Monday, March 30, 2009

Jordin Taylor – Dream You To Live

Sepertinya untuk tahun 2009 emang tahunnya penyanyi muda dari amrik sana. Udah lulus ke dunia musik nama Jojo, Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus, sekarang kita bisa berkenalan lagi dengan Jordin Taylor. Umurnya? Baru 17 tahun! Buset, kalo ngedengerin vokalnya kita gak bakalan nyangka suara sedahsyat (dan semerdu) itu bisa keluar dari seorang Jordin Taylor.

Siapa referensinya dalam bermusik? Cewek yang berasal dari California ini menyatakan bahwa Mariah Carey, Toni Braxton, plus Alicia Keys yang menjadi diva dalam kehidupan bermusiknya. Yups! Udah bisa dibayangkan bagaimana pengalaman “membentuk” suara yang terjadi dalam kehidupan Jordin Taylor. Demi menembus industri musik, dia sendiri pindah ke Los Angeles dan bergabung dalam agensi L.A Models.



Nah, apa yang ditawarkan Jordin Taylor dalam lagu Dream You To Live? Entahlah, saya merasa nyaman saja dengan lagu ini. Beat-beatnya bisa dikatakan tergolong “manis”. Tapi ada sesuatu pada vokalnya. Dia mempunyai ciri yang mudah dikenali. Apalagi, range suaranya yang memang masih kedengaran “muda”. Ya iyalah, wong baru umur 17 tahun.

Sebenarnya ini dia lyric yang membuat saya jatuh cinta dengan track ini.

I'm looking out in the crowd
Don't know where you are
It's like I'm hearing you now
But you feel so far
I don't know what I can do
I'm searching everywhere
That’s why I lay here at night
And dream you to life


Sebegitu sulitkah untuk menjadi bahagia? Apakah permainan yang akan terus saya jalankan yaitu menunggu dan menunggu? Saya teringat peristiwa kemarin malam. Sewaktu saya dan teman-teman sedang merayakan syukuran wisuda kami. Apa yang terjadi? Sekilas pembicaraan dengan dia-yang-telah-membuatku-terpesona membuatku berpikiran yang macam-macam. Apa yang terjadi? Mengapa dia begitu perhatian? Apalagi ketika dia mengatakan,

“Mas, miscall ke nomor aku yah. Entar di save”

What? Apakah saya salah mengartikannya? Dengan banyakanya fisikal touch yang terjadi, saling pandang yang tidak disengaja, semakin membuatku yakin. It means something. Sekarang saya menunggu dia. Menunggu orang lain juga yang pastinya akan kutemukan. Karena bagaimanapun caranya, saya juga membutuhkan cinta.

*jablay mode ON

Eh, kok malah curhat yah? Bukannya tadi ngomongin Jordin Taylor? Ya sud lah, track ini yang akan menemaniku selama seminggu ini. Berteriak dan bernyanyi kemanapun saya pergi.

Untuk yang mau download, silahkan di klik disini.

Saturday, March 28, 2009

And let the love lead me the way…

Tampaknya Tuhan sedang bercanda padaku saat ini. Kenapa saya katakan demikian? Catatan rekor dalam dua hari ini ada tiga orang sahabat saya yang mengeluh mengenai cinta. Cinta? Ya, satu kata yang mempunyai berjuta makna. Makna yang indah, buruk, dan semua hal lain mengenainya. Mengapa saya katakan Tuhan sedang bercanda padaku? I means, hey! Saya? Yang terakhir pacaran satu abad yang lalu? Mengapa semua orang mengisahkan bagaimana perasaan mereka kepadaku?

Okelah, kalau memang dari perspektif sahabat, saya yang harus mengajak mereka berlogika. Melihat semua hal dari sudut pandang yang berbeda. Karena terkadang cinta membuat mereka buta dan tidak bisa melihat sebagaimana mestinya,

”Apakah mata mereka masih tertutupi oleh selaput pink?”

Hahaha. Satu orang sahabat yang sekarang menyadari bagaimana perihnya kehilangan. Dia yang mengatakan lebih baik mempertahankan cinta yang sekarang, daripada mencari sebentuk cinta yang baru (yups! Ini memang benar, kecuali kalau tidak melihat track record kamu, yang 5 kali pacaran dalam kurun waktu 3 tahun?). Saya tidak mengatakan ini karma, Cuma mungkin akhirnya dia mendapatkan artinya. Ketika dulu cinta masih dia miliki, sebegitu gampang dia berpaling. Dengan alasan kebosanan. Dengan alasan tidak cocok lagi. Cinta itu harus dijaga, ketika dia sudah pergi barulah terasa berartinya.

Satu orang mengeluh mengenai masalah hati. Apa yang dia keluhkan? Hubungannya dengan sang pacar sudah hampir berjalan satu tahun. Komunikasi mereka lancar-lancar saja. Hampir tiap hari bertemu, dan tiap weekend mereka lakukan dengan melakukan aktivitas khusus. Masalahnya? Ada orang lain menawarkan cinta. Seorang pramugara katanya. Dan bodohnya lagi? Dia mengiyakan permintaan sang pramugara tersebut! Arggh! Apa yang kau cari sebenarnya buddy? Saya cuma bisa mengatakan kalian sudah terjebak dalam rutinitas hubungan. Semuanya berjalan menuju statis. Semuanya terpola. Sadar atau tidak sadar, wajarlah kalau memang kamu menginginkan suasana baru. Tapi dari cinta orang lain? Saya cuma bisa menyarankan, kembalilah pada komitmen awal kalian. Perjalanan satu tahun bukan waktu yang pendek, apakah kamu ingin melepas kebahagian yang bisa seterusnya hanya untuk kenikmatan sesaat?

Terakhir masalahnya adalah rumit. Orang yang mengajak dia untuk merenda mimpi adalah orang yang sangat bertimbal balik. Berbeda. Dari pandangan, dari kesemuanya. Dia menginginkan A, (calon) pasangannya mengatakan B. Terlalu banyak hal yang abstrak dan tidak dapat terjelaskan. Sedangkan teman saya adalah orang-orang yang frontal. Baik atau buruk, jelek atau bagus, lebih baik dikatakan langsung alasannya. Supaya bisa berbenah diri. Kalau semua hal serba tidak jelas, bukankah diri sendiri yang akan bingung? Salah saya dimana?

Saya juga yakin mereka semua tahu jawabannya. Tahu kemana hati mereka akan melangkah. Saya Cuma bisa mengatakan,
”sekarang kamu bertanya kepada hati kamu, apakah kamu bahagia dengan pilihan ini?”
Sebab bukankah itu yang menjadi dasar dalam menjalin hubungan? Saya yang hanya membaca berbagai artikel cinta, mulai dari http://hanyawanita.com atau sumber-sumber lain hanya bisa mendengarkan. Saya tidak akan menyarankan apapun kecuali kalian minta. Dan apa yang terbaik kalian sendiri yang memutuskan.

Sedangkan saya? Entahlah. Mungkin Tuhan masih belum mempercayai saya. Belum mempercayai apakah saya sudah siap memulai suatu hubungan lagi atau tidak. Tapi saya tidak pernah memikirkannya. Saya tidak pernah marah. Walaupun perasaan hampa itu akan timbul disaat saya berjalan ke mal, dan melihat banyak sekali pasangan yang menghabiskan waktu, sewaktu berlari dan melihat mereka-mereka yang bergandengan tangan. Saya percaya cinta akan datang dengan jalannya sendiri. Saya tinggal membuka hati dan melihat jalan cinta itu. Saya tidak akan pernah merasa kesepian, ada banyak hal yang bisa membuat saya bahagia. Termasuk sahabat-sahabat yang masih mempercayai saya untuk mendengarkan mereka...

Art from stuff

Strangely enough in two different directions we heard about art made with a new and different medium. Both of these sites originally came to us through our northernmost New Jersey reader.

The first is amazing works of art made out of crayons. They are not drawn with crayon, mind you. But literally constructed out of crayons, set on their sides and stacked. It creates an almost pointilism type of effect. Read more about the artist, Christian Faur here.

The other is from a blog called, Boing Boing, which bills itself as "a directory of wonderful things." The folks over at Boing Boing have found an artist who makes amazing portraits out of old audio cassette tapes. You will hardly believe your eyes. The artists bills herself as Iri5. According to the blog Noise Addicts, she as an artist who, "specializes in using non traditional media such as old books, audio cassettes, playing cards, magazines, credit cards, basically whatever she can find."

Both of these artists are doing amazing work. Their creativity is an inspiration, in its willingness and success to explore and try new things.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Houseguestapalooza Phase I, In Which Doris Gets Her Oats

My parents spent a lovely week a couple of weeks back with us here in the Valley, and before I started forgetting details of what we did, I wanted to get it down, bullet-style. Details forthcoming... maybe:
  • Saturday - came in the PM; we grilled burgers on the patio and goofed around on goodreads
  • Sunday - got brunch; went to the Heard Indian Arts Festival (took the light rail) and got art and sno-cones; ate burritos at home for dinner
  • Monday - went to see the Cubs mop the Kansas City Royals; had Red Devil for the traditional Monday night Pizza Dinner. Watched Hudsucker Proxy.
  • Tuesday - visited my ASU office, the rattlesnakes, went through the museum, ate lunch at Trick's and saw Gran Torino in the afternoon. Beck got stuck at work, so we ended up ordering Red Devil for the second time in two days - YEAH!
  • Wednesday - Dad and I went golfing where I shot an even 100; Beck and Mom met Ann for high tea at the Phoenician. Fun times Ultimate game that night, followed by breakfast for dinner at a diner around the corner.
  • Thursday - went to Fidelity (YAY) and then to the SMoCA for a fun day. Grabbed lunch at Taco Del Mar and saw Watchmen in the afternoon. Grilled sausages and asparagus for dinner that night at home.
  • Friday - went to see the Cubs mop the Mariners; came home to SURPRISE meet the iPJ and iPMM; met the Tuftsboys at TeePee for dinner and Gellato Spot afterwards.
  • Saturday - Mom and Dad left pretty early; Beck, iPJ and IPMM and I headed to the Cubs game for the afternoon.
So that's it for the first leg of the tour. More fascinating bullet outlines of Phase II in the queue!!!

The Mark of Zorro: 4-2 (Just Barely)

Another ugly game for the VOTS annals Monday night. Beck and I spent the day in Tucson and rolled back into town at about 7 for our 8 o'clock game against Plastic Falls, aka Team Nabity. The brutal wind storm from Sunday hadn't quite left the vicinity - it was considerably better, but there was still a stiff breeze from the west, meaning our field was decidedly divided into upwind / downwind directions. That stiff breeze fluctuated a lot over the course of the game, changing from nearly non existent to gusting with great frequency, and you can guess the kind of impact this had on not just a bunch of hat league players, but a bunch of PHOENIX hat league players who have as many words for wind as eskimos have for cacti. Aka none - we are especially incompetent in these conditions, and I knew off the bat that we would be in for a terrible night.

And the night, she did not disappoint. My first pull got hit by one of the aforementioned gusts and sailed onto the baseball field (homerun!); we got a quick turn and an easy chance at an upwinder, but Craig turfed an easy, easy throw to Nat. And it rained on from there - bad floaty throws, drops, chaotic offense on both sides, just a total mess. Capsule of the game was a twenty minute point in the middle where Eric's team kept working it upwind only to get D'ed or thrown out of bounds or dropped on the goal line (Allyson / Jeremy / Paul all came up with huge Ds here; even I poach-laid out on Tim on an errant throw for a D). We saw their incompetence and raised it with turns on our own ten yard line, drops, floaters, turfers, you name it. On multiple occasions, I turned to Tim and asked, "Can we just go home instead?"

Ah, the characters from the other team - they had Eric and Katherine, of course, and Eric Reif, Tom, Dave, Mel, Tim, and Fife, and Ned. A bunch of people I all enjoy playing with / against; I especially appreciated Ned, with whom I had a couple of spats regarding closeness of mark on the field, but we're both of the mindset that arguing about a call is not arguing about people; you can gripe about whether you were within a disc length or what have you and then chat on the sideline afterwards. Good stuff. Seriously, I just like playing against all those guys, because you can have an intense game without it devolving - as a consequence, when guys on the other team make sweet plays (see Eric's sky below), you feel good for them. And you can spend the whole game giving goofy trash talk and compliments and everyone just stays in good spirits, even if there's an occasional argument over a foul call. So good times.

They were unfortunately (and within their right, no complaint, I just rather it would've gone the other way) unwilling to go 4-3 as Mel had to leave and Katherine wasn't feeling entirely well. We're having some playing time issues - a few people on our team don't know exactly when to come off and when to let other people stay on, so we had some messed up chemistry going on our sidelines with people frustrated that they weren't getting to play as much and not getting the disc when they were playing. Combine this with the occasional 20 minute point and the fact that it was about 50 degrees with blustering winds, and you've got a bad situation - a whole lot of standing on the sideline and stiffening up. We SERIOUSLY need to work on this; Genevieve and I spent some time talking Tuesday about how we can make sure to even out field time and give some of our new players some easy opportunities to get the disc.

(The getting new people the disc problem is not exactly new in VOTS, and with the wind and the prevalence of zone last night, there were some times where it just wasn't easy to spread the disc around. We've been doing a reasonable job - we tried to get the disc to one of our new players when the game was 10-10 and he/she dropped it, so it's not like we're looking people off because the game is on the line - but still, it sucks for people to come out, run so hard and then not get a disc for the entire game. Will try to remedy this promptly).

Anyhoo, back to the silly game - everything stayed within a break for the duration, so the sequence of scores was probably something like 0-1, 1-1, 1-2, 2-2, 3-2, 4-2, 4-3, 4-4, 5-4 , 5-5 (hell point), 5-6, 6-6, 6-7, 7-7, 7-8, 8-8, 8-9, 9-9, 10-9 (upwind zone break), 10-10 (downwind choke), 10-11, 11-11, 12-11 (super upwind improbable comeback). So a tight game throughout, but really, because of the slew of turns, it felt a lot more like a classic battle of incompetence than a good game.

Despite all my bad-mouthing, there was a serious highlight. We had thrown zone on them once or twice, unfortunately matching up with the less windy portions of the game - I don't think our Z was very effective at all, so we abandoned it relatively quickly. They threw a Z late when the wind had started howling - just bad luck for us, and a great strategic call for them. It allowed them to collapse everything on top and essentially expect no long passes - I definitely had the disc at one point and looked up to see six of their seven players within 15 yards of me. So we had to attack it with really short passes and a ton of them - Nat and I estimated afterwards somewhere between 50 and 100 on that single point - but we worked it up the entire field for a score upwind from Nat to genevieve. Just a rare, inspiring point in which we just doink doinked it all the way up the field.

Of course, we didn't complete the break - we got a turn, and I cut wide open for the follow-up score, but Craig sent a high huck over my wrong shoulder to give them the disc back. D'oh. So Tim gets the disc, and sends an upwind huck to Eric Reif who is being closely guarded by Paul. Paul gets inside position, jumps, just misses the disc, and Eric skyes the everliving crap out of him. Just a sweet grab, and one of the better "right over him!" grabs I've seen on the VOTS fields in a while. Eric sent the next throw easily to the endzone, so that 50-100 throw point was for naught. Argh.

Soft cap goes on at 10-10, so it's now a game to 12. They get a turn off a bad high release from Chris and score downwind to go up 11-10; we get it back and shred their zone downwind (scoober to Jeremy in the back left corner) to make it 11-11. I was pretty sure we were going to lose this miserable game because Eric won the opening flip and had a one point advantage as far as going downwind. Sometimes I hate frisbee. So we put out a defensive line (Paul, Jeremy, Nat, Jack, myself, Allyson, Kelly? - Kelly stayed on this point INEXCUSABLY; she had already played more than her share of the women's points, and to not give way to genevieve at this point was just dumb. Genevieve, of course, is way too nice to say such things, and I didn't want to step in, but really - game on the line, our superstar captain should be out there) and ramped up. Got off a good pull, they tossed it around a bit but our defense was on top of them. They eventually tried a deep throw to Tom through double coverage (I had poached off); bad idea, disc sails out of bounds, so we at least had a shot to win the game upwind.

And we did! Shot to Nat in the middle of the field, over to Jack, Jack to Paul, Paul to me, and I hit Nat deep with a big OI, upwind backhand over the stack for the score. Huzzah! Improbable! Win! Yeah, whatever. Don't get me wrong - it's fun to win and all, and fun to come back from a tight spot like that -but it was just an ugly game, and with all the bad vibes from our sidelines w/r/t PT, I just didn't have any exuberant feelings. I played fine, handled well and had some good Ds, the usual amount of effort, etc., but just felt like crap after this game because of the peripheral goings on.

iPJ and iPMM also attended this game, but smartly went back to the car after about fifteen minutes because of the wind and cold. I don't blame them - really gave them a horrible show. Ah, well, glad we won, I suppose, if for no other reason to maintain Monday Wednesday trash-talk justification. But it really was one of the dumber games I've played out here, and we need to do some work to regain some good times team feelings.

ADDENDUM
*************
Fun quote from Katherine's blog:

"I must say, Zorro probably has the strongest group of female players I've come up against this season. Granted I wasn't feeling great, but chasing them around the field was rough."

This coming from an experienced captain on Monday night which supposedly has the better pool of ladies. So great job, Beck, Salina, Allyson, Genevieve and Kelly!

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Tremors



The were rumblings southeast of Los Angeles, Sunday and Monday, at a place called the Salton Sea. The California government's official website crows, "The Sea teems with fish. That is why some scientists have called the Salton Sea “California’s crown jewel of avian biodiversity” and perhaps the most productive fishery in the world." Impressive stuff, not everyone agrees.

The Los Angeles Times reported that approximately 150 miles from Los Angeles, and 110 miles northeast of San Diego, "in a 48-hour period starting Saturday morning, 42 quakes shook [an area] just south of Bombay Beach on the Salton Sea. The quakes ranged in magnitude from 0.5 to 3.3, with three larger than 3.0 hitting the area Saturday afternoon."

They talked to a UC San Diego geophysicist who said the area is dangerously interconnected with the legendary San Andreas fault. They report, "These quakes appear to be taking place at the hazy intersection of several recently mapped faults crossing beneath the Salton Sea and the the San Andreas fault."

They even-handedly offer both sides of the story. The UC San Diego guy with two first names, Graham Kent, is quoted offering the darker scenario, "The worry for scientists comes from a case in 1987, when a magnitude-6.2 earthquake on one of the crossing faults appeared to trigger a 6.6 quake 12 hours later on the Superstition Hills fault to the south. The San Andreas fault is north of these crossing faults and the geometry is similar." For the opposite side, to offer some reassurance, since honestly nobody can say for sure either way, they give the reader Kate Hutton, a seismologist at Caltech. She says, "The last time a swarm of this type occurred in the area was 2001, so they are not especially unusual. Every time you have a swarm of earthquakes, it does raise the chances of having a larger quake, but it doesn't raise it a huge number."

Just an fyi.

Fingers crossed, prayers said, geological long-run inevitability understood.

Read the whole story here.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Really?

Just in case you live under a rock or something, A-Rod did an interview with Details magazine that coincided with his steroid controversy. It's at least semi-interesting that the guy is worried about what his favorite Madonna song is with the huge story looming in the background - it had not broken yet during the interview, but A-Rod had been confronted by the SI reporter - but what is just WEIRDER THAN ALL GET OUT is that he did a photo shoot that included THIS:

I am, as Zil would say - and probably should be saying, given her Yankee-leanings - in stun. I mean, I am all in favor of artistic expression and getting in touch with yourself, but kissing yourself in a mirror Narcissus-style? I just... WHAT? Congrats, homes, as if people weren't going to blare Madonna songs and call you A-Fraud / A-Roid, throw needles at you, etc., now they are going to bring mirrors to games and make out with themselves every time you come up to bat. Thanks for that. I generally leave the sports / pop culture commentary stuff to the pro-likes of BS and CK, but I felt compelled to poll the Nyetverse for an answer to the question: WHAT???

Of course, that answer may just be the slew of parodies we are about to get. Stepping up to his usual plate of originality:


At least with your face pressed against a mirror it might be a little harder to break character...

The Mark of Zorro: 3-2

Fun times in a crossover game on Wednesday as The Mark of Zorro bumped its record over .500 for the first time since the first week of the season. 'Twas a little bit of a bloodbath as Gratuitous Bailout (captained by Ted / Emily and featuring the likes of Dixon and Jim) just couldn't click the entire night - we ended up winning 15-3, and it wasn't really that close.

This was a rather exciting game, though, as not only were the iPJ, the iPMM, Meghan and Greg (and Zorro) in town (all photos taken by Greg, btw):

But Brother Aaron and his buddy John were rolling through town for a one-night stay as well (and posed for a quite excellent picture, yah?):

So quite the slew of spectators for this Wednesday night massacre, and the Zorro put on a show that did not disappoint. Per usual, I should have written up this game immediately afterwards so the details would be fresh in mind, but honestly, nothing terribly thrilling went down. We had an inordinate number of short fields to work with, and a crazy number of one and two pass scores, mixed with points where we were borderline incompetent on O, and we generally played decent D against a horribly struggling team. In fact, this one might be begging for a bullet account. Highlights (that I can remember at this point several days later):
  • Someone sent a disc deep to Jack's guy, and I poached off my man to blow by them both to get the D right by the iPBench. Pretty exciting, and apparently I still have a little gas in the tank.
  • Allyson had another huge, fly by her girl D - no layout this time because no need, she just smoked her. Fun to see a young player gettin gbetter and better each time out.
  • Genevieve caught three goals in her return to the field, and one of them was a captain-to-captain - she cut deep for the right back corner, and we had a psychic moment as she cut back hard to the left side of the endzone right as I released the backhand huck to the back left corner. Easy score, and just a really nice play - fun to play with people you know very well.
  • Very early on, Jeremy tried to hit someone cutting to the front right corner and floated it over everyone. I came screaming in and, thinking there was an opponent there to D it, went flying big layout, pure horizontal for the score. Tres exciting, though in retrospect it may have been gratuitous. Anything for the fans.
  • Funniest point - on one of the few occasions they pulled to us, Jack caught the disc, centered it to me, and then just took off yelling, "How far can you throw it?" Um, the length of the field? I shot a big forehand to the endzone and Jack ran it down for the easy score. This was one of three times that I hit Jack deep for scores on the first or second throw of the possession; fun to be on the field at the same time as him consistently in this game.
  • Annoyingest - Caught a pass by the right sideline with Beck WIDE FRIGGIN' OPEN in the endzone, and just as I was about to flip it to her for the score and the in front of her parents glory, Jeremy perpendicular cuts in front of her and everybody and wrecks the flow. Bah. Extra bad, as because of all the one pass scores, we did not do the world's best job of distributing the disc in this game. Need to correct that soon.
  • Our offense was still sketchy at times - we got a lot better in the second half (aided by some short fields due to a crushing zone we threw), but there was still more headless chicken O than I care for. On one point in particular, after about the fourth time that we had gotten it within ten yards of the endzone only to turn it over, I called timeout and gave a nice little "Um, guys, it's kinda frustrating that your captains keep saying to run the endzone O and no one's doing it" speech. So we set up, ran the endzone, and voila, easy goal to Jeremy, who quipped, "It's a lot easier when I listen." Indeed. :)
  • Generally played great D as a team all night, though it was evident within 3 points that Gratuitous had given up. Paul, Beck, Salina, Jack, Genevieve, everyone did a great job in both man and zone Ds. We ended up using the games-to-three mantra, and won them all: 3-0, 3-1, 3-2, 3-0, 3-0. Like I said, not much of a contest, and I feel pretty bad for that team as they are probably in for a season long beatdown.
  • One play just because I have a pic to go with it - I caught the disc from Craig on the sideline, threw a big hammer fake and my mark turned around to look for the disc... that was still in my hand. Broke the "mark" easily to Nat, and my defender turned back around to set up his mark as he had realized that the hammer had not gone up - only I had just taken off downfield. Nat hucked it, easy score, and that's pretty much how the night went. Here's the aftermath of a jogging two handed catch for the score:
So yes, lotsa fun, and all our visitors got to see a good game. Aaron, John and I got there very early, so Aaron and I tossed a bit and the guys got to meet a lot of my Ultiamte buds (Ben, Justin, Big Nate, Cisco, etc.). Good times. The iPJ took some video footage of the game, so perhaps I'll post some of that soon. In the meantime, here are some more pics from Greg:

Our next game is tomorrow, Monday, against fellow blogger Katherine and her Eric's team Plastic Falls, so get ready for more exciting tales from the Ultimate front.

Dido - Here With Me (Ost. Roswell)



ya, apa yang beda? kenapa saya langsung teringat dengan lagu ini? saya jujur mengatakan saya sedang menikmati kehadiran seseorang. walaupun permainan itu berulang kembali. saya tidak tahu apakah bisa memilikinya atau tidak. dan lagu inilah yang menjadi temanku selama menikmati kebersamaan dengannya. hanya dengan melihatnya.

lagu ini sendiri diambil dari album awal dido yang hunter. sejak awal, saya sudah suka dengan serial televisi roswell. yah, ceritanya tentang cinta. dibumbui dengan cerita alien. serial inilah yang menaikkan nama katherine heigl dan shiri appleby.

entahlah. bagaimana dengan perasaan ini. tapi yang jelas, saya masih berharap. tidak mungkin saya membunuh perasaan itu secara langsung kan?

Friday, March 20, 2009

Really?

The New York Times has a very disturbing follow-up to the Chris Brown-Rihanna domestic violence case. After the initial excoriation of Brown many youngsters, especially teenage women, have been able to not only forgive Brown, but reverse the blame on to the victim. What happened to the sisterhood? Where are the young feminists?

Some of the commentators in the Times blame hip-hop culture, Tricia Rose, who teaches African-American culture at Brown, said, “This is the air that hip-hop breathes. The celebration of a stereotype of an aggressive, physical, often misogynistic masculinity that often justifies resolving conflict through violence. It can’t be held responsible for this, but it can’t be ignored.”

Where are the hip-hop stars? Rather than rushing to Brown's side to declare their support, they had better take hard look at the critique of their music (and the accompanying implicit critique of their lifestyle and worldview.)

Meanwhile, the Times notes in a number of public forums from Facebook walls to school assemblies a disturbing number of young women either back Brown or blame Rihanna. All the more reason, the Clarion Content strongly urges you to talk to your kids about this incident, especially if they were fans of either Brown or Rihanna.

One hip-hop star who has got it right, sadly from personal experience of domestic violence is former Salt-n-Pepa rapper, Sandra 'Pepa' Denton, "At the end of the day, your life is on the line when you're dealing with abusive men, and your life is more important than any man. Don't rationalize or internalize abusive behavior because love doesn't hurt."

Radiohead blows off Miley!?!



The message seemed to be, 'We're too cool for all that...' It was strange, a rare discourtesy from one set of stars to another. Disney pop sensation Miley Cyrus wanted to meet her favorite band, Radiohead, who like Miley, just happened to be at the Grammy's in Los Angeles.

Surprisingly Radiohead big-timed her. They refused her entrance to their green room hangout because, allegedly, according to the band's spokespeople, "They don't really do that..." What don't they do? Meet adoring fans? Give other star entertainers the time of day? Treat people with respect?

Who knows what the self-flattering hipsters were thinking, but Miley was pissed. The next day on the radio Miley said, "Stinkin' Radiohead! I'm going to ruin them. I'm going to tell everyone," according to the UK version of Entertainment Weekly. Radiohead apparently feeling no guilt or doubt about the snub responded through a publicist, "When Miley grows up, she'll learn not to have such a sense of entitlement."

The Clarion Content's take, get a grip losers and give the teenie bopper five minutes of your time. It's like a star athlete refusing to sign an autograph for a young fan. Try to remember the flip side, you selfish buggers.

Special thanks to a local youthful reader who alerted us to this story.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Spotted


On Hillsborough Road, Durham, NC

One of the Clarion Content's staff recently spotted a cool old car on the road. Luckily he was able to snap some pics with his cell phone camera. The car was a Nash-Healey Le Mans. This is an extremely rare vehicle, so there is some possibility that the Clarion Content's amateur photographer was looking at a kit car.

Finger drive



One of the Clarion Content's intrepid editors spotted this incredible story on the BBC News website. A Finnish man had his finger amputated after a motorcycle accident last year when he crashed into a deer near Helsinki. The story is what he did afterward. Jerry Jalava, a computer programmer has created a 2 GB memory stick with a USB attachment that is installed in a prosthetic device in his finger. He accesses it by peeling back his fingernail. According to the BBC, "The finger is not permanently attached to his hand, so it can be easily left plugged into a computer when in use." Read more here.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Natasha Richardson



There are no movie mavens on the Clarion Content's current staff. We are by no means comprehensively familiar with her work, but we are greatly saddened by Natasha Richardson's sudden passing. We take it as a reminder to hold the loved ones around a little tighter and know that every day could be your last. We liked this essay about Richardson in Salon.

As you will.

Monday, March 16, 2009

Need a flute?



Ever been out and just wished you had a flute with you? Nobody we surveyed at the Clarion Content offices had either. But what if your name were Ron Burgundy and you were caught without your flute?

Maybe in the 1970's that would have been a problem, but not in 2009. In 2009 you can turn your i-Phone into a flute?!! What's that you say? You have got be kidding me! Oh no, faithful readers, we shit you not. Ge Wang, a Stanford University assistant professor, who specializes in music and computer science, and his fellow entrepreneur, Jeff Smith, developed the i-Phone application. It works by blowing into the i-Phone's embedded microphone. Offered for $.99, it was the No. 1 selling application at Apple's American stores four days after it debuted. Three weeks later, it held the top spot in 20 other countries.

Read more here in the San Jose Mercury News.

Mao.Tse.Game-Tying.Dong

Another comeback win for E-league softball powerhouse Il Veleno with a healthy dose of schaudenfreude taboot. The quick story is that the other team's catcher was a shaved head psycho intense dude who was pretty obnoxious all game long - screaming in his player's faces, yelling at people left and right no matter what - and he seriously irked everyone on our team. The capsule example happened in the top of the 6th - we were up 5-2, and their team started a rally to tie the game. With a runner on 1st and 2nd, shaved head catcher dude draws a walk, turns around and yells something in the general direction of our bench, and *dances* down the first base line and on to second. Seriously, spin-arama Barry Bonds-style after an E-league Softball BASE ON BALLS.

So much wrong with this level of intense ridiculousness. The obvious: it's E-league, and no one should be even approaching the volume of amped up silliness this guy displayed. It's co-ed. You drew a *WALK.* A SLO-PITCH WALK. This is not impressive, my man. And behind all of this is that you are PLAYING CATCHER in a co-ed game, and I'm sorry, but in every co-ed softball game I've played, you reserve catcher spot for the woman who hasn't played very much softball in her life so she doesn't hurt you in the field. This is chump city, and the antics only draw attention to the fact that you are a breathing absurdity.

FTR, I did give the guy a Seth Meyers-worthy "Really?" when he got to second base after the walk. Pretty politely, actually, but it was very much a nice version of "could you please CTFO?" He replied "Someone was talking shit," as though this qualified everything and made dancing down the first baseline a reasonable act.

So we got out of that inning down 7-5, and there were some very miffed Il Velenos on the bench as we faced our last at-bats. I was up 3rd in the inning, behind Andrew and Sara - Andrew drilled a single, Sara grounded out to short. One on, one out, and I walked up to the plate, still incredulous at spazmo-the-wonderdork's antics, and just decided, "I'm going to tie this game now." The thought did run through my head, I promise; I didn't point out to the bleachers a la Ruth or anything, but I did so mentally. First pitch a tad inside, I turned on it, and another shot landed on the sidewalk behind the centerfield fence - another non-cheapy Mao Tse Dong for the Nyet. Yeah! Game-tied! And no dancing around the basepaths, either. (In his defense, shaven crazy guy was quite gracious after the game - actually the whole team was, and I even got high fives from the other team's 2nd, ss and 3b as I *ran* around the bases. Very nice friendly vibe from the vast majority of their team; funny how the atmosphere can be charged by one player (he said knowing the fully self-reflective implications of the comment).

Tres exciting, and we came back to win it in extra-innings (where, incidentally, they invokved some Commie-non-baseball rule where you start the inning with a runner on second. Silliness!). Beck also had a great game - hit the ball hard every time, got on base 2 of 3 times, and knocked in an important run. TBN in the house!

And all of this witnessed by the iPJ / iPMM, who are in town in slots 4 and 5 of Houseguestapalooza. Full on write-up of all relative-related antics in the offing, of course, so get ready for that. ALWAYS fun, though, to hit homeruns for the fanbase. Meghan/Greg, you missed out!

Post-note: Also played Ultimate yesterday, and quad is sore but not impeding me at all. Good!

Post-note 2: Played left and SS last night, and on one play at SS, I charged a slow roller, back handed it and side-arm whipped it to first, full on Nomah in his prime style... only to have our firstbasedude drop it. I mean, chest-level throw, just dropped. This would have been the third out and ended the game with us up 5-3. So his drop permitted the later heroics, so whatever, we'll take it, but it was weird - on the next grounder, I turned to fire but was so worried about him dropping it that I short-armed it a bit - wide of the bag, not terrible and definitely within reach, but dude just watched it sail by, didn't even take a stab at it. This is not to criticize dude, just to realize that softball / baseball catching is not an easy thing to do, and I continuously forget that I've got baseball camps etc. in my head that just make things like not stretching over to catch a throw completely alien to me. Hard to know what to do about this, because with people flying down the basepath - both runners were fast - it's not like I can just lob it over there. Ah, well.

Post note 3, confessional style: I had a bad act at pickup yesterday. Lazy forehand huck goes up, I run over to grab it, jump, come down with my leg planted and a newer guy just flies across my face, bumping me and maybe six inches to a foot from just plowing me over. I was completely exposed with a planted leg, recipe for disaster, and it certainly felt like he had come charging in with no real play on the disc and almost broke me. I got really scared and really angry, went 0-60 in 1.3 seconds and just spiked the disc where I stood. Turnover, HA (Cisco actually thought I had forgotten that I was on defense and thought I had scored, which would have been vastly funnier). I think I just got startled - friends from the sideline said it didn't look particularly bad, but in the moment it felt really reckless on his part. Of course, I immediately felt terrible, and after the point tried to explain that I had just gotten scared, I've had two knee surgeries, etc. It remains really hard for me to keep these in-the-moment reactions in check - in my head, it was a really stupid play on his part (and regardless of how bad or not it looked, he had absolutely no play on the disc and should have been slowing up well before that - I had time to catch it, land, and THEN he flew by me, so he was nowhere near anything legitimate w/r/t making a bid on the throw), and it's difficult for me not to respond with a what-the-hell-are-you-doing? Worse, the guy ended up leaving a couple of points later. It was 6 o'clock already, so he may have just been planning on leaving after two hours of frisbee anyways, but now I feel terrible if I chased someone off just from being scared. All of this is just to bookend the psycho-catcher story, and note that I get it, if you are "wired" a certain way in can be hard to turn it off. Of course, getting mad because you almost got injured by a dangerous play and dancing to first are not entirely the same thing, but still, I see the connection.

Sunday, March 15, 2009

The Mark of Zorro: 2-2

Beck and I drove my parents to the game early so I could get plenty of warmup for my ailing groin; we arrived to see Premature Huckulation playing a beer point with Who Hucks to the Huckers (our last two weeks' opponents) because PH was down 14-3 or somesuch. Yikes. I ran about ten laps around the two fields getting progressively quicker, aiming to get my blood nice and flowy. After the PH/WHTTH gorefest ended, I started running some buildups across the field to see how I would respond to sudden bursts. Groin felt fine, a little tight but nothing terrible, but on the fifth buildup my good friend from the fall season weird-quad-pull showed up again. Youch. Hurt quite a bit, but I decided to tough it out and give the game a go: we were already missing Genevieve, and after the mayhem last week, I couldn't take watching another slop-fest from the sideline.

Beck and I got some quality warm-up throws in pre-game, captured by my mom in digital:

DSCF5131 DSCF5141 DSCF5138 DSCF5146
DSCF5126 DSCF5125 DSCF5120 DSCF5117

No game shots, though, as my dad was more interested in spectating than photographing. Ah, well.

We lined up to start the game against Joe Disc Pack, Liz and Russ D's team. They had the first pick on both the men's and women's side in the draft; they ended up with something of a mish mash of great players and erratic ones. They were missing their first pick Korby, one of the better women around these parts, so that balanced for our missing Genevieve. They also only had two women, so they were in for some fun on that front. On the guys' side, they have Bryan P, one of the handler / mid hybrid types and captain from the Sprawl, a total stud; Russ, an older but very tall and lanky good handler; Shannon, a fasty D guy with quite the heckler's mouth; and Bill, an older handler with some throws and knee troubles. They were missing Volo with a heel injury, taking away a mid option from them (albeit a mid option with a penchant for the aforementioned erratic-ness. Volo has gotten better since I've been in Phoenix and is a very active cutter, but he still makes some odd decisions and turfs the occasional throw) - he tried to play mid game but couldn't move too well.

The game itself was a mess - just badly disorganized play, lots of timeouts called on account of what-the-hell-is-going-on-out-there, lots of bad decision throw-aways, just a lot of trash that dragged on and on. On top of being ugly, it was just SLOW - I'll save the final score punchline for a bit, but suffice it that the soft cap went on two points after half time - so many turns, so much dragging around, just UGH. Tight the entire time, too, so neither team took enough advantage of the mistakes the other side was making. I made jokes to other experienced players at several points that we should be embarrassed to be a part of this. I'm negative that way.

As mentioned, I was pretty crippled out there, and ended up sic'ing Jack / Paul / Nat on the likes of Bryan and Russ while I guarded relative do-nothings. My leg did warm up as the game went on, but I spent a lot of the night operating at about 70%. Of course, this did not stop Bryan from guarding me when they were on defense, so after our myriad turns, I got to run around on one leg trying to stop that guy. No fun.

It's hard to remember all the ridiculous throws that happened - Jeremy tried his seemingly requisite lead up the sideline with the IO forehand he doesn't quite have yet a couple of times, resulting in turns; Craig tried hucking it to Beck by throwing it directly over her head; Kelly had some of her high release high float throws that were brutally D'ed; Paul turfed some; we as a whole just spent a lot of time trying to jam the disc up the sideline. They played zone against us on maybe one point, but both Tom and i were out there, so we did a much better job of shredding it than last week - people are figuring out where to be when, so that's nice.

Some definite highlights - whole team ran hard throughout and played pretty solid D.1 By far the highlight of the night was a goalline layout D by Allyson, and we are talking flying tsunami holy crap layout style. Just awesome. Nat is clearly getting back in shape and taking over as a mid at points, badass, and we got some big Ds out of Jeremy / Paul / Miller. Salina and Beck played solid all night - Beck would tell you that she missed three throws, but really only one of those was one she had a reasonable shot at; the others were just bad puts. Beck did run like crazy on D and called her first pick - yeah milestones.

Beck also was involved in a play that sort of encapsulated the night - somebody cut deep on Jack, the throw went up, and Jack leapt and D'ed it, only to have it float back to a morass of people. Jack tipped it again off somebody, it headed toward the ground with Beck's woman possiby about to catch it - so Beck took a swipe at it, inadvertently knocking it back UP into the air such that Volo dove and caught it for the score. UGH. SO Beck made the right play and it completely backfired. Just BLEH. But really, that was the type of night - even the goals were trash.

I've probably made the point well enough that this was an UGLY game. Here's the score line: 0-1, 1-1, 2-1, 3-1, 3-2, 3-3, 4-3, 4-4, 4-5, 5-5, 5-6, 6-6, 6-7, 7-7, 8-7, 9-7, 9-8 (softcap on - SHEESH), 10-8, 10-9, 11-9 GAME Zorro. So never more than a two point advantage for either side.

How did we pull this out, you ask? Well, a little bit of parents-in-town-time-to-put-on-a-show action from me (he said humbly). The last six goals we scored were a break to Miller from me, a full-field forehand huck to Nat, a layout grab on a short huck and a break to Jeremy for the score, a trailing edge layout catch (beating BP deep), a sky in the back right corner over three peeps, and a front corner scramble to end it. A little bit of a takeover on my part, and I feel bad about this - as evidenced by last week, it's not necessarily that great to have one person involved in 73 percent of the teams' goals like I was in this game (I threw a score early in the game and had one of those famed "jump into the endzone" catch-scores where I managed to dodge the other team's poaching woman) - but I had gotten very frustrated with the mayhem on the field. I was happy with this because one, I was being guarded by BP for a lot of it, and though he did sky the crap out of me on one floaty huck, I came through against a very good defender, and two, I was doing it on 1.5 legs. So a good feeling, my parents got to see some nice plays and relive my youth vicariously again, and we won. So hoowa!

A lot of work left to do - we are a reasonable D team right now, but are essentially running around headless chicken style on O. Not good. I am psyched that Allyson is so receptive - we were talking about cutting and D strategies throughout the game, and she is clearly eager to learn and get better. Our wacky handler situation needs to get toned down, and I still feel like we're not utilizing Jack enough. Oh, and we need to cure a certain pair of players of the "only got eyes for you" syndrome. So yeah, it's league, and we need to un-sloppify it. Weird that we had so much trouble the last two weeks after the relatively pretty game we had against PH two weeks ago. Hopefully we'll get it to click - I guess this is the way it goes in hat leagues, and we just haven't come close to getting it together for sure yet. We can do it. In the meantime, gotta heal up, 'cause we got crossover games the next three weeks, including a

BATTLE OF THE BLOGGERS

showdown with Team Nabity. Oh, it's on. Yeah, I'm talking to YOU, CRAZY WRITER LADY!!!

1 With a few glaring exceptions - someone who shall remain nameless let off two or three hucks by Bill when we were marking straight up - no good - AND that same someone got beat deep by Bill for a score when the softcap was on! WHAT??? Getting beat deep by the aged handler with ailing knees with the game on the line? NARP!

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Hayden Panettiere has company



In the discussion about the most beautiful women in the world suddenly Hayden Panettiere has new company. Her name is Cintia Dicker. Ms. Dicker is a Brazilian born woman of German descent. At the moment she speaks only Portuguese. She has appeared in various fashion magazines as well as ads for the likes of Ann Taylor and Yves Saint Laurent. Ms. Dicker just got her big break when she appeared in the new Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue.

Friday, March 13, 2009

Breakthrough battery charger



Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) announced a breakthrough in lithium-ion battery chargers yesterday. They claim that the advance allows lithium-ion batteries, the standard in small electronics cellphones, and hybrid vehicles, both to charge and discharge stored energy much more quickly than presently possible. While it might take six, eight, ten minutes to fully charge a cell phone now with a good charger, the MIT prototype can do it in thirty seconds. Because it is a new technique of manufacturing lithium-ion battery materials, rather than a new material, itself, researchers said production could be only two to three years away. It could be a huge boon to the electric car. Read more detail here from The Times of London.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Nice.

Jimmy Rollins, you may have won your MVP under false at-bat inflated pretenses, but I am now a fan thanks to this:



More updates from Houseguestapalooza are in the queue. Mom & Dad / Ann are the visitors thus far, with Meghan / Greg, Tuftsmen, iPJ / iPMM next in the queue. Jamie even drove through Arizona the other day! Nutso. Plus a Mark of Zorro update is forthcoming, too. Oh, you're excited.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Puppet philosophy

For those of you who have always wanted to get philosophical advice from a puppet, here is your opportunity. Meet Puppetji...





Thanks to a local Durham reader and UNC grad who sent this our way...

Monday, March 9, 2009

Cubs Win!!! In Spring, Yeah, But Still...



Took in a lovely 2.5 hour game at Hohokam with my parents this afternoon and watched the Cubbies beat up on the hapless Royals. More later, maybe, but Houseguestapalooza is going well so far.

We warned you Facebookers



We have been trumpeting the privacy issues surrounding Facebook for quite some time here at the Clarion Content. This week Facebook cost another person a job. The lesson, don't post negative things about your employer on your Facebook, unless you are prepared to face the consequences.

The story is Philadelphia Eagles employee, Dan Leone, who managed the west gate of the stadium was upset when the Eagles let star safety Brian Dawkins escape to Denver via free-agency. Unfortunately, Leone instead of keeping it to himself posted on his Facebook, "Dan is bleeping devastated about Dawkins signing with Denver ... Dam Eagles R Retarted!!"

Bad idea. Dan Leone is now an ex-Eagles employee. ESPN cites the Philadelphia Inquirer,
"I shouldn't have put it up there [he] said...I was ticked off, and I let my emotions go, but I didn't offend any one person or target a specific individual. I was just upset that we lost such a great guy. Dawkins was one of my favorite players. I made a mistake."

Leone said he was shocked to lose his job of six years.

"I apologized for it...I apologized 20 million times. I never bad-mouthed the organization before. I made one mistake and they terminate me? And they couldn't even bring me into the office to talk to me? They had to do it over the phone? At least look me in the eye. To get done dirty like this, I can't believe it. I'm devastated."

Sunday, March 8, 2009

F*ck, Amazing

The Clarion Content has never really watched the HBO crime show, The Wire. We have always heard good things about it. Our favorite sports columnist Bill Simmons frequently raves about it.

This scene is two of the shows fictional detectives, McNulty and Bunk, investigating the crime scene of a murder. The amazing thing about it is the only dialogue in the scene is curse words, particularly the F-note. Yet they manage to brilliantly convey their changing theory about how the murder went down.

Saturday, March 7, 2009

Chris Brown and Rihanna

Chris Brown and Rihanna have been a ubiquitous presence in the headlines in recent weeks. For many, this was their first encounter with the couple and snap judgments have been made. But for most of America's youth this was not their first time, they have followed these two through the media for what seems like, by their time scale, ages.

Domestic violence and abuse is a significant problem in America. This is not a moment for parents, educators or adults in general to ignore. Nor is it something that should be pigeonholed with out real discussion and dismissed. Youth will sense the inadequacy of that and reject it. They will formulate their own opinions if conversations are not initiated. Forthright, open and honest talks with the kids and teens in one's life who admired this couple is how it should go down.

If you are intimidated by this prospect or don't know where to start, here are a couple of thoughts; one is from the Los Angeles Times, the other is from a favorite blogger of the Clarion Content, In Her Shell.

Friday, March 6, 2009

College Humor



The Clarion Content has recently been introduced to the website CollegeHumor.com (apparently they have a television show, too.) It is sophomoric, but some of it is soooo funny.

Here's a real prank the guys pulled. (What a surprise the Maryland fans were willing to get involved.)

This one was also bemusing if you have ever been at a bar a little too close to last call.

This one is ostensibly shot from the point of view of a hot girl at a bar.

Five Years... What a Surprise

They're baaaaaaaaack:


Phish plays tonight in Hampton, VA. .03.06.09 is NOW!!! NYT article here.

Download show FOR FREE afterwards here.

The Mark of Zorro: 1-2

Ugh, just ugh. As mentioned, during Friday night's CHAMPIONSHIP tournament, my right leg's adductors tightened up a bit, largely because we had to sit for an hour waiting for the semis to start. Nothing bad, just tight, and I played through it just fine. During Sunday's Ultimate pickup, they were tight and a little sore, but pretty manageable, until late in the day when I tried to stop suddenly to set a mark, and I felt a sharp twinge in my groin. I immediately took myself out (though did proceed to play softball that night, where I managed to limit myself to jogging - got to jog around the bases, actually. MAO.TSE.DONG.YEAH!) and hobbled around the next day, but felt pretty good really by Monday afternoon. Rested it and went to the game on Wednesday early to try to loosen up.

No dice - I jogged about a mile and a half, did some build-up sprints, plyos, and a bunch of lateral movement kind of drills, and it felt fine. But I stretched a little (bad idea with an injured groin, of course, but I had to test it somehow - didn't want the first stretch to be a violent lunge on the field), and then even just trying to throw, every time I moved quickly to catch a disc or pivoted, I could feel that little tightness. So I had a decision to make, and STUNNINGLY, if you know me at all, I took my cleats / braces / arm bands off and put on tennis shoes. Coach-mode for this game, and as we already knew we would be missing Nat for the game, this was sub-awesome. A good decision if a hard one, I think, because missing one game is certainly preferable to playing hurt, having something pop and missing a month or whatever. I guess we'll see in the long term if the rest pays off.

There were what I can only call ecstatic giggles of non-competitiveness from the other team - don't know how much to attribute to general schaudenfreude and how much to relief or whatever, but outside of their captains and some of their better players (we were playing Who Hucks to the Huckers - super team name, btw - so this included Justin, Joanne, & Rob, all super standup players and all-around great peeps) who were completely on the level and were sorry that I wasn't able to play, there were a whole lot of smiles coming from the other side. This continued in the game - a fair amount of "not really getting the big picture" loud-mouthed cheering from some of the mid-level players on their team - but more on that in a sec (and of course, I was probably just frustrated / sensitive to such shenanigans because I could do little to affect the situation).

So game on, and the first point pretty much encompasses a lot of went on - a couple of good passes to move it about 30 yards up the field, and then Jeremy tried to hit Paul in stride with a leading, perpendicular throw (I'll, I don't know, diagram what I'm talking about here in a separate post, but trust that it's a difficult / low margin of error throw that's only worth making in very particular situations, and this was not one of them), overthrew him, and Paul missed it, giving them the disc at midfield. JT picks it up and puts up a garbage, swill-ass floaty huck, but it's Justin on Jack in the endzone and Justin skyes him for the goal. JT's fist-pumping his way off the field, and whatever, he's excited, but it's a little bit of a "you do realize he just bailed out your crap throw, right?" kinda moment.

So that first point summed it up - a bad decision augmented by bad execution, a short field for the opponent, and a decent play by the other team that got interpreted as AWESOME because the outcome was good. This sort of thing continued all night - overly aggressive, bad decision type throws that resulted in turns and very short fields for the bad guys. Particularly in the first half, we gave them the disc in transition / short field situations that permitted them to score in one to two throws - a lot of these were iso-type plays for Rob, and to their credit, they executed very well and took advantage of our gaffes.

Our Zone O was particularly worrisome - on the one hand, it was just the usual confusion of a League team trying to figure out who should be where and whatnot, but on the other, it was just a severe lack of patience and knowledge of the types of throws that should be attempted against a zone. We moved it pretty well, all things considered, but invariably, after ten nice throws, someone would try to jam it into a tight spot or send it deep for no apparent reason. Missing Nat and me meant a lot of sliding around position-wise for other players - for example, Jack ended up handling quite a bit, and while he is a perfectly competent handler, not having him available to pop is a huge detriment to our team. So yeah, there were some snags, and we weren't dicing their zone D by any means, but we *were* moving it just fine... and then player X would try to jam it down to the sideline to player Y for a turn, or player Z who doesn't *really* have a hammer would try it out for a turn. Very frustrating to watch - the entire time I kept thinking that it was not that I'm such a great player skill-wise that I could single-handedly impact a game, it's that I can anchor our zone O so one, there's a little more rhyme/reason to what's going on, and 2, no one is compelled to try those risky throws because I am right there to demand the disc back and such. Ugh.

Were I an honest blogger, this would be the paragraph where I point out all the bad play of our team, the particular bad decisions and the general lack of stepping up / controlling the game that we got from our handlers. And the repeated ill-thought-out throws from some of our mids, our inability to get our women better-involved, etc. A lot of people - Tom, Craig, Paul, Genevieve, to name a few - had personal (and uncharacteristic) bad nights. I am sure people looked at this game and try to explain it as "Oh, Nat/Nyet didn't play," but I'm hoping its less that - b/c that would be really bad if two people were so essential to the team that their absence were a death blow - and more a combination of "Nat/Nyet weren't there AND the people who were there had individually off nights, too." I think that's probably accurate - sure, Nat and I may have made a big difference, but I'd like to think it's not the difference between last week's highly competitve team and this week's borderline incompetent appearance.

To accentuate the positive, though, we teamwide kept running until the very last point. Jeremy's hustle and heart were impressive; Miller was still playing tight D through the final point. Beck played good D all night; Salina did a good job covering the wing in the couple of occasions where we threw a Z. Jack admirably stepped into the handler role and stayed positive all night despite highly frustrating circumstances. Our hustle aspect was not lacking; it just couldn't really get going because of all the poor throw decisions. People stayed relatively bright despite a terrible night - so in the grand "fun, run, smart" triumverate, we really only failed on the last measure.

Oh, yeah, the final score: we lost 15-6. Sorry that I'm not going through the usual play-by-play here, but really, it was a lot of head-hanging, incredibly bad throws that got D'ed on our half of the field, they picked it up and put it in. Huzzah for them - again, they played efficiently - but good lord, the guys on their teams who were screaming and jumping all over themselves, j***ing in their pants when they were up 9-2 just have NO CAPACITY to differentiate when they're playing well and when their undermanned opponents are imploding. I suppose the nice thing would be to just let them have their day in the sun and be done with it, but they carved themselves a big hate stick for the next time I play them with their antics. I hereby vow to remind a couple of dudes in particular of their place in the Ulti-verse the next time I line up across from them. Grrrrr. :)

None of this is anything to do with their captains, as I mentioned above - Justin, Joanne, and Rob (not a captain but a high level player from Sprawl) all "got it" pretty quickly, and while they didn't lift their foot off the accelerator - nor should they have - they approached the situation entirely the right way, just kept playing hard without ranting or being stupid about it. And they did do stuff - trying to get some of their less-experienced players more involved, etc. - that is exactly the type of thing you SHOULD be doing in a blowout like that. We played in a lot of blowouts last season, and when we got ahead, of course we called deep plays for Alexxx, called different people in at handler, what have you.

What we did NOT do is start effing around, throwing behind the back, no look junk. Which is what Kuby did - up 14-6 in a game with the other team clearly down in the dumps, he throws a no-look blade in an attempt at a score. I immediately called him on this from the sideline in a relatively nice way - "Just so you know, that's kinda BS" - which was probably borne partially from frustration on my part. But seriously dude, no matter how innocent you play, I *know* you are not throwing that garbage if the score is 14-12. I TAKE UMBRAGE, FO' REALS. Maybe he's too stupid to even realize how that looks - his captains were apologetic and claimed this - and maybe I'm being overly sensitive. But now you know not to do that, and now when we run into you in the playoffs, you have given us BULLETIN BOARD MATERIAL. Huzzah!

And yeah, I realize this is all ridiculous; I'm just trying to salvage something from a horrible game that made us all generally feel like crap. Though I did, by all reports, do a decent job of keeping things positive on our side despite the circumstances. We'll pick it up next week, and hopefully with a week of rest my groin will be good to go. Until then, I'm liking the balance of league thus far - lotsa close games on the Wednesday side, and it certainly seems like there's more parity than we had last time. We'll see how it plays out.

P.S. Lest it be forgotten, the other team also capped things with a cheer to the tune of the Annie song: "O Zorro, O Zorro, we love you, O Zorro, you're only a Nyet away." While flattering and all that... um, yeah, thanks for making my teammates feel like crap, like they need me around to play well. They don't, and hopefully this off night will be shown to have been just that by season's end.

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Mao.Tse.DONG.

The 265 foot fence could not contain my Ruthian 300 foot blast... yes, tonight, for the first time since April-or-so 1996, the Nyet Dog hit an out-of-the-park homerun. True, it was E-league softball, but it was a crushed no-doubter that sailed into the top of the tree that stands a good fifteen feet behind the fence in left center. A three run shot, and trotting around the bases while yelling at Genevieve to pick up the pace in front of me was GOOD TIMES. Even if the field was small, this was not a cheapy, and there are few feelings like hitting a ball on the nose - just perfect, Zenny fluid contact - and jogging around the basepaths carefree. Beck has made the requisite fun of me for trying not to smile as I walked back to the dugout and received congratulations from my stunned Il Veleno teammates.

So hooray for the Balladeer - an upbeat verse tonight that *almost* makes up for the groin I pulled at pickup tonight before the softball game. Beck and I had some celebratory greasy NY Pizza after game (with Ulti-pals Volo and EBay) and I am currently sipping a good-job-Nyet Newcastle. Tomorrow, it will be back to more serious, worklike things, but for now, yay for that 1996 feeling.

Oh yeah, and we won 16-2 or some such. Rolling lately, eh?!??!!

TMZ linguistic hit

Gossip web site TMZ hit the perfect tone today describing a hardly recalcitrant Chris Brown partying in Miami, "With the sun beating down on his uncovered face, Chris Brown spent another awesome day smacking waves around with a jet ski in Miami." Perfect.

Reports in People Magazine had him partying with rappers Young Jeezy and Plies, football player Reggie Bush, and television socialite Khloe Kardashian, sister of Bush's girlfriend, Kim Kardashian at the Gansevoort South Hotel the previous night.

Neither Rihanna nor her family have ruled out her dumb ass getting back together with alleged abuser Brown.