NBA and Thunder

At first, I thought ABC wouldn't carry any playoffs until the NBA finals. Then last Sunday, I saw the Lakers playoff game on ABC so I thought this year playoffs would be similar to last year on NBC. But then I learned that ABC would just have one game per weekend until the finals. All the other games would be on cable. Last year I think NBC had six games on the first playoff weekend. Last week they had the curling world championship. It's getting more difficult in living without cable TV these days.

Since I haven't been watching many playoff games these days, I've been watching some movie videos. One little thing that I've noticed in many movies, is the special effects during thunderstorms. Seems like every storm in a movie has bolts of lightning that are immediately followed by the sounds of thunder (the last one I noticed this was Tombstone.) This would require all the lightning to be hitting within hundreds of yards from the scene. How many times do you remember storms like this? It takes about 5 seconds for the thunder to travel a mile from the lightning strike. So even if the lightning is close, let's say 1/2 mile, it would take 2.5 seconds to hear the sound of the thunder. Perhaps, this delay between flashes of lightning and the sounds of thunder don't make the scenes as dramatic as flash-bang. If that's the case, I guess I should get use to it.

Beware of the Trojan Fart

If a friend forwards you a link which appears to be some pictogram or image where if you stare at it, some interesting effects should occur, beware. I received one last week. I clicked the link and the page did open up with a seemingly benign pictogram. But then after a couple of seconds, a loud noise, of you-know-what, shot out from my workstation (unfortunately, the audio of my workstation happened to be set to a high level.) In addition, the pictogram turned into a quite unpleasant scene of an ugly side of an overweight man. So at the very least, be sure to keep your audio down...

Elections

I just voted in the early voting elections yesterday. Not much on the ballot, and not too crowded at the polls. They had the early voting set up in a busy supermarket. It had opened at 7:00am. I got there at about 10:00am on Saturday. They told me I was only the 13th voter for the day. A lot of people get mad at the low voter turnouts. But if a voter hasn't studied the issues and the candidates, how useful are the votes? And it isn't easy to study the issues. Before I went to the poll, I tried to study the candidates and issues on the web. The city newspaper's web site didn't have much. I did find a little info at a lesser known city newspaper web site. Also, after 10 minutes of searching, I did find the local Women League of Voters web site with their information on the candidates and issues. But still doesn't seem like enough info to really understand the candidates and issues. Here's the link to find your local candidate info on the League of Women's Voter's web site: www.lwv.org

posted by Ken on 1:18 PM permalink and comments  

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Sunday, April 20, 2003

 

George's Words of Wisdom

This week I saw the Seinfeld rerun where Jerry requests assistance from George in how to beat a lie detector which his new girl friend, a police officer, asked him to take to prove that he has never seen Melrose Place. Elaine didn't think Jerry could pull it off. As she put it:

Who do you think you are? Costanza?

Jerry countered:

Hey, you know what, I have access to one of the most deceitful, duplicitess, deceptive minds of our time. Who better to advise me.

At first, George kept quiet. Then as George was walking out of the cafe, he gave Jerry his words of wisdom:

Hey Jerry, just remember... It's not a lie .... if you believe it...

This reminded me a little of Jason Alexander's attempt at a sitcom a few years ago. It tried to capture some of this humor of Jason Alexander. However, it didn't have the writing and the character development to make it.

In addition to this story, this episode also included George starting to wear a hair piece and then ironically getting fixed up with a bald lady by Kramer. In addition, Elaine attempted the futile effort to convince a potential boy friend to "switch teams". This was yet another great episode that combined great writing with great characters.

Guess Who Was Showing Curling?

Being someome who's careful in his spending, I've been living without cable for years. I get decent reception, and I don't watch all that much TV. Half my TV watching on weekday nights is actually PBS. I really enjoy their documentaries.

But this weekend, I experienced something that has me thinking that cable may have an edge these days. NBC lost the NBA this season. So what does NBC put on instead of NBA playoffs? I just switched over to NBC, and they're showing the 2003 World Curling Championship. Not sure what curling is? You might have seen a little bit of this in the winter Olympics. It's a little like shuffle board on ice except that players also use some sort of brooms to adjust the rock's placement. And guess what. USA women beat Canada in the championship (a great day in the history of USA sports). I don't want to put down Curling. It probably is a fun sport. But this is something that I would expect on cable, not NBC on a Sunday.

I had thought TNT had the exclusive rights to the playoffs until the championship series. But it looks like ABC will show games on Sundays. So maybe I can keep surviving without cable...

posted by Ken on 12:14 PM permalink and comments  

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Sunday, April 13, 2003

 

Always Wanted to be an Architect

How many times through out the Seinfeld series did George pretend to be an Architect? This seemed to pop up often in unexpected times. It was always funny such as when George was trying to help Jerry in convincing an old high school archrival that Jerry fairly won a 100 yard dash. George popped in on them at the coffee shop and pretended never to have met Jerry since high school. Of course, George's current job was an Architect. Another classic was when Jerry fixed George up with a lady and told her George was a marine biologist. Needless to say George was upset that Jerry forgot about his architect acting aspirations.

One architecture aspiration of mine is a designing a six story house. If money were of no concern, I think it would be cool to design a six story house for myself. It wouldn't have to be big house, just a tall house. On the bottom floor would be the garage. The second floor would be the kitchen and dining room. Living room would be on the third floor. Two bedrooms would be on the fourth floor. Finally, the master bedroom would be a penthouse taking up the fifth and sixth floor.

I always like being up high. I love skyscrappers. In Dallas just recently, I got to stay at the Hyatt Regency at the Reunion. I was able to stay on the 23rd floor overlooking downtown. It was pretty cool. Most of the time I stay in hotels that are more like motels which are rarely over 4 stories.

Although I was on the 23rd floor, it still wasn't all that high compared to other buildings in Dallas. The tallest one was close to the hotel. It was the Bank of America Plaza, a 72 story, 921 foot office tower. This tower is outlined by emerald green argon tubing which made for a great view at night.

posted by Ken on 12:48 PM permalink and comments  

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