Fantasy Baseball 2009 – Ryan Howard and Ichiro

I’m getting excited already for baseball of both the real and fantasy varieties.  Apparently, ESPN has their player projections and rankings up, which is nice despite some key players like Manny Ramirez not being signed and still a lot of starting positions being up in the air.  After looking at their projections and rankings, I thought I would talk about a couple players who I think will cost far too much on draft day than they’ll be worth: Ryan Howard and Ichiro.

Ryan Howard (20th overall) and Ichiro (21) are ranked way too highly for guys who will hurt you in certain categories.  My first thought is that someone like Howard should be paired with Ichiro, as they balance out each others weaknesses (AVG and RBI/HRs respectively).  But what happens if you pair them together?  This is more than conceivable if you’re picking 1st overall and take Howard and Ichiro at the turn for your 2nd and 3rd round picks.  Averaging their ESPN-projected stats together, you get two players with stats of 103 RBI, 90 R, 27 HR, 17 SB, .280 AVG.  That’s a good player, but is that a 2nd/3rd rounder?  I don’t think that is someone you want much more than the projections of Brandon Phillips (34) or  Jason Bay (37).

I also don’t understand why Ichiro is a dozen spots in front of Carl Crawford (33), who is projected for more HRs, almost 50% more RBI(!), and more SB.  This at least balances out Ichiro’s other advantages.  Also, do people actually want Ichiro more than Ian Kinsler (26), whose stats are at least as good and plays 2B?

What is even more amazing is that Ryan Howard is more than 90 spots over a very comparable player.  If you’ve read this far, you can probably guess that this player is Adam Dunn (112).  Dunn is better than a poor man’s Howard – he’s more of a middle class man’s Howard.  He’ll probably end up just a bit lower than Howard in everything except SBs, but they’re closer than you think.  If you’re in a league where you can punt a category (H2H leagues in general), punting batting average with players like Howard, Dunn, Chris Young, Carlos Pena, and some younger players with possible contact problems like Jay Bruce and Justin Upton could be a pretty interesting strategy.

Arbitrary song of the day: The Rolling Stones – Play With Fire

Zack and Miri Make a Porno

Zack and Miri Make a Porno is very, how do you say… directed by Kevin Smith.  His dialogue snaps like it always has and is perfectly channeled through Seth Rogen as Zack.  Elizabeth Banks pulls off the role of guy’s girl Miri pretty well, though she’s still JD’s love interest Kim Briggs as far as I’m concerned.  Anyway, the two are broke roommates who have been living in Monroeville (the Pittsburgh suburb of Dawn of the Dead fame) for their entire lives.  While attending a class reunion, Zack and Miri meet gay porn star Brandon St. Randy played by Justin Long, who already has a decent porn name.  Eventually, the two figure that shooting a porno could make them some fast cash.  With the help of their friend and newfound producer Delaney (played by Craig Robinson of The Office), they put together a ragtag group to shoot their movie.

From there, the plot unfolds like you would expect with Zack and Miri discovering their true feelings for each other and that disrupting the making of their porno.  I don’t feel like that is a spoiler, as there really aren’t any surprises along the way.  I don’t have a problem with a predictable plot on its own; if the witty dialogue keeps me laughing, I’m satisified.  However, the second half falls a bit flat as the necessary exposition overtakes the humor.

For all the business with the film having to appeal its MPAA rating of NC-17 down to R, there wasn’t that much nudity in it.  In fact, I think if there was any less, it would put the film in the same class as The Amateurs – a film afraid of its own premise.  But then I don’t pretend to understand anything about the MPAA’s rating system, which puts torture porn like The Passion of the Christ at the same level of as The Matrix.

As I mentioned above, the film takes place and is shot in Monroeville and Pittsburgh.  Zack and Miri both have Penguins gear in the opening sequence and we later meet a drunken Steelers fan.  One of the scenes near the end of the film takes place outside of the Mellon Arena and we’re given a few shots of downtown Pittsburgh.

All in all, Zack and Miri is a generally hilarious film with a functional plot that survives on its wit and characters.  Oh, and stick around after the credits for the full ending.

Arbitrary song of the day: Akon – Never Gonna Get It

9 Rules for Room Escape Game Developers

Room escape games are a subgenre of the point-and-click adventure games of old.  They’re typically done in Flash and released for free on the interwebs.  The basic plot of a room escape game is that you are locked in a room for a reason that may not be clear and you must escape.  There are puzzles, keys, codes, and such that you must solve in order to accomplish this.  It’s kind of like a miniature game of Myst that takes place in a single room.

A typical scene in a room escape game (image from the game "Vision")

Anyway, so I’ve been playing a few room escape games recently.  I’ve played a few before, but I didn’t realize just how many of these games there are.  As I played through a couple good ones and a couple bad ones, some basic rules occurred to me that I think anyone who makes one of these games should follow.

1. Avoid “hunt-the-pixel“ – Games are supposed to be fun.  I do not want to infuriated by your game to the point of committing a minor homicide.  If I have to use the built-in Flash “Zoom In” option in order to click on your marble, IT IS TOO SMALL!  This seems extremely obvious to me, but somehow developers still fail to follow it.

2. Make the item interactions logical – If I have a battery in my inventory, it makes sense for me to insert it into radio in order to make the radio function.  If I have a fire poker in my inventory, it DOES NOT make sense for to use it to turn on the television.  No one wants to feel like they have to try every single item on every other object to see if something magically unexpected happens.

3. Don’t make your clues impossible – I don’t mind having to bust out a piece of paper.  In fact, I like it when I have to write down a few things; it makes me feel smart.  However, I don’t like when I have a sheet full of stuff and none of it matches up.  If even after looking at a walkthrough it doesn’t make sense to me, you might want to rethink that particular puzzle.

4. Make everything count – If I can zoom in on it, it better be useful at some point.  This is sort of like the Chekov’s gun of adventure games: “If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don’t put it there.”  No empty drawers, no meaningless potted plants, no extra animations.  God help you if you intentionally add in something to throw players off track.

5. Keep items simple – Don’t have a million items.  In particular, don’t make there be more items than I can carry at once.  This is just an artificial inconvenience that gets in the way of fun.  And when an item is no longer useful, get rid of it!  And once an item is properly used, don’t let me pick it up again.  I don’t want to have to try the scissors on anything that looks cuttable for the rest of the game.

6. No audio puzzles – This applies in any adventure game really.  Has anyone after completing an audio puzzle ever thought: “Wow, that wasn’t the worst experience of my life at all”?

7. Have decent graphics – This might seem a bit shallow, but if I’m going to spend an hour or so looking at what is essentially four images, I would like them to look nice.  I’m not going to bother with something that looks like it was done with the polygon tool in MS Paint.

8. No people – Part of the fun of room escape games is the feeling of isolation and solitariness.  I don’t want to see my own character or anyone else.  If it was good enough for Myst, it’s good enough for you.

9. No outside knowledge necessary (including language) – I shouldn’t need to Google for any scientific data or obscure symbology in order to solve your puzzle.  Additionally, dialogue and written words should be avoided for both atmospheric reasons as well as for cross-language compatibility (letters are ok).  The language thing is especially important since a lot of these type of games seem to be produced by Japanese developers.

Most room escape games violate a few of the above rules.  Some, however, manage to violate almost all of them, such as the inappropriately titled “Escape Pear Room 2009” which violates all but #8.  The best room escape game I’ve played is probably Neutral’s “Vision“, which violates virtually none of the rules.  All of Neutral’s room escape games are actually quite good, so play any of those after you beat “Vision”.

Also, there seems to be a disproportionate number of Christmas-themed room escape games.  Is there something about Christmas that makes people want to escape rooms?

Arbitrary song of the day: Pavement – Stereo

Jan Švankmajer’s Faust

Faust (1994) is director Jan Švankmajer’s retelling of the tale of Doctor Faust, a man who makes a literal deal with the devil for knowledge.  The 16th century German story is brought into 20th century Prague, which apparently is full partially abandoned buildings and dank basements.  Through the first act, our Everyman wanders through these creepy locations with little dialogue, which adds to the haunting atmosphere (as my roommate put it, he’s like a creepy Mr. Bean – indeed, Everyman looks like Rowan Atkinson).  He eventually encounters an alchemy lab and manages to whip up some sort of golem terror-baby.

Do not mess with Terror-Baby.

After becoming Faust through a play, he encounters some moderately scary human-sized marionettes, including an angel, a demon, and a jester who sounds like Terrance and Phillip (in the English dub at least).  Additionally, the Devil’s intimidating intonations sound a lot like this.  The marionettes are involved in rhythmic scenes which possess a degree of repetition.  In the case of the jester, much of this is used to a humorous effect, such as when he goes in search of someone in Prague to protect Faust from the Devil.  This intentionally out-of-place scene works like a hidden camera TV show, as the people on the street don’t seem to be aware of a film being shot.

This is only my second Švankmajer film, but it seems that one of his habits is his use of grating sound effects.  In Alice (1988), he used all sorts of mechanical glitchy noises and the girl’s voice.  The chatter of the marionette’s teeth and an assortment of other bizarre effects is a bit unnerving, but not quite to the extent of Alice.  While not as visually stimulating as Alice, partly due to most of Faust being live action, the film is still quite creepy and not very difficult to get into.

Arbitrary song of the day: The Seatbelts – Elm

February 2009 Mix CD

Hey, maybe I’ll try to do one of these a month.  Every time I burn a mix CD, I feel like there’s no chance I’ll be able to find enough new (new for me at least) music I like for the next one.  So far though, this hasn’t happened.  I’d say about half of these tracks I hadn’t heard before a month ago.  Anyways, here’s the track listing:

1. Mindless Self Indulgence – Stupid MF
2. Electric Six – Improper Dancing (“STOP… CONTINUE!”  How can you not love that?)
3. VHS or Beta – Night on Fire
4. Klaxons – Atlantis to Interzone (a very strong A-B-A-B structure; the two sections have dramatically different tempos)
5. Beck – Soul of a Man (probably my favorite track off of last year’s Modern Guilt)
6. The Bug – Skeng (I’m not really a dubstep fan, but I really like the deep vocals on this one despite that I can’t understand them.  Anyway, I think hip hop is where dubstep should be – without vocals, it’s unremarkable at best.)
7. Björk – Declare Independence (There are some insane noises on this one which don’t really make any sense on their own.  But once the kick comes in, you’ll see that this one is a stomper.)
8. High Places – Head Spins (Extended Mix) (if this is the “extended mix” at 2:21 – how long is the original?  also recommend is the Allez-Allez Remix)
9. Air France – Collapsing at Your Doorstep (it’s the big reverbed snare hits that make this tune for me)
10. Kraftwerk – The Model
11. Bloc Party – Signs (tinkly synths that I love – is Bloc Party better now without the guitars?  There weren’t really any tracks on Intimacy that I disliked)
12. David Bowie – All the Madmen (I actually downloaded this accidentally while trying to get the song “The Who Sold the World”, but I like this song much better – I mean, panflutes?  You are the man, Bowie)
13. Asobi Seksu – Nefi+Girly (I really wish I could understand vocalist Yuki Chikudate in the English songs, but the big shoegazing riffs coupled with her high, breezy voice makes it too difficult for me)
14. Klaxons – Golden Skans
15. Fujiya & Miyagi – Knickerbocker
16. Supergrass – Pumping on Your Stereo (this track took me forever to remember what it was – I remembered the awesome muppet-y video that I saw on 120 Minutes, but couldn’t remember the band  – I thought it was by Super Furry Animals)
17. The (International) Noise Conspiracy – The Reproduction of Death
18. Asobi Seksu – Strawberries
19. The Cranberries – Dreams
20. Interpol – Leif Erikson (Dear Interpol, Please make another Turn on the Bright Lights.  Sincerely, The World)
21. The National – Green Gloves (I like to end with a solemn/sad sort of song, and this is really the only one that fits the bill on this mix)

Arbitrary song of the day: Run-D.M.C. – It’s Like That (Jason Nevins Mix)