Idle Question (2)

Which series do you think has more quotes used to explain life's little foibles, The Godfather or Star Wars (episodes 4-6)?

I'm thinking it is more a question of the age of the person. If over 40, The Godfather. If under 40, then Star Wars.

"I'll make him an offer he can't refuse."

"Do or do not; there is no try."

Idle Question

In order to save your most cherished, would you rather:

1. Be murdered in a horribly painful manner?
2. Inflict a horribly painful murder on a random stranger?

Yet another of the strange and often unexplained thoughts that pass into my mind.

Basketball and the Olympics

I hope that this American "Dream Team" continues to lose at the Olympics. I wish this not because of any anti-American sentiments or ill-will I feel toward the players or coaches on the team, but because of ill-will I feel toward all those players who should be there but who are not.

There should be no greater honor than playing for your country in the Olympics. Big stars should feel a strong obligation to go out and show the rest of the world where they stand in comparison to our best. Unless you are injured, you should be there. Afraid for your safety? You earn enough to hire your own security.

That being said, a collection of super-stars can only go so far. I am not saying that this team cannot pull its collective head out of its collective ass and still compete for the gold. I am saying it was just a matter of time before the rest of the world caught up with America. Mostly because the talent is there AND the rest of the world plays team-oriented basketball. To counter this, instead of sending a collection of very talented individuals, we should send a team to the Olympics. The entire team-- including coaches. In this way, we have people who have played together for at least a season, know and understand their roles on the team, and who know and can count on their teammates in stressful situations. This is what the rest of the world does.

With as quickly as the rest of the world's talent level is catching up to America in this sport, sending over individual talent and hoping it coalesces into a team in a couple of weeks to months is not going to get the job done. As we learned from the Pistons' defeat of the Lakers in the last NBA Finals, a team of "lesser" talents can overcome a collection of individual talents.

Larry Brown and the Pistons would school the rest of the world using defense and quality team basketball. Brown has taught his team to understand and employ team-oriented basketball; offensively and defensively. And they have played together for at least 82 games plus the post-season, winning it all in the Finals. They have the chemistry and understanding of each other and the game plan to play against the best in the world.

I think that some of our best college teams could go and put up a very respectful showing at the Olympics, if for no other reason than they are a team first. These kids may not win it all for America, but they would play hard, show up for four quarters every game, and would battle.

Here's hoping the NBA learns from this year and changes its strategy for the next Olympics. Otherwise, we can look forward to being dominated in world play in our own sport for the foreseeable future.

Perceptions

People can be surprising.

I've been working on a project at my job for a few months now. It hasn't seemed to be going well at all; I have had to get my boss involved with it, the person with whom I've been working has been slow to turn around emails and phone calls from me asking for more information (or any info at all!), and deadlines have been something of a moving target.

And then today my boss forwards to me an email she received in which the person with whom I've been working praises the job I've done, says I'm the best writer with whom she has worked, and thinks all of the documents I've done for her are top-notch.

Just goes to show that our perceptions become our reality and that other people may not share in our vision.

What a surprise.