Sport

Mrs. DeMaro and I made the mistake of watching the following video two days before the release of Forza 4:

That’s a hell of a trailer.  Needless to say, we immediately pre-ordered the game and had a short, but heated debate on the merits of this (sadly, practicality won out.  I hate when practicality wins out.  Though sensible in the long view, practicality is kind of a pansy).

I don’t play racing games often, but when I do, I prefer Best of Breed…which in this case is Forza 4.  I type today with one eye on the computer and the other on the front door, anticipating the UPS lady’s delivery.  There’s definitely a Pavlovian thing going on…I’ve heard the Bucket Truck’s diesel motor a couple times and began salivating.  Not sure how to explain that.

Moving on…

–A little more on gaming as we’re set to enter a remarkable run of releases.  This happens every year as we enter the Holiday season, but this year’s lineup is especially rich in gaming goodies:

Today:  Forza 4, the top racing game on planet Earth.

Next Tuesday:  Batman, Arkham City.

Oct. 25:  Battlefield 3.

Nov. 1:  Uncharted 3.

Nov. 8:  Modern Warfare 3.

Nov. 11:  Skyrim.

Nov. 20:  Zelda, Skyward Sword.

That’s a murderers row of honest-to-goodness AAA titles.  Skyrim alone is said to offer HUNDREDS of hours of gameplay, Zelda in the 50-100 hour range.  The online multiplayer of the two shooters could, literally, provide years of play.  And Uncharted & Batman will be long, rewarding adventures…I’m especially pumped for Uncharted, as the cinematic series is among the most entertaining the medium has to offer.

Being unemployed is emotional and psychological torture, make no mistake about it.  But a very faint silver lining lies in the flexibility afforded to this Life of Leisure…while I’m waiting for people to call/write me back (prospective employers:  please call/write me back), I’ll partake in some truly excellent examples of the gaming medium.

–I’ll be sad when cancer finally claims Christopher Hitchens.

But in most other respects Mr. Hitchens is undiminished, preferring to see himself as living with cancer, not dying from it. He still holds forth in dazzlingly clever and erudite paragraphs, pausing only to catch a breath or let a punch line resonate, and though he says his legendary productivity has fallen off a little since his illness, he still writes faster than most people talk. Last week he stayed up until 1 in the morning to finish an article for Vanity Fair, working on a laptop on his bedside table.

Writing seems to come almost as naturally as speech does to Mr. Hitchens, and he consciously associates the two. “If you can talk, you can write,” he said. “You have to be careful to keep your speech as immaculate as possible. That’s what I’m most afraid of. I’m terrified of losing my voice.” He added: “Writing is something I do for a living, all right — it’s my livelihood. But it’s also my life. I couldn’t live without it.”

–Charles McGrath, New York Times

His wit and intellect are matched only by his prolificness (it’s a word!).  This piece from The Times had me remembering, wistfully, some of his greatest hits.

–As usual, Fareed Zakaria is on-point with an essay.  America has gotten a bit soft.

Conservatives used to believe in confronting hard truths, not succumbing to comforting fairy tales. Some still do. In a bracing essay in the right-wing National Review, Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal and a politically active libertarian, describes how America has, well, gone soft. He notes that the economy hasn’t been performing well for decades and that median wages have been stagnating. He argues that the country’s innovation culture has begun to decay, corroded by a widespread search for “easy progress” and quick fixes. “In our hearts and minds,” Thiel writes,” we know that desperate optimism will not save us.”

–Fareed Zakaria, my favorite Indian-American after this man.

–A nice post on the challenges of mining relevant data in hockey analytics.

There are things we can do to tease out the impact that individual players make on the game. We know how important it is to have an edge in shots over your opposition. What we need to do is to come up with a way to start figuring out how to identify the players who create that and how they create that. The singles and doubles and triples of hockey. Soccer’s enjoying a bit of a tactics moment right now, with people like Jonathan Wilson and Michael Cox writing intelligently about tactics. They (in particular, Cox) are greatly helped by the data that’s available with respect to passes, average position on the field and such things.

–Hockey : Baseball as Michael Bay  : The Coen Brothers.  No offense intended–I love hockey, and have since I can remember.  But analytically speaking, there’s only so much to be done.

–Should I be concerned that I agree with the French when it comes to kids & ketchup?

A couple of videogame-related items on this beautiful Saturday afternoon:

–A few years back I wrote a feature piece for Fantasy Sports Monthly.

In the piece, I tasked myself with identifying the four greatest sports videogames of all time.  ’Why four?’, my editor asked.  ’Why not?’, I replied.

I’ll skip the breakdowns for numbers 2-4 (Tecmo Super Bowl, NHLPA ’93, PGA Tour II) and get right to number one–Baseball Stars.

Baseball Stars has many redeeming qualities:  gobs of on-board memory, tight gameplay, the Lovely Ladies…and most importantly, extensive role-playing game elements.

This was 1989.  Role playing games didn’t have RPG elements.

Greatness.

Ok, they did, but sports games most definitely did not.  Humans were pegging their jeans.  ’Don’t Worry Be Happy’ was everywhere. Big hair absolutely dominated the hair landscape.

Also of note: The first web server and browser were developed (Tim Berners-Lee (England) while working at CERN).

You can’t imagine the impact introducing RPG elements into a sports videogame had.  To that point sports games were base, clinical definitions of the given sport.

You played the game.  That was it.

This is a baseball game.  It allows you to simulate the game of baseball.

This is a football game.  It allows you to simulate the game of football.

That kind of a thing.  You engaged in a video representation of a sport and that about the end of it.

But the genre of sports games was reborn when Baseball Stars added a dash of RPG.

In Baseball Stars, you could create your own team and tailor it to your specifications.  Want to start out with a pitching-heavy team?  Done.  How about a squad of excellent defenders?  Sure.  Fast baserunners?  Ok.  Power hitters?  Affirmative.  Contact hitters?  Veterans?  A balanced team?  Done, done and done.

Once your new club was created, it was time for the real fun–leveling up your players with cash won in games.  Position players had six categories that could be improved:  hitting, batting, running, defense, luck and the all-important ‘prestige’.  Pitchers had their own set of six…velocity, command, etc.

Team name, uniforms and logos could also be customized.  If you could correctly answer mysterious questions like ‘What is a wren?’ and ‘When isn’t it?’, you could create an all-women’s team or a stacked squad full of maxed out players.

You could sign high-priced free agents.  You could fire underachieving veterans.

Let me repeat–this was 1989.

Immediately, we had more of a three-dimensional relationship with the experience.  Yes, you still played the games, but you also created narratives, planned out strategies and became immersed in this thing you were building.

We were constructing a personalized baseball universe, complete with roster decisions, resource management, performance analysis…it was all very heady.

There were stats, too, in Baseball Stars….so many stats.  Through some kind of bizarre NES cartridge magic, the game kept track of every team’s players and compiled league leader pages.

I could go on and on and on and on about Baseball Stars and its impact on gaming history…but I won’t.  Today is the first day of fall and it’s gorgeous outside.

I want to frolic more than I want to continue typing.  Frolicking conditions are ideal.

Oh yeah…the inspiration for this diatribe:  this link from Kotaku regarding Baseball Stars and EA’s latest hockey entry, which is pretty RPG-heavy.

–One other quickie:  somehow over the past few months, the new Zelda game has passed Uncharted 3, Skyrim and the rest on my gaming anticipation meter.  This link here is partly responsible.  As is this one.

Zelda +5.

The Mother-in-Law was in town over the weekend.

For most that’s a pretty bleak diagnosis, but I got off easy, as my mom-in-law is quite a lovely human.

She and Mrs. DeMaro–both fair-skinned, bordering on translucence–braved a long day in the sun on Sunday, sitting and cheering my softball team and I onto a 3rd place finish in our league.

They brought a water cooler, bananas and even some sandwiches.

I’ve made some pretty poor choices in my life, but the family I’ve married into ain’t one of ‘em.

On that note, how about some more good news:

–Chocolate keeps rising though the ranks of delicious, yet healthy foods.

Researchers at the University of Cambridge analyzed the results of seven existing studies and concluded that high levels of chocolate consumption might be associated with a notable reduction in the risk of developing heart disease. Five of the seven studies reported a beneficial link between higher levels of chocolate consumptions and the risk of cardiovascular events. They found that “the highest levels of chocolate consumption were associated with a 37% reduction in cardiovascular disease and a 29% reduction in stroke, compared with the lowest levels [of consumption].”

A number of recent studies have shown that eating chocolate has a positive impact on human health, thanks to its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, namely reducing blood pressure and improving insulin sensitivity.

–The cynic in me is waiting for the other shoe to drop, while the glutton in me is delighted.

Look out, red wine.  Cocoa is comin’ for you.

–From one of nature’s blessings to one that, potentially, comes from man:  Lipitor may have more health benefits than we thought.

“The result is very unexpected,” said Peter Sever, the study’s main author. “The benefits of statins for preventing heart attacks and strokes are well-established, but after long-term follow-up the most significant effects seem to be on deaths from other causes. It’s quite remarkable that there is still this difference between the two groups, eight years after the trial finished.”

The lower mortality rate in the atorvastatin group is due largely to a 36% reduction in deaths specifically from infection and respiratory illness, according to the study based on 4,605 participants in the United Kingdom.

–Speaking of coronary events, Michael Vick, 31, just got a $100 million contract from the Philadelphia Eagles, with $40 million guaranteed.

–Rounding off the health-related links of the day, here’s another study that greatly encourages us to get off our posteriors, if the goal is a longer life here on the paradise that is Planet Earth:

Now for a trio of updates on the U.S.’s growing arch-rival, China.

–The Pentagon isn’t sweating the recent Chinese military buildup.  Some cool links in there, including this one regarding the new Chinese stealth fighter.

–They’ve also begun developing some drones, though they seem fairly primitive by the U.S.’s standards.

–From military advances to automotive advances–there’s a fancy new hybrid out there that’s attracting some attention from the jet-set crowd.  It’s called the Fisker Karma.

–Here’s a review of that lean, green machine from Car & Driver.

–Finally today, a few words on bowling.

If it is a sport, it’s absolutely my worst sport.  I’m usually lucky to break 100 and, truth be told, I don’t enjoy it all that much.

But every year since my Aunt Wanda died of pancreatic cancer, I’ve bitten the bullet and embarrassed myself in front of friends and family to help raise some money for a cure to this terrible disease.

If you’d like to join me in a couple weeks (read: watch me make a fool of myself), click here and register for the event.  It’s $25 per adult, $15 for the kiddos and all proceeds go toward kicking pancreatic cancer’s rear-end.

I hope to see you there.

What a night for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

In signing their first two picks of the 2011 draft, the Bucs continue to put themselves in a position for real, sustainable success.

The Pirates spent over $17 million on the 2011 draft, the highest amount of any club in major league baseball.  This is nothing new for GM Neal Huntington, whose attacking style via the draft has seen his Pirates spend more than any MLB club since he took over in late 2007.

Regardless of the record at the major league level, the Pirates front office is taking dramatic, unprecedented steps to ensure that the Ignominy‘s days are numbered in Pittsburgh.

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Sound management is the key to success in any business.  To wit:

In the span of a calendar year the Pirates have added five potential stars to their system.

Jameson Taillon (’10 1st rounder), Stetson Allie (’10 2nd rounder), Luis Heredia (16-year-old Latin FA), Gerrit Cole (’11 1st rounder) and Josh Bell (’11 2nd rounder) represent the greatest influx of talent into the system of my lifetime…and potentially in the history of the franchise, though that seems a very subjective argument and one I’ll not try to make.

Either way, the Bucs talent base is light years better today than it was in July of 2010…which was worlds better than it was in July of 2009, which was greatly improved from the group in July of 2008.

In terms of talent, it’s been a story of exponential growth for the Pirates since Bob Nutting assumed control of the franchise in early 2007.  He hired Frank Coonelly late in 2007, who then brought Neal on board.

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Some quick, quality links, as my browser is about to collapse under the weight of the myriad tabs I’ve subjected it to…

–The U.S. military (DARPA) has tried at least twice now to get hypersonic flight working.  It seems they’re 0/2.  It’s a good path, though, as travelling 13,000 miles per hour has many benefits, not the least of which is the awesome-sounding ‘Mach-20′ barrier it crosses.

Speaking of Mach-20 and given the troubles DARPA seems to be having, will an aircraft or a razor breach the mark first?

(Note: The link to the ‘Platinum Mach 14′ SNL sketch is locked behind a Hulu Plus pay wall.  Doesn’t seem to be available otherwise)

–A considerably slower, yet considerably safer option for flight:  The new Boeing 787 Dreamliner.  Cool plane.

The plane is the first commercial airliner to be made mostly of carbon composites or super durable plastic. Those materials mean a lighter plane that Boeing says could use 20% less fuel than conventional airliners, making way for a more environmentally-friendly and cost effective aircraft option for airlines.

The interior of the plane also sports a variety of upgrades. Gone are traditional plane window shades. Instead, a button on the window allows passengers to gradually darken their surroundings.

–The best damn airplane reporter CNN’s got

–Some more flight stuff:  the fancy new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter–also a very cool, if very expensive plane–is having some teething issues.  Computer simulation or not, if the shiny F-35, a generation 5 plane, is losing to a Russian generation 4 fighter, that’s a problem.

–The most infuriating flight-related link yet–Pakistan screws over it’s Sugar Daddy (The U.S.) by reportedly giving the Chinese access to the stealth copter used in the bin Laden raid.

I’d go into further depth here, but it’s all pretty universal stuff.  Swearing, cultural insults, etc.

–Ending on a non-Pirates / non-flight note:

I tried to link to an SNL sketch earlier in the post.  Unless you’re a Hulu Plus subscriber, it was almost definitely a no-go.  Fortunately I’ve got another SNL tidbit for you–the host/musical guest for the new season opener has been announced.  Sounds like a good show to me.