Late Night Thoughts

 Life in General  Comments Off
May 262011
 

Played basketball again last night, and again had a lot of fun; it helped that we went 4-0, despite the fact that Joana was the only girl on the team to show up (meaning she had to play the full 40 minutes with no subs) and sprained her ring finger halfway through the 3rd game. She stuck it through, though, and we all manged to rally around her and pull out the wins. To be fair, I didn’t really play all that better than I normally do, but in this case, the opposing teams weren’t able to capitalize on my missed baskets. Still, as a group we played pretty well together, and by no means were the games easy. We had some tough moments, so it was good to see us close out the games, esp. because it seems that Abiy, our best player by far, will miss the wildcard match-up (again!). So, we need to get a bye for that first week of the playoffs; if we play without Abiy, well, it would not be a pretty sight, I think.

I was thinking — a dangerous pastime, I know — again about if I might have missed out playing basketball growing up, but once again, I seriously doubt it. Too many factors weigh in to make it highly unlikely that I would have enjoyed it as much in school:

  • First and foremost, high school was Hell on Earth for me; with the exception of a few close friends, I never connected with anyone, and thanks to a massive mistake I made my freshman year, I was constantly made fun off throughout my entire time in the school. So yeah, it was not a pleasent experience. The last thing I needed was to get out in front of a bunch of people already ridiculing me and “try my best.” The school crowd meticulously and brutally beat the self-esteem out of me, and ye gads, did it take a long, long time to rebuild it.
  • I am easily in better shape now than I was in high school. My endurance is much better, and my strength has definitely improved, as well. This makes it a lot easier for me to play the game and actually hold my own against the other big men in the league.
  • I’ve mentioned it before, but again, I just didn’t have the proper motivation to get involved in school sports, really. It wasn’t until my Junior and Senior years that I got into the art and theater crowds, even. But, after getting hit by the car, it really inspired me to take advantage of my mobility and stamina while I had it. So far so good!
  • Last but not least, while I could easily play basketball every night of the week given the chance, the truth is that I like it for the fun of it. Playing in a far more competitive league probably isn’t my thing; I’ve never been comfortable around people who take the game too seriously, or get into the whole trash-talking-macho-bravado approach. Oh yeah, and practices, while nice, are not something I’d be too thrilled with. Sort of like Brett Favre.
 Posted by at 10:47 pm  Tagged with:

The Power of Matt Compels You To Clear The Lanes!

 Games, Interactive, Life in General, Stuff I Made, Work, Writing  2 Responses »
May 112011
 

You can tell when I am in a zone for basketball these days: I run into, over, or through at least two of my teammates.

Tonight, one of the teams did not show, so that meant our team played the other team twice, in 20-minute games. Which each got 2 wins for the other teams forfeit, but we really needed to work to get any other wins — 20 minutes is quite a bit of a push. The first game we lost as we had a slow start, but more importantly, a slow finish; they pulled away with three free throws to make it 17 to 12. Second game, however, we shut down their drives to the baseline, and topped them by a score of 12-4. Also, in the second game, I really had another good game. I played for about 10-8 minutes at first, and when I can out for my break, I was really tired. Probably the most winded I’ve been in a long time. But, it was great, because I was a monster on defense, using my height and size really well. In fact, I don’t think anyone I was covering ever scored, so that was pretty nifty.

I also jumped into a pick-up game with some guys from work yesterday, and played for about 90 miniutes (60 total playing time, really) and again managed to do fairly well.

It’s worth a thought if I might have missed out on playing basketball in high school, but honestly, I really don’t think so. The big difference between now and then is that I have the motivation to do this, and that only really came about because I was hit by that damn car and broke my leg. As I was grunting my painful way back to recovery, it wasn’t until over a year later that I got clearance to try any sports, and I swore to take full advantage of that. Also, I think a big difference is that rec leagues are more relaxed and fun, whereas playing competitively probably wouldn’t have been quite my thing. Here you can make some mistakes and generally shrug it off. In more structured programs, you get benched — assuming that you even see any playing time.

In any case, summer leagues are signing up, so I’d better grab a few sports. Laura T from work actually is on a soccer team, so I think I’ll try signing up for that. I’d also like to do another basketball season, and maybe football. Just anything to keep playing outside. :)

[ S H E I L D B R E A K ! ! ! ]

So I finally got my 1st byline! The marketing team at work has put out the calls to writers for articles we could send out to various print and online publications, and after a slow start, I wrapped up a short opinion piece concerning the role of reality within games:

http://www.develop-online.net/news/37615/OPINION-The-designers-need-to-forget-reality

It’s nice to finally get something up and in “print,” and I definitely own Tina at work a big thanks, since she’s the one who is contacting all the possible locations for publication. Now, the trick is whether or not I can maintain a steady pace of articles. I have a couple of ideas for more, but the question is whether or not they pertain enough to the business/industry. I’ll need to write up the basic ideas and bounce them off Tina to get her feedback.

If nothing else, though, this was really nice. :)