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Topics - Bret

#1
Pro Football / Kaepernick still not signed
April 13, 2017, 01:30:57 AM
About his crybaby tantrums, I'll just state that I would LOVE to be oppressed as badly as he is. Poor guy only got $16 million dollars guaranteed for a season's worth of work.

I don't think he'll get signed. Right or wrong, good or bad, football is a business. Team's revenues aren't solely based on ticket sales, TV deals, merch, and concessions. There's many, many sponsorship deals in place with each of the 32 teams. Kaepernick is a PR disaster. I'd dare say he's the quarterback version of United Airlines.

I predict his NFL career is over. And, I for one won't miss him. Even before his acting out I thought he was overrated.
#2
Video Gaming General / Rise of the Tomb Raider
January 08, 2016, 04:19:09 PM
I haven't posted for a while, but here I am.

Anyone else playing this game? Either this game is really hard, or is harder than the past Tomb Raider games, or I am just starting to suck in my old age...
#3
Chit Chat / A loose end to tie up from the old PCF days
November 06, 2014, 01:33:19 PM
I'd been thinking whether or not I should share this here, or share this ever. But, I've decided that maybe I should share this, and I feel this place is the most appropriate. I don't have a lot of unfinished business from the PCF days, but this one has been stuck in my craw and I'm now after all these years I'm going to let it out. I usually told folks what was going on, and why, but this one I kept under wraps for reasons that hopefully will become clear to you as I tell you what happened.

EA had an employee named Nathan Farenhold. Part of Nathan's job (or maybe all of it, I don't know) was to be a liaison between EA and the certain fansites, like PCF and Maddenmania and the one run by Andy P that changed its name every week. He would send me out some promotional stuff, like a sneak peek at the forthcoming game, and cool little trinkets like mousepads and such. He also gave me the occasional access to a developer on the Madden game, or at least someone who worked on the project.

You guys from the old PCF days may remember that, throughout the year, we would keep a couple of lists; one list for suggestions for improvement for next year's game, and questions to ask for a forthcoming interview with a developer/project manager/whatever. Well, it was '04 I think it was, and the time was upon us to set up a Q&A with someone from the Madden project. Previously, Nathan had been VERY good getting back to me quickly whenever I needed something. This time around, not to much. I thought perhaps there was a new guy or maybe Nathan was on vacation or sick or something, so I drilled for info as to what was going on. Turns out Nathan was still at work, in his same job. So, I sent him a tersely-worked email saying I didn't appreciate being frozen out like that.

His response....he was "busy" (but apparently he wasn't busy before in previous years or something), but then he went on to say that Branda and Andy said that I was bad and some of the other posters on PCF were bad and the site was bad so he was cutting us off. We never got EA cooperation for the rest of the time I owned the site.

I never said anything for a couple of reasons. First, I didn't want Branda and Andy to know that they had that much power over the fortunes of PCF (even though chances were good that they already knew). I didn't want to "put it over". Second, I didn't want to give ammunition to all the assholes that seemed to think that I was single-handedly responsible for all of society's ills. I could hear it now..."See, Bret is killing his own site. He drove EA away. He's a bad person blah blah blah".

I said I have regrets about PCF. This is one of them. No, I don't regret anything that may have been said or done to make Branda and Andy go to Nathan and tell them to cut me off. I regret not being transparent about it. While looking back I understand the reasoning I had, I did not maintain my pledge to be transparent. I should have told the people loyal to the site what was going on, and why.

I'm not embarrassed about it, because other than keeping the secret I didn't do anything wrong. To me, the fact that EA cut us off says absolutely nothing about me, and says absolutely nothing about PCF or anyone who posted there. I don't even think it said very much about Branda or Andy. It said everything about Nathan. Nathan was responsible for his own actions and for making his own decisions. Allowing Branda or Andy (let alone both) to make his decisions for him shows Nathan had a very weak character. Sure, Branda and Andy were assholes that acted out of malice and nothing else, but Nathan should have been man enough to make his own decisions based on his own observations, and not what a couple of strangers told him. To the best of my knowledge, Nathan NEVER looked at PCF a single time.

When I think about this situation, to me it partially clears up why EA stopped putting Madden on the PC. If Nathan is the type of person they employ and trust to give them information about the market and what it wants, it is no wonder why they're so horribly out of touch.
#4
Pro Football / Coverage of the XFL, in 2014? Yes!
October 03, 2014, 12:38:12 AM
Some of you may remember that I was a passionate fan of the XFL, despite all of its flaws.

One of my favorite sites on the web is Mental Floss. Lots of interesting, educational stuff on that site. Whatever your interests you'll find something there to keep you entertained for a few minutes, and probably learn something about said interest you didn't previously know. Check it out if you haven't already. Well, I was absolutely floored when I saw there was a story written on Mental Floss about the XFL. I think it was a bit snarky in some spots, but by and large fair. If you read the comments, you'll see a majority of them from me.

http://mentalfloss.com/article/58829/good-honest-football-re-watching-xfl
#5
Other Sports / NASCAR
September 13, 2014, 01:47:38 AM
Any of y'all watch NASCAR?

As a kid, I used to. Back then, there wasn't the coverage that there is today. Back then it was VERY rare to see a complete race. And, every race of the season? Just forget it. I kinda fell out of NASCAR around the early 90's. I guess you could say when Richard Petty's career was winding down, so too was my interest in NASCAR.

But, I married a NASCAR fan, so I've kind of gotten back in to it. There is A LOT of room for improvement in the sport, and that is evidenced by the many empty seats that we see at most of the race tracks these days. It is yet another story of

Thing A works, change to thing B which doesn't work, so instead of going back to Thing A you just try everything you can to futiliy try to get Thing B to work and force it down everyone's throat, then wonder why ratings and attendance is down. The NASCAR Chase is reminding me a lot of the BCS in college football.

Just wondering if any of you guys or gals watched? Do any of you have an opinion on the Tony Stewart situation?
#6
Console Gaming Discussion / Madden 15
August 27, 2014, 12:52:38 PM
I've had it since Sunday, even though it was released yesterday. I was waiting for one of you guys to bring it up because it woulda been too predictable for the former admin of PCF to do so. But, since none of you bit, here I go...

First off, disclosure. I have an Xbox 360, with what is called the "JTAG" hack to allow it to run unsigned code. Take from that statement what you will. Despite the dozens of eye-popping advantages of such a box, one of the few drawbacks is being unable to access Xbox Live. And, since Madden doesn't have a system link option, playing against others over the internet isn't an option for me.

Now that's out of the way...

I'm disappointed. I am reminded of why I stopped buying this thing: No new features worth anything. It is basically a fresh coat of pain and a roster update.

I for one abhore the DLC business model, and it is one of the dozens of reasons I prefer playing my games on the PC (even though the DLC scourge has worked its way in that realm, too). But, even as much as I loathe the concept of DLC, I'd make an exception for Madden. If all EA is going to do is a roster update, then maybe they should just sell that for like $10 or something, rather than charge $60 for a whole new game. But, I guess if people are lining up with their $60, saying "shut up and take my money", then why wouldn't EA take it?

I'm also miffed about the absence of NCAA, which I always thought was a better football video game product. Unfortunately because of an assfull of crybabies who don't appreciate the value of a free university education nor understand the concept of paying dues, combined with an idiotic legal system, it looks like NCAA may be gone for good. :(
#7
Pro Football / Chris Kluwe
July 25, 2014, 04:43:24 PM
As a Vikings fan, I am officially sick of reading this guy's name every time I go to the StarTribune to get caught up on the latest Vikings news.

When he was playing, I found his activism somewhat annoying. But, he was a good punter...good, not great.

I believe the Vikings when they say that his being cut had nothing to do with his activism. Because of his time in the league, and the union rules that say when a player has been in the league x amount of years then they have to may at least y amount of dollars, then he was getting to expensive for his performance, and a much cheaper and probably better guy could be brought in for less money.

Now, granted, I'm sure that all the distractions that Kluwe brought with him didn't exactly make the cutting him a difficult decision on the Vikings part. But the money vs. performance thing really was the bottom line, and I believe that was the determining factor in their decision.

But, now Kluwe can't get on to any other team. Is it because of all of his distractions? Probably, but I'm not 100% sure about that. All I know is that all the shit he's stirred really appears to be motivated by sour grapes more than anything else, and a desire to keep his name in the papers since he's still unemployed.

If he really had a problem with that Priefer said at practice to the point where he was literally going to sue over it, then why didn't he speak up and threaten to sue at the time? Why did he wait until he got fired before he got mad about it?

Thanks for letting me rant.
#8
Pro Football / Michael Sam and Tony Dungy
July 23, 2014, 12:47:28 PM
I've read the controversy that flared up last week. I've read Dungy's clarification released today. I wanted to go somewhere to vent my feelings on the topic where either they won't be misunderstood, or if they are I can contain the hate to one place. That's here! :)

Living in the too-much-information age combined with today's political climate, Michael Sam will always be a homosexual first, and an NFL player somewhere after that (maybe not always, but at least the next few years). I'm not saying that's right or wrong or good or bad, that's just the reality.

A head coach is powerless to change this sort of reality. All he can do is work around it. With that said, I don't blame Dungy one bit. A head coach is there to run a football team, not to initiate some sort of social change. He's absolutely right when he said that it would be a distraction, and I wouldn't want to deal with it, either. The media shitstorm of the last week is only serving to prove Dungy correct.

If anyone is to blame for this, I blame Sam himself. He should have been smart enough to know the political climate, and that when he decided to come out all he was going to be in the eyes of most of the media is a gay man and not a football player. I'm not saying the guy should have denied who he is. I'm saying he should have been smart enough to know it was a distraction and keep his mouth shut about what most football fans don't give a shit about, anyway.

Or, maybe he did this intentionally, in an ultimately failed attempt to go higher in the draft. But, I'm just coming up with conspiracy theories now...

#9
Chit Chat / Rantings!
July 10, 2014, 06:06:58 PM
I wanted to post something around here, and I need to rant, so let me kill two birds with one stone!

During the PCF days I was single. My love life was a comedy of errors. But that area of my life has improved (as did many others). I'm married now, have been for a little over five years. Just laying the ground work so this next announcement doesn't shock anyone...

My father-in-law passed away about two weeks ago.

No, not ranting about that. Imma rant about work!

I had to take some time off of work to leave town and be with my wife's family and attend the viewing, the memorial service, etc. I usually have my shop a very low-maintenance, figuratively well-oiled machine that allows me to nearly sleep at work. You would think that I could leave things here and everything would be fine when I get back, right? Of course not!

Everything bad happened when I was away, and all this shit stacked up on me and I've been fighting with it since I returned to work yesterday! Add to that that I'm trying to get caught up with all this shit, and we had an influx of all of our work-from-home users come in to the office due to a failure of the server they log in to that I don't control and have no access to fix personally. So, for about 30 people I had to arrange accommodations for them all, on top of trying to get caught up on all my other shit.

It's about 3pm, and this is the first opportunity I had all day to sit down. So, I wanted to vent about it!

#10
I hope this doesn't get deleted before anyone gets to read it. I am Bret, former admin of pcfootball.net. Wow, that was over a decade ago...

After I walked away from PCF, I stopped doing the internet forum thing. I also stopped playing Madden, but for different reasons. Madden became more of what it already was...a fresh coat of paint, a roster update, and another $60 down the drain. So, I've been out of these circles for a very long time. But, lately I peek in about once every year to 18 months just to see what's going on, and I am surprised by this...the whole site is different, and no one is here. It looks to be rebooted, but I only see about three of the people I was expecting to.

Anyway, like I said, I don't do the forum thing too much any more. I just wanted to poke my head in to say hello and to wish you all well. Oh, and congratulations for outliving Maddenmania! :)