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Malik (4/2/12)

I've been bad about posting and enjoying life recently due to a cold that has sapped all of my strength. After finishing Mass Effect 3 (would have been cool to beat it yesterday; I would have thought Bioware programmed an April Fool's joke), I have wanted to play SSX (the new one...well, also the old PS2 original). However, when you are sick and taking plenty of medicine to keep yourself from total agony, trying to play a fast game with a lot of twitch responses is nothing short of a sad joke.

I am nearly feeling better. I'll probably try to play some SSX tonight. I enjoyed the twenty minutes I've played so far, except for the forced attempt to make the game super extreme (is that "X-treme"?) through a narrative and announcer that border on the absurd. I mean they border absurd, but reside in the land of super absurd. Yes, this level of cheese is usually not found outside of the dairy section of a grocery store or outside of the 1990's.

Anyway, being sick has made it easier to stomach sports. The M's started the MLB season early, before going back to spring training (is that a hallucination brought on by the sickness and meds?), by facing the A's in "Oakland" in Tokyo. It's amazing to see each year how the Mariners can look solid in spring training, but then once they leave Cactus League, they become their usual sad selves. Between the lameness of the A's, and the badness of the M's, this is not how you showcase the start of MLB season, and it's definitely not something you export to another country unless you want to face an "international incident" of some sort. At least the M's show a few small signs of life in Ichiro, Ackley, Smoalk, and of course King Felix. Still, unless the rest of the team can show some life, especially in the DH (Montero) and bullpen, then this will be another overly long season.

I also could avoid feeling much, due to being sick, when the Sounders FC played this weekend. I think the only thing that looked worse than the entire team (except Gsperning, who was solid as keeper) was the officiating. It's long been said by MLS fans that unless the officiating gets some consistency and quality, then MLS will always be the red headed stepchild of soccer around the world. I always thought the worst officiating is something that comes just from a ref who shows no level of consistency in his calls. I think I was wrong. After Saturday, I can see that the worst officiating comes from a ref who is inconsistent and tries to inject himself into the game. If you cannot make a good call, then just don't make any call. Instead, the ref on Saturday decided to make bad calls with numerous dubious penalties awarded and cards flying. The only good part was seeing the ref show off how bad he was by flashing a red card...fumbling around...and then flashing the yellow he originally intended to show.

At least Seattle sports are far easier to take when drugged on Dayquil.

Malik

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