If they just play half the songs they normally do...


...it'll be a great show tonight.

Thanks so much to you-know-who for the tickets.
- posted by DD @ 10:35 AM

 
This story is ESPN the idiotic
I guess he can name his son ESPN2.
- posted by DD @ 12:03 PM

 
Moore on health care (continued)
Maybe we'll be competing to interview hospital execs.
- posted by DD @ 10:55 AM

 
Moore is sometimes less
I saw 'Super Size Me' last weekend...and it was better than expected, which is saying something, given the hype.

But just as the movie paints a picture of McDonald's as evil corporate juggernaut, and fast food as mass killer, others would have you believe that the movie's creator, Morgan Spurlock, is nothing but a slick con artist out to make a buck and cause a ruckus.
In fact, other films have been launched to counter Spurlock's claims. One fact-sheet tries to go line-by-line in challenging the movie's main points. Even McDonald's is fighting back, or at least their Australia division.

While Spurlock has been described as a junior Michael Moore, the real deal is about to make real bank starting today. With all of the media attention and buzz Moore has garnered in the past few months, "Fahrenheit 9/11" is poised to do gangbusters business this summer...but while "Bowling for Columbine" was a very good movie--though biased and long-winded--"Fahrenheit" may go beyond it for its...umm...creative editing.

The rise of these expose-style documentaries has been met with success (at the box office and at film festivals) and plenty of praise in some (liberal) corners, but also by a growing audience of amateur debunkers. It's enough controversy for a movie of its own!



- posted by DD @ 8:55 PM

 
Black is the new black

And I thought Ray Lewis was scary before.

Baseball will come to DC only over Peter Angelos' dead body...

Stories I came across while doing research for work:

The good.
The bad.
The ugly.

- posted by DD @ 11:30 AM

 
Big changes over the summer

Hermione: twice the girl she used to be.

Didn't watch SNL on Saturday, but heard that this was a funny sketch

A perfect preview gives nothing away.
- posted by DD @ 5:22 PM

 
Stealing is like flattery, or so they claim
Then two writers who I pay quite a bit of homage to--David Aldrige and Lang Whitaker--must be returning the favor today.

Aldrige fleshes out my Wizards reference from yesterday; Tuesday's "Links" tells everyone to forward this one I had spotlighted (though it's not stealing, since I e-mailed the suggestion to him. But no response Lang? Cold.)

Speaking of stealing, we figured out the Mystery of the Missing Alcohol...our window was unlocked. Like an apple pie on a ledge...
- posted by DD @ 10:11 PM

 
I'm sitting here, writing a research brief on heart failure, and a writer for ESPN.com has apparently just died from it.

You know how when someone dies, people tend to gush all over the person? Truthfully, I never thought that was the way to go...not much of a honest tribute. And though I never enjoyed reading Ralph Wiley's commentaries, I still think it's depressing that someone can get suddenly ill and die in one night. Condolences if you were a friend, a fan, or just get sad when hearing about this sort of thing.


- posted by DD @ 5:08 PM

 
Wizards: One win away from the NBA title!
One fan can dream...what if?

Two constant references on this blog: basketball and stories that have appeared on Slate. (I could probably do an all-Slate posting). How Slate came to be...unabashedly unique, the leading Internet newsmagazine, but also operated by the deep pockets of Microsoft(!).
- posted by DD @ 8:31 AM

 
These are my friends
Between last night and this morning, four people called my office phone. So when I got in at 9:30, I had three work-related voicemails waiting for me...and the following...well, I'll let you in on how I began my Thursday.

“Hey Dan Diamond, it’s XXX XXXX. It’s about 12:30 (a.m.) on Wednesday June 10th, June 9th, I don’t know.”

"But umm, it is your duty as the, the blog-watter of DC that you uh write a blog about the Wilco show tonight at the 9:30 club.” [Tone gets aggressive.] “I don’t care if you were there or not,” [mellows out again] “it was honest to goodness the best rock and roll show I’ve ever fucking seen and the best combination of fucking rock and pop music I’ve ever seen.” [Spaces out] “It was just--like--great.”

[Voice gets menacing.] “And if you don’t write a blog about it tonight or tomorrow when you’re at work, I will be very disappointed in you. That’s how strongly I feel about it.” [Message seems over, I prepare to delete it...]

[...but then it starts again.]“And if you need to e-mail me about” [pauses and takes a deep breath] “questions or emotions about the show, I would be more than, more than willing to respond to, because I have absolutely nothing to do at work so you should fucking e-mail me about the show and include the show and in your blog and in post in the next few days, because it was just that good, I mean we’re talking Beatles concert fucking good. So it was that good. So give me a call and I’ll update you and let you know how sh…how…fuck. How good the show was. So fucking post it to your blog. Talk to you later. Peace.”

------------------

Proof yet again that:

1) The readers of my blog tend to have too little work, too much to drink…or both
2) There's a market for breathalyzer-equipped cell phones
3) I am so desperate for material to post that I’ll transcribe your vaguely threatening drunken phone calls

- posted by DD @ 5:02 PM

 
What's more shocking: a mouse in my soup or a new reader of my blog?
I just got some very nice praise from an unexpected source regarding this collection of links and occasional entry...comments which made me dust off the stories that have been accumulating for the past week and rush this update into production, despite the real work I have to finish before I crawl into bed. And if I don't post regularly...well, my job and this blog aren't the only demands on my time.

Thinking about the old days, when I always had time...

As a poor college student, I always wanted to pull the old "mouse in my soup" trick...just for a free dinner at a nice restaurant, never for any money. Thank god I didn't do either at the Cracker Barrel because I might have ended up serving 5-10.

The Ivy League basketball scene didn't have too many thugs for opposing fans to hate on (we tried with Ray Mercedes and the skinny white shooting guard from Dartmouth, but thugs they ain't). So when one of the only real bruisers I can remember dies...sad news to read on Memorial Day.

Thinking about film and TV...which I don't often see

Chick flicks they're not. And on a related topic, it's still unclear exactly for what target audience the Olson twins movies are being made...I'm sure college guys find them hot, but they're not going to spend a Friday night choosing between a keg party and a teenybopper-ish box office bomb.

Still more about movies...the new Harry Potter film benefits strongly from Alfonso Cuaron, the new director...an argument I stole months ago from the reviewer at Slate who generally knows these things. Other good movies I will watch for--though by way of warning, I did woefully predict that this terrible mess would be the blockbuster of the winter--are a laugher, a crier, and a bed-wetter.

A safer prediction: Michael Moore's gathering-steam Fahrenheit 9/11 will be the first documentary to break $100 million.

This new show makes me wish I had Trio...though I honestly like the concept more than the concept of actually watching it.

Sports, naturally.

Kiss the Ravens season goodbye.


The message I got from a blog reader that I referred to earlier? Clearly it wasn't from Ray Lewis, because if he were a regular reader, Ray Ray would remember my feelings of last August 16...they haven't changed.

Other links of interest

Do you get sick of all the newspaper sites making you register for things? I guess this guy felt strong enough about it to do something.

The national spelling bee was in DC last week...even though I loved Spellbound and heard all about this year's drama, I don't really find the contest entertaining enough to follow the coverage on ESPN2. Though apparently my friends think of me otherwise, as I got a link to the following story from four different people. (Which was great, actually; Eric, Emily, Leslie, and Tom, you make updating this blog so much easier).

(6/8 update) Even if you don't like the spelling bee, you have to admit this is pretty funny


The Post talks about the hard times in the life of one of the "characters" from the movie...here's an update, in her own words and via her own blog, on the tale of another.

Saw the June 6 Sunday New York Times Magazine. I have yet to make my way through it, but there are at least five interesting stories that someone else should tell me about. The economics of stealing office bagels, for starters.

And saving the real long, boring sports stuff for the bottom

I gave up nearly two precious hours this weekend to witness an unbelievable basketball game. No, not the shocking Pistons upset...the denoument of another Game 1 that had been decided nine years ago. The scoop...when I was at the gym, I started (and couldn't stop) watching the first game of the 1995 NBA Finals. With apologies to Sports Guy, Lang Whitaker, and all of those who do this for a living, has there been a more pivotal and deciding Game 1 in the past decade? Certainly not in the past few years.

To those who don't remember, or, like I did when I switched to ESPN Classic, have the gist in their heads but the details lost to time, this was the first (and only joint) Finals appearance of Shaq and Penny after a great season. 1995 saw the return of Jordan, the rise of the Magic in the East, the reunion of Dream and Glide in Houston, and really in my mind, the season when the NBA stopped being my parents' NBA and started being my own. The unbelievable playoffs just kept building on the drama of the year--I was too young, nor did I even care, when Bird and Magic were tearing it up in the 80s, and even Jordan's early 90s success was a little bit lost on me. But when Reggie Miller scored 8 points in 9 seconds...when a post-comeback Jordan got shut down by the Magic...these were the first series that I really got into. And it's all about a good first impression.

Which the Magic found out in Game 1. Imagine how different NBA history of the past decade would be if the Magic--up by 20 points before halftime--had won that first game, kept home court advantage, and not suffered the psychological defeat that the Rockets perped with the shocking road upset? Again, to set the stage for those who don't remember (I didn't at first). The Rockets were defending champions, but had struggled through much of the season and into a 6 seed in the West; the Magic seemed to be putting all the pieces into place in the East, with a dominant big man (Shaq), a do-everything point (Penny), scoring guard (Nick Anderson), outside shooting (Dennis Scott), bench strength (Brian Shaw), not to mention the supposedly crucial addition of championship experience (Horace Grant). The Magic had also knocked off Jordan and the Bulls, a symbolic coronation if there ever had been one, as Jordan hadn't lost in the playoffs in 5 years. And Game 1 was in Orlando.

It would be a game that would foreshadow much of the future and confirm plenty for the present (warning: this paragraph is going to be tough to read). Basically, Hakeem used every trick in the book to score down the stretch--though he was MVP the year before, he was even better in 1995. Bill Walton calling a still-raw Shaq's future "unlimited", which in many ways, it certainly was. Robert Horry making crucial plays left and right, which begs the question, has there ever been a more marginal NBA player during the regular season with such a litany of postseason heroics? Horry came out of nowhere with a Tayshaun-esque block of a Penny layup at the end of the first half to give the Rockets some momentum, as well as a great block of a Dennis Scott game-tying shot at the end of the 2nd half (though when "Big Shot Rob" had unconsciously fired a three that drew nothing but glass, with 1:20 left and the Rockets down by a couple, Walton and Marv Albert eviscerate him for his bad decision-making. Of course, his play in the subsequent period more than redeemed him). And Nick Anderson...a solid player who had 22 points through the last 10 seconds in the fourth...and whose career was defined and basically ended with the four missed free throws he missed in the next four seconds (regardless of what Anderson says today, he went from a 70ish percent free throw shooter to 40 percent within two years. Any shooting guard who starts shooting better from the field than the line is clearly mentally hurting--even if they don't admit it). The game itself ended with a remarkable putback by Hakeem with .3 left to win it for Houston, 120-118 in OT.

I'm not saying that the Magic would have taken the series had they won Game 1; it ended up being a Rockets sweep. But maybe they would have had a fighting chance had they not been so demoralized. And maybe a better performance would have played a role in keeping an angry Shaq in Orlando a year later. Or making the game winning free throws might have inspired Anderson to eventually become an All-Star level player. And maybe if Horry hadn't played as well as he did, his confidence would never have put him in the position to make all those huge shots years later.

Oh, and the game confirmed one more thing: I still think Penny was overrated. Not just is, in his injury incarnation. Was.


But Lil Penny was kind of cool.
- posted by DD @ 11:45 PM