In case you haven't seen it yet, you gotta watch the SNL Chronic of Narnia Rap.

Haha...

I'm sorry, Sammo... but I couldn't help it after seeing Dan The Man's blog.

Sammo


Yen the Greaseman in Ocean's Eleven

Dang it.

I dislocated my shoulder again today. This time, I was reaching for a box underneath my bed.

These problems are getting to the point where I don't think I can avoid surgery. I say this because I have now dislocated my shoulder in the following ways:

-Celebrating while someone else was bowling
(This was the first time I dislocated my shoulder.)

-Sliding head-first into third base

-Throwing a softball (probably about 5 times)

-Reaching for something in the back of my car

-Playing tennis

-Rock-climbing in Yosemite

-Shifting around while sleeping (twice)

-Reaching for a box underneath my bed

I'm probably forgetting something else, too...

Today's top 10 list:

My favorite free internet applications/websites

1 Yahoo! Fantasy Sports

Yahoo! Fantasy Sports has a great set-up considering it's free. It's easy to set up a league, get updated information, and have a live draft.

2 My Yahoo!

I've mentioned this more than once on this blog, with good reason. It's the only place I can find my personal e-mail, calendar, stocks, favorite websites, and TV listings all on the same webpage.

3 Amazon

Great deals on all sorts of products, customized recommendations, and the ability to post your wish list. [Edit] It would be nice if their customer support phone number was easier to find...

4 Craigslist

Even though I've only used this website once in my life, that one time was critical--it's how we found our apartment!

5 Mozilla Firefox

Firefox 1.5 came out a couple weeks ago. Its best features are still the speed, the built-in pop-up blocker, and tabbed browsing.

6 Yahoo! Music

I only use this because you can create your own radio station. Based on your ratings of songs, artists, albums, and genres, you get personalized streaming music.

If only I could take my personalized radio station with me during my commute. (I know most people just use an Ipod, but I don't want to go through the hassle of searching for and downloading songs.)

7 Yahoo! Calendar

I suppose some people rely on Palm Pilots or paper planners. But if you ever need an online calendar, you'll have to use Yahoo! Calendar, because there's no notable competition.

8 Blogger

This top 10 list and the links in the left column are all brought to you by Blogger. Literally.

9 Yahoo! Maps BETA

It should be fun watching Yahoo! and Google try to out-do one another's maps. I'll go with Yahoo! for now, but this could change at any moment.

10 Wikipedia

Find encyclopedia entries for anything from ear candling to Yahoo! Music.

Keep in mind that I don't use IM, download stuff, and I'm not really a bargain hunter. Otherwise, am I missing anything?

The KCPC EM has a large group meeting this Friday at 7:30 PM.

There's some kind of question and answer fellowship time, but all that matters to me is that Deacon Ryan is preparing a 5 course meal. Count me in...

I'm looking for a credit card that offers cash back.

I'm thinking about applying for the Citi Dividend Platinum Select Card.



It features:
-5% cash back on purchases at supermarkets, drugstores and gas stations
-1% cash back on all other purchases
-0% APR on balance transfers for 12 months
-Unlimited cash back within the Citi Dividend Merchant Network
-No annual fee

Any feedback or suggestions?

Pros and cons of using Yahoo! Calendar:

Pros:

1) By using an online calendar, I don't have to carry a planner around with me. This also means that I can't lose my planner.

2) Recurring reminders. I get e-mail reminders every year for people's birthdays and every month for bill payments. I can even remind myself of events that occur on the second Friday of every month (such as KCPC EM's large group).

3) Search functions. If I want to know when an event is, I can search my calendar and find out quickly.

4) There are lots of great options. For example, I could sync my Yahoo! calendar with my work's Outlook calendar for free or share my calendar with a friend.

Cons:

1) If I'm at a place where I don't have internet access, then I have to write down the task and later enter it into Yahoo calendar. But since I'm usually at work or home, this doesn't happen too often. If this were a major problem, I could sync Yahoo! calendar with a Palm Pilot (if I owned one).

2) Yahoo! calendar doesn't have the option to snooze a reminder. So if I want to put off something until later, then I have to update the reminder. This requires a few extra keystrokes, and is a very minor detail.

Of course, I'd be open to using Google calendar if it existed. But I'm pretty happy with Yahoo! calendar, so I would have to be overwhelmed in order to switch to Google.

Another Thanksgiving, another trip to LA.

It was a pretty typical weekend, except that Allen got a flat tire during our drive back up to the Bay Area.

We were in the worst possible conditions-- it was dark, raining, and we were on the Bay Bridge. Fortunately, we made it to Treasure Island and Allen was able to change the tire pretty quickly...

As an aside, here's a picture of my sister's golden retriever, which she's had for a year now. His name is Kirby, but my sister also calls him Cashmere Excellence. I cracked up when she said that for the first time.

To get ready for the Big Game tomorrow, here are some video clips for your viewing pleasure:

Even the Simpsons don't want to go to Stanfurd

Oski takes down the Stanfurd tree

And of course, The Play (streaming). Better quality download.

I never get tired of watching The Play...

Below are some images of Cal's future renovations for Memorial Stadium, athletic training facilities, and new law and business buildings.

Construction begins in December 2006 and the renovation is expected to be complete for the start of the 2008 football season.



Architect’s rendering of refurbished Memorial Stadium shows the low-profile student athlete center beneath the stadium’s historic west wall, as well as enhanced open space and access to the stadium.



With the student athlete center below, a level plaza is created for fan activities and easier stadium access.



A stunning, airy forum for special events and intellectual exchange links UC Berkeley's preeminent schools of law and business.

I believe this is the moment when I said, "Whoa... this is weird..."



Thanks Eric and Basile, for the pictures.

My boss's wife, jealous that her husband spends so much time doing fantasy sports, decided to join a fantasy fashion league.

It works just like a fantasy sports league-- there's a draft, and teams earn points from 10 positions:

3 Clothing Designers
1 Shoe Designer
1 Handbag Designer
1 Jewelry Designer
1 Celebrity Clothing Designer
3 Celebrities

Designers and celebrities can be added and dropped from teams. "Players" earn points for media exposure (when they are featured in news articles and magazine covers, or are seen at awards shows).

The Super Bowl of fantasy fashion is the Oscars.

I thought the fantasy Apprentice game was out there... but this is on another level.

On Friday night, I was supposed to meet up with about 8 guys to meet up for a birthday dinner.

As I was looking for parking at the restaurant, Allen called me saying that he locked himself out and that he needed me to come pick him up. So I went home.

For some reason there were a few people at the apartment waiting outside. I thought that was kinda weird, especially because Eun-Sook was there even though she wasn't on the invite. But to be honest, I didn't think much of it.

So then I walked into my apartment, and was greeted by over 30 people!

Talk about shock... I was too overwhelmed to fully comprehend what was going on, and when everyone started singing Happy Birthday, I said something like, "Whoa... this is weird..."

And while my initial reaction of shock might be expected, that feeling didn't go away much throughout the next couple hours.

It was amazing to see so many faces at our apartment, and it was definitely a birthday to remember. Several people worked very hard to plan the night, and while it took me awhile to process everything then, I definitely appreciate everything much more now.

When G1 called later that night, he asked, "Do you even know 30 people in the Bay Area?"

Before Friday, I would've asked that myself. But as I think about it now, I realize how blessed I am to have such great friends.

I just found out the other day that drug dealers lived in our current apartment a month before we moved in. The FBI apparently raided the place and took down our front door!

This might explain why our landlord was in such a hurry to get us the place. But if that's the worst thing wrong with it, that's all good to me...

The Burger King strikes again!

Currently listening to Ender's Shadow:



Since I'm listening to this right after listening to Ender's Game, I will have listened to the same story told from 2 different perspectives... in about 30 hours.

So my blog has been having major issues. I've had both pop-ups and comment spam.

Hopefully using word verification will help get rid of the comment spam, and I assume most of you are using either a pop-up blocker or the Mozilla web browser.

But still, does anyone know how to get rid of these pop-ups?

Dodgers owner, Frank McCourt, when he hired Paul DePodesta in February 2004:

"...it also fits with a desire to recreate the feeling of stability and continuity that the Dodgers have had over the years. We are bringing in a young man and making a five-year commitment. We are looking for stability because it goes hand-in-hand with success."

Right...

For those who haven't seen it yet, here are some pictures of KCPC at 50 Northridge:

KCPC Main Sanctuary


View From 50 Northridge


So I admit you'll get that view about once a year. Still, that's pretty sweet.

The following is such a common misconception that I actually believed it for awhile (even though it's my job to know this!)

Keep old lines of credit open
Closing old accounts shortens your credit history and lowers your score. Lenders also take into account the average age of your accounts, so an older account can help balance newer credit. Source: SmartMoney.com

Closing an old account DOES NOT shorten your credit history. The length of time you've had credit is not affected by whether your oldest account is open or closed.

And while an older account may help balance newer credit, it does not matter whether that account is open or closed.

However, it is true that closing an old account could lower your credit score a few points by increasing the balance to credit limit ratio on your open accounts.

But I would close an old account anyway, because it's a hassle to monitor a credit card account you never use. Here are some of the things you need to keep in mind if you keep the old account open:

1) If the account is open, it's possible for someone to use your credit card fraudulently.

2) You are more likely to forget to make a credit card payment for a card you think you never use, and thus severely hurt your credit score.

3) You need to make sure to update your mailing address for this account every time you move. (You need to know if you're being billed for some reason, and this also helps avoid fraud.)

Here are the shoulder exercises I'm currently doing for my shoulder problems:

Thera-Band Shoulder Extension (Starting at 45°)
Begin with one end of the band securely attached. Grasp the other end of the band with slight tension, with your arm forward to about 45°. Extend your arm backward, keeping your elbow straight. Hold and slowly return.



Thera-Band Shoulder Scapular Retraction (at 0°)
Grasp the band between your hands with slight tension. Keep our elbows bent 90° and pinch your shoulder blades together. Hold & slowly return.



Thera-Band Shoulder External Rotation at 0° (starting at 45)
Begin with one end of the band securely attached. Grasp the other end of the band with slight tension. Start with your elbow by your side, in approximately 45° of internal rotation and pull the band outward, keeping your elbow bent at 90°. Hold and slowly return.



Thera-Band Shoulder Internal Rotation at 0° (starting at 45)
Begin with one end of the band securely attached. Grasp the other end of the band with slight tension. Start with your elbow by your side, in approximately 45° of external rotation and pull the band inward, keeping your elbow bent at 90°. Hold and slowly return.

More random notes:

-What worse?

Losing to Oregon State at home despite the fact they were handing the game to us on a platter?

Or having the Angel offense be so bad that the White Sox bullpen threw a total of 7 pitches in the 5 game ALCS? Ozzie Guillen's job was so difficult he could've turned his lineup card in at the beginning of each game and then took a nap for the next 3 hours.

-My shoulder issues continue...

I dislocated my shoulder in my sleep last week. And if I thought it was just a bad dream, it happened again 2 nights later. The second time I actually had to sit up and actually make sure my shoulder went back into the socket...

Just in case you haven't seen it, here's the controversial play in last night's Angels-White Sox game:

See the video for "Pierzynski's K in ninth"

Regardless of whether the home plate umpire made the right call (he didn't), he can't gesture that the batter is out and then change his mind later.

Dan The Man does a great job of breaking this down further.

Of course, this wasn't the only reason the Angels lost. It just feels that way.

But now the hard part for the Angels will be getting over this. That's easier said than done, but manager Mike Scioscia has done a good job of taking the focus away from the controversy...

Seeing the Yankees lose always brings a smile to my face.



And when it's the Angels knocking them out of the first round for the 2nd time in 4 years, then it's even sweeter...

Random notes from this past week:

-Finally starting to get settled into our apartment in SF. I got a warm welcome to the city by getting a parking ticket the first week in...

-Went to the SF small group for the first time. Since I already know most of the people in the group, I feel pretty comfortable in it...

-Went biking across Golden Gate Bridge with Allen, Sammy Sohn, and a couple others. But there were Fleet Week activities going on, so Fisherman's Wharf was even more crowded than it gets during the 4th of July fireworks.

-Not a great sports weekend for me. I'm still trying to forget about the loss to UCLA, and then the Angels lost tonight. It all comes down to game 5 tomorrow...

So my baseball bets didn't turn out so well this year. If I made the bets I wanted, I would've lost 14% on my investment...

Team	Investment	Wager	Vegas	Actual	Odds	Return
LAA	31.77	Under	92	95	1.77	0.00
BOS	28.87	Win AL East		0 GB	3.00	0.00
OAK	28.79	Win AL West		7 GB	4.40	0.00
SD	19.67	Under	86	82	2.10	41.31
NYY	16.61	Under	101	95	1.77	29.39
TB	12.86	Under	71	67	1.77	22.75
CHW	12.73	Under	82	99	1.95	0.00
WAS	12.45	Over	71	81	1.83	22.82
PHI	12.24	Over	85	88	1.91	23.36
TOR	11.66	Over	71	80	1.87	21.79
PHI	11.73	Win NL East		2 GB	6.50	0.00
HOU	10.69	Under	82	89	1.91	0.00
NYM	10.69	Under	84	83	1.91	20.41
OAK	9.24	Over	82	88	1.77	16.36
S Green	10.00	Under	31 HR	22	1.80	18.00
D Jeter	10.00	Under	191 Hits	202	1.80	0.00
Overall	250.00					216.20
						-14%

A few lessons to learn from this experiment:

1) You just can't outsmart the Vegas sportsbooks.

2) There's a lot of variance in sportsbetting. Even though my bets were based on the results of 162 games for 12 different teams, the profitability of this investment came down to baseball's tiebreaker rules. Had the Red Sox won the tiebreaker to win the AL East championship, this investment would've returned a 21% profit.

3) Don't put all your eggs in one basket-- or even three. My top 3 investments were all losers, but 6 of my next 7 were winners.

4) I should stick to betting on season win totals-- I would've made a 20% profit had I done so. Picking division winners appears to be less profitable because there's a good chance that at least one other team in the division will play better than I expect...

Random notes from this past weekend:

-Went down to LA for Billy and Janice's wedding. The only time I ever meet up with people in my class is when I go to weddings...

-Basile has now found a restaurant he hates more than Chevy's. It's Pea Soup Andersen's, which is near the 5 Freeway on the drive up from LA to the Bay Area.



We joked that the pea soup looks the same before and after you're eaten it... Haha...



-During the car ride up, we had a conversation that led to a reference of the legendary Scott Song articles.

-When I got home to Emery Bay, our bathroom had flooded for some unknown reason and the excess water made its way into my room. Our apartment smells really bad, and the floor is all wet. Glad I'm moving out this week...

On Saturday morning, Allen, Chongo, and I went to the Richmond District in SF to check out a 4 bedroom apartment. (Albert was in New York.)

We really liked it because it was spacious, well-maintained, and not too expensive ($2790 a month).

Allen and I then continued to look at other places the rest of the day. But they seemed so much worse than the first one we looked at.

So after a long day of apartment hunting, we went home. We wanted to be the first to send in the application for the first place, so we went to Kinko's to fax 22 pages (application and credit reports) to the landlord.

But we were pretty mad when we had to pay $33 to send the fax! (Kinko's charges by the number of pages.)

Still, this will go down as the best $33 donation ever made to Kinko's-- 30 minutes after we faxed our application, the landlord called and told us we got the place!

For about 15 minutes, Allen, Chongo, and I celebrated as if we had just won the lottery...

Here's some pictures of our new place:

Living room


Kitchen


Bathroom


Backyard

In one of my fantasy football leagues, I made the following trade:

I get
RB LaDainian Tomlinson
WR Torry Holt

I give up
RB Willis McGahee
RB Rudi Johnson
WR Keary Colbert

It was basically a swap of our first 2 picks, with Colbert as a throw-in.

Giving up my top 2 running backs obviously hurts my running back depth, but I still have both Cadillac Williams and Willie Parker, so I'm OK with my running back situation.

The other guy had Reuben Droughns as his second running back, so obviously he got a huge upgrade at his second RB position.

As for me, I'm definitely happy to have the most valuable player in fantasy football and a top 5 WR.

Our company had another lunchtime Texas Hold'Em tournament today.

There were 3 tables with 8 players each. The person with the most chips at each table, along with the person with the next highest chip count, would advance to the final table next month.

The tournament was limited to 1 hour, so the action moved pretty quickly.

Hand of the day:
3 people left at my table.
5 minutes left in the hour.
I have about 1500 chips.
Player A has about 5300 chips.
Player B has about 1200 chips.

Player B goes all in and player A folds. I'm holding 9-8 suited, which is usually an easy fold when someone else goes all-in.

But:
1) I'm running out of time. Considering our blind structure, player A is a lock to finish with the most chips at our table. If I'm gonna end up as the non-winner with the most chips, I figured I needed to end up with at least 3200 chips.

2) Since I have 9 high, I know I'm going to be behind in the hand if I call. But I have a suited connector, and the only way I'd be in real trouble is if the other person has a high pocket pair or has an 8 or 9 with a better kicker.

So I call, and I'm happy to see that player B has Ace-4 suited. I get lucky and get my 9 on the flop, and I knock out player B.

In the end, I ended up with 3600 chips.

A non-winner at another table ended up with 3550 chips, so I made it to the final table by 50 chips!

Got an e-mail from my company's CEO that our stock hit an all-time high today...

In the last year, Fair Isaac stock (in blue) has gone up over 50% while the S&P 500 (in red) has gone up about 10%






But this is only after my company's stock dropped 35% from September 2003 to July 2004.

I'm now using Blogger's commenting system since the BlogBack commenting system will terminate next month.

Unfortunately that means everyone's previous comments have been deleted...

After 7 years, KCPC is finally back at 50 Northridge!

We just found out a few hours ago that we received the occupancy permit.

And now we're rushing over to the new site... We'll be moving a lot of things tomorrow and then having our first service there this Sunday (yeah, 2 days from now).

Hopefully nobody goes to the funeral home that is our church on Mission Street...

On Wednesday, my boss gave me the following book. I think he knows me a little bit too well...

The Starving Students' Cookbook



Here's a sample recipe. Seriously, I couldn't have made this up if I tried...

Reheating Macaroni, Rice, Or Pasta

1) Dump leftovers into saucepan.
2) Add couple spoonfuls of water. Cover tightly. Heat on medium heat a couple minutes or till hot.
3) Drain off any excess water, then use.

Yum. Ramen... dog meat flavor!




Thanks Allen for the picture...

Looking for some people who want to play fantasy football...

The draft is on Tuesday, September 6 at 7:30 PM. So far we have me, Albert, G1, James Song, Mejeld, Stephen, and my missions friend Brian Han. It's a pretty standard head-to-head Yahoo! league.

We could use more people since we only have 7 so far...

Somebody stole the Honda logo off the back of my car on Sunday.



I actually laughed when I saw that, because it reminded of me people I knew in junior high who would "collect" the logos from different cars.

Actually, I was just happy that the person didn't steal something functional.

I lost my planner sometime last week, and so now I have to try to remember everything that I had in it...

The worst part was that I wrote down some account numbers and passwords in it... I just hope it didn't end up in the wrong hands.

I don't want this to happen to me again, so I think I'm going to stop using a physical paper planner.

Does anyone use Yahoo! Calendar? I'm going to try it for now and see how I like it...

Here's some info about bets (NFL season wins) I just made.

I'll start with my disclaimer:

1) It's difficult to predict how a football team will do. Since there are only 16 games in a season, luck is a major factor in a team's performance.

2) There's significantly more variance in sports betting than in the stock market because there are only 2 possible outcomes with each bet (win, or lose everything). With stocks, you can gain or lose incremental percentages of your investment.

3) The probabilities below come from the projections done by Pro Football Prospectus.

Statistical analysis is much more difficult to implement in football than in baseball, so these projections are not as reliable as my baseball projections.

So there's 1) a lot of variance, 2) a lot more variance, and 3) even more variance.

Team	Bet	Vegas	Probability	Odds	Average Return
Atlanta	Under	9.5	88%	1.77	56%
Jacksonville	Under	8.5	71%	2.15	53%
Philadelphia	Over	11.5	60%	2.40	44%
Washington	Under	7.5	62%	1.91	18%

These probabilities aren't too reliable, so I used some discretion to exclude other possible picks. I bet the same amount on each team despite the differing rates of return.

Some explanations behind my picks:

The under on Atlanta
No, Michael Vick isn't injured-- yet. But Pro Football Prospectus gave Atlanta an 88% chance to win 9 or fewer games because:

1) The Falcons only outscored their opponents by 3 points last year, meaning they were lucky to win 11 games.

2) Atlanta's defense was much better on 3rd downs than on the first 2 downs last year. So they were able to stop drives more often than expected last year. This year, their 3rd down performance will probably regress toward their 1st and 2nd down performance.

3) They play a tough schedule that includes the Eagles, Patriots, Seahawks, and Jets.

The under on Jacksonville
Jacksonville is pretty bad on offense-- Byron Leftwich has some upside, but he doesn't have much help around him. Even when Fred Taylor is healthy, he's not that great. The defense is good, but I don't think it's good enough to enable them to win 9 games.

The over on Philadelphia
The only reason I'm taking Philadelphia is because they're getting 2.4:1.
The only reason they're getting 2.4:1 is the uncertainty around Terrell Owens.
But even without him, they're still the class of the NFC.

The under on Washington
The Washington defense got worse over the offseason, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if rookie Jason Campbell were the starting QB by midseason.

I decided to double the contribution percentage in my 401(k) from 5% to 10%.

Why?

Because by doing this, I'd save almost $2 million more in my lifetime!

Here's the 401(k) Savings Calculator I used to determine that. It's fun to dream about how much money I can save...

And it's pretty crazy that even one year or one percent can make such a huge difference...

I didn't realize that I could add my blog onto My Yahoo! homepage until today.

So after figuring out how to do that, I set up my blog so that it's XML-enabled. Anyone can use RSS feeds to check my blog.

If you want to add my blog to your My Yahoo! page, simply click on this button:



Then click on the Add to My Yahoo! button after the new page loads.

Seen at this year's KCPC softball tournament:



That's some crazy hair...

From now on, I really have to make sure I'm not too close to the car in front of me when I'm in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

As I was driving up from the OC to the Bay Area yesterday, I had to brake somewhat hard because the car in front of me stopped suddenly. The car behind me gave me a not-so-soft tap, but fortunately there was no damage...

This is one of the best baseball plays I've ever seen in my life.

August 9: No hands? Yeah, Wright

Could he have caught the ball with his glove hand? Maybe, but it's a lot more entertaining this way...

I finally went to the doctor to check out my chronic shoulder dislocations.

I'm going to rehab the shoulder first, but the doctor said I may need surgery...

What a terrible way to give up first place in the AL West...

The Angels' bullpen blew a 4 run lead in the 7th inning. Then closer Francisco Rodriguez allowed the game-winning run to score when he missed a simple return throw from catcher Jose Molina.

That's just unacceptable.

Oh, and to make things worse, Basile decided to become a bandwagon A's fan.

Well, at least there are still 48 more games left, and the Angels are still leading the Wild Card...

The KCPC A Team won this year's softball tournament.

This would probably be a noteworthy accomplishment, except that most of the players on the team don't regularly go to KCPC.

As for the B Team, we lost 20-11 in our first playoff game, so we got to go home early.

My big accomplishment on Saturday was not getting hurt. But the same cannot be said for Jomo...

He was playing outfield and there was a short pop-up in between him and Georgia Dave, who was playing shortstop. Jomo was running in to make the catch, but got distracted when he saw Georgia Dave running at him.

So he took his eye off the ball, and missed the catch. The outcome was a "tremendous impact upon the groin region".

He had to come out of the game for a little bit, but was able to come back...

I forgot one more record:

Big Daddy Barrick Burger
48 minutes, 10 seconds
Sonya Thomas

From this event's press release:

"Thomas has often been compared to a combination of Anna Kournikova and a ravenous jackal loose on the Serengeti."

9 pounds
Bun 12 inches in diameter
A half head of lettuce
2 tomatoes
2 onions
4 pickles
Mayonnaise
Mustard
12 slices of American cheese
$49.99

If a person finishes the burger within 24 hours, it's free of charge.

Some world records in the field of competitive eating:

Butter
7 quarter-pound sticks in 5 minutes
Donald Lerman

Cheesecake
11 pounds in 9 minutes
Sonya Thomas

Chicken Wings
161 chicken wings in 12 minutes
Sonya Thomas

Cow Brains
17.7 pounds in 15 minutes
Takeru Kobayashi

Doughnuts
49 glazed doughnuts in 8 minutes
Eric Booker

Eggs
65 hard-boiled eggs in 6 minutes, 40 seconds
Sonya Thomas

Ice Cream
1 gallon, 9 ounces of vanilla ice cream in 12 minutes
Cookie Jarvis

Mayonnaise
4 32-ounce bowls in 8 minutes
Oleg Zhornitskiy

Onions
3 onions in 1 minute
Eric Booker

Oysters
46 dozen oysters in 10 Minutes
Sonya Thomas

Spam
6 pounds of Spam (from the can) in 12 minutes
Richard LeFevre

Vienna Sausage
8.31 pounds in 10 Minutes
Sonya Thomas

I'm always so excited to be at small group. Just ask Henry.

Ryan Freel set a Cincinnati Red record with 5 stolen bases last night.

This is just one short of the modern day record of 6, held by Otis Nixon.

Why do I mention this? Because it gives me an excuse to re-publish the following news article:


Otis Nixon

Former Atlanta Braves center fielder Otis Nixon was arrested in January 2004 after allegedly threatening his bodyguard with a knife at a Georgia hotel, police said.

Brown, 37, told police that Nixon called him and asked the bodyguard to pick up one of Nixon's female friends and bring her to the hotel. While he was on his way to the woman's home, Nixon called Brown again and told him to return to the hotel.

Brown said he went into the hotel room and noticed that Nixon was naked and yelling into his cellphone. Brown said he asked Nixon to put some clothes on, but Nixon ignored him. Nixon became upset when Brown asked him to repay some money that was owed him, Brown told police.

Still naked, Nixon grabbed a kitchen knife and chased Brown out of the room, according to a police report. During the scuffle, Nixon also threatened him with another blade, a black-handled folding knife, Brown told police.

Nixon was also heard yelling: "I will cut your heart out," according to the police report. Brown was not harmed during the incident.

Nixon told police that Brown was the aggressor in the fight. Nixon said he was naked because he was waiting for his female friend to arrive.

Nixon played with the Atlanta Braves from 1991 to 1993. He helped the Braves get to the postseason in 1991 by stealing 72 bases. That same year he was suspended for cocaine use.

Basile just updated his photo site. Here's a couple random pictures:

Found at the Yosemite gift shop:



Hmmm... I think the person who designed that pencil should've gotten a second opinion...



I don't know why I choose to incriminate myself.

From America: The Book, by the writers of The Daily Show With Jon Stewart.

Chapter 7 / page 131
The Media: Democracy's Guardian Angel

A free and independent press is essential to the health of a functioning democracy. It serves to inform the voting public on matters relevant to its well-being. Why they've stopped doing that is a mystery.

I mean, 300 camera crews outside a courthouse to see what Kobe Bryant is wearing when the judge sets his hearing date, while false information is used to send our country to war goes unchecked?

What *** **** happened? These spineless cowards in the press have finally gone too far. They have violated a trust.

"Was the president successful in convincing the country?"
Who gives * ****? Why not tell us if what he said was true?

And the excuses. My God, the excuses!
"Hey, we just give the people what they want."
"What can you do, this administration is secretive."
"But the last season of Friends really is news."

The unmitigated gall of these weak-willed....You're supposed to be helping us...

Some Yosemite pictures stolen from Carroll's blog.

Vernal Falls



The first (and only) rock I got to climb:

In a work-related e-mail I got today, the subject read:
Obfuscation functionality in our software

This was the first time I've ever had to use www.dictionary.com to look up a word at work.

The definition of obfuscation:

1) confusion resulting from failure to understand
[Synonyms: bewilderment, puzzlement, befuddlement, mystification, bafflement, bemusement]

2) the activity of obscuring people's understanding, leaving them baffled or bewildered
[Synonym: mystification]

3) darkening or obscuring the sight of something

So I suppose I can say that this e-mail title obfuscated me enough to use a dictionary.

Back from Yosemite. Basile, Carroll, G1 and I went, but it wasn't exactly "camping".

We had tent cabins and ate out every meal. On the last night, our place even had towels, sheets, and pillows. We called it a zero-star motel.

Random notes:
1) At night, we played Pusoy Dos (Big 2) to determine who would sleep in which cot. The first 2 nights, we had 2 small cots and 1 large cot, so the 2 losers had to sleep in the same cot. And yes, I ended up sleeping in the same cot as G1 for one night.
2) Hiked up to Vernal Falls. G1 and I had already hiked this trail during our senior retreat.
3) I dislocated my shoulder while rock climbing and was only able to climb for the first of 6 hours.

For those who don't know, I originally dislocated my shoulder while celebrating someone else's bowling success. (The person didn't even get a strike or spare.)

It's not as ridiculous as getting injured while sneezing (Sammy Sosa), but it's still pretty bad nonetheless...

I'm off to Yosemite for the next few days...

More Chappelle's Show:

The Making The Band sketch

Basile, this is for you:

P. Diddy:
"If I had my way, I'd never work. I'd just stay home all day, watch Scarface 50 times, eat a turkey sandwich, and have *** all ******* day. Then I'd dress up like a clown, and surprise kids at schools. Then I'd take a dump in the back of a movie theater, and just wait until somebody sat in it. Hear it squish. That's funny to me. Then I'd paint, and read, and play violin. I'd climb the mountains, and sing the songs that I like to sing. But I don't got that kinda time."

The gay landscaper from Chappelle's Show.

The other day, The Sports Guy did a list of the most valuable players in basketball. The criteria is based on real-life salary, age, and the following:

If Carmelo Anthony comes in at No. 19, players 1 through 19 are all players about whom Denver would probably say, "We hate giving up 'Melo, but there's no way we can pass up that deal." And they wouldn't trade him for any player listed between Nos. 19 and 40.

So I decided to try to create a similar top 10 list for baseball. Here's my list, with one honorable mention:

Note: FA Year stands for Free Agent Year, the year that the player can become a free agent.

Rank	Player	Age	2005 Salary	Current Contract	FA year
HM	Bobby Abreu	31	$13.10 M	5 years, $64M	2007
10	BJ Upton	20	$0.25 M	Year-to-year	2010
9	Miguel Tejada	29	$10.78 M	6 years, $72 M	2009
8	Mark Teixeira	25	$3.63 M	4 years, $9.5 M ends 2005	2008
7	Rich Harden	23	$0.75 M	4 years, $9 M	2008
6	Vladimir Guerrero	29	$12.50 M	5 years, $70 M	2008
5	Jake Peavy	24	$0.75 M	4 years, $15 M	2008
4	David Wright	22	$0.32 M	Year-to-year	2010
3	Johan Santana	26	$4.75 M	4 years, $40 M	2008
2	Miguel Cabrera	22	$0.37 M	Year-to-year	2009
1	Albert Pujols	"25"	$11.00 M	7 years, $100 M	2010

HM) Bobby Abreu

• Abreu probably isn't number 11 on the list, but for a team that's looking to win in 2005 , you could do worse than the most underrated player in baseball today. How underrated? I could make a case that Abreu's age 24-30 seasons were better than Ken Griffey Jr's age 24-30 seasons-- and Griffey didn't start getting injured until age 31.

10) BJ Upton

• The most important numbers here are under the columns Age and FA year. He's the best prospect in baseball, no matter how bad people think his defense is.

9) Miguel Tejada

• The decline phase of his career will start sometime during this contract, but you wouldn't know it by the way he's been playing since he signed with the Orioles.

8) Mark Teixeira

• Here's the power of Scott Boras for you: Teixeira would be in the top 5 and Mark Prior would've made the top 10 if Scott Boras wasn't their agent.

7) Rich Harden

• For anyone who doubts Billy Beane's ability as a GM, just look at the value under Current Contract again.

6) Vladimir Guerrero

• Ironically, Vlad's back problems in 2003 are the only reason he's on this list. Otherwise, there would've been an all-out bidding war for him when he was a free agent.

5) Jake Peavy

• Given the spacious dimensions of Petco Park, Peavy is in great position to grab a Cy Young in the very near future.

4) David Wright

• Analysts often refer to him as "the next Scott Rolen". Usually this represents a player's upside, but considering Wright has slightly outperformed Rolen during their respective age 21 and 22 seasons, that upside has already turned into reality.

3) Johan Santana

• Of all of the pitchers in baseball history, the pitcher that is most similar to Johan Santana at age 26 is Sandy Koufax.

2) Miguel Cabrera

• Cabrera has an even more impressive comparables list. Half of his top 20 comparables are current or future Hall Of Famers: Hank Aaron, Frank Robinson, Gary Carter, Al Kaline, Alex Rodriguez, Ken Griffey Jr, Eddie Murray, Johnnie Bench, Orlando Cepeda, and...

1) Albert Pujols

• 7 year contracts given to slow, powerful first basemen usually end up like the ones given out to Mo Vaughn and Jason Giambi. The fact that Pujols' 7 year contract is a bargain is just one of many testaments of his talent.

Sometimes it's important to know the difference between whether something is difficult or if it is impossible...

Case in point:

If you...

1) Place an egg in the palm of your hand
2) Close your fingers around the egg
3) Squeeze the egg as hard as you can

...it will be difficult to break the egg. Difficult, but not impossible.

(This is true because the force and pressure of your squeeze is spread out over the whole surface of the eggshell.)

I mention all this because Basile said yesterday that he couldn't break an egg this way. Assuming this was impossible, he had Dentist Dave try it out...

And after Dave squeezed for about 5 seconds, the egg exploded across our apartment. Much of it was spread across the white khakis I was wearing.

With the 10th overall pick in yesterday's NBA draft, the LA Lakers selected Andrew Bynum, a 17-year-old high school player.

I found his personal website, thanks to Dan The Man. [Edit: Apparently he's taken down his website.]

Some of my favorite parts of his profile:

Question: Have you ever... in the last 24 hours... did something u regret?
His answer: kissed sumones gurl

Q: Are you a moron?
A: sumtimez

Q: What do you want to be when you Grow Up?
A: NBA BALLA/ENTRAPENOUR

Q: Do you want to go to College?
A: OF COURSE

The quote of the day comes from TNT analyst Charles Barkley during the 2001 NBA Draft. The Spurs had just drafted Tony Parker in the first round.

"I don't know that much about him, but they got him in the first round, so he must be a good player."

Great analysis, Charles.

(This was stolen from the Sports Guy.)

Apparently, I messed up our impersonation of Mount Rushmore... I should be looking at the camera rather than off to the side.

Thanks Allen, for today's picture:



Anyone want to write a caption for this?

Both of my roommates will be out of town this weekend.

Allen begins his week-long vacation in Costa Rica on Friday while Basile is in Vegas for the weekend.

Meanwhile, I'll probably be home alone in an empty apartment, checking on my fantasy baseball teams. Haha...

The 2 best-selling TV show DVDs in history:

1) Chappelle's Show, Season 1
2) Family Guy, Seasons 1 & 2

I learned this while reading an article about the upcoming Family Guy DVD movie coming out in late September.

After Robert Horry jumped from 10 feet away to make this unbelievable dunk, this is what Slum Dave said:

"If Robert Horry makes the game-winning shot tonight, I'm gonna punch myself in the face."

15 minutes later, I was able to say that I've seen someone punch himself in the face...

Last time, I wrote about the weak correlation between ERA and a pitcher's W-L record. To illustrate this further, I decided to compare this correlation with some other correlations.

IP/GS is innings per start, K/GS is strikeouts per start, and WHIP is baserunners per inning.

Correlations With ERA
Group	Winning %	IP/GS	K/GS	WHIP
All Pitchers	-0.36	-0.62	-0.60	0.81
3.50+ ERA	-0.13	-0.51	-0.32	0.67

Relative to these other stats, winning percentage has a weak correlation with ERA.

Here's another table, similar to the one in my previous post.

ERA	Winning %	IP/GS	K/GS	WHIP
0.00 - 3.00	0.627	6.8	7.4	1.05
3.00 - 3.50	0.640	6.6	5.1	1.20
3.50 - 4.00	0.528	6.4	4.9	1.29
4.00 - 4.50	0.555	6.4	4.1	1.35
4.50 - 5.00	0.511	6.2	3.8	1.40
5.00 - 5.50	0.495	5.8	3.7	1.49
5.50+	0.500	5.8	4.0	1.56

Look at the trends. IP/GS, K/GS, and WHIP all have consistent increases or decreases when compared to ERA (except for the last K/GS row). Winning percentage clearly doesn't.

How well does a pitcher’s W-L record indicate his value?

It’s obvious to most people that it doesn’t do a very good job at all, but I decided to look at some data to support that claim.

To do this, I looked at the 76 pitchers who had 30 or more starts in 2004. I compared their W-L record to their ERA. While ERA is not the best indicator of a pitcher’s ability, it does have the advantage of being well-known and understood.

The correlation coefficient for these pitchers was -0.36, which means that when a pitcher’s ERA goes down, his winning percentage can be expected to increase at a moderate rate.

But by breaking these pitchers into bins, I noticed that the data trends are really inconsistent. In particular, look at the winning percentages below.

ERA	# Pitchers	AVG(W)	AVG(L)	Winning %
0.00 - 3.00	6	15.7	9.3	0.627
3.00 - 3.50	10	14.6	8.2	0.640
3.50 - 4.00	11	12.0	10.8	0.528
4.00 - 4.50	18	13.0	10.4	0.555
4.50 - 5.00	18	11.8	11.3	0.511
5.00 - 5.50	7	11.8	12.1	0.495
5.50+	6	11.9	12.0	0.500

The winning percentages trend downward, but it goes up, down, up, down, down, and then up. Not exactly a smooth line.

Looking at this table further, W-L record seems to do a good job of differentiating between a pitcher who has an ERA above 3.50 and another with an ERA below 3.50. But it does very little to distinguish between a pitcher with a 3.50 ERA and one with a 5.50 ERA.

In fact, if we remove the first 2 bins (great pitchers) and just look at the 60 pitchers with an ERA above 3.50, the correlation coefficient shrinks in magnitude to -0.13, which is clearly weak.

All of which says that a pitcher’s teammates (offense and bullpen) have a tremendous influence on his W-L record. But everyone except John Kruk already knows this...

My favorite fantasy baseball statistical categories:

1) OBP- A hitter’s ability to get on base is the most important skill he has.
2) WHIP- Guess what? This is a reasonable approximation for opponents’ OBP.
3) HR- Chicks dig the long ball, and so does everyone else. Power is the second most important skill for a hitter to have.
4) K- The ability to strike batters out is a very important skill for a pitcher to possess.
5) SLG- While OBP tells us how often a hitter reaches base, SLG tells us his ability to drive runners home.

5 common fantasy baseball statistical categories that I could do without:

1) W- A pitcher does not control how good his team’s offense or bullpen is.
2) RBI- Vinny Castilla led the league in RBI last year. What does that tell us? That he hit cleanup on the Colorado Rockies.
3) R- A player's ability to score runs is not only affected by his teammates after him in the lineup, but also by the ones before him. (If they get on first base often, a player can get on base and potentially score runs just by hitting into force outs.)
4) SV- Danny Graves was on a record-setting pace for saves last year. This year? He was cut from his team.
5) ERA- As much as people seem to like ERA, it has plenty of problems. The fact that a homerun can sometimes be an unearned run is just ridiculous. I wish opponents' SLG could be used in Yahoo leagues. It’d be a better complement to opponents' OBP (WHIP).

And while I'm doing some wishful thinking, it'd be great if Yahoo had Net Steals (SB - 2*CS) as a category.

Congratulations to Stephen and Mannam on their engagement.

Stephen's trick to avoid having your girlfriend think you're proposing to her:
Wear a sweatshirt and shorts!
She'll never think you'd propose to her in that outfit...

Friday's pitching line from Zack Greinke:
4.1 IP
11 ER
17 baserunners allowed
9 XBH allowed
22.85 ERA
3.92 WHIP

In 29 plate appearances, the Diamondbacks hit .556/ .586/ 1.148 (AVG/OBP/SLG) off Greinke.

Aside #1: In 2 plate appearances, Greinke hit .500/ .500/ 2.000 as he got his first major league hit with a 5th inning homerun.

Anyway, Greinke probably had a 99.9% chance of getting tagged with the loss. Since he plays for the 2005 Kansas City Royals, it was probably closer to 99.99%.

But believe it or not, the Royals came back from an 8th inning, 11-3 deficit. They tied the game in the 9th, but they're still the Royals, so they lost 12-11 on a walk-off homerun served up by Royal closer Mike MacDougal.

Aside #2: If this subconsciously seems familiar to you, here's why:

The Oakland A's had a 20 game winning streak in 2002. During their 20th consecutive win, the Royals trailed the A's 11-0, only to come back and tie the game in the 9th.

The Royals lost 12-11 on a walk-off homerun served up by Royal closer Jason Grimsley.

Weird, huh?

There's this new British guy at our company. Everytime we have a meeting with him, we joke around and say we need a translator.

One time, we were talking about characteristics. For short, we call these "chars", pronounced CARES. (Since that's what the first syllable of characteristic sounds like.)

At the very end of the hour-long meeting, he asked, "Excuse me, what are CARES?" When we said that's our abbreviation for characteristics, he was enlightened.

Apparently in Britain they pronounce it CHARS (as in char-broiled).

Makes sense, but whenever I hear him talk, I can't help but think about the British version of The Office.

How much information does Allen Han need to identify a movie?

A screenshot?
A sentence of dialogue?
One song of the soundtrack?

Apparently he doesn't even need any of that.

We were flipping through channels the other day, and noticed TBS was playing the very start of a movie. As the introductory movie studio logo showed up, Basile and I asked Allen which movie it was.

Within a few seconds, he correctly stated the correct movie title, Blue Crush.

This despite the fact that the screen was still showing the movie studio logo.
And that there was no dialogue.
And that the first song of the soundtrack had been playing for all of 5 seconds.

Amazing.

(And no, he didn't just watch the movie or otherwise know it would be playing.)

Alright, time for a normal picture:

Here's the Eastbay Thursday small group.
Back row, from left to right: Basile, Dentist Dave, me, Joann, Ben, and Allen.
Front row: Jane Kang, her sister Susanna, Eun-Sook, Connie, Jamie, and Sarah.



Pulled this off Allen's new picture site, which has lots of updated photos.

Christina, Allen, Georgia Dave, and Basile prepare for an intense competition to see who has the highest vertical leap. Ready... set...



...go!



Apparently, there was glue on the bottom of Christina, Allen, and Georgia Dave's shoes. Basile is the clear champion, despite wearing flip-flops to the competition.

I had a staring contest with Dentist Dave the other day. Now I'm not very good...


...but this is what I was going up against.

I'm currently listening to Freakonomics, and it's pretty interesting.



It's a book about how incentives affect people, and covers random topics such as:
-The organizational structure of crack dealers
-Collusion in sumo wrestling tournaments
-How teachers cheat for their students on standardized tests
-Discrimination on The Weakest Link
-Why real estate agents don't work hard to get you the best sale price on your home