Monday, August 22, 2005

Fantasy Sports Analysis

It's been a frustrating season for me in my fantasy baseball league. My team seems to do fairly decent stats, yet I'm stuck in fifth place. The other managers in the league have been active overall, but trade discussions had been almost nonexistent. I put a lot of thought into my trade offers, so it's really annoying when people reject it without any comments. I only just now created my fantasy football league. The reason it took me so long was because I'm not sure I wanted to continue in the whole fantasy sports realm. It can be fun, but there's so much luck involved that I'm not sure I wanted to invest a whole lot of time in it. I may even let the autodraft select my players for the football league - I really don't think I'm in the mood for the draft prep besides. Maybe I could look at salvaging an autodraft team as a challenge. It seems weird that only a year-and-a-half ago I had no idea what fantasy sports was, yet now I'm looked upon to be the commissioner for the various fantasy leagues that me and my friends are involved in.

I guess I've come a long way - neophyte to expert to possible burnout. I'm sure when the football season starts, I'll be plenty active in the league. Just that it's the little things that annoys me. The fact that luck plays such a large role sometimes really bothers me; I'd like to think I have a hand in what goes on. I suppose such whining is also a part of the fantasy sports environment.

I can't complain too much about it, though. I never would have gotten back to keeping up with baseball had I never joined in on a fantasy league. Interesting that I now know a whole lot more about the more obscure baseball players; like the closer on each team, the younger prospects, the 2B and the SS on each team, etc.

Fantasy Baseball League Update

DISCLAIMER: If you are not familiar or interested in fantasy baseball, you may as well skip this post.

Some definitions:

Team Name, Record, and Win % are self-explanatory.

Rating - Average rating over the course of the season. Basically, I give every team a 'rating' every week. It's a head-to-head league, so how well a particular team scores is heavily dependent on how the opponent did. My rating basically averages out what would happen if a particular team played every other team that week. A 5 would mean average, 6 would be good, 4 would be poor, etc. The rating can be looked at as what you 'deserved' to score that week (ie if you played the average opponent). The average rating can be interpreted as what your win % (if you divide the rating by 10) would have been if you had played a perfectly average strength of schedule.

Opp Str - Basically, the average rating of a team's opposition. I came up with this stat when it seemed like my team had been faced with a string of strong performances by my opponents. It had seemed like my team had been doing fairly decent, yet they had been struggling in the standing a little. Sure enough I found out that my team has had the toughest strength of schedule in the league, by a large margin. Note that you can predict fairly closely a teams' winning % by simply taking the (Rating - Opp Str + 5)/10. The main exception is C.D.L.A, due to the fact that his team had lost a lot of catagories closely over the course of the season.

Roto - Estimates what the roto score would be if we had played a roto league instead. I say 'estimate' because I did not perfectly compute the ratios because that would require more work that I would care for. I can't calculate the ERA, WHIP, avg, and K/9 precisely. Also, if the league were roto, I'm sure people would be playing differently. Not to mention the limits on games played and innings pitched would be a factor. But it does reflect how well a team has performed over the course of the season. (Too bad, I would probably be in 1st place had the league been roto...)

League info: 5 X 5 head-to-head 12-team league
Catagories: (R, HR, RBI, AVG, SB) X (W, SV, ERA, WHIP, K/9)

League standings through 20 weeks: (no I don't know why there's a huge space here)




























































































Team NameRecordWin %RatingOpp StrRoto
DeTrOiT108-81-11.5685.6394.65271
TygerTales103-81-16.5555.1864.77375
Fightin Irish99-80-21.5485.6235.18484
Baltimore Terps96-83-21.5335.2935.04176.5
retro Cardinals99-88-13.5285.8955.78993
The Bullies96-93-11.5084.9524.76870
Papercuts90-93-17.4934.5824.74359
Rod's Squad89-100-11.4734.5805.00957.5
A's87-99-14.4704.3274.79151
baseballnutz84-103-13.4534.5845.12355
C.D.L.A.84-104-12.4504.8074.89565
Thurman's Warriors78-108-14.4254.5325.17547

Thursday, August 18, 2005

Summer Movie Round Up

In theory I could practise writing on my blog, but I could never figure out what to write about anyway. My life? Hah! Not enough happens anyways; and if something did, I'm not the kind of person who would reveal it anytime soon. I have been trying to watch some of the movies this summer, so perhaps I could do a quick little summer movie round up. Let's start with the much anticipated Star Wars movie.
  • Star Wars: Episode III - MAJOR disappointment. Okay, first I will say that obectively this movies was much better that # 1 and 2. However, this movie also, as far as I'm concerned, needed to be awe inspiring. It wasn't. Let me put it this way: the original movies, episodes 4, 5, and 6, cast a legendary status onto the Jedi, and to Darth Vader. Did they live up to their legendary status in the new episodes 1-3? Nope. The Jedi were a bunch of shmoes who were mercilessly put down by, of all people, stormtroopers? And Vader turned out to be a whiny crybaby who didn't really accomplish much that's worth mentioning. So he slaughtered countless Jedi trainees, whoop-dee-do. I guess this proves that I'm actually a hardcore star wars fan, since most of the hardcore fans seem to feel the same way I do. Next!
  • Kicking and Screaming - Was actually not that bad. Pretty good in fact. Although I don't really remember it that well now, so it must not have been that good. Next!
  • Cinderella Man - It had one of the sappiest looking trailers I've ever seen, so I wasn't inclined to see it. But some people I knew highly recommended it. It was actually very good. Not really a boxing movie. More of a biopic period piece (the Great Depression) that happens to be about a boxer. Seriously, more people should have seen it, it's sad when everybody I've talked to either a) thought it was great or b) didn't see it. I would recommend it.
  • Batman Begins - Okay when I said I recommend Cinderella Man, I will say that it does appeal more to women that men (ironically, since it does have a lot of boxing in it). For the guys, this movie is awesome. To be honest, I always thought the Batman movies, and most of the other comic book movies, had this silly cartoonish feel to it. Often, especially in the Batman movies, the villians tend to overshadow Batman himself. Not so in this movie. Batman is awesome, the villains are villanous - and also realistic, and the plot is complex and sophisticated. The movie, which is a prequel, blends into the first batman movie seemlessly. Highly recommended.
  • The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D - Crap. Avoid like the plague. I would elaborate, but trust me, this movie is not worth elaborating on.
  • Mr. & Mrs. Smith - Perhaps it is unfortunate that I saw this movie just after seeing The Bourne Supremacy on DVD. The chemistry between Jolie and Pitt is very good and the only thing going for the movie, because the whole spy aspect of the movie was utterly perposterous. The ending of Mr. & Mrs. was completely unrealistic. The end should have been more like the movie Bonnie and Clyde, but no, they had to make a hollywood ending. Whatever. Overall Mr. & Mrs. Smith was above average. But go see The Bourne Supremacy or even The Bourne Identity instead, they are much better. (In case you hadn't noticed, I do value plausibility in movies quite a bit.) Next!
  • Bewitched - I didn't like it. It started out okay, but the second half of the movie was like watching paint dry. Something was missing. No chemistry at all. Maybe Ferrill and Kidman didn't like each other. Next!
  • War of the Worlds - I thought the movie was fairly good, but not overwhelmingly great. I don't know, the most interesting parts were the character study of Tom Cruise's character, and the ending (which I didn't know about because I wasn't familiar with the story). Did anybody notice that there really wasn't any plot? In any case, suspense thrillers/horror movies are not my shtick, so I didn't get as much out of the movie as some other people may. Still, I do think it was above average and worth seeing (once at least).
  • Rebound - Somebody invited me to see it, and since I had no life I had to accept. Then I asked, "Okay seriously, do you really want to see Rebound?" "No, not really" "Then why don't we just go home." Perhaps you would be wise to do the same...
  • The Fantastic Four - I thought the movie was fine. It had some funny bits in the middle of the movie, and, Jessica Alba is in it, so come on! Still I thought the movie did lack that extra substance over, say Batman, so I would grade the movie about average. For those Jessica Alba lovers, watch Sin City instead - much better movie. Okay maybe you shouldn't if you have a faint heart; the violence in Sin City is pretty extreme.
  • Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Some people criticize the decision to remake various movies (ie Psycho), but it really just depends on how well they do it. In my general experience, Tim Burton directs interesting, unique movies, and Johnny Depp is almost always in good movies (except perhaps Crybaby, but even that movie had a cult-esque charm to it). Here they made Charlie and the Chocolate Factory both different enough from the original to stand alone, yet still make it of good quality. It has a certain psychadelic atmosphere that may not appeal to everyone, but overall I thought the movie was quite good.
  • Wedding Crashers - Now this movie was hilariously funny. Some critics were critical of the sappy love story between McAdams' character and Wilson's character, but I think they need to get a life. I thought the movie struck a fine balance between hilarious slapstick comedy with a fine dose of romantic comedy. The chemistry between Owen Wilson and Vince Vaugh was a strong driving force in this film. I recommend it.
  • Bad News Bears - Although this movie seemed a little grungey, dated even, I like it overall. Seriously, does anyone remember a movie that Billy Bob Thornton did a poor job acting in? Speaking of which, I think I have a copy of Bad Santa on DVD somewhere around here...
  • Must Love Dogs - Saw it. Liked it. Beware, there really isn't any plot. But I liked seeing John Cusack do his obsessive intense psychoanalytical shpiel. Diane Lane was good too. Fine, I saw a chick flick and liked it so sue me. And no it's not a double standard that I criticize War of the Worlds for not having a plot, yet overlook Must Love Dogs' lack of a plot. It's not. Leave me alone.
  • Sky High - I'm embarrassed to admit that I kinda liked the movie. It looked like the stupidest movie ever conceived of when I saw the trailer, but it turned out to be not that bad. Perhaps my super low expectations caused me to like it, but it was actually pretty funny in bits. It is basically a 'teen angst' movie with a superhero angle to it, so do temper your expectations if you do choose to see it.
  • Garden State - Okay, not really a movie that came out this summer, but I did see it on DVD the other day. Probably the best movie I saw this summer. It was so complex and subtle, I don't even think I truly understood it, but somehow the movie just seeps into your subconscious. It just felt right. It's hard to explain. I highly recommend seeing it (probably multiple times).
Okay, that's enough movie writing for today! Time for me to retire.

Some movie related rumors: Four Brothers is supposedly very good. The 40 Year Old Virgin is supposedly very good. Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolow was supposedly extremely bad.

Arch-nemesis

It's time for me to breathe a sigh of relief. I've finally registered (more or less) for classes. Unfortunately, one of the classes I have to take is English. My arch-nemesis. Yep, I don't like English much. All of the writing, the brainstorming, the whole being told to read stuff, and worse yet analyze it as if I knew what I was doing anyway. It's not like I'm terrible at it. If I work hard, I should be able to shimmy a low A. If I work hard, and follow all of my teacher's incessant little rules - then perhaps. One time, when I was in 10th grade, I had this very militant English teacher (who was actually German by the way - good grief!). She graded very strictly - especially when it came to certain 'rules'. Like I had to highlight in 3 different colors each idea presented in the paper, no exceptions. I was defiant at first. It looked tacky; I shouldn't have to do this! Unfortunately I didn't run the class. Eventually I was able to adjust to the rules, or perhaps I was 'broken' or just conformed - my grade went from a D, to a C, to a B, to an A, each quarter. The teacher may have been proud of my improvement, but I was just glad I could leave. I haven't taken English since 12th grade, now I'm back. I wonder how I'll do... (cue a guy jumping off a bridge)

Saturday, August 06, 2005

I Still Can't Sleep -or- My Hair Keeps Growing

...and what's worse, now my right knee is starting to hurt because all I can do right now is pace around and think.

I forgot to mention my hair. It's been growing. For awhile now. In fact, it's too long. I'm severely annoyed. Pehaps I should explain more fully.

See, quite a while ago (as in a few years), I went to Supercuts to get a haircut. The barber seemed nice at first. She asked me what number I wanted to cut my hair down to. I tried to explain to her in English what I wanted done, and that I wasn't familiar with their numbering system. When she explained the system to me, I said that I wanted a 3 with 2's for the side and back. She warned me that it would be short, and I said that I liked my hair fairly short. She said, "Why don't we try a 4 first, then you can take a look. We can always cut it shorter." I'm like, fine. After she's done, I take a look. I said I wanted it shorter. After she's done again, I took another look, and told her I wanted it shorter. Finally, the third time was close enough for my acceptance. Then the barber says to me quite rudely, "Okay, so for the next time you visit, you want a 3 1/2 with a 2 1/2 sides and back, so that next time I won't have to cut your hair three times!" What a bitch! I told her what I wanted my hair short the first time! To repay her for her service, I've been boycotting Supercuts ever since...

...At least I think it was Supercuts. Come to think of it, it might have been Procuts. Or some other-cuts. Now I boycott every ???-cuts place. Which sucks, because in the meantime I've been relying on the Air Force base barbers for haircuts, but it can be very inconvenient to get there. Not to mention that many of them can barely speak English. Actually I miss my old barber from when I lived in San Angelo. It's nice to have a 'favorite barber', but I've yet to find one here.

Meanwhile, my hair just keeps on growing. Right now it takes me *gasp* almost ten minutes to get ready because I have to gel my hair to keep it out of my face. Question is, should I stop my personal war against barberism, so that maybe I can find a decent barber for myself? Or should I stand pat with my petty principles spawned from one bitchy barber? Ah yes, questions for the ages indeed...

The whole hair thing annoys me. I like to get as few haircuts as I can stand, so I usually cut my hair a too short, and grow it out too long. But there always that two week window where your hair is just right. I wish there was some switch that I could flip that could stop my hair from growing so that I wouldn't have to deal with the whole issue until the next time I want to change my hairstyle. Which I will admit might be a rare occurence (my hairstyle), because I suspect that I am secretly obsessed with stability. Quite possibly stemming from the fact that I moved a dozen times in my childhood. Okay, that's enough self-pychoanalysis. Bye.

Summer Break -or- Filling In The Blanks

Can't sleep again... as usual.

I apologize for not keeping up with my blog. I suppose it is a bad habit of mine to disappear for awhile. Back when I was in high school, and in college too I suppose, I had a habit of living a totally seperate life in the summer time compared to what I did in the fall-winter-spring time. Whether it be a summer job, summer classes, tennis lessons, or just a roadtrip, it always seemed like that I had different friends, differing habits, and/or just exiled myself from my previous life for whatever reason. Bears hibernate in the winter. I apparently hibernate in the summer.

**this actually had not been the case in recent years, however. I think that before I went back to school this spring, I had lost all concept of time. Life simply dragged on and on, without any structure. So I suppose 'summer' didn't really exist for me then. Now, on the other hand, I'm back in school; and I suppose I needed some time to 'recover' from it.

I any case, sadly, not much has happened to me this summer. I worked full time to compensate for me not taking any summer classes. I watched way too much television, watched a number of movies, bought a gameboy advance (which I will hereafter refer to as electronic crack), and basically did nothing productive. A couple of times I did have something to blog about, but it didn't really inspire me or anything. Mostly pointless stuff, anyhow.

Life is soo pointless. Blah, blah, blah. I actually was so depressed the other day that it seeped into the surroundings to point that people around me began to notice it (I'm pretty stoic - it's rare when my emotions start affecting reality). "Are you going through a mid-life crisis or something?" somebody asked me. Whatever. I'm fine now. Relatively speaking. I had recently unearthed some nostalgic baggage from my high school days - not really a good thing - in a silly effort to spark up conversation with somebody who was leaving town anyway.

E: You're so closed.
me: I know. I am.
E: Why are you like that?
me: I don't know.


The fact of the matter is that one of my worst traits is that I don't hold on. I let go too easily. And I have pretty awful timing. It just seems like I tend to open up right at the moment when either I have to leave, or when somebody else has to leave. For whatever reason, it always seems to turn out that way. In any case, I think it's time for me to wrap up. That's enough whining from me today.