rockets dilemma

Make no mistake I love my Houston Rockets.  I love the team’s hustle, scrappiness, team-oriented play.  This is when things are going right.  When we lose focus, we turn from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde.  One on one play (you know who you are ronron, wafer, and brooks), no ball movement, lazy passes leading to unforced turnovers.  This is nothing new to me, it’s been like this ever since the T-Mac/Yao Era.  That 2004-2005 team was good, TMac/Yao PnR’s, scrappy role players (loved sura/wesley/barry).  We were poised to beat Dallas  in the playoffs, first 6 games were hotly contested, and then BAM, Game 7 40 pt blowout.  Previous seasons, we’ve proven we can compete with the elite, and yet we get swept in the regular season by the Grizz, or before that the Bobcats.  The past two seasons we’ve shown amazing promise and then have that vomit-inducing loss (damn you Philidelphia) that supposedly “wakes us up”.  Drama’s good and all for entertainment, but I hate turning on a Rockets game and not knowing what I’m going to get. 

Last night’s loss against the Lakers was expected.  What wasn’t expected was the complete 180 we did, the lack of focus/execution/poise/whatever the hell you want to name.  And for all the people saying TMac being out makes this team better, I’d say that’s fool’s gold.  Yao’s been a constant factor and we know he cares.  Ron cares obviously, but watching Ron play more I see nothing practically that makes him better than the TMac from past seasons (barring the current good/bad knee + surgery + blown layup debacle of a season). 

Ron – Great when he’s pounding the ball inside, but settles for off-balance 3 pointers.
Tmac - Great when driving the ball inside, but settles for off-balance jumpers.

Ron – When not passing, dribbles the air out the ball and jacks some shit up.
Tmac – When not passing, dribbles the air out the ball and jacks some shit up (though Mac’s a better passer than ron ever will be).

Ron – Great defender
TMac – Was a good defender back when he moved his feet (people seem to forget his job on Dirk in the 2005 playoffs)

Ron – Takes responsibility for losses, though as much as he says need to fix this/that, doesn’t seem to happen
TMac – Spreads responsibility around team for losses (def. win for ron over mac).  Plus he picked the Lakers on a radio show, wtf man.

I can deal with Ron for now b/c it’s more obvious he cares about playing and the team than TMac does (arguments can be made on whether he cares or doesn’t, but I’m just stating the PERCEPTION seems more clear).  But watching him more and more, I wouldn’t be surprised if he wears out his welcome with his too frequent bone-headed plays.  Loved his acquisition, but I said same when Mac came on board.

And Luis Scola, WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED!?!?  You played awesome against the Blazers, now why are you all of a sudden tentative, fumbling passes causing turnovers, and second-guessing your shots??  GOOD GOD MAN THE FUCK UP!!!

Much as I love this team, they’ve made it so hard to root for them year after year.  High hopes followed by disappointing outcomes.  They show flashes of the brilliant play they’re capable of, but can’t sustain that high level of play.  Well either way, I’m still proud of this team for taking it to the Lakers a couple times.  I’m expecting tomorrow night’s game to be a more hard-fought battle.  I think we can squeak out a win on homecourt, hopefully we’ll be seeing Dr. Jekyll in the building.

My Brute

http://neegotiator.mybrute.com

If any of you lost souls out there are incredibly bored, feel free to challenge my brute.  There’s no thinking involved,  just sign up and watch your brute kick ass or get his/her ass kicked.  Huzzah!!

Dragon Ball Evolution…puahahaha!!

Found this review on the escapist forums :

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.99472

Awhile ago I posted about how terrible this movie looked.  Well…sounds like it’s much worse than I thought.  I think when these studio execs that get together and decide to spend $100M on a movie that skull-fucks and sodomizes the original source material to complete and utter unrecognizability, there needs to be some old-ass nun with a ruler slapping down saying “NO!”.

Thoughts on Watchmen…

So finally caught Watchmen last night, after watching the first trailer from way back I’ve been excited.  First off, yes the opening credits are as great as ppl have been saying.  Some have said choosing Bob Dylan’s “Times They Are A-Changin” is a way too obvious choice for the opening, I don’t give a fuck, it works.  Hell of a lot better than “Hallelujah” during the sex scene.  True, that scene in the graphic novel was meant to be satiric, but I mean c’mon…  Sure seemed like the scene was meant to be taken seriously, if not, well good job on the comedy…  Unfortunately the opening credits were the most creative and refreshing part of the movie.  Otherwise, it was an all too faithful retelling of the graphic novel, save for the ending and some really strange minor edits to certain parts.

First off, what went right.  Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach was fuckin spot-on.  The voice, the look, the intensity, everything was great.  Jeffrey Dean Morgan was pretty damn good too.  Thought he was effective at capturing The Comedian’s brutality and sorrow.  Billy Crudup as Dr. Manhatten took some getting used to.  I initially pictured a voice like Martian Manhunter’s from Justice League, deep, knowledgable, something more awe-inspiring.  But after hearing Crudup for awhile, I really started to like his take.  Higher pitched, kind’ve curious, distracted, lost in a sea of information/observations, good stuff.  Patrick Wilson as Nite Owl II was good as well, not great but very well done.  Good job conveying his insecurities, longing to put his costume back on.  
Lots of scenes were very faithfully recreated.  As a fan, this was good.  Rorschach’s jail scenes were awesome, Dr. Manhate ten’s background was very well done.  I could tell the director was a fan of the source material. 

What didn’t work, the movie was just too faithful to a fault.  This didn’t feel like a flowing story that takes you on a rise, throws buncha shit at you, then brings you back down.  It was like just some re-telling of the graphic novel, which makes for a drab viewing.  And to Zach Snyder’s credit, it’s all you can do really.  There’s just no way to effectively cram the story into 1-sitting and have the same effect as reading the graphic novel.  Different formats, what works on page might not necessarily work on screen as it did here.  Don’t get me wrong, I liked certains things done in the movie alot.  But it’s just single parts in a whole that felt unsatisfying.  The ending, why change it?  I don’t buy framing Dr. Manhatten.  Why would the world rush so quickly to join America against Dr. Manhatten when he’s American?  Wouldn’t foreign nations decimate America then go after the Dr?  I dunno, it just felt weird. 
Zach Snyder is great with visuals, he did a good job with 300 in filling in lotsa fighting in a movie with very little story.  But this isn’t some exercise in visuals, this is fucking Watchmen.  Snyder is no storyteller, there’s no subtlety to his scenes, it’s just all plainly laid out.  Again, I felt like someone was reading to me the comic, rather than watching something unfold before me.  Event A happens, Event B, nope nothing else to see here, on to this next Event, etc… 
Malin Akerman, why?  Why was she cast as Silk Spectre II?  Her performance was much more wooden than my dick after watching some Asian lesbian porno. 
Matthew Goode, anyone could’ve guessed that as Adrian Veidt, you were the villain therefore killing all suspense when you were revealed to be the villain in the climax.  Though I don’t fault you for this, the director probably told you to act all smarmy/semi-evil looking. 
Why was Rorschach’s scene killing the child-killer changed?  The graphic novel’s way was much more subtle/cool.  Same goes for leaving out Rorschach’s quip after he kills Big Figure.  And c’mon Zach, you could include some retarded sex scene (kudos to the boobage though) lasting 10 minutes, but you couldn’t include the pivotal killing of Hollis Mason?  That shit nearly made me misty-eyed in the comic, I would’ve bawled my eyes out if I saw it on screen! 

Overall? It was decent, though at my viewing there were already ppl walking out of the movie when Rorschach/Nite Owl reached antarctica, even more left when Nite Owl was giving Adrian a tongue lashing in the end, and finally some more when Silk Spectre II was comforting Silk Specture I.  I don’t see anyone not having read the graphic novel enjoying this movie.  They probably went in blindly expecting the usual super-hero action fare.  For those who read it, it’s nice to see the graphic novel in motion, but ultimately you’ll probably stick with the source material.

koreans make me lulz

Further proof singing is a god-given talent.

The Rockets…

depress me more than anything right now.  How did this season turn so sour so quickly…

Snow in Seattle

So the big power-outting snowstorm is supposed to hit us tomorrow afternoon.  Before today, all the food I had was rice, 2 eggs, and 3 boxes of pop-tarts.  Today I went out and bought some pork chops, bok choy, apples and dried squid snack just in case power goes out for a day or two.  And then I realized if power goes out, I’ll have no way of cooking the rice, porkchops, and bok choy.  Yes I am a geneous.  Here’s hoping power doesn’t go out, and if it does that the poptarts, dried squid and apples will sustain me. 

PS – Props to the traffic cop stuck in our apartment complex.  The place I’m at now, you need to climb around a 45 degree incline with speedbumps to get out.  Fortunately the owners plowed and salted the road out.  Well the traffic cop had his snow tires on and was trying to get out, but he could never get his momentum going, kept accelerating while his snow tires just plain wrecked the street.  I was watching him try about 4-5 times while I was de-icing my car and warming it up.  So I gave it a shot, failed the first time cuz some people got in my way.  Tried a second time, get myself going a good speed and got up that incline.  I wonder how long the traffic cop was stuck, almost feel bad for the dude.

seriously NBA Live 09…

You’re going to automatically resign my players for me?  So I have to either piss them off or drop them off my roster so that I don’t resign them?  Wonderful.

NBA 2K9 takes into account team options, player options, no trade clauses, bird rights, I can trade next year’s picks…  Is this too hard to simulate as well?

You got me EA…

So due to my NBA 2K9 disc crapping out on me, I decided to give in and get NBA Live 09.  This is the first NBA Live I’ve played since 2005.  I have grown accustomed to the 2K engine and became very fond of it.  Plopping in Live 09 and playing it without reading anything besides the button configuration, I got my ass whooped pretty bad.  So after reading online, doing some NBA Live Academy drills, I got a better feel for the game.  So what do I think? 

Defense: 
2K9 is better in my opinion.  I like 2K9’s in that I can control how tight I want to guard my man and which direction to shade him on the spot.  In Live 09, I can “lock-on” to my man by walking up towards him, and have to move my defender along with him.  I do like this in that it’s very much a risk-reward system just like playing defense up close on your man in real life.  Also, you can lock-on then release, ensentially bodying up your man and disrupting his move, just like in real life!  Which is really cool.  But I’m not a fan of walking up to my guy to lock-on him.  There are times I’m trying to lock-on and I just move past him, so he drives by or shoots, and makes me look like a complete retard.  I still like the flexibility 2K9 gives you in-game on how to defend your man.  The shading left-right is cool, gives you same risk-reward as Live 09 (though not as much risk) and allows you to guard the man’s side where your big man is not. 
Double teaming in 2K9 seems easier to me.  I just press the RB (xbox 360 controller) and guy comes over to double.  Live 09, I have to hold down B is seems like to get my man to keep coming over.   I guess this is good in that you can break off your double team if need be, but it seems to take the 2nd guy ages to come double.  And when he does, alot of times he’ll just stand around general area, just chilling. 
Rebounding seems to be an issue with me in Live09.  I did ok in 2K9, but Live09 just kicks my ass.  I guess cuz I’m not used it yet, but seems to me like in Live09 you really have to baby the direction stick when trying to get position in paint and going where you want to to get the rebound.  Direction sensitivity seems really high, so I’m just all over the place when I try to grab the board.  2K9 feels more natural to me in this area.
Blocking is about even to me in 2K9 and Live09.  But the block animation in Live09 just looks downright funky.  The ball just flies straight downard all the time, never any other direction.  And the ball always looks like it gets swatted (as in moves really fast) a split second after defender blocks it.  Just looks odd.

Passing:
Directional passing in 2K9 works decent.  Directional passing in Live09 blows huge donkey nuts. 
Icon passing kind’ve a toss-up.  In 2K9, you press the button and the icons stay up for a few seconds, you can press it again to make the icons go away before their initally alotted time.  In Live09, you have to hold down the button, and icons go away once you let go.  I prefer 2K9 on this one, not huge deal though.
Alley-oops look better to me in Live09.  In 2K9, animation looks a little awkward in the guy seems to jump really fast and from really far.  As far as pulling off alley-oops, both work well to me.

Offense:
I don’t understand why 2K9’s isomotion is viewed as 10x more complex than Live09’s quickstrike.  2K9 you use your left stick to perform crossovers, behind-the-backs, etc…  Same with Live09 except you use your right stick.  If anything, I have a harder time with Live09 because I can’t seem to explode in a direction after performing my move.  Isomotion gets my vote here.
Shot-stick in 2K9 was awesome to me.  It did everything from my dunks/lay-ups to my post moves.  I could change shot in mid-air, do floaters, up and unders, left/right layups, it was wonderful.  Complicated?  Yes.  But much more flexible.  In Live09, they’re still using the seperate shot and dunk buttons.  I was actually a fan of this when they first seperated them.  But I miss the flexibility of shotstick, and as much as I hear post moves are easy to perform, I’m having a helluva time. 
Freethrows in 2K9 seem more authentic, but just impossibly hard.  I’m not spending my time memorizing everyone’s freethrow animation.  Live09 is too easy, but I can actually make them.  I’ll go with Live09 here.
Playcalling in 2K9 works well, you press down on your d-pad to bring up your menu of set plays, which you configure in the coaching menu.  I also like having the court diagrammed with the play.  Playcalling in Live09 though works awesome.  I love being able to call up plays and scroll through pages.  I like how the court is diagrammed with where I need to go and who my pass options are, but I’d like to see the actual play diagrammed like in 2K9.  Also, for my pass options, they all get an A-button (pass) icon.  When I first saw this, I thought pressing A meant it’d pass to my guy set in the play.  Instead it passed to nearest guy.  Why the hell would I get an A-button icon if I’m not actually passing to those guys?  Toss-up for me in this area.  I like Live09’s interface alot better, but I like 2K9’s diagramming of plays.
Pick-and-Roll in 2K9 works very well.  Depending on how long you press the PnR button (hold or tap), you can fake a screen, have the guy roll, or have guy pop out.  Very nice.  However, Live09 PnR just kick’s 2K9’s butt.  I press PnR button to have guy come over, I can let go before or right when he sets screen to have him roll right away.  Or I can wait for the graphic to pop up, have a meter fill up while my man’s setting screen to either roll or pop out.  Beautiful.  Live09 wins by far here.

Developing players:
You know, I’m reading around that Live09’s Academy is awesome because you run drills that actually train you for the game and that’ll develop your players in dynasty.  Wait, then what the fuck has 2K9 been doing all this time?  I’ve been doing that since 2K7.  Don’t get the big hype here.  Toss-up.

Presentation:
2K9 crowds/atmosphere are better.  Live09 models are better, though the artistic style of faces I dislike.  That’s a personal preference though.  Animations are better in 2K9, just looks so much more natural.  I think the models make Live09 look more real in pure eye-candy terms, but as far as animation and flow of games, 2K9 has slight edge here.
Having a gym to shootaround at in Live09 is cool.  But it’s still to hide the ridiculously long load times.  My 2K9 games loaded up fast compared to Live09.

Live365 vs. Living Rosters:
In Live365, if a player is out, he’s on IR.  Then when I start a dynasty, all the players in IR disappear from life.  So Carlos Boozer is out, I start a dynasty, he ceases to exist.  Normally Boozer ceasing to exist is good, but in terms of my enjoyment of dynasty, this fucking sucks far beyond any porno chick is capable of sucking dick.  Seriously EA, what the fuck. 
Living rosters don’t update as often, but atleast I can play my dynasty in peace. 

Misc.:
2K9’s player cards own.  I get more info out of that than having to look through Live09’s menus.
Menus in Live09 are fancy, but there’s lag and alot of times my button presses don’t register.  Lame.
Live09 has Tony Parker on the cover.  Fail.
2K9, you can’t give me some type of indicator at tip-off on when to jump like in Live09?  I’ve only won 1 tip-off in the month my 2K9 actually worked.  Am I retarded?  Probably.  But you shouldn’t be rubbing it in my face with your retarded tip-ff.  C’mon 2K sports…
Live09, I like how in team chemistry, for each player you list other players and how they like eachother.  I don’t know how you calculate this, but it’s something to look at and I like it.  Think about this 2K.

Overall I’d have to still take 2K9 if it weren’t for 2K’s cheap-ass discs.  The gameplay is more enjoyable to me, and it’s “over-complicated” interface doesn’t bother me as much.  And it’s Dynasty rules to me.  Live09 does have it’s values.  Playcalling and PnR are awesome, it looks good, Live365 really is cool despite it breaking dynasty mode.  But the kinks in rebounding and the somewhat awkward defense really turn me off.  I probably need more time with Live09 to become more familar.  Still, for $10 less, Live09 is good for casual gamers and it will give you a good sim experience with right sliders of course, just not up to 2K9’s sim experience with right sliders in my opinion.  Can’t wait for 2010, hopefully Live will come back more refined.  Just makes you wish they’d join forces to produce the perfect basketball game.  Ah well.  Such is life.

c’mon 2K Sports

I switched over to the NBA 2K series for the 2K7 iteration.  I have enjoyed all of them thus far gameplay wise.  What I have not enjoyed?  The discs eventually breaking down on me.

2K7 – After 4-5 months of play, game would regularly freeze up, and occasionally the disc would be unreadable by my xbox 360.
2K8 – After 4-5 months of play, disc became completely unreadable by my 360.  New coaster.
2K9 – After 1 freaking month, inner ring of disc develops cracks and become unreadable.  Another new coaster.

I love playing the NBA 2K games, but I’m seriously thinking about going back to Live.  I haven’t had a chance to play the demo yet, I hear they’ve made great strides in Live 09.  Wathcing vids online though of Live 09 when I was trying to decide which to get, I just couldn’t get over the funky art style and really odd looking animations.  And it’s so damn frustrating that I have to consider switching back to Live not because of 2K’s gameplay, but its inferior medium.  Sigh, do I really want to shell out another $60 so I can get my NBA game fix?