It is with great pleasure that I announce our NJ Rockstars 3.5 team is heading over to Arizona to compete in the National Tennis Championships!
Long post to follow.
HR
On the day before beginning my senior year of high-school, I called my parents to a family meeting (my parents are divorced, so I actually had to call my dad and ask him to come over my mom’s). The reason for this unusual request was because I had something important to tell them.
Up until then I had been a straight-A student since the first day I set foot on a school. I was not a particularly hard-working student. Without meaning to sound cocky or anything, from a very young age I knew I could get good grades by being efficient. Don’t get me wrong: I did the work when it was needed and would always deliver nothing but the best. It is just that I always felt that I could rely on my intellectual horsepower, rather than spending endless hours and sleepless nights relentlessly studying countless books.
Up until I used to lie to my parents. I would tell them I would go to someone’s house to study, when in reality I would be doing something else. That is how I was able to develop my social skills, sports ventures and other hobbies. Since at the end of each term my scorecard was full of As, my parents had this perception that I was this highly dedicated to his books kid, whose disciplined efforts were shown at the end of every school year.
That night I told my parents my plan for high-school senior year: “Forget about seeing a single A on my scorecard. It will be all Ds. This year I will do the bare minimum to pass.” To their obvious bewildered look, I followed with: “This year I am taking a well-deserved break.” They gave me a long lecture in a failed attempt to talk me out of my decision, but my choice had been made long before that, and my resolve was absolute. Up until then I used to go out and party. Now I would be deeply committed to partying and nothing more.
There is another element that factored into my decision. For my reader who have not met me, I went to high-school in Venezuela. Over there, the system to get into college is different from the US. You can learn more about it on Chapter two of my book, but the short version is that in Venezuela, senior year high-school has no effect in your college applications. More importantly, due to an overwhelming lack of supply and high demand, good schools have incredibly selective acceptance requirements, which include high GPAs from all your high-school years, plus passing an extremely difficult admissions tests. Since I already had the GPA, my plan was to ace the admissions exam of the most prestigious school in the country. Therefore, my only effort of doing any studying at all during my senior year of high-school, would be dedicated to achieving that goal.
Because of this fact that senior year high-school grades are meaningless in Venezuela and most students would somewhat be aligned with my personal vision, the education system came up with an idea to try to make the school year interesting for seniors. All the interesting topics that we had not learned to that point, would be part of the senior year syllabus: all the great books we had not read, the fun math we had not learned, the cool laboratory experiments we never did, would be featured during our senior year. As you can imagine, due to the constant streaming of daily partying, I missed all of that.
That is how I never got to read most literature classics you were supposed to go through in high-school: Tale of two cities, The divine comedy, War and peace, and… The Iliad and The Odyssey. Slowly but steadily, I have been catching up with them one at a time, and with the upcoming Christopher Nolan movie, the time has come to get my hands on this Greek classic. Once I finish it, I will share my thoughts with you.
HR
Happy birthday America! 250 years!
HR
Following my very elaborate series of comparing soccer / football vs. football, it is time for the corresponding predictor for the upcoming world cup.
With the now unstoppable globalization of the sport, the 2026 edition of the FIFA world cup features an all-time high first occasion of 48 countries, playing across 16 cities spread out also in a first time of three hosting nations: Canada, Mexico and the United States. Given the unusual amount of competing nations, at this point the tournament is more about which countries did not make, rather than the ones that qualified. Teams such as Curacao, Cape Verde, New Zealand, Uzbekistan, and Haiti, who -no offense to then- under more normal circumstances would not have qualified, will now be competing against the “elite” nations of the world.
You can refer to my soccer vs. football series, to understand my reasoning behind quoting “elite”, but the short story is that if there is anything all soccer fans agree on is that the quality of the game has decreased substantially over the last ten years, which is this entry should be relatively brief in terms of predicting who might win. So let’s get on to it right away:
Most likely to be eliminated early on:
- Given their relatively low population, low exposure to high-level competition, lack of resources, and other variables, I find it very hard to see any of the five countries I listed above going beyond the group stage. Surprises are always common occurrences in World Cups, and due to the rough conditions and somewhat forgiving accommodations (IE: hydration break), who knows if any of them could be able to pull an upset.
Host nations:
- Canada, Mexico and the US will somehow make it to the knockout stage. Despite my stars and stripes having my full support, I do believe that unless some incredibly unexpected series of planet alignments occurs and the gods of soccer descend on their squads -perhaps aided by definition of a round of 16 match in penalty rounds-, none of the host teams will reach the quarterfinals.
England and Brazil:
- For the reasons I already mentioned in my soccer vs. football series, I feel confident in ruling out the two former traditionally favorites. England might be able to make it further than Brazil -who might not reach the quarterfinals, and actually might be lucky enough to make it through the group stage. But there is no way that in my life time, the Sun will rise in a world where Harry Kane won a World cup. PS.: Neymar should be starting to handover retirement party invitation cards. PS #2: Add Portugal to this list, and Cristiano Ronaldo to the retirement party hosts.
Cinderella:
- With such a large pool, it is hard to say which underdog team will be the star of the tournament. All CONMEBOL teams are relatively strong, so it would not be fair to call them underdogs, while at the same time foreseeing that at least one of them could make it to the quarters and perhaps semifinals. African teams are always the tournament revelation, so I am going to put it out there, that one of them will generate a huge fuzz, one way or another. Morocco took this role in the last world cup, so even though they could have another great performance, I still feel there is another hidden surprise somewhere coming from Africa.
Deep run:
- Not including the favorites -which will follow below- there are two teams I could see going deep into the final stages, while soundly and convincingly defeating their rivals: Belgium and Norway. Both have potential to reach the semifinals, probably even knocking out Brazil and England in their way.
Favorites that could, but ultimately will not win:
- Germany lost their way after their 2014 victory. Their squad is fresh, but they nowadays play something different.
Finally, let’s talk about the favorites:
- France: really solid team with no visible weaknesses.
- Argentina: they have the best player in the world, albeit past his prime but still capable of being the protagonist. More importantly, they know how to play with Messi and since this is his last World Cup, they are going to play their best for him.
- Spain: an annoyingly defensive team that is filled of young talents, who while not able to display the most visually appealing game, are capable of asphyxiating their opponents to death. I can see them making it to the semis, or somehow meeting against either France or Argentina in an earlier round of the knockout stage, but both the French and the defending champions will ultimately prevail due to their superior offensive.
The verdict: ultimately, I feel it will come down to a repeat of the 2022 final and in this thrilling rematch. By this time, having been the best player in the tournament -along with Mbappe-, Messi will simply be out of gas, underperform in the final, and France will get their revenge, beating Argentina 3-0.
HR
Major spoilers on this entry.
Do not continue if you have not seen Dexter Season Seven and wish to watch it without spoilers.
——————— — ————————
Season Seven stars horribly, poorly, stupidly. I am sorry, but I can’t hold it back. It makes Dexter himself a joke and it turns Debra into a mindless character. She also drags along LaGuerta with her.
What should be an immediate realization from Debra that Dexter is the Bay Harbor Butcher -or whatever you want to call him-, or at the very least to be able to corner him into a confession, turns out to her needing to trash his apartment to find the actual evidence. Luckily, as episodes go by the whole season starts to pick up and redeems itself, until it screws up once again by making the same mistake it did on Season One.
The introduction of both Isaak and Hannah elevate the series, by bringing characters who are relatively smart, competent in their actions and formidable foes to our main protagonist. Like I said, the series repeats the error of killing a great character -Isaak- who could have remained in the background of series as a looming shadow and a silent threat.
The cat and mouse game Dexter plays with both antagonists plays out relatively well and holds the suspense for much of the season. However, the fact that a smart and experienced character such as LaGuerta fails to take the appropriate action to take Dexter down, having collected all the proof of him being who he is, is perplexing to me. Of course I understand that Dexter is the protagonist and that the series has to continue regardless of what happens, but did the writers really need to make the secondary characters so unbelievably incompetent and dumb, so that he can live on?
The Season Finale is a complete disaster. In fact, the series should have ended right there, with Dexter being captured as LaGuerta oversaw both him and Debra being arrested with her final breath.
Sadly, there was a contractual obligation for Season Eight: the worst by far.
HR
If I ever start a YouTube channel, the Tron franchise will probably be either my first or second video.
Tron -the 1982, and the franchise as a whole- has fascinated me for years. It is probably one of the few entertainment products that somehow keeps following an incredibly odd recurring pattern:
- It gets released in an attempt to introduce wide audiences to a niche market.
- It fails miserably.
- It only ends up capturing the interest of people who actually understand it.
- After 10-15 years go by, and they redefine its audience.
Rinse and repeat.
The first film came out in 1982 to mixed reviews and a box-office disappointing results. Very few people liked it and even less understood it. I find it surprising that well-known present day reviewers, people with tremendous experience in the film industry, fail to grasp what Tron is about, even with all the available resources we have in 2026. This is because Tron is a smart movie, made for smart people: computer nerds from that time. Tron is the movie The Matrix wishes to be. The question then is, why did a movie that failed so badly, was able to get a $150 million reboot in 2010? The answer: because of the light-cycle scene. Everyone loves the light-cycle scene. In fact, it is the only thing people think about when discussing Tron. This is how it became a cult film -a term that is loosely used nowadays, however, if there is one film that truly earns it, it is Tron.
So Tron: Legacy came out in 2010, to worse reviews than the original, and somewhat of a breakeven box-office performance -which is hugely disappointing considering the amount of publicity the movie had to try to establish a Star wars-like franchise. Because Legacy’s plot had a direct connection with the 1982 film, audiences were puzzled on what to get out of the movie. But also, since an attempt was made to try to make the story easier to understand for a more mainstream audience, it ended up being neither niche nor wide. If there is one word that can easily summarize Tron, that word is “confusing”. The question then is, why did a movie that failed so badly, was able to get a $200 million reboot in 2025? The answer: because of the light-cycle scene and Daft Punk’s soundtrack. Everyone loves the light-cycle scene and Daft Punk’s soundtrack. In fact, it is the only thing people think about when discussing Tron: Legacy.
A third oddity within the franchise, Tron: Ares came out a few months ago, produced by and starring Jared Leto, who recently has become somewhat of an oddity himself. I have no idea what it is about, but I am completely sure that if there is someone out there who fully understands Tron and is able to figure out a way to make it work to a point where the original 1982 film can be redeemed, that person is not Jared Leto.
HR
Believe it or not, over the last few weeks I have gained a newfound momentum to work on the English version of my book. My editor and I so far have been able to finish one third of the content, which after the considerable pause I put on it, feels pretty satisfying.
In revisiting some of the chapters, I realized that parts of the original release needed a bit of improvement, which means that at the same time I am also working on the second edition of the already released Spanish version. This is relatively good news for future readers, as I am aiming to make the reading as smooth as possible, considering the challenges of dealing with such an elaborate topic.
Considering that I can only dedicate part of my weekends -the only free time I currently have- to this endeavor, I believe it is unlikely that the English version will be published this year. My commitment to the people who are anxious and excited to get my book is still there, so rest assured that my goal is still to make my work available to you as soon as I humanly can.
HR
In another rehash of the past, there is an upcoming He-Man movie -named “Masters of the universe” coming out.
Back when I was a kid, I was never really into He-Man. It was pretty big back then, but I honestly was never into most of those Saturday morning cartoons / weekly afternoon Channel 47 mass produced cartoons that were basically 30-minute commercials to sell action figure toys. I did not dislike He-Man or any similar cartoons, I would watch them every now and then as a distraction, but I never became a fan. For some odd reason, my parents bought me a slew of their toys, which I eventually sold shortly thereafter.
Anyway, it seems that the angle of the movie is somewhere between being comedic, adventurous, and cartoonish, which is quite interesting for an audience that I wonder is around the age of 40 who were contemporary at the time the show was airing back in the 80s. The only way for this movie to succeed is that is follows the framework established by other self-aware / meta movies, such as The Matrix Resurrections and Naked Gun (2025), with the former achieving mixed results given the serious tone of the film, and the latter unexpectedly succeeding against all odds, in its own particular way.
My initial response when finding out of this release was a profound sense of puzzling surprise. Some cartoons stand the test of time, such as the Looney Toons and Tom and Jerry. To me it was very clear back then that cartoons such as He-Man, Silver Hawks, and especially G.I. Joe, would not. Therefore, to see a He-Man movie being released in 2026 is a truly unexpected announcement. Surprisingly, the cast features an interesting selection of high profile actors, such as Camila Mendes, Alison Brie, James Purefoy, Morena Baccarin, Kristen Wiig, and Jared Leto as Skeletor -which I am not sure if it is a good sign since Jared Leto has been recently associated himself with movies that either end up flopping, or with bad reviews, or both. Now that I write about him, I am starting to think Jared Leto deserves his own entry. To think about it, Alison Brie kind of does too. What a quite interesting profile of an actress that is able to deliver a very specific type of lines of dialogue (refer to Annie Edison in “Community“).
Hopefully the movie does not take itself too seriously and we can get a fun flick to laugh off as a Friday night movie in the comfort of your bed. Even if it does not succeed financially, if Jeff Bezos was a huge fan of the series, he can definitely finance twenty sequels!
HR
In preparation for the upcoming World Cup, I would like to discuss the Immortal team picked by Rio Ferdinand, Joe Cole, Michael Owen and Martin Keown.
You can watch the full episode below, and come back to my analysis:
So here’s my take:
Goalkeeper:
- Iker Casillas: although I agree with the reasoning in his selection, I never really thought of Casillas as a great goalie. I always felt he was a very good keeper playing for a great club. I genuinely believe that Buffon, Oliver Kahn and Peter Schmeichel were better than Casillas.
Defenders:
- LB = Roberto Carlos: without a doubt.
- CB = Paolo Maldini: without a doubt.
- CB = Sergio Ramos: same logic with Casillas. While I agree with the panel’s argument of his goal scoring abilities, especially in critical moments, I look at the team holistically, as if I were to line this squad up against an opposing team. Under that scenario, I am really not too concerned about needing a goal scorer, having a midfield and forward lines as powerful as this team has. My concern would be more on defending and preventing the opponents from even getting close to my keeper, which is why I would pick Rio himself over Sergio.
- RB = Dani Alves: similarly to Casillas and Ramos but in a different way, I also feel Dani Alves benefited from the system where he played, which allowed him to showcase an elevated version of what he could do as a RB defender. To me, Phillip Lahm and Cafu surpass Alves, especially because both of them triumphed with their clubs and national squads proving my point, whereas Alves did not.
Midfielders:
Before going into the intricacies of each player, I have to present the justification of my analysis. As it happened with Ramos, the panel favor play making and goal scoring, over actual squad structure. Since they are playing with a 4-3-3 formation, having three CAM -or at the very least two CAMs and one CM- in Iniesta, Zidane and Gerrard, is unfeasible.
Once again, from a holistic and functional point of view, the team needs a CDM / CM in order to shield the defensive line and control the ball. Therefore, while it is appreciated that Makelele, Modric, Seedorf and Scholes were part of the candidates, but to not even mention Busquets and Gatusso? I was actually surprised about that!
So, following my logic, I am obviously not removing Zidane, which leaves Gerrard and Iniesta. It’s a very close call between them and I have nothing but the utmost respect for both legends, but given his ability to play his best in crucial games, proven on multiple occasions, I have to go with Iniesta.
- LM = Zinedine Zidane.
- RM = Andres Iniesta.
- CM = This is a very close call between Claude, Sergio and Gennaro -arguably the three greatest CMs of all time. As much as I loved Gatusso’s passion and full commitment to the cause, and as much as I respect Busquets’ commanding presence in the midfield, I really believe the Claude Makelele’s intelligence, brilliance and absolute impeccable, flawless performance as a controller midfielde, are probably the most overlooked of all time. Without Makelele, there is no Zidane, Figo, Raul, Lampard, Robben and Drogba.
Forwards:
Slight change on my formation, I would have done 4-1-3-2, 1 obviously being Makelele CM, Zidane CAM, Iniesta RW. This leaves:
- LW = Ronaldinho.
- RW = Messi.
- ST = Ronaldo Phenomenon.
Do you like my squad? Share yours in the comments!
HR
I left my previous entry about the series with an intriguing cliffhanger about Season Five. Is Season Five the beginning of the end for Friends? Is it the start of the decline in quality? Is it not as good as Seasons Three and Four. The answer to those questions is a resounding No… with an asterisk.
As I mentioned in Part 3, Seasons Three and Four are the epitome of Friends -along with Season Five as well. As I shared, everyone working in the show is at the peak of their powers, giving it their all, knowing they are building the legacy of one of television’s greatest shows of all time.
Similarly to Three and Four, Season Five has no weak episodes. Also similarly, it contains some of the best quotes of the show:
- “We will, we will, call you back!”
- “Rachel is my wife… EMILY!”
- “My sandwich!”
- “You slept with my sister? This is not good for my rage…”
- “Pivot!”
- “Howard’s the handyman. He’s lived in the building for thirty years.” — “Yeah but I’ve only known him for thirty seconds.”
- “It’s over. He shot a bird.”
- Ross’ entire sequence flirting with the pizza delivery girl.
- Ross’ entire sequence with the trash girl.
- Ross’ entire sequence with Rachel’s sister, Jill.
- “Oh no…” — “In this life, Phoebe.”
If you are a hardcore Friends’ fan, you probably noticed a pattern in the above dialogues: most of the best moments come from either Ross or Phoebe, and here is the problem with Season Five. I am not sure whether it was intentional or not, but right from the first episode Friends becomes three separate shows, the first one being “The Ross Show”.
The Ross Show deals with the misadventures of Ross himself, after failing to say his fiancée’s name Emily at their wedding, instead saying his former girlfriend’s name, Rachel, who also unexpectedly showed up at the reception at the last minute and now inadvertently believes Ross is in love with her. This impromptu prompts Emily to go rogue, which in turn results in Ross going to great lengths to try to save their marriage. Some of his actions including almost hoping on the plane destined to his honeymoon with Rachel, moving from his home just a few blocks away from his friends and office to a new apartment 50 minutes away, and ultimately removing Rachel from his close circle of friends so that Emily does not feel threatened by her. None of these actions of course work out in the end, and Ross and Emily end up divorcing (his second failed marriage before being 30 years-old). More importantly, Ross is faced with a personal crises as he is single, homeless and accumulating a huge emotional baggage that ends up with him yelling at his boss at work over a sandwich, which results in Ross being forced to take a leave of absence in form of sabbatical year.
The Ross Show is by far the most hilarious aspect of Season Five. It seamlessly combines realism and comedy in such a way that you can’t help but to laugh at the man’s misery after every episode, even after each attempt of becoming a normal functional member of society fails miserably. Highlights of The Ross Show include: The One Where Ross Moves In, the obvious The One With Ross’ Sandwich, The One With the Girl Who Hits Joey and The One Where Ross Can’t Flirt.
The second show features in Friends is the actual “Friends show”, which consists of the typical interactions and daily occurrences we have been seeing through the duration of the show. The Friends show features high quality episodes, such as The One with the Yeti, The One with the Inappropriate Sister, and even the more emotional The One with Joey’s Bag.
Then there is the third show – the one that is actually the sole responsible of this fracture: The Monica and Chandler show, and this my dear reader is where the separation between being good and being great begins for Friends. Whereas Seinfeld was smart enough never to develop a true emotional bond among the characters and immensely succeeded in keeping all four protagonists as independent units (aka. “friends”), what in theory sounded like a good idea, in practice turned out to be the downfall of Friends.
Apparently the story goes that after Monica and Chandler hooked up together in London, audiences responded favorably to them being friends with benefits -or whatever connection was going on between them. Hence, the writers decided to turn them into a couple. This was a monumental mistake for many reasons, the main one being that throughout its entire duration, at no point any decent fan of Friends doubted that regardless of whatever transpired on any of the plots or subplots, eventually Ross and Rachel were going to end up together. You see at its core, Friends was always a show about Ross and Rachel, with the other four characters not necessarily being ranked as secondary, but more like being supportive of them being the primary relationship that glued the group together.
In the past, Friends had firmly established -even on multiple occasions- that Monica and Chandler were exactly that, Friends, and nothing more. I am all for being open for trying new things and even changing what has been established, but in this case I honestly believe that having Monica and Chandler dating long-term was detrimental to the show. I never really felt that love chemistry between them, and always thought of them as friends who found themselves awkwardly dating. To me it felt like Monica and Chandler had been friends for a very long time, and they ended up having a good physical relationship only because they were desperate and had ran out of options before being thirty years-old, which sounds odd. From my perspective, you can find stay single as long as you want and find true love in your 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s.
I guess you could say that their relationship grew from friendship to love, but genuinely never got that feeling from the show (character-wise or story-wise). I would have been fine with them dating for the season and breaking up in the end, potentially opening the door for more supporting characters to be part of the show -as it would eventually happen with Paul Rudd in Season Nine. I also did not like how the rest of the characters reacted after finding out they were dating. Surely, they all show some level of surprise to various degrees, but I find it hard to believe that not one of them expressed even a puzzling feeling of strangeness out of the rarity from picturing two of their best friends together. Moreover, at no point they even discuss how odd the whole situation is. Instead, they straight go to default and feel happy for them, including Ross, who is under medication for emotional instability, and have known both Monica and Chandler the most out of all the characters, so you would figure that if someone would be utterly shocked and baffled about his sister and his best friend dating, it would be him. Instead, he quickly discards any criticizing emotion, and feels happy for them… they all feel happy for them. Hence, Friends started to become, “The Happy Friends Show”, where everyone is happy, no lessons will be learned, and everything will be alright for everyone. From this moment and on Friends became the 90s version of “Happy Days”.
Due to this fracture created by the Monica and Chandler plot, Season Five is where the show started to lose me a little bit. It is not however, the inflexion point (aka: the jump the shark point) of the show. That happens in Season Six, and I can pinpoint with exact precision where that moment is.
You will learn of it in my next entry. Stay tuned.
HR