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2007-05-29

Another addiction

I have been posting less often than usual. Partly this is because I have been a bit busier at work. Partly I have been setting doing demos for the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game and setting up a monthly game night at Happy Harbor comics.

Mainly I think it is because I started playing the World of Warcraft online game.

I have been playing far too much - about twice as often as we were playing Guild Wars. I don't want to turn this into a WoW vs GW post though. The main reason I am playing World of Warcraft is because the people I know playing slowly switched to WoW. So I tried it out.

I am playing a Druid. I picked a Druid because I like the shape-shifting aspect and the class is very versatile. The druid is a spell caster and healer, and can do direct damage like a mage or heal like a priest. They can also tank like a warrior in bear form or sneak around like a rogue. So I thought that it would give me a good range of the game play experience.

So far I am very pleased. I sometimes feel almost over whelmed with the number of quests available. I prefer questing to grinding (which may be why I am a few levels behind the people I play with). I love bear form and I just got my sea lion form - my daughter likes when my bear dances.

The only thing I don't like is the time I have been spending in the game. I am hoping that once I catch the group and start running raids that the number of hours I need to spend to keep up with the group will drop.

So if you are on the Pernolde server look up Chickaquack.

2007-05-24

AFL Week 13

Week 12 results
New Orleans VooDoo 34 Philadelphia Soul 78
Orlando Predators 46 Austin Wranglers 45
Kansas City Brigade 56 New York Dragons 62
Grand Rapids Rampage 44 San Jose SaberCats 69
Georgia Force 51 Los Angeles Avengers 57
Nashville Kats 44 Chicago Rush 27
Columbus Destroyers 40 Colorado Crush 58
Las Vegas Gladiators 54 Utah Blaze 53
Arizona Rattlers 50 Tampa Bay Storm 59

Week 13 scheduled games
Utah Blaze (5-7) at Orlando Predators (7-4)
Utah was upset by Las Vegas last week - unfortunately they will not fair much better against the Predators losing by a large margin.

San Jose SaberCats (8-3) at Nashville Kats (5-7)
The SaberCats clinch a playoff berth with a win on the road.

Los Angeles Avengers (6-5) at Kansas City Brigade (6-5)
A strong KC team is upset at home by the visiting Avengers.

Tampa Bay Storm (5-6) at Georgia Force (9-2)
The Force bounce back from the upset loss last week to the Avengers and beat up on the suddenly resurgent Storm.

Colorado Crush at Grand Rapids Rampage
Colorado gets a win on the road and grab a playoff spot (because of the Utah loss)

Dallas Desperados (11-1) at Columbus Destroyers (6-5)
The Desperadoes roll into Columbus and grab win number 11 on the season, clinching a playoff berth for the Georgia Force.

Chicago Rush (8-3) at Arizona Rattlers (3-9)
Chicago defeats the Rattlers and thanks to the Utah loss they clinch a playoff berth.

Philadelphia Soul (5-6) at Austin Wranglers (3-8)
The Soul are lucky to visit the struggling Wranglers this week giving them a shot at a 500 record. Philly wins in Texas.

New York Dragons (4-7) at New Orleans VooDoo (4-7)
This is the game I hope to be able to watch. New York wins behind another massive game by Andy Garcia.

Las Vegas Gladiators (2-10) have the bye, but they might still find a way to lose this week.

Missing last week was probably good for my record leaving me at 51 and 38.

2007-05-22

AFL The missing week

As both regular readers have probably noticed I missed posting an AFL prediction for Week 12. Time and travel prevented me from getting a post out. I will post the results from week 12 and predictions for week 13 this week.

2007-05-11

Week 11 - Arena League Football Guesses

So week 10 was a disaster. I wnet 4 and 5 and dropped my season record to a dismal 51 and 37 (58%). I'm not even going to bother reviewing last week. The only games I got right were the obvious (Dallas, Georgia, and Chicago wins and Las Vegas loses are not that hard to pick).

This weeks matchups:
Grand Rapids Rampage (3-6) at Columbus Destroyers (5-4)
Columbus take a step back into the playoff picture by defeating the struggling Rampage.

New Orleans VooDoo (4-5) at Orlando Predators (5-4)
The Predators win at home defeating a VooDoo Squad that finds itself near the bottom of the Southern division.

Colorado Crush (6-4) at Nashville Kats (4-6)
Colorado bounces back from a loss to Chicago last week to beat the Kats in Nashville.

Utah Blaze (5-5) at Kansas City Brigade (5-4)
Utah continues to fall losing to the Brigade.

Austin Wranglers (3-6) at Arizona Rattlers (2-8)
Austin and Arizona are both struggling - Austin continues to struggle losing a close game to Arizona.

Tampa Bay Storm (3-6) at Los Angeles Avengers (5-4)
Los Angeles gets a win against a visiting Storm.

Las Vegas Gladiators (1-9) at San Jose SaberCats (6-3)
San Jose will have no trouble at home against the visiting Gladiators.

New York Dragons (2-7) at Philadelphia Soul (4-5)
New York is still having difficulty winning even with Andy Garcia. Philly tries to get back into the race after 5 straight weeks without a win. Philly wins a close one at home.

Chicago Rush (8-1) at Dallas Desperados (9-1)
In a potential Arena Bowl preview the Rush lose for the second time this year. This was a Friday Night game but was moved to Monday night by the AFL and EPSN. I hope to be able to see this game but it is unlikely I will be able to catch unless they add it to the AFLNet schedule.

Georgia Force (9-1) have the bye

2007-05-04

Week 10 - Arena Football

Week 9 was a good week. I finally got my head free of my ass and made some decent picks. Here are the results (my correct picks in bold - my incorrect picks in italics).

Philadelphia Soul 43 Chicago Rush 54
Orlando Predators 69 Las Vegas Gladiators 34
Columbus Destroyers 32 Tampa Bay Storm 34
Utah Blaze 48 San Jose SaberCats 69
Grand Rapids Rampage 71 Los Angeles Avengers 75
Arizona Rattlers 45 New York Dragons 67
Nashville Kats 62 Dallas Desperados 69
Georgia Force 72 New Orleans VooDoo 57
Colorado Crush 45 Kansas City Brigade 42

W00t! a 7-2 week. That is the kind of week I needed. This takes my year to 47 and 32 not spectacular but at 59% I am getting back into the realm of actually picking the winners and getting out of pure guessing range. The experts at arena football all have me beat by percentage but I am creeping up there.

From ArenaFootball.com
Michael Murillo 69.84%
Gary Reasons 68.25%
Jenn Boehm 68.25%
Wayne Morris 68.25%
Peter Schwartz 68.25%
Mike Rose 66.67%
Ryan Altizer 65.08%
Nate Boudreaux 61.90%
Ray Bentley 60.32%
Me 59.49%

This week watch for Dallas and Utah, Predators at Georgia, and Colorado visiting Chicago to be big games. Each one features a team with only one loss against a team with a winning record. Orlando, Utah or Colorado can do a lot damage by getting an upset this week. New York looks like they can make some noise with the return of Andy Garcia - the playoffs might be beyond reach for the dragons but the next few weeks will show the kind of team they will be next year. The bubble teams like Columbus, Utah, Philadelphia, Kansas City, Nashville andLos Angeles look to start making a run to the playoffs. I think the best game this week will be the Monday night game between Colorado and Chicago. Colorado is chasing Chicago in the central division. The Crush can get within a game of the Rush with a win.

Week 10
New York Dragons (2-6) at Columbus Destroyers (4-4)
New York with Garcia back is a different team than we saw in the first half of the season. Columbus is not going to be able to take this Dragons team lightly. The Dragons with Garcia take another game keeping hopes of a 500 season intact.

Orlando Predators (5-3) at Georgia Force (8-1)
Georgia beats the Predators keeping the pressure on Dallas and Chicago.

Dallas Desperados (8-1) at Utah Blaze (5-4)
Dallas dominates the Blaze.

Kansas City Brigade (4-4) at Philadelphia Soul (4-4)
Philly stops the slide and wins at home to keep a winning record.

Nashville Kats (4-5) at Grand Rapids Rampage (2-6)
Nashville gets back to 500, Grand Rapids is already looking at next year.

San Jose SaberCats (5-3) at Arizona Rattlers (2-7)
San Jose pulls further ahead of division rival Blaze with a win over the struggling Rattlers.

Tampa Bay Storm (2-6) at Austin Wranglers (3-5)
Tampa Bay fails in the quest to gets a third win against the Wranglers.

Los Angeles Avengers (4-4) at Las Vegas Gladiators (1-8)
Las Vegas loses to the Avengers becoming the first team to guarantee a losing record this year.

Colorado Crush (6-3) at Chicago Rush (7-1)
This is a tough game to call - both teams are capable of winning. Most of the experts at arenafootball.com are picking Chicago except for Michael Murillo who thinks that the Crush can pull off the upset. I am going to call for the upset and call for Colorado to tighten up the central division race.

New Orleans VooDoo (4-5) has the bye this week

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