SongMonk's Journal

Lost kitten

Mon, 12 May 2008 12:08:20 GMT

Arrrgh. I was about to go to sleep when I saw both my cats staring at my front door. I asked them why they were staring at the front door when I heard a mewing outside. I peeked out the front door and saw a small kitten outside. Now, my front door faces the interior hallways, so outdoor of my unit is actually indoors. I went outside and the kitten was friendly, so I figure it belongs to someone. But no collar.

I couldn't really take the kitten in anyway since my cats wouldn't be so happy about that. So I sent an email out to the condo mailing list, and then I was going to go to sleep. But I felt so bad leaving the kitten out there. I figured I could do something with locking the kitten in one bathroom while my cats have the other bathroom as usual. But I just spent the last half-hour trying to catch the kitten to no avail. Friendly, but not that friendly. I'm exhausted. I'll just have to hope the kitten finds its way back home.

Last to hear the news

Mon, 12 May 2008 11:09:11 GMT

Last September, I wrote about how I was interviewed by a local news crew at the Wine Country Curling Club's bonspiel. They interviewed a bunch of other people as well, so I wasn't expecting to actually make it on TV. Plus, it was for a Sacramento news station, so I wouldn't be able to see the segment anyway. If it even aired.

Well, last Thursday – over half a year later – I found out from someone who lives in Vacaville that they did put the segment in that evening's news, and I was on it! I know that for a lot of people on on my friends list, being on TV is no big deal, but that might have been a first for me. Or maybe not. Apparently it's not such a big deal that I can actually remember whether on not I've been on TV before. :-)

That's what I'm talking about

Mon, 12 May 2008 10:04:16 GMT

A month or two ago, I started reading Joe Posnanski's blog. Just over a month ago, I posted about an article that Posnanski wrote on Brian Bannister (your thinking man's pitcher). In Sunday's Banny Log, Joe included an aside (as is his writing style) about an incident that occurred in Torino at the last Winter Olympics involving the men's U.S. team conceding a game.

I know that I write about a set of unrelated topics in this blog that are of interest to me, but not necessarily anyone else. (Or rather, that each post interests a small subset of readers so that I manage to alienate the majority of readers with every post. :-) ) But when someone else writes about Brian Bannister, Hillary Clinton and U.S. men's Olympic curling team in one post, that's my cup of tea.

Survivor

Fri, 09 May 2008 21:56:18 GMT

I keep having this phrase go through my head: "DUMBEST SURVIVOR EVER". Sooooo funny.

The look that all the jury members had when Eric gave up the immunity idol was classic. The look on the girls who were still in it was classic. Eric's inability to grok reality is just sad.

Given what happened, it's even more funny in that earlier scene where the idea was pitched (by Cirie, I think) that Natalie should at least take a shot at trying to get Eric to give up the immunity idol. I can't remember Natalie's exact words, but it was something like "I'm sitting here listening to it, and it just sounds like the dumbest idea ever." At the time, I agreed. There is no way he'd give it up! What possible rationale could you give that would make sense?

And when they first pitched the idea to him that he needed to give the immunity necklace to Natalie for them to vote for Amanda with him, he even asked, "Why can't you just vote for Amanda with me keeping the necklace?" Um, yeah?

Poor ice cream scooper. I'm surprised he can get through a day without hurting himself.

eNoodle and pearl milk teas

Fri, 09 May 2008 06:21:53 GMT

On the way home from curling, I stopped at Fantasia in Milpitas for a pearl milk tea. As I pulled in to Milpitas Square, I noticed for the first time (even though it had been there for a long time) a restaurant named eNoodle. I found the name absurd, and as expected, I am not the only one.

I had filled up my frequent customer card at Fantasia, so I was entitled to a free drink. But they're assy about it and "free drink" means "free drink of the very cheapest type and if the drink you order costs 25 cents more than that, then they'll charge you 25 cents". I know this, and the past few times I've gotten a "free drink" I still ordered by normal almond pearl milk tea and paid the extra. But today, for the first time in maybe 50 orders, I got just a plain pearl milk tea. Aside from being a cheapskate, I discovered that I've been missing out. While I do like the almond flavoring, it really does overpower the actual tea in the drink. I may start ordering regular pearl milk teas sometimes now.

Got it!

Wed, 07 May 2008 00:25:32 GMT

My French is very poor -- as are my cooking skills -- but I'm proud of myself for getting the Food Network Newsletter's Question of the Week:

Which French knife skill literally translates to “made of rags”?

Answer

I guess it's a good Jeopardy-style question where you can get the answer even if you don't actually know the answer.

San Francisco Mini-game wrap-up

Thu, 01 May 2008 07:28:22 GMT

A couple weeks ago, I posted about playing in the San Francisco Mini-game. Since then, they've put up a post-game wrap-up which includes the puzzles used in the game and their solutions.

Survivor comments

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 07:37:00 GMT

A couple Survivor comments.

CBS has been putting videos on their website showing footage of the contestants who have been voted off. So it provides an additional perspective of what it's like to be a juror and to get bits of information as each additional contestant gets voted off.

Also, Ozzy gained 15 pounds in the three days since he got voted off, and Eliza gained 14 pounds in six days – seven more than what she started at. They have too much food there. :-)

My other comment is this. Natalie was so patting herself on the back for orchestrating the ousting of Jason who had the hidden immunity idol. Well played, I say. Except that all that grand scheming would have been unnecessary if she hadn't sent him to Exile Island in the first place. I'm not going to call her a grand idiot, because she did have to make that decision on the spot without having a chance to think it though, but if she's going to be so smug and give herself all the credit for figuring a way to vote Jason out after having found the hidden immunity idol, she should at least take responsibility for creating the situation which she had work her way out of. The producers didn't really call her on that BS.

Mamma Mia!

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 06:34:51 GMT

This evening I saw AMTSJ's performance of Mamma Mia. I enjoyed it very much. I heard that there was a really flimsy plot to string together the ABBA hits, and with that low bar set, I found the plot more than adequate. I mean, honestly, don't you think most musicals have pretty flimsy plots? :-)

Though I enjoyed the show very much (it helps that I am a second tier ABBA fan), I came away from it kind of sad. At first I wondered if it was because the Sharks lost (I sneaked a peak at the score during the second act), but more so I think it was because everyone ended up with someone in the end.

Today I learned that paying for parking in Downtown San Jose is even easier than I thought. There is no need to stand in those long lines at the ticket payment machines after a show. I used the "fastest" option, and it worked well.

Aside from the fact that I got overcharged $4 based on the rate published on the website.

Game over

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 17:03:32 GMT

When I was driving on the freeway to work this morning, a bird flew in front of a pickup truck that was ahead of me. Explosion of feathers, just like with the Randy Johnson fastball. I wasn't even sure what happened at first. I thought something might have dropped out of a vehicle (e.g. a crate filled with something). That is, until I saw the carcass bouncing in the lane next to me.

Reason #147 why curling is fun

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 05:19:17 GMT

Not one, but two girls split their pants this evening.

San Francisco Mini-game

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 06:02:46 GMT

I just got back from playing in coed astronomy's San Francisco Mini-game. It was well run and the puzzles were excellent. I was impressed how some puzzles layered very well, and some things which I was tempted to dismiss because I thought were too difficult to fit together were actually done successfully.

I can't write in detail about the puzzles (at least publicly) because they are running the game again next weekend. I can write about the game after that, but considering my track record for writing about these puzzle hunts, I wouldn't count on it. Plus, I forgot to bring my camera.

Anyway, great game, and I very much would like to play in more games in the future. It's one of those things that really get me excited.

You'd have to drag me off

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 10:06:02 GMT

I would never leave an extra inning game if I could at all help it. I guess an exception would be made for something like the people I'm with having to go and I rode with them. But I enjoy extra inning games. I'd love to be at a 22-inning game. I've been to two 15-inning games. (The Giants won both of those which certainly makes the experience a lot better.)

So what if this game didn't end until 1:21 a.m.? So what if you have to work the next day? I mean, maybe you get home after 3:00 a.m. or something. Then it'd be, um, like now.

Good night.

Concussion missiles

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 08:46:30 GMT

Does anyone know what the deal with "concussion missiles" is in the Star Wars universe, particularly in conjunction with the destruction of the second Death Star?

This is what I recall from my childhood: I remember Lando and Wedge flying into the interior of the Death Star. Wedge says something about the reactor being too large for his weapons. Lando says he'll use concussion missiles, he does, and you know the rest.

In viewings of Return of the Jedi that I've had as an adult, I don't seem to recall any mention of concussion missiles. That was pretty much that. Except now Everything Is On The Internet. So I can find articles such as this which specifically say that concussion missiles were used to destroy the second Death Star. Here is another reference.

But in the script, no one says anything about concussion missiles. The script does say Lando fires missiles, but it's not like I saw that on the screen and thought, "Those are concussion missiles. Wedge's proton torpedoes are too weak to take out the main reactor." Someone had to have *said* "concussion missiles".

Yet from somewhere, I had it in my mind that concussion missiles were used to destroy the Death Star. I've been thinking that for years. Was there another version of the movie where that dialog was in there? Did I read something – maybe a graphic novel – when I was a child and mentally inserted it into the movie?

Someone please explain what happened.

New Soul

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 06:59:56 GMT

This is a cute song.

(Yes, from the Apple commercial.)

I particularly like how the counterpoint is passed around to different instruments.

Grocery shopping

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 06:50:52 GMT

Does anyone buy groceries at Target? It looks like some stuff is cheaper than Safeway.

Funny Farm redux

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 19:37:26 GMT

Last night, I started playing Funny Farm again. I stayed up till 4:00 a.m. playing it! I lost my cookie and my saved game state, so I started over. Obviously it was quicker the second time through. I think I'm missing some of the answers I had before (though I got most of it), but on the bright side, starting over allowed me to find a few new answers I couldn't get before.

Now I'm at work -- eating lunch -- and I've been playing maybe 5-10 minutes and got a few more big breakthroughs. Seriously, if you like puzzles, this is fun.

fleeps, I was going to ask you if you wanted to combine games, but now I don't feel like I'm stuck, so I'm going to forge ahead on my own a while longer.

Pearl beer

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 19:46:33 GMT

If people can mix tea and milk and put pearls in there, if they can put pearls in fruit slushies and iced coffee drinks, how about putting pearls in beer?

Don't look at me like that. It's prplmissy's idea.

ETA (12:49): Sick mofos.

Oh bacon, is there anything you can't do?

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 19:32:00 GMT

plizak, this is for you.

The Bacon Bra

(courtesy of evwhore)

Montgomery to coach at Cal

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 19:37:16 GMT

Ex-Stanford coach Montgomery headed to rival Cal

I think this is a good thing. The ex-Stanford factor doesn't bother me, and his age doesn't bother me either. (A lot of the commenters of that article were noting his age which I don't think is that old.) I always thought Montgomery ran a good program. I was surprised when he left Stanford because he had such a good thing going there. I can see wanting the challenge of succeeding at the next level, but I saw failure at Golden State and success at Stanford. Stanford was not a first-level elite men's basketball program, but I think it was second-level elite. Not in terms of historical success, but in terms of good facilities, financial backing, support of the school, good reputation, etc. I guess maybe he went for the money.

He'll have a bigger challenge at Cal (definitely a step down in terms of desirability of the coaching job), but from a fan perspective, I'm quite happy. Montgomery is the type of guy I would want running the program. It'll be interesting to see what sort of recruits he gets. Stanford attracts a certain type of player. He won't have that at Cal. On the other hand, he'll be able to recruit from a wider pool of players. Should be interesting.

Brian Bannister, my new favorite player

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 19:47:32 GMT

Great article on Brian Bannister by Joe Posnanski.

Royals’ Bannister uses brain power and statistics to stay ahead of the hitters

Based on the way he's been succeeding, it certainly doesn't look sustainable. It's not just the BABIP, but also the low strikeout totals, low velocity, the list goes on. But come on, how can you not root for the guy? Everyone needs their edge. Some flourish on their physical talent, some on PEDs :-), others use their brain. I've always thought that the pitcher-hitter matchup in baseball was a very intellectual game.

The media talks more about how general managers are using sabermetrics in evaluating talent. Players have been doing it for years. I've heard about some players who enter keep their personal database of information in their laptops and enter it in after every game. Some have great memories and keep a lot of that data in their head and never share it. Unfortunate for us, but understandable.

After all, it's their edge.

What do you think?

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 01:50:40 GMT

Remember, I'm the guy who suffers from facial blindness.

Yikes

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 01:42:10 GMT

I don't mean to be cruel to someone who has had surgery, but tell me there's not a resemblance here:

When is a lead safe?

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 00:51:29 GMT

How to tell when a college basketball game is out of reach

Sports statistics

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 21:55:14 GMT

Bill James answers questions in Freakonomics blog

As you probably know, I am quite interested in sabermetrics. There are many intelligent people (both paid and hobbyists) who do amazing work. I do believe that there is a lot more to be learned, but I have no illusions that I could be anywhere near the forefront of that wave. The Internet has made communication much more prevalent, but there's a lot of independent pockets of research, and some of it is secretive as well (for example, work being paid for by individual ball clubs). Plenty of people "discover" something, only to find out it's been done before. :-)

I've written about this before, but I found out that there have been at least some researchers doing analysis on curling statistics. There is already a large body of curling statistics. But I feel that it's largely unculled. Furthermore, the base information that has been gathered -- could better raw data be had? (I'm thinking about the way shot accuracy is scored and the shooting percentages that are generated.) I don't know, but I think so. I don't think enough serious analysis has been done.

While the natural evolution of the sport leads to good strategy decisions (people tend to emulate the most successful competitors), it would not surprise me at all if there are some semi-basic decisions which people take for granted that are not optimal. It's simply conventional thinking. The way everyone does it.

If I had no life -- check that, if I weren't trying to have a life -- I would dedicate a significant amount of time into analyzing curling statistics. I think I'd have to start by reading up on the existing body of work for baseball statistics in order to learn different ways of looking at things and techniques that are available. With the amount of work that has been done, I feel that I *could* make significant breakthroughs in the area of curling and provide a much greater benefit (albeit to a smaller target audience) than I could by researching baseball. I might be a hero in Canada, anyway. :-)