SB Nation User Blog: Black Francis

OT: So what's your favorite, eh?

Black Francis — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 00:52:07 -0000

So I was thinking about my favorite GOOD movies. You know we all have our guilty pleasures that we enjoy watching more than films we may like and think are important culturally, so I had to cut out such greats as Gross Point Blank and
The Hudsucker Proxy (both of which I think are brilliant but probably not examples of great film making).

Following is a poll with a list of some of my favorite good movies, and I was wondering which of them the community liked best. Hope that a good discussion follows, too. I have included an "all of these suck" option for those of you with no taste whatsoever. Anyway, they're in no particular order.

OT: PIZZA. DOWNTOWN. GOOD. DELIVERY

Black Francis — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 00:25:28 -0000

I live just barely south of Downtown in a very large apartment building situated on Lamar Street, and yet I cannot find one decent place that will deliver here. I used to get my pizza from Carmine's, a little place on San Jacinto. But they've changed their ingredients or something and it's not good anymore.

It's my God given right as a Murican to be able to order decent NY style pizza and have it delivered to my door if I want to pay for it. And I do, yet I cannot find the place. I've searched Yelp. I've talked to friends but they have their heads up Zini's ass, and that's horrible pizza. I know some of you have to work downtown and you have to know of a good place.

Gotta bum ankle. Don't really feel like driving to go get it.

You can complain all you want about me making this fan post, but I do not care. Worse tripe has littered the fanposts lately and hell I'll even delete this one if I get an answer.

Thanks.

Hacktacular: A simplistic analysis of Game 1 vs. NYY

Black Francis — Mon, 25 May 2009 21:13:00 -0000

I was going to put this in the post-game thread, but it's not up yet and this seems to be a pattern anyway.

Inning/Pitches seen that inning/total pitches at end of inning/pitches per inning at end of inning)

1st – 12 (12, 12)

2nd – 19 (31, 15.5)

3rd – 7 (38, 12.7)

4th – 9 (47, 11.8)

5th – 17 (64, 12.8)

6th – 19 (83, 13.8)

7th – 9 (92, 13.1)

8th – 9 (101, 12.6)

9th – 8 (109, 12.1)

In five of the 9 frames, the Rangers failed to make the Yankees throw even 10 pitches. It should be embarrassing for another team to come on your field and screw you six ways from Sunday in front of all those people.

Also, Nelson Cruz hit a solo shot in the ninth to bust the shutout. Now down 11-1, FIREWORKS GO OFF AND MUSIC FILLS THE STADIUM??? I like what Chuck Morgan does, but I do not like that. There's not one fucking thing to celebrate when you're getting trounced at home and get a meaningless run in the 9th.

OT: Migraine Headaches

Black Francis — Fri, 08 May 2009 20:42:20 -0000

Okay. So I'm 32 and I've had "ocular migraines" for years. Since early college, anyway. For those of you who don't know, an ocular migraine presents with strange visual phenomna. Gray spots. Feeling like your eyes are crossed when they aren't. Flashing blobs traveling in front of your vision. They're really weird, but aren't generally accompanied by pain. Anyway they come on very quickly and go away just as quickly. There one second and gone the next. And, for me at least, they usually don't last long so I have never been too bothered with them.

Then my doctor tells me about five years ago that people with ocular migraines most often go on to have regular migraines. A long time passed and that never materialized. Until maybe a year ago.

They're getting worse. I'm not going to say they're the worst thing in the world. For me they're not, anyway. But they do suck, and can sometimes debilitating when they are happening.

I've been getting them with more frequency and for longer durations. I talked to my physician about it maybe two months ago, and aside from some pills I'd really rather not take there doesn't seem to be anything that he can do about it.

So, finally, my question is, how many of you live with this? They're fairly common from what I understand. For those of you who are on medication, does it help? Side effects? For those of you who are not, do you have any tips for living with them? Since light literally hurts my eyes all I know to do is to hunker down in a darkened room. That doesn't really help anything, though. It just keeps things from getting worse. What about accupuncture? I'm not a big believer in holistic and alternative medicine but I'd be willing to give some things a shot, I suppose.

And sorry for posting this here. I've been to some medical sites and forums, though, and haven't really gotten any basic, down-to-earth advice.

OT: Taxes

Black Francis — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 00:45:33 -0000

I should have hired somebody to do this like I have every year since I started making decent money. But I didn't, and I want to watch baseball (priorities, man) so I had to file an extension.

Went to IRS website and was directed to get form blah blah blah, and when I went to fill it out it seemed like I needed to have my taxes done before I could complete it.

Fail.

So I dug around the Google. Turns out Turbo Tax will e-file an extension for you. I followed the link and got in there, and at first it was almost as crazy as the IRS form. Did manage to complete it, but then it only gave me an option to print and mail it to Austin. Well, I don't have any stamps and live in the ghetto so that's no good. Would rather not deal with it tomorrow, ya know?

But after some more digging on the Turbo Tax site it turns out that they DO have an option to e-file an extension and it required all of about thirty seconds of time. So as a public service to my fellow Rangers fans, I am providing this invaluable link in case you're in a similar situation or whatever.

So they'll do that for you and for free, and now you can hire someone who knows what they're doing to prepare your taxes. Thanks, TurboTax! I may even use them, who knows. Any opinions on that?

Wii: Any good baseball games?

Black Francis — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 18:23:03 -0000

In spite of not knowing much about it and not being a video game person, I've been intrigued by the concept of the Wii for a long time. I have a hard time sitting still. Anyway, I finally broke down and bought one yesterday.

It came with a DVD called "Wii Sports" or something, and it has golf, boxing, tennis and baseball. I haven't tried golf but the others are amusing, at least. Just way over simplified. I'd like to get a real baseball game for the Wii, but I want to be able to "swing the bat" and "pitch". You know, do something other than just sit there.

So I've been reading and am confused. There are some baseball titles for the Wii, but from what I can tell not all of them take advantage of what the controller is capable of.

I'd like to know what you guys think has the best balance between "fun" and an approximation of baseball. I don't care if the characters are cartoon-like or not, but I would like it if it were MLB licensed with real teams, players, stats, et cetera even it's not super in-depth.

Any thoughts?

Momentus OT Development: I Followed Sharky's Advice

Black Francis — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 22:42:00 -0000

Sort of. Well, I actually did take him seriously. And while he's a scoundrel for not paying off his debt to ab03, I have to hand it to him on this one.

In a thread not too long ago he (as well as others) advised me to go with Vista and just buy the computer instead of building my own. That's exactly what I ended up doing and so far I'm annoyed but fairly pleased.

At 5am I was there at Best Buy not just to pick up the computer I ordered last night, but also to take advantage of a monitor deal they had going on. Got the second to last one of those...a nice Samsung widescreen. Also got a video card so I could run dual monitors. Haven't set that up yet.

So I get home and install the video card. Hook up the new monitor. connect the mouse and keyboard. Then, fearful of the horrors of Microsoft VIsta, I booted her up. Of course it had nine billion updates to download, but really it's been working great ever since. My mom's crashes ALL the time. In fact I had a lot of trouble with it yesterday while I was there for thanksgiving.

It's going to take some getting used to, but for several reasons I think I'm going to like Vista. And I'm writing this for two reasons. To give Sharky his fair due, and to say that those of you who said photoshop and stuff wouldn't benefit from a 64 bit system were dead wrong.

The computer I bought is a quad core Intel. Six megs of RAM installed, and I can get up to eight in there. Vista, as large as it is, boots up in a 1/4 of the time that XP does on my old desktop (to be fair it is messed up). Photoshop, Photomatrix, and Neatimage are only 32-bit apps but boy do they fly. Photoshop itself will open in three seconds. THREE seconds. 1 gig files are easy and fast to work with even though I also had a browser, e-mail client, anti-virus, and whatever else running in the background. Compared to what I had (Pentium 4) and my laptop (dual core Intel), this thing is a super computer.

And, finally, I have a question. The box came with a 300w power supply. The graphics card I bought isn't exactly state of the art, but its "requirement" was a 300w PSu. So the question is, worst case...what would happen? Would it screw up other components? The graphics card? Or would the power supply simply die? Would windows give me some kind of warning? The case has loads of space in general, but the power supply looks like a pain in the ass to change out.

Final questions: I've never worked with dual monitors and I haven't set them up, either. Is it difficult? With the wide monitor I got today there's less of a need for it, but it would still be nice when I'm working on my actual job. Anyway, I don't think I'll get into that until tomorrow...just wondering what kind of time I need to set aside.

PS -- Sharky isn't going to like this but either I'm going to partition the drive or buy a separate one and dual boot XP pro. Just in case.

Innings Pitched

Black Francis — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 18:26:31 -0000

The starters have to pitch some innings. I've looked at every playoff team for the last two years and their top three pitchers in terms of workload.

2008 AL:

TAM:: 596

BOS: 565.7

CHW: 633.3

CAL: 613.7

2008 NL:

PHI: 613.7

CHC: 600

MIL: 561

LAD: 595

2008 AVERAGE: 597.3

2007 AL:

BOS: 594.3

NYY: 566.7

CLE: 648.3

CAL: 580.7

2007 NL:

PHI: 544.3

CHC: 618.3

ARI: 633.3

COL: 547

2007 AVERAGE: 591.7

In comparison, your Texas Rangers top three pitchers:

2008: 491

2007: 429

The point is pretty obvious, isn't it? I don't think one out of those sixteen playoff teams failed to have at least one pitcher throw more than 200 innings. Many had two. In any event, their top threes beat the Rangers top threes all to hell. Millwood, TEX's IP leader for both years would've have made the third pitcher on I believe only one of those teams.

OT: Build Yer' Own Computer

Black Francis — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 18:46:50 -0000

Okay, I know there are probably better places to post this, but the problem is with those places is I don't know who the people there are. I'm not a computer person. But I know there are computer people here and that's why I'm comfortable asking questions here. And I figure there are enough computer people here that maybe this post could entertain a little conversation between them.

Okay, so here's what I need a computer to do. Business stuff. Typically I use Open Office but will be going to Seseme at some point. Web surfing, of course. The computer will be networked to another desktop and a laptop. I don't play games, but you know, someday I might. Probably not, but maybe. What I do, though, is photography. I want it to run Photoshop CS3 very quickly. I want it to run Photomatrix very quickly. And all that. I'm also a musician and would like to do my recording on the computer at somepoint. Not albums, but demo quality/songwriting sketchpad stuff. And at somepoint I may like to get into video. I usually do my editing at my friend's place for now, and he has a Mac and all the software.

I did some business with a guy at Microsoft Los Colinas the other day and he gave me a copy of XP pro. He said Vista's done and they're going to come out with some other kind of Windows that's faster "soon". Anyway, I do not want Vista...I'm building this computer and I want the power to go to the apps, not the operating system. XP has always treated me right, and I have a copy now for free so that's that.

I've picked out the components. Now I just want to make sure that all of them will work together properly. I'm also not sure about the video card. Did I overdo it? Does that affect the performance of photoshop? If I could get something less expensive that would suit me that would be fine. Also, I've never made my own computer before. Is the power supply enough? Are there things not listed that I left out?

Here's the stuff I picked out at NewEgg. The first number is the price, and then it's the component with link. Okay it will not let me make a link...I highlight a word and it gives me the option to "unlink". Whatever. URL, then.

252.99 Motherboard/Processor Combo -- @page { size: 8.5in 11in; margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } -->

http://secure.newegg.com/Shopping/AddToCart.aspx?Submit=ADD&ItemList=Combo.141498

59.99 Case (inc. 585w Psu)

http://secure.newegg.com/Shopping/AddToCart.aspx?Submit=ADD&ItemList=N82E16811121004

54.99 RAM (4 GB)

http://secure.newegg.com/Shopping/AddToCart.aspx?Submit=ADD&ItemList=N82E16820145184

139.99 HDD (WD 1TB)

http://secure.newegg.com/Shopping/AddToCart.aspx?Submit=ADD&ItemList=N82E16822136284

27.99 CD/DVD RW

http://secure.newegg.com/Shopping/AddToCart.aspx?Submit=ADD&ItemList=N82E16827151173

124.99 Graphics

http://secure.newegg.com/Shopping/AddToCart.aspx?Submit=ADD&ItemList=N82E16814127379

24.99 Sound

http://secure.newegg.com/Shopping/AddToCart.aspx?Submit=ADD&ItemList=N82E16829118105

I appreciate any thoughts or advice you can give me. I've upgraded computers before and am not exactly scared to do this, but I've never made one from the ground up before so it is unfamiliar territory. Thanks.

Link in Signature?

Black Francis — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 18:47:03 -0000

Link in Signature?

Can you put a link in your signature? If so, how would one go about doing that? Regular HTML link or is it some other fancy shit? Thanks.

SB Nation User Blog: Black Francis

OT: So what's your favorite, eh?

Which do you like best? Poll closes at high noon on Friday.

OT: PIZZA. DOWNTOWN. GOOD. DELIVERY

Hacktacular: A simplistic analysis of Game 1 vs. NYY

OT: Migraine Headaches

OT: Taxes

Wii: Any good baseball games?

Momentus OT Development: I Followed Sharky's Advice

Innings Pitched

OT: Build Yer' Own Computer

Link in Signature?

Link in Signature?