NBA Draft

The two most exciting nights in the NBA are the NBA draft lottery and the NBA Draft itself. These two events probably affect teams more than anything else. This year Portland got Oden at #1 and Seattle got Durant at #2, in a loaded draft year.

As a Raptor's fan, I remember clearly how this has affected our team. For example, the 2nd year as a franchise, the Raptors won the lottery, but due to our new (unfair) Franchise rules, were not allowed to pick first. We ended up missing out on Allen Iverson and got Marcus Camby instead.

A more recent travesty is having the 3rd highest chance in the 2003 draft - the draft that included Lebron, Darko, Carmelo, Bosh and Wade. We weren't able to move up and actually moved down one position to the fourth overall pick. We had a fairly good shot at Lebron, and should have had at least Carmelo. We winded up with Bosh, which isn't too bad, especially since he's seems to like Toronto and is unlikely to skip out of town like certain thin-skinned athletes have in the past. But to this day, I still think of what could have been. Sigh.

When we do get lucky, it happens during a weak draft year. Last year, we had the fourth highest chance and wound up with the 1st overall pick. Usually that's spectacularly good news, but since it wasn't a strong year, we got Bargnani - not #1 pick material in my opinion. I think that even if we stayed at the number four pick, we still would have ended up with Bargnani.

Anyway, this year's draft featured two Chinese players. Yi Jianlian is suppose to be pretty good. He's an athletic forward who can score. Unfortunately, he went to Milwaukee of all places. I think there are 3 chinese people living there. What a terrible fit. I hope he gets traded to Golden State or something, where he'll be appreciated. It's going to be really tough for him to adjust to the American culture, especially when he's in the middle of no where. I feel for him. The other Chinese player, Sun Yue, is not that good, but at least he was drafted by the Lakers. It'll be a bit easier to adjust, but I don't think he'll get much playing time.

Too bad the Raptors didn't have any picks this year, but I have to say that the Raptor's progress was impressive and I am looking forward to next season already!

Yet Another Link Update

I did a small update to my links on the right again.

First, I created a new folder for just PhotoBlogs. This makes it neater and less confusing because they are sometimes named strangely.

I promoted The Dilbert Blog. It's a written blog by the author, and not the actual comic, which I also already link to. He's a pretty funny guy.

Next is Mark Cuban's Blog, owner of the Dallas Mavericks and dotcom millionaire. I've been reading it for a long time, but unfortunately, he posts less frequently about basketball. He's a big supporter of copyright and DRM, so it's interesting to hear what he has to say. He's a smart guy.

Penny Arcade, the seminal web comic, which happens to be about gaming is worth a daily read. The guys are funny and usually have something interesting to say about recent news.

I demoted Dictionary.com's word of the day, because Wordsmith.org has a better editor. I also got rid of Steve Kerr, one of my favourite Basketball writers because he went and joined the Suns as their GM. I actually don't like that move because it deprives me of his writing and broadcasting. I also demoted Slate's Human Nature feed because I don't read it consistently, although it's decent.

Marginal Revolution is on the verge of being added to my regular rotation and Paul Graham is on the verge of being demoted due to lack of content.

Anyway, let me know if you come across any interesting photoblogs, and I'll add them to my rotation!

Back is Sore

I have four softball games scheduled for this weekend! I joined two leagues, so that's why I have so many games. I love playing softball, so playing a lot is fun, the only downside is the physical toll on my body.

I'm getting old. I must stretch a lot before playing. Yesterday, my back was aching and I think this affected my play. My lower back is a fairly constant problem area for me. About once every one or two years it gets so bad that I have trouble walking. It seems whenever I put any weight on in the stomach area, my back protests. As a result, I'm forced to lose the weight in the midsection before I can function again. The good thing is that it's keeps my one-pack in check, but my back suffers. I had a horrible hitting day yesterday, but at least my fielding was ok.

I had the first game in MCBC, the one where I joined with my sister. Unfortunately, it's looking more and more like my sister will be moving to NYC for a teaching job. She hasn't been able to find anything in the Toronto area yet. Since girls are in short supply in these co-ed leagues, it would be nice to find a replacement for her. So do you or a girl you know want to join a softball team in the Mississauga league? The skill level isn't very high, so don't worry about not having much experience. Games are almost every weekend (usually sat afternoon) from now until mid August. Please let me know!

Racing Indy Cars

Not real Indy Car Racing, but the karts were really fast - nothing like any of the go-karts you've tried before. The karts were advertised to go 90 km/h, but I think they went up to about 60-70 km/h. But the best part was that it was definitely racing and driving skill will differentiate racers.

I got to go because Kitty's company organized a company racing event at Cameron Motorsports. If you check out the website, they take Karting as a serious sport. First of all, the karts and track are NOT open to the general public. You have to be a member and membership for a season costs $100. Each time you go out and race, it'll cost $50, but they provide all the equipment and fuel. You have to wear clothing so that there is absolutely no exposed skin (think motorcycle gear) and wear an approved helmet & neck brace. These karts do no have roll cages, so if you flip, it's going to hurt. Because (light) weight can give you an advantage, they divide the field by weight.

The karts themselves have a brake and gas pedals on the left and right foot respectively. No power steering, and at times you have to strain to turn on fast corners. Like I mentioned before, there are no roll cages and you are really just sitting on a flat plate with a steering column and seatback rising from the mostly flat kart. You must use brakes on the corners or you'll flip/spin out. To record lap times, they have transponders on the karts. The course itself is fairly short, with 5 corners in a "B" shape.

When we got there, they handed out T-shirts and wristbands for lunch. They also had 2 "Indy Girls" there (not sure why). They explained the rules and the what was going to occur throughout the day. They first explained the different coloured flags and what each meant. It was confusing at first, but once you get on the track, you learn quickly. We went through a typical race day, which consisted of 3 practice runs (5-10 laps each), a time trial to determine starting position (best lap time) and finally a race. I was in the 9th out of 11 heaviest weight division. Yes, I'm light.

You get a feel for how the karts handle during the practice runs and even though at I started cautious, eventually you get more daring. This meant I spun out a few times pushing the kart to it's limits, but eventually I learned to drift around corners. Overall, it's really fun racing karts and taking those turns.

For the time trial run, I was lucky to have the first position. This meant I only had to pass the really slow people as I lapped them. I came in 3rd out of ten people.

For the actual race, the karts would be closer togther; therefore, having a greater chance for an accident. After a warm up lap were I ascertained that I had a very, very loose kart, I went into the first turn closely behind 1st and 2nd place. Coming out of the turn, the 2nd place driver rammed into 1st place in what seemed like an avoidable collision. I was following so closely behind that I slammed into both of them. Just before colliding, I was damn scared. We were going fast and I imagined my cart sliding underneath the kart in front of me, and then the other guy slicing my head off. Luckily only our wheels collided. All three of us were stopped completely and the whole field passed us. The 2nd place guy got a warning from the referee, but then we were pretty much completely out of the race. Since we were running late, the race was only about 5 laps (normally it's closer to 15). I managed to catch up to a few people, but I obviously didn't place.

Except for final result, it was a really fun day. I think it would be great fun to race against friends, but I don't think it's possible with the way the racing league is set up. :(

Convocation

It's the time of the year for Convocations!

I recently attended one at Queen's for my sister's graduation with a Bacheleor of Education. This entry is a bit of a rant, since I'm comparing it to my own crappy Convocation.

First, my convocation was almost 2 years ago (wow, has it been that long already???). Convocations at Waterloo are held in the PAC (Physical Activities Complex). For our year, they graduated everyone in the Engineering Faculty, including grad students, which totalled around 800-900 people. This meant that the whole floor area was filled with graduates and the stands were filled with families. Since there were so many people, they had to restrict guests to two per graduate and made available extra tickets by special request. On the actual day, the PAC was completely packed with people.

This led to the first problem: noise. This was compounded with the fact that I was in the very back row. I had to strain really hard to hear anything and even then it was difficult. The seating area was flat and the platform for the presentations was not raised very high, so we couldn't see very much either. Eventually, we all resorted to talking amongst ourselves and adding to the noise problem. This meant that the speeches were hard to hear and they didn't seem very engaging, but I really couldn't say either way. Because of the large number of graduates, the ceremony lasted a long time. So long in fact, that graduates were leaving mid ceremony to exit the premises. They also happened to present the Masters and Ph.D students last, and by then, the auditorium was half empty.

In contrast, Queen's graduation ceremony was held in an old hockey arena. Not as large as the PAC, but it felt much more intimate and inviting. They were also graduating similar numbers of people, but I suspect a lot of them didn't show up. Their acoustics was much better and this meant that I could actually hear the speeches. The speeches also happened to be pretty entertaining and inspiring. One of the honourary degrees was given to a chinese imigrant who reports/photographs for a Kingston newspaper and he talked about his interesting life. Then Masters/Ph.D graduates graduated first, followed by the undergrads. When the undergraduates were recieving their degrees, it got a little more rowdy, but not to an unacceptable level. It was a little boring when they were going through all the graduates, but luckily I had brought my time machine (as Victor likes to call it) along with me. No one left the building until it was all done. It felt like a relatively short and efficient ceremony. There was a reception with lot's of (free) food afterwards. Bonus!

Overall, the quality of the ceremony was obviously better than Waterloo's, which my parents and my sister agreed to as well. From what I hear, they've improved the graduating cermemony since my graduation (they even had Malcolm Gladwell speak at the Waterloo Arts Convocation), but I still think the level of professionalism and quality is much higher at Queens. Oh well, maybe the moral of the story is that I needed a time machine for my own ceremony.

Resuming Regularly Scheduled Programming

My computer is alive!

I'm ecstatic. I went out to Canada Computers Waterloo today and picked up the Sonata III. I was leaning toward the NSK6500, but they didn't have them in stock today. I was lucky to get Canada Computer's last Sonata III, because it just came out and it's been selling briskly.

After putting it together, it was a great relief to find out that it seems the only thing wrong with my previous computer was the power supply. That means I don't need to upgrade....yet. There is no big incentive for me to upgrade just yet (waiting for starcraft 2), so I'll wait at least until AMD gets more employee stock.

The reason I didn't really want the Sonata was because of the front door. They made it much stronger than previous versions, but the door itself is kinda useless and just gets in the way. I wonder how long it'll last before it breaks. The good part about it is the eSATA port on the front. It's also a little pricey for this sort of budget case. The NSK6500 is cheaper because it's been out for a longer time and the power supply is 430 W instead of the Sonata's 500 W.

Anyway, it's good to have a computer again. I feel complete again.

Getting a new Computer

My computer finally broke down this week. I opened it up to investigate a little further, and from the burn marks on the power supply PCB, it appears that the PSU has failed.

I'm going to get a new power supply and see if that fixes it. I've basically decided to get a new desktop computer by components instead of getting a Dell. I figure it'll be a little bit cheaper, since I don't have to buy a hard drive. I'll also hopefully be able to get a discounted video card from the AMD folks at some point.

I will try to go by Canada Computers and pick up an Antec NSK6500 today. For my last case, I bought an ultra cheap one, ($35) and regret the decision a little bit. I frequently accessed the insides, and this cheapo case made it difficult. It was also really noisy, which meant I never had the computer on overnight. I'm not too concerned with the look. I definitely don't want a flashy one, I don't want a see through one (dumb), and I want a minimum number of external LEDs.

An alternative I'm considering is the Antec Sonata III, which just came out. It has an external eSATA port, which would be a definite advantage over the NSK6500. Unfortunately, I can't find any Internet reviews for it yet. If anyone has some computer advice for me, please share.

Meanwhile, I've been playing Online Tetris with my DS, and surfing the internet with my Wii and finishing Tuesdays with Morrie. I'm also searching desperately for my MCBCSL softball jersey so I can get my third badge. It is nowhere to be found after searching both my Waterloo and Toronto homes for several hours. :(