The Plan

Okay. A few minutes of web logging while on hold with Uhaul. The transfer of all things phooeyhoo to another server is complete. If you have a phooeyhoo e-mail address and I haven't contacted you yet then you need to contact me. Server settings and webmail settings have changed.

All of this done at the nick of time too. I am vacating my Pine Grove digs and will be wandering around California starting next week. That means I have a week to finish the final edition of Whisking with Chlamdyida. Is this possible. Perhaps. Will it happen? No. So the plan is for me to finish writing it during my sojourns in California and have it up sometime in September.

There will be an epsilon greater than zero worth of blogging in August but I hope to take lots of puuurty pictures and post them when I get back. Yah! Vacation! Haven't had one of these in a while.

299 ...

... and counting!

Good Eats Blog

Alton Brown of Good Eats fame has a hilarious web log. This is the the type of food commentary I would do if I had time and could write well.

With posts such as, "The fact that "Dr. Phil" has the number 1 cookbook on Amazon.com makes me want to end it all," how can it go wrong? Well, he does have a crush on Martha Stewart, which is a little weird, but to each his own.

Thanks, Eck

DENNIS LEE ECKERSLEY
CLEVELAND, A.L., 1975-1977
BOSTON, A.L, 1978-1984, 1998
CHICAGO, N.L., 1984-1986
OAKLAND, A.L., 1987-1995
ST. LOUIS, N.L., 1996-1997

A TOP STARTING PITCHER EARLY IN HIS CAREER WHO BECAME A DOMINANT CLOSER. COMBINED A BLAZING FASTBALL AND A DEVASTATING SLIDER, PINPOINT CONTROL, AND A DECEPTIVE SIDEARM DELIVERY TO SAVE 390 GAMES. FROM 1988-93, STRUCK OUT 458 WHILE WALKING 51. HIS OAKLAND ATHLETICS TEAMS APPEARED IN THREE CONSECUTIVE WORLD SERIES FROM 1988-90, WINNING IN 1989. WON AMERICAN LEAGUE MVP AND CY YOUNG AWARDS IN 1992. AS STARTER, COMPLETED 100 GAMES AND PITCHED A NO-HITTER FOR CLEVELAND IN 1977. ELECTED TO SIX ALL-STAR TEAMS.

Click here for the Eck's moving Hall of Fame Speech. Click here to listen to it.

Phenomena exist, like box and lid joining

Thanks to Vijay for the link to this Slate article about the destruction of the giant Buddhas that once hovered over Afghanistan. Despite the sadness that I feel over their destruction, true Buddhist practice would not have us dwell on the destruction of these impermanent objects. I am reminded of the first two lines of the Sutra of Sacrifice: All composite things are impermanent / They are subject to birth and death.

But perhaps the principle of non-duality applies here as well. For by destroying the statues, the Taliban did not destroy them at all. The Sandokai, a wonderful and beautiful poem by the 8th ancestor Sekito Kisen suddenly comes to mind. This poem is the ultimate manifestation of the principle of non-duality. Here is the passage that I am suddenly drawn towards.

Light and dark oppose one another

like front and back foot in walking.

Each of the myriad things has its merit,

expressed according to function and place.

Phenomena exist, like box and lid joining;

principle accords, like arrow points meeting.

Hee Hee

This Land.

New Web Server

Well, with the imminent move to Ann Arbor, phooeyhoo.com has switched to a dedicated web server. It's a sad day and our Dell PowerEdge served us very well. Hopefully, one day, she will be resurrected. Until that day, here we are in our new digs.

Things will look strange for a few days as I fiddle to make things work correctly. FLOG™, in particular, will look weird as I try to deal with subdomains in Linux. Also, I'll have to redesign www.phooeyhoo.com. Not that there was much useful there to begin with. Anyway, please report any problems this way.

The Riemann Hypothesis

I must have totally missed this when it was in the news. Perdue professor Louis De Branges de Bourcia claims to have proven the Riemann Hypothesis. However, others in the math world are a bit skeptical. The Riemann Hypothesis is listed as one of the most important unproved problems in modern mathematics and has a $1,000,000 prize awaiting the prover.

In a nutshell, the hypothesis is important because, if proven true, it states that all nontrivial zeroes of the Euler zeta function (E(s) = the infinite sum 1/n^s as n ranges from 1 to infinity) lie on the line Re(s) = 1/2. What this means, in more practical terms, is that prime numbers in R are randomly scattered throughout the real line.

My mathematics are poorly inadequate to read Bourcia's proof. In the proof, however, he gives some interesting background information on the hypothesis, a good history of the mathematics and mathematicians behind the proof, and explains what led him to devote a large chunk of his life to the proof. His proof, in PDF format, can be found here. Even if you don't give a rat's ass about math, you should find the first quarter of the paper to be an interesting read.

The Asian Reporter!

Thanks to Blog for the link to The Asian Reporter. How is it that I'm Asian and don't know about this paper? Fisherman survives on own urine, raw turtle for 14 days? Hello, New York Times, where the hell were you when this broke?

Chairman Meow

What a fucking brilliant idea! I'm half Chinese — I hang my head in shame for not thinking up of the idea first.

Dr. Dylan = Snape?

If Alan Rickman bites the dust one of these days, I've got a perfect candidate for the next Snape. I give you: Bob Dylan and his sneer.

Eating My Words

So my auguries are getting worst and worst each day. Maybe it's time to exchange that cheap-imitation-crystal-ball for a real one. Sharapova beat the pants off of Serena and played like she was the two-time defending champion. Meanwhile, out on the diamond, LaTroy Hawkins has blown more saves than I've blown goats this year. And I usually don't let a few days go by without blowing some goats, I tell you what. Maybe the Cubs should try to bring back Dennis Eckersley. Does that mean he has to step out of the Hall of Fame?

Regarding Sharapova, It's funny how one's star can turn instantly. She came in as a relative unknown and is now the talk of all of the English and Russian newspapers. Everybody wants pictures of the girl and Andy Roddick (fresh off his breakup with Mandy Moore) hinted that he might sneak into the Champions Dinner to get a peak at her. Only time will tell if this blows over her head and she can concentrate on her tennis. From the way she reacted being down 2-4 in the second set, I'll dig up the old crystal ball one last time and prognosticate that the kids going to be okay. For the record, I have mentioned Sharapova twice: here and here. Perhaps being mentioned on this web log willed her to victory? Okay, maybe not.

One last note: How about the great press conferences given by Maria, Andy Roddick, and Serena Williams? They all come out well. Maria for her sweetness and love for the game, Andy for his humor (when asked whether he caught the Williams v. Capriati match: No, I was in the bathroom. I came out and it was done), and Serena (surprisingly!) for taking her defeat so graciously. And what about Richard Williams and Venus Williams after the errant point awarded Carolina Sprem? Could they not have handled it any better? (You can bet, though, if that had been Martina Hingis, it would have been a whole different story.) I, however, will be anxiously awaiting a Sesil Karatancheva champions press conference. Can you imagine if she ever won Wimbledon? "Yeah, she was a big pussy. I, like, basically beat her ass off the court today." One can always dream, right?

One thing's for sure, the women's game has no clear top player. It was Navratilova, Graf/Seles/Graf, Hingis, Williams, Williams/Belgians. Now the Belgians are injured, the Williams girls won't seek professional coaching, Davenport is retiring, Mauresmo is Mauresmo, and this new Sharapova girl is leading the Russian revolution. Although, honestly, it's more of a duet at this point with Sharapova and Myskina leading the way. You could even make an argument that Myskina lucked out at the French because she saw an un intimidating Dementieva at the finals. Meanwhile, I don't think Zvonareva and Hantuchova are ready yet. Zvonareva may never be ready and Hantuchova needs to get used to her new found weight. And we'll have to wait a few more tournaments to see if Carolina Sprem is the real deal. Right now, all we can say is that there are innumerable jokes that one can make with that last name.

Anyway, my guess is that the US Open will help us decide who's for real and who is just sliding around. What? You want me to make more predictions? The seedings aren't even decided yet! Fine. For the men I predict a rematch of Federer versus Roddick with Roddick coming out ahead on hard court. For the women I'm guessing Sharapova gets hurt with the move from grass so I predict she'll make it as far as the semis. Meanwhile, I'm going out on a limb and saying that Venus is going to get ultra tough between now and late August. And she's my pick in the final versus, say, Brutus McCrumblecake. Hey, you wanted a forced prediction, you got one.

The Kids Got Game

Anybody else watch Sharapova beat Davenport in the Wimbledon semis? What a match! Down a set (2-6) and 1-3, Sharapova comes back and wins the second set 7-6 and then drubs Davenport 6-1 in the third set. She may very well live up to her high expectations. So far, the "next generation" has failed to step it up. Harkelroad, Huntchohova, Petrova, etc. have failed to do much of anything. What a great thing for tennis to finally have a somewhat charismatic character step to the forefront.

Do I think she can beat Serena? Not a chance. But the future looks bright for this kid who can serve it up to 106 (she won't be known as the next Dementieva, that's for sure) and if she can increase her movement on the court will be someone to be reckoned with for the next few years. I think she has a chance against Mauresmo, however, if she somehow pulls a miracle out of her ass and beats Serena. Then again, anybody has a chance over the overly nervous Mauresmo in late rounds of tournaments.