How awesome were these?

I saw Frosted Flakes on sale at CVS the other day, and on a whim I decided to buy a box.  It's probably the only time I have ever bought a box of Frosted Flakes.  Last night I ate a handful of them, and instantly I was reminded of being on vacation with my family as a child.  Because that's when we used to get these:

How great were those variety packs of tiny boxes?  It was the only time when I was a kid that I ever got to eat "sugar" cereals.  And I think since we we're on vacation we rarely had bowls and spoons, so I just ate them dry out of the box.  It was also comical how little cereal was in each of those mini boxes, like 3 or 4 mouthfuls.  Looking back it probably would have made a lot more sense just to buy one regular size box of cereal.  But I'm guessing my sisters and I always fought over which kind to get, so my parents just gave up and let us get these.  I mean it was vacation anyway.

Do the tiny box variety packs still exist?  All I ever notice these days are those single servings in a plastic bowl with the seal that peals off the top.  Maybe more functional, but definitely not as cool.

I don't understand how Lebron doesn't have smart people who tell him what to do

In his flag football game the other night, Lebron James imitated Stevie Johnson making fun of Plaxico Burress shooting himself in the leg.  Wow, that was an unusual sentence.  If you live under a rock (or just don't watch espn 7 hours a day like I do) and haven't heard about the "Stevie Johnson dance," scroll down and watch the second video clip before you read the rest.  Anyway, here's Lebron's touchdown dance:

You know before this happened he told his buddies he was going to do it.   How does one of them not say "Uh bro, maybe don't do the dance that was just a huge controversy in the NFL this weekend, how about something else instead." So here's my advice to Lebron: hire a smart guy buddy.  Someone intelligent with a grip on reality, who unlike you has a general awareness of the world around them.  A PR guy, an adviser, a life coach; just somebody to run things by first, who tells you when you're being an idiot before it actually happens. Whether it's knocking over children at summer camps, or telling the world that his life is better than yours, Lebron is so incredibly good at always saying and doing the wrong thing; and it blows my mind that he allows it to keep happening. Now while I'm on the subject of Stevie Johnson, I think he got a raw deal.  It was funny.  And I don't even think it should have been a penalty.  None of his teammates were involved.  And it was DEFINITELY not worthy of this moronic self-righteous rant by Bob Costas:

Is the BC hoops team actually worse than the football team?

Back in mid September I wrote a blog about how bad the Boston College football team was.  Well, the gridiron Eagles definitely showed improvement and rallied a bit at the end of the season, but they still finished 4-8, their worst record since 1995.  And now it looks like the basketball team is even worse.  They're 2-5 right now.  They lost to Holy Cross by 22.  They lost to UMass by 36.  Thirty-Six!!!  And last I checked Marcus Camby did not play in that game.  The Eagles' 2 wins were home games against New Hampshire by 3, and over UCRV by 4.  In overtime.  And if you say you know what UCRV stands for you're probably lying (it's the Highlanders of The University of California Riverside).  BC looks terrible, and they've only played the EASY part of their schedule.  Guess what's coming: the ACC.  Their conference season kicks off January 7th, at North Carolina.  Ugh.  I think it's safe to say we won't be seeing anything like this:

I still remember the starting 5 that year: Malcolm Huckaby, Howard Eisley, Gerrod Abram, Billy Curley, and Danya Abrams.  Loved that ' 94 team.

NBC is making a TV show of "The Firm"

The Firm is one of those movies that's on TV all the time, and whenever it is I always end up watching.  And now NBC is making a show out of it.  Above is the guy who's playing Mitch McDeer.  Apparently the show is supposed to be kind of a sequel to the movie.  It takes place ten years later, and McDeer and his family have just come out of a witness protection program.  I couldn't find it on youtube, but here's a link to a clip of it on NBC's website.  The show is premiering on Thursday January 8th.  I don't think it's gonna make it.  Not without Wilford Brimely.  The funniest part of the movie that's not supposed to be funny is when Tom Cruise beats him up with a briefcase.  I tried to find a clip of that on youtube, but it's not out there.  Although the entire movie is.  Since when can you watch whole movies on youtube?  I thought about posting it, but here's the trailer instead:

It's weird to go back and watch the original preview for an old movie you've seen a million times.  It's totally not what I would have expected, and not at all representative of how I remember the movie.

Berkeley and St James is a dangerous place

Last Tuesday around midnight I saw this accident happen right outside my work.  Everybody was fine, but both cars were pretty much ruined.  Watching it get cleaned up actually provided some nice entertainment though, there were literally zero people in the bar from 11:30 pm on.  But here's the really weird thing: it was the second time in a month I've seen almost the same accident happen in the same intersection.  And it was at the same time of night too.  And both times it involved a taxi.  Hmm.

I'm keeping this super short today, I'm worried I've been kind of long winded lately.  But scroll down a bit and check out the new "contact email" picture on the side.  I figured it was time I had an email with "LucidSportsFan" as the address.  And that's what I've decided to use as my logo, at least for now.  Got any better ideas?  General comments, criticisms, advice, or suggestions?  Email LucidSportsFan@gmx.com.

The streak is broken... kind of.

Yesterday, after 6 straight failed attempts, Tim Tebow finally completed half of his passes in a game; exactly half.  With his 9-18 showing, the Tebometer is now rising for the first time.  His career completion rate is back to 47.1%, up from 46.9% last week.  At some point he is going to have to complete more than half of his passes in order to get to 50% though.

Amazingly Denver was able to pull off another victory while scoring fewer than 19 points, and I maintain my stance that they have little to do with Tebow.  I think the wins are mostly a product of 2 things: good defense, and coincidence.  That's right coincidence.  It's a fairly common explanation in sports that is rarely given enough credit.  One of these days somebody is going to put up 30-some points on the Broncos and make the "magic" go away.

Even during what is rapidly becoming known as "Tebow Time," on the game winning drive, he didn't do much: 0-1 passing and 3 rushes for 14 yards.  It was the 24 yard run from McGahee that won the game.  Last week I contrasted Tebow's passing rate with Tom Brady's.  Obviously that wasn't fair, so this week I'll compare their rushing numbers:

- Tebow ran for 67 yards yesterday, but he also carried the ball 22 times (the most by any QB in a single NFL game since 1950.  Yeah, 1950.  That's the kind of football Denver is playing), which works out to only 3 yards per rush.
- the fleet footed Brady had 5 rushes for 28 yards yesterday; 5.6 yards per carry.  Hmm...

And while we're on the subject of Brady, he's now thrown for 3,627 yards through 11 games this year, an average of 330 yards per game.  That means he only needs 292 yards a game for the last 5 weeks in order to break Dan Marino's all time single season record of 5,084.  Although to be fair, Drew Brees and Aaron Rodgers are also on pace to challenge Marino's '84 season.

Did you know the Celtics only have 6 players?

So it looks like there will be NBA basketball this year, starting on Christmas Day.  But before that happens, the Celtics need to add a few guys.  Or half a team.  Right now the only players they have under contract are the 4 All-Stars, 98 year old Jermaine O'Neal, and back up guard Avery Bradley.  There's 2 draft picks out of Purdue named JaJuan and E'Twaun (yup, really) that'll be roster spots #7 and 8, but that still leaves them a minimum of 4 short.  They'll probably keep Jeff Green (who they traded Perk for) because they can pay him more than anyone else can.  But I think Big Baby is most likely gone, another team will offer him a contract for way more than he's worth.

That would leave Boston with 9 players and in need of some big men.  Many many big men.  Shaquille O'Neal and KG are going to need a LOT of help under the basket.  Unfortunately the contracts of Rondo, Pierce, Allen, and Garnett don't leave the Celtics with much money left over to spend; and there aren't a lot of good free agent options out there either.  The crazy thing is that training camps and the free agency signing period are scheduled to begin Dec. 9th, just 16 days before the start of the season.  I have no idea what's going to happen, but at least it will definitely be interesting.