Fierce...

So already one of my four "picks" in the NBA is out of the tournament. Knocked out, no less, by San Antonio, the team I predicted wouldn't have an impact. And the "Leastern" Conference series have actually been more interesting than I ever thought they could be. I love seeing Detroit (who suck on a personal level) and Boston lose.

And yet the story of the playoffs is the story of the lackluster, blockbuster trade. And it's a comedy.

Jason Kidd. Shaquille O'Neal. Allen Iverson. All three went from East to West in order to take a great team better (or, in Denver's case, a so-so team gooder). And ultimately to win a championship.

But so far. Denver, Phoenix and Dallas are a combined 0-4 in playoff series. Granted, including Denver in those numbers is going to throw everything off because they suck so much. But the point is still made.

I personally think that the Kidd trade was a good move. Kidd should fit in and, with a few more minor personnel adjustments, Dallas could become a San Antonio-like team. But only when Kidd becomes "the man." Nowitzki is more effective as part of a pair or trio where he shares the spotlight.

I also think that Denver could win a championship with Iverson, but only if they trade Carmelo Anthony and bring in some quality players. Points will never be an issue with the current Denver lineup, and points are all Anthony has to offer.

But Phoenix is a tough one. I like Nash and Amare. But I never thought Shaq was the missing piece. Shaq could do more for Phoenix by retiring and opening up a lot of cap space when a quality big, a Yao or Bosh, ends up on the free agent. Or retiring and becoming a good trade chip. Of course, still got those years left on the contract, so...

So I'm just left looking forward to a Lakers-Celtics finals.

It could be a form of protest

I don't usually get sick. And I don't enjoy it as much when I do. Anymore. Now it just feels like a distraction. A disturbance in a sort of movement forward.

In college, and before, I remember just sitting for hours thinking. Considering different possibilities. Different stories.

In the Union building at the U, on the second floor, by the ballroom. I would take a chair. Slide it to face the window and watch people. (It was, of course, better on the first few days of Spring. When people, usually shut-ins, are excited enough that it isn't Winter any longer, walk around. Meet their friends for lunch on the grass. Sit at the hard wooden tables and read a newspaper or a book.) And I would imagine what sorts of people these were. Based on their clothes. Their hair styles. Their actions. Their schedules. Their everything.

You may be expecting me to say that I miss this. That I don't do it anymore. But that isn't true. I doubt it ever could be.

I don't have anything to say about it. It's just a thought. And it's the same feeling I'd get looking out the window.

Running with the Leopards...

I finally decided to upgrade my computer. It was the least I could do. In it's brilliant Unix-based way, my Mac mini had decided that it was only going to let me overwrite about half of my preferences folder. I could have spent the hours and hours relearning Unix commands, messing around in Terminal and then, maybe, reinstalling Tiger.

So I decided to make the leap to Leopard. And, you know, I'm glad I did.

My system is much more stable now——almost shockingly so. Unsurprisingly, my three year old G4 Mac mini runs in to a bit of slow down every now and again. But with Leopard, it's much, much less. The best example, when I used to try to stream Lost online, it would pause every few seconds. Now, there might be a pause every few minutes, but not even close to thee unwatchable past. Leopard makes a shared 32 Megs of video RAM space enough. (Although I still look forward to a future where I can watch the HD stream on my new iMac.)

Also, Time Machine has simplified my OCD need to backup everything. And the simplified GUI has made my less than ideal monitor (a meager 1280 x 768) feel much more adequate.

But it isn't all perfect. I also upgraded my Dad's MacBook computer. Everything went off without a hitch, including updating his Boot Camp XP. Except one thing. Even though Apple continuously advertises that it's better about this than Microsoft:

OS X Leopard doesn't have driver support for his printer.

Working for work

I started writing a comment in response to Mark's post about finding a job he enjoys but it quickly turned into something closer to a post. It's both I guess.

The things I like about my job (I love my job, actually) are the following:

I set my own hours.
I can work from wherever I want.
My boss is the best manager I've ever had.
I'm constantly challenged.
The work I do makes the things better.
The work I do doesn't make things worse.
I constantly interact with people who are smarter and more talented than me.
There's always work to be done.
I don't have to pretend to be something I'm not. All I have to do is be myself.

I don't love my job in the sense that I do it in my spare time, but I can't imagine anything else I'd rather be doing for 8 to 12 hours per day. In the past couple months I've been offered two jobs that each pay more than twice what I'm earning now, but I don't think I'll ever go back to working a job I don't wholly enjoy.

I think finding jobs we love begins with figuring out what's most important to us and what ultimately makes us happy (duh). The people I know who love what they do either have jobs in which they do work that's important to them or jobs that otherwise allow them to spend the majority of their time doing what they enjoy. In my case it's a bit of both.

I think there are two tracks to finding jobs we enjoy: patiently sticking to a plan while remaining open to compromise, or having a clear vision of exactly what we want and the will to get it. We may need to relocate, spend some time working jobs that we feel are boring or beneath us, settle for less money, or otherwise sacrifice before we get the jobs we want. But if first and foremost we're looking for work we enjoy, none of those things should be a problem.

Regardless of which track you take, persistence is undoubtedly the key. Finding a job you enjoy isn't easy--you really have to work at it, persistently, over time. No one is going to call up out of the blue and offer you a job you love, you have to make it happen. Try making a plan. Like, in the next six months say you're going to figure out what you really enjoy doing. Once that's done, maybe take six more months to identify a job that will move you a step in that direction (whether it's relocating, identifying a job with the same company/organization you want to end up working for, finding a job that will introduce you to a network of the right people, finding a job in which you'll build a resume and gain new skills that'll help you get the job you want, etc.). Then take another six months to actually get the job, and give yourself, say, a two year limit for working that temporary position (don't tell your employer it's temporary, obviously). Then give yourself a month to get acclimated to the new position before you begin the daily search for a more ideal position. If your new, more ideal job isn't your dream job, return to step 1 and repeat. If you've done each step correctly, each one of these jobs will continue to be more enjoyable than the last and bring you closer to people who can help you find work that's better still. Plus, since you'll be doing what you enjoy, you'll get great experience that'll help you land your ideal job.

And this is really the key, I think: you have to make finding a job you enjoy your job. We should all constantly be making connections, putting ourselves out there, taking on work we don't have to do to impress someone who may be able to bring us closer to the jobs we want, taking on work outside of our day jobs that we can use to build resumes/references/portfolios, etc..

Just because we have day jobs doesn't mean we should stop looking for other/additional work. I apply for small jobs a couple of times a week and virtually all of the jobs I get lead to additional work. That's how I got the job I have now: I took a short term (3 month long) job doing something I thought I'd enjoy (and that paid shit), impressed the hell out of the people I worked for, and landed in a job I love that I didn't even know I wanted. I had a plan similar to the one I suggested above. The job I took to get closer to the people and places I wanted to be (the job I was doing when I got the sort term job), which I loathed and worked for almost exactly a year, gave me skills I needed to get the job I have now.

Not only is figuring out what makes us happy the the first step toward finding work we like, I think it's also hardest. Because really, we're not just looking for something that makes us happy, we're looking for something that makes us happy that we can spend most of our waking hours doing and something for which we're willing to to sacrifice most of our waking hours to get. But, like most things, if you're willing to put in the work, it's less a matter of if, and more a matter of when.

Post In Which I Arbitrarily Grade Mark's Favorite Blogs

The Consumerist - 8/10

I am all in favor of unadulterated corporate hate. -1 point, however, for being a tentacle of the Gawker Media empire (which, ironically, only hires contractors to write all of its content).

Evil Avatar - 6/10

Mark likes it. My brother likes it. I don't get it. The color scheme is atrocious. Are you in it for the message board?

Pop Candy - 9/10

Despite being affiliated with USA Today, the blog is breezy and has some cool recommendations. Will read again.

Joystiq - 8/10

Visually appealing. Like the fanboy divisions. Yet a part of the Weblogsinc empire. Mark must hate independent blogs.

Get Rich Slowly - 5/10

Obviously, I am not the target audience for this blog. Boring topic, and man, update that banner. This isn't 1997.

David's Blog - N/A

Keep up the rants.

Melena's Blog - N/A

I enjoy the very Mark-esque web address. It must run in the family.

The wild, wild West

Without a doubt, the Boston Celtics are much better than I ever would have anticipated. Sure, the trade pretty much guaranteed the number one seed in the "Leastern" Conference. But 66 games is a hell of a lot.

Still, a Western Conference team will win it all. Although, for the first time in six years, I don't know that it will be the Spurs.

I think it will be L.A., Utah, New Orleans or Phoenix. In that order.

The working world or work...

I dislike my job. So does my brother. So does my wife. So does everyone else I know. (Honest. I don't know a single person who "loves" their job.)

As many of you have heard me preach lately, I don't think that's so bad. In fact, I think it's kind of a cultural myth that we should like and find fulfillment in our employment.

Although I don't think this feeling is limited to our generation, as the author of this New York Times article basically says, I do think it's... well... prevalent.

Recently I've been reading a lot about how to "get ahead" in business. And, besides reminding me of the book I haven't finished writing yet, I seem to agree with most authors that I need to be persistent, shameless, learning new things (always), networking, anticipating (always), shrewd, aggressive, cautious and amiable.

I have no idea what to do first. Suggestions?

Netflix Two Cents: No End In Sight

No End In Sight (2007)

Verdict: Essential viewing for all Americans.

Watching as a Sports Fan

Last summer Real Salt Lake played an exhibition game agains the Men's National Team from the People's Republic of China. As you might expect there were Tibetan flags and pro-Tibetan posters all around the stands. I wore orange, and I certainly wasn't the only one. This Deseret News article details how the Chinese team stepped off the field and refused to play until protesters put the flags and posters away. The ominously titled Chinese "Political Comisar" went around with stadium officials kicking people out of the stadium. I was appalled that officials at a state owned facility would bow to the cries of the Comisar in the face of freedom of speech.

Jump to spring 2008, we've been hearing for weeks about boycotting or not boycotting or delaying the decision to boycott the Beijing Olympics and/or Opening Ceremony. To me there's no doubt that China needs to clean up its act. But all the talk about boycotts and the like is just talk. It matters little whether or not George Bush goes to the Opening Ceremony or goes as a "sports fan." The only message that really mattered happened in the late '90s when President Clinton (Bill) restored most favored nation status to China and in 2000 when the restoration was made permanent. The reason MFN status for China was suspended in 1952 was their occupation of Tibet. What has changed since then?

The only legitimate answer I have to that question is that U.S. standards on human rights have lowered, probably even disappeared. Our only actionable concerns are economic, and for anything else there's only lip service. Take, for example, George W. Bush's comments Hillary Clinton's suggestion that he should boycott the ceremony, "Nobody needs to tell old George Bush that he needs to bring religious freedom to the doorstep of the Chinese, because I've done that now for … I'm on my eighth year doing it." Eight years (more actually) of saying one thing and doing another. What sort of message do we send the Chinese by verbally expressing displeasure with their human rights record and then sending hundreds of billions of dollars in trade their way? Add to that the fact that we rely on China and other countries to purchase bonds in order to finance all of our deficit spending, and China can bank on the idea that all the talk about their human rights record is, well, like I said.

Personally I won't be watching the opening ceremonies (I probably wouldn't have anyway) but more importantly I'll be checking the tags on my clothes and the stickers on the electronics I buy. (I guess that means no new iPod or iPhone.) To the extent that it's possible I'll be trying to boycott China until either government can get a clue. What else can I do?

Games Mark Should Be Playing I

A curious marvel.

A crow. Sitting on a telephone wire. Dropping chestnuts onto the asphalt road below.

New records under an old needle

By now, everyone has seen this and this. (Although this is funnier. Guillermo kills me.)

And, you know, I'll even admit that he's even learned how to interview people somewhere over the last five years.

Still, we're not that far removed from the first season of Entourage when it was kind of a joke that Ari booked Vince on Kimmel's show.

So the real questions is, when did Jimmy Kimmel get so... hip?

American Kronos

Expectations can be a bitch.

Particularly when the drama in question is heralded as "the most exciting new American play Broadway has seen in years" and wins the Pulitzer Prize.

And while August: Osage County is quite good, these immense laurels do the play a tremendous disservice: it is neither novel nor groundbreaking, but instead an epic melodrama in the great American tradition. Of an entire family coming together under one roof only to level each other with scathing invectives and emotionally excoriating truths.

At first, I reacted strongly against the play as another totem in the tired Oedipal drama between The Greatest Generation and The Baby Boomers -- particularly as the only representative of Generation X/Y is, quite literally, 14-year old jail-bait who only seems to justify Baby Boomer filial overbearingness [mind you, this impression may have been exacerbated by the fact that my Student Rush ticket placed me in the Mezzanine alone with people twice my age -- a discrepancy that was painfully vocalized during any drug-related situations].

But as I reflected more upon the play and its thematic predecessors - Look Homeward, Angel and Long Day's Journey Into Night spring immediately to mind - I realized that this generational conflict is less historically specific and perhaps more of a peculiar strain of the American character. One that draws its Freudian rebellious nature from the mythical founts of the American Revolution and, less directly, Young Man Luther.

It is fitting then, that for all the bombast and lack of subtle plotting, August: Osage County may thematically orbit around the taciturn and curious Native American in the attic -- the only character, curiously enough, to lack parents and demonstrate any semblance of composure.

I assume this is no accident.

The ambiguity of a dark dreamer

There isn't much I can say about Dexter that hasn't already been said. I'm fully aware of how late I am to this party. But watching the show's first series on CBS has been enough to inspire me to read the first book. The remarkably different first book.

The most striking thing about the differences in the story is that the book and series, although focusing on the same character in the same setting, seem to be about very different things.

The series deals almost exclusively with the existential questions or being (Is humanity something we're born with or something with do?). It's about that thin line between good and evil. And about the frustration of trying to make a difference in the world. (Among other thinigs.)

The book, Darkly Dreaming Dexter, doesn't spend as much time with Dexter wondering about the things he does. All of that just relates to who he is, and what the Dark Passenger requires him to do. Instead, there is far more detail about the politics of the police, of Miami, and of a world where a skilled detective felt he could have more impact on the world by focusing his adopted son's dark tendencies on "taking out the trash."

More interesting to me, is the book's sub-thread that seems to thumb its nose at Fight Club, as Dexter struggles with the logic-less idea that he might be the looking for the killer during the day and acting as the killer in subconsciously during the night.

Of course, instead of a truly interesting or novel resolution, we get the lame it-was-my-older-brother-I-never-knew-about ending. Oh well. A good book otherwise.

"The End" has no end

Despite the fact that they're supposedly for children, I have read — and mostly enjoyed — all 13 books in the Series of Unfortunate Events.

The best description for the books is "Postmodernism for beginners." The author — a character himself: Lemony — is constantly pointing out the flaws in the narrative. The miscommunications. The words with double meanings. The failings, mistakes and no-win decisions of the main character. And the moral ambiguity and unpredictability of the world at large.

Then there are the frequent and obvious metanarratives. The largest: the children, at the end of the book, find a history, The Series of Unfortunate Events, and eventually end up recording pieces of their own story.

On the whole, the story — while being too precious at times — succeeds at its major goal: that not everything is as it seems. And nothing, and no one, is perfect. This truth leads up to an ending that is completely unsatisfying and anticlimactic. And an ending that I really enjoyed.

I like the Series series because it deftly employs the writing style that is, unfortunately, so close to my heart. But its getting further and further from my "head."