UngsungBlog: A (Fantasy) Sports Blog

Quick-hitters:

- OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG!!! Eddie Izzard is going to be at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood from Thursday to Saturday, Aug 7-9!

MUST…GET…TIX!

The new show is called “Stripped,” for the record.

- I made some instant udon noodles for dinner tonight, and the cooking instructions said to boil 19 1/2 fl oz. of water (17.5 fl oz. if I chose to cook the noodles in the microwave).

19.5 fl oz? They couldn’t round it up to 2 1/2 cups? Too bad I don’t have a graduated cylinder. And what’s with directing me to cook the noodles for 5 minutes? Four minutes and 48 seconds would have been perfect.

- I forgot to mention one incident that happened during the Mets-Dodgers game last night. A woman wearing a Mets jersey was leaving the stadium, but not before getting into a mini-argument with a bunch of Dodger fans sitting a few rows in front of us. As soon as that happened, a bunch of Dodger fans started mercilessly booing her.

She turned around, and started speaking what could barely be considered English. I was able to make out something about “you” (Dodger fans, presumably) winning twice in “like a hundred years” while “we” (Mets fans) have won “so many” times.

If memory serves me correctly, the Los Angeles Dodgers have won two championships in their non-Brooklyn existence, and the Mets have won exactly twice as well. Now, if the woman is going to bandwagon and include the Yankees into that discussion, then I guess she has a point. Then again, including Yankees’ championships as a Mets fan is like being a Clipper fan celebrating Lakers’ championships.

I couldn’t help but join in on the heckling, shouting “Remember September of last year?” (in reference to the Mets’ late season collapse last year that cost them the NL East).

- I never did get around to commenting about the disputed shot in the third quarter of Game 2 between Orlando and Detroit, so I’ll let the guys over at Imaginary Hardwood explain why the disputed shot—a terrible mistake by the refs and clock operator, for the record—wasn’t the only reason for Orlando’s 2-0 deficit.

I’ll add this to the discussion, though: why couldn’t the refs start the entire play over again? Reset the clock, and make Detroit bring the ball back up court? What is wrong with that? And I don’t want to hear the nonsense that the refs “knew” that 4.6 seconds (or whatever it was) elapsed from inbounds to shot, thus allowing the basket to stand. Yeah, I’m so sure the refs knew that 4.6, and not 4.5 or 4.7 seconds, ran off the clock. I would have respected their opinion, as wrong as it ended up being, if they had said that five seconds ran off the clock.

ESPN’s TMQ has ranted about tenths of seconds often, and I wholeheartedly agree. Sure, without tenths of seconds, Laker fans might not have Derek Fisher’s “0.4″ shot, but with the proposal I will offer below, he might have had “more” time to take that shot.

I propose that the NBA should get rid of the clock readings of tenths of seconds. If they insist on having fractions of seconds, why not use half-seconds instead?

(Try this exercise: randomly start and stop a stopwatch, and guess how much time elapsed for five trials of varying durations, to the nearest tenth. Now, repeat the trial, and see how many you can get to the nearest half-second. I tried it just right now, and scored 1/5 on the first test; 3/5 on the second test. Of course, it doesn’t take a genius to realize that one is probably going to score better on the second test.)

Wouldn’t identifying “five and a half seconds” make a lot more sense than trying to determine if 5.3 or 5.4 seconds ran off the clock instead?

- Despite getting out to a big double-digit lead early, and keeping it for most of the game, I still saw a lot of chinks in the Lakers’ armor after their Game 2 win over Utah. Deron Williams was an absolute beast in the third quarter, and Paul Millsap might be the key to Utah evening the series in the next two games. I could’ve sworn that every basket Millsap scored was an and-1. If Carlos Boozer and Andrei Kirilenko were able to give the Jazz anything decent in the first two games, this series could easily be 1-1 or 2-0, Utah.

Fisher was huge, Gasol was solid—and I think the Lakers need to establish him more often—and Odom was great. Even still, the third-quarter stretch where both teams were scoring on practically every possession has to be worrisome to the Lakers; you better believe that the Jazz will get stops in Utah. I don’t expect the Lakers to shoot 57% in either Games 3 or 4.

I missed most of the bore-fest that was Detroit-Orlando, but hopefully Chauncey Billups is able to play Game 4. If he’s not, Detroit is going to be in for one heck of a series.

Until next time!

Tags: detroit pistons, disputed 3 pointer, dodgers, Game 2, half-seconds, imaginary hardwood, lakers, mets, mets fan, orlando magic, udon, utah by Peter
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Quick-hitters:

- Cavs v. Celtics thoughts: I missed the game completely (more on that later), but I was astonished to find that “King” James only went 2-for-18. As soon as I heard that, I assumed that he had to have been fouled several times w/o getting calls.

Apparently that was not the case. “King” James will have to wait another game to earn his moniker.

- I picked myself up a Linksys WRT54GS from Staples for ~ $5 after some FAR items and a $20/100 coupon. Now I gotta decide whether or not I want to hack and flash it with some third party firmware, or just use the stock firmware.

One key deciding point: this router is for use at my parents’ place, not here. I’ll probably just leave it as-is :P.

- Current rebate-o-meter: $1450. I got a ton of rebates in the past week or so—about $300 worth of Symantec Rebate debit cards alone!

I know have over $400 in unspent Amazon.com gift certificates.

(Every time I receive a Symantec Rebate debit card, I immediately convert it to an Amazon.com GC, which I add to my Amazon.com buyer account.)

- Sprint’s customer service is awesome. Don’t believe me? Read on!

Back in January, I extended my contract in exchange for a 10% discount on service. The Sprint rep I spoke to told me that I would see the 10% discount on my account effective within the next two statements.

In April, the 10% still didn’t show up, so I called Sprint, and the rep I spoke to assured me that the 10% would show up on the next statement.

Fast forward to yesterday, and the 10% was still nowhere to be found. I called Sprint again, and here is our conversation (paraphrased):

Me: My 10% discount still hasn’t shown up on my account!

CS: Ok…well…it’s there, and I can’t do anything about it. It will probably show up next month.

Me: Probably? And what if it doesn’t show up next month?

CS: (laughs) Then you can call back and yell at me.

I love Sprint.

- So I swung by Ross today with my sister to return a shirt I bought over the weekend.

That’s when I found a really nice golf polo (Adidas ClimaCool something or another) for $20, marked down from $70. I couldn’t resist, though I’d say it’s 50-50 that I return the shirt sometime in the next week or so.

Anyway, when I got to the checkout line—single line, but multiple registers—I noticed three people in line, followed by a little gap, followed by a shopping cart full of stuff. I looked at the cart, wondered if it actually belonged to somebody, and before I could make up my mind, the owner of the cart came up to it—she had been looking through a rack of clothes near the line—nudged it forward, and gave me a death stare, as if to say “Yes, this is my cart, and yes, I’m in line, a$$hole.”

So I stood behind the lady’s cart, and she went back to her shopping. The line moved some more, and I just stood behind her cart, like an idiot. A guy was behind me, wondering what the hell the idiot in front of him (me) was doing just standing there, and the gap between the cart and the person in front widened. I seriously contemplated just shoving the cart out of the way, but the woman came back, nudged her cart forward again, and walked off.

I told myself, “If I’m the next person in line, and the woman doesn’t return, I’m cutting in line no matter what.” Unfortunately, the woman came back right when one of the cashiers shouted “next in line!”

One other bit of shopping cart ridiculousness: later, when another cashier called for the next person in line, two older ladies went to the register. One of the cashiers asked the trailing lady, “Were you in line?” The lady responded, “Of course! I was with this woman (pointing to her friend) all the time!”

That’s fine and dandy…HAD THE TWO WOMEN COMBINED THEIR PURCHASES AS A SINGLE TRANSACTION! But nope, the second woman waited for her friend to finish checking out, and then started emptying her cart in front of the register, expecting the cashier to start checking her out! And yes, the cashier reluctantly started scanning the second woman’s stuff.

Oh how I hate stupid people.

- Fifteen dollar ($50 retail) box seats. Chicken nachos, Dodger Dogs, and peanuts. Not-so-obnoxious fans (and if they were obnoxious, it was in a funny way). Blake DeWitt hitting his second career HR in inside-the-park fashion. A couple of B-level celebrity sightings (twice!). What could have ruined tonight’s Mets-Dodgers game?

Answer: the possible existence of an even more powerful, faster-acting Ung-hex!

The Dodgers were up, 5-4, in the bottom of the ninth inning, with two outs: a long fly out to center by Moises Alou, and a hard ground out by Carlos Delgado on a great play by 1B James Loney. The crowd stood up, and my sister and I joined them. That’s when I noticed, out of the corner of my eye, my sister putting her backpack on. I immediately told her, “Take that off!” She didn’t listen.

Single by Angel Pagan.

I told her again to take off the backpack. Instead, she handed me my sweater.

Single by Brian Schneider.

I grabbed her backpack, and slammed it on her empty seat. I tossed my sweater on the seat as well.

Strike three, looking, to Luis Castillo.

As we celebrated, I told my sister, “You lucked out. If I hadn’t removed your backpack, we would have lost!” She denied the existence of her own Ung-hex, but who could deny it after what happened above? Never has my Ung-hex worked THAT quickly, and THAT effectively.

The seats themselves were pretty decent—aisle 44, next to the right field foul pole, and row T, just underneath the overhang of the Loge section—and thank goodness that there were no really obnoxious fans near us. The concession stands were a heck of a lot nicer than in other sections, and there was a much larger variety of restaurants. Also, the bathrooms were really nice! Instead of a trough, there were actually urinals :P. Also, while there were paper towel dispensers, the bathrooms also had Dyson Airblades! Awesome!

The game was excellent, although it was clear that Dodgers’ pitcher Hideki Kuroda was going to have a rough game. Thank goodness for the play of one Blake DeWitt (who?): 3-4, 4 RBI (2-run single with the bases loaded, and what proved to be a game-winning inside-the-park home run that had the home crowd demanding a curtain call with a “We want Blake!” chant.

(Who needs Andy LaRoche? Nomar who? BLAKE DE-WITT! BLAKE DE-WITT!!!)

As for the celebrity sightings, it was nothing much to write home about. Once we found our seats, we immediately got up and visited the concession stands. A few seconds into our walk, and I noticed three men walking the opposite way. I caught a glance of one of them, and thought he looked familiar. My sister immediately chased me down, and exclaimed some gibberish that I don’t quite recall.

(She LOVES the show.)

Turns out that Detective Don Flack (Eddie Cahill) and CSI Danny Messer (Carmine Giovinazzo) were the two celebs she spotted. On the way out of the stadium, we spotted them near the Field level exit (I was 99.999% positive that that was them, and my sister confirmed it, muttering “OMG OMG that’s them!”). I quickly told her that I would walk past them, and then bend over and tie my shoelaces, to give her an opportunity to go bother them.

She chickened out. By the time she gathered herself to do something, they walked away.

(If this is how we act in front of B-level celebs, what would have happened if we saw Gary Sinise?)

Until next time!

Tags: blake dewitt, box seats, carmine giovinazzo, cavs, celtics, checkout, csi new york, customer service, Dodger Stadium, dodgers, eddie cahill, firmware, inside-the-park home run, mets, rebates, ross, shopping cart, sprint, wrt54gs by Peter
3 Comments »

I have a headache. Let’s make this one a quick one.

Quick-hitters:

- So I’m snacking on some of the yogurt snacks I ordered from Amazon.com earlier in the week, and I noticed that the front of the Harmony snack bags stated that their snacks were an “excellent source of calcium.”

I flipped the bag over, looked at the nutrition facts, and nearly gagged. Sure, each serving had 30% of the RDA of Calcium, but each serving also has 7g of saturated fat per serving (35%)!!!

I wonder if Amazon.com will give me a partial refund on the number of bags that I have yet to open

- Don’t look now, but my Dodgers have won five straight, and are finally over .500!

Now if only we could dump Andruw Jones on some team for a penny on the dollar, though I fear that that is still asking too much.

- Current rebate-o-meter: $1700. Current toothpaste-o-meter: still 25, but that will be closer to 35 by the end of the week :P.

- Here are some annoying commercials that have caught my eye lately:

1) That stupid KFC commercial with the guy and girl sitting on stairs, with one of them declaring that he took a buck from his friend’s sofa to buy himself a KFC Snacker. “Give me back my buck.” “Actually, I’m eating it.” LOL!!!!!!! (Not.)

(Tangent: That stupid Pizza Hut commercial with the Tuscani pasta taste test just aired again.)

2) The Wendy’s commercial advertising their new chicken wraps…could the girl not wait two minutes to get to her desk and eat her snack? How do you know a commercial REALLY annoys me? Every time I see the commercial, I cheer for her to trip on the phone cord she steps over.

(I have issues. I am aware of that.)

3) Any and all Domino’s commercials with that annoying guy who’s clearly on speed.

(I might have mentioned this before, but I am convinced that these commercials exist only to hold our television shows hostage; once these companies reach a quota of sales, they will stop releasing these super-annoying commercials. Either that, or they exist solely to get us fat Americans to get off the couch and run towards our cars, screaming “Make these commercials stop!” as we drive off to the Drive-Thru to pick up whatever is advertised. If anyone can come up with a better reason for why these stupid commercials exist, I’m all ears.)

Now, the latest Carl’s Jr commercial with the boyfriend crying because of the Jalapeno Chicken sandwich he’s eating…that’s pure genius!

- Two out of three ain’t bad, right? I was impressed with the Rockets staving off elimination, and I couldn’t believe how poorly Dallas played. I expected Avery Johnson to get canned, but not this quickly. I expect D’Antoni to resign early next week as well, despite reports to the contrary.

Re: Spurs-Suns…it’s awfully tough to win a game when your MVP point guard commits four backbreaking TOs late, and then Boris Diaw contributes with a terrible TO of his own. It’s even tougher when you do it against the defending champs. What a way for the D’Antoni era to end.

In defense of the Suns, though, I offer these two points:

1) They say that a single play, even at the end of a game, doesn’t determine the outcome. Therefore, I offer three questionable fourth quarter plays: the fifth foul on Shaq (Duncan might grazed Shaq’s leg, if there was any contact at all, before he tripped on himself), the fifth foul on Amare (it looked like Amare leaned backwards), and the deflection by Bowen off Nash (I didn’t see the ball go off Nash’s leg at all). If even one play goes in the Suns’ favor, who knows what the end result of Game 5 ends up being?

2) I’ll copy and paste what I said last time regarding Shaq and changing teams:

(As far as Shaq is concerned, note that his teams have never done well in Year One of his stay at each stop. I actually expect the Suns to be pretty damn good next year. Now if they could only avoid SA or LAL next year…)

Then again, he is going to be 36 next year, and Nash isn’t getting any younger. Add to that the fact that Suns will probably be playing in a new system next year, and you can’t 100% love their chances. Then again, their starting lineup is intact—Nash, Bell, Diaw, Amare, Shaq—and if they could get one wing defender and a scoring backup PG (I know, MUCH easier said than done), they’ll be just fine.

As far as Dallas is concerned, they are in huge trouble. A $100 million+ payroll for THAT performance? Well, at least Michael Finley is off their books next year. But seriously, the Jason Kidd experiment is not working, and if the Mavs could move Josh Howard for fifty cents on the dollar, they might want to do so. I don’t see how the Mavs fix things in one year; they might have to consider rebuilding.

Yeah, I realize that R word isn’t in Mark Cuban’s vernacular, but unless he can trade Jason Kidd for, say, Jermaine O’Neal, Dallas isn’t going to do a damn thing next year.

Quickly…

1) Who didn’t see Boston blowing out Atlanta tonight?

2) Who wasn’t shocked that the greatest player in the history of the NBA (LeBron) didn’t get the foul call at the end of the Wizards-Cavs game? I’m surprised David Stern didn’t protect his biggest investment from a trip back to Washington with a foul call there.

(Not that NBA games are fixed, or anything…)

Tags: annoying commercials, avery johnson, carl's jr, dallas, dodgers, kfc, mike d'antoni, shaq, suns, wendys by Peter
2 Comments »

Part 3 of the weekend blog will have to wait a night.

Quick-hitters:

- For you people that play sports—recreationally, or organized, no matter—don’t you love it when you hit “The Zone?” Nothing can go wrong: every shot you make falls, every swing you take is pure, every pass you make is on the money, every catch you make is crisp. Don’t you just love the feeling?

I wish I knew what that feeling was like

My sister and I “played” some tennis earlier today, and I use the term “play” loosely. We sucked. Bad.

I think I’ll stick to Wii Tennis.

- First, let me revisit the hot topic of a few nights ago: the Kirilenko flop (item #7). Most opinions I’ve heard insist that Kirilenko flopped, and that the call was so outrageous, the NBA should consider an “unsportsmanlike conduct” penalty on any player that flops so egregiously.

Rumor has it that Big Wilting Cactus Shaq O’Neal would be in favor of this rule change.

I’ve since seen the replay several times, and yes, Kirilenko absolutely flopped. That does NOT change the fact that Scola’s arm was extended when it made contact with Kirilenko. My point is, if illegal picks are offensive fouls, then Luis Scola committed an offensive foul. If Scola didn’t commit a foul, then what was the purpose of the extension of the arm? I find it hard to believe that Scola did not attempt to gain some advantage by the arm extension.

As far as penalizing flopping is concerned, I don’t see how the NBA could ever do this, unless they add a fourth official to the court. The three officials have enough trouble as it is with calling games (with some exceptions, of course; any time LeBron James is breathed on, that’s a foul, e.g.); how are they going to determine whether or not a player intentionally flopped?

Long story short, Houston should probably have pulled out game 2, and now they are in serious trouble.

- I took advantage of a JetBlue promotion to score LA Dodger tickets for Wednesday night’s game @ $5 each (Lower reserve, AKA one step below nosebleeds) + all of TicketMaster’s bullshit fees (more on this later).

Unfortunately, I didn’t find out until Tuesday that the Denver-Lakers game was scheduled at 7:30PM that Wednesday night. I decided that I wanted to record the game, but because I don’t have TiVo, I decided that I was going to use an ancient technology—one that my parents used!—to record the game.

You young folks may or may not have heard of this technology, but I was forced to use a VCR to record the game. What’s a VCR, you ask? Go look it up yourself

It took me twenty minutes just to set up the damn thing, plus another ten minutes to figure out how to program the VCR to record TNT.

(I’m watching the game right now, and I am crying over the fact that the recording is not in HD…)

The game itself was pretty good—Dodgers won!—but it went seriously downhill after four innings, when I’m guessing that “Couples Night” officially started. Three pairs of loudmouth couples sat in the two rows of seats almost directly in front of us, and when they started boozing up, they got even more obnoxious. They were text messaging, kissing, hugging, cursing, and generally being jerks.

Dodger fans, for the most part, ARE jerks, but it’s one thing to be jerks to the other team, and it’s completely another to be jerks to the patrons around you.

(A bit off topic…midway through the game, the scoreboard flashed the Lakers-Nuggets half time score, and the crowd gave a standing ovation at the sight of 59-49, Lakers. The roars got even louder when the final score was shown.)

- Speaking of the Dodgers, is it OK to cut a player in late April who makes $18 million a year? Seriously, I didn’t expect the Andruw Jones of old to show up when we signed him to that now-ridiculous two-year, $36 million deal. On the other hand, I wasn’t expecting Jones to hit .150, get horribly booed every time he makes an out, and get a sarcastic (or maybe not) standing ovation when he ends a hitless night with a single in his fifth at-bat.

Seriously, $36 million for a guy that should be hitting ninth? $36 million for a guy that can’t hit a fastball, and compensates by chasing pitches out of the strike zone? $36 million for a guy who I expect to make out each time he comes up, to the point where I had to beg him to just not ground into a double play? Why the hell did we sign this guy?

After his second strikeout of the game, it finally came to me: the Dodgers signed Andruw Jones to make Juan Pierre look like a viable everyday player! That HAS to be the reason, right? Sooner or later, Torre’s going to realize that Juan Pierre needs to be out there every night, right? I’d rather have Juan-for-four Pierre with 1 SB playing than Andruw “$19 million a year for a defensive stalwart in CF” Jones, that’s for sure.

Is it too late to write-off Jones’ salary as a charitable contribution from the Dodgers?

Tags: andruw jones, dodgers, flop, jerks, juan pierre, kirilenko, rude fans, tennis, the zone by Peter
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