All Your Base Are Belong To Us — The Kip Lange Homepage

Now, look at this link and watch the exchange if you haven’t seen it yet.

This all has to do with a call between Kerry and McCain where many speculate Kerry was feeling out McCain as a possible VP candidate.

I don’t see this as McCain getting angry. But, of course, the Times reporter threw in the invevitable, “Why are you so angry?” comment, to try to make some kind of incredibly weak point.

McCain has acknowledged the call between him and Kerry, he has not hid it, and no, he did not run as John Kerry’s running mate. I think somebody might remember if he had.

Again, though, watch this video and tell me how this is an “angry” response. Curt, clipped, annoyed, maybe, but not angry.

It’s spring training time and that means it’s time to pick up a copy of a good baseball videogame.

I, myself, loved the EA games, until EA dropped out of the race. Then I switched over to MLB 2k7 last year and I was suitably impressed; one of the lead designers for the EA series helped revamped it. The result was pretty much a clone of the EA games.

Last year, Sony tossed us MLB ’07: The Show. While visually impressive, The Show didn’t deliver on a number of promises and fell short of MLB 2k7. It suffered some of the same problems as Sony’s NBA ’08 — too far from real life.

This year, Sony is back with a vengeance with the new MLB ’08. The game has been overhauled seriously, and now it’s not just eye candy. For the record, MLB 2k8 runs at a much slower framerate than MLB ’08s smooth 60 FPS.

This year, The Show is easy to transition into. You’ll get the hang of the easy two-click pitching meter and the batting system (which, again, is largely a clone of EA’s original concept, further developed by MLB 2k7 last year). Built-in tips guide you along easily. The Show has been upgraded in every little detail. One of the most impressive things this year is the addition of an enormous amount of statistics. You have a wealth of information at your fingertips when pitching or batting to pull up. Very, very cool.

MLB ’08: The Show — Eye candy finally meets great gameplay (click picture for full resolution image)

I tried MLB 2k8 very briefly and was disappointed with the framerate, the lack of improvement over last year’s offering, and went with Sony’s MLB ’08: The Show. This time, Sony got it right.

MLB 2k8 is still a solid game, and probably your only real offering unless you have a PS3 (The Show is exclusive to the PS3).

The real strength of The Show is the small changes they’ve made. A quick meter you can pull up to evaluate your last swing. The ability to save a game in mid-game. Roster updates roughly every two weeks. Give it a chance and you’ll see what I’m talking about. And often, in sports videogames, it’s the little things that make the difference.

Of course, The Show remains far better than MLB 2k8 in terms of graphics. So this year, I say, if you’ve got a PS3, give MLB ’08: The Show a try.

One closing note — they’ve really done a good job redoing the popular “Road to the Show” mode, where you guide a player from the minors up to the majors. Last year it pretty much centered on hitting a lot of home runs; this year, the goals are much more varied and the mode is much more entertaining.

Just to get all my football feelings out at the moment, there is one thing I’m a little excited about.

As I’ve posted earlier, there is one and only one college football team I will ever root for, and that team is Cal. For those of you who don’t know (and I’ve always found this to be a surprisingly large number of people), Cal is the University of California at Berkeley. Yes, hippie-ass Berkeley is a PAC-10 powerhouse (well, usually — after Nate Longshore went down this year, they struggled mightily).

Anyway, point is, Aaron Rodgers is a Cal alum and will be taking the reins (as far as we know) from Brett Favre next year, stepping up as the new quarterback for the Green Bay Packers.

Now, Rodgers’ few outings with the Packers have not been exactly breathtaking. But I am very interested to see what a couple of years under Brett Favre’s wing will do to Rodgers.

I hope Rodgers shakes the rookie jitters as fast as possible and makes his mark for the Packers.

Whatever happens, it will be very interesting to see how he plays next year (of course, it’s not just up to Rodgers; the key to a quarterback’s success is inexorably tied to the success of the offensive line, which should be clear to anyone who watched this year’s Superbowl).

I wish Rodgers luck and wish him the best in the upcoming season. That is, as long as he doesn’t knock the Patriots or the Raiders out of the playoffs. 🙂

First, let me predicate this by saying that I think Troy Brown is a class act who has given his all to the Patriots in his years here. I also think he was a hell of a player.

I say “was” because, as most Pats fan will know, Troy Brown, who is the all-time leader in receptions for the Patriots (557), did not catch a single pass last season and played in only one game (not the Superbowl).

Most people have expected Troy Brown to quietly retire this year. However, Brown is not at all settled on the matter.

I think that it’s time for Troy Brown to go. I know how much he loves the game. There’s no doubt in my mind about that. But there comes a time for every football player where he has to decide to drop out or “die onstage”, as William F. Buckley, Jr., put it when he resigned as editor of The National Review. In this case, we’re talking about figuratively dying. Brown will not play next year. He will ride the bench.

There’s nothing dishonorable about that but I wish Troy would bow out now, leaving behind him an amazing career and the love of fans all across the nation. It’s what Brett Favre did, and I think Favre also made the right decision.

In other words, I’m saying, Troy Brown should bow out while he’s still on top. This is just my opinion.

Either way, Troy Brown remains one of those people who, to me, define what football is all about. He captures all of the intangibles.

I wish him luck whatever decision he makes.

And in other football news…

Brett Favre has finally bowed out of his 17-year football career.

I’m not a huge fan of the Packers, but…I would have liked to have seen Favre make the Superbowl this year. He certainly cleaned up his passing game, making a lot fewer of those trademark Favre shuffle-passes which were always pretty to watch but always so dangerous…

Still one of the best quarterbacks of all time.

Yep. Pats locked down Moss for three years and $27 million.

Of course, the Pats need Moss a lot more than Moss needs them, given his “resurrection” last season.

I’ve always loved Moss, even when he was supposedly doggin’ it with the Raiders (my favorite team for several years, until the goddamn tuck-rule knocked them out of the playoffs…I hate the tuck rule…I loathe the tuck-rule…I still think they invented it on the damn spot…).

Apparently the CDC and others misjudged which flu strains were going to be coming out this winter. This has ended up with the flu vaccine this year protecting against about only 40% of the flu strains out there. Normally the flu shot fights around 70%-90% of the flu strains.

I can also tell you, anecdotally, that I have met a number of people who have caught the real flu this year even though they got their flu shot.

Now, for young and healthy people, this isn’t so important; they can survive the flu, nasty as it is. What is very important is to let the people at risk of dying from the flu know about this. Those people are senior citizens and anybody who has an immune system problem (a victim of AIDS, for example).

I’m not trying to scare anybody, I just want those at risk to know that they have a much higher chance of getting the flu this year despite being vaccinated. So stay away from people who’ve had the flu if you can, and wash your hands after being a in a public place.

This is really important for those at risk of dying from the flu. Please spread the word on this one for me, if you can.

Another group of people who should watch out for this are people who work or care for senior citizens or people with immune system problems. If you get the flu, stay the hell away from your job for a little bit; try not to spread it. Again, wash your hands regularly.

Yes, yes, even if you’re a liberal, I still want you to watch out for the flu this year. 🙂

Alright, Obama and McCain are starting to take shots at each other. Not that bad yet, but here we go.

McCain derided Obama’s comments that he would go “back into” Iraq if al-Qaida surfaced there, pointing out that “al-Qaida is in Iraq. It’s called ‘al-Qaida in Iraq.'”

Obama fired back saying:

“There was no such thing as al-Qaida in Iraq until George Bush and John McCain decided to invade Iraq…”

I’m sorry, but that’s blatantly false. Iraq was a safe haven for terrorists for decades (yes, we did help them against Iran, I know), and al-Qaida, or al-Qaeda, or however the hell you want to spell it, has had Iraqi ties for decades. There was such a thing as al-Qaida in Iraq before we went in. I’m sorry. They were there.

Obama knows this. He’s not a stupid man. He also knows this is a dispute that can go on and on and on. The Iraqi regime under Saddam was not exactly a transparent one.

But, for the record, that statement is simply false. If Obama said that our presence in Iraq had drawn more al-Qaida members there, perhaps I could agree with that. To say that there was no al-Qaida in Iraq before we got there is…being really naive on foreign policy.

And, just a side note, for the love of God, could we all agree on the way to spell al-Qaida? I go with al-Qaeda myself. It’s driving me nuts, though.

Even if you swallow Obama’s comment whole without blinking, the fact still remains that al-Qaida is on the ropes in Iraq at the moment, in large part due to the troop surge that McCain supported (he always supported going in with larger numbers, but Rumsfeld would never listen to those who called for that, preferring his own misguided vision of “smaller, elite units” doing the fighting — and simply ignoring the Powell Doctrine of overwhelming force).

William F. Buckley has died.

This is a truly sad day for me. William F. Buckley is a personal hero of mine, a founder of the modern conservative movement. His essay “God and Man at Yale” remains one of the cornerstone pieces of conservative philosophy.

And we’re talking true conservative here. He was a fiscal conservative, a philosophical conservative…he supported legalizing marijuana, as well as a number of other drugs…he was all about small government, and all about giving the power to people.

His famous quote that he “would rather live in a society governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston phone directory than in one governed by the 2,000 members of the Harvard faculty” still applies today — more than ever.

Buckley is also famous for being the founder of the National Review.

You can bash if you want, you can praise if you want…but for once, I will not publish any responses to this blog post, be they positive, negative, or neutral. This post stands alone.

Like Buckley once stood alone, for what he believed in.

William F. Buckley
1925-2008

I was asked to have a “fun time defending this jerk” (John McCain), who today apologized for comments that he didn’t even make, ones that were made by a talk-radio host introducing McCain — who slammed Obama and repeated his middle name over and over (gee, I wonder why anyone would repeat “Barack Hussein Obama” over and over *cough* fearmongering *cough*).

Then, of course, after McCain took full responsibility for remarks he didn’t even make, within hours, Rush Limbaugh was mocking him with his usual vitriol for — being a nice guy? Having some sense of integrity?

Is there any doubt left that, of the three politicians left standing (I’m not counting Huckabee, here), two of them are decent guys and one is not afraid to use the “kitchen sink” attack on her opponent in the primary?

Yes, it’s tough as hell to defend a decent guy and an authentic hero, I gotta say.

And is there any doubt left that the oozing pus-filled sore that is the Clinton Machine will do anything to get elected? I may not agree with Barack Obama on…well, almost everything…but I do think he’s a decent guy who doesn’t deserve to be smeared by a power-lusting bitch who is lashing out now that she’s cornered.