They lost the game last night, but I’m not really too concerned about that in the pre-season.  It was kinda surprising and sad that Detroit wasted the last couple minutes taking knees for an easy win as opposed to giving their players some very valuable 2-minute offense time.  I guess a win in the pre-season against the super bowl champs was too much to risk.  Although, you’d think that a tough 2 minute offensive push against the super bowl champs would be much more valuable come the regular season.

Either way… GO BIG BLUE!

Ahem, ok, next topic.  The Olympic opening ceremony is tonight! Huzzah!

I’m a glutton for professional athletics.  Especially sports close to my heart, like swimming.  I love the constant competition that goes on during the Olympics.

Michael Phelps is in for a historic challenge.  I also noticed that he had his official web site translated into Chinese.  Ryan Lochte is in prime form to make his indelible mark on the games.  This is going to be a good year for US Swimming.  Let’s not forget about the epic Dana Torres.  41 years old, she’s in incredible shape.  I’m pretty sure she’s setting a record by competing in her 5th Olympic games.  That’s just insane.

It’s a little sad that Beijing is so disgusting, politically and physically.  Here’s a comparison photo a photographer took during a stay in Beijing and his commentary:

Beijing Air Quality

This is a pair of photos taken in Beijing by me during a trip to the People’s Republic of China in August 2005. I was in Beijing twice over a period of a week and a half, both times at the same hotel and in approximately the same room. The photo on the right was taken during a sunny, otherwise clear day on my first visit. The photo on the left was on my second visit, after it had rained for approximately 2 days. Both of these photos were taken in the morning around the 07:00-08:00 hour. The difference is staggering. I can say that during the day that I took the photo on the right, the air made walking around (and I did for miles) rather difficult.

- Photos taken by Bobak Ha’Eri This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License.

Aside from the whole China controversy, such as the International Olympic Committee pretending they’re affecting some sort of change in the brutal regime, I’m optimistic.  China is powerful enough to enforce the image of a happy and successful game, and I pity the poor soul who tries to embarrass them.

Tomorrow is the Catch 22 show at the Stone Pony.  It’ll be Amit, Steve and I.  It’s going to be a blast!  We’re meeting up ahead of time for a late lunch/early dinner at Jose Tejas (tentatively).  Then off the the Pony for mayhem and mischief.  I’m sure more to come later on that event.  I hope this Catch 22 show involves less kicks to the face for me from various crowd surfers as I’d really like to keep these glasses.

Huzzah!  Good times ahead!

P.S. One thing I forgot to mention is the new “Page” on Databyss.com. I added a Tag-Cloud page that runs a Flash application to allow easy tag navigation.  This may change forms as I’m looking at more fun ways to work with the tags.

British Phonographic Industry (BPI) chief executive Geoff Taylor told BBC News that “We don’t believe that society can allow the free consumption of content to persist” (Via BBC)

These are the same guys who in the 1980′s launched the “Home Taping Is Killing Music” campaign.

Some people are just dumb.

This guy is an Asshat.

First things first.

Second things second.

I made brief mention of this on my twitter, but I’ll elaborate.

I dread the deaths of certain super-celebrities. Not because I care about them, but because of all the shit I have to endure on television when one of them dies. All those tributes and retrospectives. And the bigger the personality, the worse it is.

- George Carlin

George Carlin has died.

To me, this marks the end of an era.  An era of honest commentary on American society.  I listened to him for his insight and distinct ability to cut through the p.c., the b.s. and the F.C.C.  His words were true.  He got away with it in the guise of comedy.

The ludicrious fits of laughter were the result of his genius, wit and delivery.

If God had intended us not to masturbate he would’ve made our arms shorter.

- George Carlin

George is a comedy god… He’s right up there with Joe Pesci in my book.

Thankfully, genius is never forgotten, so George will always be around for generations to be inspired by him.

Along those lines, I saw Louis CK perform at the State Theater in New Brunswick this past weekend.

He is fantastic.  You get that Carlin feel of sincerity from his show.  He says what he says and it’s the truth and it’s funny.  Hilarious even.

I definately need to see when he’s coming back around, and I recommend him to anybody with a sense of humor.

The night before Louis CK, I went with Steve to see Goldfinger and Less Than Jake at the Roseland Ballroom in NY.

That was an amazing show.  Goldfinger was awesome, the crowd was pretty awesome (aside from a few mosh pit jocks) and the music was fantastic.  Less Than Jake was also very intense.  I was a little suprised at the amount of younger kids there.  I was going into it thinking it would be a slightly older crowd.

The only tradgedy that befel me that night was after Goldfingers song Mable.  They had as many people as they could fit up on stage, which naturally lead to fan stage diving.  I was almost dead center right up by the stage, basically designated catcher for the swarm of flying people.  One eager music fan was a little too large to humor the idea of stage diving.  He jumped, I braced, I crumbled.  Gravity FTW!  It felt like somebody popped me on the top of the skull with a mallet.  I went straight to the floor, but I got up fast enough.

The crowd was full of hawt chicks too, only one flasher though.  I’ll take quality over quantity any day

I’m planning on hitting up the Catch 22 show at the Stone Pony on August 8th.

Recently, we went white water rafting up in Jim Thorpe, PA.  We were invited via Jay and Maria via Matt and Mindy.  Rafting is a blast.  I haven’t been doing any adventure type stuff lately, but I was totally down for this.  There was some minor organizational confusion at first, but once we were on the water it was total victory.  We rode some rapids, had some people spill into the water, but we finished the course in 1st place with all our people and another dude that we pulled in just before the end.

Great Success!

I wanna do some kayaking and more rafting and hiking and camping and all that sexy fun stuff.  It’s been ages… a few too many ages.

Speaking of kayaking… Holly was up for the weekend.  She hasn’t been around for a few months so it was pleasant to see her again.  She didn’t have much time for hanging out due to her curfew… yeah I said it… curfew… how silly is that   That chick has some craziness going on in her life… hope it all works out for the best.

Somewhere along the weekend we got involved in discussions about old movies.  I think it was over dinner at Tumulty’s with Jay, Maria, Tom and Lesia before we saw Louis CK.  This led us all to explore our movie archives to come up with some viable titles.

That night or the next, we watched Labyrinth.  What a crazy movie man.  Go watch it.

Also, while catching Wedding Crashers, we noticed that Republican Presidential Candidate John McCain was in there, staring as himself.  Freaky… that’s back when he was a normal, rational human being.

I’ve also got Airplane! cued up and ready to watch when I get some spare time.

Major gaming news broke this weekend as well.  Diablo 3 is in the works.  There was an announcement and simultaneous site update that featured a cinematic trailer and a very long game play video with developer commentary.  The Barbarian is back, there’s a new Witch Doctor class, full 3D world with the familiar and trusty Diablo 2 looking interface.  Control improvements, world destruction and physics.  I’m very excited and eagerly awaiting new info.

Well a lot has gone one recently, and I’m preparing for a short international journey this weekend.

I don’t post as often as I like, or as I should.  I think some of the topics I rampaged through today I would’ve liked to elaborate more on.

That is why I try to keep my twitter in the know on what’s going on so that even if I don’t get full updates, I can put some info in, and the links from my del.icio.us help too I suppose.

More to follow… eventually.

Here’s a phone shot I took of the Ludo guy.

He’s very cool and friendly.