6-28-08 (21:40)
  • i used to be impressed when someone i knew was on tv or in a magazine or something; not so much anymore. idiots who cry about britney spears or make fools of themselves by singing ricky martin songs on american idol are on tv now. there's nothing impressive or exclusive about it anymore. plus, we have the internet - anyone can become a celebrity overnight on youtube, etc. no longer impressed.

  • 6-27-08 (20:18)

  • the college world series was pretty exciting. not great baseball - 6 errors in the final game - but fun nonetheless.
  • nba draft was filled with trades. kevin love will be a two time all-star. hope that westbrook pans out. the kings make their own draft board and that's incouraging. they picked a scrawny division II scorer a couple years back and it surprised everyone. that turned out to be the sixth best scorer in the league and the most efficient guard who gets more than 20 points a game. kevin martin is underrated. the kings also were on the eastern european/foreign-born bandwagon before everyone else. they got peja and hedo before it became the trend that it currently is. in other words, even though i hadn't heard of their number one pick, i'm sure he'll turn out just fine. the guy on sportingnews.com gave them a D for their draft. whatever.
  • work tomorrow. working on the weekend keeps you busy, but i do enjoy my time off. one day i'll be independently wealthy and won't have to work for money.

  • 6-26-08 (17:58)

  • the #1 or #2 comment about derick rose and why he should go #1 in the draft over michael beasley: "look at the great point guards chris paul and deron williams. or look at the drafting of glenn robinson over jason kidd years ago. great point guards make a team great." these are true statements, but not the reason to draft derick rose. yeah he's a great point guard in college, but that doesn't mean he should be compared to other successful guards. by that rationale i could look at michael beasley and bring up names like scottie pippen/lebron james or chris webber/kevin garnett (depending upon what position he ends up playing) or o.j. mayo could be the next jordan/kobe.... it makes no sense to say that the #1 draft pick should be chosen based upon the position he plays, rather than the person's skill level and the needs of the team that has the #1 pick. ridiculous logic at best. all this isn't to say that rose won't turn out to be the best pick in the draft or that beasley won't be better or anything like that, this is more of an attack on the logic that the sports commentators use.

  • 6-25-08 (19:07)

  • meryl and i worked on building more of our baby block toys. we've built two so far, one for money. cut the wood for four more.
  • installed the new car radio i got which has a usb port for the ipod. took about an hour, went pretty well overall.

  • 6-25-08 (13:14)

  • just back from giving my white blood cells up. they pumped the blood out of my body three times over and, using a centrifuge, extracted the white blood cells as well as some plasma. pretty interesting setup. paid pretty well and i have the rest of the day off. watched a marx brothers movie and listened to the ipod while it was happening - the whole thing takes four hours. they give you fluids as you're going along so i had to piss in a jug twice during the procedure. at first i thought i had to hold it for the entire four hours, but that quickly became a non-option so i talked to the nurse who said she should have mentioned that part and then screened the area off for me. pissing in a plastic jug reminded me of the westwashmawapta glacier.
  • have a lot i'd like to do, but i should take it somewhat easy.

  • 6-23-08 (18:20)

  • olympic basketball team announced today. here's the team: kobe, lebron, wade, deron williams, chris paul, kidd, bosh, d. howard, carmelo, prince, michael redd, and boozer. blue indicates the players i would drop.
  • my team (red indicates the players i would add): kobe, lebron, pierce, artest, bowen, deron williams, paul, d. howard, battier, garnett, love, camby. no need for wade and kidd, they're just overlap for williams, paul, kobe and lebron. all those guys are passers/scorers who can get into the lane, we don't need 10 of those guys. redd is a nice player and could replace battier, who is on the bubble for me. also thought about ray allen because we do need guys who can hit the outside shots.
  • wanted defense and spot up shooting as well as passion and balanced attackers. bowen is an obvious choice for spot up shooting and shut down defending. good guy in the locker room, a winner and team player. artest might be a distraction, but i think he'd keep it under wraps. great defender, can be a streaky scorer and will get some rebounds. battier is one of the top defenders in the league, great team player, and has worked with coach k in the past (at duke). garnett is a great all around player, good presence in the locker room, passionate about the game and won't let anyone slack off. love is all about the future, along with paul, williams, and lebron. need to groom someone in the middle who can do a lot of different things and will be around for the next couple olympics. he'll bring solid play, outside shot (to stretch the floor for guys like kobe), passion, rebounding and that dangerous outlet pass for easy buckets for guys like paul. bench player at first, but maybe not in the next olympics. camby makes the interior defense better. he's probably the best help defending big man in the league. it'll allow guys like kobe and paul to tighten up their on the ball defense knowing that he's got their back. great rebounder as well. pierce does it all. scorer to complement kobe and lebron. defense is something he's added lately. can make the 3 pointer and can drive to the bucket at will. this team would go undefeated and get the gold if they had some time to play together first. after this olympics they should implement my changes and start gearing up for the world championships and the next olympics.
  • the current team by position: pg (3), sg (3), sf (3), pf (2), c (1). as you can see the current team is guard-heavy and has 9 guys who can take the ball up the court; that's about 4 too many. my team by position: pg (2), sg (1), sf (5), pf (2), c (2). my team is more balanced, though the untrained eye may be attracted by the lone shooting guard (kobe) on my team. the fact is that i have a lot of combo guys. garnett could play the center, power forward and small forward position. pierce can play the shooting guard or small forward. shane battier is a small forward, but played power forward in college and is 6'9" so he could certainly matchup against some of the weaker international big forwards. love could play the center position as it's his natural position. artest, bowen, and lebron are small forwards who can guard anyone under 6'9" and can bring the ball up the court and knock down jumpers. in other words, they can play either the shooting guard or small forward position offensively and the 1-3 position defensively. my team is more dynamic, wouldn't ever be outrebounded, brings a more balanced attack, brings much better defense, has a greater level of passion, spreads the floor, and can score almost as well as the olympic team that was announced today.
  • i also think that my team brings a good balance of youth for the future and veterans. my team has the players to beat man to man defense (kobe, lebron, pierce, williams, and paul can all break down defenders at will). but also has zone beaters like bowen, love, pierce, and battier. again, i'd also be willing to trade battier for ray allen or michael redd. allen brings the best shot in the game (except for maybe peja) so he's the ultimate zone buster and he is a good team player. that said, i picked battier because he's one of the top five defenders in the league, has played for coach k, and is a stat filler (does all the little things to help his team). battier also brings international experience which is something my team has a little less of than the official team.
  • they listened to me before by assigning krzyzewski as the coach, so maybe they'll listen to me again.
  • angelina jolie (a mighty heart and the good shepherd) has teamed up with morgan freeman (shawshank redemption and driving miss daisy) and james mcavoy (last king of scotland and atonement) in...not some epic drama about death and love, but some action flick about a team of assassins. huh?
  • blind analysis of three nfl quarterbacks playing in roughly the same era. i'll call this one "pick the hall of famer"
  • qb 1 has a better yards per game/attempt average and held onto the football better. also has the lone super bowl win and one more pro bowl appearance than the other two. 46th all-time for passing tds, 43rd all-time for passing yards. worst interception % of the three. one season over 4,000 yards and another season over 3,000 yards. tied 163rd all-time passer rating.
  • qb 2 has longevity on his side - most tds (23rd all-time) and yards (17th all-time) of the three, threw for more touchdowns than interceptions in 4 years, as opposed to only 2 from qb 1. two seasons over 3,000 yards. tied 157th all-time passer rating.
  • qb 3 is right in the middle of the two in terms of games played. best completion percentage of the three, much more potent runner (though gave up the ball more frequently by fumbling). best qb rating of the bunch and lowest number of interceptions despite having only 8 fewer tds than qb 2. 10 years with more tds than interceptions is a sign of consistency and reliability. 32nd all-time on yards passing and 26th all-time on passing tds. two seasons over 3,000 yards. best interception % of the three. tied 93rd all-time passer rating.

  •  
    g pass att td int yards comp. % y/a y/g qb rating rush yds rush td fumbles pro bowls notes
    qb1 140 3,762 173 220 27,663 50.1 8.2 286.2 65.5 140 7 33 5 2 yrs w/ more td than int, 1sb win
    qb1 best year, 1967 14 491 26 28 4,007 52.5 7.4 197.6 73.8 14 0 2
    qb2 201 5,076 209 247 34,665 51.1 6.8 172.5 66.6 207 16 65 4 4 yrs w/ more td than int
    qb2 best year, 1976 14 388 18 13 2,946 56.2 7.6 210.4 82.0 7 0 4
    qb3 183 4,498 201 149 29,444 52.6 6.5 160.9 74.3 1304 30 105 4 10 yrs w/ more td than int, 2nd pick in 1962 draft
    qb3 best year, 1969 14 460 24 7 2,549 54.4 6.4 182.1 86.8 156 5 7
  • after perusing these numbers for a while the obvious choice for hall of fame consideration is qb#3. after that it's a little tougher. one has longevity and the career numbers that go with that. the other has better yards per game numbers, one more pro bowl and the most valuable prize of all - the super bowl ring. frankly i don't think that qb 1, 2, or 3 are amazing hall of fame material, but i could see qb #3 being in the HOF. the answer, though, is that qb 1 is possibly the most overrated athlete in pro-american sports: joe namath. only two years with more tds than interceptions, barely completed 50% of his passes, a low qb rating, not a running threat at all, and only one impressive number: his 4,000 passing yards in 1967.
  • for the record: qb 2 is jim hart and qb 3 is roman gabriel, who i now consider under-rated. gabriel actually had a better year in 1969 (the year he won the super bowl) than namath. gabriel was first team all-pro and namath wasn't. gabriel had a passer rating of 86.8 with 24 tds and 7 ints. namath had a passer rating of 74.3, 19 tds, and 17 ints; not remarkable. so, fuck you joe namath you over-rated hack. and, fuck you sports writers who continue to inflate this utterly mediocre player who won one game that just happened to give the afl legitmacy. oh, wait, he didn't win it - he just didn't lose it. his stat line in the one game that got him into the HOF? 17/28, 206 yds, 83.3 rating, 0td/0int. hardly overwhelming. he guaranteed the victory, yes, but he wasn't the reason they won. his playoff record: 2-1, 3tds/4ints, qb rating 54.6, comp.% 42.7. i consider that a bad playoff stat sheet other than the fact that he was on one good team.

  • 6-21-08 (19:03)

  • i've had work or the threat of work almost every day for the last few weeks. last weekend i worked on putting in an epoxy garage floor with one guy, finished it off today. yesterday i worked on texturing some walls for don, will do the same tomorrow. need to paint two offices at the alumni house, and will probably have to do more painting next weekend for don. the bad thing is that i can't make much in the way of weekend plans and free time feels scant. the good thing is that i have as much money saved now as any time since i took the last big trip. been either saving it or spending it on tools, for the most part. trying to have a decent collection of tools so that i can do most small projects on my own. trying to scare up little jobs here and there, but mostly unsuccessful in becoming my own boss so far.
  • next week should be cooler than the last few days. my tolerance of heat has weakened over the last few years. my tolerance of the cold was greatly increased after going to ohio and then the glacier. that lasted about a year and has dissipated by now.
  • netflix is great, but the site is slow, probably a function of my computer, my connection, and my huge queue (which hasn't been under 450 since about 2002).
  • faust is a good movie. f.w. murnau was great.
  • watched some looney tunes shorts last night. those are so timeless and great. great artwork, use of music, voice talent from mel blanc, characters, and comedy.
  • typical conversation with "dave" (the owner isn't actually named dave, but i still haven't gotten his name) at hamburger dave's: "i'd like a #2 with no cheese and substitute onion rings for fries." "okay (slowly, as if he's writing it down) number two...onion rings. do you want cheese with that?" he tends to forget things quickly and, even when things are written down, he has difficulty getting the order right. but all this is part of the charm that keeps me coming back. you never know what you're going to get at this place. went there once with sarah and they put mayo and all sorts of stuff on there when she had requested cheese only. gotta roll with the punches. i don't even bother mentioning that i don't want pickles, i figure it'll just be too much for him to handle, so i try to keep it simple.
  • was driving behind a woman in berkeley the other day when a skateboarder skated out into the middle of the street in front of the woman, causing her (and me) to come to a stop to let him pass. no crosswalk or right of way of any kind, just some asshole who felt he was more important than anything else going on. can't remember if the woman honked or not, but as she passed him he turned his head and spat on her car. my first reaction was to honk at him and give him a dirty look, but i didn't do that. ended up not doing anything. that kind of action deserves some sort of revenge, penalty, consequence, punishment, whatever. a honk and dirty look wouldn't have done anything other than embolden him and perhaps gotten me the same treatment as the lady in front of me. ignoring it would be the city way, but i think that's part of the reason why cities are the way they are: apathy from good people.

  • 6-20-08 (19:55)

  • meryl's sick.
  • wish i had a garage so i could work on the bug whenever i wanted. would like to overhaul the brakes and that really requires space and the ability to leave the car on jack stands for a while (unless you're experienced enough to have all the tools/materials on hand and can make it a one day job). besides that, it would be nice to have a garage so i could finally get a table saw and expand the number of woodworking projects i could do.

  • 6-18-08 (17:50)

  • so afi made another set of lists, this time it's the top 100 genre films. they had ten genres and a top ten within each genre. they had a genre for epics and courtroom drama and animation, but not for war or noir or documentary...wtf? they put noir under mystery and excluded documentaries. war was put under epic in the case of saving private ryan, but paths of glory was off the list because it didn't really fit into any of the genres. a flawed list of genres, but it's fun nonetheless. third man is more a british film than an american film, too. afi.
  • replaced my bike the other day with one that meryl's dad wasn't using. that was nice of him. it's now hanging from the ceiling in the apartment which should be slightly more secure.
  • speaking of my bike. went to the bent spoke on telegraph and said that my little brother was in the market for a bike (because my bike was actually undersized for me) and that he had come into the store and saw a blue nishiki road bike that he liked. they showed me one, but it wasn't mine so i said "hmmm, no, the one he described had down shifters and white handlebar wrap." the salesmen replied "when did he see it?" ..."well, i don't know when he came in, but he told me about it within the last couple weeks." ..."oh, that may have been the one we sold last week then." so i'm thinking that i missed my bike by a week. i wanted to goto that shop earlier, but it was either closed or i was on my way to work. should have made the effort, though. asked the guy when they get more used stuff in and he said every weekend. so i'm thinking about calling to get a smaller window than "every weekend" and if i can narrow it down to "before noon on saturday," for example, then i might stake the place out and see if a recognize the guys/truck that come in with new product.

  • 6-16-08 (19:56)

  • so it took 19 holes for the number 1 player in the world to beat the 158th ranked player in the world. tiger's good, just a bit better than everyone else, but i don't know that he's as amazing as most people say. the story today is how he was able to persevere through the pain of knee surgery to win his 14th major. sports writers just want to build the great ones up and then they act human (federer on a losing streak, for example) and they don't know what to do. another thing: why doesn't tiger get any shit for having surgery to improve his eyesight? it's the same as steroids, but legal. andro was legal when mcgwire hit 70 hr. there was a slate article about this a while back and it included this: "Woods, who had lost 16 straight tournaments before his surgery, ended up with 20/15 vision and won seven of his next 10 events."

  • 6-15-08 (18:29)

  • watched tiger choke a bit at the us open. had some rough spots and was up by a stroke, but ended up pulling it together after hitting it in the bunker to make birdie and force a playoff tomorrow. golf is incredibly difficult and nerve-racking, but the athletes are pretty pampered. if the crowd makes noise of any kind then the golfers get all upset. it's a stark contrast to other athletes who shoot free throws while people wave thunder sticks in the background or try to hit a 90mph fast ball while people are yelling at them.

  • 6-14-08 (10:18)

  • saw this bumper sticker a while back: "we have enough youth, how about a fountain of smart?"
  • johnny once asked if i got any benefit from saving the alumni house all that money by doing the electrical work myself and taking on all the painting, etc. for the downstairs renovation. i said no at the time, with the caveat that it made me more valuable so i was less likely to be fired. well, on the last paycheck i got a bonus "for all the hard work i did downstairs." that was very nice of them. got a $500 bonus which is easily the largest i've ever gotten for anything. unfortunately uncle sam took almost half of it. seeing that first number go from a 5 to a 2 brought me closer to becoming a republican than anything else in my life. apparently there's a different tax scale for bonuses. what would have been cool is if they gave me a $400 gift card to home depot instead. they'd pay less, i'd get more and uncle sam wouldn't be able to afford a couple screws on a F-16. tough luck for boeing.
  • speaking of uncle sam, got my $300 stimulus check the other day. put half of it in the savings.

  • 6-13-08 (16:03)

  • Mundus vult decipi et decipiatur: "The world wants to be deceived, so let it be deceived." i've heard that was hitler's favorite latin proverb.

  • 6-13-08 (08:41)

  • had the option of doing some painting today and declined. woke up with a headache for some reason, no fun. felt like i was getting sick last night. other than the headache i feel about average this morning. we'll see.
  • got the bug fixed. finally just took it to the shop. they bored out the accelerator jet and all was good. i would have tried cleaning it, but wouldn't have had the confidence to bore it out. don't have a vise, don't know what size it should be, wouldn't have thought to do it. overall i think it was good to just take it in and have them deal with it. if there aren't a lot of problems then i can tackle the project, otherwise i'm not so keen on doing it; at least so far as cars are concerned.
  • religion: just idol speculation
  • missed last night's basketball game because i had to see the yankees beat the a's. i haven't been to a regular season home a's game where they have won. bad luck. tivoed the replay, though, so i'll watch it now.
  • best player of the last 15 years: shaq. best player right now: kobe. 2nd best player on the lakers: derek fisher.
  • ...21-3 run in the 3rd quarter, punctuated by a p.j. brown (what is he, 74 years old?) dunk over the mvp kobe bryant. wonderful.
  • with doug christie and chris webber out of the nba i dont' have a favorite player. perhaps it's paul pierce. fun player to watch and a good guy.
  • i'm not going to say doc rivers is a better coach than phil jackson, but he coached a much better game last night than jackson. jackson did nothing to stop the bleeding. he didn't tell his star to be more aggressive. he didn't slow down or speed up the game. he didn't use his timeouts well. he didn't bring in new blood off the bench. idiot.
  • the lakers vs. spurs comeback when they were down by 20 may have been better than this celtics vs. lakers comeback because it was against the defending champs and the spurs are so good defensively. that said, the spurs don't have much of an offense so maybe this one was better. either way, two great comebacks in the playoffs this year.
  • when asked how you bounce back from a loss like this kobe responded: "whine about it tonight. a lot of wine, a lot of beer, couple shots; maybe like 20 of them. digest it, get back to work tomorrow. nothing you can do." great guy.
  • wilbon pointed out that jackson didn't play fisher very much. didn't notice it while i was watching, but i think he's right. fisher has the 3rd best fg% in finals history, he's the second best player on your team (as i mentioned above. though most people would say it's odom or gasol), he has as much playoffs experience as anyone else on the team, he was having a good game (4/5 from the field), he had the best +/- on the team (+7), and you don't play the guy? idiot.
  • this game knocked the nba ref scandal off the front page so i'm sure asshole david stern is happy about that. i haven't forgotten, though. damn nba.

  • 6-11-08 (19:52)

  • very disillusioned by the kings/lakers 2002 playoff series conspiracy. a couple things: some have said that donaghy has no credibility and picked the worst officiated game he could think of as an example of the refs cheating for the benefit of the league. this is a possibility, but one thing i've learned over the years is that insiders who blow the whistle are much more often believable than those with something to lose (i.e., the nba, david stern, etc.). in other words, i believe donaghy and i believed there was a conspiracy after watching that game. 27 free throws (even worse than i remembered) in the 4th quarter for the lakers is crazy. today i saw about 10 different instances of blown calls against the kings in that game six alone. what's more is that ralph nader has joined the fight, which only increases my feelings that the nba has failed miserably on this issue. best case scenario for the nba: donaghy is a proven liar and the game was merely the worst officiated game i (and others, including sports writers mike wilbon and bill plasche) have ever seen. worst case scenario: donaghy is telling the truth and others corroborate his story. either way this has just opened the wound of that series. at the end of game five i believe that the stat was that the kings had led in all but 30 of the last 7200 seconds against the lakers. meryl is probably tired of hearing about this series as i talk about it all the time, but i truly believe that that 2001-2 kings team was as good an nba team as i've seen since the jordan era ended. they owned that series in every way except the most important one: the wins/losses tally. truly pissed and seriously considering becoming a non-nba guy from now on. season's too long, they don't play defense, they have the worst commish in sports (including bud selig), and they rig the playoffs (which are also far too long). fuck fuck fuck.
  • the celtics lost last night, but only by six, not 10 as predicted. that after paul pierce had his second worst scoring game in the last three seasons. only one time in the last three seasons has he had fewer than six points; i'm thinking it won't happen again. so, i think the celtics are in a good position to win the series, which is more than i thought at the beginning of the series.

  • 6-10-08 (20:17)

  • something for the young kids: there was an interesting exchange in the 2nd quarter of the lakers/celtics game just now. jordan farmar came down with a rebound and p.j. brown tried to take the ball from his hands, but had his arms crossed up with farmar's at the same time. brown tried to force the issue to get the ball or intimidate farmar. instead of giving into the saavy vetern goading of brown, farmar walked away from the situation and avoided hurting his team by hitting brown or getting kicked out of the game. both players were given technical fouls on the play (a bit much if you ask me) and nothing materialized from the incident. another young player might have been over-eager to establish himself as tough and would have fallen for brown's manuever, but not the heady farmar.
  • the ref who admitted to betting on games said that unspecified 2002 playoff series was extended to a seventh game by the actions of two officials who ignored fouls and made up fouls against the team the nba wanted to lose. the only series that year that went seven games? kings/lakers. fucking amazing. i've felt the entire time that the kings were the better team in that series. they were the best team that year. frankly it was luck that got the lakers onto the finals, and apparently some cheating as well. and as much as i hate the lakers i don't blame them for it, it was probably part of a conspiracy that starts and stops at david stern's desk. asshole. so pissed. that and the usc/texas rose bowl are the two most devastating losses in my sports viewing life. and, come to think of it, there were some gaping replay errors in the rose bowl as well, but that game was more about vince young and the best game of his career and linebacker/fullback injuries to key trojans than it was about the bad officiating.
  • everyone's been talking about the kobe bryant resurgency this year. he's mvp and trusting his teammates, etc. whatever. the guy is still a punk. the test of character is when you're down, not when things are going well. when he's losing he's as much of a punk as the next guy.

  • 6-10-08 (17:55)

  • monty poole (who is usually an adequate sports writer for the oakland tribune) wrote an article for the mercury news about leon powe. it takes the stance that doc rivers kept powe under wraps all season and finally figured out, in the last game, that powe is a good player. balogna. rivers knew about powe all season and gave him minutes. in fact he averaged about 14.5 minutes over the course of the season and had 15 minutes in the last game, not exactly a huge jump. what did jump, though, is powe's production. powe had a few other games with 20+ points during the season, but those games came when he played significantly more minutes. powe's time was reduced lately, yes, but that's a natural result of the playoffs where rotations are generally reduced to 7 or 8 players. there's also matchup issues to consider - when playing against a team with an athletic power forward like lamar odom, leon powe makes a lot more sense than a slower power forward like glen "baby" davis. each series presents its own matchup dis/advantages. poole was showing his "homer" status by lifting powe and chastising rivers. in looking at the game log for powe and considering who he's playing behind (garnett) and with (davis), i think that rivers played powe just the right amount. powe's a good player and may even be great in the future when he is a starter, but he's not great now so lay off doc rivers, monty poole.
  • would love to see the lakers go down 0-3 tonight. think there's a chance, but don't think it's likely. smart money is on the lakers to win by 10.
  • scrubbed the slate patio at the alumni house today. cleaning that thing is going to take three days. it's amazinly dirty and i don't think anyone has really cleaned it in years.

  • 6-9-08 (19:07)

  • watched the belmont stakes the other day and thought it was awesome. for some reason i love it when the "experts" are proven wrong with the whole triple crown quest. it seems like there's another triple crown contender every other year and another disappointment. you could bet against the experts and make a shit load of money. they always have some reason to say that "this is the horse." losers.

  • 6-8-08 (20:13)

  • went to a couple flea markets yesterday. looking for deals is always fun. saw more stolen goods in a few hours than i care to remember. didn't see my bike though.
  • using media monkey to attach album artwork to the mp3s going on my ipod. iartwork doesn't work because my library is too large. itunes' built-in script for downloading album covers is limited to the stuff they sell so that only covers about half my stuff. the other half needs to be done manually with a feature on media monkey that looks up artwork from amazon one album at a time. got about a third of the way through the alphabet today.
  • a neighbor saw a suspicious looking guy knocking on all the doors in our apartment complex while taking notes. potentially a thief casing the place. wonderful. fairly surprised our cars haven't been broken into yet. have seen reports of stolen cars and purses being stolen, plus there's my bike that was stolen and my registration tags that were scratched off. i just want to catch one of these assholes and set them straight.
  • lakers made it interesting tonight, but fell short. actually a good thing for the celtics because it woke them up a bit.

  • 6-5-08 (21:08)

  • my earliest memories of watching basketball were of the lakers/celtics series in the mid-80s at my dad's place. good to see the rivalry revived.
  • when magic johnson dies it would be a nice gesture to give his ncaa title ring to larry bird. bird has made it very clear over the years how much not winning that title has meant to him and i think that the two have formed a respect over the years; it would be a great story anyway.

  • 6-5-08 (09:39)

  • looks like no work today.
  • three best values i can think of off the top of my head: national parks pass ($80 [used to be $55] and it'll get you into every national park in the country). aaa membership (price varies, but you get free roadside assistance, discounts, free maps, etc...downside is that they do some environmentally unfriendly lobbying). forever stamp (41 cents and you can send a letter anywhere in the u.s., despite the constantly rising prices and e-mail/faxes/etc., i still consider this a great deal and it employs an amazing number of people at a working wage; no complaints here).
  • there isn't a stop button on itunes. wtf?
  • still working on slimming down the collection - getting rid of duplicates, etc. and making all the genres and artist/album info nice and tidy. took the ipod out on a little drive with meryl yesterday. must say it's nice to have all your music in one place. it's actually not ALL my music, but the vast majority and all the good stuff. as time goes on, i'll weed out some of the lesser stuff to make room for the new good stuff. ideally i'd have about 200gb of space, but it'll probably be a couple years before that happens.
  • watching the mlb draft, not as good as the nfl draft, but still informative.
  • had some breakfast burritos today. first time in a long time. why did i stop making these? they're great.
  • on the front page of the chronicle there's a story about sf mayor gavin newsom wanting to start gay marriage a day earlier than the court had previously indicated. there seems to be a lot wrong wit this. 1) why do you need to start a day early? 2) you didn't bother paying attention to the law before, why ask for permission all of a sudden? 3) newsom knows this is the issue that he does best on so he's injecting himself in the media again to gain more mileage out of it. from what i can tell, he's been blasted lately for some personal transgressions and problems with his staff so this is a good way of getting back in the news in a positive way. 4) why is marriage allowed at all? i've asked this of many people and no one has given an adequate answer. if you insist on marriage then why not be truly progressive and extend it to polygamists? they're people too. makes sense to me and i'd vote for it.

  • 6-4-08 (21:40)

  • so everyone knows that computers have gone down in price a lot over the years, but i thought about it in these terms the other day when i saw a 500 gb (1,000 mb) for $100. what is $100 today would have cost $500k about 15 years ago. i remember when a 1 gb hard drive was $1,000 and that was the average rate. so if you needed that much space back then you'd have to drop half a million bucks for it. today it's $100. of course, programs and media weren't as large back then so no regular person needed that much space, but i can't think of another major sector where 15 years is the difference between what is possible for someone average and someone extremely rich. of course that 500 gb now is not only cheaper, but is smaller, faster, more reliable, and quieter too.
  • watching the stanley cup finals now. that game the other day was amazing. tied the game up with 34.5 seconds left in the game. if they didn't make the goal then the season would have been over. in the second OT sykora told the on-ice reporter that he was going to get the goal and he delivered in the third OT. amazing. i think that the most fun stretch of time in sports may be the last 60 seconds or so when a team is down by one goal and they pull the goalie for an extra attacker. no timeouts, no bs, just a full on assault to try to force overtime.
  • gave blood today. 120cc for $80. it took 30 minutes which means i earned $160/hour which is more than i've ever made in my life for performing any service. kinda pathetic that the thing that pays me the most after 28 years of learning and refining various skills/talents is my blood. guess not having hepatitis b/c or hiv and having good veins is worth something in this world. actually, besides those things, the place is very strict about showing up on time, so you could make the argument that being responsible enough to show up early is part of the reason the pay is so good. will go back in a few weeks to give white blood cells. that's a longer process.
  • didn't have work today. not sure about tomorrow.
  • i prefer toggle bolts to molly bolts. i consider them easier to take out, as easy to install, and stronger. cost is negligible.
  • i also think that hockey play-by-play guys are the best in the business. they do a great job keeping up with the fastest sport i've seen on tv and they find time to work in good descriptions of the crowd, players, the game, etc. the penguins were going through a rough spot, for example, and the play by play guy talked about the "meaningful silence" of the crowd. he wove together an artful description of tone/mood of the crowd that was seeing their team go down 0-2 in an elimination game. in baseball, the good play-by-play guys emphasize good story-telling and a sense of history, but i don't think they need the quick mind/tongue of the hockey announcers. basketball and football announcers are mostly worthless which is why they get guys who have good chemistry with the color analysts or good voices.
  • my analysis of the major hardware stores in the area: osh has craftsman tools which is a big plus and they have plenty of selection on most items you'll need for most projects. they're the best for finding hand tools and the service people are helpful. lowe's is out of the way so i hardly ever visit, but they're well laid out and have everything you need. great power tool selection. no experience with their line of kobalt tools, but i assume they're about equal with husky which is a big step below craftsman when it comes to hand tools, but still good enough. ace hand tools are the worst of the bunch, but the staff are very friendly and reasonably knowledgeable. the one on university is fun because it's so packed and has a train that runs throughout the store. also has a great hobbyist section downstairs. this is the place i'd go if i were a homeowner with a problem that i didn't know how to tackle. home depot has the worst customer service, but if you take the point of view that they're only there to make sure you don't steal and to put away product, then you'll have a better experience. it's essentially self-serve so hopefully you know where everything is, what you need, and how to check yourself through the line. they have the best prices overall and the best selection overall. their power tool selection is better than ace and osh. they carry rigid tools which is nice because they offer the lifetime guarantee and their hand tools (like their pipe wrenches) are high quality. i go to hd the most because they're the closest and they have everything for cheap, but i hate going there if i have any questions or if i'm looking for something i can't find (which is rare because i know the place pretty well by now). if i had money burning a hole in my pocket and wanted to buy some power tools i'd go to lowe's, but it's far. i've yet to find a great local hardware store. been to ashby lumber, piedmont lumber, truitt and white, and economy lumber but haven't found any of them to be stellar yet. sears is always good for browsing the craftsman stuff. i probably wouldn't buy their power tools, but the hand tools are great and you're always going to find more at sears than at osh.
  • fleury just fell on the puck and sent into his own goal. fuck. he's losing this game for them - two critical errors that have led to goals. bad news.
  • holy crap, what an ending. down by two and pittsburgh gets a power play, they pull the goalie for a two man advantage and score to pull within one with about 90 seconds left. they leave the goalie out and have a one man advantage. the last rush was crazy as usual. detroit tried clearing it a couple times and with about six seconds left pittsburgh brings the puck back into detroit's zone and crosby got a backhand shot with about 1.5 seconds left, osgood blocked it, but the rebound was open for hossa and just as the clock turned zero he got his stick on it and it went behind osgood, but missed the net. reminded me of that rams/titans superbowl where the receiver was about two feet shy of the end zone on the final play of the game. crazy. what a game. hockey's back!

  • 6-3-08 (21:41)

  • going to give blood tomorrow. not sure about work
  • working on perfecting my mp3 collection. time consuming.
  • built a bunch of shelves at work today. it's a rewarding project because it clears clutter and gets more out of the available space which is always nice.
  • updated my movie recommendations finally.
  • ingrown toenail seems fine thanks to the treat meryl prescribed. thumb is taking a while to heal, but could be worse.

  • 6-2-08 (18:57)

  • got a jury summons today. slated for july 2nd. i've heard that they give you some money for the work that you miss, but i'm not sure if that's true or how much it is. it'll be a good experience so i'm actually happy about it other than the fact that i'll be losing $100 in pay.
  • berkeley and the ucb campus are the most shit-filled places i've seen outside of the bathroom, and maybe even including there because the shit is usually flushed down the toilet before i get a chance to see it. weekly i see some person's or dog's shit on the ground on the campus or on the street. today i saw some asshole on a cell phone walking his dog down telegraph. he waited at a crosswalk while talking on the phone. meanwhile his dog pinched a loaf on the handicapped ramp. the light changed and they both went on their merry way. if i were a better, stronger person i would have pointed this out to the fellow, but i generally avoid confrontation, so i didn't. around the alumni house there is often shit by the recycling bins or on the handicapped ramp. on a couple occasions i've been sure that it was human. this may be attributed to the fact that we now lock up the recycling. perhaps it was retaliation for cutting of the revenue stream of some poor fellow who collects bottles and cans for cash. part of me is sorry for this, but it was necessary as those bottles and cans were often left strewn about the ground because someone wasn't satisfied with the selection. if they picked what they wanted and didn't leave a mess then all would be harmonious.
  • speaking of cell phones. on friday i saw an oblivious girl run a red light near campus while happily speaking on her cell phone. luckily the intersecting car missed her by about 50 feet. it was in an area where there are stop signs/lights at every block so i'm not sure how she missed the rhythm. yesterday i saw an oblivious guy, not on a cell phone, run a red light near our house. i'm generally opposed to restrictions on freedom, but in the case of the upcoming no-cell-phone-holding-while-driving law, i'm all for it. it's going to be a great day. of course, people will still be distracted by cell phone discussions, eating, putting on makeup, changing music, etc., but it's still a start. saw a bus driver the other day who was texting while driving the bus. that seems especially dangerous. the whole texting while working thing has gotten out of control. i think you should get paid more if you don't have a cell phone, or at least if you don't have a cell phone at work. it invariably makes you more productive because you don't have that distraction.

  • got my ipod last week and have been working on getting everything to fit. also working on getting it organized. i've discovered that itunes is one of the worst programs a major company has ever put out. winamp's media library is a lot more powerful. meryl's creative mp3 player also is easier to add songs to because you can treat it like another drive, rather than having to use proprietary software to load music onto the player. the ipod had a lot of nice features and a clean look, but i frankly can't understand how apple has turned out a product like itunes without major complaints from people. i guess the whole product (hardware and software) is better by enough than the other things out there. not great, but better than the rest and backed by an impressive marketing campaign and social cache. i honestly think that one apple programmer could make itunes a great program in a couple weeks. i guess the will just isn't there. suggested fixes: make deleting non-existent songs easier (there isn't an option for updating the library based upon what is actually on your drive, the probably do this because they assume you are going to manage your entire library solely through their crappy program). make sorting nonexistent songs possible. make adding cover art simpler. improve the cover art downloader drastically. example: the cover art downloader automatically downloaded art for about 20% of my albums. albums they missed? not rare autechre eps or strange promo-only albums (though they missed those too), how about the beatles abbey road or jay-z's soundtrack to american gangster...it's gotta be a formatting, data, or rights issue, but i don't know. all my albums have properly filled out id3v1 and id3v2 tags and were ripped using the same program (not itunes). how itunes can figure out some albums and not others is beyond me. the upside? the ipod is the most popular player out there so support (from apple and other users) should be abundant, cracks, patches and fixes should be available, it's just about taking the time to find them. my answer? make itunes open source and it'll be an amazing program within a couple months. in the meantime i'll spend time working on some fixes for these things myself. it's also possible that some of the solutions to my many problems with this program are available within the program, i'm just not seeing them yet.