The Lake Show Wins the West!!

Not like we didn't see this coming, but the Spurs played about as well as Giuliani's primary run. Did anyone notice a complete replica of the Suns-Spurs series in this round?

Game 1 was exasperatingly lost when big leads were dashed and the other team hit big shots.

Game 2 was a comfortable win for the home team.

Game 3, they decided to turn up the energy and play more like mid-life crisis men instead of the senior citizens that they are and snuck by with a win.

Game 4, well, when you can't make a shot and play as lethargic as Mary-Kate Olson's appetite big things aren't gonna happen.

And then there was Game 5. Following the prececedence set by Phoenix the Spurs got off to a big lead. Only to see the Lakers in the rearview gaining closer, closer, closer. It was like a horror movie. I knew it was coming. By the fourth quarter the Lakers were in control and the Spurs egos deflated like that Jared dude from Subway.

It was over. And now comes the fun part - waiting to see if it's Boston or Detroit to round out the final deuce.

I'm pulling for Detroit, but I also cheer for the Suns, and if the basketball Gods do anything, it's consistently make the team I cheer for lose.

Hence Go Boston!!!!

Welcome to the real world...

She said to me, condescendingly. Take a seat...and sit there for eight hours and don't move. That has become my new vida the past couple weeks. Which is good. I got a job and I'm making money. However, unfortunately to my very loyal readers, it also meant fewer posts. There is an additional reason for this too.
Mis padres, (speaking of Padres, was treated to the game this weekend by MeJulie and it went 18 innings, because it's the Padres I could only stomach 12 of them and went home and watched the rest on TV) wanted me to start doing some more serious writing.
What could be more serious than this???
But they assured me that blogging for a living was like that time I had a dream of being a mattress tester (ahhhhh) I don't have what it takes. No. Actually they, and others that have more than half a brain (not including me), believe it's time to put my freelancing to the test.
So I did.
Thus far I have written two and a half columns, some of them scheduled for publication in Trajan Magazine. I've also entered a few essay contests along the way.
Anyway, more posts today and this week, and please keep checking because I'll post links to my published columns.
Muchas gracias!

Game 1 Lakers-Spurs

Man oh man, what a collapse. A twenty point lead diminished with just over 6 minutes of basketball. Did anyone see what I saw? Deja' vu. The San Antonio Spurs played the part of my departed Phoenix Suns to the t tonight. It was as if Coach D'Antoni was calling the plays from the sidelines. Wait...he doens't call plays.

Anyway, the Lakers prevailed thank to Kobe "Twice as Good as Anyone Else" Bryant's late game heroics. Except for Kobe, it's no longer heroic when he replicates the feat night after night. I swear he reminds me more and more of me.

Speaking of Coach Mike D'Antoni, the basketball gods were obviously frowning upon him the past couple days. Sure he got a lucrative deal with the New York Knicks. Which is equivalent to having a hot wife but playing on the Atlanta Falcons. He shuns Jerry Reinsdorf and the Chicago Bulls to take the offer in New York.

A few days later, with a 1% chance of obtaining the #1 pick in the draft, the Chicago Bulls snatched it. Now they get the dilemma to choose between local great Derrick Rose or future great Michael Beasley. Suddenly, everyone including Red Auerbach wants the job. Can anyone else hear Justin Timberlake's track in the background? "What Goes Around, goes around,..."

The LA - San Antonio series is going to be an instant classic. San Antonio played skiddish and embarrased themselves in Game 1. Don't expect a duplicate performance in Game 2.

What to do with a Clinton

So in this weeks New York Times - the Sunday edition, there is an interesting tidbit about a probable hypothetical scenario. It goes something like this: Once Barack realizes he requires Hillary to lock up the general election, Hillary's Senate seat will be vacant.
What to do about nothing?
Well, the tidbit had Billy Boy, the future first gentleman filling that seat. He could finish off her term of two years and then run in a special election thereafter. Picture Bill as Senate Majority Leader. Wow.
Thoughts??

Everyone Loves a Libertarian

Right? Give people autonomy. Civil liberties. Freedom.

How about a loaded gun?

Sometimes I get in passioned discussions with these folks that tell me the government should just leave them the f@#$ alone.

Hmm.

How can the government leave anyone alone if the very people asking for independence keep their hands out like peddlers? Natural disaster - rescue me! Social Security - S.O.S! Mandated employer health care - gimme gimme gimme! Police, Fire, UPS - protect me, save me, shoot me!

It's exasperating.

So put up with a little governmental intrusion will ya?

Or they'll make you.

Basketball Playoffs

As I type I am watching the Spurs dictate the tempo of the game against the Hornets. I don't think the Hornets are going to win this game. The series, possibly. But to beat the Spurs at home in a crucial Game 6 is like asking me to be attracted to Star Jones. Or whatever her name is now that she divorced KFC.

Anyway, I love the Hornets. I pulled a hammy jumping on that bandwagon.

Chris Paul has been dominant and David West is reminding me of Patrick Ewing. I don't think the Hornets will put it off tonight but look for a cataclysmic earth shattering ball-gasmic good Game 7 in New Orleans. Home of FEMA, as in Fix Everything My A@#.

Moving on to LA and Utah. Please, please will the refs stop babying this team. Kobe can't touch the ball without being breastfed by Joey Crawford. David Stern must be conference-calling these guys in hidden ear pieces. Regardless, I still think the Jazz will win Game 6.

The question of this series is at what percent does Kobe need to be for them to win? 65%? 80%? Probably somewhere in between.

Which happens to be exactly where he's at.

I'm pretty sure the East has playoffs too but that would be like focusing on Stephen instead of Alec Baldwin. And I don't want to insult my side.
My apologies, LeBron.

Transition

I wanted to post a Happy Mother's Day to all the Mom's out there and give everyone an update on mi vida. I started a new job the past couple of weeks (the reason there hasn't been that many posts) and I also moved into a new place.
To top it off I just got real sick with a fever and sore throat and headache. I feel terrible. But I promise to heal quickly and post more this week, so please be patient.
In the meantime, enjoy the playoffs!

San Diego State University Disaster

Well that was as big an understatement than Operation Chaos' success. Poor Rush Limbaugh ... I listened to him this morning and he got in one of his rants where he sounded like "eh we eh a a a a..." (you know if you've ever had the displeasure of listening to his show). I think he's refilling his meds???

In any case, my alma mater was center stage on the news media yesterday. Methinks it had something to do with the greatest number of Mensa's enrolled as undergrads.

Jokes aside, this is a serious travesty and will mar the reputation of the school worse than that time when I started writing humor for the school paper.

Members of Greek Life at San Diego State University were reportedly involved in drugs as heavy as cocaine and ecstasy. Fraternity members were accused of procuring drugs from local dealers and supplying the entire Greek community with these drugs. Many of the biggest customers were sorority girls (especially cocaine). Semi-automatic weapons were confiscated along with more than $60,000 cash.

Sadly, a few of these members were buddies of mine. I lived with three members of the Theta Chi fraternity last summer. They are great individuals and were not directly involved in any wrongdoing.

Needless to say, they are still greatly impacted by the persecution of their brothers and the suspension of their fraternity.

I'm throwing the baby out with the bath water on this one. Greek life at SDSU should completely disband. It's a corrupt system with its foundation in exploitation, apathy, illicit drug use, promiscuity and underage drinking.

And those are just on the tip of my tongue.

Aside from the deaths at Greek houses in the past couple of years, numerous girls have been date-raped and many young men degraded through initiation. Many other friends of mine at SDSU were members at one time, but were forced to quit after they were fined obscene amounts of money for missing mandatory events.

Need further proof?

The demographics of the system is crammed with 22-to-24 year-old men and barely 18 year-old girls. Do the math. This equation is definitely inverse.

The individuals that comprise the Greek community are naive, weak-minded conformists. They are also generally decent people. Yet when they unite as an entity, there are rampant problems.

Evidently.

Universities shouldn't be a haven for this negative environment. If students need solace from everyday student-life, they should get a job or get involved in the community. Work out. Play sports. Become a big brother/sister....to someone more than a year younger than you. Volunteer. Join an on-campus club. There is no room for any University to sanction/condone this destructive and seductive environment.

In fact, college should be the precise place to escape these types of activities.

Fraternities and sororities should no longer be an option at SDSU. They have worn out their welcome and justification. They owe an earnest apology to every college graduate of SDSU actively seeking a job. And to those who've attained one. Although most are too ignorant to notice their enormous impact, this surely will not help graduates of my alma mater.

I am ashamed and resentful. I hope further action is taken against the Greek community soon, before more young people die and this system continues to do what it does best - denigrate and exploit young college students.

Primary Recap

Yesterday came and went with the world's biggest primary ever fading from our minds. Hillary won by a penny in Indiana and Barack won by a Benjamin in North Carolina.

The North Carolina victory for Obama was expected. Indiana on the other hand was about as unexpected as Nick Cannon marrying Mariah Carey (very creepy and extremely awesome at the same time).

Hillary's camp must be licking their wounds today because this was not the showing she needed to strengthen her resolve of staying in the race until convention. The slim margin of her victory in Indiana proves that Rev. Wright wasn't the end of Barack Obama.

Barack is rolling with the punches a la De la Hoya over Steve Forbes.

If I'm Hillary, I'm not letting this issue die. She should remind people that Barack said he wouldn't denounce him and then he did just a month later. And she may want to raise a few bucks to compete with Barack OWarbucks.

Right when she was getting some momentum he pulled the rug from under her.

World's Biggest Primary of All Time

Is in two days! Don't miss it! North Carolina and Indiana.

Why do I feel like I'm writing about college basketball?

Hillary and Barack continue the fight for delegates on Tuesday. Hillary has some momentum after her breakout win in Pennsylvania.

Will she win big on Tuesday?

In Indiana I predict she will win. She does well with white rural males, and Indiana (to my knowledge) has a few of those. But she won't win North Carolina. That's as Obama blue as the Tar Heels.

I can't really write anymore on why/why not Hillary should drop out of the race, even though the pundits can't stop salivating from it.

I think a split decision on Tuesday will confirm what we knew all along.

This race is still far from over.

Movies of Late

When I wrote for my college newspaper, my editors used to complain. My writing was decent. I submitted my columns on time. I even went to the mandatory meetings when it was convenient for me. What they detested was my inability to create working headlines.

For example, most editors prefer at least a ballpark idea of what the column is about in your title. If you're writing on AIDS, something like "Magic in the Air" would suffice (tasteless I know) or say if you were writing on love something like "I Hate Women." Both of these are feasible headlines.

Unfortunately for my editors, I was creative enough to be published but not creative at all at my headlines. Therefore, I finally stopped giving (attempted) working headlines to my columns.

Ah, so what did I do in place?

Most times I wrote things like, "This Column is the Dopest S@#$ of all Time," or "Britney Spears is a Cheap, Ugly, Whore." And then I would add a disclaimer that the headline must run as submitted or it doesn't print.

Employee of the Year, eh?

Anyway, this is the reason for my lack of cunning title posts - I just don't give a s@#$ about them. But....that doesn't necessarily connote that the post is bad.

Yesterday I frequented two movies with Me Julie. We paid for one and she dragged me into the Harold and Kumar theater because we arrived an hour early for our show. She dragged me, as in she was running just to catch up with me.

And if you have a sophomoric sense of humor and can laugh at silly racist jokes, please see this film. It's hilarious. Yes, it's overdone. Yes, there are shots of penises. Waaay too many. So did the other movie we saw (what's the world coming to...or on I should say).

We purchased tickets for a measly $20 which justified our two-for one. I'm paying $4 for gas and outrageous prices for food. So I pledge to mug only one Girl Scout this week.

"Forgetting Sarah Marshall" was the movie we saw in its entirety. And once again, I highly recommend it. I'm confident everyone can relate to one of the characters. I'm most like the British singer.

Okay, not really. Maybe Kono, or whatever the surfer dude's name was.

Okay fine, the main character.

Regardless, I advise you to see these comedies to make you laugh and forget about your world for a few minutes.

Hey, it's either that or "Ironman."

President Sets Record For Highest Disapproval

Finally. It took Americans almost 8 full years of President Bush's tenure to recognize that he was, well, the greatest error in modern history. Worse than Truman? Worse than Nixon? Worse than Tom Cruise?

All it took was gas prices to breach $4. Guess it doesn't pay off to have an oil tycoon family run the White House. I don't want to write about this beacuse it's sooooooo 8 years too late.

But I'm praying to Jesus and Allah and Yahweh and Buddha and Vishnu, oh and Rev. Wright (who I will write a long post on this week) that Americans don't succeed him with his stunt double.

FYI, Hillary Clinton braved the cheap tricks of Bill O'Reilly and went on his show for the first time. Hats off to her.

Time to Change it Up

The Mavericks didn't waste any time. The Suns shouldn't either. Avery Johnson was quickly disposed as head coach of the Dallas Mavericks yesterday morning, folllowing back to back early playoff exits from his team.

Good move?

No way. Avery is a young but engaging coach who has a unique ability to motivate. Sure he didn't win the championship (or get out of the first round for that matter). But look at his team. With the exception of Dirk Nowitzki they have some marginally talented role players at best. Jason Terry ain't what he used to be. Josh Howard disappears when it counts. Erick Dampier? Ason Kidd?

Don't tell me this team was going to win the championship this year.

But moreover the bigger question is who will do better as a replacement? I don't think there is an answer to that. Possibly the Mavs could have pushed the series to seven games with a better coach but I doubt it. Avery did about all he could against a more talented team.

The Suns are a different story.

They have the best lineup in all of basketball. D'Antoni's blunders and inability to recognize times to pull Shaq out of the game cost us the series. I am supremely confident that if the Suns had a coach like Popovich of the Spurs or Lakers Coach Phil Jackson, the Suns would be heading back to Phoenix up 3-2. I'm certain we would've won the series with a better coach.

Here's hoping D'Antoni got next.