Becky Hammon

Becky Hammon speaks no Russian, has no Russian ancestry, was born in the US, grew up in the US, and will play for the Russian women's basketball team at the Olympics this Summer.
Some background:
1. According to the WNBA MVP system, she is the second best player in the WNBA.
2. She, like many other WNBA stars, can and does play in Russia during the offseason (for 8 months out of the year she lives in Russia). Each Russian team can have only 2 American players.
3. She got fasttracked for Russian citizenship - probably because she was willing to play for Russia at the Olympics. How you can have dual Russian and American citizenship, I have NO idea. Many countries dual citizenship, I get. Just not Russia...
4. A list of 23 candidates for the US national team came out sometime. Hammon was not on that list.
5. Hammon agreed to play for Russia and signed a 2 million dollar 4 year contract with the club team she plays for. This deal was to sweeten the package to convince her to play for Russia. It is also 6 times what she gets playing for the WNBA
6. After she signed the contract, an expanded 30 player list that did include Hammon was released, inviting her to try-out for the US team.
7. Some people, including the US Women's team coach, considers this nonpatriotic and labeled Hammon a traitor.

So, what I'm getting is that somebody sold out to play for a sport no real American cares about. I think that includes Becky Hammon. Because, really, what could be more American than selling out?
Feel free to disagree

I have a new favorite person

His name is Leo Stoiler.

I observed him at the Daley Center last Friday. I was waiting in line to pick up / pay for some copies of a judge's order, and he was standing behind me. I didn't really notice him, except that he looked a little crazy and disshevelled.

Anyway, one clerk opened up a new register for "free filing only" and he jumped at the opportunity. Within seconds the clerk rebuffed him by revealing that what he had was not free. Accordingly, he returned to line...hey, he's cutting in front of me and the woman in front of me! She and I looked at each other, exchanging a "is this guy nuts?" look. Just as I'm about to say something to him, he gets down on one knee and spreads his papers on the floor in order to sort them.

At this point a collective "what the fuck" permeates the atmosphere. I use this opportunity to get a better look at the whacko. He's not that unusual: burly, mid-50s, longish tennis ball haircut, standard-issue glasses, tacky tan suit. Kind of like a 1950s car salesman or something, but not that well composed. He's tossing his papers into two separate piles, just kind of getting organized there on the floor.

The woman in front of me leaves to do something else, which means that when I am eventually called to the counter, I am standing next to him. I hand my order form to my cashier and he leaves, giving me three minutes of surreptitious spying on this oddball. I see that he is filing a lawsuit, and the plaintiff's name is "Leo Stoiler". I also hear the cashier ask for the attorney code, and he responds, "Pro Se." That means he will be arguing on his own behalf in court. Later the cashier asks, "How much?" and he responds, "Ten million." That's right folks: this guy is suing someone/something for ten million dollars, and he's NOT GETTING A LAWYER. And he himself is not a lawyer; if he was, he would have an attorney code.

Sharing the money with an attorney is a lot better than NOT GETTING THE MONEY AT ALL. Dumbass.

Anyway, once all his forms are filled out and filed, the clerk asks him for money. At this point he begins a laborious explination of why this filing should be free. Unfortunately, I had to leave at that point and could not monitor his further attempts to interact with humans. But I want you to know, Leo Stoiler, that I love you.

Shine on you crazy diamond.

Roger Zelazny, in short

Zelazny was a science fiction (Hugo/Nebula winner) who basically wrote about whatever he wanted. In college, he apparently showed up for any interesting classes in which the lecturer didn't take attendence, and thus learned about everything. For fun, I have assembled a list of notable Zelazny novels along with very brief descriptions of the protagonist:

Lord of Light: trickster Buddha
Isle of the Dead: demigod playboy
Deus Irae: mutant pilgrim (with Philip K. Dick)
My Name is Legion: non-existent detective
Roadmarks: ageless trucker
A Night in the Lonesome October: Jack the Ripper's dog
Lord Demon: demon glassblower

There are others, but I think that's enough to prove some sort of point.

Ticker: Ron Paul calls it quits

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/06/12/paul-suspends-presidential-campaign-forms-new-organization/

A GREAT BLOW HAS BEEN STRUCK TO DEMOCRACY TODAY. ALTHOUGH DR. PAUL MADE GREAT STRIDES IN MAKING HIS VOICE HEARD THE CORPORATE MSM (THAT'S MAINSTREAM MEDIA) ULTIMATELY HAD TO KILL HIS CAMPAIGN BECAUSE GOD FORBID A MAN WHO MAKE SENSE BE THE PRESIDENT OF AMERICA. CORPORATIONS ARE KILLING OUR RIGHTS, NO BLOOD FOR OIL, DOWN WITH THE IRS, END THE ILLEGAL CENSORSHIP THAT IS THE FDA.

Just watched Big Trouble for the second time.

Just as awesome. I laughed. A lot. A lot more than Teresa did, too. I recommend it to anyone. So many catchphrases...

Dental Insurance

If you do not have dental insurance, brush your teeth really well. GOD DAMNIT!!!

Compensating for the racism of CS Lewis

Hey guys. Since I am not on facebook and sign on to AIM on an as needed basis, this blog seemed to be an acceptable medium to try to stay in touch. Try being the key word.
Anyhow I saw the new Narnia movie last week. Im not sure why. I didn't really like the first one and this wasn't any different. I actually didn't particularly enjoy the CS Lewis books either, so I may be biased. Now the bad guys in this one were Spanish. Now if memory serves me right, weren't the bad guys black and/or arab in the books? Im pretty sure they had scimitars instead of swords... Feel free to correct me. I read the books a long time ago. Maybe the were really Mexican...

Child-proof Computers

Today I was at my friend's house talking to a stranger. I believe it was my friend's roommate's sister-in-law, but there's no way to be sure. This young woman is completing a Master's of Education, and to this end she was completing an essay about Technology in the Classroom. She was focusing on preschoolers, because that is who she teaches.

Of course, this brings up the obvious question as to why you need a graduate degree at all to handle four-year-olds. As far as I can remember, the required skills are to speak in a kind voice, reliably distribute juice boxes, and have lots and lots of patience. The ability to make funny faces is a bonus.

We didn't really talk about that part, because I was a guest. What we ended up with was a discussion about how bad computer games are for small children. When I asked what was preferred, she replied vaguely that "there are studies" that argue children develop better by doing more "hands-on" activities. A year of graduate school has, if nothing else, given me a healthy amount of skepticism of the conclusions of studies written by people who, after all, have to get published. That aside, I threw out the idea, more for the purposes of making conversation than conviction, that computer games might be a great way to get children to begin to think abstractly, to distinguish between physical objects and ideas. Seriously. I don't see why preschoolers shouldn't be able to learn this.

She explained, with admirable patience (see!), that instead of playing a phonics game on the computer, they should practice saying the sounds out loud. Instead of tapping a letter on the keyboard, practice writing it. Instead of recognizing numbers on screen, hold a flashcard. And so on.

That's right. We went over a laundry list of concrete examples. But seriously, I don't see why...

Never mind.

The worst bumper sticker

"Charleton Heston is my president." I'll tell you this: he'd be a better president than our current one! Wakka wakka!!

Who's seen worse?

a prompt for beard engelsman

Beardo needs a push, I guess. I'm here to give it to him.

engelsjk (6:52:55 PM): did you send out any more blog invitations?
Steveo279 (6:53:01 PM): the ones you suggested
engelsjk (6:53:02 PM): and do you think I should make a blog post about todays event?
Steveo279 (6:53:05 PM): heck yes
engelsjk (6:53:10 PM): I won't
Steveo279 (6:53:11 PM): get all pissed off and descriptive
Steveo279 (6:53:14 PM): do it beard
Steveo279 (6:53:14 PM): do it
engelsjk (6:53:19 PM): mikey needs to write more
engelsjk (6:53:22 PM): I want to know what's in his head
engelsjk (6:53:29 PM): and I think this would be a good outlet for tony
engelsjk (6:53:33 PM): if he ever grew a pair
Steveo279 (6:53:46 PM): he's being really dumb
Steveo279 (6:53:55 PM): because he'd be hilarious and it wouldn't take any effort to join
Steveo279 (6:53:58 PM): i sent him an invitation a gain
Steveo279 (6:54:02 PM): again*
engelsjk (6:54:09 PM): haha
engelsjk (6:54:15 PM): what a bitch
Steveo279 (6:54:34 PM): yeah
Steveo279 (6:54:45 PM): i mean you can join and not post anything right away, it's not a big deal
engelsjk (6:54:52 PM): mm

Do it, Beard. You wanna read some new posts, make some new posts!!!

Actually, it makes sense that Terminators would be manufactured in Switzerland

Roger Federer must feel the same way about Rafael Nadal as Arnold felt when they came out with the T-1000. That is to say, it's not entirely clear the former Central European inexorable being has feelings at all, but if he does, the first one on the list has to be jealousy of the newer, younger, sleeker, deadlier, more liquidy-metal version of himself. If only the T-1000 were left-handed, I would feel even better about this.

I'm sure everyone else watching the French Open also noticed the obvious parallels. So, I would recommend Rafa look out for things like giant pools of molten steel, and states like California look out for Roger.

I watched a horse race yesterday

There was a famous horse race yesterday involving many horses that was on the television. The horses ran for a while with little men on them! The little men wore different colors because otherwise they looked like tiny misshapen clones. The chins...so pointy. The faces...so hideous. I will have nightmares about these imps.

There was a horse everyone expected to win. He came in last! This horse was a sad horse. An embarrassing horse. The horse hardly finished the race. The diminutive troll who rode this horse could not explain its loss. Maybe it was a shitty horse, tiny man.

Horse racing is not a good thing. Would not watch again.

Statistics?

One way this blog is representative of real life (and/or some people's birthday parties) :

8:1 guy to girl ratio

That is all.

Just wanted to demonstrate the correct use of tags

This post is an excuse to demonstrate correct tagging form.

A Formal Request for the Presence of Anthony Ray Storti on This Here Blog

Seriously, why isn't that man-child a contributor to this growing community of bloggers?

Steve, make it so.

I expect great things from Tony finally having a voice on the internet via this blog. Is the world ready?

What's happening in the cowboy scene???

I will tell you!

I made this blog for my friends! I wanted to read stuff they have to say. It will be fun.

If you're wondering where the name came from, it's from the song "Cowboy Dan." It's hard to think of things sometimes!

Here are a few rules about the cowboy scene. 1. If you wanna join just ask me! 2. Put a bunch of labels on your post, why the fuck not! 3. Any content at all is accepted, but sometimes a good post is appreciated!

Here's an example of a good post. It's this one.

I want to tell you a story about Santiago, Chile. I went there like two years ago, and only for a month, but it was so fun I have lots of stories!

One of the classes we took there somehow involved helping English teachers in colegios in the poorer parts of the city. Colegios are schools for students between 5 and the age they quit going to school. Could be as high as grade 12.

My school was a relatively new building somewhere in the northern part of the city. I have no clue where, I got rides there and it's not an easy place to navigate. I remember getting picked up at Estación Baquedano and going north on Pío Nono and then passing this big billboard that said "Sonrie! Dios Te Ama!" (Smile! God Loves You!) and then eventually getting there. At some point the road had a ton of holes. It was really a series of holes rather than a road. Also someone had defaced a street sign close by in a creepy and strangely funny manner. The sign originally said "Las Violetas," The Violets. Okay, not a great street name, but in English "Violet Avenue" has a nice ring. Somebody had taken spray paint to it and turned it to "Las Violé," which translates to "I Raped Them." Shocking most of all because Chileans never much displayed an affinity for puns.

Anyway we went there once a week, and we were there for four weeks. It was so short it was mostly a joke. I could hardly learn the teachers' names, certainly not the students', and I couldn't help teach since I showed up so infrequently. I worked with an awesome guy named Miguel. More on Miguel later. Mostly what I did was show off some sweet American pronunciation and word choice, since they learn British English there. Mobile phones, autumn. Maybe lorry or lift. Probably not.

Here are the two awesome parts. Halfway through our time there, almost every student in Santiago held a strike. The students struck. Their main complaints were that bus fares were too expensive, and in general that the law governing education was unfair. The strike had two parts. In "paro," students refused to come to class and school was cancelled. "Paro" comes from the verb "to stop," so that makes sense. The other part was called "toma," from the verb "to take." How did students take? They physically moved into the schools and prevented staff from coming in. They lived in their schools. It was awesome. At least, watching on the news.

The school where I helped never reached toma, but we were in paro one of the weeks I was there. I still went to the school and talked to the teachers and the students and generally fucked around, mostly by playing basketball (Chileans are awful at basketball) and watching soccer (I am awful at soccer). It was funny because it was this awesome mix of actual complaints students had and ridiculous complaints that made no sense. They had the students get up in groups and present their problems, and several groups said the school should expel students with bad behavior. Then one group got up and said the opposite, and Miguel leaned over and said "That group is composed entirely of troublemaking students." Noice. Anyway the paro was good fun because apparently students there actually give a shit?? I think students striking in the US would be met with derision and mockery, and these kids were getting interviewed on the nightly news. It was cool.

The best thing at the school was the staff. I knew four people by name. Miguel was a teacher, and he was Chilean but he'd been to the US. He spoke English with a very unique accent that included some terrible mispronunciations, since he'd never heard some words spoken before. Then the other teacher I knew was María, who was quiet but funny. Her English was less good but still pretty good, more of a typical Spanish-speaker's accent. Then there were two girls who were there as volunteers, both from Great Britain. One was Scottish and one was English. They were both pretty talkative and very funny, and they didn't know a ton of Spanish so when we were all together we spoke English. I remember the British girl was Kate and the Scottish one...oh damn. I don't think I'll remember. They called her "Barbie" because girls with blonde hair are so rare. I have very fond memories of the five of us eating together. The accents in our conversations were freaking great. All of us speaking the same language and not saying any word exactly the same way. It was fuckin cool!!! I want to go back.

All right, bye!

It's always time for procrastinating.

So supposedly there's something going on on Tuesday that will determine the course that my life takes in the next 5-7 years. It's my qualifying exams. Four hours of testing over 8 classes that I have taken. I'm supposed to get 500/800 points. The hypothetical plan is to disappear until then so I can study.

Instead I'm buying an SA account. No you can't know my name. It's secret.

In other exciting news, a happy mix-up in the lab resulted in my Russian friend telling us it smelled like dead whores. He was right.

add labels to your post

new rule. put a couple labels on your post.

should i get a moustache?

should i get one? i guess not get one as much as reduce my beard to a moustache. should i?

American Cinema

I have a friend here at school from Moldova, which is according to the World Values Survey the unhappiest nation in the world. Somehow we have now come to call Moldova "The Dark Kingdom" and my friend was briefly "The Dark Prince," both of which are hysterically funny things to me, but maybe you had to be there.

Anyway. he picked up a DVD on the way to class today. It is a 1979 movie called "Stalker," which upon inspection turned out to be Russian, and in Russian. I have since learned it is on IMDB's Top 250 movies of all time.

Jokingly, I asked The Dark Prince if American cinema wasn't good enough for him. As sometimes happens, he interpreted this as an invitation to bash the good old US of A, which I always defend because I'm a patriot. He told me that American movies are all "cliched;" he had seen five this year, "and four were crap." After exposing his straw man argument (if you go to I Am Legend, it's your own fault), I have made for your viewing a list of American things, including the non-crap movie, that I know The Dark Prince truly approves of:

1. Metallica.
2. Professional Hockey (Carolina is in America and on local TV, so it counts).
3. Freshmen/sophomore girls.
4. The prevalence of trucks. Like, 18-wheelers.
5. Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay.

My Last Day In Chicago

Today is my last day in Chicago. I leave tomorrow for a week in Cleveland, a week in North Carolina, and finally a month in Vegas.

I threw myself a going away party today, which consisted of Heroes season 1, Smores Poptarts, and coffee. The party got out of control when I decided to shower at 5pm and then make frozen shrimp stir fry, which I am devouring while typing this.

This party is seriously hoppin'.

brb something cool just happened in Heroes.

Why I have to be at Work at 7:45 Tomorrow UPDATE!!!

UPDATE: I got a call at 7:30 this morning saying the demo was cancelled. I don't know why yet, but it seems my whining had an effect.

You may or may not have seen/heard (Beard, I know you have), but the Secretary of the Air Force and the Air Force Chief of Staff were both forced to resign today. The way this happened was the Deputary Secretary of Defense got on a plane and flew to Wright Patterson Air Force Base, where the SecAF was this afternoon, and collected a resignation.

Who else was on WPAFB this afternoon? Why, I was! My project at work is very closely tied to the Air Force (so closely tied that they are our only customers), and we were giving a demo to some important people this afternoon. "How important were they, Aaron?" Well, they were important enough to be the Secretary of the Air Force.

I didn't meet him at all (I was a mere demo assistant, transmitting data from various areas of the parking lot so that our sweet software could show off how sweet it is), but my immediate boss did. At one point this afternoon, the sec was taken out of the meeting, and the demo ended early. We didn't know why the demo ended early until we got back to the office.

In summary, I was part of a demo being given to the Secretary of the Air Force while he was being fired. But since we didn't finish the demo, I have to come in early tomorrow to set things up and run them again. Boosh.

I don't know what I'm doing???

I can already tell that this blog will be good for the collective bone.

w-hat

oh man cowboys are awesome this will be great