Ping Pong

Now, onto sports, I’m going to talk about a very interesting sport called Table Tennis or better known as Ping Pong. This sport was first played in the year 1880 in England, it was played by the wealthy, and they would usually play it after dinner. The English called it “wiff waff”, and they would grab a table and rows of books would be put together in the middle of the table representing the net. They played with other hard books as a racket and would use a golf ball. As the years passed, all the equipment started to develop such as the ball, which changed into a light weighted hollow ball and instead of books a net. Even the name changed from “wiff waff” to “Ping Pong”. The reason for this was because of the noise the ball made when it would be hit by the racket. The Table Tennis Association was founded in Britain in the year 1921 and five years later, London held the first World Championship Ping Pong tournament. I have always found this sport so entertaining and fun since it is like tennis although completely resized. When I was small I knew what Ping Pong was but I never really saw a real live table, but it wasn’t until I was 6 years old that I played for the first time.  This took place in Ricardo Blohm’s house and he also taught me how to play and made me the player I am today. I would play for long periods of time in his house, and in the summer of 2008 my parents bought my brother and I a Ping Pong table. I have paid my dues by practicing and today very few people can beat me. In the Ping Pong tournament at school (total of 32 participants) I reached the semi-final and lost 11-9 against an 11^th grader, called Victor Gomez whom I had beaten before. I probably just had a bad day.

 

GoPro Sports Camera

In this blog post I will be switching gears, from television series and movies, to cool gadgets. In 2004, a new, very useful, creative and fun gadget was sold in stores; it was the GoPro sports camera. In 2002, a man named Nick Woodman was on a surfing trip with some friends in Australia. He would take some amazing photos of his friends surfing from the shore of the beach. However, he realized that he was not getting good angles and that the pictures were too far away. That is when he came up with the idea of the GoPro camera, a small waterproof 5 ounce sports camera. At first, this camera was originally created to be planted on surfboards, to obtain amazing footage. Later on, people started mounting them on different things. Now people mount the camera on cars, surfboards and mainly helmets.  I would really love to have one of these cameras since I do some sports where I could use the GoPro, such as biking with my father or playing airsoft with my friends. It would be really cool and interesting to see on video what I was actually seeing with my own eyes. The price of these cameras range from $180 to $300, because there are different types of cameras that you can buy and those are: HD Helmet HERO (being the most expensive), HD Motorsports HERO, HD Surf HERO, HD Naked HERO and the HD HERO (being the least expensive). However, you can buy additional mounts for your specific sports so that you can have a better outcome of the video. To sum things up, the GoPro sports camera was an extraordinary invention which allows us to have views/angles of certain sports scenes that we would not normally be able to appreciate.

Two and a Half Men!

Although in my introduction I stated that I only watched HBO, I forgot to mention that I also love Warner Channel. The reason being is because they pass my favorite TV shows, which are Friends and Two and a Half Men. Obviously, the Friends episodes are all reruns from the years 1994 to 2004. Now all I watch are the Two and a Half Men seasons, over and over again. This TV show first appeared on air on September 22, 2003. This hilarious TV series has been nominated and recognized as the best TV series in the past decade by many companies and newspapers such as The New York Times. The majority of those who read this blog post will most probably be familiar with this TV show. However, for those who aren’t Two and a Half Men stars: Charlie Harper (Charlie Sheen), Allan Harper (Jon Cryer) and Jake Harper (Angus T. Jones). Charlie, a successful “jingle” advertisement creator, lives with his brother Alan (a not too successful chiropractor) in Charlie’s Malibu beach house.  On the weekends, Allan’s teenage son Jake stays over. Another important character who makes me laugh a lot is house maid Berta (Conchata Ferrell). Allan is divorced from his wife Judith Harper-Melnick(Marin Hinkle) and is thrown out of his house. So, Allan begged his brother Charlie if he could stay in his house until he earns enough money to buy his own house.  Allan received part custody of his son so he can keep him on the weekends only. This very successful storyline has been going on for 8 seasons. Unfortunately, due to Charlie Sheen’s drug use and heavy drinking; he has been kicked off the set and replaced by Ashton Kutcher who plays a recently divorced billionaire by the name of Walden Schmidt. Ashton Kutcher premiered the ninth season just recently and will hopefully be able to maintain the success of this great TV show.