This morning I played a game of online baseball on the PS3 and it lasted for 18 innings. I was losing to the Angels 3-0 in the 8th inning, but my Dodgers put up 3 runs to tie it. From there it stayed tied until the 18th inning. Brad Penny came in for relief and pitched almost an entire game. In the bottom of the 18th Jeff Kent came up and knocked one over the wall to win the game. Very satisfying feeling! You can check the box score here.

On the way home we were driving on the freeway, and traffic was moving really well. Then the guy in front of me started to brake and put on his turn signal. Then at the last minute he swerved to avoid some debris in our lane, leaving me ZERO time to get out of the way. If you see something in the road a long ways out, don’t swerve at the last minute. He could have stopped completely! But no, I got to hit some remnants of a bumper or something and get nice big scratches on the front of the new car. Ugh. Now I’ve got to take it in to the body shop for something small and pay my $250 deductible. Turd.

In better news, the baby’s room is moving along. Everything is painted and I put up new blinds. Our stroller is on the way from Target that we bought with gift cards from Grandpa. We still need to pick out baby furniture, but Stacie has seen some that she likes. She went yesterday with a friend and registered for a bunch of stuff at Babies R Us. You can visit our baby’s registry here!

I love video games, but it’s more accurate to say I love baseball games. I bought a PS3 just for a baseball game, and the first pictures from the new version have been released.

I used to play other games like Starcraft, Counter-strike, Warcraft, and various platformers, but the only thing that holds my interest now are baseball games. It’s all I need.

We find out if we’re having a human baby today, and if we are, then hopefully the gender also. Because we don’t know yet, there has been little preparation needed. I’m sure once we find out things will kick into high gear. I’m kind of hoping for a girl just so I don’t have to paint the purple wall.

One baby prep I’ve been working on is getting the computer and PS3 off the living room floor and moved under the TV. I thought I had a solution by removing the shelf and stacking the computer and receiver on top of each other, but it only leaves a quarter inch of breathing room for the receiver, which isn’t good. I bought a smaller HTPC case that should be here soon. And frankly it won’t look as silly either.

Apparently I’m one of the few people that didn’t get Rockband yesterday. Two buddies at work got it and so did Angelo. I dunno…I played guitar hero 3 the other week, and it was fun, but not enough to devote hours of my life to it. I’d rather devote hours of my life to playing fictional baseball games. When Saito gets a strikeout in the 9th and we’re only up by 1 I pump my fist in the living room. It’s awesome.

OK, back to the doldrums of a 5 day weekend.

I was tired of the Wii’s super slow wireless connection. Granted it sits below the TV, a terrible spot, but downloads would sit and sit and do nothing. Finally bought a Wii Lan Adapter. The Wii is now hardwired just like the PS3 and downloads and internet are quick and reliable.

There is a new channel on the Wii called “Check Mii Out.” It lets people post their Miis and other people can rate them. The best part is that they are having contests where you have to design a Mii for a specific topic, and then judge them. So far they’ve done Mario with no hat, and someone who would be at the first thanksgiving. My first entry in the Thanksgiving one was a skinny white guy with a lot of hair and a bushy beard, but my second try was 100x better. It’s an Indian looking guy named Squanto. Maybe I’ll win!

We’ve been playing Zack and Wiki, and I must say it is way cool. Solving the puzzles in this game are much more satisfying than solving a puzzle in Zelda. I think Mario Galaxy would be fun too, but I’m too busy playing The Show on PS3.

Stacie got a gift card to Best Buy for her birthday, so we’ve been looking for a good video game for her to get. We decided on Zack and Wiki for the Wii. It’s basically a point and click adventure game kinda like the old Monkey Island games. I’d been pushing her to try out Mario Galaxy, but the videos and more intense control scheme didn’t excite her as much. Zack and Wiki is a very easy game to control, but is difficult enough to challenge an adult. Last night I headed over to the local store to get it, and so far she really likes it! Mario Galaxy does look like a lot of fun, but I’m still playing my baseball game on PS3, and I still love it. So much fun.

An update on the dog…last you heard we had left our bedroom door open, and everything was magical, but it didn’t last. What I think happened was the dog thought we weren’t really leaving, because we always shut the doors upstairs when we do, but after a few weeks she realized we were still leaving for long periods of time. She went back to her anxious pooping and peeing in the house behaviors. Tired of it all, I went to the pet store and bought a crate. She’s slept in it every night since, and things have improved a great deal. As we prepare for the baby too, it will be nice not having the dog run around and go crazy every time we wake up.

Speaking of the baby, we’ve got about a week and a half until we find out what it is. My kids have been asking me, and every time I tell them we’re having a human. They look at me strange for a moment until they finally get the joke. We both want a boy and girl at some point, and the order isn’t particularly important to us. I would say that Stacie really wants a girl, and I lean slightly in that direction. Ultimately I’ll love the baby no matter what it is, so putting too much hope in one sex or the other means I could potentially be disappointed in what we get, and I don’t want to be disappointed in the baby.

Dennis Prager was talking the other day about spirituality versus religion. I was going to try and explain what he said, but then I found you can download the whole half hour discussion! This is the first time I’ve looked into a podcast of any kind, and I plan on downloading and listening to a lot. No commercials, you can listen again…it’s great stuff. Visit this link, and go down to H3: Ultimate Issues Hour: Is Spirituality Enough? You can click listen now and hear this great discussion. If you don’t want to listen to the whole thing, fast forward to about 20 mins when he talks to Kent. Very good stuff.

Lately I’ve been playing a lot of the baseball game I have on PS3, and mostly online. There is something about playing a human opponent that is so much more satisfying than playing the computer. The game still has some network related kinks, but the gameplay is downright solid. All you need to see is me pumping my fists after getting a groundout in the bottom of the 9th to secure a 2-1 win. It’s awesome.

The game is ultra-realistic when you’re playing another human because you can get inside their head. For example, early on you can start to figure out what type of player they are. Some people have zero patience and swing at everything. Even if the pitch is in the dirt, they still swing. In my most impressive outing yet I struck out a guy 22 times in a game. It’s so advanced that you can fool people. Sometimes I’ll throw a fastball pretty far outside so that it’s unhittable, and a decent player will lay off the pitch. But then the next pitch I’ll come back a little closer to where the ball is just outside the zone, but the previous pitch makes it look like a strike. Usually people will swing, and if they don’t miss, they get horrible wood on the ball and make an out.

In addition to the batter/pitcher duel, sometimes games are downright intense. In my last game I went down 1-0 early to the Phillies. I was putting men on base, but I was having a horrible time capitalizing. I eventually put a run across on a double-play ground out and made it 1-1. Lowe had pitched a good 7 innings for me, so I brought in Olmedo Saenz to face the lefty with 1 out and nobody on. He left a pitch out over the plate and the Killer Tomato put the ball over the fence, 2-1 Dodgers. Billingsley held it in the 8th, and Saito came in for the 9th. Everything was great in the 9th until Ryan Howard doubled with 1 out. Next batter grounded out and Howard took 3rd on the play. With the tying run at third and 2 out Saito was able to induce a groundout to win the game 2-1. It was awesome.

So far I’m 19-6. You can see my online profile here. Unfortunately you can’t see all the fun statistics that you can in the game, like ERA, k/9, HR/game, etc, but they do show your average. I’m batting .318 as of this posting, which is pretty good if you ask me.

Yesterday I ushered in my first hours of summer with some non-stop videogame playing. Stacie and I had a good long discussion a few weeks back, which led to the purchasing of a shiny new PS3. I never quite met my target goal, but it’s gotten it’s worth that’s for sure.

I played MLB ’07: The Show online for about 6 hours when I got home from work yesterday around lunch time. I played several games, winning and losing some. The best game was my last though. Early on I went down 6-0 against someone using the Yankees. I hit a solo shot and made it 6-1, but I was having a hard time breaking through. Eventually I had a big inning and made it 6-5, followed shortly by a two run inning putting me in the lead 7-6. This entire time my pitching was super sharp. In the top of the 9th I gave up 1 run, tying the game at 7-7. But in the bottom of the ninth with Russell Martin at the dish, he knocked a solo home run over the fence and gave the Dodgers the walk off win! It was awesome.

Aside from playing this great baseball game, I hope to fill my hours writing, trying to workout a bit, and doing a little travelling with the wife.

But for now I will start with watering the grass.

When I get something in my head it’s really hard to get it out. Usually this is tied to desiring new technology or something of that nature. Luckily I have a wife who tempers that urge to buy every new gadget the minute I want it. Sometimes that means I don’t get it, or instead I think of inane arrangements to justify my purchase.

The wheels in my brain are still spinning about wanting to play the latest and greatest baseball game on PS3, so I start to find all these ways to pay for it, without actually spending money, which of course is ludicrous. But it sounds like it’s not costing any money, which is the genious of my plan. You might remember my WoW fast back in ’04. I could pull a similar stunt here, but it would take a while. Here’s what I’ve got so far:

$60 – Money left in my old Wamu checking account that’s been there since we got married.

$170 – Money I made at school doing supervision, like watching kids on my lunch break. (This is above and beyond my regular pay, so it’s easy to argue that I can do whatever I want with it, like buy videogames.)

$80 – Money in my paypal account from selling the old Gamecube (which was supposed to pay for the Wii. Shhhh!)

$50 – Approximate money I could get from selling my original Xbox since I wouldn’t need it anymore.

$27 – Money I could get from selling Zelda: Twilight Princess. (I tried to play it over the weekend, and I almost went insane it’s so boring. But my new found distaste for adventure games is another post entirely.)

Sub-Total: $387
Remaining: $313

I’m still well shy of my $700 target. I’ve made almost $250 on my Nintendo stock, but I’m not sure I can justify including that in my scheme.

Time to look around the house for stuff to sell.