Incredi-Series

It is what it is, an incredi-series. I underestimated the Lakers and I think a lot of Suns fans did. I thought the series would be done in five (Suns winning), but who would have foreseen the Lakers completely changing their game? Who would have guessed that Lamar Odom would start playing like a taller Scottie Pippen? Who would have thought Kobe would stop jacking? Who would have though Phil was start coaching great, oh wait he always coaches great. I hope this puts to rest the whole, "he just has great players" argument. The guy can coach. Just a few days ago the Suns where basically done and I was mega frustrated (as evidence by my post just a few seconds after the game. I would completely retract the post but I like the Gay Laker picture. So Ill retract most everything I said in it. I still think the Suns got screwed with the call, but everything else Ill retract).

Most everyone thought the Suns where done (all the stupid Laker fans that came into the store did, I have a feeling the real Laker fans where not totally sure the series was over). I must say I did seem like an unusual amount of articles came out about the “Hallway Series” in the past week. America writing you off is always good for motivation, not saying everyone wrote of the Suns however. After the Suns lost that tough game 4 I told Justin the suns where gonna win the series, I sure as hell didn’t believe it, I was just saying it. However it really doesn’t surprise me that this series is going to a game seven and how can it the way it’s gone? Anything could happen on Saturday Night. Kobe could go for 100. Lamar Odom could hit up the chronic during half time a la that guy from the old Playmaker series. Smush Parker might wake up and realize he really is a five year old kid dreaming. Tim Thomas could challenge anyone on the Lakers to a dark off and win easily (Kwame Brown would be the best match up for him). Kobe and Raja could hug it out, or Raja could come to the game strapped and start firing caps at the Lakers bench. To use a TNT tagline “now this is drama!”

Game Six was one of those games; I guess it was to Suns fans what game four was to Laker fans. Playing without Raja (very stupid foul on his part in game five but it did spark and awesome war of words between the two. Plus it led to the classic Raja “That’s your foul” comment to the Zen Master and Kobe’s “Who is this kid, do I know this kid?” and “He needs a hug” comeback. By the way, the Tim Thomas contract watch is up to 8 million a year if you factor in Isaiah its probably close to the A-Rod contract (even though that wouldn’t be allowed by the NBA). After Tim Thomas hits that mega three (which he followed up with a yayo, which made it more awesome) I was happy, but I was 100% sure Kobe was hitting the game winner. There was not a doubt in my mind, the only time I can remember saying out loud a tie game involving the Suns was over and I truly meant it. I can’t believe Kobe missed that shot, unbelievable. Then Kobe steps straight out of NBA jam in OT and starts raining in “on fire” shots to make the Suns very uncomfortable despite their very comfortable lead. Nash played amazing; maybe we can make both these guys MVP?

Brilliant to watch, this series is just amazing. Its physical, both teams don’t like each other, there has been trash talk, crazy endings, controversy, big shots hit by both teams, and two great players at their absolute peak battling it out in an all out war. I would have to say this is the most entertaining basketball series since the Lakers-Kings 2002 Western Finals. This is playoff basketball; if the Suns win game seven then the rest of the NBA playoffs will be like playing on house money. They could win on Saturday night and lose to the Clippers in four and I really wouldn’t care (well I would but you know what I mean). Just amazing, a great series and I don’t think my heart can take a game seven, but its going to have too.

Best part of Game Six that didn’t involve game winning shots and OT? TNT comes back from break and a guy has two cardboard cutouts, one says KO the other says BE. He holds it up but the KO is backwards so it reads OK and the BE is upside down so it reads upside down EB. So the sign said OKEB. Good old Laker fans. Also when the game ended and they went to the booth I ahve never seen Charles Barkley look so depressed. He must have lost at least $500,000 on the game. We all know Barkely roots against the Suns even though he loves them, but man that was so blatant in the post game. I seriously thought he was going to cry.

The Picture Blog ver 1.0

OKay I needed to cheer myself up, plus I had alot of hate in that last post. So I give you the light hearted, first ever Picture Blog. Here you have it:

What the hell are these refs looking at?


Your Two Time NBA MVP



Couldnt have a picture blog with out Ron Ron
in it. I couldnt find one of him forearming Manu



Can you believe it? He actually fell to AZ!


Come on, you know you're looking at the
best backcourt in NBA history. Or at least the
most entertaining.





Thats Wild Homo.

The Lakers are Gay

I have not been able to update my blog in a few days because I have been busy. But I am going to write a quick blurb on this Suns-Lakers series, try and make it brief so it does not deteriorate into F-bombs galore. The Lakers are so freaking LUCKY. They have gotten EVERY break this series (I’m not talking about officiating, I’m talking about loose balls, Suns shots going in and out, Smush Parker playing a typical Smush Parker type game, going 1-10, then hitting a miracle three.). So when they steal the ball of Nash twice in the last seconds of regulation and OT it shouldn’t have surprised me.

How they called a jump ball instead of a Nash TO is BEYOND me. I guess the Lakers are just that lucky. Then you know the Suns were not going to get the tip, I mean I seriously knew because the Lakers get every break. When Kobe got the ball the whole world knew he was not going to miss. Luck is not the reason the Lakers are up 3-1, its because the Suns lake of size is killing them. And it is because the Lakers completely changed their offensive game plan before start of the series (if Kobe played this way the whole season he can damn well bet he would have been MVP). Every time I see Kurt Thomas and Amare on the bench in street clothes I want to cry, I seriously do. Why did Amare have to get hurt? Argh I don’t want to go there, I’m not trying to play the injury card. I am just pissed off, you guys know. You would be pissed two if you were a Suns fan and the other team you were facing got every break in the book. If that other team had shitty players start playing good (Kwame Brown, Sasha something and Luke Walton). You would be mad if every loose ball materialized into Lamar Odom’s hands (did Phil ask him to pretend the Ball was cocaine? Is he just so coked out of his mind that’s the reason he is playing this well). I’m sorry Laker fan, I am extremely pissed. Congratulations on another storied playoff performance, ill just tack on another sad playoff performance to the Suns history. My hate for the Lakers will die instantly once this series is over (regardless of who wins) but not my hate for Smush Parker.

I want to clear all anger and frustration out of my head to make two points: A) Kobe playing this way is better than him taking 50 shots a game. He has been amazing and he needs to keep playing this way. B) Raja Bell is a stud and I would say he plays Kobe better than anyone in the league. He at least plays him better than Ruben Patterson.

This really sucks . . .

NBA Playoffs Blog 4/22-4/23

My random thoughts on the first weekend of the NBA playoffs plus my breakdown of the Suns-Lakers game:

Looks like Lebron was ready for the big time

At one point during the Cavs-Wizards game Hubie Brown said Caron Butler was the heart and soul of the Wizards. Hubie doesn’t make mistakes, so this must be true. Poor Gilbert Areans

Miami fans really gotta hope that Dwayne Wade getting injured in the playoffs does not become a trend

The Bulls are living pretty good. They play just like their coach, Scott Skiles, which means they always play you tough. They have a super exciting player in Ben Gordon, a good point guard in Hinirich, Tyson Chandler is finally contributing something to life, and Andres Nocioni plays an ugly game but he always seems to get something done. They have no shot of beating the Heat, but they have the Knicks next two draft picks UNPROTECTED. (insert Isaiah joke here)

Do we really have to play the Pistons-Bucks series? I guess we do but don’t expect me to watch

At one point during the Nets-Pacers game I saw Vince Carter pull up for 35 feet and air a three with plenty to time left on the shot clock. If Vince does not try in the playoffs, is he ever going to try?

Good to see Artest guarantee a championship then his team gets blown out by the Spurs and he gets suspended for game two of the series which virtually ends the 0.00001% chance they had of beating them in the first place. Bad things happen when you guarantee victory, let alone championships (unless your Rasheed Wallace or someone in a position to actually guarantee like Joe Namath) I would like to point out a forearm to Manu got him suspended, so I am glad it happened.

I was seriously shocked to see the Grizz starting ex-Sun Jake Tskalidis at center on Sunday night. Then their whole offense for the first half of the first quarter was him and Eddie Jones which caused me to ask Justin if they were the new Shaq and Kobe to which Justin replied, “They’re the exact same thing.”

Suns-Lakers-

Game One was pretty intense, hard fought, and really weird. Kobe tried to be a distributor and missed a lot of shots. Kwame Brown, Smush Parker and Luke Walton played out of their minds and Lamar Odom played really well. The Suns couldn’t get an offensive rebound or make shot during the 2^nd and 3^rd quarter. Bottom line is the Suns won with a killer three by Nash with 1:07 left. Just another in a long line of big playoff shots for Nash. Tim Thomas played out of his mind and he is playing for a new contract which means you know he is going to go balls to the wall this postseason. After game one the Tim Thomas contract watch is at $5 million (a year). You know Isaiah is watching.

I’ve read some things were the Lakers should be encouraged and whatever. I always say Ill give the opposing team confidence and I’ll take the win (Okay I haven’t always said that, everyone says that). Kobe won’t play as bad again but the Suns are going to play better too, because they did not play their best game. The series will be hard fought but I still think the Suns take it in five. Also it was good to see Smush Parker guarantee victory for the Lakers in the series, which pretty much guarantees the Suns victory in the series. Players like Smush Paker should be guaranteeing anything. Players that suck aren’t aloud to guarantee. After the game one loss Smush said that the Lakers are a better team and expect to beat the Suns. A better team? Where does he get this? The Lakers have lost 4 of 5 to the Suns this year and all 4 games Steve Nash has played in. Maybe Smush is bitter the Suns cut him last year.

While reading the paper today I came across the “At the Game Section” Let me cut and paste it for you: (courtesy of www.azcentral.com/sports)

At the game

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and ex-Suns player Jackson Vroman were sitting in the same vicinity near the baseline.

Police dogs and officers searched the arena's seats Sunday morning.

What a start studded event eh?

Hubie Brown is easily the best color man on the planet. His observations are so good its great to listen to. He never favors one team and he always point stuff out that actually enhances the viewing experience. He is the best and Doug Collins is the 2^nd best. The Worst (I only include national guys) probably Reggie Miller or Steve Kerr. I don’t know but while watching the Mavs-Grizz game last night Miller actually said someone “out beat him to the ball.” That’s right, out-beat, a phrase I am probably going to use 1,000 times for the course of the playoffs.

Peace out kids!

The Easter NBA Reg Season Recap

Happy Easter everyone! Since the NBA playoffs start in 6 days I decided to give my NBA regular season wrap up blog. I thought about making playoff predictions, but what is the point? There has been about one upset in the NBA playoffs in about 20 years, the Pistons beating the Lakers in 2004. Yeah the Kings are playing well, but does anyone really think they could beat the Spurs? Sure ESPN is hyping up the race for the final playoff spot in the EAST, winner gets to destroyed by maybe the best defensive team in NBA history. The Eastern Conference Playoffs don’t start until the 2^nd round when the Heat and Nets play for the right to play the Pistons in the conference finals. Its a lot more interesting in the West, where the 8 seed is a lot better than your normal 8 seed (which has been true for the entire decade in the Western Conference). Yeah the Kings wont win, but I’ll still watch. However the only playoff series in question in the first round are Denver-Clippers and that is pretty much it. I really don’t see the Spurs, Suns, Mavs, Pistons, Heat, Nets or Cavs coming close to losing in the 1^st round. Why watch then? Well what the hell else are you gonna do? If everything went like it was planned why would they play? I think I am contradicting the shit out of myself here.

Here are the awards as I see them happening:

MVP: Steve Nash- Why not? I couldn’t decide between him or Lebron so I went with the homer pick. Its not like Nash does not deserve it, watching him play is one of my favorite things to do. A decade from now I will reminisce on these days I wish Nash was still playing. I wouldn’t be upset if Lebron won it, but he will have his chances in the future. Kobe could win it, but lets make Steve Nash back to back MVPs. You know you want to look back on the MVP awards in 10 to 20 years and say, “How the hell did that white, goofy looking six foot guy win back to back MVP awards.” Oh and he does deserve it, maybe more so then he did last year. However you won’t see me writing another Steve Nash is MVP blog, because I could make just a good of a case for Lebron.

Coach of the Year: Avery Johnson- I could say Flip, but I will stick with Avery. The guy has a ridiculous winning % as a head coach (something hovering around .800) He has his team playing better defense and they are tough to beat. They will probably lose in the 2^nd round to the Spurs however, but they could win. If Don Nelson was still coaching this team, well the Mavs would have no shot to do anything.

6^th man of the year: Jim Jackson- Okay just kidding I just have no idea who deserves this award. Jim Jackson will definitely win 12^th man of the year

Most Improved: Boris Diaw- This is easy. I remember hearing in training camp that he was playing some center and I groaned, I actually groaned. Joke was on me, this guy is freaking good. If he does not win this award I will cry, I seriously will. I’m going to stock up on tissue just in case.

My All NBA Team-

F Elton Brand

F Lebron

C Shaq

G Kobe Mamba Bryant

G Steve Nash

6^th man: Chauncey

Other random thoughts about this season:

• My preseason pick of Shawn Marion to win MVP is something I am very proud of. I knew he was not going to win it, but I had a feeling he was going to play like an MVP and he did. Best year of his career. The #2 guy on a really good team, in the past when he has been the #2 guy the Suns were bad.
• Listening to JT The Brick on Friday night for some reason and he was arguing for Kobe to be MVP. His argument as states: “If you put Nash on the Lakers and he plays alongside Smush Parker and Lamar Odom they are no where near as good, and that is a fact!” Also if you go to Mars kangaroos can fly and cook pancakes. That is a fact! Oh wait that’s an opinion. Let’s get out facts straight JT, just because it’s your opinion doesn’t make it “fact”.
• About a month ago I fired up NBA live 06 and played a game with the Lakers and decided I was going to take every shot with Kobe. I did and it was the exact same thing as watching a real Lakers game. My point being; the 2005-06 Kobe Bryant stepped right out of a video game, its amazing to watch.
• If the Hawks would have been smart and drafted Chris Paul they would be in the playoffs. The Joe Johnson-Chris Paul backcourt would be awesome. Instead they pass on their biggest weakness to take another swingman who is light years away from becoming anything. Then they sign JJ who even I, being as oblivious to life as I am, knew couldn’t run the point. That’s how you get stuck with a Tryone Lue running your team. I am counting down the days until David Stern walks up to that podium and announces the Hawks have selected Adam Morrison or Rodney Carney.
• I was watching the NBA pregame show this Easter Sunday morning and it was nice to see Wilbon in the booth hyping up Suns players. Anyway they asked some question about who has been the biggest surprise and someone (I forget who) said the Lakers. Stating this was Phil’s best coaching job ever (does 72-10 mean anything to this man) and who knows how far the Lakers could go in the playoffs (I know this one, I really do! Lets see, its um, oh wait it’s a 1^st round exit! Yes! I knew it!). Later in the segment Scottie Pippen said Ron Artest has been the biggest disappointment this year, that he let his teammates down and has had a bad year. Now I understand he fucked over the Pacers, but he did revive a dead Sacramento team and has them playing super well right now. I think Artest has had a good year.
• I think I have ripped on Jamal Crawford before, but he is the best player on the Knicks. Whenever the Knicks win its always because he had a good game. Its great to see Starbury saying he is going to “do things his way next year” and doesn’t care what Larry Brown thinks. As for Larry Brown, well his days of building teams up and ditching them when they are good finally came back to bite him in the ass. He found one thing he couldn’t rebuild (not that he rebuilt the Pistons). Secondly, who leaves maybe the best defensive team of all time to go to the worst run franchise in NBA history?
• Going back to Chris Paul, don’t think you’re off the hook either Utah.
• I really don’t mean to hate, but is there a less exciting good team then Memphis? If I see a Memphis game I just don’t want to watch.
• The Clippers have to be ecstatic that they are now the 6^th seed and avoid the Mavs/Spurs until the Conference Finals (I’m not saying they will make it that far). The Clippers/Nuggets series is going to be fun to watch, but I expect the Clips to take it. I’m worried about the Suns/Clippers 2^nd round matchup due to the fact that Elton Brand will feast on the Suns injury plagued front line and Sam Cassell has some big balls (mental image: Sam Cassell running down the court doing his “big balls” celebration.)

Alright I think that is all I have. Happy Easter and enjoy the NBA playoffs. I think I just might do an NBA playoff blog. Later kids.

Opening Day

Opening Day in baseball is one hell of a day and its one of those days of the year I have no remorse when I skip class. Seeing as the first game of the year was a rain filled Sunday night, I still did not have my baseball fix. One of the great things about Opening Day is free MLB extra innings; I can watch any game I want! Except all the games are on normal TV anyway. So the early part of the day was pretty much me flipping around the different game keeping track of my fantasy team. I’m in an NL only keeper league and I know you don’t care who I have so ill quickly go over the big names: Adruw Jones, Chad Tracy, Jimmy Rollins, Adam Dunn, Chris Carpenter, John Smoltz and Jake Peavy. My team is built on pitching this year, although I made the genius move to draft Armando Bentiz even though my league doesn’t award points for DL stints.

In preparation for the upcoming Diamondbacks game at 1, Justin and I decided to go buy some hotdogs. We went to Smart and Final were they sell 50 premium wieners (no homo) for 6 bucks! That’s a hell of a deal. So we have 50 premium wieners in our hand and we buy a pack of 24 buns. Throw in a 2 liter bottle of grape soda and code red and we are set for opening day. Wait, Justin realizes we need ketchup. So back into the store we go, were a bottle of ketchup is about 3 bucks and a tub of ketchup that contains about 20 times more ketchup is the same price. So we buy the tub, and a tub of mustard and a tub of relish. Lets recap: We have 50 premium wieners, 24 buns, a tub of ketchup, mustard and relish. That’s enough to throw a party, but its just Justin and I. Needless to say we will be living off premium wieners and condiments for the next 3 months.

Then the Diamondbacks game started, ending my supreme happiness about opening day and replacing it with the dark realization that nothing has changed with the Diamondbacks (okay its been one game, that’s an overreaction). Lets check the checklist:

• Couldn’t hit with runners in scoring position- Check
• Couldn’t get a key bunt down- Check
• Baserunning errors- Check
• Bad managing- Check
• Bad Bullpen- Check

Despite the lack of offense, Brandon Webb was pitching a hell of a game. 7 innings of 1 run ball in Coors Field counts as a perfect game anywhere else. Before the game, when asked about his pitch count, Bob Melvin said Webb could go as long as he wanted. With Webb cruising through 7 innings right around 100 pitchers most smart, sane managers would let him go the 8^th and bring your closer in the 9^th. Not Bob Melvin, he brings in 45 year old soft tossing lefthander Terry Mullholand to play the “percentages”. The D-Backs are up 2-1 at this point, but Justin and I had no doubt this lead was going to get blown and of course it did. Which makes me wonder about lefty specialists, they are on teams to get tough lefties out but they are usually the worst pitchers in your bullpen. So you are going to bring in your worst pitcher to face Todd Helton, just because he is left-handed. Its just like seven footers in basketball, if you are left handed you will last in the league forever and its just stupid.

So anyway the game goes into extra innings and the D-Backs blow about 1,000 chances to get the go ahead run, which included Tony Clark just missing a 3 run homer. It’s only been one at bat, but Clark seems to have picked up right were he left off. There is no one id rather have hitting in a clutch situation them him. He is probably better served starting, considering he had a ridiculous slugging percentage last year, but he is a huge asset off the bench late in the game and you have to get Conor Jackson his playtime. Conor Jackson already looks like a more professional hitter than any of the veterans in the D-Backs lineup. He doesn’t swing at anything in the strike zone, its crazy.
So anyway the bottom of the 11th rolls around and the D-Backs make two errors and the Rockies win. Later Diamondbacks apologize for having to wrap the game in newspaper, citing they didnt have time to get some nice wrapping paper and a bow.

Well that was opening day, even though this blog came a few days later. Here is looking forward to a great season . . . .

Take Me Out to the Ball Game

I’m still alive, which is good for you all. I had a 25 page research paper to write this week and it took every ounce of energy I had. I must have taken me about an hour to write a page, so I probably spent about a good day’s worth of time on the paper (okay I might be exaggerating. Check that I am exaggerating.). I think I have carpal-tunnel syndrome. Anyway I finished so now I have time to do my baseball preview, which really is just random thoughts and me breaking down the Diamondbacks upcoming season.

This spring has signaled an end of an era for the Diamondbacks. They have traded, cut and demoted the trio of Alex Cintron, Luis Terrero and Scotty Hairston. Why am I sad? Because they were good? No that’s not the reason, when they all got regular playing time together the team lost 111 games. They weren’t good but they were damn funny, and while we are in the current limbo zone of Dbacks baseball, they have kept things interesting. Let me give you the career highlights of these gentlemen:

Alex Cintron:

• Committed huge base running error in game 2 of the 2002 NLDS vs the Cardinals that pretty much cost the Dbacks that series.
• Once committed two straight errors in a row on balls hit to the exact same spot on the infield. Made enough boneheaded defensive plays to almost kill Thom Brennaman during the 2004 season.
• At one point during the 2005 season Shawn Green had an 11 pitch at bat in which he drew a walk. Cintron came up after him to which Thom B stated, “This will not be an eleven pitch at bat.” Cintron proceeds to record an out after two pitches.
• Came out of nowhere to become an offensive force at the SS position when the D-Backs had no offense in 2003. Hit .317 and almost led the Dbacks back into the playoffs. Will now classify that year as a fluke.
• Just a goofy dude, who never took to many pitches and who’s head was not always in the game. I’m about 1000% sure he will make an awesome play in the postseason during the White Sox drive to another World Series.

Luis Terrero

• Touted for years as the D-Backs best prospect, a player with 5 tool potential. While he was the dbacks best prospect, it was basically because their farm system was so horrible.
• Once hit a homerun in a minor league game, rounded the bases then kissed home plate and was suspended by the Dbacks. In his first game back from suspension he got ejected.
• Was called up in 2004 and brought horrendous defense, inconsistent hitting and overall awesomely bad play to the dbacks. Had a strong arm but often thought he was to good to throw to the cut off man, this led to hilarious results.
• Was basically hitting in the middle of the order on that horrible Dbacks team.
• In 2005 hit a bloop single and tried to stretch it into a double for some reason, wounded up making it after the outfielder made a bad throw. When he got up from his slide his entire jersey was unbuttoned and Thom B was super pumped. (My personal favorite Terrero moment.)

Scott Hairston

• Hands down the most entertaining baseball player of my lifetime. Was billed as the next Jeff Kent, by his brother Jerry Hairston Jr.
• Spent all day in the weight room, which made Thom B comment on how strong he was every time he had an extra base hit.
• Due to his “strength” this led to countless push up jokes between J to the Ustin and I over the past two years.
• Dbacks hit him lead off for most of the 2004 season. Even though he stated in the newspaper that he didn’t “believe in taking pitches.”
• Was moved to the OF because he might have been the worst defensive second basemen this side of Alfonso Soriano.

Sadly the Dbacks accumulation of actual good stud prospects caused the Diamondbacks to get rid of all three. Although Hairston is still in the organization, there is no way he ever gets to the big leagues again. Honestly though the Diamondbacks have a shitload of great hitting prospects coming there way in the next few years and the money to spend on free agent pitchers this offseason. The future looks pretty darn good. But we need to talk about the present. So here is my Diamondbacks preview (for the players that matter):

1B Conor Jackson

Best Case Scenario: Hits .330-25-100, draws over 100 walks and Billy Beane calls the Dbacks about him so much that Josh Byrnes changes his phone number.

What will happen: Will hit about .275 with a good OBP because he has a great eye for a young hitter. Will probably drive in about 50-60 and hit about 10-15 homers while platooning with Tony Clark.

1B Tony Clark

BCS: Repeats last year’s numbers, remains the same force off the bench and in late inning games that he was last year. Continues to get clutch hits. Basically the year he had last year was the BCS for 2005 and would be the BCS for 2006.

What will happen: Will fall back to earth, but just a little. Will continue to get clutch hits and produce in his starts. I say somewhere along the lines of .290-25-70.

2B Orlando Hudson

BCS: Wins Gold Glove while becoming a more consistent hitter. Stays in the number two hole all year and maybe steals a few more bases.

What will happen: Will most likely win a gold glove, I could see him struggling at the plate. I say .265 with 11 homers.

SS Craig Counsel

BCS: Steals 30 bases while hitting over .300 while playing solid defense while continuing to get on base and be a disruptive lead off hitter.

What will happen: His age will catch up to him some more, but he will still have a decent year. Will be a defensive asset.

3B Chad Tracy

BCS: Wins batting title while hitting 30 homers and drastically improving his 3B defense.

What will happen: Will hit .300 again with about 25 homers, will be the dbacks most feared hitter and will improve his defense at 3B. Could be the Dbacks lone All-Star.

LF Luis Gonzalez

BCS: Is fully healthy, so he hits over .300 with 30 homers and looks like the Gonzo of old (the 1999-2003 gonzo minus his 57 homer year) if he can do that the Dbacks lineup gets pretty darn good.

What will happen: Numbers will reflect last year, about .270-25-70.

RF Shawn Green

BCS: Returns to his mid 2000 form at Chase Field and crushes the ball and ups his RBI total to over 100 while playing above average RF defense and maybe stealing a few bags?

What will happen: Will get off to a slow start, and the public will clamor for Carlos Queintin to take over in RF. Will get hot for a few months to make his overall season look better than it was.

CF Eric Byrnes

BCS: Returns to 2004 from were he hit leadoff for the As and hit 20 homers while going all out on defense and becomes an overall disruptive force.

What will happen: I don’t know what Eric Byrnes will show up, the one of 04 or the one of last year who hit below .200. What I do know is that he will go balls to the wall every night and wont stay quiet if the dbacks start half assing it and not play with emotion.

OF Jeff Davanon

BCS: gets cut and the dbacks resign Terrero.

What will happen: Will hit about .230 and I wont like him.

C Johnny Estrada

BCS: Returns to 2004 form where he hit over .300 and drove in 71 runs.

What will happen: Will rebound from his Erstad induced mental block last year to be a better hitter than Chris Snyder. That’s not saying much, I think I can hit better than him.

SP Brandon Webb

BCS: The sinker is on all year, and Counsell and Hudson are there to turn countless double plays. His ERA is sub 3 and he wins 17-20 games.

What will happen: His sinker will be solid as will the infield defense. Wins 15 games with an ERA in the low 3s.

SP El Duque

BCS: Pitches every game thinking it’s a playoff game.

What will happen: Will pitch okay at times and get traded by July 31 to a team that can use his Robert Horry like playoff abilities.

SP Miguel Batista

BCS: Continues to play like the Miguel Batista we know and love while staying healthy. Wins 12-15 games with a mid 3 era.

What will happen: Will probably spend time in the bullpen at some point. My guess is he ends up with about 8 wins and a few saves with a 4 era.

SP Russ Ortiz

BCS: Gets traded to Petco Park where its hard to tee off on his pitching. Or gets reunited with his former Braves pitching coach in Baltimore.

What will happen: His stuff will suffer at the Chase, will go about 7-12 with a 5 era.

SP Claudio Vargas.

BCS: Continues to be the diamond in the rough he was last year, but gets run support this year. Wins about 16 games with a mid 3 era.

What will happen: At some point in the year will accidentally touch Miguel Batista and since they have the same DNA the universe will die. If for some odd reason everyone survives, he will win 10 games with a 4.25 era.

CL Jose Valverde

BCS: Becomes a dominate closer with a lot of “machismo” (Thom B Quote). Strikes out a ton, era is in low 2s and saves 40 games.

What will happen: Will have good points and bads, but overall he will be solid and save 30 games.

RP Casey Daigle

BCS: He makes the team somehow

What will happen if he makes the team: I will make countless Jenny Finch jokes and his era will be infinite.

There you have it, I will bring you my random thoughts on the Diamondbacks all year.

Amare Returns!

So Amare Stoudemire returned today after missing about 6 months of the NBA season. Seeing him play gave me one of the most giddy feelings I have ever gotten watching sports. I mean, Amare is back! That’s HUGE! Forget the fact you could have slapped a Chris Webber jersey on his back and no one would have known the difference, it still looked damn good to see. Although he was not explosive (a lot of finesse lay up finishes instead of the power dunks we know and love) he had the jump shot working beautifully (you could tell he had been working on that all this time, it was automatic). One thing Amare can still do, even without his explosiveness right now, is get to the free throw line. The suns put up 125 points tonight and it didn’t even seem like they played that great offensively. Lets just say seeing Amare back was awesome, I am stoked for the playoffs and pumped to see how Amare returns and progresses. {edited 4/1/06: Forget everything I said. :( }

Okay OC talk. First off for those who read this blog and don’t really know me all that well, you may think the OC is my favorite show. Well its not, I can’t say I really like this show but I don’t miss episodes. It’s hard to explain, everyone watches it and it’s a good conversation piece. At the same time I don’t really like any of the characters except for Sandy, who is awesome. Seth’s comedic impact to the show, in my opinion (of course), is so overrated. He is not funny at all; in fact I really don’t like this character at all. That being said the show needs him, all that being said its still damn fun to watch and talk about. So here I go with a few quick points on the latest OC episodes:

• Promo for the next weeks episodes states ‘The most explosive episode yet.” Can we put a cap on the amount of times the OC can use this tag line? Because I think I have watched about 10-12 most explosive episodes yet.
• Volcheck (sp?) is a creep! I mean honestly girls, could I be a complete bitch to you and your friends, kidnap you, fight your boyfriend and then when you break up with him I stalk you and creep you out so much that you just end up having sex with me? Does this really work? (Answer is no in the real world, yes in the OC world. Just another reason why we should all live in the OC world). Exact quote from J to the ustin about Marissa and Volcheck’s relationship: “That is going to be a great relationship.” (note heavy sarcasm).
• I think Sadie is damn hot.
• Sandy Cohen is hands down the coolest TV dad ever.
• WTF happened with that Jes girl? I mean she went of being a slut on acid to living in a mansion and being obsessed with Ryan? Umm Random.
• How about the last episode. Just a bunch of sex. I mean I was watching it on TIVO at like 2am and I was pretty sure I had accidentally switched over to a free trial of Skinamax.
• I don’t see why Sandy was so upset at Matt for letting Marissa spend that night. To make my point let me substitute a few words from the famous Ghostbusters quote: “If an underage girl asks if she can sleep over at your house, you say YES!”
• I am genuinely nervous about what Sandy is going to do with Matt. He needs that hospital to be built, but he also knows Matt is getting the raw deal. I would hate to be in his situation, I cringed when Matt called him late in the episode. Luckily Sandy didn’t answer, that’s a problem future Sandy can deal with.

Finally I want to pimp myself. I had LSU beating Duke in the sweet 16. Redick going 3-18 in the game? Ouch. The collective universe hating JJ might have finally caught up with him (I am the only one in the world I think who does not hate him, and he will be drafted by the Utah Jazz, more on that late in the blog.) I cant believe how UCLA came back to beat Gonzaga. That was insane, I mean JP Batista was so careless with the ball and when Ravio go the ball after UCLA scored to take the lead he was so unnecessarily out of control with the ball it was ridiculous (redickulous?). I really don’t like Ravio, I mean I think I hate him. It was rough seeing Morrison cry hard on the court (although he really doesn’t look like a guy who would cry). I felt for him though, I hope he succeeds in the next level. I think Matt Baker was devastated by the loss too. I am only basis this on the fact that he his a huge Gonzaga fan, and about .000001 seconds after the game ended he kept asking me and J to the if we wanted to watch the OC. However we were so shocked by what just happened we couldn’t answer (well I couldn’t answer at least, I was in some kind of coma shock just watching Morrison cry) anyway after we didn’t answer Baker threw the remote at us and went upstairs. Bottom line: That whole last 2 minutes of the Gonzaga game was just surreal. Oh yeah and the Texas-WVU game was crazy too.

One last comment on Utah, I watched a Jazz game while in Utah on Wednesday and I must say I think they are trying to phase out black players from their team. Seriously, look at their starting lineup. AK-47, Matt Harping and Mehment Okur are white, and Carlos Boozer and Deron Williams are very light skinned “brothers” (probably to help ease the transition to all white guys). The Jazz lack outside shooting the most and I bet Redick is around when they are up in the NBA draft. Crazy Mormon city.

Spring Break NCAA Style

I’m back from spring break, aren’t you happy? Anyway as you all probably know I went to Salt Lake City and got to see the first two rounds of the NCAA tournament. Here are my observations:

• I have BC in the championship game, so I was a little worried when Pacific took them to double OT. BC waited about 45 minutes to long to start going into the full court press. When they finally started pressing in the 2^nd OT, Pacific had no answer and completely got shut down and BC went on their run. Although I personally cheered for BC center John Oates for some reason, I do not know why he starts. #51 Shaun Williams comes off the bench and is much better, he is taller, athletic, he can throw down and he is a great shot blocker. He completely owned Montana in round two of the tournament with his shot blocking alone. I was not overly impressed with Jared Dudley, but he is pretty solid. Craig Smith, however, was amazing. I know he was playing non power conference teams, but he completely owned the inside in both games I saw. Needless to say, BC looks pretty good. They will beat Villanova!
• Montana was a fun team to root for. Although I originally wanted Nevada to win because I had picked them in my bracket I very quickly found myself rooting for Montana. They are fun to watch, well coached and have some good players. Their best player is #34 Andrew Straight. He is about 6-7, only a sophomore and is always around the basket playing the power forward position. The kid I liked the most on their team was Jordan Hasquet. He is a 6-9 freshmen center from the heart of Montana. He has a developing inside game, but he can shoot and hit the three. He also played good defense on Nick Fazekias (I know I spelled that wrong) although I was shocked to find out in the box score that Fazekias had 22 and 14. He did not play well at all in that game, I have no clue how he got that line. Anyway I was very impressed with Hasquet, he had to guard Fazekias all game and did a good job on him I thought. Plus he killed Nevada by hitting three pointers and stretching the D while playing the center position. He is the next Adam Morrison (maybe less scoring and more inside/defense) but he is gonna be damn good. Watch out for Montana, the majority of their best players are back next year.
• Gonzaga is good. They are talented, deep and they play good defense this time around. Morrison is great, and he saved that team from losing at the hands of Xavier (just another example of a highly seeded team sleep walking for the first half of their first game, but when they wake up and come back to win it seems to help propel these high seeds in the next round). Morrison hit big shot after big shot down the stretch was pretty much was their whole offense while Ravio was killing them on offense (Gonzaga seemed to make their run after he fouled out, he played much better in the 2^nd game). Batista was in foul trouble too and Goznaga was getting beat down. But Morrison brought them back. In the 2^nd game Morrison played like crap, but it was impressive to see Gonzaga play much better with him having a bad game. Batista played great and completely took Marco Killingsworth(less) out of the game. Marco did not even play late in the 2^nd half when Indiana kind of made a run (when they hit every three they put up. Seriously, look it up).
• Marco Killingsworth should have stayed at Auburn and be a very very very very very very very poor man’s Charles Barkely.
• It was funny sitting behind two Xavier fans on Thursday and they were just ripping on Adam Morrison. Saying how he takes 600 shots a game in order to get his 28 points and saying how he is overrated and never passes and how he will suck in the NBA. I just wanted to turn around and say, “HELLO! This is the same guy who is single handedly 0wning your team right now.” I don’t mind people being fans of their team, but take the blinders off please.
• It is amazing how EVERYONE roots for the underdog. In the BC-Pacific game the place was 90% for Pacific. People who have no idea what the school is or where it’s at just want and underdog to win so hardcore. It was even worse when BC played Montana; the crowd was a rowdy, pro-Montana crowd. So let’s just say BC fans did not travel at all. It was a shame they had to end up in the Salt Lake area to start out (not for me, I liked watching them play) but those in essence played two road games, not neutral site games. Only when Gonzaga was playing was the underdog not rooted for. The majority of people who bought tickets to the sessions defiantly were there for Gonzaga.
• It’s amazing how everyone thinks everyone travels on every play. If the refs called as many travels as the fans sitting next to me wanted to be called, we all would have witness the most mind numbingly annoying basketball games in American history.
• The NCAA tournament is amazing. It’s an absolute blast, the best sporting event out there. There will always be close games and its amazing how a 12 will always beat a 5. Its always fun to root for the underdog and see the big time players step it up when their teams need them the most (a la Craig Smith and Adam Morrison). Without further delay I give you my all Salt Lake City tourney team: F Craig Smith (BC), F Adam Morrison (Gonzanga), C Jordan Hasquet (Montana), G Eric Calloway (Indiana), G Tyrice Rice (BC, because he completely destroyed Montana with his three point shooting in the 2^nd half). Sixth Man: Andrew Straight (Montana).

A few non salt lake city tournament points:

• I hate Northwestern State
• Billy Packer made a complete fool out of himself this past week. He hates on mid-major schools, especially the ones from the Missouri Valley conference. Then admits he has not seen a Missouri Valley conference game. Are you kidding me you are a college basketball analyst. I don’t even watch much college basketball and I still know more about the Missouri Valley then him! That’s insane. He got ripped apart by some guy on the selection committee (it was well deserved). So he goes on PTI to defend himself by restating his point that bigger conference teams should be in over Missouri valley teams. When Wilbon asks how these teams from mid major conferences are supposed to get recognition Packer says, in a completely unnecessary condescending tone, “Have you ever heard of the NCAA tournament?” If I was Wilbon I would have gone off on him. At the end of the interview Packer says he would love nothing more then to have an all Missouri Valley conference final four, and he loves it when underdogs win. So to summarize Billy Packer would love to see the mid-major tournament teams win in the NCAA tourney, he just doesn’t want them to be there in the first place (this led to about 1,000 jokes between me and the crew up in Utah the past week. Something along the lines of, “man I really love watching Montana play I just don’t think they should be in the tournament.”) Thanks Billy Packer for making a fool of yourself, I never really liked him all that much to being with. Now I will never listen to anything he has to say.
• Speaking of mid majors, they had a great tournament. Some big upsets some unlikely sweet 16 teams (Bradley, Wichita State and George Mason) and a number of close calls (the most shocking moment of the tournament so far was seeing Albany had a 10 point lead with 10 minutes to go.) Good job by mid majors this past weekend, I say let more in. People love rooting for them.

Overall it was a good weekend. Park City, Utah (where the cabin we stayed at was) was very pretty and it snowed a lot. I have seen snow like 3 times in my life so it was pretty cool. The cabin was real nice, it included a gas fireplace that was always on and some HD TVs with surround sound, you really cant beat that. I had to rent a car and drive back from Salt Lake City to Phoenix though due to complications from flying with a buddy pass (flying standby is seriously the worst idea one could ever envision. The only worse idea ever was when Eve ate that forbidden apple). The drive was long (10 hours) and it stormed the whole way (seriously the storm system stretched from SLC to Phoenix, I have never seen anything like that). Staying in the cabin along with me were the Baker Bros and their father, Jordan and his dad, boomsquad Eric and Will, Mark and Ben. So it was quite the fun time. But now I am back in the real world, and I have a lot of work to do until the semester ends. So it should be fun.

Welcome Edge

The Cardinals signed the Edgerrin James today. I still do not believe it. These are not the Cardinals I know and love! The Cardinals I know and love would have talked to Edge for the weekend and then Edge would have left town, gone straight back to Indy and gotten an extra $2 million a year from the Colts, so basically using the Cardinals as a bargaining chip. The Cardinals I know would sign a few fringe guys like Kendrick Clancy and Milfrod Brown (who they did sign) and then maybe add one somewhat name like Will Allen (who they might sign), call it a free agency and still be 10 million under the cap. The fact that they went out and got a stud, big name, future hall of famer IN HIS PRIME is insane. Not normal Cardinals here, but I love the signing. James is going to be HUGE for them (they still need to improve the line, Brown will help a little but they should use the #10 pick on an lineman). Edge, Boldin and Fitz? Its over, see ya. The 2006 squad will easily be the most talented Arizona Cardinal team to ever take the field (but they last years was probably the 2nd most talented and they only won 5 games). It looks like things are turning around for this once hapless franchise, I know expect, instead of hope, them to make the playoffs next year for the first time in my life.
This leads me to wonder why the Colts let him go. I guess they wanted to give that money to Reggie Wayne, but is Reggie Wayne really more important to that team then Edge? Do they think a James Mungro is going to step in and do what Edge does? Whatever RB goes there is going to have it easy because of the attention put on the passing game, but they will miss edge.

The World Baseball Classic is in full swing and I must say, its pretty awesome. I did not know what to think of originally but it is alot of fun to watch, it is popular (trust me, you would not believe how many people come into my store looking for WBC stuff) and it is interesting. Its critics say it interferes with Spring Training and no one cares. Not true, I would think playing in "exhibition" games of this magnitude against some of the talent these teams have would be better for a player then playing some of the scrubs they play in Spring Training. Plus it is nice to see all these stars playing together in games that actually mean something (the WBC means ALOT more then homefield advantage in the World Series, which was a good idea but I think it needs to stop being decided by the all star game). My favorite random moment of the WBC so far: Getting home from the bars at like 2am on Friday morning March 3rd and seeing Byung Hyun Kim pitch for Korea on ESPN vs some team named Chinese Tapiea. That was fun.

The first Saturday of spring break started out pretty bad when I had to get called into work, but it ended awesomely. After I got off of work I went to the bars with Baker, Bjorn and their friend Mike Benne (Did I spell that right). Anyway Mike is one crazy funny dude, so he made the night entertaining. We pulled into Maloney's parking lot at about 10 and there is a part of Maloney's parking lot that kind of dips and tonight it was just filled with water (In case you live out of state, Arizona's record drought ended on Saturday with about 20 straight hours of constant rain). We were going to drive through it untill we saw an SUV go through it and its tires disappear in the water. If an SUV barely got through it, a Ford Tourus (which we were driving) was not going to get through it. Of course this led to about 100 Oregon Trail jokes (i.e should we ford the river, should we take the ferry, should we hire an Indian guide to help us across, what if Aaron drowns or dies of a disease, what if we lose an Oxen or break an axle. Okay actually those were all the jokes we made.) After spending about 10 minutes at Maloney's we went to the Vine and enjoyed free food and drink (thanks to gift money Bjorn had via poker). We even had the waitress pick our drinks at one point. She came back with some crazy shot that included alot of Tabasco sauce. I backed out of that, thats to much shot for me. Bjorn took his shot and proceeded to puke all over the table. I must say, it was high comedy. Moral of the story is, dont let a waitress pick your shots.

Okay kids its off the spring break for me. Enjoy selection sunday!

My Oscars

Lets see, it’s a Sunday night and I have a management test to study for, I have to start writing my 25 page research paper, I have a four page research proposal due on Thursday and a two page research paper on a certain type of dance due sometime soon. Instead of working on any of this today I went to IHOP, watched the Mavs-Suns game in beautiful HD (suns look great), and watched the Academy Awards. So, yeah I will look back on this blog in about two months and be able to pinpoint the exact time in which my grades went to hell.

Anyway like I mentioned earlier I watched the Academy Awards tonight (well not all of it, just the parts that mattered). Anyway I decided to have my own Oscars. Since I, like most Americans, like movies other then the dramas. The Oscars only reward dramas usually, however there are also some very good comedic and action performances that go unnoticed. So for that I give you my Oscars:

Best Supporting Actor:

Nominees: Mickey Rourke (Sin City), Liam Neeson (Batman Begins), Paul Rudd (40 year old Virgin) and Seth Rogan (40 year old Virgin).

Winner: Mickey Rourke-

His character was so unbelievably cool in this movie and I never get sick of watching it. I thought he did a great job acting and making Merv one of the coolest characters I have ever seen on the big screen.

Best Supporting Actress:

Nominees: Catherine Turner (40 year old Virgin), Isla Fisher (The Wedding Crashers), Rosario Dawson (Sin City), Dakota Fanning (War of the Worlds).

Winner: Catherine Turner-

I have a feeling the 40 year old Virgin is going to win a lot tonight. Catherine did a great job however as the girl Steve Carell finally loses his virginity too. She is very believable and I thought she did a pretty good job.

Best Actress:

Nominees: Rachel McAdams (The Wedding Crashers), Reese Witherspoon (Walk the Line), Jessica Simpson (Dukes of Hazzard).

Winner: Reese Witherspoon

Okay so Jessica Simpson didn’t deserve to be on the list, its just I was all out of other nominees and she is hot. Anyway of course Reese was going to win this, I mean she won the real life awards. I wanted to give it to McAdams because her performance in Wedding Crashers put her on the map. But it is hands down Reese’s award. She did a damn good job in Walk the Line.

Best Actor:

Nominees: Christian Bale (Batman Begins), Nathan Fillion (Serenity), Vince Vaughn (The Wedding Crashers), Steve Carell (The 40 year old Virgin), Jamie Foxx (Jarhead).

Winner: TIE! Steve Carell and Christian Bale-

Am I allowed to split the vote between to actors? The answer is yes because these are my awards. Anyway I could not decide, Carell was so darn good in 40 year old Virgin that it’s impossible not to give him the award. I mean he actually had his chest waxed in that movie! The pain was real! Christian Bale single handedly brought the Batman franchise back from oblivion with his strong performance as both Bruce Wayne and Batman. Both men deserve this award.

Best Picture:

Nominees: Sin City, The 40 year old Virgin, The Wedding Crashers, Serenity, Star Wards Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Batman Begins.

Winner: The 40 year old Virgin-

Hands down the funniest movie of the year (I will argue this over the Wedding Crashers). Good story, good acting, very funny and very strong characters. Some of the best parts of the movie weren’t even what the main story was about, like the scenes in which they are all working. In the end the movie turns into more of a chick flick but its very entertaining throughout and I think stands up stronger then the Wedding Crashers which kind of fades at the end. It was really hard not to give this honor to Sin City, which is one of the coolest movies ever made. Serenity was the darkhorse, the movie was not about to win any real life awards but it was very well acted and very entertaining to watch.

Well I hope you guys enjoyed my first ever Oscars. I hope you tune in next year to read what I have to say. Over the coming weeks I will not have a chance to write that much because I am very busy. Spring Break is next week though and I will have a lot of blog material so that is coming up. Other then that it might get pretty slow until school ends but be on the lookout for my TV year in review coming up in May. Until then I hope you keep tuning it, because I will try to provide you all with some good stuff during my busy times.

Boom Squad!

Boom Squad 2006 Intramural Rec League Champions!!!!

I forget the final score but we won by 18 points over a team that had not been beaten all year. So needless to say we are the champions! It feels so good, after the game our team go t-shirts and a group picture which I will post when it goes up on ASU’s website. We also are throwing ourselves a nice pizza party in honor of this years team! I want to say the Boom Squad season has been one hell of a ride. I think the team we played was called Team Loco. They got out to an early lead, led at halftime before we just put the Boom Squad beat down on them. Bottom line is if your team is not taller then us you probably will not win. We are a great fast breaking team that plays good defense and can shoot (heck even I made a few threes this year). I team was unstoppable when we had Big Steve, a 6-7 dynamo to control the paint. Sadly he tore his rotator cuff in the first playoff game and we had to go the rest of the playoffs without him. We missed him badly although you wouldn’t know if because the next two games we played we won by 13 and 18. We only suffered one loss this season, by 1 point in a game we played very sloppy and were missing two of our best players. Every other game we played in we won by double digits. It was one heck of a year, my vote to MOP (Most Outstanding Player) goes to Tibbits who played like a man possessed in the playoffs. BOOM SQUAD BABY!

I am officially going to dub the weekend of February 25-26^th 2006 as “Bruce Willis Weekend.” I do this because it was his, he owned it. He was all over the place. Over the course of the weekend I watched parts of Armageddon, Die Hard, The 5^th Element, Sin City, The Last Boy Scout and Pulp Fiction (not to mention the previews for his new movie 16 blocks which randomly appeared throughout the weekend). Anywhere you looked one of his movies was on TV or a movie channel. It was insane but also awesome, because Bruce Willis freaking rules. The weekend became so Bruce Willis heavy that on Sunday night Justin and I were watching Pulp Fiction and Baker happens to come home during a scene in which he is in it and just says, “That’s exactly who I expected to see on the TV.” He then proceeded to sit down and watch the rest of the Bruce Willis scenes with us. I am sad its over, I wish every weekend could be a Bruce Willis weekend. (Although I later found out that Last Man Standing is on tonight, just in case I need a Bruce Willis fix).

Without further delay I give you random Bruce Willis facts (as found on imdb.com):

• He is the hero of singer Nick Lachey (Justin wants me to add that Bruce Willis is also his hero. Yes, that is how powerful a Bruce Willis weekend is.)
• After dating Brooke Burns for ten months and finally being engaged to her they decided to split because of the difficulties with maintaining a long-distance relationship
• His recording of "Respect Yourself" reached #5 in January of 1987.
• Was high school student council president.

Let the record state that I moved into my current residence in May of 2005, let the record state that in May of 2005 I saw we lived pretty much 5 minutes away from a Super China Star Buffet which I believe (I could easily be wrong) that on movie day I proclaimed to the guys that we, “Had to go there.” Fast forward to February of 2006 and I finally ended up going there. It was me and Justin’s bright idea driving home from the bar on Thursday night so the rest of the weekend we had dreams of fried rice and all you can eat Chinese food dancing in our heads. Adam decided to come with us so we all went over with empty stomachs ready to be satisfied. Lets just say we were the exact OPPOSITE of satisfied. The place was expensive (9 bucks!) and it was horrible food. The fried rice was like half cooked, the egg rolls were terrible, the orange chicken tasted like alcohol, the soft serve ice cream did not have a distinctive taste and everything else was just poor. However we were not to be deterred, it maybe have been bad food but we were still going to get our 9 dollars worth! Well that was until a kid sitting at the table next us started puking (after careful examination it was determined that he threw up before he ate any of the food, which was a good thing for us I guess). Well after the puking incident we pretty much lost our appetite and therefore could not get our 9 dollars worth. Also the fortune cookies sucked! They didn’t tell us our fortune they just cracked bad jokes! Oh well you can not win them all I guess. Moral of the story is do not go to super china star buffet any more.

Hell Week, Bjornstock and basketball talk

I must apologize for not updating the blog in what seems like forever. I have been very busy. In the past week I have had to read about 1,000 books for my history 498 class (that class is kicking my ass), take a test in management (lets just say I’ve done better on tests), work a 12 hour shift (on Friday, and it sucked) and look for internships. So it was one hell of a week. However it was all over by Saturday night just in time for Bjornstock 2006!! Another big party from the Cottonwood Kings. The flyers we passed out set the tone for the party, on them included such great things as the picture I took of Bjorn at the USC-ASU tailgate in which he is holding up a sign that says he can out drink Wade Boggs (a shocking amount of people don’t seem to know how Wade Boggs is. He was a great baseball player, but that’s not important. Urban Legend has it that he once drank 64 beers on a cross country flight. So if Bjorn could out drink Wade Boggs that would be pretty damn impressive). While passing out the flyers (me and Bjorn spent the better part of three hours trying to pass them out at work on Friday night) we made promises of 8 kegs. That got people pumped (actually Keg count for the night: 2). The party itself was a lot of fun and it lasted until about 3am (which was a nice change since their last few parties have gotten broken up around midnight). However nothing that happened was really blog worthy. It was a great time, I had fun, I might have had a little to much to drink, and all the awesome kids were there. Other then that I do not have much else to say about it. Good times all around though. If I remember correctly I took some good pictures, but I don’t really remember with who or how many.

All-Star weekend was this weekend so I am only going to say a few things about it: 1 Andre I got robbed, 2. the West’s 4^th quarter offense was for Kobe and T-Mac to jack no wonder they lost. 3. I somehow have not gotten sick of seeing Eva Longoria everywhere and I don’t think I ever will. 4. Carrie Underwood is sooooooo hot.

So since its all-star weekend its time for me to break down the first half of the NBA season. Here it goes:

Detroit is obviously the team to beat. I’m never going to count out Miami because they have Wade and Shaq will step up his game come playoff time. Its easy to see getting Antoine Walker and Jason Williams was a mistake. Whenever I watch a heat game GP is always playing the point when the game is on the line. The Nets might be fun to watch but they have no shot at beating Miami or Detroit. Not with that imposing frontline of Uncle Cliffy and Kristic. For the West, we actually have three teams: Mavs, Spurs and Suns. It seems like the Spurs are having a down year, until you realize that they are like 41-11. Everyone is waiting for the Mavs to prove it in the playoffs and for good reason. I must say though they have what it takes to get it done. Remember folks, they are in the Western Conference. From 2000-2004 the West playoffs were not easy. The West Semi Finals were basically like the Conference finals with the West Conference finals being the NBA finals. So looking back on it that way, the Mavs reached the NBA finals in 2003 but lost to the Spurs (who doesn’t lose to the Spurs?). If the Suns are real good right now, if Amare can return to health they will be scary. Good thing for the Suns is that they are the #2 seed. Which means while the Mavs and Spurs battle it out in the Semifinals the Suns will be cruising past a Denver/NOAK/Memphis. Ahh good times.

Midseason awards:

MVP: Steve Nash

ROY: Chris Paul (duh)

Coach: Flip

Executive: Bryan C or maybe Elgin Baylor

I am still not going to make any predictions until the playoffs start. I do want to address the trade rumors that Isaiah wants to trade for Steve Francis and pair him with Starbury to make a modern day Isaiah-Dumars backcourt. I really want this to happen. How awesome would this be? It would go so horribly wrong it would be great. You know Franchise is gonna be pissed he cant be #3. They are both gonna battle for the ball. Its going to be great.

May darkhorse team to win the NCAA tourney: Memphis. I don’t know if you can call a top 10 team a darkhorse, but I like Memphis. Darius Washington baby (as long as the game doesn’t come down to free throws).

Okay kids I am out, Ill try to make the blogs better I promise.

P.S. If JamesOn Curry’s name was Leonard Curry or Joey Curry would he be as talked about?

Complete Randomness

For long time readers of the blog you will notice that I have used this title before, for new readers welcome to a recurring title I will use with some of my blog entries when they have no theme, they are just random. To all my readers, I am sure none of you care. So on with the show!

Did you hear about the HUGE trade that went down today? ABC traded Al Michaels to NBC for the rights to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, four rounds of golf and Olympic highlights. (I am not even joking, here is the link)
How awesome is this, I didn't realize broadcasters got traded. Anyway I have to wonder about ABC here, I mean trading one of the best play by play man ever for the rights to some cartoon bunny no one has heard of and some sports highlights? Is this the ultimate salary dump? If Al Michaels stays on for the NBA on ABC then I guess ABC got the better of this deal. What if trading broadcasters became a common occurrence? Then someone needs to trade for Bob Costas because he is being wasted at NBC. Maybe FOX could offer NBC the rights to Arrested Development and three sitcoms to be named later for Costas, then Costas can call football and baseball games! How awesome would this be? Although NBC does have big plans for Costas in their Sunday night football instudio show, they are in such a dire need for sitcoms maybe the promise of four sitcoms will get them to part with Bobby.

You probably have realized I have not blogged about the Super Bowl. This is because it was the most boring somewhat close superbowl of all time. The Steelers didn't win it, the Seahawks lost it I think (refs helped). Both teams didn't play well, Big Ben had a bad game, Troy "I cover 30% of the Earth" Palamalu (I spelt that wrong) made about 2 plays the whole game. Shaun Alexander had the quietest 95 yards rushing in football history. Add to that the commercials were terrible it was a forgettable superbowl. I still had fun however, because no matter how bad the game is you are still with your friends, drinking beer and eating tons of junk food. It doesn't get much better then that.

So how about the OC lately? Johnny is finally dead, which is good because I was getting sick of him. Katlin is gone (which is sad, TV needs more hot 14 year olds that are sex symbols. These are just jokes folks) Sadie, Johnny's cousin, seems to be a new character that is going to take Johnny's place as the person to come between Ryan and Marissa ( I like Sadie better because she is hot and not an butmunch, yes I just used the word butmunch. Welcome back to 1995). So it seems the OC is ready to go into the third part of the season. My experience in watching the OC so far (only part of last year and all of this year) is they really have three seasons in one season. They rap up about three major stories each year, the biggest ones being late in the year. So the next third of the season looks somewhat promising. The bad news is there are no more new episodes until March 9! I cant wait that long! Plus every NBC show is off the air for about a month (Scrubs, the Office and My name is Earl). At the risk of sounding like a typical American, I think I hate the Olympics (okay not true they are pretty cool, but I miss my TV!)

Okay kids I am done blogging for the night. I really have to start getting to work on my research paper, which I put off on Friday during the little freetime I had to watch a crappy 1985 movie called the Explorers (staring a 12 year old Ethan Hawk). It was so bad I could not believe I wasted my time watching this movie. In a nutshell it was about three high school students who happen to have the combined IQ of Einstein times 100 million. They build a spaceship and meet aliens who watch a lot of TV. The twist is that the aliens they meet are just kid aliens and their dad gets pissed when they see him with humans. Seriously, I am going to fail my research paper over THAT!!??

Argh, I can not go on anymore . . .

Welcome to the Next-Gen

I want to preface this latest blog entry by saying the highlight of my weekend (other then the fact that I do not have to work this weekend, which is awesome my first weekend off in a while) was going to the "soft" opening of a new bar in Scottsdale called the Yard House. Its pretty much in Scottsdale Fashion Square and they have 177 different types of draft beer, anything you could ask for. Sure it may be a little pricey, but that's a hell of a selection (Yes you could say I am promoting the bar, hopefully I get some free beer out of this. But I wont). Anyway I ended up not going, why? Because on Friday night my Xbox 360 came in the mail and basically that is what I have been doing all weekend.
First off xbox 360 is pretty freaking awesome. The graphical power is phenominal and the environments it creates for its games are a sight to behold. It also boasts a ton of online features and content download (i.e demos) so you can have hours of fun (wait am I promoting Microsoft too? I swear I am not just a shameless promoter. Umm, forgot about that random add that appears above this blog). I currently have two games for it, Madden 2006 and NBA live 2006. I must say the games are cool, the graphics are great, but its very easy to tell that these games were rushed. They lack alot of gameplay modes that their xbox counterparts had (NBA live 06, for example, doesn't have all-star weekend or a franchise mode and a really shitty free thow shooting system). The default camera angles on both games are tailored to showing off the graphical power and not so much to what the best viewpoint would be for gaming. Overall though its a good first go around, with Madden taking the cake. NBA live 2006 for the 360 is an inferior game compared to its old school xbox counterpart. Madden 06 for the 360, however, is an amazing game with some really cool new features added. I am sure the 2007 versions of both these games will be awesome.
Okay for those keeping score, I passed on going to the bars this weekend and have a social life in order to play video games. Sounds nerdy, hey it was special circumstances. I did get a chance to see Glory Road, however. Here is my review:

Glory Road follows the same old story line of every movie of its kind: mistfit group of guys come together to form a team, they get to know each other while having a few laughs, their coach is to hard on them and they struggle a little at first. They then come together, which is followed by a montage of them winning games then have the scene were something goes horribly wrong and they start to lose a few games. Then they have the big team blow out and everything is better and they go on to pull an amazing upset of some sort.
Well I must say Glory Road follows this storyline EXACTLY (so does the Miracle) but that's okay because its based on a true story and its just good. I don't care that I knew what was going to happen or it followed the same old storyline, its still a good storyline and it is still entertaining to watch. Plus in what other movie to you get to see such NBA greats as Jo Jo White and Pat Riley take on the protagonists? The answer is you don't. After seeing this movie though it makes you think a few things: David Latten (center for Texas Western) was the second coming of Wilt, Jo Jo White and Pat Riley might be the greatest basketball players in history, Billy Jo (the Texas Western guard) might be the greatest defensive stopper in basketball history. Overall I say it was a good movie and its worth the price of admission.

So before the movie started I saw a preview for the new movie, Akeelah and the Bee. I must say this movie looks like it could be one of the funniest movies ever, and not because its a comedy. The movie is about Laurence Fishburne (you know, Morphus) coaching a young black girl to the top of the spelling world, the Spelling Bee Championship. I cant even describe why this move sounds so hilarious, so I advise you if you have some free time to watch the trailer.
(upon further review that trailer on IMDB is not the one I saw in the theater and therefore is not even nearly as funny as the long one I saw. I advise you to track this done and watch because oh man its high comedy.) Well I guess ill try to explain it to you anyway. The trailer starts off with Fishburne at some random junior high watching a po dunk spelling bee, which makes me think he scouts random high schools for National Spelling Bee Talent which makes the movie awesome enough. ONce Akeelah wins the school spelling bee, FIshburne challenges her to spell a very hard word which she aces while trying so hard that she has a constipated look on her face. Then she runs out of the room because she is ashamed of her "gift". Fishburne tracks her down and becomes her spelling coach. She then goes through a rigours training regimine in which Fishburne tells her she will learn 100 new words a day and gives her a dicitionary in order to help her practice. But the practice gets to much for her and she starts to break down. Then she goes to the National Spelling Bee but realizes it is hard for her, a black girl, to compete in a white man's world (apparently the National Spelling Bee is the white man's world.) But she pushes through and she inspires younger black girls so much that in the trailer one proclaims "Im going to enter the bee next year!" And this is all in just the trailer! How funny could this movie be?

Okay kids I think that is all I have for you tonight. If any of you loyal readers have Xbox live (360 style) then hit me up we should game on the internet sometime.

Later

My Two Cents On Penny

Remember Anfernee "Penny" Hardaway? When I say that name now what I, you and everyone else thinks of is a crappy basketball player who somehow makes 15 million dollars a year. People even decide to insult him by calling him the "nickel" instead of "penny". I never quite understood how this was an insult, its like if my nickname was "g-spot" and people started calling me "million dollar man." that's an upgrade in cash, therefore its an upgrade in a nickname. Honestly, would you rather have a penny or a nickel? Anyway it is time to jump back into the way back machine, back into the golden age of 1990s basketball. Before all our basketball heroes got 30 year, 700 million dollar contracts then simultaneously hurt their knees or developed drinking problems.

Penny Hardaway was an amazing player back in the day. His height and passing ability drew him comparisons to Magic Johnson, his scoring ability drew him comparisons to Michael Jordan. Basically I think Penny Hardaway was a prequel to LeBron James. Satistical evidence is all I have to support my claims, as I have fuzzy memories of Penny lighting it up back in the day. He was all NBA first team in 1994 and 1995 and 3rd team in 1996. He beat out such greats as Gary Payton, Reggie Miller, Mitch Richmond (wait he was never great), Clyde the Glide and John Stockton to get those first team honors. Those are 90s legends. In 1995 Penny was at the height of his career, on the cusp of a championship (who knows what would have happened if Nick Anderson had not pulled a Nick Anderson). He was also teamed with who was soon to be the most dominate player in the NBA. The follwing year they lost to, who else, Michael and the Bulls. Then Shaq left and took Dennis Scott with him (actually he didn't, Dennis just couldn't contribute without hitting the open jump shots that he got when Shaq was double teamed. 45% with Shaq, 39% without him). Nick Anderson was done after he missed those FTs in 1995 (FG% fell to 39%) and Penny was left with a team featuring such legendary centers as Rony Seikaly, Felton Spencer and Danny Schayes. Penny still tried his best, averaging 31 ppg in the playoffs that year, a loss in 5 games to the #1 seed Miami Heat. Then Penny got hurt. Then Penny got traded to Phoenix to be apart of "Backcourt 2000" with Jason Kidd. Backcourt 2000 became "Back In Court 2000" after the legal troubles both had in 2001. However in 2000 Penny looked like old Penny again. He played great in the playoffs (20, 5 and 5). However he got hurt again in 2001, tried to rush back and got hurt again and his career ended. Lucky for him he was in year 2 of a 500 year, 900 gazillion dollar deal (that only one man in the world would trade for, and he did Mr. Isiah Thomas). So next time you see Penny struggle in the Garden as the Knicks probably get blown out, as his minutes get cut for Nasty Nate Robinson and some other guard you don't know. Do not hate, do not compliment/insult him and call him the "nickel" just step back into the way back machine and remember mid 90s Penny. How sweet it was.

How about an all mid 90s stud, post 2000 overpaid, chronicaly injuried, acholholic, has 20 kids with 15 different women team:
F Vin Baker
F Shawn Kemp
C Diekmbe Mutumbo
G Allan Houston
G Penny

Stay In School

Be Cool, Stay in School- Id date that slogan at about early 90s, maybe late 80s. I have already gone over in great detail why the early 90s ruled (actually I don't think I have except the time I blogged about 90s basketball. Anyway the Basketball of the early 90s alone is enough to make it the greatest era ever.) Why I bring up this slogan I really have no idea. I was trying to tie it into the fact that I just survived my first week of school, so just pretend it worked. Okay? Good.
So Class is back on and I must say I miss the Christmas break. I thought things were going my why when I found out I only need to buy 3 books for the semester. I'm actually going to save some money! I thought. Well as it turns out one of those book, my Management book, cost 110 freaking dollars! (Why is it always the business books that cost the most?) So there goes my dreams to save money (Honestly what would I save up my money for? I would buy an XBox 360 but they are out of stock everywhere. I guess I could blow my money on old school SNES Sports Games like NBA live 96, Tecmo Super Bowl and Tecmo Super Basketball. Oh wait I already did that). Anyway I decided to switch things up this year and take a dance class, ballroom/latin/swing dancing. It is pretty interesting. Although it can be a little awkward at times. Like when I am dancing with a girl I do not want to look directly into her eyes because that is just weird. However I don't like looking directly at my feet (even though I have to sometimes) because I want to make it look like I know what I am doing. So I end up looking directly at their breasts. Hey I'm not one to just stare at a girls chest all day (Scottie will be disappointed in me) but its the only place I really can be comfortable looking (I'm telling you, looking straight into a girl's face you barely know that you really have no interest in is really, really, weird.) So I wonder what my dance partners think. Its either A) This kid has no rhythm at all, B) Who is this weird guy staring at my chest or C) This guy is a freaking stud. (I'll take option C). Anyway some day I will be at a wedding near YOU. And I will dance my ass off. Until that day I will just go back to doing nothing exciting.

Let me break down this weeks episode of the OC:
Marissa's sister Katlyn (is that how you spell it? I am asking you.) And apparently she is a bad, bad girl. Anyway the idea of adding a hot 14 year girl just shows why the OC has the greatest writers to ever grace this Earth. I mean if I was president I think I would get them to write my speeches. How awesome would that be?
Dear American People,
I know you have been concerned about our country over the last few years but I assure you we are moving in the right direction. First we are going to break up all of America's "it" couples just to break the status quo. Then we will flood the market with hot, underage girls in order to spice things up even more. We also have a plan to unveil some hot lesbian romance in the future. If all that fails we have a contingency plan, we will kill of a big name unsuspected, just to get you all talking.
Thank you and Good night.

I mean wouldn't this make for a good speech? Anyway final thoughts on the OC for this week:
-I really hate Johnny, but if he hooks up with Katlyn I think he will be my favorite character ever.
-Are we really going back to the love triangle between Johnny, Marissa and Ryan? Actually no, because we are adding Katlyn to the mix.
-Rumor has it next episode Seth tries pot. I think the OC came come up with a better storyline then this, but then again they have had about 2,000 different ones this season.

that's all I have for tonight kids, Tune in this weekend when I break down the NFL playoffs somemore and maybe devote a good part of my blog to the Mamba.

Bye Bye