Since the advent of Division Play, the idea that you play every team in the league the same number of times has gone out the window, although even then your variability was only based on full divisions, not individual teams. Interleague Play has changed all of that. No longer is a league guaranteed to have a win-loss record of .500 among all its teams, and now schedules are even more unbalanced than they ever were. There’s the issue of the four team AL West compared with the six team NL Central too, which I am fully aware of as a Reds fan! This stuff is just harder to figure out than it was before.

So because of my renewed love for great statistical analysis sites, I thought I’d ask a question that’s probably been asked before: what offsets of win-loss can I use to better determine who the best team in baseball was against their own league?

I have two possible ideas on how to do this:

• Idea #1: Use a combination of team winning percentage and strength of schedule winning percentage to determine an “index number”. Anything above .500 in each is a positive number, below is negative. So, if you had a .600 winning percentage against .495 competition, you would have a .095 index (.100 – .005). The advantage is that it directly covers strength of schedule, the possible disadvantage is that it would be swayed in the favor of the league that won interleague play unfairly.
• Idea #2: Offset the team winning percentage by the league’s overall winning percentage. This would provide maybe a .005 max offset in one direction for one league and the other way for the other league, so you could try and put both leagues back on a level playing field. It would help the issue but I don’t think it would fully help explain the solution.

So which one is right? Let’s take a look. I was able to quickly find strength of schedule information for the 2008 season, so we will go back in time a little bit.

Info from ESPN Site: http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/rpi/_/year/2008

So the straight-up index, and really anything that just bases on strength of schedule shows bias (and probably fairly so) on behalf of the team with the better interleague record, in this case the AL. Their record this year was 150-102. While that does not seem like a lot of games spread out over 30 teams, it was enough to give the AL a total winning percentage of .511, and the NL .491. These are of course not evened out because of the different number of teams.

This is where Idea #2 comes into play! If you want to determine which team was the best in their respective league, you have to use an offset to basically eliminate Interleague play from the equation. So, for the second experiment, we’re going to just subtract .011 from each AL team’s winning percentage, and give each NL team a .009 boost. To add some spice to it too, I’m going to do the same thing for each team’s index number, so that strength of schedule is given proper emphasis too. This might allow the in-league strength (strong versus weak division) to come out as opposed to just overall strength of schedule. Here’s what we got:

Once these stats hit the mark, the best team in terms of how they played in-league, figuring or not figuring strength of schedule was the Chicago Cubs. Using this logic, I would be willing to make the argument that the team most deserving of home field in the World Series this year was the Cubs if they had made it. As it turned out, by luck I think it ended up right this particular year, as the Rays were the home team. Never mind that it didn’t help them much.

I believe that a lot of people would be willing to pay 800 or 1200 Microsoft Points for the ability to upgrade their Halo 2 and continue to play it. An updated client (or even a tool to adapt the maps and the game to the H3 engine) would be a cool way to bring 1080p to a great old game, to provide continued support, and to make some money. If 100,000 people were to buy such an add-on (and in the world of Halo, that’s not a big number), that’s a million bucks. Surely Microsoft or Bungle or someone can find a programmer who can code this up for a lot less than that.

Looking at it in the other direction, I can see why they would never want any part of this though. More people playing old Halo games means less people buying and playing newer Halo games, or at least they could feel this way. I don’t believe that’s the case, I instead think the fan base is vibrant enough that it would not make a dent in future sales, it would just be a quick and useful cash-in to an old game series, and while some people would view it as blatant, I would actually think of it as useful. Bungle has always been good about supporting their products for a long time, this might be a good way to do it!

What do you think? Do you think there’s room for just straight-up original-to-360 ports like this?

I noted this on Facebook the other day and had about three or four people look at me (from a virtual comment sense) like I had crossed eyes or something, but simply, I do not count myself as a video game collector anymore. Now by no means does this mean that I don’t still love video games, count it as at least a part of who I am (less than before, family does that to you), and still get games that I want to play. It just comes down to a few things.

1. Some of the stuff in my collection is just too expensive to keep. Take this cartridge I’m auctioning, it’s a great example. It may go for well over $100 before it’s all said and done. The last one that was auctioned, based on limited research, went for over $165. I think it’s cool to own it, but it’s just not that cool when you have other needs and you don’t think you will realistically play it soon.
2. When you’re single, you don’t ever believe that you’ll use an excuse like “Well, I have a wife and kids now”. Except one little problem. When you do have the wife and kids, you find that this excuse usually is where it’s at. Anthony’s formula is worth more than my rare game, that’s just how it is.
3. It’s getting harder to play the old stuff on new TV’s and newer hardware. Sad to say but it’s just simpler now to use emulators for a lot of the really old school systems, and in some cases, newer systems too. They give me more options, and with the adapters out now (which I am a huge fan of), you can play with the original controllers and still have that feel. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not 100% all in on everything being digital, but if I can have a way to play it where I control the rights, gray area or not, I can deal with that.
4. Time. This is probably also partially under the “wife and kids” moniker, but there’s not enough time to enjoy it all. There’s time to enjoy bits and pieces, and time in between for some aspects of it, but not to enjoy all of it. It just hits a time where it makes more sense for someone else to have it as part of their own collection.

So if you see me post on a few more cool things I am selling, don’t sweat it, it’s really not that big of a deal. Until I actually have the time to, I don’t know, complete something, I doubt I’ll feel bad about selling that game that I know I won’t get to play soon.

It has not been the best week to be a Bengals fan, the team lost a member of its family this week in Chris Henry to an accident during a domestic disturbance at the young age of 26, leaving a fiancee and three children behind. To say it’s tragic is an understatement, because it doesn’t hit at what’s really been lost here. Yes, those who are cynical can look up, and probably very rightfully say that with his past, his arrests, his maturity issues, that something like this was coming, even with him appearing to turn his life around and figure out how to deal with the fame and stress of being an NFL player. I prefer to look at it in another direction due to my own personal experience. What’s tragic is of course what was lost, a father, an immensely talented young man, but what’s most tragic to me is looking to see what COULD have been.

His death had led me to reflect quite a bit this week on my own losses in life, most notably that of my brother Jeff in 1997. Hard to believe it has been twelve and a half years since he’s been gone. If you don’t know the story, you can search the blog to read more (or keep reading for bits and pieces). There are a lot of very eerie correlations between my brother’s death and that of Chris Henry. Both were about the same age (Jeff was 27, Chris was 26), both had issues in their life and both at times appeared to finally be putting it all together to erase their past demons. Sadly, neither of them could, to some degree, those demons were their undoing.

I look at where I am now, nearly 30 years old (and yes, it’s scary to think I am now older than my brother ever was), married, with a baby boy, and then promptly look back to Jeff, and the saddest thought is to think about what could have been … the relationship we never fully had as big and little brother, any chance he had to put a life together greater than even his own, and what his mission in this world really could have been. I understand now that his missions in heaven where he is now are far greater than they ever could have been on Earth, that’s how I keep myself level thinking about the weird parallel of being an only child with a big brother (which is how it usually was), and seeing such a correlation in Chris Henry’s death brought so much of that back.

In the reactions of his teammates, Chad Ochocinco’s, Carson Palmer’s, you can see those same thoughts really abound, that of promise unfulfilled. I believe it to be true that many if not most people don’t ever fulfill the full promise of their lives, and that’s a more true metric of success than any single material thing or statistic, and as a Bengals fan, it makes me pull for the team even more now than I have before. I do believe their success this year as a 9-4 team in many ways resonates back to their heart and character, something that from a very superficial look through a sports window, I have often questioned. I won’t be doing that anymore. Chad was right on one thing, you can’t question what God’s plan for each person is, but it’s natural to, and sometimes it’s very unfair.

My prayers this weekend are with Chris’s entire family, with the Bengals organization, and with everyone in his life. I pray for them to play even more inspired football this week and for the rest of the year, not for my own selfish wishes as a fan, but as a tribute to the members of the Bengals family that aren’t here now. When Jeff passed away, I went and took a final exam at college the very next day, it was my escape, something to buffer myself from the sadness and grieving for a few minutes. I pray that the three hours the Bengals spend on the field in San Diego serves a similar outlet for the team, and that they rise up and play like they never have before.

The reason? It’s because you don’t now have to ask the theoretical question of whether TCU or Cincinnati was the better team and was more deserving, and sadly, that means in some twisted senseless logic, people will once again feel like the BCS worked. I for one do not believe that it did, but that’s neither here nor there. The point is that in a world where there is definitely tiers even within the BCS conferences, Texas and the SEC winner were always going to be #1 and #2, and it’s hard to argue against it, I really can’t. So, it stops mattering who is #3, #4, any of those.

What it likely also means is that UC will get an opportunity to prove just how good they are, when they likely play Florida. I sense that Florida will be a double-digit favorite, and heck, they probably should beat them, but it will be a very entertaining game. Oh yes, and why should Brian Kelly stay? Because the odds he’ll coach in a game this big at Notre Dame anytime soon isn’t real good, meaning the UC job truly is more attractive than Notre Dame, unless it’s all about money (and I sense UC will call Lindner and tell him to donate another $5 million to keep Kelly around anyways).

But, newer technology plugging in to older TV’s sometimes has its own set of pitfalls, one of which I was able to fix last night. Some games, such as Forza Motorsport 3, and the intros to all EA Sports games, feature an all-white background. When this happens, the screens begins to shake. Not drastically, but enough to give you a headache, big time! It took me about 30 minutes (and a second 360 due to our neighbor) to figure out that for some reason, the TV does not like when the 360 is set to 1080i as the highest resolution, it wants it set at 720p. So, it now is.

This might be one area (albeit for a very small number of users) where the PS3 has an advantage. It allows you to select all of the valid resolutions that your TV supports. So, if you had a monitor that could handle 720p and 1080p only (computer monitor with HDMI in?), you could set it that way and take 1080i out of the equation, or you could keep a LCD screen from ever backsliding all the way to 480i. The XBox 360 only allows for you to set a maximum resolution, so it leads to possibilities where some in-between resolution doesn’t play nice, and you can’t fix it, you’d merely be able to go lower than that resolution.

Problem solved though, interesting food for fodder for future dashboard updates (say that five times fast).

Apparently, it’s going to snow in Houston, Texas today. Yes, Houston! Even Galveston, an island in the Gulf Of Mexico is getting a trace. Something is wrong with the world where southern Texas at any point gets accumulating snow quicker than Columbus, Ohio! Still at that, the “realist” take is that in the last 100 years, Houston has had snow 34 times, ever. So, it’s not unheard of, but majorly weird. It is the earliest though.

As a sidebar, I’ve heard 2012 isn’t all that good. Now John Cusack trying to drive around Houston in the snow, that’s quality cinematography right there!

Secondarily, in listening to the Early Show as I woke up this morning, I heard Bob Schieffer (isn’t he floating somewhere around Ric Flair age at this point, between 110 and 120?!) make the following quote about the recent gate-crashing at an Obama State Dinner: “State dinners are part of the symbols of our democracy, like the White House itself, like the pledge of allegiance and the national anthem”. Wait, WHAT?!

Don’t get me wrong, it’s pretty amazing that the Secret Service lets someone in this far without an invite, and if they deem that to be a crime, go right ahead (I’m perfectly fine with the public shaming and hopefully their exit from any reality TV, I could care less for that stuff anyways), but a state dinner is part of the symbols of democracy?! No, a state winner is a way to schmooze some diplomats, overpay for food, and so something completely ornate and political. I value our pledge of allegiance (which if Anthony doesn’t have to say at the start of each school day, I’ll be incensed) and our national anthem (which I will stop for and put my hand over my heart if it’s on TV and Carl Lewis isn’t singing it) are true symbols. Bob, get your head out of your political tunnel vision and look at what real values might just be.

See, that was therapeutic, now go listen to Carl Lewis sing and comment about how I’ve ruined the rest of your day. Sorry!

No panicking though, the 1988 Super Bowl team did lose to the Chiefs, a team that ended up 4-11-1. So, this does happen, the question is the resiliency, and making sure they bounce right back.

Other game thoughts:

* No one by the name of Bruce Gradkowski should ever look comfortable in the pocket, but the Bengals did not get any pressure on him today. No, he wasn’t great, but even bad QB’s not named Jamarcus Russell can play well when they get all day to throw.

* Bernard Scott had himself a very nice day, and I’m glad to see it. With all the Larry Johnson talk this week, even though we know he won’t play much, it’s good to get a 100 yard game out of this very promising rookie to make sure the conversation is put away. He’s a solid #2 back and kick returner now, and should get plenty of opportunity to showcase both, good for him!

* Sebastian Janikowski and Shane Lechler are absolutely awesome kickers, but Lechler’s beard is horrible. Sorry, just stating it as I see it.

Other NFL thoughts:

* Not much sympathy for the Browns losing, but that is a tough way to do it. More importantly, Matt Stafford just elevated himself in my book for coming back out for that last throw. It was probably balsy and stupid, but if you make the play, you deserve the credit for toughing it out. Well done, Matt, consider the respect given.

* Thank goodness for the sake of the Bengals that the Steelers, the Browns, and the Ravens also lost, and all in close and sometimes devastating fashion. At 7-3, the Patriots and the Chargers are right there at the top of their divisions all vying for the #2 seed and the bye. The Bengals-Chargers game could well be an elimination game for that provided that they do not stumble, and the Pats need to win tough road games against the Saints and Dolphins or risk falling out of that race. Oh yeah, the Texans loom at the end, and they may well be fighting for a Wild Card.

Oh wait, it’s Week 12! Time to can this and move to next week!

I found in my garage about 90 Atari 2600 cartridges in a plastic tub. This by itself is not really newsworthy, but since there is a way to get something out of them, there is in fact a story there. Toys ‘R Us has recently begun to advertise that they accept classic games, stuff that no one else wants, including Atari 2600 cartridges! A look at their web site shows that while for almost all systems, they differentiate between new and used games. However, they do not do this for the 2600, just one SKU. This is where it begins to go downhill.

I proceed to take my plastic tub of games to the local Toys’ R Us. Yes, there’s some shock and comedy factor here. So, I get to the front counter of the store where I was directed, show them the games, and after it taking two people to realize what they actually were (these kids were born after the launch of the SUPER Nintendo after all), they dig for 10 minutes to find their trade in scanner book. Obviously, if no one knows where the trade in book is and it’s buried, they are not doing much of a job of pushing their trade-in program!

When they finally do this, which is already 15 minutes into the trip, they look and find that there are 2 SKU’s for everything, including Atari 2600 games, and when they scanned the SKU for a non-complete (yes, they want box and instructions) Atari 2600 game, it did not allow them to take it in. I showed them the web site, explained that their own corporate office does not require the box and instructions to receive their tiny sum of a quarter per game, but they didn’t care, the book said how to do it and they would not accept them. Oh yes, it took three people to say this, and the manager did not seem interested at all into taking any effort into helping. Completely did not care. So, I took the games and left, disappointed in my experience there.

If you’re paying attention, this is the Sawmill Road location in Columbus. Just in case someone is reading this.

So, it’s about 8:20 at night then, and not a lot of places are left open. Just for fun, I decided to take the tub of games to a local mom-and-pop store up in Powell to see if they would take the games and how much they’d offer. Figured that since they’re common Atari 2600 games, they’d have a ballpark pretty quick. I walk in with the plastic tub, let them know I’m looking to get some trade-in credit, and after one of the associates in a smart-allic response said they’d give “a nickel” for the games, they say it’s simply too late to figure it up and I’d need to bring the games back later. Not even basically, they admitted they are too lazy to look it up, didn’t want to deal with it and told me to go away.

Now, realize this. Your sign says you are open! Such laziness and the admission that they do not feel like doing work is exactly why many stores like that never succeed, they don’t care. I whispered under my breath how much I appreciated their laziness, and while I hope they heard it, I doubt they did. Disappointing was the word for Toys ‘R Us. Just embarrassed is the word for this video game store, their owner should be ashamed of their employees, not even willing to take 2 minutes and throw out a ballpark figure for the games. Who knows, they might have gotten a deal, I would have sure been willing to sell low, diaper money always wins.

By the way, this was the Play ‘N Trade on Polaris Parkway just west of Polaris Fashion Place. You too have also been called out.

So, the games will end up on eBay, someone who actually genuinely appreciates them will get them for their fair market value. In the end, it’s probably the best solution for everyone.

I want to preface this by saying I still love the store, but my experience there, like most places, is that you should do your research before getting there, get what you need, and get out before the vultures hit. Well, except for the floor manager, who seems very nice, and is also rather attractive!

I got to the store, helping someone I am working for on the side trying to find a good fit for a PC for them. Their goals were simple: good at web browsing, decent at still photos, does not have to be a powerhouse. As a result, I came across the Acer Aspire 3610. Cool “net top” form factor, enough power to be solid, 2 gigs of memory, and Windows 7. Thought it was out of stock, but their computer said they had three. When I got back to look at it with the two people I was with, their salesman shows up. He first ridicules my interest in the $329 nettop by calling it the same as a five-year old notebook.

Did I mention your $299 budget laptop that you pimp all the time actually had half the CPU that this Atom PC has?! Yeah, I did my research, and the numbers on a site like Passmark do not lie. Horribly inaccurate statement! He also said it was like a Pentium M, but this Atom has 20% more CPU power than the fastest most expensive Pentium M ever made, and it isn’t five years old. Also, off base.

I responded by kindly reminding him that I had done my research and the CPU was an upgrade from what they had (an Athlon 2800). He noted that the machine was horrible for video editing, I told him that this person did not NEED video editing, and that it had a NVidia Ion chip set inside to allow for video watching in HD. He obviously did not realize this, as he did not have a response for this. By this point, the conversation was very contentious.

He did point to the PC next to the Acer (the only good thing he did), which was a Quad Core Q8200 PC well outfitted for $449. This was indeed one hell of a good price, as every other PC that was even close to it in performance was over $500 by far. So, I had a legitimate option now. Pay a bit more, still get a more compact form factor and get massive performance (that may or may not be needed), or spend a little less, get the super-small form factor, but less processor. I ended up going with the $449 Acer instead.

This, unfortunately, means I had to talk to their crackpot salesman again to get one. Should have just walked over once I saw where they were! Anyways, he then asked what kind of anti-virus we used, obviously trying to up-sell me their NOD32 anti-virus, which I know is good, but I don’t feel like adding $50 to a sale that needs to be a budget one. I responded by saying that I’d typically use a free solution like AVG or avast. He begins to rant on about how they are no good, and I just smile, the kind of smile that said “I’m going to say no regardless of what you say, I do not want it, you are not listening.” He then proceeds to insult my intelligence by saying, and I quote, “I see you’re smiling, but AVG does only detect 30% of the viruses out there, avast is better, but you’re foolish to trust one of those”. I responded by saying we’d be fine, and walked away.

It all just leads me to two things. First, I’m going to file a complaint with Micro Center about him, his attitude to me was unacceptable, he asked no questions about what we actually needed, just trying to sluff off some machine on us to get his commission. Plus, he managed to insult an IT Pro by showing no common sense whatsoever! Micro Center ought to know that I find this unacceptible. The second is that I’m maintaining my normal attitude on any store like this. Know what you want ahead of time, find it yourself, and run like hell from anyone who wants to sell you something. I get needing to have commissions to help with sales, but help people get stuff they need, not just to line your pockets.

Micro Center, you got the sale, but you failed me on Saturday. Epic fail.