Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Ever since OperationSports.com's "merger" with MaddenMania, this place has been completely different. More users, developer interaction, earlier reviews, but with the good comes the bad. And the bad, in this case, is vocal OS haters.
It has come to my attention that a fledgling, upstart sports gaming community is apparently going with the "no rules" approach to their forums. Posts by banned OS users suggesting harm to the families of our forum's moderators seem to be common place in their so called "Off-Topic" forum.
What's worse is that nothing is done over there to curb such behavior. It's disgusting that this is allowed and if I were running that site, I'd be embarrassed.
I won't even dignify this website by mentioning it's name or the author of these wonderful works of literary genius. The only reason I bring it up is to again, voice my appreciation for the community here at OperationSports.com. Sure, we have our issues. Every online community does. But overall, there is no other gaming website I'd rather be a part of, and all of you are the reason for that.
Moving on, I watched the Michael Jackson Memorial yesterday with my wife. What a show! Say what you want about the man's personal life, but he was an entertainment genius that many of us will never see matched in our lifetime.
To put a sports slant on it, I felt like Kobe Bryant and Magic Johnson's part of the memorial was extremely well done. I can just imagine Magic sitting there on the floor eating that bucket of KFC while discussing the particulars of the video for "Remember the Time".
I have to admit that at the very end when his heartbroken daughter Paris took the microphone, I got choked up. I know what it's like to lose a father at a young age, and for all the stories about how weird he was, how strange and sheltered his kids are, for that very moment we were on the same level.
As far as Michael Jackson goes, I think anyone my age will always have at least something about him in our memory that will forever cause us to remember the time.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Posted on June 24, 2009 at 08:11 AM.
Hello friends. I've been getting the itch to blog again so it is with great excitement that I've decided to fix up my OS Arena a bit and get to typing out my thoughts in blog form yet again.
There certainly is no shortage of things to discuss here. We have huge game releases on the horizon. It's a big sports week with the NBA draft coming up Thursday. We have TONS of new folks on the OS forums, likely migrating here thanks to people like Madden's Ian Cummings and NCAA's Russell Kiniry posting regularly now. And last but certainly not least, I've become a father since my last blog post. With all that said, let's get into it.
We'll start with the fatherhood stuff. Catherine turns 2-months old today. Unbelievable how fast time flies. That was one of the many things people told me before she was born. That, and "get your sleep while you CAN!!!" Turns out one of the two are true. Time indeed does go by quickly but we've been lucky and the little peanut sleeps pretty much through the night now.
Tomorrow is her 2-month doctor's visit and with that comes her 2-month shots. It's amazing. We've spent the last 2-months of our lives trying to protect her with everything we have, yet tomorrow we turn her over to a doctor so he can poke her with a bunch of needles. My poor baby.
On the sports front, tomorrow is the NBA draft and with that comes the winds of change blowing through the league. Two big trades yesterday will give some cap relief to some, while adding much needed cogs to other teams. I can't wait to see the Spurs with Richard Jefferson in the lineup. That'll be entertaining.
Time for all of you Bobcats' fans out there (all 3 of you) to join me in wishing Sean May well in his future endeavors. Looks like he'll no longer be taking up a roster spot and a seat on the bench as GM Rod Higgins yesterday announced the team has elected not to offer him a qualifying offer, making him an unrestricted free agent. Thank God! I have a Bobcats' #42 jersey that they gave away to the first 5,000 fans one game that I've worn more times than he's worn his own jersey.
Little known fact about the Sean May-Charlotte Bobcats era. The night of that draft where Charlotte took both Raymond Felton and May in the 1st round, the New Orleans Hornets offered up their #2 pick for both of Charlotte's 1st round selections. Translation...the Bobcats could've had Chris Paul! Now answer me this. Today, if you could trade Felton and May and get Paul in return, wouldn't you do it? Fantastic decsion not to pull the trigger on that draft day deal, Bobcats!
Now onto the fun stuff - the state of the OS Forums. We, as a collective group of moderators, have been getting tons of complaints of some of the new forum members stirring up trouble, particularly in the Madden and NCAA forums.
Because of this, we've taken a more heavy handed stance with how we handle those two forums. More people are getting infractions. More people are losing access to those forums in one-month increments. And more people are being banned from OS all together than ever before. We're doing our best to deal with the problem children of this forum and all we ask is for your cooperation in return.
- If you see a post that may be a TOS violation, use the "Report Post" feature.
- If you see a moderator (red, orange, or green name) chime in on a thread with orders to calm things down, do it.
- And DO NOT, under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, think that just because we have developers posting on our forums, you are somehow entitled to a response from them on every single post you write. Those guys post here on their own time and do their best to answer the forum's more popular concerns. If your pet concern is something you're the only one asking about, chances are your question will go unanswered. Deal with it.
That's all for now, folks. Have a great Wednesday!
Monday, November 17, 2008
So the new OS Arena feature is up and running. People are going nuts with the strides they are willing to take to secure a good OVR score. The forum clown, dkgojackets, is taking this to new heights with a new blog post seemingly every 10 minutes about nothing in particular.
Not like the Seinfeld "about nothing" thing though...his blog posts make no sense. And yes, I'm jealous because I didn't think of it first!
But hey, I'll keep on plugging along the way I'm going now and hopefully, I'll be able to maintain a respectable OVR score. But every day that goes by without me posting dozens of new videos or screen shots or blog posts, my score seems to be falling.
Anyway, BIG night in the Cutini household tonight. Monday Night Football...Bills vs. Browns. The way I see it, Buffalo needs to win their next four games to have any prayer at all at snapping their franchise-record 9-year playoff drought. Go Go, Buffalo, indeed!
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
For four years, I was host of a sports talk radio show on WMFD in Wilmington, NC. My co-host and I were good friends, on and off the air. As such, we would frequently argue on the air about various topics, some involving sports, some involving things completely unrelated to sports.
One of those days happened shortly before the 2006 NFL Draft. We were discussing who would be taken near the top of the draft when he suggested the possibility that the Houston Texans may not take Reggie Bush with the #1 overall pick. I called him crazy. He called my bluff.
Asking me to put my money where my mouth is, he wanted me to guarantee that Bush would be the #1 pick. Feeling fairly confident, I took him up on his challenge and guaranteed it. He went further and wanted to know what I would do if my guarantee did not come to pass. For some reason still unknown to myself or anyone else, I said I'd run from our radio station to the McDonald's next door and back...in a speedo.
Well, as you know, the Texans went with NC State defensive lineman Mario Williams with the #1 overall pick and the wheels were put into motion for me to humiliate myself in front of him, our co-workers, our listeners, and any other passer-by's who happened to be caught up in the crossfire.
On May 12, 2006, thanks to a sponsorship agreement with a local sporting goods store, I donned the royal blue speedo and ran from our back door, through our parking lot, to the McDonald's, around it, and back. WECT, a local NBC affiliate, was there to cover it. Must've been a slow news day.
And today, this November 12, 2008, to celebrate the birth of the OS Arena and the ability to post videos to our very own page, I present to you...the speedo run, filmed by one of our most avid listeners, Randall.
There's a short story about what happened still up on WECT's website if you're interested. The thread that resulted from this stunt right here on OperationSports.com was a classic.
So...two and a half years later, since I still haven't lived that (or the Land Rover in the water thing) down, again, I decided to share this with you and the world. Send your dry cleaning and psychiatric bills to Steve and Matt. I hold them both fully responsible for giving me an outlet to post this video.
We had a baby doctor appointment yesterday (yeah...sorta like baby daddy). Everything checked out just fine. The one thing the doctor did recommend is that my wife drinks more water. Now, neither of us are big water drinkers. I know there are people out there who swear by the stuff but to me, the taste is what counts and water has none. I'd much rater quench my thirst with something like Gatorade, a nice glass of Diet Dr. Pepper, or an ice cold sweet tea (no lemon).
Aimee? She's more of a juice person. Cranberry juice, especially. I don't know how she does it. I can have like...maybe a glass a week of that stuff. It's just way too bitter.
So she has to drink more water now. Last night, I kept reminding her to drink more water. She was complaining of a headache and the doctor said that's a sign of dehydration and water will help with that. Of course, she didn't feel like drinking any water and would much rather complain about her headache.
This is the main difference between a perfectly sound minded guy and a pregnant woman. We like to fix things. The quicker and easier the fix, the better. Women like to over complicate things, especially during pregnancy. Guys? We would drink three gallons of gasoline in five minutes if we knew it'd get rid of our headache.
So I'm finally starting to get used to these new early morning hours. About two (or three?) months ago, I began working the early shift at work, producing the morning show and doing sportscasts twice an hour from 5am til 9.
Going from a 9am to 2pm shift to this is quite the shock to the system. I was used to a pretty typical schedule. I'd wake up at around 7 or so. Once I finished up the three S's, I'd be out the door and at work usually by 8:15 or 8:30 and I'd work until 4pm, usually getting home no later than 4:30. Not bad, huh?
Well now my alarm goes off at 2:45am. The three S's are done by 3:45 (I'm actually doing one of the three right now...shhhhhhh). And I'm off and out the door by 4, usually rolling into work at around 4:15.
The good part about this shift is that I'm done by noon. The bad part is that if I want to be anything close to functional at work the next day, I MUST be in bed no later than 9pm. You miss a lot of quality TV having a schedule like this. Thank God for DVR.
It's really not so bad though and I swear you get used to it after a while. Sure beats being unemployed!
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