12 Study Tips for Doing Your Best in College

UPDATE:
-I wouldn't follow this advice, its just random ideas that worked for me in the past, alot of em don't work anymore.  I'm making a new post about advice in school.

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The general rule for every class is simply to listen to your teacher. Don't shortcut their methods and listen to the advice they give you. Do the homework and reading they recommend to you, and most importantly, do it on time. At the end of the day, they aren't trying to take you down because they hate you, as sometimes it would seem, they're trying to take you down to challenge you to achieve your full potential.

To rise up to this challenge, I modified and polished up my studying techniques. Every class I took in college taught me something different. I'm going to share with you all of what I learned. Now the advice I give primarily applies to Biology related majors, specifically something related to Molecular Biology, but try to think how this would apply to you.

I'm going to skim over the basics:

1. Always Attend Class
One of the biggest mistakes you can make is not attending class. You might be dead tired, wanting to sleep in, hung over like your head is going to explode. You should man it out and go to class. As you hear things in class for the first time, whether you understand them or not, they will register in your head as things the professor said. When you go back and study the material, these random details will pop into your head and you'll be thanking yourself for going to class. You'll find it much easier to understand material the second time around, however half-ass the first time around was.

2. Make an attempt to listen
As I said, whether you understand the material or not, keywords and phrases will register in your mind, and you'll know later on that the professor mentioned it and so you should probably know it. Random phrases the professor says will pop into your mind as you study for your midterm as well. If you can understand the entire lecture on the spot, then it will probably cut the studying time outside of class in half, and it will make it so much less stressful.

3. Take Proper Notes
Write down everything on the board, anything the teacher says, and anything you're thinking. Don't rely on others for notes. You'll find that most people don't take good notes, and even if they do, it's hard to decipher other people's notes sometimes. If you write it down yourself, you're far more likely to remember what you're writing, and you'll have an easier time understanding the material.

Its important to build a note taking strategy that you are efficient with. I have found that the best note taking strategy for me is to be organized and color coded. By organized I mean, I write the date and lecture number before every lecture, I begin a new lecture on the right side of my notebook, and I take notes neatly leaving alot of space in my notebook. Don't squeeze things. The teacher might look to make a small diagram and it might turn into a 2 page drawing, you never know. If you think you'll run out of paper in your notebook, don't worry about it, you can just get another notebook and call it Part 2. I also color code all my notes with 4 colors. I will have black, blue, red, and green pens ready to go. Usually black is what the teacher writes on the board, blue is what the teacher explains, green is notes to myself, and red is if the teacher specifically says something is important.


Ok, all that is pretty obvious stuff, now these are the things that helped me in some class:

4. Podcasting
Most teachers will podcast, I recommend going back every weekend and listening to the podcast, while taking notes in your notebook. I usually write these extra notes in pencil. I'll usually write down all the details that the teacher explains that seem to be common sense on the spot, but end up being difficult and important. Always make time to podcast, you'll find listening to it the second time around makes it stick in your mind like glue. Many of my fellow pre-med students do this as well. These are the guys that set the class curves and take all the A+'s and A's away from everyone else. I recommend speeding up the podcasts, which you can do on Windows Media Player. Depending on how fast the professor speaks, you can speed it up anywhere from 1.5x to 2x the speed. I began to do this in my upper divison classes mostly, where reading the book was less important than listening to the teacher.

5. Wikipedia
This seems like common sense too, but you'll be surprised by how little people use the internet as a resource. Sometimes common words are not always what they seem. A really simple example is lets say your professor is talking about ADH and suddenly starts calling it Vasopressin, a word you've never heard before. If you wikipedia it, you'd know that they are the same thing. In one molecular biology class, I was literally using Wikipedia to look up every protein name. So when the teacher throws out a bunch of CDCs, CDKs, Cyclins, with random numbers associated, what seems like complete gibberish and confusion, can be broken down and organized simply by wikipedia. Out of all the times I've used wiki, it's been inaccurate on my a few times, usually only because it cites certain evidence that our professor overrules with the latest research, usually because he does the research. You can't really complain about that. I use this in mostly upper division classes where some of the nomeclature gets very complicated, but I wish I had used it throughout college in all of my classes.

6. No Study Groups, Yet
I've learned that its best to study everything on your own. If you don't understand something, power through it, do research, go to office hours, and figure it out. When you feel like you are done with all of the material, then join a study group and try to help others. If you can teach the information you self, it proves you really understand it, meaning you'll probably ace the test.

7. Go to Office Hours on Off Days
I have been on both sides of the table in office hours, as a student and as a TA. I can tell you this, from a TAs perspective, we wait there every day for students to come and ask questions so we can help you. We want to be good TAs and we want the students who actually come to us to do well. This means, if a student comes in and asks me a simple question, I'll give him not only the answer, but I'll explain the reasoning behind it better than the professor. Not only that but since I have most likely taken that class before, and TA'd it before, I know what type of questions are likely to appear on the test. We usually sit there bored for most of the days, until about a week before a midterm, then students rush in for practice test answers. At this point theres so many kids that its hard to give any single student full attention, but rather I have to give quick and concise answers to keep everything moving. So go to office hours on the first week of class, go on random days, go after the midterm.

8. Do All Homework and Practice Tests
This is the best indication of what information the teacher wants you to know and in how much depth. Theres many angles you can take at certain material, some teachers simply test for memorization, others tests critical thinking, and some take critical thinking a couple steps more and ask you to do some serious problem solving where you really need to know the information. Homework and Practice Tests get you in that critical thinking mindset that is necessary to do well on test day. Getting as many of these angles down is key to developing your critical thinking.

9. Study to Learn, Not to Pass Tests
This is one of the most important pieces of advice I can give. It's all about understanding the material. If you study to pass tests, you're limiting yourself on test day. Teachers will always put curveball questions on tests to create a standard distribution. With proper understanding, you can take these questions down with ease. If you only studied to pass the test, these questions might be beyond your scope, leaving you complaining like most other students that it was unfair. At the end of the day, your complaints are probably useless. Beat the system at its own game, instead of trying to take the system down, because thats impossible. Plus this is your major, you should probably find it interesting.

10. Study Early
Start studying on day 1. There is always something to study. You can read ahead, read wiki, read extra, whatever it may be. Start as strong as you can. In the first 2 weeks of school, study every hour you can during the day. You might be the only fool in the library on the first day, but you'll be laughing once test day comes around. The average student will probably be playing video games, sleeping in, watching TV. Doing something productive during this day time will give you lee-way to free up your nights, as well as your weekend, and nights and weekends are the best social times. This way you can manage having a life and doing well in school, something thats becoming rare, especially with tougher majors.

11. Manage Your Supplements Wisely
Coffee, Soda, Energy Drinks, Adderall. All of these can help you stay awake and focus while you study. I can tell you this from personal experience, this is a slippery downhill road. Once you start coffee, you'll become dependent. Eventually you're going to need to increase your caffeine intake as your tolerance increases. This might lead you to energy drinks, and this might eventually lead you to adderall. Now most important here is your health, so I don't recommend any of these. Energy drinks are notoriously bad for you, I would stay away completely. But the day will come when you ended up slacking and become piled up in work, and need to pull an all-nighter. At this point, coffee and energy drinks are your friends. I would highly recommend going with the sugar free ones or black coffee. In my opinion, energy drinks from weakest to strongest are, Sobe Energy, Red Bull, Monster, Amp, Rockstar. My personal favorite is Rockstar Blue. Now if you're in a worst case scenario situation, and its the day before your final and you don't even know what your class is called yet, then you might want to consider Adderall. I will make another post later detailing how I would use it, and exactly how it effects you. But this is the easiest to become dependent on. Tolerance builds surprisingly fast. Most important with all of this stuff is, drink alot of water with it. For however much coffee or monster you drink, I would recommend drinking 3-4 times that much in water throughout the night. You'll be pissing every half an hour, but it will keep your body from turning into a raisin.12. Its All About Your Mindset
College is about thinking outside the box, this is what your teachers are going to try to get you to do, its what you should do on your own if you want to reach your fullest potential. Your mindset while studying is one of the most important things. Approach the material with an open mind, map things out in your mind or on paper, and how they connect with each other. Always ask WHY, and make sense of everything you learn in a real life perspective. In Medical school, sometimes teachers will take the first lecture just to talk about this, because really, your Mindset will determine everything. So for example, A causes B, C causes D, now upon further research you realize B = D, now A causes D and C causes B, etc. And beyond that, why and how does A cause B? Etc. The connections might be different but you get my point. This is the path to truly understanding the material and having it stick with you forever, instead of it fading away after a year.


If all of this stuff seems obvious to you, at least understand why it is obvious, and understand why it is not as easy as it seems. That is the point I am going for in this article. Not doing well in school is one of the most stressful things for a college student. You will find that putting in the work to do well in school and not being lazy will pay off big.

The State of Oakland Sports

Oakland Athletics

After years of false promises, trading away our top players for prospects, believing in Billy Beane that one day things will turn around, the light at the end of the tunnel is starting to become visible. Our rotation is one of the best in the league, featuring Cahill, Anderson, Gonzalez, Braden, and Mazzaro. The team ERA at 3.54 is the best in the American League, and 4th best in the Majors. Team WHIP at 1.26 is also 4th best in the majors. One option I've heard thrown out there was acquiring an experienced pitcher next year, and demote Mazzaro, not only to save his arm, but for injury insurance. This is not a bad idea, to have some experience, if we are serious about a playoff run.

The biggest question has been our offense. We are in the bottom half in nearly every batting statistic, including dead last in home runs. The foundation of our lineup needs some serious building, and not just patches from year to year as we have been doing. We need serious 3-4-5 hitters who can drive in runs. There has been talk to acquiring Carl Crawford in the off-season, but personally I don't think he is the answer. He's a fast guy who can get on base and get home, but he is more of a supplement to a primary hitter in the lineup. He won't drive in many runs or hit any out of the park. If we pair him with a power guy like Adam Dunn, then we're in business. The man has wheels though, he fits our small ball scheme perfectly.

As for now, we are 8 games back of Texas for the AL West. There are 39 games left in the season, 7 against Texas and 6 against Anaheim. Last week Texas lost 5 games, and this week they get the twins, who have been very hot this month. We get cleveland, before we start a series with Texas. This should give us momentum. This week should determine where we go from this point as a team, for the rest of the season.


Oakland Raiders

We have been the laughing stock of the NFL for most of the decade. But the atmosphere is finally changing. The biggest change has been new QB Jason Campbell. He's shown alot of intelligence on the field in making the right decisions. He moves well in the pocket to avoid the sack. He's very accurate on his short to mid range passes. My concern is his deep ball, I have yet to see a clean deep ball from Campbell, caught for a large gain. I have much confidence in Campbell though, I think he is someone we can put our faith in, someone we haven't had since Gannon. Also on the offensive side, the offense line has finally been coming into place, things aren't great, but they aren't bad either. Zach Miller has been a beast on the field. Now with a legitimate passer, he will come out onto the national scene as one of the premiere tight ends in the game. The offense will be exciting this year to watch, a bunch of guys who seem like they will play as a unit, and not just 'a bunch of guys.'

On the defensive side of the ball, we have 2 of our top draft picks Houston and McClain. McClain played under Nick Saban at Alabama, a defensive linebacker specialist. McClain is impressing the coaches at training camp, he should quickly rise as a leader on the defensive side by the end of this year, and he understands that role. The Defensive line looks exciting this year. Houston has already been making an impact in pre-season. Wimbley had a career game with 4 sacks in the first half against the bears. Tommy Kelly looks like he lost alot of weight, as he looks like he's taking his job seriously now. But in my opinion one of the biggest changes is losing defensive coordinator Ryan. This defense should have a completely new attitude of playing solid and aggressive.

Oakland was the 5th worst team in Offensive time of possession, that means the defense was always on the field. It was obvious from watching games that the defense was able to hold their own only for so long. But they couldn't hold both the defense and the offense up. It was an impossible situation. Yet under these circumstances the still kept us in games. We had 5 wins in 2009. Four of our loses were by a touchdown or less.

This year there is a change, this isn't the same patched up Raider team of the past. We have been trying for changes that give us instant success. But finally we have a young team who want to do something with this team. 2010 will be the turnaround year for the Raiders, how drastically we turn we will have to see.

Pac-10 Football - Team by Team Commentary

Oregon - They were overachieving this whole year. They have a good team but their QBs are dropping like flies. You can't expect a team to compete for the conference title without a quarterback. They were eventually gonna go down, it was a matter of time. The advantage they have though is that the system really supports any young QB with limited passing skills. But thats not enough. I expect 3-4 conference losses.

Cal - One bad game, I still think we're gonna finish top 3 in the pac-10. Riley is good, the one pick was unfortunate, but he rarely throws picks anyways, its absolutely nothing to worry about. I review Cal after every game in my other topic, so I don't need to keep talking about em here. Long story short, alot of talent at many positions, a lot of veteren leadership, and hard lessons learned form the past, will all equal success. I only expect 2-4 conference losses. Our pass D is what needs to pick it up. Its not as bad as UCLA's, but its not good at all. We have enough support from everyone else though to make up for it partially.

Arizona State - Very good team with big exploitable weaknesses. They have a very experienced QB who can be effective when given time in the pocket, and a good RB in nance. But the O-line doesn't do **** for them. All teams have to do is what georgia did. Bullrush the O-line, bump the receivers, bring the saftey's up, and they are shut down. They also had some big injuries in the linebacker position. I'm not sure what their status is. They are clearly very well coached, but they can get beat. I expect 1-3 conference losses for them.

Arizona - This is an underrated team in the conference and could surprise a lot of people. Tuitama is a very good senior quarterback. The least his QB rating has been this season is 120, its at 151 right now, and he actually gets a good amount of attempts too. They put in a new offensive system starting last year, and once tuitama got used to it, they started winning. They were 3-1 in their last 4 games, and started 3-1 this year. Thomas, Turner, and Dean are all very good receivers. Grigsby has been a good runningback, but I dont know how he'll be against some better defenses. But this passing attack is one to be scared of. They'll finish at least top 5 in the conference, behind Cal, ASU, USC, and Oregon. They might even upset one of those teams. They could upset Cal, our pass defense is weak.

UCLA - They suck. They had 2 stud defensive tackles that stop the run by themselves, they have good linebackers, an experienced corner, and a 5 star freshman safety. Their run defense is decent but the pass defense is atrocious. When this team brings their A game, they might be decent, but they don't play hard, they have too many injuries, I dont follow them closely enough to predict a turnaround, but for now, they aren't gonna beat anyone with a decent QB, that means Fresno, U Dub, Cal, ASU, USC, and maybe Oregon. This is why they got torched by Max Hall and Tuitama.

Oregon State - Moevao is a decent quarterback. He makes a lot of mistakes, but he does a lot of good also. They should've beaten stanford in the opener, but **** happens. They could've easily been 2-1 Ovr and 1-0 in pac-10 before really starting conference play. I'm not gonna be quick to judgement about them yet, their biggest loss was to Penn State, I think they have a lot of hope, maybe even upset a team. I expect a middle of the pack finish, if not slightly better.

Stanford - They are definately in the lower half of the conference. I think they return more starters than any other team in the pac-10. The problem is, they are really that good. Gerhart is a solid runningback, but Pritchard at QB needs to get better for them to be succesful. I don't think he's at that level yet. They are going to get destroyed by the better teams in the conference.

Washington - In their defense, they played Oregon, BYU, and Oklahoma. Two of those teams are BCS caliber. They got screwed against BYU, so don't write them off so quickly. They are in the bottom half of the pac-10, but they might be able to compete against some of the top teams. They play against stanford, a team thats more at their level, we'll be able to better judge them after this game.

Washington State - The worst team in the pac-10 by far, at least other teams have a few guys to be positive about. They supposedly had a good defensive line, so I dunno. I dunno whats up with them, but they're not going to upset anyone any time soon, if they get a pac-10 win against a team thats not Stanford or Washington, they should be very happy.

USC - Saved the best for the last. I don't need to say anything about them, you all know. Best team in the country. The blueprint to beating USC is this: Aggressive D-line play that can run stop, confusing blitzing schemes, physical bump and run coverage, and smart safeties. In addition, you need to vary your defensive looks and play, even if its not what you usually do. A combination of all that can slow down USC. Slow em down enough to give your team a chance. Thats when your offense has to be firing on all cylinders. You need top of the line pass protection and a good passing quarterback, and you'll have a chance. No one stops the run as good as this team. Out of all the teams in the league, I'd say Bradford would do the best against USC. USC is too big for the UF O-line and too fast for Tebow. They are too good to run the option against. Georgia would have the 2nd best chance at beating USC, if not the same chance as OU. Stafford is a good QB with a really strong arm. Its hard to pick him because of that. I would say Missouri might give em a hard time, but they are too one dimensional. Its UGA, OU, or bust. And even then, those teams would probably get clobbered.

Madden 09 Brief Review and Guides

I have created two guides for Madden 09 for beginners trying to advance their skills to play like pros. One is for running the ball and the other is for passing. They can be found on my main website here.
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Every year fans continue to get angry at EA for giving them basically the same Madden game with a roster update. This year EA decided to completely change things up. They advertised that there would be 80+ new features in the game. While some are very minor, the difference in the entire game is very noticeable.

The main biggest difference to all fans is the running game. EA has finally updated their broken running and tackling engine and it proves to be much better. Runningbacks can no longer make instantly change their direction at full speed, they can't stop immediately after sprinting. When the defender has engaged the runner in a tackle, the runningback can still make moves in attempts to break the tackle. Defenders can gang tackle the runningback to make sure he goes down, or when the runner is trying to get tackled forwards for an extra gain, extra defenders can come in and push him back. The main drawback is that the tackling is not entirely smooth, it looks and feels like lag, but whatever the case, it's not good. As a whole the running and tackling physics alone are reason to buy this game.

A large number of extra features were also added to the game. You can go to wikipedia for a long list of features and come back if you have any questions. The main theme though was polishing up the game. The stadiums, field, and weather look absolutely stunning. The atmosphere feels realistic. On rainy days, players' jerseys get muddy, some guys start slipping and dropping balls. The players on the field seem alive, they move around on their own, they aren't robots like in previous years.

I haven't been this excited for Madden since 05 when the hit stick was introduced. Even 2k Sports fans are admitting that this is the first decent Madden they've played and are beginning to transition over to Madden. While the game is more realistic and polished, it still captures the spirit of the old Maddens with its fast paced game and hard hits.

Overall: 9.3/10

The Pac-10 Versus the SEC - A Comprehensive Comparison

Recruiting
The Pac-10 has been the number 2 conference in recruiting for the past few years. And while the SEC is number 1, the average rating of recruits of Pac-10 teams is just as good. For the 08 class, the Pac-10 has the highest average rating. They also had the most players in the top 100. The overall ranking is skewed by the fact that the Pac-10 has less teams than the SEC, Big 12, and Big 10. No doubt the SEC dominated the 06 and 07 classes, but 08 starts a downward trend for the SEC. The pac-10 is about equal to the SEC in terms of recruiting, as of now. And all this time, the Pac-10 has been superior to the Big Ten and Big 12.

Pac-10 Versus SEC Games
I've been saying all along, the best way to determine the superiority of one conference to another is simply play games between each other. With the UCLA win over Tennessee, the Pac-10 is now 10-6 against the SEC, since 2000. For those that have been saying that the Pac-10 is all about USC, if you take out USC and LSU, the two powerhouse teams, the Pac-10 is 6-2 against the SEC. The numbers speak for themselves.

Non-Conference Scheduling and Bowl Eligibility
SEC fans are quick to point out that 10 out of 12 teams were bowl eligible last year, and 9 the year before that. Only 6 pac-10 teams were Bowl eligible last year, and 8 the year before. If you look at the teams from the SEC that barely were eligible, South Carolina and Alabama, you can see that they only got in because of their easy OoC scheduling. I can go into details listing out their opponents but I'll save myself the time. Had SC lost 1 non-conference game, or Bama lost 2, they would not have been bowl eligible. Vanderbilt, the team that almost made it, also won all of its easy non conference games. You really only have to win 3 out of 9 games in the SEC to be bowl eligible. It has completely lost its meaning. The Pac-10 teams on the other hand, all had tough opponents. Of the teams that barely were eligible, UCLA and Cal, LA beat BYU and Utah, and Cal, I'm sure you know about Cal. Of the teams that were barely ineligible, Wazzu and Arizona, Wazzu played Wisconsin, and Zona also played BYU. Other teams like Washington, who were 2 wins away played Boise, Ohio State, Syracuse. At least the Orange are a BCS team. If you don't play tough out of conference games, theres no way to gauge how good the conference is. The tough OoC games that the SEC have played, they've gotten embarrassed by the Pac-10. If you want to be completely unbiased, look at the strength of schedules of the conferences. The SEC had an average strength of schedule of 20. The pac-10 had an average strength of schedule of 10.7.

Bowl Victories
I tried googling for bowl victories but all I found was BCS bowl records and 07-08 bowl records. In both, the Pac-10 and SEC have the same amount of losses, but the SEC had slightly more wins. However, these numbers are not substantive enough to make for a valid basis of judgment. SEC fans like to point out national championships, but the fact is the sample space is too small to work with. BCS bowl records would be better, but still not adequate. The best would be bowl records since 2002, but as I said, I couldn't find those stats and I dont want to compile them myself.

Coaches
The SEC has some great coaches, but all I can say on this one is that the Pac-10 is catching up. The Neuheisel-Chow combo is as good of an offensive coaching staff as your going to get in the league. Pete Carroll, the best coach in the league. Dennis Erickson is completely legitimate, that is a team to watch out for, he went 10-3 in his first year. Jim Harbaugh is starting to turn stanford around. Mike Riley has oregon state turned around, they've had the second best record in the pac-10 over the span of the last 2 years. Tedford has been insanely close to a BCS bid a few times. Mike Bellotti has a couple of conference titles as well as a BCS bowl victory. The SEC is much better in terms of coaching, but the Pac-10 has made some significant changes in the past few years. Eventually they will be close. If Saban and Spurrier didn't come in, I'd say the Pac-10 coaches would be about even if not better than the SEC's.

Players
This is too much to go into, but it parallels the stuff I said about recruiting.

Overall
The SEC is not some sort of champions league, its not far and away the best conference. It is the best, but not by much. You cant just look at the positives of the SEC and ignore the positives of the other conferences, which is the what nearly all SEC fans are guilty of. My personal critique is, that the SEC championship game throws the rankings completely off, and that's how so many SEC teams get ranked so high. Its essentially a semi-final game where the winner goes to the championship. This way SEC teams get far more leeway in losses and the quality of those losses. It is the thing that pushes SEC teams over the top. They have the most title wins, but they also have the most opportunities. The purpose of this post was to bring respect to the Pac-10.

Redskins Defense

Defensive Line: On the defensive line they have Andre Carter, Phillip Daniels, Cornelius Griffin, and Kedric Golston. Each one of these players is solid and has experience, except Golston. But at 6'4, 320 pounds, he should take up a lot of space.

Linebackers: Here, they have Marcus Washington, London Fletcher, and Rocky McIntosh. Washington is a great linebacker, he can stuff the run as well as anybody. McIntosh is their second round pick from last year, he should be good. Their new acquasition, London Fletcher is a complete beast. He consistantly puts up monster numbers. He should be special.

Defensive Backs: This is probably the biggest strength of the defense. With Sean Taylor, LaRon Landry, Carlos Rogers, and Shawn Springs. Springs is a proven quality corner, Taylor can run with anyone in coverage, and is a missle running down field to tackle someone. Landry is the newest addition, he's one of the best safties ever coming out of college, he should be special. And then theres Rogers, a top pick a few years ago, he's now getting a chance to show what he can do, and so far its looked great.

This defense is better than the defense from 05 that took them to the playoffs and past round one. Last year most of the starters were injured and playing hurt. It was a disaster everywhere on defense. This year so far they've played extremely well together.

This year with Jason Campbell, they should be at least average on offense. They went 10-6 in the 05 season, look for the same, if not better, in my opinion. Right now, they are being highly underrated.

My Fantasy Baseball Team

Unlike last year, I did research before I drafted. Last year I relief purely on my baseball knowledge and not fantasy baseball knowledge. I went more with big names than with the better fantasy player. This year my researched helped alot. I drafted every single player with something positive that I can look forward to. I acted as if my 21st pick was just as important as my 1st. In reality, its not, but I was researching and comparing stats like it was. This was a traditional head to head, 5x5, 10 man league. I made a few changes after I drafted, I dropped Jacque Jones for Danial Cabrera almost immediately after the draft, and I dropped Chipper Jones for Weathers.

I've never been so confident in a fantasy team before, in any sport. Once Howard and Atkins get it going (Looks like today), my offense will be completely dominating. The one thing I lack is steals. Byrnes had 4 steals this past week, but I don't expect that to continue, I'm projecting 30 steals tops. Upton is also running this year, I'm expecting around 30 steals from him as well. Delmon Young could also give me a solid number of steals, around 20.

My pitching is strong as well. Sheets could be great, he looks to be completely healthy. Just about all my pitchers have high potentials. 5 of them have 200k potential. My closers aren't great but they're sufficient. Jenks and Isringhausen will be consistant, hopefully so will Weathers. Dempster has been very good so far. But if he blows more than one save, his time will be extremely short.

I'm trying to pick up Kenny Lofton, but I can't figure out who to cut.

C: Jorge Posada
1B: Ryan Howard
2B: Josh Barfield
3B: Garrett Atkins
SS: Miguel Tejada
OF: Vladimir Guerrero
OF: Delmon Young
OF: Eric Byrnes
Util: Todd Helton
BN: B.J. Upton

SP: Ben Sheets
SP: John Smoltz
RP: Bobby Jenks
RP: Jason Isringhausen
P: Ryan Dempster
P: David Weathers
P: C.C. Sabathia
BN: Bronson Arroyo
BN: Justin Verlander
BN: Aaron Harang
BN: Daniel Cabrera

Don't Let Lofton's Low Avg Fool You

Before this season, he was a career .300 hitter. Now he hits at the top of a powerful Rangers lineup. Behind him is Hairston, Young, Teixeira, Sosa. Right now his average is very low, .133, but don't let that fool you, he is a very good hitter in fact.

He has a contact rate of 93% with only 1 strikeout. He's putting the bat on the ball, its just not landing in the right spot, and thats unlucky. Because of that, he's not getting on base, which means his runs are down. He's gotten 2 hits and 1 walk, so he's reached base 3 times. He also has 2 steals. Clearly he wants to run and clearly he can. Such a high contact rate tells us his average will definitely go up, and for such a high rate, an average of .300 or well beyond is reasonable. Once he starts getting on base more, we'll see plenty of runs and steals. Its all a matter of time.

High Strikeout Pitchers

Thanks to Doug's MLB Stats, I can rank players and compile stats in any way imaginable. The first thing that I wanted to know was who the best strikeout pitchers are in the league. Pure strikeouts can't tell you much because the innings pitched are all different. I compiled Strikeouts per Innings pitched, here are the ranks that I got:




















From that list, Kazmir and Hamels are availible in the mid-rounds. Cabrera is availible way in the late rounds, if he doesn't go undrafted. We all know they are high strikeout guys, but just how high, might be overlooked. (Note: This only applies to pitchers with over 100 innings pitched, this is to exclude the relievers)

Next, I did K per Walk. Sheets was by far the best with a ratio of 10.54. The next closest was Schilling with a ratio of 6.53. Then Johan with a ratio of 5.2. This can be a good indicator of control that the pitcher has. It can tell you whether that player's ERA and Whip are inflated or deflated by other factors. Clearly Schilling is overlooked in this aspect. Sheets still has an injury risk. Another Note, Wickman was the only pitcher better than Sheets with a ratio of 12.5, but thats only with his tenure with the Braves. With the Braves he was a complete beast. Infact, he also has the best Save per Blown save ratio.

This stat sheet is very fun to play around with. If anyone has any numbers/ranks they want to compile, just leave a comment and I'll have it done by the next day. I can do hitters and pitchers.

GTA 4 - First Look

The long awaited first trailer came out for Grand Theft Auto 4. Its availible on the GTA 4 site, on YouTube, GameTrailers, and theres even a torrent. Its a short trailer, about a minute. Theres not much action, but we do get to know the basics of the game. It revolves around an immigrant who was involved in Human Trafficking apparently (This could get Ugly for Rockstar). It takes place in Liberty City once again. A lot of people don't like this, but personally I don't mind. Liberty City is a great city for a setting. They can always refurbish parts, add more things, change things, etc., I think by now we should learn to trust Rockstar. Thats enough of me rambling about the Trailer, you can check it out for yourself.

This first glimpse however gave me enough material to create me first mock cover. I used various screens from the trailer on the cover, the traditional GTA font, and the "IV" font that was on the GTA website. I applied very simple photoshop filters to make the pictures look more cartoonish. I didn't spend more than an hour on this. I do plan on making it better, with better screens, and better vectors, and eventually I'll make a back cover. But for now, this is what I have.

GTA 4 Cover - Version 1.0

(Click to Enlarge)

Final Four: Georgetown

Up to now I have 93 points, and all my 4 final four teams are still in. I have OSU beating UCLA in the finals. That Georgetown game was a classic. I was praying the whole way that Gtown would come back. It was a complete effort by everyone. It was amazing how they came through in the clutch. Whenever it seemed like UNC was dominating, they would score key shots to keep it close. The worst they were down by was 11, but for most of the game they were down by 5-7 points. Finally at the end they went on a spree and were unstopped.

Georgetown was the better team in my opinion, by far. Hibbert was the key, on defense he would block shots and keep them in check, and on offense he would be a solid scorer. He was in foul trouble the whole game, and the way John Thompson managed him was excellent. He left him in when everyone else questioned him, and it payed off bigtime. What else amazed me was the passing of Georgetown. They made crisp passes inside. This is the best passing team I've ever seen in college. Hansborough had a very good first half, but was completely invisible in the second half. Georgetown deserved that win. Hibbert vs. Oden will be the game of the year in my opinion. I missed the other three games though, that sucks.

'300' A Short Non-Spoiler Review

I only watch a few movies every year at the theaters, only special movies that I know will be worth the money. 300 was one of these movies. The movie is adapted from the comic written by Frank Miller based on an old battle between 300 Spartan warriors and the Persian army of thousands. As expected the visuals were breathtaking. Someone described the movie as "a mix of Gladiator and Lord of the Rings" which I believe to be very true. The battle scenes are similar to those of Lord of the Rings. At times the LotR fight scenes seemed to be dry and repetitive, this is not the case in 300. The entire movie was very entertaining and left the viewer wanting more.

Children watch fantasy movies like Harry Potter, Narnia, Bridge to Terebithia, movies that ignite their imagination and absorb them completely in the movie. 300 is a movie like that for adults. It would seem that the plot is weak looking at the type of film that it is, but that is not the case. Its a simple story, but a very good one.

In the end, we have to look at this movie for what it is, a story told on film, which the movie does perfectly. This is one of the best movies I've seen in a long time. If you liked Gladiator and Lord of the Rings, you will love this movie. Everything about this movie is high quality.

Overall: 9/10

(I'm not trying to project what the rating would be overall, that is just my personal rating)

Suggestions for Digg.com

I'll cut to the chase with the suggestions. Digg this if you like it.

1. Make comments appear in real-time - When you Digg an article, you can see the Digg number increment in real-time. Do the same for new comments. Why? Because of stories have a large number of comments, and refreshing the page every time to post a new comment or check for newly posted comments by others takes some time. Refreshing it over and over can get annoying for these more largely commented articles.

2. Comment Pagination - This branches off the same idea as the previous suggestion, refreshing pages with many comments takes a while, so why not have pages of comments? The number of comments displayed can be set in the user profile, like 10, 20, 50, etc.


That is all.

My 2006 Miami Dolphins Madden Video

I've officially begun working on my new video, 2006 Miami Dolphins Season Review NFL Films Style with Madden. Here is the 2005 version. There are several mistakes in the old video. The video skips, the Audio is scratchy, the entire video has margins, the text is hard to read and goes by fast, some of the video is slow, some is fast, etc. Honestly, I rushed the old video, I was so excited with what I had, I couldn't wait to put it out. I'm taking my time with this to make it perfect.

Ever since I made the 2005 Video, I've been thinking of ideas. Now I have officially begun. I'm going to choreograph it all first with a script, then follow the script. If you have any ideas, please leave comments. If you ever wanna chat or anything, just leave you're AIM sn in the comments.

O and last thing, if you would have to put a title to the Dolphins' 06 season, what would that title be? Thanks.

Superbowl Prediction

Just like last year, I'm here to predict the superbowl.

In my opinion it comes down to this: Which matchup do you prefer, Colts Offense vs Bears Defense or Bears Offense vs Colts Defense? This brings up a issue that most forget about, how well the Colts defense is playing. Their defensive philosophy is to not allow the big play, which is all Grossman is, a big play. So they can shut down Grossman, but the Bears running game is still here. Thus I come to the conclusion that the Bears running game must win this game all by itsself. Which is unlikely considering how the Colts D has been playing against the run this post-season. Next, looking at how Manning played the second half of the pats game, I give the advantage to the Colts offense. Manning looked unstoppable.

I can see Thomas Jones and Benson combining for two touchdowns, and Hester getting another 1-2 touchdowns. The colts special teams defense looked very weak against the patriots. But I think Colts will still come out on top, simply because of Manning and Viniteri.

Final Score: 27-20 Colts