DBD 1.15.10 I got nothing II: The Nothening

Women’s Basketball beats UW:

The California Golden Bears topped the Washington Huskies, 60-43, Thursday night at Haas Pavilion. Alexis Gray-Lawson helped lead her team to their first Pac-10 victory of the season, scoring a team-high 19 points.

Cal started the game slow, shooting under 30% in the first five and a half minutes, with Washington pushing out to a 18-9 early advantage. Cal’s pressure on defense ignited the offense, with the Bears going on a 7-0 run, capped by a three-pointer by senior guard Lauren Greif on a feed from Alexis Gray-Lawson to pull within two, 18-16. The Huskies continued to hold the lead until a jumper by Layshia Clarendon followed almost immediately by a steal and a layup by freshman forward Gennifer Brandon put Cal up by a point with just over two minutes remaining in the half. Washington hit a jump shot with 35 seconds left in the half to take a 25-24 lead into the break.

In the second half, an inspired Cal team took the floor and took control of the game from the inbounding of the ball. In the first four minutes of the second half, Cal forced six Washington turnovers, allowing the Huskies just three shots in that span. On the offensive side, Cal went on a 14-3 run to go from trailing by 2 to leading the game by nine. Cal kept the pressure on the entire second-half, forcing 18 Washington turnovers in the period. Freshman guard Eliza Pierre had five steals in the final 20 minutes of play. Offensively, senior guard Alexis Gray-Lawson made the most of transition scoring, adding 15 points in the second period, hitting five of her seven shots. Gray-Lawson ended the game with a team-high 19 points.

Womens tennis crushes opponent:

HONOLULU – The No. 3-ranked California women’s tennis team (1-0) opened the 2010 dual season with a 7-0 victory over Hawaii (0-1) on Thursday, Jan. 14, at the UH Tennis Complex. The Golden Bears earned nine victories in the match as freshman Tayler Davis earned the match-clinching point in a 6-0, 6-1 win over Aglae Van den Bergh on court six.

Defending NCAA doubles champions junior Mari Andersson and sophomore Jana Juricova got the new year started on the right foot with Cal’s first victory on the top doubles court. The tandem defeated Sophie Kobuch and Natasha Zorec, 8-6, before Davis and fellow freshman Annie Goransson took out Mari Tadaki and Van den Bergh on the third doubles court to clinch the doubles point for the Bears. Paired for the first time, junior Marina Cossou and senior Kasia Siwosz shook off the Hawaii attack to emerge with an 8-6 victory against Alyssa Nafarrete and Barbara Pinterova at No. 2 doubles.

No. 83-ranked Andersson earned the next point for the Bears as she defeated Nafarrete on court three, 6-0, 6-1. Siwosz followed suit and took out Tadaki, 6-1, 6-0, at No. 5 singles to give Cal a commanding 3-0 lead in the match. Davis’ victory over Van den Bergh came moments later to seal the win for the Bears. Goransson faced off with Zorec at No. 4 singles and registered a 6-2, 6-1 win to make the score, 5-0, before No. 10-ranked Cossou finished off Pinterova at court two, 6-1, 6-2. No. 2-ranked Juricova fell behind, 3-0, in the first set before she turned on the jets to breeze by Kobuch, 6-4, 6-1, at the top court to give Cal the 7-0 win.

Former soccer player drafted by MLS:

PHILADELPHIA – Former California forward Andrew Wiedeman was selected by FC Dallas with the No. 21 overall pick, which was the fifth pick of the second round, in the 2010 Major League Soccer SuperDraft Thursday at the Pennsylvania Convention Center. Cal’s leading scorer and a first-team All-Pac-10 selection in 2009, Wiedeman was the first forward to be drafted in the second round.

The San Ramon, Calif., product will play for FC Dallas head coach Schellas Hyndman, who previously coached Cal head coach Kevin Grimes for four years at SMU. Grimes was also an assistant coach for three years under Hyndman at his alma mater.

“This is a great day for Andrew and Cal soccer,” Grimes said. “Going to FC Dallas is going to be a perfect fit for him. Schellas is a great trainer of forwards and attacking midfielders in particular, and I think Andrew’s game will really blossom under his tutelage. The Cal team, alumni and administration are really proud of Andrew and wish him a great professional career.”

This marks the sixth consecutive year in which MLS teams drafted Cal players, a span that encompasses Grimes’ first six recruiting classes and 13 former Bears. The other 12 Bears are Stefan Frei (Toronto FC, SuperDraft), who was drafted in 2009; Andrew Jacobson (D.C. United) and Luke Sassano (New York Red Bulls), who were drafted in 2008; Eric Ebert (Houston Dynamo, SuperDraft), Nick Hatzke (Houston Dynamo, Supplemental Draft), Steve Purdy (Los Angeles Galaxy, Supplemental Draft), who were drafted in 2007; Calen Carr (Chicago Fire, SuperDraft), Tyson Wahl (Kansas City, SuperDraft) and Eric Kronberg (Kansas City, SuperDraft), who were drafted in 2006; and Troy Roberts (Los Angeles, SuperDraft), Mike Munoz (Chivas USA, Supplemental Draft) and Noah Merl (San Jose Earthquakes, Supplemental Draft) who were drafted in 2005.

Meet a softball freshmen:

BERKELEY – Freshman Jayme Goodwin, a 5-8 utility player hailing from Dublin, Calif., is new to the world of competitive softball. Goodwin played basketball and ran track for four years at Dublin High School, and took her teams to North Coast Sections twice with track and thrice with basketball. Breaking her high school team’s 4X4 record, Goodwin is a gifted sprinter and will be a threat for the Bears on the basepaths. She was an all-league honorable mention in 2007 as well as defensive player of the year in 2009 and a member of the national high school honor society. Her uncle, Tom Goodwin, played professional baseball from 1995-2004 with the Royals, Dodgers, Rangers, Rockies, Giants and Cubs. Her father, Hugh, and aunt attended Cal while her mother, Cheryl, went to UCLA, where her father went to law school. Goodwin aspires to be a doctor or lawyer after her time at Cal. CalBears.com caught up with Goodwin to learn about her first months in college, life off the diamond and more.

CalBears.com: What has been the hardest, most surprising aspect about transitioning from high school to college? Jayme Goodwin: The biggest transition from high school to college is the amount of free time one has. Homework is not, for the most part, assigned nightly. It’s just a lot of reading that you have to keep up with.

CalBears.com: What has been your favorite part about college life so far? JG: The new people I’ve met.

CalBears.com: Do you have any outside hobbies? Do you have any unique stories about yourself or qualities that set you apart from your teammates? JG: I like to cook and bake. I have never played softball, but I am going to use my speed from track and my instincts from basketball to develop into a base runner.

Swimming diary:

HONOLULU – Freshman Caitlin Leverenz takes over the blog to write about what the Golden Bears did on Tuesday in Hawaii.

Day 7 – Jan 12

Six o’clock in the morning, and the alarm went off for the sixth day in a row. It was a difficult morning to get up, but there was a trail of Golden Bears walking along the beach, ready for another ocean workout. Teri (McKeever), Kristen (Cunnane), and Nick (Folker) could all feel that it was a harder morning today.

“This is where we get better,” Teri told us as we began the workout. Everyone changed his or her attitude to a more positive one as we ran and plunged into the warm, clear Hawaiian ocean. Once the workout was over we were all in a good mood from a hard but fun and successful practice.

The Blue group got the afternoon off since we had done our double the day before; it did not take us long to get to the beach. All 12 of us laid out and soaked up some rays to make for a relaxing afternoon. Life is rough when you can lay on the beach with 11 of some of your best friends, just hanging out and enjoying each other’s company. Many of us would frequently jump into the ocean to cool off and maybe body surf a couple of waves while we were in the water. It made for a very fun and relaxing afternoon.

Did someone say nothing?

I was going to write a dbd today, but HSBC’s complete and utter lack of competence made me devote 6 hours of my day to yield an eventual atm withdrawal, hence I didn’t get back until after 8:00 PST.

Apparently my GF was out with some random american girls on wednesday, and these random girls began complaining about British guys. Apparently, they have concluded british men are: mean, selfish, anti-social, and stuck up. This is based on the fact, the girls are never approached while in the bars, and no men will socialize with them. Upon hearing this, my girlfriend started quietly laughing to herself, because her first thought was ‘of course not, you are ugly’. Those girls are not pretty, and they are blaming an entire country of men for their shortcomings.

Rivals latest top 25:

http://rivals100.rivals.com/teamrank.asp?SID=880

7. USC
18. UCLA
21. Washington
24. California
25. Oregon

Pac-10 finished 4th in average:

The Rose Bowl’s TV ratings went up 13 percent. The Emerald Bowl, which featured USC and Boston College, was up 15 percent and ranked third among non-BCS bowls.

The Las Vegas Bowl and EagleBank Bowl matched last year’s rating.

The Holiday Bowl, a 33-0 Nebraska blowout of Arizona, was down five percent. The Poinsettia Bowl between California and Utah was down 25 percent, but that’s due to last year’s game featuring unbeaten Boise State and 11-2 TCU.

http://espn.go.com/blog/pac10/post/_/id/7224/sun-emerald-and-rose-bowls-bolstered-tv-ratings-from-2008

The Wac beat both the MWC & Big East!

http://media.al.com/solomon/photo/113-bcs-bowljpg-389f04a7014029f0.jpg

Kyle Boller Update, Carp style(Extremely NSFW) :

http://www.wwtdd.com/2010/01/carrie-prejean-needs-a-tighter-bikini/

VeriSign’s iDefense security lab has published a report with technical details about the recent cyberattack that hit Google and over 30 other companies. The iDefense researchers traced the attack back to its origin and also identified the command-and-control servers that were used to manage the malware.

The cyber-assault came to light on Tuesday when Google disclosed to the public that the Gmail Web service was targeted in a highly-organized attack in late December. Google said that the intrusion attempt originated from China and was executed with the goal of obtaining information about political dissidents, but the company declined to speculate about the identity of the perpetrator.

Citing sources in the defense contracting and intelligence consulting community, the iDefense report unambiguously declares that the Chinese government was, in fact, behind the effort. The report also says that the malicious code was deployed in PDF files that were crafted to exploit a vulnerability in Adobe’s software.

“The source IPs and drop server of the attack correspond to a single foreign entity consisting either of agents of the Chinese state or proxies thereof,” the report says.

Ars

LOL

Toby’s going Pro:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/01/15/sports/s102801S16.DTL&tsp=1

I find out the day after I book train tix and a hotel in Brugge! FML

Disaster may be brewing – or not – in beer-loving Belgium, where supplies of two of the country’s most famous beers may be down to the last dregs.

An industrial dispute over planned job cuts means a blockade is threatening supplies of Stella Artois and Leffe.

A week-long blockade has stopped any beer from leaving the Leuven headquarters of Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world’s biggest brewing company.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8460815.stm

(This DBD really needs spicing up)
How Wall Street Could Help Haiti and Partially Redeem those Bonuses

I have an idea. Remember that public TARP money that we loaned to the major Wall Street finance firms? They didn’t actually use it to make small business loans as we had intended.

And what bonuses. “It’s reported that Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase combined have set aside $47 billion for bonuses,” NPR says.

$47 billion in bonuses.

Haiti’s annual gross domestic product in nominal terms is about $7 bn. a year.

So here is a modest proposal. Since public monies clearly were the basis for a lot of the “profits” the banks and finance houses made in 2009, why don’t the executives show at least a little common decency and donate some significant percentage of it (half?) to worthy causes in the US and abroad. Why not 10 percent to Haiti reconstruction and development? That would be $4.7 bn., and it would go a very long way in Haiti.

Point 1: Wall Street firms are not the only entities that benefit from government money. Auto makers? Corn farmers?

Point 2: The firms he pointed out have repaid their friggin’ TARP funds. They can do what they want with their profits

Point 3: The aforementioned firms have donated a substantial amount and will match donations from employees who donate.

Point 4: Bonuses are so misunderstood, it’s ridiculous. For starters, they are taxed at 50%. Second, for a lot of employees, these “bonuses” function in the same way that “tips” function for waiters — it’s what makes their salary. An associate will earn $50K base and $50K bonus, instead of earning $100K straight. Sure, there are probably executives who earn large bonuses, but a lot of those people are responsible for the profits that are being used to pay those bonuses (note: TARP funds do not pay bonuses)…

All around, just an article to rile people up, but come on, I thought people were better than this.

Okay so I went on a first date with this boy a couple nights ago. Went well. There was the appropriate exchange of texts next day of: Had a lot of fun/Really glad we got together.

Question. I hate formal dating situations. Usually like for things to happen naturally, as friends first, etc. So my natural instinct is to text and say, “A bunch of people are doing HH tonight in FiDi. You down?” As the chick, am I not supposed to do this?

And if possible, can we please minimize the “Alammmaaarr!!, TWSS, and Evict your Grandmother” responses. Thanks. XO!