Blah, blah, blah. Brent is drunk. Blah, blah, blah.

I just did my other Fantasy Football draft. Here's the results:

1. Marshall Faulk
2. Edgerrin James
3. Eric Moulds
4. Hines Ward
5. Jamal Lewis
6. Koren Robinson
7. Trent Green
8. Shannon Sharpe
9. Tom Brady
10. Ashley Lelie
11. James Stewart
12. Jimmy Smith
13. Steelers D/ST
14. Brad Johnson
15. Quincy Morgan
16. Jeff Wilkins

Hopefully I'll kill everyone w/ this roster. Though it's such a small league most people have pretty good rosters as well. I'm light on QB's, but really good at everything else.

With that said, I don't know if I want to do any "throw some friends together leagues" any more. My friend Ben is the comissioner of the league, and he thinks he's going to win this year no prob. Of course the winner gets $$. Well in the 5th round he didn't pick in time and the computer auto-drafted for him. He was furious. He went off saying, forget it, I'm not playing this, I quit.

Of course, I rail into him about how I spent a lot of time doing research and he's just gonna up and quit because he didn't draft in time? That's the rules!! He also told us before the draft that we should pre-rank our players in case this thing came up! Then he told everyone not to draft the guy he really wanted, but someone did anyway, so he really got mad then. I couldn't believe he was being such a baby. We went back and forth, he couldn't believe I was so upset, I called him a few names. :)

Come to find out he thought the computer didn't draft *anyone* in the 5th round for him. So finally he figures it out and starts drafting again. Ugh. I can understand if you think the computer didn't give you a pick at all, but at least say so. All of us are like, what's going on, do we even have a league now? Until he finally figures it out.

It seems every time I do a live draft, something screwed up happens. Someone always doesn't show up, and someone always can't figure out the way the live draft app works and they get pissed and quit before the season even starts. Nothing is worse than playing w/ people who don't care. Where's the fun in that?

I shouldn't be surprised though, it's typical Ben. It's all about him, me, me me, "my god why don't people understand me?!?!" Blech. I think I'm sticking to my keeper league from now on.

UPDATE: Ben appologized by changing his name from the "Winning Griffins" to the "Whining Griffins". Well, at least he knows he's a whiney bitch. ;)

Nintendo has said recently that it will unveil a new product this spring. They've also said it's "entirely different from anything now existing". Well, you know how marketing speak works, it's probably nothing earth shattering, but it got me thinking about a possible Nintendo product.

Sony is going to be coming out the PSP in a year or so to compete w/ the GBA (even if they say it's not supposed to go head to head w/ GBA). I never liked the idea of Nintendo having another update to GBA, since GBA isn't really that old. However, I had one idea that would change my mind about that.

Nintendo could make a portable system w/ a hard drive built in (think iPod, but much smaller HD, like a Gig), and allow you to download games onto it from the net. And by games I mean NES, SNES, N64, Gameboy, GBA games.

They could make a portable system that can play and store them all on a HD, and make the cost cheap for old games (say $5 and up). They can then contact the original third parties to sign up for them to collect royalties for basically no cost to them. What would a 3rd party have to lose in that deal?

Think of it like the iPod/iTunes Music store model. You can search online for any game for the previous systems, pay a minimal fee, download it, store it on your computer/GBA2, and play it. I mean we're talking thousands of games here, with no production costs. You can use "Fairplay" DRM like Apple uses so that people aren't passing around the downloads to each other.

This also lets devs have the option to write new games for any of these systems and release them (since they're just emulated), instead of just one platform. It also allows Nintendo to really go after the ROM scene since they are actually selling these old ROMs and have legal precidence.

I don't know, to me, this is such a simple yet powerful idea. And Nintendo is the only one who could pull it off, simply because of the history they have in gaming. It gives them an instant leg up on everyone, including Sony with minimal cost to them for the games, and large profits. What's not to like?

Alas, I don't see Nintendo doing this. For as much as I do like thier games, they're just too conservative for this type of idea. Which is unfortunate. I think it'd do really well.

Well I decided to go to the doctor today to see if there is anything wrong w/ me. I've been having some mild chest pains lately, and had a bad one this weekend at the WWE show. And since, I've been pretty dizzy/light headed. I just wanted to make sure there was nothing wrong.

Had the normal tests when I went in, and they did and EKG and also chest x-rays. Everything was normal, which is good. They even checked my lungs to make sure it wasn't that and they were fine as well. The doctor said it was probably just chest wall contractions, which is minor. He said it wasn't my heart or lungs as those looked fine. I was pretty happy about that. I think I just needed to know it wasn't something more serious.

Still, I'm going to watch myself a little more. I already know I have early beats in my heart (which isn't life threatening), so I may just be overly aware of things happening inside of me. But I do want to try to take a little better care of myself. I know a lot of how I feel is from my activity level (quite low) and the food I eat. I'm certainly not going to change those full bore right away, but I will be more concious of what I eat and how much (or little) activity I'm getting. I think that should at least help.

After that whole ordeal I went to the Library and got a book. Library's rock. I got Carl Sagan's book, "The Demon-Haunted World". Been wanting to read it for a while. In fact, that's what I'm gonna do right now.

Went to see WWE (WWF) last night at the Target Center. Annette's sister got comps from Sony, and we had some super sweet seats, right up front. I hadn't seen a live wrestling show since '86 or there about when Hogan was wrestling. It was a good show, not much in the way of pomp and circumstance, since it wasn't taped, but it was entertaining. Took a lot of pictures, but most of them didn't turn out. Quite interesting crowd to say the least. Gets us ready for the State Fair next week I guess.

I haven't keep up w/ wrestling in a long time, but it was good to see the likes of Chris Benoit (who didn't disappoint). Brock Lesnar is friggen huge, that's all I can say. They even had some new kid wrestler that only had one leg. Seriously. It was incredible. The crowd really liked him.

After that we went to Gameworks to play some games. I was hoping they'd have the new F-Zero arcade, but they didn't. I realized quick that most of the games there suck, so I stuck to the few classics they had. Played my fair share of Centipede. And we also played a lot of pinball. Annette seemed to rack up about 8 free plays on the South Park pinball, which rocked. Pinball has to be one of the best games ever. I also played a bit of the Super Monkey Ball arcade. I actually liked the SMB cabinet, I may model mine after it.

We ran into Romeo there, who used to do some contract work for Imaginet when I was there. He had some great stories to tell about my old asshole boss John. Aparently John is just as much of an asshole now as he ever was, only now he's married, and apparently they're joined at the hip. Sounded pretty disgusting. Just talking about all that braught back so many bad memories. God I hate that fucker.

So I'm looking for a good book to buy to pass some time when Netter is gone and I think to myself, "hey, what about the Library?" Now there's something I haven't thought about in a while. It seems like such an old thing, the library. I remember going to the one in Sturgeon Bay quite often. Their selection never changed, but I was always able to find something to look at.

So I went online and found out the entire metro has their library collecton online. So I can search for any book I'd like and see which library's have it, and if it's checked out or not. I can even reserve the book online and pick it up later. Now that's sweet. Looks like there's a good selection too. I just did a simple search for Carl Sagan and almost all of his books showed up (including a few papers, tapes, etc of his).

I'm pretty psyched. I need some good reading on the cheap. It's nice to know that in the hustle and bustle of today w/ the internet and everything, the libraries are still holding strong.

Save Lambeau Field

Heh, on our way back from Chipotle Annette and I got passed by a Ferrari F50. That was the first (and probably last) time I saw a car worth over $800k. Looked damn sweet, but at almost a mil? Damn.

Not much has happened lately, thus no posts. But I always seem to have little things on my mind, that I might want to post, but then don't. I think I should try to do that more, since I always like reading other people's random thoughts. So here's a list of stupid shit happening, or thought about in the past several days:

- Mario Golf is a sweet ass game. I'm still playing it, and honestly I can't get enough of it. It started out kinda slow but now it's grown on me since I've unlocked a lot of stuff. I've easily played this game more than any other since Animal Crossing.

- Netter leaves for Atlanta for a month on Monday. She comes home on weekends which is good, but I'm sure I'll miss her. Still, I think I'll enjoy some of the time to myself...well at least for a day or two anyway. I'm sure I'll get bored quick, I'll need to find something to do.

- Perhaps I should start that now, as lately I've been bored. I'd like to get into a good book perhaps. Anyone know any good ones to read? I'm thinking maybe a science/philosophy type one perhaps. No politics though.

- Another thing I'd like to do more is excercise. Annette braught this up last night and I think it's a good idea. I've been feeling a bit dizzy lately and that's no fun. My body is also starting to ache more and I'm just drained. I know my body and that basically means I need to get out more and be more active. I just need to get into that groove and then I'll be fine.

- I'm getting more picky. I've noticed that I only like actual good movies and actual good music now. While there are exceptions, I look a lot more into the artform of it these days. I remember growing up thinking Siskel and Ebert were stupid because they always thought the crappy movies were good. Now that I'm older I tend to agree w/ Ebert's picks. I'm really getting sick of the same record industry and Hollywood shit.

- I watched Iron Monkey last weekend. Good movie, though it used lots of wires, and had a somewhat cheezy plot. But that's Hong Kong cinema. Still 1000x better than any movie this summer (save Finding Nemo).

- While Eminem is a great lyricist and has good delivery (which a lot of people comment on) I think Dr. Dre should be given a lot of credit. The beats he does really match the song content really well. Something I think a lot of people overlook.

- Boards of Canada rocks, because their last 2 albums have a common theme throughout. "Children" mostly has a kid theme to it, and "Geogaddi" has an earth theme to it. Or at least that's what I get out of it. You don't see entire albums devoted to this sorta stuff any more.

- A takeoff of that is songs that have a story. One reason I like Atmosphere is because Slug can tell an entire story throughout a song, building it up to a climax. This used to be more prevelant I think. You don't see that as much today.

- When this generation of video game systems is over I don't think I'm going to follow the ups and downs of it online. I think it ruins the experience of owning and playing games for fun when people are more concerned with image and sales results (this is somewhat akin to movies and music where sales, $$, and image seem to matter for some reason).

- There seems to be a lot of "gay" stuff on TV these days. I don't have a problem w/ that, but it seems others do. It's amazing how many people are still homophobes. Well I guess it's not amazing really, but what I find interesting is how many people are saying the same things about gays today as they did about blacks 50 years ago (well, not *exactly* the same, but you get the idea). I think it's a foregone conclusion that in time, gays will be accepted in society as much as blacks are now. I just don't think a lot of biggots realize that.

- The more I read about religion, and people's thoughts on the matter, the more I'm confident in my religion (ie, not having one).

Now this looks cool. XGameStation is a "new" gaming console coming out but it is completely a hobbiest's console. It's all about building your own games, and comes w/ everything for you to do so. It's also 16-bit, which is sweet. I believe it's supposed to cost $99, and it even comes w/ actual cartriges you can burn your games to.

I hope it turns out to be as cool as it seems (even w/ the lame name). I'd love to actually have a real console to write games to with its own API's that's fully open. I think Dave needs one as well so we can swap game carts. ;)

Haha, I love hijacking sites who hijack mine. So I was going through my stats today for Assembler, and noticed a site that had quite a few referrers to it. I went to check it out and it was a carbon copy of my site. It actually was Assembler!

All they did was copy my frameset code and put it in their site. It actually called the perl script off of my server and served it up as their index page. Total ripoff. This isn't the first time this has happened. It's happened a couple times, one was so bad it was totally bogging down the bandwidth on my server.

So I couldn't find any email this time to email them, so I just said "enough". I figured I'd just fuck 'em over with some good ol Javascript. So basically what I did was just check to see if the reffering frameset page is coming from Assembler.org. If not, then redirect them somewhere else. Pretty easy and it works great.

You can find the offending ripoff at http://keemiarelva.tehas.ee/. You can still see the title of the page retains the hex from my site but the page has been redirected to a much more appropriate page. ;)

Been meaning to put these up for a while, but here are some pics of my new control panel. Had some friends over last night and we played on this thing for a while. My friend Ryan thought it was made out of wood at first because it was so sturdy. He didn't believe it was just cardboard.

Also if you notice this version has the spinner installed in it, and the start buttons are moved. All the player buttons are a bit closer together and closer to the joystick as well. I noticed no difference when playing but it gives an inch of extra room around the trackball. The spinner was a real bitch to install, but it works great, and I don't mind the location. It's probably the best fit for it, thought I need to do more testing.

If you look at the finished photo, you can see two holes on the front side of the box, these are flaps I made the come down to change the accuator from 4-way to 8-way. Had to do this last night when we switched to playing Metal Slug. I wasn't sure how that would work, but it actually works well and is very fast. So now I never need to open the box for anything. This should last me until I build the real deal.