The Whateverlah Blog

until then, I’m drowning in lesson planning anxiety to the n-th degree on top of still really hating the early mornings. The one - and only - upshot is the later evenings to do the ‘other’ things three days out of the week. Things like… being a slacker, play video games, ponder on the mysteries of the mysterious mini pie crusts, weigh the benefits of joining the tennis clinic and read.

Oh, to be sure reading is part of work. I have to read. But thankfully none of the books have orotund words like “meta”, “taxonomy” or… “orotund”.

Stressing. I’m always doing that. It’s an impressive feat, to always be able to find something to stress about.

This has been my emo post of the week. Fatuitous programming shall resume in a few.

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The Half Blood Prince release date will be delayed until July 2009, an additional 8 months wait for fans from the originally scheduled date of November 21, 2008.

The BBC report claims it might be because of The Dark Knight’s success this summer and has this quote: “Warner Bros doesn’t need anything else this year,” agrees Helen O’Hara of Empire magazine. “Next year is going to be much tougher though.”

Huh.

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10:03 am EDT - The medal ceremony. And that’s my flag up there. I’m still proud. Chong Wei looked like he could cry. Burdened with the knowledge that the whole country went “Aiyooo” and knowing that he could’ve definitely done better, I suppose that’s normal. Anyway.

9:46 am EDT - um, so randomly.. the mascots came out and one of them fell… and the rest started to kick him. no idea if it’s part of the act but i’m laughing my ass off here. Then they had the volunteers come pick him back up. Oh.. comic relief.

9:41 am EDT - Lin Dan wins. 21-12, 21-8. Thanks for playing. Lin Dan salutes the crowd and… throws his shoes to adoring fans. yea, thats rite, i said shoes.

9:39 am EDT - Chong Wei’s slumped shoulders tells it all at 19-6.

9:36 am EDT - at 18-4, you’d need a deal with the devil to come back. this is just humiliating.

9:32 am EDT - WTF. That shot looked in!!! We need instant replay in badminton! 13-3 now.

9:31 am EDT - 11-2 now. Service to Chong Wei. He needs to keep pushing.

9:28 am EDT - The optimism, scant to begin with, has faded considerably…

9:20 am EDT - Lin Dan wins the first set 21-12. Chong Wei sat back too long, shoulda made a move earlier.

9:18 am EDT - I’m just going to start calling Lin Dan, ‘Lindsey’… ok? (which is a whole lot better than Chou Dan…

9:10 am EDT - 11-5 to Lin Dan now. Everytime Chong Wei has gone to the backcourt, he goes long. Draft, perhaps?

9:04 am EDT - neither player are playing an aggressive game. perhaps it can even be called cautious. But at 6-1 to Lin Dan, Chong Wei needs to keep pace. Doubt he can claw back from a huge deficit if that happens.

9:00 am EDT - oh, pardon me. It’s “LIN DAN! JIA YOU! LIN DAN! JIA YOU!”

8:56 am EDT - the players walk in and you can already hear the “JIA YOU! JIA YOU!” Die man.

8:52 am EDT - alright, I’m up. the medal ceremony for the mixed doubles is still happening. on TV, two channels are running summer olympic programming but neither will feature badminton. but of course.

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Lee Chong Wei is going to guarantee Malaysia at least a silver in the Olympics when he beat Lee Hyun-Il this morning to advance to the men’s singles finals. No points for guessing correctly who his opponent will be on Sunday.

Lin Dan is looking pretty strong and I can imagine the psychological impact of playing a chinese on their turf in one of the biggest event to hit the nation. Not so tangentially - Lee did beat Lin a Thomas Cup match, so he isn’t unassailable; but the chinese crowd… i mean, if you think the “USA! USA! USA!” thing is maddening try listening to a group of chinese rock the gymnasium with “JIA YOU!” *clapclapclap* “加油!” *clapclapclap* “JIA YOU!”.

Ahhhhhh!!!!

Those of you who can’t get the match on tv, make sure you tune in online at NBCOlympics.com where it’ll definitely be streamed. Let’s give Lee Chong Wei the support he deserves.

MALAYSIA BOLEH!

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end of week 1 student teaching.

today, I’m truly knackered. my body knows that it’s the end of the week and it’s screaming for a nap right now. so that’s I’m goin to do.

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Before that, one small bit of interesting news from Olympic badminton: Bill Gates is (now) a badminton fan?

Ok, so, Wong Choong Hann beat Taufik Hidayat, the latter the defending champion from the Athens games in round of 64, only to lose to some goblok from Taiwan in the round of 32. Whaddafuckman? ARGH!!!

Now Lee Chong Wei, our No. 1, is the only one left to try and snag the elusive gold medal for Malaysia. On his way to it he has to beat Sony Dwi Kuncoro - who is no slacker - and then Lee will potentially meet Bao Chun Lai before finding himself in the finals with (and I bet all the tea in China that it will be) the bad boy of badminton, Lin Dan.

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He was visiting Team USA volleyball and softball during practice. The girls in the softball team even managed to prank the prez. But I thought this one particular photo needed a caption or two.

Come on guys, don’t fail me now. You know you have it in you.

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Been far too long since I’ve made one of these posts; the last one was in 2007.

Anyway, for this week we have made in China cheerleaders (a slideshow from NBCOlympics.com). I could do a joke about plastics here but it’s not very funny.

I suppose it can be America’s next biggest export - slut-ho’ness. In all fairness, maybe it’s not the westerners that are to be blamed. After all, it’s the outfits - if one can call them that - rather than the actual act of cheerleading that makes me headdesk repeatedly. Maybe it’s just that it’s so warm in the summers that they need to wear next to nothing. And no, even the lack of bottle-blondes and shake-n-bake tans don’t make them more palatable.

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11:54pm EDT with the lighing of the olympic flames concludes this blogging exercise. It’s been a great show. Can’t wait for the rest.

11:21 pm EDT - as the parade of nations wind down, let’s take a moment to thank whatever and whoever that the concept stadium proposed years ago for this Olympics did not happen.

And here comes the Chinese delegation. Wow.

11:06pm EDT - The Kiwis, sadly, did not stop to perform the haka. And NBC cuts away. How rude!

11:05pm EDT - Happy birthday, ROGER FEDERER!

10:48pm EDT - Sorry to say, Malaysia, the Dutch looks better in orange.

10:38pm EDT - Ya know, I just realised that Team USA’s outift make em look like air stewards.

Oh. Geez. There goes that USA chant…

9:43pm EDT - Any chance of the Kiwis doing the Haka?

9:34pm EDT - Now the Japanese contingent has the right idea - coats and SHORTS.

9:25pm EDT - My people just walked past. That orange is totally meh. The tiger-striped kain samping… also meh. But I love the flags.

9:19pm EDT - Even more OMG’edness. Malaysia will be the 10th nation out there. TENTH. Entrance will be based on the number of strokes of the nations’ name in Chinese. AWESUM.

9:16pm EDT - omgomgomgomgomg Parade of Nations coming up. OMGOMGOMGOMGOMG. How long will it take to get to the M’s?

9:12pm EDT - Sarah Brightman looks a little doped up. Maybe you gotta throw back a couple to be up that high on that globe structure.

8:51pm EDT - While Lang Lang plays on, can I just mention that in the last Olympics USC sent 35 athletes to Athens. This year there are 40 Trojans representing 17 different countries in the Beijing Olympics. Suck on that, UCLA!

8:35pm EDT - There were PEOPLE underneath those movable-print-block type thingies. HOOMANS. They really have alot of bodies in China. < — my one understatement of the night.

International Relations nerd comment: I think it’s really great that NBC has Joshua Ramo commentating on the socio political meaning of this Olympics.

8:22pm EDT - OMG, these guys are like on a giant Buddha Board. I heart technology.

8:15pm EDT - ok, question. Are those kids really of different ethnicity or are they just dressed in the custumes? This Han wants to know.

8:05pm EDT - Those drummers look alien… like, Star Trek cheesy outfit type alien.

You know what it is about the Chinese? They can put on a show by just overwhelming you with the sheer number of participants. 2800 men on drums. Srsly.

Oh, wave to mom n dad, kay? So effing jealous of my parents.

7:51pm EDT - athletes are placed in the indoor stadium before the walk in. Team USA decked out in Polo Ralph Lauren. pheewweet!

7:48pm EDT - 12 mins or so till the start. Hehe, Bob Costas and Matt on TV now. Bob Costas just butchered the name ‘Zhang Yimou’. Matt does better with ‘Hu Jintao’.

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8.8.08

Beer. Check. Snacks. Check. National flag. Check.

I’m ready for the Opening Ceremony (delayed) telecast. >.>

2008 Olympics Malaysian Athletes

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I can only recall one other instance in which I loved the sequel better than the first movie - Toy Story 2 rocked harder than Toy Story. And The Dark Knight is so awesome it makes Batman Begins a pedestrian effort. You know how sometimes a movie is just perfect up and down, in front and behind the camera? Yea, anyways, eventhough it has some crazy stupid hype surrounding it, this movie is definitely worth a repeat trip to the theaters.

And everyone is raving about Heath Ledger — that’s cool and all cause he really was kinda kick ass. But I have to tell you, the best thing that happened for Dark Knight was Katie Holmes pulling out of this sequel and Maggie Gyllenhaal being cast as the replacement Rachel Dawes. Cause Holmes, quite frankly, doesn’t possess the acting chops required to pull of some of the scenes. In short, Gyllenhaal PWNED them. Like, pwned hard. And she looked really hot doing it.

Christian Bale is still hot, albeit looking a tad bit underfed. He looked really hot as John Connor in the Terminator trailer, too. Christian Bale is all round hotness.

And that was your spoiler-free ‘review’ of The Dark Knight. Go see it. Go see it multiple times just to make the point about how much XF sucked.

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Downloading most of my summer pics and organizing them. Thought I’d share one.

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Goats penetrate fence at heavily guarded base of Verrazano Bridge:

“The goats were taken into custody and turned over to the Army once it was determined not to be illegal aliens or agents of terror,” said a source.

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11:05 AM EDT - I gots the internets back.

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