Hack Digest

Recently, my ball has been going all over the place. I just couldn't manage to hit the ball straight! Even when I did hit it straight with my wedges, it would still be slightly off target. That is not what I expect from those shots within 130.

Anyways, I have found the solution to my spraying it all over the course: don't swing so hard! I guess I have to face the music and admit that I'm a short hitter. Sure, on a good day I can roll the ball to probably 270-290 yards, but most of the time the ball is either in the junk or lost. I end up hacking it back onto the fairway and lose a stroke or two anyways.

Next time I'm out on the course, I'm going to try hitting it soft. Perhaps my drives will barely carry 200 yards, but at least they'll go straight...



On Tiger Woods winning the British Open...
I thought it was great seeing him dominate with iron play. A couple of years ago, when his drives were all over the place (like now), I always wondered why he didn't just tee off with a one iron. My guess is that he could have probably belted it out straight and close to 280 or longer. Then show the folks some stellar long iron play to score.

Anyways, that's pretty much what he did at Hoylake. A lot of people said it was boring to watch Tiger not use his driver. I on the other hand cringe every time he pulls out the big stick. Why? Because I just know that its going to be a huge gamble to have it stay in the fairway. Hitting all those long iron shots helped Woods get comfortable with them. His GIR (green in regulation) numbers were well over 80%.

Now that's the kind of golf that I want to be playing. Dominate with the long irons, and only use the driver when necessary. Distance off the tee is overrated.

More Tiger

Bush kills people, not embryos

Spam 2.0

In the past few months, email users have been receiving "anonymous" stock tips via their inbox or spam box. Spam is what it really is.

This nouveau spam makes a weak attempt at fooling the recipient into purchasing a stock. How does this work? Is this supposed to be a scam? Did these idiots really expect me to go out on a limb and buy this stock because some random email says to "check it out tomorrow morning"?

I'm curious as to who are the target victims of this scam. Who would be foolish enough to open an eTrade account, or to run to their broker to buy these dummy stocks? You have to be pretty foolish, desperate, or bored to become a victim.

However useless this type of spam may be, it has unfortunately been able to penetrate spam filters because of its "trade alert" headline. Many people who work in the finance industry have to sift through their inbox to separate this crap from legitimate news/tips. So more than anything, this new type of spam is causing congestion.

我們的祖國... 唉 Part III

Man sees robbery. Man tries to stop crime. Man is threatened. Man tries to call police. Man discovers police are incompetent.

The man who reported the crime was on a bus, and he tried to report the crime in english as to not alert the criminals. Unfortunately, the emergency line operators hung up on him FOUR TIMES because no one could speak english.

Authorities claim that there isn't much need for english speaking operators. This makes no sense. They should at least always have one english speaking operator on duty at all times. The point of an emergency hotline is to help people when they need it most. This incident is just more of China's stupid mentality at work again.

They cut corners on all the wrong places. Its like a car owner saying: oh I drive mostly during the daytime, so I'm not putting headlights in my car. A more extreme case would be: oh the car goes forward most of the time, so I'm taking out the reverse gear to save money. The strive for excellence just isn't there, and it is sad.

Lets just hope we don't hear a flood of these kinds of stories during the Olympics in 2008.

Later folks...

Out of town this week. That means no updates. Heh.

That's Shady

What do people have against optical defense? It seems like every time I wear sunglasses on the street, I get these awkward looks from strangers. I am quite sensitive to bright light. My eyes feel much more comfortable in darker conditions. So I like to wear shades everywhere I go. Unfortunately, people look at me like I'm an alien.

I find that in Hong Kong, the only people who wear sunglasses (purposeful sunglasses, not that trendy crap with yellow or purple lenses) are foreigners. Hong Kong people only wear proper shades when they do sports. Otherwise, you find them wearing ones with colors that bear less protection to the eyes. Perhaps they are worn to block out the air pollution, which actually makes sense.

So I've narrowed it down to a few reasons why people give my shades the puzzled look:

1. They're thinking... "If he's blind, where's his cane?".
2. They're thinking... "Those shades look horrible on that guy".
3. They're thinking... "Is this The Matrix? Is this guy an agent?".

Does wearing shades carry a hidden stigma that I don't know about? I remember Annika Sorenstam and David Duval used to get strange comments from Golf publications about how they always "hide" under their Oakleys or Ray-Bans. Even that idiot President guy made a silly joke about a reporter who wore shades while asking him a question. Turns out that the reporter is legally blind, but Idiot President Guy didn't know it at the time.

To clear things up: Idiot President Guy didn't purposely make fun of, or insult the blind reporter. He certainly didn't know that the reporter was blind while he made those comments. It just sounds really bad when the headline, "President insults blind reporter", surfaces all over the internet.



I view it more as a "what was the point of that" kind of situation. I think a smarter President (or any public figure for that matter) would always think twice before making sly comments or attempts at humor in any situation. Idiot President Guy, aka The Resident, seems to just let words flow from his mouth without giving much thought.

Anyways, I like my shades.

Technology is beautiful

I was listening to a podcast of my favorite show, PTI, and they were talking about how Gary Matthews Jr. robbed a homerun from Mike Lamb. They were showing the amazing footage that of course I couldn't see. I was just thinking... damn, I really want to see that play. Lo and behold, 5 seconds later I was watching the video via You Tube. See for yourself:



Pretty unbelievable. Ten years ago, there is no way I would be able to do this. In 1996, I was reading USA Today and trying to catch Sportscenter for my only source of sporting news. Internet access had just begun at my school, and streaming video was... ha ha... light years away.

Technology has taken over our lives.

The Great Firewall... cracked!

The fight against communism continues... here.

And then there were four...

In the blink of an eye, World Cup favorite Brazil is out of the tournament. Surprise? Disappointment? Not for me. I don't want to say I saw this coming, because I wasn't even remotely emotionally invested in any of the matches. When I said the Red Sox would come back from 3 games down to win the 2004 ALCS, I meant it. When I said France would beat Brazil last weekend, I meant it, but it was a casual comment at best. I also thought Portugal would beat England, but I didn't expect it to be a penalty shootout.

For the sake of the four miserable countries this week, lets mourn the losses...

BRAZIL
The heroic France victory is easy to explain. Brazil has had it easy since day one of the cup. They were a team of overachievers, and it showed in the first round. They won every match without even trying that hard. France was the underdog among the elite. Zidane was too old, Henry sucked in international play, blah blah blah. That may have all been true, but it motivated the French team to grind through the first round, then crush a powerful, young Spanish team. Against Brazil, they had nothing to lose, except for a chance to silence their critics. Henry's mid-air goal off the foot was awesome. Brazil woke up when it was too late.

ENGLAND
What can you say? You don't score, you have a stubby hothead on your team, you miss three penalty kicks... you lose! England played well after Rooney's red card, and they deserve credit for that. I suppose this team was plagued from the getgo: Rooney breaks his leg, comes back, gets red card, Owen injured, Beckham injured, etc. It's a bit much I guess. I don't want to use the C-word, because I might get an arse-whoopin' when I decide to visit the UK... oh wait, no one reads this blog anyways. Yeah, do I smell a curse?

ARGENTINA
Another PK shootout. It was a very exciting match, and it could have gone either way. Argentina was unlucky with their goalie injured. Not only did they lose their main goalie for the PKs, but they also weren't able to bring in Messi for a last ditch attempt to score a golden goal. Too bad...

UKRAINE
A pretty one sided loss. I didn't even bother to watch this match. A middle of the road team: they weren't bad enough to be a surprise candidate for the elite eight, but they weren't good enough to be considered to have a chance at the final four. Good job in getting to the Elite Eight, but better luck next time for Ukraine.

The news today was all about how Hong Kong fans are coping with England's loss (pride, I suppose), and Brazil's loss (gambling debts). Once again, I don't get it. I don't understand the passion Hong Kong fans show for the English team. There are guys who have been on the English bandwagon all their lives for no apparent reason. Perhaps they miss colonialism. Maybe they were given free opium back in the day and are still grateful. I don't know.

I had a fun albeit awkward time cheering for Portugal last weekend. Got plenty of evil gazes from the masses everytime Portugal did something positive. There was this one guy who looked at me and silently mouthed some words when I loudly proclaimed that Beckham was a wuss (it was just a joke). He was probably saying something like, "nice pants", but that's just my guess. Naturally, no one was drunk enough or had enough sack to cause any real trouble. My conclusion is that the place I went to had too many pseudo fans.

There were too many front-runners to count, but the most atrocious example was a girl decked out in yellow and green (I kid you not). She also had the Brazilian flag painted on her cheeks. Okay, perhaps she is a displaced Brazilian who speaks Cantonese. Maybe her great great great great ancestor had lived in Brazil for a weekend to get a tan. Then I overheard that she chose Brazil because they won last time, but that she knows nothing about football. Ladies and gentlemen... we have a winner.