Exhale

Well there we go. Yo is a Cy Young contender and the Crew is sure to turn this 7 game losing streak into a 12 game winning streak after yesterday. Championship! Thus is the ebb and flow of the 700 game MLB season. I'm still concerned that the Crew hasn't hit at all for the last week. Big early season game today. They sort of need to steal this series after shitting Houston down their legs. Gotta score more runs though. Headed to the Keg on Wednesday afternoon for a game against the Padres. Headed down with my old man and his union cronies. No word on whether legs will be broken or not.

NBA PLAYOFFS

I find it incredible that no NBA team has EVER come back from a 3-0 deficit. If the Lakers demise is a foregone conclusion, then why are we wasting our time even playing game 4. There should be a rule that series are a best of 7, until a team wins the first three, then it is a skunk, and it is over. While I'm not the biggest NBA fan, I do follow it, and watch portions of games here and there. But I won't be going out of my way to watch any more games in this series until it gets to 7. Why bother?

GOLF

I finally got out for 18 yesterday. I'm not very good. 110 on 18 holes isn't getting me to the PGA tour. But considering I haven't touched a club in at least 8 months (Wisconsin weather rules) it could've been worse.

MOVIE REVIEWS

Watched a couple of older-ish movies from my DVR that I hadn't seen before.

"Youth in Revolt": I enjoy Michael Cera even though he plays the same character in every movie/TV show ever. I just find that character funny. Zach Galifianakis and his beard were in the movie as a alcoholic truck driver that is banging Michael Cera's mom. Steve Buschemi and trailer parks were also involved. I enjoyed the movie. I would recommend it, but I doubt I would stop to watch it again if it was on cable.

"The Hurt Locker": Supposedly won an Oscar. I'm a little Iraq movied out to be honest. There have been something like 10 million movies made about this, which I guess makes sense since this "war" has been going on for 10 years. It was a solid movie, but not very unique. It is an Iraq war movie. No idea why or how this won (or was nominated, I don't watch that shit) an Oscar. It is worth watching if you like desert war movies. I wouldn't watch it again.

BEERS OF THE WEEKEND

Lienenkugel Limited: Kind of dog shit. A cross between Leinie's original, which is awful, and Honey Weiss. Don't bother. Thank (Sports Bottle's) god I only drank one. I'm not sure what the idea behind "limited" was. I can tell you one thing, it will be limited to one in my stomach.

New Glarus "Two Women": Not as good as it might sound. It should be called "Two naggy ass fat women". New Glarus is always a conundrum to me. They make some absoultely delicious beer: "Fat Squirrel", "Spotted Cow", "Totally Naked", 'Back Forty Bock". And some really, really bad beer. This one would be in the second category for me.

I'm off to get fat at brunch. Peace.

Welcome to Milwaukee Mr. Maggette

It's been announced that the Bucks have made a swap with the Golden State Warriors and moved perennial bench riders Charlie Bell and Dan Gadzuric for Corey Maggette. I don't think I need to explain who he is or what he does, he's a well known player, scoring swing man. Gadzuric had a decent sized contract, very unbefitting for his minutes and quality of play that came off the books after next year, that was the main trading piece for the Clippers. Bell? Who knows, he's a body in the mix, he never really got back into things on Milwaukee after his little contract spat where we matched his offer sheet from Miami. Maggette has 3 years and about 30 million left on his contract, so not a terribly long term investment. Does this mean Salmons is probably done in a Bucks uniform? I'd have to assume that at this point. I enjoyed the hell out of his half season with Milwaukee though.

UPDATE: Bucks also get 44th pick in deal. Woopie.

ANALYSIS: Ok, now that the story's been broken and is official and I got it out there, time for some analysis. Quick feedback from friends and sports radio is that Maggette is a slacker on D and a cancer in the locker room. Cancer? I dunno about that, show me a story where Maggette was the cause of something mischievous. He may have been on some shitty/shady teams, but that doesn't make a guy a cancer, those teams were cancers.

The defensive thing, I look at it this way, we needed a scorer to take the pressure off Jennings shooting 20+ times a game. If his defense isn't stellar or he doesn't buy into Skiles' scheme after a year or two, well guess what? Now he's another expiring contract we get to ship. This is not a huge risk trade, we gave them Gadzuric and Bell, who the hell did people think we were gonna get for them? Let their contract expire and sign someone? Who? Who's coming to Milwaukee? We have to use these contracts to trade for people or lock up guys we already have. Our biggest name FA in the last decade was Bobby Simmons, how'd that work out?

Do or Die

Well, today is put up or shut up time for the Deer. Game 7. Can the Bucks figure out how to make a basket? Will they realize that Al Horford can't guard Brandon Jennings? Will Jennings and Salmons drive to the hoop on switches rather than settling for jumpshots? Will David Stern allow a Bucks victory (see 2001 Eastern Conference finals)? Lots of questions to be answered. Noon. ABC. Winner gets to see Dwight Howard put up 30 and 20 against them four times.

In another do or die situation, Hoffman came in and looked not terrible, an inning after Hawkins cam in and looked not terrible, an inning after Yo did his best Yo impression single handedly getting a win with pitching and an HR. Is it just me or do the fans in San Diego (at least last night) not completely understand baseball? They were raining boos on EVERY call, good and bad against the Padres, after Adrian Gonzalez and Bud Black got kicked out for complaining about a pitch right down the middle. Finally, does anyone understand why Craig Coshun does a bunch of Brewer games in place of Brian Anderson? Is Anderson on TBS on weekend? Does anyone care?

Playoffs and Rumors

First, I caught the fourth quarter of the Bucks game last night. It seems like it has been 50 years since they have been in the playoffs, although it has only been like 4. Congrats to them. I look forward to those 4 nights in September, or whenever the playoffs start. I really don't see them doing much. Kurt Thomas is pretty decent at least as a rebounder and defender, especially since he is 73. But he gives you nothing on the offensive end. He is a less athletic Ben Wallace. You can win a few games with him as your center, but unless you also have LeBron/Kobe/Durant/Jordan, you probably aren't going very far. But who knows?

RUMORS

I heard a rumor that baseball started. I only know this because of the Milwaukee Brewer app on my Blackberry and because of MLB.com. If I had to rely on television, I would not know. Because today will mark the 3rd time in 3 games I have been unable to watch the game because a) I have a job, and b) they didn't show the only night game of the series outside of Milwaukee. I go through this every year with FS Wisconsin. Every year, they don't show a few early Brewer games to show some late season Bucks games. This season, I have far less of a problem with it (since the Bucks are good). But do they only have one set of cameras? Trust me, I can watch a Brewer game without Telly Hughes and Craig Coushon if that is the problem. Anyway, I was mildly upset that I didn't get to watch the Crew win last night. So if you are wondering why there hasn't been any Brewer posts, that is why. It is hard to get a good feel for the team by watching stick figures stare at circles for nine innings. Friday I look forward to seeing my first game of the season.

OTHER STUFF

I just finished watching the Reggie Miller v. New York Knicks 30 for 30. It was awesome. I forgot how great those series were, even though the NBA was in the start of its descent (before its current resurrection). Remind me again why the Bucks signed Anthony Mason in 2001? If you saw the highlights again of Reggie Miller's famous 8 points in 18.7 seconds, you would see how terribly fucking stupid Anthony Mason was. Not only did he throw away the inbounds pass on the second three pointer, but he committed an egregious foul on the best FT shooter in the league (maybe Mark Price was better?) in a tie game for no reason. Anyway, check out 30 for 30 if you haven't yet.

Semi-Daily Brew Crew Hangover #12

The Brewers are on goddamn fire right now. Freaking Jeff Suppan was one bad pitch away from seven shutout innings. Other than Parra, the starting pitching has been pretty stellar. The bullpen has been basically unhittable since Hoffman showed up. Rickie Weeks is going to be the first player to hit .250 but bat .475 with RISP, and drive in 48 game winning RBIs. He is sort of the anti-Fielder right now (almost said Braun but my man-love for him runs too deep.). Speaking of Braun, did anyone see the ad for the win 12 tickets to Ryan Braun's private suite, with an appearance from Ryan Braun? The first thing that came to my mind was that he had the right to fuck anything that entered his "private suite". I probably need some help. Does anybody really have the feeling that this team isn't at least as good as last year?

I will be there on Saturday for my initial sojourn to Miller Park. Going to some tailgate thing with some of my wife's friends. $35 got us a ticket a T-shirt, beer, food, entry into a beer pong tournament and a bus ride from some bar to the game and back. I plan to be blacked out by the fourth inning.

It was a pretty great time for sports right around 9:30 last night. At that time, the Brewers were putting their comeback on in the 7th, and Chicago-Boston was going into OT number 3 in their American professional basketball playoff game. Since there was something going on the DVR, I couldn't utilize picture in picture, so I had to do old school switching back and forth. My finger was getting numb and I'm pretty sure my wife passed out from an epileptic seizure. That was a fucking fantastic basketball game. Very few NBA games do it for me, but that one did. Especially since Boston lost. I fucking hate Boston. It occurred to me as the game was happening how far off the radar the NBA really is in the Juice household. My wife is pretty literate about sports and she expressed surprise that Joakim Noah was playing, because nobody thought it would be good in the NBA. She asked me who was good on Chicago because she thought they sucked. And my response was: Derrick Rose, and umm..John Salmons. I'm not even sure I know who John Salmons is. I've heard of him because I play fantasy basketball and very casually follow the league. But if he walked into my office right now wearing a John Salmons jersey, I wouldn't have any clue who he was. Oh, and before she asked who the good players were, she saw Rose make a good play and said "Jalen Rose? He still plays?" So yeah, we don't watch much NBA. But it was a pretty cool hour last night.

Former NBA players who can no longer walk normally

So apparently Rodney Rogers was paralyzed in an ATV accident recently. This really isn't very news worthy, crap like this happens all the time, the fact that Rogers once was a star in the NBA shouldn't make it newsworthy. And I guess when I say star I mean he played there for more than 4 seasons. However it struck me as odd that on the same day that article was on the front page of espn.com, this article was as well.

I guess the lesson for everyone here is: If you were a mediocre star in the NBA during the 90's, don't take your ability to walk for granted.

YOUR Oklahoma City....Energy?

Not a real big NBA fan, but I find it interesting when teams move and change thier names. I'm kind of a defunct franchise junky. So I see that OKC has applied for patents for six possible nicknames: Barons, Bison, Marshalls, Energy, Thunder and Wind. And according to the article they spelled "Marshalls" wrong. I guess it is only spelled with one "L". That makes my obvious vote for that one because I would love to see a team with an unintentionally mis-spelled nickname. If I wasn't a lazy piece of shit, I would head over to the local U.S. Patent office and put a patent on the correct spelling, then sell it to the NBA for like $20mil and retire to the Caribbean.

My second thought is that Energy and Wind are Liberace gay. In fact, I'm pretty sure the Milwaukee Bucks dance team is name is nicknamed the Energee! So that would be a weird dynamic. And what the fuck is a "wind"?

I am partial to Thunder because that was my high school's nickname. But oh how I would love to see Kevin Durant play as a member of the OKC "Marshalls".

AS AN ASIDE:

It is SO frustrating to watch the Crew leave 12 guys in scoring position every game. That was a game that should have been won last night. And yes, I am bitching about an 8 game winning streak being snapped...I feel like a fucking Yank or Sawx fan.

I predict Favre will be gone by the end of the night tonight. There is no way the Packers want that distraction. Whether he shows up to camp or not, it will be a distraction for the whole team if there is a possibility of him playing QB for the Packers. Because there will always be some group of dipshits that start chanting for Favre to come back every time the Packers punt.

Pop Culture Interlude

For weeks now, I've been telling people that they need to watch The Real World. There has been a running subplot that has gone on e for two episodes that I haven't been able to delve into yet. The insanity hurts my brain. There is a black dude with dreds on the show who has appeared in at least 7 different colors of shirts that have "Michigan State" across the chest in standard block lettering.

Red
Blue
Pink
Orange
Powder Blue
Purple
Black

This has driven me absolutely insane, because he doesn't wear anything else, and every time they show him, he has a different one on. I don't know where he gets them, but I am going to burn down that store. End of rant.

-My guess is that I will last until the third quarter of the NBA finals game that will end at midnight.

The Morning Dump Vol. 3

- The Brewers playoff chances have fallen to 6.19% by not playing yesterday. No word on whether their chances fell by not firing Neddy yesterday. I have to admit, I got my hopes up. Although he has been brutal, I would have been slightly surprised if the hammer came yesterday. I have fallen short of demanding his head thus far, as he is clearly only part of the problem, but if they don't win 4 of 6 by the end of Sunday I am going to be in full Fire Neddy mode.

- I watched most of the Hornets-Spurs game and was slightly disappointed by the overall game itself. Got pretty good with about 2 minutes left, but the Spurs imposed their will and slowed the game down. Seriously, I might never watch the NBA again (which wouldn't be much less than right now) if the Spurs and Pistons meet in the Finals again.

- I heard the Bucks have a 4.3% chance of getting the number 1 pick tonight at the NBA's Draft Lottery. If they do get it, they will fuck it up somehow and draft Beasley to go with the other 14 SF/PF types they have on their team. And I don't really think Derrick Rose would make me want to watch the Bucks right now. They would need to turn into the Phoenix Suns, which Skiles isn't likely to do.

- I saw Aaron Rodgers on the news last night. He was in some celebrity softball game in GB. His hair is now past his shoulders, and it looks like he hasn't showered in about a month. If he had the 'stache back he would look like he was homeless or a biker. I look for a picture but couldn't find one. Needless to say though, it is ridiculous.

- I bought an Ipod shuffle yesterday because my real Ipod is getting old and malfunctioning when I run with it. It is the size of a postage stamp and fits like 250 songs on it. I am just amazed by it. That being said, I will lose it in the next week.

-Last day on my current job is tomorrow, so as a fair warning, posts are going to be less frequent and at different times starting next week.

Game 7

I watched about 90% of the Cavs-Celtics game yesterday. Not very entertaining at all until the 4th Quarter. LeBron, as good as he was, had about the least impressive 45 point game I've seen. He forced a ton of threes, which were ill advised. Neither team could make an open shot. If this would have been tonight's Hornets-Spurs game, it would have been about 135-133 instead of the much lower score. To LeBron's credit, he was playing with 4 6th graders out there. His supporting cast is horrible, even though it is better than it was last year. There isn't a single person on that team that you could count on to make a wide open 3 (and they got a ton of them yesterday). I could not be any less impressed with a number one seed than I am with Boston right now. They might beat Detriot, but there is no way they get past whomever comes out of the West. Kobe, Chris Paul or Tony Parker/Manu Ginobili will destroy the Celts. Pierce was great yesterday, KG was surprisingly quiet, but hit shots when it mattered, the flies covering Ray Allen's corpse made a few clutch FT's (seriously, he was on the bench for the majority of the 4th qtr.)

Tonight's game ought to be much more entertaining. No Brewer game, or any TV to affect its uninterrupted viewing. Also, it starts before midnight, which is always good.

God help us if we get anybody v. The Spurs in the Finals again.

NBA = No Black Guys Association?

Right now I am watching Game 5 of the Lakers/Jazz series and these are the players that are on the court to start the fourth quarter:

Jazz
F Matt Harpring
F Andrei Kirilenko
C Mehmet Okur
G Deron Williams
G Kyle Korver

Lakers
F Luke Walton
F Vladimir Radmanovic
C Pau Gasol
G Jordan Farmar
G Sasha Vujacic

That's 8 white guys and 2 black guys that look like white guys. I haven't really paid a lot of attention to the NBA this season, except for some random playoff games, but this seems weird. Maybe Jack Morris was right when he predicted during his cameo on the Twins' broadcast that all of the "hip hop thugs" (Morris' words not mine), would go away and the NBA would cycle back to the days white dudes, short shorts and underhand free throws.

CP3 Keeps Me Up at Night

I had the rare opportunity to watch nearly two full NBA playoff games last night. Something that I usually don't have the time or inclination (mostly the latter) to do. The Magic-Pistons game was an accident, but I purposely stayed up past my bedtime to watch the Spurs-Hornets. Chris Paul is a freak. I can't even imagine how fun the Bucks would be to watch if we had him instead of Bogut right now (/smashing my head into a wall). Last night he had 30 points, 12 assists and 1 TO against one of the best defensive teams in the NBA. He generally made the Spurs look foolish. The best way I can describe his play if you haven't watched him, is that he looks like one of the point guards on the original NBA Jam when you use the turbo button and fly past the other guys on the court like they are standing still. He is absolutely playing a different game than everyone else. Really, really fun to watch.