Monday, November 28, 2011

What The Phuck, Eagles' Season is Over

Welcome to another installment of What The Phuck, my perspective for Philly sports as a Philly fan, and an excuse to rant about it in a general forum.  The 2011 season for most NFL teams and fanatics have either been filled with wonder, awe, or heartbreak.  Sometimes a mixture of the three.  For me being a Philly fan, it's just been God-awful.  Let me emphasize on this a little bit.  It's week 12, there's 5 more to go, and a team that was held high for so much of the season even after failed ridicule and a hell-gauntlet of a division, the NFC East, to end up at this point being 4-7 is all but humbling at this point.  It's damn right embarrassing.  I like to point out my views on how come there is so much fail in the organization.


I'm not gonna point fingers to the players, yet...  Don't worry they got their share in this BootLeG approved ass-chewing, but the bulk of it have to fall on the coaching staff.  Andy Reid can't seem to place the players he have or lead them in a way to constantly perform.  The defensive coordinator can't seem to get their front line to hold a rush for anything.  Can't really place blame on the offensive coordinator, that's realistically the players fault.  But I've seen the decline of Andy's coaching performance throughout the years.  Hell, even when Donovan McNabb was still flying high and wearing green, it seemed that he couldn't even coach a kindergartner to eat a pizza at a Chuck E. Cheese.  This guy is really gone down the shitter in the past years and now here we are looking down the barrel of our first losing season since the late 90's, it's real disappointing.  I hope Jeff Laurie is reading this cause this should not continue if he wants his organization to be successful again.  Now, that's just the tip of the iceberg that I want to get out of my chest.  Let's dig a little deeper in the rabbit hole.


Sticking to what I love (now loathe) the most of my birds are is the offense.  I just can't wrap my head around such atrocity that have came into them.  Starting off with the QB that PETA and dog-lovers love to hate, Michael Vick, out with a rib injury because he want's to be a big tough dumbass and take every hit that comes to him instead of trying to keep away and stay healthy.  I swear he's about as useful as Matt Leinert to the position, not much for anything long term.  Not to mention the interceptions, on God, the interceptions that he threw.  It's not all his fault, but it's safe to say that 70% of all the picks that occur is because he can't or won't throw to the boys in green.  Almost like he doesn't give a crap now that he got his contract.  I got news for ya, that crap does not fly with me or any fan, and I'm sure it's not gonna fly with the organization as well too.  And speaking of QB's I'm really pissed at Vince Young pretty much jinxing the team calling it the Dream Team in the preseason and eventually dooming themselves to a Nightmare on Broad Street.  Finally bringing in something to the picture in the past two weeks now that he's been off of his injury in the preseason.  Ugh, these friggin' guys.  And keeping up with the pace with being offensive heavy, how about DeSean Jackson.  He's been on-again-off-again most of this season not being in top form for as long as I can remember.  When was the last time he made a decent punt return, oh yeah, the Miracle at the Meadowlands last year.  Also he's been dropping passes left and right, and when he does catch, it's for little yardage.  In fact, all of the Eagles' wide receivers are playing like crap this year.  The only decent player is LeSean McCoy.  Just about the only solid performer we have this year.  I have to say that he's the only pro-bowl athlete on the Eagles roster this year.  


But now, let me shift your attention to an extremely lacking Eagles defense.  I mean, the front line offers nothing to rush the opposing QB like what Trent Cole used to do a season or two ago.  It's just so pathetic and even worse the ones that do bring up effort in when it supposed to count, in the deep end where you should find the likes of Jason Avant and others that seem to have a hard-friggin' time catching up to the opposing teams wide receivers.  Especially in the forth quarter where they seem to forget that the game actually has that many.  That I think is what pisses me off most of all, is the fact of all the fourth quarter blown opportunities, hell, you could contribute to the fact that after the half they start to decline.  I think Andy Reid gives them stupid pills threatens to stomp on their balls if they actually start giving a damn after the half.  It's almost like their half time preparations consists of booking their bus tickets and hotel stays for the next loss in the next place.  Regardless, the only thing worse than the defense, but still in relation to it, is their special teams.  No real good returns for position, or touchdown for that matter.  And as for the kicking team, well, lets just hope to God that the other team either call a fair catch or take a knee.  All I have to say is please for all that is good and decent, just show up for jeebus sake.


So I'm willing to concede that the Eagles' season is over.  There's no way to compete in such debotchary.  It's not to say that we have the worse record this year so far, that's goes to the Colts being at 0-11.  But that could be easily contributed to the fact that they aren't shit without Peyton Manning which is true; versus that we have a slew of Pro Bowl contenders and with out a doubt completely blow it out their butts.  It's ridiculous and I'm pretty much done with it.  Thank God that I'm a football fan overall, and yes true my alliance is with all sports Philly, it's just that like all hardcore Philly fans, when shit hits the fan, we make sure they know about it, HARD.  Thank God the Flyers are doing well and hopefully the Phills can go for another 100+ win season next year.


BootLeG sampler.. signing out...

Monday, November 21, 2011

WTF PEOPLE!?! Gameshow Videogames

It's been a long friggin' time since I've done anything videogame related.  It is indeed a part of my roots obviously, and it wasn't my intention to abandon it for other ventures such as music, television, and other random stuff.  Even though those things are indeed awesome, I digress.  I want to get back to the root of why I started to blog.  I wanted to present an obscure look into videogames and other subsets as well.  And what better way to do that than to bring back an old classic, the WTF's.  Now the last What The Phuck was not an official WTF PEOPLE!?!, so this is bringing it back with a vengeance.  So that's why I'm bringing to the table a view on videogames that I feel that have been lacking by most people and professional reviewers, the gameshow genre.


I know, I've done a Gameshow Month earlier this year, and well, this is not something that I forgot to include with that.  This is indeed something in relation to my choice of videogames that I play and, well, it's just damn good, so deal with it.  So without further ado, here is my rant of all things gameshows to ever graced upon home consoles.


Of course you know about my obsession with gameshows if you follow me at all (BTW, happy belated 7,500th. episode to The Price is Right) but when it enters in a home in any other way besides the television set, the end result is questionable at best.  Board games aside, you have to also look into the main heart of what gets my attention; an interactive method where I become part of the show instead of a houseparty rendering when we don't want to break out Scrabble or Monopoly (both of which gameshows that did not live a long as they should've) is the ticket.  And what better way to become interactive with a gameshow outside of being a friggin' contestant is to play it's videogame.  But there's some flaws in such, and sure as hell, I'm here to exploit them.  Not to be a complete douche (which I can be), but to make the experience better for the end user at the end.  One main culprit is the Merv Griffin duet of Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune.  It does bring the table the richness of it's game, weather it is questioning an answer or buying a vowel, it's no different than it's board game doppelgangers.   It just allows an error-proofing method with having a virtual host be a proxy between the player and the game's objective.  I remember the first Jeopardy! game for the NES way back in '87 or '88.  I played the begeezus out of that as a youth because I was a fan and a trivia whore.  My friends had Wheel of Fortune for the Genesis and N64 when we wanted to take a break from Mortal Kombat and Madden.  It was fun to a point.  


With these types of games the only flaw, which is a big one,  is that once you're done with all the questions they present to you, you know what to expect.  Like I said, I played the begeezus out of Jeopardy! for the NES, and played it enough that I could get close to $50,000 in a single game if I time my daily doubles correctly.  Even with the computer at Kamehameha-Hard mode, I buzzed in within seconds of the question entering it in and keying it with my controller to become the Ken Jennings of the cartridge before there was even a Ken Jennings.  Ok I lied, there's a second flaw to this debauchery.  Keying in the friggin' answers are a pain the ass at best, especially on an NES controller, and with NES's limitations.  It pissed me off to no end playing my copy of it that the game's letter layout is alphanumerically listed and not QWERTY based.  It was even more of a pain because of system limitations (even stemming up to playing Wheel of Fortune on the N64) that the letter-selector-thingy wouldn't let you go to the other side once you're on the edge of a row of letters.  Obviously these games would be great for individual use on a PC or hell, even throw up a LAN party and play the hell out of that, of course if you were a bad ass back in the days of LAN parties, you were probably playing Unreal Tournament and I can see your point not picking up that.  I just know that with word games like these, a keyboard is a helluva good way to play it.


Now I bring to the table other gameshows that have entered into the realm of videogames.  The prize shows, most famously noted by that long running gem of a show, The Price is Right.  I grew up with the show, one of my earliest memories is watching this at my baby sitters while my parents were at work (said that watching the big wheel and screaming out "ONE DOLLAR" is a childhood memory of mine, but that's just me).  And since I never gotten to play the Atari version of the game I was crushed because there was not a console release of it for me to play, otherwise I would've done it in my youth.  Luckily when I bought my Wii about 3 years ago, one of the first games I got for it was The Price Is Right.  I was in Nerdtopia with I thought was the most original console out in the market and my most cherished gameshow that I watched for all my life in all of it's home console glory.  I spun the Big Wheel, I won both Showcases, I bid one dollar and won a chance to play, I played Plinko dammit, PLINKO!!!  The only thing missing was Bob Barker kicking the living crap out of Adam Sandler in tournament fight mode, but I digress.  It does have it advantages being the age of easter-eggs and all where if you unlock something you get to see an epic classic clip of the show.  Alas, it to fell to the monotany of once you've played everything, it doesn't present new stuff, just recycle the old prizes, hell, even the prize amounts are the same so I could get $65,000+ on a single game if the cards were right (I usually average around $32,000 if I make it past the Big Wheel).  And other games like that also fell to this trap like Press Your Luck and Family Feud, pretty much anything owned by Fremantle Media in this current age of gameshows.  It's not expansive.  Which is why probably the only app I play on a social network outside of Words with Friends is the Price is Right app on Facebook.  It's online, so there's always room for expansion.  


There's just need to be a way, and I'm pretty damn sure they could but either the game developers or the game producers don't want to include it, but have it so that if people want, they could pay for updated content.  In an age where gamers are on Steam to get new mods and there's an expansion pack for an MMORPG every friggin' week, what is stopping them to add such a thing on.  Hell, I would love to pay five bucks to get online expansion content on my game console for Jeopardy! or The Price is Right until the next version of the game comes out.  I'm sure that there's a lot of game junkies that would love to have that fix.  In an age where gameshows are interactive in the fact that they have play at home contents where people could call or text for a chance to win a prize or free third party advertising crap, why the hell not incorporate it for downloadable content on my PS3 so that I can beat Ken Jennings or play the accordion with Drew Carey on set with the Price is Right models.  Why deny us unsung sect of gamers that joy.  I think it's because the producers of the show don't give a damn about anything else but the show and just think that they could get a few bucks with a cheap-ass game.  That's a whole load of bullshit, and I don't care for it all that much.  Jeopardy! and Sony have a marriage on how it looks on set, they blatantly make sure that Sony is a presence on the show.  Why not bring a game and give me content to update via the Playstation Network, how friggin' ingenious!  But that would be logical, and we live in a would where videogames about gameshows are completely for the illogical, and that's just bullshit in my book.  In short, I do recommend that you at least try and pick up the games and play them.  I just with that there were more content to offer than what was, and that there was more of a following than just me and a bunch of desperate housewifes that watch nothing but soaps and GSN all the time.  So I'm just gonna leave you with that thought while I bring up my Price is Right mobile app and see if I can make it to the Showcase.  That and this following youtube video because it's funny and it's about gameshows.




BootLeG sampler.. signing out...

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Can't get the words out of my mouth...

Quite frankly, I feel like crap right now.  I came down with something this past week and now I'm writing with all my strength just to say hey, I'm human and I get bugs just like everyone else.  I had something great lined up as far as a great video game review, but it's just gonna have to be delayed for another week now.  My bad.  I'll have it done and give it 110% once that comes out.  I feel really bad not bringing it out for anyone that actually reads this.


So for now here's my apology on record to say that stay tuned.  Here's to something that's gonna be mind blowing or just plain stupid.  But stay tuned none the less.  


BootLeG sampler.. signing out...

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Why we Still Listen to Bush

So here's another installment in my attempt to understand music that just doesn't seem to die. Here we listen to Bush and some of what makes them still producing stuff for the masses. And since they just came out with an album recently, their first one in a long time, I figure what the hell. Let's not delay much longer ladies and gents. So here is my synopsis of why we listen to those crazy ass Brits, Bush.


• They're the only other good music act besides the Beatles and The Who that came from the UK : When it comes to rock, I tend to stick to stuff that's stateside.  not to say that acts outside of the states aren't bad ass either.  I know for a fact that music is an international language, and since I'm stateside, I figure why not profile something abroad.  And I've been a fan of them since I got interested in rock back in the mid 90's.  It seems that every decade or so something big comes from England, like in the 60's you had The Beatles and The Who, 70's you had Queen, in the 2000's I was a little fascinated by The Darkness, well, not much, but their b-sides were decent.  But I'm a ninety's cat and I liked the sounds of Bush back then.  They were the it sound back then, and made themselves known for their fusion of alternative and quasi-electronic sound in later years.  Take it as you wish, but I like it.


• Gavin Rossdale is married to Gwen Stefani : The sunnuvabitch, you know the saying some guys have all the luck.  Well this is one of those guys.  A talented hottie like Gwen Stefani of No Doubt fame with the likes of Gavin Rossdale. I mean I guess I still liked her when she was still punk not pop and all chic.  Not to say that she isn't a hottie now, but she was then and I was in to their music with the whole punk/ska thing back then too.  It just does not compute in my book.  But then again look at Shannon Tweed and Gene Simmons...  But that's another topic.


• A refreshing change from the 90's grunge movement : By far the best part of 90's music in my opinion was grunge.  With greats like Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Nirvana, Foo Fighters, and a whole slew of others, it's kind of hard to like one from another without pissing some people off.  So you look for new sounds that are just a little off the beaten path.  The second I heard Machinehead I was hooked.  I was 14 and bought Sixteen Stone and the next year Razorblade Suitcase which I thought was their best work.  And like most things 90's had to change for something stupid.  Metallica were becoming less and less metal.  Rap music became more about cash, cars, bling, and bitches.  Ska music had a revival for like an 18-month span and then crapped it's bed hardly to be heard from again.  Grunge music were slowly turning for more ballad and alternative stylings.  And Bush became more electronic and stupid with The Science of Things, and eventually their whale of a fail in my book Golden State.  Which leads me to my next bullet point.


• Their new stuff sound like their old stuff : This isn't all that bad.  Very Razorblade Suitcase-ish in it's delivery.  It makes me want to listen to it more and more.  Maybe they're not trying to gain new fans, just regain the ones that were wanting more from them during their breakup.  It seems pretty damn good in my book and I would recommend it.  And I think that's why we still listen to Bush, because they do have potential if they don't try to alter their formula.  Stick to what you know works, look at AC/DC.  They haven't changed shit since the 70's on how they deliver their music and still people friggin' love those Aussies.  Just goes to show the old adage, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.


So there's my perspective on why we still listen to Bush.  It isn't really much like the greats like I profiled from before with Biggie and 'tallica, but still, it's pretty damn good in their own rights, and I have my reasons on why I picked them.  Mainly because I'm a 90's junkie when it came to music and that's just my thing.  Now to break out the guitar and start playing some Everything's Zen.


BootLeG sampler.. signing out