Oops

Forgot all about TNT. Or WNT. Or TNT. I’ll do something later tonight. In the meantime…

Baltimore (+3) over Cincinnati

Week 12: In Last Week’s Episode…

HOME TEAM IN caps

ST LOUIS (-4.5) over San Francisco
I honestly had no idea the Rams were 4-6, and that the 49ers were 5-5. I need to pay more attention. Whateva, I’ll keep riding the train.

MINNESOTA (-6) over Arizona
I do know that Arizona is just awful this year.

NY JETS (-4.5) over Houston
Rumors of the Pats demise have been greatly exaggerated, as has the idea of the Jets threatening them for the AFC East. If anything, I’m more on Miami’s bandwagon to finish second than I am the Jets. Nothing to back that claim up. Just wild speculation.

Carolina (-4.5) over WASHINGTON
I didn’t see them play, but the stats on Campbell looked nice. Still, I’ll take Delhomme, since the potential loss of DeShaun Foster hasn’t bothered them all season, since he’s content to not produce for my fantasy team.

BALTIMORE (-3) over Pittsburgh
I like the Ravens and I hate the Steelers. Thus, this is an official OMG FANBOI PICK LOLZORZ.

New Orleans (+3) over ATLANTA
I still believe in the Saints. That’s not true. But I do know not to trust Atlanta under any circumstances.

Jacksonville (-3) over BUFFALO
The explosion of David Garrard is slightly disappointing to me, because I really liked Byron Leftwich. Not as a player, because damn he was inconsistent. But he seemed like a cool dude. Perhaps he’ll find a place on a team like Detroit or Cleveland or something.

Cincinnati (-3.5) over CLEVELAND
I wasn’t aware of Cincy being 5-5, either. There goes my prediction of three playoff spots coming out of the North. Because, you know, it was so logical to begin with.

SAN DIEGO (+13.5) over Oakland
I probably shouldn’t fall for this. But the excellence of LaDainian Tomlinson and his rule over my fantasy team has made me illogical.

NEW ENGLAND (-3.5) over Chicago
This is probably a trap similar to what I fell into with the Indy game. But I do like Brady’s numbers on turf and Rex Grossman’s startling inconsistency. So I’ll bite.

NY Giants (-3) over TENNESSEE
This is the reality of Amy Dumas: It just feels right.

Philadelphia (+9) over INDIANAPOLIS
This is probably a really bad idea. But Jeff Garcia isn’t necessarily Ryan Leaf out there. He’s a Brad Johnson/Trent Dilfer type who does what he needs to do and doesn’t screw things up. which doesn’t mean he’ll beat the Colts, but hopefully won’t get too blown out.

SEATTLE (-9) over Green Bay
Hasselbeck is back, and so is Alexander. And even though Tobeck being gone hurts the O-line, it’s not like Green Bay presents a challenge on that aspect. And Favre’s shaken up. So, yeah, I’ll take this one. Of course, every time I’m confident, I lose. If I have a losing record this week, I’m going George Costanza and betting the opposite of everything.

Tunxgivin

I’ll have the rest of the games on Saturday.

Miami (-3) over DETROIT: The Lions are another one of those teams I can’t figure out; like, I know they won’t make the playoffs, but every time I bet against them, they find a way to screw me over, and every time I bet on them, they return to being the Lions and get beat by the likes of Buffalo.

DALLAS (-11) over Tampa Bay: I was a little hesistant here, because the high-line games always screw me over. Any time I bet on a superior team to win big, I always lose. But 4 days after a big win over Indy, I might as well take the momentum.

Denver (-1.5) over KANSAS CITY: The return of Trent Green wasn’t nearly as helpful as I thought it would be. I’m guessing he’ll be a little better this time, but I’m also hoping that today is the birth of the Jay Cutler era.

TNT: Punctuality is for Queers

In football: 8-6-2 on the week. I’ll take it. 72-78-9 so far. An 11-5 week would be mighty nice at some point soon.

What are ya playin?: Wii, of course. Wii Sports is fun, but because there’s not much to it beyond “choose a game and play it”, I can’t imagine I’ll be playing it too often unless I’m showing it to someone… that is, while I still have Zelda to beat. What an absolutely amazing game so far. I don’t know why people are complaining about the graphics. They look fine to me. And even if they weren’t good, the game itself is just excellent, and I’ve barely gotten too far into it. The characters are incredibly expressive, the environments are ridiculously cool, and the control works fine, although I haven’t had to use the slingshot much, which is my only semi-complaint so far about the system, although that might be my room setup’s fault. The pointing system takes a little bit to get used to, since it seems to prefer that I shoot from the hip instead of point at the screen like a Guncon. But I’m sure I’ll figure that out eventually.

What are ya watchin?: I saw a bunch of movies this past week. On the positive end, I caught Casino Royale and Barton Fink. Casino Royale was really, really great. It was a much more grounded Bond flick, meaning that there weren’t too many wacky gadgets or sci-fi plot devices like a satellite from space that nukes things or a giant dude with metal teeth. Not that there’s anything wrong with those; it was just nice and interesting to see a new thing. Craig is really good as Bond; it’s wierd, because I know movies are shot out of sequence, but he seems to get better and better as the movie goes along.

Barton Fink was also good. The subject matter and the ending kind of reminded me of The Hulk by Ang Lee. The studio wanted a movie about a giant, angry green superhero, and Lee gave them a psychoanalytic drama, and idiots like me want to watch Hulk smash, not mope. The whole deconstruction of normalcy in the last 20 minutes is pretty entertaining to watch.

On the other end of the spectrum was a film called Grandma’s Boy. I’m not sure I’ve ever been more angry when watching a movie than I was when watching this film. Maybe the time I had to watch Birth of a Nation, but I’m not sure. Anyways, I’m not someone who looks down on stupid humor and/or stoner comedies. I love Half Baked, I liked Harold and Kumar, Road Trip, and Up in Smoke. And I didn’t have a problem with the actors; the majority of the cast are Adam Sandler’s secondary players and/or old SNL guy’s I’ve always liked, like Kevin Nealon and David Spade. As a stoner comedy with stupid humor, it had potential. But they had to make video games a central plot point. And video games + movies never work, especially when you try to make it about making video games but decide to throw intelligence out the window in the first minute. You know those commercials for colleges that say they offer courses in video game design, and it’s two hambones playing an X-Box game with Atari noises while a hot chick in lab coat tells them they need to tighten up the graphics? This movie was 90 minutes of that commercial. Such lines as “I love the collision detection. Very Miyamoto.” and a subplot about the main character making a game in his own time, but when the CD is stolen, that’s the only evidence he had that he made the game; as though he just put a blank CD in the Xbox and started typing and a game popped out. I know I’m supposed to suspend reality for movies, but this managed to set the perception of gamers back at least 14 years. This is worse than Ready to Rumble times the Mighty Ducks 1, 2, and 3. The only time I laughed was when a monkey was driving a car. Because you pretty much always have to laugh at that.

Now surfing on the Intertron: Not a site, per se, but the whole Michael Richards thing is really, really disappointing. It’s not like there was a hidden joke we all didn’t get. He just plain snapped. He said on Letterman that he’s not racist, and he doesn’t know where that came from, but shit like that doesn’t pop out of nowhere. If anything, his personal filter just stopped him from what he was thinking the whole time. I really don’t think I can enjoy any of his scenes in Seinfeld or UHF nearly as much any more. Of course, that’s a common problem I have when I discover things like that; Adam Sandler became significantly less funnier when he started bragging about how much of a Yankee fan he was. I have no idea if his movies since Big Daddy have all sucked major balls or if I’m just biased.

Uh oh… my battery’s running out. Gonna wrap this up. Tomlinson and Chad Johnson continued their tear through defenses. I’m still in first. And I’m still the best.

Week 11: Wii’re in a hurry

Just got the Wii about 20 minutes ago, so I want to play that like, right now. So no minidick comments this week. Home team in CAPS. EDIT: Honest to god, I wrote this at 11:30 and it only saved as a draft. I’m not cheating. I’ve already lost the season. You have to believe me. Please don’t kill me, Rico.

MIAMI (-3.5) over Minnesota
Cincinnati (+3) over NEW ORLEANS
Chicago (-6) over NY JETS
Tennessee (+13) over PHILADELPHIA
BALTIMORE (-3.5) over Atlanta
HOUSTON (-2.5) over Buffalo
CLEVELAND (+4) over Pittsburgh
TAMPA BAY (-3) over Washington
St Louis (+6) over CAROLINA
New England (-6) over GREEN BAY
KANSAS CITY (-9.5) over Oakland
Detroit (+2) over ARIZONA
Seattle (-3.5) over SAN FRANCISCO
DALLAS (+1) over Indianapolis
San Diego (+2.5) over DENVER
NY Giants (+3.5) over JACKSONVILLE

The Next Generation… IS NOW!!11one1

So I’ll be heading into New York on Saturday for the Wii launch party at the Toys R Us in Times Square. Supposedly, Shigsy’s gonna be there. Should be fun. But with the launch of the PS3 in approximately 40 minutes as of me typing these words and the Wii in 48 more hours, I figure I’d take a look at the systems of the new generation, even if you’ve pretty much heard everything I have to say already. So we’ll start off with the…

NINTENDO DS
When the DS was first announced, I thought the stylus thing was silly. The double screen thing was interesting, but I wasn’t looking forward to using a plastic pencil. Of course, like my football picks and many other things, I was dead wrong. As it turns out, it’s perfect for games like Star Fox Command, which to me was a total revelation to me, since there’s really no more accurate method of control than your fingers. A control pad, an analog stick, a mouse, none of them allow the control of a stylus in the right situation. But while many dismissed the GBA as a SNES emulator, there were still plenty of great games for the Advance and there’s even more for the DS. A game like Phoenix Wright opens the door for the return of the graphic adventure, even if it’s in the style of a visual novel/bishojo type thingy. Needless to say, I’m very excited for the potential of the DS, even 30 or so months into it’s existence.
OUTLOOK: Should stick around for a while, and shoot get a big boost with Wii’s release and connectivity.

SONY PSP
It’s funny, because the PSP may end up being a wonderful system for many of the reasons Sony didn’t want it to. Although it seemed as if they cared more about the movie part than the game part, it’s been the games (not necessarily theirs) that’s kept the system alive. The whole UMD movie thing was silly. Not only did customers have to buy a movie all over again, they could only watch it on the tiny screen; even most portable DVD players have the option to plug into a TV. After studios started giving up on the format, I though PSP was toast. But I was going off what was readily available to me, as in, what Sony wanted to tell me. They told me they have rad new games like… well, nothing, really, and hot new movies. But as it turns out, the whole connectivity thing made for something much, much better. Because you can put whatever you want on there, the PSP has become a handheld MAME cabinet, so to speak. You can put on SNES, NES, Genesis and arcade emulators on there, among other things, which, along with Metal Gear Portable Ops, makes it a very excellent thing to have for the next few years, even if there’s nothing much else for it worth buying.
OUTLOOK: Won’t sell many more systems, and the games aren’t very appealing, but does have a future among the homebrew community not unlike the Dreamcast.

MICROSOFT XBOX 360
There’s rumors… on the internets… that Amazon’s gonna be selling core systems for $100 pretty soon. The internets is saying that it’s just a way for Microsoft to dump the poor quality machines that keep dying and ruining discs. And while the first year of the 360 was up and down, it has great potential to win the console war after all’s said and done.

There are three videogame crowds a company has to cater to. There’s the hardcore crowd, the nerds like myself, who rag on and on about gameplay and get all emotional about stuff no one else cares about. Next there’s the group whom I like to call the MTV SPIKE G4 SK8RS MADDEN WOAHH crowd, whom Spike, MTV and G4 like to cater to. They pretty much only care about graphics and violence. Or football. Or anything else that could be considered cool. This isn’t to say Gears of War, Madden, Tony Hawk or any of those are bad games. On the contrary, they’re very fun and usually pretty damn good games. But we’ll get into that later. Anyway, this crowd is less likely to play a game like Final Fantasy XII or appreciate something like Metal Slug. Which isn’t a slight against them. They just aren’t into that kind of stuff. And thirdly, there’s the kids. Or, more specifically, the parents buying for their kids. They want their kids to be playing Mario and Monkey Ball, not GTA or Resident Evil. Obviously, kids can get their hands on the violent games relatively easily, and Mario and Monkey Ball have just as much appeal to adults. But it’s why the GameCube was called a kiddy system.

Anyway, the point of all that is that the 360 is in a prime position to capture two of those three crowds. The graphics gang is already on board and has been ever since they saw NBA 2K6 had digital sweat. But because they’re marketing to the MTV/SPIKE crowd, the kids get left out (with the exception of Viva Pinata), which, hey, I don’t mind. The big problem facing the 360, though, was that first crowd, the hardcore gamer group. For those of us looking for legit awesome titles, we didn’t have a lot of options. Of course, that all changed with Oblivion, then Dead Rising, and now with Gears of War. Of course, the latter two crossover with the MTV/SPIKE crowd in terms of appeal, but what I’m getting at is that the 360 is going to be the hi-def option for the good, fun games over the next year, for reasons I’ll get to later. They’ll be appealing to two crowds, and they’ll have the price advantage over Sony. But I’ll get into this some more in about 3 lines.
OUTLOOK: I’m no industry expert, but in terms of overall cashcashmoneymoney, Microsoft’s going to win this round. Nintendo will sell more systems, but Microsoft’s got the year’s head start and more stuff available to buy at a higher price

PHANTOM
Just kidding.

SONY PLAYSTATION 3
The Playstation 3 has a lot of things going for it. Just as a BluRay player, it’s already one of the least expensive on the market. It’s going to be powerful and expandable enough to last for maybe a decade. Unlike the UMD, BluRay movies are made for the home and your crazy entertainment system. It’s got Kojima making Metal Gear Solid 4, and it’s still got Square to make Final Fantasy games for them, which are always huge sellers, even if they only really capitalize on one of the three markets.

But the Playstation 3 has a lot of problems too. While the hardware strength is undeniable, the 360 offers almost just as much for at least $300 cheaper. And, most importantly, the hassle of getting the damn thing just isn’t worth it when you look at the game lineup. Anything worth getting is also out for the 360. Exclusive stuff like Resistance: Fall of Man just gets outdone by Gears of War. And now theres rumors… on the internets… that Konami is pressuring Kojima to port MGS4 to the 360. Capcom seems to have a loving relationship with Microsoft, and developers are saving their highest-concept titles for the Wii. So the PS3 will pretty much be a pretty machine with pretty graphics and tons of bells and whistles, which satisfies the MTV/SPIKE crowd, but the price and availability issues will kill the kids demographic and the lack of any decent titles (plus general unexpected anti-Sony sentiment) will drive away the hardcore crowd. So the only way they can sell the system, when they have any, is to the rich guys who want the most toys before they die.
OUTLOOK: Unless they can somehow retain their developers, lower the price, get more units fast (this shortage will kill their Christmas sales, and they won’t magically come back next year), and produce some games worth owning, they’re in trouble. They’ll lose money simply in lost potential sales, if that makes any sense.

NINTENDO WII
When videogames first came out in the form of Pong, it was just one color and a few bars. No texture, no music, just some beeps and a few white bars whipping around the screen. The 2600 came along and added colors and made the bars slightly smaller, plus produced a few new-sounding beeps. Donkey Kong and Mario and PacMan came along, added more colors, created textures, even gave games a plot. They added simple music. Bars became dots. The NES made textures look nicer, created backgrounds, lenghty soundtracks, even pretty cool sound effects. The Genesis and SNES had even better graphics and better sound. Starfox flirted with 3D, and the Playstation made it the standard. Saturn and N64 followed, with N64 raising the bar by using increased polygons instead of ugly, pixelly textures. The PSX and Saturn had CD music. The Dreamcast ushered in 128-bit systems, and the PS2, XBox and Cube perfected it. And finally, the 360 and PS3 brought in the hi-def era.

In other words, game systems in the last 20 years have pretty much done one or both of two things; have better graphics and better sound. We’ve gone from a bar to rendering sweat on a basketball player (sorry, I like that imagery). We’ve gone from a beep to orchestras and Hollywood composers scoring soundtracks. Simpy put, there’s not much else the games world can go from here in the graphics or sound department.

However, if you look back 15 years ago, most people thought that by the year 2006, we’d play games by wearing giant helmets and running around cyber space shooting laser guns at virtual reality opponents. But really, we’re still pushing a joystick and pressing the button to make the guy do things. The Wii, while not nearly the graphical behemoth the 360 or PS3 are, is pretty much our first step towards… the future.

I don’t like the Apple OS (just not my preference, that’s all), but I love the Apple computer design, because it looks futuristic. 50 years ago, people thought in 2006 we’d be riding our suitcase spaceships to work and robots would do our laundry. And while I don’t think we should live our life based on the whimsical expectations of our ancestors, I do think that we’re kind of afraid to move towards the future, at least aesthetically. In the mid 90s, our cars went from being boxy to having rounded edges. Newer skyscrapers are no longer rectangular prisms; they have extra sides or they cut out a chunk or they’re asymettrical. We’re taking some steps. But look at the wind farms on the Cape; people don’t want them because it’ll ruin the old-ness of the Cape. What about the future? Wouldn’t it look cool if there were windmills on the horizon miles out in the ocean?

The point of this whole rambling, incoherent response is that the Wii is just the first step towards the future. It’s something different, but it’s something new and unexpected. And it’s not fundamentally that different. Our hands are trained to operate a joystick with our left thumb and press buttons with our right thumbs. The only difference now is that you’re wrists and elbows now control something as well. So anyone who thinks they’ll look like an idiot playing it, guess what. You’re an idiot for thinking that. Tard.

Of course, let’s not forget the games. Zelda’s a given, and Mario Galaxy and Metroid will hold us off until Smash Bros Brawl, which I’m pretty confident will be the raddest game ever. And now that we’ve got a new way to play, things won’t get stale any time soon. Meanwhile, the PS3 and 360 can crank out FPS’s as much as they want, but the hardcore crowd’s gonna know where it’s at. Plus, they’ve got the kids market all wrapped up.
OUTLOOK: They’ll sell the most systems, so they’ll be a success in that regard. And if the PS3 sells as poorly as I think/hope it will, who knows; they might even out-earn them.

TNT: Bust a nut in your eye so you see where I’m coming from

In football: 8-8. I entered this fall with a lot of money from the summer; easily the most I’ve ever been in possession of. But I’ve blown it on stupid shit in the last few months, so if I have actually been betting money on this shit, I’d be missing a few fingers and trying to walk with broken knees. 64-72-7 on the year.

What are ya playin?: If you read yesterday’s wall of text, you know already. Yoshi’s Island 2. I’ve barely played it, but I’m digging it so far. It seems almost like a remake more than a sequel, although there’s a few new things in there. But for the most part, it’s unchanged outside of a few sprites, although a lot of people have been saying the music’s not very good. But I usually play on mute, so that’s not a big deal. Beat Final Fantasy Tactics Advance and Shenmue II in the last week. Both very, very excellent games. Glad I played them. If I’m lucky, I’ll see sequels to both. Also, I played the Wii today. Excite Truck. I’ll talk about that later with a big next-gen column, hopefully tommorow or Thursday. Maybe.

What are ya watchin?: Saw Borat, as stated last week. I enjoyed it. I didn’t think it was OMG FUNNIEST MOVIE EVAR like some proclaimed it, but I was laughing continuously throughout, so it definitely didn’t dissapoint. I just downloaded a ton of soundtracks recently (dont tell anyone) and I got the FLCL soundtrack, which really made me want to watch FLCL again. It’s definitely one of the most well-animated shows I’ve ever seen, even if I have no idea what the fuck is going on. So I’ll probably scan Google Video and see if I can find that one.

Now Surfing on the Intertron: If you visited the front page of Youtube yesterday, you probably saw a link to a computah animated short called Kiwi. It’s a great concept, since it looks like one of those shorts before every Pixar movie, but I can’t see any situation in which you could show it to a kid. He’d either laugh at it or start crying once you told him what actually happened. But it’s very well done for a student film. It’s not as good as this video, though. That thing is adorable.

Pressing Sports Current Event: The Pats looked bad on Sunday. Real bad. Brady was just making terrible throws left and right. I couldn’t imagine this is related to Branch leaving, but who knows? I mean, he didn’t play like this in 2001, when Branch was still in college. So why does missing him now make a difference? It couldn’t be Charlie Weis being gone. He was gone last year, and Brady had a great season despite pretty much no running game. Now he’s got two great backs and, outside of that Minny game, he’s missing throws by a mile. Hopefully the new turf cures what ails him, although I wonder with the Testaverde signing if he’s hurt. But hey, five-year grace period.

In my fantasies: Once again, the worse I gamble, the better I do in fantasy. A 99-55 win (thanks to LaTo’s usual shenanigans and Chad Johnson finally earning that 2nd round pick I took him with) puts me in sole posession of first place with the edge in wins and points (I’ve got almost 130 more points than the guy in 3rd). Yeah, I’m pretty good. I love associating my personal worth with my fantasy proficiency.

This is how you remind me

I woke up this morning at 7 AM. I was gonna take a shower, eat breakfast, head over to MassArt and edit a video until 9:30, where I’d hop on an inbound E line train to the Prudential Center. I’d stop by Gamestop as they opened, pick up a game, then hurry back to MassArt where I’d work on editing some more until 10:40, where I’d go to math class, then my religion class (don’t ask), then back to MassArt for a 5-hour class. Full day. Except only eight of those things happened. I missed my religion class because of item #1 (I was too tired), and missed the film class because of item #3 (nasty stomach bug). And I missed item #7 because the world is not fair.

I probably mention Yoshi’s Island every time I talk about video games. The time I spent playing it marked my evolution from idiot child mashing buttons to someone who understood and truly appreciated the medium. When I first got it, I understood the basics of it, but I got stuck on a castle and let my friend borrow it. I got it back a few months later, with the game practically beat for me. I felt bad about giving up on it, so I played through it again, and all of the sudden, I was a compotent player. I was able to suddenly beat games like Mario World and the first Sonic, whereas before, I couldn’t get much further past the second level.

But more importantly, it was just a ridiculously fun game. Throwing eggs was fun, not a chore, the ground pound was a new, welcome addition, the graphics were beautiful and fresh, and the control was perfect. Despite having minimal plot, the characters were all likable and I actually wanted to go through all of it again. It wasn’t something I had to beat because I felt obligated to. It was a wonderful experience that, quite frankly, I’m not sure I’ve experienced anything like it since. And a lot of what I like about it has come in hindsight; the more games I play, the more I see what works and what doesn’t, although I’ll admit that Yoshi’s Island has kind of become the gold standard in my mind; I’ll never acknowledge any faults with it because I’m too blind to see any of them.

Yoshi’s Story came out about three years later, and I convinced myself it was good enough. I convinced myself that the lack of stages was made up for by getting all the green melons. But it wasn’t the same. And the dissapointment soon turned to hatred. I hated Yoshi’s Story. I thought the music sucked and I hated how they changed the Yoshi altogether into this childish cutesy thing with an annoying voice instead of the record-scratching noises. I used to be Yoshi all the time. I spent hours trying to jump onto the top of the roof in Mario 64 in hopes that I could magically find a way to be him. I fought to be him in Mario Kart 64 and Mario Party, and I spend an innordinate amount of time on the Yoshi’s Island area in Mario RPG. But somehow Yoshi’s Story ruined Yoshi for me. When Smash Bros came out, I never even bothered trying him. I had already moved on to Fox, Link and Kirby.

But if anything, my sudden and probably unnecessary hate for Yoshi’s Story made me love Yoshi’s Island even more. It was like Manny Alexander getting the start at short instead of Cal Ripken Jr, and when Alexander made the errors and got back to the dugout, Ripken had that cocky half-smile on his face. It was a total confidence killer for Alexander, but it made Ripken look totally badass. Yoshi’s Story came along with it’s 3-D graphics and new music and item collection subgames and whatever, and Yoshi’s Island just stares off in the sun, knowing the whole time that it’s the better game.  And it made me have this sudden hatred of 3-D. Soul Calibur and Tekken? Sucks, at least compared to Street Fighter and King of Fighters. Halo and Halflife? I’ll take Metal Slug. I became some sort of pretentious gaming elitist. I shook my head at racing games and mourned the death of the 2-D graphic adventure game. And I’m still relatively unchanged.

But that’s made me look forward to this day for the last 10 years. I’ve said to every game “I dunno… it’s alright, but it’s no Yoshi’s Island”. And I know this one’s not gonna be nearly as good. But I can at least quench my thirst for something close to it.

So after all that, you imagine how dissapointed I was to walk into Gamespot at 9:59 AM and confidently say “I preordered Yoshi’s Island 2 the other day”, and have the clerk tell me it only ships today, and that it doesn’t come out until tomorrow. Killed my whole day. I was in a bad mood. I was hoping that the hobo who saw me enter excitedly and leave dejectedly was actually Link from Majora’s Mask. I was hoping he saw me every Day 1 leaving without Yoshi’s Isalnd 2, so he’d go to Day 2, get it for me, then play the Song of Time and go back to Day 1 and give it to me, and he could stamp it in his book.

And it was kinda sad, because it started to hit me as I was leaving the mall; some guys call the greatest moment of their lives when their kids are born or when they’re married or when they first met someone or even when they went to that concert. They have to wake up at 6 every morning to be at work by 9, they drink beers and watch football with their friends, they go to Vegas and have fun, they have to pay bills and balance their checkbook and all this stuff. And me? I wake up at 7 AM, eat breakfast, get violent diarrhea, wait 30 minutes outside a video game store on the wrong day for a game I’m pretty sure won’t be even close to what I’m expecting, and by the time I come home I’m tired as fuck and fall asleep in a math class and skip two others.

When you say it like that, my life’s kinda great, isn’t it?

Week 10: Derka Lerka Derka Street

I’ve been up all night doing pretty much nothing. So now it’s 6:30 AM, and I’ve realized if I don’t get my picks in now, I’ll be too late by the time I wake up tomorrow. A few headscratchers in a few of these lines, but I’ve been fooled before. Home team in KERPS.

ATLANTA (-8) over Cleveland
I wish I had Sunday Ticket and a whole lot more free time, because everyone’s annointed Michael Vick God-status again, and I’ve had no idea how he looks this year. So I’ll give him the nod at home.

Kansas City (+1) over MIAMI
This one confused me; I thought Miami was terrible this season. Now they upset the Bears and they’re favored against the Chiefs? This doesn’t mean they’re actually better than the Bears, does it? I didn’t think it did, but I’ve been wrong before, so maybe.

MINNESOTA (-5) over Green Bay
Just a guess. I haven’t been following either of these teams this year.

NEW ENGLAND (-10.5) over NY Jets
I’m worried about this one, since Mangini seems to be able to keep it close, judging from the last time, and Pennington’s usually good against the Pats when he’s healthy. But I’m hoping that the Pats are just plain pissed and want to beat up on the rest of the AFC to try and make up for last week’s awful showing.

PHILADELPHIA (-7) over Washington
I’ll give them the nod for the momentum after last week and home field advantage. But I’m still pretty much lost on the NFC East; I can’t tell you anything that’s going on there other than TO is crazy again.

Houston (+10) over JACKSONVILLE
I’ve discovered I depend way the hell too much on the Jaguars. I’ve picked them regardless of the spread every single week this year, and I’ve gone 5-2-1, which isn’t all that bad. Still, I’ll go against the grain this week, just because that line is a little high.

SAN DIEGO (-1) over Cincinnati
This one was also wierd to me. The Chargers have won 4 of their last 5, while the Bengals have lost 4 of their last 5, and San Diego’s only favored by 1? I’ll take it.

Santa Clara (+6) over DETROIT
I don’t trust them Lions.

Baltimore (-7) over TENNESSEE
I think there’s gonna be a lot of emotion and hoopla and all that with McNair coming back, but the bigger story will be Ed Reed scoring 3 TDs off Vince Young. I hope. Nothing against Vince, or anything. I just want to win.

INDY (-12.5) over Buffalo
I’ll bite. Even though I still haven’t picked an Indy game right this season.

Denver (-9.5) over OAKLAND
I wonder if they’ll recolor the seats in the Coliseum to silver and black once they’re on their own. It’ll at least look like there are fans there.

Dallas (-6.5) over ARIZONA
Bounceback game for Dallas, or I’m just tired of being burned by Arizona. You pick.

New Orleans (+5) over PITTSBURGH
Here was another one that confused me. New Orleans just pummeled Tampa, and Colston’s getting all this rookie of the year talk, and everyone loves Drew Brees, meanwhile the Steelers look terrible and bring a smile to my face every day. And yet they’re favored? I’ll take the Saints.

St. Louis (+3) over SEATTLE
The Seahawks are down a QB and RB. Even if their replacements are doing alright, as long as the opponent is compotent, I’ll give them the edge.

Chicago (+1) over NY GIANTS
And finally, the last of the confusing spreads, Chicago has a better offense than Baltimore and a defense that is just as good, possibly better. But because they lose in Miami, they’re underdogs? I’ll take it. And yes, the Giants appear to be doing well, but I’ll go with the better team.

CAROLINA (-9.5) over Tampa Bay
Carolina’s been confusing me all year. I haven’t picked them correctly yet this year, only managing to sneak out a single push. But I’ve got DeShaun Foster on my fantasy team, so I won’t past experience stop me.

TNT: Slackerama

Wow… major slippage on my part. I can’t let this whole thing die. This is how the Bad Street Herald died. It wasn’t that I had writer’s block; I was just busy as hell. Let’s get this going.

In Football: 4-9-1 in Week 8, 5-8-1 in Week 9. This gambling thing is hard work. 56-64-7.

What are ya playin?: Not my GameCube any time soon… I’m gonna trade it in within the next few days. I just bought it this past December for $100 and it came with Smash Bros, and since the trade-in value is $45, I’m theorhetically missing out on only $25, since Smash still costs $30 anyways. But yeah, I’m not sure what I’ll use with it. Maybe a component cable for the Wii. Or Yoshi’s Island 2. God, I can’t wait. Actually, by the time I write the next TNT, I’ll have it. And that’s a guarantee, since no one knows when I’ll write the next TNT on time.

What are ya watchin?: I intend on seeing Borat this week. Don’t spoil it. I’ve already had parts ruined. Ruined, I tell you.

Now surfing on the Intertron: The Mega64 Podcast is always enjoyable, even if it doesn’t happen often enough for my taste. Of course, I can’t question anyone’s punctuality on matters of the intertron. But yeah, in the most recent episode, Rocco’s got some hilarious stories of his high school stage career. Good stuff.

Pressing Sports Current Event: I was pretty confident in the Pats going into Sunday, and when they do lose, I’m usually the first to make excuses. But they just got outplayed. Manning looked poised and their WRs made the secondary look like jokers… although they were missing Rodney for most of the game– alright, stop it. You’re making excuses again. Anyway, now that Rodney’s gonna be out for a few weeks, it’ll be tougher to bet on the Pats. As for the Celtics… ugh. I’m not positive that he’s actually the problem, although I can pretend he is, but they gotta get rid of Doc Rivers. This team isn’t a 60-22 team by any stretch, but they’ve just looked awful out there at times. I don’t know whose fault it is. Just fire someone. I’m gonna do my long-overdue NBA picks soon.

In my fantasies: As before, the better I do in fantasy football, the worse I do with gambling and vice versa. I had a big win over the first-place Brooklyn Computers and now I’m in second, with our records equal at 7-2 and him up by about 50 points… so I gotta beat him with my record. But the Mad Gear Gang will be champions soon. I just know it.

SpaceGang FutureMasters 2000 Update?!: Nothing too new, but I had the opportunity to get a lot of work done on the story outline. I’ve still got a long way to go. Expect a compainion to the About page to go up in a few days. Because you can trust me.