What, me worry?
Charlotte, losers of two straight, are in Memphis to play in the C-USA tournament today. They haven't been playing well at all and are lucky to still be ranked in the top 25. Basden has been a ghost, Baldwin has started chucking turnovers, and Plavich can't hit all the 3's by himself.

And they couldn't have chosen a worse time to play poorly as tournament season is here, and all the hopes and dreams of January and February can fade in an instant. Now, they are playing a tough Memphis team who can win any game, who is ready to avenge a previous close loss, away, against not only a point guard who torched them for 29 points earlier, but also one of the most athletic players in the country, in addition to their Final Four caliber coach. No, nothing to worry about here at all, just go along your business folks and hope that Charlotte can pull it together when it counts.

Riding the trains in Tokyo
Riding a train is an unavoidable part of living in Japan. Car transportation is expensive and a pain in the ass, and everything is pretty much walking distance from one or more stations. Plus, it's dependable and reasonably priced. I have fond memories of riding on trains, heading off to another fun and exciting destination in relative safety and comfort. On the good days, you can sit back and relax, enjoy the view as Tokyo zooms past you, look out at that one station you've never stopped at, and in general let your mind wander. On the bad days, it feels like you're dying in a tiny metal box.

Anyways, I would occasionally wonder if in fact there would be over a thousand people on the biggest trains. Looks like my assumptions were correct. Check this article in Japan Times for a confirmation, and be sure to read some of the comments below, they are pretty funny.

Also, 60 years ago today, the Allies firebombed Tokyo, killing 100,000. Just something to think about.

Spring Break
So, for my Spring Break in my Senior year of college, I'm going to be chilling at home, running errands and fixing my computer. Not exactly what I had hoped for, but hey, it could be worse.

I didn't exactly plan for things to work out this way. In fact, looking back, I didn't exactly plan for anything at all, which was a major mistake on my part. I just kind of figured lukewarmly that somebody would do something somewhere, and I'd just tag along. I think that's what everybody figured, and of course when that happens, nothing happens. I learned my lesson.

Somewhere in February, way too late, we all discussed going down to Panama City. It was me, Jack, Tim, Chris, and Derry that were all going, and seeing how its my senior year, I ended up being pretty enthusiastic about it. Still, I had my doubts, because these things never go smoothly. And sure enough the trip got canceled the first time when Jack and Tim pulled out.

Then, briefly, it looked like a last minute plan of Me, Chris, and Derry was going to be able to go. We even got hotel reservations and everything. But sure enough, something else came up, as neither of them could get out of work. Trip off, and it's really too late to do anything about it.

Looking back, I should have more engaged and involved, planning earlier and making concrete plans weeks in advance. I myself could have done more to plan the trip, it's not all somebody else's fault. Now I know, but unfortunately seeing how it's senior year, there probably won't be any second chances. Which sucks, because seeing how I spent a year in Japan, this is in a way my third year, my junior year, actually attending UNC Charlotte. It really seems like I should get one more year to do everything right. But that won't be the case.

I was feeling pretty crummy there for awhile, it even was bumming me on my birthday Sunday, but somewhere along the line I decided to stop feeling sorry for myself and move on. So, trying to turn a negative into a positive, I'm trying to do some productive things over the break, like get my toe fixed up, write about baseball, and look for jobs, but I still don't have any trips planned. Which is still a dull way to spend the break.

What I've been up to
This past week, full of exams and other crap, has been pretty challenging in a lot of ways for me. There was the Middle East Politics midterm on Monday, which I did fairly well on, got a 90, but I could have done much better. I spent most of the rest of last week staying late in the library every night, finishing up a report about the proposed smoking ban in North Carolina. Let me tell you, being stuck in the library till late at night every day can wear down on you pretty quick. Thankfully, I finished it up Friday afternoon.

It had been a pretty nonstop week for me going all the way back to the senior day basketball game, but the fun wasn't over yet, as I had to cover the baseball team against Niagara. (If you haven't heard yet, it looks like I will be covering the baseball team this season for the school newspaper.) After the game, I was so sick of everything, me and Sammy basically played Project Gotham Racing 2 for about six hours. It was fun. Then more baseball on Saturday and Sunday, and then I headed over to Justin Stritch's house to watch the UNC-Duke game. Sunday was actually my birthday too, and I got happy birthday sung to me, thanks guys, that is a whole lot better than last year. I went home on Monday, hopingto relax, but then basically my dad and I spent the entire evening trying to fix my computer, with no luck. Sorry for the shittiness of this entry but I'm still so worn down from the week, and with my damn computer not cooperating I don't feel like including things such as coherence or grammar. Expect to see some more rants and raves soon.

Laptop Busted
Apparently my computer won't boot up, so posting may be light around here for awhile. Just a heads up.

On the bright side, looks like I'll get to see how this post works out.

I needed to be alone for awhile
So I went to school on Friday afternoon. No, but in all seriousness, it took every fiber of my being, but I had to go study. I went up to the campus around 330, and it's amazing how quickly UNCC obtains ghost town status on the weekends. I mean everybody splits as soon as possible, for home or work or whatever, and the campus just gets lonely and depressing. After a week of classes, I don't want to be there either, but this pattern of nobody around continues throughout the weekend, and I think as a whole all the students are worse off for it.

Contrast this with the sudden groundswell of support for 49ers basketball. Now, I'm as glad as the next guy to see games sell out, but you have to wonder where these people were when the team was unranked. And today, in another experiment of school spirit, the school is letting students try tailgating in some of the parking decks. As my friend Jack said, in this case tailgating is basically synonymous with drinking, so hopefully there won't be any problems. But I guess that we'll find out.

Squared Sevens Floor Hockey R.I.P. 2003-2005
I make no exaggeration when I say that being the captain of Squared Sevens floor hockey team was the greatest moment of my sophomore year. Not like there was much competition, but that's beside the point. Me, Tim, Jason, Ryan, Sammy, and crew tore it up pretty good. We even won a playoff game, 4-3, in a virtuoso display of teamwork and grit. In addition to being a lot of fun it was also enjoyable to me on a personal level- I got to be Captain, coordinating and directing to squad. It was excellent.

When I was able to go to Japan, I knew floor hockey was gonna have to wait til senior year. We were really going to kick ass this time, I just knew it. Leaner, meaner, better skilled and organized. Watch out world. I even figured, hey, I'll ref a couple games, get some extra bucks. I began the season with high expectations. When the season ended for us, today, they couldn't be much lower. Total games played? One. Total games reffed? A big fat zero. After waiting two years to get back into this thing, it quite frankly didn't amount to shit at the end.

Problem? Where to begin. First and foremost, turnout. Nobody shows up. 4 out of our 5 games were straight up forfeits. I guess people just can't be bothered these days. I realize people have work and school but 80% is just sad. I wonder, would the turnout be better at a different, somewhat more glamorous sport? Basketball, perhaps, everybody's favorite pickup game? I'd probably say so. I remember when I asked this one dude in my class if he wanted to play floor hockey, he looked at me like I was stupid. Floor Hockey? Who plays that? Isn't that the sport with sticks? This would-be Ivan Lendl even bullshitted to my face about it. I'll be sure to ask him to be on my Tennis squad though. For sure.

About the reffing thing, I've got to place blame on the Intramurals office here at school. Why recruit people if they aren't going to play? Why waste both of our time? If over half of your games are going to be forfeits anyway, why bother? If the problem with getting scheduled was in the availability submission forms on the webpage, why not fix it? As a prospective employee, its not my job to go out of my way to waste my time and then never get hired. I did talk to some of the people who run it, and they actually have college degrees in this stuff. Could have surprised me.

So where to go from here? I enjoy this, but apparently that makes me world population of one. I'd love to set up some pickup games, but I can imagine the slightly annoyed look on the faces of the intramurals staff already. Didn't you guys just have your season? The goals are all locked up, you know. We'll have to get them out. And don't break the sticks either. And if you lose a puck, thats five bucks each. We'll be counting. No, I seriously doubt that will work. That leaves one option. I'm going to learn to skate, to play for real, and I'm moving to Manitoba. Peace.

Could They Have Screwed This Up Much Worse?
So, let's get this straight. After canceling this season on Wednesday, the NHL and the players tried to un-cancel it in another meeting today. I guess they can't even cancel a season the right way. Gretzky and Lemiuex were involved in the proceedings this time, which raises the question of where have they been in the process all along. Of course, Goodenow and Bettman weren't invited- I suppose they were planning on getting something accomplished this time.

The result remained exactly the same however, no agreements were reached, which makes you wonder why they even bothered in the first place. Sounds like they were just wasting everyone's time, again. What a bunch of bozos, to put it nicely. They've screwed up so bad, at this rate, they'll all end up being the Canadian Secretary of State before all is said and done. Oh well, at least there is always Arena Football.

Computers- gotta love 'em
I had to take an online test this past weekend at the so-so www.webassign.net. What this involves is typing your answers onto text boxes on the web page, and then it all gets sent to your professor. For my test, there was a one hour time limit.

This was for my European relations class, and seeing how its in my major, I studied pretty seriously all weekend for it, knowing that I'll end up having to take a test against the clock online, in a setting that I've never done before. I was a bit apprehensive about the whole thing, in addition to being nervous over a big test in general.

So Sunday, after all day studying, I decide to go ahead and take the damn thing. I figured the library's computers would probably work better than mine, so I took it there. It starts out fairly well, I'm familiar with all my terms and facts more or less so no problems there. What I did was, I typed it in Word and then copied and pasted to the web page. There's a large essay you have to write to finish the test, and I'm making good progress on it, about to wrap it up and finish the test with a couple of minutes to spare, when- maybe you can guess what happens here.

Yup. The computer completely crashed and reset on me. Apparently, it was caused by a "comminication error" the computer had. Before resetting the power, the computer tried to auto save the file, but no doubt thanks to UNCC's computer's tough security settings, it was denied permission to save. Had I happened to save the essay myself before the computer went down? No, of course not. My essay was lost and I was basically out of time. I was just a little pissed at this later development. My friend Akane tried to tell me just to type it again and email it, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. I logged off and went home to drink a beer.

Fortunately, it seems to have ended well. When I told my professor, he seemed pretty understand and extended the deadline that I could take the test. So I typed it up again, and got everything sent in this time. So hopefully I shouldn't fail thanks to the schools computers, just my own academic incompetence. Wow, that ended up being a lot longer than I thought it would. But the bottom line is this- computers sure can be a pain in the ass sometimes.

Congratulations 49ers
On cracking the AP Top 25 at number 23- I figured this deserves its own post. Keep up the good work.