Monday, November 24, 2008

Larry Hughes and chocolate dipped bacon for the win....


GAME! The Bulls beat the injury-stricken Jazz on a last second jumper by Larry Hughes snapping a 6 game home winning streak. Derrick Rose traded baskets with the Jazz for 8 straight points, and went for the win with 4 seconds left, but missed, Hughes got the rebound, and double clutched a fadeaway with no time left on the clock after the swish from the left wing. I got a text from Chris today basically saying that Noah was garbage. I am going to have to agree with him! Aaron Gray who came from the same draft class as Noah is coming around nicely. He does not have a quick step or have that many post moves, but he is dedicated to the game. He lost 30lbs in the off season meaning he was serious about cleaning up his NBA body. Is he going to be an all-star? Probably not, but he may give you a legitimate big man down low if you invest in him. I'm just not seeing it in Noah who was picked 40 picks before Gray. If Noah can get you 12 and 10, you got something! I figured it was good to talk about someone besides Rose for once.


The Packers are getting SPANKED! Double success for a Monday!

But I will talk about one fail! On Saturday night we were looking for a place to get some pasta by my mom's house since I had a 5K on Sunday morning. We hadn't been to Giordanos in quite some time since we live up in BG, so that sounded good. Jaz wasn't quite hungry yet so we went to Best Buy first so I could drool over SLR cameras and then when we went out to the car, we looked across the street to find that the Giordanos is no more!! I had so many pizzas from that place living at my mom's it was actually kind of sad. The service wasn't always that great, and honestly, the place very rarely had business when we were in there, but it was a nice restaurant to go to avoid the big crowds and enjoy some gooood stuffed pizza. Luckily there is still a Giordanos by our place in BG, but it just isn't the same. Am I getting sentimental about a pizza place? Yes...yes I am.


Tried chocolate dipped bacon today - not bad, not bad at all. I know it sounds gross, but don't knock it till you try it. But be warned, you may die.

Did I work out today? Not a chance. I was still tired from yesterday's 5K. I really wanted to tonight during the Bulls game, but I ended up putting something up on ebay that really takes too long to do sometimes. I'm selling an Aaron Brooks Exquisite RC AUTO 225/225. This card has been selling for around $40-$45 on ebay. I'm hoping I can pull in closer to $50 since it's numbering is nice and the patch is decent. I also have been getting some free cards from some of the guys from HobbyKings for my birthday and early Christmas gifts. I never have anything to pay them back, so I just keep the site up and running for them :) Here's the HobbyKings thread with all of the free cards.

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Bulls fans, you have your go-to guy!


Now I know it is only 13 games into the season, but I really think Derrick Rose is the real deal. You can use pretty much every basketball cliche to describe this guy: he's got plenty of upside, he's knows the game, etc. And more importantly he is exactly what the Bulls needed. They needed a vocal leader, someone who can drive to the basket, someone who can run the team, and someone who distribute the basketball. When he is on the court, you can tell he demands to be respected. He's had one bad game against Portland, but then he comes back against Golden State to score 25 points [23 of them in the 2nd half]. He was the only one scoring in the 4th quarter for about a 5 minute span, trading baskets with the Warriors on his own until he got knee'd in the junk by Maggette. He did have 5 turnovers which is way too many, but he will learn to take care of that ball in the next couple years.

Some other points on the game tonight...

Thabo started out hot scoring 10 points in the 1st quarter. He picked up his 2nd foul late in the 1st quarter so they took him out but never really got good minutes going back in. I think he would've done more on the offensive end if del Negro put him back in earlier in the 2nd quarter, but I guess he wanted to save him.

Hughes scored a team high 26 points going 5-7 from behind the three point line shooting 50% thoughout the night. Now I'm not at all a big Hughes fan, but he actually did decent today. Will he stay consistent? Probably not. But I'll give him props since he earned it for once. I will also drop a plug for this guy's website: http://heylarryhughespleasestoptakingsomanybadshots.com/
HAHA

It's games like this that reminds me why we didn't sign Gordon for a big contract in the past two years. He went 1-7 from behind the three point line shooting 40% for the night. It's been said over and over, but he is just undersized! It will be nice to clear out his contract at the end of the year.

The Bulls went small most of the time to match the lineup from the Warriors which is fun to watch, but also just reminds Bulls fans that they have no solid big men. Instead of making them have to go big against us, the Bulls had to adapt their lineup.

Chauncey and Melo on Sunday...

Also, the Knicks made some moves today to potentially to go for Lebron, Wade, or Bosh in the next couple years. I wish Chicago could land one of those big names. I'd like Wade for the Bulls and have the hometown guards play together.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

I'm not even gonna wait for the 4th quarter

The Bulls have definitely taken about two dozen steps back from what they were just a couple years ago when they made the playoffs and swept the Heat in the first round. The Bulls are currently down THIRTY-THREE points in the third quarter of the game against the Blazers. I think the Blazers are a good team, but they should not be beating us by 33 points! Well, I guess the combination of them being good and us being god awful. With three minutes left in the 3rd quarter the Bulls have only scored 48 points. What the hell? Well, I guess this is what this circus trip does to the Bulls. I just saw the stat that the Bulls have been 6-53 on this circus trip since '99. Wow..that is BAD!! The Blazers have done a good job at exploiting the fact that the Bulls don't have any big men. Penetrate and dish, and slam. I can't even count how many times the Blazers scored on a dunk.



The Bulls have no offensive sets. It just seems like they are playing pick-up ball. A LOT of one-on-one basketball and quick shots early in the shot clock. I understand del Negro needs to find out what he has got, but would a simple play every now and then kill them? It reminds me of the years of Jamal Crawford and Jalen Rose. It basically looks like they don't practice or have ever practiced.

I think this is the first time that Rose looked like a rookie. Who would've thought that Steve Blake and Sergio Rodriguez would be the combination to break Derrick Rose? Well, I guess it's good to see he is human. And this will be the first game that he didn't score in double figures.

The "big" men might as well be walk-ons who are trying for a spot on the team. None of them can show any sort of consistency. Well, they can consistently get into foul trouble trying to stop the Pau Gasol and Dwight Howards of the league.

Luol didn't play today because of a hamstring injury. I don't know if that is a good thing or a bad thing. He hasn't earned the contract he got in the off season up until now.

By the way they are now down 43 points...

Nocioni will always play with heart, but he is a role player at best.

Hughes and Gordon are basically the same player but Hughes is a little taller. They both shoot way too much and both don't play enough defense. Hughes was good a couple years ago getting averaging almost 3 steals per game...but that was 4 years ago.

I know it is early in the year but a 20 point loss is something that I can work with, but a 40+ point loss? Completely unacceptable, no matter what time of the year

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

I got the fast heartbeat

Let's take care of some business first:
  • Breakfast - Bowl of Fiber One
  • Lunch - Smart Ones: Creamy Rigatoni w/chicken and broccoli and low fat yogurt
  • Dinner - Macaroni and Cheese and Ramen
  • Work - Worked on terminated users script; Tested Control-M to see if you can send sysout in a shoutout: you can't haha
Wow...I had a lot of pasta today. I already told Jaz that I didn't want anything pasta related tomorrow for dinner.

What's making my heartbeat fast? Well first off, I just finished a good workout at home. Read more about that on my other blog at JoeyLosesWeight.com :) But even more so are these fricking Bulls! I will start off with something good. Derrick Rose is the real deal. In a couple of years, I predict Rose's name can be said in the same sentence as Chris Paul and Deron Williams. He is probably the ONLY bright spot in the future of the Bulls. Now that you have got that solid piece of the puzzle, build around him. Forget everything that you have got up until now. EVERYONE is tradable except Rose. Each player on the team has THEIR strengths, but none of them are superstars or even potential superstars ON the Bulls. But just like every other player that leaves the Bulls, THAT is when they become potential all-stars. It actually makes me kind of sick knowing that we really could have had Pau Gasol. He just dropped 34 points on the Bulls tonight. And who didn't we want to give up for Gasol? Yup Luol Deng, who scored a lowly NINE points tonight. Really? Potentially paying Deng $80Million? He's a nice player to have on your team, but not $80 Million-nice. One thing that was driving me crazy in tonight's game was Gordon was bringing up the ball a lot. I think they just need to put the ball in Rose's hands and let him create for himself or someone else. The problem is that the "someone else" needs to hit some shots! Rose can easily average 10 assists if the other players would hit their open jumpers.

These are all obvious observations to any Bulls fan, so it's probably nothing new. So where do we start? I say package up Kirk [when he gets back], Tyrus, and Nocioni for a big man or a scorer. I would love to throw in Hughes or Deng, but no one would take their contracts. I need to do more research to see who would like to come to the Bulls. there were rumors last week saying that Wade would like to come to the Bulls. Man I would love it if that could happen. Two Chicago-raised players playing in Chicago. You just can't write that stuff. So here we are, one game into the Circus trip at 5-6. They've got Portland tomorrow against all-star Brandon Roy and Chicago drafted Lamarcus Aldridge. They are on the other side of .500 at 6-5 and have a lot of talent, but just like the Bulls, don't have a "go to" guy. Roy is good, as he proved against the Rockets:



Maybe that was luck, but damn...nice shot! Anyways, tomorrow is another day to play, and hopefully the Bulls will forget the disaster that was this Lakers game. They can definitely get past the Blazers, only if they can slow down Roy and don't forget about Fernandez and his three point threat and runner in the lane that we got so familiar with in the Olympics.

Monday, November 17, 2008

I've gotten old

Today at dinner I could not figure what it was that I did last Monday to have missed Chuck and Heroes on NBC. For about 10 minutes Jaz and I were trying to figure out what happened that night that made us miss those shows. Now I know this isn't a big deal, since it's just some TV shows, but it was really bugging me that we couldn't figure it out. So I had to do my research. Sadly the only thing that had my actions recorded a week ago was my Facebook profile. So I checked my status update for last Monday, and sure enough I found what I did last Monday: Joey just took an unnecessary nap. 10:47pm

So that is why I didn't remember anything from last Monday, because I was asleep by 7pm. I went for a quick run after working from home, so that is what must have tired me out. If it wasn't for Facebook that memory would be long gone. So I've decided I'm gonna blog in here even if there is nothing to put. I am going to start every blog with what I did that day, just so I know when I did what I did.

I didn't really do much today, but here's some stuff I did today:

  • Breakfast - Fiber One cereal
  • Lunch - broccoli, potatoes, cheese, and chicken
  • Dinner - Roasted potatoes and veggies, fries, popcorn chicken
  • Work - Re-racked an ESX server
  • Watched Chuck and last week's Heroes
  • Watched Jaz's Stages tape


Which brings me back to the blog. DAMN I'm old! We were watching the tape I made for Jaz 7 years ago of all the performances we had on tape of Stages. Everything I remembered about us still held true. We were just having fun in the beginning of our "career", but by the end of it, we were decent. When we sang "I Though She Knew" at one of the showcases, even now, I thought we did well! Some of the early performances were shaky at best, but we always had dope choreography, thanks to the likes of Vanessa and Lora! And there was a lot of bad hair back then. Jaz kept commenting on the fact that it looks like I am skinnier now than what I was then. I don't know what my weight was then, but I might have to agree. I moved pretty good back then...I can't say the same holds true nowadays. I'm just waiting for the day I can bust this out and show Haley how her dad and Ninong used to hang out before she was born. Jaz summed it up best when she said "Good thing there wasn't YouTube back then!" HAHA...so true, but it doesn't mean it won't happen now!