Oh, I Think So

It's the first game of the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs, the Bulls vs. the 76ers and Philadelphia is playing terribly and the Bulls are ahead.  Derrick Rose fell, injured.  His ACL is torn y'all and he is out for the playoffs and the finals and until who knows when.  All hail, Derrick Rose!!  I wish you a speedy and complete recovery.  He's a young guy in peak physical condition so we should expect that to be the case. Derrick Rose is the best player on a team of good players but he is undeniably the best player.  Owing to various injuries in the shortened season, they played quite a few games without him this year and the loss ratio was, according to my feeble calculations, 33%.  That means a 67% win ratio!  I am a big old optimist and have everything crossed hoping that the rest of the team of very good players -- Carlos Boozer, Joaquim Noah, Rip Hamilton to name just three -- can put together the greatest show on Earth, po...

So Marian Hossa lost control of the puck in Game 3 of the best-of-seven series, the Chicago Blackhawks vs. the Phoenix Coyotes, Western Conference quarterfinals, and winger Raffi Torres comes flying over and delivers a charming shoulder-to-head shot.  Torres hit Hossa with such force that Torres himself left the ice.  Of course Marian Hossa was taken out on a stretcher and went straight to the hospital but no foul was called on Raffi Torres.  Of course Marian Hossa can't play because he has a big fat concussion.  Yes, we are talking about assault and we are talking about nobody doing a thing about it when it happened. Okay, okay, so not assault because this was a game of professional ice hockey but this was not a regular play.  This is just the sort of thing the NHL is trying to stop.  They so want it to stop that they delivered their own justice yesterday.  Raffi Torres is out for 25 games.  If he doesn't have 25 games in the post-season -- and...

Before we go anywhere, allow me to share that I love to watch movies/TV shows on my iPod in the morning on public transportation.  I tuck it into my bag and put on some earphones that are super girly and pretty pretty pretty (but if someone snatched 'em off my bean it would not be too big a loss as they cost me all of $16 with a coupon at Bed Bath and Beyond) and watch a movie or a TV show.  The one-way ride takes 30-40 minutes and it takes three-to-four morning commutes to watch a full-length feature film.  It doesn't take very long to go through one's own video library of full-length downloads (once a year, starting in January, I go through all four seasons of "Coupling" and, in December, season 1 of "How I Met Your Mother") with random interspersing of video shorts -- "Our Time Is Up," "Auf Der Strecke," "Wish 143," and "God of Love," to name a few -- throughout the year.  I was lamenting to a genius on-line fri...

It's spring and time for those most religious of holidays, Passover and Easter.  Passover commemorates the story of Exodus of the Jews from Egypt, fleeing the bonds of slavery by the Pharaohs.  Easter celebrates the resurrection of Jesus after being tortured, crucified, and killed by the Romans.  They come about the same time every year.  The Jews eat unleavened bread to remember how they left Egypt in such a hurry, they didn't wait for the dough to rise, plus items from the Passover plate, each with a meaning about life as a Jew. The Christians in the English-speaking world eat lamb or a roast of beef or ham.  Butter is often in the shape of a lamb. I work with a group of people who are pretty much unobservant.  The ones who do observe are very observant, religious, and avid in the beliefs, devoting time to their churches.  Everyone else, really, is respectful but only socially observant, i.e. Easter eggs and chocolates because they are fun, matzo b...

This weekend, someone my sister and brother-in-law know came to visit them along with his high-school-senior son.  The visitor and his son, whom we'll call Iggy and Nigel (of course not their real names), came to Chicago to spend a good long while at the Art Institute and look around a bit at Chicago, a city worthy of perusal. I freely admit that all I knew about Iggy was that he was a bartender as a means of making a living and seemed to be a very pleasant guy.  I was invited to join the visitors and my relatives for pizza and since I've been living a pizza-free life for quite a while, I thought that sounded just great. Regarding acquiring the food, very good pizza was orderered, both the thin and deep dish varieties, and taken back to the host apartment.  While the pizza was being cooked ( My π , pronounced "my pie;" the name is clever and the pizza is good), we walked around that neighborhood and chatted.  Nigel is a very bright guy -- curious, smart, polite, ...