UngsungBlog: A (Fantasy) Sports Blog

No quick-hitters tonight; I’ll save them for next time.

- While it was fun to see my three-year-old (not four yet, as I said earlier!) nephew this past weekend, I also got a headache from seeing him.

I constantly had to remind myself that he was a three-year-old.  Whining, crying, bitching…and that was just my reactions to his behavior!

It was good to see the kid again, though, even though he is much too smart for his own good.

(Tangent:  I found out, this weekend, that my laptop’s lid could support the weight of a small child!

How did I find out?  Well, my nephew thought it would be fun to crawl over my laptop—it was laying on the carpet, in front of me.  As soon as I heard the lid buckle, I instinctively shoved the kid off my laptop (I might have shoved him a good three feet; I forget how strong I am at times), fired it up, and was relieved to see it boot up.

Who needs a Panasonic toughbook? :P)

- I can’t believe nobody took my bet regarding the XG/MGE fiasco I’ve been dealing with over the past year:

I’ll lay 2-1 odds to anybody who is willing to bet that I will, within the next four weeks, receive the second rebate check.

Anyone who would have taken the bet would be counting his/her money right about now.  On Thursday, I got the second XG/MGE Company check for $19 that was owed to me!

Finally, I can close this dark chapter of my life :P.

- Time Warner keeps advertising on my television that they do not nickel-and-dime like the phone companies do.  I can attest to that!  I don’t think Time Warner has ever nickel-and-dimed me.

Case in point:  my Time Warner bill has gone up from $61, to $65, to $72, in a span of three months!  That’s no nickel-and-diming; that’s a pretty significant rate hike, no?

Kudos, Time Warner, for keeping your word and not nickel-and-diming customers.

By the way, on my most recent bill, there was this gem:

“This statement reflects your new 2008 pricing as previously communicated.  Please see the next page for the new pricing.”

Either Time Warner “communicated” this new pricing scheme via telepathy, or they issued a statement regarding these price increases via television…during the latter part of last week, when my TV signal and internet connection were flaky as hell.  By “flaky,” of course, I mean “works for ten minutes, and then goes out for two hours.”  Of course, there’s also the possibility that Time Warner NEVER SENT ME ANYTHING REGARDING THESE PRICE INCREASES.

All I know for sure is that Road Runner (Time Warner’s HSI) used to cost me $34.99 a month, then it went up to $39.99 a month last month, and now it’s costing me $44.99 a month.  Remember, though:  Time Warner doesn’t nickel-and-dime, and they certainly didn’t do so here!

I’ll update my List soon.

- Finally, I’ve been hearing all NBA season that this year’s playoffs were going to be the most competitive playoffs of all time.  The Eastern Conference first-round didn’t look compelling, save the Washington-Cleveland series, but wasn’t the Western Conference first-round supposed to be all potential seven-game series?  Weren’t we supposed to see at least one “upset” in the making?  Wasn’t Denver’s 1-2 scoring duo of Melo and AI supposed to push the Lakers?  Weren’t the Hornets supposed to be too young to contend against the Mavs?  Weren’t the new-look Suns supposed to push around the suddenly-aging Spurs (save for tonight)?

I see three 3-1 series leads for the favorites, and a series heading for a four game sweep.  Yes, I’m burying the Nuggets right now.  What a horrible performance by the Nuggets’ stars on Saturday!

BTW, Melo, “we” didn’t quit…at least, not all at the same time.  It sure looked like YOU quit first, and then your team followed suit.  I guess coach George Karl better start updating his resume, and either AI or Melo better start packing their bags.  Clearly the Melo/AI experiment is NOT working.

Other random NBA playoff thoughts:

1) What took so long for the Suns to show something against the Spurs?  Could they be working a miracle comeback?

(Nah.)

2) T-Mac, enjoy your vacation.  Maybe you and Gilbert Arenas could go fishing together or something.  They could take coaches Karl, D’Antoni, and Avery Johnson with them!

(Tangent:  Is D’Antoni really on the chopping block if the Suns get eliminated?  Last I checked, he wasn’t the one that traded for Shaq!)

3) Anyone see Al Horford smack-talking the Celtics after Atlanta’s Game 3 victory?  I thought Joakim Noah was the “vocal” one of Florida’s two championship teams of not so long ago.

4) Raise your hand if you didn’t know that Toronto and Orlando were facing each other.

The NHL playoffs couldn’t find the Tor-Orl series on TV.

I’m tired, so that’s all I’ve got for tonight.  No NFL Draft thoughts, by the way, for no reason in particular.

Tags: AI, melo, mge company, nba, nephew, nuggets, playoffs, rate increase, rebate, time warner, western conference, xgbox by Peter
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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
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