Metallica St Anger (official video)

Sox Nation on its heels

I know I have a Red Sox blog, but I thought I'd post this here, too.

Six weeks into the 2010 season I can say it now: I don't get it. I just don't understand this Red Sox team.

I've been following the Sox all of my life and this is the first time I have absolutely no read on the team. "Enigma" doesn't even begin to cover it. It's not just that this team seems to lack personality (where's Kevin Millar when you need him?!?) ... it's that they have no identity. It almost feels like we've gone back to the "25 guys, 25 cabs" era where it was every player for themselves. They just don't feel like a team.

The Sox are currently sitting in next-to-last place in the AL-East with a 15 - 15 record, 7 1/2 games out of first (frankly, I think they're lucky to be at .500).

They're supposed to be better than this. During the Hot Stove season last year, we kept hearing about how this team was built for run prevention, how the pitching staff was going to keep the opposition off of the scoreboard and the offense would score just enough runs to win games.

Hmmmm, how's that working out so far?

Look, I'm not pushing the panic button here and I don't expect they're going to roll right over everyone and dominate night after night. What I'm saying is that this team's flashes of brilliance are too far and too few between to foster any sense that things are going to right themselves in time to compete consistently this season.

I mean, they got swept in Baltimore last weekend ... Baltimore! ... the worst team in the majors (well, Houston in the NL-Central is almost as bad ... as of this morning, they have one more win that the Birds).

Ye gods.

Red Sox Nation has been fed a steady diet of "In Theo We Trust" over the past few years but I'm not sure the Sox brass is firing on all cylinders lately. It still astounds me that they didn't try to get a bat for the lineup, especially when David Ortiz' last season and a half decline is so obviously not a fluke. As much as I want Big Papi to succeed, I think the team and fans need to acknowledge that, for whatever reason(s), he's done. Seems to me that he's either hurt and isn't telling anyone or he's just simply lost his ability to hit (it happens). And I don't buy the argument that he's not seeing good pitches anymore because he doesn't have Manny Ramirez in the line-up to protect him. Ortiz could find some place in the order to hit.

I'm beginning to think that Ortiz has been struggling for so long that he's now too far down the rabbit hole to crawl back out. I would love to be wrong about this, but I honestly don't think I am.

And then there's the pitching ... virtually the entire rotation is like a roller coaster right now, up and down (forget about Dice-K ... I think we all need to accept the fact that he is a major bust and will never live up to expectations).

I was at the game last night vs. the Yankees. Sox lost 9-3. Beckett was brilliant in the first three innings with six strikeouts and pinpoint control but he absolutely imploded over the next 2 2/3 innings and gave up nine earned runs. He was a completely different pitcher, like someone threw a switch in his head between the third and fourth innings.

And for me, that stat alone from last night's game perfectly sums up this team ... it just doesn't make sense.

The countdown is on!

I have to post this because it's Van Halen

Any hard-core fan of the band knows that in its heyday, Van Halen had a rider in its touring contract (Article 126) that stated there should be a bowl of M&Ms backstage and that all brown candies had to be removed.

Check out this article on the Van Halen News Desk to find out why ... it's actually a stoke of genius on the band's part.

Welcome to Rapture ... again

Just finished playing through Bioshock 2 on Xbox for the second time.

Those of you who are gamers probably are familiar with Bioshock even if you haven't played it.

The premise of the game is thus: Rapture is an underwater city created by Andrew Ryan who believed people should live as they want to, free of government and religion telling them how to live their lives.

Part of Ryan's "utopia" is that his scientists have developed a way for people to genetically alter themselves so that they can throw electric shocks, incinerate with fire, use telekinesis to manipulate objects ... you get the idea.

In the first game, Ryan basically losses his mind and dies and you have to defeat his under boss to save the city.

Bioshock 2 picks up where the first left off and you're now playing as one of the bad guys from the first game, a Big Daddy named "Subject Delta" who was the first Big Daddy ever created, so you're a good guy. This time out, you have to defeat the new leader of Rapture, Sophia Lamb, while looking for and saving your daughter, Eleanor.

And yes, I'm way over-simplifying the plot of the game and leaving out tons and tons of details (splicers, audio diaries, etc.). If you really want to delve deeper into the world of Bioshock, check out the Bioshock wiki here.

What's amazing about the game is how immersed one gets in the whole atmosphere of the game as you play. For starters, it looks simply gorgeous in the Art Deco style of the 1930s and 1940s. The sound, too, is all-encompassing as every single part of a good home theater system is used. More than once I would turn around because I heard something in the background and thought someone (or something) was behind me.

Making my way around Rapture and looking at the environments, I kept thinking (as I did with the first game) how cool it would have been to see Rapture before it went to hell. You're in a decaying world in which most things are broken down or rotting and it would be amazing to see what this world looked like at its zenith.

Anyway, the game play in BS2 is great, too, and improved upon from the first game. You're free to mix and match the genetic alteration you want to use in whatever combinations you want whereas in the first game it was more restrictive.

And quite frankly, walking around Rapture as a Big Daddy is just too damn cool. At the end of the first game you actually became a Big Daddy and the second game has another plot twist that's just as bizarre.

**ALERT: MAJOR SPOILERS TO FOLLOW**

But for me, one of the best thing about the game is that it actually has three different endings. Depending on who and how many people you kill during the game, there can actually be three different outcomes:

• everyone lives happily ever after,
  
• you sacrifice yourself so that Eelanor may live, or
  
• you sacrifice Eleanor to save yourself.
  

What's really interesting, though, is that only if you sacrifice Eleanor do you get even the hint that there could be a Bioshock 3 and man, it's a hell of a teaser because of what the story line in the third game could be.

**SPOILER ALERT ENDS**

Overall, an excellent FPS game and a very worthy sequel to the first. As one reviewer put it, Bioshock didn't need a sequel, but I'm glad they made it anyway.

Joey's Christmas spirit

Yup, Joey's really into Christmas ...

Where's the Shelf Elf?!?

My manager turned me onto a holiday tradition in her brother's family and Joey's really had a lot of fun with it.

Every day when Joey wakes up, one of the first things he does is look for the Shelf Elf in the house.

What is Shelf Elf? He's the elf that watches over Joey during the day and then goes back to North Pole to report to Santa every night. So that means that Shelf Elf, who Joey named "Pinocchio", is in a different place in the house every morning. So far, he's been on the fireplace mantel, on window valences, on top of kitchen cabinets and in the dining room chandelier.

When Shelf Elf first arrived at the house, young Mr. Davis was very skeptical to say the least.

"Daddy, he's not real. He can't talk!" I told Joey that the elf may not be able to talk to us, but he can talk to Santa. The look on Joey's face told me he still didn't buy it.

Fast forward to the next morning and, lo and behold, the elf was in a different place!

"Mama, Daddy, look! He moved, he moved," Joey said. "It's magic!"

Needless to day, Joey loves trying to find the elf every morning ... it's like hide-and-seek.

I think my favorite thing about this and that it's never even occurred to Joey that Mama or Daddy might be moving the elf. As soon as he saw that the elf was in a different spot that first morning, he's totally bought into it.

Yet another reason why I love Christmas again ... just amazing and so much fun to see it again through Joey's eyes.