literally

when i was still a kid, a classmate once asked me if i knew "Total Eclipse of the Heart". being the moron that i was, i thought it was some scientific discovery about our anatomy. fuck if i knew who Bonnie Tyler was. turns out there's another take on this.

hail to the King

2nd finals ... Not.

even Jordan needed Scottie Pippen, Horace Grant, Bill Cartwright, Dennis Rodman, Steve Kerr, John Paxson, BJ Armstrong, Ron Harper, Luc Longley ... you get my drift.

apparently, none of his current Cavs come close to any of the aforementioned.



the highlight of the season is obviously this:




so, what say you, BronBron? care to win one in the Big Apple?

(in) Spector Phil

be a man!

we've been watching these clips for weeks now and somehow they never get old.

for those without cable

watch the Magic go to the NBA Finals! or the Cavs live to play another day. either way, go to atdhe.net.

off

... to the City of Brotherly Love. otherwise known as Killadelphia. brb.

he ain't Solozzo ...

but he's still the Turk.




but he ain't the KING.


whoa.

what a finish.

a lot of people probably had a stroke tonight.

we should never be bored

i must be in the minority. i went out to see Wolverine, and i plan to go see Star Trek, but i haven't played any PS3 game in the last month or so. wow - that last sentence just blew me away.

with all the things we can do in this day and age, this generation should never be bored. fine, a lot of them are having their brains rot from sedentary activities (tell that to the gamers!), but my point is how come there are still people who commit crimes or get nutty socially-unproductive ideas out of sheer boredom?

or maybe my point is just trying to make up an excuse to go play video games. because i'm bored.

"walk" is in the name, after all ...

uh, will somebody tell Sony they're at least two years too late?

Jeff Dunham & Achmed the Terrorist

and apologies won't cut it either.

somebody do something about this.

its a kind of magic

... by way of Seattle, and not named Ray Allen. Orlando beats the King, without Superman.

i want it with teeth, dammit!

oh ..... reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaally?

now I have to subsidize those delinquents? you must be joking. you can shove these cards up your candy asses!!!

that's it?!

that's your slambang finale?? Tony blinded by revenge, Alan Wilson getting arrested, Olivia handed over to the DOJ and Jack about to die? heck, we didn't even see Renee shoot Wilson in cold blood.

"we know you're still gonna watch next year! suckerzzzzzzzzzzzzz!"

how about we find out Olivia was the true mastermind (naaahhh)? or Ethan Kanin? or the First Gentleman? (now that wouldn't really make sense) i was expecting something really wild and over the top - the "over the top" part was you can actually get the whole season in DVD today as you read this!

word on the street is that next season will involve another Middle Eastern terrorist (Slumdog Millionaire's TV host). surely, Kim Bauer's volunteering for the stem cell fix will allow Jack to miraculously recover just in time to kick bad guy ass once again. they won't be able to prosecute Tony, Olivia, or Wilson (if he is still alive by 2010) because they'll have their hands full with the next crisis. give Kim a gun; she can shoot, right?


i can't imagine this all happened in 24 hours.

hey, Celtics!

not to pile on or anything. i still love the Big Three, especially KG, and if you had gone to the Finals to face Kobe again, i'd be rooting for you.

but you know why you lost?


it's that little walking chunk of bad luck on the left in the pic above.


why else would KG get injured? because he didn't wanna play with this slimy piece of shit. "Starbury" left him in Minnesota because he was so jealous (of Garnett's contract and the attention), and look where that got him. it was probably only due to the good karma and vibes generated by the Big Three that the Celtics didn't immediately sink right after they signed him.

dump him, and get back to the Finals next year. don't waste Jesus Shuttleworth's legs and sweet shot. you got a two-year window. Rondo will be in his prime then.

bring it!

Superman vs The King, NBA Eastern Finals.


now i'm really torn on this one. for sentimental reasons.

at least the Magic fulfilled did their part; the Rockets choked and allowed Black Mamba in. so for the Western side, i'd be hoping Denver gets to knock them off.

i never thought i'd see the day

... i'd be wearing a Francis M t-shirt.



(thanks, bro!)

5 for playing: The Jets

via Tonga and Minneapolis, the Wolfgramm siblings usurped the name of New York's storied green-garbed football team and turned themselves into a hit machine worthy of teenage adoration and gyration. there exists a state of music called bubblegum pop, where everything is perfect and eternal, and very few pop artists achieve this state, and even fewer stay in it. the Jets (who are still doing performances from time to time to date) encapsulated their careers by being in this zone. if that's not enough, they also have three things going for them: (1) they knew when to throw in the towel; (2) they're no slouches in musical talent and living the Minneapolis funk served them well; and the best part (3) they're not the Jacksons - do you know of any (U.S.-based) musical family that didn't disintegrate into an ego-centric, feuding, mudslinging, little-boy-molesting, drug-sniffing, scandal-ridden, discombobulated mess? case closed.

stop laughing and lower those eyebrows. wait till i unleash my Debbie Gibson post, hala.

5. tie - Anytime, Magic (1987)


Make It Real, Magic (1987)

4. You Got It All, The Jets (1985)


3. Curiosity, The Jets (1985)


2. Crush on You, The Jets (1985)


1. Cross My Broken Heart, Magic (1987) & Beverly Hills Cop II soundtrack (1987)

Jets - Cross My Broken Heart
Uploaded by jpdc11 - Music videos, artist interviews, concerts and more.

join the fight!

but on the other hand, the Mavs survived a sweep

Dirk, Dirk, you naughty German.

and now a message for the MTA

F** You! you hold us hostage twice - first by crappy service, then the threat of fare hikes. you're gonna raise them anyway, regardless of what we do. what's that? you can't hear me? that's how your P.A. systems work in your stations and your trains, M****ers!!! yes, i'm like Rahm Emanuel!!

wooohoooo! can i have mine written off too? clean slate!

e for expensive

hold up! don't declare it kindling yet. piracy may just save the Kindle, says TechCrunch.

The Kindle DX changes that. Just find the book you want in PDF form, upload it to your Kindle over USB, and you’ve got a perfectly readable and convenient textbook. Sure, students will have to deal with the usability issues I raised above, like slow highlighting. But these books, frustrating as they might be, will be 100% free. That’s $300 per quarter in extra beer money. Most obstacles and morals fade quickly in the face of that much alcohol.

hehe i agree in a way. i know first-hand how expensive books can be for students, and i'm stuck with books here that its much more hassle to resell than to just plunk down at the neighborhood Salvation Army store or leave it at the building stoop for anyone to pick up. most likely, they will still be traveling with me if i ever move into a new place. harking back to my college days, we just used to photocopy book chapters that we needed, due to shortage (of both books and funds), but lugging all those stapled papers can be a pain (literally as well, with the paper cuts). i find myself envious of the Internet Generation because of the wealth of information at their fingertips, and the advent of multiple devices to store such information, which would have been quite an advantage back in the '80s, or really, in any generation.

but back to the pirated books for Kindle: for students to be able to do this, they would need to make that $489 (granted, one-time) investment for the Kindle device. unless they had rich parents (in which case, buying new books is not an issue), they have to somehow find a way to pay for it (off their student loans, perhaps? or maybe sell a few joints here and there - not that i'm advocating!).

i never fantasized owning an e-reader, due to the lack of free content (when i mean free, i mean uh ... you know what i mean), and at present, the prohibitive cost of one (whether its from Sony or Amazon). now, with rumors of Apple joining the fray, i might just change my mind. a little bit. although i'm sure the business model is to still gouge early adopters, would a price war be eventually beneficial to the masses that they would fork over say, $250 for a nifty, internet-ready-and-everything-else book reader? why not? it happened to the iPod, although stretched thru this decade.

if that's the case, then i wouldn't mind if i had such a gadget and if i could uhm, appropriate and read page-turners like the one i'm currently holding (Jeff Pearlman's Boys Will Be Boys). damn, i can't put this thing down. not really highbrow, but that really shouldn't matter to the e-reader's bottom line, should it?

who?

this season's 24 is unraveling more like a whodunit, with each episode trying to play can-you-top-that in terms of revealing who's pulling the strings. it seems every time we got the mastermind pegged, the rug keeps getting pulled out from under us. as of the Redemption prequel, we all thought it was ultimately His Snakefaceness Jon Voight/Jonas Hodges (the father of the Jonas Brothers). turns out he's just little fish! and the turning of Tony Almeida wasn't really unexpected anymore, especially with the preseason hype on his return from the dead. with few hours left for this season, the teaser line is that there's still gonna be one more big plot twist, one more big reveal, one more unmasking of a traitor in the ranks. who is the final villain who will make us choke on our eggplant parmigiana, spew our Coors Light at the TV set, and scream WTF! and various invectives at nobody in particular (except the 24 writers)? who is ... the Last BOSS????


Tony Almeida ... ehhhhhh
Alan Wilson (Will Patton) ... his face is already there
First Daughter Olivia Taylor ... 1 in 3 (or not)
Philip Bauer ... 1 in 4
ex-Chief of Staff Ethan Kanin ... 1 in 5 (Chiefs of Staff are always sneaky)
Jack Bauer ... 1 in 24 (ok, joke!)
Tim Woods, Secretary of Homeland Security ... 1 in 50 (running around pretty useless seems like a good cover)
Michelle Dessler ... 1 in 55 (hey, they died, they rose again, they divorced, they reunited close enough to get revenge)
James Heller ... 1 in 60 (all a plot to destroy Jack, whom he holds responsible for ruining Audrey)
Morris O'Brian ... 1 in 99 (he wants Chloe to be a full-time mom)
Chloe O'Brian ... 1 in 99 (she wants to quit the show; what better than go out in flames?)
First Gentleman Henry Taylor ... 1 in 100
Mike Doyle ... 1 in 125 (because he still wants to be an ass, plus he's disfigured - pretty good reasons)
Janis Gold ... 1 in 200
Kim Bauer ... 1 in 250
Kim Bauer's psychiatrist ex-boyfriend ... 1 in 251
Jack McCullough ... 1 in 275
Aaron Pierce ... 1 in 300 (only character other than Jack to appear in all seasons - and 24 is synonymous with death)
Cheng Zhi ... 1 in 400
Larry Moss ... 1 in 500 (are you sure he's dead?)
Carl Benton ... 1 in 600 (are you sure he's dead?)
Habib Marwan ... 1 in 700 (are you sure he's dead?)
President Wayne Palmer ... 1 in 800 (are you sure he's alive?)
President David Palmer ... 1 in 900 (are you sure he's dead?)
Edgar Stiles ... 1 in 950 (are you sure he's dead?)
That Hobbit with a junkie sister ... 1 in 975 (are you sure he's dead?)
President Charles Logan ... 1 in 999 (are you sure he's dead?)
President Allison Taylor ... 1 in 1000
Kumar in a brief, evil cameo role ... 1 in 2000 (because he now works in the White House?)
George W. Bush ... 1 in 5000

place your bets!

take that, you terrorist you.

Empire kicks Starfleet ass

or click here. i think that was just a decoy.

HD rules!

5 for playing: Cutting Crew

pretty boy bands (as opposed to boy bands, who are just pretty) don't really last long. the road to rock stardom is littered with the corpses of those who never made it, and those who at least made an effort. Cutting Crew is one of the latter, despite critical scorn, to have at least a few hits (hey, don't they all?) and earned a few bucks. too bad the '90s happened, and they all got relegated to nostalgia radio. actually, its not too bad because some people still remember them. and the songs.

5. One for the Mockingbird, Broadcast (1986)



4. Tie - (I Just) Died in Your Arms, Broadcast (1986)


I've Been In Love Before, Broadcast (1986)



3. Any Colour, Broadcast (1986)



2. The Last Thing, The Scattering (1989)
(can't find a video - sorry; listen to the song here)


1. Everything But My Pride, The Scattering (1989)

byebye, Papa Dom. (no, not that one)

jury duty. not.

should i use this method next time? oh wait, i really can't anyway.

alas, Encarta, we hardly used ye.

some interesting rock photography

5 for playing: A Flock of Seagulls

everybody knows the Seagulls most well-known hit (#5 here), and their singer Mike Score's iconic appearance in The Wedding Singer. wait no, that was a stand-in. sorry, it was William Broad who played himself in that funny movie. anyway, the Seagulls proudly hail from the Liverpudlian music factory, which count among its prestigious members, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Elvis Costello, Echo and the Bunnymen, Dead or Alive and Sporty Spice. oh, and that little band called The Beatles.

the Seagulls had a pretty short career - they pretty much Scored (heh) during the first half of the 80s, and their timing couldn't be better because of MTV exposure. Score's hair was all the rage, even as the decade wound down. someday, i hope to track the man down in Cocoa Beach, Florida and shake his hand for contributing to the soundtrack of my growing-up years. at least before he croaks.

5. The More You Live, The More You Love, The Story of a Young Heart (1985)



4. I Ran (So Far Away), A Flock of Seagulls (1982)



3. Wishing (If I Had a Photograph of You), Listen (1983)



2. Transfer Affection, Listen (1983)



1. Space Age Love Song, A Flock of Seagulls (1982)