So the whole Tiger Woods infidelty is ancient news by now, and I realize that there have been plenty of “Tiger Woods endorses condoms” parody ads on the web for a while, but after a discussion with the guys at work today, we came up with a few slogans that I liked too much to not do anything with. Hence, I whipped up some quick and simple ads for Trojan brand condoms featuring Tiger Woods. I know, highly original, right?

I actually didn’t watch the universally-panned “The Decision” on ESPN wherein LeBron James decided to tell all of Cleveland in the most public forum possible that he was leaving. I’m also proud to say that I completely forgot it was on, being busy with other aspects of life (playing video games, naturally).

My own thoughts on the matters are fairly simple:

1) No matter what, I felt good because he didn’t go to the Knicks, or the Nets, even. Apparently, there is some speculation that neither one was even considered to be a top choice. This was the most important thing for me, just because the amount of hubris and arrogance coming from NYC fans was absolutely galling; for 2 years whenever a basketball fan in this city said something about LBJ in free agency, they acted like it was a given — that the city alone, and not the fact that James would have to go to a very poor team and wait for another 3 years or so before even being considered a contender, was all that mattered. So, for me, it was nice to see that sense of entitlement shattered.

2) I said all along that wherever he goes, it’ll be where he thinks he has the best chance to win a ring, and to do so now. Certainly, with Wade, Bosh, and James on the same team, it looks more likely than it did in Cleveland. Of course, now, if fates should decree that he does not win a ring with Miami over the next three years, his legacy will be tarnished moreso than if he had stayed in Cleveland and not won. But hey — every Cleveland sports fan knows the truth: now that he is out of Cleveland, he’ll win the championship next year. That’s just the dark cloud that looms over our town.

3) Finally, this really shouldn’t surprise anyone. LBJ wore a Yankees cap to the Indians home playoff game. At the Browns home opener against Dallas, he hung out the whole time talking to the Cowboys. And growing up, he followed the Bulls, not the Cavs. Maybe Akron really is his home, but, outside of his contractual obligations,  he certainly never was a part of Cleveland sports.

Tom Izzo should take money out of the equation as he ponders Cavaliers | cleveland.com.

For the 23 people on the planet who are not aware, LeBron James is currently a free agent. Lesser known outside of the NBA is that the Cavs are also looking for a new coach, who may or may not have LeBron as a player.

Terry Pluto has written a nice column about why the potential coach, Tom Izzo, should not be looking at the money when considering the job, and brings up a truism that I’m reminded off often in my line of work:

I once took a project for the money. But I made a list of all the non-financial reasons that I wanted to do it. The idea was to convince myself that I wasn’t doing it for the money.

It was self-deception.

The project also was a disaster. Because money was the ultimate bottom line, and my heart wasn’t in it. When challenges came, I wanted to bail out. I finished the job, but it wasn’t anywhere close to my best work.

I had a discussion with my mom last night about whether or not I had made the right choice with my current job, as opposed to the offer from the larger company, which would have paid more.

But in the end, everything else about my job is great: the people, the work, the working climate. As a small game company, money is always going to be a concern, and it’s something that I knew going in.

Of course, I suspect that I would have really liked the people and work at the other company, too, but I doubt that we’d be having nearly as merely discussions about Team Fortress 2, The Disney Afternoon, or why Captain America could totally take out Batman in a fight.

For those who don’t already know, the birthday went pretty well. I went in to work, had a basketball game that night (we lost three of four, but at least won the last game), and afterward hit up a little restaurant/bar with the teammates for some nice celebration time. I had 4 shots bought for me, and also drank 6 beers, and hence wowed the crowd with my Plotecher tolerance. I had a slight buzz, but nothing major. I felt fine when I went to bed, and still felt fine when I woke up the next morning. It’s nice to know that I at least still have the “good” genes from Wisconsin….

I also have started the beach volleyball league, which is definitely more causal than the basketball one. Some folks, truth be told, are still a wee bit too serious about it, but overall it’s definitely more relaxed. My v-ball skills aren’t quite up to snuff (the serves were less than graceful), but hopefully it catches up next week. Especially as we lost all three games the first night.

This post shall be short, and to be frank, the main reason for my silence the past couple of weeks has be due in large part to my rediscovering Team Fortress 2! I forgot how fun, well-balanced, and often hilarious it is. There are still people who are just too good to be real, but the flip-side is that since it is a team game, you can actually have those guys on our team as well, and recently it seems like my wins and losses have been a bit more balanced. I’m also looking at getting back into WoW, so it’s probably really good that I’m already signed up for beach volleyball, or I might have some issues getting out of the house.

FIFA World Cup Murals by ESPN | CreativeRoots – Art and design inspiration from around the world.

I’ve seen a number of these around the subway stations, and always thought that they were pretty cool — this link displays all of them, which is nice, as I haven’t seen a number of them (there are like 33 total).

Last night the team went 3-1 again, but I admit I wasn’t as jazzed as I should have been, and I think it’s because the way we lost the last game. It was a close one, but we bugged me was that the team we played was very physical, and at one point the guy ran right into me and no foul was called. I’ve never been too comfortable playing against teams like that just because it means that slowly turns into sort of a “what can I get away with” contest. And those never end well. Also, I think I’m starting to take the game a little too seriously, but to be fair, we had a shot to go 4-0, which would have been really spiffy. Ah well, the most important thing is that nobody got hurt. Oh! And I made a free throw at the line! Woo!

Also, to be fair, the first game we played we were scary good. I don’t know if the other team scored at all (I think they did) but I know that we snagged 20 points, and since our average is around 8 or so, it was really quite impressive. We had everything working on that game — lots of moving around, good passes, cut-ins, and it certainly helped that the other team was out of gas from the game they had just played previously.

According to Jack, we should solidly be in the playoff hunt now. Naturally, the next game night our best player and easily the top scorer will be out, so I suspect it’ll be a tough set of games.

I first found out about Terry Pluto when I was looking at writers talking about the Browns; later, I was surprised (floored, even) to read that a writer from ESPN (Scoop Jackson, as I recall) remarked in a column that Terry Pluto was his favorite basketball writer. I later continued to discover that Pluto’s background in the ABA had given him something of a legendary status among basketball sportswriters. What continously amazes me about this is just that someone/something from Cleveland is actually being admired from people outside of Ohio. And from the East Coast-centric ESPN, no less. If you doubt the scorn that ESPN (and the nation, in general) has for Cleveland, just look at any random sports column these days; the recent Cavs playoff collapse has generated an exceptional amount of gut-kicking, all of which seem to start out with, “I hate to kick Cleveland when its down, but… oh, just kidding! I love kicking Cleveland when its down! Woo!”

Anyway.

The point is that in these current dark days when Cleveland is being pantsed and dragged around the high school track, it’s a time when my fellow Clevelanders pull together against the outside world (which includes anything past state borders), so it’s good to see that Pluto has proceeded to just skip over the LeBron drama and address the Browns OTAs.

And he asks himself, why would football OTAs be exciting enough to write about? To which he writes probably one of the best lines I’ve read this year:

In Northeast Ohio, you can put an empty orange helmet on the 50-yard line at Browns Stadium and 50,000 fans will show up to stare at it.

Spoken like a true Browns fan.

via Cleveland Browns OTAs provide a break from LeBron and the Indians – Terry Pluto column | cleveland.com.

Last night was another romp on the basketball court, and this time, our team managed to go 3-1 in our games. It helped that we had pretty a full team for a chance, and everyone played pretty well. However, since I always mention my favorite plays of the night, I feel that I should mention two plays in which I was schooled:

1. Early in the first game, I guy I was guarding, who was about a foot shorter than me, took advantage of the height difference by actually passing the ball between my legs to an open teammate who made an easy lay-up. Fittingly, my team called me out so a shorter guy could cover the opponent.
2. In the third game, the guy at the top of the key was talking about what play he wanted to run, and thinking that the ball hadn’t been passed in yet, I didn’t react fast enough when he then passed the ball in to the guy I should have been guarding who then made an easy lay-up.

I also missed more than a few wide-open shots, including a lay-up that I should not have missed. Still, I made other shots, including one that was just past the free throw line (which is a shot I tend to miss often), and also managed to get in some steals. Overall, I felt fairly good about my play, but it was really those aforementioned plays that have me feeling a bit sheepish.

Oh, but I did manage to grab a few rebounds from my own shots, which is always nifty.

The two teams we played were also very good, so it was a good match-up across the board. One team had a couple of players get hurt; one came back later in the games and played well, but the other had the misfortune of landing on my foot, and thus rolled his ankle. Having had that happen to me before, I know how much it sucks. And hurts.

With the surge from last night, I think we are now at 8-11 or so. Still within striking distance to sneak in the playoffs if we continue to play well, but it will be tough. We don’t have a lot of room for losing, and it certainly would help if other teams lost more, as well. Whatever the case, though, it’s nice to at least have an outside chance right now.

It looks like I’ll be part of a beach volleyball team this summer; might be a bit of a hassle getting out there, but I think it’ll be worth it in terms of playing outside, as well as checking out attractive women in skimpy swimwear. However, I’m looking into other sporting leagues as well, to see if I can’t get a second summer sport lined up.

I have also started to research some gyms again, although my biggest problem is not knowing where I’ll be over the next few months, and when you sign a contract with these places, it’s pretty much set for at least a year. Fittingly, it might be best to go back to NYSC, although I’d like to explore all options before making a final choice. And hey, in the meantime, I can always get back into WiiFit, right?

First off, I need to remark on what I remember from my dream. It was one of those continuous ones, where there was sort of a main theme running through it, giving it something of an actual overall story thread, despite a lot of random elements. The basic gist of it was that I was helping people move into a house that had “bad things” happen before hand, and was reportedly haunted. You can all see where this is going, right? There was some sort of evil thing brewing just under the surface, but it was hard to tell if it was the previous occupant (a man who severely beat and killed his wife, then his child), or if the previous occupant had been corrupted by an evil that was already in place.

Whatever the case, the “presence” there, which seemed to be the ghost of the guy, was looking to build a reality within the house that matched what the 5-year kid saw; everything was large, looming, and unfriendly. At one point when the ghost briefly materialized, it was like 25 feet tall, looking down, and nothing but a dark silhouette. I realized things were getting bad when a simple small toy was developing a taser attachment that it could send around corners and under doors.

I wound up in another room where I had to destroy another haunted toy, but that really just destroyed the form housing the evil, and as it started form into a flat black shape of tentacles and horns, I decided that “I really didn’t feel like dealing with it right now,” so I left the room and closed the door behind me, knowing that for all of its otherwordly and unholy powers, the evil within still hadn’t figured out how to work a doorknob. I went the house across the street, used the Hookshot from the “Zelda: Ocarina of Time” game (gee, I wonder how that got in there?) to get up to the roof, and convinced the people below who were beginning to get corrupted to start singing Christmas carols, because it was Christmas time, after all. The family inside came out and started singing too, and it was a full Rockwell household of boy, girl, mom, dad, grandpa, grandma. It easily broke the evil, and we all went inside to discuss the evil across the street (people were still over there at this time, but we had no idea what was happening in the house).

As we chatted, an old manager from my past, KTW, stepped in, and he was filling the role of weasely little jerk in these types of tales, which makes sense, as he was a weasely little jerk when I knew him. He made the accusation that only I knew what happened in the bathroom when some other person had died, and then he ran off. I realized that everyone was looking at me, now, and that my character in the dream did actually know what had happened, but since I also realized it was a dream, I actually had no idea what had happened.

Then I got to thinking about what a jerk KTW was to break up the momentum that had been gathered, and I woke up.

Yeah, he’s still a jerk.

[ S H I E L D B R E A K ! ! ! ]

Yesterday was our last football game for the season. The other team only had 1 player show up, so we won by forfeit. Wanting to still play, however, it was (eventually) decided that we’d play the team that had played just before us. They were very good, and we wound up losing again. And failed to score a touchdown again, too. Ah well. Since it was just a scrimmage, nobody cared too much.

And as always, I judge the “success” of a game by how I felt that I played. I managed to snag a couple of interceptions this time around, and also got a few passes as a receiver, so I was fairly pleased with that. As always our biggest downfalls (besides the lack of people showing up — this time we had about 5 ringers show up, giving us a chance to play with subs for the first time since the first game of the season) were the lack of cohesion on defense — questions if we were in man or zone, and if in man, who was covering who — and the inability to make deep throws. Just never got the sense of chemistry for that stuff.

I did have one spooky moment. While going out for a pass, my feet got tangled up with another player and I tripped. What was worrisome was that it yanked my bad ankle pretty strongly, and it definitely hurt. I had my ankle brace on, though, and I think that definitely prevented it from getting worse. After about 5 minutes, the pain subsided, and now, over 24 hours later, it still feels fine.

And since I have basketball tomorrow night, that’s a good thing.

[ S H I E L D B R E A K ! ! ! ]

My birthday is coming up, and I’m trying to figure out what to do about it. I keep waiting for some awesome birthday party, and I am constantly disappointed. I’d like to do something nifty, at the very least, but I’m just drawing a blank on what might work. I can always try to invite some people out, but since my birthday is on a Monday night, it’d be better to hold it on a weekend. But you know, even then, it’s rare that I have a lot of people show up. usually maybe 3-4 people can stop by. So, I’ll have to kick some ideas around.

This past Sunday, I participated in football again for the first time in a couple of weeks. There were a number of notable results of this:

• First and foremost, I forgot that unlike the modern-day wimp vampires, I do not sparkle in sunlight, but rather am like the old-school bad-ass ones, in that I burn to a crisp. I was out in the sun for a couple of hours, and forgot to bring any type of sunscreen; hence, I now have a lovely shade of red to my face. And neck. And arms. And calves. At least this means I’m “warm to the touch” as my radiated skin pumps out it’s own personal heat waves.
• I stuck to playing center and the rusher, which means I didn’t have to do a lot of running around. Even though this was a bit frustrating (I really wanted to try and help the team as a receiver and defensive back), it was the wise choice. There were a couple of times that I had to break off some quick runs and cut-backs, and I could tell that the ankle wasn’t back up to full strength just yet. I had the brace on, but I suspect that if i had pushed it, I would have had a good chance at re-injuring it.
• I ran into an old school classmate at the field, Small. “Small” was a semi-nickname that she had in Parsons, mainly because she hung out a lot with a “Biggie;” Small is about 5′ 2″ while Biggie is about 5′ 10″. So yeah — go figure on the names. Anyway, Small was there with her boyfriend to help out another friend of her’s; we were not playing each other, although that might have been amusing. It was a very nice surprise to see her, and we checked to make sure we had the recent numbers of each other (I actually had lost her number after switching phones). Now the goal will be to catch up over a lunch or sometime after work. Definitely a New York City moment: running into an old friend by random chance.
• Our team finally scored a touchdown, something we haven’t done since week one. The first half was a close contest, with each team at only 7 players. But, then 2 more people showed up from the other team, and they outpaced us in the 2nd half.
• It was fairly brutal weather to play; the heat was up around 90, and the humidity was clobbering us like a lead candlestick holder. In that regard, I was actually glad that I wasn’t playing at full tilt. Next time, I need to remember to bring more water….

Afterward, we hit up the official bar, and then I left a bit early, managing to get home in time to knock out my laundry. Well, the washing and drying; I still need to put the stuff away. But hey, at least it’s clean!