I’m the co-sponsor of the Madden tournament at my school. Being that I love to play Madden as much as I do, that’s a whole ball of fun in and of itself. Of course, I don’t play with the kids too often. Since it’s a tournament, for the most part, I just sit back and watch them go for it, recording the results on the brackets. I have gotten down to play with them every once in a while, though. I don’t know what my record is…it’s something big-and-two. I really don’t count the victories, but the two students who beat me will never let me forget. Until the rematch. They never seem to remember those. Either way, though, it’s a lot of fun and it gives me the chance to talk to the kids on another level. It’s one thing for me to be Mr. Tooley the English teacher. It’s something altogether different to be Mr. Tooley who keeps beating me at Madden. Honestly, I don’t play the kids all hard, though. Yahmeen, my goal is never to skunk them. I don’t mind shutting them out, but I always look for teachable moments in the game. It’s just more fun for me that way.
More fun than anything is listening to them talk trash to each other, though. I have one student in particular who is like a young Howard Cosell. He stays with a running commentary. And unlike most people, it makes him no difference whether he is skunking somebody or has just gotten skunked. He gon’ talk. And talk. And talk some more. But it finally caught up with him. Somewhat. Obviously, we don’t let the kids bet money. But. And it’s a big but… there’s a dance this friday. So between the two biggest trash-talking students in the tournament (both have been eliminated, you understand) we get the best bet: the loser has to dress up his controller as a girl and take the controller to the dance as his date. I have a feeling that somebody is gonna renege on the bet, but the comedic potential of this square-off is legendary. This is some straight-up television show-type stuff.
Friday, after the finals are decided, I’ll post up the results. But the grudge match might be better than both the championship and the 3rd place matches.
*****
I love my school and everything, but all has not been peaches and cream. My 30G ipod got stolen back in October. Being that I can’t live without my radio, I had to get another one. So I got the 80G. I needed the space anyway. At any rate, I’m pretty used to the ipod, and I appreciate its features, but yet and still, the only thing that makes it better than any other device for me is the fact that I can get replacement parts so readily. Other than that, I like it, but it’s not head and shoulders above the competition.
Messing around as I am wont to do from time to time, I found Songbird, which touts itself as
a desktop Web player, a digital jukebox and Web browser mash-up. Like Winamp, it supports extensions and
skinsfeathers. Like Firefox®, it is built from Mozilla®, cross-platform and open source.
So far, I’m not exactly blown over. I mean, it’s pretty good, but it’s still in the development phase. I play my music from the computer into the stereo, and the sound from Songbird was decidedly weaker than that of itunes (that is to say, I got less bass response), but I haven’t really fooled around with Songbird all that much yet. When they hook up the device synching capability, I’ll be able to give it a more serious look.
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