Mock Draft

Tonight is the NBA Entry Draft. As usual, I'm super excited about this entire process, even though Toronto doesn't even have a pick!

Here's my mock draft:

1. Portland: Greg Oden.
2. Seattle: Kevin Durant.
3. Atlanta: Barring a trade, Al Horford.
4. Memphis: Mike Conley Jr.
5. Boston: Yi Jianlian
6. Milwaukee: Jeff Green
7. Minnesota: Joakim Noah
8. Charlotte: Corey Brewer
9. Chicago: Brendan Wright
10. Sacramento: Spencer Hawes
11. Atlanta: Acie Law (Raptors: Julian Wright)
12. Philly: Al Thornton
13. NO/Okla: Julian Wright
14. LA Clippers: Javaris Critteton (Acie Law if Toronto traded in)
15. Detroit: Rodney Stuckney
16. Washington: Nick Young
17. New Jersey: Jason Smith
18. Golden State: Morris Almond
19. LA Lakers: Sean Williams
20. Miami: Tiago Splitter (Javaris Critteton)
21. Philly: Daequan Cook
22. Charlotte: Thaddeus Young
23. New York: Wilson Chandler
24. Phoenix: Marco Belinelli
25. Utah: Alando Tucker
26. Houston: Rudy Fernandez
27. Detroit: Taurean Green
28. San Antonio: Derrick Byars
29. Phoenix: Josh McRoberts
30. Philly: Jared Dudley

All weekend

Another fun filled weekend. Friday we had small group, then Saturday was Kevin and Anita's Jack & Jill party, and then Sunday was my church's annual English Congregation picnic.

Ina was out of town this weekend, so I spent the whole entire weekend answering #2 questions, over and over and over and over again.

"Congratulations! ...where's Ina?", and then followed by
"So.. how did you do it? Tell us the story!!"

And then people would gather around and I'd tell all about how I proposed to her and all that.. the embarrassing and silly parts. Ina and I had felt like we'd told everyone we needed to tell -- evening changing our "Status" on Facebook, but it seemed to me that there were still quite few people left. At the picnic, people really came out of the woodworks to congratulate me, some people I've rarely ever spoken to came up to say hi and ask about the story. That was really cool though.

One thing I found kind of neat, was how every time I told it, people would be hanging on my every word like it was some sort of cliffhanger to a movie. Plus I'd remember more things to add to the story, little details that I'd missed out in the past. And then everyone would be like "Awwww.." at the end, which was weird because I didn't think what I did was all that romantic..

Anyway I had this pretty funny conversation with one of our friends at the picnic. We were talking about how my parents were planning to move back to Toronto after my dad retired.

O: So are your parents moving back?
B: Yea, after my dad retires, the plan is to move back to Toronto.
O: Oh, I see.. is he retiring soon?
B: Yea, he was was telling me the other day he's planning to retire in 6-12 months.
O: Cool.. When they move back, where are you gonna live?
B: I'm going live at Ina's place.
O: (puzzled look) Okay.. and where's Ina gonna live?
B: Huh? We're gonna live together.
O: (incredulous look) Um.. okay.. but.. um.. shouldn't you get married first?

That's when I figured out she hadn't heard about our engagement, so I told her and the world made sense again.

Topics

Is there a way to refine the topics? Seems like I create a new topic name every time I create a post, so that in the end, I have about 2 post for all 80 topics because I come up with a new word to describe it each time. There's got to be a way to refine it, rename 3 to 1 and have it automatically switch for me..

Rod Stewart

I've been listening to a lot of rock music lately, classic rock. Ever since I started really getting into the game Guitar Hero, and Guitar Hero 2, I've been interested in learning all these rock songs. This morning I heard this song on the radio by Rod Stewart, I know I've heard it before, but it never really hit me before, the lyrics..

Have I told you lately that I love you
Have I told you theres no one else above you
Fill my heart with gladness
Take away all my sadness
Ease my troubles thats what you do

For the morning sun in all its glory
Greets the day with hope and comfort too
You fill my life with laughter
And somehow you make it better
Ease my troubles thats what you do
Theres a love thats divine
And its yours and its mine like the sun
And at the end of the day
We should give thanks and pray
To the One, to the One

I listen to Q107. It's just classic rock now, it's all the good stuff :)

Spurs in 4?

I haven't really watched too much of this series because the Spurs are a boring team to watch. They're methodical and effect, but just boring. Plus I never really thought Cleveland had a chance. I didn't think they were even the best team in the East, they just got lucky behind some pretty terrific play by Lebron James. In fact, I think any of the top 8 Western teams would have a pretty good shot of beating Cleveland in a 7 game series. You think of Dallas, Phoenix, Houston, Golden State, Utah, Los Angeles, Denver.. all these teams could probably beat Cleveland if they had made it to the finals. And since the Spurs beat all of them.. I mean it's not rocket science.

I'm not a fan of either team. However I can't help but cheer for the Spurs because of Matt Bonner, the former Raptor who was a fan favorite in Toronto. The Red Rocket, as he was nicknamed because he liked to take the TTC to work, was just a hard working forward who had a knack for hitting open 3s. In terms of basketball smarts, he never really had any but it was his hustle that got the fans behind him.

So the Red Rocket is going to win a championship ring. How great is that?

Another reason to love the Spurs is Eric Williams. This guy, supposedly the centerpiece of that ill-advised Vince Carter trade, this so-called great model role player who ended up whining and complaining about not getting enough playing time, when in all honesty got more playing time than he really deserved, *was* a San Antonio Spur at the start of this season. But the key is he's no longer. And you just have to laugh because somewhere out there he is sitting there watching this series and pondering what might have been.

Undeserving sequels

This might totally gross some of you out, but I thought of this great analogy for movies that should never have had a sequels. Mind you I'm not talking about bad sequels. Sometimes you had a good movie that had a really bad sequel to it, like Speed 2, or Ocean's 12, Dumb and Dumberer, etc.

But what I'm talking about are sequels to movies that were so unbelievably bad that there was absolutely no reason to make a sequel to it. I'm talking about movies like "Fast and the Furious" which was so bad and yet they made 2, yes TWO sequels to it. "Pirates of the Caribbean" which was just gawd-awful and they again made 2 of them. How about "Weekend at Bernie's", can you believe they had two of those? How dead can the guy be? Wouldn't the body start to rot after awhile? Unbelievable.

Or another example is the most recent 3 Star Wars movies.

One thing I always thought that maybe George Lucas could have done, was say after he made the first one, upon seeing what a disaster it turned out to be, could have just cut ties with the other two and just plead insanity on the first. Like he could have just come to the media and just "Hey you know what, this guy had a nuclear missile pointed at the country and said he'd blow us all up if I didn't make this movie. So I did but then I managed to disable the missile so I'm not making any more of them. Yea I know I said I'd make 3 but I don't really want to subject you to that again, besides I was under duress at the time because I love America and I couldn't let him do that to us." Something like that might make those Star Wars movies slightly more bearable. Then you'd kind of be like "Man, that was the worst movie I've ever seen.. but did you hear that he saved millions of lives by making that movie? Man that George Lucas, what a noble guy, dragging his reputation through a pile of crap just for us. You know, he's my hero."

Anyway back to my gross analogy. When I was little, sometimes I'd take this huge dump and you know it's like the dump is one long strand and it's so unbelievable because it's so long. Some of them would be wound right around several times like a really long snake of poo. Anyway, I'd tell my parents or my brother to come see this unbelievably long piece of crap.

But then the next time someone had a super long crap, they'd invite us to see it but then we'd be like "Umm.. that's okay. I think I'll pass this time." And they'd say "No but this one is really big, and it's got some corns stuck in it.. YOU GOTTA SEE IT, ITS BETTER!", and you'd still maintain your position of "That's okay man, I've seen a long piece of crap before. Even with the extra stuff in it, it's still a long piece of crap and I really don't feel like looking at that right now."

That's exactly like some of these terrible movies that are getting sequels made for them. Can you believe they're making an "Alien vs Predator 2"? And a second "Fantastic Four"? Someone was saying that they think the second installment of Fantastic Four might actually be better than the first. Well I'm thinking that it wouldn't take a whole lot..

Holding nothing back

This CD by Tim Hughes kind of fell through the cracks for me, probably because I spent so much time listening to the Hillsongs United studio album "All Of The Above", in preparation for the concert. In the end, they only played 2-3 songs from the album. The concert was amazing by the way. Check out Andrew's blog for details and a video.

What initially attracted me to this CD was the first track "Happy Day". I had been at Mitchell's with Ina to pick up some greeting cards when I saw the CD on the sample wall. You know, where you can sample the CDs. The first song was so great I had to have the album, so I waited til there was a sale and went and got it.

Unfortunately I've lost my hosting site and can no longer post MP3s as I used to. You'll just have to buy the CD yourself, unless someone's got any suggestions of where I can host my media.. or check out his website for some samples. (http://www.timhughesmusic.com/)

One thing I think that sets this album apart from his other stuff is that instrumentally it's just so much better. The music... fills the room better, if that makes sense. It's fuller, if that makes any sense at all. I'm not sure if I observed that in his previous albums. I mean, we've always known that Tim Hughes is a great songwriter. Lyrically he is solid, like Matt Redman. But musically I think this CD stands out because you can kind of get the sense that it was produced well and that they invested a fair amount of time into it.

Maybe he got better equipment, or his band has just gotten a whole better. Lyrically and musically the album is solid. I am just getting to know the other songs and discovering bit by bit how good these songs are.

Without breaking it all down, I give it 47/50. Go buy it.

Mess

When I look under my desk, I see a mess. There are wires and cables strewn all over the place, and dust bunnies settled in every nook and cranny down there. It's pretty gross.

With all my electronics and everything that I have under my desk, it's no wonder that there are so many wires and cables. I don't even have my computer covered up, the case is somewhere else in the room (probably underneath a pile of clothes) so there is even more dust in there. That's probably the only thing that reminds me to vacuum once in a while.. the fact that there's all that dust that is in danger of clogging up my hard disks.

That's just my desk too. Moving on to the living room, it's just another big old mess behind my television. Think of all the cables it must take. As I have a home theater, I have inputs and outputs coming out of every device and going in all different directions. On top of the TV, there is the digital cable box, Wii, XBox360, PS2. At one point I even had a DVD player and a Gamecube but fortunately these two became redundant when I got my 360 and Wii, respectively.

There's wires everywhere, and dust everywhere. The worst thing about them is that they're both up against a wall and the only way for me to get back there is to pull it out, and when I do that, things get unplugged.

Whether you're a gadget freak or not, you're bound to have some area in your home with wires strewn about. What do you do with all your cables? Are you organized or is it like my desk and living room, just a great big mess of wires underneath and behind?

Here is a neat way that shouldn't take a whole lot of work to produce. It's very creative. I'm convinced it doesn't have to necessarily be beneath a desk but also against a wall or side of a desk. All it takes is a big board with holes, and a bunch of plastic ties, a drill and a few nuts and bolts!

Pretty "neat" huh?

A night of food coma

Last night I had a steak that had to have been at least 1 pound of meat. It was quite easily the biggest steak I've ever eaten. The amazing thing is my brother had an even bigger steak, however, what's more amazing is that I out-ate him. I finished my steak while he only ate about half of his.

The thing about the steak was that it was pre-marinated from St. Lawrence Market, and it was supposedly Black Angus beef. Although I'm still not sure about that because it was really chewy with lots of tendons and fat.

Anyway, I ate about 2/3 of it at dinner time and then slowly finished it off and was finished by about 10:30. Then I immediately went to bed, and I guess I had food coma all night.

The thing about that is my stomach is hungry now, even though I had this humongous hunk of meat. The blood has been in my stomach working to digest it all night, and as a result I feel like I didn't sleep at all even though I planned to catch up on sleep by sleeping 9 hours!

...

Some of my friends, including my pastor, refer to food coma as "itis" or "the itis". I had always wondered where that came from. As it turns out, according to Wikipedia "the itis" is actually derived from a racialist connotation, "niggeritis", used by slave owners to describe why their slaves did not like to work immediately after lunch. This word was then shortened to "itis" after slavery was abolished.

You can read more about "the itis" here.