The Bull Pen 27

It is your old pal Raging Bull back with another edition of The Bull Pen! I can just see all your faces light up with joy at the possibility of reading this blog. In fact, if you have made it to this sentence, you may qualify for a special discount on the next blog.

The NHL season has kicked back into high gear and while hockey is still not on as much as it used to be, I can at least watch national games on Versus. Even better still is the fact that the Columbus Blue Jackets, the team I support, have somehow managed to get all but one game televised on Fox Sports Ohio. This leaves me to wonder, what exactly is wrong with the one game they left out? This lone offending game is a home game on March 9th against the Dallas Stars. The only reasonable explanation I can come up with is some sort of March Madness tournament that has to be shown on Fox Sports Ohio. It would probably be the MAC tournament and I can honestly say that I would much rather be watching the Blue Jackets than the MAC. Anyhow, the Blue Jackets are off to a fast start, at least by their standards, and could actually contend in the West for a playoff spot, albeit the 8th one. The season squarely rests on the shoulders of one Rick Nash though. His time away from the ice last year pretty much doomed the Blue Jackets to another losing season. Mark it down gang, Rick Nash will be voted MVP of the NHL within the next 5 seasons.

This next section is going to feature a dose of brutal honesty from me. I am not ashamed to admit this but I must answer for my actions. What am I admitting you ask? I admit that I like to kill people…in Halo 2. I like to think of myself as a team player and someone who wants the team to do well but let us not beat around the bush. I am happiest when I am killing folks in mass quantities. Actually, amend that to say, ‘…in mass quantities and WINNING THE GAME.’ I certainly killed a lot of folks (61 to be exact) in a game of SWAT KotH the other night but left the game with a loss. While the kill totals were jaw dropping, the loss still stung. There have been other times when the team has succeeded and I end the game with the win but I have left feeling like I have not accomplished anything except see a reload screen a lot. This can lead to frustration and cursing on my part. I would like to give a blanket apology to everyone who may have ever been offended by anything I have ever said over XBOX Live (see, that was nice and easy) except for WallyBR. Good ole Wally knows I’m gunning for him every time and he rarely gets the better of me.

My parents recently returned from a sojourn to Philadelphia, with a half day jaunt to Atlantic City. They were kind enough to bring back some Hard Café Pins for me. My favorites of the 6 they brought back (4 from Philly and 2 from AC) were a bald eagle playing a black guitar with 2006 on the HRC logo and a guitar with a roulette wheel on it from Atlantic City. Pin trading has become something of a craze over the last 5 years and I have kind of caught on with the craze. However, for some strange reason, I just enjoy collecting them instead of trading. If any of you readers out there have collected Hard Café Pins, just share some thoughts about your collection and what you like the most.

I read today that an elementary school in Massachusetts has banned kids from playing tag and other chase style games. The reason that the principal gives is that “Recess is a time when accidents can happen”. Has it really come to this in society? Maybe I come from a different day and age (the 80’s) when schools were supposed to prepare children for the realities of the real world. Instead, it would appear that the fear of the almighty lawyer has turned schools into impotent messes. Is the teacher so pre-occupied that he/she is unable to police the children and inform them when something they are doing is out of line, such as using excess force in a tag? This seems to be a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The school is creating a system that does not teach what is right or wrong about certain actions within the parameter of the game but instead says the game is flawed and should not be played. It is the same principle that ran through the case of the woman who spilled hot coffee on her while driving. Those folks who are able to act with normal human behavior are forced to subjugate themselves to that minority who do not act within reason or who do not wish to take responsibility for their own actions. Caution: Living is dangerous to your health.

Hey, you made it this far, why not read the final paragraph and go out with style.

Custom Game of the Week: Sure, Halo 2 is on the downward spiral and it is hard to get enough for custom games, even on custom game night (THAT’S FRIDAYS FOR YOU OMM’ERS WHO CAN DRAG YOURSELF AWAY FROM CHROMEHOUNDS FOR EVEN AN HOUR) but I am still here for you fine folks who need to add a little spice to your game selections. This week’s featured game is a little game I just invented this past Friday and it was a hit, at least I think it was. Surrender is the name of the game and it is a capture the flag game. What gives the game its name is the fact that the flag holder moves slow with the flag and the flag indicator is ON when the other team has it. That is a little twist from normal CTF flag games where you do not know where the flag holder is. Add in the double random weapons, damage resistance, and extra damage for non-flag holders and you folks have yourself quite a little game. This is a 1 flag per team game and works best on symmetrical maps. The time limit for the game is 10 minutes, score to win is 3, player respawn time is 5 seconds, and flag respawn time is 10 seconds (bump to 30 on bigger maps). You will definitely be saying ‘I Surrender’ when you grab the flag in this game.