Awesome New Song of the Week "Call Me Maybe" by Carly Rae Jepsen

Feel free to make fun of me all day for this one.  Call me a 13 year old girl if you want to.  But I openly admit that my taste in music hasn't really changed since I was in middle school.  I know it's weird to like the same cheesy pop crap that I did over twenty years ago; but that's just the way it is and there's nothing I can do about it, so I choose to embrace it.  I heard Call Me Maybe when I was a few beers deep at the bar after the Sox game on Marathon Monday, and I haven't been able to get it out of my head since.  I can't wait to hear Carly Rae Jepsen like six times a day at the beach on the Vineyard this summer.

 Follow @LucidSportsFan

Do we have to win it all to be happy?

If you're a girl who doesn't like sports much, today you can read this and this instead.

It looks like Pierce and KG aren't going to play tonight.  Not to mention that Rondo, Ray, and Pietrus already didn't make the trip to Atlanta.  The Celtics have basically come to the conclusion that rest is more important than having home court advantage in the first round.  You can read my explanation of why this is the case at CLNSRadio.com.  They've made this decision in order to increase their chances of winning a championship.  But to me it brings up a very interesting debate: Are titles really the only goal?   To consider anything less a failure is unreasonable, right?  Isn't it still fun and enjoyable to watch a team have some playoff success, even if they don't win it all?

Back before the public opinion shifted to the Celtics being contenders once again, this was my reasoning for why it would have been stupid for Danny Ainge to break these guys up at the trade deadline.  I wanted to see what sort of fight they had left in them.  To me that was something that was without a doubt worth watching, even if it ended with an early playoff exit.  And while resting all the key guys now gives them a better chance to advance further in the long run, it also increases the chances that they might lose in the first round.  I'm not sure how I feel about this decision.  Watching a team win in the playoffs is always good, regardless of how long it lasts.
Follow @LucidSportsFan

4-8 isn't so bad

I'm glad the Celtics are occupying most of my attention at the moment, cause the Sox just haven't been very good.  But I'm not worried.  Remember they were 2-10 last year after 12 games.  And I don't care what people say about the collapse at the end of the season, for most of the summer they were a damn good baseball team.  You can read my recap of the Rangers series for CLNSRadio, and find out more about one of the worst relief appearances in major league history.

  Follow @LucidSportsFan

2012 NBA Title odds

A year ago I wrote a short piece about "the most wide open NBA playoffs in a long time."  I gave five teams virtually identical chances to win the title.  Amazingly the team I thought was 6th best, Dallas, ended up taking home the trophy. This year for the vast majority of the season it looked like only three teams (Heat, Bulls, Thunder) had a shot to win it all.  But with the playoffs looming, it's becoming less and less clear who the favorites are.  Miami has lost just about every big road game they've played all season.  Chicago has the best record in the East, but their reigning MVP isn't healthy.  San Antonio, not Oklahoma City, is the top seed in the West at the moment.  It wouldn't shock me to see the Lakers still manage to put a championship run together.  And watching Paul Pierce put up 43 points against the Knicks made me even more convinced that Boston could still get it done. So here is the list of what I believe each team's odds are (by percentage) to win the 2012 NBA Title:

Thunder: 23%
Heat: 22%
Bulls: 16%
Spurs: 16%
Celtics: 9%
Lakers: 8%
Clippers: 1%
Pacers: 1%
Mavs: 1%
Knicks: 1%
Grizzlies: 1%
Everyone else combined: 1%

  Follow @LucidSportsFan

My first venture into "beat reporting"

I'm going to be working as a "Red Sox beat reporter" for one of the sites I write for, CLNSRadio.com.  Here's my first "series preview" on that site for the Sox-Rangers two game set beginning at Fenway tonight. I'm not exactly sure how I'll work it into this blog, but we'll see how it goes.  And I'm still recovering a bit from yesterday, so I think in the future they'll be a little longer and more interesting.  But the jist of it is the Sox are playing better, the Rangers are playing really well, and Bobby Valentine is bugging everybody right now.

   Follow @LucidSportsFan

The Best Day of the Year.

It's Marathon Monday.  It starts with breakfast and beer (and sometimes tequila) at Thortons around 8 am.  Then the Sox game.  Then Corwalls where we "watch the runners" go through Kenmore Sq.  And from then on, who knows.  Sometimes there's a Celtics game involved late in the day.  Sometimes the Bruins.  Sometimes you have to talk to Cliffy on the phone and try to figure out which Dominos Pizza he could be sitting in front of because he has no idea where it is.

  Follow @LucidSportsFan

I just made the first LucidSportsFan t-shirt

If you're out and about in Boston tomorrow, you may get a chance see it.  I only just decided to have it done yesterday, and it was a lot harder than I thought to find somewhere that would make a shirt for me on the spot.  I went all over the city before ending up at the Cambridge Side Galleria.  The reason I mention this is that while walking around several random people on the street smiled and said hello to me.  It was very weird for Boston.  Then it occurred to me that there are thousands of people in town from all over the place for the Marathon, and they don't know any better.

  Follow @LucidSportsFan