Blayne Sucks

The Pacers lost. I have to say it was quite a moving basketball game. Reggie looked like he could have played another 2 or 3 years, but as he said in one of his many post-game interviews, we should look at how he played in all the games of the series to see if he should continue his career. I grew up watching him play. It’s sad to see him end his career without winning a championship, but it was really nice to see him play the way he did.

Honestly, there’s more to playing the game than winning a championship. There are third stringers with half his talent that manage to get rings on the championship team every year. I don’t want to downplay their contributions to their teams, but it does show that winning a championship doesn’t directly relate to what an individual brings to a team.

Reggie meant so much to the team and to the community because he gave everything he could on and off the court. He stayed in Indiana when someone burned down his house. He holds a charity bowling event at Cooper’s Stardust Bowl every year. He has been loyal in an environment where disloyalty is encouraged. He could have easily left as a free agent for a team where he might have a better shot at a championship. Certainly the Pacers have been a great team over the years, but what team wouldn’t want an absolutely clutch shooting guard?

Reggie stayed though, and they came so close. Reggie’s Pacers were arguably the toughest team that Jordan’s Bulls played against late in Jordan’s career. They lead the league in wins and got to the NBA finals. They came as close as you can come to a championship team without winning. It’s a shame that people are going to hold that over his head.

I recently saw the last Star Wars movie. Twice. I saw it on opening night at the Alamo Drafthouse and then the next day with some guys from work at a more traditional theater. I’m a fan of this one. I really didn’t like the first two prequels, but this one showed me that the series could have been a lot better. I would have smashed the first movie and about half of the second one into one movie. I would have then expanded the second movie to cover more of the Clone Wars and show Anakin and Obi-Wan fighting together. Then, I would have left the third one pretty much as it is. Episode III is really good, even if the first two needed some revision.

Now you have to wonder what’s next. I would like to see about where Yoda came from. In Episode III, Palpatine talks about a Darth Plagius who was able to create life with the force. Wouldn’t it be hilarious if the only life he was able to create was a little green turd named Yoda? I would also like to see what happened with Luke. How does he form the Jedi counsel again? What new Sith lord comes to replace Palpatine and Vader?

It’s West Wing week on Bravo! They claim to be showing West Wing reruns all day and night, but they don’t have one one right now. Either way though, I’m hopeful for tomorrow since it seems like they are doing West Wing episodes all day long. This could mean that every lunch from here to the end of the week I’ll be able to run back and watch the West Wing!

The Pacers play tomorrow night (tonight) in Detroit. It’s a critical game 5. Last time we managed to win a game 5 on the road, but then we blew the game 6 clincher at home. I think it will be a lot harder to manage a game 7 road win in Detroit than it was against Boston. This means of course that game 5 is a very nearly a must win. (As if a game 4 at home to go up 3-1 wasn’t…) Anyhow, I’m actually considering skipping my Bible Study for the game. How bad is that? Will God smite the Pacers if I choose to watch the game?

So I got tickets for the last of the new Star Wars movies almost a month ago and it just happens to directly conflict with game 6 in the Pacers – Pistons series. I’m going to go for the “record the game and hope no one tells me the score” philosophy since I can’t very well pass up seeing the Star Wars movie on opening night. I also found out today that this Friday afternoon my group at work is going to be going to the movie as a team building exercise. Between all the television, sports and movies this week, I can honestly say that I’m gearing up to be very American by Memorial Day.

It’s getting longer and longer between the times that I have a chance to blog something. Hopefully, I’ll be able to correct this. I haven’t necessarily been all that busy, but I have been having a lot of trouble sleeping. I suppose I should have used some of that time lying awake to blog.

The Pacers won! They are now up 2-1 in the series with another home game tomorrow. They are 6-0 all time in seven game series where they were leading 2-1. Hopefully, they’ll continue the streak. I thought they played very well last night.

Realistically, if they manage to get past Detroit I think they match up pretty well against Miami. They probably matchup better against Miami than they do against Detriot. Richard Hamilton can run with Reggie Miller better than anyone else in the league and the Pacers don’t really have a player that can match up with Prince. Miami doesn’t have anyone that can really run with Reggie and the only matchup problem they would have is Shaq, who hasn’t really been much of a factor so far in the playoffs. I also think that our bench is better than Miami’s bench, but they are both pretty good. Anyhow, I should stop now before I jinx it by looking too far ahead.

I recently re-discovered the band Stroke 9. This is one of those things that makes me so glad I got an iPod. It’s so much easier to not lose track of bands simply because you only have space for 20 CDs in your CD case. The Vertical Horizon and Stroke 9 concert at Butler University is still one of the best shows I’ve ever been to live and I can’t believe that it’s been so long since I listened to some of their stuff.

A recent Newsweek cover story was talking about how China would become a world power in the next century. It makes a lot of really good points, but I think it doesn’t really emphasize the importance of international trade as much as it should. I really believe that free trade prevents war. There’s a lot to be said for having a healthy economy and a happy populace world wide. Happy people usually don’t start wars. I would much rather see a billion plus happy people in China making cool things for everyone to use than a billion plus hungry people in China desperate for some way to feed themselves. Anyhow, it’s a good article.

Now having said all that there are certainly things that I don’t like about China, particularly some of their stances on human rights. Then again, there’s a lot I don’t like about America too. I know a lot of people think about free trade and don’t want to reward people that do things they disagree with. These are things that I would rather work out with a happy society that’s willing to listen than a desperate society that simply couldn’t care less.

Obviously, things like free trade and war are, uh, somewhat complex, but my point in all of this is that having another economic superpower in the world can be really beneficial for everyone.

When are we going to get the Wal-Mart of the medical profession? A place where you can go and get the most basic of products and services done for a modest price shouldn’t be impossible to create and maintain for the medical profession. However, it doesn’t exist most places. Why can’t I go to one place for a dental checkup, a physical and an allergy test? It’s frustrating to have to drive all over the place just to get three rather related and relatively basic services. Furthermore, why do we require 30 different forms and documents just to get these things done? Is America really that litigious that we have to have a backup, backup form to validate your parking in the dental offices’ parking lot?

As if my annoyance with the health industry wasn’t enough, the Pacers lost tonight. They were leading the series 3-2 with a home game tonight to wrap it up and yet they managed to find a way to lose. It actually looked like they were going to win after a really hard call to swallow down the stretch that gave Reggie a free throw to tie the game and ejected Paul Pierce. However, we still managed to lose. Now we have to go to Boston and play a game 7. I really hate Boston.

I have tickets to see the Star Wars Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith on opening day. I should have got the tickets for the show that was Wednesday night/Thursday morning at 12:01 am. That would have been a kinda cool way to do things. Anyhow, I rarely go to the movies these days, but this is an exception. It’s more like a movie-event and it’s one of those once-in-a-lifetime kind of things.

I certainly hope this one is better than the previous two prequels. If I were to have done the first two prequels, I would have merged as much of them as possible and made the second movie more about the actual war of the clones and less about how the war started. It would have picked up the pace of the movies and perhaps restored more of the clarity of good and evil that the previous trilogy had.

So the Pacers are up 2-1 in the first round versus Boston thanks in large part to, you guessed it, Reggie Miller. Game four is tonight in Indianapolis. I’d love to be going. It seems like a sure win since Antoine Walker was booted from the last game and suspended from this one. However, a lot of those “sure wins” end up losses if you forget that you still have to play. Still, it would be a pretty fun game to see.

So I couldn’t find the fifth season DVDs for the West Wing. I’m actually not sure where I remember reading that they would be out this past Tuesday, but it would have been really cool to find them. Anyhow, I guess Amazon.com is listing it as unreleased with no projected release date. I suppose it could be something that I just heard as a rumor somewhere.

Slashdot is running an article about World of Warcraft which is none too flattering, but I have to kinda agree. I haven’t really been playing as much as I used to, and even I can tell that there’s not enough content out there for the truly addicted MMORPGers. I used to play over 50 hours a week (while working full time) and I know that there’s some seriously dedicated players who are beyond bored with the current situation. Here’s to hoping that Blizzard can get it’s act together quickly.

Wow. So I’ve been busy this week and I’ve had a really unusual schedule. Hopefully next week I’ll be able to get back into the swing of things. Anyhow, I did want to mention that I’ve totally dominated the fantasy sports leagues this year. I won our fantasy football league. I came in second in our tournament pick’em. Last but not least, I dominated our fantasy NBA league and officially won that over the weekend.

Now, if only I could convince Reggie Miller to not retire this year.

Ok, I have taken some time and modified the “Sharepoint like” theme made by admin-bg. I mostly just changed some colors and formatting. The formatting is still pretty much original.

I also came up with a better title and theme for this blog. I’m calling it “dreaming out loud..” and I’ve added a quote from Elizabeth Barrett Browning as a sort of sub-title. She says, “Because God’s gifts put man’s best gifts to shame.” When you think of all the real advances humans have made by dreaming big, the gifts that God has given us really have put them all to shame. Thus, I don’t really mind sharing my dreams. Even if they aren’t all that good or realistic when compared to the best that other people have had, neither of us has managed to dream up something that’s really good.

In other news, Tiger Woods won the Masters! I actually got to see a bunch of the last round. I don’t normally watch all that much golf, but I will make exceptions during the majors. My grandfather liked watching golf. I remember watching the Skins game over Thanksgiving with him on a number of occasions. Anyhow, I’m happy Tiger pulled this one out. Everyone likes to see people break records and Tiger needed another major to keep on pace to break Jack’s 18 majors.