TK

LQA Exclusive!!

2007-05-18T01:30:00.000-07:00

Don't you love how "Exclusive!" is some kind of signifier that you have to respect? What's that about? It's like a tacit admission that there are things that the pub should not be involved with, save through a relationship with your shitty news source

I digress.

So I was out on my run today on Queen Anne Ave. and who should I pass that was pushing a baby stroller but Nick Collison? I didn't even know that he had a kid. Honestly, I didn't look to see if there was a baby in the stroller. It could have been an elaborate hoax on.... I don't know.

Anyway I couldn't resist saying something to the LQA First Half MVP. Here follows the interview:

Me: "What's up, Collison?"
Nick: "Hey, how are you doing?"

And scene.

I elected to go with the Collison for the address because I was subconciously thinking, "Were this guy in my fraternity what would I call him?" It seemed to go over well.

Camm's great take on Spurs - Suns

2007-05-15T12:52:00.000-07:00

I've been emailing Camm about the Spurs and Suns because he's the only Spurs fan I know and he penned an epic and spot on defense of the Spurs. Here it is:

I feel like the spurs are playing in the wrong era right now. The NBA is soft. You look at a guy like Amare Stoudamire. Huge black dude covered in really 'tough' tats. Something happens to him in a game in this series that he doesn't like so what does he do? Whines like a little bitch. If bowen had done that to Rick Mahorn, Lambeer, Magic, Bird, DJ, or Isaih, they'd have been scraping him off the court in game 2, AND EVERYONE WOULD HAVE LOVED IT.

The Spurs play that kind of ball. Horry's shot to nash was re-diculous, but it was also great. he was pissed that the Spurs were going to lose, so he knocked the shit out of the 2 time league MVP. Good for him. When the NBA was in its golden age, it was full of superstars who would slit someone's throat in order to win. Teams don't have that right now. Some of the teams are exciting to watch on some levels, but honestly, the closest we get to seeing the old school kind of ball is from Charles Barkely in the studio, and the Spurs.

Sure they may be 'fundamental' and play 'good defense' which are synonyms for boring, but they are also the closest thing the league has to a dynasty and they have more excitement around the team than they get credit for. Duncan essentially got a ref of almost 30 years fired, Ginobli pisses everyone off with his style of play, Parker (who is way underrated, without him they are nothing) has a supermodel in the stands everynight, and then you've got the Horry's and Bowens who are great role players but who bring controversy everywhere they go. I fail to see how this team is boring.

Look at the rest of the league. nash, Lebron, Boozer, Amare, Kidd.... all great players but none of them have the aura surrounding them that suggests they will do whatever to win. You're hatred of the spurs tells me you have bought into this new NBA and explains why you like Luke Ridnour (how can that be??). You like the up and down tempo (even though the old school NBA had a lot of scoring), but you also like to tone down the controversy. Lets be honest though, Robert Horry's forearm to Steve Nash made this a better series.

My responses in short. I totally agree that what separates the Spurs is that they want it more than everyone else. I think Steve Nash wants to win as bad as any of the Spurs and the Suns are following suit. He's dead right that the controversy makes the series better.

As far as a defense of Ridnour. My love/hate relationship with him is well documented but exhibit A for the defense remains this saucy clip that I've linked a half dozen times already to. But I'll show it again.

I'll let this fantastic Camm addendum to his email close the post.

Addendum:

Nothing illustrates my point more than the articles I'm reading today saying Amare and Diaw are going to be suspended for leaving the bench. What a friggin joke. The NBA should review the tape and suspend every guy who didn't leave the bench. This is the NBA playoffs, not little league. The old mantra, "it's not whether you win or lose....." is not true. It is whether you win or lose. 100's of millions are at stake, both in salary and revenue. The players should act accordingly.

So good.

Spurs vs. Suns

2007-05-14T23:52:00.000-07:00

(Remember that quick strikes gimmick? It will be BACK. I promise. New segment. In the mid 90s MTV switched from delivering the oblique "videos for undetermined amount of time" programming to stricter half hour segments. I need more segments. = Quick Strikes)

Here's my take on the Robert Horry bullshit: It was fucking bullshit on the part of Mr. Robert Horry.

Wild take, I know.

That motherfucker should be suspended for the rest of the series. He will only get one game. Mr. Barkley on the postgame show was imploring the powers that be to not suspend Diaw and Soutdemire for "leaving the bench". I put that in quotes because combined those players put one foot on the court. Still, they crossed the line that the league designates as bench area. Though it isn't fair, expect the league to suspend both of these players for Game 5.

The NBA has shown in the past that it will reward a cagey dirty play by punishing the team that the dirty play is committed against. I am of course talking about the Pace Show - Pistons brawl at the Palace. Ben Wallace instigated a fight in that instance with a cheap shot against Ron Artest. The Pistons were getting blown out at home at the time. Ron Artest commited a legit foul against Wallace that Big Ben took a giant exception to. Ron then lies down on the scorer's table because he's a bit of a weirdo (understatement), and then a fan throws beer on him.

Ron and subsequently the Pace Show have a totally legitmate reaction to having beer thrown on them: They want to BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF WHOEVER DID IT. And then they do. And the league suspends Artest for the season and disbands Detroit's only legitimate competition in the East. Not just for the season mind you, because Indiana was broken up after that year. They were wildly talented and it all went up in smoke that day in the "Palace".

As if Detroit would have a Palace. Seriously.

Thinking about it. These Spurs fans missed a big opportunity here. They could have started hurling beer at the Suns. The Suns would have reacted like humans and tried to beat those assholes up, and they would have been suspended for the rest of the playoffs. Honestly if the fans were as dirty/cagey as the team they support they would have done this.

The Spurs are a piece of shit team. It starts with Bowen. Horry has now sunk to his level. Duncan is the biggest whiner in hoops.

I'm a bad writer because I was not consistent with my tenses within sentences. (Attempted grammar joke) Like ever.

PS The worst part about the Horry on Nash violence is that it distracts people from the fact that the refs stole the game from the Spurs with a sequence of dubious calls during the second half to keep Phoenix within 7-11 points.

Word.

Quick Strikes

2007-05-13T15:14:00.000-07:00

SKKKKEEEAAAAAM SHRIIIIAAAKKK (Quick Strikes)

San Antonio is infuriating to watch. Amare Stoudemire was totally in the right calling them a dirty bunch. The refs respond to anyone questioning the Spurs' unfairly earned choir boy reputation by not allowing Amare to play. And he still got 21 in the 19 minutes he was on the floor. There is no difference in the way Tim Duncan and Rasheed Wallace react to fouls called against them. One gets thrown out because society thinks he's an n word. The other is immune because he stayed in college for four years. What the fuck is that about?

Dear David Stern,

Just because the Spurs players used to go to church together, and that some of them are from other countries does not prelude them from being dirty motherfuckers. I hate them. Nobody wants to watch them/will watch them where everyone wants to and will watch the Suns. Pull your head out.

PS If the Sonics leave town and I subsequently see you in person, I will be going to jail. FYI

LAZAAAAAM HEEEEEAAAARRRRRGGGEEE (Quick Strikes)

How about Everton today huh? In my first game as a supporter Everton went into Chelsea and came out with a point. They honestly should have won the game but were done in by two shady officiating decisions. Chelsea's Ferrara slaughtered Arteta which the ref inexplicably ruled no foul. In the immediately ensuing play Drogba finished for Chelski with Everton's finest still writhing on the rain slicked turf. Everton boss David Moyes was so furious he went out on the field to scream at the referee. The referee responded by sending a rightfully outraged Moyes to the opposing stands.

Imagine if this were a UW Oregon basketball game and Ernie Kent got sent into the Dawgpack because the refs were sick of hearing him. What an amazing convention! Well done premiereship. When they showed pictures of Moyes from then on Chelsea fans were chatting him up and bothering him. But he was in the rich seats so there was no real danger.

Anyway Everton man of the match was 18 year old wonderkind James Vaughan. He scored Everton's go ahead goal to finish a wonderful counter attack that wobbled mighty Chelsea. He almost produced a stunning volley off a cross from Arteta shortly thereafter that required all of Cech's ability to parry it away.

In other news Everton apparently is in the mix to acquire Man City's Joey Barton. This guy apparently is talented but available on the cheap because he recently...oh...punched the shit out of one of his teammates in practice. He's not a character guy in the traditional sense. Or he is, because he sounds like quite the character. I have no opinion.

I do however think it's a shame if the Toffees don't resign Fernandes. Frankly he's one of the few players on the roster with the flair required to do anything in Europe next year.

QUICK STRIKES!!!!!! That was rousing.

An email. A momentous email.

2007-05-10T23:17:00.000-07:00

From me to Winner. A confession. My sports allegiance list:

Huskies (everything)
Seahawks
Supes
Bombs
Pace Show
Twinks
EVERTON FC

I was watching an Everton-Arsenal match on Fox Soccer Channel earlier
this year and it was one of those hilarious games where the announcers
are opposing fans and talk shit to one another all game. The Arsenal
guy was talking like an annoying big brother the whole game talking
about how Everton was unimportant blah blah blah. So the game is
zeroes until the 90th minute or so and lo and behold Everton get the
goal at home for the unexpected win. The Everton announcer who for
the most part had been deferring to the greatness of Arsenal (who had
the run of play all game but just couldn't score) launches into a
wonderful celebration.

"Everton! AHHHHHHHHHHHH! They've had the better chances!"
(Technically true but not really true.)

"They deserved it!" (Not true.)

"Andy Johnson! England finest striker!" (He was making this claim
all game but it was jokey at first. Became serious once he scored.)

Yesterday I'm sitting at home doing my math homework and watching more
FSC because soccer is great background television. The game is
Everton - Portsmouth. Apparently Everton has a chance to play in
Europe next year because they're fifth in the Premiership, but they
have to win this game. After an ugly first half Everton comes out of
the locker room on fire and scores two goals to ensure the victory.
The crowd is going apeshit. They even get a third goal in the 90th
minute on a diving header by a guy who was inserted into the game
seconds eariler.

I used to think I liked Liverpool as far as the Premiership goes, but
that's stupid. They're too easy to root for because they're too rich.
Therefore I'm switching my support to their bitter bitter rivals
Everton. Wikipedia informs me that Everton actually have a decent
history. (I made what to me seems like a British "has/have" decision
there in that last sentence.) Plus I get to hate Wayne Rooney more
because he stabbed Everton in the back by jumping to Man U after
saying he would always play for the Blues.. I hate him anyways so
bonus. Paul McCartney is a celebrity fan. Go Blues!! Go Toffees!!
Go (whatever else they're called)!

My first game as a supporter will be a delayed broadcast of their
season finale against Chelsea on Sunday at 11;30 am. Then we get to
play in the UEFA Cup next year (barring a double digit loss or
something absurd to Chelsea). Ha. WE! It feels right.

Warriors Mavericks Third Quarter

2007-05-03T23:41:00.000-07:00

So I'm watching the second half of the amazing Warriors Mavs show tonight that I recorded on the old DVR. I recognize that this game will be wildly underrepresented on the blogosphere - psychballs, so (anyway) I'm telling you what happened.

The Mavs were within 5 points with 7:15 to go in the third. Amazing. They're about to get taken to the cleaners. Stephen Jackson has just hit his third three in the last two minutes of game action. Jackson has just hit his fourth three in the last two minutes of game action. He has scored 13 straight Warrior points. Steve Kerr on the call: "Stephen Jackson just does not care." Isn't that the key to life. When you don't give a fuck you can shine. All of a sudden the Maves are down 12. Dirk is a total non-factor. I'm sure people will lay off that tomorrow in the papes. Austin Croshere is in the game and suddenly is an option on offense.....with decidedly unsexy results.

Don Nelson looks like he's about 8 drinks in. Croshere takes another shot. Austin Croshere takes and misses his third shot in a row. B Diddy gets to the rack hambone and all. 5 minutes to go. Diddy to the rack again and Croshere with the cheap shot foul. Apparently they were high school teammates. UCLA and Purdue in the building. Who wins that? UCLA always, and I'm a UW guy. And a Croshere guy. Mavs down 14 all of a sudden.

Cuban looks like he knows what's about to happen. This series is so good because it's fun to see a billionaire go for something he can't buy and fail. Props to Cuban. America's owner for sure. Stephen Jackson to the line with the Mavs down 16 now. At the half the Warriors were lucky to be in this game. Barry Bonds has rejuvenated Diddy's ham. How about Comcast getting a shit load of pub on those "We Believe" placards? Well played corporate America.

Jet jacks a three and misses with 3 and a half to go and misses. Mavs down 18. Dirk is literally not in the game. Wow. MVP. Can they give it to Nash retroactively? Stack steps out of bounds for another Mavs turnover. Biedrins on the line after the Mavs have employed the hack a euro strategy. Biedrins hits two and that's it. It was meant to be. He's a ridiculously poor free throw shooter form wise and manages to coax two in. Kerr rightfully points out that hacking Biedrins here with 3 to go in the third means that Avery Johnson doesn't think that the Mavs can stop the Warriors. Ahhh TNT coverage. So good.

Broken zone and Matt Barnes BOOOOSH on Dirk's sorry mug. Warriors up 23. Dirk looks about as effective as his facial hair. Baron can't come out because his hamstring might tighten up. Good thing because he's actually getting faster and better as this goes on. Devin Harris hits a three to make the lead 19. Diddy responds going right to the hole and buckets. Howard clanks a three. Devean George is shooting threes for the Mavs for pete's sake. Wow.

Closing possession of the third and George clanks another three. Warriors take the pivotal third quarter 36-15. They're up 23 and conceivably need only about six point and to play average defense to win the game at this point.

Obviously they end up with more and coast. Barkley gets his comeuppance and responds admirably by wearing a G State shirt on the post game show. He also rips Diggler a new one and rightfully so.

My mental soundtrack for this game has been Too Short's "Oakland". Download it. It's a hilarious song that adds to the swagger of the Pacers...I mean Warriors.

Straight from the West/Oakland is the best/Baby it's so fresh!!!

I wear a MEAN dark pair of shades

2007-04-23T22:47:00.000-07:00

I just want to say regarding the Mavs-Warriors series and the Spurs-Nuggets series: Though the teams I actually am rooting for won....let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Allen Iverson can be scary in a game one scenario. Let us not forget his Finals year where he went up 1-0 on the Lake show. The Sixers were then unceremoniously swept off the map by a team that gave major minutes to Tyrone Lue. Guarding AI nonetheless. Dee Brown has given Mr. Lue all the credit in the world for inspring him/her as the first woman to make the league. Juwanna punchline? Everybody meet Mr. Me Too.

Stephen Jackson fired gunshots outside a strip club this season. You cannot rely on this guy day to day. (If A then B, as that brand of dude says.) The beloved Pace Show could not win consistently with these fellers in the lEastern Conference. These Golden State Pacers will not win consistently in the playoffs. I want them to, but let's get real. Ayvuhray Johwnson is going to realize that he has 14 feet of (.....) that City can't match.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves.

(Hey you! Comment! About anything!)

........and yet I'm not done. The NBA first round is such a sick spectacle because it doesn't sort out who the best team is. Sure, the best teams usually (read: always except for Dikembe in the T Dome) advance, but the NBA first round is amazing because you have sixteen decent to good to occasionally transcendant teams.

Aside: Did you know that the Tacoma Dome is the world's largest structure made of wood? Wild. That's how you win All America City 1983-84.

The golden rule of the NBA First Round is THOU SHALT BALL. Look at Spurs vs. Nuggets. Who can fucking ball in this series? The order of operations in this tilt goes AI, Carmelo, Michael Finely (note: originally a misspell but since adopted as nickname), Manu, Tony. The Spurs don't feature their ballinest talent. You have to fight ballin' with ballin' on some level. The Spurs will definitely just out execute Denver over the course of the next 5, but each round of the NBA Playoffs requires evolution. These Spurs might win...yet prove incapable of balling which will prove to be their tragic flaw shortly after.

IT'S A MAN'S LEAGUE.

PS Corrections Department: I referenced in my last post a book I loved, and I ashamedly got the author's name wrong. That means you the reader gets a prize. Simply email me and I will pay for the postage of sending Jack MCCALLUM's Seven Seconds or Less to you. I only have one copy, obviously. The only qualification is that at some point you have to give me the book back.

Western Conference Playoff Preview

2007-04-18T22:05:00.000-07:00

I was going to make an Eastern Conference preview first, but who knows if I'll write again tomorrow so I'd better just get the West out of the way.

Mavericks vs. Warriors (Mavs in 4)
Much will be made of the Warriors sweeping the regular season series vs. the Mavericks. Speculation will abound that Don Nelson has the secret to beating the Mavericks. I would like to note that the reason that Don Nelson was fired, excuse me - "retired", is because the Mavs couldn't win in the playoffs.

You might think that because I'm predicting a sweep I'm not excited for this series. Wrong. This will be crucial viewing. First of all it is time to really get reacquainted with the vicious unstoppable chameleon attack of the Dallas Mavericks. Dirk is a given. Stack is proven. What fascinates me is how much this team relies on scorers who can't really score in Jet Terry and Josh Howard. I love the scorer who can't really score, because it's who I think I am in the pickup game sense. I can get mine in streaky situations especially early in games, but when it comes down to it you don't really want me shooting. On the other hand, I function best when the other team is keying on someone else and I slip in for a bucket or two. I think these prime conditions for scoring also apply best to Josh Howard and Jet Terry albeit in a they are much better than me sense.

As far as the Warriors, there are going to be some inspired sequences of play between B Diddy, Monta Ellis, J Aura, Stephen Jackson and Al Harrington. There will also be some terrible stretches of play. Honestly if you want to know who I'm rooting for in this series it's actually the Golden State Pacers...I mean Warriors.

Suns vs. Lakers (Suns in 6)
We saw this series a year ago and it was awesome. Raja vs. Kobe!!!! The problem with the Suns last year is that they needed seven games to dispatch the Lakers and the Clippers. By the time they got to game seven against the Mavs they were spent. Steve Nash needs rest and they only way to guarantee it is to get rid of clown teams in the early rounds. I pray they do because the Suns are the great hope of the NBA. If I haven't demanded you read Seven Seconds Or Less by Jack McCullough btw, you should read it. I have a copy. I'll loan it to you. Unfortunately I think it's too hard to get rid of Kobe in the expedient manner the Suns require for success. I'd love to be proven wrong.

Spurs vs. Nuggets (Spurs in 4)
In which winners meet the gifted. It's a shame that the ether of success so prevalent in Iverson and Carmelo doesn't translate into anything tangible. I love potential because it's all I am, but in the end what matters is results. The Spurs have it in a cold efficient manner. The Nugs do not. I read recently that Tom Wolfe dogged George Karl because his system only ever worked with Gary Payton and to a far lesser extent Andre Miller running the show. Anything less like say Steve Blake, would be uncivilized. However, I hope the Nuggets become a story. Please.

Jazz vs. Rockets (Rockets in 7)
What a fucking conference!!! Who wants to play either of these teams? NO ONE!! And it's the 4-5. Derron Williams? Welcome to the big stage, in what unfortunately I fear is a wakeup year for you. Boozer can beat up Yao when he's on offense. No one can stop Yao when he's on offense. Tracy is ready to write a new chapter to his career. Kirilenko? Okur? Get ready.

Projected Conference Semis
Mavs vs. Rockets
Suns vs. Spurs

I'm more than ready for this. A lackluster regular season has given way to what could still be a post season for the ages.

Baby, I Could Never Stay Mad At You

2007-04-16T22:37:00.000-07:00

I know I said I wanted to trade Ridnour two posts ago. I take it back. I was in a rage. He's a young Steve Nash. He's a young Steve Nash. Steve Nash doesn't play defense. Steve Nash wasn't actually good until he was 30-something. Relax. Relax. Take one of these:

And I'm watching the South Park movie right now out of Monday night boredom. I still think it's what humanity evolved to. I don't think much has changed positively since then.

Sorry I haven't been sharing my wonderful takes on the NBA lately. Been living instead. It's playoff time now though fuckers. Go Raptors!!!

LQA All NBA 2006-07 First Half

2007-02-16T10:55:00.000-08:00

PG - Deron Williams
SG - Brandon Roy
SF - Luol Deng
PF - Boris Diaw
C - Nick Collison (LQA MVP)

Honorable Mention
Monta Ellis
Shane Battier
Dwight Howard
Jose Calderon
Kevin Martin
David Lee

All Star Weekend anticipated events
1. Charles Barkley racing Dick Bavetta
2. Rookie - Sophomore game
3. Skills Challenge
4. Three Point Shootout

The league won't allow Dwight Howard to raise the hoop to twelve feet in the dunk contest this weekend. Disaster.

NBA.com has "widgets". I'll probably put one of these up in every post for a player I currently am enjoying.

Trade Ridnour, Hire Dwane Casey

2007-01-24T09:00:00.000-08:00

Dwane Casey is the coach we wanted to replace Nate McMillan, but while Nate was wasting our time by pretending he had any interest in turning down 18 million Paul Allen dollars Dwane was snatched up by the Timberwolves. Now? That fucking idiot Kevin McHale fired Dwane Casey after less than two years!! (If only McHale was black or not an ex-Celtic, then the Sports Guy would rip him every day. He's every bit as incompetent as Isiah.) I kind of like Bob Hill, but after attending the Sonics-Nuggets game last night it's evident that these Supes could use a change. Crunch time offense was literally to get the ball to Ray. Good in theory, but when four players on the court are passing up makeable shots to make bad passes to a double teamed Jesus that's trouble. Besides, my main reason for liking Bob Hill is that he rocks Pat Riley's hair better than Riley does nowadays.

Firing Bob Hill allows the Supes to put the past one and a half seasons in a box, to be referred to as "The Bobs' Years". We bring back a coach who knows the organization inside and out who commits to the defensive end of the floor. It would also make Ray Allen the second most important person in the huddle during timeouts. I love Ray, but it's clear that both Weiss and Hill had little sway over him. You may remember this coaching formula as the one that won us 50+ games two years ago.

Supes up? Nick Collison is on a tear. Look up his game log and be shocked by the last two weeks.

Supes down? Point guards. We need to trade Ridnour and draft a one. He's just too inconsistent and if he hasn't clicked by now ain't gonna. Let's work out something with the Cavs. LeBron wants him and he would be a great fit there.

Know Your Enemy: Portland Trailblazers

2006-11-01T17:06:00.000-08:00

12 LaMarcus Aldridge F
2 Dan Dickau PG
3 Juan Dixon G
24 Stephen Graham G
1 Jarrett Jack PG
9 Raef LaFrentz FC
21 Jamaal Magloire C
23 Darius Miles SF
25 Travis Outlaw F
10 Joel Przybilla C
50 Zach Randolph PF
11 Sergio Rodriguez G
7 Brandon Roy G
5 Ime Udoka SF
8 Martell Webster GF

Coach:
Nate McMillan

Starters:
PG Jarret Jack
SG Brandon America
SF Ine Kamoze
PF Randolph
C Joel Przybilla

Bench:
Travis Outlaw
Martell Webster
Juan Dixon
Jamaal Magloire
Dan Dickau

None of the teams in the Northwest Division are going to win the championship this year. Knowing this the merit of the individual franchises has to be measured on the long term plan. I've blasted Minnesota and Denver recently, even though despite my predictions they could both finish above five hundred. Neither of them has a chance of doing anything more than that though, and there's no plan.

Portland also doesn't have a plan, but they have taken a crucial step that Minnesota and Denver have yet to take: They admit that to themselves. What the Blazers have done is rid themselves of Qyntel Woods, Rasheed Wallace, Damon Stoudemire, Ruben Patterson, and any other player that's been part of that ridiculously caustic franchise to start it all over. All they have left to do is get rid of D Miles. I maintain that you can keep Zack Randolph because one bad apple isn't so bad when surrounded by high character apples. That's not how the saying goes, but I think that's reality. I base that on Rasheed when he first got to Detroit, and the Glenn Robinson season in San Antonio.

What's left in the Rose City is Randolph, and a suddenly sparkling character starting five featuring Brandon Roy, Jarret Jack, and Joel Przybilla. There's also some guy starting at the 3 named Ime Udoka. I referred to him as 90s dancehall star and renowned hotsteppa Ine Kamoze above...did you even notice? He's immaterial. Przybilla was a shot blocking machine last year who they somehow got to resign in that crappy town. I guarantee you Detroit would rather have him than Nazr. We all know about Brandon, and Jack just seems like a lunchpail guy to me. I like him. One day we'll look up and he'll be a 15 year veteran. Steve Kelley time:

This team still sucks, but at least they suck with a purpose.

Salary paragraph time...(bringing up hoopshype looking for anything glaring to write about)...unfortunately they are committed to 9 mil per year to Mr. Miles and his freak honeys from Mount Holyoke through the next three seasons. Other than that things could be worse. Luckily in the NBA a sucker is born every minute, and someone will talk themselves into that contract. Randolph gets 17.3 in 2010/11, but if they can get his head on straight he could be worth it. Big if, but you have to take a shot somewhere and it might as well be with a 20-10 low post beast.

On the court:
Jarret Jack is a physical working class point guard. He takes care of the ball to the tune of a 2:1 assist to turnover ratio, which will only improve with time. His jumper is abysmal from beyond the arc, but I'm willing to give him time because it's just his second year. I think not having to worry about Steve Blake taking his minutes will lead to an improved performance. (You may ask if I'm worried about Dan Dickau taking his minutes - I'm not.)

Brandon Roy is the rookie of the year. The only way he doesn't win is if he gets hurt or gets the award stolen from him by some douche from a bigger media market. I can't wait to watch Brandon's basketball IQ on the pro stage. Him and Jack provide one of the better defensive guard tandems in the league. I couldn't be more excited.

Ime Udoka.......................who? In 03-04 he played 4 games with the Lakers. Last year he played 8 games with the Knicks. Portland clearly values his big city experience which will allow him to serve as a media relations mentor to the younger players on the roster. Or something. He's also 29 years old. Apparently he went to Portland State. I'm moving on.

Zack Randolph is crazy. He can use this crazy for good or for evil. When he's good he is very very good, providing the Northwest Division's most intimidating post presence. As stated above I like him on a character team. If Portland were smart they would hire an assistant coach whose sole job description is to keep Randolph away from D. Miles.

Joel Przybilla quietly had a decent season last year. He was the most consistent player on that awful team despite his pedestrian averages. I like him, too. Best C-PF combo in the division says I. If you think I like him only because he was a Gopher, you might be on to something.

Benchwise Travis Outlaw always destroys summer league. He has to be able to do it against the big boys one of these years you would think. Martell Webster looked like a lost little boy last year when I watched him, which is what he was. The Blazers rave about his jumper, but I didn't see it. I guess looking at the numbers he shot a solid 35% and it will only get better. That's the thing with these Blazers: they all get the benefit of the doubt because they're young. I promise to shit on them next year.

It will still be a miracle if this team wins 30 games this year, but I think they're in the right direction. They ought to be in the TankitforOden Championship Series come the end of the season, and that should be fun to watch. Despite their promise I always have this to say to the once and forever jailblazers: Fuck you Portland.

Know Your Enemy: Minnesota Timberwolves

2006-10-31T16:59:00.000-08:00

42 Vin Baker F
30 Mark Blount C
31 Ricky Davis G
4 Randy Foye G
21 Kevin Garnett F
41 Eddie Griffin F
23 Trenton Hassell G
16 Troy Hudson G
13 Mike James G
55 Marko Jaric G
35 Mark Madsen C-F
1 Rashad McCants G
9 Justin Reed F
5 Craig Smith F
6 Bracey Wright G

Coach:
Dwayne Casey

Starters:
Mike James PG
Ricky Davis SG
KG SF
Griffin PF
Blount C

Bench:
McCants G
Foye G
Hudson G
Jaric G
Madsen F-C

I just wasted a lot of time trying to figure out this team's optimum rotation. Where are the fucking forwards? Where are they? Who is Justin Reed? Vin Baker? What is happening here? I've decided as a feature of this blog's blockbuster "Know Your Enemy" series there will be one Steve Kelley memorial one-sentence paragraph per entry. Here's the Timberwolves':

Kevin McHale is such a horrible gm that if he were black, the Sports Guy would murder him as much as he does Isiah Thomas.

There. That was fun. Anyhow, Kevin Garnett alone makes this roster competitive. His career has been totally wasted in Minnesota, especially over the recent years. You just get done with team cancers Sam Cassell and Latrell Sprewell, and you acquire Ricky Davis and Mike James? Shit, you invite Vin Baker to training camp and allow him to stay on your roster?

If I were a fan of this team I would spend a lot of my time beating my head against a wall. It's not like the Sonics are the greatest team in the world (yet), but at least there's a concept. Much as with the Nuggets, I have no idea what's happening here. What do the Timberwolves do? This team only won 33 games last year because they make no sense.

Salary-wise Minnesota is using an unprecendented tactic of one max deal, six mid-level exceptions, and six veteran minimums. They are only paying for one good player, and that's why they only have one good player. Look at this breakdown and make sense of it. I dare you.

On the court:
Mike James was acquired for some reason. I don't really get why. He's a shoot first player who has admitted that if it weren't for basketball he would be a criminal. In case you think I'm paraphrasing here is the quote:

If I wasn't playing basketball, I'd be a criminal. That's the only other thing I knew besides basketball. That's the only other thing that came natural to me besides basketball.

That's sure to play well in Edina. James is a streaky scorer who can light it up at times, but he needs too many shots to feel good about himself. The reason highly touted rookie Randy Foye won't see enough minutes right away lies with Mr. James and their two guard......Ricky Davis!!

I can't actually remember what Ricky Davis did to become so hated. He's a rich man's Flip Murray. Of possibly the entire division, Ricky Davis is capable of the sauciest plays. Most fun player to watch on this team. He also bears a resemblance to Andre 3000.

Kevin Garnett we all know about. He probably spends too much time trying to be a perimeter player, but who can blame him? If they surrounded him with some fucking talent maybe he would have some incentive to bang down low where he is unstoppable with his height/athleticism combo.

Eddie Griffin got arrested for driving drunk and crashing his car. It's happened to plenty of players in this league, but what sets Mr. Griffin apart is that he was distracted by masturbating to pornos on his in-car tvs while driving drunk. Props to him for the twist.

Mark Blount shoots jump shots despite being a seven-footer. He pouts when his shot isn't falling and is always a threat to turn into a complete non-factor defensively. When interested he'll block a couple of shots, but that's like saying Mel Gibson is tolerant towards Jews when sober (read: not often).

This team is going to win around 35 games this year. They offended the karma gods by cutting Paul Shirley for Mark Madsen. Paul Shirley said on a recent espn.com chat that the sole reason Mark Madsen is in the league is because his championship experience somehow netted him a contract of which he has ten million dollars guaranteed still. The roster is a total outrage. This team literally made me mad to write about. Fuck you Minnesota.

UPDATE: Read that whole Mike James interview!!! It features the closing line of his desired epitaph:

"Here lies Mike James. It doesn't matter if you loved me or hated me. I was Mike James."

Why I Watch The NBA

2006-10-25T23:08:00.000-07:00

I'm going to try to succinctly explain why I love the NBA so much, because I'm not sure I've ever adequately addressed that point. Somewhere along the line it just became evident to me that I really enjoyed it.

Of the major pro sports (football, baseball, basketball, hockey?), basketball by far takes the least equipment. It also takes the least amount of people to play, and takes the least space. To play it you need a ball, or know someone who has access to a ball. Then you need nine friends, but failing that seven will do, but failing that five will do, but failing that three will do, but failing that one will do. Or you can just practice by yourself. ...play little games and pretend that you're Jimmy King shooting the Wolverines past North Carolina or something like I used to in my driveway. What I'm ineffectively trying to convey (in a long-winded manner) is that basketball is easy to play. I don't know why this is important...but it is.

Basketball allows for a level of artistic expression that the other sports can't match. I'm not trying to sound all "Hiphopsketball: A Jazzebration" on you, but it's the truth. There are no pads between the athlete and the audience, nor a helmet or hat on the head. The only thing that can get in the way is crazy face wear, but that somehow endears players to the fans more. Why else would I know about Kurt Rambis or M.L. Carr? The skill set required is also ridiculously simple. Dribble, pass, shoot, and try to inhibit your opponent from doing so when he has the ball. We can all do that to some degree. The base elements on the palate are primary colors easy...what's amazing about the NBA are the myriad hues that emerge when you get the best players in the world together trying to do the same thing.

A lot of people, and I used to be one of them, talk about how they love college basketball so much more. It's apparently a purer form of competition, and the kids play for the love of the game. I might argue that the kids play for the love of the game because they can't play for money, but whatever. The tragic flaw of college basketball is that garbage players see the court in every game. Now I love Hans Gasser and Brandon Burmeister, who doesn't? It's fun to see those guys play and make the odd basket, but the reason their successes are enjoyable is primarily because it's roundly acknowledged that they are working with less ability than the other guys. (Burmeister to a lesser extent than Gasser, I think Burm can play a little.) Some simile involving cheering for a retard to act like a normal human is eluding me right now. I feel like it doesn't need to be said, but last year's Knicks would have beaten last year's Florida Gators by 50+ points. Saying you enjoy college basketball more than the pros is the same logic used by people who say they like the women's game more than the men's game, just to be clear.

I watch the Association for Dwyane Wade bulldogging his way to the hole and flipping up some improbable garbage that somehow falls. (Incidentally, the basketball player's working knowledge of physics is amazing. I don't know if any of them can articulate a word of it, but they all possess an absurd ability to calculate on the fly where to shoot the ball relative to their motion. Wild to comprehend.) I watch for LeBron still being bigger, faster, and stronger than everyone else on the court as if he's still just preparing for the next level up. I watch for moments in the playoffs like Gilbert Arenas getting into a one on one fast break situation with LeBron guarding him, where he essentially walked right up the "King's" chest and placed the ball in the basket. For Bones Barry during his amazing last two years with the Sonics where he'd part the defense like Moses and explode for a reverse two handed dunk out of nowhere. Kobe can drop 81 whenever. I watch the Suns, when they don't care that both teams have 30 in the first quarter because they know they can keep it up and the other team can't. Amazing shit happens all the time. Isolation plays. Ray Allen driving the lane and dunking lefty on three Spurs in the playoffs two years ago. Devin Harris taking off on the one man fast break that TNT cameras couldn't keep up with. The Mavs not missing shots in game 7 against the Spurs. Ray Allen vs. Kobe regular season battles. Shit, Kobe rising up and bringing the thunder down on Nash in the playoffs last year. Toine dropping a first quarter three and celebrating it with the stoicism of a dowdy old queen on his way back to pretend to play defense. Toine dropping a fourth quarter game clinching three, keeping the same face, but doing the Toine shoulder shimmy.

Incredible feats of athleticism are happening all of the time. I can't even explain it at all but I just love it. And each team gets 82 games starting next week to make a whole new batch of impossible plays. Sorry this was unfocused writing, but maybe I can convey it best in this video (watch at least four times):

Gilbert Arenas

2006-10-13T12:44:00.000-07:00

This will be my succinct league-wide preview, because it's all that I think is important. Behold empirical evidence that solidifies Gilbert Arenas's position as my favorite player in the NBA.

Read this article right now! Prepare to get your mind blown.

And uh....Suns over Pacers in 6.

Know Your Enemy: Denver Nuggets

2006-10-11T17:04:00.000-07:00

Roster:
0 Courtney Alexander G
15 Carmelo Anthony F
11 Earl Boykins G
23 Marcus Camby C-F
4 Anthony Carter G
5 Yakhouba Diawara F-G
30 Reggie Evans F
32 Julius Hodge G
13 Antoine Hood G
43 Linas Kleiza F
6 Kenyon Martin F
24 Andre Miller G
21 Eduardo Najera F
31 Nenê F-C
7 Jamal Sampson F-C
1 J.R. Smith G
8 Joe Smith F

Coach:
George Karl

Starters:
Andre Miller PG
J.R. Smith SG
Melo SF
K-Mart PF
Camby C

Bench:
Nene F-C
Boykins PG
Hodge SG-SF
Smith F

I mean. I guess. I guess you can call that an NBA roster. Kind of. The Denver Nuggets this year will disappoint, because their roster redefines ill-conceived. Despite this, they are the returning champs of last year's absolutely dreadful Northwest Division. Their postseason seed of 3 was so ridiculous last year that the NBA changed it's rules so a team that bad never wins the 3 seed again. I'm pulling a Steve Kelley and making my next paragraph a one-sentencer.

The LA Clippers and Memphis Grizzlies played a game late last year in which both teams actually tried to lose for the right to face Denver in the playoffs.

They were not feared then and have done nothing to get better. On the plus side Carmelo Anthony emerged as Team USA's most effective player. On the minus side the Nuggets' franchise did not rest at all this summer and is likely to break down at some point this year.

Also you have to look at his contract situation as a negative. First a little background: LeBron's entourage turned managers shocked the NBA world this summer by negotiating a 3-year deal instead of signing for the max. The reasoning behind this is the the collective bargaining agreement expires after that and LeBron could be able to sign a ridiculous max contract after this shorter term one. Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh saw the genius in this move and immediately followed suit. Carmelo on the other hand opted to take the full five years and $79 million instead. Melo won't be playing for a new contract for a long time, and thanks to the NBA's guaranteed deals he can do whatever he wants in the interim. Wade and LeBron's contracts were indicative of a hunger to improve whereas Melo just needs his as fast as he can get it. We'll have to see if this turns into an issue. I'm not the only one that's worried.

Speaking of contract debacles, the Nuggets will be paying Nene and Kenyon Martin in 2010-11 a combined $30 million. THEY PLAY THE SAME POSITION!! I'm going to call Nene's contract worse than Kenny Thomas's. And of course Nene's coming off of an injury. Just stupid. This is why Rick Sund deserves props. He has to calmly explain to his free agents that just because Kiki Vandeweghe is a moron, that doesn't mean that you Mr. Wilcox get that deal as well.

Now let's move to this squad on the court:

Camby played out of his mind last year, but he has a history of being hurt. I'm doubtful at this stage of his career of his ability to put together a full season.

Kenyon Martin is still fairly effective when healthy. But his knees have been operated on. He has broken the same leg twice. Plus George Karl hates him. Also I'm shocked to report that this is only his seventh season. I thought he was 33 with that medical history.

Carmelo Anthony is one of the best players in the league. He needs to take his obvious hatred of other nations (displayed in international competition) and redirect it toward his fellow man. You can't hate him. He's young and unguardable.

J.R. Smith potentially playing for this team underscores a huge weakness at the 2. The most important fact about the Denver Nuggets is THIS TEAM HAS ABSOLUTELY NO ONE WHO CAN MAKE A JUMP SHOT CONSISTENTLY. They have a lot of slashers, but that won't do them any good when the opposition can just sag off.

Andre Miller has been on three teams in his short NBA career posting relatively solid numbers with all of them. Still I can't help but think that if he were that good someone would have held onto him. In a big change of pace for this squad, Miller has only missed 3 games in his seven year career. Impressive durability.

So what does this team do? I don't get it. They scored the fifth most points in the league last year and gave up the eighth most. No one can shoot. Everyone is a threat to go down with a season ender. They benefitted greatly from a weak Northwest Division last year. This year not so much. I see them winning 38 games. Fuck you Denver.

Supersonics '06 Season Preview

2006-10-09T17:18:00.000-07:00

The Supersonics will win 50+ games this year. Book that shit. Gone are the cancerous one year contracts of Radmanovich and Evans. Gone is the entertaining but ultimately counterproductive to winning play of Flip Murray. Gone is the wishy-washy, feckless, and unfocused coaching of Bob Weiss. Gone are any minutes available for Danny Fortson.

The 2005-2006 Sonics turned out to be an overgrown hedge that needed trimming. The pieces necessary for success were there, but for two-thirds of the season the team's inherent promise was obscured by talented players - emboldened by the previous year's success - abandoning the team style of play that fostered said success. To his credit GM Rick Sund has been active in separating the wheat from the chaff in assembling a lean, cap-friendly roster of team oriented players that have what it takes to return the Supes to the success of the '04-'05 season.

Rick Sund stole Chris Wilcox from the Clip show. He probably has a warrant out in LA after getting three years of Weezy for a rented half season of Vlad. Radmanovich was a nice complimentary player who unfortunately came to view himself as a second or even first scoring option. I think he actually might be able to flourish with the Lakers this next season if only because they're bereft of scoring punch save for KB8. I'm sure Floyd has talked himself into it anyways.

Not only did he steal Chris Wilcox, but Sund scored another coup in trading the completely useless duo of Vitaly Potapenko and Reggie nard puncher Evans for Earl Watson. Earl Watson provided the Sonics with the second point guard option they desparately needed after Antonio Daniels departure for Hogwarts (signing with the Wizards). If you have to explain jokes in parentheses the joke was bad. I know this and I'm leaving it in anyway.

I'm encouraged by Bob Hill's tough talk regarding the play of Rashard Lewis. To paraphrase Bob Hill he thinks that Rashard has nowhere near developed the cutthroat nature a player of his skill set should have. As stated here last year, Rashard Lewis ought to be the number one crunch time scoring option on this team. I love Ray, but Rashard can kill you from anywhere on the floor. Go big and he will drive by you or slap your filthy face with a three as you sag off. Go small and he will back your little faggot ass down on the block, wink at the cheerleaders sitting courtside, and drop a baby hook over you that will have you questioning whether or not you are actually present on the court or simply suffering through a humiliating lucid dream. Viva Rashard. He beats the odds in a crowded West front court and returns to the (Las Vegas!!) all star game this year on the back of the Sonics return to prominence. Book that too.

Back to Bob Hill. I love him. He's been through the ringer, and is the type of grizzled retread that can thrive in Seattle. Think George Karl with a far superior fashion sense and hair stylist (albeit minus the revolutionary defensive schemes). Bob Hill's coiffe is a revelation, succeeding in puttting the ancient Pat Riley to shame at his own game. Don't forget that Bob Hill would be considered one of the best coaches in the NBA had Greg "hideously acne scarred" Popovich not fired him for tanking a David Robinson-less season in San Antonio to win the right to draft Tim Duncan. Poopovich saw a situation that literally couldn't lose and kicked Bob Hill right to the Atlantic 10 and frustrating seasons coaching Smush Parker's headband.

Ray is a knows quantity and I don't need to extol his virtues. You know and I know that he is cold blooded.

Another big reason for optimism is the continued seasoning of young center sensations Johan Petro and Bob Swift. Both will be instrumental in leading the Sonics to the title of Tip Jam City in the upcoming season. Homey, it's not even worth trying to play 21 against these dudes if you plan on missing shots. You will be continually dunked back to zero, not to mention have the ball swatted across the playground with humiliating frequency. Remember last year when Bill Simmons talked about how people would give Swifty love if he got a bunch of tattoos and changed his name to Bobby? We're halfway there. Check out today's This Is Who I Am. Frankly I don't agree with the Sports Guy on the Bobby thing. Bob is more gutter.

So go ahead and deal with these Sonics. Deal with them. I'll even wait a second.

I love this team and I think Rick Sund put this together expertly. If the Sonics can get out to the fast start that has benefitted them in the past, continue to coalesce and capitalize on the chemistry provided by Watson and Wilcox, and get back to the inspired "Euroball: now featuring NBA caliber athletes" that served them so well two years ago - it could be a memorable season amongst the franchise uncertainty in the LQA. Mark these words: it's about to go down.

Note: I love the Supes so much I knocked this entry out cold in twenty minutes. One draft. Hate me.

Did you hear that sound?

2006-10-03T12:23:00.000-07:00

The NBA's a-comin'!!!

The Supes opened up camp today, and new radio voice of the Sonics David Locke is live blogging the proceedings.

In celebration I will write a Supes Season Preview and a Northwest Division Preview this week. Then I'll do a much more ambiguous league-wide preview that will basically just talk about how much I love Gilbert Arenas.

PS Look at those posts from last May. When the NBA is in full swing I will write all day long.

What I'm Into

2006-09-19T13:48:00.000-07:00

Note: I haven't been writing a lot lately because this is the slowest time of year for NBA news, I don't have much to say about football yet, and I'm lazy. That said here's a snap shot of what seems cool to me lately.

The Pretenders

My MySpace page (redundant?)

Washington being 2-1 headed into Pac-10 play. Be sure to check out the replay available this evening (and every Tuesday evening) on gohuskies.com.

The absolutely invaluable Tuesday Morning Quarterback column on espn.com. Seriously this week he launches into a great diatribe about how CEO's create and maintain the conditions for their outrageous salaries, last week he had a great section about his reaction to a recent supernova and the potential for a similar event occuring closer to earth to end all life by sterilizing the planet with gamma rays. You learn stuff from this guy every week. Always entertaining.

The fucking sublime color commentary of Fox's Bill Maas. This guy literally has brought Arensberg and I to tears (laughing) multiple times over the past year. It's to the point where we look for his game on Sunday regardless of who the teams are. I can't even properly explain how funny he is. He's like a parody of the color commentator. He's got the St. Louis-Arizona game this week. If you can catch any of that during Seahawk-Jints commercials I highly recommend it.

Running

I leave for Vegas tomorrow morning. Add Sexyback.

2006-08-24T16:40:00.000-07:00

Remember when I used to write?

A fine account of a trip to Vegas if I may say. This one can only be better because it features a live fantasy football draft at high noon on Saturday. A conference room at the Flamingo has been reserved for the occasion. We take this (too?) seriously.

Let's quickly refresh the rules I came up with after the April trip.

Rules for next Vegas trip:
1)No Makaela
2)No Coyote Ugly
3)Wear dark shoes and collared shirt every night out just in case
4)No fucking around with anything but straight whiskey
5)Must visit Toby Keith's "I Love This Bar...and Grill"

Makaela is graciously passing on this trip. I won't go to Coyote Ugly. I have two new pairs of dark shoes to wear out. Whiskey is delicious. I do believe I shall check out Toby Keith's "I Love This Bar...and Grill" for lunch or dinner tomorrow.

Probably dinner because lunch is going to be liquid. Just like the astronauts in that sense. I feel that I can pass through the "get drunk-sober up" cycle of fun at least twice tomorrow. Sobering up will be centered around a gigantic dinner. This trip will also mark a weekend return to tobacco which I haven't had in a while. Welcome back into my life.

I'm fired up for this trip, so I will probably have a bad time. That's Vegas for you.

And now, for some thoughts on Justin Timberlake's "Sexyback".
Justin has to take care of the clubs first. That's where he hangs out. It makes sense. I'm fine with this as a single.

Upon seeing the video for this single Makaela had some interesting observations. Mainly, it's a lot harder bringing sexy back than you might think. In the video Justin is hanging on the ledges of hotel windows avoiding bombs and assassins. He wears a pained expression on his face the entire time. The weight of the sexy world is on his shoulders. Then he is forced to give it to the leading lady rough. The kind of rough where you roll the r and bark it like a dog. All in all some tough stuff. Thank you JT for fighting the good fight!

The next video that came on was Jewel's most recent song. It inspired an all time Makaela quip, "She's the one who took sexy away." Makaela everybody. Keeps me on my toes.

Explaining current events through Hollywood

2006-08-11T09:49:00.000-07:00

I want credit for being the first person to draw the following correlation:

The news of yesterday's thwarted terror attacks (must be election season) reminded me of the first Batman movie where the Joker created lethal cosmetics combinations that required the news anchors to go on tv without makeup and looking tore up, until the code was cracked by Batman.

NBA Twofer

2006-07-31T12:06:00.000-07:00

Wilcox all but signed

Looks like 3 years between 21 and 24 million. Give it up for the Sonics if this is how it goes down, because that is the definition of a reasonable deal.
"Wilcox is working out in Houston and is prepared to immediately fly to Seattle." Beautiful.

And more from the most entertaining professional sport, KG has a terrific blog on nba.com. He's travelled to Asia for the summer. Some favorite lines:

"I have to say I was feeling like Rod Stewart."
"Stella’s two and beautiful. I really wanted to take her home."
"Over hear (sic) monkeys are like squirrels, it is funny to tell you the truth."
"I don't know if you know that, but I love sushi."
"Taj Mahal Y'all"

I review this blog as "A surprisingly compelling summer read!"

ALERT

2006-07-26T16:54:00.000-07:00

One thing I'm not is remiss. Shit that would cause me to be remiss I don't do. Like not telling you about this. I wouldn't do that. Not to you. Not to anyone.

And if you're too lazy to click it the link simply states that our very own Mirabeau Room is home to some comedy action TONIGHT...featuring SHOCK G OF DIGITAL UNDERGROUND. You may remember him as the one who put the satin on your panties. I may very well check this out after hoops. Unrelated: Fear my box out.

Doors @ 8.
Show @ 9.
$5 21+ w/ ID

And if you're at all interested in what Shock is up to nowadays I found this interesting statement whilst looking for a funny/cool picture of him. Apparently he has quit the music biz!!

I'm retiring from all forms of studio work and song writing.

My reasons for retiring are:

1. I get no satisfaction or fullfillment from it anymore. It doesn't make me happy. On the contrary, it depresses me.

Normally I'm not depressed, it's only surrounding the studio. I'm happy when I'm away from the studio.

2. Can't make a living at it. 90% of the studio work I've done in the last 6 years has all been either for free or for peanuts, and hasn't generated any income since.

3. It drives me to do drugs, cause I HATE BEING IN THE STUDIO. To much pressure & expectation for me to make/save/spark someone elses career or project.

4. I quit the studio. Fuck the studio.

5. I can't win in the studio, It's pointless, it's a "catch 22" for me, watch:

If what I do sucks, it tarnishes the legacy, hurts the family, and even lowers the price, and also leaves the artists & involved-companies unhappy;

But if what I do shines, it generates more studio work for the future, and furthur traps me in the music business, a business I have no intention of slaving to the rest of my life. I gave it 20 years. I'm done.

6. Every man has the right to the pursuit of happiness and should first try a job that he might gain happiness & fullfillment from. This doesn't make me happy anymore, it makes me miserable and a drug addict.

7. I'm done widdit. Whew!

YES, it already feels great already just to say it!!!

I most likely will try my hand at some of these:

> writing (Afeni assures me this is my true calling everytime she see's me. Maybe she's right?)

> acting

> stage performing, meaning accepting tours or positions in other bands doing keys & background vocals. (IF it's real and if the moneys good. No amatuer or free stuff anymore.)

> regular jobs in service (like clubs, hotels, TV show bands or staff, resturants, who knows?)

> ..and of course still do digital tours cause it PAYS and people don't expect me & Mon (grown men) to work for free, like all the studio requests. I'm 42 and have wants/needs/bills/responsibilities.

So there it is, spread the word, I quit.

I don't make beats, I don't do vocals, I don't write vocals, NONE OF IT.

Those of you who are friends, will be happy for me. Happy that I shook something that was making me miserable.

Those of you who had plans to "use" or manipulate me at the expense of my own health & happiness, will be upset about this. All I can say to those would be, you're free to do whatever you wish, and so am I.

I choose to QUIT.

there it is.

Thanx everybody, spread the word

shock

So he was a drug addict! Wonder what drug? This was just over a year ago, so I wonder if he's still out of the biz? Addicts aren't good at seeing things through after all, and putting together a beat would be an easy way for him to score some money. (It's the next "Grindin'", I swear it!)

Doesn't sound like he was having a great time there, so good for him. Still, I can't help but feel cheated that he never got me blaps for my demo. Saint or asshole? YOU DECIDE!!

Seriously though the Humpty Dance easily makes the two cd set of the soundtrack to my life, and I hope he's in a good place. He is physically tonight at least: Lower Queen Anne.

Harold Reynolds Appreciation!

2006-07-25T12:30:00.000-07:00

The NY Post is reporting that Seattle Mariners Legend Harold Reynolds has been fired from his job at Baseball Tonight!!

"We are not going to comment," ESPN VP Josh Krulewitz said.

When asked how they are going to explain that Reynolds will never be on the air again, Krulewitz still declined comment.

Reynolds did not return calls.

Yikes. So mum's the word then? Deadspin thinks they might know why: possible sexual harrassment.

My immediate reaction is that they should fire the woman who turned down Harold's advances. This is one of the handsomest men on television we're talking about! I've had it just about up to here (read: eye level) with these lesbians nowadays. Try the meat stick, Sappho!

At least this provides an opportunity for me to tell one of my favorite baseball stories which I first heard from Harold Reynolds on baseball tonight. After the 1987 season in which Harold led the league with 60 stolen bases, he received a phone call from Rickey Henderson that went like this:

Harold: Hello?
Rickey: This Harold Reynolds?
Harold: Yes.
Rickey: Rickey had 60 at the break.
(Hangs up)

Thanks for the memories, Harold!! Here's hoping you land on your feet with Fox or somebody. I guarantee you Dave Valle is walking on eggshells until you find a new job.

UPDATE:

The Big Lead has the confirmation. Apparently this was a cumulative thing where he gave an inappropriate hug to a PA at an Outback Steakhouse after a bunch of other offenses. I have two reactions to this. First, this seems to be an open and shut case. If I'm Harold's counsel I'm petitioning for immediate dismissal under the landmark Outback statute "No Rules, Just Right". Second, I would like to see footage of the hug spliced with this Inappropriate British rocker from Conan O'Brien. One of my all time favorite Conan bits, and that's saying something.

(deep breath) Here's what I think happened in the NBA Finals

2006-07-24T14:56:00.000-07:00

(I'm not ready to talk about the Sonics.)

You may have noticed that I haven't written anything about the Finals yet. I picked Dallas to win the championship. I made a decent case for it and for 2.75 games I was kicking myself for picking the Mavs in 5 instead of calling for the brooms. Then the rest of the series happened.

Here's my theory: The reason that the Mavericks lost in the Finals has nothing to do with the players on the floor, coaching, or the Heat being a better team. It has more to do with the ether and aura of professional sports. The Mavs spent the first two and three quarters games in a trance that allowed them to simply play the basketball they were capable of playing. Dwyane Wade had a ridiculous fourth quarter in Game 3 and it snapped the Mavs out of the trance to the point where they took a look around and said, "Hey, we're in the Finals. We're in the Finals and we're the Mavericks! Uh oh...".

The exact same thing happened to the Seahawks in the Super Bowl. They absolutely dominated the first half of that game. They were the better team, but at some point the deciding factor became not ability but instead that they were the Seahawks.

Anywho, from then on the Mavs played the rest of the series with both hands around their collective neck. This allowed the Heat to get to the one place the Mavs couldn't afford to let them be: one game away. By that point too many hungry old dogs could smell it. The Heat were savvy enough to will one game and the Mavs didn't make them do it until Miami was one away. And I know the Heat are first time champs, but they were also an amalgam of champions/almost champs past. Only Wade made their title at all indigenous and because of that it's a little dubious.

There's a reason that the same teams keep winning championships and that is because they're used to doing it. They know what it takes and other teams don't. That's boring shit and pretty sad for those of us who live in cities without championship tradition, but it's the truth.

It's going to take something spectacular folks. That's for the Mavericks, the Seahawks, Colts, and everyone else in the "almost there" boat. It's one thing to be good enough to get there, and it's something completely different to actually see it through. At least the Seahawks and Mavericks can take heart that championship losses are major capital towards future success.

Two more thoughts: If Phoenix were in the Finals instead of the Mavs they would have called the mercy rule after two quarters Suns leading 268-31. These Miami Heat will be remembered as one more crappy champion before final glorious ascent of the beautiful NBA.

Project Runway Season 3 Debuts

2006-07-13T11:45:00.000-07:00

That's right. The gayest and most addictive show on television had its first episode of the season last night on Bravo, or as I like to call it Logo with celebrities. I wouldn't be writing about this except for the fact that Makaela's favorite dress ended up being judged the worst out of like 20. Its designer was then given the old "auf Wiedersehen" from Heidi Klum (read: kicked off the show).

Next time you see Makaela be sure to congratulate her on her great fashion sense!! Trust me, it will get to her.

And yes, I'm talking shit about a reality fashion designing show. I fucking recommend watching it! So there!

Odds & Ends

2006-07-10T15:52:00.000-07:00

I'm reading Sean Wilsey's "Oh the Glory of it All" right now and it's blowing my head off. It reads very quickly and, as his many raves will tell you, is Eggers-esque. (By the way welcome to the future, where the only books are memoirs. Human condition!! YEAH!!!)

Freedarko had a post today admonishing the Sonics for not yet signing Wilcox. Look in the comments section for my reaction to the post. J'ai un nom-de-glavin aberrant: warren.

Bill Simmons dropped his indispensible trade value column ranking the NBA's 40 best players. No Rashard, and no mention of Rashard. Ray Allen however checks in high enough to leave me satisfied.

Draft Day 2006!!!

2006-06-27T17:10:00.000-07:00

Set those DVRs. What kind of a suit do you think Brandon will wear? Will Bobby Bones get drafted? These are among the million questions that need answers. Few sporting events are as entertaining as the NBA Draft !!!

Also I must pass along a TrueHoop Warning:
"A Threat
I don't think I've ever really done promotion for TrueHoop content before. But I'm just saying, watch out for TrueHoop tomorrow. It's going to be insane."

I was going to be all about that site tomorrow anyway, but now I'm positively giddy as to what might be in store. Draft Forever!!!!

PS If you don't have Insider and can't read those Sports Guy archives, don't get mad at me. It's not my fault you hate yourself.

UPDATE
Check out TH's Bobby Jones Draft Profile.

Rashard for the Matrix?

2006-06-26T16:33:00.000-07:00

DraftExpress.com is reporting that a potential blockbuster is brewing between the Sonics and the Suns. From what I understand the Sonics would send Rashard Lewis, Danny Fortson, and the 10th pick to Phoenix for Shawn Marion, Leandrinho Barbosa, and the 27th pick. Even with the understanding that this makes Barbosa essentially a rent-a-player next season, my initial reaction is a strong one: I would love this trade.

Let's get it straight first that I'm not a Rashard hater. He is impossible to guard when he's hitting his threes (which is often). You challenge his perimeter game with a quicker player and he simply backs you down on the block. One of the knocks on the man the Sonics marketing people want us to call "Sweet Lew" is that in the past he was unwilling to bang down low. That is no longer the case on the offensive end, as he emerged this past season as the Sonics #1 option in crunch time. Not Ray. Rashard. He is simply a more reliable two points. It's flat out scary to think of what Steve Nash could do with him and Amare next year.

That said there are a couple of negative Rashard factors that would leave me not unpleased should he be dealt.

Negative #1: He is going to opt out of his contract after this season, and the Sonics are obligated to get something in return for the second best player on their team.

Negative #2: Rashard Lewis has never shown superstar leadership ability. Rashard would be wonderful on a veteran team with an established identity (ie Phoenix). On a team still establishing its identity (ie Supes), he leaves a little to be desired in terms of molding the players around him. I recognize that this second negative is a little nitpicky, and it doesn't influence my feelings anywhere close to the amount that his contract situation does.

Selective Stat Snapshot:
Rashard Lewis
26 years old
20 points, 5 boards, 50 blocks

Shawn Marion
27 years old
22 points, 12 boards, 137 blocks

It's extremely rare for a non-center in the NBA to post those types of rebounding numbers. The Matrix is the definition of an x-factor.

Another pro for Marion is that he's locked up through 08-09. Not to clown my own city, but with the Sonics current management situation it's not going to be easy in the immediate future to attract free agent talent to this corner of the country. Any elite talent we get we're going to get through a trade.

The essence of Shawn Marion is as such that he looks like a claymation version of himself at times.

Runaway 06-07 NW Division Champs Roster
PG: Ridnour/Watson
SG: Ray/Barbosa
SF: Matrix/Wilkins
PF: Wilcox/Collison
C: Petro/Swift

Welcome to Suns NW. That is dirty. However, I would again like to clarify that I'm not going to be upset if the Sonics go into next season with Rashard still on the roster.

UPDATE THAT CHANGES EVERYTHING:
Rashard Lewis via Percy Allen:
"I've put a lot of thought into it [signing an extension] during the season and now, and I would love to finish my career in Seattle and be on one team my entire career."

If Rashard wants to stay he stays. End of story. Bless him.

WEEZY UPDATE:
The Sonics gave Chris Wilcox a qualifying offer on Saturday. As a restricted free agent, the Sonics now have the right to match any offer Wilcox receives this summer. Here's hoping he stays, because I love him.

Not as bad as 1998

2006-06-23T15:20:00.000-07:00

When you don't win the World Cup all you get are the memories. Thanks to Clint Dempsey, the US has something brilliant to take home from Germany. Sure the finish was nice, but mostly I was talking about that sick dance he did after his equalizer against Ghana.

And it's not the first time the man they call Deuce has stepped lively on the pitch. Check out his "Young Joc Dance" versus Venezuela:

Oh, and he fucking raps too.

So whatever. We're out. We weren't going to win anyway. I still got a new favorite player out of the deal. Europe please sign Clint Deuce Dempsey!!!!! Save him from the MLS and the fate of Landon Donovan!!!

Add Baseball (kind of)

2006-06-06T17:49:00.000-07:00

So I decided to read this Jim Baker fellow's diary of watching Kansas City Royals' games for this past week. That's chiefly because they played the Mariners and I like reading about how much the local nine suck from a national perspective. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed the piece. Definitely worth a read. Especially this nugget:

What can we assume from the advertisement that ran between the seventh and the eighth inning? Here's the scene: it's obviously the wee hours of the morning. A very addled young man can't make up his mind at the drive-thru window at Jack In The Box. We are led to believe he has been there a while, hemming and hawing. When prompted, he can barely articulate a response. Suddenly, the miniature Jack-In-The-Box figure on his dashboard starts talking to him. It tells him to keep things simple when ordering. (Implying that it's too much trouble to pronounce something like a Ciabatta burger.) The kid agrees with the animated Jack but wants to know how many tacos he should order. Jack suggests 30 and the kid, squinting as he speaks in that certain looking-through-the-haze sort of way, says that was the number he, too, had in mind.

I think the message here is obvious: They are acknowledging that a lot of their late-night customers have come by their overwhelming hunger by means that would, if they were professional athletes caught doing so, get them suspended. And Jack In The Box is cool with that. In fact, they celebrate and heartily welcome the excessive purchasing needs of this breed of consumer.

Exactly.

Mavs in 5

2006-06-05T13:36:00.000-07:00

I hate prediction columns. They are invariably awful. So here goes.

In Dirk Nowitzki, Jet Terry, Josh Howard, Jerry Stack, Marquis Daniels, Davin Harris and KVH Dallas has seven players who can consistently put the ball in the basket. Cut one head off that hydra and another will grow in its place. In contrast, the Heat boast only Wade, Shaq, maybe Toine and maybe Jason Williams to counter. This is the new NBA and to compete you gots to score. Dallas can and Miami can't.

There is no way that the Heat can contain the Mavs' perimeter attack. Gary Payton has NO HOPE of guarding either Devin Harris or Jason Terry off the dribble. It's just not happening. Ditto for White Chocolate. Miami lucked out by facing Jason Kidd and Chauncey Billups in the previous two rounds. Both are good points, but neither exploit Miami's inability to defend speedy guards. There's a reason the seemingly overmatched Bulls gave the Heat fits in the first round: young legs.

Tubby is rooting for Miami, and thinks they are going to win. Those words just typed shifted the Vegas odds further in the Mavericks' favor.

The "Shaq only needs to try hard for seven games!" argument? This carries some weight as far as I'm concerned. But, you know what else carries a lot of weight? Shaq. And he's played 76 games already this year. If it wasn't for a playoff schedule that gives him a week off in between series, Shaq would already be a non-factor.

And while we're on the subject, it's not like Shaq is Shaq anymore. I love the guy, but he only plays thirty minutes a game. Alonzo Mourning and his working kidney give the Heat arguably equal value, and for 18.8 million dollars less. What a bargain!! You could even argue that the Heat are better with Zo on the floor because he brings a better (more agile) defensive presence, stays out of Wade's way on offense, and makes his free throws. There I said it.

Finally, the Eastern Conference has drawn closer to the Western Conference in terms of competitiveness this year - but not at the top. The West Finals are still like the NFC Championship games of the early 90s. Both are essentially for the title with the final serving as a victory lap/right to kick the Bills' ass.

So there you have it. Mavs in 5, allowing for one Bavetta special. Get ready for more Mark Cuban posts about how no one respects "us".

Unrelated: Why is it in girls' sports that they call each other "ladies"? As in "Let's go, ladies!" or "Pull it together, ladies!". That bugs the shit out of me.

My Name Is Prince

2006-06-01T15:12:00.000-07:00

Remember this year's All Star Game when four Pistons made the East roster?

Conventional wisdom said that Tayshaun Prince was the least spectacular of Detroit's starting five, and accordingly there was little grousing over his not being invited to the Black Super Bowl. (J.A. Adande's term, not mine FYI)

Fast forward to last night, and there's Prince leading Detroit with 29 points on 11 of 17 shooting in an elimination game. In the Conference Finals no less. That's big boy stuff. In contrast, Ben Wallace's paltry 3 of 4 field goals made him the only one of Detroit's "All Stars" to shoot above 33%.

If you've been watching this series, it wasn't just last night. Tayshaun's led the team in scoring in three out of the five games. When Detroit is in the doldrums offensively (as they have been since game 3 of the Cavs series) only Prince demonstrates consistently the ability to generate points. His more lauded teammates seem, dare I say, SCARED by the stage they find themselves on. (I'm looking at you, Rip.)

So Tayshaun Prince then. Not an All Star...just the best player on his team.

Seattle is a top NBA city (add Wade)

2006-05-31T16:52:00.000-07:00

Don't believe that Seattle rules? According to NBA Beat writers J.A. Adande and Brian Windhorst we're one of the top stops in the only 29 cities that matter. If you average those two rankings Seattle's score of 4.5 ranks second only to Miami's 2. Beats the shit out of Memphis y'all.

In other news:

I don't care if they blow a 3-1 series lead, Dwyane Wade is the player of the Conference Finals round. No-nonsense yet spectacular. That's actually SPECTACULAR. He gets to the rack on Detroit like they were Toronto flailing at Kobe this past January. Except it's the Conference Finals. Ho fucking hum. I like the fact that the facial expression rarely changes despite Flash's heroics. Dude's got the emotional range of Al Gore on Xanax, but it isn't off-putting in a Sampras or Duncan sort of way. Go figure.

All that and he loves Jane Austen. Thanks FD for that. Speaking of, Freedarko is locked in a vicious internal struggle concerning Dwyane ("whose first name is really fun to sound out phonetically," the author added within parentheses).

PS I'm adding Truehoop.com to my links on the right. Prestigious I know. He finds the best NBA links hands down. It's twice daily reading for me at this point. And random archive searches reveal nuggets like this.

NBA Draft, Playoffs (add Horses)

2006-05-24T12:12:00.000-07:00

I couldn't be happier that the Sonics failed to land in the top three of the upcoming NBA Draft. They were going to take Morrison if that was the case, and there's no question about that. He fits the Ridnour / Collison / Swift / Gelabele / Petro mold of either cracker or Frenchman.

ESPN says we're taking Sheldon Williams. Fine by me. The guy won't be spectacular, but he will play a little in the Association. I'm picturing a postier Collison. No more, no less. Ideally I'd like to see the Sonics draft Sheldon, and switch his brain with Petro. Not that I don't love Johan, but matching his athleticism with that savvy is a scary thought indeed.

That Blazer bastard at Truehoop.com isn't all that upset with Portland's basketball ineptitude carrying over into the draft lottery. Despite the worst record in the league, Portland ended up with their worst possible pick at four. The reason he's not so mad? Why Brandon Roy of course:

"Roy's the only top player in this draft who would make me jump and cheer on draft day."

More hyperbole inside as well as a link to another panegyric. Enjoy.

Oregonlive.com asks:

If they are both available at No. 4, which player should the Blazers draft?
Brandon Roy 63.1%
Adam Morrison 36.9%

Total votes: 1065

Score one for naturally regulated insulin levels!!!

Regarding actual playoff action: Hats off to Antoine Walker for his performance in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals!! Toine had 17 and 7 on rock solid 50% shooting. With the way Wade got off, there's talk of Detroit being forced to put Tayshaun on him. That leaves Rip on Walker? If he starts inside before moving out, Antoine could have another nice game. He's averaging a quiet 19 per over his last four if you hadn't noticed.

Game One was a must win for Miami in this series. If they couldn't beat a dog tired Detroit squad after a week off then there was no way they were going to get to the Finals. Now Game Two tonight is a must win for Detroit. You have to love the playoffs.

Winner of the prestigious LQA Player of the Second Round Award? Local boy made good: Jason Terry. 19.7 against the Spurs as well as a nice little nut punch on Finley. You can't get too mad at Jason Terry for taking a shot at Finley's johnce though. All evidence indicates he may have picked it up from his coach (keep an eye on Josh Howard's crotch):

Yikes.

And lastly, here's a nice Spurs season recap.

Add horses:
I saw this comment regarding injured but recovering Barbaro in a USA Today article this week.

"It's a little bit like Hurricane Katrina," said trainer Nick Zito. "It happened to us now."

Yes Zito. It's exactly like Hurricane Katrina. Except that it's a fucking horse. A horse that is still alive. Otherwise, it's exactly the same. You douche.

You are about to be possessed by the sounds of MC Rob Base

2006-05-22T14:39:00.000-07:00

So there are two Game 7's tonight. In honor I've been running a pump-up montage in my head soundtracked by Rob Base's seminal "It Takes Two". (Here's a song review that may require registration to the invaluable allmusic.com.)

Yeah! Whoo! Yeah! Whoo! Hit it! I'm gonna rock right now:

You would have to be a fool to think anyone other than the home teams are going to win tonight. Not ideal, but those. are. the breaks. The Mavs had their close out game and lost due to a little NBA meddling re: Jet Terry. The Clips are plucky, but you can't think that they're going to win...can you? I think they have a better shot than the Mavs actually, if only because this Suns incarnation ain't exactly a proven playoff beast.

Possible Western Conference Finals matchups in order of preference:
1. Mavs-Suns
2. Mavs-Clips
3. Clips-Spurs
4. Suns-Spurs

How can the Suns be in my most and least desired series? Well, I think they could trick the Mavs into running, and the Spurs would completely destroy them. That's how. The Clips could conceivably make a series vs. the Spurs interesting. That doesn't change the fact that I firmly believe that whoever wins tonight in Phoenix will be living la vida Schiavo for one and a half weeks.

The bell tolls for Antoine Walker in the next round as well. Not your fault Toine. Tayshaun shuts everyone down.

Favorite lines from It Takes Two:

"I'm not a sucka so I don't need a bodyguard"
-Rob Base has seen all you suckas around town with your bodyguards. He's not impressed.

"The way that I rhyme at a show, the reason why? Man I don't know so let's go cuz"
-Rob Base isn't going to let a good thing go to waste by analyzing it to death.

"Because I get stoopid I mean outrageous/Stay away from me if you're contagious"
-Rob Base doesn't want to catch your illness. He's seen Outbreak.

"I like the Whopper, fuck the Big Mac."
-Rob Base thinks your Big Mac is boughy.

"I got an idea, That I wanna share/You don't like it? So what, I don't care"
-Rob Base has not and will not consider your input.

(The author is aware that he has minimized any contributions from DJ EZ Rock)

Coming Clean re: Antoine Walker (add Brandon)

2006-05-18T14:49:00.000-07:00

Antoine Walker on why he shoots so many threes: "Because there aren't fours, bitch."

(Bitch added)

Toine? Love him. Used to hate him. He's a lazy defender and he jacks up far too many threes. He should bang more inside with that body. Somewhere along the line I realized that those criticisms apply pretty darn directly to my own basketball game. I don't hate myself, so why would I hate Agent #8? I like rooting for his shoulder shimmy after a dagger triple. Plus, how about that picture? Shhhhh: Antoine.

Currently enjoying:
-Jason "Jet" Terry and Devin Harris backcourt
-Shaun Livingston
-The Michael Finley Slam-Jam Time Machine
-Dirk Nowitzki's gorilla walk
-Antoine Walker
-Spliff Robinson
-Potential Wade-LeBroodle Conference Final

Currently not enjoying:
-Flip Saunders trying to coach (maybe it wasn't Garnett after all)
-The ghost of Gary Payton's jumper
-A potential Conference Finals team that features Damon Jones in crunch time
-Rip Hamilton shooting SCARED in crunch time

Brandon Roy tells Utah to suck it per Chad Ford. (Insider)
"The other top two-guard in the draft, Brandon Roy, won't work out for the Jazz, we've been told, assuming the Jazz don't move up in the lottery. At the moment it appears that Roy is planning on limiting his workouts to the top five teams in the draft."

That is how a gangsta approaches the draft. Take notes America.

You may have noticed that everyone I support goes downhill (Kobe) and guys I dislike explode (LeBron). I love how the Mavs are playing right now, so expect them to tank the series. On the plus side, more Spurs games mean more vicious Michael Finley flashback dunks. The Clippers are doing nothing for me, so expect them to somehow pull out two games against the Suns. The Suns have moxie, and that's food with nerve.

The Riverwalk blows. San Antonio pimps that thing like Marge Simpson altering her pink Chanel dress to impress the country club ladies. At some point I'm going to need to see something else, and don't trot out that Alamo. Seen that too. You're on notice San Antonio.

UPDATE:
So I said I want the Mavs to win right? Well, Jason Terry has been suspended for Game 6. Bullshit. All of a sudden San Antonio is in the driver's seat.

UPDATE UPDATE: You no longer have to be registered with Blogger to comment on this blog. I'm sure this will open up a floodgate.....or not.

Gilbert Arenas and the Elusive Cosmic Rhythm

2006-05-09T17:22:00.000-07:00

Underground pot cave anyone? Here are more pictures of it.

Tasty, brah. Tasty.

So Kobe lost the series, but I'm not backing off. I think he's still the best. Freedarko (and yes I know I link them every post now) has some things for Kobe haters to think about. If the Lakers get a point guard who can take perimeter scoring pressure off of Kobe, look out.

In other NBA news, Gilbert Arenas is officially one of the most fun players to watch. Thirty years from now when people talk about how money Kobe, LeBron, D. Wade and Carmelo were, there will be Hoops IQ points to be scored by reminding people that Arenas was just as good on his day. Breakout star of the first round in my opinion.

I've been listening to Prince's "3121" and Robbie Fulks' "Georgia Hard" recently. Here are the quick reviews:

Prince: Impeccable production. Each keyboard, bass line, and drum fill sound impossibly clean. Three dimensional even. Prince is the man in the studio. Beyond that though, the songs are mostly forgettable. Second track "Lolita" finds the Purple One reminding the Neptunes who invented them. Overall 5/10 but worth a listen.

Robbie Fulks: I was a little disappointed here because I've heard such good things about Fulks from Michelman. His voice was better than I thought it'd be, but the songs are nowhere near as gritty as I expected. What the fuck is "alt" about this guy? This joint is MOR. That said I love the title track, "Georgia Hard". Overall 6/10 for a strong first third. Extra points for a sick album cover.

For fifteen second last night on my deck watching the lit up ferries cross Elliot Bay, I touched the cosmic rhythm. I experienced complete oneness and harmony. I don't know where it came from, but it ruled.

UPDATE: I'm in a nexus or something. On the way home from work I saw a lady who could have been described as Monique's stunt double wearing an airbrushed shirt that said, "Only Degas can make de Van Gogh". Genius.

Also, Makaela wanted to watch the movie about the bird flu last night on ABC. When I would change the channel because it was awful she wouldn't stop singing her song about the movie. It was "Don't You Wish the Bird Flu Was On TV" to the tune of that Pussycat Dolls song. Don't you, baby?

LeBron: Public Enemy Number One

2006-05-04T10:32:00.000-07:00

Listen. I have to hate someone. Kobe has recently passed into my good graces (conditionally, pending winning Lakers-Suns series), so there is a void. Watching a downright entertaining Wizards-Cavs Game 5 last night it became eminently apparent that the void is to be filled by the new villain, LeBron James.

Don't take my word for it. Let the Washington Times (a disreputable and biased source if there ever was one) lay it out:

LeBron James skipped down the floor like a little baby after incurring a player-control foul late in the first half of Game 5 last night. This is the face of the NBA? This is not a face anyone should have to see. The only item missing from this sad, sorry spectacle was a stuffed animal. As wimpy as this display was, there were others. And these shallow bursts of immaturity seemed to work on the decision-making abilities of referees Bernie Fryer, Mark Wunderlich and Joe Forte (!?) in the early going. The trio indulged every whimper of the Cleveland Crybabies. It is a wonder the referees did not hold the Crybabies close to their bosoms.

Bold and punctuation added there after Joe Forte. So that's what became of him.

There's more in that article. It's an absolute treat, as well as a case study in why conservatives win elections. They simply know how to fire up the electorate.

Back to LeBron. Also mentioned in the article is the winning shot he made in Game 3. This shot was referred to by a coworker of mine (who used to coach Martell Webster no less) as "almost a triple travel".

Towards the end of OT last night the Cavs had possession with just less than thirty seconds to go, down one. A 2 for 1 was the desirable situation here for the Cavs, but there was hardly enough time to pull it off and get a reliable look at two points. Unless you're LeBron James that is.

Realizing he had the refs in his pocket at home, James lowered his shoulder and dribbled straight into Caron Butler. HE WASN'T EVEN GOING TOWARDS THE BASKET!! The neutered refs of course called a block that sent LeBron to the line. This allowed for Cleveland to achieve the 2 for 1 that that provided the opportunity them to win the game. All without having to actually earn a basket. Pathetic.

The game winner that is being so highly touted, wasn't even all that impressive. It was a traipse through a meadow of flat footed defenders. The fact that the AP has dubbed that 'miraculous' shot "The Layup" points out how lame it was far better than I ever could.

Last time I checked, this is LeBron's first playoff series ever. The referees are calling the games like he's won four championships. I gather that Nike's new We Are All Witnesses ad campaign is in reference to the criminal officiating in this series. I won't root for LeBron until I feel like he's earned something, and so far it's all been handed to him.

Go Kobe!!! Happy Dave Brubeck Day!!

UPDATE:

I'm starting to think I know something about the NBA, because I beat freedarko to the punch by a day on the LeBron analysis.

"If this series has been the first true unobstructed view of LeBron, this much is clear to me: while he plays like a man among boys, he acts like a spoiled fucking baby."

That site is great. I'm in awe of their writing.

All Hail KB8!

2006-05-03T16:55:00.000-07:00

If there's one thing I've learned in life, it's that Spaniards ask important questions. Example? Kobe Bryant: un hombre de otra galaxia?
Bears asking.

Kobe has emerged as THE MAN in these playoffs. Or, as one of the commenters over at Free Darko put it: "Jordan the Remix, bitches!"

I couldn't agree more. I can't wait for game six tomorrow, marking my second game ever where I take the novel approach of actually enjoying and rooting for the greatest basketball player in the world. Why didn't I do this before? I must have enjoyed getting a bunch of snarky comments in while Kobe hung 40 on whoever he was playing. No more. Kobe is the best. He might also be pure evil. I am on board with this.

Too bad this bitch won't be around to get a lethal dose of the Black Mamba. Maybe next year, Bell.

And to bring it back to another Spanish speaker, here is a closing thought courtesy of the sign on the right:

Note: Should the Lakers somehow lose this series I will delete this post and deny it ever having existed.

BREAKING 2!!! Electric...oh forget it

2006-04-28T17:27:00.000-07:00

I have found a horrendous headline. Or is that horrendously hilarious? You be the judge.

RIP Bebop

UPDATE: Word must have gotten out on this headline. Originally it read: "Infant Found Mutilated, Father In Stitches"

BREAKING!!! (Add Gorditos, Pacers)

2006-04-24T17:53:00.000-07:00

Melt your brain on the Best Stabbing Ever!!!

Also, the long awaited Gorditos finally opened on Queen Anne and Galer. Delicious Gorditos within walking distance from my house? Sorry, just drooled all over the keyboard. Ate there yesterday where Steve almost finished the entire grande in a heroic effort. The table ponied up a $3 cash prize as well as next burrito courtesy of Loren, but it still wasn't enough to get Steve to finish up. Maybe next time.

Makaela was furious that I went to the Ditos without her which simply means that I get it again tonight. I went chicken yesterday and kind of regretted it. Today? Make mine steak, fajita style. I won't be fooled again!! (Chicken was still actually delicious.)

Lastly, a big shout out to the Indiana Pacers for taking game one away from the Nets. The contest featured a handful of Vince Carter air balls from three as well as some surprisingly effective post work from Peja.

Dear Mariners, It's so easy to hate you

2006-04-17T16:57:00.000-07:00

The Mariners today reminded me of this great line from The Lonely Island's The Heist.

I just came from Pam's work and she dipped my heart in shit
Yo what, that's Baskin Robbins
Yo yo you know the spot where you order frozen treats and they rip your heart apart

Now the heart getting ripped out part is a little melodramatic, because I don't really care for the Mariners the way I do for the Dawgs, Supes, and Hawks. If you did care about the M's though, your heart is indeed consistently being dipped in shit.

Why do I hate the M's today? Here's the quick rundown: I almost missed work this morning because when my alarm clock went off there was a baseball game on. I of course thought I was dreaming because why would there be a baseball game on at 8 in the morning? I jolt out of bed at 8:25, take a shower, and miraculously make my 8:40 bus. It was an epic getting-ready performance to say the least.

Now I've been listening to the first third of this game while I'm sleeping/getting dressed and it's fairly decent. I was just thinking yesterday that I haven't even seen an M's game this year on tv. I'm usually good for about five of those per season especially early on. The decision is made to follow this one via espn's gamecast. I hadn't used the baseball gamecast before. Verdict? It's actually awesome. Highly recommended.

The game continues to be an entertaining back and forth affair. The Mariners scratch out a run in the top of the ninth to take a one run lead. Eddie Guardado is going up against Wily Mo Pena, some douche, and Youklis in the bottom of the ninth. Guardado k's Wily Mo. He k's the next dude. He gets two strikes (both looking) on the greek god of walks - Youklis. Incidentally, I think you can get a rep as a Moneyball guy by simply not swinging the bat.

Then Youklis beats out an INFIELD SINGLE to get on first. Mark Loretta steps up and sends one over the Monster. Ballgame. I was thinking during this at bat that the Mariners are almost intriguing this year. I was ready to give props and put out the "potential sleeper" APB. Loretta's dong snapped me right back to reality.

These are the Mariners. The Mariners suck.

This game was in the bag and they blew it. I can't see the wisdom in allowing Eddie Guardado to close games when his fastball is 86 miles per hour. Stick a fork in him. I don't care if Soriano is young and inexperienced. He has stuff and should be closing. Beltre is already hitting in the seven spot this season.

In baseball only a handful of teams can afford to win anything. The Mariners are one of them and they still suck. I think Pat Gillick knew we were about to be awful when he skipped town like the monorail salesman from the Simpsons, off to find knew ways to employ Pat Borders. Bavasi comes off as anxious to spend the money he's alloted. How do you explain the deal for Washburn? Beltre is threatening to make Jeff Cirillo look productive. If I cared about this team I would be insane.

I just need to take a breath and realize that the M's suck. They just suck.

Links:
Unbelievable Chris Berman story.

I love Ray Allen.

The New York Post has a huge scoop!

Note: I love Alvin Davis and the use of his image is meant to be a stark contrast between his holiness and the shitty Mariners of today.

If emotional scars were visible, strip clubs would be horrifying...

2006-04-13T12:22:00.000-07:00

Etiquette issue: When a stripper puts a titty all in your face, should your mouth be open or closed? If open, then can the tongue come into play? I played it closed as I was somewhat taken aback by the abrupt chestal assault. For the record they smelled like a vanilla syrup. Kind of gross actually.

On the flight to Vegas I was boxed in like a castled king with two Canadians to my right and three in the row in front of me. Of course the one sitting closest to me was the one whose parents didn't love him. He kept up an annoying stream of banter the whole way. If it was quiet for too long he would literally start saying to his buddies, "Are we there yet? Are we there yet? ....How about now?"

I would be remiss if I didn't mention that the annoying guy placed one of his nuts on the head of the guy sitting in front of me. That was funny. It would have been funnier if they weren't honey roasted and complimentary, mais c'est la vie.

On the plane I read some of James Frey's much maligned "A Million Little Pieces". The book was on sale for 20% off at B&N so I copped it. What the fuck do I care if it's true or not? It still got raves from the LA Times, Chicago Tribune, NY Times, Washington Post, and pretty much every major publication before they found the lies out. I read it as fiction, and it still blew my head out. A scintillating tale of crack addiction, alcoholism, violence, prostitution, organized crime, and bloody stools if there ever was one. I'd like to see that last sentence on the cover of the next edition.

Never take your girlfriend to a high school friend's wedding. Maybe even don't take your wife. Never take your girlfriend to Las Vegas. You'll want to talk to your friends that you haven't seen lately, and she'll give you shit for not paying enough attention to her. Actual quote: "It was the worst I've ever felt!" My laughing response: "Then you've had a fine life." Fortunately Makaela realized this too and will no longer accompany me to Las Vegas. On the plus side she accurately pointed out that the bar Coyote Ugly in New York, New York bears an eerie resemblance to Betas.

There was one highlight at Coyote Ugly however. A girl without panties was dancing on the bar and the girl hype man said quote, "Her landing strip looks like Hitler's mustache." To which Michelman, Camm, and I toasted. Hitler, people.

After Coyote Ugly we went to Pure at Caesar's Palace where there was a Playboy lingerie show featuring a Pussycat Dolls performance. It was nearly impossible to get in, but Butchart pulled some strings from out of nowhere and we got to skip the line. It pays to know people and it pays to know Buttshit. Despite a rather sharp (if I may say) collared shirt I was denied entry to Pure based on my sneakers. Dorky Chris aka Dirt McGirt however was let in with sneakers because he was wearing a sport coat with his jeans. Michelman ran into Lennox Lewis inside and I was jealous of that. The place apparently didn't turn out so cool because after we skipped the line those that got in had to pay a $30 cover. The room was too crowded and you couldn't get drinks.

To compensate for my missing out of Lennox Lewis, I ended up running into recently retired All-time Could'a Been Jonathan Bender formerly of the Pacers. Seven feet is quite tall in person.

On the gambling front I lost $40 in four hands playing blackjack the first night. I decided to focus on drinking for the rest of the trip. Featured drink of the weekend: Maker's on the rocks. Delicious. Preeminently tip your waitress for desired pour. A j may or may not have been rolled inside of O'Shea's and then enjoyed in the alley behind Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville.

Rules for next Vegas trip:
1)No Makaela
2)No Coyote Ugly
3)Wear dark shoes and collared shirt every night out just in case
4)No fucking around with anything but straight whiskey
5)Must visit Toby Keith's "I Love This Bar...and Grill"

See you in late August/early September, Vegas. I'll get you yet.

John Hollinger is a Dangerous Nerd

2006-03-31T14:49:00.000-08:00

Sonics Have Worst Defense Ever"? (Insider)

I will say this: the Supersonics' defense is indeed atrocious. It's just not the worst ever. Jay Bilas was right when he said that Luke Ridnour couldn't guard the chair that Bilas was sitting in on draft day. Luke is actually a fine off ball defender who can get into passing lanes and disrupt the opposition's transition game. But that doesn't matter because the NBA is primarily a half court game especially in crunch time.

The Supes are also hampered by the developing twin towers Bob Swift and Johan Petro. Watching the Sonics play, opposition big men salivate when they get the ball in the paint against these guys. Just this week Pau Gasol hung 44 on the Supes and Yao Ming followed that up with 28. That's 28 considering he didn't play much in the fourth quarter because the Rockets had led by as much as 40 and the game was over at half. It is not unreasonable to expect the seven footers to dramatically improve as they get more experience and begin to feel their defensive oats, but right now there is no respect level from the other team. That strains the already limited perimeter defense as they have to cover for our post weakness. There's no denying the Sonics are bad at defense.

But still...worst ever? Hollinger's rating is based on opponent's points per 100 possessions adjusted for free throws and three pointers. That number is then measured against the league average. I can make up formulas too, John. I was once involved in the creation of a drink called the Holocaust consisting of Maneschevitz and 151. Hollinger rated that one of the highest VERs or all time. (That's vomit efficiency rating and a yuk if you're scoring at home.)

How about a crazy abitrary stat like pure average points against? John Hollinger doesn't want you to know that this year's Sonics don't even make the Top 100 worst defenses since 1979-80 (advent of the 3 point line). NOT IN THE TOP 100 YA HEARD? Worst team ever if you're wondering? Try the 1990-91 Denver Nuggets. Opponents averaged a mind-boggling 130 points against them. That is per game. I didn't believe it myself which is why I linked to the game log so you could see that debacle score by score. They had a rookie Chris Jackson by the way.

There is no team in the Top 50 highest opponent's points per game later than the 1992-1993 Dallas Mavericks at 32. There is no team in the Top 100 later than the 1994-95 Golden State Warriors at 85. I would think this is due to the bruising defensive styles introduced by the Pat Riley Knicks teams of the mid-90s. Hollinger might be getting carried away with his worst ever claim because we've been spoiled by good defense in terms of total points for a little over a decade. So like, there's that.

Footnote:

In positive Supes news Hollinger did note that the team has shown marked improvement under Bob Hill owing to the acquisition of Earl Watson. It also helped to hit Danny Fortson in the knee with a lead pipe and trade Reggie Evans to get rid of those fouling machines.

I love databasebasketball.com.

The Pro Life Movement: Not For Bears

2006-03-29T15:38:00.000-08:00

I'm killing you with content today. Still featuring Westberg's newly discovered blog.

How do you and yours celebrate the birth of a new family member? Britney Spears does by having a nude sculpture of her pregnant self on a bearskin rug made for the Pro Life cause. But of course!! I've always been pro choice but I can say I'm finally swayed by this. The topper is of course that this pro life monument features Britney on top of a dead bear's skin. You get the message bears? You're GODLESS!!
The terrifying evidence:

A new internet hero (add Right Said Fred)

2006-03-29T11:10:00.000-08:00

Peep this shite. All I can say is finally.
Hot Carl's Steamy Pile

A response to the linked post-

Point of order: that was by no means a small novelty song. Try worldwide smash hombre. Point of odor: poop stinks.

That song is fucking genius in retrospect. Imagine this dude (maybe it was two dudes) debuting Too Sexy to a stunned and delighted audience. He ends with "I'm too sexy for this song" as he drops the mic, spits on the audience and walks off stage to the sound of his own reverb: song song song song. The crowd is silent for a moment and then there is a week long gay riot in the warehouse district of Berlin where the show was.

If that's not enough please enjoy Adam Morrison's Five Stages of Grief(courtesy SG Links).

Weezy, I think I love you.

2006-03-23T12:07:00.000-08:00

Chris Wilcox aka Weezy - Last night: 30 points, 14 rebounds. Two nights ago: 16 points, 19 rebounds.

Since joining the Sonics 15 games ago Chris Wilcox is averaging 14.1 points and 7.2 rebounds per game. These numbers are far more impressive than previous highs of 8.6 points and 4.7 boards in his second year with the Clips. Wilcox has found yet another level in his last five games averaging 18.6 points and 10.2 rebounds. Four years after being selected in the lottery after a national championship year at Maryland, Weezy is finally beginning to realize his potential.

Wilcox's Seattle numbers become yet more impressive when one views the efficiency with which he achieves them. Always an economical shot, Wilcox has never converted below fifty percent on field goals in his career. With the Sonics his field goal percentage has skyrocketed to above sixty percent. In his rookie year Weezy shot a Chris Dudley-like fifty percent from the charity stripe. With the Supes he is shooting just below eighty percent. The improved production suggests that a career high thirty minutes per night sit quite well with the Braided One. As Usher said, let it burn.

Today in the Times Bob Hill revealed that before the trade Clippers coach Mike Dunleavy gave Chris Wilcox a vote of confidence saying, "if a running team ever gets the guy, he's going to be great". So far Dunleavy looks to be quite prescient. Too bad his son is gay.

Best play by play man in the world Kevin Calabro mentioned last night on the broadcast that not only has Weezy provided needed production in the paint, but already has positively influenced the morale of the increasingly moody Rashard Lewis. Rashard has an option to void his contract after next season. Earlier this year he had intended to do just that citing the Sonics' poor play. With the addition of Wilcox and Watson, Rashard's outlook on his future in Seattle is reportedly rosier. Pretty good for a guy who this past month had initiated a Vince Carter-esque tank job.

Chris Wilcox's stout neck has earned him membership in the Jennifer Love Hewitt Memorial Club of People Whom Attempting To Choke Would Be A Waste Of Time. Sprewell would have better results stealing bread in Agrabah than wrestling with that head trunk.

Since the debut of Wilcox and Watson the Supes are 6-4 - not out of this world, but a vast improvement for a team that has had a winning percentage languishing in the .300s. There is hope again in the LQA!! Hope I say!!

My early tournament fears (add racism)

2006-03-15T16:07:00.000-08:00

Utah State has a point guard named David Pak (no relation to Robert) who will turn 30 years old later this year. It's remarkable that a player of his vintage is playing at the highest level or college basketball. What kept him from playing the game at an earlier age? It must have been a heroic career in the US Military or something like that. After all, we are talking about a white man from ultra-conservative Utah right? Well, actually Mr. Pak got a late start on life due to the petty matter of serving eight years in prison for RAPING A WOMAN AT KNIFE POINT. Yikes.

From a basketball standpoint what worries me for the Huskies is the fact that this man, through his violent past and prison experience, has to have a higher level intensity-wise than our guys. He's simply willing to go places our guys won't. I'm scared. For everyone.

King Kaufman had another wonderful article today about the WBC (which I hate).

The gist: The 2004 USA Olympic Basketball team full of multimillionaire superstars won a bronze in Athens and was roundly criticized in the press for being selfish, having bad attitudes, and generally being lazy. The 2006 USA WBC team is in danger of being knocked out of the tournament tonight well before the finals. This team is also full of multimillionaire superstars, but I don't see the same outrage in the press.

Could it be because the basketball team looked like this?
And the baseball team looks like this?
I'm sure race has nothing to do with it.

I've been watching too much Project Runway...

2006-03-02T17:48:00.000-08:00

I watch sports every day, as much as possible without Makaela trying to kill me. Notice I don't care if she wants to kill me. The breaking point is if she actually attempts to do me physical harm. To avoid that certain eventuality Mak has a couple of shows that get watched. One of them is Bravo's Project Runway.

Last night the three finalists had to pick a partner from the eliminated cast members to help them on their final piece for the show. Before they were picked I said, "Whichever of the guys gets to pick first is going to take Nick." Sure enough it happens. Santino has the next pick and I predict, "He's taking Andre." Boom. Dead on again. I didn't guess for Chloe because I was scaring myself.

The "You're Fired!" sendoff line on this show is hilarious. When you lose Heidi Klum informs you with gravitas that "You're out of style." That is the ultimate slap in the face for these designers. Well, not the ultimate. When speaking of Chloe a couple of weeks ago Santino said "I've never been impressed with people I consider to be good pattern makers, but not good designers." Take my word for it. That fucking stings.

Big finale next week America. I would be shocked if Santino doesn't win.

The on court future of the Sonics

2006-03-01T12:10:00.000-08:00

I would like to go on record that I think Rick Sund is doing a great job with the Sonics' personnel. The Sonics are doing things the right way with young players on the relatively cheap.

The current NBA cap is at 49.5 million. The Sonics are on the books this year for 50.75 million. They're not actually over the cap though due to Bird rights and a host of other rules that I don't exactly understand. (I need to read John Hollinger's Pro Basketball Prospectus.) Their current payroll ranks them 25th out of 30 teams in the league.

Here's a current salary breakdown of the Supersonics:
http://www.hoopshype.com/salaries/seattle.htm

Blah blah blah salary. How about the players? It doesn't matter what they cost if they're no good. Here's what I see the Supes rotation being next year (starter/backup):

PG Ridnour/Watson
SG Allen/
SF Lewis/Wilkins
PF Wilcox/Collison
C Swift/Petro

I don't think Steve Nash is that far off in terms of a goal for production from Luke Ridnour. Both players are suspect defensively, but both are uncanny when it comes to scoring at assists. Compare these numbers from Nash's third season to Rid's current third year:
Nash 7.9 PPG 5.5 APG 37 3P%
Ridnour 11.8 PPG 6.9 APG 26 3P%

The only glaring problem there is Ridnour's three point percentage. I can't for the life of me figure out why this guy can't shoot anymore. He was positively lethal in college. I've been watching Rid shoot for years, and I have to believe that this is an anomaly. It's definitely in his head too. I remember at the game last night he passed up a wide open baseline three by stepping in and taking the 20 foot two. You can't shoot scared. Earl Watson is signed for too much money right now, but his deal isn't as bad as people think. I think Earl is more than capable of playing the 04-05 Antonio Daniels role on this team for the next few years. He's a steady hand and a better defender than Luke. Against teams like Phoenix the Supes can now go with Watson and Ridnour in the backcourt, Ray at the 3, Rashard at the 4, and Collison/Wilcox at the 5. Versatility is invaluable.

Ray Allen is underrespected right now. There are less than ten players in the league who can dominate a playoff series like he did against the Kings last year. We have one of them. He singlehandedly kept us involved with the Spurs too. Surprise at the end of the post for Ray's backup.

Rashard is an amazing scorer. He is an impossible matchup for most teams. Down the stretch last night the crunch time o flowed not through Ray, but Rashard. Dump it to Rashard iso in the post. Rinse, repeat. Can't be stopped. Wilkins has turned out to be a great find. He's willing to do what the coach tells him to which is a quality shared by a lot of these Sonics. Catching on as an effort guy he has now tallied a healthy handful of twenty point performances. Who'd a thunk? You also have to love that reasonable deal that keeps him with us through 2010.

The power forward position is still shaking out obviously with the addition of Chris Wilcox. I was very intrigued by his performance last night. He showed some nifty one hand post moves and he's lightning quick off of the floor. In one sequence Wilcox had a missed 6 footer and he followed his own shot in traffic for a tasty jam. It's nice to have a PF who actually likes to play in the post. What a change of pace. He runs the floor very well too. Nick Collison is a vital piece of the Sonics with his winning experience and effort. His mid to long range jumper has developed nicely also. Gone are the days of Art Long and Ansu Sesay. Thank god.

Which brings us to the center position aka the ultimate x factor. The bad is that these guys are unproven. The good is that we have no idea where their ceiling is. Raise your hand if you knew Bob Swift was going to develop into a nightly legit double double threat. You sir are a liar. His maturation this year has to be a scary thought for the rest of the league. Bob will swat your shit and then run the floor and dunk on your dome piece. Then he will go into the stands and finger your mom and wife. He's bad. Petro is a great athlete no doubt about that, and I can't wait to see what he's capable of spelling Swifty.

Now about that backup SG. Oh, I don't know...how about Brandon Fucking Roy? Sure to be available when the Sonics pick in the lottery, Brandon will be a better defender in the league than Ray Allen. His ability to lock down opposition point guards will be as valuable to the Supes as it is to the Dawgs. His unselfish offensive game will be immediately productive and not disruptive to team chemistry because he doesn't force shots. Also, the city loves him.

PG Ridnour/Watson
SG Allen/Roy
SF Lewis/Wilkins
PF Wilcox/Collison
C Swift/Petro

The Sonics have options on all of these players through 2008 except for Chris Wilcox. Wilcox along with Petro happens to be the least essential piece at this juncture by the way. If you put these players in the oven for the next season and a half, the Sonics could have a tasty cake. This is how you rebuild, folks. Hats off to Rick Sund.

Me and Isiah Thomas have the same problems....

2006-02-23T17:04:00.000-08:00

Well, except for the fact that there is of yet no sexual harrassment suit pending against me. And the fact that I'm not being called an idiot by every NBA writer, but that's probably just a problem of visibility. I'm sure if the media saw my star studded second to last place fantasy hoops squad, they would have a field day.

Isiah Thomas just traded for Steve Francis to compliment Stephon Marbury in one of the highest paid backcourts of all time. The problem is: these guys are the exact same player. Well, the real problem is that these guys are the same player and that this player doesn't win games.

From Minnesota to New Jersey to Phoenix to New York Stephon Marbury has never won a playoff series. On his first two tries he even had the bonus of Kevin Garnett on his team. He still couldn't win.

From Houston to Orlando Steve Francis has been in one playoff series ever and lost it (to the Lakers with the Rockets and Yao).

Starbury and Franchise? Together? Is this NBA Live? If so this team is going to be great. I think that this is still the real world though, so no dice. Who brings the ball up? How do they divvy up the shots? Both these dudes need the freedom to shoot 40 times if they feel like it.

The only explanation is that Isiah is trying to drive Larry Brown insane. It would take a miracle for this team to win 20 games this season. At a roster cost of 120 million that equates to a mere six million dollars per NBA victory. And the coach himself costs another ten million dollars a year. And then the luxury tax. If I owned the Knicks I would remove one of Isiah's eyeballs and have my way with his ocular cavity.

Las Vegas has installed the Knicks as a four point dog against the Terror Squad All Stars this summer in the Rucker league. Crack!

Holy fucking shit

2006-02-13T17:47:00.000-08:00

I knew it. I just knew it. Did anyone see Chappelle on Inside the Actor's Studio last night? They have him on drugs. He was too controversial. I fucking knew it.

I figured out the Joey Porter riddle: he's just gay.

2006-02-02T17:33:00.000-08:00

The big news out of a very tame Super Bowl week is that Jerramy Stevens upset Joey Porter. Jerramy Stevens had the audacity to point out that the Seahawks expect to win the game. Stevens did this in the context of taking a shot at the ridiculously overhyped story of Jerome Bettis coming home.

Aside, I must say I've enjoyed the Sports Guy's consistent ripping of Bettis as simply being a fat ass this week. He's always been big. Now he's just fat. Great stuff.

Back to the lecture at hand. Stevens calls a spade a spade and Joey Porter starts running his mouth about how Jerramy is a first round bust (true until this season, now not true), only plays special teams (not true), and doesn't make big plays (see leaping TD in NFC Championship game). Joey Porter is an n word, not to put to fine a point on it. He labeled Steven's comments as "out of hat". Excuse me, what the fuck? Does that even make sense?

Let's break down what we know about Joey Porter:

-Has a very high voice
-Went to Colorado State (Rams suck)
-Walks around in pregame with his midriff exposed like Antoine Meriwether from In Living Color
-Famously got shot in the booty after a Colorado-Colorado State game ("shot in the booty" is urban slang for getting fucked in the ass as everyone knows)

This guy is completely and totally over the top with his trash talk. It's called compensating. He stays on the offensive so know one can point out what is obvious. Dude is a disco dancing, Oscar Wilde reading, Streisand ticket holding, friend of Dorothy. The man's a cake boy. I suggest the Seahawks just fucking call it out.

Mike Holmgren: It's not hard to imagine Joey Porter saying those things. Everyone knows he's compensating for the fact that he likes men. He plays football for the tight pants and the locker room, plain and simple.

Matt Hasselbeck: Joey Porter is the toughest player on the thteelers. Please, give that guy one night with Tom Cruise and he's mellow man ace. He's scrambling for loose balls.

So then come game time Joey Porter is so furious that he commits two egregious personal fouls on the first two plays and is kicked out of the game. I would seriously like to see someone adopt this tactic. Especially on this faygo.

It gets no funnier than this...

2006-01-23T17:10:00.000-08:00

These guys at Buddyhead are fucking mean and hilarious. Read all of the newest ways to call someone gay as they review the twenty best and worst records of 2005.
http://www.buddyhead.com/music/bestof2005/

Also, I appear to have set off some gay adbot's gaydar on my last post. That's the last team I write about my experiences buying shoes. I should've known. If I lay the het on thick in the upcoming posts just know that I'm trying to shake these gay robots off my metaphorical tail. I said metaphorical. Go Seahawks.

"Jack White looks like Zorro on donuts." -Noel Gallagher

No tricks in oh six

2006-01-03T17:19:00.000-08:00

It's been two or three months, and I think the peculiarities of John Elway's receiving corps through the years has finally been digested by the public.

Big news: Wedding Crashers is released on DVD today. I'm picking up a copy on the way home from work. I have to take back some shoes at Nordstrom too. Which reminds me.....

I usually have great service at Nordstrom, but I had a weird experience last time. On my lunch break, I met up with Moms to eat and get some New Balance sneakers (which I sport to avoid a narrow path per Phifer). We're getting the shoes after a quick meal, so I'm kind of in a hurry to get back to work. I tell the guy expressly to bring out a ten and a half. He brings the shit out and my foot barely fits in it. It's such a struggle that I almost kick the guy in the face trying to squeeze these sneakers on. Hey, no big deal right? Maybe this shoe runs small. So I ask him to bring out an eleven. He brings it out and again I have trouble getting it on my foot. But this time I can get it on and I'm kind of more in a hurry to get back. Fuck it. It's a little tight but I'll take them. Maybe it's just the way they're laced or something. There's no way I'm an eleven and a half.

So, I check them a couple of days later because I want to wear them around and I look at the size. This motherfucker squeezed me into a ten!!! The first shit he brought out was probably a 9.5! What the fuck!! Did he think I meant European sizes or something? He puts the shoe on my foot. Then he has the audacity to blame the ill fit on my apparently "uniquely high instep". Hey Einstein, maybe the shoe doesn't fit because IT'S THE WRONG FUCKING SIZE. I've always taken the word of the shoe salesman as gospel. Especially at Nordstrom. No more. The bond of trust has been broken. Check ya sizes, USA.

Yo, I find it ironic that Einstein was a genius, but now his name is used almost exclusively to call someone stupid. It's the same with Sherlock Holmes and his detective skills. No shit.

Check out the comments section of my previous post to see a link to a blog by a hispanic park ranger. I haven't read his blog but I guarantee you it's nowhere near as funny as the premise sounds.

I kept hearing that this band Hockey Night sounded a lot like Pavement so I got the cd. Well, kind of...I guess. I see what you're saying, but this ain't no Pavement. The first song's good, though.

Time for the Orange Bowl and then Crashers. Say goodnight to the tricks you know. They are fucking out this year.

Denver Broncos Receivers of the John Elway Era

2005-10-27T17:19:00.000-07:00

So, Warren? What do you do at work? I get this a lot. This is what I do. Excuse the prose, I didn't put the effort into making this really readable. Just the facts:

Steve Watson was the leading receiver in Elway's first three seasons 83-85. He remained a factor in the offense through 86. Mark Jackson was the leading receiver in 1986 and remained solid through 1992. Vance Johnson led the Broncos in receiving from 1987-89. Mark Jackson led again in 1990. Mike Young had only 600 yards in 1991 but that somehow led Denver even though they went 12-4 and made the AFC Championship Game. Gaston Green had 1000 yards that year rushing but even that isn't that impressive. Weird year. Mark Jackson took a bow in 1992 leading in receiving in his last year for the Broncos before playing for the Giants the next year. Then he embarked on a successful NBA career running the point for the Knicks and Pacers among other teams (not really). In 1993 Shannon Sharpe was Elway's best target from the TE position. He would lead the team again in 1996. In 1994 and 1995 Denver was led in receiving by Anthony Miller. I have no recollection of this guy but his career numbers are pretty impressive: 5 Pro Bowls, almost 10000 yards, and 63 TDs. That's hall of fame stuff. Then in 1997 Rod Smith showed up and has led the Broncos in receiving ever since.

Elway 1000 Yard Receivers:
1983 Steve Watson
1984 Steve Watson
1989 Vance Johnson
1994 Anthony Miller
1994 Shannon Sharpe
1995 Anthony Miller
1996 Shannon Sharpe
1997 Shannon Sharpe
1997 Rod Smith
1998 Rod Smith

Aimless, so aimless

2005-10-18T17:14:00.000-07:00

Now that I've solved the mystery of the one game playoff (by discovering there is no good answer to my question), I have no idea what to write about. I have time to kill right now though so I'll just muck up the information superhighway with literally pointless writing, which is good because now I will have a lot more in common with most of the other blogs I come across. Usually when I write I am steering something towards a joke. Not right now. Stop. Wait. NEW SEGMENT: I Review Your Blog!!

Basis: I go to my profile page and click on one of my interests. From that list of blogs I pick one that looks like I'll be able to make fun of it. Then....I will make fun of it.

For the pilot of this segment I clicked on an interest of mine that will surely lead to a weird place: "pot". That brought me to a blogger from East Jakarta (is there any other), Indonesia. Her blogger name is starlight-starbright. She lists her interests as K-Pop, music, fanfiction, POT, Han Gul, Mandarin, Japanese, English, languages. I don't know what K-Pop or Han Gul is/are, and I think that her interest in POT may be an acronym for something else. Or maybe she just really likes it. Maybe her blog will have the answers.
http://un-touch-able.blogspot.com/
Upon viewing this site, I notice she chose the same background as me. I also notice she uses blue font for her post. Only one post ever on this blog and it's from August 15, 2004. The one post blog definitely hints at pot use. The writing is absolutely unintelligible. Sample: I also love to romanize many korean songs How does one go about (a) romanizing a song, and (b) romanizing a korean one. The poster loves to write fan fiction but isn't too consistent. I love to write and read fanfics. So far...I have already written 4 fanfics. The first was finished and I'm working on my 3rd and 4th ones. My problem is that she says she has written four and then admits in the next sentence that she's working on numbers three and four. I give this blog a 0.4 out of 10 with points marked off not being recently updated, poor english, and generally being retarded. This is the type of blog that makes me wonder why I review blogs in the first place.

In the words of starlight-starbright: Ummm...I think that's all from me...LaterZz xp...!!!

King Kaufman and Rob Neyer weigh in

2005-10-13T17:30:00.000-07:00

I thought my baseball question was a good one so I fired it off to the criminally underread King Kaufman of Salon.com. To my surprise he replied pretty quickly:

It's a good question. I don't know. It actually makes sense to me, but I can't really articulate a rule. I asked Rob Neyer if knew why the 163rd game doesn't seem to count against the loser in this scenario. Here's what he said:

"Yeah, it's sort of a weird situation. I think everybody just sort of decided that while that 163rd game "counts," it's not relevant vis a vis the Wild Card standings. Which seems fair to me. I've never seen an official explanation either, though. -r"

Thanks for writing.

king

What did we learn from this matter? That baseball has a silly little loophole that they didn't seem to be ready to exercise in 2000 for the Mariners or A's, but were more than ready to employ for the Red Sox or Yankees this season. Baseball is gay, but we already knew that. Also, we learned that the thirty bucks a year for my Salon.com subscription is more than worth it. Most importantly we learned that ESPN's Rob Neyer signs his emails "-r". So that's that.
-w

www.salon.com (pay site but you can view it for 24 hours if you watch a short ad)
www.robneyer.com

Re: Baseball question for Andrew

2005-10-07T12:12:00.000-07:00

So I reached out across oceans to Winner and he had nothing to offer. I then decided to cater to my inner Encyclopedia Brown.

The scenario is this: In the event of a three way tie at the end of the season, MLB scheduled a one game playoff between the Yankees and Red Sox with the loser playing the Indians for the Wild Card spot.

From my September 29th post:

Why in this scenario should Cleveland have to play their way into the playoffs against a team with a worse regular season record (on account of the one game playoff)?

Some incriminating material from mlb.com:

"If a Monday playoff game is needed...MLB counts that as a 163rd regular season game for all teams involved."

http://mlbplayers.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/pa/news/article.jsp?ymd=20050926&content_id=1224631&vkey=mlbpa_news&fext=.jsp

How about Jayson Stark talking about this issue concerning the 2000 AL Wild Card Race?

So suppose Seattle, Oakland and Cleveland all finish the season with records of, say, 92-70. Then suppose the Mariners beat the A's in their AL West playoff game. That game would count in the standings, so Oakland's record would drop to 92-71, a half-game worse than Cleveland's record. Hence, the Indians would be in, the A's out.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/columns/stark/grumblings/767892.html

That's what I thought. How come these rules don't apply to the Yankees and Red Sox?

And in conclusion: Baseball sucks.

Football and the street

2005-10-03T17:00:00.000-07:00

Football recap: Huskies lost a game they should have won. Seahawks lost a game they should have won. I lost in both of my fantasy leagues. I still love football though. I'm going to call this past weekend a deposit in the First National Bank of Football Karma.

Sociology update: I was watching "Virginia Tech: The Season" on the worldwide leader over the weekend and they had a sequence where one of the senior's had a videocamera and was interviewing underclassmen. One of them he introduced as a "Freddy Adu lookalike". If that's not funny to you then just leave right now. A couple of years ago I was sitting in front of the UW football guys at an early season basketball game. One of the athletes remarked that a player on the opposing team looked like NBA forward Dale Davis. This drew hearty guffaws from the rest of the football guys seated directly behind me. Then one of the football guys pointed out the resemblance of a different player on the other team to WWE wrestler Mankind. Again, big laughs.

My hypothesis is this: African-American athletes love to point out when someone looks like a person of relative celebrity. This is very funny to them (and me).

Keep an eye out for more examples of this phenomenon.

In rap: I like the dirty version of David Banner's "Play", but that doesn't make me dirty. I'm totally fine with the fact that it's a ripoff of The Whisper Song. It's still great/hilarious. Another song that I hear all the f-ing time is "Your Body" by Pretty Ricky. Pretty Ricky isn't one dude, but four guys who are related. I don't get it either. Maybe it's a Voltron thing.

Sample lyrics:
[Chorus]
I got new shoes on the ride (yes sir)
Rollin' down 95 (yes sir)
And you can see in my eyes (yes sir)
That I'm lookin for a cutiepie (yes sir)
And we ain't gotta make love (yes sir)
And we can just cuddle up (yes sir)
But if she want me to beat it up (yes sir)
Then dammit, I'll beat it up (yes sir)
My body, your body (it's burnin' up)
My body, your body (it's burnin' up)
My body, your body (it's burnin' up)
My body, your body (it's burnin' up)

[Baby Blue]
I don't know why, but the ladies call ol' baby blue the sticker
They take me and rape me and make me they victim
I lick em and freak 'em if they married I sneak 'em
If they look like wifey material, then I keep 'em
Stuntin' through the city tryin' to find a lady who
Beautiful, but she gotta have booty too
Baby blue gonna let you do what you wanna do
You can feel on it if you really want to
Get a taste of the salami
knock knock knock knock you down like a tsunami

Yep, it really says "get a taste of the salami". Apparently these young men work part time at the butcher's. The earlier "gotta have booty too" is emboldened because of how it is delivered. Imagine Thumb-sucking Fred from Making the Band 2 delivering that line in his whiny yell. That's what it sounds like. It's worth downloading just for that lyric.

If somebody is ever stressing out about bills you should tell them, "You need to stop moralizing your debts, man."

Baseball question for Andrew

2005-09-29T17:33:00.000-07:00

Sportscenter last night showed the schedule of one game playoffs if the Yankees, Red Sox, and Indians were to all finish the season with the same record. It appears that the Yankees and Red Sox will play one game at Yankee Stadium to determine the AL East champ, with the loser then flying to Cleveland to play the Tribe for the wild card entry. I have always been under the impression that if the rare one game playoff is necessary to determine a divisional champion, then that playoff game would count as a 163rd regular season game. Why in this scenario should Cleveland have to play their way into the playoffs against a team with a worse regular season record (on account of the one game playoff)? Is the league simply giving the Yanks and BoSox as many chances as possible to make the playoffs and hoping people won't notice?

Ou est La Beouf?

2005-09-28T17:06:00.000-07:00

ITEM: I have it on a very reliable source that a senior espn.com employee is among the many dissatisfied with the early regular season Fantasy Football service.

I agree that yahoo is more reliable than espn. You'd think that would be enough to use yahoo exclusively. Right? Wrong. I'm talking about upside bitch. Espn's fantasy football, when it is functioning (95% of the time), is a better product than yahoo's. Simple as that. I can customize the league settings way more on espn, there are better articles written by bigger fantasy nerds, and finally - Smack Boards. To quote Ari Gold: "Boom."

Speaking of Pivs my top five movie actor list is currently:
Nicholas Cage
Matt Damon
Jeremy Piven
empty
empty

Until now that is. I would like to officially add Shia LaBeouf to that list. This is based on the strength of performances in the films "Battle of Shaker Heights" and the criminally slept on "I, Robot". Shaker Heights was a Project Greenlight movie on HBO a couple of years ago so there was a lot of reality footage which he spent cursing and talking like a black dude. Check and check. In that movie he totally necked Amy Smart. In Robot he offers the new phrase "Ass high spankable man". I like that. He has a great action movie line in Robot too:
NS5 Robot (in robot voice): You have been deemed hazardous. Do you comply?
Shia: You can kiss my ass metal dick!
Welcome Shia.

Makaela doesn't like how Tina Fey is always talking about her vagina using words like "noony" or "cooter" or "lady business". I think it's funny.

Watching ESPN's most recent Sunday Night Football was pretty infuriating. You know the drill how in every game they pick one player and gush about him all night long. Last Sunday's guy was Eli Manning. Newsflash: HE SUCKS. Every play he made was followed with a "You talk about a guy who can make the forward pass" or "Look at this! Look at this! Right here! Boom! What a handoff.". There was one play where Eli threw behind a wide open Plaxico Burress about 25 yards downfield over the middle, and Joe Theisman had the nerve to say that Plaxico needed to sit down and make a play for his QB. Here's an idea: How about Eli makes a throw for his receiver?? The ball was behind him plain and simple.

Side note: The moment I realized I hated Joe Theisman was during the Joe Horn Cellphone TD Celebration. Joe Theisman went on this rant about how the league should fine Horn one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000!) and suspend him for 2 games. SHUT THE FUCK UP JOE THEISMAN!! They should allow me in the booth to just slap some of these high and mighty crackers one of these days. I mean, they fine Broncos linemen $20,000 for ending players careers. Ending. Players. Careers. But yeah, that cellphone call really shook society to its core. Methinks Joe fears a race riot. Keep those players in line! Exact same sentiments out to Joe Buck also for his ridiculous reaction to the Randy Moss mooning incident.

Back to the game, the ESPN announcers didn't seem to notice that San Diego squatted and took a moist hairy doogen on the Jints. Keenan McCardell had his second 2 TD game this year and they've only played three fucking weeks! Not a single mention. It would have cut into Eli's highlight time.

If you missed the Bob Dylan documentary directed by Scorsese you really missed out. I think they're showing it again on Saturday night at 10pm. Check your local PBS listings bitches!

Only one thing could get this blog back on track....

2005-09-13T17:25:00.000-07:00

A desire to provide entertainment for the masses bored at work? Of course not!! ESPN's stupid fucking fantasy servers are down. I have nothing to do. I recognize that they are attempting to offer an ambitious product in making their fantasy football so customizable....but make the fucking thing work first!!!!! I hope some heads are rolling in Bristol. I'll try to get ESPN.com correspondant Sunny Wu on the AIM tonight for an update. If nothing else this will knock they're IT department down a peg. Anyone who's seen the "Nick Burns: Company Computer Guy" sketches on SNL know that these guys get a little full of themselves sometimes. HEY NERDS: FIX MY FUCKING FOOTBALL NOW

Ok, that's out of my system.

So, what was I talking about? Ah yes, Wedding Crashers. That was only a quarter ago. I enjoyed a few things especially the second time around. In the football scene there are a handful of nice quotes. Wilson asks Vaughn if he can throw a pick to Rachel McAdams without making it look obvious to which Vaughn replies, "I was all state in high school. I could make it rain out here." When Sack's friend is gloating over Sack dominating Vince he yells, "Crabcakes and football!! That's what Maryland does!!" You know, or something like that. The other great line was when Owen Wilson is dejected after losing Rachel McAdams and his answering machine picks up the phone (said whilst sighing heavily), "This is John.....whatever....(beeeeeep)".

Husky Football update: Husky Hoops tips off 11/6 against Simon Fraser. Simon Fraser's campus is located primarily underground because it's too cold there in the winter. And they recruited Camm for golf and diving. No foolin'.

GoHuskies.com also informs me that Romar will be speaking at an event this week at KeyArena. This event is called "Jammin' Against The Darkness". I can only assume that on September 17th a bunch of people will go to the Key, smoke reefer, crank up Legend, and talk a bunch of shit about that joke band The Darkness. Finally a coach with a conscience.

I've been listening to the song Kiss You Back by Digital Underground a lot lately. I recommend you download it now if you haven't heard it in a while. My favorite line in that song is when Money B says, "Girl you act real fly. Money B's not buying it." That's the type of thing I'd like to say if I saw some girl acting fly but I wasn't necessarily buying it.

Trade in your breakfast for a Dannon Frusion Smoothay!! If you search the internet for this phrase you'll find that more people have a relationship with this commercial than is probably proper. I count myself among that group that can't get enough of that guy and his Smoothies. Ad campaign of the year so far.

A search of that phrase just led me to this site: CourtneyElizabeth.com - Diary of a young black photographer. Her page is way tighter than mine.

I'm back bitches.

Thursday

2005-07-21T17:37:00.000-07:00

I'm going to see Wedding Crashers with Arensberg tonight. It will be my second viewing of this fine film. I recommend it to all. Vince Vaughn in this bitch.

You have to applaud Was (Not Was)'s willingness to try things out. I can think of a lot of bands that simply would have put the kibosh on "Walk the Dinosaur" on principle. Boom boom akalakalakaboom, boom boom akalakaboomboom. I do not know the step for walk the dinosaur. The chorus to me is like an increasingly strange list of three instructions.

1)Open the door - Fine. Whatever you say. Consider it open.

2)Get on the floor - Again, ok. But I grow skeptical of your commands. Why did I have to open the door first?

3)Everybody walk the dinosaur - You and I are no longer on the same wavelength. Wouldn't getting on the floor be a step backwards if you were just going to walk? Will you provide me with a dinosaur to walk or is it more of a walking style?

The best part of designing clothes for rodeo clowns is the bull focus group. The bulls get in a room and you show them slides. In front of each bull there are two buttons - one green and one red. Then they just mash the button with their hoof depending on how each outfit makes them feel. The key is finding something that infuriates the bull, but makes humans laugh. Like maybe that unreleased "meat" cover for that one Beatles album. Or Jeff Foxworthy.

Ernie Kent update!!!

2005-07-18T03:58:00.000-07:00

I received a hilarious email from what I presume to be an Ernie Kent backer.

"kencan@teleport.com to me:

You sound like someone with reprehensible morals and zero integrity.

K. Smith
Attorney"

Listen, I'm not the guy accused of cheating on his wife multiple times. I'm also not the guy lashing out on an alleged adulterer's behalf. Free advice - as long as you're arguing for that side Mr. K. Smith: avoid a values debate. Just saying.

I also enjoy the very professional looking tag of "Attorney". Is that supposed to be an attempt at intimidation? I assure you that I'm quite afraid and will be taking down all of my Ernie Kent-related content immediately. Oh wait, actually not.

In other news, I must be on google somewhere. Justice!!!

Fantasy Football Season

2005-07-14T14:13:00.000-07:00

I set up a league on espn.com. It's always been the superior service for fantasy football and for some crazy reason it's free this year. If you want to play send me an email at warrencb@gmail.com and I will get you an invite.

If anyone sees Katie Holmes, slap her. Slap her hard. They replayed an interview of her on Letterman last night and it creeped the jesus out of me. I know everyone's supposed to be better than celeb talkin, but it's not happening. Tis a facile human trait I hear.

When the truth comes out on all of this TomKat garbage it will be fucking fascinating. Book it.

Picture of Ernie Kent's hussie....

2005-07-13T17:40:00.000-07:00

Allegedly the woman who embattled Oregon basketball coach Ernie Kent is about to lose his job over is on this page:

http://www.pleasanthill.k12.or.us/Schools/High/
People/alumni/79class/79class.htm

(Take the part that begins People/alumni... and tack it right after High/ in the url. That long address was messing up the format on the blog. If you want it you can still see it, just not as easily.)

Her name is Elizabeth Chambers. (Scroll down a bit)

Subquestion: At which point do intercollegiate rivalries turn too dirty? Are these posts too much? I don't think so. I would have to say a line would be crossed though if one were to email echamber@cmc.net to get the full scoop. I will not be that person........today.

Ernie Kent out at Oregon???????

2005-07-11T17:09:00.000-07:00

There are severely unsubstantiated reports coming out of Eugene declaring the possible end of the Ernie Kent era of Oregon basketball. Word is that Ernie, who preaches strong Christian family values to his recruits, has been a less than faithful husband. These infidelities have been taking place for some time, but finally became problematic due to a recent relationship with the daughter of a prominent Oregon booster. This Oregon booster owns the television station that broadcasts Duck athletics locally in Eugene. This booster is understandably not happy with the relationship of the coach, and is going to end his station's relationship with UO - impacting the university financially. It is speculated that Ernie Kent will be forced to resign within the coming days. Gonzaga coach Mark Few, an Oregon alum, is one name being talked about as a possible replacement. Oregon fans contend that this story has been concocted by rival Pac-10 coaches to hurt Kent's recruiting efforts, and is completely untrue. Yet, yesterday Oregon fan website www.educk.com was deleting any and all references to the budding controversy. Something to hide? Questions abound as to the future and possible transfers of young Oregon stars Malik Hairston and Bryce Taylor.

As a Husky I must say that this is all quite fun. Of course, there are about zero credible on the record sources to confirm anything about this story. However, often where there's smoke there's fire...

Stay tuned!!!

UCLA website http://www.bruinsnation.com/ had the scoop as far as I know.

Will post tomorrow about Nate Robinson, Will Conroy, and the rest of the NBA Summer League action.

Wednesday is always a fine day of the week.

2005-07-06T17:04:00.000-07:00

I have an hour left at work and not much to do. Who's the big winner in that scenario? That's right. You: Nerd America (and Nerd World).

I went to the Clare Duffy's for the Fourth again this year. I had a far better time as well. I just threw myself into the action (read: drank). Did you know if you have a keg cup full of red wine, and then fill that same cup with white wine on the next drink you get a pleasant blush? Talk about a bonus. Also, Jenna observed that if you eat an M&M and a gummy bear at the same time it's like a chocolate covered gummy bear. No comment really on Jenna other than she said that and wore a pink cowboy hat. I spent most of my time being drunk and talking shit with Makaela, Cathy, and Clare. Three delights if there ever were. Halfway through the night Cathy tapped in Holly for their tag team and Holly did an admirable job living up to the high standards Cathy had established. Holly hooked up a mix cd from this play she was in a handful of months ago. I really liked one of the songs in the play and now I know what it is: "Running Away" by Sly and the Family Stone. You won't regret that download. And as a capper Fung said that I wasn't that white, skintone-wise or culturally. Made my day.

Speaking of Clare - Andy, when Clare met you one of the first times she says one of your lines was, "Some people say I look like Bret Boone." I say that's hilarious and now that I think about it true in a weird way. So, I'm sure you were upset when the Mariners shitcanned Boone this week. Talk about overdue. When you succeed on the juice and have to get off the juice you become a worse player - even if there isn't a huge correlation between the drug and your performance. At the least it's your magic feather. Good night to the Boonie era. Boom, there goes the Boone!!!! PS I never really liked you. Bring back Cameron.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/baseball/231107_boone03ww.html

If I was ever granted a prime time interview with the president I would insist it would be live. Instead of asking questions I would just sit in a chair and clap sarcastically for the full time. The key to sarcastic clapping is a nice smarmy consistent head nod. To spice it up I would throw in things like, "Doin' great." Or, "Keep it up." Maybe a simple, "Nice."

Ray Allen has agreed to terms with the Supes. As with all Supes-positive news I will say, "In your fucking face Tubby!" Tubby likes the Sonics like I enjoy the Mariners. Every knows the Sonics are way cooler though. We have Ray now until he's thirty-five. I don't really see him becoming Allan Houston in a couple of years....but I'm sure Allan Houston didn't see himself becoming what he is when he signed his gargantuan deal. He's rich though so he doesn't have to worry about what people say. My favorite Ray moment from the last playoffs was when he drove the lane for a lefty dunk over Rasho Nesterovic in Game 4 of the Spurs series. Everybody do the Stephen A. Smith voice: RASHO NESTEROVIC?!?!?!?!? Anyway, there are only a handful of players in the NBA who can take over an important basketball game. The Supersonics now have one of those players for the next five years. God bless them. I hope they sign Nate.
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/basketball/nba/sonics/2005-07-05-allen-sonics_x.htm?csp=36

If you were Nate, why would you sign with the Trailblazers? The idea of a Martell Webster-Sebastian Telfair backcourt is fun to think about, but trust me it will get ugly long before it's any kind of productive. I mean, Jason Kapono is salivating over this. Just saying.

I caught the last 20 minutes of NBA Rookies on the NBA channel last night. JR Smith had my favorite quote. Paraphrasing, "I didn't have a good game tonight. Only four points. No highlights. That's all I care about. I'd rather have two good dunks than thirty points. Especially if they're on somebody." Get excited about that Hornet fans. Ouch.

I enjoy this image

2005-06-23T11:47:00.000-07:00

paper
Originally uploaded by snarkyspot.

I'm a big rock guy, because that's how you gotta play on the mean streets of Pierce County. On Mercer Island they play a lot of paper and scissors. Go figure.

We're older. FEAR THE SHNEEZE!!!!

2005-06-11T22:16:00.000-07:00

I'm a man. An honest man. I've thought about starting a website before at www.poopedyourpants.com. It f'ing happens. To the best of us.

At work this week one day I was preparing Fedexes for the man. Things were going great when I felt a tingle in my nose. No big deal right? I sneezed once. and things were fine. Little did I know. I was sitting almost indian style. Feathers not dots. Read: sphincter open. On the second sneeze tragedy struck. To quote Das Efx: "The juice hit my BVDs quick like that - splat/I briggedy broke my ish from behind/tried to fake it, shake it/but yo I couldn't hide from the juicy/power of a loosey." I shneezed people. Shizneezed.

Luckily it wasn't awful because I broke for the john hella quick and got a clean up in effect. Light splatter but the lesson was clear. If you have to sneeze check your booty hole and bring it tight. Trust me, it came out of nowhere. There was no warning in sight. Learn from my mistake.

NBA Finals start tonight - Pre Draft Camp Underway

2005-06-09T17:24:00.000-07:00

Big ups to Andrew for doing the research on my last post as far as players taken ahead of Stoudemire. I talked to Winner last weekend, and his voice seemed way deeper. Cos he vas driving vay too fast. Zis is a problem officer. Zee, I cannot afford anozere ticket vit mein Porche...............

I recognize that San Antonio and Detroit are the two best teams in basketball. That ain't mean I gots to like it.

The day after I posted that Detroit was going to walk in six, they got punked in PIVOTAL game 5. All game five's must be referred to as pivotal. Then Dwyane Wade got hurt and there goes the season. Props to Miami though for being ahead in the fourth quarter of game seven. I didn't think they'd make it that far. Keyon Dooling played some absolutely horrendous basketball in game seven down the stretch. It was nice to see what it would look like if I was playing in the conference finals through Dooling. As expected, it wasn't pretty. Man he sucked. So we'll see if this series can grab me. Game one tonight.

Everbody is picking the Spurs in this series. I don't know. Detroit, especially Chauncey Billups, is gutter. I don't think Tony Parker is ready for him. This ain't Steve Nash no mo, bitch. For the sake of going against the grain I want Detroit in 6. They owe us all a riot from last year anyway.

Also in hoops, the Pre-NBA Draft in Chicago is under way featuring two Huskies. Will Conroy and Tre Simmons are teamed together for the camp scrimmages. At night the campers will gather round the fire and dream dreams of SUVs with pointless yet oh so necessary accoutrements. You should get a hybrid guys. Peak Oil...(kidding).

Chad Ford's coverage of this event has been sporadic. It would be a lot easier to watch it on tv. Apparently Will Conroy played poorly yesterday - only player in camp to not score. Chester Buckets was also very so so. Hopefully they pick it up today. Not that we'd get to see anyway.

Why wouldn't they put the NBA Pre-Draft camp on tv? Everyone would watch this. We're talking about players very familiar to the college hoops fan, who are playing for their lives!! I don't think a lot of these guys have plans except hoops. Every turnover means that person is going to be living on the street within five years. Every brick means instead of Milwaukee, you'll be ballin' in Uzbekistan...which I suppose is a push. Take THAT, Milwaukee! Seriously though, lovely town. The Onion did a bit about Olive Garden taking Italian in the Best of Milwaukee for five years in a row. I digress, the NBA Draft camp is great reality television. Lives are being decided and you can't get a camera in there? People will watch this.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Sclemeel, schlemazel, hasenfeffer incorporated!!!

NBA Playoffs Thoughts

2005-06-01T12:46:00.000-07:00

I watched game four of Heat-Pistons last night where the Pistons tied the series 2-2. I wouldn't be surprised if this one was over in six. The winner? Detroit. Which means I'll be stuck listening to their annoying-ass announcer for the Finals. The rationale? Shaq looks hurt, slow, old, and just plain ineffective. It was painful to watch him heave up hook shots in the 10-15 foot range. Shaq, why don't you just back das Wallaces the f down and dunk? Pretend that they're Kobe. The only way the Heat come back is if Kobe starts attending the games. I feel bad for the Big Aristotle, because he's playing pretty crappy now and it's only the first year of his deal. It's only getting worse folks. To be clear, I love Shaq. This is the man who once called himself the Pythagorean Theorem because, "there's no answer for me"*. I wish he would take this series over because I hate Kobe and I want Diesel to be proved right. Either way I guess - Kobe blows.

*c squared

I don't think the Suns will do it. But it could be a lot worse than being down 3-1 and having two of the remaining three games at home. Amare Stoudamire is a man. He's a man who went eighth in the draft his year. Note to self: look up chumps drafted ahead of him. I'll update this post later with stats and stuff.

Face The Truth

2005-05-26T23:18:00.000-07:00

The new Stephen Malkmus cd "Face The Truth" is out and it's good. I haven't been able to digest it fully. I'm waiting to listen to the vinyl. That's right, vinyl. I purchased this one on wax, as well as the more popular compact disc format. Oh, yeah....and I got both of them signed. I bought Pavement's "Brighten the Corners" on vinyl also. Now that I have two records it's time to get a record player. From now on I'm all about the warmth of vinyl man. Luckily J-Weidz has an extra turntable. Nice. Bring on the indie points.

What are you doing this weekend? Oh, I think I might go over to the local underground record store and see if I can fill out my collection with the fruit of its dingy aisles. I really think two thirds of the fun is in the hunting for fresh beats. I'm glad you agree. What's the prize of your collection? Mine is "Face the Truth" which I got signed by SM and two of the Jicks. I know it's sweet, yeah. Yours is pretty good too though.

Mustache update: Today at work a guy called me "Catfish". I hope the nickname sticks.

The Tony Orlando Corrolary

2005-05-25T17:15:00.000-07:00

We are in the fucking dog days. We will be here for a long time. What qualifies as dog days to me? The Sonics are out of the playoffs. The only thing sports related to content the masses until late summer is Mariner baseball. Well some call it Mariner baseball, I call it having a blunt object bored slowly into your skull while Dave Arensberg watches merrily from his recliner. Remember when Boone was on steroids and the team was good? Ah, those were the days. There's no team I love rooting against more than the old M's. Make no mistake though, if they ever put together a playoff run I'll be right there on the bandwagon (secretly wishing they fail). Fuck baseball right in the ear.

So back to the title of this post - no it's not my new prog band. It's a theory I'm testing. It involves a simple graph. On the left vertical side of the graph (I'm sure there's a proper name for that but I won't look it up) is a unit of measurement I shall dub "Successtrons". On the bottom of the graph is level of mustache. Level of mustache means no mustache at the far left and full mustache at the far right. My theory is that as one's mustache grows and fills in, they earn corresponding higher and higher levels of Successtrons in their life. If my hypothesis is correct Successtrons should accumulate steadily in relation to your ever thickening Burt Reynolds. More simply, stache's make you healthy, wealthy, and wise - or - The Tony Orlando Corrolary. If you think Tony Orlando would have been successful sans mustache I believe you're greatly mistaken. To prove the theory I have been growing a mustache for two weeks or so. Lamentably, I'm bare in the Hitler zone so I look like a French catfish. Results so far: no measurables. I feel success right around the corner though...so maybe: Optimism +3 (glavin).

A stranger is never a stranger thanks to one Jeremy Piven...

2005-05-12T23:12:00.000-07:00

It's a cold cold world out there folks. We've all learned that by now. Everyone in their twenties on some level is lonely and anxious. The worst part? We see each other all the time and don't interact. Next time you're out at the bar or coffee shop bored with the scene, why not try to make a new friend? After all, a stranger is never a stranger thanks to Jeremy Piven.

You know him and I know him. We all fell in love with Piven at different times. That's not gay man love, simply the appreciation of a great artist and hypothetical friend. I refer to him as "Pivs". That nickname looks awkward in print, but trust me - it rolls right off the tongue. I first met Jeremy Piven at a little college that lost its way: PCU.

PCU seemed like your average school, until you peeled away the layers to reveal a proto-anarchic student culture of people so focused on their differences they couldn't see what made them the same. I don't think Piven's character "Droz" was some insensitive anti Political Correctness warrior. That was just the role his time in school required him to play. I could easily see Droz working to foster sensitivity at a school where the students had become callous. In this instance however, the times required a uniter. More specifically, the times required a raging fucking party at the legendary Pit.

Of course a party like this couldn't just come off without a hitch. It turns out the dean had been manipulating the various factions on campus (Womynists, Cause Heads, Stoners, Vegetarians, African Americans, Gays, etc.) in an effort to drive out what she deemed insensitive elements such as the crew at the Pit. At times during this film it seemd like the gang at the Pit were the only sane people left at the school!!! Her point man in the student body was a whiny republican frat guy played by David Spade. Spade and Pivs actually roomed together during their freshman year....let's just say they didn't mesh too well together.

We all know the rest of the story. Gutter (fat Jon Favreau) strikes out on his mission to get beer for the rager but somehow manages to land GEORGE CLINTON AND PARLIAMENT FUNKADELIC as the house band! Talk about a stroke of luck! I've watched that part over and over. You just can't see it coming. Pivs raids that night's on campus alumni event for their full bar and kegs and the protest crazy student body realizes that in fact this party is just what they needed to come together.

PCU is indeed a great film but back to the point. Pivs was the ideal friend. Confident, yet caring to those around him and generally benevolent towards everyone he came in contact with. But you can't stay in school forever. At some point you have to grow up and say goodbye to PCU and JP.

Actually, no fucking way. Pivs returned as the best friend of Nicholas Cage in the criminally underrated "The Family Man". I shit you not when I tell you that this is the greatest film of all time. Cage is a high powered Wall Street type who (through an encounter with a gun waving Don Cheadle of course) is transported to an alternate reality where instead of being single and wealthy he is poor and has a family. Ouch. There's no way Cage could have adjusted to what must have been a gigantic shock without the calm guiding hand of Piven. Piven feels your pain. There's no two ways about that. He's not going to sugar coat things just to make you feel better though. That's not his style. He simply lays it out for you in black and white all the while managing to keep things hopeful. He's 100% real, yet focuses on the positive. That's about as good as it gets.

Nowadays I mostly catch Piven on the HBO show "Entourage". It's not the same type of reassuring work he's always done, but Pivs is my homey and it's fun to watch him cut loose and just be funny. We all deserve that opportunity and if there's one things JP can do, it's make you laugh.

Listen, we all have a friend in common. Never forget that when you're feeling down. Your next new buddy is the next person you see, because if you casually bring up Jeremy Piven you'll find out that they love him too. And anyone who's friends with Pivs is a friend of mine. Let's hug it out bitch.

Some shows I've seen recently...

2005-05-07T19:46:00.000-07:00

I saw Phoenix at the Crocodile on April 18th. I just reread that sentence and even I don't know what it means. Apparently Phoenix used to be the backing band for Air, until they started to put out their own records. They had a sweet album called United in 2000 or 01 which was really eclectic and tuneful. Then they released an album called Alphabetical more recently which in comparison sucks balls. They must have been depressed at the time. I think maybe they were going for a more cohesive sound so that whole record sounds depressing and muted. Part of why I like the first album so much is the variety. Still there are hits on both of those. I think they had a club hit with a song called "If I Ever Feel Better". Michelman calls these guys France's Maroon 5. Ouch. They're slightly better than that but I see where he's coming from. They put on a solid solid show. Sound was great.

Last night I went to check out Sloan also at the Crocodile. The Minus 5 opened and I must say that Peter Buck looks way gay-er than I thought he would in person. I guess if you hang out with Michael Stipe for thirty years it's bound to happen. The Minus 5 had great country-ish songs and a lot of stuff that was just punk sounding. They were also very tight and loud. Sloan came on later and seemed overwhelmed that so many people had turned out to see them, especially with Gang of Four playing at the Showbox on the same night. I must say their set disappointed me. I guess it's hard when your songs involve so many harmonies to get them to sound straight live. They should murder their sound man. Either that or canonize their engineer becuase their voices seemed WEAK live except for the bassist who was all world. All you could here was guitars and their weak voices barely sneaking through. If you didn't know the songs you were fucked. I knew about a third of them so things were okay. Their guitarist with the short spiky hair was on blow. I bet my internet life on it. He came out for the encore rubbing his nose profusely and then challenged the crowd to be more like Vancouver in terms of audience participation. Yeah, let me just go get my mini and my fresh heroin needles. Vancouver is bullshit. There were some really faggot ass Canucks (no Americans act that gay) standing in front of me at the show. They were singing all the songs whilst gazing into each other's eyes all night. Their girlfriends (I don't get it) weren't that into Sloan and didn't understand why their men were being so gay, leading to the girls leaving for the bar in the back and the Canadians to hold each others arms and dance fruity. Then they kissed with tongues...I mean probably later that's what happened.

I enjoy sports and sports related events.

2005-04-25T17:39:00.000-07:00

So on Saturday I watched the first 16 or so picks of the NFL Draft, attended the Husky Football spring game, watched Ocean's 12 with Makaela (got to put in the time folks), and capped my night with the Seattle Supersonics first playoff game in a couple years. Here's the breakdown.

I woke up at about 7:30am and played a quick game of NCAA 2005 to set things off. I want to thank Tennessee for being good sports, but they were no match for the mighty Razorbacks in the SEC title tilt. I hit Nick's at about 9am, walking in to the welcoming sight of a hungover Sunny Wu sleeping on the couch. The night before, Steve and Sunny were involved in a late night syrup battle, which left the floor sticky. Steve passed out on his bed, forgetting to take off his syrupy clothes. Nick wasn't happy with this and allowed the syrup incident to cast a negative pall on his morning. He was really edgy all day come to think of it, but he explained later that Wu does that to him.

The Draft was pretty blah - Pac Man Jones winning the funniest looking player award according to me. Left before the Hawks picked.

I missed the first quarter of the spring game. Upsetting? Well, not really because the final score for the damn game was Purple 3 - Gold 0. As Arensberg said, "Our defense looks great." (Add Arensberg sarcasm.) Quickly, Stanbeck is the best QB followed by Bonnell. DuRocher might be good but I can't tell yet. Paus sucks. I root for Casey but he just ain't got it. Shelton Sampson had the best day of the running backs. OC Lappano hinted at moving him to receiver to offset our lack of speed at that position, especially considering how good Kenny James and Lou Rankin are. I've sent an email to Jim Davies inquiring as to the reasons for Rankin being so stankin'....no response yet. Every time he carried the ball Arensberg held his nose. That works for me. To complete the Arensberg trifecta, after the game he got my attention, "Hey, check out Casey and his entourage." I turned to see Casey Paus standing all alone with no one talking to him. Still I think he's a class act. Just a shame.
Players to watch:
Sampson
Stanbeck
Rankin
CJ Wallace
Mesphin Forrester
Greyson Gunnnnz
One more thing, Arensberg and I decided to call the d-line the G-Unit. The downside to that is that there is only one player with a G in his name. Solution? Replace the first letter of everyone's name with G. Gordon White-Frisbee, Ganase Hopoi, Gan Milsten, Grandon Ala, Gasper Henry, Gerik Lobos. You got the idea about four names ago. Anyway, voila: G-Unit. Fear it.

Supes dominated early and then hung on in a very lackluster second half. In the house at Kowalski's for that: Westberg, Colwell, Nick, Me, Steve, Loren. With guest appearances by: Kris Krustangel and Josh Robinson (featuring Josh's friend John [I think]). Now I'm going home from work. Maybe I'll add the funny later to this post....but probably not. PEACE

Reader email

2005-04-22T14:52:00.000-07:00

In this post I will answer reader email. Email is singular because I have received one of them.

Reader Andrew from Switzerland writes:

i am bored, update your weblog so i can take more
cheap shots at you and your pedantic writing style.
please? (sic)

Apparently the reader did not count on me having access to www.dictionary.com. I gather he was being sarcastic as:

pedantic - adj.
Characterized by a narrow, often ostentatious concern for book learning and formal rules: a pedantic attention to details.

I get it brah. I write poorly according the fucking man.

Quick Hits:

In the year 2020, the black man that realized that "Bacardi" rhymes with "party" will be given a BET Lifetime Achievement Award, along with Jive recording artist Mario. Thanks for the memories fellas.

I have undertaken the grand task of reading every US president's biography. Update: 20 pages in - George Washington appears to be a man of contrasts. THE CHERRY TREE STORY WAS MADE UP PEOPLE!!!! IS THERE NOTHING TO BELIEVE IN??????

My Moms just bought a Prius. Your Mom gets wack mpg.

Hitchcock and I played our first round of golf of the year at the historic Green Lake Par 3. We finished up tied posting scores in the high 30s. Ouch. Those will come down though. I hit my first shot across the street by those dirt soccer fields. Embarrassing. Conditions were soggy. Steve lost his socks due to saturation in between the third and fourth holes. Now I will say something I say every year: "This year I will make the Green Lake Open!!!!!" Serious, I really think this is the year.

Two groups in front of us last Sunday at Green Lake were both Colwells, CoJo, and City. Steve doesn't like City, but he's "over that thing with my sister". Sure man, sure.

I'm going to the Husky Spring Game tomorrow. It should be pretty good. I'll post again this weekend with a report. Beef, I'm excited to see your boy Johnny Kirton. He's up to 280lbs (not a typo) and getting reps at both tailback and fullback.

I downloaded that "Pirates of Dance" song Charles suggested in the comments section of my last post. That's the best song I've ever heard. It's by DJ BOBO. Everyone cop it now.

More this weekend.

Mitch Hedburg

2005-04-01T01:08:00.000-08:00

I'm hoping this is an April Fools joke but this shiat starting breaking on the 31st of March. This guy was crazy. I read some post today on fark saying that lately his drink of choice had been OJ and liquid morphine. That, my friends, will phuck you up. (I'm sure that's a lie but what if.) If you look on Pitchforkmedia you can find a review of his infamous show in Phoenix. Apparently Mitch had an on again off again relationship with the horse. Drugs are bad people. Here's a link to a site with people sharing their stories of how erratic his recent performances have been.

http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/03/31/133404.php

Also, here is my favorite joke of his:

"My apartment is infested with koala bears. It's the cutest infestation ever. Way better than cockroaches. When I turn on the light, a bunch of koala bears scatter, but I don't want them too. I'm like, "Hey... Hold on fellows... Let me hold one of you, and feed you a leaf." Koala bears are so cute, why do they have to be so far away from me. We need to ship a few over, so I can hold one, and pat it on its head."

RIP

Some nerd crap and some sports nerd crap...

2005-03-30T15:43:00.000-08:00

The brilliant Libertarian blog mastermind Andrew Winner (aka hotdog) had this to add per our Dayton Accord discussion:

Note: the Dayton Accords were actually brokered by your mom.

That's why he is a genius and you are not America. I was thinking of this hotdog character yesterday because I was playing Civ II. If you know what that means, great. If you don't? Dude, it's like, sports...or something. Most. Addictive. Game. Ever. I got some demo version that only let me play up to 1000BC which was frustrating because that's about when things get interesting. I'm probably going to cop it after work today nah mean? Not that I'm into that sort of thing. What do I look like? Some kind of dude who plays Civilization and has a blog??? Pardon me for a second....

Ok, sorry...had to clean off some Cheetos residue from the monitor and refresh the Dew.

Now, sports. Huskies got a number one seed and then lost in the Sweet 16 to Louisville. Louisville is coached by an Italian. Washington's two key scoring threats both were severely limited in the game by foul trouble resulting from at best questionable calls. A + B = ? You got it: mob involvement. Whatever, enjoy your tainted run to the Final Four biatches. PS, your star player no speaka da english. (He can shoot lights out though. Garcia was impressive. No foolin.) 2005-06 star recruits Jon Brockman and Martell Webster play tonight in the McDonald's All Star Game. Live on ESPN at 5pm PST.

The Supersonics clinched their first playoff birth in three years last night with a win at Memphis even though the Supes were missing All Star forward Rashard Lewis. Read the archives. I was on that bandwagon from day one. Take that Tubby. NBA Playoffs.

Baseball starts soon. Wake me after the all star break. Thanks.

Edit 4321 (dance)

Jefferson Starbucks

2005-03-03T00:03:00.000-08:00

So you're at a leadership conference for Starbucks employees. The lights go out, and four conference speakers drop out of the sky dressed in bizarre 80s glam clothes. Sound weird? How about if they then lip synced a remix of Jefferson Starship's "We Built This City" called "We Built This Starbucks"?

How about if you could listen to this baffling motivational song right now?

It is C?BB?OTVRG's (my) honor to humbly present "We Built This Starbucks" courtesy of Seattle's The Stranger:

http://thestranger.com/specials/starbucks.php

(copy and paste link)

Guided By Voices

2005-03-01T20:56:00.000-08:00

Guided By Voices (hereafter referred to as GBV) are a band fronted by Robert Pollard. He recorded the bulk of their extensive (read: unreal prolificity) catalog on his four track in his garage in Dayton, OH. The war in the Balkans had its peace accord signed in Dayton. I hope all the dignitaries visited Sonic for the new shake. Nice treaty fags.

Anyhoo, Pollard has never been able to keep the same lineup in the band. He's also a legendary alcoholic. Legendary. That probably has something to do with his lack of long term band mates. If you're interested download some cuts like "As We Go Up We Go Down", "The Best of Jill Hives", "Glad Girls", "Things I Will Keep", "Useless Inventions". There's literally hundreds and hundreds of songs so good luck getting a handle on the catalog. Shout out to Alan for being the first to post a comment on the blog. Makaela doesn't count in that regard.

The Sonics beat the Pace Show today. I love Reggie, but the Supes needed the win. Atta kids. I bought some whiskey today. I love whiskey. Down into my belly. I'm going to watch the Amazing Race on CBS today because the Vietnamese immigrant and stinky Christian that I work with both love the show. We have little else to talk about. Except sports sometimes, but dude's favorite player is John Stockton. John Stockton is dirty and Karl Malone painted those shorts on him. Gross.

Guitarist from Korn Finds God - Leaves Band

2005-02-23T09:36:00.000-08:00

Sometimes my blog writes itself. That sounds like an awful epiphany to go through - realizing that spending your time with dudes named Munky and fatasses all tatted up with rap star cars wasn't fulfilling. Or should I say rap star cars circa last time they had a hit. Your whips is old biatches. Looking on allmusic.com I see that one of the Korn's nicknames is "Fieldy Snuts". I find that funny. I take everything I said back fellas. T minus three mortgage payments until this guy has another epiphany: I'm broke. Kristian Korn to the rescue.

How many angsty teenagers are going to bed tonight dreaming of being the new member of Korn? Zero, because Korn fans are now in there twenties and pathetic. Certainly today some of those guys will walk a little meaner and riff a little harder before they go to bed tonight. Of course, they won't riff harder than I just did on this topic. In the words of Tenacious D, "This sh*t came off the top of my head y'all...It's a cosmic shame!"

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=769&e=2&u=/nm/20050223/music_nm/music_korn_dc

President's Day

2005-02-21T14:51:00.000-08:00

A journalist has released some tapes recorded in 1998 that have President Bush admitting he smoked pot. Did anyone think otherwise on this? Of course he smoked pot. The transcript also contains an implicit confirmation that the president snorted blow. Good for him I say. Why do you have to pretend like you don't remember, ya stupid biatch?

http://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/02/21/bush.tapes/index.html

NASCAR keeps getting bigger and bigger so I tuned in and caught the last three laps of the Daytona 500 yesterday. After all these years, it's still just cars driving. The guy that won the race looks like my friend Rux. I think that people in the south consider Dale Jr. part of their own families. Weird.

Last night I went to watch the NBA All Star Game at Hitchcock's. When I showed up Steve was wearing a construction hat and dancing around hamboned. The game was kind of boring with no one scoring 20 points. Vince had a sweet dunk but he's still a fag. Ray Allen led the West with 17 but the East won. AI was MVP. Beyonce's booty is getting ridiculous. Shaq is the most entertaining figure in professional sports. Kobe has a beard now and he sucks.

Quick band review that time forgot: Minus the Bear - Shoulda kept the bear.

Some pop music

2005-02-17T23:32:00.000-08:00

I downloaded (legally of course!) Dizzee Rascal's "Dream" yesterday. It's quite inspiring. Seriously. I've been writing a lot of acoustic little riffs lately because that's what's out and the old four track is broken. It's all pretty melodic. The writing's on the wall: I write gay songs. Does the Brill Building still exist? I'd like to work there. Seems like I'll have to go super tough on my second record after I drop some John Denver cuts plus cursing on the first one.

The Supersonics are 10+ games up at the All Star break. That means Tubby should have to drink a carafe of diarrhea. See previous posts for more explanation, but you won't find anything about the diarrhea because that's new. You'll find stuff about Tubby and the Sonics though.

Makaela got me tickets to see Graham Coxon next month at Chop Suey. It will be a sweet show. He's my favorite guitarist and after three or four records on meloncholy alcoholic folk/mess, he finally made a pop record. It's called Happiness in Magazines. Check out "Bittersweet Bundle of Misery" and "Bottom Bunk". Graham's the new Damon. (Blur reference.) Remember Blur? They were something.

I should really write down the story of my shroom trip from month ago. It was awesome at first and then drifted towards insanity. But I'm still alive.

Three day weekend coming up. I've laid off the bottle for a couple of days so tomorrow it's back on ya heard. Seth and Summer should get married - they're the new Ross and Rachel. If I was a cabinet member I'd be Secretary of Keeping it Real. If I could buy three things right now they would be a full length faux fur coat, a case of Cristal, and a Segway Scooter. Then I would roll along beaches at sunset so people would have to ponder my awesome silhouette. I would outfit the scooter with a stereo and play the Benny Hill theme whilst chasing my friends around - some dressed like cops, some like bears.

Apologies to Alan who is reading this for the first time and already heard some of this material today. His campaign flyer is the shiznit. I will try to post it.

Flickr

2005-01-09T10:15:00.000-08:00

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

The dawn of a new era...

2005-01-05T17:43:00.000-08:00

I changed the title of my blog again and I guarantee that I will not stick with this title. That's why I'm willing to let the title go for now. Let's see. The New Year passed uneventfully at my girlfriend's friends' place. Our view of the Needle fireworks was slightly obscured by a gorgeous telephone pole. In other news: Get a load of that motherfucking needle. That shit points UP!

The next night we went down to Harstine Island in the South Sound to stay at a rented house with some friends. I never saw the woman whose house it was. The people who got the house (Eric and Shmo) stayed there on New Year's Eve where they just handed the woman cash and she left them with the place. I couldn't help thinking when I went to bed the next night in that house that that lady could easily have just been lying. (Fopp voice: Of course!! Please, here is the living room. I don't have time for a full tour. Places to go you know. Ta ta!")

However, it was 2 or 3 in the morning and I didn't care if the rightful owner was going to come home or not. Stryker and Arensberg were in the main room and my room had an alternate exit. They were the ones who should have been worried. There was also a double murder on the island around the 20th of December with a suspect at large. That was nowhere near the biggest crime of the holiday season though, as I went to Walmart (1st time ever) to get a video game but they didn't have Vice City which I wanted. Tragedy!!

My New Year's resolution to America is to post on this blog twice weekly. Uh...starting whenever. Peace bitches.

Here's a lyric I like: "We spoke of latent causes sterile gauzes and the bedside morale/We traipse around the table talking sentences so incomplete...please! plea!/Boys are dying on these streets"

A fortnight hath passed...

2004-12-20T17:38:00.000-08:00

Two weeks have passed since I last posted. Can you believe it? I have a short attention span and don't like to do things!! Respect it. Here's a conciliatory bullet list of the last couple of weeks:

Huskies beat NC State last night and are now #12 in the AP Poll
I bought and set up a Christmas tree for the first time
I've finished 65% of my Christmas shopping with a moratorium until I get paid again (on the 24th!)
Supasonics are still awesome
LTB smokes hella blunts
I tried shrooms (and it was a disaster - thought I was going to be crazy and then nothing happened; will try again soon)
Rejoined Prorobics, this time serious (hahahahahaha)
Hung out at Nick's a lot
Got knocked out of the playoffs in the fantasy league I care about
Snuck into the playoffs in the league I don't care about - care now
Unless Adam Vinatieri scores 23 points tonight (highly unlikely) I will be in the finals of that league
College Dropout and Pavement's Brighten the Corners are the records for me right now
Snoop and Pharrell Drop It Like It's Hot is the single for me right now - I think it's the tightest ever
I don't get MTV Jamz on the dish. BOOOOO (Saw Pharcyde's Passin' Me By on that channel two nights ago, now covet the station)

Here are some things that suck

2004-12-06T17:36:00.000-08:00

University of Washington still does not have a head football coach
The Chocolate City Pythons missed the playoffs...again
I'm more or less broke until Friday
My moms has been trippin' cuz I didn't make it home for Thanksgiving
I need to do a lot of laundry
I missed work last Thursday and Friday because I was sick
I'm still sick
Kerry lost

I found some funny/sad ish today regarding the teen pregnancy rates by state. The image linked is teen births per 1000 people.

http://www.itaffectsyou.org/blog/images/teenpreg.png

You'll notice a boatload of red states at the top and liberal New England at the bottom. Keep it up with the abstinence guys!! It's working!! Welcome to the practical application of conservative values...

AP Hampers Anglo-Native Relations

2004-12-02T17:50:00.000-08:00

I was reading this article because I was bored and it was linked off of fark. The title is: "How the colonists did brain surgery -
Evidence hints at skull drilling and autopsy in 1600s". It seems there was a skull found in the Jamestown area with evidence of drilling. A doctor who examined the skull determined that the man had been struck from behind, and then had two holes drilled into his head to relieve pressure. That's not all he could tell - the doctor knows the culprit as well:

"Owsley thinks the man was hit in the back of the head with a stone ax and suffered a fractured skull. That would suggest the blow came from an Indian, Straube said."
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6630546

Oh really Dr. Straube? Why are you so quick to blame the Indians in this? Must we still engage in the propaganda of labeling Native Americans as savages? I'm disgusted Dr. Straube. What's more amazing, Straube admitted that this but one of a handful of possibilities:

"But Straube said it is also possible the man simply tripped and fell and hit his head on a rock."

That just seemed weird to me. Warren

In which I visit small-town America

2004-11-29T17:43:00.000-08:00

I went to my girlfriend Makaela's hometown of Dayton, WA this past weekend. When I showed up at Makaela's house after the five hour drive, I received a great welcome. That's if you consider no one being home and me being locked out in the cold because the family is out at the bars a great welcome. I had to remember that her aunt lives across the street and have the aunt break me in and then give me a ride to the bar downtown. The aunt and her boyfriend were drunk, but the town is so small that the bar was a one minute ride in the car. I think you have to drive drunk in small towns or they kick you out.

It was Makaela's mom's birthday (Happy Birthday Kris) so all the family was drunk together. Beautiful times. We went to a bar called Cracker B's where I promptly ordered a double gin and tonic and sucked it down. Then another. Then another. Then another. Now I can handle this.

Conversation I had with a young army vet recently returned from Iraq-
Me: I have some buddies who just got back from Iraq.
Him: I have some buddies who died in Iraq.
(Uncomfortable silence)

That young troop proceeded to drink until he threw up and then got in a fight. Let's hear it for our boys in blue!

Speaking of fights, we had to hustle a family member out of the bar because some young hooligan was drukenly pressing the issue of shooting coyotes on his land (not cool). I'll let you deal with that.

The bar did not have ESPN2. Quel dommage. That's all for now.

To People Not As Succesful As Joel Stein: Leave Joel Stein Alone

2004-11-24T10:48:00.000-08:00

It's en vogue to shit on Joel Stein. The Sports Guy continuously rips him, and now the LA Weekly has run this piece detailing Stein's stellar career with his less than stellar results. The piece is entitled, "Failing Upward, a True Hollywood Story- Kinsley hires serial loser Joel Stein, despite conflicts of interest".

Here are some choice selections from the article:

"He’s the wire-rim-wearing, flop-haired smirker who looks amused by what he’s telling the camera even if the rest of us aren’t."

"Given that reasoning, what the Times should have done was hire someone really experienced in the entertainment business, not this unsuccessful wannabe."
http://www.laweekly.com/ink/04/52/deadline-finke.php

My contention? Everyone would like to have Joel Stein's jobs because he just gets to talk shit about people. Everyone thinks they're a better shit talker. Who gives a fuck if this guy has been fired from every job he's ever had? Who gives a fuck that he keeps getting better and better jobs for seemingly no reason? Isn't that the American dream? If you hate on Joel Stein, that just makes you a hater. You should feel good for him because he does what he wants and is lucky. He's an example that you can do what you want and get lucky too. Why all the sour grapes people?

Also, between Stein and Seth Coen, I have officially developed a soft spot for snarky, messy haired Jews with lisps.

Ricky Williams is the Man

2004-11-23T17:11:00.000-08:00

There was predictable outrage among the talking heads in the NFL world when Ricky Williams decided that, at 27 years old, he didn't want to play football anymore. Everyone immediately blamed it on marijuana which he had tested positive and faced suspension for. I remember hearing holier than thou color commentators say things like, "Goes to show everything your momma told you 'bout smokin' dope was true."

People in the world of football had a hard time comprehending that someone with Ricky Williams' ability to play decided he didn't want to anymore. To this I say: Who gives a fuck? It's his business and his life!

Through weed or whatever Ricky Williams had reached a state of consciousness that said he no longer needed football to be happy. Now, months later, he has turned up at a Northern California school for holistic medicine. I read this article, from the SF Chronicle originally I believe, and found it very refreshing. Quotes please.

"I've realized, both on a psychological and physical level, that the things we do in football don't bring more harmony to your life. They just bring more disharmony,"

Williams' agent, Leigh Steinberg, and his attorney, David Cornwell, both think it's likely that he'll return to football next year. Steinberg calls Williams' departure "a sabbatical."

But Williams said, "I understand their wishful thinking. It's easy math. If I play, it puts more money in their pocket."

Although he wouldn't rule out a return to football, he indicated the game was far from his mind.

"I loved playing football, but the reasons I loved football were just to feed my ego," Williams said. "And any time you feed your ego, it's a one-way street."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2004/11/22/sports2303EST0168.DTL

Of course the self styled "blue collar values" guys of the NFL couldn't get around this, but let's you and I look at what we have: A player who has tasted great success in football, found it unfulfilling, felt the reasons for his playing football were counterintuitive to his desired maturation as a human being, and then quit the fucking game. He turned down millions in the process. Big deal? No. He's had money and he wasn't happy.

Of course these are the same announcers who blow a fucking gasket whenever Joe Horn makes a cell phone call or Terrell Owens flaps his arms like a bird. (A bird I say!! At long last, have you no sense of decency?!) Wouldn't they love if TO had some of Ricky's newfound humility? Of course not and we'll get to the reason.

In summation, Ricky Williams quit football because he felt he was unhealthily feeding his ego. Announcers yelled at him. Players like TO and Joe Horn engage in hilarious look-at-me showboating when they make a play. Announcers yell at them. 1+1 = football announcers love yelling at black people. And I mean love it.

Part of the reason why I love smoking is that when I first did it, it aided in my ability to look at the big picture differently. It flipped my perspective. It flipped Ricky Williams' perspective. Hey Joe Theisman: Smoke a fucking joint you racist!! NOW! You will find that everything I said about smoking dope is true....bitch.

PS Old white men are fucking alcoholics. All of them. Except for the Jesus freaks who are worse. Hypocrites.

Sometimes I Hate Tubby

2004-11-17T13:27:00.000-08:00

Now everyone knows that semilocal gadabout Tubby B hates the Sonics, even though they're 7-1. He still refuses to watch them until they admit they're rebuilding. What if they're not rebuilding? As I said before the season: WHAT IF THIS WORKS? Seriously. What if it works? What if these Supersonics work? Worth thinking about.

Anyway, Tubby is gung ho about rebuilding. But what does The Sports Guy have to say?

With so many teams dumping coaches, making panic trades and wasting money on shaky free agents -- it's like 80 percent of the league at this point -- the teams that keep building around the same nucleus (one bona fide star, four or five supporting stars, one coach) have an enormous competitive advantage over everyone else.

When the subject of NBA problems comes up, everyone points to poor shooting, over-reliance on three-point line, overzealous defense, high schoolers ... to me, the lack of continuity is THE biggest problem in the sport right now. None of these teams knows how to play together for more than four-minute stretches.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/041116

Tubby wants to rip it apart and head to some unknown, and Bill Simmons extols the virtues of continuity. I will go with the Sports Guy here. The Sonics do not have absurd contracts (ex. Rashard's reasonable deal) except Danny Fortson who so far is playing well. But, we had to take on his deal to get rid of Calvin Booth who has a fucking Berkeley tattoo even though he went to Penn State. I don't care what his nickname is. That's wrong. Booth also defined stiff which is usually the exclusive territory of the white center. White Center? Don't get me started.

These Supersonics will eventually come back to earth. I still think they're doing the right thing. Regardless, it's indefensible to refuse to watch the Supes when they are winning every game and kicking the shit out of good teams. I know Tubby will talk shit when the Supes start losing. It's important to understand that this means he will be happy when the Sonics lose. Unacceptable. Tubby, I hate you and you have lost all of your Sonics cred.

Welcome back Commies!! Mother Russia has been down and out lately, but Vladimir Putin is taking things old school to bring her back.

"We have not only conducted tests of the latest nuclear rocket systems," Putin told a meeting of the Armed Forces' leadership. "I am sure that in the coming years we will deploy them. "Moreover, these will be things which do not exist and are unlikely to exist in other nuclear powers," he added.
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/041117/1/3olc5.html

Now that is leadership. And scary to boot. This is on top of Putin recently nationalizing the press. I missed you Russia.

Update This!!

2004-11-10T11:46:00.000-08:00

I was watching Jon Stewart a couple of nights ago in a post election fog when he pointed out something that caught my attention. New York suffered directly from terrorism and has a bunch of queers - and they voted overwhelmingly for John Kerry. I had never thought about that before.

States with actual terror targets voted for Kerry. States with actual homosexuals didn't ban gay marriage. So basically the left lost because the right riled up a bunch of people around hypothetical issues that don't effect them at all. Or, as The Onion put it, "Nation's Poor Wins Election For Nation's Rich". Well, exactly.

Conceptualize This!!

2004-11-05T13:01:00.000-08:00

So, here's the dream to be realized this weekend. For Blank This!! I would like to have a panel of famous "blanks" come in and discuss the issues of the day. I have the list of who the blanks will be but I need to download some picture software to get their photos into the blog. Glavin bitches. Here's said list:

Arthur Blank (Owner, Atlanta Falcons)
Billy Blanks (Creator, Tae-bo)
Matt Leblanc (Actor, Friends/Joey/assorted monkey baseball films)
Blanche Dubois (fictional character, Streetcar Named Desire)
Blanche Devereaux (fictional character, Golden Girls)
Blankenstein (Monster I created as I am typing this)
Blankman (Damon Wayans vehicle)

Hey, visionaries reading right now! Conceptualize this!!

Disenfranchise This!!

2004-11-02T08:49:00.000-08:00

Seriously bro, listen up. When I moved to my new apartment I totally forgot to update the address for my absentee ballot. I know, could have happened to anyone. Last week I went to my old house to see if that shit was lying around in the mailbox, but it wasn't there. I felt like a prowler anyway digging around the front of the house without knowing if anyone was home. Fuck that shit, I'll call voter registration.

Yesterday I called up voter registration and I was expecting them to be like, "Yo, with voting comes responsibilty and you didn't update your shit. Now you want a new ballot today? Please nigga."

Instead they were like, "Don't even trip bitch. Happens all the time. Step down to 4th and James and I'll hook that up lickety splizz."

So I went down there and got my new ballot and voted. Hey George Bitchass Bush!! DISENFRANCHISE THIS!!