honza ustohal

Moneyball

2012-03-26T00:00:00-07:00

“How can you not be romantic about baseball?” Billy Beane

When I first heard about Moneyball, I really thought it is gonna be another cheesy American movie about baseball, with few HRs, lucky catches, a love affair, and Brad Pitt. Nothing too funny like Major League or too serious (and creepy) like The Field of Dreams. And definitely nothing with Madonna (A League of Their Own).

In reality, what you get is a slightly cocky GM, geeky Yale graduate, and a lot of snuff. A small paper cup would be a perfect symbol of this movie on one of those minimalistic movie posters for hipsters. And on top of that there is baseball. A lot of baseball. What more, you kind of have to know what is going on to understand the movie, because the mechanism and inner workings of a baseball team and the game in general are basically the main thing in the movie. I really wonder how the reception differed between the states and the rest of the world, because from my own experience the knowledge about baseball in Europe is, well, quite poor.

Moneyball trailer

The movie is based on a real story and on a book named Moneyball. The main character, Billy Beane, is a former MLB star, that failed to fulfill the expectations of the scouts and after few years retreated to the front office. Later he became the GM of Oakland A’s, one of the poorest teams in the big league, and with the help of a Yale graduate he assembled a team based on players’ statistics, as opposed to the “traditional” approach based on the judgement of the experienced scouts. This team of underestimated players then set the MLB’s record for the longest winning streak of 20 games.

For me the movie is definitely one of the best baseball movies I have ever seen and maybe even one of the best movies in general. I know that it is partially caused by the fact that baseball used to be a big part of my life for nearly 8 years, but the movie itself is well made as well. The context is realistic, the game footage is believable and the ratio between action and talking is quite alright. The in-game footage also made me reminiscent about some moments of my “career”, such as my “K streak” in one of the seasons or, on the other hand, the .400 BA and the highest RBI in another. not talking about the 3B into opposite with loaded bases in the semifinal of the Czech championship. Oh yeah!

One of the final scenes when Billy comes to Fenway is then just the icing on the cake. Damn, I really wish I could go see a Red Sox vs. Yankees game there…__Let’s go, Red Sox!__

Anyway, if you like baseball, I can only recommend watching this movie – I can guarantee you that you won’t regret spending those two hours on it. Just make sure your girlfriend/boyfriend is on the same page.

Gymmie gymmie!

2012-03-18T00:00:00-07:00

Kids, back in 2007, it seems like everyone belonged to these silly things called gyms. The idea was you’d pay them lots of money to run around and lift heavy things. Biggest rip-off in the world and yet people fell for it. Including me. Ted Mosby, How I Met Your Mother S03E10

This quote from my favorite TV show really expresses the whole idea behind “gyms”. Or does it?

About two weeks back I decided to stop turning into a vegetable and enroll into a nearby gym. Frankly, it is really hard to resist the advertisement, as most of them show pretty and fit girls between 25-30, smiling while working out on one of the high tech machines. Something like this.

This girl definitely does not come to my gym

source: http://rantingseriously.blogspot.com/

In reality, however, you find there all the different types of people except for this girl. There are those big and muscular and tan guys, that walk around in their tight shirts, fist bumping other guys and all the trainers in the gym. Then there are those “girls”, that look like guys and are probably stronger than half of the guys there. Then there are people like me, minding their own business with their iPods and generally looking pretty. This group includes both guys and girls, and it represents around 1/3 of the people there. A special group are girlfriends of the aforementioned douchebags, that wear a ton of makeup and have big boobs. Sorry, there is not much more about them. Finally, there is the last group, comprising other types of people, that are not common enough to have their own category.

For me it is my first real gym subscription, and in fact, it is just the second time that I voluntarily go to a gym regularly. So, why do I go to the gym? I don’t want to look like those guys described above, but at the same time I don’t want to be look like a nerd, all pale and skinny and weak. And yes, i want to get rid of my beginning beer belly.

I don’t really like cardio so I mainly focus on free weights and the various machines. And man, those machines are crazy. All the gyms I have ever been to had those classical white ones, that were easy to use and you always knew what to do with them. When I came here I was like “WTF?”. Everything looks incredibly fancy and I think there is a machine for every single part of the human body, including that tiny muscle hidden somewhere. All the mechanisms are also incredibly complicated, and it happened to me few times that I really had to think about how to use some machine. There were simply too many levers, buttons, and adjustment knobs and I got completely confused. Shit happens, doesn’t it.

Anyway, since the beginning of March I have been in the gym ca. 14 times, and I think that’s pretty good. I try to keep a 5 times a week routine, with a 3-1-2-1 scheme and it seems to work out pretty well. The one day break is enough to regenerate a little, but it does not affect the overall rhythm. Since the gym is open till 10:30pm on weekdays, I don’t really have to plan my days around it. And do I enjoy it? Of course I do! There is a huge mirror so I can stare at myself while lifting dead weight and sweating like a pig. I can get my arms so sore I am not able to change my t-shirt after the work out. I can watch other people do the same. And, I pay for all of that every months with a 6 months subscription. Awesome, right!

So, coming back to the first paragraph, maybe gyms are the biggest rip-off in the world, but frankly, the feeling when you feel that you are getting stronger, that your body is not turning into a rotten piece of vegetable anymore and that those two hours a day are the only time when you don’t think about your work and other problems, that feeling is really priceless. And who knows, maybe after those 6 months I will look like that hot guy. Or the other one.

The one about the tattoo

2012-02-18T00:00:00-08:00

“You are not a tattoo type!”
“Tattoo, are you serious?”
“WTF?!”

Back in the days, when I was still a little kid, tattoos were associated with something illegal and clandestine. I had the idea that having a tattoo means having been in jail. Don’t blame me, I was a little kid. As I grew older, I realized tattoos are not only for footballers and convicts, but I still could not imagine that I would get one, because I did not feel like standing out. Things changed when I started playing with a band. Yes, it’s true, playing in a band gets you into a different kind of society, where everybody does sex, uses drugs, and plays rock’n’roll. And has at least 3 tattoos. Ok, that might be a little exaggerated, they have only two tattoos, but the point is that people doing music are different by design. You just cannot be normal to get up the stage, show off in front of the crowd for an hour and be absolutely excited about it. Performing can really change your personality, but even though I was not really worried about standing out of the crowd anymore, since that’s basically what we did few times a month during our shows, tattoo was still something too permanent and “big”.

A little fast forward…

A turning point was when my friend slawa got his tattoo back in 2008 and I really started thinking about getting one as well. When he could, I can as well! Over the next few months I was thinking about the possible motive, but I was not able to come up with anything specific. The best idea I had was the bicycle chain pattern you sometimes get imprinted on your calf when riding a bike, but I discarded that for being too lame. I was also thinking about the logo of our band, but even though I totally believed in our infinite success, it still seemed stupid. After some time the idea sunk back into the back of my head, where it remained semi-active, occasionally surfacing when I felt too boring. I know, getting a tattoo would not change that anyway.

And a little fast forward again…

Summer 2011. After spending my first year in Holland I came back to Prague to enjoy the few sunny days at home, before going to Kenya and then Korea. By that time, the initial foolish tattoo ideas were lost and forgotten, so when the new idea struck me, I was thunderstruck (or maybe ideastruck). To give you a little bit of background knowledge, my parents always tried to teach me something about art. Even though I did not always appreciate it when I was younger, I sure do now. “So, what was the idea? Tell us!” The idea was simple — Zdenek Sykora.

If you have certain knowledge about modern art, you might know the name. Sykora was a Czech painter, focusing on abstract shapes, colors, and their relations. He was one of the first artists to use computers for art, as his structures were strictly organized according to pre-determined rules. On the other hand, his later works, lines, were based on randomness and organicity.

Zdenek Sykora - Linie

source: artservis.info

Zdenek Sykora - Structures on a ventilation shaft

source: artservis.info

I would say that Sykora is one of my most favorite painters. I am not much of a name person when it comes to art, but with him I can never go wrong. So why don’t have a piece of his art on my body, more specifically some nice random lines? I told about this idea to my parents, and to my great surprise, they liked it and were even supportive. I really felt like a picture inspired by the works of Sykora would be a good idea for tattoo, because it has certain significance for me and it is really original. But then I went to Kenya and Korea and that was the end of the story…

Was it? Of course not!

One day, while sitting in our dorm in Seoul, I decided to give myself a nice Christmas present. A rather permanent one. I am not sure what exactly was the trigger point, but after so many years of just poking the idea of getting a tattoo, within an hour I decided that I am just going for it. To make sure I can’t back down, I wanted to arrange the date ASAP. Having good references on Tribo I sent an e-mail to the owner, Michal Burda, explaining my situation. After telling him my idea and other details, he recommended Lukas as the tattooer and we set an appointment for December 27th. After that I briefly discussed the situation directly with Lukas, who was a Sykora fan himself, to clarify my intent etc. And then I just waited.

On the T-day, Lukas simply sketched out the tattoo on my leg to figure out the size and orientation and then we dived directly into it. I basically put all my trust into his hands, because there was no detailed design of the tattoo beforehand and most of it was done on the spot. Or under the skin, to be precise. But he was really, really good. After something like an hour I got to see the “first draft” and I was stunned. So much beauty on my leg! We shortly discussed the rest of the tattoo and I laid down again. After a little more than another hour the “damage was done”. My calf has been irreversibly inked. And I fuckin’ loved it.

And now the last fast forward, I promise

After almost two months the tattoo is already healed. The first month was kind of annoying, because you really have to care about it --- wash it, cream it, clean it. But that's just the price you pay, I guess. Apart from two tiny spots where I had a little stronger reaction to the ink the tattoo looks awesome. I will get a touch up to fix those two spots when I come back to Prague, but frankly, I can't wait for warmer weather to wear shorts again. I told you musicians are show offs, didn't I:)

The finished work the next morning

Note: the colors are a little boosted as the skin was not healed yet, I took the photo with flash and then "boosted" it a little in Analog. In reality, the colors are a little darker.

The one about the book

2012-02-05T00:00:00-08:00

tl; dr: I wrote a book. It is about Korea. It is awesome! You can get it here.

As you surely know, I was in South Korea for about 4 months, studying at the KAIST Business School. And because I wanted everybody to know what I was doing there, I kept a blog called S(e)oul eXchange. I know, the name looks stupid, but that’s not important. Contrary to my expectations, I really enjoyed writing the blog, posting pictures and showing off in general. When some people told me that it is quite nice and funny to read, I was even more motivated to keep it going for the whole 4 months. I think I kind of succeeded, even though December was a very quite month, blog-wise. “So where is the book in this story?”, you might be asking now. Well, one day, when I was Skyping with my sister, she said something like “I really like your blog, you should publish it as a book”. Normal people would laugh and let it go, but not me. In that moment my mind started thinking about all the possible ways how to do that, how long would it take and what would I have to do. After few days of thinking it through, I decided to do it, mainly as a Christmas present for my parents and friends.

I don’t want to bother you with technical details (at least not now), so I will try to keep it comprehensible for a non-geek. When you want to publish some text, i.e. get it printed and binded, you could do it in two ways. First way is the easy one. Find a DTP studio, give them the texts and pictures, consult the design and layout and let them do the magic. The second, and more difficult way, is DIY, do it yourself. Using a typesetting program such as InDesign, Quark or TeX you prepare the book yourself, from page numbers to the header, from the font to the design of the cover. This is obviously more difficult and time consuming, since most of us are not professional DTP engineers (?). But the second way is also more geeky and fun, so I think that it is clear what I chose to do.

My tool of choice was LaTeX, which is a tool/platform used mainly for scientific articles about math, physics or CS. It is not really used for really graphical DTP, so some tasks are quite cumbersome, compared to more WYSIWIG app like InDesign. On the other hand, because th form is completely separated from the content, it is much easier to use macros and external scripts to automate certain tasks. I will write more details about it in another post. I did some graphics in Illustrator (cover page), but most of the work was done and written in LaTeX. True geekiness!

In October I started with the preparations, deciding on layout, orientation etc. I also collected all the articles and converted them to a more LaTeX-friendly format. The most annoying part was conversion and positioning of the images and photos, because in default, LaTeX does not place the images inside the text (does not wrap) but in between paragraphs. After few frustrating moments I realized that bending it like this is really not working well, but I had no other choice. This work went on until mid-December. Few days before coming back to Prague I sent the finished book, including bleed and crop marks, to a print shop in Prague. Few days later they sent me the height of the spine so I adjusted the cover, sent it and then just prayed there won’t be any problems. Honestly, I had no idea how it might turn out.

On December 23rd I came back to Prague. In the afternoon, before unpacking my stuff etc. I rushed to the print shop to see the finished book. It was amazing. Everything looked so pretty and neat and fortunately, everything was all right. I made only 6 copies of the book — two for my parents, one for my sister, two for my friends and one for me — but I was thinking about making some more in the future. We’ll see. Anyway, I also have a PDF version, which I decided to publish on-line. If you are interested in it, download it here.

I will be more than happy if you would comment on it or just tell me that you like it:)

Here we go again!

2012-02-01T00:00:00-08:00

This land is not for sale. Some day, I hope to build on it. Dimitri Pietrovich

The famous quote from a Woody Allen movie pretty much sums up my blog. It indeed is my land, even though it is hosted on github, and one day, probably, I really am going to build on it. But you just have to give me time.

After some hickups and changes my site (including this blog) is up and running. Nothing has changed from the outside (except for the design), but inside it is completely different. First of all, I am no longer using a “conventional” hosting. I figured out that paying some 30 EUR a year for few megabytes of space that I don’t even use is quite wasteful and I canceled the contract. “So how is it possible that it is still here?”, you might ask. Well, since I am a geek (yep!), I use geeky things to make that happen. More specifically, the geeky things are called GitHub pages and jekyll.

GitHub pages is a “hosting” provided by GitHub that publishes static content from a git repository on-line. I set up my DNS zone to serve the GitHub page http://sway.github.com/ for egoistic.biz, so for an outsider it is almost impossible to figure out that egoistic.biz is in fact just a placeholder for sway.github.com.

The second thing, jekyll, is a static page generator, that is ran on the repository upon every push. In other words, when I push my stuff to GitHub, it generates HTML files out of Markdown/Textile files and compiles everything together. Pretty neat, right.

This all is supported by Jekyll Bootstrap, a framework for Jekyll, that in turn uses Twitter Bootstrap, which is a CSS/JS framework for quick webpage creation.

So, this was a little bit of a technical mumbo jumbo, so i you don’t understand, it’s fine. Soon there will be more posts, this time on more common things. So thanks and see you then!

Hi there!

2012-01-30T00:00:00-08:00

It might have been just a mere curiosity, but somehow you managed to land on my blog. Well, blog would be quite an overstatement. There is nothing here yet, as I currently don’t have that much time to adjust the Jekyll Bootstrap template to suit my needs. But I promise I will do it!

Meanwhile, you can read my blog from Korea, where I spend the last 4 months on a exchange. Some say there are some funny stories…

Well, see you later!