sassyfrass

who should win? should we care?

so, for the first time in four years, i don't have a vested interest in who wins the nba finals. no laker is there, no are any of my favorite players. so who should we root for?

let's break it down:

reasons to root for the nets:
1. dikembe mutumbo. you gotta love this man. huge, speaks like seven languages, has seventeen names, and while he's useless on offense nowadays, he's still over seven feet tall, and can block like a motherfucker. and did you see him dive for the ball in game one? do you remember the upset of the sonics back when he was with denver, the first 8-1 first round upset? give this man a ring!
2. if jason kidd wins, then he's likely to stay with new jersey. which is good, because it at least keeps one good player in the eastern conference, and because kidd & duncan on the same team is scary.
3. if the nets win, it makes detroit look less bad for getting swept in the conference finals. sure, they didn't have that much talent, but they made it there, and while they got swept, it was by the #2 seed in the east who won it all, right?
4. danny ferry. danny ferry does not deserve to win a ring. ever. this is the fucker who, when he got drafted by the clippers, refused to play and fled to itay for years until he got traded to cleveland. sure, you can empathize with him, because it is the clippers, after all, but don't be a fucking sissy about it and run away because you don't get your dream team. fucking play and then go be a free agent somewhere else, instead of returning later to the nba to be a mediocre sharpshooter who happens to sign on with a good team at the end of your wasted spoiled career. steve francis also does not deserve a ring for this reason.

reasons to root for the spurs:
1. tony parker. you gotta love this guy. low draft pick out of france, he's been through hell, but it's only his second year and he's already one of the top point guards in the league. how much better is he going to get? if they win, they can't go out and get kidd, and his confidence and talent will just grow and grow.

well, it looks like it's 4-1 nets. go nets! wooooo.

it's academic, really, because you can't really manufacture spirit; the best you can do is to take an interest in who wins and appreciate the (hopefully) good basketball and competition, otherwise you're just like all those fair-weather fans who don't know shit about basketball and are only rooting because a team somewhat near where they live (or once did) has a chance of winning it all.

when do we get to talk about next year and darko?

LHR-LAX-SFO-LAX-OAK

all right, back from london, off to LA (briefly). i didn't really get a chance to be online to detail our haps while we were actually there, but isn't that a good thing? i mean who wants to spend your vacation logged on the whole time? we lugged the ibook there and didn't use it at all. maybe it would have been different had there been a wifi spot near the hotel, but as it is, i only got online once while we were there, to check email, to see that my pistons were on the verge of getting swept out of the conference finals (ah, well, i'm just glad they made it that far. although it would have been nice for them to win a game or two...), and to see that they had won the 2nd pick in the lottery (darko, here we come!). although, what's up with this firing of rick carlisle? whaaaaat? i guess if we're getting larry brown, but still, how do you fire a coach who won 50 games each season and got coach of the year last year?

london wrap-up

woke up horrifyingly early. got to the airport in time, but did everything horrifyingly wrong: if we had flown british airways like one of the original plans was to do, we could have checked ourselves and our baggage in at paddington station instead of having to haul everything to the airport; we needed to ask for VAT rebate forms when we buy the items, it being far to late once you get to the customs counter; i forgot to return our rented mobile phone to the link store in paddington station amidst all the confusion (thank GOD there's a link store in heathrow-- saved my arse from having to mail it back from the states!). however, we made it home, and all is well. it's cold here, though. i'm going back!

side note: caught the hours on the plane ride back. i thought it was pretty impressive, and probably the best picture out of the oscar noms last year, leaving the actual winner, chicago, no better than third in reality. nicole kidman was pretty fantastic: she pretty much vanished into the role, and you didn't even notice her (or her prosthetic nose) at all.

final thoughts:
1. i love the ipod. heather's ipod was a godsend. we used it to listen to music in the hotel room, via the portable flat speakers we brought, and then we used it to listen to music on the plane, using a simple headphone splitter so we could both listen in. we had like 1,700 songs on there (and i snuck in some eps of this american life as well). fantastic!
2. i got hooked on drinkable yogurts there. we would often get up and out too late for the provided breakfast, so we would buy these the night before and gulp them down in the morning. yummy flavours like honey-vanilla, and berries and such. but haven't found them here, not quite the same... what the fuck is kefir?

things we missed and need to do next time:
1. national museum, national portrait gallery. never made it inside, but since i love portraits, it seems like i should have gone in, doesn't it?
2. drum and bass weeklies: sure to all those londoners, it's just goldie/roni size/grooverider's weekly gig. but shit, that's fantastic!
3. milkshakes at harrods.
4. day trips to paris, day trips to amsterdam. so close, and now so far!
5. globe theatre, to see a shakespeare play. maybe a tourist trap, but still...
6. proper english breakfast. eggs, bacon, what's wrong that? nothing!
7. more of everything! too much is never enough. and there's too much to do there.

london day 7

started off the morning dashing back to the tate britain, for the sole purpose of getting this fantastic bright orange plastic bag, which would be good for carrying home extra loot. it's part of an upcoming exhibit from an artist that i embarrassingly don't remember the name of, but as an abject object, it looks cool. the museum store clerk did question us to see if we knew what the hell the actual words on it (if one thing matters, everything matters) meant and referred to, but hmc passed with flying colors and we were allowed to purchase it in good intellectual standing. sheesh.

finally met up with wanda at some very hard-to-find pub (admittedly of my choosing, but highly recommended out of the timeout london guidebook), where we found her being bought drinks by english businessmen because she had left her wallet at home. it was a great pub, though, the pride of the spitalfield's off of brick lane, providing a real london experience with the locals.

after an agonizingly long yet tasty lunch on brick lane proper, we finally made it to spitalfield's market, which is open on thursdays for fashion wares. however, getting there at 4pm is way too late, with most packed up and the rest in process. however, heather got a great skirt and wanda a great suede travel duffel, so it worked out ok.

later, we met up with pam, jags, sonia, preveen, & iffitz(?) for pam's pre-birthday dinner, since we and sonia were going to miss her big bash on saturday. yummy moroccan food. the tahine lamb was simply fantastic. and it had eggs! yum! afterwards we hit a couple of clubs, the bridge and tunnel (i think the location of goldie's weekly?) and later the rhumba room for some drumb and bass. everyone was quite determined to get me drunk: three vodka & cranberries and a cosmo. i guess if you're in a country where drinking is the national pastime, you have to expect these things.

london day 6

tates! after much todo, met up at the tate britain with wanda. did i mention again about how mobiles would have made things like this easier? went through about half of the tate britain, which dramatically brought down our art/hour ratio that we had been so good at. took the millenium ferry over to the tate modern, which is a fantastic building: also an old power station, designed by the same person who did the battersea power station and the classic british red telephone booth! it's an incredible structure- they've taken the front half and made it into museum space, and the back half is entirely empty and cavernous. really phenomenal. it's just a beautiful beautiful space. i love it.

after that and lots of missed coordination between parties, we had dinner at the place next to the restaurant we wanted to eat at, because we were too stupid to call and try and actually make reservations. having a non-dairy vegetarian around severely limits your choices, but thankfully indian places abound!

we met up with pam, and made it back over to the tate modern again, to see the whole genesis of the trip: the dance show that wanda wanted to see in the first place and convinced us to come with her all the way to london. it's a dance company called dv8, and it's a special piece called living costs that was specifically designed to be performed in the tate modern. i thought it was quite incredible. they first gave us wireless headphones, which they used to provide the soundtrack as well as provide us with narration and directions as they shuttled us between floors and through different parts of the museum. each space had a different piece, examining how society views us as individuals as well as how we view ourselves. it was a brilliant use of the enormous space. very cool.

london day 5

got out late again, dashed off to the british museum for a quick look. the adorable and museum-savvy stephanie smith said we had to go here and do the assyrian lion hunt, however, we had neither the time nor the fortitude for it, so instead we sped through the whole thing (ok, a small fraction) in an hour or so. however, i'm floored at the incredible store of stolen artifacts from around the world. just stunning. the rosetta stone. a piece of the beard of the sphinx! and upstairs: an alligator suite from an ancient roman alligator cult!

visited jags at the bbc where he works, and then i dashed of (it turns out, somewhat needlessly) to paddington to get wanda who had just arrived, and then back to soho to meet up with heather and pam at a cafe. a little shopping in covent garden, then met up with jags again and preveen. and then janine and danny, whom wanda is staying with, came out as well and we all had pizza and pasta for dinner at an italian place that insisted on playing the same album over and over again. loud. really loud.

london day 4

there's too much light here. the sun rises at 4:30 and doesn't go down until almost 10. i guess it's from being so far north. it messes up your planning, knowing low late in the evening it is. made us misjudge the time and our opportunity to go clubbing last night.

thusly, got up too late: combination of time zones, insomnia, long late night (early morning?) talks. got out in time to see the outside of the national gallery and the national portrait gallery, but unfortunately we did manage to make it inside the attached cafe. then off to the barbican, to see this crazy 1920's soviet propaganda film called storm over asia, which had a live soundtrack performed by yat-kha, a tuvan punk band. really fucking awesome.

afterwards, met up with sonia and her brother shiva at 93 feet east, a bar over on brick lane. heather later wanted to get the cool girl's long sleeve baby t with the boombox logo, but it was already after 11 and they had closed the till.

one of the oddest things for me to be in london is the whole left hand driving thing. obviously makes you trepidacious crossing the street, because you end up looking back and forth multiple times because you can't figure out between your head and your habits where the cars are supposed to be coming from. however, even more so on a micro interpersonal level: i think it messes up the person avoidance interaction. i'm instinctively moving to the right to avoid walking head on into someone, and they're veering to the left, leaving us stuck facing each other like the north- and south-going zax, with them looking suitably annoyed.

london day 3

woke up a little later (note the theme) and then went off to portobello market (just because we had read ugly rumors that spitalfield's market might have been shut down and bought out because of the prime real estate - untrue!) for the afternoon. lots of clothes purchases by hmc as i looked on. they did have some cool baggy pants with nice embroidery on the legs, like chinese fishes or tigers or my favorite, the great wave of kanagawa a la katsushika hokusai, but a little too pricey at 50 pounds.

met jags at a nice bar around there, where heather was foisting flavoured rum drinks upon me to kill the time. had yummy middle eastern food, then jags took us out on his patented night driving tour of london. highlights: lloyd's of london building at night and the battersea power station.

unfortunately, due to poor planning and not a lot of forethought, we missed all the different drum and base club events that were going on that night: goldie's metalheads gig, fullcycle with roni size, dj die, & krust, and grooverider's weekly. a small tragedy.