Some Updates

First, I want to share with y'all the Metrodome Roof Collapse. If you watch the video at 0:10 to 0:13, you'll notice a shadow racing along the far sideline. That's probably a stadium employee running to safety. To be honest, the Minnesota Vikings were already having a pretty terrible year before this.

Second, I want to mention vampire Nazis. Yes, you heard right. Vampire Nazis. The vampire Nazis (called the "Last Battalion" of the Third Reich) are a group of over 300 German soldiers and researchers who fled to South America near the end of World War II. They were doing research on creating an army of the undead, and 50 years later they attack London. And England's best hope of salvation is another vampire: Alucard. If you hadn't guessed yet, this is fiction, and the plot is from the Japanese anime Hellsing Ultimate. Just a warning: there's a lot of blood and gore. The trailer is very tame compared to the actual show.

Third, I had a good first day of Finals. The Cost Accounting was a little harder than I thought, but I know I got 85% of it right. The other 15% is probably right, and I'm just being tough on myself. I was able to finish my Intermediate Accounting exam with time to spare, which I did not expect going into it. It was pretty straight-forward from beginning to end. There was a lot of material (9 chapters worth), and the final covered all of it. But I knew everything. Now I'm looking forward to my Finance and Business Law finals.

Fourth, Carmelo Anthony has said in front of a crowd of New York Knicks fans that he will sign the 3-year extension with the Denver Nuggets, but only if he is traded to the Knicks. He has also killed a trade that would have sent him to the Nets for the same amount of money. This is making it pretty clear that he wants to play for the Knicks, and the Knicks fans definitely want him to play for them. That said, I don't think the Nuggets will be able to get anything back for Carmelo now. No one wants Carmelo Anthony without that extension to keep him long-term. Thus, Denver has only one possible trade partner, and they aren't in a hurry. New York can continue to win games right now and sign Carmelo in the off-season.

Finally, I want to bring attention to some opinion/news articles that caught my eye:
1. After Nobel, China snubs Norway, but not Norwegian Oil.
2. Wesley Snipes gets 3 years in Prison for Tax Evasion.
3. Virginia Judge declares part of the Obama Health Care plan as unconstitutional.

And that's all for now. Until next time!

What do....

Derrick Rose, Russell Westbrook, Andre Iguodala, Josh Smith, and Rajon Rondo have in common?

Well, they're all young stars in the NBA. And they are all in the same commercial featuring a digital Michael Jordan.

Say hello to one of the greatest of all time. Watch it. Love it.

On second thought, I think I'll one up myself with digital David Lee.

Michael Jordan scores 100?

I don't know why I'm blogging so much about basketball, but maybe it's because I'm depressed about football. Go Niners! You have to win one eventually.

Anywho, my blog post today is about Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan's last video game appearance was in 2004 as a member of the Wizards, and the last time he wore a Bulls jersey in a video game was approximately 10 years earlier. The only NBA game I ever played for the N64 during my childhood wasn't even allowed to include Jordan. Adding Jordan to a video game was very expensive due to his personal brand. Now, though, Jordan is apparently comfortable with returning to the video game scene in a Bulls jersey. NBA 2K11 even has him on the cover, and they've made him the centerpiece of a new part of the game called the "Jordan Challenge" where players can relive Jordan's greatest moments.

While promoting the game, Michael Jordan made a comment about how he could score 100 points in a single game the modern NBA. In his prime, anyways. Jordan has always been an egomaniac, but he's also very careful not to tarnish his brand. So now there's a legitimate debate over whether he really could score 100 or not.

Most folks either believe him wholeheartedly or totally scoff at the idea. To be fair to those who scoff, Jordan really wasn't as good of a 3-point shooter as Kobe Bryant, nor did he shoot free throws as well as Kevin Durant, nor did he shoot from the post as well as Carmelo Anthony, nor was he as strong as LeBron James. Even in his prime, Michael Jordan was still human. He wasn't the best at everything, and he certainly wasn't unstoppable. So, for those who don't think he can score 100 in the modern NBA, you have some good arguments.

However, I believe him. And here's why:
Folks are used to seeing Michael Jordan cut to the basket, make fancy dunks, or pull up for beautiful jumpers that wow the crowd. He had flair, and everyone noticed it. What a lot of folks forget is that Jordan was also very physical and aggressive, and most of his opponents were too. The only way to stop Jordan was by touching him and preventing him from attacking the basket. In Jordan's day, defensive players could touch an offensive player with their hands and it was perfectly legitimate. In the modern NBA, the rules state that this is a personal foul, and if the opposing team is over the limit or the fouled player takes a shot attempt, this results in two free throws. THIS is the key to Jordan's 100 points.

In Jordan's prime, the only way to stop him was to touch him. Since he retired, though, the rules have changed. What was once considered the only way to stopping Jordan is now considered a foul every time. So every time Jordan cuts to the basket or drives the lane, he will get fouled. At his best, Jordan in the modern NBA would draw even more fouls than Kevin Durant, and Jordan would have a nearly limitless supply of free throws to augment is normal offensive numbers.

Free throws aren't flashy. They aren't difficult. They don't get on the highlight reels as readily as dunks or three-pointers, but they are worth points. And with enough of them, Jordan could reach the 100 point mark in a single game.

One of the only other arguments against him scoring 100 is that Jordan was not selfish. My counterpoint is that it depends on which Jordan you watch. Jordan at 30-something years old with Pippen as a teammate was unselfish (much like Kobe Bryant is now). Jordan at 20-something without Pippen was as selfish as they come (much like Kobe Bryant was back in the day). Go figure. Anywho, I'm inclined to believe that Jordan becomes selfish or unselfish depending on the circumstances. If he is truly determined to score as much as possible, he will do exactly that. So as for Jordan's selfishness, I think there's an on/off switch for that.

And that's that. In the modern NBA, with the no-touch rule in place, Jordan in his prime really could score 100 points in a single game.

Miami Heat Training Camp

The Miami Heat are holding training camp at Eglin Air Force Base. For reasons beyond my understanding, Miami Heat Training Camp is being televised in Los Angeles.

I decided to keep it on the TV while I work on problems. After doing some defensive drills, the Heat divided up into two teams of five: the white team and the red team. For the first half they divided equally, with LeBron James on the white team and D-Wade/Bosh on the red team. White team was leading by a lot. For the second half, the teams were restructured, with LeBron joining Wade and Bosh on the red team. You'd think the red team would catch up quickly, but right now both teams are playing well. Gotta give credit to Jason Williams, Mike Miller, Zydrunas Ilgauskas and the other guys on the white team.

Anywho, in one full-court play I got to see Dwyane Wade steal the ball and then lob it up to Chris Bosh, who redirected the ball in mid-air to LeBron James (who had already jumped), who then dunked it in on the way down. It was a spectacular show, and I wish I could find a video online to share. You can tell they have fun playing with each other.

Just thought I'd share.

Oh, I found a trio of fun videos:
Shaq Dancing
Kobe Bryant speaking Italian
Great Action Scene from Red vs Blue

Fantasy Counterpart Culture - Robert Jordan

First of all, I'll link to TV Tropes for an explanation of Fantasy Counterpart Culture.

Long story short, Fantasy Counterpart Culture is what you get when an author takes a real-life nation and makes a fantasy culture very similar. Classic examples follow:

J.R. Tolkien based the Shire on rural England, and gave the hobbits the attitudes and beliefs of rural Englishmen so that his target readers can better relate to them.

David Eddings, in the Belgariad, based Sendars on Englishmen from the High Middle Ages (by then, Englishmen were a mongrel combination of Celtic, Saxon, Scottish, Danish and Norman). He also based Mimbrate Arends on Norman French, Ulgos on Jews, Chereks on Vikings, Algars on Cossacks, and the Angaraks on Mongols and other East Asian peoples.

Avatar the Last Airbender had four distinct nations, plus several noteworthy subcultures. The Air Nomads are Tibetan/Chinese, the Water Tribes are Inuit, the Earth Kingdom is Qing Dynasty China, and the Fire Nation is Tang Dynasty China mixed with Imperial Japan. Kyoshi Island is based on isolationist Japan, the Sun Warriors are Incas, and the Foggy Swamp Tribe is based on natives of South America and the Mississippi river delta.

My favorite example, though, is Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time. For the most part, I like it because it defies the traditional practice of making exact duplicates of individual cultures by mixing and matching bits and pieces of different cultures.

Here's a quote straight from TV Tropes:

# Robert Jordan's The Wheel Of Time does this a lot. Cairhien is a mix of France and Japan; Amadicia is modeled after Puritan America; the Seanchan have even more similarities to Japan than the Cairhienin do; Illian is a lot like Venice but its people have Greek-sounding names; Andor is similar to England and parts of the U.S.; the Aiel bear Indian and Native American similarities; Tairens have much in common with Spaniards... and the list goes on.

* Wheel Of Time is actually pretty good at this. While they have definite elements taken from different cultures they are very rarely actual Fantasy Counterpart Cultures. The Seanchan are as much Ottoman Empire as they are Japan, and with all sorts of other bits thrown in.
o Word Of God decided to muddle it even more, when Robert Jordan said that the Seanchan have a Texan accent, the Illianers a dutch accent, the Aiel a Slavic accent, among others.
o Furthermore, since the world of the Wheel Of Time is meant, in-universe, to be the distant future of our own world, it makes perfect sense that the cultures therein would retain traits recognizable to the reader.
o The Wheel Of Time is set more than 3,000 years in the future, probably even more than 6,000; the Age of Legends must have lasted thousands of years itself for people to forget the meanings of war and swords. Any similarities to modern cultures should be very thin indeed; how many people today fit the national stereotypes of Mesopotamians?
o All of us?

I laughed a ton at the last part. Oh, and now whenever I read a book from Wheel of Time, I have to try really hard to imagine the Seanchan speaking with a Texan accent. HILARIOUS!

Ernst & Young

So it begins: the long process of starting my career in accounting.

Last night was the first night of a month-long event called Meet the Firms. Two nights a week, up to thirty students from the accounting department at Chapman University get to meet with professionals from each of the accounting firms in the Los Angeles area. Among these firms are PriceWaterHouse Coopers, Grant Thornton, Moss Adams, Deloitte, Squar Milner and KPMG.

The firm that we meet last night was Ernst & Young. I got to speak with four professionals from the firm, including three who graduated from Chapman University. I have their business cards, and I remember who's who, so I'm in good shape to start developing relationships. Their website is www.ey.com.

E&Y seems like a nice firm for a budding accountant. They offer winter and summer internships for juniors, and full-time jobs for seniors. The application process is very competitive. According to one Chapman graduate who now works at PriceWaterHouse Coopers, 500 people competed for positions at his company and only 20 got them.

I'm looking forward to meeting all the other firms these next three weeks.

Worst History Movies

I decided to do a lighthearted post on history and film today.

For reference, here's The Medieval Sourcebook: Medieval History in the Movies page and the Ancient History Sourcebook: Ancient History in the Movies page to read and enjoy. I'm going to be borrowing liberally from their website in this post, so I figured I should link them now rather than later.

Now, to get straight to the point, there are tons of movies made each year based in history. For as long as both film and history have existed, there have been films taking place in history. And I'm not just talking about recent well-documented history like the Civil War or the World Wars either. I'm talking about classical Greece, ancient Rome, and the Middle Ages. There's less information available about those time periods, but there's still enough to create a reliable portrayal of an ancient or medieval place and time in film. Still, some films fail anyways. Usually out of choice, and sometimes out of ignorance.

Here are the ones that I have watched and have a strong opinion of:

Braveheart.

This is an easy one. Almost everything about the film was wrong. The Battle of Stirling Bridge took place on an actual bridge, not on a field. In fact, the bridge would have been more entertaining anyways, so the only explanation for why Mel Gibson fought on a field instead is likely due to budget problems.

The supposed right of a Lord to sleep with his subordinate's wife is also totally fake. The portrayal of William Wallace's life is wrong, and his image in the film is that of a barbarian wearing a kilt (which wasn't worn by the Scots until 300 years later). William Wallace, in real life, would have looked like this:

William Wallace was a knight in full armor on horseback. The Scottish have a proud history of Knighthood dating back to as long as the English had Knights themselves. The movie Braveheart pretty much ignored all that. None of the Scots in the 13th century wore kilts or face paint either.

Don't get me wrong; there were some entertaining moments. But the lack of effort to achieve any historical accuracy is too distracting. They might as well have changed the names and turned it into a fantasy fiction movie like Lord of the Rings.

Gladiator.

I loved this movie for entertainment purposes, and I'm glad it was made simply because it inspired more filmmakers to make their own historical epics. Troy, Alexander, King Arthur, Kingdom of Heaven and Lord of the Rings are all in one form or another a response to the Gladiator movie. Gladiator inspired a generation of kids to learn more about ancient history, and it keeps hope alive for all history buffs that their knowledge might actually be appreciated. Unfortunately, the movie itself is another epic failure in terms of historical accuracy.

First, Marcus Aurelius did not die after a final battle with the Germanic tribes. The last major battle of the sort occurred a year before his death (by the way, he died of chicken pox). The use of catapults and ballistas during that battle is also wrong, since such cumbersome weapons were only used in sieges. They had to be built on-site in most cases, which could take a long time. Such time was best found in long sieges of enemy fortifications. The battle at the start of Gladiator obviously does not qualify.


Emperor Commodus, the big bad of the movie, reigned for 13 years in real life, so either the movie encompasses a 13 year period or it was shortened for entertainment purposes. The arena fighting sequences are not as accurate as those in Ben Hur (Ben Hur is probably the best example of real arena fighting in film, believe it or not). Oddly enough, the bit about Commodus fighting in the arena against gladiators is actually true. The Emperor won over 600 gladiatorial fights before dying in his bath tub. However, in real life Commodus had a very strong physique (in the movie he is depicted as small, weak and whiny), and likely won many fights fair and square. Also, the movie depicts him as a single man, but in reality he was already married when he became Emperor at the age of 18.

The idea that any of the imperial family members or senators at that time wanted to restore the old Republic is absolutely false. The Republican concept was as dead to the Romans then as the concept of monarchy and nobility is dead to modern Americans. We might be fascinated by the idea, but we won't suddenly decide to make Obama our king. Still, for all of its faults, Gladiator was an important and popular movie.

300.

To be fair, the movie 300 isn't based on the actual Battle of Thermopylae, but is instead based on a comic book published in 1998. The comic book describes itself as a fictional retelling, so any historical inaccuracies in the movie are excused by the comic book's own liberal tendencies. It is, in the words of its author, a "theatrical portrayal" of the battle.


Now that I've gotten the disclaimer out of the way, here's why 300 is historically inaccurate. The Persian soldiers, and Emperor Xerxes, obviously did not look anything like what was depicted in the movie. The Immortals (a real Persian military order) were not Ninjas. They rode on horseback as often as not, and did not use Japanese-style swords. The beasts, such as the Rhino and Elephants, were also over-dramatized for entertainment purposes.

But even the depiction of the Spartan warriors is incorrect. In real life, Spartans went into battle with bronze armor. They weren't bare-chested. Also, Sparta was one of the most openly-homosexual societies in the world at that time. According to some sources, homosexual relations were made mandatory for all Spartan soldiers to promote bonding between comrades and introduce young men to free society. So, when one Spartan makes a negative comment about "boy-lovers," he's basically criticizing every real Spartan warrior that fought at Thermopylae.

Also, while it is tempting to speak of the story of just 300 Spartans holding off a million Persian soldiers, the reality of the battle is less thrilling. In fact, there were 300 Spartans PLUS hundreds of other non-Spartan Greeks at the battle. Furthermore, the Persian forces were likely no more than 250,000 (the million number was a form of propaganda widely circulated at the time). The part about the Spartans being betrayed to their doom is more or less true, though. In the end the Spartans were surrounded and killed to the last man.

The Last Samurai.

This movie was well-received in Japan, as it put the spotlight on a part of history that their own people have very little memory of. Samurais are as mysterious and fascinating to the majority of Japanese as they are to the rest of the world. So, many fans of the movie appreciate the attention given to them through this movie. It wasn't totally inaccurate either. Some parts of this movie were actually true, such as the Japanese seeking the help of Western military experts to modernize the Japanese army. However, I still have some criticisms for it.

The idea that a white, alcoholic Civil War veteran played by Tom Cruise was the last Samurai of Japan is absurd, but hardly the only inaccuracy in the film. Ken Watanabi's character, in real life, was obsessed with the idea of starting a war with Korea, and that was his primary motivation for rebelling against the Meiji government. He was not as concerned about restoring old Samurai traditions as the movie depicted him to be. Besides, Samurai first started using guns several centuries earlier, when the Portuguese traders arrived. So, it's not like the Samurai were strangers to gunpowder weapons. Oda Nobunaga is famous for uniting Japan in the 16th century using guns. Also, when the Japanese turned to western military experts for help modernizing their army, they relied on French experts instead of American ones. And in the end, when Ken Watanabi's character is killed in battle by an imported Gatling Gun? Totally false. In real life, he committed ritual suicide.

Still, it was an entertaining movie. And if you are willing to forgive or ignore the historical inaccuracies, the story is very compelling and the action is very exciting.

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In fact, now that I think on it, I've mostly been talking about relatively good movies that just lack historical accuracy. Maybe I should talk about a historical movie that is just plain terrible.

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King Arthur.

It had its moments, but for the most part King Arthur was terrible. The historical inaccuracy was overwhelming. The worst part is that the producers of the film claim it is a historically accurate portrayal. They are the only ones to do that. Braveheart, Gladiator, 300 and the Last Samurai all admit to being fictional depictions. King Arthur is the only movie (besides Alexander, perhaps) to claim itself to be true. Let's kill that claim now, while I'm on the topic.

King Arthur is based on the Sarmatian hypothesis, which stipulates that the Arthurian legend is based on an older story about Sarmatian heavy cavalry stationed in Britain in the 2nd and 3rd centuries by the Romans. This hypthoesis has some strong arguments for it, but it is only one of many possible origins for the Arthurian legend. None are known to be fact.

In the movie, Arthur and his Sarmatian troops head north of Hadrian's Wall to rescue a Roman family. Such a mission was unlikely, since the wall represented Rome's northern-most boundary. Everything north belonged to the Picts, and the Picts would not have allowed a Roman family to live there. In the movie, the Picts are called "Woads," although there is no evidence of them being called as such.

Also, the movie has the Saxons invading Britain north of Hadrian's wall. But by the date given at the start of the movie (467 AD) the Saxons had already invaded Britain well south of Hadrian's Wall, and the Romans had abandoned the island over 50 years earlier. Furthermore, the movie shows the Saxon leader killing another Saxon for having sex with a native Briton. But genetic evidence proves that Saxons intermingled with many native peoples at that time, forming the Anglo-Saxon genetic makeup of modern Englishmen.

The movie also depicts the Saxons using crossbows, probably because there's a tendency in films to associate crossbows with evil and regular bows (or longbows) with good guys (or girls). Unfortunately, the opposite was more likely to be the case in real life. Saxons used bows, and the Romans were the only people at that time and place who had crossbows in their arsenal. Also, the Romans in the movie are depicted wearing Legionnaire uniforms. This might sound acceptable, until you learn that the Romans stopped issuing Legionnaire uniforms to their soldiers over a century earlier. In the 5th century, Roman soldiers wore whatever they could afford, a far cry from their glory days.

The movie also depicts the Pope as having real political power in the Western Roman Empire. The reality is that the Pope didn't have such power until centuries after the Roman Empire had fallen. In fact, one might argue that the Empire had to fall for the Pope and the Catholic Church to emerge as a true political body.

I could go on. There are a lot more historical inaccuracies to talk about. And there are many movies I want to talk about, such as Alexander or Prince of Persia. But I'm getting tired. So, I'll leave you with this. I hope you were able to endure it all, and that you enjoyed at least some of it. Until my next post...