Of snow, statuettes, and sports

Time for some ramblings...

Tahoe
Went up to Tahoe this past weekend w/ a bunch of Canaan folks, and invited a coworker along. Memorable moments:
- On the car ride up, busted out some old mix tapes I made back freshman year of college (since the wagon didn't have a CD player). Blast from the past... we were grooving to the likes of Boyz II Men, Coolio, with dance songs like "Everybody Dance Now" and "Good Vibrations" mixed in. I think I'll have to spend a week to re-listen to my old tapes to see what I used to listen to.
- Cabin was huge. Too bad the jacuzzi was broken.
- For the first time, the snowshoers outnumbered the skiers/snowboarders. Turns out that at least a few people regretted not hitting the slopes as the conditions were absolutely perfect - clear day, fresh powder (like, 4 feet). Not me though - I've found that I don't get my thrills from going downhill at high speed, I just feel relieved when I get to the bottom.
- Made a Nutella-Peanut Butter-Jelly sandwich for lunch on Saturday while snowshoeing. That's some good eatin'.
- Snowshoe adventures... periodic sneak attacks, tackles, tromping through waist-deep snow, and a good old-fashioned snowball fight with forts. My coworker likened it to the Battle of Minas Tirith since we ended up tossing pieces of our broken walls at each other.
- After dinner (10-hr jambalya) and a few games, a couple of us broke out the cards for Texas Hold'em. Brian played well and eventually cleaned me out. Note to self... don't go all in on the blind.
- Spoons is a lot more fun when you're very tired, slightly delirious, and you add variations by allowing people to grab their own spoon and knock the other ones away from people.
- I was able to get 28 mpg in the Volvo on the way back home! There isn't much more fun than coasting downhill around curves without expending any gas at all.

Oscars
- Sean Penn. Classy acceptance speech acknowledging the other contestants, as well as some who weren't recognized as nominees.
- LOTR sweeps, and geeks around the world rejoice.
- Greatly enjoyed the "You're boring" song from Will Ferrell and Jack Black, particularly how they went from over-the-top song delivery to deadpan teleprompter reading in a 3 second span.
- The whole "retro/50's glam" look was a welcome change from the trashy outfits from, say, the Grammies or the Super Bowl halftime show.
- Charlize Theron needs to use less makeup around the eyes.
- There are a lot of movies I want to see, but everyone else has already seen. For example: Pirates of the Caribbean, Seabiscuit, Master and Commander.

Sports
- Here's an NBA team composed of players that I like, both on and off the court. In general, I'm partial to solid citizens who play the game the right way and play both ends of the court.
PG: J Kidd, S Nash
SG: T McGrady, R Allen
SF: A Kirilenko, D Nowitzki, P Stojakovic
PF: K Garnett, J O'Neal, E Brand
C: T Duncan, Yao, B Wallace
Could be added soon: L James, M Ginobili
Like the game but off the court...: K Bryant

And here's a team of guys that I don't like much, either because of their demeanor or their game:
PG: S Francis, G Payton, B Davis
SG: V Carter, A Iverson
SF: R Wallace, A Walker, S Marion
PF: C Webber, K Martin, K Malone
C: S O'Neal

Other
- There is quite possibly nothing more annoying than to go away for a weekend and come back to 435 pieces of spam in your Yahoo Bulk Mail folder. Fortunately it's sorted out, but Yahoo counts the Bulk Mail folder against your 6 MB limit. I think it's about time to switch to a non-infected email addy...
- I'm now at 6 weeks and 2 days since my last haircut. I think I'm gonna try to push it to 8 weeks...