The Love of Sports and Country

I'm currently and reluctantly watching the closing ceremony of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. I say reluctantly because I absolutely love the Olympics. I usually don't watch the closing Olympic ceremony because it always makes me sad that it's over. Although I absolutely love the Olympics, I also hate the feeling it leaves me sometimes.

Why I hate the Olympics.
One of my biggest regrets of my life is that I wasn't serious about sports until late in high school, which was too late to really start a career of any sort. I've never experienced people cheering for me in any circumstance or felt overwhelming pride while accomplishing something great. The Olympics, for the athletes, is more or less the epitome of what I've missed out in my life. Even if I suck my entire country is still rooting for me and I'd be proud of myself just getting to that point. The idea of young athletes having accomplished so much in their young lives, many younger than myself, just makes me ask myself what I'm doing with my life.

Why I love the Olympics
There's a million reasons to love the Olympics. That's why I absolutely love the Olympics even thought it makes me feel pathetic. There are so many inspirational stories from around the world. It's where the best athletes have a chance to represent their country they love so much. It's a chance for normal people like me to root for my country's athletes and to be proud to be an American. I don't know if you know this but the five Olympic rings represent the five inhabited continents of the world: Africa, America, Asia, Europe and Oceania. I hate to be a pessimist but I think the Olympics is the closest we'll get to world peace. We might as well soak it in while it lasts. I've also formed a crush in the past two Olympics, Nastia Liukin and Kim Yu-Na. Yeah, yeah, everyone is in love with Yuna Kim now, but I don't care.

Someone asked me a couple weeks ago if I would rather win a professional sports championship or win an Olympic gold medal. At that time, I said I would rather win a championship, but now I think I would rather win a medal. I'd go for a medal now because the Olympics only happen every 4 years for whatever sport I'll be awesome at and to carry the pride of an entire nation on my shoulders while standing on a podium hearing my national anthem is probably one of the greatest honors I can ever conceive. Even if I come in last place, I'd still feel like a hero.

I would tell my faithful few followers (thanks by the way) to go watch the Olympics and support your country, but they're over now and I'm sad. So I'm just going to say, be proud of yourself, your country and your world.

P.S. - I took a couple archery lessons last year and I think I might seriously try and get into Olympics style archery. Anyone in?

Sit Back, Relax and Enjoy the Traffic

Yesterday I was in North Jersey for a meeting with two managers from Panda Restaurant Group, the parent/support group for Panda Express as well as Panda Inn and Habachi San. It wasn't really an interview cause they're not hiring right now, but we just wanted to meet each other and make that connection so if anything does open up in the near future I'll have that networking going on already.

Anyways, that's not what I'm here to talk about. I wanted to talk about the driving experience I had that day (I seem to drive a lot and have a lot of realizations while behind the wheel). The drive up wasn't bad at all. It was straightforward and I had a GPS with me anyway. There was also no traffic, which was nice cause I didn't want to show up late. After all, this was pretty much the closest thing to an interview without it actually being an interview.

We met in a brand new Panda Express that the manager was visiting, and when I left I found myself in Deep Impact like gridlock traffic on the NJ Turnpike. I thought about trying to take local streets, but I figured heck I'm not in a rush and I didn't want to pay the toll again. I got myself in the left lane so I wouldn't have to bother as much with other cars merging in and out of my lane. After that I just inched along for an hour till things cleared up.

Here's the weird thing. Looking back, I'm actually kind of glad I stayed in traffic. I'm usually high strung about stressful environments; driving, videogames, women, etc. For the first time in a long time, I just relaxed in my car. As long as I didn't rear-end the guy in front of me I was cool. I was *gasp* messaging on my Blackberry while listening to *hurray* NPR podcasts (I made sure to load up before I left the house). It turns out there was some construction on the highway that funneled all four lanes into one. Once past that last cone and cop car, I pushed the pedal to the metal/rubber floor mat. I felt like I had the whole highway to myself and I literally yelled "FREEDOM!!!!!" as I redlined my V6. Overall, it was a very unexpected sense of liberation.

So whenever you're stuck in traffic, you're not in a rush and gas levels/prices aren't an issue just relax, taking life slow and enjoy the little things for once. Who knew being stuck in a car that's stuck in traffic can be so freeing.

The Bad, The Worst and My Favorite Sports Teams

DISCLAIMER: THERE'S A LOT OF SPORTS TERMINOLOGY AND REFERENCES IN THIS BLOG, PLEASE BE ADVISED. THIS MAY BE BORING TO READ IF YOU'RE NOT INTO SPORTS.

Tonight, I watched the New Jersey Nets win their 5th game of the season. They are now 5-48 and are on track to match or possibly beat the record for the worst NBA season record of all time (which is currently held by the '71-'72 Philadelphia 76ers with a record of 9-73). My first love in sports was the Nets, and I've been dying to blog about my favorite sports teams and why I root for them since I made this blog.

First off, let me list out my teams and a quick explanation why I root for them.

New Jersey Nets (NBA) - I live in Jersey and I have to root for my home team.

Los Angeles Clippers (NBA) - I used to live in LA but I'm not a Lakers fan. Lucky me, LA has two basketball teams.

Oakland Raiders (NFL) - I grew up throwing around a Raiders football with my dad when I was growing up in LA. At that time they were the Los Angeles Raiders. I recently started following the NFL more and the Raiders are the closest thing I have to NFL roots.

USC Trojans Football (College Football) - My dad went to the University of Southern California (not South Carolina, yes they're both USC) when they won two national championships. I guess those fan roots run in the family.

Rutgers Scarlet Knights Anything (Anything) - I go to Rutgers right now and I support anything Rutgers, except for the administrative side but that's for another blog.

Okay, now for the meat of what I want to say. Except for the Trojans, all the teams I root for are for the most part pretty disappointing. The odd thing is their current poor performance is why I love them. Most people root for the underdog in games they have no investment in and I've just taken that logic to the next level. I hope one day the Nets and the Clippers will meet in the NBA finals, the Raiders will win a Superbowl and the USC Trojans and RU Knights will meet in the national championship game. Then I can say with tear in my eyes and pride in my heart that I was a fan through thick and thin.

The Superbowl just past a couple weeks ago, but before that the New York Jets made a surprising run in the playoffs only to be beat by the Indianapolis Colts in the AFC championship game. At the beginning of the playoffs, I decided that I was going to root for the Jets during the post-season. Midway through their wild-card game against the Cincinnati Bengals, I started to consider becoming a real Jets fan. Then they started winning. As counterintuitive as this may sound, their win-streak in the playoffs really turned me off from becoming a fan. I didn't want to be a front runner, even if I was in it for the long run. I realized then that I enjoy rooting for bad teams not because they're bad per se, but because I want them to be good and I want to be there from the beginning.

To all the sports fans out there, stay true to your team through thick and thin. All you sports team apparel wearers continue showing your colors with pride even if your jersey is out of date (On a side note, my Allen Iverson 76ers #3 jersey isn't out of date anymore!). Maybe one day we can all brag to our friends about how long we've been fans of once bad teams as they become championship contenders.

Help me! I'm stuck and I can't get out! - Snow Edition

It snowed pretty bad in Jersey (and pretty much everywhere in the central-north east) this past week. Through all my hardships involving the snow and ice, I've decided that I really hate snow. But the snow situation wasn't a complete loss for me. For some reason, I found myself wanting to help people like I've never wanted to help before.

On Friday night, I helped dig my friend's Toyota Camry out of a snow-mount created by his neighbor's snowblower. He needed to drive it the next day so our group of friends hanging out decided we would help. Not only did we successfully liberate the Camry, bt we also made a snow tunnel through the leftover mount. The next day I bumped into a different friend in business casual attire standing in a parking lot at school. He was heading to part-time job, but his car was stuck in the snow. I had some time before I had to be somewhere, so I helped dig his car out with him. But those were friends and of course I'm going to help a friend out if they need it. At this point I realized that it feels good to help people, especially when they really need it and they don't ask. But I asked myself "why just friends?" So for the rest of the day I found myself pushing and digging along with strangers to get their cars out of unforgiving mixtures of snow and ice. It felt accomplished every time I felt their tires gaining traction on softer snow or asphalt and let me say...it was addicting. It was like a win-win-win situation for all you Office fans. Every time I saw someone digging in the parking lot or struggling to get their car out I would ask if they needed help. I was in such a helping mood that I even pulled over behind a broken down Honda Accord on the highway to ask if they needed help. They didn't, but it was the first time I've pulled over to see if a stranded driver needed assistance.

On a side note...I'm pretty sure this isn't true anymore, but when I took driver's ed in high school, the driving manual actually said you're suppose to pullover and asked if drivers of broken down cars on the side of the street needed help. It use to be a rule, but obviously people rarely abide to it.

After all that I've still come to the consensus that snow sucks, but yes, I did find some joy in it. It just shows that good things can come out of not so great situations and that lending a helping hand once in a while can really cheer up everyone's day.

This is NPR...National Public Radio

This past weekend my sister and I found ourselves driving back and forth from New Jersey to North Carolina for about 18 hours altogether. I had a lot of fun visiting family and friends while drinking "Sexual Chocolate" (it's not porn, I promise), but none of it inclined me to blog more than what enabled my sister and I to survive the ridiculous number of hours we were on the road.

Over the past year, I have become addict of National Public Radio (NPR) Podcasts. Once again, I have created my own interest from the interests of my sister. Anyway, we stockpiled numerous episodes from various NPR programs to try and keep ourselves from going crazy during the 18 hours of driving. I'm a big fan of Car Talk, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, The Moth, Radio Lab and I just started listening to NPR: Technology Podcast today. After safely arriving back in Jersey, all I wanted to do was to rave about how much I enjoy listening to NPR podcasts and how everyone should do the same.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, these programs are like radio talk shows but what they talk about isn't dumb or stupid like most other things that I find resonating my eardrums now a day. I've learned a lot of different stuff, from recent news to car repair, just from listening to these podcasts during my daily commutes. Some are funny. Some are insightful. Some are tear wrenching. I often find myself saying "WOW!", "NO WAY!" or "WTF!" while listening alone in my car driving through central Jersey. Overall, I enjoy almost every minute of it and I get a little sad at the end of each episode just because I don't want it to ever end.

Enough rambling. If you ever find yourself preparing for a long trip, getting sick of your local DJ's nonsense, or just looking for something good to listen to get a couple NPR podcasts on your iPod or Zune and tune in. Oh yes, they're also free and everyone loves free stuff.

Hip Hop and Indie Rock

Lately, I've been torn between two drastically differing cultures, hip hop and indie rock.

Throughout high school and most of college I was partial to hip hop culture. Most of my friends and family can testify that I can be found wearing a white T, jeans and Timberland boots most days of the week. I have both my ears pierced and I most commonly wear some decent bling from my earlobes. Even in the my early years I remember listening to artists such as Tupac and (my personal favorite rapper) The Notorious B.I.G. on the radio.

Now a days, much more of the music I listen to consists of indie rock. It all started with my sister really. She's a big indie rock fan and she usually comes home from the Princeton Record Exchange with 5-10 $1.99 CDs worth of indie rock albums of bands I've never heard of before. She brought me to the Virgin Music Festival down in Baltimore a couple years ago where I watched Bloc Party, among other bands, play. I instantly became a fan. Several other indie rock bands have made it into my 'likes' list of music artists and the list continues to grow.

Fashion wise I'm still stuck with in hiphop world. I just find it easier to put on a pair of baggy jeans and a XL t-shirt. I suppose there's nothing wrong with liking both hip hop and indie rock culture, it's just that they're so drastically different. I feel like I'm in some odd adaptation of Romeo & Juliet or West Side Story where the two cultures have a fueled hatred for each other and I'm in the middle trying to decide whether I should play heads or tails.

The struggles 21st century cultures have burdened me with...