30 Apr 2010 – Pre-Game 6 Lakers @ Thunder Thoughts

Some pre-Game 6 scribbles:

• I hope the Lakers close out the dangerous Oklahoma City Thunder tonight.  
• A lot of pundits on the radio have been casting this first round playoff series in the same light as last year’s Western Conference semifinals between the Lakers and the Houston Rockets.  
• I don’t agree with the comparison, simply because Houston last year was like a wounded animal lashing out in a bid for survival (it had neither Yao Ming nor Tracy McGrady available for most of the series); OKC is fully healthy, young, more athletic and quicker than the Lakers, and look to be better-coached than the Rockets were last year.
• More than a few experts have declared that, if the Lakers do advance into the second round and beyond, they should have an easier time against whichever teams they play than they are having against the Thunder.  So… is this a high compliment for the Thunder or a savage indictment of the rest of the Western Conference?

Will the Lakers win tonight?  I sure hope so.  If nothing else, it will prevent a pivotal Game 7 on Sunday, which is also my birthday.  So why is this a big deal?  Well, for most of my life, whenever there is a sports event on my birthday, the team or player(s) I support will lose more often than not.  

I’m not kidding.

Even in sports events I played in on my birthday (for three summers in the Philippines, I played summer league basketball), my team ALWAYS LOST ON MY BIRTHDAY.  It’s a freaky kind of jinx which persists to the present day.  In all honesty, I feel a certain kind of terror when I find out the Lakers (or, if there’s a car race on my birthday, my favorite team or driver) are competing on my birthday because they almost inevitably lose.  

If the Lakers lose tonight and play Game 7 on Sunday (my birthday), I’m so afraid they’ll lose.  

Not because the Thunder are playing better or are the better team, but because they’re playing on my birthday.  Absurdly, if they DO lose Game 7 on my birthday, I’m going to feel so responsible…

(I’m praying like crazy the Lakers win tonight!)

29 Apr 2010

Scribbles for today:

• On days like today, it’s very difficult to not allow your cynical side to dominate you.
• My boss had her last day at work today.  I wish I could say that it was a stress-free, happy time for her, but sadly it was not so.
• Her courage and fortitude, her internal strength, and her faith in people – especially those in positions of power and influence – were tested to the max today; I hope that she keeps a healthy supply of each by the end of her personal odyssey.
• I cannot help but share her anger, her frustration, and some of her bitterness for the cross she has to bear.  But if I know her well enough, though she feels overwhelmed at this time, she will have what it takes to come through to the other side with power and grace.  

One of the things I will associate with my former boss is butterflies.  She loves them, and once told me about part of the reason why she does:  If nothing else, butterflies have a symbolic significance.  They are born into this world, then they cocoon themselves as part of their own growth and emerge even more beautiful, even stronger and even more capable than ever.

My boss is probably in the stage of being in a cocoon.  I know she’ll emerge as a strong, graceful, beautiful butterfly by the time her tribulations and trials are done.

28 Apr 2010

Some scribbles for today:

• I’ve tried extra-hard the last couple of weeks to maintain a bit of a regular scribbling schedule for this blog, but life happened.  That is to say, I’ve been quite busy in the days between this entry and the most recent one.
• Tomorrow, April 29, 2010, is my boss’ last day here at the office.  Her team is very sad to see her leave us, but we’re glad that she has the chance to start afresh somewhere else.  
• I lose a great boss and an even better friend.
• All this week I’ve been training to learn many new duties and responsibilities that my boss originally had.  Some of these duties may seem to be above my job class.  Out of sheer necessity, though, someone in our office has to take on these duties.

All I can ask and hope for is that the management has enough patience in me as I absorb these new duties.  I can only guarantee that I’ll try to learn as quickly as possible, and that I hope make only a few mistakes on the journey to fully learning them.  I’m pretty realistic and understand that any process that entails growth will have its share of growing pains.  

I hope that the new expectations in me are matched with a corresponding degree of reasonable understanding from the management.

23 Apr 2010

Today’s scribbles:

• I can say, without regret or reservation, that I enjoy video games.  Whether it’s a game on the PC or one for a console, if it’s a fun, educational, involving game, I’ll most likely develop a taste for it and enjoy it.
• I often have at least two games on my current playlist.  
• When I say “I’m playing this game,” it means that I’ll spend at least one hour of an evening immersed in it.  Sometimes I spend several hours playing.
• Sports games like the Madden NFL or NCAA Football series, or the Fight Night series, are black holes for my free time.  On the other hand, these games are on consoles; since I don’t have my PS3 at my apartment, I probably am over-compensating when I do indulge when I play at my parents’ house.
• Here’s what’s on my current playlist:  Monopoly; SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition; Scrabble; Crysis.

So, if you were to hazard a guess, which of these games is my favorite?

Crysis is fun, and it’s obviously the most technologically-advanced video game on this list.  However, its beauty as a game is probably only skin-deep.  As a FPS, it’s challenging and innovative (I think of the Raptor team, and Nomad in particular, as ultra-technological ninja warriors armed with firearms instead of shurikens and swords).  But is it transcendent (like Far Cry was for its time, or as I think Call of Duty 4:  Modern Warfare was at its introduction)?  I hesitate to hang that tag on Crysis.

Believe it or not, I spend most of my gaming time on Monopoly and SimCity 4.  Why?  Probably because I feel all my tensions and stress melt away when I’m playing those games.  You still get your thrills playing either game – I know I do when I keep Opteron City 165 in the black, or when I get a monopoly with Mediterranean and Baltic Avenues and build hotels there and beat everyone else.  Such games still satisfy that need to compete and dominate the opposition, but they don’t extract a bloody toll from you.

Some nights, that’s all you really need to unwind.

22 Apr 2010

Some scribbles for today:

• My boss only has five more days before she has to leave our office because she was laid off.  She has tomorrow, then four days next week.
• I’m terribly sad about it.  Not only has she been my boss, but over the last couple of years she has also become one of my best friends at the Zoo.
• As a consequence of the continual down-sizing of the staff, the remaining employees must necessarily take on more responsibilities than ever.  My boss showed  me the division head’s plans for the redistribution of duties and assignments; per the list I saw, I’ll be assuming the most in terms of new stuff to do.
• On the one hand, I’m flattered to be given a lot of new tasks and responsibilities.  Perhaps it suggests that the management believes that I’m potentially capable of taking on the increased workload.  However, on a more practical level this also means that a lot more will be expected of me, which only means more stress.
• It’s a very interesting conundrum:  Do you take pride in the idea that the higher-ups think you can do a lot for the team, or do you allow the trepidation, the fear of failure, to take over and dominate your outlook when it comes to how you view your work situation?  I honestly don’t know the answer to this question.

I think the only thing I can really do is keep an open mind about things.  You keep on doing the best you can each and every day; you give 100% when you come in, then you throttle down to 0 when you leave the office until you return the next day.  Take each new day, each new situation, as a chance to learn and grow, and keep your eyes on the road ahead.

Who knows?  Perhaps the road you’re presently on is where you’ll always want to be in; more likely, though, you’ll come upon new opportunities that might detour you from the current road, and you find yourself in a better place in the end.

Whatever else, it promises to be a very interesting ride.

21 Apr 2010

Scribbles for today:

• I don’t like attending events where there is sure to be a crowd, but one exception was yesterday’s unveiling of Chick Hearn‘s statue in the courtyard of the Los Angeles Lakers‘ home court, the Staples Center.
• I still remember when Chick died in the summer of 2002; it was one of the few times when the death of a public figure had me on the verge of tears.
• One of the great inevitabilities of losing someone like Chick is, as with all all-time greats (Chick will never lose his place amongst the greatest play-by-play sports broadcasters on radio or television, no matter what sport we’re talking about – and Chick actually broadcast in many sporting events, which highlighted his versatility), there will never be anyone like him.
• It just kills me that a chump like Joel Meyers is the Lakers’ TV play-by-play guy.  It is an incomprehensible, unforgivable situation given Meyers’ ineptitude, pretentiousness, and degree of inadequacy compared to the (admittedly impossible-to-achieve) standards Chick established.
• At least the youthful, yet thoroughly accomplished, Spero Dedes is in the radio play-by-play seat.  Spero must replace that insufferable Meyers someday.  (The sooner this happens, the better.)

I wasn’t there, but per the numerous reports of the event that I’ve read, Magic Johnson and Lakers owner Dr. Jerry Buss were conspicuous (to me) for their absence for the unveiling of Chick’s statue.  I can somewhat understand why Dr. Buss wasn’t there (he’s in his mid-70s, and it was raining during the ceremonies), but Magic’s absence is more glaring.  When Chick was alive, Magic was clearly one of his favorites, and you can just tell whenever he talked about Magic that in some ways Chick loved Earvin Johnson the man as much as he did Magic Johnson the Laker great.  For Magic to not have been there seems a little off-putting to me, to be perfectly honest.

20 Apr 2010

Some scribbles for today:

• April 20 is more than just another ordinary day on the calendar for some people.
• Some people actually celebrate the fact that it’s Adolf Hitler‘s birthday.  (For the record, I’m not one of those people.  I’m only mentioning that fact.)
• For many people, this date is a painful one since it marks the anniversary of the atrocious Columbine High School massacre.  (This year is the 11th anniversary, actually.)
• April 20 has also come to be associated with the cannabis culture.  (April 20 = 4-20)
• Professional wrestler “Ravishing” Rick Rude died on April 20, 1999 (the same day as the Columbine HS massacre).

As much as I really enjoy calling my near-regular short blog entries “Quick Slants,” I think I shall put that moniker in mothballs.  I love (American) football and have invested a lot of my personal time studying it, which is why I called the short-format blog entries after a particular quick pass concept; however, in the context of this blog’s actual title, it makes far more sense to call the shorter blog entries “scribbles.”

Most people probably would never have noticed; I don’t imagine a lot of people actually caring.  But for those who actually have been paying closer attention, well…  that preceding explanation is for you.  🙂

Quick Slants – 19 Apr 2010 Edition

Today’s quick slants:

• So…  where are all the Andrew Bynum haters amongst the Lakers fans right now?  His performance on both offense and defense in Game 1 of the NBA Western Conference quarterfinals was a big part of the win.
• Ron Artest‘s defense on the Oklahoma City Thunder‘s Kevin Durant (the NBA’s top scorer in 2009-2010) played just as big a role as, if not bigger than, Bynum’s control of the low post.  Ron-Ron was practically glued to Durant for most of the game, bothering him on most shot attempts and frustrating the prolific Thunder shooting forward.
• The 2010 Formula One season is four races old, with fifteen to go, and so far it has been brilliant.  So many great performances from a variety of drivers and teams.
• Robert Kubica of Poland, who drives for the Renault factory F1 team, is probably this season’s most pleasant surprise.  His performances in the first four Grands Prix seem to be flattering his car.  That’s not to suggest that the Renault is a great car, or even a very good one.  To see the Renault’s true performance potential, watch Russian F1 rookie Vitaly Petrov in the sister car.
• Michael Schumacher is still a dirty driver.  He edged most of the drivers attempting to overtake him off the track during the Grand Prix of China.  Why no one seems to take him to task for such tactics is one of those mysteries that I’ve never solved or understood.
• I want to like Lewis Hamilton – he is probably one of the three most talented F1 drivers today, along with Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel – but he unfortunately indulges in same kind of questionable tactics as Michael Schumacher and the late Ayrton Senna did.  Transcendent talent and great statistics and results are not the end-all, be-all for me; just as important is a respect for old-school racing ethics.  Racing is an inherently dangerous sport on its own; hooliganism of the ilk that Hamilton sometimes uses only elevates that danger level unacceptably.

The Lakers don’t look like champions right now, but I must say that I was pleased and impressed to see them play the way they did in the first half in Game 1.  They played with more discipline on both offense and defense for much of the game and controlled the tempo enough to prevent the Thunder from exploiting their athleticism more than they did.  Artest’s defense on Durant had the Thunder scrambling for points, and it took them a while to start exploiting the Lakers’ most glaring weakness:  L.A.’s point guards are poor-to-awful on-the-ball defenders.

It’s obvious that the Lakers have a huge advantage in the low post, with two bona fide scoring threats in Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol.  The combination of both Bynum and Gasol is what sets the Lakers apart compared to most teams in the NBA; in my opinion, they should look to exploit this unique advantage as often as possible.  Why the Lakers sometimes seem to forget this is perplexing.  What makes things even more perplexing is often it’s the Lakers’ own impatience and lack of discipline which takes them out of the low post offense-first mentality.  Granted, sometimes some opponents (the Boston Celtics, in particular) will clog the middle and force the Lakers to have poor floor spacing and take them out of their offensive rhythm; too often, though, the Laker guards and small forwards settle for long jumpers and three-pointers.  When this happens, the result is almost 100% predictable:  The Lakers miss, they fail to get the offensive rebound (this particular aspect of their game is easily the most frustrating for me), and the opposition will start their transition offense and get an easy bucket on the fastbreak.

We saw some of that in Game 1 already.  It would do the Lakers well if they stay focused and disciplined on offense and go inside first on every offensive possession.

Quick Slants – 17 Apr 2010 Edition

Today’s quick slants:

• As I grow older, fewer things genuinely shock me.  Maybe the growth of one’s cynicism is the price of getting older?
• Something that does shock me, though, is how some people actually prefer using software-based effects simulators in their PC audio components.  I’m talking about Creative Labs’ proprietary technologies such as Crystallizer and EAX 3D effects.
• I’m sure this is all about preferences, but for the life of me I simply don’t understand how some people prefer sound that is processed to sound differently to how it was originally recorded.  Especially when it comes to musical recordings on playback, I have developed an abhorrence of artificially processing the sound to accentuate certain frequencies (applying non-flat equalizer settings beyond the most modest levels), especially at the expense of other frequencies.
• This may sound like a paradox, but I prefer the most “natural” kind of sound reproduction possible.  (The paradox is defined by the fact that the playback of recorded music is inherently artificial, as it is a reproduction; on many levels, anything that is a product of technology is artificial, when you think about it.)  Dramatically altered equalizer settings, Crystallizer, and EAX effects all sound unnatural to my ears because they change the sound so much.

I have to confess I have something of a “sound card fetish.”  I’ve tried, and owned, so many different sound cards on my various PCs over the last four years that I’ve been a performance computing enthusiast.  Off the top of my head, here are some of the sound cards I’ve run:  Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy SE; Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic (I’ve sold this card); HT Omega Claro (also sold); Razer Barracuda AC-1 (a great friend owns this card now); AuzenTech X-Meridian (a strong candidate for personal favorite sound card so far); AuzenTech X-Fi Prelude; ASUS Xonar D2 (another strong contender for favorite sound card; I’ve sold this card, though); HT Omega Claro Halo XT (deployed in my current desktop); and my new-in-box ASUS Xonar Essence STX (this one is intended for a yet-to-be-completed machine).

A seemingly eclectic collection, for sure, but not really as diverse as one might think, particularly when you consider the fact that there are really only three different APUs (Audio Processing Unit) in that group.  There’s Creative’s Sound Blaster (in the eponymous Audigy SE), their X-Fi (in the XtremeMusic and AuzenTech’s X-Fi Prelude), and CMedia’s CM8788 (in all the other cards).  But while there are only three APUs in play (pun intended), the cards all have different personalities and all sound differently at non-adjusted settings with outputs coming out of the same sets of speakers and headphones.  In other words, sound reproduced by the HT Omega Claro, a CM8788-equipped card, is different compared to that reproduced by the Razer Barracuda or the ASUS Xonar D2 (both of which also have the same CM8788 APU).

Which takes us all back to the point of preference.  My ears know what they like, so I’ve changed sound cards during my pursuit of what my listening preferences vis-a-vis sound reproduction are with the cards at their “flat” (i.e., equalizer settings unadjusted), stereo (I only run two speakers – Swan M200 MkII – , and a set of Shure SRH840 headphones) settings.  While I’ve yet to find the “ideal” sound card (the X-Meridian is still my current favorite; I might bring her out of mothballs soon and put her in my desktop machine again), I have found what sound reproduction characteristics I just plain disliked in combination with the rest of my gear.

With the exception of the Xonar D2 (I loved that card, but sold it for a good price), I’ve sold the cards I liked the least, and keep in my collection the cards I loved best.

Quick Slants – 16 Apr 2010 Edition

Today’s quick slants:

• I’m looking forward to a weekend of football (pro and college) on the PS3.
• It’s a shame that neither current-gen console football game is available on the PC.
• If not for the various non-racing sports game I love, I doubt I’d even have a current-gen console.  PC gaming just seems so much more fun to me.
• My broom (not a mop, since I wear my hair spiked up most of the time) of salt-and-pepper (thanks, dad, for the premature white hair gene) finally gets trimmed tonight, after work.
• More writing on tonight’s personal schedule, as well as some sim racing testing.  I installed a whole mess of race circuits and car types for rFactor recently, and I’ve got to get more familiar with netKar Pro as well.

While on my monumentally-scaled messenger run today, I was listening to 710 KSPN, to the LA Sports Live show with Andrew Siciliano and ex-L.A. Laker big man Mychal Thompson (MT is amazingly entertaining).  One of the topics discussed in today’s show was the fact that the NBA protects its superstars and gives them additional advantages, one of which is awarding them with “extra” foul calls in their favor, especially when these superstars are playing on their home courts.  Siciliano made the point that, if the NBA’s referees applied the rules strictly by the letter and called every infraction and every foul that occurred during the course of the game, then the games would be impossibly long, resulting in a boring show for the fans.  As both MT and Siciliano said, no one pays to see a free throw shooting contest.

This basketball student and fan strongly begs to differ.  Personally, I HATE the David Stern-issued edict that NBA superstars should be given extra favors, especially when it comes to officiating.

I think that Siciliano’s logic is asinine in the extreme; if nothing else, it suggests that he has never played in a sanctioned basketball competition (as opposed to pickup games) in his life.  Here’s the thing:  If the refs do indeed apply the rules with as much impartiality as possible, then there is a natural consistency in how the game is officiated, and therefore the players can adjust to the established standards the officiating crew establishes.  Call a given play one way every single time, and it thus becomes the player’s job to adjust to how that call is made.  A foul will always be a foul, traveling is always traveling, three seconds in the paint is always three seconds in the paint, etc.  The way things are (and have been ever since Stern became the commissioner and tacitly mandated the “protect and promote the superstars” edict in the 1980s), you call a given play one way if a non-superstar does it – say, Sasha Vujacic pushes off on his defender on a step-back jumpshot attempt -, then call it completely opposite when a superstar does the exact same thing (who can forget Michael Jordan pushing off on Bryon Russell in the NBA Finals?  I haven’t; nor have I forgiven such an egregious example of the shitty officiating standards in the NBA).

When you have inconsistent rules applications, the players can never adjust.  That’s when the players get frustrated, and educated fans get angry.  It’s like trying to hit a moving target through a smokescreen.  It also sends a terrible message:  The “haves” get even more advantages heaped upon them, and the “have-nots” get shafted.

And that’s just plain wrong, in my book.  And it always will be.