 Malik
(3/22/10)At least I'm not feeling alone in my thought I posted on Friday. The Seahawks, in their offseason moves, are being looked at by many people as some sort of bad joke. It goes without saying that the opinions in the link seem about spot on. Wallace was traded when his value was it's lowest, Tapp was one of the best defensive players for the Seahawks last year, and nothing makes a damned bit of sense about Whitehurst. While it's a "rebuilding" year, I think the key part of that is the whole building thing. When you ditch one of the top defensive players, remove a moderate quality wildcat QB, and add in someone who has no reputation as the "QB of the future", you seem to move away from building. Even if, for example, Whitehurst is a good acquisition, you still have problems with his contract. Hasselbeck is the QB for this season, and probably for the next season as well. This means a two year contract will either give no return or it will build up a player who then will be free to find a new team that will either offer him more money or a better opportunity to see the post-season. Two years is the time you need to groom a new QB, not the time you need to groom and try out in a real life situation. At least not all sports are screwed for Seattle right now. I mean MLB starts in about two weeks, with the Mariners pulling in one of their most promising rosters since the 1990's. Between a solid top part of the rotation with Hernandez and Lee, a solid defense with players like Figgins and Kotchman joining the team, and some interesting prospects at bat, it could be a quality season. When you add in how much Wakamatsu did last year with so much less, it looks like it may be the start of Seattle returning to contention. Will they be able to make the World Series? I doubt it. Will they be able to see the post-season? I think, as long as injuries remain at bay, it can very well happen this year. On top of that, MLS is starting this week with the Sounders FC kicking off the first MLS game of the season. Since the contract disputes are gone, at least for the next half decade, Seattle can resume being a force to be reckoned with in one league. Best of all, UW has returned to the Sweet 16 in the NCAA tournament. UW started the season, like the rest of the PAC-10, as a joke. However, after pulling out one hell of a winning streak, UW is looking good and proving they were a good fit for the tournament. After destroying New Mexico by about 20 points, it's looking like UW just has to keep doing what they've been doing and riding the momentum all the way home through the tournament. Thankfully, the games of winter and spring are looking damned good for Seattle. It's just too bad that autumn will return soon enough, and then Seattle can once again prove to be a joke in sports when the Seahawks come out to play with a lineup that will, no doubt, be little better than a joke. Malik |
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Malik
(3/23/10) Not again. The last time Nintendo tried "3D" and "portable", the results were anything but. The Virtual Boy was in a way 3D...as much as a wireframe display could be interpreted as 3D. As for portable...the Virtual Boy was definitely not. To hear that Nintendo is going to make a Nintendo 3DS makes me sad. On one hand, it would be the...carry the one...wait...bad at math...ummm...fifth DS. There's been the DS, DS Lite, DSi, and the DSi XL is coming out this week in the US (already in Japan). Now there would be the fifth DS based portable. I mean the lifespan of a DS system is now averaging about a year before it's outdated with new technology. It's worse than the PS3 in how many changes, usually minor and trivial, can come along in a tiny time frame. More than anything else, I have to say enough is enough with 3D. It's amazing how fads are so cyclical. In the 1970's and 80's 3D was huge. Movies were trying to force it down our throats with those annoying red and blue plastic/cardboard glasses. Now we have a new type of technology that uses less insane of glasses (less is not the same as being absent in silliness) that's being added to every damned movie that comes along. Up, Avatar, Coraline, Alice in Wonderland...all of the big movies are getting 3D treatments. TVs are going 3D with required glasses. The only good part of the Nintendo 3DS is that is supposedly will not require glasses for 3D. While I am curious about how Nintendo will achieve 3D without glasses involved, it's not enough to get me wanting to buy another new DS. I still have only the original DS (in fact, mine is a launch DS) and have not been given a single good reason to spend nearly $200 is play all of the same games I currently play. Adding another changed feature is not what Nintendo needs right now. What Nintendo needs is to win back some third party support. While the DS does pretty well (it's the only portable game in town...and I know the PSP is not considered dead...just on life support), Nintendo needs to focus on winning consumers back to the Wii. That means third party, less shovelware, less forced emphasis on motion, and...if anything needs a hardware update, the Wii should be updated to HD with a larger internal flash memory unit to get on the same page as the 360 and PS3 for looking like current technology. Anyway, like I said, I paid $200 for a DS once. If the games are not changing, and the core technology is unchanged, I am not aiming to pay another $200 to not alter what I currently play. The DS is old technology, and it's just not worth paying more to keep up with the Joneses. Malik |
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Malik
(3/26/10) Not counting Fire on Lego Rock Band, Jimi Hendrix has been to absent from Rock Band. Well, that changes next week. The entire Axis album from The Jimi Hendrix Experience is coming next week. All I can say is that it's about time. I can also say that it's good to see that Fire was not a fluke. With how much Hendrix seemed to be controlled, in game format, by Guitar Hero, it's nice to see that artist limitations and exclusive deals are not always as permanent or real as they seem. Anyway, I'm left with far too little to say right now. It's been a week that's been filled with more emotion and words. Mainly, if a word can be used, it would be "disappointed". Then again, that's what I get for being too attached to the (UW) Huskies being in the Sweet 16 (and being shut down by West Virginia). It's also what I get when I start to read the news some and realize this country is f$#@ed. Ok...the country isn't so bad off, at least compared to what it could be, but the tone of the media ranges from insanely left to insanely right with no middle ground and no solid perspective on reality. News has gone from being a thing that supplied information on current and important events into being a form of entertainment that ranks up there with reality TV for being a waste of time and space (be it bandwidth on the internet or cable, or airwaves on TV). I guess my one question is simple; when did "news" become synonymous with "entertainment"? Also, when did the public in general (not saying everyone is like this...I know some sanity remains in the US) start to follow this stuff as fact rather than some sort of entertainment based spin on reality? Actually, I know the answer; it happened between September 11th 2001 and March 2003. It's just always amazing (in a sad way) to me that as technology increases and the potential for information sharing grows, the actual information available becomes much more biased and twisted. Sorry...I'm just reaching the breaking point. We're constantly told that our society is reaching "information overload" but I can't find any real information. Between the "news" being opinioned (as opposed to "reported") about health reform and the fact that I can only find biased or human interest fluff pieces in the news, it makes me feel like I'm living in some twisted sci-fi movie (like a cross between Blade Runner and The Running Man, with an occasional dose of Logan's Run, Demolition Man, and Judge Dread). Hell I watched some crazy police helicopter based search of some woods near Seatac Airport for at least an hour on Wednesday night. It also involved at least 6-8 police cars that were flying up and down the old Pacific Highway (Highway or SR 99). Something major must have been going on, and it's near both a major international airport, a major interstate (I-5), and some heavily populated residential areas, but there was nothing in the news about the police beyond the retirement of a bomb sniffing dog (human interest). At least the funk I'm feeling is partially lifting. MLB starts up in just under a dozen days. Better yet, the MLS season was started yesterday with Seattle shutting out Philly 2-0. Best of all, it was a great game to watch, so I'm getting some real entertainment again that is not Dragon Quest IV or FFIX. Don't misunderstand me; I like DQIV and FFIX, but sometimes too much turn based RPG can call for a change of pace. Malik |
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