Sephy’s Platzish

I like listening and/or watching sport from around the world such as the games on Telemundo mentioned below, and also the fact that as I’m writing this I’m watching the highlights from Matchday 2 of the UEFA Champions League on ESPN. I think that this is the only purely non-US sport that they cover at all. They have covered sports that are predominantly non-US, but most of the time (as they’ve done with their World Series of Darts, they think that the only way to make it interesting is to make it a “US vs. World” kind of deal. One of the more interesting aspects about ESPN is that internationally, they carry some cricket, but don’t care to show any of it to us here.

One of the sports that they used to carry is Aussie Rules Football. Tonight (Saturday afternoon there) is the Grand Final; and there is one thing that I was looking forward to with it - the Festival of the Boot, or the broadcast of the game by comedians Roy and HG. However, I went to their site and found this message -

INTERNET STREAMING - PLEASE READ:
We regret that due to restrictions in internet streaming rights, we are unable to present This Sporting Life’s ‘Festival of the Boot’ as a webcast. Our apologies to all lovers of the boot.

There’s the outside chance that it could be available as a podcast, but it looks like I’ll have to listen to a normal broadcast, which won’t be too bad anyway; at least it’s available

As an aside, why don’t Ten cover it in HD? I’d guess that they probably don’t have enough HD cameras. From what I’ve read, however, it sounds like they’re going all-out for the coverage, including a camera on the world’s tallest apartment building. Also, with only three hours before their pregame coverage starts, it’s nice to see at least one other sporting event with a similar level of pregame buildup (4 hours sorry, 6+ hours; I redid the math on that one ;)) as the Superbowl.

Lastly, my picks for the championships, based on nothing really other than the irony.

AFL - Sydney
NRL - Melbourne

I might as well make this a new post

Speaking of books, I’m not reading anything right now, having finished The Street Lawyer in only a couple of days, after taking a couple of weeks to go through A Time to Kill

So right now I’m not sure what book to read next. I don’t mind the Grisham books, but I’d like to read something else. I’d been suggested to read Stephen King, so I wisely got ahold of a copy of Pet Sematary - then I read the introduction and i’m kinda creeped out about it already…

Any ideas of what I should read next? (And I can hear the fingers tapping on the p and r keys already. That’s an out-standing suggestion, and I probably should take it under advisement.)

This week is apparently Banned Book Week, an awareness campaign by the American Library Association, who states the purpose as -

Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read is observed during the last week of September each year. Observed since 1982, this annual ALA event reminds Americans not to take this precious democratic freedom for granted. This year, 2006, marks BBW’s 25th anniversary (September 23-30).

BBW celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one’s opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them. After all, intellectual freedom can exist only where these two essential conditions are met.

What’s interesting is the list of the 100 most challenged books 1990-2000. Among the books in the list are -

• #3 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
• #41 To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
• #56 James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl

I think the people who complain about books like these have way too much time on their hands. However, they have quite a few data on these challenges here.

Interestingly you’d think that it’d be religious or political organizations complaining the most, but it’s parents. That really makes you wonder what they’re thinking/drinking/smoking/whatever.

I’ve put a new section in my links list of the sites I put some of my time into - the first of which is the 419 Letters Repository, which is a collaboration between myself and a few other folks I know on the internets.

Take a peek - it’s a good site to see the kind of scam emails that are circulating which usually eminate from Western Africa - most particularly Nigeria. There are also a lot of useful links to find out more about the scams they run.

Also, the BBC recently did a program about computer fraud where they went along with the Nigerian EFCC (Economic and Financial Crime Commission) and rounded up some of these “lads” - have a look -

I was putzing around YouTube today and I found this video (note that the link is directly to the site of the video’s creators an not Youtube)

I find it both neat and interesting to see the changes that the body goes through in the process of creating another life.