My review of Heavenly Sword (PS3)

First I want to say that I don’t normally write game reviews. Reading through a table of contents for this blog might demonstrate that fact. But, I want to note that this is possibly something I’m going to do more of as my experience with the PS3 grows.

In this episode, I’m going to talk about my experiences and thoughts on Heavenly Sword. The title is only out on PS3 as far as I know. It features time-segmented chapters that guide our main character Nariko through a personal hell with a sword that has the power to banish evil in the hands of its proper beholder. Nariko and her clansmen, including her father Shem, are the last clan of the land to remain free from the unitarian rule of King Bohan, who also seeks the sword as an emblem to demonstrate his power.

The story begins at the end. This is one of those games where you don’t need the instruction manual to tell you how to play; when you encounter something for the first time, the game pauses to teach you how to do it. I think that’s a plus; some people would be annoyed by it. But, the story (the game) begins at the end. Soon after, it begins the “real” game with a trip back in time to learn how the end at the beginning came to be.

Over the chapterized episodes of the story, Nariko (and sometimes her friend Kai) works through pre-defined routes and basically just kicks a lot of ass that leads back to an ultimate good vs. evil fight at the end, which comes full circle back to the beginning of the game.

On the story, I think it’s one of the better stories out there for this type of first-person hack/slash game. Graphically, it’s amazing - especially in the cutscenes, but even during gameplay at a very fast pace, the game and the motions are just wonderfully done.

However, I thought the game needed a bit more freestyle - the possiblity of multiple paths to achieve the same outcome - where some paths are riskier but more rewarding and others are more tame but more mediocre in the end. It is certainly not that kind of game. There are very few places where Nariko or Kai have any choice as to how they can complete an episode.

Being fair, the main focus of this game is hand-to-hand, combination ass whipping courtesy of the heavenly sword itself. It’s a literal button-mashing frenzy that leaves little to be desired for those who enjoy games like mortal kombat or its likes. While it’s combo heavy, it lacks in things like the ability to aim easily. There are many points in the game where you either have to shoot something or throw something, and it’s difficult to aim in some spots because of the movement system, which is pretty NSEW and doesn’t do very well with corner movements.

The boss fights are pretty ho-hum. Yes, they’re difficult at first, but once you learn how to counter-attack properly (in like chapter 2) then these fights are really not that difficult. Even the last fight of the game is not hard for a player who can counter properly and consistently.

Once you beat the game, you unlock a new mode called “Hell mode”. I didn’t bother to try it; I’d had my fill of hack by the time I beat it the first time.

Overall - I’d rate Heavenly Sword with the following scores:
Gameplay: 8
Challenge: 6
Graphics: 10
Fun factor: 8.5
Replay value: 7.5
Total: 8.25

Would I recommend this game to someone else? Yes, if you can find a used copy. Don’t spend $60 for a new one.

Post your Mario Kart Wii friend number here

Sign your name and your ID to hook up online and do some racing. I will add anyone who posts their number. My friend code is:

0774-4678-5003

You Might be a Soccer Mom if…

I’m not quite done with this post yet, but I’m going to go ahead and publish it anyway. I’m sure that I’ll get mixed reviews since I have a pretty cynical, mixed gender audience. I mean to entertain as well as offer up some personal frustrations associated with living in Denver, the land of the California transplants cross-bred with 400k illegal immigrants - if it’s not funny, no refunds; you’re not obligated to read.

Here’s a not so new take on a concept that is recently just getting me more and more upset with American society - behold, the advent of the soccer mom and her place in the world. Much akin to the redneck in many regards, I have uncovered several behavioral habits and nuances and made several observations which may help you to identify if you are indeed one of this breed. I’m sorry if you are.

You might be a soccer mom if…

• …you own more down vests than you own jackets.
• …you have ever ordered Starbucks (or its equivalent) as decaf 1/2 skim 1/2 soy nofoam nowhip
• …every one of your children wears crocs in the snow
• …your primary means of communication with other people is by cell phone. while driving. and drinking your coffee.
• …you never take the time to properly park your larger-than-the-parking-space SUV.
• …long-sleeved turtleneck shirts are the extent of your fashion sense.
• …your pants get tucked in to your boots, no matter the season. Even in summer.
• …you traded in an SUV, mid-size sedan, or a minivan to get a new, roomier minivan with captain’s chairs
• …you refuse to put gas in your own car because “that’s my husband’s job” tee hee hee when actually you don’t know how to use the gas pump.
• …you own more foldable beach/lawn chairs than wooden ones. If you use both indoors, then you may be a redneck soccer mom.
• …you let your kids wander off in a store so you can have some peace and quiet for your cell phone conversation. about what your friends are wearing. and why they should go see a hair stylist.
• …you keep more food in the minivan for the kids than in the cupboards.
• …you drink “chai” because one of your cell phone friends says it’s healthy, and you believe her.
• …you actually have kids that play soccer, but you have no idea how the game is played.
• …you actually have kids that play soccer, and you are rabid with the airhorn every time your kid gets a touch.
• …your idea of “going out to eat” is hitting a McDonalds or Chik-fil-A with an indoor playground so the kids can play instead of eat.
• …the highlight of your day is when one of your cellphone friends actually calls you when you’re driving.
• …your idea of competition is keeping up with your soccer mom neighbors’ purchases.
• …you’ve ever hosted a partylite, tupperware, amway, pampered chef or mary kay party for which you are not the “distributor” or “agent”
• …you have ever been an agent for a pyramid scheme goods company and tattooed your ambition on your car(s) with decals.

So, I Now Have a PS3

Eventually, I knew this would happen; eventually, I knew there would be a line crossed from which the temptation could not be overcome; eventually, I knew that I would find myself owning one of Sony’s most love-hate debated toys, the convexoconvex-shaped obsidian-black PS3.  I have the 40GB model, which means I was also treated to a comp of Spiderman 3 (THWIPP!) on Blu-Ray and I got a single sixaxis controller, but that was about it.

My first thought was something like “damn this hog is heavy” when I compare it to the Wii, which is about the size and weight of 3 DVD cases stacked together.  Granted, the Wii isn’t the biggest badass in gaming over the last year+ and it isn’t the most highly rated fun machine in the universe … oh wait, yeah it is.  Ok so granted, the Wii doesn’t advertise 1080p graphics and Blu-Ray playback, but my dissertation on the Wii is a different post.  The point is, the PS3 is a big bitch, and she’s got a fat ass to go with it; must be a Georgia girl.

Of course I had to have a game with it to justify taking it out of the box.  My game of choice - Rock Band.  As the proud owner of GH3 on Wii, and a prior owner of GH2 and GH2 80’s encore both on PS2, I have to admit that I’m pretty sold on the GH line of games except for the coming title that is GH:Aerosmith.  While I believe Joe Perry is one of the iconic music figures of the last 30 years, there are a zillion people who don’t think so and the target audience for GH:Aerosmith is going to be the 30+ crowd since today’s heavy gamers aren’t old enough to truly respect Aerosmith’s heyday.  Anyway, second sidebar finished.  I got Rock Band.  I love it. 

Most people who are experience GH players will say Rock Band is “too easy” in its guitar parts.  What I’ve played of the guitar sets, comparing the “Hard” level difficulty on both games, I am inclined to agree that GH3 is “harder” than Rock Band at the end of the game.  I haven’t played through Rock Band on “Expert” with the guitar yet so I don’t know how it stacks up.  HOWEVER, that is where the comparisons effectively end.  In every other way - from character creation to online play to downloadable music (I’m biased here b/c of GH3 on Wii and RB on PS3) to just the overall soundtrack of the game - RB is hands down better than GH3.  Plus, if I get bored of “Green Grass and High Tides Forever” on expert, I can always plug in the microphone and sing while I play for an added challenge that GH3 could never provide.  My only knock on Rock Band is that there should be a tour mode available for the bass guitar parts - bass is pretty fun in RB.

Back to the PS3 itself.  I found the “home” menu a little unwieldy, honestly.  Sure it has all of the options, but the fishbone layout is nearly awful and some features aren’t where I’d expect them to be in their main menu categories.  The sixaxis controller, regardless of the palindrome, is actually pretty nice once it gets a full charge - I learned that I could just charge it off of my PC instead of leaving the PS3 on for years, so that helped.  My one other knock on the PS3 overall is that it doesn’t have a standby mode.  It is either fully on or fully off with no happy medium.  But that is where the Wii smokes it with its messaging protocol/feature.  My blue Wii lights are flashing right now, even.

What I need in order to make the PS3 a mainstay at home - some family titles like stuff I could do with my boys.  Assassin’s Creed doesn’t quite cut it, neither does COD4, Heavenly Sword or GTA4, though those titles would be great for me by myself.  The EA sports line just won’t ever make it at my house because, except for Tiger Woods’ golf games, their sports games blow.  The other thing that needs to happen here is that Sony needs to branch out and stop reaching into only the heaviest gamer genres with their titles.  They could certainly take a lesson from Nintendo on this one.  But, now that the Blu-Ray versus HD-DVD (HHD DVVDD BVD for those in the know) battle is officially over, it looks like PS3 sales are going to have a leg to stand on, finally.

Who will win? IE8 vs Firefox 3

As a disclaimer, this discussion will probably not be technical enough to satisfy the extremely passionate readers who have an opinion on one side or another.  Further, the release cycles aren’t exactly in sync - as of this writing, IE8 has a developer-focused beta 1 available, while Mozilla is nearer release with Firefox 3 now in beta 4.

I’ve had IE8’s beta1 for around a week now.  What really turns me on to IE8 is that the development team at MS is really trying to produce a next-gen browser capable of supporting standards for things like CSS 2.1 and HTML5.  MS touts IE8 as a release aimed at creating and promoting interoperability - of course we have learned that we cannot place much trust in MS press releases about how good their products are going to be or even which features they will ultimately contain.  In this case, however, I believe MS has some must-deliver goods on the table and the ultimate fate of IE’s viability hangs in the balance with this release.

Despite being the de facto browser for millions of PC users that know no better, it’s the developers who are writing these new, rich Internet multimedia technologies that are going to swing the pendulum one way or the other with IE8.  If Joe User gets random crashes and badly rendered stuff in IE8, but gold-plated mastery in Firefox, then Joe is probably going to convert.  The same is true for the converse - where people find Firefox to suck they will usually go with IE (I mean Windows users).

One interesting addition in IE8 that I want to see is the WebSlices feature.  In my beta1 I’ve gotten it to work once but it was on static text in a page that holds little value.  The point of webslices are to serve as mini-feeds that web services can implement/call and provide info back to the user without requiring the user to be in that webspace to do it.  I love this function; I want to see it work first, though, before I start throwing myself at it.

But what about Firefox 3?  First of all, unlike IE8, the Firefox project has their product requirements document publicly available on the Mozilla wiki.  Some of the interesting features I pulled from the requirements document myself:

• Integrate with Vista Parental Controls
• Revised download manager
• Support for Linux ATK (accessibility)
• Several security improvements

I guess what I mean to say is that, it’s not a rewrite-style release like IE8, so the list of features isn’t going to include a bunch of grandiose “make the Internet cooler” type requirements.  The honest truth is that IE8 is trying to catch up with and arguably surpass the capabilities of Firefox.  While Firefox does have CSS issues from time to time - especially on sites that were written specifically for IE5.5 or IE6 - its version 2 evolved from feedback about what people wanted in IE but were less likely to “get”.

Ultimately, one of these browsers will prevail.  For completely unrelated reasons, I’m going to say that Firefox is the real winner regardless of IE8’s potential successes.  Corporate America is slowly moving its desktop users away from MS platforms and onto either Macs or Linux distributions (semantics at this level).  I personally would like nothing more than to convert my laptop from Windows XP SP2 to something like K/Ubuntu or Fedora.  In the Linux space, Firefox pretty much reigns though the flavors of browsing technology begin to vary vastly into personal preference when dealing with higher computer literacy percentages; the point there is that there’s no home for IE on Linux, and little welcome for it on Mac.

I’m starting a professional blog

To all 92000 of my faithful readers,

Though the vast majority of you are actually scripts run by comment spammers that need to be castrated, I do understand that there are some humans actually tuning in to my RSS feed, and I thank you for your interest in my otherwise uneventful life.  I feel obligated to inform you that I will be spinning up a blog related to my profession, and that it will likely consume most of my blogging efforts once I put it online.  As of this writing, I do not have a host; I may or may not use wordpress because the *.wordpress.com address structure is blocked by my corporate web filter (nothing that proxify can’t solve), but I may go a different route.

Most of my readers don’t know what I do for a living; over the next month or so you’ll find out.  I will update this post with the URL once I create it.

Is Super Tuesday Really all that Super?

Do I even need to type anything in this post? Ok, so round abouts half of the delegates to select each party’s candidate for president is up for grabs on 2/5. My state (of Colorado) is one of them; honestly I haven’t heard jack about it on either side. As a disclaimer I refuse to watch network television anymore because it is all shows about either sex, money, drugs, or crime; usually a combination of at least 2 of those. But I listen to the radio in my car, and I hear nothing. What’s more is that my city (being Denver) is hosting the damned DNC this year, and nobody is campaigning here.

Maybe I should say, “does that fact that someone comes here to campaign actually matter to me?” to which the answer is “probably not”. I don’t base my vote on who arrives at their pep rally closest to my house first. While I am a registered democrat, I really could give a rat’s ass about which party I vote for. I’m going to vote for the person with whom I can most directly identify my priorities as their priorities; right now that isn’t anyone because no one is campaigning in Colorado. Our 9 votes aren’t worth jack even though this state is always very close to 50/50 in partisan races.

So, is it really super Tuesday? Or is it just another “wake up and go to work but take 15 90 minutes off to go vote” Tuesday?

2007 Wrapup and Predictions Readback

Now that we’re here at the end of 2007, let’s take a look back at what I predicted would happen this year and see how close (or not close) I was.  Then, let’s look at my resolutions and see if I held true to any of them.

Predictions

Random thoughts

• Everyone will have exactly one birthday except people born on February 29th. No aging for you! true
• Americans will drive their cars an average of 14000 miles per family true
• Someone will try to claim a world record for yet another useless body feature (there were arm hair and eyebrow hair last year) possibly true. I need to verify

Celebrity Stuff

I’m not a huge gossip fan, but some things are irresistible — predicting the antics of our beloved celebrities is one of them.

• Jessica Simpson will get pregnant with her new husband. didn’t happen
• Eva Longoria will either get pregnant or divorced with/from Tony Parker didn’t happen (at least we don’t know if she’s pregnant)
• Tom Cruise will do something even more annoying than in 2006, possibly with Katie’s help true
• Hayden Panettiere will be rumored to be dating some diva’s husband despite being under 18. didn’t happen, but her lesbian affair comments came close.
• Miss USA 2006, Tara Conner, will be in Playboy after her reign is over. didn’t happen
• Paris Hilton will get pregnant. It’ll be a girl that ends up dating Britney’s younger son in about 10 years. didn’t happen, but she’s trying
• Angelina and Brad will adopt another baby from some third-world country true

Non-Celebrity Entertainment
Stuff that entertains us which isn’t about particular celebrities

• JK Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will become the best-selling children’s book of all time, and will be mostly read by adults 18-29. true
• Voldemort and Snape will be the 2 primary characters that die in the last HP book. this was true.  Technically Harry died as well, but he also lived.
• There will be more bad movies made than good ones “Blonde Ambition”? this was true.
• The season finale of Heroes will be an anti-climactic one that people hate.  true, because of the writer’s strike. Season 1 finale was pretty good.
• The new iPod will suck in a way where people hate it I think people like the iPod Touch.
• Nintendo’s Wii will continue to outdistance PS3 in sales, by a widening margin  very true.
• More movies will be watched via Comcast OnDemand than HBO and Showtime combined. also true. COD logged more than 1.5billion views this year.

National Affairs
These are classified as things that will happen around the country or in other countries related to US-stuff.

• At least 1000 more soldiers will be killed in action in Iraq. I’ll be having a morbid contest to let readers guess the exact total and, at the end of the year, the closest entry will win something (I need time to set this up)  true
• The President will make at least 10 more bad decisions to keep whoever the next President is from getting anything done because they’ll have to clean up his mess for 4 years. true.
• Muhammad Ali will succumb to his illness (I hate to predict death, but I see this coming). didn’t happen
• The price of gas will go back up to above $3/gal in the US for more than a month. Please understand if you’re viewing from a country where that seems cheap that the US doesn’t place much of a tax on energy and energy sources, like gasoline. Whereas in countries like Japan, energy is one of the most highly taxed things nationwide (and the cheap gas is about 110yen/liter). true; still true today

Sports
Sports-related predictions

• USC will be the NCAA football pre-season #1 team next season this was true
• My beloved Georgia Bulldogs will win the SEC championship and will finish the season in the top 5. they did not win the conference but they are the #5 team
• The Super Bowl will be won by either the Broncos or the Chargers, and preferably the Broncos. probably false 
• The Yankees will not win the World Series despite their payroll true; the Red Sox won.
• Mark McGwire will be on the Hall of Fame ballot but not get elected because of the whole performance enhancers issue (though Mark only took andro, which was legal when he took it). If I had a vote, he’d be in. true
• Barry Bonds will break Hank Aaron’s record, then he’ll sit out and whine about his knee the rest of the season he did break the record, but then he platooned
• Brett Favre will retire but still have the hunger for the game didn’t happen
• The Broncos will trade/cut/waive Jake Plummer true

Resolutions
I won’t make many, because I hate being held to my word if it’s convenient:

1. Of the 60% of resolutions I am serious about, 90% will be broken by March 31. At least 1 will hold until at least July 1.
2. Continue to prognosticate things that may happen.
3. Drink as much as I feel is appropriate for a situation.
4. 5000 hits on this blog!
5. Complete masters program.
6. Get a lunch date with Erin Andrews and Rachel Nichols. half true; I had lunch with Erin Andrews in July.
7. Get a lunch date with Nora Zehetner.  didn’t happen

Does Santa Claus exist? Of course!

update: I posted this last year; I’m reposting it for 2007.
update: I made very minor updates to this post on 12/28/06
(Most of this historical information is from Wikipedia)

Around 350AD, a Greek Orthodox bishop of Myra in Asia Minor named Nikolaos, now called Hagios Nikolaos died. In Greek, Hagios Nikolaos means “Saint Nicholas”. Nicholas was famous for his generous gifts to the poor, in particular presenting the three impoverished daughters of a pious Christian with dowries so that they would not have to become prostitutes. He was born at Patara, province of Lycia, Asia Minor. He was very religious from an early age and devoted his life entirely to Christianity.

In Europe (more precisely the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria and Germany) he is still portrayed as a bearded bishop in canonical robes. (the canonical robes of ancient Greek Orthodox bishops where what color? Yes, red). The relics of St. Nicholas were transported to Bari in southern Italy by some enterprising Italian merchants; a basilica was constructed in 1087 to house them and the area became a pilgrimage site for the devout. Saint Nicholas became revered by many as the patron saint of seamen, merchants, archers, children, prostitutes, pharmacists, lawyers, pawnbrokers, prisoners, the city of Amsterdam and of Russia.

WordPress’ own Parallel Divergence is running an article on how Google Earth killed Santa. I thoroughly enjoy their take on how kids are smarter than parents think these days. In reply, I must say that Santa not only lived, but he is already dead (and somewhat thankfully not at the hands of Google Earth). It’s the spirit of the Greek Orthodox saint we know as Santa Claus which lives on today. It’s just unfortunate that Americans bastardize it in such a grandiose fashion.

Is this what I tell my kids? Absolutely. Why spoil their minds with known lies when the truth about Santa Claus is so much easier to explain? I hear all you soccer moms right now spouting off under your breath about how ridiculous it sounds to teach kids that Santa Claus is dead. Let me ask you people something: Why is Santa Claus a part of Christmas? I bet you don’t know the answer. He lived nearly 4 centuries after your Jesus of Nazareth, yet we so rampantly (and don’t get my wheels spinning on this side subject) spend billions of dollars (nearly 500 billion in 2005) between the fourth Friday in November and December 24th in hopes to somehow satisfy our kids’ needs mindlessly while not remembering the 2 main things happening on December 25th. Attention soccer moms: What are the 2 things celebrated on Christmas Day? I bet you don’t know the answer. I bet Bible-thumping Laura Mallory doesn’t even know the answer. If you do know the answer, why are you out spending an average of $816 on gifts?

Here’s some advice: go back and get in your Yukon, your Suburban, your Lexus SUV, and go to the mall (and learn how to park those damn hogs properly). Go stand in line at Starbucks and order the cafe mocha halfsoy halfskim nowhip nofoam (more commands than a linux boot prompt). Go over to R.E.I and try on all the newest goose down vests and argue with your little snobby kids about which shade of lavender better matches your skis and your Dooney & Bourke handbag. Go spend all your husband’s money on stuff your mindlessly disobedient kid is going to use for 10 minutes and then dismiss as stupid because you have no idea what he likes. If this is you, then do us a favor and don’t have any more kids. All we need is another generation of soccer moms.

Yes, I tell my children that Santa Claus is a Christian saint who lived and died in the 4th century and was generous to the poor (what do you mean you haven’t taught your kids about death?); I tell my boys that Christmas should remind them what it means to be generous to others who have less than they do; I tell my children that any gifts they get any time of the year are a result of their own generosity, and so they should try to give whenever possible. What I do not tell my children is that Santa Claus brings them presents, because it’s a lie; I do not lead them to believe that they must obey my every command for an entire year or they will get nothing, because that’s a lie; I do not let my children get disillusioned by fairy tales of some fat man in a red suit flying through the sky with a herd of reindeer delivering gifts to every kid in the world in about a 10 hour span, because it’s a lie (and also because this gift exchange is not on 12/25 all over the world, if you think it is, please stop thinking).

In summary, yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. It’s unfortunate, though, that you will probably never know the real truth because your parents are probably too stupid to know.

BCS Playoffs - 2007 Matchups

Let’s assume for a minute that the NCAA’s FBS, that would be the organization formerly known as Division 1-A, were to institute a playoff system with this years teams.  And just for laughs let’s say it’s a 16-team tournament even though the top 10 teams are the only “BCS bowl” team under the current hokey-ass, lamefied system.  Using that bracket as a basis (go to ESPN if you can’t visualize a 16-team bracket), let’s look at what the matchups would be and which one would be the “best”.  Also, yell loudly when you spot a “bad” game in any round.

First Round:
1 Ohio State vs 16 Tennessee
8 Kansas vs 9 West Virginia

5 Georgia vs 12 Florida
4 Oklahoma vs 13 Illinois (I’m yelling loudly)

3 Virginia Tech vs 14 Boston College
6 Missouri vs 11 Arizona State

7 USC vs 10 Hawaii
2 LSU vs 15 Clemson

The best matchup in this round, if you ask me, is USC vs Hawaii.  I’m tempted to say it’s UGA versus Florida in a rematch of the annual world’s largest cocktail party, but honestly Florida should be scared of UGA right now.  So no, USC vs Hawaii.  We’re talking about Petey Carroll and his pretty boy JD Bootylicious with all that offense taking on Juniper Jones and Colt 45 Brennan and all their offense.  Neither team really does well on defense - yeah, ok USC at least fields 11 capable athletes, but let’s face it that their defense is the reason they’re not in the top 3.

Best chance for an upset:  Arizona State over Missouri in my book.  Though it’s not really an upset, I think WV would take out Kansas as well.  My picks are in bold.

Second Round:
1 Ohio State vs 9 West Virginia
5 Georgia vs 4 Oklahoma
3 Virginia Tech vs 11 Arizona State
7 USC vs 2 LSU

The best game in this round, and probably the best matchup you are going to get out of these teams, is Georgia vs Oklahoma.  Face facts folks, at the end of the 2007 season, Oklahoma is scary good - Georgia is omfg scary good.  Let’s also realize that Georgia was 1 triple overtime Tennessee game versus Kentucky away from being in the SEC title game against LSU, whom they would have taken behind the woodshed and been ranked #1 or #2 at the end of the season - frankly I think they are the hottest team in college football right now - maybe they weren’t for the whole season, but for right now, they are executing with the most horsepower.  But what makes this matchup so great is that Oklahoma is the true #2 team in my opinion.  OU got lots of dap for winning the Big 12 with pollsters, but found themselves at #4 regardless.  Sadly, only one team can move forward, and I’m picking Georgia in a close, physical battle.

Best upset chance: West Virginia destroys Ohio State in a laugher.

Semifinals:
9 West Virginia vs 5 Georgia
3 Virginia Tech vs 2 LSU

I just raved about UGA, so I’ll talk about why VT will beat LSU.  It’s because of Les Miles and his general inability to manage a game; in this match he’s going to do something boneheaded and it’s going to cost his hard-working team the game.  Not to discredit VT, because they are going to put points on the board vs LSU’s mediocre secondary and “hey he breathed on me so throw a flag” mentality.  This team may be spouting about “we were only 2x 3OT losses away from being undefeated”, but at that point, a loss is a loss - if you’re a good enough team, win the game in four quarters and keep your panties on your waist whining about triple overtime.  if your defense could hold a goal line, they wouldn’t have lost either game anyway.  I’ve got VT over LSU somewhere in the 31-20 range.

Championship Game:
5 Georgia vs 3 Virginia Tech

Yes, so it comes down to this for all the hypothetical marbles you want to throw into the circle.  As I already said, Georgia is omfg scary good right now.  Like cakerockstheparty said in such eloquent words, the dawgs are “out for blood”, Turnbull A.C.’s be damned.  I’ve got them taking this tournament against VT in a game somewhere around 27-23 - a close one.

So, if you’re a Georgia fan, let me hear some love! 

Will college football ever see a playoff? Yes.  Will we be old, crotchety men shaking our canes at the TV by then? Maybe.

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