But for now I’m just going to revert the site to how it was for a more important reason: I started posting too much stuff on Facebook. Only like three or four people care about what I was posting and in the past I would’ve just posted that stuff on my site for the three or four people that check it out. And I really don’t want to be one of those people that posts way too much stuff on Facebook, because I’ve heard bad things about those people.

The best memory is when my brother needed to call his girlfriend oh-so-badly even though I told him I just needed to finish the game. It must’ve been important, because he just turned the phone on and started dialing. Disconnected. And he left the house like five minutes later. Wow, urgent huh. Apparently the game I got disconnected from was pretty important, because I kicked a hole in my wall.

When you’re in middle school and you kick a hole in the wall, there’s no other way to put it: your parents are going to kill you. Maybe stop feeding you or something, but death was around the corner. Unless I could hide it. So I opened up an old paint canister in the garage and put a paper towel in it to saturate it with paint. Then I spread it out and put it over the hole. Um, Ces the Toolman Taylor.

I can’t believe it’s been more than three years since that announcement.

This also can cause confusion amongst visitors to British Columbia, where a flashing green signal denotes a pedestrian controlled intersection.

Now I know.

I made the mistake of reading the comments on that ESPN article. Some say it’d be bad for league popularity if he joined Miami to create a super team. People love super teams: for recent references, look at the ‘08 Celtics and the 18-0 Patriots. If I learned anything from the ‘96 Bulls or ‘98 Goldberg, it’s that people are interested in dominance. One comment I did like was someone pointing out that if the Miami Super Heat ended up winning multiple championships, he would always have one fewer than Wade. Hey that’s still be better than zero. I want to see him on the Bulls (because I fancy them and LeBron/Rose vs. Wade/Bosh in the Eastern Conference Finals every year would be awesome) or the Knicks (because I want to see what it’s like for New York to have a good basketball team when I’m older than twelve).

Also, anyone that says ESPN should stop covering this so much just needs to watch a different channel or go to a different site. It’s July; what do you want, more web gems? Bill Simmons and Kevin Wildes discussed something similar on the B.S. Report last year: people seemed tired of Brett Favre last year, but the NFC title game got huge ratings. People love Favre! Or at least find him compelling. LeBron’s free agency is certainly compelling, and it’s gonna get big ratings. (I’m gonna put my credibility on a limb here, guys, and predict that it will garner ESPN’s highest ratings for a July 8 broadcast.) Ratings are what TV’s about. Great touch by ESPN to call it “The Decision” so that it can join The Fumble, The Drive, and The Shot.

Thanks Jason, Russ, Megan, and all the others serving our country.

And here’s one I’ve probably already posted once or twice: 100 Movies, 100 Quotes, 100 Numbers. (No strong language in this one—it’s all numbers.)

The panic shot: Sometimes a pickup baller will get themselves into trouble and, not seeing any other way, they just take the shot…no matter how ridiculous that shot may be. I had a friend named Brian who once drove, got stopped at the free throw line, spun around so that his back was facing the basket, jumped straight up and flipped the ball over his head toward (I assume) the rim. Again, I probably don’t need to tell you how that turned out.

At Oak Harbor’s base gym (in the days of yore), I picked up my dribble, decided it wasn’t a good idea to take a fadeaway three over a 6′2″ guy, pivoted a few times looking to pass, then changed my mind and decided it was a great idea to take the fadeaway three over a 6′2″ guy. Someone was very unhappy with me. (Hint: name rhymes with “gone”, good at basketball.)

(My answers got way too long and I can’t think of 25 people to tag right now.)

Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you.

(To do this, go to “notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.)

1. Me and Jason felt like losers because we kept seeing this survey and nobody was tagging us. So we were thinking about filling it out and tagging each other and hoping nobody would notice. But then I got tagged and so far it’s the highlight of 2009.

I was so relieved that I got tagged before Jason. What a loser.

2. I’ve been trying to read Atlas Shrugged for a few months now but I keep getting stuck at the dead boring parts. Like right now they’re driving across the country looking at old factories. And it’s about as interesting as this survey’s gonna be.

I do the thing where I’ll read and then decide to read until the end of the chapter and look to see how much of the chapter is left. Well, one day I was on a flight to San Diego and I decided to do that. The chapter I was on was a character giving a speech so I figured it wouldn’t be too long. Guess what: it’s seventy pages. Guess what: I closed the book, went to sleep, and haven’t opened it since.

3. I really enjoy surveys. That’s what I miss most about Xanga.

I went through my Xanga posts the other day. A lot are a lot stupider than I remember. They weren’t exactly pure gold but I honestly thought they would hold up better than they have.

4. Arrested Development is the best show ever. And I’m trying to get people to watch Mad Men but “it’s about ad executives in the 1960s” isn’t exactly a winning pitch.

Mad Men truly appears to be the most boring show in the world if you stumble on an episode while channel surfing and have no idea what’s going on. I gave up on trying to convince people to watch and am satisfied with the number of friends I can with about the show now. When I first wrote the survey, that number of friends was one. Now it’s three or four.

5. I’m a bandwagon sports fan and it kills me every day. My dad lived in the bay area for more than a decade and was definitely a 49ers fan, probably an A’s fan, and he loved the Celtics. And he managed to get Dan to love the 49ers, but I got none of that and then we moved to Japan, where pro sports come on at weird hours and some of the cool teachers let their classes watch the Super Bowl live on Monday. It’s not impossible to learn to love a sports team with so few broadcasts, but it’s harder. What am I supposed to do, read the paper in the morning before doing my long subtraction? There’s always UW basketball though.

I’ve decided there’s really nothing I can do about this except to make sure my kids are diehard fans of some team.

6. I listen to basically all Bill Simmons and Dave Dameshek podcasts. And I’m pretty sure I’ve read everything Bill Simmons has written in the past five years.

I went to Bill Simmons’s book signing last fall and was starstruck. Just nodded when he asked if he was reading the post-it correctly and it was “C-E-S”. But it’s still true, I listen to all of their podcasts. I’ve even followed Dameshek after he left ESPN for Accuscore and eventually to the Adam Carolla broadcasting network, where he seems to have found a great home.

7. Gun to my head and I had to answer, my favorite movies are Big Fish and Independence Day. Another gun to my head and I had to pick one, I’d pick Independence Day. (“Mankind. Hah. That word should have new meaning for all of us today.”) But Dark Knight is probably gonna be the choice in a few years.

Definitely The Dark Knight now. And The Departed has entered the fray. I watch both often. Those are the go-to movies that I’ll turn on when doing chores around the house.

8. I’ve listened to Only in Dreams literally over 1000 times in the past year. I don’t really know why other than that I like it. And thinking about it, that’s a pretty good reason.

I still throw this on the end of every CD I make for the car just because it’s something I can always listen to it when I get tired of the CD and haven’t made a new one. No I don’t have an iPod dock and yes I’m aware it’s 2010. Leave me alone.

9. I leechblocked a bunch of sites but I just end up using Safari to look at them instead.

I use Chrome now and used an extension to block Facebook two weeks ago. But then I just ended up using Facebook or my iPad to look at it. So I took the extension off and decided to just stop going to Facebook so much.

10. I usually get bad haircuts but I go back because the ladies are really nice and know me now. I used to get real bad haircuts on the Ave and the people weren’t even particularly nice, so I was sort of just asking for it. One time I literally asked for it (“skin on the sides”, I thought it’d look good for some reason) and Junior was with me getting a haircut in the next chair over and he gave me the “did you just say what I think you said” bug-eyes in the mirror. I was ashamed and wore a beanie and Allison wanted to see it and she said it’s probably not bad and she wouldn’t make fun but five seconds later I showed her and she called me Frankenstein. Jon called me Dolph Lundgren.

Now I’ve been trying to tell barbers that I want to keep the sides long. And it’s not happening. They continue to rip the trimmers out. I asked for scissors-only once and the lady explained that it wouldn’t work. I’ll keep searching.

11. I was in San Jose for six months last year. Chuck Klosterman was in Germany for three months last year and he told Bill Simmons that now it feels like when someone tells you about their trip to some far off place, except that it’s you. That’s how I feel about my six months in San Jose. I feel like someone told me about what it’s like living there with some details here and there and I sort of have to remember that I actually lived there.

This is truer than ever. I feel like I remember middle school about as well as I remember living in San Jose. It seems extremely distant. I remember a ton of people that were very kind to me. And the bourgeois gym I overpaid to have a membership at.

12. I like to keep toothbrushes with me. It’s not like I enjoy the physical act of brushing my teeth. I just hate the feeling I get if I can’t brush my teeth.

I kept a toothbrush and toothpaste in my backpack. Some people thought it was weird. Fortunately, brushing teeth after lunch at the office is acceptable, I just have to deal with “are you homeless or something” comments if it’s any other time.

13. Every couple months I’ll go on YouTube and search for “literati top 20″ and ten minutes of my life will disappear.

This is more like every six months now. Mostly because I write stupid scenes (think: “That was the first night we met. That was the first time I laid eyes on her. That was the last time I wasn’t in love.”) and email them to friends. The Gilmores never fail to provide inspiration.

14. My BFFs left one by one to San Diego and sometimes when they all go out together I get that feeling of regret as if they invited me and I said no. Doesn’t make sense.

Because life happens, they rarely all have the chance to go out together now! Joke’s on them, WHOOOOOOOO.

15. I rap in the shower and in the car and I’m not gonna lie, I’m kinda nice once in a while.

I was curious about how it would turn out if I wrote a verse, so I wrote one a couple weeks ago, recorded a voice note and sent it to friends. It’s awesome because my phone got stolen last week so some stranger could be listening to me kill it right now. Also on that phone: a picture of Green Lake taken thirty minutes before it was stolen that I sent to friends with the caption “trying getting my fitness on”, lyrics I typed out to memorize J. Cole’s “Higher”, other sweet pics. And best of all, rewritten lyrics to Drake’s rap verse in “Shut it Down” that I wrote immediately before bed. (“She’s turning heads. She doesn’t even notice. You turn the lights off… she keeps glowing.”) If it helps, I was immediately and extremely embarrassed when I read them the next morning. Doesn’t help? Got it. On to thing number sixteen.

16. Movies I’m waiting for: Watchmen, Harry Potter, Transformers, Terminator. Basically the same movies everyone’s waiting for.

In order: Good, great, bad, and so disappointing that people are tired of me saying how disappointing it was. Now: Airbender, Inception, Expendables, Predators, and Harry Potter.

17. I save emails, IM logs, and texts. And it used to freak me out that Dan deleted all his texts regularly, but then I realized that I’m actually the one that in the minority. I found this CD a couple years ago with an ICQ chat log from 6th grade. And I downloaded a program that plays them back (because the chats were real-time so you could see other people typing). It was sort of awesome to watch me call myself ceseroo and say kewl and hehe every other sentence.

I’m not as OCD about saving these sorts of things. I realized that I rarely go back to read this things, and it’s typically to just be annoying and prove to someone that I said or they said such and such.

18. I have a full size bed but basically only use half so sometimes I wish it was a twin so that I’d have more space in my room.

Now I wish I had a full size bed.

19. Cheesy jokes and puns are my favorite thing in the world. The Reese Witherspoon joke kills me. And it’s even good if you mess it up. Speaking of jokes, here are my favorite comedians (can’t get more cliche than this): Richard Pryor, Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock, and Norm MacDonald.

Still fun to me. My friends were thinking of “brag” puns (because it’s a good time, can I live?) basically until we ran out. Here are a few of my contributions: Andre Bragassi; WMD in Braghdad; Sultan of Bragrabah; GUTS #1 competitor and winner of a piece of the Braggro Crag.

20. I just remembered Valentine’s Day is in a couple weeks. I’m gonna go pretend to grab some shorts in my closet then slam the door on my head a few dozen times. BRB

This year I found a yard stick to tip the cast iron dutch oven over the counter onto my head while laying on my back in the kitchen.

21. Back. Sometimes I’ll go on streaks that last a few weeks where I’ll record what I did during the day in Google Calendar. July is full of gems like “(Saturday) watched 9 episodes of Mad Men” and “(Saturday) didn’t get into Club Envy ULR” and “(Tuesday) Napped”. I call it the loser reminder calendar system (LRCS).

March entries: “(Sunday) Battlefield Bad Company 2 opening morning with Jason”; “(Sunday) MW2 then BF2″. This was the same Sunday, by the way. My guess is the second entry was to record what I did at night. And to record the life of a loser in case someone needs insight for a future movie script.

22. Favorite food: steak. Or crab. If I had to choose between a nice ribeye steak or a dungeness crab with clarified butter and a bowl of rice, well, that’s like making me choose between I don’t know OK I’m getting frustrated because I can’t decided which one I’d take.

Ok I closed my eyes for a minute and imagined I was at the front of a line in a restaurant serving both for free. Anyway, I decided I’d go with the steak.

All still true.

23. Here I am online: flickr.com/ces ; twitter.com/cesperson ; boringperson.com ; cesnotseth.com

24. I gotta say, after all these years, I don’t really like Starcraft anymore.

When I re-read this, I actually stopped and thought, “Wait, there was a time when I didn’t like Starcraft? Did I play it too much or something? Was I mad at my friends? Was this an inside joke? At what point did I start liking it again? Why can’t I remember thinking this at all?”

25. I love it.

Speaking of back episodes, there are a bunch of old Doug episodes on YouTube. Here’s “Doug and Patti Sittin’ in a Tree”, where Patti asks Doug to the movies then everyone calls it a date and Doug and Skeeter do some research beforehand so Doug will be able to tell if it’s a date or not. If that doesn’t ring a bell, I’m guessing you never watched Doug.

P.S. There are a number of good clips related to that particular Colombian national team, but the film is put together as a narrative and it’s not the most well known story so it’s spoilable and I hate spoiling things.

None of this is to be taken too seriously. It is just basketball. And, as strange as it may sound, none of the highlights from the past seven years had to do with anything on the court; it was everything off the court that meant the most to me. The little jibs and jabs with my co-workers and the media or enjoying dinner with great NBA friends and counterparts or talking with a passionate fan in the grocery store. In the end, it’s all about sticking together and helping each other out.

On his last podcast, Bill Simmons spent some time discussing the situation with Chad Ford and both only had good things to say about Pritchard—Simmons emphasized that Pritchard always credits his team right down to the scouts. Classy.

Some think he was acting. I saw a dumb online poll centered around whether he really missed Jackson enough to break down crying about it. I think it had less to do with missing Michael Jackson and a lot more to do with slowly being forgiven by the public and being overwhelmed by the chance to perform in front of thousands of people. And of course the whole idea of “Man in the Mirror”. I’m gullible, so good job tricking me if he was acting and if not then good job period.

This post is way too long, but I’m kind of a fan, mostly because of his appearance on Sesame Street and his performance at the 2007 VMAs—I’ve watched both many many times.

Hype is a helluva drug. It clouds the judgement of rappers, fans and critics alike. It can also hurt just as much as it can help, if not more. If Drake wasn’t so over hyped, this 462K he did would seem like an epic debut. But with expectations what they were, anything short of a million first week will be viewed by many as a failure. Which is completely absurd. To put things in perspective, Jay-Z, arguably the most famous rapper living, did 475K his first week out with Blueprint 3. And you’re out of your mind if you think this Drake album isn’t eventually going platinum.

The album really grew on me after a few listens and I find myself going back to some of the first leaked tracks and enjoying them again. Eskay says he tolerates the singing on Thank Me Later more than the singing on So Far Gone. I agree with that. I pretty much skipped all the singing tracks on So Far Gone but I really like “Karaoke” and “Shut it Down” (which really grew on me because I didn’t want to listen to it at all when it leaked on its lonesome).

So what does all of this mean for the music industry? Probably nothing except that it’s just as hard to sell records as it was last year and the year before, and that the Carter 3 numbers were an anomaly.

I was thinking about how much exposure Thank Me later had on its release and it seemed like a lot of people were listening to it. But then I remembered what it was like when Tha Carter III came out and it seemed like everyone was listening to it. My guess is Kanye’s going to do huge numbers with his next album. Graduation did 957,000 its first week and 808s & Heartbreak did 450,145 its first week and that was all singing. Unless all his antics (before becoming a studio hermit) hurt the public’s perception of him more than I think it did.

I would put on headphones and play for ten or fifteen minutes, and I would suddenly feel a tingle in that weird lizard-brain proximity sense we’ve all got that says “someone is in my personal space bubble.” I’d turn around and see another IGN editor standing behind my shoulder, staring at me with pleading eyes, and I always knew what they were going to ask before they asked it: “is it good?” It’s the look of someone afraid of getting their hopes up.

Which is why I was happy to report to those asking that Transformers: War for Cybertron is actually very good. Fantastic, even. High Moon has taken a fun, fast, third person shooter foundation, crafted a well thought out transformation mechanic on top of it, and designed combat situations around that. The end result is a shooter that has an identity all its own, and leverages its license to make something very cool for fans and newcomers alike.

The video was directed by BBGUN, who also did J. Cole’s “Simba” video, which is also one long cut and seems like a warm up (pun intended) to the “Who Dat” video. Looking through other BBGUN videos, there’s one J. Cole video I hadn’t seen before featuring his intro to The Warm Up—which I’ve always loved even though it’s just him talking over a piano.

The next two pictures are unrelated other than being taken on the same weekend. I played my first eighteen hole course at the beginning of the month. It was raining when we started so I wrapped my feet in plastic bags. Worked like a charm until the hole formed in the left bag. On the right is a picture of what I decided to call grizzly bear dog.

These next two are pictures I took of my computer monitor. The first is from the virtual tour of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter because I was trying to figure out where the butterbeer would be available at. The second is a screenshot of previous results against Jason in the Starcraft II beta. I went 15-3 against him so I sent this to him two days before he left (he’s in the Navy). I also included some inspiring messages about how he could try to get redemption before he left but probably would end up losing some more. I was hoping he’d want to get a few games in but instead he just didn’t answer his phone or respond to those messages or any of the following texts.

Monday: “Do you leave Wednesday?”

Tuesday: “When do you leave?”

Wednesday: “Did you leave?”

Don’t worry though, he called and apologized a few days ago.

(I re-read what I just wrote and realized those screenshots aren’t the most entertaining pictures and that was one of the lamest stories ever. But I insist on keeping it all because I’m trying as hard as possible to NEVER have a girlfriend.)

Isaac, Jonard’s son and Jerry’s nephew, had his first birthday this month so I tried to find a present. I was thinking something dinosaur related. My first stop was Toys ‘R’ Us, where I found the box on the left—morbid. I hopped over to Barnes and Noble and found a whole bunch of Usborne touchy-feely books. Basically you go through it and see all the different dinosaurs with different textures on the pages that aren’t your dinosaur because the body is too squashy or its skin is too shiny. That’s until the end where (SPOILER ALERT) you find your dinosaur. I also bought “Where’s Spot”. Tip: When buying baby books, deadpan “I want some light reading… summertime” to the cashier and let the madness ensue!

Two weeks ago I did some ultrasound modeling. A more apt title would be ultrasound human dummying. Basically a bunch of doctors and sonographers performed ultrasound scans on me for a few hours to learn different techniques. So it was less Tyson Beckford and more Marlon Wayans in the beginning of Senseless. But that wouldn’t stop me from Blue Steel’ing while the doctors left the room to watch some presentations.

My conviction remained steady, but the lights went down and the sexiness went up.

Says Arneson, “I first heard the phrase here in the Bay Area when Bol joined the Golden State Warriors in 1988, when several Warriors players started using the phrase.” And Ben Zimmer’s rummaging in the newspaper files down in the basement of Language Log Plaza produced a couple of early 1989 quotes that confirm this convincingly:

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Jan. 10, 1989: When he [Manute Bol] throws a bad pass, he’ll say, “My bad” instead of “My fault,” and now all the other players say the same thing.

USA Today, Jan. 27, 1989: After making a bad pass, instead of saying “my fault,” Manute Bol says, “my bad.” Now all the other Warriors say it too.

So all of this is compatible with a date of origin for the phrase in the early 1980s (Manute Bol first joined the NBA in 1985 but came to the USA before that, around 1980). Professor Ron McClamrock of the Philosophy Department at SUNY Albany tells me he recalls very definitely hearing the phrase on the basketball court when he was in graduate school at MIT in the early 1980s, so the news stories above could be picking the story up rather late; but it is still just possible that Manute Bol was the originator, because he played for Cleveland State and Bridgeport University in the early 1980s, and his neologism just could have spread from there to other schools in the northeast, such as MIT.

(Via Kottke.)

This for my athletes. This for my athletes right here. Fitness time.

A few weeks ago I went with Junior to Marination Mobile. I got a beef kalbi taco, a pork slider, and a Spam slider. I really want to go there some time, spend $20 on a self-created grande meal and nap the rest of the day.

Immediately after Marination Mobile, we headed to Green Lake and did a few laps to burn off the calories. Whoops, got mixed up, we didn’t do anything in that last sentence—we went straight to Paseo. It has a 4.5 rating on Yelp with over 850 reviews so that speaks for itself. But in case you trust me more than hundreds of internet strangers: it’s really really good.

Here’s Mortal Kombat streaming on the Netflix app. Decided to watch it after watching the Mortal Kombat Rebirth short. I watched Prince of Persia recently and it was entertaining to the point that I wasn’t mad at all about paying for the theater ticket. Still not taking the title of best video game movie ever though. I forgot that it basically goes one fight scene after the other with no breaks in between: Liu Kang vs. guy in braids, Sonya vs. Kano, Johnny Cage vs. Scorpion, Liu Kang vs. Kitana, Liu Kang vs. Sub Zero. Then Goro comes out and lays it down.

The bridge is up. Also known as the perfect time to make Inception sound effects with friends. VROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM.

I went with some friends to Izzy’s, best known for special ordering the tiniest ice cream cones in the world. Albert felt like looking even huger and I felt like creating my very own Colonel Sanders mustache.

One day me and Tubo decided to try and figure out how to mess up the living room the quickest way possible. So we practiced catching Nerf darts, but it was mostly just letting the other person shoot you in the neck. Just a few steps away from Mr. Miyagi’s arrow-catching scene in The Next Karate Kid.

These were from one of the trips to Elliott’s for oysters. Well, after one of the trips. We went to get Japanese-style crepes. I enjoyed the cloud paneling over the fluorescent lights and this model hot dog crepe slayed us.

On the left is my brother holding up his bobblehead box after I yelled at him to hold the box higher. On the right is me saying something is #1. Unfortunately it’s not the Mariners.

I think what happened is Jeannie forgot her ID so Albert bought beer for her and someone was a tattletale. Me and Paul took a bunch of pictures of her getting a stern talking-to from the alcohol warden.

Better known as The Iron Monger.

I expect its target audience will love it

I don’t like reading reviews before watching movies (but I’ll look at the star rating) so that’s pretty much all I read. I was super excited for Wall-E and Up. I’d put my excitement level above Up and slightly below Wall-E. And all three below Terminator Salvation—ugh.

Kicks and the City: What kind of feeling did you catch from the sneaker community on the internet?

Kevin Wildes: It’s nice that people are passionate about the show at the very least. In the first season I went on to Niketalk and there was a post that said, This show, and then next to that, it had an emoticon that had a glowing head that would then vomit.

Can you ponder? Imagine what my s–t gonna sound like, if I told you The Warm Up was just a sound bite.

I loved The Warm Up.

The best verse on “Thank Me Later” is the most direct one, from belligerent tough-talker Nicki Minaj on “Up All Night.” She follows Drake’s conceptual, complicated brags with 100 percent attitude:

“F___k I look like, ho? / I look like YES and you look like NO.”

Seriously? The article only quotes one line from the album and it’s literally the worst one. (Second place: “Everytime you come around shut it down like computers.” The-Dream)

(Thanks Albert.)

Thousands of children knew this dinosaur by that name. It even appeared as the symbol of a major oil company and starred as one of four ancient, extinct reptiles featured on U.S. postal stamps.

In the last 20 years, however, this name has disappeared from books and museum exhibits about dinosaurs. Whatever happened to this famous beast?

Last month I read an article where some scientist claims Pterodactyls couldn’t fly. What a bunch of haters.

(Via Kottke.)

Update: On second thought, the gameplay looks great but the models look kind of lifeless. It looks like they were pulled out of a Playstation 1 FMV. Maybe it’ll grow on me. I still wish they did it in 2D and redrew the sprites.

But really, basically one of my favorite dogs ever.