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In my last diary post, I mentioned that my Mavs, at 6-0, were the only undefeated team in the NBA. Now, a week later, they are STILL the only undefeated team, at 10-0. They whipped up on the two best teams in the Eastern Conference, The Nets and Celtics. They're doing this all with LaFrenz, Van Exel, Esch, and Popeye all out. Bradley continues to play the best ball of his career. Nashy was on fire Saturday night. Their bench has no weak spots. The problem is, the big guys are getting too many minutes with all the injuries, and it's going to catch up with them soon. Bill Walton called them 'paper tigers'. He said Bradley's play is just a short phase, that Nash, Fin, and Dirk will be worn out by mid-season, that it's no contest against a healthy Kings or Lakers team, that Nellie's coaching is flawed, and that they still don't play defense. Yet he acknowledged that they are the most exciting and fun team to watch. The next three games are key. Shaq-less Lakers tomorrow, the Yaoh-Ming-equipped Rockets Thursday, and the second-best-record Sonics on Saturday. They won't have their four guys back for another month. Things could start to unravel a bit. But they only have to win two-thirds of their remaining games to post the best record in franchise history at 58-24. And they have a seven-game lead on the Lakers already, which could be eight in about twenty-six hours. My apartment has termites. The landlord hasn't informed me yet what's going to happen. But they might have to tear out and replace an entire wall (the one with my window). Also, they want... $120 to fix my phone line ($35 to diagnose, $85/hour to fix, minimum one hour). Unbelievable. But at least I am not irrationally clinging to some ersatz, specious notion of ideal individuality. What makes me an individual is that I am, as everone else is, perfectly alone. And I embrace this meta-aloneness. But getting back to Texas, USA, 2002, I'm not trying to pretend that I can, simply by paying someone to shove a piece of metal through my skin or draw a design on my arm, or by buying a T-shirt with some "personal message" printed on it, become a shrewd nonconformist. At UD, classes were small, sometimes tiny. Every prof that I can recall called on students during class. If you couldn't contribute to the discussion right when called upon to do so, you weren't measuring up to the academic standards of the school. I have NEVER been called by a UNT prof when I wasn't raising my hand. Again, if a UNT prof started to randomly call on people, students would react as if that prof was trying to rape them. Another disturbing trend here is the Curve. It seems alot of people here believe they're entitled to a curve. Last Summer, one female student angrily confronted the prof and TOLD him he HAD to curve the exam. I made an 'A' on that exam. What would you bet she had made a 'D' or 'F'? It's welfare for dumb, lazy, and unprepared people. It's DUMBING DOWN. This school is dumb. Some of the grad students here probably couldn't make it through the first semester of undergrad work at UD. I know I was taken aback my first semester there. And coming here, I'm still waiting for it to get taxing. It's just a trifle. I WANT it to be challenging, and difficult, and to make me rack my brain and work my ass off. It doesn't feel like I'm doing much otherwise. What I'm decidedly not for is Algore's new 'one payer' health-care system idea. I really, really couldn't believe it when I read about it. It was almost... a charicature, what a cartoon version of a hyper-liberal politician might come up with if allowed to dream without inhibition. He wants to create THE bureaucracy to end all bureaucracies. Do you doubt that Algore dreams of an America where "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" is the dominant principle? I heard about a TV show called 'Bachelor'. Apparently, this one guy, this bachelor, got to sleep with twenty-five women. Then he narrowed it down to ten women and slept with them again. Then he narrowed it down to three women and slept with them again. Now he gets to pick one and either marry her or... well, not marry her. How lovely, how romantic. Remember when Northern Exposure was on? No, neither do I. The Cycle Show is drawing very close. In four short days, I'll be there. And I'll be there again in six days. I'll have lots of pictures. I can't wait, man. :) The Segway has gone on sale. You can buy one right now for $5000, but you won't actually get it until March of next year. The models they're selling now are standard, no-frills models with a top speed of 12 mph. They're legal for use on sidewalks (unlike bicycles) in thirty states so far. Wouldn't it be amazing if somebody learned to stick a 50cc pocketbike engine in there? If they started putting grippy tires and more radical gyros in them? If they started racing them? Okay, I'd much rather see THIS, the Honda Hermes. � � |