KXVU

Brief thoughts.

I don’t have the heart to watch any more of the Stanley Cups playoffs this season. I know the Caps could have beat any of the remaining teams. The tough losses in games 3 & 5 against the Rangers were fickle twists of the knife of fate.  Dale Hunter leaving as coach isn’t a surprise to me; I think he was doing the franchise a favor, but his life is in Ontario with his Juniors team. Semin’s agent saying Sasha’s time with the Caps is over was expected too; it’s been expected for the last 3 years or so, really. I hope some other team overpays Dennis Wideman, who is actually the player Caps fans unfairly hated as Mike Green 3 years back.  Ugh. It will be a while before I can think about hockey in depth … go Kings, I guess?

Watched some of Lakers-Zombie Sonics and Pacers-Heat the past two nights.  The Zombie Sonics are young, rested, confident, and hungry. A scary, scary team to play against. I don’t recall Kobe’s Lakers ever looking that beat. The Heat will be more of a match-up problem with Bosh out, and the Pacers have good size in the post, but I still don’t doubt Miami will win this series.  The Knicks won a game against the Heat because Melo has the ability to be a “I am going to take over this game and win it” player at least once a series. I like Danny Granger on the Pacers, but I don’t think he is that caliber of player, while both LeBron and Wade are certainly that caliber of player. We’ll see if the Celtics and Spurs can use veteran guile to make it all the way, but I am expecting Heat-Zombie Sonics (Durant and maybe, maybe Westbrook being that aforementioned caliber of player) in the NBA Finals.

And Randy Moss is a San Francisco 49er … that still doesn’t seem less surreal.

NHL playoffs. NBA playoffs. The NFL Draft.  … I suppose the start of the MLB season is exciting for some people as well. Overall, I find this to be the most entertaining time of the year in terms of all four major sports. Granted, the NFL draft is kind of a non-event made into a 3-day spectacle, but I sort of respect it for that. But some bullet thoughts:

Hockey

• Dear god the Philly-Pittsburgh series was a shitshow. Absolutely no defense, completely thuggish tactics by the Pens, such that the Flyers looked like the better men (which is really hard to accomplish).  It was entertaining and horrifying like a train wreck.
• Caps-Bruins having seven one-goal games; my heart couldn’t take that much more of it. A great win by the Caps, and a really classy response to the racist tweets by Joel Ward. The Caps-Rangers series is going to be more of the same - defensive nail-biting.
• Nashville looks really scary and is my guess for who represents the Western Conference in the Stanley Cup Finals.

Basketball

• The 66-game season has taken its toll. There was a ton of sloppy basketball this season. The Bobcats were so poorly put together they ended up having the worst winning percentage of any NBA team ever.  It was fairly obvious that teams were resting their players, holding them out of games so that the player would have something left for the playoffs. This may not have been what owners wanted, presenting a sub-standard product to the fans - oh wait, the owners didn’t give a damn at all, they just wanted to cram more games into the season to make money.
• Dwight Howard. Derick Rose. Iman Schumpert. Jeremy Lin. Ray Allen. The toll on these players is hard-to-prove, but it feels very likely to me that a lot of the players who are injured have injuries due to the wear and tear and a lack of time to heal. It makes the games much less interesting, that these teams have made it to the playoffs, and then stars and roles players are unable to actually perform on the brightest stage and reach their goals.

Baseball

• The Nationals are good, apparently. Who would have guessed.
• The A’s seem to have a great deal in the Cuban defector with the 20-minute promotional video.
• The Giants’ pitching is still great, but Timmy and Brian may have issues with their arms.

Football

• The Niners’ draft picks were kind of unexpected, but looking at it, they have filled needs as well as can be expected. The fact that LaMichael James was available last in the second, although he’s not needed given Gore, Jacobs, & Hunter, I can’t fault the Niner’s brain trust for picking him there. The two picks of injury-question players could turn out to be great steals (although the sickle-cell issue with Cam Johnson isn’t quite the same thing).
• Seriously though, this is such a non-event, but ESPN was able to make its bones by making it a big deal, so out of tradition (if nothing else) this is going to be an event as long as ESPN exists.
• The Steelers and Bengals drafted really well.

How much of the above do I really care about? The Niners of course. Basketball is a nice distraction. But really the Caps are what are keeping me up at night. Here’s hoping for a deep run - we have tickets for Round 2 Game 4 here in DC. If they advance, well then that’s another cost (if we can get the tickets) because how often does one get a chance to see your team in that deep in a playoff run?  The sad part is that someone always will lose, and odds are not in most teams’ favor … but we continue to hope.

Planning for a wedding with so much time in advance has been a good situation in that it has allowed us to mitigate the inevitable insanity into smaller portions over the duration. A large part of the process has been making sure we don’t unintentionally hurt anyone’s feelings. This means saying, “No.” fairly often as nicely as possible, and compromising only when absolutely necessary. I do feel like an arrogant ass about some things, which is confidence in my correctness mixed with limited energy to debate issues. But I am trying to not be bull-headed too often.

One of the recurring issues on my side is the religion, or rather, the planned lack thereof. My mother, bless her heart, REALLY wanted me to get married in the church. Now, were the priest I grew up with still alive, I would have given this serious thought, because he was a person who meant something to me. But even then, it would have been more of a ceremonial deity / cultural thing than a spiritual drive. With a priest at the church I used to attend who (although nice enough) is from the old country and effectively a stranger to me, this simply isn’t an option to me. The fact that orangejello will be officiating the wedding is a reflection of the esteem in which katekilling and I hold him, and his closeness to our lives.

What this has led to for my mother, however, is guilt that she did something wrong in raising me, specifically that she tried too hard to force religion on me and now I am not religious and it is all her fault. This includes questions like, “Are you sure you’re not going to regret not having a church wedding in 10-15 years?” The overall upside (I think this is an upside) to these recurring conversations is that I have articulated my position on religion to my mother. It doesn’t satisfy her, but I think she at least understands where I am coming from. Even if I do end up repeating on the phone in public to her 20 times, “No Mom, it is not your fault that I don’t go to church.” A large part of that was describing how I look at the world, as a scientist at heart, which means constantly questioning and not just abdicating an entire part of my life and accepting authority on faith.

It has been, more uncomfortable, though in that I have separately pushed certain buttons that reach deep into her psyche. I know these buttons are there, and that they likely make sense to her, but I don’t like using them because I feel like I’m going too far in manipulating her emotions. In particular, drawing parallels between who I am based on my grandfather’s influence as I knew him, as opposed to when my mom was growing up and he was more religious. That and also drawing parallels to my friends and her childhood best friend who was one of her bridesmaids.  I made my point and she couldn’t develop a retort, and hasn’t for over two weeks now … but I did not enjoy having to pull out the psychological big guns.

Compared to that, everything else emotional has been relatively minor. There are guest list issues, trying to figure out the rehearsal dinner as it apparently conflicts with some of my dad’s pre-conceptions about cultural appropriateness. There is also the possible time-bomb I have with one of my cousins and his young family - kattekilling and I want him, his wife and child at the wedding, and anyone who has a problem with it is going to be in the wrong on that day (and is wrong generally, but would be particularly wrong on that day as far as we’re concerned). Good times, good times.

Since most of the people who read this are already married, did you guys have similar issues when planning your weddings? I mean, I was around for a number of them, but I don’t recall anyone making a big deal about this stuff. Was it there and well hidden, or were they non-issues?

The job I have now is not a bad gig, and in fact I’m in a position where I get to do fairly interesting work that I would not be able to do otherwise. I have a good boss, and importantly primarily only one boss, which can be uncommon in the law firm setting. My billable hours won’t be up to snuff this year, but that’s in large part because the client that I do most of my work for ran out of budget, so I had to put the brakes on everything for about 2.5 months. So it goes.

But what do I want to do in the long run? The primary goal has been and remains paying down debt. When katekilling gets out of b-school, we’ll have more loans to deal with. At the moment, I’m saving to help deal with the high-interest loans she’ll be carrying.  But moving from one debt to the next isn’t a good enough reason to stay in the law firm world.  I severely doubt that the law firm world is where I want to make my career. It is a self-selecting population, and I appreciate that I don’t have the same competitive drive to thrive in this setting.  So is it time to start looking for a new job? Not actively, no, but I am keeping my eyes open for opportunities.

What could such other jobs in the law be? Maybe work at the USPTO? Being an Examiner would be calm and steady work, but for the same reasons I have seen in other friends, I don’t think I would want that to be my next step, I have a little too much ambition.  That said, a government job that can pay $150K with overtime isn’t a bad deal, particularly when one can work remotely.  Alternatively, a job in the Solicitor’s Office would be incredible, and have a role in shaping policy, but those jobs are more competitive and I don’t have the litigation background likely desired for that. (Although I could possibly be qualified for that, unlike the administrative patent judge positions opening up.) Still, keeping my eyes open.

Alternatively, I don’t think another firm is the best idea for me; what I dislike about my firm I would dislike about any other, that is to say, it’s the system that I have problems with. I’m not saying my firm doesn’t have its … eccentric quirks … but I don’t think it would be better anywhere else.  A larger firm might be easier to get lost in and skate by, but only for so long. At some point I’ll become too expensive to bill out for prosecution work, of course, that will happen regardless of what firm I’m at.

The traditional alternative is in-house, i.e. becoming the client. A partner at my firm is doing that soon. IT seems pretty solid, but the amount of experience needed is still beyond me for another 2 years or so. I’ll also need to broaden my skill set to be a more compelling candidate for in-house work. If I were willing to go to Chicago, I think I’d have an in-house job available to me. I might still have something available in San Diego too, though I haven’t followed-up on that in a while because it hasn’t been something imminent. But come the Fall…?

At least this work is still stimulating half the time. And I do have to say I think I am a more well-rounded person with much broader horizons and awareness because I went to law school.  Still, I have the sense that I would have been professionally happier if I had staying in science and industry.  That would only mean I wouldn’t be as civic-minded, I would be less informed, and I wouldn’t have met the girl for my life. So yeah, moving to DC for law school was an all around good thing. The practice of law itself just isn’t that inspiring, but then what job consistently is?

When the Supreme Court handed down the Citizens United decision, it was roundly bemoaned by liberals who saw the Republican-appointed Justices trying to tilt the table in their favor, and quietly regretted by some conservatives (e.g. John McCain) who traditionally fought for reasonable campaign finance regulation. But the general consensus seemed to be 1) there is going to be a disgusting ton of money thrown into the next election cycle and 2) the Democrats are going to be on the short end of the financial stick in this environment. (I will refrain from making any deep comments about the complete naivety of Kennedy in thinking politicians would not “coordinate” with the allegedly independent PACs or the infuriating progression of treating a corporation as a person.)

That second point may be true, it is too early to tell. However, the unexpected result of Citizens United so far is the sustaining of a brutally long and increasingly ugly Republican primary season. It is highly unlikely that Mitt Romney isn’t the GOP nominee already if not for the ability of well-heeled backers to put more money down on their preferred race horses, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich. Ron Paul would be in this race regardless, I think, mostly because he is only running to spread his view on libertarianism and sow the seeds to help his son Rand Paul (who may not be an anti-Semite, unlike the unaddressed cloud hanging over his father) run for president in 8-20 years.

But as for Newt and Santorum (and please, let us never forget the proper definition of santorum), their financial supporters - most notably a Las Vegas gambling magnate for Newt, and an old white man who told women to stick aspirin between their knees as contraception for Santorum - have got to be causing unimagined agony for the core leadership of the GOP. Instead of making unfounded political attacks on President Obama, the primary season just keeps on slogging and Romney, Gingrich, and Santorum continue to make unfounded political attacks on each other. Those donations now will not be available later on for the general election, although any lack of donations will more likely be from fatigue as opposed to lacking funds, given the funds available. Each GOP candidate is tacking further to the right to win primaries, making them less electable in a general election. The lack of a clear, chosen leader allows for hotheads to mouth off and cause more headache - glad to see Rush Limbaugh is still who we thought he was. Overall, this is only heartburn for the Grand Old Party.

Digression: DEAR F**KING GOD?!?!? WHY ARE WE STILL ARGUING OVER CONTRACEPTION? Do these men respect Griswold v. Connecticut or the separation of Church and State? Isn’t this 2012? Isn’t Viagra covered by health insurance because old white men wanted it and rig the system? WE ARE STILL HERE AS A SOCIETY, REALLY? Whatever, if the social conservative sideshow continues to shoot its candidates in the foot, that’s fine.

But, back on point, Citizens United - this kind of campaigning is unsustainable. The next cycle will just be worse, and there has got to be a better use of money. Any politician elected by the financing of a small group is certainly going to be beholden to those men. But will any politicians step up to try and pass legislation to give the FEC its teeth back or craft some law that will be “constitutional” for the Roberts Court but add transparency to the current state of things?  Anonymous speech is protected speech, particularly if political, but sunlight is the best disinfectant, and surely some more transparency and light cast on this rapidly rotting situation.

At the moment, right now on Super Tuesday, Romney has won the Northeast states and Virginia, but that is no surprise because it is the Northeast and Gingrich and Santorum were unable to get the signatures to get on the ballot in Virginia. Newt is winning Georgia, but that was to be expected, it being his home state. The interesting bit is that Santorum is winning Tennessee and Oklahoma and leading in Ohio. If that holds up, that breakdown of delegates likely means the fight will continue with Romney unable to show he is the clear leader, but remain the primary target for all the vitriol. Personally, I’m kind of hoping Ron Paul wins Alaska, just because this whole damn thing is so ridiculous already.

Beamza and I are suckers for superhero stories, so much so that the fourth Twilight novel was far more tolerable because it turned into a comic book tale by the end. So as such we have seen most of the comic book movies out there and most of the animated shows based off the comics books. We have not read many comic books, but most of the best stories in each major characters comics has been adapted to the small screen. I’ve heard it said that a superhero is only as good as his villains, and it got me thinking of which characters had the best and why.

The obvious greatest character with the best set of villains is Batman. Many of you are also avid readers of the avclub.com, so you know about their reviews of Batman: The Animated Series. He repeatedly mentions that Batman villains are best when they mirror Batman and shed some light on the character of Batman. Most obviously in the Joker, but also Two-Face, Catwoman, Poison Ivy, and Ras Al Ghul. Other classic villains in this vein are Magneto, Lex Luthor, and Darkseid. However, I find myself getting annoyed with one element of a superhero vs. villain relationship that these villains don’t always get right. Namely, are they a realistic threat to the superhero?

By realistic I mean they can’t be so pathetic that the superhero has to be crippled temporarily to make them credible, but also can’t be overpowered so you can’t believe the hero can realistically win. Superman in particular has this problem. Supes is holding back most of the time and the only things keeping him from winning fights easily are collateral damage and the desire not to kill his opponent. Batman is best when he is a detective, as that is the only chance these people have of beating him. Once he tracks them down no one in his rogue’s gallery can match him, or if they get a lucky shot he should be dead as he is not superpowered. X-men has so many mutants that they are wildly imbalanced, and some like Magneto are so vastly superior to others you can’t see him losing to any of the individual X-men.

From my TV experience, the superhero with the most balanced rogue’s gallery in terms of threat level is Spiderman. All of his villains would annihilate the average person, and can potentially be deadly to Spiderman. However, none are impossible for him to beat and even if they get a good shot in his superpowered body allows him to absorb punishment. Even someone like Venom who has Spiderman’s powers he can credibly beat. Not only because Venom has the weakness to shock waves and is blinded by revenge but because Spiderman is fast enough to buy enough time to think of a solution to beat him. Which is basically the template for Spiderman fights in a nutshell. Spiderman uses his insane agility to avoid getting pummelled by Rhino, Sandman, the Goblins, Shocker, or Doc Ock and then eventually thinks of a way to neutralize their power. It makes for dynamic fights, and that and a likeable hero are what set Spiderman apart as the best of Marvel. His rogue’s gallery does not have the same effect on his characterization as Batman or Superman’s gallery, but I can appreciate him for how well he works in a moving visual media.

Niners Playoff Football … (sigh)

So close, yet … (sigh)

Positives to take away from the game and the season:

- If you had told me or pretty much any Niners fan at the start of the season that we’d go 13-3 and to the NFC championship game, we’d all have taken it without question. This was a great season.

- The Niners didn’t have a let-down in play following that win over the Saints, which speaks well to their mental fortitude and preparation.

- The Niners run defence was still elite and incredible tonight.

- Akers & Lee = Consistent & Clutch.

- Vernon Davis = Beast With Swagger.

Negatives to digest and expel:

- Alex Smith was sort of vintage in the 4th quarter and in overtime, the bad vintages, throwing at receivers’ feet and jumping up to get sacked.  Not all awful, but losing his focus in the high pressure drives. (Conversely, Eli looked about the same, regressing and throwing into heavy coverage repeatedly towards the end of the game.)

- I’m not sure if it’s technically a negative, but the Niners were unable to make interceptions when gifted the opportunities. Granted, this was because there were two defenders making plays for the ball and getting in each others’ way, but damn.

- Kyle WIlliams = Dead To Us.

Here’s looking forward to next season, and given what Jim Harbaugh was able to do with this team in his rookie head coach season with a lockout-shortened offseason, I have great optimism (and naturally raised expectations) for next year.

Happy New Year, all!  Let’s start off 2012 with some throw-back-format bullets:

• Just how much has changed in the past year for authors of this site? I count 3 kids and 2 weddings in the past year. (Granted, the authorship is mostly in the past, though always welcome.)
  • The Lunar Year of the Dragon starts on January 26. Children born this year will be, in particular, Water Dragons.
  • There is at least one more wedding coming this year, and it hasn’t driven anyone insane … yet.
• It is an election year, and everything seems much more defensive and polarized than in 2008. But I have faith that the long game and being civil will prevail, mostly because I have to be optimistic that the country won’t devolve into belligerent shouting forever.
  • Thomas Jefferson did call this democracy and America “The Great Experiment”.  So before we get too proud about 236 years of a government and nation that is probably the most open, industrious, and successful in all of human history, keep in mind that in comparison to the past couple tens-of-thousands of years, we are the outlier.
  • Of course, the pessimist in me was chilled to the bone by the thought of Tebow for President in 2036. If people in this country can send Uncle Ronny, Arnold, Ventura, Al Frankin (I love him, but come on), and Cooter from the Dukes of Hazard to elected office, then Timmy Tebow isn’t an unrealistic candidate either.
• SOPA & PIPA - These are topical today in particular, as the Internet as a whole is protesting bad legislation which threatens to cripple everything built over the last ~15-20 years.  Wikipedia, Boing Boing and other sites have gone dark, while some like Google and Ars Techncia are protesting in other ways. My broad brushstroke opinions:
  • Congresspeople are generally too old to understand the Internet and just how much it has changed the mentality of our generation and younger.
  • The SOPA and PIPA legislation are merely protectionism for old, breaking business models that extract far too high a cost out of technology, innovation, and free speech.
    • (How do these bills do that? By creating statutes with criminal penalties, i.e. jail, for actions that have traditionally only been penalized with civil, i.e. money, damages. And by making the monetary damages completely disproportionate and ridiculous.)
  • I’m starting to think that Intellectual Property is going to be at the forefront of civil rights fights for the rest of this century.  How will patents and copyright be used to leverage control over technology that spreads information, be it political, creative, or industrial, like wildfire?

Yeah … everything feels much more serious. It has to be a side-effect of getting older, because I’m sure Life Was Serious when we were younger too. And I’m not saying I haven’t been more responsible or noticed these things only now (certainly, I like to think of myself as a grown-up a good percentage of the time) … but it weighs a lot heavier on the mind and spirit these days.

So this is the first Xmas holiday I have not spent at home. (Yes, my mother is very sad, but she is also insistent that I not come home if it means I don’t spend the holiday with Kattekilling.) This gives Kattekilling and I the opportunity to save money, save energy, and save sanity before August. It is a little odd, and I am sad to have not seen my extended family as is tradition on Xmas Eve. However, we spent last night with my cousin who lives here in DC along with his family and the various in-laws, which includes my aunt & uncle from Napa. (Thus the excess of wine.) It was a very laid back evening, and we’re heading back today for a more formal Xmas dinner. As time with family should be, there has been a lot of various stories of varying degrees of hilarity and embarrassment. I also discovered that my 13-yr old cousin is crazy tall and looks like she’s 16, which gives her father heartburn thinking about 16-yr old boys coming on to her. It’s a very understandable fear. Luckily, she has a good head on her shoulders, so she will hopefully avoid the creepy and dumb boys out there. Hopefully.

As for the rest of these holidays, we plan on chilling out, seeing friends around here, going to a movie or two, and putting in hours at work. We went to see The Muppets the other night, and thoroughly enjoyed it. The movie may not have been as funny if where the first introduction to the Muppets, but the clever allusions back to the older material made for a good nostalgic comedy, but one that has its own story nonetheless. We will probably see Tintin as well. In the meantime, we’re watching The Dark Crystal on Netflix. (So yeah, we’re taking advantage of downtime not doing much of anything.) By the way, The Dark Crystal is pretty damn scary for a kids movie and doesn’t pull any punches in terms of creatures dying. Oh yeah… female Gelfings have wings, I had forgotten about that.  Can we also agree that in 1000 years, the Mystics did very little of anything to stand up against their evil halves? Of course, Kattekilling & I got this along with Labyrinth and Mirrormask for my cousins. Sincerely scary Henson workshop work with a dash of David Bowie sexuality directed at a teenage Jennifer Connolly, that is a proper Xmas gift we think.

What is everyone else up to this season?

Happy holidays all!

There has been a ton of ink spilled over the absurdity of the NBA Lockout, the aborted lawsuits by the players, and now the Chris Paul trade debacle. It’s hard to think of anything that I haven’t already read elsewhere. But one conspiracy theory I’ve yet to see is the suggestion that David Stern was negotiating only in order to save face. The Lakers-Hornets-Rockets trade that Stern vetoed was probably the best the Hornets could get, not great for the Hornets, but considering they have little leverage, getting back 4 starters and a pick was extraordinary. GM Del Demps was rightfully lauded, and then completely kneecapped.

So, last I read, the Hornets (i.e. David Stern) demanded four players (a solid center, a rising star shooting guard, and two up-coming prospects) and 2 picks from the Clippers. This was far too steep for the Clippers, and to me seems completely unreasonable, but if the Hornets were able to pull down a better deal than what the Lakers and Rockets were offering, then his rejection of the trade would not seem so heavy-handed and unfair.

Of course, if there is no trade for Chris Paul, which by all accounts will be because the NBA (be it David Stern, the team owners, or some potential buyer of the Hornets) is asking too high a price and too stubborn. At this point, I cannot conceive of any team being able to reach an agreement with the Hornets, given the demands made of the Clippers. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Hornets are unable to trade CP3 at all this season, and they end up losing him to free agency at the end of the 66-game season, and getting nothing in return.I also doubt CP3 will play hard this season, because why the hell should he risk injury or too much wear on his knees for a team and league that seems determined to martyr him for the sake of “competitive balance” by which they mean their “bottom line”.  The sad part is, the other owners are devaluing thier own asset in the Hornets through this embarrassment of cannibalism.

Then again, I thought that there wouldn’t be a season at all and am thoroughly surprised the NBA is playing any games this year. So maybe the NBA will work something out but they will not get over the impression that they are running a conspiracy to show the players that they are mere chattel while screwing over big-market teams through unfair bullying instead of competing on the court.  When the current CBA can be opted out of in 6 years, expect another lockout and/or strike, because the owners were unhappy with the deal they signed as evidenced by their complaining about the CP3 trade, and the players may not have signed the CBA at all if they knew they would be disrespected in this manner.

Through all of this, keep in mind that Chris Paul may have a labor complaint to file against the NBA. I doubt a lawsuit could be filed, or would be successful, although the difference between a 4-year free agency contract and a 5-year extension contract might be a legally cognizable economic injury. Regardless, these actions on the part of the NBA and David Stern will be an interesting piece of evidence in the antitrust case the NBA Players will likely file 6 years from now.

Who knew that NOLA meant “NO LA” for Chris Paul. Yes, the NBA, where a train wreck happens.