Dylan Daring

All I have to say is Wow! The Spurs are getting destroyed in a way that I never would have imagined in my wildest dreams. They haven’t managed to score more than 16 points in a quarter yet (yes, I stopped watching to write this) and will definitely not break 70 points. I don’t know where this stacks up in a historical perspective, but I’ll bet you it’s pretty bad.

So is this the year when San Antonio finally gets knocked out of the playoffs early enough for people to quit talking about how consistent they’ve been. How many titles they’ve won in the last 10 years. Please. Duncan is a great center and Parker is good point guard. The rest of the team consists of a bunch of role players including the mysterious Manu, who despite having insane numbers continued to come off the bench until his season-ending injury this year. So what made the Spurs so good?

Defense plain and simple. They make teams work on every possession and score consistently enough to always make the playoffs and win a lot of series. However, without the Argentinian flop-fest that is Manu, I believe that San Antonio lacks the ability to pull it off this year. In past years when the game was close at the end, Manu would bail them out. Without Manu opposing defenses can key on Parker, double Duncan when needed and then the Spurs are left with perimeter shooting that is old (Finley) or inexperienced (Mason). Even if the Mavs don’t finish them off, I don’t see San Antonio surviving the 2nd round. 

Good bye and good riddance Spurs. Better start looking for a new Duncan because the current one is running out of gas.

Historians are already licking their chops about how they’ll get to record this day. One possibility is that February 17th will be regarded as the day that Barack Hussein Obama achieved deification. However, the more likely scenario is that February 17th will be regarded as the day that the United States flushed $787 billion down the toilet in order to “stimulate” the economy.

Does this bill really stop the recession?

The question is very simple: will this massive amount of money really stop the recession? Are companies that were going to lay people off suddenly going to keep those people now? Are banks any more solvent now? Can home owners now make their payments that they couldn’t make before? No, no, no and no. That’s the problem. We are frantically running around trying to do “something” and make “changes”, but this blind blundering will only make things worse.

In 2008 we saw the biggest contestant in our history with the $700 billion bank bailout (now being called TARP or something). However, in 2009 we have an even larger contestant courtesy of President Obama. After all, he did promise change right? But who’s the biggest loser?

Taxpayers!

That’s right, the American taxpayers are the biggest losers. Supposedly the purpose of this whole stimulus plan is to make life better for taxpayers, but the situation is such a paradox because the taxpayers are paying for it. How does that help? Take money from taxpayers, run it through a horribly inefficient bureaucracy and hope it makes it back to taxpayers. Do we really think this is a good idea?

Let me pose an alternative: Reduce taxes. But with reducing taxes we should reduce the government. Instead of tasking the government with providing health care, reduce taxes so that people can buy their own insurance. Instead of increasing welfare, give people tax breaks for charitable contributions so that people start taking care of one another. Notice a trend? Let people take care of people/themselves without the parasitic bureaucracy.

Lie detector test! Damn, that is just cruel. These guys are on the show because they’re absolute tools. That’s basically synonomous with cheating and lying. So to wait this long into the show to have a polygraph is just cruel. The couples are just starting to show a little progress and then, BAM, roasted.

However, I was shocked by the forgiving nature of these chicks. Half of them found out that their boyfriends freaking cheated on them and they seemed relieved. These guys must have felt like they won the lottery.

Okay, I’ve been giving Barack Hussein Obama a fair shake by avoiding criticism until he actually starts to act on all the promises he’s made. Well, he has been getting after things and on this point I simply think he’s going too far. 

In a Yahoo story this morning, I read the details on how he will cap executive pay for companies taking government money. At $500,000! Yes I know that to most Americans this seems like a ton of money and shouldn’t be an issue, but all this means is that companies taking government money won’t be able to hire good execs. Obviously the ones they have now suck and they need new ones that are a hell of a lot better, but how are you going to get an all-star, who probably makes millions for a profitable firm not taking government money, to work for a company in the crapper at reduced pay? While well-intentioned I feel this move is more to please the electorate than to actually help the affected companies.

Yes, I am a regular watcher of Double Shot of Love on MTV. Okay, so now that you’ve stopped laughing I’ll continue. The premise of the show is gold. Two hot bisexual women playing 12 guys and 12 girls to find a “shot of love.” So you have all the standard relationship drama plus chicks making out with chicks. Great TV as far as reality shows are considered.

Trevor’s Decision

So both Vikki and Rikki kicked Rebekah to the curb (likely due to the baggage of having a kid already) and both selected Trevor. So the show dictates that now Trevor has to choose only one of the twins. First off, Trevor is absolutely screwed no matter what he does because he has to break the heart of one twin to get the other. Try living with that situation. However, he makes the call and chooses Vikki, which of course pisses Rikki off big-time. All I can say is DAMN!

For my absence I apologize and I promise to be more regular with my posts. You can expect to hear my political rants, my take on sports and whatever the hell I decide to write about. Just a couple of quick impressions before I call it a night:

1. Barack Obama - Congratulations on getting elected. You now have the worst job in the world. No matter what you do you won’t be able to make everyone happy and now you realize that all your campaign promises are virtually impossible. Good luck!
2. Super Bowl - Great game, but it’s unfortunate that the Cardinals didn’t win. The Steelers are a boring, defense-oriented team and without that pick-6 before halftime they lose this game.
3. The Stock Market - It’s below 8,000 and I don’t see any reason it should be higher. I would guess that we should get used to seeing an 8 as the first number.
4. Gas Prices - I can live with gas below $2/gallon, but I would anticipate about $2.50 this summer despite the crappy economic situation.

Good night for today and I look forward to your comments.

At today’s WWDC keynote we heard blah, blah, SDK and then blah, blah, App Store for about 1 1/2 hours. Then Stevie finally got to the part everyone wanted to hear, the new 3G iPhone.

But the problem wasn’t the faster 3G network or the thinner edges. It wasn’t the shiny black plastic back or the all-metal buttons. The problem was Apple’s stock price direction; DOWN!

Blasphemy

Now fan boys, don’t stone me with your outdated EDGE-only iPhones until I explain. Apple stock opened this morning at a price of $184.92, which is like 60 points higher than it was three months ago. However, Apple stock closed at $181.61. So as excited as Stevie said he was about his announcements, if he went home and checked the money bin tonight (which is really just a bunch of Apple stock) he would discover he’s poorer tonight than he was yesterday. That’s gotta suck.

What happened?

If you still want to stone somebody with those worthless old iPhones you can take aim at Jim Kramer. Can you believe the guy actually went public before WWDC with a recommendation to sell Apple stock? SELL? Maybe it had something to do with the fact that Apple is still sticking with AT&T. Maybe it had something to do with the new $199 and $299 prices (though a great deal for you, those prices mean less $$$ for Apple because honestly, you would have paid the same prices for a 3G iPhone.) 

The moral of the story is thus, no matter how “cool” the new 3G iPhone may be, the stock score card did not have high marks today. 

During the season everyone could fairly easily agree that the Western Conference of the NBA was better than the Eastern Conference. Except for the Celtics and the Pistons that is. These two teams entered the playoffs with the two best records in the NBA. Yes people said that the Western Conference teams cannabalized each other and that is why Detroit and Boston could pull off such gaudy records. But their opponents were quick to point out Boston’s excellent record against Western Conference teams. So where do we stand now?

Eastern Conference Playoffs

The East was so bad this year that Philadelphia and Atlanta made the playoffs with LOSING RECORDS! The Golden State Warriors were how many games over .500 and two losing teams make the playoffs in the East. What a joke. So you have the two best records in the entire NBA matched up against two teams with losing records. These should have been two sacrificial lambs, yet here we have both Detroit and Boston tied 2-2 in their respective series. So what does this tell us?

Overrated

Yep, I’m gonna say it loud. The Celtics and Pistons are overrated. Sure they both compiled great records against mediocre competition, but in the playoffs they’ve looked very vulnerable. Maybe they’ll snap out of it and make a run at the NBA championship, but I don’t have a lot of faith right now.

I’ve never personally pulled a hamstring, but the picture of Chuck Liddell’s leg linked here makes me never want to tear any muscle. This would be why the Iceman won’t be headlining UFC 85 in London. I would have put the picture up on my blog, but I honestly felt myself getting a little uneasy as I looked at it. Therefore, to spare my readers with weak stomachs (and prevent vomit from getting in your keyboard) I have only linked to the picture and story. OUCH!