Good day! I’m here today to talk about a very grave topic: diet soda. And when I say grave, I mean it tastes like dirt from around a grave was put into the product! I am not sure what level of self-hate forces people to drink diet sodas, but please, let’s stop the suffering! What is bringing this on from me right now? I’m glad you might have asked that question.
Hello and Happy Thursday!
As some of you know I do a podcast with a softball buddy of mine (Jeremy) called Sports Stalkers (https://sportsstalkers.podbean.com/). In the course of doing this sports-flavored podcast, we try to secure interviews with sports figures. Some of our interviewees are in baseball, football, basketball, hockey, softball and other genres. We also are trying to get sports entertainment personalities (wrestling). So in this vein, I have been trying to get the attention of James Laurinaitis on Twitter. James previously played professional football in town (St Louis) with the Rams. In reaching out to these different athletes and personalities, I try to be prepared and do a little research. Come to find out on Mr. Laurinaitis, (yes I know his dad is Road Warrior Animal from WWE wrestling fame) he played his college football at Ohio State University. No big deal right? Well in the pros he wore number 55 and number 53 but in college, he wore #33! That has been my softball number for a very long time. Additionally, today’s date is November 30, 2017…and James’ birthday is coming up soon. Like in three days soon! Ah research!
So from my blog and the Sports Stalkers podcast: Happy Early 31st Birthday James! And below are some pix from the Google search engine. Enjoy!
Peace.
<<11-30-2017>>
Forgive me but some days it seems like I am holding it together by Popsicle sticks, energy drinks and sheer force of will.
I know you have no clue what is swirling around in my brain like the fake snow inside a snow globe just shaken by a bored child with too much pent up energy. Actually, the topics are multi-fold but let’s start with one that has been simmering in the crockpot of my mind since last week. For those who have read my blog and listened to my personal podcast (http://scottlatta.podbean.com) , you have probably heard me rant once or twice or 45,000 times about what annoys me in traffic. It doesn’t matter what the conditions are, someone or multiple someones will wreck the driving experience for all those in that geographical area for that time block. Continue reading “Butterfly Effect, Traffic Edition”
Good morning! I hope your annual trip to Turkeytown was a pleasant one!
This past weekend a few things occurred. First off, I played the annual Lager Sluggers flag football game at Fenton Park. I not only survived and avoided injury but my team also won 40-32! On Friday, Kristi and I went to Lowes to purchase a fridge and stove to replace the failing ones inside the house presently. Another component to the 4-day weekend was household chores. After the game on Thursday, I headed home to stain the back deck with coat #1 of wood stain. That was Thursday, of course, as the turkey flies. On Friday, after a late start to my initiative I put up the Christmas lights along the roof gutters on the front of the house (Note: I cleaned out the front gutters too!). I must’ve done a pretty darn good job because my fiancé recommended my services to her mom for her Christmas decorating needs!
This goes to show that the old adage, ‘no good deed goes unpunished’ is alive and well. In theory, if I would’ve done a shoddy job, Kristi would not have bragged on me and my evening of Wednesday this week would be free after work. But noooo! I had to try to do my best and make things look nice! What a jerk I am!
Obviously I am kidding but I find it amusing that I will be up on the roof of my future mother-in-law’s in two days time. I had probably better do a good job or she might remove the ladder exit from the roof and I could be stuck up there until I get it right. Hopefully I do not have any Griswold moments in the process. We shall see.
Everyone have a splendid last Monday in November (Cyber Monday). Remember if you are randomly buying me apparel, I like XL shirts, size 36 jeans and size 12 shoes! Gaming consoles are cool with me as well if you were wondering.
Have a great rest of November!
Peace!
<<11-27-2017>>
Sometimes me and my friend Mike will slip into a vortex of movie quotes. The easiest for us are probably the Will Ferrell movies Talladega Nights and Step Brothers. So sit back and scroll to the bottom! Enjoy! Continue reading “Talladega Nights – Step Brothers Shenanigans”
Good morning.
If you see 11-22 above, you may be doing some quick math. If you came up with -11 as the answer I will give partial credit. Really I was going for the short date of 11-22-2017 or November 22, 2017. But much in today’s society is boiled down to the minimal so it may be digested with speed and then we are on to the next inane thing. (After re-reading this my mind almost read the sentence beginning as butt munch). Continue reading “11-22”
Good day and happy weekend!
Well I just wasted $1.50 and an hour and a half of my life to confirm what I suspected would occur. As a HUUUUUGE fan of the Stephen King book series, The Dark Tower, I rented the DVD form of the movie to see what tomfoolery the producers could whip up. And I was not disappointed in my disappointedness. Continue reading “The Dark Tower Movie”
Hello.
Sorry to report, as of the writing of this post, today is not Friday. I shall try to be patient but by nature I am not very patient.
Hey there sports fans! Yes I know this is back-to-back posts about sports, but hey why not?
So in a pointless exercise, I got into a Facebook thread debate about who is the best of All-Time: Michael Jordan or LeBron James. From my perspective this limited the argument to just these two players and discounted the vast history of the NBA and it predecessor the ABA.
| Player | Games | Points | FT % | FTM | FTA | REB | ASST | STL | BLK | TO | TITLES | REG MVP | FINALS MVP | POS |
| LeBron James | 1072 | 29,105 | 74.0% | 6,526 | 8,814 | 7,788 | 7,561 | 1,765 | 830 | 3,665 | 3 | 4 | 3 | F |
| Julius Erving | 1243 | 30,026 | 77.7% | 6,256 | 8,052 | 10,525 | 5,176 | 2,272 | 1,971 | 3,940 | 3 | 4 | 0 | SF |
| Michael Jordan | 1072 | 32,292 | 83.5% | 7,327 | 8,772 | 6,672 | 5,633 | 2,514 | 893 | 2,924 | 6 | 5 | 6 | G |
| Shaquille O’Neal | 1207 | 28,596 | 52.7% | 5,935 | 11,252 | 13,099 | 3,026 | 739 | 2,732 | 3,310 | 4 | 1 | 3 | C |
| Kareem Abdul-Jabbar | 1560 | 38,387 | 72.1% | 6712 | 9304 | 17,440 | 5660 | 1160 | 3189 | 2527 | 6 | 6 | 2 | C |
This argument went back and forth much like the tides hitting the beaches of North Carolina which is to say the pattern was relentless with no end in sight. I have always been very pro-Jordan and most of today’s dunk-and-three-pointer society thinks LeBron is the end-all, be-all of NBA play. Don’t get me wrong, LeBron is probably the best player over the last five or so years in the current NBA. But I do not think he surpasses MJ. Michael Jordan got more out of arguably less physical talents not only within himself but also of his teammates. Where LeBron has obvious physical gifts and talent, Jordan was not as blessed with as much and had to work harder for it, in my opinion.
The person who started the thread, whom we will call Tyler to protect his identity, posted an NBA video link on his timeline. He started his argument for why LeBron should be considered better than Jordan by stating: Tell me why Jordan is better than LeBron and don’t say six (championship) rings. Like I said, I took this to be a straight Jordan-LeBron fight. If you look up above, you will see that I posted a small sample table of stats for five players. All of the players listed are Hall Of Famers or future Hall Of Famers. Please note that there are several notable missing players that could be included for comparison purposes but for time and spare considerations, I left them off. You’ll notice for the stats listed above, LeBron only leads in the Assists category but he is far from catching the all-time leader (John Stockton – 15,806).
The argument that today’s NBA is radically different than the league was from 10-20-30 years ago is very valid. The 3-point shot is much more prevalent and defensive philosophies are greatly relaxed if not outright forgotten. Today’s game is about power dunks and dozens of three point shots per game. Certain skill sets have been made extinct and the center position is not the center of the universe as it was in decades past.
Once the Facebook thread started to breakdown into an effort to bully the topic and be ridiculous, I broke off and acknowledged some of the greats that were being treated like second class citizens in the wake of LeBron-mania. Take multiple time World Champion Shaquille O’Neal for example. If you exclude his weak free throw prowess, the man grabbed 13,099 rebounds and helped propel his teams to four championships (1 more than LeBron). Wilt Chamberlain, who is the all-time rebounding leader for the NBA with a whopping 23,924, had a pair of NBA championships and a 100-point scoring game (LeBron has 0 100-point scoring games to date). If you want to turn this into a numbers fight, LeBron for his career on average makes three out of every four free throws while Jordan averaged making better than four out of five. The Great Dr. J, Julius Erving, bettered LBJ as well by making 77.7% of his free throws to LBJ’s 74.0%. If we go heads up with LBJ versus Dr. J in the defensive categories of Steals and Blocked Shots – the Doctor slams LBJ by a wide margin: Steals – LBJ 1765 Dr J 2272, Blocks – LBJ 830 Dr J 1971. Even these stars fall far short of those category leaders all-time: Steals – John Stockton 3265, Blocks – Hakeem Olajuwon 3830.
Many of these arguments are moot and silly as different position players have different responsibilities on the court that vary greatly from team to team and era to era. But for those people who want to tear down the Michael Jordan legacy to hand over to LeBron, OK go for it…but know this, that doesn’t make LBJ the greatest of all-time. There are plenty of those other legends with their names in the record books that LeBron will never even sniff their achievements(even if he can remain healthy for another 4-5 years). If you follow history, it tells us that big bodies will start to break down and the wear and tear will show. Just ask Shaquille O’Neal, who was the most dominant center during his prime NBA years, how unkind Father Time can be. Towards the end of his career couldn’t play more than three to four games without the accumulated injuries holding him out of action.
Full disclosure, I do not watch much of the NBA these days. I find the product uninteresting because I don’t have a tremendous desire to follow any of the current stars. Back in my younger days, I liked to watch Julius Erving, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Hakeem Olajuwon, Patrick Ewing, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Dominique Wilkins, Kevin Garnett, Allen Iverson, Paul Pierce, Moses Malone, Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, Spud Webb, Muggsy Bogues and several others. There were rivalries and actual basketball to watch. Nowadays there is a: fast break dunk, fast break and a dunk, fast break and a three-pointer. When they aren’t fast breaking and things set up in the half court set, the players are engaged in more physical contact than an MMA fight. Just give those guys helmets and shoulder pads because that isn’t basketball the way the game was drawn up in the rules.
I re-posted the thread on the Facebook page for Sports Stalkers if anyone wants to waste an hour reading all the hot garbage contained in there. But I implore you to find something more constructive to do like building a castle out of non-frozen dog turds and Pixie Stix.
OK that’s enough for today. Hope you are having a health-healthy good day. Talk to you later alligators!
Peace.
Good day! Most of the time when I do a sports piece it is baseball related. However, today I hopped over the wall and landed on the football side. In landing, I may have lost my balance and my knee may have touched the ground but no patriotic music was playing so no harm, no personal foul here. Continue reading “Is Andrew Luck the New Sam Bradford?”
Good morning and welcome to my blog.
I use many forms of social media and my tempering of comments varies by site. I read a post on the LinkedIn job networking site and responded with the following comment:
“Too many people in today’s society are conditioned to be the victim in the dog-eat-dog world out there. The faceless masses do not care. You need to believe in yourself and have some internal steel to survive the onslaught of wrong that will inevitably come your way in life.”
Greetings to everyone on this first edition of Monday in the month of November; I hope your weekend had pleasant aspects to it. Continue reading “Chasing, not going to chase…fess up!”
Hello and welcome to my first entry in November 2017! Hope you are enjoying the second to last month in 2017. If you happened to be one of the 100+ people who found my piece on All Saints Day & All Souls Day (from 2015), please let me know how you found it. I Googled it and didn’t see my blog page on the first 50 entries so I was curious if another search engine had it listed differently or you were just using the super secret search terms! Continue reading “Heat Wave in November”
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