Julia played soccer early this summer. I had everything ready to post, but never got to finish it. Pesky publish button…
Category: Games
Just stuff about games
I had heard that the Bowl Games were giving out stuff to the players, but I didn’t know how much stuff it really was. Over on Fox Sports, they detail what each bowl is giving out. (The navigation is a bit clunky, as it’s a countdown from 20 to 1… not exactly intuitive.)
Anyway, I had always thought that these players were student-athletes, and there were very strict rules on giving stuff to players. Apparently, when it comes to big corporate sponsors, those rules can be significantly relaxed.
It’s interesting that there doesn’t seem to be a correlation between the quality of the swag and the prestige of the bowl. (i.e. it makes sense to me that the Rose Bowl would be giving out better stuff than, say, the Outback Bowl, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.)
I think the worst swag is coming from the Humanitarian Bowl:
- Camcorder, case and tapes (tapes? really? what is this, 2002?)
- Winter Jacket
- Gloves
- Hoodie sweatshirt
- Skull cap
- Baseball cap
- Commemorative football
- Travel/shaving kit
- Nail kit
- Drawstring bag
Compare that to the Alamo Bowl:
- 80G Sony PS3
- NBA Ballers Sony PS3 video game (a basketball game for football players?)
- Fossil watch
- Mini-helmet
So given a choice, what bowl swag would you go with?
Go here to watch an old-school Ms. Pac Man commercial. This stuff was actually on TV at one time? I was speechless after watching it, not knowing how to even react to it.
Did you know that Tug-of-war was an Olympic sport until 1920? There sure have been some strange sports as Olympic events.
Categories
Games I Like
Before I started playing Mario Kart, I stumbled on a few simple online games that I thought were pretty neat.
The first one is called Free Rice. The object is easy. You are shown a word. You pick (or guess) from one of the four definitions. If you’re right, they donate 20 grains of rice to the UN. It’s addictive too; I got up to about 400 grains of rice in just a few minutes.
The second game is Type Racer. It’s another simple concept. You type in a phrase or quote from a movie or book or song. While you’re doing this, you’re racing against other people, typing in the same thing. I can only manage about 60 wpm, which, when compared to the competition, isn’t that great.
We’ve had a Wii for a little bit, and I always thought Julia would really like it. She really didn’t take to it right away, mainly because of the coordination with swinging and releasing buttons.
But you don’t need to use any buttons to play the boxing game that comes with the Wii. So Julia takes to punching the bag, and has a blast doing it. Check out the video of her doing it, and this was only after playing the game for a few minutes.
Problems seeing the video? Let me know in the comments.
So I’m watching the Super Bowl now, knowing full well what happens. I only got to see bits and pieces of it, because it was going on Monday morning/afternoon here. Luckily, Fox Sports 3(?!) here is showing it again, but they aren’t going to all the commercial breaks you are normally showered with.
What amazed me today was how aware everyone is about the goings on in the US. It’s like they all know the Super Bowl was today (well, yesterday, I suppose). And they know about Super Tuesday coming up. It’s all very interesting. It’s also a bit sad that most people in the US have no clue what is going on outside the country, and have no interest in that either.
So I’m happy to see what was supposed to be a coronation to a perfect season just get totally ruined. It’s always fun to root for the underdog. And seeing the Manning brothers get the MVP in consecutive years was interesting as well.
Categories
World Series Thought
I’m not watching the [tag]World Series[/tag] this year for a couple reasons. First, I don’t really care about the outcome. Second, and more important, I can’t stay up that late to watch it. The game doesn’t start until about 8:30, and with the trend in games now, it won’t end until about midnight. I get up for work at 5:00, and I need more than five hours of sleep to function properly.
I found it odd that the [tag]Detroit Tigers[/tag] and [tag]St. Louis Cardinals[/tag] are both in. Both teams essentially backed into the playoffs. In the last month of the season, Detroit went 11-16 and St. Louis went 11-17. With that (lack of) momentum, I thought both teams would have just went out quietly in the first round. But it seems like they flipped a switch and they were ready for the postseason.
St. Louis was barely a .500 team. You have to go back to 1973 to find a World Series team with a worse record (Mets, 82-79).
[tags]Baseball[/tags]
So the [tag]Carolina Hurricanes[/tag] won the Stanley Cup last night. While watching the news tonight, I swore I heard some politician annouce to his colleagues that “Redneck Hockey had arrived.” A quick search online, and sure enough, Redneck Hockey is alive and well.
What, exactly, is “Redneck Hockey?” I’ll open the floor here to suggestions…
[tags]Stanley Cup, hockey, redneck hockey[/tags]
As if outsourcing jobs to India (or out of the U.S.) didn’t cause concern for people, online players are outsourcing playing games. The basic idea is this – let someone in China play your games on the easy stuff, then take over from there. Another idea – the kids in China find stuff in games, then sell the “property” online. Of course, it’s against the terms of service in games to do that, but it happens anyway.
How lazy can someone be to pay someone to play their game, instead of actually playing the game themselves? It’s the same thing as cheating, as far as I’m concerned. Is there any sense of accomplishment left after that?
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