Alright, so as all of you know, I am very mild-mannered individual. I rarely ever get upset about things and staying calm is my number one skill. So I hope you will allow me to indulge in a rarely experienced activity: going on a rant about something I am upset with.
First, let's start with you, Western Digital. You would be the one responsible for making my external hard drive. 1 TB full of space. Beautiful, that is more room than I could ever hope to fill, so I can load as much music, pictures, programs, etc onto it and never worry about running out of space. Well that is if I COULD ACTUALLY ACCESS MY HARD DRIVE WHEN I PLUG IT IN.
What's that? You want to put a password on my external hard drive? Oh that's cool. But what would be even cooler is if I were the one to put the password on! So I don't know what the password is, no big deal. I'll just fill out some information and you can email it to me so I can get to my files. I mean I have the registration code and everything for the hard drive.
Wait, you mean that there is no way to recover a password if you don't remember it? You're joking, right? And if you can't remember your password then you have no way of recovering those files? Yep, that's right. So those files, if I could even remember what exactly I have on there, are gone for good. That's just wonderful. Glad you guys felt the need to make your hard drive more secure than Fort Knox.
Okay, okay, deep breath Pete. Just reset the hard drive, accept your losses and move on. I follow the directions to reset it and when it comes to the last screen, the option of rebooting the hard drive isn't there. Just straight up is not there. Okay, I'll just go to control panel and uninstall the program that operates the hard drive. Except, the program isn't listed. In fact, it is nowhere to be found on my computer.
So I go to check some forums online and it turns out that I am not the first person to have this issue. In fact, many others have and those people are pissed off much like myself. So I don't know the password, I lose the files for good, I can't reboot the hard drive, and I can't find the software on my computer that supposedly runs the hard drive. Hey computer-nerd assholes, you do realize that when creating a product, you try to please the customer, right? Oh, I guess you just missed that part in school because you were too busy playing Dungeons and Dragons. Just trying to help here.
So basically my external hard drive has turned into a paper weight. But it even sucks at that because it is too damn big to be a paper weight. I could find a fucking rock outside that would serve me better. Then I could use the rock to smash the hard drive to bits and pieces and feel even better! Way to make a quality product folks!
And ANOTHER THING: Mark Zuckerburg, I hate you. STOP CHANGING FACEBOOK. Just stop. No wonder they portrayed you as such an asshole in "The Social Network." It is because YOU ARE ONE. Unless you are going to make some significant changes, stop messing around with it. We don't need a new design every few months where nothing really changes. JUST LEAVE IT ALONE.
Phew, glad I got that off my chest. Thanks for letting me get upset this one time since it happens so infrequently! I am happy you all understand!
Wednesday, 8 December 2010
Tuesday, 7 December 2010
What's Causing These Hard Fouls?
David Stern decided that enough was enough. He had to crack down on the players complaining to the referees. That's awesome because if he hadn't let it get so bad in the first place, this wouldn't be an issue. Or if he hadn't decided to employ referees who end up run by mob bosses. Or if he hadn't set a precedent of letting players, especially of certain teams and cities, get away with whatever they want. But good for him for deciding to try and fix the problem he caused in the first place!
But seriously in the preseason we saw some seriously absurd technical fouls given out. Grant Hill and Reggie Evans apparently were a little too aggressive, when they gave each other a pat on the butt. Kevin Garnett did what? I must've missed it. Even my boy Kyle Korver, who epitomizes badass, gets hit up with the most questionable of the three. Good Lord, David Stern is out to gain back the power he never had.
Now that the regular season has started up, the technicals have curbed a little bit, but that's only in comparison to the preseason. Players have started to learn what is okay and isn't (and by those videos, it appears anything more than a pat on the arm is technical-worthy) and it seems like there is less bitching on a game to game basis. But, on the flip side, and perhaps not coincidentally, hard fouls have seemed to increase.
Elton Brand "lays out" JaVale McGee. Hilton Armstrong drops Joel Anthony and immediately gets shoved over by the enforcer, Juwan Howard. And most recently, things in the Blazers Clippers game got chippy with this "hard" foul and this missed call that ultimately resulted in a one game suspension for Andre Miller.
Maybe it is just because I haven't been able to watch games while I am abroad, but this year there seems to be more hard fouls and chippiness between the players. I believe that there is a connection between the riffs with the players and the increased rules on technicals.
Let's take the Andre Miller and Blake Griffin incident. If Miller truly feels like he is getting shoved around badly by a rookie, as a veteran of the league, he'll probably go voice his displeasure with the referees. But today, he has to worry about receiving a technical. So what does he do? He gets a little bit of revenge with a hard foul.
Now how is delivering a hard foul different from receiving a technical for complaining? Well, even if the end result is the same, possible ejection and free throws for the other team, at the very least Miller will have made his point to Griffin. That may cause Griffin to think twice next time he decides to put a forearm in a player's back. The result is the same, but a clear message was delivered by Miller.
It seems to me that since the league is restraining the players from the referees, the next best thing they can do is take it out on the other team. If I had more free time and I were getting paid to do this, I would look up the number of technical fouls called up to this point last season and the season before and compare it to this year. Then I would do the same for flagrant one and two fouls. Alas, I do not hit either of those prerequisites so it'll just remain a theory unsupported by facts.
It'll be interesting to see if the hard fouls continue to occur or if these are just isolated incidents that coincidentally occurred around the same time. All I know is that I would hate to see David Stern's reaction to the equivalent hit in the NBA that Heath Miller sustained on Sunday night.
But seriously in the preseason we saw some seriously absurd technical fouls given out. Grant Hill and Reggie Evans apparently were a little too aggressive, when they gave each other a pat on the butt. Kevin Garnett did what? I must've missed it. Even my boy Kyle Korver, who epitomizes badass, gets hit up with the most questionable of the three. Good Lord, David Stern is out to gain back the power he never had.
Now that the regular season has started up, the technicals have curbed a little bit, but that's only in comparison to the preseason. Players have started to learn what is okay and isn't (and by those videos, it appears anything more than a pat on the arm is technical-worthy) and it seems like there is less bitching on a game to game basis. But, on the flip side, and perhaps not coincidentally, hard fouls have seemed to increase.
Elton Brand "lays out" JaVale McGee. Hilton Armstrong drops Joel Anthony and immediately gets shoved over by the enforcer, Juwan Howard. And most recently, things in the Blazers Clippers game got chippy with this "hard" foul and this missed call that ultimately resulted in a one game suspension for Andre Miller.
Maybe it is just because I haven't been able to watch games while I am abroad, but this year there seems to be more hard fouls and chippiness between the players. I believe that there is a connection between the riffs with the players and the increased rules on technicals.
Let's take the Andre Miller and Blake Griffin incident. If Miller truly feels like he is getting shoved around badly by a rookie, as a veteran of the league, he'll probably go voice his displeasure with the referees. But today, he has to worry about receiving a technical. So what does he do? He gets a little bit of revenge with a hard foul.
Now how is delivering a hard foul different from receiving a technical for complaining? Well, even if the end result is the same, possible ejection and free throws for the other team, at the very least Miller will have made his point to Griffin. That may cause Griffin to think twice next time he decides to put a forearm in a player's back. The result is the same, but a clear message was delivered by Miller.
It seems to me that since the league is restraining the players from the referees, the next best thing they can do is take it out on the other team. If I had more free time and I were getting paid to do this, I would look up the number of technical fouls called up to this point last season and the season before and compare it to this year. Then I would do the same for flagrant one and two fouls. Alas, I do not hit either of those prerequisites so it'll just remain a theory unsupported by facts.
It'll be interesting to see if the hard fouls continue to occur or if these are just isolated incidents that coincidentally occurred around the same time. All I know is that I would hate to see David Stern's reaction to the equivalent hit in the NBA that Heath Miller sustained on Sunday night.
Sunday, 5 December 2010
The Blazers Scorers in the Past Decade
So when you have a lot of free time on your hands, these are the kinds of things that you do. Maybe some of you saw this which was posted on Blazersedge. Hoopism actually did this for every team which is pretty incredible and I highly suggest checking it out if you have some free time. So I decided to do something similar, except instead of minutes played, I took every Blazer player of the past decade, from the infamous 99-00 team to last year's little bundle of overachievers, and totaled up the number of points they scored while they were a Blazer. This way, it is a little easier to see some of the names on it and I also included the number of points they scored to give you an idea of who carried the heaviest loads on the team.
Sorry that the picture quality isn't that great, I'm not sure why it got kinda blurry. Click on it to enlarge it. You can still make out most of it. It's pretty funny to look at some of the names on this and be like "who the hell is that guy?"
Let me know what you think of it.
Sorry that the picture quality isn't that great, I'm not sure why it got kinda blurry. Click on it to enlarge it. You can still make out most of it. It's pretty funny to look at some of the names on this and be like "who the hell is that guy?"
Let me know what you think of it.
A Note to Nate: We Suck
Jubilation. Despair. Thank God that we have the Ducks right now otherwise I would probably be an inconsolable mess given the state of the Blazers. Dwight Jaynes wrote this article about how he thinks that the Blazers' players are trying to get Nate fired. I agree with him that Nate's seat has probably burned him a few times, but I disagree with Jaynes. I think there is a huge difference between actively trying to get your coach fired by playing poorly and, as Nate said, just not responding effectively at this point.
Call me naive, ignorant, too trusting. Call me whatever you want but I just highly doubt that the Blazers got together and said "Hey guys, let's go out there and play a horrendous excuse for a basketball game and that way we won't have to deal Coach anymore." I also highly doubt if they did, that those would've been their words. But I digress.
Something is definitely up with this Blazers team, but I don't think they are actively trying to get Nate fired. I've always been a pretty big Nate supporter myself, but even now I am having my doubts. Our offensive efficiency has plummeted from the past two years and our already anemic defensive efficiency doesn't seem to be getting any stronger.
Now, of course, the reasons to this are well documented. Without BRoy's explosive drives defenses don't have to collapse on the middle. He's settling for jumpers. This causes the other players to stand around and chuck up bricks too because our whole offense was designed around a healthy Roy who could create off the dribble. And it was designed for a team of shooters. Hey L.A., can we have Steve Blake back please?
Clearly a tactical change is needed. Our offense sucks now. Plain and simple. So what does Nate do? Stick's to the same bull-shit offense that has us sitting 19th in the league in offensive efficiency. Memo to Nate: WE DON'T HAVE THE SAME PERSONNEL THAT WE DID THE PAST TWO YEARS. Every time I watch Aldridge throw up a fade-away 20 footer or see Dre bullet a three as the shot clock expires, I have to prevent myself from grabbing the nearest sharp object and gouging my eyes out. How can he not see that we need a change in style here?
I am sick of watching us go to Aldridge on 5 straight possessions to start out a game. I'm tired of Rudy running around like an idiot for 20 seconds around screens before catching the ball in the corner and jacking up a contested three. I scream at the game recaps (stupid time difference) when I read about Batum getting 15 minutes where he gets pulled the second he screws up
I realize that he did an incredible job last year guiding this team to 50 wins. That's great and wonderful, but that was last year. This is a new year and essentially a new team. Good coaches adjust their gameplans. Nate is sticking to the same one game in and game out. I don't care if we decide to go SSOL, but right now we are trying to be the slow it down, grind it out Spurs and doing a piss-poor imitation of them.
So no, I don't think that the Blazers are trying to get Nate fired. But you can definitely tell that they aren't responding to him like they have in years past. I'm not advocating firing Nate, but I hope that the Blazers are keeping an eye open for suitable replacements.
Call me naive, ignorant, too trusting. Call me whatever you want but I just highly doubt that the Blazers got together and said "Hey guys, let's go out there and play a horrendous excuse for a basketball game and that way we won't have to deal Coach anymore." I also highly doubt if they did, that those would've been their words. But I digress.
Something is definitely up with this Blazers team, but I don't think they are actively trying to get Nate fired. I've always been a pretty big Nate supporter myself, but even now I am having my doubts. Our offensive efficiency has plummeted from the past two years and our already anemic defensive efficiency doesn't seem to be getting any stronger.
Now, of course, the reasons to this are well documented. Without BRoy's explosive drives defenses don't have to collapse on the middle. He's settling for jumpers. This causes the other players to stand around and chuck up bricks too because our whole offense was designed around a healthy Roy who could create off the dribble. And it was designed for a team of shooters. Hey L.A., can we have Steve Blake back please?
Clearly a tactical change is needed. Our offense sucks now. Plain and simple. So what does Nate do? Stick's to the same bull-shit offense that has us sitting 19th in the league in offensive efficiency. Memo to Nate: WE DON'T HAVE THE SAME PERSONNEL THAT WE DID THE PAST TWO YEARS. Every time I watch Aldridge throw up a fade-away 20 footer or see Dre bullet a three as the shot clock expires, I have to prevent myself from grabbing the nearest sharp object and gouging my eyes out. How can he not see that we need a change in style here?
I am sick of watching us go to Aldridge on 5 straight possessions to start out a game. I'm tired of Rudy running around like an idiot for 20 seconds around screens before catching the ball in the corner and jacking up a contested three. I scream at the game recaps (stupid time difference) when I read about Batum getting 15 minutes where he gets pulled the second he screws up
I realize that he did an incredible job last year guiding this team to 50 wins. That's great and wonderful, but that was last year. This is a new year and essentially a new team. Good coaches adjust their gameplans. Nate is sticking to the same one game in and game out. I don't care if we decide to go SSOL, but right now we are trying to be the slow it down, grind it out Spurs and doing a piss-poor imitation of them.
So no, I don't think that the Blazers are trying to get Nate fired. But you can definitely tell that they aren't responding to him like they have in years past. I'm not advocating firing Nate, but I hope that the Blazers are keeping an eye open for suitable replacements.
Thursday, 2 December 2010
Like I Am Going to Let This One Slip By
FIFA announced the winners of the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bids. The two clear favorites were England and the US respectively. Both of these countries make perfect sense. England already has a plethora of stadiums so they wouldn't have to spend an absurd amount of money building new stadiums that may never be used again (see: Africa, South 2010). Not to mention, the city and suburbs are connected incredibly well, which ensures that the country would be able to handle the influx of tourists. For the soccer dunces out there, English people really like soccer too. As much as any country in the world. In fact, I'd bet my life that you could even name a former English national team captain (somewhere in India, 30 million Indian children just screamed "Bend it like Beckham!!"). The US appeared to have a firm grip on the 2022 World Cup and considering when they won the 1994 World Cup they sold a record number of tickets, FIFA knows they would make fistfuls of cash if it were held in the US. Another kicker, and FIFA knows this, the US Soccer Federation is desperately trying, and making ground, to establish soccer as a national sport on the level of the Big 4. The World Cup would definitely help generate interest and foster further growth in the US.
Russia is cold, barren and not exactly a soccer power. And their ability to demonstrate fiscal responsibility is...well...not good. Qatar (millions of Americans just said "huh?") is approximately 1.7 million people and is located, hang on a second I have to look up where exactly...right here. No, this is not a joke. I'm telling the truth. Qatar actually is a real country.
Alright, let me gather my thoughts for just a second. FIFA, did you just decide to throw a dart and pick the two countries that you hit to host the World Cup? I guess that makes Qatar the proverbial bulls eye that amateur dart throwers hit one in every 500 throws.
Or was your decision to take the most logical choices, go the polar extremes of those two and then select the opposites? What makes you think that Russia is going to be a better choice than England? CAN SOMEBODY PLEASE EXPLAIN THIS TO ME?
Russia is at least semi (and I use the term loosely) defensible. Qatar? Well I'll just let you read this little blurb while I wait. Yep, you read that right. 120 skin-melting, fires of hell, Satanically called-upon degrees. And you want to pack thousands and thousands of tourists who are certainly not accustomed to that into a country roughly the size of my thumb? When the first idiotic person dies from heat exhaustion from not drinking water, millions of people much smarter than FIFA officials will simply nod their heads, as if saying "should've seen this one coming FIFA."
But don't worry! They're going to put in air conditioning systems in the stadiums! So what happens the other 22 and a half hours that the fans are not watching the games in the luxurious, state-of-the-art air conditioned stadiums? Oh yeah, they just chill the brisk climate and enjoy the wonderful sites that Qatar has to offer. Either that or they melt from the heat.
Qatar is going to build stadiums and then when the World Cup is over they are going to take the stadiums apart and give them away to poorer countries in need. That is because they are about as likely to use them again as I am getting called up to the US senior squad for the 2022 World Cup.
Seriously, what the hell FIFA? What am I missing? You have a golden opportunity to reward to hugely important countries in the soccer world, and you give the opportunities to Russia and Qatar. The only thing Qatar is better than the US at is spelling words with a Q and no U.
But then again, I don't know how we were supposed to compete with that.
Russia is cold, barren and not exactly a soccer power. And their ability to demonstrate fiscal responsibility is...well...not good. Qatar (millions of Americans just said "huh?") is approximately 1.7 million people and is located, hang on a second I have to look up where exactly...right here. No, this is not a joke. I'm telling the truth. Qatar actually is a real country.
Alright, let me gather my thoughts for just a second. FIFA, did you just decide to throw a dart and pick the two countries that you hit to host the World Cup? I guess that makes Qatar the proverbial bulls eye that amateur dart throwers hit one in every 500 throws.
Or was your decision to take the most logical choices, go the polar extremes of those two and then select the opposites? What makes you think that Russia is going to be a better choice than England? CAN SOMEBODY PLEASE EXPLAIN THIS TO ME?
Russia is at least semi (and I use the term loosely) defensible. Qatar? Well I'll just let you read this little blurb while I wait. Yep, you read that right. 120 skin-melting, fires of hell, Satanically called-upon degrees. And you want to pack thousands and thousands of tourists who are certainly not accustomed to that into a country roughly the size of my thumb? When the first idiotic person dies from heat exhaustion from not drinking water, millions of people much smarter than FIFA officials will simply nod their heads, as if saying "should've seen this one coming FIFA."
But don't worry! They're going to put in air conditioning systems in the stadiums! So what happens the other 22 and a half hours that the fans are not watching the games in the luxurious, state-of-the-art air conditioned stadiums? Oh yeah, they just chill the brisk climate and enjoy the wonderful sites that Qatar has to offer. Either that or they melt from the heat.
Qatar is going to build stadiums and then when the World Cup is over they are going to take the stadiums apart and give them away to poorer countries in need. That is because they are about as likely to use them again as I am getting called up to the US senior squad for the 2022 World Cup.
Seriously, what the hell FIFA? What am I missing? You have a golden opportunity to reward to hugely important countries in the soccer world, and you give the opportunities to Russia and Qatar. The only thing Qatar is better than the US at is spelling words with a Q and no U.
But then again, I don't know how we were supposed to compete with that.
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