The Cuab Side of the Moon

Three days removed now from what I consider the best vacation ever, it all just seems like a big tease. Imagine living in a mansion on the beach, where everyday the weather is 85° and sunny, 15 of your closest friends are your roommates, you have an in-ground pool, hot-tub, back(bocce)yard, observation deck, about a mile of wrap around deck, a pool table, and no need to work. Now imagine all of that being yanked away and getting thrown back into reality. I know that all vacations must come to an end, but this one was really hard to have to say goodbye to. Eight months of planning and anticipation gone in 6 super quick days. I miss it all so much. Saturday morning was pretty depressing, I didn’t want to leave. It was almost on the same par as a bad break up. No matter how bad I didn’t want it to be over, the truth was that it was. 

It was the perfect mix of company, barring a couple of M.I.A.’s. It awesome to see Vinnie and Jay back from the dead too. The whole week seems like a blur to me, I’m finding it hard to segment the week into days. It really turned out to be everything I hoped it would be. I mean how could it not, though? Other than a few unfortunate situations, the week was amazing. I really want this to become a new tradition, and I hope with the same group. Not even necessarily go to OBX every year (although I would have no issue with that what-so-ever), but a week long vacation somewhere with everybody in a big house during the summer. I think we’re all at the ages now where something like that is pretty feasible. I just keep replaying the week in my head, and I just want MORE! 

I think my favorite part of the vacation is the fact that I can’t name my one favorite part of the vacation. It was all so great. Jet skiing, getting the kite up to 2500 feet, the nightly observation deck sessions, the beach, mad seafood, dueling guitars, random girls roast, drinking till the wee hours, card games, bocce, the pool, the hot-tub, parts of us seeing horses and driving on the beach, driving slowly, basketball tournament, Vinnie falling the first day, Jeff screaming into the shrubs on the first day, ryan jumping into the pool on the first day, the 50 foot wizard staff, Jay Berk 16th Level Wizard, party pyramid, jet ski accidents, night swimming in the atlantic, pool volleyball, pool basketball, Davitt’s good morning to Ryan’s family, free* floats, sleeping a lot, roof sitting, a lot of grocery shopping, the Olympics, WHAT ELSE? 

Best vacation ever.

Was it just not meant to be? Does waiting in line for 14 hours outside not count for anything anymore? Today I saw “fandome” die in a catastrophic wreck. 

It’s the NBA Finals and MY team is in it. MY team has home court, and MY team happens to playing in the biggest Finals in 21 years. How could I not be there? After all I had season tickets during the worst of times, was given the opportunity of a lifetime to shoot a shot on the parquet, the ultimate cap would have been tickets to game one of the Finals. 

So I get up to Boston around 2am, and there are only (exactly) 25 people ahead of me. I thought I just struck gold, that the tickets were as good as mine. They officially went on sale at 2pm, and at maybe 2:15 AM we were notified of HOW this whole day was gonna transpire. Their plan was to hold a raffle, and the winning ticket would be the first person in line, no matter what time they got there. The god awful part of this whole thing was that the person in front of the winner was then the dead last person. For some innconceivable reason they handed out over 1400 raffle tickets when only 700 tickets total for both games were available. What did that mean? That meant that if the raffle number selected wasn’t 1-26, because I was the 26th person in a line of over 2000, or 1100-1400, that I wasn’t going to get a chance to purchase tickets, even though I got there first. The overwhelming odds were to fall right in the dead man zone, and it fell HARD. Number 250 about. They let in 350 people and told the rest of us to take a hike. This was around 4pm, some 14 hours since I made my spot at number twenty six. So disappointing, and wrong. Whatever happened to die hard fans getting rewarded for their devotion and support. Waiting all night for tickets is an homage to team allegiance, going through hours upon hours of uncomfortable boredom only to be rewarded with the toughest ticket in town. But apparently that’s an unfair advantage, and people showing up at the LAST MINUTE have the same chance to get a ticket as I do. Totally backwards, I’m really pissed. 

This probably would never have happened at the real Garden.

I have two theories. I hope both aren’t true, although one of the two has to be. 

Theory A: The NBA rig series for higher ratings. David Stern wants Lakers v. Celtics in the Finals. David Stern also wants LeBron James to play as long into May as possible. Prescription = go seven games! There’s a lot of story lines building up here. The Celtics are 6-0 at home and 0-5 on the road. Possibly the making of the first team ever to win a championship without winning a road game. That would mean four 7 game series for the Celtics. How sweet that taste’s in the commish’s mouth.

Theory B: Doc Rivers is a bad coach. At home coaching doesn’t matter. The team feeds off the fans, emotion takes over, they stop thinking, and they straight up ball. They play killer D. They have fire in their eyes. They win just being who they are, and they’re blowing teams out. When they’re on the road, they have no fire. Garnett turns into a little girl. He’s 7 feet tall. He should get the ball 80% of the time. 90% of his shots have been from 15 feet or beyond. He pusses out and runs away from the block. He never calls for he ball, so they end up shooting a wayward three at the buzzer. It’s a joke. Paul Pierce used to know how to score too. He used to know how to take over a game. Granted he’s playing his balls off guarding LeBron, and he’s doing a really good job, proving he can play some mean D. But he needs to stop deciding to turn on the jets with 3 minutes to go in the game, when they’re down by 7, when they could have been up by 5 if he had turned it on 9 minutes earlier. They have no sense of urgency on the road, and the ONE person that needs to take control of the situation, and inject intensity into the dying heart of KEVIN GARNETT is Doc Rivers. The Celtics were settling for awful, AWFUL shots very late in the clock, like 10 to 12 possessions in a row, and KG caught it zero times in the post, and shot twice from about 17 feet out. The last 6 to 7 minutes of EVERY close game should be played 5 feet from the basket. GET FOULED. It’s a sin for Doc not to call that option. Run the offense through KaGe down in the block when the game is in the balance. Let me coach this team. Christ.

The good news is, there is at least one more home game, and perhaps a second if it goes to seven. Nothing is over, I truly believe momentum stays at your home court. Sure the Cavs won two in a row, but they won in a friendly environment. If this years playoffs has proven anything it’s that home court means everything. So here we go again, best of three. 

So Amy and I were at Pet Smart for no good reason, and we decided it was time to cash the checks our mouths have been writing for years. We got a fish. A betta fish because they don’t need much care and maintenance and they’re really inexpensive, plus they only require about a 1/2 gallon of water to swim in. We picked out a blue and red male, and hooked him up with a sicky-sick aquarium. So without further ado, I present to you, Some-Buggy Franklin, better known as Buggy…

I saw it during game 7 today, and laughed out loud. I DVRed the game and watched the commercial an additional 10 to 20 times and laughed out loud each time. Take this and enjoy it, please.

I looked up ‘138′ on wikipedia and this is what it gave me:

We Are 138 is a song written and performed by punk band The Misfits. There are several theories and rumors about the origin of the song, including (but not limited to):

• The lyrics are inspired by George Lucas‘ first film entitled THX 1138.
• Some say that 138 is the Police code for “Drunk and Disorderly conduct”.
• 138 is the highest The Misfits had come on “the charts” at the time.
• It’s about sex (69 x 2 = 138).
• It’s police code for grave robbing.
• In the Jewish mystical tradition of Kabbalah, the number 138 is said to refer to any ghoulish display of horror.
• The song refers to the year 138 A.D., in which the Roman emperor Hadrian adopted Antoninus Pius on condition that Antoninus adopt Marcus Annius Aurelius Verus. The song is told from the perspective of Marcus Aurelius.
• The song was originally an epic poem about the Triakis tetrahedron. In this version, all that remains of the original content is the number, which is the number of stellations in the shape.
• It’s a secret code that the songwriter, Glenn Danzig, used as a child.
• It’s the number of a union local that one of the members of the band was once a member of.
• The song refers to the asteroid 138 Tolosa, which was first observed by Henri Joseph Perrotin on June 23, 1875, exactly 85 years before Danzig’s birth.
• It means nothing.
• $1.38 was the exact cost of a Whopper at the Burger King in Lodi, NJ, therefore suggesting that Glenn Danzig had a “whopper” at the time of recording.
• 138 was a number displayed by a wind-up robot toy.
• In Rocky III, there were 139 men auditioned for the role of “Thunderlips,” a role which eventually went to Hulk Hogan. The song is from the perspective of the men who didn’t get the role. This also explains the mention in the song of “Eye of the Tiger”.
• The “1″ represents a penis, the “3″ a scrotum, and the “8″ a pair of breasts, symbolizing that Danzig feels like an objectified, sexualized piece of meat.
• It was a prank to make people think it meant something.
• Killing without emotion.
• It was the number of Danzig’s father’s remarkably violent military unit in World War II.
• It means nothing but is just awesome to support it.
• police code for grave robbery

Danzig has commented on the different explanations that his former band mates have offered publicly about the song: “They didn’t write it and they don’t know what the fuck its about. It’s about violence.” 

Sometimes this site can be pretty lame. The editing features are either very limiting or way too complex. Either way, its stupid. Any homs, I just back from work, and was pleasantly surprised by how hot it was outside. It was 64° according to a bank thermometer sign thing in G-burg. I know it’s mid March in this kind of weather happens, but it was still awesome to not NEED a coat at all, and for it to be pretty necessary to drive with the window down for max comfort. Gimme more of this. I see, though, there is a chance for snow showers on Sunday night. If that’s for real, I’m gonna resign.   I hate Friday nights. We’re always way over staffed for drivers at work, so we all just end up standing around waiting for deliveries. I know it’s smart to be prepared but having five drivers on the schedule when all there ever is, is two on any other given day, is just overkill, and stupid. I should just stop working Friday’s, remove it from my availability, but I like getting paid for close to 20 hours a week, so I’ll gut it out for a couple more months… segue… I just applied for a councilor’s position at teen camp for this summer. Davitt did the same, and seeing as it will be my last summer before REAL reality (one can only hope), I figure do something easy and fun for money. I want weekends off, and I want to be outside as much as possible, and make money, so obviously doing camp again is the only logical choice. I just hope I get the job, I have no idea why I wouldn’t, but maybe the staff is already filled for teen camp. I don’t think I’d want to do Fun-days again, I’m a little past that. Summer just seems more carefree working at camp, and with Davitt working there it should be a lot of fun too.

Countdowns at nine hours ’til spring break starts. Can’t tell you how much I need this break, if only just to get back onto a normal schedule. So at 4pm today I can lie low til 6:45pm on Monday, March 24th.

Man, I love daylight savings. It’s such a great feeling being outside minutes before seven o’clock and the sun is still out. This winter needs to be over with as soon as possible, I am beyond sick of it.

I was just informed via an NBA.com article that there is only five weeks left in the season. It’s seriously flying by, I mean the C’s have already played 62 games, I guess it’s hard to gauge how far along the season is, cuz days were you just looked at how many losses they had, and you had a pretty good idea of what month they were in. Problem is now, they only have 12, that was December last year. I love it. I’m so amped for the playoffs this year, I just hope I can get my hands on some tickets. I wanna go to the opening game of the first round, and a deciding game in both the Eastern Conference Finals and the NBA Finals, permitting they get that far. I know its a whole lot to ask for, but I’ve invested so much into this team over the past eight years, including season tickets to one of the worst seasons in their history, I think I should be there if and when it all goes down. Just the mere idea and thought that the Celtics could be playing in June for a title this year, a thought shared by many if not most sports writers, makes me excited. It’s nice when your team does something great after so many years of going nowhere, but there are still 20 games to play before the second season begins.

So this whole beach house thing is both getting me really excited and a little stressed out. I really need the money from everyone that wants to go within the next couple of weeks. I leased this place using a credit card, and that’s got interest, so I wanna avoid having to raise the price of the week per person because of that, but I’m not gonna pay that out of my own pocket. So the sooner the better for everyone. $232 and you get a guaranteed place to stay and sleep in a huge mansion on the Outer Banks of North Carolina for the week of August 16-23. There are still two master bedrooms up for grabs, obviously couples should go for these, the other three are taken by me and Amy, Luke and Jenna, and Fred and Emmie, so if you’re a couple that wants a room to themselves act fast. I don’t even know who reads this… Any way, beyond that, I’m amped to get down there, I just hate that it’s over five months away, I gotta try to get it out of my mind, if at all possible, I’ll wish the whole summer away and probably be let down because I built it up so much. So enough beach talk. Pay me!

My advice, listen to yourself, and go with the flow. I practiced hundreds of shots. When I got there, stood at the three point line at the TD Banknorth Garden, with Lucky to my right, Ernie DiGreggorio to my left, and the Celtics Dancers in my immediate view, I was handed the ball and told to take my time. I was told by a number of Celtics staffers that the rim is farther than it seems, and to put a lot into the shot. The hoop didn’t look that far. In fact it looked a lot closer than I feared it would. The backboard was dark, with only the glare of some lights reflecting off of it. The shot was mine. I wasn’t ready, I was never going to be ready. I had to take the shot. My heart was beating faster than it ever has in my life, no exaggeration. I could FEEL the blood rushing through my veins. I could have lifted up a car in that moment. The adrenaline coursing through my body was enough to kill a polar bear with my bare hands. I had to let it go, I had to launch the shot that would give me either $7,777 or a good luck next time hand shake, “next time” meaning never again. I had one time and one shot to immortalize myself in Celtics sideshow history. I practiced the shot so many times. It went in plenty, too. I even hit the half court shot a couple times. There was nothing, though, that I could have practiced to simulate that feeling, that rush of a adrenaline. It as so surreal, and it was so fleeting. I was there and I was gone. Over in a flash. What had happened? I dribbled about eight times, a jumped and released. I put all I could in the shot, I wanted to at least make it to the rim. Well, I definitely wasn’t short with the shot. Had the backboard been 5 inches shorter the ball would have went straight into the crowd. The ball smacked the top of the backboard. I told my father as a joke while we were practicing that “what if I was so amped that I shot the ball like this” (I proceeded to launch the ball over the backboard). That joke became the bitter, almost humiliating reality. My shot at $7,777 hit the TOP OF THE BACKBOARD. As I made my way back to my seat, all the people I had told I would hit the shot looked at me as if I were a fool. I heard boo’s and all sorts of colorful comments from the crowd. Everyone I walked past asked “what happened?” I felt like an idiot. I blew the shot. Hitting the rim would have been something I could live with. This was just embarrassing. It actually ruined the second quarter and most of the third for me. Halftime was cool because Ryan and Davitt got to play knockout as halftime entertainment, a little incentive for being friends with the Foxwoods Take-A-Shot guy. I talked with the guys in back of me about the shot, and it made me feel a lot better about it, you know almost like clearing my name by explaining how much pressure there was and alla that. Other than the feeling of disappointment and humiliation, it was one of the greatest nights of my life. The Celtics played awesome and beat the Pistons to clinch a playoff berth. The starting line-up theatrics rivaled that of opening day, probably more intense, using fireworks and awesome video footage. It was by far the best basketball game experience ever. We were all part of the show last night, and it’ll be with me for the rest of my life. Here’s a little clip action: