Soul-Devouring Worry
¤ Growing sick of going on and on.

Life's Too Short For:
¤ Not embracing your dueling god jewelry.

Curse of the Day:
¤ May your writing frenzy preclude eating, two days in a row.

Phrase of the Moment:
¤ Phrase: "The"
¤ Usage: "Let's go shop for The sex toys."
¤ Synonyms: N/A
¤ Deviations: None.
¤ Origin: Unknown.
¤ Notes: This one is all in the usage. While there's nothing unusual about saying "the noun," what makes it funny is that we use it constantly, and inappropriately, such as before proper nouns.  "I hate that new commercial for The McDonald's." for instance.  It's a sort of mock emphasis and formality and official-ness that spices up uneventful things.

Sadly, it's also a very verbal thing that doesn't translate very well into text; such as this description. -- October 13, 2003

Today was different, one of those, "It's like I'm taking dictation." days, where my mind was a paragraph ahead of my sewing machine fingers and I had to constantly hit enter a few times and jot down a sentence-long note on something I wanted to address a few paragraphs later on.

Of course whether or not any of this will be evident to the home viewer is yet to be determined.  I suppose I'll know tomorrow, or perhaps the next day, since I wrote far more stuff than I'm going to post today, even with this blog being longer than usual.

I never really know which blogs people will like best or find the funniest.  Often I'll write something I think is painfully clever and will laugh at it myself, and then get no reader reaction to it at all.  Other days I see Malaya laughing herself purple over some small lines that I didn't think were at all funny when I wrote them, and still don't see as funny when she points them out to me.  Different things just strike different people funny at different times, and there's really no predicting it.  You can't amuse all of the people, all of the time.

Speaking of different reactions to things at different times, Malaya and me got the Matrix 2 when it was released, yesterday night.  Circuit City had them on sale for $14.99, and there's one not too far from here, so we drove over Tuesday evening and snapped up a copy, after browsing a bit.  We didn't really plan on watching it that night, but one thing lead to another, and after a late dinner we found ourselves on the couch, arm in arm, watching Trinity leap out of the skyscraper, in Neo's dream.

I'm not going to go into a big discussion of it at this time, but I do want to revisit the ongoing plot issues before Matrix 3 comes out in November, and explains everything neatly (he said, hopefully).  I blogged about the plot back in June when Matrix 2 came out, and got a bunch of reader reactions to my thoughts, and have been meaning to compile them and update my review ever since. And once I do some more reading about it and give Matrix 2 some more thought, I will.

As for the movie on my third viewing (I saw it alone on opening night back in June, and then with Malaya a couple of weeks later when I came to visit up here), it was less impressive.  The issues I had with most of the fights (too slow and low-impact) were even more noticable this time around, and the big money stunts were much less impressive on the TV screen than the movie screen.  I did still enjoy the intellectual aspects of it, and the dialogue and interplay in the Oracle's scene is still masterful.  But having seen the developments in the Matrix 3 trailer, some of my wondering about the Architect and whether or not what he was saying was true seems less problematic.

I have not come to any further conclusions about whether or not the real world is actually just another level of the Matrix, but I'm less convinced that it is all just a big virtual world than I was four months ago.

The only explanation I had for why it could be the real world, and Agent Smith could continue to keep some control of that guy he possessed, was that maybe the amount of circuitry in the guy let him be controlled by a program, even in the real world. I don't really like that explanation, but just playing along with it, when then wouldn't it follow that Neo can have his new "zap the Sentinels" power from the same source?  He's got a lot of circuit boards and silicone in him, from the body plugs to the head port, and if there's enough to let Agent Smith keep control of the other guy, why can't Neo have gained enough something from his interaction with the Architect to now have electrical powers over robots in the real world?

Anyway, it's something I'll think about more once I refresh my memory on the initial subjects of contention.

I really wanted to get back to working on my various short story conversions tonight, before the long blogging fever stuck me. I did half a dozen of those yesterday evening, and enjoyed the old stories, as well as the process of reading them and commenting on them, after so long. I hadn't seen, thought of, or remembered several of them in something like 12 years, but once I read them again quite a bit of it came back to me. I'm still rooting through the fragments, incomplete works, and other very early stories, and haven't gotten to anything I wrote even in my college years yet, so the fact that lots of the really old stuff is pretty interesting gets my hopes up for the three or four dozen shorts I wrote in the years after that, while my writing ability was growing by leaps and bounds.

Other than the following email, it's mostly sports discussion today.  That's misleading, since 98% of the blog has nothing to do with any actual sporting event, and instead covers sports in the news and society.  You'll have to read on to see what I mean, and I've got a long thing about a female golfer making some interesting comments about the women's golf's Asian Invasion, for tomorrow, along with other stuff.

¤ Here's an interesting reader email in reply to some news item comments I made in Tuesday's blog.

I've been a reader of your blog for quite some time now (and I've sent you two e-mails, one published =)), but I'm seriously considering to stop reading. and no, it's not your donors paragraphs, they're very understandable. It's your view on people. I can understand that you are formed by the society you've grown up with, but since you've managed to fend off so many of the bad american traits, it's even sadder that you write things as you did today, october 14th. Self defense and cold-blooded murder are two entirely different things. if man A threatens man B, and man B kills man A after he's gotten the upper hand, he is no better than man A. in fact, he is worse, since man A never realised his threats. I realise that you don't share this view, and you are entitled to my opinion, but I can't really read more of your "amusing" stories, because they make me physically sick.

Well, I've never donated anyway (no income), so you'll probably not miss me anyway.

take care,
PAZ 

He's talking about the story I commented on Tuesday, where a guy was taken hostage and threatened by some home-invaders, until he broke free, grabbed one of their knives, and proceeded to chop up three of them, two fatally.  I applaud his actions, personally, and my view of home invasions and attempted murder and other such things is highly prejudical.

I personally feel that if someone threatens you with death, or tries to kill or severely injure you, they deserve anything they get in return.  I don't advocate revenge murders on pick pockets or something like that, but a violent crime that's personal, not just some guy whacking you on the back of the head in a mugging, deserves whatever he gave you, in spades.

I look at it as almost a responsibility.  Do you think the armed gang that broke into your home and raped your wife and beat your brother half to death was a spur of the moment gathering? No, they've done it before, and they'll do it again, and just because they didn't actually kill you doesn't mean they haven't killed before, or that they might move up to murder next time.  If you have the opportunity to take them out, it's not just that you can, it's that you should.  I mean isn't this basically the plot of the origin of Spider-Man, minus the personal threat element?

I don't know if this is an American belief or not; most US entertainment is about justice through the courts and honest police and all that happy shit, and that's nice, but it's far from foolproof.  Someone who breaks into your home and hurts you and robs you and threatens to kill you who ends up in the sight of your gun, (assuming that you have one; I do not since I talk a much bigger game than I walk) needs a bullet in them.  It's your civic responsibility, IMHO.

As PAZ (who I will miss as a reader, I value all of my readers and their input, especially when they disagree with me) says, "he is no better than man A."  I disagree.  Man A came into my home (or business, or whatever) and initiated the events, and threatened/hurt me or my loved ones.  He created the situation, anything bad that happens, to me or him, is his fault.  I didn't drag him into my house and put a knife in his hand. And to be honest, I don't care about being better or worse than him, in anyone's opinion.  I care about protecting people I care about (myself in particular) and secondarily, protecting other innocent people.

To make a weird analogy, it's almost like abortion.  I don't think we should abort babies that can potentially survive outside the womb, and I don't think we should go around killing unwanted children once they are born.  But I damn well support preventing them from being born, if they are unwanted and will likely have a miserable life, whether that prevention comes from not having sex or using condoms or having a legal abortion.

Similarly, I don't support killing every criminal in prison, and I strongly support rehabilitation programs and substance abuse treatment programs, and better schooling and work training for the general population to keep them from becoming criminals in the first place.  I hate the short-sighted idiotic laws that have led to the enormous US prison population and the way prisoners are just warehoused and turned loose after a few years with no improvements to their lives, things that virtually guarantee a high recidivism rate. Especially when incarceration a man costs far more than the average worker earns in a year, while job training and drug programs a fraction of that, with a 40 or 50 year pay back if you make a man honest and lawful and productive, rather than a criminal.  But at the same time that I support job training and drug rehabilitation for that coked-up guy with the knife on my front stairs once he's in prison, I want to kill him before he gets there for daring to threaten me or another innocent person.

So getting back to the analogy, this means that a violent criminal in the act is like a first trimester fetus, and it should be flushed if necessary? Um... damn.  I just knew that abortion metaphor would go down in flames.

¤ I don't think that Kournikova is as dumb as her reputation makes her out to be, but this news item and her quote is just priceless.

Kournikova, a 22-year-old Russian, told the London Evening Standard on Monday that she plans to quit tennis early next year and devote herself to becoming an actress and TV awards presenter.

"Acting and presenting are definitely things I enjoy doing," Kournikova, who was in Monte Carlo hosting the World Music Awards, told the newspaper. "I'd love to appear in something like 'Sex and the City' or 'Friends.' I get offered lots of those sorts of jobs, but I've never had time to pursue them because of my tennis."

Okay, it's not actually her quote, but come on, "devote herself to becoming a TV awards presenter?"  As if that's a high-skill position?

Honey, you wear a nice dress that you don't pay for, nice jewelry that you don't own, get your hair and make up done by professionals, are led to stand in the right spot by stage hands, and then walk out with some other semi-celebrity when they call your name.  You walk to a podium and read some lines off of a teleprompter, then open an envelope and read the winner's name.  What amount of concentration does that really require?

So basically Kournikova is famous for being prettier than the average tennis player, wearing sexy, cutting-edge tennis outfits, doing lots of calendars, and being smart enough to never do any actual nudity, thus keeping the market for her sexy clothing photos strong.  The publicity she pulls is amazing though, for a woman who is clearly sub-supermodel beauty and who has never won a professional singles tournament of any kind.

Based on her track record, I think she will succeed in making the tricky transition from "famous" to "famous for being famous."  You know she'll never act in anything that anyone remembers her for.  She doesn't have any talent other than being pretty, she can't speak very good English, she giggles and pauses constantly when interviewed, and she doesn't even have very good taste in who she dates; all too often picking foreign hockey players, who might as well be state senators from Oklahoma, as famous as they are to the average American. Lately she's stepped it up to relatively famous pop singers, which is a good career move, but can she keep getting in the news while never doing anything particularly newsworth?

She's obviously got no hope if the looks fade, but you just hope she doesn't have to descend to Pamela Anderson's level, and try to become famous entirely for her gigantic implants and skeevy boyfriends.  That's obviously worked for Pamela, but she was actually on Baywatch, back when that was a career booster, and she's got a good talk show personality, annoying though she may be once the interview passes five minutes or strays off the topic of her latest loser boyfriend or T&A entertainment project.

It will be interesting to see if Anna can maintain her fame without having to get black eyes in domestic disputes, or leak "stolen" porno tapes of herself at strategic intervals.

¤ In further sports controversy, controversy that's related to the Lakers, the Kobe trial is just finishing up preliminary hearings, which are mostly a formality.  The prosecution just has to present enough evidence to convince a judge that their case has enough merit to continue through the legal system, and there aren't usually all that many revelations.  The Kobe rape case has been a bit different than the usual, on that front, since it's already been full of soap opera-worth dirt.

The articles on Wednesday were full of legal expert analysis, and most of them agreed that the defense (Kobe's side) has a lot of ammunition to shoot holes in the prosecution's case.

Clearly this is not a strong prosecution case," said Denver attorney Andrew Cohen. "Clearly the defense is going to have an awful lot of material to work with if and when the case goes to trial."

Former Denver prosecutor Craig Silverman said the prosecution's case against Bryant now appears so weak that it may hurt future rape victims, who may have a harder time persuading anyone that they were raped.

"It's a major step backwards for those of us who believe strongly in the rights of sexual assault victims," Silverman said.

Read the article to get the full laundry list of their problems, but basically the defense can prove: 1) that the accusing female was eager to meet Kobe, 2) set things up to be alone with him in an isolated portion of the hotel, 3) willingly flirted and made out with him, 4) didn't indicate that anything was wrong to at least one other employee and continued her work shift after the sex, 5) showed up for a rape test the next day with the sperm of another man (not Kobe) in her vagina, 6) initially told a cop that she didn't resist Kobe strongly enough to even say "no" and then later changed that story, and so on.  That sounds like a ton of "reasonable doubt," as our legal system requires the prosecutors to prove a case beyond, and is very good news for Kobe.

I wasn't really sure which way I was leaning on this case, in terms of what I wanted to happen.  I like Kobe and he's on my favorite team and he's one of the best 3 or 5 players in the entire league, but at the same time I think men who rape deserve castration.  However I also think groupies are stupid, dirty sluts who deserve the mental anguish they get from being used for their bodies and then forgotten, but I also think pro athletes (rock stars, actors, etc) who take advantage of groupies are pigs and if they are so stupid as to not wear a condom, they deserve to get the Magic Johnson karma smack, or at least to sire 8 bastards from 7 different women who will proceed to siphon off millions of dollars a year from them for the next 18 years.

That being said, after reading about the holes in the case I find myself rooting for Kobe to get off, both since it sounds like he didn't really rape her, but also since I want to see him continue to do amazing things on the Basketball court, and I don't want to be forced to fly to Denver and rob a liquor store in order to get a courtside view of his play.

Flux, just wanted to let you know I appreciated your breakdown of Rush Limbaugh's comments and the potential "evolution" of attitudes towards black quarterbacks in the NFL. I'm still in the category of "rabid football fan." I had never given the issue much thought, and I appreciated your line of thinking on the subject. It made a lot of sense.

Speaking of football, I know you're kind of "getting out of the habit" (which I am trying to do with the NBA, because of the low level of play), but I thought you might enjoy a weekly article written on ESPN's page 2. It's my favorite NFL column, partly because it also touches on other things: politics, pop culture, etc. And I realize you're probably thinking, "yeah, I need something else on my reading list like I need another hole in my head" but, just in case, here's the link to the latest one.

I'll quote and elaborate on my reply to him.

As I told Aahzmodius, I used to read the Tuesday morning quarterback columns on page 2, along with most all the other football stuff on espn.com, but I just don't care enough anymore to get through the whole thing. I'll read 1/4 of one every now and then, before realizing that I really don't care. I'll read shorter football columns, and the Bill Simmons sports guy stuff is good since he puts in a lot of jokes and writes well, but it's been several years since I really paid attention to which teams were best and which players were where. I enjoy watching it some now, but every game I see I'm like, "Damn, when did Cordell Stewart get to Chicago?" or some other surprise at a player on a new team.

I think this is tied into my illogical attitude towards computer games.  I often see one that might be fun, but if I realize it's going to take a lot of effort to get really good at it, I will never bother playing it at all.  I did that with Warcraft III, since I played in the Beta some, and was mildly-interested in it, but was not naturally good at it. (I used to be with every arcade game and most computer games, other than first person shooters, especially any that involved action and reflexes.) I could see very clearly the amount of work I'd have to put in to get good at War3.  And since I wasn't really interested enough in it to do that, not to mention that I didn't really have the time for it, I just stopped playing it entirely.  I didn't get much fun out of being lame at it and struggling all the time to remember build orders and try to keep track of my scouting parties while keeping my town production and upgrading at full speed.  So I quit, auctioned off the beta, and have never played it since, nor ever really wanted to.

Ironically, Malaya is now itching to get the War3 Battlechest, though she hasn't had time to even play a bit of D2 for over a month, much less the three other games she got a couple of months ago and has hardly done more than install and try out briefly.  Perhaps over the Xmas holiday we'll both take some time off and game a bit, just like the good old days.  Or at least game some as a break from her working on her stuff and me working on my novel.

Back to the sports writing topic that Aahz brought up in his email, it's ironic what I read, compared to what I like to watch on TV. I mostly read baseball writing, while at the same time I find the sport very boring and will only watch if it's late in an important game.  I watched the sixth inning of the Cubs/Marlins game yesterday, when Florida blew up for a bunch of runs and went up 9-6 on Chicago, and then turned it off to sit in the tub with Malaya for an hour, when she got back from the gym.  We talked, I rubbed her back, and so on, and when we got out I checked the TV, figuring the game would be long over.  It wasn't, and in fact it was the bottom of the 9th and Chicago had one guy on and one out.  The next two guys proceeded to strike out and pop up and that was that, another year of failure for the Cubs, to the Marlins this time, just for variety.

But my point is that I had absolutely no hesitation about turning off the biggest baseball game of the year thus far, and really didn't care about anything more than hearing the final score when I turned it back on.  Would I have left an NBA or NFL playoff game in the 3rd quarter to go do something with my sweetie?  Well yeah, probably, but I don't so much care about those sports anymore either.  And I would have at least set the VCR.

So why do I like baseball writing? It's scientific and defies conventional wisdom, and I like to read things that do that, especially if they do them well.  I like defying convention.  Malaya points out how drawn I am to chaos, and I have to admit that I see her point, though I would have denied it in the past.  I don't care enough about baseball to get involved in any arguments, and I don't have any favorite players or teams, but I enjoy reading analysis of games and players and what the managers did right, and especially what they did wrong.

I don't enjoy watching it nor do I care who wins, but I do like to feel like I know more than other people do about it.  My baseball reading is purely in terms of which players or teams or statistics are overrated or underrated, and I want to know why.  I pay zero attention to who is traded or what that means for the teams that made the trade; what I want to know is why they made the trade and what the general managers are looking at and why they might be wrong since they're using old-fashioned baseball knowledge, instead of more modern and scientific metrics. 

Moving up from baseball to basketball, a sport I currently enjoy watching, but only if the Lakers or a few other good teams pro teams are playing.  I have zero interest in college basketball, and I won't watch pro basketball unless there are some great players in action.  I have watched most Lakers games over the past 7 or 8 years, since before they had Shaq and were good, and I root for them, and against a few other teams, but I'd much prefer to see a good game than just a Lakers win.  That's one thing that always drove me nuts about watching basketball with my dad; namely that he really wanted the Lakers to win, above anything else.  He didn't care if it was 40-25 in the 3rd quarter, so long as LA was winning.  And I didn't really care so much if LA won or lost, so long as the game was good.  And I defined "good' as "high-scoring" or at least filled with exciting plays.  I get most excited during the last few minutes of a game if it's very close and both sides are doing well, as opposed to the usual "everyone takes turns fouling and they call a lot of timeouts" style where the last 30 seconds take about 15 minutes to sit through.

When it comes to Basketball, I pay some attention to the standings, but very little to the off season player movement, and I couldn't name you 10 starters in the entire Eastern Conference, since the Lakers and all of the other best teams are in the West, and have been for the last 5+ years.  Unfortunately, there is only one good basketball writer I know of, John Hollinger, since he's the only guy using the sabremetric style of analysis, and is always a good writer who keeps things interesting and lively and humorous, while pointing out tons of key factors that the old school style of writers never even mention.

Reading Hollinger's work for the past few years I've really come to realize how poor most basketball writing is.  There are a lot of stats in basketball, but so few of them are analyzed with any intelligence.  It's easy to see who scores the most points, and who gets the most rebounds and assists, but how often do you see stats like most points per shot taken (including free throws and 3 pointers), or assists/turnover ratio, or percent of rebounds grabbed on offense, defense, and overall, by team? Those are the sorts of stats that Hollinger uses, along with far more intricate overall rating models, and since he puts those into articles that are very readable, he's the only one I bother reading.  Again, it's like my baseball thing, I don't so much care who wins or looses in at least 2/3 of the games, and I don't follow the players at all, just a few teams and their key players.  I like to know why and about; I don't care at all about rotisserie league stuff or having a league pass on cable so I could see 50 games a week.  I'd rather read a good article about why some team is losing or winning than actually see them play, most of the time.  I read every one of Hollinger's pre-season team previews, while I have zero interest in any regular "rah rah new look for the team this year" type local sports articles.

And continuing to the final sport in this discussion, are you ready for some football?

I loved pro football as a kid and teenager and young adult, and while I still like it somewhat, and will even watch college if there are good teams playing or it's a high-scoring game, I don't really follow either sport that closely anymore. I couldn't tell you more than two or three of the big offseason free agent moves, I don't know who any of the new coaches are or which teams are expected to much improved this year.  I just like to watch a good game on the weekend, and I love to see the highlight packages of the games, since the game itself is what I like.  I love a good pass or nice run or great defensive stand; it's the actual teams and players that I no longer care so much about.

Unfortunately, there seems to be the least modern, insightful sports writing for football of any of the three big sports.  I have read several of the Tuesday Morning Quarterback articles on ESPN.com that Aahz recommended in his email, and glance at them most weeks this year. But I just do not have any interest in pouring over that much football discussion, when 99% of it is stuff any idiot who watched most of the games and read every recap on ESPN already knows.  Back when I loved football, I'd have read every word twice, along with every other article on the ESPN and most of the other (lesser) sports sites, and enjoyed the process.  Now I just shrug and say, "eh..." and go read something else.

As I said many paragraphs ago, I think it relates to my whole, "I'm not going to do it if I'm not good at it."  This shows up most in my feelings towards video games, but it's also true about sports. I am not going to devote the time or energy to football to keep up with the player transactions and all the team strengths and weaknesses, so why bother keeping up at all, when I'd just be reminding myself how much less I now know than I used to?  I also feel like I should be doing other/better/more productive things than watching TV (of any kind) or playing games, and I have more trouble ignoring my conscience on that front than I used to.

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