New Things Trump Old Things

Who picks Alfonso Soriano over Albert Pujols? Something is inherently wrong with fantasy sports. No soft teams in the AL, though. Tampa and Kansas City, maybe Baltimore or Seattle, if you catch them at the right time. It's like the Western Conference.

Tourney is nice. The pinnacle of pick-up. But Western Conference playoffs is the meal. Finals a dessert, and not necessarily a sweet one. Clippers coming together but the Nuggets are falling apart. Check their rotation. They go 6 deep, and number 6 is Linus Kleiza. Linus? I'm shoving my fringe Euro support behind Irsan Something on the Milwaukee Bucks. Hippest haircut in the NBA. He played minutes at the game I saw and pulled the Euro specialty: pump fake a three to get a defender to jump past, take a step to the lane but decide contact is no good, step back to the three, eyes squarely on the line, then throw up a nasty brick. And Biedrins, always working for the next shade of orange. Him and Zito is a buddy movie. Owen Wilson is irreplacable? Really?

Put me in charge of the Republican Presidential Strategy. All the news on the democratic side right now, but this is still the country that re-elected Bush. Somewhere a centrist likable seemingly anti-war springs up before the primaries and sweeps through.

For now, though, the baseball season is about to begin. I'm already clamoring for a high-brow audio channel. Video phones attached to televisions for watching games together. You want land? I want bandwidth. Shortstop is for golden boys. Second base grinders.

What's Andre doing with his persona right now? Mixtape circuit, smart verses but he's not showing away either. Send the family V8? That's as hard as visual gets. That's Rick Ross. Wayne's in his own world. Rhyming Federer, Steve Largent? That seems so distant from any sort of audience, and it pays off.

What's hip-hop's business plan right now? They're attacking mass consumption. But I get lost in the dollars, somewhere. B2B industries are where the real money is: in between.

Billy Packer dropped a pretty serious downer on Oden and Hibbert at the end of the game: time winding down, dude asks "are these guys up with Russell, Walton, Alcindor, even potentially?" and Packer is like "No, different caliber of player." Now, I'm not entirely sold on Hibbert, though he certainly showed something today, but watch Oden play...that physical talent, and soft touch, and you can tell he doesn't even know how to use his body on offense yet still has a tendency to succeed...well, whatever. Why do we feel this need to compare greats? How academic.

National League, weaker through and through. The NL West is a sorry division, and they don't even get exposed. The East and Central are just as bad. Watch Zito's numbers. I'm legitimately curious. I don't even think AT&T Park is a great place for him, sure center field will swallow some balls, and Roberts and Winn can chase balls down in right center. But when Zito goes bad, right handed hitters (not even necessarily sluggers) are depositing misplaced fastball in the left field bleachers. Think of it as Rich Aurilia territory. But since he's facing line-ups of 6 and 7 hitters, he can get strike one and control ABs.

Hockey video games are struggling. Can you even tell me who's on the covers of these games? What's it even called? NHL 07? LAAAMEE. Madden. Live. That's what your game is called. Not N H L. Who cares if you have to force it. You think I don't remember when they went from Bulls vs. Blazers to NBA Showdown before settling on Live 95 LIVE NINETY FIVE and sticking with it? How else are you going to follow the fringe players without fantasy drafts that force you to know McLellan the third line left winger on the Canadians has a surpisingly fast shot? And you can't make a legit 30 game season and abbreviated playoffs and a Madden-esque franchise system? No franchise comes close to Madden in that, AND IT'S SO FUCKING OBVIOUS. Just draft players and some players gets better or worse. Don't make it all wack. Players are as good as they are now. They slightly improve, slightly decline, fall off. Draft new guys. Limited trades. IS IT REALLY THAT HARD? Yeah, the season is shorter. Fudge it. If you were dorky enough to worry about breaking the actual records, you'd play a full season anyway. EA Sports call me, shit.

Wayne knows what's hot. And he does what he wants. That's the real.