here we go again...

greetings from the OC.
I noticed I had a nice run of postings there for a couple days, and then I sort of lost my focus.
I still haven't found it, but we're going to keep you current anyway, just for fun.

here's an update on some past topics:

1. dick vitale is still the main "color" announcer for ESPNs college basketball broadcasts. yes. and by yes, I mean suck.
2. the girl that sent a picture of herself in a penguin costume to my friend Jeff recently sent him another email that said, "Are we fighting? hehe! -shan" really, this happened. Jeff didn't write her back because she sent a picture of herself in a penguin costume. and she's ugly. we don't know for a fact that the girl is ugly, but we don't know for a fact if the earth is round, either. do we? I do know that if the earth sent a picture of itself in a penguin costume then it would be ugly.
   
3. I heart moosejaw. this is a short version of the "raves" theme I started last week. go here: www.moosejaw.com and just embrace the madness. special points if you read the moosejaw daily remark. or buy me something expensive (I wear a size L in all mountain hardwear stuff).
   

more sports criticism and related commentary to follow at the end of the week. there's only so much firing dick vitale that I can reasonably do. sure, there's lots of other retardo out there, but it's not always that easy to track down. ahh, who am I kidding? it's super bowl week! there's enough idiocy to fill a daily column. i'll keep you posted.
xo -c-

kobe scores 81 (yawn)

so Kobe Bryant scored 81 points in a basketball game? 55 in the second half! it's surreal, but it happened. and we have video of it, which is one thing we don't have of the Big Dipper's game in 1961 or 62. there are a few players in the league that could score that many points in a game, but you have to be playing on a really bad team to do it, and you have to also be playing a really bad team.

I yawned about it because it's not going to help the lakers win a championship. who cares if you lead the league in scoring if your team sucks and you don't win a ring? I think kobe makes a lot of noise about winning a championship, but I'm not sure he really means it. we won't know until he gets some better players on his team. if he trusts them and works within the system then i'll believe it. Jordan won his rings with Pippen and a bunch of role players (Bill Cartwright? Steve Kerr?), so Kobe can do it, too. Whether he'll actually let that happen is unknown. I tend to doubt it. he's much too "me first". I guess he should be, but you can't do it by yourself against a letitimate (read: playoff) team.

an english lesson; plus, raves!

this from the dictionary.com definition of impertinence:

im·per·ti·nence (m-pûrtn-ns)
n 1: an impudent statement [syn: impudence, cheek]
2: the trait of being rude and impertinent; inclined to take liberties [syn: crust, gall, impudence, insolence, cheekiness, freshness]

here's a real-world example from some correspondence I received:

i noticed a conspicuous absence in the blog of the lesson you received
(no charge by the way) last weekend on how to play basketball. if you
are going to comment on a basketball commentator, the audience would
probably like to know that you are doing your best to learn the sport
from a superior player. i'm just sayin'. next time i am dropping 81
on you.
taste it old man,
z

Full disclosure: I did get a basketball lesson this weekend, and I did lose 2 (as in, two) games of 1/1 w/ Zach. I am not happy about it. not even a little bit. I'll be better prepared next time.
old man? how is it going to look when the old man beats you? it's best not to hurl insults; you never know when they might come back to haunt you.
------------

in the raves department, I decided that I needed to inject some positivity into the blog. not "I'm positive I'm going to whip zach like a rented mule the next time we play basketball." rather, something new or old that I like and think you might enjoy. I'll come back to it (like text and subtext) in future blogs.
I'll save it for a new entry, though, so that we can focus on something truly superb, instead of Zach and his bad manners.

bad statistics are really retardo

so I'm reading an article (you can try to find it here, but the link might be broken by now) by Stewart Mandel, a normally very reliable writer for SI.com. he is explaining how unlikely it is that NDSU (go Bison!) beat Wisconcin on Saturday. I take exception to Mandel's use of scurrilous statistics to support his claim that home court advantage is most significant for men's college basketball. here's the relevant portion:

homecourt advantage plays a bigger role than in any other major sport.

not sure what he means by "major sport", or if college basketball is a major sport; I guess it's paying his bills, but is it bigger than golf? bigger than NASCAR? Is NASCAR a sport? I digress...

Entering Saturday's games, Big Ten teams had won 90.2 percent of their home games this season. Jeff Sagarin factors in a 3.8-point advantage for home teams in his college basketball computer ratings, higher than he does for the NFL (3.51), NBA (2.98) or college football (2.48).

Let's compare apples to apples here, Stewie: Do the scores of home teams in the NFL and home teams in college basketball equal approximately the same number? No. Is the overall average home score for D1 men's basketball in the same ballpark as the average home score for an NBA game? it's probably closer, but no. The notion of comparing college football and basketball home scores is so retardo i'm not even going to consider it here. You get the idea.

So Stewart's point, that the home-team point advantage somehow indicates that college basketball teams have more of an advantage, than, say, an NFL home team, is silly, because what is relevant is not the total point advantage, but what percentage of the points that advantage represents. 3 points is a lot in football. You might score 21 points, and that field goal was 14% of your total output. In a college basketball game you might score 60 points (if you play slowly), and that 3 points? it's 5% of your output. Which is a long way from 14%, and which means that you're just making stuff up.

okay if you're still reading you're either a huge geek or my mom. thanks.

intelligent design vs. evolution: crap science vs. evidence

I posted this comment in response to a blog entry over on the donttouchmystuff blogspot.
you can read his original post there. my comment also appears there, but i thought it warranted some words here, as well.
------------------------------------

let's deconstruct your question, because it reflects a commonly held opinion.

a) intelligent design is religious. you won't find any secular proponents.

b) intelligent design is bad science. you won't find any credible scientist that suggests it has any basis in scientific fact.

c) evolution is good science. you can agree or disagree, but smarter men (and women) than you have worked hard to disprove it. they haven't proven anything. on the other hand, you can experience evolution firsthand the next time you get the flu.

d) people that argue about keeping intelligent design out of the classroom don't have to bother arguing about religion (although it's relevant, see item a), because it's crap science.

e) there is no "debate" in the scientific community about ID vs. evolution. if you're not sure, go here: http://www.natcenscied.org/

xoxo -c-

mix tapes rule, and dancing is good for you

have mix tapes improved since the advent of cd's and cd burners? I think I only ever made one real mix tape. you know the kind, where you had to play cd's and record onto an actual tape. it took hours and hours and although I guess the tape was well received I don't think it was time well spent. it was really just a huge pain in the ass.

now, with itunes or winamp, you can put together a playlist and burn a cd for somebody in less time that it will take you to finish reading this blog entry (do one now, while you're reading this). so is the gift of the mixed cd any less significant than the one you had to spend hours and hours on back in the 80's and early 90's? I say no. I think that the advent of the burned cd is just the evolution of the mix tape. how much time it actually takes you to burn the cd is irrelevant.

what's important is how much time you spent choosing the songs, creating a mood with song order. I did a quick search on "mix tape" and found entire websites devoted to the art of mix tapes, plus a website devoted to mix tape culture that sells hip hop vinyl, cds, and dvds. Tiny Mix Tapes has their own mix tape generator, which I didn't test but seems pretty damn cool to me. And Art of the Mix is a website devoted to the fine art of making mixes. As a hobbyist dj, all this stuff is pretty cool. I invite you to check it out. I even found a site that sells vinyl, mix tapes, cds and dvds. It's not uncommon for some artists (usually urban) to break out by appearing on mix tapes. DMX, Jay-Z, and 50 Cent all got their start this way. respect the mix tape!

finally, my adopted sister is passionate about her dancing. she dosen't like to perform, but she loves to take lessons and study dance. she is scheduled to take an exam (level 8, if you're keeping score) in a couple weeks, and I wanted to give her big ups for continuing to learn, study, and practice what she loves. she claims she'll be the second-oldest person ever to study for a level 8 test (she's 31), but I say she rules for doing what she loves and challenging herself. we should all follow her example. and make mix tapes. yours should be done by now. give it to someone you care about.

FDV caption winner; looking for roommates; paying for lunch; and can we please get back to firing the fuck out of dick vitale?

greetings from the OC.
the FDV caption winner was submitted by B-Real in his guest post. "March of the Mondays", while not as original as some of the others, made me laugh the most. Scooter MacGruder pointed out that everyone in the picture (see below) is looking off in some other direction, which I hadn't noticed and found very amusing. Thanks to all the participants. B-Real, the check for $6 is in the mail. Or I'll just buy you a twack when I see you. I can probably get a deal on the PBR up there in the frozen north.

this just in from the FDV wires: looking for a new roommate kind of sucks. a lot.

re: paying for lunch, I got sandbagged by a pro this weekend. I go to lunch with my homie that writes the new http://donttouchmystuff.blogspot.com and he says that today is his big day: he's going to pay. I say, damn, I forgot my ice skates, did hell freeze over? he says very funny, suck it, let's have lunch. so we eat a nice lunch at the gypsy den (okay food, very cute wait staff), and his girlfriend (works there) sorts it out so that there is no charge. I was thinking maybe a discount, but free? [I heart independent eateries. good luck getting your lunch comped at TGI Just ate a Crappy meal at a mall-day's.] anyway, we can't leave without dropping a tip, but of course mr. "today is my big day to 'buy' lunch" doesn't have any cash. not one red cent. so who comes out of pocket? me. as per usual. enh, at least the company was good. maybe good-ish. fair. we'll say fair.

let's talk about dick vitale a little bit, because we haven't had a chance to look at his idiocy for a couple of weeks now.
fortunately this hiatus has worked to my advantage, since The Dick has literally clogged espn.com with his inane commentary (as opposed to me, who just fills my blog with inane commentary). the dick still flat-out sucks, but it gets kind of old just picking on him. he says the same thing over and over again, and while that works really well for him, it doesn't make for very entertaining blogging.

we'll hit a couple items, just for kicks. the Dick's verbage in glorious bold, my responses/commentary in plain text.
from the Stock Watch on 10 jan:

Former Virginia Tech quarterback Marcus Vick for being thrown off the team and then being arrested for brandishing a weapon at a McDonald's. It is a sad story.

A sad story? It's a story of a spoiled brat making one bad decision after another. A sad story is when you find out your friend has cancer. A sad story is two strong, handsome cowboys having a torrid love affair, and then getting torn apart by society and their own... huh? oh, I got carried away. my bad. uhhh, where was I? Vick is not a sad story. He's an asshole.
this from Roundball Chalk Talk on 16 Jan:

At Missouri, coach Quin Snyder would be the first to tell you that pressure has mounted about his job status.

"pressure has mounted about his job status?" what does that even mean? How many grammatical errors are there in that sentence? Let's do a rewrite, as if we were in sixth grade: Quin Snyder would agree that if he doesn't win more games his job is at risk.
moving on...

All he has done is rolled up his sleeves, gone to work and shut the critics up by beating Oklahoma State and Oklahoma (in Norman). That's the quickest way to silence your detractors.

Umm... yeah. So you're saying he did his job, got some wins? That's weird, because I am under pressure to do my job, too. And the way I "shut the critics up" is to do my job. Quin, big ups from FDV for doing your job. I wish I had a howler monkey like Dick Vitale to stand up for me at my place of employment. Then I could really "silence my detractors" by doing, umm, what they hired me for. It would reduce the mounting pressure in my lower bowel.

great job all week.

march of the mondays! (guest contributor)

this one comes from another guest contributor.
official FDV nickname: B-Real.
I know that's some mid-80's c-list rap guys nickname, but I think it's funny.
here you go:
--------------------------
March of the Mondays

The reasons your friend might want to avoid the
penguin are many. First off, and kinda shallow, is
that the lady beneath the penguin suit is patently
unattractive. Not passing judgement here, just
providing analysis. It just so happens that I, like
Thomas, the protagonist in the unbearable lightness of
being, actually prefer women with creative body shapes
and distinctive looks. That being said, if our
penguin friend was cute she would probably a) not be
playing the theme park circuit in the first place or
b) have secured a roll with a better respiratory
situation than that provided by the ‘guin. Read; snow
white, cinderella, any character sin full facial
coverage. Okay, not cute. Perhaps, like most of us,
simply average? If average, a fake mole and plastic
nose would be adequate to lock in, at minimum, a role
as the wicked witch or an evil stepmother. Alas, our
friend required not only a character with complete
face concealment but also one with a suit capable of
disguising her body as well.

Okay, looks aren’t everything, you say, and your
right. Well, our the penguin appears to be none too
sharp neither. Similar to casey’s sentiments about
the use of “we” and professional sports, I feel it
poor form for those employed in the “entertainment”
industry to drop quotes pilfered from movies regarding
office culture. Granted, office space is diabolically
and catastrophically funny and the “mondays” line was
given by a service industry employee “brian” (no
relation). Regardless, this irony is beyond the
capacities of our lady friend. But the dramatic irony
need not end there. Those of us (myself included) who
moonlight in the service industry, as a very condition
of employment have to work nights and weekends i.e.,
the times the rest of you paper-pushing nine-to-fivers
have off. As a result, the penguin can not even
relate to what “the mondays” would be like, as to her,
mondays represent a break from dressing up like a
jackass for the enjoyment of the spoiled brats of the
aforementioned paper-pushing nine-to-fivers. These
not so nuanced nuances appear to have just “slipped
through your [her] fingers”.

Now now, in her defense, perhaps she truly enjoys
rocking the burqa-esque ‘stume on the weekends which
allows her to spend her mondays at home, getting high
and watching office space for the seventy-ninth time.
Actually, now that I think about it, smoking some dope
and piling a chick in a head-to-toe penguin suit might
be just what the doctor ordered for my itchy new case
of the mondays.

March of the Retards

I have a friend who's mom hasn't gotten the memo about him having a girlfriend. Exactly why mom didn't get the memo is unknown. I think she's on board now. in any case, she works overtime at getting him dates. she wants grandkids, and she is definitely the type of person that will tell you what's best for you. so she got together with somebody else's mom in a yoga class and the two hens decided that their respective chicks should meet. you follow so far? neither mom has seen the other one's kid. it's all just hot air. only a mom or a retard would ever do something like this.

email addresses are exchanged. Jeff gets in touch with the girl. Unlike his mom, he decides he better do some pre-screening before he invites this girl out to meet the homies. he asks what she does for a living, what for fun, and etc. and so on. also he sends a picture from a recent social event. he's trying to initiate some blind-date, who-do-you-know type of dialog. straightforward stuff, really.

turns out the girl works part-time for disney, and this is the photo she sends back:


I can't make this stuff up.


and the photo is titled "Shan as penguin". really.
I encourage you to come up with your own best title.
best one wins a 12-pack of PBR.

look at the photo again. LOOK AT IT!
is that what you call putting your best foot forward?

you want to meet a guy and you send him a photo of you IN A PENGUIN SUIT?!?!

her email also contained the following line (copied verbatim):
"I hope you weren't sporting a case of the Mondays today..."

sporting a case of the mondays? what does that even mean? and did you really send a picture of yourself in a penguin costume?
remember: best photo caption or title wins a twack of PBR. get there.

and if you're interested, I can forward you this girls email. she doesn't get out much. maybe you're into that.

wanted: girl to distract me until I get the new xbox

I've been getting some requests to re-post the sweet (and by sweet I mean totally awesome) personal advert I threw up (pun intended) on craigslist the other day.
it's kind of cheap to recycle content but you'll read it anyway. you jerks.
I got one response from a girl that said she would "distract me." I emailed her back but she didn't respond. that's probably for the best.

for the record: I still don't have a new xbox.
-----------------------------------------------
wanted: girl to distract me until I get the new xbox - 31

I got to thinking about exactly what I was looking for in a relationship and I realized that it's not much.
just someone to keep me distracted until my new xbox gets here.

about me: I like to read, work out, travel, and eat mexican food.
i'm fit, 6 feet tall, brn hair and brn eyes.
decent looking. dry sense of humor. if you're interested I'll send you a picture.

about you: 22-34, fit (this is a must - don't email me if you're thick),
willing to eat out or get coffee once or twice a week, pretend you're interested,
and chat about music, books, religion, politics, etc. i'm not looking to make out with you, and sexual intercourse is neither implied nor guaranteed.
you just have to get my attention for a few weeks, maybe as long as a few months.

after the xbox arrives I definitely won't be able to fit you into my schedule. just 24 hours in a day, and I can't compromise one of my other hobbies. I like to go out to the bars with my friends, so i'm not going to quit doing that. I can't give up working out or I'll turn into a butterball. can't make time during the workday because I'm working. maybe we can compromise and catch up at the gym? we'll see.

I look forward to hearing from you.
.
. this is in or around in newport

celebrating the sports landscape; the royal "we"; also, swinging the hammer of ambition at the nail of sloth

this is a great time of year if you're a football fan.
The USC Trojans were, well, used like a Trojan by the Texas Longhorns, and the best player on the best team is going to take his chances in the NFL draft.
This past weekend, and the upcoming weekend, bring us a full football calendar, w/ 2 games each on saturday and sunday. Plus it's playoff football, which means that the games really do mean something. right now there's a nice ratio of hype to game. the hype machine ratchets up the later we get into january, which is odd, because there's less football to actually watch. I am a fan of football, but not a die-hard fan. My favorite team (the niners) are unwatchable. But I do enjoy the game, and I appreciate that there are a lot of losers out there that use the word "we" in reference to a particular team. This makes me laugh.

here's the deal: if you were never on the payroll for a particular franchise, then you cannot accurately use the word "we" in reference to the team's performance. I understand you feel a strong connection to the squad, and that you bought the jersey, and (as Seinfeld pointed out) you're in love with laundry. That is no excuse. This "we" stuff has got to stop. Here's a list of defintions of the word from dictionary.com:

1. Used by the speaker or writer to indicate the speaker or writer along with another or others as the subject: We made it to the lecture hall on time. We are planning a trip to Arizona this winter.
2. Used to refer to people in general, including the speaker or writer: “How can we enter the professions and yet remain civilized human beings?” (Virginia Woolf).
3. Used instead of I, especially by a writer wishing to reduce or avoid a subjective tone.
4. Used instead of I, especially by an editorialist, in expressing the opinion or point of view of a publication's management.
5. Used instead of I by a sovereign in formal address to refer to himself or herself.

at no point in there does it say, "used by a member of the unaffiliated general public in reference to a particular sports team or club to imply an affinity or (nonexistent) relationship." glad we [definition 4] cleared that up. a ha.

as far as the hammer and nail thing goes, I'm doing my best over here. really. we'll get back to firing dick vitale later this week. it's only monday. I'll post again on friday at the latest.

Dear USC Dynasty: suck it; Texas knows cheerleading; and: Vegas on NYE = Hell on earth

Yes! Yes! Yes! why! eee! ess! YES!
I've been away for a bit. I was out of town for NYE, visiting Las Vegas. That's a supposedly fun thing I'll never do again. More on that later.

The most important thing we can talk about in today's entry is what excellent news it was that USC lost last nights national championship game. If you're reading this then I don't need to give you all the details. Suffice to say that the game lived up to the hype, and that USCs winning streak came to an end. I live in USC central, and there are few things more annoying the USC fans that didn't go to the school. (Maybe Notre Dame fans that didn't go to Notre Dame.) One thing more annoying than fans that didn't go to the school are the fans that did. USC grads just suck (with some exceptions). It's possible that rich, white american high school kids already have a strong sense of entitlement and superiority before they get there, but USC must put arrogance on the curriculum, because the students seem to master it before they graduate. I don't even notice when someone from USC doesn't remember that we've already met a couple times, or that we have mutual friends. If you didn't go there then you don't rate.

Thus it was nice to see USC lose so I don't have to hear about how great they are for the next 3 months. they will contend next year and beyond, because they have a good program and they're on TV a lot. But the streak is over. And not a moment too soon.

Re: Texas and cheerleading - they do it right down there. For better or for worse, cheerleading is SERIOUS business down in Texas. When you are a boy growing up in Texas you want to play high school football. If you're a girl, you want to make the cheerleading squad. (this is outlined at length in the seminal book on hs football in texas, Friday Night Lights.) Cheer at UT Austin is a big deal, and I have to give the UT squads props for being much, much cuter than the USC cheer squad. SC had the edge in outfits (best cheer outfits in any sport, college or pro), but Texas girls were way cuter, and there were a lot more of them. respect.

Finally, I have experienced hell and it looks like Vegas on NYE. I didn't know what I was getting myself into but I went to the strip on NYE and next thing I know I was having a freakout. at one point I just picked my feet up and there was so much crowd pressure i just hung there, continuing to move in whatever direction the crowd took me. not a good feeling. lots of screaming, anxious people. tens of thousands. no room to turn around or control your direction. just thinking about it gives me the willies. yuk. don't do it. ever.
fireworks were pretty good, though.
and my friend Dave showed us some sweet, sweet moves on a stripper pole.
go to my myspace page for pix: http://www.myspace.com/casewriter