April 07, 2006

What a week for sports

I love spring.

This week is probably one of the best in sports world. Not only do you have the men's and women's NCAA basketball championships, NBA playoff pictures coming into focus, and the Masters beginning on Thursday, but most of the country drags their clubs from the garage and heads out to the links (of course, in my case, this is "gets his clubs out from all the other random crap in his trunk because he's to lazy to bring them into the apartment," but that's another story).

The biggest of big news, though, is the start of basball season!!! That marvelous half of the year filled with the familiar scent of freshly cut grass, the scratch of the pencil along the scorebook page, and the pleas of "OK, honey, I'll get to it at the end of this inning." I'd reference a previous blog and note the current average of Carlos Beltran (.100) and point out that Billy Wagner has ALREADY blown a save in only his second game as a Met (he's on pace for over 50 for the year!), but then I'd have to mention the current ERA for Braves' starters (13.1). So I won't be saying anything. Yet.

The odd thing about the Braves this year is that right now they given up more runs than any other team in the league, but they've also scored more runs than any other team in the league. They've been great at getting runners home from scoring position, a glaring need from last year, and the youth is serving Atlanta well (as are the Jones boys, no surprises there). This should be a fun season, if not a nail-biter for us fans of the good guys.

But there's more to life than sports. There's also video games! If you have a PS2, I STRONGLY recommend getting Kingdom Hearts 2, especially if you played the first and enjoyed it. Though there was relatively little difficulty (aside from the overly difficult secret bosses), the storyline made it incredibly enjoyable, especially the ending sequence. This is one of the few games that has left me wanting to replay just the end sequence to fight the final boss and watch the ending over and over. Just incredible. If you haven't played the original Kingdom Hearts or aren't into video gaming, it's an Action RPG that incorporates Disney (as well as Nightmare Before Christmas) characters and settings in a Final Fantasy-type storyline (the game also features FF characters from games past, including Cloud, Squall, and Cid (the Cid from FFVII). Don't let the Disney element fool you -- it's not meant entirely for kids as there is a darker element in play aside from the traditional enemies (Capt. Hook, Maleficent, etc.). The original can be found for 20 bucks as a Player's Choice, and the gameplay lasts at least 30 hours (though much longer if you try to get everything), so it's a great investment -- go get it!