A podcast about books & life — not necessarily in that order
This massive article on China purports to have been written by only two reporters, but its portrayal of China’s economy and social condition is so fragmented and contradictory that I have to assume at least six different writers contributed pieces to it, and that their editor was on vacation.
This piece on China’s first-strike capacity is much more internally coherent. Unfortunately, it seems to propose we return to a cold war-style arms race.
Oh, and Yao Ming is the slowest guy in the league.
Dwight Howard is the best dunking big-man since Shawn Kemp. He got robbed on that “sticker on the glass” dunk during All-Star Weekend, and we got robbed because he didn’t get to bust out this dunk in the next round:
Neat editorial by Chris Broussard at ESPN, regarding gay players in the NBA. He believes the league is “ready” for them, while also contending that homoesexuality’s a sin.
I’m a born-again, Bible-believing Christian (no, I’m not a member of the Religious Right). And I’m against homosexuality (I believe it’s a sin) and same-sex marriage.
But before you label me “homophobic,” know that I’m against any type of sex outside of marriage between a man and a woman. That includes heterosexual fornication (premarital sex).
Read the whole thing, because he brings up some interesting points about tolerance being a two-way street (as it were). And as long as you can ball (as it were), there’s room for you in Broussard’s rec-league.
A few months ago, I wrote about how Gilbert Arenas is one of my favorite NBA players. Subsequently, he started keeping a blog on NBA.com, which I dutifully added to my blogroll.
I’ve come to enjoy Arenas more this year, because he’s a throwback to an era of absolutely crazy players. That he can back this up by scoring tons of points for a moderately successful team makes him even more entertaining to me.
A while back, he declared that he was better than Kobe Bryant at the same point (5+ years in the NBA) in their careers. Then he detailed the process of dropping 51 and a buzzer-beating game-winner on Utah.
But that was only a prelude to today’s “it can’t get any better than this, even if it’s from a player who nicknamed himself Hibachi when he gets on a hot streak” post.
See, Gil got dumped by USA basketball during the tryouts for the team that would compete at the World Championships last summer. He’s held a grudge against the pro coaches who cut him: Phoenix’s Mike D’Antoni (Gil dropped 54 on them in December) and Portland’s Nate McMillan (circle February 11 and March 20 in your calendars, hoops fans. Or as Gil puts it, “I think ESPN or TNT needs to pick that game up.”).
Still, the head coach of Team USA, and presumably one of the key decision-makers who kept Arenas off the squad, was Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski. How can our hero ever get revenge on Coach K? As he tells us today:
D’Antoni said that after I scored 54 on them and made my prediction to score 50 on the Blazers that he’d like to see what I’m going to do against Duke.
I thought it was funny because if I have the chance to go back to college, I’ll give up one NBA season to play against Duke.
One college game . . . that’s five fouls, right? . . . 40-minute game . . . at Duke, they got soft rims . . . I’d probably score 84 or 85.
I wouldn’t pass the ball.
I wouldn’t even think about passing it. It would be like a NBA Live or an NBA 2K7 game, you just shoot with one person.
What boggles my mind is that there’s an NBA player who actually thinks this way and still makes his team better.
Official VM buddy and new dad Craig S. writes, “Admit it; this is you, isn’t it?”
I retain plausible deniability, because I never had much athleticism when I looked like that guy.
Several years ago, I attended a wedding in Las Vegas. It was my first trip visit longer than 24 hours, and I thought it would be fun to gamble on sports. See, I’ve never been a cards or dice guy, but I do allege to know something about pro sports.
Well, the NBA, at least. See, each morning that long weekend, I would walk through the sports book on the way outside. I’d pick up the line for that night’s games and, like The Matrix, I would see all the numbers tumbling on a dark background. (I’d also start acting like I was made of wood, but that’s another story.)
The upshot is that it was the NBA season (early April) there was at least one game each morning that I knew for sure was an easy bet. So I put $50 on a game that Friday, and came up aces. Saturday, I saw one sure thing, put down another $50.
The other wedding guests started to laugh about these picks. At the rehearsal dinner on Saturday, we headed out to the bar to catch the results of my bet against the Vancouver Grizzlies, who were inexplicably favored in their last-ever game in Vancouver. I won again.
Sunday morning, the challenge was on. There were three games that caught my attention. I announced, “I’m putting down $50 on each [no teaser], and if I pull off all three, then I’m going to quit my job, move here, and gamble full time.
“And within three weeks, I’ll be giving handjobs in an alleyway for crack money.”
Wedding evening rolled around, and afterward, the guests kept trying to haul me over to a bar to catch the remaining games. I’d already won the afternoon bet, so I only needed two more wins. Now, I know $50 per bet isn’t a ton, but it was the idea that mattered.
(Especially since I’d embarrassed myself Saturday night at a blackjack table. I’d been looking for another guest, saw him at a table, and sat down beside him. I thought I’d get in and play some hands, and pulled some money from my wallet. No sooner had I tossed $60 on the table than I noticed that the table was $25/hand. I hit blackjack on my first hand and said, “Oh, crap! I forgot! I gotta tell my girlfriend something! I’ll be back in a minute!” as I gathered up my chips and left.)
Anyway, I won the second game of the day, which was a night game out east. That left Phoenix/Sacramento, with the Kings getting 1.5 points. Since the Kings were in a dogfight with LA to get home-court advantage, this was my lock. I was sure that they’d win handily, even though they could’ve lost by a point and I still would’ve come up 5-for-5.
Final score? Phoenix 99, Kings 97. I was agog. It was then that I realized that the bookmakers really do know what they’re doing. I went back to my day job and resolved never to get into sports betting.
At least, not online. When in Vegas, etc. (although I likely wouldn’t bet on NBA game nowadays for the life of me; I have no ability to guess the outcome of virtually any game, and nowhere near the certainty it’d take me to go against the house)
That gets us to this week’s NFL Playoffs post-mortem, which helps prove I know nothing about football. For the second straight week, I went 1-3, dropping me to 2-6, while my rival, Ron Rosenbaum, now surpasses mediocrity at 5-3 after a 3-1 weekend.
Funnily enough, I’d have been content to go 0-4 this weekend, if it meant that the Patriots lost (by 6 or more) in San Diego. Instead, the only team to cover for me was the wildly irritating Patriots.
See, I was perfectly happy with Baltimore losing to Indy. I didn’t think the Ravens had the firepower to hold up against a San Diego, but I didn’t think they’d stink up the joint to the tune of 6 points against Indy. But I’m happy that Peyton and the Colts (who are starting to resemble the World Series winning Cardinals, whom nobody expected much from) will get to the AFC Championship game. I’m hoping they’ll knock off New England, but I refuse to bet against Belichick, so I’m stuck.
I thought the Saints would win by more, but I was glad that the Eagles made it an exciting game, even if Amy & I were out at my super-fantastic birthday dinner Saturday night.
I was also worried that the Bears would make too many mistakes to blow out the Seahawks, but I let Seattle’s stumblebumness cloud my judgment. Rex Grossman looks like the most confused quarterback in the NFL, with literally no ability to grasp when the pocket is collapsing. Have fun under Hollis Thomas next weekend, Rex.
But it’s the Chargers who just killed me. I was pulling for them all game to prove me wrong (or win by a figgie, so I covered), but they did just enough things wrong to let the Pats do what they do best: win.
So I have no hope in this NFL Playoff challenge, unless I go against Ron on the remaining three games and pull off all three. At which point we’ll tie and I’ll try to get him to fall for some NBA bets. . .
The itinerary for the first day of our St. Louis trip was as follows:
Now, it was #6 that I found a bit problematic from the moment my brother proposed it. See, I haven’t picked up a basketball in at least three years, and I’m several days away from turning 36. I didn’t relish having to explain a massive sports-related injury to my coworkers next week.
Still, basketball was a secondary religion to me and Boaz, behind pinball. Since Bo knows he’ll never be able to top my pinball-achievements, I figured it’d be fine for me to offer my sacrificial self up on the court this afternoon.
So while I packed last night, I pulled my high-tops from the closet, inspected them for scorpions or mice, and stuffed them away in the big suitcase, along with some shorts and a T-shirt. And today, five minutes after checking into the hotel, I headed out to get my ass beat by a bunch of 15-year-olds.
Funny thing: It turned out not to be so bad. I held my own on defense, managed to sky for some rebounds, and hit some wide-open jumpers, as well as a shot or two in traffic, from offensive rebounds. I was actually amazed that I could move as quickly as I did, and that I didn’t have any significant pain in my back. I guarded Boaz most of the time, except when I got tired and decided to stop chasing him through screens. He torched me, which was to be expected, but he was pleasantly surprised at how much life I showed on court. He also admired some of my defensive footwork and the ways I closed out some of his angles to the basket. I’m firmly convinced that all the basketball acumen I’ve picked up in the past year comes from reading Charley Rosen’s basketball column at FoxSports.com.
Anyway, I’m not tooting my own horn here, because I still sorta sucked. My passes were terrible, the release-point on my jumper is laughable, and I did a lot of “lurking” on offense, which is my strategy for avoiding getting the ball and having to make decisions. But still, it was a lot of fun, and I got back to my old basketball practice of sweating worse than Patrick Ewing.
It’s off to dinner with some of Amy’s friends tonight, then breakfast with another friend of hers tomorrow, before we have the birthday party for my niece on Saturday night. I don’t plan on getting back out on the court anytime soon, but it was nice to know I can still bust a 15-year-old with an elbow to the kidney during a back-screen.
Back in November, I wrote about how I’ve boycotted the large-sized box of Wheaties at our local supermarkets because Alex Rodriguez is the featured athlete. At least I could get by with the 12-oz. box, since I had got no beef with Steve Nash.
It just got worse. I hit the supermarket this week and discovered that A-Rod is still the large-box athlete (I need to check the expiration dates on those boxes; is it possible that no one is buying them?), but the Nash-boxes are gone. The 12-oz. box of Wheaties now features . . . your WNBA champions, the Detroit Shock!
Seriously. It’s a team photo of a WNBA team, which would be bad enough. But the picture also includes the smiling faces of the team’s head coach and top assistant: Bill Laimbeer and Rick Mahorn.
I’m goin’ back to Atkins.
Not having a ton of family in these parts, I use the time off during the holidays to visit friends. On Friday, Amy & I went down to Lumberton, NJ to visit friends of hers who were in the area for their own holiday family-tour. We had an entertaining afternoon, centering around a lengthy meal at a P.F. Chang and a discussion of why Shawn Bradley never panned out in the NBA. Good times were had by me, which counts for a lot.
Yesterday, we drove up to Providence, RI to visit my friends Paul & Deb. They’d been having plenty of family get-togethers during the week, so it was a nice change of pace for them to get a visit from their weird friends in NJ.
I always love seeing Paul & Deb, because they have an awful lot of diverse interests and are quite passionate about them. We exchanged some holiday gifts — we brought back some neat tea from our Paris trip, and I also made them copies of a few Mad Mix CDs, while they gave us books, fancy knitting yarn, and unique coffee mugs from a local artist, before deciding we also needed to take back an amaryllis and some paperwhite bulbs. And a loaf of sweet bread from a Portuguese bakery.
In between these two bouts of gift-giving, the four of us drove over to the museum at RISD (Rhode Island School of Design), which was exhibiting Wunderground: a collection of Providence poster art from the past decade, and a sculptural village called Shangri-la-la Land. I took a ton of pictures of the exhibit, before a staffer ran up to tell me that I wasn’t permitted to snap pix in the exhibition. I apologized and pretended I’d just taken one. Here’s a collection of 19 shots from the show. (The sculpture area was dimly lit, so I tried a few shots without flash, but gave up and started snapping away. I included both types.)
Comics Reporter and official VM buddy Tom Spurgeon wrote a great (and lengthy) article about Fort Thunder, one of the main groups of the Providence arts scene during that period:
Fort Thunder was different. The Providence, RI group has achieved importance not just for the sum total of its considerable artists but for its collective impact and its value as a symbol of unfettered artistic expression. The key to understanding Fort Thunder is that it was not just a group of cartoonists who lived near each other, obsessed about comics and socialized. It was a group of artists, many of whom pursued comics among other kinds of media, who lived together and shared the same workspace.
As an outgrowth of the Rhode Island School of Design [RISD] where nearly all of them attended (some even graduating), Fort Thunder provided a common setting for creation that imposed almost no economic imperative to conform to commercial standards or to change in an attempt to catch the next big wave. They were young, rents were cheap, and incidental money could be had by dipping into other more commercial areas of artistic enterprise such as silk-screening rock posters. Fort Thunder was also fairly isolated, both in terms of influences that breached its walls and how that work was released to the outside world. This allowed its artists to produce a significant body of work that most people have yet to see. It also fueled the group’s lasting mystique. The urge — even seven years after discovering the group — is not to dig too deeply, so as not to uncover the grim and probably unromantic particulars.
We had a great time in the exhibition. Over the years, Paul & Deb had snagged several of the posters from lampposts and walls in town, but they told us that most of the posters were stuck with pretty heavy glue, making it impossible to take home these amazing pieces. I figured it said something about the confluence of art, commerce and paste, but I say that about everything. I think it was also the first museum exhibition I’d been to where the art was held up by thumbtacks.
Before visiting the museum, Paul wanted to show us one of his favorite places in town, the Providence Atheneum. It’s America’s 4th oldest library (est. 1753) and requires an annual membership. Paul pays it gladly, because he loves coming to the place, reading magazines and newspapers, checking out the great collection, and soaking in the ambience.
After the Atheneum and the Wunderground exhibition, we were off to a Portuguese restaurant where I ordered the Shish-Kebab of Damocles, evidently an Iberian specialty.
If you’ve read this site for any length of time, you probably realize that a day that includes
is pretty much as good as it gets.
(If you want to see pix from the whole day, go here. If you just want that Wunderground set, head over here. And you can check out Amy’s pix from that day over here.)
I can’t begin to explain the genius and craft of this post from Free Darko.