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!
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
It's that time of year again, folks. The time of year when everyone and anyone interested in playing the latest college basketball video game scours the net in search of a named roster file.
With EA Sports' NCAA Basketball 09 in stores today, I was surprised to learn that no one had taken the initiative to begin an Xbox 360 roster project yet. So, as the old saying goes, if it is to be, it is up to me.
We're beginning the roster project today, starting with our old buddy Heelfan71 naming all of the teams in the Atlantic Coast Conference. If you're interested in helping us out, you can follow the project's progress over in the OS Forums.
If you're planning on getting the game and have a few hours to kill to help the cause, feel free to post in that thread and let us know which conference(s) you'd like to do.
Together, we can come up with a stellar roster file that we can all take into our dynasty modes with. It's things like this that make this community great.
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!
Monday, November 10, 2008
But this entry isn't about Madden. It's about OS. Over the last two years, this site has grown to become THE place to go for information and discussion about sports video games. I had the opportunity to be on staff when the site launched a groundbreaking new interface while doing away with the antiquated look it displayed for years.
The change wasn't a welcomed one to all involved but it was one that had to be made in order to accomplish the goal Steve Noah, the site's owner, made when he purchased the site.
Now we stand here looking at this new "Arena" feature that launched this morning. Sure, it'll have it's problems. A few bugs here and there. But from what I've seen of it, this is something that's going to add to the dominance OS is enjoying over all other sports gaming websites.
A big fat "atta boy!" to Steve and Matt and everyone else who made this a reality. Everything looks great, fellas. Keep up the good work!
16,683 Forum Posts
9 Blog Entries
573 News/Blog Comments
41 Reader Score Votes
202 Friends
115 Chalkboard Messages
17 Screenshots
17 Videos
18,154 Arena Visits
TJdaSportsGuy's Blog Categories
TJdaSportsGuy's Xbox 360 Gamercard
More
TJdaSportsGuy's Friends
Recent Visitors
The last 10 visitor(s) to this Arena were:
TJdaSportsGuy's Arena has had 18,154 visits
TJdaSportsGuy's Arena has had 18,154 visits
Working...