u/AgentSandgoose

I’ve been aware of and casually enjoyed the music of Weird Al for most of my life, but I only recently dug into his discography and started going through the whole thing. Up near (but not quite at) the top of my ranking would be Alapalooza—it made me laugh the most, has a ton of stylistic variety (the REM and Peter Gabriel nods are executed so confidently, and RHCP is such an odd fit for Al that it really elevates Bedrock Anthem for me), and Jurassic Park is one of my favorite song parodies of his. I also really loved Achy Breaky Song… if only because I hate the original.

So, I was surprised a bit to see online that people think of it as being a bit filler, kind of meh, or not an essential record of his. It also seems like critics regard it as a sort of slump for Al. What are your thoughts on the record? Am I overrating it? I’d have preferred a polka medley rather than the cover of Bohemian Rhaspody that’s on there, but I still think it’s a pretty impressive showing and an explosive closer. The only albums I’d certainly rank above it are Bad Hair Day, Running With Scissors, and Poodle Hat… others I’d have to think about!

Hey all, been trying to get into Sports Talk Baseball and I’m enjoying it but I’m having a lot of trouble with hitting and controlling fielders. As far as hitting goes, I feel like I always hit a pop up or send it straight to an opponent’s glove—while I rarely strike out, I have no idea what the game is looking for to give me better results on a hit. When I hit with the tip of the bat, it’s always a foul, and when I go for what *feels* like the sweet spot, it’s usually a fly ball. Maybe this will just take more trial and error on my part.

Fielding is a huge pain sometimes. I think it changes which fielder I’m controlling depending on how close they are to the ball, but because other fielders will run toward the ball automatically, it rapidly switches back and forth and I feel like I end up making both players flail around for way too long. I know I can see which fielder I’m controlling by looking at the map, but it’s hard to do that and watch the ball simultaneously. Is this part of the game worth learning or should I just set it to auto?

Broadly I just want to get better but I’m not sure how to go about it. The manual is mostly focused on the controls and doesn’t say much about strategy. I want to stick with it though because the core baseball feels really good and I like the arcadey setup. But I also haven’t played Hardball or World Series 95, so maybe I’ll just switch to one of those.