Archive for January, 2013

DRS?

Posted: January 20, 2013 in Sport
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Dont Ruin Sport? Yes in a way but actually referring to the Decision Review System used in cricket – at times. Yesterday there was another ODI played between the super Aussies and the apparent easy beats Sri Lanka – who currently lead the series 2:1! Aussies must be super because we can choose any team we want on a given day regardless of form or ability. There is just so much talent in this country – apparently. Hughes was out early because as we Aussie Cricket followers know if those smart ass bowlers start to swing the ball we are screwed. Then Pup comes in to a rapturous applause. Smokes a few fours while Warner has a few swings and misses and all seems right with our cricket. Then Pup steps 3 feet outside the off stump and gets hit in the chest and they go up for LBW which is given not out. SL ask for referral and of course then lose the right to appeal a decision again this match. Then Pup is hit on the toe in front of middle stump and is given out and thinks wait a minute I am the captain, lets appeal the decision. Of course he is out so now both sides are open to any howler decisions – and didnt we get some.

Explanation: It was introduced to get rid of the “howler”, however batting teams have just two unsuccessful challenges against umpiring decisions in Test matches and only one unsuccessful challenge in 50-over cricket. International Cricket Council studies have found that decision-making has improved from 92 percent to 96 percent with the DRS. While India opposes the DRS for all the wrong reasons, questioning technology that is more accurate than the human eye, the system fails to remove blatant mistakes from the game.

So there is no easy answer but the current system is not working. Pup said it all evens out in the end – he may have had a different point of view if match had not been rained out. If he really believes that then there is no need for this half baked process in place at present. Like the video ref in Rugby League, a lot of it is a marketing ploy to engage the crowd more and lets face it in cricket we need that! Even in RL the video Ref can take 5 minutes and still get it wrong!

So does DRS improve cricket? Yes as a spectator sport but no as far as getting it right all the time. DRS can help Australian Cricket significantly though which is all we should be concerned about as our National Day approaches. How you may ask ?

Dump Rubbish Spinners and Dont Rotate Selectors!

Golden Globes 2013 – The Good, The Bad and Tommy Lee Jones

Posted: January 14, 2013 in Movies
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EDIT – THE GREAT Tina Fey (my Tina)

The Good

Tina and Amy. Nowhere near enough of them but what was there was worked well 95% of the time. Tina’s dress up was fun

Ferrell and Wiig – Hilarious segment.

Clinton – shows the high paid actors/actresses how a well paid Politician speaks easily and naturally. Better still led into Amy’s best line of the night

Game Change Love – great show

Jodie Fosters acceptance speech

Jennifer Lawrence – great win for a great actress in a great movie

Django wins – good win for QT followed by good speech

Ann Hathaway – only thing more certain than the weather bureau fucking up yet another forecast is her Oscar win. If only she came as Catwoman, Tina could have some opposition

Kevin Costner – one of the better speeches, no idea if he deserved the win though

Adele winning – clear winner, clear Pommy twang

At least Modern Family and Big Boring Bang did not win a thing

Borat – always a mixed bag but nailed Rusty to the mast

The Bad

Plunging necklines replaced by the two fried egg look?

Lena Durham – get a bloody dress that stays up and you can walk > 1km/day in for fucks sake. Get some decent Tats now. Dont get The Girls love sorry

Hugh Jackman – you love your wife. We get it. You could screw anyone in the room (except Jodie Foster) but you chose Debbie. Fine – just shut up about it purleese.

Ben Affleck – great guy, great talent but for some reason chose to speak at 300 words/min and then forgot Clooney. Then got wife to thank him

Homeland Love – it was a pretty weak/frustrating season folks. If you dont want BB again fair enough but Boardwalk pissed all over Homeland this season

Silver Linings being stuck in Comedy/Musical?

Julianne Moore – great actress, great role but looked like a horse on helium giving her speech

Maggie Smith winning anything for playing herself. Weak field admittedly

The CIA guy for Argo – genuine hero, not a public speaker

Mel Gibson – why was he there exactly?

Tommy Lee Jones

Tommy Lee Jones

Being a reduntiree I actually watched an awards show live for about the first time ever and this was a pretty enjoyable, tightly run 3 hrs helmed by my favorite lady and her BFF

Gaming? – Take me back to the 80’s PLEASE

Posted: January 8, 2013 in Midlife Crisis in Maryhole
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When I was young man studying at QUT and still had a future I spent many happy lunch hours playing Pub Pong and Tank Battle in the Rec Room. It wasnt too long before we moved onto the Commodore 64 and thought Pitstop was something special and then the world of colour brought us Frogger and our prayers were answered. Gaming could not get any better. It did. First real gaming “PC” I had was the Atari ST and this had some brilliant games, not the least being Rick Dangerous. Then the problems started. RD 1 became RD 2 and it looked prettier but was less playable – a pattern to be repeated time and time again over the years to follow. Then it was onto an actual PC and remember friends coming over to my place because I had a 100 meg HDD! Then started playing 2 of the best games ever, in different genres, that have not been bettered for me to this day. The FPS entry was Duke Nukem and man it was fun. For your stategy/resource type game we had Command & Conquer. Simply spent hour after hour playing these games. There were acceptable upgrades to come like Red Alert etc and then we also had the AOE series which were great. And who could forget the original Warcraft! The FPS evolved into Quake which was equally simple golden fun. This was a golden era for PC gaming and more importantly they were suited for the single player – hell they even created bots so you could pretend you had friends! Sporting sims started to appear and the clear leader for me was the Links LS golf series.

Quake sadly introduced the online gamer asshole also. They may have been “campers” or simply cheats in one way or another but slowly and surely a lot of fun of online gaming started to disappear. Also life changed a bit at home with kiddies coming along and other priorities coming along. The years passed and as is the way you upgrade your computer every couple of years to keep up with the OS etc. Basically the cost of a new computer stayed much the same year after year but you got more bang for your buck. Game developers got lazy because the puters had much more grunt now so we were dazzled by the pretty colours and gee whizz sounds but the gameplay never improved. Of course we also had the gaming console explosion. Like the PC some of these original consoles had very simple but very playable games such as the Atari soccer game – many sore thumbs eventuated.

So as a reduntiree thought it would be good to get back into some game playing. Computer is suitably gruntworthy with I7 CPU and 16 meg memory etc and of course a PS 3. Bring on the fun? Noticed EA selling the C&C Ultimate collection with all 17 games – hook in! Ok the first 3 entries in the series are virtually unplayable on todays PC and the later entries lack the same degree of playability – if I want a wargame I want tanks , planes and soldiers. I dont want some sort of laser beam from space. WTF happened to Warcraft – who couldnt love Orcs and catapaults? Now we have wizards and spells. People told me Tiger Woods PGA 13 on the PS3 was great and it does indeed look great but I simply cannot master the control pad. EA also had a great online special for Battlefield 3 for only $39? Ok lets get current. Of course these days everything is a digital download and man this game took 3 days to download! Now it looks great and is certainly one of the better FPS series of recent years. Sadly it is majorly aimed towards the multiplayer arena – I understand this, I simply dont like it.

If we can dumb down our Politicians in 2013 why cant we dumb down our computers? Better still anyone got Dr Emmett Browns number?