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So UH dipped out in the sweet 16 again. Would have loved to see how it would have gone if our guy didn't sustain an injury. Anyhow, go, whoever plays Duke.

I am so tired of announcers calling assists "dimes."
It makes no damn sense. If you are referring to the age old analogy of ratting someone out, as in dropping a dime into a payphone and calling the heat, how does that apply?
It can't be referring to a good looking woman....so all that leaves, to my mind, is a pass being so accurate, it could hit a dime.
Basketball passes by and large are not accurate. There's a pass two feet over his head but he jumped up, caught it, and then gets two...what a dime.
Go f*&! yourself.

Is it just me, or are the studio goons just that uneducated? I don't listen much, but when I do, I wonder if English is their first language. The women are almost worse. Right? 

Anyone have access to the MLB statcast commentary? Im not even sure if its offered every game or not.

Oh and the Yankees lost 

This Texas OU move to the SEC, yay or nay?
Is it happening? Who will likely stop it, if anyone?
Will OU really go anywhere without OK State? What will Baylor have to say?
Are the Aggies still at the kids table in the SEC? Will it really be worse for them if Texas and OU show up?
More importantly, what will the division alignments look like now?

People are crazy if they thing A&M is scared of Texas and fled the Big 12, thats ludicrous. Texas was hoarding everything in the conference.
As for me, well, Ill always hate OU and any reason to further that hate is ok with me. Texas? I pull for all Texas schools, although I have them ranked and UT is, well, not at the top, and still wont be depending on how they act and who they play.
I also think OU coming along will absorb any negativity from the Big 12 or anywhere else for that matter.

Now teams like Houston and SMU will likely be pursued to the Big 12 and as much as I love my Cougars, this severely weakens the Big 12 with these two leaving. Does that bode well for smaller teams coming in, and for the remaining teams or will the whole state go to the SEC now?
It'll be interesting

Franchise finally obtains some attention

https://www.gamesradar.com/madden-22-preview/

I was able to pick up a PS5 not long ago and MLB is driving force behind that move.
Normally, I just dont get in to the feature videos and all that, but this time I did for some reason and I think Im sorry.
Primarily an RTTS guy, it appears, if I understand the revamped system correctly, gone are the days of progressing attributes of your player.
They want Diamond Dynasty to be the end all for this series and this was step one in phasing out RTTS.
Your created guy can span RTTS and DD, but with that, you can now only progress to 50 in all categories.
Beyond that, you have loadouts you use that are good for one game at a time. Those equal the other 49 attribute points somehow.
Now, like I say, if I undestand correctly, waht happens is, say you want to be Barry Bonds one game and just crush homers all night. Well, pick the appropriate load out.
You wanna bunt single and fly around the bases? Choose that load out. Wanna be a gold glover? Be that guy.
So basically, you are an elite five tool athlete now without having to work at it.
Arcade style just evicerated RTTS and I could not be more displeased.

Ive always always wondered why the never just made a game without licensing because the community can and will create everything else.
Looks like you will have the schools logos, stadiums and mascots, only the players likenesses and abilities will be missing but that can be updated.
Im hoping this is the one thing EA can continue to execute correctly. Well, this and NHL

https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/30820886/everything-need-know-return-ea-sports-college-football-video-game

EDIT - I was posting this in life but thought it would be safer here.

I didnt want to post another thread and it's not intended to be political, but move it there if you feel otherwise.
I just discovered this today and it still blows my mind.

So you know I was bowling quite frequently, in a few different leagues, but during the pandemic, we stopped.
The bowling center has been open and restarted leagues recently. Both of my teams elected not to participate despite wanting to because we are avid bowlers.
I communicate once in a while with one girl who has started back bowling full time in those leagues as does her father. I know them both and am friends with them.
I was trying to get in touch with another guy who I bowl with who hasnt been responding to my messages so I contacted her to see if she had seen him lately.
The answer was no. But, she said, dad's in the hospital with Covid.
Fuck man, that sucks.
He was tested Monday, hospital sent him home with motrin for minor symptoms (comparatively I guess) but Tuesday he worsened and is back in.
She says docs think he's going to be ok but it's going to be a long road, considering he now has pneumonia too.

I didnt like hearing this, but I hated this even worse...
She said, "you know noone at <the center> would admit to having Covid." (first of all, no, I don't know that, but didnt say anything)
and continued on; I wasnt going to tell anyone but when dad worsened, I figured I better not lie.
I wasnt quite sure what that meant, but I responded that yes, she should tell them.
It was also relayed to me that he was exposed two weeks ago (how she is so sure I dont know, I didnt ask) which means he could have been to the lanes, not once, but twice, while infected.
Granted, he didnt know he had it those two weeks.

As I type this, I feel it becoming political, and should maybe move it over...yea, I think I will...

So this girl, I knew she was a Trump supporter early on after meeting her. Not by anything she said or any iscussion, she just flat out asked me while Trump was on the news or something like that, cant recall. I said no an it never came up again.
But, and this is just my personal view;
One, she's a woman - supporting Trump, which kinda surprises me.
Two, she's military - supporting Trump...and
Three, she's gay, supporting Trump.
I cannot fathom the disconnect, personally. But, I bring that up because in our conversation today, she added this little nugget;
I shifted the conversation to see how the lanes were handling things since I havent been there since the February.
She said they were making people were masks but no distancing...and added that she honestly didn't think any of those measures work and that we all need to get Covid and build our immunity up.

I just thought I'd share....

So, I was pretty much country in my youth. Yea, I knew and liked rock n roll, but if I had my druthers, I was leaning to country.
Eddie Van Halen changed that, permanently. At school, someone played "Eruption" and I was floored. I bought their previous two albums and everything since.
He was a complete musician, like it all, hate it al, he was a craftsman and devoted to his art. He had some rough spots but he overcame and still had a legendary career.
And you know what I really hate, other than the obvious? The last 20 years, people pretty much shit on him. And yea, there's was the whole reunion tour thing where he lapsed big time and all that, but people just never gave him his due respect anymore, even after he overcame.
I man, sure, his fans did, but most everyone else? Not so much. He even fell out of the conversation of most influential artists. Like how the fuck does that happen?
And now, every outlet will kiss his ass. It's just so much the way of the world now and it really aggravates me.
But for me, he put out some fantastic music that I will continue to enjoy for the rest of my life. I truly appreciate the man he was and the man he became.
Being able to tour with his son was probably the pinnacle of fatherhood, so Im really happy he was able to accomplish that as well.
He will be missed.

Quick story -
We took the fam in multiple cars out to see VH in 92 I think it was at one of our big outdoor venues.
If you hadnt been there before it was supremley easy to get lost because no lots were close to the theater and it was an up and coming town/suberb for high end folks.
So afterwards, we made our way out and had lost track of my mom and nephews in the other car, but oh well, they'll figure it out.
Next day, mom tells me they got lost which I knew they had lol but as they were leaving, they saw a limo broken down on the side of the road.
It was VH. They stopped and Eddie stuck his head in the car and asked if my mom had a cell phone (they weren't ubiquitous yet) and she did, just not with her.
My nephews, who were barely teenagers, were absolutely awestruck.
Eddie, obviously flustered with his situation, was still nice to my boys. I dont know why, but that just sticks with me.

RIP

I posted this in political to be safe, but Im genuinely just curious if anyone knows of her controversy?
Apparently she shared the attached photo depicting a defiant German who refused to salute as he was married to a Jewish woman, or was about to be, not sure.
In any event, she commented something like, love changes one person at a time or similar, certainly not supporting Nazi's.
Next, people demand she say ACAB and BLM, and then it extended to people demanding she have pronouns in her bio, else they deem her transphobic.
I browsed her timeline and I just don't get it, what am I missing?
She further stated that Mandalorian co star Pedro Pascal enlightened her on the pronoun thing (wish he
would enlighten me too) but she would not be bullied in to adding such things to her bio and instead added robot onomatopoeia's which apparently was taken as a direct rebuff by many.
Enlighten me, cuz I'm a guy out of the loop and I just don't get it.
Am I supposed to hate her or not? 

Anyone know how to batch capture with FFMPEG on Mac?

This post stems from quite a few instances but I just wanted to get thoughts on the subject.
For instance, the Astros cheated, period.
But, even acknowledging that fact still somehow bars you from discussing any other teams potential dishonesty.
I get hit with the "cheating is cheating is cheating" thing frequently. And fine, that's all well and good, but how come no one even gives a hint of interest to evidence of others participating as well? you know what happens then? You get hit with "stop trying to deflect" or "own up to it" and it's childish and close minded.
So it's with those "cheating is cheating is cheating" people in mind that I always try to discuss other examples, even in other sports.
First, allow me to say I think most of these types of people, and when I say most, I mean like 99% (including crusading sports writers) are the guys that were picked last for kickball in grade school and that was the height of their sports achievements.
Secondly, for my purposes here, we will do away with all euphemistic language such as gaining an edge, doing whatever it takes and the like and we will simply call it what it is, cheating.

When I was growing up, I remember Raider great Fred Biletnikoff being covered in stickum. Didn't seem to bother anyone else and lord knows he wasn't hiding it, at least until the clear stickum arrived.
There are stories by players about league wide use of stickum by receivers and defensive secondaries alike, not to mention the all time great, Jerry Rice.
Cheater.
Lineman used to place foreign objects in their arm pads and tape to knock their opponent silly, used tacks in gloves to be able to grip defensive lineman better, and later it was silicone and lord knows what else. It's like they were taking notes while watching wrestling.
Chances are way over 95% that some of these guys were on your favorite teams. Probably even one of your all time heroes for that matter.
Cheaters.
Baseball has cheaters going back forever. I mean the shot heard round the world, one of the games greatest moments, cheater.
Just an absurd amount of allegations backed up with evidence over the years of someone in center field stealing signs and relaying to the hitter and sometimes even cameras, even back in the 80's.
Astros great Mike Scott said in his book the Mets used a camera to steal signs. He added that people like to attach a morality to it, but it's not like that, you just want to win. I'm paraphrasing but still.
Just as an aside and as a baseball fan, I learned this at a young age, cheating is accepted. I even bring this up to people today.
Hitter A is in the box, a runner is on second base, steals a sign and relays the forth coming pitch to the batter.
Hitter B is in the box and the sign is stolen from the catcher and relayed to the hitter via a bang on a trash can.
Hitter A and hitter B both know what pitch is coming.
Cheaters.
Don't give me this shit about technology. Hey, a cheater is a cheater is a cheater, right?
Players all talk about it, have always talked about it. Most everyone does it, most everyone will always do it.

I just shake my head when people pull the old Rafael Palmeiro finger wag on me, shame shame shame they say.
Like it or not, your team cheats, your favorite players cheat, your heroes likely cheat.
Boxers cheat, hockey players cheat, lacrosse players cheat,. It's sports. Athletes cheat.
Get over it and stop being so high and mighty you kickball reject.

I was researching a great range game to play as I haven't seen one since Motorsport I think it was called.
It was narrowed to to Dirt 4 and F1 2020.
Partiality played its role and lured me to F1, that is until I discovered, micro transactions.
Then I just said, fuck off.
Ok, not quite. I did read a bit an apparently items that were offered up even in 2019 version are now behind a paywall. Of course you can gain most everything through playing and XP, but why the hell when you had it out of the gate last year?
I'm real sour on MT in a game. Charge me the fuck up front and don't hide items, levels or anything in your product.
You want to sell an expansion? Fine, Im down for that, but kiss off with this nonsense.

All that said, I'm sure MT are here to stay now, so one more reason to despise EA.

I thought this might be rough for a chit chat topic so I put it here, even though it probably doesn't belong here either.

So, first off, Im not Native American so I dont feel oppression first hand with regard to this team name.
Is this too much? Changing the team name? How about the Aunt Jemima rebranding?
Pro teams change names so it's not a big deal except the reasoning here is what's stoking the fire. I always thought the mascot Redskins was used not in a pejorative, but honorable context, however that is long lost by now.
I really don't have an issue one way or the other. If you pressed me, I'd say leave it alone because that would give reason to rename and rebrand other schools, teams and who knows what else, ... street names? I dont know.
Id like to hear from someone affected and or offended by the name because while I can read and learn about it, just like I can read and learn about slavery, I can't live it.

What negatives does "Redskin" actually infer? Is it that everything thinks "Redskins" are a bunch of whooping yelling scalping murderers? When I was a kid, that was normal because that's how they were portrayed on every show and movie I watched, not because of a football team. And once I was educated I learned and moved on from my 6 year old self.
Nowadays, you dont find those negative connotations with the Native Americans, at least not ubiquitously.

So the fun part of this thread is, if a new name is forthcoming, what should the team mascot be now?

Ok, so as long as Ive had this PS4 (for ev er) Ive had zero controller issues.
Recently, I had the R2 button stick, so I bought a new one. Things were fine until the battery needed charging.
And btw, I leave my PS4 on constantly, and even the game too. Sometimes, ill leave it on the pause screen and just kill the tv. Sometimes Ill just hit the "PS" button to back out to the main screen but leaving the game open, then shut off the tv.
Suddenly, my controller was consistently low and wouldn't charge. Then I started reading, turns out when actively charging, your controller light should be amber.
Well, mine is forever blue.
I fucked around, did the controller reset and even bought yet another controller. It wouldn't charge either.
And by the bye...on the main screen, when you hit the PS button to bring up the charging status? I gt the battery flashing icon, meaning it is charging, but we all know it isn't.

So now I shut off the console and all that jazz, plug in the controller, and I get the amber light, which apparently means, charging. The icon is flashing charging and it works on both the brand new and still new controllers.
So I leave it connected for the night per the norm.
Come back this evening, and ... "battery low"
Same blue light, no amber, but still have the flashing battery icon going, telling me all is right with the world.
I have a new cable arriving tomorrow, but I dont see how that could be the issue but Ill try anyway.
If I have a controller, PS4 works fine in all aspects as far as I know.
So, wtf? Over.

You fellas ever read about the Fermi paradox?
I discovered everal years ago and come back to it once I a while just because it's so fascinating to me.
This paradox revolves around the vastness of the universe and that there must be other life and if so, where are they?

https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html

It's an involved theory but essentially the idea is there's a great filter that no civilization in the universe has progressed beyond.
Regarding Earth then, the options are, we are rare. one of the very few to make it beyond the filter. Another is, we are the first civilization to surprise the great filter. Or, we're fucked because the great filter is ahead of us.
If you have time, give that a look and chime in.

The power cable that comes with the laptop is totaled. I dont want to spend an ungodly amount of money on another.
I have a good size portable charger....I actually think it's this Anker one in this package.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MZ61PRW/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=A294P4X9EWVXLJ&psc=1

Could I buy a USB to USB-C and run from that portable charger to my MacBook or would I need a setup like the one in the link? Or should I just buy that stupid replacement?

Never tagged before. Wanted to clean up songs and sounds, some I created, some I didnt, in order to use in MLB The Show.
Im using Tag Editor for Mac. I tried Picard but it was way too convoluted.
Let's say, I have a folder on my desktop with 300 files called MLB 20.
I add that folder to the Tag Editor. I have gone through a few files, some manually, but stopped because I am wondering, how do I get that info to appear in my desktop folder?
I checked the songs I had already updated and they are still the same, no new info, no art, nada.
So how do I get the info to the files? I thought it was just refresh everything but I guess not.
I see there is an export option to .csv and "Music" what ever the hell that might be, but I dont use iTunes or any of that other shit, I just want the files in my desktop folder to reflect the changes Im making in the software so I can transfer to a USB stick and in to the PS4.
Seems simple enough right?

of the political landscape.
I've tuned out almost completely. Twitter has become almost as bad as FB was when I left.
Ok, not that bad, but still. I skim over most things now, searching out just fun posts, and I do read news articles that I need to, but I try to avoid comments.
Sometimes, Ill find myself sifting through the vapid, hateful, ignorant posts, getting more and more frustrated at our so called fellow man, and then I realize and ask myself, what the fuck am I doing? This is not productive for me.
Now, I just try to stay in my lane an avoid the orange stormtroopers, including those in my family.
It just amazes, and I mean, amazes me the shit I hear for supporting this clown.
So I just try to tune it out.

There, I feel a little better.

[The good]

I normally picked this up every year, but skipped last year because my playing time waned somewhat.
However, I grabbed it this time and here's some impressions. Note that I only play RTTS.

First off, I didnt back up any of my 2018 RTTS guys in the cloud and it turns out, you cant import them in to 20 unless via the cloud.
I say that because its a guess and the reason is, it also appears you cant import anyone that isn't from the 2019 game. I could be wrong if someone else can check that. At some point, I think I can fire up my 2018 version, save a RTTS guy to the cloud and then come back to 20 and see if I can import.

I think this was setup in 18 but I cant recall so Ill go ahead and discuss:
Once I get this game, the very first thing I do is load music and set sounds, chants, yells and the like. Takes a good while, but once you do it, it's done.
I can recall that you used to have to do, say your chant sounds. You would have to go to that category, scroll through your entire library of music/sounds and pick which ones you wanted for chants.
Then do yells, then music cues...good god can you imagine how frustrating and boring that is?
Well now, you can select any category all at once.
Your music (and or sounds etc) are in column one on the left. On th right are three other columns with checkboxes; music, chants, yells (at least I think thats what they care called, doesn't matter for our purpose here)
So you only have to scroll all your music once; checking every category in which you want that music to appear all at the same time. So much more user friendly.

Enough of that, on to the game.

The good
I always always always hated how your guy would go from zero to top speed in one step. it looked foolish, wasn't realistic and was quite unnerving, especially as a fielder. one step, full speed for ten steps to the spot and stop on a dime. It played silly.
Well, no more. The animations have been updated to have a much more realistic feel and appearance and will easily lead to errors in the field if you aren't careful, which I like. Although, I'm seeing a lot of E7's right now 

Perks
So this has evolved over the years and I like where it is right now. You can prioritize your characteristics and thus your perks. Captain, Heart and Soul, Maverick and Lightning Rod are the choices. You can pick a few to start and gain more as you go to help develop your guy. Although, Im about three months in to my first season and I haven't progressed in the perk area at all yet so Im not sure how it works. If it's based off of challenges, well then, that makes sense because, I suck at challenges. That said...

Challenges
This too has evolved and I think its really cool. used to be, say at bat, the manager would just give you some stupid meaningless order you had to follow to gain progression points. I recall I was under a red light, no steals, ever, because I got caught a few times in a row. Well, I got on base an the manager told me to steal lol I literally got benched for trying to steal when he told me to but after the game said I didnt understand what no steals meant.
None of that shit anymore, a nd it doesn't happen often in a game, or sometimes even once every two or three games. It's very situational.
Say a man is on second; you might get something like this:
Maverick: Make contact with every swing and drive in the run (and get x points for clutch lets say)
Captain: Swing only at pitches over the plate making contact and drive in a run.

So, much much more interesting and believable situations.
Now, I could get 4 hits a game, seeing a beach ball floating to the plate, then I get a challenge and swing at three pitches out of the zone and Im done lol Challenges make me choke.

Relationships
This is another aspect that is really cool. The the opportunity arises, you can build relationships either with your teammates, or stoke a rival.
You usually get options of three rival players or teammates. You'll be able to see what stage you are at with each one and how you wish to go forward.
The three stages are unknown or unfriendly (basically, you dont know each other) friendly and bros, or rivals.
At each development stage, you get perks. Such as, if you have a bud on base, he can boost your contact for that AB.
Owning a rival, playing within a division etc all have the potential to add perks which makes it feel like games mean a bit more than wins or losses. There's meat behind your progress, rather than just wild silly meaningless challenges.

The umps variability is actually reasonable now. In 18, if my check swing was appealed, it was always "no swing." Got kinda boring.
I was in a clutch sitch and was able to finally heck my swing on a two strike count. An appeal was requested and that turd rang me up! I was so surprised!
At that moment I didnt care much for it obviously, but I really like the fact they changed that horse hockey.
Also, behind the plate treats calls that could go either way just like that, either way. And some bad calls too. They've really tweaked the algorithm to make this more realistic and fun.

Real minor league rosters!

Training
Im still in a young season so I haven't seen everything yet, but it seems to be much more refined and upgraded with a few twists. Some events that would force you to take 20 actual practice balls before now just automatically gives you your progression points.
There are some activities that are quite fun and frustrating though. If you have ever played, you'd recognize the toss up drill where you see a strike zone while balls are 'tossed" in to the zone and you have to hit them to gain points, and its a lot tougher, to me anyway, than it looks.
Things like that have made it a much better and faster transition through off days.

The bad
it is darn near impossible to check swing. I dont mean having a half swing called a strike. I mean, I cannot perform a check swing but maybe once out of 30 tries. I used to be pretty decent at it, but not now.

Just as hard or harder to draw walks. it seems that most of the time, the pitcher will start you off with something right down the middle of the plate.
hardly anything out of the zone, certainly not enough to garner a walk. Ive tweaked the sliders I normally do as this is something Ive had to do for years to draw walks, but its not working on this version yet so Ill keep tinkering.

If you round a base or try to steal and go back, just forget about it. you're dead meat. The animation pushes you too far down the line and can't recover.
This has been an issue for a few versions now.

The ugly


When trying to steal a base, stretch a single to a double, or a double to a triple, the throw is going to be on the money, 100% of the time, period. Right at the shoe tops. Every. Single. Time. never a bouncy throw, never the slightest bit offline. Never bobbled. Nothing. If you don't beat it outright, you're toast.
That sucks ass.

This game didnt take too long to download but holy crap, the install took a flipping lifetime, so, be prepared for that little inconvenience.

Finally, and this is one of my bigger complaints and always has been. You move up too damn fast in the minors. Now I know, you have to appease all the 8 year olds who want to hurry up and get there but damn. Two months in to my career and Im boosted to AAA. That's just not reasonable, at all.
Im sure, despite hitting .270 and part of a myriad of players at my position in the organization, Ill be elevated to the bigs in no time. I really really hate that.

*****

Everything else is pretty much the same as far as operation goes, that Ive seen anyway.
Many of the perks and development features make this game way more interesting than just drab binary progressions and whatnot.
Overall, still the same game, but to a more satisfying degree. I dont know what all was changed in 19 so some of these elements may not be new to you.
Whew, that's enough. let me know if you have anything to add or if Im overlooking something. Im still new to this version so that could be likely!