Great start

The Cavs started their 2K9 playoff run by dominating an aging, completely overwhelmed Pistons team, dumping them 4-0 and winning every game by a double-digit margin. With the possible exception of Game 3, in which the Pistons actually played great defense and the Cavs' back-court shot roughly 0.0% from the field, the Cavs were in complete control, so much so that not even their most pessimistic, woe-is-me, just waiting for the other shoe to drop fan (read: yours truly) can find fault with the team's performance. Sure, I'll be on the verge of nervously puking my brains out come the next round, especially if the Heat is our opponent; Wade is a terrific player, and is perfectly capable of single-handedly carrying his woeful supporting cast, not to mention overcoming the inexperience and overall ineptitude of the Heat's Coach Kumar. Still, if the Cavs maintain their focus and continue with their relentless hustle and suffocating defense, I like their chances.

It would be especially sweet to see this current line-up go all the way (PLEASE, GOD!!!), considering not just their talent but also their off-the-charts chemistry and likeability. They've definitely joined the short list of my all-time fave Cleveland teams, right there with the '95 Indians (minus Albert Belle, of course) and '86 Browns (Dixon & Minnifield, who unknonwingly co-created the Dawg Pound by barking at each other after pass break-ups or big tackles, and Bernie's breakout season). Bron-Bron and his choreographed pre-game team poses, the insane Mo Williams and his running floater, which he's christened The Mo-Flo, Big Z and his all-bald coiffure that makes him look like a seven-foot-three Lithuanian Nosferatu, Sideshow Andy, Delonte's gibberish syntax/accent, the return of Joe Smith, Coach Brown's colour-coordinated old-lady glasses... and this awesome spoof commercial to get the team and the fans pumped up for the playoffs:



Go Cavs !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ye Olde Shakespeare Day

Today, April 23rd, marks the anniversary of Shakespeare's birth (1564, Stratford-upon-Avon) as well as his death (1616, New Place). Why, then, are we still calling for a National Shakespeare Day, not only in the States, but also in the United Kingdom? This day should have been designated to The Bard centuries ago.

There is plenty of debate when it comes to assigning top-dog status to someone in any branch of the humanities. Who was the greatest composer of classical music? Some claim Mozart, others claim Beethoven, still others claim Bach. Who was the greatest composer of opera? Some claim Verdi, others claim Puccini, still others claim Wagner (yuck!). Who was the greatest painter? Rembrandt? Van Gogh? Monet? The same debate can rage in pretty much all areas of the fine arts... except when it comes to English-language literature. There is no greater writer in the English canon than William Shakespeare, regardless of era or genre. I would like to go as far as pronouncing The Bard to be the greatest writer ever, but cannot because of my embarrassingly thorough ignorance of non-Western literature. Nevertheless, I cannot fathom the fact that we have idiotic designations like National Peanut Butter and Jelly Day or Lazy Day, but no Shakespeare Day on April 23rd! Disgraceful.

A few links of interest:

Join the cause and heed the call for a National Shakespeare Day, both in the UK and the US.

Brush up on The Bard's greatness -- here's his complete opus, courtesy of MIT.

Read about The Bard's life, theatre, and conspiracy theories about his authorship.

Browse through this plethora of Shakespeare resources, courtesy of Palomar College.

And, if nothing else, insult a friend, co-worker, or insignificant other, Shakespeare-style!

A short Easter feel-good story

The place where I work is adjacent to several large, disturbed woodlands that house a homeless camp and myriad birds. We have woodpeckers that have bored their nests right into the overhangs, have seen various cardinals, have had ibises walk right up to our door, and hear pheasants caw-awing in the near-distance every day. Our building's windows have a mild tint and are completely reflective, so much so that the woodpeckers perch on the structure and peck at their reflection. When you combine the reflective windows with the woodlands' proximity, it stands to reason that it would only be a matter of time until a bird slammed right into the windows, and this finally happened a couple of days ago. The bird in question was a tiny indigo bunting, and it was really shaken up by the collision -- when I first went out there to check on it, it was trembling uncontrollably and couldn't even pretend to move away. I continued to check on it periodically, and was enough of an insensitive jerk to take advantage of the bunting's inability to fly away to snap a picture:


Now, when it comes to animals, I've always been a firm believer in the Humans Should Not Interfere doctrine. We have a really idiotic perspective that the cute and fuzzies are worth protecting and nurturing, while the not-so-cute and fuzzies are not. Even worse, we've gotten into the habit of looking at the animal kingdom as a surreal, archetypal western novella: the cute and fuzzies are Good, and the not-so-cute and fuzzies are Evil. I, on the other hand, don't subscribe to this garbage. It may be a byproduct of being a pretty unattractive guy, but with the notable exception of the opposite sex, appearances mean nothing to me. As a result, I do not assign more or less worth to an adorably cute indigo bunting than I would to the nefarious-looking turkey vulture or the creepy colony of ants that would scavenge the adorable bunting's carcass. So, against the pleas of co-workers and customers, I saw to it that the bunting was left alone to live or die. At some point in the day, when one of the co-workers went to check on the bunting, it had recovered enough to hop/fly into the bushes.

The moral of this rambling story: leave the beasties alone, whether the end-result is desirable by our idiotic standards (the bunting recovered and flew away to live happily ever after) or whether the end-result conforms to the savage reality of life (the bunting did not recover, died in the bushes, and was supped on by The Conqueror Worm). So long as we don't interfere, the animal kingdom will benefit.

Happy Easter!

In case you hadn't heard

I fucking LOVE KoRn!!!

Old age and nostalgia

Maybe this is a byproduct of advancing geezerdom, but more and more often, ordinary things have acquired the rosy tinge of bittersweet nostalgia. The latest case in point is my would-be alma mater, Cleveland State University. When I first enrolled there waaaay back when, the school's basketball program had just skyrocketed into the national limelight by first reaching the Sweet 16 in the NCAA Tournament and becoming America's underdog sweetheart du jour, only to come crashing down harder and faster than Satan following his expulsion from Heaven (the God of the Old Testament will ALWAYS be the one I cite -- vengeance is mine, bitches!) due to an astounding double-play of ineptitude courtesy of then-coach Kevin Mackey: first, the program was slapped with an almost infinite variety of violations, and scholarships were banned for what seemed like an eternity; and almost immediately thereafter, coach "McCrackey" was arrested just after leaving a notorious Chester Ave. crackhouse and charged with driving drunk, being all hopped up on the crack cocaine, and attempting to perform sodomy on a statue of General Moses Cleavland. OK, I made the last one up, but it was still an acutely embarrassing slap on the face of an embattled city that was still trying to get over the "Mistake by the Lake" moniker that was bestowed upon it thanks to the Cuyahoga River catching fire and the tumultuous reign of Mayor Dennis "I bankrupted the city and furthermore believe in space aliens, and this unfortunate combination somehow makes me worthy of repeatedly running for the US Presidency" Kucinich.

Now, a few hours after Cleveland State's return to the NCAA Tournament after a 23-year absence came to a whimpering end, I found myself yearning for a glimpse of the ugly collection of scattered utilitarian high-rises on the edges of crack city that made up Cleveland State's not-quite-downtown campus, and fell to remembering "the good old days": being there for the inauguration of the Convocation Center, running down dozens of flights of stairs (I hated elevators even back then) to feed the parking meter on 22nd Avenue between classes, waiting for a chance to use the disgusting pay phones on Fenn Tower because the then-fiancée would cut me off for a week if I didn't check in periodically, feeling like I'd wandered into Antarctica whenever I walked the 24th Avenue building wind tunnel from hell in the dead of winter, waiting in line forever at the understaffed computer lab for my hated Pascal class... it was, as they say, the best of times, and the worst of times.

And yet, embarrassing pussy-tickler mustache student ID photo notwithstanding, I now wish my tortuous, long-winding college path had never strayed from Cleveland State. CSU Vikings, welcome back into the fold o'frustration: Wait 'til next year.

Watchmen on IMAX

Went to see "Watchmen" on IMAX last night. What better way to describe the experience than by rewriting a popular song's lyrics to reflect the goings-on?

Here's KT Tunstall's "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree" -- cue it up and sing along:



Two, three, four...

Woo-hoo, woo-hoo
Woo-hoo, woo-hoo

Well I went to see Watchmen on a Friday night
And it shouldn't have been so traumatic
Woo-hoo, woo-hoo
But Doctor Manhattan was naked throughout
Saw his big blue cock on an IMAX screen
Boo-hoo, boo-hoo

I couldn't stop throwing up in my mouth
I said no more sausage, I can't keep watching
Woo-hoo, woo-hoo
But the big blue cock was shoved in my face
I said hey, film-makers, won't you spare me?
Boo-hoo, boo-hoo

But they said no, no, no, no-no-no
They said no, no, you'll have to stare at dick
No, no, no, no-no-no
They said no, no, look at this big blue dick

Yuuuuuck, boo-hoo

And I thought Kelly Leak was a crappy actor
Yet he did a great job as that Rorschach cat
Woo-hoo, woo-hoo
But Doctor Manhattan dominated the screen-time
Why did Snyder choose to flaunt that blue weenie?
Boo-hoo, boo-hoo

You had Malin Akerman clad in tight leather
Abundant beauty for the world to see
Woo-hoo, woo-hoo
I said hey, film-makers, Carla Gugino
Is as hot as a cauldron, won't you bare her rear?
Boo-hoo, boo-hoo

But they said no, no, no, no-no-no
They said no, no, you'll have to stare at dick
No, no, no, no-no-no
They said no, no, look at this big blue dick

Booooo, boo-hoo
No sausage for me, yeah
Booooo, boo-hoo
I said no, no, no, no, no, no, no
No more blue cock for me
I said no, no, no, no, no, no, no
No more blue cock for me

Big blue cock on an IMAX screen
Would've gouged my eyes out, 'cause that's all there was to see
Big blue cock on an IMAX screen
I'm scarred for life because I've even seen foreskin

On nocturnal fruit harvests and spiders

The loquat is the most delicious fruit in the world, bar none. It's got tons of tart sweetness, which, along with chocolate, is pretty much my kryptonite. Most of my favourite things are tart but sweet: strawberries, raspberries, concord grapes, sour Skittles, women... so, it's hardly surprising that the Warheads-like loquat would rank pretty high up on my list. What is surprising, at least to me, is the fact that very few Americans know this fruit, much less eat it. The loquat tree is an exotic from China, but it has spread worldwide within its moderate to sub-tropical climate range. We used to have loquat trees in our house in Uruguay, there were plenty of loquat trees in California, and there are plenty of loquat trees here in Florida. The fruit is not only sublimely delicious, but is also chock-full of Vitamin A and fiber, and hence doubly beneficial for those of us who are myopic, plagued by zits (it's the chocolate, but I can't stay away!), and chronically constipated.

My neighbours had a beautiful loquat tree that yielded a copious bounty right around this time every year, but it was, alas, struck down last year by one of our tropical storms. We rescued a viable branch and planted it in our backyard, and although the results thus far are encouraging, it'll be a while before the branch grows into a fruit-bearing tree. There are, luckily, quite a few loquat trees in our neighbourhood, and a few weeks ago I talked to one of the loquat homeowners about, ahem, picking her fruit. I got her permission, as well as an oddly fearful vibe from her. I'm either crazier-looking than ever in my old age, or the "Hey, I live a few houses down the street, and was wondering whether you eat the fruits from this tree. You don't? That's a shame, they're delicious. Oh, you didn't know they were edible? I assure you, they are. You won't try them? Again, that's a shame. Would you then mind if I came back to harvest these when they're ripe? Excellent, thanks! I've got two lemon trees that yield hundreds of grapefruit-sized lemons practically year-round, and I'll gladly bring you some as a gesture of appreciation" exchange somehow led her to believe her life was in jeopardy. Whatev.

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed that the fruits were ripe for the picking, and made a mental note to stop on my way home and snag a handful. In my scatterbrained craziness (I guess the loquat lady might have had good reason to look at me as though she were seeing the ghost of Dahmer), I finally remembered that it was loquat-pickin' time as I was coming home from the gym. Since I'm a glutton, I didn't stop to consider that climbing a tree in someone else's backyard at roughly ten o'clock in the evening might result in a call to the police or, even worse, in some overzealous "I don't call 9-1-1" gun-totin' cracker putting a few bullets in my ass and asking questions later -- those epiphanies only occurred to me after a friend pointed out that I was lucky neither of those scenarios took place.

I, however, beg to differ, since roughly a minute into the picking, I brushed a spiderweb and felt something crawling on my forearm. I HATE spiders and am absolutely terrified of their eight-legged alien ways. It being a very dark night, my imagination sprung into arachnophobic overdrive, so I jumped off the tree and stamped around the yard like a crazed wino while slapping hordes of imaginary spiders off my body. I eventually collected myself, grabbed my very meager harvest and went home, where I found that about half the fruit I'd picked was not yet ripe (damn you, colour blindness!), and that I'd actually been bitten in the forearm. That's the sixth time I've suffered a spider bite -- what are the fucking odds? I'm a city slicker, for crying out loud! No matter, because the loquats were absolutely delicious, as always.

I'm going in again tomorrow... spideys, beware.