Checksum Arcanius

I saw the second Pirates of the Caribbean with Scott Torborg last night. It was nice to see it get fairly good reviews from the general movie-going audience (who I trust far more than the critics), so I was looking forward to it. Unfortunately, it wasn’t at all what I expected. It was not a bad movie, necessarily, but it had none of the lightheartedness that made the first one so endearing. It was indeed much darker; as I heard someone call it, “Pirates of the Caribbean 2: The Empire Strikes Back.”

However, I’m torn as to whether darker was really necessary here. Certainly it made the movie seem less flippant and more important; but that isn’t really what I was hoping for. I wanted to feel good at the end of the day, not pensive. Alas, it was not to be as the darker side of human nature reared its ugly head again and again.

Certainly some of the nastiness of the opening scenes was completely unnecessary, and almost all of the humor seemed to be a reference back to the first film, which actually was funny in its own right. Also, there was too much to get done in the story that tried to hard to do too many things at times that it frayed at the edges. And although I didn’t like the major choices made by the characters (by design, I am sure), it is also, ultimately, what made this movie work at all: The fallibility of all is perhaps the greatest uniting theme of humanity.

Which brings me to the World Cup. Italy beat France, while I was rooting for France. But more shocking than the loss to Italy for us Francophiles was the loss of Zinidine Zidane to red card for a truly absurd foul in overtime. A great player, who seemed to be always cool under pressure, the captain of a team of veterans, made perhaps the greatest mistake of his career in his final game. So how does this fit in with the Pirates? Well, as I see it, we all make mistakes — and we all deserve a shot at redemption. I hope Zidane proves to be apologetic and conciliatory, and I believe him doing so will help him be remembered for his wonderful career instead of his final moments of competitive soccer. And Elizabeth Swan, Norrington, Barbosa, and company will get their chance at the redemption in a year or two as well.

Yesterday I skipped out of work early to play a game of ultimate at the UW. The other team was down a person, and they were all graduate Bioengineers, and they had some hot girls, so I volunteered to join their team. Well, good impressions were not exactly made. I played sloppy — missed some easy catches and throws — and before the end of the shortened half, I found myself quite out of breath. I couldn’t really figure it out. Afterwards, I discuessed the possibility of Asthma with my teammates. Later on that night, I decided that the more likely culprit was a food allergy (perhaps chicken, or something else on the chicken sandwhich I ate for lunch). At any rate, I didn’t die, and later on that night I went around greenlake with my roommates on bikes, and I was breathing well once again. When going hard, I’m managed a single lap averaging 18.8 miles an hour, and over the last two laps I barely missed 18 mph average. So I’m pretty happy with that.

Who I want to see: Cavs versus Suns (Suns in 7)
Who I will see: Pistons versus Spurs (Spurs in 6)

Sure, the games will still be exciting, but I really can’t wait until LeBron has a supporting cast worthy of a King.

Mariners 6, Angels 4
Mariners 0, Athletics 3
SML/NJ 1, Ryan 0

Two games attended and one CSE assignment not yet done

Well worth getting no homework done for.

Vince Young and the Texas defense were spetacular; USC was just not good enough. As an underdog-rooter, this one felt really nice.

On Tuesday, Maria and Maura suddenly had four tickets to the Sonics game, so they invited me along. Jon was stuck at work, so I called around and got Courtney to tag along as well. Yup, I went to a game with three hot girls; I’m that much of a stud.

At any rate, the company was much better than the game. The first three-and-a-half quarters were disgusting to watch. The Sonics were flat on their feet, lacked hustle, and lacked direction. I’m really starting to dislike the new coach, Bob Weiss, who seems to lack any competetive fire and doesn’t seem to do a very good coaching job either. For example, his substitutions seem (to me at least) just motions. Its like he’s substituing because, thats what a coach supposed to do, not because it actaully makes sense. For example, when he brought in Potapenko to replace Petro (who was doing fine), Vitaly went on to brick two easy shots (one should have been a dunk!). Furthermore, I think he needs to use the bench as role players, and give them specific direction when they come in.

For example, when Weiss brought in Radmanovic, Vladimir didn’t really know what to do with himself. First, he needed to establish his inside game — to go hard to the basket the first three or four times he got the ball. He’s fast and he needs to get respect for his drive before he establishes his mid and long-range game. Instead, he wandered around the court, threw the ball away, and hesitated at every opporunity. And speaking of hesitation, Nick Collison missed a couple of shots early and then stopped taking them, effectively removing him as a threat.

As a coach, Weiss should have seen this and pulled him aside and told him, I want you to take the shot the next two tims you touch the ball. Collison is a good player with a strong mid-range game — there’s no reason for him to stop shooting after missing a couple. But instead of seeing him make any good decisions, I saw Weiss take a poorly-timed timeout, argue a call which the ref had clearly called properly (perhaps this was his atttempt to fire up the team?), and generally look unhappy and fat in the process. I want Nate back.

After the game, I ended up getting a ride bak to my truck with Courtney. Before, Maria and Maura had picked me up from the U-Disctrict in her very nice Impreza RS 2.5 — complete with leather! However, I left my backpack in Maria’s car. The girls dropped it off with Jon, and when I went to pick it up, we ended up talking for a long time about stuff that I mostly didn’t really care about. I finally just had to say, “talk later” and take off, since on Wednesday, I had a wonderful Math Midterm (#2!) to take. Well, long story short… I have no idea how I did, other than the fact that I’m pretty sure I missed at least a quarter of the points. ><

This pretty much sums it up (from Yahoo sports):

Washington – 1:07
1st-10, WASH30 1:07 I. Stanback rushed up the middle for 3 yard loss
2nd-13, WASH27 1:07 I. Stanback incomplete pass to the right
3rd-11, WASH29 0:41 I. Stanback incomplete pass to the right
4th-11, WASH29 0:35 I. Stanback incomplete pass to the right

26-22 Cougars