain Age series? I played a bit of Brain Age 2 a few minutes ago and my head feels like it’s going to explode already - apparently my Brain Age is 31, which is old (I didn’t need a video game to tell me I’m an idiot, I knew that already). No more “thinking” games, though, I already do enough of that at work.
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Oh man oh man oh man oh man oh man oh man oh man oh man oh man oh man oh man oh man oh man oh man oh man oh man oh man oh man oh man oh man oh man oh man want want want can’t wait can’t wait can’t wait can’t wait
The Call of Duty series (minus the shitty XBox 360 exclusive) are some of the only good video games to come out in the past few years (Half-Life 2 and Half-Life 2: Episode 2, Portal, Gears of War, Halo 3, and maybe 2 or 3 others I am not thinking of, but I doubt it). Call of Duty 4 looks absolutely amazing. If you haven’t played the demo yet, get it here.
It uses a whole new engine (not that there was anything wrong with CoD’s original engine) with environment-specific physics, so hiding behind a wooden fence won’t protect you from AK-47 fire. Night vision with infrared technology is used, flashbang effects are great, and the M4A1 Grenadier is awesome. Movement is realistic (i.e. slow) and the weapons systems are the same as the original CoD engine with perfect sound effects and graphics.
There’s nothing more to say. Go get the demo. Buy it on November 5th.
Goddamnit.
Here’s what I have to say about the choke job the Indians put together in the ALCS:
Kyle Boddy (Seattle): How big of a choke job is this ALCS for the Indians?
Joe Sheehan: I really hate that we put so much weight on the order of events. The Red Sox and Indians were most likely to go 4-3/3-4 in seven games. That’s what happened. That it happened WLLLWWW…that’s really not as important as we perceive it to be.
It’s not like there was ever a strike point in the last three games where they had a hold on a game and lost it. For that matter, only Game Two really had that kind of tension.
I refuse to buy into the mythology. That makes me a weirdo, I know.
Kyle Boddy (Seattle): Joe, I don’t care about the order of things. I care that two 19-game winners, two aces on any pitching staff in baseball, put together four combined terrible starts against the Boston Red Sox and left it up to the lineup and Westbrook/Byrd to get it done (which they did, to a point). That’s really bad. Joe Sheehan: That’s not “choking,” however, a word that carries all kinds of connotations about the character of a person.
They failed. Be frustrated by that as a fan, be angry, as long as you don’t jump from a failure of performance to a failure of character.
I have nothing else to say.
Stuff for sale (cat charity edition)
Hey everyone. I’m selling a bunch of stuff for two major reasons:
1) My ex-girlfriend’s cat (that I adopted with her when we were together) was sick and had surgery to remove a foreign body from her intestines so she could go on eating and resuming normal daily functions. This cost a few thousand dollars, and my ex is a cashier at the Gap, so she can’t really afford it. As such, I’m selling a bunch of things in my apartment to help raise some money for the medical bills (she and I are still friends, and I like the cat).
2) I really gotta clean out my apartment.
Anyway, there’s some pretty awesome stuff for sale at good prices. All proceeds go to the cat’s bills, so if you feel so inclined, donations are accepted as well.
(No bullshitting, here’s a picture of the cat in question:)
For reference, here’s a picture of my cat:
She’s fine, thanks for asking.
But I digress. On to the stuff for sale! I live in Lake City and I’m available in the evenings and weekends, but I have an office downtown (Westin Building), so I can bring the stuff down there if you’re interested in picking it up there. If you are reading this from my blog or LJ and want to buy over the Internet, I can take Paypal or poker site money (preferably PokerStars) and I’ll ship out the smaller stuff.
(Click Continue Reading for more…)
Life update.
Random updates:
- Work is getting better. Always a good sign, considering it consumes most of my life at this point.
- After a few minor mechanical changes, I am throwing significantly harder and have better life on my fastball. This is good. With the minor mechanical changes, I am feeling more shoulder strain than usual. This is bad. I need to do more side shoulder raises and endurance work.
- I still have not begun to think about what I am going to do in a few months.
- I lapsed on my promise about reading TwoPlusTwo only to catch up on the latest Absolute Poker drama. It is reaching unbelievable status.
- The Indians are up 3-1 after we bashed old man Wakefield. Always good news.
Anyway, time to get back to work. Obviously.
Sabermetrics 101 at Tufts University
http://sabermetrics.hnrc.tufts.edu/index.html
This course will teach Tufts students the fundamentals of Sabermetrics, the objective analysis of baseball. In addition, the course will cover important concepts in statistics and statistical analysis needed to perform sabermetric research. Students will design and implement their own research study in Sabermetrics. We will discuss baseball, not through conventional wisdom and consensus, but by searching for the truth of baseball performance. Hitting performance, pitching performance, and fielding performance will all be analyzed and better understood with current and historical baseball data.
My friends at Tufts are taking classes like this, my friends at Seattle University Law School are taking sports arbitration/negotiation classes, and friends at UIUC are taking baseball contracts classes.
Me? I spent my time in classes like Discrete Math and Information Systems II.
Oh, and Information Systems II was merely shorthand for “COBOL Programming.”
What a waste my higher education was.
Eric Gagne Rules. Or does he?
The Boston Red Sox’s version of Joe Borowski.
Thanks, Tito! Good decision. Eric Wedge tried his hardest to blow the game, but you managed to be even worse. Big ups to the idiots in Boston.
As an addendum, how hilarious is it to watch Jason Varitek? He is absolutely terrible at this point.
I hate Boston. I hate the city, I hate the people in it, and I especially hate the baseball team. I have never been more emotionally involved in a baseball series.
Cleveland or Seattle?
My life has been dominated by a few things lately:
1) The breakup with Trida
2) Work of varying types
3) Baseball
Work hasn't been going that well lately; suffice to say we're “running bad,” to use a poker analogy. To be fair, I haven't been putting in the hours I should be at work, so I really need to put my head down and get to the grind. However, on the other side of that, when we're consistantly “running bad,” going into work isn't exactly something you want to do. That's no excuse, but it doesn't help with the elevated stress levels I already deal with.
At any rate, I need to figure out what I'm doing with my life, and soon. It's not that I'm putting it off; I want to get started. The problem lies in the fact that I have no idea where to start thinking about it. One thing is for sure, though: Where I live needs to be addressed ASAP. Though the title of this post is “Cleveland or Seattle,” my friends have offered to live with them in Irvine, CA as well.
I think after I'm done with this bit of work I'm currently grinding out, I'll start making a list of pros/cons in each city and situation I'd find myself in. Maybe that will help guide me along the way of this major inflection point.
One thing that has greatly reduced my stress levels has been quitting as a moderator (and reading altogether) the TwoPlusTwo forums. Wasting my time, energy, and effort on that site is really distracting me from stuff I should be getting done, work-related or not.
I really like this new Radiohead CD.