February 13, 2007

I splashed out and bought a Wilson nTour Two racquet. I love the thing! It's such an improvement from my previous racquets (Prince Lob Ti100 -very cheap beginner's racquet- and Wilson Hammer Profile 4.3 -an over-powered racquet), both of which were picked for me before I even started playing tennis. The head size is a lot smaller than what I'm used to, but as it is such a lovely all-rounder racquet, it didn't take that much to get used to. It's so much easier to put topspin on the balls - I am able to put a lot more power into my shots and still have them landing in! The racquet is also very stable - there was absolutely none of the vibrations I got from my two previous racquets whenever I hit the balls.

I know the racquet doesn't make a great tennis player - I certainly believe that a good racquet is not the silver bullet that will make you Roger Federer - but I can tell you using a racquet that's not a good fit for you, or just plain not good enough, isn't going to help your game any. If anything, a bad racquet will get you into bad habits, and a good racquet can help unleash your better shots. Case in point is my years of using a Yonex Carbonex 9400 for badminton - for a long time I wonder why other people manage to generate so much power on their hits with so little effort. I wondered whether I was lacking in power, but I made the switch to a Yonex Muscle Power 66 and I found that my game, and the power of my shots, improved by threefold. People started asking what I did to so dramatically improve my game, and wouldn't believe me when I told them all I did was switch racquets. No silver bullet, but them sticks with strings don't come for $300+ for nothing either.

10:13 PM

February 18, 2007

If I had a week free in Melbourne, I would:
- Be cooking everyday. I would try out cake and cookie recipes. Must bake kaastengels and brownies.
- Go wine tasting over the weekend, and stay at a winery resort.
- Try out every single top-rated Melbourne restaurant and bar I hadn't gotten around to trying. There aren't many left that I know of, but there are more to discover!
- Play tennis every morning. Maybe every evening too, but depending on the weather I might play badminton in the evenings. Definitely see my tennis coach at least two or three times.
- Trade shares. Play in the ASX game. These things require more constant attention than I can give, but they intrigue me.
- Share every brunch, lunch, and dinner with my lovely friends, and my brother. Definitely see my friends everyday - more than I do now.
- Go to Borders, buy about 3 top-rated fiction novels, 3 top-rated, most interesting marketing/business books, and 1 self-improvement book.
- Read the aforementioned books.
- Use what time remaining to draw. Lots.

Of course, the most likely thing to happen if I had a free week would be for my family to get together, and we'd go off on a vacation - certainly just as terrific as all the items on the whole list above combined.

More to the point, however - now do you see why I don't get to update this site often? I love doing too many things ;)

10:41 PM