I liked these

A bunch of billboard promotional posters designed ahead of the Woodard Cruise a couple years ago. GM is selling the "real" ones HERE. Campbell Ewald, Chevy's ad agency does these every year. My favorite official one is still, "Remember when your cup holder sat next to you and wore a poodle skirt?"

My favorite un-official one: "We came up with some pretty cool shit when we could smoke and drink at the office."

True, so true.

I'm posting this on the eve of GM's release of the Chevy Volt. Yeah, a technological achievement. Indeed it is. A mighty feat of engineering. But I just can't help thinking... something's just missing.

Oh yeah. A soul.

Mini: Only Interesting to Me

Watched the Indiana University / Ohio State football game today. OSU dominated the game in just about every phase. Which got me thinking a bit about something which has been sticking in my mind for a while. Player size. In the NFL size seems pretty negligible between teams but in college it seems, just by watching the game, that one team is just... well bigger.

I read somewhere that a high school team up north somewhere just refused to to play a game because of the size discrepancy. So with that I decided to look at starting rosters on OSU and IU. OSU's defense dominated so I looked at their D line verse IU's offensive line.

OSU's line is, on average, 27 pounds heavier and about the same height. Flipped around IU's O line is 15 lbs heavier, yes, but OSU has 2" in height.

I chose to look at lines because it was/is where games are won and lost. Weight alone doesn't necessarily mean strength or skill. Just bothers me sometimes how I hear on TV during games how some of these smaller schools should be considered to be ranked higher. Yeah, there are loads of other considerations that I should take into winning and loosing. Heart being the biggest thing... Coaching right after that.

But man, if your line is 30 lbs a man heavier? You're going to win.

McCracken Goal

Above video has music by Badelt which, yes, is from Pirates of the Caribbean. Goes well with just about anything. As you'll see below. The video below is almost a daily morning devotional for me.

Name This Player

It's almost criminal how much fun I am having with FIFA 11. It's like the create a player thing was made for me. I'm playing a league setup with Helltown pitted against MLS teams. Stats are actually believable. I'm not running the table in every category. I'm around 5th place with Doran my leading scorer after 12 games the only one in the top 20.

The Team is Up and On

Better titled as: How I spent all day Sunday. FIFAs online "Creation Zone" is really good. It was easy to create players and a team then pull it on to my XBox. In fact anyone can pull down the Helltown Brewmasters United.

Here is a Smitty goal:

http://www.ea.com/uk/football/videos/ugc/39981180

Full team list is as follows. I can create up to 50 players... and I will.

Name and Position
Daniel Hunter Defender
Geoff Wood Defender
James L Johnson Defender
Jay Smith Defender
Larkin Tysor Defender
Larry Johnson Defender
Ole Moses Defender
Brett Stone Forward
Chris Doran Forward
El Vez Forward
Francis Huntington Forward
Jeff Smith Forward
Mark Ragase Forward
Matt Stevens Forward
Cory Smith GK
Scott Bullard GK
Billy Sasquatch Midfielder
Dustin Kidd Midfielder
Mark McCracken Midfielder
Matt Wood Midfielder
Russell Murphy Midfielder

Stoke City FIFA 11

Getting beat up a bit online but that doesn't mean I haven't had any great goals!

http://www.ea.com/uk/football/videos/ugc/39002209

FIFA 11 is here

And all the angels said! Amen!

So far the experience has been pretty good but let me get the bad out of my system.

I'm not a big fan of having to pay for features that should be out of the box. Live league play for single player is $10 bucks (800 MS pts). Not sure I like that. You have to have a code that comes on the manual to get online. I'm ok with that, I guess. Just another hoop to jump through though. I've tried to play 3 games online... two of which locked up. First day, I know. I just get skittish with Xbox Live. I don't play a bunch of games online but I have played enough to know that Live can get hijacked and broken. Ah, well. We'll see.

Now for the good.

Game play is more natural. I can't pass the ball around like a pinball machine anymore. While I liked that, 11 feels more natural and real. Tackles are better and more fouls for aggressive play. Shots are down... way down. Thumbs up for that. More play in the midfield like a real game and through passes forward are more difficult to preform. Overall, I guess what I am trying to say, it's slower. Which is great!

Much improved gameplay. Game on!

Northampton Town 2 Liverpool 2

The Cobblers pulled it off (last week) on penalties. What a win for them. Liverpool had mostly reserves playing in this Carling Cup match... still... I'm no expert, but i'm pretty sure this sort of thing shouldn't happen. Nice work Cobblers!

I read somewhere that this game ensures that Northampton will be turning a profit for the year now. Something about that I like because I know that more then a few Premier League teams are in financial trouble.

This will be a game long forgotten in the world of soccer, in fact it may already be. But for NHT it is a win for the ages.

Back from New England(?)

Had to take a trip to a place I never really expected to go. North Andover, Massachusetts. I didn't have much time to do much. A lot of work. I wasn't far from Boston, but it seems nothing is really that far from anything when you're in that area. Looking at the map I realize that I wasn't really far from Portland, Maine.

Flew in to Manchester, New Hampshire... which reminds me. FIFA 11 this week!