United We Rise

I cannot express how excited I am for Olympic Basketball. I lot of friends have displayed their lack of interest in the Olympics overall, but I am assured once they get going people will be super pumped. The popular non-basketball events and people like that 41 year old non-steroid using hopefully woman swimmer and Michael Phelps are gr8 stories and track will be sort of interesting I guess too. I, of course, am just really interested in watching the best players in the United States of America except for Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett and Amare Stoudemire play for the gold in Beijing, look how many dots you place in a row when you write out Beijing, three, that is so cool, I don't know many other words that are like that! How could I not be excited for the coolness of watching Chris Paul, LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Carmelo Anthony, and Dwight Howard all gracing the floor at the same time and for something meaningful? There are other NBA stars playing for other countries like Chris Kaman and Dirk Nowitzki for Germany, Manu Ginobli for Argentina, and the Gasol Brothers and Ricky Rubio (18 year old version of Pistol Pete), among others for Spain. Peep the Wikipedia page for schedules of the games because I am going to try and watch as many as I can. The USA Team has a exhibition game this Friday on ESPN against Canada a huge basketball super-powerhouse seeing Steve Nash isn't playing even. I am very confident in this USA Team to return to the top of Olympic Basketball, as they are an actual team that has played together for three years now and work well together. Carmelo Anthony loves International Basketball as he always plays very well, and has plenty of help offensively and defensively. Kobe will instill defense in this team and Dwight Howard will protect the rim because he is a freak. The major concern of course is the lack of big men as Chris Bosh and Carlos Boozer are the back up 4 and 5 players. The NBA Summer League has been alright with Jerryd Bayless absolutely dominating and Kevin Love getting double doubles every game to go with his perfect outlet passes and chin strap beard. The Olympics though is going to be so much better and so fricking cool, I am so excity!! Oh yeah I didn't even mention Dwyane Wade, the sixth man, he is kinda good too!!

Summertime is all about music and there have been plenty of albums out there that have not disappointed. Summer jams provide great joy to us listeners as we cruise with the windows down to the beach or the golf course or to movie theatres to see The Dark Knight. So it is my responisibility to inform you of the summer albums and tracks that have kept me feeling cool and those that suck. It probably isn't possible to talk about an album during the Summer of 2008 and not first mention Tha Carter III. Lil Wayne's highly anticipated album is amazing. Everyone breathing has heard of him by now and probably is quoting something he has said on the album. The tracks I am bumping in my Jeep Cherokee are absolutely every single one. I really think that "Mr. Carter" featuring Jay-Z and "Nothin' On Me" featuring Juelz & Fabo are both probably some of the greatest contributions to hip hop. Fabo has a whole verse about italian food and Pimp My Ride!!! "Phone Home" is so weird as is "La La" but they are both so good! Really every track is good, Wayne impressed. Of course it is a little disappointing the radio has worn out some Wayne songs like "Mr. Carter" and that my 10 year old sister is annoyed of hearing him on every song, despite barely knowing him. Other than Weezy F. other albums I really like are The Cool Kids debut hip hop album "Bake Sale," GirlTalk's "Feed The Animals," and Coldplay's "Viva la Vida" is pretty amazing too as there isn't really a bad track on it either. Hip-hop is essential to the summertime, but more so are great pop songs so lets talk about Jesse McCartney and Natasha Bettingfeild. How could you not want to spend all day listening to "Leaving" and "Pocketfull of Sunshine" because I absolutely do? With the fabulous pop songs of course come the not so much, and the not so much is actually an absolutely never ever and the song is "I Kissed A Girl" by Katy Perry. How is this a top the iTunes Top Songs daily? It is the worst shit ever and I don't want my sister listening to this, but it is unavoidable as it is constantly playing. I want to punch the song everytime I hear it and will settle for yelling at someone who thinks they are funny when they play it on their iPod. Oh yeah, also be on the lookout for Lou Frank aka Biff aka Lou-Z aka LouDogg's debut album that may be called "Inside Joke" that shit is going to be so on point especially the one track "Get Money" featuring yours truly. In the meantime peep his MySpace and listen to "99 Problems".

Lastly, some things that are on my mind:
"You look good tonight girl" is something KG hopefully said to Erin Andrews at the ESPY's because well she did.
How excited am I for Brett Favre's retirement speech next year and why not sit on the sidelines for $14 million at this point?
The overseas trend for NBA players is very interesting as Carlos Delfino and Juan Carlos Navarro have already bolted and maybe even Josh Childress. This is crazy and probs scary for the NBA as overseas leagues can offer more money because the dollar is mad strong right now and the fact that Euro players don't have to pay taxes like with American contracts. Is it something that more and more players are going to do wil be interesting to watch, especially after Brandon Jennings decided to skip college.

Here are a few YouTube links that both show my love for the New York Knickerbockers and Yao Ming: Zach Randolph Shooting With 7 Seconds Left On The Shot Clock, Steph's Reaction Last Year To The Randolph Trade, and Yao Ming Staring Down Q-Ross