www.tulok.net : Earlier Entries
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Entry 45 March 1, 2003 12:00 am |
For the past two weeks, USA Today has been running a series of articles, counting down what they call the "Ten Hardest Things to Do in Sports" (here's a link to the online version). It's an interesting read, and so far they've counted down to number 2 on the list (#1 will be in this Monday's edition). Here's what they've got so far:
10. Skiing 80-90 mph downhill
9. Saving a penalty kick in soccer
8. Riding in the Tour de France
7. Running a marathon
6. Landing a quadruple loop in figure skating
5. Returning a 130-mph tennis serve
4. Hitting a golf ball long AND straight
3. Pole Vaulting 15-feet
2. Driving a NASCAR-quality race car and not getting hurt
I've heard several suggestions as to what number one is, from boxing (not: anybody can get hit by Tyson, and I think I could knock out Paula Jones) to ski-jumping (jumping's easy; it's the landing that's the hard part) to bull-riding (not that hard if that British guy from The History Channel's Conquest could do it).
But while I've known some skiiers who could probably run a slalom course, while I've met several people who actually have run a marathon, and while I know several family friends who drive stock cars each week, there is one sporting event where not only have I never met anyone who tried it, I don't know anyone who has even attempted to try it:
Synchronized swimming. In particular, the team version.
Not only do you have to be able to swim to a particular point in the pool, listen to and move in synch to the music regardless of which side of the water's surface you're on, have a hell of a surfacing kick, and (in the team version) be aware of exactly where all the other swimmers are and where you're supposed to be in relation to them, you have to do it whilst holding your breath for up to a minute at a time.
Most people would find it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to simply swim underwater in a straight line for an entire minute without surfacing. Just imaging trying to dance underwater for an entire minute without surfacing! We'll see Monday if I'm right.
VCR Alert: for those who missed Christopher Reeve's appearance in last Tuesday's Smallville (and to those who didn't, shame on you!), you got one more chance, this Sunday afternoon at 4pm on your local WB channel (Channel 19/Cox 12 here in Tulsa). 5:11am
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Entry 46 March 4, 2003 12:00 am |
OK, nice stuff first. The picture at left is one
of the political cartoons about the death of Mister Rogers. (Rather, it's
by a political cartoonist, and it's one of those that appears in the opinions
sec--oh, you know what I'm talking about) The caption says it better than
I ever could (click on the picture for an enlargement).Next, the spooky stuff. A link to an interesting mind-reading trick Please go try it out now & come back when you're done.
Weird, wasn't it? OK, now for the rant. USA Today listed what they call the hardest thing to do in sports. (Again, here's the link for the entire overview). Their Number One choice: Hitting a Baseball.
A baseball? Hitting a f#@^ing BASEBALL??!!!!!
Alright, granted it would be extremely difficult to hit a Nolan Ryan fastball. But it's not impossible. Heck, with the right amount of luck I could do it. For that matter, with luck and just a little bit of skill (talking my extremely non-athletic level here) just about anybody could do nos. 1, 4, 5 and 9, given just the right conditions. In other words, four of these supposedly hardest things could be done every once in a while by complete non-athletes.
Hitting a 90-mph fast ball? Try catching a 130-mph jai-alai ball using just a curved stick. Try even completing a 2½-minute synchronized swimming routine without resting or coming up for air at the wrong time.
And how could they put a marathon run on the list without even including its much-harder counterpart: the Triathlon.
That one, by the way appears on a list of what I guess the newspaper considers Hard Things #s 11-20, as on another page they have a survey called "What Did We Miss?" But even here, there is no mention of anything related to either Synchronized Swimming or Jai-Alai. It is a little comforting to point out, though, that the current results of this survey, being voted on by the general public and not those dingbats at the paper, has the Triathlon currently in a comfortable 2-1 lead over second place (stopping a hockey shot).
Right now the Benny Hill's Golden Classics I'm currently watching makes more sense than the sports department at USA Today.
Oh, if you want to know how that mind-reading trick was done, here's a link to the answer. But don't spoil it by checking out this link before you first try the trick. 3:38am
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Entry 47 March 11, 2003 12:00 am |
Happy Birthday To Me
Happy Birthday To Me
Happy Birthday, Dear Martin
Happy Birthday To Meeeeeeeeeeee
Happy Birthday To Me
Happy Birthday, Dear Martin
Happy Birthday To Meeeeeeeeeeee
Yes, the day that provides the reason for my gray hairs has arrived. Today I turn the usually-meaningless age of 38. And let's face it: after you've turned 21 birthdays aren't fun anymore. All they do is remind you that you're getting old, old, old. Another year passed that I can list all the things I've wanted to do but haven't. Another year that I'm about
I'm probably starting to get Alzheimer's. I totally lost my train of thought.
I can remember that the present I wanted for my 30th birthday and didn't get is looking less and less likely to happen before my 40th, meaning I'm not likely to ever get it.
About the only thing I can be thankful for at 38 is that, even with the ever-increasing gray hair, my hairline hasn't started receding yet.
Getting old sucks.
Two birthday stories before I try to put it behind me. (Actually three: I was going to wait 24 hours before doing this post to see if my best friend even remembered my birthday. She has forgotten before. Well, she remembered it this time, and if what I want for my birthday this time happens, I'm gonna be too sloshed to do any coherent typing this time tomorrow. We'll see.)
Don't know if it's still the case, but twenty years ago when it was pertinent to me the only day that you could register to vote and register for the draft at the same time was on your 18th birthday. Since I was gonna have to play hooky from school to go downtown and do both, I decided to do them on the same day. So I spent the morning of my 18th birthday in downtown Tulsa registering for both.
Spent the rest of the morning waiting for my dad. It was also the only time I've ever locked my keys in the car.
(Damn, I just realized that my 20th High School Reunion is this year. %$*@!
Old. Sucks.)
Second story: I was born at what is now the Tulsa Regional Medical Center on this day 1965, at 10:11 in the morning. At that very time on the East Coast, however, it was 11:11 on the 11th. Three 11s, all nice and tidy. I always thought that was cool.
In 1987, my then-best friend's mom gave birth to a little girl (who is, therefore, celebrating her Sweet Sixteen today), coincidentally giving her the same birthday as me. When I learned the actual time of her birth, though, my eyes went wide. She was born at 11:12pm.
Meaning that, the moment she was born, on the East Coast it was 12:12, March 12th! (Insert Twilight Zone music here)
A follow up: the head writer at USA Today in charge of that idiotic "10 Hardest Things to Do in Sports" piece had an online chat session last Thursday. One of the things he mentioned was that the staff making these selections deliberately avoided the inclusion of any events that consisted of doing a bunch of different sports, either successively or at the same time. Under that criteria, it's understandable why events like the Triathlon and Decathlon, as well as any other type of Athlon, didn't make the list.
This also explains the absense of synchronized swimming, which, when you get right down to it, is nothing more than a combination of swimming and gymnastics, with a bit of water polo (the treading water part) thrown in. So although I still strongly disagree with their choice for Number 1 (out of their choices, I'd put Landing a Quad in Figure Skating as #1. Then again, if you can bribe the right judges to look the other way that'd make it a lot easier), I'm not as peeved as I was.
None of what was discussed in that chat session, however, still explains the absence of Jai-Alai from the list.
Oh, by the way: did I mention that being old sucks? 2:38am
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Entry 48 March 12, 2003 12:00 am |
Well, as birthdays go, had better, had worse. Didn't get slonkered due to schedulding conflicts, will try again next week. Probably just as well. I have to go back to work later today; not really comfortable getting plastered on what is essentially a 'school night'. 3:47am
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Entry 49 March 19, 2003 12:00 am |
Have spent virtually the entire past week trying to get my computers working. That right, plural. No sooner than one starts working properly than the other one goes splat! In both cases the problem involved the dreaded Blue Screen of Death. Different messages in each case, but still...
My brand new computer was the first to go. Getting hard disk problems. And moreover, I had copied most of my irretrevible stuff onto the new unit's second hard drive, and I couldn't get Windows 2000 into a proper recovery mode to retrieve anything off the drive. So, the first hard drive had to be completely wiped and the OS reinstalled. Whilst doing so, I decided to have my fancy video card installed, the one that has a coax input to that you can watch TV on it. Unfortunately, the video card doesn't work with W2000, so I had to go back & use my copy of WinME. Fine with me, 2000 wasn't thrilling me all that much anyway.
But of course, things don't go that easily (lotsa times I feel like Sally on Coupling: "There is nothing so good in this earth that I can't screw it up.") The computer keeps thinking my copy of ME was an audio disc. Well, with that video card I had only one option remaining: go all the way back to 98SE. It's working, but the new computer doesn't appear to run nearly as fast under it.
The other problem is that that second hard drive, the one that had all my important stuff on it, was on a non-DOS partition. Fine if you're running 2000, but unreadable by 98SE. But, since my other computer was still running 2000, I hooked the hard drive up to it, and started downloading stuff onto both computers (networked). Once everything was off that drive, it could be wiped and changed to a DOS partition.
About two-thirds into the transfer, the OS on the old computer craps out. Took two days, and was able to get that copy of 2000 repaired, so I was able to complete my transfer, and earlier tonight I finally have that second hard drive back on the new computer.
And almost immediately, the new computer has started locking up, just like it did last go-round. Well, that pretty-much clinches it: while none of my problems appear to have been occuring on that second hard drive, I'm pretty much convinced now that the problems are being caused by it.
If the problems can hold out till pay day, I think I'm gonna try a totally different tack: take the fancy video card out of the new computer, put it in the old one, wipe the old OS & put 98SE on it so the card'll work (maybe the ME disk will work on that machine), reset the new machine to the internal video card, by a copy of XP and put it on the new unit, and most importantly, take out that second hard drive and use it as a damn paperweight!
Absolutely, positively the last time I ever buy a Maxtor hard drive. Strictly Western Digital from here on.
Anyway, that's why I haven't done an update until now. For most of the past week my local copies of my web files, ad well as my FTP program, were on the broken computer.
Lotsa thing I'd like to say about what's going on in the world, but I don't believe I have that much time right now, so I'll go with the short stuff:
--Check out this link. An interesting thesis on the similarities between Frank Herbert's Dune and the Middle East. Suffice it to say, that Arrakis sounds a lot like Iraq is not a coincidence.
--Favorite French joke so far: "Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without an accordian."
--Although I don't totally agree with Bush on what's going on and the best way to go about fixing it, I have to admit that The Dixie Chicks deserve all the bad press they can get for saying what they did at that concert in England. Partially because I don't go to music concerts to hear the performer's political views, but mainly because I really don't care about celebrities' political views. Most of the time the stars open their mouths to say something they feel they believe in, they're more apt in my opinion to just put their foot in it. What they think about something is not likely to sway my opinion at all on the issue. Chance is much greater that I'll just start disliking them.
Perfect example: because of Martin Sheen's blasting of the president (story in the same Dixie Chicks article above), Visa has removed my absolute favorite TV commercial in a long time. So now, whereas I didn't have much of an opinion on Sheen one way or the other, now I dislike him. While I had never seen an episode of The West Wing mainly because of counterprogramming, I will now never watch the show, even next month when Matthew Perry guest stars.
I have a much greater respect for singer Leann Rimes. When asked for her opinion about the potential for war, she flat-out said that she didn't want to give her opinion on the subject, because she didn't want people to dislike her. That girl's gonna go far!
Two totally-different topics before I sign off and post this thing: first is a quick link to little sis's ex's new website. Most of you won't know him, but hey, if I provide a link to his page maybe he'll reciprocate for me.
Also, just want to remind certain persons of my all-time biggest pet peeve: people who tell me they're gonna call, then don't. Maybe particular individuals will read this and remember certain broken promises....
OK, done enough thinking for tonight. Plus, the dryer just stopped, so time to take out the clothes. More in a few days. 5:59am
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Entry 50 March 24, 2003 12:00 am |
What the hell is the deal with that outfit? I sure hope she's color-blind, because the only other possible excuse for such a monstrosity is to provide much-needed humor in an otherwise seriously-tense situation.
A pretty good article in Time Magazine's part of CNNs page that does a pretty good job of explaining why the French are acting like they are during all this. Still doesn't excuse them, though.
Another article that appears to do a pretty good job in separating fact from fiction when it comes to some of the reasons we've gone to war. 1:25am
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Entry 51 March 31, 2003 12:00 am |
The construction at I-44 & US-169 is finished,
with the Mingo Valley Expressway now expanded to six lanes up to 11th
Street. (Can't go on to I-244 until the 11th St and Admiral bridges are
rebuilt.) The construction sign at left, advising people travelling eastbound
on I-44 to detour using the B.A., is still up though.It looks like it may be staying up permanently! Click on the sign & you'll see another picture showing why: that particular exit no longer exists. The on-ramp to 169 was far too close to 169's off-ramp to 21st Street, so they took it out. A brand-new exit on eastbound I-44 was built to 21st, and from it you can go east about a mile to get to southbound 169.
Or you can do what I did today: exit onto northbound 169, then proceed to take the next two segments of the cloverleaf, and you'll be going southbound.
Back in mid-January (Entry 39) I mentioned a report from one of the TV stations about the new extension of the Gilcrease Expressway. Y'know, the one they've spent two years building, just to extend the road an extra half-mile. That report said the new section should be ready to open "by March". As I'm typing this, they've got about four hours left.
Don't think they're gonna make it.
Trouble is, I'm not sure why. I haven't seen the Lewis end, so I don't know if that section is ready, but everything at the US 75 end looks ready to be opened. The only thing missing are the gantrys with the new Big Green Signs. (And don't tell me that is all they're waiting for. The Keystone Expressway was open for traffic a good six months before there were any signs on it!)
Meanwhile, we still have to drop down to 55mph in a construction zone that has seen absolutely no construction for at least two months. Come to think of it, maybe it's the city's idea to keep the construction zone up. I've seen police cars staked out there watching for speeders at four in the morning. Shore up some lost city income there.
We had just gotton the satellite receiver working again on our projection-tv at work (no, we're not slackers: the subscription is limited to news and weather channels). TV used to be on CNN all the time, but they made the horrendous mistake of having Connie Chung on the air when the war began (a mistake that has been permanently corrected), so, over my request to switch to MSNBC, we went over to Fox News. When we got the new receiver working (the old one was fried, mainly because it had been on continuously for six years), I tried again to get them to go to MSNBC, because they had Peter Arnett, who was also in Iraq for Gulf War I. Got overruled again, still on Fox News.
Then Arnett goes and gives that stupid interview in Iraqi TV (story link). Don't blame the networks one bit for firing him. I'm still gonna keep recommending MSNBC however, because just tonight they've brought back Keith Olbermann. His first show just ended a few minutes ago, and I am duly impressed. I've seen some war-related stories that I haven't seen any other network touch. Including a section devoted solely to how other countries are reporting the war. When I have no alternate entertainment programming scheduled I'm gonna be watching Keith each night.
And not watching Fox News, except when I'm forced to at work. Bill O'Reilly seems to do nothing but have on guests that oppose his views just so he can chastise them (I can't recall the last time he had a guest who completely agreed with him). I have been against Shepard Smith since the presidential election fiasco coverage in Florida, where he was arrested for hitting a woman with his car so he could get her parking space (story link), then getting off scot-free becase he's a national public figure, and the woman he hit isn't. (Here's a link to his mug shot.)
And then, of course, there's Geraldo, who is supposedly being kicked out of Iraq for jeopardizing American troops by drawing a map in the sand on international television, showing the enemy where those particular American troops were at that moment and which way they were going. If even one American soldier is injured based on that information, Geraldo should be arrested immediately and tried for war crimes, just as if he were an Iraqi soldier.
In fact, let's do that anyway. Just to get him off the air for good.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe one of the things a country has to do to become a member of the United Nations is to follow the rules set forth in the Geneva Convention. Iraq has broken those rules by showing American Prisoners of war on national television. They continue to violate the Geneva Convention by refusing to allow Red Cross/Red Crescent personnel to visit said POWs.
Seems to me that Iraq has therefore forfeited its membership in the United Nations. They shouldn't be allowed to speak to any other country at the U.N., and they definitely shouldn't be allowed to speak to the Security Council.
I think that's about all for now. Just a reminder: this is my page, and all viewpoints represented are mine, although I may give you a link to a story once in a while just to show how idiotic it is. More will undoubetdly be said later, but the nutshell for now: don't visit France, but go ahead & eat french fries (after all, they're really from Belgium); deport Michael Moore; support the troops, because this time we've gotta finish the job; but do not, under any circumstances, re-elect Bush.
I reiterate: if you don't like anything I've said, get your own web site. 7:55pm
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