pitt basketball memories!

yesterday, i learned how to use titles. i couldn't figure it out. turns out you have to turn them on...
i'm smart.

pitt beat duke!

i don't know about everyone at pitt, but is this the "same old, same old" story - where pitt does really well in the preseason, only to disappoint in the tournament - or is this year different? i want to say beating duke is a pretty big deal, regardless if it was only by one point in overtime. i haven't seen any pitt games this season, so they could be playing like shit for all i know.

i guess there's always a year when a team surprises you. sometimes it takes 15 years (and counting - for the pirates), but pitt has been strong for ...what... 5 or 6 seasons now?

it seems like every year has been marked by some sort of failure instead of triumph. i can still remember freshman or sophomore year (not sure -- i guess i can't remember that well after all), donatas zavakis whining on the sideline as pitt lost prematurely in the tournament. i think they got to the sweet sixteen? who knows.

remember when yuri demetris punched his girlfriend in the face? i wonder whatever happened to him.

chris taft looked like snoop dog and/or plaxico burress.

carl krauser was never as good as brandin knight.

2 years ago, the scoreboard on the TV during pitt's matchup with bradley in the second round read "BRAD PITT."
haha.

i hope this is the year for pitt basketball. jamie dixon deserves it, if nothing else. i'd be kinda sad to miss it because campus will be out of control. go pitt!

prague public transportation awards

i don't ride the metro much anymore. mostly just the green line. but the best thing about riding the metro (other than metro surfing) is seeing the signs on the wall that identify the metro stop. some of them are really cool, and some of them are downright ugly.

i've decided to rank them.
best: hloubetin on the yellow line. i've always been a sucker for the yellow-green-blue color combination. also noteworthy, cerny most is a boring stop (color-wise), but the coolest thing ever is seeing the scenery go by through the tinted windows that enclose the tracks after it comes up from underground.

runner up: namesti miru/JZP. mustek is okay, but the green-yellow is a little bit of a cop-out, considering those are the colors of the lines that intersect there.

honorable mention: namesti republiky (chrome!) and starometska.

worst: almost all of the stops on the red line are boring. they all look the same. so take your pick.

this is an ongoing project because i've yet to see every stop. also, my next project is "best tram line." there will also be a category for "most difficult line to tram surf" and "line that could use more frequent trams."

stay tuned.

"if you lose your mind, come back."

i was just looking at pictures from my last "american vacation," when jocelyn and i went to DC to visit brad and ngav.

it was the middle of august. oppressive heat. we were in the adams morgan area of DC at dan's cafe, my favorite completely irresponsible place to drink in our nation's capital. if you aren't familiar (which is a shame), it's situated in a dirty basement. it's tiny and always crowded. it smells like a zoo. the bartenders are grumpy. best of all, the drinks: if you unsuspectingly ask for a "rum and coke," for $11 the pile-of-sunshine barkeep hands you a glass (probably somewhere in the ballpark of 8oz) of rum, a can of coke, and a bucket of ice. basically... a shitshow ensues.

you and your party end up completely wasted, but it's also a place that's pretty conducive to meeting new people. somewhere between my "gin and tonic" and falling asleep on the metro, brad, jocelyn and i befriended some guys and one girl who were standing near our table. i believe the events unfolded thusly:

jocelyn got up to go to the bathroom. i couldn't hear what they were saying, but a group of three guys started talking to her. she came back to our table and told us about it, saying they were being kinda creepy. i suppose i thought it wise to give them a piece of my mind. the one guy came over and this is the conversation we had:

me: "you're a creep!"
guy: "what? why?"
me: "you touched my friend!"
guy: "i just wanted to dance!"

(note: there is no dance floor at dan's)

i guess instead of haranguing (i think i spelled that wrong but unfortunately my dictionary is being held hostage :P ) them, we were at that point of drunkenness where you suddenly become best friends with strangers instead of trying to fight them (lucky for brad). so these guys just sat right down at our table, and we talked about who knows what... (i think they made fun of brad's magazine and pointed at jocelyn's boobs a lot).

anyway the whole point of this story is that i never managed to catch their names, but i remember the words on the back of the one guy's shirt, and they were: "if you lose your mind, come back." i don't remember what was on the front of his shirt, but i assumed it was some band, probably dave matthews or something.

i did some intense research (googled it) and found out it's a buddhist saying.

i didn't find much interpretation, and on the first read it didn't really make sense to me. but i suppose it means if you find yourself feeling lost, all you have to do is simply come back. and because the solution is so simple, maybe it means that you weren't really lost in the first place. you're looking for answers and getting lost, but maybe you knew the answers all along.

maybe i'm looking at it the wrong way, but it doesn't really matter, does it? it's what you make of it. strange what you remember when you've had an entire glass of liquor.

i don't have much to say today. i've been thinking a lot lately that i really wish i had my guitar here. in retrospect, i could have easily left an entire suitcase of clothes at home and brought my guitar instead. i might try to find a cheap used one somewhere, just to play while i'm here.

i barely touched it last year, which i regret. i wish i could learn to have a better work ethic about things. i don't have any talents. there are so many things i "want" to be good at, but i'm just not a hard enough worker. i think i expect to be good at things without effort, and if i'm not, i get frustrated and give up. obviously this is a negative quality to have if you want to be successful at something.

i have so much time here that i waste. maybe if i had my guitar, and it was the only thing i had left to do, i'd practice.

actually... probably not. i'd probably still take naps.

two days in a row.. holler at yer boy.

ever since i've been teaching english, i notice language a lot more. i think about it all day. it's a little bit odd, but mostly i love it. i spend a lot of time trying to figure out what words mean in czech. we were drilled so much about "teacher language" that everytime i talk to someone i'm wondering if i'm talking clearly and simply enough for them to understand what i'm saying (even native speakers). i've learned a lot of british english, which is cool because even though its mostly the same language, we use it completely differently. i never thought it would be so hard to talk to someone from england. basically, language is on my mind all the time and it's great. my mind is always occupied with thinking about something i love. it's kind of like getting paid to think about your girlfriend or boyfriend all day, and then at some points of the day, talk about them with other people for 60-90 minutes.

uso i've been noticing things i wouldn't have before. today i was listening to my ipod on the tram on the way to class. the song was "playing favorites" by the starting line, which is quite a nice song actually. there's a verse that goes like this:

"wait for me to move out west/
it's okay if you don't/
i hope you know you're my favorite thing about the west coast/
i wish i stayed/
i hope you wait/
i'm counting down the days til california comes"

lovely. but i started thinking about the phrase "move out west," and i realized that i've never heard anyone say "move out east." more often you'll hear "move back east." and i've never heard anyone say "move back west." you always move back to the east and out to the west. obviously you COULD say whatever you want, but i think it's kinda neat that for the most part, the... i don't know what you'd call those...directional prepositions?...(back and out)... follow the pattern of "manifest destiny" ...in america we settled in the east first then went west later. i mean i'm sure there's californians that move east... but do they ever say "move out east?" it seems like the pacific coast is usually the endpoint, and from there you can only go back.

that might seem ridiculous but these are the kinds of things i think about all day. jealous? no? okay...

my philosophy on advice is that if i were asking for it, i would want to hear the blunt truth. i want to hear what i might know is true but don't want to admit to myself. someone has to be the voice of reason and it's not usually the person asking for advice, or they wouldn't be asking for it.

it's pretty odd to be in a situation that is almost exactly like one that you gave someone else advice about before. you're suddenly like... shit... now i have to follow my own advice.

a few years back, one of my friends (no names to protect the innocent) was lamenting having to leave someone she had met while studying abroad. she was saying that she felt that the things she shared with this person didn't really mean anything because he had gone back home, to his girlfriend, and she was sure she'd never see him again.

i gave her my best attempt at being a wise and insightful friend and i told her that she should be really happy that she got the three months that she did. she could always look back on those three months and remember them fondly. she could remember that this person had a really deep affection for her, even if it wasn't quite manifest in the way it she wanted it to be. and that it doesn't mean any less just because it's in the past tense instead of the present.

so, to me, even though this thing i said to her sounded really idealistic, it also sounded like "the right answer," even if that's hard to follow. really i just wanted to her not to be sad about something she couldn't change.

that being said, i realize now how completely unfollowable that advice was.

this isn't something you can actually do. you can't turn off your feelings for something and transform it into a pleasant memory in a split second. eventually... but after some time. i realize that i was telling her this advice thinking "don't be sad! you have these three months of memories, don't be sad about them, be happy. turn it on like a switch." which is completely crazy. no one can do that.

so i know what i need to do. i've put myself back to two years ago and i'm listening to myself give this advice and telling myself to follow it. but i know exactly why she thought about it feeling meaningless.

this friend wrote this really wonderful story for one of her nonfiction classes about how this guy lived a life she described as transient -- he had no qualms about moving from one part of his life to another, just picking up and leaving everything behind to start something new. he would look at his experience abroad the way that she wished she could. like a great time in his life that's over.

i can't remember the moral of her story, if her prose decided this was an ideal way to live or a sad way. i sort of wish i could be that kind of person, but i know that i'm not and i probably never will be. i don't have the capability of remembering things without placing myself back at that time; it's only one place or the other, now or then, and it's usually then. i was actually just thinking about how often i do that; sit and look at pictures or think about things i've done and wish i was back at those times rather than right now.

i understand why people become writers or musicians or artists or photographers or filmmakers. you want to cement something into the present tense that otherwise would disappear into the past, into memory.

i've never been good at taking my own advice, but then again i don't know if that's true of anyone. i suppose you can either waste your time being sad or just decide to be happy, i just don't know how possible the latter is.

i recently learned the term "gutted" and at first i thought it just meant sad, but now i think it's a little bit more than that. i actually feel like i've been gutted, hollow, i feel like i don't have insides. but maybe you need to feel that way first to make the memories move vivid. like a chrysalis for memories... i don't know.

i'm not sure if i really got at what i'm trying to get at with this.

i learned something today that, i think in the state i was maybe a few months or a year ago, would have devastated me. i can't really be specific but i guess maybe i realized i'm getting used. but then i thought about it, and maybe i'm using this person, too. and as long as i'm getting what i want maybe i can't be too critical of that person taking advantage on the other end. i think it was nietzsche but i can't be sure, anyway it was some philosopher i studied in "intro to philosophical problems" freshman year, but all relationships are based on a mutual desire of something from the other -- like... hey i'll be friends with Joe because he has a convertible, and i need to get around and look cool doing it, and he'll be friends with me because I can get him pot or something. and we talk to each other in the meantime and enjoy each other's company -- and maybe that's a really simplistic and cynical way to look at it, but think about friendships. why do you have the friends you have? not because you admire them more than anyone else. a lot of my best friends are not perfect people and neither am i. you need something from them. they make you feel better about yourself or make you jealous or make you competitive. they feed to your personality in some way. so maybe we're all using each other. and we try to make it out like using someone is the worst thing you can do, but you do it all the time. normally i'd be pretty upset to learn the piece of information that i did, but who knows what that person would think if they could figure out what i was using them for. we've all got these deeply complicated reasons for seeking out the people that we do, and they're mostly there from childhood, from all the things that happened to us, and they'll never be undone. but they dictate why we need the people that we do. you're using everyone you know, to fill a hole or to highlight a strong point, to superimpose revenge on something that happened to you a long time ago. so, who knows. maybe this is the same thing.

sort of in the same way that alcohol amplifies all the aspects (good and bad) of one's personality, i think august amplifies all the aspects of pittsburgh's "personality."

it's unbearably hot... i'd compare it to being stuck in the bathroom after a long, hot shower. i walked outside to get lunch today and it felt like the air was trying to strangle me. i complain just like everyone else about the bitter cold in the winter, but i'm almost certain i'd prefer to be cold rather than hot. i don't think there's anytime hotter in pittsburgh than this time in august... and it won't go away until the end of september. christ. i woke up at 2am in a pool of sweat, and that was with the help of jocelyn's window AC unit. i guess they don't make them like they used to -- we had an "emerson quiet kool" growing up (actually i think my brother still uses it, which is a testament to it's unstoppable structural soundness) that would turn my dad's giant master bedroom into an icebox. granted, it was probably an egregious offender to the environment... i can't even fathom the ingredients of the chemical stew that dripped out of that thing onto the grass. but it worked a lot better than the crap thats on the market nowadays. i sound like an old fogey. pioneering the business of waxing nostalgic for a bygone era of home cooling appliances.

and it's steeler's training camp season, which marks the climax, with a collective exhalation, of the whine that has lasted since march about the pirates 15th abysmal season. these are two examples of the need for pittsburgh to get something new to talk about. every year the pirates suck. and yes the management and the ownership is terrible, and doesn't care about winning, and is not upholding what they promised 6 years ago in return for a shiny new ballpark. but frankly, it's old news. i'm tired of hearing about it. but every sports writer in the post-gazette treats the pirates losing as if they just came off a world series win.
also in the realm of i've-got-better-things-to-think-about, it's training camp. and the steelers DID come off a superbowl victory only to wade in the mire of the mediocre. and now there's a new coach. so i guess that entitles the PG to put the goings-on in old latrobe on the front page of the sports section. i mean, don't get me wrong... i'm a steelers fan like everyone else, but it's getting ridiculous..."day 9! today, jeff reed made a 42-yard field goal that allowed practice to end early." who gives a shit. the city lives and breathes hating the pirates and loving the steelers, and that's never more apparent than it is in early- to mid-august.

maybe it's starting to wear a little. i don't know. august, die she must.

i'm terrible at this. but really this time, i'm trying to write more -- hopefully it'll make it easier to keep everyone up to date on my adventures in eastern europe.

i'm starting to feel the creep of sadness about leaving -- most days it still seems too far away to be real, but things are starting to happen to bring it into focus. plane tickets, payments. passport in the mail. it's not so much that i'm afraid to go, it's more that i'm afraid of what i'm leaving. either they'll be too much to come back to or nothing. both options are equally terrifying.

sometimes i think i'm attempting to run away from my problems... or to avoid having to do some work to achieve something in my life. i should have taken this year to write, but i didn't. my fear of failing paralyzed that muscle. i'm still not who i want to be -- just when i think i'm making progress, I meet a random middle-aged Canadian gentleman at the airport bar who tells me he can see straight through what I thought was a confident exterior. apparently you drink a few glasses of jack and you're suddenly dr. phil. i feel like i've done so much, and i don't know what else to do. there is nothing else i can do. maybe i'm looking for a clean slate but i know that's not what i'll be getting.

someone said to me a few months ago "are you just doing this so you can have something to say you're doing next?" i don't think that's true. i want to live abroad and i want this experience, i want to learn another language and become better at English and meet someone who has no clue who the Steelers are and walk on stones in the street that older than everything manmade in this country.

but am i done with this city? i remember things that seem like they're from another lifetime. there's no connectivity, no common thread lacing together the parts of my life. i look back on things and the memories seem like things that happened to someone else. different lives entirely. the stupidest things will trigger it -- the other day i lost myself staring at a flourescent heineken sign at the bar. i watched the inclines move up and down for ten minutes, thinking... how can i leave this. am i really done with this life.

i suppose it's not worth wasting time with what-ifs, but i can't help but think that if my dad were still alive, i wouldn't even be doing this. almost certainly not. it makes me hate myself. this whole life i've been living since December 2003 seems like a trade off. i want him to see this person i've become, that i'm still becoming, but if he could see it then i wouldn't be this person. imagine that.

how i learned to love the draft (from jockmockery.com)

Up until today, myself and the NFL Draft were mortal enemies. I was tired of reading about it and hearing people talk about it; tired of mock drafts and especially tired of hearing "Sorry, I can't hang out this weekend. The Draft is on."

You're WATCHING the Draft? In the hierarchy of television boredom, I put that right up there before the Antiques Road Show and after watching re-runs of Hawaii 5-0 with my mom.

What's there to watch about it? I mean, there was an America's Next Top Model marathon on. For my money it doesn't get any better than watching Tyra Banks chew out some skinny bitches who "just don't have the passion for modeling" that she does. And Cassie is bulimic? Reality TV gold.

The thing is, I was SO WRONG.
This thing was brimming with drama and intensity.

First of all, I think the whole Brady Quinn thing was grossly mishandled. You could see the discomfort building up. Not drafted in the top 3? Okay, still calm, not time to panic. Jobbed by Miami? Your poker face is starting to betray you, Brayden.

Why wasn't someone milking that for all it was worth?

Whoever left Suzy Kolber in charge of asking the tough questions must have been on drugs. She was creaming her pants just knowing she got to sit as near to Quinn as she did. As the picks got higher and higher, she inched closer and closer.

"Aw, honey, it's okay... how about you ditch your slampiece Lindy and get with a real woman?"

ANYWAY, all she did was ask him how he felt about not yet being drafted, and when he replied with the athlete stock answer of not really saying anything with as many words as possible, she let him get away with it. You know even though he pretended not to be super pissed, he was. Who wouldn't be?

Character was a huge theme this year. Why not say "So, you're getting passed up by a lot of teams here. What do you think is wrong with you?" Better yet, ask JaMarcus Russell why HE thinks no one's drafting Quinn. Or, ask his girlfriend if she's going to leave him now that he's not a top ten pick.

This problem would have been solved if they'd had Steve Young doing the interviews. He's not afraid to piss someone off. He was about to drop kick the commentator who looked like Matthew Perry after he called him out on that "You don't want to have to be the next Dan Marino..." argument.

"You had to follow Joe Montana."

"Oh, did I, Chandler?" Bitchslap.

You could cut the tension surrounding that desk with a knife. You talk badass ex-quarterbacks, you talk Steve Young.

The closest they got to hard-hitting journalism was asking him if he was going to stay even though he was getting passed. What was he going to do, walk out of the Draft? You don't do that. He was staying, even if he had to stay until Sunday. Eleven-thirty tomorrow evening, he's passed out on the couch, shirt all untucked and rocking day-old-shave stubble, hair greasier than it was today (IF POSSIBLE), half-eaten KFC family bucket on his lap when he hears his name.

"Now, with the 297th pick in the 2007 NFL Draft, the recently-annexed Pittsburgh Passion select quarterback Brady Quinn from Notre Dame."

Justice.

The best part is he kept saying "There's nothing I can do. It's not my pick."

Yeah, because you're not Eli Manning.

And how about the Jets snaking Darelle Revis from us with 6 minutes left on the clock? I guess people saw that one coming, but I didn't. That was the exact moment I fell in love with the Draft.

Also, if the fans of the team that just drafted you boo when the pick is announced, you're in for a long haul. I can't remember who it was but I want to say it was Green Bay. Have a fun career, buddy.

Case in point, I take back all the whining I did about Draft weekend. Today was amazing, only to be topped by the fact that when I got home, I found out that the old Lothrop What What episodes are now on YouTube. Life is sweet.