look out pres. clinton!

this morning rafael nadal and roger federer fittingly faced off in the final of the french open. (i know alliteration impresses brian, and i want him to think that i’m a decent writer.) this is the third straight year where nadal and federer played each other in the final. the year before, nadal beat federer in the semifinal. last year rafael nadal didn’t drop any sets on the way to the final before beating roger federer 3-1. then in wimbledon federer won 3-2 in one of the most incredible matches i’ve ever watched. so this year i figured would be a close one. both federer and nadal were playing the best clay court tennis of their careers. federer had only dropped 3 sets before the final and nadal had again not lost any. the match wasn’t close at all. nadal got an early lead and broke federer twice in the first set to win it 6-1. roger f. was down 2-0 in the second set and put together a good twenty minutes of tennis with some stunning winners to tie it up at 2-2. each held serve and then rafael n. went crazy, winning the next 9 games to finish the match in around 2 hours.

i figured the match would last a lot longer. i’d planned my whole morning around watching tennis and found myself with a lot of free time. luckily, there was another competition going on: robonaut vs. athlete.

robonaut is a humanoid robot designed by nasa to be able to perform extra-vehicular activities (i.e. space-walks). it has a torso shaped like a human with arms and hands and a helmet that looks like boba fett. the helmet has two eyes, so that visual relays can provide depth. the arms have a total of 14 degrees of freedom each: 2 in each wrist and 12 in each hand. this gives the robonaut a surprising amount of dexterity, which in turn enables robonaut to perform tasks that were not designed to be handled by robots. the size of the hands is roughly the same size as a suited astronauts hands, so robonaut can get to those hard-to-reach areas (much like a nice toothbrush). the torso can be placed in a number of lower “bodies” depending on the required task. the two that i’ve seen is the segway robonaut where he has a segway for legs and the centaur robonaut where he “sits” on a 4-wheeler of sorts.

athlete is a six-legged robotic lunar rover. athlete stands for All-Terrain Hex-Legged Extra-Terrestrial Explorer. the athlete is 4 meters in diameter and can stand 6 meters tall. each of the six legs has six degrees of freedom. athlete can roll along or walk, depending on the terrain, and is capable of sustaining a load of 450 kg. multiple athletes can be docked together to form what some call ultrathlete, which i can only imagine stands for Ultimate Laterally-TetheRed All-Terrain Hex-Legged Extra-Terrestrial Explorers. it can move over 10 kmh on terrain like that of the moon, 100 times faster than the mars rover, and can climb 35 degree inclines of rocks.

the competition of interest is a race up to the top of a hill in a crater in arizona, which is essentially a simulation of robot racing on the moon or on mars, which will become widely popular in the late 21st century.

the competitors arrived early. athlete on the left, robonaut in the middle, k-10 on the right with scout right behind k-10. the suited astronaut was the ref.

after a brief rain delay, k-10, robonaut and athlete are ready to go. robonaut shows off his dexterity with a little bit of a cheap move, tying athlete to an anchored stake.

with robonaut and athlete busy battling each other, k-10 heads for the hill,

and then remembers that it is not capable of climbing hills. with athlete tied to a stake, robonaut takes off up the hill.

athlete finally breaks loose and heads for the steepest part of the hill, in hopes of cutting off robonaut’s path.

athlete passes robonaut, since hill-climbing is its strong-suit. but robonaut has some more tricks up his sleeve. he hooks a tether-line to athlete and catches a ride during the last quarter of the hill.

robonaut takes advantage of its understanding of the slingshot maneuver to swing past athlete for the victory. robonaut wins and gets its picture taken with athlete.

but what robonaut didn’t know is that there was no prize. they give robonaut a box with the label “trophy” and robonaut opens it up, only to be embarrassed in front of all its friends.

looks like athlete gets the last laugh. (that was for brian again.)

i got on tennis.com last night to check what time today’s matches started. the two matches today are nadal-djokavic and federer-monfils. so i wanted to set my alarm and wake up early to watch. nadal is the world number two and he’s the three-time french open champion who has never lost a match at the french open. in fact, he hasn’t even dropped a set in this year’s french open. on the other hand, djokavic is the world number three who won the australian open and has won more matches in the last year than anyone else. the winner of this match will be the world number two and will be playing in the french open final. i only saw half a set by monfils and i thought he was fast and looked cool, but brian said that he’s got a great game. so i obviously wanted to get up and watch. i know the matches start early in the french open, and tennis.com said that at 10:00a eastern time the tennis channel was going to start broadcasting. i woke up at 8:00a mountain time and turned on the tv. there was nothing on. so i got online to see when the games would start only to find out that the nadal-djokavic match was already over. what a joke. not only do i have to wait for 2 hours before i can watch tennis, but one of the matches i was interested in watching was already over and i had already seen the result: nadal in 3 sets. nadal is in the final and he still hasn’t lost a set.

i had two hours to kill. so i did the only sensible thing. i read about the september 11th attacks on the world trade center and the pentagon. did you know that there were large (and lethal) amounts of asbestos in lower manhattan for a few months? there’s been over 60 people associated with the cleanup effort that have died of cancer. oh yeah, and the air had been declared safe without testing it first.

so it’s finally 10:00a and tennis is on. maybe they’ll just skip the nadal-djokavic match so i can watch monfils and federer before i have to go up to school. nope. they’re going to show the nadal-djokavic match. if only i hadn’t already seen online. that’s okay. nadal is my favorite player and i don’t like djokavic, so it’ll be worth it to see him get killed.

it’s tied 1-1 and nadal has advantage. he’s already had 4 break chances this match. and he hits this incredible backhand winner to go up. so he’s up 2-1 now. game four, nadal is serving but down 15-30 and hits another backhand winner. 30-30. another winner, this time a forehand. 40-30. passing shot for the game.

now they’re talking about nadal’s foot and knee problems. apparently he’s a size 11 1/2 but wears size 10. no wonder i always think his feet look so small. djokavic comes to the net twice in a row. first time gets a volley winner. second time nadal loops it over him. 15-15. unforced error djokavic. 15-30. “You have 10-story buildings that leave more debris than these two 100-story towers, Where the f*** is everything? A serious week-long search and we’ve found 200 [bodies] in a pile of 5,000? What’s going on? Where is everyone? Why aren’t we finding more bodies? Cause it’s all vaporized — turned to dust. We’re breathing people in that dust.” Mercedes commercial. the game must’ve finished while i was reading. it doesn’t matter, i already know nadal will win the set (and the match). djokavic won. nadal’s up 3-2 and serving.

i just read this page: a critical review of morgan reynold’s “why did the trade center’s skyscrapers collapse?”

and now nadal is up 5-4 and 40-30. set point. first serve fault. second serve unforced error by djokavic. prediction: nadal will win 6-4, 6-2, 7-6. so i have to leave now. maybe i’ll tape the monfils match. and not look online. i already saw that they were tied after 2 sets. good for monfils.

i just barely got to the bowling alley in the basement of the union building here at oregon state university. i don’t have cable, so when i can’t convince nathan to hang out (he said he’s busy?!), i have to come here to watch basketball games. it’s pretty awesome. they have a big screen t.v. and mostly everyone who comes in is under 16. also, they play music really loud. so i don’t have to listen to marv albert. instead, i get to listen to van halen’s runnin’ with the devil. “doo doooo. dadadoo oo doo oooo.”

so utah’s up 17-7 right now and i want to talk about how i am really excited about this series. and not just because i like the jazz and love golden state. actually, that’s probably exactly why i’m excited about it. let me mention that again. i like the jazz a lot and i love golden state. i really am happy to see the jazz in the playoffs. i know that i was rooting for the rockets, but that was mostly about rooting for tracy mcgrady. i love that guy. and i wanted him to win so that people would stop getting on his case. he had the best year of his career and he played a great series against the jazz. anyways, as sad as i am, i’ll be over it soon. i mean, t-mac’s a fighter. i wasn’t so sure a couple years ago when he was depressed, but he’s back. so next year — watch out.

they just went to commercial and it was for nbastore.com. you’d think they could afford marketing. but instead they make commercials that are worse than oregon public commercials — specifically kiefer kia, mr. appliance, and the stereo store. here’s a mr. appliance commercial.

the stereo store is the worst of the three. even if kiefer kia hires some girl to sing (pretty badly) the whole commercial, it’s better than the following stereo store commercial.
boy: now will you go out with me?
girl: um, no.
boy: why not?
girl: your stereo.
boy: i need that spring thing.
girl: you need the stereo store.
then it goes to an add for their spring sale called “that spring thing” and then it cuts back.
boy: i got that spring thing.
girl: you got the stereo store.
end of commercial.

how in the world does the nbastore.com make worse commercials?

i can’t wait until they cut to the stockton and malone statues. that’s going to be sweet.

so it’s 28-27 right now. the jazz are ahead. so far al harrington and mehmet okur are going crazy. i think this series is going to be sweet. but i have to admit that even though i’m from utah and i like the jazz, i want golden state to win. not just that, i think they can totally do it. the teams match up pretty good, but i think golden state are still tough to guard. stephen jackson just made a 3. remember when he was 7-8 in game 6 against dallas? remember how anytime anybody got in an argument he had his fists cocked, ready to punch anybody in the face? i wonder if he’s going to punch derek fisher in his fat cheeks. but not until game 2, since fisher’s out. anyways, i think this series might go 7 games after all. and that’s fine by me. “some people claim that there’s a woman to blame, but i know — doodoodoodo doooo — it’s my own damn fault — doodoodoodo doooo.”

it’s the end of the first quarter and the jazz lead 37-35. this is pretty high scoring. the jazz are playing lots faster than i thought. good for them. they’re playing pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good. citi commercial — do parents ever drop their kids off at dorms and just dump everything onto the grass and leave? d.wade/c.barkley commercial — my favorite is the way charles says, “if you make this putt…” he even gambles in commercials. what a cool dude. come on stockton statue, come on… nope.

start of the second quarter. block by kiriblinko. he’s going to get a 20/20 with blocks and rebounds. does matt barnes have a medusa tattoo? maybe, but they still call travels on him. what did bolerjack start calling okur after they told him not to say money shot? i can’t remember. besides the statues, the thing i’m hoping for the most is that they say that “pound for pound, matt harpring is one of the strongest players in the nba.” i’ve heard them say that like 8 times this season. and i don’t get that many jazz games up here. one of the key things i’ve realized this playoffs is that the video game commentators on nba live are spot on. we used to always make fun of the fact that there’s only like 6 things that they say about each player. but what i’ve realized is that it’s true to life. every commentator just spits out the same few phrases. i don’t think they steal from each other. i think they have like a page on each person for each team. there’s like 15 sentences and 10 weird stats per player and coach. and there’s like 25 sentences and 20 weird stats about each team. they just look on their list and say what fits best. they probably get the sheets the night before so they can study. then it seems more natural. except for bolerjack. i bet he just hears someone else say it and steals it. they probably don’t give him access to their lists and he’s probably way sad about it.

so video games. they’re exactly like real life. watching this series is like watching greg play against brian. me and brian like to play pretty fast. i play fast and pretty small. brian plays fast and likes to have everyone between 6′4″ and 6′8″ so they can all play any position. so he’s more like golden state than i am. anyways, greg’s a half court sort of guy. so this is like the playoffs of every season we’ve played. if the warriors win, i bet all the jazz fans whine at least as much as greg does.

47-47 with 6 minutes left in the half. d.w. hits the free throw to put the jazz up one. then he gets called for a blocking foul. commercials! sonic. “why not raspberry ice M, or any other of the 48 letters?” “before you continue, may i sub-respond?” oh comcast is up to twice as fast as dsl. hmm. didn’t know that they had everything i need to keep my small business going. shot of trax. no statue still. agent zero (gilbert arenas) and t-mac drink vitamin water, just like urlacher.

9 ties so far. is that supposed to be impressive? i think it is, but what’s a usual amount of ties? kirilenko is headed towards a cinco-cinco. i wish this game had been on saturday. baron davis dunked. biedrins had a stupid look on his face. get a kirilenko mohawk, biedrins. then we’ll talk. time-out. pet web-cams. i hope they make pet reality shows next. especially a cat. t-mobile fave five commercial #3. heineken. hyundai.

61-59 jazz. d.w. had 2 assists and a 3 pointer in 3 possessions. usa basketball commercial. why is brad miller on that team again? who is brad miller anyways? i keep looking in the jazz crowd for friends. but i don’t know anybody that’s supposed to be there. maybe prince is there to see booz cruise? 1 minute left in the half. matt barne s — 3 pointer. d.w. — push off. monta ellis — travel. dee brown — turnover. j.rich — layup. jazz — missed shot(s). end of half. golden state 66, utah 63. crowd is booing. baron davis went 5-5 shooting in the second quarter.
halftime show. baron davis — 17 points, d.w. — 16 points. charles barkley: “jazz are going to get layups. golden state lives and dies by the jumper.” ernie thinks kirilenko is playing great. it’s weird because i agree. it would be weirder if i agreed with kenny smith. one time i wrote a letter to kenny smith after the 2006 all-star game:

dear kenny smith,
i saw you. i saw you change your vote. you had a 9 for iguodala’s dunk. he went behind his back for crying out loud. it was one of the top 20 dunks i’ve seen and you had a 9. that’s cool. but then you looked to see what everyone else had and you changed yours to an 8. did you think nobody noticed? i know nate robinson is sweet. and who doesn’t want a little guy to win the dunk contest. but seriously, have you ever seen someone dunk like andre iguodala? you changed your vote to force a final dunk and you thought nobody noticed. well i did. and i’m calling the ranger on you. oh no, not the ranger!
sincerely, aaron d.w.

that last part i added just now. but it doesn’t matter since i never sent the letter. i’m free to modify however i want. i might as well admit that i just rewrote the whole letter right now. brian knows that we lost our letters to kenny smith and i don’t want some lame comment at the bottom. t-mobile commercial #4. smooth jazz 105.9 — the right songs at the right time. the fresh new sounds for portland’s work day. t-mobile commercial #5. still no statues.

6 minutes left in the third quarter. both teams have cooled off a bit. 77-74 golden state. coors light trains have their own lane on roads in new york city. kirilenko’s looking good still. just got fouled. chance to tie it up and pull ahead. miss. and make. 79-79. 4 minutes left. as far as i know, brian invented the term cinco-cinco. remember that. 2 minutes left in the third. 82-82. the strongest man in the world drinks coors light. but his name isn’t tarmo mitt. i wanted tarmo mitt to win pretty badly. i saw him compete in the barrel tossing event and the double-car deadlift event. he’s my strongest man. i don’t care what anyone else says. i love you, tarmo. one time, i was just walking around and i thought about tarmo mitt for apparently no reason. so i sent a text message to nathan that said, “tarmo mitt.” turns out, 10 minutes before i sent the message, robin was on the phone with her dad and she asked nathan what the name of that one strongest man competitor was. i’m pretty sure that i do have a very high level of intuition. the tarot card reader at that harry potter party was right. i might dress up as professor snape this halloween. unless i’m one of the cobra kai from karate kid. i want to be their halloween characters for halloween. it’s like in inland empire when that girl is watching her television on her television. or maybe i’ll be matt barnes. that guy is cool.

end of the third quarter. 89-84 warriors. urlacher/ortiz badminton vitamin water commercial. start of the 4th quarter. another fade-away by al harrington. that guy is playing great. i’m glad. he didn’t get much playing time against the mavericks because of the matchup problems. money ball hits a 3. it’s the fourth quarter. this is when it’s starts raining for him. sweet pass by baron davis. pietrus misses. i like pietrus, but it was a total clank.

owning honda motorcycles is like having wings. huh. i did not know that. the florida football players weren’t sufficiently hydrated. naturally they called it gator-ade. oh okay. from the gators of old to this year’s team to michael jordan and the nba championship. i get it. some little league commercial. i’m no expert, though. you’ll have to ask whitney about it. she’s our local pee-wee sports expert. 95-93 warriors. 8 minutes left. baron d. fouls booz cruise. chance to tie it up. make. and miss. stuff. d.w. layup and 1. miss. pietrus makes up for the clank with a 3 pointer. harpring scores. j.rich 3 pointer. 102-98 warriors with 6 minutes left. dee b with a sweet left-handed layup. b.davis with a miss and then a foul. that’s five on b.d. and d.w.

where’s the music? it was loud earlier, now there’s none. which is worse. now i have to listen to all the 15-year-olds play pool and ice hockey and dance dance revolution behind me. and there’s this weird vibrating recliner that they keep putting dollars in and screaming. mom, what’s an IMO? probably not asking about the internation mathematics olympiad.

harpring’s jump shot ties it up, 104-104. 4 minutes left. booz cruise offensive rebound and a make. j.rich hits a 3. d.w. matches. kirilenko block. stephen j fouls. here come the punches, i can feel it. hertz commercial. i wish i was dead. doesn’t even matter which one. verizon wireless. i wish i had some quietus. the future looks to be pretty cool with that stuff. lbj’s sprite commercial. 15-year-olds talking about soy milk. another 15-year-old just said, “it’s all about the bulls and the wizards.” does he know the wizards are eliminated? “it’s all about michael jordan.” does he know he’s retired? does he know that he wasn’t very good on the wizards? does he know that jordan owns the bobcats now? two free throws for booz cruise. make and miss. 109-107 jazz. booz cruise fouls matt barnes. i bet he makes them both. he’s on the verge of a cinco-cinco, except for the blocks. is it possible to out-kirilenko kirilenko? nope, one make one miss. driving floater by matt barnes — make! 110-109 warriors. d.w. layup and 1. free throw good. 112-110 jazz. the 15-year-old’s parent figure is a jazz fan. kirilenko fouls j.rich. make, make. money ball miss. where’s the statue!? booz cruise o.r. and a make. 114-112 jazz. 17 seconds left. commercial animated by those waking life guys. stephen j 3 pointer…miss. rebound harpring. fouled. 7 seconds left. make, make. 116-112 jazz. someone with a sign that says hostile environment. i think i gave him a library card. guitar shredding at the energy solutions arena. stephen j drives and misses. game over. 116-112.

kirilenko — 1 assist and 4 steals away from a cinco-cinco. 7 blocks.
matt barnes — 1 assist, 1 steal and 5 blocks away from a cinco-cinco.
kevin bacon — bff with michael jordan. that 15 year-old probably loves him.

no stockton-to-malone statue. tnt blew it.

yesterday was crazy. i started out the day by reading brian’s article (and i agree with becky that it’s the best article to date) and finished off the day watching a lot of worthless television. but the stuff i watched was nuts. first, on sportscenter they did this anniversary piece about jason mcelwain. you might remember that he was that autistic basketball team manager for a high school called greece athena in rochester, new york, who got to play for 4 minutes and hit 6 out of 10 three pointers tying a school record and inspiring autistic kids world-wide. i think they hired the makers of the testaments to edit their piece together. or else the ones who made it are big fans of the score to the testaments and decided to either rip it off or do their best (worst) impression. it had music that was both heart-warming and heart-wrenching. it had camera shots of jason with the sun behind his head. it had touching scenes of his classmates hoisting him up and congratulating him (probably the first time that they even talked to him). it had letters from parents of autistic kids who like basketball. it had phrases like “reach for the stars” and “the sky is the limit” which, if you think about it, are somewhat contradictory. it was sweet, to say the least. watch the original game footage from a year ago right here. or you can watch the espn piece called j mac – a hoop dream, heralded by the person on who uploaded it onto youtube as “the best piece on this amazing story.”

on the subject of team names, i gotta say that greece athena is a good name for a high school. even better than this one i saw in DC called school without walls high school. i knew it was called that because it said that on the wall above the entrance.

later, after i left nathan’s house (he has cable, i don’t), i was watching tv and grading homework. i was flipping around and found charles barkley on jay leno, neither of which i like even a little bit. maybe i sort of like charles barkley, but jay leno is unfunnier than john madden and bill walton combined. anyways, he was talking about how he made this “wise crack” about one of the refs the other night and how the ref then challenged him to a race. they’re going to race down a basketball court and back. (i wouldn’t be surprised if barkley puts a million dollars on the race under a secret identity. but his gambling habits don’t qualify as a gambling problem because he can afford it.) sir charles was talking about how he might be a fat-ass, but that other guy is 67. to paraphrase: “i don’t believe he’s run in 20 years, even as a ref. 67? 67? he’s 67. there’s no way possible i lose to a 67-year-old. 67?! i don’t think a 50-year-old could beat me, so no way can someone beat me who’s 67. i’m not worried at all. the loser has to donate $50,000 to the winner’s favorite charity, so the only thing i gotta worry about is how i gotta pick a charity by this weekend.” i assume he means that he’s going to pick the first charity on some list that he’s never looked at before. then he told this story about how he ran down the hallway on super bowl weekend at his hotel to practice and pulled his hamstring. “i guess the only thing that made the super bowl good was i won money.”

then i watched this golf channel for like 15 minutes. they were playing this face-off from like 1940 or something. it was pretty cool, but i still flipped to other channels in between. which is how i caught david hasselhoff on the late late show with some weird guy i’ve never seen. d. hass (as i call him) is apparently in the producers and there was like a million germans who came to see him opening night. so they were talking about germany and why he’s such a big hit there. it turns out it was a total fluke. he released his “music” album in 1989 and was touring germany. there was some song about freedom on his album and he just happened to play it in east germany the week the wall came down. brian told me he saw this dirk nowitzki interview where dirk said that he learned english by listening to hasselhoff albums. we thought he was joking for sure, and now the joke finally makes sense. d. hass isn’t even german! but apparently he ended the cold war with his music.