The Major

Blog

  • NBA Playoff Prediction

    It is time for my annual NBA Playoffs prediction that no one cares about:

    round one:
    4-1 Detroit over Orlando
    4-3 Miami over Chicago
    4-2 Toronto over New Jersey
    4-1 Cleveland over Washington
    4-2 Dallas over Golden State
    4-2 Houston over Utah
    4-2 San Antonio over Denver
    4-3 Phoenix over LA Lakers

    conference semifinals:
    4-3 Miami over Detroit
    4-2 Toronto over Cleveland
    4-1 Dallas over Houston
    4-2 San Antonio over Phoenix

    conference finals:
    4-0 Miami over Toronto
    4-3 Dallas over San Antonio

    finals:
    4-3 Dallas over Miami

  • The LeBrons

    Ah, damn it. Looks like we have to play the Cleveland LeBrons in the first round of the playoffs. He’s going to torch us.

  • Michael Albert on Democracy Now

    Michael Albert, co-editor and co-founder of Z Magazine, was on Democracy Now yesterday. I hadn’t heard of him until today, but I have read Z Magazine a few times.

    He said something that I think is rather brilliant. He was quite long-winded in saying it, so I’ve summed it up: There are two obstacles for people to try to change the world around them. One is an ignorance of reality. The second is that they think there is no alternative.

    This man’s ideas rather intrigue me; I think at some point I will read one of his books: Parecon: Life After Capitalism

  • Sleep

    So after working night shift, I told myself that I would start getting more sleep, and start respecting the need for sleep in general. Well, two nights ago, that plan fell through. I had a ton of laundry to do and I wanted to get caught up on Chilling Effects. And watch 24. And do a couple other things. Well I did end up getting a lot done, but I stayed up until 2am to do it. That wasn’t very good.

    For the first time since working night shift, I got my days seriously mixed up. I was thinking that I had walked to work from the train station yesterday morning, when in fact it was actually Monday morning that I did that. That kind of confusion would happen all the time when I worked night shift and it was really, really weird. Well today, I have one or two things I could do. I could (a) watch the Wizards game at the sports bar or (b) work on Chilling Effects. I’m not going to do both. I am totally hitting the hay by 10pm tonight and getting a full 9.5 hours of sleep, which is a full night for me. Man, that will be nice. Damn you, over-ambitious Stu from two nights ago!

  • Did You Know…

    Did you know that there are about 2.3 million Iraqi refugees? And that there are about 1.9 million internally displaced Iraqis? I sure didn’t, until I read this article.

    Imagine 2.3 million Americans leaving the country. Now imagine 23.8 million people leaving the US, which is the equivalent to what has happened in Iraq.

  • What a Sad End to the Season

    From Steve Kerr’s final NBA power rankings:
    “With no Gilbert Arenas or Caron Butler, the Wizards are the team everyone in the East wants to play in the first round. It looks like Toronto will have the honor.”

  • Ah This Should Be Good

    I’ve got my glass of wine. I’ve got my Chilling Effects (boring but relaxing at the same time). And I’ve got Democracy Now, today’s show with Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky. I’ll update this later with links.

  • 24

    OK, 24 has officially gotten really ridiculous. I’m going to finish watching the season anyway, but…yeah. Give me a break.

  • Enough Don Imus

    This sums up how I feel about the coverage of the Don Imus story: Outrageous Words, Outrageous Deeds (article by Ralph Nader)

  • Argh on Technical Support, Again

    Well one of my technical support queries got answered quite well today. The second one, however, not so much. In my query, I said “please give me a call.” But they couldn’t call, could they? Noooo, they decided to email about calling. OK, so I played their little game. I said “I am available today from 1pm – 5pm Pacific.” Haven’t heard back…

    Anyway, why would you email about calling? When I worked in tech support and I knew someone wanted a call back, I would call first and if they didn’t pick up then I would either leave a voice mail or leave a voice mail AND send an email.

    Arghh…