Thoughts on Christmas

I. Lakers got their asses kicked by the Miami Heat on Christmas Day. At LA. 96-80, but it wasn't even that close. Love it. The only thing better than watching the Lakers lose is watching them lose at home, in a Nationally-televised game, in a manner so crushing and embarrassing that their horrid "fans" (worst in the NBA) head for the exits with 5 minutes to go without even bothering to boo their own team (as they typically do)

Thank you, Santa.

To me, the coolest celebrity in LA is Charlize Theron, not because of her infinite gorgeousness but, rather, because she's a Clippers fan. I don't see anybody else from Hollywood watching my favorite NBA team, The Clippers, who are a very exiting team but have one of the worst records in the NBA. All the rest want to be seen at Lakers games.

II. I've had about 100,000 miles in my United (aka "Untied") FF account for 5 or 6 years now, but I rarely fly United. Didn't really want to lose the miles, so I got a United Mastercard and once a year I charge a Slurpee or something on the card so that United can't take back my miles. This year I checked my account and I noticed United has a pretty good miles-for-goods shopping web site. I looked around for a while and spent about 25,000 on a new toy, an Olympus Sp-800UZ digital camera.

Why that one?

1. 30x zoom. My current digital camera only has maybe 4x zoom, which is frequently inadequate because usually I'm stuck up in a timing tower or batcave somewhere, and I take a lot of photos at full zoom. In addition, I work in a lot of really huge venues (Kitzbuhel, for example) where 4x zoom just doesn't cut it. One of the coolest things about the downhill course at Kitzbuhel is the finish area is one of the best natural amphitheatres in sports. There are 4 or 5 places to die within sight of the 80,000-odd fans in the finish area.

2. It was out of the question to buy anything made by Nikon, since their Ashton Kutcher adverts are SO fucking annoying.

Well, sports fans.....when they say this thing zooms, they mean IT ZOOMS. WOW.

No Zoom:
About 25% Zoom:
About 75%

Max zoom:
The camera is the size of about 3 hockey pucks because the lens is so big, so it's not one of those cigarette-pack form factors you can stick in your coat and forget about it.

But I like.