...Why?

So something I just cannot comprehend is Trevor Cahill's abandonment of his curveball. It was totally hyped as his strikeout pitch last year, you always read about his awesome sinker and punchout knuckle curve. But wait, whenever I've watched Cahill this year, I can never remember him throwing a curveball. Like, ever. So I got to looking at some pitchf/x data over on fangraphs, mostly because it's fun and looks cool, but something just kind of caught me:



That would be Cahill's first start in the bigs (4/7). He was supposed to have used his curve quite a bit in the minors, I count three here. In his first start! I see 3 curves, 6 or 7 sliders. By his 4th start, he wasn't throwing breaking balls at all. Seriously, look:


So it seems like he wasn't feeling the curve even before this year, he barely threw it in his opener, and scrapped it completely shortly after. He now throws the slider semi-frequently, but it really isn't that good of a pitch. So I'm wondering, is it a confidence thing? Does it just not feel good to throw a slow loopy thing up there when even your hard stuff is getting hammered? Something kind of interesting, but maybe (probably) completely random and unrelated:






First graph is movement chart for Rick Porcello's first big league start (4/9), and the second is from the most recent start fangraphs has got (9/13). He threw some sweet bendys back in April, but look at that recent graph! Either his stuff has disintegrated (I'll bet he's tired?), or he too has scrapped the curve for a slider. WHY?! Again all I can think of is confidence, but it just seems so counter productive to totally scrap a pitch that has worked for you in the past. Do some coaches just have some bias against rookie curveballs? Do scouts just fall so head over heels with someones fastball that their praise gushes over to the shit secondary offerings? I really don't understand it.

Cahill has had some ("some" is generous actually, more like a few crumbs of) success this year, and to be honest, his fastball change combo seems to have so much potential that his breaking stuff probably doesn't have to be that great for him to be a useful pitcher. I just don't understand the lack of curveball action at any point this season, when it was hyped as a quality pitch not just a year ago.

List...Keeps...Growing...

So here it is, updated with new actual systematic (pun so not intended) approach, just in time for the holiday season spend-a-thon:

(10)Wii/GC
viewtiful joe 2 (gc)
zelda: 4 swords (gc)
pikmin 2 (gc)
pokemon (wii)
geometry wars galaxies (wii?)
link crossbow (wii)
mario kart (wii)
harvest moon (wii)
phantom brave (wii)
a boy and his blob (wii)

(8+)DS:
knights in the nightmare
Dragon quest V
Final Fantasy XII
Luminous arc
disgaea
castlevanias
kingdom hearts 358/2 days
mario kart

(8+)PS2:
god hand
RE: kingdom hearts chain of memories
onimusha essentials
persona 4
Katamari Damacy...or that sequel i think they made
xenosaga 3
devil may cry 2
sword of mana/children of mana/dawn of mana

(10)PS3:
ratchet and clank
dynasty warriors 6
devil may cry 4
disgaea 3
front office manager
little big planet
tales of vesperia
fat princess
demon's souls
bayonetta

(7+)PSP:
Prinny: can I really be the hero?
MGS: portable ops, acid 1/2
FF tactics: war of the lions
Jeanne d'Arc
Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth
patapon
Disgaea 2: dark hero days

(7)I wish...:
Chrono Cross
Xenogears
Vagrant Story
Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria
Grandia
Ikaruga
Ico

Games to watch:
blazblue (ps3)
white knight chronicles (ps3)
SSF4 (ps3)
Resonance of Fate (ps3)


That...is over 50 games guys. I can't keep up with this hobby, at all. Time wise or finance wise. I like to complain a lot about how games are becoming generic-ized and how less games I like are being published but...that's over 50 games guys. Not much of a pecking order either there. Any of 'em. Well actually "I wish..." is top of the order, I wish I could find those games. Well, and not have to sell everything I own to get 'em too. Obviously some games interest me more than others, say like I know I'm gettin Bayonetta or Demon's Souls before I get Little Big Planet. I'll get a boy and his blob probably before any of those. But still, as a general list of games I intend to purchase, that...is over 50 games guys.

We Fucking SUCK at Tanking

At the start of the month I thought we had an outside shot at a top 5 pick, top 10 at least. Our fucking crazy land September has pretty much killed that, we looking at 11-15 range again. We can't do anything right. Try and win with vets? No lets all just fall off cliffs. Tank for a top 5 pick? No lets just all have fluky-yet-hopefully-maybe breakout campaigns. Frustrating team I tell you. At least Barton has been awesome, if he can recoup some of his value back that would be such a boon for this team. Sweeney starting to actually hit is a nice surprise too, even smacking a few extra bases here an there. So alrite, it's been fun following a hot team, but I'm miffed at the same time. How come we never get to draft a goddamn Buster Posey, always left with the 2nd tier college guys.

Passion

I need something to get passionate over. I've always had some kind of academic chip on my shoulder, but now that I'm here at ucla...I've started to stop caring. And you know what? It really isn't bothering me. Maybe I'll keep going, maybe I'll fail, but academics, at the moment, I could really give a fuck. All I want to do is take Japanese. It's all that really matters at this point to me. Linguistics? yea interesting stuff, but Japanese just feels so relevant to me. But I probably can't continue Japanese here...due to the gayness of this school and retarded transfering systems. So I find myself caring less about school by the minute. I wish I could draw good, or play sports well, or raise kittens in my desk drawers or something. Anything to captivate me, get me caring about life again. I just feel depressed. It's been commin on for a while, but I always shoved it aside as me feeling emo. I dunno, it kinda scares me. Something being wrong with me from a mental standpoint, that is. I play video games to escape this feeling usually, but right now it just doesn't seem appealing.

Parents always used to justify things by saying they knew wat was best for me. I always ignored that, always. How could they know whats best for me? Now I look back, they didn't have any idea, but I sure as fuck didn't either. And now I'm 20 and still haven't figured my shit out. Lifes too short to live like this, but I'm starting to wonder if it is even long enough to ever make sense of anything. Well, none of that matters, I'm prbly just hungry/over heated right now, this was a pointless post to begin with.

< /tired rant >

Iwamura

Don know how I never thought of this til now but, A's oughta make a play at Aki Iwamura. I do not enjoy Adam Kennedy, and I do not enjoy whoever it is we send out there if he can't play. To be completely fair, Iwamura isn't exactly a big upgrade over kennedy, if one at all. They both can put up a solid average, take a walk, steal a base here and there, play a bit of infield defense. The difference here is really age, Iwamura is like 3 years younger. Rays can't really use him since they got Longoria/Zobrist, so they kind of need to deal him this offseason. He's comming off injury to boot, so he should be able to be gotten cheap.

I guess I just don want us to have a wacky year next year where things actually pan out with the pitching and we still have two blackholes on the left side of the infield. Iwamura, it seems as if you can count on his production; Kennedy's year just screams fluke to me. No, it isn't an earth shattering move to rocket the A's into contention, but it is a move that would please me.

About Halfway

through Muramasa. That is to say, I finished up the story bit of momohime's part if the game. Loved every bit of it. Couldn't be more excited to get to the second story. So I start it up, and to my great displeasure, kisuke plays exactly the same as momohime, just with lamer animations. Yea, it's still fun, but I can't help but feel like I'm playing a shit version of a character I already made awesome, and that, frankly, sucks. I keep quitting and goin back to the other story because its just so much more fun at this point.

Unlocked that death mode or whatever, would try it out but you gotta start a new file to do that. See the flaw here, I'm already basically replaying the game in kisuke's story, kinda kills replay value. Figure someday I'll go back an play anyway, this game is by far the best wii game I've played. Which I guess isn't sayin too much. Eh to be fair mario galaxy is fantastic, but I sure do love me some 2D side-scroller, especially when the art is this sparkling.

Good News Bad News Time

Good news is that I'm not kicked out of school. Took four tries, but UCLA finally got my transcripts, so I will be continuing my academic career in about a week I guess.

Bad news is that pretty much every class is full, not that any of that matters since I have no idea what I should or am even allowed to be enrolling in. Their system is quite a bit different than santa cruz, so many different requirements, and since none of the class numbers are the same I really don't know what I have accomplished yet and what I have not. I guess I'll email someone in the department or visit someone when I get there, quite confused at the moment. Japanese is the only simple part of my schedule it seems, though I can't enroll in any of those classes since I am required to take a placement test. Sucks. I really need to place into 4. If I do worse, I'm delaying my graduation, if I do better (hey I can dream) then I'm spending a quarter not studying Japanese, as if a summer isn't enough.

Moral here is I gotta start studying NOW, and hoping I can get into classes last minute...which seems to be how I always operate. I won't stress over it though, I'm in school, that's what matters at the moment

Some Initial Muramasa thoughts

So I purchased Muramasa today. $10 off! Hurray frys sale! Only played for like 30 minutes though, grandmother is over, so we had other family by for din din. Still, to put it simply, the half hour I played was amazing. I don't understand the mediocre reviews this game is getting, I had an absolute blast.

The graphics, holy crap the graphics. Best looking game I've ever played. No joke. I love the downtime running just so I can check out the environments/backgrounds. If they release this game for ps3, I would seriously entertain the thought of repurchasing the game, as having this art in HD would be mindblowing.

Controls, I'm not as fond of. Tried out the gc controller first, and found it a tad awkward and unresponsive (maybe just my old ass controllers). So I switched midway to the wiimote/nunchuck and found it to be way more intuitive, having pretty much every action mapped to where I figured they should be. My only qualm is the lack of a jump button, could really do with better jump control than jamming up. I see they ran out of buttons on the wii controls, but it should have been doable on the gc controller.

The actual gameplay itself I find kind of charming. I was kind of turned off at first when the tutorial was basically having me mash the same button to perform pretty much every move in my arsenal, but once I got into real battles I was surprised how tight my character performed and how easy it is to pull off the different moves I wanted. The unique sword abilities are a lot of fun, and trying to time switches between blades midbattle is great, keeps you focused on more than just slashing. The whole forging tree looks really dangerous, that is the kind of shit I lose hours to planning paths to take, always ignoring my forthought so I can replan all over again.

I didn't play long, but with first class visuals, simple controls, and a nifty hack and slash fight system, this game looks like an absolute winner to me. We'll see how I feel after putting some hours into this game, but I doubt my opinion is going to get much lower, if at all.

What the

There is some serious thunder goin on at the moment. No rain or lightening or anything I can detect, but the thunder is loud as fuck. makes it hard to sleep...

Tim Lincecum

is Filipino. Who knew?

Ender's Game

Third post on this book in about as many days; yes, I have a bit of an obsession with this story. After reading through it for the twentieth time (I swear no exaggeration, I used to read and reread and reread this book back in middle school. OK maybe not twenty times, maybe 15 or something), I was still awed by the story. Found it the most interesting I've ever found it, which I found a bit ironic, as I'm no longer anywhere near Ender's age, and I've read enough/been educated (whatever that means) to spot the short comings of the book and its story. Didn't care at all, loved everything about it. I used to only love the bits about Ender, about battle school. I always glossed over the Peter/Val parts, rushed to the end once he got to command school. Not this time. The two siblings fascinated me, probably cause they give you more perspective on Ender, or confirm some of his traits at least. Command school, cool as it is, just cannot measure up to the rest of the book. Everything up to command school is amazing, including his depressed time on the lake, but once he gets there it almost feels like this obligatory ending to the tale. Still great though. Want to read Speaker for the Dead now. Can't find my copy though. Sister probably has it, gotta go raid her bookshelf.

Continuing on

So reading this book, Ender's Game that is, I've been noticing why I love it so much. It's obvious really: Ender, the kid genius, he's everything I want to be, and so much of him I relate so strongly to. He doesn't like conflict or attention, he wants to be left alone. But there are always expectations, expecatations heaped onto him, mostly by his family. And o man his family. His parents, they act as if they love him, but he can see how they resent him. Their roles, in the end, are unimportant, his parents were merely a means for his existance. Ender didn't even truly care for his parents, he was invested wholy in his siblings, in their crazy love-hate relationship. It's some serious shit, and I relate to almost all of it.

URGE

Strange thing just happened to me. Was farting around, playin me a video game trying to relax when I suddenly got this irresistible urge to read Ender's Game. Like, really, I was zoning out when all of a sudden I just couldn't think of anything else. So I slammed down the controller, ran to my room, and pried Ender's Game from my bookshelf. And now here I am reading it. I'm not sure I've quite experienced anything quite like that, just a seriously strong urge to do something. Unfortunately I acted on this impulse, and now I find myself wrapped up in another one of my favorite nostalgic book series. Did I mention I finished the Harry Potters? Yea, all of em again, was fun. Guess I'll do Ender's Game and Speaker now, the other two...prbly not, just can not get through all the religion bits.