western conference game 4

So I heard people debating the non-foul at the end of last night's Lakers-Spurs game (not a foul, yes a foul) but no one brought up my favorite point.

The no-call was karma because the Spurs flop ALL the time. San Antionio doesn't deserve to win anymore for the way that Bowen-Ginobli handle a little contact.

The irony of course, is that after the game, all the TNT analysts were saying that if Barry had "selled the foul" more he would have gotten it. That sends a good message to the kids.

Admittedly, the best play would have been to go up and embrace the contact to get the foul, but once he already decided to dribble, I admire him for not selling the foul and still trying to get the shot off.

The refs were most likely thinking that they weren't going to decided the game unless it was a blatant call, but I'd like to think that the karma helped the Lakers out.

Memphis Recap 2 of 2: The Sights and Sounds

After arriving in Memphis on Saturday and eating at Corky's we headed to check in to our economy hotel--the Downtown Red Roof Inn. Right we got there it started pouring rain.


We entered our room, and we noticed something a bit odd. The lamp was leaking.

Turns out, the ceiling was leaking on to the lamp, and in a few other places. So they gave us a new room. This one had duct tape on a mattress and a toilet that had flushing issues. But it was definitely a good thing that it didn't start raining after we had already left for the night.

We headed out to Sun Records Studio, where Elvis, Johnny Cash and others got their start.


We went on the full tour that included the actual recording room and the microphone head that was used by every artist at Sun during the 50's.


From there it was off to Beale Street, three blocks closed to cars where open containers are allowed. Here the three of us stand in all our glory:


Including a beer garden where we played some of our many games of euchre:


And BB Kings, where we saw their All-Star House Band play:

From there we made our way to Pat O'Brians, home of the New Orleans hurricane and dueling piano bar. Also, Matt apparently thought it was called Peggy O'Flatterys.



Still on Saturday night on Beale St we saw Richard Johnston, a one man band playing a guitar he built out of a cigar box, singing, and playing 4 drums with just his feet.

At this point we headed to Blues City cafe to conclude our Saturday Night. Sunday morning we woke up and went directly to Graceland.

They converted his racquetball court into another room to hold all his gold records.


After Graceland, Matt and Niraj got some chicken strips at Checkers, and I got ribs at Neely's. Then we headed to the National Civil Rights Museum. There you can see the site where MLK Jr was assassinated.


In fact, you get to look into the motel room he was staying in, as they built the museum around the Lorraine Motel.

Unfortunately they didn't allow cameras and they closed an hour after we got there. But I was glad we made it.

From there it was on to Autozone Park to watch the Memphis Redbirds take on the Nashville Sounds. The Redbirds are the AAA-affiliate of the St. Louis Cardinals. We saw Anthony Reyes make his third start for Memphis this season. He pitched a season-high six innings, allowing only two hits and one run while recording six strikeouts and added a home run to help his cause. Outfield grass tickets were 6 bucks.


After that we got ribs at Rum Boogie and finished off the night at Flying Saucer Draught Emporium, sampling some of ther 75 beers on tap.

And then all that was left was the long drive back.


We jammed a lot into two days in Memphis and the trip was well worth it.

Memphis Recap 1 of 2: The Barbecue

We arrived at Memphis at 1:30 pm Saturday and were on the road out of town by 10 am Monday. In 32 hours we polished off 4 slabs of ribs from 4 different restaurants. Here's the rundown, in ascending order. (As always, click for tasty hi-res detail.)

Blues City Cafe
1:30 am Sunday


The sign boasts "Put Some South In Your Mouth!", so we did. At the time it had been almost 12 hours since our last meal, but we were severely intoxicated and this was the first time we had felt hungry. Located on Beale Street, opposite from BB King's Blues Club, this place served ribs until 3am.


They only offered wet ribs--we each ordered a slab that came with beans, cole slaw and fries.


The ribs were tender, but not that flavorful. Slightly greasy. The beans were good and the fries were okay. The cole slaw was the worst thing I had all weekend. It was literally a tub of tarter sauce that were calling cole slaw.

It was definitely a greasy diner that served lots of other things besides ribs. Later on Matt recalled that he thought that ceiling was canvas, despite it obviously having a real roof. But it did have that sort of unfinished vibe.

Ribs: C+
Beans A-
Cole Slaw: F
Fries: B-

Overall: C

Neely's Interstate BBQ
3:00 pm Sunday


After waking up and heading straight to Graceland, I worked up quite an appetite. Matt and Niraj opted for chicken strips at Checkers, but I held out for Neely's. This place had a reputation as one of the best.

I thought about getting a sampler platter, but settled on the wet ribs as I figured we'd be eating more later on.


The ribs came already seperated, which sorta takes the fun out of it. Also, it made me question if these even came from the same pig. I say that because they varied in tenderness. The sauce and flavor was quite good, and the tender bites were as good as any thing we had, but there were too many chewy sections. The meat just didn't seem as high of quality as we found elsewhere. However, the beans and slaw were the best I had. You can see the big chunks of pork in the beans.


The atmosphere was sketchy to say the least. The iron bars over the windows and doors complemented the tables with holes and dirt trapped in the laminate. You can see Matt's pecan pie beyond the dirty holes.


Ribs: B
Slaw: A
Beans: A+

Overall: B


Rum Boogie Cafe
9:30 pm Sunday


Our last ribs of the trip came on Beale Street. This time we were treated to a clean restaurant though not pretentious. There was live music at the time and hundreds of autographed guitars lined the walls and ceilings.


The atmosphere was great and the food didn't disappoint. Burnsy and I opted for the wet ribs while Matt tried the dry.

The ribs were tender and flavorful, although it did seem like it was slightly less food than we got elsewhere for more money. The beans were fine, but lacked any real meat. The slaw was mediocre, which was still good enough for 2nd place on the trip.

Ribs: B+
Cole Slaw: C
Beans: B

Overall: B+


Corky's
1:30 pm Saturday
This was the first thing we did arriving in Memphis. We exited the car after driving for 3.5 hours from Carbondale and entered the 95-degree heat and humidity.

We started with the BBQ nachos.

Again, I opted for the wet, Matt chose the dry, and Burnsy got a steal of a pulled pork sandwich for 3.49.


These were clearly the best ribs we had in Memphis. The flavor and tenderness was unmatched and they set the bar for the weekend. It worked out quite well that this was the first stop.

The atmosphere felt like it could have been anywhere. It had that suburban, fake rustic feel to it. Not so authentic, but the food was. Our complaints included the nachos were served on a bed of generic corn chips that didn't match the flavor of the toppings and the slaw was terrible. Still, the best place we went to.

Ribs: A+
Slaw: D
Beans: B+
Nachos: C

Overall: A-

So there you go. Four enjoyable meals at four entirely different places. Here's the chronological quick scoreboard:

1st Day
Corky's: A-
Blues City: C

2nd Day
Neely's: B
Rum Boogie: B+

hamper dump

so between buying a house and being super busy at work, not only have i been not blogging, but i haven't been writing any on my novel either. i still should be able to meet my timeline, but ugh.

i did get to watch some of the uefa champions league game. a few thoughts:

• it seems stars tend to miss pk's more than average players.
• i think it's a shame that a championship can be decided on something so fickle as pk's. can't they just make it sudden death and play it out?
• bulls win the lottery...i still stand by my plan last year
• and other stuff i forgot
  

Who's in your Fav Five?

Arrowhead Addict asks who's in Fav Five of Chiefs?

Here's mine...

Hon. Mention: Sippio and Dorsey

5. Croyle
4. Gonzalez
3. D. Johnson
2. L. Johnson
1. Bowe

So who are your top 5 players on your team?

nytimes sums it up nicely

From today's NYTimes:

"The United States needs a clean break from eight catastrophic years of George W. Bush. And so far, Senator John McCain is shaping up as Bush the Sequel — neverending war in Iraq, tax cuts for the rich while the middle class struggles, courts packed with right-wing activists intent on undoing decades of progress in civil rights, civil liberties and other vital areas."

Now that Obama's sewn up the nomination, it's on to comparing him vs McCain.

As I said before, I would have taken a guaranteed Clinton White House over a coin flip of McCain/Obama. I don't see how McCain helps us get it out of the mess we're in, in Iraq or with the economy.

After 8 reasonably good years of Bill Clinton, the country decided not to go with someone who share's his philosophies (Gore) and instead put a new party in office. Now after 8 unbelievably bad years of Bush, it amazes me that the country is considering going with someone who share's Bush's philosophies and not putting a new party in office--not coincidentally, the same party that gave us those 8 reasonably good years.

By the way, it will be interesting to see how much coverage McCain's crazy pastor gets after suffering through non-stop Wright coverage. (Of course I think it's pretty ridiculous that the opinions of people you're affiliated with can get attributed to you.)

For the record, I wrote on January 30th: "Last week, while talking to Mrs. Hoagie Central, I said that if Edwards dropped out before Super Tuesday, it would swing the whole thing to Obama."

On February 7th, I linked to an article "Why Obama has the upper hand" (which turned out to be right on)

And on March 6th I wrote: "I'm convinced that Obama will be the Dem. nominee and I'm reasonably sure that he will win the election as well. But I'm still nervous about that one."

Since I'm looking pretty good right now, I just wanted to go on the record as saying "Obama will be the 44th President of the United States."

And since I just saw the Seinfeld episode with "They're real and they're spectacular", I can't help but think, "He's going to win, and he's going to be great."

there can only be one

if this happens the world explodes

vegas knows their stuff

Here's the link to the latest Sports Guy video about prop bets.

You can see how close Shaq was to scoring 20 in his 5 games vs the Spurs:

And you can see how close LeBron was to getting a triple double vs the Wizards.


But LeBron still has at least one more, maybe two more chances to win Bill Simmons some money.