Dave's Thoughts of the Day: June 3rd

Happy June y'all.   Before I do anything I *have* to write this.  I've been *saving* this all day:

The 50 meter freestyle race is the DH of swimming.  Know what I mean??  Extends older swimmers' careers?  Doesn't need as much athleticism or stamina?  It's like a pinch hitting role?

Ok, so let's go... elephant in the room.  Kings first two games at Chicago.  Sorry in advance, I need to vent heah... I'm not going to "complain" per se, but I need to call what I saw in these two specific road games.

I know the Kings are not *that* bad... I also know that, let's face it, the Blackhawks are that good.   This is pretty much how I thought it'd go.  Hawks win both games at home... maybe the Kings get one game at home and then Chicago closes it out at United Center in Game 5.
I shouldn't be insulted... I got this picked exactly right so far.   I had a bad feeling the Kings would run out of gas.   The difference between last year and this year was simple -- Kopitar and Richards were big time scorers in last year's playoff run.  This year they're practically invisible.  Dustin Penner hasn't been doing a whole lot either, except getting to the penalty box.  Oi...

It's fine.  The Kings were going to have long odds either way.  In fact, if you look at where most defending Cup Champions are at this point of the season, they're home!   To see the Kings the year after a title this far into the 'offs is actually really impressive.  Major props to the Kings for the season so far.   Hard to imagine them winning this series after the first two games.  They've never looked worse in the 'offs than these two games vs Chicago.  Not surprising though -- the Blackhawks had the best D in the NHL and simply the best penalty kill going in the playoffs this year.  Still only one power play goal allowed by the Blackhawks in the entire playoffs.

Adding to this, the Kings are simply the weakest team remaining in the playoffs and it isn't close.   The Penguins and Bruins go two lines deep full of scorers.   The Hawks are spoken for, and all three teams have goaltending thats pretty darn nice.  Not Quick nice, but pretty good!  The Kings wouldn't be "this weak" if Kopi had any kind of offense this week, but he's been shut out cold.  I love my boy Kopitar, and it hurts to see him struggling, but that's hockey for ya.  Doesn't always pan out the way you hope.

Game 3 is on Tuesday.  The Kings might win, and they might not.  At this point, it's not that important.  I'm just hoping for a good effort... somewhere around what they did in Game 1 but with better scoring, obviously.

I know there's a Cup title in the bag and a huge run, but as a fan I think anyone would have been extremely disappointed in how the Kings played yesterday.  Once the Blackhawks went up 4-0 early in the 2nd, I had enough.   I turned off the game, used every ounce of restraint I had to not throw anything against the wall, and then went to the car.

Now I was sad.   Really really sad.   The Kings looked so desperate... I was sad to see what appears to be the end of this magic run that (we realized) went two full seasons.   It was so much fun, so many good moments, even up to Saturday.   It really had that feel that it was ending.  So I started the car and drove... and drove and drove... I drove all the way to the Santa Monica Coastline, roughly 3 miles.. then turned it around on Wilshire Blvd and drove the other way, another 3 miles, then past the 405, through Westwood, and into Century City.   Finally I stopped at my friends house and I asked if we could get dinner.  So we did... btw the friend was not Coach.  Different friend, but also good times.

We were at the restaurant, Houstons tonight, with the aid of a generous gift card, and as we waited for a table at the restaurant bar, I showed my friend the highlights of the Kings game as they came up on ESPN.

I went through each of the goals one by one, saying "Let me show you how bad this game was..."

Goal One is shown in the highlights -- "There's part one."
Goal Two -- "annnnd here comes part two."
Goal Three -- "Watch this, oii, here's part three."
Goal Four -- "and just when you thought that was as bad as it got, herrrrre's part four."

And then I waited to see what came next and told my lady friend "see here's the part I didn't see so I don't know what happens here."  Then we see Clifford doing his part and trying to get under Jonathan Toews' skin and out of nowhere the freakin goalie Crawford goes in and wrestles Clifford down.

What the heck was Corey Crawford doing?!   What a joker that guy is.  Go worry about your own net, loser!

After all that our table was ready, we got the ribs and had a great night.

In so doing I got a couple cups of strong coffee, which will explain the date and time of today's entry.

Time for Today's Quickies...     

For years, and I mean years and years, I thought the band "Berlin" was from Germany.   But no!  Last week I found out "Berlin" was from Los Angeles.  I mean get outa here!

Are you guys getting into all the hype for tonight's NBA Game 7.... didn't you all have the feeling this would happen?   Pacers lose a heartbreaking game 5, then come up with a HUGE game 6 to force Game 7, get all this hype for it, and then see the Heat win by 25.  It will absolutely happen too.   I love hearing the panic by ESPN though.

You know why ESPN is panicking.  They put their entire network campaign on LeBron.  Nothing gets talked about more on ESPN than LeBron.  Maybe the NFL, but right now I think LeBron is even bigger.  If LeBron loses here, ESPN is hosed.  They'll have zero info or talking points on either San Antonio or the Pacers.   It would be such delicious theater.

For obvious reasons we are *all* rooting for the Pacers tonight.   and there will be no chance in hell that they win.  Miami will get all the calls, just as Indiana got all the calls in Game 6, LeBron will put up a 35 point effort, and I see Miami pulling away late.   The problems cited about Miami's lack of scoring depth are very real, though, and when LeBron says "I'm going back to my Cleveland days" I sense a lot of truth in his words.

When your team loses a game, shooting a lot of little baskets in the basketball carnival game is very therapeutic.  I remember doing that after the Game 3 loss at SJ while at ESPN Zone.  

Did I mention I had the ENTIRE Primus discography in my CD collection.  Well -- not anymore!  I never bought those discs.  What I did was get an entire lot of CDs from a former co worker that no one wanted.

I think I noted this in the last blog entry.  I finally combed through the discs the other day and found every conceivable Primus CD known to man, including the Les Klaypool solo albums.   This was pretty bogus in my view so I took them and some other joke CDs to Amoeba in Hollywood.   I went straight to the selling counter, where you can sell used CDs for cash and met up with the chill dude with the glasses.

He was rolling through the CDs and he saw all the Primus discs... then he asked me "Oh you ever go to the Primus 3D shows?"  Now I was in a tough spot.   I cannot *stand* Primus, but the jolly ole dude was so enthusiastic about them I had to play along.

So I said "Oh wow, 3D huh?  Adds a whole new dimension eh?"  [grins, adjusts mic]

He was all about those 3D shows... told me how if a bigger group did a 3D backdrop for their shows it'd blow up.  He's right too... but I did say "I should check that 3D show out sometime."

I should... doesn't mean I *will*.  Hee hee...  Needless to say, the collective works of Primus and other assorted garbage netted me 45 bones in cash on the used market.  Great news indeed.

Packing is going well!  I have just about all my clothes packed up except for the clothes in current rotation.  That's next, but I should have an entire plastic storage bin ready to fit them all.   Do the dance!

I saw some old video footage of New York City on Youtube yesterday.  My favorite part was the color film of Times Square from 1959.   The displays were really inventive.  I do not know *how* they animated the figures in the LIFE magazine ad.  This was 1959... digital computer animation was nil... but that animation they had of the ballet within the "LIFE" logo was utter brilliance. 

With every advance in technology, we get that much lazier with our own creativity.  It allows for greater potential with art and graphics (or sound), but it also takes a lot of guess work out, but this cheats us, I think of better engineering and design.

To pose an example, compare band and movie logos of the 60's and 70's with band and movie logos of today.  Photoshop and digital font selection seem to make these elements more generic.   I was also thinking, simultaneously, that no single decade had better band logos than the 70's.  Not one!!

Every big band to come out in the 70's had an identifiable image for their logo:  The Rolling Stones, Yes, Led Zeppelin, Van Halen, Foghat, Chicago, Boston, Kiss, The Jackson 5, Foreigner, K.C. and the Sunshine Band, the Commodores, and the list goes on and on and on and on.  It was tremendous.

Dense entry today, but I hope you enjoyed it!  Catch you all tomorrow...