Not Hellas Good

I suppose I should add a coda to my posts about the US basketball team's adventures in Japan. I enjoyed watching them play and feel like more than anything else, they just picked a horrible time to play a horrible game against Greece. However, defense shouldn't take a night off like shooting sometimes can, and that is what seemed to happen. Maybe if the roster stays largely the same the defense can be improved. Still, it was disheartening to see them play so well and then lose everything because they played so poorly. It was good to go out on a high note with the win over Argentina. I think that officially makes him LeBronze James, who, despite occasional horrid jump shooting, passed the ball splendidly. If Wade, James and Anthony stick on the team for the coming years and stick together, I think the US can succeed. Maybe FIBA rules and international basketball just aren't the venue for NBA players, but I don't know that there is any better option.
The general apathy by the American public toward the tournament can be looked at in different ways. They just don't care whether the team is good or not or they just don't care because they can't seem to win anymore. The cynical view is that the team is nothing more than a good excuse for disgruntled sports columnists to rail against the lack of fundamentals in the American and NBA game. But I've decided to let that go and just focus on the spectacle. I enjoyed watching the games. I did not enjoy Jim Durham and Fran Fraschilla.
I taped over the US/Argentina game for the gold medal game, which with the beyond lackluster performance by Greece, made me instantly regret it. Greece looked worse than JD and FF sounded. I'm excited about next year's continental Toronto Raptors based on what I've seen of their Spaniards.
I promise - as a result of a court order - that there will be fewer basketball posts in the next few months. In other news:
Tiger Woods - seems to win a lot of golf tournaments. He was on 60 Minutes last night (it was a rerun, but I missed it when it aired because I'm under 75 years old and not in a wheelchair) but TW said nothing of consequence, offered no interesting insight or anything new, period. He did give Ed Bradley some dap now and then, but I think that's only because Ed Bradley wanted to go back to his assisted living home and make everybody else at lunch jealous.
Steve Irwin - sad and bizarre ending.
Labor Day - nice when you don't have to labor.
Brokeback Mountain - I'm going to sound like the Jim Gaffigan bit where he just saw Heat about six years after it came out and now wants to talk about it, but I just saw Gay Cowboys in Wyoming last night. It's beyond cliche to say a book was better than a movie (in fact, it may beyond cliche to say it's beyond cliche that a book is better than a movie) but the Annie Proulx short story is so fast-moving that every single word is like a slug to the chest. The story has such power because of its immediacy, so to stretch it into a two-hour movie (but add little that isn't actually in the book) makes for a slow slog. The movie feels like driving through Wyoming, and that's not a compliment by any stretch. I still found it to be a good film, but it was just too slow in spots. HOWEVAH (said in the voice of the intolerable Screamin' A. Smith) Brokeback is so much better than Crash that there is no comparison. CRASH IS WACK! (also, in SAS voice). I hope my feelings aren't misconstrued. I think I'm being clear about my dislike of Crash.
Blog-a-rhythm - Ryan Adams "Cold Roses." I especially enjoy Dance All Night on Disc 2.