Archive for February, 2007

Atlanta Braves Baseball!

Published by Scott on February 20, 2007 in Chatter and Sports. 1 Comment

braves-a-magnet.jpgI splurged on a four game package promotion for the Atlanta Braves today, so the boys and I will be heading to Turner Field a few times in the coming months. I love baseball and can hardly wait for the regular season to begin. Dashiell and Ray aren’t as enthusiastic about the sport as I am but there is plenty to see and do to keep them entertained. Usually we just go to one Braves game here at home and a Tigers game when we visit our extended families in Michigan each summer. This year our MI trip does not coincide with a Tigers home game. That’s a bummer but going to see four games here, including some inter-league action against the Tigers, should more than make up for it. Here is what we have to look forward to:

Braves vs. New York Mets (Saturday April 7)
Aw, yeah! Second home game of the season and against the hated Mets to boot. It’s a great rivalry and although New York ran away with the National League East last year, we can hope the Braves have the right ingredients to match up against their powerful offense and bullpen this season.

Braves vs. Detroit Tigers (June 23)
My two favorite teams! Whatever the final score, as a fan of both there’s no losing. The Tigers came seemingly out of nowhere last year to make it to the World Series. They should be just as good this year too. They added Gary Sheffield, who was a fan favorite for the Braves a few seasons ago. I wonder if Sheffield’s Chefs, a bunch of goofy guys who would dance in the bleachers wearing chef costumes, will make a return appearance. They could sit next to Francoeur’s Franks, the hot dog costume wearing fans of Jeff Francoeur, and battle it out.

Braves vs. Arizona Diamondbacks (August 18)
If it works out, it would be cool to see either Brandon Webb, last year’s NL Cy Young winner, or Randy Johnson pitch. I don’t know that I’d want to see a repeat of Johnson’s perfect game against the Braves in May ‘04 though. As a bonus it also happens to be Elvis Night. Should be fun to see people dressed up like the King. We’ve got some rubber Elvis hair around here somewhere…

Braves vs. Milwaukee Brewers (September 22)
Seems like the Brewers are an up and coming team with a lot of young talent. I don’t know a whole lot about them, except that Ben Sheets is a fine pitcher and manager Ned Yost used to be the third base coach for the Braves. I’m curious to see Cecil Fielder’s son, Prince, play.

Chocolate Biz

Published by Scott on February 14, 2007 in Chatter, Online Games and Web Sites. 0 Comments

Chocolate Biz is a simple strategy game with a candy theme that’s fitting for Valentine’s Day. The object is to unwrap the squares on the chocolate bar in as few moves as possible. choc-bizz.jpgWhen you click on a piece, the ones to the north, south, east, and west also come unwrapped. You can wrap them back up by clicking the same square again. Every click counts as a move.

It’s not too hard to figure out. I’d say it’s about a five minute diversion for adults, definitely longer for kids. When you solve it, a screen pops up saying the next level is loading. This doesn’t actually happen though. You’re just sent back to the start-up screen again. Oh well. Give it another try and see if you can do it in fewer moves.

Stuart Little - E.B. White (1945)

Published by Scott on February 13, 2007 in Books, Chatter and Fiction. 2 Comments

006026395401lzzzzzzz.jpgMy boys got a three-pack E.B. White collection for Christmas and we’ve been slogging our way through each of the books. I read this one to them after Charlotte’s Web. It’s an odd story and I didn’t particularly care for it. Stuart Little boosters might describe it as a spirited, whimsical series of adventures involving a free-spirit trying to find his place in the world. “A funny and special story,” says the blurb on the back of a slightly older edition we already had. I would add nonsensical, plotless, and just plain weird to the list of descriptors.

So this Stuart Little character is born into a human family but in size and looks he appears exactly like a mouse. He’s not a mouse though. He just looks like one. Hmm. I imagine his birth must have been a traumatic occasion for Mrs. White. “What the hell is that?!” she probably screamed. “Uh, ma’am, it’s your new baby boy. Congratulations.”

The book chronicles Stuart’s mishaps and adventures, like fishing a ring out of a drain, matching wits with the family cat, driving a toy car, racing a model sailboat, substitute teaching (huh?), and going out on a date with a miniature girl. This last episode was about the only chapter I really enjoyed. Dopey Stuart is so fixated on carrying out his perfectly planned evening that when things go awry he can’t adjust to the situation and ruins what is probably a once-in-a-lifetime chance to hook up with someone his own size. It’s kind of funny.

As I mentioned, I didn’t think too highly of this book. I had less than kind words to say about Charlotte’s Web in my last post too. You’ve probably figured out by now that I’m not much of an E.B. White fan. My kids liked both stories, especially Stuart Little, so what do I know? They were really caught up in the possibilities that being two inches tall must offer. It reminded them of the PBS cartoon George Shrinks, which they also enjoy.

We’re about two-thirds of the way through The Trumpet of the Swan and I think it’s easily the best of the three White books. Hopefully it will hold up until the end. I’ll report back when we’re finished.

Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White (1952)

Published by Scott on February 12, 2007 in Books, Chatter and Non-Fiction. 2 Comments

charlott.gifIt’s a classic, right? You’re supposed to love it. Well, I don’t. I’ve read it twice recently, once to my own children and once to my class, and I must say it’s not that great. I will admit that it’s a memorable story. Who could forget a spider spinning words in a web to help save a pig from being Christmas dinner? Charlotte’s death is definitely striking too. I got choked up reading about her demise to my boys but was able to stone-face it to my class. Still, this is one seriously flawed piece of children’s literature.

My biggest complaint is with the character of Fern. She starts out completely three dimensional, outraged that her father is going to kill the runt of the litter. “If I had been very small at birth, would you have killed me?” She pretty much forces him to spare baby Wilbur’s life. From the way the book starts you’d think she’d be a pivotal character throughout the story, but alas that is not how it plays out. Apparently having served her purpose of rescuing Wilbur from an early death, E.B. White has no further use for her. She’s strictly cardboard from that point on and has absolutely no further bearing on the plot.

It’s doubly insulting that Fern is not only relegated to the background of Wilbur and Charlotte’s tale, but she loses interest in the animals and discovers that boys, particularly Henry Fussy, are better worth her time instead. Come on! She’s the only person that can hear these animals talking. Some stupid boy is going to make her forget all that? I might be able to accept it if she were a little bit older and the adolescent hormones had started kicking in, but in the story she’s all of eight years old.

I’ve got other problems with Charlotte’s Web too. So if the pig’s purpose is to be eaten, what about the plentiful geese on the farm? Aren’t they destined to be future meals as well? No one seems to care, care, care about them. And are people really so dimwitted as to believe Charlotte’s pro-Wilbur propaganda? Apparently so. It’s the spider that’s extraordinary, a fact that Mrs. Zuckerman initially picks up on, but these podunks obviously aren’t too bright. Then there’s the whole saving the pig angle, which is the crux of the story. Why would a spider give a rat’s ass (sorry Templeton) about Wilbur’s date with a dinner plate? Are our eight legged friends really so altruistic toward swine? It just doesn’t make sense, I tell you!

I’m being semi-sarcastic about these last few things but the Fern issue truly does lessen any enjoyment I might receive from the story. There must be plenty of people who disagree as the book continues to be published and there was even a recent film based on it. To me it’s overrated and there are dozens of books I’d recommend before it.

Pokemon LeafGreen / FireRed - Gameboy Advance (2004)

Published by Scott on February 11, 2007 in Chatter and Video Games. 0 Comments

leafgreen.jpgAlright, where was I? Oh yes, blogging. I’ll place most of the blame for my long layoff on this totally addictive game. Or rather, my addiction to this game. Since I purchased Pokemon LeafGreen allegedly as a Christmas present for my boys, I logged in nearly sixty hours playing it through to the end. Pokemon has pretty much been a black hole for my scarce down time but I must say I have no regrets. I had a blast playing it!

I wasn’t familiar with any Pokemon title before LeafGreen and really didn’t know what the phenomenon was all about. When I graduated from high school Nintendo’s NES console was still current and I didn’t pay any attention to what was going on in the video game world from that point until picking up a GameCube a couple of years ago. A lot had happened in those fifteen plus years, including Pokemon. I was oblivious to the game in its late 90’s heyday, with the exception of the cards. Those were banned at the schools I taught in and I would occasionally confiscate them from primary grade offenders.

If you are as clueless as I was, Pokemon is basically a role-playing game in which you are a trainer collecting animal creatures called Pokemon with the express purpose of pitting them in battle against other trainer’s Pokemon. It’s sort of like cock fighting but instead of scrapping to the death Pokemon merely “faint” when they become hurt too badly. It sounds violent and cruel but the way it’s presented is friendly and harmless. There’s definitely no blood or carnage.

200px-pokemon_firered_boxart.jpgPokemon gain experience through winning battles and become stronger and learn better attacks as their levels increase. There’s a lot of strategy involved as different types of Pokemon match up favorably or unfavorably in battle. For example, a water type Pokemon will make short work of a fire type. The key is to have a variety of Pokemon so that you will have an advantage or at least match up evenly against any type in a battle.

The game itself is really long. You not only search around for as many Pokemon as you can find (”Catch them all!”) but you have to defeat the Gym Leader in each town to earn a total of eight badges before you can move on to battle the Elite Four at the end. Then there are some additional side missions you can complete after it’s supposedly over. What’s more, you can link your Gameboy to a friend’s and go head to head. Of course, they will have to have their own copy of the game.

And that’s the only fault I can find with these titles. For each game pack, you can only save one game. With most GBA games you can have three different games saved at a time. That obviously works out really well for my two boys and me. We ended up buying Pokemon FireRed though, which is actually the exact same game as LeafGreen, so that the lads could play without having to wait for me to finish. The only difference between the two is that there are certain Pokemon exclusive to each title. In other words, the only way you could actually “catch them all” is if you had both versions and traded via GBA link. That’s some insidious marketing for you. But then again by purchasing both versions we were able to trade with and battle each other.

An additional bonus of Pokmon is that there is a lot of text. For children still learning to read, like my boys, there are many opportunities and plenty of motivation to practice and refine their new skills. Add to that a significant amount of strategy, problem solving, and decision making, plus an extremely high replayable content factor, and you have a very worthwhile purchase. And did I mention the $20 Players’ Choice price tag? Well, $40 if you are suckered into buying them both. Damn you, Nintendo!