I'm not dead

Not yet anyway. I appreciate the concern Bear. As sad as it is to admit, I did indeed take it easy last night and hit the bed early. Fortunately, tonight is different. I don't have to leave the hotel for my flight home until 11:30 tomorrow morning. After tooling around Queens and Brooklyn all day checking out stores, we had a very nice dinner in Manhattan (Grilled Swordfish, really excellent) where I had a couple nice drinks, followed up by some beers in the hotel bar where I showed why I never play pool. I have some Coors Lights in the hotel sink on ice, and am ready to write random, mostly uninteresting comments whilst watching the Spurs/Lake Show.

- First off, here's something annoying. We're in Queens and Brooklyn all day, and when it comes time for lunch, my co-workers have zero interest in hitting up any kind of local establishment. Every place we pass that looks interesting is either too dirty, too weird, or I've never heard of that place. So guess where we eat? Applebees. I like to very cleverly call it "Crapplebees." Feel free to use that. So annoying. I don't understand why you'd go all that way from home and eat at a chain, and a god awful chain at that. I was surprised when we were in Manhattan that they didn't suggest one of the 8 million Sbarro's we passed or the "fancy" Olive Garden in Times Square.

- The awesomest thing ever - Beer Pong coming to the Wii, which I own, as I am awesome.

- The Wolves got the third pick in the draft, which is actually what I was hoping for. If they got one or two, they'd end up with either Beasley or Rose, and whoever they ended up taking would end up being a bust. This way they can take Jerryd Bayless who is going to be the Chris Paul of this draft. The two other dudes who might be taken instead would be OJ Mayo or Brook Lopez. Mayo runs funny, and Lopez is a tall white dude. Consider the history of tall white college dudes in the NBA, and in particular consider this franchise's history with white centers. Granted, the statistician in me realizes past performance isn't indicative of future behavior in this case, but his name is Brook. That can't be good. Now, if it was Brooks, like Brooks Robinson, you'd have something here. The only other athlete ever named Brook was baseball legend Brook Fordyce, career OPS+ = 82. So yeah, history isn't on your side here.

- With apologies to stepping on Dawger's toes ever, you know, if he ever reviewed movies anymore, I saw Forgetting Sarah Marshall last weekend instead of the Narnia movie. I have to highly recommend it. It's like a date movie, but a guy kind of date movie if that makes sense. It's not funny out loud constantly laughing like Superbad, but it's very funny in it's own way, and Jason Segal is nails as the lead - plus you get to see his junk like 100 times. As a bonus, both Kristen Bell and Mila Kunis are very hot, especially Kunis (see above). It's like she played that girl on that 70's show, then disappeared for five years, and then reappeared as a top five girl on the WWWWWW list. Fun, stalkerish fact: she has two different colored eyes.

- Speaking of movies, how is there another Hulk movie coming out? Didn't they just do this like two years ago and it bombed? And there are billboards all over Times Square for this thing. I don't get it.

- Is there a more worthless player than Bruce Bowen? The dude is known for his defense which basically consists of holding and pushing the other player, and supposedly he's a good three point shooter but get this. They just kicked the ball out to him on the wing for three, wide open, and he wouldn't take the shot even though the Lakers weren't guarding him. The announcer guy mentioned that he won't shoot the three from anywhere but the corner. What the f is up with that noise?

- Back to Bayless, who else is going to be the "point guard of the future" for this team? Telfair? Please. He'll be arrested for something in the next year or so, and even if not, he'll be hurt. And last year he shot a less than stellar 40% from the field, which was THE BEST OF HIS CAREER. Seriously, Snacks, get off Telfair. And Foye is the other choice, but he's a shooting guard and let's not pretend otherwise. Oh, and Jaric would probably be good to party with, but not to run a team. And if you doubt my rookie NBAers prowess, just remember how I predicted Corey Brewer to be the third best rookie this year - second after Oden went down - and he ended up with nary a vote in the rookie of the year balloting.

- Home cooking in full effect in the Western Conference Finals. With one minute left and a 2 point game, Duncan - who is the world's biggest crybay homo, by the way - grabbed a rebound and got slapped on the arm and the ball went out of bounds. Not only no foul, but ball to the Lakers. Frighteningly bad officiating. It's like that one cheater guy whose name I don't remember right now is back.

- Hey Nick Blackburn fans, what happened? And please, spare me your "only one of those runs was earned" bs. Dude got killed. 6 hits and 7 runs given up in the sixth. Good to know I won't have to hand over the keys to the blog to that jackass Dawger.

- You know who doesn't get nearly enough play? Arky Vaughn.

- Seinfeld/Simpsons is on zero channels right now, whilst Sex and (in?) the City is on two channels. How the f does this happen? And Kristen Davis is on Letterman. Sweet mother of the holy baby infant jesus.

- In case you missed it, ESPN gives the Gophers the #25 recruiting class in hoops for next year. I'd love to do some research into the classes above them and compare, but dude, I'm drunk. Why don't you f'ing go do it yourself, ass.

- Remember when Adam Sandler was funny? Seriously, this Zohan movie looks like something Eddie Murphy would crank out. Sorry Bogart/Dawg. For those other of yous, if you want to check out an under the radar awesome Sandler flick, rent/buy Bulletproof.

- In my semi-drunken stupor, I've finally done something I've always wanted to do and sponsored a player page at baseball-reference.com (the online baseball encyclopedia). The player chosen for this prestigious honor: Scott Stahoviak. As of this moment, the message isn't showing up as they need to audit it to make sure I don't say "ass" or "tits", but it should be there shortly. Simply awesome.

- Funny thing about the sponsoring, is that Stahoviak is only $5 per year (we have him locked up for 2 years, BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABY!), but Rich Becker (aka Bitch Wrecker) is $10 per year. Probably because if I remember correctly he's some coach for some team, whereas Stahoviak is coaching a high school team now (Carmel Catholic High School in Illinois). Chip "Chiper" Hale is only $5 too. Jack Cust is also available, but he's $90 per year. $90. Jesus. Nick Punto is sponsored by a Twins message board that bills itself as The Scccrappiest Twins fans on the interweb. Pretty active too. Never heard of them though. One of the first posts on there points out how 319 major leaguers have home runs this year, but Mauer and Delmon aren't two of them. I think I dig those guys.

- Are you wondering where Jerry Holman is now? Me too. After playing in Turkey for three years, he's now landed in Qatar. I guess they have basketball there now. Guess who else is on that team? Mo Hargrow. Other notable names in that league, assorted amongst the Al-Muhammeds and El-Hadads, include nobody I've ever heard of. I'm thinking Dusty and Rick's Australian YMCA could come into this league and roll on undefeated. And somebody would probably get shot, but whatever.

- Continuing on this theme, Travarus Bennett is currently playing in Switzerland. Others in his league include Rashard Lee (Tennessee), Sheray Thomas (Kentucky), and Ray Henderson (Clemson). Not exactly top shelf.

- Is there a creepier movie trailer out there right now than The Strangers? Or Ever? Jesus Christ, just the preview scares the poop out of me. And then they choose Liv Tyler for the lead actress? She's scary enough by herself.

- Last year, prior to the draft, I predicted that that year's Rick Rickert would be JamesOn Curry of Oklahoma State. He ended up being picked in the second round, 51st overall by the Bulls, four picks before where Ricky went. This season Curry played 29 total minutes, with a grand total of 7 points. NBA.com has Rickert with career totals of 6 minutes and 3 points, all with the Pistons. Expect Curry to rip up the Australian League sometime soon.

- Bernie Mac's best movie role was pretty clearly Big Perm.

- Current NBDL allstars: Tony Gipson (LSU), Errick Craven (USC), Billy Thomas (KU), Wendell White (UNLV), Taurean Green (FLORIDA), Jelani McCoy (UCLA, career minor leaguer and awesome shot blocker), DJ Strawberry (maryland), Julius Hodge (NC State and got shot so he's tough like fitty), Darius Washington (Memphis and nice free throws ass), and Nick Fazekas (NEVADA).

- I don't know what's up with Grandslam, he keeps telling me he's "busy" with "work." I'm pretty sure that's code for his new Indian girlfriend (dot not feather) has him wrapped around her little finger. Point of fact, I'm looking for somebody to write a guest golf column. Nick Faldo, I'm looking at you. Or Theory. Or Dr. Acula. Or Stork.

- Jelani McCoy, by the by, was absolutely the best shot blocker I've ever seen in my college basketball watching history. He couldn't do much else, and he was born in Oakland, which is without question the worst city in the history of cities. Dude hooked on with the NBA for a bit (several teams) but sucked and could never stick, since he couldn't block shots in the NBA. In eight extremely partial NBA seasons, never got over a 1 block per game average, despite four good chances to be a contributor. Shame. Probably the weed.

- There is now an infomercial on with a toll free number asking "if you've been a victim of witchcraft please call 1-888-332-4141".

- FIN. Thanks for reading, nerd.