Momentous Happenings!

Well, the Bengals are 3-0! They went into Pittsburgh and came away with a win, despite not really playing very well, except in brief spurts. Maybe that's what it looks like when two good teams rip into each other, but both teams turned the ball over and looked pretty bad at times. But Pittsburgh turned the ball over more and looked worse, so the Bengals get the win! Now we play the Patriots in Cincy, coming off a pretty horrific loss to Denver. If they play like that again, they are going to get embarassed. Even if they play considerably better I still think we'll get another victory. These aren't the Patriots everyone's used to. The constant personnel turnover finally seems to be catching up to them and a lot of these new guys seem out of sync with Brady. And the defense has looked downright ordinary or worse.

Pittsburgh has the week off, so the major thorn in our side will be Baltimore, also in our division and also 3-0. But they're playing the Chargers, so chances are good Cincy will win and Baltimore will lose. Since the Chargers have looked frightening against inferior competition. Baltimore's been winning against inferior competition too, but they haven't been exactly scaring anybody doing it. Hopefully, by Sunday night the Bengals will have 4 wins, Baltimore will have their first loss, and everyone in the division will be looking up at Cinncinnati, the way it should be.

More big news, the latest pokemon games, Pokemon Diamond and Pokemon Pearl have been released in Japan, and the Intarweb is positively bursting with information from canny sources across the Pacific. On the whole what I've seen is encouraging. There aren't as many new pokemon as people were hoping, but that's always the case. It almost doesn't matter how many new pokemon there are, people will always wish there were more. Like always some of the new pokemon look really cool and some look... less cool. I'm excited about the new starting pokemon (three pokemon you choose among to get your first pokemon at the beginning of each game). Specifically, the water type starter (I usually favor either the water or fire type starter). Finally we have a penguin pokemon! And what a penguin! It's final evolution is a dual type Water-Steel pokemon! The first ever Water-Steel type. And that's not the only new type combination. We also have Fighting-Poison and Dark-Poison, Grass-Ice (which is a weird one) and Fire-Steel. One of the other starters evolves into a Grass-Ground type which I can't recall happening before, though it's possible there's another one. A bunch of new Ghost types, which is interesting.

I think one reason people are a little disappointed at the number of "new" pokemon is that some of them are just evolutions of old pokemon, which is cool, but still... not quite as thilling. Anyway, the main things I'm excited about, apart from the Steel Penguin of Doom, are the new moves that will be available to teach your pokemon and the changes to the battle system. They've doubled the number of moves that can be learned via technical machine and introduced loads of new moves, including a bunch of Bug type moves that look like they'll finally be useful. Before these games, Bug types weren't too useful because there were really only about 2 or 3 good bug moves. 4 at the most, and most Bug types couldn't even learn the good bug moves. Some Bug types couldn't learn any goddamn bug moves at all. Pinsir was probably about the second or third best Bug pokemon out there... except that he can't learn any Bug type moves so there's nothing he can do that another type of pokemon can't do better. Seriously, there were only four Bug moves that did more than 20 damage and they were pretty restricted as to who could learn them. None of them were technical machine moves. The best Bug move of all could only be learned by one Bug pokemon, Heracross, admittedly the very best Bug type, but you would hope that they'd toss the other Bug pokemon a bone at least. And now they finally have. But the new Bug moves are only the tip of the new moves iceberg. Tons of new fighting and psychic moves, a bunch of new Steel type moves (hello Steel Penguin of Doom!), I honestly think every type got at least one new, really useful and awesome, move. So that's nice.

As far as the changes to the battle system go, there's been some whining, but I think that this is a no-brainer improvement that they probably wish they'd thought of sooner. In the past, each pokemon type was either Physical or Special. That is, their attacks did either physical damage, governed by the Attack statistic (high Attack equals higher damage), or special damage, governed by the Special Attack statistic (high Special Attack equals higher damage). For example, Normal type attacks did physical damage and Electric type attacks did special damage. So, if you were a Normal type pokemon you wanted a high Attack stat and if you were an Electric type you wanted a high Special Attack stat, (ideally you actually wanted both, but if you had to choose...). The problem is that this system royally screwed quite a few pokemon. The most obvious example I can think of right now being Sneasel. Sneasel is a Dark-Ice type pokemon with fantastic Speed, great Attack, ordinary Defenses and pitiful Special Attack. Unfortunately, Dark and Ice are both Special types. So, if you really wanted to use Sneasel to his fullest... you couldn't. You could either teach him typed moves (which get a bonus) and put up with the low Special stat, or teach him cross-type moves and put up with the fact that another pokemon would be able to use those moves much better.Now, however, each individual move will be either physical or special (depending I think on whether the attack involves actual physical contact or not) rather than each type. For instance, Ice Punch used to be a Special attack because it was an Ice type move. Now, it's a Physical attack because it's a punch. Ice Beam, another Ice type move, remains a Special Attack because it doesn't involve actually striking the other pokemon, your pokemon fires a bolt of ice energy at the other pokemon. Perhaps that's the best way to think of the change: matter and energy... Oh well. Nobody actually wants to read about this anyway. Next!

Dave and I went to see Erin McKeown last night, and WOW! She is a performer, pure and simple. Gifted singer, songwriter and guitar player, yes, all true; but, plain and simple her greatest asset is just old-fashioned showmanship. She just has it, and you can really appreciate it when the opening act (let me just apologize to Annie McCue now, since she really wasn't bad and I'm picking on her) is as essentially competent as Erin's was. Good songs, good musicians, good singing, Annie McCue (sorry!) just doesn't have it. Nothing you can complain about really, and it's a shame and I feel bad but Erin just blew her out of the sky from the first note she played onward. I mean, Erin played the guitar and she had a drummer and that was it (plus some kind of effects pedal) but somehow when they played they had more sound somehow than Annie's whole band managed. I'm just going to stop comparing the two and confine myself to saying that the show was awesome, Erin was awesome and I'm really looking forward to her new album, which she said will be out in January. I can't believe I'm looking forward to an album of jazz standards, but I am.

This weekend looks to be a lot of fun. Matt and Dave want to see that Jesus Camp movie, which looks much scarier than anything that Rob or Monica ever watch. And on Saturday Toys R Us is going to be trading Mew to people's Pokemon games, I've never had a Mew before as the only way to get him was either at a Nintendo event or else to cheat. So, that'll be exciting. On Sunday, the Tribe is meeting for breakfast at the Original Pancake House and then the Bengals will be playing at 4 so I'll be conducting a fact-finding mission over at Mills' to see if his new HD service and extra channels are really up to snuff. Afterward, Rob just told me that the Roughriders replay will on, on Sunday and that he might tape it and watch it later that night, so that would be fun too. Wow, I'm not sure I can fit all this in. And didn't I want to go to Mongolian Barbecue? And Rob and Monica's wedding is in, like, two weeks! Wow, okay, I'm just going to pace myself. Starting now.

Operation TIPS, away!

Tiny Additional Post

That's why I try not to do current events posts. There's no way to keep them "brief". Anyway, I just wanted to register "big-ups" here to my Senator. Senator John Warner. Not the most visible of the "Human Rights Four" or whatever they end up being called, but he's probably the most important since he's the chairman of the freaking committee where all of this is going down. Johnny-boy, there have been times since the last election that I regretted voting for you back in... whenever it was, but you have come up strong here and reminded me why I voted for you. I may not always agree with you, but at least I can respect you. You have some integrity and principles, and there are some lines you will not cross. And I respect that. So, let's hear it for Senator Warner! As for Senator Allen... please just go away. Allen Update: During a recent debate with his opponent, Pseudo-Democrat Jim Webb, Senator Allen was asked about his mother's possible Jewish heritage, specifically, was she (and thus Allen, according to rabinnical law at least) in fact Jewish? Allen simply went apeshit and shouted at the reporter that asked the question, visibly angry, about leaving his mother out of it and keeping religion out of the campaign and that she (the reporter) shouldn't be "casting aspersions" on people. Wow.

Since when is mentioning a possible Jewish ancestry "casting aspersions"? Psycho. The man himself has mentioned several times that his grandfather (mother's father) was sent to Auschwitz by the Nazis. Was he sent there for being too True-Blue American or something? Whatever, Allen's a dipshit. I'm really hoping he gets shown the door in November.

Bon Voyage!

Things Can Only Get Better

Things Can Only Get Better! Current mood: Charmander! Char!

So,

Today marks the end of another spectacular week of Bengals football. Not only did the Bengals plow through another hapless opponent (in this case the Cleveland Browns) but... Pittsburgh lost! On Monday Night Football no less. To Jacksonville, who, frankly, looked scary, but that's a moot point until the playoffs, as we don't play Jacksonville this year. As of this writing we are a game ahead of the Steelers and we're going into Pittsburgh this week in a position to do ourselves a lot of good and silence a lot of critics who thought that the Steelers and Ravens were the teams to watch in the AFC North this year.

The Ravens of course kept pace with us by beating the Raiders, which is annoying, but I can't get too worried about the Ravens until they actually beat a halfway decent team and start taking advantage on offense of all the opportunities their defense wins them against inferior competition. Yes, the score was grim for the Raiders, but those points mostly came on field goals and the Ravens mostly looked ugly on the offensive side of the ball. I suspect that when the Bengals play the Raiders, it's going to be much worse. Closer to 50 than 30 probably. Although Coach Lewis does seem to try and show teams mercy in the 4th quarter so it may not be as bad as it could. Anyway, the Bengals go to Pittsburgh on Sunday and they're going to play a team that really hasn't looked very good yet this year. Yes, the defense has been good, but it didn't look as scary as Jacksonville's, and on offense they really haven't gotten much going. They almost lost to the Dolphins in Week 1 for crying out loud. They look beatable and it looks like the Bengals are coming to town at just the right time. Very excited about this game.

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: let's talk about it. Alright, I just got it today and so far it's... alright. Really easy, almost to the point of boredom, but not quite. Part of it is the little quiz they gave me ended up making me a bulbasaur, which is lame. At least I've got a Squirtle as my partner, but still. I've only recruited one other pokemon so far, a Magnemite, and I have hopes that the game will pick up as I play. So far, like I said... it's alright.

I have to go to a seminar at Potomac Mills tomorrow. I have to get something like12 more hours of continuing education before the end of the year in order to keep up my title license and tomorrow I pick up two hours. Two hours with Jeannette and Amy. Then lunch! Then I drive back to Fairfax and work for another 3 hours at least. The good thing about it is that it does mean missing office time. About 45 minutes to get there, 2 hours there, an hour for lunch at least 45 minutes to get back. So, yeah, if I breeze in at 2pm that will actually be about right. Not like a day off or anything. But probably better than sitting at my desk. We'll see.

I feel obliged to do a brief current events thing here. The President's proposed bill to allow "high value detainees" to be interrogated using "alternative methods" should make every American ashamed of what's happening in this country. Let's not dick around here, let's say exactly what we mean. The President of the United States, not the President of Kazakhstan or Uzbekistan or Turkmenistan - The President of the God-Damned United States of America - wants Congress to pass a law authorizing the Pentagon and the CIA to torture people that they suspect might be terrorists. These are the people they had in their SECRET PRISONS, not the people in Guantanomo Bay, because, whoops, it turns out most of those people didn't actually do anything. Well, they probably did something, but it was most likely something like piss off one of their neighbors who turned them into one of the local militias in Afghanistan as an Al Queda member so that their neighbor could collect the bounty offered by the Americans. That's us, in case you forgot. Pretty much the entire Republican Party seems like they have. We're Americans. We don't torture people. The Nazis tortured people. Stalin tortured people. WE DON'T FUCKING TORTURE PEOPLE! If it wasn't so fucking obvious it would be in the Bill of Rights. Oh wait, it is. Cruel and Unusual Punishment blah-blah-blah. Oh well. Sorry, darkies, you should have been born in America.

Okay, so there have been breakdowns in our human rights respecting awesomeness before. Smallpox blankets for Native Americans, dissenters and pacifists jailed indefinitely, American citizens of Japanese Ancestry herded into camps; but it's never been this bad before. It was always done in the darkness and everyone was at least ashamed when they found out. Not now. Nope, the President calls a press conference and is sending his smallpox blanket bill to Congress.

There are so many worst parts to all this that I can't decide which is the worst, worst part. One of the very worst, worst parts though is the fairly persistent and hard to ignore subtext of this bill. The shifty eyes when they discuss it, the guilty schoolboy body language that practically screams "We really, really need this law because we've kind of already been doing this for 4 or 5 years and when the full extent of all this inevitably comes to light under a Democratic administration, we'd rather not be prosecuted and sent to prison forever". Yeah, I imagine none of them relish the thought of going on trial for torture or crimes against humanity or whatever and having to take the stand and claim they were only following orders. That doesn't really go over too well these days.

I really think that's the main reason they want this bill now. Torturing people is such a stupid idea that they can't really want it just to be able to do it. I mean, yeah, you get people to talk under torture, but you can't believe anything they say because they're only talking so you'll stop torturing them. If that was all this was about I think they'd just drop the idea quietly and try to cut taxes again. But I really think they're starting to get worried about what's going to happen if the Democrats regain control of Congress or the White House and start throwing some sunlight (and subpoenas) on all these little legal blackholes they've set up.

The other reason they're doing this of course is the one of the other very worst, worst parts about this mess. The gradual corrosion of our democratic process. In other words, politics. One of the top 5 plays in the Republican playbook goes something like this:

Pick an issue, doesn't really matter what, let's say welfare for instance. Put together the most evil welfare bill you possibly can. Have it include putting anyone without a job through a meat grinder and sold to low income families as a food source. Their kids will be put in orphanages run by the Department of Corrections. Whatever, doesn't matter what you put in it because nobody with a soul will ever vote for it, so it's never going to make it into law. You have a slim majority in the House so you can ram it through more or less intact. Now the fun starts. Practically every single Democrat possesses at least a rudimentary soul, so they all voted against the bill. Run to the highest hilltop you can find and start screaming about how the Democrats want to give anybody that's too lazy to get a job a Rolls Royce and a New York Penthouse with the taxpayers money and that's why they voted against your evil, evil bill. You can do this in complete safety because no one will ever know what is actually in the bill. No newspaper or TV anchor will ever use the phrase "this bill is the work of Beelzebub and actually caused my conscience to start screaming like the damned when I read it". No. They will talk about how the bill contains some "extreme" provisions favored by "hardliners" the examples they use will actually be some of the tamer items, and they will reassure everyone that most of the "extreme" stuff will be removed in the final version by the Senate. This is true. You also have a small majority in the Senate, but Senators aren't as easy to push around as House members and there are at least 5 or 6 Republican Senators that can vaguely remember what it was like to have souls if they concentrate. So a deal is cut to bring Senator John Reasonable (R) Arizona or Senator Lincoln Moderate (R) Rhode Island on board. You cut out all the truly insane stuff and end up with a bill that merely forces single mothers to get three jobs and leave their kids at home to take care of each other. During this whole process you continue to wail about how the Democrats don't care about regular hard-working Americans to anyone that will listen to you. Have a big rally of your supporters and take a few semi-good-natured potshots at Senator Reasonable for screwing everything up. The new, incredibly harsh but at least no one's going to be eating Soylent Green bill passes both Houses of Congress on a near party-line vote and the President signs it into law while decrying the "Democratic obstructionism" that prevented a truly "revolutionary solution" from being implemented. Chuckle to yourself briefly before going on Hannity and Colmes to scream about how all the Democrats are Communists that want to give all your money to poor people so they can spend it on heroin.
That's basically what's happening on this torture bill, except that the 4 Republican Senators aren't going lukewarm over their opposition they way they usually would, talking about "differences" or "tweaks" or "softening" the bill. They are getting right in Bush's face and doing everything but calling him a traitor and Nazi. They have their own bill this time. They're calling in big guns. They are not being polite. So, this kind of backfired this time. The Democrats aren't saying a word and the Republicans are so busy fighting each other that they don't really have time to make their point about how Democrats are too chicken-shit to even torture people to protect America. So, sad.

On a final note, apparently the pope said something kind of bad about Islam? Something about it being a nasty religion that was spread by the sword? And Muslims everywhere are reacting like Terrapins fans after they win a National Championship? Newsflash to everyone: At some point in its history, EVERY religion was a nasty religion that was spread by the sword. Even the Jews had their turn, very early on in the game. Alright fine. Except for Wicca. Sorry, Wiccans.

Admiral Halsey, out.

Whatever...

Current mood: Squibbeldy-doo!


So, it's been awhile, but I'm back, and so are the Cincinnati Bengals! That's right, the mighty Bengals jumped back into action on Sunday with a triumphant 23-10 drubbing of the Chiefs, including knocking their quarterback out of the game entirely with a concussion. The Bengals may have very well re-written the face of the AFC West since with Trent Green out for at least two more games, my reading is that the division is now down to the Chargers and Broncos. The path to the division title just got much easier for one of those teams. As far as the Bengals go, the defense seems much improved, and the offense... well, supposedly defenses get revved up quicker than offenses as the season starts, so hopefully the offense will look much better this week. Not that they looked SO bad, but the didn't look like themselves from last year. Not like the unit that finished 6th in the league last year. However the Chiefs finished 1st in offense last year and they didn't look so great either.

Oh well, there's now a three-way tie for the division lead in the AFC North as the Bengals, Ravens and Steelers all won. Hopefully, Jacksonville can hand the Steelers a loss and the Bengals will beat Cleveland this week. On to other business.Well, it's been a while, but I'm going to go ahead and do the reviews I promised the last time I posted. As much as I can remember anyway, and I'll toss in some bonus reviews to take up any slack. Okay, here goes:

Pirates of the Caribbean - Very Good

Civilization IV - Incredibly Awesome

Nintendo DS - Fantastic, go buy one

Mario Kart DS - Ditto

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon - Coming soon....

Gotta go. Later.