I’m shocked, but not surprised

February and March are almost over.

… With the 2010 census comes the responsibility to filling out 10 questions and mailing it back to the government so they can make the appropriate appropriations.

I answered my questions then came to a question of my own. One question asked about Latino heritage; that was simple enough. The next question was race and that is what got me as there was no Latino/Hispanic box.

Perplexed I messaged one of my sisters and asked her what the deal was. She said, “I hate to break it to you, but you’re white.”

For a moment I felt my credit score go up.

She told me that technically there are only three races: White, Black and Asian. It made sense to me later on as I thought about it. I’ve filled out questionnaires before and there were options saying “White/non-Hispanic; White/Hispanic.”

I just find the whole thing interesting.

… I recently have been enjoying a Yahoo! blog titled “Dirty Tackle” which is mainly about soccer around the world. What I’ve enjoyed about it is it shows another side of soccer I ordinarily don’t see as much.

I’ve always been told things about it, but seeing is believing.

Amazing goals are all over that site. There are bloopers too. What struck me the most is the amount of violence. A friend of mine always told me there was plenty of passion in the sport. It’s shown with hard fouls and retaliatory attacks on the pitch.

Now, I’ve been slowly watching more soccer as I’ve gotten older, this site just gives me a better view of everything.

... My next blog might not come out on the usual fashion since I’ll be in Northern California and on the farm without Internet connection in two weeks.

I’m going home to spend time with family, go to a Giants game and be with my dad to commemorate the funeral of my mother.

In fact, Easter weekend will be a reminder of my mother’s passing which will be a year on Saturday.

Not quite as mad

It’s pretty sad not getting into the CBI and CIT if you’re a Big West team with a plus-.500 record.

… I had been looking forward to going to the Big West Conference final to see Long Beach State play in it since the end of the 2008-09 college basketball season. I just knew they would get there.

Then the new Big West Conference season happened.

LBSU didn’t get off to a good start to conference. They would lose their first two games and struggled to get to a .500 league record and a No. 3 seed in the tournament.

Since they struggled, I did not ask for the conference finals day off. Then I saw the 49ers advance to the finals.

For a while I wondered if I was going to miss the second Big West title in three years in person.

So from work, I watched the finals. Sure enough, I made the right decision. LBSU lost and did not get the NCAA automatic bid.

I did, however, hold out hope they would get some sort of post season bid.

Well they couldn’t get one of those either. So it looks like I’ll ask for next year’s final off.

… Speaking about the tournament, the NCAA is considering adding 31 more teams to the tournament. Personally, I think it is a bad idea, however, there has to be some sort of expansion.

My solution is simple, three more play-in games so three more at-large teams can get in. Most of the No. 15 and No. 16 seeds are first round fodder; it would be better if they cannibalized each other rather than take up a bracket spot for truly deserving teams.

… Recently two celebrities passed away: Peter Graves and Merlin Olsen.

People will remember Peter Graves as the lead actor from the TV show “Mission Impossible” the pilot in the movie “Airplane!” and narrator from A&E’s show “Biography.”

Merlin Olsen will be remembered as a NFL Hall of Famer, actor on the show “Little House on the Prairie” and NFL color commentator on NBC.

For me, it wasn’t any of those reasons I thought of first. The first thing I remembered was movies they acted in that were featured on the TV show “Mystery Science Theater 3000.”

Olsen was in the movie “Mitchell” that featured Joe Don Baker as a shabby police investigator. Graves was in “Parts: The Clonus Horror” and stared as a presidential candidate who hid the secret about a clone farm.

Both movies were trashed by the main characters from the show. I don’t know if it is a good thing the first thing I thought of when I heard their passing, but it shows the lasting impression of MST3K.

Better than usual

Did you know there have been three sequels to the “Free Willy” movie? Dumbass whale.

… The Winter Olympics just ended and what looked to be unforgettable games turned interesting rather quick. Sure there were problems at the start, but there were some memorable moments. The men’s hockey gold medal game between the United States and Canada was very entertaining. The game ended 3-2 Canada winning in a 4-on-4 overtime period.

There were other memorable moments. Unfortunately for me, I’ll remember the games for the extra amount of work that had to be done. To top it off, one of my co-workers took his vacation and it made some shifts impossible to make deadline. It’s been a long time I’ve worked a shift that made me want to quit at the end of it.

I survived and I’ll become a better person for it.

… I went to my first Ash Wednesday since high school probably. It was one of the most unorganized masses I’ve been to, but it will go down as one of the most memorable.

At first, the priest asked if someone from the congregation could lead in singing. The mass went relatively fast than a regular mass. After the ashes, the gifts still needed to be presented. The problem, no one was assigned that. The priest asked that it needed to happen and had to ask again for someone to bring down the gifts.

All in all, it was a memorable mass. And in case you’re wondering, I gave up red meat and soda for Lent.

… February ended and that means I just need to survive the next 31 days of March. I’ve had some let downs during this time, but not too bad. In fact, I’ve done my best to try and not let things bring me down. I’m hoping I can continue the trend for the next month.

The Modem Day Massacre

I started my laundry at 1 a.m. that makes me a winner.

… For a while there, I was worried; but it’s nothing major. I had this feeling that my home phone was giving me problems like it did last year. I was afraid that if Verizon came back they would need to come back into my apartment to fix it which would cost me.

I could see on my modem that it would lose and gain connection to the DSL. I picked up my phone and discovered there was no static like last time so I was even more afraid since that was the problem last time.

As a last ditch effort, I decided to leave the modem on to see what would happen. Sure enough it seemed to fix itself. Since then, the modem connection hasn’t always been perfect, but I think it is the problem.

Just how much longer I can keep going like this, I don’t know.

… The Winter Olympics began with tragedy before the opening ceremonies. Luger Nodar Kumaritashvili died during a training run. The accident was horrific.

To say the games have not gone according to plan is an understatement. The opening ceremonies had a malfunction with the torch lighting.

In fact, I don’t think there was much build up for these games; as almost they just showed up one day. Unfortunately it took a tragedy to get my attention.

… I’ve seen five of the 10, yes 10, movies nominated for best picture by the Academy Awards. The last movie I saw was Avatar.

Visually, it’s stunning especially in IMAX 3D. It’s a wonderful story too. But if you were to ask me to say a line from that movie, I couldn’t. So of the five movies I’ve seen – The Blind Side, District 9, Inglourious Basterds and Up in the Air – I would consider it worthy of the nomination. Is it better than those four other movies? No. Can I pick my favorite one of the group, probably not. So this should be a close race.