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[21 Nov 2009|12:06am] For 10 years beginning in 1997, the National Women's Basketball League aimed to provide an alternative during the winter for American players who didn't want to go overseas. In the 2006 NWBL season, which turned out to be the last, the Colorado Chill and league MVP Becky Hammon won the championship game 78-71 over the San Diego Siege. The Siege roster included Crystal Harris, an assistant coach at Cal State Fullerton. The Titans, off to their best start in 13 years, were in the Bay Area twice this week for road games at San Jose State and University of San Francisco. Harris, a three-time all-Big West Conference forward for UC Riverside, said she appreciated the NWBL for broadening professional women's basketball in the U.S. "It's harder to play here when there's only one league. [The NWBL] held tryouts, and you could come in without going to a big name school. The league gave more shots to players from mid-majors and smaller schools, the schools that aren't on TV," she said. "The experience was nice. To play for [NWBL coach of the year] Fred Williams, and to play with experienced players who've been at the next level," Harris said. "Practices were different. It was like going from high school to college all over again, when you were the best player on your team and suddenly you're the new kid playing with all the other best players on their teams. But that's what you want, what you dream about when you're little." Harris' teammates on the Siege included WNBA New York Liberty teammates Cathrine Kraayeveld and Loree Moore. "Cathrine Kraayeveld was the four on the first unit and I was second unit, so I had to guard her in practice. She could shoot it," Harris said. "I used to yell at her to get in the paint, but then she'd keep hitting them from out there, and I left her alone after that." Kraayeveld, a 6-foot-4 forward from Oregon, was named NWBL rookie of the year in 2006, and has made 39 percent of her treys in five WNBA seasons. "Loree Moore was a strong as an ox," Harris said. "I've got a couple of inches on her, and I wasn't used to being outmuscled like that." Cal State Fullerton is Harris' first Division I coaching job after two seasons at Division II Ferris State in Michigan. It's also her return to the Big West Conference — after her senior year at UC Riverside in 2004, she spent one season with the Highlanders as a student coach under John Margaritis during his first year at Riverside, and that coaching staff engineered a nine-win improvement. "An awesome coach and a genuinely great guy," said Harris, who said she'd recently called Margaritis for advice. Photo: San Diego Siege forwards Crystal Harris (ballhandler) and Cathrine Kraayeveld by Chuck Henry from http://www.henrysphotos.com/siege.htm. Used (so far) without permission. post comment

University of San Francisco 71, Cal State Fullerton 63 [20 Nov 2009|10:40pm] USF forward Donnisha Taylor had career highs with 23 points plus four assists, and added 12 rebounds to lead the host Dons to a 71-63 win over Cal State Fullerton Friday at San Francisco. USF squared their record at 1-1, while CSF dropped to 2-1. Fullerton attempted 72 field goals to 48 for the Dons, but connected on 35 percent. The Titans pulled 20 offensive rebounds to stay close. "We talked about their crashing the boards," said USF coach Tanya Haave. "They go hard to the boards, and that helped them during their comeback." USF led 57-48 with 8:03 remaining, but three offensive rebounds by CSF in the next five minutes resulted in five Titan points, helping close the gap to 63-61 with 3:17 left. An offensive rebound by USF freshman Ashley Boggs led to two free throws to put USF ahead 67-61 at 2:02, and USF hit six more free throws to put the game away. Big West Conference player of the week Megan Richardson led Fullerton with 19 points, but was held to four in the second half. "We didn't make any adjustments," said Haave, "we just stayed on her, and made her work. We made her work and work and hit tough shots, and the accumulation of that might've worn her out." "We struggled to find our offensive flow, and never really found it," said Fullerton assistant coach Crystal Harris. "and in some key moments, we made mistakes." "Even when we tried to stop [Taylor], she just jumped over us and put in every shot she took," Harris said. Taylor shot 9-for-17. Her 23 points more than doubled her previous high of 10. post comment

[20 Nov 2009|07:02pm] The Sacramento Monarchs folded the tent today. So in 13 years, 26 WNBA finals teams break down by: 5 gone. Houston won four, Charlotte played in one. 4 are moving. Detroit, a three-time champion, is headed south. 3 got to the finals after moving, Connecticut and San Antonio. Sacramento will add 2 to that total, whether they are "gone" or "moved" yet to be determined. Who wasn't shocked by the news? There were no hints in the Sacramento media, which has been pleasantly distracted by the Kings' fair start anyway, then boom. I reacted the same way I react to any very bad news in the morning: I went back to bed. I had this odd feeling, though, like people were looking at me. I mean, seconds after the news broke, buzz started that the WNBA is looking to move the team to the San Francisco Bay Area. If the Monarchs have a season ticketholder in the Bay Area who occasionally writes about the team, what does he think? I think it thuckth, and I'm one of the few who stands to benefit. I have friends who work at Arco, and friends who live in Sacramento who won't drive to the Bay Area for Monarchs games like I drove to Sacramento. Their summers, and in some cases their livelihoods, are ruined. I don't think they'll find a home in the Bay Area (unless Chris Cohan sells the Golden State Warriors immediately, and the new ownership group wants the Monarchs). Professional women's basketball has never been more than a curiosity here — not the San Francisco Pioneers in the WBL (and look how marketable they were with Machine Gun Molly Bolin), not the San Jose Lasers in the ABL, and the San Jose Spiders and San Francisco Legacy in the NWBL used to draw crowds in the dozens. post comment

[20 Nov 2009|04:59am] When I was a young chessplayer, I did not want to study Capablanca. I wanted to study David Bronstein, the most artful but starcrossed grandmaster. In 1951, Bronstein was within an inch of winning the world chess championship, but the Soviet chess leaders would have preferred that the allegiant champion Botvinnik keep the title. Under "great psychological pressure", as Bronstein put it, he pulled the biggest choke job in world chess championship history, enabling Botvinnik to tie the score when the match rules left the title with the champion in case of a tie. Even on his deathbed in 2006, 15 years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, plus the collapse of communism, and the disappearance of the secret police, Bronstein would not talk about threats — implied or explicit — to himself or his family in 1951. Perhaps they held the title beyond David Bronstein's reach, but they couldn't take away his art. Bronstein had some of the fanciest opening ideas ever, and when his notions appealed to me, I played them. For example, I have won many nice games with 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 d5 5. exd5 Na5 6. d3 h6 7. Nf3 e4 8. dxe4 Nxc4 9. Qd4 Nb6 10. c4, when White has a monster pawn formation for his sacrificed piece, and it conveniently controls the white squares, so who needs the bishop. However, I have never had occasion to play that bishop sacrifice in a tournament game. Once I got into trouble because I follow Bronstein's recommendations without examination. In his beautiful book 200 Open Games, Devik made this suggestion against the Bishop's Opening: 1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 Bc5 3. Qg4 d5 4. Qxg7 Qh4 5. Qxh8 Qxf2+ 6. Kd1 Qxg2 "with hectic play", he said. But one opponent simply played 5. Qxe5+, and I was lucky to survive as Black. A month ago, one of the stronger players at our chess club played me to a draw in a Sicilian Wing Gambit after 1. e4 c5 2. b4 cxb4 3. d4 d5 4. exd5 Qxd5, when White cannot play Nc3 to budge the black queen. If this position arose again, I thought I would attempt the more accepted move order 1. e4 c5 2. b4 cxb4 3. a3 to get that b4-pawn out of the way. Then 3…d5 4. exd5 Qxd5, and White has to avoid 5…Qe5+ snaring a rook, so 5. Nf3, and the most testing move for Black is 5…e5, taking the bigger share of the center. I never liked this position with White after 6. axb4 Bxb4, but it was necessary to try it, so I searched a database for White's options at move 7. I saw that four times in the database, some nutbar played 7. Ra3 to give away a rook. I glanced at that, and noted that after 7…Bxa3 8. Bxa3, White's bishop temporarily traps the black king in the middle of the board, and White is going to jump on the black squares with Nc3-b5, then Nc7 or Nd6. Hm, I thought, and then I went to see which four wackjobs in chess history played that sacrificial 7. Ra3. In all four games, white was David Bronstein playing against the legendary supercomputer Deep Blue (the best 'puter of its time, the one that made world news by beating Kasparov) and its ancestor Deep Thought. Bronstein was a great supporter of computer chess. In the 1960s, he helped Russian programmers develop the M20 chess computer, and in the '80s and '90s, he participated often in the AEGON man vs. machine tournaments. Bronstein probably jumped at the chance to test Deep Thought and Deep Blue, and of course, it was just like Devik to experiment with that 7. Ra3 sacrifice against 'puters that don't miss a trick. I said, "If I ever reach that position, I am going to make Bronstein's rook sacrifice." Yesterday — November 19 is Capablanca's birthday, incidentally — I had to play Steve Svoboda again, the fellow who drew in that earlier Wing Gambit. We played: 1. e4 c5 2. b4 cxb4 3. a3 Black paused for a moment because White has immediately varied, which hints at home cooking. Even so, he played the right way. 3…d5 4. exd5 Qxd5 5. Nf3 He paused again, and I thought, "Please don't play the lesser alternative 5…Bg4". Steve played the most challenging move. 5…e5 6. axb4 A third think, and he did the right thing again. 6…Bxb4 7. Ra3 I could not conceal a grin. 7…Bxa3 8. Bxa3 Bg4 The Deeps tried 8…e4, 8…Bd7, and 8…Qa5. 8…Bg4 looks sensible because Black, who has rook plus pawn against a bishop, cannot be stopped from exchanging a piece while he is ahead in material. 9. Nc3 Bxf3 10. gxf3 White's king will also have difficulty finding a safe home, therefore. 10…Qa5 The queen is closer to her subjects with 10. ... Qd7 11. Nb5 Ne7 12. Nd6+ Kf8 13. Qb1 Nbc6 14. Qb3 Nd8, and Black is more solid. 11. Nb5 Ne7 A natural move, blocking the a3-f8 diagonal, and then the plan is …Nbc6 plus …O-O, where White has nothing to show for the sacrifice. 12. c3 White's positional logic is that he will be forced to play Nd6+, and then his bishop will be unguarded. 12. c3 prepares Qb3 to protect the bishop, and to coordinate with the knight against f7. 12. c3 also readies Bb4 if necessary. 12…Nbc6 According to plan, but 12…Nf5 means that Black won't have to move his king after the check on d6. 13. Nd6+ Kf8 14. Qb3 Qd5 Uh oh. I discounted 14…Qd5 because of 15. Bc4, but I didn't notice that …Qd5 vacates a5 for a knight fork. I felt like I might've been losing now, and went into the tank for 30 or 40 minutes. First White has to think about giving Black what he wants by 15. Qxd5 Nxd5 16. Nxb7+ or 16. Bc4, but that's like letting the other basketball team get an emotional lift from making a defensive stop. The alternative is 15. Bc4 Qxf3, when White has to consider giving the other rook away, but that's not good, so 16. Rg1, and then Black has his stupid fork 16…Na5. In my long think, I envisioned 17. Qb4 (the queen sacrifices 17. Nxf7 and 17. Bxf7 go nowhere) Nec6 b6 18. Qc5 b6 (18…Nxc4 is better, but I was fixed on the notion that Black would force a trade of queens if he could) 19. Qd5 Qxd5 20. Bxd5, and that looks OK for White because he keeps his pressure on f7 while pinning c6-knight and a5-knight is out of play. 15. Bc4 Qxf3 16. Rg1 Rd8 So the 30+ minutes I spent thinking about 16…Na5 was wasted. 16…Rd8 gets another piece out, and leaves …Na5 as a threat. Because Black did not make the threatening move right away, White has to break in on f7 while he can. Not with 17. Bxf7, because 17…Rxd6 18. Bxd6 Qxf7 and White is sunk. 17. Nxf7 Rxd2 Completely unexpected. When a player is totally surprised by a move, he's lucky if it doesn't kick his ass. In this case, White takes two rooks while Black takes one. 18. Kxd2 Qxf2+ 19. Be2 Qxg1 20. Nxh8 Qf2 Better to get to the f-file (White threatens Qf7#) by checking: 20. ... Qg5+ 21. Kc2 Qf5+ 22. Kd1, but White is still preferable. 21. Qxb7 Threatens mate in two after 22. Qa8+, and to capture on c6. 21…Qf4+ 22. Kd1 22. Kc2 is much better, heading for shelter on the queenside: 22…Qa4+ 23. Kb2 or 22…Qe4+ 23. Kc1 Qf4+ 24. Kb1 Qe4+ 25. Ka1. 22. ... Qa4+ 23. Ke1 Qh4+ 24. Kf1 I thought I'd blown it, because if he played 24…Qh3+, I didn't see anything better than conceding the draw to 25. Kg1 Qe3+ 26. Kf1 Qh3+. White can keep playing for a win by 24…Qh3+ 25. Kf2 Qxh2+ 26. Ke1 Qh4+ 27. Kd2 Qf4+ 28. Kc2, but White already had blindness toward Kc2 at move 22. 24…Qf4+ Unlucky to throw the wrong check, and now Black loses. 25. Kg2 Black will run out of checks. 25…Qg5+ 26. Kh1, or 25…Qe4+ 26. Bf3 Qc2+ 27. Kh1, and the three checking squares on the back rank are covered by three white pieces. 25…g6 26. Qxc6 Qg5+ 27. Kh1 Kg7 White wouldn't have been startled by 27…Qc1+. 28. Qe8 Ng8 29. Bc4 Admittedly, White relaxed. 29. Qf8+ Kxh8 30. Bc4 is precise. 29…Qe3 30. Qf8+ 1-0 post comment

[19 Nov 2009|01:43am] I visit omegle.com occasionally, which joins two anonymous strangers in conversation. Most anonymous strangers think "asl" is equal to "Hello.", but those chats don't last long. On Thursday morning, I met someone 10 or 11 hours away who asked me what I wrote about, and I said "I write about chess and basketball." "That's like earthquakes and cake recipes," the stranger said. I write about them because they are so much alike, I said. No, they aren't, and I've played both, said the stranger. I offered some of my favorite analogies from the play of each game, and my correspondent said "you could say that about anything." I was suddenly a little peeved. S/he asked if I played chess, which was a very odd question. How could I write about chess if I weren't Betty Crocker? I said, alluding to "earthquakes and cake recipes". Then s/he offered a game, and turned out not to be the worst opponent of the day: White: Omegle user Black: Frisco Del Rosario 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. d3 O-O 5. Be2 Re8 6. O-O Bxc3 7. bxc3 d5 8. Bg5 If you don't know why this move is a mistake, then you must be here for basketball content. 8. ... dxe4 9. Bxf6 Qxf6 10. dxe4 Nc6 11. Qd2 Bg4 12. Rfd1 Rad8 13. Qe3 b6 14. h3 Bxf3 15. Bxf3 Ne7 16. Rd2 Ng6 17. Rad1 Nf4 18. Kh2 Ne6 19. Bg4 Rxd2 20. Rxd2 Nc5 21. g3 Rd8 22. Kg2 Rxd2 23. Qxd2 Nxe4 24. Qe3 Nd6 25. Be2 h6 26. Bd3 Qe6 27. a4 a5 28. Qf3 e4 0-1 post comment

[18 Nov 2009|11:44pm] Dizzy spells are more frequent but less severe (only felt like vomiting once). My vertigo comes on mostly when moving from a reclining position, so I fear getting up from bed (it even sucks to roll over), and once I do, I tell myself not to bow my head all day. Then I went to get my hair cut, and when she put my head in the shampoo bowl, yeah, uh huh, I hadn't looked ahead to that uncommon incident of reclining. Luckily, it simmered but didn't boil. *** "When in Rome", a romantic comedy coming to a theater near you, has a misleading title — I thought it suggested location shooting throughout. Instead, Kristen Bell — the Ex to Get Over in "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" promoted to Driven Careerwoman Unlucky in Love — is there on an overnighter to attend her sister's wedding. Kristen meets cute with best man Josh Duhamel (the teen heartthrob in "Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!" is still a dreamy hunk) and is charmed, but when she spots him kissyfaced with a red dress, she dejectedly and drunkenly steals coins from the Fountain of Love. Her thievery triggers some magic which causes the throwers of the coins to fall in love with her, and when EACH OF THOSE MEN IS IN NEW YORK WHEN SHE GETS HOME, hilarity ensues. That's the big suspension of your disbelief, that the guys who fall under the Roman love spell all encounter Kristen Bell in New York, none of them was married already, they're all hilarious characters, and who the hell needs a magic spell to get hot for Kristen Bell. Of course, Josh Duhamel is in New York too, a runningback from Syracuse working for Giant Sports Network. But how do he and Kristen Bell get together at the end despite the insurmountable odds?! Strike 1 — Kristen Bell is the clichéd character Driven Careerwoman Unlucky in Love. Maybe Katherine Heigl (the DCUL in "The Ugly Truth" and "Knocked Up") was busy, but maybe they wanted Kristen Bell the whole time, because she's prettier and onscreen almost the whole time. Because they have to cram in Beth's dealings with five different suitors and her job, they had to have someone really easy on the eyes. Strike 2 — Oh noez, Josh Duhamel kissed that girl in the red dress. Strike 3 — What if Josh Duhamel is also under the spell?? It wouldn't be a Hollywood romcom if they don't hit it out of the ballpark at the end, and even contrive happy endings for the other guys. There's "When in Rome's" biggest problem. For having so many guys chasing Kristen Bell around, her falling in love with Josh Duhamel happens with a hand wave. She's so in love with her job and otherwise so carefully guarded, but she so quickly falls for Mr. Syracuse Superhottie to get it in under two hours. It might've been more believable had she just plucked two coins from the Fountain of Love (I think that would've been a better title, too, especially considering how the love is just gushing from every man in the movie), and maybe if they were both Superhotties instead of Mr. Clearly the One and Four Losers. Among the losers are Danny DeVito, so I mostly saw Louie DePalma chasing Kristen Bell, which was pretty squicky. Also Jon Heder, and I don't like Jon Heder. I hated "Napoleon Dynamite" (which might mean I am just an old fart). Liked "School for Scoundrels", but I don't remember Jon Heder being the kid whose ass Billy Bob Thornton kicks. In a clever casting, Dax Shepard plays the biggest of the losers, but he's Kristen Bell's real boyfriend. I probably wouldn't've seen "When in Rome" if it hadn't been a sneak preview. I always wanted to attend one of these things so my opinion could be expressed first. "When in Rome" isn't very funny, and the pacing problem I mentioned makes it worse than the usual romcom. Even worse, while they're cramming in five suitors for Kristen Bell, the cast is widened further by Kristen's family and co-workers, and Josh's friends. They could've helped this by cutting half of those people out, and given that time to Kristen and Josh, who are really the only reason to see it — two incredibly pretty people overcoming insurmountable difficulties to fall in love and live happily ever after on date night at the movies. *** Speaking of incredibly pretty people covering insurmountable difficulties to fall in love and live happily ever after, Vertigo spun Cinderella from "Fables" into her own comic book miniseries. In the "Fables" comics, Cinderella dumped that asshole Prince Charming, and went on to be an assassin and a spy. That subversion of the Cinderella fairy tale makes Cindy a cool character, and issue #1 of 6 is pretty good. 2 comments|post comment

[17 Nov 2009|10:58pm] Grambling St. and asst. coach Elaine Powell 78, Centenary 53. Hi, Dave. *** Pacific scored 28 points after 29 Southern Utah turnovers and won 67-54 Tuesday in Stockton. Senior Emma Head had 13 points and seven rebounds in 19 minutes for the host Tigers, who evened their season record at 1-1. *** I haven't heard yet, but this one might've been ugly — the teams combined on 49 turnovers and 36 percent shooting. Pacific needed a win — the Tigers had lost six in a row going back to since last season's high point, a 59-50 upset Feb. 19 over powerhouse UC Santa Barbara. The returning kids surely needed a lift — last season was a disappointment, and this season is a mystery. Southern Utah is JR Payne's first head coaching job after assisting at Santa Clara, Boise State, and Gonzaga. I'm really sorry I missed this: freshman playmaker Erica McKenzie had a team-high five assists and made three steals while shooting 4-for-6. When Pacific signed guard Jenn Fath, associate head coach Alisha Valavanis said: "You're going to love her." Two years later, they signed McKenzie, and Valavanis was emphatic: "You're going to *love* her." Coach is 2-for-2, even though Fath and McKenzie are opposites in how they handle the ball when they've got it. SUU freshman wing Tayler Anderson turned the ball over 11 times. The Thunderbird media guide doesn't keep individual turnover records, however. Southern Utah's 10 best seasons for points scored at Southern Utah are recorded by Myndee, Sheri, Cherri, Cheryl, Lexa, Casey, and Stacey. *** UC Davis held San Francisco to 28 percent shooting, helped USF make 24 turnovers, and won 69-47. UCD coach Sandy Simpson let USF transfer Heidi Heintz play the second-most minutes. Heintz tied for the team lead in rebounds, and did not miss a shot. Heidi would've been the best player at USF if she'd stuck around, but the atmosphere didn't suit her — she grew up in wild eastern Washington, so the agricultural school UC Davis feels more like home than San Francisco. *** St. Mary's and Cal were tied with 48 seconds left, but freshman Layshia Clarendon scored three points for the #17 Golden Bears. Cal won 68-65. SMC guard Katie Batlin had or shared team highs with 12 points, six rebounds, three assists. Larry Sheppard, an officials observer for the West Coast Conference, said she could be a standout in the WCC. Louella Tomlinson had four blocks for SMC. Lou will break the NCAA record for career blocks and hold it for two years until Baylor freshman Brittney Griner passes her. The 6-foot-8 Griner had 10 points, 11 rebounds, eight blocks for #8 Baylor, who beat Tennessee Tech 100-55. Tomlinson recorded her third triple-double in points, rebounds, and blocks in SMC's opener. *** Hawaii 63, UC Riverside 58 at Riverside. I think folks (including me) are expecting John Margaritis to do the coaching job of his life at Riverside. He lost the Big West player of the year, and four other all-conference players. 1 comment|post comment

[17 Nov 2009|01:39am] At freechess.org, the game began 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 f5 3. Nxe5 Qf6 4. d4 d6 5. Nc4 fxe4 6. Nc3 Qg6 7. Qe2 Nf6 and then it went its own way when White played 8. h4, but at Tallinn 1959, White played 8. f3 in Muratov-Spassky, another couple of nobodies in a games database. *** I tell myself: "Next time the vertigo comes on, do a better job paying attention to it so you can describe it later." However, the confusion that sets in overcomes my attention every time. When you fall down, instinct tells your body to throw out your hands to break your fall or grab something. Vertigo screws with you by continuing to give the feeling of spinning even though you might be plastered flat on the floor with fistsful of carpet. It's not a pleasant spinning, either. It's violent, the kind of sensation you get when you're not in control of trajectory and are hoping the eventual impact doesn't kill you. If you've spun out in a car, it's kinda like that. When it's over, you want to throw up, and sometimes do. If the entire episode were intangible, it wouldn't suck so bad, but vomiting is pretty real. I would put vertigo on top of the list of "most dreadful afflictions that have set in during middle age". Gout hurts worse than anything, but you're rather in control of your mind, thinking of ways to relieve the pain. When depression hits, your mind goes in a bad direction, but you can still feel like you're inside your own head — some people *like* their bouts of depression, and skip their meds on purpose. Vertigo blows your mind for a while, while your body reacts exactly as if you'd really lost your balance and were falling down. My jaw hurts. My jaw has been clenched — for minutes or hours, I dunno — because I'm bracing myself for being flung from this chair and flying around the room at great speed. *** Every half-serious chessplayer knows this story: You win a tempo. Your opponent says he feels a chill. You take over a key square. Your opponent wraps himself up in a coat. You win a pawn. He coughs. You win a piece. He coughs and sneezes. By the time you start the checkmating attack, he's suffering from every malady known to man. So if you're actually unwell — suppose you are having dizzy spells, for example — you should not play chess, because then if you use your infirmity as an excuse for your poor play, you look like a complete buffoon. Unfortunately, I am unable to refuse a challenge at chess. I guess it is an inevitable progression: I took up residence at a coffeehouse so I could write there. It was learned, eventually, that I was writing a book about chess. The chessplayers who hang about the place want to play chess with me. They are the typical coffeehouse chessplayers, very weak in skill but with firmly entrenched ideas and a willingness to argue with strong players who write books about the subject. They can't afford lessons, but will take, uh, many free samples of advice. So against one of these fellows: He made a mistake. I won a rook for a knight plus an inconsequential pawn, and I had an advantage in time. It was then a game I should probably win against almost everyone. I made a mistake, losing my time advantage. I made a mistake, letting the inconsequential pawn become a passed pawn. He then played well enough to win some material. The best I could do was to give him an option of winning rook for bishop, or taking a clear knight with the added bonus that the knight was blocking his pawn. He took the wrong option, so he was winning, but not as easily. Then in this rook and knight endgame, he hung his knight… and took back the move. "You took back your move," I said. I should've known better than to talk, because I have two lifelong friends who pull this same incredible bullshit. He said exactly what my old friends say, that it would suck to ruin a well-played game with such a mistake. The point is that if you don't avoid such mistakes, you didn't conduct a well-played game. Players count on opponents making mistakes — sometimes they have to wait a long time, but if the mistakes are withdrawn, no one can win. I also know that if you stick to what is right and refuse to let the mistake be withdrawn, *you're* the bad guy. "OK, be that way," they say, and your friends are pissed off because they had to live with the consequences of their error. Like an idiot, I let my friends take moves back — one of my old friends trash talks when he beats me repeatedly in this fashion, which is sorta funny — and I let this guy in the coffeehouse replay his move. He figured out what to do, and I had to pitch my rook for that passed pawn, resulting in rook and knight and one against knight and three and an active king. In theory, he was still winning, but at chess, theory and practice are far apart. He made a couple of impertinent moves, and then my pawns were dangerous. He could've forced a draw by tossing his rook on the most dangerous pawn, but didn't. Then he could've forced a draw by tossing his knight on my last pawn, but didn't. 2 comments|post comment

[16 Nov 2009|05:47pm] This is the view from Board 1 in the chess club's new building. I'm holding my laptop over my head, where my eyeglasses are parked. Look in the center of the picture in the corner of the room by that open door. Considering there are two hoops in this little gym, doesn't that look like a ballrack? I spent hours at the chessboard last week thinking, "I am gonna hang around until everyone is gone from chess club, and then I am gonna shoot." It's not a ballrack. It's a bloody cart of pumpkins. *** I imagine some folks have grumbled during four seasons, "With friends like this guy, why does that group of nice Pacific kids need enemies?". In fact, following Pacific's season-opening 91-79 loss to visiting Montana State on Sunday, one member of press row guessed that they'd be seeing much less of me this year while the Tiger freshmen get over being freshmen. (For Tuesday's game against Southern Utah, he'll be right — I have a class in Santa Clara until 5, an appointment at 7:30, and the dizzy spells have returned; considering all that, I don't want to change the appointment, then risk vertigo on the Altamont Pass during rush hour.) Another member of the Pacific family asked what nice things I was going to fabricate. I am going to take the party line. This is a group with four juniors and six underclassmen. They've been on the floor together for 80 minutes plus a scrimmage against a pickup team, while their most versatile swingwoman and their tallest post are injured. I think the worst thing that could happen to this team is that they start to splinter before Coach Roberts gets them fully together. If one or two key kids get discouraged and/or lose faith in the new offensive scheme, these Pacific Tigers would be doomed. I'm concerned for Gretchen Tiernan. I thought the Walberg offense would be perfect for her, but she's been stuck in the right corner, giving a head-and-ball fake which isn't fooling anyone, then getting nothing on the baseline. Not enough attack in the dribble-drive-attack. Freshman Erica McKenzie made six turnovers in 16 minutes of the first half Sunday, but they weren't entirely her fault, and secretly I think "thank you, Santa, for this pass-first guard I have always wanted". One of McKenzie's turnovers was Jason Williams quality — driving from the right wing, she got inside, then whipped a no-look, over-her-head pass which bounced off Emma Head at the heel and out of bounds. The trouble with the pass wasn't that McKenzie misfired or Emma wasn't prepared; the trouble was that Emma wasn't in position to do anything with the ball after the catch. The ability to spot receivers who could run after the catch was Joe Montana's gift as a field general, not a cannon of an arm. *** It occurred to me yesterday that I am excited about this year's Big West race for the players who lost 2008-9 to injury or transfer: for instance, LBSU's Karina Figueroa, UCD's Haylee Donaghe and Heidi Heintz, UOP's Andrea Swanson, UCSB's Mekia Valentine. If I make it through this season without injury or transfer, groovy. post comment

Montana State 91, Pacific 79 [15 Nov 2009|04:46pm] Montana State completed a 2-0 sweep of their Western road trip Sunday, beating Pacific 91-79 at the Spanos Center. Montana State guards Katie Bussey and Erica Perry — the Big Sky Conference freshman of the year and an all-conference first team selection — scored 30 and 28 points, respectively, to lead the Bobcats. "We go as Erica goes, which is why we put [the Walberg dribble-drive-attack] offense in place, and Katie showed that she can score in a variety of ways, off the catch and off the dribble," said Montana State coach Tricia Binford. "To be able to [start 2-0 on the road] against two aggressive offensive teams, we're excited." The Bobcats beat Cal State Bakersfield 78-76 on Friday. The Bobcats scored 27 points after 24 Pacific turnovers. "Our main issue was a lack of intensity, which led to a lack of focus, which led to a lack of execution. We're still trying to find a lineup that can defend and execute," said Pacific coach Lynne Roberts. Jennifer Fath had 20 points and 6 rebounds, both highs for Pacific. 1 comment|post comment

Cal State Fullerton 79, San Jose St. 77 [14 Nov 2009|04:20pm] Lauren Chow hit an off-balance trey with 17 seconds left to lift the Cal State Fullerton Titans to a 79-77 win over the host San Jose State Spartans Friday. The Spartans climbed back from a 42-31 halftime deficit to tie the game at 49-49, and after the score was 67-67 with 6:18 left, the lead changed hands six times. SJSU guard Sayja Sumler gave the Spartans a 77-76 lead with 42 seconds to go before Chow's winning trey. "I just wanted to get a shot up," said Fullerton coach Marcia Foster. "That was tough. Their band was on the baseline as their sixth man, counting down the shot clock a couple seconds ahead of the actual time." CSF sophomore Megan Richardson led all scorers with a career-best 29 points. "Jenna Breite set good screens, and my teammates made good cuts, which opened things up for me. Then they found me when I was open," Richardson said. "She had a monster game, but it won't be Megan Richardson every night," Foster said. "I expect every player to improve every day, and everyone to step up." Guard Chasity Shavers led San Jose State with 21 points in 22 minutes. *** Gee, if I'd written that at the SJSU Event Center, maybe I wouldn't've left my MacBook power adapter behind. Eh, I'd been thinking for years that I wanted to buy a second adapter anyway, so I could leave one at home and keep one in the bag. The SJSU Event Center is one of my favorite venues. Nice gym, well lit, excellent freeway access, press table on the sideline opposite the scorer's table and 15 feet in front of the bleachers, which means press row is well isolated. Also, I was the only person on it Friday. Fullerton has seven freshmen, none of which made an impression, so they looked pretty much like last year's team while Toni Thomas was injured. They're not greatly talented or athletic, but they're one of those groups that understands that the whole has to be more than the sum of its parts, so they make space for each other, and they're really good when they share the ball. The Titans won't beat Santa Barbara or Davis, and I'll guess they won't beat Cal Poly, but I figure everyone else in the conference is in range. I saw San Jose State early last season when they stayed close to Oregon for a long time, and their shooter Natalie White was making an impression of Becky Hammon, so I thought they might be OK. Then they lost 27 more games. White's gone, but that senior Shavers lit it up, and a transfer named Britney Bradley scored 10 points in a four-minute stretch of the second half. If these Spartans win a game early, they might decide they like it, and win a few more. Pam DeCosta shrewdly scheduled Cal State Northridge and U. San Francisco in November — they might equal last season's win total before the month is over. *** I hadn't read Fullerton first-year assistant coach Crystal Harris's bio past "played college ball at UC Riverside", so I welcomed her back to the Big West, but when I read the rest of it later, holy cow, Harris played for the NWBL San Diego Siege in 2006. I've located my notebook from the 2006 NWBL season, so she and I will have something to talk about. About a month ago, I looked at a wall of old notebooks and thought "Oh, come on, when will you ever refer to these?". Almost tossed 'em. *** UC Santa Barbara shot 56 percent at home and lost?! UCSB coach Lindsey Gottlieb said she spent a long night looking at game film, thinking and rethinking. Coach, I said, get some sleep. But thinking and rethinking is what she does best, Gottlieb said. That's actually a flaw in one's processes — when you look at the same position for 20 minutes, you almost never see more than after 5 minutes, but spent 15 minutes looking at the same thing repeatedly, and it is proven that you are likelier thereafter to make a mistake. Franey scored 27, and I offer this isn't what Santa Barbara wants, because Franey has always been most outstanding for stuff that doesn't show up in the boxscore. If Ariana Gnekow and Franey combined for 26, and Gnekow had 12, I think that would be more to UCSB's liking than the combined 32 where Gnekow had 5. *** UC Davis won by 22, and Haylee Donaghe did not score. Donaghe didn't score, Davis won by 22. UC Davis, your 2010 Big West champions. If coaches Roberts and Gottlieb happen to be reading, I encourage their teams to prove me wrong. *** I've been saying for three years that this would be a big year for Long Beach, and saying for six months that it sucks that Mary Hegarty isn't around to benefit. LBSU's all-conference guard Karina Figueroa returned to the 49er lineup for the first time in, uh, seems like 10 years, and her 23 points put her in their 1,000-point club. *** Montana State visits Pacific Sunday at 2. If I can get out of bed Sunday morning, I might make that game. post comment

[13 Nov 2009|01:45pm] I'd never heard this quote from Jack Dempsey: "A champion is someone who gets up when he can't." I read that, and then my logic meter exploded. Dumbass boxer, I thought. But I have to admit that I love the Japanese proverb: "Fall down seven times. Get up eight." Mikhail Botvinnik was world chess champion on and off for 15 years, and he was a boxer when he was young. Botvinnik said at both games he wanted to hit his opponent one time hard enough to end the fight. At the chessboard, you see weak players step into the center of the ring, exchange a few blows, then fall back to a corner before going out for another bit of skirmishing. If you saw that in a boxing match, you'd boo. Same thing at the chessboard — you know players are weak when they can't get enough shit together to knock someone on his ass. They send a piece or two out there, and do a bit of fighting, then regroup and send another couple pieces out, and so on. Botvinnik was world champion for 15 years because he knew how to do it. Get all the pieces together, and land on his chin one time. Then if Botvinnik hits you so hard you can't get up, Jack Dempsey said you must be David Bronstein. *** I had some kind of nervous breakdown Thursday. I am unequipped to care for 25 cats, but while I was sitting on the floor sobbing, surrounded by empty little food cans and globs of cat waste, I found which of the cats cared enough to paw at me. Most of 'em sat around with that cat look of "thanks for feeding us, but Mom does a much better job taking care of us than you do, loser." 4 comments|post comment

[12 Nov 2009|02:40pm] This headline was a grabber: Carjacking Suspect Former Child Chess Prodigy. Greeeeat, I thought. Another one of my friends making us all look bad. But Shamsiddin Saleem, charged with carjacking and attempted murder, is no one I know, and neither is he on the US Chess Federation rating list. Google provided this story from the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, which said "in 1998, Saleem placed fifth in the Boynton Beach Police Athletic League chess tournament." Fifth in a PAL chess tournament, and his father told the wire reporter "his son was once a master chess player whose life took a turn in the wrong direction". Dad, maybe the kid had already taken a wrong turn before he most overstated the significance of his chess accomplishment? 5 comments|post comment

[12 Nov 2009|10:58am] The Grand View University Vikings beat host Dordt College 59-53 Wednesday in Sioux Center, Iowa. The Vikings were led by freshman Jennifer Jorgensen with 22 points, 8 rebounds, 4 steals, and 3 blocked shots. post comment

[08 Nov 2009|06:25pm] As Humboldt St. coach Joddie Gleason walked away from her postgame press conference — her Lumberjacks shot 56 percent in the second half to beat Pacific by 12 — one of us said "Did she really say Pacific is a great defensive team?". "You know the coaches' phrasebook only has 15 items in it," I said. I like talking to coaches best when I get them to break from Lalooshisms (one of the reasons I will most miss Dr. Maryalyce Jeremiah, retired from Cal State Fullerton, is that she used to say things like "you don't ask questions like other reporters"), but sometimes if a question can't be answered easily with a cliché, I wonder if it's OK to ask. When Humboldt was pulling away from Pacific in the second half, the Lumberjacks were making some huge threes, but they were also beating the Tigers up and down the floor, and getting to the scramble rebounds. "We're just getting outworked," I thought. Coach Roberts made it easy at her press conference, because she brought it up. "We just got outhustled, outshot, outeverything," she said. Associate head coach Alisha Valavanis' only statement upon leaving Pacific's team room: "Yike". Junior guard Jennifer Fath had 22 points, 6 rebounds, 8 assists. After a game like that, a player might want to talk, but when I greeted her postgame with just a smile which I hoped would impart "what the hell", Fath said "I have no comment. Except what is with that Suns sweater. Next time I see you, you have to be wearing a Lakers shirt or a Pacific shirt." "If I put on a Lakers shirt, my body would burst in flames. Why are *you* a Lakers fan? I could see Dallas, or San Antonio, or even Houston. Any team but the Lakers." (Um, yeah, I admit that logic is pretty lame coming from a born-and-raised Bay Area boy who loves his Phoenix Suns infinitely more than he ever cared for the Golden State Warriors, who actually won a title.) "The Spurs are whiners. The Mavericks are softies." Then Jenn couldn't think of a one-word description for the Rockets because that team's identity changes with each new injury. That's all the bad news. The good news: The 2009-10 team is so far the loosest group of kids Roberts has had at Pacific. While every team tries to have fun during warmups and keep each other loose, these Tigs seem to be most sincere about it. I spotted Fath, for instance, chasing one of her teammates out of the layup line, laughing. She never would've done that last season in a group that looked very businesslike, but for the wrong reasons. Freshman Erica McKenzie whips passes around like a guard who isn't thinking shoot-first, and I've always coveted those pass-first guards. They'll just be a better team when Claire McLeod gets over the stress fracture in her foot. The injury underscores Claire's versatility and usefulness to the team — when the Tigers need her to shoot, she shoots; when they need her to play defense and rebound, she defends and rebounds; when they need her to keep the scorebook and lead cheers, she gives it all she's got. And Claire has an Australian accent, which some of my friends think adds 10 percent to any basketball player's value. After Pacific, um, "beat" Cal State Monterey Bay in their first exhibition game last season, they were not a happy group. The scoreboard said the Tigers won, but it felt like a loss, and Monterey Bay should've felt like it was a win. On Saturday, Humboldt St. — a team I thought would much suffer the graduation of their All-American Katie Franci — whacked Pacific, but I don't think anyone thinks the world is ending. A very, very different team from last year's bunch. I'm sticking to the notion that I couldn't love any team as much as I loved the 1993-4 Phoenix Suns (of course, no team disappointed me as much as those Suns) or the 2008-9 Pacific Tigers, but these freshmen have four years to grow on me. post comment

Humboldt State 96, Pacific 84 (exh.) [07 Nov 2009|08:10pm] Humboldt State center Brittney Taylor scored 23 second-half points to lead the Lumberjacks over host Pacific 96-84 in an exhibition game Saturday at Pacific. The Lumberjacks shot 56 percent as a team in the second half to come back from a one-point deficit. "We don't know if it was any adjustment we made [at half]," said Humboldt St. coach Joddie Gleason, "we hit some big shots and scored in bunches." A Gretchen Tiernan layup for the Tigers narrowed a Humboldt St. lead to 76-74 with 5:57 left, but Humboldt went on a 10-0 run with three assisted baskets. "Our defense was terrible. We tried pressuring them, and tried backing off," said Pacific coach Lynne Roberts. "We agreed that they beat us at every facet of the game, but that's why we play these exhibition games. At the end, we're still 0-0, and we learn from it." Christina Thompson had 19 points and 15 rebounds for Pacific, but shot 1-for-6 from the free throw line. "She had 19 and 15 but it seemed like she wasn't present half the time," Roberts said. The Tigers shot 10-for-23 free throws as a team. post comment

[06 Nov 2009|06:42pm] The Kolty Chess Club (named for George Koltanowski, the chess master renowned for blindfold feats, and for maintaining a daily chess column in the San Francisco Chronicle for 50 years) moved back to Campbell, Calif., Nov. 5. The club met at the Campbell Community Center banquet hall for a dozen years, but the city decided to demolish the building. We moved to the Pakistani-American Cultural Center on the outskirts of Alviso for a couple months — right, where's Alviso? — which resulted in the loss of some of the players south of Campbell. So we found another place in the same neighborhood of Campbell. It's the basketball gym in a Lutheran church. It's the kind of basketball floor for little kids who don't generate enough inertia to carry themselves past the endline. That is, bigger kids who can drive to the basket would crash into the walls 10 feet behind the basket — some high schools gyms are set up that way, so the walls are padded. I admit I like playing chess in a basketball gym. I like walking through any gym, imagining what kinds of stories the walls would tell. I like the feel of the floor under my Chucks, and the smell of the wood. (Since I'm one of the club directors, and have to be first to arrive in order to set up for my lecture, I oughta have a key, and then I oughta have a basketball.) There was one thing about the room at the Pakistani place, though: I've never a lost a game there. There was some superstitious part of me that said "oh, crap, moving here is going to bust my unbeaten streak". White: Frisco Black: Bruce 1. f4 Bruce and I have had to play three times in three weeks, so 1. f4 is just something different. 1…d5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. e3 Bf5 4. b3 Nc6 5. Bb2 e6 6. Bb5 a6 7. Bxc6+ bxc6 8. O-O Bd6 9. d3 O-O 10. c4 Re8 11. Nc3 Nd7 12. e4 Bg4 13. Qd2 f6 14. cxd5 cxd5 15. exd5 e5 16. Ne4 Bf8 17. fxe5 Bxf3 Black at the moment has a piece for two pawns, but White has development, open lines, and a menacing pawn. The critical move is not to take the bishop: 18. exf6 First, Black can't capture on e4: 18…Bxe4 19. f7+ Kh8 20. fxe8=Q Qxe8 21. dxe4 wins. If Black tries to get his rook off the fork with 18…Rxe4, then 19. dxe4 Bxe4 20. f7+ Kh8 21. Rae1, and the bishop is stuck in place because 22. Re8 is looming. Best for Black is to yank the bishop back to a square where it guards the forking square. 18. ... Bh5 19. Qg5 Now there are two retreats for the bishop. 19…Bg6, and White wins smartly with 20. f7+ Bxf7 21. Rxf7! Kxf7 22. Rf1+ Kg8 23. Rxf8+!. Like a weak player, I didn't look past 22…Kg8, which is just inexcusable. The best chess teacher ever had just two instructions: "Use inactive force" and "Examine all threatening moves". Two instructions, and I didn't follow half of them by not examining the biggest threat on the board. Incredibly bad. 19…Bf7 20. fxg7 Bc5+ (I did manage to visualize 20…Be7 21. Qf5 +-), and now I didn't recognize the power of the queen sacrifice 21. Nxc5 Qxg5 (Black holds the damage to a minimum by 21…Nxc5) 22. Nxd7 with Nf6+ to follow. Instead, White played: 18. Something else White won anyway, but some opportunities must not be missed. A patzer is champion of this chess club. post comment

[06 Nov 2009|03:48pm] When MIT professor Nicholas Negroponte started One Laptop Per Child, the academic wanted nothing to do with the business end of distributing free laptops to children worldwide. That's OLPC president and chief operating officer Chuck Kane's job. The veteran of several Wall Street mergers and acquisitions talked to a group of Stanford graduate business students Friday about the challenges facing the non-profit organization. "The first question I had [for the company] was 'How much does it cost to make?'," Kane said, and the answer was "about $240", even though Negroponte had enchanted the media — including "60 Minutes" and People magazine — with the notion of a $100 laptop. OLPC has reduced its costs in building its XO laptop: $175 in 2007, $100 in 2008, and they are aiming for $50 in the future. Kane said the XO created the market for low-cost "netbooks" by bringing the price point for a laptop computer so far down. Kane said the costs of a typical laptop are 50 percent for sales, marketing and distribution, 25 percent for the Windows operating system, and 25 percent for the machine's display. OLPC spends zero on sales and marketing — its media campaigns have been donated by the advertising firms — zero on the Sugar operating system, based in open source Linux with software built by the volunteer open source community, and saves on display with an innovative backlit screen (the typical laptop can't be used in sunlight, but the XO had to be designed with the consideration that some children don't have classrooms and work outside). OLPC also contends with U.S. technology firms. "Intel tried to squash the project because we didn't use their chip," said Kane. "We approached Dell, and we would've loved for Apple to build it, but they laughed at us. It didn't make sense for publicly-traded companies like Dell and Apple to build a competing laptop." Worldwide, Kane said OLPC's biggest successes are in Uruguay, where every kid has an XO laptop, and Rwanda — the African nation that faced genocide in 1994 — where 1 million XO laptops have been given to schoolchildren. http://laptop.org *** Yeeeah, I typed Apple, the electronics company, as Appel, the Stanford post, a couple times. Kane shared OLPC's broadcast commercials, one of which was most striking. The title card said "Children are fast learners", then the video went to a little kid blasting the shit out of a row of bottles with an automatic rifle. The kid raised the gun over his head in gleeful triumph, then the video cut to some kids typing on XO laptops. Kane said, "They wouldn't let us show that one on TV." OLPC also landed Tom Brady as a celebrity spokesjock — he recorded his commercial a couple days after his knee operation last season. Brady wasn't in a good mood that day, Kane said. Yet another reason to hate Stanford graduate business school students. One of those silver spoon shitheads played with an XO for a minute, and grumbled about the Sugar OS being so limited, while American first graders gain experience with full-featured (stupid) Windows machines. I wanted to beat the wealthy shithead, obviously a Windows user, over the head with the XO as another demonstration of its ruggedness. They build those machines for kids, so the screens are sealed against dust and liquid, and can be dropped. Kane dropped the XO on a table from three feet, and said "Can I do that with someone's Apple?". Get the fuck away from me, I thought, making his point for him. Since there aren't Apple Stores with Genius Bars for support in the third world, OLPC overships each order by 1 percent, so that extra 1 percent can be used for parts. Kane said there was a kid in Peru whose screen broke, but he WOULD NOT LET GO OF HIS BROKEN LAPTOP. Because he wouldn't let them fix his screen, they held out a new XO, and he would not release his broken XO until the new one was firmly in his grasp. I love that little Peruvian kid, whoever he is. Someone ought to build chess software for the Sugar platform. Along with an antenna for wireless 'net connectivity, the XO also builds in mesh connectivity, enabling kids in a classroom without 'net access to collaborate. Build a chessboard into the Sugar OS, and then we don't have to send chess sets all over the world. Chess software on the Sugar OS means bringing chess to millions of kids. What the hell; I'm not doing anything these days. 4 comments|post comment

[04 Nov 2009|05:10pm] http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/ucsb/sports/w-baskbl/auto_pdf/classaward.pdf UC Santa Barbara senior Jordan Franey was named one of 30 candidates for the Lowe's CLASS (Celebrating Loyalty and Achievement for Staying in School) Award. The award is based on excellence in classroom, character, community and competition. The field will be narrowed to 10 in January, and the winner announced at the Final Four in April. Franey carries a 3.4 GPA in a history major and a minor in coaching. She was the Big West Conference freshman of the year in 2006-7, and a preseason all-conference selection for 2009-10. *** I've said many times that I love Jordan Franey, my favorite player in the Big West outside Pacific. I was surprised the other media members named her on their preseason all-conference ballots, considering she isn't the type who fills up the stat sheet. Heck, I probably won't get in trouble with Pacific if I actively root for Franey to win the Lowe's award. post comment

[04 Nov 2009|03:21am] The English Butchery of the Day award goes to basketball player Sharnee Zoll, who wrote "boys sweat is 10x's more disgusting than females". Zoll — who skipped language arts classes at the University of Virginia — omitted the apostrophes in "boys' sweat" and "females'", which might enable one to parse the sentence as "sweat of boys more disgusting than persons of female gender", then appended apostrophe-s to the abstraction for "10 times". Which WNBA team drafted Zoll, who left out apostrophes where they were needed but added apostrophe-s where it was not needed at all? Satan's Los Angeles Sparks, of course. *** Was very happy to return to Santa Clara University's Leavey Center Tuesday for the Broncos' exhibition game with the Monterey Bay Otters (after not seeing SCU once in 2008-9). Leavey is one of my favorite venues, and Jennifer Mountain added Evan Unrau (Missouri, Stanford, UC Santa Barbara) and Marissa White (played for Roberts at Chico, worked for Roberts at Pacific) to the coaching staff. Among the players whose numbers are retired by SCU and hanging from the ceiling are four Phoenix Suns: Kurt Rambis, Dennis Awtrey, Nick Vanos, and another whose name I forget. Awtrey was a Suns center in 1979-80, the season before I really went nuts over the NBA, so I cannot believe that Tuesday was the first time I noticed "Awtrey" is an anagram for "watery". Especially since my favorite pastime during the playing of the Star-Spangled Banner is anagramming whichever names are in the rafters. Don't you agree they should hang the (Bud) Ogden banner to the left of the (Steve) Nash banner? Then lock Sharnee Zoll inside Leavey and tell her to shoot free throws until she can think of a poet's name. *** If someone makes an animated film starring Batman, I'll watch it. "Superman/Batman: Public Enemies" was pretty bad. It's based on a Jeph Loeb graphic novel, so I'd guess it was the dumbest comic book Loeb ever wrote. President Luthor has a plan to nuke the Kryptonite meteor that threatens to crash into Earth. I didn't see "Armageddon" or "Deep Impact" — in which of those "meteor crashing into Earth" movies was the plan to nuke it. "Public Enemies" ripped off the plot from a recent thriller, but this is more irksome: Why would President Luthor want to blow up a mountain of Kryptonite? Why wouldn't he do everything he could to direct it toward the Fortress of Solitude? Rather, President Luthor is in a snit because Superman and Batman didn't sign on to work for him. So he put a $1 billion bounty on Superman's head, turning "Public Enemies" from "Armageddon ripoff" into "1970s martial arts movie in which the bad guys surround the hero, then attack him one at a time." Excellent bit of dialogue between Clark and Bruce, which I hope was taken right from Loeb's script: "Do me a favor and lose the sense of humor." "Do us both a favor and buy one." 2 comments|post comment

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