Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Still Streaking

This past weekend saw us pick up two more wins. This was the first time that we have had two games in two days since the opening week of the season. Its tough, wish we could have a day off in between games. Not the case tho. We played at home Friday night against a really physical team. After a fairly competitive first quarter we pretty much cruised the rest of the way and ended up winning by about 35. However, I think the farther we got ahead the more physical the other team got. It was something that we fought through and continued to keep our heads and play our game. This is good, because if we continue to play the way we are playing other teams are going to try and get a little rough with us and sometimes border line dirty. The way the game was played made the next game the next night a little more tougher to be ready for. Saturday night saw us struggle a bit more than in the past couple weeks but we were able to fight for another win. This one was a little bit closer coming down the stretch and we pushed the final margin to 10 or so. I don't think we were as sharp as we had been in other games. Some of that has to do with the game the night before. However, I thought it was very positive that even tho maybe we weren't playing our best basketball that night we fought it out and ultimately won the game on the defensive end. An example of this would be the second quarter where we only gave up 11 points and were able to have a double digit lead at half time. Its been interesting to see how our defense has improved so far this season and we'll need to keep it up if we are to continue our top level play. I think this is something we can do tho. On a personal note, I played all 48 minutes of the second game. After a physical game Friday night and then playing the whole game Saturday night I was just a little bit tired, only slightly. I wasn't able to sleep in Sunday, but made up for it Sunday night and Monday morning. 

I haven't had the opportunity to write much about Australian culture or society that much lately so I thought I might try and provide a little insight for a couple things. First thing is that music or the radio would be best explained with the word horrid. Its awful, that's all I can say. I should correct that. It's not so much Australian musicians but the radio stations. I don't know that many Australian musicians and really haven't heard all that many on Australian radio, but there are a couple that I have taken a decent liking to. I just can't get over the radio. Consider this, if (and that's a big if) a station does happen to play a song (may not even be a good one) then in almost certainty there is going to be a commercial or a radio host is going to come on and talk about some insignificant topic for 5 minutes. I know you're reading and thinking that this sounds like American airwaves.....NO, this is much worse than in the states. I can probably count on one hand the times I've heard two songs without an interruption in between. The next thing about the radio is that the choices of stations is very limited and that the same type of music is played over and over again. What I've discovered so far is that in Perth there are basically only about 6-8 stations across the FM wavelength or whatever (I'm sure the lack of choices is a big part of the problem). Believe me, I've spent some good time searching through static to see if there is anything else out there to no avail. Before I start commenting on the selection of music and musicians I'm going to step back and say that I have no musical abilities at all, BUT honestly can listen to and enjoy many different types of music. It's just that Australia radio either seems to pick very few of those types or just overly play types and artists that I have absolutely no liking of. Think of it this way, if one were to ask me to describe the general sense of Australian radio by naming a single musical artist I would instantaneously say Britney Spears. Maybe its just that I've heard her on the radio an insanely amount (which in my opinion is no good), but I think its just that this pop style is what seems to be played most (male and female artists). I'm not sure I know how to explain it anymore its just annoying to hear this kind of music constantly, well when music is actually played. Alright I got to get off the radio, but the last comment is that songs and lyrics are unedited on the radio here. One can hear the full explicit meaning and words to a song if such a song is played, and this happens quite a bit. In the meantime I'll be charging my iPod and finding my iTrip so I don't have to listen to the ads and poor selection.