am gonna liveblog Game 1 of Red Bull v. Ginebra game on Sunday, 7PM

This is my little way of helping out all those desperately homesick Pinoys out there. Actually pretty excited.

Even made a nice graphic with an almost unnoticeable hint. I am the master of subtlety.

Sidenote: ive also updated ballex to wp 2.6. Had to do the 'trick' mentioned at previous post again. Am gonna observe it first before i take the plunge and update the others.

Not only that, he doesn't even apologize, merely replying after I texted him about it that it's been relisted and it'll be back in a few days. Yesterday he then texted to remind me of payment, after which I said 'sure, just put me in your calendar (so it wont happen again) ok?', to which I got no reply. EXCELLENT service right there, don't you think? Especially considering I sent a fair share of business his way when I was still in the web design business. I'm just glad this is just a personal blog and not a critical service like the Exchanges. If I were still hosted at his service (he was my first host), I probably would've made a personal appearance to wherever he is in Laguna.

Anyway, to better things. Yesterday was my first basketball game in a long time and I felt good if it weren't for the lingering effects of my cold from the past week. This after I thought I'd come to actually 'retiring' from playing. Credit Gold's Gym for not hurting as much afterwards, which isn't to say I don't hurt now, except it's a good kind of hurt instead of the 'oh my God I'll never walk again' type of hurt.

Not only that but instead of just resting my tired, old bones I feel good enough to go to the gym tomorrow. I'm looking forward to the bike with the back support (as opposed to another type of bike without one), which helps old fogeys like me with back and knee issues. I wanna pound that thing for at least 30 minutes cumulative, interspersed with weights and stretching to help stamina and generally work some weight off if such a miracle is at all possible.

In a perfect world, all I'd do is gym in the mornings, hit golf balls all day and analyze basketball games for a living, dispensing my loads of crap wisdom towards my waiting, loving mass of worldwide fans. Yeah, the more I think about it, that's exactly what I'd picture a beautiful world to be. Considering I get to go to a Class A gym regularly and dispense my opinion on basketball (logic - deprived or otherwise) on a regular basis, I can't complain. I just need to work my ass on getting a sponsor or two for BallEx and maybe I can work on the golf part.

Can I just say, WHEEEEWWWWWWW!

What I was working on needed a new db installed and I foolishly created one that was too similarly named to ballex's DB. I made a few mistakes installing it so I decided to scratch it and start over by deleting the DB and - guess what - I deleted ballex's instead. I definitely heard an audible gasp for air when I realized what I did.

Thank GOD I have Wp-backup, because if I didn't I don't know how I'd face the mirror everyday. We put in pure blood and guts in that thing, and to just delete it oh so casually would absolutely just kill us.

Nyway enough drama. I'm going for a walk out. I'm still not 100% after my bout with the flu, but I'll be ok by tomorrow for sure. Oh, and I'm setting my backups to DAILY this time.

Some interesting factoids (which I probably should publish on BallEx instead but am writing here anyway why not), is Billy Ray Bate's terrible fall to disgrace, after having been feted like the 2nd coming here, going back to the US, falling into drink and cocaine which eventually culminated in trying to holdup a Texaco station, where he got $5.00 and 7 years in prison. All after what would've been promising careers playing as a Laker, a Trailblazer, a Rocket, a Bullet and a Crispa Redmanizer amongst many teams, even saying that while he was here, he was 'like Michael Jordan. I could have anything I wanted. All I had to do was snap my fingers. I had my own condo, my own car and my own bodyguard with an Uzi. I had to fight off the women.'.

Another is Henry James, whom I had the great chance to see actually play at the Meralco 'Jolly' Gym at Ortigas when I was there, shooting threes and dunking to thrill us after we begged him to. It was either 1996 or 1995, I believe, and he was fresh from the plane and working out jetlag by shooting hoops when we arrived, and we were stunned to see this long, lanky 6'8 NBA level player quietly working on his game. Sadly he also suffered a fall from grace, getting caught for dealing drugs last year. Again, after a promising career as an Atlanta Hawk.

And no, this isn't a post about how terrible imports or players as role models can be (we all knew that). If anything, it's a sign as to what happens to ordinary kids when they suddenly taste an NBA lifestyle, and a testament to the rabid effects of drugs, cocaine, guns and alcohol.

This post is about John's post. With his knowledge and BallEx's ability to get into search engines we're gonna make this a truly worthwhile relevant resource of all things Philippine basketball. Besides, of course, just being plainly interesting and entertaining.

First and foremost I'll go right out and say that it is a terrific piece of work. Carlo Ledesma and Mel Lozano obviously put in a great amount of time and effort in this, but the most important factor that they brought is the one thing that previous and current coverage of basketball in the Philippines consistently fails to deliver - and that is soul.

Read the rest at Ballex!

Here's a screenshot of Aug. 30's mysql issues. WordPress serves that up when it can't connect to the db. I emailed Rimuhosting about it and they figured out I was having issues with one of my favorite WordPress plugins called Counterize, which allowed me to produce those interesting stats at the footer of KikayEx which says 'x number of visitors visited today, xx number the past 7 days. xxx number total since forever, and so on...'. We activated an option on mysql to produce a 'mysql-slow.log' which lists down all the mysql queries that take more than 2 seconds to complete. The results were stunning, as Counterize apparently had queries that take as long as 20 seconds, and at a given morning (not even a whole day), there were 40 queries already. Here's how it looked:

/usr/sbin/mysqld, Version: 5.0.22-Debian_0ubuntu6.06.3-log. started with:
Tcp port: 3306 Unix socket: /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock
Time Id Command Argument
# Time: 070904 6:30:17
# User@Host: kikay[kikay] @ localhost []
# Query_time: 12 Lock_time: 0 Rows_sent: 57768 Rows_examined: 690442
use kikaydb;
SELECT DISTINCT referer FROM wp_Counterize;
# Time: 070904 6:30:20
# User@Host: kikay[kikay] @ localhost []
# Query_time: 11 Lock_time: 0 Rows_sent: 57768 Rows_examined: 690444
SELECT DISTINCT referer FROM wp_Counterize;
# Time: 070904 6:30:23
# User@Host: kikay[kikay] @ localhost []
# Query_time: 11 Lock_time: 0 Rows_sent: 57768 Rows_examined: 690445
SELECT DISTINCT referer FROM wp_Counterize;
# Time: 070904 6:32:09
# User@Host: kikay[kikay] @ localhost []
# Query_time: 19 Lock_time: 0 Rows_sent: 57769 Rows_examined: 690450
SELECT DISTINCT referer FROM wp_Counterize;
# Time: 070904 6:32:16
# User@Host: kikay[kikay] @ localhost []
# Query_time: 20 Lock_time: 0 Rows_sent: 57769 Rows_examined: 690452
SELECT DISTINCT referer FROM wp_Counterize;
# Time: 070904 6:32:22
# User@Host: kikay[kikay] @ localhost []
# Query_time: 28 Lock_time: 0 Rows_sent: 57769 Rows_examined: 690451
SELECT DISTINCT referer FROM wp_Counterize;
# Time: 070904 6:32:23
# User@Host: kikay[kikay] @ localhost []
# Query_time: 33 Lock_time: 0 Rows_sent: 57769 Rows_examined: 690450
SELECT DISTINCT referer FROM wp_Counterize;
# Time: 070904 6:32:25
# User@Host: kikay[kikay] @ localhost []
# Query_time: 21 Lock_time: 0 Rows_sent: 57769 Rows_examined: 690453
SELECT DISTINCT referer FROM wp_Counterize;
# Time: 070904 6:32:28
# User@Host: kikay[kikay] @ localhost []
# Query_time: 14 Lock_time: 0 Rows_sent: 57769 Rows_examined: 690454
SELECT DISTINCT referer FROM wp_Counterize;
# Time: 070904 7:41:52
# User@Host: kikay[kikay] @ localhost []
# Query_time: 16 Lock_time: 0 Rows_sent: 57775 Rows_examined: 690535
SELECT DISTINCT referer FROM wp_Counterize;
# Time: 070904 7:41:55
# User@Host: kikay[kikay] @ localhost []
# Query_time: 22 Lock_time: 0 Rows_sent: 57775 Rows_examined: 690535
SELECT DISTINCT referer FROM wp_Counterize;
# Time: 070904 7:41:56
# User@Host: kikay[kikay] @ localhost []
# Query_time: 25 Lock_time: 0 Rows_sent: 57775 Rows_examined: 690533
SELECT DISTINCT referer FROM wp_Counterize;
# Time: 070904 7:41:58
# User@Host: kikay[kikay] @ localhost []
# Query_time: 21 Lock_time: 0 Rows_sent: 57775 Rows_examined: 690535
SELECT DISTINCT referer FROM wp_Counterize;
# Time: 070904 7:42:01
# User@Host: kikay[kikay] @ localhost []
# Query_time: 28 Lock_time: 0 Rows_sent: 57775 Rows_examined: 690535
SELECT DISTINCT referer FROM wp_Counterize;
# Time: 070904 7:42:06
# User@Host: kikay[kikay] @ localhost []
# Query_time: 11 Lock_time: 0 Rows_sent: 1 Rows_examined: 632760
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM wp_Counterize WHERE timestamp >= '2007-09-04' AND IP = '58.71.15.98';
# Time: 070904 7:57:52
# User@Host: kikay[kikay] @ localhost []
# Query_time: 13 Lock_time: 0 Rows_sent: 57776 Rows_examined: 690554
SELECT DISTINCT referer FROM wp_Counterize;
# Time: 070904 8:09:36
# User@Host: kikay[kikay] @ localhost []
# Query_time: 11 Lock_time: 0 Rows_sent: 57776 Rows_examined: 690563
SELECT DISTINCT referer FROM wp_Counterize;
# Time: 070904 8:10:29
# User@Host: kikay[kikay] @ localhost []
# Query_time: 11 Lock_time: 0 Rows_sent: 57776 Rows_examined: 690565
SELECT DISTINCT referer FROM wp_Counterize;
# Time: 070904 8:10:32
# User@Host: kikay[kikay] @ localhost []
# Query_time: 13 Lock_time: 0 Rows_sent: 57776 Rows_examined: 690565
SELECT DISTINCT referer FROM wp_Counterize;
# Time: 070904 8:12:59
# User@Host: kikay[kikay] @ localhost []
# Query_time: 19 Lock_time: 0 Rows_sent: 57776 Rows_examined: 690569
SELECT DISTINCT referer FROM wp_Counterize;
# Time: 070904 8:13:02
# User@Host: kikay[kikay] @ localhost []
# Query_time: 17 Lock_time: 0 Rows_sent: 57776 Rows_examined: 690570
SELECT DISTINCT referer FROM wp_Counterize;
# Time: 070904 8:13:05
# User@Host: kikay[kikay] @ localhost []
# Query_time: 23 Lock_time: 0 Rows_sent: 57776 Rows_examined: 690570
SELECT DISTINCT referer FROM wp_Counterize;
# Time: 070904 8:19:28
# User@Host: kikay[kikay] @ localhost []
# Query_time: 11 Lock_time: 0 Rows_sent: 57776 Rows_examined: 690579
SELECT DISTINCT referer FROM wp_Counterize;
# Time: 070904 8:19:35
# User@Host: kikay[kikay] @ localhost []
# Query_time: 17 Lock_time: 0 Rows_sent: 57776 Rows_examined: 690579
SELECT DISTINCT referer FROM wp_Counterize;
# Time: 070904 8:19:36
# User@Host: kikay[kikay] @ localhost []
# Query_time: 15 Lock_time: 0 Rows_sent: 57776 Rows_examined: 690580
SELECT DISTINCT referer FROM wp_Counterize;

At any rate, I got rid of the inefficient Counterize and replaced it with Firestats, which still provided me an interesting footer (you can check it out at the bottom area of KE), but certainly not as entertaining. I still haven't done the same with BallEx and MomEx as of today, so if you wanna see how it originally looked you can check the sidebar of each and compare it.

Firestats was a great improvement and didn't take as much of a mysql hit, so I basically got my cake and ate it too. Well, at least for another two weeks till today. This is because the site speeded up so much better that hits exponentially increased, bringing Kikay to an almost 50% increase in readership, almost 600 unique hits a day. While that's big, BallEx regularly hits 800 unique hits a day, but has less pageviews than Kikay. Kikay's unique hits + pageviews means that people go to it and 'leaf' through its pages, meaning they hang around a lot to read everything.

So as soon as the mysql inefficiency was fixed, I was now running out of RAM just from serving up pages. I had only 3 services running, namely Apache, Mysql and Named, which we quickly turned off since it was useless. I have a total of 4 WordPress sites plus 2 phpbb installations, and didn't even have email so I could save from installing spamassasin which I knew was a mysql hog. 484mb was apparently not enough. Here's a screenshot of it at 9am, which again happens at approximately 5pm later in the day.

Keep in mind the fact that I probably should do things like remove Counterize from the rest of the sites and find other inefficiences, but doing so requires a lot of time and effort which I'd rather spend on, say, more profitable ventures like trying to get Kikay Shop to earn more. Besides while I'm sure the WordPress Plugins are the ones that are giving me pain, I like the sites the way they are and really dont wanna remove any of them. For example, I really liked Counterize, and if I hadn't found Firestats I figured I'd rather take a mysql hit than remove it.

Rimu has replied with three things I could do. First, install a php caching app called eaccelerator. As of today, this has already been done. Another is to tweak mysql. I really don't have time to do that I think. I'll read through it a bit and if its something I can finish in an hour maybe I will, but I doubt it. The last thing is to move to a different webserver, and they recommended lighttpd or nginx, of which I think lighttpd seems to have a better user base. Lighttpd also happens to be the one used by Youtube, so that's definitely a good word for it as well.

Of course, I understand changing one's webserver midstream is like changing your house's foundation while still living in it. But at the same time I need to act like the boss here and insist it get done no matter how hard it is. Rimu has, like all good geeks will do, implemented the changes piecemeal, starting with eaccelerator. But I've already told them I want lighttpd as well, and am asking how much for them to do it. I don't wanna meddle in the details anymore, a big difference from what I'd have done in the past. A year ago I'd probably be all geeky and installing these on a spare server already just to get a feel of it, and maybe attempt to do it myself. But I'm over that now. I NEED KIKAY EXCHANGE TO GO FASTER. There is nothing more important than my sites loading properly like they should. At the moment, 600 kikays aren't happy, and so therefore I am unhappy as well.

At any rate, these changes, I assume, will probably be good enough to improve the site to handle approximately 500 more unique hits. Any more than that, and I dunno what else to do because I really dont wanna spend any more money on RAM. At that point, I probably need to start looking into managed hosting, or, like Migs said, shared hosting, but I'm assuming the costs to be astronomical. That's fine really, as long as there's business to back it up.

Sigh. Need to get things done fast.

It's the morning after La Salle's heartbreaking (yes it is always heartbreaking to me. Always.) loss to Ateneo, 87-89 at Araneta last night. Obviously, I'm disappointed, but what the heck. What a game, huh? It was exciting all the way, from start to finish, and I promise you I've watched so many games for so many years it's hard to get me as excited as I was when I watched it last night.

Here are some thoughts:

1. That boy Salamat (15 pts) is fantastic. He is a true point guard and even acts and runs like it, with quick feet doing most of the motion and his torso up and erect, allowing his head to look steadily at what's happening at the rest of the court. With good training from the Reyes brothers he can be a very effective player in the future.
2. The Escueta boy (16 pts) is another revelation. One of those stick thin shooting guard types that's deadly with the 3. He gives Chris Tiu much needed reprieve from scoring chores and reminds me of a smaller Jason Terry.
3. Speaking of Chris Tiu (19 pts), this guy blossomed early and is still the epitome of cool confidence. What a stroke. He's got that down pat, but I still think he's too short so he's got to prepare himself for the life of a point guard if he's gonna turn pro. If that's the case, he'd be behind pure PGs like Salamat or UST's Cuan, so he might be in the mold of another Ren-Ren, which is unfortunate because the Philippines needs taller shooters. We'll see what happens there.
4. Rico Maierhofer (24 pts) has turned out to be DLSU's main man, but I always thought it would've been Pocholo Villanueva (18 pts), an old school type slasher - or maybe it'll be his year next year? In any case, Maierhofer is unstoppable, but still a little too raw and undisciplined. He needs to learn a bit more about life in the post and bulk up as well. In other words, try and find other ways to be more effective other than relying on his jumping ability and scrappiness. His athleticism is exciting to watch and results in sensational plays, but like all young athletes, gravity will eventually set in and he'll need to slow his game down. He'll need to develop a mid - range 'money' shot that doesn't require so much effort. Think Tim Duncan's bankshot, Kareem's hook or Karl Malone's 20 foot J from the either wing. If he develops a reliable shot he wouldn't have to get beat up too much and reserve the spectacular stuff for later.

Read the rest by clicking here!

I've waited for approx 2 weeks to finally make this announcement, preferring to remain on the safe side by making sure first. However a few days ago I received notice that I should 'spread the word' (and even then I demurred), but I think it's sure now, so here's the lowdown. Kobe Bryant, no. 24 guard for the Los Angeles Lakers and probably the U.S. Basketball Team (they'd be nuts to cut him), and the current most famous basketball player in the world and consequently, the 'face of the NBA' is coming to Manila on September 5 to hold a few clinics and of course, promote his new Fall 2007 Kobe II shoes. If I might add, in recent years, I've come to regard him as the best basketball player in the NBA as well, and it's pretty hard to discount that.

But first, some disclaimers. I do not know if I'll have as much time as I did with T-Mac last year, but I'd be happy just to throw a few questions or hang with him during one of his clinics. These press things are usually pretty hectic, with organizers trying their best to give everyone a chance but for the most part it's really up to the press to find their time (ie. kick, scratch and elbow your way to him).

Re questions, I wanna ask his opinions on what's it like to be in the zone, conditioning and his outlook on regular season, playoff games and other important games. Players like Kobe are special not because of their physical abilities. There are dozens of players in the NBA that are faster, quicker, stronger and bigger. What sets him apart is his attitude and overall approach to the game. I think how he sees the game and how he prepares for it is different from how others do, which is what sets him apart and makes him a winner.

Anyway, I'm pretty psyched just the same as with Tracy. Kobe is gonna be breezing by Manila in what is likely a quick blast through a very tight schedule so getting the chance to get pics taken and maybe get a conversation going and recorded on tape is a writer's and a basketball fan's dream come true all-in-one, so I'm really thankful to Nike for the chance.

Plus there's a few surprises in store for some of the faithful in Ballex's Sim League as well, so watch out for that. :)

(this is a cross post from Ballex)

In a nutshell, a Basketball Sim (simulation) league allows you the chance to run an NBA team as its General Manager (GM). As such, you are in control of your team's destiny for a period of months similar to the NBA's. You can make player trades with other virtual GMs like yourself, adjust your player rotations, and even do such things as increase and decrease specific skillsets for your player(s). Factors such as salaries, salary caps, team schedules and a player's 'greed' (or his desire to play for money / loyalty) are additional things to think about which add to it's realism.

There are two areas a virtual GM need to keep track of, namely the page where the game results are shown here, and the forum above. After you make adjustments to your team and perform trade after trade at the forum, you observe the game results to see how things go and make further adjustments / trades as needed. A virtual Commissioner, in the person of Gil Moreno (forum id: Cola), runs the simulations via a software he runs on his computer, uploads these results, and confirms / allows / supervises over all aspects of trading and adjustments on the virtual league - just like a real commissioner.

And as such, I think I can allow myself a sigh of relief somewhat, knowing that I have Gil and John Dacanay plus good friend John Knight (whose real identity he thinks he can hide), forming a Dream Team of sorts, to provide content for Basketball Exchange. John has long proven an incredible detailed knowledge of the PBA and Fil-Am news, and is in the process of finishing a coffee table book about it (watch out for that!). Gil on the other hand is yet another walking encyclopedia of basketball - mainly NBA and FIBA - knowledge. He has a skilled eye in checking out new talent and keeping tabs on them plus loads of experience in running and / or joining virtual leagues.

John Knight in the meantime, has ideas about how the RP Team should be formed (who doesn't?!), and is credited for turning me on to the idea of Sim Leagues (which I'd not have learned of otherwise), while I will of course continue to provide my own views from time to time - most of which are wrong but its ok since I'll delete anyone who leaves a comment that disagrees with me. I mean, that's freedom of speech according to Gloria, right? I have the freedom to say anything I want, and make anyone else who disagrees disappear! Viva democracy!

Ok anyway, I'm veering off. There are still 10 or so slots left in the 29 team rotation needed for the Sim League, and the forum has, in the span of two weeks, gained a whopping 46 member roster! I think the league will start with only twenty teams for the moment, but more leagues are slated to start (yes we can have more than one running at the same time) if and when members indicate interest. Naturally, this service is completely FREE OF CHARGE, and is just part of our effort to make Ballex a more complete basketball resource.

Lebron James has come up with a performance we all knew he was capable of and we all had been waiting for. In a double overtime victory, the Cleveland Cavaliers have taken one game ahead of the Detroit Pistons 3-2.

Here are the stats: 48 points, 7 assists, 9 rebounds, 10 of 14 freethrows and 2 out of 3 three point attempts, two at each overtime period, both just at the right moment to steal the thunder away from Detroit whom at various times looked like they were about to pull away.

In a performance heralded as 'one of the most spectacular in NBA Playoff history', the game itself was a heart pounder, with 22 lead changes and 16 times tied.

Read the rest at Basketball Exchange.

P.S. I'm gonna start reposting basketball exchange posts here. Not that it needs any more of a push, but it helps, just as my reposting my movie review posts at movie ex helped that site :)

Here's their letter:

I'm Quel Valencia of ABC Sports and we've been browsing your weblog "Basketball Exchange" for sometime now. We'd like to request your permission to use the three blog entries posted by John Dacanay focusing on PBA lookalikes:

http://basketball.exchange.ph/2006/10/03/pba-look-alikes-part-i/
http://basketball.exchange.ph/2006/10/06/pba-celeb-lookalikes-part-ii/
http://basketball.exchange.ph/2006/10/11/pba-celeb-lookalikes-part-iii/

We're planning to feature some of the lookalikes during the halftime game this Wednesday. I hope you could reply as soon as possible through email or through text.

Thank you and good day!

Watch the halftime segment this Wednesday, Oct. 25 during the Talk 'N Text-Purefoods game (Game 1)! Yahoo!