I did some interesting stat research on myself using every round I’ve logged as a PDGA member since ’04.  My hypothesis is that I start every year very poorly and get better as the year goes on.  So I tried to just find out what my average round rating was per month since ’04.

January: 0 tournament rounds
February: 930 average rating over 7 rounds
March: 949 avg in 17 rounds
April: 944 avg in 25 rounds
May: 930 avg in 21 rounds
June: 960 avg in 33 rounds
July: 940 avg in 20 rounds
August: 955 avg in 19 rounds
September: 945 in 47 rounds
October: 945 in 8 rounds
November: 0 tourney rounds
December: 0 tourney rounds

But the problem is – aside from telling me that I seem to play an awful lot of tournament rounds in September, these numbers tell me very little.  Because it’s combining all years, including 2004 where my rating was 892 and 2009, where my rating was 971.  For instance, I played more as the year went on in 2004 with my crappy rating, and played very little the last two years with my best rating.  Also, I only played in Feb following years where I ended with a strong rating.  Essentially, the data is inaccurate and kinda haphazard.  So what I did was I went through each round and compared it to my rating at the time.  To see if I threw above or below my rating for that time period.  And just then, a distinct pattern came into view.

January: 0 rounds
February: I average 23 points LOWER (-23) than my rating PER ROUND
March: -7 points avg per round
April: 0 points
May: -9 points
June: +19 points
July: +2 points
August: 19 points
September: +8 points
October: +6 points

With April and July being minor aberrations, it’s a distinct parabola.  Not only do I play much better after having thrown (and ostensibly practiced) for a few months, but I also appear to favor warm weather.  Maybe I should try to play as much non-sanctioned golf in January and February as possible so I can be warm and ready for April.  Just a thought.

Also, I think this shows that I’m a stat nerd with too much free time.

For each day in 2010 (give or take) I’ll be showing a picture from somewhere in my life with a little explanation as to what it is.  Enjoy the trip down memory lane.  (CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE ARCHIVES!)

The Mighty Pretty Gaw

Date: Autumn, 2006

Location: Mahwah, NJ

Description: New Jersey is often the butt of jokes, being known as the armpit of America, and not having a leg up on other states.  Enough body parts.  New Jersey can be surprisingly beautiful, like this shot taken while playing a round of evening disc golf at Campgaw.  The course is known as the Mighty Gaw because of its length, elevation changes, and brutality.  But it can also be home to some eye candy as well, here displaying the grandiose splendor of autumnal change.  And a moon.  There’s a moon in the picture too.  This shot was taken just before throwing my final tosses down the mountain at the 1500’ hole 18.

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If I thought I wasn’t looking to playing FFIX based on my past experience, I was outright dreading FFX-2.  I had been warned that it was a girly game and it didn’t live up to previous titles.  I was even told sympathetically by the guy I bought it from that I could always return it.  But finish it I did (strictly playing off a walkthrough, because I did not feel like I would enjoy trying to figure out stuff myself.)  And it was a bizarre game. I got 95% completion.  I was going for the perfect game, but the walkthrough I used wasn’t very clear about what actually needed to be done and what was just suggested.  I missed a few key points very late in the game and, by the 5th chapter, could no longer do it.

The is a sequel, which presents inherent problems.  The game takes place two years after the end of FFX, which I guess is fine, and how they managed to come up with a “story” after the main evil is gone is passable.  There are enough new characters to keep interest.  But there are continuity issues all over the place.  First, the characters are super weak.  What happened to all the power they amassed?  And if I spent all of FFX getting Al Bhed Primers so I can understand the Al Bhed language, why do I have to do it again in FFX-2?  Especially since I have not one, but TWO people in my party (of 3) who are fluent?  And seriously, how many unsents are gonna pop back up?  I figured after Sin was gonna, people were going to finally just go away.

Was it as bad as I thought it would be?  Well, yes, but not entirely.  The target audience was the worst part – they took a great game that appealed to all parts and catered its sequel to a very specific audience: 14 year old bisexual girls.  That is, of course, my opinion.  But there were some very cool aspects to the game.  Let’s break it down.

The Good

- Oversouling is a great idea.  When leveling up, it gets very monotonous fighting the exact same guys over and over again.  Oversouling not only adds challenge, but keeps it interesting when, every so often, a creature will be considerably more difficult.  Especially since bosses can also oversoul.

- The Via Infinito – possibly the coolest place in any FF game.  100 levels (yes you read that right) of fighting where you can’t skip any of them.  Great rewards to be found, but also immense difficulty.  Even at level 99 for each character, I died a few times in those lower levels, where the normal guys that wander around are harder than the actual final boss.  I would never have been able to defeat Trema, the hardest character in the game, without considerable help online.

- The return of the Berserker!  Even Ash was happy about this one.

- Variation.  There is a choice early on which affects how the rest of the game plays out.  It won’t affect the ending, but it will change how you get there.  And speaking of endings, there are actually different endings depending on how much you get complete.  And if you get 100% completion over two games (very likely), you will see an additional ending, which gives replay value a boost.  I, of course, won’t play again.  Why?  Here’s why.

The Bad

- As mentioned before, I’m not sure who this game is intended for.  With terms like “dresspheres” and “garment grid”, I would imagine not me.  It seems dumbed down, much more than any other FF game – sidequests include giving out balloons and selling tickets to a concert.  I mean, really?  A little too much dancing in this one for my tastes.

- The characters.  In starting to come up with ideas for my final wrapup of all the final fantasy games, I thought I might include a “best characters” and “worst characters” of the series.  But I am opting not to do the worst list, because of the 5 that would make it, I think 4 are from or featured in this game.  Maechen (shut up old man!), the Hypellos (they make Jar Jar Binks seem palatable), Brother (he was pretty bad ass in X, WTF happened?), Paine (it’s as if Auron and Lulu had a kid and they took all likeable traits out of her), Yuna (she’s always sucked).

- Since FFVII, there’s been way too much of a deal put into chocobo raising.  It’s always stupidly complicated and not fun.

- The music.  Okay, so I know this was the first game Nobuo Uematsu didn’t do the music for this one, and that’s fine.  While I think he rules, I don’t *need* him to do the score (I’m also a big fan of Koichi Sugiyama’s music), whoever they go to do FFX-2 was horrible.  In prior games, the music playing throughout that continually loops is usually between maybe 32-64 measures before repeating.  It seemed like in FFX-2 there were two measures and then repeating.  The music was just so so so so so bad.  I can’t stress that enough, especially in comparison to Uematsu’s typical genius.

- To be blunt, it was not a sequel to FFX in any way except storyline.  It should have been an offshoot game entirely, like “Final Fantasy Addition: Yuna’s Bored” mainly so I wouldn’t have included it in my project.

The Ugly

- The movies were unimpressive and oddly-spaced out.  There were tons in the early going of the game, and then hardly anything until the end, which was also unimpressive.  It’s hard to tie up “loose ends” when there really aren’t any.

- Was there even conflict in the movie?  Nobody was really doing anything that was terrible, and about three-quarters of the game we find out someone is going to use a very big gun against the world.  Okay… sure.  Why?  Because he felt unloved?  That’s what I got out of it.

- Can I mention the music again?

- If the costuming and camera angles of FFX were ‘burlesque’ in tone, FFX-2 was softcore porn.  Holy crap, the T&A in this game was gratuitous.  I actually got tired of staring at LaBlanc’s boobs and Dona’s crotch.  Similarly, the overt lesbian tones made Xena: Warrior Princess look very hetero.

- Too many jobs.  Like in FFV (with jobs) and in six (with sheer # of characters), there is too much to choose from, and most of it is filler.  Aside from Black Knight, White Mage, Lady Luck, Gunner, and Berserker (!!!), there was little use to any of the other jobs.  Is Trainer really going to help you win this game? On that same note,  Blue Magic is never useful ever.

So I’m happily done with this one.  I spent a modest 74 hours on this one, bringing my total up to ~642 hours.  Again, I will be taking a break so that I can actually see my wife after 7pm.  I have issues.

For each day in 2010 (give or take) I’ll be showing a picture from somewhere in my life with a little explanation as to what it is.  Enjoy the trip down memory lane.  (CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE ARCHIVES!)

The Funkwatt

Date: ~2000

Location: Wyckoff, NJ

Description: People are always attached to their first cars.  Ours was no exception.  Purchased just before the Blizzard of ’96 for $777, this 1980 Monty Carlo exuded just as much charm as it did oil.  Somewhere along the line, it picked up the nickname The Funkwatt, a term that forever conjures up images of rust and the inability to accelerate.  It had a KILLER turning radius, though.  The Funkwatt had a storied life – lasting for more than 4 years under our tutelage with only minor repair work (and, of course, near weekly addition of motor oil, which was leaking for most of the time we had the car.)  It was later sold by Mitch to our friend Jeff, who purchased it for $1 (and I believe he had to buy Mitch a CD.)  Jeff briefly drove it until he got a new car, at which point he got rid of the insurance on the Funkwatt.  His plan to keep it was to keep parking it in hidden spots throughout Hackensack, hoping the police wouldn’t find it.  When they first did, they impounded it and Jeff, not wanting a legacy to die, paid about 250% of his initial investment to have it unimpounded.  When it was impounded a second time weeks later, he simply couldn’t justify the expense and The Funkwatt was laid to rest in a cube.

For each day in 2010 (give or take) I’ll be showing a picture from somewhere in my life with a little explanation as to what it is.  Enjoy the trip down memory lane.  (CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE ARCHIVES!)

Date: ~2001

Location: Wayne, NJ

Description: 1342 is a pretty significant number.  In that year, Louis I ascended to be king of Hungary, Kitzbühel became part of Tyrol, and Persian physician and alchemist Al-Jaldaki passed away.   But more recently, 1342 were the numbers of a very active apartment in Wayne, NJ.  My twin brother Mitch and I moved out for the first time with good friend Jeff, a seasoned not-live-at-home-anymore-er.  As such, there were parties to be thrown, shenanigans to engage in (you can throw a TV off a third story balcony as long as it’s filmed), and fire to toss around.  Mitch had long been a juggler, and was refining his skills in the early moving-out years, to the point where he would juggle flaming torches, often times during parties on a crowded balcony.  It never really seemed to register that he was doing it on a wooden deck right next to a large cluster of trees and other flammable nature.  The apartment complex did later succumb to a large fire, but Mitch and I had already moved out long before that.

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I started out 2010 playing my first tourney of the year, the Rocklin Ice Bowl.  True, it was two courses I’d never played and I was on about four hours of sleep.  But I played absolutely terrible.  The worst back-to-back tourney rounds I’ve played in years (usually if I suck in one round, I do well the other.)

It got me to thinking – it seems to me like I have entirely good and bad YEARS.  So I went back to 2004, the first year I started competing regularly, and found some weird trends.

2004 – AVERAGE  – My first year with the PDGA, and the first year I started playing competitively in advanced.  After mediocre/poor showings in the start of the year, I had very good results in 3 tourneys, winning my first advanced tourney, and placing 2nd and 5th in two other stacked fields.  My rating jumped 27 points by year’s end, but that’s mainly due to how bad my start was.

2005 – AVERAGE – Although my rating went up, that’s mainly because I started playing in the pro division.  I had good pro showings at two tournies: Warwick Animalfest (cashed in an admittedly weak field) and 1st out of cash at the Yetter (an A Tier) but lousy showings at all other pro events.  In am, while I was pretty consistently in the top 5, I only won one tourney (where only 5 people played advanced.)  For the year where I was starting my turn to pro, I should have been cleaning up in advanced.  That being said, I did play in Am worlds and had a very respectable 37th place finish (even with a total blowup round.)  It was a very roller coaster year.

2006 – BAD – My first year as a pro, and it took it’s toll on me.  Again, my rating improved by 17, but this was due almost solely to playing in A tiers and big tourneys with pros – it will naturally bring your rating up a bit.  In the first 10 tourneys of the year, I didn’t even make it in the top 60%.  I finished off the year strong with a 1st out of cash, and two last-cashes (including in an A-Tier) but even then, all of those finishes were between 38%-50%.  Nothing to write home about.  A very off year, but rewarding to play so many big tourneys.

2007 – BAD – My rating dropped 14 points despite playing open.  I had outright abysmal showings at nearly all of the bigger tournaments, and my only two cashes of the year came as last-cashes in touraments.  In fact, the only tournaments I cracked the top 10 were tourneys that had 10, 13, and 14 people.  A very off-putting two years.

2008 – GOOD – Saw a ratings jump of 15 points.  This, like all years, started off slow.  I had mediocre or poor showings at my first 3 tournies.  But after that, I saw cashes in 4 of the 6 remaining tournaments, including my first ever top 3 trophy in pro.  It was my best year financially (nearly recouping all my entry fees) and gaining confidence playing in higher elevations.

2009 – GOOD – Despite only playing in four tourneys due to time and money constraints with a small child, I managed to throw the most 999+ rated rounds in a year (4) and had two cashes.  Despite hardly practicing at all in that year, I raised my rating by 13 more points.

What scares me most about this is that, it seems, every two years, I switch gears.  And judging by how truly pathetic my first tourney of the year was, it isn’t looking promising.  Let’s hope it’s just some rust from the wintertime.

2006

For each day in 2010 (give or take) I’ll be showing a picture from somewhere in my life with a little explanation as to what it is.  Enjoy the trip down memory lane.  (CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE ARCHIVES!)

Rest Stop 1

Date: ~1997

Location: Cheesequake, NJ

Description: There are any number of silly named places in the world, and I tried my damndest in high school and beyond to see how many I could visit.  This was probably the first of those such places.  Nestled among the many rest stops along the Garden State Parkway (The Trachea of NJ) stands the Cheesequake Rest Stop.  Surely no place this silly could exist.  But there it did.  It soon became a highlight of any trip down to the NJ shore or, indeed, any trip south.  I think there were even stories of trips being made solely to visit the Cheesequake Rest Stop, though I can’t confirm those outright.  This incarnation of the trip featured several close friends at the time and, if I’m not mistaken, even Susan who I was dating.  This is photographic proof that I had a social life in those days.

As most of you know (both of you?), Landen just hit the big 1.  And we have pictures to prove it.  You know that means it’s PARTY TIME!

While there was no official theme, I think the reputation might precede him.  Or however that phrase goes.  So he got LOTS of goodies from LOTS of people (I think my “people who rule” category would have expanded tenfold.)  Here’s a couple of pictures.

In there was also a visit from Uncle Doug.  He was overjoyed to see his nephew and they played pretty intensely there for a while.  He’s a video of him playing with a toy Doug bought him.

While here, we found out an ingenious way to track him at all times, because he is so fast with his crawling.  Note the video.

In this time, Landen’s also developed some very handy skills.  For one, he’s great at poking in the eye.  This is an “after” picture of that very event.

He can tickle the ivories a little bit.

Oh, and I think I should mention this minor skill that’s working on:

For each day in 2010 (give or take) I’ll be showing a picture from somewhere in my life with a little explanation as to what it is.  Enjoy the trip down memory lane.  (CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE ARCHIVES!)

January 11, 2010

Date: 1992?

Location: Wyckoff, NJ

Description: Is this a floating tree?  Did it ask the landscaper to just take “a little off the bottom?”  Or is my dad just an odd duck?  Really, arguments can be made for any of these, but the first two are exceptionally weak.  This was a colossal pine that was growing in our side yard and consistently taking up more and more of our lawn.  My dad decided to cut it, but to do that, he had to trim the bottom branches.  And then the middle branches.  And then the high middle branches.  He decided that he liked his artistic butchery so much it stayed up for several weeks before finally succumbing to the chainsaw.  This wouldn’t be the first time our yard got strange looks, as our abundant Christmas lights and mutant snowmen would also draw some stares for passers-by, the but this was the only time that a [nearly] naturally occuring phenomenon did it.

A few milestones are either being crossed any day now or they’ve just happened.  Yesterday, while picking him up from daycare, I put him down so I could get his coat.  The woman there was a step ahead, so I didn’t move.  Landen let go of the table I let him hold and took TWO FULL STEPS to me before grabbing my legs.  Those would be his first steps, though they were certainly lunging, falling steps.  I can’t wait until he can fully walk, at which point I’m sure I’m going to wish I had never wished for that.

Also yesterday, he was in the tub.  Landen’s Papa (Ash’s father) bought him a set of toy boats for bathtime.  One of them is a sailboat where the sail part is this small plastic piece that can be pulled out, and Landen enjoys doing that immensely (he is big into destruction.)  So yesterday he takes the sail out and soon lets go of both pieces, playing with the bath cups that Aunt Tracy and Uncle Jerry got him (THANKS!)  Literally five minutes later, both pieces are in his sights, and he picks them up and begins TRYING TO PUT THE SAIL BACK INTO THE BOAT.  I mean, knowing that toys go in and out of a box is one thing; knowing that a tiny plastic sail goes into an equally tiny hole in the middle of a toy boat is pretty stinkin’ smart.

Landen’s also got a couple of very strange habits.  He doesn’t necessarily clap when he’s happy, only when he’s high emotion.  So he could be bawling and screaming about something, and he’ll be heartily clapping the whole time.  I guess he doesn’t distinguish between very happy and very sad.

Here’s a couple of recent pics – I don’t have it where you can click to enlarge – I’ve spent too much time on my site today.