I can not explain to you how happy I am with ÜberTwitter. I have been using Twitterberry for over a year and was pretty happy with it but also dissatisfied with some recent changes and some bugs from those changes. I searched for a new client a couple months ago since it did not seem like there was any support for Twitterberry but I could not find another application that functioned the way Twitterberry did. That was all until I saw ÜberTwitter in the top 25 downloads of App World.

I at first did not like it because I thought that Twitterberry had a little cleaner look (which it does) plus I liked the shortcut that hitting back always took you to a new tweet. It took me a couple days to realize it but this new app has a ton of features. My favorites all revolve around viewing and sending pictures. The new features are:

1. Being able to preview the “twit pic” in your main window next to the text
2. Seeing the full picture with a single click without having to go into the horrible BB browser
3. The tweet/picture can also be geo tagged and it will show you where you took or uploaded the picture on a Google Map interface in the same screen as your looking on the picture.
4. Being able to directly send a picture after taking it without having to view the picture.

Other new features that I did not have before are:

1. Being able to add or block a user from the app
2. See tweets from people around me (pretty cool)
3. Seach twitter
4. View Trending Topic
5. Full spell check (Twitterberry had it but then lost the feature for replies in the last email.
6. Being able to reply to a group
7. Forward a tweet to an email
8. Monitor multiple twitter accounts from the same app at the same time
9. Integration with Google Talk
10. Send videos in a tweet
11. Visual icon notification for any tweet on the app icon and another icon in the header if you get a reply or direct message. (one of the main reasons I left Twitterberrry.
12. Latitude like locating system which can use GPS, cell towers, or both for my phone.

The app is free but it has a banner on the top that does not bother me at all. I just realized that you can but the full version for $5/year so just did just to support such a fine app.

Another week, another 3 day weekend….I am joking but it sure seems like I have a lot of 3 day weekends. This weekend was bigger than a normal weekend because we had a huge group going to see Missouri play Texas in the Homecoming game while also having my good friend Matt Rengel’s bachelor party.

Overall the weekend went pretty well despite the fact that Missouri got destroyed by the higher ranked and overly talented Texas squad. I was a bit worried about the weekend because it seemed like absolutely no planning went into the weekend which is not in my nature.

We left in a couple groups. Group 1 got to CoMo around 6 on Friday so we decided to go downtown to eat dinner. After going to a couple places, we decided on Campus (formerly Big 12) since we were able to get a table right away. After we were done, we wanted to play some darts so we tried Quintons then went to McNallys where we able to secure a board. We hung out there for a while then went to some random bar to hear Casey play. He was pretty good and sang all the classic songs I know and love. We rounded out the nostalgic night by hitting the tail end of the Vu. Also, we got extremely lucky and Rengel’s brother was the sober driver for the whole weekend so I and the group owe him very much gratitude. I also thank Casey for letting us crash at his place both nights.

We woke up “early” Saturday and met up with the rest of the group to get our tailgating supplies. From there, we decided to try out luck at finding a spot even though it was only noon and we thought our spot next to Reactor was not available till 4PM. We ended up getting a sweet spot right next to the tennis center. As you can see in the picture, we really went all out. It was the best tailgate we had so far. The weather was amazing. I was wearing just a tshirt most of the day.

As for the game there was nothing good about it. What disturbed me even more was our seats. We paid $75 for our tix and were somehow in bleachers above the $35 GA spots. It was actually the exact same section I sat in for the Nebraska game with my GA tickets. I thought we were going to be in the bleachers on the north end zone like our tickets said but obviously not. What really made me furious was the “fans” (if you really want to call them that) in our section. We had a group of 15 so we took the first 3 rows in our section. The issue was that we could not see the field because of the low seats, the railing, and the fans standing in the GA section. The people behind us didn’t care because they wanted to sit and did not care if we couldn’t see the seats. What made me mad is that they got belligerent (cursed and threatened me which is not cool when there are kids around) and even tried to throw us out and a bunch of other people who were standing. The idea of trying to get someone thrown out because they are supporting their team is appalling. We were just minding our own business and trying to enjoy the game and they ruined it. I basically felt guilty for trying to watch the game so ended up watching it on the score board … not cool after paying $75 for tickets. We ended up leaving at half because of the poor game and the seating situation. These fans didn’t even stand on big 3^rd down plays in the 1^st quarter. How is that possible? Might as well watch the game at home on your TV if your not going to get into the game. I totally equate this to fans that only came because it was homecoming and probably don’t even watch games.

As for the night scene, we decided to hit up Tin Can then the new Shiloh since Quintons, Harpos, and Campus had a huge line. What amazes me is the huge number of new bars in Columbia. There seems to be 3 times the places to go. Is there more people going out in Columbia now? Has the house party scene died? I do not remember all the bars being extremely packed so not sure how these new bars can be full. Smith and I ended the night eating some delicious eggs and hashbrowns at Waffle House. All I can say is that Waffle House needs to get some computers in that place to better automate the ordering system. It was a bit ridiculous.

On a side note, I forgot to mention playing the punching game at Tin Can. Somehow we ended up with zero pictures of this even though we did it for at least an hour. Somehow, all the tall and skinny guys in our group kept getting 900s which was high for the whole bar. Most people we getting in the 700s and 800s….girls were getting 500s and 600s. Smith somehow got a 47 when he actually tried so that is a whole other story. I saw some huge guys that looks liked they could kill you with one punch get mid 700s which is what I got in two punches. I think it is flawed by the angle of attack and the way it records. That’s the only way I can explain it. We did have a couple injuries…one being what was thought a broken wrist but turned out to be just a sprain.

Here is the picture from the weekend.

I did almost absolutely nothing productive this weekend and loved every minute of it. I pretty much stayed in my condo the entire weekend. I caught up on my DVR Friday night as well as watched a couple episodes of Dollhouse Season 1 as I am trying to catch up. I am impressed with Dollhouse and it seems to get better as the plot thickens. The last episode I watched which I think was 4 or 5 left me really hanging. Cant wait till watch more.

I met up with some friends Saturday for a chicken dinner at Hodaks then watched the bad MU football game. I have two things to say about this night. One, I am not sure if I like fried chicken anymore. This thought crossed my mind a couple weeks ago after I had been craving KFC for a while and finally went but was disappointed. I then thought the same at Hodaks. Its not that it is bad but there is about 100 dishes that I can think of that are better. Its almost the same reason why I avoided chicken wings for most of my life … I am grossed out by looking at a cooked chicken and all the weird pieces of meat and whatever that it consists of. The weird part is that I can eat chicken wings because wings are normally coated in sauce that masks the appearance. Secondly, why did Blaine Gabbert play that game? His gimp self cost us the game against Nebraska and cost us this game too. We could have easily won this game. He had great protection but kept overthrowing his targets. I am positive that any backup could have bested his play that game.I think the Texas game is going to be disastrous.

On a side note, I had an amazing workout Sunday…did not have the best Saturday but it was still good.  I think the combination of awesome sleep for two nights in a row and no alcohol for a week made my muscles thrive. I blew away my normal lifting capacity in almost every lift.

Just realized this was in my draft folder when I know submitted it. Anyway, here it is.

This weekend was super long and tiring since I took off a couple days early to attend the MU football game on Thursday. As you can read in my earlier post, I was quite disappointed in the weather and the outcome. The good points were hanging around town on Friday. We visited all the old stomping grounds and even got some darts in (which I am going to start playing again). Some of the surprised were the new additions to Quintons and all the new bars like the Tonic lounge (which is in an alley behind Tonic). We ate some good food at Flat Branch and Shakespeares. We also stayed at the Regency hotel next to Field House the last night. It was super cheap with a military rate and very convenient. Great place to stay for a MU basketball game weekend…hint hint. Thursday’s night sleeping arrangements did not go as planned (and we almost drove back to St Louis after the game because we were disgusted with the Cards, MU, the situation, and how wet we were) but a good alternative presented itself and worked out great.

Unfortunately, the Cardinals losses put a huge damper on the weekend for me. Such high expectations all squandered. I did fit in a little Oktoberfest in Soulard. It was my first time at the event. I was quite surprised and would have probably come back from Columbia earlier if I knew how much fun it was. They basically had multiple bands and tents setup around Soulard Market. It was fun. I also really enjoyed Killing Vegas at Pops. How can you not like a band that plays a lot of Rage Against the Machine and 311?

MU Tigers

All I can say is that I think this game has the looks to be the downfall for the Tigers this year. That is pretty unfortunate considering everyone in the stadium thought MU had this game in the bag going into the 4^th quarter. Why did this collapse happen? I know I have my theories: (1) the rain – - It was pouring all day and all night. The rain let up for a little bit in the 4^th which opened up the game some. I kept telling Jeff that I hoped the downpour did not stop. (2) the PA system – - I don’t know if anyone not at the game realized this but there was no sound or video (on the big screen) the entire game. The only boards working were the south endzone. What this meant was that no one in the stadium has any clue what was going on. We didn’t know why there was a penalty or anything else going on in the game. More importantly, the announcer was not able to pump up the crowd on all crucial third downs. It was just a weird feeling. The play clocks were also not working. (3) turnovers – - MU needed to capitalize on all the mistakes in the 1^st half but did not. It seems like they got a 10 or 15 yard penalty every time we got in the Huskers territory. I think I read that they had 1st and over 20 4 times in the first half. (4)  Blaine Gabbert – - A lot of the collapse has to fall on his shoulder. I believe he had 4 interceptions. I believe Nebraska scored 3 times in less than 4 minutes almost all because of Blaine’s crappy passes. Someone thought it was because he injured his ankle earlier in the game so he could not plant his foot. I don’t believe this at all. He has gotten lucky all season with a lot of dropped interceptions by defenses. The problem is that he stares down his receivers. He needs to learn to pump fake and read the overall field. He will never make it into the pros looking like he does now. Also, if he was hurt then he shouldn’t have been in there.

The Blues

I did not get to see any of the first two home games but they also lost both games. I read some headlines and it looks to be the game problem they had in Sweden against Detroit which is slow starts.

The Cards

This was by far the biggest disappointment of the week yet I am not really surprised. If you go back and look at the season you see a couple different teams. The 1^st half was a team carried by Pujols. The rest of the team’s hitting was terrible but Pujols’ huge numbers kept us floating. We then had the awesome August run after we pulled off the Lugo, Derosa, and Holliday trades. All three players started off awesome along with Ludwick heating up. Pujols was a little cold but the whole team was hitting so we looked unstoppable. September came upon us and we went into a huge cold streak. I am not sure if it was tiredness, lack of competition, or August was really just overrated due to our easy schedule. What I do know is that we had some major let downs that did not help the team morale. Ryan Franklin was shaky and the blown 20^th win for Wainright was a complete letdown.

I do not normally blame a manager for a teams loss but I am having a hard time not doing it this series. The players looked lifeless. If they were tired, then they should have been rested more in September since we had the division in the bag. If they were not tired, then Tony did a poor job in motivating his team. The players are still pros so they should have been playing their A game.

There are a lot of questions floating around … Did we give up to much for Holliday and Derosa? I say no because it gave us a legitimate chance to win a Series behind Pujols and two Cy Young pitchers. Are any of coaches going to return next season? I expect Tony to be back but I do no think the same for the hitting and pitching coaches. Duncan should come back unless he holds a grudge for no reason.

As for the series, Carpenters effort was a letdown but the lack of hitting with the whole team prevented us from winning. Game 2 was a disaster with Holliday’s dropped catch. I do believe the series would have a totally different outcome if we would have gone back to St Louis tied 1 to 1 in the Series. A perfect example of the clutch hitting that the Cards needed was demonstrated by the Phillies last night. They blew their lead in the 8th and was on the verge of losing the game in the 9th but was able to comeback in the game with 2 outs in the 9th to win the game. I believe the Cards had an equally powerful lineup as the Phillies but you would have never guess if looking at their numbers on paper.

The Rams

I watched the first half of this game. The Rams looked to have a healthy run game and a good passing attack by Boller against a good defense but could not capitalize when they were within the 5 and 10 yard lines. People are ragging on the Defense but I think they looked good. Of course you’re going to give up a lot of points when you’re on the field all game. With that said, I am not sure the Rams will win a game this year. The KC Cheifs also loss to maintain the zero wins by a Missouri team for the week.

This is going to be quick. I went to the Cards Game on Friday and then followed it up with the Presidents concert at Taste of St Louis. We then went to Dubliner and Lucas Park. Saturday was a blowoff day. I thought I would stay in but ended up going to Soulard. The night was boring but we did have an interesting experience in the Grove at White Castles that night. Sunday was a waste….I’ll leave it at that.

I am still steaming from the bad managerial moves I made over the weekend and the week. The fantasy baseball championship was mine to lose and I didn’t even realize it. I had been losing 6 to 8 since last Sunday. For some reason in my head I thought I had to win two categories to tie it up. I totally missed that I just needed to steal one 1 win to tie it up 7 to 7. It wasn’t till halfway through Sunday that I realized this plus I discovered that I had the tie breaker locked up which was ERA. To go back at step, I would have totally changed my strategy a week ago. I knew going into the series, that my pitching was my strong point and my hitters were in a huge slump. Through the first week, I was winning every pitching category by a good margin except wins (which I was getting blown out in). If I would have only realized at this point, I would have recognized that I needed to win only one hitting category. I tried for assists but couldn’t keep up. Even with playing two infielders in the utility position and 1 in the OF position. I should have just picked all the OF eligible infielders available and locked up the category. But that is where I didn’t mess up in the end. Saturday night, I picked up all the pitchers that I could so I could win Ks and maybe catch up with wins. I woke up Sunday to see my opponent did the same thing. I was actually surprised by this because he had not picked up pitchers the whole series. I checked his team at 11:45 and they were all in his lineup so I played mine. It didn’t even cross my mind that he would wait till the last minute and pull them. Unfortunately he did. We were at a 7 to 7 tie and I had a slim lead in walks and had 7 pitchers going. Once I realized this, I pulled 3 but I still have 4 already going. Unfortunately, I had one pitcher throw 2 walks in a row before getting pulled and another through a walk almost at the same time so I lost the category by 1 stinking walk. To make it even more close, I made a late run at both stolen bases and runs. My team stole 4 bases to get within 1 and I actually thought I had a chance because I had a guy that picked up the day before who had a bunch of steal that week going in the late game. Unfortunately he sat out. So in a two week series, I lost the match-up because I was one shy in a couple different categories in which I only needed one. I would have won if I would have sat all my pitchers from the start.

On the football side, I should win if I hit my projections tonight but my team is a disaster. My defense scored a lot more than my offense but I do have my best player going tonight. I cant decide if I should drop a bunch of my offensive players or not.

I am looking forward to the huge week of St Louis sports. The Blues have their home opener on Thursday. The Tigers also play Nebraska on Thursday which is game that will pretty much define their season outlook. The Cards open up the playoffs this Wednesday and Thursday. Hopefully their bats will turn it around. Luckily we are playing the Dodgers who have been pretty dreadful themselves and who we also dominated this year. Unfortunately, I might miss the first two games. Game 1 because Ill be on a plane back from San Antonio and Game 2 because Ill be in CoMo for the MU game.

I am not having a very good couple weeks in fantasy sports. I am currently playing the elder Rengel brother in the finals in baseball. We were by far the best two teams in the league. I snuck by as regular season champion while the #3 person in our league was 33 games behind me. The reason for my dominance was two fold. I drafted early for pitching and ended up with a bunch of studs. I got the AL and NL Cy Young pitchers plus a bunch of other solid starters as well as top notch closers. I believe I have 4 or 5 of the top pitchers ranked with quality starts so I think I did well. On the batting side, it could have been a disaster. All my top picks were somewhat busts. I got Hanley Ramirez in the 1st pick which was pretty good but it would have been better to get Pujols based on my team makeup. Nate Mclouth, Verson Wells and Matt Holliday were all 1st half busts but they did step it up in the 2nd half. My three biggest surprises were Mark Reynolds, Russel Branyon, and Adam Jones. All did well and carried my team. Maurer and Abreu did better than expected too. With that said, my late season downfall has occurred partly because of injury. Both Branyon and Jones are out for the year and were major contributors to a lot of hitting categories. On the pitching side, I lost Santanna who was a strikeout king.

All in all, I still thought I had a chance in the finals even though my opponent had over twice as many starters than I had. Because of this, I had to pick up and drop players. I have not done good at this. My opponent last week got lucky with every pick but I have not had the same. Luckily my regular players have been amazing so I am still winning in ERA and Whip but cant compete with K or Wins. Last night was the last straw when my opponent had 4 guys pitching and got 3 wins, 33 Ks and a good WHIP and ERA. He had one guy that I never even heard of get 16 Ks. He did have Arroyo who is part of the Ballgate scandal……lol. I am trying to catch up in assists, wins, and Ks but don’t think I have a chance. Also, my hitters have just all gone cold. Not very many homers or SBs. It funny that I once had 20 SBs in one week and now cant even get 5 in two weeks.

Fantasy Football is a complete disaster. My team scored a combined total in weeks 2 and 3 of what it did in week 1. My strategy of getting defensive players early did not pay off and I ended up with a lot of guys that are not doing well. My wide receiver and running backs are all weak. This will about sum up my experience so far….I dropped  Gores backup running back last week because he was getting no touches even though I just felt like Gore was going to get hurt. I pick up a guy who ends up getting me zero points while Gore does end up getting hurt.

In conclusion, I think I am getting sick of fantasy sports. There is no reason to play anymore. It use to be fun amongst our friends but the fun has died. There is absolutely no “trash talking” between players when we play each other so what is the point. No one even congratulates the winner of the league once the season is over. I thought placing wagers would help but the amount we bet is so low that it really doesn’t make a difference. If I had it my way, we would only have a league of our close friends (no matter how small the league) and have some bet that means something (and I’m not thinking momentary wise). It would need to be something like doing something that they would not want to do or some type of ritual. We need a new commish like David Stern or Gary Bettman to spruce up the league.