Stillnoname

Story of My Life

Fri, 02 Jan 2009 12:49:00 -0700

If there was some sort of counter for the number of times I'd played a given song in Guitar Hero III, the top three would likely be "One" by Metallica (Medium), "Sunshine of Your Love" AFMB¹ Cream (Hard), and "Story of My Life" AMFB Social Distortion (Hard). The first two because (a) they're awesome songs and (b) I'm good at them on their respective difficulty levels (don't laugh; GH3 is fucking hard, and I'm no Score Hero). The third is a little more difficult to explain, because I have no particular love for the song. I think the thing is that I feel like I could five-star it, but I keep making the same little mistakes, usually messing up either the hammer-ons in the sequences between refrain and verse, or the transition from one repeated note to the next in the main verse riff (one too many or one too few strums). If I could ever get my shit together and do both correctly at the same time, I'd probably nail it, but it's never really happened, and now that I have Rock Band 2, it probably never will.

The Oilers are much the same with their penalty kill. Sometimes they get the shot-blocking right, though this is pretty rare (like the hammer-ons), and sometimes they get the down-ice pressure right, which is a bit more common (like the verse riff), and if they could ever consistently get both down, they'd have a good PK, but other than maybe one or two games this year (like the one or two times I mostly got it together, and wound up with four stars instead of three), it's never happened. Take Wednesday's game (please). The breakdown by situation:

EV: 3-2 Oilers
PP: 3-1 Flames
EN: 1-0 Flames (Sheldon Souray does not count as a goaltender there; if he'd been wearing Roli's pads, he'd have stopped that.)

This group's even-strength play has come around some (+64/-57 to date, though they're still getting outshot), but they're bleeding GA on the penalty kill, and until that's sorted out, they're going nowhere. TSN had a graphic at one point during game showing that while the teams had scored the same number of PP goals coming into the night (30 apiece), the difference in their special teams came on the PK, where the Oilers had been outscored 39-23; make it 42-24 now. Tyler/Mudcrutch uses the rule of thumb that a three-GD difference is worth one standings point, which means that we're talking about six points' difference on the PK alone. As of today, the Flames have 48 points in 37 GP, while the Oilers have 37 points in 36 GP, an eleven-point difference with the Oilers having a game in hand, meaning that if the Oilers' PK had allowed the same number of goals as the Flames', we're only talking about a five-point difference, give or take, which would put the Oilers at around sixth in the conference, exactly where many of us had predicted them; they'd also have the sixth-best PK in the League at 84.9%, right behind CGY, and about where we're accustomed to seeing them in overall list.

Earlier in the year, we could say that if we give it time, things would turn around, but we're almost at the halfway point of the year, and after a brief period where it looked like things were starting to go in the right direction (and as an aside, I think my math on the times shorthanded in this post is off, because of how the scoresheet tabulates things -- oops), the games against Ottawa and Calgary (4 PPGA/8 TS, including the Sens' GWG) put them right back behind the 8-ball. It's maddening to watch, because as Dennis says, you're basically starting the game down 1-0, just like during the late-Salo and Conkkanen eras. We've established by now that MacT has the year with these guys to get their shit together, but if MacT's own core competencies -- faceoffs, shot blocking, and penalty killing -- are what's failing the team, what are the odds that it actually turns around? That is to say, will it turn around because those are his core competencies, and if anyone can fix them, he can, or will it fail to turn around because those are his core competencies, and if he can't get his boys to do them right, what hope do they have?

¹ - As Made Famous By, i.e. a cover. Common in that genre of game until Guitar Hero: Aerosmith/World Tour and Rock Band 2.

Happy New Year.

Thu, 01 Jan 2009 11:43:00 -0700

Just popping in to wish everyone a Happy New Year.

I was going to do the next season of the X-Files this morning after I woke up, but I instead sat down and wrote a bunch of pages for REEB. Everyone liking it so far?

Anyhow, I'm going to go get some supper/breakfast/whatever and maybe watch a bit of the Heritage game before heading to bed. At least two more nights.

Later all.

Bat Emotion

Thu, 01 Jan 2009 00:51:00 -0700

Oh, ye olde Shatner gag, how we've missed you. Is it enough to bring back Steve the Vulcan? Probably not. I have a lot on my plate at the moment. Seriously though, it's tough to put any sort of emotion into a bat-face. Hopefully it comes across ok.

Happy New Years.

Rivalry Night in Canada

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 11:50:00 -0700

Canada vs. USA: 5:30 PM, TSN
Edmonton @ Calgary: 8:00 PM, TSN

I'll be out tonight for once, so I'll see about watching these on PVR tomorrow. For Game 1, we have the first real game of the World Junior tournament. After outscoring their opponents a combined 28-2 in the first three games, Canada finally gets a real test in an American team that's been similarly dominant (24-5, with their game against CZE being much closer than Canada's) and is similarly expected to medal at the tournament. After three games of subpar competition, it'll be interesting to see how much jump the two teams have early. I have really nothing else to say on this, as I haven't been following the tournament as much as I normally do. I blame Shawn Horcoff.

Speaking of, Scorecoff and the Oilers are back in action tonight against the Flames. Kent feels that Iginla hasn't been very Iginla-ish (Iginlian?), which is to say it's a bit of a Jarmoe year. Normally, this would be great news for the Oilers, but as Kent points out, the Flames have more than made up for that with the contributions from their depth players, including Rene Bourque, who got a hat trick against Ottawa on Saturday, and Curtis Glencross, who is who we thought he was, but couldn't dare believe for fear we'd wind up with another Staios contract on our hands. With resurgent Pouliot joining Hemsky on the shelf, Gilbert Brule draws in off Mass. Transit, as reward for doing nothing but bang bodies and score goals down on the farm.

I'm going to be original and predict a crushing 4-1 loss coming entirely from Calgary's secondary scoring (Bourque, Glencross x 2, Lombardi), while Scorecoff continues to rack up the even strength points. Oh, and because Andy asked in one of the Terms of Battle threads years ago, the Raccoons' hockey team appears to have simply been called the Evergreen Raccoons, and it was only Bert who wore the Islanders jersey (this being 1981, when the Islanders were good). Go Canada, Goilers, and go to hell, 2008. You sucked ass.

[REEB] - Issue 1: Page 7

2009-01-08

Issue 1: Page 7

[REEB] - Issue 1: Page 6

2009-01-06

Issue 1: Page 6

[REEB] - Issue 1: Page 5

2009-01-01

Issue 1: Page 5

[REEB] - Issue 1: Page 4

2008-12-30

Issue 1: Page 4