So I have returned from Wisconsin — the flight and train ride back was smooth enough, and I was delighted to return to find that my apartment had not caught fire, nor was burglarized. I spent a few hours unpacking, running some errands and taking care of some rather important things (call you say “Unemployment Benefits,” kids? Ah, I thought you could), and now have to get to work on some various projects.

But, I thought I’d share this family photo that I took last night, just because I think this is the first full “family” photo that we’ve had taken in, well, ever, really.

(going clockwise from top left) Dad, me, Casey, RJ, Erinn, and Mom

For non-shutterbugs reading this blog, this was literally a last minute affair: my mom was not home until Sunday, and then we had to wait until late Sunday night after my sister’s birthday dinner and after my sister’s boyfriend and his kids had left. The good news (for my dad, especially) is that I managed to get it right on the first shot, which was as much of luck as skill, really.

For the shutterbugs, this was taken with a tripod at 800 ISO, 1/10 shutter speed, and 3.5 f-stop. Yes, this means that the impossible happened and my niece and nephew held still longer than 1/10 of a second. Keep in mind that there is no lighting set-up at work here aside from the regular lights of the house. What really helped was that I took the photo in RAW format, and was able to then make some important adjustments for the incandescent lighting. Then, in Photoshop, a little bit of tweaking with the Levels tool to bring out the darker areas, and Viola! A rather nice image all the way around, I think.

I also got some shots of RJ & Erinn, as well as my sister and I with the kids. But this one is sort of like getting a photo of Lorenzo Music; very rare.

When your football team is in the midst of a 1-9 slump and (rightly) ranked as the 32 in the poll of which 32 teams in the NFL are the best — it really hammers it home when I explain it like that, doesn’t it? — you tend to take whatever comfort you can from others misfortunes. Especially if one of those happens to be a former wideout for the team with big play ability only surpassed by his big drop ability and big excuses ability. Braylon Edwards, traded by the Browns to the Jets some time ago, had a bad past year+ in Cleveland, and obviously wanted out, no doubt believing that all would hail his greatness once he was out of Cleveland.

Well, so far, not quite:

Braylon’s Jet stock keeps on dropping

Basically, the article quotes Braylon making some surprisingly bold excuses for a couple of his recent drops. (He shows no love for the Browns, of course, but ever since he gave that lame people-don’t-like-me-here-because-I-played-at Michigan-and-not-because-I’ve-dropped-balls-as-if-they-were-a-rabid-badger line, this should come as no surprise.) Head coach Ryan mentions that he’s pulling coverages, which is true, but it’s also true that since Braylon joined the Jets:

• The Jets have gone 1-6 after a 3-0 start.
• The Jets are on the brink of being eliminated from the postseason; the whole point of bringing Edwards in was to make a playoff run.
• Rookie QB Sanchez has regressed terribly, throwing 14 interceptions.

Naturally, no single player can really be singled out as a teams sudden bad run (the Browns, for example, continue to show true teamwork: when the offensive finally has a breakout game in Detroit, the defense manages to step back from the plate and allow an even bigger offensive breakout game for the Lions), but it certainly is not going to help Edwards bid for a contract extension. Likewise, his blatantly dismissive comments in this article won’t help his public standing at all, either.

I had said before that if Braylon thought the Cleveland media was unfair to him, just wait until the New York media smelled blood.

One more disappointing game, especially if he manages to drop another important pass, and the waters will be churning.

And yeah, Cleveland fans will revel in it. Whoo-hoo!

Hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable Thanksgiving. I have a number of things that I’m thankful for — the fact that I’m home for some damn fine free food is certainly one of them.

This was a thought I had during my flight….

I’ve been meaning to take more advantage of the camera on my Blackberry. Often, I will run across interesting things that I spot, which are not so interesting that I would want to dig out my good camera and make all the adjustments to make the shot, but all the same the image is interesting enough that it holds my attention for longer than 1.0273 seconds (which, for me, is a very long time).

So, here are a couple of shots that I grabbed last week, just for fun:

NJ Trainst, in a train car that has water all over the floors.

This was from one night, coming back into Jersey from Penn Station. For some reason, the car next to the one I was on had water all over the floors. While this might seem merely annoying, the fact that, as you can sorta see on the left, this car had a bathroom, the possibility that the toilet may have severely backed-up certainly accounted for the lack of anyone actually on that car.

And another shot:

A door that is not following its own rule. How gauche.

This one was taken as I was leaving the doctor’s office on Saturday. I just get a kick out of signs like this, as the sign must feel awfully embarrassed that its sole reason in life — warning others to keep the door closed — is utterly disregarded.

Currently I am enjoying the comforts of the parents home in Wisconsin, although already I have had to try and figure out what is wrong with the home wireless network (I think I resolved the issue, but I have a sinking feeling that it’s not going to last long…). I flew in yesterday afternoon, on a plane trip that — yet again — actually left on time and was pleasantly uneventful. I am honestly starting to get worried about this; after years of travel mishaps and high drama, I am constantly waiting for something particularly off-kilter to happen.

In any case, a few things I wanted to catch up on:

First, as some of you may know, the Browns lost to the Lions in a very bizarre fashion. Several people have mentioned that it was the worst way for them to lose, but obviously these people have forgotten about the “Helmet” incident from a few years back, when the Browns lost on opening day to the Chiefs because a defender threw his helmet after the play, drawing a penalty, keeping the game alive, and moving the Chiefs within field goal distance, which they scored from. But what has surprised me the most of commentaries this past week is the belief that “Oh woe is us, we are obviously at rock bottom because we lost to the Lions!” This, to me, shows that a number of these people really have no clear grasp on the current state of the Browns, nor the Lions.

Okay, so first all, The Lions have already defeated another team, so it’s not like they were winless going into the game. But far more importantly, I honestly wasn’t expecting the Browns to win. Why? Well, the Browns had no offense. Sure, you can make fun of the Lions for all their losses over the past 2 years, but so far this year, the Lions have had a much, much better offense than the Browns have had. Remember, before going into the game, the Browns had only 5 offensive touchdowns. A favorite stat cited by many people was that the Saints defense had more touchdowns than the Browns offensive. Hence, I was honestly surprised to see the Browns offense score as much as it did. What’s that? It was against the Lions defense, you say? Well, last I checked, there were better offensives than the Browns who have scored fewer points against the Lions defense.

So yeah, it was a hard way to lose the game, but last I checked, this was really one of the few times that the Browns have actually had a shot at winning in the whole season thus far. I do agree that Quinn and Daboll still need to proof that this was not a fluke (and I think that Daboll is going to be likely gone next year unless the Browns score 30+ points every game from here on out), but hey, it was a nice change of pace to see some creativity. The direct snap to Jamal for the 2-point conversion was probably the best play of the game.

Anyways.

Tomorrow shall herald in the call of family and grub, and it shall be welcomed with open arms and doggie bags. I have to admit, as well, that over the past month, I have eaten better than I have since I entered the ranks of the unemployed. This is largely due to the visits home, as well as John’s brief stop-over. I will have to get back into the “moldy bread and rainwater” motif soon enough, so if there was ever a time to eat too much, this would be it.

The rec league basketball season wrapped up on Monday night, and it was a bit painful for me. Not “painful” in the sense of “oh, woe is my saddened heart, for the loss of one of my favorite activities shall last until the new year,” but rather it was painful in the sense of, “ARRGGH! The ball landed just right on my extended ring finger and jammed it! I think I may have broken my knuckle!”

Right now the finger is still a little puffy and purple, but I’ll have to wait and see if I can have my doctor look at it; her office hours are 10-4 Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. I can’t even call to make an appointment until those times, and tomorrow I will be pretty much wrapped up with some meetings set for the afternoon and evening. And, of course, I’ll be out of town most of next week, so it looks like I may have to skip any extensive look at the finger until December. Still, I’ll see if I can’t sneak in tomorrow.

And, no, I’m not being sardonic about the fact that the Browns did not play play today.

Rather, I am rather giddy because in today’s game’s:

• The Steelers lost: Actually, I’m more happy that the Bengals won, in this case, as one of the favorite facts that national sportscasters like to bring up is Big Ben’s dominance playing in Ohio and against Ohio teams. So, the fact that the Bengals swept the defending Superbowl champs is a nice feeling, esp. given that the Browns won’t be doing that any time soon.
• The New York Jets lost: This really doesn’t have anything to do with Braylon, personally (although I was tickled pick to see him drop an insanely-easy catchable ball in the end zone that would have been a 2-point conversion at the end of the game), but instead should at least shut up one of the lamest complaints that people have made during Mangini’s time in Cleveland: he’s still committed to building a winner in New York, hence he’s trading everything away to them. Well, given that Mangini has been abysmal at building a competitive team in Cleveland, maybe now that the Jets have gone to 4-5 after starting 3-0 (and ironically, this sudden decline coincides with the arrival of Edwards), the envy-fest over the Jets will quiet for the rest of the season.
• The Tampa Bay Bucs lost: The Bucs, also 1-7 (although a better team than the Browns, no question), is the other place to check in on now and then, as they have K2. Remember, the current biggest issue with the Browns is that they have no more proven offensive talent on the roster. Well, the “proven” talent of the Edwards and K2 have yet to really make a difference for their respective teams.

As for the Browns, the firing of the manager, followed by the news of another opportunity drill injury and Jamal Lewis’ outspoken comments (followed by a backtracking) have kept the local and national media busy, and in a twisted sense, may turn out to be a blessing in disguise for Brady Quinn, as he was not the focus of attention with his reappearance into the starting line-up. The conventional wisdom is that it doesn’t make a difference if it’s Quinn, DA, or Carl the Wonder Poodle back there — the Browns offense doesn’t have the weapons or the creativity to compete.

And while the Ravens defense may be struggling, nothing like a trip to the far more anemic Browns offense to perk them right up.

I ran across this yesterday, and thought it was a pretty nice video, a large part being that I recognized all of the sports press conferences that were used.

Another aspect that I really like about this is that because its video, you can see exactly how the DJ manipulated the clips (sped up, cut, etc.) so that the audio from the video clips falls deftly on the beats of the music.

King Hippo from the Wii version of Punch-Out

I finally got back into this game yesterday; I hadn’t played it since the summer, which is a shame, as it’s just a blast. The art direction, the toon shading, the personalities, the fact that the characters from the other countries actually speak their native tongue (even King Hippo)… and that’s not even counting the controls.

You can play it three ways:

1. Wii controller
2. Wii controller & nunchuk
3. Wii controller, nunchuk, and balance board

I go with the third option myself, and it actually winds up giving me a good bit of a workout. The balance board is used for dodging and ducking, which gives you more cardio than you might first suspect. I freely admit that the third option also makes the game more difficult; you have to be rather careful about how you shift your weight — you might duck instead of dodge, or even dodge the wrong way, which means that you’ll get clobbered. At the same time, it sure does feel like a heck of fight as you get up in levels. Mind you, I have only gotten up to the Major Circuit Title Bout, and even then, I’m only in Practice mode right now.

The game is a rhythm matching game, really, as the key to beating each opponent is learning the moves they have, and how/when to counter them. One thing that I really like is the Practice mode, which basically allows you to practice against your next opponent without worrying about getting clobbered. Thus, you have a chance to really study the opponent and find the weakness and patterns to exploit. The only thing I don’t like about it is the fact that Practice mode is split off from the Career Mode; basically, if you want to practice (we talkin’ about practice, man….), you have to Back out of Career Mode, and enter Exhibition Mode. Personally, I think it would have made more sense to put the Practice option in Career Mode, right next to the “Fight” button on the stage select screen.

As I was playing through the game this time through, I was also enjoying all the little details that really give a game depth:

• The arenas change depending on which circuit you’re fighting in; a small local ring, for example, for the Minor Circuit, while the Major Circuit is a large arena.
• When you get a KO with a Star Punch, you get a special seperate animation
• Both Little Mac and the opponents get progressively worse as they suffer more knock-downs (bruises, bandages, welts, etc.)
• Each fighter has his own background theme music based on his country of origin

I’ll have to keep at this game, and see if I can’t get through it with the Balance Board. Like I said, if you make the slightest mistake in how you shift your weight, you could lose a fight as a result. The flip side is that victory is all the more sweeter when you put your whole body into it.

Oh, and I almost forgot the main reason I decided to post: I finally figured out how to regain some of your health. In the original 8-bit game, you could press the buttons in-between matches to increase your stamina. Now, however (and from what I read, this was what they did in Super Punch Out), you basically go through your punches while you’re opponent is on the mat, and that increases your stamina. Definitely a handy thing to know, as the opposing fighters tend to hit like a truck.