I've dropped the "blogspot"

Ok, no more messing around.  I'm stepping this thing up a notch.  This site was never really going to look legit with the word "blogspot" in the title.  So it's gone.  I am now officially the owner of lucidsportsfan.com.  If you clicked on the link and it didn't take you right back here, don't worry.  According to google it may take a couple days, and the old address will always keep working as well.  In the short term all this means is I get to spend even more time each day trying to understand the interweb, and many many hours in the near future adjusting to how this page now operates.  In the long term it means I own the name, so nobody can rip it off and pretend to be me once it's gone big time.  I guess I need to order some new business cards.

Have you seen the Coca-Cola "Freestyle" Machine?

I may be way late to the party on this one.  Fast food places in the city are usually much crappier than in the suburbs, and generally the last to get cool new things.  Not to mention it's something I rarely eat anyway.  But I found myself outside of my normal bubble in a Burger King yesterday, and this is what I saw:

This thing is awesome.  It's all touchscreen (although it definitely has some of the same potential flaws as the computers at Boloco and the ipad menus at Temezcal).  First you pick which type of soda you want.  Then you pick which flavors you'd like to add to it.  Everything comes out of the same spout.  There are over 100 combinations.  I went with cherry-vanilla cola.  Yum.  The concept here is really pretty basic, I'm kind of surprised it's taken this long for these to come out.

It wasn't crowded at all when I was there; but if the place got busy I could see this definitely being an issue.  It takes a little while to figure out if you haven't done it before (imagine your grandmother trying to do it), and everybody has to get their drinks from the same machine.

Awesome Old Song of the Week: "If I Had No Loot" by Tony! Toni! Tone!

This single came out in 1993, and I was surprised to find out just now that it only ever made it as high as #7 on the Billboard Hot 100.  I always just assumed that all 3 guys in the group were named Tony; but actually none of them were.  According to Wikipedia (and plagiarized word for word in numerous other places all over the internet), here is the description of where their name came from:

"The group's name is derived from Andy García's portrayal of an Italian American sharpshooter in The Untouchables. In high school, a friend of D'wayne Wiggins joked that the teacher would call him "Tony, Tony, Tony" if they saw the way he was dressed. Originally, the band went by "Tony, Tony, Tony" as a joke, until they realized it had a nice ring to it."


That makes NO sense to me whatsoever, but as far as I can tell it's the only explanation the interweb has to offer.  Also I'm pretty sure the guy in the middle is actually Reggie Miller in 1991.

If you can figure out that quote, or you happen to be friends with Tony! Toni! Tone! and already know why they called themselves that, leave a comment below, email me at lucidsportsfan@gmx.com, or hit me up on twitter @LucidSportsFan.

Right Now the Hottest Team in the NBA Plays in Boston/Celtics May Have 3 of the Top 25 Scorers of All Time

This is a two part blog, but one flows seamlessly into the other.  The Celtics have won 5 in a row and 9 of their last 10, both of which are tops in the league at the moment.  Not only that, but statistically they have the BEST defense in the NBA this year, allowing just 86.5 points per game, the lowest average of any team.  Three weeks ago if I'd told you that Boston would have a better record than L.A. when the Lakers came to town, you'd have thought I was crazy.  But that's the case (Celtics are 14-10, Lakers are 14-11), and Boston has done it behind the resurgence of old guys Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett.

Late last month when his team was starting to play better, Doc Rivers said his guys just weren't in shape early in the season.  It's beginning to look more and more like he knew exactly what he was talking about.  In January I wondered myself if KG could even dunk anymore, but his legs looked as fresh as ever on that monster jam he threw down against Charlotte Tuesday night.  Not only that but he seems to have added some range to his jump shot of late, evoking memories of an aging Kevin McHale in 1990.

Meanwhile, Pierce is currently playing as well as he has in a long time.  His 9 assists vs the Bobcats gave him 5 or more for the 12th straight game, the longest such streak he's ever had in his career.  The fact that he passed Bird on the Celtics all time scoring list Tuesday keyed me in on some other very impressive numbers.  Boston's "Big 3" make up half of the top 6 active career scoring leaders in the NBA (the other 3 are Kobe Bryant, Dirk Nowitzki, and Tim Duncan).

More importantly, this edition of the Celtics could finish the year with 3 of the top 25 scorers of ALL TIME.  Garnett is 19th on the list, and Ray Allen is 24th.  At the moment Pierce has 21,797 career points, and should have no problem passing the the current #25, Clyde Drexler (22,195).  The challenge will come from Tim Duncan, who's got 22,009 career points, 212 more than Pierce.  If Duncan continues to average 13.8 ppg for the Spurs 40 remaining games, he'll have exactly 22,561 at season's end.  Pierce is averaging 18.4 ppg; if he keeps that up for the Celtics final 42 games, he will finish the year at 22,570.  Exactly nine points ahead of Duncan.  Wow.  That should be interesting to watch.

There is a show on TV called "Extreme Couponing"

WARNING: This is long.  It takes more like two minutes to read, not 37 seconds.  But it's worth it.  In my attempt to avoid post Superbowl coverage, one of the things that has come across my television is "Extreme Couponing."  It's a show about insane people who live for "saving" the most money they can with coupons.  The first thing you need to know about it is that the word "coupon" is a verb.  For example the lady in the picture said "I feel like I've been blessed with this talent, being able to coupon is what's allowing me to enjoy my life."  The second important thing is that these people have what they call "stockpiles."  They fill their basements, bathroom closets, and sometimes children's bedrooms with enormous amounts of groceries and other products they buy in mass quantities (also pictured below is the aforementioned lady's "stockpile").  A different crackpot women on the show said "I do think my stockpile is almost as beautiful as my family."

The average shopping experience on the show involves several hours of research.  They meticulously sort through hundreds of coupons and store ads, often deciding to buy large amounts of things they don't even want/need because they "make money" on them.  For example, if the store has a sale on cat food 3 for $5, and they have a coupon for $1.25 off that cat food (and the store doubles coupons) they can technically buy one for negative 83 cents, and apply that savings to other purchases.  Even though they don't have a cat.  My favorite part of the episode I saw was when the lady above bought 35 bottles of Maalox (although looking at both her and her "stockpile" that may well be something she actually needs).

The other thing that happens is they make detailed lists in which they divide the items they are going to buy into separate transactions, because they often have several of the same coupon but are only allowed to use one per transaction.  The kook who likes her collection as much as her family split up two shopping carts of stuff into 18 different transactions.  How the staff of these stores doesn't freak out on these people is beyond me (I know it's fake for TV, but it must also happen in real life).  Sometimes the store doesn't allow this though.  In the case of the lady in the picture, she wanted to split her load into 7 transactions because the store was having a sale for $10 off every $50 spent.  However, there was a rule, just one transaction per person.  So after she and her husband went through, they decided to call all of their friends and waited until 5 of them could show up to help them finish checking out (Imagine if a friend of yours called you up and said "Hey, I need you to come down and meet me at the grocery store so I can save $10").

This lady bought $562 worth of stuff for $25.  But that's NOT what blows my mind about it.  Sure she "saved" $537.  But she bought things she didn't want.  She did several hours of research beforehand (not to mention they had to go to the store at 6 am to make sure it had everything she "needed").  She and her husband were in the store for 5 hours (one hour just to check out), plus their 5 other friends all had to take an hour out of their day to come help.  And then she had to go home and put it all away.  So my question is, what is her TIME worth?  It calculates out to about the same as if she'd just gone to work as a cashier in the store she shopped at.

My reaction to the end of football season

When my team loses a championship, I try to forget about it as fast as I can and move on.  I haven't checked facebook, twitter, or any of my other normal interweb destinations in over 24 hours now.  That is easily a record since I started writing this blog (way longer than when the Sox choked away the Wild Card last fall).  And usually I have some sort of ESPN on my TV in the background all day, but today the only thing I've got on is the music channels in the 500's.  There's a reason I picked the name LucidSportsFan.  It's because in situations like this, I like to take a step back and think about it from a rational perspective.  Sports are entertainment.  They are supposed to be fun.  Hearing/reading/seeing more of what happened yesterday (and the aftermath) is definitely NOT fun; so why subject myself to it?

I'd like to write something about the Celtics game yesterday, and how they're continuing to look better and better, but I think I am just going to take a break from the sports world today.

And I know the picture makes no sense whatsoever.  But it is vaguely related.  It's Rihanna in the movie "Battleship" that's coming out in April, and I saw an ad for it yesterday during the game for the first time.  The guy who plays the vampire "Eric" in True Blood is in it too.

My 100% ACCURATE GUARANTEED Superbowl Prediction

There is one thing that I am absolutely certain is going to happen in the Superbowl today: The New York Giants will have the ball first.  Throughout the season I was constantly noticing that the Patriots were regularly kicking off to open games.  And then I recently stumbled upon this stat: The last 29 times New England has won the coin flip, they have elected to differ.  And on top of that, the past 31 times the Giants have won the toss they have elected to receive.  So mark it down, New York will be on offense for the opening possession.

A week ago I posted a Superbowl poll (look to the right) on this blog.  So far there are only 8 votes, but roughly 700 people have visited this page since then.  That percentage sucks.  So vote if you haven't.  And I'm kind of shocked that nobody has picked the Giants yet.