Light, fluffy, delicious

My faithful reader(s) want more blog, so who am I not to give the people(s) what they want?
Quick hitters:
It's hot here.
I went to Phoenix yesterday, hit up a guitar store and also saw Little Miss Sunshine at one of Phoenix's eleventy gazillion Harkins movie theaters. The movie is very funny, very poignant and at times very uncomfortable. I give it two unopposable thumbs up. I did not buy a guitar but enjoyed looking at them.
The U.S. looked good in beating Australia. It's only going to get tougher, but they seem to be playing well. Their performance far outpaces the announcing team tossed at us by ESPN. In addition to, you know, not bothering to go to Japan where the games are played, the announcers have seemed borderline incoherent.
I think Germany should be tough, but they really are a one-man show. To even things up, I think the U.S. should give Kirk Hinrich and Brad Miller to Germany, however, for the game they will be known as Kurk Heinreich and Brad Muller. (I wanted to put an umlaut over the "u" ((special double parentheses edition: not to be confused with "The U," which according to Michael Irvin constantly reminding us, is quite a football school!)) in Muller, but I can't figure out how to do it with my keyboard. So for the sake of this rather long, elaborate and nearly incomprehensible "joke" (((extra-special triple parentheses!!! edition: not to be confused with the "nearly incomprehensible joke" known as J.D. Gautreaux))), please place two small dots - in your mind only, not on the screen, you ninny! - over the second letter in Muller).
I did some domestic chores today, and I really don't like weed wacking. I spend 75 percent of my time trying to replace the line, 20 percent praying that the line won't fly out and 5 percent actually doing any edging on the lawn.
Bonus other-blog-mention note: Despite a comment made to his blog, the brains behind Wray Blog has not told me what kind of a dog he is the new owner of -- scratch that, of which he is the new owner. The Yumanity and dog lovers worldwide wait with baited breath to know to which genus Athena belongs.
I'm playing in a basketball tournament this weekend, so I'm in focused preparation. This entails wishing I had more time to practice my jump shot and instead using my time to come up with witty banter to fire at fellow players and referees after another of my patented "off the backboard and totally miss the rim" shots. I hope I can get it together in time to not tarnish my legacy. Sarcasm, ummm, yes please.
That's all. Enjoy our Billy Idol tribute band.

Is the mission being accomplished?

In thinking about the goal of this blog (namely, basketball, books and the search for the third thing), I've been wondering if I'm achieving what I've set out to. I feel that my two or three readers would probably accuse me of failure to deliver on the books promise. Basketball we know is covered, and I think the search for the third thing is underway. I've been working hard on it and hope everything will work out.
But okay, books. Here is the list of the most recent books I have read, complete with no-holds-barred critiques.

The Moral Animal: Why We Are, the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology – Robert Wright

I'm not ready to discuss evolutionary psychology with any sort of depth. This was a very interesting book and has made me think more deeply about motivations for certain actions. This book took me a very long time to read, but it was worth it. I would like to find Robert Wright's more recent book, Nonzero, at my local library and give it a whirl as well. If you want more Robert Wright (or any, if you've had none), you can find him regularly parrying, and occasionally speaking about evolutionary psychology, with Mickey Kaus on www.bloggingheads.tv.

Over the Edge: Death in Grand Canyon – Michael P. Ghiglieri and Thomas M. Myers

This one I am ready to discuss. When it comes to books that are exhaustive lists about the way to die on a certain part of the Earth, this is my favorite of all time. It can be incredibly sad, incredibly funny and incredibly instructive all at the same time. The chapter on the 1956 airliner collision over the canyon was also very interesting to me since I knew very little about this particular episode - although maybe that doesn't say much of my knowledge of aviation or geological history. Also, to my readers who may be interested, one of these writers is a Flagstaff doctor who regularly treated people injured in accidents in the canyon or tried to save their lives, sometimes unsuccessfully.

Bobby Fischer Goes to War: How the Soviets Lost the Most Extraordinary Chess Match of All Time – David Edmonds and John Eidinow

This book offers some great insight into the paranoia of the Soviet Union at the time of the Fischer-Spassky match. It also delivers the nugget that Fischer's father was not who he was told, but actually a physicist, who happened to be a Jew, which is extremely ironic to anyone familiar with Fischer's current wingnuttery and anti-Semitic conspiracies. The book is held back by the fact that it doesn't explain much about the strategy involved in the actual matches. The sideshow is abundant; the show itself lacking. Also, there is no current interview with Fischer, which is understandable, but would have made the book more exciting. Still, a solid read.

A Confidential Source – Jan Brogan

A garbage, throwaway mystery that my boss gave me because it was about a reporter. He occasionally gives me these books, which I always dislike. I've yet to like a book that was sent for free to our office. Maybe that says something about the books that need to be sent to our office begging for a review. This book wasn't horrible, but it was far from great.

Current read: The Skeptic by Terry Teachout. This is a biography of H.L. Mencken. I snagged this for $2.99 at my local book shop. I dig it's bargain racks, which usually have a couple good finds, such as the Fischer-Spassky book. I think the Mencken book will be good. I just got started but like it so far.

Well I hope this post, if anyone actually got through it, gets me a little closer to fulfilling my stated goals. Because without that, I'm afraid there's nothing. I apologize for the heavy use of the word interesting. Writing that uses the word interesting a lot is hardly ever interesting. That is a sad thought to leave with, but alas, I'm not a writer. In fact, I'm hardly a blogger. But I'll keep at it, just for the sake of the goals. Happy reading!

L-I-V-I-N

Just wanted to holla (it's actually spelled holler, but that sounds vaguely of Deliverance) at my faithful readership to let them know what I've been doing.

Aug 14: Work, read, sulk
Aug 15: Went to the San Diego Zoo. Best exhibit: the giraffes. One of the giraffes was 18 feet tall. I watched as it relieved itself from about 10 feet in the air. Excellent. Went to the Seaport Village and had a bangin' calzone. Then went to the Embarcadero on the San Diego Bay and saw a triple bill of Mates of State, Spoon and Death Cab for Cutie. All were excellent. However, judging by the ENORMOUS crowd that decided to show up for Death Cab, the city of San Diego may be the pansiest, most emo metropolitan area in North America. As Kat and I were returning on a shuttle bus to where we parked, two dudes who thought the show "totally rocked" proved to be some of the emo-est in the crowd. Also, they weren't very bright, since the shuttle bus was going in the opposite direction from where their car was parked. "But we just thought, hey, it's a free shuttle bus, let's see where it goes." I wish that weren't an exact quote, but it is.
Aug. 16: Work, sulk, watch Project Runway.
Aug. 17: Work, study, sulk.
Aug. 18: Work, read a book at Barnes and Noble that I have been working on for a month because I won't buy it, play basketball (Newsflash: I cannot shoot to save my f---ing life!), watch U.S. put a collective "ehh" on Puerto Rico in the opening game of the World Championships. I think they'll be OK, but it was not a confidence-building performance. My current quandary is whether to tape Sunday's game - it starts at 3:30 a.m. here - or just wake up and watch it. As Kat would say, "Yes, I have issues."
One last thing, if you want to read a blog that takes James Joycean stream-of-consciousness writing to an entirely new level by focusing only on cute shoes and poodles, you must read Kat Fancy, Kat's blog at yumasun.com. It is excellent, and it has some zoo photos! Here's the link.
That's the all the news from here at Lake Hotashell. Dust.

My bad

I know that the idea of jinxing a team of individuals playing basketball in China while I am in the United States seems more than a little farfetched, but I may have done it anyway. Not only did the USA just squeak by Brazil in an exhibition, Carmelo Anthony, the one player I said was the most impressive of them all, hyperextended his knee. I may be forced into silence if these sorts of things continue to happen.
Photos of babies will still be allowed though.

I join the baby arms race

I think my blog receives fewer hits than just about any other blog on the cyberweb. But, I don't let this bother me, and I vow continue to write posts about basketball even though no one is interested. If my blog does have a "rival" it would have to be wrayblog.blogspot.com. The great thing about this blog is the number of photos of babies of all kinds that are included on it. So today, I add my own. Herewith:



Now that that is out of the way. I want to talk about the USA basketball team. I've watched their first two exhibitions and I like what I see on the court. However, I loathe the work by the ESPN2 announcing team of Jim Durham and Bill Walton. Walton is always about as fun as slamming your hand in a door, but apparently for Jim Durham it is still the offseason. In three months he seems to have forgotten the difference between LeBron James and Dwyane Wade. And worse yet, beyond those two players, he has no idea who anyone else is. He was doing a better job announcing the Chinese guys. At one point, he said the US was up by 34 when they were up by 44. He had no idea who fouls were called on and pretty much sounded like Suntory time had started about 12 hours before the game. His performance in the Puerto Rico game wasn't any better. I can't comment on Walton because it makes me too angry.
But I love the team. Everybody talked about needing to add role players to the US squad, but the way Coach K has the team playing, the stars are acting like role players, making role players somewhat irrelevant. Bruce Bowen is going to get cut because everybody is playing tight defense, at least through two games. As for the other player who should be left off the World Championships roster, I'm not so sure. It's going to be a player who is playing well because everybody on the team is doing a good job. I think it may be Antawn Jamison, who is a great player to have because he's big and can shoot threes. It could also be Kirk Hinrich or Brad Miller.
Jerry Colangelo's idea of adding role players was not a bad one, though, which you can tell instantly after watching Shane Battier play. He's doing exactly what he always does: pass, set picks, take lots of charges, rebound, get loose balls and make threes when he's open. In the PR game, he was the only player who already was jumping right away in free throws, so he could knock shots out of the cylinder if it rolled around.
Everyone is talking about James, Wade, and Anthony, who do seem to be the core of the team. But a squad of Chris Paul, Joe Johnson or Gilbert Arenas at the two, Jamison, Elton Brand and Dwight Howard can be just as effective. I hope they don't cut Miller who was excellent against China. He can defend big guys and stretch the defense, which you need in international play.
Anthony has been incredibly impressive. He seems to thrive because the defense isn't focused solely on him. From 20 feet in, he hardly ever misses a jump shot. He just seems to be in complete control, playing smart, having a good time and being a leader.
I think the entire team is not happy with the reputation the USA basketball team has gotten as a result of 2004 and 2006. It seems they just want to dominate at all times, but all I want is for them to win. They don't have to destroy everybody, just win. And they clearly have the talent, the depth and the will to do so. I hope they don't get derailed by anything, and I don't think they will. They go in as the best team, I'll be interested to see if they can leave with the proof.