Pucon Pictures - Days 2 and 3

Originally uploaded by Wildfiring

I finally finished writing up the Pucon captions. Click here to start at the beginning, or click here, if you want to start with Day 2.

Also, I'm changing from Picasa (which I never loved) to Flickr (which seems better) so if you come across any problems let me know.

Feliz Navidad

I was hoping to have some real content up for Christmas, but that is looking less and less likely.
Instead, I offer this video that is gauranteed to make your Christmas happier (via Andrew Sullivan, btw). Merry Christmas everybody.

Hey Jude (Asian Baby Version)

Party Pictures

I'm still working on those Pucon captions (or at least thinking about working on them), but to tide you over, here are some amusing, but caption-free, pictures from Silvia and Stefano's party earlier tonight that I just put on facebook.

The Day the Earth didn't Stand Still

We've been feeling the medium-sized Valparaiso earthquakes here in Santiago for the last 24 hours. They are 150 miles away, so it's only like a 2.0 or something here so nothing much happens really --- the room shakes a little, hanging light fixtures swing --- but for an east coast American, it's still pretty freaky.

3 Things

If I'm having a crappy day, there are 3 things that are gauranteed to cheer me up. They are:

1) The Tao of Pooh
2) 69 Love Songs by the Magnetic Fields

3) 80s Cartoons Theme Songs (extra points for foreign languages)

Pucon Pictures - Day 1

Speaking of Pucon ... here's a link to pictures with captions from our first day down in the land of Volcanos.

Pucon

Pics from the 2nd and 3rd days of the trip are up on Facebook, but will be getting captionized and liked from here soonish.

A Sequence

I'm still writing up captions from Pucon, but until then, here is the sad sad story of my $5 sunglasses.

A week before
Jeremy Looks cool (for him) in his sunglasses.

During

Just after
Jeremy looks slightly less cool.

And a few minutes after that
Worrying about his lack of protection from UV rays, Jeremy gets pooped on by a bird.

Top 10 Albums of 2008

10) She and Him - Volume One
9) Frightened Rabbit - Midnight Organ Fight
8) Rosebuds - Life Like
7) TV on the Radio - Dear Science,
6) Hold Steady - Stay Positive
5) Mountain Goats - Heretic Pride
4) Okervil River - The Stand-ins
3) Dodos - Visiter
2) Helio Sequence - Keep your eyes ahead
1) Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever ago

I feel like there were plenty of good albums this year, but very few, if any, great ones. In fact, I'd say any of the top 6 from my recently updated list from last year would probably top this list. Except for Bon Iver which became my pretty clear choice for the top spot as I re-listened to these albums over the last few weeks, I honestly feel like you could put the rest of the list in any order and I wouldn't argue. In fact, I just went back and fiddled with it some more as I'm typing this. OK, I'm stopping now. Check back for TV and movie lists in the coming days.

Frightened Rabbit

Since one good video deserves another:



So, I've been binging (click that at your own risk) on year-end music lists for the last week or so (Here is Denny's), and have heard a ton of new music. So far, I've only listened to 4 songs on Frightened Rabbit album, but those songs are by far the best thing I've heard. I liked their first album, but frankly, the sound quality was crap, so it kind of faded from my consciousness. This second album ... well, so far, it's really freaking good.

Pretty much a normal night at the UL

This is pretty great.

Shaun of The Dead - 5.5

Ryan strongly advocated for this as one of the top comedies in recent years. Unfortunately, while I can see its appeal, it wasn't for me. My problem with the movie is pretty straight forward: it's all about horror movies, which I don't care about --- at all. I don't know how many Saw movies there are, and I don't know what Final Destination is about. Honestly, Shaun of the Dead may very well be the first zombie movie that I've watched in full. As such, more than anything, I found the movie just slightly boring. It is kind of like Christopher Guest movies (Best in Show, A Mighty Wind, etc) for me. Like Shaun, the movies are well written and well made, but if you don't give a damn about dog shows or folk music or zombies, what's the point?

Shaun is divided pretty evenly in to 2 different parts, the first half satirizes the horror genre and isn't bad at all. In fact, the scene where Shaun stumbles through his normal morning routine completely oblivious to the fact that he is surrounded by zombies is pretty great and has stuck with me since I watched the movie the few months ago. The first vinyl-throwing zombie fight was solid as well, but unfortunately things went downhill quickly from there. The second half of the movie is as much zombie tribute as satire, and was nothing more than a dull bloodbath in my book. The other problem with the 2nd half of the film was that all of Shaun's friends and family got killed off. I thought the casting was decent --- especially for the supporting characters. Shaun and his girlfriend were really the only 2 characters I didn't buy in to, so as their screen time increased, my interest waned further.

So, it's not on my comedy list, that's for sure, but it's also not complete junk like so many other recent comedies. If you like zombies, give it a shot. If not, I would pass.

Coming Soon to a Wildfiring near you

Some non-UNC Basketball related things to look for on Wildfiring in December:

• Pictures and Captions from our trip to Pucon this weekend. We had a really good time, so I'm looking forward to writing about it some. The pictures are up on Facebook, but I'll write up captions and post to Picasa (and here) soon for general consumption.
  
• Lists! Top TV and Music of 2008. I might do a preliminary Movie list as well, but until Slumdog Millionaire and Benjamin Button hit Chile, all bets are off.
  
• Movie Reviews - Shaun of the Dead, Pineapple Express, Tropic Thunder, Cronos, The Hustler and Guess Who is Coming to Dinner have all been watched and only partially forgotten.
  
• TV Reviews - The second season of Mad Men, plus I think I am going to start watching Breaking Bad.
• Book Reviews - I've read a few things since posting about books a few weeks ago, but I think I might have to start breaking out the Hardy Boy's if I want to make it to 24 books this year.
  

Can UNC go undefeated?

Ben and I were talking about what UNC's chances of going undefeated this year. A quick back-of-the-napkin calculation told me that if UNC had a 90% chance to win each of it's remaining 31 games then they had a 3.8% chance of going undefeated. Not nothing, but the assumption was crap, since, for example, we're waaaay more likely to beat Oral Roberts than Duke.

So I decided to make a spreadsheet that is at least slightly more sophisticated. Below there is a sheet with one row for each game and my best guess at UNC's chances at winning that game:



So, if you multiply all of those numbers together, you get the new updated 1.08% chance of an undefeated season ...

BUT, let's say I am stupid (not a crazy thing to say) and really, UNC is several times more likely to win each game than I predicted. We'll call this the Jeremy Pessimism Factor. A Jeremy Pessimism Factor of 3 would mean that instead of the stated 65% chance of UNC winning at Duke, we actually have a 88.3% chance. As you can see, the dumber I get, the more things start looking up for a historic run:

UNC - Michigan State - Live blizog.

12:19 - Unless we start sucking and I need to vent, I'm going to be quiet (or at least quieter) and just relax and enjoy some good bball for a half.
12:05 - This game was kind of sloppy and ugly for the last few minutes of the half, but damn, UNC up 14 at half time against a top 15 team playing very well ... impressive.
11:56 - Slingbox screenshot for Ryan. This is pretty standard. Blurry, but watchable. The sounds is perfect and there is no lag at all.

11:55 - Another long 3 and a transition dunk. UNC by 11. Wow, are we playing well. This is just fun to watch.
11:53 - Great game so far. Not much defense from either side, but UNC has kept up their impressive level of play and MSU has done well to keep up. I don't think they (or anyone) can do it for 40 minutes, but it should be fun to watch them try.
11:50 - Can we please stop fouling 2 seconds after they shoot. Their 3rd and-one is coming up after the break.
11:45 - Davis lay-up, Davis Block, Lay-up, Ty steal, 1/2 free throws and we're up by 10 again, and MSU has been great so far.
11:41 - Jimmy V's speech at the ESPYs always makes it seem a little dusty in the room, as Ben would say.I didn't like the guy as a coach, but as a philanthropist he was amazing.
11:40 - MSU is playing very well ... and losing by 5 less than 10 minutes in.
11:36 - A prediction - We don't lose a game this year where we make more 3s than our opponents. It's 3-2 MSU so far today.
11:35 - Yikes, that block from behind against Ty was sick. And then a 3. Ouch.
11:34 - Another Danny shot from 4 feet behind the line. Wow. And Again! Wow. When he is like that we are unbeatable.
11:30 - Actually it's probably good that I don't write about every game. One only gets so many Newby rants before the men in the white suits show up at your door.
11:27 - Looking good at the 16:00 time out. Pretty much in line with the last few games. I was bummed I didn't get to write about the Notre Dame game, but I was too busy having the flu (I didn't eat a single bite of food on Thanksgiving or my Birthday this year). I really think that was some of the best Basketball I've ever seen UNC play. When we're good this year, we're scary good.
11:24 - Ah, love to see them running with us. It might work for a while, but in the end they've got no chance. No one does. And right on cue, steal/fast break layup.
11:15 - Game time. Tyler playing. That should help. Hm, 2 baskets inside against us. No way they beat us in the paint, right? right.
11:00 Chilean - Going to be liveblogging UNC MSU starting in 15 minutes or so, so if anyone wants to follow along and comment go for it. I'll respond to the flood of comments as much as possible, but as any firefighter will tell you drinking from the fire hose of wildfiring comments ain't easy. OK, that made no sense ... Way to start strong, Jeremy.

Obamafy Me

Very cool.

'07 in '08

Before diving in to year-end lists, I always like to look at how my lists from last year would look if I recreated them today. Here's my Top 10 albums as posted last December:

1o) Kanye West - Graduation
9) St. Vincent - Marry Me
8) Shout out Louds - Our Ill Wills
7) Lupe Fiasco - The Cool
6) M.I.A. - Kala
5) Menomena - Friend and Foe
4) Iron and Wine - Shephard's Dog
3) Okkervil River -The Stage Names
2) LCD Soundsystem - Sounds of Silver
1) Andrew Bird - Armchair Apocrypha

And here's how I would rank them today:

10) Lupe Fiasco - The Cool (7)
9) Rosebuds - Night of the Furies (NR)
8) Spoon - Gagagaga (NR)
7) Menomena - Friend and Foe (5)
6) LCD Soundsystem - Sounds of Silver (2)
5) Okkervil River -The Stage Names (3)
4) The National - Boxer (NR)
3) Radiohead - In Rainbows (NR)
2) Iron and Wine - Shephard's Dog (4)
1) Andrew Bird - Armchair Apocrypha (1)

Like usual, the second half of my top 10 albums from last year have been pretty much abandoned except for a stray song here and there. Along with Iron and Wine, offerings from The National and Radiohead have easily been my most listened to 2007 albums this year. I still think the Andrew Bird album is absolutely amazing (and I stick by putting it in the top spot), but it isn't exactly easy listening, so it only gets once a month or so.