Category Archives: Sports

July 26, 2014 · 22:33

Juicy Chunks O’ Wisdom For Saturday, July 26th

‘Cause I started running today, that’s why.

  • I was hoping that the first run of the training season wouldn’t be quite so bad as in previous years when training started. My logic was that: a) even though I haven’t been running or exercising a lot I’m still overall in better shape and weighing less than I did in previous years, and; b) I’ve learned how to pace myself, my body knows what to expect, blah, blah, blah. All of that perfectly good logic appears to have been trumped by one simple fact – I’M OLDER.
  • Sitting here with the bright lights on at night, there are usually some kind of bugs tapping on the window, trying to get in and mate. (And we thought we had weird sex lives!) But tonight, it sounds likes hummingbirds trying to get in, repeated big smacks against the glass.
  • Three days in a row there have been attempts to launch a Delta 4 out of Florida – three days in a row they’ve had weather that looks like this:  2014-07-26 Cape Canaveral Weather Radar  This weather typically violates at least three or four (and sometimes as many as six or seven) launch rules regarding the weather. But the best comment so far (commentator unknown) has been, “The Russians would have launched!” It’s funny because it’s true. (On Monday they’ll try for a fourth time to launch the Delta 4, the weather’s predicted to have a 60% chance of being acceptable. By our standards, not the Russians’.)
  • Coldstone ice cream is proof of a God/Universe that wants us to be happy. With my current healthy eating habits I only get it once or twice a year. Tonight I had enough so that I’m starting to see time. THAT’s a sugar rush!
  • Is Joe Maddon, manager of the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team, just one of the neatest guys on the planet?  2014-07-26 Joe Maddon Tweet I think we knew it before, but this is confirmation.
  • Maybe the tiny bugs are teaming up and building tiny battering rams to try to get through the window and to the sexy light. Isn’t that how a Steven King novel starts?
  • Slatter’s Corollary to Murphy’s Tenth Law of Food says I’ll be regretting tonight’s ice cream tomorrow morning. Willett’s Rebuttal to Slatter’s Corollary to Murphy’s Tenth Law of Food says the ice cream tonight was worth it anyway.
  • Those bugs are really going to be disappointed, even if they break through the glass with their insectoid battering ram — it’s a double-pane window. (As a precaution against just this possibility, I might add!)
  • It really sucks when your computer locks up in the middle of writing a blog article and requires a reboot using the pull-the-plug-out-of-the-wall method. How do I know this, you might ask…

Remember, “Some days you’re the bug. Some days you’re the windshield.”

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Filed under Computers, Critters, Juicy Chunks, Running, Science Fiction, Space, Sports

June 24, 2014 · 21:57

Juicy Chunks O’ Wisdom For Tuesday, June 24th

‘Cause if it ain’t one thing it’s another, that’s why.

  • The glumphing roof roamers are back again tonight. Please let it not be mating season.
  • Upon closer examination, the picture of the gravestone rubbing (10th picture down) at the Rockingham Meeting House does not show the art engraved at the top of the tombstone mentioned (11th picture down). They’re similar, but not the same. The editorial staff of WLTSTF deeply regrets the error and will dock my pay and assign me to our minor league affiliate in Prescott, AZ for a rehab start.
  • I hate worms. Especially when they come in a can, as a “gift.”
  • Just had a nice little ISS pass over SoCal. Nothing spectacular, not too high, not too bright, but nice. I left the camera inside, spent five minutes outside to watch — and will now spend the next hour itching due to all of the bug bites. Where are all of those bats when we need them?
  • Speaking of flying critters of the freak out variety, in Vermont last week, I saved the life of Mothzilla! During our class reunion the windows got opened and toward the end of the evening we noticed the biggest freakin’ moth I’ve ever seen outside of a zoo or museum. It was startling people just a tad, but when it came near me I supressed the urge to squish it into oblivion. Instead, forcefully telling my brain stem that it was harmless and would not bite, I trapped it in my cupped hands and let it loose outside the window.
  • I’ve mentioned my use of the term, “Not my float!” and where it came from. I now see that there’s a Polish proverb (if “FaceBook wisdom” is to be believed) that has the same meaning but perhaps a bit more color — “Not my circus, not my monkeys.” I like it!
  • If Mothzilla turns out to be the one that triggers the Zombie Apocalypse (“I, for one, welcome our new Zombie Overlords!”) you can blame me.
  • As I was musing on FaceBook tonight, I can’t be the only one who would be happy to never hear about LeBron James again, nor can I be the only one who could not possibly care less where he gets paid tens of millions of dollars to play next year? Fine, I’m more of a hockey, baseball, football, soccer, college sports kind of guy and think the NBA is pretty boring and seriously overrated (why can’t we just make it 95-95 and put two minutes on the clock, it will still take two hours to play…) but even by NBA standards, LeBron comes off as a pampered, overpaid, and whiny egomaniac. Can we get back to the biting guy in the World Cup? Or Wimbledon? Or the Tour de France? Or ESPN’s “Not Top Ten”?
  • People, people, people!! PLEASE remember that Snopes is your friend! If you see something on FaceBook and want to re-post it with a comment like “This is incredible!” or “This is unbelievable!” — that reaction should be your first clue that you’re spreading ignorant bullshit and making the world a stupider place! Thank you for your future consideration.

Remember, “It doesn’t take much to thrill an idiot.” (Thanks, Kevin! Great to see you again!)

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Filed under Astronomy, Critters, Freakin' Idiots!, Juicy Chunks, Not My Float, Sports

June 22, 2014 · 21:56

My Stanley Cup Final Game Five

I’ve told you that I’m a fool for my LA Kings, and this year we were in the Stanley Cup Finals. I didn’t rant as much on a daily basis as I had threatened, but there’s a loose end and a story to tell about how it all ended.

Assuming that you know anything about hockey, you know how it came out. Assuming that you know nothing about hockey, the short version is that my beloved LA Kings won in five games, losing only Game Four in New York.

But I was going to be on vacation for games three, four, and five… I carefully tried to scout out locations where I could watch each game, averting a potential catastrophe.

Game Three we watched the first period at home, listened to the second period on the radio driving to the airport, and watched the third period in a restaurant at LAX along with a big crowd. I was, of course, wearing my traditional jersey to and at the airport for the game.

Paul_In_DinerPhoto credit: Ronnie Willett

Dressed like this, it was obvious that Los Angeles had turned into a hockey town. Everyone wanted to talk about the Kings, from the shuttle bus drivers, to the restaurant staff, to random strangers in the restrooms, to airline flight crews. After we had won Game Three, I got into a conversation with a total stranger who was praying that the Kings would lose one game, because he had tickets to Game Five and if we swept, he wouldn’t get to see them. (He got his wish.)

For the second and third periods of Game Three I could not blow the Vuvuzela of Victory as is traditional (it was packed away in my luggage — yes, of course I took it, what kind of a fan do you think I am?) but I had a vuvuzela app on my iPhone which substituted in a pinch.

Travelling through O’Hare in Chicago and Newark in New Jersey, I was expecting to get some grief about my Kings attire, but I was disappointed. Not a word.

Once in New England though, my family was more than happy to give me a hard time. We watched the first two periods of Game Four at my sister’s house and the third period back at our hotel. I was only able to grace the Central Vermont countryside once with the sweet, sweet tones from the Vuvuzela of Victory as New York just managed to slip away with a victory. (Not to worry, the neighbors probably just thought it was a dying or mating moose.)

Game Five was more problematic. While it was a great opportunity for us to win the Cup on home ice (when we won it in 2012 the deciding game was in New Jersey), I needed a place to watch, and I had a get-together with some of my high school classmates to attend. More unusual, and critical, was the fact that our hotel did not have NBC on the televisions in the rooms. In fact, they had none of the four major networks.

The dinner with my classmates was spectacular and fun. It went a bit later than I had expected, but it wasn’t a huge deal since we were on the East Coast, where the game didn’t start until 8PM. I followed the first period on my phone, then went looking for a television after the dinner party broke up.

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The Hartness House is a spectacular place and has always been a favorite of mine. (Our house when I was in high school was just a block away and one street over.) I’m sure I’ll rant more about how wonderful it is at some other time, but what surprised me this time was the lack of the network broadcasts on the televisions in the rooms. At first I had been worried that they might not have the NBC Sports Network, which is only carried on cable and satellite and not always carried in many places, but I stopped worrying when I realized that Game Five was on NBC, the primary network. Everyone has that on their televisions, right?

Wrong. That was the last thing I would have expected, but there it was. I went to the front desk and explained the problem. They were wonderful and pulled a big, flat screen, HD television out (from the bar?) and set it up for me in one of the sitting rooms by the front desk. There I started to watch the game, along with the Long-Suffering Wife.

While we were having dinner, the Kings had scored once in the first period. In the second period, New York scored twice to go ahead. (I was sad.) In the third period, we tied it up (I was very happy) and I danced in my seat on the couch and screamed as loud as I could while being very, very, very quiet. No Vuvuzela of Victory. Not even the iPhone app.

Remember, I’m in the lobby of a not terribly large bed & breakfast which is also a national historic site. It’s close to 11:00 PM. There are dozens of people upstairs, asleep. I’m right at the bottom of a gorgeous staircase that goes up to all of the rooms…

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…so the Vuvuzela of Victory would sound fantastic, echoing and ringing through the entire building. And getting my ass arrested, probably by the local police chief, who happens to be one of my high school classmates.

So I kept it to a dull roar. And the game was tied after regulation. And we sat through the first overtime. It was incredibly tense and exciting.

It was tied at the end of one overtime. The Long-Suffering Wife gave up and went to bed. The staff and their big friendly dog kept coming out every fifteen minutes or so to see if I was done and gone. Every fifteen minutes the grandfather clock (center, in the corner at the bottom of the staircase behind the flowers in the picture above) would go off. The staff turned off all of the lights except for the room I was in. The staff finally gave up and went to bed themselves.

And still the game went on. Until we won it, 14:43 into the second overtime. It was the fourth longest game in NHL history. And still there was no screaming, no shouting, no Vuvuzela of Victory. I was dancing around and very excited, but it was like watching “Footloose” with the sound turned off.

I didn’t wait up to watch the Kings celebrate and get the Cup. It was about 1:45 AM by this time, and we were meeting my classmates early on Saturday morning for the parade. The late, late, late night celebration and lack of sleep that night no doubt helped me to look and feel my best the next morning.

017_PaulWillett2Photo credit: Chris Reasoner King

I wore my Kings jersey to the parade, in part to show off my pride in my team and my joy with their victory, and in part to give the needle just a bit to some of the locals who were not Kings fans.

So there you have it. Some of the Finals got listened to on radio, some watched in odd places, some just tracked play-by-play on an iPhone app. The Vuvuzela of Victory was blown often, but also set aside at times in the name of discretion, with some really quiet, bad, middle-aged, white guy dancing substituted.

A good time was had by all. (Except for the Sharks, Ducks, Blackhawks, and Rangers fans.)

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Filed under LA Kings, Photography, Sports, Travel

June 8, 2014 · 22:44

Start The New Week With A Bang

You know what would be better than some fireworks to finish off the weekend?

Neither do I!

(Sports-related squeeing coming up — feel free to jump straight to the pictures.)

I had said that I might mention the Stanley Cup Finals. This is your update after two incredibly tense games, both of which were won by my beloved LA Kings!

In both games we started out by giving up two goals and being down 0-2. (Mind you, this is in a sport where a 3-1 game is considered to be “high scoring.”) Both games went into overtime, the second game into double overtime. The second game was in fact the longest game in team history, and at 90:26 was the fourth longest game in league history.

But the Vuvuzela Of Victory has been singing her sweet, sweet song of joy and triumph.

As if that weren’t enough, my beloved UC Irvine Anteaters (ZOT!) started the college baseball playoffs last weekend by knocking off the #1 team in the country (Oregon State, also last year’s champion) on their home field. Then this weekend they went into Oklahoma State and beat a highly favored team on their home field.

Now it’s off to Omaha next weekend for the College World Series! I believe it’s only the second time in school history that we’ve ever made it this far.

Go Kings, Go!

Go ‘Eaters!

You may now all return to your regularly scheduled reality.

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Filed under Fireworks, LA Kings, Photography, Sports

June 4, 2014 · 22:38

Odds & Sods For Wednesday, June 3rd

Item The First: Living in any big city it seems that you can see a little bit of anything. (not so much in a rural area or small town, but I could be wrong.) One thing about Los Angeles is that this phenomenon is taken to a whole new dimension at times. It can be a really odd place.

The latest demonstration of this I’ve seen is a large number of men who are shaving their heads, so they look like Telly Savalas or this Republican dude running for governor. But they find that their skin is pasty white and pale under all of that stubble, making them look more like Marine recruits on their first day of boot camp. To solve this in turn, they apparently go and get a spray tan.

Unfortunately, too often the spray tans are pretty orange-ish. That’s a good way to tell actually, you don’t get that particular shade of orange-brown by any natural method known to man. But looking silly and fake and plastic has never stopped anyone in LA, so they do it anyway.

Then they cluster together, presumably because they’re co-workers or peers of some sort. Or maybe they just belong to the same cult.

Either way, they end up looking like the love children of Oompa Loompas and Mr. Clean, in business suits.

Item The Second: In January, the US first class postal rate went from 46¢ to 49¢. Most of us don’t even realize it happened because 99% of the stamps the USPOD has sold for several years are the “Forever” stamps, good for whatever the first class rate happens to be when you use them.

The USPOD touts this as a great thing and when rates are going up they urge everyone to buy a bunch at the older, lower rate so they can have them and save the extra couple of cents until your stockpile runs out.

But that assumes that the rates are always going to go up. That’s a pretty solid assumption in general — have the rates ever gone down? But this time, the Postal Commission decreed that the increase was temporary, and in three years the rates must go back down to 46.

I wouldn’t bet on that happening, but assuming for the moment that it does, will everyone get their three cents per stamp back on all of the “Forever” stamps they have, or will the USPOD just pocket all that money?

I guess it’s only fair if they do since they’ve eaten the difference when rates have gone up. Plus, it’s not like we’re talking a ton of money. Businesses all use postage machines, it’s just the little guys like you and me who buy stamps (how archaic!), and most of us have, what? Maybe a roll of 100 stamps at most, probably just a sheet of 20 (partially used). So we’re talking 60¢ to $3.00 or so per household? Except $2.00 a household times 115,226,802 households is a $230,457,604 windfall…

My brain wonders about things like this. It’s possible that it’s broken.

Item The Third: We were watching the US vs. Turkey “friendly” soccer match this last weekend and for kicks we were watching Univision, the Spanish language network. Their announcers are much more fun to listen to when a goal is scored, regardless of who scores it. Despite our command of the language gained by twelve weeks of community college conversational Spanish last year (non-graded, one class a week, no homework, and we bailed on about a third of the classes), we weren’t picking up more than one word in a hundred, and feeling grateful for that one word.

When that got old (and discouraging) we switched over to ESPN, where they had (I think) an English announcer and an Irish announcer.

We didn’t do any better understanding them.

Item The Fourth: In baseball these days it’s a thing for everyone on the home team to have “walk-on music” which plays as they walk up to the plate to bat, or for relief pitchers as they run in from the bullpen. This practice has gotten some attention recently when some players chose some rather unconventional music samples.

Usually you will hear something rock and roll, pop, rap, or maybe country. “Enter Sandman,” “Welcome To The Jungle,” something from Led Zeppelin, “Save A Horse, Ride A Cowboy,” whatever. There have been practical jokes where some players will bribe the guys running the PA system to play the “wrong” music for a teammate, using a tune from a kid’s TV show or something, but that’s a one-time thing for laughs.

Recently, Josh Reddick of the Oakland Athletics has changed his walk-on music to Wham’s “Careless Whisper.” This has gotten quite a bit of attention, as well as a bit of a cult following with the Oakland fans. It’s not so clear that it’s helped his batting — a quick perusal of today’s MLB American League stats doesn’t show him anywhere in the top forty in any batting category.

But it’s bizarre and unusual, and I like that.

Item The Fifth: When shooting pictures of the lunar eclipse in April, one thing I noticed was that many pictures were blurry due to motion of the camera when the shutter was triggered. With the simple setup I was using I’ll never get rid of that entirely, but there are steps that can be taken to minimize the worst of it.

In particular, a lot of the vibration and motion comes when you physically push down on the button on the camera to take the picture. This gets worse the longer the exposure is, because on most cameras you have to keep holding the button down for as long as you want the shutter open. Needless to say, no matter how careful and steady you try to be, your hand is wiggling and so is the camera.

On a DSLR (as opposed to a point & shoot or smartphone camera) there are other ways to trigger the shutter. I knew that there were remote controls which plug into the camera electronically, and trigger the camera via a radio transmitter. Sort of like a garage door opener, only it takes the picture instead.

Especially for astrophotography, this is extremely useful since it will eliminate all of the vibration and blur caused when you physically touch the camera while taking the picture. A good radio remote control trigger also lets you do things like set up the camera on the roof and then remotely trigger it when you hear the raccoons rampaging about up there.

I thought that these things were hundreds of dollars and I really didn’t want to spend that kind of money right now. But, catching the assumption in my calculation, I was pleased to see that they’re under $20 from China via mail order. Who knew?

That’s one of the reasons the ISS transit pictures were so steady, I’m using the new toy to trigger the exposures. Next, the raccoons!

Item The Sixth: So, what would your walk-on music be? I’ll let you know my thoughts on mine in the next “Odds & Sods”. I would love to hear your thoughts about what you would pick (and why) in the comments.

 

 

 

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Filed under Astronomy, Critters, Los Angeles, Music, Odds & Sods, Photography, Politics, Sports

May 13, 2014 · 23:03

Seoul (Part Six)

In May, 2012 I went to Asia on the “Three-Countries-Three-Weeks-Three-Kids” tour. The first stop on this once-in-a-lifetime trip was Shanghai, followed by Seoul. Day One in Seoul, we made our way to the Gyeongokgung Palace museum with all of its attendant palace buildings from various eras. On Day Two, following a somber morning looking at a lot of  the history of war in Korea, it was time for a major change of pace in the afternoon and evening.

We took the subway to the other side of the Han River and got off at the site of the 1988 Olympic Games.

IMG_0372_smallThe main stadium and several of the other venues built next to it are still used and looked well maintained. The Olympic Village area is along the river and now features many parks and open areas (at a premium in a jam-packed urban area like this) as well as large displays of artwork and photographs from the 1988 games.

IMG_0376_smallMuch of what was built in 1988 is still in use and as you can see, it’s easy to get around even if you don’t read Korean. (As Americans, we were almost crippled by the use of the metric system, but we managed to survive.) As with many recent Olympics, the athlete’s living quarters have been converted to normal housing. Everywhere you go in Seoul you see high-density housing skyscrapers like in the background here.

IMG_0438_smallOur destination was the Jamsil baseball stadium next to the Olympic stadium. Unlike the United States, the limited space and large population make it much more sensible for the stadiums to be used by at least two “home” teams. This stadium was in use by both the LG Twins (who were the home team) and the Doosan Bears. Behind all of the banners and large, fiberglass, cartoon animal sculptures for the LG Twins, off in dark corners, we could see similar banners and paraphernalia for the Doosan Bears. (As we’ll see, this is by far the least of the unusual differences between US and Korean baseball.)

The LG Twins typically finish 7th or 8th in an eight-team league. (The league expanded to nine teams in 2013, and will expand to ten teams in 2015.) The visiting Nexen Heroes aren’t any better. We didn’t know any of this at the time, which was perfectly fine, we just wanted to see a baseball game.

Additionally, all of the teams are owned and sponsored by major Korean companies or conglomerates, including LG Electronics, Samsung, and Kia. (Visions of “Rollerball“! And of course I mean the 1975 “classic” with James Caan and John Housman, not the pale and pathetic 2002 remake.)

But all that aside, really, how much different could professional baseball in Korea be from professional baseball in the United States?

IMG_0430_smallThe squid at the concession stands was the first real clue that we weren’t in Kansas any more. We both passed on that. I’m an adventurous eater abroad — but I have my limits. Besides we’re at a baseball game! We’ve got to get hot dogs & sodas, right? Like right there in the picture!

Nope. Hot dogs there were sure not “Dodger Dogs” or what we’re used to. It was more like a bratwurst or sausage, a bit cold and boiled (have they been talking to the British?), and we couldn’t find the condiments to save our lives. I had dogs, but also went back for some chicken strip-like thing, and a rice bowl of some sort. But no squid.

IMG_0432_smallThese two young ladies were a gem when we were trying to get food. We were there plenty early so there wasn’t a line and they wanted SO BADLY to be helpful! They however didn’t speak a word of English, we didn’t speak a word of Korean. After much pointing on our part, giggling on their part, and some mutual pantomime, we finally got something to eat (except for condiments — I’m not sure how to get that across in English/Korean charades) and I had to take their picture.

IMG_3989_smallDespite the rather obvious language barrier, in the end, baseball is baseball. The rhythm of the game is still the same — three strikes, four balls, nine innings. And it’s still a game largely driven by statistics, so batting averages still are derived the same way, which lets you derive what must be the number of hits, at bats, home runs, and so on. A batting order is a batting order, even though we had no clue who was coming up. But once through the lineup and you could see who was a big hitter and who wasn’t, the fast guy still led off, the big hitter was in the clean-up spot, and the lightweight hitters were at the bottom of the order.

IMG_3969_smallThe mascots are very anime-like. No Philly Phanatic , Dinger, or Rally Monkey here. More like anime refugees from a Pokemon Adventure.

IMG_3973_smallThe fans are organized as all get-out. Every one had thunder sticks (which the Angels have now started handing out and I dearly love) and there were groups that crammed together into one section or the other, ignoring a lot of empty seats nearby.

IMG_3977_smallBoth sides have cheerleaders (lower right) in addition to their mascots. And drums. And chants and songs. Most US crowds don’t have the organized singing and chanting (except for everyone going “Beat LA!” or “Oakland Sucks!”) like they do here or in the European football leagues.

At the Korean baseball games, they’re very polite about taking turns. There was a bit of a “battle of the bands” competition going on, but it was raucous without being chaotic. The LG Twins (shown) had red thunder sticks and trim to all of their uniforms, and they filled the stands on the first base side. The Nexen Heroes had pink thunder sticks and filled the third base side.

We were right behind home plate in the upper deck and we were both wearing Los Angeles Angels hats (yeah, we reeked of “foreigner”, sue us!) so we got to chant and sing along and use our thunder sticks for both teams.

It wasn’t Fenway or Wrigley, or even Camden Yards or Busch Stadium III, but it sure was fun. It was a great experience to see something at once very familiar and at the same time very different.

If you get to Korea go see a game! (But bring your own condiments in those little foil packets.)

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Filed under Photography, Sports, Travel

May 4, 2014 · 21:46

Juicy Chunks O’ Wisdom For Sunday, May 4th

‘Cause I’ve got other things that I’m in the middle of writing tonight and I’m sore from catching up on some physically demanding house chores, that’s why.

  • They’re running those ads for the Fiat 500L where the guys lost in the desert find P Diddy’s party and convince themselves it’s just a mirage because the Fiat has four doors. Right? It’s sort of a stupid ad (I actually though it was for Mini Coopers as I started to write this, so I guess they’ve failed the ultimate test of any ad) but that’s not what I’m wondering about. Why are they playing Pharrell’s “Happy” at P Diddy’s party? Why aren’t they playing some of P Diddy’s music?
  • Is everyone else in the country getting 24/7/365 coverage of the Donald Sterling scandal thing, or are we just special here in LA? It’s already become my new “instantly change the channel to anything else” hot button item. There are so many aspects of “uber-ick” associated with so many of the players involved, digging deeper and finding more layers of slime isn’t what I’m interested in watching the press do.
  • Another annoying aspect of the NBA is how it absolutely dominates the local and national sports reporting. Sorry, but WHO CARES? I understand that it’s a big draw, lots of TV ratings, lots of passion, but why does it get 90% of the coverage, with the NFL Draft getting about 8%, and the entire NHL playoffs and all of the MLB regular season fighting for scraps of the other 2%. As for anything not in this country, such as the English Premier League or the upcoming Tour de France? Fugedda bout it! Would it really be too much to ask that an hour of SportsCenter on ESPN have only 15 or  20 minutes of NBA at most, with some balanced coverage of the other sports in the remaining 40-45 minutes?
  • Today was “Sheet Changing Day” at Casa Willett. This is a bigger deal than you might expect, and out of that I hope you will soon be seeing a madcap romantic comedy on the New York Times Best Seller list. At least, the Wednesday Writing Group likes where it’s going in the first draft. Remember — “Sheet Changing Day.”
  • The one guy in Los Angeles who’s the happiest over the Donald Sterling thing? Frank McCourt, no longer “it” as the most hated sports owner.

Remember that in a year or two it won’t matter worth squat if your hockey or football or baseball or basketball or soccer team won the Stanley Cup or Lombardi Trophy or World Series or the O’Brien Trophy or the World Cup. (Although it might matter if your baseball team won the Stanley Cup…) In twenty-five years, only a few die hards will remember. In a hundred years, only a few statisticians (or their computers) will remember. In a thousand years, they won’t even remember that hockey, baseball, football, basketball, or soccer existed, let alone who won. In a hundred thousand years (or a hundred, YMMV) there won’t even be any humans left, only the machines wondering how in hell humans ever made it out of the trees, let alone to the moon and beyond.

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Filed under Castle Willett, Juicy Chunks, Los Angeles, Sports, Writing

March 21, 2014 · 23:21

Juicy Chunks O’ Wisdom For Saturday, March 21st

As I mentioned elsewhere yesterday, I really need to take up kickboxing or skeet shooting. Life’s frustrations can pile up and need to be vented properly. Somehow bank reconciliations and answering emails just isn’t getting ‘er done.

  • Again it’s already 23:00??!! I’m getting too old for this crap.
  • As with so many people, my NCAA bracket didn’t even make it until noon Pacific. Dayton put a huge hole in my bracket, Harvard kicked me while I was down, North Dakota State punished me (presumably for being from South Dakota), and this morning Mercer just flipped off every bracket on the planet.
  • Fred Phelps is dead and for once I’m really, really hoping that my mother’s strict Catholic vision of Heaven is accurate. Fred vs. St. Peter is a conversation that I would pay good money to see.
  • At least I’m not a Duke basketball fan.
  • I whined, bitched, and spewed about how far Fry’s Electronics has fallen, and last night I felt the same sadness for CNN. Twenty years ago they were THE place to get sound, accurate, unbiased, factual news. I tried watching to get some late night updates on the missing Malaysian jet and found a panel of conspiracy theorists and assclowns who were too whacked out to give a decent opinion to the National Enquirer.
  • Absolutely astonishingly, there’s still one perfect bracket left in the QuickenLoans/Yahoo billion dollar thing. But the guy’s got at least three major upsets in the next round, including SF Austin beating UCLA, so I don’t think he’s long for this world. Warren Buffett will not be losing any sleep tonight.
  • You can’t watch CNN, the local news, and I’ll only watch Fox if someone has a gun to my head. Thank god for Twitter!
  • The CEO of Time-Warner Cable has been on the job for six weeks and is going to get $80 million when they merge with Comcast? Words fail me.
  • As for institutions that have gone into the toilet head first, don’t even get me started on The Learning Channel! Someone needs to be dipped in honey and staked to an ant hill in the sun for what’s happened over there.
  • The saddest part of all with places like TLC, TWC, and CNN, as well as with the people who are running them and becoming oligarchs in the process, is that I have no doubt at all that they honestly believe that they deserve more money for six weeks of work than fifty upper-middle class families will earn in their lifetimes combined. There’s no way that thought is logical or sane, yet it seems to be commonplace in “the 1%.”
  • I’m telling you, there are multiple dimensions in space and time right here on Earth today. We live in one. The 1% live in another one that only touches ours long enough to suck the life out of it.

Remember that if you violate the “do not call” list and interrupt me by illegally calling my phone in order to try to convince me that you’re with Microsoft technical support and I need to give you a credit card for a $500 charge to keep my computer running, I am under no obligation at all to be civil, polite, or to treat you like anything other than the slime you are. If I can’t go skeet shooting or kickboxing, at least I can screw with your head for kicks.

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Filed under Computers, Death Of Common Sense, Juicy Chunks, Sports

March 19, 2014 · 23:57

If Not Madness, At Least A Bit Disturbed

Ukraine vs. Crimea vs. Russia. The missing Malaysian Airlines flight 370. Unemployment. That stupid skunk that’s back in the neighborhood. The cat whining at me because she wants to sit on my lap and claw up my legs and I won’t let her.

All sources of stress.

But in the United States (and other places), it’s time to be distracted by something both totally irrelevant in the big picture but tremendously important if your team is involved. If you know anything about sports in the United States, you know that tomorrow kicks off NCAA basketball’s three-week long championship tournament, otherwise known as “March Madness.” (Yes, I know that the “First Four” play-in games were yesterday and today, but they’re just stupid marketing. It’s a 64 team tournament because 64 is a power of two — either expand it to 128 teams or have a “preliminary” round of 96 teams with the top 32 teams getting a bye… But that’s another rant.)

Anyone who loves March Madness also will be filling out a bracket, making their own WAGs (Wild Ass Guesses) about how it’s going to turn out. POTUS even does it, live on ESPN. (He’s picking Michigan State to take it all, playing Louisville in the final game.) This year there’s an additional incentive to spend a few minutes filling out a bracket — a certified perfect bracket is worth one billion dollars. For real. It’s being run by Quicken Loans, Yahoo, and Warren Buffett.

Reality says that it’s not much of a threat to Mr. Buffett’s cash. In describing the odds, I believe the sports and news shows are making up new words to describe what lies beyond “thousand,” “million,” “billion,” “trillion,” “quintillion,” “septillion,” and “octillion.” (I may have made some of those up myself.) Picking randomly give you a one in holycrapillion of getting it right, while even picking all of the favorites only lowers the odds to one in toughshitillion.

But it’s a lark, and you can’t take your one in a youhavegottobekiddingillion chance if you don’t play.

So here is my bracket (click to embiggenate), with my heart ruling my head in that third round where I’ve got UCLA beating Florida and going on to win it all. In my fantasy world (and “fantasy” is truly the key word) UCLA beats Louisville in the final. Holy John Wooden vs Denny Crum, Batman!

NCAA BracketAnyone want to give me odds of staying alive though tomorrow night’s games? 20:00 tomorrow night? 16:00 tomorrow afternoon?

 

 

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Filed under Entertainment, Paul, Sports

February 23, 2014 · 22:23

Now That The Closing Ceremonies Are Over

Out here on the West Coast we’re still watching the closing ceremonies for the Sochi Winter Olympics. (Yeah, I know that they really happened about eighteen hours ago. Thanks, NBC!)

What catches my eye is all of the lights and displays hanging down from the roof. They’re sort of like the LED “dripping icicles” that you can get here for Christmas decorations in the last couple of years, just a hundred times bigger and brighter.

My first response to The Long-Suffering Wife was that they would be great for our yard, adding to our already great annual display. But the drawback would be the expense — I’m betting they’re not cheap.

But then I realized, “Hey! The ones right there in Sochi, what are they ever going to be used for again? I’ll bet that I could pick some of those up cheap!” It would be a great way for Putin to get back a few buck on the billions and billions of dollars spent on these games.

Better yet, they could sell them in a “shopping channel” or “adfotainment” style or format, you know, “But wait, there’s more! Order in the next ten minutes and you can get TWO giant Sochi icicle lights! Pay only separate shipping and handling!”

Then I realized that the shipping and handling might be Putin’s plan to get back all of the fifty billion dollars or so they spent, and I’m pretty sure that’s over the credit limit on my cards, so I’ll have to keep looking for them elsewhere.

Maybe Vancouver or London still have some stuff lying around that they’d like to get rid of.

P.S. My thanks to The Long-Suffering Wife who suggested this topic just after I yelled something inappropriate for a family audience, followed by, “It’s after ten and I still haven’t written or posted anything today!”

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Filed under Christmas Lights, Farce, Sports