V. Only Interesting to me

1. "The Drive" The new one.
Not the one that knocked the Browns out of 1987 the playoffs. The one I just saw were the Jets had the ball for 11 minutes straight and didn't score. Believeland.

2. Shoot the Hinges
Sometimes I hear the phase "average age of gamers" and how it seems to go up each year. It's because most gamers started playing the NES and Sega Master system at age 10. Now they are are having kids. Time to scrap that phase. That said. Folks playing games are wiser as well. With that we are starting to see major holes these ultra hyped games that get written / designed by 2 year school C- 20 somethings and reviewed by the same who have never been to college. Click on that link to watch a 15 minute video of a guy playing Call of Duty: Black Ops... and never firing a shot. That is a short film. Not a game getting some of the best reviews of the year.

Anyway, shoot the hinges comes from THIS.

2a. Mass Effect 2
Sitting on my coffee table, ready to go.

3.eHarmony?
yes. no. yes. no. Probably no? Not sure anyone is looking for a guy who works all the time, plays video games often and only hangs out with friends on Monday night to watch football. Oh, and takes good care of my cat.

3a. Also, I know everything about unicorns.

4. Whatever point I make here... will be used as justification for why I have to look at eHarmony.

5. Most productive player on the Brewmasters
Just finished a 34 grueling match season against all of Budesliga 2nd division. Some may say that is crazy. I say, HBU earned their stripes. Most productive? Stevens with .67 goals and assists per game (18 games). Highest average match rating? Matt Wood. 7.6 (28 games).

6. Stoke City
Up the ladder they go!! Back up to 10th.

7. It doesn't matter where the truth comes from.

Team Bondi(?) for Rockstar

A trailer recently came out for a game called L.A. Noire and I am intrigued. It looks like they are trying to pull off a City Confidential type game and while I love that movie, I'm hoping for more of a Chinatown. So who is Team Bondi? A group who worked on The Getaway.

I had my reservations about Red Dead Revolver and I am having the same about this game. But Red Dead was outstanding.

This is a bit early to be mentioning this game, but it comes out in the spring of next year. Maybe that's the Ohioan in me just wishing spring were here already.

Anywho, looks interesting. I've got Mass Effect lined up to play this weekend to set a benchmark. More on that soon.

Crew goes down, MLS Attendance

I've been interested for a while now on how the MLS is doing. It's a new(er) league in the US and always sort of thought that it was a niche thing. Not that I thought they weren't doing well, per say. Just way behind the other sports. Well it turns out they are actually doing well on a game to game basis. I say game to game because the play significantly less games then the other leagues in the US.

Philadelphia Union and Toronto FC actually fill their stadiums each game. The Seattle Sounders FC fill what is afforded to them at Quest Field which has a soccer capacity of 36,000 but actual cap of around 64,000 if they opened it up.

The Crew average about 14,000 fans a game, or 62% capacity. This is below the average and median by about 2,000 in the MLS, but in a Buckeye football dominated area? Not too shabby.

How does that stand up to the rest of the soccer world? I'm asking myself the same question. After all, we are just lowly Americans who could care less about the other Football right?

1. Bundesliga (GER): 42,790
2. English Premier League (ENG): 34,088
3. La Liga (ESP): 28,971
4. Serie A (ITA): 23,899
5. Ligue 1 (FRA): 20,119
6. Eredivisie (NED): 19,319
7. MLS (USA): 18,452
8. Championship (ENG): 18,113
9. Scottish Premier League (SCO): 15,128
10. Bundesliga 2 (GER): 15,056

I know that population has a ton to do with this. I'm actually surprised the Scottish league is in the top 10. I think that means that 110% of the Scottish population is showing up for games. Either way, nice work MLS!

Now, for the Crew going down....

The name of the MLS playoff game is: Aggregate. It's unique to "major" leagues in this world. Teams making the playoffs get a Home/Away match up. Team with the most goals in those two games win. It seems experimental, fun, strange and wonky.

The crew lost to the Rapids in the first game 1-0, but then won the second game 2-1. Aggregate? 2-2. Soooo, the second game went to PK's. Columbus lost.

I'm actually thinking they should just turn this sucker into a 3 game series.

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While I'm at this attendance thing, topic and thinking on that cheerleader picture above... MLS plays a different time of year then most other leagues. Soccer in the rest of the world is a fall/winter sport and I like that idea. Could it work in the US? Heck yeah! February games in Salt Lake, Calorado, Kansas City, Chicago, and Columbus! How about Toronto and New England? Okay, maybe not.

However, with the league playing when it does I would like to see a Cup set up between the MLS and European leagues during their seasons and not "warm up" games featuring European teams playing the MLS teams during the MLS season.

Drop a couple of your meaningless cups and invite the Yanks out to your backyard - England and Germany - after our season is over. We'll go. In fact, I'll set up a tournament on FIFA 11 and see how it goes.

ahhh, 'tis a dream. 'tis a dream.

Indianapolis

Spent a couple days in Indianapolis. Not much to say about that other then now I'm tired on the weekend.

Chevy Running full on

"Chevy Runs Deep" ad campaign is in gearing up now. I expect it to be in full on mode by the Super Bowl. What I'm seeing is dogs in trucks and newborn babies edited together with a rendition of "You Are My Sunshine". Who doesn't like that? Nobody. Who thinks that sells cars? Nobody. What that is, is Americana - and last time I checked... that was free. I don't need $25k to buy it. In fact, if you really feel the need to get a Chevy -- pick yourself up an old Camaro for a 10th of that price, as yours truly did.

These ads just skip over the worst years of GM. What I'd like to see is honesty. Even if it is just a minute ad. I mean, it's all we get.

The perfect American car ad was summed up by some dude commenting on the ads:

"All car commercials should have cars burning rubber racing and pretty girls. Well they should if you want me to watch them. Other wise I get and go get a beer."

Well said my friend.

You also made me resort to THIS.

EPL: My local team is better then your local team

Playing around with my new found soccer leagues in England. I spent some time looking at domestic leagues in terms of winners and losers and am now turning some attention over to the non-domestic.

The EPL is 9 and 10 games in (Sunday morning, games today). 20 teams, 192 games played.

Home team is winning 44% of the time. Losing 23% if the time and drawing 33%.

What that works out to be is the following: If your team is playing at home then it has a 77% chance of getting out of there with at least a point. I looked at it with out the top three teams as well: 74% chance of coming out of your own back yard with at least a point.

What changes when I pull out the top three is just an increased chance to lose on the road. Just slight, however. 44% chance with top 3, 49% without.

Outside of plain old normal distribution of data, I have a few conclusions:

1. Advantage: Home Team
In a big way. It's something you don't see to this degree in domestic leagues. However, American sports don't end in ties (at least they don't easily). It sort of funny because the two times I can remember a tie there was a massive outcry by fans and players didn't even know it was possible. Once in the MLB all star game and once in the NFL where McNabb didn't even know a tie was possible.

2. 1/3 of games played end in a draw.
It's the way of footie I guess. I'm trying to get use to it. It's definitely an added dimension. No way am I saying get rid of it, just saying.

3. Lowest division, nPower league 2 has the same results. 73% of teams come out with a win or draw. 45% chance of an outright loss on the road. Note: League 2 has a larger sample set of games. 24 teams, 14 games in, 294 games played.

4. Tie games are typically an English thing.
I looked at the Bundesliga. Home team wins 44%, similar to EPL. However, games only end in draws 18% of the time. Also looked at Serie A in Italy, where I thought every game ended in a tie. Nope, still less then England at 30%. Though, similar results with home team coming out with a point (76%).

4a. MLS
Finally, the MLS. Similar to the Bundesliga. 24% chance of draw. 48% chance of home team win.

5. Goals
MLS, EPL, nPower and Serie A have similar GD averages hovering around +0.2 in favor of the home team. Bundesliga is ever so slim at +0.09; home team. Go figure. The league with the least amount of ties has the closest games.

6. Digging deeper
How about the 1975 English Top Division season? Similar home results. 77% chance the home team will pull out a point at home. Draws down to 28%. GD slightly higher at +0.26 for the home team.

7. Who is the worst team in the EPL this year?
Wigan. They have had 6 home games. One more then most everyone else and are sitting at 16th.

8. Who will probably climb the ladder a bit?
Blackpool. Only 3 home games when most everyone has 5. They are sitting at 15th place with two winnable home games in a row coming up.

I could go on and on man. Anyway, Liverpool won in 1975, just beating out the Queens Park Rangers by a point.

A lil' Football History

I'm learninged myself on soccer's best players. Well, at least English/UK ones I find interesting. Combine that with FIFA 11's good creation editor and I'm having some fun.

The Helltown Brewmasters have been up and running for a month now and I'm still having a great time with them. Today the other Helltown team was created in the way of the Growlers. Skill wise they are a better team because, well, they have some of the most interesting players I have read about. And watched online.

Here are some of the players I've choosen:

Bobby Moore
George Moorhouse
Graeme Souness
Bobby Charlton
Jimmy Johnstone
Alan Shearer
George Best
Dixie Dean
Jimmy Greaves

Outside the UK I have:

Gerd Muller
Carlos Valderrama

Of course I have a few reserves from my treasure chest:

Gordon McGirt
Mathew Drain (aka, J. Smith for reasons only known to EA)
Audrea Poff
Chad Cole
Larkin Tysor
Matthew Madaries
Billy Schwarting

Out of all of them I think Valderrama and Best are the most intriguing. If you get a chance read and watch as much as you can on George Best.

It's only the beginning for the Growlers. As I learn more about the intricacies of soccer players my get more interesting.

Of course the Brewmasters and Growlers are available for download. Feel free to bring them into your home.

The Growlers play at "Lisa's Grounds". Do it.

of course I got my own soccer heroes here:

and here:

Weekend Funnies

I like SI.com. I like the Truth and Rumors section of the site. The crowd that posts stuff up there in the comments sections can be smart, witty and insightful. That is, until to pull up the NBA section of the feature. Here is one I thought funny.
Simple enough story, though it is a little strange for a player to have vertigo. In any case, it's really not too much of a story and the comments show that. Just one guy knows how to end it.

GM: To a lot less fanfare

No commercials this go round, which makes it more serious and believable. If my hunch is right, they want the government out something fierce. Pay it off gentlemen and get two work.

From Edward Niedermeyer at The Truth About Cars:

News that the government will sell only $6b-$8b worth of its GM equity has been joined by an even more surprising GM IPO announcement: GM will buy the Treasury’s entire $2.1b holding of preferred stock in the initial offering. GM has not announced how much it will pay for the stake, and the Detroit News reports that it’s not yet clear if GM will also buy some $400m in preferred stock held by the Canadian and Ontario governments. We’re also getting word via Twitter that GM will put $4b in cash and $2b worth of its stock into its overdrawn UAW pension fund, as well as making a $2.8b payment to the UAW VEBA account. With a $5b line of credit secured, GM says these and other steps will reduce its debt by $11b over an unspecified timeline.