GSN chitchat

I'm lazy today as always, so I'll just repost some of my chatter from the GSN board about, well, GSN itself.

The discussion concerns the recent (re-)acquisition of majority control of GSN by Sony, and the network's ratings for the November 19-25 week. I don't have anything earthshaking to say about either subject, but it's my blog and welcome to it...

Other poster: Curiously, what do you feel is a more equitable fee than [the implied GSN valuation of] 1.3 billion?

Previous transactions had valued GSN at less than a billion. Let's face it, this is a mid-sized cable network at best with a relatively small, advertiser-unfriendly audience. But maybe GSN's online gaming is promising enough to push the valuation higher. Sony paid the price, anyway, so they must see some value in GSN.

By the way, DirecTV cleared a nice profit on the deal, as GSN's value has risen so much over the years. $69 million after taxes. Looks like Liberty Media (DirecTV's sort of distant spun-off parent) made a good investment when they took a half-interest in a nearly dead GSN way back in 2001.

Another poster: At a quick glance, it looks like the usual suspects are at the top [of GSN's November 19-25 ratings].

Actually, it's the usual suspect, singular. Harvey Feud dominates GSN like SpongeBob dominates Nick. One other interesting note is that Baggage performs surprisingly well in the wee hours. On the blog I've been tracking the show's syndie numbers, which have been underwhelming, to put it mildly.

Fridaygram: #freeandopen Internet, new form of matter, lava flowing

By Scott Knaster, Google Developers Blog Editor

This week we launched a campaign to keep the Internet #freeandopen, ahead of a meeting of government agencies next week that could increase censorship and regulation of the Internet. We believe that Internet policies should be discussed and decided by the people who use it, not just governments. You can go to the site to learn more and find out what you can do. You can also watch Google Developers Live next Tue., Wed., and Thu. for live Hangouts on this topic. Your opinion matters!



Speaking of matter, researchers are eyeing data from the Large Hadron Collider for evidence of a new form of matter that has been theorized to exist but never seen. The new matter is a kind of gluon called color-glass condensate. Scientists noted that some wacky particles unexpectedly showed quantum entanglement when they traveled in the same direction after collisions. A new state of matter is a possible explanation.

Finally, take a look at this video of erupting lava from the Kilauea Volcano flowing into the ocean. You can also see a webcam view of the caldera, including some brave people watching from a safe distance. Maybe they’ll wave!


Each Friday on this blog we depart from the usual developer topics and present fun and interesting stuff that’s not necessarily related to writing code. Sometimes we even veer into an important topic, like the #freeandopen program mentioned in this post.

Posted by Ashleigh Rentz, Editor Emerita

American Horror Story season 1 review

I finished watching the first season of this very bizarre show and thought I would write down a small spoiler  free review for those not familiar with it.

The concept of the show is that each season is an isolated story, with its own characters, central location and plot. Thus when season 1 ends the story ends with it, season 2 is about something else, though the ghost/horror theme remains and some of the actors are still around in Season 2 though, in new roles.

The first season is called "The Murder house", and revolves around a family that moves into a large house bought cheap. The low price tag was because there had been  a murder incident involving the previous owners. Many episodes start with a short "flashback" telling a dark and gruesome memory of events that occurred in the house with previous owners, these flashbacks serve a lot to delve deeper into the characters of the show and explain their motivation. I found this setup to be very interesting and well made, pretty much all characters are well written and captivating in one way or another.

The show is more bizarre, twisted and at times sick - the twists and turns during the first episodes really makes you wonder what's going on and it is hard to fully comprehend the events since everything unfolds and is explained at a slow (in a good way) pace. This show is similar to the first season of Twin Peaks in terms of the level of weirdness but without the light hearted moments and random goofy stuff that imo ruined TP season 2.

I won't write too too much about the plot and the characters since it would spoil the experience of finding out stuff as you watch the show yourself.  I found the show to maintain an even level of quality throughout the season up until the last episode. The last episode arguably screws itself and the atmosphere established in previous episodes by being over the top silly. Thus I think the season would have been so much better if it had ended during the previous episode which in many ways had enough closure to work as a final episode. 



With the last episode in mind I would rate the first season as a 8/10. Season 2 is currently being broadcasted and a 3rd season is already confirmed.

If you're asking, you don't have it

I am often quite harsh on the clueless deltas and gammas of the world.  It's often hard to believe that they are truly as stupid and inobservant as their behavior indicates them to be.  But, when we look at the other side of it and view the way in which the female hamster runs amok whenever she's dealing with a man of higher SMV, it becomes rapidly apparent that the inability to think straight affects both men and women when they find themselves in potentially sexual relationships with individuals whose SMV sufficiently exceeds theirs.

We started dating when I was 19. This was the second guy I ever kissed. Aside from all the emotional stuff that went on, the physical stuff (sort of sex?) was…Really Good. Ok, so I pretty much went from 0 to 500 in this relationship, and have no real basis of comparison, but as far as I can tell, sex type stuff was really good for both of us. Emotionally: good to ok to godawful. Chemistry: through the roof....

The guy is a starving musician trying to make it big and currently has a harem of six, not counting the ONS. She asked me to play nice. So, Monday, we were all in the same place at the same time. I’m so much on edge that I can barely think straight, but I did my best to be friendly. Boy tries to give me (and assorted other female types) a hug before he goes; I take a step back. Boy asked if he could call me to get a cup of coffee next time he’s in town.  I said: ok.

I called later that night because I wanted to understand what his intentions were.

"I called later that night...." That says it all right there.  No matter how much information the individual with the short end of the stick has, they always seek more.  Why?  Because they need more in order to rationalize away the information they already have!  If you're seeking for "clarification" or trying to "understand" or think that a "conversation" is needed, congratulations.  You're the one without hand.

This is why it is a total waste of time to attempt talking anyone out of a situation where they are being used/abused by an individual of higher SMV.  They already know the situation, they just don't want to accept it.  Of course, if you're the higher SMV individual, this shows the correct way to keep a lower SMV chewtoy on the string: just throw them something with which to rationalize every so often.

Do that and it doesn't matter what you do the rest of the time.  The rationalization hamster will take it from there.

Heavy Rain and Massive Snow

It was a warm, cloudy day here in the Northwest with large contrasts of rain (see figure below of the observed 24-h precipitation ending 7 PM Thursday): over 3 inches in the Olympics, but only light rain over the lowlands, and a few sprinkles across the basin of eastern WA.   Why so little over the Cascades but lots over the southern slopes of the Olympics?  The key reason is that the flow aloft was southerly (from the south) and you can't get good upslope on the Cascades from the direction.  But you can get good upslope over the south-facing slopes of the Olympics.

But the real precipitation story is to our south, over southern Oregon and northern CA, where some locations got over four inches (pink color) and over two inches was commonplace.  But this is just the beginning.

 With a large low center center over the NE Pacific and persistent strong flow pushing eastward to our south, northern CA is going to get hammered during the next several days.
Flooding is inevitable.

Take a look at the latest UW WRF model precipitation forecast for the next 72 h:  huge amounts, including over 10 inches in "favored" upslope locations.  The Olympics and north Cascades are also wet.

 From weather satellites that measure atmospheric moisture, we can see the narrow plume of water vapor...an atmospheric river..that has been feeding the California rainfall.

 Tonight I will premiere a new figure created by UW WRF modeler Dave Ovens:  72hr snowfall!  Lots (feet) of snow over the mountains of BC, and the higher elevations in the Cascades do very well indeed (foot or more).  Most of the accumulation at pass and ski area elevation will occur later in the weekend as the freezing level drops and the wind direction becomes more westerly.   The Sierra Nevada range goes to white (literally)--more than 45 inches of snow at higher elevations!  The folks at Tahoe must be salivating. 

Here is a close up of the 72h snowfall ending on Monday at 4PM for Washington.  Baker and Rainier will be buried.  Stevens, at least a foot.   Snoqualmie will pick up a half-foot or so.  Not sure whether it will be enough to allow them to open.

The Truth About the Steelers

By Artistry

A couple of games into this virtually unwatchable NFL season, we noted that the Steelers were one Ben Roethlisberger injury away from being Cleveland. Little did we know that we were a subsequent Byron Leftwich self-inflicted rib trauma away from agreeing with Cleveland.

But that shouldn't obscure a larger truth about this team: it's about as durable as the love of a Bachelorette.

Clean-up of JEF's heart on aisle 5.

The Steelers have averaged almost 10 players a week on the injury report. Mike Tomlin press conferences have turned into lengthy recitations of names and corresponding battered body parts.

"Antonio has an ankle. 'Shard has a heel. Ben has an aorta. Troy has a calf."

Lots of teams have long injury reports, you say. True, but usually they don't mean anything. Take the Baltimore Ravens in Week 12. They had 16 names on the injury report, and 13 of those players were listed as "probable."

Contrast that with Pittsburgh, where Ryan Clark, David Decastro, James Harrison, Rashard Mendenhall, Jonathan Dwyer, Troy Polamalu, Marcus Gilbert, Lamarr Wooley, Maurkice Pouncey, Isaac Redman, Stevenson Sylvester, Jason Worrlds, Antonio Brown, Byron Leftwich, Jericho Cotchery, Willie Colon, Mike Adams, and Ben Roethlisberger have all missed time. Most of the starting lineup has been out for multiple games.

Does any of this mean we won't make the playoffs? No. Even if we concede this week, Ben can come back reasonably healthy in week 14, we can win 3 of the last 4 against the Chargers, Cowboys, Bengals, and Browns, and the bet here is we get in. But will it be painful to watch? I'm afraid that as far as that question goes, the standard is the standard.

Ratings: nice times for most syndies

Syndie game shows got mostly good news in the week of November 12-18. In fact, there were three season highs as viewership levels rose while the nights got longer and colder. TVNewsCheck brings the nice numbers...

Wheel of Fortune 7.2 - up a couple ticks to a season high

Jeopardy 6.3 - down a tick but hardly doing terribly

Family Feud 4.7 - up a tick to new high for the entire syndie run since 1999

Millionaire 2.4 - up a tick for a show that needs this season high

Let's Ask America 1.8 - a decent rating in its seven markets

Baggage 1.1 - flat for tailender Jerry

The top four shows made the syndie list at TV by the Numbers. The viewership averages: Wheel of Fortune 11.3 million (wow!), Jeopardy 9.6 million, Family Feud 7.1 million, Millionaire 3.3 million. Gee, Pat and Vanna lure lots of viewers even in the 500-channel universe. The show will probably top 12 million before too long.

GSN averaged 315K/233K viewers prime time/total day for the entire month of November. Not bad but noticeably lower than when American Bible Challenge was romping and stomping. As a faux tweet noted, Sony has acquired majority ownership of the network in a transaction that valued all of GSN at $1.3 billion.

Google Cloud Storage - more value for performance

By Dave Barth, Product Manager

Cross-posted with the Official Google Enterprise Blog

Earlier this week, we announced a collection of improvements across Google Cloud Platform including 36 new Compute Engine instances, Durable Reduced Availability (DRA) storage, Object Versioning, and European datacenter support. We also announced that we are reducing the price of standard Google Cloud Storage by over 20%.

We are committed to delivering the best value in the marketplace to businesses and developers looking to operate in the cloud. That’s why today we are reducing the price of Google Cloud Storage by an additional 10%, resulting in a total price reduction of over 30%. This price reduction applies to all Cloud Storage regions and the new DRA Storage.

Find out more about the new Cloud Storage pricing and sign up now to get started.

Dave Barth is a Product Manager on the Google Cloud Storage team, based in Seattle. He is idealistic about the capacity of technology to change the world.

Posted by Raj Sarkar

But N doesn't matter!

I could be wrong, but I am of the opinion that most women understand a past in professional pornography is unlikely to be considered a marital plus, as is the case in this unfortunate case of belated disclosure:

My wife and I have been married for five years. I recently discovered that she made between 10 and 20 porn videos when she was 19. We got married when she was 27. We have four kids from two previous marriages. I am devastated. When I confronted her about it, she cried harder than I had ever seen. She said she was lost, and it's the biggest regret of her entire life.

Apparently she was either caught off-guard or wasn't quick enough to turn the situation around and make it all his fault for watching porn.  But consider that we're probably talking an N of somewhere between 10 and 50 on the basis of the professional activity alone.  For the sake of argument, we'll settle on 30.

If women are capable of grasping that it is extremely distasteful for a man to marry a woman with an N of 30 on the basis of her career in film, then why is it difficult for some of them to understand that providing the same sexual services free of charge is not any more acceptable to men, regardless of whether or not there were cameras involved?

A basic rule of film-making is that the monster is always more frightening when it isn't shown.  So, the idea that the pornographic past is intrinsically worse than an equally high amateur N is dubious.  After all, what's worse.  A woman telling you that she did it for the money, or because she simply wanted to.  And who is more likely to be unfaithful, the woman who historically puts out for cash or the woman who historically puts out because she just feels like it?

The Flaming Scimitar (Dreadfleet)

The Flaming Scimitar is the Araby ship captained by the "Golden Magus". The ship on its own and the captain is very bad. To balance things up the Flaming Scimitar has access to various elementals that can summoned at the start of the turn, such as the Wind Elemental to increase the movement rate of the ship and which also alters the wind direction. The Fire Elemental that counts as an additional flaming attack that can set enemy ships on fire. And then there are the Water elementals that help patch up damage to the hull.

Only one type of elemental can be used in a single turn though, and in the end this is the worst ship in the Grand Alliance as I can't think of a clear role for this ship compared to the other ships that each have their own distinct specialty. I guess it could be used together with the "Grimnir's Thunder" in which case you have two ships that are able to shoot fire projectiles - and use them to max out the chance to set enemy ships ablaze.

The miniature was quite fun to paint, I guess one of the easier one's not counting the Shadewraith. The only thing that frustrated me was the worn out brushes I have - I need to buy new one's but there isn't a local store that sells the brand of brushes I used to buy anymore... The alternative was always to buy the brushes from Maelstrom Games but they went bankrupt and I don't trust the new Eye of the Storm store.

Political rant

I've sputtered and moaned about game show clichés sneaking into political stories before. But this is getting ridiculous.

Type "Let's Make a Deal" into the Google news cache, and you'll get a few stories about, well, Let's Make a Deal. You know, the game show with that Brady improv guy. But you'll get a lot more stories about the dealmaking in Washington to avoid some supposed fiscal cliff. As if the economy hasn't been tumbling over a cliff for years now.

Sooner or later they'll ram through some new taxes which will only make the economy worse. That's bad enough, but do we need the endless game show clichés about the process? Just tell us how much more we have to pay and forget about that show which started with Monty Hall.

Okay, I got the rant out of my system. Tomorrow it's back to game shows instead of political hot air.

Further Ramblings on Dung, Dragons, and Collectivist Simultaneous Action Drafting

Dung & Dragons is one of those long, slow marinating ideas that occasionally needs to be stirred before being put back on a low heat. Right. To catch up newcomers: The game tentatively titled Dung & Dragons concerns a hippie collectivist farm that raises and cares for dragons, who in turn poop gold that keeps the farm self-sustaining.

The whole idea came from an episode of Firefly where the crew was bartering various chores as currency. This struck me as a very cool idea for a game, trying to get the jobs you like while also maximizing the effect of those jobs by negotiating with the other players. Love it.

I've gone through a few different models for how to design a game around this idea, but this week's exploration of trick-taking games has me thinking about a new way of doing things. Let's run through the basics.



Above are the nine basic action cards. There should be one of each per player in the action deck. Shuffle and deal a hand of nine to each player. Each player takes turns choosing one card from her hand and playing it face down in front of her. Then all players reveal their choices.

Each player gets to do the action noted on his or her card, in numerical order from lowest to highest. Actions may also get a bonus if the sum of numbers on all chosen cards is greater (+), equal to (=) or less than (-) the Pivot. The pivot is a big number in the center of the table, which varies depending on the number of players.



At the end of the turn, discard chosen cards and pass the remaining cards to the left. The round ends when seven cards have been discarded from each hand. (This represents a week's worth of labor on the farm.) In the new round, shuffle and deal the action cards all over again. The game lasts four game weeks.


BUILD/UPGRADE/HATCH/RAISE

Most of the actions are simple resource acquisition, but Build and Upgrade refer to creating and improving structures. Each level of improvement has a cost, noted below that level. The costs vary depending on whether the sum was +, =, or - in that turn. Hatch and Raise are similar, but they refer to dragons.



I imagine there would be plenty of Dragons and Buildings available. They'd add the variety and replayability to the game.

Anyhoo, that's where my head is at right now.

Launching WordPress into the Google cloud

By Artem Livshits, CEO of OblakSoft

This guest post was written by Artem Livshits, CEO of OblakSoft, which makes the ClouSE MySQL storage engine for cloud development. In this post, Artem describes his experience using Google Cloud Storage to store and serve a WordPress blog.


WordPress is popular blogging software used by over 60 million people. If you have a WordPress blog, you want to ensure that your server load is manageable and that your load times are fast. You also want your data to be protected in case your server fails. With that in mind, we at OblakSoft created the Cloud Storage Engine for MySQL (ClouSE). It stores all your WordPress data on Google Cloud Storage, taking the load off your server to improve reliability and speed, and to reduce hosting costs.

We’ve been very impressed with the performance of Google Cloud Storage. Because it’s built on Google’s infrastructure, storage objects are cached within Google’s global network and distributed globally without the need for a Content Distribution Network (CDN). This ensures content is delivered with the best possible performance.

Here is a high-level architectural diagram of a WordPress-powered website that uses Google Cloud Storage to store and serve content:

The website’s content management is done through WordPress, which uses a MySQL server to store the website’s data. It uses the WP2Cloud WordPress plugin we created to upload pictures (and other media files) to Google Cloud Storage. ClouSE makes the web server stateless by storing all data in Google Cloud Storage using the Google Cloud Storage API. Web pages (lightweight HTML) are served by WordPress, while media files are served by Google Cloud Storage directly.

WordPress is one example of a MySQL-based application that can take full advantage of Google Cloud Storage to:

• Keep the data highly available and highly durable.
• Serve media files in a highly scalable fashion.
• Distribute media files across the globe for fast access.

This solution works with any hosting provider, so our users can keep their current hosting arrangement, and move their data to Google Cloud Storage using WP2Cloud and ClouSE. Users who are limited preview customers of Google Compute Engine can get started immediately using a fully configured WordPress image that we created.

We’re very excited about the potential of the Google Cloud Platform to power dynamic web server applications. Launch your own WordPress site in the cloud today - it’s easy and there’s minimal setup. We found it easy to make ClouSe work with Google Cloud Storage, and you can see how you can integrate Google Cloud Storage into your app as well.


Artem Livshits is the Founder, CEO and software architect at OblakSoft, a company focusing on technologies that simplify adoption of cloud computing. Previously Artem led the development of several server products from inception to maturity during his 12 years at Microsoft, including the source control system managing most of the Microsoft code base.

Posted by Scott Knaster, Editor

A Trick-Taking Card Game in Search of a Theme

Tagging on yesterday's game mechanic, I had another idea for a hand management game, but this time using trick-taking mechanics instead of area control. This one is really nascent, but I think a good strong theme would give it some direction to deal with any problematic bugs.


SETUP
2-4 players
A deck of playing cards.
4 Players: Deal 13 cards to each player.
3 Players: Deal 17 cards to each player and put the remaining card in the center of the table.
2 Players: Deal 26 cards to each player.


PLAY
On your turn, play a card from your hand onto the table. The next player does the same, and so on, forming a pile of cards.

When a player plays a card that brings the sum of the pile over 10, she decides which suit will be scored at that time. Cards without a number (A, J, Q, K) do not raise the sum, but they have other value as you'll see below.

Then all players have a choice of discarding as many cards as they wish as long as those cards have a matching suit. Your score is the number of that suit in the pile plus the number of cards you discarded.

For example: You just pushed the pile over 10 and decided to score hearts. There are three hearts in the pile. You discard two from your hand. You score 5 points. Bob discards one heart, so he scores 4 points. Sarah discards six hearts, so she scores 9 points.

After scoring, the pile is discarded and a new round begins. Play continues until the first player loses all her cards. The player with the most points wins.


THEMES
Here are some themes I'm considering:

• Poseidon: Each player raises the sea level by playing cards into the pile. The player to raise the tide over 10 decides which city-state will be favored.
• Potion Making: The idea being that you're trying to decide the "active ingredient." This one comes from Grant Rodiek. Thanks, Grant!
• Lobbying: Each player is a lobbyist pushing an official to support their cause, but the official has a short memory and only favors the last lobbyist who made a donation.

Happy to take any other suggestions, though!

Bone giant sea monster (Dreadfleet)

A tiny update.

The bone giant, one of the three sea monsters found in Dreadfleet. Sea monsters are spawned onto the table by event cards and can be controlled by the vampire Count Noctilus in which case they are treated as auxiliary units of the Bloody Reaver. If not controlled they move towards the nearest ship and attack it.

I mounted mine on a transparent base because the miniature is otherwise prone to falling over. Didn't really like painting this one, as the casting was low on detail and boring. Reminded me of crappy one piece plastics that GW has for their regular games WHFB/WH40k.

Strong Easterly Flow and the Graveyard of the Pacific

During the day the difference in pressure across the Cascades has increased as pressure has progressively fallen over the Pacific.   Right now the difference is around 7 hPa and rising, and such an offshore-directed pressure gradient is associated with increasingly easterly winds.

To illustrate, take a look at the sea level pressure forecast for tomorrow (Wednesday) at 10 AM.  An amazing large and intense low pressure area over the Pacific.  In fact, it appears to cover virtually the entire NE Pacific!

This offshore pressure gradient will get an added boast as a weak low pressure disturbance, embedded in this giant low rotates around near us.  There are several places that will get a good blow from this:  offshore over the eastern Pacific, along the western WA foothills (hello Enumclaw, Black Diamond, and North Bend), and along the western portions of the Strait of Juan de Fuca.  And later in the event NW Washington get strong winds.  Lets look at the last WRF surface sustained (not gust) winds for the next day.  First, 4 AM tomorrow (Wed).  20 kt sustained in the foothills (some folks will get gust to 40), and accelerating winds in the Strait, with sustained 25+ kt near Tatoosh Island.  This is not a good set up for extensive, strong winds in the foothills--the wind are not easterly aloft at crest level.

 By 4 PM tomorrow, 30+ kt over the western Strait and similar winds northeast of the Olympics.  Those poor, sunburned folks in Sequim will get now be getting some wind burns as well.  Too windy for golf.

The western Strait can be very windy during such offshore flow, with air accelerating towards the west.  Strong winds, lots of rocks, and often clouds/fog make this region very dangerous for marine traffic, and, in fact, there have been numerous shipwrecks there, giving it the appellation of "Graveyard of the Pacific." During the days of sail (1830-1925) there were 137 major shipwrecks in the immediate vicinity of the entrance to the Strait. A major and tragic example is the 1906 shipwreck of the Valencia, with the loss of nearly 150 lives (see graphic).

The Valencia

The National Weather Service has a buoy in the middle of the western entrance to the Strait (46087)...here are the recent wind and pressure observations there.  Pressure is falling quickly and wind have increased to about 25 kt...and will increase further tonight.

Rain returns tomorrow afternoon, but with this large low over the NE Pacific, most of the flow will go south of us into southern Oregon and northern CA.  Here is the forecast precipitation for the 72 hr ending Saturday at 4 AM.  Huge amounts over northern CA.

Snow?   We will have relatively warm, southwesterly flow so Snoqualmie is out of luck.  Very marginal for Stevens.  Want snow?  You will have to go to Baker, Crystal, and Whistler.

Update Wed AM

          Easterly flow in the foothills can produce large temperature variations. While many locations cooled into the 30s last night, those areas experiencing easterly (downslope) flow are in the upper 40s and even lower 50s.  Here are temps at 6 AM this morning...look carefully and you will see this big contrasts over the eastern part of the terrain (the map extends from Seattle to North Bend)::

Howie chats

Lots of Howie Mandel posts lately, it seems. But NBC is rolling out his new game show, Take It All, and Howie has been chatting up the project. Carrie Grosvenor at About.com brings us highlights from one of his interviews.

One thing I've noticed about Howie-speak is the emphasis on "social experiment." That phrase crops up again in this interview, and I think it refers to putting people in odd situations and seeing how they react. Frankly, any TV game show is odd enough to begin with, as lots of contestants use "surreal" to describe the experience.

Howie also disdains trivia, probably because (as he admits) he's not very good at it. This new version of white elephant plus the prisoner's dilemma certainly won't test anybody's trivial knowledge. A questioner asks if the show is like Let's Make a Deal meets the Showcase Showdown. Howie replies that it's like Deal or No Deal, a show he should be familiar with.

In fact, Howie sounds quite proud of the suitcase epic, which is refreshing in a way. At least he doesn't try to run away from the show as some kind of brainless exercise in number-picking. We'll see if he enjoys anything like the same level of success with Take It All.

Ted Leonsis's Wizards Remain Winless; Experience Their Historic Futility with a Garbage-Time Live-Blog

By Finesse

For those who haven't been paying attention, the Washington Wizards are a team in the NBA.  They used to be called the Bullets but then-owner Abe Pollin decided that "Bullets" had too many violent overtones so he decided to let the fans submit alternative names.  According to Wikipedia, the five other finalists for a new name were Dragons, Express, Gingivitis, Stallions, or Sea Dogs.  Only one of those is fake.

Were the other proposed logos not phallic enough?

Pollin's decision to let the fans choose the name Wizards should be an asterisk on his plaque in the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.  (After all, Steely McBeam is what happens when you let fans pick names).  And just for the record, "Jewish" does not modify "Sports" in the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame -- you do not get inducted for being good at traditional "Jewish Sports" such as kibitzing, circumcising, or having terrible breath at the Yom Kippur morning service.

Guy on the right gives a lethal "Good Yom Tov"

The Wizards have been a heinous team since 1997, compiling a record of 97 wins and 4,786 losses.  It's conventional wisdom in Washington, DC that the Wizards reached rock bottom during the winter of the 2009-10 season when star guard Gilbert Arenas pointed a loaded gun at teammate Javaris Crittenton in the Verizon Center locker room during a dispute about a gambling debt, admitted to defecating in teammate Andray Blatche's shoe during practice, and then explained the defecation incident by pointing out that "nobody is going to ask what Andray did to deserve it."  That was rock bottom.

Until last night.

The 0-11 Wizards fell to 0-12 after getting walloped at the Verizon Center by the San Antonio Spurs, 118-92.  I started taking notes on the Comcast Sports Net Washington coverage with 2:23 left in the 4th quarter with the Spurs ahead 112-88.  Let's pick it up together after the jump and explore what happened.  (All times approximate).


2:23: A graphic compares injured Wizards guard John Wall's first two seasons to those of Spurs guard Tony Parker.  Wall's statistics are better than Parker's in every category except he averages 2.4 fewer Teammates' Wives Slept With Per Year than Parker did in his first two seasons with the Spurs.

There is no word for "platonic" in French.

2:13: Nando de Colo hits a 3-pointer to put the Spurs up by 27 points.  This comes only a few minutes after the Spurs almost threw a complete Whitewash at the Wizards (you could make an argument that Matt Bonner is so white that he single-handedly completed the Whitewash).  Getting fully Whitewashed would have been so demoralizing to the Wizards that it would have made Arenas's defecation into a teammate's shoe feel like winning back-to-back titles.

Matt Bonner, the One-Man Whitewash

1:54: Wizards forward Cartier Martin, whose name sounds like something James Bond drives, teams up with Earl Barron, whose names sounds like someone James Bond kills, to miss a 3-pointer so badly that the rebound bounces into the third row.  Martin, who is averaging playing time in 42% of Wizards games this season, had his breakout performance, notching his first assist of the year in the first quarter.  Earl Barron struggled, however, going 0 for 3 despite getting a season high 16 minutes.  But as Barron explained after the game, "Wayne Gretzky once said, 'you miss 100% of the shots you don't take.'  So I figured, why not do him one better and miss 100% of the shots I do take?"

Earl Barron attempts a layup during a preseason game.

1:32: Spurs forward, and legendary ex-Pitt Panther, Dejuan Blair plays volleyball with himself on the offensive glass as Barron, the Wizards' 7-foot tall center with zero blocks on the season, stands nearby and collects his thoughts in preparation for making at attempt at getting the rebound.  Blair can't convert the put back.

1:30: Wizards second-year man Jan Vesely collects the rebound, his only board of the night.  Vesely, the Czech Republic native, was the Wizards first pick in the 2011 NBA Draft (6th overall).  After putting up 4.7 ppg and 4.4 rpg as a rookie last year, Vesely came to training camp this season determined to up his game.  "My goal is to be the first player in NBA history to play over 14 minutes per game and finish the year with more total fouls than total points," he said before the season.  He's living up to his promise with 29 total points scored and 30 fouls committed.

The Franchise.

1:24: Cartier Martin shouts, "F**k passing!!!" as he drives the lane and gets fouled by Blair.  He hits both free throws to cut the lead to 25.

1:06: As Wizards play-by-play guy Steve Buckhantz and color-man Phil Chenier (Buck and Phil, familiarly) wrap up a discussion about how all the Wizards can hope for at this point in the season is to "come to work the next day," Cartier Martin draws an offensive foul on the Spurs, or as he calls it, "a chance to shoot again."

Chucker.

0:56: Jan Vesely goes 0 for 2 on setting screens.

0:50: Cartier Martin shoots again.  Jan Vesely stands idly by the rebound as he watches two Spurs debate which one of them should take the ball.  The Spurs still lead by 25.

0:47: I hear something resembling crowd noise.

0:46: Check that.  It's just Ted Leonsis's acid reflux.

Everything going according to plan.

0:37: Cory Joseph hits an open James Anderson who nails a 3 to put the Spurs up by 28.  It's the Spurs' 13th 3-pointer of the game.

0:24: Wizards rookie first-round pick Bradley Beal misses a 3-pointer.  Beal, a shooting-guard, was the 3rd overall pick out of Florida and his scouting report described him as "a pure shooter that draws favorable comparisons to Ray Allen."  It may have been worth noting that Beal shot 34% on threes in college and the college three-point line is three feet closer than the NBA line.  But yeah, he's just like Ray Allen!

(There is at least one reason to be optimistic about Beal.  Based on the NBA three-point line being about 18% farther than the college three-point line, Beal should be shooting about 27% on threes in the pros.  But he's actually shooting 33%! So there's that.)

0:23: After Beal's miss, Buckhantz exclaims that Vesely "keeps it alive" by tipping the rebound back into the air.  By "it," we can only assume that Buckhantz was referring to something other than Vesely's career.

0:19: Cartier Martin scoops up the loose ball and passes it to an open teammate.  LOL JK. He shot it.  Wiz cut the lead to 26.

0:09: When asked whether he's leaving the game early in order to beat the traffic, a season-ticket holder looked around the barren arena and sighed, "What traffic?"

0:00: The Spurs dribble out the remaining seconds and improve to 12-3 with the 118-92 victory.  The Wizards fall to 0-12.

Postgame Show

9:25 pm: Nicole Darin is in the CSN studio and previews the night's agenda with talk of RGIII and Ray Lewis.  No mention of the Wizards until she throws it across studio to Wizards Post-Game Live with Christy Winters Scott and Ron Thompson.  Given that not more than 150 people can be watching the post-game show on any given night, Winters Scott should change her last name for each show just to see if anyone is paying attention.

"Hi, I'm Christy Summers Eve and you're watching Wizards Post-Game Live."

The theme of the night on the Wizards Post-Game Live is "Anything but the Wizards."  Winters Scott and Thompson seem determined to filibuster all discussion of how terrible the Wizards are by only discussing how good the Spurs are.  Here are the first 4 questions that Winters Scott fed to Thompson, summarized.

1. "The Spurs were playing patty-cake out there, Ron?"

2. "Matt Bonner, the white guy who makes every 3-pointer he shoots.  Ron, your thoughts?"

3. "Tiago Splitter, white guy, Spurs.  Ron?"

4. "The Spurs won their last game in triple overtime.  Ron, say something about the Spurs."

"This is Ron Thompson for Spurs Post-Game Live on CSN Washington!"

After Ron confirms Winters Scott's assertion that the Spurs "don't get tired," Winters Scott throws it back to the Verizon Center to Buck and Phil for their analysis.  She essentially asks, "There was no chance the Spurs were going to lose this game, right Buck?"

"You're absolutely right, Christy.  No chance.  Back to you in the studio."

9:32 pm: After 5 minutes of discussion about the Spurs, they finally get to a highlight package showing Wizards second-year forward Kevin Seraphin making a couple layups (Seraphin finished the game a -16).  Phil ends his analysis by saying, "you really have to feel for coach Randy Wittman."

One of these guys is Randy Wittman.

9:34 pm: Ron chimes in from the studio that the Wizards "were in control of the game until the end of the third-quarter."  (The Wizards were down 12 at halftime and down 18 with 7:45 left in the third).  One of the positive takeaways from the game for Ron was the performance of Martell Webster, who pumped in 16 points.  Webster finished a team-worst -23.

9:37 pm: The game highlight package starts by showing the Wizards taking a 15-9 lead.  Is this when they had control of the game?  Winters Scott notes that the Wizards were "only down four with two minutes to go in the first half," which means that the Wizards would be undefeated in a league where you get spotted 5 points and play 22-minute games.

9:40 pm: Wizards coach Randy Wittman is at the podium sharing his thoughts on the game.  Like the CSN crew, he leads off with effusive praise of the Spurs, followed up by unrestrained admiration for the Spurs, and wrapped up with gushing hyperbole about the Spurs.  Before fielding the next question, he adds that the Spurs took the Wizards will away and "carved us up pretty good."

Guess again.

9:41 pm: To paraphrase Wittman's analysis of why his team wasn't more competitive: "We dribble too much.  We aren't very good at dribbling.  We got very caught up in dribbling.  Unfortunately, we don't have any good dribblers.  Once we master dribbling, we can hopefully tackle shooting."

9:43 pm: Rik Smits texts me back to confirm that yes, Manu Ginobili would have counted toward a Whitewash.

Rik Smits, International Whitewasher

9:44 pm: Wittman says that center Nene didn't play because he is still dealing with the lingering effects of a foot injury and is very sore because the season is harder than training camp. Nene is revered by Wizards brass as if he's a modern-day Bill Russell, the implication being that the season cannot be fairly judged because they have been without Nene for all but two games.  Did Bill Russell also average fewer than 7 rebounds and one block per game for his career?

9:50 pm: Beal begins his post-game comments, "First, give my praises to God and Jesus Christ."

Jesus Christ, the original Whitewasher

9:51 pm: Beal goes on to -- surprise! -- praise the way the Spurs play.  He says that one of the things he envies about the Spurs is that they don't call a play on every possession and he wishes the Wizards would call less plays.  This would be like Rick Perry saying he needs to do less preparation for debates.

9:52 pm: In critiquing his own play (11 points on 4-for-13 shooting), Beal says that he has become too one-dimensional and that opponents know what he's going to do on the court.  Perhaps he could be more unpredictable by making more shots?