Simply amazing

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It’s unfathomable to me that Michael Phelps even attempted to match Mark Spitz’s record of seven gold medals in a single Games, much less actually did it.  But what is even more impressive is HOW Phelps achieved the milestone, out-touching the silver medalist by 0.01 seconds.  That’s faster than a blink of an eye…literally.  I was on the edge of my seat for the duration of the brief race, cheering on Phelps from the starting horn to the final touch.  Admittedly, I thought he’d finish second, especially with about 35 meters to go.  But, amazingly, he made up the difference in the last 20 meters, in similar fashion to Lezak’s unforgettable rally in the 4x100m freestyle relay.  The split second before NBC flashed the names of the top three finishers felt like an eternity.  When I finally saw the “1” next to Phelps name, my jaw dropped in utter disbelief.  “I can’t believe he did it,” I thought.  I got chills as I watched him cheer his accomplishment, and even have chills as I type this blog.  The way I see it, an ending like that–a victory by the slimmest of margins while competing for an Olympic gold medal, with the world watching, and history waiting to be re-written–could not have been scripted any better.  It’s the stuff of legend.  It’s the reason the Olympics are so special.  It’s why we gather around our televisions every four years to see who pulls off the next amazing athletic feat.  It’s reality TV at its very best.

Congratulations, Michael Phelps.  You are simply amazing.

Top 10 things I’ll miss about Tallahassee

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My moving trailer arrived Wednesday, so it’s been a packing/loading fest since then.  My mom came into town help and has done a wonderful job.  With the apartment slowly, but surely, emptying, the upcoming to Lowell is, as Marty puts it, “gettin’ real.”  Really real.  I almost can’t believe it.  I’m packing up my computer in a few minutes, so I thought that my last entry as a Florida resident would a Top 10 list.  I’ve spent five good years in Tallahassee, so here are the Top 10 things I’ll miss about The ‘Heez (in no particular order).

1. The ranch dressing at The 4th Quarter.  Ranch dressing is just good in general, but the stuff at The 4th Quarter bar and grill is just something else entirely.

2. FSU.  I met a lot of great people at Florida State and made some really really good friends through the school.  Thanks, everyone.

3. Living costs.  As I quickly discovered, Lowell’s cost of living is dramatically higher than Tallahassee’s, so much so that my apartment in Massachusetts is going to cost me double what I’m paying in Florida.  Ouch.

4. The weather.  I hate the hot oppressive summer temperatures, but I will miss those lovely February days when the mercury hits 73.

5. The sports.  I’m a pro sports guy, but FSU is the first sports school that I’ve attended and it was great.  Gathering at Doak Campbell Stadium with 84,000 other fans was an experience I’ll miss dearly.

6. The hotties.  Tallahassee has an inordinate amount of very attractive people.  I mean, hott with two t’s.  In fact, I’d say the attractive-ness quotient is as high in Tally as it is low in Lowell (how ’bout that).  I guess the good news is that I won’t feel so bad at the gym.

7. The cheap drinking.  $1.75 draft beer for happy hour…how can you beat that?

8. The dog park.  Oreo liked running around unfettered with the other pups at Tom Brown.  Fortunately, Lowell just opened up the city’s first official dog park, so I’m hoping it’ll be a good one.

9. The proximity.  Everything essential is 15 minutes away, tops.

10. The food.  For a city of it’s size, there is a surprisingly high number of good restaurants.

Well, that’s all from Tallahassee, FL.  Another chapter ends, with one waiting to begin in Lowell.  I’m going to miss Tally for sure, but the way I see it, I’m moving on to bigger and better things.

The Dark Knight

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(Don’t worry: no spoilers here.  Just my not-so-humble opinions.)

The Dark Knight was the movie I most anticipated this summer.  I loved 2005’s Batman Begins, with its dark, edgy tone that gave the movie a sense of realism and poignancy not seen in previous screen adaptations of the Caped Crusader.  Up to and including today, I read numerous newspaper and magazine reviews, and watched various “first look” and “making-of” featurettes on Christopher Nolan’s second attempt at Bob Kane’s comic creation, trying to get as much information as I could about the movie.  This was probably not the best way to go into such a hotly anticipated film, but I’m a Batman fan, so I was going to read/watch any and all scoop I could find.  And after seeing the film today, I can safely say that it lives up to the hype.  It’s not a perfect movie, but it’s good.  Really good.

First, the not-so-good stuff.  It’s long.  With previews and all the pre-film stuff, prepare to spend almost three hours in your seat.  Just when I thought the movie was wrapping up, it got going again, making it feel almost like two movies in one.  I did think to myself, “Man, this is long;” yet, I can’t see how any part could have been left out.  In short, there was a lot to take in.  Also, some of the dialogue at the end was not the greatest.  Granted, it’s a movie derived from a comic book, so some cheesiness is expected.  Perhaps it was a combination of the writing and the delivery that bogged it down.  Plus, at that point the movie had to end.  The dénouement was quick and rather sudden, but it had to be, due to the sheer length of the entire movie.

OK, enough of the criticisms.  Now for the good stuff.  God bless Christopher Nolan’s independence from CGI (Hey, George Lucas: take notes.  Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should!).  The stunts and action sequences in this film are amazing.  The scene with the 18-wheeler will blow you away: it looks real because they actually performed that stunt in the streets of Chicago using some good old-fashioned explosives, cables, and some really dedicated drivers and stuntmen.  And speaking of Chicago, the cinematography was outstanding.  This rendition of Batman was on a scale previously unseen in the franchise.  Gotham City is supposed to be the biggest and greatest city in the world, and The Dark Knight made it look just that.  The wide, sweeping shots of Chicago and the use of light and shade were superb, giving grandeur and scope to Gotham.  And that shot in the preview (also in the film) of Batman atop a skyscraper is actually Christian Bale standing on the Sears Tower, making the city look even more sprawling.

Enough can’t be said for Heath Ledger’s performance as the demented Joker.  I loved Jack Nicholson’s portrayal in 1989’s Batman, and comparisons inevitably will arise between the two.  But I think that’s unfair, primarily because the tones of the two movies are very different.  I have to admit that when I heard the news that Nolan chose Ledger to play such an iconic villain, I was skeptical.  “Why are they doing the Joker again?  How can someone possibly live up to the precedent that Jack set?” I thought.  Well, in my estimation, Ledger just set a precedent of his own.  His depiction of the Joker fit perfectly with Nolan’s vision and the dark, brooding, realistic tone of established in Batman Begins and further developed in The Dark Knight, just as Nicholson’s Joker fit perfectly with Tim Burton’s serious, but not-quite-real Batman (which I still love).  Ledger’s was an amazing performance: edgy, gritty, maniacal, yet not over-the-top or campy.  He’s just disturbing enough to make it believable.  (This is the setting I would have loved to see Jim Carrey play The Riddler, not the flashy bright-lights version Joel Schumacher directed in Batman Forever that sent the franchise spiraling down toward near-oblivion [not helped, of course, by the travesty known as Batman & Robin…ouch].)  I hope Ledger does receive some recognition for this role, not out of sympathy or pity or condolences, but because he earned it with the performance of a lifetime.

All in all, The Dark Knight was superbly done.  Well shot, well acted, well written, well directed.  I know Oscar voters aren’t kind to summer blockbusters, but the way I see it, this movie goes well beyond the standard formula of the usual blow ’em up action flick.  It’s intense, complex, unsettling, and easily the best summer movie I’ve seen this year (although Iron Man was pretty damn good, too).

July 12 of 12 (belated)

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I was out of town on the 12th, but managed to take pictures of the day.  Here’s my July 12 of 12, however belated.

1:21pm – We ate a late lunch that consisted of my dad’s adobo and sinigang (not pictured).  Yum.

1:53pm – After lunch, my dad started making leche flan for the party later that night.  Again: Yum.

1:55pm – While my dad was making the flans, I helped iron his shirt.  I’m so my father’s son it’s ridiculous.  Notice the new 2008 FSU football “Unconquered” t-shirt.  Go Seminoles!

2:15pm – Marty and I chilled on my dad’s couch and perused The Secret.  This book is, in a word, amazing.  And not in the good way.

3:17pm – Had to check on the Cubbies.  I logged on just in time to witness Marmol blow a 5-run lead.  The Cubs managed to eek out an 8-7 victory and Rich Harden struck out 10 in his Cubs debut, so it was all good.

3:30pm – Marty and I decide to mess with our cameras.  We’re dumb.

6:29pm – I had no idea what to expect for my graduation party.  I should have known it was gonna be huge when I saw the catering van.

6:31pm – We walk into the parish hall and behold the spectacle that is the buffet table.  Holy crap, this is gonna be big.

7:02pm – Mmm, cake.  Congrats, me!

8:13pm – I manage to find a few minutes to eat.  Man, do I love eggrolls.

9:33pm – Oh yes, those are Filipinos line dancing, to Latin music nonetheless.  Apparently, it’s the thing to do.

10:05pm – The party’s winding down.  My mom planned a lot of it and worked really hard to make it a fun evening.  Thanks, mom!!

Bono Criticism

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So, I’m listening to Pandora while packing up my office, preparing for the big move at the end of the month.  I turn on the U2 station that I created (of course), and out of sheer curiosity, I click the band’s biography and peruse the user comments.  I find it interesting that several of the comments totally slammed the band, Bono in particular, for their social work.  Now, I realize that not every one likes U2’s music, and I can live with that.  To each his own.  But some of these users need to get their facts straight.  U2 has not been around for so long just because they’re “the critics [sic] little darlings.”  They’ve won 22 Grammy Awards and have sold almost 150 million albums worldwide, despite getting hammered by those very same critics for releases like Ratttle and Hum and Pop.  More to my point, however: just because you don’t like their music, does that mean you have to bash their character and their charity work?  How is Bono a hypocrite?  How is he “using the children”?  What?  Criticize the music if you must, but I suggest you lay off his charity work.  What have YOU done for societal betterment bromide01, jayroy, and dave3569?  Bono’s got money and star power, and he’s using his cache to try to draw awareness to some pretty horrific situations.

This is a kind of Catch-22, in that Bono’s getting impugned for his charity work because he’s “just a rock star,” yet many of these trigger-happy critics turn right around and attack stars for doing absolutely nothing with their fortunes except horde it for themselves.  Why so bitter, boys and girls?  Jealousy?  Or just plain cynicism?  The way I see it, you can hate the music.  Fine.  You can disagree with his politics.  OK.  But to attack his charity (which comes out of his own pocket, mind you), that’s uncalled for.

Now, I realize that because I wrote my dissertation on U2 this entry isn’t entirely unbiased.  But then again, this blog isn’t about being unbiased; it’s about how I see things.  Disagree with me?  Bring it.

Wimbledon 2008

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After watching the Wimbledon men’s singles final today, all I have to say is WOW.  I’m left nearly speechless.  It was, hands down, one of the greatest matches I’ve ever seen, and possibly one of the greatest matches in tennis history.  The longest championship match in Wimbledon history was perahps the tournament’s greatest ever.  That takes a lot for me to say because I’m a huge Pete Sampras fan, but Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal put on a show today, hitting seemingly impossible angles with unthinkable pace.  And to compound the impeccable tennis on display on Centre Court, the players were hampered with two rain delays, which caused the total match time to exceed seven hours.  It was, in a word, unbelievable.

I hope NBC’s coverage of this event got big ratings, because tennis is an amazing sport that needs more exposure in the United States.  The top pros make the sport look so easy; however, it’s anything but.  First of all, it’s physically demanding.  A tennis player has to be able to change directions on a dime, read and react in (literally) a split-second, and deal with the elements.  Then there’s the technique involved with hitting a tennis ball.  Much like golf, where even the slightest hitch in a swing can cause the ball to drift tens of yards off target, the technique in tennis is vital to a player’s success.  Footwork, balance and weight shifting, hip and shoulder rotation, arm angle, wrist snaps, non-dominant hand movement, and follow-through, plus ball speed judgment and spin assessment all have to be considered…and that’s just to hit a simple forehand, never mind an overhead smash or a serve!  Also like golf, tennis is mentally challenging as well.  During a match, it’s just you and your opponent.  No coaches to advise you, so assistants offering aid.  It’s just player(s) vs. player(s).

Something funny happened to me watching the post-match trophy presentation.  I actually felt bad for Roger Federer.  It was weird because, being a huge Pete Sampras fan, I want his records to stand.  But Federer impressed me today with his grace in defeat.  He took it hard, as evidenced by his post-match interview with John McEnroe, but displayed at tremendous amount of poise and heart.  Coming back from two sets down only to lose a heart-breaking fifth set 9-7 in a place where he’s won five years in a row could not have been easy, and he accepted that Nadal narrowly beat him with class and style.  I think today may have even turned me into (dare I say it) a Federer fan.  Tennis players get a lot of criticism for being supposedly stoic and machine-like (Bill Simmons, for example) and not sticking around for a long time.  Not today, though.  Federer is going to win more Grand Slam titles before he’s done, eclipsing Sampras’ record of 14, and will go down as the greatest player ever.  And now, officially, Federer has a rival in Nadal, who’ll challenge Federer and push him to succeed even more than he already has, much like Agassi did to Sampras.  Contrary to what the Sports Guy says, players like Sampras and Federer ARE good for tennis.  They give us a reason to watch.  Like we do with Tiger, we tune to see if they’ll rewrite the history books.  The way I see it, tennis players’ supposed lack of longevity (which is due in no small part to the physical demands of the sport) should be all the more reason we tune it to witness amazing athletes like Sampras, Agassi, Federer, and Nadal.  Federer didn’t make history today; it was Nadal’s turn.  But Roger’s close, and that gives tennis fans–hopefully sports fans, in general–reason to watch the upcoming hardcourt season and the US Open later this summer.

Tennis is a fast-paced, elegant, captivating display of athleticism and mental fortitude, and there is hardly a better example of that display than today’s final. The match undoubtedly is an “instant classic,” so I hope ESPN Classic replays it soon and hope people tune in.  And if you don’t have that channel, check out the highlights and/or read up on the marathon between the world’s top two players.  I promise that it’ll be worth it.

Fox Sux

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I used to respect Fox Sports and their coverage.  I had no trouble separating Fox Sports from its overtly biased and woefully inaccurate sister network, Fox “News.”  I like their football pre-game show more than CBS’, and I like the fact that there are multiple regional networks that cover specific events for particular parts of country.  But after Fox blew their baseball coverage last weekend and today, I’ll have a tough time giving the Sports division of the network viewing time in the future.  Here’s how they blew it:

Last weekend was the final weekend for interleague play, the merits of which (or lack thereof) I’ll save for another entry.  It was “proximity rival” weekend, so the Cubs were playing the White Sox, the Yankees played the Mets, the Angels played the Dodgers, etc.  Fox was broadcasting the Cubs/Sox game, and I thought everything was fine and dandy (except for the fact that the Sox were winning the series).  All of a sudden, Fox decides to switch the coverage to the Mets/Yankees game.  I sat there on my couch in disbelief at what just transpired.  First of all, they didn’t even wait ’til the inning was over; they just went to the Joe Buck (whom I like) and Tim McCarver (whom I can’t stand…more about him later) pre-game hoopla over the overrated “Subway Series.”  Secondly, the Mets were a second place team and the Yankees a third place team, while the Cubs and Sox both held the top spots in their respective divisions.  I was appalled that Fox would switch to the New York game just because it’s The Big Apple, in order to broadcast the game between two middle-of-the-pack teams when they were in the middle of covering a drama-filled contest between two first-place teams in The Windy City.

Then, today at 4PM, the second game of the Cubs/Cardinals series started, a battle between the top two teams in the NL Central.  It just so happened that the Yankees/Red Sox game started at the that time, too.  I was hoping Fox wouldn’t do it to me again, but they did.  They chose to showcase the fourth-place Yankees and second-place Red Sox, while there was a nail-biter going on in St. Louis.  WHAT?!?  The Cubs/Cards game today actually affects the standings in a meaningful way, with only 2.5 games now separating the first-place Cubs from the second-place Cardinals.  The Yankees won day, cutting their deficit in the division to a scant NINE games.  Again: WHAT?!?  Thanks Fox Sports, for perpetuating the no longer so-called “East Coast” bias.  No one cares about Yankees/Red Sox any more: it’s overdone.  Plus, the Yankees stink right now.  The way I see it, had it been a game between top two teams in the AL East, then it would have been more understandable.  But that was not the case.  Wake up, Fox.  The Cubs and Cardinals have just as intense a rivalry as New York and Boston, and the rest of the country just might be able to appreciate that if your choice of game coverage wasn’t so poor.

Oh, and speaking of poor, please let Tim McCarver go.  He’s a terrible broadcaster whose glaring lack of analytical talent only brings down Joe Buck.  McCarver’s analyses are wrong more times than they’re right, especially when it comes to replays, commentating as if he’s blind.  I’m reminded of Joe Morgan of ESPN’s “Sunday Night Baseball.”  They’re both know-it-alls who really don’t know much, or at least can’t express what they know on TV.  They talk way too much and often either say the wrong thing or dwell on the obvious.  Steve Stone’s a know-it-all, but I can tolerate him because he, indeed, does know it all.  McCarver and Morgan may have been great players, but they’re awful announcers.  They should take notes from the “Smartest Man in Baseball.”

June 12 of 12

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What better way to kick off Friday the 13th than with 12 of 12.

My life’s pretty quiet now.  Translation: I’m bored out of my mind.  I didn’t leave the apartment yesterday (again), so several pics are of the TV screen.  God I love TV.

10:02am – Amy and I are trying to live a more eco-friendly, organic lifestyle, so she recommended this organic peanut butter.  I did a side-by-side taste test and the results are in: the MaraNatha peanut butter is delicious.  It tastes freshly homemade.  Amazing.

10:22am – They’re doing some renovations and repairs around the apartment complex, so I didn’t have water to wash my dish.  So to pass the time…

10:23am – I continued my Seinfeld-watching.

10:48am – As you can see, I’m making progress, moving on to the second disc of the penultimate season.

11:15am – I get an email saying that my dissertation has been approved by the Office of Graduate Studies and will posted online.  Horray!

11:23am – As I continue my morning online routine, I request official copies of my transcripts from my three schools.  Northwestern is the only school that has my mail a request form in by snail mail (thereby slowing the process).  Thanks to Loyola for sending transcripts for free.

11:24am – The transcripts I requested from LUC, NU, and FSU are all going to the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at UMass Lowell.  It’s part of the “making-my-hire-official” process.

12:47pm – Givin’ Oreo some love.  She loves those nubby gloves I got.

2:25pm – WGN celebrated its 60th year of broadcasting Cubs baseball with a “throwback game,” which featured both teams wearing 1948-style uniforms and a black-and-white telecast complete with graphics of yesteryear (just for the first two innings).

8:10pm – I cooked dinner for myself, which is a rarity these days.  It looked better in person, and it tasted even better.

9:52pm – The way I see it, since I was feeling domestic, why not continue the trend?  Iactually washed my dishes.  Recognize the hat?

10:31pm – 2nd place in the 100cc Special Cup in MarioKart Wii.  I was leading the standings until the final race.  Two words for you: Rainbow.  Road.  God I hate that course.

Different FROM

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English is a quirky language, one of the most difficult to master simply because there are so many rules and an equal number of exceptions to those rules.  To be sure, no one follows all the rules all of the time, but being a grammatical purist, I try my best to uphold as many of the rules as I know.  The way I see it, everyday English has deteriorated because of sheer laziness, or because the correct grammar “doesn’t sound right.”  Many of the commonly broken rules in everyday English can be corrected easily with just a little bit of effort.

Here’s a phrase I hear uttered just about every day that makes my skin crawl: “different than.”  I can safely bet that 99% of Americans don’t know that that phrase is wrong and it drives me crazy.  When juxtaposing two or more things using the adjective “different,” the word “FROM” should be used, not “than.”  The reason?  “Different” is the adjective form of the verb “differ,” as in “A differs FROM B.”  So, it stands to reason that when using the adjective (or adverb) form of the verb, we need to use the same modifier.  “The color red is different FROM the color blue.”  Or, “The Cubs are playing differently this year from last year.”  One thing doesn’t differ THAN another thing; it differs FROM it.  See: easy correction.

Remember: Different from.

It shouldn’t matter

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The presidential primary season is finally over.  Whew.  It was exhausting and tiresome and redundant.  Obama vs. Clinton.  Clinton vs. Obama.  Oy.  Now the country turns its attention to the general election in November, a heavyweight battle mainly between Barack Obama and John McCain.  The economy.  The environment.  The “war.”  In the coming weeks and months, there is sure to be a slew of articles and programs outlining and detailing these crucial issues as the campaign ramps up and voters try to decide the next person who runs the country.

Keeping this in mind, I’m shocked at CNN.com, and not in the good way.  With issues like skyrocketing gas and oil prices and a weakening dollar, the news channel chooses to run an article that questions whether Barack Obama is black or biracial.  It’s a short piece that describes the “trouble” Obama and others have in identifying their racial identity.  OK, in fairness, it is remarkable that a minority man is running for president; it’s about freakin’ time.  But the shocking part of the article, to me, is the very last paragraph, in which Michaela Angela Davis (who?) says that “it’s a step in the right direction that we are even having this discussion at all.” 

Really?  Seriously?? 

To the contrary, Ms. Davis, a step in the right direction would be NOT having this discussion at all.  Progress would be focusing on the real governmental issues, not continually dwelling on race or gender or sexual preference or religion.  Those things shouldn’t matter when it comes to electing our next president, or anyone for that matter.  So Obama is part black, part white.  So what?  Hillary Clinton is a woman.  So what?  The only reason those qualifiers matter is that never before in the history of this country has a non-white man ever been elected to the Oval Office.  It’s important and I get that.  But it’s a tired non-issue; let’s please move on.  We should be past the point where gender, race, religion, and sexual preference in the political world are remarkable attributes.  The way I see it, progress already has been made simply for the fact that Obama and Clinton (both minorities in the political world) ran such a tightly contested primary.  And now that those primaries are over, let’s concentrate on what really matters.

You want progress?  How about NOT talking about Obama’s racial identity for once.  Now THAT is a fresh idea.