The ScooterBlog

There are a few eloquent moments that prove a lot about us Midwestern types. I’m not sure if it proves our uniqueness or stupidity, but considering what I did during the Wind Storm of 2008, I think it could prove either.

Random thought …. if they jokingly call snowstorms around here the “White Death”, what do you call THIS?!

At approximately 5:15 or so on last Sunday, I left to drive out to go get a bite to dinner, knowing that it was really windy but completely oblivious to the fact that it was hurricane force winds. The power had flickered off and on a couple of times, but I was oblivious to the fact that when it was over, most of the city (and almost all of Cincinnati) would be in the dark. As we watched the news while we were out, this became more certain!

In the course of three hours, we’d gone from just a really really windy day to something that looked like a severe storm. Everything was dark, and there are few things more surreal than driving through an area where the lights are just part of how it is, and then it’s pitch black. We probably drove around for 40 minutes due to needing to run a couple of errands (ones we had to even in that weather), and it was something crazy!
As it turned out, we were lucky. We only lost power for about 24 hours, it came back on Monday night. Most of Hilliard didn’t get their power on until 2 days ago, and all of the grocery stores and shops were pitch black until Wednesday (and closed until Thursday in some cases). We lost only a little bit of food, some people lost all of it.

Oh yes, there was one major negative. They didn’t close Danielle’s clinic even though they were on emergency backup power, and the lab was running at a toasty 82 degrees. Nice of ‘em, huh? That’ll be done with in five days anyways!

How was your experience with the wind storm?

Look into your crystal ball for the Bengals and tell me what you see. 0-6 is starting to look very realistic from here. Maybe one of you can show me the signs for optimism, but considering they were not competitive against a average to below average division foe, and then lost at home and wasn’t even in the game to a decent club, the next four games look like:

I’d like to congratulate the Reds on getting a hitter that might have similar raw power to Adam Dunn and comes at one tenth of the price. Oh yeah, did I mention he pitches?

I know Micah Owings isn’t having as good of a year this year as many wanted, but he’s still a talented starting pitcher, maybe a #4 or #5 to suck up innings, and the man can hit a baseball. I believe he’s hit a pitch-hit Home Run at one point this year, and really could serve dual use as a hitter and pitcher with a manager that’s creative enough to utilize the talent.

Yes, I know, Dusty Baker is our manager. We’re screwed on that front.

Scary thought number two? The Reds have had a guy like this before, Brooks Kieschnick, who went on to be a hitter/pitcher for … the Brewers.

So the way I envision right now, the rotation could be:
1) Aaron Harang - Him healthy should be 15 wins.
2) Edinson Volquez - Even with a Sopohmore slump, how does 15 wins look? Very doable
3) Bronson Arroyo - Suck up 200+ innings, give the bullpen rest, win 10 games as a bonus.
4) Johnny Cueto - For a maturing rookie in modern baseball, a 4.77 ERA isn’t bad. He’ll be better.
5) Micah Owings - I’d take as many wins as home runs from him, along as it’s 8-10
Extras: Darryl Thompson? Ramon Ramirez?
Not Likely: Homer Bailey

A rotation like this should win 55-60 games on its own as a minimum. That might not be enough to get to the post season but it’s a much better step. The Cubs top 5 starters have 62 wins as of now (and a part time starter with 9 more), the Brewers starting five has 57 wins right now, so assuming their starters win 6-7 of their final 15 games (not unreasonable), that’s a 64-win rotation, and it’s going to be good enough for the Wild Card. The Reds top five this year? 44! Just a pathetic number. Oh yeah, the other starts have made 20 starts, enough to qualify as a spot starter on their own, and they add a full 3 wins to the equation. That will not get anything done.

I could go to war with a rotation like this, and if Ramirez is as good as he appears so far, maybe Arroyo is expendable. With these guys out there, no excuse for a losing season next year.

One of the time honored traditions of the music, video, and game world is that of a street date. Your product that has to come out at the exact moment and exact day for the marketing blitz. As someone who has worked (and has a love for) the independent retailer realm, the other time honored tradition is NOT sticking to that date.

You know what? If you are one little neighborhood store competing against a hundred Best Buy’s, Gamestop’s, and every other chain known to man (even the local 7-11), I don’t begrudge anyone who begins to sell a game the moment the distributor is stupid enough to send it to them. Maybe I’m jaded and cutthroat anymore, but if the distributor is stupid enough to send the game early, and the retailer is stupid enough (if you feel that way) to offer it early, I am stupid enough to buy it!

I got a great kick out of what Rock Band 2 put in their game, a message on the Main Manu congratulating the player on scoring the game early. This of course would fit the spirit of a game about Rock & Roll, and is really refreshing. Hey, it’s a sale, and to them, getting that game in your hands and getting you to buy some DLC is the end goal. Who cares if you got it three days early? Go you!

This however sets up where the new street date will commence, and you can’t do anything about this one: digital content. No one is going to be able to get that download until the company posts it for you (and if you’re getting it early, it isn’t because you bought it early, it is because you pirated it early). With more and more stuff going DLC, even companies are changing their entire offerings from hard media to DLC (D3 Publishing this week for the PSP). The day everything goes digital is not a day I look forward to. While I enjoy the variation of having some stuff live on real media, and its extendability with DLC, I do not look forward to the day that everything is digital and the independent stores I love so much lose that feel. Thank goodness for older used systems to help it live on!

So, have you ever bought a game pre-street? I have a couple of times (not a ton since I try and avoid the new price anyways), but I have certainly done so. Post your thoughts in the comments.

It’s almost the end of NFL Week 1, and I have never been more happy to not have the #1 pick in my Fantasy Draft, and I would have never thought that my later round pick of Donovan McNabb would look so good! Thank goodness, it might be my one saving grace this year.

I made myself a little purchase over the weekend, and I love that I did! I became the newest owner of an Acer Aspire One, just one of a growing number of “netbooks”, super-small but super-affordable laptops that have hit the market over the past few months, this one debuting just this month. At least in regards to the model that I bought, I think it’s a perfect fit.

THE GOOD

* The size … the trend lately for books like that of the Asus Eee have been to slowly work themself closer to the point of an actual notebook, which defeats the point of their existence. This machine at 2 pounds, and with a 9″ screen is perfect. Just as nice to carry as a DVD player would be and far more well rounded.

* Windows XP … this one is a personal preference, I understand, but for me, having a small machine with Windows XP on it works for my needs. I can run every program (including Firefox to write this blog entry) without any slowdowns or problems, and can port all of my data over from my existing environment without any effort. I see the market and reasons for having a mini-Linux version for someone who has no previous machine, but staying within platform is a nice perk.

* The Hard Drive and RAM … those Linux models? Their 512MB of RAM and 8GB (slow) Solid State Drive lock you in, no ability to play around and try anything else. Give me the 120GB hard drive and 1GB RAM of this model any day of the week, it’s XP performance is equal of our Sony Vaio laptops at work, and they are 1.6 Pentium M machines, and I know they weren’t no $350 when they came out!

* USB … 3 USB ports is awesome, it makes up for the couple of weaknesses I will mention. Something is wrong when my netbook has more USB ports than my M1330 work laptop does!

THE BAD

* Internal 3G … many of the netbooks coming up are toting this option, and it would have been nice to have onboard. I can see these being the primary way to get online with mobile broadband very soon, I am relegared to using a USB dongle for this.

* Internal Bluetooth … see the above reason, although low profile Bluetooth is a reality.

* No Recovery CD …. it’s all on the hard drive already, so I cannot recommend enough for users to do a hard drive backup before they fire this up the first time. Maybe my IT experience has made be sensitive to that and untrusting of even the eRecovery tools, but do your own backup dilligence first.

SOME OF BOTH

* The battery … the thing looks no bigger than 3 AA batteries, and that is because it isn’t! It runs on a 3-cell 2100 Mah battery, uses only 30 watts of juice with the super small charger box, and its tiny! It gets about 2.5 hours, which for my needs is not too bad. A lot of people have clamored about this though, and while it would be nice to have 5 hours of battery life, it would also weigh the machine down a bit and defeat some of the benefit of having a machine that small. I look forward to the battery and charger market heating up for this as companies will both offer cheaper standard ways to get juice into the machine (the 6-cell coming out? $100, I am passing) as well as ways to charge it up. I’ve already seen car chargers, I want more!

* Small keyboard … with small screens come small keyboards. You can’t change it, but it has its own advantages of disadvantages.

I expect to post more about my experiences with the laptop soon, but so far, I love the machine!