Video Games

Found out today that EA is bringing back NBA Jam. My first basketball video game was actually NBA Jam Extreme, so I think I might purchase this:

Speaking of videogames, here is a list of some of my favorite video games:

Super Mario Brothers
Super Mario World
Super Mario World 3
Tetris 2 for Super Nintendo
Top Gear
Super Street Fighters II
Crash Team Racing
Crash Bandicoot 2
Crash Bash
NBA Jam Extreme
NBA Showtime
Space Jam
Pokemon Silver
Pokemon Yellow
Tetris
Pokemon Trading Card Game
COD: Modern Warfare II
NBA Live Series from 1997 to 2006
NBA 2k Series from 2007 to present
MLB Triple Play
MLB The Show
MVP Baseball
Madden Series
Wii Sports
Wii Play
Sim City
and more...

Junior Year: Spring Quarter 2010

Lots of tasks this quarter:
4 midterms +
Two 10+ page essays +
Lots of Quizes +
Lots of Homework +
3 Finals +
Study for Spanish 2 this summer = Lots of Work and Procrastination


Things I did/do to procrastinate:
Farmville, Online Poker, Youtube, Word Challenge, Watch entire TV series, like Boy Meets World and Friends, Movies, another word game: http://www.eastoftheweb.com/cgi-bin/top_scores.pl?game=multieight, ... and more. Note to myself: Try to keep this to the minimum.

Random Videos:

Kpop rules.




NY.


Funny Office.


Most winningest coach in NBA History shoots free throw. Career FT%: .765

fall2009finals

no sleep. eat brunch. make cheat sheets. study sta131a. bring calc. take 1st final. grade papers. no sleep. study sta106. make cheat sheets. bring calc. take 2nd final. finish grading papers. little sleep. study ecn101. study. study. eat. take last final. done.

Summer 09'

this summer, i'm taking an an upper div econ100: Intermediate Micro Theory and stats108: Applied Statistical Methods: Regression Analysis. concepts i think are straight forward for both, but just a lot of homework and midterms.

besides from that: the Warriors drafted Stephen Curry.
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With or without a possible trade, and maybe a free agent via the mid level exception, the Warriors are heading back to the playoffs. How can we not win with this line-up:

C Biedrins
PF Wright
SF Azubuike
SG Jackson
PG Ellis
6th Maggette
7th Turiaf
8th Curry
Randolph
Morrow
Watson
Belinelli
Law
Davidson
Claxton

or this line-up could be different with a trade for someone like Bosh/Amar'e and/or a free agent like Marion,Bass, and Leon Powe.

The Athletics are in last place in our division, and it seems like we might trade Holiday. But hopefully we could sign him back, but being an A's fan, I don't want to get my hopes up.
The Raiders drafted Darrius Heyward-Bey over Michael Crabtree. Hopefully the Raiders know what they are doing.

some cool vids:

Words

Here is a list of some words that just look funny to me:

possible/possibly (try saying the first like possiblé , as if it were a Spanish word)
one
two (looks like one should say it like twough or something)
know/now
lye
sigh

youtube vid

found this: pretty funny.

Hey

So it has been an awfully long time since I last blogged, and nothing much worth noting has happened to since.

Well I did alright for fall quarter in terms of grades, as for winter quarter, i am taking a a discrete math class, a stats class, and an English class. the stats and English classes are pretty fun. like in the stats class we get to figure out probabilities of all sorts of things from flipping coins to the odds of getting a full house in poker. this especially cool for me since I have been somewhat addicted to playing Texas hold em. As for the English class we get to write a fictional story 8-24 pages long. i am still having trouble of thinking of a really good main character and basic plot. here is some of my favorite exercises that i did for the class (note: they are all rough drafts, and i never really looked through them thoroughly):

Construction Worker at McDonalds

Day after day, Drew would wake up in the morning, get ready to go to work, and then go to the McDonald’s that is conveniently located across the street of which he works as a construction worker.
“Good morning Drew. Same as usual?” the McDonalds employee asked the construction worker.
“Umm..” the big construction worker thought. “Nah…I think I’ll have some pancakes today.”
This was odd. For the last 10 years or so, Drew had ordered either just coffee to go, or an Egg McMuffin. Never had he broke away from his daily routine.
“Alright sir. Your number is 198.” The McDonalds employee said to Drew as she was handing him his receipt.
There was something different about Drew that day. It wasn’t his haircut, it wasn’t his clothes. It was the way he was moving. It was as if he had had just lost his dog. Well that is what had actually happen, literally. When Drew was playing fetch with him the other day. He had turned around just for one second to talk on his phone, and when he turned around his dog was no where to be seen.
“Man I don’t want to work today. I want to be out there finding Bert,” Drew said to himself.
The employees at McDonalds noticed Drew’s sadness. They all knew something was up.
“Hey are you alright Drew?” asked one of McDonald’s employees who is familiar with him.
“No not really. I lost my dog,” replied Bert. “He was my best friend. My compadre. ¡Mi Amigo!”
“Aww that’s too bad. He’ll show up sooner or later,” she said.
Then at that moment, Drew could not hold his emotions. He was on the verge of tears. So he quickly just got up, and went to his car without his pancakes.
But right when he was turning the key to open his door, the employee who talked to Drew came out with his pancakes.
“You forgot your pancakes Drew,” she said.
“Thank you. I almost forgot it,” he said. Drew then got into his car, and drove off to work. But before he started to work, he decided to eat his pancakes while they were still warm.
When he opened it, he saw a smiley face! It was a smiley face pancake! Drew thought about how those employees at McDonalds cared so much about him, and his mood went from depressed to overjoy. After work that day, Drew decided to stop moping around and make fliers for his missing dog. And when he was putting a flier up, he saw a dog walking on the street. But it wasn’t his dog. It was another stray dog. This motivated Drew even more to put up more fliers so that one day, he can be reunited with Bert.

Glass Figurines
All Allen Santiago had in his life were his glass figurines. He has no family, no friends, nobody. He lived a quiet life, just to himself. He would get up at exactly 8 am, go to his work at the local factory, arrive back home at exactly 5, eat a premade frozen dinner while watching jeopardy and then watch some local late night news before he would sleep and then wake up to do the same routine all over again. But on the weekend is where his fun would begin, at least for him. On the weekends he would make some glass figurines of all sorts of things, from animals to buildings.
One day at work, one of the few coworkers who knew he likes glass figurines, told him that there was a glass figurine convention coming to town that weekend. Allen, who wanted to look like he was not really interested, just simply nodded. Allen decided to go, of course, to see all of the glass figurines.
The convention center where the glass figurine convention was being held was completely packed. Being afraid of large crowds, Allen at first hesitated whether or not he should still go. He sat in his parent’s old Volkswagen for the longest of time, talking to himself whether he should still go or not. After finally convincing himself that he should go to the convention, he slowly got out of his car, and slowly walked towards the convention center with his head down, hoping to be unseen by anybody.
When he finally got inside, the first thing that caught his eye was this beautiful collection of glass figurines which together made it San Francisco. He stared at it for hours, not even looking at any of the other glass figurines.
This was unlike Allen. He had already planned out in his mind that was going to arrive home before 7 for Jeopardy. So without realizing it, Allen had been there for the entire day, just being completely mesmerized of the beauty of this statue.
“Excuse me sir, I think the convention is over,” some lady said.
Allen just nodded. He was still in a trance of bewilderment of how beautiful this collection of glass figurines were. It was the most incredible thing he has seen in his life.
The lady cleared her throat in order to try to get Allen out of this trance. “Sir, I think you’ll have to leave now,” she said.
“Can you tell me who made this?” Allen asked the woman.
“I did,” the woman said.
Allen was surprised. He could not believe he was standing next to person who created the most beautiful thing he has seen in his life. He asked her a ton of questions about it. Like what inspired her, and how long did it take her to make it. The woman was as equally as surprised that Allen knew as much about making glass figurines as she did.
And before Allen even knew it, he had a girlfriend. Allen and Selena really enjoyed each other company. They liked to talk to each other, and not just about glass figurines. Selena even took him to see a movie in the movie theatre, something that he has never done before.
On the newly formed couple’s second date, Selena had to leave her little crazy dog at his house until they returned back. Allen agreed, not thinking about the repercussions about this decision. They decided to go to the aquarium for their date. They saw the dolphins, the sharks, and all sorts of different kinds of fish. But after every new animal he saw, he was reminded of Selena’s dog that was left back at his house, with all of his precious and fragile glass figurines.
Driving back from the aquarium was even harder for Allen as he was very anxious to get home. At every stop light, he would furiously race towards it, trying to make sure he wouldn’t get stopped by a red light. But before heading home, Selena wanted to show Allen her old house that she lived in as a child. Allen hesitantly agreed. When they got to Selena’s old house, she told him to park right outside of it. Selena started to talk about some of her fondest memories at the house, while Allen was trying to listen to Selena but his mind was on his glass figurines. After 10 minutes of talking about the house, Allen could not take it anymore. He started up the engine, and explained to Selena that her stupid dog is in his house with his life’s work. Selena tried to calm Allen down, that her dog is very well behaved and never once destroyed any of her works. But Allen wasn’t listening; he was just focusing on getting back to his glass figurines.
When Allen and Selena arrived at his home, he quickly jumped out of the car and dashed to the front door. Allen entered his glass figurine room and found out that the dog had broken in and just absolutely destroyed everything. It was Allen’s life work. All of his hard work was not just broken shards of glass on the ground. Allen was speechless. He couldn’t believe his eyes. But before he could even say a single word to Selena, Selena said to him, “We will rebuild them from the start, we will rebuild them from the heart.” And at that moment, Allen knew that there was more to life than just his glass figurines.
repercussions about this decision. They decided to go to the aquarium for their date. They saw the dolphins, the sharks, and all sorts of different kinds of fish. But after every new animal he saw, he was reminded of Selena’s dog that was left back at his house, with all of his precious and fragile glass figurines.
Driving back from the aquarium was even harder for Allen as he was very anxious to get home. At every stop light, he would furiously race towards it, trying to make sure he wouldn’t get stopped by a red light. But before heading home, Selena wanted to show Allen her old house that she lived in as a child. Allen hesitantly agreed. When they got to Selena’s old house, she told him to park right outside of it. Selena started to talk about some of her fondest memories at the house, while Allen was trying to listen to Selena but his mind was on his glass figurines. After 10 minutes of talking about the house, Allen could not take it anymore. He started up the engine, and explained to Selena that her stupid dog is in his house with his life’s work. Selena tried to calm Allen down, that her dog is very well behaved and never once destroyed any of her works. But Allen wasn’t listening; he was just focusing on getting back to his glass figurines.
When Allen and Selena arrived at his home, he quickly jumped out of the car and dashed to the front door. Allen entered his glass figurine room and found out that the dog had broken in and just absolutely destroyed everything. It was Allen’s life work. All of his hard work was not just broken shards of glass on the ground. Allen was speechless. He couldn’t believe his eyes. But before he could even say a single word to Selena, Selena said to him, “We will rebuild them from the start, we will rebuild them from the heart.” And at that moment, Allen knew that there was more to life than just his glass figurines.

As for sports, the Oakland Athletics signed Matt Holiday and Jason Giambi. Which is pretty cool, since with those two in the line-up with a healthy Chavez and Cust, we won't be lacking the home-run department anymore. But are pitching staff is kinda not as solid as last year. Since last year heading into spring training, we got Harden, Blanton, and Dukey leading the way. Now it's only Dukey and a lots of young arms.
The Warriors are having an off season this year. But we look promising. As the youngest team in the entire League, we could possibly have a ten man rotation in
Biendris, Jackson, Azubuike, Crawford, Ellis, Maggette, Benelli, Wright, Turiaf, and Watson. And our 11th and 12th guys aren't that bad either, Morrow and Randolph. I personally think Randolph should get more PT but as you see with our depth it is kinda hard for him to get into the game. I think down the stretch, I think we should play him since it is not likely we are going to the playoffs, or make a trade involving other players to get Randolph more PT, or they should do what they did last year with Brandon Wright and start him at the beginning of games so that he at least gets some playing time every game. And don't forget our reserves, Marcus Williams, Davidson and Kurz. I think Marcus Williams should get more playing time too, but he is in Nelson's doghouse so that is unlikely. I think if given a chance, he could be a good backup point guard for us, or even the starting point guard for us. Why won't the Warriors try it? If the experiment with Crawford and Ellis running the point doesn't work out, shouldn't they try Williams at point, so that we have a true point guard running the floor, not a two guard.
The Raiders won their last two games of the regular season last year. And, no, they did not make the playoffs this year. Maybe next year, since if the Cardinals could make it to the playoffs, couldn't the Raiders do it too? Well at least we have a good pick in the upcoming NFL rookie draft. And we should get some good free agents this year too. So overall, I think the Raiders will do fine the near by future, or in 2-3 years from now, since we will have the arm of Russell and the legs of runDMC. And if we could get Michael Crabtree, we could possibly the best threesome of a quarterback, running back, and wide receiver in the league!!! What other team could say that? Well a lot of the good ones can, like the colts, with Manning, Addai and Harrison and with the Steelers, Big Ben, Parker and Ward. So why not join them, and get Crabtree? If we don't get him, we should get either OL, to protect our quarterback and running back, or we should draft another running back, just so that we could have our own smash and dash in the backfield. Just you wait, the Raiders will be back in the playoffs before you know it. Just look at how it is possible for any team to got from being the worst to being the best, like the Titans, 8-8 to almost going undefeated.

I bought a fish yesterday @ petco, it's a Crowntail. Here is a pic of it:
So it's a boy and I named it Marky Jr. Yea I picked it because it's blue and it looks cool.
I've been watching the Office and Heroes and Chuck a lot since I last blogged. The Office is great, i laugh out loud a lot when I watch it. It's funny. Heroes is good, and chuck is funny too, but not as funny as the office. and i also been watching a lot of movies too, like Zenon, and the Zenon Zequel, Smart House, Johnny Tsunami, Harold and Kumar go to White Castle and it's sequel, Brink, Alley Cats Strike, A Walk to Remember, Susie Q, i watched all the seasons of Boy meets world during fall quarter's final week, the notebook (which has become one of my favorite movies, not because of the great romantic plot, and the good acting, but because Rachel McAdams, gosh she is cute). So yea I watched a lot of movies since I last blogged, mostly online. Oh did I mention I watched HSM3? Well if I didn't, well i did watch in the theaters and it turn out better than i thought. I was kinda surprised when Troy said he was going to UC Berkeley instead of the Albuquerque University or something.

Oh and for English class, we have to read some short stories from this book called Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri. She is just great. Good book.

During winter break, I went to MOMA with my siblings. It was cool. Saw a lot of modern art.

Found a Stevie Wonder song I never heard before, called "Jungle Fever". It's a good song.


And I also won one of the lottery scratcher card thingy, twice!!!... It's too bad I only won 6 dollars total from both of them, and in the end I ended up just using my winning to try to win more, but in the end I had a net gain of minus one.





So that has been my life from the last time I blogged until now, nothing really spectacular, but some things worth noting, oh and I turned 20 years old during that time, so yea... <10 months remain until i could go to vegas and gamble and do other things that 21 year old people can do.

16 Players on Warriors Roster

So, as of OCT 21, the GS Warriors have 16 players and only 15 are allowed to be on the team. So that mean someone has to go. It will most likely be one of the three rookies, Demarcus Nelson, Rob Kurz, Richard Hendrix, or Anthony Morrow. All four have potential. Nelson I think the Warriors will keep, because I heard Nelson wanting three point guards until Ellis returns. So that leaves Kurz, Hendrix or Morrow. I think it will be either Hendrix or Kurz, just because Warriors might not want 7 big men on the team the other five being Andris, Turiaf, Al, Wright, and Randolph. Those five will most likely be in uniform opening night. And I think that only one big man is needed for the three remaining spsots. But if I were choosing, I would not know what to do. Kurz is like another Croshere, a guy who can defend, and shoot the three, while Hendrix, by looking at his stats, he seems like a very good rebounder and shot blocker. But then again, it could be Morrow if Kurz doesn't get cut because I am not sure if the Warriors are willing to let go a second round pick.

Sebastian Janikoski's Left Leg

Raider's won today! Off the leg of Sebastian Janikowski. This guy is my favorite NFL kicker of all-time, mainly because I grew up with him since I really started to watch football.
This Poland dude is just a savage. He has this super leg and on most kick offs he just kicks it right into the end zone. And he even attempted a 76 yard field goal. Now that's just ridiculous. I mean 76 yard? Wow.
***********************************************
Ray's won today as well! Yes I am somewhat of band Wagoner. But I started to like them, way early in the season not just when they started to clinch the season.
So now, I don't really know who to root for, the Rays or the Phils? I like both teams. The rays - because of being underdogs, having awesome pitching (Price, Shields, Kazmir), awesome speed (Upton, Crawford) and awesome power (Pena, Longoria.), awesome fielding (Iwamura, Bartlett), the veterans (Percival, Floyd, and maybe even Baldelli). These guys are just awesome. I have absolutely no idea how many times I just used awesome in the last paragraph, but that just emphasis how awesome the rays are.
But then again, one of my other favorite NL teams, the Phillies is as equally awesome. They basically have three MVP's in their infield, (Utley, Howard, and Rollins). That's awesome. You know what else is awesome, that they have players like Burrell who could hit 40 homers, Victorino, the spam loving Hawaiian guy, who could steel 40 bays. Then their pitching staff is just awesome too, Blanton, Hamels, Meyers, Moyer, Lidge, Madson). Just too awesome.
So I really have no idea who to root for here, but If I have to choose one, I'll go with the Rays just because their underdogs, and who doesn't want the underdogs to win the World Series (besides Phillies fans).
******************************************************
Some nonsports stuff:
- I watch "All the President’s Men" this weekend. It is one of the best old movies I have ever seen. Very interesting.
- What is grammatically wrong with saying “I can’t see nothing”

Also check out my new blog:
at http://davis-fried-rice.blogspot.com
It's about Fried Rice.

team updates

So updating my favorite teams:



The Warriors beated the Bucks in China with a game winner by ROB KURZ!!!





Listen here to KURZ's game winning 3 pointer:




-Warriors looked good in preseason, especially Anthony Randolph. What intrigues me about Randolph is that he could actually a small forward, but still have in length and intangibles as a power forward. So our current future lineup for the Warriors looks like: Ellis Magette Randolph Wright Biendris, with Azubuike and Bellini coming off the bench and/or occasionally starting for Randolph or Wright.

- The Oakland Raiders are 1-4. Not that bad. Could have been 3-2, if not for some bad mistakes. Cable is the new head coach, Kiffen is out. Russell looks good, not throwing a lot of interceptions, on behalf of him not throwing a lot but also because of good decision making.

-The Oakland A's are in their off season now. Did alright this year, could have been better in the second half of the season. I still didn't see the point to trading away Harden and Blanton. And I hope all the trades that Beane pulled off actually help us in the long run.

-Cal Football - not really keeping up with them as much, but I heard Longshore is starting again; Kevin Riley will be riding the bench. Javid Best is a monster. Super fast. Too bad Raiders have DMC, they could have drafted him as their starting when he enters the league. But who knows, it could happen

-UCLA Basketball -
A lot of changes, especially with Westbrook (On Thunder), Kevin Love (T-Wolves), Lorenzo Mata, and mbah a moute (on Bucks) gone to the NBA or graduated. There are still some good players on the team there and if they reach to final four again in 2009, they will have been in the Final Four for 4 straight years (with Josh Shipp and Darren Collison being on all four teams. Ben Howland and co. have produced some mighty fine good basketball players over the last couple of years, and if all had stayed until their senior year, they might be just loaded with talent:
Some of the players include:

Love
Westbrook
mbah a moute
Affalo (pistons)
Farmar
Hollins (also had Michael fey, another 7 footer)

Then to go along with this, they just recruited more 4-5 star basketball players:
Drew Gordon
Malcolm lee
Jrue holiday
J’mison Morgan

So unless these make like Kevin love and enter draft, the bruins are pretty much set for four more years of final four successes.

Warriors

Warriors signed Dan Dickau! (As of OCT 19, he has been released)

While he isn't Shaun Livingtson, he is an alright sign. I think he can be a good point guard for the Warriors.

Well I am so very excited for the NBA season to start. The Warriors may have lost some key players from last year, most notably B-Diddy, Barnes, and Pietrus but hey, we are going to make a run in this deep deep Western Conference. I STILL BELIEVE!
If you don't, just look at our team:

PG Monta Ellis
SG Stephen Jackson
SF Corey Maggette
PF Al Harrington
C Andris Biedrins

C.J. Watson
Marco Belinelli
Kelenna Azubuike
Brandon Wright
Ronny Turiaf

Dan Dickau (Released) Demarus Nelson???
Marcus Williams
Anthony Morrow
Richard Hendrix
Brandon Wright

What would be awesome for the Warriors if they signed Gary Payton or some how trade for Jason Kidd, that would be very cool. But the chances of this happening are the same as Rickey Henderson batting lead off for the A's.

Random Thoughts

I hope Rays make it to the World Series. That would be just super.

Saw a free free monitor in the MSB this week. Wanted to get it, but it is too heavy and way too far from where I live.

Ate a 6 dollar guacamole burger from Carl's Jr for only 3 dollars. It was okay.

Watched Hancock, featuring Will Smith, this weekend. Good movie. Better than I expected.

Bought three movies from gamestop for only $7.99: Anger Management, Mr. Deeds, & 8 Mile. Could have gotten Rent, but I did not want a scrathed up DVD.

Waiting for High School Musical: Sing It! - for ps2. Can not wait for that.

Lastly, I emailed this to Itunes Customer Service this past week:
-----------------------
I bought this movie a while ago (December 2007), and now I accidental deleted it from my computer/ipod. Is there a way to get the movie without paying for it again?
----------------------
And not only did they respond, they actually got me my movie back:
-----------
Hello Mark,

I'm sorry to hear that you accidentally deleted 'High School Musical". I understand how frustrating that can be. I have posted the missing item to your account.

Sincerely,
Nita

-----------
i thought that was kinda kool of itunes to do that.

school again

today is my first day of my sophomore year at UCD. 1st class was Soc4: Immigration - teacher/topics sounds intriguing. Tomorrow is my first advance calculus class and then a computer science class. yay me.

Fav ALL TIME MLB and NBA Teams

These teams are subject to change.

NBA
PG- Magic Johnson
SG- Michael Jordan
SF- Kobe Bryant
PF- Scottie Pippen
C- Yao Ming
6th - Reggie Miller
7th- Alonzo Mourning
8th- Andris Biendris
9th- Dennis Rodman
10th- Rasheed Wallace
11th- Allen Iverson
12th- Chris Mullin
IR- Jason Williams
IR- Dirk Nowitzki
IR- Steve Kerr
IR- Stephen Jackson
IR - John Stockton
************************************
MLB
C Kurt Suzuki
C Joe Mauer
1B Scott Hatteberg
IB Mark McGwire
2B Mark Ellis
SS Derek Jeter
SS Miguel Tejada
2B/SS Marco Scutaro
3B Eric Chavez
LF Rickey Henderson
CF Ken Griffey Jr.
RF Ichiro Suzuki
OF Nick Swisher
OF Rickey Henderson
OF Roberto Clemente
SP Tim Lincecum
SP Tim Hudson
SP Rich Harden
SP Greg Maddux
SP Pedro Martinez
LRP Tom Glavine
RP Rollie Fingers
RP Dennis Eckersly
RP Huston Street
CP Francisco Rodriguez
***********************************************
My All-Time NFL team is still in process.

QB Rich Gannon
QB Donavan McNabb
QB Steve Young
RB Charlie Garner
RB Maurice Drew Jones
RB Justin Fargas
RB Clinton Portis
RB Reggie Bush
FB Mike Alstot
FB Jon Richie
WR Randy Moss
WR Steve Smith
WR Hines Ward
WR Jerry Rice
WR Tim Brown
WR Torry Holt
WR Larry Fitzgerald
TE Tony Gonzalez
TE Antonio Gates
TE Chris Cooley
LT Lincoln Kennedy
LT
LG Steve Wisnewski
LG
C
C
RG
RG
RT
RT
LE Julius Peppers
LE Derrick Burgess
RE Dwight Freeny
RE Haloti Ngata
DT Warren Sapp
DT Ted Washington
DT Tony Sirigusa
LOLB Terrell Suggs
LOLB Manny Lawson
MLB Kirk Morrison
MLB Ray Lewis
ROLB Bill Romanowski
ROLB Thomas Howard
CB Charles Woodson
CB Nnamdi Asomugha
CB Dante Hall
CB Deion Sanders
CB Ronde Barber
FS Rod Woodson
FS
SS Jon Lynch
SS Troy Polamalu
K Sebastian Janikowski
P Shane Lechler
KR Dante Hall
PR Devin Hester

The Office

You may not know, but I am a fan of the NBC show, The Office, starring Steve Carrell. Look at this its preakin punny.

Love Triangle

Found this video online...Pretty amusing.


http://view.break.com/566379 - Watch more free videos

Earthquake

I just felt this really big earthquake around 9:00 PM on September 5, 2008. No big damages, just a lot of shaking for like 15 seconds. It was around a 4.0 magnitude.

I live very close to the Hayward Fault, so I am kinda used to small earthquakes, but this was the largest I ever felt since the 1989 Earthquake (which I felt, but I was not aware of it, being that I was 11 months old). Oh and by the way, the Oakland A's beat the San Francisco Giants in the 1989 World Series where one game of the World Series was interuptted by the massive earthquake - postponing the game for ten days.

Non-Sports Post

Today, I was thinking of some non sports stuff to write about. I came up with the following:

-music trends (specifcially something on how boy bands just disentigrated into thin air)

-why certain people do not like sports

-the topics that were discuseed in my economics and US history classes today (which were monopoly and the Vietnam War, respectively)

-and something about Kool-Aid, and artficially flavored juice drinks (which I was drinking at the time)

Then I started to think of not doing a non-sports post, and actually doing a sports relating post.

I then decided not to do that idea.

Suddenly I came with an idea of summarizing my day, or my summer, in ten words (but not in a sentence though, like: fun happy boring...blah blah blah)

I again decided not to follow up on that new idea.

And finally I came up with just posting all of my ideas of what I could of wrote about in this non-sports post. This basically took me half an hour to write. What a waste of time, but who cares, it's a non-sports post, hehe.

Patrick Ewing Jr.

To start off my random player of the day, I would first like to apologize for the title of my blog, not accurately reflecting the content of it. As of tomorrow, I will attempt to do my best of posting sports and not sports relating topics to the best of my abilities.

Patrick Ewing. Perhaps one of the greatest NBA centers of all time. Well, like a majority of human beings, he has children. One of them is Patrick Ewing Jr. He was drafted by the Sacramento Kings in the 2008 NBA draft, then traded to the Houston Rockets in the Ron Artest deal (which really helped the Rockets chances of advancing to the next round of the playoffs, but it all really depends on Yao's health), then recently was just traded to his father's team, the New York Knicks.
Ewing Jr. has a chance of making the team, and probably will as he will most likely become a fan favorite, and possibly the organization's favorite. The New York Knicks did not trade for Ewing Jr. to better the team, I think that they did this trade just for the heck of it. They only had to trade away draft rights of a basketball player who might never play in the NBA. By this, you can tell the Houston Rockets were in no means "desperate" to keep Ewing Jr.
But, this little part of me wants Ewing Jr. to not only make the team, but to actually play and succeed. Maybe not to the extent of his father, but at least to the success of a solid role player. I feel this way because it must be difficult being a professional athlete whose father/mother was exceptional at that sport, while they might not be exceptionally as their parent was.
There are many other notable athletes who probably faced some of the same pressures as Ewing Jr. at one point in their lives are:

Jeffrey and Marcus Jordan (College and High School Basketball) - Sons of MJ
Ken Griffey Jr. (MLB) - Son of Ken Griffey
Barry Bonds (MLB) - Son Bobby Bonds
Stephen Curry (College Basketball) - Son Dell Curry
Brett Hull (NHL) - Son of Bobby Hull
Mike Dunleavy Jr. (NBA) - Son of Mike Dunleavy
Laila Ali (Boxing) - Daughert of Cassius Clay or otherwise known as, Muhammad Ali
Moises Alou (MLB) - Son of Felipe Alou
Dale Earnhardt Jr. (Nascar) - Son of Dale Earnhardt
Eli and Peyton Manning (NFL) - Sons of Peyton Manning

Oh and did you know, Denzel Washington (the actor) has a son playing in the NFL name John David Washington Jr.?

J. T. O'Sullivan

While UCD might not be like the Miami Hurricanes or the USC Trojans in terms of getting football players into the NFL, we still produce some pretty good players. For instance, like J.T. O'Sullivan:

J. T. O'Sullivan is the starting quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers. He attended college that I currently attend, UC DAVIS!!! But he is not the only former Aggie now starting for a professional team. Mark Grieb, of the San Jose Sabercats in the Arena Football League also attended UCD. Ken O'Brien a quarterback who played in the NFL for the New York Jets and Philadelphia Eagles and a member of the College Football Hall of Fame as of 1997, also attended UCD.

GO AGGIES!

2000-2005 MLB, NBA, and NFL Drafts (Picks 1-5)

The 2003 NBA drafts might be one of the best NBA drafts ever. That Draft consisted of the three players above, Melo, Lebron and Wade, with a lot more talent such as Chris Kaman, Chris Bosh, and Josh Howard.
The 1984 NBA draft was not so bad either. There was Hakeem Olajuwon, Charles Barkley, John Stockton, and someone name Michael Jordan aswell.
Now looking back at the 2000 to 2005 rookie drafts for the three major sports, many of the teams did not do so good drafting. When a team has a top 5 pick, that player should end up 5 - 10 years later still on the team, as one of their franchise players, or at the very least a starter on their team or another team, not in retirement, the minor leagues, a bench warmer, or in another league. But exactly how well did the teams do? Here are the 2000 to 2005 rookie drafts for the MLB, NBA, and the NFL. Players in red indicates a successful pick.

2000 MLB Draft:
Adrian Gonzalez
Adam Johnson
Luis Montanez
Mike Stodolka
Justin Wayne
2001 MLB Draft:
Joe Mauer
Mark Prior
Dewon Brazelton
Gavin Floyd
Mark Teixeira
2002 MLB Draft:
Bryan Bullington
BJ Upton
Chris Gruler
Adam Loewen
Clint Everts
2003 MLB Draft:
Delmon Young
Rickie Weeks
Kyle Sleeth
Tim Stauffer
Chris Lubanski
2004 MLB Draft (Success unknown):
Matt Bush
Steven Jarees
Philip Humber
Jeff Niemann
Mark Rojers
2005 MLB Draft:
Justin Upton
Alex Gordon
Jeff Clement
Ryan Zimmerman
Ryan Braun

2000 NBA Draft:
Kenyon Martin
Stromile Swift
Darius Miles
Marcus Fizer
Mike Miller
2001 NBA Draft:
Kwame Brown
Tyson Chandler
Pau Gasol
Eddy Curry
Jason Richardson
2002 NBA Draft:
Yao Ming
Jay Williams
Mike Dunleavy
Drew Gooden
Nikoloz Tskitishvili
2003 NBA Draft:
Lebron James
Darko Milicic
Carmelo Anthony
Chris Bosh
Dwayne Wade
2004 NBA Draft:
Dwight Howard
Emeka Okafor
Ben Gorden
Shaun Livingtson
Devin Harris
2005 NBA Draft:
Andrew Bogut
Marvin Williams
Deron Williams
Chris Paul
Raymond Felton

2000 NFL Draft:
Courtney Brown
LaVar Arrington
Chris Samuels
Peter Warrick
Jamal Lewis
2001 NFL Draft:
Michael Vick
Leonard Davis
Gerrad Warren
Justin Smith
Ladainain Tomlinson
2002 NFL Draft:
David Carr
Juluis Peppers
Joey Harrington
Mike Williams
Quinten Jammer
2003 NFL Draft:
Carson Palmer
Charles Rogers
Andre Johnson
Dewayne Robertson
Terence Newman
2004 NFL Draft:
Eli Manning
Robert Gallery
Larry Fitzgerald
Philip Rivers
Sean Taylor (Rest In Peace)
2005 NFL Draft:
Alex Smith
Ronnie Brown
Braylon Edwards
Cedric Benson
Cadillac Williams

Now here is the success rates of choosing a "good" player between 2000-2005 drafts:

MLB (Not Including 2004 Draft):
48%
NBA:
70%
NFL:
46.67%

Overall: 55.29%

While some teams chose a decent starter with their top 5 pick, most should not be considered a success. For example, the San Diego Chargers drafted Quentin Jammer with the fifth overall pick, but they could of gotten Dwight Freeny instead. So in reality, the success rate of choosing the right player is considerably lower.

Also to note, many of MLB players cannot be considered a successful pick or a failed pick because they might be in the minor leagues and still have a possibility to break through.

In conclusion, NFL teams, at times, have no idea who is right player to draft, while NBA teams have a much better sense in whom to draft, and they should even have a better sense in whom to draft because with the rule of having high school players having to wait one year after graduation to enter the draft, and as for MLB teams, most of the time they need to be extremely lucky to get an All-Star with the a top 5 pick, let alone a major league player.

Guidelines for drafting players (picks 1-5)
-Draft the best overall players which means:
-Never draft based on need
-Never draft based on high potential, unless the opportunity cost is worth it
-Trade your pick for a lower/higher pick to get the desired player
-MLB teams should treasure a lot of more picks than having the top 5 picks

Hopefully the 2006, 2007 and 2008 drafts will learn from history, and have a much higher success rate at picking the right player, especially the NFL.

Mariah Carey Throws Out First Pitch

One word: Dammmm. And as for the pitch, man she wasn't even trying...


By the way, my top 5 Mariah Carey songs (in no particular order):
Hero
One Sweet Day
Dream Lover
I'll Be There
Fantasy

Marco Scutaro

As an Oakland Athletics fan, Marco Scutaro was and forever will be one of my favorite Athletics of all-time. This guy was a savage when he played for us. He would just have clutch hit after clutch hit. I don't see why Billy Beane traded Marco Scutaro last season, he was not a starter like Nick Swisher and Dan Haren and it wasn't like he was going to start for the Toronto BlueJays.
Trading Marco Scutaro frustrated me at that time. But what also got me frustrated was how Billy Beane traded Swisher last season, as well as Rich Harden and Joe Blanton this year. And a couple of years before that he traded away Tim Hudson. And the list goes on and on of people Beanes and traded. There is also another list that of all the free agents that were also not signed like Jason Giambi, Miguel Tejada, and Barry Zito. It is not that I don't agree with the Moneyball strategy, it's just that I hate seeing my favorite players leaving our team to go to another team. It is like the A's is a minor league team to the rest of the MLB teams. And it also seems like the Moneyball strategy just keeps on going around and around in a circle. It starts from getting a lot of young players on the team, then those players start performing and the team makes the playoffs but they end up coming up short of the World Series. Then we trade all the good players away, for young prospects, and then we keep the not so good players or injury plagued guys (like how we kept Barry Zito and Eric Chavez instead of Tim Hudson and Miguel Tejada.) But I do understand that the A's are not as financially well off as other teams, so I guess Billy Beane knows what he is doing trading away beloved players like Marco Scutaro.

Play of the Decade

When surfing YouTube one day, I stumbled upon this video.



It is of former NBA guard Isiah Rider, who played for the Minnesota Timberwolves, Portland Trailblazers, ATL Hawks, LA Lakers, and Denver Nuggets, trying to save the ball from going out of bounds and the ball winds up going inside the hoop for a three pointer. This just looks freakin impossible to replicate.

Also the Rasheed Wallace 3/4 of the court shot was pretty ridiculous as well.



This should be this decade's play of the decade.

My First Blog

Hello. This is my very first blog which means I am kind of a "newb" at these certain things. Also to note, I am not a very good writer, so please excuse my grammar, punctuation, spelling , etc. In my blog, I will first start off with a random person/athlete that popped into my head, whom I wish to discuss, followed by some links pertaining to that person. After that, I will write about some randomness and/or followed by more links that i also might want to discuss. I hope you enjoy.

My first player is no other than, Fat Lever. Some of you guys might have never heard of him. He is a former NBA basketball player who played for the Portland Trailblazers, Dallas Mavericks, and Denver Nuggets.



Why I bring him up is because when I was a young child, I collected hundreds of basketball cards. But what stood out Lever from all the rest of the cards was that his first name was FAT! I couldn’t believe this. I would always just make fun of his first name because it was FAT and I wouldn't even bother to look on the reverse side of card to see his statistics. But after a decade or so later, I decided to research him on Wikipedia, and to my surprise his name is not actually Fat, and that it actually stands for Lafayette. Also to my surprise, was that how good he was for a 6 foot 3 point guard named Fat. For 4 years out of his 11 years as a basketball player, he averaged around 20 ppg, 8 apg, and 9 rpg. This is amazing! During those four years, he had played basketball at a level somewhere from a Jason Kidd level to an Oscar Robertson level(really good guards who can score, dish out assists, and rebound.)

Now here is a general lesson that you should learn from : Do not judge a basketball player based on his/her height, weight, and name, judge them on how many points, assists, and rebounds they get in a basketball game.