But extremely varying wraps. TD, everyone knows he's a star. Dwight Howard, well he's the definition of a manchild. People go on an on about his upside, but if he keeps up what he's doing now, that's enough for me. Carlos Boozer was almost hounded out of town for being a no show in the first year of a six year, $65 million deal with Utah. Now people think he's actually earning that. Which brings us to Andris Biedrins. Nobody expected him to be putting up numbers like this, and nobody expects him to maintain it for the season. We'll see. As it is, he's top 15 rebounding, top 5 field goal percentage, top 5 blocks.
The lines:
TD @ GSW
22pts (9 of 18), 16 boards, 4 assists, 1 steal, 6 blocks, 5 turnovers
AB vs SA
18pts (8 of 15), 15 boards, 4 assists, 1 steal, 6 blocks, 1 turnover
a win for golden state surprisingly
DH @ Jazz
21 pts, 16 boards
CB vs Magic
21 pts, 9 boards (mind you, AK47's back and he took a little of the scoring and rebounding slack off Boozer, putting up an AK-like 11 pts, 5 boards, 5 assists, 3 steals, 4 blocks)
a win for the Magic, suprisingly
the only surprise I need now is GS to win @ Orlando.
In other news, I got my results for Honours yesterday. And they were good.
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Sunday, November 26, 2006
FACT
i am bitterly disgusted by the behaviour of the federation against copyright theft. They put out a really funny anti-piracy ad and i am forced to watch it before my lano & woodley dvd.
Somebody made a factual addition to their entry at wikipedia referring to this proper Gandhi, but it was removed by the thought police. Instead, we now have this:
"FACT's adverts appear at the beginning of many videos and DVDs, urging consumers to check whether they have a genuine copy, and providing contact details to report any illegalities."
Which version do you prefer?
Somebody made a factual addition to their entry at wikipedia referring to this proper Gandhi, but it was removed by the thought police. Instead, we now have this:
"FACT's adverts appear at the beginning of many videos and DVDs, urging consumers to check whether they have a genuine copy, and providing contact details to report any illegalities."
Which version do you prefer?
Coming out of the clothesbox
It's time I outed mice elf. I am an avid fanatical bozo of the NBA. i like:
Amazing athletes. These people are tall, fast, powerful, have stamina and entirely imposing. My all time supa vaforit e is Latrell Sprewell. When he busted on the seen he was an instant success, which lead to the pinnacle of his career, the Landlord (3pt Phoenix? Owns it. Baseline Seattle? Owns it. Tell 'em about Orlando. Owns it.) series of shoe adverts. He then went through the Strangler phase, which included him strangling is boss. Then he played with an original manchild Kevin Garnett. Now he runs a fish gutting operation out of East River on the Hudson, Mississippi. Times is tough, but he'll always have his first team defense and all nba second team credentials to reminisce on/upon.
Then there's the 720 dunk. Are the general public aware of this feat? I think if they were it would radically alter their weltanschau. there should be a video of these running perpetually in a medi-yum such as televiJohn. i tried this manouevre down at my local court, and the judge threw me out. When i tried it at my local basketball court, i managed 540 degrees but couldn't get it in the hole, to quote Niles Standish.
Good commercials. The LeBrons Nike series is quite good, which many people understand to mean very good.
Good commentators. I remember joking with my schoolfrenz about the dude from the one from NBA Action! Tasty dishes! We're havin' a block party!
in other news, i was shocked and amused by this
Amazing athletes. These people are tall, fast, powerful, have stamina and entirely imposing. My all time supa vaforit e is Latrell Sprewell. When he busted on the seen he was an instant success, which lead to the pinnacle of his career, the Landlord (3pt Phoenix? Owns it. Baseline Seattle? Owns it. Tell 'em about Orlando. Owns it.) series of shoe adverts. He then went through the Strangler phase, which included him strangling is boss. Then he played with an original manchild Kevin Garnett. Now he runs a fish gutting operation out of East River on the Hudson, Mississippi. Times is tough, but he'll always have his first team defense and all nba second team credentials to reminisce on/upon.
Then there's the 720 dunk. Are the general public aware of this feat? I think if they were it would radically alter their weltanschau. there should be a video of these running perpetually in a medi-yum such as televiJohn. i tried this manouevre down at my local court, and the judge threw me out. When i tried it at my local basketball court, i managed 540 degrees but couldn't get it in the hole, to quote Niles Standish.
Good commercials. The LeBrons Nike series is quite good, which many people understand to mean very good.
Good commentators. I remember joking with my schoolfrenz about the dude from the one from NBA Action! Tasty dishes! We're havin' a block party!
in other news, i was shocked and amused by this
Two stuff
These withered hands
have dug for a dream
sifted through sand
and
left over nightmares
ooover the hill
a desolate wind
turns shit to gold and blows my soul crazy
the end
oh the end
we live again
oh I grew weary of the end
That day I found Beck again. Somewhere along the line I'd lost him. Been to the Museums of the mars volta, the Westmeads of ween and the Petershams of crash test dummies. Back the soul mass transit system's just pulled in to Platform 1 at Becksville, and it's good to be back.
Dude can write lyrics.
But the real reason I wrote is to inform you of what is undeniably a return to form of ...The [zoom out clouds] Siiiimpsons...
They got a movie trailer. You MUST WATCH IT NOW
have dug for a dream
sifted through sand
and
left over nightmares
ooover the hill
a desolate wind
turns shit to gold and blows my soul crazy
the end
oh the end
we live again
oh I grew weary of the end
That day I found Beck again. Somewhere along the line I'd lost him. Been to the Museums of the mars volta, the Westmeads of ween and the Petershams of crash test dummies. Back the soul mass transit system's just pulled in to Platform 1 at Becksville, and it's good to be back.
Dude can write lyrics.
But the real reason I wrote is to inform you of what is undeniably a return to form of ...The [zoom out clouds] Siiiimpsons...
They got a movie trailer. You MUST WATCH IT NOW
Sunday, November 19, 2006
It's about time I give credit where it's do
Tony Martin is one cool dude. Well, he's funny. And it was on his radio show that I discovered the talents of Stan Bush. There's also some very funny clips of politicians saying strange things at his website (below).
Comedian's with the knack for making you laugh are a rare breed indeed, and they cost quite a bit, then you have to get a license, use a leash in many areas. It's just not worth it.
But these are:
Tony Martin's latest incarnation
Shaun Micallef
Lano & Woodley
They're all from the Austrealand Region, my beloved ice cream bar.
Comedian's with the knack for making you laugh are a rare breed indeed, and they cost quite a bit, then you have to get a license, use a leash in many areas. It's just not worth it.
But these are:
Tony Martin's latest incarnation
Shaun Micallef
Lano & Woodley
They're all from the Austrealand Region, my beloved ice cream bar.
You've got the touch
You've got the power.
After all is said and done, you never walked you never run. You're a winner.
Stan Bush is my personal motivational speaker and his words in song form are killer. Do yourself a favour and listen. It does get a bit old after a while, but don't we all? Don't we all.
After all is said and done, you never walked you never run. You're a winner.
Stan Bush is my personal motivational speaker and his words in song form are killer. Do yourself a favour and listen. It does get a bit old after a while, but don't we all? Don't we all.
You love reading science news stories
Some psychologists believe that if scared rats are any indication of human behaviour, we shouldn't rush in to treat the fears of recently traumatised people. Hmmm.
But can they tell how many donuts I ate last week? I'd like to see them try. Some researchers have examined ancient teeth to find out what ye olde hominid ate.
Potent potable - I mean painkiller discovered in saliva. I love it because just when people think they know about the body, they discover a totally new compound right there in somebody's spitball. Of course, you'd have to be a Pavlov's dog (or padlocked door) to drool enough to get any kind of effect.
My next article will be entirely self-generated. That is, I am seeking out the news meself. Oooh, I wonder what I'll find!
But can they tell how many donuts I ate last week? I'd like to see them try. Some researchers have examined ancient teeth to find out what ye olde hominid ate.
Potent potable - I mean painkiller discovered in saliva. I love it because just when people think they know about the body, they discover a totally new compound right there in somebody's spitball. Of course, you'd have to be a Pavlov's dog (or padlocked door) to drool enough to get any kind of effect.
My next article will be entirely self-generated. That is, I am seeking out the news meself. Oooh, I wonder what I'll find!
Thursday, November 02, 2006
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
The Summer of George
Actually, this is A Sports Guy's preview of the summer of sport which is presently crashing down over our heads even before the season has turned.
League
The tri-nations are just not as exciting as many regular season NRL games. Maybe if the Kiwis had SBW, and maybe if they had Benji, and maybe if the Warriors were a force...then we would see a contest as gripping as a Grand Final or State of Origin. You know, where you are generally interested in the game the whole way through? Which brings me to...
Cricket
I'm sorry people, but any sport that causes this much ink to be spilled had better translate into great entertainment. But who can say they are gripped by cricket the whole way through? Not the commentators, who are forced into rotation to maintain freshness (TV) or mundane patter occasionally interrupted by commentary (radio). Yes, it has its damn good moments, and part of the hook is that you have to watch the whole freaking five days in case something happens. Some parallels to the slow burn of soccer there. But you can't seriously maintain that you won't be reaching for that remote, or finding yourself absolutely not wondering what you're missing as you have a beer in the backyard.
Tennis
Always the bridesmaid, never the groom. Tennis can generate drama, but is capable of perhaps more boredom than cricket. The problem here isn't the game itself, but the fact that 95% of games are shite. The good ones are damn good. Spanning a couple of hours, the length is reasonable. And the emotion of it all, after a marathon (can we try another metaphor here, please? How 'bout triathlon, because they're harder) five setter... Tennis also has a strange stable of commentators that always manage to grab some attention. Whispering John Alexander, effusive Bruce McAvaney, happy to be there Sandy Roberts, frail John Barrett. And incisive, insightful commentary from Newk. What I like about him was that as Rafter was trying to get out of a difficult period in a Wimbledon semi, he'd say "I was just talking to Pat about this on Wednesday, and we agreed that he needs to be more, not less aggressive on these kinds of points." After which Rafter would win the point and there would be a moment of silence.
Basketball
The cool friend who isn't cool any more. Not sure what happened, but this once-on-the-cusp sport has failed to deliver for so long that we might as well call it Braith Anasta (Love your work Braith, but it was either you or Mark Philippousis. Have you noticed how for the last four years "my best tennis is ahead of me"? He'll be saying this from the seniors tour). Thing is, I watched a game the other day as part of Nine's new 'commitment' to basketball and the players were rudely talented. You had these up and comers who nobody's ever heard of draining threes, taking it to the hole and generally showing the kind of promise that NBA scouts would drool over. A little schooling, a few tats, some work in the weight room and these guys could be on $20 million contracts. And yet there's the defending champs, drawing a crowd of 1,500 to their home games and being ignored by the press. I don't know what would give Australian baketball the props it deserves, and the people who run the NBL have no clue either.
Snooker
Watching a professional female snooker player wearing a visor mishit so badly that she grazed the white ball and sent it three millimetres to the left - priceless.
Football
Why the obsession with the EPL?
League
The tri-nations are just not as exciting as many regular season NRL games. Maybe if the Kiwis had SBW, and maybe if they had Benji, and maybe if the Warriors were a force...then we would see a contest as gripping as a Grand Final or State of Origin. You know, where you are generally interested in the game the whole way through? Which brings me to...
Cricket
I'm sorry people, but any sport that causes this much ink to be spilled had better translate into great entertainment. But who can say they are gripped by cricket the whole way through? Not the commentators, who are forced into rotation to maintain freshness (TV) or mundane patter occasionally interrupted by commentary (radio). Yes, it has its damn good moments, and part of the hook is that you have to watch the whole freaking five days in case something happens. Some parallels to the slow burn of soccer there. But you can't seriously maintain that you won't be reaching for that remote, or finding yourself absolutely not wondering what you're missing as you have a beer in the backyard.
Tennis
Always the bridesmaid, never the groom. Tennis can generate drama, but is capable of perhaps more boredom than cricket. The problem here isn't the game itself, but the fact that 95% of games are shite. The good ones are damn good. Spanning a couple of hours, the length is reasonable. And the emotion of it all, after a marathon (can we try another metaphor here, please? How 'bout triathlon, because they're harder) five setter... Tennis also has a strange stable of commentators that always manage to grab some attention. Whispering John Alexander, effusive Bruce McAvaney, happy to be there Sandy Roberts, frail John Barrett. And incisive, insightful commentary from Newk. What I like about him was that as Rafter was trying to get out of a difficult period in a Wimbledon semi, he'd say "I was just talking to Pat about this on Wednesday, and we agreed that he needs to be more, not less aggressive on these kinds of points." After which Rafter would win the point and there would be a moment of silence.
Basketball
The cool friend who isn't cool any more. Not sure what happened, but this once-on-the-cusp sport has failed to deliver for so long that we might as well call it Braith Anasta (Love your work Braith, but it was either you or Mark Philippousis. Have you noticed how for the last four years "my best tennis is ahead of me"? He'll be saying this from the seniors tour). Thing is, I watched a game the other day as part of Nine's new 'commitment' to basketball and the players were rudely talented. You had these up and comers who nobody's ever heard of draining threes, taking it to the hole and generally showing the kind of promise that NBA scouts would drool over. A little schooling, a few tats, some work in the weight room and these guys could be on $20 million contracts. And yet there's the defending champs, drawing a crowd of 1,500 to their home games and being ignored by the press. I don't know what would give Australian baketball the props it deserves, and the people who run the NBL have no clue either.
Snooker
Watching a professional female snooker player wearing a visor mishit so badly that she grazed the white ball and sent it three millimetres to the left - priceless.
Football
Why the obsession with the EPL?
Social success went to our heads
This was my way of summarising a story I wrote about some evolutionary scientists and mathematicians interested in the Machiavellian hypothesis - that the explosion in brain size that occurred in Homo sapiens from about 350,000 years ago to about 50,000 years ago was driven by social competition. It works a little like this:
Have little brain --> can't do jack
Brain gets a bit bigger --> can deceive, form alliances, flatter etc
Those with slightly bigger brains can do more of the social scheming and get more intercourse and pass on more genes for bigger brains.
~~~
The acquisition of knowledge in the sciences these days is astounding. Yet Craig Venter couldn't have put it better when he said that we don't know shit. I think this statement means different things to different people. To me, it shows an appreciation for the complexity of the life that saturates the world we live in. In my opinion - which I'd like to think is factually correct - we can't ever explain everything, if only for the simple reason that there are more species than person-hours to understand them. The sooner we realise our limitations, the sooner our priorities reflect reality.
The thing is, a layperson might interpret Venter's comment as an attack on science or its validity, which I think if you look at Craig Venter's history, it wasn't.
The continual hyping of research (which is an industry and which I am now a small part of) is rarely accompanied by serious and thoughtful commentary on what we know and what we don't; on how sure we are of the things we think we know; on why we fund what we fund; and what this knowledge means for us all. Does it mean that we understand life? That a cure for cancer is just around the corner? That we understand ecosystems?
Even if we could get better media analysis of science, I'm with David Suzuki and that communications theorist he quotes in a recent book, that science blurbs are part of an overall pattern of information flood which renders the receiver unable to do anything. It's all too damn passive. Just like this blog! At least you can post a comment if you please.
~~~
By the way, the hypothesis that lies behind all medical research (which is the vast majority of all research) is that we should live forever, free from pain, suffering and abnormality. I couldn't begrudge a sick person treatment but wait a couple of decades for the science to advance and lots of people - and politicians - will be asking themselves questions about this. This is too meaty a topic for further exposition here.
Have little brain --> can't do jack
Brain gets a bit bigger --> can deceive, form alliances, flatter etc
Those with slightly bigger brains can do more of the social scheming and get more intercourse and pass on more genes for bigger brains.
~~~
The acquisition of knowledge in the sciences these days is astounding. Yet Craig Venter couldn't have put it better when he said that we don't know shit. I think this statement means different things to different people. To me, it shows an appreciation for the complexity of the life that saturates the world we live in. In my opinion - which I'd like to think is factually correct - we can't ever explain everything, if only for the simple reason that there are more species than person-hours to understand them. The sooner we realise our limitations, the sooner our priorities reflect reality.
The thing is, a layperson might interpret Venter's comment as an attack on science or its validity, which I think if you look at Craig Venter's history, it wasn't.
The continual hyping of research (which is an industry and which I am now a small part of) is rarely accompanied by serious and thoughtful commentary on what we know and what we don't; on how sure we are of the things we think we know; on why we fund what we fund; and what this knowledge means for us all. Does it mean that we understand life? That a cure for cancer is just around the corner? That we understand ecosystems?
Even if we could get better media analysis of science, I'm with David Suzuki and that communications theorist he quotes in a recent book, that science blurbs are part of an overall pattern of information flood which renders the receiver unable to do anything. It's all too damn passive. Just like this blog! At least you can post a comment if you please.
~~~
By the way, the hypothesis that lies behind all medical research (which is the vast majority of all research) is that we should live forever, free from pain, suffering and abnormality. I couldn't begrudge a sick person treatment but wait a couple of decades for the science to advance and lots of people - and politicians - will be asking themselves questions about this. This is too meaty a topic for further exposition here.
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