Was there a voice unkind?

So I'm back home with ma and pa, having another lame night in. I just finished watching the Nets game. I wish I could watch all the games so I could run a game night feature entitled "Guess Which Players Cared Tonight." The answer to that little game on this first contest of the new year would be "Mikki Moore and Bostjan Nachbar." No, seriously. And Kidd went to work as always. The rest of the guys? Ugh. Uncle Cliffy gets a pass tonight though because it was his first game back from knee surgery. Vince - go to hell. RJ? You know, there was very little focus on him other than when he actually had the ball...I wonder if that was purposeful or just a broadcasting anomaly. Anyway, it was nice to see the horrific officiating work out in the favor of MY team for once. And I did see one of the sickest shots ever made when Kidd freaking shot the ball over his head facing away from the basket, seemingly without even looking and oh my goodness gracious. Top Play for sure.

Anyway, just as I was typing this, my mom told me to check out this diatribe from Joe. Her particular point of interest was the "1,000 lb pink elephant in the locker room." I would just like to point out that the official gay pride color is purple, not pink, mom. Sheesh. Now you're a racist AND a homophobe? Get some help. Just kidding, love you!

Man, if my mom ever actually read these things that I write...I shudder to think. I actually sent the url to someone I know for the first time this week because I had mentioned to my best friend in some context that I was blabbing to complete strangers on this thing (all 3 of y'all). I had started writing this thing in the interest of remaining completely anonymous and no one reading it...but if random people happened across it, at the very least no one I actually KNOW. I've put up a fair amount of embarrassing factoids, not to mention some pretty bitchy diatribes directed at other humans. And now that I think about it? How anonymous have I really been? You've got my name, my location, plenty of info re: my family and friends and schools and what not...I guess my point here is just "whoops." Because if anyone I knew were to find and read this, it would take them probably about 2 minutes to figure out it was me. I hope and pray this does not happen, but I realized it is possible. So if it does...well I've got no shame, give a holler and I'll make sure not to talk any shit about you. And Nesticle? If you made it past all the "sports stuff" and are actually reading? Hi, and love ya :)

This thing has gotten pretty stream-of-consciousness lately, which also happens to mean "annoying." In the interest of being a bit more coherent, I'm just going to write a bit more about the basketball and call it a night.

Annnnd I just remembered we have League Pass and turned on the Nuggets/Lakers game.

I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed the Charles Barkley Broadcast last night. Much liveblogging and commenting has been done in the past 24 hours with mixed but mostly positive reviews. Stuck at home as I was, I checked out MJD's liveblog over at the FanHouse and found it to be entertaining. I'm a big fan of the liveblog w/ live commenting. It's way less intimidating to do it over at the FanHouse than over in the Deadspin Live Comment Tailgates though. Spinners scare me. But no, this was like a little throwback to hanging out in AOL chat rooms back in junior high. Only way more dorky. MJD though, is indeed mighty.

Pina colada flavored yogurt is bizarre. I've never felt a yogurt was missing rum before.

Back to Barkley, I thought he was pretty decent. He mumbles a bit, but if you can get past that, he's entertaining as always. I'll admit to being a bit of a Barkley apologist (I may or may not own at least 1 of his books) but I honestly thought he did pretty well. Dick Bavetta could totally beat him in a race of any substantial distance though. Charles looked pretty winded at the end of that video of him running the bleachers in some stadium.

I should mention that Charles was filling in for the ailing Steve Kerr, if only because Nesticle thinks Steve Kerr is super cute. I don't really get that. Then again, I'm the one who said, "Brad Miller could give me the flu any time."

I found it a little strange that Charles kept saying how much more "mature" Kobe has become following the LAL/PHX playoff series last year, remembering that they feuded after Chuck made some comments about Kobe's shot selection (or lack thereof or lack of any shots or whatever). Meanwhile, he kept saying how mature he's gotten without mentioning the fact that Kobe didn't take a single shot until there were less than 2 minutes left in the first quarter. Would have liked some explanation there, Charles, because you did not make any sense. Basically, not shooting in the first quarter of a regular season game shows maturity grown from not taking any shots in the 4th quarter of a playoff game? I just gave myself a headache.

One other comment and then I will move right the fuck along away from a game that happened a long time before the one I am currently watching. Marv Albert jokingly said something about Barkley's playing days and said something about him being 6'1". Charles moved right along in the conversation and Marv pointed out that he was joking...and Charles moved on again. Did he not get the joke, requiring the explanation? Was he offended? Or is he really 6'1"? I mean, he was listed as what, 6'6"? And it was pretty well known that he was definitely shorter than that, but...6'1"? Really? To be fair, I think all guys exaggerate their height, unless they are really tall. But definitely any guy that is not a pro athlete (they have a separate scale with which I am not familiar), and who falls within the range of 5'4"-6'1", lies up. Some round up to the nearest inch, and some just add an inch or two. And yes, I am still talking about height. Pervs.

There is one thing about League Pass that irritates me. Commercials on local stations in other cities always make me hungry for food that is not available to me in the tri-state area. I hate that. I also hate Sonic, for advertising here anyway and then saying "HAHAHA THIS IS DELICIOUS AND YOU CAN'T HAVE ANY, BECKY." Fucking Sonic.

I do, however, very much enjoy the Carl's Jr. commercial where the dudes all shake the cows to the milkshake song. Not the most original idea, but...well, there's jiggling cattle.

So I haven't seen this anywhere else, but I think Marv mentioned last night that there is supposedly some sort of feud brewing between Mike Bibby and Ron Artest. And while MJD already beat me to a "Team Dime is not a gang" joke, I would like to at least get a non-joke 2 cents in and ask the basketball gods for this to please, PLEASE boil over at some point. Of course I am thinking more along the lines of a Zach Randolph/Ruben Patterson practice jawbreaker, and not so much of any actual gang warfare. Who will play the Qyntel Woods role and hold someone's arms behind their back, allowing their teammate to get a square shot in on the jaw? I can only hope for Kenny Thomas. Because, to quote one of my own tag lines from a couple years ago, "Kenny Thomas is the man."

These new NBA commercials really baffle me. Like I kinda get the Yao one, but the Luke Ridnour one, with the quote from the Book of Proverbs? Really bizarre. Is that the Association trying to appeal to the big time Jesus worshippers? Because even so, I feel they could do better than Luke Ridnour. Especially to go along with the quote, "Desire realized is sweet to the soul." I'm sorry, but who the fuck is associating ANYONE on Seattle with "desire realized"??? What desire have they realized? The desire to sign Andre Brown apparently. Or the desire to get blown out by the Knicks tonight. Weee.

I went to get my nails done today and while I was in the ol' pedicure chair (why do I hate that word so much?) an African American male walked into the salon. A dude in the salon always catches my eye, just because it's a rare sight. Then I realized he was going to the businesses in the shopping center trying to sell something, and he gives his spiel to the closest Korean woman. She doesn't understand him, so he goes down the line trying to explain to each person and I catch that he's actually trying to sell some Nets tickets promotional dealie. He finally lands on me, all frustrated, and I'm the only white person in the place and he asks all flustered, "Do you speak English?" Now, the fact that he walked into a nail salon to begin with does not speak highly of his level of intelligence, at least on these matters. So I contemplated playing the "I'm sorry, I don't watch sports" card so he would go away, since I hate HATE it when someone tries to sell me something. But I told him yes and he came over and started his spiel again and I decided to just level with him and let him know he actually stumbled across a huge Nets fan. Yada yada yada, whatever it was he was selling, I bought. It seems like a good deal maybe? 2 free tickets for $45 and under seats, and then 2 buy-1-get-1 tickets for $101 and under seats. Of course, they block out the games where they expect people will actually want to go, but there are a few games on there that intrigue me. He tried to sell me 2 of the things, but I told him it would be hard enough to find ONE person to go to a Nets game, let alone 2 or 3. I wish I could remember what marketing company he worked for so I could have some credibility here, but...alas, 'tis not to be. Anyway, it might be a good deal. I'm not sure. Either way, a dude came into the nail place and offered me a good deal on Nets tickets, and that never happens. So I got that going for me. Which is nice.

I'm going to go watch some more of the Lakers game and try and figure out whether I like them or not. Detestable as Mamba might be, he's damn sure compelling (and may or may not head up my roto team). Then perhaps I can sleep off some of my stupidity, that of the cause of completely missing an important doctor's appointment, losing my cell phone charger, and leaving my coat in the nail salon. I rock so hard. On an "at least someone is worse" note, my sister went to exchange some gifts and spent a few hours in the mall...and when she was on her way home, she called to say she accomplished everything she wanted other than the return of some gifts to the Gap. She said our mall doesn't have a Gap. Which, of course, it does, and we tell her as such. To which she responds indignantly, "NO, there's a Gap Body and a Gap Kids and a Gap Men and a Gap Women, but NO regular Gap."

Just for fun, and to make you bitter that you missed the deadline too, here's the link to the Jalen Rose Holiday Poetry Contest on his blog. I'm a little sad that I narrowly missed the chance to share some Hanukkah poetry w/ Mr. Rose. Fuck it though, nothing rhymes with Maccabee anyway.