Hundie Jo [dot] Com » 2007

King James.

Henry Imler May 31st, 2007

LeBron James just played the game of his life. The best single
person performance in a meaningful game since Jordan. Jordan when? Too
many to pick from.

James scored the last 29 of the Cav’s 30 points
(through 2 over times and half of the 4th quarter) in dramatic fashion.
His other teammates were not hitting their shots - but James was.
Fadeaway jumpers to the left, behind the back to his right - everything
was dropping. When it came to crunch time his drives were unstoppable -
2 dunks and a multi-foul (uncalled) layup to put them in a position for
each over time and the win. Absolutely incredible. The only more
incredible thing is seeing the Piston’s whine after every single play.
Each one. Don’t get me started. I seriously think that I love Jordan as much as I hate the Pistons. X is equal here to an eight turned on its side.

Anyway de-grammarulated rambling over.

Update: Gregg Doyle gets it right:

He took on the Detroit Pistons down the stretch of the
biggest game of this NBA season to date, and damn if he didn’t win. In
reality, the Eastern Conference finals should read: Detroit 2,
Cleveland 2, LeBron 1. Because LeBron won Game 5.

By the time overtime rolled around, after trying to stop James with
6-foot-9 Tayshaun Prince and 6-3 Chauncey Billups and 6-2 Lindsey
Hunter and 6-6 Rip Hamilton, the Pistons abandoned that nonsense and
started playing a modified box-and-one.

The box guarded James. The one guarded his teammates.

The box failed. The Chicago Bears would have failed. This was high
school all over again. James was the biggest, baddest athlete on the
floor, and when the ball was in his hands everyone else was an
accessory.

James scored the Cavaliers’ final seven points of regulation. Nobody else from Cleveland even shot the ball.

James scored all nine of the Cavaliers’ points in the first overtime. Nobody else from Cleveland even touched the ball.

James scored all nine of the Cavaliers’ points in second overtime.

This was silly. James was going dribbling past one guy, juking
another and dunking on a third. Prince got out of the way of one jam,
wanting no part of that poster.

This was absurd. James was dribbling out the shot clock and falling
backward and throwing in a 23-footer over Prince’s condor wingspan.

This was insane. James was going left, losing Billups with a
behind-the-back dribble to the right, then hitting a moving 22-footer
with two seconds on the shot clock.

This was magical. This was memorable. This was the best performance
of this NBA season, and yes I’m aware Kobe Bryant scored 65 points
against Portland this season. That was nice, but that was Portland. And
that was the regular season. This is Detroit, and this is Game 5 of the
Eastern Conference finals.

There is no exaggeration there - I have it Tivo’ed.

Much love to my Database

Henry Imler May 31st, 2007

And…. We’re off.

Henry Imler May 20th, 2007

Well, not just yet. Meredith and I are about to leave for vacation. We are heading south for our 5-year wedding anniversary.

Bringing along Wheelock’s, Varieties of Scientific Experience, and commentaries on Acts and Romans to hold me over while Meredith works on her tan. I bet I only touch two of those books.

More Simmons Goodness

Henry Imler May 20th, 2007

Thinking about the NBA playoffs while web surfing

5. My apologies: Upon further review, John Paxson and
the Bulls did the right thing by overpaying for Ben Wallace last summer
and turning Tyson Chandler into P.J. Brown. If they didn’t sacrifice
Chandler and spend an extra $15 million this season on the
Wallace/Brown combo, they would have lost to Detroit in five games
instead of six, and they wouldn’t have a washed-up center with a bad
back locked up through his mid-30s for $14 million a season. My bad.
When I’m wrong, I’m wrong.

Ouch.

Wait, there’s more….

Also, you know how TNT splices trailers for Hollywood
movies with NBA action? Why couldn’t they splice the “Heartland”
commercial so Treat Williams is talking to Lawrence Frank about Vince
Carter? I just want you to know, if any heart becomes available
tonight, I’ll make it work for Vince. I promise you.

I just died laughing.

HAHA of the Day

Henry Imler May 17th, 2007

A classic piece:

There are too many famous quotes in there to quote anything, so I’ll just go with a part I don’t remember.

I’m French, why do you think I have this outrageous accent?

What are you doing in England?

Mind your own business!

What a great way to side-step the problem of having a French castle in England!

Common Sense Basketball Rule Change of the Day

Henry Imler May 17th, 2007

From Bill Simmons: Common sense vs. the NBA rulebook

3. The single most disgusting NBA development of the
past few years? The flopping. Slowly, regretfully, inexplicably, the
sport is morphing into soccer — as exemplified by Kirilenko’s swan
dive near the end of Tuesday’s Jazz-Warriors game that fouled out Matt
Barnes, or Kirk Hinrich’s perfectly designed flopparoo to draw Chauncey
Billups’ fourth foul in Detroit Tuesday. I blame the influx of European
players for this trend because flopping has always been an acceptable
part of soccer; they grew up watching that crap and understood that it
could work in basketball as well, especially if you have a group of
largely incompetent referees calling the action. So it started a few
years ago, it’s gotten worse and worse, and now, it’s affecting the
overall competitiveness of these games.

Here’s the problem: Because we don’t have any anti-flopping rules,
it behooves defenders to fall backward every time a low-post player
lowers his shoulder, and it behooves them to slide under airborne
players and plant their feet for a charge (even if they might end up
breaking the guy’s neck in the process). Not to keep bringing up the
pickup basketball analogy, but geez … can you imagine if somebody
pulled this crap during a game among friends? The prevailing reactions
would be, “What the hell are you doing?” and “If you do that again, I’m
gonna sock you.” But because the NBA refuses to do anything about the
flopping, it’s evolved into a savvy defensive maneuver. For instance,
if you’re Barnes and you’re giving up 50 pounds to Boozer on the low
post, there’s only two ways you’re stopping him: Go for a strip if he
puts the ball on the ground, or jump backward if he’s dumb enough to
lower his shoulder as he’s turning around. Those are your two options.

Is that basketball? Hell, no! In fact, when I was a little kid –
and I swear to God, this happened — a guard named Mike Newlin flopped
to draw a charge from the great Dave Cowens, a fiery Hall of Famer who
played with a remarkable level of passion and fury, to the degree that
he burned himself out after 7-8 years. Completely and utterly outraged
that Newlin committed such a phony act of sportsmanship, Cowens berated
the ref who made the call, yelled at him some more, then started
running back on defense when he noticed Newlin dribbling up the court.
Now, our seats were at midcourt, so this happened right in front of us
and nearly caused me to pee my pants — as Cowens was running, he
snapped and suddenly charged Newlin like a free safety, bodychecked him
at full speed (much, MUCH harder than Horry’s foul on Nash) and sent
poor Newlin careening into the press table at about 35 mph. Then he
turned to the same ref and screamed …

“NOW THAT’S A F——- FOUL!”

Note to Self

Henry Imler May 17th, 2007

Never work your abs with a weight machine and have a sneezing fit
the next day. You will alternate between holding your nose and your
stomach - not a good thing.

Sign of the apocalypse

Henry Imler May 16th, 2007

Today, as I was notes for Latin on paper, I misspelled “modifying” - and I expected a red, squiggly line to appear when I lifted my pen from the “g.”

Ok, so I am being over-dramatic - but it was kinda funny… for three seconds… enough to warrant a blog post.

Proposed NBA Rule Change

Henry Imler May 15th, 2007

RIP: Falwell

Henry Imler May 15th, 2007

B.N.F.A.F.,E

Henry Imler May 14th, 2007

What is the best name for a fish, ever?

Gill-Galad.
In that link back there you will also find a scathing review of one of
the few Christian band’s I like. Although I must admit the music of
their’s that I do listen to is nearly a decade old.

Things that make you go hhhmmm

Henry Imler May 13th, 2007

In terms of social costs, which is worse, smoking or drinking?

Concurrent Metaphors

Henry Imler May 12th, 2007

Luther and the Evangelicals made excellent use of propaganda. Two examples of this propaganda are woodcuts entitled Two Kinds of Sermons and Christ in the Sheep Shed. Propaganda is not meant in its common negative sense, but in the sense that the woodcuts were effective at communicating the Evangelical’s message. Woodcuts were meant to be hung in public places, such as a tavern. Woodcuts had two primary features, the image and accompanying text. These woodcuts were primarily directed towards illiterate peasants, most of whom would only base their judgment solely off of the image portion of the woodcut. The text below the image was based around one or more Bible verses and was meant to be read out loud to crowds. This only happened on certain occasions, however, most people would have seen it in passing and not during a reading.

Some Lost Theories to Chew on

Henry Imler May 12th, 2007

This one mainly concerns the DARMA initiative and the Smoke Monster and was featured on Digg this morning: LostReview.com::Another Lost Theory (digg comment copy as the has site blown up)

Another theory that I like is the Vile Vortices Theory.

If any Lost fans are reading this, what are your favorite theories?

A Review of “Without Sin”

Henry Imler May 11th, 2007

Without Sin is an attempt by the late Spencer Klaw to chart the development and downfall of the Oneida community in northern New York. The book, published in 1993 succeeds in several respects. The book follows the life and times of John Noyes, charting out his spiritual journey and that of the communities he founded. Klaw drew off of many sources for his book. In the afterword, he discusses the sources he used. He focused primarily on the primary sources that the Oneida community left behind. However, he also considered resent scholarship on the community. Written for a more popular level and containing no footnotes, the work by Columbia University’s professor of journalism, engages its readers and challenges them to figure out what was going on in Oneida without resorting to sensationalism.

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A Review of “The Bonds of Womanhood”

Henry Imler May 11th, 2007

Nancy F. Cott in The Bonds of Womanhood tries to develop a picture of Puritan femininity in New England at the end of the 18^th and beginning of the 19^th centuries. The Women’s Sphere was the idea that the domestic side of life was meant to be run by women. This was the sole place for women in a functioning society. It is her contention that the development of the “Woman’s Sphere” was a necessary part of “shattering the hierarchy of sex.” (200) This is a contentious claim because the development of the Women’s Sphere is often considered to be a reincarnation of prior formations of sexual hierarchy. While on the surface, this criticism seems to be valid, it neglects to take into account a proper grounding and understanding of the Women’s Sphere. The work is invaluable because of this nuanced look at the development of external and internal views of women during this period. This nuanced stance has lead to its importance in feminine scholarship.

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A Review of “The Refiner’s Fire”

Henry Imler May 11th, 2007

The origins of the Mormon religion are a topic of great interest. On one hand, Mormonism is an outworking of the democratization thesis in its purest form, hence, the designation as the quintessential American Religion. On the other, many Mormon beliefs are completely different from its immediate predecessors. There have been a number of works that have explained the social origin of Mormonism, but not its unique theological development. (xv) Stepping into this void, John L. Brooke’s The Refiner’s Fire: The Making of Mormon Cosmology, 1644-1844 attempts to account for the development of core Mormon beliefs that substantially differentiate it from mainstream Protestantism. Among these beliefs are the celestial marriage, equality of matter and spirit, and the ultimate goal of godhood amongst believers. For Brooke, these beliefs originated from traditions of alchemy and hermeticism. Brooke locates this trajectory as originating in the traditions of the Radical Reformation. Despite the prime facie connections made by Brooke, there remain questions that significantly question his thesis.

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A Great Debate.

Henry Imler May 10th, 2007

In dishonor of the God Debate between Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron vs. Brian Sapient and “Kelly,” read the following debate: Fr. Copleston vs. Bertrand Russell: The Famous 1948 BBC Radio Debate on the Existence of God.

It is a classic and shows the civility and good reasoning that should be employed in any debate. Favorite Russell quote:

C: Take the proposition “if there is a contingent being then there is a necessary being.” I consider that that proposition hypothetically expressed is a necessary proposition. If you are going to call every necessary proposition an analytic proposition, then — in order to avoid a dispute in terminology — I would agree to call it analytic, though I don’t consider it a tautological proposition. But the proposition is a necessary proposition only on the supposition that there is a contingent being. That there is a contingent being actually existing has to be discovered by experience, and the proposition that there is a contingent being is certainly not an analytic proposition, though once you know, I should maintain, that there is a contingent being, it follows of necessity that there is a necessary being.

R: The difficulty of this argument is that I don’t admit the idea of a necessary being and I don’t admit that there is any particular meaning in calling other beings “contingent.” These phrases don’t for me have a significance except within a logic that I reject.

While I am a Christian, I have never bought the argument from necessity.

Stages of Grief

Henry Imler May 10th, 2007

When the shootings happened, the first person to tell our department
was a fellow TA. He started the conversation with, “Guess what is going
to be on the news for the next month.” The terrible thing was that
everyone rolled their eyes before they even heard what happened. Sure
enough, instead of focusing on the tragedy, the commentators and the
news shifted and tried to uncover the great unrecognized flaw in the
system that lead to the attacks. Never mind that a crazed person
decided to kill people, if only there were more safeguards in place
(and less liberty), this never would have happened. Politics, politics,
more guns, less guns, politics, real people died, Politics, politics,
positioning for elections, real families lost real people, ratings,
ratings, ratings.

When I saw this in the mail, my stomach turned.

There was also a weird attempt to nationalize the tragedy. It was
not a tragedy of mine, nor yours (probably), nor America’s. To make it
so robs something from the real people that lost real loved ones. It
bothers me somehow. Perhaps it is some sort of denial on my part. Who
knows. What I do know is that we should not make it about us when it is
really about them.