Counter Correction

Posted March 25 2008 5:37PM by Michael

Much to your surprise, the counter at the bottom of the page magically has fallen from 499 to 125. I finally implemented a cookie to prevent people from being added to the counter every time they refresh, and they are only added if they visit again after an hour. While I do enjoy pretending that my website is really popular, I'm only fooling myself. However, 125 (relatively) unique hits that don't even include myself seems pretty impressive.

Website Down

Posted March 24 2008 1:37AM by Michael

Unfortunately, over Spring Break our internet at school decided to kind of stop working, which was the reason for the site being down from about Wednesday until Sunday night. I apologize that you are now 4 days behind in my life, but now that I am back at school there should be no more extended downtimes.

A couple of quick updates on some of the previous blog entries:

• After hitting a scorching .400 (including a month over .500) in my MLB: The Show single player mode, the game decided to freeze. I hadn't saved since before my scorching final month, and therefore was devasted enough to stop playing until I begin playing as the actual team. Heartbreaking. However I was dominating the Rookie of the Year voting, and at least discovered that I should be playing on Hall of Fame difficulty (unless the computer was trying to make me feel good about myself).
• I unfortunately only picked 21 of the 32 games in the first round of the NCAA tournament correctly, and only 9 of the 16 second round games. Somehow this still puts me very close to the top of the family rankings.
• On a brighter note, despite knowing absolutely nothing about women's college basketball outside of the words "Candace Parker", I managed to pick 24 of the 32 first round games correctly. Unfortunately, my quest of getting all 63 games of the women's tournament correct (and subsequently getting interviewed by ESPN, where I disclose that entering this free contest was a joke and I know nothing about women's basketball) will have to wait another year.

I'm hoping that in the near future I will finally get cookies up and running, unfortunately the downtime during my week off kind of derailed all of my progress.

On an unrelated note, here is an interesting video of a dog playing fetch with himself my dad found:

NCAA Tournament Picks

Posted March 18 2008 9:57PM by Michael

With the NCAA Tournament upon us, I have decided to record my picks for posterity on this site. Linked here is a pdf version of my yahoo bracket (which is the same as all of my brackets, it just is the only site that let me save to a pdf).I started writing out a complete reasoning for every game, but quickly got bored, so I'll just comment on some of the teams/matchups:

EAST REGIONAL

• UNC doesn't even get challenged until the Elite Eight, they completely outclass everyone up until Tennessee. They will run all of the previous teams out of the gym, and if a team tries to slow down the game, Hansbrough will eat them alive.
• I think the only thing on Eric Gordon's mind is the NBA draft, so I look for him to do a lot of 1 on 1, 3 point bombing, and shoot about 35% from the field in a loss that isn't very close.
• As much as I would enjoy Notre Dame bowing out early, Washington St. seems like an even worse team. I would peg them as a great team to lose in round one, except for the fact that Winthrop's style of play is exactly the same as their own, and Washington St. has to be better than them, don't they?
• Oklahoma looks primed for an upset. Anything related to Kelvin Sampson doesn't look to fare well in this bracket.
• Don't know much about South Alabama, but I feel like Butler seems overrated. I assume South Alabama is athletic, and I think that overmatches Butler.
• I can't say I know anything about Louisville, but I like Tennessee's style of play as a hard working defensive team that can score. They meet a wall in the Elite Eight as UNC wins a tight, high scoring contest where the final score doesn't tell the whole story.

MIDWEST REGIONAL

• Kent St. will always be loved by me ever since they were my first big upset that I picked (2002 - Elite Eight), so they get the nod over UNLV.
• Clemson impressed me against UNC and Duke, so they take down Villanova. Unfortunately, they meet one of my picks to click in Vanderbilt.
• I really like Vanderbilt to do well, Shan Foster is a beast, and they have a big who can play. I have them taking down Kansas (an easy choice to lose easy every year) and making it to the Final Four.
• I like Mayo over Beasley in the battle of Lottery Picks, but only based on USC's team. I don't really think Mayo will be the guy carrying USC. However, because of the teams they will play in my bracket, I have them in the Elite Eight.
• I really think Wisconsin will not get far based on having to defend a team like USC, nor do I have much hope for Georgetown making it too far. Hibbert seems way too passive, I can't see him taking over any of these games.
• Stephen Curry leads a red hot Davidson to a first round upset with an offensive explosion, but can't handle Georgetown all by himself

SOUTH REGIONAL

• Oregon seems like a garbage team, so Mississippi St. wins that game by default.
• I think Izzo outcoaches Dixon and takes down Pittsburgh to move into the Sweet Sixteen. Even though Pitt is hot, they always seem to bow out early in the tournament. Their style of play seems too physical, and MSU has a good history in the tournament lately (outside of the George Mason debacle).
• Memphis strikes me as another top seed that could go down early due to style of play, but I don't think Michigan St. has the horses to do it.
• Marquette has very solid guard play, and Kentucky has been having a pretty bad year (at least I think...apparently they made the tournament).
• Miami seems like another team that, in my mind, shouldn't be here, so by default St. Mary's takes them down as they likely want to prove that they belong.
• Stanford and Texas are the two teams I really like out of this bracket. I spent a decent amount of time struggling over who wins their matchup, a battle of Stanford's (recently on fire) twin towers vs Texas' athleticism and DJ Augustin. My heart says Stanford, but my reasoning says DJ Augustin is playing like an All American ready to carry a team on his shoulders, Texas has the interior defense to slow down the Lopez's, and the kicker: The game is in Houston.

WEST REGIONAL

• UCLA is the cream of the crop. If healthy, they walk out of this regional without even trying. The question is whether Love and Mbah a Moute can play (well), which probably won't be decided until the Elite Eight (or whenever they play a real team). I figure by then those two will be rested up, or they will be living off adrenaline.
• BYU over Texas A&M. I think TAMU has finished terribly, so I figure it will hang over into the tournament.
• The next game I struggled with was Drake vs Western Kentucky. On one hand, I love a team of white guys who can light it up from deep. On the other hand, Western Kentucky brings a bona-fide NBA prospect in Lee. In the end, I don't think he can cary them.
• I don't really like UConn, they seem to be led by a guy (Thabeet) who is worse on offense than Hibbert. While they win their first game based on talent, I think the outside game of Drake has a good chance to take down UConn by relying on being on fire from deep. If they are cold, UConn will probably roll with their interior defense. In the end, I just feel like Drake really has something to prove, and UConn is an underachiever.
• Purdue is a team I really think will do well. Don't ask me why, but I could see their defense and hustle surprising teams. I can definitely see them getting relatively far as long as their freshmen don't suddenly start playing scared, and their intense defense doesn't get called for a ton of fouls early in games.
• I think Georgia will get crushed. They used all their energy winning the SEC tournament, and will likely come out flat.
• Arizona beats West Virginia based on talent, in my opinion. Even though Arizona is ice cold, I think they can shut down Alexander. If Budinger and Bayless (future Lottery Picks) can't get the W, they aren't as talented individually as I thought.
• I think Duke once again will fizzle out when they play their first real team. I think it's a toss up whether Purdue will be that team, they do play very good defense and can force Duke into a lot of turnovers (which seems to kill them). Therefore, I will choose Purdue in hopes that Duke underachieves again.

FINAL FOUR

• So my final four is UNC, Vanderbilt, Texas, and UCLA
• Vanderbilt's run ends when they face UNC, and while Augustin can match up with Collison, the rest of UCLA (particularly their frontline) will outclass Texas
• UCLA is more balanced than UNC, so as long as the UCLA frontline remains healthy, I think they can overcome Hansbrough to win it all. When forced to give a prediction as a tiebreaker, I through together a score of 75-70. Mostly because that was the score Illinois lost by.

My overall thoughts on these picks? I feel like I don't have enough upsets (outside of the Midwest Regional). I also don't have the special 5-12 upset this year, but none of the 12's seem to be very impressive, and I feel like the 5 seeds are better than the 4 seeds this year. I am very confident about Vanderbilt doing well, I just have a feeling about them. Similarly, I don't know why I feel that Purdue will do well, but I'm willing to take the risk on them continuing to play like veterans. I don't feel like I know very much about the field this year, it's harder to follow 300+ teams when your own team (Illinois) has the year it's been having.

Based on all these great thoughts and criteria, I expect my mom or Joyce to beat me. Again.

Call up to 'The Show'

Posted March 18 2008 1:11AM by Michael

I've been getting a lot of complaints about lack of updates, so I thought I'd throw an update out there for those longing to hear what I do all day. Today was spent mostly moving a 19 year old virtual version of myself into the MLB from AAA. After destroying the competition in AA I got the call last night up to AAA, which I proceeded to also obliterate. Tonight, however, I was called up to the Cubs (which may or may not have been influenced by Ryan Theriot breaking his hand), where I proceeded to enter "Beast Mode" to the tune of a .400 AVG over my first 7 games (including no hits my first 2 games, as well as the game I just played). Because I know everyone not only follows my life, but also my virtual life. I realize these pictures aren't top quality, but even an iPhone isn't going be able to capture a TV picture very well. Note: Yes, I realize the image on the left does not have the exact stats I just applauded myself for achieving. Unfortunately, I was playing another game before I took this picture, and evidently I lowered my AVG ever so slightly

On another note, for some reason the game decides that when you choose your favorite number in the world for your jersey number, it will do its best to get you that number (or the closest number to it incrementing upwards until a number is available for that team). And when you get called up, they do it again. Unfortunately, the programmers seem to have based each subsequent jersey number reassigning based upon your previous jersey number, not your desired number. Hence the reason I'm wearing 35 instead of 26 (after dabbling with numbers such as 29 and 31 in the minors). Maybe I am the only person annoyed by this, but I don't see many second basemen wearing 35 (at least any good ones).

In terms of the site, I see a large portion of my loyal followers have been using the comment feature to give me ideas to implement on the site, or what to fix. The couple hours I spent on it today was to fix a couple smaller bugs, though one larger problem remains. I would disclose what it is, but it would probably be exploited hundreds of times before I woke up in the morning.

Later on this week I will divulge all of my NCAA bracket predictions (which are based on my not at all extensive knowledge of college basketball this year), and even later (think multiple weeks later) I will detail my fantasy baseball rosters (if only so I can reference them later in the year to see what kind of pitiful players I drafted).

And so ends the longest blog post in the history of Welburn's...

The Good and the Bad

Posted March 16 2008 6:28PM by Michael

The last few hours have been quite promising. I now have implemented the blog using a database, as well as everybody's favorite feature: comments (so feel free to comment away, hopefully there are no bugs). Unfortunately, the database isn't quite as fast to update as I would like, so it might be 10-15 seconds before you comment is registered. I still need to enable sessions to fully take advantage of being an administrator on my own website, but all in due time. Perhaps in the near future I will implement things such as a database search. Too many ideas coming to me at once.

On a sadder note, the Illini failed to win today, making the tournament a lot less interesting (even if they likely would have lost the first game). They did, however, likely save me from playing a ton of NCAA College Hoops 2k8 for the next 4 days. Instead, I will spend all of my waking hours working on this site as well as furthering my career in MLB 08: The Show where I languish in AA despite being a beast.

For now, however, I must go shower.

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