"Tell him about the Twinkie"
Believe it or not, there have actually been a hand full of topics that I have been meaning to write about over the past month and half or so, but I just never seem to find the time or the desire to actually sit down and type. So, what changed that? We'll, for one, I'm sitting here with nothing pressing to do, no games that need playing, and the second is a meme-type post that I'll have following this one.
First among my list of topics was the end of the baseball season. To sum it up in one word: ohmygawdwhatthehellthisshitwashorrible. Yeah. The Giants ended up in last place in their division, with a final record of 71-91. That's a percentage of 43.8. Way under 50%. At least it wasn't as bad as Tampa Bay (yet another reason Florida sucks,) who ended the season with .407. Out of 162 games played, they won all of 66. Losers. As some may have heard, Barry Bonds is leaving the team. Sadly, he was not offered yet another eight figure contract to play an additional season. Yes, please read that last sentence with all the sarcasm you can muster. As much as I like Barry Bonds, I do have mixed feelings about his departure, which leave me with a net feeling of "eh..." Let's face it, he's old. Plain and simple. He surprised everyone in the ballpark every time he stole a base, which he did a few times this last season, but then had to take a week off to recuperate. His power really comes from his swing, not so much muscle mass, regardless of it being gained artificially or otherwise. The only problem was that he would lose his swing for a week or two before finding it again, only to be given nothing but intentional walks. He needs to go, if only to make room on the roster and the payroll for younger, more rounded players. However, with Barry gone, we'll have to see if the Giants can still pull in 40,000 people, even during weekend games. There were a number of promising players that were brought up from the minor leagues towards the end of the season, so I do look forwards to seeing how they fare next season.
So, what do I watch instead of baseball? Sports wise, I've actually been watching the local hockey team, the San Jose Sharks, go at it. I've never been a huge fan, but I started watching more of it during the last winter Olympics. That and curling, so go figure. Anyway, I'm still not the biggest fan ever, but if I catch a game on, I'll leave it on and watch the rest. They've been improving over the last few years, and this season looks very good for the team.
Moving on entertainment-wise, I finally broke (financially-literally) down and joined the current next-gen console foray. Originally, I was thinking Wii, all the way. Would life make that easy for me? No. When I had the cash, nobody had the console in stock, and there's no way I'm shelling out MORE money than what it's worth on eBay. Lately I've been seeing one or two boxes left on shelves when I walk through stores, but guess what... no dough. Not like it really matters, anyway. I knew my room would be cramped for they style of play the Wii offers, but after playing the sports games at the home of a family friend, I knew there'd be no way I'd make it through without breaking my hand and/or TV, radio, computer, bed, stacks of precariously piled DVDs, etc. I've got nothing against the Xbox, really. The whole console war thing is stupid for those that consider themselves video game fans. There are at least a few good games available on all of them, if only you could afford all three systems, along with those games. I can not. Instead, I bought the most expensive system currently available. Yep, I dun got me a Playstation3.
Now hold on a second, I know I said money's tight. It always is. What got my attention, though, were two little games you may have heard of: Rock Band and Guitar Hero 3. I need to have them. True, RB is coming out for both the PS3 and the Xbox, and GHIII will be out for basically everything, (PS2, PS3, Wii, Xbox360,) but between the Xbox and PS3, there were more games currently out or in the pipeline for the PS3 that really catch my interest. I'm still cheap, though, let's not lie to ourselves. I hopped on eBay, and after about two months of on-again-off-again searching, I finally caught a deal that had what I was looking for at a price that was good. Dig this: the most recent version of the PS3 had an 80GB hard drive and included the game Motor Storm for $599.99 retail. With CA tax, it would cost me $649.49 at Circuit City or what have you. This particular auction also included the Transformers game, another $59.99, included. I paid $483.08 including shipping. NO tax, and I still paid less than retail. There was a part of me that was worried that it would arrive damaged or that it was refurbished, even though the auction listed it as new. It arrived in about a week, in perfect condition. Sure, they dropped the PS1/2 emulator that was built in to the earlier versions of the system, but I've still got my PS2 in working order, and would have had to purchased more hardware just to swap information from my memory cards. Transformers was absolute crap, unfortunately. I brought that sucker in to EB Games and sold it for $15. Even though I got it for free (more than free, if you think about it) I still felt ripped off. And it's not like it went a hell of a long way towards what I picked up during the same trip (a second controller that DOESN'T come with a USB cable and Dynasty Warriors Gundam, which is well worth the $59.99, assuming you're a Gundam fan. I am, so everything's good there. All in all, I'm very stoked about my PS3 purchase, and have been counting the days until my pre-orders of RB and GHIII show up.
Other than that, life's been chugging away as usual. Work sucks/I'm under paid, blah, blah, blah. eBay is now my favorite place to get anime, picking up entire series, brand new, legit R1 copies, for 1/5 MSRP. Snagged the first episode of Gundam 00, fansubbed mere hours after it aired in Japan, and liked what I saw. I wasn't blown away like I was the first time I saw an episode of Gundam SEED, but this series looks decent, and definitely puts me in a gunpla mood. Oh, wait, what's this? Two kits my friend picked up from her trip to Japan two weeks ago? Nice. They're the new "First Grade" (not academic level, mind you) level, and sooooo much better than SEED's no-grade cheapie kits. They're no 1/100 scale MG kit, but what do you want for $3 and $5? I'll have to post some shots later, just don't expect much in terms of my lame painting ability. It's freakin' 1/144! How can people get so much decent detail in those suckers?!
In closing, kira_ needs to get a tan. And a haircut.
First among my list of topics was the end of the baseball season. To sum it up in one word: ohmygawdwhatthehellthisshitwashorrible. Yeah. The Giants ended up in last place in their division, with a final record of 71-91. That's a percentage of 43.8. Way under 50%. At least it wasn't as bad as Tampa Bay (yet another reason Florida sucks,) who ended the season with .407. Out of 162 games played, they won all of 66. Losers. As some may have heard, Barry Bonds is leaving the team. Sadly, he was not offered yet another eight figure contract to play an additional season. Yes, please read that last sentence with all the sarcasm you can muster. As much as I like Barry Bonds, I do have mixed feelings about his departure, which leave me with a net feeling of "eh..." Let's face it, he's old. Plain and simple. He surprised everyone in the ballpark every time he stole a base, which he did a few times this last season, but then had to take a week off to recuperate. His power really comes from his swing, not so much muscle mass, regardless of it being gained artificially or otherwise. The only problem was that he would lose his swing for a week or two before finding it again, only to be given nothing but intentional walks. He needs to go, if only to make room on the roster and the payroll for younger, more rounded players. However, with Barry gone, we'll have to see if the Giants can still pull in 40,000 people, even during weekend games. There were a number of promising players that were brought up from the minor leagues towards the end of the season, so I do look forwards to seeing how they fare next season.
So, what do I watch instead of baseball? Sports wise, I've actually been watching the local hockey team, the San Jose Sharks, go at it. I've never been a huge fan, but I started watching more of it during the last winter Olympics. That and curling, so go figure. Anyway, I'm still not the biggest fan ever, but if I catch a game on, I'll leave it on and watch the rest. They've been improving over the last few years, and this season looks very good for the team.
Moving on entertainment-wise, I finally broke (financially-literally) down and joined the current next-gen console foray. Originally, I was thinking Wii, all the way. Would life make that easy for me? No. When I had the cash, nobody had the console in stock, and there's no way I'm shelling out MORE money than what it's worth on eBay. Lately I've been seeing one or two boxes left on shelves when I walk through stores, but guess what... no dough. Not like it really matters, anyway. I knew my room would be cramped for they style of play the Wii offers, but after playing the sports games at the home of a family friend, I knew there'd be no way I'd make it through without breaking my hand and/or TV, radio, computer, bed, stacks of precariously piled DVDs, etc. I've got nothing against the Xbox, really. The whole console war thing is stupid for those that consider themselves video game fans. There are at least a few good games available on all of them, if only you could afford all three systems, along with those games. I can not. Instead, I bought the most expensive system currently available. Yep, I dun got me a Playstation3.
Now hold on a second, I know I said money's tight. It always is. What got my attention, though, were two little games you may have heard of: Rock Band and Guitar Hero 3. I need to have them. True, RB is coming out for both the PS3 and the Xbox, and GHIII will be out for basically everything, (PS2, PS3, Wii, Xbox360,) but between the Xbox and PS3, there were more games currently out or in the pipeline for the PS3 that really catch my interest. I'm still cheap, though, let's not lie to ourselves. I hopped on eBay, and after about two months of on-again-off-again searching, I finally caught a deal that had what I was looking for at a price that was good. Dig this: the most recent version of the PS3 had an 80GB hard drive and included the game Motor Storm for $599.99 retail. With CA tax, it would cost me $649.49 at Circuit City or what have you. This particular auction also included the Transformers game, another $59.99, included. I paid $483.08 including shipping. NO tax, and I still paid less than retail. There was a part of me that was worried that it would arrive damaged or that it was refurbished, even though the auction listed it as new. It arrived in about a week, in perfect condition. Sure, they dropped the PS1/2 emulator that was built in to the earlier versions of the system, but I've still got my PS2 in working order, and would have had to purchased more hardware just to swap information from my memory cards. Transformers was absolute crap, unfortunately. I brought that sucker in to EB Games and sold it for $15. Even though I got it for free (more than free, if you think about it) I still felt ripped off. And it's not like it went a hell of a long way towards what I picked up during the same trip (a second controller that DOESN'T come with a USB cable and Dynasty Warriors Gundam, which is well worth the $59.99, assuming you're a Gundam fan. I am, so everything's good there. All in all, I'm very stoked about my PS3 purchase, and have been counting the days until my pre-orders of RB and GHIII show up.
Other than that, life's been chugging away as usual. Work sucks/I'm under paid, blah, blah, blah. eBay is now my favorite place to get anime, picking up entire series, brand new, legit R1 copies, for 1/5 MSRP. Snagged the first episode of Gundam 00, fansubbed mere hours after it aired in Japan, and liked what I saw. I wasn't blown away like I was the first time I saw an episode of Gundam SEED, but this series looks decent, and definitely puts me in a gunpla mood. Oh, wait, what's this? Two kits my friend picked up from her trip to Japan two weeks ago? Nice. They're the new "First Grade" (not academic level, mind you) level, and sooooo much better than SEED's no-grade cheapie kits. They're no 1/100 scale MG kit, but what do you want for $3 and $5? I'll have to post some shots later, just don't expect much in terms of my lame painting ability. It's freakin' 1/144! How can people get so much decent detail in those suckers?!
In closing, kira_ needs to get a tan. And a haircut.