Dojo Info 4/11/06

1. Companies See Benefits in Charity Efforts
   What comes around, goes around?
2. JetBlue adds spa amenities on redeyes
   My new favorite airline.
3. Bigs bunny: monster rabbit devours English veggie plots
   Just watched Wallace & Grommit last week, and then there’s this.
4. Man Gets $218 Trillion Phone Bill
   Here’s a guy who needs Vonage.
5. Flight 93 families say it’s not too soon to tell heroic story
   Here’s a Morris Country, New Jersey story about the upcoming United 93 movie. Notice the upbeat story title? Contrast that to the San Francisco story titled, “Movie trailer forces viewers to relive Flight 93 emotions.” The victim mentality in this country is so harmful. BTW, looks to be a great film.

Paladin’s Half Life 2 Review

First, I begin by saying, “Whew.” That game was astounding! More addictive than crack and at half the price. This game stole a good number of my “productive” hours.

Running it on my new computer was a dream. The widescreen format of my monitor gave the game a more cinematic feel and the processor had no problems pushing pixels at the highest resolution. Now, on to the review!

Install

Things did not get off on the right foot. You see, Valve came up with Steam. Steam is supposed to make life better by automatically taking care of registration and game updates. But if you happened to purchase the game second-hand, like I did on eBay, it’s a bear to get things going.

In the end, I had to screencap the eBay auction results and then take a photograph of the CDs (with Key# showing) and send them off to customer support to set me up with Steam. Also, I never like it when any new program auto-runs in my system tray. Pesky spy.

Graphics

But once I got going, “Man!” this game looked great. Valve’s artists did a wonderful job with all the textures. The backdrop was the best I’ve seen. Realistic buildings, trains and even a dune buggy. And those creatures are plain freaky. My hat’s off to the creative team.

Story

This story was good, but not great. But at least this was an action game that had a story. As the world renowned Gordon Freeman, both the good guys and my adversary knew me throughout the game and had some appropriate comments. Well scripted for the most part, but lacked any significant plot twists that made the first game so intriguing near its end.

Gameplay

Great fun, but still too linear. I was never given the option of choosing where I could go. Also, this game still has those unrealistic oddities like swapping weapons in 1 second flat or carrying more that 1,000lbs. of gear without breaking a sweat. But I must confess, the Anti-Gravity gun was pure joy.

Rating

I have to subtract 1 point for Steam, it’s just too much of a hassle. Then, I’d have to subtract another point because the formula was very much the same as the first game; didn’t really innovate. But the action experience was still amazing so I’ll give it:

8 out of 10

Mickelson Claims Another Green Jacket

On an increasingly difficult Master’s course, Mickelson made it look easy on Sunday. Everyone’s favorite family guy, Phil now has his 2nd Master’s Title to go along with a PGA Championship. And the way he’s been playing, he might be the favorite to win the U.S. Open in June.

Out on the Job Trail

The obvious downside to contract work, is that at the end of each contract you’re basically unemployed. So I beg forgiveness for my lack of postiness (is that a word?) as I work to setup my next gig.

I think I’m most like George Costanza in this exchange.

JERRY: So what are you gonna do?
GEORGE: I like sports. I could do something in sports.
JERRY: Uh-huh. Uh-huh. In what capacity?
GEORGE: You know, like the general manager of a baseball team or something.
JERRY: Yeah. Well, that – that could be tough to get.
GEORGE: Well, it doesn’t even have to be the general manager. Maybe I could be like, an announcer. Like a caller man. You know how I always make those interesting comments during the game.
JERRY: Yeah. Yeah. You make good comments.
GEORGE: What about that?
JERRY: Well, they tend to give those jobs to ex-ballplayers and people that are, you know, in broadcasting.
GEORGE: Well, that’s really not fair.

Dojo Info 4/6/06

1. Toshiba Starts Selling High-Def DVD Player
   It’s just a matter of time.
2. Clinton Aid Program Brings $2.5 Billion in Pledges
   He may not be my favorite President, but you have to give him credit for this. (Though I’ll be surprised if I don’t hear someone say he doesn’t deserve the thanks.)
3. ‘Idol’s’ Studdard Plans Youth Program
   It’s always good to see celebrities use their fame to help others.
4. Is God cruel or schizoid really?
   Interesting response to the “God set up this trap in the first place” idea.
5. Apple: Windows on a Mac is here
   Not sure I understand their motivation here. Isn’t one of the best things about the Mac that it’s OS isn’t a Microsoft product?

Time Keeps on Slippin’

Right now it is:

01:02:03 04/05/06

It will never be this time again.

Gators Stifle Bruins to Win First NCAA

It wasn’t ever close. Florida dominated a tough UCLA team last night to win easily, 73-57. It just goes to show you can to come to play every… single… night. Even then, there’s no guarentee. That’s why the NCAA Tournament is so exciting.

Congrats to Billy Donovan and his Florida Gators. He truly deserves some praise after losing his top 3 players from last season. To reload and refocus and bring home the Title, is truly a grand achievement.

In related news, how many of you knew that UCLA paid their players during their amazing stretch of dominance? I’m not just making this up because I hate the Bruins. This news comes from a former Bruin. Perhaps one of the greatest of all time—Bill Walton.

“UCLA players were so well taken care of – far beyond the ground rules of the NCAA – that even players from poor backgrounds never left UCLA prematurely (for pro basketball) during John Wooden’s championship years. “

It’s really sad that cheating was involved. Knowing that John Wooden was such an honorable man, it’s difficult for me to accept that he knew about the bribery.

Sacred Ink

Take a look a few tatted-up individuals tell their story. Great stuff. There should be more sites like this where people let their loves and interests lead them to others with similar outlooks.

Dojo Info

1. Enhance Your Customer Experience
   Positive thinking isn’t just wishful thinking, it’s proactive and productive.
2. ‘Ocean’s 13′ to Start on July 21
   Fun movies. Hopefully, they won’t just mail this one in.
3. Ryan vs. Dorkman
   It’s much cooler than the title portrays.
4. Japan launches digital TV on cellphones
   Those crazy Japanese are always trying to one-up us.
5. Patient: Prayer is aid to recovery
   New study says Science has determined that prayer doesn’t work. Wait a second, I thought science only addressed measurable phenomenon? Patients pray anyway, while the anti-religion crowds goes bat-happy.

Bush Weakens on Judge Appointing

This Tony Perkin’s guy needs to blog on this stuff. Cutting and pasting from his email alerts isn’t as good. But the messages are so important, I feel compelled.

Attention quickly shifted away from judicial confirmations after the Bush administration won victories in the confirmation battles over Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Sam Alito. However, there are still too many vacancies on the federal bench — 35 district court vacancies and eighteen on the very important U.S. Court of Appeals. Outstanding nominees like Bret Kavanaugh and Terence Boyle have been blocked for years. Henry Saad and Daniel Ryan, two Michigan judges who would have made outstanding federal judges, were left in limbo so long they finally withdrew their names. This is a terrible loss. Worse, reports now indicate the White House is surrendering on judges. Apparently, the administration will give the Democrats one nominee to the federal courts in Michigan for three of the President’s preferred nominees. This bad deal seriously compromises the long-term drive to reform the judiciary. It negotiates away the powers of the Presidency. George W. Bush campaigned hard on this issue in 2002 and 2004. . .and he did not win just three-quarters of the Presidency. The voters supported him against the obstructionists in the Senate. They even removed the obstructionist-in-chief, Tom Daschle (D-SD). Remember, the liberal judges are the ones who find “rights” to abortion and sodomy in the Constitution; they’re the ones who want to destroy the Boy Scouts and ban “Under God” from the Pledge. The President was winning on this. So why surrender on judges now?

UCLA Owes It All to Coach Wooden

With UCLA back in the Final Four, I dread the possibility of them adding another title to their already best-in-breed record. For an ardent Kentucky fan like me, the only good thing to ever come out of UCLA was their wise Coach—John Wooden. Here’s a little piece about the greatest man to ever coach the game of basketball.

Subject: John Wooden

On the 21st of the month, the best man I know will do what he always does on the 21st of the month. He’ll sit down and pen a love letter to his best girl. He’ll say how much he misses her and loves her and can’t wait to see her again.

Then he’ll fold it once, slide it in a little envelope and walk into his bedroom. He’ll go to the stack of love letters sitting there on her pillow, untie the yellow ribbon, place the new one on top and tie the ribbon again. The stack will be 180 letters high then, because the 21st will be 15 years to the day since Nellie, his beloved wife of 53 years, died.

In her memory, he sleeps only on his half of the bed, only on his pillow, only on top of the sheets, never between; with just the old bedspread they shared to keep him warm!

There’s never been a finer man in American sports than John Wooden, or a finer coach. He won 10 NCAA basketball championships at UCLA, the last in 1975. Nobody has ever come within six of him.

He won 88 straight games between January 30, 1971, and January 17, 1974. Nobody has come within 42 since.

So, sometimes, when the Basketball Madness gets to be too much — too many players trying to make Sports Center, too few players trying to make assists, too few coaches willing to be mentors, too many freshmen with out-of-wedlock kids, too few freshmen who will stay in school long enough to become men — I like to go see Coach Wooden.

I visit him in his little condo in Encino, 20 minutes northwest of Los Angeles! , and hear him say things like “Gracious sakes alive!” and tell stories about teaching “Lewis” the hook shot. Lewis Alcindor, that is…who became Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

There has never been another coach like Wooden, quiet as an April snow and square as a game of checkers; loyal to one woman, one school, one way; walking around campus in his sensible shoes and Jimmy Stewart morals.

He’d spend a half hour the first day of practice teaching his men how to put on a sock. “Wrinkles can lead to blister! s,” he’d warn. These huge players would sneak looks at one another and roll their eyes. Eventually, they’d do it right. “Good,” he’d say. “And now for the other foot.”

Of the 180 players who played for him, Wooden knows the whereabouts of 172. Of course, it’s not hard when most of them call, checking on his health, secretly hoping to hear some of his simple life lessons so that they can write them on the lunch bags of their kids, who will roll their eyes.

“Discipline yourself, and others won’t need to,” Coach would say. “Never lie, never cheat, never steal,” and “Earn the right to be proud and confident.”

If you played for him, you played by his rules: Never score without acknowledging a teammate. One word of profanity and you’re done for the day. Treat your opponent with respect.

He believed in hopelessly out-of-date stuff that never did anything but win championships. No dribbling behind the back or through the legs. “There’s no need,” he’d say.

No UCLA basketball number was retired under his watch. “What about the fellows who wore that number before? Didn’t they contribute to the team?” he’d say.

No long hair, no facial hair. “They take too long to dry, and you could catch cold leaving the gym,” he’d say. That one drove his players bonkers.

One day, All-America center Bill Walton showed up with a full beard. “It’s my right,” he insisted. Wooden asked if he believed that strongly. Walton said he did. “That’s good, Bill,” Coach said. “I admire people who have strong beliefs and stick by them, I really do. We’re going to miss you.” Walton shaved it right then and there. Now Walton calls once a week to tell Coach he loves him.

It’s always too soon when you have to leave the condo and go back out into the real world, where the rules are so much grayer and the teams so much worse.

As Wooden shows you to the door, you take one last look around. The framed report cards of his great-grandkids, the boxes of jellybeans peeking out from under the favorite wooden chair, the dozens of pictures of Nellie.

He’s almost 90 now. You think a little more hunched over than last time. Steps a little smaller. You hope it’s not the last time you see him. He smiles. “I’m not afraid to die,” he says. “Death is my only chance to be with her again.”

Problem is, we still need him here.

“There is only one kind of a life that truly wins, and that is the one that places faith in the hands of the Savior. Until that is done, we are on an aimless course that runs in circles and goes nowhere. Material possessions, winning scores, and great reputations are meaningless in the eyes of the Lord, because He knows what we really are and that is all that matters.” – John Wooden

By Rick Reilly, Sports Illustrated