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Matthew

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Everything posted by Matthew

  1. Another bad outcome of long distance flying: It murders your ears. Just had a four hour surgery to repair a gapping hole in my eardrum the occurred a couple of flights ago, on a trip to Africa, and the doctor put a tube in the other ear. That I kept flying to Africa after that happened didn't help either, but the ENT said it would not make any difference. Guys & Dolls, take care of your ears! I don't what I would do if I couldn't hear music anymore -- that's a scary thought.... edit for spelling
  2. Call me crazy, but I actually think a Peggy Lee / Dave Matthew album would have turned out very nice. He did a nice job with Nina Simone & Esther Phillips. YMMV
  3. I'll go with OKC again to beat the spread. 192.5 seems a little low to me, I'll go with the over. I'm not doing too good at these picks, thankfully, my gambling days are long gone....
  4. Don't worry -- you can kick his ass!
  5. I love this album, good buy.
  6. Loser Celtic Fan Still Whining About Bird's Missed Shot At The End
  7. My favorite T. S. Eliot quote was when he told Thomas Merton: "A poem is a temptation I resist for years."
  8. What is that noise now? What is the wind doing? Nothing again nothing.
  9. Giants lose two of three to the Mariners, great game today though with Felix Hernandez and Madison Baumgarner pitching great. It was 1-1 until the bottom of the 9th when the Mariners got three hits off Sergio Romo for the win. Giants play the Angels next, and will be a very tough series.
  10. My pick: OKC -- think Oklahoma will beat the spread, teams seem very closely matched O/U -- *Sigh* I'm going under again. Good thing I'm not putting $$$ on this series, I'd be broke.
  11. Lincecum again bombs out in a start, and he looked terrible doing it. If this was Barry Zito, there would be screams for yanking out of the rotation. Lindecum is 28, he needs to begin to get his head together or his career will be taking a major down turn. On another note: I have to go to Washington on business for 10 weeks, so I'll be seeing a lot of the Mariners, who don't look too bad, but don't look too good either....
  12. I sent an email today asking if more are on the way. If there is an answer, I will let people know
  13. I'm now down to three sets, I discovered that I was just looking at them on a shelf, so I traded them in. It had become a "thing" for me to get each set, so I said "enough is enough." Don't miss them either.
  14. One of those albums you buy, play once, and put away. I guess like everyone had to do a Bossa Nova album later on, in the early 60s, everyone had to do a New Thing album -- but Bob James of all people?
  15. Hmmmm, now I'm interested in getting it, thanks.
  16. The Norm Van Lier & Jerry Sloan backcourt tandem could never exist nowadays.....
  17. Completely agree, Stern keeps his head buried in the sand about the integrity issues the league has, e.g., officiating of the games, the whole Charlotte bs of a NBA owned team getting the no.1 draft pick, nixing the Chris Paul trade to the Lakers, etc. Stern needs to retire after the season and let a new person take over as Commissioner. I'm wondering -- has anybody in this thread who has spouted conspiracy theories about NBA refereeing ever attempted to referee a basketball game? Of any sort, at any level. I would say basketball is the most difficult to officiate of the four major professional sports. There is constant motion, everywhere on the court, in all directions. (Except maybe when the Heat get into one of their lulls on offense -- then everyone just stands around for 15 seconds.) What's more, there is so much about the game that is open to interpretation. Multiple fouls could plausibly be called on every single possession. It is up to the referees to interpret the game according to some reasonable standard appropriate for the game, to keep that standard fair throughout the game (although they may adjust in order to clamp down on a game that gets too heated, etc), to incorporate into their officiating whatever directives have been handed down by Stern & Co this week, and to effectively discern between "real" fouls, "flops", and "flops" intended to sell a "real" foul. All while running up and down the court with the players for 48 minutes. It is not an easy job. It is very easy, meanwhile, to notice after watching a slow-motion instant replay three or five times that of course that ref was wrong, gosh what was that bonehead thinking? If you want to argue that there should be more instant replay, a ref in a booth just to review calls immediately, etc, I'm all for it. I wonder where they will find more refs though, given how apparently incompetent this batch is. Does anybody have any tales of elite basketball referees who have been shut out of the NBA because of David Stern's massive conspiracy to make refereeing bad? Of course, the best source for the NBA ref conspiracy theory stuff is Tim Donaghy - a gambling addict who fixed games and then tried to make money and third-rate fame off a sensationalist "tell-all" book. He is pretty much the only person with any real connection to the game who insists there is massive conspiracy and corruption. He insists this in opposition to what pretty much everybody else involved with the game, broadcasting it, intelligently analyzing it, etc, say. Somehow, conspiracy theorists twist this into evidence for the existence of a conspiracy. The entire rational world disagreeing with Donaghy proves there is a conspiracy -- it's a massive conspiracy to disagree with him to cover up the massive refereeing conspiracy! Donaghy had a column on Deadspin a year or two ago during the playoffs. He was supposed to put together a highlight reel each night of bad calls that proved refs were corrupt. His reels indicated nothing of the sort. The column quietly disappeared. Read: http://espn.go.com/b...onable-punditry http://sports.espn.g...tory?id=4603209 http://espn.go.com/b...up-weaker-teams http://espn.go.com/b...ld-he-be-caught http://espn.go.com/b...claims-on-trial http://espn.go.com/b...of-dick-bavetta (Of course that's on ESPN...so it's part of the conspiracy.) As for the bullshit about the lottery being rigged in Charlotte's favor: http://nba-point-for...-seem-that-way/ (That's on Sports Illustrated though...not ESPN, not as closely aligned, but still. Conspiracy!) I'm not talking about any conspiracy theories, what I am saying is the the quality of the officiating is horrible, and that was a conscious decision made by Stern and the owners with the NBA referee strike in 1995. The outcome of that was to strive to have refs with no personality, and no guts, but a bunch of pliable nobodies who worship the superstars of the league. You do not need a conspiracy theory when the refs are crap and treat players like LaBron with kid gloves. Of course, the lottery was not "fixed," but frick-on-a-stick, anyone knows that the whole situation stinks to high heaven when the Commissioner of the NBA is making personnel decisions on a trade by some mysterious "player value" equation. These are conflict of interest cases that are, and should be, easily avoided, especially in today's blog-o-fanatic atmosphere. edit for spelling
  18. I only know of Bob James through his CTI days, so I was interested in finding out that he recorded an album for ESP: Explosions. Any thought on this album? Worth looking into? Hard to believe James as an avant-garde artist.
  19. Completely agree, Stern keeps his head buried in the sand about the integrity issues the league has, e.g., officiating of the games, the whole Charlotte bs of a NBA owned team getting the no.1 draft pick, nixing the Chris Paul trade to the Lakers, etc. Stern needs to retire after the season and let a new person take over as Commissioner.
  20. Gladly sent my small contribution. Many thanks for the board!
  21. ESPN is still saying they might resume -- I mean, they showed pictures of two guys poking the ground with three pronged sticks, what more is needed?
  22. I was listening to Stanley Turrentine / Milt Jackson's album Cherry this morning, and absolutely loved this version of I Remember You
  23. I don't go to Wounded Bird too much for jazz cds, but I have the Farrell's, and to my ears, they sound okay (though I'm having an operation on both ears next week, so I might not be the best source), they are nice to have nonetheless. Most of my WB buys have been rock cds of obscure 70s rock bands -- hey, there's no accounting for taste! I just wish CTI will release new remasters as I thought they did a great job last year. edit for spelling (which I'm hopeless at)
  24. Hehe, people were probably freakin' out in sports book parlors when LaBron hit the free throws to put it over the line -- I always hated action like that on my bet.
  25. Really? I'd take the under thinking Miami will make some adjustments and come up with a big defensive effort tonight.
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