Karma and the Astros

It seemed like when I was posting about him, the Astros were doing well. When I went away, they cooled off. So, to not upset karma too much, here's my daily Lance Berkman photo+post. Notice the Puma-esque agility & quickness in the field.

I'll leave you with one of my favorite Berkman quotes of all time:

"In Baltimore last year I forgot how many outs there were and ran off the field. I got to the line, and I was like, Oh, my gosh, nobody's running off (the field). I immediately went to the fake knee injury. The trainer came running out and was like, 'Are you O.K.?' And I said, 'Yeah, I just forgot how many outs there were.' That was right after I came back from my knee surgery so I had a built in excuse." -- Sports Illustrated, April 2006

Attn: Nintendo DS owners

(NOTE: This headline was not just a gratuitous excuse to post a pic of Carrie Underwood - She actually is a DS Owner...)

Ok, so I know these 3 posts in rapid succession don't really make up for not posting in like 3 weeks, but hey, its my lunch hour and I'm bored.

Anyways, if you own a Nintendo DS, you really should own a R4 card (or similar type card) for it. It is truly a great invention, and for the uninformed, I'll show you guys how to get one, how to utilize it, and what it does for ya. I've done this via email for a few friends in the past, so I figured I'd just do a blog entry here so I can refer people to it in the future.

Alright, I'll try to explain this as simply as possible: Do you like playing games on your DS? Would you like to have more games to play, but don't want to pay that pesky $19.99-$39.99 for each game that Nintendo is currently charging? Would you like to have access to almost the entire library of Nintendo DS titles (plus some old school NES games) and spend a total of about 60 bucks? OK, then you will love the R4 card.


Esentially, the R4 card is an SD card that goes into the game slot of your DS. It looks just like any other game cartridge, and fits in there like any other game. You can buy one on the cheap from here. You will also need a microSD card to store the games on. You can get cheap ones from here (I got a 2GB one).


Alright, now all you have to do is decide what games you wanna put on that bad boy. You can look at this site for a list of compatible games. About 98% of all DS games are compatible (the ones highlighted in green), and they are listed in that site by release date. The ones with the (U) are the US version of the games, (J) are the Japanese games, and (E) are the European games - all 3 will work with the card, but unless you are fluent in japanese, you may want to pick the US versions.


So how do you find the games? Go to this site, and search for the game you want. You will note that they are organized and ordered on that site in the same way they are listed on the wiki compatibility list I linked to above, so they are easy to find. Once you find the game or "ROM" (the name for the file you will be downloading), then click on it, download it, and unzip the file onto your computer. Search for the file that has an ".nds" extension, as that is the only file you actually need to put on your R4 card (for example: Newsupermariobros(U).nds). You can delete all the other junk that's included in the .zip file.

Now its just a matter of putting those downloaded ROMs (the files with the .nds extension) onto your R4 card. You do that by copying them onto your microSD card. Just plug the microSD card into the USB adapter that came with your R4, plug it into the USB port of your computer (it should appear as just another "storage device" on your My Computer screen), create a folder to put your games (i.e. "NDS games"), then copy your ROMs into that folder. That's it.

Then slide the microSD card into the little slot on top of your R4, put the R4 into your Nintendo DS, turn it on (it should boot up to a different screen than usual), select the game you want to play, and voila!!!!!! Enjoy!!!

You can also put mp3 music files on the R4 card that will play on your DS, and you can download a Nintendo "emulator" that will play old school Nintendo games. More instructions on how to do that in a later post, or you can email me.

Congrats, you're now an R4 user!!!

C V C II

CVC II - June 14, 2008.

If you don't know, you betta' acks somebody!!!

Astros Update

So, I haven't posted for awhile, because I've been to busy/lazy/apathetic/pick an excuse.

However, to update on the Astros, they continued to do pretty well for a few games after my last post, then the hitting went away. After a great Game 1 vs. the Cardinals to start a long road trip 2 weeks back, they pretty much went in the tank and lost 8 of the next 9 games. Berkman's still doing well, but the offense is anemic overall. Scored more than 3 runs exactly ZERO times in the last 8 games.

It's been maddeningly frustrating, and I've had to utilize the handy Stress Reducer pictured above far too much recently.

Start a series vs. the Cards in Houston tonight. I'm expecting the Cards to win the series 2-1 (again....). Prove me wrong, fellas!!

More updates to come....

El Grande Puma. Esta Bien. Esta muy Bien.

So I leave work last night to go play some raquetball, and my Astros are down 7-3. They started off the game down 6-0. I think, no biggie, this good run has to end sometime. So I get home from working out, and rewind my DVR (it was still tuned to FSN Houston from the game on Wednesday night), just to see how bad the 'stros lost.

Unbelievable.

No freakin' way. Down 7-3, in the 8th, Lee hits a HR. BOOM! . Now still down 7-4 in the 8th inning, a dropped 3rd strike gives the Astros 2 guys on base. Darren Erstad pinch hits. BAM! - 3-run HR! That ball never got 2 feet higher than the wall it cleared. All tied up. Unbelievable.

Then, top of the 9th inning, game still tied, who's the first guy to come up to bat for the Astros? You guessed it, the Puma. First pitch - KABLAMMO!!! (yes, i've resorted to using sound effects from the old 60's Batman TV show - so?). Berkman's splash HR gives the Astros an 8-7 lead, completing the comeback from down 6-0. Valverde slams the door shut in the bottom of the 9th. Astros just keep rolling.

The Astros are doing good. Reeeeeallly Good. Berkman is doing awesome. It's the best. I love it!They've won 11 of 13 now, most of it on a long, long road trip. It's fantastic!

Berkman, Astros, continue rolling with 10th win in 12 games....

Didn't that headline sound like it came from a newspaper or something?

Anyways, I have no intention of turning this into an Astros-only update blog, but I did watch the game last night, after creating my tribute post to Lance Berkman only a few hours before, and what does Lance do in the 1st inning? POW!!! 2-run homer batting right handed (his supposedly "weaker" side). Just tattooed it. Why are people still pitching to him?

Pitchers gotta start giving him the Barry treatment until he cools down, or else the Big Puma will make them pay. He's on a historic run the past 10 days - 2 weeks. I keep hearing comments during the TV broadcasts about him doing stuff that hasn't been done in the expansion era (since 1962), and how he's only the 2nd or 3rd guy in the last 50 years to do this or that. He's batting .587 over the past 2 weeks. At one point he had something like 16 hits in his past 20 at bats, and went 18 for 24 at one point (that's a .750 average, math majors). Stuff like that is tough to do in a video game w/ the settings on "rookie". Dude is just rolling.

So, Berkman's mammoth shot, his 14thHR and 40th RBI so far this season (he's only played 40 games) - Puts us up 3-0 right off the bat...Giants came back to tie it, but we ended up taking the lead late (again...this has been a habit of the Astros this year, taking the lead late, coming back in the late innings.....I like it) on a Tejada single, and, of all things, a Brad Ausmus 2-run job in the 7th. And he crushed it. No doubter. He can do that when he gets ahold of one ( about every 2 years or so).

And for those who thought that maybe my last post was a little too scary/obsessive about the Puma, at least I haven't taken it this far. Of course, I would have, but I don't have much video/photoshop experience...

An introduction to my Houston Astros and Lance Berkman obsession...

In case you didn't know, I really love this man (as much as one heterosexual man can love another).

I mean, look at him. Flipping his glove on the field as if he didn't have a care in the world. "I'm the best player on one of the more successful teams of the past dozen or so years - ho hum." That's how he plays baseball too - effortlessly. And it looks like he's having a blast doing it too.

Lance has got to be one of the most talkative guys in the league. If you ever watch an Astros game, just notice what happens when an opposing player gets to 1st base. My boy just talks his ear off. If Lance isn't talking to someone while he's on the field, then its a pretty safe bet that the other player is either (a) a dick, or (b) doesn't speak English. That's just the way he is, all the time. Whether its a pressure situation, or just the top of the 1st inning - always even keel. That's one of the many reasons I love the guy (as a ballplayer, of course).

Anyhow, I'm sure that several of my coming blog entries will further detail many aspects of Lance Berkman and/or the Astros, including, but not limited to: how great a player he is, how underrated he is, how he never gets the attention appropriate for a player of his caliber, how he is better than Albert Pujols (yes, I went there), how I met/stalked him in Chicago once, etc..... But I just wanted to give a brief intro of my boy, and profess my like/love for him early on - get it all out on the table up front, just so there's no confusion and no mixed messages - I love him (not in "that" way....not really). It's just, well, hard to explain. Perhaps its best that I explain it like all normal heterosexual men express themselves - in song!!!!!

Clear now? Good. Just guy love between two guys, that's all...(actually, its kinda one-sided, but you get the point). And now to leave you with an image that got me all excited while I searched for Lance Berkman images on Google....enjoy. (Again, not gay, not that there's anything wrong with that...)