Baseball Moment 2011

I’m not a hardcore baseball fan that watches every single game, but last night I had the privilege of watching a series of unlikely events unfold that I feel compelled to share. (Although I'm just recapping if you're a fan of baseball, or I'm boring those that are not.) Last night was the final night of regular season baseball which is normally not very interesting - this year it was important because the wildcard winner was still in the air. (Both leagues, but I don’t watch very much NL – I'm only recapping the AL.)

Let me paint the picture: The Rays only had one chance at winning the wildcard last night. Boston had to lose against a team that was 27th out of 30 teams in wins (The Orioles). The Rays had to win against the #2 team in baseball wins this season (Yankees).

The night started off very disappointing for the Rays. They were down 7-0 at the end of the 5^th inning. Some fans decided the season was over and were headed to the exits. Here’s a tip: NEVER leave a baseball game until it is over. Why? Because the Rays managed to storm back in the 8^th and plated six runs. Going into the 9^th they were still down 7-6. Things were winding down for the Rays – they were down to their last out and they brought in a pinch hitter – Dan Johnson. This guy was in the minors for a bit this year and had only played 39 MLB games this season. His last major league hit was back in APRIL. Almost as expected the Rays come one strike away from losing the game and possibly the season. (Boston was winning but in a rain delay at the time) Then out of nowhere, Dan Johnson blasts a ball over the right field wall to tie the game and force extra innings!

Back in Boston, the rain had stopped. It was still 3-2 in favor of Boston. Going into the 9^th inning and down a run, The O’s had to come up big if they wanted to rally. They were facing Papelbon – Boston’s premier closer. Papelbon promptly struck out the first two batters he faced. The next batter hit the first ball he saw to right field for two bases. Next came Nolan Reimold. Reimold saw two balls and swung at the next two pitches. Boston only needed one more strike to win. But Reimold hit that next pitch to deep center for a ground rule double and just like that, it was a tie game.

Fans from over 900 miles away in Tampa Bay went wild. Over in Florida, it was the bottom of the 12^th inning – there had been some close calls for the Rays in the last 3 innings, but still no one scored. Midnight was right around the corner and the improbable happened.

In Boston, the next batter stepped to the plate; Andino. You could feel the tension in the game. O’s fans wanted nothing more than to deny the Red Sox victory tonight. Andino hit a shallow line drive to left. The runner at second took off at contact. Carl Crawford raced down the field and slid to try and make a basket catch. He failed to catch it on the fly and the runner from second slid into home safely. The field looked like the O’s had just won the World Series – players ran onto the field and the fans cheered wildly. Boston loses the game. 12:02 AM.

Back in Florida it was still the bottom of the 12^th. Upton had just struck out and Longoria was up again. (Longoria hit a home run in the 8^th and was key to forcing the game into extra innings) There was a buzzing in the crowd. They knew that if their team won, they would be going to the post season. And Longoria gave the fans what they wanted. On a 2-2 count, he lines one to left field – just fair and over the wall. The announcers cannot believe it. Longoria’s second home run propels the Rays into the post season. 12:05 AM.

Many people complain about the slow pace, about how the players don’t really play as a team… But seeing these events unfold and watching the tension mount is what the game is all about. There are moments where every pitch counts. Admittedly, these don’t happen every day, but in a 160+ game season, there’s bound to be some exciting moments that stick out – no matter if your team made it to the post season or not. (I think I have one or two from the Mariner’s that I’ll have to dig out) This is one of the many reasons I watch baseball and will still watch in the coming years. (even after Ichiro retires *sob*) Congratulations to the Rays for having the mental fortitude to overcome such a large deficit. I’m still not a fan of yours, but hats off to you and for your play last night.

Live your life!

I've always been a fan of living life without regrets and enjoying what you do.

Sally Meyerhoff, an elite marathon runner, kept a fairly upbeat blog. I didn't even know about it's existence until yesterday but it's affected me deeply!

Her blog included posts like:

February 3rd:

Anyway, thank goodness nothing drastic has happened in my life (knock on wood), but lately I've been forcing myself to think about what really matters to me in my life right now. I have so many goals and dreams for myself and I'm not a very patient person, so I tend to analyze and stress about how I am going to make them all happen, ASAP! I don't like to make the excuse "Oh I'm still pretty young. I have time"...because we don't know how much time we will have in life, and I want to live everyday with no regrets.

She closed out her March 6th post with:

March 6th:

I cannot express how HAPPY I am with where I am in my life right now though, and how grateful I feel for being able to do what I do. I just wouldn't trade it for anything and any time I am feeling not very motivated, I think about how miserable I feel when I am not training or doing something else I don't LOVE. I totally and completely love this life I'm living and the most fabulous think is that I know it's only going to get 20 times better by the end of the year. Woo hoo baby!

She passed away on March 8th at 27 years old in a biking accident.

Life is exciting, and tragic all at the same time.

Re: Nationalism

(I wonder who will read this. I follow this blog via RSS, so I see updates no matter how few and far between. But I'm guessing most visited the site directly or via bookmark and gave up on new content years ago. So enjoy, Brian and Bryant.)

Yup, I saved Brian's post on nationalism... back in May, dang...

In theory
I think people should be free to do what they want as long as they're not hurting each other. There's nothing implicitly disrespectful about wearing a nation's flag, and people should be allowed to be proud of their personal affiliations.

Food for thought:
Should a student be allowed to wear a swastika at school if he's a Neo-Nazi? How about if he's Hindu or Buddhist? Should we ban the wearing of gang colors? What if a new gang comes up for every color of the rainbow? Or if you just really like red? If a rock band is coming to play at the school, should no one be allowed to wear a shirt with any other band on it, for fear of offending the performing guests?

What if a Cambodian student wears the Cambodian flag, not necessarily to oppose or offend anyone, but because there's no school-recognized day for them to celebrate their nationality? It seems imbalanced to begin with that only a select few nationalistic holidays are recognized.

We often don't know the underlying reason for others' behavior, and making assumptions and limiting freedoms is a dangerous path to go down.

In practice
In the real world, I admit I would guess that the flag-wearing was not a coincidence, and I can see why it could be taken in a negative way and might result in animosity or worse. So I see how preventive measures might be justifiable.

In closing
If it's just a handful of guys wearing American flags, and they intend it to be anti-Cinco-de-Mayo, and the only result ends up being that they're exposed as being jerks to the rest of the school, is that a bad thing?

Randy Pausch

Today I was going to write about running (I had a good run today!) - but then I stopped myself. You guys aren't runners! Who really wants to hear about someone who enjoys inflicting pain on himself? I'll just end up sounding crazy! (I'll just cover the subject another day)

So while I was reading the older posts (Which reminds me, I have to respond to Bryant's about MGS4! I finally played it and beat it this year!) I came across the "Edit Posts" button! After clicking on it, I discovered two interesting things:

1.) I noticed Jon was thinking about responding to an old post.
2.) I started a post back on July 26, 2008 entitled "Randy Pausch." Nothing else written, just the title.

While I'd love to talk about #1, I'll wait until Jon finishes his thoughts. I'll talk about #2 instead. I was so close to deleting it, since I had no idea who Randy Pausch was, or why I was even thinking about writing a post on him. But I decided to wiki him instead, and I'm glad I did.

Randy Pausch was a professor at Carnegie Mellon University. He was one of six professors asked to give a lecture on life experiences. The twist to this was that he was diagnosed with terminal cancer before opting to do this lecture. He decided to go through with the lecture and gave one of the most touching speeches I have ever heard (I mean it's right up there with Mr. Rogers Dartmouth commencement speech). His lecture was titled "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams." It touches on a lot of what I think life is missing.

I'm going to watch it later tonight just to reflect why I didn't write more about this speech two years ago. Here's the link! Note though, his lecture is about an hour long. I got most of his information after 20 minutes or so...

San Francisco Giants - World Champions

I know it's been a while since any of us posted minus Brian, but I felt like I had to get some thoughts down after just a crazy crazy month of baseball.

If start thinking about the Giants during the Spring, I thought they definitely had the tools in place to win the division. They had good starting pitching, a good closer, and some reason for optimism with their hitting (signing Huff & De Rosa and we still had Panda).

Then came the first couple months of the season and you watched this see saw ride of the Giants going up and down and never being really consistent as a group. De Rosa ended getting hurt and being out for the season, Molina was still slow and not hitting as well, Sanchez wasn't back from injury, their #5 starter was a bust and Pablo was in a slump. I also couldn't believe how hot the Padres started! There was some reason for optimism because Barry Zito actually looked good. (that obviously changed quickly)

Then a lot of good things started to happen in June and July - they bring up Posey (trading Molina), brought up Bumgarner, signed Pat Burrell, Sanchez was back from injury and the Giants pitching was doing real good. They had a lot of low key deals in July, but I thought paid the biggest dividends - trading for Ramirez and Lopez (who I think is very close to the MVP of the playoffs).

August was obviously rough, I think the starters were like 0-8 to 10 or something like that and Timmy couldn't find his groove. They were 6.5 behind the Padres and I started thinking, oh man, no playoffs again!!! The Giants get desperate and sign Jose Guillen, trade for Fontenot, and claim Cody Ross from waivers. The latter two I barely knew and the former has been described as a "cancer" in multiple club houses.

Then around Aug 20+ and on, the Giants were just on. They clicked in every aspect minus Zito's starts because he blew big time after the All Star break. I couldn't believe it had to come down to the last day of the year especially after all they had to only win 1 out of 3 against the Padres with Zito (automatic loss), Cain (guaranteed win), and Sanchez (coin flip). It ended up being that Sanchez was the hero that day and the Giants were on to the playoffs.

I knew they would probably beat Atlanta, but when they got to Philly, I thought for sure that is where the Giants run would end. They had to face Roy Halladay, arguably the best pitcher in baseball, Roy Oswalt who is a #1 on any other staff, and Cole Hamels who arguably could be #1 on a lot of staffs as well + he won the World Series MVP. Just as the Giants had done a majority of the year, they just kept surprising me. The hitters showed zero fear against these great pitchers and the Giants rotation showed no fear against the Phillies mashers (Howard, Utley, Werth). And btw - after that series I definitely knew who Cody Ross was. But admittedly, if I was voting, I actually would've given the MVP to Javier Lopez. That guy single handedly dominated the lefties on the Phillies team and was always Mr. Reliable. To be honest, I get worried about the bullpen minus Lopez and Wilson.

Luckily for the Giants, they got a match up against the Rangers. I really thought in my head, this was the best match up they could get and really thought it was a 50/50 match, potentially giving the Rangers a little bit more because they had Cliff Lee and the probable AL MVP - Josh Hamilton. Once again, the Giants acted as if they had been to the playoffs every year and showed no fear. I was listening to Murph & Mac in the morning and they kept talking about "particles" being in the air and that's when I really started to believe there was something special going on. I couldn't explain and I am not always the biggest proponent of fate / destiny, but there was some higher power going on in baseball for the Giants. This series wasn't even close to be as tense as I was during the Phillies series and I think it's because I actually believed that the Giants could win (though I would never admit that outloud because I am superstitious).

When the Giants won, it was hard to think of a happier moment (though my wedding probably tops the list with the Giants winning being a close 2nd). And this adds to the fact the lowest low of my life was when they lost to the Angels in game 6, 2002 (close seconds were some bad break ups or my parent's divorce). When Wilson got that last strikeout and he did his signature point to the sky, I screamed louder then I've ever screamed before. Once again, one of the few times in sports where I could possibly have had tears.

I was really proud of the team because of so many story lines:

1. Huff never going to the playoffs in 9 seasons and I think Sanchez was like 6 seasons - but they off and win the World Series.
   
2. Renteria getting the game winning hit in 2 different World Series. This is especially crazy considering he was pretty much a non-factor all year and was forced into the lineup because Panda is too fat to play D.
   
3. Posey and Bumgarner are two rookies who played huge roles for the Giants this year. Alot of the Giants change in mentality and rise to stardom was due to Posey's call up in March.
   
4. All of their midseason pick ups were huge. Burrell helped a ton during the year (stunk in the playoffs), solid utility man (Fontenot), Ross (you've heard how big his HR's were), Lopez (my MVP), Ramirez (solid righty of out the pen) and then you had some season contributions, but didn't play in the playoffs (Ray & Guillen).
5. How much respect the Giants rotation gets and all of them homegrown.
   
6. Tim Lincecum already having 2 Cy Youngs and now a World Series ring - he's got a tremendous start to getting to the Hall of Fame.
7. Brian Wilson is a comedian - he's got great presence and now the world gets to know him as well.
   
8. Giants 1st World Series win in SF and first in like 54 years -just incredible to watch history like that. Especially when you think that they had teams with Mays, McCovey, Cepeda, Bonds, Clark, Mitchell, Williams, Kent, etc. The Giants may not have been as talented as previous Giants teams, but this was one of the few times I could see that cliche of the team playing together as a team.
9. They win a World Series with their highest paid player sitting out, their 2nd highest is a bench/role player, and their star from last year is sitting on the bench.

I'm sure there are plenty others that I'm missing, but you get the picture. This run was amazing and I was just so proud to be a part of watching it and it was one of the most satisfying sporting performances I've ever witnessed.

So looking forward at next year, the team has some big decisions to make....

Who to resign?
- Definitely Huff and I say a maybe on Uribe. I think the Giants could use a more consistent bat then Uribe's free swinging, but he has some utility and you gotta love his clutch power.


Who to let walk?
- Burrell - with DeRosa coming back next year and potentially putting Huff in Left (assuming Panda can only play 1B), I think Burrell is the odd man out. He provided some pop for the Giants, but he's just not consistent enough. The Giants need to have someone who can hit consistently and not always trying to swing for the fences (i.e. Uribe). Also his glove and speed are terrible.

- Renteria - I love the guy for what he did and I will never bad mouth his previous contract again, but I think unless you want him as a back up, I'd rather see someone like Burriss get a shot at being a role player.

- Guillen - Besides not playing in the playoffs, now he's under that Balco scrutiny. We had enough of that with Bonds and we don't need that for a liability in the OF.

- Mota - I can go either way, but I don't think the Giants will be rough with or without him. It is nice having a veteran in that young bullpen though. I actually rather the Giants re-sign/offer arbitration to Chris Ray.

Who to offer Arbitration?
- Casilla - solid arm in the bullpen, though can get a little wild.

- Lopez - one of the best lefty specialists that I've ever seen.

- Ramirez - coin toss like Mota. He was solid, so I wouldn't mind seeing him back, but wouldn't be crushed if he left.

- Ray - same boat as Ramirez & Mota. Keeping 1 or 2 out of the 3 would be good enough.

- Ross - I think the Giants need to keep him. He's solid in the OF and brings a good presence to the plate. Not that he's got a ton of it, but he's adds more speed / athleticism to the Giants.

- Sanchez (Jonathan) - they'll bring him back, but I kind of wish they would trade him for a bat. He's so hit & miss and even though he found more consistency this year, he still worries me ever game he goes out on the mound.

- Torres - this is a must - he's a plus defender, has speed and power at your lead off spot. He just needs to work on his patience and he'll be awesome.

Ideal Free Agent signing:
- Carl Crawford (OF) - he's got speed & power and can hit for average. He'd be an awesome OF compliment to Torres and Ross. You can then have Mark DeRosa be super utility and a safety net in case Sandoval is still too fat to play third.

That's enough for my super Giants blog, but I hadn't felt the need to blog in a while until now. I already can't wait for 2011!!!

Ken Griffey Jr. Retires - A reflection

Every kid that has ever traded baseball cards in the 80’s and 90’s know one of the holy grails in trading: The 1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr. Card. This was the magical card that was worth $50.00 according to Beckett – and happened to be the ONLY one that was worth anything at the time. By just these facts, Ken Griffey Jr. became one of my childhood idols. But as childhood idols go, I lost track of baseball and forgot about baseball cards. I knew he was still playing, but it just wasn’t a priority to my teenage mind. High School came and left. College came and… Continued to come. Jeff was covering Ichiro while working for the Nichi Bei Times and it started to spark my interest in baseball and the Mariners. And then Alycia came onto the scene and it was all over. Baseball was back in my life again! I couldn’t call myself a fan of the game (I thought at the time Derek Jeter was a pitcher – a fact she continues to laugh about to this day!) but thanks to the internet, I caught up on the 10 years of baseball I missed.

Most of my old “heroes” left the game but not Junior. Sure, he wasn’t playing for the Mariners any more, but his excuse was admirable. He wanted to be closer to his family and play for the team that his father helped bring to the World Series.

I loved the 2007 story about Junior’s first time back in Seattle in interleague play. The fans gave their old hero a four minute standing ovation and continued to show support throughout the 3 game series even though he was playing in the visitor’s dugout. He reflected after the series that he would love to return to Seattle and retire as a Mariner someday.

Then, in 2009 the magical signing happened. Junior had an opportunity to sign with either the Braves or the Mariners. Supposedly he was leaning toward signing with the Braves to be close to his home in Orlando but he eventually ended up signing with the Mariners.

I followed the 2009 Mariners – it was a great time to be a fan. The Mariners were coming off of one of the worst seasons where reporters noted the lack of chemistry in the dugout. Junior is credited by single handedly turning the mood around and bringing back the excitement to the Mariners. Throughout the year, we heard about his walk off home runs and his jokes he would play. His 2009 season ended with his teammates carrying him around the ball park one last time.

Or so we thought.

He signed on again for the 2010 season, but people noted that he wasn’t quite the same. He was getting older and time was finally catching up to him. He still managed to pull off a game winning hit this year, but it was obvious that he was getting less and less playing time. A report came out about him sleeping through a pinch hitting opportunity. This last week, we saw little sight of him. Then, just yesterday he announced his retirement. It was a simple written statement telling us he didn’t want to be a distraction to the team he loves. He thanked his family for their sacrifices, the fans that supported him and his teammates that loved him. And then he was gone. No fanfare, no emotional goodbye - just a note a few hours before the game and he was on his way home.

The mood of the game yesterday was somber. Bradley noted that ‘On a day like this, it should rain in Seattle.’ The cameras caught self labeled tough guy wiping his eyes at the end of the tribute video playing on the big screen. He had a good day with a lead off single and two stolen bases. He attributes it to wanting to win for Junior.

“I had somebody else’s legs out there today. … I was full of a lot of emotions and wanted, especially, to get a win tonight so Junior’s retirement would be right.

I hit left-handed because of Griffey. I wanted to play baseball, be an outfielder, make diving catches, style on a home run, because of Griffey. Guys like him don’t come around every day. He’s just as magical off the field as on it.”
- Milton Bradley after the game

Ichiro struggled at the plate with three strike outs but managed to hit a game winning infield single in the 10th inning. In rare fashion, he gave a display of emotion after watching the winning run cross home plate. His comments after the game sum up his emotions.

“Junior is a very special player to myself. … I don’t know how to explain it in words, but that’s how much feeling I have for him. I’m sure all of our players in the clubhouse wanted to win for Junior. It was a very important game because of what happened today.

Every moment with him is a treasure deep within my heart. I have played 19 years of professional baseball, and I could say he was one of my best teammates, and my friend as well.”
- Ichiro after the game

I admire Junior a great deal for all his accomplishments on and off the field. His work with kids who are terminally ill deserve recognition, but he’s too modest for that kind of stuff. He does it because he genuinely cares. I’ll miss his presence in the game, but I hope that he enjoys his retirement knowing he was one of the best in baseball. There’s so much more to say about him and what I’ll miss, but like Ichiro said, it’s hard to explain in words. So I’ll just end with a thank you.

Thank you for the memories Junior, you have been the perfect role model for our generation.

...

Now if only your rookie card would reach $50 again…

Nationalism

It's been a few days since the whole Cinco De Mayo debacle and I just read in the paper about protesters in Morgan Hill celebrating their nationalism. This makes me wonder what is going on here.

If you don't know, a few students decided to wear American Flag shirts to school in Morgan Hill on Cinco De Mayo to "celebrate being an American." The school officials told them to either wear their shirts inside out or go home and change because they felt it was disrespectful to those that are celebrating Cinco De Mayo. Protesters say that students should be proud to be an American and show off that patriotism.

Now, before I get into sides and all that, stop and think about the situation a little bit. Form an opinion for yourself on the whole matter. Come back when you're done!

Done? Good. Here's what I think. I bet if you counted the number of times these students wore something patriotic during the whole school year, you would find that it would be zero or close to zero. I bet that these students decided to wear American clothing in direct opposition to Cinco De Mayo. It's not that they had some burning desire to show their American pride. They wanted to go up against a culture that wasn't their own.

It's one thing to be proud of the country you live in, but it's a whole other problem if you want to be proud of your country in the face of someone else. So this thing is growing - especially with what's going on in Arizona. Maybe there is something to take pride in. We hate immigrants no matter where they're from. We hated on the Irish, Italians, Japanese, Chinese, Canadians and Mexicans at one point or another in our history. Did we have valid reasons for doing so in the past? Maybe or maybe not. Do we have valid reasons today? Again, maybe or maybe not.

So now we have a bunch of yahoos out there that have latched onto this cause. Not because they want to show American pride, but because they hate Mexicans. They're using this event as an excuse to vent the hatred. This scares me. Throw some intolerance in the mix and instead of a real protest you have a mob.

I have more to say, but I just had to sit down and type after reading the article. I'll read it again and finish my thoughts later. For now, I'm pissed.

San Jose Mercury News Story

I updated our template. For a long time the archive and Atom feed weren't appearing for me. That's fixed now. I'll add the icons back in soon.

Yup, we now have an Atom feed [link at the bottom of the page]. So if you use a feed reader (ex. Google Reader), you can subscribe to our semiannual updates. I encourage everyone with a blog to provide a feed subscription link. It's really convenient. Especially if you almost never update and you love DDR.

Brian, your interesting post has not gone completely unseen; some time soon I will remember to respond.

In the meantime, marvel at these 15 bizarre sea animals. Haha, Ziggy fish...

What do we live for and what is our purpose in life?

I remember talking with my brother a few days after he got married in Japan. He told me he was saving everything he could for this new kid that he was bringing into the world. Now, this is a wonderful thing. Don’t get me wrong. Bringing a new life into the world and actually being prepared for it? Awesome. That kid is going to be OK. He’ll teach him/her some life lessons and now has someone who will throw his ass in an assisted living home. And the cycle will repeat. (Nah, just kidding. Japanese don’t do that to each other… Right?)

It made me think – what am I doing? Is this all there is to life? Right now my fiancé and I are saving for the wedding. After that, we save for what? A vacation? Is that all I have to live for after this? You know that’s what retirement is, right? Just a long and final vacation.

OK so that is depressing. But it gets more so. Check this out: how do we amass all this money for a long vacation? We do this by working ourselves to death. I currently run with two jobs and I’m taking a test that will get me more money in the future. On the outside, people congratulate me for working so hard. But what is the opportunity cost? Life. I miss out on life events no matter how small. From little parties to birthday celebrations. Who hasn’t used work as the excuse to miss out on an experience? And what if you don’t like doing what you do? You become miserable.

Is the answer finding something you like to do? Maybe. But I think I want to explore another option…

Maybe experience is the answer to life. Maybe all these little video games got the idea wrong. In RPG’s we continually gain experience and level up. We keep leveling up because we want to be strong enough to beat the game, have bragging rights or whatnot. But guess what happened? Somewhere along the line gaining experience has become a time sink and grind. Much like work, we grind and grind hoping that the countless hours we spent killing dragons will amount to some great feat like saving the world. Guess what? In real life, we don’t have all this experience and do something really wonderful with it. Usually, we just die. Maybe we impart some of this knowledge on future generations, but at the end of it all we get no princess, no congratulations, or cake. We get dead.

Now how depressing is that? So maybe at the end of the day, we should re-think our lives. Watch “Click,” or maybe even “Yes Man.” Or maybe step back from it all and re-watch American Beauty. Think about it a little bit and maybe find an answer. Or just continue to grind away.

A mid-life crisis and I’m not even 30. Weak.

This made me laugh my ass off....

http://www.hulu.com/watch/57938/saturday-night-live-wii-guys

Latest picture of Soundwave from Transformers:

http://www.superherohype.com/news/transformersnews.php?id=8024

Why does every key decepticon need to be some funky jet thingy? In the movie, when the autobots came to Earth they are "normal" robots who take shape of Earth like items and it looked to be the same with most decepticons except Megatron and now Soundwave. Where did those two mimic those jets / spaceships?

I actually liked the movie, but I'm not thrilled that Bay moved away from some key items from the cartoon. Especially with some very key characters.

I was on a shitty session of playing shorthanded holdem and that video made everything all better. Congrats for easing me back from that little thing I was inching toward, tilt.

And Bryant those books I heard are awesome. I got fucking screwed because I wiki'd a bunch of Star Wars shit when I heard Lucas might start writing something about the future of Star Wars...way after the Skywalkers passed. And my thirst for knowledge ruined all those stories. Besides...who likes to read? I'm all about Twilight. I'm kidding. Seriously.

Speaking of Star Wars, I've seen a few things lately.

1. Star Wars: The Clone Wars
The movie was so-so, but entertaining. The cartoon on Cartoon Network is also pretty good. It can be kiddie at times and you get sick of hearing "I have a bad feeling about this," but I do keep watching it. The one thing I notice is that the guy who voices Anakin is 100 million times better then Hayden Christiansen. He sounds tougher, less whiny, and more in control which is the way Anakin should've been. Though what reminded me on why Star Wars can be stupid is that they had a whole episode on how Jar-Jar Binks needed to save Padme. Hearing that guys voice is like scratching nails across a chalkboard.

2. Star Wars: Legacy
So this is a pretty entertaining graphic novel. It's about another rising of the Sith, years after Return of the Jedi. The main character is Cade Skywalker who is a descendent of Luke. He starts off as a pirate (Han Solo style) who does not embrace his destiny up front. He's a kick ass Jedi, but also has the power to heal people too. I like the artwork and the storyline so far. If anyone is interested in reading any of these, I have the first 3 volumes and I just got the fourth to read as well.

I'm not a huge Star Wars nerd as well, but I find the storylines intriguing and how someone can come up with such a mass universe is beyond my imagination.

More on that last video and Star Wars
I read a few of the comments, including fanboys jumping to Qui-Gon's defense. One that I saw attributed his embarrassing post-saber-battle exhaustion and goofy impalement mishap to his preference of "Ataru style". Curious, I looked up Ataru on Wookieepedia. This is like looking up the meaning of the Klingon gibberish Worf barked out in anger when his honor came into question for hesitating to take Picard into the neutral system. Which I did not do. Because I already knew. Just kidding.

I always liked Star Wars, but never geeked out hardcore on it. But for some reason I couldn't help but read about the seven forms of lightsaber combat. The philosophies, stances, strengths, weaknesses, and main users are given for each one. Since any boy growing up in the 80s would be demented not to love Star Wars, I figured at least a couple of you might want to look this up too. I also found the Galen Marek/Starkiller story interesting.

Even mo' fo' yo' inner Star Wars geek
It just so happened that immediately after I unearthed this critical information, my brothers and I each received Star Wars Heroes & Villains playing cards. This set consists of two 55-card decks of normal playing cards (3 jokers), one for heroes and one for villains. We had a good time (a) guessing who the jokers, aces, kings, queens and jacks were, and (b) laughing at all the other random characters thrown in to complete the deck, which only a true hardcore would know about (like my younger brother, who was able to verify information with his library of Star Wars reference books). So feel free to take a guess at which were the top characters in each deck, and then I can post the answers later on.

Hopefully someone who knows Star Wars will find this as funny as I did. Watch the video, then read the title and watch it again (it's short), and repeat as needed/desired. I was laughing surprisingly hard and watched it at least ten times.

Metal Gear Solid 4

It's been a pretty long while since I've stayed up all night playing a videogame, but MGS4 seems to be doing the trick. If you've ever played a Metal Gear game and you've been curious for answers, this game seems to be tying things up nicely so far. 2nd this is the EXACT reason why I got a PS3, everything else is just a bonus. (well Blu-ray was a big factor too)

In terms of Graphics, this is one of the prettiest games I've seen. Everything seems to move so smoothly and I don't recall seeing any "pop up," even in the most intense actions scenes. And most importantly, every lady in the game seems to show off their pretty features (Steve knows what I mean).

The soundtrack is pretty good and is appropriate for many of the cut scenes. If anyone wants a copy of it, let me know.

Overall game play / control is pretty good, though I will say I seem to have been spoiled by games like Rainbox Six, Gears of War, and even to some extent Grand Theft Auto in terms of how the shooting mechanics work. I wish in this game they put something where you could actually hide behind cover.

The story is overloaded with a lot of junk about the nanomachines, but it seems to go through a lot more detail of how they got there - the Patriots, who certain characters are and why they're important, etc. I gotta say after walking through an intense battle / mission, I happily was able to sit back and watch a pretty lengthy cut scene. The overall story is just engaging to me and like a good book, it gets me caught up and just want to learn more. I find myself on Wikipedia looking up and reading past story lines so that I can make total sense of some of the stuff I've seen so far, there's just so much information.

Anyway, if you haven't gotten the game, I highly recommend it. It's just a great Metal Gear game and I'm pretty sad that this will be the last one. (Though I bet their will be sub-games or something like those PSP versions)

I'm with you on Indiana Jones. The plot was not as exciting or as mythical as the other movies. Covenant of the Ark and the cup of Christ to the Crystal Skulls....? I'll blame George Lucas for this one.

I really did enjoy the movie, but I have a feeling if I watch it again it will make me reminiscent of the 2nd time I saw the Star Wars prequels. I loved them in theaters for nostalgia sake, but when watching them again, I realized, damn, these weren't that good.

The action scenes were great and I enjoyed the actors they chose.

In terms of overall ranking:
Last Crusade
Raiders
Crystal Skull (tie)
Temple of Doom (tie)

If you haven't seen Iron Man, I found this to be a great comic book movie. It'll be interesting to see if the new Hulk movie is just as good since these are the first two that have come out under the new Marvel productions. Though I don't know a whole lot about Iron Man's background / story - Robert Downey Jr. was a great Tony Stark / Iron Man.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

I know everyone on this blog is an Indiana Jones fan. I'll say that before I saw it last night I made sure I knew nothing about this movie. No trailers, no news stories, no reviews. Part of the magic of this series is the surprise, so I'm warning you right now, if you haven't seen it don't read beyond this paragraph. I'm not going to spoil plot lines, but personally I hate reading analysis before seeing the movie.

Let me preface a little more... I remember my parents taking me to see The Last Crusade in the theaters. To an eight year old, that was THE reason you went to the theaters. You wanted action, comedy and a true hero. I was hoping that this movie would bring me back to that time and it did. At least as much as it could so many years later.

Analysis
The beginning. What the hell? Something just felt wrong about seeing Indiana on the big screen once again. At first I thought it was me. Had I grown too old to accept a new Indiana Jones movie? Is this something that I'm going to walk away from disappointed that they ruined a wonderful series? Happily the idea grows on you, much like visiting an old friend you haven't seen in a while. At first you don't know how to act or think, but soon you settle into a nice groove.

It feels like Spielberg spent extra time in the beginning setting up your expectation of the movie. He shows the limitations of a 19 years aged Harrison Ford, and shows that Indiana is in a new age without the old Nazi enemies. It's a nice introduction but seems a little heavy handed...

I like how Harrison Ford picks up right where he left off. Indiana is still the professor at heart; he rambles his thought processes, and makes his cynical remarks. It's a formula that worked for the last three movies so why mess with a good thing?

Plot
Unfortunately I found the plot was a tough one to swallow, even after his last adventure. I had to keep reminding myself that this man has seen hearts ripped out of people, met with the protector of the holy grail and found the fabled ark. But even these adventures pale in comparison with what David Koepp has in store for him this time around.

Final Thoughts
In the end however, I really enjoyed this one. I wouldn't rank it above The Last Crusade by any means, but it was good for the nostalgia.

In closing, I want to remark on a metaphor that had to be pointed out to me, but I thought it was very fitting. In the beginning, we have the old school Paramount logo, and it fades to a gopher mound. It's a fitting way to bring the audience back down from their high expectations and settle into a great summer movie - Which is exactly what this movie delivers.

Just a quick post. I thought it was funny :)

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