Lost - those damn numbers

So, how many times do those numbers appear on the show? More than you might think. Warning, only click on the link if you've seen the entire season.

Some NBA conference finals thoughts

How good are the Spurs, huh? Damn. We knew they had the defense, but that offense has become a joy to watch. Fuck it, I'm switching my allegiance in this series. The Suns aren't the total basketball team, San Antonio is. If they win, I think the fate of Basketball is gonna be just fine. And I love, love, love Manu Ginobili's game. And I want Horry in the hall of fame.

What the hell happened to the Pistons in the Miami series? Sure, Miami's D and Wade's greatness played a part in Detroit's woes of the last two games, but it's more than that. They've made some very bad decisions, and the way they're shooting free throws is ridicolous. Still, I belive in Brown and in this team. I say they regroup and win the next one. After that? We'll see. I'm hoping they win, because they're a better TEAM, and I like good teams in what it still a team sport. Still, with all my problems with Miami (I really don't like much of their roster, and have the whole "I'm a Knicks fan" thing against them), my love for Dwayne Wade is growing with every single game. What a player. WHAT a player. I can't wait for Cleveland to build a better team so Wade and LeBron can duke it out in the playoffs every year. That'll be awesome.

Some thoughts on season finales

First up - Lost. Many have complained about the episode for its lack of answers. Fuck that. This is a show driven by questions, not answers. We got some answers, but not too many. With Lost, I KNOW the next season will be excellent. With Veronica Mars, which had a more satisfying finale in terms of answers, I have no idea. What do they do next year? Also, Lost remains the best acted and shot series on TV, and one of the best written.

The Contender. Great finale. I was very happy about the winner, who I thought was genuinely the best boxer in the competition. And once again, the show managed to be both genuinely touching and unintentionally hilarious at the same time. Hope Burnett finds it a new home for next season.

Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Well, the finale was the epitome of what the show was about, both for good and for ill. EMHE basically has two kinds of episodes - the hero episodes (great deserving person who needs help) and the pity episodes (poor sick/impoverished person (or family)who needs saving). I much prefer the hero eps, as the pity eps tend to degenerate into pity porn. The finale was a little bit of both, really, but focused more on the good, and the mother was just an amazing woman, so I was happy about that. Was using Jessica Lynch a ratings grab? Absolutely. Is the Sears infomercial aspect of the show getting a bit old? Hell, yeah. But still and all, they did a good thing, and they did it well.

Feast for Crows is... done?

Martin is finally done. Sort of.

Frankly, I don't care what exactly went in there. I want the damn book. Even if Martin's solution means no Arya and Tyrion and Dany in the this one.

And if it means Dance of Dragons is now half done, he'd better fricking produce that one post haste. Some of us ASOIF junkies need our fix, dammit.

And for the record, I've been saying Parris is right and GRRM is wrong for years now. It was destined to be a seven book series. Hell, doesn't the man read his own books? It HAD to be seven.

NBA Playoffs - second round thoughts, conference finals predictions

What a second round that was. This playoffs season has been so much better than last year's.

I picked the winners in all 4 series, though really, that wasn't all that hard. Here's how it broke down:

Miami/Washington: I knew the Heat would steamroll the Wizards. I just didn't think they'd do it in four games, and mostly without Shaq. Wade is the breakout star of this year's playoffs. He is just unbelievable. Now, let's see what he does against a team that's both very physical and very good defensively.

Detroit/Indiana: What a war. That one went exactly as it was supposed to. War. Pacers scare the hell out of the Pistons, and Pistons win. Reggie Miller went out in style, and ended his career with a great game.

San Antonio/Seattle: Ok. I should start giving Seattle some respect. They gave the Spurs fits, and were a much tougher out than I thought they'd be. Even without the injured Lewis, they were tough. If they can keep the team together next year, they're a legit contender.

Phoenix/Dallas: What a series. This one had everything AND the kitchen sink. League MVP Nash going against his old team and playing amazingly, an overtime win in the last game, terrific offense. This was the series that had to restore many people's faith in the NBA. Just terrific. Phoenix won despite losing Joe Johnson to injury, which is amazing in itself. Also, I watched the final game. And I wonder if Mati, who argued with me over Shawn Marion, watched it. Marion was just awesome. 38 points, 16 rebounds, great defense, and the clinching free throws.

And on to my conference finals predictions:

Miami/Detroit: Shaq's health will be key, but also crucial will be Wade's ability to cope with Detroit's defense. Expect to see Prince on him at times, and that should be interesting. This series will go one of two ways - either Miami destroys the Pistons, or the Pistons make it a war. In a war, Detroit wins. I think a war is what we'll get. Pistons in 7.

Phoenix/San Antonio: It's the battle of offense versus defense. And it should be one for the ages. Amare versus Duncan should be amazing. I think this series also goes to seven. Predicting a winner here is damn hard, but I'm going to go with playoffs experience and the superior defense. Spurs in 7.

Survivor and Apprentice finales

Well, it seems we have a new trend - worthy winners of reality shows! I don't want to spoil the winners for the Israeli viewers, but in both cases, the winners were, in fact, the people who deserved to win.

The winner of The Apprentice was so much better than the runner up, they clearly worked hard to try and make it a balanced show, to maintain some semblence of suspense. Didn't really work.

The winner of Survivor... well, there may have been a couple of people I'd rather see winning, and there quite was a bit of luck (also known as "another person making a really dumb move, and then another dumb move, and then an incredibly dumb move). But when you have a winner who was great mentally and physically, and actually seems like a good person... you can't ask for more.

Add that to the winners of The Amazing Race (who were helped by either huge luck or production interference, but were awesome, awesome people), and this has really been the feel good reality season.

If you fear spoilers, don't enter the comments, y'all. I'm gonna put some extra thoughts there, and they WILL be spoilerific

Worldcon participants

I recently spoke to a friend who isn't coming to worldcon. She claimed that no author she knows or cares about is coming to worldcon. Which... well, no.

So I figured I'd do another list of worldcon participants, this time highlighting authors who are well known in Israel, rather than people I personally am excited to meet (although, to be sure, there are some well known authors I'd very much like to meet/see/listen to). The list includes the reason why Israeli readers will have heard of/read the works of the guest.

GoH:
Robert Sheckley (several translated novels)
Christopher Priest (several translated novels)
Alan Lee (Lord of the Rings art)

Programme participants:
Greg Bear (several translated novels)
Carol Berg (one translated novel, two more on the way)
Sozanna Clarke (Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell)
Joe Haldeman (Forever War)
Robin Hobb (several translated novels)
George RR Martin (several translated novels)
China Mieville (Perdido Street Station)
Larry Niven (is Larry Niven)
Terry Pratchett (is Terry Pratchett)
Kim Stanley Robinson (Mars series)
Geoff Ryman (253)
Robert Silverberg (is Robert Silverberg)
Connie Willis (is Connie Willis)

The complete list of Interaction programme participants is available here, and includes some wonderful short story authors (Kelly Link, Jeffrey Ford, Andy Duncan, Charles Stross and several others) and some prominent editors (Ellen Datlow, Teresa ans Patrick Nielsen Hayden, David Hartwell).

It's a pretty big list, so I'm sure I missed some important and great people. But the point is - lots of cool people are coming to worldcon. Why aren't you?

Veronica Mars season 1 is over

Rob Thomas is a cruel, brilliant, evil television GOD. I'll have more to say in a about a month and a half or so, when the season ends in Israel. There's too much to say to use spoiler tags.

Thank GOD this show got a second season.

My second comics review at Walla

I hesitate to call it a review, as it is really an overview of Grant Morrison's career in US comics, as well as an introduction to his Seven Soldiers project. For non Hebrew readers, I can sum it up as follows: He rules, he's weird, Seven Soldiers will rock, so read it.

Also in "Didi in the media," this weekend should see the publication of my second film review for Maariv, an ambiguous review of the new Hitchhiker's Guide movie. I can sum that up as: Director sucks, it isn't so much a movie as a series of sketches, but the cast is good, and some of the jokes are really funny. I was on Cable news on Monday, along with some other HHGTTG fans, talking about the movie. It was a fairly brief panel discussion, so if you blinked, you might have missed me. Which wouldn't have been so bad, as I came off a bit pompous in the brutally edited segment. Also, I looked like crap.

NBA Playoffs - first round thoughts, second round predictions

So, I got six out of 8 series winners, which isn't bad.

The Washington/Bulls series went almost as I predicted. Tough series, could have gone either way. Washington won in 7. They would have probably lost if Chicago had Deng and Curry, though. The Bulls are going to be very good next year.

Most people picked Boston to beat Indiana. I picked Indy, and even though it took more games than I predicted, it ended in a seventh game rout for Indy. Yay me. And Yay Indy. That's a very dangerous team.

Detroit/Philly series went exactly as I thought it would. Iverson was incredible, but the Pistons won easily in five games.

Miami/Jersey was a series where I called the winner, but not the nature of the series. I thought it was going to be a tough series. Turns out Wade is even better than I thought (and I thought he was pretty awesome), and the Heat destroyed the nets in 4 games, only one of which was close. Wow.

I knew Dallas/Houston was a tough series to call, and it turned out to be a great, crazy series, with an anti-climactic ending. Hated to see Houston go. Dallas KILLED them in the seventh game. Tracy McGrady was amazing, and I hope what he takes with him is the first six games, and not his so-so performance in the last game, in which only he and Yao came to play, and the supporting cast pretty much watched on defense and sucked on offense. I didn't call the winner, but I did call the close series.

Things turned out very different than I thought they would in the Seattle-Sacramento series. I put too much emphasis on Seattle's lack of inside defense, and forgot that the Kings don't seem to have a defense at ALL. Ouch.

San Antonio/Denver was a good test for the Spurs. Denver is a good team. Spurs killed them in five after dropping the first game. Manu Ginobili is really good, y'all.

Phoenix annihilated Memphis in four games. Even I thought it would take 5, and I'm a big Suns believer. This team is really, really scary.

Second Round Predictions:

Miami v. Washington
Miami is the better team, and they got some much needed rest. I say they steamroll the Wizards in 5.

Detroit v. Indiana
This'll be a war. The champs are a much better team, but these teams hate each other, and both will pull out all the stops to win. I say Indy scares the living daylights out of the pistons before losing in... say... six. On the other hand, on sheer ability, the Pistons should KILL them. I don't know about this series, but I'll stick with Detroit in 6.

Dallas v. Phoenix. Nash versus his old team is the juicy story. Amare vs. Dirk will be the real story. Or maybe the perfection of the Phoenix starting five vs. Dallas' superior bench. Doesn't matter. Will be a great series, with fun games. And Phoenix win in 5 or 6.

San Antonio v. Seattle. I gave Seattle no respect in the first round, and they prove me wrong. Let's see if they can do it again. I think San Antonio KILLS THEM DEAD. They'll probably have one game where they shoot lights out and win. Maybe even win big. But that's only going to piss Duncan off, and the Spurs win in 5.

Olamot day 3

This should have been up days ago, but, well, better late than never, right?

The third day of Olamot was the one in which I actually attended lectures. Three of them. Plus a filksing!

I arrived at 15:00 (missing Guy Wiener's lecture, as predicted), and sat around for an hour with some friends before going to Joe Brown's lecture about the mythology of Neil Gaiman's Sandman. It was a fascinating lecture, with only one drawback - it was too short. Joe barely got a head of steam before the one hour alotted to it ended. This lecture needs a rerun at a later con, with a two hour slot. It was quite well attended, so I don't foresee any problem getting this done.

From Joe's lecture, I immediately moved to Gili Bar Hillel's lecture about the international translations of the Harry Potter books. As the Israeli translator, and someone who's been in contact with over 20 other transators from around the world, Gili had much to say, and as she is an excellent lecturer, it was both informative and funny. But, much like Joe's lecture, it was TOO SHORT. Again, it was a well attended lecture, so I hope to see a version of it at a later con with a longer time slot.

After that, I sojourned to my first con filking in Israel. I was at a filksing at Noreascon 3, all those years ago, and I've written an article and given a lecture about it, which helped kickstart the whole Israeli filk scene, but I've never had the time to attend one of the filksings at the cons. I did this time, and it was fun, until I got drained of singing. Also, there were absolutely no Ookla The Mok songs. This was not a good thing, as Ookla is of the good. And of the funny. I loves me some Ookla, and have recently bought their latest album off of Emusic.

I then did my usual meandering about, talking to people, messing in the politics of the Israeli Society for SF & F... the usual routine. I got it in my head that a certain person should be in the board. Said person was befuddled by this notion. We reached the compromise that she will not nominate herself, but if elected, she WILL serve. Good enough.

Then it was time for Hagit Lev's science-meets-myth lecture about the arguments in the scientific community regarding a possible Black Sea flood being a possible source of the Noah's flood myth. In case you're wondering, there's no definitive answer, and don't believe anyone that tells you differently, or Hagit WILL clobber you on the head. Really. She will. Interesting and educational lecture, though above my by then very, very tired head.

I then did more of the hanging about thing, and the talking to people thing. And it was good.

And then I left, and the con ended for me. And after meeting some friends, I went home and sank into a weekend long work binge to make up for time lost during the con. A binge from the effects of which I am only now emerging.