This is awesome. It’s like the sort of thing I would have wanted to do as a kid, except that I would have become frustrated and given up after one section. But this fan, one Robert J. Hall, saw it through to the end. There’s an article about him and a photo gallery of his project here.
Now, if only he could build a really good, life-size, moving #2 wide-receiver, we’d be all set this year. He could use “Mindstorms” to program in the routes to run. It’d be great.
My deepest condolences to the wounded and to the friends and families of the victims of this terrible atrocity.
People are already talking about the political aspects–the NRA, gun control, etc. In my opinion, that should wait until all the facts come out. For now, sympathy for the victims and their loved ones is what we should focus on.
Since I posted about it a week ago, it’s become by far my most viewed post. Tons of people are getting here searching on variations of “I don’t get the NCAA 13 commercials”.
The game itself is, I have to say, pretty fun. Now, granted, it’s not exactly super-realistic. I play as Akron in dynasty mode, because they’re one of the worst rated teams, and there was a game against Arkansas with the final score of 91-49. (Arkansas’s favor) Now, granted it’s a mismatch, but that’s kind of insane nonetheless. My star receiver had like 2,000 yards and 12 TDs as of week three–and this is on “All-American” difficulty. And the made-up players you’re supposed to recruit are all rude as heck for some reason. But it’s still fun, except for a few freezing issues.
The “Heisman Challenge” mode, meanwhile, is way more fun than it should be. It’s even less realistic. I play as Andre Ware, and so far he has 32 touchdowns and 3,000+ yards in four games. The only competition he could have for the Heisman are his own receivers. It shouldn’t be fun and yet, weirdly, it is.
(One thing that bothers me: why does Ware have the wrong facemask? The loading screen clearly shows a picture of him wearing this mask, and yet in the game he has one more like Tom Brady’s. And while we’re on the subject, what’s that giant faceguard Herschel Walker’s wearing in the above ad? He never wore that. /end mysterious man facemask rant)
Anyway, it’s a very fun game, but it has more of an “arcade” feeling to it. Which is cool. The college game feels looser and more wide-open than pro, so that makes sense.
Via J.E. Sawyer, another good example of how real life is NOT like action movies. I remember that Cracked did a great article about this sort of thing once. No wonder we have a “gun culture” in this country; our movies depict them as having magical powers!
It reminds me of the movie Last Action Hero. A lot of people hated it, but personally I thought it was brilliant. If you haven’t seen it, what happens is: Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a generic action movie hero in a movie-within-the-movie. Then he gets magically transported into the “real” world, and is confused when all the stuff he did in the movie world doesn’t work. Like, there’s a scene where he shoots at a car the bad guys are in, and is shocked when it doesn’t explode.
Still, that’s why people watch movies: to see stuff that doesn’t happen.
I was listening to the radio today, and on NPR (not sure what program) they were discussing the Libor issue, and how the city of Baltimore had lost money because of it. They quoted somebody saying how it could seriously harm funding for basic city services. She mentioned specifically how crucial even “just” a million dollars could be, and the impact of losing that.
When that story ended, I flipped the dial over to sports talk radio, where they were discussing quarterback Drew Brees’s new $100 million contract, with $60 million guaranteed.
Just kind of interesting.
The way he announces it is priceless. It’s too bad he never won an Academy Award for any of his outstanding performances. (He did win an honorary one.) He’s one of the greatest actors ever.
Everyone remembers his awesome performance in Lawrence of Arabia–as well they should–but in my opinion, his greatest performance was in a truly bizarre film called The Ruling Class. It’s one of the weirdest movies I’ve ever seen–funny, disgusting, thought-provoking, somewhat blasphemous, and kind of campy all at once. I can see hating it or loving it, but either way O’Toole’s performance in it is incredible. (Incidentally, Carolyn Seymour, a voice actress in many famous video games like Mass Effect and KotOR, also appears in this movie.)
Ah, well. Nearly all his performances are great–if you’ve never seen him in anything, you really should.
I was driving the other day and I passed a big semi-truck that had giant spikes on the wheels. I can’t quite understand what the point of such things is. Is the idea to provide an incentive for people not to crash into the giant truck? If so, I think it’s redundant. Maybe it’s in case they get into a race with Ben-Hur?
Are there any truckers out there who can explain what these things are to me?
UPDATE: Did some searching. Here is a post with a picture of a similarly-outfitted truck. The author of the post seems to share my sentiments. According to some of the comments, the spikes are plastic. Well, I’m sure that’s what Messala said to Ben-Hur, too.
UPDATE II: Nearly three years later, this is inexplicably the most popular post I’ve ever done, by far. Apparently, lots of other people had this question too. Well, hope you enjoy the blog and while you’re here, check out my book. There’s nothing about semi-truck wheel spikes in it though, I’m afraid.
Over at the Buffalo Bills fanblog “Buffalo Rumblings“, Aaron Lowinger wrote a counter-factual season preview/review of past Bills seasons; that is, a kind of historical fiction or “alternate reality” type of post. I thought it was a cool idea, but the reaction from most of the site’s readers was pretty negative. I can sort of see why, too, because even in Lowinger’s fantastic universe, the Bills are still seeking their first championship. Enhanced misery is not what people want in their daydreams.
I really like the idea, though. I’d like to try it myself in fact. Allow me, if I may, to borrow Lowinger’s (and Buffalo Rumblings editor Brian Galliford’s) idea, and try to make it into a happier one. What follows is purely fictional–although it may be factual somewhere in the multiverse…
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When the ball slipped through the fingers of their most reliable receiver this past January, it shattered many Bills fans’ hopes of doing something done only twice before: three championships in four years. The Bills, coming off a franchise-best 14-2 regular-season record, had marched down the field for a touchdown to cut the upstart Jaguars’ lead to 31-29, but the two-point conversion fell short with only seconds remaining.
It was a rare miscue for a team accustomed to winning. After their thrilling 31-28 O.T. win over Arizona in SB 43, the Bills had established a reputation as clutch winners. Their improbable run to a 34-15 shellacking of that same Arizona team in SB 45 only cemented that reputation, with a thrilling 17-point rally to beat Indy in the divisional round, followed by Trent Edwards’ clutch drive to down favored Baltimore 27-24 in the conference final being the most notable examples.
January’s disappointment aside, the Bills remain a young team with all the major pieces in place for another championship run. Although they lost star running back Steven Jackson in free-agency, they are confident that Spiller can fill his shoes. The receiving corps remains intact, as does the offensive line. The addition of Asante Samuel to a strong secondary makes them arguably even more powerful than the #2 defensive unit that led them to their first championship.
****
Well, that was fun, right? Or maybe not. Is it just a sad reminder of how bad things are, or an uplifting diversion? For, after all, sports themselves are meant to be an uplifting diversion. They really aren’t much good if you let them make you sad.
P.S. Lowinger and Galliford–should you happen to read this, I hope you don’t mind me reworking your idea. If you do, I’ll gladly take it down. It’s not exactly Goethe reworking Marlowe’s stuff, but sometimes it pays to take more than one crack at an idea.
Why would that upset the dad? Who wouldn’t like the idea of stealing one of their arch-rival’s greatest players? It’d make more sense if the kid had put Archie Griffin on Michigan.
Well, regardless, I think the NCAA game looks cool, although in all the videos I’ve seen, I’ve had a hard time because I get distracted by the ESPN crawl at the bottom. The thing that says in big red letters “Upset Alert! Danger, Danger! Warning, Dr. Smith!” or whatever. That is great in real life, but in the game it’s just a nuisance. I don’t care if the simulation has Wyoming beating Alabama or something, and it distracts me from the game I’m playing.
Actually, I think presentation in sports games is overrated. I used to think it was important, but I gradually realized I’d much rather play a good, realistic simulation of football with a stripped-down presentation than a mediocre game with great presentation. Presentation is just easier to do, so people fixate on it.
I don’t even care about the announcers at all anymore; I think every game I’ve played has them saying the same lines over and over. And I don’t blame the people who make the games for that; it’s just inevitable. (If I get Madden, which I doubt very much I will, I will not play the sound. I can’t stand Phil Simms’s accent. “Well, Jeeem, the Cincinatt-uh Beeengals can’t run buh-cause the Buffalo Beeels are stoppin’ them.” Sorry, Simms; don’t take it personally.)
Ultimately, I don’t play sports games to feel like I’m watching a game on TV, I play to feel like I’m, you know, playing in the game.
About four years ago, the conservative site Townhall had a poll you could vote in for who you thought McCain would pick for Vice President. Well, much like Ross Scott’s Gordon Freeman, if I see buttons I just have to push them, so I voted in the poll. I picked somebody named Sarah Palin, who I had never even heard of, but I figured “McCain will pick a woman, but not the obvious one that everyone is bandying about, Kay Bailey Hutcheson.”
So, today, I saw that they’re conducting a similar poll for Romney. For this one, though, they want your email address, no doubt so that they can send you ads, so I’m not going to actually vote. Also, there are no buttons to push. Where’s the fun in that? Anyway, though, I scanned the list and let me officially go on record as picking Governor Susana Martinez. Once again, I don’t know who she is. But she is a woman, and she has a Hispanic surname, and Romney needs help with both demographics.
