Monday, November 30, 2009

Apocalypse Soon

What the heck, here's another screed from the past, somewhere around June of 2008. A buddy of mine emailed out a link, to which another buddy replied, "I LOVE THAT GUY'S SHIRT!" This is what I came up with.


Okay -- I'd already looked at this video, had my little chuckle, and moved on with my life. Then, love is professed for the guy's shirt. Any of you who know me know that fashion and it's applications are not the first things I notice, so I had no idea what this guy's shirt looked like. Curiosity got the better of me, and I had to know what incited the gushing and the caps-lock. I took another look at the video, and yes, I agree, that is a most fetching outfit that dude has on, especially if this is 1982.

However -- as I mentioned above, fashion is not usually enough to hold my focus, and as I'd already seen this particular video, my gnat-like attention span kicked in and my eyes started to wander. So, this guy has apparently done other humorous videos that were housed on the same site. You don't say? I clicked on a couple of them, and one of them was a vignette entitled, 'How To Break Up With A Chubby Girlfriend,' and it basically was three minutes of all the worst things you could do in that situation, but funny. (Well, funny-ish.) It was on this innocuous page, however, that I learned two things -- one, that the apocalypse is imminent, and two, however it happens, we have no need to fear that it will be because the computers rise up and take over (a la The Matrix or The Terminator).

There were Google ads on the page, and I am now confident that computers will never take over the world for this reason -- they have no sense of humour and they take everything too literally. The name of the page included the words 'Break-Up' and 'Chubby,' so the Google ads featured sites aimed at people who were breaking up with chubby people, not understanding that the people who land on a humour site are rarely actually looking for advice. However -- while we are safe from the wrath of ones and zeroes, the end is nigh, because there were not one, but two ads promising that you could, 'Get Your Ex Back In As Little As 2 Days.' (There was also an ad for those who wished to 'Find Local Gay Chubby Men Near You,' and I must admit I could not click on the link, and the main reason was that I did not want the URL http://www.gaychubbydating.com/ to show up in my browsing history. I live alone, no-one would care, I could just clear the history right away, for crying out loud, but no, I dared not click. I don't know what it says about me that the fact that they were chubby and gay was much more daunting than if they were just one or the other.)

I clicked on these two Get Your Ex Back links, and the first one left me awed. Definitely aimed at men only, and written as if women and relationships were roughly as complicated as VCR repair. For the low low price of $47, you can learn:

  • The quick 2-step formula to stop all arguments and show your ex that you have a happy future together. (Page 92)
  • How to make her laugh with you, and have her appreciate you again. Here's why it works... give your ex the proper kind of teasing and make her laugh, and she'll be psychologically unable to dislike you anymore. (Page 72), and my personal favourite.
  • The 5-step Seduction System that takes you from having an 'innocent' cup of coffee with your ex-girlfriend... to having her moan 'I want you inside me now' as she drags you to bed... in just one evening! (Page 88)
The second link was a little less gender-specific, a bargain at $29.95, and a little more concerned with the whole world being happy and in love as opposed to just guys gettin' to do it with whomever they pleased, but still, it was also close to unbearably slimy. The oddest section is where they list the predicaments that their program offers remedies for. There are the standard, 'Still together, your spouse is cheating,' and 'Still together, fights have driven you and your spouse apart,' but that was only the tip of the iceberg. They also offer to help you with the slightly less common problems of, 'Separated but your spouse won't ever make time for a date,' 'Together but one person has a terminal disease,' and what has to be the granddaddy of relationship hurdles, 'You were sentenced to prison for ten years.'

I admit, I have come to rely on the internet for far too much of my everyday life (entertainment, knowledge, communication, what-have-you), but this seems to be asking a bit much.

Friday, November 27, 2009

De facto Manifesto

I play a sport. I'm not very good, mind you -- I'm only allowed on the floor because my cheques don't bounce -- but there are whistles and referees and scoreboards, and you could even find seven or eight seasons worth of stats on the internet if you should be so inclined. The entire league is basically an excuse to go for drinks after the game, and yet, since somebody's keeping score, it's bound to get competitive at some point. I don't think there's a person in the league who hasn't yelled at the ref, who hasn't had a bad game and then felt the dread of a long week before a chance for redemption, or who hasn't gone into work the next day hoping to get asked what you did last night, because dammit, you were a star and you gotta tell somebody.

Of course, even though every single player gets the juices flowing and everybody prefers winning to losing, I'm pretty confident that not one person would suggest that every single player is trying equally as hard as everybody else. That's just lunacy. You've got your ridiculously skilled guys who kinda float until the play comes to them. You've got your guys who miraculously find a fifth gear when they get the ball, when they couldn't find third when there was defence to be played. You've got guys in their 40s and beyond who see better uses for their energy than chasing down a kid with a 20 year head start. And, of course, you've got the guys who appear to share DNA with Jack Russell terriers -- "Is that a ball? Is that a ball? Go get it! Go get the ball! Good boy! Geez, aren't you tired yet?"


Now, I'm a big fan of effort. I have hands of stone, so the only way I can really feel like a contributing team-mate is to bring the legs of fury, every time. My favourite game ever happened a few months ago, when the top six or seven guys on my team couldn't make it, leaving us short staffed and under-talented to boot. Predictably, we got cranked, but everybody on my team brought the effort, played the full game as close to their potential as you could hope for. It was beautiful. We went home happy. I would play that game a million times. We still lost.

I swear, NBA fans -- or at least the Toronto Raptors fans that I am most familiar with -- have this same relationship with their teams. As long as a team scraps and claws, as long as you're willing to give it your all in a losing effort, we'll be content with that. Pops Mensah-Bonsu is well on his way to the fan favourite status once enjoyed by Jerome (Junk Yard Dog) Williams -- although Amir Johnson might be a better fit for the role, since he, you know, occasionally sees court time. Heck, somebody ask Vince Carter if Toronto fans are willing to let a little coasting slide. And I get it, I do. I would much rather cheer for Paul Millsap than for Carlos Boozer, or for David Lee rather than Eddy Curry, or for anybody in the free world rather than Ricky Davis. But really, as much as I love effort, it is but one skill taken from a whole host of others that make up your successful basketball player. Two offensive rebounds in five minutes of work is excellent, but when accompanied by two fouls and a turnover, it is less helpful than it could be. If your game is based more on basketball IQ than athleticism -- like, say, the majority of the Raptors roster -- then perhaps, instead of crashing the boards just to show willing, I'd prefer you save your energy for the things you are good at, like scoring the ball at an unholy clip.


In a perfect world, I'd have everything. I'd have Chris Paul and Kobe Bryant and Kevin Garnett and their inhuman talent and supernatural drive, and I'd be cheering for a team that would almost never lose a game, and would never ever lose a game because they weren't trying hard enough. In this world, though, I take what I can get. And, when given the choice between marginal-talent-exemplary-effort and superior-talent-acceptable-effort, well -- I admit, the hustle makes me happy, but I'm willing to trade a little of that for the wins.

Friday, November 20, 2009

NBA Geography, 101

I can't, in good conscience, actually label this as a "post" -- but, for the love of God and all that is holy, I need to record for posterity the sheer awesomeness of this quote.

"Three-fourths of the world is covered by water. The rest is covered by Chuck Hayes."
-- Shane Battier, to the Houston Chronicle, on the faith the Rockets have in Hayes' defense.

You can see the birth of genius here, at about the 1:10 mark. Especially notable is the pure geeky glee Battier derives from cracking his own self up. Makes my heart smile.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Old enough for the D-League

I saw this article on TrueHoop a little while ago – a guy name Latavious Williams made history by being the first high school player to skip college in favour of going straight to the D-League. It’s a pretty good article, and it makes a pretty solid argument that this development – high school kids being eligible for the D-League draft – is in the best interests of the NBA, the NBA D-League, college basketball and the players themselves.

I got no problem with all of that, but I have to admit that it seems a touch hypocritical of the NBA. They are the de facto employer of both NBA players and NBA D-League players, but they have decided on different employment rules for those players. If you want to play in the NBA, you are not allowed to enter the draft until one year after your high school class graduates. So far, what that means is any 18-year-old who thinks he can play in the NBA straight out of high school still has to figure out a way to spend that spare year, usually by being Big Man on Campus. (One kid decided to spend that year in Europe, mainly because he didn't meet academic eligibility requirements, and the early returns on that seem to be pretty positive.) Again, I’m a supporter of higher education, and I could probably be convinced that it’s generally bad for a player’s social development, if not his basketball development, to try to go straight to the big leagues out of high school. However, just to play devil’s advocate – an 18-year-old could apply to work in the NBA front office. An 18-year-old could play in the D-League, to compete against grown men. It just looks bad that the NBA is deciding that every single 18-year-old in the country is eligible for all the responsibilities of NBA adulthood, without being eligible for the top-end paycheck that a 19-year-old can earn.

This has been hashed and re-hashed already – I just had a thought that I haven’t seen out in the world, so I figured I’d try it out. It’s still kinda rough, so here are the highlights:
  • We can all pretty much agree that David Stern is a business genius.
  • The no-18-year-olds rule came into effect in the NBA in June 2005.
  • In exactly the same Collective Bargaining agreement, the minimum age for the D-League was lowered from 20 to 18.
  • If you trust Wikipedia, it was in March of 2005 that Stern announced a plan to expand the NBA D-League to fifteen teams and develop it into a true minor league farm system, with each NBA D-League team affiliated with one or more NBA teams.
  • In the 2005 ESPN article where I’m getting pretty much all the rest of my info, Mr. Stern was quoted as saying, "This will encourage our scouts to spend time in D-league gyms rather than high school gyms."



I think that last bit is kind of instructive. So far, every article that I’ve come across that deals with the age-restriction rule just assumes that it’s a cynical way for the NBA to assure that high school students play some sort of college ball. However – if you’re David Stern the businessman, and it’s 2005 and you have an eye on the future – wouldn’t you rather envision a day when you have both the best professional men’s basketball league on the planet and the best place for players to develop their skills before they enter that best league? Sure, the NBA has no issue with colleges supplying them players for now – but imagine, 20 years from now, an Iverson-like talent can’t meet the academic standards for U.S. colleges. If the D-League has progressed into a “true minor league farm system”, there’s probably no question of him playing in Europe. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if by that point, the rules have changed again so that when the Clippers win the lottery, they’re allowed to draft a high school kid, as long as they stash him in the D-League for at least a portion of his first season, and then they can call him up when he’s proven himself ready. The D-League gets a transcendent talent, which can only help at the box office. Granted, that’s probably not enough to make viewers abandon their college affiliation in favour of watching the D-League – but what if by that time, the D-League had also fiddled with its playoff format in order to institute a one-and-done bracket? That would have to be at least as exciting to the casual viewer (cough, gambler) as ye olde March Madness. I imagine any businessman would enjoy having a slice of that pie. Or the whole pie, if he could.

Yeah, it’s a conspiracy theory and a long shot – but I’m just sayin’, is all.

Monday, November 16, 2009

Public Service Announcement

So, recently a strange confluence of events led to me catching up with an old acquaintance of mine, late night TV. (Of course, by 'acquaintance', I more likely mean 'near-all-consuming-passion-of-yore', but we'll let that slide.) I've known enough artsy-type folks in my day that occasionally, I'll see some commercial and realize, "Hey, I used to work with her," or, "Isn't that the guy who drywalled my basement?" Once, I actually saw a guy I went to high school with win a chugging contest on some sort of low budget CityTV Beer-lympics, which was a bizarre blast from the past. However, it appears I'm making a demographic switch, as this time my little jolt of familiarity happened as I swung by some Kwality Reality Programming.




Now, it was a show on the W network, and I only caught the last few seconds, and I didn't know the person in question all that well, so I wasn't really sure if it was who I thought it was. It was kind of intriguing, though, so a little bit of internet research was called for, at which point I could confirm that yes, I have met someone (and I'm not naming names, but someone I know might have dated her) who is featured on this season of Stuck on the women's network.

However -- all that is kinda irrelevant, it's just the roundabout way of telling you that when you Google stuck womens network, the second link that pops up starts off with the words "How to Look Good Naked." I don't know about you, but I usually click on links like that, and in this case it led me to info about a show where:

In each episode our host will teach women how to embrace their curves, love their lives and learn how to best show off the figures they have. We will guide them through their negative body issues and help them demystify their ideas of perfection. Each week through styling, beauty tips, and direction from our style experts, we will lead a woman on an extraordinary journey to loving herself again.

Not only that, the pooh-bahs who make this fine telly-vision show are looking for participants! "Well, ho-lee smokes," I thinks to meself, "They're looking for women. I know some women. That's like synergy! I need to tell people about this!"

So, uh, yeah. If anybody here has a latent desire to use the power of semi-scripted television to work out some self-esteem issues, I fully support you in that endeavour. Obviously, the chance to see my friends in their pixelated birthday suits is completely beside the point.


W Network, How To Look Good Naked

Application

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Jerkitude

Well, I understand from the current literature on the subject that blogs are supposed to be a fairly of-the-moment sort of endeavour, that is, I should kinda be trying to record what's on my mind as of now. However, whilst I'm fairly new to this blogging thang, I do have a few old screeds kicking around on my computer, and rather than let them fade into obscurity, I figger I'll pop a few of 'em on here, as the mood strikes me.

This one stems from March of 2009, I think, should posterity be one of those things you're concerned with.




So, I played lacrosse last night, and the game has been rolling around in my head ever since. Through no fault of my own, I play on a team that can be pretty good if everything clicks, and this was one of those games. Nobody felt like they had to score a million goals all by themselves, everybody was passing the ball to the open man, and our goalie was fixing any mistakes we did make. On top of that, the goalie on the other team wasn't having a great game, so we were out to a 5-nuthin' lead pretty quick.

Then, early in the second period, when the score was probably 6-1 or so, a guy on my team had the ball in our own end, and one of their players was chasing him a bit. I was in the area, so I decided to help my guy out a bit by setting a pick. Now, if you're not the sporty type and you're not sure what a pick is, don't worry, that puts you in the same category as at least half my team. Basically, all it is, is when I stand still, and the guy on my team runs by me as close as he can, so the guy chasing him either runs into me or loses time by trying to go around me. Of course, the pick I set here was more of a token than anything, my teammate was pretty much getting free anyway. Also, it wasn't like this pick was going to clear my guy for a scoring chance or anything, it was just to try to gain a second or two. To further lessen the effectiveness, my teammate didn't have a chance to run right beside me, and the guy on the other team saw me standing there about four feet before he got to me, so the element of surprise was pretty much nil. Since all of these factors had combined to make this one of the lamest picks ever, the obvious play in my mind was for the other guy to run around me, which would have taken a fraction of a second longer than if I hadn't been there at all, and then he would still been part of his team's defense. However, this guy takes the other accepted approach of what to do when faced with a pick, and that is to run right through it. It wasn't like he lowered his shoulder and drilled me or anything, but his decision was to run into me.

Now, again, I get that this is what you're taught to do when you're a kid learning the game, but we're in a non-contact league, and it actually took him out of the play to do it. On top of that, if he was trying to teach me a lesson about not setting any more picks, well, geez, don't be such a pansy about it, actually hit me, don't just bump me. Really, I think he was just ticked that his team was losing, and didn't feel like playing nice anymore. God knows, I've been there myself, so I understand the impulse -- but my team was winning at the time, so I was in a totally different mental state. If somebody on the other team wants to be angry, well, I'm gonna do my best to help him out. I kinda chuckled, and turned around and started running to catch up to the play. Here, strangely, is where I turned into the most hated guy on my team.




The guy who'd bumped me asks, "What are you laughing at?" I don't really know what to say -- I've been known to be reasonably funny on the page, but when I'm on the spot to say something witty, I tend to be less so. I think I wanted to say something like, If you wanted to hurt somebody you have to hit a bit harder than that, Nancy -- but what came out was, "Intent to injure...," in as sardonic a tone as I could muster while running. Very lame, but he didn't seem to pick up on that, I believe he may have had his own agenda. He says something about how that's lacrosse, buddy, it's part of the game, and then the play evolves a bit and we don't have time to continue our repartée. Not much later in the same shift, however, I end up guarding him again, he's got the ball in the corner. This is where I have a chance to take the high road -- but instead, I put my stick as close to his face as I can, and say a couple of times, "Come on, you better beat me, you're better than me! You're better than me!" You'd think denigrating your own abilities wouldn't annoy the opposition, but no, I have found it to be highly effective. He ignored me as best he could and made a pass that a teammate of his dropped. This pretty much marked the end of my shift, and I headed for the bench. He stayed on the floor, and it's possible he was a little tired, because it wasn't much longer after that that my team scored again.

Again, I'm on the bench and totally removed from the play, so I had the chance to take the high road and keep quiet, or even just to loudly congratulate my teammate, which would have been insulting but not necessarily confrontational. However, as you may have guessed, I'm a bit of a jerk. I try to keep it under wraps, but when push comes to shove, what comes out of my mouth is, "I bet that pisses you off, huh." Those seemed to be the magic words, and he started yelling at me, "Look buddy, there's no need for you to chirp, you're winning and you have no skill, so shut the hell up!" I wasn't all that upset about the crack about my skill level -- really, he'd been batting a thousand on how do things wrong thus far this shift, but even a blind squirrel finds a nut every now and then -- so I just kind of smiled and saluted, aye aye cap'n, I'll follow orders, at which point the referees told us both to knock it off.

I generally do what the authority figure tells me to, so I shut up, and I didn't say anything to the other team the rest of the game. I yelled encouragement at my own teammates a lot, but that's no different than any other game I play. I actually played pretty passive, I didn't feel like stirring anything up. I had the ball a few times, and it definitely felt like people were whacking me a little harder than was absolutely necessary, but again, if it doesn't really hurt, no big deal. On one particularly crap shift, I managed to pass the ball directly to the guy I'd been jawing at, and he got a pretty good scoring chance out of it. The guy who was guarding me, sensing a prime heckling opportunity, told me it was a nice pass. Short, simple, should have been effective -- but really, if I know somebody's trying to piss me off, why give him the satisfaction? I replied with, "Yeah, those are my specialty," (which, unfortunately, they are, I wasn't kidding about the lack of skill thing), and just kept on running.




Then, with just over three minutes left in the game, when we're winning about 11-4, a loose ball rolls my way, and I have to run towards the boards to get it. The guy on the other team who's chasing me (a guy who has cut the sleeves off of his jersey, either to lessen wind resistance or to make it easier for people to admire his triceps, I'm not sure) has apparently also taken offense to my transgressions from half an hour ago, and decides to teach me a lesson, whacking hell out of me and saying, "Laughin', huh?" as I'm turned around running for the ball. He does actually hit my stick harder than he hits me, but even when he knocks my stick out of my hand, he doesn't seem to actually want the ball, just to hit me. Again -- if that's your goal, then geez, hit hard enough to hurt, for cryin' out loud. He seemed genuinely nostril-snorting angry, but all he did was get called for it, and then after the whistle he just stared me down until the ref told him to go to the penalty box. I didn't say a word, I wasn't angry or banged up, I was mostly just kinda bemused that I'd inspired this level of animosity in an only-sorta-competitive league. I mean, I suck. If you want to get angry at somebody on my team, get angry at the guys who scored all those goals.

So the game ends, and the post-game handshake goes without incident, and I go home and the whole thing rolls around in my head on crazy loop, like it always does when you think of all those things you should have said. Like, when it's pointed out that I have no skill, I could helpfully suggest that pissing people off and drawing penalties seems to be a pretty valid skill. Like, when somebody asks you, "What are you laughing at?" the best answer is probably, "Scoreboard." I've had some great conversations in my head, saving all the best lines for myself, all designed to inflict maximum jerkitude. What I keep coming back to is this -- those guys play on a bad team, they've been looking to get angry for a while now, and I was just the guy who happened to be in the right place at the right time. I'm usually not so into the trash talk -- but if you're gonna start something, I'm totally allowed to finish it, and I'm okay with that.

But you know what really pisses me off?

I'm starting to feel guilty about the whole thing.

Geez.

Friday, November 6, 2009

WWDED?

So -- Phil Jackson is the Zen Master. Fine. I accept that with no hesistation. Derek Fisher is a floor general par excellence, I give you that gladly. And Kobe Bean Bryant is possibly the most dedicated-to-domination individual the world has seen since Alexander III of Macedon, of that there can be no debate. However -- I submit the following for your consideration.
  1. Yao Ming is generally regarded as one of the NBA's premier citizens, a guy who has a couple of billion eyes on him all the time and always seems to make good off court decisions.
  2. Dikembe Mutombo is a member of the World Sport Humanitarian Hall of Fame, has donated millions of dollars towards building hospitals, and his career-ending injury precipitated an outpouring of "He's one of the all-time good guys" love from NBA players and media alike.
  3. Shane Battier is the consummate glue-guy team player, the poster child for level-headedness, the kind of guy that makes people say things like “I thought he’d be the first black president,” Wetzel says. “He was Barack Obama before Barack Obama.”
  4. Rick Adelman, well, the man has got some credentials, and he has to to be considered a player's coach. Yeah, I'm sure Dennis Rodman was a handful back in the day, but I will see you Rodman and raise you a Latrell Sprewell.
I would just like to point out that these were four of the key members of the Houston Rockets last year, and all that collective wisdom and maturity couldn't keep the pants on Ron Artest.

Far be it from me to question the wisdom of any NBA general manager, especially one who is coming off a championship season that oughta prove you're the best in the business -- but really, if Dork Elvis makes no serious effort to retain a player, I will trust his judgement.

Start with a bang

So -- this post originally began life when I tried to comment on Empty the Bench, but there was apparently some sort of technical glitch. Since I had already done the work, I figured, what the heck, might as well make a blog and post it my own damn self.

And, just to be clear, this post will contain approximately 1472% more racial epithets than I might use in the next ten years of posting. Just one of those days, I guess. (You should really read that Empty the Bench link if you want this to make sense -- the gist is, an NBA commentator used a racial slur and nobody seemed to really mind.)

Full disclosure -- I'm Caucasian, Canadian, and a 33 year old male. When I discuss slurs, it's through a ludicrously sheltered lens, so I apologize in advance for any inadvertent offence.

So -- I don't really have a strong feeling one way or the other on this issue. I'd probably like to be more offended -- you know, a slur is a slur no matter what, and they should all be treated with similar disdain. Honestly, I'd be okay with any excuse for a short respite from Rick Kamla's shtick, but for some reason this particular word didn't push any of my buttons. I get that it has some historically bad connotations, but so do 'gay' and 'queer', and those have been claimed and become pretty acceptable when the speaker isn't using them maliciously. I'm also allowed to use Frenchman or Irishman, so I could legitimately see myself letting Chinaman slip into my vocabulary in this context. I would absolutely apologize if I realized someone had been offended, and knowing now that it would cause a fuss, hell no would I ever use it on National TV -- but if I had, I would still think an apology offered in good faith would be sufficient reparations.

And, just because I have too much free time on my hands, I tried an experiment. I went to Google and searched combinations of prominent athletes' names with the, uh, appropriate slur. (You know, quote-unquote appropriate. Moving on.) It's ridiculously unscientific and fraught with logical holes, but I just kinda wanted to get a feel for what slurs might be more prevalent, and I figured number of Google hits might do the trick.

(And this is where the post gets NSFW-ish, no graphics, but words that might trip your IT guy's alarm bells. Proceed with caution.)

"Yi Jianlian" chinaman -- 4190 pages
"Yao Ming" chinaman -- 4460
"Yao Ming" chink -- 15700
"Ichiro Suzuki" chinaman -- 793
"Ichiro Suzuki" "jap" -- 1750
"Rik Smits" dutchman -- 8400
"Tony Parker" frenchman -- 6690
"Michael Jordan" nigger -- 34300
"LeBron James" nigger -- 20200
"Kobe Bryant" nigger -- 31800
"Jason Kidd" nigger -- 4510
"Shane Battier" nigger -- 411
"Larry Bird" honky -- 1930
"Dirk Nowitzki" kraut -- 790
"Martin Gortat" polack -- 7870
"Andrei Kirilenko" commie -- 313
"Pau Gasol" spic -- 115
"Andrea Bargnani" wop -- 1160
"John Amaechi" fag -- 5010
"Michael Beasley" addict -- 11500
"Delonte West" nutcase -- 1570
"Ron Artest" "batshit crazy" -- 3390

*"jap" is in quotes because Google returns results for Japan/Japanese otherwise.

So yeah. I think the n-word can probably still be considered the gold standard in this area. Judging by the 3-to-1 ratio of 'ch*nk' to 'ch*naman' to describe Yao Ming, it looks like Kamla didn't exactly let rip the average internet lone gunman's go-to insult for Asians, either. I guess, I'd be inclined to believe someone who didn't realize the severity of the word ch*naman when they were talking about a man with a Chinese passport. Just my opinion.