And the dream is... over
If the latest news reports I'm hearing are correct, Britney Spears got engaged (and it's not one of those Vegas weddings) to her dancer-boyfriend guy. It's been a rumor for the past few days, and I don't know whether it's official now or what, but I think Reuters is a pretty reliable source:
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=entertainmentNews&storyID=5518983
With this news, a part of me has now died.
It's not that I actually thought I was ever gonna marry her. That's not really why this news makes me sad. But if this engagement thing is for real, I think of it more like the end of an era. For me personally, it feels like Britney is leaving me behind to start a new life without me. And now all I've got left is the memories.
Yeah, call me a flamer if you want, I don't care. I've already taken plenty of crap for being a Britney Spears fan, it doesn't affect me anymore. It appears that with this news, my days of being ridiculed (well, at least about Britney) are nearing its end anyways.
I know I've written about Britney more than a few times on this blog. I just did a search on my Blogger account and her name comes up on 37 posts. In fact, I've been writing about her long before I even had a blog, since back in the day when we updated .plans on our Students UIUC UNIX accounts.
To be exact, my happy relationship with Britney began freshman year of college at Chras's place in Illini Tower during the wee hours of the night. Probably after playing a lot of Craft or Goldeneye, we were watching MTV when they showed a "Buzzworthy" video that happened to be "Baby One More Time". Me, Chras, and Anuj had no idea who she was, but we were intrigued and did a search for Britney Spears on the Web. The search turned up about 2 results, one of which I think was made by her mom or something. My, how things have changed in the 5-6 years since then.
Baby One More Time was followed by Sometimes, and then You Drive Me Crazy and From the Bottom of My Broken Heart. As the quality songs and videos kept coming, I became a bigger and bigger fan. Then just as her first CD started to run out of hits, Oops, she did it again. With more great stuff like Lucky and Stronger, Britney quickly entered, as the Sports Guy would call it, the Pantheon. Her hotness easily propelled her up to the top of my Top 10 Girls list, where she's been for as long as I can remember.
Yet it wasn't just the catchy songs or stunning looks that made her great. No, since the very beginning, there was always something special about this girl. I still don't know exactly what, but she's definitely been more than just another pop star or another hot chick in my mind.
I guess eventually, it had to end. And to be honest, it's not as though I couldn't see it coming. Her songs started to get crappier, videos not as good, and her performances unfortunately became more and more about shock value than they should have. In her personal life, things got weirder and more ridiculous to the point where it would be nearly impossible to take anything about her seriously at all. And even though she's still #1 on my list, I have to say that she has gotten less hot with age. Maybe I should have known it was over when she cancelled her concert last week, a concert I was looking forward to going to and only the 2nd time I would've had the chance to see her perform live.
So it has now come down to this. She's "only" getting engaged, not like she's quitting her career, committing suicide like Kurt Cobain, or getting shot like 2pac or Biggie. But I think it marks the official end of the Britney I knew and loved. She might go on to put out some more successful CDs or even have a good acting career, but it won't ever be the same.
In my own life, it marks yet another sign of getting older and another step away from the good old college days. Sad, but what can you do? Life goes on.
To end my overly dramatic blog, some Smashing Pumpkins lyrics:
Nothing left to say
And all I've left to do
Is run away
From you
And she led me on, down
With secrets I can't keep
Close your eyes and sleep
Don't wait up for me
Hush now don't you speak
To me
Wrapped my hurt in you
And took my shelter in that pain
The opiate of blame
Is your broken heart, heart, your heart
So now
I'm all by myself
As I've always felt
I'll betray my tears
To anyone caught in our ruse of fools
One last kiss from me, yeah
One last kiss good night
Friday, June 25, 2004
Monday, June 21, 2004
NY Highlights
The past few days, I took my first real vacation since starting work at this job in October 2002. An old friend had been planning this trip to New York City for a few months, and me and Olivia decided to tag along.
I think I've traveled more and been to more places across the country and around the world than most of the people I know. But I haven't ever been to NYC, so I figured it would be a good chance to see what all the rage is about with the Big Apple.
Mostly, we spent our 4 days there trying to hit the major spots in Manhattan. We stayed at the Grand Hyatt, which was at a great location (pretty much the exact middle of the Manhattan island), and either walked or took the subway everywhere throughout the trip. I'll list the highlights with some pictures below:
*Times Square*
It's a place I've seen a million times on TV before, whether on Dick Clark's New Years broadcasts, or on MTV's TRL, but it was definitely cool to finally visit the famous place for myself in person. We first walked through the area during the daytime, when it was busy enough, but Times Square at night is whole other experience. Well past midnight, the sidewalks were all completely jammed with people, with cops on horses managing the crowd, all sorts of nice cars with tinted windows driving through the street, and LaToya London performing with George Huff on an elevated stage. Maybe the only other place I've been to that would be comparable is the Las Vegas strip, but it's still not exactly the same. I think they say that New York is the "city that never sleeps", and after experiencing Times Square late at night, I definitely can't argue with that.
*Statue of Liberty*
Another thing we've all seen a million times, unfortunately the statue itself has been closed to all visitors since 9/11, but we took a ferry to the island anyways and got some pictures. There's not a whole lot else I can say about the place, other than, it was a little smaller than what I imagined it to be.
*Bryant Park Concert*
Sony was presenting a free outdoor concert at Bryant Park (right by our hotel), featuring Ari Hest opening for Dido and John Mayer. They were all great live performers, even more so because the concert was free to the public. The one negative was the weather, with heavy rain and thunderstorms harrassing us to the point where eventually we had to leave the park in the middle of the concert and listen to the rest of the concert across the street, where the buildings provided some cover. John Mayer had to cut his set to about 4-5 songs, but he covered pretty much all of his most popular hits before leaving. The above picture was taken after we got soaked, and luckily some guy was passing out free Sony T-Shirts so we used those to dry off and avoid pneumonia.
*Billy Koch getting traded*
Not saying the rest of the trip wasn't good or anything, but possibly the best moment throughout the 4 days I was there was when I got back to the hotel on Thursday night and saw the words "White Sox trade RP Billy Koch to Florida Marlins...." flash across the ticker at the bottom of the screen during Sportscenter. Apparently the trade was for some guy I've never heard of and financial considerations (I can only assume that means we paid them to take Koch), but really, it doesn't matter. They could have traded the guy for a bag of crap and I would still say that we screwed the Marlins over. And that's saying a lot, because as you might expect, I don't think very highly at all about bags of crap.
*Ground Zero/Olympic Torch*
Ground Zero is one place where, no matter how many pictures of it you see in the newspapers, or how many images they show on TV, you'll never fully feel its significance until you're there in person. I guess it's been almost 3 years since the tragedy of 9/11, and in that time I've started to forget all the feelings of anger and sadness about the whole thing. But looking down at all the rubble where there once stood these two huge towers, and seeing the plaques listing the names of all the thousands of people who died, really brought back a lot of those emotions and reminded me of just how horrible that time was. I would definitely recommend anyone who has a chance to check out Ground Zero to make the trip.
It just so happened that around the time we were visiting Ground Zero, the Olympic torch was going to pass by. So we hung around the area for a while longer and got to see the torch up close and personal. It was pretty cool, not something you see every day, to say the least.
*Broadway*
Musicals and Broadway shows aren't really my thing, but I guess it would kind of be a waste to go to New York and not see any shows. So we got tickets for Rent, featuring Scary Spice, and watched a Friday night show at the Nederlander Theater. Like I said, musicals aren't really my thing. I couldn't really understand most of what was going on, except that there were a lot of gay characters with HIV in the story. Still, I wouldn't say it was a worthless experience, just that it's not something I would typically choose to do in my free time.
*Central Park*
We only got to walk through a small part of Central Park for a few minutes on our last day in New York, but I was very impressed with the place in the short time I was there. You don't expect to see a place like Central Park in the middle of a huge metropolitan city. I mentioned Bryant Park earlier, and that place is kind of like Grant Park in Chicago - some trees, grass, etc., but you still know you're in the city. Central Park is like its own world, impressive landscaping with lots of hills, small lakes, and not at all like any of the other city parks I've seen before. I wish the picture above turned out better, but I really liked that scene with the view of the skyscrapers in the background, and beautiful greenery in the foreground. Not to mention the highly attractive people in the very front.
*Other*
There's a whole bunch of little things we filled our time with, that I won't go into too much detail about. A lot of shopping, including at the "flagship" Banana Republic store, where I got a whole bunch of clothes that the rest of you suckers can't get to copy me. For example, I got a "plain white t-shirt" and a "gray polo". Then there was a big electronics store (J&R), a big outlet store (Century 21), and Chinatown, among others.
The one guided tour we took was at the NBC studios (Rockefeller Center), which was kind of interesting. We also hit up a comedy club one night, which was a good time too. I think most of the comedy stuff in Chicago is improv, and New York has more of the top standup comedians in the country. Perhaps some proof of this was that the morning after going to the club, we were watching VH1's Best Week Ever in the Hotel and one of the comedians featured on the show was an act we just saw the night before (Chuck Nice).
*****
General thoughts on New York, I'd say that it's a very fascinating city, if nothing else. The people are a really unique mix of tourists, immigrants, and local jerks. Ok, so they're not all jerks, but I did think that people there were noticeably more rude than elsewhere, as advertised. The air is a unique mix of urine, BO, car exhaust, and smoke from the street vendors, it's definitely a lot worse than Chicago, pollution-wise. The streets are dirtier and noisier, and things are generally more expensive too.
But even with the negatives, I'd say that compared to all the other cities I've been to, NYC still belongs among the elite. I already talked about how impressive Times Square is, but just from walking around and being there for a few days, I got the feeling that the city is unlike any other. For one, it seemed like we were randomly stumbling on all these interesting things to do throughout our whole trip, like the concert or the Olympic torch thing. I don't know if we were just lucky, but things don't typically happen that way in Chicago (or Palatine or Darien, for that matter).
I can't see myself ever living in NYC, or spending more than a few days there at a time, but I still might want to go back to visit again sometime in the future. Overall, I think it was a good trip. Not really a vacation though, considering how tired I was coming home. On this trip, I was reminded of all the reasons why I hate travel. I hate airports, I hate airplanes, I hate airlines. I hate packing and unpacking all my stuff, and I hate living in hotels.
But most of all, I love home sweet home and I always will. Sometimes, it's good to get out and see different places in the world, but in my heart, there's no place like Chicago.
The past few days, I took my first real vacation since starting work at this job in October 2002. An old friend had been planning this trip to New York City for a few months, and me and Olivia decided to tag along.
I think I've traveled more and been to more places across the country and around the world than most of the people I know. But I haven't ever been to NYC, so I figured it would be a good chance to see what all the rage is about with the Big Apple.
Mostly, we spent our 4 days there trying to hit the major spots in Manhattan. We stayed at the Grand Hyatt, which was at a great location (pretty much the exact middle of the Manhattan island), and either walked or took the subway everywhere throughout the trip. I'll list the highlights with some pictures below:
*Times Square*
It's a place I've seen a million times on TV before, whether on Dick Clark's New Years broadcasts, or on MTV's TRL, but it was definitely cool to finally visit the famous place for myself in person. We first walked through the area during the daytime, when it was busy enough, but Times Square at night is whole other experience. Well past midnight, the sidewalks were all completely jammed with people, with cops on horses managing the crowd, all sorts of nice cars with tinted windows driving through the street, and LaToya London performing with George Huff on an elevated stage. Maybe the only other place I've been to that would be comparable is the Las Vegas strip, but it's still not exactly the same. I think they say that New York is the "city that never sleeps", and after experiencing Times Square late at night, I definitely can't argue with that.
*Statue of Liberty*
Another thing we've all seen a million times, unfortunately the statue itself has been closed to all visitors since 9/11, but we took a ferry to the island anyways and got some pictures. There's not a whole lot else I can say about the place, other than, it was a little smaller than what I imagined it to be.
*Bryant Park Concert*
Sony was presenting a free outdoor concert at Bryant Park (right by our hotel), featuring Ari Hest opening for Dido and John Mayer. They were all great live performers, even more so because the concert was free to the public. The one negative was the weather, with heavy rain and thunderstorms harrassing us to the point where eventually we had to leave the park in the middle of the concert and listen to the rest of the concert across the street, where the buildings provided some cover. John Mayer had to cut his set to about 4-5 songs, but he covered pretty much all of his most popular hits before leaving. The above picture was taken after we got soaked, and luckily some guy was passing out free Sony T-Shirts so we used those to dry off and avoid pneumonia.
*Billy Koch getting traded*
Not saying the rest of the trip wasn't good or anything, but possibly the best moment throughout the 4 days I was there was when I got back to the hotel on Thursday night and saw the words "White Sox trade RP Billy Koch to Florida Marlins...." flash across the ticker at the bottom of the screen during Sportscenter. Apparently the trade was for some guy I've never heard of and financial considerations (I can only assume that means we paid them to take Koch), but really, it doesn't matter. They could have traded the guy for a bag of crap and I would still say that we screwed the Marlins over. And that's saying a lot, because as you might expect, I don't think very highly at all about bags of crap.
*Ground Zero/Olympic Torch*
Ground Zero is one place where, no matter how many pictures of it you see in the newspapers, or how many images they show on TV, you'll never fully feel its significance until you're there in person. I guess it's been almost 3 years since the tragedy of 9/11, and in that time I've started to forget all the feelings of anger and sadness about the whole thing. But looking down at all the rubble where there once stood these two huge towers, and seeing the plaques listing the names of all the thousands of people who died, really brought back a lot of those emotions and reminded me of just how horrible that time was. I would definitely recommend anyone who has a chance to check out Ground Zero to make the trip.
It just so happened that around the time we were visiting Ground Zero, the Olympic torch was going to pass by. So we hung around the area for a while longer and got to see the torch up close and personal. It was pretty cool, not something you see every day, to say the least.
*Broadway*
Musicals and Broadway shows aren't really my thing, but I guess it would kind of be a waste to go to New York and not see any shows. So we got tickets for Rent, featuring Scary Spice, and watched a Friday night show at the Nederlander Theater. Like I said, musicals aren't really my thing. I couldn't really understand most of what was going on, except that there were a lot of gay characters with HIV in the story. Still, I wouldn't say it was a worthless experience, just that it's not something I would typically choose to do in my free time.
*Central Park*
We only got to walk through a small part of Central Park for a few minutes on our last day in New York, but I was very impressed with the place in the short time I was there. You don't expect to see a place like Central Park in the middle of a huge metropolitan city. I mentioned Bryant Park earlier, and that place is kind of like Grant Park in Chicago - some trees, grass, etc., but you still know you're in the city. Central Park is like its own world, impressive landscaping with lots of hills, small lakes, and not at all like any of the other city parks I've seen before. I wish the picture above turned out better, but I really liked that scene with the view of the skyscrapers in the background, and beautiful greenery in the foreground. Not to mention the highly attractive people in the very front.
*Other*
There's a whole bunch of little things we filled our time with, that I won't go into too much detail about. A lot of shopping, including at the "flagship" Banana Republic store, where I got a whole bunch of clothes that the rest of you suckers can't get to copy me. For example, I got a "plain white t-shirt" and a "gray polo". Then there was a big electronics store (J&R), a big outlet store (Century 21), and Chinatown, among others.
The one guided tour we took was at the NBC studios (Rockefeller Center), which was kind of interesting. We also hit up a comedy club one night, which was a good time too. I think most of the comedy stuff in Chicago is improv, and New York has more of the top standup comedians in the country. Perhaps some proof of this was that the morning after going to the club, we were watching VH1's Best Week Ever in the Hotel and one of the comedians featured on the show was an act we just saw the night before (Chuck Nice).
*****
General thoughts on New York, I'd say that it's a very fascinating city, if nothing else. The people are a really unique mix of tourists, immigrants, and local jerks. Ok, so they're not all jerks, but I did think that people there were noticeably more rude than elsewhere, as advertised. The air is a unique mix of urine, BO, car exhaust, and smoke from the street vendors, it's definitely a lot worse than Chicago, pollution-wise. The streets are dirtier and noisier, and things are generally more expensive too.
But even with the negatives, I'd say that compared to all the other cities I've been to, NYC still belongs among the elite. I already talked about how impressive Times Square is, but just from walking around and being there for a few days, I got the feeling that the city is unlike any other. For one, it seemed like we were randomly stumbling on all these interesting things to do throughout our whole trip, like the concert or the Olympic torch thing. I don't know if we were just lucky, but things don't typically happen that way in Chicago (or Palatine or Darien, for that matter).
I can't see myself ever living in NYC, or spending more than a few days there at a time, but I still might want to go back to visit again sometime in the future. Overall, I think it was a good trip. Not really a vacation though, considering how tired I was coming home. On this trip, I was reminded of all the reasons why I hate travel. I hate airports, I hate airplanes, I hate airlines. I hate packing and unpacking all my stuff, and I hate living in hotels.
But most of all, I love home sweet home and I always will. Sometimes, it's good to get out and see different places in the world, but in my heart, there's no place like Chicago.
Tuesday, June 15, 2004
- Hmm... who knew that a little blog on the NBA could have turned into such drama? Not I. Anyways, I don't care if people disagree with me or with each other - actually, that's mostly why I have the comment feature to begin with. If anyone has anything worthwhile to say, don't let me or anyone else stop you. The only other thing I might say about that is to please try and avoid name calling. Although sometimes that's half the fun right there.
For Laker Hater Too, don't worry, I don't think you're a giant vagina for not posting your name. Anonymous commenters sometimes have good things to say too. But in this case, I'd have to say that posting a comment just to lecture other people on arguing about stuff that you think is not important, makes no sense. It reminds me of those people who reply-to-all in mass emails just to tell everyone else not to reply-to-all. Just as counter-productive and hypocritical.
Meanwhile, I'm still rooting against the Lakers and I don't see anything wrong with that. Also, even though the Pistons are up 3-1, I still think they might lose this series. Wouldn't be surprised if Kobe takes over this next game and wins it singlehandedly, and then the last 2 are in LA, so anything is possible. Not saying they'll blow it for sure, but I can definitely see the potential collapse happening. Not to mention, I still think the NBA is shady and they would do anything in their power (like manipulating refs) to extend the series.
- Happy bday to Caddy (a week late).
- Observation: it's mid June and we haven't had played any softball yet. I have been asked to organize a game sometime, and right now I'm eyeing the weekend of 6/26-27 because I can't do it this weekend, and the next is Fourth of July. Whoever is interested in playing, please talk to me with any input (i.e. preferred dates, location, time, how many people you can bring, etc.)
- If anybody out there has been to New York City, please share any of your experiences or thoughts. What are the best places to go to? Restaurants, landmarks, shopping, bars/clubs, etc.? What can you find around there that you can't find in Chicago?
For Laker Hater Too, don't worry, I don't think you're a giant vagina for not posting your name. Anonymous commenters sometimes have good things to say too. But in this case, I'd have to say that posting a comment just to lecture other people on arguing about stuff that you think is not important, makes no sense. It reminds me of those people who reply-to-all in mass emails just to tell everyone else not to reply-to-all. Just as counter-productive and hypocritical.
Meanwhile, I'm still rooting against the Lakers and I don't see anything wrong with that. Also, even though the Pistons are up 3-1, I still think they might lose this series. Wouldn't be surprised if Kobe takes over this next game and wins it singlehandedly, and then the last 2 are in LA, so anything is possible. Not saying they'll blow it for sure, but I can definitely see the potential collapse happening. Not to mention, I still think the NBA is shady and they would do anything in their power (like manipulating refs) to extend the series.
- Happy bday to Caddy (a week late).
- Observation: it's mid June and we haven't had played any softball yet. I have been asked to organize a game sometime, and right now I'm eyeing the weekend of 6/26-27 because I can't do it this weekend, and the next is Fourth of July. Whoever is interested in playing, please talk to me with any input (i.e. preferred dates, location, time, how many people you can bring, etc.)
- If anybody out there has been to New York City, please share any of your experiences or thoughts. What are the best places to go to? Restaurants, landmarks, shopping, bars/clubs, etc.? What can you find around there that you can't find in Chicago?
Thursday, June 10, 2004
NBA
I haven't seriously watched an NBA game in its entirety in a long time. I'd say at least 4 or 5 years, maybe more. The league just doesn't really interest me these days.
The thing is, I used to be the biggest basketball fan. Well, of course, growing up in Chicago, I don't know anybody around here who wasn't crazy about the Bulls, back during their heyday. I had the obligatory Jordan posters that every kid my age had, every championship T-shirt, Bulls stickers on everything, and I even got good at drawing Bulls logos on all my notebooks and stuff.
But I also would get fanatic about the whole league, not just the Bulls. The biggest highlight of every week for me was to come home from church on Sunday and watch the NBA on NBC with Marv Albert and Mike Fratello/Matt Guokas. I think I knew the starting lineups for every single team back then. My favorite video game was NBA Jam on Super Nintendo, and I spent most of my free time collecting and organizing my basketball cards. Off the top of my head, I can still name most of the first round players drafted the year Shaq came out (Alonzo Mourning, Christian Laettner, Jim Jackson, Clarence Weatherspoon, LaPhonso Ellis, Harold Minor) because I can picture how I arranged their basketball cards in my album.
Meanwhile, I made all these colored drawings of the guys on the Dream Team and stuck them around my room. I'd get into heated arguments with friends about whether John Stockton would break Magic Johnson's all-time assists record (the number 9,921 still sticks in my head), and pretend to be Spud Webb when I played ball in my driveway, dunking on a 7 foot hoop.
But anyways, somewhere along the way I stopped caring about NBA basketball, almost entirely. It was around the time the Bulls dynasty finally broke up, when we went from Jordan, Pippen, Rodman, Phil Jackson, etc., to Tim Floyd and a rotating group of scrubs. That in itself is probably part of the reason why I stopped liking the NBA. But I don't think I'm one of those fairweather fans who's only interested in the game when your team wins. Yeah, it's tough to watch games when you know your team has no chance of being competitive at all. But I really think the league as a whole just started to deteriorate around that time.
Here are the main reasons I can think of as to why I don't like the NBA that much anymore:
- Too much "building for the future". Yeah, guys like Tracy McGrady and Kevin Garnett are good now. But now, every team is drafting guys that they know won't be good for at least a few years, if ever. The Bulls got Elton Brand and Ron Artest to rebuild after Jordan and Pippen left. Then they let both of those guys go when they started to get good, and started over with guys like Eddie Curry and Tyson Chandler. How can you expect fans to stay interested for years, when your team sucks, and everyone knows it's gonna suck for years until your prospects develop? And what if they never develop?
- Too many guys I hate watching. I'm sick of watching Shaq play basketball. First of all, his free throw shooting is uglier than Sam Cassell. It's always been bad, but somehow it got even worse throughout the years. Second of all, knocking over defenders by bumping your ass into them and then dunking the ball hardly counts as a sport. The worst part, though, is seeing how defenders have resorted to constantly flopping as their only answer to Shaq. It gets annoying when half the game becomes guys falling down every time they get breathed on, and then spending all of their energy complaining to the refs for a call, instead of just being a man and playing hard defense. Speaking of which, there is no reason why Vlade Divac should still be in this league. Now, I don't have time to list everyone I dislike in the NBA, but lets just say that 90% of the rest of them fall into one or more of the following categories:
a) Overpaid kid who should've gone to college
b) Some sort of criminal
c) Ballhog who doesn't care about winning and can't play defense, just looking to make a flashy play that will get them on Sportscenter
d) Ugly European or Chinese guy
- Something shady about the league. For a long time now, I've had this feeling in the back of my head that the NBA playoffs are rigged. People say that it would be too hard to pull off something like that, but you know what, when there's so much money at stake, people would do anything to get as much as they can. I don't know, but think about it - notice that the league is super protective of its refs from being criticized. And in the few big games I've seen lately, there's been more than a few cases where the officiating was pretty lopsided. I'm not saying that all the games are fixed, but I just can't shake the feeling that there's some behind the scenes action going on either.
There's other reasons I don't like the NBA, but I guess what ignited this rant was watching the end of regulation for Tuesday's Lakers-Pistons game. Like about 95% of the people I know, I don't like the Lakers and I'd rather see them lose. Shaq, I talked about him before. I've always thought Kobe was cocky and annoying and disliked him even before the whole rape thing. Never liked Karl Malone or Gary Payton either, back when they were pestering the Bulls, and now even less because they decided to take the easy route to get a championship ring which will be meaningless.
Not that I love the Pistons either. Actually, they fit almost all the negatives I listed above. Think about this past offseason - coming off a pretty good playoff run, they have the #2 pick in the draft with the choice of getting someone who can help them right away (Carmelo Anthony) or getting an unproven, Ugly European Guy who clearly will have nothing to offer the team for at least a couple years (Darko Milicic). They go with the second choice. Maybe someday, Darko will be worth more than Carmelo, but come on - you know your team is so close to possibly winning a championship, and yet you still draft as if you're in a rebuilding mode. In a game like the one on Tuesday, don't tell me that having a guy like Carmelo wouldn't have made at least a few points difference over a guy sitting on the bench the whole game looking stupid. That could have meant the difference between winning and losing that game, which could mean the difference between winning and losing the series and the championship. If the Pistons go on to lose the series, they have no one else to blame but themselves.
About the game, I still can't believe how bad the Pistons played at the end, with a 6 point lead and under a minute to go. They don't foul Shaq when he's holding the ball outside the 3-point line, they wait until he gets the ball 2 inches away from the hoop, and his dunk is already halfway down, so he can have a 3 point play. Basically, they could've taken their chances with giving him 2 free throws (of which he's probably only going to make one) to try to cut the lead to 4 at best (still 2 posessions), but instead they gave him the sure 2 points and a free throw to cut it to 1 possession.
Then on the last shot, every single person watching the game knew Kobe was gonna shoot, yet Rip Hamilton still gave him plenty of space and barely even jumped to challenge the shot. Not that it would have neccessarily mattered - I mean, by the time I saw Kobe get the inbounds pass, I knew he was gonna tie the game. The Lakers just seem to make those plays happen 100% of the time, like Robert Horry's 3 against the Kings. But still, the fact is that the Pistons threw away that game, plain and simple. I didn't even watch the rest of the game in overtime, because at that point I already knew who was going to win. And why lose valuable sleep time just to confirm what you already know?
Oh well.
Larry Bird says he used to feel insulted when an opposing coach sent a white player to guard him. My question is, I wonder if Yao Ming feels the same way when opposing coaches send a yellow player to guard him? And is Wang Zhi-Zhi still in the league?
I haven't seriously watched an NBA game in its entirety in a long time. I'd say at least 4 or 5 years, maybe more. The league just doesn't really interest me these days.
The thing is, I used to be the biggest basketball fan. Well, of course, growing up in Chicago, I don't know anybody around here who wasn't crazy about the Bulls, back during their heyday. I had the obligatory Jordan posters that every kid my age had, every championship T-shirt, Bulls stickers on everything, and I even got good at drawing Bulls logos on all my notebooks and stuff.
But I also would get fanatic about the whole league, not just the Bulls. The biggest highlight of every week for me was to come home from church on Sunday and watch the NBA on NBC with Marv Albert and Mike Fratello/Matt Guokas. I think I knew the starting lineups for every single team back then. My favorite video game was NBA Jam on Super Nintendo, and I spent most of my free time collecting and organizing my basketball cards. Off the top of my head, I can still name most of the first round players drafted the year Shaq came out (Alonzo Mourning, Christian Laettner, Jim Jackson, Clarence Weatherspoon, LaPhonso Ellis, Harold Minor) because I can picture how I arranged their basketball cards in my album.
Meanwhile, I made all these colored drawings of the guys on the Dream Team and stuck them around my room. I'd get into heated arguments with friends about whether John Stockton would break Magic Johnson's all-time assists record (the number 9,921 still sticks in my head), and pretend to be Spud Webb when I played ball in my driveway, dunking on a 7 foot hoop.
But anyways, somewhere along the way I stopped caring about NBA basketball, almost entirely. It was around the time the Bulls dynasty finally broke up, when we went from Jordan, Pippen, Rodman, Phil Jackson, etc., to Tim Floyd and a rotating group of scrubs. That in itself is probably part of the reason why I stopped liking the NBA. But I don't think I'm one of those fairweather fans who's only interested in the game when your team wins. Yeah, it's tough to watch games when you know your team has no chance of being competitive at all. But I really think the league as a whole just started to deteriorate around that time.
Here are the main reasons I can think of as to why I don't like the NBA that much anymore:
- Too much "building for the future". Yeah, guys like Tracy McGrady and Kevin Garnett are good now. But now, every team is drafting guys that they know won't be good for at least a few years, if ever. The Bulls got Elton Brand and Ron Artest to rebuild after Jordan and Pippen left. Then they let both of those guys go when they started to get good, and started over with guys like Eddie Curry and Tyson Chandler. How can you expect fans to stay interested for years, when your team sucks, and everyone knows it's gonna suck for years until your prospects develop? And what if they never develop?
- Too many guys I hate watching. I'm sick of watching Shaq play basketball. First of all, his free throw shooting is uglier than Sam Cassell. It's always been bad, but somehow it got even worse throughout the years. Second of all, knocking over defenders by bumping your ass into them and then dunking the ball hardly counts as a sport. The worst part, though, is seeing how defenders have resorted to constantly flopping as their only answer to Shaq. It gets annoying when half the game becomes guys falling down every time they get breathed on, and then spending all of their energy complaining to the refs for a call, instead of just being a man and playing hard defense. Speaking of which, there is no reason why Vlade Divac should still be in this league. Now, I don't have time to list everyone I dislike in the NBA, but lets just say that 90% of the rest of them fall into one or more of the following categories:
a) Overpaid kid who should've gone to college
b) Some sort of criminal
c) Ballhog who doesn't care about winning and can't play defense, just looking to make a flashy play that will get them on Sportscenter
d) Ugly European or Chinese guy
- Something shady about the league. For a long time now, I've had this feeling in the back of my head that the NBA playoffs are rigged. People say that it would be too hard to pull off something like that, but you know what, when there's so much money at stake, people would do anything to get as much as they can. I don't know, but think about it - notice that the league is super protective of its refs from being criticized. And in the few big games I've seen lately, there's been more than a few cases where the officiating was pretty lopsided. I'm not saying that all the games are fixed, but I just can't shake the feeling that there's some behind the scenes action going on either.
There's other reasons I don't like the NBA, but I guess what ignited this rant was watching the end of regulation for Tuesday's Lakers-Pistons game. Like about 95% of the people I know, I don't like the Lakers and I'd rather see them lose. Shaq, I talked about him before. I've always thought Kobe was cocky and annoying and disliked him even before the whole rape thing. Never liked Karl Malone or Gary Payton either, back when they were pestering the Bulls, and now even less because they decided to take the easy route to get a championship ring which will be meaningless.
Not that I love the Pistons either. Actually, they fit almost all the negatives I listed above. Think about this past offseason - coming off a pretty good playoff run, they have the #2 pick in the draft with the choice of getting someone who can help them right away (Carmelo Anthony) or getting an unproven, Ugly European Guy who clearly will have nothing to offer the team for at least a couple years (Darko Milicic). They go with the second choice. Maybe someday, Darko will be worth more than Carmelo, but come on - you know your team is so close to possibly winning a championship, and yet you still draft as if you're in a rebuilding mode. In a game like the one on Tuesday, don't tell me that having a guy like Carmelo wouldn't have made at least a few points difference over a guy sitting on the bench the whole game looking stupid. That could have meant the difference between winning and losing that game, which could mean the difference between winning and losing the series and the championship. If the Pistons go on to lose the series, they have no one else to blame but themselves.
About the game, I still can't believe how bad the Pistons played at the end, with a 6 point lead and under a minute to go. They don't foul Shaq when he's holding the ball outside the 3-point line, they wait until he gets the ball 2 inches away from the hoop, and his dunk is already halfway down, so he can have a 3 point play. Basically, they could've taken their chances with giving him 2 free throws (of which he's probably only going to make one) to try to cut the lead to 4 at best (still 2 posessions), but instead they gave him the sure 2 points and a free throw to cut it to 1 possession.
Then on the last shot, every single person watching the game knew Kobe was gonna shoot, yet Rip Hamilton still gave him plenty of space and barely even jumped to challenge the shot. Not that it would have neccessarily mattered - I mean, by the time I saw Kobe get the inbounds pass, I knew he was gonna tie the game. The Lakers just seem to make those plays happen 100% of the time, like Robert Horry's 3 against the Kings. But still, the fact is that the Pistons threw away that game, plain and simple. I didn't even watch the rest of the game in overtime, because at that point I already knew who was going to win. And why lose valuable sleep time just to confirm what you already know?
Oh well.
Larry Bird says he used to feel insulted when an opposing coach sent a white player to guard him. My question is, I wonder if Yao Ming feels the same way when opposing coaches send a yellow player to guard him? And is Wang Zhi-Zhi still in the league?
Monday, June 07, 2004
Miskellaneous
I haven't had much time to write lately. Especially at work, things have been a lot busier. Still, I feel the need to write. So I shall write a blog at home.
Some things that have happened in the past few days:
- Got a speeding ticket. Caught going 81 on 355. Haven't had a ticket in about 3 years, so I guess I was due. Cop looked like he was about 16 years old.
- Went to the DMV to get a State ID. I think they really designed that place to piss people off as much as possible. First, they give you a number and make you wait for this computerized voice to call your number and tell you where to go. Except, it's not just a number, it's actually a letter and a number. I was C248. Then they call the numbers in no particular order. It started at C244 when I sat down, followed by B196, I113, D49, A307, B197, B198, E73, B199, A308, B200, I114, D50, C245, ..... and about half an hour later, finally I got my turn. Then I got to talk to a guy, who then sent me to the cashier, who sent me to another lady, who sent me to the picture taking station. Overall though, I was expecting worse. Only one out of the 4 people I had to deal with was rude and/or incompetent. I'll take that. And it only cost 4 bucks to get a state ID, which isn't bad at all.
- Got White Castle for lunch. I love White Castle. By the way, for those who don't know, Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle on July 30th. Featuring "the Asian guy from American Pie" and "the Indian guy from Van Wilder", I don't know whether this movie should offend me or appeal to me, as an Asian guy from Darien who loves White Castle. But another important thing to note is that it is being directed by the guy who directed Dude Where's My Car. So I think I am gonna have to see this movie.
- Watched U Got Served on DVD. Actually, only watched the dance scenes, which apparently are the only parts of the movie that are worth watching. Also watched Van Wilder and the first 20 mins of 2 Fast 2 Furious.
- Went to Dave & Busters and played some shuffleboard. Saw a friend I haven't seen in at least 2 years, and seriously, the first thing he said to me after "Long time no see" was "but it's ok, because I read your blog all the time and that makes me feel like I've been a part of your life". See, it's moments like those that make all the time I've spent on writing worth it. Well actually, I'd write no matter what, but to me that moment was still priceless. But the weird thing is, this kind of thing has happened more than a few times in the past couple years. I'll see an old friend who I haven't talked to in months, and the first thing they mention is something about what I wrote in my blog.
Another good "blog" moment was at the poker table yesterday, someone actually said something like "according to Dudo's blog, A-K was a 70% favorite..." haha, that cracks me up.
- Mowed the lawn and did some trimming with my brand new edger.
- As I write, there is an awesome game on the TV next to me. Game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals, Tampa Bay up 2-1 over Calgary late in the 3rd. Thus, I must cut this blog short so that I can watch the end of this thing. Might be the last NHL game to be played in a long time.
- Before I go, check out this site: http://www.poe-news.com/features.php?feat=31845. I thought it was funny.
I haven't had much time to write lately. Especially at work, things have been a lot busier. Still, I feel the need to write. So I shall write a blog at home.
Some things that have happened in the past few days:
- Got a speeding ticket. Caught going 81 on 355. Haven't had a ticket in about 3 years, so I guess I was due. Cop looked like he was about 16 years old.
- Went to the DMV to get a State ID. I think they really designed that place to piss people off as much as possible. First, they give you a number and make you wait for this computerized voice to call your number and tell you where to go. Except, it's not just a number, it's actually a letter and a number. I was C248. Then they call the numbers in no particular order. It started at C244 when I sat down, followed by B196, I113, D49, A307, B197, B198, E73, B199, A308, B200, I114, D50, C245, ..... and about half an hour later, finally I got my turn. Then I got to talk to a guy, who then sent me to the cashier, who sent me to another lady, who sent me to the picture taking station. Overall though, I was expecting worse. Only one out of the 4 people I had to deal with was rude and/or incompetent. I'll take that. And it only cost 4 bucks to get a state ID, which isn't bad at all.
- Got White Castle for lunch. I love White Castle. By the way, for those who don't know, Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle on July 30th. Featuring "the Asian guy from American Pie" and "the Indian guy from Van Wilder", I don't know whether this movie should offend me or appeal to me, as an Asian guy from Darien who loves White Castle. But another important thing to note is that it is being directed by the guy who directed Dude Where's My Car. So I think I am gonna have to see this movie.
- Watched U Got Served on DVD. Actually, only watched the dance scenes, which apparently are the only parts of the movie that are worth watching. Also watched Van Wilder and the first 20 mins of 2 Fast 2 Furious.
- Went to Dave & Busters and played some shuffleboard. Saw a friend I haven't seen in at least 2 years, and seriously, the first thing he said to me after "Long time no see" was "but it's ok, because I read your blog all the time and that makes me feel like I've been a part of your life". See, it's moments like those that make all the time I've spent on writing worth it. Well actually, I'd write no matter what, but to me that moment was still priceless. But the weird thing is, this kind of thing has happened more than a few times in the past couple years. I'll see an old friend who I haven't talked to in months, and the first thing they mention is something about what I wrote in my blog.
Another good "blog" moment was at the poker table yesterday, someone actually said something like "according to Dudo's blog, A-K was a 70% favorite..." haha, that cracks me up.
- Mowed the lawn and did some trimming with my brand new edger.
- As I write, there is an awesome game on the TV next to me. Game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals, Tampa Bay up 2-1 over Calgary late in the 3rd. Thus, I must cut this blog short so that I can watch the end of this thing. Might be the last NHL game to be played in a long time.
- Before I go, check out this site: http://www.poe-news.com/features.php?feat=31845. I thought it was funny.
Tuesday, June 01, 2004
Poker Talk
Last week was the annual World Series of Poker "Big One" in Las Vegas, and while the tournament won't be shown on ESPN until later this year, a lot internet sites have been reporting some or all of the action that's taken place.
I happened to read about one hand which really blew my mind:
Two guys have about the same amount of chips, one has pocket 5's and the other pocket 9's. On the flop comes two 5's and another low card, giving the one guy 4-of-a-kind, and the other guy an overpair with his 9's. So they both go all in (I don't know in what order, but it doesn't really matter), and you gotta think, the guy with the four-of-a-kind pretty much has the hand locked up, going against a measly one-pair with his four-of-a-kind and only 2 cards to go. Nope, the turn and river were both 9's, which gave the second guy four 9's to beat four 5's.
All of us who play poker have plenty of bad beat stories to tell, but it really doesn't get any worse than that. Literally, it's the worst bad beat possible if you do the math. It's one thing for a guy to hit running cards against you (like hitting a running straight or flush), cause even then, you have a bunch of possible combinations out there. But with 2 cards left to flip in that hand, the guy needed those two exact cards in the deck to win, and he got them. Something like 0.05% probability. So the next time anyone feels like complaining about bad luck in our $10 home games, think about the guy who flopped four-of-a-kind against one pair, and still ended up losing, in what was probably the biggest tournament of his life.
I was thinking about the math of no-limit tournaments and decided to do some calculations, just for kicks and giggles. Let's say that you only go all in pre-flop with the best possible starting hands (A-A, K-K, A-K, Q-Q). Usually, your winning percentage if you play these hands out is gonna come out to somewhere between 70-80% on average. For the sake of my math, I just estimated that you will win 75% of the time with these hands if you go all-in pre-flop.
By the way, 75% is pretty damn good odds. Consider for example:
- A-A is at best about 90% against certain hands (including 2-7 offsuit, the worst possible hand), and about 80% against any underpair
- K-K is also about 80% against underpairs and then about 70% against any hand with an Ace (except pocket Aces of course)
- Q-Q is pretty much the same as K-K, except you are only around 55% against A-K.
- A-K is about a 70% winner against any hand except pocket pairs and A-K. Believe it or not, whether you're up against A-Q suited or 2-7 offsuit, you are never much more than a 70% favorite.
These are all assuming that you're not going against another top hand (which is usually the case if you are called on an all-in bet). So even if you are the tightest player ever, or even if you make all the right reads, the best you can realistically hope for is to average 75% pre-flop odds for all the times you go all-in.
Anyways, in a tournament like the WSOP, say you decide to go all-in for all your chips, only in those situations where you have the top hands I listed. If you have A-Q, J-J, 10-10, A-J, etc., you fold if someone bets you for all your chips. Using the 75% number, if you risk all in:
3 times - You'll survive the tournament 42% of the time (0.75^3)
5 times - You have a 24% survival rate (0.75^5)
10 times - You have a 5% chance of staying in the tournament (0.75^10)
Think about that: even if you get your money in with the best odds every single time for only 3 times throughout the entire tournament, the numbers are still against you winning in the end (you have a 58% probability of losing at least one of those 3 times and getting eliminated). True, this is also assuming the other guy has more chips than you all 3 times, but if you've been playing that tight, you'll definitely be going against larger stacks more often than not. And if you ask me, 3 times is a very low estimate for that situation to come up in a tournament (I think even 5 or 10 would be a conservative number).
Moral of the story: it's better to be lucky than good in a poker game.
Of course, that doesn't mean that skill is worthless - pros will still win more money in the same game than amateurs in the long run. But these calculations tell us that if you want to win a tournament, you definitely can't win it on skill alone.
* If any of you are interested in how I got the numbers for those odds, www.cardplayer.com has an applet that lets you calculate odds in Hold'em. The rest of the calculations are high school math.
Last week was the annual World Series of Poker "Big One" in Las Vegas, and while the tournament won't be shown on ESPN until later this year, a lot internet sites have been reporting some or all of the action that's taken place.
I happened to read about one hand which really blew my mind:
Two guys have about the same amount of chips, one has pocket 5's and the other pocket 9's. On the flop comes two 5's and another low card, giving the one guy 4-of-a-kind, and the other guy an overpair with his 9's. So they both go all in (I don't know in what order, but it doesn't really matter), and you gotta think, the guy with the four-of-a-kind pretty much has the hand locked up, going against a measly one-pair with his four-of-a-kind and only 2 cards to go. Nope, the turn and river were both 9's, which gave the second guy four 9's to beat four 5's.
All of us who play poker have plenty of bad beat stories to tell, but it really doesn't get any worse than that. Literally, it's the worst bad beat possible if you do the math. It's one thing for a guy to hit running cards against you (like hitting a running straight or flush), cause even then, you have a bunch of possible combinations out there. But with 2 cards left to flip in that hand, the guy needed those two exact cards in the deck to win, and he got them. Something like 0.05% probability. So the next time anyone feels like complaining about bad luck in our $10 home games, think about the guy who flopped four-of-a-kind against one pair, and still ended up losing, in what was probably the biggest tournament of his life.
I was thinking about the math of no-limit tournaments and decided to do some calculations, just for kicks and giggles. Let's say that you only go all in pre-flop with the best possible starting hands (A-A, K-K, A-K, Q-Q). Usually, your winning percentage if you play these hands out is gonna come out to somewhere between 70-80% on average. For the sake of my math, I just estimated that you will win 75% of the time with these hands if you go all-in pre-flop.
By the way, 75% is pretty damn good odds. Consider for example:
- A-A is at best about 90% against certain hands (including 2-7 offsuit, the worst possible hand), and about 80% against any underpair
- K-K is also about 80% against underpairs and then about 70% against any hand with an Ace (except pocket Aces of course)
- Q-Q is pretty much the same as K-K, except you are only around 55% against A-K.
- A-K is about a 70% winner against any hand except pocket pairs and A-K. Believe it or not, whether you're up against A-Q suited or 2-7 offsuit, you are never much more than a 70% favorite.
These are all assuming that you're not going against another top hand (which is usually the case if you are called on an all-in bet). So even if you are the tightest player ever, or even if you make all the right reads, the best you can realistically hope for is to average 75% pre-flop odds for all the times you go all-in.
Anyways, in a tournament like the WSOP, say you decide to go all-in for all your chips, only in those situations where you have the top hands I listed. If you have A-Q, J-J, 10-10, A-J, etc., you fold if someone bets you for all your chips. Using the 75% number, if you risk all in:
3 times - You'll survive the tournament 42% of the time (0.75^3)
5 times - You have a 24% survival rate (0.75^5)
10 times - You have a 5% chance of staying in the tournament (0.75^10)
Think about that: even if you get your money in with the best odds every single time for only 3 times throughout the entire tournament, the numbers are still against you winning in the end (you have a 58% probability of losing at least one of those 3 times and getting eliminated). True, this is also assuming the other guy has more chips than you all 3 times, but if you've been playing that tight, you'll definitely be going against larger stacks more often than not. And if you ask me, 3 times is a very low estimate for that situation to come up in a tournament (I think even 5 or 10 would be a conservative number).
Moral of the story: it's better to be lucky than good in a poker game.
Of course, that doesn't mean that skill is worthless - pros will still win more money in the same game than amateurs in the long run. But these calculations tell us that if you want to win a tournament, you definitely can't win it on skill alone.
* If any of you are interested in how I got the numbers for those odds, www.cardplayer.com has an applet that lets you calculate odds in Hold'em. The rest of the calculations are high school math.
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