Catching Ducks

Seattle Storm CEO Karen Bryant was awarded "Executive of the Year" from the Seattle Sports Commission. I had no idea that organization existed -- much less the award -- but it's still pretty cool.

This video was played at the awards ceremony:

Labels: Seattle Storm

From Athyra:


Vlad: Flax? Is that all you grow around here?

Savn: Almost. There's a little maize for the stock, but it doesn't really grow well in this soil. It's mostly flax.

Vlad: That accounts for it.

Savn: Accounts for what?

Vlad: The smell.

Savn: Smell?

Vlad: It must be flax oil.

Savn: Oh. Linseed oil. I guess I must be used to it.

Vlad: That must have been what they served the last place I ate, too, half a day east of here.

Savn: That would be Whiterock. I've been there twice.

Vlad: I didn't really notice the taste in the stew, but it made the salad interesting.

Savn: Some types of flax are used for cooking, some we use to make linen.

Vlad: Linen?

Savn: Yes.

Vlad: You cook with the same stuff you make clothes of?

Savn: No, not the same. It's different.

Vlad: They probably made a mistake, then. That would account for the salad.

Labels: Vlad Taltos

Really cool website: Paleofuture: the future, from the perspective of the past.

I just did some quick browsing, and here's two early favorites:

1900 postcards showing the life in the year 2000.

The robot rebellion.

Labels: random weirdness

More from the 2010 WNBA season...

From their statistical summary of the Jul 20, 2010 Seattle @ San Antonio game:



After capping a stretch of 5 of 7 games on the road with an 80-74 win, forward Lauren Jackson offered some words that should offer no comfort to the rest of the league.

"I think that we kind of have to all separate," said Jackson. "We haven’t had any time whatsoever. The fact is it will look better on our game because we all won’t be worried. We get to go home now and have a bit of a break and then start working on our game, regrouping and tightening up a bit."

So that would seem to imply that the 19-2 Storm who have won ten straight and are 10-0 at home will be well rested when the Tulsa Shock come into town on Sunday. If they have a chance to regroup and tighten up at all, the next three opponents -- who currently have a combined record of 23-41 -- are in trouble. It makes it tempting to just disregard the Storm's final 13 games as nothing more than a ceremonial march to the playoffs.

Labels: Seattle Storm

There was supposed to be a new Supernatural episode last night. Instead the CW aired a rerun of Nikita. I am quite grumpy about this. (I am not alone in my grumpy-ness.)

Anyway.....

From "Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things" (epiosde 2.04):


[Dean & Sam are trying to figure out how to kill zombies.]

Dean: You're telling me there's no lore on how to smoke them?

Sam: No, Dean, I'm telling you there's too much. I mean, there's at least a hundred different legends on the walking dead, but they all have different methods for killing them. Some say setting them on fire... uh, one said [flipping through their dad's journal] ...where is it? Right here. "Feeding their hearts to wild dogs." That's my personal favorite.

Labels: Supernatural

From Taltos:


Vlad: I believe your name is Kragar?

Kragar: I believe so, also. Since we both believe it, we might as well assume it's true.

Labels: Vlad Taltos

Per Jayda Evans.

Labels: Seattle Storm

UConn has a great point guard named Caroline Doty. Unfortunately, she's missing the entire season with an ACL injury. Apparently this doesn't hamper her trick shooting, though:

Labels: UConn basketball

From season three:



Tucker: What's going on? Who are you people?

Donut: He has amnesia! Tucker! Don't worry. You are safe. We're the Reds; we are your mortal enemies. Wait. That didn't sound right.

Caboose: Tucker! Tucker! I am so glad you are alive.

Tucker: Caboose? Still so dumb, but you look so different.

Caboose: We're in the future! Things are very shiny here.

Tucker: The future? Oh, I can't fucking wait to hear this one.

Labels: Red vs. Blue

Really! She was on an Australian game show, and she mentioned that she collected stamps. Unfortunately, the whole show is only available to Australians, but the stamp-collecting clip is on youtube:




[h/t Jayda Evans]

Labels: Seattle Storm

I've convinced a co-worker to watch Farscape, so I've got it on the brain...

From "Won't Get Fooled Again" (episode 2.15):


Zhaan: I'm Doctor Kaminsky.

Crichton: Uh-huh. And, uh, you're a psychiatrist?

Zhaan: Mm-hmm.

Crichton: I don't think so. On Earth, psychiatrists don't come in blue.

Zhaan: Do you have a problem with people of colour?

Crichton: I have a contextual problem. You're an alien.

Zhaan: Yes, that's true. But I do have a green card.

Crichton: Interesting. Are you or are you not blue?

Zhaan: Would it matter to you if I was?

Crichton: Do you always answer a question with a question?

Zhaan: Does that bother you?

Labels: Farscape

The 2011 WNBA season will be starting up in a few months, so I better use up my 2010 quotes! From SportsPageMagazine.com's "This Week in the WNBA: Week 8" (posted July 12, 2010):



Only counting 4th Quarters and Overtimes ('Prime Time', as Mr Swanson refers to it), Crystal Langhorne [Washington Mystics] is shooting 78% from the floor. That's insane. Sue Bird's [Seattle Storm] effective field goal percentage (a measure which adjusts for three-pointers being worth more than twos) in Prime Time is 75%, which is also completely ridiculous. Also interesting is the fact that Angel McCoughtry and Iziane Castro Marques [Atlanta Dream] are #1 and #2 in the league in scoring in Prime Time, illustrating how Atlanta's high-low game down to Lyttle and de Souza tends to disappear at crunch time, and their athletic shot-creating wings take over instead. Leading the league in Prime Time assists, perhaps a little surprisingly, is Tanisha Wright [Seattle Storm]. Bird doesn't even make the top five, suggesting that Seattle take advantage of Bird's shot-making abilities down the stretch of games while Wright often takes over the creation and distribution. The two have grown into a nicely balanced partnership in Seattle's backcourt, as those numbers illustrate. They're even more impressive when you remember just how many blowouts Seattle have been involved in, which means that even with Brian Agler as their coach Bird and Wright have spent significant fourth quarter time relaxing on the bench.

Labels: Seattle Storm, WNBA

From "Relocated":


Grif: Didn't you learn anything from our last assignment? Like all your mistakes?

Simmons: I didn't make mistakes; you made mistakes!

Grif: Exactly! You set too high of a bar. That made it harder for the rest of us.

Simmons: There is no "rest of us". There's just you. And? You suck. The bar has nothing to do with it. If the bar was set any lower, you'd just hitting your fucking head on it. Or accidentally eat it.

Labels: Red vs. Blue

I'm recharging everything tonight: my iPod's plugged into the computer and my Nook & phone are plugged into the wall.

Labels: computers

A two-fer from their list of "Biggest Moments in Women's Hoops for 2010":



9.  Three times a Champion:  Sue Bird Wins Not One, Not Two, But THREE Championships

If championships are the measure of a person's success, Sue Bird of the Seattle Storm had one REAAAALLY successful year!  It began in Russia, where her Spartak team won the Euro League title.  She came home to the USA, and led the Seattle Storm to the WNBA championship.  On one day's rest, she then flew overseas to the Czech Republic, where she led the United States to a gold medal in the World Championships.  For any player, this triple would be great, but for a point guard, running three different offenses, distributing to three different sets of teammates, and logging enormous minutes on all three it was truly an amazing achievement.

and...

6.  And She's a Straight A Student Too!  Maya Moore's Most Excellent Adventure

So, what was your junior and senior year in college like?  You mean you didn't toss around the idea of being a Rhodes scholar candidate while winning your second national championship, second National Player of the Year award, become the only college kid on the World Champion USA Senior national team, become the all-time leading scorer at your school, and just for kicks continue a streak that currently sits at 90 consecutive wins?  Slacker!

Of course all of the above was accomplished during 2010 by the University of Connecticut's superstar Maya Moore.  Not bad at all....I can hardly wait to see what 2011 brings for Miss Maya.

Labels: Seattle Storm, UConn basketball

Ummmm..... no. That way leads to badness.

Labels: Red Dwarf

From "The Berrisford Agenda" (episode 2.11):



Max: You think they encouraged dating within your unit at Manticore? They didn’t.

Logan: Aside from the whole breeding partner thing.

Max: Oh, totally different situation. And also, may I add, disgusting.

Labels: Dark Angel

According to this interview, Camille Little is planning on returning next season. When asked if she was looking forward to the upcoming season, she replied, "Yeah. I definitely am. I love Seattle. I have a great time there every summer. I'm really looking forward to getting back and practicing with everybody and getting the games started. The summers are always really exciting for me."

Jayda Evans' has tweeted that Lauren Jackson's injury isn't as severe as originally thought, and that she'll be back to her Russian team in time for playoffs. This means, of course, that she should be ready to go by the beginning of the Storm's season.

Bleacher Report has a list of the best WNBA tandems. Swin Cash at #7 with her former Detroit Shock teammate Cheryl Ford. Sue Bird and Lauren Jackson, to my surprise, only made it to #3. But it's ok, because Sue Bird and Swin Cash are #1! I hadn't thought of them as a tandem (because I'm so used to thinking of the Sue Bird/Lauren Jackson partnership) but Bleacher Report makes a good point:

"Together, Bird and Cash have won two NCAA Division 1 Championships, an Olympic Gold Medal, a WNBA Championship and a FIBA World Championship. This feat transcends the single sport of woman's basketball."

Labels: Seattle Storm

From The Same River Twice, a glimpse into Sue Bird and Swin Cash's time as college roommates:


Swin is high-maintenance, but she is high-performance, too. A French poodle trapped in a Dalmatian's body. She leads the Huskies in rebounds and is second in scoring, and for all of her neediness -- a box of tissues is set on the scorer's table each practice for her -- she never misses a practice or a game.

You have to know how to handle her. [Teammate] Marci Czel roomed with Swin one year and called it "a miserable experience". But Sue Bird, who now rooms with Swin, has a better understanding of the Swin Rules. For example, Swin prefers the room to be hot. Sue does not argue. But most nights when they go to sleep, Sue takes the remote thermostat control to bed with her, slowly and steadily turning down the heat as she snuggles beneath her comforter.

Labels: Seattle Storm, UConn basketball

This was my 1000th post. That's pretty cool.

Labels: random silliness

From "Becoming, part 2" (episode 2.22):



Spike: I want to save the world.

Buffy: You do remember that you're a vampire, right?

Spike: We like to talk big. Vampires do. "I'm going to destroy the world." That's just tough guy talk. Strutting around with your friends over a pint of blood. The truth is, I like this world. You've got... dog racing, Manchester United. And you've got people, billions of people walking around like Happy Meals with legs. It's all right here. But then someone comes along with a vision, with a real... passion for destruction. Angel could pull it off. Goodbye, Piccadilly. Farewell, Leicester bloody Square. You know what I'm saying?

Labels: Buffy the Vampire Slayer

I found out there's two books in the Vlad Taltos series that I haven't read yet, so I bought them for my Nook, then started at the beginning again with Jhereg:



Morrolan was a bit tall for a Dragaeran. His cousin Aliera, however, was the shortest Dragaeran I have ever known; she could have been mistaken for a tall human. Bothered by this, it was her habit to wear gowns that were too long, and then make up the difference by levitating rather than walking. There have been those who made disparaging remarks about this. Aliera, however, was never one to hold a grudge. She almost always revivified them afterwards.

Labels: Vlad Taltos

Bojangles found his food right away tonight!

Labels: pets

Odds are good that Svetlana Abrosimova won't return to the Storm next season (she has national team obligations). Very sad. But here's a lovely little moment from the end of The Same River Twice:



In late April Geno [Auriemma] and Svetlana Abrosimova went to Secaucus, New Jersey, to attend the WNBA rookie draft. The Minnesota Lynx selected Sveta seventh overall, three slots behind Jackie Stiles and two behind Ruth Riley. When Sveta approached the interview podium, a WNBA official directed her to make on opening statement and then open the floor to questions.

"Hello!" said Sveta, wearing a smile that stretched from the Baltic Sea to the Bering Srait. "That is my opening statement. You can ask me questions now."

Labels: Seattle Storm, UConn basketball

Usually when I feed Bojangles, he grabs the food pellet right away. Tonight, though, he wandered around for a long time without noticing the food. I can't see the pellet now, so hopefully he found it....

Labels: pets

From season 4:


O'Malley: I haven't been here in quite some time. Which one is the blue base?

Doc: It's the blue one.

O'Malley: Oh, yes. They're really thinking outside the box with the design.

Labels: Red vs. Blue

Zanda mentioned Tilda Swinton, so...



When the time came for the Late Night Memoirs of a Fox to go on at the ADC, Emma, Kim, Paul, Hugh and I were in the show and Hugh added to the cast a tall, blonde, slender and extraordinarily talented girl called Tilda Swinton. She was not a part of Cambridge's comedy world, such as it was, but she was a magnificent actress, and her poise and presence made her the perfect judge in an American-courtroom sketch that Hugh and devised with some very slight assistance from me.

It is rather perfect to think of the pair of them playing American characters as students on the stage of the ADC. We would have called you mad if you had suggested that one day Hugh would go on to win Golden Globes for playing an American in a television series and that Tilda would win an Oscar for playing an American in a feature film.

Labels: Stephen Fry

The Storm website has "Free Agency Primer" for last year's team.

There was a lot of talk about the Storm "coring" Swin Cash to keep her here. But... they didn't.

I guess that means that Brian Agler's pretty confident she wants to return?

Labels: Seattle Storm

From "General Hospital" (episode 4.5):



[Blackadder suspects that Nurse Mary is a spy.]

Blackadder: Remember you mentioned a clever boyfriend?

Nurse Mary: Yes.

Blackadder: I leapt on the opportunity to test you. I asked if he'd been to one of the great universities: Oxford, Cambridge, Hull.

Nurse Mary: Well?

Blackadder: You failed to spot that only two of those are great universities!

Nurse Mary: You swine!

General Melchett: That's right! Oxford's a complete dump!


[P.S. Stephen Fry -- a Cambridge graduate -- played General Melchett.]

Labels: Black Adder

[h/t Jezebel]

Labels: random niceness

From The Same River Twice:



[One of the "incumbent duties of being a Husky"...]

In the hallway outside the players' lounge 16 chairs are set up in a row behind three tables. Dozens and dozens of new basketballs are in boxes next to them. For the next 20 minutes the Huskies form themselves into an assembly line of autograph-workers, painstakingly signing each ball and passing it on. The signatures are legible.

"See that?" says Sue Bird, pointing to Svetlana Abrosimova, who is at the end of the line. "Sveta's nice. She goes to the back of the line because she has the longest name. She doesn't want to hold up the line."

Labels: Seattle Storm, UConn basketball

She did an interview on an Australian radio station.

It can be found here.

Labels: Seattle Storm

From The Fry Chronicles:


The first production I went to see [when I was at Cambridge] was of Tom Stoppard's Travesties. [...] The production was co-directed by Brigid Larmour, now artistic director of the Watford Palace Theatre, and Annabelle Arden, who directs opera around the world. At the time they were very smart first-years who had hit the ground running. The others in the cast will forgive me, I hope, if I fail to recount their own admirable contributions to the success of he evening. Although it was a truly excellent production in and of itself, what stood out for me above all else was the performance of just one of the actresses. The girl who played Gwendolen stood out like a good deed in a naughty world.

She seemed, like Athene, to have arrived in the world fully armed. Her voice, her movement, her clarity, ease, poise, wit ... well, you had to be there. One of the best things any performer on stage can do, whether stand-up comic, torch singer, ballet dancer, character actor or tragedian, is to relax an audience. To let them know that everything is going to be all right and that they can lean back in their seats happy in the knowledge that the evening won't be a disaster. Of course, another of the best things a performer can do is provoke a feeling of excitement, danger, unpredictability and instability. To let the audience know that the evening might fail at any moment and that they need to lean forward in their seats and watch intently. If you can manage both at once then you are really something. This girl was really something. Medium height with a perfect English complexion, she was gravely beautiful, extraordinarily funny and commandingly assured beyond her years. Her name, the programme told me, was Emma Thompson.

Labels: Stephen Fry

From "Fair is Foul, and Foul is Fair" (episode 2.4):


[At a rehearsal of a new play...]

playwright: You're paraphrasing. That's not what I want you to do. I want you to tell the story as written, but in your own words.

Ellen: That's what paraphrasing is!

Labels: Slings and Arrows

Really cool video:



[h/t Jezebel]

Labels: random niceness

From The Same River Twice:


Among educated Husky followers Sue Bird is the sleeper pick to settle many a debate. Deadlocked over whether Shea [Ralph] or Sveta [Abrosimova] is the team's most valuable player? Say Sue Bird. Is Diana [Taurasi] or Sveta the Huskies' most deadly three-point shooter? Sue Bird. Who is the mostly comely -- yes, such matters do inspire debate here -- Sveta or Swin [Cash]? Sue Bird.

Labels: Seattle Storm, UConn basketball

Lauren Jackson's injured.

Labels: Seattle Storm

From Till The Blood Runs Clear (episode 1.11):


Crichton: I’m Butch. [gestures to Aeryn] This is Sundance.

Labels: Farscape

From The Fry Chronicles:


In much of my life from 1977 to 1987 people appear who are known in the public world and to whom I cannot give convincing pseudonyms. If I told you, for example, that at university I met a man called Lew Horrie and that we embarked on a comic career together it might not take great insight or too much Googling on your part to know that I was writing about a real person.

Labels: Stephen Fry

Going into tonight's game against Notre Dame, UConn hadn't lost back-to-back road games since the early 90's. Notre Dame was ahead most of the game, but UConn kept battling back and managed to pull out the win in the end.

An exciting game, and a great win made better by the fact that they beat the always-evil Notre Dame!


p.s. Thank you, Seahawks, for winning your first game. I've got three picks on the Seahawks line, so I was expecting to lose half of my spots today!

Labels: Seattle Seahawks, UConn basketball

From The Same River Twice:


[Svetlana Abrosimova spends her second Christmas with the family of her teammate, Shea Ralph.]

Last Christmas Shea's family had urged her to call her parents back in St. Petersburg on Christmas morning. When she did, Roy, Marsha, Shea, and Ryan gathered around her. After a minute or two, Sveta stopped talking and eyed her hosts curiously. She felt self-conscious.

"Go ahead, Svet," they urged. "We just want to hear you speak Russian."

Labels: Seattle Storm, UConn basketball

From Lee Russakoff's NFL Playoff Power Rankings:


12. Seattle Seahawks (Googolplex-to-1 )

Note that a googolplex is only the world’s second-largest number with a name. I didn’t put the ‘Hawks' odds at Googolplexian-to-1 because that would be ridiculous. Plus there is a scenario – where the entire planet blacks out FlashForward-style for the entirety of the playoffs, but Bill Gates buys the Seahawks roster special alpha rings so that they can stay awake and win four games in a row (because no one else shows up) – I can envision where the Seahawks win it all.

Is Qwest a tough place to play? Sure. Should New Orleans be a tad nervous about traveling across country on a short week? You bet. But Seattle is ranked 28th in total offense and 27th in total defense. That’s not even mediocre. And it won’t be good enough to beat the Saints.

Labels: Seattle Seahawks

I finished The Same River Twice, but I've got lots more quotes.....

MWA-HA-HA!!!

Labels: books, UConn basketball

According to The Same River Twice, Geno Auriemma actively tries to avoid a blow-out. To win, yes. But not to embarrass the other team:


The [Long Island University] Blackbirds, who have not played in front of a crowd larger than 621, appear starstruck and overwhelmed before Gampel [Arena]'s 10,027. But the Huskies are also bigger, faster, better, and deeper. [...] The Huskies win 101-29. [...] Geno does all but play four at a time to mitigate the carnage. No Husky plays more than 22 minutes. No Husky scores more than 13 points.

[Later Geno receives an email...]

It came from an attorney on Long Island. The correspondence, if not relayed here verbatim, read: "I'm a lawyer in New York, and I woke up this morning and saw that your team won 102-29 last night. I didn't see the game, but you should be ashamed of yourself for running up the score like that."

"Can you believe that?" Geno said before practice today. "He didn't even see the game, and he's criticizing me."

It's not easy being Geno. Lose, or win by less than 30 points, and you must answer myriad questions about what's wrong with your team. Win by what you're capable of and you get emails from clueless lawyers across Long Island Sound.

"So I wrote him back," said Geno. "I wrote, 'I've never seen you try a case, but you must be a crummy lawyer. How do you expect to win a case if you never look at the evidence?'"

Labels: UConn basketball

Remember this quote?

UConn beat Villanova 81-35. Ouch!

Labels: UConn basketball

Whatever the problem was, Blogger fixed it. Hooray!

From "Are You There God? It's Me, Dean Winchester" (episode 4.02):



Castiel: Excellent job with the witnesses.

Dean: You were hip to all this?

Castiel: I was, uh, made aware.

Dean: Well, thanks a lot for the angelic assistance. You know, I almost got my heart ripped out of my chest.

Castiel: But you didn't.

Dean: I thought angels were supposed to be guardians. Fluffy wings, halos -- You know, Michael Landon. Not dicks.

Castiel: Read the Bible. Angels are warriors of God. I'm a soldier.

Dean: Yeah? Then, why didn't you fight?

Castiel: I'm not here to perch on your shoulder. We had larger concerns.

Dean: Concerns? There were people getting torn to shreds down here! And, by the way, while all this is going on, where the hell is your boss, if there is a God?

Castiel: There's a God.

Dean: I'm not convinced. 'Cause if there's a God, what the hell is he waiting for, huh? Genocide? Monsters roaming the earth? The freaking apocalypse? At what point does he lift a damn finger and help the poor bastards that are stuck down here?

Castiel: The Lord works...

Dean: If you say "mysterious ways," so help me, I will kick your ass. So, Bobby was right... About the witnesses... this is some kind of a... sign of the apocalypse.

Castiel: That's why we're here. Big things afoot.

Dean: Do I want to know what kind of things?

Castiel: I sincerely doubt it, but you need to know. The rising of the witnesses is one of the 66 seals.

Dean: Okay. I'm guessing that's not a show at SeaWorld.

Castiel: Those seals are being broken by Lilith.

Dean: She did the spell. She rose the witnesses.

Castiel: Mm-Hmm. And not just here. 20 other hunters are dead.

Dean: Of course. She picked victims that the hunters couldn't save so that they would barrel right after us.

Castiel: Lilith has a certain sense of humor.

Dean: Well, we put those spirits back to rest.

Castiel: It doesn't matter. The seal was broken.

Dean: Why break the seal anyway?

Castiel: You think of the seals as locks on a door.

Dean: ... okay. Last one opens and...

Castiel: Lucifer walks free.

Dean: Lucifer? But I thought Lucifer was just a story they told at demon Sunday school. There's no such thing.

Castiel: Three days ago, you thought there was no such thing as me. Why do you think we're here walking among you now for the first time in 2,000 years?

Dean: To stop Lucifer.

Castiel: That's why we've arrived.

Dean: Well... bang-up job so far. Stellar work with the witnesses. That's nice.

Castiel: We tried. And there are other battles, other seals. Some we'll win, some we'll lose. This one we lost. Our numbers are not unlimited. Six of my brothers died in the field this week. You think the armies of heaven should just follow you around? There's a bigger picture here. You should show me some respect. I dragged you out of hell. I can throw you back in.

Labels: Supernatural

What happened is this...

I found the most awesome fish bowl EVER:

Fish! In! Space!




So then I got a fish to live in it. I present to you....

Bojangles!!!



My first pet! Let's hope he lives longer than my houseplants...

Labels: pets

Remember how Sue Bird made that game-winning shot in the 2001 Big East Championship? I talked about it here, and the video is here. Here's John Walters description of the play, from The Same River Twice:


UConn has the ball and a one-point lead. Notre Dame, for the first time tonight, switches to a man-to-man defense. Sue is guarded by [Nielle] Ivey, who swats at the ball right in front of the UConn bench. It falls away and out of bounds with 16.3 seconds left. Possession is given to Notre Dame.

"No!" says Sue, shocked, to referee Angie Lewis. "Oh, my God!"

"It went off of you," the referee replies.

The Irish run the same clear-out play [as the previous possession] to [Ruth] Riley on the low block. Riley again uses the spin move but misses. However, a foul is called on Schuey [Kelly Schumacher] with 5.1 seconds left.

Sue immediately walks to the far end of the court to speak with Geno. "What do you want to do?" she asks.

"Just get it and go," he says.

Riley misses the first shot. Sue jogs down to the free-throw lane and approaches Swin [Cash]. "Just give me the ball," she says.

Riley makes her second free throw, tying the score at 76. Perhaps the Irish expect UConn to call timeout and set up a play. Instead, Schuey grabs the ball and inbounds to Sue. As Sue takes the inbounds pass crossing the lane, Swin sets a pick on Ivey, who is chasing Sue. The screen springs Sue, the fastest player on either team. Ivey is helpless to catch her.

Siemon finally impedes Sue in the frontcourt, forcing her to go left just beyond the three-point arc. Sue takes one more dribble, then a herculean leap of a jump stop. She is ten feet from the basket when she launches a fall-away jumper just beyond the outstretched arms of the 6'5" Riley.

The buzzer sounds as Sue stumbles awkwardly toward the Husky bench, twisting as she keeps her eyes on the ball. It kisses the front of the rim with a dull clang, then climbs over and into the basket.

Labels: Seattle Storm, UConn basketball

From the episode "Fast in Florida":


Adam: So far I'm liking the Ebora. It's not like all the other Lotuses. It's wider, [and it] has more head room. It also has a back seat, which I'm sure could fit your passengers comfortably if you cut off their heads and legs.

Labels: Top Gear

Today at work I was chatting with a co-worker, and he mentioned that he'd seen a trailer for the new Narnia movie, "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader". He'd been amused, because the trailer seemed to imply that it was about a quest for a magic sword to kill a ghost, which is (spoiler!) not the plot of the book.

I think this is the trailer he saw.

Labels: books, movies

One of the best things about The Same River Twice is that you get a glimpse of what Sue Bird, Swin Cash, Svetlana Abrosimova, and Diana Taurasi were like when they were younger. Here's a passage about Sue Bird:


Sue Bird, whose oncourt composure is normally beyond reproach, got a technical foul in her first college road game, two years ago at UCLA.

"In the first half I had two fouls and no points," Sue recalled a few weeks ago, "So early in the second half I get another foul called on me. I'm angry at myself, and I utter a profanity. The ref saw me say it. In fact, it was on camera. And you know, in college a technical foul counts as a foul, so I had four fouls and no points. That was pretty much the end of my day."

Sue did learn a lesson, though, and shared it with the team. "Now we talk into our shirts when we're mad," she said. "I'll lift up my jersey as if I'm going to wipe off some sweat, and sometimes I am. But more often I'm letting off steam. And the camera can't read your lips."

Labels: Seattle Storm, UConn basketball

From Bookstore Lore: The Stupidest Questions Ever Asked in a Bookstore:



Deranged: "Do you have any non-fiction?"

(Yes, it's all over the store.)

Der.: Well I can't seem to find any, you must have sold it all.

(OK)

One hour later, deranged is back: "Do you have any non-fiction?"

(Oh, you're back. What are you looking for?)

Deranged: "Something like Edgar Allen Poe."

Labels: books, work

....Which means it's time for me to do some dishes with my iPod's earphones firmly shoved in my ears.

Happy New Year!

Labels: holidays