Participate In 1 Protest, Get 1 Day Off From School For Free

My blog has stayed away from any political commentary for a few reasons, not the least of which is the fact I don't care for all of the BS that goes along with any discussion of politics. Don't worry, I'm not about to end that anytime soon. When I've managed to take one of my 10-second peeks into what's going on around the country, there have been lots of high schoolers protesting the illegal immigration bills in Congress. At least that's what I've gathered from only reading the headlines.

I'll take up any cause if it lets me miss my social studies test.

Oh sure, the media will publish quotes from kids who may actually care about the topic, but don't fool yourself. 95% of those high schoolers are protesting because it lets them miss class. Proving once again that there's safety in numbers. One year in high school, we walked out for what I guess was something about teacher contracts, but who knows anymore. Everyone else acted like they were taking some big stand so I did too, since they couldn't put us all in detention. Anyone in school looks for any reason to miss class, so why not say you're protesting (though protests rarely change anything) when it's really just an excused day of hooky.

Don't Worry, I'm Still Around These Parts

Thanks to some issues with blogger and a major change in my blogging schedule, my posts will be a little intermittent until the weekend. Fear not. The posts you've come to love to loathe will still appear in all their glory, just with a different timetable.

Need to Send a Large File?

My friend was looking for video of Kobe Bryant's 81-point performance. Since I have a habit (really an addiction) of collecting sports videos on my computer, I told him I had saved NBA.com's streaming video clip showing each point. The file is 24 MB, too large for any email message, but a perfect excuse for a site he told me about called Yousendit (Delivering over 43,973,865,717,760 bytes per day).

It lets you upload a file up to 1 GB, then sends you and your (sometimes imaginary) friend a link to the file for downloading. I uploaded the file in about 10 minutes last night with my connection. You may only upload one file at a time so to get around this, I suggest zipping your files into one file and sending that. Otherwise, you could always complete multiple uploads. It's a helpful site when you don't have any CDs to burn your larger files.

www.yousendit.com

No Title For Bacne's Career!

Woohoo! Duke lost to LSU a few minutes ago. That means JJ graduates (finally!) and does so without any championships. It also means the last team I really care about losing is done. Redick is a great shooter (other things like playing defense and ballhandling we'll ignore) and did enjoy a phenomenal college career...outside of that whole being a champion part. For a program that has had a #1 seed so many times, you'd think there would be more titles on campus. Just call them the Atlanta Braves of college basketball - too few titles for the number of conference/division crowns. Ratface (Coach K for my new readers) does a great job in getting his teams to the sweet 16...which is a fine accomplishment if you don't have higher goals.

JJ, I'll always remember what we had...lots of ACC titles, but no championships. Let's cry together.

Heckle'em all ya want, at least they got their championship.

Bird Droppings - The 11th Plague

Ya know how sometimes it feels like everyone's taking a dump on you? Just visit Orlando for the real thing! It seems Orlando is having some issues with a horde of bird droppings. "The problem began when city workers removed cypress trees on 'bird island' at Lake Eola in Orlando. The trees had to be removed because the bird droppings were polluting the water, according to the report. Now, the birds have moved into the city and are covering anything and anyone between Lake Eola and Central Avenue with droppings."

BirdPoopLand is one attraction you'll find in Orlando, but not Disneyworld.

The article also gave way to such glamorous quotes like, " 'I was walking the other day and got pooed on walking under these trees,' Orlando resident Lisa Valentine said." Worst of all is that Orlando can't do anything about the birds because federal law prohibits disturbing any nests.

Signs like this will surely do wonders for tourism.

The X Chromosome and Basketball

I did the unthinkable last night...I actually watched 3 straight minutes of women's basketball (at any level)! Maryland played St. John's in the "other" NCAA tournament so I watched it by default because the men's team has been piss-poor for the last 3 years and will be so until the 2007 season. It also helps that the women's team is #3 in the country. MD won with some key offensive boards and clutch free throws so I'll continue to root them on, especially when it gives me another reason to hate on duke.

I see jumpshots like this all the time in pickup games. The YMCA jumpers just don't go in as often.

I'm not about to hate on the women's game because they're very talented, but watching an entire women's basketball game is running neck and neck with crochet. The women's play is akin to my friends and I - not much hangtime with plenty of jump shots. The lady Terps and their opponents are very very very skilled YMCA players. Meaning there isn't any real above-the-rim action. Lots of women hold their own with guys and lots of women beat them too. I'm not arguing that topic. I'm saying the style of play in a women's game isn't as appealing as a men's game. I wouldn't be interested in watching my pickup games in person or on TV, even if we made more jump shots.

Women's hoops...the last place a coach's word matters.

I've heard and read that the women's game is pure, unselfish, and the last area of the sport that still understands the importance of fundamentals. That's all well and good if you're teaching your kid how to play or if you enjoy coaching - all a coach wants are players who'll listen. However, for the casual attention deficit disorder fan of my generation, we don't have the patience for that and would rather see the ego-driven drives to the basket while someone is double-teamed or 3-pointers shot despite 3-on-1 fast breaks. If I want exciting basketball, give me plays that I can only dream about doing. Anyone can make a layup or hit a jump shot, but not everyone can throw it down or hang in the air before laying it in.

Hey! I can do a layup too...just not at this level.

Maybe I should have let sleeping dogs lie, but I prefer the men's game because they play at a higher level. Just as I infamously said in my final project for a women's studies class (it knocked out 3 core requirements at once), "at the highest level in all sports, men outperform women." Well you'd have thought I said, "women should only cook, clean, and make babies." The class had heard what it wanted to hear, but I stood my ground and corrected them...for all mankind I might add! I appreciate the talents of female basketball players. I'm just saying I enjoy watching athletes do things I can't do. Of course, God willing, should I have kids of my own, they'll probably be girls and I'll watch their basketball games and even go to higher-level (WNBA) games. But I'll still enjoy my windmill dunks and rebound slams over any YMCA jump shot anyday.

Use anything you can, even a tree, to get above the rim.

Video Killed the Radio Star? Well Now HDTV is Killing the Video Star

Owning all of 4 CDs that are hand-me-downs at that (though I own a few hundred MP3s), I'm really the last person with any right to critique the music industry. Chalk it up to my response to music overload during college thanks to my roommates, I relegate myself to top 40 songs that I happen to catch while I flip channels. In fact, my car has a 6-CD changer that has only been filled with 6 CDs once and that was when someone else brought them. Despite my penchant of not listening to music, I feel the need (because this is MY blog afterall) to relay a disturbing trend in the music industry - widescreen music videos that fill the black bars with more video.

Good'ol 4:3 ratio. It's fine as long as you don't know what you're missing.

With so many HDTVs on the market and their 16:9 (width:height) ratios, music videos that were already shot in the widescreen format (condensed for your normal 4:3 TV ratio viewing) are now shown in widescreen no matter the TV you're using. The only way to fit a widescreen image on a 4:3 TV is by way of horizontal black bars on the top and bottom that fill the space sacrificed to make your 4:3 TV show a 16:9 picture. Conversely, a 4:3 picture on a 16:9 screen has vertical black bars.

A 16:9 picture is better than 4:3, so why do we need even more video?

The black bars have always done a fine job of creating that widescreen feel on your squarish TV. Unfortunately, some record exec got the ass-backward idea of filling in that black space with more images. The black bars are not "wasted space" since they create the 16:9 ratio and a better viewing environment, but apparently music video producers want to confuse viewers with overlapping images.

Call me crazy, but isn't a 16:9 picture of Beyonce enough to hold anyone's attention? We don't need the confusing extra video.

What happens when you add video where the black bars should be? When someone is singing in the widescreen portion, there'll be random things like martini glasses in the top and bottom bars. This makes it seem like the singer is balancing martini glasses on his/her head while those same martini glasses are being used on the bottom as step ladders for the singer. There's no need to take away from the main shot. We already get the idea that the singer likes martini glasses because they're all over the main video, so don't put them in the previously-empty space. When you watch Beyonce's "Check On It" video as she shakes her moneymaker, you'll see that it's fine without the sensory overload of other things in the top and bottom bars. Next time you watch a video, see if it's widescreen, and pray that the empty space remains empty.