Bent Forks and Broncos

I feel guilty stealing other blogs thunder, especially because there's zero chance they'd link to me (they're all nuggets all the time), but I'm stealing a link about the birdman for a reason that they completely missed. Basically the Birdman grew facial hair . Coming from somebody who lacks anything remotely close to this 'manly' ability of growing facial, its crazy. He looks completely different…and by different I guess I mean old *nostaligic twinge.* I mean, the Birdman's not young anymore, even though he has relatively few miles on his NBA odometer…so trying to see him look older just seems…odd. But hey, if it improves his game I'm all for it. Hey, at least it's not porn stache worth, like Colt McCoy's was. I got back from Pittsburgh this morning from my SEI CMMI training class. Super-informative. I feel like a process improvement junkie, it's almost addicting. It's also awesome: everything about it simply makes sense. I'm comp...

So I'm going to try to make this quick… Today was awesome. I stuffed myself at a lunch buffet at Beaujo's, played some ultimate for under an hour, ran a mile, had a no longer local friend contact me, and played racquetball. In the process, I discovered that: eating as much as you possibly can means you will be really tired at work for the entire afternoon, I'm really good at running in a straight line for quick bursts especially when there's a deep Frisbee/ball thrown my way (as a heads up, it's now known as plan one), I'm not nearly as fast as I thought as a I was, I'm a dick for not including one of my friends in fantasy football, and my hunches about a friend's racquetball skills were dead on. But he owes me beer, so its cool. The most interesting thing that happened was my mile time. I wasn't keeping exact time, but I did it in just under six minutes….while I have tendencies to have unrealistic expectations for myself, 6 minutes is a solid minute...

So I've got to do this quickly, before all of my motivation wanes into that nebulous area we all know as sleep. So, here it goes… I've discovered a fundamental truth about myself: I hate getting burned. I played a game of pick-up football today with a few of my old high school buddies and I got absolutely lit up. It sucked. What made it worse was that two days ago (Sunday), I played a similar game, and did amazing. Man, it was a downer. I mean I've got an excuse, but it just completely burned my desire to play pick-up football in the near reason. On Sunday, we were playing barefoot, and I could dance like a butterfly. I played in my indoor soccer shoes today, and at about the second cut, exactly at the point that I realized that the WR I was covering had decided to change directions for the third time, I decided to correct my wrong course of action. By slipping and eating it. Which, if the Q threw an accurate pass (about 1/3 of the time), resulted in an touchdown. Note that...

I've got the taste of black licorice on my tongue. Five point game. Melo just swatted Dirk. This Fourth quarter could be epic. 10:57: Melo's pulled two clean strips on Dirk. But he gets called for the foul. Not cool. 10:09: Great play by Wright. Way to draw contact and get three FTs….we've got a four point game. 9:33: Despite the fact that Melo's gotten called twice for fouls on Dirk, he has done a great job covering him. Dirk's had the ball swatted out of his hands every time. 7:59: Wow J.R. wow. Hits the ridiculous bank as the shot clock expires. Too bad its only a two. And Bass, taking the really dumb T. The refs are calling T's super often. This is really abnormal, and hurts the Nuggets much more than it hurts Dallas. Hey, we hit a FT! Melo hits the T. 7:08: New career playoff high for Melo! 36! Followed by Dirk hitting a great shot after JR poorly fouled him. 6:30: JR hits a crazy shot. 6:07: I have no idea how the Nuggets got that call. But I'll...

I'm falling a little behind… 10:00: Dirk looks unstoppable. Very scary. 9:15: I am really starting to like Dahntay Jones's energy is awesome. 8:32: 1-point game?!?! Denver what happened? The announcers just called Dallas resilient? You're better than that. Coach Sotola is telling you guys that that is simply unacceptable. Btw, the Angels & Demons/NBA playoffs dual commercials are not cutting it for me. Make them stop. Please. 7:37: Denver, 1-7, Dallas 6-8…and then Melo answers, twice in a row. 6:38: Good hard foul by Melo, preventing the easy basket. 6:09: Melo is starting to heat up! And Josh "on two bad ankles" Howard hits the two with an And-1 which he misses, but gets the Offensive rebound? And then gets fouled again? Ouch. That hurts. 5:58: 74-73 Nuggets. This game is really high scoring. The rhythm is infinitely better than Game 3, where fouls were getting called left right and center. Wait whats this? Terry's got 5 fouls! YES! This bodes very w...

Lets start the 2 nd Quarter. I love the Most Interesting Man in the world commercials: On the two party system, 'The after-party … is the one you want to attend.' Classy. Simple. Awesome, and now, back to the Nuggets… 12:00: 5/6 on three's; 34-23 Nuggets. And J. R. AGAIN! (for three). 11:15: Melo & Wright wrap each other up, minor skirmish. Melo, a technical…Dude. You're better than that. My buddy (and much more intelligent basketball commentator Kenji) brings up a very scary but good point: these Technical fouls are going to start hurting us if we keep moving deeper into the playoffs. K-Mart's had three or four, and Melo's had a couple also, we could be playing without them for a game or too if they keep that up. 11:15: I'm still really curious as to what happened to Karl's chin. I'm looking for a very interesting story here…Dirk takes a FT that doesn't count. Nice try slick. 11:07: Melo looks unstoppable. Another foul on Wright, Melo go...

Ok, so I've never done this before, but here's a running game blog. I haven't figured out how to do this automatically, so I'll be manually entering the time. One quarter at a time. 6:12 : Wow. The first few minutes had me super concerned, as Dallas went out on a quick, 4-0 run and the Nuggets looked superbad. 5:18 : Wtf? Jones just hit a long 2 followed by a rhythm Chauncey 3! 5:01 : Dirk's crazy good. I may hate him because he flops too much, but that was good (and a really bad foul by Nene). Too bad he missed the And-1. The Birdman's out? Stomach issues? This does not bode well for the Nuggets. 4:23: 21-14. Whew. Every time the Mavs score, the Nuggets respond. A 7, no 8 point lead? Looking good. But damn, Dirk is on fire. 3:41: Dirk looks good, the rest of the Mavs look very sluggish…and does Nene ever feel like hitting the offensive glass? Seriously, he just stands and watches far too much. 2:47: Chauncey looks 'smooth' according to the announcers...