love better not be a big letdown

yes, there is a lot of hype involving kevin love. for the most part, i think that he can back up the hype. i am just a tad concerned that this young man (18 or 19) is partying at the highlands (which is, last i checked, a 21 and over club). he better not be getting in trouble off the court!

on another note, here is another profile on sidney. i am rooting for you , ben, to get renardo to ucla in 2009!

go bruins!

answers to some of my harry potter questions

jk rowling answered some of my questions about the end of the harry potter series. no, she and i did not have a conversation; as much as i would have wanted to.... i got my answers through the nbc interview of jk rowling and cnn's chat with her. i got some answers. and it makes me happy.

here is the full nbc interview. and here is the full chat with jk rowling on mugglenet.

more harry craziness

if you all think i am harry potter crazy, check this out.

my favorite:


the runner up:

student athletes need role models, NOT burglars!

crap like this makes me mad because this is not supposed to happen at ucla. what 32-year old assistant coach of a prestigious school goes around burglarizing homes with 23 year old kids? i know, there was the guy who got the dui and fleeing the scene of the crime thing (i'm not mentioning his name) and the whole disability placard/parking fiasco, or even the alleged brawl at the denny's in westwood allegedly involving former bruin football players.... but this isn't supposed to happen! ugh! ugh! ugh!

but, i am hoping for the best and that maybe this is just one big misunderstanding. (*crossing my fingers*)

game fixing sucks

while the nba is attempting to weather the storm on this game-fixing scandal, i can't help but feel disgusted and disillusioned with the pro game. not that it may not happen with college b-ball (after all, march madness is HUGE with gamblers), but i'd like to think that the refs won't fix the college games.

while both the nba and college b-ball have their share of me-first players, at least in college, there is more of a push towards making the game a team game and not just about individual egos.

that being said, nothing will dampen my enthusiasm for the 2007-2008 and the 2008-2009 college basketball seasons. again, here is another rosy outlook for ucla's future:

"I really think UCLA has the best class (of committed players due to graduate next June) in the country," another Pacific-10 Conference coach said about the apparent fruits of the recruiting efforts of Bruins coach Ben Howland and his staff.

and here's another rosy outlook for the near future:

Love Dunked on Emeka Okafor during the 5 on 5 scrimmage, blocked Josh McRoberts shot 3 TIMES, and he also showed everyone who watched the game his famous outlet pass.

Apparently, Love belonged on the court with the best of the best.

more on harry

i would like to think that jk rowling read my questions about the harry potter characters because she now claims that she will be writing an encyclopedia about what happened to all the characters. yay!

i got caught in the harry potter mania

so i ordered my harry potter and the deathly hallows (book 7) and i had it scheduled to be delivered on july 21, 2007 -- the release date.

at noon on july 21, ups had not delivered it. so i called ups. ups said they delivered it to my post office the day before and that usps would deliver it on july 21 with my regular mail.

at 3 pm on july 21, i received my mail but no harry potter. so i called the post office and asked why i haven't received my harry potter. they said it was because so many people ordered it and their system was: deliver all mail to all households on their route, then deliver all the harry potters.

so what did i do?

i walked around my neighborhood until i found the post woman, showed her my driver's license and asked (without sounding like a stalker) to have my harry potter. luckily, she did not think i was psycho and gave me my harry potter.

i then ran home and read. and read. and it was gooooooooooooooooooooood.

if there is that remote chance that jk rowling reads this blog, here's my message:
thank you for the series!

now here are my questions:

what happened to the dursleys?
what happened to george weasley and the joke shop?
what happened to the death eaters? was there a war crimes tribunal?
what happened to seamus, cho chang, luna, etc.?
what happened to mcgonnagal, sibyl trelawney, filch, etc.?
where did harry and family live - 12 grimmauld, godric's hollow or elsewhere?
what happened to kreacher?

best line of the book (us page 736):
"NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU B!^*H!"

yuppie

who are "young" urban professionals? my real question is: what is the cut-off age for these so-called yuppies?

so i decided to use my reasearch skills and looked in wikipedia. after all, the collective brain trust should have the answer. and, they seem to suggest (but not really say), as follows:

Although the term yuppies had not appeared until the early 1980s, there was discussion about young upwardly mobile professionals as early as 1968.

Critics believe that the demand for "instant executives" has led some young climbers to confuse change with growth. One New York consultant comments, "Many executives in their 20's and 30's have been so busy job-hopping that they've never developed their skills. They're apt to suffer a sudden loss of career impetus and go into a power stall."

so there you have it... i think...

i can't wait to fall in love

love is here. at ucla. and there's this great story about him. i can't wait to see him pass, to see him dunk, to see a real center and real low post threat. i can't wait!

on the other hand, here is some cheesiness from that he-who-shall-not-be-named person who singlehandedly crapped on the ucla basketball program. he is getting married and when he received too many people who rsvp'd yes, he uninvited them and decided to get married in europe instead. and he hasn't told the resort! how tacky!

7 wonders, i wonder

the list came down to:

great wall (china)
machu picchu (peru)
chichen itza (mexico)
colosseum (italy)
taj mahal (india)
petra (jordan)
christ the redeemer (brazil)

i agree that great wall, machu picchu, chichen itza and colosseum should be there. i personally think that the acropolis, easter island and angkor should have been up there too, but what do i know? i was only 1 vote among (apparently) 100 million.

words of wisdom, the future, the near future, and a year after the near future

i know i am a ucla homer. but, i thought that kareem abdul-jabbar spoke eloquently at the 2007 ucla graduation ceremony. he said:

"I'm not claiming that you have to sell all your worldly possessions, wander the
globe in rags, and, worse, cancel HBO," he quipped. "You should embrace and
celebrate your pleasures."
"But also prove that you are worthy of being successful by making yourself significant."

amen.

i may become a detroit pistons fan (except when they face the lakers or clippers) now that they signed arron afflalo! congrats, arron!

as for ucla's schedule for the 2007-2008 season, i guess howland decided out of conference play during pac-10 play is out. i can't say i disagree but then again, that tactic works out well when pac-10 is superior. otherwise, to play in the big dance, we would need to boost strength of schedule (yale?!?!? prairie view a&m?!?!?!). hopefully, this year, pac-10 will be as superior as being predicted.

that being said, so happy that jrue holiday will be an incoming freshman at ucla in 2008! woohoo! and if kevin love stays for his sophomore season, that 2008-2009 team has got so much potential.

so now, i am crossing my fingers (still) for renardo sidney, hollis thompson and the wear twins in 2009! (stanford, stay away from these twins!)

lists - just because

not necessarily in order...

top 10 places to see/go before i die:
1. the view from the top of mt. kilimanjaro, the serengeti
2. zanzibar
3. angkor wat
4. hanoi
5. athens, crete, mykonos, santorini
6. rio de janeiro
7. galapagos
8. base camp at mt. everest (i am not that ambitious to climb up)
9. moscow, st. petersberg
10. international space station or the moon (realistically, probably not; but i can dream)

were in the "top 10 places to see/go before i die" list but been checked off the list:
1. machu picchu
2. paris
3. rome
4. venice
5. florence
6. amsterdam
7. london
8. prague
9. new york
10. new orleans

my fave hikes:
1. hiking the inca trail to machu picchu
2. hiking to half dome
3. hiking to the bottom of the grand canyon

places to see before i die

someone recently gave me a book entitled, "1,000 places to see before you die." it is great! but, it made me depressed that i have only been to 65. 65 out of 1,000!!!! UGH!

i can't help that going to nick san and seeing lance armstrong is not on that list! or going to pauley pavilion and seeing coach wooden is not on that list either. heck, watching the u.s. open in flushing meadows isn't on there either. or watching a lakers game at the forum (back in the day) or at staples center isn't on there either. oh well.