To Hell with emotional detachment!

(This is a repost of something I just posted on Peegs forum -> HERE )

Like most of the other fools on Peegs', I'm a bit of a freak when it comes to Indiana basketball. Being an IU basketball fan is part of what makes me who I am. I live in Durham, North Carolina, and I have quite a few casual acquaintances who know me as "that Indiana guy." You don't need to spend a lot of time with me before Indiana basketball somehow comes up in the conversation. ("You barely managed to stuff the turkey into the turkey fryer, huh? You know, that reminds me of a story about A.J. Moye, an Indiana basketball player, and Carlos Boozer....")

I was in a daze for several days after Indiana lost to Duke in the Final Four in 1992. It wasn't just the Valentine-induced manner in which they lost, it was that I just couldn't believe the season was over. At the time, I thought it was all about the loss, but in retrospect I now believe that even if Indiana had won the title, I still would have felt a little empty for a few days afterwards... because I loved that team so much that I simply didn't want the season to end, for good or for bad. In some sense, 1993's loss to Kansas in the Regional Finals was even worse, because that was the end for Greg Graham (my all-time favorite Hoosier) and Calbert Cheaney (who is in my Top 5).

A cynic might say, "Well, duh! So you get excited when IU is ranked #1 and you really like IU's greatest players?! Whoa, stop the presses!" Cynics are annoying like that. But it's not true, my bleeding crimson did not end in spring in 1993. Or 1995. Or 1998. And other players on my list of favorite Hoosiers includes guys like Lyndon Jones and Micheal Lewis (good player, but certainly not all-time greats). The point is that there was a day when the team's performance would affect my mood for days afterwards. Actually, there were a lot of those days.

I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but I'm not like that anymore. It started before Knight got fired and it continued throughout the Davis era. Emotional detachment. I think it basically was a means of self-protection. And primarily, I think it was self-protection from 3 things - the team, the coach, and the forums.

First, much to my surprise, late in the Knight era I realized that I was starting to not enjoy how the team was playing (though ironically the 99-00 season was an exception to this rule). I thought our defensive effort was generally poor, and surprisingly I thought our teamwork was suffering as well. I thought we had good kids on the team, but that doesn't mean I liked watching them play basketball. It was hard to watch significant minutes from Larry Richardson, William Gladness, Richard Mandeville, Rob Turner, etc., and not lose a little attachment to the outcome of games. And even our marquee players like Luke Recker, Neil Reed, Charlie Miller, Jason Collier, and Andrae Patterson oftentimes made it difficult to let myself become emotionally invested in the team. When Davis took the job, I really enjoyed watching our defensive effort the first couple years, but the offense was inmmediately and consistently painful. And here was the worst part - even when the team was effective on offense, it didn't make it enjoyable. Jared Jeffries was a wonderful player, and feeding the ball into him and letting him make decisions with his back to the basket was a winning offensive strategy... and it was hopelessly boring. Again, we had good kids on the team, guys who (if she were 12 years older) I wouldn't mind dating my daughter -- like AJ Moye, Dane Fife, Kyle Hornsby, JJ, Marshall Strickland, and Tom Coverdale. Actually, maybe I wouldn't want Dane Fife dating my daughter (he's crazy), but you get the idea. The last 3 seasons, things got progressively worse, because even the defensive aggressiveness stopped being a motivation to watch. And it's not that the teams weren't very good. I've developed strong emotional attachments to mediocre teams - what generally matters is the perceived difference between how good the team is and how good I think the team ought to be - and style of play. Obviously, I get more attached to great teams (I'm human), but it's not the only factor.

Second, there's the coach. I'm going to basically leave this one alone, because I don't want that to become what this post is about, but in the interest of honesty... late in the Knight era and throughout the Davis years I grew increasingly tired of having a coach for whom I didn't have a lot of respect. I often defended both, but (for mostly completely different reasons), I had trouble coming to grips with the notion that either of them were supposed to be My Guy. That's all I have to say about that.

Then there's the forums. I love the forums. Look at my post totals. But there's a weird sort of dynamic for me on here. I get tired of reading critical posts about the team or the coaches... even when I agree with the criticisms. Actually, especially when I agree with them. If I disagree, I can leap to the team or coach's defense, and obviously defending MY team or MY coach is something I enjoy (though, in the case of the coach, I'd like to have less opportunities to leap to his defense). If agree with the criticisms, then it just seems to double how I'm feeling about the situation. On the bright side, the forum also increases my enjoyment of the good times. Basically, the forum accentuates my emotions in either direction, and when the direction is generally negative, the forum can become unpleasant for me. This is why each of the last 3 seasons I've spent at least part of each season away from the forums and I've stopped watching games. Because I simply got tired of being pissy all the time. I'm guessing I'm not alone in that regard.

But you know what? I've had enough of self-protection. I've had enough of guarding myself against my own fandom. I miss the days when I couldn't wait for the season to start and got depressed when the season ended. I want to live and die with every 3 pointer, every rebound, and every turnover. I want to rattle the house when we hit the game winner, and I want to commiserate with my forum buddies when the other team hits it. I want to passionately dislike our opponent again, and I want to believe that Indiana fights for the glory of the entire state again. I want to defend our team and our coach with reckless abandon, and not try to concede that maybe the other guy has a point. I want to be relentlessly positive, even when maybe the situation doesn't warrant it. In other words, I want to be a fan again, through and through.

People like to post long missives when they decide to leave the forum. This is the opposite. =)

Jay Bilas on Sampson's illegal phone calls

Jay Bilas (IMO the best college basketball analyst in the business) had this to say in a recent Insider article on ESPN previewing the Hoosiers:

The penalties that were levied on Sampson as a result of the phone calls are still being talked about, and my sense is that they will be talked about all season. Here is the final word from me on the phone call rule, and Sampson's violation of that rule:

I have seen much written about the situation, and precious little of it accurate, in my judgment. While I respect any informed opinion on the matter, it seems like too many are too quick to repeat what they have heard or what has been reported rather than to undertake some independent investigation of the matter. Here is what I know: Sampson has been reported to have made 577 impermissible phone calls. What is not reported is that the 577 calls were for Sampson's entire staff, and they were made over a 48-month period. That adds up to 12 phone calls per month, or three phone calls per week for the whole staff. Less than half of those calls (233 over a 48-month period) were made by Sampson himself. That adds up to five extra calls per month, or just over one per week.

Remember, Sampson and his staff recruited dozens of players. Some of these calls were when there was a lack of communication between staff members, some of them were when a cell phone call was dropped and the call was resumed, some of the calls were when the recruit called Sampson and Sampson called back, and some of the calls were from a lack of attention to detail. Instead of sending a text message telling a recruit to call him (which is permissible), Sampson just called the recruit. It was a violation of the rule, and that is not to be taken lightly, but it was not the sinister plot it is made out to be. This is not to excuse the violation of the rule, but to explain it.

My point is this: These phone calls were not part of some evil effort to cheat. Those who want to cheat the phone call rule will never be caught because they use a cell phone that is not in their name, or phone cards that are not traceable. If the NCAA looked into any program, it is likely that a violation of the phone call rule would be found, perhaps just in lesser numbers. This was a minor violation that has been overblown. The way the NCAA handled this matter had less to do with the violation of the rule than with how Sampson and Oklahoma responded to the matter. Instead of dropping to their knees and giving the NCAA a tearful mea culpa, Sampson defended himself. That is a no-no in NCAA territory, and the Association hit him hard for it. This is not the last time you will hear of this rule; others have violated it, and we will see whether those cases are handled in a similar fashion.

Interesting take from a guy whose opinion I respect -- and who certainly doesn't have a history of looking the other way when he thinks something unethical is going on.

Camping with the kidlets

The kids and I went camping at Jordan Lake this weekend, and I snapped a few pictures. As always, just click on the picture to view the full-sized image.

Tyler's Knight

Everyone should have a life-sized knight in their room. It's like khaki... it goes with everything.

Eric Gordon will play for the Indiana Hoosiers!

I have nothing more to add.

Except maybe a Yeeeeee HAW!

Wet Blanket: It's hard not to be jaded about pre-season articles

I'm enjoying the pre-season articles, as usual, but with each passing year I get more and more jaded about these. It's fun because everyone's optimistic and everyone talks about how this season is different/better than last season and how great all their teammates look and whatnot. But it's the same thing every season, and it's the same thing for every team. Have you ever read a preseason article where a player said, "It's a relief because our conditioning drills are so much easier than last year." Nope. But if conditioning is always harder than the season before, isn't there a ceiling effect at some point? And of course everyone raves about the new guys (like Stemler and White) and raves about the guys who need to improve (like Ratliff)... but c'mon, I remember the glowing Cem Dinc articles a year ago as well.

It's even hard for me to get excited about the players talking about how much more disciplined Sampson is than Davis. For example:

"I think that is what last year's team lacked, discipline," said Ratliff. "Last year anybody could say something to Coach Davis and he might kick them out but they would be back the next day. I don't think anybody is going to do that to Coach Sampson."

While that's certainly nice to hear, IMO it says a lot less about Sampson than it does about Davis. In other words, it's not Sampson's behavior that's notable in that quote, it's Davis's. While it's certainly a good feeling to know that we have a real coach again, not allowing players to backtalk doesn't exactly make Sampson a strict disciplinarian. It just makes him competent.

Of course even apart from these articles, we fans are the same way. We start to think, "Well, if AJ and Ben Allen play really well... and Mike White and Lance Stemler are big contributers... and Wilmont and Calloway have great senior seasons... and DJ White is an all-american... and everyone stays healthy... man, we could be really good!!" Well, sure, that's true. And while we're at it we could also wish for a pony.

Yeah, I know, I'm a wet blanket.

Pictures from St. Kitts

So St. Kitt's was even better than we hoped it would be. The resort was beautiful, it had a wonderful italian restaurant, the weather was perfect, and we spent an entire week during very little and enjoying every minute of it.

Only one problem - we left our fancy-schmancy digital camera at home and had to make do with a couple disposable cameras we bought (for a magnificant sum) at the resort. Which means the pictures are a little fuzzy and some of them didn't turn out very well but we didn't know it until we got back. I love digital cameras.


Here's a picture of Karen learning how to scuba dive in the resort pool. I ended up going scuba diving in the caribbean a couple days later. Karen got a massage instead.








Here's a picture I took from the ocean looking back at the resort. Then I dipped underwater...













... and took this picture.













Here's a poorly-lighted picture of Karen feeding a monkey at the Turtle Beach Bar & Grill. Karen gently touched one of the monkeys and it smacked her. She screamed. Everyone enjoyed it.









Here's Karen and I on top of one of the mountains near the resort. Behind us on the left is the Atlantic ocean and on the right is the Caribbean.







Here's the view from our resort suite. The hill across the bay on the right is the hill we're standing on in the previous picture.







Here's a gratuitous picture of Tyler and Carson (and Sheila) in front of the house after we returned.














And this is me, bald.

One week away from St. Kitt's!

Not that I'm looking forward to lounging on a beach while people bring me drinks or anything.

"The Wicker Man" is good for a laugh

Unfortunately, it's not a comedy, and the laughs are unintentional responses to a profoundly bad movie. It's one of the worst movies I've ever seen. The only reason I sat through the whole thing (other than feeling I was obligated because it cost $8.25 to see it), was because there was an almost perverse appeal to its badness - like watching a train wreck in slow motion, I was almost looking forward to next excrutiating scene. The acting was terrible (even though good actors like Nicolas Cage, Ellen Burstyn, and Leelee Sobieski were in it) -- the plot was irritating, implausible, and poorly-paced. And it was directed by Neil LaBute, who directed the wonderful "Nurse Betty" and "In The Company of Men". It makes you wonder how this sort of thing can happen - it's not like this was a B-movie that everyone knew would stink from the beginning. Good actors, good director... awful movie.

Big Ten Wonk interrupts his hiatus

Big Ten Wonk has broken his summer hiatus to post some numbers about pace of play across major conferences, using only inter-conference games in the calculation. Go read it first.

Obviously, given Indiana's coaching situation, there's nothing here specific to Indiana that's particularly interesting, other than noting that Oklahoma (63.7) played at a significantly slower pace than Indiana (66.4). Last season Indiana actually played at an uncharacteristically fast pace for a Mike Davis team.

The Big Ten continues to play at the slowest pace, while the ACC continues to play at the fastest pace (though not nearly as fast as the season before). Also interesting is that neither Florida or UCLA played fast.

Wisconsin's reputation for slow play appears to be overblown.

Now I have a second blog

As if one weren't enough!

Actually, this is a multi-author IBM blog that I helped setup called the WebSphere Community Blog. I'm looking for to it - I think it'll be interesting if enough of the authors participate.

Now you can go read me talk about my job... and get bored out of your skull.

How's it going, eh?

So, I'm in Toronto for a conference and Hertz gave me a Lincoln Towncar to drive around.


This thing is a monster. I don't know why anyone would buy a car this size -- I have to do a 3 point turn everytime I pull out of a parking space. It's longer than our minivan, and has the turning radius of a space satellite. Ugh. As if that's not bad enough, it gets 17 miles to the gallon, so you get to have that on your conscience each day as well.

It's clear I don't know what driving big cars is all aboot.

Speaking of being out of town, we've starting using Skype with a minicam so that I can videoconference with Karen and the kids -- cool! The kids get to make funny faces at me (which apparently never loses its luster), and (other than some audio problems last night) it's a lot easier for the kids to talk to me in front of a computer than on a phone (though Carson seems to have picked up on the whole phone thing quicker than Tyler). And, of course, it's completely FREE, even for international calls. Looking forward to using this in St. Kitt's.

My list of the Top 10 video games of all-time

My opinion only - doesn't include any great games that I haven't played myself. And obviously I don't play every genre of game -- for example first person shooters and team sports games hold no interest for me, yet they are probably the two most popular genres overall. I'd rather mow the lawn in August than play Madden NFL 2006.

1. Fable (XBox)
It's hard to put my finger on what exactly made this game such a blast. The thing that made the game unique was that you decided whether your character was good or evil based on the decisions you made throughout the game, and that was certainly cool. But it still would have failed if they had don't basically everything else right in the game - the visuals, the voice acting, the pace, everything. I've played it all the way through 3 times, and I'm sure I'll be playing it again. Bring on Fable 2!

2. Civilization (PC))
The original turn-based strategy game and still the best. This is the kind of game where you'd find yourself muttering at 3 a.m., "...just one more turn...just one more turn..." The sequels have also been excellent, but there's still a special place in my heart for my first time.

3. Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (XBox 360))
Wow. The scale of this game is simply massive, yet unlike the previous Elder Scrolls games, you don't ever feel lost and aimless... and it also seems to be much less buggy. I would find myself exploring the mountains in the game just because you never know what you're going to see around the next vista, and yet the combat and quests are engaging as well. Only a couple minor warts kept this from being #1 on the list.

4. Shining Force II (Nintendo NES))
This was an old school RPG in the mold of Final Fantasy, yet superior in every way, IMO. In particular, the turn-based combat included moving characters around the field of combat, which was shockingly addictive. I discovered this game in grad school and I remember playing it 18 hours a day through Christmas break. To this day, I still haven't found a similar game that is as good.

5. Warcraft II (PC))
I thought this was a pretty good game... then I started playing it online and lost several months of my life. I literally had to give the game up because it was affecting my performance in grad school. Complete obsession. I was in California and I'd partner with a buddy in Indiana to go up against other teams, and every time out it was a thrilling experience with the outcome in doubt. I got really, really good at it (I once took on five newbies single-handedly and they didn't stand a chance), yet there were still plenty of guys online who could crush me without breaking a sweat. The range of skill from newbie to master was enormous.

6. Grand Theft Auto III (PS2))
Forget all the silly media attention this game got because it dared to be unrepentently targeted at adults - this game was successful because it was fun. Tons of missions that were actually challenging, tons of cool stuff to explore, tons of interesting characters... I was disappointed when I completed the game because I didn't want it to end.

7. Master of Magic (PC))
Another Civilization-style turn-based strategy game, it had crappy graphics and no story to speak of. But it was still loads of fun because it had a bunch of different races to play, each with special abilities and armies, and as soon as you finished one game you couldn't wait to start the next one with a different map and a different race to see what would happen next. It caused me to pull many all-nighters.

8. Might & Magic V: The Darkside of Xeen (PC))
In retrospect, this is kind of a hokey game. The graphics aren't 3-D, the story lines and quests were often silly, but this was the first computer RPG game I played that I really enjoyed. I played D&D when I was a kid and loved it, and I thought CRPGs were going to rock. But mostly they stunk... until I discovered M&M, which managed to be cheesy and enjoyable at the same time.

9. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2004 (PS2))
This is the TW that introduced the Game Face feature, as well as tons of great courses to play. Developing your golfer was endlessly satisfying, and I feel like I know every nook and cranny at Pebble Beach. I recently got TW PGA Tour 2006 for the XBox 360, and what a disappointment -- there's only 8 courses now to choose from, and the Pro Shop system makes no sense. At least I waited till it dropped in price to $40 from it's original $60. I hope the 2007 makes up for it.

10. Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories (PSP))
Okay, so this game is mostly a replay of GTA III, but what causes this to make the list is that I played it on the Sony PSP, and it's simply amazing to me what that little handheld machine is capable of doing. Obviously, given how much I loved GTA III, the idea of doing a sequel isn't a bad thing to me, and I would have paid money to play this on the PS2. But instead they did it on the PSP and it looks just as good as the original did on the PS2. I wish the PSP had more good games available, because functionally it's an amazing piece of hardware.

Good Night, and Good Luck

We watched "Good Night, and Good Luck" last night. It's the story of Ed Murrow taking on and helping to bring down Joe McCarthy. It's a really good movie, mostly because it's so incredibly relevant to events that are taking place right now. It's almost frightening to watch a movie about Joe McCarthy accusing newsmen of being communists and then read an article the next morning about Republicans (including the President of the United States) attacking the NYTimes for being on the side of terrorists because they published an article about a secret program of questionable legality intended to monitor "terrorists". They are even suggesting the the NYT editors should be prosecuted. Scary. Really scary.

Anyway, I highly recommend the movie.

Back to work!

*sigh*

The kids had a great time with their friends at the beach.

Me? I think I need a vacation.

To the beach!

We're leaving later this morning to go to Emerald Isle for a week. Yee haw!

And I need it. I've been working my tuckus off the last couple weeks on an urgent project -- nights and weekends included. A week lounging on the beach is just what I need.

And the kids'll be in heaven. First, the house is right on the beach AND it has a pool -- their two favorite activities. Second, they both have friends coming. Tyler has two friends, Miles and Brandon, who are going with us today. Brandon is staying the whole week and Miles is staying till Tuesday. And then Carson has Morgan coming up with her family later tonight, though it's still unclear to me whether Morgan will be there the whole week or not.

Should be a lot of fun. And completely unrelated to work.

Carson's dance recital

Carson and her best friend Morgan at their dance recital. We also have video, but haven't been able to figure out how to upload it to the blog yet. As always, click the pictures for the full-size image.

Sampson

Did you read Bob Kravitz's column this morning? Quite scathing assessment of Greenspan and Herbert. Course the whole article is based on the assumption that we could have had any coach we wanted to.
Mom

They say admitting you have a problem...

...is the first step to recovery.

Well, we have an XBox360...


... and a Sony PS2...


... and a Nintendo Gamecube...


... and a Sony PSP...


... and a Nintendo Gameboy...


... and a Nintendo DS...


... and we have two laptops and a desktop computer that also get used for games.

Clearly, we have a problem. What problem, you ask?

Why is it taking so long for the Sony PS3 to come out!!

Worth two minutes of your day

Click here:

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/honda.php

Here's the background on the commercial:

People that set up roomfuls of dominos to knock over have great patience. But how about this: a two minute Honda advertisement that doesn't use no computer graphics, digital tricks or fancy film editing. Everything you see
happened in real time ... exactly as you see it.

The film took 606 takes. Usually, on the first 605 takes, something very minor didn't work. The film crew and engineers would then have to set the whole thing up again. The crew spent weeks shooting night and day. By the time it was over, one would think they were ready to change professions.

The cost to film this ad ran six million dollars, took three months to complete (including full engineering of the sequence) and lasts two minutes.

Every time Honda airs the ad on British television, they're shelling out enough money to keep any one of us in clover for a lifetime.

However, this Honda Ad is fast becoming the most downloaded advertisement in Internet history. Honda executives figure the ad will soon pay for itself simply in "free viewings" because Honda doesn't paying a dime to have you watch this commercial on the Internet.

At the time of filming, there were only six hand-made Honda Accords in the world. To the horror of Honda engineers not working on this project, the filmmakers disassembled two of these priceless cars to make this film.

Everything you see in the film (aside from the walls, floor, ramp, and one complete Honda Accord) is parts from those two cars.

When the ad was pitched to senior executives, they signed off on it immediately without any hesitation and commented on how realistic computer graphics have become.

When they found out the entire ad was real (i.e. no editing, computer generated graphics, or trick photography of any kind) the Honda execs were stunned! They had to watch it again and again to see how amazing their product and this commercial really were.

And how about those funky windshield wipers? On the European Honda Accords the windshield wipers have sensors designed to start working automatically as soon as the sensors detect water. (There's a cut off switch to use when entering a car wash).