Somewhat Manly Nerd

To be more truthful, I have seen the light for a while now, but I only recently chose to finally step into it. For a couple of years now, I told myself to wait until I could afford a decently-sized 1080p set for around a grand. Once I saw the Panasonic Viera TH-42PZ85U for $950 on Amazon, I could not contain myself any longer. It was go time.

I can’t stress enough how great Amazon’s shipping was. It was actually through a third-party shipping company, but they apparently work closely with Amazon. The delivery dude actually took his shoes off before coming in the house due to the pouring rain outside. Seriously. He wasn’t wearing white gloves, but he did put together the TV stand with me and made sure it was setup and working before he left. All free, other than the necessary tip. I mean, the dude TOOK HIS SHOES OFF. I can’t guarantee you’ll get a guy that nice, but I can say that the shipping will most likely be quick and relatively painless. And you will have an awesome HDTV in your presence for hundreds less than what you’d pay at Best Buy or Circuit City or some store that isn’t going out of business.

The HDTV light is glowingly warm and beautiful. I bask in it as much as I can. Even when I’m not watching it, I leave it on in the background on mute. I need to buy a DirecTV HD receiver for my room so I can leave one of those nature channels on as much as possible. Besides, it’s only been two weeks and I already can’t stomach watching SD content. Sitting 5 feet away from a 42″ television half of the time might have something to do with that. I would take a pic of a Blu-ray running from that perspective, but I don’t feel like picking up my laptop to take it. Not having a functioning digital camera is annoying sometimes.

I’m going to go ahead and blame this glorious new piece of electronics in my room for my lack of updates in the past two weeks. I’m sorry you had to suffer while I played Gears of War 2 and Geometry Wars 2 and watched Blade Runner and The Proposition on the best HDTV my budget could buy. And playing Audiosurf on it was a revelation. Holy crap. I want a PS3 just so I could play Wipeout HD on it, as that would be Audiosurf times ten times 1080p/60fps times infinity.

Although, that does bring me to the dilemma that my new 1080p Panasonic Viera plasma brought me. How could I have such a viewing apparatus in front of me without supplying it with Blu-ray, the best quality picture it can handle? I already did have a Dell laptop with Blu-ray built in, but without an HDMI port, it would not output 1080p to the HDTV. Yet, after watching Blade Runner both using the HDTV as a monitor and spinning it in my cousin’s PS3, I could barely tell a difference, if any. A PS3 or standalone player was not needed.

But then both my laptop screen and HDTV started going black whenever I attempted to connect them through VGA. I was on the verge of buying a standalone Blu-ray player (Sony BDP-S350) for $180. But a call to Dell fixed that quickly, as I was told a simple monitor switching shortcut. Problem solved!

Until I received my Crank Blu-ray in the mail today. My excitement fueled by the imminent viewing of one of the best-looking Blu-rays out there was destroyed when I popped the disc into my Blu-ray drive and it wouldn’t play. Days of anticipation slaughtered. Damn you, you piece of shit laptop. Wait, is it the disc? Do I need to ship it back to Deep Discount?

Tomorrow, I will find out which of the two is the answer over a friend’s house. His PS3′s reaction to the Crank Blu-ray will decide the fate of my wallet/Christmas wishlist.

Either way, I’ll still have my beautiful, shiny, black baby.

Here’s a shot I found on the internets of it:

In case you somehow missed SPOILERS in capital letters right above this sentence, you shouldn’t click to read on if you haven’t seen the series finale of The Shield. And you missed the closing act of one of the greatest shows of all-time. There was no cop-out. No Sopranos fade-to-black bullshit here. read more…

Eagles of Death Metal – Anything ‘Cept The Truth

If you may have heard, the website Fire Joe Morgan is pretty much dead. Ken Tremendous and his buddies have decided to stop using their time to humiliate moronic sportswriters. They were the hilarious face of baseball statheads for many, and they will be solely missed. Deadspin has a great post with a few of their greatest hits here. I wish they were still around to rip apart this article themselves, but I’m going to try myself. This is going to be ugly, so I apologize in advance. I also apologize for the absence of food metaphors.

The following article was written by Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel with regards to MVP voting. If you’re not familiar with the FJM style, the original article is in bold, while my comments are in regular type. You probably could’ve figured that out.

St. Louis first baseman Albert Pujols claimed his second NL MVP award today, collecting 18 of 32 first-place votes in balloting by the Baseball Writers Association of America.

The BBWAA continues its streak of voting for the right guy! What is going on this year? Did FJM actually have an effect? Did they quit at the height of their influence?

Philadelphia’s Ryan Howard, with 12 first-place votes, finished second in the balloting, with 308 points to Pujols’ 369 points. A player is awarded 14 points for a first-place vote, 9 for second, 8 for third, etc.

Nevermind.

Brewers leftfielder Ryan Braun was third in the balloting with 139 points, one point ahead of Los Angeles left-fielder Manny Ramirez. Left-hander CC Sabathia was sixth with 121 despite playing only half a season with Milwaukee.

Oh God, it’s getting worse.

Philadelphia closer Brad Lidge, who didn’t blow a save all year, claimed the other two first-place votes and finished eighth in the voting.

Well, he was at least better than Francisco Rodriguez.

Pujols, who won even though St. Louis finished fourth in the NL Central,  finished second in the NL with a .357 batting average to go with 37 homers, 116 RBI, 104 walks, a .462 on-base percentage, .653 slugging percentage and only 54 strikeouts in 633 plate appearances.

Those are videogame numbers right there. Poo-Holes is truly not of this earth. MVP indeed.

Howard led the majors with 46 homers and 146 RBI but also batted just .251 and struck out 199 times, second in the NL.

Cementing his status as the black Adam Dunn, arguably an upgraded version. More home runs, more strikeouts.

I had an MVP ballot and voted for Howard first because he almost single-handedly carried the Phillies to the playoffs by batting .352 with 11 homers and 32 RBI in September.

Using the same logic, he almost single-handedly doomed the Phillies by hitting .172 in April — unless there was a new rule incorporated this year that multipled the outcome of September games three times over.

I like to weight my voting to teams in the playoff hunt because I think that puts more pressure on players and separates the men from the boys. There’s little pressure on players having big years if their teams aren’t playing for anything at the end.

Exactly what would Pujols need to do to garner your first-place vote on a fourth-place team? Pujols OPS’d 233 points higher than Howard. I can’t even believe that as I type it. I feel like you’re a guy that’s impressed by counting stats – maybe if Pujols had someone like Utley in front of him, he might have had a few more RBI. And you know what, fuck this, while the Cardinals were still in the fight in August, Pujols was at his hottest.

With the Cardinals finishing fourth, I voted Pujols seventh on my ballot. I don’t consider MVP to be “the most outstanding player” award and therefore don’t just go by who had the best stats. I like to credit players for lifting their teams to the post-season or at least keeping them in the race until the very end.

And I like to credit mediocre slutty chicks for lifting their slightly more attractive friends to even greater heights in my mind. Maybe you’re on to something here.

I understand that the Cardinals would not have been even close to the wild-card berth without Pujols, but I still like players who elevate their game in crunch time and lift their teams to new heights.

Howard certainly raised his team to new heights in terms of errors.

And I thought Ryan Ludwick had just as much to do with keeping the Cards in the hunt as Pujols did. St. Louis did stay in the wild card race until mid-September, but mainly because the Brewers and Mets were gagging at the time.

How exactly did Ludwick do this? His OPS was lower in every month except for July. You don’t think maybe Pujols is just so good every time he steps up to the plate that you just don’t notice that he’s better than pretty much everyone else even when someone else is at their very best? Just a thought.

It’s a subjective vote and every writer has his own preferences. That’s why I voted for Sabathia second and Ramirez third because even though they played in the league only half a season they were primarily responsible for putting their teams in the playoffs.

Well, you’ve made your subjective analysis clear by now, but did you know that one of the criteria by which you’re instructed to vote for the MVP is number of games played? Just giving you a heads-up.

Here’s the way I voted:

This is going to be worse than that time I tried to rank the top 10 hip-hop albums of all-time.

1. Ryan Howard, Phil

MVP = Guy with a lot of homers and RBI in the month of September for a team that makes the playoffs.

2. CC Sabathia, Mil
3. Manny Ramirez, LA

You didn’t pay heed to my heads-up!

4. Carlos Delgado, NY

Where in the name of all that is Hispanic did this come from? I can only surmise that you have a hard-on for poor fielding first basemen who follow up shitty first halves with much better second halves (It is supposed to be halfs or halves? Am I going to have to [sic] myself?). Second halves that are still inferior to the second half of a first baseman who has yet to show up. Not to mention the almost half-dozen players on Los Mets that any sane fan would tell you was better this year.

Oh no, I just looked at the results and I see that he received 5 third-place votes. FIVE. How could something like happen? I hope Obama makes this a top priority. Nothing like this should ever happen again. FIVE PEOPLE THOUGHT CARLOS DELGADO WAS THE THIRD MOST VALUABLE PLAYER IN THE NATIONAL LEAGUE IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 2008 — a more upsetting true statement than The Simpsons being in its 10th consecutive shitty season.

5. Aramis Ramirez, Chi

I can’t speak on this. I don’t even care enough to look up his stats. I’m too depressed.

6. Prince Fielder, Mil

The first-basemen-not-named-Albert fetish continues. Maybe he got brownie points for being a vegetarian — which has to be total bullshit, by the way. There is no way that fatass is a vegetarian. How many apples does he eat a day? Does he have his salads hauled in with dump trucks? I really would love to see a Michael Phelps-like breakdown of his daily calorie intake.

7. Albert Pujols, Stl

Surprised to see that Pujols was in reality the fourth most valuable first baseman in the National League this year. Thank you for clearing this up for me.

8. Ryan Ludwick, Stl

I’ve got nothing here.

9. Ryan Braun, Mil

The .208 average and .661 OPS in September plainly displays Braun’s ability to withstand the pressure of a wild-card race. And you are a Milwaukee sportswriter?

10. David Wright, NY

Did you miss his two massive strikeouts in the 9th inning of games down the stretch? He can’t stand the pressure. His team missed the playoffs as well. Why is he anywhere near your ballot? Nice job sticking to your guns.

I voted Fielder higher than Braun because Fielder had a much better September when the Brewers were clawing to get in the playoffs. Braun was ailing, as we discovered, and did have the homer that put the Brewers in the playoffs, but I just felt Fielder did more down the stretch.

I could understand voting Fielder higher than Braun, but only if they were both about 10 spots lower than where you put them on your ballot.

This is an inexact science. With 10 names on the ballot, you could move guys around and drive yourself nuts putting them in the spot you feel is best. But that’s the way I voted. In sheer offensive numbers, Pujols certainly is tough to beat, which is why it’s understandable that he got so much support.

Did anyone else read that as “I thought I actually voted for Pujols, but I was a dozen beers under when I voted, so I’m as surprised as you are”?

After finishing the first movie (No Mercy) of Left 4 Dead on advanced difficulty, its Game of the Year status has been confirmed. Beyond intense. Unpredictable. Incredible. Hilarious. Awesome. That is all.

The public is about to get the most addictive demo I’ve ever played dropped on their Steam clients and Xbox Live Marketplaces. While I’ve played the PC version way too much, I haven’t had a chance to play its 360 counterpart, but almost every impression I’ve come across on the web with regards to the latter is exceeding positive. Even moreso than the PC version — but that would be due to shitty matchmaking taking the place of a server list. Console gamers may be used to matchmaking. but if Valve doesn’t at least add a custom server browser in the PC version, there will be internet rioting. Nonetheless, once a game is up and running on a good server with four people, it’s easily the most fun I’ve had gaming this year.

The brilliance of the game lies in the simple premise of surviving a zombie apocalypse taken to its highest level of replayability and unpredictability. The two go hand-in-hand, and the difference in every playthrough can be attributed to The Director, the AI constructed by Valve that controls zombie attacks, health pack location, weapon drops — pretty much everything other than the physical structure of the level itself. Does your group suck? Then the Director won’t spawn that tank zombie right around the corner. Taking too long? Zombie swarm incoming. The Director — combined with the variation between human partners — makes for an amazingly unique experience every time. And this is just the very first (not even full) two levels out of 20. I’ve played the demo for 10 hours. Ten hours for less than 1/10 of the game, not including the other modes. Some of that may be due to not wanting to touch my 360 games until my new HDTV arrives, but the demo is undoubtedly incredible.

It is so transcedent that I may have to double-dip, as most of my friends will be buying it for 360, and I want to kill zombies with the same people I would kill them with if there were a real-life zombie apocalypse. We need to formulate strategies and assign roles. Not to mention the split-screen capability. I’ll just have to see how well I get accustomed to using the 360 controller to play a Source-engine game. That’s going to be weird.

My own PC leanings aside, Left 4 Dead is poised to become the massive word-of-mouth hit of this holiday season. This demo just might be the Call of Duty 4 beta of 2008. We will see starting tomorrow. Don’t let me down, my fellow gamers.

Edit as of 11/12/08: 360 demo is vastly inferior. Oh well.

In case you don’t know what a backlog is, it’s what manifests when you can’t control your spending and buy shit you don’t have time for. This is a thinly veiled attempt at proving my taste is superior to yours. Get ready for the LONGEST POST EVER. It’s so long that I’m actually going to make you click if you want to see it. This is a first, people. CHOICE.

read more…

TV on the Radio – DLZ

I felt I needed to post a song made by (mostly) black people. This isn’t an example of affirmative action though, as this song is actually pretty damn great.

See, instead of telling you to vote, I tell you which videogames to buy. I also like telling you which movies and TV shows to watch, and occasionally which books and music to spend your time reading and listening to. I know you need the guidance.

You should’ve already bought Audiosurf — even though it gets old a bit too quick — but now you are obligated to purchase it. I will IP ban you from this blog if you don’t. It is TWO DOLLARS AND FIFTY CENTS on Steam. Even if it gets old, it’s TWO DOLLARS AND FIFTY CENTS. You probably spend three or four times that to see shitty movies in theaters. So basically, if you manage to get 30 minutes of entertainment out of this, you’ve broken even. You’ll get more than that, unless you hate music and videogames. Like the tagline says: Ride Your Music. And not in the groupie sex way. It really is like you are interacting with your favorite songs.

You may have noticed (ok, maybe not) I didn’t make a GO OUT AND VOTE post. Maybe because your vote had a 1 in 10,000 chance of making a difference according to fivethirtyeight.com. And that’s if you happen to live in one of those “swing states”. Barack Obama winning my home state of New York was more of a lock than McCain winning Texas. But hey, gotta exercise your right and all that crap. Can we all move on now? I’m sick of all the shit plastered on Facebook walls and in online forums. I’m tired of all the one-sided arguing. Neither side is the fucking Anti-Christ, shitheads.

I’m just glad I don’t have to hear about the vast majority of stuff listed here ever again: thisfuckingelection.com

I’m glad I don’t have to wait for infomercials to be over before I can watch the last three innings of the World Series.

I’m glad I don’t have to see fucking CHRIS BERMAN interviewing Presidential candidates again.

But yes, most of all, I’m glad that this ridiculously long election is over and that this country can move forward now. Hopefully, Obama can take us in the right direction. He better thank David Palmer in his acceptance speech.

God Bless America, bitches.