The Most Satisfying Loss, Part II: The Most Unsatisfying Loss

So, our team of misfits followed up last weeks near miss with a loss to a team that only had four guys (versus our 6). They beat us straight up. There's no way to spin this one. It was humiliating to the core.

The Most Satisfying Loss

So, I'm Mormon. Some people know that about me, some don't.

I came across this article someone had written about Mormon basketball leagues: Basketball Still Important to Church.

It was a fun read because I've always liked "church ball" (a.k.a. "The world's only brawl that begins with a prayer").

Since Anna and I moved this last year, that put us in a new ward (i.e. congregation or parish). I found out recently that it's a ward that has been apathetic to church basketball for many year, and apparently it has not fielded a (dedicated) basketball team in their league for a long time. Since I showed interest by merely asking about the ward's team, they put me in charge of organizing it. It's been an uphill battle.

Basically, our team sucks. We have no chemistry. My teammates and I are still learning each others' first names. We don't hold practices, so we've simply been showing up at game time and laying it all out there. Our weekly goal is to not be doubled up on the scoreboard - no joke. As you can imagine, we haven't bagged many wins. In fact, currently, we stand at 1-4. (Our one win was due to a forfeit: since we had four guys show up and the other team had none, we were awarded the victory.)

Our last game was another loss, but possibly the most satisfying loss I've ever had. Here's how it went down:

Like usual, we got down early - 10 points or so - before we got our first bucket. But, somehow we held serve from there. By halftime we were only down 6-8 points.

As the second half began, the other team (with better athletes and team chemistry) extended their lead. I'd guess it was about 12-14 points.

But then, we dug in. Somehow my ragtag group started to get it together. We don't have any Jordans or Kobes on our team. Our tallest guy is maybe 6' 2". Our opponent had a guy in the middle who was about 6'8". Most of us are in our 30s and fat and out of shape, but you can tell that once upon a time we had passable rec-league-level skills. We started to settle into roles and figured out how to play with each other. We began making shots and playing decent defense.

We closed the gap.

To make a long story short, we cut the deficit to 3. We had the ball with about 30 seconds left. We passed it around and got a good, open 3-pointer but it missed. I got the rebound and got fouled putting up a shot near the basket that missed. I sunk the first free-throw: nothing but net (and my only point in the game).

As you do in these situations, I had to purposefully miss the second shot hoping we would get the rebound and get another shot off. In spite of myself, I actually made this happen. The ball clanked with force off the front of the rim, floated over the guys lined up at the key and landed perfectly in our point guard's hands - probably our leading scorer in the game. With one second left on the clock, he launched the shot from about 12 feet out and it... missed to the left.

The other team let out a huge, collective sigh and then all the guys on the court laughed. It was an unexpected dramatic finish.

Our team stinks, but it was a satisfying loss in which we didn't give up and fought back to nearly take the game to overtime.

Welcome to "The Hill"!

I formally welcome all the students who opted to play college football at the University of Utah today. Here's to you guys kicking some butt in the coming years!

Ki-yi!

His coat was made of good roast beef!? The horror!

Did you ever hear that song "Aiken Drum" when you were a kid? You know, the guy who played upon his ladle, his ladle, his la-hey-dle?

Did you ever think through the words to that song? The creature that the song creates is the stuff of nightmares!

Here are the words (per Wikipedia):

There was a man lived in the moon, lived in the moon, lived in the moon, There was a man lived in the moon, And his name was Aiken Drum.

Chorus:
And he played upon a ladle, a ladle, a ladle, And he played upon a ladle, and his name was Aiken Drum.

And his hat was made of good cream cheese, of good cream cheese, of good cream cheese, And his hat was made of good cream cheese, And his name was Aiken Drum.

And his coat was made of good roast beef, of good roast beef, of good roast beef, And his coat was made of good roast beef, And his name was Aiken Drum.

And his buttons made of penny loaves, of penny loaves, of penny loaves, And his buttons made of penny loaves, And his name was Aiken Drum.

And his buttons made of crust pies, of crust pies, of crust pies, And his buttons made of crust pies, And his name was Aiken Drum.

And his breeches made of haggis bags, of haggis bags, of haggis bags, And his breeches made of haggis bags, and his name was Aiken Drum.





C'mon! Would you venture to the moon if it were even a remote possibility that you'd come across a fiend with pants made of haggis bags! It's simply too awful to imagine. I think I have an antagonist for my next ghost story. Seriously.

Don't know the song? Here you go:



Okay, that was even creepier than I thought. Here's a more traditional singing of Aiken Drum:

The Right One

A few days ago, I saw a movie that has been on my "want-to-see" list for a long time. It's one that's been recommended by Netflix and friends.

It's called "Let the Right One In."

It's a vampire movie, but very atypical. In a sense, the vampire story is more of a backdrop. In the forefront is the relationship between Oskar and Eli. Eli is the vampire, supposedly generations old but trapped in a child's body. Oskar is a shy kid who is bullied a lot at school. Eli takes an interest in Oskar, feels pity for him and begins to protect him. Over time, Oskar starts putting the pieces together and figures out what Eli really is while he falls in love with her.

Like I said, this was not your typical blood and guts vampire film. There are some blood and guts, but they are not what drives the movie. It's actually a touching love and friendship story.

Anyway, I really liked it. Here is the trailer:

Shhhhhhhhhhhh!

I get a kick out of this show on MTV, Silent Library, where players have to perform lame and gross stunts while their teammates have to contain laughter, gagging and other noise to earn money:

Get-it-Yesterday Song #15: Invisible

Here's the next song in my series of song recommendations.

This recommendation is for Heidi Talbot's "Invisible."

A little back story:

When we lived in Arizona, we had some friends - the Toones - who had season tickets to the Phoenix Symphony. Now and again, they'd call us and offer their tickets that they couldn't use. Anna and I are huge fans of music in general, so this was always a treat for us.

In this case, it was March of '07 and the symphony was putting on a St. Patty's -themed show. Their marquee performers was a band called Cherish the Ladies: a group of women, some American, some of various Brit and Irish origin, who played Irish and Scottish folk music. They were quite good.

After one or two instrumental folk ditties, they played a song featuring a lead singer. At the first instance of hearing her voice I sat up thinking "Whoa! Who's that!?"

It takes a lot for one's musical talent to get my attention like that. The singer was one Heidi Talbot. Her voice was the most pure and beautiful of any that I've ever heard in person.

With the help of Google, I found that she had released a solo album, "Distant Future." I bought it on iTunes and it became a favorite of mine and was quickly adopted by my wife as a standard played around our house. Not long after, Heidi released her second solo album "In Love and Light." It was just as good as the first one.

Here is how I would describe her:

To me, she sounds a lot like Alison Krauss. That was my first impression there at the Phoenix Symphony - just a Celtic Alison Krauss. I found that I was not the first or only one to make that comparison. Occasionally she has a whispy end to her range that's sort of Sara McLaughlin-esque. I think her voice is just smooth, graceful, and magnificent. She sings folky music that ranges between pop (loosely defined), Celtic folk and a little Americana.

Here she is singing the song "Invisible":



If you've not heard this song, Get It Yesterday! There are plenty of her songs that I could offer as honorary mentions. If I had to pick a couple, I'd go with "In Silence I Go" or "If You Stay."

If you're a Twitter participant, she can be found on there as @heiditalbot.

Heck, for that matter, you can find me on Twitter as @aljmac.

Post of the Living Dead

The other night, I watched a documentary about zombie movies.

I'm not specifically a zombie movie buff per se, but I do like monsters and scary stuff and the zombie genre definitely fits under that umbrella. The fact is, I actually want to like zombie movies more than I do, but - like any niche genre - there are enough stinkers that it keeps me from endorsing them wholesale.

So, that's the point of this post: to point out some of the good and bad that I've seen in the zombie genre.

1) Romero's "Living Dead" movies
I'll talk about these as a group since they're sort of considered the canon of zombie movies.

George Romero is the 'brains' and director of the famous "Living Dead" series, that consist of:
Night of the Living Dead
Dawn of the Dead
Day of the Dead
Land of the Dead
Diary of the Dead

"Night" and "Dawn" have had remakes made that Romero was not involved with. I've seen "Night" and its remake, most of "Dawn" and all of its remake and "Day." I've not seen "Land" or "Diary."

"Night of the Living Dead" is flat out awesome. It brought the zombie movie into the modern era. It was a cheaply-made independent film shot in black & white in the late '60s. Even if you haven't seen it, you know what it's about: survivors stuck in a rural farmhouse fending off an onslaught of slow-moving undead. That's where it all started. This idea has been ripped off, paid homage to, made satire of, etc., but if you want to know where the concept started, it was with this movie.

The remake was made in 1990. The new one was incredibly faithful to the original, almost to the point of making me wonder why anyone bothered to make another one. That said, it's a good copy of an already great movie, so therefore the remake is also good.

"Dawn of the Dead" takes the same concept from "Night" and places it in a shopping mall. I know I've seen *most* of this movie, and unsure if I've seen the whole thing. To me, it was a step down from the first one. This was the first zombie movie (that I'm aware of) that really tried to up the gore factor.


This is where I'm kind of split on zombie movies. I'm not a gore hound. I'm okay with some, but there is a point of "too much" for me. I'm not sure what it is, but I do have that threshold. What I like about zombie movies is the survival plot lines. I think this puts me in the minority. Most zombie fanatics like them *because* of the gore, not in spite of it like me. Anyway...

"Dawn" gets pretty gory. The mall location lends to some rather ham-fisted satire about commercialism, some of which is funny, some is preachy/stupid.

The remake of "Dawn" was the same premise. Like the remake of "Night," this movie didn't try too hard to stray from the original; it was just made with more money and better effects. One significant difference (that starkly divides the zombie movie community) is that in this one the zombies can run. Instead of rigor-affected rotting beings lumbering along, these dead can sprint to their victims. I had no problem with this nuance like some did. I liked the new one slightly better than the original.

"Day of the Dead" is just stupid. In this one, some survivors have gathered at a military base and they're trying to hold off the undead from that fortress. There are a few additional subplots, but they're so dumb they're not worth mentioning. Again, the gore is once again ramped up. As you might tell by now, I hated "Day." It is just lame, lame, lame and too gory.

2) White Zombie
This is an old horror film featuring Bela Lugosi (aka the original Dracula) as the antagonist. This is a pre-Romero zombie movie. Let me explain something. There are two main genres of zombie movies: 1) those where zombies are people (sometimes dead, sometimes not) whose minds are controlled by someone else and 2) those where zombies are reanimated dead (or deathly sick) controlled by their own base desires - usually to eat flesh. Romero's movies are the second type.


"White Zombie" fits into the first category. It was okay. It had some suspense, but I've had no desire to see it again.

3) The Serpent and the Rainbow
This movie fits into the same category as "White Zombie." It was a more modern take on the idea. Like "White," it took place in the Voodoo hotbed of Haiti. In this case, the zombies are simply people who were given such a powerful (Voodoo) drug that they were declared legally dead, buried, yet they were still alive (basically in extreme comatose) and then somehow clawed themselves out of their graves. Due to their trauma, the victims appear soulless and basically crazy. Because of the superstitions of the locals, these zombies are ostracized from those in their old life, living out their days in and near the cemetery. The tension in this movie is not the fear of the zombies themselves, but the fear of becoming one.


This was actually a pretty good zombie movie. I'd recommend it.

4) Shaun of the Dead
I LOVED this movie. It was a satire on the Living Dead series, and the drudgery of real life. It's mostly a comedy of a Joe Sixpack named Shaun who unknowingly wakes up to a zombie infestation. Because his real life is so dull, and full of people equally un-enamored with their lot, he initially doesn't even notice the new zombie versions of his peers. He just goes about his day amidst the zombies as if nothing is different. Eventually he clues in and along with is slob best friend and his girlfriend they try to survive holing up in their favorite pub. Good stuff. Arguably the best zombie movie I've seen.

See the trailer. (Too scary for kids):



5) Quarantine
I saw this a couple months back and loved it so much, I gave it its own review on my blog. But to quickly review, this movie takes a slight deviation from the zombie "undead" path. In this case, people are contracting a potent form of rabies. When they get it, they quickly become wild, rabid and zombie-like in their need for blood and flesh. The movie follows a group of people locked in their own apartment complex as this disease rages inside and the survivors (whose numbers quickly diminish as the zombies multiply) try to find a way out of the building which is boarded up and guarded at gunpoint by the 'government' which is trying to keep the disease contained.

I was definitely on the edge of my seat for this one.

6) 28 Days Later
"28" has a similar premise to "Quarantine," minus the quarantine. In this case, it's another highly infectious disease turning humans into blood-thirsty fiends. A man wakes up from a coma in the hospital quickly realizing that while he was out a disease had ravaged London, and he had been left for dead amidst the chaos. He wakes up 28 days after the epidemic, so society is pretty well collapsed. In this post-apocalyptic background where handfuls of survivors run from the remaining infected, he makes his way to the country where there are rumors of fortified holdouts.


The first half of this movie is awesome and full of tension as he figures out his new reality and makes his way out of the city with a handful of other survivors. Where the movie took a disappointing turn is when he gets to a rural fortress and finds that those who rule it are just as crazy as the infected. It's an okay premise, but poorly executed. It was too "Day of the Dead" for me which I think I've established my distaste for.

7) Return of the Living Dead
This movie is a steaming turd trying to piggyback the Romero flicks. Don't waste your time.

8) Zombie
[Edit: apparently it's called "Zombie 2" not that it says that anywhere on the art]
This movie, for having such a straightforward title, is a little misleading. It should be called 'zombies.' There were more than one. Many more. There were hundreds. This movie was sort of a hybrid of the Romero- and White Zombie-type zombies. This movie takes place in a Haitian-esque Caribbean island and involves Voodoo enchanted corpses. They're Romero-like in that they are decrepit corpses rising from the dead to eat flesh.

This movie, IMO, is famous for one thing; the most ridiculous scene in any zombie movie ever. I present to you, Zombie vs. Shark (too scary for kids, but you'll probably laugh):




9) Fido
Like "Shaun of the Dead" this movie is a well-produced zom-com (zombie comedy). In this case, the world is in a post-post-apocalyptic state where civility has been restored from a worldwide zombie invasion and war. A large corporation, Zomcon, has figured out how to domesticate zombies with a collar and now they're being used as a servant/slave class to this 1950s "Leave it to Beaver"-like society.


Everyone has their own zombie to keep up with the Joneses. The main family in the movie purchases their first zombie and the mother and son get attached to it, name him Fido, and the father hates Fido from the start.

While not as good as "Shaun," this was very well done and quite funny. I think even non-zombie fans would appreciate the humor, and this should be a must see for fans of the undead. It was quite clever.

10) Resident Evil
I'll include the whole series of these movies in one group, in part, because I'm not sure how much of any of them I've seen. I've caught these movies on TV and watched pieces of them, but never in one sitting.

Resident Evil movies are based on the first-person shoot'em up video games of the same name. In a nutshell, (from what I've gathered) there is an evil corporation that researches biological weapons and such. Their chemical can reanimate dead humans into flesh-eating zombies (as if there are there any other kind). Like I say, I don't have enough experience with the movies or the video game to comment deeply, but what I saw was a mixed bag of exciting sequences and lame cliche or trying-too-hard scenes. If you like sci-fi, action, and zombies, these are right up your alley.

***
So there you go. For the most part, all the zombie movies I've seen. I'd like to see "Zombieland" when I get a chance. It seems to fit into that "zomedy" category like "Fido" and "Shaun." I've heard positive reviews about it.

Nothing ventured, nothing Gaines

Check out the game winner from the temp Jazz guard, Sundiata Gaines, who they just signed to a 10-day contract to come over from the D-league to fill in for the loss of Maynor. What a shot:

Alan's Little Life Maxims #30

It is my own experience that kids only vomit in the middle of the night. (Top bunks seem to have a particular magnetism to puke.)