Friday, April 27, 2007

Lazy Friday...

... and here's me, if I was an animal right now... that's how I feel! It's good I am off to the always entertaining experience of taking the Eurostar (Örostar in French...) in 45 mins...

Happy weekend everyone!

Lovely Hoary Marmot... resting... Or meditating, you never know...

14:57 | Permalink |

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Quote of the Day - The News Agent

Just had a little chat with the guy from the News Agent , as he had no "blue" milk (fat milk) in the shop this morning and he knows that I always buy this one… while everyone here at the office seems to be happy with the “green” version of it, aka semi-skimmed milk. Well, himself, he told me, drinks only fat milk as well and couldn’t understand why people would drink semi-skimmed, which he sells in a ratio of about 6 to 1... so there's definitely a market out there!

That made me wonder how it was with coke (coca cola), and if people drunk more “regular” one or more “light”… “No, no, normal, normal…” he said, to which I answered “… the trend, though, seems to be more and more people drinking light…”… so, laughing, he replied with what is today’s quote of the day “YEAH, THAT’S ALL RUBBISH” – I thought it was fun, grinned and crossed the road, to go back to my office and the "amazing" world of MVAS… Sometimes it's just nice to find a smile, where you would less expect it, I guess...

11:25 | Permalink |

Friday, April 20, 2007

NBA Playoffs predictions

rke

Very quickly (May 6th update):

Warriors in 6 update: Warriors send Mavs home 4-2 (finally a good prediction)

Rockets in 6 update: Jazz win in 7

Spurs in 7 update: Spurs eliminate Nuggets 4-1

Suns in 6 update: Suns knock out Lakers 4-1

Heat in 5 update: Bulls eliminated defending champions Heat 4-0 (ouch!!)

Pistons in 5 update: Pistons eliminated Magic 4-0

Raptors in 6 update: Nets knock out Raptors 4-2

Cavs in 5 update: Cavs eliminate Wizards 4-0... but I think Jamison deserves mention and lots of credit for his awesome pluay during the whole series, being the single offensive threat on a decimated Wizards team...

13:22 | Permalink |

Thursday, April 19, 2007

On the brink of tears and other reflctions

OK, the NBA regular season finished and the Celtics, oh surprise, lost again, yet another close game, to finish with an impressive 24-58 record. Nice! Now everything depends on the freakin’ 22nd of May draft lottery. If we are lucky and get a shot at Oden or Durant, two franchise players, as good as they get, coming out of university this summer, we have a shot at turning things around, if we get pick 3 that night, I will cry or go to Pangea, even if it is on my own and on a bloody Tuesday!

Anyways, the season finished and so did both my fantasy leagues and as already expected, I finished 2nd twice, which felt like a shot through the heart. As if I was some the Poulidor of Fantasy Leagues. On a positive note… well, there’s no positive note. Maybe I am too old for these games, I will give it a last shot next season, win and retire “in peace”.

OK, let’s move on and check some early predictions I made before the season started (not taking into consideration “All-NBA” Teams yet), which weren’t actually that bad:

Champion: Rockets if McGrady stays healthy (to be determined)
MVP: Kobe -> It looks like it’s a race between Nowitzki and Nash but Kobe scored 50+ 10 times this season and made a late push to keep his Lakers in Playoffs contention, so… who knows?
Top Scorer: Kobe, followed by Arenas -> This one was actually right, and Arenas finished 3rd.
6th-Man: Barbosa, maybe Delonte West or Antoine Walker if they don´t start... -> Not announced yet but it WILL be Barbosa!
Rookie of the Year: Rajon Rondo -> Mmh, nope, should be Brandon Roy
Most Improved: Shaun Livingston or Deron Williams (best case scenario as a Celtic: Al Jefferson) -> Jefferson is just up there, he made amazing strides of improvemente this year, Deron Williams improved a lot, too, but he’s a second year player so you might have expected it anyways and Shaun Livingston blew his knee and maybe his carer…
Sleeper Teams: Utah, Golden State... Boston -> And although no one counted on them, Utah and Golden State actually made the Playoffs, with Utah winning over 50 games. No comments on Boston…
Top Eight in the East: Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Miami, Washington, Boston, Orlando and Indiana in no particular order. -> New Jersey and Toronto made it, Indian and Boston didn’t, the rest were right.
Top Eight in the West: San Antonio, Houston, Dallas, Clippers, Lakers, Phoenix, Utah, Sacramento. -> Golden State and Denver for Sacramento and the Clippers, who smartly enough extended their coach’s contract, having an even better team than last season (when they felt one T. Thomas trey short of the Conference Finals), and oh surprise, missed the Playoffs just the next season. And these NBA GM’s get paid millions! It is crazy!
Defensive Player of the Year: Ron Artest -> He went nuts yet again, hurt my fantasy team, and might slowly be working his way out of the league…
Coach of the Year: Don Nelson -> Put GS in the Playoffs for the first time in 13 seasons… but won’t receive much consideration.

I also went to the movies yesterday and watched “Das Leben der Anderen” (The Live of Others), a great movie about the former GDR and its people. Having gone to the German School in Madrid and having experienced the whole reunification thing first hand as a kid from a quite close perspective (it was huuuuge in our school!!!), I was fascinated by the way, in which the single characters were presented, from Stasi Captain (Wiesler) to the playwright (Dreyman), his girlfriend, the foreign affairs minister…, all set up in the grayish atmosphere of the former GDR and it’s terrorizing regime, a country that presented itself as a model for its people but vastly failed, and it was not only freedom what its citizens lacked, but also hope that things might change for the better.
As the movie evolves, you get to find out how committed comrades show a human side you wouldn’t expect, given their social position and how some, in appearance, rather plain characters and situations, have much more of an emotional background than you would expect. The last line of the movie was just brilliant.
Well, I don’t wanna spoil the movie, I can just recommend it to everyone.

Oh, and I forgot to mention my new plant: Mimosa "Albizia julibrissin", gut I call her Junior. It was a present, a very cool one, and now I am trying to get her in shape after some inconvenient travelling, that didn't do the plant any good. It looks somewhat like this (picture below) and the amazing thing is it moves!!! I mean, you touch it and the leaves close (and no, it's not a carnivorous plant); I assume it is a form of self-protection, but if you touch the leaves here and there and the stalk, which immediately bends, you almost get the impression that the plant is dancing!!!! It's amazing. I am becoming a happy gardener and this Junior is the crown of my small "collection" of plants... :)

P.S. In case anyone wondered, my mate "Olson" stood up to his promise and had his early morning beer in Costa Rica. I didn't expect less!

Labels: Random stuff, The Ramblings, Tube Thoughts

10:12 | Permalink |

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Fantasy Hoops Curse or the Effects of Tanking

... OK, so I am in the Finals in both my Fantasy League and it turns out that I am gonna finish second in both of them, most probably. I feel cursed. This Fantasy League takes place throughout a whole NBA season, from November to April. I have been a regular for about 6 years, so go figure, it's a game but not always that much of a game in the end... :) (At one point I was in aleague where we were a bunch of guys (9 yankees and myself) who ran it for three consecutive seasons, keeping rosters from last season and everything. This was kept alive through emailing and chats for the time of the year when players for the squads were selected, normallyin mid October) Alright then, funnily enough, after almost 6 months of competing, the Finals of these sorts of fantasy basketball competitions always coincide with each team's last few games of the season, when something happens that screws up everything, the whole logic of the game, namely teams start tanking (loosing on purpose) in order to increase ones chances to get the best college players coming out that same summer. The more losses a team accumulates, the higher the odds to get to pick first from the new crop of college players to enter the league that same summer, so basically, we have a whole bunch of teams trying not to win games, which means that they screw up their lineups, rest their best players (they don’t even hit the court anymore and this to you as a manager comes out of the blue!!!), come up with fake injuries for their go-to guys and worst case shut their best man down for the reminder of the season. Hence, your once solid and competitive roster looks like a non contender all the way. If additionally you happen to be away just the weekend before the Finals (this actually happened to me) and forget to set up your lineup and exchange those “shut down” guys, as well, you are screwed.

Let's see a productivity comparison for my team:

In tanking mood

Normal game

So if we have a look at the four guys the get DNPs (did not play) we can see that Martin had 24 points, 4 boards and 2 assists before being shut down, Iguodala had 25-4-8, Josh Smith 16-4-3 and Big Al (Jefferson), had a crazy line of 24-7-4 and 5 blocks in his last active game, before being rested because of some knee concerns... Are you kidding me? These guys were producing at All-Star rates and all of a sudden they are not even prepared to see game action anymore becaue of some dubious injuries?!?

So yep, it's not even easy these days to be a fantasy manager. Oh well...

Labels: Sports

01:05 | Permalink |

Thursday, April 05, 2007

Quote of the day - "El Olson"

"Viva Costa Rica! Voy proximo lunes a las seis por lamanana (ugghhhhh). Bebiendo my primera cervaza mas omenos a las seis y media!"

Translated:

Long life Costa Rica! I am leaving there next Monday at 6am (funny noise). I'll be drinking my first beer more or less around 6:30am.

Yup, these are my mates! Happy times!

11:53 | Permalink |

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