Mark Cuban and his thoughts on the Friday Night Melee

I have always respected Mark Cuban for what he has done for the Dallas Mavericks. I am not a Maverick fan, but I like the team because they are a fun team to watch. And I like the way Mark Cuban has nursed it to be such a competitive team in the NBA. Mark in some ways epitomizes what makes the ultimate-sports-fan. I have also thought of Mark as a person who has had the courage to say what he thinks and how he feels. So when I found through a post on the Pacer's Fan Blog (which in my opinion is an excellent feature) that Mark had made a post about the incident in Detroit last Friday, I got interested.

And I wasn't surprized by what he had to say. In a post titled - 'The Day After' - he wrote about something that largely went unreported in the aftermath of the Friday night incident. He wrote about the what happened a day after the incident - of how the Pacers fans, who although had a choice of staying back home, attended the game and supported a 7-member Pacers' team composed of back-ups, whole-heartedly, encouraging them throughout the game. As Mark says

They were truly the 6th man on the court, encouraging their team. Infusing a dog tired Pacer team with energy.[The Day After]

And to top it all off, the most amazing thing happened at the end of that game: the fans gave a standing ovation to their team inspite of the latter losing the game. Then and there the Pacers fans in attendance at Conseco Fieldhouse set an example for how sports fans should behave. As a Pacers fan, I am proud of them for showing the way to the NBA fans disgusted by what they saw that Friday night. They showed them the right way to support their teams.

Shorthanded Pacers win again

Only an inspired team can do this! As I had mentioned and hoped in my last post, the unfortunate incident of last Friday seems to have brought the team closer. After just falling short of beating Orlando Magic a day after that night in Detroit, the Pacers have played inspired ball to beat the Boston Celtics on Tuesday and tonight they beat the Minnesota Timberwolves 106-102. In each of the last three games, a different Pacer has come up big - Fred Jones with his 31 point performance against the Magic, James Jones, who until recently wasn't hopeful of getting any significant minutes this season, scored 22 and 10 in the 106-96 win against Boston Celtics, and tonight it was the turn of Austin Chroshere who score 15 and 11.

Jamaal Tinsley has been playing like a true leader leading from the front during this very difficuilt phase in the Pacers history. No one knows how long the Pacers will be able to hold on. But they can be sure of one thing - they have the support of basketball fans all over the world, especially Pacers fans like myself. Go Pacers!

Indiana Pacers

Five players from the Indiana Pacers including three All-Stars were suspended for a total of 134 games by the NBA commissioner Mr. David Stern for their role in what is being called the ugliest brawls in US sporting history. Four players from the Detroit Pistons were also suspended. While the suspended Pacers got the punishment they deserved, I do feel sorry the Pacers' organization as the event and the circumstances in which the event occured was not entirely in their hands. I am a big Pacers fan myself and the suspensions have seriously affected the chances of the Pacers contending for the title this season.

But I do hope that Ron Artest, Stephen Jackson, Jermaine O'Neal and the rest of the Pacers use this season for a serious soul searching. Hopefully this unfortunate incident will not repeat. My only hope is that this incident will bring the Pacers closer. The season is not over for the Pacers yet, who put up a spirited performance on Saturday against the visiting Orlando Magic inspite of being severly short-handed. Jermaine O'Neal and Stephen Jackson will return in January and the Pacers can still challenge. Having closely followed the Pacers for more than three years now, I know they will. So Go Pacers!

Videos on iPod-Photo ?

A slashdot contributor summarizes an article on Endgadget on how to get your iPod-Photo to play videos. Yeah, I am not joking videos:

According to the article, you use Quicktime Pro to export the movie as thousands of individual frames which you export to the iPod, send the soundtrack to the iPod as well, then, if you haven't guessed by now, while playing the soundtrack, put the iPod into slideshow mode and use the scroll wheel to manually keep the frames in synch with the sound.[Video iPod Available... Sort of]

he he!

The original article on Endgadget also mentions that they will shortly try

"to export the Wizard of Oz and play it along with the Dark Side of the Moon."[HOW-TO: Play movies on an iPod Photo]

I have heard about this one, but haven't been able to try it out myself yet. But will be doing that soon. :-)

Coca Cola as a Pesticide!

[via Ars Technica]Farmers in India have been using Coke as a pesticide.

Gotu Laxmaiah, a farmer from Ramakrishnapuram in Andra Pradesh, said he was delighted with his new cola spray, which he applied this year to several hectares of cotton. "I observed that the pests began to die after the soft drink was sprayed on my cotton," he told the Deccan Herald newspaper. [Bugs go dead with Coke : Page 2]

Interesting and more importantly I would say Ingenious!

Apple, iTunes and iPod

The version of iTunes I use (v4.6 for Windows) does not provide any feature to download songs from my iPod onto the hard disk. For a while, I wondered if it was a genuine mistake on Apple's part in not providing what might seem as an obvious feature to include. It now appears that Apple has intentionally kept it out. I don't remember if earlier versions of iTunes I used supported this feature, but now I do know that the earlier Mac versions did. I have now downloaded ephPod, which allows two-way transfer between an iPod and the computer hard-disk. Its seems to be working well with my iPod. I will probably use it more often than the iTunes now.

Shwas

I just saw a beautiful movie - Shwas. It a marathi movie that tells the story about a young boy who will lose both his eyes because of cancer. Its the story about his grandfather, who accompanies the child from their village in Konkan to the city, and the difficuilt decision he has to make before signing the consent letter that will allow the doctors to operate on his ward. Its the story about how easy it is for doctors to sometimes take for granted the emotions their patients go through. And finally its the story of courage. And its a story certainly worthy of the Oscars. I hope it does well there! If you haven't seen the movie already, make sure you do.