Wraping it up...

"Do you wanna dance?

With you?

No...With my father?

I'm Roger.

They call me...they call me...Mimi"

***************************

I'm in no way against drunken voice mails at the wee hours of the morning (just ask your ex-girlfriend - HEY-OHHHHHHHH) but I am rather perplexed by one I received last night. It was from fellow sports elitist JTBI who called me while singing a song from the mid 90s musical "Rent". The lyrics are above. And it wasn't one of the better-known songs, like "Seasons of Love" or "What you Own" (which everyone knows, admit it or not). It was from the song, "Would you Light my Candle". I would have assumed he would have sent me a VM of him singing "We Built This City" or maybe a bar from Phil Collins's immortal classic, "Easy Lover", but a rather obscure song from "Rent"? Your best guess.

Anyway, here are some links to finish our day:

• Deadspin.com's Cultural Oddsmaker

http://deadspin.com/sports/dong/who-will-win-the-2007-scripps-national-spelling-bee-261487.php

While this isn't the current Oddsmaker (I get the feeling AJ Daulerio is swimming in a pool of his own [insert bodily fluid here] as we speak, hence no update this week yet) last week's was a gem.

• A "tribute" to ESPN Classic

http://futureconsiderations.blogspot.com/2007/05/rip-espn-classic.html

Future Considerations watched ESPN Classic and found nothing (save for American Gladiators, naturally) classic at all.

• Dan Shanoff's new blog

http://www.varsitydad.com/

While I really don't like Dan Shanoff too much, this is an interesting blog and may be promising enough to merit my time while I'm at work.

• Cheerleader of the Week on KSK

http://kissmesuzy.blogspot.com/2007/05/im-just-mad-about-saffron-saffrons-mad.html

This is by far the best football blog out there due, mainly, to their lack of football-related posts and the incredibly good use of foul language and storytelling, in that order. This is pretty funny, but then again, the whole blog is. Read on.

more...

Meanwhile, in the Real World...

I work in an office where I get paid to write blog entries and check my e-mail enter judgements into computers for 8 hours a day. It's good work, and I appreciate it, if only for the paycheck that ultimately fuel my insatiable Private Dancer addiction. But I digress; what follows is a list of people who have funny names and are stupid enough to try and evade both the G-Men at the State of Ohio Department of Taxation and myself. That said, here is the (ongoing) Top However Many Names Filed while working...wherever it is I work. I'll try to keep these sports-related, but some are just too good not to mention.

Here we go.

1. James Dickhaus
That name is Legen...wait for it...and I hope you're not lactose intolerant because the last part is...dary.

2. Butz Hacker Company, Incorporated.
Where the Employee of the Month gets more than just a parking space...

3. William Hanrahan
I have it on good authority that his wife's a dyke. Any Slap Shot fans out there?

4. Gary A. and Roberta D Coon
Before anyone asks, they aren't on this list because their last name may or may not be a racial slur. They are here because they represent case no. ###69, which is funny because I have the maturity of a 4th grader and I still laugh at that number and add "that's what she said" to wherever appropriate.

5. Kheire K. Khatab
I'm treading on the lines of racism, again, I know, but that's never a good set of initials to have. Ever.

6. Porta John Corporation
Not really that funny, but I bet they think the $47,220.51 sales tax lien against them is full of shit*.

*that's a terrible pun, even for me

More to come... more...

Uh-Oh Time in the Mistake by the Milake

I have watched zero minutes of the NBA's Eastern Conference Finals series between the Cavs and the Pistons. This is due, mainly, to the fact that I am broke, have no cable and usually drift off to sleep around 11:30, drug-induced or "Frasier" rerun-induced (where would we be without broadcast television). That said, I find it fitting that the game was on TNT last last night and was the lead in for either of the two shows that network airs. If I may...

Without a Trace
The way in which the Cavs and, from an outsider standpoint, having seen nary a minute of this series, the way in which LeBron James, God in Nikes, has disappeared in this series.

And, of course...

Cold Case
The only way to describe the whereabouts of the fire that the Cavs had last year during their playoff run.

There was something so refreshing about last year's Eastern Conference Semis, in that the Pistons, heavy favorites though they were, had to claw back into the series because LBJ and a bunch of other Cavs decided to take them for a ride through seven games. The Pistons eventually won, as raSHEED predicted, but not without winning back-to-back elimination games. But has a team ever looked as physically or emotionally dead as the Cavs in this years playoffs? The beat the Hibachi-less Wizards in four uninspiring games, had to win in NJ to beat the Nets in six, and about probably going to lose this series in sweeping fashion.

LeBron James needs to wake his team up and the best way to do it is to wake himself up. 19-7-6 are great regular season numbers. These are the playoffs, as Ari Gold has reminded us countless times in the commercials. If the best young talent in the NBA, the manchild the Cavs need to lead the team, can't get over 20 in the playoffs then I doubt that team will have much of a shot. Especially with the current supporting cast around him.

The series resumes on Sunday in Cleveland and some people say that a series isn't over until you win on the road. LeBron James better prove those people right, or this series it's going to be over and we will all be back to Without a Trace reruns on TNT faster than you can say Anthony LaPaglia.

more...

Edits

I'm dumb. Here are the corrections, as noted by the italics and asterisks, to my miserable errors from the previous post.

* Milwaukee Bucks.

** catalyst that ignites the Bucks and sends Michael Redd, the most underrated player in the game, to the playoffs (or perhaps even further (??)).

And, of course, I was dead freaking wrong about pretty much the entire draft. At least Greg Oden looks old enough to be tried as an adult in Portland, where he will, if he's a real team player, probably be arrested for some kind of drug-related crime. And it looks like Durrant is headed to Seattle, home of rain, Elizabeth Hasselbeck's husband and perennial WNBA powerhouse, the Seattle ________ (I don't know the actual name of the "franchise" but go ahead and be creative). more...

Ping Pong balls Should be Saved for Throwing in Cups of Beer and Sports Television Programming Should Feature ACTUAL SPORTS!

I've never been too much a fan of "sports" on television, that is to say, what the likes of ESPN or, for lack of, well, any other sports outlet, says is sports (watching two idiots with dumb nicknames play MADDEN in Times Square is cool, but it is hardly an activity, forget if it is a sport or not). Which is why I'm not all too excited about tonight's NBA draft lottery.

I'm not a fan of the NBA and I much prefer the college game and the madness in the year's third month to a playoff system that knocks out the two best teams in the league before the finals begin and somehow still has Carlos Boozer playing this late into May. But the more important playoff system, I'd argue, is the game that the bottom 4 teams in the league play over the last 20 games of the season. I know that flopping has become the recent trend in basketball, and I'm okay with a few players falling on their faces from time to time, if only for entertainment purposes. But when entire teams do it for the chance at selecting first, then that is problem number one for the NBA. Don't tell me the Memphis Grizzlies or the Boston Celtics weren't good enough to win at a better clip down the stretch. It was a pathetic limping-in session done by the bottom rung of teams, and that always cracks me up, as well, because you can suck to high heaven for the last two months of the season and only have a shot at getting the number 1 overall pick.

Pardon the tangent there. I guess I do enjoy the irony of losing by losing, but I hate that the NBA draft lottery, the NBA draft and, for that matter, the NFL draft (at a whopping 6+ hours for the FIRST ROUND) are made into appointment television by the networks. And the World Wide Leader is most responsible. I know they just showed a BoSox/Yankees game but would it hurt to throw another on? Are there other teams playing tonight? Why not show some sports on the premier sports network and dump the draft LOTTERY (not even the draft, this is the draft to find out which teams draft which players in which order) to the deuce or to News. a modest proposal.

Anyway, as I have opinions about everything, I may as well throw up a prediction for how this thing's going to go down. Let's face it - this thing is rigged to high heaven and, just like when Ewing came out in 1985, a major Eastern city has the chance to grab the premier center of the last 20 years. That said...

Boston will "win" (if you want to even call it that) the draft lottery, virtually locking up former Ohio State man child, father of 2 and 33 year old Greg Oden (whom, I assume, in the picture, is hitting that or did very shortly after) as their new franchise player. I shudder to think what will happen if the TWolves* get the second pick and use it on a player like Kevin Durrant, who may be the excuse to dump the other Kevin** to a place where he can finally win a ring. You heard it here first. more...