UngsungBlog: A (Fantasy) Sports Blog

I’m topic-less today, so finally, here comes part 3 of my covert ops mission

Quick-hitters:

- Is the Wii Fit the 2008 version of the Gym Membership (the gift that is followed by a swift kick to the groin)?

Just wondering…

- Some more quick Celts-Lakers reax before Game Two.

1) I’ve heard more than enough about the Boston myopians comparing Pierce’s injury-and-return to that of Willis Reed.  Please!  It was a memorable moment, but let’s not get carried away now.

And enough with Laker myopians calling Pierce a faker.  I don’t buy that either.  Yeah, like Pierce decided to fake an injury, watch his team play for a couple of minutes without him, and then energize the entire arena with his return.  And Kirk Gibson did the same thing in 1988, right?

2) I’ve been thinking this over for the past two days:  should the loser of the Finals declare the season a failure?  You always hear that teams are only playing for a championship (true), and that anything short of that is a failure.  But seriously (and this has been stated eleventy billion times already, I know), who had Boston and LA in the Finals a year ago at this time?

I’m actually looking forward to next season.  Boston’s Big Three will get another year of playing time together, and the Lakers, hopefully, will get to trot out a front line of Odom-Gasol-Bynum for a full season.  Awesome.

- Time for part 3 of my covert ops mission!

(Part One and Part Two)

So after hacking the Fonera, I was ready to set up the Sony LocationFree LF-B10 on my mom’s entertainment center, when I thought to myself, “That Trendnet POS router I have at home is probably not going to be stable enough to handle the added stress that the LF-B10 is going to put on it!”

A week later, I found out that Staples was selling a Linksys WRT54GS router for $29.99, no rebates.  Knowing full well that this particular router could be flashed with DD-WRT firmware, I decided to order one.

(After a coupon and some free after rebate software, as well as sales tax, the router cost me about $13.  I figured that was a much better buy than $50 for the WRT54GL, which would have definitely run DD-WRT.)

Using this guide from the DD-WRT forum, I began preparing for the hack.  I got to step five, where I got stuck.  Unfortunately, I ran into a bit of a problem; I could not download the Linksys TFTP utility!

(Tangent:  Remember when I typed this?

Don’t you hate it when you need a critical piece of data or an application to do something, and the site hosting said file just happens to be down?

That happened to me TWICE this past weekend. I’ll recap what happened in a later blog entry.

Now you know what I was talking about.)

(Tangent #2:  Naturally, the download works now.  Sigh…)

I decided to go ahead with the hack, hoping that I could download the TFTP utility later.  After flashing the WRT54GS with the VxWorks killer firmware, I patiently waited for the Linksys FTP site to allow me to download their utility.

Thirty minutes later, I decided to research an alternate way to get the DD-WRT firmware on the WRT54GS.  After a bit of Googling, I stumbled upon the necessary TFTP command to use at the Windows Command Prompt:

TFTP -i 192.168.1.1 PUT [name of firmware]

Once the transfer was done, I waited for the WLAN light to turn on.  Five minutes later, it turned on!  When I tried to access the router, though, I got the dreaded “This page cannot be displayed” error.  Argh!

Several minutes, a couple network connection repairs, a power cycle of the WRT54GS, and a couple checks of the ethernet cable later, and I was finally able to access the newly-flashed WRT54GS.  Hooray!

The next day, I replaced the junky Trendnet router with the WRT54GS, and constantly pissed off my siblings by throwing them offline several times, while I made adjustments to the router.

(Note to self:  Do EVERYTHING late at night from now on!)

As for the router itself, I still have a couple of minor issues that I haven’t quite been able to iron out yet.  For some reason, my sister’s laptop and my own can’t connect wirelessly to the WRT54GS unless I use the wireless card’s software (not the Wireless Zero Config tool built in to Windows XP).  Also, for a while, my sister’s laptop could not connect to the wireless network on startup automatically; I would have to open the Intel wireless card tool and manually refresh the network to get it to work.  That problem eventually went away after a while (as some computer problems are apt to do).  I was also having trouble using WPA+PSK security on the WRT54GS; for now, my home network is stuck using WEP.

(That is NOT an invite to try to hack into my network at home :P)

Later in the day, I had an opening to install the Fonera and the LF-B10 onto my mom’s entertainment center.  That’s when I realized I forgot to bring an extra composite cable!  Half an hour (and $3 at the local discount store) later, I had everything I needed, and setup was a breeze.  I tucked the Fonera behind my mom’s TV, and the LF-B10 was installed on an empty shelf at the bottom of her entertainment center.

While finishing up, my mom walked in on my install and asked about the “black box” sitting on her entertainment center.  I simply told her that it was important to be there, and she took a cursory look at the box, uttered “I don’t like it there,” and walked out.

(It’s still sitting there to this day :P).

The LF-B10 works decently well; video streams get choppy on occasion, and I’m not completely sure from which end the problem is originating.  The audio stream is nearly perfect, though.

(EDIT:  I have not been able to connect to the LF-B10 for the last 2-3 days.  Hopefully my mom didn’t get so upset with my not moving it that she unplugged the damn thing!)

Until next time!

Tags: celtics, ddwrt, lakers, lf-b10, linksys wrt54gs, paul pierce, sony locationfree, willis reed by Peter
No Comments »

Quickie blog tonight. Expect tomorrow’s blog to have two Office reviews, both last week’s episode, and the season finale.

(Tangent: Season finale??? Don’t the writers and producers owe us a few extra weeks of television shows after the writer’s strike? And what about the DVD sets for this season’s TV shows? There’s no way that these shows can charge us full price for a half-season’s worth of episodes, right?)

(Tangent #2: Dwight Schrute just announced that he is running for VP on John McCain’s ticket on The Tonight Show! He’s got my vote :P)

(Tangent #3: Howard Dean just offered Dwight Schrute two flamethrowers. I sense a change in loyalty.)

One quick-hitter:

- I can’t believe I have not seen this video before, but check out the curve on this curveball!

Clayton freaking Kershaw. Let’s hope he’s closer to the next Sandy Koufax than the next Darren Dreifort.

BTW, Andruw Jones got two hits today??? CRAZY!

- Ross is officially evil. I went back there today to return a few items of clothing, and got ~ $50 returned to my credit card. That’s when I decided to do some quick shopping.

After browsing through the clearance racks, I ended up buying two pairs of shorts and a cheap T-shirt, and I almost walked out with a $55 jacket marked down to $10.

I’ve been to Ross five times in the last two weeks now, and even though I’ve made returns three times, I haven’t walked out of the store without purchasing anything. Grrrrrrr.)

(Tangent: Speaking of evil stores, my sister walked into Target last night to look for one item.

She walked out with a nalgene water bottle and a copy of SingStar Rocks with two microphones (clearanced to $24.99 from $49.99). The hilarious thing about the trip to Target was the fact that we thought the store closed at 9:30. It was 9:15 or so when we got to the store, and we made a pact to bee-line towards the one item she needed.

Once we found out that Target closed at 10, the spending spree began :P).

(Wow. Four tangents in a single blog? This must be a record!)

- I could easily flip over my assessment of Game Four of the Lakers-Jazz series on its head, and it would be wholly appropriate. There were some pretty questionable calls—Gasol practically ran over Harpring in the fourth quarter, and Odom was barely touched on his dunk that was assisted by Gasol.

(By the way, Okur completely flopped on the critical offensive rebound and dunk by Gasol. As if Gasol could shove a seven-footer, 250+ pounder six feet with his left arm.)

It’s easy to blame the refs for bad calls, but that would ignore the real reason by the Jazz probably blew their best chance to steal the series: the third quarter. How many chances did Utah have to take the lead in the third quarter? Missed layups, bricked jumpers, and TOs…THAT’s the reason why Utah gagged away Game Five. Add a dash of Pau Gasol, and Utah has to be kicking themselves right now. Was he huge or what down the stretch of Game Five?

And has anybody seen Carlos Boozer? How has he disappeared in the three games at Staples?

One quick comment about the Celtics-Cavs game: I almost pulled off an unprecedented double Ung-hex. Early in the game, the Cavs were up by double digits, and I declared the Cavs the winner of the game, going so far as to say that the Cavs were going to win the series in six games.

Late in the fourth quarter, I switched over to the Dodger game, figuring that the Cavs were done. When I switched back to Cavs-Celtics, the Cavs got within four points. Too bad the Cavs couldn’t pull off my double Ung-hex the victory.

Until next time!

Tags: clayton kershaw, clothes, curve ball, double ung-hex, evil, jazz, lakers, mehmet okur, pau gasol, ross stores, target by Peter
2 Comments »

(Note: This was supposed to be posted last night. As usual, I misremembered.)

Happy Mother’s Day!

I’ll hold off continuing my story from last night as I recap Mother’s Day weekend.

Quick-hitters:

- Don’t you hate it when you need a critical piece of data or an application to do something, and the site hosting said file just happens to be down?

That happened to me TWICE this past weekend. I’ll recap what happened in a later blog entry.

- More stupid commercials that have caught my eye lately:

• The DQ commercial where the little girl gets a boy to buy her a sundae: “It’s like shooting fish in a barrel.”
• ALL the McDonald’s commercials advertising their new Chicken sandwiches, especially the one with the guy screaming words to ever-changing backgrounds. I might have had a seizure after watching the commercial once.

- Super quick thoughts on the latest in the NBA playoffs:

1) You don’t understand how tempted I am to complain about the horrible officiating in Game Four. You don’t know just how badly I wanted to throw something through my TV after every ticky-tack call went against LA. I spent several minutes explaining that “it’s hard to beat the Jazz when you’re playing 8-on-5.”

It took a while, but the rational side of me realized how the Lakers blew a golden opportunity to end the series, for all intents and purposes. Naturally, the Kobe injury hurt their chances badly, but so did horrible FT shooting (14-25?), terrible 3pt shooting (9-26), little help from role players (APBs are out for V-Rad and Farmar), and just awful shot selection in the fourth quarter and OT. I saw glimpses of 1998 Kobe, jacking up those terrible shots in OT.

And yeah, the bad officiating didn’t help either :P.

I fully expect the Lakers to play well in Game Five, and take a 3-2 lead back to Utah, where I expect the refs the Jazz to force a Game Seven. Anyone wanna put money on that?

2) As much as I dislike LeBron James, that insane dunk he threw down on Boston late in Game Four of Boston-Cleveland was SICK.

- Mother’s Day weekend unofficially started on Friday, when my sister (the one that doesn’t have karmic powers) swung by, and we headed out for some Korean BBQ.  Note to self:  stop ordering the beef brisket; beef brisket is OK in pho, but not particularly good with Korean BBQ.

The bulgogi was quite good, and they offered Jumuluck (sp?) (unmarinated sirloin).  Good stuff, but some of the sirloin pieces were pretty fatty.  Also, for some reason, the waitress would, every now and then, meander towards our table and start flipping the meat around on the grill.  I was tempted to ask her to stop.

(I have a system in place when I go to a Korean BBQ restaurant :P).

After dinner, we swung by Ross; it was already 9:15, so we knew we only had a few minutes to shop, which (we hoped) would minimize the amount of wallet-damage we would do.

(Tangent:  Ross is quickly shooting up the list of evil stores, along with Trader Joe’s, Target, and Costco.  I’ve been to Ross four times in the past few weeks, and even though I’ve been returning some of the stuff I purchased, I still end up buying something else and paying the difference out of pocket.

(Sub-tangent:  Sooner or later, I’ll have to organize all my Lists :P))

I spent five minutes going through the Men’s Activewear section, and grabbed a two-piece sweatsuit marked down to $15 from $50 and a $70 Nike Fit Dry long-sleeve collared shirt marked down to $15.  The sweatsuit was woefully small, which got me thinking that the suit might have been a women’s suit, misplaced and mislabeled.  The Nike shirt, unfortunately, fit perfectly, and now I’m stuck with 2 very nice shirts (remember this?).  Oh what to do…

On Saturday, the family gathered to go to Olive Garden to celebrate an early Mother’s Day.  We arrived at the restaurant at 1pm, and there was a huge wait.  This is what happens when you don’t make a reservation on a big holiday weekend, and only figure out where to go eat two hours before leaving the house.

We found out that Olive Garden was still doing their soup and salad lunch special, and I was contemplating between that and the “Tour of Italy”:  lasagna, fettuccine alfredo, and a chicken parmigiana.  Somehow, I managed to finish the entire plate, and it didn’t dawn upon me that I did so when someone (I forget who) asked me how I managed to polish off the plate.  I felt it immediately afterwards, though :P.

My dad roasted a chicken for dinner in his Ronco Rotisserie (yep, we actually have one!), and the rest of the night was spent playing poker with my two sisters.  All I have to say about our poker game is this:  who calls two raises, including an all-in, with seven-five of hearts?????????

Grrrrrrr…

Sunday was spent on my covert ops mission, so I’ll save that for when I get to that point in my story.  I will mention this:  we got even more tasty food on Sunday!  My mom and aunt prepared spring rolls (not the fried type, but more like this).  I could eat this stuff every day for the rest of my life if I had to.

Until next time!

Tags: jazz, korean bbq, lakers, lebron, mother's day, olive garden, ross, stupid commercials by Peter
3 Comments »

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
1 Comment »

Long post today, so let’s get right to it.

- I decided that it was time to update my wardrobe (read: buy new clothes). On Saturday, armed with a pair of coupons—30% off at Foot Locker and 20% off at Macy’s—my sister and I went to Westfield Fashion Square in Sherman Oaks.

After a quick browse through Macy’s, our first stop was Foot Locker. After about five minutes of browsing, and thirty seconds of trying out one pair of shoes, I decided on the Nike Air Max Tailwind 2008. I just loved how the shoes looked, and the fact that they were comfortable as hell was all the convincing I needed. I wasn’t really looking for a pair of running shoes; I really wanted just a pair of cross-trainers or something similar.

The re-visit to Macy’s was fruitless, so on Sunday, we swung by Ross. Normally, Ross has quite a few sections for me to browse through, so much so that I get sick and tired of looking after several racks’ worth of clothes, and just give up. The Ross I visited, however, had only one small section of athletic shirts, so I was able to finish shopping in a few minutes. I scored a couple Reebok PlayDry shirts, as well as a really ugly (but really nice!) T for $4.

We had to go on a food run, so we went to 99 Ranch, Costco, and JONS Supermarket for a ton of food. I had a hankering for some salsa—it might have been influenced by Cinco de Mayo—so I mixed up a quick tomato salsa (chopped tomatoes, chopped onion, chopped cilantro, chopped roasted Jalapeño peppers, fresh lime juice, and Pico de Gallo seasoning).

While at Costco, I couldn’t resist one of their take-n-bake pizzas; I forget what it’s called, but it has fresh tomato, basil, and globs of mozzarella cheese on it. That was seriously the best take-n-bake pizza I’ve ever had.

Sunday night, I decided to bake some chicken coated with seasoned flour (AP flour, kosher salt, and some Mrs. Dash). After 50 minutes in a 400 degree oven, the chicken came out super-juicy, although the skin was a bit bland. I should probably have coated the chicken in egg first, before applying the flour, but I was lazy :P.

I also bought some frozen Buffalo Wings from Costco; that will probably be my dinner, along with the leftover pizza. Damn…now I’m super hungry again.

- So after watching the MVP do what MVPs do, I gotta say that the Lakers are in serious trouble despite pulling out a Game 1 victory. Certainly the rest helped, coupled with the fact that the Jazz played two tough playoff games in 48 hours, but clearly there was some rust to knock off as well.

At least, Laker fans better hope it was rust, and not a thorough domination by the Jazz on the offensive glass. Twenty-five offensive rebounds??? Plus-seventeen in total rebounds? Was that Memhet Okur or a in-his-prime Dennis Rodman crashing the glass? With Games 3 and 4—and the Jazz’s 37-4 home record—looming, the Lakers better shore up the defensive glass, or the series could easily end in six games.

It’s a good thing that the Lakers have the MVP, who apparently owns an annual pass to the free throw line. I’m actually surprised that Kobe missed two freebies! Anyway, the Lakers better hope for better rebounding, better shot selection, and more solid defense on Utah’s two stars. I have a feeling that Deron Williams will not shoot 5-for-18 in Game 2, and Boozer likely will not commit seven turnovers again.

Something tells me that Utah will pull out Game 2, win Game 3 handily, and lose Game 4 in a nailbiter. If all that happens, I don’t expect a home team to lose again, and the Lakers will win the series in seven games. Then again, it wouldn’t surprise me to see the Jazz win in six.

One other NBA thought: the hard foul that Hawks’ F Marvin Williams committed on Celtics’ G Rajon Rondo was an extremely harsh foul, and it did warrant a Flagrant-2. However, I did not think Williams intended on injuring Rondo at all. What Williams did was extremely dangerous, but Jeff Van Gundy hit it right on the head: 1) it looked like Williams tried to grab Rondo, but Rondo was already airborne, and an attempted grab ended up being a near-clothesline; and 2) if Williams really had a play on the ball—one criterion required to deem a foul a flagrant-1 at worst—why didn’t he attempt to go for a block instead? Was the play dirty? Yeah. Was it with intent to injure? I don’t believe so.

Until next time!

Tags: baked chicken, clothes, costco, flagrant foul, foot locker, jazz, kobe bryant, lakers, macys, marvin williams, mvp, nike air max tailwind 2008, pizza, rajon rondo, rebounds, ross, salsa by Peter
No Comments »

This blog was supposed to be posted last night, but in typical UngsungBlog fashion, I misremembered :P.

(Because of that, I went ahead and added a few thoughts, if that’s OK with my loyal readers.)

Quick-hitters:

- So I got my Columbia sunglasses yesterday from Campmor.com, and after trying them on for a bit, I really like them. I haven’t tried them out in sunlight yet, to see if I could tell the difference between polarized and non-polarized lenses, but I’m most likely going to keep them. They feel a heck of a lot more comfortable than my Oakleys, even though the wire frames bend at a pretty severe angle, no thanks to my big head.

- Boy was it HOT the last two days! Real-Feel temps in the low-100s on Sunday in MPK, followed by a much more bearable mid-90s here in the Valley on Monday. I think I drank about ten gallons of iced tea these last few days alone.

- Current rebate-o-meter: $1900, and that includes the $250 in checks I received since my last update.

- Armed with a $25 Amazon.com GC (courtesy of my Amazon.com VISA), and a half-off coupon on select chocolate snacks (CHAWCLAT), I decided to purchase some snacks.

I think I went a bit overboard with what I bought:

• 8 8oz. tubs of Good Sense Dark Chocolate Pretzels
• 12 8.5oz. bags of Harmony Foods Yogurt Raisins
• 24 3.5oz. bags of Harmony Foods Yogurt Pretzels

I just hope the heat doesn’t ruin my snacks.

Total cost, after the GC: < $10. Now let’s hope I have the willpower to not polish off the entire order in a few days :P.

- After watching the conclusion of the Nuggets-Lakers series last night, one thing was evident to me:  if the two teams played ten times, the Lakers would win nine, and Denver would win the 10th on a couple of bad calls, lucky bounces, and Laker rim-outs.  Anyone watching the game could have sensed that Kobe was going to explode in that fourth quarter, so I wasn’t surprised when he did.  Look at the sequence that ESPN’s John Hollinger so eloquently described:

Not that he can’t do it — the final six minutes Monday were a tour de force at both ends. In that time he scored 14 points, blocked a shot, stole a pass and drew two offensive fouls.

He made a 3-pointer and a driving layup basket to break open a tie game, then hit a jumper over Kenyon Martin when the Nuggets briefly took a one-point lead. He turned his attention to defense and drew the fifth and sixth fouls on Martin by charging out hard and drawing illegal screens, knocking his primary defender out of the game.

Back on offense, he drew the fifth and sixth fouls on his next defender, Carmelo Anthony, by attacking off the dribble to draw blocking fouls — removing the Nuggets’ best scoring threat. His runner in the lane with 40.7 seconds left sucked the air out of Denver’s final charge, and his physical D on J.R. Smith and subsequent steal with 18.2 seconds left sealed it. And just for good measure, he rejected Linas Kleiza’s 3-point attempt at the buzzer.

Personally, I thought that one or two of those fouls were ticky-tack at best, but you know what they say about superstars and fouls in the playoffs.

So did the Lakers steamroll Denver, or did Denver roll over?  I’m going to cop out and say it’s a little of both.  The Lakers were just playing way too well to lose the series, but Denver had their chances to win Game 4.  At least they didn’t commit any absurd technical fouls.

(Tangent:  Why is it that when one is confronted with a “Is it A or B [that caused something to happen] question, 99.9% of the time, the person will say it’s a little bit of both?)

A couple other quick playoff thoughts:

1) Is it just me, or is Mavs F Josh Howard playing like he’s high?  I was watching parts of Game 5 of the Mavs-Hornets series, and I saw him miss a few jumpers BADLY.

(Note to any player who is going to come out and admit marijuana use:  you might want to play well in the game(s) following the admission.)

2) I expect the rest of the Western Conference first round to end tonight (NO over DAL, SA over PHX, UTA over HOU), and after tonight, we can officially declare the two big “panic” trades in the West—Shaq to PHX; Kidd to DAL—failures, leading to the firing of both coaches.  I do hear Pat Riley is available, though (more on that later).

(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…)

3) Is Boston doing a little looking ahead to Cleveland, or is Atlanta really that talented?  I’ll say a little of both :P.  But seriously, I thought Boston was going to mow over everyone en route to the NBA Finals.  Now, Doc Rivers might not get his team out of the first round.  Joe Johnson looked like freaking Michael Jordan in the fourth quarter of Game 4; why did Rivers not make a defensive switch?

And finally,

4) Is Washington really trying to prove that they are the dumbest team in the history of the world?  First, DeShawn Stevenson ran his mouth, then Arenas, and now Brendan Haywood???  Apparently, Haywood and the rest of the Wizards are sick and tired of LeBron’s whining:

“Awww,” Haywood said, in a whiny, high-pitched voice to mock James. “They are trying to hurt me.”

“I mean, come on, man, this is the playoffs,” Haywood said following yesterday’s practice. “He wears 23, he wants to be Michael Jordan, I can respect that, he’s a great player. You saw what Mike went through. Mike got fouled way worse than this. No one is trying to hurt him, everybody is trying to play basketball, trying to play tough. Play basketball and leave it alone.”

Look, I understand that playoff intensity translates into harder fouls, but that does not give you the right to hammer LeBron with flagrant-2s!  I’m not saying this as a LeBron fan; personally, I turn off the TV when I see him on SportsCenter (I can’t stand the hype for the guy!), but even LeBron doesn’t deserve to be treated as a punching bag.

By the way, Haywood, why don’t you heed your own advice and play basketball?  Last I checked, you guys are trailing 3-1.

- So Pat Riley doesn’t want to coach anymore?  Larry Brown wants to coach again, and so he took a job with Charlotte?

In other news, water is wet.

Riles, I’m pretty sure ANYONE would be tired of coaching after tanking games to earn extra ping-pong balls enduring a 15-67 season.  Then again, should the NBA freeze some envelopes to give Miami the #2 pick (behind New York’s #1, of course) which they would use to draft Derrick Rose, and then somehow trade for an impact big, who would be surprised to see Riley abruptly end his retirement yet again?

I will neither confirm nor deny that I suggested that the NBA has fixed the lottery in the past.

I wonder if Riles would be willing to move to Phoenix; I hear they may need a coach.  And who wouldn’t want to coach a pair of MVPs and one of the most dominant power forwards in the league?

As for Larry Brown…bored again, eh?  I’m about ready to dub Brown the Paris Hilton of coaches.  Is he just trying to coach every team in the league?  Charlotte?  What is so enticing about Charlotte, other than its proximity to Chapel Hill?

If (when?) the Bobcats stink up the joint next year, how much do you want to bet that Brown will take some “recruiting trips” down to Chapel Hill?

Until next time (later tonight?).

Tags: amazon, campmor, chocolate, coaching, columbia, heat, lakers, larry brown, lenses, nba playoffs, nuggets, oakley, pat riley, polarized, pretzels, raisins, rebates, snacks, sunglasses, sweep, yogurt by Peter
2 Comments »

Quick-hitters:

- In an effort to do more family-related things, my aunt wanted all of us to hang out and do something “fun” sometime this upcoming weekend.

When my sister and I got back home on Sunday night, I asked her if we were going to take up our aunt’s offer. She said that we were not going back next weekend under any circumstances.

Today, she found out that our four-year-old nephew will be in town this weekend. I guess we’ll be back in MPK sooner than I thought :P.

- I’ve been told that my blog is awfully negative in nature, so here’s something positive to report. On the way from the parking lot to Dodger Stadium, I grabbed my wallet to pull out my ID and credit card—I ordered tickets for Will Call—and I guess I left a $20 in my pocket, because the bill hung out of the pocket, flapping in the wind.

If it weren’t for the woman and girl who yelled “Sir, you have money coming out of your pocket!” I would probably have lost the bill seconds later, possibly into the hands of the guy who yelled “Why did you tell him? I would have caught it!”

- Quick Lakers thought: raise your hand if you thought Kobe wasn’t going to go off in Game 2.

That’s what I thought.

BTW, reports had it that J.R. Smith was unhappy with the way Kobe was taunting Denver, posing his fingers in the shape of a gun and flashing that to TNT analyst Reggie Miller. Apparently J.R. Smith chewed Kobe out for it, and Kobe responded with ” ‘Better learn not to talk to me. You shake the tree, a leopard’s gonna fall out,’ ” before responding on the court with a drive right at Smith for a layup-and-one.

First of all, why was J.R. Smith the one chewing Kobe out for his taunting? Where were Carmelo or A.I.? Second, if he was going to chew out Kobe, he had to have expected Kobe to destroy him the next time down the court, right? Third, Kobe had been able to drive through the lane all day! Where was another Nugget to help out on Smith, knowing that Kobe was going right down his throat on the next play?

Why do I see this series going only four games?

- So it was my mom’s birthday this past Tuesday, and I thought we were planning a dinner for the weekend of the 26th. That’s when my older sister told me that my mom demanded that we have her birthday dinner on the weekend before her birthday. This demand came on the 17th, giving us three days max to plan something.

Having none of that, my older sister exclaimed “Lunch. Saturday. Golden Gate (?) buffet.” My other sister and I each made a single phone call, expecting the invitations to osmose down to other family members.

(That’s how we roll.)

The guest list gradually increased, even though several people got their unofficial invites an hour before lunch. The food was pretty average, especially for a Chinese buffet. I started out with the sushi, and that was a huge mistake. The wasabi was about as runny as ketchup.

One item that piqued everyone’s interest was a seafood dish called “Assorted Delicacies on Crab Shell.” Calling something a “delicacy” without naming it is bad enough. “Assorted delicacies,” and you’ve gotta be thinking “cat food.” Now, I’ve never tried cat food before, but that stuff tasted like what cat food would taste like.

They also had cream cheese wontons, which tasted super sweet. Absolutely disgusting. The most popular food that we gorged upon was the Korean BBQ spare ribs, and the meat looked like it was boiled, not grilled.

(Actually, I take that back. The ice cream was the best part of the meal, by far.)

(Tangent: If there’s one thing I love about doing stuff with family, it’s the pop culture discussions we have.

BTW, when I say pop culture, I mean The Office.)

- Tonight’s Office episode was, by a mile, a lot better than last week’s episode. While the main storyline, understandably so, involved Michael’s continued search for a girl, we got to see practically every member of the cast contribute to the episode. From Kelly continuing to harbor hard feelings for Ryan, to drunken (drugged, right? Massive nuclear holocaust? Jungle warfare? Sure, Troy has a drug problem. Right…) Ryan partying at the club, to Toby literally running off to Costa Rica after grabbing Pam’s knee (AWK-WARD…), I laughed nearly every minute. I especially loved how Michael became super-protective of Ryan, especially in the scene at the bar.

I loved how another one of Jim’s bright ideas—staying late so that the crew wouldn’t have to come in on Saturday to fix Ryan’s mess—blew up in his face. Between this, the one birthday party for all, and other events that aren’t coming to me at the moment, clearly the Scranton office needs Michael to run things. By the way, I wonder if the writers are going to develop a story based on the tension between Jim and Ryan; are we supposed to believe that Ryan didn’t mean anything when he said “Watch your back, Jim?” Ryan better watch his back; perhaps the stress of the failing Dunder Mifflin Infinity (two-point-0!) project is weighing on him. Is his job at risk? Is corporate already regretting their decision to hire him?

It was hilarious to watch the rest of the office pile on Jim for not notifying the security guard—(paraphrasing) Eddie, Evan, Hank, Edgar, Elliott…is it Elliott? The guy who sits behind the desk…the African-American guy…!—but what did Pam do to get the scorn of the office as well…well, other than doinking a football off Meredith’s face? Speaking of Meredith, what’s next for her? Is she going to get shot next?

Speaking of Pam, poor Toby! Clearly the guy still has feelings for her. I hope this isn’t the end of the Toby character; if it is, giving him more lines than normal is a nice way to go out. “‘Everyone, let’s get your boss laid Saturday’”? . And how sad is it that Andy and Angela are the favorite couple in the office?

By the way, why the hell does Dwight have the keys to the office, and not Michael’s #2 (Jim)? And did anyone notice that the girl Michael was chatting with kinda looked like Jan as well?

So, Michael’s gotta end up with Jan in the future, right? Why else would he constantly be running into people that look like Jan? Maybe the next time they meet up, she’ll have a face lift as well, not that I’m saying Melora Hardin needs a face lift. And when did Dwight become such a playa?

Favorite moments:

• Did anyone think that Dwight used a bit too much peanut butter to get the gum out of Michael’s hair?
• Michael: “Look, men are visual creatures. We crave beauty, like a piece of fine art by any number of renowned artists, or an art-y photograph of Cindy Crawford nude…[the persons Michael have dated] just lack a certain Crawford-ness.” (Does it surprise anyone that he couldn’t name a single artist?)
• Ryan: “Yes. I’m having the Scranton branch come in on one Saturday to re-enter sales that they made on the phone as sales made by the website, which they should have done in the first place…if the website had been working.” (I love Ryan’s character.)
• Ryan: “Yes. The social networking feature of the Dunder-Mifflin Infinity website was infiltrated by sexual predators.” LOL! WTF does a paper company need with a social networking site?
• Michael: “It’s not the horniess, ok? It’s the loneliness.” I might have just found a new subtitle for my blog
• Andy: “I am in SERIOUS need of some bro time! Ol’ ball-and-chain has been a lot more chain than ball lately, if you know what I’m saying.” Right in front of Dwight and Angela, no less!
• Michael: “I am going to get laid. Goodbye!” followed by Dwight: “With sex!” HAHAHAHA!
• Andy: “Show of hands. Who thinks we’re a better couple than Jim and Pam?” The cameras should have panned on a grinning Angela.
• Dwight referring to the basketball team as “Amazons” followed by Dwight’s idea of pairing up two girls to a guy to get in to the club (how did Dwight learn all this stuff while running a beet farm?)
• The collective groan of the office when they receive Michael’s cell phone video of Dwight making out.
• Michael: “I’ve asked a lot of girls to dance, Mom…” WTF?
• Jim: “Cleaning people…Oscar! OK…so all you need to do is explain to them what happened because I think they can help us.” Oscar: “Why are you assuming they only speak Spanish?” followed by the exchange between Oscar and the cleaning ladies, ending with Oscar saying “they happen to speak Spanish.” Way to straddle the line of racism, writers :P.
• Michael’s advice for Ryan’s “friend” with the drug problem. I really need to start watching The Wire…I hear it’s great.

Tags: dinner, Dodger Stadium, gasol, good samaritan, jr smith, kobe, lakers, lost money, mom's birthday, night out, office, review by Peter
1 Comment »

Quick-hitters:

- Wanna know how much stuff I have to blog about? My weekend blog will now be split into THREE entries, instead of two!

Too bad I didn’t participate in the IMBC this year :P.

- I nominate this guy for Idiot of the Day honors. Did the moron really expect the person who caught the ball below him to throw the ball back up there?

I bet he’ll hold on to the next foul ball he catches with two hands…assuming he actually catches another foul ball in his life.

- I’ve got a couple stupid-driver stories to share that my sister and I encountered over the past few days:

1) We were ready to make a right turn on to a two-lane street, but the light was red. Oncoming traffic prevented us from making the turn, so we waited for the light to turn green.

That’s when the moron behind us honked for the first time.

When the light finally turned green, a pedestrian started walking from the opposite corner. We decided to let the pedestrian—an older woman, IIRC—reach the other end of the crosswalk before we turned.

One the pedestrian was completely across, we made our turn, and I told my sister, “I bet the guy behind us is going to pass us.” Sure enough, he did, but not before honking at us again right when he got beside our car!

2) Back in MPK, we got off the freeway, and turned on to a residential (one lane) street. That’s when a car, most likely a ricer, began tailgating us.

For five blocks.

When we were about a block from where we needed to turn, we were stuck behind two really slow-moving cars. That’s when the dumbass behind us started flashing his lights at us. Ok…what, exactly, are you trying to accomplish?

When we finally made our turn, I looked back, and saw the idiot pass the two slow-moving cars on the right (remember, we were on a one-lane, two-way street).

Have I ever mentioned how much I hate stupid people?

- Today, I decided to try Pizza Hut’s new Tuscani Pastas (my first mistake?); Pizza Hut is running a promo where you get a free Pizza Mia pizza—terrible stuff, by the way—with the purchase of a Tuscani Pasta dish. I opted for the Creamy Chicken, and was pleasantly surprised to find out that it was not terrible!

(Tangent: Has anyone seen the commercial for this stuff, where people are taken to a fancy restaurant and are tricked into believing that they are eating some gourmet pasta? And when the ruse was up, one guy declared that he loved the pasta even more?

Does anyone think that the surroundings might have had something to do with the people’s perception of the pasta? Are potatoes au gratin really that much better at a fancy steakhouse than at a place like TGIF, or are they better because you had to pay $7 for the potatoes, in addition to your steak?)

The sauce tasted about as good as the typical jar of Alfredo sauce, and clearly, the dish isn’t worth close to $12 if you make it yourself. However, considering that I was expecting the pasta to taste like $1 frozen entree pasta, I was pleased that the pasta wasn’t all that terrible.

Would I pay $12 for this stuff again? Hell no.

- Finally, some quick (and not so quick) thoughts on the NBA Playoffs to date:

1) Tim Duncan: 40 pts, 15 boards? A game-tying 3 to send the game into double-OT? And that was a game 1? Why the hell was I not watching the game?

Oh yeah…Mom’s birthday lunch. Duh.

2) Does LeBron James play small forward or wide receiver? The last time I saw an NBAer get beat up that much in a game, Doug Christie’s wife was nearby.

And DeShawn Stevenson is an idiot, plain and simple. Would the casual fan even know who he is if he had not mouthed off about LeBron?

3) Has Detroit’s alarm clock gone off yet? How the hell did Detroit lose to Philly?

4) Boston? Yawn.

5) That big fellow in Orlando? Not bad.

6) Experience, shm-experience. Just ask Chris Paul and his Hornets how valuable experience is.

7) I guess Tracy McGrady can start planning a summer fishing trip now. Seriously, is this guy ever going to get out of the first round of the NBA playoffs?

(EDIT: The Rockets are saying that Andrei Kirilenko flopped on the decisive play of the game; Luis Scola appeared to push Kirilenko out of the play, right before T-Mac passed the ball to a wide-open Bobby Jackson for a game-tying triple. Both coach Rick Adelman and T-Mac insisted that “they [the refs] can’t make that call.”

Um, did you guys not see Scola’s arm clearly extended, making contact with Kirilenko? Yeah, I do believe the refs should have made that call.

EDIT #2: Upon further review, yes, Kirilenko flopped. That doesn’t change the fact that Scola extended his arm to make the pick, which is still an illegal play.)

And finally,

either Pau Gasol and the Lakers better send Memphis a huge fruit basket, or at least a Thank You card. I understand that Gasol—36/16/8/3, all team highs, if that’s any good—and the Lakers were playing the enver (yes, typo intentional) Nuggets, but that was still one hell of a performance by the previously winless-in-the-playoffs Gasol.

Throughout the game, I kept preaching to my sister, “Zero footers: good; twenty footers: not so good.” How many dunks did Gasol have in Game 1? A thousand?

I expect Denver to play with a bigger lineup in Game 2—Kobe’s not going to have another crap game, right?—but I’m still not sure if that will make a difference. I just don’t see Denver, even with Carmelo and AI, being able to keep up with the Lakers in scoring, especially inside.

IF (and that’s a huge IF) the Lakers win the NBA championship, Memphis has to get a playoff share of the revenue, right?

Tags: denver, foul ball, lakers, nba, nuggets, pasta, pizza hut, playoffs, stupid drivers by Peter
4 Comments »