Where Do The Days Go

Hot shit, maybe it's the rain, and maybe it's how good this M. Ward song is, and maybe it's a little bit of both but I have been rocking out to "Poison Cup" a good dozen times in a row here. Rocking may not been the proper terminology to describe this particular track but it will work well enough. Listen to this song and tell me you don't like it. But then at least tell me why.

Two days late, I gotta give it up for Sunday as a solid sports day. Nadal winning the French Open (I have shirked my largely unfounded dislike for Federer after learning he is not a robot, but man I do like this Nadal character), the Celts evening their series with the Lakers, and the 'Hawks grabbing a 3-2 lead over the Flyers. Tonight not so much as the Lakers downed the Celts this time. I'll hope for a 'Hawks close-out tomorrow.


How is it possible for a watch to cost ~$525,000?

After long delay I dropped another short story today, and should be putting a 30-minute parody together in the next day or two. Suggestions on a daily tweet theme for July are very welcome.

Next order of business before I forget is to plug the return of Balke to the blogosphere. He's dropping fresh new concept songs pretty much once a day. They are, honestly, awesome. On the subject of songs, I must also plug Kelly McFarling and Tim Johnson's duet performance of the MGMT hit "Kids" that I thought I would have posted back in my homage to WesTech, but apparently did not. They're both supremely talented and you can catch more of Kelly's folky excellence here.

And, well, I was going to discuss that story about the chick who says she was fired from a bank for being "too sexy." I guess I am discussing it, but since I think the whole thing is more of a publicity stunt than a valid case, I didn't want to lend much credence to it. I mean, I don't doubt she was harassed, but upon listening to her interview, her intelligence and ability to perform her job is drawn into question. Also, though mentioned in at least one article, they largely gloss over the fact that her looks may have helped her get hired in the first place. Ah balls, that's more than enough for the moment. Cheers folks.

Still Love Safin

This Sunday was the epic Wimbledon final between Roger Federer, the Swiss superstar I dislike for no reason, and Rafael Nadal, the youthful genetic beast. It was a pretty tremendous match and I admit I was awfully nervous that last set-plus, wondering if Federer was going to pull it out. R-Fed is amazing, no doubt, and I am going to try to stop hating him, but it's going to be tough. I think it's not just the dominance, but the cool dominance. I just want a little more emotion is all I think. After his victory, Nadal crawled into the stands. Chances Federer does that? I'll go with a number rapidly approaching zero.

I am a Nadal fan, no doubt, but he will be no higher than second fiddle on my list of favorite players as long as Marat Safin stays on the courts. And why? Again, no good reason. Like so many other things in life, I just go with the vibe of the thing, and I love the vibe Safin gives off. He talks about quitting, he drops out of the Top 100, he beats the world's number three ranked player (and only other winner of a Grand Slam final this calendar year), Novak Djokovic aka Dontchawanna Chokdabitch. To be fair to Federer, I don't like Djokovic either, and I vastly prefer Federer. Heck, maybe it was just a couple of minor dents in his armor for me to start liking him.

No matter, it was a great weekend of sport, even if I had to watch Safin go down on a Friday and Alan Webb fail to qualify for the Olympics. I still love you Alan, and I have no doubt you'll pull your shit together and prove all the haters wrong. There will always be haters (see also my feelings towards Federer and, moreso, Djokovic) but I hope Alan knows he's still got bigtime fans. Dude's an absolute beast.

I'm also still riding the high of Spain and my man Fernando Torres winning Eurocup. Considering my native England didn't qualify, Spain was my desired champion, although for the sake of the Dutch, I was hoping they'd put it together a bit more.

We're also at exactly the one month mark to the Beijing Olympics. 8/8/08...some marketer probably rode that one to retirement. I have to say I am pretty stoked as there almost isn't a sport I don't enjoy watching during the Summer Olympics, and with modern technology (which I often bitch about), I could spend the couple of months after the Olympics watching shit I missed. And you've gotta love the Asian touch on the Olympic mascots (which are historically awful). So let's rejoice in the beauty of athletic competition and pray everyone's not on drugs.

I Love Sports

This past Sunday was a reminder of just that. I started it off by going for a run in the ball-dripping heat and then settled down to breakfast while witnessing Rafael Nadal beat the absolute shit out of Roger Federer. I've said in the past that I am not much of a Federer fan, but I really don't have any reason to feel that way. He's a gentleman on and off the court and his skills are astounding. Hell, I don't have any problem with Tiger Woods and he's a fairly dominant SOB.

Later in the day I had a rare treat as NBC televised the Prefontaine Classic. I'm always disappointed by televised track meets, and I think it has a lot to do with a commercial being inserted after every event, and distance events never being shown in their entirety. The commentators are also laughable as their knowledge of race competitors alone is fairly poor. Don't they have the start lists and someone provide them info anyway? Sure, track is a bit obscure in the United States, but why not have someone who knows their shit be a commentator? So it goes.

An excellent sporting Sunday was capped by game 2 between the Lakers and Celtics, with a Celtics victory being a bit of icing on the cake. As New England sports go, I might hate the Patriots, but this is a likable Celtics squad. It's hard not to like Garnett, Ray Allen is just about my favorite player, and then there is the lovable Rondo, who makes me think of the foot clan for some reason. Hell, I'm even warming up to Paul Pierce.

Moving on from sports, I will remind readers of when, back on April 1st, I wrote about the google April Fool's Day prank. Only, while google was joking, the folks over at Big String were not. As you can see from the link it lets you do all sorts of crazy shit like create emails that have a limited number of views before they are destroyed and even unsend emails. Apparently it's been around for at least three years judging from the date of that article, but I'm surprised more creepy and/or shady underhanded people aren't taking advantage of this.

Anyway, I'm going to devote my full attention to the fourth quarter of this Celtics game. But before I go I leave you with this Jim Gaffigan hot pockets clip. Kudos to the Boneyard for reminding me about this total gem and causing me to subsequently listen to all of the Gaffigan stand-up I could find. I feel as if I were to reach my apogee in stand-up performance I would fall short of Jim, but it would be in a similar vein. Hooooot pockets...