Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Bits and pieces

So I've learned the kitten's health problem may be related to feline corona virus, for which he tested positive. He tested positive with a level of antibodies that he might have the strain that is known to cause FIP, which is fatal to cats. And, since he has it, his litter mate brother is all but certain to have it, and the other cat has likely been exposed to it. But I haven't managed to get a straight answer as to what percentage probability there is that if a cat is testing positive in the range of antibodies that means it could be the FIP virus -- what's the probability that it actually is? 1 in 100? 1 in 10? 1 in 2? That makes a big difference when we're talking about a lifetime of medicating not one, but three cats.

After months of effort (whereby I started by acquiring the Master Edition add-on)I've just acquired APBA Baseball and finally gotten an opportunity to play it. (I'm a sucker for it because my brother and I had 1984 Championship Baseball Board Game by Milton Bradley.





It was a ludicrously simplistic, but wonderful board game that involved a very similar, though much simpler game play.

APBA is definitely the kind of thing that could be all-consuming for me if I could just find myself with free time. Now that I'm out of the walking boot and I can get back to exercising in earnest (and will have a renewed need to do so, given that I've basically just been at work for the last two months), it's unlikely it'll ever get that chance. But, still, it's a charming enough pasttime that just needs a few tweaks to really become fascinating to me. I haven't really looked over the Master Edition yet, so I'm hoping it has answers as to how you can introduce issues with pitcher fatigue in the absence of the pitcher being crushed by random chance or lefty-righty matchups, but even in its simplest form, it's entertaining. That said, I was a little concerned after 8 innings of the first game where the 1997 Reds had notched a total of one hit against Greg Maddux. Then they mustered a pair of runs in the ninth and I Brad Clontz had to come in to end the game. That made me feel a little better. The second game was much more offensive, ending 7-5, with the '97 Indians blowing 2 different 2 run leads.

Pros: simple enough to figure out in short time, mostly realistic -- the 1997 Reds were atrocious, Greg Maddux could have one-hit them, Jose Mesa damn near blew the save in the Indians game.

Cons: it's not THAT realistic -- I had Scott Spiezio steal back-to-back bases, including home, against me; pitching skill seems to be of relatively minimal importance, lack of any sort of fatigue issue. It's really expensive if you consider the expense of the cards (all sets are $30 or higher) and even at that, the card sets are very thin -- 20 players to a team means the Indians don't have Jaret Wright, Julio Franco, Eric Plunk, or Paul Shuey. To get the expanded set...you guessed it, more money (and then it's 30 players to a team, so if you're being realistic, you'd need to have five inactive).

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I hope the kitten ends up being okay.

Looking at Wikipedia on FIP (trusted source that it is, natch), it looks like the mutagenic form of the virus is only found in white blood cells - that is, even though FCV can be transmitted between cats, the mutated form itself is not. Cold comfort, I know, but hopefully that offers something.

It sounds like there's potentially a vaccine for FIP though, so perhaps the other cats can at least be inoculated. And hopefully it's not the FIP-inducing strain at all..