'Nova and the Tourney

So my boys (Villanova) are a number 3 seed in the east bracket for the 2009 tournament. They open on Thursday night (Friday morning here in China) against the Patriot League champion, American University as a 14 seed in the east bracket. For the past couple of years I have accurately predicted how far my boys have advanced in the tournament, so I feel some pressure in getting it right this year. As I am all about disclosure, I feel like this year I have to publish how far they are going to get so that I can actually prove to all you readers (just me) that I have a pulse for what is going on with my team. So without further ado here I go:

I had to think long and hard before I committed them getting out of the first round. American will be a dangerous team, and if my boys think just because they are playing in Philly that they should be able to beat them, then they might find themselves in trouble. If they stay focused and understand that American is not going to be a pushover, they should be fine. I ultimately decided that they can beat American, in fact I think they can get to the sweet sixteen again this year. Unfortunately I feel like they will not be able to get past the sweet sixteen. Ultimately, this would be a little disappointing, but they would really have to be playing at the top of their game to get past the sweet sixteen and I just don't see it happening. So there you go, I am a homer, but I am also a realist, so we shall see if I am right again this year…we'll see. Tune in tomorrow for my official upset pick.

Great Movie Scenes

As yet another way of getting you all out there in the blog reading world to continue to get to know me better (and as continued motivation to get me to write more on this thing), I thought I would start writing down great movie scenes that I can remember or jot them down as I see the movie. So to get things started, there are 2 great scenes that I have seen very recently on two movies that I thoroughly enjoyed, the two scenes are as follows:

• The Wrestler, I think most people will agree that Mickey Rourke did a great acting job in this movie, but there was one particular scene in the movie that almost brought a tear out of your boy. In the movie, it is established that Rourke's character, Randy "The Ram," had a huge falling out with his daughter, Stephanie (played by Evan Rachel Wood) and basically doesn't speak with her. When he tries to mend the relationship, the daughter is very hesitant, but eventually gives him a chance. Randy takes her to the beach as a memory that he loved from when she was younger and they walked and talked to each other catching up. During this time, Randy explains how he regrets the mistakes that he made in his life, and then emphasizes how lonely his life is. When they are walking back from the beach, his daughter responds to him pouring out his heart to her by putting her arms in his arms to walk with him…WOW…powerful. Granted the relationship between the two is ruptured later in the movie, but Aronofsky (director) did a great job with this scene.

• Lost in Translation, I really enjoyed this movie when I first saw it, now that I am expatriate living in a country where I basically don't speak the language, this movie has easily become a top 3 movie for me. The situations that Bob Harris, played by Bill Murray, and Charlotte, played by Scarlett Johansson find themselves in with the language barriers and cultural differences ring very close to home with the situations I encounter on a daily basis. Actually, I can't confirm this, but Sofia Coppola, writer and director, had to have written this movie from first hand experience, the nuances in the movie would only be able to be translated from someone who experienced these things. Anyway, the scene that especially struck me (as there were many great scenes) is when Charlotte is in her room sitting on the windowsill looking out on the vast city of Tokyo. Even with all the people and all the things in Tokyo, as Charlotte gazes out, she not only is physically distant from the place she is currently living, the scene brings out how utterly lonely she is, even in a place that has so much. I think Jim Rome puts it best when he says…Great….Scene…Period.

The Boycott that never was...

Way back when, I thought about writing a blog entry about my unofficial boycott of my hometown baseball team the Orioles. My boycott was going to be to not pay attention to anything Orioles or baseball in general this whole season. I guess my justification for not writing a blog entry was mostly because I thought if I wrote an entry I would have been talking about them, so it was quite the conundrum (kind of similar to the Cowboys saying they would keep TO and then cutting him…only not). The reason I was going to boycott baseball is because there is no justice in the free agent market for the small market teams like the Orioles and I have had to endure free agent after free agent go to the Orioles division rivals the Yankees (aka, the evil empire) and the Red Sox (aka, the formally cursed team that everyone wants to play for now that the curse has been lifted). My frustration hit a breaking point when a "hometown boy," Mark Teixeira decided to go with the Yankees. I put hometown boy in quotes because regardless of how much money was being offered, if you grew up in the Baltimore area and were truly an Orioles fan, there would be no amount of money that should inspire you to go to the Yankees…kind of like St. Josephs is to Villanova (man do I seriously dislike that stupid St. Joes Hawk and his flappy-ness).

Anyway, I say all this because…well…the boycott is over. Yeah, I didn't have the guts to go through with it, and to be honest, the O's are my boys, I can't leave them hanging. I know they will probably only win like 60 games this season, but who cares, I have endured 11 straight losing seasons, what's another one on the list? So, as has been the tradition, before opening day this year, I will give my true prediction of the O's for the season…I know all you readers (me) can't wait.

Gotta get some Intimacy

I am not sure why music reviewers like to say this, but a big plus for the critics is if your sound as a band is "maturing" which translates to being different then your previous album(s). I never understood this concept of desiring bands to "mature," there are certain bands that make great albums and they never "mature".

Bloc Party was one of those bands whose sound didn't vary significantly from their first to second album and I must say that those two albums were amazing. So then comes the 3rd album, which reviewers were saying is a more "mature" sound for Bloc Party…that was a warning signal for me. Usually when I love listening to a band and their sound "matures" I tend to start hating that band…I guess maybe that is a sign that I never mature.

To be honest one of my favorite bands is Bloc Party, yet, somehow I totally missed the release of their 3rd studio album back in October 2008. Being over here in China, I have been pretty far out of it and I usually just check in on the bands that I like every 2 years or so to see how the progress of their new album is coming along since I am not able to see them live. So that is basically my excuse for missing the release, hopefully that is good enough for you.

Bloc Party's 3rd studio album is titled "Intimacy," and definitely has some different elements to it then the first 2 albums…both of which, I can listen to in their entirety and never get old of the whole albums. This album is different because there are definitely some bumps in the road, meaning there are some tracks I flat out can't listen to. It starts out with a bang…in the case of "Ares," not a great bang. Not sure what they were thinking when they put this track together, but it is definitely a little off. Halo comes in on the 3rd track and it is conceptually a great Bloc Party song, but it misses on many levels. The album is redeemed with great tracks such as Biko, Signs, Zephyrus, Talons, Ion Square and Flux, but the couple of misses brings down the grade of the album. Overall I would say if you liked their first 2 albums, go get this one…otherwise this is not one of the best albums of 2008, it gets a 3 out of 5 gerken pickles.

Super 'Nova

If you are an avid reader of this blog (and let's face it, the only avid reader of this blog is me), then you might know that my alma mater is Villanova University outside of Philadelphia. While I am a huge college basketball fan and, of course, a huge fan of 'Nova's team, I have not written much over the course of the college basketball season mostly because I just didn't want to jinx what my boys were doing this season. Well the regular season is over and they ended at 25-6 for the season…not too shabby. While I still feel like I could jinx them (thus having them fail in their first games in the Big East and NCAA tournaments), I am feeling like I had to at least mention their successes this year…for some reason I just think St. Thomas of Villanova would look down on me (literally) if I didn't mention them. This is the first year that they have won 25 games since 1951 and they will probably end the season ranked the highest in a couple of years. Overall, I am amazed at how a small Catholic school in the Mid-Atlantic region has found a way over these past 6 years to not only be competitive, but to really be a team to look out for in one of the best (if not the best) conference in the country, the Big East. They have somehow been able to beat out the big name schools in the conference and the region for some of the best recruits and continue to make trips deep into the NCAA tournament. This year they will be the 4th seed in the Big East tournament, which in the current year means they get byes in the first 2 rounds and their first game will be next Thursday in the quarterfinals. Even though I feel like I am jinxing them by writing this entry, I will commit to update all my loyal readers (me) of the progress of my boys during both the Big East tournament and the Big Dance. Hopefully this gets me motivated to write some more entries.

I can't stop smelling myself???

To my knowledge I have not changed the brand or the flavor (is it a flavor or smell?) of my deodorant since around 1997. I have really liked my deodorant and have not had any particular reason to change, so I have kept it the same. Today, I found out why deodorant brands have such long shelf lives. Renee had bought me some new deodorant during her time in Singapore because I was running out of deodorant here in China (and you basically cannot find deodorant here in China unless you want to pay $12 for a stick). So this morning I tried on the new deodorant and I have quickly figured out why people don't change deodorants. Basically, I had gotten so used to the smell of my old deodorant that I never even noticed wearing it, today I have been smelling the deodorant all day long. Every time someone passes me or every time I move around, I get a wiff of myself and, while it smells good, it is weird. The even weirder thing is, when I go back to my old deodorant, I will also be smelling myself…maybe I should just take the China approach and just not wear any…maybe not.

Finger lickn'...wait a minute

On my long ride out from the Guangzhou Airport to the client location in a smaller city named Kaiping, I enjoy looking out the window of the van to take in all the sites of the countryside all during the ride in between Guangzhou and Kaiping. Once we arrived in Kaiping I noticed that there was a place that very closely resembled KFC, but upon further investigation I noticed that the name was MFC. Not sure what the M in MFC stands for (although rumor on the internet states that it stands for McDonalds???), but the store's outside along with all its signs really closely resembled KFC and it appeared that its product offering also closely resembled that of KFC. So I'm snot sure what that means for a future lawsuit, but maybe the next time I am coming into town, I can convince the driver to stop so that I can get a taste of the good ole' general's MFC.