-Neither the Redskins or Rams could score against a Pop Warner team, that much is for damn sure, but the Rams deserved to lose, if for no other reason than their chickenshit offensive calls. I've never understood why teams are so eager to run time off the clock right before halftime--the Rams had the ball on their own 30 with 1:12 left and (I believe) all three timeouts. That's more than a minute with all your timeouts to go 40 yards for a field goal, which in this case would have won them the game. Instead, of course, the Rams ran a couple of short plays and then let the clock run out and never came close to scoring ever again. Good job, Steve Spagnuolo. Now you're 0-2.
-Darren Sproles is one FAST motherfucker. And he absolutely broke Ed Reed's ankles on his long touchdown recepton.
-I'm kicking myself for not picking up Matt Schaub.
-All the touchdowns notwithstanding, Willis McGahee looks awfully slow.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Monday, September 14, 2009
Experience: So Fucking Overrated
As Americans, we are overly attached to the value of experience as a measure of merit and future ability. It was the experience question that dogged President Obama during his presidential campaign (as well as Sarah Palin), as his competitors scrambled to puff up every activity they'd ever done as monumental victories for humanity, much like I did on my college applications.
From a practical standpoint, the experience question dogs all of us too; when I was looking for a job (a period of time that I am grateful to leave behind), everybody wanted so much experience for menial entry-level positions, putting job seekers in an uncomfortable Catch-22: how are you supposed to gain experience in the first place if the lowest rungs of the professional ladder already require so much experience? Even if you look right now, it's not hard to find internships that claim that "previous...experience is a must." For an internship! Internships were always held out as a way for job applicants with no experience to get their foot in the door, but it's increasingly not an option. And if you look at the job listing, it's pretty much making spreadsheets, answering phones, and setting up chairs. "Yes, Ma'am, in my previous job I had a lot of experience arranging chairs, so I would make an excellent fit with your organization."
And really...if someone has 5 years of closely related experience and is applying for your internship, you know that applicant is incredibly mediocre, or maybe stagnant at best. They would probably be looking upward otherwise.
Personally, I feel that you should choose the all-around smartest person you can who fits into your company's philosophy and culture, whether they majored in economics or basketweaving, or whether they spent the last five years making spreadsheets or taping frisbee tournaments. I would guess that the vast majority of jobs you could learn as you go along, as long as you have some basic fundamental skills and are relatively sharp. In fact, I would think that in some sectors, lack of experience would even be an asset--our recent and ongoing financial meltdown is due in large part to too many people all acting the same way and never questioning the tacit assumptions that they had accepted for so long. Someone completely new to the industry may have been able to take a step back and say, "Wait a minute...is it really smart to give $750,000 mortgages to people who don't have jobs, and then bundle thousands of those mortgages and sell them while Homer Simpson's drinking bird at Moody's rubber-stamps them with AAA ratings?"
Now, of course, this is not to say that experience is worthless; I wouldn't suggest letting an air traffic controller learn his/her job on the fly. As a general rule though, I think experience is vastly overrated. I loved Ross Perot's answer in the 1992 presidential debates when he was called on to respond vis-a-vis his relative lack of experience:
"Well, they have a point. I don't have any experience in running up a 4 trillion dollar debt."
From a practical standpoint, the experience question dogs all of us too; when I was looking for a job (a period of time that I am grateful to leave behind), everybody wanted so much experience for menial entry-level positions, putting job seekers in an uncomfortable Catch-22: how are you supposed to gain experience in the first place if the lowest rungs of the professional ladder already require so much experience? Even if you look right now, it's not hard to find internships that claim that "previous...experience is a must." For an internship! Internships were always held out as a way for job applicants with no experience to get their foot in the door, but it's increasingly not an option. And if you look at the job listing, it's pretty much making spreadsheets, answering phones, and setting up chairs. "Yes, Ma'am, in my previous job I had a lot of experience arranging chairs, so I would make an excellent fit with your organization."
And really...if someone has 5 years of closely related experience and is applying for your internship, you know that applicant is incredibly mediocre, or maybe stagnant at best. They would probably be looking upward otherwise.
Personally, I feel that you should choose the all-around smartest person you can who fits into your company's philosophy and culture, whether they majored in economics or basketweaving, or whether they spent the last five years making spreadsheets or taping frisbee tournaments. I would guess that the vast majority of jobs you could learn as you go along, as long as you have some basic fundamental skills and are relatively sharp. In fact, I would think that in some sectors, lack of experience would even be an asset--our recent and ongoing financial meltdown is due in large part to too many people all acting the same way and never questioning the tacit assumptions that they had accepted for so long. Someone completely new to the industry may have been able to take a step back and say, "Wait a minute...is it really smart to give $750,000 mortgages to people who don't have jobs, and then bundle thousands of those mortgages and sell them while Homer Simpson's drinking bird at Moody's rubber-stamps them with AAA ratings?"
Now, of course, this is not to say that experience is worthless; I wouldn't suggest letting an air traffic controller learn his/her job on the fly. As a general rule though, I think experience is vastly overrated. I loved Ross Perot's answer in the 1992 presidential debates when he was called on to respond vis-a-vis his relative lack of experience:
"Well, they have a point. I don't have any experience in running up a 4 trillion dollar debt."
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Superman, Thy Name is Troy Polamalu. And Fix Overtime.
The guy is simply amazing. The man hits like a linebacker but flies around the field with the speed and quickness of a cornerback. Also nice to see a big game from Santonio Holmes, I guy I reluctantly picked for one of my fantasy teams. I have terrible luck with wide receivers, so I start as few as humanly possible--I've seen too many 2 reception/20 yard games to rely on them too heavily.
With that said, I don't care what Cris Collinsworth thinks; sudden death overtime is a stupid idea. About 60% of overtime games are won by the coin toss winner, which is obviously way too high. And for the record, there are many more ideas than just giving both teams equal possessions, even though that's usually the straw man John Clayton or any other senile old fogey pulls out and sets on fire.
The issue to me (and the reason, presumably, the coin toss winner wins the game more often), is that it's too damn easy to just kick a field goal. The average starting field position is about the 27 yard line (I suppose you'd have to take out the touchdown returns for this argument, so let's say 25, conservatively), and you'll probably have a good field goal shot at around your opponent's 30. That's only 45 yards you have to go to win the game. Even the Lions could do that.
Ideas I thought up to fix overtime (Eat your heart out, John Clayton):
1. Keep everything the same, but disallow field goals - I like it, though I realize the average overtime game might drag on pretty long.
2. If receiving team A scores TD, game over. If team A kicks a field goal, team B gets possession. If team B scores a TD, they win, if they kick a field goal, possession switches back again - Similar to 1., but potentially can end faster.
3. Give the winner of the coin toss the choice of either starting possession at their own 10 yard line or defending the opponent taking possession at their 10 yard line - My favorite! Should be some real fireworks with this one.
With that said, I don't care what Cris Collinsworth thinks; sudden death overtime is a stupid idea. About 60% of overtime games are won by the coin toss winner, which is obviously way too high. And for the record, there are many more ideas than just giving both teams equal possessions, even though that's usually the straw man John Clayton or any other senile old fogey pulls out and sets on fire.
The issue to me (and the reason, presumably, the coin toss winner wins the game more often), is that it's too damn easy to just kick a field goal. The average starting field position is about the 27 yard line (I suppose you'd have to take out the touchdown returns for this argument, so let's say 25, conservatively), and you'll probably have a good field goal shot at around your opponent's 30. That's only 45 yards you have to go to win the game. Even the Lions could do that.
Ideas I thought up to fix overtime (Eat your heart out, John Clayton):
1. Keep everything the same, but disallow field goals - I like it, though I realize the average overtime game might drag on pretty long.
2. If receiving team A scores TD, game over. If team A kicks a field goal, team B gets possession. If team B scores a TD, they win, if they kick a field goal, possession switches back again - Similar to 1., but potentially can end faster.
3. Give the winner of the coin toss the choice of either starting possession at their own 10 yard line or defending the opponent taking possession at their 10 yard line - My favorite! Should be some real fireworks with this one.
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
Madden 10, Still Kind of a Turd
So I got Madden 10 (before the NFL season for the first time ever), and due to general boredom and being sick this week, I've played it top to bottom before the real NFL has taken a single regular-season snap. The verdict? Please, for the love of God, let NFL 2K come back so that there will be some competition to make sure the bugs get ironed out of Madden.
It plays mostly competently and looks great, but stutters at times, which happens often enough that occasionally you'll screw up a play or miss a kick due to it.
The thing that bugs me is that the AI is completely brainless. When you're on offense they basically just blitz you on every play. When you combine that with your O-line's inability to hold a block for more than 3 nanoseconds, you've pretty much got to run nothing but quick slants and screen passes all the way down the field. Don't even bother with rushing plays...they practically get to the quarterback before the handoff on rushes. And you could run 28 straight play action passes and the stupid AI would never adapt. Your 29th play could be a run and they'll still madly blitz past your cardboard O-line for a 5 yard loss. I don't even know why they put counters and misdirection plays in that game. The computer is never fooled. I guess it might be effective if playing against your friends, but unfortunately, I have none. Actually, I've never liked playing sports games against my friends because we're never equal in skill...either I can blow them away or vice versa. Anyway, I digress.
So the AI blitzes a lot, but you can still easily beat it, all the way up to All-Pro. When All-Pro ceased to be a challenge, I ramped the difficulty up to the maximum All-Madden, expecting the computer to get smarter, but it doesn't. Instead, it makes your players slower, your opponents faster, and now your teammates don't block downfield anymore. Seriously, Jason Campbell went 17/17 against me in like two and a half quarters before I had to shut the damn thing off.
Oh, and the player switch algorithm is borked too. Several times a game I press the button to switch to the nearest defender, and instead of cycling to the defender 2 feet away who's facing the offensive player and perfectly positioned to make the play, the game switches me to the defender 10 yards downfield.
This is what happens when we eschew free market capitalism with exclusivity deals.
It plays mostly competently and looks great, but stutters at times, which happens often enough that occasionally you'll screw up a play or miss a kick due to it.
The thing that bugs me is that the AI is completely brainless. When you're on offense they basically just blitz you on every play. When you combine that with your O-line's inability to hold a block for more than 3 nanoseconds, you've pretty much got to run nothing but quick slants and screen passes all the way down the field. Don't even bother with rushing plays...they practically get to the quarterback before the handoff on rushes. And you could run 28 straight play action passes and the stupid AI would never adapt. Your 29th play could be a run and they'll still madly blitz past your cardboard O-line for a 5 yard loss. I don't even know why they put counters and misdirection plays in that game. The computer is never fooled. I guess it might be effective if playing against your friends, but unfortunately, I have none. Actually, I've never liked playing sports games against my friends because we're never equal in skill...either I can blow them away or vice versa. Anyway, I digress.
So the AI blitzes a lot, but you can still easily beat it, all the way up to All-Pro. When All-Pro ceased to be a challenge, I ramped the difficulty up to the maximum All-Madden, expecting the computer to get smarter, but it doesn't. Instead, it makes your players slower, your opponents faster, and now your teammates don't block downfield anymore. Seriously, Jason Campbell went 17/17 against me in like two and a half quarters before I had to shut the damn thing off.
Oh, and the player switch algorithm is borked too. Several times a game I press the button to switch to the nearest defender, and instead of cycling to the defender 2 feet away who's facing the offensive player and perfectly positioned to make the play, the game switches me to the defender 10 yards downfield.
This is what happens when we eschew free market capitalism with exclusivity deals.
Monday, September 07, 2009
Found a Rift in the Space-Time Continuum
And it's in my bathtub. For some reason, when I shower sometimes it feels like I've been in there for hours, and I come out and it's only been like 15 minutes. I am now convinced that there is some sort of strange time warp phenomenon occurring in there; perhaps every time I enter, the universe begins to spin around me at the speed of light, lengthening my subjective experience of time relative to the rest of the cosmos. Further investigation is warranted.
Speaking of showering, I've been catching a lot of those new "Get girl-approved hair" ads from Axe. Now first of all, a guy like, say, Johnny Depp didn't get where he is by worrying about what girls would think about his hair. That's what's so great about him. He does whatever he wants, looks like a grungy old hobo, and still is filthy rich and swimming around all day in the twat fog generated by all his lady admirers.
Second, how the fuck is that ad campaign okay? Could you imagine the backlash if we so much as suggested in advertisements that a woman should explicitly try to earn a man's approval?
Subway Veggie Subs: Get Guy-Approved Thighs
Neutrogena Facial Wash: Get a Guy-Approved Face
Vagisil: Get a Guy-Approved Vag
Instead, somehow women rule the world now and it's become the stupid, clueless men who have to fall all over themselves trying to win the approval of some herpes-infested sluts who got passed around the entire national alumni chapter of Psy U.
Speaking of showering, I've been catching a lot of those new "Get girl-approved hair" ads from Axe. Now first of all, a guy like, say, Johnny Depp didn't get where he is by worrying about what girls would think about his hair. That's what's so great about him. He does whatever he wants, looks like a grungy old hobo, and still is filthy rich and swimming around all day in the twat fog generated by all his lady admirers.
Second, how the fuck is that ad campaign okay? Could you imagine the backlash if we so much as suggested in advertisements that a woman should explicitly try to earn a man's approval?
Subway Veggie Subs: Get Guy-Approved Thighs
Neutrogena Facial Wash: Get a Guy-Approved Face
Vagisil: Get a Guy-Approved Vag
Instead, somehow women rule the world now and it's become the stupid, clueless men who have to fall all over themselves trying to win the approval of some herpes-infested sluts who got passed around the entire national alumni chapter of Psy U.
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