They can stay in the flat through July. Just got word today.
Friday, February 02, 2007
Super Bowl in London
Party at the Walkabout.
I'm in.
There's nothing more American than seeing the Super Bowl at an Australian-themed bar in London, is there?
I'm in.
There's nothing more American than seeing the Super Bowl at an Australian-themed bar in London, is there?
Thursday, February 01, 2007
My brilliant plan for my future happiness and world peace
Step 1) get a better plan
(It's an old joke, I know.)
(It's an old joke, I know.)
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Super Bowl week basketball thoughts
I wish the game were over already. It's bad enough that the Pats aren't in it, but the Colts? Ugh.
So, since I've been focused on footbal for the past five months, and ignoring other sports, I thought I'd take a look at my basketball teams to see how they are doing.
Ugh.
UConn has several "promising" players, but they have been losing quite a lot recently. Also, I don't really have much of a tie to Connecticut anymore since Mom moved to NOLA. I doubt my UConn allegiance will last forever. If/when Calhoun retires, what ties me to the school?
My "other" college team is Georgetown, and they're doing a bit better under JTIII, but I haven't followed them enough to know if they can make a Final Four run. I'm doubting it.
And then there are the Celtics. I looked at the standings and saw that not only have they lost their last ten games, but the only team in the NBA with a worse record is Memphis. And their top three scorers are all injured! Greg Oden sweepstakes, here we come! But as any long-suffering Celtics' fan will tell you, playing for the lottery sweepstakes is a bad idea. Even the worst team has relatively slim odds of getting the #1 pick. Back in the Duncan year, when the C's had two picks in the lottery and the highest odds of winning the Duncan rights, their odds were only about 30%. Now a lot of innumerates will say "they had the highest odds of winning, so it's surprising they didn't win". But, um, duh, they had a 70% chance of not winning the top pick! (And then, when they lost that shot, their odds of getting the #2 pick were actually lower, since the Grizzlies at the time were prevented by the rules from getting the #1 pick but were allowed to get the #2 pick.)
Anyway, the C's suck right now. I don't think they'll ever put together an exciting team under Danny Ainge and Doc Rivers. Of course the standard for the Celtics is "NBA finals at least".
Update: correction - the Celtics have now lost 13 in a row. Oh, and Paul Pierce was supposed to be out for "2 or 3 weeks" starting from some date in mid-December. Why, again, is Sebastian Telfair on this team?
So, since I've been focused on footbal for the past five months, and ignoring other sports, I thought I'd take a look at my basketball teams to see how they are doing.
Ugh.
UConn has several "promising" players, but they have been losing quite a lot recently. Also, I don't really have much of a tie to Connecticut anymore since Mom moved to NOLA. I doubt my UConn allegiance will last forever. If/when Calhoun retires, what ties me to the school?
My "other" college team is Georgetown, and they're doing a bit better under JTIII, but I haven't followed them enough to know if they can make a Final Four run. I'm doubting it.
And then there are the Celtics. I looked at the standings and saw that not only have they lost their last ten games, but the only team in the NBA with a worse record is Memphis. And their top three scorers are all injured! Greg Oden sweepstakes, here we come! But as any long-suffering Celtics' fan will tell you, playing for the lottery sweepstakes is a bad idea. Even the worst team has relatively slim odds of getting the #1 pick. Back in the Duncan year, when the C's had two picks in the lottery and the highest odds of winning the Duncan rights, their odds were only about 30%. Now a lot of innumerates will say "they had the highest odds of winning, so it's surprising they didn't win". But, um, duh, they had a 70% chance of not winning the top pick! (And then, when they lost that shot, their odds of getting the #2 pick were actually lower, since the Grizzlies at the time were prevented by the rules from getting the #1 pick but were allowed to get the #2 pick.)
Anyway, the C's suck right now. I don't think they'll ever put together an exciting team under Danny Ainge and Doc Rivers. Of course the standard for the Celtics is "NBA finals at least".
Update: correction - the Celtics have now lost 13 in a row. Oh, and Paul Pierce was supposed to be out for "2 or 3 weeks" starting from some date in mid-December. Why, again, is Sebastian Telfair on this team?
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Bobby
This film was surprisingly good. By "surprisingly", I mean, considering it was Emilio Estevez's project. The last film project of his I was aware of was "Men at Work", a forgettable film featuring himself and brother Charlie Sheen as a pair of fun-loving garbagemen. And I think the last I'd noticed anything of his career was when he was getting squished in an elevator shaft in Mission Impossible (not to be confused with either of the two sequels, all of which had identical plots).
Anyway, "Bobby" is a slice of life/ensemble film about a number of people at the Ambassador hotel in California on the day of the California primary in 1968, aka the day Bobby Kennedy was shot and the last day that an idealistic liberal had a shot at the White House, as far as I can tell.
I was just a few months old at the time. A lot of people cite it as the year idealism died in America.
Perhaps that's a bit melodramatic.
Anyway, the ensemble cast was pretty good. Some of the characters seemed a bit extraneous. I couldn't quite figure out what Anthony Hopkins was doing in the picture. But I suppose that was the point of his character. Some of the actors were notably good. WH Macy was excellent as usual, but I thought Sharon Stone was unusually good playing his wife. I think the movie was somewhat stolen by youngsters Shia Lebouef and Brian Geraghty, who play a pair of RFK volunteers who decide to play hooky on the door-to-door knocking and instead drop acid. I think this was the first Lindsay Lohan film I've seen: she was very good. I hope she doesn't waste her talent hanging around no-talents named Spears and Hilton. (To be fair, Britney Spears has a reasonable amount of talent - it's just not at singing. And I don't think she's clever enough to get away with having a career as a singer with that holding her back. But I digress.)
Anyway, there's not much more to say about the film. Ensemble films tend to suffer from being hard to sum up in a short blurb. In this case, the way to sum it up was to say that all of the characters seemed to be really deeply hurt by the shooting. I may be projecting here, though.
I think I'll read up on the assassination. Seems strange that RFK's entourage was ushered through the kitchen of all places. Doesn't it? I guess that was the quickest way out. But again, the security sucked, didn't it?
Update:
Yeah, this smells like another bad shooting.
I wonder if we'll ever have the proof about the Kennedy assassinations? Now that Howard Hunt has died, perhaps the truth will out?
Nah!
Anyway, "Bobby" is a slice of life/ensemble film about a number of people at the Ambassador hotel in California on the day of the California primary in 1968, aka the day Bobby Kennedy was shot and the last day that an idealistic liberal had a shot at the White House, as far as I can tell.
I was just a few months old at the time. A lot of people cite it as the year idealism died in America.
Perhaps that's a bit melodramatic.
Anyway, the ensemble cast was pretty good. Some of the characters seemed a bit extraneous. I couldn't quite figure out what Anthony Hopkins was doing in the picture. But I suppose that was the point of his character. Some of the actors were notably good. WH Macy was excellent as usual, but I thought Sharon Stone was unusually good playing his wife. I think the movie was somewhat stolen by youngsters Shia Lebouef and Brian Geraghty, who play a pair of RFK volunteers who decide to play hooky on the door-to-door knocking and instead drop acid. I think this was the first Lindsay Lohan film I've seen: she was very good. I hope she doesn't waste her talent hanging around no-talents named Spears and Hilton. (To be fair, Britney Spears has a reasonable amount of talent - it's just not at singing. And I don't think she's clever enough to get away with having a career as a singer with that holding her back. But I digress.)
Anyway, there's not much more to say about the film. Ensemble films tend to suffer from being hard to sum up in a short blurb. In this case, the way to sum it up was to say that all of the characters seemed to be really deeply hurt by the shooting. I may be projecting here, though.
I think I'll read up on the assassination. Seems strange that RFK's entourage was ushered through the kitchen of all places. Doesn't it? I guess that was the quickest way out. But again, the security sucked, didn't it?
Update:
Yeah, this smells like another bad shooting.
I wonder if we'll ever have the proof about the Kennedy assassinations? Now that Howard Hunt has died, perhaps the truth will out?
Nah!
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Colts 38 Patriots 34
*sigh*
The run is over. Winning two in a row on the road against the Chargers and the Colts was a bit too much for this damaged Pats team. On the whole a good season - a better season ultimately than the seasons of all but two other NFL teams. But when it mattered, the middle of the Pats' D simply could not stop the Colts' passing game. And so the Pats get to watch the Super Bowl from home.
Would the Pats have had these difficulties if they'd had Rodney Harrison and Junior Seau? If they'd had both of them, I don't think so. Seau isn't quite the LB he was ten years ago, but he's still a very intelligent player and was doing a great job in the middle before his injury. And Rodney Harrison would have been a Pro Bowler this year if he hadn't had his two injuries. The second one is particularly galling for Pats fans, since he had just come back from the broken scapula and then the stupid Titans hit his knee with a possibly illegal block. (The Pats maintain it was illegal based on the direction the block was happening.)
And the other annoying injury, one that doesn't quite get enough mention, is whatever the hell is wrong with Brady. Brady watchers noticed that he was inexplicably missing wide open receivers time and time again in the second half of the season. And of course, he was on the injury list every week. Kinda of a good hint that he's actually injured. Sure, Coach B is not above messing around with the injury list, but in this case I think something was actually going on.
Injuries are a part of football, and the Colts also had some to deal with. Bob Sanders had just come back from a serious injury and had revitalized their defense, and then in the game itself Peyton Manning clearly injured his thumb, to the point he was telling his backup to "Get ready".
Super Bowl preview:
Colts are going to slaughter the Bears. Give the TD, they'll probably win by more than 10 points. Super Bowls are almost always blowouts, and there's little reason to think this year will be different. If the Bears weren't missing two key defenders, I think they could stop the Colts offense - at least slow it down about as well as the Ravens did. But could they move the ball against the Colts?
That's still a question. The Bears have a good running game, and that may in theory be a problem for the Colts. But the Colts run defense has been much better in the playoffs.
And then there's the Bears' passing game. "Erratic" is too kind a word. But it's easy to make fun of Rex Grossman and forget that he has at least one very good receiver.
And thus endeth the attempt to convince myself that the Bears have any chance here. The Colts' offense is firing on all cylinder and I don't think the Bears are going to be able to bring enough of a pass rush to slow it down. Also, the Colts have been on the cusp of winning the Super Bowl for a few years now and they really want it bad. They are going to be highly motivated and will likely play mistake-free football.
When all is said and done, the Pats did the Colts a huge favor by taking down the one team that would have slaughtered them - the Chargers. So this is the Colts' year.
I might not stay up for the whole thing. I can't root for the Colts because, well, they're the Colts. And I can't root for the Bears because I still remember Super Bowl XX and because, well, I have a bet riding on the Colts.
The run is over. Winning two in a row on the road against the Chargers and the Colts was a bit too much for this damaged Pats team. On the whole a good season - a better season ultimately than the seasons of all but two other NFL teams. But when it mattered, the middle of the Pats' D simply could not stop the Colts' passing game. And so the Pats get to watch the Super Bowl from home.
Would the Pats have had these difficulties if they'd had Rodney Harrison and Junior Seau? If they'd had both of them, I don't think so. Seau isn't quite the LB he was ten years ago, but he's still a very intelligent player and was doing a great job in the middle before his injury. And Rodney Harrison would have been a Pro Bowler this year if he hadn't had his two injuries. The second one is particularly galling for Pats fans, since he had just come back from the broken scapula and then the stupid Titans hit his knee with a possibly illegal block. (The Pats maintain it was illegal based on the direction the block was happening.)
And the other annoying injury, one that doesn't quite get enough mention, is whatever the hell is wrong with Brady. Brady watchers noticed that he was inexplicably missing wide open receivers time and time again in the second half of the season. And of course, he was on the injury list every week. Kinda of a good hint that he's actually injured. Sure, Coach B is not above messing around with the injury list, but in this case I think something was actually going on.
Injuries are a part of football, and the Colts also had some to deal with. Bob Sanders had just come back from a serious injury and had revitalized their defense, and then in the game itself Peyton Manning clearly injured his thumb, to the point he was telling his backup to "Get ready".
Super Bowl preview:
Colts are going to slaughter the Bears. Give the TD, they'll probably win by more than 10 points. Super Bowls are almost always blowouts, and there's little reason to think this year will be different. If the Bears weren't missing two key defenders, I think they could stop the Colts offense - at least slow it down about as well as the Ravens did. But could they move the ball against the Colts?
That's still a question. The Bears have a good running game, and that may in theory be a problem for the Colts. But the Colts run defense has been much better in the playoffs.
And then there's the Bears' passing game. "Erratic" is too kind a word. But it's easy to make fun of Rex Grossman and forget that he has at least one very good receiver.
And thus endeth the attempt to convince myself that the Bears have any chance here. The Colts' offense is firing on all cylinder and I don't think the Bears are going to be able to bring enough of a pass rush to slow it down. Also, the Colts have been on the cusp of winning the Super Bowl for a few years now and they really want it bad. They are going to be highly motivated and will likely play mistake-free football.
When all is said and done, the Pats did the Colts a huge favor by taking down the one team that would have slaughtered them - the Chargers. So this is the Colts' year.
I might not stay up for the whole thing. I can't root for the Colts because, well, they're the Colts. And I can't root for the Bears because I still remember Super Bowl XX and because, well, I have a bet riding on the Colts.
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