Entries Tagged as 'clayton kershaw'

Random Thoughts (Including Stuff On The Olympics), And Shot-Online Thoughts (After About A Month of Time-Wasting…er…Playing)

Grrr…another three days gone by without blogging?  WTF?

Random thoughts, a mostly-Olympic variety:

- I was watching the US Men’s Beach Volleyball team of Rogers-Dalhausser play the Brazilian team of Marcio-Fabio…

(Tangent:  How I wish I could just go by “Ung” in my life…)

and man, was the crowd super-annoying!!!  I wasn’t sure if I was watching a beach volleyball match, or a soccer match.

I get it that the crowd can be behind a team, and in most cases, I don’t have a problem with that.  However, can the crowd please save the boisterous chants for between points?  Is that too much to ask for?

Shut up…shutup, shutup, shutup…SHUT UP…SHUT UP!!!!!!!!!

- In a move that should surprise nobody, the International Gymnastics Federation has been asked to look into the ages of the girls women making up the Chinese gymnastics team.  Yes, there is no concrete proof to the contrary, and yes, visual proof isn’t going to suffice, so it appears that no penalties will be assessed on the Chinese team.

All that being said…

WHO REALLY BELIEVES THAT THIS GIRL IS SIXTEEN?

- Briefly, my take on the Greg Maddux trade:  sounds like the deal will not involve anyone of substance (Elbert, McDonald, etc.), though it will cost the Dodgers two low-level draft picks.  I love the deal, especially if Penny can’t give us anything for the remainder of the season.  Maddux allows us to keep Park, Kuo, and Jason Johnson in the bullpen, which is very important considering that the Dodgers must watch Clayton Kershaw’s IP count.

(I haven’t even touched on the mentorship Maddux can offer guys like Kershaw and Billingsley.)

I just hope Maddux can give the Dodgers a quality start to start off a brutal road trip (@PHI, @WAS, @ARI).

- My sister and I went to Souplantation tonight, and apparently it was Couples’ Night.  There was the couple in the other line, directly opposite of us, that couldn’t keep their hands off each other.  Then there was this couple:

Female:  This looks good [looking at the posole soup].

Male (in that whiny voice):  Don’t get that.  It’s a heart attack waiting to happen!  It’s not good for you!

F:  OK.  What about the chili?

M:  That’s so unhealthy.

F:  Ok, I’ll just get the chicken noodle soup.

M: How about the clam chowder?

OK…so a chili advertised as low-fat is less healthy than a soup loaded with heavy cream, bacon, and potatoes?

I felt like pouring a ladle full of hot clam chowder down his throat.

(Yes, I have problems.)

- Current rebate-o-meter:  $1150, though I’m getting royally shafted on at least $55 in rebates.  More on that next time.

- I’m now about a month or so in to my new addiction (Shot-Online) and here’s what I think I think about this game.

1)  Putting in this game is an ABSOLUTE NIGHTMARE.  I could hit a 20yd putt on Hela in one round, and then five-putt a hole on Sosori.  A good round of putting, and I could probably go -10 on Alfheim.  A bad round, and I could go +5.

(I will neither confirm nor deny that the latter has happened.)

2)  Why didn’t anyone tell me how important it was to keep my Impact attribute at or above my Power attribute?

I’ve since fixed this, and now my Imp = Pwr, and my drives are finally going straight! :P

(Speaking of straight drives, I just bought a Werdandi driver for my main character from the auction house (more on that later).  +2 to all stats, plus a slower gauge, means I better not hit a drive out of bounds any more!  I just have to get used to the slow gauge, now…)

3) I made mention of this before:

…and about 99% of the players that play Shot-Online are nice guys (this may be completely untrue, but when I think of MMORPGs, I think of ten year olds that must use an obscenity in every sentence spoken, written, or typed).

and now I’m pretty sure that my 99% figure is a low-end estimate.  Left and right, I’m seeing high-level players offer millions of NG (game currency) to beginners, and only now have I been able to help out as well.

It’s pretty cool how grateful some people are, even when given a few thousand NG.  You could imagine how happy I made the one player to who I gave four clubs and some drinks.

4) At certain times of the day, foursome matches are almost impossible to set up!  It seems that, during these times, one of the following happens

  • A player joins, waits 1 nanosecond, and then leaves
  • Only one player joins one team, while three join the other
  • Three people are ready to play, but the fourth (usually the room creator) is nowhere to be found
  • The room has a glitch, forcing everybody to leave

5) My main character is now a Level 34 Amateur with a handicap of -6.  My secondary character is a Level 21, but I’ll probably ignore that one for now, as I’m trying to get the former to Semi-Pro status.

And finally (for now)…

6) I think I’m spending almost as much time in the auction house as I am actually playing golf!  Why?  I just can’t resist the temptation of buying a bunch of items at low prices and then flipping them later for anywhere between a decent and a substantial profit!

Case in point:  Zodiac Leo 100s (Pwr +6) generally sell for anywhere from 500,000 to nearly 1,000,000 NG.  In the past few days, I’ve been able to score several Zodiac Leos for less than 600,000, and I’ve been able to flip most of them for a “Buy now” price of 850,000.  After the auction fees, that’s an easy 200,000 NG profit!

Flipping stuff on the auction house reminds me of my Senior year in high school, where I bought and sold tons of trading cards to the tune of a nice little profit.  Ah…memories!

Until next time!

Why Ross Joins Target, Trader Joe’s, and Costco On the List of Evil Stores, And The Jazz Completely Blew It

Quickie blog tonight. Expect tomorrow’s blog to have two Office reviews, both last week’s episode, and the season finale.

(Tangent: Season finale??? Don’t the writers and producers owe us a few extra weeks of television shows after the writer’s strike? And what about the DVD sets for this season’s TV shows? There’s no way that these shows can charge us full price for a half-season’s worth of episodes, right?)

(Tangent #2: Dwight Schrute just announced that he is running for VP on John McCain’s ticket on The Tonight Show! He’s got my vote :P)

(Tangent #3: Howard Dean just offered Dwight Schrute two flamethrowers. I sense a change in loyalty.)

One quick-hitter:

- I can’t believe I have not seen this video before, but check out the curve on this curveball!

Clayton freaking Kershaw. Let’s hope he’s closer to the next Sandy Koufax than the next Darren Dreifort.

BTW, Andruw Jones got two hits today??? CRAZY!

- Ross is officially evil. I went back there today to return a few items of clothing, and got ~ $50 returned to my credit card. That’s when I decided to do some quick shopping.

After browsing through the clearance racks, I ended up buying two pairs of shorts and a cheap T-shirt, and I almost walked out with a $55 jacket marked down to $10.

I’ve been to Ross five times in the last two weeks now, and even though I’ve made returns three times, I haven’t walked out of the store without purchasing anything. Grrrrrrr.)

(Tangent: Speaking of evil stores, my sister walked into Target last night to look for one item.

She walked out with a nalgene water bottle and a copy of SingStar Rocks with two microphones (clearanced to $24.99 from $49.99). The hilarious thing about the trip to Target was the fact that we thought the store closed at 9:30. It was 9:15 or so when we got to the store, and we made a pact to bee-line towards the one item she needed.

Once we found out that Target closed at 10, the spending spree began :P).

(Wow. Four tangents in a single blog? This must be a record!)

- I could easily flip over my assessment of Game Four of the Lakers-Jazz series on its head, and it would be wholly appropriate. There were some pretty questionable calls—Gasol practically ran over Harpring in the fourth quarter, and Odom was barely touched on his dunk that was assisted by Gasol.

(By the way, Okur completely flopped on the critical offensive rebound and dunk by Gasol. As if Gasol could shove a seven-footer, 250+ pounder six feet with his left arm.)

It’s easy to blame the refs for bad calls, but that would ignore the real reason by the Jazz probably blew their best chance to steal the series: the third quarter. How many chances did Utah have to take the lead in the third quarter? Missed layups, bricked jumpers, and TOs…THAT’s the reason why Utah gagged away Game Five. Add a dash of Pau Gasol, and Utah has to be kicking themselves right now. Was he huge or what down the stretch of Game Five?

And has anybody seen Carlos Boozer? How has he disappeared in the three games at Staples?

One quick comment about the Celtics-Cavs game: I almost pulled off an unprecedented double Ung-hex. Early in the game, the Cavs were up by double digits, and I declared the Cavs the winner of the game, going so far as to say that the Cavs were going to win the series in six games.

Late in the fourth quarter, I switched over to the Dodger game, figuring that the Cavs were done. When I switched back to Cavs-Celtics, the Cavs got within four points. Too bad the Cavs couldn’t pull off my double Ung-hex the victory.

Until next time!