Wednesday, October 19, 2016

More NBA team previews than you can possibly imagine

Last month, I wrote a brief Celtics season preview as part of an NBA blog sharing program where everybody who contributes agrees to post each other's links.  Here they all are, in alphabetical order by team:


Atlanta Hawks
Boston Celtics
Brooklyn Nets
Charlotte Hornets
Chicago Bulls
Cleveland Cavaliers
Dallas Mavericks
Denver Nuggets
Detroit Pistons
Golden State Warriors
Houston Rockets
Indiana Pacers
LA Clippers
LA Lakers
Memphis Grizzlies
Miami Heat
Milwaukee Bucks
Minnesota Timberwolves
New Orleans Pelicans
New York Knicks
Oklahoma City Thunder
Orlando Magic
Philadelphia Sixers
Phoenix Suns
Portland Trail Blazers
Sacramento Kings
San Antonio Spurs
Toronto Raptors
Utah Jazz
Washington Wizards

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Saturday, October 15, 2016

I'm breaking the streak at Day No. 2,055

After 2,055 consecutive days of blogging, I'm taking a break.  Tomorrow, for the first time since March 2, 2011, I'm not posting anything on LucidSportsFan.com.

I originally started this site at the suggestion of someone who enjoyed my sports takes on Facebook.  A good friend of mine urged me to write something "at least once a day," so I stuck with that philosophy.  I soon discovered that I might be able to use it as a tool to help me pursue a career outside of bartending (which I officially announced my retirement from on Thursday).  Because of this blog, I was gradually able to write for (and later edit/manage) bigger and bigger sites until I eventually built up a legitimate resume.  Throughout that time, daily posts on LucidSportsFan.com were what kept me motivated.

In a week, I'll be starting a new full-time job as Creative Copywriter for WHOOP.  I can't say for sure what my plan is for the blog going forward, but I do know that it's time to take a day off.


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Friday, October 14, 2016

Everybody figured everything out way too quickly on "Fear the Walking Dead"


In The Walking Dead, it took quite some time before the characters were anything but 100-percent terrified of the zombies (and why don't they call them zombies, by the way?).  But after several years, everyone still alive finally seems to know what they're doing.  The zombies are no longer the primary concern--people have all learned how to handle them at this point.  Other humans are now the greatest danger.

However, in Fear the Walking Dead, the writers decided to hand over many seasons worth of Walking Dead knowledge and experience to the new cast basically right from the start (I guess they assumed that since the viewers already have this information maybe the show wouldn't work if the characters didn't have it too?).  After only a handful of Fear episodes, everybody is walking around all bad-ass, covered in dead blood and killing zombies with their bare hands.

I don't like it.


RELATED: 'Why don't they have bicycles?' and other similar questions about 'The Walking Dead'


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Thursday, October 13, 2016

After a long and storied career, I'm officially retiring from the sport of bartending

In October of 2011, I wrote a mostly sarcastic blog suggesting it was time for me to get Tommy John Surgery to extend my bartending career.  Here's the first paragraph:

"The past few months I've been a little bit off my game.  I'm not the same up and coming young southpaw bartending prospect that I used to be.  At this point in my career I'm more of a crafty veteran.  And lately sometimes I feel a slight pain or twinge in my left elbow.  I mean, here's the thing: I can work through it.  I can still go out there everyday and get the job done.  But I've lost a little speed on my ice scooping.  My bottle pouring doesn't have quite the same rotation.  And I am definitely missing some velocity on my cocktail shake and follow through.  I'm just not the same out there.  I think if I had the surgery I could come back in a year, better than ever." 

Now, five years later, I'm officially calling it quits.  It's been on my mind for quite some time (I actually started a draft of this post in January of 2012) and it's finally time for me to hang 'em up.  A career that began with a bartending class in Boston, MA in 2000, took me to Richmond, VA, Martha's Vineyard, Sanibel Island, FL, Austin, TX, New York, NY,  and San Diego, CA, is coming to a close back where it all started 16 years ago.

Hopefully this will be more of a Jason Varitek retirement and not a Brett Favre retirement.

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Wednesday, October 12, 2016

I have a new goal in life: Get a Chipotle celebrity burrito card

Danny Ainge showed this off to Celtics media yesterday:


Since first seeing that tweet, here's what I've discovered about Chipotle's custom-made burrito cards:  They allow you to have one free burrito per day, for an entire year (or possibly for life).  Chipotle also doesn't like to talk about them and neglects to offer any info about the cards on its website.

From a 2013 Yahoo Sports Big League Stew article on Bryce Harper's:

"The celebrity card program is small," Chipotle communications director Chris Arnold told The Stew in an e-mail. "And we don't really share enough detail on it to make much of a story out of it."

New life goal: Reach a point where Chipotle deems it wise to give me one of these.


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Tuesday, October 11, 2016

Thank you, Papi


If the picture above is worth 1,000 words, the video below is worth about 10 billion:


Thank you, Big Papi.


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Monday, October 10, 2016

Awesome Old Song of the Week: "It Wasn't Me" by Shaggy (brought to you by the return of Tom Brady)


The last time the Patriots played the first four games of a season without an appearance from Tom Brady?  In 2000, when they started 0-4.  Brady made his widely unheralded NFL debut on Thanksgiving day of that year, during a 34-9 loss in Detroit.  Tom was 1-3 for 6 yards (slightly less productive than the 28-40 for 406 yards he put up Sunday to kick off his 17th season in the league).

Climbing up the pop charts that week was Shaggy's It Wasn't Me:





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Sunday, October 9, 2016

Presidential debate moderators need more power--how about a mute button?


The moderators in presidential debates should have the ability to stop the candidates from speaking when their time is up, and also force them to actually answer the questions that are asked.  Here's the best available solution in my book:


A couple other possibilities I'd also support:

- The candidates' microphones could mute automatically for 10 seconds after their allotted time has run out.
- In addition to a moderator-controlled mute button, how about a black curtain that pops up and hides the candidate from our view?  That way, when they fail to answer a question they can be muted and/or blocked from sight until the do.


UPDATE:
Around the Horn host Tony Reali clearly read this blog and decided to voice his agreement on Twitter:



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Saturday, October 8, 2016

Does the meat on this sandwich look good to you?

I am not a fan of pork belly.  Some people love it, but I don't understand the enjoyment of eating a giant glob of fat.  Having said that, I feel like the pork belly in this Arby's sandwich has to look fairly unappealing even to those who do appreciate pork belly.



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Friday, October 7, 2016

I need to be able to send myself email from my brain

Most of my best ideas come when I am doing one of the following three things: Jogging, showering, or lying in bed trying to fall asleep.  I guess that makes sense though, since those are the occasions that my brain is unoccupied and free to wander.

However, it's a sad irony that those are also the times that it's most difficult for me to make note of these inspirations.  Solution?  I need to be able to send myself an email directly from my brain.  Then when I wake up/get out of the shower/get home, there it is, sitting in my gmail inbox.

That should be doable, right?  I mean, it looks like people first started figuring out how to send emails between brains back in 2014, and I don't even need to get my messages into a second brain.


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Thursday, October 6, 2016

Can this 16-year-old 7'2" basketball player be for real?

I saw this tweet from Bleacher Report yesterday, and if you're not already familiar with Chol Marial, it's definitely worth watching the 45-second video:


My first thought is, I can't even imagine what it must be like for the kids who have to take on Cheshire Academy--I'm pretty sure the starting center on my high school team was 6'3".  Here's another clip I found of Marial as a freshman last season:



I wouldn't be surprised if he's actually 19, but still...



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Wednesday, October 5, 2016

Memo to Toronto Blue Jays: Two locker-room celebrations in three days is weak sauce

The Blue Jays celebrated clinching a playoff berth on the final day of the season Sunday with a champagne-soaked celebration in the visitors' locker room at Fenway Park:


On Tuesday, two days later, Toronto beat Baltimore in the Wild Card Game to advance to the American League Division Series--and then went through the entire ordeal again:


New t-shirts.  Probably new goggles as well.  And a whole bunch more champagne.

I get it the first time--you're celebrating the success of a 162-game season.  But seriously, what's different about your mindset 48 hours later?  "Woo-hoo!  We haven't been eliminated from the playoffs since we qualified two days ago!  Let's get nuts!"  I have to think some of the players must have been thinking "Seriously?  Are we actually going to do this again?  Do I really have to put on all that stupid crap and get soaked in booze for the second time in three days?"

This reminds me of that episode of How I Met Your Mother where Ted throws a party so he can hang out with Robin, but when she doesn't show up he hosts one the next night too, then the night after that also:



The postseason continues for the Blue Jays in Texas at 4:30 pm Thursday.  Hopefully they can still play after two days of partying.


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