Joe Gagne may explode without warning

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Went deep sea fishing Sunday with my dad on Sunday as part of an outing his company puts together. The day actually started at around 2 A.M., when I thought a bomb went off in my room but it was just some hellacious lightning, following by a downpour. I was worried the weather would ruin the trip, but thankfully it was a passing storm and the rain wasn’t a problem.

So I was up at 3:50 A.M. to get to my dad’s company at 5:00. From there we took a bus to Gloucster, MA to get on a boat to leave at 7:00, then travel about an hour out to sea.

The good news: my dad only caught one more fish than I did.
The bad news: he only caught one fish.

They just weren’t biting for whatever reason. No one on the trip had much luck. I did catch two sharks (about two feet long and obviously tossed back into the ocean) along with a baby haddock (too small to keep). Still, it was a good time. I find it very serene to be whipping along the ocean with nothing but water all around you.

It's cold on the ocean, so I was dressed for winter, with a sweater, heavy coat, gloves, hat, earmuffs, and boots. And yet my face gets sunburned, even though the sun never came out. Now I have a nice drunkish glow about me.

There was this little yellow bird (looked like a sparrow, but I have no idea what it was doing so far out at sea). It kept fluttering around the boat, landing on people’s fishing rods and almost on some people’s shoulders. Quite amusing to see it hanging around without a care. Then a seagull came by and ate it. Very distressing.

The cruelties of nature aside, it was a good day. Took yesterday off to recover and played about 500 games of Baseball Stars. I’m at the point where my created team is good enough to win games, which means more money to jack up their stats, which means I win more games, which means I jack their stats up more, etc. Very addicting. It’s worse than heroin.

"It's nice to go out on a win."

It was the end of an era last night (kind of) as Detective Lennie Briscoe worked his last case on Law & Order. I say “kind of,” because the Briscoe will be a part of the new L+O spin-off coming this fall, Trial By Jury.

It was a solid, if unspectacular episode, concerning a pair of female acquaintances who conspire to off the other’s husbands (and thus have alibis for themselves). It was really no different than your standard L+O episode. I guess I was expecting Lennie’s last case to be something huge, some big conspiracy case or maybe nailing a serial killer. Oh well.

We got a nice scene at the end as Lennie packed up his stuff and said goodbye, but that’s about it. But no goodbye from McCoy? Come on! Then again, characters that leave the show don’t get big send-offs, unless you count the time they killed Claire Kincaid.

I’m sure Law and Order will persevere. After all, counting Dennis Farrina’s arrival next fall, there will have been 13 major cast changes in the show’s 14 year history. That’s astonishing. And while it was time for Lennie to go (Jerry Orbach’s just a tad too old to play a homicide detective), he will be missed. At least we’ll always have syndication.

Went on a Nes rom rampage last night, and was stunned to come across Mega Man VI. I say stunned because I had no recollection they ever made anything past V; on closer inspection, it came out in 1993, when the 16 bit generation was upon us. I imagine Mega Man VI was a bone tossed to those unable to upgrade to a Super Nintendo.

Anyway, if you’ve never played, Mega Man, the gist of every game is this: you’re n robot (a mega one, I guess). You dress in blue and have a gun for an arm that shoots pellets. There’s a mad scientist named Dr. Wiley who’s got an army of six to eight robots, each representing a different ability (Bomb Man throws bombs, Elec Man shoots electricity, etc). You have to go through eight stages and beat the robots, then defeat Dr. Wiley. Sounds like a million other games, right? Well, it would be except for two things:

1. You could beat the eight bosses in any order you choose. If you wanted to start with Cut Man, you could, or you could fight Guts Man first. This was revolutionary stuff 15 years ago.
2. You took on the power of the boss you beat. If you beat Bomb Man, you could throw bombs. If you beat Elec Man, you could shoot electricity. And you could switch back and forth between powers. Brilliant concept. Whoever came up with that deserves a statue.

Every game in the series is like this. Every one. Sure, they tweak some concepts here and there (Mega Man got a robotic dog in MM3, for example), but you know you’re fighting eight robots and getting their powers and beating Dr. Wiley.

Unfortunately, the producers were running out of ideas for robots when MMVI rolled around:

Wind Man (rip-off of Air Man from MM2)
Flame Man (rip off of both Fire Man and Heat Man from MM and MM2, respectively)
Blizzard Man (rip-off of Ice Man from MM)
Plant Man (rip-off of Wood Man from MM2, a dumb idea to begin with)
Tomahawk Man (huh?)
Yamato Man (huh?????)
Knight Man (pretty decent, I guess)
Centaur Man (yes, a half-man half-horse robot)

Not the best roster, but it doesn’t matter. Playing MM is like wearing your favorite pair of jeans—may have gotten a little ragged over the years, but they still feel damn good. I have no doubt I will shun human contact until I finally beat Yamato Man

(Besides, none of the above was worse than Bubble Man from MM2)

Play Ball!

I really had a hankering to play some video game baseball this weekend, but didn’t feel like plunking down money $50 for a new one or even going through the hassle of renting one. So I did the logical thing and downloaded some old Nintendo baseball games to play on my computer.

First was RBI Baseball, a game very fondly remembered, but let me tell you, it doesn’t hold up well. Yeah, it had the major league players, and who wouldn’t want to play as Marty Barrett? But the fielding really stinks (how many dribblers have gotten by the infield and ended up being triple?). Plus the field seems much too small. OK for nostalgia purposes but I got bored really quick.

I found a copy of Baseball Stars, still one of my favorite Nes games ever. It pretty much stole RBI’s control scheme, but also improved by letting your fielders dive and jump for line drives (something you dearly want in RBI). Plus the field is just the right size, meaning you can cover a decent amount of ground in the field but the ball can still find the gap. Honestly, the controls are so easy I even got my Dad to play some games with me years ago.

It doesn’t have the MLB players, but you could create your own team and re-name the players, and win games to boost their stats (hitting, throwing, etc.) This was revolutionary stuff in the late 80’s/early 90’s. I had one team that got so jacked I played a 100+ game season against several other computer teams, and I think my worst hitter ended up hitting .600. I forgot, the game had the mercy rule, where if you were leading by 10 runs you automatically won. Great fun.

Just for curiosity’s sake I downloaded Baseball Stars II, only to find it’s pretty much the exact same game as Baseball Stars I. I mean, besides some different parks and new teams, everything’s exactly the same. Except you can’t rename your players, which was a hideous idea by SNK. Half the fun was naming players after your friends or giving them a name like “Buttcheek.”

It’s weird, because for the NES, there was usually one dominant game for each sport:

Football: The Tecmo Bowl series, easy. No one pines for 10 Yard Fight or John Elway Football.
Hockey: Blades of Steel, of course, with maybe some sympathy votes for Ice Hockey.
Basketball: Double Dribble, naturally. I know Tecmo made a basketball game a la Tecmo Super Bowl, but I didn’t like it when I rented it. Besides that, not a lot, except maybe Hoops.

But for the National Pastime you’ve got Baseball (very early NES game, truly terrible), Bases Loaded (never cared for it), Dusty Diamond’s All Star Softball (never played, though some people swear by it—maybe I’ll track down a rom), and Bad News Baseball (Tecmo doing baseball—also never played). I’m definitely going to try and track down the latter two tonight if I get a chance.

Awful sorry for the lack of updates. It’s been a long, frustrating, exhausting week. When I woke up on Wednesday it felt like it should already have been Friday. But I think we’re finally turning a corner.

Tuesday I went out to dinner with my dad. He suggested Bickford’s, and I’m always up for breakfast for dinner, so I said sure. We get there and I’m looking over the menu and see “The Big Apple,” which looks like a pancake/apple combo. I like pancakes, I like apples, so I’m all for it. There was a little note saying “Takes a little longer, but well worth the time.” But it was 8:00 and the place was empty, so I thought it wouldn’t be a long wait.

So I order. And we wait. And wait. Other people come in, order food, and get served before us. “You’re really holding things up,” my dad quips. And after about 45 minutes, the waitress comes out with my dad’s omelet and my meal. This thing was enormous, a huge mound of bread, spilling over the plate. It looked like an apple tire. I get to work but it’s like bailing out the ocean—I’m just not making any progress. I finally tap out and ask for a doggy bag (a rarity, believe me). So be warned: the Big Apple is big.

Sawks finally broke the losing streak last night despite the best efforts of Byung-Hyun Kim, who was charged with a run in every inning he pitched. Great moment in the third as the Sox took the lead back, leading the announcers to comment that Kim had to shut the Indians down this inning. And of course, on the next pitch Kim plonks a batter. Give Bronson Arroyo that fifth starting spot.

I leave with this quote from Tommy Lasorda, arguing with an umpire:

Tommy: Can you toss me for what I think?
Ump: No.
Tommy: Well, I think you're an asshole.