The ScooterBlog

So, it’s now official … I have a Nintendo Wii! And, even though I have been too tired to as much as plug it in since I got back from Kentucky and visiting the family (various details, I might get into this later, not sure), I have thoroughly enjoyed the time I’ve had to play so far!

I only have the one game that came with the system, Wii Sports, but there’s enough to do in that game alone right now to more then keep me occupied. Bowling is my favorite of the games hands down, since it’s so easy to just jump into and play, but Boxing has been enjoyable, as has Golf. Tennis and Baseball are still stumping me (I have yet to score a run in 3 games of Wii Baseball!), but I’ll get them figured out soon enough.

The other thing that has intrigued me about the Wii has been the new trial version of the Opera browser that comes with it, and seeing just how compatible that it is. There’s no doubt that it has opened up a new window for anything using Macromedia Flash components, since they play through your TV now. There’s a few different programs that I’ve stumbled upon that are supposed to allow video, audio, and a wealth of other things to play through the browser that were not likely thought up when the Wii came out.

Wii Media Center X
LiquidIce’s Wii Hacks
Wii Portal
Orb 2.0 (Suggested for doing Wii streaming)

Check these sites out and see what everyone is trying to do to make Wii browing even better … and think, this is just the trial version!

Yes, I’m on a run today. I’ve got stuff I want to get out!!!

I bring you this link to 25 energy saving gadgets that can pay for themselves and ask one question … which ones would you want or could you see yourself buying SOON?

What represents a coach having faith in their defense and/or what represents a bad choice in regards to what your team can do? A sports radio guy in town here said that a Bengals field goal in the 4th quarter showed that Marvin didn’t have faith in his defense. In truth, it was likely the right call. It made the game two possessions, and got the quickest most easily attainable points to drop one possession from the score.

But, if it was a 4th and 1 from, say, the Indy 30 (which it wasn’t), would going for it be considered a lack of faith in a team’s defense to get the ball back? It seems like the contrary … that by making an aggressive call on offense, you can show faith in both sides of the ball. You show confidence that the offense will get the yard, but also that your defense can make a stop should it not work and get that “three and out” that your defense will be called to do.

(This is really all more of an argument for punting in the “bubble zone” where a long field goal and a conversion would be compared, or going for it would be considered aggressive, but I would simply argue that being aggressive is often more of a sign of confidence then it is concession that you cannot do something)

And then there was today’s Tuesday Morning Quarterback, where the author (Gregg Easterbrook), quickly becoming a favored writer due to his mix of wit and intelligence, he proposes that wild card teams should be seeded and the best records should make the playoffs, regardless of conference. I don’t necessarily like that idea, because a team’s record can be decided to a point luck, and there should always be great consideration for sanctity of the conference. You are trying to decide the champion of your conference after all!

My idea would be that any team to make the NFL Playoffs must have a winning record, unless there are not 12 teams with 9 wins. Then, you just go with the next best. Conference seeding would apply, but if a 10-6 team in the AFC would be the third wild card (which doesn’t exist), and there would have been an 8-8 team make it to the NFC playoffs, that AFC team then jumps over and plays in the NFC playoffs. Whether you’d make that AFC team jumping the automatic lowest seed (#6 most likely), or whether you’d then rate them by their record is a matter of personal preference, I don’t know the right answer, but it’s an idea to make sure that if you do have a 12-team playoff, you have 12 winning teams, and, you’d have a setup where 9-7 can be good enough if the conference merits that.

Should such a situation come up this year, I might map it out in a future blog post. Truthfully, I’d love to see this in the NBA or NHL, but the nature of their leagues is that .500 is always playoff-worthy, so they’d have to cut teams, which wouldn’t break my heart, but will never happen, because of money.

There’s my sports idea of the day for ya.

[b]After the fact edit: Gregg disagreed to a degree[/b]

Even with NFL Clubs Having Dozens of Coaches and Scouts Earning Many Millions of Dollars and Doing Nothing but Football Full-Time, Teams Fail to Notice Really Basic Stuff: Now it’s Indianapolis 31, Cincinnati 13 early in the fourth quarter, and the Bengals face fourth-and-7 on the Lucky Charms’ 10-yard line. A really basic thing you should know about the Colts is that they score a lot. That means you’ve got to score a lot to beat them. Here Cincinnati trails by 18 in the fourth quarter. A field goal makes the margin 15 — which might be overcome, but only if you prevent the Colts from scoring again in the game. Up to the point of this decision by Marvin Lewis, the Colts had scored on five of six possessions while recording 23 first downs. Is there any reason to think their offense will suddenly lurch to a dead halt? So you’ve got to try for the touchdown here; getting a touchdown at this juncture was Cincinnati’s sole hope of a comeback. Boom goes the field goal, and the Bengals never threatened again. It was obvious at this juncture that Lewis was more concerned with containing the margin of defeat than going all-out to win. Want another example? Trailing 31-16 with 11 minutes remaining, Lewis had the Bengals punt from midfield. When it was 34-16 with 16 seconds remaining and it did not matter in the slightest whether Cincinnati tried for the first down or started square dancing, then Lewis went for it. 

I think the statements above are more prevalent for the PUNT, now that I do my homework. Yes, a punt there shows a lack of faith on BOTH sides of the ball. Offense can’t get a conversion they have to get, and the defense needs a longer field. There, show faith in the offense, give ‘em a shot, and if you do believe your defense can stop them, have the faith that they can bail you out.

So in the past week, I have learned something about XBox Live … the whole spiel about needing to have a “Live Certified” router to make sure you can make good connections to other players apparently has a little bit of merit.

About a week and a half ago now, I tried to connect to a co-worker of mine to play Gears Of War (highly addictive, I’ll get into that shortly), but couldn’t, no matter what I tried (or had him try for that matter). My router had the proper ports forwarded, but it was a newer version of a router that had previously been “Live Certified” (V6 instead of a V3). So while the NAT said open, it wasn’t letting this game connect, and I could connect to anyone else, period.

So, in order to try and resolve the problem, but not give up using the Linksys that has been solid as a rock for torrents and a lot of my network uses, I broke the home network into a pair of subnets, each using its own wireless router … the XBox now using a Microsoft MN-700 router, old, generally a piece of crap, but Live Certified. I finally was online last night with time to play a few games, and once I got around the seven invites I got to play a game right as I signed on (shows the popularity right there), I signed on with the co-worker to play. Worked great!

So I guess the lesson for us kids is, go on eBay, find one of those old crappy Live Certified routers, and know that it’s going to work no matter what. Interesting stuff.

I’m not a Michigan fan, nor am I a huge OSU fanboy, even though I do like OSU’s team this year, but Michigan fans should be screaming louder for a playoff system then anyone else. They got stuck in a split National Championship nine years ago, and now once again, they could be on the outside looking in hoping for a “split” title.

Yes, Florida beat a decent Arkansas team 38-28 to win the SEC Championship. Yes, they finally showed signs of offense that they have not shown in quite a long time (unless they’re playing Western Carolina), but did they do enough strictly on the merits of their game to leapfrog Michigan? I don’t necessarily think so, and voting on the opinion that you didn’t want to see a rematch is a complete prosecution of what the BCS is supposed to be about, pitting the #1 and #2 teams against each other.

So thus, if Florida does beat OSU, and Michigan beats USC soundly, the chance for a split national title exists, the same split that happened just three years ago using the BCS system. If this was supposed to fix these problems, having a split every three years isn’t solving anything.

While I also understand some of the arguments about a playoff system and it taking more time, or taking some of the luster off of the regular season, I don’t necessarily see that as true. If you look back at this season, it would have made only the OSU-Michigan less significant. Every other game that I can think of, outside of LSU-Florida, had 2 teams in which you could argue at least one team would be out of a playoff if they lost, if it was an 8-team thing. The idea that it takes the athlete-student (let’s be honest here) away from the classroom is a cop-out. College Football is a money business, and yes, the students matter, but I would venture to say the money matters more.

For that matter … if you did an 8-team playoff, who would you put into it? My list …

1) Ohio State
2) Michigan
3) Florida
4) USC
5) Louisville
6) Boise State
7) Oklahoma
Wake Forest

(I figure, 6 conference champions, 2 at-large bids and/or non-BCS school rules would apply)

I do get that LSU gets screwed out of this, being #4 in the BCS, but hey, if you make the conference titles or undefeated seasons worth something (if they’re rated high enough), then almost every game keeps its significance.

Losing the bowl system? Not a chance … either make all seven games part of the bowls, OR make first round games home games to higher seed, then play a “third place game”, and you can fill your four BCS bowls that way.

It also removes the pressure to feel like you have to vote for a game, you vote for a team based on their real placement. You’d still have your “bubble” arguments, and you’d have teams playing conference championships to have a shot to win it all. Even that 9-6 Wake Forest-Georgia Tech game would have great meaning.

Ok, I just solved the problem in about 10 minutes. Can someone get the BCS conference presidents on a conference call with me?