Character always wins out.
This story doesn't surprise me.
I knew Sergeant First Class Raymond Castillo as Cadet Candidate Castillo when we were CCs together at USMAPS. I was older, prior service, and higher in the class ranking; nonetheless, I admired him. As young as he was, Castillo shone with the right stuff even then. He was thoughtful, self-aware, tough, and a true believer of duty, honor, country - a born soldier. More, Castillo was a born leader of soldiers in the ideal sense. Even then, he was sure in his principles and lived and breathed the Army values. The only reason he didn't make it to West Point with the rest of us was he couldn't write despite that the best CC writers at USMAPS, including me, did our best to tutor him. It was frustrating because Castillo was smart enough, otherwise a good student, skilled at math, well-spoken, willing to learn, and a hard worker. If he would have simply written his papers the same way he spoke, he would have been fine, but for some reason, there was a disconnect in his brain between his mind and his writing.
Castillo will always be one of my favorite people. My civil-military advocacy in college and my efforts to counter misrepresentations of the Iraq mission were motivated by soldiers like him. They are good, honorable men - worthier, stronger men than I am - the best of Americans who have risked themselves for duty, honor, country. They've earned it. They are righteous. They deserve to be empowered and honored for their selfless service and sacrifice.
Eric
Sunday, 12 May 2013
Thursday, 9 May 2013
Thoughts of the day
I agree with Ethan Chorin that President Obama's misguided Libya policy set the stage for the Benghazi consulate attack and other deleterious effects. For a liberal leadership posture, Bush's Middle East policy was correct. By retaining the same liberal posture yet switching course based on the faulty premise that Bush's Middle East policy was incorrect, Obama's Middle East policy has gone wrong.
2004 CNN report with Clinton supporting Bush on Iraq:
As shown by Clinton's quote, the Democrats understood the context and stakes in Iraq, yet they still distorted the public perception of the Iraq mission for parochial partisan gain. This postsecret from May 18 reminds me of the layers of damage caused by the misinformation, propaganda, and false narrative against the Iraq mission that the Democrats validated. Let's see whether this and this make a difference.
Bravo, Richard Kemp. More of this needs to be said and often about our roles in Iraq and Afghanistan. I would emphasize more the liberal and humanitarian aspects of our peace operations, but he takes the narrative in the right direction by critically spotlighting and contrasting the nature of the enemy. We need a better, stronger narrative. The leftist anti-peace narrative works hand in hand with the Islamic terrorist narrative to deadly result.
Bravo, Michelle Malkin. This is the right tack to criticize Obama's hypocrisy and overreach, and rehabilitate Bush's legacy while not throwing out the baby of national security and the War on Terror with the bathwater. Make Bush the standard and hold Obama to it.
I haven't been following the Jason Richwine controversy, but here's his side of it. Judgybitch's take.
Abandoned places, such as the abandoned showpiece City Hall subway station.
Youtube fun:
Schmoyoho's (Gregory Brothers) Churchill remix. Churchill is a soul brother.
A red-pill song by Matt Hires: Restless Heart.
The Crazy Nasty Ass Honey Badger (original narration by Randall).
Touching google doodle of a girl excited, then apprehensive and tentative, then finally released and intimate with her military dad when he comes home from a deployment. The theme is Best Day Ever and the artist is contest winner Sabrina Brady.
Who you are, character, personality, intrinsic self, inner game is determinative. It always wins out. Talent, skill, resources, given advantages, and luck are just tools. What you do is episodic. Character is thematic. In the end, you are what your record says you are.
Free Northerner's manly reading lists. Compare to Columbia's renowned Core Curriculum.
Project Gutenberg - classics for free on-line.
Story of a family who travelled from a Lockean state, the UK, to visit family in India and fell into a Hobbesian nightmare.
At some point, I'll make a separate post for Szelenyi's lectures, like my knots progress post.
What's happening to good-girl paragon Amanda Bynes? Her fall is yet another harsh disillusioning blow to my idealism where a hitherto unimpeachable American paragon is brought low in shocking and/or sordid fashion, like Lance Armstrong, Alex Rodriguez, Lehman Brothers, Columbia space shuttle, GEN Petraeus, Bernie Madoff, Tiger Woods, Horace Mann, and Penn State. Bynes was seemingly the most stable and virtuous of her peers, yet her fall has been the hardest. It's like Taleb's black swan enacted on a personal level. Insight from Mara Wilson.
A red-pill explanation for Bynes's breakdown: The truth about female desire: It’s base, animalistic and ravenous. It may be, at least in part, her nature breaking free.
Duke of Earl by Gene Chandler. "As I walk through this world, nothing can stop the Duke of Earl ... Nothing can stop me now, coz I'm the Duke of Earl!"
Goodnite, Sweetheart, Goodnite by the Spaniels. "Good night, sweetheart, well, it's time to go. I hate to leave you, but I really must say, oh good night, sweetheart, good night." "Baby, I just can't get right. Well, I hate to leave you, baby, I don't mean maybe, because I love you so." That's what it felt like when I left Korea, the Army, and her behind. To summarize, Every Little Thing She Does is Magic by the Police, Can't Fight This Feeling by REO Speedwagon, Teenager in Love by Dion and the Belmonts, and Goodnite, Sweetheart, Goodnite by the Spaniels sing the love story that wasn't. Rollo explains the 'click' together but ... mystery.
Sorrow.
Honor your father and mother by begetting children.
Sarah at Trying to Grok regrets waiting too long to start having children and recommends women should start their families before age 25.
Narcotics Anonymous: "Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results."
7 stages of grief (modified Kubler-Ross): Shock - Denial - Anger - Bargain - Depression - Testing - Acceptance.
Pulp Fiction Ezekiel 25:17 (the whole scene; revisited in the final scene). "The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee!"
No matter how much a drill sergeant yells at you while smoking you (and your fellow privates) in the pit or anywhere else, muscle failure is muscle failure. Where the drill sergeant makes a difference is your muscular capacity is higher than your perception of your muscular capability. The drill sergeant bullies you past the limits of your perception, gets more out of your capacity, and thereby improves your capability more than you would have on your own.
Principle is fine - it's the ought. But power comes first - it's the real that is.
Andy Greenwald on the moral of the Game of Thrones's Red Wedding - the practical purpose for the fiction of idealism and the danger of codes of honor: "Jon Snow is a bastard, born outside of the tight web of convention that gave Ned meaning and purpose, the same fiction that Varys spoke of a few weeks back as being essential to keeping an empire from falling into chaos. While there's enough Ned in him to save the life of the elderly horsetrader — and blow his own cover in the process — Jon's still fluid enough in his worldview and allegiance to keep him alive for the foreseeable future." Rational choice wins. Greenwald's post is worth reading even if you (like I) haven't watched the show. It's a prescription for the red pill. "Greater good", "make a difference", and "make the world a better place" can be spun, interpreted, and modified to mean a number of different things.
Related to that the frame of the problem informs the solution, knowing parties, premises, (first) principles, purpose, and definitions tells you the rest.
I made myself a bannock pizza deep dish style using my 3 quart mixing bowl in the Nesco. It worked. The crust tasted, looked, and felt (texture) like a reasonable approximation of a deep dish pizza crust. I left the bannock dough in the refrigerator overnight because I wasn't hungry. I learned that chilled bannock dough, like chilled brownie paste, also flour based, is easier to work with than just-made bannock dough. The cooked crust seemed thicker than usual, too. I'm not sure whether it tasted different, though the bitter taste from the baking soda seemed less.
This time, I let the Duncan Hines dark chocolate fudge brownie cool completely before eating it. Cooled, but not cold, the texture was more brownie-like and seemed to taste better, too.
I tried mixing evaporated milk into my last dark chocolate brownie mix. The result was the consistency was more brownie like. Still low on taste, though.
I bought Duncan Hines dark chocolate fudge cake mix on sale for 1.25 for a 16.5 ounce box. Ugh. It's tasteless, more tasteless even than the Duncan Hines dark chocolate fudge brownie mix. Granted, cakes are meant to be frosted, but the cake portion should have at least some flavor. The texture is cake texture rather than the relatively denser brownie. Adding evaporated milk to the cake batter makes the cake spongier.
I wonder why chicken takes longer to cook than pork. Less dense muscle fiber?
Golden Krust honey barbecue jerk sauce is quite tasty as a dipping sauce. Hunts hickory & brown sugar barbecue sauce is too strong as a dipping sauce and okay as a pre-cook baste - quite sticky, though, due to the corn syrup.
The turkey sausage is a pain in the ass. I just ate 2 bites that were half raw. How am I supposed to know the inside is no longer pink? I'm going to try boiling one next time before I grill it, like how I broil my pork before grilling it. I'm just afraid the tasty oil will leak out of the sausage when I boil it.
.99/lb pork neck bones - not worth it for the meat. A lot of bone for broth, though.
Best Yet frozen southern selection cut okra is good. Slimy, so I cook it with my rice so the slime is soaked up in the rice.
Bachelor meat-sauce pasta shortcut: Add the uncooked pasta directly to the sauce. Add enough liquid for the pasta to plump. The Mirro and burner worked well for making the meat-sauce pasta. Bachelor meat-sauce pasta is illusory. It looks like a heaping pile (as I've noted before) and tastes okay, but it's not filling, so it goes quick.
The canned salmon makes for a decadent bachelor stew with Progresso soup. Earlier, I tried making a bachelor stew with a can of crushed tomatoes rather than soup and ended up with something like a weaker bachelor meat sauce, which I usually make with ground turkey, chicken, or pork. Today, I tried making a bachelor meat sauce pasta with the canned salmon (scallion greens, canned corn, frozen spinach, crushed tomatoes with basil). Pretty much the same result as the bachelor stew-turned-sauce. Not bad, but the canned salmon is miscast with the meat sauce. The salmon is weaker flavored with the crushed tomatoes than with the Progresso soup for some reason - tomato juice neutralizing the salmon oil, perhaps? From now on, I'm sticking with pork, turkey, or chicken for the meat sauce pasta and the canned salmon will be reserved for stew. Plus, I'm quite pleased with the Mirro so far.
With the Sunbeam wounded, I could use a skillet, frying pan, or wok for my single burner. I'm waiting for one to turn up for scavenging. I can only cook so many ways with the grill pan. At least one frying pan was available, but I declined to take it at the time because my Sunbeam was still healthy and I wasn't using my burner yet. Just goes to show, gotta think ahead.
I recovered a Circulon stove-top grill pan insert but without its holder/drip pan. It looked sort of like a skillet. I can't use it to cook without its holder unless I use it concave or underside side up, and I don't know that the underside is safe to cook on. I can't think of any other use for it. So, back in the recycling bin it goes. Oh well.
16MAY13: I scavenged an aluminum Mirro-matic electric frying pan today. I guess it was discarded because it's missing its power supply, so now it's just a frying pan, no longer electric. It's otherwise in good shape. The lid is intact and it's been scrubbed clean. It has scratches, some discolorations, and stubborn (soybean) vegetable oil stains in all the hard-to-scrub places. The key, and lucky, characteristic of the pan is its bottom fits onto my burner. The Mirro-matic has a 15-cup (120 ounce) capacity, compared to 12 cups for the 3-quart mixing bowl and 9 cups for the Sunbeam.
In cooking and other useful endeavors, the right tool for the job makes a big difference and trial and error is necessary for improvement beyond the limits of conception.
Eric
2004 CNN report with Clinton supporting Bush on Iraq:
Clinton, who was interviewed Thursday, said he did not believe that Bush went to war in Iraq over oil or for imperialist reasons but out of a genuine belief that large quantities of weapons of mass destruction remained unaccounted for.
Noting that Bush had to be "reeling" in the wake of the attacks of September 11, 2001, Clinton said Bush's first priority was to keep al Qaeda and other terrorist networks from obtaining "chemical and biological weapons or small amounts of fissile material."
"That's why I supported the Iraq thing. There was a lot of stuff unaccounted for," Clinton said in reference to Iraq and the fact that U.N. weapons inspectors left the country in 1998.
"So I thought the president had an absolute responsibility to go to the U.N. and say, 'Look, guys, after 9/11, you have got to demand that Saddam Hussein lets us finish the inspection process.' You couldn't responsibly ignore [the possibility that] a tyrant had these stocks," Clinton said.
As shown by Clinton's quote, the Democrats understood the context and stakes in Iraq, yet they still distorted the public perception of the Iraq mission for parochial partisan gain. This postsecret from May 18 reminds me of the layers of damage caused by the misinformation, propaganda, and false narrative against the Iraq mission that the Democrats validated. Let's see whether this and this make a difference.
Bravo, Richard Kemp. More of this needs to be said and often about our roles in Iraq and Afghanistan. I would emphasize more the liberal and humanitarian aspects of our peace operations, but he takes the narrative in the right direction by critically spotlighting and contrasting the nature of the enemy. We need a better, stronger narrative. The leftist anti-peace narrative works hand in hand with the Islamic terrorist narrative to deadly result.
Bravo, Michelle Malkin. This is the right tack to criticize Obama's hypocrisy and overreach, and rehabilitate Bush's legacy while not throwing out the baby of national security and the War on Terror with the bathwater. Make Bush the standard and hold Obama to it.
I haven't been following the Jason Richwine controversy, but here's his side of it. Judgybitch's take.
Abandoned places, such as the abandoned showpiece City Hall subway station.
Youtube fun:
Schmoyoho's (Gregory Brothers) Churchill remix. Churchill is a soul brother.
A red-pill song by Matt Hires: Restless Heart.
The Crazy Nasty Ass Honey Badger (original narration by Randall).
Touching google doodle of a girl excited, then apprehensive and tentative, then finally released and intimate with her military dad when he comes home from a deployment. The theme is Best Day Ever and the artist is contest winner Sabrina Brady.
Who you are, character, personality, intrinsic self, inner game is determinative. It always wins out. Talent, skill, resources, given advantages, and luck are just tools. What you do is episodic. Character is thematic. In the end, you are what your record says you are.
Free Northerner's manly reading lists. Compare to Columbia's renowned Core Curriculum.
Project Gutenberg - classics for free on-line.
Story of a family who travelled from a Lockean state, the UK, to visit family in India and fell into a Hobbesian nightmare.
At some point, I'll make a separate post for Szelenyi's lectures, like my knots progress post.
What's happening to good-girl paragon Amanda Bynes? Her fall is yet another harsh disillusioning blow to my idealism where a hitherto unimpeachable American paragon is brought low in shocking and/or sordid fashion, like Lance Armstrong, Alex Rodriguez, Lehman Brothers, Columbia space shuttle, GEN Petraeus, Bernie Madoff, Tiger Woods, Horace Mann, and Penn State. Bynes was seemingly the most stable and virtuous of her peers, yet her fall has been the hardest. It's like Taleb's black swan enacted on a personal level. Insight from Mara Wilson.
A red-pill explanation for Bynes's breakdown: The truth about female desire: It’s base, animalistic and ravenous. It may be, at least in part, her nature breaking free.
Duke of Earl by Gene Chandler. "As I walk through this world, nothing can stop the Duke of Earl ... Nothing can stop me now, coz I'm the Duke of Earl!"
Goodnite, Sweetheart, Goodnite by the Spaniels. "Good night, sweetheart, well, it's time to go. I hate to leave you, but I really must say, oh good night, sweetheart, good night." "Baby, I just can't get right. Well, I hate to leave you, baby, I don't mean maybe, because I love you so." That's what it felt like when I left Korea, the Army, and her behind. To summarize, Every Little Thing She Does is Magic by the Police, Can't Fight This Feeling by REO Speedwagon, Teenager in Love by Dion and the Belmonts, and Goodnite, Sweetheart, Goodnite by the Spaniels sing the love story that wasn't. Rollo explains the 'click' together but ... mystery.
Sorrow.
Honor your father and mother by begetting children.
Sarah at Trying to Grok regrets waiting too long to start having children and recommends women should start their families before age 25.
Narcotics Anonymous: "Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results."
7 stages of grief (modified Kubler-Ross): Shock - Denial - Anger - Bargain - Depression - Testing - Acceptance.
Pulp Fiction Ezekiel 25:17 (the whole scene; revisited in the final scene). "The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee!"
No matter how much a drill sergeant yells at you while smoking you (and your fellow privates) in the pit or anywhere else, muscle failure is muscle failure. Where the drill sergeant makes a difference is your muscular capacity is higher than your perception of your muscular capability. The drill sergeant bullies you past the limits of your perception, gets more out of your capacity, and thereby improves your capability more than you would have on your own.
Principle is fine - it's the ought. But power comes first - it's the real that is.
Andy Greenwald on the moral of the Game of Thrones's Red Wedding - the practical purpose for the fiction of idealism and the danger of codes of honor: "Jon Snow is a bastard, born outside of the tight web of convention that gave Ned meaning and purpose, the same fiction that Varys spoke of a few weeks back as being essential to keeping an empire from falling into chaos. While there's enough Ned in him to save the life of the elderly horsetrader — and blow his own cover in the process — Jon's still fluid enough in his worldview and allegiance to keep him alive for the foreseeable future." Rational choice wins. Greenwald's post is worth reading even if you (like I) haven't watched the show. It's a prescription for the red pill. "Greater good", "make a difference", and "make the world a better place" can be spun, interpreted, and modified to mean a number of different things.
Related to that the frame of the problem informs the solution, knowing parties, premises, (first) principles, purpose, and definitions tells you the rest.
I made myself a bannock pizza deep dish style using my 3 quart mixing bowl in the Nesco. It worked. The crust tasted, looked, and felt (texture) like a reasonable approximation of a deep dish pizza crust. I left the bannock dough in the refrigerator overnight because I wasn't hungry. I learned that chilled bannock dough, like chilled brownie paste, also flour based, is easier to work with than just-made bannock dough. The cooked crust seemed thicker than usual, too. I'm not sure whether it tasted different, though the bitter taste from the baking soda seemed less.
This time, I let the Duncan Hines dark chocolate fudge brownie cool completely before eating it. Cooled, but not cold, the texture was more brownie-like and seemed to taste better, too.
I tried mixing evaporated milk into my last dark chocolate brownie mix. The result was the consistency was more brownie like. Still low on taste, though.
I bought Duncan Hines dark chocolate fudge cake mix on sale for 1.25 for a 16.5 ounce box. Ugh. It's tasteless, more tasteless even than the Duncan Hines dark chocolate fudge brownie mix. Granted, cakes are meant to be frosted, but the cake portion should have at least some flavor. The texture is cake texture rather than the relatively denser brownie. Adding evaporated milk to the cake batter makes the cake spongier.
I wonder why chicken takes longer to cook than pork. Less dense muscle fiber?
Golden Krust honey barbecue jerk sauce is quite tasty as a dipping sauce. Hunts hickory & brown sugar barbecue sauce is too strong as a dipping sauce and okay as a pre-cook baste - quite sticky, though, due to the corn syrup.
The turkey sausage is a pain in the ass. I just ate 2 bites that were half raw. How am I supposed to know the inside is no longer pink? I'm going to try boiling one next time before I grill it, like how I broil my pork before grilling it. I'm just afraid the tasty oil will leak out of the sausage when I boil it.
.99/lb pork neck bones - not worth it for the meat. A lot of bone for broth, though.
Best Yet frozen southern selection cut okra is good. Slimy, so I cook it with my rice so the slime is soaked up in the rice.
Bachelor meat-sauce pasta shortcut: Add the uncooked pasta directly to the sauce. Add enough liquid for the pasta to plump. The Mirro and burner worked well for making the meat-sauce pasta. Bachelor meat-sauce pasta is illusory. It looks like a heaping pile (as I've noted before) and tastes okay, but it's not filling, so it goes quick.
The canned salmon makes for a decadent bachelor stew with Progresso soup. Earlier, I tried making a bachelor stew with a can of crushed tomatoes rather than soup and ended up with something like a weaker bachelor meat sauce, which I usually make with ground turkey, chicken, or pork. Today, I tried making a bachelor meat sauce pasta with the canned salmon (scallion greens, canned corn, frozen spinach, crushed tomatoes with basil). Pretty much the same result as the bachelor stew-turned-sauce. Not bad, but the canned salmon is miscast with the meat sauce. The salmon is weaker flavored with the crushed tomatoes than with the Progresso soup for some reason - tomato juice neutralizing the salmon oil, perhaps? From now on, I'm sticking with pork, turkey, or chicken for the meat sauce pasta and the canned salmon will be reserved for stew. Plus, I'm quite pleased with the Mirro so far.
With the Sunbeam wounded, I could use a skillet, frying pan, or wok for my single burner. I'm waiting for one to turn up for scavenging. I can only cook so many ways with the grill pan. At least one frying pan was available, but I declined to take it at the time because my Sunbeam was still healthy and I wasn't using my burner yet. Just goes to show, gotta think ahead.
I recovered a Circulon stove-top grill pan insert but without its holder/drip pan. It looked sort of like a skillet. I can't use it to cook without its holder unless I use it concave or underside side up, and I don't know that the underside is safe to cook on. I can't think of any other use for it. So, back in the recycling bin it goes. Oh well.
16MAY13: I scavenged an aluminum Mirro-matic electric frying pan today. I guess it was discarded because it's missing its power supply, so now it's just a frying pan, no longer electric. It's otherwise in good shape. The lid is intact and it's been scrubbed clean. It has scratches, some discolorations, and stubborn (soybean) vegetable oil stains in all the hard-to-scrub places. The key, and lucky, characteristic of the pan is its bottom fits onto my burner. The Mirro-matic has a 15-cup (120 ounce) capacity, compared to 12 cups for the 3-quart mixing bowl and 9 cups for the Sunbeam.
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In cooking and other useful endeavors, the right tool for the job makes a big difference and trial and error is necessary for improvement beyond the limits of conception.
Eric
Breaking news! Girls are less attracted to nice guys.
According to a study reported in Mens Health (h/t Roissy),
*
* Okay, 'no spark' isn't actually news, not anymore. The cite was just an opportunity to introduce the "You don't say?" graphic to my blog. I might use it again.
PS: Red-pill truth is breaking out. Life finds a way.
Eric
Turns out, women are less attracted to men who seem too caring on a first date, according to research in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
In the study, women were less likely to want to sleep with male acquaintances who expressed concern when they opened up than with men who were less emotionally responsive.
** Okay, 'no spark' isn't actually news, not anymore. The cite was just an opportunity to introduce the "You don't say?" graphic to my blog. I might use it again.
PS: Red-pill truth is breaking out. Life finds a way.
Eric
Sunday, 5 May 2013
My high school varsity jacket
We were undefeated in the regular season, dominant Manhattan champions, and upset favored play-off opponents to reach the PSAL quarter-finals (3rd round - elite eight!) every year I bowled, thanks to Jeff.
In ways positive and negative, regretful, my Stuyvesant bowling team experience epitomizes my life so far.
If I could time travel like Peggy Sue Got Married (older mind transplanted in young self), not like Back to the Future, a do-over of my high school bowling career would be at the top of my wish list.
Eric
Friday, 3 May 2013
Jeremy Lin coming off the bench in Game 6
Jeremy Lin has been cleared to play Game 6 against the Thunder. The intriguing development is that Kevin McHale will bring Lin off the bench.
I want to see how Lin does in the 3rd guard role because I believe it's the role he's naturally best suited to play. While Lin as-is is a quality starting PG with room to grow, his game is ready made for the dynamic, Swiss-army-knife, game-changing, combo-SG/PG, 3rd guard role typified by Manu Ginobili and Thunder-version James Harden. Lin is better when he takes the swashbuckling, dominating approach that comes with the 3rd guard role than when he restrains himself with the game-managing mindset that comes with starting PG. The few elite NBA 3rd guards are my favorite players to watch and Lin has the goods to join them.
Lin can do a lot of damage to the Thunder if he unleashes himself on the Westbrook-less Thunder guards. With his poor play in Game 1 and injury stoking his critics, I believe Lin will be more than eager to strike hard against the Thunder tonight with some throwback Linsanity.
I said before the season:
Post-game: Ouch. Linsanity did not reappear. The Rockets lost Game 6 while Lin finished his 1st post-season with a poor small game. Lin was fine on defense but tentative and out of sync with his teammates on offense. He only played 13 minutes and finished the game sitting on the bench.
Exit thoughts: Despite the disappointing post-season, the 2012-2013 season over-all was still a successful one for Lin. He played in all 82 regular-season games and showed his durability, established himself as a competent starting NBA PG with impressive flashes of Linsanity to show he has yet to reach his ceiling, and experienced the post-season. Lin is still progressing on the Nashian Mavs-period developmental curve. He essentially is in the same position now as he would have been last season had he played it out as the Knicks starting PG, then tasted the post-season against the Heat. This comment at jeremylin.net makes a good point that Lin's production this season was quite high relative to his low usage rate (38th among NBA PGs). A Lin doubter who apparently played for his HS basketball team is rebuked by indignant Lin fans.
Eric
I want to see how Lin does in the 3rd guard role because I believe it's the role he's naturally best suited to play. While Lin as-is is a quality starting PG with room to grow, his game is ready made for the dynamic, Swiss-army-knife, game-changing, combo-SG/PG, 3rd guard role typified by Manu Ginobili and Thunder-version James Harden. Lin is better when he takes the swashbuckling, dominating approach that comes with the 3rd guard role than when he restrains himself with the game-managing mindset that comes with starting PG. The few elite NBA 3rd guards are my favorite players to watch and Lin has the goods to join them.
Lin can do a lot of damage to the Thunder if he unleashes himself on the Westbrook-less Thunder guards. With his poor play in Game 1 and injury stoking his critics, I believe Lin will be more than eager to strike hard against the Thunder tonight with some throwback Linsanity.
I said before the season:
Last season, Lin's play reminded often of a proto-Nash, but also reminded that he didn't play PG in college. I believe the ceiling for Lin is Steve Nash, if he can fully convert to PG and improve his streaky jumpshot, and his floor is Delonte West, if he is unable to convert to PG, loses his intuitive flair, and settles as a servicable combo guard. The niche for Lin between his floor and ceiling is do-everything, game-changing 3rd guard. Much of what Bill Simmons says about James Harden's 3rd guard role with the Thunder could apply to Lin, such as "like Dennis Johnson, Manu Ginobili, Joe Dumars and (going way back) Sam Jones before him, Harden has shown the enviable ability to lay low for 42 minutes, then rise to the occasion when it matters." With the Knicks, Lin could have shifted to the 3rd guard role if starting PG didn't work out. The Knicks need a versatile, clutch, playmaking 3rd guard to fill in the gaps on a team of specialists and poorly matched players, help Carmelo Anthony as a pressure release valve, and bail out the Knicks' clunky offense. On the Rockets, it's starting PG or bust for Lin."Starting PG or bust" is no longer the case due to the Rockets' success with Beverley and Garcia starting against the Westbrook-less Thunder while Lin was out. I look forward to watching Lin tonight revive his Knick-version takeover aggressiveness, versatility, energy, playmaking, high basketball IQ, big-moment clutchness, and creative isolation scoring, and establish himself as an elite NBA 3rd guard.
Post-game: Ouch. Linsanity did not reappear. The Rockets lost Game 6 while Lin finished his 1st post-season with a poor small game. Lin was fine on defense but tentative and out of sync with his teammates on offense. He only played 13 minutes and finished the game sitting on the bench.
Exit thoughts: Despite the disappointing post-season, the 2012-2013 season over-all was still a successful one for Lin. He played in all 82 regular-season games and showed his durability, established himself as a competent starting NBA PG with impressive flashes of Linsanity to show he has yet to reach his ceiling, and experienced the post-season. Lin is still progressing on the Nashian Mavs-period developmental curve. He essentially is in the same position now as he would have been last season had he played it out as the Knicks starting PG, then tasted the post-season against the Heat. This comment at jeremylin.net makes a good point that Lin's production this season was quite high relative to his low usage rate (38th among NBA PGs). A Lin doubter who apparently played for his HS basketball team is rebuked by indignant Lin fans.
Eric
Jesus hockey LOL
Jesus effortlessly masters hockey because he's Jesus, of course. LOL. I saved the pic from here.
Eric
Tuesday, 30 April 2013
Thoughts of the day
The Serenity prayer should be my guide, yet I couldn't resist commenting here, here, and here on a Princeton history professor's hit piece on President Bush, coinciding with the opening of Bush's presidential library. Here, too, under Yoo's National Review article.
There are cost/benefit and risk/reward analyses. There is also weighing trade-offs and alternatives.
CUMilComm need: core (living heritage and essence) and progress (tangible benefit and making a difference), with ties that bind a demographic with living flows across generations and geographies, especially to the core base on campus. Eg, Hearts of Oak.
“Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die.” (on youtube) is the grim mantra that revives the Mandy Patinkin character who refuses to accept defeat despite seemingly mortal injuries in his running duel against the Christopher Guest character in The Princess Bride. I associate the line and scene with anyone who refuses to quit and keeps fighting despite seemingly decisive defeat and overwhelming disadvantage when surrender and submission seem reasonable. A good pop culture example is Rocky coming off the mat in Round 13? to nearly knock out Apollo in their first fight. With the NBA play-offs in mind, another example is an 8th seed that's blown out 3 straight games by an obviously superior number 1 seed to start their series, but then in Game 4, the 8th seed claws its way to a win. Then they eke out a Game 5 win. Now it's Game 6, 1 game from a tied series and a winner-take-all Game 7. The 8th seed is dug in and the 1 seed has no more moves in reserve, no higher gear to put away the 8th seed.
Truth (introverted, honest, genuine, real, open, integrity, essential, inquisitorial) and politics (extroverted, dissembling, guarded, maneuvering, manipulative, agenda, adversarial) are fundamentally different in nature.
Meg Tilly says she was burned when she gave her truth in a political setting, an interview. The interview was represented to Tilly as focused on her new book, but instead focused on "tabloid fodder" about Tilly's love life. A journalist's take. How does one live a truthful life while engaging a political world?
I like elegant, simply functional solutions. Goes with scavenging.
Maslow's hierarchy: Making a life decision based on I-want is preferable to I-need, but I-need must be secured, too.
The dead end of Junior Seau's CTE: How do you fix your crumbling life when the tool to fix your life is your mind, your brain, yet the chief culprit in your downfall is corruption of your brain's workings (broken hardware, software errors).
Ray Mears ties an "Arab-style headdress" to shade his head for desert survival.
The ADA's How to floss.
Best Yet garden combination pasta sauce is surprisingly good.
Salty egg and onion fried rice, fatty country pork rib (broiled and grilled with onions), and bone broth is a decadent meal.
I tried a bachelor stew with ground turkey instead of the canned salmon. It's better with the canned salmon and salmon oil. Bachelor stew made with canned salmon is decadent. Made with the ground turkey, it's just soup.
When deciding what flavors to add, keep in mind it's not a sliding scale where more flavors equals better flavor and fewer flavors equals worse flavor. Plain is a flavor, too. Think in terms of distinct flavor profiles, not comparitively more or less or better or worse.
The store-brand smoked hocks aren't bad at 1.49/lb. There's still some aftertaste, but it's better than the factory-brand smoked ham I bought a while back. Still, cooking my own pork is better.
Duncan Hines dark chocolate fudge brownie mix is unexpectedly weak flavored. Too bad I didn't grab a 2nd chewy fudge brownie mix instead. The dark chocolate fudge brownie mix instructs adding 1 large egg, 1/3 cup oil, and 1/3 cup water for chewy brownies, while the chewy fudge brownie mix instruct adding 2 large eggs, 1/4 cup water, and 3/4 cup oil for chewy brownies (the amounts differ for "cake like" or "cookie like" texture). I planned to exchange the 2nd box of dark chocolate fudge brownie mix, and would have, had the store not been sold out of chewy fudge brownie mix. Instead, I decided to experiment. Since the listed ingredients are the same for both brownie mixes, although it's implied the amounts of the various ingredients differ, I tried adding 2 eggs, 1/4 cup water, and 3/4 cup oil to the 2nd dark chocolate fudge brownie mix in order to find out whether the result would taste like chewy fudge brownies. Nope, still weak flavored. I'm adding grape jelly and sour cream for flavor.
The Salton works for making brownies and bannock. They fluff up like man-tou, probably because I use the 1 quart mixing bowl with water around it, so it cooks with wet steamer heat, not dry oven heat.
Farrelly brothers bowling comedy Kingpin is a classic.
Simpsons classics Homer's Barbershop Quartet and Last Exit to Springfield sped up to 15 minutes.
Laina, aka Overly Attached GF, has a youtube channel. Turns out she's an entertainer with an expressive face.
Jason Collins, the starting center on the fun, likeable Kidd-led Nets teams of the early 2000s, admitted he's gay. Good for him. However, the dark side of the story is that Collins dated Carolyn Moos for 8+ years from 2001 to 2009, when Collins broke off their engagement a month before their wedding. (Pic of her in college - cute girl.) Moos, born in 1978 and unmarried and childless at 34, invested her biologically prime years in Collins based on a lie. Dated 8+ years, engaged - did they not have sex?
I wonder how Monica Seles is doing these days? I had a small crush on her back in the day. She seemed like an unaffected, down-to-earth, approachably cute, nice girl who happened to be great at tennis. Hm. As far as I know, she hasn't married nor had kids either.
'Yeah? You and what army?' It's true. If you're going to battle, you need an army, or at least a gang. Righteousness ought to be enough to compete, but in the real world it is not even close.
Keanu invokes The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost and wonders whether he should pursue his dream and thereby choose the risk of freedom over the guarantee of security. As always, the harder right is weighed against the easier wrong.
Oh, my broken heart.
The change must be internal this time.
Eric
There are cost/benefit and risk/reward analyses. There is also weighing trade-offs and alternatives.
CUMilComm need: core (living heritage and essence) and progress (tangible benefit and making a difference), with ties that bind a demographic with living flows across generations and geographies, especially to the core base on campus. Eg, Hearts of Oak.
“Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die.” (on youtube) is the grim mantra that revives the Mandy Patinkin character who refuses to accept defeat despite seemingly mortal injuries in his running duel against the Christopher Guest character in The Princess Bride. I associate the line and scene with anyone who refuses to quit and keeps fighting despite seemingly decisive defeat and overwhelming disadvantage when surrender and submission seem reasonable. A good pop culture example is Rocky coming off the mat in Round 13? to nearly knock out Apollo in their first fight. With the NBA play-offs in mind, another example is an 8th seed that's blown out 3 straight games by an obviously superior number 1 seed to start their series, but then in Game 4, the 8th seed claws its way to a win. Then they eke out a Game 5 win. Now it's Game 6, 1 game from a tied series and a winner-take-all Game 7. The 8th seed is dug in and the 1 seed has no more moves in reserve, no higher gear to put away the 8th seed.
Truth (introverted, honest, genuine, real, open, integrity, essential, inquisitorial) and politics (extroverted, dissembling, guarded, maneuvering, manipulative, agenda, adversarial) are fundamentally different in nature.
Meg Tilly says she was burned when she gave her truth in a political setting, an interview. The interview was represented to Tilly as focused on her new book, but instead focused on "tabloid fodder" about Tilly's love life. A journalist's take. How does one live a truthful life while engaging a political world?
I like elegant, simply functional solutions. Goes with scavenging.
Maslow's hierarchy: Making a life decision based on I-want is preferable to I-need, but I-need must be secured, too.
The dead end of Junior Seau's CTE: How do you fix your crumbling life when the tool to fix your life is your mind, your brain, yet the chief culprit in your downfall is corruption of your brain's workings (broken hardware, software errors).
Ray Mears ties an "Arab-style headdress" to shade his head for desert survival.
The ADA's How to floss.
Best Yet garden combination pasta sauce is surprisingly good.
Salty egg and onion fried rice, fatty country pork rib (broiled and grilled with onions), and bone broth is a decadent meal.
I tried a bachelor stew with ground turkey instead of the canned salmon. It's better with the canned salmon and salmon oil. Bachelor stew made with canned salmon is decadent. Made with the ground turkey, it's just soup.
When deciding what flavors to add, keep in mind it's not a sliding scale where more flavors equals better flavor and fewer flavors equals worse flavor. Plain is a flavor, too. Think in terms of distinct flavor profiles, not comparitively more or less or better or worse.
The store-brand smoked hocks aren't bad at 1.49/lb. There's still some aftertaste, but it's better than the factory-brand smoked ham I bought a while back. Still, cooking my own pork is better.
Duncan Hines dark chocolate fudge brownie mix is unexpectedly weak flavored. Too bad I didn't grab a 2nd chewy fudge brownie mix instead. The dark chocolate fudge brownie mix instructs adding 1 large egg, 1/3 cup oil, and 1/3 cup water for chewy brownies, while the chewy fudge brownie mix instruct adding 2 large eggs, 1/4 cup water, and 3/4 cup oil for chewy brownies (the amounts differ for "cake like" or "cookie like" texture). I planned to exchange the 2nd box of dark chocolate fudge brownie mix, and would have, had the store not been sold out of chewy fudge brownie mix. Instead, I decided to experiment. Since the listed ingredients are the same for both brownie mixes, although it's implied the amounts of the various ingredients differ, I tried adding 2 eggs, 1/4 cup water, and 3/4 cup oil to the 2nd dark chocolate fudge brownie mix in order to find out whether the result would taste like chewy fudge brownies. Nope, still weak flavored. I'm adding grape jelly and sour cream for flavor.
The Salton works for making brownies and bannock. They fluff up like man-tou, probably because I use the 1 quart mixing bowl with water around it, so it cooks with wet steamer heat, not dry oven heat.
Farrelly brothers bowling comedy Kingpin is a classic.
Simpsons classics Homer's Barbershop Quartet and Last Exit to Springfield sped up to 15 minutes.
Laina, aka Overly Attached GF, has a youtube channel. Turns out she's an entertainer with an expressive face.
Jason Collins, the starting center on the fun, likeable Kidd-led Nets teams of the early 2000s, admitted he's gay. Good for him. However, the dark side of the story is that Collins dated Carolyn Moos for 8+ years from 2001 to 2009, when Collins broke off their engagement a month before their wedding. (Pic of her in college - cute girl.) Moos, born in 1978 and unmarried and childless at 34, invested her biologically prime years in Collins based on a lie. Dated 8+ years, engaged - did they not have sex?
I wonder how Monica Seles is doing these days? I had a small crush on her back in the day. She seemed like an unaffected, down-to-earth, approachably cute, nice girl who happened to be great at tennis. Hm. As far as I know, she hasn't married nor had kids either.
'Yeah? You and what army?' It's true. If you're going to battle, you need an army, or at least a gang. Righteousness ought to be enough to compete, but in the real world it is not even close.
Keanu invokes The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost and wonders whether he should pursue his dream and thereby choose the risk of freedom over the guarantee of security. As always, the harder right is weighed against the easier wrong.
Oh, my broken heart.
The change must be internal this time.
Eric
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