Malik
(9/19/11)
Normally, when the NFL
season is in full swing, I tend to do a little post on the Seahawks
the day after they play. However, with the season how it is, I
really don't expect much to say. The Seahawks are looking really
good for trying to get Andrew Luck with the number one pick in the
draft. Of course, with how much Pete Carroll dislikes Stanford, I'm
almost afraid of Seattle getting the top pick and blowing it on
anyone else since Luck is Stanford's QB.
In reality, the Seahawks
are better in some ways than I expected. I mean that only to say
that T-Jack is a better QB option than I thought. The team is crap,
and the receivers cannot get open, but at least T-Jack does a good
enough job when standing behind an O-line that would have seen
Hasselbeck being hauled off on a stretcher if he remained. Still, no
rushing offense, a bad offensive line, and receivers who cannot get
open will all be just as important as a QB who can hit a target.
Without these elements, no team can thrive.
At least the defense
looks better than they did (with an entirely different line-up) last
year. Still, like I said, without an offensive plan of attack, a
team cannot win. A better than average defense will only lead to a
lower score on a blowout loss to anyone the NFL puts in front of
Seattle.
Anyway, my main thought
today is more with the UW game. I could play a what-if game and say
that UW should have won. Then again, I know that momentum and
emotion play a huge role in a game, and one shift can lead to
complacency, determination, or complete shell-shock. I honestly
think shell-shock was the option UW went with. However, I can
understand that effect when they lost by 17 and were screwed over by
the refs for about 17 points worth of mis-calls.
At the end of the second
quarter, UW punted. When the Nebraska returner botched a fair catch
by missing the ball and seeing it bounce off his leg, UW did the
smart thing and capitalized. They grabbed the lose, but now open,
ball and ran it in for a touch down. This was the second time
Nebraska blew a punt reception in the first half. What wasn't a
smart thing was how the refs decided to call a penalty against UW
for interfering with the returner. When UW never had a player touch
the returner, and he had all chances possible to receive the ball,
nothing it wrong with the UW play. This mis-cue from the officiating
team led to 7 points lost by UW and 3 gained by Nebraska with a half
ending field goal as the clock expired. I see that as a simple case
of 10 points changed in the game.
The same general thing
happened later in the game on the very next UW punt. It didn't
directly lead to points, but it, in a way, did. When their punter
received the ball, Nebraska had made no fair catch signal. This left
Desmond Trufant (who has to be one of the most amazing players to
watch on any college defense) primed to take out the Husker
returner. The instant he had the ball in hand, Trufant was primed to
make an amazing tackle. Ball caught? Check. No fair catch? Check.
Trufant leveling the returned with a legal tackle? Massive check.
However, once again a penalty came out for interfering with the
returner. Then another penalty on the UW side line when one of the
coaches couldn't contain his complete feeling of anger over two
botched punts (botched by the ref) in a row. Next thing you know,
Nebraska is about 20 or so yards further downfield than they should
have been. A short time later, another 7 were on the board after
Nebraska scored a touch down.
Another case came later
on a kick-off when a UW player caught the ball, on a UW kick. I
don't know college kick-off rules as well as I know NFL rules, but
in the NFL if the ball goes 10 yards, then it's open for an on-side
kick...even if it's less on sides and more way down the field. UW
was again flagged for interfering with another special teams
reception. I don't know college rules too well, so maybe the ball
can only be recovered if it hits the turf first...I don't know. I do
know that Nebraska had a chance to receive and they just didn't have
a player where the ball was. The Huskers, not the Huskies, blew that
play.
As for the punts...I
know what excuse can be used. In previous years, a punt returner had
a halo of safety. No one could get within (I may be slightly off on
this number) 1 yard of a punt returner until the ball has been
caught. However, if this is what UW was called for, then the
officiating team needs to stop living in the past, literally. That
rule is dead now and has been removed from the NCAA. There is no
halo, and a failed punt reception is entirely open to being taken
advantage of by the punting team...as long as no one interferes with
the punt returners chance to receive the ball. After that chance is
lost, then the returner is entirely to blame for the punt team
capitalizing.
Now, if these plays were
handled better, would UW had won? It cannot be said. Momentum and
emotion...two things that change any what-if scenario in football
into an entirely hypothetical realm. In reality, UW could have
become complacent. They could have cracked under the pressure. One
thing I can say, however, is that UW looked like they did crack
under the shock of being the victim of so many blown calls. Maybe
the UW kick return flop that left Nebraska with the ball on UW's 1
yard line in the second half would not had happened. Maybe a lot of
things would have happened. However, the one thing that matters is
that UW shouldn't have fallen to the pressure of these bad calls,
but these calls also don't belong in football.
These refs have some
major questions to answer. Especially, since the rules don't seem to
be applied as they are written, I think a lot of us college football
fans need one answer above all else; what are the rules?
Malik |
Malik
(9/20/11)
First Netflix alienated
their customers, during an incredibly bad looking economy, by
raising prices. While the timing was horrible, I can see their
problem. I didn't like seeing a price increase for houses like mine
that want both the streaming and the Blu-ray (or DVD) option. It's a
big hit when everyone is asking for more money, and no one is
offering to hire or give more money to employees. While $7.99 more a
month doesn't sound like much (and don't get me started with the
idiotic rationalizations, like how it's only two lattes a month), it
gets pretty bad when Comcast rates keep going up, gas prices are
climbing, utilities are increasing, groceries are going up in price,
produce is especially going up (due to a double hit of the economy
and a horrible summer), and...well, the list goes on for quite a
while. In simple, adding another $7.99 to my pain of being nickeled
and dimed is not an easy thing to swallow.
Netflix shouldn't
have explained the price increase better. They did a good enough
job. The truth is sad, but Starz helped to force their hand. They
license a huge chunk of the streaming library from Starz, and Starz
is demanding more money than the library is actually worth. Also,
with the US Postal Service in shambles, due to the economy and less
business each year, the DVD/Blu-ray mailing price cannot keep steady
or be discounted. Both of these sad realities make for a big extra
hit on the old Netflix account.
If Netflix was
smart, it would end there. Customers are pissed off and a good
600,000 have fled since June, and the Netflix stock price has
plummeted about 50% since July. The best damage control would have
been quick additional information, or to remain silent. Americans
tend to have short attention spans. We do forget, even if we
typically don't forgive...making it funny when we remain angry for
something we don't recall happening. It's silly sounding, but it's
true.
Instead of letting
this die,
Netflix waited two months and then started up again with more
things to frustrate and anger. Now we will see Netflix do only
streaming, and a spin-off Qwickster (which sounds like the lamest
XBox Live account name I've seen in a long time) will do the mailing
of movies. This means two different queues to sort through, two
different sites to update with billing and shipping information, and
two different sets of review scores for Netflix/Qwickster to
recommend other titles to you (which is actually a nice feature once
you've reviewed about 100 or more movies/TV shows). Two lists of
data that are now separate and not to ever interact with each other
again once this transition is finalized.
Doesn't that sound easy and intuitive? No.
The only way to
make this worse is if they find a way to further infuriate someone.
How could they? It would take a stroke of pure genius to find more
people to mess with...or they could just go for the shareholders
again until they vote the entire board of directors out of the
joint. Maybe by offering game rentals, which may work for Gamefly
with their dedicated service, but it will only create a more
expensive item for Qwickster to purchase in bulk. An item with a
shorter shelf life than a movie. An item that will either create a
price structure beyond what shareholders are comfortable with, or
one which will drive down profits or even generate a loss (once
again angering the shareholders).
When Blockbuster
went under, I thought it would be great to let a company handle the
mass video rental market. A company that was successful due to
knowing the right course of action and the right way to communicate
changes in service. Instead, we see Netflix is trying their hardest
to just crash and burn. Most unfortunately for the once mighty
looking company, there is enough competition out there now to make
this type of move entirely damning to their own business model. Want
streaming? Get Amazon Prime, Hulu Plus, or any of a few dozen
services that are bringing this technology to the masses. Want
movies on a physical disk format? Redbox is impossible to not find
nearby in any major metropolitan area, and also not too hard to find
in many smaller regions. If you have a grocery store in your area,
there is probably a Redbox somewhere near by.
It will be
interesting to see if Netflix can save their business model from
their own business model. For now, I can say I'm waiting for the
next iteration of their Starz contract to see how badly their
streaming library is damaged. That will determine how much of the
old Netflix empire remains on my TV.
Malik |
Malik
(9/23/11)
On a whim, I decided to
return to console gaming last night. I'm not opposed to console
gaming...I just haven't been motivated lately. That all changed when
I saw the PSN newsletter on the new releases for this week. In
particular, when I saw Burnout Crash and its amazing $10 price tag.
So, after fighting
my PS3 for a bit, I finally purchased the game. Well, I had a fight
since I didn't buy anything on my PS3 since 2010, and my credit card
had long since expired and been replaced. It took far too long to
figure out what the problem was (expired card) when I couldn't
purchase some funds for my wallet to buy Burnout Crash. At least I
can say that if my credit card information had been compromised
during the PSN fiasco this spring...well, it won't do much good for
anyone who stole an expired card.
Anyway, Burnout
Crash is something I've been wanting for a long time; a chance for
Criterion Games to return to the awesomeness that was Crash mode in
the earlier Burnout titles. I spent more time on Burnout 2 and 3
with Crash mode than I did with the race modes. I spent more time on
Crash mode than I spent on some lengthy RPGs.
While Burnout
Crash is not the Crash mode of old, it is a damned fun game. Instead
of being ran in a system like Burnout games used to utilize the
mode, it's been given a GTA feel. I don't mean GTA3 or later...I
mean it feels like GTA, GTA2, and GTA:London. It's top down and
simplistic in execution. This change from dynamic to simple, despite
how it may sound, is definitely not for the worse. While I'd love a
follow-up game that was more like the Crash mode of old, this is a
nice spin-off in its own right.
You still unlock
new cars, like you would in normal Burnout games (although there are
far fewer cars with fewer stats), and progress through new roads (or
actually it's usually intersections) and modes within the roads.
Each roadway will grant you three different modes with five
different ways to win in each mode on each road. In the end, there
are a good 15 or so roads (the exact number escapes me right now),
for a total of at least 225 goals to complete. Of course, these
goals will always include three score based ones (cause damage equal
to $10mil, $25mil, and $50mil). The others two are typically are a
bit more fun and creative with specific goals of destruction or
goals for perfecting one's skills.
The game is
basically the same general idea of Crash mode from the classic
Burnout games, but with a bit more of a...I don't know how to say
it, but I'd say a "pinball" feel. You have things bouncing around, a
top down perspective, and a lot of action and stimuli with a basic
idea of not letting your ball get away (in this case, try to prevent
all traffic from escaping the intersection).
To put it simply,
if you are a fan of the Crash mode in the old Burnout games and you
have a PS3, you could do far worse than to try out this game. It's
not like the game has a huge level of depth to it, but it's sure
good for a quick level of attention deficit based gaming.
Malik |
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