This Kevin Durant shirts & skins pick up game draft commercial is pretty great

I recommend watching it a couple times, little nuances keep popping up:



After a tiny bit of research I've learned that Seat Pleasant, Maryland is where Durant currently resides in the offseason.  I'm not sure how George "The Iceman" Gervin got to be the announcer of this draft though, too bad they couldn't get Greg Oden to to do it (for non NBA nerds Oden was drafted #1 ahead of Durant, #2, in 2007, but was a huge bust).

Good luck to Anton Barrels in the 3:05 pm draft, maybe Durant will have to head back to Oklahoma City by then.  Also I think it should have been the "skins" with the opportunity to select Durant #1 overall; at least back when I played the reward for being skins was always that you got to pick first.


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Have you ever seen an ice cream boat?

For the 4th of July I went to a beach on Cape Cod where people pull in their boats and anchor them right in the sand.  And whereas many beaches you might get an ice cream truck that shows up to take advantage of unsuspecting generous parents, in this case their was an ice cream boat:

The ice creams sold for about $3 each.  If they cost the vendors $1 a piece, they'd have to sell 100 of them in order to make a $200 profit, not even counting gas and other expenses.  And considering it was a two man crew, "ice cream boat worker" doesn't seem like a very lucrative position.

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If you insist on playing Quidditch, don't half ass it

Recently while going for a jog along the Charles River in Boston I came across some people playing "Quidditch."  This happened to me once before two summers ago; read this in order to get some background on the "sport," and my opinion of it.  In this particular case last week I was extremely unimpressed by the participants attempt to recreate the Harry Potter game involving balls and flying brooms. The players weren't wearing any sort of uniforms, and the "brooms" they carried between their legs didn't even resemble brooms, they were just sticks with nothing on the end.  Why would anyone want to hold a stick between their legs while running around playing a game?

If you're going to play (or perform?) Quidditch, it should go one of two ways: Either it's theater, or it's a sport.  It's not both.  If it's theater, that's great, but I want to see real brooms, robes, and logos commemorating Gryffindore, Hufflepuff, Slytherin, and Ravenclaw (for the record I remembered 3 of the 4 houses off the top of my head, I had to look up Ravenclaw).  If it's a sport, that's even better.  But then make it a sport.  Ditch the brooms and everything else altogether and just turn it into a crazy game of rugby/soccer/hockey/handball involving multiple balls and goals.  Doing it halfway in between just makes the players/actors look like a bunch of chumps.

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It's stupid that you can vote for MLB All-Stars 35 times

Online voting for the MLB All-Star Game ends at midnight tomorrow, so if you haven't had a chance to do that yet make sure you get to a computer, tablet, or smartphone and send in your picks.  Or don't, because the entire process is utterly ridiculous.  

After you spend the 5-10 minutes making your selections, entering your email address/other personal information, and typing in the 5 digit validation key, it immediately asks you if you'd like to vote again.  At that point if you don't retype the validation key and hit enter another 24 more times, your input is basically only counting for 4% of a vote.  Or maybe even less, because if you register your email address with MLB.com you are then "allowed" to have 10 more "votes," for a total of 35.  If I wanted to I could do this with each of the 4 emails that I use, making my original vote count for just 1/140th of my potential.  And if I really felt like getting crazy I might just start creating more and more new email addresses in order to give Jose Iglesias his fair share of write ins; in which case the possible number of votes is basically limitless.

Come on MLB, you're being obnoxious and you know it.  End the madness already and just make it one vote per email account.

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I want Wawa around here. Badly.

If you're not familiar with Wawa, it's a gas station/convenience store chain that originated in Pennsylvania, but now exists in New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and Florida as well.  I first discovered Wawa while visiting my sister in college at William & Mary in the early 2000's.  At the time I was blown away by how much better it was than everything else of it's kind; particularly the fresh sandwiches they made to order.

I don't think I'd been back inside a Wawa in the decade since, until this past weekend.  While at a family reunion in the Poconos I spotted one near the hotel, and knew I had to give it a try.  True to my memory, Wawa is still far and away the gold standard of the convenience store industry.  From the incredible coffee selection, to the enormous array of appealing looking pre-made snacks, to the amazing deli/sandwich counter that operates with a computer ordering system (like Boloco, but better) featuring a ridiculous number of choices; Wawa is head and shoulders above the rest.

Which brings to mind two questions: One, why doesn't every competitor start modelling themselves after Wawa?  And two, why do I have to travel through 3 states just to find one?  We need Wawa in New England, stat!

Note: I searched through pages of google images for a Wawa photo, and this was my favorite.  After clicking on the link I discovered that it is in fact the very first one I ever went to, in Williamsburg, VA.  Weird.

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One word of advice for Danny Ainge: Patience

Celtics GM Danny Ainge spoke to the media today, and said that he has no intention of trading Rajon Rondo, Jeff Green, or Avery Bradley.  Whether or not Ainge means what he says is clearly up for debate; but if it's true I believe he's finally got his head in the right place.  I thought Ainge was way too quick to let Doc Rivers leave, and also jumped the gun on dealing away Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett.   But now that those have happened, he should without a doubt take his time before making any other major trades.

My logic for this is simple: In anything you do in the life, the more thought, time, and effort you put into it, usually the better the results are going to be.  It's obvious the Celtics are trying to rebuild their team, but they have no need to hurry.  Their intention is not to put together a great squad by next season, but rather to insure the franchise's long term future success.  Its extremely unlikely that the best way to accomplish this is by making a lot of big roster moves right away.

The 2012-2013 season has just ended.  The 2014-2015 season is still 16 months away.  Ainge should give this process some time, and see what he has next year.  Maybe Rondo will excel at being the team's leader now that Pierce and Garnett are gone.  Maybe Jeff Green will become a major weapon as the leading scoring option.  Maybe Avery Bradley and Rondo will develop into an All-Star backcourt tandem.  Maybe none of this will happen, but the C's have nothing to lose by waiting to find out; all of them can still be traded for future assets down the road.  At this point being patient can only lead to more available options for getting this team going back in the right direction.


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Recycle Sunday: Volume 9

I do this every three months or so.  It's basically a "blog highlights" post of things I think are particularly entertaining and are not time sensitive to when they were originally written.

Given the magical babysitting powers of ipads, why aren't there cheap ones made specifically for kids?

There's a television show called Doomsday Preppers that I highly recommend watching once, and only once.

A Miami lawyer sued the San Antonio Spurs for not playing their stars, but his case was a pack of lies.

I'm extremely tired of sportscasters continually debating which NFL quarterbacks qualify as "elite."

Question: Are blazers on women attractive?  Yes or No?

Easily my favorite commercial form this year's Super Bowl.

My rules for proper sidewalk walking etiquette in the city.

Have you ever decided to find out the gender of your baby by cutting a cake?

The greatest play I've ever witnessed in person during an NBA basketball game.

The worst movie I've ever seen actually won the Oscar for best picture in 2004.

If anyone can explain to me why men use cash and women don't, I'd love to hear the answer.

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